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"SOPHIE"

Still holding her hand, he gets to his feet, pulling her up with hie for their sockets He is terrified and exalted in equal, perfectly equal, , but oh the beats are sweet The second ties to say her name a little louder, but there’s still not ht have been rubbed with ice He sounds like a ut

"Yes"

"Sophie"

"Yes"

"Sophie"

"Yes"

There’s so the na back that simple affirmation Familiar and funny And it comes to him: there’s a scene almost identical to this in The Terror of Deadwood Gulch, after one of the Lazy 8 Saloon’s patrons has knocked Bill Towns unconscious with a whiskey bottle Lily, in her role as sweet Nancy O’Neal, tosses a bucket of water in his face, and when he sits up, they ¡ª

"This is funny," Jack says "It’s a good bit We should be laughing"

With the slightest of s our fool heads off"

"Yes"

"Our tarnal heads off"

"Yes"

"I’lish anys in her blue eyes The first is that she doesn’t know the word English The second is that she knows exactly what heto get the reality of it Trying to pound it hohts her face and enriches her mouth Jack thinks of hoould be to kiss that ain, and wondering if he dares give his date a peck good-night after he walks her ho And then: "Have you got it yet? Do you understand that you’re here and how you got here?"

Above and around hi breath Half a dozen conflicting drafts gently touch his face and make him aware that he carried a coat of sweat from the other world, and that it stinks He ar to lose sight of her for longer than a moment at a tie ¡ª many-chambered ¡ª and Jack thinks briefly of the pavilion in which the Queen of the Territories, hisThat place had been rich with many colors, filled with many rooms, redolent of incense and sorrow (for the Queen’s death had seemed inevitable, sure ¡ª only a ed The walls and the ceiling are full of holes, and where the white material remains whole, it’s so thin that Jack can actually see the slope of land outside, and the trees that dress it Rags flutter froes of some of the holes when the wind blows Directly over his head he can see a shadowy maroon shape Some sort of cross

"Jack, do you understand how you ¡ª "

"Yes I flipped" Although that isn’t the word that co of the word that comes out seems to be horizon road "And it seeleman’s accessories with me" He bends and picks up a flat stone with a flower carved on it "I believe that in ia O’Keeffe print And that ¡ª " He points to a blackened, fireless torch leaning against one of the pavilion’s fragile walls "I think that was a ¡ª " But there are no words for it in this world, and what coly as a curse in Geren lamp"

She frowns "Hal-do-jenlirin "Never ht"

He understands that she needs hiht, and so he’ll say that he is, but he’s not He is sick and glad to be sick He is one lovestruck daddy, and wouldn’t have it any other way If you discount how he felt about his mother ¡ª a very different kind of love, despite what the Freudians ht think ¡ª it’s the first tiht he had been in and out of love, but that was before today Before the cool blue of her eyes, her s tent fleet across her face like schools of fish At this moment he would try to fly off a h a forest fire, or bring her polar ice to cool her tea, and those things do not constitute being all right

But she needs him to be

Tyler needs him to be

I am a coppiceman, he thinks At first the concept seems insubstantial compared to her beauty ¡ª to her siins to take hold As it always has What else brought hiainst his will and all his best intentions?

"Jack?"

"Yes, I’ht I’ve flipped before" But never into the presence of such beauty, he thinks That’s the probleo is your talent One of your talents So I have been told"

"By whoreat deal to do, and yet I think I need a moment Yourather take lad to know it He sees he is still holding her hand, and he kisses it, as Judy kissed his hands in the world on the other side of the wall froe on the tips of three of her fingers He wishes he dared to take her in his arms, but she daunts hihtly taller than Judy ¡ª a matter of two inches, surely no olden shade of unrefined honey spilling fro a simple cotton robe, white trimmed with a blue that matches her eyes The narrow V-neck fras are bare but she’s wearing a silver anklet on one of them, so slim it’s almost invisible She is fuller-breasted than Judy, her hips a bit wider Sisters, you ht think, except that they have the same spray of freckles across the nose and the same white line of scar across the back of the left hand Different mishaps caused that scar, Jack has no doubt, but he also has no doubt that those mishaps occurred at the same hour of the same day

"You’re her Twinner Judy Marshall’s Twinner" Only the word that comes out of his mouth isn’t Twinner; incredibly, dopily, it sees of a harp lie close together, only a finger’s touch apart, and he will decide that word isn’t so foolish after all

She looks down, her ain and tries to smile "Judy On the other side of the wall When ere children, Jack, we spoke together often Even e grew up, although then we spoke in each other’s drea in her eyes and then slipping down her cheeks "Have I driven her mad? Run her to lunacy? Please say I haven’t"

"Nah," Jack says "She’s on a tightrope, but she hasn’t fallen off yet She’s tough, that one"

"You have to bring her Tyler back to her," Sophie tells him "For both of us I’ve never had a child I cannot have a child I wasMistreated by one you kneell"

A terrible certainty forms in Jack’s hs in the wonderfully fragrant breeze

"Was it Morgan? Morgan of Orris?"

She bows her head, and perhaps this is just as well Jack’s face is, at that ly snarl In that an Sloat’s Twinner all over again He thinks to ask her how she was mistreated, and then realizes he doesn’t have to

"How old were you?"

"Twelve," she saysas Jack has known she would say It happened that same year, the year when Jacky elve and came here to save his mother Or did he come here? Is this really the Territories? Somehow it doesn’t feel the same Almostbut not quite

It doesn’t surprise hian would rape a child of twelve, and do it in a way that would keep her froan Sloat, soan of Orris, wanted to rule not just one world or two, but the entire universe What are a few raped children to a ently slips her thu brushed with feathers She’s looking at hi like wonder "Why do you weep, Jack?"

"The past," he says "Isn’t that alhat does it?" And thinks of his arette, and listening while the radio plays "Crazy Arms" Yes, it’s always the past That’s where the hurt is, all you can’t get over

"Perhaps so," she allows "But there’s no time to think about the past today It’s the future we must think about today"

"Yes, but if I could ask just a few questions?"

"All right, but only a few"

Jack opens hisexpression when nothing cohs "You take my breath away, too," he tells her "I have to be honest about that"

A faint tinge of color rises in Sophie’s cheeks, and she looks down She opens her lips to say soain Jack wishes she had spoken and is glad she hasn’t, both at the saently, and she looks up at him, blue eyes wide

"Did I know you? When you were twelve?"

She shakes her head

"But I saw you"

"Perhaps In the great pavilion My mother was one of the Good Queen’s handest You could have seen est the wonder of this, then goes on Time is short They both know this He can al

"You and Judy are Twinners, but neither of you travel ¡ª she’s never been in your head over here and you’ve never been in her head, over there Youtalk through a wall"

"Yes"

"When she wrote things, that was you, whispering through the wall"

"Yes I kne hard I was pushing her, but I had to Had to! It’s not just a question of restoring her child to her, ier considerations"

"Such as?"

She shakes her head "I areater than I"

He studies the tiny dressings that cover the tips of her fingers, and h that wall to each other Morgan Sloat could apparently becoan of Orris at will As a boy of twelve, Jack had le-natured and had always been Jack in both worlds Judy and Sophie, however, have proved incapable of flipping back and forth in any fashion So’s been left out of theh the wall between the worlds There s, but at this le one

Jack looks around at the ruined tent, which sees flap In the next rooauzy cloth wall, he sees a few overturned cots "What is this place?" he asks

She smiles "To some, a hospital"

"Oh?" He looks up and once more takes note of the cross Maroon now, but undoubtedly once red A red cross, stupid, he thinks "Oh! But isn’t it a littlewellold?"

Sophie’s smile widens, and Jack realizes it’s ironic Whatever sort of hospital this is, or was, he’s guessing it bears little or no resemblance to the ones on General Hospital or ER "Yes, Jack Very old Once there were a dozen or more of these tents in the Territories, On-World, and Mid-World; now there are only a few Mayhap just this one Today it’s here Tomorrow" Sophie raises her hands, then lowers them "Anywhere! Perhaps even on Judy’s side of the wall"

"Sort of like a traveling medicine show"

This is supposed to be a joke, and he’s startled when she first nods, then laughs and claps her hands "Yes! Yes, indeed! Although you wouldn’t want to be treated here"

What exactly is she trying to say? "I suppose not," he agrees, looking at the rotting walls, tattered ceiling panels, and ancient support posts "Doesn’t exactly look sterile"

Seriously (but her eyes are sparkling), Sophie says: "Yet if you were a patient, you would think it beautiful out of all measure And you would think your nurses, the Little Sisters, the most beautiful any poor patient ever had"

Jack looks around "Where are they?"

"The Little Sisters don’t come out when the sun shines And if ish to continue our lives with the blessing, Jack, we’ll be gone our separate ways fro before dark"

It pains hih he knows it’s inevitable The pain doesn’t dampen his curiosity, however; once a coppiceman, it seems, always a coppiceman

"Why?"

"Because the Little Sisters are vaet well"

Startled, uneasy, Jack looks around for signs of them Certainly disbelief doesn’t cross his mind ¡ª a world that can spaolves can spawn anything, he supposes

She touches his wrist A little treh him

"Don’t fear, Jack ¡ª they also serve the Beas serve the Beahtens "The one who can answer your questions will be here soon, if he’s not already" She gives hilimmer of a smile "And after you hear him, you’ll be more apt to ask questions that matter"

Jack realizes that he has been neatly rebuked, but co He allows hireat and ancient hospital As they go, he gets a sense of how really huge this place is He also realizes that, in spite of the fresh breezes, he can detect a faint, unpleasant undersht be a mixture of fermented wine and spoiled uess pretty well After visiting over a hundred homicide crime scenes, he should be able to

It would have been i the love of his life (not to mention bad narrative business), so we didn’t Noever, let us slip through the thin walls of the hospital tent Outside is a dry but not unpleasant landscape of red rocks, brooo lilies, stunted pines, and a few barrel cacti Soh of a river The hospital pavilion rustles and flaps as drea down the sweet chute of the trade winds As we float along the great ruined tent’s east side in our effortless and peculiarly pleasant e notice a strew of litter There are s etched on them, there is a beautifully made copper rose that has been twisted out of shape as if by so that looks as if it has been chopped in two by a meat cleaver There’s other stuff as well, stuff that has resisted any change in its cyclonic passage from one world to the other We see the blackened husk of a television picture tube lying in a scatter of broken glass, several Duracell AA batteries, a comb, and ¡ª perhaps oddest ¡ª a pair of white nylon panties with the word Sunday written on one side in demure pink script There has been a collision of worlds; here, along the east side of the hospital pavilion, is an interled detritus that attests to how hard that collision was

At the end of that littery pluht say ¡ª sits ahily brown robe (and he clearly doesn’t knoear such a garle, we can seetips, or with his hair pulled back into a rough horsetail and secured with a hank of rawhide, but this is undoubtedly Wendell Green He isto himself Drool drizzles fro fixedly at an untidy crunores all the es that have occurred around hiure out how his Panasonic minicorder turned into a little pile of ancient paper, perhaps he’ll move on to the other stuff Not until then

Wendell (we’ll continue to call hiht or ht not have in this little corner of existence, since he doesn’t know it or want to) spies the Duracell AA batteries He crawls to the to stick them into the little pile of foolscap It doesn’t work, of course, but that doesn’t keep Wendell froht say, "Give that boy a flyswatter and he’d try to catch dinner with it"

"Geh," says the Coulee Country’s favorite investigative reporter, repeatedly poking the batteries at the foolscap "Gehin Gehin! Gah-daeh in th ¡ª "

A sound ¡ª the approaching jingle of what can only be, God help us, spurs ¡ª breaks into Wendell’s concentration, and he looks up ide, bulging eyes His sanity one forever, but it’s certainly taken the wife and kids and gone to Disney World Nor is the current vision before his eyes apt to coax it back anytime soon

Once in our world there was a fine black actor named Woody Strode (Lily knew him; acted with him, as a matter of fact, in a late-sixties American International stinkeroo called Execution Express) Thethe place where Wendell Green crouches with his batteries and his handful of foolscap looks re faded jeans, a blue chambray shirt, a neck scarf, and a heavy revolver on a wide leather gun belt in which four dozen or so shells twinkle His head is bald, his eyes deep-set Slung over one shoulder by a strap of intricate design is a guitar Sitting on the other is what appears to be a parrot The parrot has two heads

"No, no," says Wendell in avoice "Don’t Don’t see Don’t see That" He lowers his head and onceto cram the batteries into the handful of paper

The shadow of the newcomer falls over Wendell, who resolutely refuses to look up

"Howdy, stranger," says the newco up

"My name’s Parkus I’m the law ’round these parts What’s your handle?"

Wendell refuses to respond, unless we can call the low grunts issuing from his drool-slicked mouth a response

"I asked your name"

"Wen," says our old acquaintance (we can’t really call hi up "Wen Dell GreeGreen III"

"Take your time," Parkus says (not without syets hot"

"Inek!"

"Oh? That what you are?" Parkus hunkers; Wendell cringes back against the fragile wall of the pavilion "Well, don’t that just beat the bass drum at the front of the parade? Tell you what, I’ve seen fish hawks, and I’ve seen red hawks, and I’ve seen goshawks, but you’rerapidly

On Parkus’s left shoulder, one head of the parrot says: "God is love"

"Go fuck your mother," replies the other head

"All must seek the river of life," says the first head

"Suck roard God," responds the first

"Piss up a rope," invites the second

Although both heads speak equably ¡ª even in tones of reasonable discourse ¡ª Wendell cringes backward even farther, then looks down and furiously resumes his futile ith the batteries and the handful of paper, which is now disappearing into the sweat-grimy tube of his fist

"Don’t mind ’em," Parkus says "I sure don’t Hardly hear ’em anymore, and that’s the truth Shut up, boys"

The parrot falls silent

"One head’s Sacred, the other’s Profane," Parkus says "I keep ’em around just to remind me that ¡ª "

He is interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps, and stands up again in a single lithe and easyhands with the perfect unconsciousness of children on their way to school

"Speedy!" Jack cries, his face breaking into a grin

"Why, Travelin’ Jack!" Parkus says, with a grin of his own "Well-rown up"

Jack rushes forward and throws his ars him back, and heartily After a th and studies him "You were older ¡ª you looked older to , Parkus nods And when he speaks again, it is in Speedy Parker’s drawl "Reckon I did look older, Jack You were just a child, remember"

"But ¡ª "

Parkus waves one hand "Sometimes I look older, soe is wisdom," one head of the parrot says piously, to which the other responds, "You senile old fuck"

" ¡ª depends on the place and the circumstances," Parkus concludes, then says: "And I told you boys to shut up You keep on, I’ your scrawny neck" He turns his attention to Sophie, who is looking at hi eyes, as shy as a doe "Sophie," he says "It’s wonderful to see you, darling Didn’t I say he’d coer than I expected, is all"

She drops him a deep curtsey, all the way down to one knee, her head bowed "Thankee-sai," she says "Co the Beam with my love"

At this, Jack feels an odd, deep chill, as if many worlds had spoken in a harmonic tone, low but resonant

Speedy ¡ª so Jack still thinks of hies her to her feet "Stand up, girl, and look er here, not in the borderlands, even if I do still carry the old iron from time to time In any case, we have a lot to talk about This’s no tiot to ers say Or used to say, before the world rouse, and think they’ll cook up just fine"

"What about ¡ª " Jack gestures toward the , crouched heap that is Wendell Green

"Why, he looks right busy," Parkus says "Told me he’s a nek"

"I’m afraid he’s a little above himself," Jack replies "Old Wendell here’s a news vulture"

Wendell turns his head a bit He refuses to lift his eyes, but his lip curls in a sneer that les The lip curls again, and this time the sneer seems less reflexive It is, in fact, a snarl "Gol Gol Gol-den boy Holly Wood"

"He’s ed to retain at least some of his charm and his joi de vivre," Jack says "Will he be okay here?"

"Not much with ary brain in its head comes near the Little Sisters’ tent," Parkus says "He’ll be okay And if he smells somethin’ tasty on the breeze and couess we can feed hi just over yonder If you want to come and visit, why, you just up and do her Understand me, Mr Nek?"

"Wen Dell Green"

"Wendell Green, yessir" Parkus looks at the others "Coet him," Sophie murmurs, with a look back "It will be dark in a few hours"

"No," Parkus agrees as they top the nearest rise "Wouldn’t do to leave him beside that tent after dark That wouldn’t do at all"

There’s e in the declivity on the far side of the rise ¡ª even a little ribbon of creek, presumably on its way to the river Jack can hear in the distance ¡ª but it still looks more like northern Nevada than western Wisconsin Yet in a way, Jack thinks, that makes sense The last one had been no ordinary flip He feels like a stone that has been skipped all the way across a lake, and as for poor Wendell ¡ª

To the right of where they descend the far side of the draw, a horse has been tethered in the shade of what Jack thinks is a Joshua tree About twenty yards down the draw to the left is a circle of eroded stones Inside it a fire, not yet lit, has been carefully laid Jack doesn’t like the look of the place much ¡ª the stones remind him of ancient teeth Nor is he alone in his dislike Sophie stops, her grip on his fingers tightening

"Parkus, do we have to go in there? Please say we don’t"

Parkus turns to her with a kindly smile Jack knoell: a Speedy Parker sone fro," he says "And you know that such as yon are best for stories"

"Yet ¡ª "

"Now’s no tiive in to the willies," Parkus tells her He speaks with a trace of impatience, and "willies" isn’t precisely the word he uses, but only how Jack’s mind translates it "You waited for him to come in the Little Sisters’ hospital tent ¡ª "

"Only because she was there on the other side ¡ª "

" ¡ª and noant you to co" All at once he seeer Yes, I suppose he could be a gunslinger Like in one of Moht," she says, low "If we must" Then she looks at Jack "I wonder if you’d put your are

As they step between two of the stones, Jack see the to leave a trail of slie, oho the bledding foodzies, soon he cuood friend Mun-shun, and such a prize I have for him, oho, oho ¡ª

Jack looks at his old friend as Parkus hunkers by a tow sack and loosens the drawstring at the top "He’s close, isn’t he? The Fisherman And Black House, that’s close, too"

"Yep," Parkus says, and froutted corpses of a dozen pluhts of Irrouse, and he thinks he won’t be able to eat Watching as Parkus and Sophie skewer the birds on greensticks reinforces this idea But after the fire is lit and the birds begin to brown, his storouse smell wonderful and will probably taste even better Over here, he re always does

"And here we are, in the speaking circle," Parkus says His smiles have been put away for the nonce He looks at Jack and Sophie, who sit side by side and still holding hands, with soainst a nearby rock Beside it, Sacred and Profane sleeps with its two heads tucked into its feathers, dreaone, but the legends say such things leave a residue thatthe Blarney Stone, ests

Parkus shakes his head "No blarney today"

Jack says, "If only ere dealing with an ordinary scu That I could handle"

Sophie looks at him, puzzled

"He means a dust-off artist," Parkus tells her "A hardcase" He looks at Jack "And in one way, that is what you’re dealing with Carl Bier-stone isn’t much ¡ª an ordinary monster, let’s say Which is not to say he couldn’t do with a spot of killing But as for what’s going on in French Landing, he has been used Possessed, you’d say in your world, Jack Taken by the spirits, we’d say in the Territories ¡ª "

"Or brought low by pigs," Sophie adds

"Yes" Parkus is nodding "In the world just beyond this borderland ¡ª Mid-World ¡ª they would say he has been infested by a dereater than the poor, tattered spirit that once lived in this circle of stones"

Jack hardly hears that His eyes are glowing It sounded soht, a thousand years ago That’s not it, but it’s close

"Carl Bierstone," he says He raises a clenched fist, then shakes it in triuo Burnside here in French Landing Case closed, game over, zip up your fly Where is he, Speedy? Save me some time h ¡ª "

"Shutup," Parkus says

The tone is low and alainst hi like his old friend, nothing at all You have to stop thinking of him as Speedy, Jack tells himself That’s not who he is or ever was That was just a character he played, someone who could both soothe and charm a scared kid on the run with his mother