“So there is something else out there with a hoof like that? With both of them like that?”
“Right. I’m not sure what, but something. Another shadow like Wilton, but further gone.”
Vance frowned and tapped at his temples. “So was Wilton a traitor or not? Did she shoot the tree on purpose? Did she get Brigman killed?”
“I don’t know. Couldn’t be sure, so I tossed her out. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise you would have killed her,” finished Vance.
“I don’t know. I’m sure we would have to have a group vote for that. A trial or something.”
Vance nodded. “I guess you did the right thing. We can’t trust her, but we really don’t know how much of a danger she is. But sending her out there at night. Isn’t that almost like killing her?”
“Maybe, but she’s got a chance, this way.”
When I went back inside, I found that most of the others avoided my gaze. It was as if, by discovering Wilton’s hoof, I’d somehow made it happen. No one had wanted to see her go.
Only Holly Nelson came to seek me out. Her dark serious eyes latched onto mine. I saw that in her hand she had a hunting knife she’d picked up somewhere, a move up from the screwdriver. I’d never seen her without a weapon in her hand since that day when the flying things had caught us.
“Gannon,” she said, “you did the right thing. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.”
I thanked her and headed to bed for another night. When I opened up the room, I did it as quietly as I could, just in case Monika was already asleep. I blinked in the gloom and realized she wasn’t there. I felt a familiar pain in the pit of my stomach. All of a sudden, it hit me. I’d probably blown it with her. She’d had a very strange look on her face when I’d banished the Doctor. She probably thought I was a fool, and perhaps she was right. Vance was really going to laugh at me. I’d been sleeping in the same room with the last cute girl in town and had gotten nothing but some tender kisses and light touches. Every time I’d reached for more, she had stopped me by putting her hand over mine, firmly. I sank down to sit on my cot and sighed.
I almost got up and went looking for her, but stopped myself. If I found her with Vance or someone else, there was going to be a scene, and we hadn’t made any commitments to each other yet. We’d only just met, really. She was a free woman who could do as she pleased. At least, so far she was. I had dark possessive thoughts and told myself that if she had left, then she wasn’t worth the trouble of hunting down.
I found a bottle of wine I’d been saving for a night like this one. I uncorked it, and had drained about half of it when the door quietly opened. It was Monika. She had on a long dark coat. She smiled and I returned it. I liked her smiles, they were rare, and weren’t wide toothy grins like the American girls I’d known. They were different and sweet, those shy smiles.
I must have had a look of comic surprise on my face, because she laughed softly, and stepped forward to touch my shoulders. She read the situation perfectly.
“You thought I left you?” she asked.
I nodded.
She touched my nose as one might a child and shook her head. “No, not yet,” she said, smiling again. After a second I realized she was joking and grabbed her and pulled her down to sit on my lap. She laughed again.
She didn’t have much on under that coat, I soon learned. I didn’t get everything a man might want that night, but she was soft and warm and I liked what I did get very much.
Twenty-Two
That night I sweated and dreamt that Monika and Vance changed into wet tentacled monsters but with their natural heads. I cut them apart while the Captain watched and gave me dispassionate pointers. Then I found my own tentacles, and I cut them away too…
I awakened, sucking air like a drowning man. My stomach was a knot and my heart was pounding. Monika murmured and I had to slide my arm out from under her neck delicately. It was tingling and half-asleep. I shook blood into it in the dark and pulled my boots on.
I stumbled out into the hall, strapping on my saber and checking my.45; the clip was full. I left the safety on. I was sure it was nothing but a dream, but these days I was determined not to ignore my instincts. In the hallway, I was surprised to see that dawn was a blue glow in the sky outside. Soon, the sun would rise out of the trees to the east. Sleeping in rooms with the windows blocked out made one lose track of nature’s alarm clocks. I found the Captain alone in the lobby.
He nodded appreciatively when he saw me. “Long day, hot night with that little girl of yours and you’re still up before dawn. You make a sharp troop, Gannon.”
I frowned at him, wondering what he knew about Monika. He ignored me, so I rubbed my eyes and groped for coffee.
“Good time to make plans,” said the Captain, “the cold morning air clears the head.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Nick Hackler brought word about the Preacher.”
I perked up. “What word?”
“Some kind of trouble. He said there were gunshots up there yesterday, after the storm. He heard them. No one else is up on that hill.”
I sat back, thinking hard. “We have to go check it out. One way or the other.”
“One way or the other,” he agreed while having a quiet morning cigarette. The drifting smoke made me want to cough, but I put up with it in silence. I wondered how many years it had been since a cigarette had been quietly smoked in that lobby. Probably thirty, maybe forty or more. Now, no one was likely to come and demand he put it out. Times had changed.
I got out the map that the Preacher had given me. I pondered it. There was a shift line on it, a blue one, across our path to his cabin. I showed it to the Captain. He showed me his teeth in return.
“I’m beginning to like your aggressive style,” he said to me. “More balls than brains and it’s gotten you quite a ways. What do you want to do, sneak around it or bull our way through?”
I looked at him and at the map. “There are some fair-sized caves up there, really close to that spot. I used to play in them as a kid.”
He nodded, looking at it. Monroe county was famous for its limestone caves. In Kentucky, to the south, every farmer seemed to have a cave on his property and that he tried to charge tourists a few bucks to see. Every year in elementary school they gave the kids long-winded speeches about staying out of those dangerous caves. Of course, a country boy like me who had grown up in these hills had often ignored the warnings.
“What if we could find a way through the caves that went under that line?” I speculated.
“Let me guess, you want to try out the cave idea.”
“We can’t just leave him up there. I might as well try out his theory. Maybe he’s dead up there, maybe not. Either way I want to do the last thing he asked me to.”
He nodded and leaned back. “Okay, I’m in, but if you turn into a fanged aardvark, I’m going to blow you away. Fair warning?”
“Fair enough, and the same goes for you.”
He grinned again darkly and nodded. I could tell by his grin he didn’t think I would be able to take him under any circumstances.
Vance didn’t think it was such a good idea when I bounced it off him. “Let me get this straight, you know where the change happens, so you are going to seek out this fantastic danger to your very soul. You’ll go there, down in a cave for crying out loud, with a psycho to cover your back.”
“The idea is to see if the cave prevents the effect. I think I can sense the effect now. I think I’ll know if I’m close to the danger point.”
“Gannon, did you ever read any stories about supernatural monsters and stuff? Did you skip that part of youth? Did you ever notice that they like caves? That monsters tend to hang out there in stories? When did you ever read a story where the cave was a good, happy place?”