Wild Swans (14 page)

Althea jumped. “How do you know about that?”

Lindt shrugged as he peeked out past the heavy curtain of Spanish moss. “It’s gone,” he said, referring to the creature. “We’re safe now.”

“What was that thing?” Althea asked as she followed him out of the small glade and back onto the path.

“A remnant from pre-creation.”

“A what?”

“Let’s just say it’s a hired gun.” Lindt replied.

“A hired gun? Like a gangster?”

“In a matter of speaking,” he replied as they continued their journey back home. “But obviously not the kind of gangster one finds in the movies.”

“I’ll say,” she said. “I wonder what it’s after.”

Mr. Lindt grimaced. “I wouldn’t know.”

“But you know what it is,” Althea said, feeling suspicious.

“I know what it is but not what it’s seeking. At least not now, although I have my suspicions. All I care about is that it’s gone.”

Althea tramped along beside him for a nearly half a mile in silence.
He knows more than what he lets on
, she knew.
Especially about that thing
.

Maybe Lindt wasn’t human at all, but maybe an alien from Mars. Or like that space man from the
Day the Earth Stood Still
. What was his name
?

“Klatuu,” Mr. Lindt said.

“Huh?”

“The spaceman’s name in
The
Day the Earth Stood Still
is Klatuu.”

“Oh,” she said feeling out of sorts.

They walked another mile in silence.

He knew what I was thinking
. Althea looked at Mr. Lindt’s back
. Maybe,
she thought
, her mouth suddenly going dry, he has a flying saucer parked in the woods somewhere. Perhaps that’s why he’s out here all alone,
she reasoned.
But why would he be hiding in the old fort unless he knew that thing was already out there and was certain it was looking for him?

I bet he was going back to his ship when his enemies spotted him. After all,
she realized with a jolt
, he was in my mind earlier. I mean really inside my head. Human beings can’t do that. That means he can’t be human. He’s—

He chuckled. “That’s quite an imagination you have.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Lindt laughed and shook his head.

Althea
lagged behind him, partly because the path grew narrower here, and partly to see what was on the back of his head. All she could see was a thin fringe of brownish gray hair. But there was nothing to say that he wasn’t hiding a third eyeball back there somewhere.

Mr. Lindt laughed again, startling a flock of starlings nesting in a nearby tree.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing,” he said in a way that meant everything. “I was out for my afternoon stroll. I find walking in the woods exhilarating.”

“I see.”

“And I came across the shadow being. I hid in the underbrush and heard you approaching and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Yeah. History.”

Lindt quickened his pace. Althea followed, studying the back of his head.
There might be one at the base of his head or even on the back of his neck
, she thought. He could cover it up neatly with his shirt collar. But then he wouldn’t be able to see anything from behind, would he?

“Surely you don’t really think I have an extra eye back there?”

Althea pulled herself up short. Stunned she asked, “How did you know about that?”

“You were mumbling to yourself,” Lindt said affably without breaking his stride. “You’re a charming and imaginative young lady.” He laughed again. “An eyeball in the back of my head. How very amusing. I’ll have to remember that.”

“Well I didn’t imagine that black shadow back there and you did say it was a gunslinger.” She said feeling angry, embarrassed and certain that she wasn’t mumbling earlier.

“Did I? I don’t recall.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember anything about what happened back there?” she asked.

Without missing a step he said, “I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ah,” he added as he climbed a slight rise, “we’re nearly home. Maybe your lovely aunt has made some lemonade.”

“You’re not fooling me for a minute,” Althea said, snatching his shirtsleeve and forcing him to stand still. He regarded her with cloudy grayish blue eyes that seemed to change color and pupil shape as she stared at them. Feeling suddenly frightened, she stepped back.

“It’s best not to make too close an inquiry my darling girl,” he said gently. “All you need to know is that I’m an old man retired from the construction business and that I’m looking forward to a lovely holiday.”

“But that thing—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “Put that out of your mind. Forget you saw it, don’t even think about it.” He paused, his eyes unfocused. “If you think about the shadow man he’ll come back and with reinforcements too.”

“Are you saying he’s some kind of bogyman?”

“The Cherokees had a name for it. But it too is best not to say it aloud. There are some things you can mention and they won’t hurt you, at least during daylight. But at night—” He broke off, contemplating. Althea watched as his face changed from a tense to a thoughtful expression. For a moment, his features blurred and she saw with a start that his face had a vagueness to it, as if she were looking at his reflection in a dirty mirror. Within an instant it cleared up and his face came back into focus.
My eyes are playing tricks
, she thought.
It must be the heat, with him being a spaceman and seeing things that aren’t there but make you sick anyway.

“A remarkable people the Cherokees,” he said resuming his journey back to the plantation house which had become visible beyond the tree line. “A very insightful people.”

“You know them?”

“Some yes.”

“I didn’t know there were any Indians left, except for the ones you see in the movies. Like Tonto on the
Lone Ranger
.”

“Oh yes, there are still American Indians left on the continent and they will be making a comeback. It will be a long arduous journey for them but I know that they will remain until the end of time.”

“I’m beginning to think this walk home is going to last until the end of time,” Althea said stopping long enough to dislodge a pebble from her shoe. “I have walked home from town since I was a kid. It didn’t seem to take as long as it is now.”

“You’d forgotten. How long ago was it when you took this path?”

“Oh I don’t know, a couple of years ago I suppose.”

“Your mother is keeping you close to home.”

“You could say that.”

“At the risk of sounding like the meddlesome old fool that I am, I don’t believe that you have any real desire to get married at all, to anyone at all.”

“You’d be right,” Althea stated.

“Perhaps then you should focus on what you’re greatest desire is and pursue that.”

“Fat lot of good that’s going to do,” Althea grumbled. “As you already know my mother has my life planned out right down to the very last detail.” She grimaced as she recalled the last lecture she had with her mother. Ruby told her that she only had to fulfill her wifely duties long enough to produce an heir. Afterwards, she could blissfully forget about that one awful thing and pursue her own goals. Charity work and other things ladies of quality do. Althea almost told her she didn’t think that sex was particularly awful, but clamped her teeth down on her tongue instead. The last thing she wanted was a trip to the gynecologist in Barlow to certify her virginity...again...

“Plans change,” Mr. Lindt replied amiably. “People change too.”

“You did say that everything changes,” Althea said as she thought back to their earlier conversation. She shivered. He made decades sound like hours.

“That is true.”

“The way Mom is about sex,” Althea began, shocked that she could even say the word in front of a man, “you’d think she’d stick me in a convent or something.”

“Ladies don’t talk about their sex lives,” Lindt replied. “At least not in mixed company.”

“Or even in polite company or impolite company, women don’t talk about it at all,” Althea said.

“True enough,” Lindt agreed.

“I still wonder why she didn’t have me put in a convent.”

“I’m certain you’ll have to ask her that.”

They walked in silence. Althea wondered about Mr. Lindt and how much he knew about the situation between her mom and herself.
All of it I suppose, considering that Mom is always busy with my trousseau. I wish with all my heart I could get out of it.

“You could get up the gumption and do, as I suggested earlier, as you’ve been planning.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “You do want to become a nurse, don’t you?”

“If I had my way? Yes, more than anything in the world.”

“Then pursue that course my dear, with all your heart.”

“But how will I pay for it? Mom sure won’t.”

“There are other ways,” he said reasonably. He smiled down at her as if he knew a secret about her that he wasn’t about to share. “You’re a bright young woman, and you’ve guessed about that already, or have you forgotten? Either way, I know you’ll think of a way to free yourself from both your mother and from a lifetime of living inside a gilded cage.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Althea said.

Mr. Lindt stopped short. He gasped, and then thrust his arm outward, barring her path.

“What is it?” she asked, alarm clattering up her spine.

“Hush,” Lindt said. His voice was authoritative, urgent. “Stay here. Don’t move and whatever you do don’t say anything.”

“Why? Has it come back?”

He put his index finger to his lips and hurried up the incline that led out of the forest and onto the plantation house’s sprawling lawn. She heard him utter a muffled oath, immediately followed by pounding footsteps. She was suddenly and profoundly frightened. Ignoring his warning, Althea scrambled up the incline and gazed out at the lawn.

Lindt bolted toward the house, his thin hair waving behind him, his white shirt billowing in the hot stale summer air. Althea was astonished that a man his age could run so hard and so fast. For an instant, his image blurred, the way heat radiates off asphalt in August, and when his image sharpened, he was rushing past a black lump in the driveway. She blinked, and realized with a start that Lindt was nearly to the house. Althea bit her lip, confounded. It was as if she had been watching a film with several small pieces cut out in succession. Had he really run as far as he seemed in so short a time? She had run from this very spot many times in her childhood back to the veranda and it always took at least five minutes. But she was certain that Mr. Lindt hadn’t run for five minutes. He had to have traversed the lawn in under a minute. It simply wasn’t possible.

For an instant Althea felt disoriented, as if she’d been gazing through the wrong end of a set of binoculars. She looked out across the wide expanse of the yard, darkened by something she couldn’t comprehend. She looked for Lindt and saw that he was already standing on the porch and slamming on the front door with his fist. She saw the door open and he rushed inside.

It wasn’t until Althea climbed down the hill that she saw what he did. The lawn was littered with an uncounted number of fireflies, their lights blinking pallidly in the late afternoon sun. It made her think briefly of dying Christmas lights. She gasped, shocked, because amongst the fireflies, sprinkled like amethyst gem fragments amongst the emeralds was what she presumed to be fireflies but looked larger, more hostile, and dangerous, even as they lay dying. She took a short step backward.
There’s no such thing as violet moiselles, she told herself. Yet there they were, glinting in the dying afternoon light
. She scanned the yard again, then realized with a shock that the black lump in the driveway had to have been a car.

“Momma?” she whimpered. “Momma?”

Althea’s attention was diverted to the sky, where she heard great flapping of wings. A buzzard perched on the general store’s high pitched roof, which was also black with a multitude of what she supposed were more dead insects. The buzzard launched itself into the sky. Althea retreated back into the forest as the creature soared high overhead and out toward the bayou. Relieved the thing had gone, she leaned against a tree. She felt the rough textured bark against her smooth skin. She caught the scent of moldy decayed paper. She jerked away from the tree, and saw that it had died.
That’s strange
, she noted.
This tree is healthy
.

She turned around and noticed that several trees seemed to be ill. Their limbs drooped; the leaves wilted and tumbled to the ground. She reached up and touched a branch which crumbled to dust in her hands.
These trees were alive and vital just this morning. In fact, they’d been alive and well for over a hundred years.

She stood beneath the oaks that morning, hoping to meet her lover who never came. She waited with the mid-summer sun spilling soft gold white light down to the forest floor. The bayou water glistened as if God had tossed a million diamonds onto the surface. She reached up and pulled down a patch of dead Spanish moss. The moss crumbled in her hand. She looked up at the sky, which had returned to a soft powdery blue.
When had the sky turned so strange,
she wondered
and why didn’t I notice it until now?
Despite the oppressive heat, she felt chilled. She rubbed her arms, looking out at the lawn where the dead insects lay. She walked slowly toward the house, afraid of what she might find once she got there.

Althea recognized Elly who made a mad dash for her car and stopped short when she realized her Studebaker was covered in bugs. Althea started to call out to her mother’s friend, but stopped, shocked as Elly screamed, kicking the car door with all her might. The fireflies tumbled onto the dust en masse, which seemed to upset the older woman even more. Althea walked toward her, but Elly had already opened the car door, flinching and sobbing as if it were covered in wasps.

Elly climbed inside and slammed the door. Althea heard the vehicle cough itself to life and Elly sped past Althea as fast as she could, the car kicking up dust and dead insects as she went. At that moment Cally stepped out onto the veranda rubbing her upper arms and looking pale and frightened.