Agent out of Time (The Agents for Good) (3 page)

“But he’s white! I thought you would want me to be with someone of our own blood?”

I snorted out loud. She knew me better than that surely?

“A long time ago Deshavi I found out that regardless of skin color or heritage that there’s an essential fact about mankind, we all bleed red. We’re all capable of doing the absolute worst with the time we have or the best. I wouldn’t care if the human species interbred so much that there was a different colored child in every family, what matters is in the heart of the person, not what’s on the outside.”

A moment passed and I glanced over at her pensively expressioned face. Was the little girl that had tried so earnestly to please me and do everything I had asked of her still in there somewhere?

Maybe. Would this work?

When dealing with a wild and unruly stallion it often helped to bridal him together with a steady mare, which had the effect of calming him down and taking some of the baulk out of his actions. Would it work the other way around?

Would hooking a filly with the bit in her teeth up with a steady stallion have the same result?

I smiled ruefully to myself; I should know the answer to that one. A wise father had once pawned an equally wild daughter as Deshavi on me once. That had worked out rather well. Oh to God that it still was!

I missed her so much! It didn’t seem to matter how much time passed by, the ache in my heart never left me. I pulled myself valiantly, out of the depressive influence of my lost past, as we neared the café. I had to admit I was rather sort of beginning to enjoy myself. Lunch should be interesting.

“Deshavi could you please do me a favor?”

“What?” Came her soft reply.

“Please act like a lady.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her hand reach up and button the top several buttons of her shirt up. Things hadn’t looked this good in years, in fact not since the whole rebellion thing had gotten started. I held the door open for her and she passed by me into the café. Instantly the two of them were locked on each other like a missile and its target, only which one in this pairing was the missile and which was the target?

I hoped I hadn’t just blown up a good man. Deshavi sat across from Trent. Their eyes never wavered from each other. I sat down between them, as Patty with a notepad and raised eyebrows approached. I gave her a big wink unable to contain myself. When had the boring old today exploded into this fireworks extravaganza?

Eye contact was briefly broken in order to order food, but it was back with renewed intensity. There was no conversation as we ate. I glanced up to see Patty give me a meaningful thumbs up, from her side of the café counter. I wasn’t ready to call it a victory yet, but prospects were definitely looking up.

The truck ride to Ted’s place was also rather silent. Trent just gazed out the open window at the passing scenery. I sensed that he was almost angry about something. I thought back to when I had been a young man. I think I knew what the source of his frustration was. He’d had his future all planned out, but now things were changing on him. He glanced at me and then away and I sensed and unasked question.

“Go ahead and ask it.” I said.

He glanced back at me, “Are you trying to set me up with your granddaughter?”

Now there was a question. How to best answer it and remain truthful?

“Do you like her?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well then you have my permission to find out.”

His frustration seemed to only go up a notch, with that cryptic answer. He didn’t know it yet, but he was already committed to seeing where the road he was embarked on would lead.

“Can I give you some advice that was given to me once?”

He was silent for a while.

“Okay what is it?” He asked his tone reluctantly curious to hear what I had to say.

“Whatever you do don’t have sex with her.”

“What?” He exploded with in shocked surprise.

So I started to repeat myself, but he waived me to silence.

“I heard what you said!”

More silence followed.

“Why?”

I gave him a reproving look, “Well for two reasons. The first and primary reason being that you shouldn’t be doing anything that requires two rings before you have two rings.”

He flushed a little and I let that sink in for a while.

“That aside why not?” He asked.

Now that was a sad statement of intent. What a fallen world we lived in.

“The second reason being, that if you give into her, you’ll be little better in her eyes than all her other conquests have been. Be the man, stay in control and make her come to you or else she’ll come to dominate you and you’ll lose whatever self respect you have for yourself.”

Trent was shaking his head, “But I don’t want to get married yet!”

I nodded, “I know the place you’re in right now. You just got out of a very structured environment, where all your decisions were made for you. Now you’re out on your own and it’s as if you landed down stranded on an alien planet. Somehow you have to go from living dangerously and killing people to taking out the trash and peaceful nature walks in the park. It’s not easy.”

“It sounds like you’re talking from experience.”

I glanced over at him, “You could say that.”

I waited a little while before I drove the point home, “Believe it or not the best and most useful tool to help you both fit in and better yet enjoy your life is a wife. A good wife is much more than just a good lay when you want it. She’ll be there to comfort you, when you wake up drenched in sweat in the middle the night. She’ll be reason enough to hold a boring job down, in order to provide her with the things she needs and thus giving you a routine to fall into that you’ll receive respect from eventually. She’ll be there for you to tell your worst fears to and if she’s good she’ll never laugh at you for doing so. She’ll be someone you can trust, as much as, you did your best buddy, who always had your back. She’ll help you make a life together that you’ll be able to become so busy in that there won’t be any time for troubling thoughts. She’ll be, along with your children, the force that gets you up every morning. In short a good wife is one of the most precious things a man can ever receive in life.”

I grew silent remembering my own history.

“She’s gone?”

I glanced over at him, “Yes, for a long time now. I’d do almost anything to have one more moment with her, but some things are truly gone forever when they’re gone.”

The mood inside the truck had gotten too serious.

“Another thing about a great wife is you can’t beat the unlimited sex, when it comes to getting rid of tension.”

I caught a glimpse of a smile as he quickly glanced back out his window.

“I’m serious! It’s the best cure for tension that’s still legal in all fifty states and it doesn’t even kill brain cells!”

We are almost to Ted’s place.

“Deshavi isn’t good wife material, at the moment, but if you’re interested and you wait, as the good book says ‘all good things come to those who wait upon the Lord and put their trust in Him’. Without faith Trent, you truly are alone. You need to get that firmly in place before anything else in your life.”

I heard Trent softly mutter out the window, “I’m just here to visit my grandfather.”

I smiled and just shook my head. It was never that simple, when a woman like Deshavi was involved. He may be here to just visit his grandfather, but all that was filling his mind right now was the image of my granddaughter and her skintight jeans and open looks of invitation.

We pulled up at the dig, such as it was. For all intensive purposes Ted was retired from archaeological practices, other than idle tinkering. He hid out here in the wilderness to escape from being thrown into an old folks home. I couldn’t say that I blamed him much. When my time came I’d walk out into the snow, crawl if I had to and just be done with it.

Ted wasn’t in his cabin so I beckoned Trent to follow me. We made our way past old spoil piles into the forest. I slipped through the forest easily already sure of where I would find Ted.

“Special forces?”

I looked back at Trent, “Something like that.”

“Does Deshavi have anybody else other than you?”

I smiled to myself; he was hooked line and sinker he was.

“She has a mother that’s no good. My son died in battle when she was three. I cared for them both after that. I’m not sure where I went wrong, but Deshavi is very much a rebel child. She’s gotten herself mixed up into some bad habits.”

“Drugs?” He asked, but I shook my head no.

“I don’t think so. She steals stuff and you saw how free she is with herself.”

“And this is the girl you want me to hook up with?” He asked sarcastically.

“Hey!” I said good-naturedly, “You’re the one that seems interested. I’m just giving you some friendly advice.”

I saw Ted, the archaeologist hard at work, fishing up ahead.

Trent called out to his grandfather and Ted dropped his pole into the water, as he turned toward the voice he recognized. I stood on the periphery as the two men greeted each other warmly with a hug. I sensed a story somewhere here. Ted was Trent’s maternal grandfather and yet both men shared the same last name, which meant one of three things. Trent’s mother had him out of wedlock. She was a widow and had changed her name back, but it was rare to change the name of the son, in such a case. Or lastly she was divorced and Trent had decided to keep his mother’s maiden name instead of his father’s.

In any case it couldn’t have been a very secure childhood, but he seemed to have turned out fine despite it. I let myself be drawn into the activity of catching up and the hours went by swiftly.

Trent, lured away by the huge fish jumping in plentiful supply in the stream had moved downriver to fish us dinner, while I and Ted sat and watched. Under pressure by Ted’s relentless pestering I’d divulged what had happened in town.

It was easy to see how a grandparent could be proud of Trent, but I couldn’t say the same of Deshavi. If our two houses were joined by these two, I couldn’t help but think I was supplying the lesser half of the union. I said as much to Ted.

“Oh you’re too hard on the girl Caleb!”

“Am I?” I asked, because I had often wondered if it wasn’t all my fault for the way Deshavi had turned out.

Ted chuckled, “Probably not, but it sounded good. That is until I saw you start blaming yourself. You were as involved in rearing that girl up right, as any parent could ever be Caleb. Kids make their own choices in life. We all do at some point, sometimes they aren’t good ones, but while breadth remains there is hope though. Perhaps this is the chance Deshavi needs in order to see the light and stop hurting herself.”

“Or the chance of seeing another soul corrupted.” I added, darkly beginning to regret my matchmaking efforts.

“I’ll have you know Caleb that we Rogersons are made of sterner stuff than most!”

“I hope so.”

Trent came back with several fish and dinner preparations were underway.

Shadows were beginning to form when I brought a small hand carved whistle out from a pocket and gave a series of calls that were too high pitched in frequency to be audibly heard. Trent watched on curiously as I waited. Several minutes went by and then in the distance I saw Windstalker coming at a full gallop. As he drew near it looked like he wouldn’t stop, but he did at the last moment.

He reared up on his hind legs and pawed at the air, as only a stallion would. He came back down with a crash and then was upon me in search of a sugar cube or carrot. I chuckled and rewarded him with a sugar cube. Windstalker was a full blood Appaloosa stallion. He was a whitish gray with the telltale black spots on the rump. He had the characteristic large size of the breed as well. My father’s before me had created this breed of horse and had handed it down generation after generation and it was with pride that I carried it on.

I turned to Trent, who was leaning on the cabin railing taking in the magnificent stallion. I dug in my pants pocket and brought out the truck keys, which I flipped to him. He caught them, with a question reflected in his eyes.

“In case you want to visit the town or do a little sightseeing.”

I took a firm grasp of Windstalker’s mane and swung upward astride him and took off down the valley as fast as Windstalker could go and for a moment I was free of everything.

It was almost dark when I reached my home nestled in among the craggy rocks and great trees of the private mountain that I called home. I slid off of Windstalker and smacked him on the rump, and he took off for the lower meadow, where his lady friends were. I made my way up the native stone stairs to the porch of my cabin home. I saw Deshavi stand up from a porch swing in the evening gloom. She looked anxious about something and after my initial surprise at seeing her here I guessed at why she had come.

I went over to her and extremely uncharacteristic of her she mumbled out quickly, “Can I stay here?”

“Since when have you ever been unwelcome?”

I moved past her and sat down, while she still stood seeming uncertain of something. I reached out and tugged on her hand and she seemed to crumple down onto the bench swing beside me and I put my arm around her to draw her against me. She came easily, even as her head lay down on my shoulder. I let my cheek rest against the top of her head for a moment. It was so good to be like this again.

“I’m sorry about your mother.” I said softly.

“What are you sorry for? You’ve done nothing but provide for her ever since father died!”

“Still I am sorry that you have someone to call mother, who cares so little for either living herself or anyone else who is living.”

“She looks twenty years older since last I saw her! I think she’s coming unhinged mentally. I think she’s crazy!”

That seemed to match up with what I’d heard.

“You don’t think that will happen to me do you?” Deshavi asked.

Now there was a question to answer delicately. The only problem was that there was no way to delicately put the truth other than how I saw it.