Coyote Horizon (23 page)

The weeks went by, the days gradually becoming warmer as Ambriel faded into Muriel. As the monastery’s interior was being completed, work continued on the windows and roof. Gyros from Midland and New Florida began to arrive, carrying pallets of mountain-briar shingles and crated plates of glass. As before, none of the building materials came from Medsylvania itself; the monks had stipulated that the surrounding woodlands were to remain untouched. The very same day Hawk’s team was reassigned to work on the cupola, three electricians showed up to begin laying the interior wiring that would carry power through the building from the solar farm and wind turbine being erected nearby.

Hawk realized that it was only a matter of time before the monastery was finished. Indeed, a few nights later, Jerry stood up during dinner to announce that the new completion date would be Muriel 92, the last day of spring. Although the supervisor praised everyone for keeping ahead of schedule, Hawk couldn’t help but feel anxious. In only a month—perhaps even less—their work here would come to an end; when that happened, he and Melissa would have no choice but to leave. They would receive their final pay, then board a gyrobus and, along with the others, be transported back to Midland, never again to return to this place or even to have more than a vague idea of where it was located.

He couldn’t wait any longer. He had to act.

The following morning, he dropped a spoon in front of Melissa. She caught his eye and nodded: same time, same place. He went off to work as usual, yet even as he loaded shingles onto a wheelbarrow and pushed them over to the pulley rope that would hoist them up to the roof, his thoughts were on other matters. How could he get across the field to the monks’ settlement without being noticed? And once he got there, what would he tell them? It wasn’t them who he really wanted to see, but rather their leader, yet would Walking Star even listen to him, or would he simply dismiss Hawk as some sort of . . . ?

Something itched at his mind. At first, he thought it was only a low-level headache, perhaps brought on by a pulled muscle in his neck. But it became more persistent: not actually painful, but noticeable all the same. If he’d had to describe the sensation, Hawk might have said that it felt as if a skeeter had somehow entered his cerebral cortex.

He set down the wheelbarrow, carefully making sure that it wouldn’t tip over, then took off his hard hat. He’d just begun to rub the tendons at the back of his neck when it occurred to him that he was being watched. He didn’t know how he knew this, but nonetheless . . .

He looked around, and saw a monk only a few yards away. A tall figure, hood pulled up over his head to shade his face against the morning sun; he’d apparently come over to visit the construction site. By then, everyone had become accustomed to seeing the Order, even though no one but Jerry was allowed to speak to them. Indeed, the project supervisor stood beside this one, back turned toward Hawk as he pointed out something on his pad. Yet the monk was paying little attention to Jerry but instead stared past him at Hawk.

For a few moments, the two men silently regarded each other. Despite all reason, Hawk had the distinct feeling that the monk had somehow overheard his thoughts, just as clearly as if he’d been talking to himself. A cold chill crept down his spine; putting on his hat again, he hastily turned away. His hands trembled as he bent down to pick up the wheelbarrow; the moment he touched its handles, the cerebral itch stopped. He glanced back at the monk, only to see the figure suddenly walk away, leaving Jerry with a perplexed look on his face.

The incident haunted Hawk for the rest of the day. Distracted, his work became sloppy; twice he hit his own thumb with a hammer, causing him to yelp and drop the roofing nail he’d been trying to drive home, and at one point he discovered that the shingles he’d been placing beneath the cupola were misaligned with one another, forcing him to tear them up and start over again. Fortunately, no one made an issue of his mistakes—everyone on the crew had bad days—but Hawk knew that there was a reason for his lousy performance. So it came as a relief when, an hour before sunset, Jerry blew the evening whistle.

Hawk joined the others as they climbed down from the scaffolds. A quick trip to his quarters to drop off his hat, gloves, and tool belt, then he went over to the mess tent. He lingered over dinner, giving Melissa a chance to finish up in the kitchen; everyone else had finished eating and returned to their tents by the time he stood up from the bench and, under the cover of darkness, wandered over to the lumberyard.

He didn’t have to wait long for Melissa to show up. As always, they looked around to make sure they weren’t being observed before giving each other a quick hug and a kiss. Before he could speak, though, Melissa gently placed a finger across his lips.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered. “Just listen. I’ve got a message for you . . . from Walking Star.”

“From . . . ?” He stared at her in astonishment. “You’ve met him? How . . . I mean, when did you . . . ?”

“This afternoon, just after lunch. I’d gone out back to fetch some firewood when he came up to me. I didn’t know who he was . . . thought he was just another monk, even though they’ve come around the mess tent before . . . but then he told me who he was, and how he’d just seen you.”

Hawk felt his heart skip a beat. “There was someone at the site today, a monk, but I didn’t . . .”

“I know. He told me.” She moved closer, wrapping her arms around him, and he realized that she was shaking. “Hawk-Hawk, it was scary . . . I mean, really spooky. Like everything I was about to say, he knew it already.” She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “He stayed just long enough to give me a message to pass along to you.”

“What’s that?”

Melissa looked up at him again. “He told me to tell you that he knows who you are and why you’re here . . . and for you to come see him tonight. Alone.”

 

 

 

As luck would have it, the sky was overcast that night, the bearlight dim enough for Hawk to leave camp without being observed. Avoiding the tents and office shack, he quietly went to the fence separating the construction site from the field. It didn’t take long for him to reach the gate, and he’d just unlatched it and swung it open when a cloaked figure emerged from the darkness on the other side of the fence.

“Hawk Thompson.” It wasn’t a question so much as it was a statement; nor was there any pretense of addressing him as Henry Lewis. Hawk started to reply, but the monk had already turned away. “Please follow me. I’m to take you to Walking Star.”

A narrow dirt path led through the center of the field, with high grass rising on either side of it. The night was dark enough that, if it hadn’t been for the figure walking before him, Hawk probably would have lost his way. He was relieved when, once they were about thirty yards from the gate, the monk paused to light a battery-powered lamp. “You may want this,” he said softly, handing it to Hawk. “I can do without it, but you might be more comfortable if you can see where you’re going.”

“Thanks.” Hawk took the lamp from him. In its wan glow, he was able to make out the shadowed face within the hood: an older man, probably in his middle years, with a sparse beard outlining a thin-lipped mouth. “Who are you, anyway . . . I mean, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The monk said nothing for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to answer that question. “I’m called Swamper,” he replied before turning away. “Come. He’s waiting for you.”

Swamper? Odd for someone to be called by the name of one of Coyote’s native creatures. To be sure, Hawk’s parents had christened him after an Earth bird that he’d never seen except in pictures. But why would anyone want to be identified with a rodentlike animal that raided garbage . . . ?

Then Hawk got a better look at where he was, and forgot all about Swamper. Through the grass to his left, he saw a ball plant; nearly half his own height, it was larger than any he’d seen before. Behind it was another one, and past it, yet another. He glanced at the other side of the path, and froze in midstep. More ball plants to his right, each nearly as big as the others.

“Don’t worry.” Just ahead, Swamper had come to a halt; he didn’t turn around, but instead looked back at Hawk over his shoulder. “Pseudowasps are dormant at night. So long as you don’t disturb the plants . . .”

“Right. Sure.” Careful not to get too close to the edge of the path, Hawk hurried to catch up with him. “I don’t . . . y’know, why haven’t you . . . ?”

“Cleared them out? We have our reasons.” A low chuckle. “Besides, they’re great for scaring away pests.”

Like the people building your monastery,
Hawk thought, and for an instant it seemed as if Swamper was about to stop again to say something more. Yet he kept on walking, and Hawk decided that it might not be wise to ask any more questions.

They reached the end of the path; just past another fence lay the settlement. Now that they were closer, Hawk could see that the cabins were nothing more than faux-birch prefabs much like the office shack, obviously meant to serve as temporary shelter until the monastery was finished. If they were recent, though, he wondered where the Order had been living before the prefabs were airlifted in. Their windows glowed with the mellow luminescence of fish-oil lamps, yet their curtains had been drawn and there was no one outside. Indeed, the settlement was so quiet—no voices, no laughter, no human movement of any kind—that, if it weren’t for the lighted windows and the faint aroma of woodsmoke, he could have sworn that the place was deserted.

Swamper brought him to a cabin near the center of the settlement, stopping at the steps leading up to its side door. Hawk expected him to knock, but instead the monk stood quietly for a few seconds, as if waiting for their presence to be noticed. Then, even though Hawk hadn’t heard anything, Swamper walked up the steps and opened the door.

“Come on in,” he murmured. “He’s expecting you.”

Hawk followed him into the cabin. It had only one room, with a hemp blanket hanging from a ceiling rafter separating one side from the other. An oil lamp on a low table fashioned from a tree stump cast a dim radiance, and once Hawk’s eyes adjusted to the light, he saw someone sitting in a bamboo armchair beside the table.

“Welcome, Mr. Thompson,” he said. “I’m Walking Star . . . Joseph Walking Star Cassidy.” A pause. “You’ve come a long way to find me. I’d like to know why.”

Cassidy’s hood was pulled back, revealing black eyes that regarded Hawk with curiosity. Now that he knew the identity of the monk whom he’d seen earlier that day, Hawk suddenly found himself reluctant to speak; there was a sublime sense of power to the man that was intimidating. Yet Walking Star was right; Hawk had sacrificed much to be here, and there was even more at stake in this meeting.

“I . . . I thought you knew that already,” he replied. “That’s what you told Juliet . . . Melissa, I mean.” Something else occurred to him. “Come to think of it, how did you . . . ?”

“Discover your true names?” A sly smile. “The same way I discovered that you were looking for me . . . and I’m sorry, but that’s my secret. At least for the time being.”

Hawk was confused. “Then . . . if you know who we are, and that we’ve been looking for you, then you must also know the reason why.”

“Not exactly.” Walking Star shook his head. “Your names, yes. That you made your way here in order to find me, yes. The rest . . .”

He leaned forward a bit, peering closely at his visitor. “You’re in search of something, I believe. Answers . . .” Again, a slight pause. “No, more than that. Knowledge. You’ve discovered something, and you’re trying to find a way to make sense of it. And you believe that I can help you.”

Hawk wondered how he could possibly know these things. Were his motives so transparent, or was there something else going on? Before he could reply, Walking Star looked past him at Swamper. “Would you be so kind as to bring us some coffee? It’s a cold night, and I think Mr. Thompson . . . Hawk . . . could use a little refreshment.” Swamper left without a word, closing the door behind him, and Walking Star nodded toward another chair on the other side of the table. “Sit, please. You can begin by telling me how you and your companion learned about me.”

“Back in Liberty . . . we were there for a little while, trying to . . .” Hawk let out his breath as he sat down across from Walking Star. “Look, the whole thing is complicated.”

“I think I can guess most of it already.” Sitting back in his chair, Cassidy folded his hands together. “While you were in Liberty, you heard rumors about me and my people. A bunch of guys, led by some crazy Indian, who’d up and vanished into the wilderness in search of spiritual enlightenment.”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah.” Now that he was seated, Hawk found himself a little more at ease. “We asked around and finally learned that you’d gone north. So we caught a boat to New Boston, and once we got there, we found out that people were being hired for some sort of construction project on Medsylvania. I wasn’t sure until we got here, but when we were told that we were going to be building a monastery . . .”

“You knew that you’d come to the right place.” Walking Star sighed, looked away for a moment. “You’re not the first to track us down. We’ve taken precautions to guard our privacy, but I hadn’t realized just how effective word of mouth can be.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude.” Hawk hesitated. “I also heard that you were . . . well, a cult of sting addicts. The ball plants I saw . . .”

“Sting isn’t addictive, or at least not in the physiological sense. Yes, we used it for a time, as a means of . . . shall we say, unlocking the doors of the mind . . . but since then we found a more effective way to achieve that.” Walking Star looked back at him. “As for the notion that we’re a cult of some sort . . . no. In fact, we tell outsiders that we’re monks because that’s easier for them to understand. Safer for us, too.”