I jumped when I heard the doorbell and quickly threw on some clothes, buttoning my shirt as I hurried down the stairs. My mother had went into town for groceries and I was alone in the house for a while.
When I opened the door, there was a blond guy in a dark uniform holding a package. Really blond, almost white hair. I could see a white delivery truck parked in the drive behind him.
“Don’t I know you?” I asked him.
“I don’t think so,” he smiled, showing perfect white teeth as he handed me the package. “The past really has a way of catching up to you, doesn’t it?” He was still smiling at me.
“What?” I said roughly.
“Sign here please.” He held his clipboard out for me to sign.
“What was that you said, about the past?”
He took the clipboard from me and turned away, then stopped and looked back.
“Without our past, we wouldn’t be who we are now.”
“What are you talking about?” I yelled as he walked quickly away from me.
“There is no future without the past,” he said mysteriously as he hurried back to his truck.
I shook my head and closed the door, my mind already returning to Kate. “What a kook,” I said, and then I forgot all about him.
Chapter 35
I moped about the house for days, mourning the loss of Kate from the time I opened my eyes until the time I could fall into a restless sleep, filled with nightmares of Kate’s lifeless body, the wind whipping the skirts of her pale blue dress as we floated off the cliff into the freezing water. The river took on a demon force in my dreams, the waves were arms pulling Kate away from me. I usually woke up sweating and unable to get back to sleep.
I was barely eating or sleeping and, after a few days, I told my mother I had to leave.
“I know son,” she said quietly, sipping her morning coffee. “But first John, I want you to talk to me.” She gave me a stern look, like she did when I was in high school. “I want to know who Kate is and why you’re brooding around this house every day.”
“I hope you have some time,” I told her. “It’s a long story.”
“I have all the time in the world,” she said, sipping her coffee.
“Okay, here goes,” I said. “On November 6, 2010, I drove down Interstate ninety from Seattle, then cut off onto highway eighty-two and crossed the river into Oregon…”I talked for hours, telling her my story from the beginning til the point where I had opened my eyes in this world, omitting nothing. My voice broke when I told her of Kate’s death and how I had leaped off the rock with her body.
She listened intently, only pausing to refill our coffee cups, until I had finished. When my story was done, she stood up without speaking, walked to the broom closet and came back with my crudely made moccasins in her hand.
I let out a groan as I stared at them. Talking about Kate for hours wasn’t as painful as looking at those rough moccasins I had so clumsily sewn by the firelight, while I took care of Kate during her illness. “It wasn’t a dream?”
“No son. I know that now. I don’t know how, but it happened. I completely forgot about these until you mentioned it.”
“I’ve gotta go,” I said as I grabbed the moccasins from her.
“John,” she took my arm before I could head out the door. “Just please promise me you’ll stay off the bridges.”
My throat closed up as I looked at her. Worry lines creased her forehead and her eyes looked scared. I hugged her tight, guilt gripping me as I thought about how I had worried her. “I will be back,” I promised her.
I threw a change of clothes in a bag and went out to my car. My brothers had driven it here after I had been found. I headed east on highway eighty-two, cut across through the tri-cities and followed highway twelve east toward the Walla Walla River. I drove slowly as the road paralleled the river, feeling closer to Kate the further east I went. My heart felt lighter as I looked at the river and the fog was finally beginning to clear from my brain.
When I saw a gun shop, I whipped the wheel and turned into the parking lot, emerging from the store after only a few minutes, a new survival knife strapped to my leg in a black nylon case. It didn’t seem quite as good as the old Bowie, but I felt more like myself with it attached to my leg.
I continued on east and turned in at a small boat ramp on the river. I really thought of it as my river after all the time I had spent on it. It had been a means of survival for us and I knew I would never look at it the same way again.
I left my car in the lot beside a couple pickups with empty boat trailers behind them and started walking along the river, but nothing looked the same as it did before. There were more trees now, taller, older trees, there were fences that hadn’t been there before and I could hear constant noises of traffic on the road and planes overhead. It looked the same, but not, and it was almost impossible to get my bearings.
I walked for miles, not sure where I was or where I was going, but the further I got from any civilization, the closer I felt to Kate. I sat down on a log as my mind wandered, Kate’s face floating across my vision. I scratched the healing wound on my leg as I thought about how I had let go of her body. Why couldn’t I have held on? I could have given her a decent burial here, with a nice marble head stone. Instead, I had let her body drift away to wash up who knows where. I had jumped, thinking I’d join her in the next life. Why was I still here without her? Dammit! I shook my head and sighed as I sat there, the warm spring sun beating on my back. I lay back in the new spring grass and stared up at a bright blue sky with a few cumulus clouds floating by. I swear, I could see her little round pixie face in each cloud that passed over me. I knew then, as I lay there in the warm sunshine, that this was how it would be the rest of my days. I was doomed to the present time, with no future in sight without her.
So I stayed out there, as far as possible from other people.
When I scared up a bunny, I grabbed that knife off my leg and, with a flick of my wrist, I put it into the rabbit hard enough that the point of the blade was sticking out the other side. I built a small fire and skinned the rabbit, then skewered it on a stick and held it over the fire, turning it constantly. I felt more at home than I had since I opened my eyes, if only I had Kate here to share it with me.
When it got dark, I curled up on the cold, wet ground by my fire and fell asleep. I still dreamed of Kate, but instead of horrible nightmares, I saw her dancing and twirling around the small cabin, her blue eyes sparkling in the firelight. I slept better than any time since I had awakened in this future time without her.
I stayed out there for days, it may have been a week; I kind of lost all track of time in my wanderings. I lived as I had in the past, from sunup until I fell asleep by my fire at night. I wandered the woods and river, lost and alone, caught between two worlds, unable to return to the one, unwilling to rejoin the other.
I dreamed of echoes one night, as I slept by my small fire with the cold seeping from the ground into my body. The dream was weird and made no sense, but I remembered it clearly the next morning. I was standing on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River and I heard Kate call my name. It echoed off the surrounding mountains, resonating over and over. On and on it echoed. Kate’s musical lilting voice echoing my name again and again, each echo quieter than the one before.
I sat over my fire the next morning, without even a cup of hot coffee to warm me, and mulled over the dream. I could still hear the sound of my name echoing through my mind; Kate’s musical, lilting tone sounding like sweet music in my head. The pain through my heart was excruciating, yet I held onto the sound of her voice throughout the day, as it reverberated through my mind. The single word, Kate calling my name, continued its echo as I walked and hunted.
I walked upriver for a couple days, then turned around and started back. I hadn’t found where the cabin had been or anything that seemed familiar. I hunted as I walked, sometimes making a kill, other days going hungry, but never leaving the river. Th
e pain and nightmares were duller out here so I stayed, not knowing where I was going or what I would do with my life. I just knew that I felt closer to Kate out here and I didn’t want to leave. She was in my thoughts constantly. I could picture her so clearly, walking along the river beside me as I hunted. As I sat by my fire each night, I almost felt as if she was there with me. I caught myself talking to her occasionally, as if she were there with me. I knew I was probably losing my mind, but I didn’t care.
Did I wish I had drowned in that river, instead of finding real love and then losing her? No. How does the saying go? It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all? It was worth the pain I was suffering now to have held her small hand even one time. To look once into those sparkly, ice-blue eyes and see the love and laughter shining out of them. No, the saying is true, I would never have tried to end it all, had I known how much I had to live for.
Chapter 36
I was sitting on a bit of a hill one day on the north side of the river. I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the most familiar place I’d been to. There was nothing I could point to and say, yes, this is where the cabin was, or this was my hunting grounds. It was just a feeling I had, as if I could feel Kate here, as if I could smell her in the fresh air. There were tall trees here, but I had a nice view of the river between their trunks. The sun dappled the ground as it shone through the trees and it felt warm on my back as I sat there. I had bathed in the cold water this morning, clothes and all, and I was sitting in the sun now, drying.
I could see Kate in my mind as I sat there, kneeling beside the river, doing laundry, looking up at me and laughing as I told her a stupid joke, her ice-blue eyes sparkling. I saw her sitting in front of the stone fireplace, placing her small hand in mine as I lifted her off the stone floor and twirled her around the cabin. I saw her dancing down the Oregon Trail, her arms out, saying how she wanted to fly like a bird. She always had the pale blue dress on when I saw her in my mind, it reached almost to the ground and made her waist look tiny. It was the one she was wearing when I met her and the one she was wearing as I jumped off the cliff with her body. I saw her moving through the trees down by the river, the pale blue dress dirty and ragged, but still beautiful to me. I thought about how many times I had stopped whatever I was doing, just to watch her. The way she moved, the way her long blond hair cascaded in waves down her back. I watched her turn away from the river and move slowly up the hill toward me, almost as if she were floating. My mind went back to the last time I’d seen her, with the dress floating around her as we fell toward the water. It hurt to see her constantly like this, every second of every day. I knew, no matter how long I lived, I would never get over her. I closed my eyes for a second, but when I opened them, her small form was still there, moving slowly up the hill. I shook my head to clear it, looked upriver, and then looked back. She still seemed to be almost floating toward me, the pale blue dress just touching the ground around her. I’d pictured her in my mind so many times, now I couldn’t stop seeing her. Or was I going crazy like the old-time mountain men, staying out here so long I’d be talking to myself and seeing ghosts. I shook my head again and squinted my eyes, but yet I still saw her, she was almost in front of me now. I stood up as she reached me; I reached a hand out slowly and touched her face, unsure if she was really there. Was she real or was I delusional? Was it reincarnation? Was she a ghost?
“I knew you’d come here, John Baker.”
I knew my mouth was hanging open in amazement, but I felt frozen, my hand still on her cheek. If she was a ghost, she sure felt and sounded real.
She was staring up at me with so much love and warmth in her beautiful blue eyes. I pulled her into my chest and held her tight. Tight enough to crush her delicate little bones. It was real, the same tiny, strong body, the same Kate smell. I could hear her crying into my chest, but I didn’t loosen my hold. I was afraid if I did, I would wake up and she’d be gone. She finally pulled back and looked at my face. She had tears streaking her face and she smiled through them.
“Your face is all scruffy again and you look like you’ve hardly been eating.”
I finally found my voice, “Kate,” I croaked out, my voice rusty from lack of use. “How did you get here? I thought you were dead? No, you were dead, I know you were.”
“I don’t know, John. I woke up on the river bank with a pain in my back, just between my shoulders. When I made my way up the hill and saw the machines going by at a high rate of speed, I knew we had to be in two thousand and ten. When I couldn’t find you, I knew you would come here, sooner or later.” She paused, looking at the bewilderment on my face. Her eyes had the same ice-blue sparkle as always. “A man stopped beside the road and gave me a ride in his machine. It was so fast, the trees were a blur. I’ve been wandering along the river for days now, searching for you.”
I turned her around and looked at her back. Her dress was torn and there was a scar where the tomahawk had been. “But you were dead.” It didn’t make any sense to me, but of course, what part of this crazy journey had made sense. I grabbed her and kissed her deeply. “I love you so much, Kate. God, I’ve missed you. I just can’t believe you’re really here. I thought I had lost you forever.”
“I love you too, John Baker. I was afraid that I might never find you. I can only think that God brought me back to you.”
“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m never going to let you out of my sight again, I swear it.” I picked her up into a bear hug, swinging her around and around. I could see the skirt of her blue dress floating as I twirled her. “Thank you, God,” I said, when I had set her back on her feet. “Thank you for this miracle.” I kept her hand in mine, afraid to let go of her for even a second.
“You hungry?” I asked finally, while I stared at her in amazement.
“I’m famished. I caught a fish two days ago, but I’ve had nothing since.”
“Caught it how?”
Her blue eyes sparkled as she laughed. “With my bare hands…I swear it’s true,” she said at my astonished look.
“Let’s go, little one,” I put my arm around her shoulder and turned her around, back toward where I had left my car. “Let me introduce you to fast food in the future.”
Author's Note
I crossed that old steel bridge from Oregon into Washington in July, 2013. As I looked down at the Columbia River, Dream of Echoes hit me like a freight train. Most of it anyway. I had been reading diaries of Pioneer Women and I've traveled most of the Oregon Trail. At least, what's accessible by road. I always thought it would be totally cool to travel back in time and just be a fly on the wall, experiencing history firsthand, without changing the future. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it through John's eyes. Some of the events in the story are true. The Whitman Mission did exist, and the massacre did take place there. I hope you enjoyed John's journey as much as I did.
Karen C. Webb
Here is a sneak peek of what’s coming next:
As Jericho Falls
I was in the middle of enjoying my fifteenth summer in my little corner of this beautiful, round blueberry we call earth. I was dreaming of escape, and even making plans for it, when life threw me a curveball. I had always been a dreamer; mama even called me a romantic, but never in a million years could I have dreamed up such as befell me that summer.
Our town of Jericho Falls, if you want to call it a town, sits up in the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Ashe County, North Carolina. We live—that is, my family and I—live on a farm about fifty miles from any real town. ‘Fifty miles from nowhere, and one step closer to Hell,’ mama used to say.
Jericho Falls is more of what you’d call a community, a small village of maybe ten houses in all, grouped around a small white church with a general store just down the dirt road, which also serves as the Post Office. It all sits along the banks of Jericho Creek, a pretty little creek with cold, clear water running down out of the mountains and filled with Rainbow Trout. A tall ridge r
uns along back of us; you can stand in this valley and see it’s a gorge really, cut through these hills over millions of years by this swift-running mountain water.
Our farm, though, it sits further back up the gorge, maybe two miles up from Jericho Falls. Feels like a hundred miles if you’re walking it, though. There’s just our small, weathered house with a rusted tin roof, a falling down barn and about twenty acres of land. The barn was built into the side of a hill, and it actually leans a little as if it would fall over any day now.
My daddy, you see, is a horse trader and sometimes a moonshiner—‘shiners—we call ‘em here. When he quits drinking it long enough to sell it, that is. Sometimes him and a few of his horse trading buddies will sit out there, on the edge of the woods and drink til late into the night. ‘Shiners Convention,’ daddy calls it.
Mama named me Lauren, on account of her and daddy went down to Lenoir one time back when they first met. They went to see one a them drive-in movies—Key Largo—it was called. It had Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in it, and mama said Ms. Bacall was the most beautiful, classiest lady she’d ever seen and if she ever had a daughter she was gonna name her Lauren.
Ain’t none of us Martins ever been to school. What, you ask? How is that possible in this day and age? This ain’t a hundred years ago nor even fifty years ago, when Grandpa thought it was more important that daddy be helping on the farm instead a sitting on his butt in a classroom all day. Well, there’s twenty-two miles of winding dirt road before we even hit the pavement to meet up with a school bus. And them dirt roads, I always hold my breath, whenever we do get to town. There’s a hill on one side, because of the gorge, see, and the other side, well, Jericho creek sits off down in there, far below the road. The bank has gave way in spots, in the curves; you have to stay near the hill side or you’re in danger of the bank falling out from under your vehicle, dropping you off down that cliff. There’s even an old, rusted car down in there, lodged up against the tress, where somebody in the past fell off, then just left it there. I’ve had nightmares, ever since I was little, about falling off that road.
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