'Hello, Thad.' Stark sounded almost shy.
'Hello, George,' Thad said flatly. 'The family?'
'Just fine, thanks. You mean to do it? Are you ready?'
'Yes.'
Behind them, back toward Route 5, a branch cracked. Stark's eyes jumped in that direction.
'What was that?'
'A tree-branch,' Thad said. 'There was a tornado down here about four years ago, George. The deadwood is still failing. You know that.'
Stark nodded. 'How are you, old hoss?'
'I'm all right.'
'You look a little peaky.' Stark's eyes darted over Thad's face; he could feel them trying to pry into the thoughts behind it.
'You don't look so hot yourself.'
Stark laughed at this, but there was no humor in the laugh. 'I guess I don't.'
'You'll let them alone?' Thad asked. 'If I do what you want, you'll really let them alone?'
'Yes.'
'Give me your word.'
'All right,' Stark said. 'You have it. The word of a Southern man, which is not a thing given lightly.' His bogus, almost burlesque, cracker accent had disappeared entirely. He spoke with a simple and horrifying dignity. The two men faced each other in the late afternoon sunlight, so bright and golden it seemed surreal.
'Okay,' Thad said after a long moment, and thought: He doesn't know. He really doesn't. The sparrows . . . they are still hidden from him. That secret is mine. 'Okay, we'll go for it.'
3
As the two men stood by the door, Liz realized she had just had the perfect opportunity to tell Alan about the knife under the couch . . . and had let it slip by. Or had she?
She turned to him, and at that moment Thad called, 'Liz?'
His voice was sharp. It held a commanding note he rarely used, and it seemed almost as if he knew what she was up to . . . and didn't want her to do it. That was impossible, of course. Wasn't it? She didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore.
She looked at him, and saw Stark hand Thad the baby. Thad held Wendy close. Wendy put her arms around her father's neck as chummily as she had put them around Stark's..Now! Liz's mind screamed at her. Tell him now! Tell him to run! Now, while we've got the twins!
But of course Stark had a gun, and she didn't think any of them were fast enough to outrun a bullet. And she knew Thad very well; she would never say it out loud, but it suddenly occurred to her that he might very well trip over his own feet.
And now Thad was very close to her, and she couldn't even kid herself that she didn't understand the message in his eyes.
Leave it alone, Liz, they said. It's my play.
Then he put his free arm around her and the whole family stood in a clumsy but fervent four-way embrace.
'Liz,' he said, kissing her coot lips. 'Liz, Liz, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for this. I didn't mean for anything like this to happen. I didn't know. I thought it was . . . harmless. A joke.'
She held him tightly, kissed him, let his lips warm hers.
'It's okay,' she said. 'It will be okay, won't it, Thad?'
'Yes,' he said. He drew away so he could look in her eyes. 'It's going to be okay.'
He kissed her again, then looked at Alan.
'Hello, Alan,' he said, and smiled a little. 'Changed your mind about anything?'
'Yes. Quite a few things. I talked to an old acquaintance of Yours today.' He looked at Stark.
'Yours, too.'
Stark raised what remained of his eyebrows. 'I didn't think Thad and I had any friends in
common, Sheriff Alan.'
'Oh, you had a very close relationship with this guy,' Alan said. 'In fact, he killed you once.'
'What are you talking about?' Thad asked sharply.
'It was Dr Pritchard I talked to. He remembers both of you very well. You see, it was a pretty unusual sort of operation. What he took out of your head was him.' He nodded toward Stark.
'What are you talking about?' Liz asked, and her voice cracked on the last word. So Alan told them what Pritchard had told him . . . but at the last moment he omitted the part about the sparrows dive-bombing the hospital. He did it because Thad hadn't said anything about the sparrows . . . and Thad had to have driven past the Williams place to get here. That suggested two possibilities: either the sparrows had been gone by the time Thad arrived, or Thad didn't want Stark to know they were there.
Alan looked very closely at Thad. Something going on in there. Some idea. Pray to God it's a good one.
When Alan finished, Liz looked stunned. Thad was nodding. Stark - from whom Alan would have expected the strongest reaction of all - did not seem much affected one way or the other. The only expression Alan could read on that ruined face was amusement.
'It explains a lot,' Thad said. 'Thank you, Alan.'
'It doesn't explain a goddam thing to me!' Liz cried so shrilly that the twins began to whimper. Thad looked at George Stark. 'You're a ghost,' he said. 'A weird kind of ghost. We're all standing here and looking at a ghost. Isn't that amazing? This isn't just a psychic incident; it's a goddam epic!'