After and Again

After

and

Again

by

Michael A. McLellan

Cover design

by

Casady Dixon

Copyright © 2014

Michael A. McLellan

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1502727722

ISBN-13: 978-1502727725

For Mindy, who has traveled a long road with me.

To Chelcy, Chazz, Casady, and Cheyenne

for making that road beautiful.

To Mom and Dad for always believing in me.

To Sarah for inspiring me to really do it.

To Tina, James, Debbie, Wayne, Dave and Emma, John, Brian, Matty P, Ricky, Nuj, and the Marches,

for their friendship.

Thank you.

1

  Zack found the cave early one morning when he was out looking for mushrooms. The morning was foggy; perfect weather for hunting the white capped mushrooms that he and his mother so enjoyed. He started up the foothills at the base of which his town, Payne’s Station was located, at first light. The pickings were not very good on the lower portion of the hills that day so he decided to hike further up to where the treeline started. It was a good distance up the foothills to where the grass gave way to a mix of live oaks and scrub pines, and he had worked up a good sweat before he made it to the first of the trees. He sat down against the base of one of the larger live oaks, and ate a small breakfast of blackberry preserves and cornbread that he had stowed away along with a mason jar of water in the leather pack that he carried. He ate quickly as he wanted to be on his way. His mother expected him back before midday and he had already traveled farther than he’d planned. Zack’s mother worried incessantly when he was away from town, more since his father had died four years before. 

  He stood up, shouldered his pack and began walking. He was nearly at the crest where the foothills became mountains and had yet to see a single decent mushroom. Walking slightly hunched over he scanned the light duff of fallen leaves and pine needles for the white caps. As he ascended, the trees crowded together more densely and filtered the already scant light of the overcast morning to a near twilight.

  He had been gone for nearly three hours when he stopped at a place where the trees cleared for a rock outcropping. He scrabbled up the loose stones to the top of the outcrop and was momentarily breathless as he looked down toward the valley below him. This was the farthest that he had ever climbed from Payne’s Station on his own and he was dazzled at the view from this vantage point. It was mid-spring and the whole valley was as green as the drawing of the Emerald City in the
Wizard of Oz
book that his father had read to him over and over when he was just small. His father had traded a new bow, a magnifier glass and an almost perfect pair of jeans for that book (a near fortune) to a travelling trader when Zack was five. Memories of his father rushed in; he sat down hard on the rocks and cried softly for his loss. The tears subsided a little at a time after a few minutes. Most of the time these days he could think of his father without the grief returning, yet still, even after four years, certain memories were painful.

  What drove him on that day, why he kept searching long after he would have given up on any other day, was something that he thought of from time to time later on when his back was against some wall or another. It was these times that made him wonder why he hadn’t simply turned around after his breakfast at the base of that tree and headed home.

  He awoke from a doze with the sun on his face. His head was muddled from sleep and his back hurt from lying on the rock. He shook his head as if to shake away the sleepiness and looked up at the sun. He guessed it to be just after noon. His mother was going to throw a fit.

  He started back the way he had come and noticed an animal path, what his father had called a deer trail, heading off to his right. He chose to take the path as his experience hunting with his father told him that the path most likely switched back down the mountain. It would make for an easier if not shorter walk home.

  The path ran parallel to the mountain with a nearly imperceptible downhill grade. Zack hoped that it didn’t travel far before switching back in the other direction so that he didn’t travel too far north or south of his home. He had only walked for a few minutes when he saw what appeared to be a large clump of wood mushrooms growing out of an old log. The log was partially sticking out of a tall thicket of scrub brush that backed up to the face of the mountain.

  When he reached the log he saw that it was indeed a very large clump of the flat, scalloped shaped wood mushrooms. They weren’t as tasty as the whitecaps but would still be good with some fried onions. Zack pulled a small leather pouch with a drawstring from his belt and began picking the mushrooms and dropping them in. As he worked his way down the log closer to the thicket, he felt a strong cool draft, apparently coming from behind the bushes. He tried to peer through openings in the branches but couldn’t make out anything on the other side. Zack, with more than his share of the natural curiosity of a fifteen-year-old pushed through the thicket to have a closer look. 

  There was about three feet of clear space between the bushes and the mouth of the cave. A steady wind; enough to blow Zack’s nearly shoulder length hair back from his face emanated from the opening. The opening itself was not quite as tall as Zack who stood about five feet eight inches. He would have to duck a little if he wanted to enter, which of course he did.

  Zack’s father taught him a great deal about animals, hunting, and survival, and although he was curious, he was not ignorant to the possible dangers of entering a cave. He looked around on the ground in front of the entrance, picked up several good-sized rocks and put them in the pockets of his soft sheepskin trousers. He then shimmied up the rocky earth to the side of the entrance, got a decent handhold on a sapling that clung to the mountainside, and leaned out over the cave entrance. He fished a stone from his pocket then heaved it into the darkness of the cave while shouting, “Hey in there!” he repeated this several times, going silent between each throw and listening for sounds from the interior of the cave. Satisfied that there was probably not a mountain lion or pack of coyote’s currently inside, he jumped down and entered into the darkness of the cave.

   Zack waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the cave’s interior. He saw that the ceiling rose, and after a few feet in he  penetrated the cave that he could see about twenty feet inside, and he observed that the cave widened considerably further in.       

  He pulled out the bone-handled knife on his belt and held it at his side in case he had been wrong about nothing inhabiting the cave. Moving ahead slowly he could make out some shapes in the distance, possibly a cabinet or crates stacked against the cave’s wall.

  Suddenly the cave was flooded with brilliant light; Zack cried out in surprise, holding the knife out in front of him in reflex and backpedaling a few steps toward the entrance. The light started to weaken almost immediately and Zack could see its source just above where the crates were stacked. It was a large glass bulb—a
light bulb
like they had used in the old days was attached to the wall. He had even heard stories from travelers that there were places where things like it still worked.

  He cautiously started forward again, scanning the wide cave for any movement, and saw none. By the time he had covered the short distance to where the light was, it was nearly dark again. Only a weak glow emitted from the bulb, barely lighting the immediate area. Squatting in front of the crates he could see that they were made of plastic. Here was another leftover from the old days, although unlike the light bulb, there was still quite a lot of plastic around though the craft to make it had been lost or forgotten.

  The crates were large; almost large enough that he could curl up and fit inside of one had he the mind to. There were six of them in two stacks of three. He stood and tested the weight of the top crate; it felt too heavy for him to lift outright but he thought that he could drag it to the mouth of the cave to inspect it’s contents. Just as he was getting a hold on the sides to pull the top crate off of the others the light went out completely.

  Zack waited a moment again for his eyes to adjust to the dim and pulled the top crate off of the others. The crate landed on the floor with a thud and something scurried across Zack’s right forearm. Already bent over the crate in an awkward position he brushed madly at his arm with his left hand, overbalanced, and fell backwards on his butt. Cursing, he stood up quickly, slapping and brushing at his entire body. Zack considered himself brave, he was proud of the fact that he was one of the only boys of his age in Payne’s Station that could both hunt by himself and dress a deer on his own. He could tan leather and fletch his own arrows (he had his fathers rifle but there had never been any ammunition for it) and was protector of his mother. He was however, terrified of spiders; a fact that he had managed to hide from his friends his whole life.

  It didn’t take long to drag all of the crates over to the mouth of the cave. After the crawly incident, he lifted one side of each crate and let them drop to the floor before he moved them, hoping that it would knock off any spiders that might be clinging to the sides.

  It took several minutes for Zack to puzzle out how to open the crates as the lids would not simply pull off. There was a lip running all of the way around where the lid met the crate, and by feeling underneath it he came across a protrusion which he instinctively pushed. There was a hissing of air and the lid was suddenly loose and lifted easily off of the first crate. Books; more books than he had ever seen at one time in his life filled the crate.

There were books about history, books of maps, books that taught languages, and books that told stories like
The Wizard of Oz
which he loved so much and had read more times than he could count.

  The next two crates that Zack opened also held books, but becoming aware of how long he’d been in the cave he only gave them a short look before pushing them aside for later inspection. The two crates that he opened next were full of clothes; good clothes like they made in the old days, like the jeans that his father had traded for
The
Wizard of Oz
book. There were two backpacks made out of similar, but thicker material than the jeans, and a heavy jacket that was obviously made of leather with a woolen collar and a patch sewn on the arm that simply said “Airborne”.

  Zack popped the lid up on the last crate and saw that it was full of different sized paper boxes. He selected one and pulled it out, it was heavy for its size and said Remington on it. He set it on top of the lid that he’d just taken from the top of the crate and opened the box. He inhaled and held his breath for a moment while what he was seeing registered. It was a pistol.

  He had seen pistols before. A couple of his father’s friends had them, there was however, as with his father’s rifle, no ammunition for them. They were for show, nothing more. He had seen one fired once when a traveling show troupe had passed a couple of days in Payne’s Station. There was a tall man with them, the tallest that Zack had ever seen. He had ridden a paint horse and had called himself a
Wild West Cowboy
. Well Zack knew what a cowboy was but wasn’t sure about the Wild West part. The Wild West Cowboy had performed tricks on his horse and shot rocks that his helper had thrown right out of mid-air. He had shown his pistol to Zack and had called it a
Six-Shooter
. This pistol looked a lot different than the one that the Wild West
Cowboy had.

  He lifted the pistol out of the box, it had a vaguely oily feel to it. He aimed it at the wall and made a “Katchow” noise. Taking the pistol box out of the crate had exposed several boxes of ammunition.  “I’m rich,” he said aloud to no one.

  The rest of the last crate was a treasure chest to Zack. He found a large knife with a scabbard, several books of blank paper, both wooden and plastic pencils, a whole box of plastic cylinders that after some fumbling he discovered made fire, and a tube shaped object with a glass lens on one end that housed a bulb inside it. It looked similar to the one that had lit up on the wall, only smaller. He also found some things that were even more exotic. There were some boxes that said
chewing gum
and a small square box, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand that was made out of either metal or plastic. It was shiny like polished metal on one side and was some sort of black material which reflected the light when he held it a certain way on the other. There was a short tether and a simple metal clip attached to it, and the letters HP and the word “mini-comp” written on the side.

  Zack put the pistol, two boxes of the ammunition, two books, the package of chewing gum, and the tube light thing in his pack. As an afterthought, after he had stowed everything away and closed his pack, he attached the metal clip on the plastic/metal box to a rawhide strap on the outside.

  He looked at the crates on the cave’s floor with a feeling of greed, and although his sensible mind told him that the crates had been in the cave undiscovered for a very long time, he still felt the need to hide them. He re-attached the lids and pushed the crates further back into the darkness and against the cave wall.

  Satisfied that no one would see the crates upon casual inspection of the cave’s entrance Zack hoisted his pack and pushed back through the bushes to the outside.

  The smell of smoke was immediate, and a thin haze was hanging in the thickly forested area. Zack simultaneously worried about his way down the mountain being blocked by fire and his mother’s safety down in the valley. The forest was too thick here for him to see the location of the fire so he headed back up the trail the way that he had come, making for the outcropping of rock that he had rested at earlier. From there he thought he’d able to pinpoint the fire’s location.

  He was jogging at a good clip when he suddenly stopped, his heart sinking. He recognized a smell in the smoke; burning rawhide. The fire was coming from town, and the big tanning barn that belonged to Jason Deveroux must be burning. Zack instantly turned around and ran back down the trail toward home, his pack banging against his back and his heart pounding in his chest much harder than was attributable to the exertion of running.