VII. THE OUTLAW 6 страница

Then, the car. A large SUV, dark and gleaming: it slowed, then stopped, not so much drawing to the curb as alighting, like a great black bird. Its tinted windows fashioned squares of perfect reflection, doubling the world. With a soft mechanical whir, the passenger window drew down.

“Amy, hello.”

Wolgast was sitting at the wheel, dressed in a navy suit and dark tie. He was smoothly shaved, his hair swept back from his forehead, shining faintly, as if it were still damp from the shower. “You’re right on time.” Smiling, he leaned across to open the door. “Why don’t you get in?”

Amy placed her sign on the ground and climbed onto the passenger seat. The air inside the car was cool, with a leathery smell.

“It’s wonderful to see you,” Wolgast said. “Don’t forget to buckle up, sweetheart.”

Her amazement was such that she could barely form words. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

They drove clear of the underpass, into summer sunshine. Around them the shops and houses and cars flowed past, a world of busy humanity. The car bounced agreeably under them on its cushioning springs.

“How far is it?”

Wolgast shrugged vaguely. “Not very. Just up the road a bit.” He glanced sidelong. “I have to say, you’re looking very well, Amy. So grown up.”

“What… is this place?”

“Well, Texas.” He made a face of distaste. “All of this is Houston, Texas.” A memory took hold of his face. “Lila got so sick of hearing about it. ‘Brad, it’s just a state like any other,’ she always said.”

“But how are we here?”

“The how, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s an answer to that. As for the why …” He glanced at her again. “I’m one of his, you understand.”

“Carter’s.”

Wolgast nodded.

“Are you in the ship, too?”

“The ship? No.”

“Where, then?”

He didn’t respond right away. “I think it’s best if he explains it to you.” His eyes shifted quickly to Amy’s face again. “You really do look wonderful, Amy. The way I always imagined. I know he’ll be happy to see you.”

They had moved into a neighborhood of large houses, lush trees, and wide, well-kept lawns. Wolgast pulled into the driveway of a white-brick colonial and stopped the car.

“Here we are. I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“Oh, I’m afraid I’m just the messenger this time. Not even. More like the deliveryman. Just go around back.”

“But I don’t want to go without you.”

“It’s all right, sweetheart, he won’t bite you.” He took her hand and gently squeezed. “Go on now, he’s waiting. I’ll see you again soon. Everything will be all right, I promise.”

Amy exited the car. Locusts were buzzing in the trees, a sound that somehow deepened the stillness. The air was heavy with moisture and smelled of freshly mown grass. Amy turned to glance at Wolgast, but the car had disappeared. This place, she understood, was different in that way; things could simply disappear.

She made her way up the driveway, through a trellised gate wreathed with flowering vines, into the backyard. Carter was sitting at a table on the patio, wearing jeans and a dirty T-shirt and heavy, unlaced boots. He was rubbing his neck and hair with a towel; his mower was parked nearby, exuding a faint aroma of gasoline. At Amy’s approach he looked up, smiling.

“Well, there you are.” He gestured toward the two glasses of liquid on the table. “I just got done here—come and sit a spell. I thought you might like some tea.” The smile broadened to a wide, white grin. “Ain’t nothing as good as a glass of tea on a hot June day.”

Amy took the chair across from him. He had a small, smooth face and gentle eyes and close-cropped hair, like a cap of dark wool. His cocoa-colored skin was speckled with black spots; flecks of grass were on his shirt and arms. Adjacent to the patio, the pool was a presence of cool, inviting blueness, the water gently lapping at its tiled edges. It was only then that Amy realized it was the same house where she and Greer had spent the night.

“This place,” said Amy. She angled her face toward the buzzing trees. Rich sunlight warmed her skin. “It’s so beautiful.”

“It rightly is, Miss Amy.”

“But we’re still inside the ship, aren’t we?”

“In a manner,” Carter replied evenly. “In a manner.”

They sat in silence, sipping the cold tea. Beads of moisture dribbled down the sides of the glasses. Things were coming clearer now.

“I think I know why I’m here,” said Amy.

“I’m expecting you do.”

The air had suddenly chilled; Amy shivered, drawing her arms around herself. Dry leaves, like bits of brown paper, were blowing across the patio; the light had lost its color.

“I been thinking on you, Miss Amy. All the while. Me and Wolgast, we had us a talk. A good talk, like you and me is having now.”

Whatever Carter was going to tell her, she suddenly didn’t want it. It was the leaves that made her think it: she was afraid.

“He said he’s yours. That he belongs to you.”

Carter nodded in his mild way. “Man says he owes me, and I reckon that’s right, but I set store by him, too. He’s the one give me the time to figure it. An ocean of time, Anthony, that’s what he said. I took me some there at the start, never said I didn’t. Was the hunger made me. But I never could set with it. Wolgast was the one give me the chance to make things right.”

“He’s the one who sealed you in the ship, isn’t he?”

“Yes’m. Asked him to do it when the hunger got too bad. He would have sealed his own self up too, except for you. Go look after your girl, I said. That man, he loves you with his whole heart.”

Amy became aware that something was in the pool. A dark shape slowly rising, parsing the surface of the water to take its place among the floating autumn leaves.

“She always there.” Carter gave his head a slow, sorrowful shake. “That’s the pity of it. Every day I cut the lawn. Every day she rise.”

He fell quiet for a moment, his kind face adrift in grief. Then he gathered himself and faced her squarely again. “I know it ain’t fair to you, the things you got to face. Wolgast know it, too. But this here’s our chance. Never come another.”

Her doubt became certainty then, like a seed breaking open inside her. She had felt it for days, weeks, months. The voice of Zero, summoning her. Amy, go to them. Go to them, our sister in blood. I have known you, felt you. You are the omega to my alpha, the one to watch and keep them.

“Please,” she said, her voice trembling. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

“The asking ain’t mine to do. Telling, neither. This here’s just about what is. ” Carter hitched up in his chair, removed a handkerchief from his back pocket, and held it out to her. “You go on and cry if you want to, Miss Amy. You owed that at least, I reckon. Cried me a river myself.”

She did; she wept. In the orphanage she had tasted life. With Caleb, and the sisters, and Peter, and all the others. She had become a part of something, a family. She had made a home in the world. Now it would be gone.

“They’ll kill us both.”

“I reckon they’ll try. I known it from the start.” He leaned over the table and took her hand. “Ain’t right, I know it, but this here is ours to carry. Our one chance. Ain’t never come another.”

There was no way to refuse; fate had found her. The light was fading, the leaves were blowing down. In the pool, the woman’s body continued on its slow passage, floating and turning in the eternal current.

“Tell me what to do.”

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14