Threshold. Part 19

"The Bailiff wants you sober for this one," Sheldon says and glances anxiously at Soldier as she unscrews the cap.

"The Bailiff doesn't pull the f.u.c.king trigger, now does he? Why don't you shut up and watch the road?"

Old Hill Burying Ground rises up on their left, countless listing rows of slate and granite markers lined up like a dutiful army of stone soldiers gathered together beneath the swaying boughs of oaks and hemlocks, an army of the dead standing guard since sometime in 1634. And Soldier remembers this place, the delivery they made there a year or so back, one of her first rides with Sheldon, and they left a heavy leather satchel sitting outside one of the vine-covered mausoleums. She never found out what was inside the satchel, never asked because she never wanted to know. It isn't her job to know.

She takes a drink of the whiskey, and if it doesn't quite drive away the fog in her head, it's a halfway decent start.

"What time is it?" she asks, and Sheldon shrugs his broad shoulders.

"You got a watch, lady," he says. "You tell me."

Instead, she takes another swallow of George d.i.c.kel, rubs at her eyes, and watches the night slipping by outside the hea.r.s.e.

"It's almost three thirty," Sheldon sighs, checking his wrist.w.a.tch when it's clear Soldier isn't going to check for herself. "We made pretty good time, all things considered."

"Yeah? All things considered, looks to me like we're cutting this pretty G.o.dd.a.m.ned close," she replies, tightening the cap on the whiskey bottle. "If we miss Bittern-"

"-then I suppose we're f.u.c.ked, good and harsh. But we're not gonna miss him. Ain't no way that card game's gonna break up until dawn, right? No way, lady, especially not with this blow. h.e.l.l, by now, he's probably into Jameson for ten or twelve Gs, easy. Ain't no way he's gonna walk with that many franklins on the line."

"Look, man, all I'm saying is we're cutting it close. It would have been nice if we'd had a little more notice, and that's all I'm saying."

Sheldon Vale slows for a traffic light that isn't working, then steers the hea.r.s.e off High Street onto North Main. On the radio, Eric Burden's been replaced by the Beatles' "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," and he reaches for the k.n.o.b.

"Don't touch it," Soldier says.

"Oh, come on. I've been listening to this c.r.a.p since Providence, and I f.u.c.king hate the Beatles."

"Why don't you just worry about getting us to Bittern and forget about what's on the radio," Soldier tells him and returns the bottle to its spot beneath the seat.

"I should have let you sleep."

"Yeah," she says, "you should have let me sleep."

"He gives us as much notice as he can," Sheldon says, and it takes Soldier a second or two to figure out what he means, to remember what she said about the Bailiff.

"You think so? You think that's how it is?"

"Where's the percentage in doing any different?"

"You really think it's all that simple?"

Sheldon snorts and turns left onto State 133 and crosses the swollen, muddy Ipswich River.

"What I think is I was driving this route, running for the Bailiff, when you were still s.h.i.+tting your diapers, and maybe old Terpsich.o.r.e and Danas got their plans all laid out for you, all right, but you don't know even half as much about operations as you like to let on."

Soldier laughs, then goes back to staring out the window. "That was a mouthful, Sheldon. Were you rehearsing that little speech all the way up from Providence?"

Sheldon frowns and wipes condensation off the inside of the winds.h.i.+eld with his bare hand.

"You know that's gonna streak," she says. "And you know how the Bailiff feels about hand prints and streaky winds.h.i.+elds."

"Yeah, well, I can't f.u.c.king see."

Soldier shrugs and folds down the pa.s.senger-side sun visor. There's a little mirror mounted there, and she stares for a moment at her reflection, stares at the disheveled woman staring back at her-the puffy, dark half circles beneath her bloodshot eyes, half circles that may as well be bruises, her unkempt, mouse-colored hair that needed a good cutting two or three months ago. There's an angry red welt bisecting the bridge of her nose that'll probably leave a scar, but that's what she gets for picking a fight with one of the ghouls. She sticks her tongue out at herself, then folds the visor up again.

"You look like s.h.i.+t," Sheldon Vale says, "in case you need a second opinion."

"You're a d.a.m.ned helpful c.u.n.t, Sh.e.l.ly."

"s.h.i.+t," he hisses, glancing at the rearview. "I think I missed the turnoff."

"Yep," Soldier says, pointing at a green street sign. "That's the f.u.c.king Argilla right there. You missed it. Guess that'll teach you to keep your eyes on where you're going, instead of letting yourself get distracted by my pretty face."

Sheldon curses himself and Jesus and a few of the nameless G.o.ds, slows down and turns around in a church parking lot, slinging mud and gravel, and then the hea.r.s.e's wheels are back on blacktop, rolling along with the rubber-against-wet-asphalt sound that's always reminded Soldier of frying meat. Soon they're on the other side of the river again, retracing the way they've just come, left turns become rights, and there's the cemetery once more.

"What's on your mind, old man?" Soldier asks, because he might be an a.s.shole, and he might have s.h.i.+tty taste in music, but Sheldon Vale can usually be counted on to get you where you're going without a lot of jiggery-pokery and switchbacks.

"You think they're gonna kill that kid?" he asks her and turns off the highway onto a road leading away towards the salt-marshes and the sea.

"Don't you think she's kind of got it coming?" Soldier asks him back, and then she has to stop herself from reaching for the bottle again. "I mean, she knew the f.u.c.king rules. This isn't some first-year squeaker. She's one moon away from confirmation. She should have known better."

"She's a kid," Sheldon says, as if maybe Soldier hasn't quite entirely understood that part, and he slows down to check a road sign by the glow of the headlights. "Town Farm Road," he says, reading it aloud. "Man, just once I wish someone else would pull this route."

"Kids screw up," Soldier says. "Kids screw up all the time, just like the rest of us. Kids screw up, and it gets them killed, just exactly like the rest of us."

"So you think they're gonna do her?"

"No, I didn't say that. But this is some pretty serious s.h.i.+t, Sh.e.l.ly. If we're real d.a.m.n lucky, it's not so serious that we can't put it to rest by visiting Mr. a.s.s-for-brains Joey Bittern and-"

"She's just a kid," Sheldon says again.

"Some rules, n.o.body gets to break." Soldier says, watching the half-glimpsed houses and marshy fields and the trees that seem to appear out of nowhere, rush past the hea.r.s.e, and vanish in the night behind them. "Some rules you don't even bend. I ain't telling you anything you don't already know."

The Beatles make way for Jefferson Airplane, and Sheldon looks at the radio in disgust, but makes no move to reach for the k.n.o.b.

"Grace Slick is a fat cow," he says.

"Not in 1967, she wasn't."

Sheldon mutters something under his breath and stares straight ahead at the rain-slick road, the yellow dividing line, the stingy bits of the night revealed in the headlights. And Soldier's starting to wish she'd asked for another driver, beginning to wonder if Sheldon's up to this run.

"Someone does something like this," she says, "I don't care if its just some kid or one of us, Madam Terpsich.o.r.e or the G.o.dd.a.m.n Bailiff himself-"

"You've made your point," Sheldon says, interrupting her, and then he turns the wheel as the road carries them deeper into the marshes leading away to the Eagle Hill River and the Atlantic.

"You just don't mess around with s.h.i.+t like that," Soldier says, knowing it's time to shut the f.u.c.k up about the kid and let him drive, time to start thinking about the shotgun in the back and exactly what she's going to say to Joey Bittern when they reach the old honky-tonk at the end of Town Farm Road.

"I just don't think it's right," Sheldon Vale mumbles so softly that she barely catches the words over the radio and the storm and the whir of the tires on the road.

"Whole lot of crazy s.h.i.+t ain't right," she replies, then begins singing along with "Don't You Want Somebody To Love?" while Sheldon drives the hea.r.s.e, and Soldier tries hard not to think about whatever is or isn't happening to Sparrow Spooner back in Providence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

Caitlin R. Kiernan has published six novels and more than sixty short stories and is a three-time winner of the International Horror Guild Award. Her short fiction has been collected in three volumes-Tales of Pain and Wonder, From Weird and Distant Sh.o.r.es, and To Charles Fort, With Love-and has been selected for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and The Year's Best Science Fiction. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her Web site at www.caitlinrkiernan.com.

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