by Thomas Locke
“Yes. Thank you.”
“These specials have become a matter of grave interest to the local powers. They’ve even got themselves a high-powered group down from Washington to help out. Though ‘help’ might not be the proper word, given these are Washington folk.” Hamlin appeared to be talking as much to himself as to Caleb. “They’re rounding up these so-called specials and holding them somewhere.”
“They’re not so-called anything,” Caleb said.
Hamlin peered at him from beneath greying eyebrows thick as shrubbery. “Point taken.”
“Can you find out where they’re being held?”
“Probably. But like I said, it has to be done quiet. As in, whispering down dark wells at midnight. Where are you staying?”
“The Ritz.”
“Nice place. Go get yourself a decent night’s rest. Looks like you could use it. Be back here at noon. I’ll see what I can find.”
35
Caleb returned to the plaza fronting the university entrance just as the streetlights began to glow. Their illumination was feeble at first, but still enough to cause some pedestrians to stop and watch them come alive. He was glad that he was not the only one captured by everything those lights represented. All along the darkening street, they glowed like gemstones laid upon the path to . . . where? Caleb knew what he wanted. A world where people were free to cross from city to city, to travel and explore and be who they were, without subterfuge or fear of imprisonment for the crime of being different.
As if in response to his yearnings, thunder rumbled in the distance.
Caleb did not need a glimpse beyond time’s next corner to know Maddie had been arrested in a sweep for specials. She was caught in the snare of people holding power and wanting more. He was fairly certain she was alive. And not hurt. There remained a sense of being bonded with her at some level below any direct communication. He hoped he was not fooling himself. He didn’t think so. In such moments of solitary contemplation, he still caught a faint assurance that she was there. Silent for reasons of her own, waiting for him.
As he entered the plaza, Caleb hoped desperately he had been right to speak openly with Hamlin Turner. He’d entrusted his fate and that of his entire community to an Atlanta lawyer. Yet he liked Hamlin. He felt better having the man on his side. And for no other reason than that, he crossed the park and entered the tavern with a light heart.
It was a shame the feeling could not have lasted a little bit longer.
Zeke and Hester were not there. Nor was Enya.
Caleb searched the outside tables, then went inside and spotted the same waiter who had flirted with Enya earlier. The man recalled Caleb, offered him a table, and took his order for food Caleb doubted he could eat.
Two and a half hours later, the others still had not arrived.
The storm continued to gather, the wind fitful and damp. The clouds massing overhead flashed and thunder growled. Finally the waiter returned and pointed at the long line of patrons seeking a table.
Lightning flickered like electric veins overhead as Caleb returned to his hotel.
Caleb spent a sleepless night trapped in a double blanket of fear and guilt. He should never have left his two friends in the company of an Atlanta student. What was worse, he was doubly afraid he had been wrong to trust Hamlin. Nothing he had done seemed right, starting from the terrible moment he had revealed his ability to Harshaw and his Catawba clansmen. The enclave’s future lay on his shoulders like a huge grey rock.
Lightning flickered and thunder rumbled, a portent of the storm beyond the horizon. There was no escape from the fact that he had endangered the lives of everyone he held dear.
The rain arrived with the dawn. Caleb rose from his bed and showered and ordered a breakfast brought to his room. He could not bear the thought of entering that vast restaurant alone, staring at all that wasted food, and knowing the day could well mark the last time he ate anything decent. Even so, he could scarcely force himself to keep down a cup of tea. The food sat on the tray on the elegant table in the middle of his grand parlor, mocking him and all his worries.
Flash! Boom!
The lightning crashed so close to his window that the thunder exploded in that very same moment. Caleb was hammered off his feet and landed hard on the carpet. He lay there, his limbs outstretched, as he realized for the first time what it meant to truly see.
All his searches for truth and right actions up to this point had merely been dabblings. He had touched his toe into the sea of his own potential, then retreated. He had done what came easily. Nothing more. Now there was no longer anything to hold him back. He was stripped bare. Even his skin was gone, even his life. Now he dove in.
He saw.
Caleb stood on an open field at midnight. A vein of fire began at his feet. Two paths opened up and raced away from him, forming a brilliant V that illuminated the empty plain. They reached the horizon at the very same moment, then exploded.
He opened his eyes and rose slowly from the carpet. He stood before the rain-streaked window, his chest heaving. His entire body shook. He listened to the thunder of his own heart and knew without the slightest doubt that he stood at just such a juncture. He could remain the man shaped by his youth. Caleb of Catawba enclave, a quiet-spoken man who did his best by all who came his way.
Or he could become something more.
There were no guarantees to accepting the position of leadership represented by this other path. Caleb saw how the tension and fears and doubts that had wrecked his night were mere shadows of what he would know in the future. If he accepted the challenge and sought to grow. Become a man who sought to be strong for others. To seek the right way, even through the darkest hour. To help. To serve.
It was a terrifying choice. But as he wiped his face and waited for strength to return to his limbs, Caleb knew the choice had already been made.
36
The first drops fell in the hour before dawn. The rain was slow in building, but the soft patter of early droplets was overlaid with a constant rumble now, promising far more to come. They were all up and washed and fed and safe in the truck by the time the storm arrived in earnest. Kevin sat in the rear hold, with Pablo across from him. Doris had worked for a transport company and could handle the truck. When gusts of wind began blowing rain into their cubby, Pablo ordered the rear flaps shut and the lanterns lit, turning the vehicle into a safe little cave. A faint mist still drifted in under the canvas ties, but they were warm and they were content, mostly. It was time.
Kevin was seated next to Forrest. The more he got to know the man, the more he liked him. Forrest was steady. He made no bones about who he was or the life he’d made for himself. It was an engineer’s ability, Kevin thought, being able to see life for what it was and go about arranging it into as comfortable a position as possible.
He asked, “How long ago did Charlotte start the sweeps?”
Forrest said, “Three, maybe four days before we got out. Perhaps five. No more than that.”
Which was why they had escaped as easily as they had. The collection and imprisonment of specials had not yet become fully organized in Charlotte. Kevin recalled the argument he had seen between Hollis and the Washington suits. The treaty or whatever agreement Charlotte had made with the capital was not resting easy with some.
He told them, “I’ve got a lot of questions and almost no answers.”
“That’s the role of a good leader, seems to me,” Pablo replied.
“And that’s what we need to talk about. I don’t think I’m the leader you seek.” He held up his hand to stop their protest. “But let’s leave that for a second. There’s something you need to decide first.”
“We decide,” Carla corrected.
When Kevin merely kept his hand upraised, Pablo asked, “What is the question?”
“Where are we going?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“We all agreed coming to Atlanta was the right move. But then what
?” He pointed at Carla. “You said I would tell us. The problem is, I have no idea why we’ve come or what to do now that we’re here.”
Carla’s serene confidence remained unfazed. “You don’t know yet.”
Kevin shrugged. “Now or later, I’ve only got one possible answer.”
The team had shifted around so they were all silently involved in the discussion. Those inside the cab listened through the sliding rear window. The faces turned Kevin’s way were slick with droplets blown under the cover. The canvas ties fluttered nervously, like they feared what was being discussed.
Kevin went on, “I think maybe my job was to bring you to a different leader.”
Carla halted Pablo’s outburst with a tap on his leg. She asked, “Who do you have in mind?”
“His name is Caleb.”
“You’ve spoken of him before.”
Pablo demanded, “What makes you think he’ll know more than you?”
“He’s one of you, for a start. An adept. I’m not.”
Carla asked, “What is his attribute?”
Kevin turned to Forrest. “Remember the guy I mentioned this morning?”
Forrest nodded. “Who doesn’t know his real ability.”
“That’s him. Caleb senses things—events that haven’t happened. And he’s a truth-teller. His girlfriend is an adept as well. Her name is Maddie, and she forged a communication between them. She moved to Atlanta when her father became a professor at the university. Then she vanished a week or so ago. Caleb lost communication with her. So he came down here looking for her.”
Forrest asked, “When?”
“He left Overpass the same day I met Carla.” Kevin knew he was making a mess of this, but he had no choice except to press on. “I think he’s the one. The leader you’re needing. Caleb is a born strategist. He works a problem better than anybody I’ve ever met.”
Pablo looked ready to argue. But once again his outburst was silenced by Carla tapping his leg. Kevin liked that about them, how she balanced him and he trusted her. He knew a moment’s yearning for someone he could rely on like that. And love.
He went on, “I’ve known two real leaders. I mean, the kind of people others will not just follow but trust with their lives. One was the sheriff of Overpass, the other was my mother. I think Caleb is the third of this rare breed.”
“Say you’re right,” Carla said. “What do we do now?”
“I have no idea.” It was only when Kevin wiped away the slick covering his face that he realized his hands were shaking. “I don’t know where he is. Or how we can find him.”
“No,” Irene declared. “It is not possible.”
Carla asked, “Shouldn’t you at least try to do what Pablo suggests before you shut the door in his face?”
From her place beside Kevin, Irene gave Carla a very cool look. “Pablo wants me to communicate with somebody who isn’t listening and has never mind-communicated with anyone except the woman he loves.”
Forrest had shifted down one place so that Irene now sat between him and Kevin. “Maddie probably broke through the guy’s barriers with that same love.”
“And intimacy,” Irene said. “And time. She and Caleb grew up together, didn’t you tell us that?”
“Since childhood,” Kevin confirmed. The longer he was in Irene’s company, the more he felt drawn to her. Despite the fact that they were bedraggled, weary, and dirty from three very hard days without proper baths, she remained a lovely and alluring figure. Heat seemed to radiate off her, defying the gusting rain that drifted through gaps in the canvas cover. Kevin knew he should be focused on the myriad of problems they faced, but just then he found a distinct pleasure in sitting there, absorbing her warmth.
“All right, I get it,” Carla said.
But Irene went on anyway. “But the more important thing, to me at least, is that Caleb is listening for her. He is desperate to hear she’s alive and okay.”
“Enough,” Carla said.
“No, no, this is good,” Kevin said. “My sheriff used to say, sometimes you find the right answer by discovering what is wrong about other options. I like hearing all this.”
“So do I,” Pablo said. “It’s drawing things into focus.”
“I have no idea what abilities we have here,” Kevin said. “I know I need to learn what you can and can’t do, but now isn’t the time.”
Forrest shifted forward, leaning his elbows on his knees so he could see around Irene. “What if, just suppose . . .”
“Tell us.”
“No, forget it.” He leaned back. “It sounded crazy even before it came out of my mouth.”
“Crazy is better than nothing,” Kevin said. “What are you thinking?”
The distance from the hotel to Hamlin Turner’s office was less than a thousand paces. Down a broad avenue, across a rectangular park fronted by elegant townhouses and offices, two blocks along a busy street fronted by elegant shops, and Caleb was there. He was sheltered beneath an umbrella the hotel supplied but still arrived with the bottom half of his trousers drenched. The rain fell in solid sheets, a veritable wall of water. The streets were turned into fast-flowing creeks. Most people he passed cringed every time the lightning flashed, which was often. As though they feared not the rain but the other possible causes for such blasts. As though they all felt vulnerable.
The second image struck just as he climbed the building’s broad stone staircase. Lightning flashed close by, and in its crackling aftermath Caleb felt this new concept become branded on his mind: an eagle in full flight, carved from a far larger storm.
The thunder spoke to Caleb then, at a level far deeper than mere words. It said the present tempest assaulted all of America. Caleb’s entire nation was in need of a different direction.
The eagle’s image remained poised overhead, branded upon the clouds. For one brief instant Caleb watched it feed upon the lightning, drawing strength for the conflict to come. Just as he must ready himself.
When the image passed, Caleb climbed the stairs, entered the building, and stood dripping in the grand stone foyer. He had made the decision. He would do his best to grow beyond his upbringing and the enclave’s comfortable existence.
He had been moving in this direction since leaving Catawba for Overpass. Even before. He knew that now. Since the moment he had stood and watched Maddie’s wagon roll out of sight, he had been heading for this moment, when he would see the nation’s symbol of defiance and strength emblazoned on the sky overhead and understand what it meant. Challenging the might of those who sought to oppress and enslave. Rebelling against the wrongness. Confronting the enemy. And defeating them.
37
Forrest traded places with Pablo so that he was seated directly across from Kevin. His remaining strands of hair were drenched and mashed flat to his head by the spray drifting through the canvas opening. Irene was seated next to Forrest, waiting her turn. Silent as always.
Forrest said to Kevin, “Tell me about Caleb.”
“I’ve only known him a little over a week.”
“Tell me what you can.” Forrest shut his eyes and leaned back against the canvas walls. “Focus on the emotional connection. You like him, yes?”
“A great deal. More than makes sense after such a short while. But it feels like I’ve known him all my life.”
“Good. Very good. Now tell me why.”
Kevin understood what Forrest intended through the question. He sought to fashion an impossible connection by riding Kevin’s emotional link to Caleb. See if it was possible to locate someone he didn’t know because of this fragile bond. Kevin felt exposed talking about his feelings in front of twenty watching faces. Even so, he forced himself to open up, while the thunder and pounding rain accented his every word.
Kevin described his meeting with Mayor Silas Fleming and the dark pleasure Captain Hollis had shown. He related how Hollis had looked forward to seeing Kevin fail at identifying specials, then stringing him and his mother from the city’s l
ampposts. Kevin relived their flight from Overpass with Gus Ferguson’s help, their fear and exhaustion, then meeting Caleb and his father by the boundary stream.
He leaned back and shut his own eyes as he recalled the moment his bleak resignation had turned to a flicker of hope, when Caleb had revealed his own gift. How he had respectfully told his father that both Kevin and Abigail should be offered sanctuary. Right then. Without the elders’ full approval. Kevin described how Caleb’s natural authority had been matched by respect and even humility. How in the hours and days to follow, Kevin had come to like him immensely. How he admired and trusted Caleb’s leadership and the way it was balanced with a very real modesty . . .
“I have him,” Forrest softly declared.
Kevin crouched on a backpack that looked frosted from the misting rain. “Where is he?”
“He’s sitting in an outer office.” Forrest leaned against the canvas wall, his entire face creased with concentration. “He’s very . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know the word. Intent. Worried, but something more.”
“It’s enough.” Kevin pretended a confidence he did not feel. “Okay. Irene, you ready?”
In response, she slipped her hand into Forrest’s. She leaned closer to him, closed her eyes, placed her other hand atop theirs, and said softly, “Show me.”
For a time, the only sound in the truck was the drumming rain. Then Irene leaned back, looked at Kevin, and said, “Nothing. I can’t communicate with him at all.”
Forrest did not appear the least bit surprised or disappointed by the result. He opened his eyes, released Irene’s hand, and wiped the gathered moisture from his face. “It felt like we were trying to burrow through a brick wall with a spoon.”
Kevin wanted to punctuate the moment, show everyone who watched that he was not discouraged. He could think of nothing to say except, “Did the suits ever ask you to do something of the sort?”
Pablo’s eyes turned hard as etched glass. “They did not ask anything.”
