the tops of skulls. No matter how many you stacked in a pile every year, there were always more coming, and he used to imagine they might have been troops that had once frozen to death there, only they weren’t aware of it, had believed they’d only just awakened from a long night’s sleep in their earthen cribs.
Shortly after his release from prison, a rumor had spread that he’d been killed by an old enemy. Over time even the lawmen began to accept it. In five years there hadn’t been a single confirmed sighting of the one-eyed, longhaired con that some newspapers once called the mad monk. Still, Cyclops had known better than to get too comfortable. A cop only had to suspect you were up to no good to take you in and feed you through his national computer system, a giant brain Cyclops hated the most in the world because it didn’t bleed as a man did.
The second thing in the world Cyclops hated most was the pursuit of money-it drained him, made him feel like a dog rather than a man. For many years it stole from his proud, fiery inner core and forced it into prostitution, sent it drifting through dark alleyways until he found his way out and on top. But even having the hard work done by others didn’t matter much. You still had the worries, the heavy tax on a fertile imagination that should have been reserved for higher pursuits.
It wasn’t necessarily the money itself that he had a problem with. Cyclops never harbored any illusions that he could live without it. He’d chosen to live frugally, as years of riding the rails had taught him. He’d learned early on that no one was immune to robbery, and he’d quietly taken his money and converted it into silver and gold, buried Coleman coolers full of it across the country in a pattern he’d once drawn on a map during one of his frequent visions. But there was more than enough now in his “constellation of hoards” that Cyclops would never have to worry for money again, and yet he could no longer stop himself from wanting to accumulate more. What was once a need to make a living had somehow transformed into an obsession and he loathed himself for it.
Chapter 13
Under normal circumstances his people rarely asked for his help, but the situation in Traitor Bay was bigger than they could handle and they feared the rot had spread much too deep. Word came to him while he dozed in a boxcar near Tucson by a boy with large terrified eyes. The boy leaned his head inside the darkness and his voice trembled. Children were fast and light. They made good messengers, could out run the railroad cops who came at you with their clubs. Cyclops cursed the child anyway. He’d been approaching the end of an important dream, anticipating a vital teaching. Cyclops had a lot of dreams of this nature, visions that would forewarn him with signs. He’d started having them at the age of ten, had seen his father drown in the icy river days before leaving for St. Petersburg on a business trip. It was reported as an accident after it happened, but later his mother told him it wasn’t true, that the other driver who’d caused his father’s death had been an assassin. Cyclops father, an intelligence officer in the KGB, had a lot of enemies.
In this boxcar dream he was back at the moldy plankboard house of his childhood, watching his mother in her dusty black dress with the lace trim. She’d reminded him of a crow standing in front of the roaring fireplace, her glassy eyes lifted toward something above his head. When he’d turned to look up, he heard the boy’s voice, and when he sat up in the semidarkness, his face was struck by a square of yellow light beaming from a rusted rivet hole in the ceiling of the boxcar. His hair was kept parted above his good eye, so that it appeared to be staring out from the center of his forehead. When the boy saw him, he screamed and ran off, and when Cyclops thought he heard the boy’s father calling, he smiled and knew the boy would one day be fine. Not right away, of course, for a strong impression was like a sliver lodged into the flesh. And not unlike the body, the boy’s mind would need time to build up enough puss before it could expel it.
He was making far better progress now walking down the highway, listening to the surf hiss against the cliffs far below, feeling its tendrils of mist. If he had the time he would have liked to have climbed down to the water and rinse his face in it. It had been years since he’d ventured this far off the edge of the railway network, his iron web. The ocean brought back memories of when he first saw America from the deck of a merchant ship, drenched in icy spray, drinking vodka to stay warm and singing with the men his mother had begged him not to leave with. What a different person he’d been back then, still more a boy than a man, wide-eyed and dream-led and utterly oblivious to what was in store for him.
He was hit by a sudden wave of nausea that made him stumble to the side of the highway. A tide of hot bile rose up to the roof of his mouth and caused him to choke. He hadn’t felt this alive for months, with the elk he’d already eaten deep inside him and its timeless wild soul struggling against the coiling snake of his guts. This is turning out to be a better trip than I imagined, he thought, wiping the acid from his mouth.
Having been distracted by his digestive Chernobyl, he’d failed to notice the headlights coming from behind and he knew it was too late to try and hide in the undergrowth. When the Volkswagen slowed, he saw the face of the elk-worshipping woman inside. She pulled onto a shoulder several yards ahead and waited for him to approach, but he crossed the road to give her a wide berth.
“Are you okay mister?” she asked.
Pretending he hadn’t heard her, Cyclops kept moving through the silver light coming from her car. He briefly turned his head so that she could get a glimpse of his face. Usually that’s all it took to get people to leave him alone and let him be on his way. He was shocked to see her standing outside of her car watching, her hands thrust into the deep pockets of her jacket.
“I’m only asking because of that accident up the road. Thought maybe you were in it. Are you hurt?”
Cyclops raised his hand and waved. He didn’t slow his pace. He heard the woman get into her car and turn around. Was she brave or was she soft and too trusting? He wondered. Maybe he should have helped her join her friend the elk in the afterlife. An image of her running naked through the forest made him laugh.
Chapter 14
A terrible feeling had come over Ann, that she’d missed something important back at the accident scene. It was true that once she’d come upon the dead elk she’d been too absorbed to think of anything else.
She had no idea of what to do except to turn around and keep driving. If Mitch and the sheriff had gone to Buoy City, then no one had seen them. She’d stopped in at the town’s only filling station and minimart, which was doing a brisk business in spite of the storm, had in fact sold out most of its cold beer. The boy working the counter had recognized her, didn’t charge her for the cup of coffee she took to go. He was good looking she’d thought at the time, talked to her as if they’d known each other. Certain that she had never seen him before in her life, she’d played along to spare them both any embarrassment.
The sky had started to clear again and the moon, now bone white and granular, drifted over the iron water like a discarded shell. Few people were out driving yet, probably too drunk by now to even attempt it. A couple of semi trucks she’d recognized from the 101 parking lot passed her, going fast to make up for lost time.
The road flares were all burned out and the powder they’d left behind had been washed away by the rain. Ann missed the spot the first time and had to go several miles ahead before finding a safe place to turn around. That’s when she’d seen the strange man walking down the highway, dressed in a long overcoat and black combat boots. Something had compelled her to stop-the crazy notion that maybe he’d seen something that could help her. When she’d gotten out of her car to talk to him she’d held firmly to the.38 in her jacket pocket, a birthday gift from her grandfather.
Living on the coast, Ann had encountered hundreds drifter types making their journeys up and down the highway. Many didn’t stay put for long out of fear. Some claimed to be in search of a truth or a place to call home while others told her they were motivated by sheer wanderlust. Ann wondered how many found what they were looking for, if the ones who had been at it for years would ever be able to live a normal existence. The man she’d seen tonight fell into the late stage category-too crazy and too filthy to ever have any success at hitch hiking although it didn’t stop them from trying. What made this one stand out in Ann’s mind was his purposeful stride and erect head. He reminded her of an old story, a tale about a king in disguise, wandering to the ends of his kingdom to find an important truth. When he’d turned to her it was as if the single eye shining between the curtains of his collarbone-length hair was as large and knowing as an elk’s. Ann knew then she should have been scared-that even
