Challenging Destiny #24: August 2007
Page 17
"Might as well get some sleep. It could be a long night."
Max lay flat on the ground but couldn't sleep. He stared up at the stars. They used to think the stars were made of crystal, thought Max. Fixed in heaven by the creator. The unchanging vault of heaven.
The stars grew brighter and Max realized the lights from the ranch had gone out. He raised himself on one elbow and looked through the brush at the house. It was dark and quiet and, if anyone still moved in the yard, Max couldn't see them in the shadows or hear them over the sigh of the wind and the faint sounds of restless night creatures.
George had not moved. Let him sleep, thought Max, maybe he'll sleep the whole night through and we won't have to do this thing. The gun lay heavy on his chest. He felt ill.
He knew guns, had hunted all his life. Killed porcupines and crows to protect the crops and deer to put meat on the table. But he had never held a gun that had only one purpose. He did not think he could take another man's life.
Max lay back again and watched the stars. They were impervious to the works of man. They did not care for war or money or love. They simply were. Unchanging, unmoving.
He knew it wasn't really true. He had read how stars were born and how they would die. He knew that planets moved among the stars. A flash across the sky reminded him that stars could fall. And he knew those were not stars but chunks of rock. He knew all these things but didn't care, taking comfort in the motionlessness of the heavens.
As I watch, so am I watched. Some things may change but some things can never change. Let me do what is right.
Would man someday breach the walls separating earth from sky? Max supposed he would. Nothing seemed out of reach. In his father's youth, men traveled on horseback. Now it was trains or trucks or aeroplanes.
Would the night sky change? Would some other man lying under a desert sky look up and see not stillness but constant movement? Another meteor flashed and another—thin lines of light that appeared and were gone.
The moon began its slow ascent in the east. Max sat up. George's chest continued its slow rise and fall, his head moving in time to the dog's slower rhythm.
Max opened the chamber of the revolver. He let the bullets fall out into his hand. He threw them into the dark and closed the chamber again. He put the gun in his pocket.
He lay down and went to sleep. And did not dream.
* * * *
The moon was high when Max opened his eyes. George was standing, looking at the compound. The dog was gone.
"Is it time?” asked Max.
George nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Max.
"After we get the papers we came for, we'll have to split up,” George said. “They won't be looking for you. Or, if they are, they won't know where to start. Men like you are flooding in from all over the southwest to work on the dam. You'll disappear into the railcars and the jungles in an instant."
"What's this?” asked Max.
"Two thousand dollars and a letter of introduction. Hop a train and head west. When you get to Los Angeles, buy yourself a new suit and take the aeroplane to New York. Check into the Ritz and put the documents in the safe. Use the name Westbrook. Ten days from now, go to the German consulate and give Colonel Heinrich Mueller the letter. He will instruct you on how to make the exchange—the documents for the money. They will give you twenty thousand dollars. Leave ten in the safe at the Ritz in my name. Of course, you could take it all but that would be stealing."
George laughed and, after a moment, Max joined in.
"So helping these people will get us to the future?’ asked Max.
"Who says I'm helping them?"
"But I thought...?"
"You lived in New York, right?"
Max briefly heard the music in the streets of Harlem and saw Mary's face and thought of the choice he hadn't made because he lacked faith in the future, lacked the courage to step outside the rules.
"Did you ever play three card monty?"
"I watched it sometimes. I could never guess where the black queen was. I think they cheated."
"Some of them do. But the best ones don't have to. They use distraction and misdirection, make you look where they want so you miss the important things. That's what I hope to do. Goddard's work will confirm what they already know, lead them farther down a certain road, distracting them from a bigger prize."
"What prize?"
"The Germans can be trusted to reach for the stars—though I don't think that's what they have in mind—but the power of the stars themselves has to go to someone else. I'm hoping to make sure that happens."
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to. I won't lie to you and say nothing bad will happen. All too often we must choose the lesser of two evils for good to be done. Now, repeat those instructions back to me,” said George. Max did so and George nodded. He checked the ammunition in his gun one more time and then gestured for Max to lead the way down to the silent ranch.
The shepherd was waiting for them, standing motionless and alert in the shadows by the west side of the house. There was no sign of the other dogs but they were around somewhere, carrying out whatever orders George had given them. Max didn't want to think about them. It made no sense for these dogs to fall so completely under the spell of a stranger. Or for me, he thought. Nothing about George made sense. He was something other. Bigger than human, like an angel or a devil. Men like me can only follow. George's words came back to him—every man has to choose. I know that, thought Max, but how?
A light went on in a second floor window. George and Max flattened against the side of the house. Ten minutes later the light went out again. A second light appeared and went out farther back in the house.
George didn't move for a long time. The shepherd whined and trotted along the length of the house and around the back. A few minutes later it reappeared from the front of the house. It passed the two men and made a second circuit of the building. When it returned, it pushed its nose into George's outstretched hand and lay down at his feet.
George and Max crept along the wall to the back of the house. The dog did not follow though it raised its head and watched them out of sight.
On a porch at the back of the house, several woven rugs were draped over the railing. Two pairs of overhauls hung from the clothesline that ran from the porch to a wooden pole some thirty feet away. George ducked under the line and mounted the steps two at a time.
He knelt on the porch and pulled a small oilcan from his pack. He oiled the hinges and spring of the screen door. The inner door was locked. He propped open the screen with his pack and did something to the lock. The wooden door opened inward with a faint creak. George drew his pistol, retrieved his pack and went inside. After a moment, Max followed, careful not to let the screen door bang behind him.
The kitchen was dim; the only light came from the still-open door and a small window over the sink. George and Max let their eyes adjust.
"When we go up the stairs, don't tread in the middle of the step,” whispered George. “And have your gun ready, just in case."
Max clutched the revolver in his hand, comforted by the fact it was not loaded.
They moved into the hall as silent as ghosts. Max peered into the parlour as they passed. Several hard-backed chairs had been added and the furniture drawn into a circle. The small pine table was strewn with cups and plates. Several empty bottles stood like sentries next to the table's legs. It was like an artist's studio.
George moved through the darkness as if it were his own home. How could he be so certain? Maybe the dogs had described the house to him. Or maybe he could see in the dark. Nothing about George could surprise him any more.
Half way up the stairs, a step creaked. George and Max froze for half a minute, hardly breathing. Sweat trickled down Max's face and soaked the shirt under his arms. George moved forward again, but he paused at the top of the stairs and waited for Max to join him.
George
mimed for Max to stand guard, tapping his gun and gesturing down the stairs and at the several doors lining the long hallway. Max nodded that he understood and positioned himself with his back in the corner of the hallway. A window looked out into the compound. Nothing stirred in the shadows. George crept down the hall to the room where they had seen the first light.
George paused for several long seconds, then turned the knob. The door swung open silently. George went inside. He closed the door behind him. An orange line of light appeared at the base of the door.
Max exhaled, shocked by the sudden noise, as George reappeared, holding up a sheaf of papers. His teeth gleamed white against the dark blob of his face.
Outside, the three dogs began to bark wildly. A siren sounded. Lights flickered across the compound. Sleepy shouts sounded behind closed doors.
George swore and darted down the hall. A door swung open. One of the young men stepped into George's path. George swatted the side of the man's face with his gun. Max half-ran, half-fell down the stairs, catching himself on the banister at the bottom.
George was at the top of the stairs. Thunder rocked the house. The window exploded outward. George's pistol flashed twice, sounding like popcorn after the shotgun blast. A voice cried out. George hurtled down the stairs. He thrust the papers into Max's hands.
"Go out the back. I'll draw their fire."
"No. You'll be—"
"Don't worry about me. My kind is hard to kill. Head west until you reach the tracks. Good luck. Give me your gun."
"It's not loaded."
"Sure it is,” said George. “I loaded it myself while you slept."
George flung open the front door and squeezed off a couple of shots. He flashed Max one last smile.
"Nothing is what it seems. Not me. Not Goddard. And tomorrow, it will all be different again. For tonight, trust me or not. It's up to you. Now, go."
There were voices upstairs and footsteps in the hallway. Soon, someone would gather the courage to peer down the stairs. And he would have a shotgun in his hands.
"Be careful, George,” Max said. George laughed and ducked out the front door. He fired again. This time his report drew an answering shot. A dog howled and a man screamed in fear or pain.
The voices upstairs grew louder. Stuffing the papers in his jacket, Max ran down the hall and out the back door. The screen door slammed behind him. He leapt down the four steps in a single bound. He hit the ground running, waiting for the heavy thump in his back and the sudden pain that would end his flight. His moon-cast shadow sprinted in front of him.
He ran until his breath came in gasps. A flash of green sketched a second shadow on the ground. He ran until pain sliced through his side like a knife. He kept running. He ran until his legs quivered and his heart throbbed in his temple. He ran until, at last, his body refused the wishes of his mind. He fell forward into the dust and lay panting, immobile.
He could no longer hear the fight. There was no sound of pursuit, no sound at all but the rasping of his breath against the dirt and the hush of the desert night.
He rolled onto his back. The stars had not moved. They stared down with crystalline clarity. Max lay watching the stars until the sweat dried on his face and body, until his heart lost its frantic rhythm.
He closed his eyes, steeling himself to stand. When he opened them again, a great black face hovered above his. A long tongue slithered from the toothy mouth and licked his cheek and forehead. Max pushed the dog's head aside. The moon was setting but sunrise was still hours away.
Max got up and walked west. The dog followed at his heel. Max put down his hand and the dog nuzzled his head against it.
He stopped and looked back the way he had come. There was no sign of the ranch. No sign of anything but the desert and the night sky. A meteor blazed across the heavens. Its light burned for a long moment before disappearing in a flash.
Nothing is certain. But he had made a bargain, whether with an angel or a devil or something else altogether, he didn't know. But he had made a bargain and he would keep it. That, at least, he could hold onto.
He felt the papers heavy in his jacket. A new day was coming. He took one last look back the way he had come but there was no going back. He wouldn't see George again. He glanced at the night sky. I hope you make it home, my friend, he thought.
The dog barked once and pressed its body against Max's leg.
"I know,” said Max. “I know.” He headed west to the rail line, the dog at his side like a shadow.
* * * *
Hayden Trenholm has written over 15 plays with productions across Alberta and on CBC radio. His short fiction has appeared in On Spec, TransVersions, Tesseracts6, Neo-Opsis, Challenging Destiny and on CBC radio. His short stories “The Luck of Willie Lumen” and “Like Monsters of the Deep” were nominated for an Aurora Award in 2005 and 2006 respectively. In 1992, his novel A Circle of Birds was published by Anvil Press. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, in Ottawa where he does research for the Senator for the Northwest Territories. Hayden's story “The Case of the Twisted Coil” appeared in Challenging Destiny Number 21.
* * * *
When enough people change the way they view things, then solutions become evident, often in ways we couldn't even imagine before we looked with new eyes.
—Thom Hartmann, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
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Upcoming Issue—Number 25
Death and Taxes Bill loved his StarSpangly motorhome, and he wasn't going to give it up. But his wife had died last night, and he was supposed to turn in the RV so that someone else could make use of it. So he did what any rational person would have done in that situation. He stuffed his wife's body into the refrigerator...
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Jhyoti Cadet Jhyoti was working on her final field assignment for exo-anthropology. She broke into the bashravi to find the secrets of the body washers. But she tripped over a dead body, and was found by the yighsilchi. Who would leave a dead body like this, and who killed the woman?
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God of Lemons Karen Nguyen was listening to her iPod on the bus to the Embarquedero. The next thing she knew she was waking up in a forest. But the trees didn't look like any trees she'd ever seen before, and they were in rows. The three people with her claimed to be Charles Darwin, T. E. Shaw, and Peter Abelard. They decided they were in hell...
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Expectations Parker was a normal, and having a good week. He saved a convict's life, and helped his friend become class president. He was interviewed on national television, and was invited to a very exclusive party. At the party he decided to try a pill which supposedly made you believe in God like old people and rejects...
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Pretty Birds Arna had been pregnant, but she hadn't borne a child. One ultrasound she had seen her baby, and the next ultrasound the baby had disappeared. Once in a while Arna would see a baby girl lying on the back lawn, but she wasn't crazy. Another woman in her group was having similar experiences...
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Kelmscott Manor: In the Attics Georgie's friend Topsy was dying, worn out from trying to make the world a better place. They loved each other, but had never acted on that love—even though their spouses had had many affairs. Now Topsy handed her a letter which explained how he had obtained an unbelievable machine from a man named H. G. Wells...
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The Keys to the Yellow Kingdom Carlos had spent a lot of money to get here. He had climbed the pyramid and now stood in front of the Wonderbox, which supposedly could grant his wish. He would wish to become a famous writer. But then a man appeared, the creator of the machine, who told him the machine didn't work quite the way he thought...
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