Chapter Twelve

 

 

The upright piano had been manufactured by Gothstein of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

 

Ryan knew that because it said so in a convoluted golden Gothic script, just above the keyboard. It was made of mellow beech, ornamented with inset maple and had obviously been constructed some time before skydark.

 

He was sitting on the rear of the wag with Dean, squeezed in by the piano, perched behind Lemuel; who was whipping up his team of eight mules.

 

It was difficult to know which smelled worse, the man or his animals.

 

The tearful farewells in Glenwood Springs had been intense and hasty.

 

Everyone had hugged Dean, telling him again and again that they'd be up to see him and that the year would race by, and think what a different person he'd be when next they saw him.

 

The boy had borne it well, only crumbling and sobbing when Doc stooped over and embraced him.

 

"Don't want no education," he cried. "Don't want none of that stinkin' thought control they give you in schools. I do all right without it."

 

"But you'll do so much better with it, dear boy," Doc said, tears glistening among the silvery stubble on his chin. "Wisdom is power. The pen is mightier than the sword."

 

"Next time we face a gang of stickies, I'll keep the Uzi and you can have a drawing pencil, Doc," J.B. called, trying to lighten the moment.

 

"I know what you mean," Dean said. "Know I'm a real stupe with no book learnin'. Never had time when I was with Rona. Just had to keep moving the whole time."

 

Ryan had placed his hand on the lad's shoulder. "Right. And that's just what's happening here with us, son. No time to stop and breathe. No time to look at a book or smell a flower or just go for a walk for the joy of it. That's what Mr. Brody's school should give you."

 

"What if I hate it?"

 

Jak had grinned. "Then send word. Shout loud and we hear. Might take time, but we'll hear. And come."

 

There had been a final round of hugs and handshakes, then Dean had scrambled up into the bed of the ramshackle wag, followed by his father.

 

A crack of the whip and a stream of curses in Spanish, and they were off, driving up the long road that ran south and eastward from Glenwood Springs.

 

Ryan had agreed with Krysty and J.B. to meet up somewhere around the little ville of Fairplay in two or three days.

 

Now he waved with his son until the little group of friends had finally blurred into the distance.

 

 

 

DEAN FINISHED EATING a ripe peach, chucking the stone out of the back of the rig into the rutted track. He had the resilience of youth and was in good spirits now, an hour out of the ville.

 

"Will there be lots of boys in the school, Dad?"

 

"Probably."

 

"No stupe girls?"

 

"Don't know."

 

Ryan raised his voice above the rattling of the wag and the clattering of the ironbound wheels. "Lemuel?"

 

"Yo?"

 

"There girls at the Brody school?"

 

"Wouldn't know. It's set off the main trail a distance. Believe they got their own gardens and farm and crops. Keep themselves to themselves." He spit a stream of tobacco juice off to the left, smothering a tiny cluster of Deathlands daisies. "Heard Brody had been ill, but that was a good few weeks ago. Probably fine by now. Whoa up, you bastards," Lemuel shouted, lashing the lead mule with the long whip.

 

"He's good with that whip, isn't he, Dad?"

 

Lemuel heard Dean and laughed. "Take the balls off a skeeter at twenty paces with it."

 

"Can I try?"

 

He laughed louder. "I think not, young man. Likely pluck your own eye out with it." He paused. "Then you'd look even more like your father."

 

 

 

"DAD?"

 

"Yeah."

 

They had eaten the rest of the fruit that they'd stolen from Ma's Place before it burned down, though they'd left the lion's share of it with the others, down in the ville.

 

The sun was sinking beyond the snowcapped peaks away to their right.

 

"I was with Rona once at some frontier pesthole where they was showing some old vids. Real triple old in flickery black and white. Know the kind of show I mean? On a sheet strung off the rear of a wag."

 

"Yeah. We used to come across them back in the war wag days with Trader."

 

"You ever see one of the vids about a couple of pre-dark comics?"

 

"Don't know."

 

"One was real fat and the other was real thin. There was no sound with it. No talkin' at all. Only they had to deliver a piano like this one, up this triple-steep flight of steps. And it kept breaking away and clattering all the way down again. They had funny kind of round hats on." Dean laughed. "Hot pipe! It was one of the funniest things I think I ever saw. Rona laughed a lot at it, as well."

 

The description rang a small bell in Ryan's memory, but he couldn't put a name to the twosome. "Have to ask Doc or Mildred," he said thoughtlessly.

 

The boy looked at him, his eyes widening, his mouth beginning to tremble. "I'll have to wait a long time to ask them, won't I, Dad? Real long time."

 

"Yeah. But I reckon there might be one of the teachers up at the Brody school that'll know the answer."

 

"Will they know everything, Dad?"

 

"Most everything that's worth knowing."

 

"When will we get there?"

 

Ryan shook his head. "Don't know precisely. We had to get around that landslip an hour back. Slowed us down some. Lemuel? When do we get close to the school?"

 

"Tomorrow evening, if we make good progress. Next morning on if we get slowed again."

 

 

 

"DID YOU REALLY LOVE my mother?"

 

The sun had vanished and a cold norther had sprung up, bringing a dusting of snow for a half hour. Lemuel had unharnessed the mules, helped by Ryan and Dean, and succeeded in getting them feed and water. The animals were notably ill-tempered, and both father and son took several painful kicks.

 

Apart from carrying the piano, Lemuel was also well stocked with general supplies, including ample food for the three of them.

 

They had sat around a crackling fire at the edge of a huge and impenetrable forest to the west of the trail, by a narrow stream that raced into a deep beaver pool. There was a skillet brimming with fatback and beans, two loaves of fresh-baked bread, all of it washed down with some bottles of locally brewed beer.

 

"Better than" Dean began, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, stopping when he caught the sudden turn of the head and angry glare of warning from his father. He realized that he'd been about to reveal the unsavory fact that they'd been eating in Ma's Place around the time that the eatery went up in flames, taking its transvestite owner with it.

 

"Better than what, young fellow?" Lemuel asked, picking at his teeth with a splinter of peeled pine.

 

"Better than lots of meals I've eaten in lots of other places," the boy concluded lamely.

 

"Me too," Ryan agreed.

 

Afterward they got ready for the night. Lemuel unpacked some gray blankets. "Best all sleep under the bed of the wag," he said. "And I got some drinkin' whiskey to help get off good and sound. Either of you want some?"

 

"No thanks," Ryan said. "Boy's a little too young for it. You don't think we should post a guard?"

 

"Why?"

 

"Talk back in the ville of some serious trouble with a gang of killers up around Harmony. Fire could have been seen for twenty miles or more on a clear night like this."

 

Lemuel considered it, rubbing at the side of his nose, where a ragged scar showed that someone had once tried to break a bottle in his eye and narrowly missed.

 

"No. Fire's still bright enough to keep off most predators. Bears and wolves likely won't risk it. Anyways, the mules are good guard dogs. Near as good as geese. Nobody and nothing'll get close enough to harm us. We can all get to sleep with quiet minds and restful hearts."

 

Within a quarter hour, the skinner's heavy breathing told Ryan and Dean that the liquor had done its stuff.

 

There was a ten-cent moon in a dollar sky, glinting through ragged tendrils of high cloud.

 

Ryan had been about to drop off himself when Dean asked him the question.

 

"Did I love your mother? Did I really love Sharona? Is that your question, Dean?" It wasn't the first time the boy had asked, and his insecurity tugged at Ryan's heart.

 

"Yeah. I know you and her didn't have too much quality time with each other. The fighting kept you apart after you got married in that chapel in the valley."

 

In fact, love and marriage hadn't had very much to do with it, Ryan thought.

 

Nothing to do with it.

 

She had been the wife of a particularly evil baron, and Ryan had literally only spent a few minutes in her company.

 

During a half dozen of those minutes, twelve years ago now, he had coupled with her. Not made love. It had been more like a pair of wild cats rending at each other's flesh, fueled more by hatred than by anything approaching love. In all of Ryan's many sexual encounters since his early teens, there had never been one so powerful and revolting, and memorable, as his time with Sharona Carson.

 

"Well, did you truly love her, Dad?"

 

Ryan was lying on his back, between the rear wheels of the creaking wag, looking up through the spokes at the star-spangled velvet of the Colorado sky.

 

"So many bridges crossed since then, son," he said.

 

"Does that mean you didn't love her after all?" The disappointment rang clearly in the boy's voice.

 

"No. Doesn't mean that. I was just thinking back over the long years when I didn't know you existed. I'd thought that Sharona was likely long dead."

 

"Lost years, Dad."

 

At that moment Ryan came suddenly to the brink of abandoning his plans for his son's education. He regretted all the wasted time when he and Sharona and the boy had been roaming Deathlands, their paths never crossing. It was almost four years since she'd died of rad sickness, trusting a friend to track down Ryan and deliver the boy up to him.

 

"Yeah. As far as your mother goes, Dean, I did love her at the time."

 

"Much as you love Krysty?"

 

Ryan hesitated. "No. I can't lie to you about that. Krysty's special. The best."

 

Dean smiled at him, his teeth white in the moonlight. "I knew that before I asked you, Dad. But I'm real glad that you loved Rona. Means a lot to me."

 

"I know it."

 

Lemuel muttered in his sleep, turning over, the empty bottle clinking, his stinking coat crackling as he moved, releasing more of its foul miasmic stench.

 

"Best get to sleep, if you can breathe," Ryan said. "Could be a long day tomorrow."

 

"Yeah. Guess so. Good night, Dad."

 

Ryan reached out and squeezed the boy's small hand in his. "Good night, son."

 

Beyond the circle of red-orange light from the dying fire, death waited.