The number of her questions doubled instantly, and she was confused all over again. “Yes. His name is Pick.”
“I am a Knight of the Word,” he said. “Has Pick told you of the Knights?”
She shook her head no. “Pick doesn’t say much about anything that goes on outside of the park.”
Ross nodded. They were even with the burial mounds now and turning in to the playground, stepping carefully over the low chain dividers. They moved across the twig-strewn grass beneath the hardwoods, solitary ghosts. Ahead, the baseball diamonds were filling with shadows and emptying of people. Nest could see lights beginning to come on in the houses of the subdivisions bordering the park and in the Sinnissippi Townhomes. Stars were beginning to appear in the darkening sky east, and a crescent moon hung suspended north across the river.
“Did you really know my mother?” Nest asked him, a twinge of doubt nudging at her, suspicious now of everything he had said.
He seemed not to have heard her. He said nothing for a moment, then slowed and looked over at her. “Why don’t we sit somewhere and talk, and I’ll tell you what I’m doing here.”
She studied him carefully while he waited for her answer. “All right,” she agreed finally.
They moved out of the hardwoods and away from the playground. The feeders that had been shadowing them fell away as they moved into the open again, unwilling to follow. They stayed on the west side of the road leading out of the park, away from the ball games that were ending and the players and fans packing up their blankets and gear, and moved to a picnic table just at the edge of a solitary spruce close by the crossbar.
They sat across from each other in the failing light, the girl and the man, and they might have been either confidants or combatants from the set of their shoulders and the positioning of their hands, and in the vast, empty space of night and sky that closed about them, their words could not be heard.
“This is how I became a Knight of the Word,” John Ross said softly, his green eyes steady and calm as they fixed on her.
And he told Nest Freemark his story.
CHAPTER 14
He was still a young man when he began his odyssey, noi yet turned thirty. He was drifting again, as he had been drifting for most of his life. He had earned an undergraduate degree in English literature (he had done his senior thesis on William Faulkner), and his graduation had marked the conclusion of any recognizable focus in his life. Afterward, he had migrated to a series of different schools and graduate programs, twice coming close to completing his masters, each time stepping back when he got too close. He was a classic case of an academic unready and unwilling to confront the world beyond the classroom. He was intelligent and intuitive; he was capable of finding his way. The problem with John Ross was always the same. The way never seemed important enough for him to undertake the journey.
He had always been like that. He had excelled in school from an early age, easily gaining honors recognition, effortlessly garnering high praise and enthusiastic recommendations. While he was attending school full-time, while he was required to be there, it was never necessary that he consider doing anything more. It was a comfortable, regimented, encapsulated existence, and he was happy. But with his graduation it became apparent that he must point toward something specific. He might have become a teacher, and thus remained within the classroom, kept himself safe within an academic confinement, but teaching did not interest him. It was the discovery that mattered, the uncovering of truths, the deciphering of life’s mysteries that drew him into his studies. And so he moved from college to university, from graduate studies in American literature to funded research in Greek history, all the while waiting for the light to shine down the road his life must necessarily take.
It did not happen, though, and as he approached the age of thirty, he began to think that it never would. His parents, always supportive of him, were beginning to despair of his life. An only child, he had always been the sole focus of their expectations and hopes. They did not say so, but he could read their concerns for him in their studied silence. They no longer supported him-he had long since learned the art of securing scholarships and grants-so money was not an issue. But his options for continued study were drawing to a close, and he was still nowhere close to choosing a career. What could he do with his English degree and his raft of almost completed esoteric studies? If he didn’t choose to teach, what could he do? Sell insurance or cars or vacuum cleaners? Go into business? Work for the government? When none of it mattered, when nothing seemed important enough, what could he do?