Robert Stone - Bay of Souls

"Well now," said Vandervliet, "we were told there was a gun on the scene."

Vandervliet wanted to talk about it. Michael obliged him, letting the lusty couple return to their quarrelsome bed. In a few minutes he was able to demonstrate that no crime had been committed.

"Thought you had an old dog out here," the cop said. "Didn'ja?"

"Gone," Michael said, "that dog."

Under the gray bones of a mackerel sky, he drove west in the direction of the wooded swamp where he had hunted the year before. The day grew cold and it was windy. A few icy flakes rattled against his windshield but there was no snow on the ground as there had been then. Fields of dead corn, the stalks butchered to stumps, bent to the weather. A few miles on he passed Ehrlich's wholesome bierstube. Half a dozen pickups had already gathered outside it with carcasses to display. A sign on the roof of the place promised music that evening.

In the next county, there were hardscrabble fields broken up by glacial rock and stands of poplar. Derelict barns sagged into the long grass. Every other mile a trailer stood half hidden in the scrubby woods, exposed to the road this time of year by the trees' bare limbs. A few of the trailers showed smoke at their chimney pipes. Most had one or two beat-up old cars beside them.

When he reached the Hunter's Supper Club, he turned into its lot and parked his car beside a brand-new Lincoln Blackwood. The Blackwood was quite a spectacle, with its brushed aluminum sides and fake exotic wood. It looked enormous and expensive among the heaps in front of the Hunter's. Lined up with it were a battered Buick Century, a Sierra, a couple of Harleys.

The bar of the Hunter's was darker than he had remembered it, more of a refuge from the wide cold sky outside. Ahearn forgot his annoyance with the vehicle outside. He was looking for Megan, the barmaid. He asked the old man behind the bar about her.

"She been sick," the old man said.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"You a friend of hers?"

"I used to come by, deer season."

The old man, who had watery eyes the color of Megan's, looked at him without fellowship.

"Season got her started on the wrong road."

"I used to get a bottle of Irish here," Ahearn said. "Willoughby's." He had no idea what the old man meant about the wrong road. "I wondered if you had it."

There were other customers. Two youngish couples at a rear table had turned to look drunkenly at Ahearn. He noticed a slight smell of stale marijuana from the booths.

For a moment the old bartender stood where he was, staring at them.

"I got to get it out," he said grumpily.

Michael glanced toward the bar, which the old man had left unattended. A woman in a wheelchair came forward out of the dark spaces in the back. She was thin and grinning. Her neck was supported in a brace that was part of the wheelchair. Her jeans and shirt were far too large.

The bartender came back with the whiskey and said, "This is Megan here. Hey Megan, you remember this guy here?"

What she tried to say might have meant anything. She could not look at him directly. Bending to shake her hand, Ahearn smelled tobacco and marijuana in her hair, along with other things. One of the middle-aged male customers came up without speaking and helped her wheel her chair away.

"Encephalitis, what it was," the bartender said. "Her there."

"I'm really sorry."

The old man leaned forward and looked slyly in the direction she had gone.

"Some say it wasn't that. Some say she went to the city and got a drug OD."

The sky was darkening, stormy blue-gray. He drove the two-lane through the battered fields for a while and then turned off on a dirt road. The road approached a tree line and he thought it must be heading for a creek. Instead it turned off to the left, and on the far side of a treeless rise, it intersected another road at right angles. The intersecting right angles were particularly sharp. Conforming to something, he thought, but who could say to what?

He pulled over and opened the bottle of whiskey. The liquor made him sweat in spite of the chill. He grew dizzy and leaned against the car window. He thought he might be hearing drums over the horizon. The fever swelled behind his eyes; he closed them.

He heard the sound of hoofbeats before he saw her. Coming up to him, she slowed the big black horse to a walk. She had on a padded jacket, breeches and a hard riding hat. She took the hat off and brushed back her long black hair. It had more strands of gray than he remembered. Her face was thinner, her cheekbones seemed more prominent, her skin a shade darker. Ahearn was struck by the size and fearsomeness of her mount. It was a jet-black gelding, wide-eyed…

"Your horse," he said, "looks like he eats meat."

"Island proverb," she said. "Big riders cannot ride little horses."

"Well," he said, "you know I'm ignorant of les mystères "

"Ignorant of les mystères " She mocked his accent. "But you're back safe and sound."

"And you," he said. "You too."

"I live in France now."

"I know."

"I was delivered. You could say God was good." Her horse seemed to bolt. She tightened the reins while it sidestepped to the soft shoulder of the road, righted itself and came back.

"Not to me."

She laughed at him. "Oh, Michael. But you betrayed me, eh?"

"You knew what I would do. You took me to hell."

She shook her head and then carefully dismounted. She kept short rein and touched his face with her free hand.

"Not at all. No, no."

"That was hell."

"My friend," she said. "That was the other thing altogether. You see it everywhere and that was it."

"The spirit goeth where it listeth? No thanks. It was the kingdom of hell. I'm still there."

She fished in the pocket of the padded khaki jacket and brought something out of it to show him. She had emeralds in her hand. Very big emeralds, it seemed to him, cut and shining even on this dark day.

" Eh voilà! " She held them in his face.

"Congratulations," he said. "Good for you."

"Don't you see, it's a sign. Don't you want one?" She thrust them at him. "Here, look, I'll give you half. Pick them out."

"No."

Exasperated, almost enraged, she put the stones away and got back in the saddle.

"Oh, my poor friend." The fierce horse was impatient. "What you wanted came to you."

"Came at me," he said.

"So, so, either way. Why did you ever think about it? So it came and you sold it out to save yourself. Thinking that you could."

"I don't want to think at all," Ahearn said.

"Because you were there, the mysteries opened themselves," Lara told him. "At your service until you hardened your heart."

"Were you Marinette?" he asked her. "Are you?"

"Only Lara again. Out of a bottle. As Marinette, if you had been less afraid I might have delivered you."

"It was hell," Michael said.

"Forget about it then," she said. "Don't bring such questions down on yourself. Or otherwise, learn to see clearer. Then maybe it will find you out."

"Maybe in a dream," he suggested.

"Maybe. Sure, because the questions are childish, aren't they?" Her horse stepped toward him. He moved back, out of the way. "The mysteries, the stories are for children. By the way," she asked, "how's your little boy you adore?"

"He's fine," Michael said.

"So," she said, "thank God, eh?"

He nodded.

"Courage, then," she said to him. Not mockingly but in a comradely or sisterly way. He stepped out of the crossroads to let her pass, and she rode on in the direction she had been heading. He could not imagine what could lie that way for her.

St. Trinity was conceived on a visit to Haiti with Madison Smartt Bell, the great chronicler of the Haitian Revolution. Enjoying Madison's companionship and guidance, I was able to share a number of adventures in Haiti which I passed on to the denizens of Bay of Souls. Along with him, I heard the drums and saw the fires at the crossroads.