Hereafter

by C. K. Crigger

  His attitude grated, especially considering he sounded like a hard-assed cop and she a suspect. Suspected of what crime, she had yet to decipher. Absently, she picked at the new scar on her arm and forced her mind away from eventhinking about how it got there.

  “I told you yesterday,” she said. “You all know my name is Lily Turnbow. I’m a Border Patrol agent with the Spokane sector. My base is Metaline, which is where we first heard about the drop set to take place on the lake a couple days ago. Since my supervisor and I were the ones in contact with the snitch, we were included in the task force. We, along with local enforcement, the DEA and the FBI set up along the shore Halloween night. After the float-plane landed and our suspects met on the dock, we went in to arrest them. The suspects started shooting, and all hell erupted. I saw another suspect up in the old graveyard, gave chase, made contact—” She picked at the scar again. “—and then…then…”

  She stopped, sweat breaking out on her forehead. Tremors quivered through her hands again. “Something happened. Like being struck by lightning, a sonic boom exploding inside my head, and taking a knock-out punch all at the same time. Then multiplied by a hundred thousand.”

  Bannion slammed the flat of his hand on the table, making Neila jump nearly as high as Lily. “Mag shit!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. A load of crap if I ever heard one. What do you take us for, Lily Turnbow? We may not be Techs or Traders or Cross-up people, but we’re not stupid.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve answered exactly what you asked.” Lily enumerated, touching the tips of her fingers. “Name, where I’m from, who I work for, what I’m doing here. I believe that covers it. I’m sure you’ve seen my ID,” she added.

  “Oh, my Lord. Bannion?” Neila’s dark skin paled as she whispered her cousin’s name.

  “You’re hiding something. What is it?” Bannion demanded, his gaze not straying from Lily.

  “I’m not hiding anything,” she said. “I’m just trying to make sense of you folks. No offense, but you’re coming across as very, very strange.”

  “We are?”

  “You are. All this talk of techs and traders and cross-ups and whatever. This whole place. Then the Mags. For God’s sake, the Mags.” Lily’s voice rose. She stood, swaying a little, and grabbed onto the table.

  “Bannion, “ Neila said again.

  “What?” He sounded angry, impatient even with the healer.

  She bent over and whispered in his ear.

  Lily heard, trying to keep any reaction from showing on her face.

  “I know who she is,” Neila said. “It just hit me. We need to talk.”

  “You know…?”

  She shook her head, quieting him in mid-sentence, but she spoke to Lily. “Excuse us a moment, Ms. Turnbow. Have another cup of tea. Come with me, Bannion, Nate. Outside. It’s important.”

  Reluctantly, Bannion got to his feet, allowing himself to be ushered from the house. Nate went more willingly, with a slight nod at Lily. A blast of cold air came through the open door as Neila paused to snatch a jacket from a hook. It seemed winter had arrived in the day or so Lily had been in the O’Quinn infirmary.

  But more than a change in the weather struck her. She got a clear view of the inner compound, too, before the door slammed shut between them. The glimpse showed the front of an old log barn and a rickety lean-to shed attached to its side.

  Lily’s legs, in the few frozen seconds in which her vision had time to focus, then fade, turned to jelly before collapsing beneath her. She fell to the floor on her knees, her hands clasped under her chin as if praying.

  “No,” she breathed. “Can’t be. ”

  But it was.

  Chapter 12

  Bannion turned his back to a wind that whistled around the corner of the infirmary. Felt like the time had come to shake out his winter coat and hope it had been properly stored. He didn’t want mice taking up residence in the lining.

  “It’s cold, Neila. What’s so all-fired important we had to come outside?” He turned to face Neila. Placing his body between his cousin and the wind, he glared at her, not troubling to hide his annoyance. “Don’t you know better than to interrupt an interrogation? All you’re doing is giving her an opportunity to think up more lies.” That reminded him of the Mag on hold in the cell under the old barn. Leave’im alone much longer and he’d chew his own arm off. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  A shake of Neila’s head signified impatience with his concerns. “Listen to me, Bannion. There’s something funny going on.”

  “No lie.”

  “I mean really funny, as in strange…peculiar,” she insisted. “I told you. All this time I thought her name sounded familiar, then it struck me and I remembered.”

  “You remembered what? C’mon, Cuz. Hurry it up.”

  Instead of answering out loud, Neila pointed so insistently Bannion stared off in the direction her rigid forefinger indicated.

  After a moment, realization hit him. The muscles in his face gave an involuntary twitch. He was so accustomed to the damned old thing being there he didn’t even see it anymore. Probably no one did except Neila—and Nate. Nate, who leaned against the house wall and turned up his coat collar, a half-smile on his face.

  “A trick,” Bannion said. “She’s pulling an elaborate trick, that’s all. She must’ve seen it earlier and thought to take advantage.”

  “I don’t think so.” Neila ticked points off on her fingers. “Remember the labels in her clothes? They aren’t something she just sewed in yesterday. Believe me, they’ve been there through several washings. There’s what she keeps calling her ID. And then there’s that picture, the photograph…” She stumbled over the unfamiliar word before continuing with more confidence. “The photograph of Heathen. Do you see…?”

  Nate crossed his arms.

  Bannion saw. “Shit.” Oh, he got what his cousin meant, all right. But Neila must be wrong, because there wasn’t any way she could be right. Somebody needed to dig the picture out of the archives so they could refresh their memories. He’d be glad to prove himself, and her, too, fallible, just this once.

  “I think she’s real, Bannion. Somehow, after all these years, she’s real. This changes things, doesn’t it?”

  Yeah, and he didn’t like it any better than she did. He kept his expression bland. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  The lines around Neila’s mouth deepened and she whispered, “What is she, cousin?”

  “Cross-up,” Nate said so softly he was easy to ignore. “Newly hatched.”

  “We don’t know that,” Bannion insisted. “It’s what I intend to find out.”

  “But will you?” The worry lines in Neila’s forehead deepened. “Or can she put a hoodoo on you? Is that what she’s here for, do you suppose?” She turned to Nate. “A Cross-up, yeah. That’s what you called her. What Jacob called her. Even what Harrison called her. But is she immortal along with everything else?”

  Bannion stared down at her. “Immortal? Are you crazy?”

  She smiled without humor. “I sincerely hope so. But remember, the other Cross-ups came out in our grandparents’ time. And they weren’t anyone any of us knew.”

  “We don’t know her,” Nate said, staring off into space. “But, thisis a hell of a coincidence.”

  “Yes.”

  They took a second look, silent and rapt, at the object that had caught Neila’s attention.

  “Anyway, most of them died right after they showed up,” Bannion said finally. “That’s probably why she’s been so sick.”

  Neila nodded. “And I helped her survive.”

  “It’s what you do.” Nate consoled her.

  “Take hope. I think maybe she’ll die anyway,” Bannion said.

  Across the compound, Selkirk, taking his time, ambled toward them. He waved as he saw them looking.

  “My brother isn’t going to like this,” Neila said quietly.

  No, Bannion thought. The head of thei
r clan, an appealing and dependable leader in working with their own people, was not so good when it came to dealing with surprises and strangers.

  “Can’t say as I like it much, myself,” he said. “If what you’re thinking—”

  “Can you come up with any other explanation? I’d love to hear one.”

  “Sure, I can. Lot’s of them.” Ignoring Nate’s shrug, he returned Selkirk’s wave, motioning him to put on a little speed. Oh, yeah. Give him a minute and ideas would sprout like a farmer’s wheat in the spring. For now, though, he had none that fit the situation any better than Neila’s wild conjecture. And there was no way in hell she could be right. No way. Was there?

  “Turned cold overnight. What are you three doing standing out here in the wind?” Selkirk asked, coming to a stop beside his sister and putting his arm around her. “Bannion, you talk to that woman yet? How is she, Neila?”

  “She’s all right. Maybe a bit confused.” Neila shot Bannion a meaningful glance and shook her head.

  He figured she meant for him to keep quiet about her suspicions until they had a little more to go on. She might be convinced she had the right of things, but there was no use in spreading unsubstantiated tales through the whole clan. To some extent, he agreed.

  “We’re hatching a plan of action,” he told Selkirk, “and making a list of questions. The woman is a little stubborn about talking plain; keeps saying her name and giving a cockamamie story about Border Patrols and BDI and the local sheriff.”

  “You?” Selkirk asked in surprise.

  “Don’t think she knows I’m clan sheriff.”

  Selkirk’s brows pulled together over his strong, handsome nose. “Everybody for a hundred miles—two hundred miles and more—knows you’re the sheriff. That’s when you aren’t being war leader. Or sometimes both at the same time. Where’s she been?”

  “That,” Bannion said grimly, “is what I’m still trying to find out. You going to sit in on the questioning?”

  The clan leader grinned. “Do you want me to?”

  While Neila laughed out loud and Nate snickered, Bannion fisted his cousin on a heavy shoulder. “I ain’t planning on beating her up. Not in the first session, at least. Stay if you want.”

  “Thanks anyway.” Selkirk didn’t sound in the least sorry to turn down Bannion’s offer. “I’ve got a squabble to settle between the House family and the Garcias. The Garcias are miffed because they’ve got two kids, but the House’s cabin is bigger. Ms. Garcia says seniority shouldn’t matter in this instance, and I’m not too sure but what she’s right.”

  Bannion shuddered. “Better you than me. I’ll take a good skirmish over a war of words any day.”

  “And that, cousin, is why you do what you do, and why I do what I like.” With a mock salute, Selkirk continued on his way, sauntering past the infirmary, heading toward a cluster of cabins surrounding what had once been a root cellar, now enlarged into a low fort and courthouse.

  Smirking, Neila watched him go. “Smart. Got out of one, didn’t you? You know my brother so well. Which means avoiding any situation where he’s out of his depth.”

  “And yet, except for Nate, there’s no man I’d rather have at my back in a fight.” Bannion drew a deep breath. “Do this for me, will you, Neila? Fetch that photo. We’ll face her with it. See what she has to say.”

  “Good idea. I know just where it is.”

  “Yes.” Bannion’s voice hardened. “Last page in the book. The final day.”

  “Final day.” Face sober, Neila went off with a purposeful stride toward the small outbuilding they used to store artifacts from the earlier age, before the Event.

  Bannion breathed deeply of the cold air. Above him, a single snowflake floated out of the darkening sky, melting as it touched his forehead.

  “Weather’s changing,” he noted with a questioning look at Nate.

  “Yep. Gonna be a hard winter. I can smell it coming. A week or ten days from now there’ll be a big storm blow in.”

  Bannion breathed out a sigh that steamed in the air. “In more ways than one.”

  “Afraid so.”

  While Bannion may have given Selkirk the impression he looked forward to questioning the woman, Neila’s discovery had shocked away some of his confidence.

  Of course Lily Turnbow was a Cross-up woman; no doubt about that. He saw her throwing fireballs himself. He’d also seen a traveling showman do a similar trick once, but that had been accomplished by deftness of hand. An illusion capable of fooling most of the watchers, but not him. What this woman created out of nothing had been real fire, and worse, she seemed as bewildered by the trick as anyone. The thing is, if she could conjure fire by the simple expedient of thinking it, what the hell else could she do?What did she want to do? What were her intentions?

  Before entering the house again, he took another look at the derelict object Neila had pointed out. The paint on it had faded to practically nothing. Twenty-five years ago, when learning to read, the words on the metal cart had been clearer.Horse trailer,he corrected himself, not metal cart. He remembered what those words were. “Heathen,” the first line read. And then, below it, in heavy black script, “L. Turnbow.”

  A story went with the object, of course, handed down these many years. Guess it was time he found out if the woman knew the tale. Sighing, Bannion reached for the doorknob and motioned Nate to precede him inside.

  ***

  Lily felt as though turned into ice, kneeling there on the floor with the wind blowing through a crack under the door. Cold. So cold. Yet she couldn’t find the strength to rise. Not just yet. It felt as though her very blood had frozen, hardened in her veins, arteries, capillaries, stopping her heart.

  Impossible thoughts raced around her head like a chipmunk in a cage. Was she alive? Should she be? If so, she wished for the memories to stay buried instead of ballooning up out of a dead world.

  She’d been their friend, the people who owned this ranch. When dispatch radioed her about the multi taskforce action set up for Halloween night, she had Heathen with her, taking the mare home after a three day stint traipsing through the rough country between the U.S. and Canada. She and her partner Jason had been searching for an Asian family reported to have jumped the border. Found them, too, and sent them back to Canada.

  Unwilling to leave Heathen cooped up in the trailer while she attended to this new assignment, she stopped off at Kettle Creek Ranch, fortuitously located only a few miles from her destination. Imposing on the Poundstone’s friendship, she left the horse there. She’d boarded Heathen at the ranch a couple times before. They treated the mare well and as a courtesy, they offered a shed where she could leave her horse trailer.

  Lily swayed, her head buried in her hands, watching the scene through her mind’s eye. To her, this had happened only a few days ago, but was also lost in the distance. What, for God’s sake, was true?

  This much, for certain.

  The horse trailer was only a year old, its tires new. Painted a pearly white, the writing along the sides stood out in metallic charcoal contrast. L. Turnbow. Heathen. She recalled parking it and leaving Heathen with a pat, time for only a quick visit with the Poundstone’s before hurrying to get in position down at the lake before dark.

  She remembered the ranch set-up well. Brian Poundstone owned the place. It had been in his family for a hundred years, a matter of great pride to him. He and his wife had a thirteen-year-old daughter, and more than once Brian had bemoaned the fact he had no sons to carry on.

  “What about Ginger?” Lily had asked once. Thirteen going on twenty-one, Ginger worked alongside her parents pitching horse manure and dragging hay bales—when she wasn’t taking prizes all over the Northwest in barrel racing. She seemed to love the place every bit as much as her dad did.

  “Name’ll change when Ginger marries,” Brian had said. “ Damn depressing if you ask me.”

  Lily had flinched at his remark. She was the last of her bloodline, too, her grandparent’s farm i
n northern Idaho her heritage. This same cussed lament had swirled around her all her life, as if a woman had no existence apart from a man. Didn’t Brian realize a woman didn’thave to take her husband’s name? She’d never been able to convince her granddad it was legal.

  The similarities between her own and Ginger’s situation had struck home. Both descended from old-time homesteaders, although farmers built with brick and lumber, ranchers with logs. Barns, as usual in an earlier era, were always bigger than the living quarters. Just like her grandfather’s place, Brian kept Kettle Creek Ranch in tip top shape. As were all their possessions—or possessions left in their care. Like Heathen and her trailer.

  And yet…

  Moving as if she were eighty years old, Lily rose to her feet, bracing herself with a hand on a chair. Of course she felt a sense ofdéjà vu.Why not? She was in the old Poundstone ranch house right now, the one they’d turned over to their hired man—a young guy named Nate—when they built the new one. Nate Bell, for God’s sake.

  The bells going off inside her head were deafening.

  The house was smaller than she remembered. And the barn across the way? It was the same barn into which she’d led Heathen the night…the night…

  Her mind stuttered. When?

  Take the shed directly opposite this door. The same shed that housed her trailer. The exact same dented, rusted out hulk now sitting on cement blocks under a sagging roof.

  If she squinted and used her imagination, she could still see the identifying words.L. Turnbow. Heathen.

  If only she were dreaming.

  But there it was. Old. Beat-up. Dead. Like she was supposed to be.

  ***

  If Bannion thought the woman pale when he left the infirmary, it was nothing compared to how she looked when he strode back in. As though drained almost of life, her hazel eyes were huge in a haunted face.

  Despite his intentions, she gave him pause. Especially when she shifted her attention to him, to Nate, then back to him with an obvious effort and said, “Who are you people? Where is Brian Poundstone? Or Linda? Or Ginger?”