These were good words for a final prayer, although Kenlaw probably had no such consideration in mind. The rush of motion from the darkness triggered some instinctive reflex. Brandon started to whirl about, and the pick of the geologist"s hammer only tore a furrow across his scalp instead of plunging into his skull.
The glancing blow was enough; Brandon went down as if poleaxed. Crouching over him, Kenlaw raised the hammer for the coup de grace.
When Brandon made no move, the murderous light in the other man"s eyes subsided to cunning. Brandon was still breathing, although bare bone gleamed beneath the blood-matted hair. Kenlaw balanced the geologist"s pick pensively.
"Got to make this look like an accident," he muttered. "Can"t risk an investigation. Tell them you took a bad fall. d.a.m.n you, Brandon! You would have to b.u.t.t in the one time I finally found what I was after! This G.o.dd.a.m.n mountain is made out of gold, and that"s going to be my secret until I can lock up the mining rights." He hefted a rock-improvising quickly, for all that his attack had been born of the moment. "Just as well the pick only grazed you. Going to have to look like you busted your head on the rocks. Can"t have it happen in here, though-this has to be kept hidden. Out there on the ledge where we first climbed down-that"s where you fell. I"ll block the tunnel entrance back up again. All they"ll know is that we found some old bones in a cave, and you fell to your death climbing back up."
He raised the rock over Brandon"s head, then threw it aside. "h.e.l.l, you may never wake up from that one there. Got to make this look natural as possible. If they don"t suspect now, they might later on. Push you off the top of the ledge headfirst, and it"ll just be a natural accident."
Working quickly, Kenlaw tied a length of rope to Brandon"s ankles. The man was breathing hoa.r.s.ely, his pulse erratic. He had a concussion, maybe worse. Kenlaw debated again whether to kill him now, but considered it unlikely that he would regain consciousness before they reached the ledge. An astute coroner might know the difference between injuries suffered through a fatal fall and trauma inflicted upon a lifeless body-they always did on television.
Brandon was heavy, but Kenlaw was no weakling for all his fat. Taking hold of the rope, he dragged the unconscious body across the cavern floor-any minor sc.r.a.pes would be attributed to the fall. At the mouth of the tunnel he paused to pay out his coil of rope. Once on the other side, he could haul in Brandon"s limp form like a fish on a line. It would only take minutes to finish the job.
The tunnel seemed far more cramped as he wriggled into it. The miners must have had small frames, but then people were smaller four centuries ago. Moreover, the Spaniards, who almost certainly would have used slave labor to drive these shafts, weren"t men to let their slaves grow fat.
It was tighter, Kenlaw realized with growing alarm. For a moment he attempted to pa.s.s it off to claustrophobia, but as he reached a narrower section of the tunnel, the crushing pressure on his stout sides could not be denied. Panic whispered through his brain, and then suddenly he understood. He had crammed his baggy jacket pockets with rock samples and chunks of ore from the quartz dike; he was a good twenty pounds heavier and inches bulkier now than when he had crawled through before.
He could back out, but to do so would lose time. Brandon might revive; Reynolds might come looking for them. Gritting his teeth against the pressure on his ribs, Kenlaw pushed his light on ahead and forced his body onward. This was the tightest point, and beyond that the way would be easier. He sucked in his breath and writhed forward another foot or more. His sides ached, but he managed yet another foot with all this strength.
No farther. He was stuck.
His chest aching, Kenlaw found scant breath to curse. No need to panic. Just back out and take off the jacket, push it in ahead of him and try again. He struggled to work his corpulent body backward from the tunnel. The loose folds of his paratrooper"s jacket rolled up as he wriggled backward, bunching against the bulging pockets Jammed even tighter against his flesh and against the rock walls, the laden coat bunched up into a wedge. Kenlaw pushed harder, setting his teeth against the pain, as rock samples gouged into his body.
He couldn"t move an inch farther. Backward or forward.
He was stuck midway in the tunnel.
Still Kenlaw fought down his panic. It was going to cost him some bruises and some torn skin, no doubt, but he"d work his way free in good time. He must above all else remain calm, be patient. A fraction of an inch forward, a fraction of an inch backward. He would take his time, work his way loose bit by bit, tear free of the jacket or smooth out its bunched-up folds. At worst, Reynolds would find him, bring help. Brandon might be dead by then, or have no memory of the blow that felled him; he could claim he was only trying to drag his injured companion to safety.
Kenlaw noticed that the light from his flash was growing dim, He had meant to replace the batteries earlier; now the spares were part of the impedimenta that pinioned him here. No matter; he didn"t need light for this-only to be lighter: Kenlaw laughed shakily at his own joke, then the chuckle died.
The flashlight was fast dwindling, but its yellowing beam was enough to pick out the pink reflections of the many pairs of eyes that watched him from the mouth of the tunnel-barely glimpsed shapes that grew bolder as the light they feared grew dim.
And then Kenlaw panicked.
*VI*
The throbbing ache in his skull was so intense that it was some time before Brandon became aware that he was conscious. By gradual increments, as one awakens from a deep dream, he came to realize that something was wrong, that there was a reason for the pain and clouded state of awareness. An elusive memory whispered of a treacherous attack, a blow from behind...
Brandon groaned as he forced himself to sit up, goaded to action as memory returned. His legs refused to function, and after a moment of confusion, he realized that his ankles were tied together. He almost pa.s.sed out again from the effort to lean forward and fumble with the knots, and more time dragged past as he clumsily worked to free his ankles.
His brain refused to function clearly. He knew that it was dark, that he could see only dimly, but he could not think where his flashlight might be, nor marvel that his albino eyes had so accommodated to give him preternatural vision in a lightless cavern. Remembering Kenlaw"s attack, he began to wonder where the other man had gone; only disjointedly did he understand the reasons behind the archeologist"s actions and the probable consequences of his own plight.
The knots at last came loose. Brandon dully considered the rope-his thoughts groping with the fact that someone had tied it to his ankles. Tied him to what? Brandon pulled on the rope, drew coils of slack through the darkness, until there was tension from the other end. He tugged again. The rope was affixed to something beyond. With great effort, Brandon made it to his feet, staggered forward to lean against the rock face beneath which he had lain. The rope was tied to the wall. No, it entered the wall, into the tunnel. It was affixed to something within the narrow pa.s.sage.
Brandon knelt forward and followed the rope into the crawl s.p.a.ce. Dimly he remembered that this was the shaft by which he had entered-or so he hoped. He had hardly crawled forward for more than a body-length, when his fingers clawed against boots. Brandon groped and encountered damp cloth and motionless legs- the rope pressing on beneath their weight.
"Kenlaw?" he called out in a voice he scarcely recognized. He shook the man"s feet, but no response came. Bracing himself against the narrow pa.s.sage, Brandon grasped the other man"s ankles and hauled back. For a moment there was resistance, then the slack body slid backward under his tugging. Backing out of the tunnel, Brandon dragged the archeologist"s motionless form behind him. The task was an easy one for him, despite that the pain in his skull left Brandon nauseated and weak.
Emerging from the shaft, he rested until the giddiness subsided. Kenlaw lay where he had released him, still not moving. Brandon could only see the man as a dim outline, but vague as that impression was, something seemed wrong about the silhouette. Brandon bent forward, ran his hands over the archeologist"s face, groping for a pulse.
His fingers encountered warm wetness across patches of slick hardness and sticky softness, before skidding into empty eye sockets. Most of the flesh of Kenlaw"s face and upper body had been stripped from the bone.
Brandon slumped against the wall of the cavern, trying to comprehend. His brain struggled drunkenly to think, but the agony of his skull kept making his thoughts tumble apart again just as understanding seemed to be there. Kenlaw was dead. He, Brandon, was in a bad way. This much he could hold in his mind, and with that, the recognition that he had to get out of this place.
That meant crawling back through the narrow shaft where Kenlaw had met his death. Brandon"s mind was too dazed to feel the full weight of horror. Once again he crawled into the tunnel and inched his way through the cramped darkness. The rock was damp, and now he knew with what wetness, but he forced himself to wriggle across it.
His hands encountered Kenlaw"s flashlight. He snapped its switch without effect, then remembered the fresh batteries in his pockets. Crawling from the tunnel and onto the floor of the chamber beyond, he fumbled to open the flashlight, stuff in new batteries. He thumbed the switch, again without result. His fingers groped across the lens, gashed against broken gla.s.s. The bulb was smashed, the metal dented; tufts of hair and dried gore caked the battered end. Kenlaw had found service from the flashlight as a club, and it was good for little else now. Brandon threw it away from him with a curse.
The effort had taxed his strength, and Brandon pa.s.sed from consciousness to unconsciousness and again to consciousness without really being aware of it. When he found himself capable of thought once again, he had to remember all over again how he had come to this state. He wondered how much time had pa.s.sed, touched his watch, and found that the glare from the digital reading hurt his eyes.
Setting his teeth against the throbbing that jarred his skull, Brandon made it to his feet again, clutching at the wall of the pit for support. Olin, a.s.suming he was getting anxious by now, might not find the pa.s.sage that led from the first pit. To get help, Brandon would have to cross this cavern, crawl through the shaft back into the first pit, perhaps climb up along the ledge and into the pa.s.sageway that led to the outer cavern. In his condition it wouldn"t have been easy even if he had a light.
Brandon searched his pockets with no real hope. A non-smoker, he rarely carried matches, nor did he now. His eyes seemed to have accommodated as fully to the absence of light as their abnormal sensitivity would permit. It was sufficient to discern the shape of objects close at hand as shadowy forms distinct from the engulfing darkness-little enough, but preferable to total blindness. Brandon stood with his back to the shaft through which he had just crawled. The other tunnel had seemed to be approximately opposite, and if he walked in a straight line he ought to strike the rock face close enough to grope for the opening.
With cautious steps, Brandon began to cross the cavern. The floor was uneven, and loose stones were impossible for him to see. He tried to remember if his previous crossing had revealed any pitfalls within this chamber. A fall and a broken leg would leave him helpless here, and slowly through his confused brain was creeping the shrill warning that Kenlaw"s death could hardly have been from natural causes. A bear? There were persistent rumors of mountain lions being sighted in these hills. Bobcats, which were not uncommon, could be dangerous under these circ.u.mstances. Brandon concentrated on walking in a straight line, much like a drunk trying to walk a highway line for a cop, and found that the effort demanded his entire attention.
The wall opposite loomed before him-Brandon was aware of its darker shape an instant before he blundered into it. He rested against its cool solidity for a moment, his knees rubbery, head swimming after the exertion. When he felt stronger once again, he began to inch his way along the rock face, fumbling for an opening in the wall of the pit.
There-a patch of darkness less intense opened out of the stone. He dared not even consider the possibility that this might not be the shaft that was hidden behind the cairn. Brandon fought back unconsciousness as it surged over him once more, forced his muscles to respond. Once through this pa.s.sage, Olin would be able to find him. He stopped to crawl into the tunnel, and the rock was coated with a musty stickiness.
Brandon wriggled forward across the moist stone. The sensation was already too familiar, when his out-thrust fingers clawed against a man"s boot. Kenlaw"s boot. Kenlaw"s body. In the shaft ahead of him.
Brandon was too stunned to feel terror. His tortured mind struggled to comprehend. Kenlaw"s body lay in the farther chamber, beyond the other pa.s.sage by which he had returned. And Brandon knew a dead man when he came upon one. Had he circled the cavern, gone back the way he had come? Or was he delirious, his injured brain tormented by a recurring nightmare?
He clutched the lifeless feet and started to haul them back, as he had done before, or thought he had done. The boots were abruptly dragged out of his grasp.
Brandon slumped forward on his face, pressing against the stone to hold back the waves of vertigo and growing fear. Kenlaw"s body disappeared into the blackness of the tunnel. How serious was his head injury? Had he imagined that Kenlaw was dead? Or was it Kenlaw ahead of him now in this narrow pa.s.sage?
Brandon smothered a cackling laugh. It must not be Kenlaw. Kenlaw was dead, after all. It was Olin Reynolds, or someone else, come to search for him.
"Here I am!" Brandon managed to shout. "In here!"
His lips tasted of blood, and Brandon remembered the wetness he had pressed his face against a moment gone. It was too late to call back his outcry.
New movement scurried in the tunnel, from either end. Then his night vision became no blessing, for enough consciousness remained for Brandon to know that the faces that peered at him from the shaft ahead were not human faces.
*VII*
Olin Reynolds was a patient man. Age and Atlanta had taught him that. When the sun was high, he opened a tin of Vienna sausages and a pack of Lance crackers, munched them slowly, then washed them down with a few swallows from a Mason jar of blockade. Sleepy after his lunch, he stretched out on the seat and dozed.
When he awoke, the sun was low, and his joints complained as he slid from the cab and stretched. Brandon and Kenlaw should have returned by now, he realized with growing unease. Being a patient man, he sat on the running board of his truck, smoked two cigarettes and had another pull from the jar of whiskey. By then dusk was closing, and Reynolds decided it was time for him to do something.
There was a flashlight in the truck. Its batteries were none too fresh, but Reynolds dug it out and tramped toward the mouth of the cave. Stooping low, he called out several times, and, when there came no answer to his hail, he cautiously let himself down into the cavern.
The flashlight beam was weak, but enough to see that there was nothing here but the wreckage of the moonshine still that had been a going concern when he last set foot within the cavern. Reynolds didn"t care to search farther with his uncertain light, but the chance that the others might have met with some accident and be unable to get back was too great for him to ignore. Still calling out their names, he nervously picked his way along the pa.s.sage that led from the rear of the antechamber.
His batteries held out long enough for Reynolds to spot the sudden drop-off before he blundered across the edge and into s.p.a.ce. Standing as close to the brink as he dared, Reynolds pointed his flashlight downward into the pit. The yellow beam was sufficient to pick out a broken heap of a man on the rocks below the ledge.
Reynolds had seen death often enough before, and he didn"t expect an answer when he called out into the darkness of the pit.
As quickly as his failing light permitted, Reynolds retraced his steps out into the starry darkness of the clearing. Breathing a prayer that one of the men might have survived the fall, he sent his truck careening down the mountain road in search of help.
Remote as the area was, it was well into the night before rescue workers in four-wheel-drive vehicles were able to converge upon the clearing before the cavern. Men with lights and emergency equipment hurried into the cave and climbed down into the pit beyond. There they found the broken body of Dr Morris Kenlaw-strangely mutilated, as if set upon by rats after he fell to his death. They loaded his body onto a stretcher, and continued to search for his companion.
Eric Brandon they never found.
They searched the cavern and the pa.s.sageway and the pit from corner to crevice. They found the wreckage of an old still and, within the pit, Kenlaw"s body-and that was all. Later, when there were more lights, someone thought he saw evidence that a rock fall against the far wall of the pit might be a recent one; but after they had turned through this for a while, it was obvious that only bare rock lay underneath.
By morning, news of the mystery had spread. One man dead, one man vanished. Local reporters visited the scene, took photographs, interviewed people. Curiosity seekers joined the search. The day wore on, and still no sign of Brandon. By now the State Bureau of Investigation had sent men into the area in addition to the local sheriff"s deputies-not that foul play was suspected so much, but a man had been killed and his companion had disappeared. And since it was evident that Brandon was not to be found inside the cavern, the mystery centered upon his disappearance- and why.
There were many conjectures. The men had been attacked by a bear, Brandon"s body carried off. Brandon had been injured, had crawled out for help after Olin Reynolds had driven off; had subsequently collapsed, or become lost in the forest, or was out of his mind from a head injury. Some few suggested that Kenlaw"s death had not been accidental, although no motive was put forward, and that Brandon had fled in panic while Reynolds was asleep. The mountainside was searched, and searched more thoroughly the next day. Dogs were brought in, but by now too many people had trampled over the site.
No trace of the missing man was discovered.
It became necessary that Brandon"s family and a.s.sociates be notified, and here the mystery continued. Brandon seemed to have no next-of-kin, but then, he had said once that he was an orphan. At his apartment in New York, he was almost unknown; the landlord could only note that he paid his rent promptly-and often by mail, since he evidently travelled a great deal. The university at which he had mentioned he was working on his doctorate (when asked once) had no student on record named Eric Brandon, and no one could remember if he had ever told them the name of the grant that was supporting his folklore research.
In their need to know something definite about the vanished man, investigators looked through the few possessions and personal effects in his cabin. They found no names or addresses with which Brandon might be connected-nothing beyond numerous reference works and copious notes that showed he had indeed been a serious student of regional folklore. There was his rifle, and a handgun-a Walther PPK in .390 ACP-still nothing to excite comment (the Walther was of pre-War manufacture, its serial number without American listing), until someone forced the lock on his attache case and discovered the Colt Woodsman. The fact that this .22-calibre pistol incorporated a silencer interested the FBI, and, after fingerprints had been sent through channels, was of even greater interest to the FBI.
"They were manufactured for the OSS," the agent explained, indicating the Colt semiautomatic with its bulky silencer. "A few of them are still in use, although the Hi-Standard HD is more common now. There"s no way of knowing how this one ended up in Brandon"s possession-it"s illegal for a private citizen to own a silencer of any sort, of course. In the hands of a good marksman, it"s a perfect a.s.sa.s.sination gun-about all the sound it makes is that of the action functioning, and a clip of .22 hollow points placed right will finish about any job."
"Eric wouldn"t have killed anyone!" Ginger Warner protested angrily. The FBI agent reminded her of a too-scrubbed Bible salesman. She resented the high-handed way he and the others had appropriated Brandon"s belongings.
"That"s the thing about these sociopathic types; they seem perfectly normal human beings, but it"s only a mask." He went on: "We"ll run ballistics on this and see if it matches with anything on file. Probably not. This guy was good. Real good. What we have on him now is purely circ.u.mstantial, and if we turn him up, I"m not sure we can nail him on anything more serious than firearms violations. But putting together all the things we know and that won"t stand up in court, your tenant is one of the top hit men in the business."
"Brandon-a hit man!" scoffed Dell Warner.
"Brandon"s not his real name," the agent went on, ticking off his information. "He"s setup other ident.i.ties too, probably. We ran his prints; took some looking, but we finally identified him. His name was Ricky Brennan when he was turned over to a New York state foster home as a small child. Father unknown; mother one Laurie Brennan, deceased. Records say his mother was from around here originally, by the way-maybe that"s why he came back. Got into a bit of trouble in his early teens; had a fight with some other boys in the home. One died from a broken neck as a result, but since the others had jumped Brennan, no charges were placed. But out of that, we did get his prints on record-thanks to an inst.i.tutional blunder when they neglected to expunge his juvenile record. They moved him to another facility, where they could handle his type; shortly after that, Brennan ran away, and there the official record ends."
"Then how can you say that Eric is a hired killer!" Ginger demanded. "You haven"t any proof! You"ve said so yourself."
"No proof that"ll stand up in court, I said," the agent admitted.
"But we"ve known for some time of a high-priced hit man who likes to use a high-powered rifle. One like this."
He hefted Brandon"s rifle. "This is a Winchester Model 70, chambered for the .220 Swift. That"s the fastest commercially loaded cartridge ever made. Factory load will move a 49-grain bullet out at a velocity of over 4100 feet per second on a trajectory flat as a stretched string. Our man has killed with head shots from distances that must have been near three hundred yards, in reconstructing some of his. .h.i.ts. The bullet virtually explodes on impact, so there"s nothing left for ballistics to work on.
"But it"s a rare gun for a hit man to use, and that"s where Brandon begins to figure. It demands a top marksman, as well as a shooter who can handle this much gun. You see, the .220 Swift has just too much power. It burned out the old nickel steel barrels when the cartridge was first introduced, and it"s said that the bullet itself will disintegrate if it hits a patch of turbulent air. The .220 Swift may have fantastic velocity, but it also has a tendency to self-destruct."
"Eric used that as a varmint rifle," Dell argued. "It"s a popular cartridge for varmint shooters, along with a lot of other small-calibre high-velocity cartridges. And as for that silenced Colt, Eric isn"t the first person I"ve heard of who owned a gun that"s considered illegal."
"As I said, we don"t have a case-yet. Just pieces of a puzzle, but more pieces start to fall into place once you make a start. There"s more than just what I"ve told you, you can be sure. And we"ll find out a lot more once we find Brandon. At a guess, he killed Kenlaw-who may have found out something about him-then panicked and fled."
"Sounds pretty clumsy for a professional killer," Dell commented. The agent frowned, then was all official politeness once more. These hillbillies were never known for their cooperation with Federal agents. "We"ll find out what happened when we find Brandon."
"If you find him."
*VIII*
Brandon seemed to be swirling through pain-fogged delirium-an endless vertigo in which he clutched at fragments of dream as a man caught in a maelstrom is flung against flotsam of his broken ship. In rare moments his consciousness surfaced enough for him to wonder whether portions of the dreams might be reality.
Most often, Brandon dreamed of limitless caverns beneath the mountains, caverns through which he was borne along by partially glimpsed dwarfish figures. Sometimes Kenlaw was with him in this maze of tunnels-crawling after him, his face a flayed mask of horror, a b.l.o.o.d.y geologist"s pick brandished in one fleshless fist.
At other times Brandon sensed his dreams were visions of the past, visions that could only be born of his obsessive study of the folklore of this region. He looked upon the mountains of a primeval age, when the boundless forest was untouched by the iron bite and poisoned breath of white civilization. Copper-hued savages hunted game along these ridges, to come upon a race of diminutive whiteskinned folk who withdrew shyly into the shelter of hidden caverns. The Indians were in awe of these little people, whose origins were beyond the mysteries of their oldest legends, and so they created new legends to explain them.
With the successive migrations of Indians through these mountains, the little people remained in general at peace, for they were wise in certain arts beyond the comprehension of the red man-who deemed them spirit-folk-and their ways were those of secrecy and stealth.
Then came a new race of men: white skins made bronze by the sun, their faces bearded, their flesh encased in burnished steel. The conquistadors enslaved the little folk of the hills as they had enslaved the races of the south, tortured them to learn the secrets of their caves beneath the mountains, forced them to mine the gold from pits driven deep into the earth. Then followed a dream of mad carnage, when the little people arose from their tunnels in unexpected force, to entrap their masters within the pits, and to drive those who escaped howling in fear from that which they had called forth from beneath the mountains.
Then came the white settlers in a wave that never receded, driving before them the red man, and finally the game. Remembering the conquistadors, the little people retreated farther into their hidden caverns, hating the white man with his guns and his settlements. Seldom now did they venture into the world above, and then only by night. Deep within the mountains, they found sustenance from the subterranean rivers and the beds of fungoid growths they nourished, feeding as well upon other cave creatures and such prey as they might seek above on starless nights. With each generation, the race slipped farther back into primordial savagery, forgetting the ancient knowledge that had once been theirs. Their stature became dwarfish and apelike, their faces brutish as the devolution of their souls; their flesh and hair a.s.sumed the dead pallor of creatures that live in eternal darkness, even as their vision and hearing adapted to their subterranean existence.
They remembered their hatred of the new race of men. Again and again Brandon"s dreams were red with visions of stealthy ambush and lurid slaughter of those who trespa.s.sed upon their hidden domain, of those who walked mountain trails upon nights when the stars were swallowed in cloud. He saw children s.n.a.t.c.hed from their blankets, women set upon in lonely places. For the most part, these were nightmares from previous centuries, although there was a recurrent dream in which a vapid-faced girl gave herself over willingly to their obscene l.u.s.ts, until the coming of men with flashlights and shotguns drove them from her cackling embrace.
These were dreams that Brandon through his comatose delirium could grasp and understand. There were far more visions that defied his comprehension.
Fantastic cities reeled and shattered as the earth tore itself apart, thrusting new mountains toward the blazing heavens, opening vast chasms that swallowed rivers and spat them forth as shrieking steam. Oceans of flame melted continents into leaden seas, wherein charred fragments of a world spun frenziedly upon chaotic tides and whirlpools, riven by enormous bolts of raw energy that coursed like fiery cobwebs from the cyclopean orb that filled the sky.
Deep within the earth, fortress cities were shaken and smashed by the h.e.l.l that reigned miles above. From out of the ruins, survivors crept to attempt to salvage some of the wonders of the age that had died and left them exiles in a strange world. Darkness and savagery stole from them their ideals, even as monstrous dwellers from even greater depths of the earth drove them from their buried cities and upward through caverns that opened onto an alien surface. In the silent halls of vanished greatness, nightmarish shapes crawled like maggots, while the knowledge of that G.o.dlike age was a fading memory to the degenerate descendents of those who had fled.
How long the dreams endured, Brandon could not know. It was the easing of the pain in his skull that eventually convinced Brandon that he had pa.s.sed from dream into reality, although it was into a reality no less strange than that of delirium.
They made a circle about where he lay-so many of them that Brandon could not guess their number. Their bodies were stunted, but lacking the disproportion of torso to limbs of human dwarves. The thin white fur upon their naked pink flesh combined to give them something of the appearance of lemurs. Brandon thought of elves and of feral children, but their faces were those of demons. Broad nostrils and outthrust, tusked jaws stopped just short of being muzzles, and within overlarge red-pupiled eyes glinted the malign intelligence of a fallen angel.
They seemed in awe of him.
Brandon slowly raised himself on one arm, giddy from the effort. He saw that he lay upon a pallet of dried moss and crudely cured furs, that his naked body seemed thin from long fever. He touched the wound on his scalp and encountered old scab and new scar. Beside him, water and what might be broth or emollients filled bowls which might have been formed by human hands, and perhaps not.
Brandon stared back at the vast circle of eyes. It occurred to him to wonder that he could see them; his first thought was that there must be a source of dim light from somewhere. It then came to him to wonder that these creatures had spared him; his first thought was that as an albino they had mistakenly accepted him as one of their race. In the latter, he was closer to the truth than with the former.
Then slowly, as his awakening consciousness a.s.similated all that he now knew, Brandon understood the truth. And, in understanding that, Brennan knew who he was, and why he was.
*IX*
There was only a sickle of moon that night, but Ginger Warner, feeling restless, threw on a wrap and slipped out of the house.
On some nights sleep just would not come, although such nights came farther apart now. Walking seemed to help, although she had forgone these nocturnal strolls for a time, after once when she realized someone was following her. As it turned out, her unwelcome escort was a Federal agent-they thought she would lead them to where her lover was hiding-and Ginger"s subsequent anger was worse than her momentary fear. But in time even the FBI decided that the trail was a cold one, and the investigation into the disappearance of a suspected hired killer was pushed into the background.
It was turning autumn, and the thin breeze made her shiver beneath her dark wrap. Ginger wished for the company of Dan, but her brother had taken the Plott hound off on a weekend bear hunt. The wind made a lonely sound as it moved through the trees, chattering the dead leaves so that even the company of her own footsteps was denied her.
Only the familiarity of the tone let her stifle a scream, when someone called her name from the darkness ahead.
Ginger squinted into the darkness, wishing now she"d brought a light. She whispered uncertainly: "Eric?"
And then he stepped out from the shadow of the rock outcropping that overhung the path along the ridge, and Ginger was in his arms.
She spared only a moment for a kiss, before warning him in one breathless outburst: "Eric, you"ve got to be careful! The police-the FBI-they"ve been looking for you all summer! They think you"re some sort of criminal!"
In her next breath, she found time to look at him more closely. "Eric, where have you been? What"s happened to you?"