Chapter 8

Ed and John sat by the stream watching the surface as it broke over rocks, creating chaotic patterns and swirls. This summer was hot and humid, draining the energy out of Ed in a way he had never before experienced. After years of moving around in the hot sun of Arizona, Ed couldn’t believe how hot he felt. His shirt stuck to him, his pants felt damp, and sweat dripped from his nose.

Looking over at John, he said, “I hate it here.”

It was tempting to argue that things weren’t bad here, but John knew that Ed was forced to tell the truth at all times. If Ed was saying that he hated it there, he was telling the truth. Sighing, John knew that Ed wouldn’t be able to stay in North Carolina much longer.

“I’ll arrange for a new instructor to take over for you, next quarter. Can you hang on here long enough for that?”

“I’m all torn up inside. I want to be here for my family, and I can’t take being here.”

“If it harm none, then do it,” replied John.

Knowing exactly what John meant, Ed answered, “I can teach one quarter here, and travel between the home sites.”

“I think that would be best,” replied John with a sadness that almost broke Ed’s heart. “I’m going to miss having you around all of the time.”

Standing up, Ed stripped off his clothes and hung them on a branch in the slim hope that they would dry. He knew they wouldn’t dry, but he couldn’t help but hold forth a little hope. Entering the water, he lay down so that only his head was above the surface. The swift moving water helped him cool off. With a sigh of relief, he said, “I’m going to miss you, too. I’m afraid that I’ll be alone most of the time.”

“Linda will be at the home most of the time now. The rest of us will stop by on occasion so I don’t expect that you’ll be too lonely.”

Floating in the water, Ed shut his eyes and imagined a sky above him that went from horizon to horizon. Coming out of his reverie, Ed said, “It’s not that I have anything against the people here, or even the countryside. North Carolina is pretty in many ways. The problem is that I can’t see much more than a hundred feet, and that doesn’t seem right to me.”

John didn’t say a word. It was necessary for Ed to let out his frustration at the moment. Eyes closed, Ed continued his monologue. “What I can see is too soft. Nothing seems to have sharp well-defined edges. That lack of sharpness just strikes me wrong. It doesn’t matter that I know that it’s the humidity that blurs all the edges out here, I just don’t like it.”

John understood what Ed was saying about the area being soft. The low rolling hills that led to the mountains would blend and fade together as the sun set. Ed laughed as he said, “Even the sunsets are soft here. In the desert, you can see a clear boundary between land and sky. Here, the land seems to reach up into the sky when the sun sets. It makes me feel like the land misses the sky as much as I do.”

Shaking his head, John listened as Ed discussed sunsets. John loved the contrast between the sunsets of the desert and the sunsets in the mountains here. Each had its own special flavor that had to be enjoyed in its own right.

He asked, “What kind of soup is better? Clam Chowder, Wisconsin Beer Cheese, or French Onion?”

Opening his eyes, Ed asked, “That’s not a fair question. They are each so different that you can’t compare them. You have to enjoy each kind of soup for what it is.”

John smiled and said, “That’s the same about sunrises and sunsets. They are each so different that you have to appreciate them for what they are.”

Lying back in the water, Ed closed his eyes as the water rushed over his body. He said, “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind the softness of the features here. It’s just that I can’t take it all of the time.”

“You dislike the humidity.”

“True. There’s just too much water in the air. When it’s hot, the water just clings to you, making you hotter. I leave a puddle of water behind every time that I drink iced tea. I have to dry my hands after I set the glass down. There’s condensation on everything.” Ed fell silent having nothing more to say.

John leaned back against the tree, enjoying the feel of the rough bark against his back. His eyes watched the stream while his ears picked up the sounds of birds singing, leaves rustling, and the water splashing. He appreciated Ed’s idea to spend the day on his place without the rest of the family. It was very seldom that the two men got to spend any time together.

Sighing, John said, “Life seems to have gotten very complicated lately. What happened?”

“I don’t know. If I did, I’d know how to simplify it.”

The two men were silent, lost in their thoughts. The time passed slowly, each man comfortable in the oquiet companionship of the other. After a while, Ed said, “I’m going to go rock hunting with Nora again.”

“You still haven’t given up on her?”

Laughing at the suggestion that he would give up on her, Ed answered, “I’ve got a thing for damsels in distress.”

The comment brought a chuckle to John as he recalled all of the women that Ed had rescued in the past. Since coming to the Druid College, it seemed that neither one of them had done much rescuing of damsels or anything else. Ed had solved a murder, occasionally interrogated terrorists, and brought a number of tax cheats to justice. He missed standing side to side with Ed facing down monsters.

Ed lay in the water thinking about the last rock hunting expedition with Nora Turner. Although she had talked about getting out of the film business, she had remained in it and still commanded big money with top billing. The problem was that it was eating her up from the inside out. She had been drinking more and her lifestyle was getting more erratic.

Camping with such a physically attractive woman was almost painful. Until she learned how to love, he wasn’t going to make love to her. It seemed to him that she was never going to learn that lesson. Men, powerful men in particular, were to be manipulated for her career. Beautiful women were competition to be ground under her heal. Charity was a means to get publicity and a tax- break. The only time that she relaxed was when she was alone with rocks.

Inside that hard exterior, a real person still survived. It wasn’t going to be long before that person died and Nora would be making the news as her life spun out of control. The last two times they had gone rock hunting was here, and Ed was unable to help her as much as he had wanted. The area seemed to suck the strength from him. He said, “I’m going to take her out into the desert.”

Looking at his husband resting comfortably in the stream, John replied, “You’ll be able to help her there.”

“I hope so. The nice person inside her is about to die,” replied Ed.

“That’s a rather harsh assessment.” That Ed would make such a comment signified that he was very concerned about her. He wondered what had happened the last time they had been out in the field. It couldn’t have been good since Ed had never discussed that trip with anyone. “The last trip must have been pretty bad for you to say something like that.”

“We fought over the fact that she’s become a user of other people,” answered Ed as he opened his eyes and looked over at John.

The news stunned John. Users violated both rules by which they lived and that Nora was becoming a user was very bad news. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

John stood up and undressed to join his husband in the water. Easing his way into the water, he lay down feeling the coolness seep into his body. For several minutes, he relaxed with his eyes closed. He broke the silence when he said, “There are only four more weeks to this quarter. Are you going to survive them?”

“Yeah,” replied Ed with less enthusiasm than John had expected. “I just need to see a real sky for a change.”

“It’s a shame that you get seasick,” said John knowing that Ed needed to see some sky, but unable to suggest a solution. The first time that they had tried to see sky by going out in the ocean, Ed had spent the entire trip throwing up over the side of the boat.

“Don’t remind me about that,” groaned Ed. Just remembering the time spent on the boat made his stomach queasy. The idea of sailing had been brilliant. For about the first thirty minutes, Ed had felt better under the open sky. It was transitory. Before long, he was bent over the side of the boat retching. He lost all the food in his stomach and ended up dry heaving. It never stopped. At the end of an hour, he was begging to be brought back to shore. Even reaching shore didn’t stop his dry heaves.

A noise from the woods disturbed their thoughts. Both men sat up at the same time to search for the source of the noise. A familiar shape shook the shrubs that grew along the shore, but the leaves were too dense for them to see what was moving around. John spotted the source of the noise first and whispered, “Bear.”

“Fluffy?”

“No.”

Staring at the bushes, Ed wondered how long it would be before the bear noticed them. They had talked softly while discussing the identity of the bear. Rather than surprise the bear, Ed decided that it would be better to talk in a normal tone of voice. “It’s probably a black bear and I don’t think it would be wise to surprise it.”

Smiling at Ed, John said, “Right. Any speculation on what it’s doing here?”

“None,” replied Ed.

The bear lumbered out of the brush and paused at the edge of the water looking over at Ed and John in the water. With a low rumbling sound, the bear entered the water and sat down in it. After sitting there for a minute, he rolled onto its back and turned from side to side cooling off in the water. The two men watched the bear for a minute before John asked, “What do we do now?”

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know much about bears, they don’t come out in the desert.”

“There are bears around the White Mountains.”

The comment reminded Ed about his trips into the White Mountains. Thinking back to those times, he remembered that he had taken precautions to keep bears out of his food. It had been such a long time ago that he had basically forgotten that Arizona had bears. He grunted, “Okay. You’re right. Still you hike more places with bears than I do.”

“We could just stay here for a while and wait for the bear to leave.”

More noises originating from the bushes attracted their attention. Both men stared as a bear emerged from the brush and headed into the water. The bear positioned itself between the first bear and the two men. Ed examined the bear and smiled as he recognized it. “Hi Fluffy!”

Sid called out, “You boys having bear problems?”

“Boys?” asked John incredulous at the characterization.

Ed called out, “Come on in. The water’s cool.”

Sid stripped and waded out into the water. Sitting down, he said, “Fluffy smelled another bear in the area and I thought I ought to check it out.”

There was a tinge of lie in the answer, but Ed let it slide. Lying back down in the water, he asked, “So what were we supposed to do when a bear joins you in the water?”

“Well, the last thing you want to do is surprise it. Talking like you were, I’d say you took care of that little problem. Usually, I tell people to avoid bears.” Sid sighed as the water flowing over his body cooled him. There wasn’t much of a breeze in the woods so the heat and humidity had a very negative effect on the body.

The men stayed in the water keeping an eye on the bears and thinking their own thoughts. Breaking the silence, Ed asked, “So other than Fluffy smelling another bear, what was the real reason that brought you here?”

Sid looked over at Ed with a grin and said, “Can’t hide anything from you.”

Interested in the exchange, John sat up and said, “You’re ducking the question.”

“A call came into the college after you two had left this morning. It appears that Devin Renzy escaped from the psychiatric facility in which he was being treated,” replied Sid.

The news sent a chill through Ed as he recalled the man who had tried to burn out an entire community as part of a real estate scheme. The man was a sociopath and very dangerous. He was disgusted at the idea that a judge would think that an individual who had no respect for any life but his own could be reformed. The only thing that would stop a person like Devin Renzy was death or an infirmity that rendered him unable to move. Shaking his head, Ed said, “Let me guess, he was helped by someone on the outside.”

“Right. It appears that a small group of individuals that you helped capture have gotten together with the purpose of taking you down,” replied Sid as he watched Fluffy rolling around in the water.

It wasn’t necessary to ask why they would target him since the trial had shown that Ed was the one that had led the others in capturing Devin. Touching the medallion on his chest, Ed wasn’t surprised that it was warm. Sighing, he said, “I guess it’s time to go monster hunting.”

John who had been thinking that it had been a long time since he had gone monster hunting with Ed shook his head at the co- incidence. Smiling, he said, “Time for us to start planning our next action.”

“You’re going to get involved?”

“Someone wants to kill my husband! You bet I’m going to get involved,” replied John with more passion than he had intended.

The men, ignoring the wild bear downstream, spent an hour in the stream creating a plan designed to pull Devin to an area of their choice under controlled conditions. Sid’s role was to inform the world where Ed would be over the news services as part of an unrelated story. The last remaining question was to select a place and time to trap Devin.

The men climbed out of the stream, skin wrinkled from having spent too much time in the water, and sat on their shirts to air dry. The humidity in the air made that a slow process. As they sat on the bank watching the bears in the stream, the day passed. The wild bear stood and wandered off downstream, ignoring the three men on the bank. Fluffy stood and joined Sid on the bank for a moment before going off in search of food.

Ed watched the bear walk off into the woods, sniffing around fallen trees in search of grubs or other edible snacks. For the first time in a long time, he felt good knowing that his stay at the college was coming to an end and that he was going to have a project to work upon for the next few weeks to help the time pass. Turning to Sid with a smile, he asked, “So is it true that a bear shits in the woods?”