Sandra Hill - [Vikings II 02]

by Madly Viking Truly

  “To heal myself?”

  “Yes!” she said enthusiastically.

  He shook his head. “There is no bright side in this catastrophe today…and, yea, it is a catastrophe. Look at this from my perspective, m’lady. There is no winter chill in the air here, but winter has already begun in other parts of your country. On the seas I need to travel, the air will be frigid—too cold for sailing on an open longship till springtime. Have you ever tried to row a boat with ice on the oars? Have you ever stood for hours at a time in weather so wet and cold that every hair on your body turns to icicles, even the chest hairs? Of course you haven’t. Can you not see that I must communicate with Thora soon, or be forced to wait many months to leave this land?”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “Yea, it is the worst of all things. My brother Rolf is in danger. Every day might count in my completing his rescue.”

  Maggie thought about all his impossible words. “Assuming I believe everything that you’ve said, Joe, it seems to me that there must be a good reason why you were sent to this land…and this time.” She nearly choked on that last part. “If you’re going to accept that the Fates—or the gods…or even a killer whale—are determining your destiny, then you also have to accept that coming to Galveston was preordained.”

  He followed her words with interest. “I have considered all these things, and I agree that it was no mistake that landed me on these shores. But sometimes man can influence his destiny. In fact, does not your Christian religion have a saying that God helps those who help themselves?”

  Maggie had to laugh at Joe’s quick mind. She wished she knew who or what he really was. Aside from being a gorgeous specimen of manhood, he was intelligent and strong and a born leader. What did he do for a living? Was he a career military man? A construction worker? An adventurer, or an extreme exercise fanatic…like the father of her two children, who had a perfectly good career as a resident physician but had to jump out of airplanes, as well? There should be a clue in all she knew of Joe, but the answer eluded her.

  “Well, enough of this for today,” she said, standing and brushing the dirt off the rump of her jeans—a maneuver that Joe watched with decided masculine interest, despite his desolation over his predicament. “We have to get back to the orca show. It should be over soon.”

  As they were strolling in front of the bleachers toward the Rainbow group, which was watching the show avidly, Joe remarked, “I just wish that damned killer whale would get back here and rescue me, so I can rescue my brother.”

  Just then Gonzo swam up and flicked his huge tail fins, causing a wave of water to cover Joe from head to toe. So much for communicating with killer whales! Or maybe Gonzo was communicating, after all, in response to Joe’s deprecating comment about whales. Sort of an orca version of “Screw you, Viking!”

  Chapter Nine

  Jorund and Steve sat alone in the bus.

  In the distance, across a wide lawn, could be seen the rest of the Rainbow group staring at a stone wall, which apparently contained the names of all the dead soldiers who had fought in the Battle of Vee-yet-numb. It was a good idea, in Jorund’s opinion…one that he intended to mention to King Olaf when he returned to Norway. Of course, they would need a wall much bigger than this one if they were going to record all the dead Vikings in battle after battle through the centuries, rather than any one war or another. In truth, there had been so many Norse wars, the skalds had lost count long ago. Some people, especially those bloody Saxon clerics who recorded English history, claimed a Viking would fight with anyone, even his own brother. It was true.

  A few of the people who had come to view the Moving Wall besides the Rainbow group gave curious looks at Chuck the Viking…and at Not-a-lie, too, who was wont to break into song at the least provocation. Right now she was singing about a honk-key-tonk angel, her fringes swaying from side to side as she danced to her own music.

  “Come, Steve,” Jorund urged his friend. “You are a man of courage. Are you going to turn coward now?”

  Jorund was not in a good mood, especially after his disappointing failure to locate the elusive Thora. Although he had not voiced this particular concern to Mag-he, the worry nagging at him most was the possibility that he might not ever find Thora or his way back to his own time. What would he do then?

  In his present ill temper, he did not feel inclined to prod a stubborn ox like Steve to see the error of his ways. But the grief-stricken man was as close to a friend as Jorund had made in this godforsaken land of the twentieth century, and he could no more abandon him to his pain than he could his own brother, Magnus…or his brother Rolf, he reminded himself guiltily.

  “Get lost, birdbrain,” Steve responded in a most thankless manner. “The last thing in the world I have is courage.”

  “Did you not win that famous medal for valor? Have you not endured thirty years of inner torment? Do you not stay away from your soul mate, Shell-he, for love of her? Do you not battle with demons every night in your dreams, and come out the victor? That spells courage to me.” Jorund had never been a talkative fellow, but he certainly seemed to have developed a taste for tongue flapping now. And he was good, too. Puffing his chest out, he concluded, “Betimes, survival itself is a form of triumph.”

  Steve gave him a level stare. “You are so full of it.”

  “Let me tell you a story—”

  “Oh, God! Not another freakin’ saga. I swear, if I hear one more tale about Sigurd and the Dragon Lady, I’m gonna puke.”

  Jorund lifted his chin, affronted. Well, mayhap he had been overdoing the life-lesson legends a mite, but he felt a little closer to home and his old life when he retold the poems and stories of his people. In truth, he probably sounded like his brother Magnus when he’d tipped the mead horn once too often and began to sing ribald songs…except in Jorund’s case, he told stories. “I thought you liked my sagas.”

  “I was being polite, man. Hell, they might be perfectly good yarns when the poets—uh, skalds—put them together, but let me give you a bit of advice, pal: you are no storyteller. Stick to fighting, or whatever the hell it is you do.”

  Jorund bristled. Should he punch Steve in his sullen face? Or better yet, should he hoist him by the scrawny neck, toss him over his shoulder, and carry him bodily to the bloody wall?

  It was an easy decision. He turned slowly and let a slow smile crease his lips.

  “Wh-what? Why are you looking at me like that?” Steve asked warily. Then, “You wouldn’t! Oh, no, you wouldn’t!”

  Jorund would.

  “Maggie, they’re safe in the bus,” Harry told her. “But if you’re worried about them, go back and wait there. I’m capable of handling the rest of the group, along with the aid of Gladys and the two attendants.”

  “No, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t want Joe and Steve to think I didn’t trust them.” Still, she glanced back toward the parking lot at the unmarked bus. Then she glanced again. “Oh, boy!”

  Jorund was striding across the lawn, carrying a cursing, squirming Steve on his shoulder. He did so with ease, even though Steve was at least six feet tall and a hundred and seventy pounds.

  She started to step up and chastise Jorund for creating a scene. Tourists right and left were gaping at them. In fact, Maggie saw a local newspaper photographer, who hung around the traveling wall in hopes of catching a human-interest story, sit up alertly on the park bench where he’d been waiting. His van with the Galveston Daily News logo was parked at a nearby curb.

  But Harry put a hand on her arm. “Wait, Maggie. Let’s see how this plays out.”

  “But—”

  “Think about it. Maybe, just maybe, Joe will be the one to jolt Steve out of his self-pity. Maybe this is the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for.”

  Jorund, on the other hand, felt like breaking something. Ever since he’d landed in this world, he’d had nothing but problems. Now he, who prided himself on his aloofness, was involving himself in other people’s p
roblems as well. With a snort of disgust, he planted Steve on his feet in front of the wall, and glared at several people, who stepped away, not wanting to be in the proximity of flying fists.

  “You have no right,” Steve stormed, his green eyes flashing angrily. He shoved Jorund in the chest.

  “Yea, I have every right. You are my friend,” Jorund retorted, and pushed him back in the chest. Like two scrappy youthlings we are behaving, Jorund thought. To the side, he heard Mag-he make a tsking sound. Jorund gave Steve an extra shove in the chest and demanded, “Stop creating such a spectacle and tell me, which of these names mark your hird?”

  “Herd? What the hell did you think I was in ’Nam—a cow?” Steve jeered.

  “Nay, you have already told me you were a seal, and a hird is a troop, my friend…a troop of soldiers. Tell me, which of these fallen men were your comrades?”

  For the first time, Steve faced the wall, and his face went ashen as he walked slowly along till he found the names he wanted. Tears filled his eyes, and Jorund noticed that Mag-he’s eyes misted over as well. She and Dock-whore Hairy exchanged a look. Was it worry, self-congratulation, or compassion?

  A visible shudder rippled through Steve’s body as he moved closer and traced some letters with a forefinger. This had to be a deeply moving experience for him. One name after another he recited aloud in a choked voice. Then, in a deadened monotone, he said to Jorund, and to Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy, who had stepped up to form a half-circle in front of the wall, “During Vietnam, SEAL teams One and Two amassed a combined kill ratio of two hundred to one, with only forty-six deaths, and those were mostly due to accidents, not enemy direct fire. It seems obscene, doesn’t it, to quote that statistic now, with all the antiwar sentiment, but damn, we were good at what we did.”

  “So you have reason to be proud of your work…despite the grief of war,” Jorund told him softly, putting an arm around his shoulder. Truly, he understood the man’s conflicted emotions: Steve had been trained to be a soldier—in one of the best units of the fighting men—but was horrified by all the bloodletting, some of it needless. Life was not so different between his world and Steve’s. There were wars that had to be fought for noble reasons, but some wars, in retrospect, were obviously the political games of greedy kings and chieftains.

  Maggie was regarding him as if he were some kind of hero, when all he’d done was comfort a man in need. How little she must think of him if she considered this to be extraordinary behavior on his part.

  Dock-whore Hairy was nodding repeatedly. No doubt he thought the two of them were well on their way to being cured. Well, mayhap Steve was, but Jorund had never been demented to begin with.

  “You have no idea how hard this is,” Steve told him in a cracking voice. “Those men depended on me. If I’d done a better job, they might still be alive. The guilt, even after all these years, just tears me apart.”

  Appropriately, Not-a-lie started to croon, “I fall to pieces….”

  Rosalyn offered gently, “Maybe you’d like to go on a date sometime, Steve.” Obviously she had another type of therapy in mind for him. They had a vulgar name for it in this new world. It was comparable to a pity-coupling in his world.

  Steve appeared horrified at Rosalyn’s offer.

  Jorund ignored them all and continued speaking to Steve of a soldier’s guilt. “Betimes you feel as if it should have been you, do you not? In truth, you question whether this life you lead isn’t really your hell on earth…a punishment for some past wrong—though in our land we do not call it hell. It is Niflheim, land of eternal ice, ruled by the queen of the dead, Hel.” Jorund shivered violently, as if actually feeling the icy atmosphere of the underworld.

  Steve was staring at Jorund. “How do you know so well how I feel? How come you can put my exact feelings into words?”

  “Because they reflect my own,” Jorund answered with a huge sigh. “I lost my wife and two twin daughters to famine a short year ago. And ’twas my fault for not being there to protect them.” All the muscles in his body sagged, and he seemed bleak with misery as he saw the empathy on Steve’s face.

  “Sweet Lord! I’m sorry for opening healed wounds.”

  “Healed? Nay, never healed,” Jorund corrected. “Know this, you dunderhead: I make it a practice never to speak of my past. It is a sign of my comradeship with you that I share it now. Let us not broach the subject again.”

  Steve inclined his head in agreement.

  But Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy were staring at him with decided interest. And Jorund realized just how much he’d revealed…secrets he would have much rather kept to himself. Now Mag-he would be asking him all kinds of questions: What do you think of your dead wife? What did you think of your daughters? What did you think of the famine? What do you think, think, think. And he had given her that ammunition.

  For the rest of their visit to the wall, Steve was somber, but no longer anguished. In fact, he shared information with those around him about how he’d become a Navy SEAL. And he had some of the men listening, bug-eyed, while he related stories about his baseball career.

  “Hey, aren’t you Steve Askey?” someone asked suddenly.

  “Uh-oh!” Maggie exclaimed. She had been deeply touched by both Steve’s and Joe’s stories, but now she saw trouble approaching in the form of the middle-aged reporter, who had been sitting on the bench. He was now staring fixedly at Steve, eyes narrowed as if to boot up some distant memory.

  “I’m Jack Farrington from the Galveston Daily News,” he said, showing a press card for identification. “If you’d just give me a minute for a few questions…?”

  Steve backed away a step or two, as if he’d been attacked. “No, no, you’ve got the wrong man.” Even though he used his real name, everyone at Rainbow knew that Steve had been hiding out from his family and the public for the last ten years, and they’d respected his privacy. Apparently that was about to change now.

  Meanwhile, the reporter’s camera was flashing away. “Hey, Steve, I don’t mean any harm. Just let me get a picture or two. I saw you play in Dodger Stadium back in sixty-nine…your second and last season. Man, oh, man, what a day! You hit three home runs. Some people say you were better than Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams combined…that you could’ve been the greatest baseball player of all time. Hell, that was just before you went off to ’Nam and…” The reporter’s face went red as understanding hit. He glanced at the wall, at Steve, then back to the wall.

  “I am not that man.”

  “Why is Steve saying he’s not Steve?” Fred asked at that inopportune moment. He had been counting the names on the wall since their arrival, but apparently this was more interesting even than his obsessive-compulsive needs.

  “Shut up, Furr-red,” Joe said with a glare, which caused Fred to scurry back to the wall. Then he addressed the reporter. “’Tis time for you to depart.”

  “Who are you to tell me what to do?” the reporter asserted belligerently.

  Oh, no! Please. Don’t say it.

  “I am Jorund the Viking,” Joe declared.

  Maggie and Harry both groaned at the same time, and the two attendants stood at the ready, in case there was a need to rush the group back to the bus quickly.

  “Jorund the Viking?” the reporter mocked. “Yeah, and I’m Joe DiMaggio.”

  “Fortunate you are that I do not have my sword with me. You would be missing a tongue for your insolence.”

  “Ha! You don’t scare me,” the newshound cried out as he took one last photo, then literally ran away. He must have recognized the threat in Joe’s stance, not to mention his ill-chosen words. Over his shoulder, Farrington shouted, “Hey, Steve, did you know the Baseball Hall of Fame has been trying to locate you?”

  “I think Steve’s had enough of walls and halls for one day, don’t you?” Maggie observed to Harry.

  “Should I chase him and lop off a body part?” Joe asked her then.

  “No!” she shouted.

  He frowned at t
he vehemence of her response. “Holy Thor! I was just jesting.” Then he seemed to think of something else. “I have set back my healing a pace or two today, have I not?”

  “Or twenty,” she commented drolly.

  “I need a beer,” Steve said.

  “I need an ale,” Joe said.

  “I need to get out of here,” Maggie said.

  Boot Scootin’ Cowboy was a huge success.

  Maggie had never before been to a nightclub in the daytime. But she was in one now. And she was having the time of her life. So was everyone else.

  And it wasn’t just because this particular club was a local country-western hangout, as well as a Galveston tourist attraction. There appeared to be a spirit of freedom and comradeship and normalcy in the patients that Maggie had never seen back at the hospital.

  They had eaten a late lunch first…Tex-Mex all around: mesquite-grilled shrimp fajitas with guacamole salads, and strawberry sopapillas for dessert. Everyone had been permitted one beer each; they’d all declined in deference to Steve, who must avoid even a drop of liquor or fall off the wagon.

  Now most of the group was up on the dance floor, alongside other patrons, learning the beginning steps of a line dance. With Brooks and Dunn belting out “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” everyone was laughing and smiling, even as they tripped over their own feet. The dance instructors, a cute young blonde in a cowgirl outfit similar to Natalie’s and a lean young man in jeans, a cowboy shirt, and boots, repeated the instructions over and over…such things as heel bounce, stomp, shuffle, camel walk, knee roll, vine right and left, pivot, and lots of scoots and touches. The “touch” call meant a smart slap on the buttocks.

  Joe was sitting across the table from her, shaking his head from side to side at the group’s antics, as he sipped at a soda. He was the only one who’d refused to participate in the dancing. Maggie had chosen to sit it out with him.