The Dream Virgin

by Don Quine

  Fred told Daddy-O she told Reimer she was happy he and the Sergeant were working together, but she had a bitching plan she was getting from Daddy-O who was real proud of Reimer for watching out for rats and Bigfeet. But the plan would depend on where he and Sarge were located so they could take advantage of it, but it was a great plan if they were in the right place.

  Reimer told Fred she had to wait for him and the Sarge to talk things over before releasing their position. Security. After a minute of weird two-way whispering that was hard to overhear, Reimer told Fred okay, they were positioned at Buckhorn Rim not far from Hell’s Canyon, above Imnaha, and they’d wait for the super plan, but not for too long.

  “The cheese is getting moldy,” Reimer told Fred who told Daddy-O.

  When Daddy-O finished listening to Fred’s retelling of the call, there was a sigh like the first one, but this sigh had a lilt toward the end when Daddy-O inhaled and said, “It’s twenty-five grand to bring a good shooter in, but I’ll eat it because it will be the last money I’ll ever have to spend on him. If I’m not wrong, and I’m not, my ledger says that sum will total up to $847,500 for over two decades of fuck ups. Not counting my time and attention. It’s time to bankrupt the investment. You understand, Fred?”

  Fred said, “Yes, I do.”

  “You set him up then fill me in on as soon as you get a plan. But make it soon. I don’t want him to get caught. Blab. Even if it’s crazy shit.”

  Fred said. “I’ll work it out, set it up, and get back with you asap.”

  She hung up, looked at her cold pasta.

  If she was right, the Seven Devils Range above Imnaha where Reimer said he was wasn’t too far from Lake Meadows.

  CHAPTER 67

  “Hold on . . . oh, shit! You did it again, runt.”

  “Hey, I’m not the spastic here, bonehead!”

  “C’mon, guys. Once more. On the count of three. Keep your eyes on each other’s hands when you pull. Ready?”

  When Elfri got to three, Manny and Wayne pulled the cords that raised a canvas shade on one side of Wayne’s set. The cords had to be pulled at the same time and at the same speed, otherwise the Tiny Mighty Vits sun shade would get hung up to one side like window blinds do if you don’t pull them up together right. Because Manny was tall and Wayne was short it made smooth pulling difficult. But this try was a success.

  “Fifth time’s a charm! Cinch ’em up, guys.”

  It was Monday.

  Start of Round Fourteen.

  The week before Labor Day.

  Like most countdowns to a big event, it was intense.

  In a week, the Nestlings would find out if their hard work paid off or not, if they had what it took to attract startup money to their projects. Elfri was working around the clock, grabbed a nap in the day and one at night if she was lucky. Everyone was busting their ass, putting the finishing touches on their projects, the Nestlings helping each other out and working like a team. Tighter than ever.

  The event grounds were set up for the coming weekend, except for the last-minute adjustments that were to be expected.

  Hugh made the school bus storefront look like it was ready to take off and fly. The Dreamers Only storefront was a molded shell replica of the door and driver side of the Dreamland Express, bus steps leading into the store. But once you walked in, it wasn’t a store with a World Of Dreams room, because time and cost didn’t permit that, but Elfri would explain about the room from the left side of her project space where the Dreamers Only TV show set was. The right side of her staged space had seating for investors that faced the TV set. A walkway ran between the set and seats and led back to the Dreamland Express and its open door for a look inside.

  The bus had been given more than a touch-up by Hugh. The faded coat of dark blue paint got removed along with the stars and the name and the painting of Slumber. Sanded away, primed, and then replaced with five coats of midnight blue metallic for a background that made the new stars that were placed on it sparkle and shimmer.

  Day or night.

  DREAMLAND EXPRESS ran along the sides like before, but the words weren’t just painted on the bus. They were secured with bolts and adhesive because the words were made of 3-D material that stood out.

  Like Slumber. Except Slumber was no longer a 12 year old in fanciful PJs, eyes hidden behind crescent-moon shades. She was made to look the way Elfri looked now, a sexy young woman in the dreamy outfit Leah designed for her, her silver and gold hair waving wild, face looking out to the side of the road so you could see both of her wondrous eyes.

  What Hugh did to make the Dreamland Express look like it was going to take off and fly was he mounted wings to the sides of the bus near the rooftop. Iridescent and motor-controlled, they made a wing-flapping-air sound when they moved that was amazing as well as amusing. The wings only moved when the bus was in park. On the road, they were tucked back and secured.

  Elfri checked her watch. Nearing noon. Like most of her project team, Chip was into Holy Guacamole’s shredded chicken tacos so that’s the kiosk they went to for lunch.

  Chip would wander away from the Dreamland Express to check out the other Nestling projects or take a stroll onto the campus once in a while, but most of the time he was near by or inside the bus working on his comic.

  When he did wander off, he was always in sight of one of Jack’s Native American band mates or Rahim or George. Whenever Elfri spotted one of the men keeping their eye on Chip, it made her hope Reimer Gore was dead.

  CHAPTER 68

  When he wasn’t putting out fires, Oliver managed the event from The Hive, oversaw the festival model in the middle of the workspace, while the team with their Bee Busy tees buzzed around in overdrive and made marker moves that coordinated the incoming Bash data that arrived on the wall of video screens.

  “Get me Annie,” Oliver blue-toothed.

  There were far more screens at The Hive than at Ray Stewart’s security office or Leon’s motel room, and the screens that Oliver related to gave four POVs of the property the Nest had purchased for additional event parking at the northeast corner of Snake Canyon and Route 3.

  No longer barren land with tumbleweeds, now it was barren land with spray-painted tumbleweeds and flags that waved welcome and a big sign that read: Bash Parking & Shuttle Ride $20—RVs & Tiny Homes $10 Extra.

  Annie and her Transportation Depot assistants were setting up benches at the shuttle waiting area near the entrance to the lot. Annie told Oliver she got the highway patrol to agree to shut off traffic up the canyon when all the Lake Meadows parking spaces were full. A few off-duty officers were available to help out. With the police limiting canyon traffic to the shuttles and Lake Meadows locals, it would make things flow a lot faster. She’d already set up the Enterprise and Joseph signs that touted motels in both cities, both less than an hour away from the Bash parking lot.

  The Bronze Antler B&B, Eagle Cap Chalets, Indian Lake Lodge, and the Rim Rock Inn were Bash sponsors, and loved the three straight nights of NO VACANCIES, and being included in the event planning sessions at the Nest.

  Before the lot went up, the motels paid an annual fee of $1,200 for space on the Lake Meadows website which increased business by more than a hundred nights annually. Took thirty nights to break even so it was a deal; even if the additional sign space at the parking lot increased fees to $1,750.

  Oliver told Annie that the Bash online reservations already had seventy-two percent of the town’s parking spaces booked a week before. Last year it was sixty-four percent at the same time, so Reimer’s killing spree wasn’t keeping people away from Lake Meadows, if anything it attracted them. A madman killer on the loose was a thrill for a lot of people, like Packy said.

  Annie asked, “You okay with making up some signs for the shuttles that say, ‘Adults over 55 Ride For Free’?”

  “Do it,” Oliver said.

&n
bsp; Seniors represented nineteen percent of last year’s Bash, which was more than double what it was the year before. Shuttle fee losses from seniors would be slim. Most seniors liked to get to the Bash early, and nab a prime parking spot in the S2S lot before sunrise. Then take their time getting set up for the fun.

  Oliver walked around the event model table and looked over shoulders; dealt with broken trolls on the Main Streat entrance gate; changes in Wonder Way store hours during the Bash; First Aid station needing to be moved closer to the access road for the ambulance; and how the Judges booth looked better across from the Nestling projects and not to the side.

  As soon as he handled one issue, another popped up. As the day wore on the issues eased off, and Oliver got a chance to step outside the Hive and stretch his legs, scratch Lilly behind her ears.

  She was looking a little down. She missed Ed.

  CHAPTER 69

  Jack had a weird feeling about his mom and Will falling in love, running around bare ass and chasing each other with cattails like kids. But if Jack was honest with himself, which he tried to be in all his affairs, he didn’t really feel all that weird about Molly and Will.

  The weird feeling came from watching Oliver and Elfri fall in love.

  Not that Jack didn’t see it coming; he encouraged it. And now that it was happening, he felt he was in the way around them.

  Being a third wheel was the weird feeling Jack was feeling. And it felt awkward.

  So he focused on Reimer Gore.

  Leon asked Jack what he was up to. If Leon dropped Chip off at the Rest could Jack hang with him while Chip visited his mom and pup? Leon had a meeting, but it shouldn’t take more than an hour.

  Jack told Leon he was getting ready to work with the ravens, he usually worked them from the lakeshore, but he could work with them by the cemetery, no problem.

  Jack and Chip took the trail that led from the rear of Ravens Rest past Molly’s cabin and the nine acres of sedge and spruce that ran over the knoll down to the small clearing in the woods. Ed and Al tagged along with zigs and zags above the trees.

  Jack attached the body cameras to the ravens, got them all excited, then Jack raised the birds up on his arms, said words in Sahaptin that meant seek and find, and Ed and Al took off.

  Chip watched them soar to the north then turn toward the cemetery, a fine and private place that held the history of Lake Meadows.

  Eighty-nine people buried there, many whose bones were entwined with the roots of trees planted above their coffins as seedlings. Many of the dead were wealthy and cultured, which accommodated Packy Rollinsworth’s love of poetry that he used at funerals and influenced many grave markers, like the one on the trunk of a willow tree that stood near a columbarium cabin.

  The epitaph was from a poem called “Kingdom Animalia.”

  Oh, body, be held now by whom you love. Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars, when dirt’s the only animal who will sleep with you and touch you with its mouth.

  It wasn’t as popular as Lord Byron’s “Epitaph For a Dog” that was in the pet cemetery a short distance away where Chip was visiting Timber.

  The human graveyard had a few crypts worth digging, a sarcophagus and a few shrines, but most of the deceased were remembered with modest headstones that dated back to Victoria Eldridge who died the 12th of August in 1947, to the most recent burial of Garret Mott on the 2nd of last March. Vicki was four and a half years old when small pox got her. Garret was barely fifty-seven. Stroke.

  Jack didn’t know all the graves like Packy, but he knew them well enough to know he had good reasons to be proud of where he came from. He sat on the grass, looked at the headstones of his dad and his grandfather and grandmother. Just their names there, and when they were born and died.

  Be extravagant with life, but when you join the Great Spirits leave modestly. Those who knew you knew who you were, who and what you did and loved, who you were related to. The Riverbottom family kept it simple.

  Jack figured the Snake Canyon memorial would embarrass his dad. Even though he’d never cop to it, Jack knew Harry would have gotten a kick out of being on a totem pole with Ed and Al.

  The most outstanding gravesite belonged to Ida Emerick who died back in 1987 of terminal liver cancer that bloated her so full of bile her stomach looked like it was going to have triplets. A lousy way to go and morphine barely helped.

  Ida was a trust fund baby who drank expensive wine, had a provocative laugh that matched her flashy outfits, a great love of art, and meaningful generosity when it came to donating money to Keep Lake Meadows Clean.

  KLMC was in charge of keeping the town’s natural habitat intact and groomed. Its members included Randall, Packy, Molly, Leon and they had the last say concerning the way the town dealt with issues affecting its natural surrounding. Which included the graveyard.

  During her final painful weeks, Ida changed her will.

  Instead of leaving her entire estate to the Portland Art Museum, she left half of it to the museum and half to KLMC with the provision Ida would be allowed to have her bones be used to express herself in an artful manner after she died.

  It was a provision that gave the KLMC reason to pause.

  Ida didn’t want her bones dug up after her body rotted, or her ashes used in an hourglass, she wanted her body dunked in an acid bath so her flesh was dissolved without delay, to allow the sculptor to put her clean bones together post haste. Half of Ida’s estate was sizable and would allow KLMC to add the nature trail on Main Streat, so after much consideration, the provision was agreed to.

  Packy used sulfuric acid and kept the procedure to himself.

  Ida had hired a sculptor from Seattle to arrange her bones in a fashion similar to Rodin’s The Thinker, slouching on a pedestal.

  But instead of Ida’s skull being connected to her neck bone, it rested in the bones of her left hand that was on her knee, which gave her contemplating hand no chin to rest on.

  When you first saw Ida she made you think.

  Ida achieved her goal of becoming the most talked about of the dearly departed and her bones made resting spots for Ed and Al who had just returned from their scouting mission and cawed as Leon and Will rode up.

  The men tied their horses to the big pine at the end of the trail that skirted the Hell’s Canyon Wilderness and then walked down toward Jack who got up and met them halfway at the log bench resting spot.

  Leon said, “Chip’s visiting with Timber?”

  Jack nodded and pulled out his smartphone, showed the fresh images that Ed and Al captured when they flew over town, scoped out the mountain slopes, and honed their hunting skills.

  Leon told Jack it was wise to be on the alert. It was good to have the raven recordings of the campers and hikers and elk on the edges of town. Videos were sharp and clear. “But Oliver thinks Ed needs to get back to the Nest; Lili’s looking lonely. Oliver thinks Ed and Al could use a break from the cameras.”

  “And we think he’s right,” Will said.

  Then Leon and Will talked to Jack about tempering his vigilance, accept that if and when they got any worthwhile information on Reimer, the ravens would be ready. They reminded Jack there were statewide manhunts, and Ray Steward and the Green Guides were armed and ready to take on a dozen Reimer’s.

  After Jack didn’t say anything, Leon said, “Is something else going on here, Jack?”

  “It’s no secret you’ve been isolating,” Will said. “Not showing up at A Pot Shop, no rehearsals with the band, not dealing with the S2S music line up for the Bash. Oliver is concerned.”

  “So is your mom,” Leon said.

  Jack didn’t want to get into it with them, so he said he appreciated where they were coming from, but didn’t think he was being hyper-alert.

  Ed and Al loved hunting and their body cameras weighed near to nothing; pays to be
prepared.

  A Pot Shop could run itself if he died tomorrow.

  Concern is Molly’s middle name.

  And on and on and on until Leon said quietly, “You need to trust that the Reimer situation is covered, Jack.”

  Jack got up from the bench, was about to say something when Chip returned from the pet cemetery carrying a melancholy smile.

  Leon put his arm around him.

  Will looked at Jack, “Okay?”

  Jack removed Ed’s body camera. “Okay,” he said reluctantly.

  Will looked at Leon who nodded and said “Good.”

  Jack removed Al’s body camera and couldn’t help but say, “I think it’s important that you both know I only agreed out of respect for the elderly.”

  CHAPTER 70

  On Nicole’s thirty-fifth birthday, her third year at the Nest, Oliver started building the tree house for her. It was finished a year and half later and became the flagship structure on the campus. Three stories tall, each story served a separate purpose, each distinct level embraced by tall pine trees linked with support systems that blended in with the wood and rope staircase that circled the tree house.

  The ground-level workspace and the second-floor guest quarters were contemporary cabins; wood, glass, and stone.

  The top of the tree house was different.

  Made from an array of large sticks and twigs and branches collected from the surrounding woods and affixed to a large circular form of man-made fibers, the top structure of the tree house looked like a big bird nest.

  The placement of the wooden findings was such that the lighter sticks, branches, and twigs formed a large V where the nest faced the campus, the V distinct from the darker wood pieces that made up the bulk of the roost.

  Inside the nest, Nicole had plenty of room to move around the circular living space with a bath and kitchen and a bedroom with a deck that dropped down from the front wall of the nest where the V was.