Parallel II - The Gift

by Paul Rice

  Red turned back to Jane and Mike. “Thank yo’all so very much, it’s just the mightiest fine thing that I did ever see, man it’s so damned cool!” He grinned and threw a leg over the saddle. Tori walked over and hugged Jane, then turned and stepped onto the pillion footrest before hoisting her other leg over the back seat. Together they sat there and grinned at everyone who came over to see the bike. It was a wonderful moment and Red gave them a demonstration of his riding skills by roaring around the yard two or three times. The engine was now running sweetly, so he did another couple of circuits just to make sure. Finally, he pulled up, cut the ignition and leaned the bike onto its stand. Tori alighted gracefully and did a little bow. Their friends applauded and whistled. It was a fine time and Mike and Jane were inundated with praise and good wishes.

  The party stayed in full swing for a few more hours, after which people began to drift away. They had farms and businesses to run the next day and the night was getting late. Red and Tori made it their duty to say goodbye to each and every one of their guests as they departed. The young couple were still beaming from ear to ear and stood holding hands and waving wildly as the various cars left the farm. Some time after midnight they were done, all the remains of the celebrations had been cleared away and, apart from the ribbons and balloons, the house was nearly back to it’s former, pre-party, self. After a nightcap, and some heartfelt thanks from Red, they decided to get some rest; Ken said that he would have the couch in the farmhouse, thus allowing the woman to share the motorhome as it would save Maggie and Tori the tedium of a late night journey back into town. Ken quickly checked to make sure the fire was not in danger of burning the whole place down and then made his way into the lounge for a well earned sleep. Very soon the house was once more in darkness; the clouds had breached the rampart of the distant hills and began flooding across the plains towards the farm. Their heavy, moisture filled masses could no longer contain themselves and it wasn’t long before the rain began to fall heavily. The rivulets of rainwater soon became a racing torrent that headed purposely downhill to the river bed; its passing cleaned the earth before it and left only the strongest survivors to await the anticipated warmth of the new day.

  Unfortunately, the storm did more than simply wash a few clumps of dry grass and scraggy bushes away, the dark clouds also had one other burden to rid themselves of: long spikes of jagged lightning began to split the air and were quickly followed by deep, hoarse peels of thunder. It crackled and boomed across the valley before echoing off the hills for miles around. The smell of frying ozone filled the air and was soon joined by another odour, amongst the darkness and in a heated battle of wills against the wetness of the rain, the rich smell of burning oak trestles, tar-paper and freshly creosoted pine, began to slowly drift through the storm filled air. If any of the occupants of the farm had been awake, the flickering glow on the horizon would have been somewhat more than disconcerting. In fact, if they had known what a pretty damned dreadful few days awaited them, then the odds were that Ken and his crew would probably all have piled into the RV and taken a small vacation until the storm had passed. Most probably they would have.

  But they didn’t – instead they would have to stay and fight the good fight. It’s just the way it was, and it should be remembered that one very rarely gets the opportunity to change one’s future, at least, not knowingly one doesn’t. Most choices we make have an unknown outcome and that is just fine, at least we’re free to make them without worrying too much what the result will be. That’s the way it supposed to be, isn’t it? Yeah, well, it’s a crying shame that some people simply can’t help themselves, can they? They just have to interfere, have to try and make things go their way, fuck everybody else, what they want they’re gonna damned well have. Yeah.

  Chapter 28 - Fires, Friends and Fatal Futures

  Some things simply cannot be changed.

  They spent the following day lounging around the farm. Maggie had gone into town early. “Some of us have to work for a living, you know?” She had said, jokingly, and then in complete contradiction, had told Tori to take the day off. Red and Tori didn’t present any argument, within minutes they had taken ‘Glory’ for a spin round the farm, Jane knew they would be gone for hours and so, before they went, handed them Ken’s backpack containing a few drinks and some bacon sandwiches. Tori shouted her thanks and did her trademark vault onto the back of the bike. After watching them zoom off down to the lake, Jane had returned to the painting where she was busy trying to recapture the scenes from last night’s festivities. Red seemed to have given his sketching a wide birth of late, and Jane guessed it was probably due to other things occupying his mind…

  She smiled at the thought of how happy the huge young man and his equally tall partner seemed to make each other, it was another one of those little things, little ‘George’ things, that made her wonder: “No matter how many changes you made, some things were just plain old meant to be?” Jane let her brushes do the talking and went about her work with a passion, letting the warm air and fresh smells inspire her. Last night’s storm had left the farm smelling even fresher than was normal, the dry earth had greedily lapped up the rain drops and a Thrush sat happily in its freshly replenished bath, puffing itself up and ducking luxuriously under the water. Jane watched as the bird hopped onto the roof and lazily spread its wings to let the warm sunshine work its magic. She placed her brushes back on the tray, took a seat on the porch and decided to sit and watch for a while. “Life doesn’t get any better than this, these are the days we will remember for ever. I don’t care about going back, don’t care about tomorrow.”

  It was midway through her small session of self-indulgence when Jane heard the sound of the motorcycle again. Thinking that perhaps she had been day dreaming a touch longer than she had imagined, Jane looked at her watch. “Nope, it’s only been half an hour, they’re back early?” She thought, listening to the sound getting nearer, the engine was beating urgently and the bike sounded to be travelling much faster than Jane would have liked. “Bloody kids, I hope he knows how to stop the damned thing!” She rose and made her way across towards the back gate. The engine was screaming now and its throbbing racket alarmed her – it sounded to be almost frantic. Jane broke into a jog, then kicked her sandals off and began to sprint. “Its trouble, I can feel it!” As the thoughts whipped into her head, she saw the bike.

  Tori stood on the foot pegs with the throttle pinned to its stop, face ashen and eyes unblinking, as she careened towards the gate. Seeing Jane’s approaching figure, Tori turned the machine into an expertly executed, broadsided skid, whereupon she and the bike slid to a perfectly timed halt by the back gate. Jane fumbled with the catch and then ran through. Tori was gasping for air, Jane gave her a few seconds and then said, “Tori, what is it, where’s Red, has there been an accident?”

  Tori shook her dark locks. “No, it’s on fire! The mills on fire, it’s bad – really bad! The roof has fallen in and Red’s throwing water on it, he needs help… I think it’s too late, the roof’s fallen in!” She gasped for breath as she looked at Jane in panic.

  “What’s happened?”

  Jane turned and saw Ken and Mike making their way over to the gate. When he saw the look on Tori’s face, Mike broke into a jog. A few moments later and the trio were in the truck following Tori as she raced ahead on the motorcycle. Mike had thrown a couple of buckets into the rear of the truck along with some shovels and anything else he could lay his hands on, whilst he had ran frantically around the barn. Jolting towards the windmill, they began to see a slight smokey haze rising into the air ahead of them. Tori yanked the throttle open and blasted away. “I didn’t even know that she could ride, Christ, look at her go!” Mike said, as he looked at his passengers in shock, flooring the accelerator, as he strove to keep up with the speeding bike, the truck jarred their teeth with the impact of every bump and dip they hit. “Sorry guys, but I guess we’ll have to see how much of the original Spear is left in this thing – hang
on!”

  As he fought against the slewing truck, they saw Tori suddenly begin to lose control of the machine, the bike starting to snake sideways as its tyres lost traction. “Oh shit, she’s going down – Tori!” Mike yelled out, and almost as if she had heard him, Tori gave the machine another burst of throttle. The input of power snapped the rear wheel back into line, and with a long ribbon of mud spurting upwards from the tyre, she regained control and raced ahead once more.

  “That was some piece of riding. Go on girl, give it some!” Ken laughed crazily. “If it’s not one thing around here then it’s another, isn’t it, for fuck’s sake!” With his words to spur them on it wasn’t long before they had reached the site of the old windmill. What little remained of it anyway. Ken was out and running before the truck had even stopped. Jane heard him shouting frantically: “Red, Red! Where are you, kiddo?” The boy was nowhere to be seen and, in mockery of his concern, a large piece of the smouldering roof came down with a loud crash, its heavy impact causing a plume of grey smoke and sparks to rise into the air. Ken leapt across one of the water channels and screamed out again: “Red… Red, where are you?” Jane and the other two ran to join him. By now the mill was nothing but a burnt out shell of its former glory. All of the new wood had been turned to ashes, only a few charred stubs remained embedded in the brickwork, which had also taken a severe beating, and the far wall had mostly collapsed. The blackened hole it left behind looked like the sick grin on some devilish clown’s, gaping face.

  Mike yelled out: “Red, where are you, mate?”

  As one, the four of them looked at each other in horror. The sudden realisation that Red, their overgrown ‘man boy’, could be trapped under the smouldering rubble, quickly dawned upon them. Without another word they all rushed to join Ken as he stood staring into the smouldering hulk of the mill’s remains. He turned and looked at them with wild eyes. “Where is he? We need to do something, come on… help me lift this shit out of the way!” Ken ran to the nearest wall and, with unbelievable strength, ripped the remains of the incinerated door frame off its hinges. He yelled at the unfeeling timber: “Come on!” The wood tore loose in his hands and he hurled it to one side. Just as he began to step inside the smouldering building, there was a rasping groan from above and the remains of the roof fell in.

  “Ken!” Jane screamed at him, she just had time to see Ken leaping backwards, before he disappeared in a cloud of soot, ash and concrete dust. With a final moan, the inner mechanism of the old mill toppled sideways and smashed into the far wall. The force of the impact buckled the wall, and like the obvious house of cards, the entire mill began to topple sideways. Jane caught the glimpse of a running figure out of the corner of her eye. It simply raced into the smoke and disappeared into the cloud of smoke and dust. She and Mike stood and watched with mouths open, helplessly mesmerised.

  Tori kick started their reactions. “Reds got him, Red’s there!”

  Sure enough, seconds later, the large figure of Red appeared through the maelstrom of smoke, crashing timbers and falling masonry. He had Ken over one shoulder and was carrying him, like a rag doll, away from the collapsing building. Red’s momentum carried him right past the gaping trio and he kept running until he lost his footing on the slippery grass and slid into an ungraceful touchdown. The ‘Ken rugby ball’ on his shoulder was making some horrible strangling noises. Fearing the worst, the other three ran over to where the two men were skidding towards the ditch. They arrived just in time to see the pair plummet over the lip of the bank and disasappear from view, a large flume of water signalled the men’s final destination. Jumping onto the bank above the water course, the three would-be rescuers looked into the water fearing for the worst as they did so. The sight they observed was far from what they had expected to see.

  Both Red and Ken were sitting up to their chests in the muddy water and making strangling noises. Strangled, laughing noises! Red howled with laugher: “Ooooh… man that was close huh, Ken? Jeez that old wall missed my head by a little ittsy teeny bittsy!” He held up his large, mud covered hands to show them just how near: “By this much!” he said, showing the small gaps between his palms. “Any closer and yo’all would be singing ‘Nite nite sleep tight’ to me an ol’ Ken there!” He slapped the water with both hands and the huge splashes of water sent Ken into fits of laughter once more. He jumped up and then flopped back down next to Red, the splash of his own landing covering them both with even more mud and water. That was it as far as they were concerned, barely able to breathe through their amusement they staggered and slipped their way out of the ditch, before crawling onto the grass and laying at the somewhat more dry feet of their horrified companions. Ken lay with his eyes closed and giggled like a child. Red simply lay there next to him, choking back the laughter. Ken sat up and then thanked Red heartily for: “Saving my arse and then breaking every bone in my body, before trying to fucking drown me… thanks big guy!” He laughed and then punched Red on the shoulder. Red beamed with delight. It wasn’t long before the other three simply had to join them, the relief at seeing both men alive and well was overwhelming and they allowed their pent-up emotions to escape.

  Amongst a scene of burnt wood, smoke, and general carnage, the five of them sat, or lay, on the grassy bank and laughed like there was no tomorrow. Once their humour had dried up and their final jokes and laughter had floated away into the warm air, the shameful situation of the old mill returned to bring them back down to earth. They sat silently for a while and watched the last few lonely wisps of grey smoke, and its little grey butterflies of ash, taking flight and heading for more pleasant climates.

  “Well,” said Ken. “That’s a bit of a cock up, isn’t it – what a shame, all that hard graft wasted, she was bloody lovely was that old lady?” He turned to the others and shook his head. They all agreed, but there was a look in Mike’s eye, a look of determination and a look that Ken had seen on the odd rare occasion when Mike had been struggling with some piece of equipment or another. If something like that had given Ken as much grief, well then, the offending item would have rapidly found itself residing in the bin. Not Mike though, he would get that look of blue eyed determination on his face, and before Ken knew it the troublesome item would be working perfectly. Mike had the exact look on his face right now. Jane saw it, too, and said that perhaps Ken had best fetch his tools as the extension might have to wait a while? She was right.

  For the next four days they spent every waking moment down by the mill. In many ways it was a good thing as Mike could redesign some of the original mechanism. He said to Red: “It was state of the art in its day, I’m sure, but ideas have moved on since then, this way will be a lot better and we might even be able start milling some corn again, what do you reckon?” Red reckoned that Mike’s idea was just fine, he dumped the huge piece of timber he’d been carrying, onto the grass and leaned over Mike’s shoulder to see his sketch of the new design. Jane watched the two men as they discussed the intricacies of the design – Red casually leaning on Mike’s shoulder and grinning as the Australian showed him how his idea would work. Red plucked the pencil from behind Mike’s ear and made a few skilful lines of his own, Jane saw Mike look at him and then grin. “Yeah, definitely buddy!” He said. “That’ll work for sure, nice idea my man!” They had become very close over the past weeks and Mike’s attitude had endowed a very positive influence on the young man. Jane smiled to herself and turned back to help Ken as he sawed a piece of wood for the new door frame. He had been back into town with the sorry tale of the unfortunate mill’s demise. Frank looked at him, scratched his head and started scribbling down the long list of things, which Ken began to order.

  Ken had been delighted when, two days later, Frank had arrived at the farm with his three, strapping sons on board the old green truck. He had procured every single item on Ken’s list and even added a few of his own. He absolutely refused payment and would hear no more about it. Pointing at the windmill he said: “This here old lady has been pa
rt of this land for years, longer than I can remember anyways, it’s only right that we put her back to glory again; you all done a mighty fine job last time so, well, I reckons we can lend a hand is all?” That was the end of the conversation as far as Frank was concerned.

  Finally, after some ten days or so, they were done. The mill was back to its former glory, all the internal workings had been redesigned and Mike had spent hours grinding the stone milling wheels, they now looked like new and made a soft rumbling noise when he asked Red to push the lever. Mike grinned and said: “Yeah, we could definitely grind corn, or maybe even wheat, with that?” He and Red looked really pleased with their work. All that remained was for Red to finish the second coat of white paint on the outside and Ken also had to realign one of the sails, or blades, which had become slightly wayward, and he would soon get around to that? They had done a fine job, on the last evening, after they had completely finished, Jane, Maggie and Tori made a huge picnic and took it down to the mound. They invited all those who had helped; about a dozen people gathered under the apple tree and tucked in to a well deserved feast.

  From their vantage point, they had a nice view of the gleaming white mill as she sat in her renovated splendour. Ken raised his beer and said, “Folks, a toast!” he paused and turned to Mike. “To Mike: thanks or giving us the motivation, and then having the balls to go through all of this again, Mike. You’ve done a damned good job. Cheers!” They all agreed and raised their glasses in salute.