James Axler – Trader Redux

Ryan was smiling in the pitchy blackness.

He slowly lifted his right hand and brushed it softly over his face, skirting the patch that covered the weeping empty socket of his left eye.

Now the flute was playing much more quietly, a dreamy, rhythmic beat, holding steady, bringing its own true vision of warmth and security.

It felt so good that Ryan closed his eye for a moment, allowing his breathing to gradually slow, keeping the soft tempo of the music.

Now it was playing very, very close to him, inside his own mind, filling his head, washing away all of the other thoughts and worries.

Ryan slept.

Unaware that they had company in the mall.

Chapter Eight

“By the Three Kennedys!”

“What now, Doc?” Jak had been less than keen on the idea of Doc going off on his own for a few days, on some sort of mysterious expedition, where he would apparently do some sketching and scribble a few lines of verse. And try to come to terms with his own innermost thoughts.

“What we used to call ‘getting our shit together,’ Doc,” had been Mildred’s offering. “Us Woodstock guys and gals with flowers in our hair.”

“Sticks and stones could, and probably would, do fearsome damage to these old bones, Dr. Wyeth. But your mocking words will harm me. Not.”

The previous evening, after the old man had gone early to his bed, the other four companions had sat around the big dining table and discussed his request to have some time alone in the backcountry.

Dean’s voice had been loudest against the idea.

“Get himself chilled before he’s been gone for a half hour,” he predicted.

Jak had also been opposed. “Why? Why, Doc? Just that. What’s point? We know Doc. Doc knows Doc. We know danger. Ryan comes back finds Doc chilled. Bad news.”

Krysty had a sudden bleak vision that almost stopped her heart. The repetition of the word “Doc,” by the teenager, had the monotonous sound of a nail being hammered into an oak coffin. Or the sonorous, slow ticking of a long-case clock, set against the wall of a chapel of rest.

“Ryan,” she whispered,

“What is it?” Mildred had seen the way that Krysty’s face had gone sheet-white, her green eyes standing out like burning emeralds, her sentient hair suddenly curling in on itself.

But the moment had passed.

Mildred had been very ambiguous about Doc’s idea to journey off alone. Part joking, she’d suggested that if anything happened to the old goat then they could all enjoy a more peaceful life.

“But seriously This could be just a part of the endless process of coming to terms with grief and bereavement for him. My deep suspicion is that a part of Doc Tanner will always be locked firmly away, back in the nineteenth century, with his wife and his children. I know it’s not easy to lose loved ones like that.”

For a split second the black woman glimpsed a charred log, still smoldering, shaped like a man, smell the stench of roasted flesh above the sickly scent of the magnolias on the southern breeze. Her beloved father had been murdered by men who hid behind white hoods.

Krysty had been the only one who had positively pressed for Doc to be given their blessing for his planned expedition into the New Mexico canyons.

“Despite his pose of being a blundering old fool”

“Some pose!” Mildred exclaimed.

“Despite that, we all know that Doc’s a cunning and resourceful man. With great courage. None of us would doubt that.” She looked around the table. “Would we? No? No.”

“But there’s all sorts of danger out there,” Dean protested. “Why don’t I go with him?”

“No.” Jak was insistent. “If goes out there, then goes alone. Agree with Krysty. Doc no fool.”

“Dad wouldn’t let him go.”

Krysty shook a finger at the eleven-year-old. “Don’t you dare try that one on with us, young man! Don’t ever try and blackmail us by saying what Ryan Cawdor would or wouldn’t have done. Understand me?”

“Sorry.”

The conversation lasted another hour or more, but by then everyone in the room knew that Doc would definitely be going. All they were discussing was simply what he would need to take with him to try to maximize his chances of survival out in that most hostile land.