Looking at the man’s face, Wolf knew the doctor had had enough for one day. He took the set of keys Kimberly had put on the table near the envelope. “Let me take you home, Doctor. I think you need to have some familiar things around you right now.”
“Home?” Kimberly echoed, surprised. “I thought he’d stay with us a few days until we get this all sorted out.”
Grateful for Wolf’s intervention, Claude quickly stood and gathered the papers that were his life. “I agree with Wolf. I would like to go home. Not that I don’t appreciate your offer, Kimberly,” he smiled. “But, I’d like to sleep in my own bed tonight. It’s been a long time,” he murmured in an undertone.
“But…but, you have to eat.” She didn’t want this link to her father to leave just yet.
“I’ll work something out.” He looked to Wolf to back him.
Wolf understood and started for the door. “My car in the garage, Lance?”
Lance gave him a cocky grin. “Yeah, I gave Peter a driving lesson with it. Hope you don’t mind.”
“You can drive at five years old now?!” Claude was shocked. “Things really have changed.”
Lance clapped him on the shoulder. “No, it isn’t that bad yet! I was just kidding. You go ahead and take off. Kimberly and I will bring some groceries over later.”
Nodding mutely, he waited for Wolf to come out of the huge garage. A wide smile crossed his face when Wolf roared up to the entryway. He recognized the bright red Mustang.
Maybe things won’t be that bad after all.
Wolf drove slower than usual through the streets of Fullerton. He could tell Claude recognized certain parts of the city. Every once and a while the doctor would blurt out the name of a store, and how things had changed since he last went down that street. As the two drove closer to his old neighborhood on South Woods, Wolf could see the doctor was relaxing more and more until they reached his house. Pulling up next to the curb, he let the engine idle as the doctor got out of the car.
Standing on the trimmed grass lawn, Claude grinned as he looked at that little flat-topped house that had been his home for six years. Looking at it as if for the first time, a wide smile crossed his face as he thought about the day when he had signed the papers for it. This had been his first major purchase while he was still in med school and he had been unabashedly proud of this little house. It felt like he had just been there a few days ago. But here he was, nearly half a century later, looking at a house that was just like him—unchanged in time. It’s like time stood still.
His mind now turned to his buddies. I wonder what happened to Roger.… Roger had lived across the alley and, good friends like they were, helped him with several building projects in the six years he lived there. They had torn down thick ivy that had covered the back patio cover. What fun that had been, and so different from his field of medicine. Then they had built the nice patio with the built-in lighting inside the skylights, the renovation of the beautiful flagstone patio floor, and then the rebuild of that huge brick barbecue. All of it was on the patio next to the garage…. The doctor recalled hosting a lot of parties back there. With that thought his smile faded a bit.… All those parties…all his medical school friends who had come—like Roger—where would they be now? How old were they?
Shaking off the feeling of displacement, the doctor jingled the set of keys in his hand and strode forward.
Wolf grinned as he watched Claude bypass the house and head straight for the garage nestled in the back by the alley.
Yes, he was going to be all right, Wolf decided as he revved his engine and sped back to Disneyland. He still had a baffled Wals and an angry Rose waiting for him.
Three weeks later, Wolf was surprised to get a phone call. “Is everything all right, Doctor?” He hadn’t seen Doctor Houser since he dropped him off at his home. Lance and Kimberly were keeping an eye on him as he caught up on the missing four decades of his life and started work at a new laboratory.
“Yes, yes, it is going well. Kimberly has been a dear. Her father would be proud of her.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Ah, I keep forgetting you worked with both Walt and her father.” Claude chuckled. “Since my MG is still in the shop getting its scheduled forty-year-maintenance, tune-up and new tires, Kimberly took me shopping over at the Orangefair Mall. Amazing that it’s still there.”
“Some things never change. Like women and shopping. Is there something I can help you with, Doctor?” Wolf never really liked chitchat.
Claude smiled into his old-fashioned rotary phone. He could sense Wolf wanted to get on with it. “Yes, you can. I was hoping you’d be willing to keep your promise.”
I always keep my promises. “What do you mean?” He didn’t try to disguise the irritant in his voice.
“Your promise to take me to see Walt.”
I was hoping once you saw the chamber below Pirates you would forget. No such luck. Wolf paused. He had made so many jumps in a row lately that he was feeling the strain.
The doctor let the silence grow. He felt no need to explain his strong desire to touch base with his old friend and boss. It was extremely personal to him. He needed to talk to him one more time. There was no solid idea of what he would say. He just wanted to see Walt.
Wolf knew he was expected to talk next. “All right,” he finally told the waiting doctor. “I have to warn you, though—there is a possibility the timing will be off and we might arrive when Walt doesn’t know you. Will you be prepared for that?”
There was another pause. “I hadn’t expected that. You seemed so sure when you took me to New Orleans.”
“I knew where I was taking you. I wasn’t sure of the exact time frame until we arrived. It happened that we hit it just right.”
“Do you think we could go back to Walt’s apartment?”
Wolf didn’t even consider that option. “No, the risk to the room is too severe. I don’t know of any portal that would open there, and don’t want to try the room itself. There are far too many variables and it’s difficult to explain. I will come up with some options and get back to you. All right?”
“I suppose it has to be. Let me know.”
The phone clicked in his ear as the doctor hung up. Wolf groaned. He was starting to feel like a transportation service, but, he did promise.
The two men stood on the train track, staring into the first tunnel after the Main Street Station. The sounds from the animals of the Jungle Cruise beyond had been shut off for the night. The sky was dark with a scattering of stars showing dimly through the encroaching lights of the Esplanade off to their left. It was dark, but not as dark as the tunnel that emerged in New Orleans Square and Frontierland.
“You sure this will work?” the doctor asked, pensive.
“No.”
Not caring for the answer, the doctor looked over at him. “Well, will we be able to return here to this point in time?”
“Maybe.”
Dressed in ageless black slacks and a thin white pullover sweater, the unseen frown was obvious in the doctor’s voice. “Then why are we using this tunnel?”
Wolf tried to keep his voice even. “Because I don’t have a map of every portal and every exit. I have to take some risks—besides the obvious risk and side effects of the jump itself. Which, I assume, you do remember.”
Claude kept himself from shuddering. “Yes, I remember…. Where do you think this will come out?”
“The Marceline, Missouri, train station. Or, hopefully, Disneyland’s station five decades ago. It seems a reasonable possibility.” Wolf didn’t add a third possibility: New Orleans of the 1800’s since the current tunnel exited there. He didn’t figure that option would go over too well with the doctor. He had had enough of the Old West.
The doctor looked over as Wolf started removing his clothes. He hadn’t expected that, either. “Do you think you will emerge as a wolf? How will that go over in either situation?”
Wolf stashed his uniform behind the bricks th
at formed the entry to the tunnel. Thanks to Lance and Kimberly’s assistance, he knew there would be no maintenance crews working on this part of Disneyland. “I can only go by what has happened in every jump into the past. I have always emerged as a wolf.”
Wolf then handed Claude something that had been hidden in the bricks. “What’s this? It feels like a leather collar and a chain.”
“It is,” Wolf said sourly. “If any of my predictions are correct, you will have to pass me off as…your dog.” He was glad he couldn’t see the smirk he knew was crossing the doctor’s face.
Once the picture had left his mind, Claude was able to reply in a steady voice devoid of any amusement. He didn’t want to humiliate a proud man who was his only chance of coming back to the current time—one that he had quickly gotten used to and was enjoying immensely with all its modern conveniences. “Let’s play that by ear, then.” The chain jingled nervously in his hand. “Are you ready?”
Wolf could hear the anxiousness in his voice and ignored the noise of the chain. “Yes, as ready as I ever am. Stick right behind me and head for the middle of the vortex. When it is on land like this, we have to actually jump into it.”
There was no reply, only a loud swallow. Wolf felt a hand settle on his shoulder as he called for the lightning. The dark tunnel immediately began to glow ahead of them, the light fading and then stretching toward the two men. A distant boom echoed through the darkness and a glimmer of pink swirled to life.
“Run!” Wolf barked as he sprinted forward. He could feel the change surge through him and exalted in the feeling of freedom it gave him. He could hear the doctor stumbling on the railroad ties as he struggled to keep up. “Faster! We have to make it to that column of light! Now…jump!”
Holmby Hills
“Is there a tunnel at the Marceline train station? I’ve never been there.” The doctor’s voice was weak, but, as it echoed through the darkness, was still overloud to the sensitive ears of the wolf sitting next to him.
The silver-tipped ears turned away from the noise. He was trying to pick up clues as to where they were. “No, there isn’t. Are you all right?”
“Well, at least I am not soaked to the skin this time,” was the dry response. “But, yes, I think so. If we aren’t in Marceline, then, where are we?”
Wolf could hear the sounds of the man struggling to get into a sitting position.
“Why is this tunnel so short, Wolf? I can feel the roof.”
Wolf padded to the exit of the ninety-foot-long tunnel and sniffed the air. “Well, we aren’t in Disneyland any more. This isn’t even the tunnel to the Casey Jr. Circus Train. Besides, the track gauge is too narrow.” He could hear the doctor crawling toward the exit. Wolf had no trouble standing upright in the small tunnel, but the taller man did. “I can smell a garden, a dog or two, and the definite smells of humanity.”
Claude stuck his head out of the tunnel and looked around in the darkness, suddenly smiling. “Or you could say we’re in Walt’s backyard. You mean to tell me you’ve never been here?”
Wolf padded out and sat down next to the train track that wound into the distance. “No, I haven’t. We usually meet at the Park or at the mansion. This is private.”
“This is his house on Carolwood Way. Walt built it in 1950, so I guess this could be any time since then. With the looks of the mature trees, I think the house has been here a while.”
Wolf could hear the eagerness in the doctor’s voice. He hoped, for the doctor’s sake, that he was right. It would crush his spirit if he arrived too late after 1966. Glancing at the dark sky, Wolf could tell morning was still a few hours off. “Where are you going?” as the doctor suddenly started striding over the lawn.
“I was going to knock on the patio door and see if I can awaken him.”
“Wait a minute, Doctor,” Wolf called. “You don’t know who’s at home. Are you known by the entire family? Do they know what you do?”
The doctor paused in his tracks. Wolf could see his shoulders sag a little. “No, I’m not.” He gave an uneasy sigh. “What do you suggest?”
“There’s a hammock over there. Why don’t you wait out the morning and I’ll go back to the tunnel. I shouldn’t be seen yet. Until we know who’s here.”
Claude watched as the dark shape moved silently back into the tunnel. He didn’t like waiting, but could see the wolf’s point. He settled into the hammock and fell instantly asleep.
“You get kicked out of that house of yours, Claude?”
The doctor came instantly awake as a hand continued to shake his shoulder. “Walt! It’s really you!”
The familiar eyes twinkled. “Now, who else would it be in my own backyard? What are you doing here? Want to come in for some breakfast? The family is off on a visit. I’m all by my lonesome.”
“I…I came to see you, Walt.” The doctor stammered, not sure of how much to say. He wasn’t sure what happened to the wolf.
“I think the doorbell still works out front,” Walt kidded with him. “Even though this hammock is pretty comfortable, if I do say so myself.”
Claude looked over toward the train layout. He could see the dark nose just barely sticking out of the entrance of the tunnel. “This may sound very odd, Walt, but, what year is this?”
Walt’s expression of amusement turned to one of concern. “You hit your head, Claude? Maybe you should come in and lie down.”
“No, I’m fine. Just humor me for a minute, please.”
“All right. All right. It’s 1963. Does that help?”
“1963,” he repeated, suddenly smiling. “Yes, that helps a lot. We needed to know.”
“We? Since I already know the date, who is included in ‘we?’” Curious, Walt turned his head to look in the same direction as the doctor.
The doctor had gotten out of the hammock and stood on the grass. He called over toward the tunnel that traveled under the garden. “Wolf, it’s all right.”
“Wolf? What’s Wolf doing hiding out there? He knows he’s welcome here.” Walt broke off as the huge, black figure of a wolf slowly emerged from the train tunnel and stood warily in the early morning light. “Well, I’ll be….”
Walt went out to meet Wolf halfway. Wolf came within touching distance and sat on the lawn. He could see that his boss was trying to work it out in his mind and remained quiet. “I’ve seen you before,” Walt whispered. “A long time ago. So long ago that I thought it was just a dream or my imagination at work. Isn’t that right?”
The sapphire blue eyes swung up to meet Walt’s. “Yeah, that was me, boss. You hit me in the head with a rock. I wondered if you ever remembered.”
The surprise of a talking wolf caused Walt to stumble backwards. The doctor caught him before he could go all the way down. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
Walt shook himself out of Claude’s hands and went back to Wolf, peering closely at him. “So this is what happens to you. I’ve always wondered. You never said much.”
One black shoulder shrugged. “Without actually seeing it, it is kind of hard to grasp.”
Walt’s sharp eyes swung back to Claude. “And you knew? I didn’t even think you two knew each other.”
“We don’t. Or didn’t….” He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “It’s complicated, Walt. Let’s just leave it at: things happen. A lot’s happened to me lately and I, well…I just wanted to talk to you, and Wolf here brought me.”
Walt folded his arms over his chest and gave a dry laugh. “Well, all you had to do was come to the Park or give me a call! This seems like an awful lot of trouble. What did you want to talk to me about?”
The doctor opened his mouth and then shut it again. He looked perplexed. “I don’t actually know, Walt. I just wanted to touch base with something…someone familiar.”
Walt looked from the wolf to the doctor and back again. He was starting to get the picture that things weren’t as they seemed. Then he recalled that the “something” that happened to Wolf only happened when he
did that odd transference he mentioned. When he transferred to the past. Walt felt his heart start pounding in his chest. “I don’t suppose you would tell me the truth even if I asked, would you?”
“It’s best not at this point, Walt,” Wolf told him. “We each have our little secrets.”
Walt knew Wolf was referring to the mysterious pendant hidden safely in his apartment over the Fire Station at Disneyland. He figured the doctor must now be included somehow in all of that. “Time will tell, I’m sure.” Knowing he would get no further explanation, he rubbed his hands together and changed the subject. “So, can I fix you two some breakfast? I make some mean eggs!”
“I don’t know if your poodle would be too happy to see me, Walt.” Wolf gave a silent, open-mouthed laugh. “Maybe it would be best if I stayed out here. You and Claude go on inside and have a chat. We can’t leave until tonight anyway.”
Walt grinned at that. “Yeah, my ladies get a little protective of me. Wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Okay, okay, Wolf, you know what’s best, I’m sure. Come on in, Claude. I want to show you my drawings for the World’s Fair! You do know about It’s a Small World, don’t you?”
With a pleased look on his face and a relaxed slope to his shoulders, Claude followed his boss into the sprawling two-story house.
Disneyland – 2008
Once Wolf got back to Disneyland, Wals wasn’t waiting for him in the cast members’ locker room like he had asked. He took the second small canoe hidden near the Hungry Bear Restaurant and paddled out into the River. Somewhat irritated, he found both Wals and Rose still sitting in front of the Settler’s Cabin on Tom Sawyer’s Island. “I thought you were going to have Rose back in the moat by now. The Park is open, Wals. The Mark Twain will start her first run within minutes. This is no time to be messing around!”
“She refuses to get into the canoe! I can’t paddle and hold her at the same time. She’s being very stubborn!” Wals was exasperated—both by Rose’s refusal to cooperate as well as her transformation into a swan. He wasn’t sure what to do. So, rather than make a scene traipsing through the park with a hissing swan, he thought it would be best to just stay put until Wolf arrived—which he had hoped would be sooner rather than later.
Wolf! The Legend of Tom Sawyer's Island Page 31