50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And the story:
It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.
The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.
He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.
The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.
Where was he going?
“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.
“What?”
“I think he’s made us.”
“How?”
“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”
“How far away?”
“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”
It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”
“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”
Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.
Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.
Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.
Or so we thought.
Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.
“What the hell…” Aland muttered.
I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication where he went.
Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.
I looked up. Nothing.
Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”
Then where did he go?
Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.
“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”
I’d lost him.
It was as simple as that.
I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.
I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.
It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.
My hobby was something that only a select few had, and that was searching rubbish dumps for useful items.
But there was one exception.
I didn’t search the average rubbish dump, only those I knew were used by organisations and companies that dumped old technology,
If I was lucky, it would be a government department, and the stuff deemed no longer useful to anyone. I often found old computers, without memory or storage of course, but otherwise intact, and I had an excellent museum of computers, from almost the very first.
It was amazing what some companies disposed of, and in one instance I picked a complete, working, mainframe computer. It filled a substantial part of the barn.
Then there were a half dozen communication radios, not the sort that had a short range, no, these devices had almost worldwide coverage. They were also long-wave radio receivers, and I was able to pick up AM radio stations all over the word, and, sometimes, CB transmissions. It came with several sets of manuals, very thick books that made it daunting reading, so they remained in a wooden crate until boredom set in.
But the radios, were, for now, my new toys to play with.
Late one night I was switching between frequencies, looking for anything that might be interesting, and just caught the end of a transmission, “This is a code Zanzibar, I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Will call same time tomorrow.”
Code Zanzibar?
It had to be someone out there somewhere in the world playing a prank.
Perhaps there would be more, so I would tune in tomorrow, fifteen minutes earlier to see if there was any more to the message.
Meantime, full of curiosity, I wondered if there would be anything in any of the books that came with the radios.
I didn’t sleep that night, going through each one practically page by page because the indexes were missing. It was one of those unexplainable oddities, that made me wonder if there was anything in them that the owners hadn’t wanted anyone to find. That in itself seemed even more odd because if it was the case, why didn’t they destroy them?
Somewhere around shortly before dawn, tired, and bored from reading, I fell asleep.
After yet another bollocking from my father about letting my foolish hobby get in the way of work, I had to work extra hard to make up for it and was too tired to continue my studies. I meant to read more before the transmission time, but luckily remembered to set the alarm,
When the alarm went off, I woke with a jolt and nearly forgot why I set it. I got to the radio just before the transmission.
Then I heard it.
“This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent.”
I flicked the switch to send a message, and said, “This is station M. This is station M. Can you identify yourself?”
I had discovered in the documentation that the radio set had been set up in what was designated Station M, and that it was one of 26 around the country.
There was no reply, just the same message, “This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent.” For exactly three minutes, then the sign-off, “Will call same time tomorrow.”
Back to the books, I was in the middle of the sixth of seven volumes, at page 1,457, of 2,500 when I saw the heading “Warning Codes”, and then shuffled through 26 pages until I found “Zanzibar”.
When I read the explanation my heart almost stopped.
“Zanzibar – The threat of an alien attack is imminent – designates that actual alien aircraft have been positively identified and heading towards earth”
What the…
When I read some of the other codes, it showed varying descriptions for a number of events involving aliens, and at first, I thought this referred to other countries than our own, but then, on another page I realised that aliens meant aliens from outer space.
And the fact everyone but a few debunked the idea there was other life out there, it made no sense. That transmission could not have come from anywhere on Earth. At least, I didn’t think so, because there had been nothing in the documentation about similar stations in other countries.
Still utterly gobsmacked, I kept reading and found a page where certain information hadn’t been redacted. That was something else. Before the books had been thrown away, a lot of information had been redacted.
Why hadn’t it been destroyed, if it was that sensitive?
This page had a name, Professor Edward Bones. It looked like it had been missed.
Perhaps I could call and ask him what this all meant.
I spend hours trying to match the surname with the locale of where I found the stuff, thinking the original Station M would be nearby. It wasn’t easy because the name wasn’t in the current phone book, so I had to dig a little deeper and find where historical phone records were kept.
That got me the Professor’s address and phone number, and the University he worked at. A search on his name told me he was associated with SETI which had to do with tracking communications, if any, from outer space.
I called the number, but it was decommissioned. No surprise. If I did the math, the Professor would be a hundred and twenty-two if he was still alive, I did the next best thing, I went to the address.
It was a hundred and fifty miles, a long way to go and pin hopes on finding something. The university was on the other side of the country so going there was out of the question. It was hard enough to get my father to let me have the day off for this trip.
It was a gated community just off the main highway, a group of houses set aside on their own, now looking rather worse for wear. There was no longer a gate, but the was a guard house, holes on the roof and broken windows, a divided driveway with what was once lawn and flower beds, all now overgrown leading to a fountain in the middle of a roundabout that led, one way to houses, one way to a shopping centre and the other, sports fields.
It looked to me like this was a purpose-built community, perhaps to look after the radio receivers, waiting for a call that may never come.
And just had.
I drove to the Professor’s house and parked out front. It looked in better condition than those on either side, and when I looked in, saw signs of habitation. Someone was living in it. Not the professor’s ghost I hope.
I waited.
It was nearly dark before a battered Ford pickup stopped in the driveway and what looked to be an old man get out.
He saw me as I got out of my car, and come towards him. He didn’t look surprised, which was worrying.
“Did you know Professor Bones,” I asked? It was unlikely.
“My father, yes. Are you from the government? I have nowhere else to go.”
“No. I’m not. Did you know much about what your father did?”
“Why? Is this going to be another character assassination piece? Are you a reporter?”
“Me? No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to ask someone, anyone, if they knew what Cade Zanzibar really means. It can’t possibly mean there’s an imminent alien invasion.”
His expression changed instantly, and it was clear he did know what it meant.
“How do you know anything about Station M, that was top secret, and no one knows, no one still alive that is, other than a few fools back in Washington.”
“I rescued the radio receivers and documents from a dump. I collect old technology. It was just sitting there. I took it home, connected it up, and listened. For the last two nights, there’s been this transmission, ‘This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent’.
“My God. Where are they now?”
“My place.”
“Where?”
I told him.
“We have to go. Now. Take me. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
It was the stuff of science fiction comics. Transmission had been received, many years back, from what was believed an alien race under attack from another. He hesitated before he said it was believed there was life on Mars, but selling the idea there were Martians didn’t go too well. However, the government decided to piggyback onto the moon landings, and several other missions, one on the Moon, one to Mars, one to Jupiter and another to Saturn.
Not on the planets. But space stations orbiting the planets, sort of early warning stations. That first transmission had the implied threat that the aggressive aliens were heading towards Earth.
Apparently not as fast as was suspected. The stations were built, volunteers were sent on the premise they might never come home, and supplies were sent via a launching pad on the moon. While we were still discussing the possibility of launching missions to the other planets, it had already been done, And no one knew.
Expect the Professor, who lost the plot when the government shut down the program and virtually abandoned these people in the outer space stations.
And that was the purpose of Station M. To maintain communications with the space stations, and the moon base. When they were closed, the stations disappeared. Where I visited the Professor’s son, that was the whole base, kept isolated, and under very tight security.
“All I can think of is that one of the space stations is still in operation, manned by someone who has to be one of the oldest people alive, or they figured out how to automate a message given certain parameters. Anyway, if there’s a transmission tonight, we’ll soon find out.”
All I could think of was that I’d just unearthed the biggest secret of all time. One that it was likely I could never tell anyone about.
Unless there really were aliens coming to attack us.
A minute or so later, the transmission came in, “This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent”.
Bones had already looked over the units and certified they were in full working order and showed me the sequence of switches that turned on two-way communications.
After the message, he switched to transmit, “This is Station M, repeat, this is Station M receiving you. Please advise details.”
He switched back to receive and static burst out of the speaker. This went on for a minute, then a weak voice. “Is that you Freddie?”
“Yes. The Prof’s son. Who are you?”
“Alistair Montgomery. I was last to arrive when I was six. There are two of us left. I think Saturn and Mars have ceased. What happened back there?”
“Funding. Lack of results. Bean-counting accountants thought ramping up for wars at home was more important. We knew it would happen one day.
“Five years, Freddie.”
“Your transmission? Code Zanzibar. Is it relevant, or just to get our attention?”
“It’s real. We saw about 50 large ships go by on the long-range radar. Heading for the earth, not moving very fast. I estimate they would take several days to reach to outer limits of our Thermosphere.”
“They didn’t come to see you?”
“No. Sad, because I was hoping to be the first to meet an alien. That might yet be you.”
“Are you going to be OK up there? I can’t tell you we coming to get you.”
“We knew what we were signing on for. But it would be nice if you could keep in touch/.”
“Do what I can. Over and out.”
He went around the back of the unit, and I heard what sounded like the ejecting of a cassette tape. When he came back, he showed it to me. “This should make the bastards sit up and take notice.”
He grabbed his coat. “We have to go. Take me to the nearest airport.”
We made it outside to the car when three black SUV’s pulled up abruptly and a dozen armed men got out and surrounded us.
Then a man in a suit got out of the lead vehicle and came over.
Bones recognised him.
“I didn’t think it would take you long. Been monitoring for transmissions, have you?”
“We knew your father didn’t follow orders but had no proof. Who are you,” he glared at me.
“I rescued the radios.”
He sighed. “Bloody contractors. Never do as they’re told.” He shook his head. “Cuff them and throw them in the car.”
They might have, had it not been for one minor matter. In the half-light of night, it suddenly went quite dark, except for the car headlights, until suddenly the whole area was lit up like a movie studio. We all looked up and…
My hobby was something that only a select few had, and that was searching rubbish dumps for useful items.
But there was one exception.
I didn’t search the average rubbish dump, only those I knew were used by organisations and companies that dumped old technology,
If I was lucky, it would be a government department, and the stuff deemed no longer useful to anyone. I often found old computers, without memory or storage of course, but otherwise intact, and I had an excellent museum of computers, from almost the very first.
It was amazing what some companies disposed of, and in one instance I picked a complete, working, mainframe computer. It filled a substantial part of the barn.
Then there were a half dozen communication radios, not the sort that had a short range, no, these devices had almost worldwide coverage. They were also long-wave radio receivers, and I was able to pick up AM radio stations all over the word, and, sometimes, CB transmissions. It came with several sets of manuals, very thick books that made it daunting reading, so they remained in a wooden crate until boredom set in.
But the radios, were, for now, my new toys to play with.
Late one night I was switching between frequencies, looking for anything that might be interesting, and just caught the end of a transmission, “This is a code Zanzibar, I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Will call same time tomorrow.”
Code Zanzibar?
It had to be someone out there somewhere in the world playing a prank.
Perhaps there would be more, so I would tune in tomorrow, fifteen minutes earlier to see if there was any more to the message.
Meantime, full of curiosity, I wondered if there would be anything in any of the books that came with the radios.
I didn’t sleep that night, going through each one practically page by page because the indexes were missing. It was one of those unexplainable oddities, that made me wonder if there was anything in them that the owners hadn’t wanted anyone to find. That in itself seemed even more odd because if it was the case, why didn’t they destroy them?
Somewhere around shortly before dawn, tired, and bored from reading, I fell asleep.
After yet another bollocking from my father about letting my foolish hobby get in the way of work, I had to work extra hard to make up for it and was too tired to continue my studies. I meant to read more before the transmission time, but luckily remembered to set the alarm,
When the alarm went off, I woke with a jolt and nearly forgot why I set it. I got to the radio just before the transmission.
Then I heard it.
“This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent.”
I flicked the switch to send a message, and said, “This is station M. This is station M. Can you identify yourself?”
I had discovered in the documentation that the radio set had been set up in what was designated Station M, and that it was one of 26 around the country.
There was no reply, just the same message, “This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent.” For exactly three minutes, then the sign-off, “Will call same time tomorrow.”
Back to the books, I was in the middle of the sixth of seven volumes, at page 1,457, of 2,500 when I saw the heading “Warning Codes”, and then shuffled through 26 pages until I found “Zanzibar”.
When I read the explanation my heart almost stopped.
“Zanzibar – The threat of an alien attack is imminent – designates that actual alien aircraft have been positively identified and heading towards earth”
What the…
When I read some of the other codes, it showed varying descriptions for a number of events involving aliens, and at first, I thought this referred to other countries than our own, but then, on another page I realised that aliens meant aliens from outer space.
And the fact everyone but a few debunked the idea there was other life out there, it made no sense. That transmission could not have come from anywhere on Earth. At least, I didn’t think so, because there had been nothing in the documentation about similar stations in other countries.
Still utterly gobsmacked, I kept reading and found a page where certain information hadn’t been redacted. That was something else. Before the books had been thrown away, a lot of information had been redacted.
Why hadn’t it been destroyed, if it was that sensitive?
This page had a name, Professor Edward Bones. It looked like it had been missed.
Perhaps I could call and ask him what this all meant.
I spend hours trying to match the surname with the locale of where I found the stuff, thinking the original Station M would be nearby. It wasn’t easy because the name wasn’t in the current phone book, so I had to dig a little deeper and find where historical phone records were kept.
That got me the Professor’s address and phone number, and the University he worked at. A search on his name told me he was associated with SETI which had to do with tracking communications, if any, from outer space.
I called the number, but it was decommissioned. No surprise. If I did the math, the Professor would be a hundred and twenty-two if he was still alive, I did the next best thing, I went to the address.
It was a hundred and fifty miles, a long way to go and pin hopes on finding something. The university was on the other side of the country so going there was out of the question. It was hard enough to get my father to let me have the day off for this trip.
It was a gated community just off the main highway, a group of houses set aside on their own, now looking rather worse for wear. There was no longer a gate, but the was a guard house, holes on the roof and broken windows, a divided driveway with what was once lawn and flower beds, all now overgrown leading to a fountain in the middle of a roundabout that led, one way to houses, one way to a shopping centre and the other, sports fields.
It looked to me like this was a purpose-built community, perhaps to look after the radio receivers, waiting for a call that may never come.
And just had.
I drove to the Professor’s house and parked out front. It looked in better condition than those on either side, and when I looked in, saw signs of habitation. Someone was living in it. Not the professor’s ghost I hope.
I waited.
It was nearly dark before a battered Ford pickup stopped in the driveway and what looked to be an old man get out.
He saw me as I got out of my car, and come towards him. He didn’t look surprised, which was worrying.
“Did you know Professor Bones,” I asked? It was unlikely.
“My father, yes. Are you from the government? I have nowhere else to go.”
“No. I’m not. Did you know much about what your father did?”
“Why? Is this going to be another character assassination piece? Are you a reporter?”
“Me? No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to ask someone, anyone, if they knew what Cade Zanzibar really means. It can’t possibly mean there’s an imminent alien invasion.”
His expression changed instantly, and it was clear he did know what it meant.
“How do you know anything about Station M, that was top secret, and no one knows, no one still alive that is, other than a few fools back in Washington.”
“I rescued the radio receivers and documents from a dump. I collect old technology. It was just sitting there. I took it home, connected it up, and listened. For the last two nights, there’s been this transmission, ‘This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent’.
“My God. Where are they now?”
“My place.”
“Where?”
I told him.
“We have to go. Now. Take me. I’ll fill you in on the way.”
It was the stuff of science fiction comics. Transmission had been received, many years back, from what was believed an alien race under attack from another. He hesitated before he said it was believed there was life on Mars, but selling the idea there were Martians didn’t go too well. However, the government decided to piggyback onto the moon landings, and several other missions, one on the Moon, one to Mars, one to Jupiter and another to Saturn.
Not on the planets. But space stations orbiting the planets, sort of early warning stations. That first transmission had the implied threat that the aggressive aliens were heading towards Earth.
Apparently not as fast as was suspected. The stations were built, volunteers were sent on the premise they might never come home, and supplies were sent via a launching pad on the moon. While we were still discussing the possibility of launching missions to the other planets, it had already been done, And no one knew.
Expect the Professor, who lost the plot when the government shut down the program and virtually abandoned these people in the outer space stations.
And that was the purpose of Station M. To maintain communications with the space stations, and the moon base. When they were closed, the stations disappeared. Where I visited the Professor’s son, that was the whole base, kept isolated, and under very tight security.
“All I can think of is that one of the space stations is still in operation, manned by someone who has to be one of the oldest people alive, or they figured out how to automate a message given certain parameters. Anyway, if there’s a transmission tonight, we’ll soon find out.”
All I could think of was that I’d just unearthed the biggest secret of all time. One that it was likely I could never tell anyone about.
Unless there really were aliens coming to attack us.
A minute or so later, the transmission came in, “This is a code Zanzibar; I repeat a Code Zanzibar. Attack is imminent, I repeat attack is imminent”.
Bones had already looked over the units and certified they were in full working order and showed me the sequence of switches that turned on two-way communications.
After the message, he switched to transmit, “This is Station M, repeat, this is Station M receiving you. Please advise details.”
He switched back to receive and static burst out of the speaker. This went on for a minute, then a weak voice. “Is that you Freddie?”
“Yes. The Prof’s son. Who are you?”
“Alistair Montgomery. I was last to arrive when I was six. There are two of us left. I think Saturn and Mars have ceased. What happened back there?”
“Funding. Lack of results. Bean-counting accountants thought ramping up for wars at home was more important. We knew it would happen one day.
“Five years, Freddie.”
“Your transmission? Code Zanzibar. Is it relevant, or just to get our attention?”
“It’s real. We saw about 50 large ships go by on the long-range radar. Heading for the earth, not moving very fast. I estimate they would take several days to reach to outer limits of our Thermosphere.”
“They didn’t come to see you?”
“No. Sad, because I was hoping to be the first to meet an alien. That might yet be you.”
“Are you going to be OK up there? I can’t tell you we coming to get you.”
“We knew what we were signing on for. But it would be nice if you could keep in touch/.”
“Do what I can. Over and out.”
He went around the back of the unit, and I heard what sounded like the ejecting of a cassette tape. When he came back, he showed it to me. “This should make the bastards sit up and take notice.”
He grabbed his coat. “We have to go. Take me to the nearest airport.”
We made it outside to the car when three black SUV’s pulled up abruptly and a dozen armed men got out and surrounded us.
Then a man in a suit got out of the lead vehicle and came over.
Bones recognised him.
“I didn’t think it would take you long. Been monitoring for transmissions, have you?”
“We knew your father didn’t follow orders but had no proof. Who are you,” he glared at me.
“I rescued the radios.”
He sighed. “Bloody contractors. Never do as they’re told.” He shook his head. “Cuff them and throw them in the car.”
They might have, had it not been for one minor matter. In the half-light of night, it suddenly went quite dark, except for the car headlights, until suddenly the whole area was lit up like a movie studio. We all looked up and…
When I woke up that morning it was like every other day. Everything was familiar. Except…
The first thought that popped into my head was a question, “Why did I walk through the blue door?”
Usually, it was those few minutes when the aches and pains of old age were something to look forward to the moment I got out of bed.
But…
The blue door?
Here’s the thing. I don’t remember walking through a blue, or other coloured door. When I thought about it, it had been in a dream where, the night before, I had wished I could go to a place where the pain was negligible, and, more importantly, the family were at peace instead of at war, over, of all things, our father’s will.
I hadn’t thought that money would be everyone’s first thought, but I was wrong. I guess the amount he left behind was large enough to fuel that inherent monster in all of us, greed.
Being the only one not motivated to dispute the will, and being the principal beneficiary, I was over it, and in fact was ready to wipe my hands of the whole business, and let the lawyers take most if it in fees, leaving the rest with next to nothing.
All of it had come to a head and good old-fashioned pugilism. Blows were exchanged, words that couldn’t be taken back, said, and threats made. What was meant to be a congenial meeting of family members to discuss the will, very quickly degenerated into a disaster.
No surprise then that I would metaphorically step through any coloured door to escape reality. There had been a green door, a red door, a blue door, a yellow door and a brown door. Blue was my favourite colour.
OK, so another fragment of the dream returned while I was staring at the ceiling and thinking it was not like that the last time I looked. Each of the doors represented a different outcome in my life. Then I realised the MC, dressed in a ring master’s outfit, yes, there was a circus element.
Obviously, my mind wanted to go somewhere, anywhere but where I was right then.
I looked sideways at the form that had burrowed under the blankets, not the sort of thing Margret, my wife of many long-suffering years did. She hated my family to begin with and we had distanced ourselves from them. It was not a thing I did to please her, I hated them too.
Having come back to nurse my father to the grave, the last six months had been difficult. The relatives, known and obscure, had come from everywhere, smelling blood in the water.
Her hand was on the pillow, and I gave it a squeeze.
A head popped put, a smile, and then shock. Not hers, mine.
It was her younger sister Margery.
“What the hell,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
I remembered having a think for Margery before I met Margaret and had been resentful and bitter when Margaret stole me away. But, as a first love, she had never quite left my mind.
“Have you been dreaming again? Yesterday you thought you’d turned into your father.”
Good Grief. Behind the blue door was one of my fantasies. I shook my head.
“Where’s Margaret?”
“Forgetful too it seems.” She sighed as if this was normal for me. “She died two years ago. Cancer. I came back to see how you were, and you were broken. Then I discover you had this crush, so we gave it a fling. Married last year, don’t regret it, just hated Margaret more for stealing you.”
My dreams summarised in seven sentences.
“OK. That sounds about right for me. What about Dad?”
If my life with Margaret was over then everything else could be changed. I could only hope.
“Still hanging by a thread, knowing the longer he drags it out the more he can torment the family. It’s going to be a blood bath at the will reading. God, I hate money. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.”
“Isn’t that women for men and men for women?”
She punched me in the arm. “Don’t try and make me feel better. On the other hand,” she leaned over and kissed me. “Please make me feel better.”
It was the one thing I remembered about Margery, how much fun it could be with her. She was one of the few what you see is what you get girls and I had loved her quite intensely until Margaret came along and turned me into the dull and responsible version that my father approved of.
That was when my two brothers both irresponsible troublemakers abused the privilege of their position, squandered their inheritances, and then went cap in hand to our father for support and instead got disinherited. Now, knowing what he was worth they were like Hyenas circling their prey, waiting to swoop.
I wasn’t going to burst their bubble by telling them that disinherited meant no recognition in the will. I’d seen a copy where the bulk of the estate was left to the responsible one, me. They got nothing.
Margery was right. It was going to be a bloodbath.
I visited my father every day. He had been a heavy smoker and suffered because of it. Now breathing was almost impossible and the cancer was going to kill him. Did he regret any part of his life or anything he did? No. What was the point? You do the best you can. There’s always someone telling you what you did was wrong, but there’s no such thing as being perfect.
Except for our mother, his first wife, was perfect. And I agreed with him.
He was looking better. To me, that meant the end was close, that short period of remission before death. Time to order up the priest to administer the last rights. He might have been a bastard and a crook, but he was also steadfastly religious.
“The jackals were in. Never saw a worse pair than those two. Their mother would be ashamed to call them hers.:
“No. She had a higher degree of tolerance than you. She expected more of me, like you, but they could do no wrong. In a way it was her fault they turned out the way they did. Are you sure you want to cut them out?”
“Teach them a lesson. They’re survivors. People like them always are. You can take pity on them if you want, but once you open the door you won’t be able to close it.
That conversation was different, but then so was the woman I was married to. Perhaps there was some sort of joke in this alternate universe, that my father just shunted all of his problems into me.
If the blue door was what I wanted rather than what I had, the red door was hell. I mean, it was a red door. What was I expecting?
The green door was all sweetness and light, everyone was sickly kind and thoughtful without a hint of discord and enmity. Even my father was the epitome of generosity and kindness.
Behind the brown door was a void. It was like stepping from the light into the dark. There was no one but the voices in my head, and if I’d stayed there too long, I would have gone mad.
That left the yellow door. There was a reason why I’d been dragged three ought each, leaning more about the people I knew or thought I did, and in an odd sort of way discovering more about myself.
I knew that I’d spent most of my life compromising, taking the easy way, doing what was expected of me and not what I wanted. I guess that was what life was meant to be like. So few of us ever got to do what we wanted, mainly because we couldn’t afford to, and that was basically it. Money ruled our lives.
I looked at that yellow door for a long time, believing it was going to be more of the same. A horrible father, obtuse relatives, greedy little sycophants who’d willingly sell their souls to the devil for 20 pieces of silver.
Did I want to see more about a life I should have had and didn’t get?
And there it was, the yellow door beckoning, and who was I to resist?
I opened the door and went in. It was a room, with a desk, two chairs on opposite sides of the table, and a sign on the back wall that said, “Please sit”. Below that was a two-way mirror, that only reflected one way.
An interview room in a police station?
Five minutes later a door opened beside the mirror and a woman came through.
My mother.
Or a very young version of her, before my memories of her started. I had not known she was so beautiful, or blonde.
I said nothing but watched her sit, then when settled, smiled.
“Well, Walt, this is a fine kettle of fish.”
Metaphors? Who was this woman?
“Why am I here, and just to be clear, you are my mother.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. This is your imagination, Walt, and I could be anyone. But, you have used a memory of your mother.”
“So, you do know about me?”
“More than I care to, but yes. You’ve come to a crossroads in your life, and you have to make a decision that will affect the rest of it. You can choose to live or you can choose to die. You’ve always made the right choice, Walk. Always. Quite often to your detriment, or to please others, while all the time suppressing your hopes, wishes and desires. Admiral but depressing.”
She was right. But it wasn’t that simple.
“I had no choice.”
‘You always had a choice, Walt. You just chose the most expedient. Like marrying Margaret rather than Margery. Of course, you knew that was a huge mistake. So did your father and I which is why we paid Margaret to steal you away before Margery’s bad ways destroyed you, like she was destroying herself. You loved Margery, I know, but love was never going to be enough. You needed solid and dependable. That was Margaret.”
“What else did you do?
“Too many to be listed. Just be assured we did it for your own good. And, fortunately, it had led you here, now. I guess if your father hadn’t been the bastard he was, we wouldn’t be here, but he was dependable like that. And lazy, leaving all his messes for you to fix up.”
“Like my bothers?”
“Nice boys, but utterly useless. We knew that from the moment they could speak. You were our only hope, Walt. Those two, all the love in the world was never going to fix them, and that’s apparent now in spades. You must look after them, Walt. Your father wouldn’t, but you are not your father.”
“Margaret?”
‘You’ve been planning to leave her. She’s financially independent and will have no claim on the inheritance. Like I said, we gave her a fortune, so you can leave. Find someone else.”
“Margery?”
“If you can find her. Last we knew of her whereabouts, it was a commune in Tibet, or on the side of a mountain.” She shrugged. “That PA of yours, Ms Pendle, she seems a good sort. “has a thing for you, too.”
Ms Pendle was a little too staid for me. But then, perhaps I was the same and didn’t realise it.
“Right, enough yammering Walk. Time to go.” She stood. “Just remember, the future, your future, is n your hands, no one else’s.”
I woke, in the same bed, in the same house, looking at the same roof, and when I looked on the other side of the bed, the same hidden form with a hand on the pillow.
I touched it, thinking it might be Margery, but it was Margaret.
I watched her wake and wondered if it was true, she had been paid to get me away from Margery.
“You were late in last night.”
“I was with my mistress.”
She snorted. “You, with a mistress?” She shook her head. “When did you become a comedian?”
I decided on a change of subject. “Did my parents pay you to get me away from Margery?”
The smile disappeared and a frown appeared on her face. “Who told you?”
“Mother, just before she died. Wanted to go with a clear conscience.”
She thought about what sort of answer to give me, then said, “It was the right thing to do. They wanted you to have a future, not flame out before you were 35. Margery would have killed you, Walt.”
“Well, your job is done. I made it. Today is the first day f the rest of my life, and while you may be in it, it will not be as my wife. I thank you for your service.”
“To be honest, I thought you’d divorce me long before this. I did love you, you know. I guess we just sort of grew out of love in the end.”
It seemed so, well, I had no idea what it seemed like.
“What are you going to do with the family?”
“Annuities. They live within their means or go to hell.”
“And you?”
“First day and all, Margaret. I have no idea.”
It was odd to discover Margaret had a case packed and ready to go, she had for a long time. Everything else she owned; she didn’t want. It would be, she said, like taking her memories with her, and she was past that.
We had a last breakfast together, one last kiss, and she was gone. No, she wasn’t parting with the Audi A5.
I was going to go into the office but decided not to, and instead called the lawyers and for the next hour told them what I wanted done.
Then, I went out onto the patio, put on some melancholy jazz, and stretched out in one of the sunbeds, my last thought before dozing off, was the endless possibilities of what I was going to do.
I was lost in a mist, going upriver in a boat, slowly wending towards the mountains. It had started out very warm, and the further inland we went the closer it got. I had the feeling I was not alone on the boat, the figures were indistinct shadows, flitting about in the background.
Then it started to rain, and I woke with a start.
I realized I was at home and the automated sprinkler system had started.
When I went to get up, I realised something or someone was holding my hand and a looked over.
Margery.
“What are you doing here?”
“My, my, Walt. I thought you would be more pleased to see me.”
“I am. But…”
” Margaret called me about a week ago. She told me what had happened all those years ago and apologised. She said you two were splitting up, and if I wanted to get first in line, I’d better get my butt home. I just knew she had something to do with splitting us up. Not that it wasn’t a good idea, I was in a bad place then.”
“Now?”
“Now I know better. And the best thing about it. We have a lot of years to catch up, perhaps it will take the rest of our lives. Never stopped loving you, Walt. Not for a minute.”
“Nor I you. I was just coming to find you.”
“Then everything is as it should be. Now, let’s get out from under these sprinklers before one or other, or both of us get pneumonia.”
When I woke up that morning it was like every other day. Everything was familiar. Except…
The first thought that popped into my head was a question, “Why did I walk through the blue door?”
Usually, it was those few minutes when the aches and pains of old age were something to look forward to the moment I got out of bed.
But…
The blue door?
Here’s the thing. I don’t remember walking through a blue, or other coloured door. When I thought about it, it had been in a dream where, the night before, I had wished I could go to a place where the pain was negligible, and, more importantly, the family were at peace instead of at war, over, of all things, our father’s will.
I hadn’t thought that money would be everyone’s first thought, but I was wrong. I guess the amount he left behind was large enough to fuel that inherent monster in all of us, greed.
Being the only one not motivated to dispute the will, and being the principal beneficiary, I was over it, and in fact was ready to wipe my hands of the whole business, and let the lawyers take most if it in fees, leaving the rest with next to nothing.
All of it had come to a head and good old-fashioned pugilism. Blows were exchanged, words that couldn’t be taken back, said, and threats made. What was meant to be a congenial meeting of family members to discuss the will, very quickly degenerated into a disaster.
No surprise then that I would metaphorically step through any coloured door to escape reality. There had been a green door, a red door, a blue door, a yellow door and a brown door. Blue was my favourite colour.
OK, so another fragment of the dream returned while I was staring at the ceiling and thinking it was not like that the last time I looked. Each of the doors represented a different outcome in my life. Then I realised the MC, dressed in a ring master’s outfit, yes, there was a circus element.
Obviously, my mind wanted to go somewhere, anywhere but where I was right then.
I looked sideways at the form that had burrowed under the blankets, not the sort of thing Margret, my wife of many long-suffering years did. She hated my family to begin with and we had distanced ourselves from them. It was not a thing I did to please her, I hated them too.
Having come back to nurse my father to the grave, the last six months had been difficult. The relatives, known and obscure, had come from everywhere, smelling blood in the water.
Her hand was on the pillow, and I gave it a squeeze.
A head popped put, a smile, and then shock. Not hers, mine.
It was her younger sister Margery.
“What the hell,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
I remembered having a think for Margery before I met Margaret and had been resentful and bitter when Margaret stole me away. But, as a first love, she had never quite left my mind.
“Have you been dreaming again? Yesterday you thought you’d turned into your father.”
Good Grief. Behind the blue door was one of my fantasies. I shook my head.
“Where’s Margaret?”
“Forgetful too it seems.” She sighed as if this was normal for me. “She died two years ago. Cancer. I came back to see how you were, and you were broken. Then I discover you had this crush, so we gave it a fling. Married last year, don’t regret it, just hated Margaret more for stealing you.”
My dreams summarised in seven sentences.
“OK. That sounds about right for me. What about Dad?”
If my life with Margaret was over then everything else could be changed. I could only hope.
“Still hanging by a thread, knowing the longer he drags it out the more he can torment the family. It’s going to be a blood bath at the will reading. God, I hate money. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.”
“Isn’t that women for men and men for women?”
She punched me in the arm. “Don’t try and make me feel better. On the other hand,” she leaned over and kissed me. “Please make me feel better.”
It was the one thing I remembered about Margery, how much fun it could be with her. She was one of the few what you see is what you get girls and I had loved her quite intensely until Margaret came along and turned me into the dull and responsible version that my father approved of.
That was when my two brothers both irresponsible troublemakers abused the privilege of their position, squandered their inheritances, and then went cap in hand to our father for support and instead got disinherited. Now, knowing what he was worth they were like Hyenas circling their prey, waiting to swoop.
I wasn’t going to burst their bubble by telling them that disinherited meant no recognition in the will. I’d seen a copy where the bulk of the estate was left to the responsible one, me. They got nothing.
Margery was right. It was going to be a bloodbath.
I visited my father every day. He had been a heavy smoker and suffered because of it. Now breathing was almost impossible and the cancer was going to kill him. Did he regret any part of his life or anything he did? No. What was the point? You do the best you can. There’s always someone telling you what you did was wrong, but there’s no such thing as being perfect.
Except for our mother, his first wife, was perfect. And I agreed with him.
He was looking better. To me, that meant the end was close, that short period of remission before death. Time to order up the priest to administer the last rights. He might have been a bastard and a crook, but he was also steadfastly religious.
“The jackals were in. Never saw a worse pair than those two. Their mother would be ashamed to call them hers.:
“No. She had a higher degree of tolerance than you. She expected more of me, like you, but they could do no wrong. In a way it was her fault they turned out the way they did. Are you sure you want to cut them out?”
“Teach them a lesson. They’re survivors. People like them always are. You can take pity on them if you want, but once you open the door you won’t be able to close it.
That conversation was different, but then so was the woman I was married to. Perhaps there was some sort of joke in this alternate universe, that my father just shunted all of his problems into me.
If the blue door was what I wanted rather than what I had, the red door was hell. I mean, it was a red door. What was I expecting?
The green door was all sweetness and light, everyone was sickly kind and thoughtful without a hint of discord and enmity. Even my father was the epitome of generosity and kindness.
Behind the brown door was a void. It was like stepping from the light into the dark. There was no one but the voices in my head, and if I’d stayed there too long, I would have gone mad.
That left the yellow door. There was a reason why I’d been dragged three ought each, leaning more about the people I knew or thought I did, and in an odd sort of way discovering more about myself.
I knew that I’d spent most of my life compromising, taking the easy way, doing what was expected of me and not what I wanted. I guess that was what life was meant to be like. So few of us ever got to do what we wanted, mainly because we couldn’t afford to, and that was basically it. Money ruled our lives.
I looked at that yellow door for a long time, believing it was going to be more of the same. A horrible father, obtuse relatives, greedy little sycophants who’d willingly sell their souls to the devil for 20 pieces of silver.
Did I want to see more about a life I should have had and didn’t get?
And there it was, the yellow door beckoning, and who was I to resist?
I opened the door and went in. It was a room, with a desk, two chairs on opposite sides of the table, and a sign on the back wall that said, “Please sit”. Below that was a two-way mirror, that only reflected one way.
An interview room in a police station?
Five minutes later a door opened beside the mirror and a woman came through.
My mother.
Or a very young version of her, before my memories of her started. I had not known she was so beautiful, or blonde.
I said nothing but watched her sit, then when settled, smiled.
“Well, Walt, this is a fine kettle of fish.”
Metaphors? Who was this woman?
“Why am I here, and just to be clear, you are my mother.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. This is your imagination, Walt, and I could be anyone. But, you have used a memory of your mother.”
“So, you do know about me?”
“More than I care to, but yes. You’ve come to a crossroads in your life, and you have to make a decision that will affect the rest of it. You can choose to live or you can choose to die. You’ve always made the right choice, Walk. Always. Quite often to your detriment, or to please others, while all the time suppressing your hopes, wishes and desires. Admiral but depressing.”
She was right. But it wasn’t that simple.
“I had no choice.”
‘You always had a choice, Walt. You just chose the most expedient. Like marrying Margaret rather than Margery. Of course, you knew that was a huge mistake. So did your father and I which is why we paid Margaret to steal you away before Margery’s bad ways destroyed you, like she was destroying herself. You loved Margery, I know, but love was never going to be enough. You needed solid and dependable. That was Margaret.”
“What else did you do?
“Too many to be listed. Just be assured we did it for your own good. And, fortunately, it had led you here, now. I guess if your father hadn’t been the bastard he was, we wouldn’t be here, but he was dependable like that. And lazy, leaving all his messes for you to fix up.”
“Like my bothers?”
“Nice boys, but utterly useless. We knew that from the moment they could speak. You were our only hope, Walt. Those two, all the love in the world was never going to fix them, and that’s apparent now in spades. You must look after them, Walt. Your father wouldn’t, but you are not your father.”
“Margaret?”
‘You’ve been planning to leave her. She’s financially independent and will have no claim on the inheritance. Like I said, we gave her a fortune, so you can leave. Find someone else.”
“Margery?”
“If you can find her. Last we knew of her whereabouts, it was a commune in Tibet, or on the side of a mountain.” She shrugged. “That PA of yours, Ms Pendle, she seems a good sort. “has a thing for you, too.”
Ms Pendle was a little too staid for me. But then, perhaps I was the same and didn’t realise it.
“Right, enough yammering Walk. Time to go.” She stood. “Just remember, the future, your future, is n your hands, no one else’s.”
I woke, in the same bed, in the same house, looking at the same roof, and when I looked on the other side of the bed, the same hidden form with a hand on the pillow.
I touched it, thinking it might be Margery, but it was Margaret.
I watched her wake and wondered if it was true, she had been paid to get me away from Margery.
“You were late in last night.”
“I was with my mistress.”
She snorted. “You, with a mistress?” She shook her head. “When did you become a comedian?”
I decided on a change of subject. “Did my parents pay you to get me away from Margery?”
The smile disappeared and a frown appeared on her face. “Who told you?”
“Mother, just before she died. Wanted to go with a clear conscience.”
She thought about what sort of answer to give me, then said, “It was the right thing to do. They wanted you to have a future, not flame out before you were 35. Margery would have killed you, Walt.”
“Well, your job is done. I made it. Today is the first day f the rest of my life, and while you may be in it, it will not be as my wife. I thank you for your service.”
“To be honest, I thought you’d divorce me long before this. I did love you, you know. I guess we just sort of grew out of love in the end.”
It seemed so, well, I had no idea what it seemed like.
“What are you going to do with the family?”
“Annuities. They live within their means or go to hell.”
“And you?”
“First day and all, Margaret. I have no idea.”
It was odd to discover Margaret had a case packed and ready to go, she had for a long time. Everything else she owned; she didn’t want. It would be, she said, like taking her memories with her, and she was past that.
We had a last breakfast together, one last kiss, and she was gone. No, she wasn’t parting with the Audi A5.
I was going to go into the office but decided not to, and instead called the lawyers and for the next hour told them what I wanted done.
Then, I went out onto the patio, put on some melancholy jazz, and stretched out in one of the sunbeds, my last thought before dozing off, was the endless possibilities of what I was going to do.
I was lost in a mist, going upriver in a boat, slowly wending towards the mountains. It had started out very warm, and the further inland we went the closer it got. I had the feeling I was not alone on the boat, the figures were indistinct shadows, flitting about in the background.
Then it started to rain, and I woke with a start.
I realized I was at home and the automated sprinkler system had started.
When I went to get up, I realised something or someone was holding my hand and a looked over.
Margery.
“What are you doing here?”
“My, my, Walt. I thought you would be more pleased to see me.”
“I am. But…”
” Margaret called me about a week ago. She told me what had happened all those years ago and apologised. She said you two were splitting up, and if I wanted to get first in line, I’d better get my butt home. I just knew she had something to do with splitting us up. Not that it wasn’t a good idea, I was in a bad place then.”
“Now?”
“Now I know better. And the best thing about it. We have a lot of years to catch up, perhaps it will take the rest of our lives. Never stopped loving you, Walt. Not for a minute.”
“Nor I you. I was just coming to find you.”
“Then everything is as it should be. Now, let’s get out from under these sprinklers before one or other, or both of us get pneumonia.”
Every year we bowed to the absurdity that Edward John Berkely bestowed upon us for that one week we all agreed to, somewhere back in the mists of time, for reasons now, no one could remember.
It took the form of Edward’s version of the Amazing Race, with 25 clues that took us to places we’d generally never been to before, each of us starting from our home city, and ending up in the same destination, the Empire State Building.
It was always that week beginning the first Saturday in December, and ran for a week, each day ending up in a particular hotel where the numbered clues for the next day would be delivered. The first day’s clues were delivered by email and told us when to start.
We also had a burner phone, delivered before the start, used to track each team, mostly so that we did not cheat. No one ever had, but perhaps that was due to having the phone. It was the only means of communication with Edward, along the way, in case of problems.
Elaborate, yes. Exciting, yes, in the beginning.
Last year, I had suffered a series of misfortunes and failed to finish, the first time, and I had told Edward I was no longer interested. So soon after the death of my wife, I didn’t want to go, but he cajoled me into it.
This year, when he sent the email to ask if I was participating, I told him I wasn’t. Without Jane, who loved the challenge of it more than I did, it seemed pointless, and when I didn’t hear back, I assumed my name had been struck off the list, and gave it no more thought.
As time passed life began to assume a form of normality. It might have taken less time if we had children, but that was not possible, and we accepted it. By myself in a big empty house, it took a while to realise all it did was shackle me to the past, and I had to move on.
There was nothing to keep where I was, our friends were great when there were the two of us, but not so much after she had passed. They came, gave their condolences, and then slowly stopped coming. They were mostly Jane’s friends, and I learned later, didn’t like her choice of husband, but tolerated me for the sake of her happiness.
On the other side of the country, I knew I could lose myself in a city as large as New York, and never run into anyone I’d known. I was happy to be by myself. At conferences, the six I attended around the country each year, they were people I knew and liked Jane, but she was not one of us. When she passed, that first conference was difficult.
Now, I was the one without a plus one, and had settled back into a bachelor’s existence, and, no, I was not interested in finding a replacement for Jane.
Of course, what we tell ourselves and what happens, in reality, are two entirely different things, particularly when a random chance meeting with an old friend I’d not seen for 20 years came out of that proverbial left field.
Mary-Anne Dawkins. Or at least that was the last name I knew her by.
The girl next door, the girl I grew up with, the girl I went through grade school, elementary school, and later, for a time, college. We never dated, it never got to that, but we were inseparable, always had each other’s back, and it had been a sad day when her parents decided to return home and took her and her brother with them.
That day broke my heart, for reasons, then I could not explain. Much later I realised she had been the love of my life, and the one that got away. And with the passing of time, I had almost forgotten her.
I saw her standing at the reception desk of the hotel I was staying for the latest conference when I returned to change for the dinner being held on the last day.
At least I thought it was her. When I stood beside her, and she turned to look in my direction, she simply smiled and ignored me. It was her smile, the one that reminded me of the cat who ate the canary. There were three attributes, the smile, the wavy hair, and the infectious giggle. All three were present in that girl beside me, an older version. But exactly how I would have expected her to age.
“Mary Anne Dawkins,” I said when she turned to go to her room.
She stopped. “Yes, once. It’s now Mary Anne Thomas. Do I know you?”
Interesting that she would not remember me. “My name is Gary Johnson. We used to be friends back in Saratoga.”
“Exactly when?”
I explained the relationship we had for over a dozen years, and that still didn’t register.
When she saw my puzzled expression she said, “Oh, sorry. I was in an accident about a year back, a bad one as it happens, and lost most of my memories before it happened. Basically, I was lying in the hospital with absolutely no idea who I was, where I came from, or what I did. You have no idea how scary that can be. Anyway, one of my friends recognised the photo in the paper and came to rescue me. If you were who you say you are, then if I had those memories, I would remember you, but, I’m sorry, I do not.”
And her point was, this would probably look like I was trying to hook up.
I shrugged. “Then I’m sorry to hear about what happened and will leave you in peace. It was nice to see you again, anyway, Mary Anne.”
Over the next hour or so I pondered the plight of people who lost their memories and what it must be like, waking up one morning and not knowing who you were.
Some people might be thankful given their circumstances. It only highlighted the fact my memories were intact, and sometimes I wished they weren’t because of how painful some were. My life had too many moments that inspired grief rather than rejoicing and seeing Mary Anne again had dragged a lot back to the surface.
Enough to make it impossible to go to the post-conference dinner. Feeling as miserable as I did then, I would not make good company.
Instead, I went down to the hotel restaurant and asked for a table in a corner and was going to have dinner on my own.
I was on my third drink when a familiar face appeared at the restaurant doorway, scanning the tables. Mary Anne. Was she looking for someone?
Our eyes met and moved on, but in a single moment, I felt a spark of regret.
A few minutes later a waiter came and asked me if she could join me for dinner, the restaurant was full, and she had not made a booking.
I shrugged. Why not? It would be like dining with a total stranger, which could be interesting, or just plain sad.
“Thank you for this. I was supposed to be dining with someone else, but they had to cancel. I didn’t fancy going elsewhere, and thought, well, you might tell me a little about myself.”
“Are you sure you’d want to do that? I would think it might be better to leave the old you behind and embrace the new you.”
She settled in the chair and ordered a drink. Those few minutes gave me time to glance at the older version of Mary Anne, and my mental vision of her didn’t match the physical version sitting opposite. She looked, to me, very sad.
“Someone else told me that, and I remember at the time, it might have had something to so with my past, something very bad. I wake up some mornings very frightened and have these bad dreams from time to time. The doctor said it might be just a result of the accident, but some of them are quite real.”
Perhaps that was what was driving the sadness. “I only knew you when you were a child, from grade school to the start of college. Without that friendship, I don’t think I might have achieved what I have over time.”
“Were we more than just friends, weren’t we? I feel that it might have been more. Another result of the accident is that I can sense things from people. The tenor of your voice conveys a depth of feeling. It also tells me you recently suffered a terrible loss. A wife?”
Or she could just see right through me. I’d never really recovered from losing Jane, and yes, being with her now, those feelings had resurfaced.
“My wife died about a year ago, and with you, I always suspected my feelings were one-sided. I never expressed them, and by the time I realised what they were, you were gone. A regret, yes, but we all learn to live with regrets and mistakes.”
It was a convenient moment for the waiter to arrive and take our order. I needed the time to reshelve those memories and change the subject.
“It has to be a monumental coincidence our being here at the same time. I’m at a law enforcement conference. You?”
It seemed odd saying it, law enforcement because it was not exactly true. I was not in a police or sheriff’s department, but something else. I just used the anonymous cover of working for the NYPD as a cover. I had once, earlier on, and people usually accepted it.
“I’m looking for a Xenolith”
She saw the curious expression on my face, and added, “A rock, a large rock.”
Inevitably I had to ask, “Why? Are you a geologist?”
“No. A travel guide of sorts. I work for a company that finds unusual things for travellers to do, or at the moment, elements of a tour that is like the Amazing Race. We have a client who does it once a year for his friends.”
“Edward Berkeley”
Her turn to be surprised. “You know him?”
“An old friend from school days.” And then it occurred to me, she would have known him had she had her memories, because we all used to hang out together, and another memory resurfaced, the fact he fancied her, and then a pang of jealousy, she fancied him.
This was too much of a coincidence. “Have you met him?”
“No. I was out of the office a few months back when he brought the list of places for us to look for. Oh, I see, would he have recognised me?”
“He did have a thing for you. I’ll be honest I was a little jealous, but his parents were very rich and I couldn’t compete.”
“One thing I remember is when they told me had come to the office just to see me, I got a very bad vibe. Conversely, here with you, it does seem familiar, and don’t get me wrong or write anything into it, I feel, for the first time, safe. It’s a very odd feeling to have, but perhaps it comes from our time together. I don’t know.”
Food was served, it was time to leave that and change the subject. I could see a change in her, one of confusion. I didn’t want to be the one that might bring back memories that had been taken from her for a reason.
It was something I’d read about once when dealing with head trauma, and bad things that happened to people. The mind, given an opportunity, just simply shut them out to protect.
Waiting for the next course, a bottle of wine was ordered and served, and the conversation moved on.
“What do you do in law enforcement?”
“Research. You know, you watch the TV shows and there’s this guy or girl behind a computer reeling off stuff relevant to the case. It doesn’t quite work like that, it’s sometimes a lot more difficult, but it’s more or less the job.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“I was asked to come and lead a session on the more obscure sources of information. Sometimes I think when I retire, I will be able to do family trees with my eyes closed. I researched mine, going all the way back to the people who came over from England.”
“Oh.”
The main course arrived, and it seemed to have an effect on her because she closed her eyes, put her hands on her forehead, and said, “Oh, no. Oh, God no, no, no…”
And then passed out.
It was three days before she woke.
I had tried to find if there was any significant person in her life that should know what happened but found nothing on her, nor in her room. Other than her name on the booking form, the fact she had paid herself, she had paid cash and had no credit cards or driver’s licence, or any documentation to verify who she was.
I knew her as Mary Anne Dawkins and tried to trace her that way, but her identity disappeared after she left my hometown. No Mary Ann Dawkins from there could be traced, nor her parents.
It was like she had appeared out of thin air.
With no one else available, and with the permission of the local police force, I stayed with her, and would until she woke when we could get answers to the mystery.
It was a relief when she opened her eyes. Those first few seconds when there would be disorientation, showed through the surprise, then fear in her expression. Then she saw me, and I wanted to believe it was a smile, but it might have been something else. I was holding her hand at the time.
“Gary, Gary Johnson, of Saratoga, yes? I know you, don’t I.”
“The same.” OK, what just happened? The girl I’d seen before didn’t have a clue who I was. Could that have been an act? If it was it was very convincing.
“What are you doing here? Where am I. by the way? A hospital, yes. I had an accident though I don’t remember anything of it. T-boned in a taxi on the way to the airport? Hey, I was coming to see you…”
“Whoa.” This was getting freakish. Had she just come out of the fog left behind by the accident, and time had stood still for, what, a year? I asked her, “What day is it?”
“October 7th, 2021.”
“Actually, it’s March 23rd 2023.”
“Oh my God. What the hell? Have I been in a coma all this time? How is it possible to lose that much time?”
At that point, the doctor and nursing staff came in and took command of her, and I was relegated to the passage, on the outside looking in. I watched her go through a dozen different states of mind and the gamut of emotions until finally, she had settled, and I was allowed back.
I just sat down when she reached out and grabbed my hand and held it tightly.
“You have to do something for me. It might sound very weird, but believe me, it’s very important because if you don’t, he might succeed in finishing what he started out, killing me.”
“Who?”
“James Fordsburg. You would remember the Fordsburg case; the family were funnelling finds into a private army with the intention of staging a coup and taking over the country. They had property in remote places that were discovered to be training camps, munition dumps, an airport with fighter planes.”
I remembered it. The closest we ever came to civil war again.
“The reason why we left in a hurry. My father worked for the Fordsburgs. He found out what was going on and became a whistleblower. The case never made it to court, the Fordsburgs killed themselves, along with the top military people. What you and everyone else didn’t know was the was a junior Fordsburg, but he did use that name, he used his maternal family name, Berkeley, and his name, Edward Berkeley.
“He never stopped searching. He killed my father, mother and brother, even if the police still say it was an accident, and he’s never stopped looking for me. I then got the idea if I found you, you would know what to do and tracked you down. I spoke to Jane. When I explained who I was, she said she would tell you. Anyway, a year ago, he found me, and I just managed to get away, get a car, and come to see you. I was on my way to the airport, and here I am 18 months later, the message finally delivered.”
It was an amazing tale. If it was true, then Fordsburg the younger would be on the wanted list. That Edward was this Fordsburg, that was a little harder to come to terms with.
“OK. You know I have to check the facts, and that means leaving you here, but I will arrange for protection.”
I heard the door to the room close behind me, and a voice say, “That won’t be necessary, Gary. I can take it from here.”
I heard Mary Anne gasp. I turned around and saw Edward in a county Sherriff’s uniform.
“I don’t know what tales she’s been telling you, Gary, but all of it is in her imagination.”
“So you’re not a Fordsburg?”
“Me? No. You know who I am, Garry. The middle of the road, invisible guy, with rich parents that made my life miserable.”
“I’m not made,” Mary Anne said. “He’s dangerous, and we will not leave this room alive.”
I was inclined to agree with her. He was behaving oddly, like he was strung out, and trying to keep a lid on it. That made him highly unpredictable.
I stood and turned to face him.
“Be careful Garry. No sudden moves. I hope you’re not buying into this tissue of lies.”
No, but I was playing for time. The fact he was in the room meant he had got rid of the guard at the door. It was possible the doctor might come back, and equally possible he might be momentarily distracted.
As I was thinking that he had drawn his weapon, I had to assume the safety was off.
“No need for guns, Ed. I’m not a threat. Nor is Mary Anne. Not if what you say is true.”
The next thing that happened was a loud clanging sound which was the distraction I needed, but it didn’t quite turn out the way I expected. Yes, I got to him, yes, I partially neutralised the gun, and yes, in the scuffle that followed the weapon discharged.
Every year we bowed to the absurdity that Edward John Berkely bestowed upon us for that one week we all agreed to, somewhere back in the mists of time, for reasons now, no one could remember.
It took the form of Edward’s version of the Amazing Race, with 25 clues that took us to places we’d generally never been to before, each of us starting from our home city, and ending up in the same destination, the Empire State Building.
It was always that week beginning the first Saturday in December, and ran for a week, each day ending up in a particular hotel where the numbered clues for the next day would be delivered. The first day’s clues were delivered by email and told us when to start.
We also had a burner phone, delivered before the start, used to track each team, mostly so that we did not cheat. No one ever had, but perhaps that was due to having the phone. It was the only means of communication with Edward, along the way, in case of problems.
Elaborate, yes. Exciting, yes, in the beginning.
Last year, I had suffered a series of misfortunes and failed to finish, the first time, and I had told Edward I was no longer interested. So soon after the death of my wife, I didn’t want to go, but he cajoled me into it.
This year, when he sent the email to ask if I was participating, I told him I wasn’t. Without Jane, who loved the challenge of it more than I did, it seemed pointless, and when I didn’t hear back, I assumed my name had been struck off the list, and gave it no more thought.
As time passed life began to assume a form of normality. It might have taken less time if we had children, but that was not possible, and we accepted it. By myself in a big empty house, it took a while to realise all it did was shackle me to the past, and I had to move on.
There was nothing to keep where I was, our friends were great when there were the two of us, but not so much after she had passed. They came, gave their condolences, and then slowly stopped coming. They were mostly Jane’s friends, and I learned later, didn’t like her choice of husband, but tolerated me for the sake of her happiness.
On the other side of the country, I knew I could lose myself in a city as large as New York, and never run into anyone I’d known. I was happy to be by myself. At conferences, the six I attended around the country each year, they were people I knew and liked Jane, but she was not one of us. When she passed, that first conference was difficult.
Now, I was the one without a plus one, and had settled back into a bachelor’s existence, and, no, I was not interested in finding a replacement for Jane.
Of course, what we tell ourselves and what happens, in reality, are two entirely different things, particularly when a random chance meeting with an old friend I’d not seen for 20 years came out of that proverbial left field.
Mary-Anne Dawkins. Or at least that was the last name I knew her by.
The girl next door, the girl I grew up with, the girl I went through grade school, elementary school, and later, for a time, college. We never dated, it never got to that, but we were inseparable, always had each other’s back, and it had been a sad day when her parents decided to return home and took her and her brother with them.
That day broke my heart, for reasons, then I could not explain. Much later I realised she had been the love of my life, and the one that got away. And with the passing of time, I had almost forgotten her.
I saw her standing at the reception desk of the hotel I was staying for the latest conference when I returned to change for the dinner being held on the last day.
At least I thought it was her. When I stood beside her, and she turned to look in my direction, she simply smiled and ignored me. It was her smile, the one that reminded me of the cat who ate the canary. There were three attributes, the smile, the wavy hair, and the infectious giggle. All three were present in that girl beside me, an older version. But exactly how I would have expected her to age.
“Mary Anne Dawkins,” I said when she turned to go to her room.
She stopped. “Yes, once. It’s now Mary Anne Thomas. Do I know you?”
Interesting that she would not remember me. “My name is Gary Johnson. We used to be friends back in Saratoga.”
“Exactly when?”
I explained the relationship we had for over a dozen years, and that still didn’t register.
When she saw my puzzled expression she said, “Oh, sorry. I was in an accident about a year back, a bad one as it happens, and lost most of my memories before it happened. Basically, I was lying in the hospital with absolutely no idea who I was, where I came from, or what I did. You have no idea how scary that can be. Anyway, one of my friends recognised the photo in the paper and came to rescue me. If you were who you say you are, then if I had those memories, I would remember you, but, I’m sorry, I do not.”
And her point was, this would probably look like I was trying to hook up.
I shrugged. “Then I’m sorry to hear about what happened and will leave you in peace. It was nice to see you again, anyway, Mary Anne.”
Over the next hour or so I pondered the plight of people who lost their memories and what it must be like, waking up one morning and not knowing who you were.
Some people might be thankful given their circumstances. It only highlighted the fact my memories were intact, and sometimes I wished they weren’t because of how painful some were. My life had too many moments that inspired grief rather than rejoicing and seeing Mary Anne again had dragged a lot back to the surface.
Enough to make it impossible to go to the post-conference dinner. Feeling as miserable as I did then, I would not make good company.
Instead, I went down to the hotel restaurant and asked for a table in a corner and was going to have dinner on my own.
I was on my third drink when a familiar face appeared at the restaurant doorway, scanning the tables. Mary Anne. Was she looking for someone?
Our eyes met and moved on, but in a single moment, I felt a spark of regret.
A few minutes later a waiter came and asked me if she could join me for dinner, the restaurant was full, and she had not made a booking.
I shrugged. Why not? It would be like dining with a total stranger, which could be interesting, or just plain sad.
“Thank you for this. I was supposed to be dining with someone else, but they had to cancel. I didn’t fancy going elsewhere, and thought, well, you might tell me a little about myself.”
“Are you sure you’d want to do that? I would think it might be better to leave the old you behind and embrace the new you.”
She settled in the chair and ordered a drink. Those few minutes gave me time to glance at the older version of Mary Anne, and my mental vision of her didn’t match the physical version sitting opposite. She looked, to me, very sad.
“Someone else told me that, and I remember at the time, it might have had something to so with my past, something very bad. I wake up some mornings very frightened and have these bad dreams from time to time. The doctor said it might be just a result of the accident, but some of them are quite real.”
Perhaps that was what was driving the sadness. “I only knew you when you were a child, from grade school to the start of college. Without that friendship, I don’t think I might have achieved what I have over time.”
“Were we more than just friends, weren’t we? I feel that it might have been more. Another result of the accident is that I can sense things from people. The tenor of your voice conveys a depth of feeling. It also tells me you recently suffered a terrible loss. A wife?”
Or she could just see right through me. I’d never really recovered from losing Jane, and yes, being with her now, those feelings had resurfaced.
“My wife died about a year ago, and with you, I always suspected my feelings were one-sided. I never expressed them, and by the time I realised what they were, you were gone. A regret, yes, but we all learn to live with regrets and mistakes.”
It was a convenient moment for the waiter to arrive and take our order. I needed the time to reshelve those memories and change the subject.
“It has to be a monumental coincidence our being here at the same time. I’m at a law enforcement conference. You?”
It seemed odd saying it, law enforcement because it was not exactly true. I was not in a police or sheriff’s department, but something else. I just used the anonymous cover of working for the NYPD as a cover. I had once, earlier on, and people usually accepted it.
“I’m looking for a Xenolith”
She saw the curious expression on my face, and added, “A rock, a large rock.”
Inevitably I had to ask, “Why? Are you a geologist?”
“No. A travel guide of sorts. I work for a company that finds unusual things for travellers to do, or at the moment, elements of a tour that is like the Amazing Race. We have a client who does it once a year for his friends.”
“Edward Berkeley”
Her turn to be surprised. “You know him?”
“An old friend from school days.” And then it occurred to me, she would have known him had she had her memories, because we all used to hang out together, and another memory resurfaced, the fact he fancied her, and then a pang of jealousy, she fancied him.
This was too much of a coincidence. “Have you met him?”
“No. I was out of the office a few months back when he brought the list of places for us to look for. Oh, I see, would he have recognised me?”
“He did have a thing for you. I’ll be honest I was a little jealous, but his parents were very rich and I couldn’t compete.”
“One thing I remember is when they told me had come to the office just to see me, I got a very bad vibe. Conversely, here with you, it does seem familiar, and don’t get me wrong or write anything into it, I feel, for the first time, safe. It’s a very odd feeling to have, but perhaps it comes from our time together. I don’t know.”
Food was served, it was time to leave that and change the subject. I could see a change in her, one of confusion. I didn’t want to be the one that might bring back memories that had been taken from her for a reason.
It was something I’d read about once when dealing with head trauma, and bad things that happened to people. The mind, given an opportunity, just simply shut them out to protect.
Waiting for the next course, a bottle of wine was ordered and served, and the conversation moved on.
“What do you do in law enforcement?”
“Research. You know, you watch the TV shows and there’s this guy or girl behind a computer reeling off stuff relevant to the case. It doesn’t quite work like that, it’s sometimes a lot more difficult, but it’s more or less the job.”
“That’s why you’re here?”
“I was asked to come and lead a session on the more obscure sources of information. Sometimes I think when I retire, I will be able to do family trees with my eyes closed. I researched mine, going all the way back to the people who came over from England.”
“Oh.”
The main course arrived, and it seemed to have an effect on her because she closed her eyes, put her hands on her forehead, and said, “Oh, no. Oh, God no, no, no…”
And then passed out.
It was three days before she woke.
I had tried to find if there was any significant person in her life that should know what happened but found nothing on her, nor in her room. Other than her name on the booking form, the fact she had paid herself, she had paid cash and had no credit cards or driver’s licence, or any documentation to verify who she was.
I knew her as Mary Anne Dawkins and tried to trace her that way, but her identity disappeared after she left my hometown. No Mary Ann Dawkins from there could be traced, nor her parents.
It was like she had appeared out of thin air.
With no one else available, and with the permission of the local police force, I stayed with her, and would until she woke when we could get answers to the mystery.
It was a relief when she opened her eyes. Those first few seconds when there would be disorientation, showed through the surprise, then fear in her expression. Then she saw me, and I wanted to believe it was a smile, but it might have been something else. I was holding her hand at the time.
“Gary, Gary Johnson, of Saratoga, yes? I know you, don’t I.”
“The same.” OK, what just happened? The girl I’d seen before didn’t have a clue who I was. Could that have been an act? If it was it was very convincing.
“What are you doing here? Where am I. by the way? A hospital, yes. I had an accident though I don’t remember anything of it. T-boned in a taxi on the way to the airport? Hey, I was coming to see you…”
“Whoa.” This was getting freakish. Had she just come out of the fog left behind by the accident, and time had stood still for, what, a year? I asked her, “What day is it?”
“October 7th, 2021.”
“Actually, it’s March 23rd 2023.”
“Oh my God. What the hell? Have I been in a coma all this time? How is it possible to lose that much time?”
At that point, the doctor and nursing staff came in and took command of her, and I was relegated to the passage, on the outside looking in. I watched her go through a dozen different states of mind and the gamut of emotions until finally, she had settled, and I was allowed back.
I just sat down when she reached out and grabbed my hand and held it tightly.
“You have to do something for me. It might sound very weird, but believe me, it’s very important because if you don’t, he might succeed in finishing what he started out, killing me.”
“Who?”
“James Fordsburg. You would remember the Fordsburg case; the family were funnelling finds into a private army with the intention of staging a coup and taking over the country. They had property in remote places that were discovered to be training camps, munition dumps, an airport with fighter planes.”
I remembered it. The closest we ever came to civil war again.
“The reason why we left in a hurry. My father worked for the Fordsburgs. He found out what was going on and became a whistleblower. The case never made it to court, the Fordsburgs killed themselves, along with the top military people. What you and everyone else didn’t know was the was a junior Fordsburg, but he did use that name, he used his maternal family name, Berkeley, and his name, Edward Berkeley.
“He never stopped searching. He killed my father, mother and brother, even if the police still say it was an accident, and he’s never stopped looking for me. I then got the idea if I found you, you would know what to do and tracked you down. I spoke to Jane. When I explained who I was, she said she would tell you. Anyway, a year ago, he found me, and I just managed to get away, get a car, and come to see you. I was on my way to the airport, and here I am 18 months later, the message finally delivered.”
It was an amazing tale. If it was true, then Fordsburg the younger would be on the wanted list. That Edward was this Fordsburg, that was a little harder to come to terms with.
“OK. You know I have to check the facts, and that means leaving you here, but I will arrange for protection.”
I heard the door to the room close behind me, and a voice say, “That won’t be necessary, Gary. I can take it from here.”
I heard Mary Anne gasp. I turned around and saw Edward in a county Sherriff’s uniform.
“I don’t know what tales she’s been telling you, Gary, but all of it is in her imagination.”
“So you’re not a Fordsburg?”
“Me? No. You know who I am, Garry. The middle of the road, invisible guy, with rich parents that made my life miserable.”
“I’m not made,” Mary Anne said. “He’s dangerous, and we will not leave this room alive.”
I was inclined to agree with her. He was behaving oddly, like he was strung out, and trying to keep a lid on it. That made him highly unpredictable.
I stood and turned to face him.
“Be careful Garry. No sudden moves. I hope you’re not buying into this tissue of lies.”
No, but I was playing for time. The fact he was in the room meant he had got rid of the guard at the door. It was possible the doctor might come back, and equally possible he might be momentarily distracted.
As I was thinking that he had drawn his weapon, I had to assume the safety was off.
“No need for guns, Ed. I’m not a threat. Nor is Mary Anne. Not if what you say is true.”
The next thing that happened was a loud clanging sound which was the distraction I needed, but it didn’t quite turn out the way I expected. Yes, I got to him, yes, I partially neutralised the gun, and yes, in the scuffle that followed the weapon discharged.
“And tell me again,” Will said, “just why are we out here at two in the morning?”
It was not lost on him that a minute or so before they had passed a sign proclaiming they had crossed into Wild Horse Mountain territory, and moments later, a sign with a horse on it.
It explained the empty horse box they’d brought along, and the earlier statement by his friend Chad, that he was planning to catch a brumby and break it.
Chad was full of good ideas like that, especially after a dozen drinks.
“We’re on an adventure, Billy boy. Just roll with it.”
Last adventure I’d just rolled with saw us explaining to Sherriff Daley why we shouldn’t be locked up and the key thrown away.
“I’m trying, but seriously, you brought Charlene?”
Charlene was Chad’s latest girlfriend and the one, he said. So were Fergie, and Donna, and, well, I forgot the last one; she had lasted almost a week. But this one had lasted longer than the others, and I detected that same devil-may-care attitude in her. I put that down to the fact she was the daughter of the town preacher.
“She wanted to see what we get up to. The girl’s got an adventurous streak. What can I say?”
No, for starters. I doubt her family would be happily bailing her out of jail. Maybe with her along he might show a bit more common sense.
He slowed, then turning at the slip road, stopped in front of a locked gate where there was a road leading into the forest, and a sign saying that only authorised personnel could pass.
“Is this private land?” I asked.
“Forest service. Government land. The sign’s there to keep the fools out.” He held up a key. “My uncle knows a man who knows a ranger who says so long as we don’t kill anything it’s fine.”
“And you’re thinking catching a wild horse is going to be easy? I assume that’s what we’re here for?”
“I thought I explained that earlier. How hard can it be? I watched a video on YouTube and it’s easy. We’ve both been on a cattle drive and passed with flying colours. Just think of it as catching a bull, only a little larger, but no horns.”
I think trying to do that at night and in the dark might be slightly more complicated than he’s considered, and, as for having the skills necessary, back then there were a half dozen experienced cowboys there to back us up.
I shrugged; there was no changing his mind once it was made up. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I muttered under my breath.
“Exactly.” He handed me the key and I got out.
I looked back and could see Charlene acting a lot more animated than before, so maybe she was on board with this crazy scheme.
I unlocked the gate, opened it, waited until he drove through, and then closed and locked it behind me.
The discussion between Charlene and Chad was still going on when I got back in. From the part I heard it seems she thought he was taking her to a secret lookout, not go brumby hunting, and him saying they could do both. I got the impression she was not keen on catching a horse.
Whatever happened, it was going to be an interesting few hours.
Chad was the sort of person who when everything was going great and everyone was on board with his scheme, it was fine. When the hiccups in the master plan started to happen, that’s when things start to fall apart.
After an hour’s slow crawl through the forest over a track that gave the pickup and following trailer a good workout, Charlene was losing interest.
So was I, but I’d learned not to express my sentiments.
“So,” she said, “where are these horses?”
“Here. They’re everywhere, they’re always running all over the place.”
Except they were not. Not tonight anyway. And just then I remembered reading that the county administration had decided it was time to move the horses on so they could carve out a chunk of land for camping, hunting and fishing. The conservationists were up in arms, the hunters were rubbing their hands in glee, and the campers were saying fools with guns were an accident waiting to happen.
A loud bank and what sounded like a gunshot hitting the side of the horse float was enough for Chad to stop, douse the lights and kill the engine. I disabled the lights that went on when the doors opened.
Suddenly it was dead silent. I was sure I could hear my heart beating.
Then, the silence was broken by another shot, so loud we all jumped.
I was first out of the pickup, just in case they were shooting at us. That prompted, in the next breath, who was shooting at us, and why?
Chad and Charlene came around to join me.
“What the hell just happened?” Chad asked.
“Gunshots. Perhaps the hunters have decided not to wait until they got county approval. We’ll have to tell the sheriff, get on his good side. We just need to find out who they are.”
No need. A minute or so later there was yelling carried on the night air.
“What the hell are you doing. The boss said no advertising our presence.”
“I saw a car.”
“It’s the main track and there’s going to be cars. Get back to the camp, and you want to hope whoever you shot at doesn’t call the sheriff.”
I looked at Chad. “We’ll wait a few minutes then get moving again.”
“What’s going on?” A visibly shaken Charlene wasn’t too happy about what had just happened.
I could have told her that a night out with Chad provided enough excitement for a week. Things always seemed to happen around him.
“Hunting season started early,” Chad said.
“We’re not going to get shot are we?”
“No.” Chad sounded positive, but there was no way we could know what those people were doing.
I got up and checked the horse float for bullet holes and instead saw a scrape along the side made by an overhanging branch. There was no sign of a bullet hole, but it didn’t explain the loud bang we all heard.
When I came back, I said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Another half hour passed in silence until we came out of the forest into a clearing that was visible in the twilight, a cloudless sky and full moon giving the whole area a strange eerie feeling.
Chad drove on the track that skirted the open area and stopped by a dilapidated hut. Lights off and engine off, once out of the car the silence was rather strange to a person who lived in the city where there was constant noise.
Chad had a rough hand-drawn map he got from a friend of a friend, that looked a lot like the clearing with a hut exactly where we had stopped. It was as much of it as I remembered until she spread it out over the bonnet of the car.
He then switched on the light of his phone.
We gathered around like conspirators.
“We’re here.” He pointed to the X that marked the hut. His finger then followed the track around further to a point where a lake bordered the clearing, with another X. “A watering hole for the wildlife, and quite often where the horses come. This whole clearing is where they gather.”
Gather they might, but not tonight. It was light enough to see the edges of the clearing, the forest beyond, and the shimmering surface of the lake in the distance. It was enough to see nothing was stirring.
“Perhaps,” Charlene said, “they knew we were coming.” There was no mistaking the sardonic tone.
Maybe she had already been on one of his wild goose chases. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
The silence was broken by the sound of a horse, coming from the direction of the lake.
“Maybe not.”
We turned to look, and the first thing I saw was a horse, yes, but there was a rider on it. Followed by another, and another, until at least ten came out of the forest and into the open.
Nightriders?
“What the hell…” I heard Charlene mutter.
Perhaps against a dark background, they hadn’t seen us. Or they had and were ignoring us. They stopped for what looked like a short drink break then continued to follow what must have been a path across the shoreline of the lake, and within a few minutes had disappeared into the forest.
“Local tourist adventure rides up to the lookout at night where they look at the stars,” Chad said.
“And you know this…” Charlene sounded like she would have preferred that to what Chad was taking us on now.
So would I, if I had a choice.
“Is the lookout accessible by car?” I asked, now getting the feeling it wasn’t.
“A 4×4 maybe, but the most direct route and easiest is by horse. But we’re not here to look at the stars. I’m going down to the lake. You two?”
“I’m staying here,” Charles said, shivering.
I could tell she wanted to go home but was too afraid to say anything. And by her body language, I didn’t think this relationship between her and Chad was going to last much longer.
“Then stay with her Mike. I won’t be long.”
With that, he headed off towards the lake.
“He’s stark staring mad,” she said when he was out of earshot.
“Chad had some crazy ideas sometimes, but his heart is in the right place. At least with him, what you see is what you get?”
“You think? What’s your excuse?”
“Being here? He’s helped me get through some rough times. My parents were killed in an accident when I was 13. He convinced his parents I should stay with them because otherwise I’d finish up in the foster care system, and they did. I guess I’m the little brother he never had. What about you?”
“Sad story, I needed someone to teach me to line dance. He made it fun. This isn’t.”
“Why’d you agree to come?”
“I thought we were going to the lookout, at least that’s how he sold it. Not catching horses. Can he even ride a horse?”
“His uncle has a ranch with cattle. We’ve been going there mustering every year for what seems like a lifetime.”
“He asked me to go with him this year.”
“Then do. I could do with a break, go to the city, see what I’m not missing.”
The surrounding silence closed in on us as the conversation dries up. Talking to girls was not my forte.
“He’s taking a long time,” Charlene said about ten minutes later.
It mirrored my own thought. How long could it take to walk to the water’s edge, see there was nothing to be found, and come back.
A loud bang, like the sound of a rifle, punctured the stillness.
“Was that…?” She said.
“A gunshot? Sounded like it.”
I went over to the back of the car and pulled out the rifle Chad carried with him, hidden under the seat. It surprised me the first time I discovered he travelled around with a gun. It wasn’t loaded, but it didn’t take long to load. I put some extra bullets in my pocket, just in case.
“You coming?” I asked. If anything happened to her, I knew Chad would be angry. “If someone is out there shooting people, it’s not s good idea to be here alone.”
She didn’t need to be asked twice.
“You know how to use that?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Coyotes.”
We both stayed on the track skirting the open space, just to make it harder for anyone likely to be aiming at us until we reached the knoll above the lake. It was the one place where, if there was a shooter. we would be most vulnerable. Neither of us stayed there for longer than a second, perhaps two, before heading down the 50 yards to the water’s edge. A quick scan showed no sign of Chad.
At the water’s edge, she said, “Where is he? If this is one of his games, then I don’t like it.”
I knew Chad, and I also knew he was capable of pulling a stunt like this. If he was, I was going to be very annoyed.
Facing the knoll, I heard a soft splashing sound behind me and turned.
Chad.
He was not more than 20 yards out in the water, face down.
“Damn.”
I dropped the rifle and headed into the water, swimming the last few yards, but I knew, the moment I reached him, he was dead. The hole in the side of his head was unmistakable. I brought him back to the shore and dragged him above the water line, then checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
Then I realised Charlene was not there, where I’d left her, but further along the beach. She had picked up the rifle, and by the way she was carrying it, she knew how to use it. Had she heard something?
Behind her, one of the horsemen arrived with a riderless horse and stopped next to her.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I was hoping it wasn’t what it looked like.
“This has nothing to do with you, Mike. Justice has been served.”
Justice? What justice? What had Chad done to deserve a death like this?
“Amy Potterdam. Just because you own the law in this County doesn’t mean you can get away with murder.”
Amy Potterdam? All I could remember about that was a girl had died in unusual circumstances at a party he had attended, if only briefly. Someone had claimed that he had given the girl the spiked drink that eventually killed her, but witnesses and evidence had proven otherwise. The fact his father was the County Sherriff had no bearing.
I watched her climb up on the horse and take the reins. I stood and started walking towards her. “This is wrong.”
“Don’t come any closer, or I will shoot you.”
I didn’t stop. I didn’t know what I was going to do, or if there was anything I could do. I just knew I had to try.
They say you don’t hear the bullet that has your name on it.
“And tell me again,” Will said, “just why are we out here at two in the morning?”
It was not lost on him that a minute or so before they had passed a sign proclaiming they had crossed into Wild Horse Mountain territory, and moments later, a sign with a horse on it.
It explained the empty horse box they’d brought along, and the earlier statement by his friend Chad, that he was planning to catch a brumby and break it.
Chad was full of good ideas like that, especially after a dozen drinks.
“We’re on an adventure, Billy boy. Just roll with it.”
Last adventure I’d just rolled with saw us explaining to Sherriff Daley why we shouldn’t be locked up and the key thrown away.
“I’m trying, but seriously, you brought Charlene?”
Charlene was Chad’s latest girlfriend and the one, he said. So were Fergie, and Donna, and, well, I forgot the last one; she had lasted almost a week. But this one had lasted longer than the others, and I detected that same devil-may-care attitude in her. I put that down to the fact she was the daughter of the town preacher.
“She wanted to see what we get up to. The girl’s got an adventurous streak. What can I say?”
No, for starters. I doubt her family would be happily bailing her out of jail. Maybe with her along he might show a bit more common sense.
He slowed, then turning at the slip road, stopped in front of a locked gate where there was a road leading into the forest, and a sign saying that only authorised personnel could pass.
“Is this private land?” I asked.
“Forest service. Government land. The sign’s there to keep the fools out.” He held up a key. “My uncle knows a man who knows a ranger who says so long as we don’t kill anything it’s fine.”
“And you’re thinking catching a wild horse is going to be easy? I assume that’s what we’re here for?”
“I thought I explained that earlier. How hard can it be? I watched a video on YouTube and it’s easy. We’ve both been on a cattle drive and passed with flying colours. Just think of it as catching a bull, only a little larger, but no horns.”
I think trying to do that at night and in the dark might be slightly more complicated than he’s considered, and, as for having the skills necessary, back then there were a half dozen experienced cowboys there to back us up.
I shrugged; there was no changing his mind once it was made up. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I muttered under my breath.
“Exactly.” He handed me the key and I got out.
I looked back and could see Charlene acting a lot more animated than before, so maybe she was on board with this crazy scheme.
I unlocked the gate, opened it, waited until he drove through, and then closed and locked it behind me.
The discussion between Charlene and Chad was still going on when I got back in. From the part I heard it seems she thought he was taking her to a secret lookout, not go brumby hunting, and him saying they could do both. I got the impression she was not keen on catching a horse.
Whatever happened, it was going to be an interesting few hours.
Chad was the sort of person who when everything was going great and everyone was on board with his scheme, it was fine. When the hiccups in the master plan started to happen, that’s when things start to fall apart.
After an hour’s slow crawl through the forest over a track that gave the pickup and following trailer a good workout, Charlene was losing interest.
So was I, but I’d learned not to express my sentiments.
“So,” she said, “where are these horses?”
“Here. They’re everywhere, they’re always running all over the place.”
Except they were not. Not tonight anyway. And just then I remembered reading that the county administration had decided it was time to move the horses on so they could carve out a chunk of land for camping, hunting and fishing. The conservationists were up in arms, the hunters were rubbing their hands in glee, and the campers were saying fools with guns were an accident waiting to happen.
A loud bank and what sounded like a gunshot hitting the side of the horse float was enough for Chad to stop, douse the lights and kill the engine. I disabled the lights that went on when the doors opened.
Suddenly it was dead silent. I was sure I could hear my heart beating.
Then, the silence was broken by another shot, so loud we all jumped.
I was first out of the pickup, just in case they were shooting at us. That prompted, in the next breath, who was shooting at us, and why?
Chad and Charlene came around to join me.
“What the hell just happened?” Chad asked.
“Gunshots. Perhaps the hunters have decided not to wait until they got county approval. We’ll have to tell the sheriff, get on his good side. We just need to find out who they are.”
No need. A minute or so later there was yelling carried on the night air.
“What the hell are you doing. The boss said no advertising our presence.”
“I saw a car.”
“It’s the main track and there’s going to be cars. Get back to the camp, and you want to hope whoever you shot at doesn’t call the sheriff.”
I looked at Chad. “We’ll wait a few minutes then get moving again.”
“What’s going on?” A visibly shaken Charlene wasn’t too happy about what had just happened.
I could have told her that a night out with Chad provided enough excitement for a week. Things always seemed to happen around him.
“Hunting season started early,” Chad said.
“We’re not going to get shot are we?”
“No.” Chad sounded positive, but there was no way we could know what those people were doing.
I got up and checked the horse float for bullet holes and instead saw a scrape along the side made by an overhanging branch. There was no sign of a bullet hole, but it didn’t explain the loud bang we all heard.
When I came back, I said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Another half hour passed in silence until we came out of the forest into a clearing that was visible in the twilight, a cloudless sky and full moon giving the whole area a strange eerie feeling.
Chad drove on the track that skirted the open area and stopped by a dilapidated hut. Lights off and engine off, once out of the car the silence was rather strange to a person who lived in the city where there was constant noise.
Chad had a rough hand-drawn map he got from a friend of a friend, that looked a lot like the clearing with a hut exactly where we had stopped. It was as much of it as I remembered until she spread it out over the bonnet of the car.
He then switched on the light of his phone.
We gathered around like conspirators.
“We’re here.” He pointed to the X that marked the hut. His finger then followed the track around further to a point where a lake bordered the clearing, with another X. “A watering hole for the wildlife, and quite often where the horses come. This whole clearing is where they gather.”
Gather they might, but not tonight. It was light enough to see the edges of the clearing, the forest beyond, and the shimmering surface of the lake in the distance. It was enough to see nothing was stirring.
“Perhaps,” Charlene said, “they knew we were coming.” There was no mistaking the sardonic tone.
Maybe she had already been on one of his wild goose chases. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
The silence was broken by the sound of a horse, coming from the direction of the lake.
“Maybe not.”
We turned to look, and the first thing I saw was a horse, yes, but there was a rider on it. Followed by another, and another, until at least ten came out of the forest and into the open.
Nightriders?
“What the hell…” I heard Charlene mutter.
Perhaps against a dark background, they hadn’t seen us. Or they had and were ignoring us. They stopped for what looked like a short drink break then continued to follow what must have been a path across the shoreline of the lake, and within a few minutes had disappeared into the forest.
“Local tourist adventure rides up to the lookout at night where they look at the stars,” Chad said.
“And you know this…” Charlene sounded like she would have preferred that to what Chad was taking us on now.
So would I, if I had a choice.
“Is the lookout accessible by car?” I asked, now getting the feeling it wasn’t.
“A 4×4 maybe, but the most direct route and easiest is by horse. But we’re not here to look at the stars. I’m going down to the lake. You two?”
“I’m staying here,” Charles said, shivering.
I could tell she wanted to go home but was too afraid to say anything. And by her body language, I didn’t think this relationship between her and Chad was going to last much longer.
“Then stay with her Mike. I won’t be long.”
With that, he headed off towards the lake.
“He’s stark staring mad,” she said when he was out of earshot.
“Chad had some crazy ideas sometimes, but his heart is in the right place. At least with him, what you see is what you get?”
“You think? What’s your excuse?”
“Being here? He’s helped me get through some rough times. My parents were killed in an accident when I was 13. He convinced his parents I should stay with them because otherwise I’d finish up in the foster care system, and they did. I guess I’m the little brother he never had. What about you?”
“Sad story, I needed someone to teach me to line dance. He made it fun. This isn’t.”
“Why’d you agree to come?”
“I thought we were going to the lookout, at least that’s how he sold it. Not catching horses. Can he even ride a horse?”
“His uncle has a ranch with cattle. We’ve been going there mustering every year for what seems like a lifetime.”
“He asked me to go with him this year.”
“Then do. I could do with a break, go to the city, see what I’m not missing.”
The surrounding silence closed in on us as the conversation dries up. Talking to girls was not my forte.
“He’s taking a long time,” Charlene said about ten minutes later.
It mirrored my own thought. How long could it take to walk to the water’s edge, see there was nothing to be found, and come back.
A loud bang, like the sound of a rifle, punctured the stillness.
“Was that…?” She said.
“A gunshot? Sounded like it.”
I went over to the back of the car and pulled out the rifle Chad carried with him, hidden under the seat. It surprised me the first time I discovered he travelled around with a gun. It wasn’t loaded, but it didn’t take long to load. I put some extra bullets in my pocket, just in case.
“You coming?” I asked. If anything happened to her, I knew Chad would be angry. “If someone is out there shooting people, it’s not s good idea to be here alone.”
She didn’t need to be asked twice.
“You know how to use that?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Coyotes.”
We both stayed on the track skirting the open space, just to make it harder for anyone likely to be aiming at us until we reached the knoll above the lake. It was the one place where, if there was a shooter. we would be most vulnerable. Neither of us stayed there for longer than a second, perhaps two, before heading down the 50 yards to the water’s edge. A quick scan showed no sign of Chad.
At the water’s edge, she said, “Where is he? If this is one of his games, then I don’t like it.”
I knew Chad, and I also knew he was capable of pulling a stunt like this. If he was, I was going to be very annoyed.
Facing the knoll, I heard a soft splashing sound behind me and turned.
Chad.
He was not more than 20 yards out in the water, face down.
“Damn.”
I dropped the rifle and headed into the water, swimming the last few yards, but I knew, the moment I reached him, he was dead. The hole in the side of his head was unmistakable. I brought him back to the shore and dragged him above the water line, then checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
Then I realised Charlene was not there, where I’d left her, but further along the beach. She had picked up the rifle, and by the way she was carrying it, she knew how to use it. Had she heard something?
Behind her, one of the horsemen arrived with a riderless horse and stopped next to her.
“What’s going on?” I asked. I was hoping it wasn’t what it looked like.
“This has nothing to do with you, Mike. Justice has been served.”
Justice? What justice? What had Chad done to deserve a death like this?
“Amy Potterdam. Just because you own the law in this County doesn’t mean you can get away with murder.”
Amy Potterdam? All I could remember about that was a girl had died in unusual circumstances at a party he had attended, if only briefly. Someone had claimed that he had given the girl the spiked drink that eventually killed her, but witnesses and evidence had proven otherwise. The fact his father was the County Sherriff had no bearing.
I watched her climb up on the horse and take the reins. I stood and started walking towards her. “This is wrong.”
“Don’t come any closer, or I will shoot you.”
I didn’t stop. I didn’t know what I was going to do, or if there was anything I could do. I just knew I had to try.
They say you don’t hear the bullet that has your name on it.
On a night that most attendees would hope simply pass by without any fanfare, there proved to be more than just the usual rubbing shoulders and an opportunity to reacquaint themselves with the other movers and shakers in Marin County.
Yes, this year, there was a new theme, one that harled back to the mid-nineteenth century when the Gentry held balls, and there was dancing.
There was also a slight break in tradition when not all attendees were from the same social set, and finally, after many years of lobbying, certain residents of Cedar Falls were invited, one of who was our own, and rather well-known, William Benjamin Oldacre.
The Oldacres have been living in and around Cedar Falls for as long as anyone can remember, in fact, since 1807, nearly 19 years before the first vestiges of a town appeared. They were here long before the Reinharts, they have a school named after one, a street, the public library, and several buildings.
And, yet, no one received an invitation to the ball, or any of the fundraisers, until now.
Be this as it may, I mention this for only one reason, it brought about a change to proceedings, and the dancing and this reporter will bear witness to what was an excellent rendition of the Viennese Waltz in the first instance, led out by none other than William Oldacre, and the second daughter of James Edward Rothstein, Emily Rothstein.
Such was their flair and artistry one could almost assume they were an item. Watch this space if there are further developments.
The article went on the tell everyone how much was raised and where it was going, though tongue in cheek I got the impression it was not where most wanted it to be directed.
It wasn’t quite the hatchet job I was expecting, but it was an interesting touch to highlight the longevity and renown of the Oldacres in the area versus the new kid with all the money.
Our family just wasn’t good at taking over or making buckets of money.
I know Dad left the paper on the bench open at the page, and I could see his expression, when he read it, one of mock indignation. He preferred that no one remembered the Oldacres’ part in the town development. It wasn’t quite what everyone imagined it to be.
Darcy appeared, still in pyjamas and; looking sleepy. Her life had changed since the ball, a girl now in ‘demand’ as she put it. It was a notoriety she didn’t need.
“You’ve seen the assassination?”
“How do you know what’s in it?”
“Taylor rang and told me. You got a mention, liked infamously to the one and only Emily. That cat is well and truly out of the bag now.”
“We danced, that’s all it said.”
“Maybe but what it really says, between the lines, is that you two are an item.”
“It said ‘one could almost assume’.”
She shook her head. “Semantics, again, Will. We know differently, don’t we?”
I was off to the library to do some research on the Oldacre family, fired up again after reading Angela’s piece, just in case a rebuttal was needed.
I made it to the street when a very familiar limousine stopped, and Genevieve got out.
“Mr Oldacre.”
“Please, that’s my father, I think we knew each other well enough to use first names.”
“William.”
“Genevieve. What do I owe this honour?”
“Miss Emily would like to see you?”
“Would she now. Well, as it happens I’m off to the library. I might not be, if she had called and told me, but she didn’t, and I’m not going to drop everyone when she summons me. This is me telling you to tell her there is a way to do things properly.”
I thought she would get annoyed, certainly, her expression changed from bright and sunny to somewhat clouded.
“My thought exactly, and I did tell her, equally as politely.”
“I’m sure you did. Now, I’m going to start walking in the direction of the bus stop. If you choose to tell her my sentiments, that’s fine, otherwise I’m sorry you were sent out on a fool’s errand.”
She smiled. “I’d rather be here than there.”
I could understand that sentiment. She got back in the car, but it did not drive off. She was calling Miss Emily.
I made it to the bus stop before my cell phone rang.
“William?”
“Emily.”
“Genevieve says you’re being petulant.”
“No, Genevieve did not say I was being petulant. If you are going to paraphrase what people say to you incorrectly, Emily, I will hang up.”
Silence for a few seconds, then, “You’re going to be a pain in the ass, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m being me, and if you want to talk to me, call, we’ll arrange to meet, and then we’ll talk. You do not summon me by sending a car and an assistant. It’s a waste of resources and manpower.”
“I want to see you now.”
“Then you have to call and then we meet. If you’d called last night, we would be meeting now, if you get out of bed before seven.”
“I didn’t know last night. I just read the paper. She’s not very nice.”
“I thought we dodged a bullet.”
“We’ve become an item?”
“Assumed to be an item. There’s a big difference. People ask, you simply say it’s a work in progress.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly. Now if you want to meet this morning, then call me in an hour and I’ll tell you where and when.”
“This is not going to work.”
“That’s your call, Emily, not mine. I know you can be the girl I know and love, you just have to realize who that girl is. My bus is here. We’ll speak later.”
An hour and a half later we were sitting in a booth at the café near the library. It was one of my favourite haunts, it had a jukebox and all the old 50s and 60s hits. I had offered to buy it when the current owners decided to retire or sell.
It was playing ‘Irresistible You’ by Bobby Darin when Emily came in.
She smiled as she sat down. “Did you play that for me?”
“No, someone else put it on, but it is appropriate.”
“God, you are going to drive me nuts.”
“Isn’t that your job, to drive me nuts?”
She shook her head. “You made me think before nine William. Not happy.”
“Then you’d better get used to it. I don’t like wasting the day.”
I could see a retort forming in her eyes, and then she parked it at the back of her mind. I suspect I had an inkling as to what it was, she was going to say, and certainly what she was thinking. The same thought passed through mine, and it surprised me.
“Now,” I said, “What do you want to talk about?”
“The article in the paper. It was a bit nasty.”
“Semantics, Emily. Down among the common people, it is viewed as an elitist affair. I don’t agree about the stuff on the Oldacres. We may have been here since God created the earth, but we did nothing of note. If we had, the place would be called Oldacre Falls, not Cedar Falls. It’s just Amanda venting.”
“I thought journalists were supposed to report “the news, not comment on it.”
“You live in a different world.
“Daddy owns the company that owns the paper. He says the news is what he says it is.”
That was just a little scary. “You have heard the expression, don’t shoot the messenger, haven’t you?”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“And why is that, Emily?”
Dorothy, my usual waitress, came over with the coffee pot to give me a refill. Most mornings I usually stayed for three. This morning, I was considering adding some bourbon.
She looked at Emily with something akin to surprise. This café was hardly a place the Rothstein’s frequented. “Coffee, Emily?” She was not going to call her Miss Rothstein.
“Yes, thank you.”
Emily, on her best behaviour. Or perhaps because she was not with her friends. They had something of a reputation when visiting local stores.
Dorothy collected a cup and saucer and brought it over, then filled it.
Dorothy looked at me. “I read the paper.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
Emily frowned at me.
“I’m still waiting for my invitation,” Dorothy said, a smile forming.
We always said that the world would stop spinning on its axis if one or other of us got invited. Exactly the opposite had happened to me that night, the earth moved. I was not going to tell Dorothy that.
“Perhaps,” Emily said, “we should make the next more town centric.”
Dorothy looked puzzled so I translated, “Ask more of the town’s folk along. It’s a good idea.”
“Good idea.” Dorothy had to go; another customer was after more coffee.
I looked at Emily. “I have a great idea. It’ll kill two birds with one stone. If you are thinking of joining your father’s company, perhaps you should ask him if you could work in the charity functions area, as an organiser. Even better, since the company doesn’t specifically have a department to handle that, tell him to create a foundation, and ask him if you can be in charge. That would be a real job, and I know you can organise.”
“You mean work in an actual role?”
“It might actually work in your favour, showing Amanda you’re not the person she thinks you are, and if you impress her… What were you planning to do after Uni?”
“Go away with friends, like a graduation thing. Surely, you’re going away, like, to celebrate freedom after all that school stuff.”
“Some of us have to earn a living, we don’t all have rich fathers.”
“You could come with me.”
“With your current friends, Emily? You are so much better than they are. You just need purpose, and with them, it’s about being entitled and delinquent because they can. I know you’re better than that, and I think you do too.”
“I think my head hurts talking to you,” Emily said, standing. “I’ve known them all for a long time, William, and we have plans.”
“And I don’t expect you to change them on my account. Just think about it. If you want to be seen differently, and with respect, then you’re the one who has to make it happen.”
“Whatever!”
There was the Emily of old.
I watched her leave, as did Dorothy, who came back after she left.
“The course of true love…”
“Never quite works out when there’s a huge chasm between the social strata. I believe she can change; I just think at the moment she doesn’t believe in herself.”
Perhaps she saw my wistful look as I watched her cross the road.
“At least it was one tick in a box, the Viennese Waltz. The lessons paid off?”
“They did. It was like dancing on air, she is that good.”
“Perhaps it’s more than that, Will, she had the right partner. Don’t give up on her.”
I shrugged. She was the most vexing girl I’d ever known.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 