After and Again

by McLellan, Michael

  She gave him a pained “you know what I mean” look, and he laughed a little.

  “Just thinking about how much I love coffee,” he said.

  Once the story of the capture, Zack’s heroic rescue, and the rest, was shared with the others, Zack decided to tell of how he had found the cave, the crates inside it, and of the voice on the recording machine. The rest of the group listened raptly to his story until he got to the part about the tube-light, which he produced, turned the crank, and passed it around the room to the amazement of the others. Toby Martin asked Zack if he would pause for a moment, and excused himself. Miranda took the opportunity to fetch a tray of cakes from the kitchen.

  When Toby returned a short time later he had two objects in his hand that were nearly identical to Zack’s tube-light. “These don’t have a crank on them but they held batteries that somehow powered them with electricity.” He gave one to Zack, and the other to Tal Miller.

  “Eveready Flashlights,” Zack read from the side of the object.

  Toby said, “It’s too bad we don’t have another flashlight like the one that you have, Zack. If we could somehow take it apart, we might figure out how it works….”

  “You can have it if you want to try,” Zack said, holding the flashlight out toward Toby.

  “Ha ha, no, I couldn’t; if Theo Olsen were here though, that would be a different story altogether. Theo was the handiest man that I have ever known, and I would wager a five year old stud that he could have that thing apart and back together in an hour, and have the electric lights in this place working by days end tomorrow.”

  Something broke in Emily at hearing Theo Olsen’s name in the past tense, and she sprang up, spilling her now cold coffee on the floor, and ran from the room. Zack, unsure of what to do, just stood there looking after her for a moment. “Better go to her,” Holly Sanderson said softly, meeting the eyes of the thoughtful but inexperienced young man. Zack handed both of the flashlights to Toby Martin and followed Emily.

  She stood crying, her arms wrapped around one of the massive support posts of the Martin’s front porch. Zack came up behind her, “Emily, I—” he began.

  “My mom and dad are dead, Zack, both of them!” she wailed, turning to him, “I should have been with them but I wanted to sleep late, and little Emily always gets what she wants, special little Emily whose parents own the Trade! Where is my mom, Zack? Why didn’t they take her? Then she would have been with us and you would have rescued her too.” She threw her arms around him heedless of his wounded shoulder and sobbed helplessly against his chest.

  “I saw what happened to your ma….your pa too.” The voice, a woman’s came from behind them. “I was hiding between the trade and the jail and saw a chance to run and I took it.” Molly Renfew stepped out of the shadows and into the light cast by the porch lantern. Zack thought the gaunt women looked a hundred years old just then, although she couldn’t be much more than forty. “They musta parked the wagon that they carried you all in outside of town, maybe so’s not to panic anyone when they first rode up. I don’t know, hard to say what’s in those kind of men’s heads. But I seen ‘em carry out the Whitehall women on horseback moving north out of town…”

  “That’s just what they did with me after they took me from my house, they threw me over a horse and rode out to where the…the cage was, I was the first one in there besides the Goodmans,” Emily said through her sobs.

  “Yes, well there were a bunch of ‘em at your pa and Burt Sanderson there in front of the trade. They overpowered your pa and Burt and started dragging ‘em down toward the church, that’s when your ma come out; I think she was hiding by the school, and she started at those men like a mountain cat or something, scratchin, and clawing at ‘em…. actually looked like she was gettin the better of a couple of ‘em, that’s when that big man, that giant like Zack tells it, came out of the church and shot all three of ‘em with a big pistol. Well that’s when I run up behind the ‘smiths and into the hills. I came across Tal and the others a little while later.”

  Emily’s tears had intensified when Molly told of the shooting, her body trembled against Zack’s and her pain hurt him so deeply that he began to cry too, as did Molly Renfew.

  After a moment Molly continued, “I know I haven’t been the most well liked women in town. I was never very friendly simply because I have never felt too comfortable around folks. I like my cat’s—and heaven knows where they might be—and my garden….anyway, I like to think I know right from wrong and I didn’t think it right me knowin what happened and you sufferin with questions.”

  She stepped forward and awkwardly put a hand on Emily’s shoulder. So’s I thought you should know, and I am really sorry about your ma and pa.” she added, then dropped her hand and turned to go.

  Emily said, “Miz Renfew?”

  “Yes child?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” she said, and walked back into the house.

  After several minutes of silence Emily pulled away from Zack. “We should go in so you can finish your story, Zack.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, cursing himself for not having the right words to comfort her.

  “As long as I’m with you I will be,” she said.

  They walked back in the house hand in hand and rejoined the others. Brent Sturgess and Heath Martin were marveling over Zack’s flashlight and debating about how exactly it worked. Zack had unclipped the recorder from his pack and sat back down next to Emily. Without a word Miranda Martin walked over and refilled Zack’s coffee cup and a new one for Emily. “I apologize for spilling coffee on your rug Mrs. Martin,” Emily said, clearly embarrassed.

  “Call me Miranda dear, please, and that rug has had more spills on it than I could ever count. Don’t you worry about it one bit,” she said smiling. Miranda Martin was one of the most loved women in town. She had an air of grace and beauty about her even at sixty with her tall, slim figure, and perpetual single braid in her long gray hair; people just gravitated to her. She was kind, slow to anger, and always had a helping hand for those in need. Zack’s mom had once told him that Miranda Martin was the most caring soul that she had ever known.

  Everyone sat in silence after Zack played the recording. No one knew exactly what had happened to turn the world from what is was in the old days to what it was currently. There were speculations; stories from travelers and tales passed down in families, but no one alive really knew. A war with weapons of unimaginable power or some horrible natural occurrence was certainly the most accepted scenario, with a few hand-of-god believers scattered here and there. Now, if the voice on the recorder was telling the truth, it was certain; the great catastrophe had been a war of some kind.

  The knowledge of what had happened was one thing but the implication of the time-rip was another thing entirely, and had not gotten passed most of the people in the room.

  “Can we believe any of this?” Dalia Martin; asking the question that was on many of their minds.

  “Why would anyone make anything like that up?” Heath replied, “I mean, this isn’t some traveler telling stories, this is a marvelous piece of equipment from the old days,” he said gesturing toward the device on the table. “Hidden away in a cave and left, just on the possibility that someday someone would come along and find it. I believe every word he said.”

  “I do too,” Jonus said, “why would he lie?”

  “The whole thing gives me the creeps,” Loren Sturgess said, moving closer to her husband.

  “Then we could walk through this time-rip and go back to before all of this happened, couldn’t we?” Holly Sanderson spoke up, asking the obvious question.

  “Now hold on there, Holly, just wait a minute.” Tal said, visibly agitated, “you heard the man talking about going mad an all that, and look at what else he said. He said that he was gonna go back and make this war not happen or some such. Well if that had worked, then I’d be here drinkin whiskey under ‘lectric lights an drivin on
e of them automoboobles around, an I wouldn’t be looking at that recordin thing like it was some sort of magic box neither, cause it wouldn’t be no different to me then anything else I see everyday! Or, maybe I would’ve never been born at all, none of us.”

  Toby said, “Tal, you can’t blame Holly for thinking about that time-rip the man was talking about, and I’ll wager that she wasn’t the only one.”

  “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