The Taking Part 17

She had thought that the dog wandered to their booth with no more purpose than to explore that section of the floor and to cadge tidbits from them if they had any food to share.

Its gaze was unusually intense, however, and more than intense: strange, compelling.

She considered how the dogs, en ma.s.se, had reacted to her when she had first arrived in the tavern. They had seemed to be watching her surrept.i.tiously ever since.

"Neil, we've been thinking pretty much only about ourselves, how to survive. That leaves us with nothing to do but find a hidey-hole, hunker down, and wait."

He understood: "You've never lived that way-pa.s.sive, just waiting for what's next."

"Neither have you. There are children tonight, in this chaos, who aren't being given the shelter and protection they need, they deserve." She was relieved to have a purpose, to be suddenly filled with the urgency of meaningful commitment.

"And if we can't save them?" Neil wondered.

Ears p.r.i.c.ked, head c.o.c.ked, the dog turned to Neil.

"Maybe no one can save anyone anymore," Neil continued, "not with the whole world lost."

The dog whined at him as it had whined at Molly.

Intrigued by the shepherd's att.i.tude and behavior, she wondered if something extraordinary might be happening; but then the dog padded away, weaving through the crowd, soon out of sight.

"If we can't save them," she said, "then we'll try to spare them from what pain and terror we can. We've got to put ourselves between them and whatever's coming."

He glanced at the six children.

Molly said, "I don't mean them. Their parents are here, and the group is big enough to protect them about as well as anyone can be protected in these circ.u.mstances. But how many kids are out there in town? Not teenagers. I mean, younger kids, small and vulnerable. One hundred? Two hundred?"

"Maybe that many. Maybe even more."

"How many of them have parents who are dealing with this the way Derek and his crowd are dealing with it-getting drunk and worse, leaving their kids afraid and undefended?"

"But we don't know most of the people in town," Neil said. "There are-what?-maybe four hundred or even five hundred houses, and we don't know which families have kids. It'll take hours and hours, maybe a full day, for just the two of us to go door-to-door. We don't have that much time left."

"All right. So maybe we can get a few of these people to help us," Molly said.

Neil looked doubtful. "They've got their own agendas."

Weaving among the tables and the milling residents of Black Lake, the German shepherd returned. In its mouth, the dog held a red rose, which it brought to Molly.

She couldn't imagine where it had found a rose in the tavern. She hadn't noticed any floral arrangements.

The dog seemed to want her to take the flower.

"You've got a suitor," Neil said.

Inevitably, she thought of her father murdering the boy in the rose garden. His voice snaked through her memory in sinuous coils of words: I buried his little disposable camera at the foot of a rosebush. It was the Cardinal Mindszenty rose, so named because of its glorious robe-red color. I buried his little disposable camera at the foot of a rosebush. It was the Cardinal Mindszenty rose, so named because of its glorious robe-red color.

At first inclined to suspect a connection between Render and the dog, Molly hesitated to accept the rose.

Then she looked into the shepherd's eyes and saw what is to be seen in every dog's eyes if it has not been broken by a cruel master: trust, strength without arrogance, a desire to give and receive affection-and an honesty so pure that deception, if contemplated, cannot be perpetrated.

The shepherd wagged its tail.

Molly pinched the stem of the rose, and the animal unlocked its teeth to surrender the fragrant bloom.

As she took the flower, Molly saw evidence of a thorn p.r.i.c.k, a spot of blood on the dog's tongue.

She thought at once of Render-although not as he had appeared this night, rather as he had raged maniacally in that third-grade cla.s.sroom twenty years previously-and not of Michael Render only or even primarily, but also of one of his victims, a girl named Rebecca Rose, with s.h.a.ggy blond hair and blue eyes, who died that afternoon in Molly's arms.

Rebecca Rose. A shy girl with a faint lisp. Her last words, whispered in delirium, apparently a meaningless delusion: Molly...there's a dog. So pretty...how he s.h.i.+nes. Molly...there's a dog. So pretty...how he s.h.i.+nes.

Now the shepherd watched Molly. In his eyes were mysteries to rival any others in this momentous night of enigmas, puzzles, and perplexities.

On a rose thorn, his blood.

Rose of forgetfulness, brought to her by the dog, became the Rose of memory, cut down so young.

By the c.o.c.k of his head, the shepherd seemed to question whether Molly Sloan-sensible Molly, she with the strong mainspring wound tight, she who always lived less in the moment than in the future, she who strived toward meticulously planned goals and was prudent in all things except her writing, she who avoided drama in her life but poured it out upon the page-could understand the intentions of a flower-bearing Sphinx, this rebus on four paws, which wanted so urgently to be properly read and understood.

The rose trembled in her hand, and a loose petal fell, like a sanguinary drop, to the tabletop.

And the dog waited. And the dog watched. And the dog smiled.

In a night of dark wonder and extraordinary events, this was a moment no less important but of a different character from all that had come before it.

Her heart raced. Her thoughts quickened, too, perhaps eventually toward a breathtaking revelation, but first through blind alleys of dead-end speculation.

She put down the rose. She reached to the dog. He licked her hand.

"What?" Neil said, for he knew her almost well enough to read her thoughts.

In her mind, she walked the waters of a lucid pool and stepped ash.o.r.e with an insight nearly clairvoyant in character: "The dog is going to lead us to any children who need help."

Neil regarded the dog, which turned its limpid eyes upon him as though its purpose could be read by anyone as easily as Molly had read it.

"Don't ask me how he knows what we need to do," Molly said. "But he knows, all right. I don't understand how he'll find them, but he will. By scent, by instinct, by some greater gift."

Neil stared at the dog. He stared at Molly.

"I know it sounds crazy," she said.

He looked at the long empty frame from which the bar mirror, peopled by the living dead, had shattered and fallen.

"Then it's the dog," he said. "After all, what do we have to lose?"

30.

NAMED VIRGIL, ACCORDING TO THE LICENSE tag on his collar, the shepherd was young and trim, bright-eyed, affectionate, and eager to begin the work.

Engraved under the license number were the name and address of his owner: James Weck, on Pine Street.

A few inquiries among those in the tavern quickly established that Weck was not present. Apparently, Virgil had been loose in the night and had found his way here, alone.

Russell Tewkes, swigging deeply from a large mug of beer, having chosen to tie his fate to that of his best customers, the inebriates, mocked those who were getting ready to depart on missions to stock and fortify the bank building. When he realized that Neil and Molly were preparing to leave as well, he said, "Can't you face reality? There's nowhere to hide from this."

"We're not hiding," Molly a.s.sured him. Constrained by a sudden rush of paranoia, she decided not to tell him what their intentions were.

"When they get up here in the mountains, the aliens-they'll gut you like fish and leave you flopping in the street," Tewkes said.

Disturbed less by the tavernkeeper's prediction than by his demeanor, neither Molly nor Neil replied.

Tewkes had not couched his words as a warning but had spoken in an ugly, taunting tone of voice. He almost seemed to hope that this horrendous fate would befall them, that the idea of Neil and Molly disemboweled and writhing in agony perversely pleased him.

His merry-monk face had lost its humor, and monk monk could be used to describe it now only in reference to an angry ape, for it had a primitive cast, sly and stupidly calculating. His features were blotchy and red with barely throttled emotion. The Friar Tuck fringe of hair bristled in chaotic spikes, as if in a rage he had tried and failed to pull it out. could be used to describe it now only in reference to an angry ape, for it had a primitive cast, sly and stupidly calculating. His features were blotchy and red with barely throttled emotion. The Friar Tuck fringe of hair bristled in chaotic spikes, as if in a rage he had tried and failed to pull it out.

As they began to turn away from Tewkes, he lurched one step closer, slopping beer from his mug, and said, "You go out there, you better be careful of your tender parts. The red-eyed scavengers are creeping."

More Eliot from this most unlikely quoter of verse: The red-eyed scavengers are creeping.... The red-eyed scavengers are creeping....

"Again," Neil said, for though he didn't share Molly's extensive knowledge of the poet, he recognized the incongruity of those words spoken by this individual.

When Molly turned to Tewkes again, she saw in his wrenched red face and in his feverish eyes-far hotter than reflected candlelight could explain-mockery, contempt, and hatred. The arteries in his temples swelled and throbbed. His nostrils flared. His clenched jaws worked back and forth as though in his rage he were grinding his teeth into powder.

She couldn't understand how such bitter emotion could have been seeded and made to flourish in the previously pleasant tavern owner from one hour to the next. from one hour to the next. More to the point, why should this enmity be focused with such intensity on her, when she hardly knew Russell Tewkes and had never done a thing to anger or indeed even annoy him? More to the point, why should this enmity be focused with such intensity on her, when she hardly knew Russell Tewkes and had never done a thing to anger or indeed even annoy him?

Raising his mug, Tewkes swilled a mouthful of beer, held it briefly in his bloated cheeks, then spat it on the floor at her feet.

Neil started to move toward Tewkes, but Molly restrained him with a touch. Virgil growled, and she silenced him merely by the whispering of his name.

If Russell Tewkes was still to any degree the man he had once been, then beyond doubt, he was something else as well. Parasite or spotted fungus, or some other corruption, had found its way into his mind and heart.

The atmosphere inside the tavern had turned. She could not smell the change or taste it as she would have tasted airborne soot, could not see it, either, but she could feel it: an insistent abrasiveness. A darkness settled through the room, as well, not one related to the power failure, not one that any number of candles could relieve, but one akin to the dark matter of the universe, which physicists are unable to see but which they know exists by virtue of its ominous gravity.

She wanted to get out of here. Quickly.

Five of the children were with Deputy Tucker Madison's group, the fighters who intended to make a fortress of the bank. They would be leaving in moments.

The sixth, a girl of nine, had joined her parents among the fence-sitters. She nervously twisted her glossy blond hair between thumb and forefinger, and her lovely sapphire eyes were haunted by all the mangled ghosts that she had seen in the mirror.

She said her name was Ca.s.sie. She tried to smile when Molly complimented her on her hair, but the smile faltered.

Ca.s.sie's parents, especially her mother, reacted angrily to Molly's suggestion that the tavern was not safe and that they should accompany the others to the bank.

"What the h.e.l.l do you know?" the mother demanded. "You don't know any more than we do. We're staying here until we know more, until we learn more. It's dry here, we've got candles. We've been safe here. Until the situation clarifies, there's no reason to move, it's crazy crazy to move." to move."

"Clarify the situation for yourself," Molly advised. "Go to the men's rest room. Inside the janitorial closet. Take a look at what's growing there."

"What're you talking about?" In spite of her question, the woman had no desire to listen. Clearly, Ca.s.sie's mother was frightened by the possibility that Molly might in fact have information that would force her to make a reasoned choice. "I'm not going in the men's room. What's wrong with you? Get away from us!"

Molly wanted to grab Ca.s.sie, take her with them by force, but that would lead to violence and delay, and would further terrify the girl.

As Russell Tewkes bl.u.s.tered toward them to take up the argument, Neil said, "Molly, let's get out of here."

Of the eight dogs in addition to Virgil, five were about to leave with the fighters. The other three gathered around Ca.s.sie. Two mutts and a golden retriever.

Molly read each of those three solemn gazes, and felt an uncanny connection with the animals, experienced a communication beyond any that could have been fas.h.i.+oned from words. She knew that they would guard the girl, would if necessary die to protect her.

Just as Render seemed to be Render but also someone else, just as Derek and Tewkes looked like themselves but acted like someone new, so the dogs at a glance appeared to be merely dogs but were something more. Unlike the murderer, the professor, and the tavern owner, however, the dogs were not agents of despair; quite the opposite.

With growing wonder that rivaled fear for possession of her heart, Molly touched each of the animals, smoothing the fur on their heads, and each in turn nuzzled her hand.

"Gentle hearts," she told them, "and courageous."

"What's going on here?" Russell Tewkes inquired, arriving in a reek of beer breath and sweat.

"We're leaving," Molly said, and turned away from him.

She and Neil had almost reached the front door when the rain stopped as abruptly as if a spigot had been shut off.

31.

SPENT CATARACTS OF WATER DRAINED OFF streets and out of gutters. New cataracts, of the blinding type, frustrated the eye and deceived the mind.

The town had nearly vanished in fog. Thick curdled ma.s.ses of mist slid down from the higher ridges in a soft avalanche and also rose off the swollen lake below.

For a moment, Molly held her breath for fear these clouds would prove poisonous. But then she breathed, and lived.

Along the street, houses and other structures formed a geometry more suggested than seen. The calligraphy of trees, deciduous and evergreen, full of cursives and flourishes, was continuously erased only to be half revealed again by the lazily roiling mist.

To Molly, the sudden silence, following the long roar of the rain, had all the drama of a roof-rattling thunderclap. Stepping out of the tavern with Virgil, closely followed by Neil, she seemed to have gone deaf, a perception abetted by the m.u.f.fling effect of the dense fog.

More than the cessation of the rain, more than the murk or the silence, the arrival of dawn surprised her. A glance at her watch-which functioned when out from under the oppressive influence of the mysterious leviathan-confirmed that daybreak should have arrived.

The descending light was deep purple, less like a brightening sunrise than like a fading dusk. This glow imparted to the fog a purplish tint with ribbony veins of gold.

In ordinary times, these royal colors would have been a majestic beginning to the day. In the current circ.u.mstances, however, the weird light and the cloaking mist augured chaos and violence.