Read The Return of Elliott Eastman Online
Authors: Ignatius Ryan
The Return of Elliott Eastman (27 page)
They spent the next three days together reminiscing and just enjoying each other’s company, but each morning Elliott was forcing down more pain pills and the burning sensation throughout his body had grown more intense, just as Dr. Yates said it would. He could sense his overall weakness growing more and more each day.
The morning of the fourth day, as they were sitting on the deck sipping coffee, Elliott broached a topic he’d been dreading to bring up.
“You know, I could use some time to finalize my arrangements. I want to be sure I leave some dough to the guys from Iraq and some other last touches. You should probably be packing up your things and heading back.”
“I’m not leaving,” Stephanie stated firmly.
“Look Steph. I love you and I think you love me, but it is best …”
“You think I love you? Is that all you can say, you THINK I love you?”
“Well, I mean …”
“And BEST? What is best about this situation? I’m going to lose you in a short while and yet you would deny me the last few days of happiness with you?”
“It is going to get pretty ugly at the end, at least so I’m told.”
“I don’t care about that. I want you for every minute I can have. Let me be the judge of when it gets ugly. In the meantime, these have been the happiest days, well the happiest days I can remember in a long, long time. Please don’t cut them short.”
They gazed quietly at each other for a moment and then Stephanie stepped closer, sat on the edge of the lounge and rested her head on his chest and offered, “I can help you with your final papers. I can type.”
Elliott didn’t respond. She leaned more heavily against him and said, “Don’t do this Elliott. I love you so much.”
Elliott lifted her face until it was a few inches from his and saw the tears brimming in her eyes. After a short moment he smiled and said, “You know, you wield those tears like a weapon.”
She smiled. “So it’s settled then?”
“It seems I don’t have much choice.”
She looked up and kissed him suggesting, “You are such a good man Elliott Eastman. For lunch let’s picnic over on the meadow beyond the pond.”
Elliott nodded agreement, but he had already made up his mind. No one, not even his beloved Stephanie was going to see him as a helpless bag of bones. Helpless was something Elliott had never done well. It had never been Elliott’s way and he certainly wasn’t going to change now. Unfortunately what he had in mind had to be done soon, while he still had the strength.
The following morning, while it was still quite dark, he leaned over and kissed Stephanie on the cheek. She murmured something and rolled on her side pulling the covers over her bare shoulder. Elliott eased from under the covers, gathered his clothes in his arms and made for the stables. There he checked the saddlebags to make sure the tequila and morphine pills that Dr. Yates had provided were still there and struggled mightily to get the saddle on Dusty’s back. He took a note he’d written the night before and stuck it on a nail near the door. The note was brief. They had already said their good byes. It read: “Steph, I love you with all my heart. Greer, take care of the graves.” Mr. E.
Elliott tried several times to pull himself into the saddle. He was weak, weaker than he could have ever imagined he might be.
‘Perhaps I’ve deluded myself into thinking I can do this. Perhaps I’ve waited too long’, he thought.
With sweat beading his brow and his arms quaking from the effort, he finally managed to gain the saddle. A few hundred yards down the road they cut left. Dusty knew where they were going the moment they turned off the main trail. Despite the number of pain pills Elliott had taken he still gritted his teeth and tried to keep from teetering from the saddle. The sun was just coming up over the eastern peaks when they spied the narrow trace that wound through the rocks towards the hanging valley. Picking their way along the steep parts of the trail Elliott tugged back on the reins hoping to slow Dusty down. Even the most gentle of steps from the big horse drove spikes of pain through his body. He clung desperately to the pommel with both hands, gasping in pain with each lunging step. Horse and rider were just rounding the pond when a sharp whinny sounded in the distance. Dusty’s ears perked up and his gait quickened. Elliott grimaced and once again gripped the pommel for the last two hundred feet until they reached the fallen log. With great care he dismounted stiffly, pulled the saddle bags loose and let them fall on the ground and clutched his side. The whinny sounded again and Dusty pawed the earth. Elliott looked up and saw the mare. There she was, just fifty yards away across the pond. The mare stood with ears trained forward and nostrils flared.
“She is beautiful isn’t she?” Elliott breathed.
As if he understood Dusty snorted and nodded his head up and down. The pure white mare merely stood there staring at them for a moment and then she pawed the ground as if to say, “What are you waiting for?”
“She’s pretty and demanding, sort of reminds me of Steph,” Elliott observed with a grin. “Do you want to go Dusty old boy?”
The big horse snorted again and swiveled his head around to look at Elliott as if to say, “Are you sure?”
“She’s probably half your age,” Elliott reminded him.
The mare merely stared, as if daring them.
Elliott slipped his arms around the big stallion’s neck and held him close for a long while knowing what he should do. With conflicting thoughts clouding his emotions he loosened the bridle of the horse he loved so much and took it off. Slowly he did the same with the straps for the saddle and let it fall to the ground. He pulled the saddle blanket away and Dusty was free. Sensing his release the stallion bounded away, crossed to the other side of the pond to within a few yards of the white horse where he stopped, raised his tail, stood at full height and gracefully side stepped a little closer. Suddenly the mare wheeled and dashed away through the trees. Dusty instantly gave chase, then spun and stared back to where Elliott sat on the log. It was as if the beautiful stallion knew he was seeing his friend for the last time. Dusty lingered a moment longer, his brown eyes locked on Elliott’s face. It seemed as though Dusty was committing to memory this last image of Elliott sitting in the shade near the pond.
“Better move Dusty or you’ll never catch her,” Elliott said softly with a wave of his hand.
The stallion whinnied and gave chase.
And the reverse was true. Elliott committed to memory that last moment when Dusty was so alive, when the hunt was on, love was in the air and the excitement of the chase was on. This was how he wanted to remember the great horse.
The stallion disappeared. Elliott succumbed to a coughing fit and sat down heavily beside the log.
For a moment he stared at the point where Dusty had vanished through the trees. Suddenly he was struck by whispers of doubt running through his mind, second guessing his supposedly well laid plans. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe just another day or two were his to cherish. All he wished to ask for was a little more time, a few more precious hours until he could agree it was the end. He wanted to spend another day or two with Stephanie, of that he was sure. There was still time, he thought. For a moment he considered calling out for Dusty to return. Then glancing down he noted the saddle lying on the ground and smiled. Ruefully, he told himself it was too late! He’d never get the saddle back on the big horse and he wouldn’t survive the ride without it. Besides, he thought, Dusty wasn’t returning. With a sad smile he studied the cast on one foot and the titanium stump resting in the other boot. There was no way he could walk all the way back to the ranch.
The saddlebags were close by. Elliott settled in with his back against the granite boulder. Pulling the saddlebags close he opened one side saying, “It is a far, far better thing I do today …”
His thoughts were jumbled. His thinking confused. He couldn’t remember how the saying went exactly and couldn’t finish it, but it seemed appropriate. Pulling the plastic bottle of morphine pills from the bag he set them beside his right leg and then pulled the quart bottle of tequila from the bag along with a shot glass.
After he tugged the jar open and popped three pills in his mouth he poured a healthy shot in the glass and raised it to his lips where he stopped for a moment and said, “Here’s to you Greer. It’s a tequila morning.”
With the next few pills he said, “Stephanie, my love, thank God you came into my life. I’ll miss you.”
The third batch of pills and shot of tequila went down smoothly and Elliott said out loud, “Here’s to you Father Time, thank you for the years you gave me.”
He was beginning to feel a bit woozy already.
As he poured another shot and dug another few pills from the bottle his thoughts meandered. He recalled an article he’d read years ago about ancient Mount Vesuvius erupting and Pompeii being buried in ash. Archeologists discovered a building where one man, trapped in a room, had escaped the gas and lahars only to succumb to suffocation. That man had taken the time to write his last words in his own blood on the wall of his prison. He wrote on the wall, ‘Nothing lasts forever!’
“And so it would seem,” Elliott said aloud as he downed another shot. “Here’s to you, nameless philosopher.”
It seemed fitting for all the places of the world he had visited that here, beside a pond in the high lonesome he would find his final moments. The warm sun beat down across the pond. Dragonflies buzzed about, birds sung and darted through the trees. A gentle breeze carrying the scent of sweet grass and sage caressed his face and lifted the leaves which danced across the ground.
His thoughts drifted to Eddie and James, Rick and Gordon, Paul White and Doctor Yates, Jim and Mike, Archie and Goldie, Bruce Bennett and Rosa Sparks, and he raised his glass once more.
“To all of you and to the good people of America,” he murmured. “We did it.”
He gazed out across the sprawling vastness before him. The earth fell away towards the green fields of the valley below and then above it all Mount Lincoln basked in the rays of early morning sunlight.
‘It is indeed a beautiful land,’ he thought, ‘a beautiful land once more.’
Suddenly his entire body shuddered and he clutched his chest. His heartbeat began slowing and he blinked several times. He took a deep breath. Slowly he slid across the face of the rock until his cheek gently touched the earth. He whispered once more, “To all of you.”
And closed his eyes.
EPILOGUE
THREE MONTHS LATER
Graham lost his seat.
Bainer resigned in disgrace.
Cobbings did not run for another term.
Whitback quit his post midterm.
Coryn lost his bid for re-election.
Paul White won re-election in a landslide.
Each of Elliott’s men received a check for $250,000.
John Bainer’s secretary received a check for $100,000.
The nurse walked into the room with the ultrasound in hand. She pointed out various tell tale signs and then announced, “I can say with absolute certainty that you have a healthy little boy on the way.”
Stephanie, smiling through her tears said, “His name shall be Elliott.”
Greer tended the graves.
Child, son, student, hitchhiker, scavenger, chess player, risk taker, poet, writer, father, individual, citizen, debtor, tax payer, spectator, witness, thinker, theorist, humanist…imperiled and angry.
