Season of Waiting

by Jim Christopher

  Caleb, here’s how you will stop the cataclysm.

  Chapter 53

  Wes

  Wes fell to the ground, gutted. They had it all but done, but his redemption slipped from his fingers. A drop of failure in an ocean of defeat. His face lifted to the sky. To wail. To scream after his father’s soul as it sailed into the endless pale blue of the Texas heavens. But a second sound—a rustling knock—took his gaze to the cabin.

  His heart leapt. The screen door was open, his father using it to brace himself as he hobbled down the steps. The field coat lay across his free arm, a bottle of water in his hand. He walked toward Wes, his face powdered with dirt, his shirt still wrinkled with the peaks created by Wes’s fists.

  “I’m ready,” Pop rasped, motioning to the truck with his chin.

  Wes swallowed, hope filling the pit in his stomach. He shook off the stun of finding his father alive. “I thought you were dead, Pop.”

  “I wasn’t. I’m not.” Dad’s voice was gloomy, quiet. He sounded tired. No, something more than that. Sadness hung on his face. It pushed against the wave of Wes’s positive feelings.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Wes asked, concerned. “What the hell happened?”

  Pop’s eyes wandered away from him. For a moment he feared they would dilate again, that Dad would fall back to the ground. Instead, Pop stepped around Wes and proceeded to the truck. Over his shoulder, he replied, “It was the voice. It was showing me things again.”

  Wes sat fixated in the dirt.

  His father opened the passenger door and laid the field coat and water bottle onto the seat. He turned, his face stern. “We should get going.”

  Wes nodded. He stood, dusted himself off, and took a step, patting his pockets for the keys. A mild panic swelled in him until he remembered they were in the ignition. He walked around the truck, lifting himself back into the driver’s seat and closing the door. He stole a look toward his father. Pop sat with the field coat in his lap, his braced hand rubbing his temple.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Wes checked.

  Dad sighed, dropping his hand. “There’s no time like the present.”

  Wes turned the key, and the truck roared as the engine came alive. He released the brake and negotiated the powerful machine through the apiary.

  The truck bucked as he downshifted for the turn onto the road that would take them back to 187. From there, it was straight north to town. “The Silverleaf?” Wes asked, realizing he had no specific destination.

  Pop stared through the windshield, his face drawn into a stoic mask as he answered, “That works.”

  They rode in silence for several minutes. The road switched and twisted through the low-rolling hills and brush. Wes pampered the clutch to prevent the truck from stalling on the turns. A metallic odor tainted the cab—the vapors of the mold-crusted jacket on his father’s lap. The smell pinched the inside of Wes’s nose. It reminded him of the stink of the ashtray on his front stoop during the monsoon season back home.

  As he drove, the pinch turned to a tickle, which progressed into a steady stab. Wes snorted, his sinuses swelling at the acrid vapors. “Dad, can we ditch that thing? The odor’s getting to me.”

  Dad placed his hands on the coat, but didn’t respond.

  “We can toss it in the truck bed,” Wes continued, reaching behind him to slide open the rear window. “Do you mind?” he asked, nodding back toward the bed while keeping his eyes on the road. Wes was having trouble hiding his aggravation. Between the temperamental transmission and that disgusting odor pecking at his brain, he was losing patience.

  The road straightened out, and State Road 187 loomed in the heat-hazed distance. Wes glanced over, seeing the coat in Pop’s lap.

  “Look, that thing stinks, and it’s pissing me off.” Wes reached over, finding the canvas coat with his fingers. He heaved it over the seat in an awkward motion toward the window. Wes tried to keep his torso straight, to hold both feet on the pedals. One hand gripped the steering wheel, while the other tried to underarm the long jacket through the window. The coat snagged something, refusing to move. Wes brought the truck to a stop on the empty road, so he could focus on getting rid of the damned thing.

  Glancing down, he found what was keeping the coat where it was. His father’s hands clawed into it like it was prey.

  “Pop, what the hell?” he asked. “That thing is gross—you don’t want it.” He yanked the coat, slipping the musty canvas through Dad’s fingers.

  His father’s hands clambered for the jacket as he cried, “No, wait!”

  Something thudded to the floorboard. Wes’s eyes found what made the sound: the revolver sat at Pop’s feet.

  Wes’s eyes bounced up, expecting Dad’s face to mirror his shock. Instead, his father’s eyes were tensed, brow crested, mouth agape. He swallowed, his gaze shifting between his son and the pistol. Pop was afraid.

  “Jesus,” Wes said. “You gotta be careful with that! At least let me know you had it on you! It might have gone off!”

  Wes moved the coat through the back window, hearing it land in the metal bed of the truck with a slap. He turned, reaching for the gun on the floor.

  It wasn’t there. Wes scanned the cab. He found the revolver in Pop’s lap, his hand cupping the grip.

  “Pop, we’re not gonna need that,” he said. “You should put it away.” Wes leaned over, opening the glove box.

  His dad didn’t move.

  “Please, it’s not safe having that out. Put it away.”

  “No, thank you,” he replied, his voice cracked and dry. “It’s okay.”

  Wes sat up straight, adjusting his foot to keep pressure on the sensitive clutch. “No, thank you?” he parroted. “Seriously, we don’t need it.”

  Dad turned to face the passenger window. The rumble of the idling engine marked the silence. Wes looked down, brow furrowing in confusion as Dad’s hand tightened on the grip of the gun.

  Wes swallowed. “I know this is scary, Pop, believe me. This has been the road trip from hell.” He reached over, putting a gentle hand on the gun. “But we’re nearly there, okay? We have the money. We found the boy. We don’t need this now.” Wes felt Pop’s fingers move beneath his hand, his hold solidifying on the weapon.

  “Don’t,” Dad hissed, his voice now a coarse whisper. “I need it!”

  Wes shook his head. “No, Pop, I don’t think you will. We’re just gonna give them the money and—”

  Dad’s face turned from the window, his expression derailing Wes’s thought. Dad’s mouth contorted into a deep frown. Eyes wide. In fear. Sadness.

  No, not sadness. Wes knew this face. It was the face he’d had when Wes broke Irene’s jaw. This was anger. Resignation. Betrayal.

  “I need it!” The words spit from his father’s lips. “I need it to kill Emerson!”

  Chapter 54

  Caleb

  Wes’s grin twitched. “That’s not funny, Pop. Let go.”

  Caleb swallowed. It burned. His throat was drying up again. He shook his head. “I can’t do that, Wes.”

  The smile melted off his son, his eyes blinking away the confusion. “No, Pop, that’s not the thing we’re doing.” The words sputtered out, his son’s way of cobbling thoughts together from broken pieces.

  Wes shook his head, and the pieces seemed to snap together. He licked his lips, his mouth clicking as he whispered, “What the fuck?”

  Caleb’s chest heaved. “Please, let’s get moving. I’m running out of time. We need to go to town.”

  The truck lurched as his son twisted in his seat, shifting his foot on the clutch as he turned toward Caleb. Wes found his eyes and held them with his own. His stare bored into Caleb, searching for a sign that his father meant to say something else. Wes’s eyes widened, not finding what they were looking for.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” he rasped. “Not until I understand what the fuck is going on.”

  Caleb broke the g
aze, peering out the windshield. The highway was a hundred yards away, rising heat making the pale asphalt shimmer like a mirage. He heaved in a breath, holding it, unsure of where to start. “The voice … it came to me before we left. It showed me … It told me …” The experience ran through his head again, the flashes of things that could be, the endless branching of possibilities. How the hell would he explain this to his son?

  “The voice told you what, exactly?” Wes’s voice steadied.

  Caleb swallowed again. The burn down his throat cleared the rubble from his thoughts. “My purpose. The reason for all of this. The voice showed me. My purpose is to kill Emerson.”

  A silence weighed on the air in the cab. Wes broke it with a harsh whisper, “That’s not right. That can’t be right, Pop.” His voice crescendoed as he spoke, building toward clarity and anger. “Tell me what it said!”

  A throb bounced against the inside of Caleb’s skull. An echo from speaking with the voice. The insistence, the betrayal, the emotionless manner in which it was conveyed. Caleb continued to stare out the front of the truck. “It came, the voice. It came, and it said, ‘You’re almost done now.’ Then it told me to get the gun.” His voice cracked then, his eyes thick with the threat of tears. He pushed the shame away, but it kept his voice a thin warble. “It said I’m not here to be healed.” His eyes watered, despite his dehydration. “The voice said I’m here to stop the boy. That’s all.”

  Wes shifted in his seat again, his hand tightening around the revolver’s frame. “Stop the boy? Stop him from what? What in hell does that even mean?”

  Caleb stuttered, “I don’t …” Heat fanned his face, sweat licking his temple. The cab was stifling.

  “Tell me,” his son demanded.

  Caleb took a breath to calm himself. He thought back through it all. The branches of things to come. He turned to face his son’s hard stare. “The voice … it showed me …” It showed him what? “I can’t find the words here, son, I’m sorry.”

  “No! You need to explain this to me! What did it show you? What!” Wes was livid, his voice raw and loud. His anger trembled into his hand as it tightened around Caleb’s fingers. Around the gun.

  “The future? Or maybe, what the future could be?” Christ, what the hell did that even mean?

  Wes shook his head. He grunted through his clenched teeth. Caleb saw a shadow on his face, one he recognized, a portent of violence. Caleb’s breath caught.

  “Son, it was too much to take in. It was … everything. It was all the things that will happen. That could happen. A … map. An endless one. Of anything that may come to pass.” Caleb heard the words flow out of him, his thoughts melting just prior to pouring out of his mouth.

  “Pop.” Wes’s tone came soft. Caleb hadn’t expected that. His son closed his eyes and took a breath. “Let’s focus on one thing. Focus on the thing that made it real for you.”

  Caleb recognized the language—“What makes it real for you?” The tone of voice—calm, placating, benign from judgment. It was from their family therapy sessions, to ensure that they could communicate well enough to keep Wes from relapsing. The therapist would ask, “You say your father’s disappointment in you is a trigger. What makes his disappointment real to you?”

  His son’s eyes crept open. The anger was missing. Not at bay, not held back. His son had shut it down.

  The therapist had asked, and Wes responded. Those responses focused on emotions. Caleb’s behavior triggered a feeling in his son. An inadequacy, helplessness that despite doing his best, it was not good enough. The shame of not being as smart and organized as his sister. Guilt at not holding his shit together. Fear of developing new coping skills, when self-destruction worked so well for him.

  Caleb closed his eyes now, and he sought back for that feeling. He replied, “It was … like a tree. Or … a road. It started … here, and now. And then it moved forward. But the way forward twists. It breaks into branches. …” He shook his head. He was moving through it too fast.

  Wes encouraged him, “It’s okay, go on.”

  Caleb considered it. Space bending around him. Possibilities laid out to infinity. Eternity pierced by an infinite number of sparks. Each comprehensible on its own, but the whole of them were blinding. Then, the vertigo of being in that empty abyss. The insignificance of an individual, standing on the rim of oblivion. The abandonment. Boundless fear. Resignation. Surrender.

  “It was overwhelming. The voice, it tried to show me, but I couldn’t see the whole thing. The thread—the branch or whatever—the voice showed me the one we’re on. The one that leads me to the boy. It splits and twists from there. It branches whether I kill the boy or let him live.”

  Caleb opened his eyes, looking for some sign this was making any sense to Wes. His son was listening. A soft smile found Wes’s lips as his son’s eyes encouraged him to say more.

  Caleb started nodding too. He held the image in his head. The threads countless, always unraveling. “The thread, the one where the boy lives. It goes on for a ways, splitting and twisting. But that all … everything just … ends.”

  Wes’s brow perked up. “It ends? What do you mean?”

  Caleb shrugged with his eyebrows, stammering a bit, “I mean, there’s nothing. Nobody. All the branching ends in nothing.”

  “Like, how?” Wes asked. “End-of-times kind of stuff?”

  “I don’t know, I think so?” Caleb replied. The explanation came easier. “Those branches where the boy lives on, those disappear into a void, where nothing comes out. But the ones leading off from his death, those go on. They continue for as far as I could see.”

  Wes huffed and considered him for a moment. “And you said that the dead end happens if you don’t kill the boy?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “And the path if you kill him? Where does that go?”

  Caleb tried to remember. Every possible outcome, none of them determined. Endless sparks in the dark. “I don’t know. It was too much to know. All I can tell you is that it just … keeps going.”

  They held the moment, the rumble of the antsy engine a metronome to their tension. Wes sighed hard. “Look, Pop. You must not have understood. The voice leaves a lot to be desired in the communication department.”

  Caleb shook his head. “No. I know the voice isn’t giving us a script here, but this part was spelled out. Everything ends if Emerson lives. He dies, things carry on.”

  An incredulous breath blew through Wes’s lips. “But why, Dad? And how?” The heat was returning to his voice.

  “I don’t know, son. I couldn’t understand. I tried, but—”

  Wes’s grip on the gun tightened again. He turned his face away, and Caleb watched the spit fly from his son’s lips as he spoke. “Fuck this. Kill a kid? God would never ask you to do that.”

  Caleb was unsure what to say. Wes stared through the windshield, his jaw knuckle throbbing with energy. The truck smelled like anxiety, a mixture of sweat and uncertainty.

  Wes sighed. The sound was even, calm. His face pivoted back to Caleb, his mouth turned down in a hard and broken expression. His other hand moved from the steering wheel and wrapped around the gun.

  “Give me the gun, Pop.” The resolution in his tone shocked Caleb. Wes wasn’t asking. He was threatening.

  “I can’t.” Caleb was crying again as the brief respite of calm in him evaporated.

  “Let go,” Wes demanded. “This is over.” His hands closed around the cylinder. Caleb’s fingers were pressed between his son’s swampy palms. “We’ll call Irene. She’ll figure out what to do.” A tremble had moved to Wes’s voice too.

  Caleb swallowed the dryness in his throat. “No, son. This has to happen.”

  “You’re sick, okay? Give me the gun, let’s call Irene, and we can go home.”

  “I can’t do that, Wes.” The tears were steady now. His son’s face was a blur. “You keep saying I need to accept my role in this.” Wes’s hands clenched.
Caleb tightened his grip around the gun. “You’re the one who keeps pointing out how things have moved us here. Saying we need to trust our purpose here.”

  “Let go, Pop.” Wetness fell from Wes’s eyes and down his cheeks. Caleb could hear the break in his voice. The staccato of emotion in his throat cracking the hardness of his resolve.

  Caleb shook his head no.

  Wes’s hands closed tight. “Please,” he begged, as he twisted the gun in Caleb’s hand. “Just let go of the gun.”

  Caleb’s fingers tightened, a futile gesture against the strength of his son.

  Wes rotated farther in his seat, and Caleb lost the leverage he had around the grip. His good wrist bent backward, the gun slipping, the textured handle scraping across his palm.

  Pressure exploded in his wrist as Wes shifted his weight. The clutch groaned as it slipped from beneath Wes’s sneaker.

  The gears engaged. The engine shuddered with power. The truck bucked. Caleb’s back pressed into his seat. The barrel twisted toward him. Its blackness was bottomless.

  A cough from the engine. The truck stalled as Caleb fell forward into the sudden silence. The gun rattled in his hands as the dashboard slammed into his face.

  The punch of a gunshot filled the cab.

  Chapter 55

  Irene

  Irene disconnected from the video call. The sheriff’s office came back into focus. The smell of work—a familiar mix of body odor, sweat, printer toner, and shitty coffee. She stole a glance at the clock on the wall. That was the sixth meeting she’d joined in the last hour. That call had included the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. The one before that, Webb County. Then Bexar County. Kerrville police. Hondo police. Uvalde, too.

  She had to give a nod to Sheriff Dietrick. The woman got shit moving. It had taken Irene twenty minutes to drive back to the sheriff’s office. In that time, Dietrick stirred the pot across southern Texas. At five in the morning, she followed up with the San Antonio police about the stolen car. She inserted herself into their workflow, and data started pouring in.