Gabriel's Revenge (The Adventures of Gabriel Celtic Book 2) (3 page)

Chapter 4

August 20, 1998

I groggily opened my eyes and tried to come to grips with my surroundings, the reality slowly sinking in. I sat up and looked around; Juan was smiling that goofy grin as he pointed up the road toward the sound of the approaching bus.

“De bus is come,” he stated excitedly.

Looking up the road, I made out an old bus at the head of a slowly approaching cloud of dust. Brushing myself off, I gathered up my things before digging in my pocket for a couple more coins.

Handing these to Juan, I thanked him for his help. The big goofy grin reappeared and he suddenly grabbed me around the waist in a hug before he headed off into town at a run, on a beeline toward his house to show off his good fortune.

His excitement brought a fleeting smile to my face as I walked across the road to the station to await my transportation.

“At least I can help
somebody
,” I mumbled under my breath as the memory of Frank’s murder creeped back into my head, remorse again being brought to the fore of my being.

I beat it back down with determination; there was too much to do right now, and I needed a clear head on my shoulders as I worked to get back to Indiana and start my investigation.

The bus stopped in front of the station in a hail of noise and dust, the bus’s squealing brakes fighting for attention with the muffler-less engine. After the ancient bus came to a complete stop, I was treated to a rain of dust as it settled out of the air onto my clothes and bags.

I removed my hat and beat it against my leg before wiping the majority of the road off my shoulders. The door slid open and I was greeted by a small dark-haired man with a few missing front teeth. Saying nothing, he merely smiled and nodded, motioning me in with his hand. Handing him my ticket, the driver nodded vigorously as he laid it in a basket and closed the door behind me.

Making my way to a seat, I heard the grinding of gears before suddenly being nearly thrown from my feet by the unexpectedly violent forward lurch of the vehicle. I grabbed the side of a seat to steady myself for a moment before continuing on.

I noticed there are only three other souls on the bus, none of them Anglos as Caucasians were sometimes referred to in this country. Not one of my fellow travelers lifted their eyes to acknowledge my presence, which was fine by me. I picked a dusty but empty seat well away from anyone else and settled in for the long ride to Lima.

I started thinking, taking stock of the vision I had before the bus came. I took out my journal and made some notes of the murder as seen through my mind’s eye in the vision. The funny looking little man, if it was indeed an accurate portrayal of the murderer, would seem to be someone easily identifiable.

But what of the motive, why would anyone want to hurt Frank, much less take his life?

“What did you get yourself into old friend?”
I whisper to myself as I finish writing my notes.

Looking down on the page, I saw nothing else that immediately jumped out at me. I was however drawn to turn back a few pages, needing to update Betty.

Since her death over a year ago, my daily entries had filled page after page of my journal. Having found no better way to communicate with her, I still felt the desperate need to talk to her again, to hold her in my arms, to feel the tender touch of her lips on mine. I truly felt this exercise I had dedicated myself to was the only thing keeping me sane. Even so, there was an argument to be made that even that wasn’t working very well.

Taking up my pencil to start writing, I agonized over how to break the news to Betty as if she were sitting next to me. Betty and Frank were also very close, he taking her death almost as hard as myself.

Taking a deep breath, I put pencil to paper, letting it sit there for a few more moments before writing. Once I started however, I felt the relief of telling someone else, telling a good friend and lover what was inside of me. Letting out the emotions I had bottled up, emotions that if left there would surely kill my soul with despair.

August 20, 1998

My Dearest Betty,

Something terrible has happened…

Chapter 5

August 20, 1998

May 29, 1997

My Dearest Betty,

Well I’m on the plane; I guess there is no turning back now.

I know you said there was something here for me, that ‘they’ told you I was yet needed, and that I had more to do before I could join you. I haven’t seen it back home, and I needed to get away from there, too many heartaches, to many reminders of my loss, of you.

I can only pray that I am not leaving something undone by leaving. I feel like a coward, yet I believe the only way for me to move on is by leaving…at least for now. Forgive me my sweet.

I Love You

***

I had been drawn back to my first journal entry to Betty, from the day I had left Indiana. Doubts now assailed me once more as I reread the letter.

What if I’d stayed?

Would Frank still be alive?

My guilt was quickly forgotten by the pain in my head as it hit the ceiling, the bus having hit an apparently huge hole. Looking up at the driver, he seemed more than a little amused by the angry words coming from my bus mates.

Soon we had turned onto the Pan American Highway. Although ‘highway’ is a term used loosely to describe the road we were now on; the chances of a smoother ride from here on out prompted me to put my knees on the seat in front of me and try to grab some more shuteye before we arrived in Lima.

Yet another reminder of Betty occurred when a Spanish version of
‘Yesterday’
started playing over the crackly radio speaker above me. She had loved the Beatles, as well as the whole 60’s era of music. I was still thinking of her as I closed my eyes, almost immediately drifting into a fitful sleep.

***

The inviting room was now fully bright and warm I noticed, transformed fully back to the room of the past. I had still had to walk through the hallway to get there however, the meaning of that change still elusive.

Sitting down in the chair, I immediately grabbed the cup from the table, letting the hot black liquid slide smoothly down my throat. Looking over to the chess game in process, I saw where my opponent had made a move, so far so good. Seemingly, he had yet to see my strategy, his current move being one of two I had hoped he would make.

With a smile on my face, I quickly decided on the next move and slid the King’s Bishop into its new location. Leaning back into the chair once more, I was more convinced daily that my opponent in these mysterious games was my grandfather. How or why this may be the case was above my pay grade intellectually, but it gave me a warm feeling knowing he might be here with me.

As I continued to relax in the chair, I held the coffee below my nose so that the heavenly scent could be easily inhaled between sips. My vision was affixed to the fire as I watched the wisps of smoke happily curl off the ends of the yellow flames. My eyes suddenly felt very heavy; so I gave in and let them close slowly, the warmth of the room and the smell of the coffee enveloping me like a cozy blanket.

When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by a comforting blackness, but more. I felt like I was in a loving embrace, like there were arms wrapped around my shoulders. A whisper of a voice seemed to be flitting around in my head, maybe more like a buzzing or humming than a whisper. It was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand. I concentrated harder on the message, but it didn’t seem to ease my frustration.

“What are you trying to tell me?” I said in desperation, wanting more than anything to hear the words. Before I had time to think about it, the buzzing was replaced with a kind of whistle, an eerie whistle, someone whistling a song. After a few moments, I realized it was the song that Frank’s murderer had been whistling when he had left Frank laying dead on the ground.

I listened intently to the notes, they seemed familiar to me, but something was off, something was not right with the tune. What was it?

It was banging at my head; every note seemed to pound in my brain. What was it, a different key, or the cadence?

That’s it! The timing was slower than normal, but the name of the song finally popped into my head. I was so excited at figuring out the eerie music, that I stood up as the name escaped my lips in a loud voice.

“Onward Christian Soldiers!”

Chapter 6

August 20, 1998

Opening my eyes, I realized that that I had just loudly announced the song title to the bus passengers, after shooting straight up out of my seat before hand. Everybody on the bus was staring at me like I was loco, including the bus driver, whose smile had disappeared for the first time.

I quickly settled back down in my seat, pulling the hat lower over my eyes and grabbing my journal to make some notes of my vision.

Having come up with the name of the song, I wrote it down. I could not fathom what, if anything, the song would have to do with the murder. Frustrated, I spent the next twenty minutes trying to eke out a solution to the puzzle with no success.

I took out the half-eaten burrito and slowly munched on the cold food as I continued to read through my journal. The very old leather-bound book was originally my grandfather’s. He had used it on his expedition to Egypt after WWI. The time spent in the arid country was used to help him forget the atrocities of the war he had just survived.

I had read and re-read his notes and thoughts over the last few months, and I had gained additional insights into the man that had been my hero as I was growing up. Also named Gabriel, he had been much in my thoughts of late, a fact that I wasn’t sure I could attribute entirely to the reading of his journal.

My eyes had once again grown heavy, the stiflingly hot air and the long ride combining to overwhelming my alertness. I modified my position once again and tried to get comfortable, not used to the inactivity that the long ride demanded.

Finally finding a position that wasn’t terrible, I closed my eyes and let the swaying of the ancient bus rock me off to sleep. A man full of guilt will find his dreams filled with demons demanding an accounting for his actions. A fitful sleep was the best I could hope for.

Chapter 7

August 20, 1998

My demons accomplished their job well.

I woke in a full sweat four hours later; I felt as if I had been drug through hell, and wondered if I would ever again feel rested.

There was a bustle of activity around me as my eyes slowly opened in the bright hazy interior of the bus. Pushing the bill of my cap up with a finger, I saw that my neighbors were gathering up their belongings. Sitting up straighter, I noticed that we were approaching the terminal of Jorge Chavez airport, the low building before me a miniature version of the massive architectural structures back home.

A loud pounding roar surrounded us as a Peruvian Airlines 727 rose up from behind the building. The plane seemed to slice its way through the hot hazy air surrounding the airport as it made its way to points unknown.

Exiting the bus took longer than expected as I realized that we had taken on quite a few more passengers since I had closed my eyes. The bus driver nodded his head to each passenger as they started down the steps, the never wavering smile painted onto his face.

It almost seemed that we were still inside the bus as we headed into the terminal, the stagnant heat as bad outside as that within the bus. Entering the door of the air-conditioned building was not much better, as the overworked cooling units did little to lower the temperature inside.

I made my way over to the ticket windows and secured a seat on that evening’s 10 hour flight to Washington DC. After a six hour layover, I would make a connecting flight to Atlanta, then on to Cincinnati.

There was a Western Union window down the way, so I sent off a telegram to Allen to ask for someone to pick me up tomorrow around 4:00 PM their time. With that out of the way, I needed to figure out what to do with myself for the next five hours.

Scoping out the small airport terminal, I found a food stand and bought a cola with ice, the first I had had in over a year. I had to admit that the drink was very refreshing. I promptly purchased another before making my way down the long corridor.

Taking a detour to use the restroom, I discovered that they had showers, and for a small price you could rent a stall for an hour. Looking down at my clothes, and only imagining what I must smell like, I decided to take the plunge so to speak and get some of this country’s dust off of me before I got on the plane.

I paid the attendant for the shower time, as well as for some towels and soap. I added a disposable razor to the mix after running my hand over the itchy stubble on my face.

As I started shucking my clothes, I threw them on the shower floor before turning on the water. While it ran, I went through my luggage, picking out a couple more items to add to the pile, including a nicer yet still dirty shirt.

For the next hour I washed everything on my body multiple times, as well as most every piece of clothing I had with me. To say that I enjoyed the first running water I had used in all these long months would be stretching the truth just a little, but I did feel better. That in and of itself did lighten my mood a bit.

I squeezed the excess water out of my clothes and laid them out around the room to dry while I concentrated on shaving my face. Looking into the foggy mirror, the man staring back at me little resembled the man who had arrived here fifteen months ago.

My sun-bleached blonde hair, usually up in a pony tail the last few months, was lazily hanging around my face and onto my shoulders. I determined I would have to do something about that later. Shaving off the beard had further revealed the lined and weathered face of someone who had spent a good portion of their life outside. The only feature the hardened suntanned mug looking back lacked were the smile lines of someone who actually enjoyed their life and the work they were doing.

Another pang of guilt and sadness enveloped me for a moment before I regained control and pushed my emotions back down into the recesses of my soul. That is where I had been keeping them, and that is where they were going to stay. I had no use for emotions clouding my mind at the moment. Frank’s murder needed to be avenged, and I would not be able to accomplish that acting like a weepy child missing his best friend.

Shaking it off, I rinsed the excess soap off of my face and wrapped a band around my hair to keep it there. Digging through my belongings, I finally found the small amount of deodorant that I had kept in reserve for special occasions. I applied it liberally to my underarms, noting with some satisfaction that there was still enough left for at least one more application.

Realizing that there was a little over an hour left of sunlight, I pulled on one of the wet jeans and the oldest shirt, keeping the clothes I would be wearing on the trip out as I packed up the rest of my belongings.

Putting the pack over my shoulder, I carried the other clothes over my arm and left the showers. Heading back outside, I found a likely spot on the south-west side of the building and laid out my traveling clothes to dry. Finding a tree nearby, I took refuge from the still-hot setting sun and finished off my pop.

I hated this time of day; the approaching twilight had always tempted me with thoughts of my approaching demons. The nighttime hours with the lack of constructive things to do would sometimes leave my mind too free to wander, the thoughts crowding into my head faster than I could handle. Thoughts of Betty, of our life together, of her death, all crowded in and beat themselves on the side of my brain until I was sure I would perish from sadness.

I had worked my butt off daily, hoping beyond hope that I would be too tired to lie awake for more than a few minutes once I lay down. Most nights it worked; some very long ones, it didn’t.

As the sun started to set, I checked my clothes, finding them sufficiently dry enough to wear. Gathering them up, I again headed for the restroom, changing into the dry ones as I stuffed the others into my pack. I still had two hours to kill, but I would find my gate and wait it out in the terminal. Hopefully the passing travelers would keep my attention until it was time to board.

As I took a seat at the gate, the sadness started creeping up my spine once more. I pulled out my old Marshwood sunglasses, letting them hide the tears forming in my eyes in the dimly lit terminal. I let sad thoughts of Betty wash over me for a few minutes; they were the only kind of memories of her I had at the moment. I normally pushed down the thoughts engulfing me now, but sometimes the loneliness was more powerful than my willpower. After all, even sad thoughts of my Betty were better than no thoughts of her at all.

I thought about our last time together before she had been shot, holding each other’s hand as we rushed along the backcountry roads on our way to confronting Jasmine. We had both had a feeling, a feeling something was going to change. If I’d only turned around, slowed down, had a flat tire, anything different that may have saved Betty.

I could still feel the touch of her hand in mine, the love transmitted by a touch that many people never got to experience with another. These were the thoughts crowding my head as a lone tear made its way down my cheek, stopping momentarily on my chin before falling to the floor between my feet.