Epilog

Blue Creek, Jan. 22

A scattering of yellow crocuses cheered the sleeping forest, a promise of spring too soon to be taken at face value.  Sun shone brightly through the bare, rain-blackened trees at a low angle lit the entire front porch.  Unseasonable, temporary warmth, the proverbial January thaw, had ridden in with the night's downpour to awaken the tiny bulbs.  Jill admired the simple miracle.

We enjoy it while it lasts, she said to herself as a dark-haired young woman came outside clutching a wrapped bundle closely.

"Is this all right, Mrs. Carter?" she asked

Mirabelle's bright eyes sparkled amid folds of baby blanket.  Jill would have loved to dress her daughter herself, but had yielded to Raven's request, knowing what an emotional day it was going to be for her and how much Raven enjoyed tending the baby.

"Oh good, the two-piece.  It is perfect for such a warm day.  She will be comfortable.  I will be too, if you can call me ‘Jill,'" she said with a laugh.  "‘Mrs. Carter' makes me feel like an old woman."

"I'll try," said Raven distractedly before asking her question third time since breakfast.

"Are you sure you don't mind taking me down to the camp?"

"Of course I do not mind."

"They're not bad people, Mrs. Carter.  And I need to see them one more time before it's all over.  I don't belong anymore.  I don't believe in it any of that anymore, but they're still like my family or something.  It's hard to explain."

"You do not have to explain, Dear."  Jill took the baby from her.  "You're my friend, and it is important to you."

Mirabelle kicked excitedly as Jill buckled in her car seat.  Like the aunt for whom she was named, she was strong-willed.  She let people know when things suited her and when then didn't.  Car rides were just fine.  She liked going.  Mirabelle reached for the belt.  Jill fancied for a moment that she was trying to help buckle herself in.  Jill knew that all new parents believe their child is precocious, but she also knew that Mirabelle was precocious.

"How much of what happened that day should I tell Shane?" asked Raven as they started down the drive.

Richard had told her about Paget's capture, but neither he nor Raven had related much more than the basic facts as reported by the media.  Jill knew there was more, but had never asked either of them for more than they had chosen to reveal.

"Not all things need to be shared," she replied carefully.

"Right.  I mean what good can telling him do?"

The question required no answer.  Jill was to listen and perhaps be a confessor.

"He knows what happened when I was growing up," she continued.  "Why can't he just leave this alone?  He says we should talk about it---that I shouldn't keep it all to myself.  But that's what I want to do---keep it to myself.  That isn't wrong is it?"

Jill didn't know how to answer or even if she should.  Shane and Raven were neither married nor formally engaged, but seemed as committed to each other as any couple could be.

"I told him that Mr. Carter got there before that man did anything but hit me," she said, and then continued more softly.  "But I'm not sure if that's true."

Jill drove in silence, waiting for her to continue if she wished to.

"Maybe I do need to talk it out, but I don't want to.  It makes me feel . . . ashamed."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," said Jill firmly.

"He didn't actually . . . do anything.  At least that's what they said at the clinic.  I have this . . . like this big blank spot.  I learned to do that whenever . . . whenever it's happening.  I remember him throwing me against the bus and then it's all . . . bits and pieces.  Mr. Carter talking . . . getting closer.  I . . . we . . . a shot.  We fell . . . blood everywhere.  I don't think he---I don't know."

"The clinic said you had not been sexually assaulted.  Tell Shane that.  Maybe that's all he needs to hear."

"Shane was more than willing to put it all in the past and never talk about it.  But I can't.  I was already dead, Mrs. Carter.  It's something I . . .  Somehow Shane found out something.  He's trying to help.  That's why he thinks we should talk it out.  But I just can't."

Raven bit her lip and stared straight ahead.

"I would have done anything he wanted, Mrs. Carter," she said without looking at Jill.  "Maybe I did.  Like in my mind.  I'm afraid that's what I wanted to do."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because it's what my . . . what Starry Dawn trained me to do.  Shane would be better off if he had never met me."

Raven was dry eyed, but tears welled in Jill's.

"Once I was so angry with Richard.  I screamed at him.  I asked him what he wanted from me.  You know what he said?  He said that he only wanted me to look at him the way his mother looked at his father."

"Have you not seen the way Shane looks at you, Dear?"

"But I don't deserve that."

"Of course you do.  But love isn't deserved.  It just is."

The wheel had turned on the Wilderness Church following the dome affair.  Shane and Rave weren't the only disillusioned members to drift away during Joshua's detoxification.  A rival leader had also risen, drawing away nearly a third of the church.  Joshua had countered by offering to sell Canaan Camp to a local rancher.  The rival faction then sued for to block the sale, hoping to be offered a share of the money, throwing ownership of the camp in what appeared to be in a perpetual legal limbo benefiting no one but the lawyers.

Jill parked on the shoulder near the gate to Canaan Camp where a large pickup towing a bulbous silver trailer blocked the entrance.  Through the closed windows came Joshua's voice booming stridently over a PA system.

". . . as the Great Dragon enfolded the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them upon the Earth, so this Deceiver appeared like unto a minister of light and deceived the very elect.  One third of the angels of the Wilderness Church have left their first estate to make war on us, Children.  Like Judas, they were numbered with us, but were never really part of us or they would, no doubt, have continued with us."

The familiar voice hit Raven with a surprisingly strong feeling of longing and regret, not for Joshua and the Church, but for the "home" she'd once had among the people at Canaan.  Like wishing she were a child again, it was a longing bitter, sweet, and impossible.  A Hawthorn County cruiser took up a position to block highway traffic in preparation for the imminent departure of the Wilderness Church caravan.  The deputy recognized Jill and nodded before hitting his flashers to warn approaching traffic.

"We go forth to seek a country, but we are strangers and pilgrims upon this Earth," intoned Joshua.  "Think not that Canaan Camp was that country.  It was but a resting place, holy ground only because the tabernacle of God sojourned there.  Now we see the Pillar and Cloud arise before us.  The time of our departure is at hand, Children."

The sermon ended on that carefully rehearsed note.  Vehicles immediately began passing through the gate.  Raven searched for familiar faces, for one last look at her friends and former family.  Occasionally eyes met hers briefly, but no one smiled.  Some pointedly averted their glances when they recognized her.

"Mrs. Carter?" she said abruptly.  "Mr. Carter offered to let us live at the canoe rental, but do you disapprove of Shane and me living together on your property?"

"I think that what you do is your own business," said Jill carefully.

"Did you and Mr. Carter live in . . . live together before you were married?"

"I stayed with Richard before we were married," she said, deciding to say nothing about the circumstances had made it a necessity.

"And later you married," said Raven before continuing almost in a whisper.  "I don't think Shane and I will get married.  We need each other, but I don't think we . . . I don't think that marriage is for us."

"I feel so selfish."

"Shane knows this?" asked Jill.  "I mean about not getting married?"

Raven nodded.

"He knows more about me than anyone."

Richard torqued down the last of the screws.  The floating deck now looked serviceable and ready for the season.  They were going to need a good one.  Buying the float business had stretched their credit to its limit.

"I appreciate you letting us live here, Mr. Carter," said Shane.

"You're doing me a favor.  This is a traditional party spot for high schoolers.  I need someone out here to prevent vandalism.  Besides, it's not good to leave a house unheated in winter, and with only wood heat, someone has to live here to keep the fire going, don't they?"

"Raven loves how peaceful it is."

"How's she doing in school?"

"Great.  She's really smart, you know.  It's amazing what she knows seeing how she was---"  Shane broke off in mid sentence.  "Well, she grew up with no parents to keep her in school."

"Well, now that charges have been dropped against you, maybe you two can get on with your lives.  You both deserve that."

"I deserved to go jail," said Shane.  "What if that had actually been nerve gas?  I could have killed all those people."

"Well, you wouldn't have gone to jail, would you?  Thank goodness it was only carbon dioxide."

Shane looked down Blue Creek, trying again to make sense of what he had done and not done.  Had it been chance, dumb luck, an overactive imagination, or good sense that had kept him from releasing the gas?  Raven insisted that it had been divine intervention.  Remembering both her words and the words of the preacher, he thought that it probably had been.

"Thanks, Mr. Carter," he said as if awaking from a spell.  "We really appreciate you letting us live here."

"Quit thanking me already," he said with a laugh.  "Just take care of the place and we'll call it even."

Jefferson City

Paget limped haltingly as two huge guards escorted him back to his cell.  He blamed his slowness to heal on the incompetence of the orthopedic surgeon, but was beginning to believe the operation on his hip had been botched intentionally.

I'm never going to get any better as long as these ignorant bastards are treating me.  That's the system, he thought.  Just like bringing me here.  No way in hell should I already be in the state prison!  Like the county lockup wasn't secure enough!  It's not fair to put me in state before I've even get a trial.

The guards guided him firmly through the cell door.  The drab mélange of indistinct voices drifted through the air, occasionally punctuated by the irritating staccato of nigger talk.

How long will I have to put up with that? he brooded.

As if in answer the door clanged shut, echoing through the cellblock with the finality of tomb being sealed.  Prison had never bothered him much before, because he had always been able to look forward to getting out.

Not this time, Bobby Lee.  The pistol got you cold for the Stick Man and the codgers.

His lawyer wanted him to plead out, angling for a life sentence from Missouri.

What a genius!  What about Oregon, Arkansas, the federal charges?  What did the dumb bastard say?  Oh yeah.  "We'll just take it one step at a time, Mr. Paget."  Right!  Easy to say when you're not the one they're trying to kill.

Missouri wanted to put him to sleep like he was some stray dog.  Now Arkansas was jumping in and the lawyer was saying they wouldn't let him plead out.

Pale Babe and that damned necklace!  Why the hell did she have to have that?  To hell with them, he thought.  To hell with all of them.  I'm famous.  I can stretch it out forever.  Yeah---just string it out.  Authors, journalists, TV and movie people---they'll all want a piece of Bobby Lee.  I got lots of interesting stories.  I'll play it like I'm some kind of evil genius psycho.  I'll promise ‘em more bodies."

He was already a celebrity with some of the younger inmates.  They liked hearing stories from a stone cold killer.  They hung on his words as he told them about how he gave all the high and mighty sluts exactly what they deserved.  Best of all, he could relive it as he told them.  Someone said that he already had a fan club on the Internet.  He'd have to check that out when he got access.

When they make the movie they'll have to consult me to get it right, he daydreamed.  We'll have to make it all authentic.

A familiar foot-dragging limp echoed down the corridor.  It was the old man with the books.  The fragile old man reminded him of the Stick Man, only worn down like a piece of weathered drift wood slowly fading to nothing.  He already made up his own name for old trustee.

"Hey, Crip!" he called.

Watery eyes turned his way.

"How long have you been here, old man?"

"Since fifty-one," replied the trustee emotionlessly.

Paget gripped the bars to take the weight off his aching hip.  "That's some serious time," he said sarcastically.  "You must have been a cruel dude back in the day."

He'd heard that the old dude had been involved in a prison riot back in the old days, but looking at him he found that hard to believe.  The skinny old geek couldn't have been a leader of anything, much less a riot.  He figured that the law had just screwed him over like it always did.  The old man was a typical loser.

"What's wrong, old timer?  You to good to talk to me?"

He put a hard edge into the words because people had to be kept in their place.  You couldn't show any weakness inside.  That was the same no matter where you went.  You had to demand respect from the get-go.  The old man had been treating him like some kind of pissant since day one.  It was time to put a stop to it.

"I asked you a question, old man."

"Am I too good to talk to you?" said the old man.  "Maybe.  I just don't want to."

Paget fixed him with a steel-eyed stare.  "You better watch your step around me, you old geek."

"I will, but I won't have to for long," said the old man matter-of-factly.

"You're getting out.  Well, it had better be real soon because I can get to you easy.  I got friends."

"You got no friends in here, Mr. Paget.  Cons are funny.  Even the real bad ones got their morals."

"I got a rep.  They look up to me."

"Because of what you done?"  The old man shook his head.  "Nobody looks up to a child killer.  Them kind don't last long.  That's why I won't have to watch my step for long."

"What are you talking about?  I ain't no child killer."

The old man shrugged.  "Matter of opinion.  I say you are, and unfortunately for you people listen to me around here."

"Right," laughed Paget.  "You're so bad they all look up to you?"

"No.  People listen because I been here a long time.  I know things.  And they all know that I don't lie."

He came closer, but stayed carefully out of reach.

"I heard what you done to that little girl in Marked Tree.  It made me sick.  I been telling everybody how you killed that little girl."

"That's a lie!  I'm not a damned pedophile!"

"I seen her picture.  She was just a child."

"She was seventeen!  Hell, she looked twenty!"

"A child," insisted the old man without changing his expression.  "The word's out about you.  Ain't you noticed how everybody is looking at you now?"

The old man's eyes had grown as cold as a snake's.

"I think you're going to get what's coming to you pretty soon," he said.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"I done told you why, Mr. Paget.  Now ain't you glad we had this little talk?"

"But I never did anything to you!" screamed Paget in frustration.

The old man only turned and walked away.  In a daze, Paget listened until his shuffling steps faded beneath the incoherent babble of the conversing inmates.  He imagined that they were talking about him.

"This ain't right," he mumbled indignantly.  "This is all messed up."