One of the waiters noted that death was a long tunnel aimed at a cheerful light. Lucien wondered if he had missed a television special. The food was wonderfully prepared, a genuine salute to the departed. Henchcliff sat down, slack with alcohol and the sense he was being used. Dominic gave a very strict recount of the afterlife: heaven, purgatory and hell. Hell was particularly vivid, having been modeled in all its details on New Jersey waste-disposal sites. Purgatory you could hack; and you entered heaven without having to use the stairs, or having to listen to the neighbors screech, and without having to climb over a wino on the front stoop. In heaven you never ran out of silk, patent leather and mohair.
“How about you, Father Alerion?” Lucien asked.
“It’s in the Book,” said Alerion. “I didn’t imagine a word or two on Our Lord’s behalf would do any harm.”
“I was under strict orders.”
“From an apostate?”
“Nope.” Lucien speared a slice of rare duck. “His wife.” He turned to one hippie waiter. “Clean your plate.”
“I have, thanks.”
“Attaboy. Now run get Lucifer and bring him to the hitching rack with the plantation saddle. His is the cavalry bridle. ‘US’ on the cheekbuttons.” The waiter got up, a little put out at being removed from the company. “No charge for the meal,” Lucien said as the hippie left the room. “Henchcliff, it amazes me how well you cook even when you’re in a bad mood. I salute your carry-on-regardless approach to your craft.”
“Thank you.”
Garby, the horseshoer, grinned through everything with a fixed grateful expression. Lucien thought that if one had nothing to say, it was a successful stance. Experience had shown him, though, that people like this are quick to blow up, and to pummel people around them.
Then it was quiet. It was the middle of the night. Lucien was still toying with the idea, quite genuinely, that Kelsey might as well have been him. When my time comes, I want some ceremony. This was just terrible.
Lucien said goodnight and went out from the front of the main lodge, where Lucifer stood almost imperceptible in the darkness. He threw the reins up over the horse’s neck, mounted and rode off.
He took the long way home. His cigar made a ruby light that arced as he held it away from his body and tapped the ash. Suzanne and James would be curled up now. The reins hung in Lucien’s fingers like a small plumb weight. Every now and then a bright spark flew from a steel horseshoe and it seemed wonderful how bright and emotionless country air could be. Was Suzanne afraid of him?
Lucien put his horse away and got into bed, into clean sheets and a wool blanket taut across his body. He lay on his back and crossed his arms on his chest. As he drifted into sleep, he pretended he was slipping away from the dock into the next life.
13
Lucien got up at daybreak. When he went outside, the moisture was still in the ground and the ground itself seemed to be beginning a day-long respiration as the smell of grass and open dirt and evergreens hung on the unmoving air. He walked down to the corral and opened the gate to the upper pasture. The horses crowded each other in the passage, then ran and bucked onto the new ground. There were flatiron clouds over the far ranges, and they were the color of wet slate. Lucien put his cup of coffee on top of a post and threw some hay up into the metal feeder. He reached through with his jackknife and cut the binder twine, pulled the strings out, looped them and hung them on a plank. The salt was all cupped out from the working of tongues, but more than half the block was left. He could hear the whine of a cold-starting tractor down at the neighbor’s ranch. He’ll do that until the battery is dead, thought Lucien, then go in and watch the soaps. An old-timer.
He went back up to the house and got a few things. He had a notion. He got a camouflage net and some welder’s gloves. He got the little box of bird bands and some pliers, and the long-handled net. He got his wire pigeon cage out of the basement and two pairs of goggles that were hanging on a nail next to the airyway window. He ignored the phone and turned off the low flame under the coffeepot. On the wall was a picture of his father being presented with a spit of roasted meat in a restaurant in Arequipa, Peru. The phone rang again and Lucien did not pick it up. He had come to know when the calls were not urgent, just as he could count heads at the hot spring right through the wall.
He got everything loaded into the car and went over to the White Cottage. He knew it was early. He knew Suzanne would be wandering around in her robe trying to wake up, keeping sleepy responsible eyes on the waking day. As he reached the door in the gate, a cloud of warblers lifted out of the yellow-flowered caragana. He could hear James singing, and when he knocked on the door the singing stopped. “It’s Pop!” Lucien called into the quiet. The gate opened and there was Suzanne. Lucien was happy to see her. She smiled with faint embarrassment and murmured something about not coming through at dinner. “Not to worry,” said Lucien. “There’ll be another time.” There was a plate of pastries on the outdoor table, and a pitcher of juice. Lucien recognized every pattern and whorl of the pastry: Suzanne had learned to get what she needed from the kitchen. He took a couple of sweet rolls.
James came out of the cottage, quickly waved, then turned to look at his mother. “Can’t you say good morning to Pop?” she said.
“Good morning.”
Lucien ate a sweet roll and watched him for a moment. That made James nervous. “James, I’m going to band some hawks today. I want you to help me. We’re trying to figure what all we’ve got on this place. It’s pretty exciting.”
“Weren’t we going into town today?” James asked his mother.
“We can go anytime,” she said, trying to messenger some reassurance James’s way with a bright smile.
“But I need gym socks,” James said in a panicky voice. “Remember?”
“I can pick those up.”
“Last time they didn’t fit,” he said in a desperate whisper.
“You go band hawks with Pop,” she said firmly. “I’ve got to get dressed.” She went back up to the house, hiking the terrycloth robe around her angular hips. Lucien and James were alone. Lucien quickly made to open the door.
“Do I need a coat?”
“You’re fine. Let’s go.”
They went out through the gate to the car with the net-handle sticking out of the back window. “We didn’t bring enough socks,” James explained. “And I only got these one pair of glasses. Me and Mom didn’t plan so good, I don’t think.”
“Anything you need, you tell me,” said Lucien. James was embarrassed.
By the time they had wound out past the buildings and started across the ranch, James had his small face angled unmovingly at the side window of the car. Lucien didn’t know what to do. “James, have I said something wrong?” The land here was flat and brushy and there was an absolutely horizontal butte a few miles ahead.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Lucien thought for a long, hard moment. “Then why are you treating me like this?”
“Because you’re never going to let me go,” James said bitterly. “You’re going to keep me and never let me go.” He began to cry, silently heaving in the huge space of his seat. Lucien shook his head as if to say that weren’t true, but he didn’t actually say anything. He just kept on driving until James finally sighed.