The Servants of Twilight

There was still blood crusted in the dog's ears.

Charlie stared into its eyes.

He petted it.

The bullet wound in Christine's leg had stopped bleeding, and the pain had drained out of it. She felt clear-headed. With each passing minute she developed a greater appreciation of their survival, which was (she now saw) a tribute-not to the intervention of supernatural forces, but-to their incredible determination and endurance. Confidence returned to her, and she began to believe, once more, in the future.

For a few minutes, when she had been bleeding and helpless, when Spivey had been looming over Joey, Christine had surrendered to an uncharacteristic despair. She had been in such a bleak mood that, when the angry bats had responded to the gunfire and had attacked Spivey, Christine had even briefly wondered if Joey was, after all, what Spivey had accused him of being. Good heavens! Now, with Barlowe on his way for help, with the worst of her pain gone, with a growing belief in the likelihood of her and Charlie's survival, watching Joey as he fumblingly added a few branches to the fire, she could not imagine how such dark and foolish fears could have seized her. She had been so exhausted and so weak and so despondent that she had been susceptible to Spivey's insane message. Though that moment of hysteria was past and equilibrium restored, she was chilled by the realization that even she had been, however briefly, fertile ground for Spivey's lunacy.

How easily it could happen: one lunatic spreads her delusions to the gullible, and soon there is a hysterical mob, or in this case a cult, believing itself to be driven by the best intentions and, therefore, armored against doubt by steely selfrighteousness. There was evil, she realized: not in her little boy but in mankind's fatal attraction to easy, even if irrational, answers.

From across the room, Charlie said, "You trust Barlowe?"

"I think so," Christine said.

"He could have another change of heart on the way down."

"I think he'll send help," she said.

"If he changes his mind about Joey, he wouldn't even have to come back.

He could just leave us here, let cold and hunger do the job for him."

"He'll come back, I bet," Joey said, dusting his small hands together after adding the branches to the fire." I think he's one of the good guys, after all. Don't you, Mom? Don't you think he's one of the good guys?"

"Yeah," Christine said. She smiled." He's one of the good guys, honey."

"Like us," Joey said.

"Like us," she said.

Hours later, but well before nightfall, they heard the helicopter.

"The chopper will have skis on it," Charlie said." They'll land in the meadow, and the rescue team will walk in from there."

"We're going home?" Joey asked.

Christine was crying with relief and happiness." We're going home, honey. You better get your jacket and gloves, start getting dressed."

The boy ran to the pile of insulated sportswear in the corner.

To Charlie, Christine said, "Thank you."

"I failed you," he said.

"No. We had a bit of luck there at the end… Barlowe's indecision, and then the bats. But we wouldn't have gotten that far if it hadn't been for you. You were great. I love you, Charlie."

He hesitated to reply in kind, for any embrace of her was also an embrace of the boy; there was no escaping that. And he was not entirely comfortable with the boy, even though he was trying hard to believe that Barlowe's explanation was the right one.

Joey went to Christine, frowning. The drawstring on his hood was too loose, and he could not undo the clumsy knot he had put it in." Mommy, why'd they have to put a shoelace under my chin like this?"

Smiling, Christine helped him." I thought you were getting really good at tying shoelaces."

"I am," the boy said proudly." But they gotta be on my feet."

"Well, I'm afraid we can't think of you as a big boy until you're able to tie a shoelace no matter where they put it."

"Jeez. Then I guess I'll never be a big boy."

Christine finished retying the hood string." Oh, you'll get there one day, honey."

Charlie watched as she hugged her son. He sighed. He shook his head.

He cleared his throat. He said, "I love you, too, Christine. I really do."

Two days later, in the hospital in Reno, after enduring the attention of uncountable doctors and nurses, after several interviews with the police and one with a representative of the press, after long phone conversations with Henry Rankin, after two nights of much-needed drug-induced sleep, Charlie was left to find unassisted rest on the third night. He had no difficulty getting to sleep, but he dreamed.