He was totally caught up in the thought of this anachronistic threat to himself, and his eyes gleamed with the relish of it.
Without raising his eyes from the contemplation of his glass, Hawkin placed a gentle question into the room.
"What do you think of human sacrifice, Mr. Tyler?"
Kate felt the hairs on her arms rise and her head snapped around, but Tyler had not yet realized that the old hound was no longer drowsing.
"Human sacrifice—any sacrifice, for that matter—is a means of feeling in control of one's fate by giving the gods what they want before they can take it. By offering them the best, the purest, the newest—" The words strangled in his throat as he saw what he had been led to say. His eyes flew to Hawkin, who looked back at him with the patient air of an old hunter waiting for his prey to panic, watching neither in triumph nor in glee, but certain of the outcome. Tyler's face drained bloodless above the dark fringe of his beard, his knuckles showed white around the glass he held. The room's only movement was the slow dip and rise of the whiskey in Hawkin's glass as he swirled it around and around and around, waiting.
"I… You don't… You can't think…" Kate thought the man would not look much worse if one of his jeweled daggers had been pushed into his belly.
"Yes?" coaxed Hawkin.
"You can't think I had anything to do with it?" He spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"Can't I?"
"You can't be serious."
"No?"
"Why would I do something like that?"
"Why would anyone, Mr. Tyler? You've just given me what could be construed as a motive, have you not? You would be physically capable of it, would you not? This is your land, and you know the comings and goings of the people here better than anyone, do you not? So can you tell me, Mr. Tyler, why I should not consider the possibility that you, as you say, had 'something to do with it'?"
Tyler stared at Hawkin, searching his face for anything other than the polite curiosity with its hint of steel that it now presented. He looked to Kate, found no help there, and lurched about to face his fire. A minute passed, then two, while the two of them sat and watched his back and the movement of muscles along his jaw.
Suddenly his arm shot out and the glass exploded into the fire with a billow of blue flames. His voice began low and the words bitten off in rage.
"Why did he have to come here with his filth? This is my land. My land! Bringing his sickness here and defiling us like this. I'll never be able to go up the Road without seeing this last child, never go up to the top without thinking of the first one, the smell—" He broke off, one hand gripping the mantelpiece. They waited.
Steps came in the hall, a tap at the door. A flash of anger crossed Hawkin's face, and after a moment Tyler turned, his color high but his anger gone, looking both annoyed and relieved at the interruption.
"Yes?"
"John?" The door opened and the tall, gentle-faced woman with corn-silk braids wrapped about her head who had brought Kate lunch looked in. "I'm sorry to break in like this, but Jenny Cadena's going into labor. Her water broke, so she'll go too fast to get her home. What room do you want her in?"
"But she isn't due yet, is she?"
"Only two weeks early."
"How about the green room?"
"That bed's too soft. I thought either the quilt room or Alice's room."
"The quilt room is better; there's nobody downstairs at that end. Strip the bed first, though, would you? Did you call the midwife?"
"She'll be here in an hour, and Terry's with her now. Sorry to bother you."
"S'okay, hon, I'll poke my head in when we're finished here and see how you're doing. It'll be nice to have another baby born in the house—it's been a long time."
She smiled affectionately at him and nodded vaguely to Hawkin and Kate, and the door closed.
"Shouldn't you get her to the hospital?" asked Hawkin.
"Oh no, she'll be fine. This is her fourth, and she's never had any problems. Quite a few of the women come down here to give birth. The midwives don't have to go up the Road, and there's the insurance of the phone and the highway if something goes wrong. Never has so far, touch wood," and he flicked a fingernail lightly against the mantel, "but it goes easier when they know help is available." He was calm now, and met Hawkin's eyes steadily. The interruption had firmly restored him to his position of mastery, and Hawkin reluctantly accepted that nothing would be gained by pressing on that day. Still, his main goal had been achieved; he'd have to settle for that. He started again on a different tack.
"Can you tell me who is not down here today?"
"Offhand I can name a half a dozen. Old Peterson, of course. He comes out of the hills once a year at Christmas, to visit his mother in Santa Barbara, and stays until the end of January. Never other than that."
"His full name?" asked Kate, pen poised.
"Something like Bernie. I'd have to look it up, to tell you the truth."
"That would be helpful. Who else?"
"Vaun Adams. Tommy would've told her, but she's probably busy painting. Ben Riddle is in San Francisco for a few days. I think Tony Dodson is off on a job somewhere, probably be back tonight or tomorrow. Susanna Canani is in Florida with her kids. Hari Bensen I haven't seen, or his lady Ursula." He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "There might be one or two others. If I think of them I'll let you know."
"Do you keep close records of the residents?" Kate asked. He laughed.
"Are you kidding? Half of the kids here don't have birth certificates, and a few of the adults. A lot of them make a point of having no bank account, social security number, driver's license, voter's registration card—not all of them, by any means, but there's a handful of residents who are greater purists—fanatics, if you prefer—than I can afford to be."
"Strikes me you've laid yourself right open for some not very nice people to come in."
"I don't know that keeping track of people's past is any insurance against that. We don't let just anyone in, you see. It's the one place where everyone over the age of twelve has an equal say, whether or not to allow a specific individual in after a four-month trial period. Three-fourths of them have to approve a residency application, or the person goes. I can veto someone, but I can't override their negative. So far it's worked fine. In fact, one time we voted out a couple, and a few weeks later I found out that they'd been arrested for some knifing that had happened the year before in Arizona. There was something wrong with them, and after four months we knew it."
"Don't you have problems with the county and the tax man and all?" asked Kate.
"I pay two full-time lawyers to keep my affairs sorted out. I tell them what I want to do, they tell me how to do it."
"Their names, please," asked Kate, and added them to the growing list.
Hawkin scowled at his glass for a moment.
"It remains to be seen if your method of weeding out the twisted ones has been one hundred percent effective, Mr. Tyler. Tell me, why do you think the bodies were brought here to your Road? Who do you think it is, this person who has 'brought his filth here'?"
"I wish to God I knew. It feels… I feel like someone is doing this to me personally. I know that's ridiculous, and I would certainly never say such a thing to the parents of those little girls, but it is how I feel. Like someone's got it in for me, laying dead children on my doorstep, and yes I'm aware of how absurd and egocentric it is, but I can't help it. And no, I can't think of anyone who would want to do that to me. God knows I've thought about it."