But for some reason no one wanted any part of this batch. Cheney had never even gone over to sniff them.
Ahead, the waterfront opened up in a series of half-collapsed wooden piers and ruined buildings that left the concrete breakwater and pilings exposed. The waters of the sound spread away in a black, oily sheen clogged with refuse and algae, disappearing offshore in a massive fog bank that hung from clouds to earth like a thick, gauzy curtain. There was land beyond the fog, another piece of the city that stuck out south to north in a hilly peninsula dotted with houses and withered trees. But he seldom saw it these days, for the fog kept it wrapped tightly, a world far removed from his own.
He reached the waterfront and stood looking about for a moment, Cheney working his way in front of him, left to right, right to left nose to the ground, eyes glittering in the thin light. Left, the steel skeletons of the shipping cranes rose through the mist like dinosaurs frozen in time, dark and spectral. Right, the buildings of the city loomed over the dockside, their windows thousands of black, sightless eyes whose glass had long ago been broken out. The waterfront itself was littered with old car hulks and pieces of the buildings that had come down with the collapse of the piers and the concrete viaduct that had carried traffic through the city long ago. A dark figure moved in the shadows of a building front, one of the few still standing, there for just an instant, then quickly gone. Hawk waited in vain for another look. It was something more scared of him than he was of it.
He started down the waterfront toward the places where the Weatherman could usually be found. He kept to the open spaces, away from the dark openings and rubble where the bad things would sometimes lie in wait.
Croaks, in particular, were unpredictable. Even with Cheney present, a Croak would attack if given a chance. Of course, anything would attack street kids because they were the easiest of prey.
He had walked perhaps a hundred yards north when he heard the Weatherman singing:
A tisket, a tasket, The world is in a casket.
Broken stones and dead men’s bones, All gathered in a basket.
The Weatherman’s voice was thin and high and singsong in a meandering sort of way that suggested his mind wasn’t fully focused on what he was doing. Hawk suspected the old man’s mind hadn’t been fully focused on anything for years. It was a miracle that he had survived this long on the streets, alone and unprotected. Almost no adults lived outside the compounds; only kids and Freaks lived on the streets.
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Sweet and kind and slow of mind, it really didn’t know.
That everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went. Everywhere that Mary went, bad things were sure to go.
“Which accounted for its untimely demise the day Mary decided to visit the waterfront and ran into the big, bad wolf. Hello, Brother Hawk.”
The Weatherman emerged from the shadow of a partially collapsed building along the dockside, his ravaged face like something out of a nightmare—the skin pocked and mottled, the strange blue eyes as mad as those of any Croak, and the wispy white hair sticking out in all directions. He wore his trademark black cloak and red scarf, both so tattered it was a wonder the threads still managed to hold together.
“Are you the wolf that Mary should have stayed away from?” Hawk asked him.
You never knew for sure what the Weatherman was singing about.
The old man hobbled over to him, giving Cheney a passing glance but showing no fear. Cheney, for his part, kept his yellow eyes fixed on the scarecrow but did not growl. “Hadn’t given it much thought. Do you think I might be?”
Hawk shrugged. “I think you’re the Weatherman. But you could be a wolf, too.”
The old man came right up to him. He reeked of the streets, of the waterfront smells, of the poisons and the waste. His eyes were milky and his fingers bony as he lifted them to his scraggly beard and tugged on it contemplatively.
“I could be many things, Brother Hawk. But I am only one. I am the Weatherman, and my forecast for you this day is of dark clouds and cold nights and of a heavy wind that threatens to blow you away.” The mad eyes fixed on him.
“My prediction calls for a Ghost watch. Keep a weather eye out, boy, until I have a chance to provide an update.”
Hawk nodded, not understanding at all. He never understood the Weatherman’s predictions, but out of politeness he pretended he did. “We came across a Lizard yesterday. It was all torn up. You know something out there that could do that, Weatherman?”
The ragged head cocked and the gaunt face tightened. “Something searching for food or establishing its territory. Something like The times we live in—who would have believed they would come to pass? Do you know, Brother Hawk, that this city was beautiful once? It was green and sparkling, and the waters of this bay were so blue and the sky so clear you could see forever.