Stone Angel

CHAPTER 26

Charles’s shoes had only hit on every third step in his descent, and now he ran the length of the hallway to Augusta’s back room. He was lifting the antique telephone receiver when he saw the note lying on the table: “I’m going to the sheriff’s office to check on Riker. Stay where you are!”

Her last phrase was so heavily underscored, Mallory was virtually shouting off the page.

He was examining the broken telephone cord when Augusta hurried past him on her way to a chest of drawers in the far corner.

“There’s a pack of men coming over the bridge.” She was ripping through the top drawer, and articles of intimate apparel were flying. “We got to leave, and fast.” She pulled out a very small handgun and slammed the drawer. She held the weapon out to him. “It’s only a single-shot forty-five, but better than nothing.” She stuffed it into the pocket of her dress and ran from the room. The cat seemed to grasp the sense of it before Charles did, and now the creature was following its mistress.

Charles quit the room and ran down the hall, racing the yellow cat. He closed the outer door on the animal, and it began to growl, not frightened at all, but genuinely pissed off.

“Let the cat out,” commanded Augusta.

He opened the door and the cat sped past him. Charles looked up at Augusta, astride the white horse and without a saddle. She danced the stallion closer to the courting staircase. “They’ll be at the cemetery by now. Get on or you’re a dead man.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to – ”

“I know a lynch mob when I see one, Charles. Want to live? Get on!”

Charles stepped on the second stair and swung one long leg over the rear of the horse to mount behind Augusta.

“Hold on tight as you can!” she yelled. They galloped across the wide grassy lawn.

He had not been on horseback since he was a child, and then he had sat in a proper saddle. Now he felt that he would fall in every passing second. The horse’s massive muscles were elongating and contracting as they flew over the long grass, heading for the great earthen dike, pitch-black against the sky.

He held Augusta by the waist and leaned into her neck to yell, “We’re going along the base of the levee, right? Around the tip of Upland Bayou?”

“Can’t,” she called back to him, heading straight for the great looming barrier. “Too many bad patches and wet ones,” she yelled into the wind. “The horse would lose his legs in the dark before we even got to Henry’s place.”

“When will Henry be back?”

“Not till late. Wrap your legs tight and dig in with your heels. We’re going the way the horse knows best. He’s been this route a thousand times.”

And now they were moving up the embankment. Skillfully she led the horse into a slanted approach to the road atop the levee. Charles held on tight, knees and heels to the horse’s hide, arms wrapped around Augusta, and certain that he would slide off as the horse faltered on the steep slope of Bermuda grass. But the animal never lost its forward momentum, finding purchase in the worn areas of dirt scumbling out beneath his hooves in a brown spray as he climbed up to the stars. Now the horse was running full-out across the levee road, along the top of the earth where it met the sky.

Charles looked back to the mansion. A small army of ants with pale white heads and hands emerged from the oak alley and converged on Trebec House.

The stilt-walker’s baggy pants obscured the glass-domed coffin as he tottered back and forth alongside the truck’s flat bed. Every one of the hundred mourners was dressed for a blowout party of free booze. A few men in the crowd had disguised their eyes with bright costume masks. Some wore feathers and capes. Gaudy colors bobbed and weaved as the liquor flowed and spilled, and cheap jewelry flashed in the beams of spotlights on tall metal stands around the truck. But Malcolm’s suit of lights outglittered all of them. He had forsaken his throne to straddle the coffin, riding it like a nightmare, waving one hand in the air, hailing his subjects and laughing.

Only the Dixieland band was silent. The musicians stood by the float, exchanging glances, shifting on their feet and wanting to leave now. Clark Kinkaid, the trumpet player, put up his horn and nodded to the others. They began to back away from the truck. One of the Laurie brothers stepped in the path of the man with the sax. Old Ray was stern as any chain gang boss, and carrying a rifle.

The musicians thought better of leaving. A pretty woman danced by with a full bottle for the band to pass around. The drinking had been well under way for an hour, but the funeral had yet to begin.

Clark cradled his trumpet in one arm and looked toward the pile of gas-soaked rags wound on sticks. They should have been lit long ago to signal the start of the torchlight parade down the main street of Owltown. But the crematorium truck had arrived only to be sent away empty. Apparently, Malcolm had plans to expand the evening’s entertainment.

Well, this was not part of the deal.

Clark had arranged another gig for his band, figuring this would be a done thing before eight. So when was the show gonna get on the road, and who was that old guy in the center of the loose ring of drunks? Men and women closed ranks to tighten the circle and block his view. Clark stepped onto the truck’s bumper and hoisted himself up on the fender for a better look.

Every pair of eyes was trained on Malcolm Laurie as the man swung one sequined leg over the coffin, stood up and held out both his hands for silence. “This man, Riker.” Malcolm had real anger in his voice as he pointed to the man in the gray suit. “This staggering drunk, this subhuman garbage, was found in the cemetery, naked from his waist to his ankles – standing over the idiot’s dead body.”

Obscenities and moans rose up all around the truck. “Look at this man, so drunk he can hardly stand. His victim did not die easy. The boy was raped and beaten to death. Poor helpless idiot. It’s like the rape of a child.”

“You ought to know, Malcolm,” yelled Riker, not the least bit inebriated. “Your brother raped Ira Wooley when the kid was only six years old. Does it run in the family? Is that where your expertise comes from?”

“Shut him up!”

A man stepped forward to put a fist in Riker’s face and did just that. Riker fell to his knees. His lip was split open and blood ran into his mouth. Malcolm was livid. Something had gone wrong, and Clark wondered if it had anything to do with Riker’s sobriety.

Malcolm waved his fist to the sky. “Three witnesses found him – ”

“That’s why Cass Shelley had to die!” Riker stood up. “She had the hospital reports. Babe raped Jimmy Simms, too. That’s why he ran away when he was only twelve years old.”

“Shut his lying mouth!”

But no one stepped forward this time, except Jimmy’s father, Dan Simms, all rapt attention. Malcolm turned to his brother Ray, who nodded back his understanding and moved into the crowd to do the job right as Riker was saying, “She couldn’t figure out how a six-year-old could contract a junkie hepatitis. Then she ran the test for syphilis. Remember Babe’s syphilis party. He – ”

Ray Laurie had both his hands on Riker’s windpipe. Dan Simms was a larger man and had no trouble clearing Ray’s fat fingers from Riker’s neck. Simms looked down at the shorter Ray Laurie and backed him off with only a rising fist. Simms turned to Malcolm. “This ain’t the story you gave me, Mal. Now I want to hear this man out.”

Malcolm strutted to the edge of the truck bed, shaking his head in pity, and pity was in his voice. “Dan, how can you listen to a man who was caught with his pants around his ankles assaulting that poor idiot?”

“But you said he was drunk too, and he don’t seem all that tight to me,” said Dan Simms. He turned to Riker. “Go on, mister.”

“Cass had all the blood work,” said Riker. “She matched up the stages of syphilis. Babe’s was the oldest, then Jimmy’s, then Ira’s. That’s what she was trying to tell you when she crashed that meeting. But Malcolm drove her off and covered it up.”

“Lies, all lies!” said Malcolm.

“And what kind of lie did you tell Ira’s father?” Riker was louder now. “I know he threw the first rock. You put it in his hand, didn’t you?”

Ray Laurie was standing behind Jimmy Simms’s father, saying, “Now Dan, you know that’s a lie. Malcolm was gone before the first stone flew.”

Simms turned to look up at Malcolm. “Well, how did he know Ira’s father threw – ”

It was done quickly with the butt end of a rifle, and Simms fell. A second blow sent Riker to his knees again.

Malcolm strutted across the truck bed passing in front of the coffin. “He would tell any lie. He would spew any filth. All we know for certain is that Riker raped and killed that poor idiot. Maybe he was afraid we wouldn’t turn him over to the sheriff. Maybe he thought we would be so outraged by what he had done, that we would pluck out his eyes and flay his skin and stone him to death. And I could not blame any man or woman for doing this.” He pointed to the torches. “Take up these torches and shine the light on him. See this monster for what he is.”

Riker staggered to his feet again. Malcolm pointed one finger at the musicians. “Play,” he commanded them.

They stared at one another. “Play loud!” Malcolm screamed, and then Ray was there with his rifle leveled on the bandleader. Clark jumped down from the truck fender and lifted his horn with the rest of the band, and they began to play.

“Louder!” yelled Malcolm.

The band played, Riker screamed out in pain. Malcolm Laurie jumped down from the truck and walked away across the fairgrounds, heading for the lower bayou.

All the lights of Owltown went out, followed by the strobes positioned around the truck. This was Charles’s only clue that Mallory was not yet in the fray. He held fast to Augusta. She was not frail. Where he encircled her waist, the body was firm and well muscled. Her hair was flowing over him like a soft river, and to his left was the mighty Mississippi and the long sloping fall to night-black water. He could feel every pounding, jarring meeting of hoof and earth. They had cleared Upland Bayou and Dayborn township. The torch flames from Owltown were still match size from this distance.

Augusta screamed, “We’re going down now.”

The horse was descending, flying down from the road, his massive heart pumping fast. The animal stumbled badly, and they were falling. Charles’s stomach was rising, and his body was flooded with the chill of adrenaline. He watched the ground coming up to meet him as the horse went into a roll. Charles held Augusta closer, raised his knee and braced his foot on the horse’s back to push off with one leg. Then he and Augusta were flying through the air, clear of the horse, which now lay screaming in the dirt, rolling the rest of the way.

Charles hit the ground on his back with Augusta on top of him. She was first to her feet. The horse was struggling to rise, and falling back in a fresh agony of screams with every attempt. The moon was brilliant. He could see the broken white bone shining through the skin and the blood of the horse’s leg.

Charles moved toward Augusta and put his hand under her arm. She waved him off, scowling at him and pulling the derringer from her pocket. “Look out for your own damn self. Get on. I have to do this.”

As he was turning toward the far edge of the fairgrounds, Augusta knelt by the horse, one hand on the muzzle, the barrel of the derringer behind an ear. Charles was on the run when he heard the gunshot. The screams ended. His steps faltered, and then he ran on toward the firelight of Owltown.

The first person he saw was Malcolm, walking away from the mob while the band played on.

Charles ran into the crowd. He had no difficulty forcing his way through the crush of smaller people. He found Riker at the center of the mob, lying on the ground amid a scattering of rocks. He covered Riker with his own body and absorbed the blow of a stone to his back, then another hit one leg. He did have the sense to tuck in his head. He had learned a great deal from turtles.

The mob parted long enough for Charles to see Augusta standing by the truck’s rear wheel. By the light of a passing torch, he watched her feed a rag into the gas tank. The cloth darkened, soaking with gasoline. She looked up and caught the eye of the trumpet player. She struck a match and showed it to him. The musician dropped his jaw and nudged the sax man standing next to him, and then all five musicians fell back from the truck. Augusta touched her match to the rag and calmly lit a black cheroot as the flame traveled along the rag and into the tank.

Ray Laurie stood on the bed of the truck, overseeing the mob, while Augusta walked steadily into the enfolding darkness, and a Dixieland band ran across the deserted fairgrounds toward the parking lot.

The explosion rocked the ground. Charles felt the impact of the waves of energy exploding outward in a wide spray of flying bits of metal and flame, leaving a vacuum at the core of the blast. A roar of fire rushed back inward in a ball, then plumed up in a mushroom cloud of bright orange heat. Ray Laurie’s body shot straight out from the truck, and spikes of flame licked him in flight to set his hair and clothes afire. The man stood up and screamed, as the horse had screamed. He ran into the crowd, and the people backed away from the human bonfire. Ray fell to earth and writhed at their feet. The crowd had grown deathly still. A wicked whiff hung in the air, and Charles was stunned to realize that burnt human flesh could initiate hunger.

So this was hell.

While the crowd was in thrall to the spectacle of Ray Laurie burning to death, Charles was on his knees, pulling one of Riker’s limp arms around his neck. He was rising to a stand with one arm circled around the man’s waist, and now he dragged Riker’s unconscious body along with him. The toes of Riker’s shoes made ruts in the dirt behind them, and their progress was slow.

Ray Laurie had ceased to scream, to flail, even to twitch. The crowd turned its attention back on Charles and his heavy burden. He could feel their eyes on him, the heat of the flames at his back, and the tension growing with the sound of slow shuffles as a hundred pairs of feet were set into motion.

Though there was nothing spoken, no signal, they moved in unison, walking toward him, fanning out to form the next stoning ring. One by one, a head bowed down, low to the earth, and a hand shot out to snatch up a rock.

Charles braced himself for the next blow. He was preparing to lower Riker to the ground, to lie across his friend’s body and give him cover.

“Look there!” A woman standing at the fringe of the crowd was pointing to the other end of Owltown’s main road flanked by darkened shabby storefronts.

Only one streetlamp was lit. Standing in the pool of light was a lone figure wearing boots and a horseman’s duster. The face was shaded by the brim of a black hat.