He told Morgan about life in South Dakota when he was a kid, how he broke his first colt when he was eight. How he?d hobbled the youngster, dragged an old jacket over his neck and back and legs until the colt no longer snorted and bolted, how the colt finally settled down to lead. He told Morgan about spring roundup, how the steers and cows would hide among the mesquite or down in a draw and you had to rout them out. How the ranchers all helped each other rounding up the cattle, separating out their own stock during branding. The scenes of roundup came back so clearly, he recalled scanning the far hills where you could barely pick out a few head of steers, watching them slip away among the brush as a rider or two eased after them. He could still hear the calves bawling during the sorting and branding, could still smell the burning hair and skin under the smoking iron, though it didn?t hurt them but for a minute or two.
Sometimes, as Lee talked, he was aware of another presence, a warmth between the comatose man and himself, the touch of rough fur against his hand, and he could hear soft purring as the ghost cat pressed against Morgan. It seemed to Lee then that he could see the faintest of color in Morgan?s white, cold cheeks. Lee knew as well when the ghost cat had gone and wondered if he was with Sammie. He remembered Morgan?s description of Sammie?s sickness when Morgan, after the bank robbery, had been left drugged and unconscious in the backseat of his car, and Sammie herself was unable to stay awake. Now, with Morgan in a coma, was the child again lost in darkness? As Lee kept talking, hoping to reach Morgan, was he reaching out to Sammie, too?
He told Morgan about his first train jobs, when he was barely seventeen, described how his chestnut mare would race alongside the engine keeping close to it as he dove off her back onto a moving car, how he?d taught her to follow the train, waiting for him. He tried to explain the fascination of the old steam trains, to describe his excitement when he, just a kid, was able to stop a whole train and haul away its riches. He told Morgan that was the life he?d always wanted, that he?d had no choice?but he knew that wasn?t true. No matter what you longed for, you always had a choice.
Late on the second afternoon as dusk crept into the hospital room, Morgan stirred. His free hand moved on the covers, but then went still again. His eyes slit open for an instant unfocused, but then closed. At the same moment the shadows grew heavy around them. Suddenly Lee?s rambling voice sounded hollow, sucked into emptiness. The walls had vanished into shadows, the floor had dissolved except for the one ragged section that held Morgan?s bed and Lee?s chair. They drifted in dark and shifting space.
And Morgan woke, staring at something behind Lee.
Lee turned to face the dark presence looming over them, its cold seeping into Lee?s bones. Morgan?s hand, then his whole body, grew so cold that Lee scrambled to reach for the call button.
?They won?t hear it,? said the dark spirit.
?What do you want? Get out of here. What do you want with Morgan, what does he have to do with your vendetta against me? He?s not of Dobbs?s blood.? Lee wanted to lunge at the figure but knew he would grapple empty air.
?Morgan?s little girl is of Dobbs?s blood. She is descended from Dobbs just as you are. There is no finer prize,? Satan said, ?than a child. Now, through her father, I will destroy the girl. Through her father and soon through you as well.
?Oh, she dreams of you, Fontana. Youare her kin. She saw you kill Luke Zigler, she saw his smashed face. She saw you and Morgan scale the wall; she was with you on your journey, suffering every misery you endured; she felt cold fear at the sight of the tramp?s switchblade, fear not as an adult would experience but as a child knows terror. Her pain, as she watched, is most satisfying.
?She saw you pull the cable around Falon?s throat, she felt your urge to kill him, she watched you smile and pull the cable tighter.?
Lee?s helplessness, his inability to drive back the dark spirit, enraged him. Nothing could be so evil as to fill a child with such visions, to torment a little girl with an adult?s lust.
But at Lee?s thought, the invader shifted. ?I do not give the child her nightmares,? Satan snapped. ?I have no control over her dreams.?
?How could she see such things if the dreams don?t come from you??
The shadow faded, then darkened again.?I do not shape her dreams,? he repeated testily.?I do not control her fantasies.?
But then he laughed.?Soon I will control them, soon Iwill break the force that gives her such visions, and then,? he said, ?then Iwill shape the images she sees, Iwill shape her fears until, at long last, I use that terror to break her. To own her,? Lucifer said with satisfaction.
?In the end,? he said, ?the child will belong to me. My retribution will be complete. You might resist my challenges, Fontana. You might have won a bargain, as you put it. But Sammie Blake won?t win anything. She will soon be my property. As I destroy her father, so I will destroy her. She is my retribution, the final answer to my betrayal by Russell Dobbs.?
39
IT WAS EARLY morning in Georgia, the sun just fingering up through dense growths of maples and sourwoods. A Floyd County truck stood parked in the woods at the foot of Turkey Mountain Ridge, its tires leaving a fresh trail along the narrow dirt road. Agents Hillerman and Clark of the FBI and GBI respectively, and Deputy Riker of the Floyd County Sheriff?s Department, had already climbed halfway up the steep slope. Sweating in heavy khaki clothing and high, laced boots, they shouldered through thorny tangles and dense, second-growth saplings. Hillerman was perhaps the most uncomfortable in the hot protective clothing, with his thirty pounds of extra weight. Clark, the youngest, was fit and tanned, blond crew cut covered by a sturdy cap, his ruddy face clear and sunny. Each man wore a backpack fitted out with water, snacks, and the tools they would need if they found the hidden well.
Though the three men wielded machetes, cutting away the briars that tripped and clawed at them, still the thorny tangles ripped through their clothing, tearing into their skin leaving their pants and shirts dotted with blood, their hands and legs throbbing. They had driven up the old rutted logging road as far as the truck would go. When the incline grew too steep they had left the vehicle to climb the eastern slope on foot. Riker was in the lead, a rail-thin, leathery man as dry and wrinkled as if the cigarettes he smoked, two packs a day, were surely embalming him. Breathing hard, he led the two men back and forth, tacking across the steep hill searching carefully, stopping often to study the ground, the surrounding growth, and the mountain that rose above them. He was looking for signs of old, rotted fences, abandoned farm tools. He did not smoke while in the woods, he chewed.
Years ago Riker had hunted deer on this mountain. He didn?t remember any old homeplace up here, but often all that was left would be a few bramble-covered artifacts or, higher up the hill, fragments of an old rock foundation and the old well, both long ago covered by heavy growth. As they neared the crest he glanced back at the bureau men, cautioned them again to take care. ?You step in a hidden well, you fall a hundred feet straight down.? They?d climbed in silence for another five minutes when Riker stopped suddenly, stood looking above them where a dozen huge oak trees came into view, towering above small, scrubby saplings.
?There. That?ll be it.? He moved on quickly, straight up the ridge until it leveled off to flat ground. There was no sign of a house or of fences or foundation, but Riker nodded with satisfaction, stood wiping his forehead with his bandana. ?I?d forgotten this place. Watch your step, the well?s somewhere close.?