by Amy Cross
"It's my house," I say firmly. I'm trying to think of a way to scare this guy, but the truth is, with these hands of mine I can't hold a gun or even an ax. I'm pretty much defenseless.
"I know it's your house," he replies. "That's why I'm here. I'm supposed to be in your house right now. And so are you. The problem is, he's supposed to be here too."
"Who?" I ask, trying to not lose my temper.
"Patrick," Hamish says. "We arranged to meet right here, right now."
"When'd you arrange that?" I ask.
"Six years, one month, eight days and five hours ago," Hamish says. "I don't know where he could have got to."
I march over to the door and, with a little difficulty, I open it. "You can wait for him about four miles due south," I say. "That's the end of my property, and beyond that point it's none of my business what you do."
Hamish smiles. "But... I thought the bank was foreclosing on this farm in a couple of days?"
I stare at him. How does he know that? I haven't told anyone, not even Buck, about the situation with the bank. The only explanation is that this Hamish guy is from the bank, trying to pull a fast one, in which case he'd better get the hell out of my house. "I might not be able to hold a gun," I say, stepping toward him, "but I can still beat your brains right out of your head if I have to." It's a lie, of course, but I'm sure gonna go down fighting if necessary.
He sighs. "I've handled this all wrong," he says. "I'm sorry. Listen, obviously my friend is delayed, so I'll leave you in peace. Just remember, if a guy named Patrick comes by, tell him I'm in town and I'm waiting for him." He pauses. "And if a guy named Duncan happens to come by looking for me, tell him you've never heard of me. Deal? 'Cause I owe him a donkey and I don't have one to give him right now." He clears his throat. "Okay. You have my sincerest apologies for any disturbance caused, and I can assure you that I won't be bothering you again." He heads to the window and climbs out, and then he turns back to me. "Remember, though... if my friend happens to come by for any reason, please tell him I'll be staying in town for a while. It's really important that you -."
"I get it," I say, interrupting. "I'll do it. But if I were you, I'd get word to your friend that he ain't welcome here."
"I'll try," Hamish says, and then he laughs. "But come on..." He holds up his hands and wiggles his fingers. "What are you really gonna do about it?"
And with that, he turns and disappears from view. I head over to the door, go outside and look around for him, but it's as if he's just vanished into thin air. Whoever he is, he's damn fast on his feet. I take a deep breath and sigh, and then I head back inside. As I shut the door, I glance up at the sky. It hasn't rained around here for months, but those black clouds look like they're headed this way. With a bit of luck, we might just get a few drops. Then again, a few drops could never be enough. This soil has been parched for so long, it'd take a flood of biblical proportions to get the farm back in a state where it can grow crops again.
Against all the odds, a few hours later, as the sun goes down and darkness settles on the land, I hear the first little drops of rain hit the roof. It's such an unfamiliar sound, it takes me a moment to really believe that it's actually happening. I only have one small portable gaslight, but I carry it over to the window and look out. Sure enough, a fine rain is falling in the yard, and I can hear it getting more and more intense. In fact, I'm pretty sure I can hear a drop inside too, dripping through the ceiling. It's close to being a miracle, and within a few minutes it's absolutely pouring, and there's thunder and lightning too. It's damn near the biggest storm I've ever known, and there's a wind so strong that I can hear the walls of the farm creaking. I turn the gaslight out to save fuel, and I get into bed, but I can hardly sleep, not with the sound of such a huge storm swirling all around the farm.
And then suddenly there's another sound, up above, on the roof. I swear to God, it sounds like someone's stomping about up there. I get out of bed and listen, and sure enough I hear footsteps. There's thunder and lightning out there, and wind almost strong enough to blow the door off its hinges, and now it's as if some lunatic sees fit to take a walk on my roof. I pause for a moment. There's only one lunatic I've met recently, and I'll be damned if he's gonna have his way with my property.
I go to the back-room and grab the rifle I've been keeping back there. Fumbling with my fingerless hands, it takes me a whole minute to get the chamber open, and then another couple of minutes to get a single cartridge loaded. I manage to get the whole thing ready, and then I grab a piece of rope and push it around the trigger, then I put the other end in my teeth. Steadying the rifle against my chest, I'm ready and I head to the door, opening it with my elbow and heading out into the torrential rain. I get a few meters away, and then I turn and look up at the roof of the farm.
There's a man up there, looking down at me. Thunder rumbles close to us, and lightning flashes across the sky. I aim the gun up at the figure, one end of the rope attached to the trigger, the other end in my mouth. As I stare at the figure, I realize it has a familiar shape. Not that mad Hamish guy from earlier, but someone I met a very long time ago, back at the Passchendaele hospital; a man I'd managed to convince myself was part of some crazy drug-induced dream. But here he is, standing on my roof in a storm, watching me.
There's another flash of lightning, and suddenly I'm transported back to Passchendaele. The noise, the mud, the rain... I start to panic, and when there's yet another flash of lightning, I can't help feeling it might be a bomb. Feeling my heart pounding in my chest, I steady the rifle, pull on the rope, and watch as the shot hits the dark figure on the roof. For a moment, it seems he isn't going to react at all. He just stands there, like some kind of demon. Finally, he drops to his knees, and then he topples over, slides off the roof and lands in the mud.
I stand there, lightning arcing across the sky directly above me, wind and rain howling around me and battering the farmhouse. It's been fifteen years since Passchendaele, but tonight it feels like I'm back there again. Dropping the rifle, I close my eyes tight and try to tell myself that I'm okay, that I'm safe, that I'm thousands of miles from that horrific place. But with more thunder and lightning striking, I drop down onto my hands and knees in the mud, howling as the memories crush me.
Joe Hart
For a moment, I'm back in the blood, mud, rain and cold of Passchendaele, with bodies all around me. I'm a young man again, waiting to get my hands destroyed by a bomb. My friends are dying and we're all caught up in a war that none of us wanted, none of us understand and none of us can stop. Men with machines are fighting each other, and pieces of human bodies are ripped apart and mashed up all around me. As I stay hunched on the ground, rain falls heavily onto me, and bright flashes light up the sky.
Suddenly, things change. The rain is still falling, and the bright flashes are still lighting up the sky, and there are still loud sounds nearby, and I'm still crouched over and hunched up in the mud; but it's 1932, not 1917, and I'm in Kentucky, not Passchendaele. Slowly, I recognize the things around me: thunder, not bombs; lightning, not explosions; my wrecked and deformed hands, the fingers long gone, the wounds healed up...
I look up and find that the dark man from the roof is now standing right in front of me. The burnt man from the hospital, the man who I believed was a nightmare. He's real, and he's here. Except... there's a flash of lightning, and I see that he's no longer burnt at all, and he now has skin and features. It's still him, though. I can tell by the eyes, and by the way that he stands over me. I haven't seen him since I was on the floor in that hospital, but somehow he's found me. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but he's found me and now he's staring down at me. He saved my life all those years ago. Was that a mistake? Has he come back to kill me?
I get to my feet. There's no wound on him, even though I'm sure I shot him off the roof a few moments ago. I look into his eyes and see rain pouring down his face. He has a strange, blank expression as he stares at me. I have no idea what he wants,
or even how he found me, but it doesn't even occur to me to run. I just stand there, staring at him and waiting to see what he'll do next. Suddenly, I feel a pair of hands touch my shoulder from behind, and Hamish - the man from earlier - sticks his head around and smiles at me.
"We should go inside," Hamish shouts over the sound of the storm. "You'll catch your death of cold if you stay out in this weather."
Slowly, Hamish leads me back into the farmhouse, with the burnt man following. I'm concerned, of course, but at the same time the whole situation seems so unreal that I can't help but wonder if I'm dreaming. Once we're all inside, Hamish tends to the gaslight and the three of us stand there, soaking wet, with the sound of the storm all around us.
"I think you two have met before," Hamish says. "Joseph Hart, this is Patrick. Patrick, this is Joseph. Or Joe, to his friends. I think perhaps you weren't properly introduced last time."
I stare at Patrick. He has a dark stare, and a calm face. There's something very unusual about the way he looks at me, as if he sees more than just my body. It's almost as if I can feel him picking at the edge of my mind, tugging at the threads and trying to get into my soul.
"It's been a long time," I say, stuttering slightly. "I thought maybe... I mean, I never expected to see you again."
Silence. Patrick says nothing.
"Oh don't mind him," Hamish says brightly. "He's not much of a talker. In fact, he hasn't said a word now for quite some time, but that's nothing to do with you. Anyway, trust me; be glad he keeps his mouth shut. In the old days, it was impossible to shut him up. Always cracking on about this or that. Told a lot of really bad jokes all the time and..." He pauses and looks over at Patrick, who looks back at him with a look of long-suffering displeasure. "Aye," says Hamish slowly. "Well, the point is, Patrick isn't much of a conversationalist. Fortunately, I have that covered enough for the both of us. So shall we sit down and begin the negotiations?"
"Negotiations?" I ask, confused by this latest development.
"Yes," says Hamish, seeming a little concerned. "We have a lot to talk about, and the night's wearing on. We'd better get started."
"I don't..." I pause for a moment. "I don't remember agreeing to negotiate about anything." I turn to Patrick. "No offense, but last time I saw you, you were damn near cutting a guy's head off. I'm not saying you didn't have a good reason, and I'm not saying he didn't have it coming, but still... And then you're up on my roof? What the hell's going on? And... how the hell did you get so well healed? You were covered from head to toe in burns."
Patrick takes a deep breath, but says nothing.
"Let's sit down," says Hamish. "We have a lot to talk about and we have to finish our discussion by sunrise."
Still soaking wet, we all sit at the little wooden table. Hamish pulls a small bottle of whiskey from his bottle and takes a swig, before offering it first to Patrick and then to me. Neither of us takes him up on the offer.
"Suit yourselves," Hamish mutters.
"I'm sorry I don't have anything to offer you," I say to Patrick. "I have water -"
"It's fine," Hamish says. "He doesn't need anything right now. This should really be a quick discussion, and then we'll be on our way. It's certainly not what you'd call a social call. Well, it is, kind of, but -"
"Can you get to the point, please?" I ask, tiring of this Hamish guy's rambling. Sure, Patrick's a little too much the opposite, what with his total lack of speaking, but I prefer a man who cuts out the yapping unless there's something important to say.
Hamish clears his throat. "There are things we have, Joe, that you want. And there are things you have, that we want. So it seems to me - to us - that it might be possible to strike a deal."
I consider what he's saying for a moment. "What do you have that I want?" I ask suspiciously.
"Money," Hamish says. He reaches down and pulls a bag from around his waist, opening it up and spilling the contents onto the table. There must be fifty thousand dollars in there, and my eyes widen at the sight. "All of this," Hamish says, "is yours if you want it. Enough to pay off the bank, get the farm up and running properly, get some help with the work and relax."
"I... I... I..." I stammer. I've never seen so much money before; it's astonishing to have it spread over my table.
"There's something else we can do for you, Joe," Hamish says. "Hold out your hands."
I stare at him. "Is this some kind of joke?" I ask. "Where did you get this money from? Are you gangsters?"
"No," Hamish says, suddenly seeming very serious. "There's no joke here, and we're not gangsters. Please, hold out your hands."
I consider what to do, and then - reluctantly - I hold out my fingerless stumps. Slowly, Patrick takes my hands in his. He stares at me, and then I feel my hands becoming hot. I try to pull them away, but he holds on tight, with a kind of strength I've never felt before in a man. Finally, the heat builds and builds until it's getting uncomfortable. It's as if the bones in my hands are growing and shifting every second. All the while, Patrick is staring at me, and it's hard to look away from his eyes.
Suddenly, he lets go of my hands. I look at them, wincing a little at the pain from the heat. It's as if he burned me deep to the bone. As I'm about to tell him to get out of my house, however, I feel a strange sensation deep within the tissue. It's as if something is moving inside my hands, as something is growing, taking form and being renewed.
"What have you done?" I ask.
"Consider it a down-payment on your services," Hamish says, his voice sounding serious for perhaps the first time.
As I look at my hands, I see small lumps of skin start to appear, and they start to grow and stretch, and suddenly it's as if I have four little fingers and a thumb on each hand, and they keep on growing until, after just a minute or so, I have what appears to be a full set of fingers and thumbs. The pain is intense, but bearable, and finally there's no pain at all. I stare in shock at my hands, which are back to how they were all those years ago before the war.
"Feel free to wiggle them," Hamish says.
Slowly, I move my new fingers and thumbs. It's a strange sensation. I grip the table, just to make sure that I can, and I realize that it's as if my injuries have been completely wiped away. In a rush, I'm struck by all the things I can do again: I can work the farm; I can hold a gun; I can write; I can read without trouble; I can fix and repair things; I can make things; damn it, I can scratch my ass again!
I look over at Patrick and Hamish. There are no words to describe how I feel. It's as if... I want to thank them, to praise them and to thank God for this, but at the same time... the Devil can play tricks too, and there's something very foreboding about the look in Patrick's eyes.
"Are you... Him?" I ask, staring at Patrick.
Hamish laughs. "No, mate, he's not Jesus. He just has an ability to help from time to time."
I nod, but I don't really understand. Patrick might not be Jesus, but there's surely the Lord's hand in all of this somewhere. "You killed Doctor Tarmey," I say. "All those years ago, you slaughtered him. Was that because of the evil in his heart?"
Patrick nods.
"You saved my life back then," I say as I hold up my hands, "and you saved my life again today." I look at the money. A few minutes ago, it seemed almost sinister, but now... "I ain't selling," I say guardedly. "I ain't selling this farm, not now -"
"No-one's buying," Hamish says. "It's your farm. It'll always be your farm. And after you're gone, I expect it'll belong to your children, and their children."
"I don't know if there'll be any children," I say. "As you might have noticed, I don't have a wife."
Hamish laughs. "Aye, but you've got land. Money. Fingers. You'll be fighting 'em off in no time."
I look at the money. It's hard to believe this is happening, but I finally have enough to pay off the bank. They'll hold off on the foreclosure, and with my hands back in action I can work the land, and... I look over at the window. It's still pouring with rain outside. More
rain that has fallen here in years. The soil will be rich and fertile again soon enough, and I'll be able to grow things, I'll be able to work the land, the way my father and mother worked the land for so many years. I thought I was going to lose the farm, but now I can keep it, now I can make it work again. There's nothing that can stop me. I imagine the rain water sinking deeper and deeper into the soil. But...
But...
I pause.
I swallow hard.
I look over at Patrick and Hamish. There's something about the way that they're looking at me, something that makes me worry. There's a hint of darkness in Patrick's eyes, and a degree of apprehension - perhaps even fear - in Hamish's. It's almost as if the Devil himself has sent two emissaries to tie me into some horrific bargain. With a sickening sense of fear, I realize that I've been a fool. No man receives benefits such as I have received, without being asked to give something of himself in return.
"What do you want from me?" I ask slowly.
Hamish clears his throat. The rain seems to get even harder, even more intense.
"What do you want from me?" I ask again. I look at my hands. "If this is the Devil's work -"
"It's not the Devil," Hamish says. "It's..."
I wait, but he seems unable to say what's on his mind. "Spit it out," I tell him. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I close my eyes. Dear Lord, grant me the courage and strength that I will deny these men what they want, if indeed it is the Devil's work that drives them. Give me the courage to return to them their money and - if necessary - to pluck off my new fingers one by one until I am back in the forsaken mess that I was in before these two men arrived at my door. Grant me this strength, Lord, that I shall not sin, for I fear that the price that these two men want, the cost of the blessings that they have bestowed upon me, is to be great indeed.
I open my eyes.
"What do you want from me?" I ask for the final time.
