4: Truth
Tracy Island-
The hike was long and exhausting, Scott's injured back protesting each jarring step and puffing, sweaty reach. Not that he was weak, or out of shape, exactly… but here on the dry side of the island, with the sun like a copper coin in a pitiless sky, it was damn hot. Windy, too, with the ever present hum of those massive generators playing thunderous counterpoint.
Virgil led the way to their father's mysteriously large machines, lunging athletically and exclaiming over the view. The brick-kiln heat and brittle black ledges presented no problem at all to him. But then, Virgil Tracy had been known to backpack a hundred pounds of elk meat (or an injured climber) down from the Grand Tetons and still have energy for next day's football practice. Scott would have thrown something at his younger brother, if he could have summoned the strength.
Blinking sweat from his eyes (and because, at times like these, it helped to consider those worse off than him), Scott glanced down at his other brother, John. The second-oldest Tracy seemed utterly oblivious to heat, scenery and danger, alike; drifting along after Scott like a catatonic ghost. Scott and Virgil wore shorts. John had on his usual jeans and black tee-shirt. His hands were scratched and puffy from ill-timed branch grabs and awkward slips, and it seemed that he'd managed to turn both ankles. Didn't complain about it, though. Just trudged up the path after his brothers, doing silent penance for unnamed sins.
Scott would have worried more, but again, most of his energy was occupied elsewhere.
"You okay?" he called down (gasped, really). After a moment, his brother glanced upward; a flash of distracted, squinty dark blue and whipping silver-blond.
"Yeah," he replied over the muttering, gusty wind.
"Not much further to go," Scott added bracingly, while the picture of aerobic health bounded around above them like a damn mountain goat.
"Scott, I'm fine." Rather testily, that time.
"Yeah. You look it, there, 'King of the Restless Dead'," the fighter pilot joked, waiting to offer John a much-needed hand up.
Hauling his brother higher, Scott was surprised by how little he seemed to weigh, and by the fact that John was smiling almost at him.
"Right. And I'll sit still for the lecture just as soon as you quit hobbling and clutching your back," said John, who observed a great deal, though he never seemed to be actually looking.
Fortunately, they were nearly to the generators; their father's quixotically-designed mansion a mere blot of white in the distance. Scott took a long pull at his water flask. He would have rested awhile, but Virgil was stamping with impatience ahead, calling and waving his arms.
"This was your idea," Scott reminded John darkly, as the younger man took a short drink from his brother's canteen (he'd brought no supplies of his own). "…and I'm only limping because of all the blisters."
"Bullshit."
"What?" Scott demanded; hand outstretched for the flask.
John shrugged.
"I said: Right, blisters. Whatever."
They went on, finally reaching Virgil at the point when their muscular younger brother was ready to bite chunks out of the mountainside and pull his brown hair out in tufts.
"Damn!" he snapped, when his deeply fatigued siblings crested the last ridge. "I could've led a tour group through this place and set up a crafts booth in the time it's taken you two to show up. Ever considered exercise? Clean living? Stuff like that?"
Virgil was laughing, now, but he meant what he'd said, and worried a lot about both of them. They'd come to the cavern, though, and soon had other things to think about. Uneven ground, for one; partially blocked entrance, for another. Weirdly, the barrier wasn't natural, but a cleverly disguised stone and metal door, part of what the brothers could only assume would eventually be a set.
Inside, all was grinding, whirring vibration and mechanical thunder. There were cameras everywhere, mobile units that turned to follow their progress as Scott, Virgil and John stepped cautiously within. The floor, they noted, was smoothly polished black stone. The ceiling disappearing into the shadows behind low-hung fluorescent lights. Then there were the generators themselves; huge, cylindrical machines held to the ground with enormous bolts. They weren't just geothermal, as John discovered when he consulted a metal wall chart; there were nuclear and wave-powered analogs in other regions, as well. Mind-bending terawatts of energy were being produced here; enough to bleed into the air around them, making their hair stand and their skins prickle. Virgil's flashlight ignited, shining brilliantly forth despite every attempt to flip the switch or remove the batteries.
It was far too noisy inside the vast cavern for speech, but John directed his brothers' attention to another diagram, this one apparently detailing where all of this power was being directed. In short, all over the island. Not just the mansion and air strip but several large subterranean vaults and the roundhouse were together receiving enough electricity to run a small city.
"What the hell…?" Scott mouthed. But John merely shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. Virgil was equally mystified, and more bothered by all the discordant noise. Scott came up with a thought, though; one he shared with his younger brothers via notepad and pencil.
'Maybe he's designing prototype craft for TA? Wants us as test pilots?'
Virgil, and then John, read the note as they hurried through the ringing, roaring tunnel in search of someplace quieter. John held out his hand for the pencil, writing (with his left, informal, hand),
'You, maybe. But don't think he'd trust me, anymore.'
Having read over Scott's shoulder, Virgil demanded the very thing on both their minds, seizing pad and pencil to scrawl,
'Why not? What did you do?'
John didn't immediately answer; turning his face away and jamming his hands back into his jeans' pockets by way of refusal. Stubborn to the last, they'd get nothing more out of him till he was good and ready to talk.
Instead, he headed off in another direction, weaving his way among buzzing, staticky machines the size of suburban houses, giant coils of platinum wire enveloping huge, rapidly spinning magnets. Just before the shaking and noise passed endurance, they found another door, this one leading to an insulated and blissfully quiet hall. Like the after-image of a flash bulb, though, the wooly ghost of all that noise clogged their hearing for a bit, making conversation difficult.
The corridor they found themselves in was lit by LED panels and carpeted in pale, vanilla-beige polyester. There were no posters, offices or people. Just a sort of upside-down slot car track along which small machines zipped back and forth. Startling, at first, but the three Tracys soon became accustomed to all this automated activity, and to the silently tracking cameras.
The long hallway ended at a pair of elevators. One a huge, industrial-sized job (like you'd see on the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier), the other small, with a hand print scanner restricting its operations. No one wanted to face another trek through generator hell, so they decided to find out where the elevators would take them.
Again, no signs or labels; just the wall-mounted scanner and cameras. Scott's palm print did the trick, keying open the titanium-steel doors of the private elevator, whose polished internal walls made an infinitely repeated mob of Tracys seem to be crowding within. Bruised, scratched, sweaty Tracys with pounding headaches, ringing ears and grim faces.
They weren't prepared for the elevator's speed. Scott, ever the direct sort, had given an 'Oh, well...' sort of shrug, and pressed the topmost command button. Instantly, the maglev elevator sprang like a rocket, and Virgil got sick. At least there was music…
"Clean living, my ass," John muttered, handing his brother a paper towel that had issued from the elevator wall like ticker-tape. "Try a few hundred beer and computer game all-nighters. Toughen that stomach right up."
Scott was in genuine pain, having been caught unawares by the lift's stupendous acceleration. John peeled him away from the wall, while Virgil huddled over his paper towel. Wrapping thin arms around Scott from behind, he suddenly, violently jerked him upward. Scott's back popped, hard.
…Which strangely enough, after an initial burst of nuclear-strength pain, helped. He didn't have time to thank his amateur chiropractor, however, because just then the elevator car slowed, shedding all of its upward momentum in a scant .3 seconds. Once again, more colorfully than ever, Virgil was sick. Scott's stomach rose, trailing weightless coils of intestine, somewhere into his sinuses. (The smells and sounds didn't help any, either.)
John seemed merely bleak and uncomfortable.
"Whoever designed this thing," he said, as the car slammed to a halt and the doors opened, "is not a 'people person'."
Unusual insight, coming from John. Scott caught up with his own stomach, at last. He and John each seized a Virgil-arm, and then hauled their miserable brother clear of the highly polished torture device.
Whatever they'd expected to find at the top of their ride, they were wrong. There was no weird, high-tech headquarters, aeronautical research facility, or bound and gagged British super-spy. Just a cave-like observation deck looking out over the island's southern aspect, and miles of blue infinity. There was some sort of wall comm, a polished steel guard rail, and that heart-stopping view.
"Hey…" John ventured, after darting forward to lean over the rail, "…is that another runway?"
Virgil wouldn't approach the edge, but Scott girded up his loins and strode over.
"Sure looks like it," he decided, following John's unwavering point. "But, what's he want with an isolated air strip that runs straight into a cliff? Planning to practice his white-knuckle touch-and-goes?"
"I think you were right the first time," John mused, hanging so suicidally far over the guard rail that Scott instinctively grabbed for his belt.
"He's… dammit, let go… testing something out here, in the back of nowhere, that he means to make another fortune with."
Virgil inched closer, giving his rebellious stomach a chance to redeem itself. Mountain vistas didn't ordinarily bother him, but after that elevator ride…
"Okay," he panted. "Two questions: Why us for test pilots? Only Scott has serious flight time… and why do you think he wouldn't trust you, John?"
…Besides the obvious, of course. John and Jeff Tracy had butted heads from potty training to university. They simply never got along. But John chose to answer only the first question.
"Because we're not likely to go running to Grumman or Lockheed-Martin with his designs, is why. Think it over, dumb-ass."
Virgil scowled at the barbed remark, but refused to be distracted. He'd hit a nerve and he knew it. Sensing trouble, Scott stepped in. While Virgil was generally the calmest and most pleasant of brothers, he did possess the Tracy stubborn streak… and about two-hundred-fifty pounds of rock-solid muscle to back it up with.
"What'd you do?" Virgil insisted. Before his dangerously still brother could reply, Scott waved an arm for attention.
"Okay, that's enough! Everyone's got questions about why we're here, and we're not going to answer a damn one of them by fighting. Virge, shut the hell up. John, apologize."
There was an instant or two of tense silence. He hadn't ordered his brothers around this way since leaving for the academy, and wasn't sure they'd still accept his authority. But their tension stretched and broke, leaving everything else more-or-less normal. John thrust his hands back into his pockets and lowered his head, once again curtaining emotion and intent. He muttered something that sounded halfway like,
"Sorry."
…To which Virgil responded with a smile and brief, magnanimous shoulder clasp.
"No problem. Guess I was getting kinda personal. So… uh… you guys want to go camping next? Get out of this maze and hit the beach?"
They still had more 'together' than 'apart'. More history than conflict; a missing brother, a dead mom, and each other.
"Hell, yeah," Scott grinned. "Go fishing, swim and build a bonfire, just like out by the lake. Don't tell Kyrano, though, because I don't want tea and damn finger sandwiches on a camp-out."
Even John agreed, with a slight, wordless nod, and the brothers left the observation deck through an unlocked side door, finding an easier way back down to the mansion.
At the big house they changed, showered and packed for a beach-side camping trip. Scott brought along towels, sunscreen, a lighter and sleeping bags… Virgil his fishing gear, some tin foil, three potatoes and a sack of marshmallows… John, the all-important cooler of beer, his knife and a folding camp shovel. They rendezvoused on the lower pool deck, purposely vague about their destination despite all of Kyrano's gentle hints.
"Just wrap it up and stick it in the fridge, Kyrano," Scott told him, referring to the spinach soufflé he'd prepared for dinner. "We'll scrape it on toast, or something, tomorrow."
TinTin would have liked to go along, but no one else thought that an eleven-year old girl belonged on a camp-out with three young men. Home she petulantly stayed, then; for awhile, at least.
At length, supplies gathered and plans made, the Tracys headed down the long stairs to the beach, soon rounding a bend in the dark shore and passing from sight.
Kyrano sighed. Shaking his grey head at the willfulness of American youth, he glanced at his properly obedient young daughter.
"TinTin, you may inform Doctor Hackenbacker that his dining area will be 'clear' tonight."
"Oui, Papa," she murmured; unbeknownst to Kyrano, already plotting escape.
Elsewhere, kicking at black sand and watching the playful surf, the Tracy brothers strode along, searching for a perfect campsite. Back in Kansas, on McConnell Air Force Base, they'd had a backyard clubhouse. In Wyoming, there'd been a cherished spot by Lake Jackson, out on a rocky, forested point. Here… well, it took awhile to locate perfection; one site being too windy, another subject to flooding, and a third too crusted with obsidian flakes and pumice for any sort of comfort. But then…
"Right here," Scott decided at last, dropping his pack and bedroll on the shore of a crescent-shaped and tree-lined cove. There was even a small stream, pouring fresh and cold from the mountain. "This is perfect. Let's get to work."
Knowing their jobs, the young men proceeded with setting up camp, pausing from time to time for brief looks around. There were a lot of tall rocks further out to sea, sifting the turquoise water like jagged fingers. A cross-wind blew, but not fiercely, too preoccupied with stirring the treetops to bother with a few fragile campers. And, although there was quite obviously a savage current off-shore, it surged darkly well beyond the rocks, leaving their new-found cove in relative peace. Heavy-laden fruit trees bent and swayed just above them, offering bananas, coconuts and big, head-sized bumpy green things that no one was quite sure what to do with.
Scott collected driftwood for the bonfire while John dug an oven pit and lined it with flat rocks. There'd been one out on the lake, so old that it had probably first seen use by the Folsom Point tribes, but here they'd have to build their own. And a deep latrine, as well.
Virgil, in the meantime, put together his old graphite fly rod (it had been Granddad's) and went fishing. He looked around a lot, first; observing the sorts of insects that were buzzing around above the water, and which types the fish appeared to be biting on. Then he chose his fly and tied it on the line, casting three times before finding the right spot; a shadowy overhang below the stream, where the water ran deep and cool.
He stood knee-high in the cove, lapped at by minnows and wavelets, forgetting nearly everything else in the comforting symphony of fly-fishing. He'd cast, jig and twitch the iridescent fly across the cove, wait for a strike, then set the hook with a sharp tug and settle in for a real fight. These were big, unfamiliar island fish, not slim little brookies and cutthroats, and they fought him all the way in.
Scott had always loved to bow-fish, but hadn't brought his gear with him from Korea. He stood ready with the net, though, helping Virgil to land supper. They fished together until just after sunset, taking four long, shimmering prizes. Virgil made a mental note of the spot, and then handed his catch over to John for cleaning. The butterflied fish were iced down to wait for Scott's carefully-nurtured fire to blossom, giving the brothers time for swimming, arm-wrestling, lies and other such masculine foolishness. (Though Scott mostly bowed out of the physical stuff; too sore.)
"Can you roast a coconut?" Virgil inquired doubtfully, once they'd gone back to preparing dinner. He was wrapping bananas and potatoes in foil, and wondered whether coconuts, too, would be worth a go.
"Hell if I know," John replied, raking coals out of the fire to prop the beer-drenched fish over. "Give it a try and find out."
By this time, they were all three famished, and gloriously fatigued. And, really, who among them knew the first thing about coconuts? It had grown quite dark, now, with their fire sending orange-red sparks in tall showers to join the stars. The wind shifted a bit, but left them pretty much alone.
Virgil wrapped half a dozen coconuts in foil and put them, too, in the pit oven with his potatoes, the bananas and a shovel load of glowing-hot rocks. Two of them exploded with a noise like dropped encyclopedias, providing a brand-new source of Tracy brother entertainment: coconut artillery salutes.
Their eventual meal was quite primitive, but deeply satisfying. John had his knife, but like the others burned himself raw scooping roast potato off the tin foil jackets and picking tender white fish from the sharp little bones. There were lots of curses, grabs for ice, and blown-on fingers, but also three very filled stomachs. By long custom, they didn't say much over supper. Virgil did repeat a quick prayer, though:
"Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghostes',
the one who's first-est
eats the most-est."
…But mostly they just sated themselves, sitting on fallen palm logs, enjoying the food, the beer and the company. Cleanup was easy enough, though finding their dug-out latrine in the darkness was not. So, in order to pay the 'beer tax', Virgil simply waded out into the water in his swim trunks, which John disapproved of.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he warned his younger brother. Virgil remained unconcerned.
"There's great circulation from the stream, don't worry. The current 'll carry everything right out to sea."
"No," John clarified from shore, a little unevenly. "I'm thinking about the spiky whiz-fish. Vandellis Cirrhosa."
"The what?" Virgil laughed, looking back.
"I'm serious," (if not entirely sober) "…There's this fish that's attracted to sources of ammonia. If you take a piss in the water, it swims up the stream and inside, where it gets stuck. Takes surgery to get the damn things out of there."
Virgil started to laugh, again, and then stopped; staring down at the suddenly dark and sinister cove, he whispered,
"They have those, here?" and began backing swiftly toward shore.
John shrugged.
"I dunno. They're actually native to the Amazon, but I'm not taking any chances on radioactive Monster Island, here."
And neither would Virgil, ever again. Back at the bonfire, Scott pulled out a coin, and they engaged in another old ritual: Truth.
Basically a sort of game, it went like this: for a stated number of turns around the fire, two brothers flipped a coin to see who got to ask the third a single question, which had to be answered honestly. Considering how quiet and undemonstrative they all were, only with the help of alcohol and artificial rules could the brothers really communicate.
As the eldest, Scott always had to go first. Virgil won the toss, asking him,
"How did you get that honor medal? I mean, I've heard the official line… everyone has… but you, uh, don't seem too proud of being a hero, Scott. What happened up there?"
Scott blinked, his violet-blue eyes hollow in the glow of a fading bonfire. Turning to John, as arbiter, he said,
"Can I ask for a different question?"
But John shook his head. This particular out was almost never approved, and Scott hadn't really expected a different outcome, tonight.
"Okay… Gimme another beer, then. It's not a long story… but I don't like telling it. Truth: I should never have gotten that damn medal. I never wanted it."
He stared into the fire, glanced from one silent brother to the next, then continued.
"I and my wingman at the time, Lieutenant Blaise, were flying night escort for a C-150 loaded with bunker busters and nuclear refueling packs. Stupid cargo combination, but everyone upstairs was trying to save money and flight time, and what do the damn pilots know, right?"
He took a swig of beer to polish off a little of memory's bitter edge.
"Anyhow, word of the shipment must've leaked… some damn anti-unification terrorist group got wind of the thing, and detonated a homemade EM-pulse bomb just as we were overflying the hills; total instrument shut-down. They fired a few shoulder launched missiles, too, just in case we weren't badly enough screwed, already. One of them hit Blaise, blew the tail clear off his fighter. He ejected safely, but another missile struck the 150. Captain Mercer was the pilot, and he could have flown anything; even a brick, if you stuck wings on it. I got peppered with shrapnel from both concussions, same time as most of my avionics went down. Well… I thought about ejecting, but the C-150 was obviously going down, with Kunsan not 40 miles away. Um… I figured that Mercer was in the same fix I was; no guidance, controls working for shit, but that he'd stay with the plane, try to fight her away from the city.
"I saw some flares and parachutes, tried calling him, but both our comms were down. He got her turned, somehow, and headed for the ocean, but damned if we weren't still being fired on! I tagged along, shooting SAMs out of the sky, while trying not to crash. Stayed longer than I should have, maybe… but so did Mad Dog… that was Mercer's handle.
"I escorted him past the city and over the harbor, both of us losing altitude the whole way. Found out, later, that they'd scrambled fighters from base, but the EM pulse had taken their instruments out, as well. They had no idea where we were. So, I just stayed with him, blasting away at missiles until we were well out to sea. Kept thinking he'd set the controls, grab a parachute and jump, and that I'd punch out after him, launch some flares and a dye marker. You know, keep together for rescue. He didn't jump, though. Too many boats around, maybe. Right to the end, right into the water, he was still trying to fly her. By that time, I was only 800 feet over the ocean myself, and shit out of luck.
"Mercer augered in, hard. There was this god-awful flash, like another sunrise. After that, I couldn't really see. Just grabbed the ejection handle by feel and punched out. The canopy came apart and I got beat to hell by wind and rockets and pieces of the 150. The seat fell off alright, but it felt like a damn long time before my chute opened. Impact with the water knocked me out, but only for a second because it was cold, and there was this meteor shower of burning fuselage and secondary explosions hitting the ocean all around me.
"I got free of the chute and harness, and, uh… I really did think that Mad Dog might've made it… that he might be out there, somewhere. I kept calling him. Lit the flare, hit my dye and shark repellent packs, and yelled myself goddam mute. Never found him. Nobody did.
"I got rescued a few hours later, by a Navy patrol boat. Don't remember much about it, though, because I was apparently delirious when they got to me."
Scott rubbed at the back of his own neck, puffing out a long, gusty breath.
"That was my second ejection under fire, and it screwed my back up pretty good… but I didn't deserve a damn promotion and medal for it. I'm really not even sure why I'm still alive, and Mercer isn't. I mean… he had a wife and kids. Why the hell didn't he jump?"
Neither of his brothers had an answer for that. But John gave him a third beer and Virgil handed over the marshmallow he'd been toasting.
"So… that's the truth," Scott finished heavily. "Keep it to yourselves."
And they would, to the very grave. It was John's turn, next, with Scott winning the toss. Not that it really mattered who won. The question was a foregone conclusion.
"What'd you do to piss dad off, this time?"
John's response was typically, almost clinically terse. Shaking the hair from his face, he said,
"I got into trouble at school."
"Right," Scott replied, poking at the fire with his now treat-less marshmallow stick. Some leftover burnt sugar dripped into the flames, sizzling briefly. "We figured that. What we're looking for, here, is elaboration. What kind of trouble?"
"You didn't ask that."
"No… but I will come across this fire and kick your bony ass, if you don't answer me properly."
Maybe not. With his back like it was, and John being a master at slipping out of holds, the exact direction of this ass-kicking was open to question. John bowed to tradition, though, and at last gave a satisfactory reply.
"Simple. I cracked the 'secure' faculty password list and downloaded exams for all of my courses. Didn't cheat, or anything, just took them all at once and timed the answers to be mailed in on schedule, so I wouldn't have to bother showing up for class. There were other things on my mind at the time, and the set-up should have worked flawlessly, but one of my… acquaintances… did the same thing, only he started selling exams to other students, and got caught by one of our professors. We could've been turned in and expelled right then and there, but instead the guy decided to blackmail us into working for him. Turned out he had a couple dozen others on the string, as well, for pulling shit like that.
"We weren't the first, but he certainly worked us harder than the others. I mostly dug up corporate facts for him… insider trading-type stuff. I was good enough not to get caught, even when he wanted deeper and dumber things. And, I had a plan to get out of the whole mess, but I had to be careful, because I wanted my, um…"
"You can say 'friends', John," Virgil interrupted, smiling a little. "Even use names, if you like. No one here's gonna tell."
The young hacker gave a short, almost-laugh.
"Okay… my friends: Denice, Rick and, um, and Drew. I wanted to be sure they didn't get dragged down with Professor Shithead, which slowed down the plan. Long story short, some of Dumb-ass' amazing trades got the feds sniffing around, he got caught, and tried shifting the blame to us. Backslash and DNC… Rick and Denice were arrested, I turned myself in, and Drew got away. I called Ms. Bonaventure, because I've dealt with her before, and arranged for dad to get my friends out with all charges dropped… and me, too, in exchange for 'good behavior'."
"But not your professor?" Scott probed, going a little beyond the rules of 'Truth'.
"Hell, no. He can spend eternity fending off his cell mates, for all I care. Serves him right, but Rick and Denice didn't deserve to go down just because they got trapped. So, since I knew dad wouldn't use his influence unless I was part of the bait, I let the FBI nail me. And, I'm pretty sure he's going to find a nice, dark hole to lock me in, whenever he gets here. End of story."
Well, that explained a great deal. And, yeah, Jeff Tracy was likely going to be as scathingly furious as they'd ever seen him, meaning that Scott and Virgil were going to have to work miracles in order to defend their brother.
"Told you, you shoulda just gone to UW," Virgil grumped. "Bet they don't even have computers over there!"
"Actually, they do," John muttered, getting up to drag another log onto the fire. "Ken's emailed me from the Cheyenne campus a couple of times."
They'd kept in touch. Scott would have liked to ask a few further questions, such as the exact nature of the 'good behavior' his brother had promised, but the rules of the game precluded it, till next round.
It was Virgil's turn, next and, though Scott won the coin toss, he let John choose the question. After a long moment of reflection, the troubled young man asked,
"I was pretty out of things, around the funeral… and then I headed back east. Never got a chance to ask what, um… how things exactly happened, with Granddad."
"Oh…" Virgil whispered, looking like a very lost little boy. He, too, would have liked a different question, rather than picking at a fresh scab, this way. No escape from Truth, though.
"Okay. It was kind of early… sun wasn't hardly up, yet… and damn cold. He was gonna ride out and check some of the south fences; saddled up Traveler and rode out of the barnyard while I was still tending to the hogs. But, y'know what's funny? He'd gone over the rise, was out of sight already, when he decided to turn around and come back. He rode into the yard again, up to where I was slopping the hogs, and asked if I had any cigarettes, because he'd forgotten to bring any, and didn't want to go back in the house, with Grandma on a kitchen-cleaning tear. I gave him the rest of my pack, and he said,
"'Thanks, Ted. I'm obliged,' just like he always did. Then, he clicked and nudged Traveler around, headed off, and collapsed off the saddle right there in the barnyard. What gets me is… I mean… if he hadn't come back for the smokes, I never would've seen him fall off. He'd 've had his heart attack and died out there, and we might not have found out for hours. Not till the coyotes and buzzards got there, anyhow."
Virgil, sitting on the black sand, drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped both arms around them before continuing.
"I ran over to him, but he had just time to smile at me before he died. Couldn't bring him back with CPR, or water, or nothing. We all tried, taking turns at heart massage and mouth-to-mouth until MedFlight arrived. They couldn't do anything for him, though. Not even at the hospital."
Nobody spoke for awhile, after this. In a very real sense, Grant Tracy had raised his three oldest grandsons. In a way, he'd been their father. But, soon enough, they'd be dealing with the genuine article, something no one felt ready for.
"Listen," Scott said at last, because Virgil looked so terribly sad, and John had developed that blank 'thousand-mile' stare of his; always a bad sign.
"…What we need is a plan of action. If dad's brought us out here to test rockets," (or to punish John) "…we need to set some ground rules, first; present a united front."
He had Virgil's attention, now, but John seemed to have withdrawn someplace deep and private.
"John," he called, going over to sit beside his brother and place a light hand against the back of his neck (as close as Scott could come to a comforting hug).
"…we need you with us, Little Brother. Snap out of it, okay?"
Three years he'd been that way, following the burial of their mother, but Scott didn't mean to allow such a disastrous plunge, again.
"We've got plans to make, understand?"
A few heartbeats later, still looking away, John slowly nodded. And there by the fire, on foreign shores, three worried Tracys held the island's first conference.
In the morning they were roused by the scream of incoming jet engines, and the jostling hand of a terribly agitated young girl.