The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 3): Lost Time
Page 33
“You saw the pink castle? Bronwyn asked. When Bat nodded, though saying nothing for it was another in a long string of unpleasant memories, she told him, “You cannot imagine how reassuring that is. For almost sixty years now, we have been wondering if we were insane, or just imagined it all.”
“Will you bury it?” Bat asked again.
Jason looked at Bronwyn, then said, “Yes, we will. You come back to Texas with us and we’ll bury it now. Looking at his son, he said, “We’ll just have to start traveling like regular folks again.”
Jason’s daughter-in-law nodded, saying, “That thing’s always given me the creeps, anyway. And I don’t like the idea that one of us—or one of my grandkids—could have whatever gene it is that Bat has and could get whisked off to . . . God knows where.”
Bat nodded in agreement, then added, smiling himself at the irony, “And we need to write out instructions so that, um, one day in the future I’ll know how to operate it to get me back here.”
“This feels way too much like our last experience with grave robbing,” Heather said, standing by the hole in the ground that Garison and Bat were cleaning out. She wanted to help, but had been prevented by everyone present from doing so.
They had been able to dig most of it with a back-hoe, but now they were clearing off the bedrock with hand shovels and picks, then passing the dirt up to Jody in buckets. Several of them had cautioned Jody against doing such hard work, but she was adamant about helping, being convinced she was saving her husband in the process.
Jason Kerrigan, who was standing nearby and wishing he could be of some help, commented, “You two really dug up a grave to see if Jody was buried in it?”
“With some help from my brother.”
“So strange things like this aren’t all that strange, huh?” Jason laughed.
Bronwyn was sitting in the shade nearby, holding three-month old Nolan Garrett, who was sleeping happily. She had known these young people for less than six months, but they were like her own children now, and little Nolan was like a grandson. She, more than anyone else there perhaps, understood why Bat still refused to talk about his time in the future. Thinking back to her days as a reckless pilot—who perhaps had as much of a death wish as Jason once had—she, too, was reluctant to speak of where she had been.
Some would have found that odd, for she had made a successful and lucrative career of telling the tales of her old world. But in her heart, she knew she never wrote of herself. And in the telling and marketing the tales as fiction, she had been able to almost—ALMOST—convince herself that it was all fiction. But sometimes, she still had that one horrific thought of seeing her first wingman’s brains splattered across his cowling. Of the despair she had felt watching all of her squadron shot from the sky. Of losing Carter. And her parents.
She saw how Bat still looked at Jody, and saw herself in that look. How he still clung to Jody as his raft in a stormy sea. How the birth of his son had finally seemed to bring promise back into his world. How his faith had been challenged and come out stronger through it all. She saw much of herself in Bat, and much of Jason in Jody.
“How is it you’re going to be able to find this in the future?” Garison asked. “No GPS, no maps, nothing.”
Bat thought a moment, then relented, saying, “I guess my telling won’t hurt anything. See that creek over there? One day there’s going to be an earthquake in these parts. Not a big one, but it’s going to shove this bedrock a little closer to the surface. Sometime after that, there’s going to be a big flood. I mean, one that lasts—from what I heard—for years. It’s going to change the course of that creek. Over the years—and this may take centuries, I don’t know—it’s going to worry away at this bank until the corner of that concrete crypt Jason designed is exposed.
“When I came along here—when I come along here, verb tenses are really screwed up in all this—I’m going to find the side of the crypt. With much difficulty and very little time, I’m going to break through the wall of that crypt and ride Eddie back to Ruidosa.”
“’Very little time’?” Heather asked. “Is that why the scar on your shoulder?”
Bat took a deep breath, then replied, “Let’s just say they’re related.” Looking at Jason, he asked, “Does it look ready? You’re the engineer?”
“I’ve never built anything to last that long, but I’d say we’re ready.” As Bat and Garison climbed out of the hole, Jason showed them the plans he had drawn up and said, “Here’s where it starts to get complicated.”
Bat smiled, though, for the plans looked just as he remembered the crypt looking. He took Jody’s hand and, with a glance over at his baby son, commented, “It’s going to work, Jody. I’m coming home.”
To read more about Garison, Heather, Sarah and other Samuel Ben White characters and writings (including books about Edward, Garison’s grandson)—or even ask the author a question—go to garisonfitch.com.
Table of Contents
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Sixteen