“John!” she cried. “Can you hear me?”
There was no reaction at first.
“John?”
His eyes opened slowly. When he saw her face hovering
over his own, he smiled faintly. “I guess I had another little accident,” he whispered with a slight smile. Mrs. Powell cradled him like a baby. “You’re hemorrhaging. I'll call an ambulance.”
“No,” he refused softly. “Please. Can you help me up?”
“John, there’s no time to waste. You’ll die…”
He put a finger to her lips. “When I came here, you said I might live an hour, a day or a week, Mrs. Powell. You said I could die with dignity.”
“Oh, John…”
“I need, I need – something to do… I have to do something… one last walk… Will you take me, Mrs. Powell? It’s in the mountains.”
“A walk? What is this madness…? A walk in your condition…”
“I have promises to keep.”
“Yes, but…”
“God kept me alive for only so long. But I really must be going now. Just a short walk. Please?”
“Yes, John,” she sighed. “I’ll take you there.”
Somehow, he managed to smile between the pinches of pain. “Thank you.” He pointed to sealed envelopes on the dresser. “There is unfinished business to attend to.”
“I’ll see to it.”
It took her half an hour to dress him and get him downstairs. He took one last dose of pain medication in the kitchen. It raised his spirits a little, helped him gain some strength. He slipped on his knee-length overcoat and pulled a long white scarf around his neck.
“I’d like to wear your husband’s fedora, if you don’t mind. I love the brim.” And don’t forget that hiking stick I found.”
Mrs. Powell remembered the hat on its peg by the front door and fled the room. She returned in a hurry with the hat and stick. He grasped the thick wood of the staff with both hands for support while she hurriedly adjusted his hat on his head.
“The snow is whistling outside,” Mrs. Powell warned.
“A happy tune for a new year.”
When they reached the back porch, a light snow was falling outside. Mrs. Powell helped him down the stairs and across the yard to the SUV parked in the garage. She lifted his legs up after him in the passenger seat and put on his seat belt. He was so weak now, frail, thin, breakable.
She started the car, brushed snow off it while the engine warmed. “Where to, John?” She climbed in behind the wheel and backed into the alley.
“I found a pretty perch above the city. If I had angel wings I could fly from there… It’s up…” He forced his mind to remember. “It’s up a canyon. Yes, Cheyenne… canyon. Past the waterfall.”
There were no other cars on the snow-slicked road. Mrs. Powell drove over the speed limit as the car raced up the foothills and entered Cheyenne Canyon.
John sat hunched against the passenger window, a strange sense of serenity and hope on his face as he watched the rocks and trees hurry past. Mrs. Powell had seen that expression hundreds of times in her days as a nurse. It was the look of an apologetic sinner knocking on heaven’s door.
“Snow, snow, beautiful snow,” he hummed. “Do you like snow, Mrs. Powell?”
“Sometimes,” she said.
“What is your first name, Mrs. Powell? You never told me.”
“My name is Dorothy,” she said.
“Dorothy is a pretty name,” he decided. “I like it.”
The vehicle followed up and up and up the slippery road until John saw the sign ahead:
CAPTAIN JACK’S TRAIL
“Pull over there.”
Mrs. Powell pulled the SUV over to the side of the road and helped him stand outside in the snow.
“Walking stick, please.”
She handed him the stick. “I’ll go with you.”
“Whatever for, Mrs. Powell?”
“In case you fall.”
With what little strength he had left he managed a small laugh. “I’m supposed to fall, Mrs. Powell.” He gently took her hands in his. “A man can get lost on all these trails. Do you understand me? When it snows, the frozen dirt path gets slippery. You wanted to walk with me, but your back was bothering you. I was only going to be gone a few minutes. Do you understand me, Mrs. Powell?”
“I think so. It’s that Bill Hogan business, isn’t it?”
“The less you know, the better…” then he remembered… “I told you about the envelopes on the dresser? My unfinished business?”
“I’ll attend to them,” she reminded.
“I went for a hike,” he suddenly said. Fear blazed in his eyes. “It started to snow. There was an accident...”
“Yes, John.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Powell.” He steadied himself on the walking stick, wiped new blood from his nose. “You were a wonderful companion, Dorothy.”
“As were you.”
“Dorothy, did I do my best?”
She hugged him, afraid to let go. “Absolutely, John.”
He smiled absently, taking in the forest ahead. “Such a perfect day. No wind, a silent snow.” He sniffed the air. “Not too cold, not too hot. Everything is just right.”
Mrs. Powell released him and adjusted his coat.
He faced the trail, taking small unstable steps with the long stick.
“I’ll be going now.”
“John? For the record?”
“Yes, Mrs. Powell?”
“You are a pearl, too.”
He sadly smiled and tipped his hat with a gesture of goodbye. Several hobbles later, John disappeared down the winding trail into the thick forest shrouded in mist.
She heard his voice call out for the last time.
“Happy New Year, Mrs. Powell!”
“Happy New Year, John!”
The old woman crossed her arms across her chest to fight off the morning chill and prayed that he would call out to her one last time.
But he never did.
John Battle struggled through the fresh, wet snow covering uneven ground. Every step a devouring agony. His legs were starting to numb again.
“I have to hurry.” He breathed loudly. “Stay with the plan…”
He made it to the switchback where the trees thinned and the trail opened on to a small plain. Ahead was the rock outcropping, the cliff. John grunted a small approval. He had found his spot again. His legs barely carried him to the rock and the small sapling evergreen that grew out from it. He sat himself down and looked over the cliff. He raised his head to heaven.
“God? Are you sure you don't want to change your mind? Toss a miracle my way?”
He waited for an answer… But there was no answer.
“As I expected…”
John studied the flaky ground at the edge of the cliff, probing it with his stick.
“The best laid plans of mice and men...”
He reached for one of the branches of the small tree. His hand tightened on it and he pulled himself up to a standing position. His dead legs were gone from under him now. Nothing left. A shocking head-banging pain hit him. He sensed his eyes dimming, felt the river of blood shooting through his brain and out his nostrils like mush. As he fell, his hand raked away an abrasive string of pine needles along the branch.
“Oh God,” he cried. “Oh my God… I’m gone!”
In a sad, unstoppable ballet of jerking motion, his deadened body uncontrollably twisted to one side towards free fall.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Leaves long gone and branches bare, the cold, black Cottonwood still stood its ground defiantly in the snow. It leaned below as if to listen as the boy everyone called Speed Racer appeared, running towards the Shooks Run bridge. He was carrying a white rag on a stick and waving it.
“Truce, truce!” he said. “I got news!” Julio was the only one down by the creek this early in the day.
“What you got punk?”
“That man that was he
re before. You know the guy that walked with the limp?”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead,” Speed Racer said almost proudly as he stepped up on a cross rail of the bridge.
He tossed Julio down a section of newspaper wrapped in plastic. Julio snatched the bag from the air and unwrapped the article.
Speed Racer’s voice went thin. “Was that him? The man that was here?”
After he read the story, Julio dropped to his knees in the snow.
“Was that him?” Speed Racer persisted.
Julio stared up at the boy, a strange madness in his eyes. “Kid, you got about five seconds to disappear,” Julio said sternly.
In less than an hour, the Tadpoles were gathered at Shooks Run, passing the article about Mr. Battle’s accident between them. No one could stop crying.
“So. He's dead,” Matt said. “I knew this was all too good to be true.” “Now we got nothin' again,” Toby realized, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
“It ain't our fault he died,” Julio rationalized. “So they can’t lock us up, you know? They'll have to get a new teacher...”
“I don't want another teacher,” Marie said blankly. She looked at Amber. “You?”
“No,” Amber said softly.
“Why did that bastard have to go for a hike?”
“He abandoned us, man.”
“He didn’t abandon us!” Amber snapped. “He died! Okay? People die all the time.”
“Not our people,” Julio snapped back.
“Whatever. You guys are unreal. The only teacher we ever cared about in the history of our lives is dead and all you can think about is yourselves!”
“Now we got consequences!” Julio said.
“He wasn’t supposed to die!” Matt shouted at Amber. “He was supposed to look after us!”
“Grow up!”
Marie shot up from her perch on the old log, screaming. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! All of you please stop! I can’t take this!” She collapsed on the snow-soaked log. “This is too hard!”
“What do we do now?” befuddled Julio asked. “Is there a funeral or what?”
“Newspaper doesn’t mention anything,” Toby said, staring at the article.
“He lived in an old mansion over on Cascade Street, you know.”
The others looked at Matt. “How do you know that?”
“I saw his pay stub once. When he took us to the restaurant that time. He lived at the old Loomis House.”
“Loomis House? Isn’t that haunted?”
“Beats me.”
“See?” Julio said. “I knew that dude was rich! We were just an exercise in giving back to the community for him. Help the poor kid, help the black and white trash… Way I see it? He owes us for up and dyin' like that…” He grabbed Marie by the arm and fiercely pulled her to her feet. “Get up off that log. You look like a lost child.”
“I am lost.”
Julio crossed to the stream and cracked the surface ice with a stomp of his foot. “I guess I'll go rob me that ol' house… Mr. Battle won't be needin' nothin’ now.” He started up the trail and looked back. “Anybody else?”
“You’re not serious?” said Amber.
“Dead serious.”
“You want to go rob a dead man’s house?”
“I know he won’t be home! Besides, if we don’t rob it, somebody else will. You know how many criminals read the obituaries every day? And when the official obituary comes out, then everyone will have the address. We gotta strike while the fire’s hot!”
“He was our teacher!” Amber cried out.
“Was. He was our teacher. But now he’s dead and we got to take care of business!”
Toby and Matt nodded in agreement.
“Besides,” Julio said. “I know we’re all curious about who or what he was. We don’t even know if he had a wife and kids. This stuff needs looking into.”
Amber and Marie could rationalize that. They followed the boys out of the park towards the Old North End.
Thirty minutes later, the Tadpoles stood outside the fence facing Loomis House.
“That’s a big ass house,” Julio said with surprise.
“Old money,” Toby figured.
Matt returned from scouting the rear of the property. “Nobody home. No cars in the garage, No dogs, either. Easy access to the back door through the alley.”
“What about a security alarm?”
Matt smiled, pulling out his jack knife. “I cut whatever dangled.”
“Let’s do it,” Julio ordered.
The Tadpoles went around the block and cut up the alley to the house. When they reached the back gate, the girls stopped. Marie lit a cigarette, looking up and down the alley for cops and neighbors.
“You comin’ or what?” Julio asked.
“Do we really have to do this?”
“We ain't doin' nothin' wrong.”
“We’re stealing from a dead man!”
“He died! Okay? So he don't need his big screen TV or his stereo, now does he?”
“Hell no!” Matt laughed, getting giddy from the spiraling events.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Toby said doubtfully. “I mean, he was a nice guy.”
“If he has some good stuff in the house, I'll forgive him.” Julio sounded mean.
Julio and Matt laughed as they high-fived each other. Julio brashly swung open the back gate and swaggered on to the property with the boys right behind.
“What do we do?” Marie asked Amber.
“Follow the idiots,” she shrugged, snatching the cigarette from Marie and smoking it.
“What about the baby?”
Amber blew out a smoke ring. “Mom’s just a little bit upset right now.”
The entire group drifted up the steps to the back porch. At the door, Toby wrapped his hand in his jacket and punched out a pane of glass. He reached inside and unlocked the door. The five Tadpoles hurried inside. Matt closed the door behind them.
“Wow!” Matt said as his eyes took in the long straight hallway that ran all the way through the house from the front to the back door. “It’s longer than a freakin’ bowling alley!”
The teens drifted along the polished wood floor through the downstairs rooms together, glancing up at, but not appreciating, the aged pictures and oil paintings that told a story. They hurried into the kitchen and found the pair of snapshots of their dead teacher attached to the refrigerator door.
“Well, we know he lived here,” Toby said.
“Nothing here but cooking utensils, “ Julio said, sifting through a drawer.
Amber scooped the pictures off the refrigerator and kept them.
The boys moved to other rooms.
“This house is old money,” Matt confirmed. “Mr. B definitely came from old money.”
“It’s a regular museum,” said Julio. “I’m gonna see if he had any liquor...” Julio turned right.
Toby and Matt entered the library on the left.
“Nothing but books.” Matt was disappointed. “If it isn't digital, leave it,” he advised Toby.
Marie and Amber exited the kitchen and crept down the hallway to the staircase, shaking their heads and staring after the boys.
“Something's wrong here,” Amber seemed dissatisfied. “This isn’t how he lived. It doesn’t have his personality. You think?”
“Something is definitely missing,” Marie agreed.
The girls stared up the flight of stairs.
“Wanna go up?” Amber said.
“Only if you go.”
They slowly climbed the staircase to the second floor.
“Catch me if someone leaps out and grabs me,” Amber said.
“I’ll be halfway home by then,” Marie said.
The girls did a quick inspection of the upstairs rooms from the hallway, relieved not to find anyone home. On their second round, Marie threw caution to the wind when she laid her eyes on a hat rack in Mrs. Powell’s bedroom.
“Hats!
”
She dashed up to a hat rack overflowing with hats and scarves and started dressing herself in front of a pedestal mirror.
Amber shook her head and moved further down the hallway. When she saw textbooks and a few photographs of the Tadpoles from their Christmas dance stacked neatly on a nightstand in one of the bedrooms, she knew she found where Mr. Battle had slept. The bed was made and tucked, a small assortment of personal hygiene items laid out on doilies on the dresser. She entered the bathroom and poked around in the medicine cabinet, returning with a few prescription bottles. Her face contorted with a million unanswered questions as she tried to pronounce the drug names on the labels. She pocketed the bottles and began opening and closing several dresser drawers.
“Practically empty,” she discovered. “You don’t live in a house forever and have empty drawers. There’s a mystery here.”
Ever curious, Amber knelt down and peeked under the bed. She fell flat and reached in, pulling back a shoebox. She sat on the bed and opened it. Inside was a stack of letters and a few small diaries wrapped together with a rubber band.
“For later,” she decided.
She looked under the bed again and saw what looked like a briefcase. Before she could reach for it, Matt’s voice rang from downstairs.
“Car coming down the driveway! Everybody out!”
Amber tucked the show box under her arm and hurried for the door. Marie was ahead of her, hats and scarves stuffed in a pillowcase. They reached the bottom of the stairs, not sure if they should run out the front door or the back. The boys arrived in the foyer. Julio had a case of assorted liquor. Toby carried a small television set. Matt had a stuffed bag.
“Everybody out the front!” Matt instructed.
Someone flung the door wide open and they hurried onto the porch.
“People will see us!” Toby said.
“We run or we go to jail!” said Julio.
All the kids but Amber scrambled down the porch steps and ran towards the front gate.
Julio looked back at Amber. “Amber! Let’s go!”
“I have to close the front door,” she said.
She turned to close it behind her and caught the worried face of Mrs. Powell all the way down the hallway at the other end of the house. The old woman’s head was tilted to the side. She didn’t seem afraid or even upset, just disappointed.
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