It looked like it had been kind of a nice little farmhouse once; it had its own cistern, anyway, and a chicken coop, but it was all shattered now, and being Christians, the occupants would probably act real thankful about it. Alex had been astounded to discover that the inhabitants had a big stack of paper comic books, Christian evangelical comics, the real thing, in English no less, with hand drawings and black ink and real metal staples. A shame they were all torn up and rain-soaked and uncollectible.
Off in the distance, to the north, came an enormous explosion and an uprushing column of filthy smoke. The wind was so calm now, and the damp sweet sky so beautifully blue, that the burning column rose straight up and stood there in the sky and preened itself. It sure looked and sounded like a massive structure hit, but maybe he was being uncharitable. Could have been a detonating natural-tank or maybe a broken propane line. These things did Not every mishap in the world was somebody's fault.
Alex chewed more bread and had some carrot juice. The Christian family had been very big on organic whole juices. Except for the dad, presumably, who kept his truly awful Okie Double-X beer hidden under the sink.
Alex's tree was a large and fragrant cedar that had been uprooted and knocked over at an angle. Many of the branches had been twisted off by a passing F-2, showing red heartwood that smelled lovely. He had climbed into the downed tree and was lying on the sun-warmed trunk about four meters up in the air, his back against the underside of one of the thicker limbs. The gray-barked trunk under his paper-clad buttocks was as solid as a bench. His wasn't too far from the site of the crash. He could see dead wreck of Charlie from where he sat.
Juanita was gone, and to judge by the tracks in the sh mud, she had left with a rescuer in civilian shoes who sonic kind of big military truck. That was good news Alex, because Juanita's eyes had been crossed and glassy last hours, and he had her figured for a mild con;ion. He felt sure that Juanita, or at least some helpful uper, would show up again in pretty short order, some~, soon. She'd be coming to find him. And even if she 't want to find him in particular, that car had a lot of iand megabytage in it.
Alex felt rather restful and at peace with himself. He partially deafened, and his face hurt, and his lungs and his eyes hurt, and he could taste blood at the of his tongue. Scrambling through the roadside forest a mindless panic, basically-had left him striped with many nasty scratches and a couple of hefty, aching bruises, plus a thick coating of cedar gum and dirt.
But he had seen the F-6. It had been pretty much what he'd been led to expect. It was nice not to be disappointed about something in life. He felt he could put up with dying with a better grace now.
He chewed more bread. It wasn't good bread, but it was better than camp food. There was a gray squirrel running around on the forest floor. It was drinking out of the rain puddle in the roots of the fallen tree. Didn't seem upset in any way. Just another squirrel going about its job.
Vaguely, under the persistent whine of aural aftershock, Alex heard someone calling out. Calling his name. He sat up, put his foot in the smart rope, lowered himself down from the trunk to the ground, and swiftly coiled the rope around his shoulder.
He worked his way through the labyrinth of fallen trees back to the site of the wreck.
But whea he glJ~~j the rescuer, searching vaguely around the wreckage, Alex fled. He reached the fallen cedar again, cast his rope back up, and yanked himself quickly back into the tree.
"Over here," he called, standing on the trunk and waving. He couldn't call out too loudly. Shouting really hurt him inside.
Leo Mulcahey walked over, methodically working his way through the maze of fallen limbs. He wore a sturdy felt Stetson and a safari jacket.
He stopped in a small patch of knee-high undergrowth and looked up at Alex. "Enjoying yourself?" he said.
Alex touched his ears. "What's that, Leo? Come closer. I'm kind of deaf. Sorry."
Leo stepped closer to the leaning tree trunk and looked up again. "I might have known I'd find you much at your ease!"
"You don't have to shout now, that's fine. Where's Juanita?"
"I was going to ask you that, actually. Not that you care."
Alex narrowed his eyes. "I know that you took her away, so don't bullshit me. You wouldn't be stupid enough to hurt her, would you, Leo? Not unless you've really got it in for Jerry, as well as me."
"I have no quarrel with Jerry. Not any longer. That's all in the past now. In fact, I'm going to help Jerry. It's the last act I can commit that will really help my brother." He pulled a ceramic pistol out of his jacket pocket.
"Oh, that's really good," Alex scoffed. "You dumb spook bastard! I've had two tubercular hemorrhages in the past week, and you're coming out here to shoot me and leave me under this tree? You hopeless gringo moron, I just lived through the F-6, I don't need some pissant assassin like you! I can die perfectly well all by myself. Get lost before I lose my temper."
Leo, astonished, laughed. "That's very funny! Would you like to be shot up in that tree, where it might be painful, or would you like to come down here, where I can make it very efficient and quick?"
"Oh," said Alex, daintily, "I prefer being murdered in the most remote, impersonal, and clinical manner possible, thank you."
"Oh, with you and I, it's personal," Leo assured him. "You kept me from telling my brother good-bye, face-to-face. I dearly wanted to see my brother, because I had certain important personal business with him, and I might well have gotten past his entourage and seen him privately, but you interfered. And then, in the press of business, it became too late." Leo's brow darkened. "That's not sufficient reason to kill you, I suppose; but then, there's the money. Juanita has no money left; if you're dead, she gets yours, and Jerry gets hers. So your resources go to environmental science, instead of being squandered on the drug habits of some decrepit weakling. Killing you is genuinely helpful. It'll make the world a better place."
"That's wonderful, Leo," Alex said. "I feel so honored to assuage your delicate feelings in this way. I can only agree with your trenchant assessment of my moral and societal worth. May I point one thing out before you execute me? If the shoe were on the other foot, and I were about to execute you, I'd do it without the fucking lecture!"
Leo frowned.
"What's the matter, Leo? An old bulishit artist like you can't bear to let your condemned man have the last word for once?"
Leo raised the pistol. Behind his head, a thin black noose snaked up silently from the forest floor.
"Better kill me now, Leo! Shoot quick!"
Leo took careful aim.
"Too late!"
The smart rope hissed around his neck and yanked him backward. He flew off his feet, his neck snapping audibly. Then he leaped up from the forest floor like a puppet on a string as the serpentine coils of the smart rope hissed around the butt of a cedar branch. There was a fragrant stink of burned bark as the body was hauled aloft.
The hanged man swayed there, violently, dangling from the tree. And at length was still.
IT TOOK ALEX forty-seven hours to get from a smashed forest in Oklahoma to his father's penthouse in Houston. There was a lot of bureaucratic hassle around the federal disaster zone, but the Guard and the cops couldn't stop him from walking, and his luck changed when he got his hands on a motor bicycle. He didn't eat much. He scarcel~ slept. He had a fever. His lungs hurt very badly, and deat was near, death was very near now, not the romantic death this time, not the sweet, drug-addled, transcendent death. Just real death, just death of the cold, old-fashioned variety, death like his mother's death, an absence and a being still, forever. He didn't love death anymore. He didn't even like death anymore. Death was something he was going to have to get over with.