Morgan had not killed Phil; there was Tommy to testify that the three of them had been together when the shot rang out, if any testimony had ever been required (and, of course, none ever was).
But that was not to say he couldn't have hired it done, Jack thought now. And it was not to say that Uncle Tommy might not have harbored his own long doubts about what had happened. If so, maybe Uncle Tommy hadn't been killed just so that Jack and his dying mother would be totally unprotected from Morgan's depredations. Maybe he had died because Morgan was tired of wondering if the old faggot might finally hint to the surviving son that there might have been more to Phil Sawyer's death than an accident. Jack felt his skin crawl with dismay and revulsion.
'Was that man around before your father and my father went hunting together that last time?' Jack asked fiercely.
'Jack, I was four years old - '
'No, you weren't, you were six. You were four when he started coming, you were six when my father got killed in Utah. And you don't forget much, Richard. Did he come around before my father died?'
'That was the time he came almost every night for a week,' Richard said, his voice barely audible. 'Just before that last hunting trip.'
Although none of this was precisely Richard's fault, Jack was unable to contain his bitterness. 'My dad dead in a hunting accident in Utah, Uncle Tommy run down in L.A. The death-rate among your father's friends is very f**king high, Richard.'
'Jack - ' Richard began in a small, trembling voice.
'I mean it's all water over the dam, or spilled milk, or pick your cliché,' Jack said. 'But when I showed up at your school, Richard, you called me crazy.'
'Jack, you don't under - '
'No, I guess I don't. I was tired and you gave me a place to sleep. Fine. I was hungry and you got me some food. Great. But what I needed most was for you to believe me. I knew it was too much to expect, but jeepers! You knew the guy I was talking about! You knew he'd been in your father's life before! And you just said something like 'Good old Jack's been spending too much time in the hot sun out there on Seabrook Island and blah-blah-blah!' Jesus, Richard, I thought we were better friends than that.'
'You still don't understand.'
'What? That you were too afraid of Seabrook Island stuff to believe in me a little?' Jack's voice wavered with tired indignation.
'No. I was afraid of more than that.'
'Oh yeah?' Jack stopped and looked at Richard's pale, miserable face truculently. 'What could be more than that for Rational Richard?'
'I was afraid,' Richard said in a perfectly calm voice. 'I was afraid that if I knew any more about those secret pockets . . . that man Osmond, or what was in the closet that time, I wouldn't be able to love my father anymore. And I was right.'
Richard covered his face with his thin, dirty fingers and began to cry.
6
Jack stood watching Richard cry and damned himself for twenty kinds of fool. No matter what else Morgan was, he was still Richard Sloat's father; Morgan's ghost lurked in the shape of Richard's hands and in the bones of Richard's face. Had he forgotten those things? No - but for a moment his bitter disappointment in Richard had covered them up. And his increasing nervousness had played a part. The Talisman was very, very close now, and he felt it in his nerve-endings the way a horse smells water in the desert or a distant grass-fire in the plains. That nerviness was coming out in a kind of prancy skittishness.
Yeah, well, this guy's supposed to be your best buddy, Jack-O - get a little funky if you have to, but don't trample Richard. The kid's sick, just in case you hadn't noticed.
He reached for Richard. Richard tried to push him away. Jack was having none of that. He held Richard. The two of them stood that way in the middle of the deserted railroad bed for a while, Richard's head on Jack's shoulder.
'Listen,' Jack said awkwardly, 'try not to worry too much about . . . you know . . . everything . . . just yet, Richard. Just kind of try to roll with the changes, you know?' Boy, that sounded really stupid. Like telling somebody they had cancer but don't worry because pretty soon we're going to put Star Wars on the VCR and it'll cheer you right up.
'Sure,' Richard said. He pushed away from Jack. The tears had cut clean tracks on his dirty face. He wiped an arm across his eyes and tried to smile. 'A' wi' be well an' a' wi' be well - '
'An' a' manner a' things wi' be well,' Jack chimed in - they finished together, then laughed together, and that was all right.
'Come on,' Richard said. 'Let's go.'
'Where?'
'To get your Talisman,' Richard said. 'The way you're talking, it must be in Point Venuti. It's the next town up the line. Come on, Jack. Let's get going. But walk slow - I'm not done talking yet.'
Jack looked at him curiously, and then they started walking again - but slowly.