“When he wakes up,” Mark said, “I want mine to be the first face he sees.”
Lynn started to speak, stopped, and finally settled on “Don’t take chances that you don’t need to.”
“Right.”
“There will be other times to get him. Other places. Better places.”
Mark nodded. Lynn tugged Sabrina forward, and they were walking down the slope in the twilight when Mark and his uncle began to climb toward the last patch of daylight on a mountain summit drowning in darkness.
The sun was completely gone when they reached the top. They watched the headlights of the stolen truck Lynn was driving crawl over the rock-riddled path toward the road, toward safety.
Mark had no flashlight, but he’d found the body of the man Larry had shot and taken his rifle, an AR-15 with a flashlight mounted on the barrel. Mark panned the area inside the fence with light before he entered. He saw no movement. The gate stood ajar, and beyond it were a cabin and an outhouse and a bizarre collection of utility poles. Shadows everywhere. Everything still and silent.
“Stay here and cover me,” he said, and he took Larry’s silence as assent and stepped through the fence.
“Garland,” he called. “Where are you? I’ve come a long way. It’s time to talk.”
Silence.
He advanced through the strange compound and was closing on the cabin when a voice came from behind him.
“Markus.”
He whipped around, rifle elevated, finger on the trigger, and saw that he was aiming the gun at his mother.
She sat on the ground with her back against the fence, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that was too large for her, making her look small inside of it. There was blood on her hand, and two streaks of it on her face, one beneath each eye, like war paint. Her eyes were wet and shimmering as she squinted into the glare.
Mark said, “Where is Garland Webb?”
“Inside. Unconscious.”
“Take me to him.”
“Markus…”
“Take me to him.”
She sighed. “He’s at the bottom of the steps.”
Mark turned from her and advanced toward the cabin, and there he saw Garland Webb collapsed at the base of the wooden stairs. Webb’s eyes were only partially closed, but he didn’t react to the light. He didn’t move at all.
Just shoot him, Mark thought, just put a line of bullets in him from head to toe, and then get the hell out of here.
But…no. It couldn’t go like that. Not without Webb being awake and understanding who had come for him.
And why.
Mark knelt and removed the paracord that was still in his back pocket, the remnants of his work on Salvador Cantu, and used it to tie Garland Webb’s hands around the bottom banister. Before he was done he heard footsteps and his uncle said, “Just me, stand down.”
Mark returned to his work securing Webb. Satisfied, he picked up the rifle and stepped back. He was still looking at Webb when he heard Larry whisper, “Good Lord, Violet, what happened to you?”
Mark turned and saw Larry kneeling beside her.
“Markus, she’s bleeding out.”
Only when Mark went closer did he see the dark wound in his mother’s stomach. She’d covered it with her hands before, but now Larry had pulled them aside and the damage was evident. Larry unbuttoned his shirt and folded it and pressed it gently to her belly, murmuring reassuringly. Her eyes were fixed on Mark.
“Markus,” she said, her voice filled with both wonder and sorrow. “Look at you.”
Mark couldn’t find any words.
She said, “I’m so sorry about Lauren. I didn’t know.” Her voice quavered and tears shone in her eyes. “They never told me. I didn’t know.”
“Violet, stop talking,” Larry said. “You’re going to need to be still.”
The blood had already soaked through his shirt. She tried to push him aside.
“I need to speak to my son.”
Larry rocked back on his heels and looked down at his bloody hands, then up at Mark. His eyes said all Mark needed to know about the wound.
“I’m so sorry,” his mother said. “I know she was lovely. In the-”
“Stop.”
“-letters she was always so kind, so generous, and-”
Mark said “Stop” again before her words registered. Then: “What did you just say? In what letters?”
“I wrote to her. I knew you wouldn’t answer. But there were things I needed to tell her. Things you wouldn’t be willing to hear.”
Mark knelt beside her, close enough that she reached for him but not quite close enough that she could make contact.
“She wrote the words rise the dark in a notebook. Did you tell her that?”
“Of course. I needed to warn you that the darkness was coming. Eli wouldn’t have allowed it, but…you’re my son. I had to warn my son. And tell her the things you don’t know. About your gifts.”
“Oh Lord…”
“You must have your father’s gifts, because they were in the blood, passed from generation to generation. That’s why I tried to encourage your contact with the spiritual world, took you to places like Medicine Wheel, because I knew-”
“Stop, please.”
“-that you had rare gifts. I didn’t know how to call them forward, what it would take. He wouldn’t explain that…he didn’t like to talk about it. He could sense death coming, though, he could and his father could and his grandfather and grandfathers even beyond him. I know that smoke is part of it. And voices. There will be smoke and there will be voices. Premonitions. That’s in you, so I hope you can-”
“Stop!”
Larry lifted a warning hand. “For God’s sake, son, she’s dying! She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Her eyes flicked to Larry and back to Mark. “I do,” she said. “I know this. It is one of the few things I know for sure. I’ve always struggled with the truth.”
Mark gave a harsh bark of a laugh at that.
“Markus,” she said, “the things I did, things I told people, they weren’t all lies. You need to-” She choked and fresh blood poured from her stomach. Larry swore and reapplied pressure. She closed her hands over his. “It wasn’t all a lie. You’re special. Once I had you, I had traces of it. Glimpses. But not like what’s in you.”
“Rest,” Larry said. “Please, just rest.” His voice was ragged.
She ignored him, straining to speak, blood in her mouth now. “I had to write to Lauren because I wanted you to know…about your father. You’d fled from me before I was willing to share it. His name was Wagner. Isaac Wagner. He was from Maine. A town called Camden.”
She was struggling so hard to get the words out that Mark felt obligated to respond, even if this was just more of her madness.
“Camden,” he said. “Okay. Thank you.”
She seemed pleased to hear him say it, but when she tried to speak again, no words came. Just blood. Her eyes dulled, and when Larry gripped her shoulder she showed no reaction. She was still looking at Mark but couldn’t seem to see him.
He didn’t intend to reach for her. It was like the shot he’d made down in the gulch, an involuntary action, recognized only after it was done. But when he closed his hand around hers, her eyes brightened.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Always. You were the reason for all of it. I had to find ways to provide for you.”
There were so many terrible memories associated with his mother, but the terrible memory that came for him then wasn’t one of her. It was of Lauren, his last moments with her, his last words. Don’t embarrass me with this shit.
Mark said, “I love you too.”
Did you hear that, Lauren? You deserved those words. Deserved so much more than them, deserved so much more than me. You were the light. The only one I had. I’m sorry. But I’m learning. I will be a better man because of you. I promise.
When he squeezed his mother’s hand, she squeezed back, but her eyes were dull again.