The No Where Apocalypse (Book 4): Searching No Where

by E A Lake

  At Beacon Hill, they stabilized my condition, dressed my wound and sent Violet and I (in the same wagon) 40 miles down the coast to the nearest decent known hospital - Ontonagon.

  There had been some discussion, however brief, of taking me to Houghton. It was closer after all, barely half the distance they told Violet. However, and this was the deciding factor, of the last 15 patients sent from Beacon Hill to Houghton’s hospital, only two came back alive.

  That was good enough for Violet. Ontonagon it was.

  A full half-day later, we arrived in Ontonagon just as the pink and orange hues began to fill the eastern sky. A group of people carefully moved my unconscious body from the wagon into a makeshift operating room. Enter Doctor Pamela Fulbright. The middle-aged doctor just happened to be on a family vacation in Ontonagon, from Toledo of all places, when The Darkness arrived some four years prior. That turned out to be the luckiest break of my nearly 30 years on Earth.

  “Doctor Pam,” Violet continued, “was an accomplished orthopedic surgeon back in Toledo. Your left hip was shattered, and while I didn’t think there was any hope of saving it — much less your left leg — she knew just what to do.”

  I had a new hip, or a partial new hip, Doctor Pam claimed. Though I wasn’t supposed to think of it in pre-No Where terms, it was still an improvement on what might have happened to me during, for example, Civil War times.

  The scar was massive and hurt like hell when the “magic” pills ran low. Morphine was the most wonderful drug I knew nothing about, until Doctor Pam.

  “We’ll have to wean you off it in a couple of weeks,” she told me one afternoon, a day or two after my welcoming back to the real world. “And it’ll probably be six to eight weeks before you can go home.”

  Who was I to argue? I was being fed, bathed, medicated, given therapy and loved. Violet came and went every day, evasive as to her whereabouts during my hours of drug-induced sleep.

  “We can discuss it later,” she always told me, not sounding upset with my insistence. She was, in a word, changed. Something besides my near-death experience had caused it. But I’d have to wait, and I was getting pretty good at that, thanks to morphine.

  Day 1,194

  The truth about Daisy Vaughn came one evening about the third week into my convalescence. Dinner had stayed down — something that didn’t always happen — and Violet thought my color was coming back.

  I could tell by her face that she had news. But Violet had one of the best poker faces I’d ever seen. So whether the news was good or not would have to wait for her delivery.

  “I don’t need to know,” I announced as Violet took a spot close to me on the bed. “Nothing’s going to change. I know she’s not in Ontonagon, otherwise you would have brought her here. I’m not sure what you’re going to tell me makes any difference anymore.”

  She nodded several times, unable to smile or cry. It seemed that it did matter to her, the news that is. The news that she knew all about and I knew nothing of.

  “Daisy was taken by the Weston’s to the fish camp in Munising the week after she was stolen from us,” Violet said in a monotone. “Munising is another 50 or 60 miles east of Marquette.”

  I chuckled, shaking my head at our chosen path. “We weren’t even close,” I admitted. “We never would have made it to Munising.”

  She nodded and continued, playing with my hands, “The week we left for Ironwood, she was transferred to Sault Ste. Marie, another 120 miles further east. The same group that owns the Munising camp owns the one in Sault Ste. Marie. The lady I met said that Daisy had a wonderful way with some of the younger teens in the camp. She kept everyone calm, always telling them everything would be okay. For whatever reason, they thought she’d be of more benefit to that second camp.”

  I stared up into Violet’s brown eyes. “How far is that camp from here?” I asked. “I just want to know how stupid I was.”

  She tried to smile, but sighed instead, rubbing the back of my left hand gently. “It’s all the way across the UP, Bob. You had no idea which way to go.”

  I fixed my gaze on Violet. “Almost 300 miles,” she finally admitted in defeat.

  “I was hardly in the right country, Violet.” My words sounded hollow, almost as if I wasn’t the one speaking. “I drug you on a wild goose chase. I took you away from Hope and Libby, and I had no idea where to even begin. I damn near got us both killed, more than once. And in the end, we were on the wrong side of the state, some 300 miles away from Daisy.”

  It was then that I saw her pain. And Violet’s pain would be my truth. I was never even close.

  Day 1,194 - continued

  “Three weeks ago,” Violet continued after a bout of pacing and nail biting, “a man came from far away, visiting the Sault Ste. Marie Fish Camp. I’m told he was a representative for a man in New York who owned a majority interest in many of the camps along the Great Lakes. That man came and took Daisy away to be a governess for the six children that the wealthy man had been left with after his wife died.

  “Somewhere in the middle of Lake Erie, a doctor or a lawyer — no one is quite sure of the man’s status — noticed Daisy’s chain around her waist. Though she was well loved and respected, she was still considered chattel property of the camp; thus the chain, though I’m sure in her case, it was more symbolic than anything. It’s said the man bought her freedom and she disembarked with him either to Erie or Buffalo. No one knows anything about her or the man who purchased her freedom, after that.”

  I looked up at Violet’s tear-filled eyes. “She’s 1,000 miles away now.”

  “Eight hundred,” she corrected.

  I shook my head. “It may as well be a million, Violet. She’s never coming back.”

  Wiping way a few stray tears, Violet nodded. “Probably not.”

  “Probably never was,” I stated, reaching up to rub her cheek.

  “Probably,” she agreed in a broken voice.

  I stared at her and Violet stared back.

  “Let’s go home,” I whispered. “Our girls need us. We need us.”

  Violet moved closer, begging for something with her eyes. “I can’t if she’s always going to be on your mind. I’d rather go chase after her in some faraway place than worry she’s going to come and take my place someday. I can’t live like that, Bob. I’m sorry.”

  I understood; hell, even drugged up I got her concern. But I had news for her.

  “You want to know my last thoughts after you ran off?” I began. “I thought about how Daisy had saved me when I didn’t think I could go on. How she brought something into my life when I felt the world had nothing to offer.”

  Violet nodded, fighting back a flood of tears.

  “But my very last thoughts were of you, Violet. Not her. Daisy’s gone, and she has been since the day the Weston’s took her. I’ve known that, just never wanted to admit it. Not out loud, at least.”

  Violet looked at me seriously. “But you’ll never feel the same about me as you did about her, will you.” It wasn’t really a question. Because Violet already knew the truth.

  “There are different seasons in people’s lives, Violet,” I said. “No, I’ll never love you like I loved her. But yes, I will care for you however I can. I’m sorry if that’s painful, but it’s the truth. I want to go home with you, Violet. The woman who’s saved my life three times now. The woman who’s cared for me when I couldn’t care for myself. The woman who’s been beside me this whole time — before and after Daisy.”

  “I am all that,” Violet admitted with a slight grin. “But I always did it for selfish reasons, and you know that, right?”

  I laughed; she had always been extremely transparent about her intentions. At least after I had decided to go after Clyde Barster.

  “Why did you ever start loving me, Violet?” I asked, feeling something spark inside. “And why did Daisy never seem to love me? That still doesn’t make any sense to me. It just seemed like all the right feelings were there. But it never s
parked inside of her like it did me.”

  Violet turned away. “She couldn’t, and it was my fault.”

  “Oh Violet,” I joked, poking at her side. “Don’t be so dramatic. It couldn’t have been all about you.”

  But her silence and new round of tears made me wonder.

  “Can we just not talk about it anymore?” she whined. Still refusing to look back at me, I reached for her shoulder.

  What I found wasn’t sadness, or jealousy, or even fright. What I saw in Violet’s expression was absolute shame.

  “What did you do?” I asked, happiness gone from my voice. “What did you do, Violet?”

  Day 1,194 - continued

  Violet turned back to me; her arms drawn tightly across her chest. She wasn’t all-out bawling, but she was crying fairly hard.

  “It’s not so much what I did,” she replied, fighting back sobs.

  “What did I do to Daisy? What aren’t you telling me?” I didn’t shout at her, but I did raise my voice enough to cause her to jump slightly.

  “You weren’t supposed to live. Not that time,” Violet began, lost in some other place. “And who knew someone like Daisy would show up. I mean, I never saw that coming. And I couldn’t have weighed 85 pounds. None of this should have happened like it did.”

  She shook her head, losing the battle of wiping away tears. “I thought you were going to die. I was sure of it. You were out of your mind in pain. I was alone there with you. Just you and me. And you were dying, I thought.”

  Okay, I was more confused than ever. But when Violet explained things, that had a way of happening.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “The second time, when you got shot in the side. You were out of your mind one night. I didn’t see any harm in it. You were delirious, and either you were going to die or never remember what happened. I know I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t see how anything bad could happen. I had to do something. You were begging me to make the pain stop.”

  I held my hands up in front of her face. “Slow, down. You’re not making any sense.”

  She drew in a big breath and continued. “You didn’t have any clothes on, and all I had to do was climb on top as much as I knew. I mean, I knew it was the pain. I knew it was the pills. But there couldn’t have been any repercussions, right? I mean, nothing was going to come of it. And you’d never even know.”

  I didn’t believe what I was hearing. If what her broken story spoke of was true, I’d done more than just molest poor Violet in my sleep.

  She stared out the window, drawing circles on the chilly glass.

  “Daisy came two months later. That was it for me. I knew you’d never feel like that about me,” Violet paused and looked back, her crying subsiding some. “Then a month later, I was pregnant. But I wasn’t two months pregnant like I told everybody.”

  My heart stopped beating. I felt the blood drain from my face. “You were three months pregnant.”

  “It all would have been fine if any of those three things would have happened,” Violet said, staring at the floor. “You probably shouldn’t have lived. That would have made Daisy showing up and Hope being born no big deal. Or if Daisy wouldn’t have shown up. And who would have thought a skinny little girl like me could carry a baby to term? Especially in the middle of hell?

  “Daisy knew, of course,” Violet continued. “She saw the way I looked at you and chased after you all the time. How frantic I got when you said you had to go to Covington. She didn’t let on until after you two came back after Dizzy died. But she knew. She knew I’d never been with Jimmy Wilson, or Johnny Wilson, or anyone else. Except you.

  “After Hope was born and it was obvious she was going to be all right, Daisy said we couldn’t tell anyone, otherwise Mr. Wilson might not help. I made Jimmy Wilson a deal early on, just so I’d never have to admit what I did with you: he could brag about being with me if he kept his mouth shut about the truth. He was too stupid to understand what I was asking. And let’s face it — I’m way out of his league. So it didn’t hurt his credibility at all.”

  “Hope is my child?” I asked, fighting back tears of my own.

  Violet approached and stood before me, nodding. “Yep. My father’s parents had red hair, just like the Wilsons’. It was the lie that just kept on giving.”

  “When did you plan on telling me?”

  Violet shrugged. “Me? Probably never. Daisy? She was going to tell you if you came back from hunting down Barster. She said you deserved to know. Said you needed a chance to understand the truth. Maybe even learn to love me.

  “But you were never going to love me like you loved her. Daisy was never going to stand in the way of a woman and her man and their child. She told me we had to tell you the truth. But she was gone when you came back, so I never had to admit to it.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t think of anything else to ask.

  “You were going to die,” she answered, sitting next to me on the bed. “There was no chance of getting pregnant. It made you feel better; it made me feel better. I wasn’t even sure in the end if we had done it right. But I guess we did.”

  She kissed my hands and we stared at one another silently for a few long moments.

  “I didn’t know there was a Daisy about to come into our lives,” she pleaded. “This was before her. I didn’t intentionally do this so that you’d love me and not her. I honestly thought you were dying. But I want you to know something, and this is really important. I love Hope more than anything I’ve ever loved before. I’m not ashamed that I had her, that we had her, that she’s ours. And I didn’t drive Daisy off. You have to believe me.”

  I didn’t know what I believed. My thoughts spun out of control, spilling over into irrational territory. On the one hand, Violet had driven away Daisy, just not intentionally. On the other, Violet, and Hope, came months before Daisy.

  And then it hit me: the irrational behavior, the fight that made no sense.

  I grinned. “So that’s why you were so upset about Jean.”

  Violet nodded, a tiny smile forming on her otherwise sad face. “It probably would have been a good time to tell you. But I was seeing red and all.”

  I laughed and looked away. “We’re really quite a pair, aren’t we?” She didn’t answer and I knew she was most likely nodding at me. I sneaked a peek at her. One final question, I figured.

  “And just how old were you when you decided sleeping with a dying man was a good idea?” I saw her move to answer but cut her off. “And just the truth, Violet. It really doesn’t matter anymore. We are who we are.”

  She blew away a deep breath. “Really?” I nodded. “Almost 16,” she answered, wiping away the last of her tears with the butt of her hand.

  I stroked her shaking hands. “Well, you were somewhere between 14 and 17, right?”

  She nodded. “Yep.” Her eyes went moist again. “I was only 15, I’m sorry I lied so much. I just didn’t want to lose you. And I didn’t know what age I was supposed to be.”

  My fault. Daisy was 21; I was surprised Violet never picked that age. “We’ll have lots of time to sort this all out once we get back home, Violet. Our girls need us. Whether we’re decent parents or not, they need us.”

  She stepped closer, all serious like. “Do you forgive me, Bob?”

  I pulled her on top of me and hugged tightly. I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself for all the things I’d done. Forgive Violet? That was a no-brainer. “Let’s try to forgive each other,” I whispered. “And when we get back, we’ll start anew. You, me, Libby and Hope. Okay?”

  I felt her nod against my chest. Good enough for me.

  Winter and Spring of the Lost Year

  We wintered at Wilson’s place. Almost 12 weeks after Violet and I set out to find Daisy, we returned in a snow storm, in the back of a covered horse-drawn sleigh.

  Lettie waited on me non-stop for the first month, but sensed Violet’s need to be more involved after that. I caught the old bird
whispering and grinning with Violet one day when I was supposed to be napping. News that we were a couple was news that Violet wanted everyone to know. And they all heard it often.

  By late spring, we were back in my grandfather’s old cabin; just a man and his family. A man, a woman and their two daughters. Sort of.

  Our exit was hastened by a new addition to the Wilson household. Two additions, actually. Darcy Kimber, large boobs and baby in tow had shown up while Violet and I were gone. Darcy’s baby, Thaddeus Jr., had colic. Bad colic. As in the poor thing screamed all of the time, only stopping to occasionally eat, sleep and poop.

  According to Libby, the child’s screaming had driven Grandpa Wilson to swear at Jimmy. It was big news; Wilson was not known for swearing in front of the children. Violet found the news delightful, all the while giving Darcy tips on ways to help alleviate the illness. Not that anything helped.

  Sitting in the sun on the rotting wooden bench I loved so dearly, I watched as Libby bounced Hope on her hip. Both had grown in our absence the previous fall. Hope more than Libby. But the daughter of the woman I knew I’d never see again had matured as well. I guess when you spend that much time with great-grandma Lettie, maturing came easily.

  “Is Momma still sick?” Libby asked, poking at Hope’s thin cheeks.

  I nodded. “Yep. Says she just doesn’t feel right. Been a while now. But she’ll be okay.”

  Libby glanced at me, a worried look tightening her six-year-old features.

  “Are you sure she’s going to get better?” the young girl asked, finally handing the squirming Hope to me.

  Playing with my daughter, watching her smile and gnaw on my semi-clean finger, I felt my shoulder warm.

  “Yeah, Libby,” I replied as she took a spot next to me on the bench. “She’s gonna be just fine.”

  Libby stared up at me. “And the baby, too?”