Emmetsburg: Seventy-three

John wheeled suddenly and brought the pistol up to the Deputy’s nose. The blood drained quickly from the kid’s face. It was then John found his conscience again. But he had come too far to turn back now.

“Need you inside,” he said quietly.

“Jesus H., Mister Dugan.”

“Have to do this, son. I’m sorry”

“Please don’t pull that trigger, okay?”

“Won’t if I don’t have to,” John replied.

John motioned with the pistol and glanced back along the mostly deserted street. There were a couple of soldiers at the corner, but they were too far away to notice what was happening. The boy slid past John into the cool and quiet of the courthouse.

“Lock the door,” John said coolly.

The boy complied, fumbling nervously to wrestle a string of keys from his belt. They rattled loudly in the emptiness. He glanced back at John, feeling for the right key among the others. He pushed it into the lock and turned the key until the bolt slid into place with a resounding clunk.

Emmetsburg:Sixty

Emily drew the waist of the dress into her hands and hesitated a moment. She lifted away the dress and let it fall to a small bush behind her. John looked at her. Not with lust, but with admiration. Starlight fell across her breasts, shone upon the smooth slope of her belly to where it lost in the tangled triangle of dark pubic hair. She swam nd luxuriated in his gaze.
“Married.” she said, almost as a disappointed sigh.

“Matter?”

“Just if you’re running from…”

“Just as soon leave it be,” he said, then tempered the words. “If that’s all right.”

“Don’t mean to pry.”

“Just wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Fair enough.”

“And you?”

Emily sort of laughed darkly to herself. She played with her hair a moment before tying it back. “Wouldn’t have called it a marriage. At least not in the biblical sense.”

“Where is he now?”

In hell, if there is any justice in the world, she thought to say. Instead she shrugged and sat and leaned back on her elbows, as if she and John had been lovers forever. The conversation stirred memories Emily would just as soon have buried for good.

Was there any real justice in the world, she wondered, or were such things illusions for gullible hearts that still clung to ideas like god and fate and love? She wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to abandon such things. No still beating heart rightly could. But she didn’t entertain those thoughts either.

As for love, she saw it not as a goal or a treasure to be cherished. Rather it was more a weakness, a flaw of the heart that allowed the unscrupulous to delude the needing heart against the stubborn human mind that it was capable of anything purer. Still, in quieter moments Emily understood that her hypocrisy was complete. The conflicting thoughts brought a sudden wave of emotion. Tears threatened her eyes.

“I love looking at the stars,” she said, hoping to divert her thoughts. Something in their eternity settled her a bit.

“That so?” he replied. He was thinking of Anna. It tore at his heart what she must be thinking at this moment, wondering where he had gone off to

“Makes the problems in the world seem so small.”

“I reckon.”

“Ask you a question?”

“Might cost you,” John smiled.

“Take wooden nickels?” she teased.

The rising moon scattered across the flowing waters. Her gaze fixed upon that scattered light, as if some wisdom could be gleaned from its study, or that it might wrestle free deeper thoughts she was incapable of reaching on her own. John was thinking the same thing.


“What do you figure this is all about?” he asked.

“Ain’t a proper question,” she answered.

“Don’t follow.”

“I ain’t seeing the world through your eyes, and you can’t see through mine.”

He nodded at her reply, a bit disappointed he couldn’t come to it himself. It only seemed to confirm the words.

“That’s a curse, I suppose.”

“Don’t know,” she said. Her voice was almost lost to the crickets and the river. She looked away. There were campfires among a bank of trees a ways off. “Works out about the same either way.”

“Think?”

“Maybe. Who knows?”

“Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. She didn't hear. Didn't seem like there was much else to say. The moment fell away from them to hang heavy in the growing humidity. There were bigger thoughts here that neither was in the mood to pursue much, at least not with someone else. Emily chuckled, breaking the moment.

“Didn't figure on pondering the heavens when I came down here with you, John.”

John smiled a little sadly. Not quite meeting her eyes, but more looking past her. “Hot night.”

Emily stood without replying and pondered the river. She went to the edge. Her toes sank in the cool silky mud. The water rushed in around her feet chasing the heat of the night from her body. John closed his eyes.

“You asked what this all means,” Emily swept a foot through the water before her.

“Uh huh.”

“I'm looking at this here river,” she said. Her voice felt distant, even to her. “Been running forever. Be running after I'm dead and gone.”

Doesn't frighten you?”

“The word or forever?”

“Take your pick.”

The answer was simple. It was perfect. Emily swept a foot back and forth in the water.

“Think I'll go for that swim,” she said.

John nodded in a nondescript manner. Emily took a long cleansing breath and released it. She waded into the river waist deep. John watched as she slid forward and pushed gently into the dark river. Caught by the current she slipped from view and was gone.

John stood and walked slowly up to the truck, pausing to study the contours of a leaf for a moment. Emily's mom and pop were seated precisely where he had found them earlier. John gave a polite nod. The old man looked away and spat into the dust. His wife remained a statue to the injustices of her life. She was a lifetime away, playing at the world the little girl in her dreamed once.

Emmetsburg: Fifty-three

John sat on a stool beside the cellar door, wondering if he ought to be saying goodbye to the world. A storm was moving in, though the stars were bright and bold. The wind had picked up, carrying the mineral scent of approaching rain. The wind washed through the willow behind the house, tugging at its long flowing branches. There were flashes of lightening, reflected in houses and trees, but it was accompanied by a silence that told John the storm was the better part of an hour away.

The wind chased the off the heat of the day and kept the fire flies to the low branches of trees or among the tall grass at the back of the yard. More than that, the wind settled the storms in his heart that had tossed him madly the last few days. It didn’t resolve anything, and certainly gave him no peace of mind, but it offered a moment’s reprise from which he could collect the shattered pieces of his thoughts a bit.

Anna was already in bed, waiting for him. John felt that tug, the pattern and familiarity of being beside her the better part of his life, it was just that he couldn’t be near her right now. Too many thoughts and feelings besieged him, and too many doubts assailed him. It weakened him. It weakened his tongue and allowed those un-tempered misgivings free reign to charge Anna with things she might well be innocent of, at least as much as John’s heart was concerned. It was better he remain there in the yard where the solitude and quiet asserted themselves as the proper prescriptions for his tormented heart.

John pulled at the bandage. The act drew his mind from the sudden appearance of darker thoughts about Anna, their love and eternity, as if those thoughts had collected themselves from the broken pieces of his thoughts. The end of the bandage came loose, and if it was some sort of puzzle, something hiding a mystery, he began to unwrap it from his hand. He focused on it, forcing away though thoughts, wrestling them to the ground. The effort was fully respected in his face. John’s lips tightened, eyes narrowing and his brow sinking deeply. He pulled the wrappings away more quickly, more forcefully as the task to stop those thoughts became herculean. They fought back, allied with his selfish heart until he was helpless to hold them back any longer. They overran him, turning him from Anna, indicting and vilifying her for manufactured crimes and the hearsay foolishness of a madman.

The bandages lay in a pile at his feet. John held out the hand before him and studied the jagged scar, running from his index finger, through the center at his wrist where it almost reached his wrist. It was dark against the flesh of his palm, reminding him of trenches scarring the rolling farmland of France. He opened his hand, stretching his fingers as much as the pain and sutures would allow. He could feel the pull of the flesh, a tension that threatened to burst and gush warm dark blood.

“John?” Anna appeared at the back door. Her voice was sleepy and concerned. She noticed the bandages at his feet and came down the back step, the wind tugging at her thin white gown. “What have you done?”

“Cutting off the circulation,” he said, his voice held a sulking quality. She knelt before him, resting a hand on his knee. The other gently cradled the underside of his injured hand.

“Are you all right?” she tried in vain to find his eyes. “You’re just not yourself.”

“Fine,” he replied. “Just need to sort out a few things.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

It was as if these thoughts were a sin, a crime that he wished to hide. It was easier to be cruel to Anna than unburden himself. The words came out colder than he could ever recall speaking to her. It was as though someone else was speaking them.

“Can I keep a single thought to myself?” he told her. “Sometimes a man has to sort things out for himself. Now go on to bed.”

Anna stood and backed away, as if she no longer understood the man sitting on that stump. The words stabbed at her, and caused a cascade of reasons for his cruelty. Clearly it wasn’t John. She thought better of a response. She breathed heavily and shook her head.

“When you get things good and sorted out, John Perkins, come to bed.” She pulled open the screen and looked back at him once more. John was looking into the palm of his hand, picking at the stitches and dried blood. She let the door bang closed and went back to bed leaving him be.

Emmetsburg: Forty-six

“George,” John nodded.

The deputies stopped behind, and just to either side of Bremer, like over-protective sons than public employees.Both of them were young and baby-faced.. At least that's how they appeared to John, serving only to make him feel a bit ancient. One of them was tall and well built, the other short and a little on the doughy side.His name was Ray. His parents ran a tailor shop downtown. None of the men were armed. Ray held a set of wrist irons. He nervously shifted them from hand to hand. George nodded respectfully and motioned to John's wound.

“John. How's that hand?”

“Help you fellas?”

“Hope you'll forgive the intrusion, but we've come for him.”

John scrtached the back of his head trying to figure why Louis didn't seem immediately surprised. Then all at once his expression changed, as if it was manufactured or contrived.

“John, I swear I don't...” Louis began before Bremer cut him off.

“Best you not say another word,son.”

“What's this all about, George?” asked John.

Bremer went over and laid a hand gently upon Louis' shoulder.. “I think your guest knows.” His eyes met Louis with a judicious quality. He patted the man's shoulder almost sympatheically. “My deputies here trust you won't be any trouble.”

The deputies were patient as John pulled Bremer aside. They had known each other for almost their whole lives. George Bremer was the first person John had seen the day he stepped off the Milwaukee line from the war. John led him over to the cellar door.

“What's this all about, George?'

Bremer kept his voice low. His brow was tortured. The words fell heavily. “A wrecker pulled his car out of the creek. John, there was a body inside, a white woman.”

“George, I was all over that car, if there'd been...”

“She was in the rear compartment. Her hands and feet were bound. There was a rope around her neck.”

Both men looked over at Louis. John felt a shiver of dread that he had left Louis alone with Anna. He felt betrayed by Louis. It raged red hot in his veins.

“You're sure?”

“Afraid so.”

“Who was she?”

“Don't know.”

“He says his name is Louis, Louis Stanton.” John hesitated. “About all I've been able to get out of him.Like they both fell out of the sky.”

“Folks just don't fall out of the sky.”

.

THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-two

There is an odd hue to the light in the atrium. Dull orange sunlight tinges the artificial white lights suspended above the lush rooftop garden. That orange light throws intersecting shadows among the lattice. The air is heavy and humid, and smelled of moss, wet earth and the musk of rotting vegetation. It is much different from the smell of the Low City. There is a harmony and peacefulness to the scents here, and they settle me. I am told, by the Man from the Corporation, that the garden is one place Sentinel has little interest in.

The garden is hopelessly overgrown and neglected. It grows wild, encroaching upon meandering pathways of crushed white stone. Trees crush to the ceiling, bending and spreading outwards to combine with the others in a thick green canopy. Some grow burdened with tangled vines that hang in tattered sheets of broad green leaves.

I find the garden well beyond my meager capacity for description. I have never known such things as trees, or flowers or grass. Certainly nothing more than moss or the occasional vine shrouding city walls. I am stunned by the variety, by virile colors and leaves of all manner of shape and texture. They are all so different, and yet there is a harmony and purpose to each. Vines embrace rather than strangle. There is competition, but no antagonism, despite that they are considered lowly forms of life.

I walk casually along the path with the Man from the Corporation. He takes my arm, as if we have been dear friends forever. There is a peaceful, almost contrite expression on his face. It is the first chance I have had to truly study him. He is old and frail. Much older than anyone I have ever seen, older even than the judges. It seems he should have gone to Reclamation long ago. His jaw is sharp and angular, culminating in small whimsical lips. His hair is bone-white, making his pristine blue eyes all the more stunning. There is a hesitation to his smile, as though he is about to say something wise, or is just as surprised by the thought as anyone. He smiles broadly as I pause to breath in the scent of the garden.

“You’re not like the others; Associates or the judges.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, with a note of condescension. I’m struggling to put my finger on it exactly.

“I don’t know. Almost like a separate breed.”

He smiles and looks around at the garden. Lovely, colorful little birds dart overhead.

“A separate breed, eh?”

“You’re much older, for one.”

He is a quiet a moment, his eyes searching mine for some indication that what he is about to reveal will not betray everything. I can see that the question weighs as heavily as the answer.
“Do you have any idea why the Corporation exists at all? No, of course you don’t. This planet is used up; finished. All that is left is to leave this place and discover our fate among the Universe. It’s not reasonable to assume all mankind will be spared. So it was decided to search for the strongest genetic lines, a hand full that would perpetuate the species for eternity. All these people, the Associates, judges, Section Twenty-one, all of them are amalgamations of those strongest lines.”

“But those lines also produced me, and Desiree, and all those in the Low City.”

“Of course,” he concedes.

“I might guess that it was less of a search than an assumption that a powerful few would continue?” My accusation is softened by a smile. He does not answer right off. He must know that I already know the answer.

“You might.”

At a tree I pause to touch the course bark. “All this diversity, and I am such a threat to you.”
He doesn’t reply. Instead the Man from the Corporation touches the tree as well.

“Very different from the pictures, eh?”

“The smell,” I remark. “It fills me.”

“You are one of the last to see this place.”

“I don’t understand?” I say, perplexed.

“Did you believe that this, that any of this could last forever?”

“But this.” I brush my fingers through the long prickly needles of a small fir, awakening its peppery perfume.

“There were others who cared, but I am all that is left. When I am gone… You must realize that this is superfluous, a guilty pleasure without purpose, the archaeology of hope. Much as yourself.”

“Pardon?” I ask. There is something in his voice that is dark and funeral. He kneels beside me and runs his fingers through the gently white halos of dandelions that have gone to seed. They tumble away in the wake of his hand. He touches leaves and stems and soil as though memorizing them, and breathes their scent from his fingertips. He looks at me.

“Hope is a stained sheet. It’s an irrational relic, like melancholy or remorse, or longing over a dead history. There is no purpose to hope, but the delusion from reality.” He stands and faces me directly. “You are a stain on this society, and when your trial is over you will be discarded just as surely.”

I hear the words of old John Brown, spoken from his deathbed. You may dispose of me easily-I am nearly disposed of now, but this question is yet to be settled. I would scream those words at him and kill him with them. His words suck the air from my lungs. Blood rushes like a fever in my face.

“This was all concocted for your entertainment?”

“You received no pleasure from it?” he smiles with sincerity. “Perhaps a triumphal glow now and then? Indeed, man, there were moments of absolute brilliance! ‘Men must tolerate men by right of agreement!’ It was all I could do to keep from shouting with joy.”

“Wasted effort?”

“You had a voice, if only fleeting. That’s much more than the vast majority will ever enjoy. You have that. What more do you want?”

“I want life,” I say, sweating bullets, as though I’ve made some irrational request. He breathes deeply and sits on a small bench, sweeping away the small dead leaves so I may sit. Vines cover the rusting iron legs. A cottony white spider’s wed fills the space between the legs. I hesitate to join him. It feels like a concession to the Corporation when I final sit. I don’t look at him.

“Have you ever really tried to comprehend forever?” he says.
I don't answer right off. ‘We are caught in an extraordinary paradox,’ Mandela said once, ‘finite creatures made from the infinite.’ I only smile.

The man from the Corporation frowns. “Of course you haven’t. They don’t teach common Associates such abstract things. It is only necessary that you work, reproduce and care reasonably for yourself.”

“Forever,” I repeat to myself. He takes no notice.

“You and I will never know eternity. We’ll never know a measurable fraction of it. My life is nearly past, and yours…the Corporation will not allow you to exist. We have this moment, my friend, and all that we can make of it.”