The Pagan Stone Page 0,87

do know it. So we can't let it go south, that's all."

IT HAD BEEN EASIER, GAGE ADMITTED, WHEN IT had just been the three of them. He loved his friends, and part of him would die if either of them did. But they'd been in it together since day one. Since minute one, he corrected, as he started downstairs.

It had been easier, too, when the women had first gotten involved. Before any of them really mattered to him. Easier before he'd seen the way Quinn meshed with Cal, or the way Fox lit up when Layla was in the room.

Easier before he'd let himself have feelings for Cybil, because, goddamn it, he had feelings. Messy, irritating, impossible feelings for Cybil. The kind of feelings that pushed him into having thoughts. Messy, irritating, impossible thoughts.

He didn't want a relationship. He sure as hell didn't want a long-term relationship. And by God, he didn't want a long-term relationship that involved plans and promises. He wanted to come and go as he pleased, and that's just what he did. Except for every seventh year. And so far, so good.

You didn't mess with a streak.

So the feelings and the thoughts would just have to find another sucker to... infect, he decided.

"Gage."

He stopped, saw his father at the base of the steps. Perfect, Gage thought, just one more thing to give a shine to his day.

"I know I said I wouldn't get in your way when you came in to see Cal. And I won't."

"You're standing in it now."

Bill stepped back, rubbed his hands on the thighs of his work pants. "I just wanted to ask you-I didn't want to get in the way, so I wanted to ask you..."

"What?"

"Jim Hawkins tells me some of the towners are going to camp out at the O'Dell farm. I thought it might be I could help them out. Haul people and supplies out and such, do runs back and forth when needs be."

In Gage's memory his father had spent every Seven skunk drunk upstairs in the apartment. "That'd be up to Brian and Joanne."

"Yeah. Okay."

"Why?" Gage demanded as Bill backed away. "Why don't you just get out?"

"It's my town, too. I never did anything to help before. I never paid much mind to it, or to what you were doing about it. But I knew. Nobody could get drunk enough not to know."

"They could use help out at the farm."

"Okay then. Gage." Bill winced, rubbed his hands over his face. "I should tell you, I've been having dreams. Last few nights, I've been having them. It's like I wake up, but I'm asleep, but it's like I wake up 'cause I hear your ma out in the kitchen. She's right there, it's so real. She's at the stove cooking dinner. Pork chops, mashed potatoes, and those little peas I always liked, the way she made them. And she..."

"Keep going."

"She talks to me, smiles over. She had some smile, my Cathy. She says: Hey there, Bill, supper's almost ready. I go on over, like I always did, put my arms around her while her hands are busy at the stove and kiss her neck till she laughs and wiggles away. I can smell her, in the dream, and I can taste..."

He yanked out his bandanna, mopped his eyes. "She tells me, like she always did, to cut that out now, unless I want my supper burned. Then, she says why don't you have a drink, Bill? Why don't you have a nice drink before supper? And there's a bottle on the counter there, and she pours the whiskey into the glass, holds it out to me. She never did that, your ma never did that in her life. And she never looked at me the way she does in the dreams. With her eyes hard and mean. I gotta sit down here a minute."

Bill lowered to the steps, wiped at the sweat that pearled on his forehead. "I wake up, covered in sweat, and I can smell the whiskey she held out to me. Not Cathy, not anymore, just the whiskey. Last night, when I woke up from it, I went on out in the kitchen to get something cold 'cause my throat was so dry. There was a bottle on the counter. It was right there. I swear to Christ, it was there. I didn't buy a bottle." His hands shook now, and fresh sweat popped out above his top lip. "I started to pick it up,