The Digger's Rest (20 page)

Once they were comfortably seated around the
busy bar and Malcolm had poured them each a beer, another young man
appeared behind Malcolm’s shoulder. He was as tall as Deck, not as
broad but had the same complexion, features and eye color, except
this one had dark hair and looked to be the youngest of the three.
“Dr. Bramson, Simon, this is my cousin, Jed; he’s a colonist too,
from Australia,” Malcolm said with a mischievous smile. “He’ll be
your bartender for the rest of the evening while Deck and I take
care of the dining room.”

The newest young man put out his hand
politely and shook both Mitch and Simon’s hands. “A pleasure to
meet other fellow colonists,” he said in a thick Australian accent,
casting darts with his eyes at Malcolm’s back and smirking as
Malcolm walked away.

Mitch downed his beer quickly, giving him his
usual second wind. Simon, on the other hand, was more circumspect
about it and took his in sips, remembering his first introduction
to alcohol. By the time Simon’s glass was empty, his eyes were dim
and droopy. “Would it be alright if I went to our room,
Doctor…Mitch? I’m very tired and still need to unpack.”

“
Sure, but leave the unpacking until
tomorrow. There’s no rush and you’ll need all your strength when we
go out to survey the site tomorrow afternoon. Okay?” Mitch said
with his hand on Simon’s back. Simon nodded his agreement, sighing
with comfort at the feel of the warm strong hand on his
back.

Ever the skilled bartender, Jed refilled
Mitch’s beer and called out to one of the passing waitresses,
“Fiona, could you show our guest here the way to the cottage and
make sure he finds everything he needs?” A pretty blonde waitress
came over to the bar. “Sure, Jed,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“
Simon, just follow our Fi here and
she’ll make sure you get there alright,” he said kindly, having
seen them arrive and noticing immediately that Simon
was…different.

Mitch made quick work of his second beer and
ordered a brandy to go with his third. He had just settled into a
leisurely haze by then, and took to his favorite pastime when newly
arrived at an unfamiliar location, quietly observing his
surroundings.

On his first scan he examined the structure
of the room. The walls were made of thick cob, a substance used for
over a thousand years, made from a mixture of limestone, straw, mud
and practically anything else they could get their hands on, and
coated with a paste of plaster-like whitewash.

The ceiling was low and ribbed with wide,
blackened oak beams and the floor was covered with equally wide and
blackened planks of oak. Early Tudor, he thought, having assessed
the period instantaneously. He started scanning the faces about the
room, making a wide sweep and mentally making a note of anyone who
stuck out in particular among the throng of people shifting back
and forth from their seats to the bar or chatting animatedly in
groups in booths and at tables around the room.

The first face to catch his attention
was of man about his own age with close-cropped, dark-brown hair, a
ruddy complexion and a dimple in his chin making him appear younger
than he probably was. He was leaning on the bar, smoking a short,
thin cigar and staring at him. The large, dapple gray, long-haired
hound at the man’s feet made Mitch think,
Funny about English pubs, you can smoke and bring your
animals, too. Perfect.

As he continued scanning, he noticed the wide
range of ages of everyone around him. There didn’t seem to be much
of a generation gap going on there. Young people were talking to
older people with the same ease as they might have with someone
their own age and vice versa.

There was a group of men of mixed ages
at one table, some with shaved heads and tattoos on their arms,
shouting amiably at one another about something having to do with
sports, some of the younger ones looking remarkably like the older
ones,
Fathers and sons?
Brothers?

At the booth across from the men was a group
of twenty something girls, giggling and pointing around at the
young men, clearly taking bets or measures.

When he turned around to take in another
angle, there was a very small, old man standing next to him with
tiny, piercing black eyes and tufts of pure white hair sticking out
from underneath a ragged, knitted blue cap. Jed had just handed the
old man a fresh beer when the old man turned to Mitch, staring into
his eyes intently, almost hypnotically. He leaned in close to Mitch
and said something in a strange language Mitch couldn’t place, and
with his knowledge base, that in itself took it out of the
ordinary, then the old man walked away.

When Mitch looked up, a tall shapely woman of
about forty, dressed in a tight fitting, all black outfit with a
wide rhinestone belt had moved into the spot vacated by the old
man. She had black hair that matched her clothing, cut in what
might have been called a long shag thirty years ago, giving her an
almost owlish appearance. Her features added to the effect.

She wasn’t so much pretty as sexy in an
interesting, alluring sort of way, with a sharp hawk-like nose and
dark, deep set eyes beneath finely kept arched black eyebrows. She
leaned in close to Mitch, “That’s Amos. He was speaking to you in
the old language,” she said softly, a gleam in her dark eyes.

“
Well, what did he say?” Mitch asked,
thinking he was being flirted with.

“
He said, ‘Take thee back to the new
land from whence thee came, oh ye son of Adam,’” the woman in black
said and walked away with her drink, laughing to herself. Mitch
looked back to where Jed was filling him another beer and brandy.
“What the hell was that all about?” Mitch asked him.

“
That’s Gayle. She’s a barrister over
in Exeter, from one of the oldest families in the area. Quite a
bird, isn’t she?” Jed said and winked at Mitch, apparently not
having caught the first part of the dog and pony show he’d just
witnessed.

Mitch took his fresh drinks and knocked them
back quicker than he’d planned while Jed was still there to refill
them. Well into a second level of drunkenness as Jed set down the
fresh drinks, Mitch couldn’t resist asking him about the man with
the dog. “Why does he keep staring at me?”

“
He’s not staring at you, Dr. Bramson.
He’s blind,” Jed said, mildly amused, and walked over to the man
with the dog, whispering something to him. They laughed.

A moment later the man came over to him, with
the dog and a white cane. He was of a stocky build, but still fit
in the way former athletes can be in their forties.

“
I do apologize, sir, if it seemed that
I was staring at you. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” the
man said genuinely. “I can only see shaped shadows, and can only
recognize people by their shapes. You were a new shape. I do
apologize.”

“
No, please. I should apologize for my
ignorance. I saw the dog but didn’t make the connection. The
apologies are all mine,” Mitch said, embarrassed.

“
You’re the American archaeologist,
here for the Crane castle,” the man said, not sounding surprised.
“I’m Sean Donnelly,” the man with the dog said, holding his hand
out a foot past where Mitch was standing. Mitch took it and
shook.

“
You know who I am?” Mitch asked,
confounded.

“
Yes, of course. Everyone here does.
News travels fast in a small village. We’ve all been waiting for
you, even Yale here,” Donnelly said pointing down in the general
direction of where the old dog had lain down. “Haven’t we Yale, old
boy?” Sean asked the dog.

Mitch reached down naturally and scratched
the old dog under his chin, still trying to absorb the fact that
what Sean Donnelly had said must be true. They all knew he was
here, and why he’d come.

“
Nice to meet you, too,
Yale.”

“
Let me buy you a beer, Dr. Bramson,
and let’s talk,” Sean said, nodding in the direction of the bar.
Jed refilled both their glasses and Sean took Mitch gently by the
arm, leading him over to a table in the corner of the
room.

As the two men sat in the booth getting
acquainted and ass-over-head drunk together, Sean Donnelly told him
the recent story of his life. He had been a member of the London
Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Division before
transferring to Exeter to get married and raise a family five years
before. They’d thought Exton would be a nice place to raise a
family when they bought their cottage, but it hadn’t turned out as
they expected.

The year after the transfer, he was assigned
to investigate the disappearance of a girl from the area, the only
bit of intrigue that had hit Exton in decades. Early one morning
before the sun had even come up he got a call from the old Crane
Estate. Apparently old man Crane’s groundskeeper thought he saw a
young woman running naked through the woods at the back end of the
estate by the ruins while doing his rounds and believed it might be
the missing girl.

Drunk as he was, Sean Donnelly got
increasingly tense with each word he spoke. He told Mitch that that
he went out that morning to investigate the call, coming upon the
ruins just after the sun had come up. He put his hand on Mitch’s
wrist then, clamping it tightly as he spoke. “When I got to the
ruins, I started wandering about, calling out for the girl as I
walked around one of the towers. I heard a woman’s voice calling
out to me, laughing.”

His voice took on a raspy quality, squeezing
Mitch’s wrist harder with each word.

“
I followed it into the center of the
large foundation area and heard it again, but it wasn’t coming from
around me, at ground level that is. It seemed to be coming from the
trees above me, so I looked up.” Sean stopped there to take a long
slug of his drink, never letting go of Mitch’s wrist, “…and when I
did, the sky looked like it was starting to move, like it was
opening up before me, a dark spot, like a thick cloud seemed to
shift over the sun, like an eclipse. I couldn’t take my eyes off
it…and when the sun was completely covered by the dark spot, there
was a flash of light, like a fireball coming at me.”

Sean was shaking by then, his grasp on
Mitch’s arm tightening to the point of pain. “It was the last thing
I ever saw,” he said, sweat dripping down the sides of his face,
moisture building around his eyes. “It was the last thing I ever
saw, Dr. Bramson,” he said again and gulped the last of his drink,
setting his glass down with a loud thud.

“
But I don’t understand, why are you
telling me this?” Mitch asked, trying to pry Sean’s hand off his
wrist.

“
Because I know you’re here to dig it
up.”

“
And you’re warning me?” Mitch asked,
not sure he was grasping what the man seemed to be saying to
him.

“
Leave it alone, Dr. Bramson,” Sean
said insistently and got up quickly with his glass, staggering back
over to the bar, leaving Mitch there to think…
What?

He was so drunk himself by then he didn’t
know what to think. He just knew that his head was spinning and he
was feeling closed in, confined. He had to get out of there as soon
as possible. His head swirled as he got up and went over to the
opposite side of the bar from Donnelly, waiting for Jed to come to
him. “Another drink, Dr. Bramson?” Jed asked, cheerfully.

“
No, not this time, Jed. But I could
use a guide to my room, please. I think I’ve had enough, or way too
much,” he said, leaning and slurring, his hair falling around his
face.

“
Fiona!” Jed called out.

A minute later, the young blonde waitress was
back and leading Mitch toward the rear of the building, through a
small courtyard and into another small, thatched roof cottage. She
left him leaning on the wall with the key in his hand as she
watched him from around the corner, waiting for him to open the
door and go in so she could report to Jed that she’d made sure he
got in alright.

***

He heard the tapping sound of light
rain, but it wasn’t on a roof or a window sill. He looked around
and saw it was coming from the raindrops landing on the shoulders
and collar of his raincoat. He looked up. The sky was pitch black.
He looked around and saw he was surrounded by tall black buildings;
the street was black, everything was black. He was in a
city.
New York?

Off in the distance, he saw the multicolored
glow of lights illuminating the sky from somewhere that seemed to
be miles away. He started walking in that direction, walking,
walking, walking, until his feet hurt.

He was so wet and cold.
Will I ever get there?
He had to get
there. He couldn’t stop. The lights were calling to him. Will it be
warm there? And dry? He could see he was getting closer.
Only a little more,
he kept telling
himself.
Only a little more and I’ll be
there. Someone special is waiting for me there. Who?
He held his head down to keep the rain off of his face,
looking at his boots as he took each step.

When he saw the reflection of the
lights on his boots he knew he was almost there. Just a little
more, a little more. He was exhausted. When he looked up again, he
could see a row of big bright, glitzy nightclubs with enormous,
multicolored marquees, lights flashing and beams of white light on
the rooftops, penetrating the black night sky. He had to get there,
someone was waiting for him.
But
who?

As he got closer he looked sideways and saw
his reflection in the pane glass windows of the closed shops he
passed. He stopped and looked at his face reflected in the glass.
It was his face, but they weren’t his clothes. They didn’t fit, and
they were old and worn, torn and dirty. He was dirty. His hair was
matted and greasy, like he hadn’t washed it in weeks, then he
noticed that he looked thinner, like when he was twenty and had
stopped eating, before Jack found him.