Vanessa

by David Howells

Chapter 16 – DAY 4

  Ryan and Allen rode their two rented horses soon after breakfast. Ryan knew the spot where they would be able to meet and ride with the soldiers for just over an hour and a half before having to break off due to the strip mall. Allen laughed at the thought of dusty Civil War soldiers trotting through displays of dinette sets and bunk beds. Ryan was less the humorist, wondering what those men must think to see furniture for families like the ones they were denied. “You’re too serious, Ryan. I was about to say that life’s too short, but that doesn’t really apply to you.”

  “Very funny, grasshopper.”

  “Again with that bug name. What’s with the ‘grasshopper’ bit?”

  “Long before your time, there was a show Vanessa and I used to like called ‘Kung Fu’ The Master used that term for his apprentice. I guess it meant someone who was full of energy and drive, but had a ways to go to reach maturity and full learning.” Allen liked the analogy to master and student. There was a lot to learn from Ryan and you couldn’t beat the student to teacher ratio.

  “I keep hearing about what you and Vanessa liked on television. Wasn’t there more you guys did to relax?” Ryan smiled. “Besides that, I mean. Geez, you old pervert.”

  “Well, we traveled a lot. Our first years were somewhat restricted due to the war, and then Obediah came along. He was a handful, always interested in everything and anything that didn’t move fast enough to avoid his scrutiny. We’d see him in the driveway studying an anthill, then blink and next see him up a tree gathering pinecones. Our work with entities also kept us busy. There was a lot of work involved in finding sites to investigate and background research to use in getting our targets to move on. But we loved our work so much that we didn’t really feel a need to vacation from it.”

  Allen wondered if he could push the envelope. They were waiting for the soldiers, so there wasn’t much else to do but talk. “Ryan, don’t answer if you don’t want to, but what was it like, seeing Vanessa age while you didn’t? How did you guys handle that?”

  Ryan had been expecting that. Had the tables been turned, he certainly would have wondered. “I stopped seeing my son and his family after a while. Vanessa’s normal aging allowed her to continue visitations for a while longer. I was as afraid that my son would see his father as a freak of nature as I was of exposure to public attention, followed with me being mounted onto a public microscope.

  “My fears, as well as Vanessa’s, led us to eventually send family and friends post cards from a series of foreign countries. Finally, we missed them so much that we went to visit them, anyway. That was the day you saw in the video when you and I first met. They were surprised, to say the least, but accepting. Vanessa kept aging, but held up well until the last few months. She just got tired. I used a wheelchair to shuttle her about when the home scene got too oppressive. It took a whole lot of love then to keep her spirits up and there were times she got pretty testy. I’d usually short-circuit it by asking her if, had the roles been reversed, would she have done the same for me? So many couples suffer the loss of function of one of the partners and I wonder if they don’t discover a deeper love than those who aren’t so afflicted. I’ve heard that the purest silver comes from the hottest fire and that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If that’s true, then our love became pure and strong indeed.

  “There was one walk we took on a paved nature trail when a well-intentioned older woman came up to us and said how wonderful it was to see a man take such good care of his grandmother.”

  Allen thought, “Ouch.”

  “Even as she aged, my wife’s sharp wit never left her. She smiled at the intruder and told her that I was her kept lover. The look on the woman’s face was good enough, leaving it at that. When did Vanessa ever leave it at that? She went on to say that I was for sale, as she found my sexual stamina not what it used to be, and could the nice lady please direct her to the nearest gigolo establishment? I thought the woman would go into apoplexy. We’d better can it for now. Here come the soldiers.”

  Major Covington received the report that his old friend was up ahead with another in tow. A minute later, Ryan and the Major were riding side by side. “Think you might like to ride with us through the furniture store this time, Master Fitzgalen? There’s a sale on leather love seats.”

  “Maybe tomorrow, Major. I’ve got a new recruit here and he’s been a regular fountain of new ideas. We have to talk, privately.”

  Jed’s attention perked up. “When ever that Ryan fellow showed up, things got right interesting. Always trying something, the Major was. When the two of them were involved, they tried even more. Fine with me. Distract that Devil’s bitch enough I just might get her, finally. Damn her eyes, Coaljack! Who’s the kid, I wonder?”

  Allen felt prickles on his neck. It was enough to have one friendly female entity in their midst. Now they had fifty ghost riders, with horses that were also held in thrall, and he couldn’t see a thing. Like Melissa had said more than once, “This really bites.”

  “Major, let’s trot on ahead. Bring Private Cooper along, too. We’ve got some news for him.” Orders were given and the group of four (half dead, half alive) moved ahead to ride point. Ryan began giving the news so far, including Vanessa’s proposal and Allen’s plan on using Private Patterson as a pivot point. Then he turned it over to Allen, who felt a little silly talking to apparently nothing. Still, awkwardness hadn’t stopped him in the past from doing things that seemed ridiculous to the casual observer.

  “I’m addressing Private Elijah Cooper, if you can hear me.” Allen looked at Ryan. He nodded. Allen continued. “I have researched your family, Private Cooper. Your wife Delores gave birth to your son, Walther Thaddeus, eight months after you left for the war.” Cooper had known that. Letters from Delores had reached him before he had died in that firefight with Hood’s men. “What you may not know is that Walther married and had three children. One of those children married one Erin Patrick Fitzgalen. They moved to Galveston and their first-born child is now riding with you. Congratulations, Private Cooper, and allow me to introduce your great grandchild, Ryan David Fitzgalen. That also makes me your (Allen used his fingers to get it right) great, great, great, great, great grandson.”

  He stopped talking and rode quietly. He could see Ryan’s head turned to the left and listening. Ryan was smiling and Allen could see the mistiness in his eyes. Allen’s own eyes then suffered increased humidity.

  Ryan finally motioned Allen closer. “Great Granddad Elijah thanks you from the bottom of his heart. He would like to give you something in return, but doesn’t have a clue as to what it should be. I told him we might work out something in the future, but for now, let’s concentrate on the plans at hand.” It sounded fair to Allen. He never expected a return other than the feeling of helping someone in desperate need. Besides, what could a ghost give a living person? Next time he was there, he would have with him copies of pictures of Elijah’s family. What grandfather wouldn’t want to see pics of his kids, grand kids, and well, he didn’t need a picture of the generation after that, did he?

  Ryan asked the Major what plans were made for today. The answer he received had to be passed on to Allen later in nutshell form. Major Covington felt the need to speak.

  “My good friend, the well is dry today. We have been wore successful in the last year than we have in the previous one hundred, that’s true. Maybe Mrs. Edwards is getting old or careless. Hard to say. We‘re tired, Ryan. We lost our bones, but we’re bone tired. It’s hard to be brilliant at such times. The only thing we can hang our hats on is that we suffer together; bearing burdens in comradeship as good soldiers should. We still have purpose that holds us together. That, too, has been a rock to stand on. We have also had our successes, and they were hard won. I was proud of my men when we walked the ground. I am even more so with their bravery and devotion as spirits.

  “It
was a strange thing, Ryan. So many of my men were strong and healthy, in the prime of their young manhood, yet all of them died all too soon, as if we had become cursed in life to hasten our cursed afterlife.”

  On they rode on ‘Ryan’s path’. Scores of years of subtly wielding influence, buying out properties, nudging political types with undeclared contributions that created the path they now rode upon. All just to share time with these men for an hour and forty minutes on the first leg, then later for another forty minutes. The strip mall was inconvenient, but they had enough time for what was needed.

  “My religious beliefs told me that when I died, I would either sleep till Judgment Day or go before our good Lord and Savior to be tested. The truth came as a shock. I opened my eyes at dawn and recognized the faces of twenty-two of my men. Imagine my joy of reuniting with those who served me and the Union so valiantly being there to greet me into the after life. Imagine my sorrow then to see, in their eyes, grief that I should suffer the same awful fate they had been consigned to. Seemed every other day I was called upon, with my men, to greet yet another soldier of our group until the roster was complete. A half score of us managed to get by Mrs. Edwards early on, but it took few coon’s ages before we were able to find how to outmaneuver Mrs. Edwards again. Elijah here has been responsible for his share of the plots and plans. Now, you’ve heard an old soldier prattle as only an old soldier can. What kind of mischief has this first mate of yours cooked up?”

  Ryan began to tell the ideas his team had arranged and had just enough time to cap it off with the climax when they had to part company or cause a scene at the furniture discount warehouse. Ryan told the Major that he would bring more news tomorrow as plans firmed up, and then turned his horse around. Allen followed suit, keeping a respectful silence for the time being. He had been thinking, and wanted to get some answers that might help him make better plans. Ryan looked at the eyes of the men who passed and all but one of them smiled and nodded. That one ignored the both of them, but kept a smirk on his face all the while.

  After Ryan had relayed his conversation with the Major for Allen on the way back to the stable, Allen began to ask his long list of questions.

  “I would like to know more about entities, what they can do, why they can or cannot contact solid things or each other. If I’m to play the game, it would be nice to know the rules.”

  “Fair enough, as long as you can accept that what I’m going to say is just opinion and not presented in any planned way. Still, I’ve done a lot of research on my own because of Vanessa and the entities we were trying to help. ‘Know thy enemies’, for us, became ‘know thy targets’.

  “In the 1960’s and 70’s there was a lot of interest in ‘near death experiences’. People had a hunger to discover what really happened when you took the major dirt nap. Never mind the differences between the major religions. Just within Christianity alone, there have been arguments and schisms on the topic. Some believe we all lie in stasis until the Second Coming, which is why many buried folk are laid to rest with their heads to the west.”

  “New one on me. Some reason for that, I assume.”

  “When the Big G-Man comes back, it’s supposed to be from the east. Christians wanted to be raised up so that they face the Son, or the Four Horsemen, or whatever. Other sects believe you go right to the main gate for review and decision. Hell itself is an article of speculation in Christianity. Seems half of them believe the eternal lake of fire is good for one quick flameout per soul, the other half that condemned people will par boil for eternity. Then there are those who hold to Dante and his complicated view of the seven rings of Hell.

  “I recall a movie that highlighted a book titled ‘Beyond The Grave’, or something like that. It mentioned a researcher who measured mass loss of a human at the moment of death. Turns out that each body lost a small but measurable amount of mass the moment he or she died; about three ounces. The spirit or soul that hitches a ride on this limo con carne is a cohesive and organized packet of energy of a type we don’t know much about. Rules of physics apply to it, as it is energy and has properties, but we don’t know really what those rules are. I’ve a few ideas, though.

  “Take visibility for instance. That same movie indicated an example of someone capturing with photography an amorphous mist leaving the body at the point of death. Photographic film has been known to capture many strange things most of us don’t see with our eyes. Why?

  “I believe that the mass of a spirit radiates a type of spiritual energy, detectable by a camera or clairvoyant individual. It is of a wavelength incompatible for most eye/brain receivers to register. Those that can see them often say they can see through the image; kind of translucent. That makes sense to me. Entities are seen by what they radiate, not like normal objects in our own plane that are opaque and just reflect external light. Spirit beings therefore allow the ROY G BIV component of the spectrum to pass through them, so we see the combination of their own radiation and the hard object reflections behind them.”

  “OK, makes sense. Do you see through them?”

  “No. That can be an advantage and a disadvantage. I can’t always tell who’s alive and who’s not. Walking through walls is a clue, but that doesn’t always happen. My magnetic exposure seems to have made me particularly in tune with the energy signatures that entities give off. Enough so that their energy is sufficient to block off or overpower the light reflected from objects behind them.”

  “I follow. Now, how about physical contact from a spirit? That was the softest kiss I had ever had the other night in your office from Vanessa. But I felt it. You said it takes concentration on her part. Any idea on how that works? That kind of information might come in handy, soon.”

  “Right. One second helping of opinion coming up. Ever see one of those light bulbs that have inside it four wafers balanced on a wire cross? Each wafer has a white side and a dark side. Since light has mass, shining light on the bulb causes the arrangement inside the bulb to rotate around a spindle. The light bounces off the white wafer but is absorbed by the black. The act of reflecting imparts a small but sufficient amount of momentum to each white square so that it is pushed away from the light source. Eventually the thing builds up enough of a head of steam to spin merrily along. Energy has mass, mass can be felt and cause reactions on solid objects. Lasers are a good example. Entities are energy, cohesive and organized. They are also all different. Vanessa is gifted with a remarkable ability to manipulate solid objects. I’ve never seen any to do so at the same level of finesse (some can pack a clumsy whollop). Annie can turn book pages one at a time if she really concentrates. That brings me to another related subject. Allen, ever hear of poltergeists?”

  “They’re spirits that throw things around, right?”

  “Correct. All the spiritual catapulting, to my knowledge, is tied into a previous resident, say, a mother at her home or an owner of a business building. They resent intruders and start throwing a tantrum. I think they can only toss things they have become attuned to in life. All objects have an ability to absorb energies we don’t know anything about. How many psychics have you heard of that get impressions from objects, with some of them leading police to long lost buried murder victims? I knew of one fellow, who owned an upscale antique place, who refused to handle gold brought up from Spanish galleons. He said that the metal was a conductor of emotions and held on to the anguish of the poor salts that went down with the ships. Spirits haunting former homes have a narrow band of connectedness that allows them to manipulate the objects they are familiar with. Vanessa is sort of a broadband situation, and she can nail almost anything she chooses, as long as she gets a rest in between flicking ears and tipping drink glasses.

  “I can’t touch her very well, though. If I pass my hand through her, I can feel the barest sensations of resistance. She says she can feel my energy as it passes through her. No matter how I concentrate, I can’t bridg
e the touch gap like she does.”

  “I’m with you, Ryan. Now, how about entities with entities.”

  “Vanessa can pretty well get a visual and audio on every entity we come across. She in turn seems to not only receive but broadcast a wide enough bandwidth that other spirits can see and hear her as well. Touch is another thing all together. She didn’t have as much luck before the Navy incident, so I think we both were changed that day. That event may also explain our high degree of closeness, connectedness, and the fact that I can feel her at all.

  “Vanessa is attuned especially to children, partly from dying in that fire. I think it’s also because she has always loved children. That is what led her to be a teacher in the first place. She has a natural connection with them. A real Pied Piper, if you know that story.” Allen did. His mother had told him stories as a child, especially early on. She had said later that it helped her pass the lonely time after his Dad died and helped keep him from crying himself to sleep.

  “That’s fine for Vanessa and Annie’s kids, but how do we know that Jed or any other soldier for that matter will be able to interact with the kids as well? Will any of them be able to carry the kids?”

  “I suspect that’s the question you’ve been leading up to all this time, isn’t it? I can’t try and prove it, for it would give away our hand to Mad Annie. Consider this, though. Every day those kids get trampled by ghost horses and are in what appears to be obvious emotional and the equivalent of physical distress. The riders are closely allied to and touching those horses. You can wheedle this into the algebraic idea that if A equals C, and B equals C, then A must equal B. Riders touch horses, horses touch children, therefore riders must be able to touch children. Also, the force of Annie’s spirit when she died which tagged that large number of independent entities for her ‘harvesting’ would likely have had a tuning in effect to all involved. Remember what Major Covington said about his men reacting like an incredibly honed machine? I feel that they are tuned into each other in more ways than just experience.”

  “Sounds good, but are you sure? Do you really know if Jason and Rebecca can be carried off?”

  “No, but it’s the best deal in town. We have no choice but to go for it. If it doesn’t pan out, we punt.” The rest of the ride back to the stable was quiet. Allen wondered how far the ladies and Gustav had gotten with the project he had SatCom’d into his PC at the suite.

  Vanessa’s task was to strengthen the trust with the children. It was mid-morning, long before the troops were to arrive. Hopefully, that would give her more time and less distraction. But there were some concerns.

  First, how much do the children tell their mother? Letting the cat out of the bag is a risk here, but one she had to take. Jason and Rebecca had to trust her completely if she was going to be able to get them out of harms way, for trust solidified inter-entity touch.

  Second, could she trust the bond that kept Mad Annie on her porch? She hadn’t come down off it yesterday. Might she come down today? If she did, what would or could she do? Maybe Vanessa should go up to her right off and try to defuse the situation by asking permission to speak to her children. It would be the respectful thing to do, but too risky. Suppose Mad Annie forbade her to speak to the children? That might lose the whole ball of wax right there and triple the likelihood of a confrontation before its time.

  Third, just how powerful was Mad Annie? She controlled some kind of resurrection circuit for both kids and soldiers. Annie’s capacity to fire blast any spirit who had displeased her was well documented. That time Jed Patterson leaped off his horse (ouch), her flaming vengeance took on a whole new dimension of very ugly special effects that would have pleased the most rabid horror movie aficionado.

  Forth, what kind of hornet’s nest would they stir up by involving the children? If she was hellfire just for daily exercise, what might happen when she realized the whole fabric of her order of things was being torn away from her by way of her own children?

  Fifth, if she kept on thinking like this, there was a good chance she would go mad herself, and wouldn’t that be something to please her Love?

  “Oh, farts! Let’s get on with it.”

  She entered the Homestead gate, then strolled leisurely to where the children played. When they caught sight of Vanessa, she witnessed the guarded smiles on their faces as they kept their backs to their mother to hide even that. Vanessa shifted left and saw Annie, standing as usual on the porch, now dividing her attention equally to the north, the west, the children and to herself. A chill rose up Vanessa’s back, which she forced back down by concentrating on flowers, sunlight and the children. Ryan had once said (he said a lot, the old windbag, but most of it was actually worth listening to) that the mind could only think one thought at a time. It could process many in succession, but only one at a time. When she was in Mary’s body, she discovered the miracles of morning sickness, thanks to Obediah. Ryan had her so tickled with silly stories, busy with a thousand things to do and concerned over what turned out to be his own troubles trumped up for the occasion, that she usually forgot about being nauseous. He was wisely absent, now, so as not to get Mad Annie upset prematurely, but she sure missed him.

  “Hi, Miss Vanessa. I told Rebecca you would be back. She didn’t believe me.

  “That’s not so Jason! I just, well, it isn’t so and that’s that.”

  “Rebecca, Jason, don’t go on so. I’m just happy to see you again. What are you playing today?”

  Jason said, “Usual stuff. We can go in a circle, took at people and make fun of them, watch the ants, sing songs, march around. It gets pretty boring, though. Would you please play with us?”

  “Yes, please Miss Vanessa! Play with us! We’re so tired of the same things every day. Please? You’re the first grown-up that will talk to us.”

  OK, that seemed like a good start. Play? She couldn’t think of anything to play. However, “Tell me, would you like to hear a story?”

  Both children lit up. A real story! Even the most ancient children loved the adventure, distraction and attention given to them in a flight of fancy told by someone who cares. Both jumped up and down and said “Yes!” many times over. Great. Now, what the heck could she come up with? It had been a lot of years since Obediah was little. Vanessa looked at the older boy, the younger girl, then at their mother. She smiled. Yes, this would be just the ticket, maybe. “There’s one I used to love to tell my own little boy. Have you ever heard ‘Hansel and Gretel’?”

  Vanessa could not recall when that story was even written, and so didn’t know if Jason and Rebecca might have heard it before. It turned out they hadn’t. Good! She sat down and began to tell the tale of two wonderful children who, from events beyond their control, were lost beyond hope under the control of the wicked witch. She made sure to emphasize how cooperation and inventiveness won the day and freedom for the brother and sister and many others under the witch’s power. Not wanting to frighten them, should they make the connection to their present plight, Vanessa edited out the burning the wicked witch in the oven. Rather, Hansel and Gretel broke the spells of entrapment and took away the witch’s wicked powers in the process. “After all,” she thought, “…altering stories is part of the legitimate folk process.”

  She made another change in s later story. In the original French version of Cinderella, the main character wore slippers of fur, not glass. That little change was due to an English speaking listener who collected an oral French fable, not knowing that the words in French for glass and fur sounded the same, though spelled differently. It was just as well. Cinderella was known, in one version, to have had swollen feet from dancing all night. To get her tootsies into that now too-small slipper, she cut off her toes. “Fairy tales. Brrrr. Fairies were a bloodthirsty lot. And how will this fairy tale of ours turn out?”

  Jason and Rebecca were enthralled and begged for more. The fable was a desperately apprecia
ted release from the terror they knew was coming. As the day wore on, Vanessa did her best to pull up as many children’s tales as she could: Sleeping Beauty (taming rather than shish-ka-bobbing the dragon), Snow White (reforming rather than assassinating the witch), the Wind in the Willows (little to change, but a lot had to be made up due to unfamiliarity). Vanessa dredged up versions of Pecos Bill and Mike Fink (not many knew about that Midwestern river-man). The well started to go dry so, in desperation, she pulled up a medley of Gilligan’s Island episodes.

  Annie decided that Vanessa was not a threat and went back to looking north and west, mostly. That was a relief for Vanessa, who checked in Annie’s direction from time to time. The sun was westering. Jason and Rebecca began to get antsy.

  “Children, did I tell you a story you didn’t like?”

  Jason was looking west. Rebecca looked at her and said, “Oh no, Miss Vanessa. We like your stories just fine. They are wonderful, but, well, they’re going to be here soon, so you better get out of the way. We don’t want you hurt.”

  Treading carefully, Vanessa asked, “Honey, what happens when the horses get here? Do you know?”

  Jason turned his head to look into their new friends eyes. “We die, Miss Vanessa. We die every day. Is there something you can do to help us? Mamma can’t help us. The men don’t want to hurt us, but they can’t help it. Mamma won’t leave the front porch and we can’t leave here. We tried, but Mamma won’t let us. Why does Mamma keep us here, Miss Vanessa? Do you know?”

  There was the door, opened wide for her. Dare she enter? Was it too soon? DAMN it, how was she to proceed? She felt inside herself, then looked into the children’s eyes. They were children, yet they weren’t. There was a maturity in them that suffering brings to young victims. Children, torn apart by tragedy, grew up in a hurry as a defense mechanism. Little girls whose mothers die or leave the home become the woman of the house, losing that essential childhood they need for mental stability, the ability to trust, to believe in good and right. Children with cancer. She had seen them in many hospitals. They came to accept their pain with resignation, which evoked even more sadness and frustration from the adults who cared for them than anything else would. Vanessa would have given her life, if she had one, to take away the suffering from even one of those poor children. She tried to save the children at Grace Church and failed. Well, by God, she was going to do her all fired best to make up for lost time.

  “Children, I know we don’t have much time before the men come. I will stay with you until then. Just before they, come, I will have to step away. If it were in my power to take you away today, I would. No, don’t look like that. Don’t lose hope. My husband and our wonderful friends have been working on a plan to help you. You have to trust me if this is going to work.”

  It was the first time Jason and Rebecca had a real glimmer of hope and their eves showed it.

  Rebecca asked, “Miss Vanessa, are you an angel? We have prayed so many times for an angel. Are you sent from God to help us?”

  How the Hel - Heaven could she answer that? The only way: truth. “No, I am not an angel. Maybe God did send me, but if He did, He didn’t tell me. God’s got a way of hearing prayers, especially from children. With His help and of the best group of friends you could ever wish for, we’re going to get you out of this mess very soon. I promise you that.”

  ‘Cross your heart?”

  “Yes Jason, cross my heart?” Vanessa sealed the promise with her hand crossing the front of her dress.

  Both children stood up and faced the west. Jason turned to Vanessa. “You better go now, Miss Vanessa. They’re coming. You can’t die now. We need you. Go on.”

  It took all of her strength not to grab the children right then and run for their lives. Ryan knew her too well and forbade that. Her short-term effort could destroy all their plans to get everyone over. No action was ever harder for Vanessa to take than what she did then. Step by slow step, she walked backwards, passing through the north fence and the hedges, never looking away. Rebecca and Jason held each other’s hands, standing and keeping their eyes on Vanessa. She wanted to look away, to run like she did from Grace Church on that burning night, but she didn’t, she couldn’t. Time began to slow down; sounds stopped registering, except for one. Horses. Vanessa could hear their hooves. The sound began as a whisper, growing in clarity with each passing moment. So many. Jason kept both of Rebecca’s hands in his right and wrapped his left arm around his sister’s shoulders. Horses and men unwillingly emerged from the woods. Now the sounds were clear, mixing with hooves were creaking leather sounds from reins and saddles and the banshee battle cry of one mad spirit. The daily horror thundered in from Vanessa’s right and she kept her eyes on the children. The tidal wave of Union blue crashed onto the shore of the farmstead yard and the children were lost from view. Only then did Vanessa close her eyes, tightly, as she slowly fell down to her knees.

  Annie had kept an eye on the strange woman. She had seen her before, long ago, with that man who turned out to be helping the blue coats. She thought, “That man wasn’t there with her. Probably she saw the light and left the bastard. Guess she has some smarts. It was nice of her to stop and visit the children. Maybe she would come up and sit a spell with me as well.” Annie would be sure to invite her up some time soon. In the meantime, her children seemed happy with the woman. A mother wanted to see her children happy. It was natural.

  The day had gone on as it always did for Annie. The Devil Men came and she kept them all. The Major didn’t outsmart her this time. Major, indeed. Major pain in the petutie, if you asked her! She wondered, not for the first time, if she might just let him go on by and keep the rest. It would make her work a lot easier. Cut off the head and the rest of the chicken could flap around all day if it wanted to. Wasn’t going nowhere. She had tucked in her children after the Devil Men passed. She had the soldiers right where she wanted them. Yessir, right in her apron pocket.

  Allen and Ryan came into the suite. Rachel and Marianne were at the dining table with Allen’s PC, busy.

  Ryan looked around and asked, “Where’s Gustav?”

  Marianne responded. “Boss, we’ve got four days and things are falling pretty well into place. I have two paralegals at the office chasing down the nuts and bolts and both report in daily on my message board. Let the man rest. He needs it, Ryan. He’s exhausted. You may have lost sight of the fact that he’s getting older a lot faster than you.”

  “Well far be it for me, the Boss, to, no, hold it. I’m over reacting again, aren’t I?”

  “I’ve seen you worse. I’m serious though. I love that aging shark and you as well. You’re my family and the only kids I’ve got. So, how did it go with the posse?”

  Allen said, “Boss man interpreted for the clairvoyantly impaired. I sure wish I could see things, too. You know, maybe it’s my imagination but I sometimes think I can feel something.”

  That perked Rachel’s interest, though Marianne chalked it up to wishful thinking. “Son, what is it you are feeling?”

  “Hard to say. Kind of a prickling on the back of my neck. Nothing threatening, just, a feeling there. Anyway, how did the project go?”

  Marianne was collating pictures on the table. “95% done. There are going to be a lot of happy haunters tomorrow. This is really sweet of you, though it’s a shame we can’t give each man a wallet to keep them in. Still, I’ll bet they are going to be real grateful.”

  Ryan practiced his recurring blank expression. When did he lose control? And where was Vanessa? It was getting dark already. Maybe she stayed on to visit with Annie? “OK, color me clueless and let the deposed king in on the secret. Marianne, what is it you two are working on?”

  “Boss, I thought YOU were a slave driver. Your usurper puts you to shame. Check this out!”

  There on the table was the nearly completed project. There were fifty envelopes
, each with a name on it. Ryan recognized the names as those of the remaining Union soldiers.

  “Go on, peek inside.” Rachel was pretty proud of their accomplishment and could sympathize with Allen’s frustration of not being able to witness the fruits of their labors.

  Ryan picked up the closest envelope. It read “Peterson, Private Pete Nathaniel”. Inside were pictures. Ryan picked out one and looked at it. It was a copy of an old photograph, doctored up for clarity, of a woman. On the back was handwritten ‘Mrs. Kate Winona Peterson, October 12th, 1864’. He flipped through the rest of the pictures, and then set the envelope down. “You did a family photo album on EACH MAN? ID’s and all?”

  Rachel broke out her ear-to-ear smile. “You got that right! These poor boys have been denied their families all this time and I’ll bet that they would love to know about those people they still care about. It’s going to be a bit tricky and I’m not sure how you’ll do it. Maybe we should all go and each take a share. Ryan, you could give us the high sign when each soldier looking at the pictures is done and when to flip to the next one. With you directing and the three of us flipping photos, we should be able to get the whole troop done well before the first break off point, where you insist on not shopping horseback. What do you say?”

  Ryan thought about it. Why not? “Sure, sounds like a great plan. About time we did something just for fun for a change. All work and no play, and all that. Great! One minor change. Marianne, reserve the usual two mares. We need to keep the rest of you on your own tasks. Allen and I can handle the group during the two legs of our ride, tomorrow.”

  Marianne was disappointed, but Rachel couldn’t complain. Being that far off the ground, juggling reins and photos, wasn’t her idea of a great time.

  Vanessa made the scene. Ryan saw her face and asked, “What happened?”