It had led them to the remarkable blues guitarist Enid Blindman and his companion Magritte, by whose symbiotic relationship each kept the other safe. They protected numerous other flares, as well, shielding them with a bizarre melange of music and magic while they led them to a place known only as the Preserve-a place that had its own arcane defenses against the Source.
But Enid’s gift brought with it a curse, and in trying to dislodge it, Cal and his friends, along with Enid and Magritte, and Enid’s former manager, Howard Russo, had journeyed to Chicago. And in that journey, Magritte and Goldie had forged a bond as strong as it was unlikely. Neither had dreamed it possible-the manic-depressive transient and the hooker turned angel.
Cal thought for a time that own his answer might lie here, that he would find his sister and the end of the road, whatever that end might be. But he had found only a bizarre and terrible puppet called Primal-a puppet whose strings were pulled by Clayton Devine, former Maintenance Crew Chief of the Source Project. Maintenance and security had been his specialties, and he had maintained and secured Chicago, held sway over it for himself and his followers for a time, until Cal and his friends brought it all tumbling down…and Magritte sacrificed her life to save Goldie-to save them all.
Another soul distorted by the dark energy of the Source, Devine had disguised himself in stolen power-insulation from the scrutiny and reach of the more powerful Entity at its heart. A futile attempt in the end, as futile as Fred Wishart’s last stand in Boone’s Gap, West Virginia.
And who knew how many other last stands across the country, around the world, how many lives stolen or smashed or snuffed out?
There’s a power in the West, calling to us, Ely Stern had told Tina on the roof of the world, the skyscraper summit to which he had flown her on that lost summer night.
And Stern had said too, Soon it’s gonna own the world.
So there was a clock ticking inside all of them. Tick. Tock. Find it. Stop it.
If they could.
The fire was all but dead now, and Cal shivered against the chill that had seeped into his bones, despite the Gore-Tex and layering.
Goldie stood nearest the pyre, seemingly untouched by the cold. Cal and the others had let him keep his distance, and his silence. His eyes met Cal’s, but what was behind them kept its own counsel. His jaw muscles were taut, his head cocked at an angle as if listening to a distant conversation. To the West.
Of all of them, Goldie was the least changed without, still had the hectic, beautiful black curls, the straw cowboy hat with the five aces in the brim-very much the worse for wear for having been lost, trampled and rained upon-the cacophonous ensemble of Hawaiian, plaid and paisley shirts. But he was the most changed within. The playfulness, the antic spirit that had greeted Cal at their first and subsequent meetings, was quelled now, seemingly extinguished, to be replaced by…what?
Grimness, and darkness, and a growing power.
How much Magritte-and her loss-had been a catalyst for this, Cal didn’t know. But he suspected it played a great part.
Love was both a shield and a sword; it could protect and it could wound. The same emotion that bled Goldie drove Cal to find Tina. And it would determine the choices Colleen and Doc made, or failed to make, when the fire rained down on them all.
The sun was higher now, cresting on the stark branches as the city shifted and stirred and discovered itself. The last remnants of blackened logs fell in on themselves, threw up a firefly swarm of sparks and became still.
“We need to get the horses saddled and packed,” Cal said.
They nodded, and turned from the lake to the road again.
I
Tomorrow never happens. It’s all the same fucking day.
ONE
East Of Storm Lake, Iowa
“All right, I admit it. Radio Goldman is stone-cold dead.”
Herman Goldman stood like an iron spike driven into the rutted blacktop that had once been Route 169 heading north to Blue Earth-technically still was, Cal Griffin reflected, although no car had driven it in the nearly half year since the Change. No car could have, since cars ran nowhere on the face of the earth as far as anyone knew, as any of them had heard.
Horses, though, were a hot commodity again; and Cal and his friends had been hard-pressed to retain Sooner, Koshka and their other steeds from the depredations of roving smash-and-grab gangs that had lain in wait at numerous rest stops and Kodak moments along the way. “Horse thief” was no longer a quaint term out of a Western-it was a job description.
And we’ve got the scars to prove it.
You can’t go through life without making enemies, his father had told him when Cal was barely four. That was just before Dad’s first abandonment of the family, cutting out for the territories, the apogees and perigees of a roving life that had made enemies of his own family.
Now I’m the rootless one, Cal thought, and his collection of scars, both physical and emotional, formed the road map of his travels.
“Maybe you need new batteries,” Colleen said, jolting Cal from his reverie.
Goldie glowered at her, stuck out his tongue. There were no radios, of course, and batteries didn’t do shit. They were both speaking metaphorically, baiting each other as they tended to do when most frustrated. When it grew too barbed, veering into real venom, Cal would step in as he always did, smoothing their rough edges, reminding them of what held them together, of what bound them on this road. He was their moderator, their governing influence, and he knew well why they thought of him as their leader, despite how reluctant he had once been to accept that role.
Goldie tilted his head quizzically, as if listening for a distant, staticky station, and Cal realized that “radio” wasn’t just a metaphorical term, after all. Goldie had been their crystal set even before the Change, catching the twisted music and voices on the winds of the Source, coaxing and wheedling and beguiling them on the daunting path that had begun that sweltering day in Manhattan when Cal had saved Goldie from being pulverized by a truck on Fifth Avenue-and Goldie had tried (unsuccessfully, of course) to warn him of the coming Storm.
Since Chicago, Goldie had led them by fits and starts through the blasted terrain of western Illinois and Wisconsin, past Rockford and Beloit, skirting the horror of Madison, where cholera and a newborn smallpox raged. In general, the most populous areas were hardest hit, and best avoided.
On the outskirts of Sauk City, by the banks of the Wisconsin, Goldie had found a cliff face with a faded petroglyph that he’d been able to coax into opening a portal that emptied onto the Effigy Mounds in Iowa. It had been murder getting the horses through-they grew frenzied at the prickling feeling of being transported-but it had saved several hundred miles of rough traveling.
They had continued west, drawn by the elusive call of the Source. Until now.
Goldie shook his head. “Nada. K-Source is not on the air…which certainly does not mean it’s not still out there, doing it’s nasty best.”
“Great,” Colleen enthused. “So we’re stuck in this beauty spot.” The afternoon light had turned long, the shadow of a bleached FOOD GAS LODGING sign stretching out toward the horizon, browned prairie grasses tossing in the frigid wind. Route 169 opened ahead like a mottled black ribbon, and despite the signage, there was no food, no gas, no lodging anywhere in sight.
“Patience, Colleen,” Doc advised from atop Koshka, looking every bit the brooding Russian horseman in his fleece-lined greatcoat. “I won’t try to tell you it’s a virtue, but it will save wear and tear on the stomach lining.”