Black House

On the screen, Lily says the same thing to Woody. The two of them are about to step aboard the Execution Express, and heads will roll—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Dale looks at his friend, dazed.

“I know most of her lines,” Jack says, almost apologetically. “She was my mother, you see.”

Before Dale can answer (supposing any answer came to mind), Jack joins Beezer and Doc at the bar. He looks up at the Kingsland Ale clock next to the television: 11:40. It should be high noon—in situations like this, it’s always supposed to be high noon, isn’t it?

“Jack,” Beezer says, and gives him a nod. “How ya doin’, buddy?”

“Not too bad. You boys carrying?”

Doc lifts his vest, disclosing the butt of a pistol. “It’s a Colt 9. Beez has got one of the same. Good iron, all registered and proper.” He glances at Dale. “You along for the ride, are you?”

“It’s my town,” Dale says, “and the Fisherman just murdered my uncle. I don’t understand very much of what Jack’s been telling me, but I know that much. And if he says there’s a chance we can get Judy Marshall’s boy back, I think we’d better try it.” He glances at Jack. “I brought you a service revolver. One of the Ruger automatics. It’s out in the car.”

Jack nods absently. He doesn’t care much about the guns, because once they’re on the other side they’ll almost certainly change into something else. Spears, possibly javelins. Maybe even slingshots. It’s going to be the Execution Express, all right—the Sawyer Gang’s last ride—but he doubts if it’ll be much like the one in this old movie from the sixties. Although he’ll take the Ruger. There might be work for it on this side. One never knows, does one?

“Ready to saddle up?” Beezer asks Jack. His eyes are deep-socketed, haunted. Jack guesses the Beez didn’t get much sleep last night. He glances up at the clock again and decides—for no other reason than pure superstition—that he doesn’t want to start for the Black House just yet, after all. They’ll leave the Sand Bar when the hands on the Kingsland clock stand at straight-up noon, no sooner. The Gary Cooper witching hour.

“Almost,” he says. “Have you got the map, Beez?”

“I got it, but I also got an idea you don’t really need it, do you?”

“Maybe not,” Jack allows, “but I’ll take all the insurance I can get.”

Beezer nods. “I’m down with that. I sent my old lady back to her ma’s in Idaho. After what happened with poor old Mousie, I didn’t have to argue too hard. Never sent her back before, man. Not even the time we had our bad rumble with the Pagans. But I got a terrible feeling about this.” He hesitates, then comes right out with it. “Feel like none of us are coming back.”

Jack puts a hand on Beezer’s meaty forearm. “Not too late to back out. I won’t think any less of you.”

Beezer mulls it over, then shakes his head. “Amy comes to me in my dreams, sometimes. We talk. How am I gonna talk to her if I don’t stand up for her? No, man, I’m in.”

Jack looks at Doc.

“I’m with Beez,” Doc says. “Sometimes you just gotta stand up. Besides, after what happened to Mouse . . .” He shrugs. “God knows what we might have caught from him. Or fucking around out there at that house. Future might be short after that, no matter what.”

“How’d it turn out with Mouse?” Jack inquires.

Doc gives a short laugh. “Just like he said. Around three o’clock this morning, we just washed old Mousie down the tub drain. Nothing left but foam and hair.” He grimaces as if his stomach is trying to revolt, then quickly downs his glass of Coke.

“If we’re going to do something,” Dale blurts, “let’s just do it.”

Jack glances up at the clock. It’s 11:50 now. “Soon.”

“I’m not afraid of dying,” Beezer says abruptly. “I’m not even afraid of that devil dog. It can be hurt if you pour enough bullets into it, we found that out. It’s how that fucking place makes you feel. The air gets thick. Your head aches and your muscles get weak.” And then, with a surprisingly good British accent: “Hangovers ain’t in it, old boy.”

“My gut was the worst,” Doc says. “That and . . .” But he falls silent. He doesn’t ever talk about Daisy Temperly, the girl he killed with an errant scratch of ink on a prescription pad, but he can see her now as clearly as the make-believe cowboys on the Sand Bar’s TV. Blond, she was. With brown eyes. Sometimes he’d made her smile (even in her pain) by singing that song to her, the Van Morrison song about the brown-eyed girl.

“I’m going for Mouse,” Doc says. “I have to. But that place . . . it’s a sick place. You don’t know, man. You may think you understand, but you don’t.”

“I understand more than you think,” Jack says. Now it’s his turn to stop, to consider. Do Beezer and Doc remember the word Mouse spoke before he died? Do they remember d’yamba? They should, they were right there, they saw the books slide off their shelf and hang in the air when Jack spoke that word . . . but Jack is almost sure that if he asked them right now, they’d give him looks that are puzzled, or maybe just blank. Partly because d’yamba is hard to remember, like the precise location of the lane that leads from sane antislippage Highway 35 to Black House. Mostly, however, because the word was for him, for Jack Sawyer, the son of Phil and Lily. He is the leader of the Sawyer Gang because he is different. He has traveled, and travel is broadening.

How much of this should he tell them? None of it, probably. But they must believe, and for that to happen he must use Mouse’s word. He knows in his heart that he must be careful about using it— d’yamba is like a gun; you can only fire it so many times before it clicks empty—and he hates to use it here, so far from Black House, but he will. Because they must believe. If they don’t, their brave quest to rescue Ty is apt to end with them all kneeling in Black House’s front yard, noses bleeding, eyes bleeding, vomiting and spitting teeth into the poison air. Jack can tell them that most of the poison comes from their own minds, but talk is cheap. They must believe.

Besides, it’s still only 11:53.

“Lester,” he says.