Black House

Still holding the bat (in fact he almost bashes Dale in the right cheekbone with the end of it), Jack reaches over and honks the horn. "Pull over," he says. "This is it. Those dopes were out here only yesterday and they’re going right past it."

Dale pulls over on the shoulder, brings the cruiser to a jerky stop, and puts it in park. When he looks over at Jack, his face has gone remarkably pale. "Oh man, Jack — I don’t feel so good. Maybe it was breakfast. Christ, I hope I’m not going to start puking."

"That buzzing you hear in your head, is that from breakfast?" Jack inquires.

Dale’s eyes go wide. "How do you — "

"Because I hear it, too. And feel it in my stomach. It’s not your breakfast. It’s Black House." Jack holds out the squeeze bottle. "Go on. Dab some more around your nostrils. Get some right up in. You’ll feel better." Projecting absolute confidence. Because it’s not about secret weapons or secret formulas; it’s certainly not about honey. It’s about belief. They have left the realm of the rational and have entered the realm of slippage. Jack knows it for certain as soon as he opens the car door.

Ahead of him, the bikes swerve and come back. Beezer, an impatient look on his face, is shaking his head: No, no, not here.

Dale joins Jack at the front of the car. His face is still pale, but the skin around and below his nose is shiny with honey, and he looks steady enough on his feet. "Thanks, Jack. This is so much better. I don’t know how putting honey around my nose could affect my ears, but the buzzing’s better, too. It’s nothing but a low drone."

"Wrong place!" Beezer bawls as he pulls his Harley up to the front of the cruiser.

"Nope," Jack says calmly, looking at the unbroken woods. Sunlight on green leaves contrasting with crazy black zigzags of shadow. Everything trembling and unsteady, making mock of perspective. "This is it. The hideout of Mr. Munshun and the Black House Gang, as the Duke never said."

Now Doc’s bike adds to the din as he pulls up next to Beezer. "Beez is right! We were just out here yesterday, y’damn fool! Don’t you think you know what we’re talking about?"

"This is just scrap woods on both sides," Dale chimes in. He points across the road where, fifty yards or so southeast of their position, yellow police tape flutters from a pair of trees. "That’s the lane to Ed’s Eats, there. The place we want is probably beyond it — "

Even though you know it’s here, Jack thinks. Marvels, really. Why else have you gone and smeared yourself with honey like Pooh-bear on a lucky day?

He shifts his gaze to Beezer and Doc, who are also looking remarkably unwell. Jack opens his mouth to speak to them . . . and something flutters at the upper edge of his vision. He restrains his natural impulse to look up and define the source of that movement. Something — probably the old Travelin’ Jack part of him — thinks it would be a very bad idea to do that. Something is watching them already. Better if it doesn’t know it’s been spotted.

He puts the Richie Sexson bat down, leaning it against the side of the idling cruiser. He takes the honey from Dale and holds it out to the Beez. "Here you go," he says, "lather up."

"There’s no point in it, you goddamn fool!" Beezer cries in exasperation. "This . . . ain’t . . . the place!"

"Your nose is bleeding," Jack says mildly. "Just a little. Yours too, Doc."

Doc wipes a finger under his nose and looks at the red smear, startled.  He starts, "But I know this isn’t — "

That flutter again, at the top of Jack’s vision. He ignores it and points straight ahead. Beezer, Doc, and Dale all look, and Dale’s the first one to see it. "I’ll be damned," he says softly. "A NO TRESPASSING sign. Was it there before?"

"Yep," Jack says. "Been there for thirty years or more, I’d guess."

"Fuck," Beez says, and begins rubbing honey around his nose. He pokes generous wads of the stuff up his nostrils; resinous drops gleam in his red-brown Viking’s beard. "We woulda gone right on, Doctor. All the way to town. Hell, maybe all the way to Rapid City, South Dakota." He hands the honey to Doc and grimaces at Jack. "I’m sorry, man. We should have known. No excuses."

"Where’s the driveway?" Dale’s asking, and then: "Oh. There it is. I could have sworn — "

"That there was nothing there, I know," Jack says. He’s smiling. Looking at his friends. At the Sawyer Gang. He is certainly not looking at the black rags fluttering restively at the upper periphery of his vision, nor down at his waist, where his hand is slowly drawing the Ruger .357 from his waistband. He was always one of the best out there. He’d only won badges a couple of times when it was shooting from a stand, but when it came to the draw-and-fire competition, he did quite well. Top five, usually. Jack has no idea if this is a skill he’s retained, but he thinks he’s going to find out right now.

Smiling at them, watching Doc swab his schnozz with honey, Jack says in a conversational voice: "Something’s watching us. Don’t look up. I’m going to try and shoot it."

"What is it?" Dale asks, smiling back. He doesn’t look up, only straight ahead. Now he can quite clearly see the shadowy lane that must lead to Burnside’s house. It wasn’t there, he could have sworn it wasn’t, but now it is.

"It’s a pain in the ass," Jack says, and suddenly swings the Ruger up, locking both hands around the stock. He’s firing almost before he sees with his eyes, and he catches the great dark crow crouched on the overhanging branch of an oak tree entirely by surprise. It gives one loud, shocked cry — "AWWWWK!" — and then it is torn apart on its roost. Blood flies against the faded blue summer sky. Feathers flutter down in clumps as dark as midnight shadows. And a body. It hits the shoulder in front of the lane with a heavy thud. One dark, glazing eye peers at Jack Sawyer with an expression of surprise.