Air Force One, Conclusion (8)
Mick smiles haltingly — and then is shocked by returning memory. "Oh, Christ," he says, "Johnny! He’ll be there in seconds! He must already be within main gun range—" "No," Page stops him again. "That was false. You heard — only what he wanted. Your — friend — was trying to talk to you. But your mind — already belonged to him." The innkeeper frowns, thinking. "I felt him," Mick says. It is like the memory of a dream in another lifetime. "It was — the console was vibrating. And — I felt bad. Was it so loud — that it was making me sick?" "No," Page says. "He was loud — but not that loud. At the end —he tried to reach you. He was telling you that it was Tennen — who killed your dogs." Mick stares at him, remembering the dogs. And the Inn. And — "Annie—" "No," Page stops him a third time. "Two of your guests — died. But the rest of them, and your wife, are safe." "Now listen," he says. "Time is short." "He," he indicates Tennen, "was the last of their captains, and these were many of their best remaining lieutenants. But they were not all. There are more — scattered by our victories. And now, they will — at last understand. Too late. They will remain in hiding now, and will be very difficult to find. Just as we once were. "Yet we will find them," he says grimly. "We have long — and recent — experience with hiding." "But they are still very dangerous," he says, looking at Mick, "and may yet do great damage. Some — may be particularly interested in you. You must understand. They can track you for years if they find anything. A piece of cloth that you wore. A table that you used. A floor where you walked. You must burn it. Everything which you cannot take away with you. And you must leave quickly. "You’re saying —" Mick frowns. "I don’t understand." Page gestures, and one of his men steps forward. He is holding something that looks like a sort of large backpack. It’s a parachute. "Some of the crew and passengers were not killed immediately," Page says. "They jumped, but in any case must have died within minutes of their radiation exposure. This is the remaining parachute. "You are going back." Even as he speaks, the moon drifts into view again in the great windscreen. "We will be there soon," the agent says. Mick looks at him. Even in the cold light his color is beginning to return, and he is already speaking almost normally. His chest is still fearsomely wounded, but it is dark now with dried blood. "You and your men — " Mick begins. "The aircraft is concealed now from easy detection," Page replies. "But we will guard it. Its weapons — may be needed again." "So you’ll just stay?" the man asks. "For — how long?" The agent’s black eyes hold him for a long moment. "For as long as necessary," he replies. Just as he lets go of the door jamb to turn away from that vast night sky, he feels a strange hand against the middle of his back — the quick thrust, and the beginning of an endless fall. Mick stands at the leeward edge of the landing area, where there is no wall to impede helicopters or other small aircraft landing on the great vessel. And, therefore, where it is easiest for a man to simply jump off. Or be blown off, if he is too incautious of the gusting wind. The setting moon is directly before him. In a few hours the sky will, presumably, begin to brighten — although he is not even absolutely certain of that anymore. He turns back toward Page. "All that stuff he told me," Mick yells. "Was any of that true?" "All," Page replies simply. "Except his place in it. But do not dwell on what he said. He told you only what he wished you to hear: not everything. And even words from his kind may be dangerous. He did not lie about caring for you. He would have. More than I! For he would indeed have made you one of his cattle. I have no such need." "Has anybody ever told you," Mick shouts back, "that you’re kind of an asshole?" "More times than you can imagine," Page replies. Mick looks at him, standing easily against the buffeting night wind. "Why did I always trust you?" he asks. The sky has completely cleared now, and Page looks out toward the full moon, just touching the low horizon. He looks back at Mick, and briefly smiles. "We warriors know each other," he says. "Now go! Or you will be staying longer than you wish! Your turn will come soon enough!" Mick nods, then turns toward the infinite night sky. After a few seconds’ hesitation, he decides that jumping is preferable to being pushed. As she watches, the first sliver of the sun appears above the horizon. More tears come then, blurring the sky. Her first dawn without him. Jack reaches across the cab to touch her hand and she looks at him. He’s shaken, too, and pale from the long night. He thought, more than anyone, that Mick would somehow return. He was the last to understand what Johnny was telling them. Perhaps, she reflects, he is a little too young to instinctively understand what it means when someone says The aircraft has disappeared from our radar screens. Anne tries to believe that it means, in some way, that her husband won his battle. Jack believes that, too. The difference between her and Jack is that he is determined to go on. Jack can still believe that he has a future. The sun is rising red: a ball of fire kindling into flame the few strips of cloud remaining in the sky. Finally, a clear day, Mick. He used to complain so much about the overcast skies, especially as the days would get shorter in the autumn. He would start building fires in the big fireplace before it was really necessary. Fires too big even for his absurdly wide hearth, filling the stone opening with red flame. The logs would pop sometimes, and shoot sparks at him. One time a burning log fell out onto the wooded floor. He jumped out of his chair and ran to it but then, instead of kicking it back in like everybody expected, started shouting at it as though it were a dissatisfied customer who wanted to leave and he was trying to persuade it to stay. The truckers all laughed. But the floor, when he finally did persuade his red-hot customer to return to its proper place, was so badly burned. "God damn it!" he said one time, dropping the pie that he had been taking out of the oven. The hot pad had worn so thin with use that his bare skin had unexpectedly come in contact with the oven-hot tin. He shook his head, looking at his already-reddening palm, then straightened up and made a wry face at her. "Jack," she says, looking at him. "Stop. Stop the truck." He looks at her with concern and immediately slows down, idles it, and sets the brake, simultaneously putting down the window and signaling stop to the rigs behind — although there’s little danger, at a speed not much above walking pace, that anyone will fail to halt. "Are you OK?" he asks. Jack is expecting all manner of possible emotional problems from Anne, since he himself is feeling as miserable as he supposes is possible for him. He is expecting almost anything from her, with the possible exception of sudden and deliberate action. First she turns around, kneeling on her seat to look out the cab’s narrow rear window. It is, of course, blocked by the trailer so she immediately opens her door and sets one foot on the step only to find her view still blocked by the trailer — then notices that, in any case, a line of trees is just close enough behind them to block her view as well. She sees a ladder attached to the front of the trailer, just close enough for her to reach from her perch on the cab — if she doesn’t worry too much about falling. She immediately grabs for it and succeeds. "Annie?" Jack yells at her, leaning out of his side of the cab. "What’s going on? Don’t go up there! What are you doing?" But she quickly scrambles up onto the wide, white roof — old, thin metal that flexes a little under her feet, and immediately scans the horizon. When he comes up beside her, she points. Far away, there is a tiny streak of black smoke against the perfect morning sky. "That’s the truck stop," she says. "It’s on fire. Mick is there. We have to go back." "Annie," Jack begins, looking pained, or pitying. "You don’t know what that it. Even if it is the Wolverine, that probably just means that they’ve come back. We can’t fight them again." "Jack!" she preempts him. "Mick is back there," she points. "He needs us. We’re going back." Jack exhales, and looks back down at the rest of the convoy. Several of the men have already walked up to the second truck and lit cigarettes, watching the spectacle of him and Annie arguing on top of his rig. One of the men grins and wags a finger at him. They make better time in the light on the way back, but it’s still mid-afternoon when they get close enough to smell the smoke. Only a few of the trucks have returned, the rest, at Jack’s insistence, remaining camped for the night where they stopped. The few men he has chosen to return with him are all exceptionally well-armed. They park at the edge of the burned area, not wanting to risk tires where there may still be hot embers under the ashes. Climbing out of the trucks, guns ready, they stand looking down toward the remains of the truck stop. The garages and various out-buildings, the stripped trucks that remained behind, even the woodpile and garden have been completely destroyed. Of the Inn itself, only a few blackened timbers remain standing, still trailing smoke on the slight breeze. Jack can see no sign of hostilities. If the Wolverine had been struck by helicopter-mounted missiles he would not expect to see anything still standing. And the ground would be cratered. Even so he is ready at the first echo of helicopter rotors to lead his men back towards the trucks and the edge of the trees, if necessary carrying Anne forcibly between them. They have hardly begun to search, when Anne shouts and takes off running toward something. It is indeed Mick, lying on his side in a small dell, one arm over his face. That sleeve and other areas of his clothing are plainly burned. There is a homemade splint on his lower leg whose bindings have been burnt through. Jack stops and stares. He cannot see any evidence of breathing. Anne nevertheless kneels down in the sooty earth in front of him and lifts him by the shoulders as though he were weightless. At that, Mick more or less opens his eyes. "Ouch," he says weakly. The left side of his face is reddened, and his hair and beard on that side have burned. He closes that eye again, but focuses on his wife with the other. "I knew you would come back," he says. "I knew you would come back too!" she says, crying. She hugs him, and he winces, then looks past her shoulder at Jack and raises one eyebrow, his good one, comically. "So, can I still hitch a ride?" "Yes!" she says. "But your leg!" She pushes him back to look. "Oh my god, Mick." "Well, you know," he says, "I guess I learned that I don’t really know how to stop a parasail. Except, you know — by hitting something. But it’s OK. The burn hurts worse than the break." "We have to move him, Annie," Jack says. "They could still come back. Or — could they?" He addresses the question to Mick. "Well, not the ones that we saw," Mick replies. "But, you know — everybody has friends. And they will be here. Thus the fire. So — yes. Please move me. And, um — maybe find someplace I can lie down? "And," he says to his wife, "wake me up when we get there, OK?" "Yes, yes — but, oh Mick, honey," Anne says. "I’m so sorry. The truck stop! The Wolverine!" He looks with his one good eye down toward the standing timbers that mark the remains of what was, for many years, the center of his life and every hope. "You know what," he says, looking back at her. "I guess — I am the Wolverine."
Copyright © 2000 Michael Goulish |