Metal Angel (33 page)

He looked up, then got out of the car and came with her, leaning against the doorpost of the old-fashioned phone booth. Once she had pressed the buttons for Information she put her arm around him.

“Persimmon, West Virginia,” she told the nasal-voiced operator. “Robert McCardle.” Her heart pounded. She repeated the number over and over to herself until she had dialed it and fed the phone more than two dollars in quarters.

It rang ten times, and she let it keep ringing.

“Hello?” A woman's faintly Southern-accented voice.

“Hello—” She almost called her Wyoma, as if she knew her. “Hello, Mrs. McCardle? I know I got you up, I'm sorry, but it's sort of an emergency.”

“Who's this?” The voice was not unpleasant, even though it was four in the morning, just businesslike.

“Angie Bradley. I'm a friend of Texas'. Is he there, please?” God, please make him be there.

“Thanks for sendin' him back to me, Angie.” There was a wry warmth in the woman's voice now. “Men, they just don't understand, but we love 'em anyways, don't we? Bob's sleepin' for a change, and I hate to waken him. Can you tell me what it's about? Somethin' go wrong with Volos?”

Because she had not really expected Wyoma to understand or be her friend, Angie found herself hugging Ennis hard, and smiling, yet near tears.

“He's hurt,” she said. “Volos is. He's in the hospital.”

“How bad hurt?”

“I don't know. I'm not with him. I don't even know if he's dead or alive.” Her voice quivered. “I'm in kind of a jam.”

Wyoma said in matter-of-fact tones, “You need some help? You and the little guys need a place to stay?”

“I sure do and we sure do. Thank you.”

“Nothin' to it. C'mon down, honey child.”

Volos awoke to find himself lying belly-down in a dim room and hurting more than he would have believed possible, body and soul. There were needles in his arm, taped to him, and tubes dripping fluids into him. The place smelled like the one where Mikey had been put in a white bed. Also he had faint, pain-skewed memories of the Emergency Room and the people exclaiming over him. All of which meant he was alive and in a hospital, not in hell after all, which should have made him feel better but did not. He felt wretched.

Far too much alone. Where was everyone? He would have welcomed even Mercedes's petulant face at his side … no, perhaps not Mercedes.
God scar you forever, Mercy, what did I do to make you turn against me so?

And what had Mercedes done with Angela? Sweet wounded Jesus, where was she, what might be happening to her?

I
love her
.

It seemed fitting yet very strange, that he truly loved her, that he, Volos, heaven's dunce, had really wanted to save her. But all such salvation was doomed for mortals, he could see that now. Because even if he had died for her, what was to keep life from lashing at her like Chayyliel's scourge of fire after he was gone? And without making a cage of his arms, without making himself a prison for her, how could he keep her safe in his embrace forever?

Could even the fathergod do that?

Maybe not. Maybe nobody can save the ones they love
.

He closed his eyes. Like firelight, images flickered within his mind: Caged pigeons. A parakeet nesting amid yellow flowers, waiting for frost. A hummingbird on the wing, gone within an eyeblink..

Gone.

Wings.

Gone, cut off. But how could that be? Perhaps Mercedes had been feeding him strange acids again, perhaps he had dreamed it all, the ropes, the fire, the madman with the ax, the ghastly pain—

No. The pain was still with him. Opening his eyes, trying to move, he nearly fainted from it. All he could do was slide a hand to feel the thick bandaging around his torso, then lay it down again. Where feathers should have been, behind him, there was nothing but hard cotton bedsheet.

But, without his wings—once he had told himself they were a bad joke, a nuisance, but now he sensed that they had been far more and everything had changed. What was he, who was he, now that they were gone? All he knew about himself was that he was a fool and he hurt.

Christ, he hurt.

Pain, partly of heart and partly of body, made him moan. A bosomy nurse sailed in, white ship of mercy in the night.

“Angie,” he panted at her.

“I'm Bernice, Mr. Volos.”

The leadhead. “No. I mean—Angie—is she all right?”

The nurse was checking his chart, his tubes, his pulse. “You don't worry about other people, now,” she said in automatic tones. “You just think about getting yourself well.”

He hated her, but persevered. “She's married to—the one who brought me here—” He remembered how it had felt, the shock of hope through his pinions when a goodhearted man had taken hold of his wing. He would never feel that surge again, but he remembered Ennis, and he badly wanted someone to tell him that Ennis had gotten to Angie in time.

“He dumped you here and took off again.” The nurse's voice was crisp, disapproving. “I'll get a doctor to okay some more painkiller for you.” She sailed out.

In a few minutes there were stupid questions and soothing inanities and another needle in his arm. With surprising quickness the world fuzzed over. Volos slept.

When he awoke, it was daylight, and this time he was not alone. There was someone sitting by his side. Someone with a crease-top Stetson and a string tie, with a kind face and worried eyes.

“Texas!”

“Kid, I—whoa!”

Despite pain, despite needles and tubes, Volos lunged up, reaching for him, nearly falling. At the sight of that familiar weathered face a hot reaction started in his heart and, having no wings to run to, swelled and heaved his chest. The upheaval hurt, yet he could not stop it, and he heard himself making uncouth sounds. He could not see properly, the pressure had reached his eyes and water was stinging its way through them somehow, running down his cheekbones into Texas' shirt. Volos felt all made of agitated water, wave after wave of salt tide. It was a good thing Texas had jumped up to support him, was sitting on the bed with his arms around him, holding him together.

So this is weeping
.

Volos did not like it. The spasms made his wounds hurt clear to his heart and got in the way of things he urgently needed to say.

“They—took—Angie,” he managed between sobs. Texas would go find Angie if Ennis had not.

“Shhh. She got away, she's fine. She and the boys are staying at my place.” Texas was holding him very softly, careful of the bandages, stroking his hair. The weeping was perhaps almost worth it for the sake of the holding, the softness.

“You—sure?”

“Sure, I'm sure. Woke up this morning and there they all were. Don't try to talk, son.”

But there was another thing he had to tell Texas, at once. “Texas—what I said to you, what I did—I am sorry—”

“Hush. Please.”

Waters had begun to calm somewhat. Volos left the warm solidness of Texas's chest and shoulder a moment and sat up to look at his friend, because he had heard an odd distortion in Texas's voice.

“You are—weeping also.”

Texas half smiled, despite the wetness around his eyes. “No kidding.”

“But—I do not want that for you, Texas. This crying—it hurts.” Volos felt dizzy with pain, and would have toppled if Texas had not still been holding him by the shoulders.

“I bet it does.” Texas's voice wavered. “After what they did to you, it's gotta hurt like hell. Volos, you say you're sorry, I am so goddamn sorry I could spit. I never should have left you like that.”

“It is all right. You are back home?”

“Yes.”

“Has Wyoma stopped being angry with you?”

“Yes. It—it's going good, Volos. Better than it's ever been.”

“Then do not be sorry. They can have my wings.”

“Oh, Christ, kid …” The words broke like a heart.

Volos meant what he had said. He wanted to repeat it, with elaboration, but sensed that it would be merciful of him to be silent. Also, his voice sounded thick, and he felt stuff running down his face from his nostrils as well as from his eyes. Letting Texas support him, he explored it with his fingers.

“This crying—it clogs my nose.”

Texas reached out one long arm for a Kleenex.

“It makes me feel sodden all over.”

Still fumbling for the tissue box, Texas stiffened and gawked at him. “You mean—ain't you never done this before, buddy?”

“I—did not—imagine myself …”

“Kid, you can't do love without doing this.”

“I—know that now.”

Volos felt tears swelling in him again, because love was a two-edged thing. So be it; so let hurting happen. Love was like a sword, but also like a feather from an angel's wing.

He closed his eyes, let the tears run quietly, felt Texas dabbing at his nose with a wad of tissue. “Blow,” Texas ordered.

“Pardon?”

“Snort air through your nose.”

Volos complied. “Ick,” Texas said. Volos sat still and let him take care of the cleanup. Then felt himself being gathered into a hug again. Gentle, Texas was being very gentle with him, as if handling a newborn. It was odd that a mortal could feel at the same moment so miserable and so much loved … The tall man with the kind eyes was cradling his head with one large warm hand. Speaking softly into his hair.

“Welcome to the human race, son,” Texas said.

chapter eighteen

After he got Volos settled down to sleep again, after sitting with the kid awhile to be sure he was resting quietly, Texas left the hospital and headed toward Jenkins. He drove his old Chevy pickup hard, thinking of what he wanted to do, which was to find the Reverend Daniel Ephraim Crawshaw and acquaint the man with intense pain. Being a cop—or rather, an ex-cop, for his attempts to get his old job back had failed—being a man who had seen a few things, Texas had long since concluded that in some cases swift justice had to supersede the slow workings of the law. And he was likely never to believe this more strongly than he did for Volos's sake.

The people of his West Virginia hills had a name for such swift justice: blood right, meaning among other things that vengeance belonged to kin. But Volos was a lonely stranger in the world, with no hometown, no family, and no better friend than Texas knew himself to be, even though as a friend he had screwed up pretty bad. Time to make up for that now. In Volos's case Texas figured the blood right was his.

That young fellow Ennis had wanted to help. Or maybe he had wanted to come back to Jenkins for reasons of his own, to face things that scared him. The guy had good instincts if that was the case. But there was Angie to be thought of, and for her sake Texas had made Ennis see the sense of laying low for the time being. Ennis had agreed to stay with his wife and kids.

Hands curled tight around the knobby old steering wheel, Texas sighed. It sure looked to him as if Ennis and Angie were getting back together. They had a lot of rough spots to smooth out, of course, but if they loved each other they'd do it, just like he and Wyoma were determined to do it. And it was a damn good thing for the Bradleys, he could see that in the way Gabe and Mikey hung on to their daddy and the way Angie looked at him. Good for all of them, but it was going to be goddamn hard on Volos. After what the kid had been through already, which was demonstrably enough to make a grown man cry.

Jenkins ahead.

It was a miserable place, Texas decided as he drove in and looked around. He guessed a lot of people would have said the same about good ol' Persimmon, West Virginia, with its sagging porches and scraggly lawns, but at least Persimmon had life. Marigolds in white-painted tire planters. Coon hounds doing ballet stands by fire hydrants. Men loafing, teenagers in patched-together Mustangs scattering gravel, bare-ass kids running around, women yelling at all of them. But this place, with its prim concrete porches, its shuttered windows, it looked like nothing was allowed to really live there. It seemed all buttoned up like a preacher's fly.

Angie had given him the address, and Jenkins was a small enough place so that he found the house without much trouble. He parked in front. A sort of a washed-out skinny woman answered the door. Yes, she was Mrs. Crawshaw. No, her husband wasn't home. She didn't seem to care who Texas was. Answered his questions with no more expression on her than a fish.

“When d'you think he's gonna get back?”

“Never.”

Make that a baked fish, gutted and laid out on a plate. Texas recognized those dead eyes now, that flattened face. This woman had been through too much. Something had made her cold-out crazy.

He gentled his voice, tried approaching from a different angle. “Where d'you suppose he is right now?”

The question appeared to cause the woman some sort of difficulty. Disorientation, even. Her head wobbled for a moment, and then she started in a squeaky, unaccustomed way to laugh. “What do you want with him?” she asked Texas.

He saw no reason to lie to her. There is a basic honesty due to people who are drowning. Also, there was no telling how she would react to anything. Whatever he said to her, she could go either way. Quietly he laid it on the line: “I want to beat the tar out of him.”

She did not so much as blink, but remarked, “Oh, is that what made him go up like that? Tar?”

One of the things being a cop had taught Texas was when to listen. Standing there on her clean-swept concrete doorstep, he just looked at her, and she kept talking.

“Well, I guess it might have been tar. Nice and black. But does tar go up in smoke if you make it hot enough?”

Cautiously Texas said, “It might.”

“Well, that must have been it, then. Because they tell me when Ennis knocked him into the fire he turned all black first, and then he was like a tar cloud, and then he was gone. All black, and gone. And stunk horrible, they said.”