Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers)

by Richard Bamberg

  “Then how did you get credit cards?” Tess asked.

  I frowned. “Well, maybe they ran a credit check on me then, but that was decades ago. I haven’t ever purchased anything on time and the credit cards are paid automatically every month. I just don’t think about it.”

  “You are going to have to explain your finances to me. You say we don’t get paid for what we do, but you seem to have no problem with spending money,” Tess said.

  “Money is easy to come by when you have access to the portals. I’ll show you when we get a chance.”

  “All right then, but unless we do a credit check we are going to have problems getting phones. I have a small credit history with my own phone and a car that Dad co-signed for with me when I joined the Army.”

  “But you can’t use your own identity in case the Army is looking for you,” I said.

  “D’uh! You practically kidnap me out of a military hospital in the dead of night, and you think the Army doesn’t have a B.O.L.O. for me? If my name shows up on a credit app for a phone, the MPs or the FBI will be right behind.”

  “Okay, so they’ll be looking for you. We’ll be gone before they get here,” I countered.

  “But they’ll know what phone I have and be able to track it.” She hesitated. “Unless…do you know how to hide our location?”

  “From a cell phone? I don’t even know how they’d find it. How can I block that?”

  “You really should keep up with modern technology,” Tess said.

  I opened my mouth to deliver a stinging comeback but then closed it since I couldn’t think of one. Wanderers don’t need modern technology. Each of us is an island unto ourselves. What use is a social media device like a smartphone? Can it close a portal, shield you from magic, or put fear into those who would subvert the natural order? I thought not.

  “Okay, I’ve got this,” Tess said. “As long as your credit card is good, we can just buy a couple of burner phones with pre-paid minutes. Then we don’t need the credit checks. We’ll just have to purchase more minutes anytime we use up what we’ve already purchased. Come on.” Tess threw her leg over Maia’s back and strode across the parking lot toward a glass door with a sign advertising some kind of cellular service.

  I was trying to decide what a burner phone was when she stopped outside the door and noticed I hadn’t moved.

  “Keep up, Rafe,” Tess called.

  I found myself rolling my eyes, but I dismounted and walked confidently across the asphalt toward her. She watched me until I was a couple of feet away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Wrong, nothing. Why would you think something was wrong?”

  “Because you’re dragging your feet like a little boy being forced to get a vaccination.”

  “I am not,” I asserted.

  “Are too. Come on, you promised we’d get phones and now we’re getting them.”

  She flung open the door and didn’t wait to see if I was following.

  Frowning, I tagged along.

  Twenty minutes later, I was the proud owner of my first cell phone. Yeah, right. We had thrown the packaging away, and I was left with something with a five-inch screen, a charger, and an instruction manual that was nearly as large as the phone.

  Sitting astride Beast, I was straining to read the tiny print for the initial operating instructions when I heard Tess speaking.

  “Hi, Alex. Yes, it’s me. How are you doing?”

  I put the manual down and stared at Tess.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t stay. You know I wanted to.”

  She was talking to Alex, the son I’d learned of only recently and Tess’s brief lover while we were in New Braunfels. Why had she called him? We’d left before he could bury Laura, his mother, the woman I’d been forced to kill.

  I felt strange listening to one side of a conversation, particularly considering the circumstances and to whom she was talking. I considered activating my enhanced senses tat, but then thought that might be rude. Damn, everything about having an apprentice put me in awkward situations. I just didn’t know what was proper. As her mentor, I had to protect her and make sure she remained safe while she was learning the trade, but she was chosen, just as I had been. It meant I needed to give her space and trust her not to get herself into something that she couldn’t get out of. Just like the other night when I’d spotted those rapists. If I had interfered before giving her a chance to get herself out of trouble, she’d have been pissed at me, and I wouldn’t have given her a chance to grow as a Wanderer.

  A semi roared away from the traffic light on Nevada, drowning out whatever else Tess was saying to Alex.

  When the semi moved off, I heard Tess again. “Yes, I have this number now, and I’ll try to call. If you need anything, call me. I’m sure Rafe will be happy to help.”

  I would? What was my Apprentice signing me up for?

  Tess disconnected and put the phone in an inside pocket. She looked up and saw me studying her. “What?”

  “How’s Alex?” I asked, trying to sound like a concerned parent rather than a sperm donor.

  Tess cocked her head to one side and studied me. After a few seconds, she said, “He’s coping. Losing a parent is hard. So far, he’s been too busy with all the paperwork required to change ownership of the business and their home to hardly consider his loss. It’ll catch up with him when the initial worries are taken care of.”

  “You said you lost your own mother at an early age. Twelve wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes, twelve, but I remember how bad Dad had it trying to cope with the process. We didn’t have much family in the area, not much anywhere for that matter, and he wouldn’t allow anyone else to handle anything. Mom’s only sister, Aunt Emily, went in the Army the year before Mom. She came to visit me at Wilford Hall and now she’s at Fort Carson. Hey, would it be all right if I saw her while we’re here?”

  I gave it a moment’s thought and then nodded. “Sure, what could it hurt?”

  “Great, I don’t want her thinking I just up and deserted.”

  “If you’re ready, there’s someone else we should visit.”

  “Who’s that?” Tess asked.

  “Joe Leatherhide.”

  “Native American and you call him Injun Joe?” Tess asked as she hit the ignition and cranked Maia’s engine.

  “What?” I said, somewhat confused by her question. “Oh, hell no. He’s gone by Joe for twice as long as I’ve been alive. I don’t know if they used that moniker as a slight when he was named, but if you’re going to call him anything, make sure it’s Mister Leatherhide until and unless he tells you different. He’s an old friend. If he’s still around, he might have some insight into what’s going on.”

  “He’s twice your age? Hell, is he human?”

  I grinned, cranked Beast’s engine, and dropped the transmission into gear. “He’s as human as you. I actually met him before I met Walt.”

  Before Tess could ask anything about Joe, I pulled onto Nevada, heading back south. Tess pulled even with me at the first traffic light that stopped us, and I could see that she wanted more information, but I shook my head. “If he’s around, you’ll meet him in ten minutes or so and I wouldn’t want to spoil the meet.”

  “Spoil the meet? What’s that mean?”

  The light changed to green, and we pulled out, shortly turning off Nevada Avenue and onto Lake Drive. We rode through the Broadmoor area, passing the resort’s buildings and took the drive toward the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. We turned off before reaching the zoo and followed Old Stage Road until we passed the last of the modern homes. I pulled off beside a battered old mailbox on the uphill side of the street. A narrow gravel drive led up the hill to our right. It was a short driveway and ended at a log cabin that Joe had built by hand while he was still a young man, sometime before the First World War. An old Ford pickup was parked on one side of the small level area that made up Joe’s front yard. I pulled next t
o the pickup and dismounted. Beast’s engine died, and he remained upright without my putting the kickstand down.

  Tess pulled Maia alongside Beast and killed her engine. She started to drop the kickstand, but then copied my action and dismounted without doing so.

  “I guess your friend knows about Beast,” Tess said as she turned to look out over the city.

  Colorado Springs was mostly one thousand feet below us and stretched out north and east, but ended abruptly to the south where Fort Carson’s one hundred and thirty-seven thousand acres began. Pikes Peak was hidden behind the nearer peaks to the northwest of us. The red rocks of the Garden of the Gods stood like great dinosaurs. Farther to the north, miles beyond the park, I could just see the Air Force Academy. The Academy was most notable by the low sun reflecting off the seventeen aluminum spires of the Cadet Chapel. I could remember touring the chapel, shortly after it opened in 1962. I hadn’t been a teenager yet, but I remembered being impressed by Walter Netsch’s design. I had thought that I wanted to be a flyboy back then and was definitely considering getting an appointment to the Academy. Six years later, I was in the Army in South Vietnam.

  Funny how life twists away from your plans.

  I noticed that Tess had not spoken in a few minutes. I moved closer to her and placed a bare hand in hers. Immediately, I could feel her emotions. I grinned but didn’t interrupt her trance. The view was breathtaking. She deserved to immerse herself in it without my comments. Several minutes passed before she sighed deeply and turned to me. There was moisture in her eyes.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” I said.

  She nodded. “Magnificent. I can’t believe your friend gets to look at this every day.”

  “I asked him once if the view ever became blasé.”

  “What did he say?” Tess asked.

  “He said that if he ever thought that, it would be time for him to move on.”

  “Where could he move to with a more magnificent view?” Tess asked. She released my hand and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Nowhere, he meant dying and moving on.”

  Tess glanced at me to see if I was joking and saw that I wasn’t.

  I heard the sound of worn hinges and glanced toward the cabin to see Joe step out onto the porch. I raised an open palm in salute to the old shaman.

  He raised his right hand in a similar gesture and then nodded in my direction. He looked older than the last time I saw him. When I first met Joe, he looked like he was in his fifties. He had been taller than I was and had a heavy bone structure and tightly knitted muscles that formed thick bands on his arms and legs. He’d had a little extra weight on his torso, a cushion of fat that hid the tight core muscles of his abdomen. Now his hair was going gray, and lines crisscrossed his face. He’d lost weight, also, and couldn’t have weighed as much as I did, even though he was at least three inches taller than me.

  “Hello, old friend,” I called. I motioned for Tess to follow me and we walked side by side across the narrow driveway and across the dirt yard that was covered more by pine needles than grass. The steps to the cabin’s porch were half logs, hand-hewn like the rest of the cabin. The steps had been flat when I’d first walked up them, but now there was a definite groove along the left side from the decades of Joe’s footsteps.

  Joe waited patiently until we reached him, then he smiled and raised his arms. I stepped into his embrace and was disconcerted to feel how thin his frame had become beneath his shirt. We hugged tightly for a few seconds and then simultaneously dropped our arms and took a step back from each other.

  “How have you been, Joe?” I asked, hiding the concern from my voice.

  “I’m getting old, Rafe. I had begun to think I’d not see you again before I pass from this world. But then the visions started, and I realized you would be here soon.”

  “Visions?” Tess asked.

  I placed a hand on Tess’s shoulder and introduced her. “Joe, this is Tess Sylvan, my apprentice. Tess, this is Joe Leatherneck, my friend.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mister Leatherneck,” Tess said as she held out her hand.

  Joe smiled deeply and took her offered hand in both of his. “You must call me Joe, and I will call you Tess. I am very pleased to meet you. I had worried about Raphael ever getting an apprentice.”

  He released her hand, and Tess tilted her head to the side. “Why did you think he was slow in getting an apprentice, Joe?”

  “Because he’s not getting any younger. From what he’s told me, Wanderers usually find an apprentice a few decades after they become full-fledged Wanderers.”

  “Yes, and I am right on schedule. Don’t forget I didn’t get the usual training time, so I wasn’t really a fully trained Wanderer until a little more than a decade ago,” I said.

  “Nonsense, you were trained enough. Walt did a good job with you,” Joe said.

  I shook my head. Little did he know. Joe had always overestimated my capabilities as a Wanderer. He hadn’t known Walt that well and didn’t know any of the other Wanderers. He saw what I could do and assumed that must be as good as Wanderers got.

  “About these visions,” I said.

  Joe nodded. “Come inside. There’s cold beer in the fridge.”

  “You knew we were coming?” Tess asked.

  Joe held open the cabin’s front door and impatiently waved us inside. “Of course, now come inside.”

  I motioned for Tess to lead the way and then followed on her heels.

  The cabin hadn’t changed much in the years since my last visit. Originally, a one-room cabin, over the decades Joe had added a bathroom and a pair of bedrooms at the back of the structure. The kitchen still occupied a corner of the original living space. The rest of the room made up Joe’s living room. There was a fireplace against the left wall; it was made of flat rock with wide mortar joints. The mantel was a split log with the level side up. It was a common feature in modern log homes, but not so common one hundred years ago when Joe put the mantel in. The fireplace was blackened from decades of fires and the scent of smoke still permeated the cabin. Joe had a cheery fire going, it wasn’t a large fire and didn’t heat the room too much, but it was November in Colorado and the nights would be cold. The sun had dropped behind the mountains west of town and on the north face of Cheyenne Mountain, shadows enveloped Joe’s cabin.

  Joe didn’t have a television or an internet connection, but he did have a little radio on an end table beside an old couch that was covered in a Navajo blanket. That blanket had covered the couch the first time I’d been here. It looked as new as it had forty years ago and I knew Joe had spelled the blanket to keep it clean and intact since unprotected wool would have worn through decades ago.

  Joe motioned us toward the couch while he continued across the room and into the kitchen.

  “How have you been, Joe?” I asked.

  “I am well.” Joe popped the lids on three bottles of a local beer and returned to where we sat by the fire. He offered one to each of us and then sat down in the old rocking chair that he favored.

  Tess held her bottle in both hands as she watched Joe carefully. After a minute, in which Joe and I sipped beer and studied each other, Tess spoke up. “Rafe tells me you built this house yourself, a long time ago.”

  Joe nodded. “Yes, in my youth.”

  “You did a good job,” Tess said, as she took in the cabin’s interior.

  “Thank you, Tess. I have had to update it a few times. The city required interior plumbing in all homes; I think it was in the thirties.”

  “Gees, what did you do before then?”

  “Nosy much?” I asked.

  “It’s okay, Rafe. Tess, I started with a cistern and a septic tank. Once a month I would pay a man a dollar to bring his wagon up the road from Cheyenne Creek and refill my cistern. The tank was above the house. I had a gravity fed faucet for showering and the toilet and another for cooking water.”

  “Wow, that’s something. I’ve never met anyone who grew
up without proper plumbing, at least in this country.”

  “I also acquired electricity about the same time. I guess you’ve never seen anyone who didn’t have electricity either.”

  “Just in Afghanistan. There were plenty of villages that didn’t have running water or electricity in their homes.”

  Joe nodded thoughtfully and then asked. “Ah, that’s where you died?”

  Tess reddened across the face and down her neck. “You know about that?”

  “Rafe and I have been open in our friendship. We have our secrets, but only those that are important for us to keep. The saga of the Wanderers would have made great tales around the campfires of my youth.”

  I laughed. “Joe likes to tell those stories. If you aren’t careful, he will keep you up all night relating them to you.”

  “That sounds interesting. I’d love to hear some of them,” Tess said.

  Joe sipped at his beer and then nodded. “And I will be happy to tell you some of them, but I’m sure Rafe has business to discuss before we relax.”

  “That I do. You mentioned visions. Would you like to elaborate?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’ve been seeing creatures that don’t belong here. I did a sweat yesterday to determine what was causing these visions. I had thought my mind was just wearing out, but my spirit totem came to me and warned me of great trouble.”

  “Your spirit totem?” Tess interrupted.

  “A great bear, what you folks call a grizzly. When a shaman calls on his spirit animal, it will guide him on what actions he must take to maintain his way. Mine told me that Rafe was coming and bringing a stranger. I assumed the person would be your apprentice, but from everything you have told me about Wanderers, I assumed it would be a man.”

  “I get that from everyone,” Tess groused.

  “Ah, well, times are changing,” Joe said.

  “You were talking about your spirit animal,” I said to try to get the conversation back on topic.

  Joe nodded. “Yes, the bear told me that there would be tremendous strife and a rift in the world that would allow creatures that have not been seen here in millennia. He said that you were a great warrior and, with help, could close the rift and turn back the hordes.”