No Dominion (The Walker Papers: A Garrison Report) (14 page)

And besides, it was a hell of a thing, riding across the stars with the Hunt. It got hard to remember I still had a fight ahead of me. Never dreamed I’d be coming at it this way, not even in the worst of the war I’d seen. There were minutes where it was easy to think I’d laid down my own burden an’ was enjoying an afterlife like I’d never imagined.

An’ then we rode through a cloudburst one afternoon into a remote stretch of road in California. It was Horns who knocked a pretty girl outta the road just as a truck came thunderin’ outta nowhere and came half an inch from clipping her down. We were gone before she knew what had happened, but I was looking back, twisted in my saddle, to watch Annie Macready yelp and draw her feet back as the truck roared by. “So mundane,” Cernunnos said a couple seconds later, “but equally unquestionable.”

Annie was gone already, left in the rain, but the image of her stuck in my mind. Neat white blouse tucked into a bright yellow skirt, an’ flat shoes on her feet. Blond hair hardly past her collar, but not as done-up as it’d been the night I met her. I had to swallow to get words past the tightness in my throat. “This’s the late forties, Horns. Not so many cars on the road as there are today.”

He said, “And yet,” an’ I muttered.
I toldja so
wasn’t any better from a god than anybody else. ‘sides, I remembered Annie tellin’ me about that near miss, one night when my car overheated an’ we ended up walking through a rainstorm to the nearest town. Headlights had washed over us a few times, but we’d kept walking insteada hitching. Back then it wasn’t dangerous. We’d just liked keeping company in the rain. I smiled at the memory, then scowled at Cernunnos, who didn’t give a damn about what happy thoughts I might be thinking.

“There was no resistance to my interference. She may not have been under attack at all, Master Muldoon. It may have only been human carelessness that nearly cost her her life today.”

“Then I owe you one.”

“More than one by now, I think.”

Hell of a time to pick a fight, but I shook my head. “I ain’t takin’ that burden on, Horns. I asked for the lift through time, but you made it plenty clear that you’re watching my back because of Jo, not ‘cause I asked you to. You saved my Annie, and I’ll repay that one if I get the chance, but I ain’t starting a tab at this bar.”

I’d seen the look he got a few times before, but usually it was Jo, not me, exasperating him. I guessed I’d made my point, though, ‘cause he went on without belaboring it. “The more effort our enemy has put into destroying her, the more difficult you’ll find it to interfere. Time is not that kind.”

“Yeah.” I thought of Jo, tryin’ ta heal the elf king Lugh and running up against the magic of a little girl from our own time. She’d said the same thing: one big change to the time line made smaller ones pretty much impossible. “So—waitaminnit. You tellin’ me I’m the goddamned Ghost a’Christmas Past? I’m gonna be stuck watching everything go to hell and not be able to
fix
it?”

Something happened in his expression, something that suggested that if I didn’t know better, I might think Horns was being gentle with me. “I am telling you nothing. It’s rarely wise to predict what capricious humans might achieve. I would not have said an ordinary man, even one held so highly in Joanne Walker’s regard, might have struck the Morrígan a near-fatal blow, nor drawn the Devourer’s attention to himself. I expect this journey with you will prove enlightening.”

“That really why you’re doing it? To understand how we work?”

“I understand already,” Horns said mildly. “But understanding and predicting are not the same. Pace yourself, Master Muldoon. Watch for the things that have changed, and hold those in your memory now. They will be important, if you can hold them.”

“Changed, what the hell are you talkin’ about, Horns? I know how my life went. It ain’t gonna change.”

He shook his big heavy head, an’ I got the idea he was giving me as much as he could without hanging himself. It didn’t seem near enough, and I thought maybe Joanne felt like this a lot, like she was working with only half of what she needed to know. I started to ask another question, but Cernunnos held up his hand, stopping me. “Watch. Remember. And act only when you are certain of your outcome, and not before, or this battle for your wife is sure to be lost.”

I muttered, “I already lost it once,” as Cernunnos dropped me into a college football game an’ my whole life washed over me.

I always told the dolls it was the smell of wet leather and grass stains that kept me coming back to the field. Never failed to get a dimple or a laugh, like they saw fixating on scents as an intriguing sensibility. Wasn’t, though. I just liked the smells, the way they filled up my chest an’ got the heart pumping. They were a signal the fight was on, an’ a football field was about as much fight as I was ever looking for. Getting a sacked, knocking down a long pass, jumping high for the ball. My Pop taught me to play football, but it was Ma, a ballet teacher, who made me practice pushing all the way through my toes when I jumped. Got me a few extra inches of height every time, and I caught a lotta balls—and deflected a lotta others—that the other teams didn’t think I should, that way.

‘course, it was a long way down to the ground when somebody tackled me at the height of a jump. Dirt an’ grass an’ bodies flew. The wet ball squirted outta my grip an’ went bouncing end over end across the field. About eight other guys jumped on it, an’ a couple more jumped on me for good measure. A whistle blew an’ everybody piled off, lined up, an’ started all over again.

I knew this game. It was the last college game I was gonna play for four years, an’ in about two minutes I was gonna miss my last chance at a touchdown. A little fella on the other team was gonna foul me and the refs weren’t gonna catch it. I was gonna eat dirt, lose the ball, and in the end, lose the game. I’d replayed it in my mind prob’ly ten thousand times over the years, the way ya do.

‘f I took two extra steps sideways, though, there would be nothin’ between me an’ the goal posts ‘cept clear air and a few thousand screams cheerin’ me on, and I’d go into the Army a football hero instead of feeling like the pariah who lost the big game. Grinning like a fool, I snatched the ball when it came my way, put on a burst of power, dodged to my left…

…an’ let the little guy foul me, an’ fell, an’ lost the game. Plenty’a complaining in the locker room later, mostly from the other guys, my pals who’d seen the foul even if the ref hadn’t. “Thought you were gonna make it there, though, Muldoon,” one of ‘em said to me. “You looked like you knew he was coming.”

“Almost saw him outta the corner of my eye,” I allowed. “Just couldn’t get my feet going fast enough. Shoulda been you with the ball, Smit. You got lightning feet.”

He did a shuffle that made everybody laugh, an’ a couple guys pounded me on the back on the way out. They knew, even if the refs didn’t, an’ they
didn’t
know about the double-play I was living that coulda let me save the game if I’d chosen to. I watched a bunch of ‘em go, waving an agreement to meet for beers an’ burgers later on, then ran a towel over my head an’ chased after the coach, callin’, “Coach. Coach, wait up, I gotta talk to you.”

Saunders was another little guy like the one who’d fouled me, ‘cept not a jackass like that fella. He’d been a quarterback in his day, and didn’t mind admitting he was a better coach than he’d been player. He slowed down without looking at me, studying a clipboarded playsheet instead. “Sorry about that foul, Muldoon. You know how some of these referees get if you suggest they’ve made a mistake. Wild horses couldn’t change their minds.”

“Don’t matter. Ain’t a life-defining moment.”

He did look at me then, a grin flashing across his face. “That’s what I like about you, Gary. You get your fight up when you need it, but everything else you take in stride. It makes you a good player. I’d like to see you as a co-captain next year.”

“Yeah, me too.” I shoved my hands into my pockets with a sigh. “But it ain’t gonna happen, Coach. That’s why I gotta talk to you. I’m dropping out of school at the end of the semester and enlisting.”

Coach quit walking like he’d hit a wall. He’d fought in the first war, and I could see all of those memories rise up and whiten his face before he got ‘em under control an’ looked like he was tryin’ ta sound reasonable: “What in hell would you do that for?”

I shrugged. Hands in my pockets meant I couldn’t wave ‘em around like I was asking for forgiveness. “The GI bill, Coach. It’s the only way I can figure payin’ for the rest of college.”

“We can find you a scholarship—”

“Nah, Coach.” I kept my voice quiet, remembering this conversation from most of a lifetime ago. “I got the grades for ‘em, but it’s late in the year, and other guys have snatched ‘em up.”

“There are private avenues, people I can talk to—”

“Coach.” This one wasn’t worth arguing. If I didn’t join the Army, I’d never go to that USO dance and I’d never meet Annie. No way I was risking that big of a change to my life. “I don’t need the special treatment, Coach. This is what I’m gonna do.”

“They’ll send you to war, Gary. You’ll go to Korea.” There was a tremor in Coach’s voice I hadn’t been able to hear fifty years ago, when I was young and dumb an’ full of fire. The way most of me was right now, ‘cause the kid was in charge an’ the old man was only a voice of experience along for the ride. I wanted to make that kid say
I know, Coach. I know what it’s like, I know about the sleepless nights you get for a lifetime after. I know about the faces that don’t go away. I understand, and I wanna thank you for looking out for me. But this is what I gotta do anyway.
 

I couldn’t, a’course, not anymore than I could have when I was twenty years old and feeling a little smug about my prospects and not a bit afraid getting sent to war. Best I could do was try not to sound condescending, like I thought I knew what I was talking about, when all I said was, “I know, Coach. I’ll send a postcard from Seoul, all right?”

Saunders got a tight pinched smile an’ patted my shoulder. “All right, son. I wish I could talk you out of it, but if your mind’s made up…”

“It is, Coach.”

“Then you send me that postcard, and I’ll put it with the rest.” He shook my hand and we walked away, my heart bangin’ with a young man’s excitement and an old man’s dread.

Next step I took was into the recruiter’s station, though real memory told me weeks had passed, that I’d said g’bye to all my buddies, gone out drinking more than I shoulda and kissed a few girls who weren’t mine to kiss. I stood up an’ got measured, six foot two, two hundred ten pounds, good vision, no asthma, strong heart, all of it ticked off on boxes like I was a piece of meat being processed until I was pronounced fit for duty. Another step and I was in uniform, in Basic, turning back to give a fellow recruit a helping hand, an’ the drill sergeant was in my face givin’ me hell for doin’ it. I said, “Sir, yes sir!” and “Sir, no sir!” like I was supposed ta, and next time gave the guy a hand again. Little skinny black fella named Andy, he told me that time. Andy from Alabama. Him and me would stay friends the rest of our lives, all the way into the next century. I wanted to say somethin’ to him when I gave him a hand the third time, maybe
this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,
but I was starting to get it then.

This was a young man’s life. This was me, an’ I wasn’t just going through the motions. I was
living
this, living it for the first time, the way anybody would, except I had just enough awareness to know how to change things if I wanted to.

“Horns,” I said out loud and a little desperate, “not every minute, buddy, or I’ll go crazy. Give it to me in chunks. Lemme just touch down at the important parts—” Because if I sat in the back of my own head for fifty years, judging and second-guessing and making my older self re-think every choice I’d made as a kid, knowing I had to make the same damned choices every time anyway just to get where I was going, then I wouldn’t make it through. Everybody liked to say “If I knew then what I know now,” but knowin’
then
,
acting
on it then, would make
now
different. Nobody could do it the same way twice, live the exact same life a second time. It wasn’t humanly possible.

I got the faintest idea that Cernunnos was laughing, like maybe he hadn’t thought about humanly possible ‘cause he wasn’t human, and the idea of my life started speeding up again. He would send me through my life the same way I’d just skipped through the games and volunteering for the Army, like I was seeing the highlights reel. Big events stood out, an’ some of those little moments a guy can’t shake for some reason, like trippin’ over my shoelace comin’ around a corner during Basic. Nobody saw it except me and some birds, but a lifetime later I still got hot around the collar thinking about it.

I muttered, “Thanks,” and hunkered down in my own head to watch the highlights, tryin’ hard not to think too much about what I was doing when I took Andy’s hand and pulled him up for the third time. Not the last, either, but he offered his own hand to me a lotta times down through the years, until neither of us could count how many or who’d done it first.

But I wasn’t gonna worry about that, or anything else. I was just gonna hold on, and live…
now
.