visions or whatever you want to call them with the Old Cheyenne, right?”
I reluctantly agreed. “Kind of.”
She finished hers and tossed the crust across the crate to Dog, who hit it like a great white shark hits seals off the coast of South Africa. “So, give.”
I closed the top on the last piece, rested an elbow on the crate, and thought about what had happened that night and a couple of times before. “I saw Virgil again.” She didn’t say anything but just watched me. “When I was in the lodge over in South Dakota in the snowstorm a few months ago, and he wasn’t alone.”
“Who was with him?”
I thought about the woman, who was Grace Coolidge, of all people, and the mystery man with the stars in his eyes. “You’re not going to believe me if I tell you.”
“I don’t believe in your make-believe friend Virgil, so why should I buy any of the Old Cheyenne friends he had tagging along from the Camp of the Dead?”
“That’s the third time I’ve seen him.”
She held up two fingers and licked them, then wiped them off on a paper napkin. “Twice—the first time you met him he was alive, now two times dead.”
“I’m worried that I might be losing it a little bit each time.”
“What do you mean?”
I said the next words very carefully. “That I’m losing my mind.”
She laughed but then noticed I wasn’t joining her. She tilted her head sideways and leaned in, searching my eyes. “You’re serious.”
“I’ve never had anything happen to me like I have in the last few years—seeing things, hearing things, people that aren’t there . . . I’m not exactly given to this stuff, you know?”
“Shit, you are serious.”
“I am.” I reopened the box, tore up the slice, and fed the pizza to Dog, my appetite having totally retreated. “Normally, I’d just forget it, mark it off as some kind of hallucination or something, but every time Virgil or whoever or whatever it is has prophesized something, it’s come true.”
She stretched a hand across the crate and rested it on my arm as we both stood there. “Look, maybe you need to talk to somebody.”
“I thought that was what I was doing.”
She paused for a long time before continuing. “I mean somebody who knows something about this stuff. I’m no expert on the subject, but it’s always when you’re by yourself; have you ever thought that it might just be you? Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something, huh?”
“No, it’s dissociative—things I choose not to think about.”
“Well, there’s your answer right there.” She shook my arm, anxious that I not get too serious, and then let go and sipped her beer. “Walt, as near as I can tell, you think too damn much.”
“Uh huh.”
She set the empty can on the crate. “What did Virgil say?”
“It wasn’t just Virgil; this time it was also a man in the snow.”
“Okay.”
“I was following someone in this dream, and when I got closer I could see it was a buffalo, but when it turned it changed shape into a man, a man with no eyes, just spaces where you could see the stars shining in the darkness—like his head contained the universe.”
“And you get all this stuff without the benefit of controlled substances or alcohol?”
“Pretty much.”
“And the guy without eyes, you’re not going to tell me . . .”
“Danny Lone Elk.”
Her mouth made a perfect
O
before she spoke. “That’s some trippy shit.” She came around and sidled her hip and shoulder against me, forcing Dog out of the way. “So, what’d Blind Danny Lone Elk have to say?”
I took a deep breath—she smelled really good—and then recited: “
You will stand and see the good, but you will also stand and see the bad—the dead shall rise and the blind will see.
”
She gave a shudder and then slipped her arm around my waist. “So, why do they always say creepy stuff like that, huh? Why can’t they just say you’re going to win the lottery or that you’re
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Steven Barnes