Forests of the Heart by Charles De Lint Read Free Book Online Page A

through the nightmare and managed to come through the other side well enough to be able—to
want
—to help others. But the only war stories she knew were from the people she tried to help. She had none of her own.
    Before she could think of a way to try to explain this, a police cruiser pulled up. Tommy pushed away from the van.
    “I’ll deal with them,” he said.
    Ellie let him go. She watched him talk to the two uniformed officers when they got out of their cruiser. The ambulance pulled away, siren off, cherry lights still flashing. When it rounded a corner, she turned back to the van, but paused before getting in. Even in this severe cold, the incident had managed to gather a half-dozen onlookers. A couple of obviously homeless men stood near where she’d thrown up. The others probably lived in one of the buildings nearby, cheap apartment complexes that had long since seen better days.
    Opening the side door of the van, she put a couple of sandwiches in the pocket of her parka, then poured two coffees. She took them over to the homeless men. They hesitated for a moment, looked from her face to the legend on the side of the van before accepting the coffees and sandwiches.
    “Who was it?” one of the men asked.
    “I didn’t get his name,” she told them.
    The other man took a sip of his coffee. “I’ll bet it was Howard. Stupid fuck’d sleep anywhere.”
    “Would you like a ride to a shelter?” Ellie asked.
    “Come on, pretty lady,” the second man said. “Do
we
look that stupid?”
    No matter how cold it got, some of the homeless would never go to a shelter. They were afraid of what little they had being stolen, of something bad happening to them—like the possibility of freezing to death was a good thing, but what could you do? Some were so used to being outside, they couldn’t sleep indoors anymore. Like feral alleycats, the close, heated confines of a shelter made them strike out in panic, attacking a worker, each other, sometimes trashing the place.
    “Tell Angel thanks for the coffee and the grub,” the first man told her.
    They turned their backs and headed off down the block, shoulders hunched against the cold.
    “I will,” she said.
    “It’s a wonder they survive.”
    Ellie looked at the man who’d spoken. He was one of the onlookers she’d noticed earlier, a tall, dark-skinned man who towered over her own five-ten frame. His gray overcoat was almost as threadbare as those of the two homeless men, but it didn’t have the same slept-in, ratty look. Like her, he was wearing a hunter’s cap, the ear flaps pulled down, except his was real sheepskin; hers was only a quilted wool. His eyes were alert, his features knife-sharp and aged by the passage of time, not alcohol abuse and hard living. Even with the cold, his overcoat was unbuttoned, flapping in the wind. He wore no scarf.
    “It scares me,” she said. “We’ve already had four homeless people die of exposure this year.”
    “That you know of.”
    She gave him a sharp look, then sighed. “That we know of,” she agreed.
    There were places in the city where a body could easily remain undiscovered until the spring thaw. There’d been one last year in the Tombs, half-eaten by rats and wild dogs by the time someone stumbled over it. Her stomach went all queasy again, just thinking about it.
    “Do you have any more of that coffee?” the man asked.
    “Sure.”
    She tried to place his accent as she led the way back to the van, but couldn’t. His voice had a husky quality—like someone unused to speaking, or uncomfortable with the language. She also got the impression that he was well-educated, though she couldn’t have said why. But it would have been some time ago, she decided, when the overcoat was still new.
    After drawing him a coffee from the urn, she started to fill a second cup for herself, then quickly changed her mind. She didn’t much care for black coffee, but the thought of adding milk to it made her feel nauseous