After and Again (13 page)

  “It brought my hopes up for a minute too Mrs. Sanderson,” Emily said, ignoring Loren’s comment, “but it’s not even worth thinking about.

  “And why is that?” Holly asked tightly.

  “Because the man never even said where the time-rip was. Not in a way that we would understand anyway. Does anybody here know anything about blast zones and ground zeros?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Maybe he left a map,” Lisa Mccarron said, “Zack said that there were maps along with the books in the cave.”

  “You folks can’t really be thinking of doing this,” Tal said, shaking his head slowly.

  “You didn’t lose anyone, Tal Miller!” the usually even-tempered Holly Sanderson spat. “Your pretty wife Martha is there on your arm and your children are back there eating cakes and drinking warm milk. I lost everyone and would not hesitate to risk madness or my life if there was even a small chance of reversing the awful things that those men did and of bringing Bert and Jenny back to me!”

  “Beggin your pardon, Holly, yer right,” Tal said softly, looking briefly up at his wife who was sitting on the arm of his chair. “I just don’t want no harm to come to anyone else, that’s all.”

  Zack, with idea’s of his own about all of this spoke. “Listen, let me heal up for a few days and I’ll ride up to the cave and take a look at exactly what he left there. If there’s a map, then we can talk about this some more, okay?”

  “Fair enough,” Holly said, “I’ll even ride up with you, if you’ll have me.”

  “I’d like to go too.” Kendra Goodman added.

  “Anyone that would like to come is welcome,” Zack said, suddenly feeling very tired.

  Toby said, standing up, “Well then, I suggest that we call it a night and all get some sleep. We do have a lot of other things that we need to discuss but I think we all could use some rest first. Miranda set up beds for everyone in the spare rooms, so ask her where you’re to be situated.”

  After a goodnight kiss outside of the room that Emily was to share with Kendra and Cassie Goodman, Zack walked down the hall and joined Jonus Hemphill in the small room that was saved for them. Jonus was already snoring softly, and Zack was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

9

  Desmond Trask followed the single line of smoke in the distance once he started descending the north end of the mountain pass. He floated in and out of consciousness, and after falling from the horse twice had wrapped his wrists tightly in the reigns. Flies buzzed around his head and lighted on his ruined face. In his delirium, the face of the whelp that had caused all of his pain floated in front of him, taunting him.

  It was nearly dusk when he reached the small abode with the constant chimney smoke, he was not sure how long he’d been riding; one day? Or three? Time had no meaning, only the smoldering hatred for the boy and his hellhound mattered. The raven-haired girl had been the ultimate prize for The Man in Charge, worth twenty of the others. The snot-nosed little hero will pay for Desmond Trask’s humiliation. Oh yes.

  The old man unwrapped the huge man’s wrists from the horse’s reigns. The big man cantered to the left and fell from the horse landing on his back with a heavy thump. He stood over the injured giant and tried to figure out how to get him in the shack. The man was obviously knocking on death’s door and wasn’t likely to get up and walk on his own. He leaned over for a closer look at the man’s face when suddenly a hand shot out and grabbed his arm painfully. “Whoeryou?” the man asked with confused, clouded eyes.

  “My name’s Joe Price and ya look a sight worse for wear friend, can you tell me what happened?”

  “Wooof,” the man on the ground said groggily. Joe Price looked confused for a moment and then said,

  “Oohhh, a
wolf
got ya. That what happened?” the big man nodded.

  “I ain’t gonna see eighty again and cain’t lift ya; I’ll help ya, such as I can, but you gotta get up’n walk inside.

  To Joe Price’s surprise the man did just that. He pushed up the hulk of his body with grim determination and, to the old man’s amazement somehow managed to stand, walk and even duck through the open door.

  The man was too big for Joe’s small bed so he laid out some blankets on the floor and bid the man lay down. The very moment that he was down he passed out, as if the exertion of walking the short distance had sapped the very last of his strength. Joe kneeled down next to the man, his knees popping like a sapwood log on a hot fire. He lifted the serape over the man’s ruined face but couldn’t pull it out from under him so he just let it lay above the man’s head. He wore a thin weave shirt that laced up with rawhide thongs underneath the serape and it was tattered and soaked with blood. Joe unlaced the shirt and opened it, exposing a torso as big as his rain-barrel. The man was almost hairless and Joe spotted the two partially scabbed-over holes in his chest right away. Having lived a very colorful life before settling down at the base of the mountains, he recognized them for what they were at once; bullet holes.

  Joe stopped what he was doing and took a closer look at the man lying on his floor.  He looked at the big long knife in the hide scabbard on the man’s hip and then back at the holes in the man’s chest. He felt suddenly uneasy. A wolf, the man had said. Well, from the looks of his face and arms, that may be, but Joe Price had never known a wolf that could carry a gun. “Wouldn’t that be a sight,” he muttered, standing and walking over to the rectangular table against the wall that represented his kitchen. He retrieved a small aluminum cook-pot, reached out the glassless window that was cut into the wall over the table and filled the pot from the rain-barrel there. He then walked over and set the pot on the wood stove in the corner. He did all of this with an old man’s sort of bent shuffle, whistling to himself while he worked.

  Once the water was hot he grabbed a small cloth from a hook above the stove and dropped it in the pot of water. He squatted in front of the man and began to clean around the bullet holes. Once done, he cleaned the holes themselves, digging out the newly formed scabs and then producing a small folding knife from the pocket of his homespun wool trousers. Without a hint of a tremor that one might expect from a man in his eighties, he dug the end of his knife into the first hole. The first bullet was lodged firmly in the man’s massive collarbone and Joe dismissed it completely. The second had entered just below his breast and had apparently been deflected along the curve of his ribcage. Judging from the scabs, and the look of his other wounds, Joe guessed that had been two days since whatever it was that this man had been involved in. With that—and no sign of blood from his mouth—Joe surmised that the bullet had somehow not damaged the man’s lung. “We’ll I’ll be darned,” he said softly, debating the best way to proceed. He carefully pushed the small blade into the wound and the man moaned but did not move or wake. He probed in between two ribs, being especially careful to keep away from the man’s lung. When the knife was as far into the wound as he could get it, the tip of the blade nicked something that was not flesh or bone. He retracted the blade and then sliced between the two ribs to get closer to where he had felt the object. The man had started bleeding and Joe’s hands were slick with it. He wiped his hands on the cloth, re-inserted the knife, and after a moment said aloud, “Got you bastard,” and carefully guided the bullet out of the wound.

  With the bullet out, Joe quickly cleaned the wounds on the man’s arms, and face. There was one gash on his arm and two on his face that Joe deemed needed stitching, but he was almost out of gut and wanted to save it for the bullet wound. “Probably going to die of infection anyway,” he mumbled to himself getting up and walking back to the makeshift kitchen. He lifted the lid on a wooden box that sat on the table, pulled out a bottle and turned to the man lying on the floor. “This is some fine corn liquor to be wasting on the likes of you,” he said, opening the bottle and taking a swallow. “Well sir, I suppose I could be wrong, but you give me a bad feelin.” He walked back over to the man and without even leaning over, dumped the contents of the bottle all over the man’s chest, face, and arms. Trask grunted and snuffled a little, and then fell silent.

  With an old needle and a very short length of gut Joe Price sewed up the wound on Desmond Trask’s chest.

  “Guess it’s time to go visit Auburn for supplies,” Joe Price said to himself,  “maybe even take the long way and visit that ‘ol polecat Jeremiah while I’m at it. He spent the next half hour packing a leather bag with a drawstring, then he left some dried meat and stale biscuits by the huge body lying on his floor. He then filled the pot with some fresh water from the barrel and left that too. Looking down at the man he said; “Well I expect you to be long gone or long dead when I get back, an’ to tell you the truth, I’ll be fine with either. I done what a decent man should do, the rest is in gods hands, if there even is such a one.” He turned and walked out the front door with the bag over his shoulder. “Well now, I cain’t take the saddle off ya, wishin I could but I’m just too old for that big thing, c’mon though, I can make sure you don’t starve at least.” He dropped the bag and took the reigns and walked the horse around to the back of the shack where a mule was tethered to a pole next to a water trough. He untied the mule saying, “C’mon now, Lucky, you ‘ol slowpoke, we got some walking to do.” Then he tied the horses reigns to the longer tether attached to the pole, and walking the mule away he said, “Best of luck to ya, don’t’ eat all of Lucky’s grass.”

10

  Emily Hodgkins put the last of the breakfast dishes away in the big glass-fronted sideboard and then began wiping down the kitchen table. It had been three days since they had listened to the man’s voice on the recording machine and she was glad to be busy doing something. Miranda had at first protested Emily’s request to help with some of the housework but Emily had insisted that she wanted to be useful. Miranda, who was currently kneading some bread dough stopped and looked at her. “He’s a fine young man,” she said.

  “I know,” Emily said, a troubled smile crossing her features.

  “What is it dear?” Miranda asked, “I hope that everything is okay with you two.”

  “It is, Miranda, it’s perfect… he’s perfect, I just….I’m worried that if he finds a map, or directions or something in that cave, that he’s going to go through the time-rip. And that’s not all, there’s a part of me that
wants
him to go, and I feel horrible for even thinking it. I am terrified of what could happen to him if he goes and something goes wrong. But if everything goes right….”

  “Then this whole thing would never have happened and you would have your parents back,” not a question.

  “Yes, and Liz would be well, and Jenny….”

  “Listen to me, honey,” Miranda began, “Zack McQueen is going to do whatever he feels he needs to do. It is obvious that the young man adores you beyond measure, but I promise you that if he decides to go, there won’t be a thing on this earth that could stop him. That’s a part of what makes him who he is; that single-minded determination, without it, he never would have succeeded in saving you from those men. So my advice to you is to let it go and see how things unfold.”

  “Thank you, Miranda,” Emily said,  “You’re right of course, if Zack decides to go, then Zack is going to go.” But, she thought to herself, who’s to stop me from going with him?

  The next few days were busy; the Sturgess family had cleaned up their house, (one of only five buildings in the town proper that hadn’t burned beyond repair) and were preparing to move back in, at least until everything was decided. There was still debate as to whether or not they were all going to try and rebuild Payne’s Station or move elsewhere. The Sturgess family had dismissed the time-rip idea as folly, and although sympathetic to other’s losses, were in a hurry for the whole thing to blow over so that a decision could be made. Holly Sanderson, though still determined, had agreed with Toby Martin that Zack should take a little longer to regain his strength before riding up to the cave. Zack felt fine, and the cave wasn’t
that
far, but he didn’t argue because it gave him more time to think things out. He was losing hope daily that his mother was going to get well. She could be led around, she would eat if you fed her, and drink if you held a cup to her lips, but she would do nothing on her own. Zack thought her eyes never really looked at you, they looked
through
you.  Holly, along with Jonus and the Goodman women had went ahead and rode back out to her ranch to see how Hal and Mary King were faring. The ranch was too large for only two people to manage for very long so Jonus and the Goodman women offered to lend a hand to help get things caught up. Everyone else was busy helping out at the Martin ranch, whose stores had been taxed more heavily than usual lately. Toby, Heath and Tal had butchered a steer and were getting it ready for the smokehouse, and Miranda and the other women were catching up on the gardening. They even had the children out picking the spring peas before the weather got too hot and ruined them.