Dream Of Echoes

by Karen C. Webb

  I ran back through the bushes. He was dragging himself slowly through the undergrowth away from me. His chest was covered in blood and he had left a red streak across the ground. When I reached him, he half-turned to look at me and I brought my foot up and kicked him as hard as I could in the stomach. He cried out in pain and I grabbed his collar and drug him back through the undergrowth. He was kicking and flailing, but I ignored him. The white-hot fire had turned into a coldness. My brain was numb, my body moved as if of its own accord. I was completely unthinking, unfeeling as I pulled him back into the clearing. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kate’s still form lying in the trees. My heart lurched and I felt my knees giving out again. I knew I must be in a state of shock because my mind refused to accept the fact that she was gone. I quickly looked away and turned back to our attacker.

  “Why?” I asked him. I had meant to sound forceful, but my voice cracked with emotion.

  “You killed my two brothers a few months ago.” He was only just getting his breath back where I had kicked it out of him. “I was going to kill you too. Slow and painful-like. I been tracking you for two weeks, since I got here from Fort Boise.”

  “But not Kate,” I choked out. “She didn’t do anything.”

  “She was with you.”

  I didn’t say anything else. I went to my pack and pulled out my rawhide strips, the thickest ones I had. I began tying each piece together slowly, making each knot hard and tight, while the scumbag watched. My knife was still sticking out of his chest and he held his hand around the blade, trying to stop the bleeding.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I didn’t say anything. He had his answer when I tied a noose in one end and slipped it around his neck. He started crying and begging me for his life. I was cold all over, completely apathetic. I felt no more than that lone wolf would feel as she takes down a deer. I drug him by his neck, kicking and screaming, over to a tree with a low enough limb. I threw my end over the limb, pulled my bloody knife from his chest, wiped it on his shirt and started pulling until his feet left the ground. I held my end while he kicked and thrashed, until finally he grew still, then I tied the end of the rawhide rope I was holding through his belt and left him hanging there. I showed no mercy, in fact, I didn’t feel anything as I strung him up from the tree. I only felt cold and numb throughout my body. It was as if my mind had switched off the instant Kate left me.

  I stumbled back over to her, dropping on the ground beside her. I pulled her lifeless body into my arms and held her. I must have held her and cried for an hour or more. “Why, God?” I screamed at the Heavens. “Why her instead of me?” I truly did not want to live without her. I had only thought I knew what true love was before her. She was my soul mate, my destiny. It wasn’t supposed to end this way, before we even had a chance to spend our lives together. And what of our farm…our Garden of Eden? I had pictured us growing old there together. I sat on the wet ground, holding her, until my legs had grown numb from the cold. I tried to think of what I could do, but my brain just wouldn’t seem to work right. Couldn’t I travel back in time again and stop this from happening? Was there some way I could go with her? My mind finally cleared enough as I sat there, to consider what Kate would want me to do. I remembered how saddened she had been that she hadn’t been able to give her parents a decent burial. I carried her lifeless body up the hill to a spot overlooking the river. “Your parent’s may not have had a decent burial, but you will,” I told her as I looked at her still body, my heart breaking. No, not breaking. It wasn’t a strong enough word. I felt like my heart had been torn from my chest and, if I buried her here, in this cold, wet ground, I would be burying a piece of me there with her. I wrapped her in a blanket and began to dig in the soft black dirt. I worked at it for a couple of hours, until I had a deep enough hole.

  But when I looked at the still form underneath the blanket, my little remaining strength drained from my body and I sank down on the ground beside her. I just didn’t think I could go through with it. I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, images of the happy times we’d shared on the trail and in the cabin danced across my eyes whenever I tried to think. I tried closing my eyes, but I only saw her more clearly, dancing away from me across the cabin floor.

  “Screw it,” I said after I had sat there beside her for a few minutes. I acted on impulse as I picked her up and carried her with me, back down the hill. There was a huge rock sticking out over the river. I carried her as I walked out on it and sat down, her body across my lap. There was a cold wind coming out of the west, it made the water choppy; it almost looked like the water was flowing east instead of west. I lay down on the rock beside her, exhausted and broken. I was still trying to clear my muddled thoughts as I held her hand.

  I must have fell asleep, her small, cold hand still tucked in mine and, in my troubled sleep, I thought it was her fingers moving through my hair instead of the wind.

  I dreamed of Kate. She spun away from me across the cabin floor, dancing and twirling, the blue dress billowing out around her as I watched. Now I saw her walking along the river, strolling slowly in the shadows of the huge trees. She moved toward me, but she blurred in my vision as I watched her. She looked like something from a movie, a camera trick causing a blur around her body. Then she began to run and, as she ran toward me, I saw the lone wolf chasing her, chasing her through my dreams. “Stop! Kate!” I tried to call out in my dream, but no sound would cross my lips. I watched as Kate ran out onto a rock with the wolf on her heels and, without stopping, she dropped right off into the river.

  I woke with a start. It seemed to be late in the night. In the confused state between sleep and waking, I really thought I had just had a horrible nightmare. The truth crashed in on me brutally as I sat up and saw Kate’s lifeless body there beside me. I ran my hands across my face and rubbed my eyes, wishing I could start this day over and do things differently.

  Finally, I stood up, lifting Kate’s body with me and, without stopping to think it through, I leaped forward out over the fast moving river. I couldn’t get as far out as I had from the middle of the bridge. I felt a stick or something stab the calf of my leg when I hit the freezing water and I let go of Kate as the pain hit, wrapping both hands around my leg as my head went under. I instantly realized what I had done and when I surfaced, I reached in the dark for Kate’s body, but the river had stolen it from me. The water was swift and freezing cold and I was swept along in the current, white hot pain shooting through my leg. I treaded water against the strong current as I looked around desperately for Kate, but I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. I felt around with my arms, I kicked my legs, trying with all my might to reach out and touch her. “Kate!” I yelled across the undulating water, as if she were going to answer me and I’d be able to track the sound of her voice. I grew weaker as the near-freezing water sucked the strength from my arms and legs. It was getting hard to keep myself afloat, much less look for Kate as the blood leached away from my extremities. But I tried anyway; it felt as if I was moving in slow motion now as I searched for her body. I couldn’t see anything in the dark black, swirling water. The current was carrying me along and now, I didn’t even know where I was. My brain had already been foggy, but now it seemed to be shutting down altogether. I finally stopped flailing, letting my body relax, and I closed my eyes, feeling the current dragging me down and down, ending this painful journey I’d began up on the steel girders of the bridge. I’m coming Kate, was my last coherent thought.

  Chapter 34

  When I opened my eyes again, my mother was leaning over a nightstand beside me, pouring a cup of water from a pitcher. When she stood up and saw me looking at her, she squealed like she’d seen a mouse and she dropped over my chest, hugging me and crying. My two brothers came into the room sounding like a stampede of horses when they heard my mom cry out. When they saw me awake, they each hugged me and cheered and made so much noise, my mother finally sent them out of the room.

  “O
h John,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes, “it’s so good to see you again.”

  “How long was I out?” It felt like only minutes ago when I leapt off the rock.

  “Since November,” she said as she reached out and moved my hair out of my eyes.

  “That’s impossible,” I said, my eyes growing wide. “I just jumped with Kate’s body.”

  Kate! It all came back in a rush as I remembered jumping in the river and accidentally letting go of her. How could I have been so stupid? “Did you find a girl’s body with me?”

  “No sweetie. A couple of fishermen pulled you into their boat back in November. Was there someone else with you?”

  Oh Kate. I’m sorry. I squeezed my eyes shut tight as my stomach wrenched and I felt tears squeeze out of the corners. I had planned to give her a decent burial and instead, I lost her to the river. I’m not even sure what I had been thinking, to jump into the river with her instead of giving her the burial she would have wanted.

  I heard the door closing as my mother stepped out of the room. I guess she had seen the tears squeezing from my eyes and wanted to give me some privacy. “Mom,” I called out.

  She opened the door and stuck her head back in, “yes son?”

  “Was last night the time change?”

  “Yes.” She sounded surprised at my question. “Spring forward,” she said lightly, then closed the door.

  The pain was overwhelming as I lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering why God would take Kate and not let me go with her. And how is it possible that my mother is telling me I’ve been here since November? Was it possible that I had been in a coma and dreamed the last six months? I felt very confused as I lay there, but Kate was clear in my head, her beautiful blue eyes, her high-spirited attitude, her laughter ringing out in the small cabin.

  I felt a pain in my right leg and reached down, running my hand across my calf. Sure enough, there was a fresh stab wound on my leg and it hurt like hell. But it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the pain in my heart. It just couldn’t be possible that I had lost her. Not just losing her to the river, but losing the one person I’d wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I felt the fog slipping back over my mind as I tried to deal with the pain.

  My mother came back in a while, carrying a plate of food and a tall glass of soda over ice. I stared at it for a bit before I could even take a sip. It had been so long since I’d had a soda or even seen an ice cube. I ate some of the dinner, but I really didn’t have much of an appetite and of course, my stomach had shrunk from weeks of near starvation.

  My mother sat down in a chair beside me and watched me while I ate. When I finished, she set the plate to the side and stared at me. “Who is Kate?”

  I heaved a deep breath as I looked at her, wondering if I should lie. But I knew my mother, she would see right through me, just like when I was a kid.

  “I jumped off that bridge and landed in 1847. I met Kate on the Oregon Trail and then lived with her in a cabin on the Walla Walla all winter.”

  “John. You fell off a bridge in November and you’ve been in a coma,” she said sternly. Her voice softened and she brushed the shaggy hair off my forehead. “You only dreamed it, sweetie, you’ve been right here with us. Until yesterday, you had tubes and wires and machines hooked to you.”

  I started shaking my head back and forth on the pillow. I could hear Kate’s lilting, musical voice over the sound of the rattling wagons on the trail. I remembered all too well how my legs had grown numb while I sat with her unconscious body in the river.

  “Wait, what happened yesterday?”

  “You sat up suddenly in bed and yelled something, I’m not sure what. The nurse said it was unintelligable. She said you were only sleeping after that instead of comatose.”

  I shook my head some more, disbelieving. “I learned to throw knives and hunted with them.” I picked the steak knife up off my plate as I said it and flipped it in my hand, holding it by the blade. I watched my mother’s eyes grow wide in horror as I flung it across the room and heard it thwack into the drywall.

  “I could never do that before,” I said coldly.

  “But it had to be a dream, John. You’ve been right here. You hit your head when you fell in the river. You had a huge bump and a cut on the side of your head when they brought you home. Your mind must be playing tricks on you.”

  My head did feel fuzzy and I was so confused. Had I dreamed it? No, damn it, I remember Kate had torn up a sheet and wrapped it around my head. I reached up, rubbing the small scar under my hair. I remembered how much my head hurt and how silly I must have looked, with a piece of Kate’s sheet wrapped around my head. “There’s no way I dreamed the last six months with her, laughing and loving and dancing together.”

  “Oh, John,” now she had tears in her eyes, “you always were such a romantic.”

  She picked up my dinner plate and left then, saying I needed to rest. She stopped on her way and pulled the knife from the drywall, working it up and down to free it.

  “It happened, mom,” I said quietly.

  She gave me one last worried look over her shoulder and left.

  Brad and Jake came in after a few minutes, both of them looking worried too. She must have told them my crazy-sounding story. They both looked uncomfortable as they approached.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “I’m not going to bite you.”

  “Guess we’re a little more worried about you throwing knives at us,” Brad said with a smile.

  “Do you guys think I’m crazy?”

  “Well,” Jake said playfully, “you always were a little crazy.”

  “The human brain is still a mystery,” Brad said uncomfortably.

  “Yeah, that was a pretty damn real dream, though.”

  “But you were in a coma,” Brad said in a serious tone. “I read that when people are comatose, they experience some pretty crazy things. Some have said they’ve even been to heaven and back.”

  “Hey,” Jake chimed in. “I saw that on a show once. This lady was in a coma and she said she saw heaven and her dead grandmother while she was asleep.”

  “Yeah, that must be it,” I agreed, figuring it was the easiest way to get this over with. And, oddly enough, Kate was beginning to look like a dream when I pictured her in my mind. I rubbed the scar on my head absentmindedly as I thought about it. My mind had been in such a fog and now, it felt like the fog was closing in around all conscious thought. I was completely torn between the pain in my heart and the logic of what everyone was telling me.

  They both gave me a hug and said how glad they were that I was back from my coma, then they left, heading for their own homes and families.

  I lay there for hours, thinking about Kate. How could anything that real have been a dream? And the love I felt for her, it was too real. I felt broken inside, as if my heart had been ripped from my chest when I lost her. I could see the pale blue dress floating around her as we both fell toward the river. Had I dreamed that? My head felt cloudy and the longer I thought about it, the more unsure I became.

  I finally drifted into a fitful sleep, filled with dreams of Kate, dancing and twirling in front of me one minute with her blue eyes sparkling, falling in slow motion toward the water the next, the blue dress floating around her like a cloud.

  I was half awake with the first rays of sun peeking through the curtains when my mom came in, carrying a tray filled with sausage, eggs, toast and fruit. My stomach churned as I looked at so much food. How had I ever eaten so much in one meal? It seemed a lifetime ago since I had leaped off that bridge.

  My mother sat down beside me and watched me pick at the food. She talked about my brothers and the farm, filling me in on the last six months. I nodded occasionally, feigning interest when all I could really think about was Kate.

  She gave up finally and left me alone with my thoughts. My mind was still a confused fog, caught between memories of Kate and the logical explanation of a comatose dream. I crawled out of bed and onto
my feet. My leg hurt like hell and another near-death experience had left me a little dizzy, or maybe it was the fact of spending six months in bed? My mind still refused to accept that fact, no matter how hard I tried to believe it. I made my way slowly to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I stood under it for damn near a half hour, letting the steaming hot water wash over me. The luxurious smell of the soap and shampoo, the feel of the hot spray across my shoulders, it was an experience that I’d thought I would never know again and I reveled in it. I thought about our cabin as I stood there and how long it took to heat water on the fire, and of sitting in the small tub to bathe. It almost seemed like a culture shock to turn on a faucet and have hot water. Had I really had such an elaborate dream?

  I stayed at the farm with my mother for a few days, and Brad and Jake stopped by every day to visit, but truthfully, I was a changed man. Or more accurately, I had left a boy and came back a man. I studied my body in a full-length mirror. I was a little underweight now, but still broad and muscled. Every inch of my body was lean, solid muscle after my months of hard labor. How was it possible that I was lying in a bed here with my body wasting away, while I was there getting stronger and leaner? My muscles should have atrophied to the point of becoming useless, yet I was stronger and leaner than ever in my life. And how could I have traveled through history to find my soul mate, only to lose her in the end?