Aftermath part I of II
Winona made her way down the hall to find the conglomerate of marshal's clogging up the passageway. Art stepped forward and brought her up to speed explaining his fallen comrades' wound.
"Where's Nate," she asked.
"In with Raylan, Tim's with him."
"You went because of Nate didn't you? The only reason you went was because you knew Nate was there." She said beginning to ramble.
"Let's say he made my decision that much easier."
Winona followed Art's directions and slowly found her way into Raylan's room. She found him lying on the bed, eyes closed, and face serene. She looked to her right where Nate was draped across Tim who was in the recliner; they both had their eyes closed. She walked closer to the bed, her clattering heels waking Tim who tried to sit up before he realized he was covered by an eleven year old. "I must make a good pillow," he said quietly.
Winona mustered a smile as she wrapped her arms around herself.
Nate's eyes flew open and he quickly sat up and looked around. He realized his position and apologized to Tim as he got up.
"No problem dude, you needed some rest and you know I always have your back," he said with a wink.
Nate realized that Tim had no idea of how true that statement was. He made his way over to the bed and looked down at his father's prone position, the monitor beeping in the background. "He'll be was okay; it didn't hit any vital organs."
"What happened?" she asked.
Tim and Nate looked at each other neither sure what to say. Tim cleared his throat feeling as the adult he should take responsibility of the situation. "Well, a shot went off somewhere and then there were more shots fired, and Raylan got hit in the crossfire," he stated awkwardly.
"And where were you?" Winona asked Nate who suddenly looked uncomfortable.
"Off to the side, in the trees." Nate was wrestling with the decision on whether or not to tell Tim how close he had been to shooting Doyle before he had been rescued by the marshal.
"Good God, I don't get this whole vengeful retribution thing that you all carry around," she said with disgust.
"I can't explain because I don't understand it either," Nate replied. "But it is what it is, it can't be changed."
"I think I can believe that Nate," she said exhaling.
"Um, I'm staying with Tim until Dad gets out of here," Nate said changing the subject fearing he had said too much.
"Oh."
"I didn't know when you would come, and how involved you would want to be. Tim is kind of a back-up for my dad anyway."
"That's fine, Nate, you don't need to explain anything."
"I really don't want to be at home without him," Nate said indicating his father, "so I'll stay at Tim's place."
"It's okay; I need to start packing up my house anyway."
"Winona," Nate said stepping towards her.
"Nate, it's fine, you don't owe me any explanation, you've known Tim longer than you've known me, and I don't know that I am any shape to do anything of much use."
"He'll be okay," Nate assured looking back at Raylan.
"This time," Winona said as she bent down and gave Nate a kiss on the cheek. "I'll check with you later, behave for Tim."
"Yes ma'am," he said watching her leave.
Raylan had been back to work, still nursing his wound. He found he had much more respect for his son's ability to cope with constant pain and discomfort but had yet to admit that to the boy. Nate had been quiet, almost reclusive since Raylan's discharge from the hospital. Tim had said he had done well with him at his place and most likely Nate was just dealing with it all in his own way; after all his father's mortality had flashed right before his eyes.
Winona had come back to the house and fallen in line with the awkwardness of the situation. Nate hadn't been around much, it was as if he sensed something that even she wasn't aware of. Raylan had gone back to work and took much of the evening to recover from his day. In an effort for some normalcy Nate had asked if his friend could spend the night. Both she and Raylan had agreed it would be a great first step to pretending everything was getting back to normal.
Raylan came home tired from a long and busy week, ending with Boyd Crowder pushing him through a wall of glass at the office. It did very little in helping him back to a full recovery. He did understand the man's motive but it needed to be understood that Raylan was more marshal than he was Givens and couldn't just drop his badge when it wasn't convenient. He had downed a couple of pain pills and was going to crash on the couch and seek advice from Nate on how to deal with the pain, but as so often happens, things don't work out as planned. He opened the front door to find Winona reading a magazine and the house far too quiet for everything to be going well. "It's too quiet," he said immediately.
"It's fine, the boys were watching TV and decided to go to Nate's room," Winona said yawning.
"And when was that?"
"About an hour ago I guess. You know it has been awfully quiet now that you mention it," she said getting off the couch.
Raylan was already down the hall and had found exactly what he expected.
"Tell me again why we're doing this?" Tommy asked.
"Because Dylan dared us and dude I cannot get into another fight with him to defend our honor."
"I guess you're right," Tommy said looking around.
Two days earlier their nemesis Dylan, had dared them to meet him at the cemetery, so they arranged for Tommy to spend the night. So when the time was right which basically ended up being before Raylan was home and when Winona had hit the wall and was too tired to notice the sudden serenity, they slipped quietly out of Nate's bedroom window. The cemetery was several blocks north and the cool moist air kept them moving.
"When is your dad going to be home?" Tommy asked.
"When he gets home; look we just have to meet up with numb nuts and then we can get back to my place."
"I don't really want to do this," Tommy said as the graveyard came into view.
"It's no big deal, everybody is dead they won't bother you."
"But I think I can feel them breathing on me," Tommy said as they climbed over the four foot iron fence.
"Tommy the very definition of a ghost is the spirit or soul of the deceased which means the person is dead ergo they can't be breathing on you."
"Who's ergo?"
"Never mind, we need to find the mausoleum. I think it's over here," Nate said pulling Tommy behind him.
The boys made their way over to the building where they waited for Dylan to show up. "The wind is cold," Tommy said stuffing his hands in his pockets. Nate agreed and pulled his hood into place. Despite it being late summer the rain clouds had brought a misty chill to the air that day and the even cooler temperatures had followed after sunset.
"Do you know I had never seen snow," Nate said looking into the darkness.
"How come?"
"Because it doesn't snow in Miami, it's too far south. Here he comes," Nate said as Dylan and his little flunky friends came around the corner. "We're here."
"I can see that Givens; didn't think you had the guts." Dylan spat out.
"At least we didn't have to bring bodyguards," Nate said. "I don't get what's so scary about this place anyway."
"Back in the days of prohibition when moonshine was king," Dylan began.
"I thought it still was king around these parts," Nate interrupted.
"Whatever dude, anyway there were two families that really hated each other and they met here to battle it out."
"Why?" Nate asked.
"I don't know, so they wouldn't have to go far to bury the bodies. So it was a bloodbath and they say the souls of those killed still roam this cemetery. In fact some of them are buried right around here. Well, have a great night guys, I'm going home this wind is giving me an earache."
Nate shook his head as Dylan and his crew took off. "He took off fast; do you hear that?" Tommy asked.
"Yes I do." Nate answered as he looked around the darkness.
"It's the ghost; I knew they were breathing on me."
"Tommy, it is not a ghost, Dylan probably had somebody else stand over there and make some noise or better yet it's just the damn wind that everybody keeps complaining about. Come on we need to get back to my house before we are missed."
The boys began to retrace their steps but they discovered the noise was getting louder to the west of them. Nate pulled Tommy behind an obelisk and pushed him down peering around the pillar to see two shadowy forms up ahead overturning fresh soil. They were talking to each other but neither Tommy nor Nate could understand much of what they were saying. The dirt was flying around them and they seemed to be arguing.
"What are they doing out here? It's awfully late to bury somebody," Tommy said quietly.
"I think they are burying a body on top of the body that was already interred there earlier."
"That's not very honest."
Nate's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Tom I don't think dishonesty plagues them since murder doesn't seem to be an issue."
"They killed somebody?"
"I would think so; I doubt they are trying to find a free ride for grandma."
"Do you have your gun?"
"No, why would I bring my gun here? And what would I do with it? Besides my dad keeps it."
"You said everybody here was dead and they aren't."
"No but if you don't lower your voice, we will be." Tommy reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, but Nate knocked it out of his hands before he could do anything with it. "What are you doing? You can't use it; the light from the screen will give us away."
Tommy sighed and crawled around feeling the ground until he found his phone. "How come every time I'm with you something bad happens?"
"Not every time," Nate countered.
"I guess, but you aren't very lucky."
"It took you this long to figure that out."
"Well, what are we supposed to do?"
"We can go back the other way, but when we get home I have to tell my dad about this."
"It took my mom two months to let me come back to your house after your dad shot those two guys, she'll never let me come back after this."
"Not a problem," Nate began. "We get out of here and when we get back to our street you go home; tell your mom that I wasn't feeling well and so you came home. I'll tell my dad about the dare and you were the smart one and didn't want to go, so you went home instead."
"Wow, I get to be the smart one?"
"Yes," Nate sighed, "that way you're at home and I'll take the heat."
"I'm sorry; I shouldn't let you do that alone."
"Do you ever want to come over again?" Tommy nodded. "Well then, this has to be the plan."
"Okay." Tommy said looking sympathetic.
The boys looked back over at the grave site just in time to see the larger of the two men reach down and help other guy out of the hole. They then rolled over what looked like a large burrito towards the newly dug pit and with all the grace of a drunken elephant they dumped it into the hole. There was a resounding thud that seemed to echo far into the night, reverberating off every headstone. Nate could hear pieces of conversation, and what he heard caused his heart to race to an unhealthy rate. He looked over at his panicked friend who was too keyed up to understand much and quickly clapped his hand over Tommy's mouth. "Shhh, it's okay, we're going to go now. You need to very quiet and in just a few minutes you will be back at home. Okay? Nod if you can be quiet?"
Tommy slowly nodded and Nate pulled his hand away. "Can we go, please let's go." Tommy whispered in a rush.
It took longer to get home than Nate had anticipated since they had to keep stopping due to Tommy's hyperventilating. At one point it took several minutes for him to regain his breath and as he was bent over under the halo of streetlight, a car slowly headed their way. Nate looked up as it cruised by and locked eyes with the passenger, his heart hammered in his chest and he felt like he might need to join Tommy in his panic attack, but he took several deep breaths until the emotion passed, and the car turned at the corner and continued on its way. When they finally got to the end of their block, it took Nate several more minutes to get his friend composed enough to lie to his mother. Finally the two parted ways and Nate marched home.
The door looked imposing, he had no idea what mood his father would be in; angry dad, scared dad or clueless that he had left dad. Nate knew he was home since the Lincoln was sitting behind Winona's car. He took a deep breath and turned the knob; for a moment he was afraid the door might be locked and he would have try to get back in through his window. He had nearly headed that way originally when it occurred to him that if he was going to be honest about what he saw, then hiding his departure seemed a moot point.
The knob turned freely in his hand giving him a moment of relief but it was short lived as he looked to see Raylan sitting on the couch looking tired with shades of anger, distress and pain filling out his face. It didn't seem that he had gotten to a full-fledged parental meltdown yet, and for that Nate was grateful. He looked down at the floor after he had closed the door behind him and wondered how long ago his ruse had been discovered.
"Well, the prodigal son returns," Raylan said his voice lowered an octave for effect. "Look at me son." He said as Nate had immediately looked down at the floor.
Nate realized he had no idea what he was going to say; how he exactly was going to describe the last hour of his life. Suddenly it all seemed like a ridiculous lie, perhaps if he was lucky enough to get his father to believe it, it might make up for his lapse in judgment to leave the house and traipse through a cemetery. He heard his father clear his throat and Winona's footsteps coming his way and realized he was still staring at the floor. He lifted up his head and saw his father's dark eyes searching him for some clue as to what might be explained in the next several minutes. "Well you want to tell us what was so damn important that you had to bail out of your window? And where is Tommy? Please tell me he isn't stuck somewhere or lost."
"He's fine, he's at home," Nate stated as he began his story, mixing lies with the truth, or mixing the truth with lies, he wasn't actually sure which was which. Raylan sat quietly listening to it all in his typical solemnity, while Winona's eyes grew wider with each sentence.
"So Tommy wasn't with you during this whole body dumping deal?" Raylan asked.
"No sir, apparently cemetery's freak him out."
"Smart boy," Winona said breaking her silence.
"Well let's go then," Raylan said dry washing his face.
"Go where?" Winona asked.
"He has to show me where he was, if they did dump a body it's a crime."
"Can't you just call the police?" she asked her face animated.
"Not until I confirm this little adventure. He may have only seen two cemetery workers looking for a lost cat or dumping some illegal substance. I'll call you when I know more," he said leaning over to kiss her. "Let's go," he said ushering Nate out the door.
The climbed in the car and Nate embraced the silence for two blocks until Raylan cleared his throat and looked across the car at him. "So you're sure Tommy wasn't in on this?"
"Yes sir," Nate answered confidently.
There was nothing in his son's answer to tip off that it was anything but the truth, but there was a feeling in the pit of his stomach, a flutter that only a parent could feel, that indicated otherwise. But he knew Tommy must be okay because Nate would never lie if safety was an issue. "Okay if you say so then."
"I think it was the mob," Nate said as they parked and headed towards the grounds.
"What makes you say that?" Raylan asked stifling a laugh.
Nate shrugged, "I don't know, just a feeling."
"Yeah I get those feelings too."
"I mean the mob is everywhere right? You don't have to be in Jersey or New York City."
"No son, crime is present everywhere."
"Over here, I remember that obelisk; it's where I hid to watch." Nate said horrified that he had almost included Tommy in the hiding.
Raylan noticed the hitch in his sons voice, but decided to let it go for now. The darkness had taken on an inky shade with some areas appearing darker than others. They tread cautiously around tombstones of all sizes before they came upon the area that was piled high with fresh dirt waiting to settle. The fresh footprints were unmistakable; they were made by two men with different sized feet. "Stay back," he told Nate. "I don't need more feet over here." He squatted down and grabbed a handful of dirt and dropped again. He pulled out his phone and made the call.
To be continued…