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.He picked some mustard flowers, a few dead grass heads and a pinch of dirt, sat down on the edge of the lawn.He shook the stuff in his cupped hands, and then opened them.He studied the mix for a while, and then looked up at me.“They’re all right.They’re happy.Excited.They’ve taken the moon road.You won’t see them for awhile.”“They’re alive?”“They’re on a kind of journey.”“What's the moon road?”His eyes changed as he looked into the distance, but after a moment he shook his head.“I’m not sure.But they’re going to tell you all about it.Soon, that will be your road.”He offered to take me along to the barbecue where he was going to dinner, but I was ready to head home.He squatted down at my car door to say, “Hey.You tell Richard hi for me when you see him.And tell him thanks.” He stood up, so I didn’t get to ask him any more about how I was going to see Richard.If I did see Richard, I sure wanted to know when he’d managed to cure the Rag Man.CHAPTER TENI drove home right into the rush hour, but after I finished creeping down the 57 and got on the 60, traffic was against me and I sped along nicely, while across the median the endless lines of people alone in their cars rolled slowly along.I wondered if the Rag Man was right, and if I could believe that Gray Fox hadn’t harmed Marge and Andy.I hadn’t smelled blood up at the cabin.I hadn’t smelled death.Neither of the women had been there recently.Maybe they had gone on some kind of long hike.I stopped at the grocery store before heading for my apartment.I was thinking about the Rag Man, and the change in him, about the moon road, and what that might be, as I carried the groceries around the building to my stairs.And then I stopped, because there he was.Richard.He stood on the steps, waiting for me.It wasn’t Richard, of course, but it was a damn good imitation.The face was right, the bright fair hair, the jeans and boots, even the leather jacket was almost perfect.The stance was not quite right.Richard stood straight as an arrow, and any deviation was a message.This one said, “I’m not actually Richard,” and I was trying not to read it.I stood there, taking him in.I couldn’t help smiling.I couldn’t even help the tears in my eyes, because I loved Richard, and he was gone.I tried hard not to look too closely at the details.I knew he was a fake.And I knew as soon as I came closer, his scent would be wrong, and that would ruin it for me.There are a number of different ways you can react if someone impersonates your lover and friend, tries to step into the place that belonged to someone so dear to you.I’d thought of several of them, from the first time I’d scented the place where I’d seen Richard standing, and it had not been him.In the first one, of course, the imposter ends up running screaming down the avenue, back arched against the blow he can feel coming his way.I was going to personally guarantee that there would be screaming.And of course there could be other scenarios first, and the screaming and the running might come later.I decided on the second course, because Richard looked so good to me, so fine, almost exact.And I missed him, and for all intents and purposes, there he was.No reason to chase him away just yet.“Richard!” I said, and my voice resonated with love, and surprise, and happiness, all on its own.And my eyes widening, and almost starting to tear up, that wasn’t exactly voluntary either.“You came back!” I exclaimed, and I almost made myself believe, just for a moment, that it was true.I took a step toward him.“You said you never would, but oh, you came back!” I wouldn’t actually say something like that, but I thought I’d give the guy some encouragement.This might be fun.Fake Richard smiled, and it was almost his smile.“I couldn’t help it,” he told me.“I had to see you again.I missed you.”He’d said that to me a dozen times in the last few weeks, in my dreams.Of course Richard would not miss me.He was free.He was gone, he dwelt in other worlds now, as a different being.But I was still enchanted to hear what almost sounded like his voice say those words.“I thought I’d never see you again,” my voice said, of its own accord.“Darling,” he said, “I couldn’t stay away.”Okay, that wasn’t Richard.The imposter recognized the false note at once, probably in my reaction, and tried again.“I missed you so much!”“I missed you too!” I indicated the door to my apartment.“Don’t you have your key?” I was playing with him; Richard had never had a key, but this guy wasn’t going to know that.“I—lost it, I’m afraid.And I wasn’t sure if you would want me…” He nodded toward the apartment.“Oh,” I said.I was trying to put off the moment when I would have to move closer to him, and the fantasy that this was really Richard would vanish.Ah, well.“Do you want to come upstairs?” I asked, and I canted my hips just a little, and I tilted my head and added just a hint of a pout.Because if you are going to play a role like this, you might as well play it to the max.“Of course!” he said, dropping his voice.“Why else would I have come?”I walked up to him, and he held out his arms for an embrace.I handed him the grocery bags and hurried past him up the steps [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]