by David Kersey
NO INNER LIMIT
By David Kersey
Copyright 2014 David Kersey
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, and places, and all dialogue and incidents portrayed in this book are the product of the author’s imagination.
For Laura
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE – Dr. Jamison (Van) Vance
The red-eye flight from L.A. to Atlanta was the easy part. The next stage of the journey would be the more difficult….the drive through north Georgia, Tennessee, and then the most problematic, the wilderness of south central Kentucky. He had solemn concerns as to the wisdom of the journey, yet Adele had strongly urged him on. Who is this man simply named Joshua, the recluse living in the remote hinterlands of the Daniel Boone National Forest? Adele had described him as “amazing”. Atypical of his female comrade, like himself also a professor, she was evasive, offering nothing more than adjectives, such as remarkable, and incredible, when mentioning the telepathic abilities of Joshua with no last name. She did say to expect a profound experience, that Joshua was much more than a telepathist. And so he drove the rental car out of Atlanta in stupefaction, half wishing he had stayed in southern California, the other half in blind anticipation. Without incident he arrived in Corbin, Kentucky at six pm Eastern, three hours in advance of his California time, then called Adele.
“Listen, you heifer, this better be worth it! I am in Corbin at a Days Inn.”
“You listen, numbskull. You just might be blown away. The real trip will be after you arrive. You’re less than two hours away and it won’t be a cakewalk getting there, but you’ll enjoy the scenery, some of the best this country has to offer.”
“You’re sure he’s expecting me? I don’t want to be staring down at double barrels!”
“Yeah, he’s on board. I told him to expect you around noon tomorrow.”
“So how is it with you in Lexington? And I’m sorry about your precious Wildcats.”
“You hush. Do you remember watching the video of a girl named Namanda two years ago?”
“Sure do, amazing twelve year old savant from India. Have you heard something more about her?”
“I have. We need to talk, but only after you meet with Joshua. He’s different, Van, you’ll see. Be prepared to experience something more bewildering than Namanda, you hear me? I want you to call me tomorrow once you’ve sat and talked with, uh, make that experienced him. OK? And another thing, your discoveries are strictly confidential. You’ll see why.”
“Will call you tomorrow. Stay off the Makers Mark, sot.”
“Fat chance. You’re too late.” She hung up.
Van Vance, whose actual first name is Jamison but practically everyone calls him Van, professor of behavioral sciences at the University of California at Irvine, a fifty-five year old academic who had seen and screened hundreds of savants, prodigies, and otherwise noteworthy case studies bordering on the murky dubiousness of clairvoyance, prescient abilities, and those sagacious well beyond the norm, was intrigued by Adele’s description of Joshua as being different.
Adele Meadors, professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, would not use the term “different” cheaply. Yet she was deliberately withholding information from him and that was not her usual dutifully scrupulous style. The only reference she made was to Namanda, an incredibly gifted savant who, by the age of eight, had total recollection of all eastern hemisphere country names, in alphabetical order, and their capital cities.
Van knew of several savants worldwide; and, to a person, each had extraordinary abilities but also handicaps in brain function. Autism was the leading trigger, but not in every case, some being brain trauma through injury.
Adele said Joshua would be “different”, and adding to the furtiveness was the fact that she didn’t include the SOTs via teleconference. SOT, an acronym for Searchers of Truth, an assemblage of forty-two watchdogs worldwide of which he and Adele were two, was usually notified about a discovery of extraordinary intelligence. She cautioned him to keep his discovery confidential and left the SOTs out of the loop. He wondered why.
He awoke the next morning after suffering the nocturnal aftereffects of smothered, covered, and chunked fare at the adjacent Waffle House, in which the plump waitress had screamed his order to the short order cook merely ten feet away. Thankfully the June sky over south central Kentucky was cloudless and intensely blue, a good day to travel the serpentine, undulating roads into the wilds of the two million acre National Forest. And indeed the terrain was wild, rough, unsullied by the Spartan fabricated metal dwellings that tainted the roadside for a few miles southwesterly of Corbin.
Once inside the park, the interplay of foliage and rocky cliffs spoke of an ancient geologic event that forcefully ripped through the earth. He navigated a hairpin turn in the Cumberland Falls Highway, then gasped with surprise at the cinematic spectacle that lay just beyond its apex, the Cumberland Falls, affectionately named “the Niagara of the South”. He took advantage of the parking area populated by dozens of sightseeing cars and used the facilities, and also used his cell phone to snap a few pictures of the waterfall and Romanesque bridge over the Cumberland River. He was grateful Adele had recommended this scenic route which was mindful of an understated version of the Colorado Rockies, and a welcome departure from the synthetics of human intervention.
After ten more minutes behind the wheel he reached another scenic overlook, that of a rock formation known as the Natural Arch, to which he aimed his cell phone camera. The GPS furnished by the car rental agency indicated he was just two miles away from his destination. Those two miles were dirt roads, more aptly paths tunneling through overarching hardwoods, which rose in elevation rather brusquely. At the crest of the knoll stood an enormous barn with a rustic log dwelling off to the port side.
He parked near the barn, stepped out of the car, and took in the gracious beauty of the hillsides that flanked both sides of the property and joined together approximately a half mile straight ahead, as if he was standing in the bow of a gigantic earthen sailing vessel. Beyond the barn the terrain sloped downward to a valley completely enfolded by the hillsides, and there, some fifty yards beyond and below him, was a monumentally bizarre sight.
Van wasn’t a biblical scholar by any means, but the man standing in the blue grassed valley, and in the midst of a twenty fold herd of deer, immediately conjured up the image of Jesus perhaps in a valley near Galilee beckoning the children to come unto him. The man’s shoulder length ebony hair and beard, and the full length white garment bolstered the impression. So this was the mystery man, the Joshua of no known last name.
The man acknowledged his visitor with a wave and an unintelligible sound that caused the deer to hurriedly scatter to the safety of the surrounding tree lines. He slowly began to walk up the slope which stirred a wave of nervousness in Van, as if he was about the meet a renowned luminary.
“Hello, you must be Dr. Vance? Welcome.” The Jesus man offered his hand.
“Jamison Vance, but people call me Van. And you are Joshua?”
“I am.”
Van studied the man’s face. Strong features, smooth skin, and incredibly blue eyes….Paul Newman eyes that expressed empathy like the movie icon possessed.
“No last name?”
“Not a real one, not yet anyway. Come.”
Joshua, a rather tall, maybe six-two, slender man of perhaps thirty years of age, began walking toward the prodigious barn. Van followed in silence without the knowledge that his rather mundane life would be jolted to the core in the subse
quent days and weeks.
+ + + + +
On the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation in northeastern Arizona, the old man stood in a cave near the top of Baldy Peak. Hachika, whom the tribesmen called the Wolfman, the ancient shaman, stared into the smoke rising from the fire. He sprinkled his mystic dust into the flames and soon began to chant in hushed, low tones, “Sadnleel da’ya’dee nzho maggaanii, shiiyii’ii.” (Long life, old age, all is good, my white son). In the cloud of smoke the image of his adopted son appeared. A tear flowed down the old man’s rutted cheek. “Yashua, your time has come.”