The Company of the Dead (91 page)

Lightholler’s eyes flickered open. He tried to swipe at the mask. Josephine replaced his arm by his side.

“Patricia?”

Josephine offered a fragile smile and hushed him.

Patricia took a step forwards. Morgan was pressed close behind her.

Lightholler’s glazed eyes came to rest on each of them in turn. He blinked his bewilderment. He gazed at Josephine again in confusion, before settling on Gershon. “Doc?”

“Keep still, Captain.” Gershon turned to one of his medics and said, “Start the antibiotics. Make sure facilities are prepped and ready for us. We’ll be doing a hemicolectomy and proceeding from there.”

“Darren, Patricia...” His pained expression smoothed itself into understanding. His voice was frail. “You did it?”

They all nodded solemnly.

Lightholler’s face cracked a weak smile. “Where’s Joseph?”

Gershon was concentrating on the wound. He stepped away, avoiding eye contact, and said, “Get him out of here.”

The medics heaved the stretcher off the ground and began marching back up the hill towards the waiting ambulance.

Gershon removed his gloves. He rolled them up and placed them in his pocket. “He’ll be alright, Patricia.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

Josephine’s men were hauling the carapace’s struts back to the trucks. It now resembled a broad convex disc. Some men were working at removing the outer plating. The couple who’d found the wreckage were nowhere in sight.

Morgan examined Gershon’s face. The thick coils of his dark hair had receded to a white patina. There were heavy lines around his eyes and mouth. He was considerably thinner.

He said, “Nice work, Doctor Gershon.”

Doc smiled. He turned to Patricia. “What are we doing with this?” He indicated the carapace with a nod.

“We’re stripping it bare. All we’re leaving is the husk. They can make of it what they will.”

Morgan dropped to his haunches. He held a thin shard of polished sand in his hands. It crumbled to dust between his fingers. “Are we done here?”

He surveyed the prospect. Josephine was standing on a low mound, overseeing the clean-up. Gershon was collecting the leftovers from the resuscitation and storing them back in the crate. The morning sun, slung in a hammock of cloud, poured its light through the trees. It was already growing warmer.

Patricia said, “We’re done.”

Josephine left the ranchers with more than enough money to rebuild and expand their damaged property. A trust account, established in their names, would ensure a healthy income for their children’s children.

The small town was still reeling with excitement. A local afternoon rag had run the headline:
R
OSWELL
A
RMY
A
IR
F
IELD
C
APTURES
F
LYING
S
AUCER ON
R
ANCH IN
R
OSWELL
R
EGION
. N
O
D
ETAILS OF
F
LYING
D
ISK ARE
R
EVEALED
.
A day later the
New York Times
had issued its own refutation.
“D
ISC
”
NEAR
B
OMB
T
EST
S
ITE
I
S
J
UST A
W
EATHER
B
ALLOON
. “F
LYING
S
AUCER
” T
ALES
P
OUR IN FROM
R
OUND THE
W
ORLD
.

That afternoon they received word that Lightholler was recovering well from his surgery. Gershon assured them that he would be fit for discharge within a week.

Patricia owned a property in Canada. That was where Lightholler would be sent to complete his convalescence. Morgan was to report there by September. Patricia assured him that if he had not arrived by then, she’d dispatch Josephine’s men to round him up.

“John’s going to need some help readjusting,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Unless, of course, you have other plans.”

She explained that the property was in St John’s, located on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland. Overlooking the Grand Banks and cresting the continental shelf, it was nestled on the easternmost tip of North America. Nothing else needed to be said. She’d made her home as close to Kennedy’s final resting place as was humanly possible. There was no refusing the offer.

The following morning Josephine set out early. She left by moonlight to finalise some arrangements with her crew. They’d been dispersing over the last few days, until only a few remained to man the convoy. Morgan would get the chance to catch up with her soon.

He was already planning his journey north and away from New York. It was time to move on.

It was still dark when he climbed into the truck’s cab beside Alan. The vehicles had been loaded with the machine’s carcass. Once across the Arizona border they would separate, distributing its remains across the breadth of the country. Morgan planned on bearing witness to its destruction. He could already picture the undecipherable beacons of smoking pyres. World without end.

Patricia stood outside the front of the ranch house, wearing a dressing gown. She waved him farewell, her figure spectral in the dim porch light.

Alan fired up the engine and they shipped out.

Sleep came rolling over Morgan in waves but no whimper escaped his lips. He slept knowing that the future was out there, unknowable but pristine. He rode the highway, rising and falling with the truck’s rocky motion, following the path towards a single, impervious destiny, and nothing disturbed his slumber.

In the pre-dawn hours the great trucks grumbled along the interstate. Some contained dairy products and some contained munitions. Some contained livestock and some cigarettes. Some were empty, returning along familiar stretches to familiar storehouses, there to restock.

And some were not.

Wells was due to meet up with Mary at the Beef Barron in twenty minutes and he still had to give the paper another read through. The raw findings of his research, consigning his preferred operation to the scrap heap, would require a brave face.

So why had he left the hotel room? Why was he here?

He watched the dealer lay out another hand. The house pulled a five. The marks should have all sat on their cards and watched him bust, but they were marks. So one by one they made their suicide plays. Someone doubled, someone drew, someone split Kings to sit on fifteen and twelve.

He suppressed a snort. He’d done enough time behind the green felt. He watched as the dealer pulled twenty-one and turned away from the table.

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

It was almost four o’clock. The restaurant was on the next level. It was simply a matter of walking down one of the hallways to the lobby and beyond.

His head was aching.

It might have been the ceaseless chime of the one-armed bandits, or the tedious hum of the muzak. He decided to get an aspirin before the meal and found himself standing at the glazed doors of the Flamingo’s entrance. Filtered sunlight spilled an unhealthy ochre stain on the carpet. He thought the fresh air might be soothing. He stepped outside, and his head roared dully with the sounds of the street.

Other surgeons would be arriving for the conference. He cast about, hoping for a friendly face, and his eyes were drawn to an Oldsmobile, parked just beyond a small roundabout. He could just make out two figures behind the car’s tinted windshield.

They were staring at him.

He approached, wondering what drove him forwards. The driver’s window slowly slid down and a pale hand in a black sleeve emerged from the darkness, offering a slight wave. He peered into the car, expecting one of his associates. He was faced with an elderly couple.

They smiled at him amiably. He couldn’t place them.

“Doctor Wells?” the man asked.

“Yes.” He returned the man’s grin, feeling somewhat foolish. “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

“Not as such,” the man replied.

“You knew my mother,” the woman added after a moment.

She was well past her seventies. There must have been some mistake, yet something about the pair made him strangely comfortable.

His headache was gone.

“What’s her name?” He couched the question carefully.

“Her name was Patricia Marie Kennedy. You helped her out once.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember her.”

The man must have read the doubt in his voice. He said, “We’d better not keep you, Doctor.” He began to wind up the window. “It was good finally meeting you.”

Wells stood bewildered. “You too.”

The car had pulled away from the kerb before he identified the cause of his confusion.

How had they recognised him?

Then he glanced down at his jacket, saw the name badge peering over the edge of his pocket, and laughed.

The Strip was filling with people. Parents urged errant children past gaudy displays. Couples strolled by, waiting for sunset and the city’s fluorescent resurrection.

Some insight told him that there were worse encounters to be had on this street.

He felt profoundly relieved.

The Olds pulled up at a set of lights across the street. He threw the couple a final wave before turning back into the hotel.

In the middle of 1997 I sat down with a note pad and began writing. What began as a short story evolved into the monolith you have before you. I hold the following people responsible: Natan Kowalski, Darren Rose and Rani Gerszonovicz. This book would not exist in any recognizable form without their support, indulgence, encouragement and advice. Virginia Lloyd’s commitment to this work, both as editorial consultant, and dear friend, was unwavering. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to her for her tireless efforts.

I also want to thank Cath Trechman, Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Katy Wild, Tim Whale, Lizzie Bennett, and Martin Still; the Titan’s crew, for their enthusiasm and support in launching this book. Steve Saffel, my best friend I’ve never met, was there from the first edit to the last. He steered my manuscript to safe waters.

Finally I would like to thank Lisa who quite simply, on a day-to-day basis, makes the improbable possible.

David J. Kowalski is an obstetrician and gynaecologist practicing in Sydney, Australia. He has been published in professional journals but this is his first work of fiction.
The Company of the Dead
is the winner of two prestigious Aurealis Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel and Best Novel. He is currently working on his second novel.

www.thecompanyofthedead.com

www.djkowalski.com