Chapter 3
Black and white. The images moved about as if behind a dirty, wet windshield. There it was, a blurry image of Kathy. She was on her back resting on a bed. She was covered in sweat; her bedclothes clung. She smiled a tired smile and held a frail baby in her arms. Tom kissed the newborn, and he bent to kiss his glowing yet spent Kathy. The room was a hospital room. White and black. Voices echoed in his ear but he just looked upon her face.
She whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you more,” said Tom.
He opened his eyes and it was all in color. The dream had faded away. A nurse was putting something into a tube attached to his arm. She finished and with a knowing look left before she started to cry.
A doctor came in and said, “Tom?”
Off somewhere else, Tom kept to himself.
“Sir, you are going to be fine. You’ll need to stay low for a bit.”
Tom said, “My wife. She’s dead.”
The doctor said nothing.
Tom replied, “I’ll never be fine again.”
The doctor patted his arm. “Sorry. You’ll go on, just like the rest of us. I am sorry for your loss.”
Tom blinked at the ceiling.
The doctor said, “You almost died. Actually, for all intents and purposes you did. You just weren’t at the hospital when it happened. That would have made it official.” He paused and said, “Do you remember anything?”
“I remember my wife covered in blood, but then I saw her talking to me.”
The doctor waited.
Tom closed his eyes. “Leave me be.”
Over the next twelve hours every student he had ever taught would come to visit. On hour two Emily presented herself to her mentor. Then Bass stepped in and said, “I’m sorry, brother.”
He held Tom’s arm with his big palm. Tom could only see the glare from a light bulb in the ceiling. Bass knew. He knew it was going to get very dark before the light would shine on his friend again.
Bass said, “Listen.”
Tom barely nodded.
“Listen . . . are you there?”
“I am.”
“I’ll follow you to the deepest depths of hell. You know that because we’ve been there once before. Together you and I. That day we died. That very day we both died. You said to me every day after is going to be gravy. I know you remember. I know because we were supposed to end it there, on that day. We were supposed to go to the Great Beyond together but God said, ‘no’, and we survived together. We’ve always swum to the surface. I want you to trust me when I say that I’m here to pull you out. I will be the one to pull you out and back into the light.”
Through wet eyes Tom forced a look up at his friend.
Tom whispered, “It’s going to get darker than anything we’ve ever seen. I’m not so sure I can promise you that I’ll make it.”
Bass bowed his head. He said, “I’m ready. I’m here. Just reach to the light. When that light shows, reach to it. I will be there to pull you out. Promise me you’ll reach.”
Tom nodded then said, “Okay, Bass, I’ll reach. I’ll reach not for me; I’ll reach because you asked me to. Because Kathy would want me to.”
Bass gripped Tom’s hand and then took Emily lightly by the arm and escorted her from the room.
Out in the hall Emily slowed. She said, “Dad, what do you mean?”
Bass continued to walk until they were outside. The sun was bright as they strolled along the sidewalk; it then passed behind a large white cloud for a moment and then it was there again.
Bass found a tree. The grass was green and the tree provided some shade from the sun’s energy. A dark day in the bright sun.
Bass said, “About the day we died?”
“Yes.” She paused. “What did you mean?”
“I’ve never told you.”
“I know. Why?”
“You’ve always been too young. Or so I thought.” He started to say something then decided against it. “It wasn’t the time.”
“And now?”
“Yes, it’s time. I’m going to need your help.”
“What happened?
Without thinking Bass said, “The war happened.”
“I know.”
Bass sighed and said, “My unit was working its way through France. We had but maybe two tank crews left. We were overwhelmed but there was also another feeling of something....I don’t know. It’s hard to explain...I guess you could say it was a need and an understanding. I knew that it was us that kept Germany from making it all the way to my front door. I was, I mean, we were protecting our homes. That’s how we did what we did. This world didn’t understand evil. Not yet anyway, but we did, and we knew we had to kill to stop it from getting across the pond and to the ones we loved. We all fought as one. My God, the thought of it reaching my Mama was killing me.
“One tank was diverted due to a shell that popped off with a bang. The mud was thick and slowed everyone down to a crawl, and then that tank hit a mine just as they turned. All were killed instantly except for one man, Kelly. His name was Kelly. He was alive but he was on fire. He sprung from the wreckage all aflame and crying.”
Bass held the back of his hand to his mouth. “He was shrieking this high pitched scream. It’s a sound I can still hear even in my sleep.”
Emily held her father’s arm.
“I leapt from my tank to help him, but he was dead before I could get to him. I ran to his charred body, but it was too late. I remember the smell of the mud and the burned flesh. I was grabbing fists-full of mud and smacking at the flames with it, but I was too late. He was dead. He’d burned to death.”
Emily’s eyes grew wet.
Bass continued, his voice halting. “I had to leave him be. We all fought to never leave a man behind but I had to leave him there. I took one of his dog tags and tied the other inside his boot.
“I could feel the death from a firefight that was going on in front of us, and with the heat of the flashes burning my face, I pushed forward to follow my crew on foot. The mud was thick. The suction of it was holding me back; it slowed me down. I remember that damn wet ground sticking to my boots. That Godforsaken mud. That’s when my team took a hit. The explosion tossed me clear. The mud that had angered me one moment had actually saved my life.
“I blacked out a moment and then as I was slowly coming to, I realized I was being carried. A strong arm lifted me up and I got my footing. It was Tom.
“At this point now all I had was a Bowie knife. Tom was mowing down the enemy with his rifle and then we ducked into a ditch with two other men. He was covered in mud and barely recognizable.”
Emily couldn’t see her father’s face, but she could feel the emotion from his tone. She held tightly to his hand.
“Bullets whipped by us. I could hear them. That sound was so . . . there...so close...and menacing. It was the sound of death...if death could be said to have a sound. Tom tossed me a revolver, and we took out a half a dozen Nazis before another six were on top of us in an instant. They dragged us from the hole we were in.”
Bass swallowed hard. Bass had been named after his great grandfather, Bass Reeves. The famous bounty hunter who was the first African American commissioned as a deputy US Marshal. He was outright the most successful bounty hunter of the old-west. That Wild West determination ran strong in both Bass and Emily.
He said, “There was this Jerry and by God he was bigger than me, six foot five and two hundred and forty pounds. The bastard had pulled us from the ditch just to execute us one by one. He grabbed one of Tom’s men and shot him in the face. Without as much as an acknowledgment of what was about to happen, the Nazi shot him. The man’s skull splintered into the ground. Our other man was already being torn apart by another Nazi soldier’s bayonet. I didn’t see it happen until it was too late.
“So, it was me and Tom all alone against six Nazis. Then it shifted. Time stalled out for just a moment. Tom dropped his smoking weapon, pulled a sneak-knif
e from his boot and the empty grenade belt and tossed them into the ditch. And then you know what he did? He pointed at the big German and put up his fists as he rolled up his sleeves. I’ve never seen anything like it. The Nazi bastard pulled his Luger to shoot him but something made him stop. It caught him. Something. I don’t know what it was but I knew he had no choice. He had to accept this American’s challenge to his superior race.
Bass continued, his voice gathering momentum for the final push. “You know that Tom was solid, but he was nothing close to the size of this bastard. The German tossed his weapon to the side and they engaged. The blows were furious. Tom moved with precision and bested him at every step. The Nazi son-of-a-bitch would get stuck in the mud whereas Tom would glide across it as if he were Joe Louis. The German sensed he was losing and pulled a knife from his belt. Tom kept punching. The scars on his fists are from the impacts of the blade. Tom blocked the knife thrusts with the bones of his hands. Blood flew everywhere. It was mostly Tom’s. They fought and I managed to secure a Luger by smashing one of the men in his larynx. I finished them off except the big one. Tom killed him. Punched him to death. Blow after blow. Even after his face was smashed into the back of his head, Tom punched and punched that Nazi to death.” He shook his head. “Beyond death.”
Emily said, “Oh, Papa.”
Bass hugged his daughter.
From the Pen of Greg Norgaard, Book 1: Change the Past Page 5