“Nope.”
“You will. I was one of Rockhouse’s family. I was with him since the night wind first blew us here. But he turned sour. He’s a mean, bitter fella, closing in on bein’ evil. I’d hate to see you get involved with him.”
“Then I’ll join up with the other one. Mandalay, you said his name was?”
“Her name. But it ain’t that easy. You should have someone to guide you in this, but this is the best I can do. I hope you remember all this when you wake up.”
“I usually do.”
“I know.” She smiled. “Now, enough of this grim business. Let’s play a little.”
He was about to say he didn’t have his guitar, when he noticed it propped beside him. Smiling, he took it out and followed his dead grandmother as she counted them into “Wicked Polly.”
In the little frame house that counted as the church’s parsonage, Craig Chess tossed in the big bed. Normally he slept peacefully, but tonight nothing was peaceful. His mind seethed with things that seemed to come from some other subconscious, presenting him with images that he’d never even considered.
The visions were intense, brutal, and terrifying. Soldiers dying in the desert, limbs and organs blown apart. Something wet and meaty lay beside a fallen gun, coated with sand and already attracting flies. A man held the stump of his right hand with his left, while blood oozed between his fingers. Another man stood with his arms wrapped around his abdomen to keep inside what seemed determined to fall out.
Craig felt the concussion of each explosion, his teeth rattling despite his attempts to clench them. The scent of burning fuel and meat filled the air. He looked wildly around, uncertain which way to run, unable to tell where the attack originated.
Suddenly a hand took his. He turned and saw a soldier, a young woman, looking at him in sympathy. “It’s quieter this way,” she said, and he heard her clearly despite the roaring chaos. He followed her around the end of a shredded troop carrier, and suddenly they stood beside the old catfish pond on his uncle’s farm. As in most dreams, this transition was seamless and felt entirely reasonable.
“That’s better,” the woman said. She took off her helmet and shook her head. She had short black hair. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay,” Craig said. He noticed that there was a huge chunk of flesh and bone missing from the woman’s side; the ends of ribs poked through the tattered edges of her uniform. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m dead,” she said easily. “But that’s not the important thing. You need to know about Bronwyn.”
“Bronwyn Hyatt?”
The woman nodded. “She’s going to face the biggest challenge of her life soon.”
“Worse than what happened in Iraq?”
“That was no challenge. She was a soldier, she was trained, and it was life or death. Decisions come easy that way. She survived, which was her purpose. What’s next will be much harder, and much more important.”
“Okay. What do I need to do?”
The woman tossed a stone across the water. It skipped several times. “To help her, you’ll have to question everything you believe, and find a way to resolve it. Contradictions will appear where you never saw them, and it’ll be easy to lose faith. But you can’t.”
“Never have,” he assured her.
“It’s never mattered this much. Bronwyn will need your help and, more important, your love.”
“My love?”
The woman nodded. “It may seem far-fetched now. It won’t before long.”
“Okay,” he said again. Truthfully, in the dream it didn’t seem that far-fetched. He’d thought about her more than any other woman he’d ever known.
The woman stepped close. He could see the veins in her eyes, exploded with the impact of whatever killed her. “Be strong. Be honest. Be fearless.”
“No one is really fearless.”
“Sure they are. When they know they’re right. Be right.”
“That attitude tends to get preachers into trouble.”
“You are more than your job. The preacher doesn’t have to be right. Craig does.”
He was about to say okay again when he opened his eyes and saw his bedroom ceiling in the gray dawn light.
He dressed quickly and went outside, across the still-damp lawn and up the concrete steps to the church’s front door. The sanctuary first thing in the morning was the quietest, most relaxing place he knew, one of the few places he felt he could hear the whisper of God’s voice. He reached for the handle, then realized he’d forgotten the key. He sat on the porch rail and watched the sky lighten in the east, pondering the dream.
24
Bronwyn opened her eyes and smiled.
She stretched on the bed, feeling the sheets slide against her body. There was no pain now, just stiffness from muscles not yet restored to full strength. She sat up with a yawn and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She went to the dresser and dug out an overlarge T-shirt. She pulled it on and suddenly realized she had not even thought of grabbing her cane.
She looked down at her leg. It was still considerably thinner than its mate, but that pasty hospital color was gone. The pink scars remained, but they no longer itched. She wiggled her toes and felt no numbness or tingling.
“You,” she said to her leg, “are getting shaved today. Yes, you are.”
She looked at herself in the mirror over her dresser. Something had changed in her face as well; the hard set of her eyes, the way her jaw cut a sharp line when she clenched her teeth, seemed to be gone. She looked younger than when she’d joined the army, she thought suddenly. Her sleep-tousled hair only added to the effect.
She pulled on some shorts and went into the bathroom. Later, following her shower, she sat on her bed combing her wet hair when there was a soft knock at the door. “Y’all decent?” a male voice said.
It was not her father or either of her brothers, so she quickly pulled on cut-offs and a tank top. “No, but now I’m dressed. Come on in.”
Terry-Joe Gitterman opened the door. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and looked handsome as the sunrise. He smiled when he saw her. “You look like a million bucks.”
“That’s a lot of deer,” she said, and winked. She put her comb aside and sat back on the bed, deliberately crossing her newly shorn bad leg over her good. “What do you think? Not bad for two weeks, is it?”
“Not bad at all,” he said appreciatively, and propped his mandolin case against the wall. “Hope you don’t mind me stopping by unannounced like this. Your daddy said it was okay to come on back.”
“Heck, yeah. What brings you by this early?”
He tapped his mandolin case. “I figure you’re doing pretty well with your playing now, so I thought we might jam out a little. If you feel up to it. I just want to hear you cut loose.”
Bronwyn’s eyes playfully narrowed. “Did Bliss Overbay send you to check on me?”
“She might’ve suggested it. But I wasn’t hard to convince. What do you say?”
She grinned. “I say skin that song iron.”
In a few moments she’d retrieved Magda and held the instrument ready against her chest. Terry-Joe sat on her desk chair, his own instrument across his lap. His foot eagerly tapped the floor. “What do you feel like playing today?”
“Hm. You know ‘The White Cockade’?”
He nodded. They decided on a key, and he said, “You lead us off.”
Bronwyn tapped her finger on the mandolin’s body four times, then began to play.
After the first verse, Terry-Joe said, “Now sing.”
“Oh, I can’t really sing,” she said with a shy smile.
“Sure you can.”