The Remembering tm-3

by Steve Cash

  The next six weeks passed without incident. Our routines and daily life remained the same, yet there was a slight tension in the air, even among the old ones. The anticipation of the singular event was palpable, and everyone was anxious to begin our journey. Our plan was to leave the United Kingdom together on February 17, flying by charter into New York, then on to Denver, Colorado, where we were to transfer aircraft and fly into Billings, Montana. From there, we would be driven north to a hunting lodge twenty miles east of Grass Range near where the Box Elder and Flatwillow Creeks converge. Through contacts established by Mr. Morgan, we had leased the lodge for the last ten days of February, and it was there that we would wait for the morning of the twenty-sixth. Our “chaperones” for the entire trip were an older couple from Cardiff, and they would serve as our grandparents. Fielder and West had hired them before for international travel, and West said the couple was friendly, efficient, and could be trusted implicitly.

  Opari and I had little to pack for the journey, but on the afternoon of February 16, while we were folding and packing our clothes, Mr. Morgan knocked on our door and handed me a telegram that had just been delivered to the manor. It was for me. It was from Koldo, and as I read it, I knew I had no choice but to act immediately.

  “What is it, Z?” Opari asked. “What is wrong?”

  I stared down at the telegram. There were only three lines. “It’s from Koldo,” I told her. “It says, ‘JACK DIAGNOSED IN DECEMBER WITH PANCREATIC CANCER. FAILING FAST. BETTER HURRY.’ ”

  Opari and I looked at each other. I didn’t have to say a word. She said, “I will come with you.”

  We left that same night. Before leaving I told the others of the situation in St. Louis and said we were only taking a detour. Opari and I would meet them at the hunting lodge. They all understood. Ray even tipped his beret in respect to Jack, but Sailor remarked, “Make sure you are both in Montana by the morning of the twenty-sixth. The Stones must cross.” I assured him we would be there. Mr. Morgan was gracious enough to drive us to the Cardiff Central Railway Station, where we caught a train for the two-hour ride to London. The next day at Heathrow we purchased tickets and boarded a nonstop flight to Chicago. The ticket agents and flight attendants were all more than helpful after I explained that we were brother and sister traveling home alone because of a family emergency. We used the same story going through customs, then caught the last flight out to St. Louis, landing at Lambert Field in a cold light rain, almost a mist. It was well after midnight by the time our taxi pulled into the long driveway and finally came to a stop under the stone archway of Carolina’s house. I paid the driver, and Opari and I walked through the rain and around to the side kitchen entrance. There was a light on inside, and two women, one in her early fifties and the other in her late seventies, were playing cards at the kitchen table. They both jumped and dropped their cards when I knocked. “It’s okay,” I said through the window. Antoinette and Star stared back. “It’s just me … Z.”

  It was Antoinette who opened the door, giving Opari and me a long, tight embrace. “Come in, come in, both of you. You’re wet,” she said.

  “Just a little,” I told her and followed Opari inside.

  Star was still sitting at the table staring at me, and she was smiling. “I knew you would make it,” she said. “I knew you would be here.”

  “Is he …?”

  “He is sleeping … for now. He’s in a great deal of pain.” I walked over and embraced her, holding her head close to me. “Mama would be glad you’re here, Z,” she whispered.

  We stayed up another hour talking with Antoinette and Star. We were told Caine was in Chicago giving a series of lectures, while Georgie was living in Berkeley and working on her doctorate. It was only the two of them in the big house, and they said they often played cards late at night just in case Jack might need something quickly. We learned that his cancer had spread rapidly and viciously throughout his body. His mind was sharp and clear, but his body had failed. Jack was dying and he knew it would be soon. “But please, do not pity him,” Star said. “He will literally try to kick you out of his room if he senses pity of any kind.”

  “That sounds about like Jack,” I replied.

  “Believe me,” Antoinette added, “Jack is still Jack.”

  * * *

  The next morning, after Antoinette informed me he was awake and had even eaten a little breakfast, I walked unannounced into Jack’s room. He was lying in his bed, propped up with pillows to a sitting position. He had a tube in his nose and another tube in his arm, which was connected to a morphine drip. His face was gaunt and he weighed less than a hundred pounds. His once dark hair had turned snow white. He still had his hair because Star told me he had stopped chemotherapy after only one round of treatment. I dragged a chair up next to him and sat down. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. Because of the morphine his eyes had a slightly dull and lazy focus, but he was there. Behind those eyes, Jack was very much alive. He looked at me and smiled. “I saw Bob Forsch pitch a no-hitter last April, Z. First one in this city in fifty-four years.”

  “Jesse Haines, July 17, 1924, right? We went together, remember?”

  He laughed. “I do remember. I was just testing you. You know, Z, you have a pretty good memory for a kid.”

  I looked him in the eye and said, “Thanks, Jack, but I don’t feel much like a kid anymore.”

  “Neither do I, Z.” He paused and adjusted the tube in his nose. “What do you say, let’s talk some baseball for a while and maybe we will? I have nothing against Star or Antoinette, but they can’t talk baseball. It’s a shame, really.”

  I smiled and said, “I agree. I pity them.”

  “So do I,” Jack said, “so do I.”

  It was a privilege and a pleasure just to sit with Jack. Every second was filled with humor and wisdom, the kind that is earned, not bestowed. During the next five days and nights, when he was conscious, I sat with Jack and we talked about a lot of things, but mainly we talked baseball. And when we talked, Jack seemed to rally, physically and spiritually. We talked about the great players we’d seen. We talked about pitching, hitting, fielding, strategy, and we talked about the great moments. Only in baseball can you witness a situation, a crazy play, or a wonderful and unique event that you have never seen before and will never see again. In baseball, there is no certain destiny, only circumstance. The ball is hit, or not. The play is made, or not. The run is scored, or not. The player determines the outcome. Jack likened baseball to his own life and regrets. He told me, “I don’t have regrets, Z. I’ve had my share of luck, good and bad, but I don’t have regrets. Right or wrong, all my decisions were mine alone. Nobody made them for me. If there is one thing I regret in this world, it is not finding what you and Opari have together. That’s one play I never got to make.”

  On Saturday, February 24, Jack had a bad day. He was in and out of consciousness throughout the day, and his breathing was often shallow and uneven. The morphine helped, but when he was conscious, he looked to be in agony. By sunset, the pain had finally relented and allowed his mind and body to relax into a deep sleep. He was worn-out, helpless, and beaten down. But he had not yet given up or given in.

  Later that night Opari and I were lying in bed. We were on our sides and she was facing away from me. I had my arm around her waist. I whispered, “We have a decision to make.”

  “To stay with Jack or leave for the Remembering,” she whispered back.

  “Yes.”

  “I do not think it is a decision. I think staying with Jack is what we must do. You and I are Meq, my love, but he is your family.”

  “I love you, Opari.”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  I started to say something else, then realized it wasn’t necessary. Opari took hold of my hand and raised it to her lips, silently kissing the palm of my hand.

  Sometime just before dawn I awoke from a strange and compelling dream. My first impression was that it was not a dream at all.
It began at night. Opari and I were following the steps of a stone path along the cliff’s edge at Morgan Manor. The path was unknown to both of us. Each of the stone steps was carved in the shape of a hand, and the path was only visible because of the full moon overhead. We seemed to be in a rush, although no one was chasing us. The path was dangerous, with a sheer drop of two hundred feet on the left side. The steps began leading down a hidden niche in the cliff face. At the bottom of the steps there was an entrance to a cave, which would have been covered by the sea at high tide. A faint, flickering light was coming from somewhere inside, and we heard voices chanting or singing. We followed the peculiar hand-steps into the cave and toward the light, finally coming to a larger space where a boy was bending over a table and writing something on a strip of papyrus. Along with the papyrus, the five Stones were lined up on the table. The flickering light emanated from two lit candles on stands next to the table.

  In the dream, I knew the boy was Meq. He was darker than Opari and me but lighter than Susheela the Ninth. His oily black hair curled over his collar, and he wore two jade loops for earrings. The jade was the same color as his eyes. I instinctively knew what he was writing and I knew his name. He was called “the Thracian,” and he was writing the text of the Nine Steps of the Six, the writing I had translated from the papyrus that Susheela the Ninth and her family had carried for millennia. Surrounding the table in a spiraling circle stood Trumoi-Meq, Zeru-Meq, Ray, Nova, Sailor, Susheela the Ninth, Geaxi, West, Fielder, and the Fleur-du-Mal. They had their eyes closed, and they were chanting the Nine Steps of the Six.

  “The Thracian” turned to me and pointed at the papyrus. His gold bracelets jangled on his wrist. He spoke in his ancient language, which I understood. “Read it again,” he said. He then picked up the five Stones, one by one, and began juggling them in the air, creating a perfect moving circle of Stones, and repeating, “Read it again.” I leaned over the table. The writing was in red ochre. It said: Nine Steps of the Six. The First One shall not know. The Second One shall not know. The Third One shall not know. The Fourth One shall not know. The Fifth One shall not know. The Living Change shall live within the Sixth One. The Five shall be drawn unto the Source Stone. The Living Change shall be revealed. The Five shall be Extinguished. When I looked up to ask “the Thracian” what it meant, I awoke from the dream.

  Jack rallied again on Sunday morning. When he woke, he did something he hadn’t done in weeks. He asked Antoinette for a hot cup of coffee and a piece of toast with butter and blackberry jam. Caine arrived home from Chicago around noon, having flown himself in the Beechcraft King Air he had inherited from Willie Croft. Jack was glad to see him, and all of us gathered in his room while he and Caine talked and laughed about the difficulty of being a Cardinals fan stuck in Chicago. But the excitement was short-lived. By three o’clock Jack had taken a downturn and went through an hour of relentless pain, then slipped away into a sleep that seemed more like a coma. As day turned to night, Jack’s pulse became weaker, and he didn’t respond to Star’s touch or her constant whispering in his ear. Opari and I held hands and sat next to Jack. Antoinette and Caine sat in chairs on the other side of the bed. We spoke little and time passed slow and thick as fog. Then, just after eight o’clock Jack’s eyes fluttered and he squeezed Star’s hand. It took him a minute to do it, but he willed himself awake and looked up at Star. “Where’s Z?” he asked.

  “I’m right here,” I said, taking hold of his other hand.

  Jack turned his head and stared into my eyes. “Tell me about Mama as a girl, Z. Tell me what she was like.”

  “That’s easy. Where do you want me to start?”

  “At the beginning.”

  “All right.” I pulled my chair in a few inches closer. “The first time I ever saw Carolina was at old Sportsman’s Park. It was a Saturday in late summer.” I kept talking and I told him about her stringy blond hair and her face full of freckles, and I told him about how we played every game we could think of while we explored Forest Park and all of St. Louis in the early 1880s. I talked and I continued talking and when I finally stopped, Jack’s eyes were still staring at me, but Jack was gone. I let go of his hand and closed his eyes. “Farewell, Jack,” I said. “Travel far.”

  While Caine called for an ambulance to take Jack’s body away, Opari and I went for a short walk outside. We walked slowly into the “Honeycircle” and stopped next to Baju’s sundial. It was bitter cold and the ground was frozen solid. My arm was around her shoulders and her arm was around my waist. I looked up at the sky and broken clouds obscured the stars. We had not yet discussed the decision we’d made to stay with Jack, if it had been necessary. The Stone of Dreams and the Stone of Blood simply do not make decisions like that. I turned to look at Opari. I reached up and held her face in my hands and we stared deep into each other’s eyes. I said, “Everything is different now, isn’t it?”

  There was a long moment of silence, then Opari kissed me on the lips and said, “Yes.”

  Half an hour later, after the ambulance had come and gone, we all sat in the kitchen talking about Jack. Star sipped her coffee and let the tears run down her cheeks without wiping them away. I waited for the right moment to do what I had to do next, then realized there was no right moment. I turned to Caine and said, “I know this is an inappropriate time, Caine, but I have no choice.” I glanced at Opari. “Opari and I need to get to Montana. Can you fly us there?”

  “Where in Montana?”

  “Billings.”

  “Of course, Z,” Caine answered. “When do you have to be there?”

  “By dawn.”

  “Dawn?”

  “By dawn tomorrow. Can you do it?”

  Caine looked at his watch. It was 9:20 P.M. on a Sunday. “The King Air can cruise at 280 mph,” he said. “If I can still get someone to service the plane and fuel us up, we can make it easily.”

  At 11:20 P.M. we were taxiing out on a runway at Lambert Field, loaded with fuel and taking off, heading north by northwest. Caine had called in a few favors owed to get everything done so quickly, but we were in the air and on our way. He had also called ahead and made arrangements in Billings to have a car and driver waiting to pick up “a boy and a girl who are in a hurry.”

  We climbed easily to twenty-six thousand feet and leveled out. Above the cloud cover the night sky sparkled with stars from horizon to horizon. As we flew on I asked Caine if he was going to be able to stay awake and he said he’d have no problem until we got to Billings, then he’d rent a room and get some sleep before returning home. Somewhere over South Dakota the drone of the engines began to lull me to sleep, and I drifted off while thinking about Opari and me and the Remembering. I now knew we were going to make it, but I kept thinking, what if we didn’t … what if we didn’t?

  In the dream I was sitting on the same train in the same seat I’d been sitting in when the train crashed on the way to Central City, killing my mama and papa and dozens of others. As the train picked up speed, I was rubbing Mama’s glove and watching Papa at the front of our compartment. Then I looked down at the glove, and in the palm, or the pocket, there were words written in red ink. The words were the last three lines of the Nine Steps of the Six. They read: The Five shall be drawn unto the Source Stone. The Living Change shall be Revealed. The Five shall be Extinguished. Just then, Mama screamed, “Yaldi! Yaldi!” I looked up to see my mama and papa lock eyes and go somewhere in this universe where only they were allowed. As the train went across the bridge and on to its destiny, Mama and Papa were at peace and together inside their own destiny.

  “Z, wake up.”

  I opened my eyes. It was Opari. “Where are we?” I asked.

  “We are approaching Billings. You were talking in your sleep.”

  I watched Opari’s mouth move as she talked, and her eyes seemed to be lit from inside. She was so beautiful. “What did I say?”

  “You said something about ‘the answer.’ ”

  I smiled and took her hand in m
ine, then kissed her fingers. “I know what to do now.”

  Opari looked at me carefully. She wanted to be sure of something. She touched my lips and said, “Tell me.”

  I leaned over and whispered in her ear, telling her everything. Opari listened until I was finished, then whispered back, “Yes, yes, yes, my love. Yes.”

  Before we landed, I thanked Caine again for all that he’d done for us. I told him that I hoped Jack didn’t mind, and at that precise moment a pair of sunglasses dropped from a clipboard on the copilot side of the cockpit.

  “Maybe he came with us,” Caine said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Caine laughed and said, “Those are Jack’s sunglasses.”

  I looked out the window to the east. It was still dark, but there was a hint of a faint glow just over the horizon. Caine executed a perfect landing and we taxied to a private hangar adjacent to the main terminal. Idling inside the hangar with its headlights on was a blue van with the name Lewis & Clark Limousine and Shuttle painted on the side doors. Caine swiveled the plane around and came to a stop, then turned off the engines. As he unlocked and opened the door, I told him he might not see us for a while, but I promised to stay in touch, somehow, some way. Opari said to give her love to Star and Antoinette. We stepped out of the plane into the frigid Montana night. Opari ran ahead to the van and I turned back to Caine.