John Connolly - The Wrath of Angels

The buck left a clear trail for them to follow, dark red blood and panic excrement splashed on bushes and leaves. They moved as fast as they could, but both were older men now, and the pace quickly wore on them. The buck, disoriented and in agony, was not cleaving to any known trail, and it seemed to be making no attempt to cut behind them to familiar ground. Their progress slowed. Soon they were bathed in sweat, and a low branch gave Harlan a bad scratch to his left cheek that bled into the collar of his shirt. It would need stitches, but Paul pulled a couple of adhesive strips from the first aid pack to hold the cut together, and eventually it began to clot and the bleeding stopped, although the pain made Harlan’s eyes water, and he thought that there might be a splinter buried in the wound.

The woods grew darker, the branches meeting above their heads to cut off the sunlight. And then the clouds came, and what little light there had been was suddenly obscured, and the air grew colder around them, all warmth now gone so quickly that Harlan could feel the sweat cooling upon him. He examined his compass. It told them that they were moving west, but the last known position of the sun gave the lie to it, and when he tapped it again the needle shifted position, and west became east, and after that the needle didn’t spin exactly, not like it did in those fantasy films that they showed at the movie theaters in summer, but it refused to remain fixed.

‘You keep that with your knife?’ asked Paul. A knife could throw off the magnetism of a compass.

‘No, I never do.’ As if he’d make that kind of amateur error.

‘Well, something’s up with it.’

‘Ayuh.’

Harlan and Paul knew that they were heading north, though. Neither of them suggested that they should turn back and leave the buck to its fate, not even as the day died, and the foliage became denser, the trees older, the light dimmer. Soon it was dark, and they resorted to flashlights to guide them, but they did not give up on the animal. The blood was not drying out, which meant the injury was fatal, and the buck was still suffering.

They would not leave it to die in pain.

Ernie Scollay interrupted the tale.

‘That was my brother’s way,’ he said. ‘Harlan’s too,’ he added, although it was clear that his focus was on his late brother. ‘They weren’t going to give up on the buck. They weren’t cruel men. You have to understand that. Do you hunt?’

‘No,’ I said, and I watched as he tried to hide a kind of smugness, as though I had confirmed a suspicion he had of me and of my innate city softness. Then it was my turn to add something – ‘Not animals.’ – and maybe it was petty, but there was some small pleasure to be derived from watching his expression change.

‘Anyhow,’ he continued, ‘my brother never wanted to see a living thing suffer, animal or human.’ He swallowed, and his voice broke on his next words. ‘Not even himself, at the end.’

Marielle reached out her right hand and placed it gently upon Ernie Scollay’s knitted fingers.

‘Ernie is right,’ she said. ‘You should know, Mr Parker, that they were both good men. I think they did the wrong thing, and their reasons for doing it weren’t wholly justified, not even to themselves, but it was uncharacteristic of them.’

I said nothing, because there was nothing to be said, and they were moving ahead of themselves. They were no longer talking about the buck, but what came after. All I would have by which to judge these two dead men was the tale itself, and that was not yet ended.

‘You were telling me about the buck,’ I said.

It was standing at the edge of a clearing, swaying on its legs, blood and froth at its mouth, the lower part of its hide soaked in red. Harlan and Paul couldn’t figure out how it had kept going for so long, yet it had barely slowed until the last mile or so, when they at last started to catch up with it, and now here it was, seemingly dying where it stood. But as they drew closer it inclined its head toward them, and then back in the direction of the clearing. The trees were so thick at either side of it that, if it had the strength to do so, it could only go on or come back in their direction, and it seemed torn between the two choices. Its eyes rolled, and it sighed deep in itself and shook its head in what Harlan thought was almost resignation.

With the life that was left to it, the buck turned and ran at them. Harlan raised his gun and blasted the animal in the chest. Its momentum took it onward even as its forelegs collapsed beneath it, and it came to rest barely inches from its killers. Harlan thought that he’d never felt worse about an animal, and he hadn’t even fired the original errant shot. The buck’s strength, its desire to survive, had been enormous. It had deserved to live, or at least to die a better death. He looked to his friend, and saw that his eyes were wet.

‘It came right at us,’ said Harlan.

‘But it wasn’t charging us,’ said Paul. ‘I think it was trying to run away.’

‘From what?’ asked Harland. After all, what could be worse than the men who were trying to kill it?

‘I don’t know,’ said Paul, ‘but it’s the damnedest thing.’

‘The damnedest thing,’ agreed Harlan.

But it wasn’t the damnedest thing.

It wasn’t at all.

4

Ernie Scollay excused himself and headed to the men’s room. I went to the bar to retrieve the coffee pot in order to freshen our cups. Jackie Garner walked in while I was waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Jackie occasionally did a little work for me, and he was a bosom buddy of the Fulcis, who looked up to him the way they did to the handful of people whom they considered saner than themselves without being square. He was carrying a bunch of flowers, and a box of fudge from the Old Port Candy Company on Fore Street.

‘For Mrs Fulci?’

‘Yeah. She likes fudge. Not almond, though. She has an allergy.’

‘We wouldn’t want to kill her,’ I said. ‘It might cast a pall over the celebrations. You okay?’

Jackie looked flustered, and distracted. ‘My mom,’ he said.

Jackie’s mother was a force of nature. She made Mrs Fulci look like June Cleaver.

‘Acting up again?’

‘Nah, she’s sick.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

Jackie winced. ‘She doesn’t want people to know.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘Can we talk about it another time?’

‘Sure.’

He slipped past me, and there were cries of delight from the Fulcis’ table. They were so loud that they made Dave Evans drop a glass and reach for the phone to call the cops.

‘It’s okay,’ I told them. ‘That’s their happy sound.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Nobody got hit.’

‘Oh thank God. Cupcake Cathy’s made her a cupcake birthday cake. She likes cupcakes, right?’

Cupcake Cathy was one of the Bear’s waitstaff. She had a sideline in baking the kind of cupcakes that led strong-willed men to propose marriage in the hope of ensuring a regular supply, even if they were married already. They figured their wives would probably understand.

‘She likes cake, as far as I know. Mind you, if there are nuts in it, it could kill her. Apparently she has an allergy.’

Dave paled. ‘Jesus Christ, I better check.’

‘Can’t hurt. Like I told Jackie Garner, hard to see the evening recovering from the death of the birthday girl.’

I took the coffee pot to the table, refilled our cups, then gave it to one of the waitresses to bring back. Marielle Vetters sipped delicately from her cup. Her lipstick left no mark.

‘It’s a nice bar,’ she said.

‘It is.’

‘How come they let you use it for . . . this?’