Westward, Ho-Boy
Installment 6
by Polgana


True to his word, Buddy kept Clay up most of the night, asking questions about their mother and some of the incidents mentioned in the journals.  As a result, both twins slept most of the way to San Antonio while Jake drove.  Gary and Polly sat and talked with Kwai Chang.  The Shaolin tried to teach the younger man meditation techniques.  In this way, he hoped to help Gary control the flood of images that threatened, at times, to overwhelm him.

“Close your eyes,” he told the man seated on the floor.  “Relax, and let the air flow, in and out  Slowly.  Good.  Keep your mind clear.  Concentrate on the rhythm of your breathing, of the sound of your heart beating.”

Gary sat with his legs crossed in the classic ‘lotus’ position, arms resting loosely on his thighs.  The soothing cadence of the priest’s voice was making him drowsy in spite of the discomfort of his injuries.  After a few minutes, his head began to nod as he started to slip from meditation and into sleep.  A gentle touch on his shoulder snapped him out of it.

“Oh, hell,” he murmured, his voice still slurred with sleep.  “Did it again, didn’t I?  I’m never gonna get the hang of this.  Every time I relax, I fall asleep.”

“That is only because you have never learned to relax before,” Kwai Chang told him.  “If there were time, I would start with the most basic lessons.  However, time is something in which we are of short supply.  We have no drugs to help you achieve the proper level.  You must reach it on your own.”

“I just don’t think I can do this,” Gary sighed.  “I can’t . . . focus that sharply.  I’m either shutting everything out completely, or it hits me like an avalanche.”

“You’ve only been tryin’ for a coupla hours, sugar,” Polly reminded him.  “Did you think it was gonna be easy?”

“Think?  No,” Gary replied.  “Hoped?  Yes.  Just once, I’d like for something to be simple.  Cut and dried.  Black and white.  Pick your cliché.  I know ‘em all.  How ‘m I supposed to talk to Great Granddad if I can’t get to that ‘room,’ or whatever?  The last time I did this, I was already so close to death it was . . . I’d rather not wait ‘til things get to that point this time.”

“No offense, guys, but I’m still having trouble getting a handle on this,” Jake murmured from his place behind the wheel.  “I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation!  Is this even the same situation?  That Greco fella was still alive when he latched onto you.  Chandler . . . great-great granddad, or whatever, is . . . well, I guess you could call him a free spirit.  He’s not attached to a dying body.”

“With my luck,” Gary grumbled, “it just means it’ll be harder to get him out of my head.”

At that moment, there was a crackling noise, followed by Walker’s voice over the radio.  “You guys okay?  Over.”  The Ranger’s truck was following them a little over a mile back.  Not far behind them was the van carrying the sophisticated surveillance equipment needed to track the ‘bugs’ that had been planted on the four look-alikes.

“Just dandy,” Jake replied.  “K. C.’s just teaching Gary a few tricks.  How about you?  Over.”

“No problems,” the Ranger reported back.  “You should be ready to turn left in a few minutes.”  He rattled off a county road number.  “Stay alert,” he added.  “These guys love ambushes.  Over.”

“Thanks,” was Jake’s laconic reply.  “Ever a fount of wisdom, C. W.  Over and out.”  He placed the mike back on the hook just as the their turnoff came into view.  “Almost there, folks.  Better go wake the twins.”

“I’ll do it,” Polly volunteered.  She pushed herself up from her seat beside Gary with some effort and disappeared into the back of the vehicle.  A moment later, she returned, saying that the twins would be out shortly.  “They looked so cute, lyin’ there together,” she chuckled, “I hated to wake ‘em up.  They didn’t go to bed ‘til almost dawn.”

“They had a lot to talk over,” Gary sighed, as he struggled up from his place on the floor.  He slumped into the recliner with a muffled curse.  He’d forgotten about his back.  Again.  

“Keep it up,” Polly warned him, “and you’ll need more stitches.”

“I’ll be careful,” he sighed.  “I’ve had more needlework over the last coupla years than one of Grandmother’s quilts.  Do you think we can make it back to Chicago without visiting every emergency room along the way?”

“We might manage to miss one or two,” Polly replied with a grin.  “I wouldn’t bet on all of ‘em, though.  Your luck just ain’t that good, sweetie.”

*************

David Taggart wiped at a film of dust coating the antique wooden chest before throwing back the lid.

“Everything of your ancestor’s that we could find is right here,” he said.  The history teacher pulled out two large bundles wrapped in oilskin.  The first proved to be a long, leather greatcoat.  The kind referred to in most ‘dime novels’ as a ‘duster.’  It had been cleaned and treated to keep the leather from drying out.  With it was a tan colored Stetson with a band covered in dark colored beadwork.  Both looked worn, but in excellent repair.  “His horse and saddle were sold to pay for his burial,” he added.

The other bundle was a pair of leather saddlebags.  They, too, had been treated to preserve them from the ravages of time and weather.  The bags contained only a leather wallet with a few bills of paper currency and a letter inside, and half a dozen five dollar gold pieces.  

Gary took the letter off to one side, to read it, while the others continued to search for anything that would help in their quest.

“No wonder he kept this,” he murmured in awe.  “It’s a letter of commendation.  Written and signed by President Abraham Lincoln, and dated the same day he was assassinated.  This could be one of the last documents he ever wrote!”

“Are you joshin’ me?” Taggart exclaimed.  “Let me see that.”  Gingerly, he took the fragile pages from Gary’s hands.  His own hands trembled as he quickly read over the age-yellowed paper.  “My God!” he whispered.  “If I’d known this was here, I’d ‘ve had it authenticated and in a museum years ago.  This is an incredible find!”

“It says he helped to free his unit and several other prisoners,” Gary murmured, “to escape from a prison camp.  That he also uncovered a team of . . . not exactly spies.  Instigators?  They were stirring up trouble on both sides, trying to keep the war going as long as possible.  According to this, our great-great granddad was a hero many times over.  The value to the museums can’t touch what this could mean to our families.”

“Still as an historical document,” Taggart told him, “and one dated for the day a president died, you could start a bidding war that would knock your socks off.”  

“These gold pieces could fetch a hefty price, too,” Polly observed.  “And this paper currency, as well.  Every bit of it is dated from before, or during, the Civil War.  Look.  He even had a Confederate ten dollar bill in here.  The man was a pack rat.  I’d auction off some of this before I’d touch that letter.  Aside from that picture you gave us, though, I don’t see anything about his family.”

Buddy was still rooting around in the saddlebags while Jake and Clay were kidding around, trying on the hat and coat.  Gary looked up from his perusal of the letter to see Clay decked out in their ancestor’s attire, and his breath caught in his throat.  For just a second, he was back in that room above the saloon, catching a glimpse of himself in a full length mirror as he tossed his things on the bed.  Nervously, he cleared a lump from his throat as he quickly turned away.

“W-would you mind putting that away?” he asked in a small voice, keeping his eyes averted.  “Please?”  He busied himself putting the letter back in its envelope, not wanting to see their reaction to his stammered request.  He handed the document back to Taggart.  “C-could you take care of this for us?” he asked the teacher.  “Our situation is a little . . . iffy . . . right now.  If you know anyone you can trust to authenticate it . . .?”

“Once I put the word out,” Taggart assured him, “every history museum in the country will be sending people they can trust.  This treasure won’t be out of my sight until it’s under a glass display case.  It’s not the Constitution, mind you, or the Declaration of Independence, but it’s got to be extremely rare.  Perhaps one of a kind.”

“All the more reason to keep it somewhere it can be appreciated for what it is,” Clay spoke up from behind them.  He clapped a hand on Gary’s left shoulder, careful to avoid the stitches that still ran across his back.  “Sorry, Gary,” the wrangler murmured.  “Didn’t mean to give you heart failure.  We sorta . . . forgot.”

“S’okay,” Gary sighed, his gaze still downcast.  “I-I don’t mean to be a wet blanket, guys.  It . . . it just rattled me.  A little.  Um, M-Mr. Taggart, do you have something of Amanda Chandler’s?  A ring, letter, anything that might give us a clue about what happened to her?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” was the teacher’s sad reply.  “Her children kept anything of any value.  The only thing they refused to take was this packet of letters from their daddy.”  He dug out a thick stack of papers sealed in waxed parchment.  “By the time Canfield found them, that woman, that so called ’friend’ of Mrs. Chandler, had poisoned their minds against them so bad, they didn’t even want to hear his name mentioned.”  He held the papers out to Gary.

Wiping suddenly moist palms on his jeans, Gary reached for the packet, only to have Clay beat him to it.  Instead of being offended, he felt relieved.  He watched as the other man peeled back the top flap, breaking the watertight seal for the first time in how many years?

“I never opened them, myself,” Taggart explained.  “My dad said that Canfield looked through them once, then sealed ‘em this way.  He figured that, someday, some of Chandler’s kin would want to know the truth.  Those are letters he wrote to his wife before they were married, and while he was away during the war.”

“Did he read all of them?” Jake asked, frowning at the idea of such personal items being handled by a stranger.

Taggart shook his head.  “Just a few lines of each one,” he replied.  “He wasn’t interested in what Chandler had to say,” the teacher explained.  “He already knew what had happened to him.  He was more interested in why she ran, and all of the letters were dated from before that time.”

Clay had pulled out the first letter, doing pretty much as the Marshal had done.  Merely check the date and put it back.  This he did a few more times, until he came to one dated for some time in 1863.  The month and day were obscured by a dark stain.  

“Maybe he should’ve read a few of these,” Clay murmured.  “Listen.  ‘The man is the very soul of evil.  Beware of him.  He betrayed our unit and murdered Major Sheldon in his sleep.  If I had been able to find him upon my escape, I would have ended his sorry existence with my bare hands.  I can only take solace in having marred his features, of which he was so proud, with my saber.  If only my strength had held a moment longer!  The world would be a much better place without the likes of Captain John T. Marley.  Again, I must warn you to be wary of this villain.  Although the act of betrayal was his, he has sworn vengeance upon all I hold dear for his disfigurement.’  Marley,” Clay repeated.  “You hollered out that name a time or two during your fever dream, Gary.  But he wasn’t part of the gang.  How do you know that name?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Gary mumbled as he groped blindly for someplace to sit.  All the blood had drained from his face and his knees had gone weak.  God!  How many generations had that name been haunting his family?  He finally sank onto an old crate, fighting to keep his breathing, and his nerves, under control.  “Let’s just say his genes ran true.  Um, d-do you have any idea where Amanda Chandler might be buried?  What cemetery would her friend ‘ve used?”

“No cemetery,” Taggart replied with a shake of his head.  “She was buried somewhere on her ‘friend’s’ homestead.  Only that woman, and maybe the children, knew where. I have some old maps that show where the spread was.  We can use ‘em to help narrow down your search.  But, what can you learn from a hundred and thirty year old corpse?”

“How she died, for one thing,” Jake told him.  “Maybe even who killed her, if it proves to be foul play.  Forensics has come a long way since then.”

Kwai Chang had been standing off to one side, feeling that enough hands were sorting through the treasures of the past.  His concern was only for the young man seated on the wooden crate, trying very hard to conceal his distress.  The name ‘Marley’ had evidently stirred painful memories for his ‘student.’

“Perhaps you should rest, Gary,” he suggested quietly.  “You have yet to recover your full measure of strength.”

Taggart looked up from his search to eye the younger man more closely.  “You do look a little pale, son,” he observed.  “Let’s take these maps downstairs, and we can look at ‘em there.”

“Sounds good,” Gary nodded, grateful to get out of this place where the past kept intruding on the present.  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt me to lie down for a minute.”

A few minutes later, Gary was stretched out on the sofa while the others poured over the old survey maps Taggart had turned up.  It didn’t take them long to pinpoint where the forty-acre spread had been located.  Gary tried to take an interest at this point, still feeling oddly tense.  Expectant.  He looked at the maps, listening as Taggart explained where the house and barn had been situated, the placement of the well, and the corrals where livestock was kept.  He pointed out boundary markers that would probably still be in existence, and a few he knew that weren’t.  Still, he told them, traces might be found to indicate where they had been.

“The only thing we know for sure,” the teacher concluded, “is that Amanda Chandler is buried on this homestead.  The bank took possession of it after the owner died without heirs.  They tried to sell it several times, but no one would stay there for more than a month.  That was about as long as they could stand it.”

“Stand what?” Gary murmured.  He was finding it hard to concentrate for some reason.  Rubbing his hands over his face and blinking several times, he tried to appear more alert than he felt.

“The noises,” Taggart explained in a conspiratorial whisper.  “Horrible screeching noises.  Every night about an hour or so before dawn.  Lots of people tried, but no one has ever found the source of the sound.  No holes in the rocks, nests of owls, or any other ‘natural’ cause for it.  Some have come to believe,” he added, “that it’s the last utterance Amanda Chandler ever made.  Her dyin’ curse on the woman who murdered her and stole her children.”  He sat back with a grin.  “At least, that’s how local legend has it.”

Gary gave the teacher a rueful look.  “You must’ve been loads of fun around the campfire,” he grumbled. He rubbed briskly at the nape of his neck, trying to erase the tension he could feel building in his muscles.  “S-so I take it this place is still empty?”

“Most likely,” Taggart shrugged.  “It was ten years ago, which is the only time I set foot on the property.  Everything’s gone to ruin, though.  You okay?   You’re lookin’ about as bad as you did upstairs.”

“J-just a headache,” Gary sighed, pushing himself up from the table.  “I’ve got something for it out in the RV.”

“Let me get it,” Polly said, starting to rise.  “You shouldn’t . . .”

“I have that . . . tracker thingie,” he reminded her.  “We all do.  Peter and the others are right outside.  I couldn’t be safer.  B-besides, maybe some fresh air will help me clear my head.  I’ll only be a minute.”

With obvious reluctance, Polly sat back down.  “All right,” she murmured.  “Just stay alert.  We’ve gone through too much to chance losing you now.”

“Thank you,” Gary sighed.  “Y-you guys go ahead with . . . with whatever . . . and I’ll be right back.  Okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, Gary turned and almost ran from the oppressive atmosphere of the house.  He decided he would have to ask David Taggart about the history of this homestead someday.  Was he tuning in on even more restless spirits?  Or was it Gary Chandler’s ghost goading him into action?  Whatever, it was giving him a killer headache.

Gary stepped out into the mid-afternoon sunlight with a relieved sigh.  Already, he could feel the pain starting to ease.  Stepping up to the huge vehicle, he was reaching for the door handle when he heard a faint noise directly behind him.  Angry, thinking that one of the others had followed him ‘for his own good,’ he started to turn around, a cutting remark ready for his intruder.  

Blinding pain shot through his already throbbing head as something struck him just behind the right ear.  Stunned, Gary felt beefy arms catch him as his knees buckled, dragging him away from the RV.  Dimly, he heard voices crying out his name, sounds of a struggle.  A wet cloth was pressed over his mouth and nose.  He tried to hold his breath, keep out the pungent fumes, but it was too late.  His senses were already growing numb as he was thrown onto the floorboards of another vehicle.  Struggling to stay alert, Gary tried to raise his head only to let it fall back as the strength ebbed from his body.  The last thing he heard was the screech of tires as his abductors sped from the scene, and a deep, gravely voice close to his ear.  

“I told you, Treyton,” the voice said with a throaty chuckle.  “No one crosses me.”

**************

“How could this happen?” Clay shouted at the three men.  “I thought you were watching us!”

“What was he doing out here alone?” Peter countered.  “You guys were supposed to stick together!”

“Cut it out!” Polly snapped.  “Gary came out here alone by his choice!  He . . . he wasn’t feeling well and wanted some air.  I-I think he was suffocating in there.  He was tryin’ to hide it, but . . . I think he felt . . . trapped.  Look, we can stand here and argue blame all day, or we can get him back.  Make up your minds quick, ‘cause the longer we stand here, the farther they get.”  

Polly looked over to where Jake and Buddy were talking with one of the techs monitoring their tracking devices.  The officer was shaking his head, his face grim.  Not what she wanted to see.  Neither was the look on Jake’s face as he and Buddy rejoined them.

“They’re already out of range,” Jake told her.  “The last signal had them going north on State Road 83.  This isn’t good, people.  I mean, h-how long does it take to . . . to kill a man?”

“If it’s Jaggs,” Clay told him dismally, “it depends on his mood.  If he’s feelin’ ‘charitable,’ it could already be too late.”

“If not?” Polly asked, figuring that someone had to.  The fearful, pitying look Clay gave her said more than she wanted to hear.

She turned to where the local police were struggling to put a shackled Hicks into the back of a squad car.  They weren’t having much success.  It had taken both Walker and Sammo to subdue the escaped con, while Peter tried to get close enough to retrieve Gary.  The younger Shaolin had been just half a second too slow, grabbing Sykes by the hair just as the felon threw a weakly struggling Gary into the back of a late model van.  The escaped con had then spun around to do battle as the vehicle took off with an ear-shattering shriek of peeling rubber. The fight that had ensued was more than enough to give the kidnappers their chance to escape, with Sykes winding up in a heap on the ground, unconscious.

Angrily, the tech strode up and grabbed Hicks by his earlobe, earring and all, giving it a vicious twist.  With a howl of agony, the big man sank to his knees.

“You are gonna tell me where they’re takin’ my friend,” she hissed, “or you ‘n’ I are gonna take a little trip to the vet.  You’ll be the darlin’ o’ the cell block when I get through with you!”

********

Gary jerked awake with a strangled curse, snorting and coughing to clear the icy water from his breathing passages.  Blinking rapidly, he looked up to see the blurred image of a lean, narrow faced man standing over him, an empty bucket hanging from one hand.

“Time to wake up, Treyton,” the sepulchral voice commanded.  “We got a long day ahead of us.”

“N-not T-Treyton,” Gary told him through chattering teeth.  Struggling to sit up, he found that his arms were bound behind his back, and that he was bare to the waist.  “N-name’s H-Hobson.  G-Gary H-Hobson.  Wh-who . . .?”

“Nice try,” the lean-faced man chuckled grimly.  He tossed the bucket aside as he knelt next to his prisoner.  “You seriously think that I believed all that ‘double/triple’ sh-- you tried to pull on those two idiots?  I don’t know how you managed it, or why, and I don’t really care.  The only thing keepin’ you alive right now, is somethin’ they overheard you and that schoolteacher talkin’ about.  Some hidden treasure up around Lubbock.”  He pulled a wicked looking stiletto from his boot, using it to trace a scar on Gary’s right shoulder.  “Impressive collection you have,” he murmured.  “Is that a bullet wound?”

“J-jealous b-boyfriend,” Gary stammered, unable to suppress a shudder of revulsion at the almost seductive tone in the other man’s voice.  “L-look, you have . . . have the wrong guy.  I-I’ve never seen you before in my life.  Honest!”  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Gary was able to make out where he was.  He seemed to be on the dirt floor of a barn, or a shed.  “A-and I don’t know anything a-about any t-treasure, either.”

A stinging backhand rocked his head back, knocking him off the precarious support of his right elbow and onto his back.  He sucked his breath in with a hiss as he felt one or two of the sutures give.  He also tasted blood from a cut on the inside of his cheek.

“Don’t f--- with me, Treyton!” the other man roared.  “Sykes was right outside the attic door while you and your friends were rooting through that trash, looking for clues!  He couldn’t hear everything, but he clearly heard the word ‘treasure’ several times.  Fool had enough brains to tell me about it before he killed you right there.  As I said, that’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your head off and used it for a hood ornament!”

Gary quickly decided this guy wasn’t playing with a full deck.  It might be better to play along for a while, stall for time.  A chill shivered its way up his spine as he realized who he was dealing with.  “Okay . . . Jaggs,” he murmured around his rapidly swelling lip.  “You’ve got me.  Now what?  If you kill me, you’ll never find it.”

His enraged visage relaxing into a malicious grin, Jaggs stroked the tip of the blade along the angle of Gary’s jaw.  He chuckled evilly as the younger man shivered in fear, or revulsion.

“I don’t have to kill you,” he whispered.  “Yet.”  Jaggs moved the knife blade up, pressing the point into the skin below Gary’s right eye until a bead of blood welled up to cover the tip.  “Before I’m through, you’ll be begging for it, Treyton.  On your knees and crying, pleading for me to end your pitiful existence.  Now, tell me where it is.”

“I don’t even know where we are, right now,” Gary murmured, being very careful not to move any more than he had to.  “You may not’ve noticed, but I was unconscious when you brought me here.”

His grin broadening into a reptilian smile, Jaggs sat back on his heels.  More importantly, he withdrew the knife.  “See?  Now, you’re thinking!” he said.  “Once you know where you are, you’ll lead us to the treasure, and we’ll let you go.  Simple.”  He started to put the stiletto away, then noticed the bead of blood staining the tip.  Bringing the blade up to his mouth, he closed his eyes and licked it off with a low, rumbling moan, as if savoring the salty, metallic taste.

“You really expect me to believe that?” Gary snorted, trying to play it as he thought Clay would.  Inside, he was trying not to scream in fear and revulsion.  “The minute you have what you want, my only value is as a hostage.  Just how far will that get me?  As far as the border?  No thank you.  You want that treasure, I’ll take you to it, but only to a point.  After that, you turn me loose, and I tell you where to look.  The rest is up to you.”

The cold, venomous look Jaggs gave him made Gary worry that he had already pushed the felon too far.  “You might want to think that over, boy,” he growled.  “Think about what happened the last time you held out on me.  And Weston isn’t here to save your a-- this time.”  He rose to his feet with a sinuous grace that reminded Gary of a cobra, raising its head from a snake charmer’s basket.  “I’ll give you a little time alone,” Jaggs snarled, “then we’ll ‘talk’ some more.  Until then, here’s a little something to think about.”  

Gary barely had time to register the words before a booted foot impacted with his lower ribs. It was quickly followed by another to his right kidney as he tried to roll away from the attack.  A third blow grazed his temple, sending his senses reeling, before Jaggs was satisfied that his ‘message’ had been delivered.  He smiled as he strode away, leaving Gary to deal with his pain.

Stifling a groan, Gary rolled onto his left side, praying that no more ribs were broken, but almost certain he’d felt one crack.  “God,” he murmured, “I hope Dr. Griner can clear his schedule. If I get out of this alive, I’m gonna need a lot of therapy.”

****************

“They’re not talking,” Walker sighed, frustrated.  “They know that, no matter what, it’s back to prison.  We’ve got nothing to bargain with.”

“So don’t bargain,” Peter grumbled.  “Scare it out of ‘em.”

“How?” the Ranger asked.  “You heard me.  I threatened those apes with everything short of slow torture.  They’re more afraid of Jaggs Neff than they are of dying.”

“Well, we better come up with something,” the young Shaolin sighed.  “It’s been almost twelve hours.  They could’ve crossed the border last night.”

“But they haven‘t,” Walker assured him.  “Border Patrol was alerted minutes after it happened, and Alex is on the phone with the Mexican authorities right now.  Besides, they were heading north, not south. And that van wasn’t made for backcountry.  No, they’ve gone to ground somewhere, and I really don’t want to think about what they could be doing.”

Peter’s face grew very thoughtful as he recalled the scene at the house.  “Why did they grab him?” he asked.  “Why not kill Gary right there and run for it?”

“I can think of one reason,” the Ranger shuddered.  “You ever been in a POW camp?”

*************

Gary had finally settled into a fitful doze when Jaggs returned.  He awakened the younger man with a kick to the hip, then another.  

“Time to talk, Treyton,” he growled.  Stepping back, the crime boss motioned to two men behind him.  

They strode forward and, grabbing him roughly by the arms, yanked Gary to his feet.  He was then half dragged, half carried into a larger space.  It appeared to be the open bay of an old barn.  Through a missing board in one wall, he could see the sun touching the horizon.  Rising or setting, Gary wondered?  How long had he been out?

Gary was marched to the center of the cavernous space, where a rusty chain dangled from a crossbeam.  At the end was a wicked looking hook.  Images flashed through Gary’s mind.  The dark, torch lit mineshaft.  A smooth, silken voice urging him to talk, to spare himself . . . Gary kicked out at one of the men, trying to fight free of their hold!  No way was he going to let . . !

Pain blinded him as he felt the sutures in his back give, felt the fluid warmth as blood oozed down his back.  Jaggs, or someone, had slammed him across his shoulders, reopening his wound.  By the time Gary could focus again, his wrists had been untied and fastened to the chain by a pair of handcuffs.  This left his arms stretched painfully above his head . . . just like in his dream.

“You ready to tell me where it is?” Jaggs asked as he stepped around to face his victim.

“You’ll kill me if I do,” Gary grated out through the pain.  

“I’ll kill you either way,” Jaggs told him calmly, running a narrow length of rusty chain through his hands.  “It’s just a question of when . . . and how long it’ll take.”

‘Oh, God,’ Gary prayed.  ‘Why haven’t they found us, yet?  Did I get a dead ‘bug’?’

“Now,” Jaggs continued, slapping the chain suggestively against his left palm, “we know it’s on some old homestead around Lubbock.  I need you to tell me which one, and exactly where it’s hidden.  And what it is.  Are we talking bullion, here?  Or gold coins?  What?”

“Go to hell,” Gary hissed.  

The look that crossed the killer’s face sent a chill down Gary’s spine, making his skin crawl.  

“Wrong answer.”

**************

“You shouldn’t ‘ve pulled me off that goon,” Polly grumbled.  “Five more seconds and he woulda talked.”

“Five more seconds,” Clay told her, “and he wouldn’t ‘ve been able to talk.  Polly, you almost tore that guy’s ear off!”

They were walking down the corridor toward the interrogation room in the local police station.  Sammo Law was leading them to where the others waited.  “They tell me,” he said, “that his earring was deeply imbedded into his earlobe.  It took a long time to find all of the pieces.  This man fears you, Miss Gannon.  Perhaps as much as he fears his boss.”

“Let me have him for five minutes,” Polly promised grimly, “and we’ll see.  Gary’s still alive.  I can feel it!  These bozos know where Jaggs is headed, and why he hasn’t killed him, yet.  They . . .”  She broke off her grumbling tirade, stumbling against the wall.

Clay caught her by the elbow, steadying her as she regained her balance.  “Are you okay?” he asked, concerned by her shocked look.

“They’ve hurt him,” she whispered.  Her jaw clenched in determination and anger.  “Those sons of b-----s are hurting him!”  

“You know this?” Sammo marveled.  “You can feel his pain?”

“Oh, yes,” Polly hissed, wincing as she rubbed a hand on her back.  “Thing is, what I’m feeling is only a shadow of what he’s feeling.”  She directed a heated gaze toward the door of the interrogation room.  “C’mon, guys.  I feel like sharing the experience.”

Shaking her arm loose from Clay’s grasp, Polly stalked into the middle of Walker’s latest attempt to gain information from the two hoods.  He broke off his question in mid-sentence, moving to cut her off.

“Polly,” he warned her, “now isn’t the time.”

“Time is running out,” she hissed, her eyes flashing in anger.  “They’re torturing Gary, and I want to know why.  Give me five minutes.  Just five.  Please!”

The moment she had entered the room, Hicks had leapt back from the table, knocking his chair over as one hand covered his bandaged left ear.  The look of fear on his face decided the Ranger’s course of action.  Stepping back, he waved her in.  

“Go for it,” he shrugged.

Biting her lip to keep from wincing with each shock of pain, Polly strode up to the table.  Looking past Sykes as if he didn’t exist, she fixed a fiery glare on the man backed into the corner.

“Sit down,” she commanded through clenched teeth.  “Now.”

“You keep her away from me!” the convict demanded.  “I know my rights!  You can’t let her . . .”

“Let her what?” Walker asked, feigning innocence.  “She just wants to ask you a few questions.”

“Sh-she wants to . . .  Did you hear her?”  Hicks was keeping a watchful eye on the irate woman.  “She’s was gonna rip my . . .”

“With my bare hands,” Polly growled.  “Sit . . . down . . . now.”  She met his fearful look with one that would have melted glaciers.  

Hicks finally gave in and resumed his seat at the table.  His friend Sykes shot him a disdainful look.  “Wuss,” he snickered.

“Shut up!” Polly snapped.  “I’ll get to you in a minute.”  She fixed her hottest glare on Hicks.  “You are going to tell me where your boss is taking my friend,” she told him, gritting her teeth from the pain.  “Then you’re going to tell me why.”  She then looked at Sykes.  “And, if you open you mouth before I tell you, it better be to fill in the blanks.  Otherwise, I will rip your lungs out through your nostrils and feed them to you.  Are we clear on that?”

“You stupid b----,” Sykes sneered, rocking his chair on its back legs.  “Why should I . . .”

Polly shoved hard on one end of the narrow table, knocking it into the big man and causing him to lose his balance.  Before he could untangle himself, she had grabbed his foot and yanked him to her side of the table.  A half second later, she had her fingers deeply intertwined in his thick beard, and her knee on his chest.

“It hurts a lot less to shave,” she hissed.  “Open your mouth again, and it comes off the hard way.  I repeat: Are we clear on that?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” he stammered.  “Wh-whatever you say, ma’am.”  Sykes was a believer.  

The four men standing near the door shivered in unison.  Walker, glanced up at Peter, a pained look on his face as he rubbed at his own beard.  “And you really think she needs lessons?”

**********

Gary was never sure, afterwards, how many times Jaggs struck him with the chain before he lost consciousness.  He was too busy, at the time, trying to remain calm, to buy as much time as he could for the others to pick up the signal from his tracer.  He knew that he would not be able to hold out much longer.  

“Tell him.”

“Wh-what?”  Dazed, Gary opened his eyes and looked around in puzzled amazement.  He was no longer in the dimly lit barn.  He was in a well lighted . . . parlor was the only word he could come up with to describe it.  It was decorated in something like a Victorian style.  

“Tell him where to find what he wants.”

Gary looked up from his place on the floor to see another version of himself standing by the window.  He was dressed in a Civil War uniform of Union blue, but wore no hat to hide the slightly longish hair.

“C-Captain Chandler?” Gary murmured respectfully.  “A-are you really my great-great grandfather?

The figure smiled and stepped forward, helping Gary to his feet and guiding him to the sofa.  

“I am,” he admitted.  “And you have no idea how delighted I was when you first set foot on that hill.  You were the answer to a very old prayer.”

“Wh-what sorta prayer?” Gary asked hesitantly.  He rolled his shoulders experimentally.  As before, the damage was only to his physical body.  “A-are you the reason so many of us look alike?  Like a . . . a password or something?”

“Yes,” he said.  “I’m sorry to have dragged you into this.  It was not my intent to bring harm to you or the others.  My only desire was to reunite my family.”

“I know,” Gary sighed. “And I can sympathize.  But . . . why me?  Why latch onto my . . . psyche, or whatever?  Why not Clay when he lived right there for years?”

Captain Chandler looked away, shaking his head sadly.  “He was never open to me,” he explained.  “He carried his own anger and bitterness like a shield.  None of the others could feel me, either.  In over one hundred years, you were the first to see through my eyes.  To feel my sorrow, and my pain.  You are uniquely gifted for such a task.  Why do you resent it so much?”

“Because I’m afraid,” Gary admitted truthfully.  “This is all so new to me!  First my whole life gets turned upside down, then I start getting tomorrows newspaper today, then . . . then, just when I’m getting used to that . . . I died.  Several times.  N-now I s-seem to have this . . . link with the dead o-or dying.  The last guy . . . he took over for . . . for a few seconds.  Just shoved me right out of my own . . . Wh-what if the next one decides to . . . to stay?  T-to take over for good?  I-I guess what I’m most afraid of losing is . . .is me.”

“That’s not going to happen, Gary,” Captain Chandler assured him.  “Not with me.  Once Amanda, your great-great grandmother, and I are reunited, we’ll both be gone from this plane of existence.  We are both long past our time for moving on.”

Leaning his elbows on his knees, Gary cupped both hands over his nose and mouth, giving vent to a great sigh of weariness.  “So, what do I do now?” he asked.

“You take them to the place where Amanda is buried,” Chandler told his descendant.  “Once united, we can reach into the living world, through you, and protect you . . . for a time.”

Gary turned his head to give the other man a questioning glance.  “For a time?” he asked.  “You two have hung in there for a hundred and thirty years.  Then, when you can actually help me, when I can finally learn something . . . you have to run off?  What’s the rush?”

“What ties us to this world,” the officer sighed, “is the pain we can not leave behind.  Through you, I have learned that my children lived to have families of their own.  I can only pray that their lives were full and, ultimately, happy.  My wife is in torment because she has no such knowledge.  And I still don’t know what drove her to run as she did.  Once all our questions are answered, all our tasks are done, we’ll have only a brief time before we must cross beyond the veil.  God willing, it will be time enough to see you out of harm’s way.”

“If it isn’t?” Gary asked.

Captain Chandler averted his troubled gaze.  “That is all I can say, for now.”

**********

Gary couldn’t stifle a sharp cry of pain as the icy water was dashed onto his raw, bleeding flesh.  It stung horribly as it drizzled down his body, seeping into every gash or abrasion left by the rusty chain.  There were a lot of them.

“Time to wake up, boy,” Jaggs said with a throaty chuckle.  “Are you ready to tell me where it is?”

“C-can’t t-tell you,” Gary stammered weakly.  He choked back another cry as Jaggs slammed the chain across his ribs.  “I have to show you!” he grated out between clenched teeth.  “God!  Let a man finish, would you?  I have to . . . to see the landmarks.  A lot of things have change since those maps I saw were . . . were drawn.  Roads.  Rivers and s-streams ‘ve been dammed up or changed course.  There are . . . are other things . . . th-they don’t change, b-but you won’t find ‘em on a road map.”

The escaped killer paced back and forth behind Gary, out of his line of sight.  It made Gary nervous, not being able to see his face, gauge his reaction.  The prisoner could hear the crunch of his captor’s footsteps, the clink of the rusty chain as he slapped it idly against his palm.  This went on for several eternities as Jaggs considered his words.

Gary bit back a cry as fire erupted across his back.  Jaggs had dragged something, a fingernail, most likely, along one of the wounds inflicted by the chain.

“You’d recognize these . . . landmarks?” the killer asked as he stepped around to the front.  He was running the length of chain through his hands, leaving behind stains that were not rust.

Gary had to swallow a lump in his throat before he could stammer out a hesitant, “Y-yes.”

Jaggs nodded at his two nameless henchmen and stepped back.  They unlocked the cuffs, letting him drop to the dirt floor with no attempt to stop his fall.  Gary lay there a moment, biting his lower lip to keep from crying out as the circulation returned to arms that felt useless.  Dead.  Before the pins and needles effect completely faded, his arms were pulled roughly behind his back and the cuffs fastened tightly about his wrists.   He was then tossed back into the room where he had first awakened.  

“I’m gonna bring you a map,” Jaggs told him.  “You show me where this place is, and we’ll be there by morning.”  He stared at Gary a moment longer with his cold, reptilian eyes.  “Don’t f--- with me on this, Treyton.  If I find out this is just a stall for time, I’ll make you think today was nothing more than a child’s tea party.”

***********

It was late that evening when they dragged Gary from the barn and threw him onto the back floorboard of an old Ford sedan.  A rag was shoved into his mouth and fastened in place with duct tape.  He grunted in pain as a rough blanket was thrown over him, rasping against the mass of raw flesh Jaggs had made of his back.  In this position, he was unable to see any identifying landmarks.  For the thousandth time, he wondered why the tracer had not led the police straight to them hours ago.  Had they gotten out of range too fast?  He remembered being told that it was only readable at twenty miles.  But surely, by this time, someone could have picked it up again!

In spite of the pain of his injuries, and the discomfort of his position, Gary drifted off to sleep after a while.  For once, his dreams were his own.  Perhaps, in compensation for the hell his body was going through, his mind sought a more restful state.  For a brief time, he was back home in Chicago, doing nothing more strenuous than dealing with the day-to-day business of running the bar.  The Paper had few ‘errands’ that needed his attention, and he could spend the afternoon looking at houses with his parents.  He was even able to have an enjoyable evening with Brigatti, after which they parted without once exchanging an angry word.  It was at this point that he realized it was only a dream.  He and the fiery Italian couldn’t stay five minutes in the same room without sparks flying!

The big sedan rocked to a halt.  A moment later, he heard the car doors open and the blanket was snatched away, taking a lot of dried blood with it.  If not for the gag, Gary would have been pleased to blister the air with language he had never heard in church, as fire raged across his unprotected back!

Rough hands dragged him from the car and held him upright as he tried to regain his balance.  When he nodded that he could stand on his own, Jaggs grabbed a corner of the tape and yanked it off, along with part of Gary’s five o’clock shadow.  Again, the gag muffled his response.  Mother would be so proud.  

Jaggs grabbed Gary’s chin with bruising force, prying his mouth open to pull out the gag.  He then gave the younger man a hard shove, almost knocking him off his feet.  Gary staggered a few steps before regaining his balance.  He stood there for a moment, shivering as the frigid, pre-dawn air tormented his ravaged flesh.  

“Anything look familiar?”  

Gary shot a baleful look back at his captors.  A look that was wasted in the darkness.  “How do you expect me to find anything in this light?” he grumbled hoarsely.  “W-we have to wait.  At least until sunrise.”

Jaggs mulled this over in his mind, trying to find some hint of subterfuge on Gary’s part.  He had to admit that landmarks would be hard to pick out in the dark.  Pulling a gun from his pocket, he waved the muzzle at Gary, indicating that he should lead the way to a ramshackle building that may once have been a house.  “It’s too cold to just be standing around out here,” he said.  “We can wait inside.”

Gary looked at the hulking shadow of the old house and shivered even more.  Something about the thick shadows, the air of . . . decay . . . of death, unnerved him.

“I-I think I’d prefer to wait out here,” he stammered.

“What’s the matter, Treyton,” one of the goons chuckled.  It was the first time Gary had heard either of them speak.  “Afraid of the dark?”

Gary refused to rise to the bait.  Turning his back on the looming structure with a shudder, he started to go back to the car.  He had not taken two steps before a rough hand grasped him by the upper arm and spun him around.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jaggs growled.

“B-back to the car,” Gary stammered.  “I-it’ll be warmer.”

“I’m not that cold,” the killer sneered.  “And I’m tired of sitting.  Get in the house.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Gary grumbled irritably, jerking loose from the other man‘s hold.  “You have all your clothes on.”  Louder, he said, “I don’t think it’s safe.  These old houses a-are full of . . . of rotting boards and such.  I-I can’t lead you anywhere on a broken leg.”

Something slammed across his back, eliciting a strangled curse as fire erupted across his tattered flesh.  The pain knocked Gary to his knees, stealing his breath and bringing tears to his eyes.  He knelt there on the frozen ground, trying to get his lungs to work again.  

Jaggs bent down and grabbed a handful of hair, yanking back so hard on Gary’s head that he could almost hear his neck snap.

“You’ll crawl on your belly, if I tell you to,” he hissed into the young man’s ear.  “Now, get on your feet, and into that house.”

Dragging Gary to his feet by his hair, Jaggs flung him onto the rickety porch like a rag doll.  Stumbling, Gary managed to keep from falling flat on his face only by slamming his shoulder into the wall and sliding to one knee, a maneuver that was almost as bad as what he had just endured.  He knelt there, trying to get his breath back . . . again, as Jaggs and his cohorts strode onto the rotting boards.  They grabbed his arms and hauled the hapless man to his feet, leading him to the opening where a door hung by one rotting wooden hinge.  

They practically threw Gary into the two-story derelict, bouncing him painfully off of an ancient stone fireplace.  Dazed, he tried to struggle to his feet, only to fall back with a cry when pain shot through his right shoulder.  It felt as if it had popped out of it’s socket!  He almost passed out when the larger of the two thugs, grabbed him by the injured arm and hauled him to a seated position, his back against the rough boards of the wall.

Gary later blamed it on the pain that clouded his mind, that blurred the line between what was real . . . and what was not.  The others didn’t seem to hear it, that low moaning wail.  It was coming from a great distance, at first.  Then it seemed to be coming closer.  Closer.  Rising in pitch with every cycle, until it rang in his mind like the shrill cry of a banshee!  He tried to ignore it, at first, then to shut it out, putting his head between his knees in a vain effort to cover his ears.  ‘God!’ he prayed, ‘make it stop!  Please make it stop!’

Finally he could take it no more!  With a choked cry, he gathered his legs beneath him and launched himself toward the door, only to be blocked by one of the thugs before he could clear the opening!  Ignoring his injuries, too wired to even feel the pain, he writhed in the man’s grip, kicking out wildly at the other one when he jumped in.  It wasn’t until Jaggs stepped up and grabbed his hair once more that they were able to subdue him.

“Let me out of here!” Gary grated out from between clenched teeth.  “I’ve got to get out!”

“Feeling a little claustrophobic, Treyton?” Jaggs chuckled.  “A little . . . trapped?”

“There’s something in here!” Gary hissed.  “S-something . . . evil!”

“You got that right,” Jaggs sneered.  “Me.”  He looked around, spying a door that seemed more solid than the half-rotted hunk of boards which was all that was left of the front.  Letting go of Gary’s hair, he stepped over and forced it open.  Unlike the front door, this one was hung on rusty metal hinges that gave out a spine-chilling screech as he pushed it open.  Looking inside, the killer noted that it was a small room, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, with one boarded up window.  “Perfect,” he chuckled.  “Let’s give our guest a little privacy,” he told his men.  “Throw him in.”

The dark opening beckoned at Gary, freezing the very marrow of his bones.  He tried to struggle free, only to scream out as someone slapped a hand on his ravaged flesh!  Kicking out, he tried to brace his foot against the doorframe.  Jaggs slapped it down.  Realistically, Gary knew that either man, alone, could break him in half.  It was only desperation and panic that allowed him to slow their advance as much as he did.

The instant Gary’s foot touched the threshold, there was an ear-shattering shriek as something flew by his head!  Sharp talons raked his shoulder as the biggest owl he’d ever seen, circled back, beating at his head with powerful wings!  It startled the two goons into loosening their hold on his arms.  Gary was quick to take advantage of this lapse.  Ducking to evade the owl, he spun on one heel, ramming his shoulder into Jaggs as he dove through the front door and off the porch.  By some miracle, he kept his feet and, dodging the shrieking owl, ran as fast as he could away from that forbidding structure!  Ignoring the angry cries behind him, Gary leapt over the remains of the corral fence and ducked around the corner of the barn just as the first shot rang out.  Wood splinters stung his face and shoulder as he scrambled for cover!

It was reckless, running all out in the dark as he was, especially in unknown terrain.  Still the shouting voices behind him was all the encouragement Gary needed to keep going.  When he figured he that had a big enough lead, and that damned owl had given up, Gary started looking around for someplace to hide.  Chest heaving, he leaned his shoulder against the rough bark of a tree as he tried to get his bearings.  The rashness of his flight sank in as he realized that he now had no clue as to where he was!  

**********

“Can’t these crates move any faster?” Polly grumbled irritably.  “Gary could be dead by the time we get there!”

“We won’t get there at all if we wreck,” Walker reasoned.  “Just calm down, Miss Gannon.  We’ll be at the turn off in just a few more minutes.”

“If you’d ‘ve let me castrate that fella,” she growled, “ the other one woulda talked faster.”

“Or been too hysterical to make sense,” the ranger argued.  “Where did you learn to talk like that?  Not in parochial school, that’s for sure!”

“I have a checkered past,” Polly snapped.  She winced as another spasm of pain ripped across her back.  “I swear to God, I’m gonna rip that SOB a new one!”

Walker didn’t have to ask who was going to get a ‘new’ what.

************

Gary practically held his breath as he waited for his pursuers to work their way past his hiding place.  Jaggs and company had been ‘beating the bushes’ around him, literally, for the last few minutes.  At times, they had been close enough for him to hear their muttered curses.  

“He must’ve taken that other trail,” Jaggs growled.  “Dugan, go back to the car and see if there’s a flashlight.  Rogers, you come with me.  When we find that piece o’ sh-- I’m gonna rip the rest o’ his hide off and use it to wipe him off my shoes.  Then I’m gonna kill ‘im.  Slowly.”

Gary waited patiently for their footsteps to fade back the way they had come.  Then he waited some more before finally taking in a deep breath and letting it out with a ‘whoosh!’ of relief.  Each minute he remained free was another minute he stayed alive.

“Great-great granddad,” he murmured, “if you’re still there, I could sure use some of that help you promised right about now.”

Nothing.  He must not be close enough to Amanda’s grave, yet.  Gary decided he had to find better concealment before the sun rose.  If they came back and found him out in the open, he was dead meat.  Moving slowly, he tried to worm his way out of the underbrush with a minimum of blood loss.  Not an easy task with his hands still cuffed behind his back.  He had tried to work his arms over his buttocks and legs, only to give it up when the pain almost caused him to black out.  It didn’t help matters that, every time poked his head out, that damned owl came swooping around, trying to take it off!  If Gary’s pursuers ever figured out what the hellish bird was screeching at, it would lead them straight to him!  For some strange reason, Gary just did not see that as being in his best interest.

Panting heavily, Gary finally extricated himself from the clump of bushes.  And the owl seemed to be gone.  “Thank you, God,” he murmured, “for small favors.”  Panting from pain and exertion, Gary looked out at the glow on the distant horizon.  The sun would be up in just a few more minutes.  Once visibility improved, his chances for survival would plummet!  Still, it gave him a sense of direction, which made him feel a little less . . . lost.  

Struggling to his feet, Gary turned until he was facing roughly north.  That was the direction of the old riverbed.  He had no idea why he would want to go there, just that something compelled him to do so.  At least he could now see most of the little obstacles and pitfalls that had tripped him up on his earlier flight.  It also meant that he could be seen, as well.

Moving as quickly as his weakened frame would allow, Gary stumbled and ran for his mysterious goal.  By the time the sun had cleared the horizon, he could see one of the landmarks Taggart had said marked the boundary of the homestead.  An up-thrust finger of rock with a spiral pictograph near the top.  Two huge oak trees grew to either side of it.  Between him and the rock was over fifty yards of open space.  Not good.  Still he felt drawn to this place.  Could he be close to his goal?  Could this be where Amanda, the beloved wife of Gary Chandler, the woman who had given birth to the children who had ultimately led to his own existence, had lain for almost a century and a half?  Hesitantly, Gary left the copse of trees that had shielded him thus far, and began what he felt might be the most perilous part of his escape.

He had barely covered a third of the distance when Gary heard angry shouts behind him.  Risking a backwards glance, he saw Jaggs and his thugs emerge from the tree line.  Panicked, he put everything he had into racing for that rock.  

He was never sure when it started.  Gary was too busy trying to stay alive to even care when the wind picked up.  Jaggs was screaming insane curses at him, firing one shot after another at his unprotected back!  Then Gary noticed that the air was filling with dust and debris.  It whirled around him in a rising ‘dust devil’ that began to push him even faster toward his goal!  Too fast!  He was barely able to stop in time to keep from plunging over the edge of the bluff.  Teetering on the edge of the steep drop-off, Gary looked down at the dried riverbed more than thirty feet below!  And the wind was getting stronger!  

Looking back, he could barely make out the three felons who had hounded him this far.  They were being unmercifully bombarded by windswept projectiles of every description!  Jaggs was already bleeding in several places, although he was still hanging on to that gun.  Shielding his face with one arm, he leveled the weapon at his hapless victim.

Gary could see nowhere else to run!  Closing his eyes, he awaited the impact that would end his life.  He wanted to pray, but he couldn’t think of what to pray for.  He knew he was dead, that there was nowhere for him to duck, or hide.  It never even occurred to him to pray for a miracle.  The only thing on his mind . . . was failure.  He had not brought the restless spirits of his ancestors together so that they could find release. He had failed to trap the man who might, ultimately, realize his mistake, and manage to murder Clay somehow.  Just as bad, who would take care of the Paper, now?  Lindsay was much too young!  As he heard the muffled report of the gun, all he could think to say was: “God, please forgive me!”

The rocky bank under his foot crumbled a split second before he felt a burning sensation on the right side of his neck.  Before he even had a chance to cry out, Gary plummeted over the edge of the bluff!  The last thing he heard was a barrage of gunfire and a woman’s voice screaming.

 “NO!”

*********

“Kill that son of a b----!” Jaggs growled at his two cohorts as they caught sight of their prey.  “I want his head on my trophy wall.”  

The three men closed in on the lone, injured man, firing wildly into the blinding whirlwind.  Jaggs chuckled to see the man he still thought of as Treyton looking frantically for an avenue of escape.  The killer slowed his advance, ignoring the rising wind, as he closed in on his victim.  Slowly, he raised his pistol, taking careful aim at the man who now stood facing him.  ‘Treyton’ just stood there, breathing hard, a look of resignation on his tired features.  No, not tired.  Exhausted.  The man was quite literally on his last legs.

“Time to end this game,” Jaggs muttered, then gently squeezed the trigger.  As if in slow motion, he saw ‘Treyton’ close his eyes, his mouth moving in a silent prayer.

He never had the satisfaction of seeing the bullet hit because, at that moment, a truck burst through the underbrush, almost running him over!  Spinning around, he ran for the nearest cover, only to come face-to-face with the man he had just shot!  Startled, he squeezed off another round, not taking time to aim.  The other man ducked instinctively, but kept coming.  Shaken, Jaggs spun on one heel and tried to go back the way he’d come.  He spat a vicious curse as he was confronted by yet another ‘Treyton’ clone!  What the hell was going on here?

Jaggs raised the gun once more, taking steady aim through the rising wind. Determined to kill the man before him.  Something struck him hard on his left side, knocking his arm up and spoiling his aim!  Furious, Jaggs squirmed in the grip of his captor . . . He froze as he found himself nose-to-nose with a third ‘clone!’  For the first time in his life, Jaggs knew real fear as he wondered anew, ‘What the hell is happening!’

With a panicked cry, Jaggs brought his knees up and thrust the other man off of him.

“Who are you?” he screamed.

The other man stood up in the sudden stillness.  Calmly, he turned to face the man behind all the terrible things that had befallen his cousin.  The face that dominated his own worst nightmares.

“Don’t you recognize me?” he hissed.  “You’ve been trying hard enough to kill me, you sorry . . .”

With an inarticulate cry, Jaggs launched himself at his tormentor!  Clay stood his ground, slamming his right fist into Jaggs’s midsection as hard as he could.  He followed it with a left to the jaw.  This staggered the older man, rocking him back on his heels.  Clay never gave him a chance to recover.  All the rage, frustration, and helplessness he had felt since first seeing his cousin lying in that hospital bed, looking more dead than alive, came boiling out of him.  He lashed out with a booted foot, knocking the wind out of his opponent.  Clay then started pummeling that hated face with a rain of blows that threatened to cave it in!  In his mind flashed images of Gary.  In the hospital in ‘Vegas, his face bruised and bloody.  Staying in the saddle by sheer willpower, blood streaming down his back.  Lying in Buddy’s arms, Clay’s own shirt soaked in blood, as they waited for the ambulance.  The look on Gary’s face as he disappeared over the edge of that bluff!

It wasn’t until he felt strong hands grip his arms, heard the voices telling him to ‘stop it!  You’re killing him!’ that Clay realized he was sitting on Jaggs’s chest, and that the other man was no longer fighting back.  Chest heaving, Clay looked down at the bloody mess he had made of Jaggs’s face.

“I think he got your message, brother,” Buddy told him.

*********

He was standing in the parlor once more.  Bright sunlight pouring through the open doorway lent golden highlights to the long blonde hair of the woman from the picture.  As she stepped into the room, Captain Gary Chandler swept her into his arms!  Their lips met, and the raging hunger each had suffered for more than a hundred years was channeled into a kiss that seemed to go on forever, yet was much too brief.

“God!” he whispered huskily as he pulled her tightly to his chest.  “My beloved angel, I thought I would never find you!  What happened?  Why did you come to Texas?  Who . . .?”

“The children!” she said, at almost the same instant.  “What happened to our babies?”

Chandler loosened his hold, craning his head back to give her a tender smile.  “Our children grew strong and healthy,” he told her.  “And they had fine families of their own.”  A sad frown crossed his handsome features as he told her the rest.  “They . . . they grew up despising my name,” he told her sadly.  “They believed I had deserted them.  And you.  But they always loved you, darling, and treasured your memory.”

“But that is so wrong!” she cried.  “I never spoke ill of you!  I always told them that you would come for us when it was safe!”

“Safe?” Chandler asked, clearly puzzled.  “Safe from who?  I-I never knew why you ran all the way to Texas!  What drove you to abandon little Victoria and me?  I know it had to be something horribly frightening to you.”

Amanda stepped back from his embrace, fear and shame clouding her lovely countenance.  “It was,” she told him.  “That man you mentioned in your letter.  The one whose face you marred.  He chanced upon us at the inn on the road to Louisville.  How he knew I was your wife, I don’t know.  Oh, Gary, he was every bit the villain you painted him!  He threatened horrible things to the children if I didn’t . . . if I told anyone what he was doing to me.  He forced me to come with him to California, but we escaped him in Kansas City.  He . . . there was . . . a child,” she finished, turning away, tears of shame streaming down her cheeks.  “A son.  H-he was stillborn.  I don’t know that I could have looked at the child and not seen the monster that had sired him.  Thank God I didn’t have to find out.”

A myriad of emotions rippled across the officer’s face as he pulled his wife close once more.  The strongest was sorrow.  Sorrow at what his beloved . . . his soul mate had suffered at the hands of his sworn enemy.  At the desperation and fear that had driven her across country, into exile.

“Damn him,” he whispered tearfully.  “I curse the day that hell-spawn was given life!  If I had known that he was even still alive, I never would have sent you away.  You must believe that!”

Tears glistened in her eyes as she stroked his cheek.  “I’ve always known that,” she told him, smiling sadly.  “Did you get none of my letters?”

“Not one,” he told her.  “Not hearing from you, n-not knowing what had become of you and the children . . . I was almost mad with worry!  I hunted everywhere for you!  I twice came here, to this cursed place, to look for you, knowing that . . . the you and she had been close friends at one time.  Each time, she sent me in a different direction.  If you trusted your letters to her, I fear she destroyed them, rather than send them to me.”

“I think, now, that she must have,” Amanda sighed.  “She was jealous of my ‘good fortune.’  Many times she told me that she wished the children and I could stay forever.  I had no hint as to the depths of her jealousy . . . until she pushed me into the ravine.  Did that witch have any hand in raising our children?”

“Only for a time,” Chandler sighed.  He looked over at Gary Hobson, a sad smile playing over his lips.  “Through this one, I learned that they despised my name so much, he is the first to bear it in over a hundred years.  It hurt to learn that . . . that they loathed me, so.  But I also learned that they lived, married, and had fine families.  I must be content with that.  Wh-what they think of me, now, is of no importance.”  His smile brightened as he turned Amanda to face Gary.  “Beloved, let me introduce you to the great-grandchild of our daughter, Victoria.  His name is Gary Hobson.”

Noticing the third person in the ‘room’ for the first time, Amanda blushed furiously, at first.  Then her smile widened in delight as she took in his features, looking first at him, then at her husband.

“My goodness!  He looks just like you!” she exclaimed.  “He even has your birthmark!”  Impulsively, she threw her arms around her great-great-grandchild, pulling him close.  “Thank you!” she whispered tearfully.  “Thank you so much for bringing my family back together.”

“Y-you’re welcome, ma’am,” Gary stammered, hesitantly returning the embrace.  “Th-thank you for . . . for letting me be a part of . . . of this.  Are . . . are you two gonna be okay, now?  I mean, well, will you be able to . . . you know.”

Amanda stepped back with a girlish laugh.  “He even has your stutter,” she teased her husband.  “And your charm.”  To Gary, she added, “Yes, we’ll have to move on shortly.  Is there anything we can do to repay you for what you’ve done for us?”

“N-no,” Gary murmured, his ears still burning.  “Well, maybe.  Wh-what about those guys who were shooting at me?”

“That’s all taken care of,” Chandler assured him.  “We removed you from the path of the bullet before you could be badly injured.  You’re friends arrived just as you fell.  You’ll be safe, now.  And I must apologize for frightening you.  It was the only way to direct you here, and protect you.  Anything else?”

“I’d . . . I’d like to do something . . . something more,” Gary murmured.  “How can I . . . well,  clear your name?  How can I let your descendants still living today know the truth?  I-I have the letter, the one written by President Lincoln.  Is there anything else lying around somewhere that I can use to let everyone know what kind of man you really were?”

Captain Chandler shook his head sadly.  “What little I left with Victoria was only to provide for her welfare.  My father was not a well man, he was dying.  I had hoped to return before he died, but . . . When I learned that my family had . . . had vanished, I sold what I could, giving most of the money to Mother so that she would not have that to worry about as well.  Don’t worry about my ‘good name,’ Gary.  The ones whose opinions I valued most passed over many years ago.  I admit that I would like to be remembered with kindness, by someone, but no one can change what has already come to pass.  Now, what service can I be to you?”

“Well, um, could you tell me how to get back to, um . . . God!  How do I say this?” Gary moaned.  

“Once we’re gone,” Chandler chuckled, “you just have to step through that door, and climb the steps you’ll find.”  He held out his hand, taking Gary’s in a firm grip.  “Thank you, son.  You’ve done more than made us proud.  You’ve given us back our souls.  I have only one more thing to ask of you.  Please have our bodies exhumed and taken home.  Bury us together, if possible.  We‘ve been apart much too long.”

“We’ll see to it, I promise.  And thank you,” Gary smiled, “for letting me . . . letting me see through your eyes for even a little while.  I never knew you‘d even existed, until then.  Thank you, too, for giving me the chance to set the record straight.”

“Your medal!” Amanda exclaimed.  “The one presented with the letter.  If . . . if what you said about the children is true, then what did they do with your medal?”

“That’s not important, darling” he told her, gently stroking her cheek.  “It’s merely a reminder of darker times.”

“But it meant so much to you!” she moaned.  “He pinned it onto your chest with his own hands!  Don’t let it be lost forever!  It‘s a treasure . . .”

Laying a finger across her lips to silence her, he placed a tender kiss on the corner of her mouth.  “The only treasure that matters to me now,” he told her softly, “ is you.”

“Wait!” Gary pleaded.  “What medal?  Where can I find it?”

“If you think it can help,” Chandler shrugged, not taking his eyes off his wife, “then look for my saddle.  My old unit had it made for me.  It has a plate on the back, with an inscription.  Look behind that plate.”

Having said that, he guided Amanda to the center of the room and, facing her, pulled her into his arms once more.  A fearful expression crossed Amanda’s face as she gazed into the eyes of her beloved.

“I’m afraid,” she murmured timidly.  “We don’t know what we’ll find over there!”

“Don’t be,” he whispered gently, as he lowered his face to hers.  “We’ve each been through Hell alone, my dearest.  Anyplace we’re together . . . is heaven.”

His lips covered hers in a deep, soul merging kiss as a soft light swelled within them.  As Gary watched in amazement, they slowly melded into two columns of light.  One an electric blue, the other pale gold.  Then, the two columns merged even further, becoming a single shaft of brilliant white light.  The radiance swelled, filling the whole room with an all pervading sense of . . . Gary couldn’t find the words to describe it.  It was a feeling so powerful, ‘Love’ just seemed to brush the edges of it.  Whatever pain they had suffered in life, and after, they were now united in an emotion that was too primal, too awesome, to name.  It completely transcended the physical, and came straight from the heart of creation itself.   

When the light faded, Gary found himself alone.  After that rush of . . . emotion . . . energy . . . whatever, he felt oddly empty . . . and at peace.  With a sigh, he headed for the door.  It was time for him to go.

************

Voices.  Frantic, excited, distant.  They echoed through his mind as he climbed toward the light.  The higher he climbed, the harder it was to take that next step.  The pain!  Oh, God!  The fire that burned across his back and shoulders!  A moaning whimper escaped his lips as he struggled up that final step.

“He’s moving!” someone shouted.  “He’s alive!”

“Get that rope over here!”  Was that Clay?  Or Buddy?  “Hang in there, cuz!  We just gotta find a way down!”  Definitely Buddy.  “Just don’t try to move!”

Not moving was high on Gary’s list of priorities at that point.  About the only thing that didn’t hurt was his left big toenail.  Still, he had to consider the fact that he was still breathing as a plus.  If only he wasn’t lying halfway on his back!

It seemed to take forever before he heard the crunch of footsteps on dry leaves.  Opening one eye, he tried to see who it was without moving.  The place where he lay was still in shadow, a fact for which he was grateful.  One thing he didn’t need, right now, was more pain.  Soon, there was crunching all around him as more people descended into his leafy bower.

“This is like walkin’ on a feather bed,” a woman (Polly?) mumbled as the crunching grew louder.  “These leaves must be ten feet thick.”

“That’s probably what saved him!” another voice, that sounded like Ranger Walker, told her.  “He’s one lucky man.”

“I’m not sure I wanna be around when his luck runs out,” Peter murmured.  “God, Hobson!  What did that bastard do to you?”

“Well,” Gary whispered, “I’m not . . . not real clear . . . on the d-details, but I think . . . think he beat the crap . . . outta me.  Hurts.”

“Hobson,” Peter replied, “you are a master of understatement.”  Gingerly, he placed a hand on Gary’s left shoulder and rolled him forward, just slightly, to get a better look at his back.  “Man!” he hissed.  “We shoulda let Clay kill the son of a . . . !”

“Easy, Peter,” Walker tried to calm the young Shaolin.  “You’re breaking training.  All life is sacred, remember?”

“That doesn’t apply to pond scum,” Polly grumbled as she used the key Walker handed her to remove the cuffs from Gary’s bloody wrists.  Had she been crying?  “The closest that creature’s ever come to being human was when he first crawled out of the sewer.  These grafts may still be okay, but he’s gonna need stitches.  God!  Your back looks like hamburger, sweetie.  I’m afraid we can’t put off callin’ your folks, this time.”

“Great,” Gary sighed.  “Mom’s gonna have a cow.”

Polly shook her head with a choked laugh (and a little sniffle?).  “Hon, when she hears about this, she’s gonna corner the beef market.  Just be glad there’ll be a few thousand miles between you two when she explodes.”

*********

It took almost an hour for the EMTs to arrive and help to extricate Gary from his leafy cul-de-sac.  As he was being loaded into the Stokes stretcher, Gary told Buddy that he had found Amanda’s grave.

“She . . . she’s under there . . . somewhere,” he told his cousin.  Talking was made even harder by the stiff collar they had used to immobilize his head and neck  “We . . . need to give her . . . a proper burial . . . with her h-husband.  Please?  W-will you . . .?”

“I’ll see to it, cuz,” Buddy promised him as they lay him on the gurney.  “You just be still and let these people help you, ya hear?”

As they were getting ready to load him into the ambulance, Gary grabbed Buddy’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip.  

“They’ve been too . . . too long apart,” he whispered.  “Th-their souls are . . . at rest.  N-now . . .”

“I got the picture, Gary,” the entertainer assured his cousin.  Curious, he leaned closer.  “D-did you ‘see’ them?” he whispered.  “Are they together?”

“Yes,” Gary murmured in a barely audible voice.  “It was . . . b-beautiful.”

***********

“His back is a mess,” the doctor told them candidly.  “There were at least nine gashes that required stitches.  I don’t know how concerned he is about appearances, so I called in a cosmetic surgeon to minimize scarring.  He attended to those wrists while he was here, too.  Mr. Hobson also has a crease on the right side of his neck, several broken ribs, a dislocated right shoulder, and a bruised right kidney.  Other than that, he’s in better shape than he looks.  From what you’ve told me, he’s an extremely lucky man.  His captor was going more for pain than actual damage.  His biggest dangers, right now, are infection and having a rib lacerate his liver or puncture a lung.”

Polly found that her legs had turned to Jell-O.  She sank into the nearest chair, resting her head on her hands as she fought to maintain control.  Gary didn’t need tears.  He needed strength.  Until his mother arrived that afternoon, she had to be that strength.

“Does he know a good psychiatrist?” the doctor was asking.  “In situations such as this, we usually recommend extensive therapy.”

“Y-yes,” Polly sniffed. “Um, yes.  He’s been . . . been treated for . . . for a similar experience last year.  Wh-when can we see him?”

“He’s being moved up to a room right now,” the physician replied, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “Your friend is fine.  He’s just very tired, right now, and heavily sedated.  Give him a couple of hours, then you can go in a few at a time.  Don’t expect him to make much sense, at first,” he chuckled.  “He was mumbling something about ‘bright lights’ and a ‘parlor.’  CT was negative, and there was no outward evidence of head trauma other than a swelling behind his right ear.  We think he’s just suffering from hallucinations brought on by trauma and dehydration. Why don’t you go get something to eat?  We have your cell-phone number.  If anything changes, we’ll call you.”

“Thank you,” Buddy murmured when Polly just nodded.  He took her by the arm and helped her up from the chair.  “A coupla hours?  We’ll be back before he wakes up.  C’mon, Polly.  We’ll go tell the others.”

The doctor started to turn as if to go, then stopped, looking at Buddy more closely.  “You’ll probably think this is a dumb question,” he said, “but I have ask it anyway.  Are you and Mr. Hobson twins?  The resemblance is incredible.”

“Cousins,” Buddy replied with a shake of his head.  “My twin is getting his hands seen to, and another cousin is waiting out in the RV.  Just thought I’d better warn ya, we’re practically clones.”

The doctor’s eyes brightened.  “Would you mind if I talk to the four of you before you leave?” he asked..  “I’m doing a thesis on dominant and recessive genetic traits.  You guys would make a fascinating case study.  I‘ll pay you handsomely for your time.”

“Um, yeah,” Buddy murmured.  “That sounds . . . interestin’.  Um, Polly, Peter, let’s not keep the others waitin’.”  He turned them toward the entrance, walking a little faster than necessary.

“Slow down,” Peter chuckled.  “What’s the rush?”  

“Sorry,” Buddy sighed, slowing down slightly.  “I just smell a bunch of needles and test tubes in his offer.  You okay, Polly?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” she stammered as they stepped through the door.  “Just give me a minute before we go in.”  She wiped her hands across her cheeks, trying to obliterate the evidence.  She looked up at her two ’escorts.’  “You tell anyone I was cryin’ and I’ll spike your coffee with prune juice.”

Wordlessly, Peter handed her a tissue.  “Your secret’s safe with us,” he replied.  “You two are pretty close, aren’t you?”

“First time I saw him,” the tech sighed, “was when he was brought in after . . . a terrible accident.  He was more dead than alive.  At first, they weren’t really holdin’ out a lot of hope for ’im.  At best, he should’ve been a vegetable.  But he hung in there, and he fought, and he woke up after just a few days.  They kept telling’ ‘im not to give up hope.  That he should be able to walk again, but they were just sayin’ that for his benefit.  They thought he’d run out of miracles.”  She bit her lip, taking a deep breath and letting it out.  “You’ve seen him.  If you hadn’t seen that picture, you never would’ve known he’d been stuck in a wheelchair for months,” she added, a note of pride in her voice.  “I’ve never doubted that, no matter what life threw at him, Gary could handle it.  N-not once . . . until I saw him go over that bluff . . . saw him lyin’ there . . . so . . . still.  It scared the crap outta me.  I was gonna turn around and kill that SOB right there.  Then, Walker saw him move . . .”  Polly closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.  “I’m beginning to think he has a direct pipeline to God.  The miracles just keep on a comin’.”  She looked up at the two solemn faces.  “I wanna be there when they put the needle to that sick piece o’ sh--.  I wanna watch him die.”

“I don’t know if we can arrange it, Polly,” Peter warned her.  “I’ll talk to Alex and see what we can do, but you have to be sure about this.  It’s supposed to be humane and peaceful, but dead is dead.  No matter how you paint it, it’s never pretty.”

“Right this minute,” she replied stonily, “I’m as sure as I’ll ever be.  Check with me again after I’ve talked to Gary.  Right now, I feel like we need to celebrate a little.  Jaggs and his cohorts are all in jail, Gary’s safe and alive, and we can breathe easy for the first time since ‘Vegas.  If I were a drinkin’ woman, I’d be tempted to get plastered.  Since I‘m not, how‘s about we get Clay and the others, then I’ll spring for pizza?”

********

Gary’s first impression was of something cool on his forehead.  Then there was a dull, throbbing pain that seemed to encompass his entire body.  Did he have anywhere that didn’t hurt?  With a low, throaty moan he turned his head into that comforting touch.

“Hey, darlin’,” a familiar voice crooned.  “Time to open those puppy-dog eyes and rejoin the world.”

“P-Polly?” he murmured.

“Got it in one,” she chuckled.  “How do you feel?”

“About like I look,” Gary replied in a near whisper.  “Hurts like hell.  Wh-what took ya’ll s’long to find me?  Di’n’ that. . . . that tracker thing work?”

“It might have,” Peter said from behind him, “if they hadn’t found it.  I thought we told you to put it someplace they weren’t likely to look?  What’d you do?  Put it in your shirt pocket?”

“N-no,” Gary mumbled, puzzled.  “I taped it to the inside of my . . . wh-where that guy suggested that I . . . God!  H-how’d they find it there w-without . . .?”

Polly hadn’t thought it was possible for Gary to lose any more color.  She was quick to assure him that, given who they were dealing with, they had immediately had him checked over to rule out the very thing he feared had happened.

“There was no . . . assault,” she told him.  “Not of that type, at least.  But they must’ve done a strip search in order to find it down . . . down there.”  She was secretly pleased to see a slow flush infuse Gary’s pallid features.  Embarrassment was a normal, healthy reaction to such a revelation.  

“Oh, God!” he moaned, covering his face with his left hand.  “Just strike me now!  Please?”  Then he noticed that his right arm was strapped down.  “Wh-what . . .?”

“You dislocated your shoulder,” Peter told him.  “You also left behind an impressive amount of skin.”

“H-how, umph, how many ribs . . .d-did I break . . . this time?” Gary murmured, managing a weak smile.

“Four on the right,” Polly told him.  “To match the ones you already had on the left.  They had to clean a lot of dirt and such out of the wounds on your back.  The bullet wound had reopened.  Your back looks like a crazy quilt, hon, but they assured me that you’ll hardly notice the scars after a while.  Same goes for those gashes on your shoulder.  Did Jaggs do that, too?”

“N-no.”  Gary explained about the house, and the bizarre actions of the owl.  “Th-there’s something . . . wrong with that place.  S-something . . . I-I don’t know . . . dark.”  He looked around, as if just noticing that something, or someone, was missing.  “Where ‘re Jake ‘n’ the twins?” he asked.  “Are they okay?”

Peter mumbled something as he handed Polly a ten-dollar bill.  “You guys ‘re spooky,” he growled, “you know that?”  At Gary’s puzzled look, Peter explained, “Polly said you’d be asking if someone was okay before you’d been awake ten minutes.”  He looked at his watch.  “Seven and a half.  Not bad.  I’m surprised you could restrain yourself for that long.”

“So I’m predictable,” Gary grumbled.  “Could you answer the question?  Please?”

“They’re out in the hall with the others,” Polly told him.  “The doctor said to keep it down to two at a time.  Think you can handle more than that?”

“It’s a big room,” Gary murmured.  “Bring ‘em on.”

Polly smiled as she rose from her seat and stepped to the door.  She poked her head out, beckoning to the people standing around in the hall.  Stepping back, she allowed the others to file in, arranging themselves around the bed.

“How ya feelin’, cuz?” Buddy asked.

“Like a sore tooth,” Gary replied with a tired smile.  “Thanks for ridin’ t’ the rescue.  Wha’s wrong with your hands, Clay?”

Clay looked down at the bandages on his right hand, and the cast on the left one.  “Nothin’ much,” he murmured.  “Just had to work off a little steam.”

“Yeah,” Jake grinned.  “He ‘vented’ all over Jaggs’s face.  That man won’t be looking in any mirrors without scaring himself.  Not for awhile, anyway.”

Gary studied his cousin’s grim visage and figured he could fill in the blanks with little trouble.  “D’ya break his jaw?” he asked.

The corner of Clay’s mouth twitched as he nodded, meeting Gary’s eyes for the first time since entering the room.  “In three places,” he assured the injured man.  “And three ribs.”

“Good,” Gary sighed.  “That oughta shut ‘im up.  He talks to much.”

“Well,” Buddy grinned, “he won’t be doin’ much talkin’ for about a month.  And those two goons that chased us all the way from ‘Vegas?  They can’t shut up.  They can’t wait to get back to prison.  O’ course, that could be because Polly told ‘em she’d be waiting outside the gate for ‘em to get out.  With a dull knife.”

Gary gave his friend a puzzled look.  “Whatever for?”

Polly looked away with a shrug, biting her lower lip as she considered how to answer that without embarrassing herself too much.  “I was, um, thinkin’ of expandin’ my resume¢,” she told him.  “You know.  A little veterinary surgery?”

Blame it on his injuries.  It took Gary almost a full fifteen seconds to figure it out.

“You threatened to neuter them?” he asked incredulously.  “Really?”

“Really,” Ranger Walker assured him grimly.  “That’s how we knew where they took you.  She offered a free demonstration.  Hicks couldn’t talk fast enough.”

“Especially after she almost pulled Sykes beard out by the roots,” Peter added with a shudder.  “Where did you learn your technique, Polly?  ‘Apocalypse Now?’”

“Reruns of ‘Tour Of Duty,’” Polly grumbled irritably.  “I was inspired, okay?  Jaggs was beatin’ the crap outta Gary and I was not in a good mood!”

“W-wait,” Gary pleaded, holding up his good hand as if to physically silence them.  “I’m getting real confused here.  How did you know Jaggs was . . . that he . . .?”

“That doesn‘t matter,” Polly hastened to say.  “The important thing is, you’re here, you’re safe, and the danger is over.  You guys can enjoy the peace and quiet you came out here to find.”  She shot Sammo and Clay a pointed look.  “Right, guys?”

Gary decided to let it drop.  For the moment.  He had a feeling that it had something to do with that ‘link’ Polly had revealed to him in ‘Vegas.  Just how strong was this ‘link,’ he wondered?  

“The police are clearin’ away all that debris,” Buddy told him, giving Polly a speculative glance.  “They’ll let us know if there really is a body down there . . .”

“There is,” Gary assured him.  “Th-the woman who owned the place, Amanda’s so called ‘friend,’ shoved her over at almost the exact spot where I . . . where I fell.  She wanted the kids bad enough to kill for them.  I don’t know if she was crazy, or if she had something . . . sinister in mind.  I just know that she murdered a woman who trusted her with more than her own life.”

“And you know this . . . how?” Walker asked.

Gary glanced at Peter, who gave him a silent nod, then to the Ranger.  “Just . . . how opened minded . . . are you?” he asked.

*********

“And that’s everything,” Gary sighed over half an hour later.  “I-I know it sounds . . . weird . . . delusional . . . whatever, b-but her body is down there.  I promised to exhume both bodies and . . . and rebury them next to each other.  In their family cemetery in Ohio, if possible.”

“It is important to them?” Kwai Chang asked.

“Very,” Gary replied, his voice husky from so much talking.

“Yet . . . you say their spirits have moved on,” the Shaolin reminded him.

Gary ran his free hand through his hair as he groped for the right words to convey what he had felt as he’d spoken to his ancestors.

“It’s a-a symbolic thing, I think,” he told them.  “Something to show that . . . that what happened wasn’t an act of desertion by either party.  Terrible things happened on both sides that led to . . . to . . . God!  How do I . . . It’s for the kids.  Their kids died thinking that their dad had run out on ‘em.  They both just wanted to set the record straight.  He was a good man who wanted nothing more in life than to have his family whole again.  H-having their graves together . . . that’s kind of a . . . a symbol that their descendants can look at and know that . . . that somewhere . . . they’re a family again.”  He looked at the others, licking his lips in uncertainty.  “Did . . . did that make any sense, or was I babbling again?”

Impulsively, Alex Cahill stepped up and planted a chaste kiss on Gary’s forehead.  “It made wonderful sense,” she told him, smiling gently.  “No matter if the rest of if does sound like an hallucination, for that reason, alone, we should go ahead with your request.  That had to be one of the most romantic stories I’ve ever heard,” she sniffed, wiping a tear from her eye.  

Walker just rolled his eyes in a gesture that said, ‘I’ll be hearing about this for a long time!’

***********


Continue to Installment 7

Email the author: Polgana54@cs.com
 
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