James Axler – Trader Redux

Mildred stared at the picture, finding she could almost taste the hopeless horror of the man, trapped with no way back, only a flimsy dagger in his right hand, confronting the enormous beast, with a sheer drop on his right.

If ever there was a pictorial representation of certain doom, then it hung on the wall of her room.

Over the long weeks since Ryan and J.B. had departed for the far Northwest, on their quest to track down the legendary Trader, Mildred had thought a lot about her relationship with John Dix.

She tried to deconstruct it, then reassemble it, hoping that it would then make more sense. But all the thinking and agonizing had only blurred her feelings. The word that fluttered at the edge of her consciousness was “love.” When she’d been a younger woman, in her previous life at the end of the twentieth century, Mildred had enjoyed at least her fair share of relationships with youngand not so youngmen. But she couldn’t recall whether she’d actually been in love with any of them.

Now she thought she was probably in love with John Barrymore Dix.

Was that a wildly foolish idea for someone of her age? An ancient country song floated unbidden into her mind, making her smile in the darkness. Something about closing on forty and still wearing jeans.

She felt slight pressure on her bladder and wondered about getting up and going out back. But the night was cold, and she resisted.

That thought took her once again to their visitors, Raelene and Ronny.

She had offered to examine them, pointing out that she was a real, qualified doctor, but they’d been evasive, saying that they just needed some rest, which was obviously true. But all her medical training told her that there was something seriously wrong with the couple.

Lying there, half-asleep, Mildred mentally ticked off the symptoms she’d been able to observe.

Both were exhausted and had sallow complexions, despite having been out in the New Mexico sun for days. She frowned as she realized how vague they’d both been about precisely where they’d been traveling and just where they’d originally located the treasure in their wagon that was so important to them.

Both had colds and running noses. Raelene in particular had a nasty rash around her mouth, scabbing all over her fried and crusted lips. Her hair looked thin and unhealthy. Ronny’s hair also seemed to be in poor shape.

As Raelene had sipped at a beaker of buttermilk, she’d winced, explaining that her gums were sore. And the rim of the mug had been smeared with a film of blood when Mildred took it out to the kitchen to wash up.

Ronny’s hand had been very sore. He explained that it came from driving the team when he wasn’t all that used to the reins. That was why he’d lost the nails of three or four fingers.

Mildred was slipping away into sleep. She was sitting at a large round mahogany table with a heavily carved scalloped edge, with a huge jigsaw puzzle spread out in front of her. The title on the cardboard box was “Showing His Paces.” A spirited stallion was being trotted up and down in front of a row of beaming, brocaded, pipe-smoking businessmen. Much of the puzzle was completed, but there were several pieces missing. Mildred was searching and searching, unable to find anything that looked remotely right.

If only she could get the shapes to come together, she knew that they would make sense.

But, in her dream, Mildred had a terrible sense of foreboding, that if she completed the puzzle, she was going to experience some terrible luck.

Someone was leaning over her shoulder. “Solve the puzzle and savor your doom,” said a soft voice, like a feather stroking across black velvet.

KKYSTY WAS SHAKING HER by the shoulder, leaning over the bed. “Come on, Mildred. I need help.”

“What?”

“Raelene’s ill.”

“What kind?” She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, seeing that there was a bright sunny morning making itself felt through the blind.

“Puking and shitting. Bringing up blood as well.”

Mildred’s dream came swimming back to haunt her and she took a deep, sighing breath. “I think this is going to be triple-bad news, Krysty.”