Neutron Solstice

'Ryan? What does...' began Krysty, recoiling as he turned to look at her, the one eye glowing with a manic light.

'Let it lay, woman,' he snarled.

'I don't rightly recall what my true name is,' muttered the old man, licking his lips and speaking so softly that Ryan had to lean close to catch the words. He winced at the stale alcohol on the breath.

'What do they call you?'

'Pecker.'

'Pecker?'

'Yeah.'

A vacuous smile slithered across the wrinkled cheeks. The old man touched his stomach with his right hand, smoothing the torn shirt. He moved his hand lower, fondling himself, demonstrating how he'd earned his nickname.

'You know Ryan?' asked Krysty.

'Sure. Knowed him. Years, back. He knowed me then. Don't know old Pecker now, do yer?'

The man put his head to one side like a bird sizing up a juicy morsel of food. Then Ryan remembered him Ч remembered his real name.

'Bochco. Harry Bodice. You were my... the dog-handler at the ville.'

'Harry Bochco.' The man tried the name out for size, running it around his mouth, repeating it and finally shaking his head in bewilderment. 'Sometimes past I don't recall. You say it, then it was so. But I recall you.'

'Then tell it,' said Ryan wearily.

Against the noisy maelstrom of the Cajun dance, unheard by anyone else, the old man told it.

Chapter Eight

'Front Royal was the biggest, strongest, richest ville in all Virginia. The nukes hit it hard, but the land's good. Fertile. Plant a bullet, and it grows a blaster. Baron Cawdor held it, in the Shens, from his father and his father 'fore him.'

The music and the dancing swirled about them, but Ryan and Krysty were locked into the old man's story; the girl heard it for the first time; Ryan tasted the bitterness of old wounds, feeling the empty eye socket beginning to throb with ancient pains.

'Home like a fortress, deep in the hills. Oh, sweet Lord, those blue-muffled hills and the rolling forests. I swear it were near heaven. Ryan here, Lord Cawdor, was the youngest. Bravest. Proudest. Best with blade or blaster. Finest...'

'Get on, man,' snapped Ryan.

'But only as he grew some. There were three in the litter. Morgan was oldest, and like Ryan here. Cherished him when we were little. Runt of the lot when young, Ryan was. The middle brother...'

'Harvey,' whispered Ryan, barely conscious that he'd spoken.

'Aye, Harvey. Curse his fucking name. Twisted like a windblown rowan tree. I recall that when he were but ten years old, he took this kitten and a white-hot dagger and pushed...'.

'Fireblast!' Ryan closed his good eye, fighting for self-control. 'Keep to the center of the story, or I'll fucking... Go on!'

'You were only fourteen when Harvey struck. Your older brother, Morgan, was out with a landwag train, meeting up a trader from the Apps. Stickies mined the wag. None lived to tell.'

The rowdy songs had momentarily ceased, and a young girl, her skin afflicted by disease, stood at the center of the long hut and sang a slow, sad ballad, alternating lines in French and English. Around her, the dancers had slowed, with everyone holding their partners tighter.

My yesterdays are always here,

Tomorrow is another now.

And none may say when life will end

And no man may say how.

Krysty had moved closer to Ryan, sensing the dreadful tension and memories roused in him by the old man's story.

'Theysaid it was stickies,' stressed Pecker. 'I was there with me dogs Ч you said it was dogs, Lord Cawdor?'

'Don't call me that, Bochco. The name is Ryan Cawdor now.'

'Where was I?'

'The dogs. After the stickies mined the landwag and butchered Morgan.'

The old man giggled suddenly. 'Them dogs was... Yeah, I was there with the dogs. The baron sort of figured that there was something didn't set right 'bout it. There was boot tracks in the hillside 'bove where the mine had been triggered.'

'Boot marks?'

Pecker started to sing to himself in a warbling, fragile voice. One or two of the Cajuns looked around, but nobody took much notice.

Well, I traveled four and forty miles

Mebbe was only three

But boots upon a stickie,

I never more did see.

'It was Harvey. I knew it then. Couldn't prove it, but I knew it.'

'Then he poisoned your father's mind. The baron believed you'd a hand in Morgan's passing. Harvey kept whispering in his ear, like tainted honey. The baron near lost his mind with grief. Then, when time was right, Harvey sprung his trap on you.'

Though he fought against it, Ryan's right hand rose jerkily in the air of its own volition, brushing his chin, seeking the patch that hid the ruined left eye. A part of his mind was vaguely aware that the Cajun girl was singing another slow ballad; the only other sound in the room was the shuffling of feet as the dancers caroused about her.

It was a song of lost love and the pain that remains.

I miss him in the weeping of the rains,

And I miss him at the turnings of the tide.