There were chairs for everyone. Creath sat at the back, bent almost double in his effort to remain inconspicuous. The room had grown unbearably hot and his body, under these layers of dark cloth, was slick with sweat. Bob Clawson’s “little speech,” once begun, showed no signs of winding down.
The sentiments were all familiar. Vice and sedition were abroad in the land, and the law was helpless to deal with it. “I don’t mean that as any kind of slur on the work of Tim Norbloom there. We’ve talked, haven’t we, Tim?—and he agrees that something more has to be done. I want to emphasize that we are working in privacy here. The nature of the work demands it. Many of us are public servants, Tim Norbloom and myself are just two examples, and our work might be compromised if word of this got out. But we are willing to assume that risk. We assume it because we know what every right-thinking citizen in Haute Montagne must at least suspect: that hard times call for hard action.”
Creath drained the teacup of whiskey Clawson had given him, closed his eyes to better feel the alcohol working. He found himself impatient with Clawson’s fine rhetoric. You can’t bullshit a bull-shitter. By God, he thought, I know what you are dressing up with your fine perfume.
And he thought quite involuntarily of Greg Morrow. I know where she is.
Was that possible? Anna Blaise still in town, still here in Haute Montagne—could that be?
He closed his eyes. Her face was there in the inner darkness.
“We are all aware,” Clawson said, “of the way unemployed men and railway transients have been gathering on the outskirts of town. This has not been a pressing problem, though many of us do worry about the safety of our women, and I think we’ve all been more astute about locking our doors lately. I know I have—haven’t you?”
Heads nodded. Creath forced open his eyes, stared glazedly at the scuffed tips of his shoes.
“But the problem may be of greater proportion than we have suspected. I’m talking about the outright seduction of our daughters. I’m talking about young girls making clandestine visits to the shanty-town at the railway trestle. I’m talking about what can only be described as a very real and terrible danger to the lives and morals of our children.”
Clawson paused, and there was the embracing silence of absolute attention.
“Fortunately,” he said, “one of our young people has been courageous enough to step forward with this information. The problem is not yet widespread, but it could become so. And that is why we must come together.”
Creath stood up. He did not mean to. Some instinct impelled him, or the liquor. “Who do you mean? Who came to you?”
Heads turned. He thought: dear God, what have I done?
Bob Clawson looked at him uneasily. “A former student at the high school,” he said quickly, “and I’ve taken the liberty of asking him to join us so you all can meet him and hear what he has to say.” Clawson opened the parlor doors behind him. “Come on in, son.”
Greg Morrow stepped inside, smiling.
The rest of it was hazy in Creath’s mind, a blur of perception. Greg described the assignations he had witnessed, or claimed to have witnessed, down by the railway trestle. Clawson added something about “the obligation—no, the duty we feel to do something about this while we can,” and then the mounting burble of voices. Creath stood in a corner, smiling falsely when he could force himself to do so, drawing strength from the reassuring confluence of the two walls.
Then, an eternity later, as these well-dressed and authoritative men of means began to filter out one by one, Bob Clawson approached him with his hand once more extended.
“Creath, I know you’re as concerned about these issues as the rest of us. For your own sake and Liza’s. And I want you to know you can be a big help to us.”
No, Creath thought. Leave me out of it. I will not be a party to this thing. It was true, he had wanted a reckoning with Anna Blaise, had wished he could expunge her from his life altogether (because, in all truth, the wanting of her was still huge within him: Christ God, he thought, I want her even now, even now)—but there was no redemption in what these men wanted, only some filthy act of violence born out of their fear and their boredom.
I am not a saint, Creath thought. He had done many things he was not proud of. He had hurt people. He would gladly have killed Travis Fisher… would yet, perhaps. But not this.
He thought: she could be out there.
I know where she is.
“A big help,” Bob Clawson was saying, his hand on Creath’s shoulder. “A husky man like yourself. And don’t think it won’t be noticed. We are all friends—all of us who sat in this room and pledged ourselves to the betterment of the community. And friends do things for friends. I think you must understand that.”
No, Creath thought. Debts forgiven, considerations made; it was tantalizing but insufficient. No, he thought, not even for that. I won’t—
But he saw Greg Morrow gazing at him across the oaken table, that insolent smile playing faintly across his lips. And he understood then that Greg Morrow was smarter than he had thought. Greg Morrow understood the tidal flow of wealth and power in Haute Montagne, how to use and manipulate it: Greg Morrow, humble as his station was, had invaded the Byzantine social structure of the town’s prime movers… had done this terrible thing quite consciously Greg, catching his eye, smiled oh-so-faintly. And Creath understood. The communication was explicit. Crawl, the smile said. Crawl like you made me crawl. Crawl for the rich men, or you can kiss your shitty business and your swivel chair and your cheap cigars good-bye. Because these men will break you.
Creath tore his eyes away.
Bob Clawson frowned. “We can count on you, can’t we, Creath? It means a lot to all of us. After that wonderful speech your wife gave, I wouldn’t want to think you’d backed out on us.”
Creath felt his lower lip trembling. He was afraid he might begin to cry. The textured fleur-de-lis wallpaper threatened to close in about him. He needed to be out of this place.
“Yeah,” he said faintly. “You can count on me.”
Greg’s smile broadened, and Creath fumbled for the door.
Chapter Sixteen
That night there was frost on the brittle stalks of prairie grass. Anna was sleeping or comatose, and Travis ate a sparing meal of saltines, chipped beef, and tepid water. She woke at dawn.
The last of her humanity was draining from her. The flesh was taut over her skull, and the skull itself had taken on new contours, a kind of streamlining. Her soiled dress hung limply, and Travis did not wish to know what transformations it might conceal. Her aura pulsed about her, the irises of her eyes had expanded; she gazed at him from azure depths, unfathomable. He began, “You have to leave this place. Listen: Greg Morrow knows we’re here. He’s bound to make trouble. Maybe when Nancy gets back we can take you over to the railway trestle. We—”
But Anna was shaking her head. When she spoke her voice, too, was more nakedly alien, a kind of soft keening; it stood up his hackles, though all she said was, “No.”
“You don’t understand. You’re in danger here.” “In danger anywhere, surely? But, Travis, the time is very near. I cannot leave this place. Listen to me. Bone is close by. But he’s wounded. He needs help.”
Travis sat back on his haunches. It had been the coldest night of this autumn, and his jacket was inadequate, the barnboard walls of the switchman’s shack thin as paper. Anna did not shiver; Travis did. “Near here?”
“Very near.”