Dale Cozort's Alternate History Newsletter - Feb 2011

by Dale Cozort

  ***

  The rain stopped around two in the morning. Enough rain blew under the overhang to leave them wet and cold but not soaked. Amelia took the notebook out of her shirt and examined it with her flashlight. She swore. “I kept it dry but there’s only half a page left with writing on it.”

  She read from the last page. “They blew out the wall of the waterhole. Unless it rains or the good guys find me that was my last chance. These are probably my last words. If you find this, I didn’t make it. I don’t think the bastards who are chasing me are good enough to find it, but just in case, here is a message for you. You may have killed me, but you signed your death warrant. I fought for my life with all I had. I’ll face death without flinching. You’ll die whimpering.”

  Amelia looked up. “Okay, but who was it?” She read on. “Pastor, you’ll find this if anyone does. I want you to understand this: I let you trail me. I am better than you. I don’t know for sure who is after me. Shots from a plane, shots from a distance, and a blown reservoir. I have a theory. Find out what Reuben Haigh was doing the years he was off snapshot. I started to. I didn’t get far and nasty near-accidents started happening. Ermaline, you can keep going on your own. You’re the heart and the soul of the operation. I’m just the face. Granddad, I beat you to whatever comes next. Sorry I wasn’t stronger. I know it’s hard to bury a granddaughter. I love you and I hope the pastor is right about what comes next, though I doubt that either of us will end up in the good place.”

  “I think she did,” Pastor Julius said. “It’ll take a real merciful God for old Lyle to make it, but I’m still working on it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Amelia asked. “He’s wonderful.”

  “He can be. He can also be an old goat. Is there anything else?”

  “Just this: ‘Somebody besides me needs to die. Track them down. Kill them. I love you granddad. I love you Ermaline. I love you JoAnne.”

  Amelia handed the notebook and flashlight to Greg. “Can you read your page?”

  Greg tried. “It’s wet and the ink’s smeared. Maybe in the morning.”

  Amelia turned to the pastor. "You really didn't have anything to do with this?"

  "No. I didn't."

  "Because if you did I'm out. Get me out and I won't say anything. Tell them I got bored and tired of not having the Internet."

  "Believe me," Pastor Julius said. "I would have been happy if I found her alive. But I didn't. Life goes on without her. Why would I poke around up here if I killed her?"

  "To destroy evidence? But then why bring us? Okay. You didn't kill her."

  Greg made himself as comfortable as he could in the wet sand. He dug down a few inches and found dry, warm sand. He snuggled in and his exhausted body pushed him toward sleep. Amelia squeezed between him and the rocks and rested her head on his chest. She fell asleep in less than a minute.

  Greg fought his exhaustion. He said, "We should sleep in shifts."

  The pastor laughed. "You couldn’t keep your eyes open ten minutes if you propped them open with toothpicks."

  "Sounds dangerous."

  "Huh?"

  "Toothpicks by your eyes. Speaking of dangerous, we got shot at yesterday."

  "Shot at or in the general direction of?

  "In the general direction I guess."

  "Unless it was a 'mighty hunters' from 53 or 2011, they weren't actually shooting at you or they would have at least come close. How did that happen?"

  "Lyle said you needed your bus back, so we headed back and ended up meeting John Calvin Lewis and his little army."

  "How did you end up over there?"

  "Followed a map Lyle gave us."

  "Lyle?"

  "Ermaline actually."

  "There is a difference."

  Greg dozed off briefly, then started when he heard a faraway gunshot. “Mighty hunters, huh?”

  “Maybe one of my cryptozoologists. I don’t like having to bring them up here and I especially don’t like them shooting animals they don’t need for food.”

  “So don’t.”

  “I need the money. Wind Lady Baptist Church can’t afford a full-time pastor. For that matter, the town needs the money. The restaurants, stores and the hotel; tourism keeps them alive between Sugar Check weekends.”

  “But they only welcome people of color on Thursdays,” Greg said. “No wonder John Calvin is twitchy.”

  “John Calvin was twitchy when he got here, not long after Lyle did. He’s managed to stay out of trouble though. People give him kind of a grudging respect, and the old-timers leave him and his friends alone—not afraid of them, but knowing they would bother back if someone bothered them. Old John wouldn’t shoot you unless he figured you’re looking for trouble, and then he would try to head the trouble off.”

  Greg closed his eyes. When he opened them again the sky had filled with stars. He tried to remember what they had been talking about. “John Calvin; those young men of his have military training.”

  The pastor flexed his knee. “I’m going to have one stiff knee in the morning. Yep. They would have military training. John Calvin was in the army. He’s a complicated man, old John Calvin is. Humankind is capable of genius and stupidity, kindness and hatred, insight and blind spots. John Calvin Lewis wraps all of those things up all by his own self.”

  “How did he end up running one of Lyle’s ranches?”

  “I’ve never figured that out. If you find out, let me know.”

  “There is a lot about Lyle I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve known him over twenty years and there’s a lot about him I don’t understand. What are you thinking about in particular?”

  “He acts like an old redneck, but then he comes out with something that doesn’t fit at all. What’s with all the books and the word-processor?”

  “There’s a side to him only a few people get shown. If he’s shown you that side he likes you.”

  Greg studied the sky. “No big dipper. I guess there wouldn’t be, this being the southern hemisphere.”

  “No Southern Cross either,” the pastor said. “This is the night sky nine million years ago—sort of. I don’t know if you’ve thought of this, but here Madagascar stretches over five thousand miles north to south. The stars and the seasons should change as much as they do between Alaska and Panama. They don’t. They change as much as they would between north and south Madagascar. Now ask yourself, how can that happen?”

  “How can any of this happen?”

  “And yet people go on with their lives as though there was nothing else out there, nothing beyond man. One of the big science fiction writers said ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from God’. I don’t believe that. My God isn’t just power, he’s justice and compassion.”

  “He actually said ‘indistinguishable from magic.’ I’ve never quite figured out if your god exists,” Greg said. “What does Lyle think about God and tourists?”

  “He never talks about it, and I can’t read him.”

  “I can’t read him either. Does he buy me as Greg Dunne?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What?”

  “He isn’t stupid. He buys the possibility of you being Greg Dunne. He’s trying to figure out for sure. Even if he decides you are Greg he’ll also have to decide whether or not to trust you. There is more depth to old Lyle Dunne than you could possibly imagine.”

  “Information I could have used going into this.”

  “Information you would have had except that the way you came into this didn’t exactly make me trust you.”

  “And now you do?”

  A dog howled in the distance and Greg saw the pastor sit up, his bulk barely visible in the dim light. “No, but there is no way to back out now.”

  “I’ve been trying to figure you out, pastor. You don’t act rich. You don’t act like you want to be rich. Yet you come up w
ith money to fly us here. You set us up to con old Lyle. It doesn’t fit.”

  “Because you’re putting the pieces in the wrong puzzle.”

  “Maybe. I can’t figure out any other puzzle these pieces would fit into. Where did you dig up ‘Heather’?”

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “She’s a selfish bitch and a time-bomb who’ll go off if she doesn’t get around more people.”

  “Of course she’s selfish. Goes with the profession. She’ll settle down.”

  “Don’t count on it. You’re used to not being in crowds. Someone comes from a big city and it’s like going from a restaurant with a menu full of choices to one that only serves overcooked hotdogs. City people don’t get used to country life, even if they’re trying to get away from the city.”

  “They bring the city with them and try to impose it on people,” Pastor Julius said. “Or they have a city person idea of what county life should be and try to make the country fit it.”

  Greg shrugged, then realized the pastor couldn’t see the gesture. “Probably. The point is, she won’t get better. She’ll keep screwing up. She already looks like she tried to seduce Lyle. She’s already picked a fight with the Haigh woman. She already mouthed off where Ermaline may have heard her.”

  “If Ermaline heard something she understood it. She’s every bit as smart as we are. Oh well. We make our plans and the guy upstairs makes his. And then we see what happens.”