by Noah Mann
“It’ll be the radius,” Genesee said as he bent forward and shifted the corpse’s left arm to lay upon its abdomen. “I’d bet it won’t be the ulna.”
I tried not to look, but the face, wasted away to a ghoulish mockery of what had once been human, still bore a resemblance to my friend. What I saw there, lying still in the coffin, could have been him. We were here to prove, for my benefit, that it was not.
“You don’t have to watch this, Fletch.”
Genesee was suggesting that I turn away as he pulled the sleeve of the suit we’d scrounged, believing we were burying Neil Moore in it. He rotated the loose arm inward, exposing the placement of the bone in question, small pops of old tissue and tendons sounding.
“You do what you’ve gotta do,” I told the doctor.
He did just that, and I watched, the scalpel sawing back and forth through the leathery skin, creating an eight-inch-long incision that Genesee reached his fingers into, spreading the wound open wide. He moved his head back and forth, adjusting the aim of his headlamp into the opening, fingers probing along the bone now exposed within. Within a minute he stopped, easing back to crouch and look up to me.
“There’s no break in that bone,” Genesee said. “In either bone. I checked both the radius and the ulna. This man never injured his left arm.”
I actually let out an audible breath, relief washing over me.
“You’re good now?” Genesee asked.
“I’m good now,” I confirmed.
There was no more mystery surrounding my friend’s death, even if there was plenty that still colored his life. Those wonderings, though, would have to remain just that. No more avenues remained to seek the truths which had gone to the grave with Neil Moore.
All that remained was to bring him home.
Thirty Nine
Two weeks after confirming that the body we’d buried years ago was not that of my friend, I was at the dock ready to step onto the right-side pontoon of Chris Beekman’s newly outfitted float plane when a voice stopped me.
Grace’s voice.
“Fletch...”
I looked to her, then to Beekman, giving him a signal that I’d be just a minute. He’d been ready to start the Cessna’s engine and taxi with me aboard into a position for a water takeoff on the Coquille River. That could wait, though. I would always afford Grace the time when she needed it.
“How are you, Grace?”
“My first day off from the hospital in three weeks,” she said. “All the planning to divide supplies and training people for the new settlements. It’s been a bit crazy.”
In just over a month the first group of settlers would head out to occupy a site twenty-five miles to the south on the coast near Port Orford. Without a full time doctor or nurse on site, volunteers among the seventy slated to move would need to know the basics of suturing wounds and setting broken bones. Much of that had fallen to Grace to administer, and she’d done an amazing job by all accounts.
But that wasn’t the only reason she was weary. Old lies had been shattered, and new truths revealed, and amongst that all she’d had to be told that the man she’d married and buried hadn’t been dead at all. But now was. On its own that was enough to test any individual. Combined with her self-imposed workload, I truly didn’t know how she managed.
“You’re going to bring him home,” she said, glancing past me to the long basket and straps fixed atop the right pontoon.
The prior week in Beekman’s other Cessna a recovery team had been flown in to retrieve Dave Arndt’s body. He was buried in the town cemetery the following day with nearly the entire population in attendance. It was now my friend’s turn to be returned to where those who cared for him could be near.
“It should only take five or six hours,” I told her. “We’ll be back before dark.”
She nodded and said nothing for a moment, the silence seeming prelude to something. As it turned out, it was.
“I want to come with you,” Grace said. “I talked it over with Clay and he encouraged me to do it.”
It was her right, I believed, to accompany us to retrieve the remains of her former husband. But that didn’t mean it was a good idea. Inside the aircraft was a body bag and shovels. Exhuming a body, I’d learned, was not for the faint of heart. And when that body was a loved one, I knew it was going to be difficult for me. I didn’t know if Grace could handle it.
“And trying to talk me out of it won’t work,” she said, her prescience cutting off any attempt to dissuade her. “I understand the realities of what has to be done to get him into that basket.”
“You’re sure about this, Grace?”
“I owe this to him, Fletch. And to myself.”
* * *
An hour later, after an uneventful takeoff from the smooth waters of the Coquille River, we descended toward Medicine Lake.
“It’s beautiful here,” Grace said through the headset.
She sat behind Beekman on the left side of the aircraft. I looked back to her from the front passenger seat and saw her gaze fixed on the landscape below. Much of it was grey, but in the midst of that was the bolt of blue water. To the north the ancient volcanic terrain was hued with blacks and reds.
“From up here it’s just so...”
“Peaceful,” I said.
She looked to me and smiled.
* * *
Beekman put us down with hardly a splash and taxied toward a sandy beach at the east end of the lake. He cut the engine and coasted until the front of the pontoons bottomed out on the silty bottom of the shallows. I climbed out first and helped Grace, a short hop putting us both on dry land without getting wet. Beekman passed the shovels and body bag over, then joined us on shore, anchoring the aircraft to a solid stump thirty feet from the lake’s edge.
“It’s up about a quarter mile above the north side of the lake,” I told Grace and Beekman.
“Fletch, can I just see the spot before...”
She didn’t need to specify the remainder of her request. Soon we would, in essence, be defiling the grave where the man she’d loved had been buried after falling in battle. Where he’d fallen after ending Perkins’ miserable life so that I could return to my wife, and to my child.
“If you could just show me where it is,” Grace requested.
“Of course,” I said, looking to Beekman.
“I’ll just hang back until you’re ready,” he said, offering a quiet smile to Grace.
“Thank you,” she said.
I stepped away from the shore and reached my hand back toward her.
“Come on,” I said.
She put her hand in mine and I led her into the grey woods.
* * *
It took twenty minutes to navigate the meandering path through the old pine forest, half of which had fallen, leaving rotting logs to climb over or duck under.
“It’s so quiet here,” Grace said as I helped her through a tangle of twisted limbs. “A different quiet than other places we’ve been.”
She and Neil had traveled with Krista across the country when it reeked of death soon after the blight. I understood what she meant about there being something to differentiate this peacefulness from that absence of noise.
“It is,” I said.
We reached the spot where Neil Moore had been buried, the sun high in the bright blue sky. Grace approached the makeshift marker I’d made. She crouched and let her fingers trace along the rough carving of letters and numbers that signified the thinnest tale of the man. Name and the dates of when he came into this world, and when he left it.
“It’s probably terrible to say, but I’m glad you were with him, Fletch.”
“It’s not terrible,” I said. “And I am glad I was there.”
She stood straight again and looked out from the spot where her former husband lay beneath a few feet of earth. There was no cool green grass here to sooth the spot of its inherent sorrow. No bright flowers or scent of blooms. No chirping birds to distract. Someday t
here might be, but my friend would not be here for those changes which the slowly healing earth would eventually allow.
On that fact, I was about to be proven wrong.
“Look at the world in the lake,” Grace said. “It all looks better in reflection.”
I had to admit, she was right. The glassy water hued the barren landscape with a pleasing blue aura, colors from the sky drizzled in to paint the scene as only an artist could on canvas. Here, though, it was real, and it was mesmerizing.
Grace turned away from the view and looked to me, smiling lightly.
“I want to leave him here,” she said.
I didn’t counter her statement, though I did take a single step toward her.
“Grace, are you sure?”
She nodded, a surety about her. A contentment.
“If I can make that decision, then I say yes,” she said, looking back toward the grave and the shimmering lake beyond. “He deserves to be at peace in a peaceful place. I don’t know that there is any place that could match this.”
I took in the same sight that she was, and I could not argue her point. Nor would I. I agreed with her, though it took this visit to my friend’s grave to even consider that this was the place where he should rest for all eternity.
“I think this is right,” I said. “We can bring the stone marker when it’s finished and have it placed.”
She nodded, still smiling, though now a skim of tears began to glisten in her eyes. I eased her into a side hug and held her close, her head tipping against my shoulder as we looked together at the spot my friend and her love would remain forever.
Forty
We flew back to Bandon and landed on the babbling Coquille River before taxiing to the dock past boats moored in the harbor. Elaine, Schiavo, and Martin were waiting for us.
Something was wrong.
“A welcome party,” I commented as I stepped onto the pontoon and helped Grace from the plane.
“We need to talk,” Martin said.
It was curious that he was the one to speak, I thought. Not Elaine, the civilian leader of Bandon, nor Schiavo, the former military leader who now served as advisor on those matters to the Town Council. Martin was as much an outsider as I was, though we were both pulled into the necessities of serving the town frequently.
“Is everything all right?” Grace asked.
Beekman slipped past her and tied the plane off to the dock. He noticed the reception committee’s silence when the question was posed to them. Grace, though, wisely knew not to press the issue, and leaned down to give Elaine a quick hug before excusing herself.
“Clay and the kids will want to hear what we decided,” she said, then flashed me a smile tinged with a hint of concern and walked past those who’d met us and disappeared past the end of the dock.
“What did you decide?” Schiavo asked.
“He’s staying there,” I told her. “Now what’s going on?”
“Our car’s in the lot,” Martin said. “We’ll talk on the way.”
He didn’t want to say any more. None of them did. I suspected it was because we were not entirely alone. Chris Beekman didn’t take any offense at the obvious withholding of information and went about removing the empty stretcher basket from the pontoon.
“Chris, thanks,” I said.
He gave me a thumbs up and continued with his work. I slung my M4 and pushed Elaine’s chair out to the lot. I stowed her chair in the trunk and climbed into the back seat next to her, Schiavo at the wheel next to her husband.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked.
The retired Army colonel started the car and steered us out of the lot, letting the town’s former leader share what had happened. What was still happening. I listened but said little, wanting to see for myself what he had described. Needing to see it with my own eyes so that I might not think this was just some bad dream that had folded itself into a nightmare.
* * *
Jackson Petrie was the one who had found it. He’d called Martin right away out of habit, and the news was passed to those who needed to know, just the four of us so far.
“Anyone else come by?” Martin asked as we approached Jackson.
The drive to the farm fields just east of town a few hundred yards south of the Coquille River had taken less than ten minutes. But in that time it seemed that something else had transpired. I could sense that clearly in Jackson’s almost grim demeanor.
“Scott Barnes called,” the man reported. “He’s seeing it, too.”
Elaine looked up to Martin.
“Scott’s fields are two miles southeast,” she said.
Martin nodded.
“Let’s show Fletch,” he said.
I pushed Elaine along a gravel path cut through the grow beds and past a stretch of greenhouses, following Jackson, Martin and Schiavo just behind. The man leading us was one of those who ran the town’s various farming properties, Scott Barnes and Leticia Lopez the others. Aside from that which the town’s residents grew in their own gardens, these massive fields where plants immune to the blight were cultivated and harvested were essential to Bandon’s long-term survival. Combined with the seed germination lab in town, an uninterrupted supply of food could be assured.
Until now.
“Over here,” Jackson said, pointing off toward a section of corn nearly chest high.
The gravel path did not lead toward the planted rows whose silky ears were more than a month away from harvesting.
“I’ll wait here with Jackson,” Elaine said. “I’ve seen enough already.”
I could have maneuvered her chair across the uneven dirt, as she could have herself, but I was the one who’d been brought here to see what they already had. Already knowing what that appeared to be from the description they’d shared on the drive over, I wasn’t eager to have their fears confirmed by my own eyes.
“I’ll wait with Elaine,” Jackson said, looking to the three of us. “You go.”
* * *
Martin took the lead and guided me and Schiavo between the rows of corn, penetrating more than halfway into the field. The day was creeping toward its end, sun just over my left shoulder and the afternoon breeze kicking up, tossing the gangly corn leaves about.
“It’s about fifty feet from the north end of this row,” Martin said.
“What does Scott Barnes have growing over at his fields?” Schiavo asked.
“A mix of greens,” I said. “Lettuce, cabbage. Potatoes, too, I think.”
“Potatoes for sure,” Martin confirmed.
We continued on, deeper into the dense acreage which had been reclaimed from the blighted fields. The information Neil and Elaine and I had brought back from our mission to Cheyenne had allowed all this to happen. A solitary academic working in an underground lab had discovered the cure for the agricultural bioweapon that had ravaged the once green earth. His work, which he hadn’t lived to see bear both literal and metaphoric fruit, was on display here for all to see.
But there was something more to see. Something new. And unwelcome.
“It’s right—”
Martin was pointing just ahead toward the row of corn plants hemming us in on the right. But he stopped, speaking and walking, as something caught his eye. His hand came down and he looked back to me and Schiavo.
“It was further up three hours ago,” he said.
I stepped past him, brushing against the stalks and flapping leaves. A few steps brought me to what had stopped Martin in his tracks, and what had brought me here as the day wound down.
Spots.
They were grey and bore no distinct shape, some circular while others stretched out like ashen, dusty veins upon the surface of the plants. A gust of wind raised a puff of nearly colorless grit from where the blemishes had appeared on this plant, and on others.
Stretching from this southern end of the spreading infection, I could see dozens of the once bountiful plants beginning to wilt before my eyes. Stalks which should be strong and
straight were leaning into the narrow space between the rows, making contact with nearby plants.
“It’s spreading,” Martin said. “Fast.”
He was talking about something I’d witnessed before, looking out from my refuge across the valley to the lush slopes of mountains to the east. In the course of hours I’d watched the vibrant mountainsides turn from the loveliest of colors to a sickly grey pallor.
The same pallor I was seeing now.
“The blight’s back,” Schiavo said.
I reached out and felt the infected plant nearest me. It bent easily in my grip, whatever had afflicted it in the previous hours already ravaging its internal structure.
“We have to isolate these fields,” she said. “Burn them if necessary.”
I snapped the top of the corn stalk off in my hand, letting it crumble into brittle bits and fall to the fouled earth below as I looked to Schiavo and shook my head.
“It won’t matter,” I said. “It’s too late.”
“He’s not wrong,” Martin said, directing his wife’s attention to the parallel rows near the blighted stalks.
“Dear God,” Schiavo said quietly as she saw what he had.
The blight had already spread to those rows, the first bits of the hellish grey infection spotting stalk and leaf and silk. This corn crop was lost.
As was much more.
* * *
We left the corn field and returned to where Elaine and Jackson waited. Only my wife remained there, one of the refurbished cell phones that used the town’s self-engineered network in hand.
“Where did Jackson go?”
“Letty called,” she said.
Letty was Leticia Lopez, another farm manager. Her fields were mostly dedicated to beans and wheat and smaller vegetables like tomatoes and onions. What she had called about I didn’t expect to be surprised by.
“It’s there, too,” Elaine told us.
No one said anything for a moment, this new and old impediment to our survival leaving little that could be offered, other than more dreadful truths.
“By morning it will be in every backyard garden in town,” I said. “The seedlings that were planted are probably already showing signs.”
