After and Again

by McLellan, Michael

  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.

  Toby Martin sat on his front porch, deep in thought. He puffed on his pipe and gazed out at the still green plain. In another three weeks the grass would be a golden color—not as beautiful as the spring green but still magnificent in it’s own right.

  This should have been a time for grieving, and the beginning of the healing process for the survivors of that terrible day. However a shadow of uncertainty was cast over them, and until the issue with the time-rip was resolved, it would remain there. He thought about Zack and suspected that he was planning to use the time-rip to right things if he could locate it. He couldn’t imagine Zack allowing one of the women that he had just rescued to take the risk. Toby wondered however if it might not be better to let Holly Sanderson or maybe the two Goodman women go. Zack was young, and he had Emily…. “Com’ere and look at this, Toby.” Tal Miller said startling Toby from his thoughts, “Have you seen Zack? He’ll want to see this too,” he added.

  “He and Emily took his mother for a walk up the road,” Toby said.

  “Too bad, I tell you what though Toby, you better count your cows, pigs and chickens tonight.”

  Intrigued, Toby stood up and walked to the corner steps of the porch where Tal waited.

  “Why do I have the feeling that I know where this is going?” Toby said, more to himself than Tal.

  Tal gave a little laugh and turned, walking down the width of the house and past the barn to where the Martin’s rear-yard stopped and their animal’s grazing land began. Tal stopped and pointed out to the pasture.

  “Do you see it?”

  “If I wasn’t seeing it for myself, I never would have believed it,” Toby said grinning ear to ear.

  “Well aren’t you two the pair,” Heath Martin said, coming up behind the two friends. “Short and Burly, and Long and Lanky, “What’s to see out there this evening?” Heath, who was a spitting image of Toby minus the gray hair and every bit as long and lanky, stopped next to his father and looked out at the grass.

  “You know that wolf that saved Zack?” Toby asked his son.

  “Yyyeeesss,” he replied, looking dubiously out at the pasture.

  “Well open yer dang peepers and look, it’s right out there sitting just as comfortable as if it was home,” Tal said, smiling and gesturing out toward the pasture.

  “I see it,” Heath said pointing. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”

  “The same one….What are you talking about? Of course it’s the same one!” Tal said, now completely animated. Toby just smiled and watched the two men.

  Tal continued, “I ain’t seen a single wolf around Payne’s Station in the twenty five years I’ve been here, coyotes yes, but a wolf? Not a one. Now how many wolves have you seen ‘round here huh?” he said all this reaching past Toby and pointing his finger at Heath’s chest.

  “Okay, okay,” Heath said seriously. “It’s obviously the same one, I can tell by the little black spot above its left eye and by the way it holds it tongue out of the right side of its mouth.” Tal looked back at the wolf, which was entirely too far away to make out any details, and then looked over at Toby with a wry grin.

  “You raised a right smart wiseacre of son, you know that, old man?”

  Toby laughed, and gave Heath–who was already laughing himself, a shove. “That I do, Tal, that I do.”

  Zack and Emily walked down the dirt road with Liz Mcqueen between them holding their hands. Zack told Emily that he thought that he was healed enough and would be taking Grace up to the cave within the next day or two.

  “And if you find a map?” she asked, meaning one specific map.

  “Then I guess that I’ll be going through the time rip,” he answered.

  “I want to go with you,” she said, looking past Liz McQueen to make eye contact with him.

  “I know,” he said, meeting her gaze.

  “Well? What do you think?” she asked, showing some irritation.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? Really? Just like that?” she asked, his immediate consent being the last response she’d expected.

  “Just like that,” he smiled vaguely, and sighed, “I don’t have the right to decide who goes and who stays, Emily, I can’t tell Holly or Kendra that they can’t go and I can’t tell you that you can’t go, even though I’d like to. I have turned this thing over in my head a million ways, I even thought about just sneaking off and going on my own, but I know that I don’t have the right. It even crossed my mind that maybe the more of us that go, the better chance that at least one of us makes it back. And if one of us make
s it back, we all make it back, I mean according to the voice on the recording we would only have to stay for a day, but we don’t know what’s on the other side….” he let the thought go unsaid.

  That thought hadn’t occurred to Emily, but it made perfect sense to her.

  “It’s settled then,” she said, feeling satisfied.

  “I guess it is,” Zack said, looking thoughtfully down the road.

  Zack found the three men sitting at the picnic table behind the barn drinking mugs of Toby’s newly brewed beer. “Ahhh, Zack! Join us for a beer, and behold the marvel of yer wolf friend,” Tal said, sweeping his arm toward the pasture. Zack, thinking Tal drunk (he was getting close) laughed and took a seat next to Toby.

  “He’s serious,” Toby said, pointing out to the grass. “Here, I thought if you gave it this he might leave the livestock alone tonight.” He produced a large section of bone with most of a ham still attached to it from under the table and set it in front of Zack.

  “Go on Zack, see what It’ll do,” Tal said, raising his beer mug. Zack picked up the shank and walked toward the pasture, stopping for a moment to locate the wolf. He looked back at the men and asked, “How long has he been there?”

  “I spotted it about two hours ago now,” Tal replied, “An I don’t think its moved a single inch since I did.”

  Zack turned and started out through the pasture, walking slowly but steadily; the wolf stood up but held his ground, staring at Zack with its piercing yellow eyes.

  Zack was now closer than he had been on any of the occasions that the wolf had showed up at his camp. Although he had been right next to the animal the day that he had killed Trask, he was unable at that moment of chaos to appreciate the wolf’s beauty. The animal’s face was white with a couple of black spots, and the rest of his thick coat was a mix of black, white, and brown. And it was huge! There were a few dogs in Payne’s Station, (Lacy Sturgess’ dog Roy had been killed by the gang) but none were anywhere near the size of the wolf.

  Zack stopped and squatted about twenty feet from the wolf, his heart pounding with equal measures of excitement and fear. He could feel the wolf’s tension and knew that if he made a wrong move it would flee, or worse, attack him. He held out the meat and spoke softly, “Hey big fella, I didn’t get to thank you for saving me. I mean, I was a goner for sure, but you took care of that murdering bastard didn’t you? Right in the nick of time too. I brought you this,” he said, slowly swinging the meat back and forth. “Only thing is, you have to come get it, cause if you and I are going to be friends, we have to start trusting each other sooner or later. Believe me, I’m more scared than you are right now. Hell, I’m shaking right down to my boots.” The wolf took a tentative step forward, not taking its eyes off of Zack’s. Zack stopped talking and held his breath; the wolf began slowly closing the distance—ten feet, five feet—then it was directly in front of Zack, towering over the crouched young man with the offered meat. The wolf looked at the meat, and then back at Zack, and in one fluid movement it gently snatched the haunch, then turned and trotted off into the pasture.

  “Hahaaaa!” “Hooray!” Came the shouts and the applause from the onlookers at the table, whose numbers had grown to include Emily Hodgkins and Lisa Mccarron. Feeling left out at the sound of the cheering, all three of the Miller boys and both of the Maccarron boys had come running from the front porch where Lisa had admonished them to stay lest they scare off the wolf.

  That night at dinner, after much discussion about the wolf, Zack brought up the subject of the cave. “I think I’m going to ride up to the cave the day after tomorrow,” he said, “so maybe tomorrow I’ll ride out to the Sanderson’s and see if Holly and Kendra still want to go.”

  “I’ll ride out with ya,” Tal said through a mouthful of peas. Toby here wants me to take a mule with some vegetables and flour out to Hal and Mary. I have to do it tomorrow on account of I told Martha that us’n the boys would take a wagon out to Hat Lake the following mornin so’s the boys could do some fishin.”

  Martha Miller said, “The boys have been cooped up for awhile and it would do them some good to get out. In fact Tal, the boys thought we might camp out overnight and were asking if the Mccarrons could come along.”

  “Camping is a fine idea,” Tal said, “and a’course those boys can come, you too if you like, Lisa.”

  “I may just take you up on that—if Miranda can spare me that is.

  “Of course I can spare you dear, you’ve helped so much that I’ve been feeling a little guilty. Go enjoy yourself,” Miranda said, reaching over and patting the other woman’s arm.

  “And we’ll catch a million fish!” Evan Miller cried out from the children’s table.”

  “Ha ha, you betcha, son,” Tal Miller said.

  “After the meal had been eaten and the after-dinner chores had been done, Toby Martin walked out to picnic table behind the barn where Zack and Emily were sitting talking quietly and watching for the wolf.

  “Hi you two,” he said, “Emily, do you mind if I borrow Zack for a few minutes?”

  “Not at all, I was just going to go and help Liz get ready for bed,” she replied, leaning over and kissing Zack’s cheek before standing and walking to the house.

  “She is tough, beautiful, and smart. You’re a lucky young man, Zack.” Toby said, “Is she going with you if you go to the time-rip?”

  “The only way that I could stop her is to sneak away, and I wouldn’t want to do that,” he answered. Toby just nodded.

  “Toby?” Zack began, “How do you feel about all of this with the time-rip, and going back to before this all happened and everything?”

  “That is a difficult question for me to answer….” he said, pausing for a few moments. “My sensible mind tells me that what’s done is done and that it’s ridiculous to think that you can just go through some magic hole and reverse everything that has already happened. My heart tells me—he emphasized this by tapping his chest with his fist—that every bit of it is true and that you might be able to do that very thing. If I think about it any further than that it just raises too many questions that I can’t answer. The thought of living through all of this and then just all of the sudden being back two or three weeks ago with no memory of what transpired….because it never really transpired at all, is just too much for my old man’s mind to handle. I guess that I am just riding the storm here Zack. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll still be here trying to pick up the pieces. If it does work, then I’ll never even know it. I hope that answers your question because it’s the best that I can do.”

  “It does, thank you. What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Come on inside, I have something that I would like to show you.”

  Zack followed Toby through the great room and down one of the two hallways that branched from it. They walked passed the room that Mrs. Lanhope had set up as a temporary school/playroom, and she was currently reading aloud to the children. “Who’s that trip-trapping on my bridge!” Her voice carrying out in to the hall.

  “Having all of the kids here has really helped her,” Toby said. “I think that her and Lisa have both filled the void a little for Eileen Deveroux as well.” They had turned a corner into a part of the house that Zack had not been in before. It reminded Zack of how big the Martin’s house really was.

  “Here we go,” Toby said, stopping and opening a door at the very end of the hall. “After you” he said to Zack, standing aside to let him enter.

  The first thing that Zack noticed was how huge the room was—almost the size of the great room with the same high, vaulted ceiling. The second was how crowded it was; there were trunks, and boxes (some of these were paper like the pistol box), stacks of paper, and chests of drawers, and cabinets on every inch of the walls.

  “Welcome to several hundred years of Martin stuff,” Toby said with a big smile and a grand sweeping gesture with his arm. “This room may contain more items from the old days than anywhere in the world. Some of it is fallin
g apart, a lot of the paper hasn’t held up very well but most of it is still in fine condition. There are a lot of things in here that used to work from electricity, like this,” he pulled a blanket off of a large rectangular object sitting on the floor. Zack walked over marveling, even though he hadn’t the slightest idea of what the object was. It came up to his waist and was only a couple of inches thick, he thought that the front looked like glass. He reached out to touch it but paused a couple of inches away, looking back at Toby.

  “Go ahead.” the thing’s never going to work again anyway.” Zack ran his hand across the front of the object and read the writing at the bottom; Philips Plasma, it said.

  “It’s a television, Zack. You used to put the wire coming from it into these holes in the wall like over here,” he said the last grunting with the effort of moving a cabinet away from the wall. “See that white square down there on the wall?” he said, pointing. “that’s where the electricity came from.” You could watch people perform plays and things from somewhere else far away, right there on that television.

  “You mean you could see real people that were far away by looking at it?” Zack questioned, dubious.

  “Ha ha, I don’t really understand it myself, Zack, it seems as strange as a time-rip,” Toby said, throwing the blanket back over the television. “What I wanted to show you is over here,” he said, walking to the other side of the room to a large free-standing cabinet with double doors. “This has been in my family since this house was built, or so I was told,” he said, opening the doors. The cabinet was full of rifles, eight or ten it appeared to Zack at first glance. Toby reached in, pulled one of the rifles out and handed it to Zack. “That’s a Winchester thirty-thirty, the same as the one I brought along when we went after you. I keep that one in the great room behind the window drapes, just in case I ever need it in a hurry. It’s been there for forty years or better and I never have, and until all of this happened, I never really thought that I would. Anyway, I want you to have that one, and this,” he said, reaching behind the cabinet and producing a hard leather scabbard. Zack handed the rifle back to Toby and took the scabbard. It seemed to almost emanate age to Zack; dark well oiled leather, beautifully etched with a mountain scene, and a lone wolf howling at the moon at it’s center.