Arrowmoon, p.14
Arrowmoon, page 14
part #8 of Bill Travis Mystery Series
Inside the church the ancient wooden pews were piled haphazardly in a corner. An old man with silvery hair and prominent chin stood there. He had an axe in his hand and he was taking careful aim at the splintered piece of wood at his feet.
“The little bitch is upstairs,” he said, and then let the axe fly. The board at his feet disintegrated. There was nothing left of it.
He laughed.
Off of an alcove to my right there was a narrow staircase.
I ran up to the second floor. Oversized cockroaches scattered in my wake.
I came to an iron door. It had tall, narrow, beveled-glass panes, behind which was a bit of white linen curtain. I couldn’t see inside, except for one lone indistinct shape.
I pushed at the door and it opened, swinging back with a loud whine.
She stood there, regarding me.
It was Jennifer, my daughter.
Her face was hollowed and sunken. She was a mass of bruises, but for her delicate white face.
She ran to me as I knelt and she threw her arms around me.
I carried her to the window.
Outside, over and beyond the small town, a lone white cloud traversed the sky.
“We’re going,” I said. “Hold on tight.”
I stepped out onto the air. The town disappeared beneath us and re-formed itself again and again to become other towns, some familiar, others not.
We fell slowly until we landed by her bed. I laid her there on her Sailormoon comforter next to her dolls. Her bruises began to heal before my eyes.
“Go to sleep now, honey,” I said. “Everything is fine now.”
“I will, Daddy,” she said.
As I was leaving the room, I hesitated, my hand on the light switch by the door.
I looked back to find her snoring softly.
“I’ll let you sleep with the light,” I whispered, and closed the door.
*****
Before hopping into a cab for a ride to the airport, I had a moment to talk with a D.C. native. I recognized him from two days before when I was checking in. He was the Assistant Manager of the hotel. He was standing there outside the hotel taking a cigarette break.
“Oh,” he said. “How was the room?”
“Just fine,” I said. I guess I’ve been a little restless, though.”
“Really,” he said. He nodded his head and exhaled a plume of smoke. There was a bit of a sardonic grin on his face.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“I hope not. I guess somebody should have told you the other night and gave you the option to take a different room.”
“Why’s that? It seemed fine to me.”
He threw his cigarette down and crushed it under his shoe.
“It was the room that John Hinckley, Jr. stayed in the night before he tried to kill President Reagan.”
“Oh,” I said.
A yellow cab pulled to the curb in front of me.
“Here’s my ride,” I said. “See you around.”
*****
I couldn’t help thinking about it as I rode to the airport.
John Hinckley, Jr. He’d been on some kind of psychiatric drug before he tried to assassinate the President.
News reports flashed through my head: Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, the Luby’s Cafeteria massacre in Killeen, Texas. Others came to mind as well but suddenly there were too many to track.
Most of these things have already come to pass.
Rogan Sinclair’s words.
There on the outskirts of the National Capitol it hit me. The scope of it, the sheer magnitude of its scale opened up and I could see it all: the mayhem of an entire culture, a culture that the whole world emulated in some fashion.
The world nearly went up in flames, Ely Green had said.
“Not in my lifetime,” I said. “Not if I can help it.”
“What’s that?” the cabbie asked.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Just nothing.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I stopped by to visit Lief and Darla at the lake house at Camp Creek on a Saturday morning that next Spring.
It was a bright, hot day.
“Come on in, Bill,” Lief said. “Unless of course you have snipers on you.”
“No snipers,” I said. “And I haven’t been walking behind any horse parades with my head in the clouds.”
“That’s good. Darla! Bill Travis is here,” he called back into the house.
I went inside. The place looked subtly different than when I had last visited. It took me ten minutes to figure it out. The house had become a home for a couple. A love nest. I suppose I spent the remainder of my visit with a sappy grin on my face.
“Bill,” Darla said after lunch was cleared away, “someone’s been asking after you.”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
She wouldn’t tell me right off, but when the three of us were ensconced in Lief’s pickup and on the highway headed north, I knew who it was.
“Tate Lancing,” I said.
“Yep,” Lief replied.
*****
I talked Lief into driving the length of the downtown area of Calvert. The antique stores and art shops were busy. If we were intent on parking and shopping, we would have had to either wait until a slot was free, or park a few blocks away and walk to the center of town. I didn’t need to shop though. Some other time, perhaps.
Tate Lancing’s house looked little different from the only other time I had been there. The paint was mostly gone and the front porch was still tilted oddly. That was good. Some things shouldn’t change, if only for the sake of someone else’s memory.
The three of us tromped up onto the ancient porch and Lief rapped on the door facing.
“Who’s there?” a hoarse voice called from inside.
“We need someone to crack a safe,” I said.
The front door opened.
“Well land sakes alive. Come on in here, folks. Hiya, Bill,” Tate said, grabbed my hand and shook hard. He gave Darla a bear hug.
“Haven’t seen you folks since ―”
“It’s okay, Tate,” Darla said. “I can talk about it, now. Thanks to Lief. He had me tell him about it again and again the night we buried granddad. That last time all of my tears were gone. I miss him, and remember the good things about him.”
“Me too, ma’am,” Tate said. “I’ll never forget him.”
Darla let go of Tate and put her arm around Lief’s waist. They looked good together. They looked right.
“I hope you were joking about that safe, Mr. Travis,” Tate said.
“I was.”
“That’s a good thing. ‘Cause I’m really reformed now.”
“That’s great!” I said. I meant it.
“Yeah. Say, you folks want to go horseback riding? I’ve got to go over to the Sheriff’s place and take a look at his new remuda. He’s got some Arabians in there. Also, there’s an old brood mare, Miss Darla. She’s as gentle as you please.”
“Bill and I will take you up on that, Tate,” Lief said. “But no riding for Darla.”
“Well why not?” Tate asked. “I’m telling you. That mare don’t even swat at the flies.”
“I have a strict policy,” Lief said. “No pregnant wife of mine is to ride a horse.”
You could have dropped a battleship into the silence that ensued.
EPILOGUE
The light fades from the sky, as it has ever done with the turning of the Earth.
From up here, in the air, we see car lights turning on one by one in the distance. There is little difference here between these box-like vehicles passing below and the horse-drawn wagons of old. Those wagons once traversed these same spaces of hill and forest with little more than a coal-oil lantern to spread a circle of light.
The road, once fresh and smooth, has begun to show signs of wear, but it is difficult to tell the difference at this late hour. There are cracks here and there in the pavement. The weeds growing alongside it have matured, and they ripple with the passage of cars and large trucks, the life-blood of a people, a civilization, a culture.
A lone red hawk circles overhead briefly, tucks in his wings and drops like a stone onto the cleared field beside the road for one last bite of supper before night descends.
Close by there is a dark forest, straining against its bond of barbed wire. Let us move that way. Let us see what we can see.
As we traverse this quiet, peaceful space, we note the appearance of bright Venus above the distant trees. And not far away, southward, Orion is beginning his climb into the sky, feet first, his bow forever poised, forever still.
Here is the dark and quiet wood, now, below us.
But what is this? A flicker of light through over-arching branches now mostly barren of leaves. Fall has come to this part of the world. And here, borne on the gentle breeze is the sickly-sweet smell of wood smoke.
It is a fire.
Three figures sit about the fire, their bare knees folded Indian fashion.
We come closer and listen.
They are Boy Scouts. One of the three speaks while the other two listen with round eyes.
Stories. They are telling stories, each in turn.
We listen close.
“And then they slowly, without making so much as a sound, carefully... entered... the barn.”
But we are done with this tale and with this place.
There are other tales than these in the dark woods. Other lives that have been lived, and there are even grander tales of those who never lived, except behind the twinkle of a storyteller’s eye.
Let us depart this place, then. Let us leave it where it is. There are darker and brighter days, more terrible stories and pleasant yarns, and even greater secrets to ferret out.
For adventures begin and end and begin again, and we are on the cusp of a new one now.
Finis
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Some may see this book as an attempt at social commentary. There was no such attempt. I simply wrote a story. What came out, on the other hand, is definitely reflective of my stance on some issues. I’m an author that way.
For those who don’t like social commentary in their fiction, I suggest you not read Gulliver’s Travels, Fahrenheit 451, Logan’s Run, or anything, for that matter, by Upton Sinclair or Ayn Rand, to name but a few. Even more recently, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo proved to be a very vocal social statement.
An author should definitely have something to say about the things he’s seen and the places he’s visited. I have visited each of the places named in this book many times throughout my life. I also count myself fortunate to have spent a good deal of my adolescent years in the woods, homes, streets, shops and on the roads and highways not far from the events of this story, and many of the impressions and characters herein are drawn from those rich experiences.
The cities of Hearne, Franklin, Calvert, and Hilltop Lakes are very real places, as are both Robertson and Leon Counties. An author sometimes must, for the sake of story, take certain liberties with the real world. While I have done my best to represent these towns and some of its peoples as truthfully as possible, from the viewpoint of any local I may have well missed the mark. My apologies where I have done so.
To set certain records straight, a World War II POW camp did once exist near Hearne on the site of the current Municipal Airport. Both Italian and Japanese POWs were held there until the their governments’ surrenders. Many locals are the offspring and grandchildren of those freed from the camp at the end of the war. Why return to a war-ravaged homeland when you have already sunk down roots elsewhere? We are fortunate they stayed.
I’m sure the current Robertson County Sheriff is an honest and upright person, and could not possibly bear any resemblance to Sheriff Scott Noonday, except possibly for Noonday’s good points. Likewise, I hope the gate guards at Hilltop Lakes will forgive.
Camp Creek Lake and Camp Creek Community are two separate locales entirely. David A. Williams, author of Strings (a wonderful Texas love story) set me straight on that after reading my first draft. Thanks for that, David, and for all the pictures of old barns you sent me. I have used one of them here.
To readers of the Bill Travis Mysteries, I thank you.
George Wier
June 10, 2012
George Wier, Arrowmoon
