Warlock of Omaha

By Hemaccabe

Chapter 11 Another Brick

With the Three Gun match over, I hadn't had a lot of sleep over four days of intense physical activity so I decided to take it easy. I drove down to a truck stop in Salt Lake City. My heart was full, my water tank was empty, and my black water tank was brimming. At the truck stop, I dumped the black water tank, topped off the water in the fresh tank and topped off on diesel which had been getting low. The lot was full. Truck stops fill up fast after five, it's worse on the coasts but even in Salt Lake it can obviously be a problem. I parked in a bad spot and went in and had a talk with the manager.

We agreed I could leave my RV where it was for the time being because I wasn't going to stay the night. Just get a shower and something to eat, then move on. The honk of money I paid for diesel didn't hurt. The promise to spend more money on their overpriced food won him over.

I got some clean clothes and went to the shower. I took a long sit on the commode and took an hour-long shower. I scrubbed every bit of that talcum powder dirt from my body and felt clean for the first time in days.

Coming out feeling clean and empty was heavenly. I ate a huge meal and got back in my RV. I would have loved to just collapse, but I'd promised to drive on. So, I drove to a Costco on the east side of town, found a quiet corner in their parking lot, and went to sleep. I figured I'd get up late the next day, grab some grub and see how far I could get on my way back to Omaha without pushing it.

I was dead asleep, and something smacked my head into the wall hard. I'd love to say that I'm a real badass and I went to sleep in my full battle gear. That would be a lie. I was in my skivvies. I'd love to say my Jedi awareness had warned me, but obviously it hadn't. Even still, I was instantly awake.

I had become immediately aware that something had just smacked my RV hard enough to tip it onto it's left side. The side with the big picture window that was now facing the ground. The narrow doors, all on the right side, were now facing straight up to the sky.

I'd watched a lot of fantasy and sci-fi movies as a kid. In those movies it seemed like lots of the main hero characters had a hard time hanging on to things. One movie in particular, Clash of the Titans, the hero gets a magic helmet, shield and sword. He manages to drop and lose all three. He gets the head of Medusa, drops that. He even manages to drop the Pegasus. How do you drop a flying horse?!

I had been scarred. I would not lose my toys.

I had Baby next to me with a full mag of stage Sixes.

As I formulated my response, I realized I had learned something at the match. The challenges of the match made me see things differently and more importantly, depend on my stronger body more. The big thing was I was also much more bonded with that wolf inside. Before the match, I would have panicked and started trying desperately to get out one of the doors, crawling up awkwardly. A perfect target. Instead, I took a deep breath, prepared myself for what I knew was coming in a split second, got balanced on the balls of my feet and waited.

It had only been seconds since the first blow, but then came another. The hit knocked the RV over again on to it's roof. A person could have been really knocked around by that hit, but I was in the air having jumped as the blow landed. Then I rolled out the big picture window in what had been the left side but was now the right and also the side whatever was whacking my RV was on. I spotted the thing in a split second and fired.

It wasn't hard to spot, it was huge. It was vaguely humanoid. It was all hunchy. My guess was, if it could stand up straight, it would be at least forty feet tall. It was like the illegitimate love child of that lame dragon in Willow and a Troll from the Lord of the Rings movie. Add a few claws, horns and sharp ridgy bits and you'd have a pretty good idea of what I was facing.

I should have been terrified. I should have run away screaming. But the way my shot, which had hit the thing in the lower right gut staggered the thing made me feel like we were on even footing. It lifted it's tree trunk right arm, which I'm sure it had used to hit the RV, to swat me, but the stagger had given me a second. I shot it again in it's right shoulder. It was point blank range. The .50 Beo fully blossomed in that shoulder and a huge gush of material flew out back. That hurt it. The right arm immediately dropped to ground. It staggered back and sat down leaning on it's left arm.

That gave me a few seconds. I looked the giant thing over and spotted where it kept it's life, in the upper left-hand chest area.

It was thinking about standing back up. I decided to do something really stupid.

I leaned my left shoulder in and charged for all I was worth, which was a lot. My left shoulder hit the thing hard middle of the top of the chest. The thing went over on it's back. I stabbed into it with my rifle.

Modern rifles don't much go for bayonets anymore. They have "standoff devices." Essentially a ring of pointy bits at the end of the barrel. Mine were particularly wicked. It punched a hole in the thing's chest. I dropped my rifle, letting the sling hold it, and tore into the critter with my bare hands. The critter didn't like that and started to move again. I picked up my rifle and shot it in the left shoulder then in each hip. That did it. It wasn't going anywhere.

I went back to my RV and got a shovel and my axe. I started cutting into it. The outer six inches were clearly made of some sort of clay. The insides seemed to be made of not particularly well-organized compost. There were animal guts, leaves, twigs, branches, vines, and some sort of animal crap all in various states of decay. This was definitely in the style of my secret admirer.

After digging for a bit in the upper left chest, I found a naked man immersed in the rotting compost, roughly where the heart would be. The whole mud and guts construct body would have served to keep him pinned, like being buried alive. However, there were also vines and sticks all around really pinning him in place. The shovel wouldn't cut them. I took my axe to them, it worked better, but not well. I realized I was not only cutting matter, but the magical energies in the plant matter restraints that didn't want to relinquish their prize.

I saw that I would have to fight fire with fire, so to speak. I had not focused my will to directly apply magical energy in a very long time. I took a few steadying breaths and using my axe as a focus, began to strike, my magical strength striving to break the magic of the tangling vines. I don't think my well was much deeper, but with all the work on the bolts, my will was much better practiced and, leaning on the wolf, my focus was much stronger than it had once been. I still had no real idea what I was doing except trying to break the magic that was already there. At first, I wasn't very effective, but I kept at it. I started to notice, by trial and error, what worked. I could feel that I was actively fighting another intelligence. It was probably stronger than me and better trained than me, but I had leverage. Whatever my adversary was doing, it was doing it from far away, which makes it harder. Secondly, I was using a razor sharp, stainless steel axe head, driven by a pretty strong arm, against strips of plant matter.

Then the first vine snapped. After that it was a matter of time. Each bit gave less and less resistance as my blows became more and more effective. When I broke the last hold, the beast's throat bellowed in a final protest and then clearly the whole construct failed. It was now less some sort of monster and more an oddly shaped compost pile.

I dragged the man clear and saw he wasn't breathing. I really didn't want to do mouth to mouth on that filthy mouth. I swept as much crud loose from his mouth with my fingers as I could and then wiped his mouth with a rag. Then I bit the bullet, so to speak, and breathed for him a bit. Then I pushed in his gut doing a horizontal Heimlich. He coughed a few times. Some particularly vile stuff came out of his mouth and he started breathing. I don't have a special magical sleep detector, but he seemed unconscious. The whole thing looked like it could have been crazy traumatic. How long had he been trapped in there? Those stage Sixes pack a wallop of death magic. How much had he got? Maybe he was just playing possum and still a happy slave of the compost mage? I had some twist ties like the police use to bind people cheaply. I put a couple around his wrists and knees and three around the ankles. Then I pulled out some high-test duct tape, the kind with metal strands in it and gave all three spots a good wrap. Then I cleaned his face again and threw a sheet on him.

Now what?

I pulled out a block and tackle. It's what the military uses to pull vehicles out of ditches. I found a nice solid concrete block in the middle of the parking lot and started wrapping. It took an hour to get everything just so. Then I connected my RV's high-performance winch and she flopped back down on her side. Then some reattaching, and another hour later, she stood up. I put my gear away. I collected some material from the compost heap in jars. I washed my prisoner with a hose. Wrapped him up in a towel and put him in an empty storage bay. I washed myself off with the same hose then got back in the truck.

The RV turned over. Fifteen hours later I was in my driveway in Omaha. I had stopped once for fuel in North Platte, pee'd and got some food. The RV was wrecked, but it could drive, and it got me home.

I called Jake and Miranda. I told them to get everyone to the house including Michael.

I had an outbuilding with a basement. In that basement was a very solid cell with very hard ceramic walls and a door that was not going to give easy. High on the walls of the cell were eye bolts that were very firmly attached. Outside the cell was a small room with a cabinet. Inside the cabinet were chains that would let me chain a variety of different wrists and ankles to the walls in ways that they couldn't reach each other. There was also what I called a dentist chair with very capable built in restraints. There was a water tap and outlets. In the cabinet, there were electrical leads. To leave the small room one passed through another high-security door. Then a flight of stairs. There were charges set in the roof of the stairs. The charges would make noise if they went off sealing something in that cell. There were charges that would also go off on an exposed natural gas pipeline about a quarter mile from my place in some swampy woods where people would rarely go. That would cover the noise on my property. The cell would be buried twenty feet down under a very heavy concrete and steel building.

I had built the room, not expecting to use it, but as a precaution. I didn't know how to use the torture equipment, except in general theory. I did know where to go to find out more. When you do a Google search, it only looks at, maybe, five percent of the internet. There are unchartable depths to the internet that are secure simply by the virtue of the fact that most would never know where to look to find anything. Every major government on Earth has done studies on and practiced torture at some point, some much more than others. You might be surprised which was which. If one knows where to look, one can read the studies, conclusions and instructions of the best. I knew where they were, I hadn't looked yet.

I put the man in the cell and locked him in as he was. He didn't seem conscious.

As I was coming up, Jake, Kelly and Michael arrived. I put Kelly and Michael in my safe room with the girls. I took Jake over to the RV and showed him.

"They jumped me just outside of Salt Lake. For all I know, they're about to come over the walls. Are you ready?"

Jake's features set hard in a way I had never seen before.

"I'm ready." He said, holding his bat.

"Then help me unload." I answered.

I had fifteen hours to think about the attack, what I should do next and not much else as the stereo and the phone charger didn't work and so many windows were broken, I couldn't have heard anything if they did. The safety of my trip had been based on a number of assumptions which had clearly proven untrue. I had been lucky. They had clearly sent something so big and nasty they were sure it could handle me. I was happy to prove them wrong. The assumptions had clearly made asses of us both. That said, it meant no more Three Gun matches until this was done and those matches were a major training opportunity for me. It was a serious strategic loss.

If they were surveilling me, they would have known ahead of time I was going somewhere with my RV. They would have had a hard time setting up on the way out, as they would have no idea which way I was going at eighty miles an hour. That was actually a little comforting. If their intelligence had been good enough, if they could monitor my communications, had a good history, etc., they could have jumped me on the way out. That's when I would have done it, before I got a three-day crash course on shooting and fighting in weird situations. When I got where I was going, they got four days to set up. I suppose I could have taken a different route home, but I was lazy. I wanted to be home sooner rather than later, another route would have taken two or three more days. They planned on me going straight home and I obliged. I got to a nice quiet deserted spot, gave them a few hours to set up and bang.

That was all based on a single premise. Were they surveilling me? I carefully put on all my battle gear, left Baby on her strap and took out my shotgun. I loaded the shotgun with my competition choice, a round with two sizes of pellet, double aught buckshot and, packed in around the larger pellets, size four. I filled a convenient shoulder satchel with about a hundred rounds more.

Jake and I walked to a quiet spot on the wall-line. I handed Jake the shotgun and the satchel and said, "Carry these."

I set off the car alarm on the RV which involved flashing lights and about eight times as much noise as a car. Then Jake jumped over the wall with the shotgun. Jake made it look easy, which was convenient, but depressing, to me. I followed cradling Baby. I landed on the toes of my left foot on the top of the bricks and gave myself another push and cleared the wall, landing with a bit of grace on the other side. The important thing was that it was quick and quiet.

Jake handed me back my shotgun and satchel and took up his bat. I turned off the alarm then made sure I had a round chambered and we went for a walk.

I had explained to Jake, "We're going for a walk around the perimeter."

"What's a perimeter?" Jake asked.

I sighed and explained. I figured the Compost Mage had something keeping an eye on my place. Jake was the better tracker. His job was to hunt down anything out of the normal, in particular keeping his eyes and nostrils open for anything with the Compost Mage's foul stench. Of course, I would keep my eyes open too. On our first circuit we, and by we I mean Jake, spotted two crows and an owl. At each, I triggered the RV alarm, then took it out with one blast from my shotgun. The birds were definitely not real birds. I doubted they could fly. But they definitely had the stink and they definitely came apart like constructs, not birds. We did several more circuits but found nothing else. We went back in through the gate. We had been surveilled.

I called Dark Glass and had them put a three-man team around my house twenty-four seven doing counter surveillance. They would report if they saw anyone sniffing about the place. There was also a stipulation that they could be converted to an armed rescue force on request.

With the RV fully unloaded and the Compost Mage's surveillance greatly curtailed. I had the girls watch Michael while I collected up Kelly and Jake and we went to the basement.

On the steps outside the outer security door, we stopped for a talk.

"Kelly, I think you understand by now that Jake and I are not normal people?" I started.

"Yeah, I noticed. Jake should never have been able to heal that fast and even as built as he is, he's stronger than a person should be." She answered.

"How do you know I'm stronger…" Jake began.

"Even stacked guys don't pick up solid wood chests of drawers, still loaded, with one hand and then carry them up a flight of steps." She answered.

"Oh." Jake said.

"Our abilities are not a secret from Kelly." I said and Jake looked relieved.

"Are you like Jake?" She asked.

"Somewhat, but not as strong. I also have other abilities." I answered.

"Like what?" She asked looking interested.

"I have limited magical abilities as well." I answered.

"So, you two are like characters in a comic book?" She asked brightly.

"Very minor characters." I answered then continued, "People like us exist in the normal world but also have to exist in our own world. There are no laws in that world, frequently the strong prey on the weak. You may remember me warning you about being in Jake's and my life."

"Is that what's going on now?" Kelly asked.

"Yes. We are having a disagreement with someone I now call the 'Compost Mage.'" I answered.

"Like you go mess with some of his stuff and he messes with your RV?" She asked, trying to get a handle on the situation.

"More like, he tries to kill us or worse, and we barely survive." I answered.

"How serious is this, are we just talking some play? Some woo woo magic?" She asked.

"You dug the bullets out of Jake. It's that serious. One of his people did that." I answered.

"So why don't you track him down and kill him?" She asked quite reasonably.

"Several reasons really. First, we have no idea who and where he is. I'm taking steps to try and figure it out, but he tends to act through agents. Secondly, there's nothing to say that if we did figure out where he was and went, that he wouldn't just smack us down." I answered.

"You said 'worse' what could be worse than death?" She continued still getting a handle on the situation.

"In normal life, there are fates worse than death, but not so many. In our world, there are many fates worse than death. The thugs he had who shot Jake, I later realized were people who had been encased in mud and forced to do his bidding. I didn't realize that at the time. I think most people would rather be dead then be so enslaved. If I can, if I run into more such people, I would like the chance to rescue them." I said.

"Well that sounds noble. Can't you just run away?" She answered.

"Where would I go? A lot of my strength is bound up here in this place. It's taken years to build the shops, labs and defenses which make this place and make me stronger here. A shack in the woods? An apartment in the big city under an assumed name? Who's to say he wouldn't track me there and take me all the more easily? Jake does have options. Does she know what you are Jake?" I asked.

"Umm, I've never said it." Jake answered.

"Why not? What are holding out from me?" Kelly asked in a tone that sounded equal parts angry and hurt.

"I'm kind of ashamed. I worried if you knew, you wouldn't want me." Jake answered downcast.

That got Kelly's attention.

"I told you about what my Dad did to me. Did that make you want me less?" She asked, it seemed to me with equal parts trepidation and comfort.

"No. Not at all. If anything, it just makes me want to protect you more!" Jake answered fiercely.

Kelly looked a bit relieved.

"Then you can tell me." She answered.

"Okay. You may not like this," then Jake paused for a moment gathering his courage, "but I'm a werewolf." Jake just managed to get out.

"No way." Kelly said. "Like changes into a wolf and howls at the moon. Like wolfman?"

"Yes, changes into a wolf. Not sure about howling. Not like wolfman. Changing into a wolf is where I go those nights. Not partying." Jake answered.

"Oh. Oh, that's cool." Kelly replied as some pieces found their way to new positions in her mind. Then she asked, "Does it catch? Can you bite people and they become wolves too?" Kelly asked a little excitedly.

"I don't think it works that way." Jake answered.

"I was on a trip in my RV. On the way home, I got jumped by one of the Compost Mage's boys. Luckily, I survived. I have the guy, hopefully still alive, on the other side of this door. He's been out cold since the fight, or about twenty-four hours. Several possibilities now present themselves. He may still die. He may live, but still be a willing ally of this mage. In which case I don't know what we'll do. He may still be under the mage's control. He might be grateful to be rescued. Obviously, I hope for the latter. I want you to give him medical treatment Kelly, but I want you to realize the dangers and understand the precautions I'm taking. If this guy knows something, he could help us. Knowing where this mage is hiding could be the key to all of our survival now." I said.

"There's just one thing I don't understand." Kelly began, "Why are you so nice to Jake. Isn't he a threat to you too?"

I could tell that surprised Jake.

"I suppose if Jake wanted to harm me, he could. I'm not worried about that because I don't believe Jake wants to harm me and I don't intend to do anything in the future to change that. Also, I'm very fond of Jake. I'm nice to him because I want to be. Lastly, from a selfish perspective, Jake is an ally. As I mentioned earlier, unusual people like Jake and me live in a dangerous world. We're little fish with bigger, more dangerous fish each level down and the ocean has no bottom. Together we are much stronger than apart. All that said, if Jake wanted to leave today, that would be his choice and I would wish him well. Unlike the Compost Mage I don't want anyone around because they feel blackmailed or controlled. If you don't want to go in that room, don't. I will continue helping you the same. If you don't want my help, stop taking it. If you want to leave, leave. I will not retaliate or try and harm you in any way. I want help and I want friends, my life may depend on it, but I won't turn anyone into a slave to get it." I said.

My speech was long and it took Kelly a few minutes to digest it. Then she said, "Fine, I'll see what I can do."

I checked the video feed from the cell while Kelly went and got her medical supplies. I'd been having her buy up medical supplies she thought might be useful for a while. We now had quite the well-stocked infirmary. Holly brought a bucket of hot water and some washcloths. My prisoner hadn't moved since I dumped him in the cell. I went in with Jake. We brought him out of the cell and laid him face down on the floor. I took the warm water bucket and some washcloths and washed his back as carefully as I could. I then let Jake put him in the dentist chair. I carefully cut his bonds while Jake stayed ready with his bat. Then as each limb came free, I attached them to the chair's restraints. Then I went to work on him with the warm water and washcloths again. He had been inside a mound of poop and worse for a long time. Once again, this time on the front, I got most of the skin that was showing clean, but I wasn't going to let him up to go further. Also, he had long hair and a long beard which could only get so clean with the tools available and I wasn't bringing in a razor just for looks.

Kelly came back and wrinkled her nose at his smell, did some checking like pulse and blood pressure. Then she set up an IV. While she did that and Jake stayed ready with the bat, I took a good long look at the guy for the first time. He was of medium height and weight, Caucasian, in pretty good physical condition, though he looked like he had just gone through a bad time. He had brown hair and well calloused hands. I then decided to have a long hard look at him magically. He seemed human, but definitely not mundane and definitely not like a wizard, but he had something. I was looking for where he kept his life when I noticed on his head, a dark, cold, octopus-like spiritual entity.

I immediately said, "Everyone out right now."

No one had to hear me say it twice and we were in the stairwell behind the security door nice and quick.

"Wait here." I said.

I went and got a torch from one of my shops and was back in less than five minutes. I went in the room and lit the torch. It gave me a steady, high temperature flame. I drew my axe from where I kept it on my coat and ran the flame back and forth for several minutes till my blade was red hot. In magic, I have found that the opposite is generally a weakness. Wet is vulnerable to dry. Cold is vulnerable to heat and vice versa. The entity was definitely dark, cold and wet. My axe was now very bright and red hot. Then I got in position, drew up power, focused it through the axe, and swiped down on the entity with both hands. My axe went through the space the creature was in, but more importantly, through the creature spiritually. It had been a fight removing the man from the mound, this was much more personal. This octopus was a direct extension of the caster and I could feel the pain I inflicted on him as the axe destroyed the entity.

Take that you son of bitch.

The one swipe was all it took. The octopus was gone.

I was no medical genius, but I could tell the guy was feeling better immediately. He was still out but it seemed more like he was asleep. His color and breathing both clearly improved.

I brought in Kelly and Jake.

"What the hell was that?" Kelly asked.

"I saw something magical was hurting him. I didn't know if it could jump off or divide or what else it might do, so I had us evac. I destroyed it with the axe. I think he looks better." I answered.

Kelly checked him again and said, "He does seem marginally better."

I sent them on their way and sat down with my newest guest while he slept. I sent a note to Miranda to have some broth ready.

Sitting in the cell, I pulled out my notebook computer and started working with Brenda on the software, picking up what she had been doing for the last week while I was away. She had made good progress.

I contacted the outfit that made the shirts. They didn't want to come do custom shirts even for money. They wanted me to buy off the rack. One of my clients called them, the one that owned a large part of the company and suddenly they were very happy to come for a now reduced offer. I set an appointment for the next week.

While my guest was still sleeping and defenseless, I inserted a mental shunt for myself in his head. Then I fell asleep in the crappy office chair.

A few hours later I snapped awake to see the man in the "dentist's chair," moaning and rolling a bit. I got up, went to him and gave him a shake.

"Wha, where am I?" The man moaned.

"You're in my home, safe, in Omaha." I answered.

"Oh," he replied and then passed out.

I had Miranda bring my food and leave it on the steps. I ate, slept and worked remotely with Brenda on the sighting system. Kelly came back every so often to change out the IV. The man would stir every few hours ask a question or two and then pass out again.

Four days later, the man woke up somewhat lucid.

"Wha, where am I?" he asked again.

"You're in my home, safe, in Omaha." I answered.

"Who're you?" he said.

"I'm Doctor Fox." I answered.

"How'd I get here?" he asked.

"I was hoping you could answer that. What's the last thing you remember?" I asked.

"I was on a skip trace near Missoula, the roads were shut down due to snow. I was in a small town. I got a hotel room and a shower. Then I went to the bar for a drink, a bite to eat and see if there was anything good. I met a girl, Cassie, she came back with me to my room, but on the way, bang, lights out. Then I woke up here." He told me.

"I think you're leaving something out." I said.

"The rest is too crazy. It couldn't have been real." He answered.

"Tell me about it." I said firmly.

"I remember being trapped in a box for a while. Then I was in a place I didn't recognize. I must have been on acid or had a real bad concussion, because the whole memory is so wobbly." He told me, clearly uncomfortable.

"Go on." I said.

"This is where it gets crazy, they were covering me is some sort of hot plaster. It hurt, bad, not just the burning, something else, it was just really wrong. Then they got to my face. I was screaming." He told me, obviously with some effort, like he was fighting something.

"Did you see anything about the place where that happened? Do you know where it happened?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. It was industrial. It smelled bad." He answered.

"Could you find the place again?" I asked.

"Maybe." He answered.

"Do you remember anything else?" I asked.

"I remember being tied up in what seemed like a mound of mud and trash. Then they filled in the mound. Like they were burying me alive. I was trying to scream, and I couldn't." He said.

"Anything else?" I probed.

"Just waking up here." He answered.

"Well, you're in a safe place now. Are you hungry?" I asked.

"Yes." He answered.

I had Miranda bring the bowl of broth and leave it outside the door.

"I think I know what happened to you. For the time being, you're safe." I said, then asked, "What's your name?"

"Travis Horn." He answered.

"What are you Travis Horn? I know you're not a normal person. You have some sort of gift." I asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He said in the worst bluff ever.

"Please don't be coy." I answered.

I could tell he didn't want to answer me, and he was weighing his options. Then he finally said, "I'm a Hunter."

You could hear the capital H.

"A Hunter?" I answered, puzzled.

"Anyone can go in the woods with a rifle and shoot at animals. I'm from a line of Hunters. It's hard to explain what I do. What I am. I can see tracks other people can't, notice clues others miss, find what others can't find." He tried to explain.

"That sounds very interesting." I answered. "Is that how you think you can find that place, by hunting it down?" I asked.

"Yes." He answered.

"Do you want to?" I asked.

"Yes, and maybe no." He answered.

"What do you want to do when you get there?" I asked.

"Kill every damn one of them." He answered.

I got up and walked across the room and unlocked the restraints. It didn't matter much, he wasn't going anywhere. I fed him the bowl of soup. Opening his mouth and swallowing were about all he could handle. Then he fell asleep again.

After a bit more nursing, I had an ambulance come and move him to a rehab place near 132nd and Dodge. My friend Jim the lawyer volunteered there a lot and said it was good. Jake and I would visit every day.

I had Jim do his thing with Travis' identity. We got him a new copy of his driver's license and birth certificate. Got a passport on order. Jim tracked down the motel where Travis had been jumped and determined it was in Putnam, Montana. The hotel still had Travis' bag and they would UPS it to us at my expense. Travis had disappeared from the hotel almost two years prior, in the middle of a snowstorm. People thought he had got drunk and fell asleep in a snow bank somewhere. Travis' jeep had been towed by the local police, stored for six months and auctioned, not paying all fees.

Travis was doing well with his therapy. He was happy to get his bag. It was a small leather bag with some underwear, a couple shirts and some toiletries.

"They sold my Jeep!" He came as close to yelling as he could.

"Sorry. That's what we found out. You've been away for almost two years." I answered.

"Two years!" He said.

"Yes two." I confirmed.

"My good rifle was in that Jeep. My pistol, knife, jacket, all gone." He looked really unhappy thinking about those losses.

I let him lie there for a minute.

"What about my house?" He asked.

"Your house?" I asked.

"My house is outside Chandler, MO. It's not much, a cabin on some hilly, scrubby land, but it's mine. I own it outright. I paid taxes ahead. But that was two years ago." He said.

I got some more details and Jim tracked the cabin down. The cabin was on the brink of foreclosure for unpaid taxes and utility bills. I paid everything up. Then I had a local contractor go and check on the place. He took pictures. Sent them up. The place was intact but needed some help. I paid to have the exterior grounds cleaned up and re-gravel the driveway.

I went back to Travis to review.

"You paid the taxes?" He asked.

"Yes." I answered.

"Much obliged. I'll pay you back when I can." He answered.

"No problem. There's no hurry. Just get better. We have an industrial facility to hunt." I answered.

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Lastly, if you like traditional Star Trek, look for my free novel, Star Trek: Lost Destiny, also on this site.

This writer, like the story teller in the market of old, now has a hat out hoping for a small gratuity. There is no obligation and I'm grateful you took a moment to read. However, if my writing has found favor in your eyes, please take a moment to go to:

Pay

Pal

.me

/hemaccabe

and throw in a little something, a dime, a quarter, a dollar, etc.

While I love to write, I do have a spouse and a child and a job and many other claims on my time that don't understand why I would spend so many hours banging on a keyboard. A small tangible return would help smooth the way to allow me to provide many more stories.

Please help. Thank-you.