At this very moment, on a small patch of farmland in south central Pennsylvania, the world of Clay was gathering. These were people whom this traveler happened to meet on his journey. Clay Richter was no more, but in one way or another he was a part of the lives of these people who were now being drawn together.
It is not what you’d expect though. They did not know him in great detail. They knew him not exhaustively. They knew him as you might know the shoreline if you were floating downstream on a summer day. He’d been one of the many details in their lives, waving from the shore.
For example, as Clive and Red Beard sat in the drawing room waiting, they did not know that they each knew Clay.
Veronica and Stephen, who at that very moment were on their way down the drive of the farm complex, still amazed at this boy, Calvin, who had just saved them again… Veronica and Stephen did not know the men waiting in the house, and they could not know that those men knew Clay. And Calvin, of course, did not know Clay. He did, however, share in some ways his memory. And there was something else. Calvin was in Pennsylvania, having been sent on this adventure by Jonathan Wall. The writings of Jonathan Wall had played a large part in setting Clay off on his journey.
All of the people converging on this farmhouse shared Clay, in some ways, but only through memory and circumstance. As a result, when they meet, they will not discuss him, at least not directly. Though they will be poorer for it, they will discuss him, if at all, in terms so vague that they will not be able to make him out. They will tell stories of a friend, with whom they had once shared an apple, or a guy who had a real appreciation for Johnny Cash, or a guy who wrote these beautiful poems. But they will not speak of him. Not truly. They will not call him by his name.
And perhaps that is unimportant, after all, what is in a name? Would these friends of Clay not remember him just as tenderly, just as accurately, if they referred to him as Ned Ludd? Or Mr. Fugitive? The stories would probably all ring just as true for all these people.
No, the reason these people will not know Clay, will not recognize him even when they meet others who know him, is because they do not see him entire. They are like the blind men inspecting the elephant. One touches the belly and thinks he has found a wall, while another touches a leg and thinks he has a tree. Separately, none of them know exactly what they are dealing with.
So it is in the life of a man. There are things his fellows did know about him, but there were many other things they did not know. For example, they did not know, because they could not know, what had happened to the traveler. There was another man heading their way who had that piece of the puzzle. They did not know that Clay had been transformed by his contact with that other world, how he had met Volkhov as an equal. Nor did they know, because they could not know, that the traveler named Clay had a backpack that had traveled on without him. They did not know that the backpack, too, was on a journey.
Perhaps they can’t be blamed, these friends of Clay, for their not knowing. And as they sit down in the drawing room together, where they will wait for… What? Gauguin? Godot? The set of boots and the backpack now trekking across the forest?
No. Now, as they sat in the drawing room and waited, they couldn’t be held responsible for not knowing Clay better. They had each reached out to him on their brief sojourn with him, but he was a difficult man to know. You could prod him for answers, but he’d always take his time in getting you the answers. He was patient that way. You could ask him to hurry it up, but he’d just say “No.”
CHAPTER 34
Natasha and Lang huddled together in the kitchen as gunfire ripped through the building in waves, like music, or the ocean crashing against the beach in thunderous intervals. They held on to one another like one would hold on to a flotation device or a buoy if one was drowning in the violent ocean crashing around them.
At irregular intervals, Natasha would pop up and fire a round from the 9-millimeter pistol, but she was running out of ammunition. She looked Lang in the eyes with a look of pure affection, and then she jumped to her feet again and fired through the open window, expending the two final rounds that remained in the clip. She slumped back down next to Lang and looked at him again, still smiling.
“You’re something else,” he said.
“So are you, Lang.”
“Well… we’re something else then.” He reached over with his right hand and clasped her hand in his. He gave the hand a light squeeze, and neither of them was anxious to let go.
“Do you suppose Elsie and Peter are alright?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Things don’t look particularly good for any of us right now.”
“No. you’re right.”
“If they rush the place—” he did not complete the sentence.
“I know.”
The two young people looked at one another, and their wordless communication was un-gilded, un-scripted, and unreservedly honest. The things that they did not say to one another were true, and they both meant them with all of their hearts.
Afraid that the opposing force might take the lull in fighting as an invitation to attack, Lang shuffled to his feet, and, balancing the barrel on the window frame, he popped off three quick shots from the .22, just to remind the enemy that someone armed was still in the cabin. It was a weak little protest, and it was met with a more powerful response. A bullet passed by Lang’s ear so closely that it nearly took the appendage off. He dropped to the ground so fast that for a second, Natasha thought that he had been hit.
“Whoa,” Lang said, and laughed nervously. “That was close. They’re getting better at this. I think they’re timing our return fire.”
****
The round-faced man, like many in his tribe, bore many names. He decided on the spot that he preferred another. He was going back to being called Cole.
Cole made his escape while Mike and Steve were busy trying to locate the position of the sniper. Neither one wanted to move in any particular direction until they knew that they wouldn’t be moving into the crosshairs of someone with an agenda different than their own.
The three Warwickians, Mikail, Sergei, and Vladimir had retreated back away from the ridge when Mikail indicated to the others that there was a sniper somewhere who was shooting at the National Guardsmen. The bulldog wordlessly ordered Val and Kent to circle around the ridge to the southeast in order to try to see who might be holed up in the cabin. This order gave Cole just the opportunity he’d hoped for.
Cole carried the new backpack as the group split in two. Just as soon as he and Vladimir had cleared Mikail’s line of sight, Cole smoothly and fearlessly pulled the pistol from the band of his coat. He placed it to the back of Vladimir’s head and pulled the trigger.
That was that. There was no ominous or threatening chit-chat. There were no syncopated rejoinders or catchphrases popping back and forth between the executioner and the executed. Cole was too smart for that stuff. He wasn’t giving Vladimir an opportunity to weasel out of what he had coming.
Cole did not struggle within himself with the decision to kill Vladimir. He knew that Vlad was a coiled and poisonous serpent. A snake can and will strike anywhere and anytime. Vlad was a murderer many times over, and, as a cold-blooded psychopath, the man was too dangerous to suffer to live any longer.
In nature, rattlesnakes have a purpose. It is often said by people who are too ignorant to know better that “the only good snake is a dead snake.” These people do not realize that if it were not for rattlesnakes, the human race would be wiped out by plagues and diseases from vermin in just a few years. Rattlesnakes are a necessary creature. We’d be lost without them. But you don’t let them into your bedroom where you sleep. Cole looked out through his glasses, and he noticed that they had some specks of blood on them. Those vipers that get too close and won’t go away, he thought, you have to kill. He pulled off the glasses and cleaned them on his shirt.
Perhaps Vladimir had a purpose. He’d never been a good person, or even a morally neutr
al person. He’d always been purely evil. He was, Cole figured, a rattlesnake that wouldn’t leave the house. It had been time for him to die.
Cole was moving slowly, crawling foot by foot towards the rear of the cabin, when he inexplicably heard a voice from some bushes.
The bushes were calling to him using Peter’s voice.
But they were calling him using his real name.
****
“Do you ever wonder what life might have been like for us if…” Natasha stopped herself before she finished the question.
“If what?” Lang asked.
“…If we’d been from somewhere else… anywhere else… anywhere but Warwick?”
“I do wonder that, Natasha. I’ve thought about that a lot as we’ve traveled on this little adventure of ours. But,” he squeezed her hand softly as he tried to form the words to say the things he wanted to say. “But, I can’t say that I would ask for anything to be different. Not a thing. Not even being here, right now, with you. I’ve thought about this a lot, Natasha, really I have.” Lang reached up and touched Natasha’s face, and just then a tear escaped her eye and traced its way down to where his hand rested against her cheek.
“How can you say that?” she asked, but with no hint of agitation or irritation at all. She really and truly wanted to know. “How can it be that you wouldn’t change things if you could?”
“Because, I’m free now, Natasha. I realized it back when I got shot crossing Highway 17, a lifetime ago.” Lang paused for a moment, and looked deeper into Natasha’s eyes. “‘Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.’ Solzhenitsyn said that. I don’t know that I can explain why I have joy and peace at this moment. I know Volkhov felt the same thing when he was in that prison with Clay in Warwick. When I was shot, I knew then that, for the first time in all of my life, I was moving, and breathing, and deciding, all as a free man. I just wonder… if none of this had happened, if I’d ever have really experienced freedom.”
The gunfire from outside had slowed considerably, and Lang hesitated for a moment, afraid that the soldiers outside might be considering a raid on the cabin. He looked up and found that Natasha was still looking at him, as if she expected him to continue. So he did.
“I remember that man Clay. The man who accidentally stumbled into Warwick during the winter storm. He was looking for freedom, too. I’m not talking about political freedom, here particularly. I’m talking about moral freedom, the freedom to not be a puppet in another man’s game. And I believe that Clay died happy, even if he was confused by all of it. He died saying ‘NO’ to tyranny and wickedness. Just like Volkhov said. To me, it is okay to die, as long as you are doing it while acting out your freedom.
“So, no, I don’t wish things had been different. I’m just glad that things worked out so that I could team up with you and Peter and Elsie… and Cole. I’m just glad that we all made the decision to say ‘no.’ I’m glad we had the courage to flee the system that was lying to us and enslaving us.”
Natasha looked at him and smiled. The mention of Cole’s name struck her a bit like a needle pushed into her skin, but she understood Lang’s words, and she liked it that Lang said them to her. Another tear ran down her face, and she looked down before speaking again.
“If…” she paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts before beginning again. “If things were different. If we’d been born in a regular American town, and if we knew nothing of Russia or spies or any of this mess… well… Vasily Romanovich Kashporov… in such a case, I would love you anyway.” She looked up at Lang, and he smiled.
Lang was just about to reply to Natasha, when he saw movement near the back door of the cabin. Cole rushed through the door, and Lang hardly had time to recognize who it was and stop himself before firing at the figure moving towards them. He did hold his fire, but the Missouri National Guard did not.
Seeing the movement in the cabin, the assaulting force opened fire again, and Natasha dove towards Cole dragging him down to the ground as a cascade of bullets smashed through the structure, destroying everything in their paths. Simultaneous with Natasha’s dive towards Cole, Lang sprung up again, instinctively, to offer covering fire, and rapidly squeezed off the four remaining shots left in the tube magazine of the squirrel rifle. Once again, his appearance was answered with a barrage of fire through the window, and once again, Lang dropped to the ground instantaneously with a loud thud.
Cole found Natasha on top of him, and he struggled to wiggle out from beneath her. He was worried that she’d been shot, and, as he struggled to get free, her head swung around towards his and their eyes met, and she smiled.
“Hello, brother,” she whispered. “You okay?”
“Yes! Are you?” Cole replied.
“Yes. Not hit. Let’s get into the kitchen though. It’s safer.”
The two low-crawled back into the little kitchen area, and there they found Lang—Vasily Kashporov—slumped down with his back against the wooden cabinets.
He’d been shot through the throat, and he was dead.
****
All of the Warwickians, those who were left among the living there on the field of battle, could not have known that they had just participated in a reunion of sorts. There wasn’t any time to pause the action to notice. Peter, Cole, Natasha, Mikail, and Steve were still alive. Vasily and Vladimir were now dead. None of them knew the scope of the battle in which they now found themselves.
From high above the battlefield it could be seen that the Missouri National Guardsmen were receiving reinforcements in their positions opposite the tiny little cabin. Panning to the east, one might have seen that a large contingent of the FMA—the Free Missouri Army—was joining the battle against the MNG. A quick calculation would have given you the proper conclusion. Peter and Elsie were trapped between the two opposing armies.
Peter and Elsie, for their part, were waiting, hoping, and praying that Cole would bring Natasha and Lang out of the cabin, but as they hoped, they became surrounded by the advancing FMA. Unarmed and not able to fight, they were forced by the FMA units to retreat behind their lines. They implored the soldiers to try to save Lang, Natasha, and Cole inside the cabin, but all they got were assurances that “everything that is within our power will be done.”
The FMA tried valorously to hold back the Missouri Guard from taking the cabin. There was a ferocious firefight.
All the while, Ace was off in the distance, doing his best to keep the Guard away from the cabin with his sniper rifle.
****
Shortly after the FMA was forced to retreat back towards Lancaster County, the cabin was taken by the Missouri Guard.
Ace, out of ammo and unable to do anything else to save the people in the cabin, retreated with the FMA. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. He’d seen what the Missouri Guard had done to his hometown of Scranton. There was something in his memory about the way the smoke had curled up in little wisps over the house that had belonged to Irene Ducillo that made him angriest.
****
A WEEK LATER
Peter, Elsie, and Ace reluctantly left the FMA camp, and with beleaguered faces and sad countenances they set off on foot towards Amish country. The days of waiting for Natasha, Cole, and Lang to join them had sapped them of their emotional strength, and Peter finally decided that they could wait no longer.
The men of the FMA had been kind and helpful—at least as kind and helpful as they could possibly be under the circumstances—but it had become obvious that FMA leadership wanted the three travelers to either fight with them, or move along. They didn’t have the materials or resources to keep refugees as pets.
All in all, it was time to move on.
The three said goodbye to their friends in the FMA and thanked them earnestly for their help and support. They left descriptions of their missing friends, and silently hoped that the three would be found safe and sound, and that they would rejoin them in the not-too-distant future.
A
nd so, they walked. As they did, they talked about where they were going, and where they’d been. Well, actually, Peter and Elsie talked. Ace rarely said a word. He was a quiet man, and he talked more with his eyes and his actions than his words. He believed that actions spoke louder than words.
“We have to just keep moving,” Peter said, trying to make his voice sound hopeful and authoritative. “If our friends are safe and alive, they’ll know where we’re headed, and we’ll see them again.”
“I know,” Elsie replied. “I just can’t help thinking that we might have all made it out of there safely, if only I’d stayed and helped Natasha move Lang.”
Peter stopped and looked over at Elsie with a stern look. “We’ve talked about this, Elsie, and you know what I’ve said. This is no time for self-recrimination. We’ve all made decisions we now regret. We all could have done things differently. This world is falling apart and it will only get worse and—”
Just as he said those words, there was a sharp flash of light in the air. The ground rumbled violently. Seconds later, an indescribable wave of sound reached them and it shook through them as they walked. The general brightness in the sky seemed to gather in the east.
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