Tucker’s Grove (26 page)

Danny plunged into the alfalfa field, wading and running at the same time. He didn
’
t answer immediately, until he could r
a
tionalize something in his mind. “
Okay, I will.”
He started to go faster, calling into the wind ahead of hi
m and hoping the words would drift back to the old man. “
Promise!”

He wandered across the mountains of Asia Minor, got pa
s
sage on a creaking ship up the coast of the Black Sea and then down the Danube. Many questioned him, but none believed his story. The
Holy Roman Empire had been swallowed by history, as were the Crusades, as were the Infidels, as was Barbarossa.

Hoping to find something, he went across eastern Europe, scavenged for some memories in his beloved Prague, and then moved southward to Rome. H
e read voraciously, discovered what had happened during his long slumber, and fell into de
s
pair. His beautiful Empire had turned cannibal and had fallen prey to itself. Even an Angel-gifted hero could not battle such an enemy.

For Danny, the summer was fo
rever condensed into a day. The heart of the season struck when he had forgotten completely about his previous year in school, and the next one seemed inf
i
nitely far away. Danny
’
s skin was blotched with freckles that hadn
’
t been there a few weeks before. T
he alfalfa field had been cut and baled once already by the men who rented Mr. Rossa
’
s land, and now it had grown high enough to await its second cu
t
ting.

“
I
’
m going to Mister Rossa
’
s!”
he called back at his mother as he let the door slam behind him. By no
w, he no longer really needed to tell her where he was going.

“
You never watch cartoons anymore!”
he heard her say, but he was already sprinting across the field….

Under the big box-elder tree in the farmyard, the two of them sat in the shade of the aftern
oon, watching the world, seeing nothing and everything at the same time. Mr. Rossa reached down to expertly remove a tall grass blade and stuck it in his mouth. Danny tried to imitate him, pulling up the grass by its roots and then slowly extracting the r
i
ght part. The old man had once shown him how to whistle through a grassblade, but Danny succeeded only in cutting his lips.

“
Mister Rossa?”

The answer was a long time coming. “
Hmmm?”

“
What
’
s it like? Fighting in a big battle? I bet it
’
s exciting.”

The old
farmer looked lost for a moment, and then a smile spread under his beard. “
The first time I went out on a battlefield was the most terrifying experience ever. Even worse than the time I drowned. Just to look at the enemy army, and to see all those sharp s
w
ords
—
each one of them waiting to stick into your chest, or chop your head off.

“
I
’
ll bet you didn
’
t know I had my side cut open once, slashed right down the ribs all the way to my belly. Imagine looking down at your own innards, steaming up at you because
it
’
s a chilly morning. And then sitting there, brave like a king, trying not to grunt as a healer sews your wound back together. Mind you, we had none of the anesthetics you have now. Here
—
I
’
ve still got the scar.”

Mr. Rossa fumbled with the buttons on his
shirt, exposing the thermal undershirt and part of his hairy chest. Danny saw a long white line, very straight and lumped together with scar tissue that looked centuries old. Just like the mark a downstroke of a sword would leave.

“
Your sword becomes the
best friend you have in the entire world. After a while you forget that you might be ten seconds away from your own death, and you concentrate only on fighting. A red haze hovers around the edges of your eyes, closing in, and pretty soon all you see is re
d
. But your arm knows what it
’
s d
o
ing and you trust to your fighting instinct. And then, an instant later, sight floods back to you and you see all the trophies you
’
ve collected, all the heads in a pile. You go to your own soldiers, look at the comrades who
didn
’
t survive, the mangled ones with their mouths and their eyes and their wounds gaping open
—
and they seem to be angry at you because you lived, and they didn
’
t.”

Mr. Rossa paused for a minute, and spat out his grass blade, breaking the spell. He looked
at his hands, flexing them, and then ran his fingers through the once-red beard. “
Ah, Danny, with you here I am older than I ever was before.”

He traveled for years, north into France, then to England
and Wales. An unwelcomed savior, he did various jobs, strenuous work that even a battle-conditioned medieval king could barely endure. He married once, almost twice, but after several decades he had begun to realize the curse placed upon him by the A
n
gel
—
he aged at only a sliver of mankind
’
s rate. He had learned to keep his identity to himself, and he moved on as he grew res
t
less with one place, as people noticed he spent too many years looking the same age.

To Ireland, to a crowded, stinking steamer that
carried him with a festering mass of other immigrants across the Atlantic to America, a land beyond the edge of the 12th Century
’
s known world. He endured the abuse, traveled west from New York to try to start a farm for himself. He found this demeaning,
f
or in his memories only peasants did such work. The grim days of the Dust Bowl nearly ruined him, and he moved back east, to the rolling hills of Wisconsin, on the outskirts of a small town where the people asked no poignant questions. Lonesome, deserted
b
y history, Frederick Barbarossa had decided to die here, after nearly a century of second life…
and without a single friend to retell his story or remember him.

Danny turned the pages of the old encyclopedia slowly, d
e
liberately. He hoped to find a picture
of Frederick Barbarossa and compare it to Mr. Rossa. He had found the F volume and paged through it with the patience a determined child, without asking for help from his mother or father who both sat in the kitchen finishing their lunch. Danny paged pas
t
France, then Benjamin Franklin, and finally found Frederick I. And he saw the portrait.

It was a crude drawing, a sketch simpler even than Danny imagined he could do
—
the Emperor Barbarossa riding like a s
u
perhero on a cartoon horse. Without a doubt, it wa
s Mr. Rossa. He stared at the picture, started to read the entry, and slowly r
e
alized that his parents
’
conversation had become an argument.

“
He
’
s over there every day, all afternoon!”
His mother shou
t
ed. “
You aren
’
t home often enough to hear him come up w
ith words and…
and comparisons he has no way of knowing! That old farmer is telling him stories! It was almost better when he watched those crazy superhero cartoons
—
at least he only
half
-believed them!”

“
Now wait a minute.”
His father
’
s voice was forcedly c
alm. Dad always had a way of understanding the boy
’
s point of view; Danny wondered if his father remembered being a boy once. “
You
’
re the one who wanted to move out here to the country. There
’
s no one Danny
’
s age within miles, no one who
’
s even interested
in the things he likes to talk about. Except for Mr. Rossa. They
’
re keeping each other company. Besides, that old man is probably even lonelier than Danny is
—”

“
That old man is filling Danny
’
s head with crazy stories! Do you know he
’
s been telling Danny he
’
s some German king who
’
s been dead for centuries?”

“
It is not a story!”
Danny exploded into the dining room, still carrying the encyclopedia. He slammed it down on the table among the lunch debris. “
His picture
’
s right here.”

“
Daniel John!”
his mother sa
id, but Danny was angry enough to overcome his fear of her.

“
And he
’
s not dead because he
’
s a hero, and heroes never die! Mister Rossa knows!”

His mother started to shout something else, but Danny ran out the front door. “
Daniel John, you come back here th
is instant!”

But Danny didn
’
t listen, throwing the screen door shut behind him. “
And besides, he
’
s not a German king
—
he
’
s a Holy Roman Emperor!”
He ran through the alfalfa field, which had been mown and raked again, leaving the hay to dry in the sun befor
e baling.

He didn
’
t stop running until he had reached the old farmer
’
s peeling white door. “
Mister Rossa! Mister Rossa!”
He burst into the farmhouse.

Something was different. The house was quieter than the sound of soft breathing, and the sun seemed reluct
ant to penetrate the cream-colored shades that covered the windows. “
Mister Rossa?”

The kitchen, the sitting room with its old wooden radio, the bathroom, and the bedroom were all together on the first floor, near the door, so that Mr. Rossa needed to take
fewer steps. He knew that the farmer always opened his shades early each mor
n
ing; now, though, the bedroom was dim.

“
Mister Rossa?”

The old man lay on his bed, breathing slowly but not sleeping. The bed had been made, but the farmer was only half-dressed,
as if he had realized he would never finish. Danny went close to him, saw that his hands were trembling. The old man
’
s eyes were open, but glazed, exhausted
—
the fires within them that had a
l
ways frightened Danny were now so dull that it terrified him even
more.

“
Mister Rossa…
what
’
s wrong?”

The old man
’
s breathing picked up, as if he had just noticed the boy, and he inhaled several times before answering. “
I am very old, Danny…
even older than I had thought. I was frozen in what I had been. You made me reali
ze that I may be a hero…
but I am still very human inside. And that made me vulnerable. Thank you.”

Danny gasped as he suddenly realized what was taking place. “
Are you
dying
, Mister Rossa?”
His eyes stood wide in the di
m
ness, in his disbelief.

Mr. Rossa closed his eyes gently, wearily, and drew a deep, difficult breath. “
You can bet I
’
m going to tell that Angel a few things…
when I see him again.”

“
But you can
’
t die! Heroes never die! Remember?
Remember!
You said!”

He waited, and waited, but rece
ived no answer. He watched the old man
’
s labored breathing. The eyes remained closed, but a thin, tired whisper flickered through his lips. “
I think I need to sleep…
again.”

“
You promised!”
Danny
’
s ragged voice convulsed with sobs he wasn
’
t supposed to expr
ess in front of a legendary king. Tears were streaming down his face. “
You can
’
t go to sleep! I don
’
t want to wait a thousand years to see you again. You can
’
t!”