Desperation

It was the smell that told Joh

“Get it off”’ he screamed, completely u

“Are you going to look at me properly if I do.” the cop asked. “No more insolence. No more disrespect.”

“No! No more!” He would have promised anything. Whatever had leaped out of him and spoken against the cop was gone now; the bird had plucked it out like a worm from an ear of corn.

“You promise.”

The bird, flapping and squalling and pulling. Smelling like green meat and exploded guts.

On him. Eating him. Eating him alive.

“Yes! Yes! I promise!”

“Fuck you,” the cop said calmly. “Fuck you, os pa, and fuck your promise. Take care of it yourself. Or die.”

Eyes squeezed to slits, kneeling, head lowered, Joh

That’s my blood, you bastard. Joh

“Not bad,” the cop said. “You got him, pard. Now turn around.”

“No.” He stood, trembling all over, hands to his face.

“Turn around.”

There was no denying the voice. He turned and saw the cop pointing up, once again with all five splayed fingers. Joh

“Want me to call them.” the cop asked in a deceptively gentle tone of voice. “I can, you know. Birds are a hobby of mine. They’ll eat you alive, if that’s what I want.”

“N-N-No.” He looked back at the cop and was relieved to see his fly was zipped again.

There was a bloodstain spreading across the front of his pants, though. “No, d-don’ t.”

“What’s the magic word, Joh

For a moment-a horrible moment-he had no idea what the cop wanted him to say. Then it came to him. “Please.”

“Are you ready to be reasonable.”

“Y-Yes.”

“I wonder about that,” the cop said. He seemed to be speaking to himself. “I just wonder.”

Joh

“That boy,” the cop said, looking up toward the second floor of the Municipal Building, where there were a number of opaque windows with bars outside them. “That boy troubles my mind. I wonder if I shouldn’t talk to you about him. Perhaps you could counsel me.”

The cop folded his arms against his body, raised his hands, and began to tap his fingers lightly against his collarbones, much as he’d tapped them against the steering wheel earlier. He stared at Joh

“Or maybe I should just kill you, Joh

The cop raised his head to the buzzard-lined roofline of the Municipal Building and began to laugh. They cried harsh cawing sounds back down at him, and Joh

They are laughing with him. Because it’s not his joke; it’s their joke.

Agust of air snapped across the parking lot, making Joh

The five people in the holding cells-the Carvers, Mary Jackson, and old Mr. White Hair—listened to the man screaming and to the sounds that accompanied the screams-harsh bird-cries and flapping wings. At last they stopped. David hoped no one else was dead down there, but when you got right to it, what were the chances.

“What did you say his name was.” Mary asked.

“Collie Entragian,” the old man said. He sounded as if listening to the screams had pretty much tired him out “Collie’s short for Collier. He come here from one of those mining towns in Wyoming, oh, fifteen-sixteen years ago. Little more than a teenager then, he was. Wanted police work, couldn’t get it, went to work for the Diablo Company up to the pit instead. That was around the time Diablo was gettin ready to pack up and go home.

Collie was part of the close-down crew, as I remember.”

“He told Peter and me the mine was open,” Mary said.

The old man shook his head in what might have been weariness or exasperation. “There’s some thinks old China ain’t played out, but they’re wrong. It’s true they been bustling around up there again, but they won’t take doodley-squat out of it-just lose their investors’ money and then shut her down. Won’t be nobody any happier about it than Jim Reed, either. He’s tired of barroom fights. All of us’ll be glad when they leave old China alone again. It’s haunted, that’s what the ignorant folks round these parts think.” He paused. “I’m one of em”

“Who’s Jim Reed.” Ralph asked.

“Town Safety Officer. What you’d call Chief of Police in a bigger burg, but there’s only two hundred or so people in Desperation these days. Jim had two full-time deputies-Dave Pearson and Collie. Nobody expected Collie to stay around after Diablo folded, but he did. He wasn’t married, and he had workman’s comp. He floated along for awhile, odd—jobbin, and eventually Jim started to throw work his way. He was good enough so that the town officers took Jim’s recommendation and hired him on full-time in ‘91.”

“Three guys seems like a lot of law for a town this small,” Ralph said.

“I reckon. But we got some money from Washin’un, Rural Law Enforcement Act, plus we landed a contract with Sedalia County to keep school on the unincorporated lands round here-pop the speeders, jug the drunks, all such as that.”

More coyote wails from outside; they sounded shim-mery in the rising wind.

Mary asked, “What did he get workman’s comp for. Some kind of mental problem.”

“No’m. Pickup he was ridin in turned turtle on its way down into the pit yonder-the China. Just before the Diablo people gave it up as a bad job, this was. Blew out his knee.