TRIGUN: MOON CHILD
THE OKLAHOMA YEARS
Based on "Distant Lives" (FFN #3519328/9) from Trigun: Moon Child
Chapter Six
Interview With Wolfwood
Part 2
Jerry
By R. A. Stott
"I am seriously going to kick some tail."
Wednesday, June 7th, 1916
"Gerald Edward Saverem, get your tail up here right now!"
The two boys and the girl flinched as the shout of one of their names was siren across the field of wheat in the hot early summer heat of the Oklahoma prairie.
"Vot did you do now Jerry?" the girl asked in her Scandinavian accent.
The mop-headed boy shrugged. Then he got a look of shock then surprise then worry, all in the space of a second.
"Hey, do that again squirt," his older brother kidded him. "I don't think even Charlie Chaplin could have done that in such a short time!"
"You're not helping Dave," Jerry said as he rubbed his head. "Darn it! I knew I was supposed to be doing something!"
"Do you need any help?" the sprightly young girl asked. Jerry kissed her and shook his head.
"No, I have to do this…" he said as he stood up and headed for the house. His mother instinctively spun about and looked squarely at him as he trudged through the field.
"Gretchen!" she shouted, making the girl leap up. "You too David!"
"What did I do?" Dave asked as he brushed off his Army uniform.
"You delayed your brother again!" she told him as they too now poked out of the wheat. "You know that we have to get this cart of milk and eggs down to the processors by noon!" She shook her head as she watched him brush the dust off his pants. "Honestly, sitting in the field in your uniform as well!"
"I'm sorry mother," David said as he dragged his eyes along the ground.
Millie huffed and swatted his rear as he passed her with her towel she was carrying. "Now how is he going to get into the army as well if you ruin his chances by making him late all the time?" She then looked at the girl as she was coming up next for her scolding.
"Gretchen dear, could you go tell your brothers that Jerry will be ready to take the load in a few minutes?" she asked her in a more kindly manner.
"Yes m'am!" she said as she sprinted off towards the barn. David and Jerry just gawked as she got off Scott free.
"Why does she get special treatment?" David complained as he rubbed his slightly warmed tail.
"She's not officially family yet, now is she?" Millie barked back at the two of them. "And just when ARE you going to pop the question, young man?" she now directed to Jerry. "When my big - big brother was your age he had already been married twice!"
She stopped for a moment and pondered that. "You know, that's not exactly a good thing now is it?" she wondered aloud as the boys fell backwards.
It would have been a statement that either Xuru or Puruu would have written something down on, but the seriousness of this interview was going to mean best leave well enough alone and just watch what transpires.
"Your observational powers always amazed me, Millie," Vash noted as the group watched the boys and their mother walk away towards the barn area. David was soon to be off to camp again, having had a three-day pass. He was waiting for his ride back to Fort Supply.
"Where are you?" Burnside asked Wolfwood not seeing the priest anywhere.
Wolfwood had been tromping about in a funk. He looked at his watch then looked at the surroundings then GLARED at the demon, which made her wilt a bit.
He found the back of his head being smacked.
"Stop that!" his wife ordered as she stepped over and comforted the girls.
"But… but she…" he complained.
"…Had nothing to do with this," the spirit of Kinza said.
"Pardon me!?" the reverend shouted.
Burnside shook his head. "Think about it Nick," he said. "What would have happened if we had not started this?"
"History would have unraveled," Vash explained which caught his friend by surprise. "We would have eventually had to come back here anyway to do whatever would need to be done." He looked at him eye to eye. "Hard as this is, it has to be done."
"I'm sorry… I am truly sorry," Xuru said breaking down in tears, which was another thing unexpected to the priest. He found himself coming over to the demon child and comforting her – something he would have hardly done just a few minutes before. "If I had known… if I had known…"
"You would have had to do it anyway," Kinza stated in a quiet voice. She looked over Wolfwood's shoulder at him.
"History's Daggers, ea?" she said as she wiped a tear.
Kinza smirked. "Sabrina Natsumi knew what she was talking about," he said while scratching his cheek. He looked off to his right and saw the wagon with Jerry coming around the corral towards the driveway down to the main road. "Get ready – here comes our ride."
"Are you sure we can ride that thing without hitting something?" Vash asked as he rubbed where he had blindly walked into something solid earlier that was hidden to them by the projection they now found themselves in.
Burnside looked at a scanner. "I don't think we have to worry about that here," he said. "When we arrived at Rem's tree, we had a new reality to worry about. And the tree would be where the chapel is over there."
"That means our home is gone?" Millie asked.
"Only temporarily," Burnside said. "As soon as we finish with all this, your home will be back where you left it."
Millie watched her second son as he climbed down off the buckboard. "What about our children? I – I mean the ones in The Source? What about them?" she asked almost in a daze.
Puruu looked back. "Oh my!" she exclaimed. "I'll be right back!" She then vanished.
The others climbed aboard the parked wagon as Jerry entered the home to get some transfer papers. They sat on the bails of hay that were being used to separate the contents. Puruu reappeared with a look of worry on her face.
"Did you find them?" Millie asked as she clung to her husband's arm.
Puruu gave her a weak smile. "They are being cared for by Mr. North," she said. "They were a little frightened, but otherwise, they are handling it well."
Wolfwood stared at her. "Puruu, North was a spirit back there…"
The Goddess-in-Training looked down and nodded. "So are they for the time being," she said.
The air just seemed to exhaust out of Nicholas and Millie. Xuru clutched the remote to her face.
The ride along the trail south was quiet. Millie and Nicholas sat silently facing the rear, never looking around at the boy driving the wagon up front. Vash, who was sitting on the bail directly behind Jerry, sat scrutinizing the lad and his father.
"He certainly has your face," he said to Wolfwood. Nicholas turned and looked at his friend, then glanced at his son. "That classic Wolfwood hook to his nose and all…"
"But he has his mother's hair," the reverend said as a small smile passed over his face. "You know, seeing him like this, doing his chores, having fun with Gretchen… it makes me want to see some of his earlier days… before these ugly ones we're about to go through…"
"A parent always wants to see their child at their prime," Kinza noted. "It is just the way it is – to be a parent… you see, that's what the children don't realize… They always think they have to deal with the joys and heartaches alone. But in reality, the parents are the ones that take the brunt of it. They live it with them, even if they don't show it… and the kids don't realize it until they're parents themselves."
"That's when the first parents get to gloat about it as grandparents," Burnside cracked. He looked over at the girls. "Are you writing this down?"
Xuru and Puruu only looked at their feet and shook their heads.
"Well, you'd better," he advised. "We're not going through this again just so you two can retake your notes!"
Millie leaned forwards. "By the way," she asked, "just what is the topic of your paper?"
Xuru lowered the remote and fumbled with it between her knees. "The class is on the Human Condition, and the report is on the Saverem family of course…"
Millie nodded. "Well then, you would have had to have reported on things like this anyway, right?"
Xuru looked over at her as she gave her one of her patented cheery rosy smiles.
"How do you do that?" she asked Millie. "How do you go from the edge of despair to happy bubbly like that?"
Wolfwood shook his wife. "That is the mystery of the ages my dear," he said as he rocked her. "My Chickie could see the bright side of a tornado, given the right situation."
"It's that Millie magic!" Vash exclaimed. Everyone looked at him with skeptical eyes. "Okay, maybe not…" he groused as he rubbed his head.
"Uh oh, this should be good," they heard. Kinza was ducking down behind the bails and the milk buckets. His form was actually standing through the giant metal bottles as he seemed to be hiding from someone.
"Ah," noted Burnside as he looked ahead of them. "The AmEx truck. You're driving today?"
The spirit nodded. "And seeing that I'm not totally with myself here in this wagon, I don't want my earlier self to sense me."
The loud cranky truck ground by, as the odd little driver named Tom waved to the boy in the buckboard. Everyone watched as it continued up the road.
The driver suddenly popped his head out the side of the van and looked back just as Kinza raised his head.
"Uh oh… uh… hi!" he grinned and twiddled his fingers.
"Hi-ooo!" Vash added.
"Hey there, Tom!" Millie exclaimed.
A furry paw then stuck out of the cab of the truck and yanked the head back in. Everyone looked back at the Tomassamassa as he gawked at himself fighting with his human suit.
"Geeze," he said, "was this THAT time?" he chuckled. "We had problems with those cloaking suits all the time… and Tom there was never quite the same after Lexy abused him…"
Wolfwood rolled his eyes remembering the incident where Kinza had saved his daughter Alexis using the Tom cloaking field as a shield to keep her warm by. Millie just looked confused.
"I don't get it," she said.
Kinza shook his paw at her. "Never mind – it's a long story…"
Just then everyone found themselves being jostled and bounced about. Vash and Wolfwood instinctively grabbed hold of a sturdy section of the wagon to steady themselves in case they needed to act. When they looked ahead, they saw one of the horses rearing up as Jerry tried to settle it down and keep the other one from following.
"WHOA DAISY! WHOA GIRL!" he shouted as he whipped the reins about and brought the animal to order. As it came back down, the two men in the buckboard saw a young man in the road only a few feet ahead of them. He had obviously come out from behind the bushes and startled the horse and was still trying to do so.
"Chip Dartmouth!" Millie exclaimed. "That rascal!" An angry look crossed her face as Puruu and Xuru watched clutching each other. It took the junior demon a moment of juggling to slap her finger down on the pause button on the remote.
"Who!?" she asked aloud. "Is he…"
"Frank Dartmouth's son, yes," Nicholas growled as he recounted the man who had attacked him in 1895. "I never knew Jerry had a run in with him on this day!"
Vash stepped around to the front of the still horses and took a gander at the young man. "Ugly dude, that's for sure… took after his father did he?"
Wolfwood joined him looking at Chip Dartmouth. "Surly bunch these Dartmouths, and Chip was the worst. He never amounted to much… blamed me for the death of his father, so we were pretty much his targets for most of his life…"
Vash noticed that his friend was shaking, and a tear was rolling down his face. He came over and snatched him away from the figure in front of him just as he was about to take a swing at it.
"You can't do that!" he shouted as he spun the reverend about. He found him with his head down and nearly had to hold him from collapsing to the ground. "Wolfwood, what is it?"
Nicholas glanced up at Millie and turned away so that she would not see his face. "Chip Dartmouth is who shot my son," he whispered shaking.
He shook his head, grabbing Vash's shirt lapels and planting his head against his friend's chest. Vash was about to place his hand on his back when the reverend's head snapped up nearly clobbering him in the chin. He then found himself unceremoniously dumped on the ground as Wolfwood took a few staggering steps back up the path.
"Kinza… KINZA… WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING!?" he bellowed as he pointed at the AmEx van which was still only a few yards down the road.
"Equipment failure, remember?" Burnside shot back in defense of the spirit.
"Well, it wasn't like I had not noticed," Kinza added as he scratched his nose. "But since someone froze this little interlude just before I reported in…"
Xuru blinked at him and again fumbled with the remote to hit the play button.
"Damn it Dartmouth! What's the idea of hiding in those bushes!?" shouted Jerry as he finished settling the horses.
"Just thought I'd remind you, Saverem," the unkempt young man said in a slightly sloshed stupor, "that your life is mine! I'll make your family pay…"
"My father showed your father as much mercy as he showed him, Dartmouth!" Jerry shot back. "There's not a jury in this land that would say otherwise!"
"Kinza to base," a com unit on Burnside started to squawk as it intercepted the transmission coming from the AmEx truck down the street. "Code Alpha one!"
"There's a security detail on the other side of the tree line from your location," a reply answered. "About one hundred yards west… what's the situation?"
"We've got a thug in the road," Kinza said as he stepped down from the truck. "Possibly armed… causing Jerry Saverem trouble…"
"Understood… on route…"
Wolfwood looked back at the spirit in the wagon. But Kinza was too busy listening to what was going on up in front of them.
"I should know better…" Nick told himself as he looked down, a bit ashamed at accusing his friend of not coming to his son's aid, "…he'd never allow anything to happen to the kids…"
He stopped. "But why did Jerry die then?"
"Wrong thought… Jerry dies… he has to…"
North's words felt cold. How could a man who worked so hard to save and nurture his family so coldly say that his son had to die?
He looked back at the front of the wagon and saw Vash standing in a defensive stance in front of the horses and Kinza and Burnside waving their hands for him to settle. He saw his son now standing on the ground over Dartmouth, who was wiping a bloody lip.
"What?" he asked as Xuru froze the scene. "What did I miss?"
"Your son just laid one hell of a haymaker into this punk!" Vash said with a smile as he stood up and wiped his nose like a fighter.
"If he hadn't I sure would have," Millie agreed. The fact that she wanted to pound the creep as well got Xuru to spin the dial a bit to back up the shot while Puruu wrote down that the normally peaceful lady they knew was ready to deck another human.
"Then there's that girl of yours, Gretchen…" Dartmouth sauntered. "She's never told you about us, has she?"
"What!?" Jerry yelled, a wild look crossing his face.
Dartmouth turned away and sneered. "What does she see in a slob like you anywa…" was all he got out before turning into Jerry's right hook to his chin. He spun about once and collapsed to the dirt.
"YES!" Wolfwood cheered for his son. "Perfect chin music! That felt good!"
"If you EVER go near Gretchen, I WILL KILL YOU!" Jerry screamed, catching his mother and father in a shocked silence. The fact that Dartmouth was now laughing did not help things any.
"Maybe you should ask her before declaring that kid," the older boy said.
"Any problems there Jerry?" Tom the AmEx driver called. Dartmouth took that chance to scramble to his feet and scamper into the brush and brambles. Jerry fumed as he saw him run off.
"Not right now there isn't any Tom," he snarled. "What the hell did he mean by that?"
Time froze as Xuru paused the remote and everyone looked at Kinza.
"Hey-hey, don't look at me!" he said waving his paws about. "This isn't one I know of… How about you Burnsy?"
Burnside was closing his data PADD and rubbing his bald head. "God, I hate this job sometimes…" the old man murmured as he quoted North. "Take us to about six o'clock tonight Miss Xuru if you please? We're finished here."
The cart remained below those aboard it, though the material inside changed – the milk and eggs vanished and were replaced by boards and other building supplies.
Millie sat wringing her hands. Puruu sat beside her with her arm over her shoulder. The buckboard was now heading back to the farm, its driver quietly stewing as Wolfwood and Vash watched.
"Wasn't that his defense?" they heard Millie ask. Nicholas looked back at her.
"Ea?" he asked.
Millie continued to stare at the boards under her feet. "Wasn't self-defense his defense at his trial?"
"You mean Dartmouth?" Vash asked. He saw Wolfwood nod.
"Yea… it was…" he said. He returned to the study of his son. He glanced at Burnside, who had reopened his PADD. The old man was shaking his head again.
"So tell us, what happened?" he asked him bluntly. Burnside looked over at the spirit seated beside him.
"What?" Kinza asked.
"August 1910, just south of Rosston?"
The look on Kinza's face changed from puzzled bemusement to shock of a memory crashing through his head. "Scragg…" he said.
"Okay, now what?" Nicholas asked. Kinza found everyone now staring at him and he vanished.
"HEY!" Xuru yelled. "You can't hide from us!"
"Who's hiding?" she heard as she found him seated on the lowered tail gate. He looked back at the pair he was supposed to keep an eye on. "Do you two remember when Greg VanDermier got in trouble with the law?"
"Gretchen's brother?" Millie asked. "Let's see… What was that all about?" she asked as she turned towards her husband.
Wolfwood smirked. "He discharged his gun to break up a barroom fight," he said. "Problem was the bullet ricocheted and nicked the sheriff as he was coming in the place."
Kinza nodded. "His sentence for that was to serve on a state run farm up in Rosston for six months, remember?"
Millie looked at him with an expression of realization. "Oh, that's right! Gretchen would go up there and help him with anything he needed translated."
The security officer snorted in agreement. "Well, the one thing that you probably didn't know is that state run farm was that way because it had been seized from the estate… of Frank Dartmouth…"
"Oh crap," Nicholas said under his breath. "And that kid Chip was there?"
Kinza sighed. "The farm was run under the stewardship of the state, but managed by Francine Dartmouth, Frank's widow. She never held a grudge towards you or anyone else for what happened to her husband, but her son Chip was only three or four years old when he died. He was just old enough to know that someone did his father in."
Wolfwood grunted. "It was either him or me - there wasn't much I could do about it." He looked at Vash and raised a finger up to hush him. "Frontier justice… In many ways, it was much more brutal than it had been on Gunsmoke."
"Still…"
"STILL NOTHING!" the reverend exploded. "Noodle-noggin, when are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours that not everything can be talked out of or settled with only a wound!? This was MY FAMILY I was protecting! NOT JUST ME!"
Vash sat back and looked down. "Yes, but it may have just cost you your son…"
Wolfwood glared at his friend. He snapped a shot at the Tomassamassa spirit. "What happened to Gretchen?" he barked.
"It was Wednesday, August 10th…" Kinza recounted. "I was making a delivery to the main house using the old donkey cart as my truck was in the shop – it was probably a good thing too, as that monster would have been too loud…"
"Loud?" Puruu asked.
Kinza nodded. "I would have never heard that muffled scream…"
"What do you want old man?" Chip Dartmouth yelled up at the wagon. He was behind a bush beside the road. His right hand was out of sight, but from his position, he seemed to be holding something down with it. His left hand was on his belt.
"What do you think you're doing?" Ed the AmEx driver asked calmly.
The young man looked about suspiciously. "Just horsing around, what's it to you?"
"Ah," Ed said as he held the mule still. "Miss VanDermier, your father would like me to drive you down to Laverne Station… are you ready to go?"
The blood rushed out of Chip Dartmouth's face. He raised his hand up just enough to allow the young twelve year old girl to scramble up the embankment to the cart's side. Ed stood up and let her climb aboard. He could see that she had been roughed up, and some of her clothes had been torn.
"Get in the rear and don't come out," he whispered to her. "There's a blanket in the box marked First Aid."
Chip stared at him from below. He took a step forwards.
"Stay down there son," Ed said in a deep warning growl. "You belong in hell anyway… YAA!"
Chip watched the wagon pull away. He felt as if his blood had just frozen then.
"Edward," Francine Dartmouth call as she saw him pull up. He tipped his hat to her.
"M'am, we have a slight problem," he said as he handed her the package he was delivering. He gestured to the wagon. "I've got Gretchen VanDermier on board… I just pulled your son off her."
The woman raised her eyebrow as she signed her name on the board Ed had handed her. "Did you now?" she asked. "I was wondering why you stopped on the main path. Is she all right?"
"She is a bit torn up," Ed said. "I found Chip with his hand on his belt… if I hadn't shown up when I did…"
"I see," Francine bluntly said. "That boy does take after his father, doesn't he?" She walked over to the wagon. "That's how he came to be you know…" she added looking back. "Gretchen, come with me child," she called into the van.
"I will be taking her back," Ed said almost defensively. Francine looked at him over her shoulder as she helped the blanket-wrapped girl down.
"Good idea," she said as she led Gretchen to the house. "Do not worry, Mr. Olefchefski, I will take care of my son."
"So, what did she do?" Wolfwood asked with more than a bit of sarcasm in his tone. "Spank him?"
"She turned him in," Kinza said as he got off the tailgate as the wagon slowed. "Keeping Greg VanDermier happy was more important than her no-account son." He then quickly looked under the buckboard and waved to Xuru to stop the play.
The junior-demon planted her thumb on the pause button then craned around her partner to see what had caught the Tomassamassa's attention.
"Ooh, he's cute!" she exclaimed at a young man waving to the driver of the cart from the side of the path.
Millie saw the boy as well and at first had a happy surprised face, but it quickly vanished as she settled into her bail of hay. "Oh, Michael Timmons!" she had first excitedly said then seemed to regret having said it.
Puruu and Xuru noticed that everyone, save Vash, seemed to just stare at the boy with an almost sad expression. His large blue eyes and fair hair seemed to give him a somewhat ethereal look to his face.
Puruu swallowed, knowing she had to ask…
"Who is Michael Timmons?" Vash asked. She let go a sigh of relief and felt Xuru do the same beside her.
Wolfwood seemed almost choked up. "Umm… Mike…" he started. "Mike was…"
"Mike Timmons was a farmhand stationed down at the Steakhouse," Kinza noted. "He was a friend of Jerry's as well…"
"Steakhouse?" Vash asked looking about. "What, there's a restaurant around here?"
"No, that's the name of the boarding house that your cattlemen stayed at," Puruu said as she remembered her notes. She saw Nicholas looking at her with a surprised but sad expression. He then smiled.
"That's right," he said. "He was a member of my cattlemen. He was the youngest of them too… damn…"
Millie took his hand in hers and sighed. "He was a fine boy," she said to him.
Xuru looked at the blue jeans and old striped shirted person who she had caught in mid-wave and then back at the preacher and his wife. "Tell me he isn't going to die as well…"
Burnside turned away. Millie and Nicholas squeezed their hands together harder. Xuru felt a paw tap her on the leg.
"Mike took his own life about a year and a half from now…" Kinza told her. "Remember when they had to go to Washington to see David in hospital?"
He nodded towards the Saverems. Xuru thought a moment – if this is 1916, that would have made it 1918… David was in the hospital recovering from mustard gas poisoning his troop had incurred during World War I…
"Okay…" she nervously replied to the spirit.
"While they were away, Mike was found at the bottom of Twin Bluffs with a self inflicted pistol wound," he quietly explained to the girls. "It hit everyone hard – they all loved that kid. He would do anything for them, including Burnside, North, even Doc McManus… Damn S.A.M. system refused us permission to find out why too."
Puruu blinked. "Your computer refused you to find out why?"
Kinza snorted. "It said that 'the relative time history was not relevant to the mission'… cold circuited idiot!"
Puruu looked back at Burnside, who was in full uniform. "Shouldn't it be chirping now then?"
"Chirping?" Burnside asked.
Xuru scowled at him. "You know – WARNING! WARNING! SAYING ANYTHING FURTHER MIGHT MAKE HISTORY TURN INTO A GNEWT or something like that?" as she mimicked the harping the computer would normally make when something was supposed to be kept secret.
He looked at his patch on his shirt which was the communications link to the S.A.M. System. "It's probably not available right now – remember the ship was destroyed in this history. There's probably no S.A.M. substation available for it." He tapped his patch to see if he had contact.
"S.A.M. System – reporting functional contact, six bars…" it squawked back. Burnside sat dumbfounded. He looked at the boy beside the wagon then back at his patch.
"File – June 1916 – Gerald Edward Saverem," he asked it. "Include sub-file, Michael Timmons…"
There was a brief pause as his patch clicked a few times. "All files opened," it replied. Burnside grabbed the bail he was on as he looked at all those staring at him.
"They're open!" he exclaimed. "They're all open!"
"Meaning?" both Vash and Wolfwood asked.
"Meaning that either the subsystem S.A.M. here is unaware of the lock on some of the files," Kinza started.
"…Or we're here to see why Mike took his life as well…" Burnside finished.
The pause was released as Kinza climbed aboard again.
"Hey! HEY!" Mike called to Jerry.
The buckboard stopped with a jolt nearly sending Burnside into Vash. The Typhoon was also climbing back towards him and they smacked heads together.
"What's got you all red in the face boss?" Mike asked as he climbed aboard.
Jerry rubbed the back of his neck. "Aw, I've just had a bad day chief… Mom got on my case earlier…"
Millie looked at the floor. Hearing that only made her wish she had not been so harsh on him that morning.
"Then I had a run in with Chip Dartmouth…" he finished.
"Uh oh… what about?" Mike asked, a look of worry crossing his face.
"Aw, he was drunk – he was going on about the usual stuff… you know, about my dad and his dad… you know…" Jerry flicked the reins to get the horses moving again.
"Ah," Mike said as he rubbed his chin. They rode for a while in silence.
"Chief, tell me," Jerry then asked, "do you know of anything between Gretchen and Chip?"
"Er… umm…" Mike said with an obvious sense of dread in his tone. "Well… boss… like?"
Jerry looked at his friend. "Chief? What is it?" he asked.
Mike rubbed his neck, his nerves showing badly.
"He never was a poker face," Nicholas commented.
Mike looked to the side of the wagon. "You'd better pull over boss," he told him.
Jerry stopped the wagon along the trail near the fork in the road that would either send them homewards, or north towards Rosston.
"Okay, spill it," he told his friend. "What's between Gretchen and that worm?"
"Nothing… absolutely nothing," Mike told him. "But a few years ago, while I was working on their farm up north, I heard he nearly had his way with her."
Jerry sat back. "Had his way? What do you mean had his way with her?"
"Oh god," Millie said under her breath as Nicholas held her. The girls in the back held each other as well as the tension in the buckboard was starting to overflow.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?" Jerry now shouted.
"Boss! Boss! Please!" Mike yelped as he deflected the yell. "It means what it means! He tried to rape her!"
Jerry turned scarlet. "He what?" he said with only a whisper of breath to his voice. They all could see that the words had shaken him to the core.
"If old Ed hadn't come along, he probably would have too," Mike finished, a rattle rolling in his voice as the words seemed to fall out of his mouth without his permission.
"Ed? You mean Ed Olefchefski?" Jerry suddenly seemed less angry. "Yea… good old Ed… Mother always called him our guardian…"
Kinza rubbed his nose as Millie looked back at the spirit.
"Who, me?" he said.
"Was it when her brother was up there?" Jerry asked Mike with less red to his face, but now he seemed deep in thought.
"Yup," Mike replied. "He drove her straight home afterwards… I heard he got an earful from his boss for taking a rider on his van…"
Jerry gave the reigns a light flick. The horses started away again. To those in the wagon they thought for a moment that he was driving them up the north road, but he adjusted their direction slightly and headed up the home trail.
"You know him, right?"
Mike looked puzzled at Jerry. "Know him? Who, Ed?"
Jerry shook his head slightly making his overhanging bangs of hair sway. "No… I mean Chip…"
Mike swallowed. "Umm… not really – only acquaintances… really…"
Jerry nodded a bit. "Keep an eye on me, would ya Mike?" he asked. He looked over at his friend who turned white as a sheet when he saw Jerry's eyes.
"If somebody isn't around, I might kill him." Jerry had said that with a slight menacing smile.
Millie gave a slight chirp of a scream followed by Puruu. Even Xuru had to gasp at the sight of demonic hate rolling through the boy.
Nicholas lowered his head as he clung to his wife's shoulder. His son had never hurt a thing in his life. That was what was so unfair about his death – the knowledge that he had always been a good son – a caring individual – as a matter of fact, even though he had a few scrapes with other boys in his youth, today was the first time he had actually seen him hit anyone.
And now… now he had heard him threaten someone.
Was this truly his son?
The wagon pulled away from the Steakhouse after leaving off Mike and headed back up towards the house as the sun was just dropping down below the hill it stood on. Jerry brought it into the barn where he found Gretchen seated on some straw bails that were stacked along the back wall.
"Hello Jerry," she coyly said as she jumped to the dirt floor. She started to walk up to the wagon when Jerry got down and wrapped himself around her, spinning about in front of the horses as he kissed her. He then draped himself over her shoulder and just held her tight.
The girl was stunned by this, her arms still outstretched behind him. She felt him shake and could feel him running his hands over her long braids.
"I love you Gretchen… I love you so very very much," he shook out of his throat as a sob spilled out of him. She had no idea what was wrong, but she knew he wanted to be with her there and now. She placed her hands on his shoulders and rested her head on his chest.
In the wagon Vash cleared his throat. Burnside joined him.
"Perhaps it would be best…" Kinza hinted as he waved to the barn door.
"Oh, yes, indeed," the others chorused as they stepped off the buckboard. Millie was the last to leave, seemingly unable to take her eyes off her son and his girlfriend.
"He'd better not do anything wrong in there!" she said as she finally disembarked the wagon.
"No worries about that," Kinza noted. "Here comes the alarm bell."
"Jerry! Gretchen! Dinner!" she heard herself call from the back porch of the house. She looked out the door and saw herself pulling on the dinner bell.
"Mothers always have the worst timing," Kinza jibed at her.
Thursday, June 8th, 1916
Jerry had gone straight to bed after dinner saying he was not feeling well. Xuru spun the dial on the remote to move them to the morning of the next day.
Rainy – a wet dreary day greeted them as they looked out of the barn. Burnside examined his PADD for information if there was any relevance to why they needed to be there.
A grinding sound rolled up the drive from the bottom of the hill. The American Express van was plodding away in the mud, its rear wheels spinning at times in the ruts.
"Now what's he doing here?" Kinza pondered.
"That's not you?" Vash asked as Tom the driver could be seen heading for them now that his machine had crested the hill.
Kinza looked over at the PADD and pointed. "He's off on another mission for two weeks starting today…" Burnside said. "That must be Frean in there."
"Frean?" Puruu asked. "Oh yes, the other person who could be in that suit."
Kinza snorted. "Which means this will be Grumpy Tom… he hated how those suits pinched his tail!"
Millie looked confused at the discussion. "What do you mean? Why would Mr. Tom be grumpy about his tail?"
Kinza stared at her. He looked at Nicholas who shrugged.
"You've gotta be kidding…" the Tomassamassa said. "Millie, I damn near undressed for you on the path yesterday! You still don't know who is inside that Tom or the old Ed suit?"
"Well not today," Vash pointed out. Kinza snapped a glare at him.
Millie sat on a bail of hay with a completely innocent expression. "Tom or Ed Suit? What do you mean suit?"
"This is too much," Xuru nearly giggled. Puruu had to elbow her to settle.
Kinza was about to ask her why she looked at him yesterday when Mike had said about Ed preventing Chip from doing any harm, when they all heard "Tom!" shouted. The truck was turning about, making its way about so it could back up towards the barn. They looked around it and saw Jerry running through the rain and waving to the driver.
Tom pulled a rain slicker over his head as he got out of the truck with his clipboard and waved to the boy as he ran up to him.
"Tom, I've got a question to ask you," Jerry said as the rain plastered his hair down.
"Okay, but lets get into the barn first!" the driver said as they trotted to the rear of the van. "Got a load of tractor parts for ya today…"
They dropped the gate and unloaded a few large boxes and a tire.
"Hey, great," Jerry smiled as he caught his breath from lugging the large rubber wheel to the side of the barn. "Dad's been waiting for this for a couple of weeks!"
"Here," Tom said. "Sign here… so what's your question?"
"Ed Olefchefski," Jerry flatly said as he signed his name to the line on the board. "Is he still about?"
Tom looked at the young man for a moment. "Err, Ed? Oh yea, Ed…" he swallowed. "He retired… he's back in Philadelphia."
Jerry stamped his foot. "Shoot!" he said. "Do you think I can get a message to him? I need to ask him a question… it's important."
Tom slipped the small clipboard into his jacket. "Sounds serious," he said as he rubbed his forehead. "Ah haven't heard from him since he retired son… Ah have no idea how'd you get a hold o'him… What cha need ta ask him?"
Jerry shook his head making his wet hair splatter about his face. "Oh, it's nothing… I just needed to ask him something about Gretch…"
"Gretch? Gretchen VanDermier?" Tom asked. "Now he's a strange person ta ask 'bout young Gretchen, boyo… Are ya quite sure ya got the right person ta ask about her for?"
"What did he just say?" Vash asked as he squeaked his finger about his ear.
Kinza shook his head. "Scragg… blasted voice modulator in the Tom suit… always found a way to jumble up words… uh oh…"
Everyone looked at Kinza. They then looked in the direction he was looking in.
There standing in the rear doorway of the barn was Gretchen, an umbrella over her head. Some were surprised to see she was in a dress and not her usual jeans overalls. She seemed frozen there, the rain drumming off her covering. She watched Jerry as he closed the gate on the truck and wave to Tom as it pulled noisily away. He turned.
It was as if she was right under his nose, yet still on the other side of the building. He caught sight of her standing there and shook. He spun about and tried to catch his breath. To Millie and Nicholas, it looked as if their son was about to have a heart attack.
"Vhy… vhy would you vant to ask Edward…" she asked him as she came in out of the rain. She gasped and dropped the umbrella.
"You… you found out?" she whispered. She covered her face with her hands as the fear of her secret thundered over her like the weather outside the barn.
Jerry turned to her as he saw her spin for the door. He dashed across and grabbed her as she exited. He threw himself over her as the rain pelted them both. They stood and cried into each other's shoulders.
Vash shook his head. "I've seen more than I needed to here," he said. Just then Mike ran by him as he entered the barn. "Maybe not," he then added.
"Huh… oh, there you are boss…" Mike coughed as he heaved and drained the rain off his body. "Sorry, was I… oh…" It was then he saw Gretchen under his arm.
He brought her back in from the rain to the dry barn where they both sat on a bail of straw. "What's up chief," he quietly asked his friend.
"Err," Mike stammered as he looked at Gretchen and then Jerry. "This is kinda… well…"
"It no longer matters, Michael," the girl said. "He knows…"
Jerry snapped a look between the two of them. "You knew he knew?" he asked his girlfriend.
Mike cleared his throat. "Jerry, I was there, remember?" he said.
Jerry thought for a moment and nodded. Of course he was right, he would have known. "What's up?" he finally asked a bit flustered still.
"It's Chip… he's calling you out…" Mike blurted.
Jerry got a sour look on his face. "What, again?"
"Again!?" Nicholas thundered. "Just how many times had he done THAT!?"
Burnside looked at his PADD. "Six times from what the data shows… looks like yesterday's right cross wasn't their first tussle. But, Jerry was the victor in all their run-ins."
They all looked back to see Jerry and the others moving backwards a bit. They then looked at Xuru, who was spinning the jog dial on the remote in reverse.
"This is important!" she quipped. She hit play and let the world go again.
"It's Chip… he's calling you out…" Mike blurted.
Jerry got a sour look on his face. "What, again?"
Mike swallowed and got an extremely worried look on his face. "Yea, but this time he expects you to have a gun ready!" he cracked.
Jerry rubbed his hand over his forehead. "He knows I don't use guns… daddy forbade them…"
"You did?" Vash asked with shock in his voice.
Wolfwood smirked. "A follow-up to my orphanage… I didn't want any of my charges following me in my footsteps."
"He's only trying to even the odds," Mike half laughed. "You'd deck him with your fists…"
Jerry got an angry look on his face. "When and where?" he asked.
Mike stood upright, not expecting such a glare from him. "Umm… Tomorrow at noon at the Rosston fork…"
Jerry nodded. He then smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "Then I'll just not go that way tomorrow!" he almost cheerfully said. Mike collapsed and Gretchen fell back in the straw.
"Oh, he's good," Kinza remarked looking at all the fallen people around him. "Takes after his Uncle Vash does he?"
Burnside tapped on his PADD and nodded to Xuru. "Move us to tomorrow morning," he said. "Nothing else happens today that we need to worry about."
"Hey, can we take a break?" Millie asked with a weary look on her face.
"Oooh, that sounds nice," Xuru said as she settled the time laps to the evening and stretched. The barn was quiet and the rain had stopped. They all settled down onto bails.
"Say, what are we supposed to do for food?" Vash asked as the sound of his stomach rumbled through the building.
"I've been wondering the same about facilities," Wolfwood said looking over at the old outhouse behind the main homestead.
Burnside looked about. "Since Millie designed The Source world to be the same layout as this world, I would expect that the same locations correspond." He gestured to the outhouse. "That is if you're afraid of stepping in something…"
Nicholas looked over at it. "The problem is this is 1916… I moved the outhouse a few times… It's not a good idea to leave it on the same spot all the time."
"Do you remember where you had it before?" Vash asked with crossed arms.
He looked around the grounds outside. "No, he said.
"Then the current one is going to have to do!" the Typhoon said as he ran for the outhouse. "You just HAD to say something about needing a bathroom!"
"Ah, hang on a moment," Kinza said then vanished. He reappeared a few minutes later with a box canteen and a large bag.
"What are those?" Millie asked as she watched the Tomassamassa pull some cups out of the bag and hand them around.
"Well, I'm not caught here like you folks," he said. "I can come and go as I please, so I just headed to the real Earth and stopped in at a Dunkin Donuts."
"Oh, you shouldn't have," Wolfwood grumbled as he saw a streak heading for them from the outhouse.
"OH! YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE!" shouted Vash as the smell of fresh donuts drew him back like a fish caught on a hook. He found Kinza holding the box under his arms and claws extended to keep the Typhoon from hording them all. He slowly reached with his free paw into the bag and pulled out a smaller one and waved it across the Plantoid's nose.
"I was ready for you!" he grinned as he tossed the bag of crullers over to a corner sending Vash scurrying.
"You're dangerous!" Xuru giggled as she bit down on a Devil's Food doughnut. "You study your opponent first and go for their weak spot!"
"Yea," he said panting. "And I think I just found my weak spot!" He fell to his knees and faded slightly.
"You're only a spirit," Puruu said as she got down to assist him. "You can't maintain a solid form for this long!"
He pounded the floor, or at least tried to. "Blast it all, Jesse and James could! Why can't I?"
"They were being assisted there by an outside source remember," Burnside explained.
Puruu placed her hands on his shoulders and began to rub him as she transferred some energy to him. "Whoever they are, I'm sure that if they too were spirits that they would need assistance… And last I heard, you had still not reported in to Bahdom's Gate." She winked to him and he knew he had been had.
"Scragg to pieces…" he grumbled. "I guess I'll have to stop in one of these days, ea?" He shook his head. "But I like my freedom…" He glanced over at the golden-haired man who was destroying the bag of doughnuts across from them. "Save the time Vash ran me over with that reproduction motorbike of Wolfwood's…"
"Pardon?" the Typhoon said with a mouthful of cruller.
"Hey, I always said, there's always room downstairs," Xuru coyly said as she twirled his beard with her fingernail.
He nodded. "Aye, Toval's Lock… I visited there," he said then cocked his head slightly. "The outskirts at least… too red for me… And Bahdom's was too blue… I like my green." He sat back, now a bit more firm, and leaned against the straw. "I think I'll take a nap."
Friday, June 9th, 1916
When he woke up, Kinza found the barn strewn with bodies and the sun glaring harshly through the open doorway he was leaning next to. He then had to pull his legs in quickly as the ten-year old twins Faith and Hope charged through the opening followed by the six-year old Ashton and four-year old Nick Jr., all of whom were heading for the hayloft.
"Oh, this is gonna get messy," he heard their father moan as he shook Vash and Burnside to get them up. Millie was just watching the kids with a satisfied look on her face. She looked over as Lexy came into the barn with a humph.
"Faith, Hope, Ash, and Nicholas!" she yelled. "I hope you're not where I THINK you are! You know how daddy feels when you start playing in the hay!"
"Awww, but sis…" was the common reply.
"So let me show you how it's REALLY done!" she grinned as she scampered up the ladder and proceeded to climb to the top rail of the hayloft and cannonballed into the stores below.
"It's amazing she lived to be one hundred…" Kinza grumbled as he watched her do it again as the kids cheered. He looked over and saw Xuru and Puruu writing that bit down in their Lexy sections of their notes.
"Explain to me again just why you want to do this?" they then heard. They looked outside the barn to see Mike talking with Jerry, who was on the wagon again with that day's stock that needed delivery to the depot. "Boss, you know that Chip will be waiting for you at the Rosston crossing!"
Jerry adjusted a straw hat he had on and smirked. "That's why I'm going the long way," he said. "And while I'm at it, I'll stop at Dougherty's in Stutter's Bend."
Mike scratched his head. "Dougherty's? The jewelers? What for?"
Jerry looked over the horses as he readied to head out and smiled. "Ma's right," he said. "And what's happened over the last few days has made me think about things… I'm gonna see what an engagement ring costs."
Millie gasped. She remembered kidding him for not asking the question to Gretchen. Had he done so?
"Pause it! Pause it!" Kinza yelped as he ran for the wagon just as Mike was getting on. It took Xuru a moment to remember where she had put the device before she managed to get control of the situation. They all then piled on much like they had the previous time.
"This I have to see," Mike said as time was restarted and the wagon rolled down the hill. At the bottom of the drive, Jerry turned them to the right rather than the left they would have normally taken.
"We'll have to stop at Dougherty's after I drop off this load at the depot then," Jerry said as he got the horses to move a bit faster than he would have normally taken them.
Nicholas looked up at the bright sun of that June morning. "He'd better move it along too, if he expects to get this down to the depot before the heat gets to it…"
"Yea, but he's libel to have butter in these cans if he keeps bouncing through this path like this!" Vash yelped as he avoided a splash from a puddle the wheels ran through.
"Its going to be a hot muggy one, that's for sure," Burnside noted as he rubbed his bald head. "If I remember this route, it doesn't have much shade on it, does it?"
Nick shook his head. "This is what we called the Winter Route – it was the easiest to clear because it was so open. The other route is shaded mostly by the trees. It runs along the valley between the two creeks and the tree-line over there." He hung on as the buckboard was brought about onto the southern path next to the Steakhouse.
"Whoa!" Xuru exclaimed. "Some ride!" She then saw the expression on Millie's face and nudged Puruu. "Hey," she said getting the Goddess-in-training's attention.
Puruu looked at the woman and saw the trickle of tears rolling off her face. She shimmied forwards and rested her arm over her shoulder.
"Hey… are you okay?" she asked her.
Millie broke. Her lip was quivering and she would take a few stray glances at her son in the driver's seat. "He was going to ask her… He was going to ask her finally… Oh Puruu… oh…" She fell over her shoulder and wept hard as the others watched. Xuru managed to climb up to join her friend and assist her.
The path was dusty and long, and the sun burned down on them all the way to Stutter's Bend. They made the turn back towards the depot road as they made the center of the small village that was on an old stage route.
"Hey Izzy," Jerry yelled to a man on the front porch of a small house along the main street. He slowed down a bit as they got closer. "Is your mother going to be in this afternoon?"
He looked back into the house and nodded. "Yup… maw don't like comin' out in this heat, no how…"
Jerry smiled and nodded to him. "Good! I'll be back in about two hours then," he said as he urged the horses on. Those on the wagon watched the man wave to him as they continued on. The side of the building had DOUGHERTY'S – APRAISALS & JEWLERS emblazoned on a weathered sign.
"I don't get it," Xuru said as she watched the small crossroad village fall behind them. "What's a place like that doing out here in the weeds like this?"
"Actually, it's not that uncommon," Wolfwood explained. "A few years prior to this, it was sometimes safer to convert cash to gems, gold or jewelry when traveling from east to west, or up and down some of the rivers around here. This was one of the main routes between Fort Supply and the west, so these places were normal sites around. Dougherty's was here clear up to the Second World War if I remember…"
The wagon was now speeding towards the sun as they headed southeast along a river.
"My this is hot!" Puruu said as she wiped her brow. She glanced at her partner and found her sunning herself.
"Feels great to me!" the Junior-Demon said with a smile. She opened her eyes when she noticed that the heat had suddenly vanished and found they were in the woods again.
"Almost there," Wolfwood said as he looked ahead. He had been worried about his son's speedy driving, but he knew that he had made this trip without any trouble. But he was not sure if Chip could be avoided that day as well.
"Only one more day," he whispered to himself. "Damn it! Damn it to hell…"
The unloading of the cart went without a hitch. But there was a bit of commotion as they finished reloading the empty milk cans.
Mike came running around from the back side of the depot looking as if he had seen death walking down the street.
"Jerry! Jerry!" he shouted. "Chip Dartmouth is heading this way!"
Jerry stood up on the driver's seat and looked over the loading dock. He could see the form of the man who swore he'd kill a few days before heading for them from far up the road. "D'you think he knows we're here?" he asked.
"I think he's just looking for you," Mike said nearly out of breath. "It probably finally dawned on him you didn't take your normal route today."
Jerry smirked. "Yea, he might have the brain of a mule, but he can still probably figure that out…"
Jerry and the others in the wagon then saw something that nearly took their breaths away as Mike climbed aboard and pointed down the road to the south… with a pistol.
"Then I suggest that we head for the Coal Ridge Road south of here, rather than the Stutter's Pike, boss," he said as his gun swung in front of Jerry's nose.
"Chief, what the hell are you doing with old Duke Underwood's gun?" Jerry asked as he pushed the old silver piece away. He could feel the hand holding it was nervous.
"I'm just ridin' shotgun, boss!" he said in an almost chipper tone that his shaky hand belittled. "You just drive this thing… Gretchen doesn't need to be a widow before she even gets married, right?"
"They'd better get a move on," Vash said as he looked back at the oncoming ruffian. Wolfwood watched as he instinctively reached for his sidearm, and was silently amused as he saw his friend find nothing there.
"SAVEREM!" they then heard being yelled from up the road. "SAVEREM, I WANT A WORD WITH YOU!" It was too late – Chip had seen them already.
Mike cocked the gun. Both Wolfwood and Vash heard the click of the hammer being pulled back. Kinza's ears were twisting about listening to the sounds both behind him and in front.
"Mike, quick! Hide that thing!"
The cattleman looked at his friend and saw that Jerry was looking at the office of the depot. He looked over and saw a big burly man standing there.
"Chip Dartmouth!" the man called back towards the scraggy outlaw running up the street. "It is I who wish to have a word with you!"
"S-Sheriff Bradshaw!" Mike chirped as he quickly and safely released the hammer on the gun and stuffed it down a bail behind them.
"What do you want Bradshaw?" Dartmouth spat. He looked around himself to find two deputies on either side of him. One had been hiding on the opposite side of the large clearing the depot was situated on. The other came around from the backside of the main building. Both had their rifles aimed at his head.
"Well son," the sheriff swaggered, "you know the drill… parole violation, threatening people, disorderly conduct, the lot… rumors have it you were bragging that you were gonna have yourself a Saverem funeral today… that's a serious threat, son… attempted murder if I say so myself."
Dartmouth locked his stare on the boy driving the wagon. "You squealed you yellow backed son of a bitch! You told the sheriff, didn't you!?"
"What the hell are you talking about, Chip?" Jerry yelled back. "How would I have talked to the sheriff? I didn't even know he was here, and you know we don't have a phone!"
"The boy's right, Chip," Bradshaw said as he stepped down from the loading dock. "You told us last night yourself… that little drunken party you had in town and dragging a little black box behind you in the street like a coffin – it was rather obvious. Take him boys."
Chip was unceremoniously dropped into the back of a large black horse-drawn paddy-wagon. All the wile he glared at the riders in the buckboard.
The sheriff tipped his hat to the boys and followed behind the black wagon as they headed for Fort Supply. With that the boy finally began to breathe again. Jerry gave the reigns a slight snap, and the wagon began moving up the Stutter's Pike to the clatter of the large empty metal milk cans.
"That was too close," Mike finally said with a rasp in his throat. He reached behind himself and pulled the old gun out of the bail. Jerry glanced at it.
"Let me see that thing," he said. Mike looked at it and reluctantly handed it over to him.
Jerry spun the gun about in his hand, much to both his parent's surprise. He held it like a pro. He then laughed.
"You've never used one of these before, have you chief?" he asked Mike as he handed it back.
Mike looked at the gun and shook his head. "Umm, no…" he replied. "I've only fired a rifle before… why?"
Jerry leaned over and smirked. "It works better when loaded," he said out of the side of his mouth.
Mike wrestled with the release and popped the gun in half. Six empty chambers greeted him.
"OH GOD HAVE MERCY!" Mike yelped as he held the gun to his chest. Jerry shook his shoulder and laughed.
Nicholas noticed that Vash was staring behind them and looked back as well.
"You see something?" he asked.
"Actually, I've been seeing something for some time now," Vash said. "Xuru, stop the play, would you?"
The demon, who had been transfixed on the drama that had been playing before her, woke from her stupor and hit the pause button.
"Thanks," Vash said as he jumped down from the wagon. The others watched as he started to walk back up the road towards the depot. Wolfwood soon followed, which then brought the others.
"Yup, just as I thought," the Typhoon said as they rounded a tree.
She was on a tall horse, a rifle slung over her shoulder and a worried look on her face. Her hair was not tied up in the two braids she normally would have had them in, so it was flying back behind her as she rode.
"Gretchen," Millie said with shock in her voice. "What is she doing here?"
"She was trailing behind all along," Vash said. "I noticed someone back here ever since we left the farm."
"And you were going to tell us when broom-head?" Wolfwood barbed at him. "Actually, you're right… I felt like there was someone watching us as well."
"Where had she been when the sheriff stopped Chip Dartmouth?" Puruu asked.
Vash pointed down the road towards a large oak tree. "See where the dust the horse made is?" he said. "She was behind that tree over there all along." He looked at the frozen horse and the direction she was heading in. "You know, if she keeps going in that direction, she's going to find out just what he's doing…"
"Maybe not," Wolfwood said. "Notice what she's doing to the reigns and the angle of the horse… Let it run, Xuru."
The demon pressed play and the horse trotted to a stop. Gretchen watched the buckboard continue on and smiled. She turned her horse about and headed up the tree-lined path that would take her back to the farm directly.
"Smart girl," Kinza noted. "She'll be back before they get there, and they'll never know she was following them."
"Speaking of which," Burnside said with a nudge to Xuru, "we need to get back to our ride." A quick pause and a stroll up the pike and they were all back on the wagon.
They stopped at Dougherty's. Jerry went in, but Mike wanted to stop in at the General Store first.
"I'll be here in a minute, boss," he said. "Don't buy anything before I get back!" He winked and headed across the street.
Jerry and Millie stared at the rings that Mrs. Dougherty had placed before them. Small little string tags were hung on them telling their prices, many of whom made the boy squirm - $10, $20, $30! Why were they so expensive?
Puruu and Xuru looked closely at them as well and took notes. Puruu remembered about one of her mentors explaining the significance of the ring, about the commitment it meant and the meaning. She looked at her own ring-less hand and remembered the one on her mentor's. She always seemed to cherish that ring so…
"Why do I know that one?" she heard Millie say. She noticed that Jerry was holding one in his fingers that had a simple diamond on it.
"That is a very nice one," the old woman behind the counter said with a quivering smile. "But did you say it was for Gretchen VanDermier?"
"Umm, yes?" Jerry said as his face blushed red.
"Ah, but she has such small fingers," Mrs. Dougherty exclaimed. "That ring is much too big."
Jerry looked at it and the tag that hung from it. "Is there any way to make it smaller?" he asked.
The old lady took the ring and examined it under a magnifying glass. "Yes, but I can't do it… I would have to send it down to my cousin's in Fort Supply," she said.
"How soon?" Jerry quickly asked.
Mrs. Dougherty looked at him over her glasses. "Oh, it could be ready as soon as tomorrow, if you wanted to go down there and get it yourself… why? 'You in a hurry or something?"
"Heh," Jerry laughed as he scratched the back of his neck. "Yea, you could say that…"
The door opened to a bell chime. Mike entered. "Did I miss anything, boss?" he ribbed his friend. He came over and looked at the ring he had chosen.
"Nice… but what… you think she's got fingers like cigars?" he asked. "That's huge!"
"Naa…" Jerry laughed as he pulled out a roll of bills. "I'm going to have it made smaller… how much?"
"$25 for the ring… $15 for the resizing… mind you, if it needs resizing again, just bring it back here and we'll do it for free…" Mrs. Dougherty tallied on a receipt bill, "that will be $40 American…"
Mike gawked as he watched his friend drop four $10 bills on the table. "Where do I pick it up?" Jerry then asked.
"IZZY!" Mrs. Dougherty barked. "I NEED YOU TO RUN THIS RING DOWN TO MICHEAL'S!"
"Okay," came a muffled unimpressive reply.
"It should be ready just after noon tomorrow," she then answered him with a smile. "My cousin's place is on the main street next to the jail. You can't miss it."
Kinza looked up from the chair he was seated in. "Scragg… That's where Chip Dartmouth is right now…"
They all gathered by the wagon again. Xuru paused time to allow her group to get on unseen by any movement of the wheels. She then released it and the boys got aboard.
As Mike climbed up, Vash heard a rattle coming from his pocket – a subtle sound, but unmistakable. He looked at Wolfwood. The preacher had also heard it and glanced at his friend.
"Great, he got bullets," they heard. They looked back at the Tomassamassa spirit, whose ears were pointing straight ahead. "Can this setup get any worse?"
That evening, they sat inside the barn – all except Wolfwood. He had asked to allow time to flow normally and had followed his son back into the house. He silently went up to his bedroom and waited, since he remembered that he had gone there soon after dinner again.
Gretchen had greeted them when they had arrived, as he knew she would have, and Jerry has spun her about in an embrace he fondly remembered giving his own wife when he had asked her to stay with him in The Source. Jerry asked her if she would be available Saturday night, that he wanted to see her alone.
Now he watched him lying on his bed as he stared at the ceiling. A lamp dimly lit the room for a final night.
Wolfwood felt his heart ache – but not like the pain he has endured the next day, when he saw his son's fateful event, but much like the day after he shot Zazie the Beast. He wanted to breakdown and cry, but he knew that would not help the situation. He sat in a rocking chair that was in the corner. He remembered holding Jerry as an infant in that very chair and rocking him to sleep. He remembered teaching him to be a good man, an honorable man, a man of… peace…
"If somebody isn't around, I might kill him."
The words that his son had said in anger still bounced inside his mind. What made him die? Had he taken on Chip in a foolish gunfight that he would have never won? What really happened to his son?
And did Millie really have to be there? Did she even want to be there?
"Well, what do you think dad?" Jerry asked. "Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"
"What… marrying Gretchen?" Wolfwood asked knowing his son could not answer him.
"Yea," he did reply. "She's a wonderful girl and all… but Dave, well he did marry her in my place…"
Wolfwood looked down on the boy in the bed. He was looking back at him. He rolled over and faced his father.
"Jerry?" Nicholas asked. "What the hell are you doing here, son?" he asked as he leaned over towards the edge of the bed and realized it was his spirit he was seeing now.
He laughed. "All of us upstairs know what's going on here… The family is all abuzz with it. I just decided to come down and see where we stand…"
Wolfwood sat back. "Damn it kid, you're as bad as your sister!"
Jerry cocked his head. "Which one?"
"Lexy!" Wolfwood snorted. "She's had her fill of causing your mother and I fits." He then just looked at him in silence, a smile passing his face.
"Well its good to see that you still look the same as you did when I saw you last," Jerry finally said breaking the silence. "Though I do believe that you've lost those gray sideburns you had."
"Heh," Wolfwood laughed. "It's the Plant in me." He then thought of something. "Wait a minute… If you're here, does that mean we did what we needed to do?"
Jerry got a slightly confused look on his face. "Ummm… no, I would be up there anyway by now."
Wolfwood nodded. "That's right… this is only a playback… Okay… how about this… how far do you remember? I mean do you remember getting shot? Do you remember recovering?"
Jerry sat up on the edge of the bed and scratched the mop of hair that was hanging over his face. "Well, I'm kind of like Aunt Meryl I think," he said. "You know… dual memories…"
"Aunt… oh, you mean Vash's Meryl," Wolfwood noted as he remembered about her bout with Sandusky's playing with the time stream. "Any idea which memory is clearer?"
Jerry sighed. "I would guess the corrected one, since I know that Gretch and David are… you know…"
Wolfwood nodded as he leaned back in the rocker and looked at the dark ceiling. "She always did love you both… She never was the same after you…"
"Yea, funny…" the boy said with a huff. "Maybe that's why there are two of them up here with us."
"Two of them? Two Gretchens?"
"It is a rare case," the light voice of Puruu said as she passed through the wall next to the preacher, "but not truly uncommon… Pardon my intrusion, but I felt the presence of another spirit."
"That's okay," Wolfwood said quietly. "What did you mean that it's not uncommon?"
She bowed slightly to the boy on the bed. "A spirit can be such a fragile thing when encased within a living vessel, such as the human body. It is very easily fragmented. And on the day that your son died, hers was broken, and part of it died… the part that followed your son's soul to heaven…"
"What part was that?" he asked.
"It is quite easy to discern," she said as she bent down into a prayer stance. "It is said the youth of one's soul is so easily shattered. The day he died was the day her childhood ended."
It struck Wolfwood then. "Ah, I understand… she did almost seem like a completely different person after that… solemn, less trusting, suspicious of people… but doesn't that happen to everyone?"
"Not always in the same way," the Goddess-in-Training said. "Events in one's life always form the reality that one sees. You for example…"
Wolfwood looked at the girl. "Me?"
She nodded and prayed. "You had your youth stripped away at an early age – earlier than even you perceive…"
"Earlier?" Now Wolfwood was getting a bit steamed. "What sort of crap…"
"Your mother… you never knew her, did you?"
Wolfwood stopped and stared at her. Something struck the back of his mind.
"What… what the hell does that have…"
Puruu stood up and placed his head against her chest. "She did not abandon you as you perceived," she told him as she rested her hands on his head. "She was taken from you. It is why you became a wandering priest… even though your childhood was a horror, you still strived to help women and children where you could, in the only way you knew."
"You kicked ass!"
Puruu and Wolfwood looked over at the Junior Demon who had now joined them. She grinned and quickly sat next to the spirit of Jerry on the edge of the bed.
Puruu stepped back and bowed to Wolfwood then sat down on the floor. "Uh hem… Yes," she had to agree with her partner, if not exactly in the way she had put it.
Wolfwood stared at the floor. "Who was she?" he asked.
Puruu crossed her legs in a lotus position. Xuru squirreled up her nose.
"Oh, I hate it when you get into that position!" the demon griped as the goddess raised her power levels. "It looks so painful!"
A trickle of tear rolled down Puruu's cheek. "Do you really wish to know?" she asked. "It pains her so…"
Wolfwood rested his head on his hands. "She was a prostitute, wasn't she?"
Puruu shot the preacher a glaring look. "She was a woman of the cloth, just as you are now."
Nicholas gagged. "A… A what?" he asked with a shutter. "My… my father… my so called father…"
"…Lied," Xuru bluntly finished for him. "Yea, he has a special pot to stew in downstairs…" She winked at him and grinned. "See? We're an equal opportunity community down there!"
Wolfwood hardly could think straight. "She was… what was she?"
"She's a very nice lady," Jerry said. "She giggles whenever we call her grandma…"
Puruu held her hands up as her wings shimmered to life for a moment. Before her a young woman appeared in black robes. She had dark brown eyes and auburn hair that was neatly pinned back over her ears. She then covered her head in a habit.
"A nun?" Wolfwood asked. "She was from the Sisterhood of Angelina in December?"
Puruu nodded. "She was one of the last of those kidnapped in the bandit raids before the garrison of troops were stationed there by the government. As a matter of fact, the last one was broken up by someone you know well."
Wolfwood looked at her wide eyed. "Oh don't tell me… Noodle-noggin?"
Puruu smiled briefly. "He does get around," she said as she again bowed her head. "He rescued her and returned her to the convent… but unfortunately, the chief of the bandits had already had his way with her. She died a day after giving birth to you… she never gave up her faith though…"
"No…" Nicholas said as he buried his head in his hands. He felt a set of hands rub across his back. He looked up and found his son there. He grabbed him by the waist and released his feelings into him.
It was late in the evening when Wolfwood finally exited the homestead. The night was bright and starlit. The unpolluted sky of the near-prairie allowed the Milky Way to blaze a trail overhead. He saw a familiar silhouette along the ridge-line behind the house and decided to join it.
"Hey," Vash quietly said as his friend stepped up to where he would sometimes find Kinza observing things in the past. Oddly, he was there as well. But rather than watching over the house and its contents, he was laying on his back just watching the night go by above.
"Here," the spirit said. "I went and did another trip back to normal Earth and picked up a few things." The next thing Wolfwood knew, he had a cold bottle in his hand.
"Beer?" he asked as he found a twist-off cap. "I haven't had one of these in a while…"
Vash gave a small chuckle. "We figured that of all nights, this would be one that you could use one of them.
Nicholas sat down and joined the observers of the evening. It had been awhile… the taste was bitter at first, but the alcohol felt good going down.
"You know, it's amazing," he said to the darkness. "I feel like I want to go out blazing – get my old Punisher and make everyone repent their sins… crap…"
"Who can blame you?" Kinza said in a deep grumble. "After all, it is family that you're watching here… you see, you've got a rather interesting perspective that even I as an Observer didn't have… You know the future in this case… at least most of it… the way it's supposed to go that is…"
"Ya, dat's true," Wolfwood heard. He looked over at the Tomassamassa on the ground and saw that he was not alone. "It ztill seems untfair dat he had to die zen," the spirit of young Gretchen said.
"What are you doing here?" Wolfwood asked as he gagged a bit on his beer.
"I came along vit Jerry," she said. "I take it you two had your talk?"
Wolfwood nodded then looked at his drink and made sure it had not been spiked. He saw the girl stand up and brush off her pants.
"Zen I vill go take him home," she said and started over the hill.
"How do you do it?" Nicholas asked her before she got out of earshot.
"How? How do I do vat?" she asked back.
"Survive…" he replied. "How do you survive split like that?"
She looked at the moonlit grass. "Ve understand," she said quietly.
"We?" the preacher asked. "You mean you and your older self?"
Gretchen nodded. "David still has her… as difficult it vas for zhem… It vas rather interesting ven dey first saw us up zhere… I vas zurprised by David's response… he ztayed near us ze entire twenty-one years it took for my older zelf to arrive… And when she did… vell, zhere vas one confused spirit!"
"Bahdom's Gate is sometimes more complicated than some would imagine," Kinza noted as he continued to examine the sky. He looked over at the two men beside him and smirked. "Why else would they have schools for goddesses and spirits up there? Downstairs too…"
"Is that why you haven't reported in yet?" Vash asked as he sipped the beer in his hand.
"Darn tootin'!" he said as he looked at the bottles in the grass. "Forrestal and Exeter would sometimes work as intermediaries between the two sides, so I got first hand experience between them… and I didn't have to die to find out how things worked." He craned back to look at Gretchen. "But I do know that usually, as fractured as they can get, it is still rare when a spirit does not merge with its missing parts once they get there. Why have you chosen to remain separated?"
She turned away from the men. "I am zhe Gretchen zat loved Jerry… If I had remained vithin my body, I vould have never been able to be vit David. Zat vould have ruined de future, vould it not?"
The pocket watch in Wolfwood's pocket chimed. He pulled it out and looked at it in the moonlight.
"Midnight," he said. "It's June 10th… god I loath this day…"
The day
"Good morning, mom!"
Jerry bounded down the steps into the kitchen and gave his mother a peck to her cheek. She blinked as she watched her son grab a corn muffin and wolf it down. He tapped a plaque on the wall that his sister Meryl got for her writing as he exited through the backdoor for the barn.
"My, he's sparky this morning!" she pondered.
"Perky," Nicholas corrected her as he drank some coffee and read the paper.
Jerry checked out his wagon full of stuff that the VanDermier boys were finishing loading. He was gathering up his paperwork and sorting it onto a clip board when he felt a slap to his back.
"Hey, mop-head! You seem chipper today!"
"Dave?" Jerry asked as he spun about. "What the… what are you doing here? The army doesn't give out passes that quickly!"
His brother smiled and scratched the back of his head. "Normally, I'd agree with you… but we're about to mobilize, and the Colonel gave most of us an extra two days to get ready."
Jerry stared at him. "Mobilize? What do you mean? What for?"
Dave plopped his hand on his brother's shoulder. "You don't read the newspaper much, do you?"
"Only the comics," Jerry replied with a bit of embarrassment.
"Attaboy!" Vash said with conviction and got an elbow from Wolfwood. "What?" he complained while rubbing his ribs. "They're the most important part of a newspaper!"
"It's getting ugly in Europe," David said. "And what with all these submarine sinkings, it was only a matter of time. So Pershing is having us regulars get ready."
Jerry looked away. "Really, huh?" he said as he scuffed the dirt with his boot.
"Hey squirt, what's up?" Dave asked seeing his brother's reaction.
"D'you think they'll call up more men?" he asked.
Dave stood back and thought. "Probably – there's a pitiful amount of soldiers around right now… why?"
Jerry slapped his hand against the wooden seat of the buckboard. "Dang! Maybe I should wait…"
"Wait?" David asked as he walked up to him and turned him about. "Wait a minute… what have you got up your sleeve Jerry?"
He laughed and scratched the back of his mop-head. "Well… I bought a ring… I was gonna… you know…"
David grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him. "Jerry, that's great! You're gonna propose!? When? When!?"
Jerry quickly looked behind himself. He did not want to see Gretchen in that back doorway again overhearing him again. "Tonight… but if we might be going to war…"
David shook him again, and this time added a finger to his nose. "You get that out of your head, Jerry Saverem!" he barked. "If you don't go through with it, you will regret it, she will regret it, and I will regret it! Don't let some squabble in Europe stop you! You know she's waiting for you! Mother certainly is! So is her mother!"
Jerry smiled and punched his brother lightly in the shoulder. "Like you'd know that!" he smirked.
Dave slugged him back. "So squirt, where's the ring?"
"This afternoon… I've got to go down to Fort Supply and pick it up," he said as he boarded the wagon. "I had Mrs. Dougherty resize it."
Dave gawked at him. "Resize it? Jerry, how much did you pay for that thing?"
He pulled the receipt out of his breast pocket and looked over. "$40…" he replied.
"Dang! You're serious!" Dave exclaimed.
"$40 is a lot?" Xuru asked as she held time momentarily to board the buckboard.
"In 1916 it was," Wolfwood said as he sat next to his wife. "Chickie, do you really want to come on this trip?"
She sat silently and nodded. She had vehemently proclaimed earlier that she would not be left out of this, be it ever so painful to watch.
The wagon pulled out of the drive and headed east towards the normal tree-lined route to the depot. Vash watched behind them and saw an interesting sight.
"Someone's riding like a bat out of hell down the Winter Route," he noted. Wolfwood saw what he was referring to just as the view was blocked by the trees.
"Do you think its Gretchen again?" he asked.
Vash shook his head. "Can't tell from this distance… could be… but why go that way again?"
"Observer base to location 12… come in…" Burnside's patch squawked as he monitored communications.
"Observer post 12," the familiar voice of Pastor North replied. "Are we still in lockdown?"
"Affirmative," Burnside's own voice said back over the unit. "S.A.M. is completely locked. We have no idea why. There has to be an event happening today."
"That's a roger," the scientist replied. "Jerry Saverem is passing my position as we speak. Monitors are still working, so I would speculate that you are correct. Set all Observer Stations to code one…"
Kinza nodded as he listened in. "That's as high as it gets without climbing into his hip pocket."
"Yes, but is that what might have caused this problem we're having?" Wolfwood asked.
"It very well could," Burnside speculated. "A code one would mean that every agent available is on heightened alert and are given clearance to prevent any possible historic errors… that would include preventing him from getting shot, or preventing him from dying."
The com unit began a nearly constant chatter as Observers began reporting the slightest oddity or possible problem to a central command. Burnside needed to program it to settle for only the local traffic.
It was nearly eleven in the morning when Jerry arrived at the depot. There he found to his surprise Mike on a horse looking a bit bedraggled.
"Well, I think we just figured who it was you saw on the old Winter Road," Wolfwood said.
"That's not all," Vash said. "Look what's in his belt."
The handle of the gun stuck out from under his loose shirt in the back. It was sure to be loaded this time. He tossed his shirt tail over it and shimmied the horse over towards his friend on the buckboard.
"What the hell are you doing here like that Mike?" Jerry asked a bit bemused.
"Well boss, I was thinkin'," Mike said a bit winded. "This is Saturday, right?"
"Yea?" Jerry agreed questioningly as he backed the wagon into the dock and set the break.
"Doesn't places like Dougherty's close early on Saturdays?" Mike asked.
Jerry looked at him in shock. He was right! And worse, they would be closed all day on Sunday! He looked up at the work-hand that was waiting to unload his buckboard and reload the empty pails and crates back on.
"Digger, can I have you reload the cart?" he asked him. "I've got to get down to Fort Supply before Two o'clock!"
The crusty old depot operator laughed. "Must be fer a girl," he spat. "Yea, go ahead… I'll get Bo ta help swap loads… Just give me yer bill o'laiding an' I'll get her ready."
"You're a saint, Digger!" Jerry cheered as he un-tethered Daisy from her harness and climbed aboard her bareback.
His parents and those observing stood in silence as they watched him tear off down the road with Mike behind him.
"Ah… this is a problem!" Wolfwood said.
"They're leaving us behind!" Millie exclaimed reaching out as if she could stop him with her stretched out hand.
Suddenly the world seemed to spin about. Xuru was playing tricks with the remote and moving their location manually. "Is this Fort Supply?" she asked.
"Umm… Laverne Station," Wolfwood said as he saw a few buildings around them. It then vanished again in a swirl.
"This?" the demon asked.
"Rosston," Kinza said seeing the state-run farm behind them.
"Grrrr!" she cursed as she attempted to get her bearings. "How about this?"
They found themselves standing in a wide dusty road. A train depot was nearby and what looked like the old walls of a stockade was across from them.
"This is it!" Burnside barked. He looked at his PADD and tapped it a bit. "We're nearly an hour before he arrives."
"Well done," Wolfwood commented to Xuru as he guided them towards the jailhouse. She had not expected that.
"Let's see where Chip is right now," Vash said as he watched a deputy head for the front door. He was about to follow him in when he felt a hand grab him.
"He wouldn't be in there now," the pastor said. "He was drunk when he… he… Crap… he'd be over there…" He pointed at a bar across the street.
"What?" the legendary gunman harped. "What the hell is he doing out of jail?"
"Insufficient evidence," Kinza said. "So he was getting sloshed over there." He looked beside the jail and found the jewelry store that Jerry was heading for. "Well, this is his destination," he mumbled. When he looked back at the group though, he found Wolfwood walking over towards the bar.
"Nick," he barked. "Don't do anything rash."
"I'm not," he said without turning. "I'm making sure history does not error."
He stopped in front of a man who seemed to be just leaning against the wall outside the bar.
"Can't see me, can you Tolly?" he said.
Kinza snorted. "I'll be shaved… it is Tolefson!"
Wolfwood looked about. He looked at the building next door – a general store. He walked over to it and entered the open door. He came out with a pad and pencil.
"Damn good thing we can touch things," he mumbled to himself as he began to scribble out a note. He then tapped Tolefson hard on the shoulder.
"Ow!" the Observer yelped. When he looked up he found a pad floating in midair and a pencil was writing on it. "Oh crap!" he exclaimed as the pad spun around and presented itself to him.
"Mr. Tolefson, this is Wolfwood," the pad read.
"Oh god," he said as he swallowed. He looked to either side and waved the pad to follow him. He walked to the side of the bar building and slipped down the narrow alley. He looked back and found the pad coming up from behind.
"Okay," he said showing some excitement as he seemed to be having a hard time catching his breath. "Relevance?" he asked.
"Ah, good lad," Burnside said. "He's remembering his training. Tell him where you're from, Nick."
The pad flipped back to the pencil. It scribbled "From the Source." When he showed it to him though, Tolefson only looked confused.
"He needs a reference date," Kinza noted. "Tell him Stardate 07014.27."
Wolfwood wrote that down and showed it to him. The blood seemed to drop from the young man's face.
"Damn!" he swore as he pulled his com unit out. He looked at the pad before opening it though. "Why… I mean… what is the situation?"
He watched the pad slowly turn. The pencil at first crawled across the page, but soon became more rapid. When it was turned back to him, he could see fingertips pressing hard into the paper causing a corner to tear.
"The events of today must not be hindered with," the pad said. "Jerry Saverem must die."
"Oh my god…" Tolefson gagged. "Nick, if that's you… you just told me to… let your son… oh Nick…"
The pad dropped down. It came back up for a moment for the pencil to write something new. "Kinza says to tell you – History's Daggers."
Tolefson wiped his face as he leaned into a barrel. "Yea… yea, he's right about that…" He opened his com unit and pressed an alert switch. "Tolefson to Observer's Base… Code Omega… repeat… Code Omega…"
"Oh man, Tolly…" Kinza said with more than some worry in his voice. Wolfwood and Vash looked back at him and found Burnside looking at the ground shaking his head.
"Damn, this is a crappy day," the old man said.
"What?" Nick said as Tolefson dejectedly walked out of the alley and back to his post. "What did I just do to him?"
Kinza drew in a breath. "To the Observers Corp, a mission is run on a series of codes – Code One is of course the message that everyone is to keep watch and prevent an occurrence that might hinder the future… in other words, all hands on deck… but that order can be countermanded by a Code Omega… And the person who activates an Omega does not have to explain why they called it, even though they will be scrutinized by his superiors for making that choice and it will be on their permanent record."
"Maybe this is why he never rose higher than Lieutenant," Burnside said. "Only Commanders and higher won't have it affect their rank scores…"
"And it does involve a mission watch member," Kinza agreed. "There would have had to have been substantial reason to let one member of the family… die… But unless the computer suddenly comes back and says that this wasn't supposed to happen, then there is little recourse but to follow whatever reason the Omega was called for."
"Look, can we just wait over by the jewelers for Jerry to show up?" Wolfwood snapped as he tossed the pad and pencil and trudged back towards the end of the alley. Now that this was involving more than his own family it was starting to weigh heavily on him.
Kinza peeked into the bar. Chip Dartmouth was at a table by himself with a large bottle of something brown. He was remarkably quiet for someone with the reputation of being a boisterous drunk.
"Tolly, are you sure?" he caught just bearably. He looked to his side at the young officer who had given the Omega order as he touched his ear.
"Yes Captain," he whispered. "Confirmed."
"Understood," the voice of North said. "Dickinson and Foley will be there shortly."
Tolefson nodded. "I will surrender peacefully," he replied as he closed his palmed com unit. He sighed and looked at the sky.
The pad and pencil came around the corner again. He noticed it scribbling rapidly. He then felt a paw on his shoulder as it was handed to him. He then saw the pencil rise up and slide to a stop as if someone had just stuck it behind his ear.
"Tolly," the pad read, "this will indeed be an ugly day, but you did the right thing. The stake of the future is involved. You will survive this. – Kinza. PS – Keep this pad as proof."
It was roughly forty-five minutes later when Jerry and Mike entered the northwest road into town. The group watched as Jerry dismounted Daisy and ran into the jewelers. He was followed by his mother and Puruu. Xuru and the others stayed outside and watched the other side of the street.
Vash noticed that Mike stayed on his horse and had it move over towards the jail where he looked into a barred window on the side of the building.
"Crap!" he heard him exclaim. "Where is Chip?"
Tolefson stared. He had heard the boy on the horse as well. He glanced into the Bar and saw Dartmouth stand up with a stagger. He began to step forwards and nearly fell on his face.
"Here it comes," Burnside grimaced as he saw his PADD blink with the signal alert of the S.A.M. System from Tolefson bringing all sensors and recorders up to speed.
"Umm… this is all that stuff that was locked out by the computer before," Kinza noted as he rejoined the group.
Jerry was walking nervously back and forth in the store waiting for Michael to come out of the back room workshop with his ring. Millie and Puruu stood and watched him as he paraded.
"I do wish he'd settle," his mother said. She was almost ready to grab him when the door burst open.
"Boss!" Mike yelped as he entered. "Dartmouth's gone! They released him!"
Jerry held his hand up. "That's okay Mike," he said with calmness to his voice, even though his feet said he was racked with anxiety.
"Here we go, Mr. Saverem," Michael said as he exited the back room while wiping something in a rag. "Careful, it's still a bit warm from the polishing."
He held out the rag and displayed the ring in the middle of it. Millie stepped up and examined it closer.
"I know I've seen that ring before," she said as it was turned over by the jeweler.
"Excellent," Jerry said as he gave the man an extra fiver as a tip for a job well done. "Have you a box?"
"I'll go and keep an eye out," Mike said as he left the store. He stood on the porch and looked around. Seeing no signs of Dartmouth, he decided to check in the jail to see where he had gone. Inside, he found that even the deputy that Vash had followed earlier was gone.
Jerry wrapped the small box in the receipt paper, stuffed it in his pocket and thanked the jeweler again as he left the store. He turned to find where Daisy was and saw Dartmouth at the doorway of the bar across from him.
"S-S-S-SAVEREM!" Chip slurred as he staggered out into the dirt street. "I w-want a word with you!"
Jerry stood upright and examined the sloshed soul who was approaching him. "Are you quite sure you can?" he yelled back.
Dartmouth stopped about ten feet away, swaying back and forth on his feet. He raised his fist up and took a fighting position.
"Come on y-you!" he babbled. "I'm here to k-kill you!"
Jerry smirked. "With your fists? What? No gun?"
"I'MNOTALLOWEDTOHAVEAGUN!" Chip rammed his words together as he shouted. "Otherwise, you'd been dead alllong time agooo!"
Jerry slapped his head with his hand. "You're kidding! I've been worried that you were going to shoot me! What a joke!"
"Huh?" Chip gurgled.
Jerry glared at him. "Not today Dartmouth! Go dry up first and maybe I'll knock some sense into that skull of yours!" He turned away to get on Daisy.
The drunk got a lopsided grin on his face. "Ah… got some hot date with Gretchen tonight, ea?"
Jerry spun about. "I told you last time, Dartmouth! I don't EVER want you to mention her name again!"
"Make me!" Chip sneered as he lunged forwards with his fists. Unfortunately, he swung at the Jerry on the left. The two in the middle slammed their rock hard hands into his midsection followed by a left hook to his chin. He spun completely around and dropped to the ground in a pile of dust.
Wolfwood stood in awe of his son. He hammered the man easily, sprawling him to the ground.
"My goodness!" Millie exclaimed with Puruu beside her. She saw her son wipe his face and step away from the flattened drunk at his feet. She then saw in his face his father's image – the determination she remembered on Gunsmoke that he would get when he fought. She watched as he climbed back on the bareback of Daisy, no longer the boy she knew.
"Mike!" Jerry shouted. "Yo, chief! Let's go!"
Mike charged out of the empty jailhouse and saw the mess in the street. "What!? What!? Yo, boss! What did I miss?"
Jerry laughed. "Come on, get your horse! We've got to get the wagon back home."
"Error – error – error," Burnside's PADD was harping. He tapped on it a few times and looked at Xuru. She quickly found the remote and paused it.
"Something's wrong," he said as he looked at the data being shown. "Dartmouth will be sent back into the jail shortly… but only for drunken misconduct… What happened?"
Wolfwood looked at the frozen scene and nodded. "I know what happened… back us up a bit Xuru."
The Junior-Demon looked at him a bit confused but did as told. The scene backed up to just before Dartmouth swung at Jerry. Wolfwood waved at her to stop. He looked over the hunched over drunk and saw Vash standing beside him.
"Let him get that first one in," he said to the preacher.
Nicholas nodded. Both he and Vash hunched down and matched Dartmouth's position.
"Okay Xuru… Slowly," the reverend said.
Dartmouth swung at his imagined target. Jerry brought his right up onto his stomach.
"Slowly! Slowly!" Vash yelped. Xuru switched to the jog dial and made the progression crawl. Then she saw what the two men were doing.
Jerry's left cross was coming down to smash against Dartmouth's head. The reverend placed his hands between his son's and the cranium. Vash covered over Chip's head with his own hands. The blow, even in slow motion, still smarted as it was like trying to hold onto a lumpy ten-ton press as it squished hard against their fingers.
"OW! OW! OW! OW!" both men yelped as the fist finally followed through and Chip's head rotated to the twisting of the two men's hands. They stood up and shook their fingers as Dartmouth continued to fall to the ground.
"Ow! Do you think we deflected it enough?" Vash asked as he sucked on his throbbing right thumb.
Wolfwood shook his hands and stuffed them under his armpits. "Damn, I hope so. He certainly has the Wolfwood fists…"
"That's for sure," Vash agreed. "I felt them before myself, remember?"
Wolfwood grunted. "Let's get out of the way and let this go," he said as he joined his wife on the porch of the jewelry store. She pulled his hands out and rubbed them in hers.
"Stupid male thing," she grumbled as she massaged his fingers. "Always trying to stop a fight…"
"No," he replied. "Trying to save our future… Go Xuru."
The demon nodded and pressed the play again.
"Mike! Yo, chief! Let's go!" Tolefson heard as he watched Jerry mount Daisy. He had rooted him on as he pummeled the idiot who had threatened him. He looked at the pad in his hands and now wondered if he had been too rash in calling for the Omega. Once called, it could not be rescinded, could it?
Mike came out of the empty jailhouse. There he saw Dartmouth in the street groggily attempting to get up. Jerry was on Daisy trying to get her to settle with him on her bareback again.
It was then that Chip reached behind himself and pulled out a large hunting knife.
"JERRY!" Mike called out and pulled his gun from under his shirt. The cloth caught the hammer and drew it back as it came up.
An explosion in his hands – it felt as if his world had just detonated as his arm whipped back and forth from the unbalanced shot. Unlike the rifle he had fired before, the pistol made a wicked kickback in his hand. The rifle had taken two hands to operate, so he was not ready for the pounding his shoulder and arm took as the gun discharged. His shirt shredded as the bullet tore out of the muzzle.
Dartmouth looked behind himself at the sound and saw the smoke of the pistol and the boy who was falling back from the recoil. He turned and looked over at Saverem. He found that the horse had been spooked by the sudden clap of gunfire and was running away from them. The rider was bent over.
"Oh… my… god," Wolfwood said in disbelief. He looked at Vash and saw a stone face. "You… knew, didn't you?"
Vash grimaced. "He told us himself," he said as he gestured towards Dartmouth. "He's not allowed to have a gun."
"My god Mike… What have you done?"
They all looked back at Dartmouth. Kinza saw Tolefson standing as well in disbelief at what was now going on as Dickinson and Foley showed up to take him away. The shot seemed to have also blown the drunken stupor out of the man in the street.
"Mike! Mike, for the love of god, what did you do that for?" Chip said as he stood up and dropped the knife.
Mike was flat on his back. He had been able to see the whole thing as he had fallen. The kickback, the flash of the blade, the bad trajectory, the shocked expression on Jerry's face as the bullet struck him in the chest – And the blood… oh god the blood.
"Kid… KID!"
Mike shook his head. He looked up and saw Chip holding his gun.
"Mike, get out of here," he said. "Get on your horse and get the hell out of here, you hear? I want you to get home and wash your hands good, you hear me? YOU HEAR ME!?"
Mike stammered, "Y-yes!?" He quickly and mindlessly jumped up and bolted for his horse.
"Remember kid, wash your hands – AND USE SOAP!" Dartmouth said. "Get those powder burns clean." With that he shot the gun twice into the air making Mike's horse jump as Jerry's had and bolt for the road north.
Sheriff Bradshaw and his deputy were now running up the street as Dartmouth tossed the gun into the dirt.
"What's going on Dartmouth?" he bellowed. "Where's the man that was supposed to be watching you?"
Chip laughed and crossed his arms. "I just shot Jerry Saverem sheriff. It was self defense. You see? He drew a knife on me."
Bradshaw looked about. "Where's Saverem then?" he asked.
"His horse took off that way," Dartmouth said. "The gun spooked it."
The deputy held up the knife and looked at Chip. "How'd he get a hold of your knife, son?" he asked him.
Dartmouth grinned. "Just luck… just dumb luck," he said as he turned and stumbled-walked into the jailhouse.
Wolfwood could only stare at the dirt. The person he always thought had killed his son was innocent – the last man he would have believed responsible had done it… by accident. Dartmouth had taken the fall to cover his sin.
"Damn… damn it to hell…"
He was awakened from his pondering by the gasping air of his wife as she started to weep loudly. He rushed up to her and held her tight.
"Mike," she whispered through her tears. "Oh god, it was Mike… How? How? Oh how could it be?"
"Shhh… shhhh… it was an accident honey," Nicholas told her as she poured herself over his shoulder and he stroked her head. "He didn't do it on purpose… he didn't really… please honey… please…"
"This… explains a lot," Kinza grumbled to himself. He looked at the splattered ground and the trail of crimson that was heading out of town. "How the hell did he manage to make it all the way back to the homestead?"
"Alert all stations," Burnside's patch squawked. He started to slap it to shut it down as it continued to bark "Code Omega is in effect – Code Omega is in effect!"
Kinza sighed. "Well… the system knows that it's happened… That would mean we've done what we needed to do… let's get the scragg out of here…"
"No!" Millie exclaimed over her husband's shoulder. "Xuru… please… take us to the homestead."
The Junior-Demon looked at her then at her partner. "Are you sure?" she asked.
Puruu stepped up to Millie and rubbed her shoulder. "Truly… do you really wish to go there right now?"
Millie nodded as she bit her lip. "Yes… I must know… I must know…"
Xuru held her breath and began adjusting their location.
Digger stood at his door at the depot waiting for the Saverem kid to arrive and take his wagon out of loading dock. When he heard hoof-beats, he stepped out onto the platform and readied to kid the boy about his girlfriend dictating his life. But when he saw the slumped form on the back of the chestnut filly charge up the road and continue on, his heart leapt for his throat. He quickly closed up the shop and jumped into his small Model T truck and followed behind as fast as he could.
The group found themselves back in the barn. Xuru gave the controls a slight time adjustment so that they would only have a few minutes to wait. They found David and his father tossing bails of hay out of the loft.
"God, there I am," Wolfwood said as he remembered where he had been when he saw Daisy and his son. The horse's brown side had been stained dark red as Jerry's life ebbed over her hide. She had distinctively delivered him back to the homestead. He shook as the memory was about to play out again before him. Why did Millie want to see this?
"Hey dad… isn't that Daisy?" he heard David say. He looked back to see the two men looking over his head from the ladder leading to the loft.
"Yea," he heard himself say. "Who's that on her back?"
Wolfwood looked back at the sight they were viewing. Daisy had just crested the hill. She then turned and showed her gruesome right side to them.
"OH GOD! JERRY!" David shouted. He was quickly off the ladder and running for the limp form of his brother followed by his father. The group slowly gathered behind them.
David and Nicholas gently removed Jerry from the back of Daisy and laid him to the ground next to the old Blackjack Oak. The reverend examined the wound and saw the bubbles coming from it and nearly gagged. He had been shot in his lung and was drowning in his own blood. He checked for a pulse and found a very shallow one.
"Get your mother!" he told David. "QUICKLY!"
David scrambled for the house. As he did, the reverend reached into his pocket and pulled out his emergency com unit – the sole device that he knew could help his son now.
"Rob! ROB!" he began to cry. "Rob, oh dear god Rob… where are you?"
The unit chirped. "Here Nick," it quietly replied. "We're ten minutes away… but…"
"Just get here! PLEASE!" he said as he held his son to his chest.
Wolfwood stood and watched his younger/older self as he caressed the bloodied face of his dying son. He heard the pierce yelp from the kitchen of the home as his wife was told by David of Jerry's condition. "Why did she want to relive this?
The sound of a motor caught Nicholas' attention. Digger was coming up the hill in his truck – it was not the help the reverend had been wanting… where was North? Where was Tolefson? Kinza? Doc McManus? Anyone?
Wolfwood remembered their reasons for not being there – they had said that there had been no ships in orbit to transmat them any closer. But now he knew that North had actually been only down the street a bit and that the Observer's order had been the reason why they had not come in time… and he himself had been the one who had been responsible for that.
He turned away and leaned against Jeb Murrah's headstone in the nearby graveyard. He glanced back and saw Millie and David rushing from the house. David was streaming a roll of cotton as he was going to put some of his army training to use. He skidded up against his brother and started ripping section of fluffy white material and started to stuff the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding and to seal the leaking air.
"Dave…"
He stopped for a moment and stared. Jerry was awake – barely. He shook his head and gave him a weak smile.
"Accident… it… it was an accident…" he whispered.
"Shhh… shhh," he said as he returned to packing the wound. He stopped when his brother's hand landed on his.
"Too late…" he said. "You know… as well as… I do… Too much blood… too much…"
"Bullshit, Jerry," his brother spat as he worked harder. "You're not dying on me… you're not dying on her!"
David found his brother's other hand in his - a small paper wrapped box pressed into his fingers.
"It's up to you now," Jerry said. "I'm… depending on you… take care of her… please?"
"That's where I've seen it before!" Millie exclaimed. "The ring David gave to Gretchen… it was the ring Jerry bought!"
Dave wavered on his hunched feet and finally fell to his knees as the realization struck him. There was nothing he could do for this type of wound, and he knew it. His brother lay before him with a pale smile on his face as he labored to breathe.
Gretchen looked out her door. She had heard a loud grinding sound down the drive as she was preparing for that evening. As she did, the steamer fire engine ground by heading up the ways towards the Saverems. A hard shallow feeling swept through her as she saw the red machine drive away with its bell ringing. She bolted out the door for the path that would take her to her second family quickest.
"Are we finished?" Wolfwood asked his wife as he watched from the headstone. She shook her head as she watched herself and her husband huddle down over their sons.
"Just one more thing," she said as she began to walk down the drive. "Wait here for me, please?"
Burnside watched her as she stepped down towards the road and gestured Puruu to follow her.
Millie stood in front of the Steakhouse. Some of the work-hands were murmuring out front about the commotion going on up at the house. It became a yell when the fire engine turned up the drive, and the scream of a young girl was heard. Many of the men started running for the home.
"He's here," she heard. She looked beside her and saw Puruu as she took the loose bridle reins of Mike's horse and tossed them over a hitching post.
Millie nodded and stepped into the building. It had emptied out quickly. The small commissary had cups and food strewn all over from where the men had been moments before. She went upstairs to the dorm rooms and listened. She heard the muffled sounds of someone weeping and entered the bedroom it was coming from.
He looked back and saw the door opening but no one there. He was holding a knife in his trembling hands. He felt shock and surprise when he saw it lift away from him and lay down on a table nearby. Then he felt a presence – someone had just surrounded him – a woman he thought – he could feel her arms and her long hair caress against his cheek. And he could almost hear her speaking to him…
"Mike Timmons, I forgive you," Millie told him as she rocked him back and forth. "It was an accident… you never meant to do it…"
"M-mom mom?" he asked, making Millie clutch him tighter as that was the name he would call her.
She embraced him and rubbed his back as she whispered "It's not your fault," over and over to him as they both cried. Puruu watched over them and prayed.
It was only an hour later, but to those who had witnessed this history, it felt like an eternity. Xuru hit the stop button, and all held their breaths to see where they'd wind up.
"Well, it's about time you all showed up!" N'ya harped as the Forgiveness Chapel and the Oklahoma homestead in The Source once again came into view.
"The children?" Millie asked as she held her husband's hands.
"They are all in the schoolhouse," the Kuroneko said as he washed his hind quarters. "You also have a visitor in the chapel."
He sat on the third pew, his head bowed to the altar. He looked back at those entering the church and waved a notepad at them.
"Hey, Tolefson!" Kinza said with a smirk to the older and slightly scruffy man. "What are you doing up on this level son? The wife let you out for a visit?"
Tolly smiled a bit as he flopped the pad down and leaned back on the pew. "Assie says hi, fuzzball," he cracked. "I'm here to finally release myself from that stupid Omega order I made."
Kinza slapped his forehead. "Scragg, that's right…" he grumbled.
Wolfwood looked questioningly at them. "What? You kept that order going all this time?"
"That's the conditions of the Omega order with the Observers," North said as he entered the side door behind the altar. Tolefson saluted and handed over the notepad to his superior. North leafed through the worn and tattered sheets.
"Did you pay for this?" he asked Wolfwood. The preacher just stood and glared at him. "Ah, I guess not…" He looked back to Tolefson. "So, how are things on Level 267?"
"Fine," he said with a sigh. "The pirates are quiet, the ship is in one piece, though I'm about to kill the computer… And the captain is still going to kill us all one of these days… but otherwise, normal… nothing to report."
"You're still with the Observers?" Wolfwood asked him as he leaned against the back of the pew in front of Tolly.
The older man that he knew shook his head. "Oh, I am, but I've become a field agent down on 267," he said with a smile. "I'm married and live and work with my contact down there, a certain ship captain that history scans says will become more famous than he already thinks he is… We've known a few of those, ea Kinza?"
The Tomassamassa cleared his throat. "I wouldn't know what you're talking about!" he sarcastically said as he jabbed Tolly in the shoulder.
North shut the pad and nodded his head. "Well, with this cleared up, you could retire if you wished now," he told Tolly. "This will release the hold on your ranking scores and credits… Let's see… you're now a Captain in rank, and the accrued credit interest is…" He whistled as he brought out a calculator to figure that out. He leaned over and showed it to him. "Buy a ship and retire, okay?"
"You mean to tell me that because I gave him that pad, that I held his military career back?" Wolfwood yelped.
Tolefson whapped him on the knee. "Yes! You mean man! You held me back!" He then grinned. "Thanks!"
Wolfwood looked at North then back at Tolly. "Huh?" he said completely confused.
North held up the calculator. "You just made him a billionaire," the scientist said. "Interest on a held career, when cleared of the Omega hold, can sometimes be quite staggering. In this case, since it happened in 1916, his payment credits for any advancements in rank were held ever since then… with interest of course!"
"Look at all those zeros!" Vash said. "It looks like my old bounty!"
As the old friends chatted below, Puruu found Xuru seated up in the balcony seats. She was rocking back and forth with the remote in her hands which were between her knees. She saw her partner materialize beside her and shook her head.
"What did we learn here?" she asked her. "What was the purpose of all that?"
Puruu sighed and looked at the stained glass windows. "We learned about how dominating the human spirit is. Even when broken, the parts still are able to function as a whole… We learned that a man will do almost anything for what he wants, even chance death…"
"He didn't chance it," Xuru mumbled. "He GOT it! What for?"
Puruu placed her hand on her shoulder. "He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. Even his brother knew that, since he did marry Gretchen using the same ring his younger brother had purchased."
Xuru grunted. "This is a damn weird family."
Millie sat down at the organ. She slid back along the bench seat to rest her back against the pillar it sat next to. N'ya jumped up onto the piano behind her and cleaned himself.
"I'd say a penny for your thoughts, but truth be told, I think I would rather keep my change," the Kuroneko said as he grabbed his tail. "Rough was it?"
Millie nodded. "Beyond rough," she said. "Is everything back to the way it was?"
The cat looked about. "As far as I can see, it is… Meryl is waiting for Vash to return, Forrestal is lifting off Deneb One as we speak, and the kids have been chasing me around like there's no tomorrow. Sounds like things are back in place alright!" He walked over to her and rubbed his head against hers.
"He thanks you, you know."
Millie looked up at the simple look on the cat's face as he pressed it against her forehead. "Thanks me?" she asked. "Who thanks me?"
He tickled her nose with his whiskers. "A young lad of the name of Mike. He was allowed to stop by a little earlier."
"Allowed?" Puruu asked from above.
"Aye," said the cat. "He was being escorted upstairs. Seems he had been in the holding pattern called limbo for these many years. But it also seems you forgave him, which released his stay there. He had wanted to thank you in person, but his guardians were in a hurry, so…"
She smiled and nodded. "I understand," she said. "I'm happy he finally made it. It really was an accident. If we all were held back for accidents, no one would ever make it to heaven."
Xuru grumbled. "Heaven huh? Been there, done that… it ain't that special…"
She sighed and looked down at the reverend. She had not meant to put him through what they had just gone through. She felt badly for that.
Why?
"Damn it… I'm a demon…" she groused to herself. "Why should I feel bad for what I did? My mother would have danced on his grave… I feel like crawling into it! I'm getting too soft…"
She looked at Millie and then back to Nicholas and sighed.
"A demon with a conscious… dangerous… very dangerous…"
oOo
NEXT EPISODE
NICHOLAS: Okay – no more interactive time viewing, right?
XURU: Yes sir! I've lost the remote!
NICHOLAS: Very good! Now, for a little fun!
PURUU: Fun?
MILLIE: Oh, are you going to tell the story about when you set your underwear on fire?
NICHOLAS: Chickie! No!
N'YA: How about when the pitchfork nearly gave you a new nose and ear?
NICHOLAS: Beat it fuzzball!
SPIKE SPIEGAL: Could it be when I crash-landed the Swordfish and you and I had to deal with an unruly bounty hopper?
NICHOLAS: We never did that…
EIN: Woof!
NICHOLAS: I couldn't agree with you more…
XURU: So what story will you tell us, Reverend Saverem?
Next Episode of T:MC – The Oklahoma Years – Chapter Seven – Interview with Wolfwood – Part Three – Wolfwood goes to England
VASH: What ho! What's that blighter doing in these stories again mate?
NICHOLAS & SPIKE: Are you feeling alright?
EIN: Woof woof! Grrr!
Kinza, North, Tolefson, McManus, Puruu, Xuru, The Observers, UNS Forrestal, UNS Exeter ©2005, 18 DMS – Used with Permission
Sabrina Natsumi, Jesse, James ©1998, 2005, 18 The Pokémon Company/Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak
History's Daggers, The Lugia Chronicles ©2005, 18 The Lugia Project/DMS – Used with Permission
Reference to Ah! My Goddess ©1988, 2005, 18 Kosuke Fujishima
Characters from the Anime/Manga COWBOY BEBOP ©1998, 2005, 18 Sunrise/BanDai Visual
N'ya, Burnside ©2005, 18 S. E. Nordwall – Used with Permission
All characters from the Anime/Manga TRIGUN ©1995, 2005, 18 Yasuhiro Nightow
All characters from TRIGUN: MOON CHILD ©2005, 18 The MOON CHILD Project/DMS – Used with Permission
©2005, 18 The MOON CHILD Project II/Denivan Media Services
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