Chaingang

Anyone having information as to his disappearance or his present whereabouts should contact Martin W. Kerns, Chief of Police, Waterton Office of Public Safety, 555-9191 or 555-3017.

Mary's own number had been added to the newspaper account. She only just now noticed that the pasteup had not been trimmed of all its extraneous information. There was a filler line that the paper had run across the bottom, and she'd left it on. In tiny print at the bottom of the announcement it read:

“Support the Maysburg Eagles!"

Mary forced herself into action and started the car, pulling around the corner and parking halfway down the block. She gathered up a big armful of handbills and went in the first building down at the corner, Wilma's Hair Salon.

Kristi Devere was cutting someone's hair, and there was another lady under a dryer. Mary couldn't place the woman she was working on, but the woman acted like she knew Mary. She asked Kristi if she could leave some of the posters of Sam, and was turning to leave when the woman said, in a well-meaning tone, “I know exactly what you're going through, dear."

“Oh.” She had no idea who the woman was. A pleasant-looking bottle blonde of mysterious years, but clearly on the high side of middle age.

“I lost my Stanley and I didn't think I was ever going to get over it. Thirty-five years.” Kristi stopped and looked at her customer. “It's terrible to have a husband killed."

“Nobody knows that, Clarisse,” Kristi said gently.

“Of course they don't. But you know, if your husband gets Alzheimer's or something, and he's elderly, or in bad health, or he has a stroke—you know—” She needed to talk about it.

“Sure.” Mary wanted to get moving. Clarisse? Not Clarisse Pendleton? Must be. She vaguely remembered her husband had been killed in a car accident. A drunk driver.

“We had our kids grown and out of the house. Doing well. Our grandchildren were healthy. We had our financial situation—you know—comfortable. I mean, we weren't wealthy...” Huge diamonds flashed on an expressive, wrinkled hand.

“Mm-hm."

“I couldn't go in a room in the house without seeing something of Stanley's. I finally had to just box up everything and have Goodwill get it. All his beautiful suits. I couldn't stand it. I cried every time I came in the house. I couldn't fix a meal. I'd open the refrigerator and just break down. I'd find some little note or something in one of my purses. My heart broke ten times a day. You know—you lose someone to cancer, it's awful. But everyone loses loved ones to heart disease, cancer, things like that. To have something like this—"

“Bye bye, Mary,” Kristi said. “Good luck, hon.” Giving her a chance to thank them both and quickly start out the door.

“Holidays are the worst—” she could hear the woman call out to her back as the door mercifully closed.

10

NORTH OF WATERTON, MISSOURI

“Magic Silo. Crossing plowed ground to barnyard. Repeat. Magic Silo. Crossing plowed ground to barnyard.” The words register deep in the lion's brain salad. A radio spits noise.

“That's a rog, Charlie Charlie November. Magic Silo out.” Trying to fight his way out of the haze of tranqs. Wordscreen wrestles for information. Sorts through call signs: Wicked Trade. Mad Rover. Mud Puppy. Magic Silo does not connect.

Sees the steel. Chains. Feels the cold. Senses loss of equilibrium. Turbulence of some kind. Perhaps he is in Vietnam, on the way to an unknown LZ with the call sign Magic Silo. A bumpy ride, in this UH-1. The slick shudders in a loud eggbeater machine-gun flatulence of turbine whomp. But if this is a bird, where is the cocky pilot? The absentee door gunner? The copilot? No arrogant crew chief speaks. He replays a night insertion: unmarked skinships approaching LZ Quebec-Tulsa, filed as LZ: field expedient.

His body shrugs through layers of fog. Tests the chains reflexively. He is immobilized, but he can hear a radio and a single voice. If the pilot is tantalizingly alone, this is golden data—a neck snaps like rotten wood in his memory and he wants to smile, but the huge face is frozen.

There is the ruck. He realizes he must be hallucinating. His duffel and weapons case! A rush of joy surges through his bloodstream.

The presence of something else washes over him and he is back at Quebec-Tulsa, drag man on a squad-strength spike team. Grabbing ass through the sawgrass. Ten ground-pounders double-timing into the bad bush: trip flares, mines, frags, ammo, det gear, web gear, warm bods sheep-dipped (sanitized), night-fightered in camouflage, every jingly thing taped down.