Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True - Kris Saknussemm [125]
Lloyd considered McGitney’s speech an example of both sod-level wisdom and true poise under pressure, worthy of both Hattie and St. Ives. If nothing else, the Quists had chosen the right leader, he was sure—a fact that contrasted sharply with the mesh-hatted bigot who had been incinerated. Perhaps an even brighter future lay ahead for the Quists than the one they had envisioned. He hoped so, for all their sakes.
McGitney had much to do now, holding the flock together, repairing breaches in trust and confidence, and trying to organize the group off to their hidden horses and wagons—to reassemble and disperse, or to bid farewell to those insistent members who had lost faith forever and were now determined to return East to their old lives or to team up with other settlers headed West. But still, he made sure that Lloyd was sent off with, if not consensual thanks, then at least an acknowledgment of respect.
“Young Lloyd,” McGitney said. “I know you would seek to have these tablets to assist your own inquiry. But these we must keep, because for better or worse they have been entrusted to us. You have your box, and in some way that we may yet decipher, our fates have been connected and may remain so. Go forth with what new blessings we have to give. You will not be soon forgotten.”
Soames and Drucker together gave Lloyd a deep bow, which he returned. Then he stowed the box under his garments and stepped out through the door into the ghostly morning, taking a longer, more circumspect route back to the Clutters’. After his earlier performance with the vigilantes, it was deemed that he needed no escort. He thought Hattie would have been proud of the Li’l Skunk.
He glimpsed many shapes and shadows along the way, and smelled the smoke of early cooking fires, the salivatory tang of bacon, and the glug of grits but garnered not a hint of any particular malice or intent toward himself or anything relating to either the vigilantes or the Quists. By the time he reached the undertaker and coffinmaker’s establishment and had scraped the mud from his boots, the sky was streaked with bloody color. Softly, he cracked the door, relatched, and bolted it—and had just snuggled back down into his coffin to think of Hattie when his father rose, stretched and farted simultaneously, which almost set him giggling. Hattie could change pitch! Moments later, Rapture squirmed awake.
“Yeh all fine?” she cooed to her husband.
“Lord, I feel like the risen dead!” Hephaestus exclaimed. “I have a crook in my back that will need a poultice. Or, better still, a knee and a yank. But we need to be shoving on. I’m hankering to be gone now. On our way.”
“I be there,” his wife promised, swallowing a yawn. “How’s Lloyd?”
“Ah, just look!” Hephaestus gestured. “A-peace like a suckling. You’d think there were no troubles a’tall in the world. He probably hasn’t changed position the whole night. Leave the rousting to me. We have tracks to make.”
CHAPTER 4
I Show You Plenty Ghosts
WE HAVE ALL HAD THE EXPERIENCE OF FALLING ASLEEP FOR A minute and then having what seems like an entire night of dreams. Often, these dreams act as a solvent to our day-to-day consciousness—a disbursing, confronting carnival of images and incidents that take us out of our familiar being and into fantastic new (or suddenly remembered) realms.