Lady Grace & the War for a New World (Earth's End Book 2) (35 page)

Bud’s eyes fell on Sam’s exposed lower legs. They were riddled with disease. He began speaking in a voice that was more exaggerated than his normal country diction and sing-song in its cadence.

“What kind of a mess is this? My, my. This is a’ infected mess. We can’t have that. Take this, you disease, get out of here.” He scooped out gangrene and bacteria, throwing them in a pile near Sam’s feet.

“I just
hate
this mess. Look at this mess, Great One. All green and cruddy. Clear out, you mess.” Bud looked up and saw Sam staring at him. “Sam, you might want to lie back now. Shouldn’t hurt a bit.” Sam flopped back on the mat and didn’t move. Bud’s hands sunk into his legs and pulled out internal decay.

“Oh, dear. This man needs
skin
on his legs, Lord. Let’s have some skin here, and all around here. Look at those feet! They don’t have any covering at all. He needs a
resole
. A good, thick resole. Double resole. Make this man fit to run a marathon in his bare feet. Cover those pinkies!”

He grabbed Sam’s feet, which had only suggestions of new skin growing on them. “Skin. We need
skin
. All up and down here.” His hands moved up and down Sam’s calves.

“Now that’s better! That’s what I like to see: lots of skin. Oh, Lord, now make it match the rest. That color don’t match. Don’t want to scare anyone if ol’ Sam goes wadin’. Now watch out here, y’see. Little too much skin here.

“Kinda overdid it between the toes, Lord. Ol’ Sam’s feet look like Sea World. Like a web-footed creature. Le’ me do this,” Bud sculpted Sam’s feet, pushing the edge of his hand between his toes. “There, that’s better. I must say, I love this Power. I love it when You come to me, Lord. I’ll do whatever You want for You to come to me.” He took a good look at Sam’s injuries. “Well, you look pretty good, Sam.”

Bud sat back like he might be finished, but he looked over at Martin and frowned. “Oh, lookee here. Here’s a man who can’t see. That’s a shame.” He leapt up, just like he wasn’t verging on middle-aged with creaky knees, and stood behind Martin. Bud put his hands over Martin’s eyes.

“Oh, you can’t see, you poor thing.” Bud considered, hands resting lightly on Martin’s face. “Except you
can
see.” He experienced what Martin did. “You can see things others don’t know. You can see the truth, and the other world. Spirit World, my people call it. You can see, but not like other people.” He was silent a moment.

“Martin,” Bud leaned around to speak to his face, hands still over the other man’s eyes, “would you like to see like the rest of us? Would you like to see Sam’s handsome face—or Jeremy’s pretty brown skin? Would you like to see them
and
the world you’re used to?”

“Yes. Ah would like to see.” No hesitation from Martin.

“OK. I can do somethin’ about that.” Bud’s fingers slipped into Martin’s skull. “Oh, yeah, we got a bad connection here. A bad connection. Let’s pull this out and move this around. Put these together. And these aren’t even formed yet. Let’s see about this.”

Sam and Jeremy stared at Bud, astonished. His fingers were inside Martin’s skull, tinkering. Martin sat still, a blissed-out look on his face. Bud felt around, then twisted something.

“OK. That should do ‘er. Look over there, Martin. Sam’s right there.” He pulled his hands out of Martin’s eye sockets and turned his face toward Sam.

Martin opened his eyes, blinking in the light. “Is that you, Sam?” He squinted. “I can’t see much.”

“That’s because your nerves don’t know what they’re seein’, you being blind for so long. Here, let me adjust ‘em.” Bud gave him a good whack across the back of his head. “How’s that?”

“Sam!” Martin shouted, embracing Sam. “You look … You look … like Sam.” He turned to Jeremy, examining his face and skin. “You’re darker than us.”

“Yeah, my father was an African-American. Black, they used to call us. That’s where I got my hair.” Jeremy rubbed the stubs of his dreads.

Martin looked around, marveling. “What’s this?” he indicated the gray cloud around them.

“Darned if I know. I’ve seen Grandfather pull one up when he was doing something most folks wouldn’t understand. It just came. We needed some privacy.” Bud turned to Jeremy. “Oh, we’re not done yet. Not by a long shot. Son, what is that sadness over you? What is that grief?” He focused on Jeremy, moving behind him.

Jeremy fell forward, landing on Sam’s chest.

Bud dropped to his knees, leaning over Jeremy’s back and sticking his hands into his brain. “Oh, Great One. Look at this boy’s grief. Look at this.” Images from Jeremy’s life began to appear above them. A little child, wandering alone and bewildered, surrounded by plenty and nothingness. Faces, scenes. The Hermitage Academy. Hiding in his basement apartment. The nerd. The forgotten heir. His emptiness until he discovered the joy of creating. The electronic world. The computer world.

Bud found what had happened when Jeremy was nine years old. His father sat dead in his chair, a rubber tube around his arm and a needle in his vein. Jeremy could remember every little thing, frozen solid in his mind, like a specimen you could slice and examine under the microscope.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Bud kept up a steady flow of commiseration and love. “You were just a child alone.”

Until Ellie. They could see her image floating in the air. Ellie when he first saw her at the Hermitage Academy. Loving each other, jumping onto the “space ship,” and living uncountable years on her planet in love, but in misery, too. And then Ellie turned into a wasp and died, saving most of them before she did.

“Now son, stay here with me. We can work it out. Oh, Lord, come down here now! We need a miracle.” Bud didn’t know if he’d opened up something he couldn’t handle.

That’s when Ellie came, as graceful and lovely as she had been when she and Jeremy met. Long dancer’s limbs, lovely musculature, elegant movement. She wasn’t a vision—she was totally real, except that she floated two feet off the ground.

She smiled at Jeremy, reaching for him. They touched. “I love you,” she said. “I would never leave you.” And she was gone.

Jeremy stared at the air where she had been, wonder on his face. “It was her species’ life cycle,” he said. “The meat she ate started her changing, but wasn’t all of it. It was being here, on this planet. She couldn’t stop it.” He sat, struggling with what she’d imparted. “She’d never leave me on her own. She had no choice.”

Bud staggered around the circle and plopped where he had been, gazing at Jeremy with the same pole-axed expression that Jeremy wore.

“Oh, Lordy Lord.” He pulled out his handkerchief. “I guess I need some healing, too.” He told them about Bert and his kids and how he was so scared that she’d think he ran off with someone. “I want to go home so bad …”

60

“Martin, you might want to tone it down a little.” Bud waved his hand at Martin and his horse. They were making good progress catching up with the others on the mounts that had been left for them. With one problem: Martin kept yelling and ululating every time he saw something new, which was everything he looked at. The horses spooked in every direction.

“What is
that
, Bud?” Martin whooped.

“That’s a tree.”

“What is
that
?’

“Another tree.”

“They look
different
,” Martin shrieked.

“Yes,” Bud explained. “That’s a sycamore; the other one was an oak.”

“
Two
kinds of trees!” Martin exploded with joy, causing the horses to spin.

“There’s lots more kinds of tree than that, Martin. You’ll see. Now all of you, keep those heels down. You gotta keep the heels down or your feet will run right through these English stirrups. If your horse runs off, you could get dragged. Look here …” Bud rode around the others, giving them an extended riding lesson.

“We’re gonna pick it up now. We don’t want to be out here all night. To ride a trot, just stand in the stirrups and grab the front of the saddle with your hand. Lean on your hand. Like this …” Bud’s demonstration proved impossible for the others to copy.

“OK. You can also post.” He showed them how to rise to the trot, with similar results. “Well, since you can’t do that, just sit. You’ll either figure it out or have the sorest balls in the world tomorrow. Let’s go.”

“What’s that?” Martin asked. The light was fading but the pale rock face stood out in the dusk.

“That’s the cliff where we live. We’re home.” They’d ridden longer than Sam ever cared to do again.

The place looked like a war zone. Loaded travois littered the ground. Sam could see the motorized vehicles parked against the cliff with their trailers still hitched up and heaps of stuff all over, but he didn’t see any people.

Bud rode to the cliff and then back toward the river. The others followed him. “They’re over here!” he called.

Sam jolted to a stop when he saw the lady walking up from the river with Wesley. He had his arm around her and was leaning over her, whispering. She wore one of Sam’s big shirts. It was dripping wet, its fabric plastered to her body. She covered her face with her hands.

“Get away from her!” The Voice burst out of him before he could think.

Wes shot back ten feet. “She’s upset!” he squalled. “I was taking care of her.”

Sam rode forward and saw that his wife was really upset. Tears streaked her face and she trembled. He stepped off his horse and went to her.

“Oh, Sam! I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.” She clung to him, quaking. “I need to get ahold of myself. I’m really having a moment.” She wiped her eyes with the tails of the shirt. “We were washing the babies and treating them for the itches, and all of a sudden they seemed so fragile and helpless. I didn’t know how we’d ever raise them. Or how we’d put all this stuff away. Or if we’d survive.” She waved her hands helplessly. “You and Jeremy were gone …

“Oh, Sam. I thought you were going to die.” Her voice rose and she embraced him again, tearful. “I’m so glad you’re back. Let me see you. How are your feet?”

“I’m fine, lady. Bud healed us. Martin can see now.”

“Oh, Martin,” she called to him. “That’s wonderful. Bud, how did you do that?”

Bud scratched his neck. “We can talk about that later, Grace. I think the first order of business is for us to use whatever you put on the babies. We’re crawling.”

When night fell, everyone gathered at the base of the cliff for a homecoming barbecue that turned into a bonfire. Sparks flew into the air, and the people from the underground whooped and hollered.

“We made it home,” Henry cheered. “I never thought we would.” The others clapped and ululated. The party was on.

For everyone but Sam. His eyes narrowed. Now that he wasn’t hurt, he could see what Wesley was doing clearly. He laughed and joked with the lady, passing hunks of barbecued fish. Sam’s hatred grew as he watched Wesley’s flashing eyes and brilliant smiles on the other side of the circle. They were all for the lady. Why was she over there?

She finally walked around and sat beside him. “Sam, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.” Her eyes filled and he pulled her to his chest. She snuggled into him as though that was the only place she wanted to be, and held on. She held on so tight that the others went silent and then quietly moved to campsites scattered around the base of the cliff.

“Lady,” Sam whispered, “let’s go to our room.” She agreed.

He pulled the ladder down and helped her climb up. When they were home in their cave, he felt better.

But he’d seen Wesley’s eyes glisten as she walked by. Sam shivered. His hands closed into fists. He would kill him if he touched her. The lady was looking at him.

“Don’t be jealous of Wesley, Sam.” She put her hand on his forearm. “He’s a pathetic little man.

“He’s no competition for you.” She looked at him with those bottomless blue eyes. He looked into them and saw as far down into her as she went. She loved him. She was true.

Her eyes filled again. “I can’t seem to get ahold of myself.” She dabbed at them with a hankie. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Nothing would make sense.

“Oh. I had such different plans for this evening. Our homecoming was going to be so joyous. Well, maybe we can still make it that way.

“I found something in the piles of stuff.” She picked up a slender cylinder. “Do you know what this is?” He shook his head. “It’s a candle. I could have brought an electric lantern in here, but this makes a nicer light. See?” She lit the candle and pressed it into a holder sitting by their bed. “See how the light moves?” She stirred the air around the flame and it flickered. “Beautiful isn’t it? The way it lights up our bedroom? Sort of a blush.”

She began unbuttoning her shirt. “We can see each other this way. I thought that would be nice.” She opened the shirt. “Would you like to look at me, Sam? I’d like it. I’d like to welcome you home.”

The candlelight glowed on her skin. He watched her undress. Voluptuous curves, shadowed recesses. A darkness that enfolded him and held him past any hope of escape. He couldn’t look away.

She opened her arms and he lay next to her, studying the perfect features that the candle revealed. He ran his fingers along her face and shoulder, over her hair.

“I love you, Sam.”

He bent over her and covered her mouth with his. Something took over inside him, stopping time, replacing pain with pleasure, and then more pleasure than either could hold.

She lay face down on the bed, head turned to one side, sleeping. Sam sat next to her, watching, unable to sleep. He belonged to her so completely that he would die if he lost her.

But she was true. He knew that as surely as he knew Wesley was a snake.