Preface

 

Readers are going to eventually ask me if the book is based on living or dead people: both.  Bill and Gloria are mentioned by name and I have their permission.  Anya was the pet name of the murdered woman journalist set back in that time period when she escaped to Austria to write her book.  Anyone could use Google and find her, but I didn't mention her real name or the name of the book.

I also used the last name of my friend Ellen Cohen as the doctor's last name.  The rabbi's names are from a list of names I found for Israel, but they are not currently living or even the exact names.  I think the rest of the characters came out of my head, especially Lyle, Jackson, Jillian, and Mia. 

The circumstances are based on possibilities and history along with my understanding of what people of different ages do and think.

I hope you enjoy reading the book.  I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

© 2010 Nancy Dickerson. All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in print, on the Internet, or in any form without written permission of the author.

Destinations

Chapter 1

Guessing that her memory was somewhat faulty, she gazed through the high grass surrounding the lake.  Something scuttled and rustled close to her feet as she wandered around.  Floundering through the high grasses, she heard a snort and looked up to stand eye to eye with a bull moose.  Startled and suddenly fearful beyond words, she lost her balance and fell over on her face into the grassy, muddy water just as a furious creature attacked the nose of the moose.  Tossing his head and bellowing, the moose slung the furry creature over his back and stomped away with blood streaming from his tender nose.

A huffy little dog strutted up to the bedraggled woman and gave one triumphant bark.  HE was a hero and wanted her to acknowledge his bravery.  Laughing, she sat and cuddled her brave little warrior.  Now they had only to find the cabin.  But Sigmund, true leader of his pack, soon led her to a path.  The cabin at the end of the path did not look even remotely familiar to Jillian.

Mud dauber nests had firmly fastened the door in place.  Her muddy shoes fell off her feet as she tried to kick the door open.  Dust and cobwebs greeted her entrance.  Something swished across a far corner of the room.  She needed a lantern or flashlight.  But she needed many things.  Needs!  No, she wanted some light.  The wanting problem again!

Sigmund swiftly raced around the room.  Scratching out the old quilt in the rocker, he lay down and sighed.  HIS work was done for the day.

Jillian tried to control the sudden shaking of her hands as she created a quick fire with kindling and matches found in a corner of the wood box.  The old leftover wood from someone’s earlier fire would soon catch into a decent fire to last the night.  She piled her sodden clothes next to the muddy shoes, wrapped an old quilt around her cold body, threw another on the floor and cuddled down by the fire.

The scratching at her back and snuffing in her ear woke her.  Sigmund, at least, was ready for the day.

Only the sun, a decent meal, a bath, and some clean clothes would help Jillian face another day.  But first she had to try to find her way back to her car to get her bags.  No strange beasts snorted at her in surprise during her walk, so her day was off to a good start.  Still, in the back of her mind, she wondered why the cabin looked so different than the one of her memories.  It had belonged to her grandfather since he was a young man, but when she had called the “step-witch” to ask about it, she was told that her grandfather’s nephew was now the owner.  She had never been close to her uncle, but she had called for permission to use the cabin for a few weeks.  That conversation had nearly been a disaster in itself!

Aunt Florence loved gossip the way some people love food.  She was a gossip gourmet.  She and Uncle Jack had never had any daughters and their only son had been a casualty of Vietnam.  Jillian had endured the “relationship drill” when she had still been at home, but she refused to succumb to Aunt Florence’s digging remarks when she had called about the cabin.

“Oh darling, how are your dear grandfather and grandmother?”

“That woman is NOT my grandmother and Granddad is fine.”

“Surely you want Roy to be happy.  Just because YOU have never married, you shouldn’t begrudge others the happiness of marriage and a loving relationship!”

“How is Uncle Jack?”

“Your poor uncle is not a well man.  He has been in and out of the hospital all this year.”

From the background Jillian could clearly hear her uncle shouting, “Garbage!”

The phone rattled and Florence’s protesting voice faded into the background as Uncle Jack took the initiative for the rest of the conversation.

“This Roy’s girl?  See here, don’t you believe that woman!  The doctors did some tests, cut a few tiny holes in my belly, and sucked out some of my guts.  No big deal.  In and out my eye!  I wasn’t even there overnight.”

“So you are doing ok, Uncle Jack?”

“Fine, fine as frog’s hair split eight ways with a grubbin’ hoe!  But Roy?  How is the old boy?”
Uncle Jack never asked about the step-witch.  He knew.  He understood so many things and never said a word or asked for any explanation.

“She wouldn’t let me talk to him.  She said she had just put him down for his nap—as if he were a baby or small child!  He wrote to me last month and said he was doing well, but he apologized for not calling or being available for my calls.  He said he hoped I could understand.”

“Well, it just isn’t right!  That woman is not natural!  I hope you don’t ever get into a relationship where someone tries to control you.  If you do, just let me know and I will put a whammy on him!”

“I wish you could put a whammy on her!  But that is not why I called.  She said that you or a nephew owns the cabin up by the lake now.  I wanted to know if I could use it for a little while.  Would that be possible?”

“To tell the truth, little girl, I bought the cabin for your cousin after he came back from the war.  It was bad for him to be alone, but worse to be with others.  That was nearly forty years ago and I haven’t been back for nearly that long.  Your grandparents took you up there a few times when you were little, but I have no idea if the cabin still stands.  I have heard that they had a flash flood and bad storm up that way and lost some roads, but those were probably put back right away.  At one time it was a good place to fish and hunt.  If anyone would know anything about the property, it would be Clyde Standridge, the realtor.  He used to have an interest in every concern around Moose Bend Lake.  I can call for you and find out.  Now give me your phone number and I will get back to you.”

Jillian’s family had so many convolutions that it reminded her of some Faulkner novels she had studied in an American literature class.  Uncle Jack and her grandfather Roy were brothers, but they had also married sisters and the two men tried to keep the family close while their children were growing up.  Uncle Jack had a son named Jackson who had been a tunnel rat in Vietnam until an explosion in a tunnel had caused his return to the states.

Granddad Roy and his first wife Jill had had two children, her mother Laci and a son, Lyle.  Grandmother Jill and Jillian’s mother had been especially close, so Laci’s death soon after Jillian’s birth had been very hard.  Jillian’s own father could not work and raise a child, so he left Jillian with Granddad Roy and Grandmother Jill.  Her grandparents had been the only real parents Jillian had ever known.  When she was old enough to ask, she found that her father had died and that money had been put in a trust for her.  She never asked again.

A week after her conversation with Uncle Jack, smoke curled from the fireplace of the cabin and the smell of coffee slipped through the air.  Jillian wished that her life could be as easily rearranged as the old cabin, but scrubbing and sweeping could at least make her feel better for now.  She had spent the last three years as a nurse practitioner under a well-known psychiatrist in New York City.  But she didn’t even want to think about anything that made her feel so totally incapable of handling her wild emotions.

A season of growth and a respite to a different kind of wildness had been her self-prescribed remedy.  The summer had found its footing even in the northern reaches of the lake so that morning dips in the cold lake water near the cabin and evenings by a small fire where the food simmered had her constantly hungry and happy.

Refreshed by her escape from the city noises and stresses, Jillian’s days all too quickly began to draw her mind back to reality.  Even Thoreau had been supported by a benefactor.  She had no such luxury.  Even in her new-found calmness, she wondered how to take the sounds of the wind through the tree tops back with her.  Swiftly sketching the scene before her in rough charcoal, she suddenly knew.  Her stories filled the pages as her memories became clear.

 

On the day that she had decided she must return to her work, Jillian cleaned the cabin and left it much improved for her presence there.  Her hike back to the washed out bridge where she had had to leave her car was not terribly hot, but she really wished that she could have stayed a little longer.  She knew she would want to return, so she planned to stop at the little campground and store at Moose Bend and see if she could find Mr. Standridge.

The darkened room just inside the store seemed deserted when Jillian first stepped through the doorway.  She felt she should call out her presence, but she hesitated.  A rustle and creak from the corner of the room quickly got her attention even though her eyes could not adjust as quickly as her ears.

“Good morning.”

“Woof!”  A huge Bull Mastiff rose from his bed and came toward her.

“Moose!  Don’t you go slobbering all over the lady!”  A man stood up near a big bale of shaggy rugs and stepped toward the dog.

“He is harmless, but he will really soak your clothes if he gets close enough to start sniffing.”

For some silly reason Jillian felt suddenly weak and shaky.  Her hands shook and she needed to sit down.

“Ma’am, I promise he won’t hurt you.”  But the huge animal came over and stood beside Jillian as she slipped to the floor.  And true to his nature, he found her face and gave her a thoroughly slobbery licking.

Jillian was vaguely aware that the animal was being pulled away from her, and she murmured her protest.  “It’s ok.  I like dogs.  He is just so huge.”

The man brought a straight back chair for Jillian and handed her a Coke and a wet towel for her face as he apologized for “Moose” and his startling appearance and behavior.  But then he became very quiet and was obviously staring at her.

“I’m sorry.  I don’t mean to stare.  I just seem to feel that I know you.  But here, my name is Charles—well, Charlie Standridge, if you want to know what I am called.  And you are?”

“I’m Jillian Colter.  I have been staying for the past week at the cabin my grandfather, his brother and my cousin have owned.  I just came in to see if I could find Clyde Standridge to talk to him about the cabin.”

“Clyde was my grandfather.  But you say you have been staying at your grandfather’s cabin?”

“Yes, it’s the cabin just beyond the bridge near the lake.  It really did not look anything like what I remembered as a child, but I guess I have just forgotten so many things.  And then Granddad said that some roads had washed out, and I saw that the bridge wasn’t safe for my car.”

Jillian felt as if she were simply blabbering on while this man looked at her in such a strange way with a little smile on his face.  She finally looked him square in the face and asked, “Something is funny or what?”

“A storm on the lake about five years ago tore out trees, cabins, and even some of this little village.  Many of the roads to the cabins were not replaced because no one used the cabins any longer.  Only three cabins on this side of the lake can even be called habitable.  None of them are near a bridge.”

“But that is impossible.  I stayed there for nearly a week, and I walked back to the bridge this morning.”  Jillian began to feel dizzy again.  “Besides, my grand uncle called back to tell me that the realtor had said for me to come on in and he would get me to the cabin.”

“Well, that realtor would have been me, but you never came in for me to take you to the cabin.  I have no idea where you were staying, but it was not in one of our properties.”

“Oh.”  Jillian had no idea what to say or think.  Then it struck her that he had said ‘our properties.’
“Mr. Standridge, is my uncle’s cabin still standing?”

“As I said, there are three habitable cabins on this side of the lake.  They belong to our realty firm.  But there is no problem if you have been staying in one of them.”

Jillian stood up and braced herself on the back of the chair just as a large calico cat jumped from the bale of rugs onto the cane bottom of the chair.  Stretching from the seat up to the last rung of the chair back, the cat gently laid its paw on her hand and purred loudly.

“Mia must have come in the back.  I will ask her about the cabins,” said Charles.  “She was here when the storm came through and Granddad was killed.”

Even though she had thought she needed to leave quickly to return to New York City, Jillian now felt a combination of curiosity mixed with cold chills.  As Standridge turned to walk toward the back of the store, the big calico cat rubbed around her ankles and wrapped his tail around her legs.  Then she remembered Sigmund in the car.  But between her and the door was Moose with his tongue lolling out and drool dripping from his face.  She sat down and accepted a lap full of fur as a compromise.

A quiet figure slipped near her and sat down on the bale of rugs.  “Solomon doesn’t take up with everyone.  You should feel special.”  The voice was so quiet, yet clear, and the face was almost too gentle to belong in the real world.

“I am Mia Avens.  I grew up here and usually know most of the area pretty well.  Charlie says that you have spent a week in a ‘ghost cabin.’”

“Whatever it was, it was not a ‘ghost cabin,’ Ms. Avens.  Sigmund and I enjoyed the days and nights there quite well.  We cleaned it up and left what provisions I had left over that would store.  I aired and cleaned the beautiful quilts and cleaned up the rocker and the wooden bed.  I could not have asked for a nicer place to stay unless it had had a light on the evening I arrived.”

“Quilts?  Rocker?  You found quilts and a rocker?”

“Why does that seem so shocking to you?  I will admit it seemed more like something a woman would enjoy than a fisherman or hunter, but it was quite comfortable after we evicted a few mice and a possum.”

“Who is Sigmund?” asked Mia.

“My dog; he is in the car, but Moose is over there by the door…”

“Let’s go talk to Sigmund, shall we.  He might like to meet Solomon and Moose.”

“Well, he has already met one moose, and the meeting was not terrifically satisfactory,” Jillian laughed.

“Tell me about it,” said Mia as she led the way outside to the sunshine past the huge dog.  Solomon walked beside her and the big dog backed away and followed at a respectful distance.  “Moose has learned to respect Solomon’s claws.”

“Well, there is at least one moose out there somewhere who learned to respect Sigmund’s bite.”
As the two women walked to her car, Jillian felt that she already knew this woman as a friend.  That was such a strange sensation to her.  She had never made friends easily and had never opened up to anyone without considerable reservation.

“Your dog must be sleepy,” said Mia as they reached the little SUV that Jillian had driven down from New York.

But Sigmund never slept when he was “guarding” for Jillian.  After picking up the little dog, she could feel his body heat through his nose and feet as he limply attempted to lick her hand.

“A veterinarian?” asked Jillian.

“Come on.  We will take him to see Doc Harvey.  Meanwhile let me hold him and you drive back up this lane about two miles until we see a big cabin.  If he is at home, Doc Harvey can fix him.”

Chapter 2

After a quick trip up the dusty road, the two women came to an older cabin-like structure that boasted large front windows from the top of the roof to just about waist high.  Knocking on the cabin door, Mia called out, “Doc Harvey!”

A thudding and banging inside the cabin held their attention until a whiskered face jutted out the front door in their direction.  Mia held up the little dog and both women watched as “whiskers” took the animal and turned in the same motion.  Not one word had the man spoken—either in greeting or otherwise.  Jillian determined to follow her dog’s trail, so she stepped through the front door followed by Mia.

It looked as if the man were pinching the dog’s skin and dropping it.  “Where’s he been?” seemed to wheeze out of the whiskers.

“I think they were camped up on the south-west corner of the flooded area, but I am not sure yet,” Mia explained.

“No ticks or bites that I can see.  Might be the water or mud up there.  Haven’t seen any of this in a long time since folks no longer camp up there.  Maybe a little fluid will flush him out.  Help me hold him while I get an IV started.”

“Name?” 

Jillian looked at Mia and Mia looked at Jillian and pointed to the dog.  “Sigmund is his name.  What is wrong with him?”

“Sigmund, you be a good little boy and keep your teeth to yourself.  It won’t take more than 30 minutes to put some fluids back into your little body.  If your kidneys will work after that, you will be in good shape.”

The two women could have been invisible, but Jillian didn’t feel too worried about her dog because the hands seemed so capable and kind.  She glanced back toward the door and noticed that the tall windows let in hardly any light through a dark glaze of dust and dirt.  It was pretty obvious that this man lived alone or with someone who didn’t take housecleaning seriously.  Her guess was that he was alone and preferred it that way.  He certainly had wasted no breath in social amenities.

“Go away and come back in the morning.  By then we will know if he will live,” wheezed ‘Whiskers.’

“Thanks, Doc,” Mia said quickly as she motioned Jillian to the door before she could state the protest that was obviously on her mind.

As Mia led Jillian away from the cabin, she explained a bit about the man and his situation.  Jillian listened quietly as she learned about another war casualty—a war she had never seen and never would have given a thought. 

“I think he was a medic in Vietnam and got sprayed by several kinds of stuff that the government thought would make the war easier.  The stuff didn’t work, but it made some people very sick.  Doc was one who survived.  He came back here and now he tries to find something that will take away some of the results of the government’s experiments.  His house is more like a laboratory than living quarters, but once in a while I go and clean it up a bit.  He won’t let me do much.”

“You said ‘came back.’  Did he live here before he went to war?” asked Jillian.

“Yes, in a way you might say he is part of the family of Moose Bend,” she said as she gave Jillian a sidelong look.

“I feel as if I have walked into the middle of a novel and missed the first part of the plot!  I wish you would explain a few things and fill in the blanks as you go along.”

“Let’s go to my house and settle us down for the evening and talk.  I think we both could tell each other a few things that might clear up a few ‘mysteries,’ replied Mia.

Later that evening Jillian had had a wonderful hot shower and had washed her hair and scrubbed herself all over with some delicious smelling body wash.  She had almost forgotten what it was to smell good.  But so many questions whirled through her head that she felt dizzy and tired.  She couldn’t even think clearly enough to consider writing down all the questions to ask Mia.  And that started her wondering why Mia thought that she could possibly answer any of her questions.  It was almost too much to consider.

“Maybe I should lay some ground work while we eat our dinner,” Mia said as she placed dishes of green vegetables and some glossy yellow squash on her table.  “Maybe the place to start is the family tree.”

“You said THE family tree, Mia.  Am I missing something?”

“Did you feel as if you knew me the minute you saw me?” smiled Mia.  “Can you say first cousins?” he laughed.

“You have GOT to be kidding!”

“Why?  Did you think the Colter gene pool had been drained and put away for the duration?”

“You are my age, or about that age, I think,” faltered Jillian.  “So who are your parents?”

“My mother was Susan Avens.  She died in the same storm that killed Charlie’s granddad.  That is an entirely different story, but it is connected to why things around here are a bit mysterious to you.  Now, here is the fun part that I can’t really prove but have almost positively proved.  I think my father was your first cousin once removed—Jackson Colter.”

“You’re kidding!”

Jillian looked at Mia and watched her slow smile.  How?  When?  Why had no one said anything? Uncle Jack and Aunt Flo hardly ever talked about their lives.  But Aunt Flo had always insisted that every child had to have a ‘decent education’ and the opportunity to be happy.  And her idea of happy meant connected to the rest of the family.  It suddenly struck Jillian that she had never heard Aunt Flo talk about her only child, Jackson.  It seemed that Grandmother Jill had constantly talked to Aunt Flo about family and what Jillian and Lyle were doing.  But Lyle, her mother’s brother, had gone on to one foreign country after another while Jillian was little.  It had never occurred to her to ask about what he did or anything about him.  In fact, she only remembered him vaguely from pictures.  And Jackson?  Why had she never thought to ask about him?

“Genealogy is SO much fun!” laughed Mia.

 

THE EDUCATIONS

Lyle Colter knew the clays of almost every country in the world.  He knew that the ball clays were formed from prehistoric forest fires or volcanic eruptions that burned the surrounding areas.  But he also knew that the value of each clay depended on its individual attributes and the demand for those attributes.  His specialty, if he really had only one, was ceramics and the substances that made them so useful.  His greatest desire was to find natural clay that would prove to be effective for use in creating everything from ceramics in outer space to ceramics for computer engineering.  Outer space had its own set of demanding specifications, but Lyle was positive that somewhere on earth a clay or substance existed which would fill the needs of high intensity heat and extremes of cold. 

As a young teenager he had watched his mother put CorningWare bowls in the oven after removing them from their freezer.  Someone had come up with a very good formula to make that happen.  His mother never understood why he wanted to know how it was made, but she and Roy had sent him to college so that he could study chemical engineering, geology, and several levels of business management.  His younger cousin Jackson had been there right along with him for a year or two, but had not stayed around to graduate.  Still, he felt Jackson was the better scientist.  Jackson could never talk to others the way Lyle did.  He was not shy, but he was a man of few words.  He would never have been able to make all the contacts with different chemical and electronics companies the way Lyle had.  And Jackson would never have attempted to speak four or five different languages.  Not that he could not if he had tried.  But Jackson simply wasn’t interested in people, or at least it seemed that way to Lyle.

Now he had found a message from Jackson in his e-mails.  Jackson never used a phone to talk since his return from Vietnam, but now that Jackson had a computer, Lyle heard from him regularly by e-mail.  They were both looking for the same thing—a special clay that would put any other ball clay to shame.  Of course, Jackson had other interests just as Lyle did, but the message had read ‘Clay.  Come see.’

Lyle never enjoyed these trips when he had to take the little planes, but some parts of the country simply did not warrant airports or trains.  This far north had never been Lyle’s favorite part of the country either since he had left it behind that last summer he had lived at ‘home.’  Giant mosquitoes, ticks that caused sicknesses, leaches that could make a person shudder just by their looks, and the dangers in each body of water that had nothing to do with anything a person could see—those were some of Lyle’s reasons to stay away as long as possible.

Jackson never greeted him or came to the dock when the plane landed on the lake, but Lyle never let him know when he was coming.  And Lyle knew that meals were nothing to be anticipated with joy.  The mile walk to the cabin would have been pleasant if his mood had been better, but he was hungry and tired from jet lag after returning to Midland from Germany two days earlier.  In Germany his negotiations for ceramic clay had gone well, but no one in Midland seemed to care one way or the other.  He felt that he was missing something in their attitude, but he could not understand what might have changed while he was out of the country.  Maybe he was just tired.  And now he would hear very little from his cousin about this clay—or anything else, for that matter.  Jackson couldn’t be bothered to keep up with the world.

Jackson answered the door the way he always did, abruptly.  But Lyle was startled to see a smile on his bushy face.  And something smelled like real food!  Jackson was cooking!  Lyle would have stood there with his mouth open if he had not been so hungry, but Jackson motioned him in and handed him a bowl and a hunk of brown bread and walked over to the long cabinet where he sat to eat his meals.  Lyle dipped into the big pot on the stove and then found a spoon for his bowl.  The soup was boiling hot, but he desperately wanted a bite.  Dipping his bread into the thick broth, he blew a bit and then tried to bite into the bread.  It was still too hot.  Shaking his head, he turned to the cabinet and drug up a stool to the least cluttered spot.  He needed a drink.

Jackson had brought two cups to the cabinet and opened a bottle of wine.  Lyle had never seen Jackson drink anything other than water. 

“Wine?  Where did that come from and what is the occasion?”

“The girl makes it.  Grows her own grapes from some stock she had shipped in from Texas.  Grafts onto the Mustang roots and avoids the fungus we have up here.  Her idea may make grapes part of this area’s crops in the future.”

Jackson poured the wine liberally into the cups and began to eat quickly despite the heat of the stew.  Lyle smiled his appreciation for food, drink, and quiet.  Then both men went back for more stew.  Jackson held up the bottle and Lyle nodded his head.  They both drank another cup and then sat back and looked at each other.  The two men could not have been more different if they had tried.  Lyle, even wearing jeans, a blue chambray shirt, and sneakers could never have looked as wild and wooly as Jackson in his worn jeans, old green shirt, and holey sneakers.  But the room seemed so comfortable.  Lyle was suddenly very tired.

“Sleep and then talk in the morning?” asked Jackson. 

Lyle nodded his head and went back to the door to pick up his backpack.  He was headed to the bathroom when something suddenly rushed at his ankle.  Lyle did not know where the energy came for the sudden jump, but jump he did!  The laughter from Jackson only made him feel more like an idiot after he saw the little dog.

“A dog?  You have a dog?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?  This bundle of fur and fury is a dog.  It definitely is not a cat and I know a moose when I see one!”

“The girl.”

Shaking his head, Lyle went on his way followed by a small creature that seemed to inspect his every move.  Only later during the night did he realize that he also had a small bed partner.

Chapter Three will be released on March 15.