Dreamseeker's Road by Tom Deitz Page B

him how to affect the good-ole-boy facade a guy needed to survive a rural mountain high school—and those more sophisticated skills a college man must possess so as not to be thought a hick or a geek or a dweeb; so that he could ride a horse, drive a tractor, chop sorghum, dig ’taters, pour concrete and weld—and run almost forever, swim well nigh that long, hold his own at wrestling in spite of being not very big, drive a twisting road without brakes, and shoot anything that walked, crawled, sat still, or flew. But he’d also read all of Shakespeare before high school—and Malory, Milton, Tolkien, Lewis, and Poe; and could write passable iambic pentameter, transliterate Norse runes and the Hebrew, Greek, and Sindarin alphabets; as well as identify almost every song played on the airways more than twice during the last nine years, and drink anything alcoholic, however foul tasting, without coughing or making a face. All because David-the-Elder had said that was what a man who was really alive should do.
    … guns…
    He’d rehearsed that awful afternoon once that day already, the one when Uncle Dale had appeared at his bedroom door to proclaim his nephew’s death. And he’d relived his private salute after the funeral.
    And he’d certainly recalled how none of it was fair, that someone as accomplished as David-the-Elder should die so ignominiously. That, in fact, no one should really know how he had died at all. No one had seen it—or admitted as much; and the report from the Rangers had been frustratingly vague. But he would find out one day, would write the Pentagon for the full report. Shoot, he’d get Alec to hack into the government’s files, as he was perfectly able to do.
    But no mere report could relate everything that had transpired; none could fully convey David-the-Elder’s final hours.
    But a red-septumed quasi stone in a blood-filled bowl beside his head could. And as fatigue and regret clogged David’s reason, magic from another World revealed that fateful day…
    It was like watching TV, David thought, and thought no more, but witnessed.
    … a young man in the jeans and Nikes and T-shirt that proclaimed him a Ranger off-duty, prowling the narrow cobblestoned length of a Middle Eastern street. His hair, white-blond like his namesake nephew’s, was a beacon of difference in the harsh sunlight—and possibly a mistake to reveal; but he’d given his Atlanta Braves cap to a brown-faced street boy in trade for a wide white grin and directions to where the best pomegranates could really be found. Pomegranates: the word had the same root as grenade (as in hand grenade), because the two looked alike. He hoped to buy a couple dozen, ship ’em to a friend in Granada, Spain, and have him send ’em to the younger David, with a note not to pull the pins—which his brilliant nephew would understand and appreciate.
    Trouble was, he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere between the barracks and the bazaar, and smiling boy directions notwithstanding, very much feared he was lost. Which was not necessarily cool for tow-haired American servicemen in Middle Eastern cities, however ingratiating their honest mountain smiles might be.
    But speaking of smiles, here was that kid again, still with his baseball cap, only now it perched atop one of those complex turban-things the locals affected.
    With a flourish the lad removed the latter and passed it to him. “Trade,” he said, solemnly. “Trade.”
    “Lost,” the elder David countered, as he gamely donned the headpiece. The boy’s grin widened. “Pomegranates,” he called, pointing down a narrow side street.
    David-the-Elder thanked him and followed his directions, ambling toward a slit of light glimmering at the end of the alley, where a tinkling splash of water and a half-seen spray of palms hinted at pleasantry. His hiking stick clicked upon the cobblestones.
    But as he stepped into the brightness, something small and dark thumped to the pavement before him.