Puzzled, Tex asked, "And that would be...?"
Garison gestured with the Book of Mark, "That God created man for companionship, but man separated himself from God with sin. Then the whole book is about God providing the means to overcome sin so that man can come back to God."
Tex chuckled and Garison asked defensively, "What?"
Shrugging, Tex replied, "I just think it's funny that you seem to have gotten a better grasp on the Bible than a lot of people I know who have gone to church all their lives." Seriously, he added, "I am curious, though. Did you believe what you read?"
Garison paused, then replied, "I'm still working on that, Tex. I think I do. And I'm really beginning to want to believe it; but I've also got a lifetime of brainwashing that tells me the Bible is a crock and religion is just—"
"'Opiate for the masses'?" Tex injected.
"Sounds like you know our works pretty well, too." Garison looked up at him and asked, "You didn't just come here to bring me books, did you?"
"Why do you say that?"
Garison thought about starting up the dance, but decided the moment had come for straight talk. He replied, "Because we're talking about things we always danced around before. Why?"
"How is your project going?" the man asked mildly.
"Nearing final testing," Garison replied proudly. In hopes of furthering the spirit of open, honest talk, he added, "I had hoped to make another test run today. Now it looks more like tomorrow."
"Another one?" Tex asked. He had tried and tried to be casual, hoping Garison Fitch would slip up sometime, but it never happened. So it was a surprise to have gotten such an open—if still a bit cryptic—answer. The thing was, Garison had grown up in a society where truth or information wasn't given up freely, so he was well trained in playing his cards close to his chest. Plus, Garison liked the cat and mouse game of keeping people—even his own government—guessing as to what he was doing. Subsequently, such talk had become as second-nature as breathing.
In the preceding months of investigation, Tex had come to like the young inventor he had been assigned to spy on. For his part, Garison never gave Tex enough information to give the man the slightest idea what Garison was doing, but just enough to keep the cowboy coming back. Garison told himself he was setting the stage for some counter-espionage work on behalf of his government, but the truth was that he genuinely liked the cowboy as much as Tex liked him.
Fitch nodded, "I was successful in a trial run two days ago. Unfortunately, I ran out of power and was forced to cut the experiment short. I think I have the power problem worked out, though."
Tex laughed and said, "I still wish I knew what it was you were doing. But, I'm sure I'll read about it in the papers when you get another of them Nobel things. What is it? Two Nobels, now? We hear about that even in Texas."
Fitch shrugged shyly and said, "I really get embarrassed about those. I mean, I feel like I am doing the sort of things anyone could. Especially the food thing. And even particle physics is not really all that hard, once you get used to it."
"I doubt that." Tex leaned closer and said, "I did come of another purpose, though. I got some news for you." He paused and said, "And I swear, Garison, I'm giving you this as a friend, not as a..."
"Spy?" Garison broached the word in Tex's presence for the first time in their long association.
Tex shrugged, but didn't deny Garison's assertion.
"What is it?" Fitch asked with piqued interest. This had never happened before. If he learned anything from Tex, it was because the old man had let him learn it. Never had the man just come out and offered intelligence. Garison acknowledged that the man could have been a good actor, but Garison had a feeling down in his gut that Tex was fully on the level this time, though he couldn't have said exactly why he felt that.
"You know, I slip into Japanese territory occasionally, and I hear things. You may have already heard this, but the Japanese are about to sign a pact with the Argentines."
"I heard that rumor," Garison nodded. "You think there's truth to it?"
Tex nodded, "'Fraid so. The man I know is butler to the governor of New Misawa. His master is one of the dignitaries that's down there right now negotiating. They are supposed to sign the papers any day now. Might already be a done deal. My friend let me know because he's worried."
For just an old cowboy, Tex knew an awful lot; belying the idea that he was just an old cowboy. This was the reason he had never even been allowed near Fitch's barn. Garison genuinely liked Tex, and considered him a friend if anyone was. Still, all that indoctrination he had received made him hold back. So Garison had just let hints drop here and there that would do nothing more than confuse.
"How does Texas feel about all this?" Garison asked.
"Little scared, I think. If a war breaks out, Texas won't be in it right at first, but we will be right in the middle. We're bound to get dragged into the fray eventually." He forced a laugh and said, "'Course, some people think all the big countries are going to destroy each other and Texas will just step in and rule the world in the aftermath."
"Sounds plausible."
"We'll just have to wear radiation suits to work."
"Sounds very plausible," Garison nodded. He used to think it would be Argentina who would pick up the pieces, but now it seemed that they would be participating, too. Gravely, he asked, "Tell me the truth: do you really think it could mean war? I mean, I've heard this kind of thing all my life."
Tex looked at the floor and Garison could tell by the man's eyes and the furrows in his brow that he was more than just an old cowhand: he knew something. "It looks like it, Fitch. Things are just getting tense all over. Hirohito's gone and his successor's itching to make a name for himself like the old man. They've been resting on their victory in the Pacific for fifty years. And for all fifty of those years they've looked towards the Americas and tried to figure a way to drive the Russians off this continent. He's a hungry man, Garison, and I think he wants to make a move—any move—before he follows Hirohito into the great beyond."
"What if he dies before the war starts?"
"That might be just as bad. See, there have been lots of people in Japan who say the Emperor wasn't prudent those five decades, but chicken. That's part of why the current guy's planning this, to my thinking: to prove to them he's different. But if he dies, they're going to claim he's no longer holding them back. A lot of boys got a lot of glory in the last war and the young bucks want their piece of that."
"Don't they realize that a global war is an almost certain suicide for everyone who particpates?"
Tex affected a reluctantly wry smile and remarked, "The word kamikaze comes to mind. Suicide is honorable, if it's for the state. Plus, there's also the chance that—if the Emperor dies—they'll instigate the war in his honor. Like it's one last imperial strike from beyond the grave. Every victory in battle will be like a sign from heaven that he's still watching over them and leading them."
"What about defeats?"
"Glory."
Garison shook his head and said, "I still don't think it'll come to that, Tex. I mean, I've been looking over my shoulders for a Japanese zero all my life and they never come."
"Moskva and Tokyo are on alert, you know."
"Alert?" Garison asked with surprise.
"Ain't you heard?" Tex asked. It was his turn to be bewildered. After all, wasn't this Garison Fitch? The Soviet Man? Surely he knew everything there was to know about Soviet American policy. Tex would have been surprised to know how little even those supposedly at the top knew. Soviet society was a distrustful family and no one knew everything, especially if they were in a position where they should. And Garison was a man who purposefully knew nothing of the top anymore.
"I don't hear much of anything," Garison told him truthfully. "I don't have a phone and I have to go into town to pick up post, which isn't often. I only have a wireless out here for emergencies. Rarely ever turn it on."
"Well, you better start l
istening to it, son," Tex told him. He then admitted, "I'm going to come clean with you, Fitch. You probably guessed already, but I work for the Texas government. They've been sending me up here just to learn from you—and not just about your experiments, although we are interested in those, too. We just figured you probably knew everything that goes on in your country, you being as famous and important as you are and all."
"Time was, I did," Garison nodded. "Or, I knew what they let me know. But, I have...ah...become a little disillusioned. That's why I'm way out here. I don't bother them—and they don't bother me."
Tex slumped in his chair and said, "The whole world may be bothered pretty soon if a saner head doesn't prevail. Our election I was talking about may become a moot point."
"Sounds like it's a good thing my experiment is soon," Fitch said wryly.
Tex kept his poker face in tact, but inwardly he perked up at the comment. Did it mean Fitch's experiment was a weapon? Mankind had before built weapons that would "end all wars"—from the crossbow to the nuclear bomb. Had Garison Fitch finally invented the one that truly would? A doomsday weapon?
Tex found it hard to believe that the mild young man before him would be in on something like that. On the other hand, if anyone could invent such a machine, the legendary Garison Fitch could. With his track record, though, the thought perked up Tex that Garison might just have invented something for peace.
For his part, Garison was thinking selfishly that his invention might not bring peace to the world, but that it might take him to a dimension where there was no war—if such a place existed.
"Sure you won't stay for supper?" Garison asked as Tex stood to go for the door.
"No, I better head out." He looked at his watch for the hundredth time in the last hour.
Garison remarked, "You've got a chopper or something that's going to pick you up at a certain time, right?"
"Not exactly."
Garison shook Tex's hand and said, "Well, you take care of yourself, Tex. I hope you can make it back some day."
"Wouldn't it be great of we could get together without all this...stealth?"
"Maybe someday, Tex."
With a final shake, Tex darted out the door and disappeared soundlessly into the night. Garison gave Tex enough time to clear the yard, then closed the front gate by remote control and turned on the electric lock.
"And why do you think that day, over so many others, has stuck so firmly in your mind?" Sarah asked, after he had finished telling of the encounter in exacting detail. She had always been amazed at his ability to remember (or so it seemed) every word of every conversation he had ever had. He could also quote long passages of books he had read years before. And, once started, he seemed to remember things he would have claimed moments before to have not remembered.
But then, she had realized, there were some facts he couldn’t remember. She had wondered about this for a long time, but then had come to realize that he only remembered those things he wanted to remember. For whatever reason, things that he was not interested in, he just forgot—or put out of his mind until they were gone completely.
"I don't know. Maybe it's because I wish I had just told him the truth—about everything. For all our friendship, I never really did that. Or maybe it was because it seemed like that was the day not only that my old world ended, but maybe it ended for everyone—if war really came. Comes. That’s two hundred and something years from now, Maybe it was because it was then that I started believing what the Bible said."
"And why was that?"
"You really should have been a psychologist," Garison laughed. "You get right to the most important matter. I think it was just knowing that there were thinking people who believed it. I had always been told it was a belief for simpletons, you know. That smart people treated the Bible as they would a superstition."
He paused, then added thoughtfully, "Or, maybe it's just because that conversation was the last real thing I associate with that world."
“I think it’s more than that, Garison.”
“Probably, but what are you thinking about? Specifically?”
“A lot of what he had in Texas—or claimed to have, that you obviously wanted—you have here. While we don’t have these automobiles you speak of, “she struggled through the word, but got it right, “We are pretty free to travel as we will. A man more than a woman, but even I seem to have more freedom to travel than people of your day. And while we don’t have many books, we treasure the ones we have rather than outlaw them. Those are the things you really admire about, what was it you called it? Texas? We have many of the freedoms you desired. So, maybe, you remember that day because it was sort of a—what? catalyst?—for what you have now. That’s not the right word, but do you see what I mean?”
“Yes. I think I do. And I think you’re right. How did you get to be so smart?”
She thought a moment, making a show of thinking, then replied, “Some of us are just special.”
As she laughed, he replied, “You think you’re joking?” then began to kiss her.
Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes
At what was probably the western edge of present day Kansas, Bear seems to have turned around to go home. Darius makes no mention of any sort of argument and seems quite surprised at the decision himself. Neither Darius or White Fawn ever saw Bear again. Darius was to write later in is life that he always wondered whether Bear made it back to his people or not.
[Author's note: while in Oklahoma, I made a cursory check of the Cherokee tribal records but could find no record of Bear. He still may have made it back home. All the absence of his name in the records may mean, however, is that he died before the government began keeping records of the deaths (and births) of Indians. The Cherokee, especially those under Quanah Parker, were one of the last tribes to surrender and it is very possible that Bear could have lived quite a long life and still died before the records were kept or lived "outside officialdom". It is also possible he was listed in the records as “Bear Johnson” or “Jim Bear” or some other such contrived white name. Many Indians were listed in those records under names they never knew in life.]
Chapter Twelve
Garison 's life changed more drastically in that winter of 1739-40 than it ever had before—even counting the travel through time. All the changes were for the better and all the good was somehow related to Sarah.
For the first time since his parents were killed, Garison had someone to come home to at the end of a day of work. Beyond that, for the first time he felt as if he really had a home to come to. His house in La Plata Canyon had been a home, but a lot like a hermitage in that he came home to it to cloister himself even further away from the world than the canyon could alone.
The home he came home to now, however, really was a home. It was a house on what they were starting to call Sycamore Street, though there wasn't a sycamore tree on it or even in sight. It was a one-story frame house, simple but well-kept, that Garison planned on painting blue when spring came. It had trees growing in the yard and oleanders growing by the door, but all these things were cosmetic. What made the house a home was on the inside, but had nothing to do with the calico curtains over the windows or the bear-skin rug on the floor.
What made it a home was Sarah. The curtains and the rugs (some of which were woven) and cups on the shelves and the doilies on the chairs and every little item were placed where they were with care. She had decorated it sparsely but carefully, creating an atmosphere of warmth that the fireplace could only jealously compete with.
But the true warmth and the love came from Sarah herself. With each day of marriage she somehow got prettier and her hair became more golden and her smile more warming. Or so Garison thought. The townspeople may have noticed an added glow, or a more prominent smile, but not like Garison noticed. To him, Sarah was what made every day worth getting up for, and every night worth lying down for. He was head over heels in love and even he recognized the tremendous chan
ge it had brought on him.
Some other changes came upon Garison that winter, though they all paled in comparison to the bliss of married life. He began work in the furniture shop and soon had a reputation for excellent work. It had taken him a while to get used to the manual tools—as opposed to the power tools he had had in his shop in Marx. He had always prided himself on doing most of the woodwork he did in the canyon with hand tools, only using the power tools for certain jobs, but he had never realized what it was like to do an entire job with only his hands—and very crude tools at that. Still, once he had gotten used to it, he enjoyed the feel of boring a hole using a crude hand-held drill and, sometimes, a hot pipe with which he burned a hole into the wood. He even came to enjoy ripping a long piece of wood with a hand-saw rather than with the table-saw he had once had, but he did sometimes wish the mill in Alexandria where he bought most of his raw wood wouldn't sell it quite so...raw. It had taken him a while to get used to paying for supposedly pre-cut wood that still had the bark on it.
Garison also had a small legal case fall into his lap which proved to be a large legal case. What had started out as a young man, who was the son of a formerly indentured servant, suing to receive wages due from his employer (and former master of his mother), turned into a sordid tale of adultery and paternity. Garison had felt a sincere disgust as the details of the relationship between the plantationer and the young man's mother had come out, but he had successfully argued that the young man deserved not just the wages he was owed, but a share in the old man's estate. The man had finally admitted that he could, indeed, be the young man's father and had given the lad a more than generous settlement. The boy had promised to be silent and not bring the matter up again, but the word got out nonetheless that Garison was quite a lawyer.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time Page 14