Chapter 5 - The Crow in the Plains

I’m sorry, one more time. A cow patty is made of WHAT? – A young man, passing through Newton, KS

The view from beyond the door was eerie in its twilight glow. Somehow, it was as though the world had gone from the middle of the night to a lukewarm, overcast morning in a matter of seconds. Jonathan glanced back at us with a crease in his brow and stepped into this odd dawn.

Kenzie and Aly followed, and I brought up the rear. Everything around us had changed. Where once had stood the outskirts of Colwich, KS now stood a living, rustling prairie. Tall grass flowed outward in waves, like wheat pulsing in the wind.

I heard the door shut behind me, and we all turned to see an old blue and gray farmhouse that seemed to be gazing resolutely back at us. “Creepy,” muttered Jonathan.

Aly’s eyes were opened wide as she turned a slow circle, trying to grasp the world around her. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Where are we? What happened to the Library? Where is Colwich? Dewey!” She turned upon me, “What’s going on?”

I said nothing. I did not know what to say. I looked to Kenzie, who shrugged, and I turned back to Aly. Where had we gone? Where were the fields of wheat, of milo, sunflowers and soy? We had obviously gone to another place, and I had not counted on that. Worse, unlike the last two times, I had not changed now. I was still a child with a child’s memories and a child’s knowledge. I had no answer because I was seven and did not know an answer.

“I’ve seen this before,” said Jonathan, under his breath. We all looked at him. “This house, this land, it’s all so familiar.” He backed away from the old farm house about twenty feet and started walking to his left, then to his right.

“It’s… just… about… here!” he said. He turned to Kenzie. “Hey Kenz, come look at this.” She trotted over to where Jonathan stood, looked, and wrinkled her brow. He watched her for a moment, and then said, “You’ve seen it before too.” It was not a question. She looked at him and nodded, her brow still wrinkled.

“But I don’t remember from where,” she said.

“It’s that picture,” he said, “the one at the old farmhouse. The one Grandma painted.”

Kenzie’s expression cleared, then was replaced by one of fear. She looked at Dewey and said, “He’s right. Dewey, he’s right. I imagine we must be somewhere in Kansas, but I don’t think we’ll find it on any maps.”

I looked at them both and smiled. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “I’d be surprised if we found any maps in the first place.”

Aly spoke up again, “So which way do we go?”

“Northeast, I guess,” I said.

“And which way is that,” said Jonathan. “We don’t have a compass, and the sky is totally overcast. We have no way of knowing where the sun even is.”

I sagged my shoulders, thought for a moment, and said, “Well, maybe we can just assume that this farmhouse is pointed in the same direction as the Library and use it like the compass rose on the Library floor.

Jonathan did not appear convinced; however, before he could say anything, Kenzie spoke up, “Sounds like the best plan we have. The front door faces south, right Dewey?” I nodded, “Then let us head to the Northeast side and get going.”

Jonathan crinkled his eyebrows, seemed ready to argue, then shrugged, shouldered his bag, and began walking around the house on the right side.

The rest of us followed. Once we reached the northeast corner, our path broke from that of the dull gray farmhouse, and none of us looked back. For the next few hours, we simply marched forward. Jonathan crunched a way through the tall grass, and we followed. With the sky as overcast as it was, there was no way to tell exactly how long we had been walking when Kenzie called for a halt.

“It’s lunchtime,” she announced. The rest of us chose not to argue. We were all hungry and tired. Dogs walk around in a circle several times before laying down to sleep to fulfill some primordial need to clear the weeds and grass beneath it. We did much the same as we made a place to set our picnic.

I passed out a few of the items from my pack, which we all set to with gusto. After a brief rest, Jonathan announced a time for bathroom breaks and walked behind a nearby cluster of especially tall grass. As we all took turns relieving ourselves, Kenzie spoke quietly to me. “We’re going to have to find some water at some point, Dewey,” she said. “Cans of soda won’t last us very long.”

I nodded in agreement. After what seemed to be about a half hour, we all stood and prepared to continue our march. At that moment, a loud “CAW!!” echoed from due east. Aly, who was standing beside me, and I eyed one another. Again, the caw came, closer and louder. We all looked nervously at Kenzie, who said, “Keep quiet, lie low, and stick to the edge of the grass. Whatever is making that sound probably isn’t dangerous, but we should probably wait and see.”

The four of us crawled to the eastern edge of our circle and into the grass beyond, trying to blend in with our surroundings. We all peaked through the tall blades, trying to discern any movement that might not be the omnipresent grass.

After a few moments, Aly gave a hiss and pointed. As I gazed along the path of her finger, I saw first an enormous, black crow, swooping and diving in broad swaths over the dense greenery. Then I heard a voice, “Stop that, Heppy!” Behind the bird, I could now see a man shouldering his way through the tall grass, a gnarled walking stick in one hand. “Stop that! What will the children think of us?”

The black bird flapped toward the man with the gnarled stick and landed on his shoulder. It then croaked and glared in our direction. “They’re here?” he said, sharply. He stopped walking and his eyes grew wide. “But…but,” his lower lip trembled, “But I’m not ready for them!”

He then began to wail and sob, spouting little words like “I’m terrible at this!” and “Why me? Why do these things always happen to me?” and “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” This last utterance was cried, while the man smacked his head against his walking stick, over and over.

The cousins and I looked at one another in astonishment. “Weird guy,” said Jonathan. I nodded mutely.

“You guys!” said Aly, angrily. “You shouldn’t say things like that. We need to help that man. He’s so sad.” Without saying another word, she then stood up and walked purposefully toward the man, his stick, and his crow. “Sir!” she called. “Excuse me, sir!”

The man stopped bawling for a moment and looked up, startled. “Why are you crying?” asked Aly. “You are a grown-up. Grown-ups do not get to cry. Now stand up!” To startled to continue weeping – or, indeed, do much of anything else – the man stood up. “Good. Now then, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alyson. What is yours?” Aly held out her hand.

“Um,” said the man, hesitantly, “My name is, um, Thad, and this is my friend Hephaestus.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I call him Heppy,” he whispered. Thad of the gnarled stick took Aly’s hand and tried to kiss and shake it at the same time, managing to smack it into his nose.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Aly. “Let me introduce my sister, brother, and cousin.” She turned back to us, though the man was still shaking her hand, and said, “C’mon guys! No one is going to bite you.”

The three of us began to creep out of our hiding spots, then started walking, as staying crouched down made us all feel foolish. Aly made introductions, then asked, “We heard you talking, Mr. Thad. How did you know we were going to be here?” As she asked this, she pried off his fingers, and he finally released her hand.

Thad thought about this for a moment and said, “Heppy told me that the boss had a job for us around these parts. I guess he wanted us to shepherd some kids,” he paused and looked at us, “you guys, I guess, to a place near the end of the Trail. Being a big fan of the boss, I decided,” Thad was interrupted by a loud caw, “I mean, we decided to take the job. So here we are.”

Kenzie spoke up, “Well, we’re glad to see you, I guess, though you really gave us a scare when you first got here.”

Thad goggled at her. “I… I didn’t mean to…,” his eyes began to water, again, “I’m… so… sorry!” As the word “sorry” turned into a wail, Thad burst into tears again, banging his head against his gnarled staff.

Aly sighed, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Um, mister, remember what I said about grown-ups?”

Thad quickly brought his wails down to a mild sniffling and said, “I’m sorry. You’re right.” Heppy cawed something that sounded like agreement. “We should probably go, now,” Thad added. “It’ll be night soon, and I already made a camp up near the bend in the river.” He sniffled a few more times, stood up, and began trudging east. The four of us followed him, as the crow Hephaestus flapped overhead.

We had all assumed it was morning when we exited the Library, but we had either taken more time walking than I had realized, or the day had started much later. Regardless, the overcast sky was darkening when we reached Thad’s camp.

With Kenzie and Jonathan’s help Thad prepared and lit a fire from the fallen branches of a tree that had grown along the nearby river. As I warmed myself by this fire, I felt my eyelids drooping and realized that I had gotten very little sleep over the past two days.

After a time, Thad spoke again. “Did I tell you folks that I’m also a poet?”

Kenzie closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, and said, “No, I don’t believe you did, Thad.”

“Ah,” he said. “Yes indeed. In addition to being a guide of the ground around me, I sell books and write poetry. In such a way do I try to guide in truth, as well as geography.”

We could all feel him waiting for someone to ask. I caught Jonathan’s attention, rolled my eyes, and popped the question, “What kind of poetry do you write?”

Thad’s eyes sparkled. “Poetry about life! Poetry about the world! Poetry for the soul,” he whispered. “Let me give you an example.”

Jonathan sighed and lay back into his sleeping back, closing his eyes in the process. Thad also closed his eyes, appeared to be thinking, then spoke.

“Sometimes, when the resounding
silence is strongest in my soul,
I can look at all of my surroundings
and breath through open lungs.

At times like these, the world
is far more important than
my life at its most unfurled
and weakest span.

I understand then that for
me to worry overly of myself
and my own troubles poor
would be like setting a single
book on a mighty bookshelf.

The world is a giant place
And everyman must maintain his
own footing. But holding his space
is not even half the battle.
Anyone contrary to this
is already lost in the
Used Book stack.”

Heppy cawed in obvious embarrassment and flapped away. Kenzie quickly shut her mouth, which had been hanging open. I heard Jonathan mutter, “Used book stack? Good Lord!”

Thad opened his eyes and looked directly at me. “Some people don’t get it, Dewey, but some do. Don’t they?” He closed his eyes, lay back, and started to snore. As the rest of us tried to sleep, my thoughts kept returning to that poem. Most of it was emptiness and foolishness, it seemed to me, but one part had hit home.

“The word is a giant place, and everyman must maintain his own footing.” The words rolled through my mind, and I thought of Matty, alone, possibly already fighting a battle that we were desperately trying to reach.

The clouds broke. The moon rose. And I fell asleep with the image of Matty trying to stand on a slippery, icy surface.

Chapter 4 - 3 A. M.

If midnight is the witching hour, then one o’clock is last call, two is the hour of the burrito run, and three… three is the hour at dead man’s curve. – A tired, old bar brawler

The rest of that afternoon, we sat around, watching television and eating grilled cheese. My mom kept trying to talk to Aly and Jonathan, but Aly was more interested in the television, and Jonathan kept getting up and hiding in the bathroom. In the back of our minds, I think, we all kept thinking about what we had seen and heard, what we felt, and what we were going to do that night.

To keep my mind off it, I pulled my mother into the kitchen and asked her if we all could go get pizza for dinner. She thought about it and said, “We’ll have to wait until your father comes home.”

I knew this meant yes, hugged her, and managed to keep the secret from my cousins for almost eight minutes. They were watching an old rerun of Friends, when I walked back in, whistling poorly and rolling my eyes extravagantly.

Jonathan picked up on it quickly. “Hey, Dewey, what’s going on?”

I shrugged, “Oh… hmm, hmm, hmm… noooothing.”

He looked at me for a second. “Oh,” he said and looked back at the TV. I was crestfallen. He was not playing the game! Luckily, Aly took pity on me and said, “No, really Dewey, what’s going on?” She smiled at me. I smiled back, as mysteriously as I could with lots of rolling eyes and looking behind my back.

“I really can’t say,” I said. “I would get in trouble!” I looked back at the kitchen door again, to emphasize how serious the issue was.

“What if you whispered it in my ear, so the other two can’t hear?” she said. “Then it’ll be both our secret.”

I pretended to think about this for a moment. “Nope, I don’t know if I can trust you.”

Aly rolled her eyes, then returned her gaze to me. “Then I’m going to have to…” she stood up, “get you!”

“Oh, no!” I cried. The two of us then spent a merry five minutes racing around the Library. As I got close to a couch, Aly leapt, barreled me into it, and started tickling my stomach and that tricky area on the neck, right below the ears.

I laughed and squirmed and laughed some more. Finally, when I couldn’t catch my breath anymore, I shouted, “Ok! I’ll tell!”

Aly stopped. I placed my lips over her ear and whispered, “We’re going to Gambino’s!”

Jonathan, having overheard every word, yelped. “Gambino’s? We never go to Gambino’s anymore.”

I nodded. The secret was out, so it was ok to discuss it now. “Yup. That’s the best reason to go.” Also, I loved Gambino’s. They had gotten out an old arcade machine from when my father was a kid, and I loved to play it.

“Sounds pretty good,” said Kenzie. “When are we going?”

“When Dad gets home,” I said.

She grunted and went back to watching the show. I felt that a grunt was not a very good response, but was too happy to say anything.

When my father got home, the usual display of affection occurred. Aly ran to meet him. Kenzie got up when he walked over and gave him a hug. And Jonathan pretended not to notice that he had come home. My father once confided in me that he thought Jonathan’s sham was funny. He had done the same thing when he was little.

My dad strode over to Jonathan, patted him on the head, and said, “Hello, Uncle Jonathan!” I do not know exactly how my cousin felt about this. For my father it was a little inside joke. Jonathan always called him “Uncle Natey,” and so my dad started calling him “Uncle Jonathan.”

I got up and ran over to him. “Dad,” I said very seriously, my eyes meeting his, my hand pulling at his finger. “Mom says we can get pizza at Gambino’s.”

“Did I?” When I was not looking, my mother had wandered into the room. “I remember saying something about asking your father first. Maybe I dreamed that.”

Caught, I quickly backpedaled. “I mean, if you say it’s ok too, Dad.” I looked at my mother nervously.

My father flopped himself onto an armchair. My mother walked over and sat on his lap. I then pulled myself on to her lap. My dad laughed. “Dewey!” he exclaimed. “I think you might be getting bigger than your mom!”

His words made me feel proud, so I patted him on the head, just as he had done to Jonathan. He laughed again. “Alright. Pizza it is. Where are we gonna go?”

Quickly, I whispered in his ear. He listened and said, “Uh huh. Right. Yes, that was pretty fun. Yeah. Ok. It’s decided then. Gambino’s!”

My mother put her hand to her forehead and said, “Not again!”

For the next few weeks, I would look back at that time at Gambino’s fondly. It was to be the last safe, warm, and happy time any of us would have until we reached Matty’s home in Lenexa, that far away town, hidden on the outskirts of Kansas City, KS.

Gambino’s tried very hard to be Italian. The owner’s daughter had painted frescos on the wall ten years ago and updated them ever few years. The most recent update had a renaissance theme. Images of the Vatican and grapes littered the walls. A massive last supper of pizza adorned the north end. The Madonna and Child was on the south wall. Images of vines draped everywhere.

Jonathan and I played the arcade game, and all the while he assured me that the PlayStation 4 was going to be way more awesome than this game could even pretend to be. We ate pizza and cheese sticks. Mom and Dad got salads, though when my mother was not looking, my father did sneak a slice of pizza. He gave me a grin and a wink while doing so.

Kenzie and Aly talked about boys, but kept getting interrupted by my father’s jokes on the subject. My dad loved to tell jokes, even if he was not very good at it. My mother jumped in when the two talked about guys in movies. It seems they all loved that guy from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. My mom made a point of saying how hot he was, while jabbing my father in the gut. My father responded by tickling her sides. I was happy.

Too soon it was over. The bill came. My father paid. We got in the car and returned home. After baths and teeth brushings, it was time for bed. The dome over the Library was dark. The night was overcast. The cousins slept on couches in the main room. I was to sleep in my bed. My parents wished me goodnight. My dad gave me a hug. Then my mom gave me a hug. As my mother started to let go, I grabbed her shoulders and hugged her tighter. I could feel the separation, even if they could not.

They walked to the door. My father turned off the lights. My mother closed the door behind them. It has been years since the moment my mother closed that door, yet the sound it made echoes like a fifty foot steel barrier slamming into place. Those last hours shall always be indelibly etched in my mind as the final hours of my childish innocence. When that door closed, I knew the path that lay before me would be a path of threat and peril. I would see a dark, angry world that I had never known before.

As I thought about this new road, I realized that I did not want this evening to end. Every moment I stayed awake would be another moment putting off the inevitable. I resolved to stay awake until three.

Seconds later, I turned over and fell asleep.

When I awoke, I knew something was wrong. For a moment, I did not know what it was, I only had a strange and empty feeling. Then it struck me. The world had gone quiet. All that ambient noise that we forget about was gone. The sounds of powered speakers, of wind, of the hum of light bulbs and refrigerators, all were gone. It was like the power had stopped and the weather had vanished.

I looked at my alarm clock.

3:00 A. M.

I climbed out of my bed, pulled on some pants, a shirt, and a warm jacket with a hood. I grabbed my new backpack and tossed in some extra clothes. As quietly as possible, I tip-toed my way downstairs and into the kitchen, where I threw in some breakfast bars, cookies, jerky, and anything else I thought might be useful. Then, I slung the pack over my back, stepped into the living room, and called out to my cousins.

“Kenzie!” I whispered urgently. “Jonathan! Aly! Get up. It’s time to go.”

After some grumbling, all three had risen, grabbed their packed bags, and looked to me.

“Ok, Dewey,” said Kenzie. “What do we do?”

I looked at her and looked away, suddenly frightened. My cousin Mackenzie was asking me what to do? She was supposed to take command. She was the leader. I said nothing for a second. Well, if she was going to put this on my shoulders, then so be it. I met her gaze. “Abraham said to start at the front door. I guess that’s what we should do.”

For a moment, I could see a smile touch her face, and then she became stern again. She turned to Jonathan and Aly. “You heard him,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She marched passed me. Jonathan and Aly followed. I brought up the rear. Once last time, I thought back on the love and safety of my parents' arms, then I steeled myself and looked forward. Now we stood in front of the door. Kenzie turned to Jonathan. “If you would be so kind?”

Jonathan looked at Kenzie, looked at me, gave his pack one more heft, and opened the front door.

Chapter 3 - The Boatman

It’s always the same: a trinket, an idiot, a wise and frightening old man, and the steadfast companions. Mix, match, multiply and you’ve got the American Executive Branch of Government. Oh, and a fantasy novel, though they aren’t that different. – Overheard at a sci-fi convention

I was floating. We were all floating. The world around us felt peaceful, warm and unrushed. In the distance a blue light drifted toward us. Just as one can feel the heat of a fire before it reaches you, so could I feel the empty cold of that blue light. My limbs grew numb. My thoughts sharpened to a fine edge. I knew that I had once again gotten rapidly older. I was an adult with the body of an adult. With the knowledge of an adult.

We were clinging to old, round, white life preservers, straight from the Titanic or Love Boat. Beneath us, the water felt cold and sharp like a knife blade, piercing our exposed skin. Above was a great fog, the kind from which you expect to hear the low rumble of a ship or semi’s horn. Trawling toward us, like George Washington over the Delaware, was another old man, holding a blue-lighted lamp well above his head.

Through the fog I could make out the old man’s features, which were the same as – yet wholly different from – the angry, scabby man of a few days before. This man had the same bent, slouched appearance. His clothes were shabby and torn. Most importantly his eyes pierced into mine with the gray light one could only find in the eyes of an ancient wolf. Yet this man smelled, if not clean, then strong, like the salty sea air, like the dust flying from the saw and the lumber, like dirt and rain and mud.

“Ahoy, young’uns!” he called. “Would you be likin’ a climb aboard? You’re lookin’ – ahyuh, ahyuh – a might cold!”

My cousins said nothing. They were too shocked to speak. Jonathan’s mouth kept opening and closing, searching for words and finding none.

“Ple-e-e-e-ase, sir. This water is fre-e-e-ezing,” I tried to say through chattering teeth. “What…what’s going on?”

“I’ll – ahyuh, ahyuh – tell you in a moment, lad,” called the ancient man. “It looks like Aly here might be goin’ a bit blue on us.” He indicted my cousin, who did appear to be changing colors as the blood desperately rushed to combat the glacial waters.

Jonathan, Kenzie, and I swam over to Aly, as the old man and his boat angled in her direction. With much jostling and after a terrifying moment in which my head was submerged in the terrible waters, we managed to force Aly into the boat. Once the rest of us had climbed in, the gray-eyed man handed us heavy woolen blankets.

“Welcome – ahyuh – to the dark waters of the mind, children, where anything can and, usually, does happen,” he said, once we had all stopped shaking. “My name is Abraham – ahyuh – Honest Abe, and I shall be your guide.” He gave Kenzie a wink at this. Her eyebrows flew up at this, then dropped down in confusion and thought.

“That’s what… you’re the old man from Wolf Creek!” she said in an accusatory tone. Kenzie and the rest of her Chemistry II classmates had taken a field trip to the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant the week before.

“I am who I am,” replied Abraham, simply. Then he grinned, “but I am who I am – ahyuh – not, as well!”

“But who are you?” asked Aly.

He grinned at her, “When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see! And well do I see thee, my dear.”

He turned now upon me, and his expression clouded. “Ah. Dewey. It’s too late, is it not? Brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor sea, but sad mortality over sways. You’ve seen my brother.” It was not a question; I nodded regardless. He sighed. “Then now is not a time for laughter. I must put aside my grins, my winks, my yucks, and my bard’s many words.”

He grinned at Jonathan, but the smile was weaker now. The piercing, gray eyes looked tired. “You’re going to love this one, boy,” Abraham said. Jonathan said nothing. Abraham turned back to Dewey.

“Do you know where Matty is?” he asked.

It did not occur to me to wonder how Honest Abe knew Matty. Too much had already happened to worry about such a minor triviality.

“Kansas City,” I replied.

“Yes,” said Abraham, “but can you get there?”

“I….” I did not know. I did not know what he meant. I was a kid. How was I supposed to get there? It was not like I could just ask my dad to pack everything up and drive me to KC because some imaginary man named Abe asked me to.

Abraham had not taken his eyes from mine. “You don’t ask,” he said. I jumped. Abe could hear what I was thinking? “No, but I can make pretty good guesses,” he said with a tired smile.

“What do you mean, I don’t ask?” I demanded.

Abraham stared at Kenzie for a second, as if weighing her in his mind, then returned to me. “You must get their on your own,” he said. “You may bring these three, and I may watch out for you from time to time, but this is not your father’s story. It is not your mother’s story. This story is for you.” He looked up into the sky for a moment, smiled, and said, “And for your cousins, I suppose.”

Jonathan finally spoke, “What? What is going on, old man. Why are we going… Why are you making Dewey go to Kansas City? Who is Matty?”

It is strange to me, even now, to think that my cousins had never met Matty before. In this instance I still firmly believe that it was coincidence. On the other hand, I am not sure how much trust I am willing to put into coincidence anymore.

“Matty is George’s son,” I explained for Abe. My father had been friends with George since high school. Kenzie used to have a crush on him. Dad thought that was very funny. My cousins all knew George.

“That still doesn’t explain why we have to go to KC to see him,” Jonathan pointed out.

I squinted, trying to put it into words, “Matty is…”

“Special,” finished Abraham. “Matty is special. He can do things that few other people can do; maybe no one else can do them. But he needs help. He needs Dewey. And Dewey needs the three of you.”

“And what can Matty do, exactly?” asked Jonathan. Abe looked at me, as did my cousins. I looked to Abraham, who nodded, and then I told the story of the boat and the wave and the scabby old man. And I talked about Matty. Before us in the waters, the images in my head floated by. My cousins watched as the wave approached. They watched us run and heavy. And they heard Matty asking me to stand by him.

When I’d finished my story, all eyes were upon me, and I was crying. I did not know why I was crying. Perhaps the experience was just too much to go through again. Or maybe I finally felt what Matty felt as the old man slouched and muttered himself down those stairs. Regardless, I was crying.

Jonathan and Aly looked away from me and to Kenzie, who did not take her eyes away from my face. “We’ll go,” she decided. ‘I can drive…”

“No!” Abraham interrupted. “You must not drive. If you do so, you will be in my brother’s hands. Try to stay off the roads. Follow them if you must, cross them if no other option exists, but do not walk along them. If you agree to the course you are about to follow, you will find yourselves steeped in dangers one does not ordinarily run into in Kansas.”

“What about our parents?” Aly asked. “Won’t they be worried about us?”

“If you succeed,” said the old man, “it will be as if you had never left.” He put his hand to the rudder, and the boat turned about.

For a moment, we were all silent, pondering the days to follow. It is strange, how quickly we accepted the old man and the mission he set us on, but we were children. We were not yet set in our ways. An adult had set us on a task, and it was our job to see it through.

Abraham broke the silence, “It is customary, at times like these, for me to give each of you some kind of gift. To that end…” he turned to Aly, “Alyson. I give you the gift of love. Those not set on your path by my brother will care for you and yours.” Now he turned to Jonathan, “Jonathan, to you I give the gift of bravery. There are many battles to be won and lost in this world, but one cannot win if one cannot face the fight.” He turned to Kenzie, “Mackenzie, to you I offer leadership. There will be times when others will not know what to do or whom to turn to. It is at these times when you must become the Voice. Believe in yourself, and others will believe in you.”

Finally, the tired, old man turned to Dewey, “Dewey,” he began, “there is only one thing left for me to offer you, but it may be the most important. There will be times when you all will struggle. You will tire. You will be frightened. Dewey, I offer you my lamp. When my brother has set his hounds upon your heals and his black despair gnaws at your heart, raise up my lamp and let the hope of the world beat back the darkness around you.”

Abraham held out his lamp. Dewey reached for it. As his hand touched the metal, the lamp vanished. In the darkness, the four children heard the ancient man’s voice, “When the clock strikes three and your parents are fast asleep, you four must rise. At that moment, the world you know will stop, like an unwound clock. Meet inside the Library door. I wish you all luck, and I ask you to think of Matty as you journey. He will need your strength even then.”

Abraham’s voice echoed upon the still water. For a moment, I thought I heard a final, “ahyuh,” and then the blinding light of mid-afternoon struck us. Mom had walked out of the kitchen and said, “The grilled cheese is ready.”

Chapter 2 - The Cousins

The social apparati of the modern chimpanzee is nearly magical in nature. Forget the ant, the gnat, or the bee. Chimpanzees converse in a manner we cannot begin to dream about. And just think if we could take a step back from ourselves to see humans talk!

Miraculous. – probably not Jane Goodall

When I was seven, I had three cousins, all of whom were older than I. Kenzie was a senior in high school and probably the most popular person I would ever be close to. Had we all grown up in California, she might have become a model, an actress, or some kind of fashion designer. In Kansas she was not sure what she wanted, but none of us doubted that she would get it. Oh. And she was a monster on the basketball court.

Jonathan was about to be a freshman in high school. He was the type of boy who might play football, might run cross country, would probably be involved in track, but would absolutely not play basketball. He was one of the smartest kids in his class, but managed to avoid being stereotyped as a nerd.

Aly was in fifth grade. She was unlike either Jonathan or Kenzie in that she could never be called popular. Such a word would fail to describe her because everyone liked her too much, and she liked everyone around her. She was loved. She was the mascot. She was the little girl you invited to your party because you wanted her there.

And I thought they were all the coolest kids ever. My aunt would drop them off sometimes to visit or baby-sit or do chores for my father in exchange for dinner and money. My father was notoriously loose with his money when it came to my cousins. I believe they would have loved him anyway, but the cash probably did not hurt.

When they visited, the girls would coddle me and Jonathan would try to play catch or watch TV or in some other way help me become a manly man. They would listen when I told stories or secrets, and they never laughed at me.

To my great fortune, one of their ritual visits happened only a few days after the incident with the old man. Matty and his father were back up in Kansas City. I needed someone to talk to, and Kenzie, Jonathan, and Aly were going to be my audience.

As luck would have it, my father was not around when my cousins showed up. My mother and I were sitting around the kitchen table. She was telling me about the play she had been in with my father in high school. At the time they had barely spoken to one another. They had different circles of friends and never considered getting any closer.

When the doorbell rang, I leapt up and out of the kitchen. It was several years later that I realized my mother stayed behind in those moments. It is hard to believe now, but she was afraid of my cousins.

It is odd. One can be the most confident person in the world when it comes to interacting with other people, but the moment one must deal with family all bets are off. My mother knew how much my three cousins meant to my father, and it terrified her. She needed for them to love her, but she did not know how to make that happen. My cousins, being only children, never knew what to make of her. She seemed nice at the time, but distant. Kids know. They may misunderstand, but they know when an adult is acting far away. So they feared her in return, each in a slightly different way.

Of the three, I thought the funniest way was Jonathan’s. He was especially quiet whenever my mother would talk to him. His cheeks would glow red, like my father’s always did. Then he would mutter a reply and run away, though he would try to be cool about it.

Whenever this happened, Kenzie would look my way and give me a slow wink. My mother never seemed to figure it out – or never let on that she knew. And I never got jealous. I was way too confident in how my parents felt about each other to let a little crush bother me. Plus, Jonathan was too fun when he was around to let a little thing like that get between us.

However, when I was that age, all of the hidden turbulence between my cousins and mother flew right over my head. I was too busy being excited to see The Kids – that was what my dad called them. We were going to play. I was going to be hugged by two beautiful girls. And they were going to hear my secret and believe me.

It turns out they would hear my story and believe me. I was going to be hugged. And we would play. The only thing I had not planned on was the visitor we would have that day.

I yanked open the door and pulled them into the Library. Aly picked me up and twirled me around, while the two older kids watched and laughed. My aunt went into the kitchen and talked to my mom. As I led my cousins to my favorite play spots, my aunt walked back into the Library, intercepted us, told my cousins to be good, and walked back out the front door. High above, the sky was shining through the great dome window.

The Library was divided into two floors. The main floor was an octagon and covered by desks and couches and armrests. Built into the Parke floor was a great, wooden compass rose. The front door was at the south end of this rose. At the north end was a magnificent fireplace made of stones imported from Montana. My father used to make frequent trips up there, following his graduation, and he would often bring back great loads of rock. At the southeast point was the doorway to the kitchen. And the southwest point led to my parents’ bedroom.

The second floor opened in the center, allowing the light from the great dome window to reach the first floor. A banister was built around this hole on the second floor. When I was slightly younger, I would often sit along this banister and watch my parents read on one of the couches. I can still see my mother resting her head against my father’s shoulder. Until I got bored and made them play with me, I felt more content in those moments than any other moment I had as a child.

Circular staircases could be found at the northeast and the northwest points of the compass rose. Matty and I were playing on the second floor, directly over the west point of the rose, and that terrible man had vanished down the northwestern circular steps. On the day my cousins visited, I did not take them upstairs. Instead, we walked over to the couches facing the fireplace on the north side.

“What do you guys want to do today?” I asked. I was still little, but I had seen my parents being “good hosts” enough to know the guest was supposed to decide what to do.

Kenzie was oldest and the leader. She was practically an adult now, and we were all surprised that she still took time to play with us. If she said something was going to happen, we made sure that it happened. She spoke. “Why don’t you pick today, Dewey? It didn’t look like you were having much fun when we played basketball last time.” She was correct. Being only seven (and short for that age) made basketball a real chore, especially when playing against a girl my grandmother called “that Amazonian princess.”

“Ok!” I said. I scrunched my eyebrows together to make it look like I had to think about what I wanted to play. I already knew, but I did not want my wonderful cousins to think that I had planned everything out ahead of time. That would not be cool. “What about…,” I paused. I would have made an excellent seven year old poker player. I allowed my eyebrows to smooth out. “Mountain climbing!”

I loved mountain climbing. My father taught it to me. Mountain climbing was a noncompetitive sport. The rules were simple. Try to climb the mountain and make sure everyone else makes it up alive. Of course, in real life the “mountain” was just a couch, and instead of climbing up we were climbing sideways. It was a great game for pretending, though.

Kenzie was much too tall for this game, but did not have the heart to tell me. Instead, she said, “That sounds awesome! Why don’t you three start playing? I’m going to go talk to your mom about colleges and things, Dewey, but when I finish I’ll come back out and join you all.”

We all said that sounded great. Kenzie went to chat with my mom, who loved when this happened. Jonathan, Aly, and I walked over to the largest couch, leaned against one arm, and began to imagine.

We three were at a perilous juncture. The cliff beneath us had broken away. Our feet were swinging free in the wind, and our hands were beginning to ache. One of us needed to pull himself (“Or herself,” said Aly), or herself up. Then he or she could help the rest. We just had to get above this jut in the rocks. “Dewey! You’re going to have to do it!” called Jonathan, through gritted teeth. “You’re the lightest! Use my body like a ladder. If you can climb up me to get there, I think we all might make it.”

“But won’t that hurt?” I cried. “The spikes in my shoes might tear into your back!” The wind, which had previously been nonexistent, had picked up and was now howling.

“Don’t worry about me!” Jonathan called, nobly. “Just go.”

To add emphasis, Aly added, “I don’t know if I can hold on much longer!”

So I began to climb. I could feel Jonathan’s stomach knot under my foot. “Are you ok?” I asked.

Jonathan’s eyes were tearing up. “Go!” he grunted.

And so I climbed. First one arm made it over the lip of stone, then the other. After a bit more grunting, I’d managed to swing a leg over. After that, things got much easier. I pressed my body against the cliff face, leaned over, and grabbed Aly’s hand. “C’mon!” I said.

Up Aly climbed. After that, it was simple for both of us to pull Jonathan up. For a moment, the three of us stood gasping, backs pressed hard against the sheer cliff face. A gust of wind caught Aly, almost forcing her to a plummeting doom, but I caught her arm and yanked her back to safety. Pebbles shifted under her feet, bounced beyond the cliff face, and dropped. Five seconds later, we heard the rattling as they hit the ground. “It must be five hundred feet straight down,” Aly whispered.

When we’d caught our breath, Jonathan tapped me on the shoulder and signaled to start again. I turned around and reached for the first handhold. I pulled up and….

“What do you kids want for lunch?”

The cliffs vanished. We were lying with our stomachs pressed against the couch. Mom was at the doorway to the kitchen. Jonathan popped his head over the back of the couch and blushed. “Um. Could we have grilled cheese?”

Aly’s head also appeared over the couch, “Yeah! Grilled cheese!”

Then I hopped up, “Definitely grilled cheese!” I liked grilled cheese alright, but the important part was being a good host and agreeing with your guests. My mother smiled at this and turned back into the kitchen.

The three of us rested our heads against the couch again and the cliffs reappeared. Jonathan looked at me. “Ready yet, are ye?” he said.

I froze. I had heard that before. My eyes opened wide, and I stared at him. I could almost smell the sea and the brine. The old man’s glinting, gray eyes – had they been gray? – burned themselves back into my brain. Jonathan’s face was not that of the old man, though, and as he grinned, I relaxed. His eyes were soft and blue. I resolved to talk about it right after we finished our monstrous trek.

As I turned back to begin climbing, my thoughts returned to that day with Matty. It was strange. Somehow I felt as if I could remember more about that time now than I could moments after it happened. I could see the man’s eyes perfectly. I could hear the swishing of his oversized jeans as they slid against the wooden floor. The smell of olives and parmesan cheese reeking from his breath and body was now overpowered by the scent of raw sewage. Perhaps worst of all, I could now remember the slimy grumbling sound he made right before braying that mucus-infested “ha.”

Who was that old man, and why could I remember it all so much more clearly now? And Matty? Images flared in my mind that I did not have, that I could not have. I was not looking at Matty when the man first spoke. We did not talk about the incident when our fathers returned, so how could I now have memories of Matty’s thoughts?

I felt his fear. I felt his pain. I felt his need. I felt his strength. There it was. That moment of power that surged from him and into our as we moved the wheel at the helm of that ship. And it was a surge, was it not? It was as if he were drawing the power from everything around him. Even the wave’s strength thundered into him. I could feel it all now. It was a momentary suspension, almost in mid-air, as muscles tensed further and further, until they stopped feeling like a part of his body and started to feel like metal, like iron armor. Then it all shifted. It was all displaced into that resisting wheel aboard that terrible ship.

Even as my mind drifted, my body continued to climb the cragged face of that mountain. Once the last of us had risen beyond the lip and onto the top of the mesa, we let out a mighty cheer. Aly hugged me, and we danced in a joyous circle. Kenzie walked back in to see what the commotion was. I ran to her.

“We made it, Kenz! That wind nearly caught Aly, and I just about broke Jonathan’s back, but we made it!”

Kenzie grinned and said, “Good job, Dewey. I remember when I used to play that game with Jonathan and your dad. He used to pretend he couldn’t make it any further, so we had to pull him the rest of the way.”

I goggled at her. “Dad still does that! But I always get him up, though.” It was very important that Kenzie knew that I was a strong boy.

“I’m sure you do,” she said, grinning at me. I grinned back. And all the light vanished.

Chapter 1 - Matty and the Old Man

You know, if we live here on a planet that is only five billion years old, and we’re at this spot in our evolution, imagine how well those schmoes are doing on the ten billion year old planet down the block. Freaking awesome! - Jeff, from the end of the bar

I would like to tell you a story. Some of it happened, some of it did not, but it is all true.

My parents were busy individuals. My mother spent a great deal of her time mothering others as a member of the gifted education program in Wichita. She had been working in Lenexa, a town on the Kansas side of Kansas City, but decided to come home when her father became ill. It was a chance coincidence that my father had returned from graduate school that same month and that they met in their first few days back. Meanwhile, my father had gone into the business consultation racket and was making the big bucks being gone four days out of every seven. With both parents gone or otherwise involved for such long stretches of time it was only natural that I found myself in unusual situations with my pal Matty.

My father’s friend, a sports journalist in KC who liked to visit when the opportunity presented itself, had a son close in age to myself. We got along well together, and he never made jokes about my name. This was likely because his own name was so ridiculous. He was named after the newspaperman’s great grandfather Mathias. I called him Matt, but the mean kids back home had learned his name early and abused it to no end.

The two of us enjoyed hiding in the upper alcoves of the library imagining ourselves in different worlds. My parents did not mind, as long as neither of us was too violent with the books we used to build our castles and forts. It had all been great fun until the day the old man appeared.

On that particular day it had been raining pretty hard. The game my father’s friend had come down to cover (though George, my father’s friend, was the editor of the KC Moon-Gazette, he enjoyed getting down and dirty once in a while) looked to be rained out. This was a phrase of George’s. “The Royals game was lookin’ to be rained out, until those clouds just broke the way they did. It was a nice’un.”

On days that it rained Matty always wanted to play pirate ship. It may have had to do with the way the drops plunked against the Plexiglas dome in the Library ceiling high above our heads. Or perhaps it was the way the birds called louder and sharper in the air, like gulls on an abandon pier. Regardless, Matty wanted to play ship, so we played ship.

We were on a voyage from Persia to a way station in Africa carrying a full cargo of His Majesty’s Tea when we heard the man’s feet clomping off the port bow.

“Did you hear that, Matt?” I asked.

“Arr, mate, I sure did,” he replied. “D’ya reckon it’s Dad?” He meant, of course, his father George.

“I d’nah think so,” I whispered in an atrocious piraty accent. “Don’t George and Dad usually call us when they bring back the pizza?”

At that moment, I was interrupted by a smoky, scratchy voice that I did not recognize. The ship around us vanished, and in its place stood a bunch of books stacked like a large box with a broom as a mast in the center. We both turned to look behind us. An old, scabby man, wearing faded and torn clothing frowned at us.

“Hello, boys. I don’t mean to interrupt your voyage, but – Ha! – I thought I might point out that wave to starboard. If you don’t get the bow facing it head on, your – Ha! – ship will be in for a world of hurt.”

Confused, Matty and I looked at one another and then turned to what had been starboard. The Library vanished. The books were a boat again. And there, before us, was a fifty foot wave.

For a moment, the both of us were speechless. We could not think. We could not act. We were consumed by the towering Blue. Then a splash of water hit my face, and it was time to move. “To the helm, Matty!” I screamed.

The scabby, grizzled man – where was he? – was correct. To ride such a wave without capsizing, one must face it.

Both of us sprinted down the gangway and leapt for the helm. The water was falling all around us now. The Plexiglas ceiling of the Library was a dream from another world. My silk shirt and canvas pants –strange, wasn’t I wearing jeans and a t-shirt? – were soaked through. The wind was howling and had torn away my hat in our dash for the helm. We both moved to one side of the massive wheel and shoved, but there was no movement. The water, the ocean would not allow it. The sky was beginning to vanish as the hurtling wave came toward us.

“Matty, we’ve got to move this wheel if we don’t want to die,” I cried.

“Then let’s move it, Dewey. I’ve got you, if you’ve got me,” he replied. In his face I could see tears begging to be let loose. They were tears of confusion and fear.

I said, “Then I’ve got you.” We both turned once more to the helm. I gritted my teeth. And we heaved.

It is strange to remember those moments before the wheel began to give. In my head all of the sounds are gone. The terrible wave had caused a momentary lull in the rain and the wind. I could hear the heartbeat in my ears and feel it in my gut just below the ribcage. The only other sounds were those of Matt and myself breathing, yet those sounds were like fog horns or hurricanes against the stillness of the wave.

Then I felt a click, and the helm gave like a sideways top. Faster and faster it whirled, until Matt and I could no longer touch it. The ship's bow turned into the wave. And as the bow moved fearlessly into the wave’s path, the world exploded. The wave broke. I managed one quick breath, grabbed a railing, and hung on. A thousand watery hands ripped at my face and shoulders. My pants tried to pull away from my hips. I dared not open my eyes. My nostrils burned as the salt struck.

As the wave passed, I risked opening my eyes against the stinging salt water. The ship was totally submerged. We were easily twenty feet under water. Matt held another rail close to me. The mast appeared to be breaking the water’s surface, so I grabbed Matt’s shoulder and pulled him toward oxygen.

When our heads broke the surface, the water faded. Our clothes dried. The Library reappeared. The old, grizzled man stood in front of us. “Welcome back, boys. How (Ha!) was your trip?”

Matt looked to me. I did not know what to say. A moment before it was as if we had been older: men born and bred to the sea. Now we were children again, and we felt like it. Matt was only six years old. I was seven. The things I knew a moment ago faded away. Only the words we spoke and the visions we saw remained.

This man was older and more frightening now. He leered at the two of us as we stood silently before him. “Not ready yet, are ye?” he asked, looking through the window high above at the still rumbling clouds. “Ha!”

It was a violent word and with it came a terrible gust of aging breath. The man smelled of parmesan cheese and rotten olives. “You’ll want to pay (Ha!) attention from now on. You never know when the next wave might come crushing down. Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.” The man turned, grumbling in a sotto voice neither of us could make out. He moved down one of the many spiral staircases out of sight. We leapt from behind our wall of books, rushed to the staircase, and stopped. There was nothing there. The front door flew open, and we both jumped. Then a strong, male voice called, “Dewey! Matty! We’re home, and we have pizza!” I heard a sob and turned. Matty, behind me, had slumped to the floor and was crying between clamped lips. I was exhausted.

It was sometime before this that I had decided Matty was somehow special. He had a demeanor that forced others to overlook him. He stood in corners with his eyes lowered. He never said much. He was quite a bit smarter than the babysitters and teachers who wandered in and out of his life. Had circumstances been different, he probably would have been the boy everyone in his hometown forgot. He might have gone off to college, entered a random engineering field, joined a company that may well have promoted him to some position in middle management, and died a quiet but content old man.

Such a story was not in the cards for Matty. As I said, he was special. Matty was introspective, as is common among the quiet and shy. He had to deal with that inner voice that told him no one liked him, and that he was not popular. But within that voice was also a strange confidence. Matty believed anything was possible. Maybe it was. He just needed someone to stand with him.

Prelude - My Name

SO oft have I invok’d thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance. -The Bard

In the white darkness of the mind, at that point where the axon reaches desperately for the next neuron lies chaos. The brain has no power over that terrible space called the synaptic cleft. And yet, we still think… Sometimes… - unknown


When I was younger, they used to laugh at my father, and by extension myself, for his idiosyncratic home called “The Library.” It had been a foolish notion of his to give tours to everyone around town because he was so proud of it. I suppose it was just my misfortune that I had been born only a few short days prior to the completion of the bullet-shaped building.

When attempting to tell my story, it is difficult to decide whether to start with that first day in which I was forever linked to the Library or follow the crowd and go with the more typical day of my birth. Both were foolish days, but it seemed a time of foolishness all around. Perhaps it might be best to start the way my father starts it… with me relaxing in the womb.

My father’s aunt came to visit that day. With her, as was often the case, came her three insane children. Allow me to paint the scene. My mother and father were living in one of the bottom apartments on Ridge road in west Wichita. These days, that may as well be called the city center. At the time, though, it was a cute, if start-upish neighborhood.

But first, the doorbell rang.

My mother, a small, dark-haired woman with a strong nose, soft eyes, and clay-mation grin sighed and put her hands to either side of the lounger she’d just slumped into. She had returned from work not long before and was finally comfortable. “You forgot the keys again, didn’t you?” she said to herself. My father, who had rung the doorbell, now began to knock. Her eyes assumed the look of a tired deer as she stood up and sidled to the door. My father hated that look, and she loved him for it.

However, this time he did not notice. She turned the knob, and he leapt inside, slamming the door closed behind him. “She’s coming,” he whispered. His throat sounded dry.

“Who’s coming?” replied my mother.

“They’re coming!” he responded.

“Who…,” she thought for a second. “No!”

“Yes,” said my father and ran to the kitchen. In later years my mother would often recount this story and laugh at the amazing speed that burst forth from my father’s heels. For now, she went through the rapid process of monster-proofing the apartment. The glass was locked away in the closet. The fancy silverware, given as a present from my father’s other aunt in New York, was hidden above the refrigerator. The older blankets and quilts were folded and stored in a closet marked “moth-balls.”

In the meantime, my father was in the kitchen, stowing away and tying down any implements that might cause a foolish or reckless soul to kill himself. There had already been too many close calls. When he finished, he hurried back into to living room to find my mother finished as well. He hugged her, briefly placed his hand upon her belly and what was likely my shoulder and then they both flopped into the couch. My mother turned on the television, and the doorbell rang for the second time that day. The sound of the doorbell was overpowered, though, by the much more insistent sound of eight fists hammering at the door from its base to a point midway between the knob and the top edge of the door jam.

My father grinned, kissed my mother on the cheek right beneath the ear-lobe, and called, “It’s open.” On the television played a swing band. My parent’s decision to get a satellite dish with music had been a celebrated one.

The knob turned, and my father’s cousins spilled in like so many bowling pins at the end of a strike. “Hi, Natey!” called my father’s aunt, who regularly ignored my mother on the grounds that mom was far too attractive for the rest of the family. In other words, my mother had replaced my great aunt as the “cute” one, and the most galling part was that my mother did not try to be adorable. “Did you say something about pasgetti?” My father’s aunt tried to be adorable all the time.

An awkward pause filled the air until my mother spoke. “Yes, Nathan, did you say something about pasgetti?” She looked at him with an expression that stumbled between fear and resignation.

My father, for his part, shot his wife a look of helplessness and apology before saying, “I may have mentioned it in passing. I’m sorry, Alice. I hadn’t realized you were bringing the family over.” This was not true. “I’m not sure if we have enough.”

Alice gave them both a look filled with angelic sweetness. She lived for these moments. She thrived on being the victim. “Oh. Don’t worry. I kin get somethin’ whipped up at home. I only had a ten hour shift today. It wasn’t too bad.”

My mother shot dad an unreadable look, sighed, and hoisted herself and her third trimester belly up with a grunt. “No, no, Alice. You can eat with us. I’ll just add more noodles to the water.”

The next two hours were a painful affair that my parents choose to skip over when telling the story. Suffice it to say that Aunt Alice has a knack for digging at just the right wounds; everyone ate dinner; the house was in shambles; and two of the three children were crying.

When supper ended, my parents began to clean up, but were interrupted when my aunt called from the living room. They followed the sound of her voice. Aunt Alice was at the door. She had collected her children without any help from my parents, which was sure to be a sore point in the next few weeks. She explained to my mother that a proper house cleaning was always the job of the hosts, and that she needed to get home to sleep before another ten hour day. It was at this point, as the conversation wound down and it seemed as though no problems of any major consequence were on the horizon, that my destiny was set. My aunt asked the question.

“So what are you going to name him?”

My parents looked at one another and gave, in unison, the same response they always gave, “We don’t know yet.”

“You’ve got to name him something that won’t embarrass him. He’ll probably have the same temperament as both of you and will end up crying and whining all the time.” As I said, Aunt Alice had a way of picking at holes. “And while you’re at it, I’d level that stupid house of yours before you’ve finished it. What kind of weirdos build a library for a home? Your boy will be the laughing stock of the town. He’ll probably be called something nerdy like Poindexter…”

“Or Dewey?” my mother said. And that was it. My aunt did not get the joke. Heck, I did not get the joke when they told the story to me (“Dewey Decimal, get it? We live in a library,” Dad explained). The trouble was that my aunt assumed any joke that went over her head was mean-spirited and rude, and to top it off my mother was the joker.

“Well to hell with that!” said Aunt Alice. “Both of you just be that way! I could tell you all didn’t want me here anyway. See if I ever come back!” And that was the last we saw of Aunt Alice. At least, it was the last for a little while. It’s hard to keep Aunt Alice away. And that’s also how I came to be named Dewey. My father was proud of my mother’s quick thinking, and my mom liked the name. To this day, I’m still not sure whether I should be grateful to my aunt Alice or curse her until the end of days. I suppose we shall see.

The Trail

Hmm. So I've been thinking that I need a way to push myself into working on the story I've been writing. As such I've decided to try the Dickensian route of offering installments of my story. This means, for all you lucky folks out there who probably don't give a crap about this story, that you have the personal opportunity to read what is probably a bunch of crap.

To that effect, please allow me to post a quick bit.

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent reader.

All characters in this publication are fictitious. The characters of Kenzie, Aly, and Jonathan are inspired by but not intended to represent the actual people of which they portray. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, otherwise, is purely coincidental.

Also, I would like to thank Glen Seebers and the people at the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center for providing such interesting information on their respective websites. Regrettably, my hard drive recently perished, so I do not have the link to the website with the map of the Trail that I personally followed. However, if I ever do find that site again, I will surely post it.

This story is dedicated to my nieces and nephew. And also to the woman, whomever she might be, who will one day bear us a child. Don't worry, whoever you are, we don't have to name him Dewey.

Have fun folks.