Chapter 11: Aftershocks

I understand what aftershocks are now. You know when there’s an earthquake and then later you get knocked on your butt because the earth hasn’t really stopped shaking. I kept waiting for it. I kept expecting some Federal prosecutor to issue a warrant for my arrest for manipulating the market, or for murdering Joe Teini.

Phil sent us a security team and we led them to Kyle’s treasure cache. Either Mary Beth or Ashley or I and sometimes all three were at the cave inventorying exactly what was taken out. They moved it to a secure storage facility in Salem and I followed behind the two armored trucks, put a padlock on the door and sealed it. We made three trips to Salem over the summer to sort out what was in the storage unit. We transferred half a billion dollars’ worth of gold bullion to our account at American Gold and Silver Exchange. There was over fifty million in gold coins that we decided to keep on deposit there, too, but we’d sell them just a few at a time as we found coin investors. I wasn’t interested in depressing the numismatic market by dumping a bunch of rare coins.

The rest of the stuff was interesting from a historical perspective and some of it was valuable, but it wasn’t like it was another fortune. I puzzled over that. Kyle had just picked up whatever was at the site he’d been sent to without checking to see what was there, but he’d mostly been sent after gold or currency. Apparently, in the days when Joe was doing his own treasure-hunting, he’d been less discriminate about what kind of treasure he went after. Any abandoned wagon or cabin was game for him. I wondered how long he’d been at it before he started using Kyle. Still, for all the effort there wasn’t nearly as much there as the old prospector’s treasure and I had to wonder about it. Phile was still hanging around and getting a kick out of what we found, so I asked him point-blank how he got so much more treasure than Cal and Kyle did.

“Oh, I didn’t,” he said. “There’s much more here than I ever saw. There’s a Bible-story about it. The master of the house called together his three servants and distributed his wealth among them according to their ability to manage it. He gave the first five talents, the second three talents, and the third one talent. Then he went away and told them he’d be back. The first invested the five talents and when the master returned he had five more talents. The master made him the manager of his whole estate. The second traded with his three talents and when the master returned he had three more talents. The master made him the manager of his business. The third buried his talent and when the master returned he gave him back the same talent the master had given him. The master fired that servant and gave the one talent to the servant who had ten. That’s what happened here. Joe buried his treasure and when Kyle took it, he didn’t last long enough to do anything with it. So, it stayed buried. There’s been appreciation in the value of gold, but that’s all he got. I put my fortune in the hands of my grandfather to manage and invest and my family has been doing it for a hundred years. It more than doubled. In fact, it’s probably doubled ten times.”

“I guess I’m the worthless servant,” I said. What a disappointment. I just hadn’t been smart enough for this game.

“No. You just didn’t have time to manage the fortune. If you’d been there, I’m sure you’d have done as well as I did. Remember, I didn’t last there, either. I just gave it to someone I already knew could manage it. And you have time to do the same. Somehow, with a fortune this size, I can’t help but think you’ll need it in the future.”

I guess that satisfied me. It wasn’t like I needed anything more. We were already giving away money as fast as we could. Still, every time I went to Salem or even rode up on the range, I was looking over my shoulder.

We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it wouldn’t be a shock if it came when you expected it. Time went by and I thought we were all clear. That’s when you get the shock.

Birth of a Baby

I went back to school part time in the fall like I said I would. I was a year behind and likely to get further behind at the rate I could attend classes and still manage the ranch, but I didn’t care about that. Ashley would graduate this spring, assuming her either with a baby in her belly or on her tit. I think I nailed her Labor Day weekend.

Fortunately, Angus was willing to help out as we got our feet on the ground at the ranch. It wasn’t too difficult to get back into the swing of things at school. It’s different when you are applying the lessons immediately in the real world. I was also able to contribute a bit when it came to the economics of the open market for ranchers and farmers. What we experienced in the cattle business last year was just as applicable to sheep, pigs, and even cash crops. I was careful not to divulge any information covered by the confidentiality agreement. The time period on that agreement was five years. We didn’t want a bunch of people talking about the think tank that saved Albany County.

I attended classes Monday and Thursday. It wasn’t quite as convenient a schedule as Ashley had worked out last fall, but at least on Thursday we could commute back and forth together. When I came to school as a freshman, I figured I would live on campus so I’d get an experience of living away from home. Now I lived in my own home and I had a wife, a cousin-wife, and two babies on the way. I wasn’t staying away from home any more than I had to.

It was Saturday before Thanksgiving and Ashley had a sorority function to review the new pledges. Even though she wasn’t on campus, she was still a senior member of the sorority and participated in its activities. We’d gone to the fall cotillion in October, just like the first year I was in school. The difference was I took her home and made love afterward.

I figured I’d study in the library until she was done with her meeting and then we’d go home. It turned out to be a bright sunny day—a rarity for November—and I found a study carousel on the third floor near a window. I guess that was a mistake because I couldn’t keep from looking out across the parking lot to the vast snow-covered park. It slowly seeped into my mind that I was looking at the cemetery and I got to thinking about Caitlin again. After Ashley had been stalked in the cemetery, she hadn’t gone back to place flowers like I used to, and since I got back to school, I confess I hadn’t thought about it either. But sitting there in the library on a beautiful day, I was moved to go find a flower and take it to her. I found one at the Wyoming Union and headed across the parking lot to the cemetery. At the main entrance, I walked down the Avenue of Flags about a hundred yards and turned left to get to the Old Potters Field. I suppose I could have just wandered across the cemetery and around the stones at that end, but for some reason I always stay to the paths. Eventually, that brought me to the field from the east.

I was surprised to see another figure standing near Caitlin’s stone. As I moved forward, I was even more surprised to find it was Geneive. I cleared my throat as I approached and spoke her name. She turned abruptly, almost like she was afraid to be found there. Well, there had been stalkers last year.

“Cole! What are you doing here?” She looked at the flower in my hand and started crying. I had no idea what was going on, but as I approached she wrapped her arms around me and buried her head against my chest and wept. She was directly in front of Caitlin’s grave. “You remember her,” she sobbed. “You remember.”

“I ... Geneive ... how do you... ?” I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to ask. I glanced up in the sky to see if there was a hawk flying out there someplace but nothing appeared.

She pulled away from me and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Geneive. I just come out here when I can and give a flower to this poor girl who had it hard back when Wyoming was just becoming a state.”

“But you remember her. You remembered her and found her. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to find her.”

“How do you know about Caitlin, Geneive?”

“I ... She was ... I’m like you and Joe, Cole. Or I was. I was till she died.”

“My God! I didn’t know.”

“You never recognized me. I knew. Caitlin was already head-over-heels in love with Kyle. I knew as soon as you taught Kyle that trick about where to kiss me and then to go down on me. I was so scared that when I got back, I broke up with you.”

“Right after Christmas.”

“Then I wanted to get back together with you. I wanted you to know that it was me. We were sharing something so special being together in two different times.”

I laid the flower on Caitlin’s grave and took Geneive by the hand. “I always say thank you to Caitlin and tell her that I miss her,” I said. We paused a minute and I led her back toward campus. “Let’s get something hot to drink and talk a bit.”

She followed docilely as though she had lost her will. We went back to the Union and I ordered her a hot chocolate the way she used to drink it back in high school, with marshmallows floating on top. We sat and she stared at her drink.

“You remember everything, don’t you?” she said. “I haven’t had one of these in three years. It wasn’t sophisticated enough for Joe.” I snorted.

“For a kid who grew up in a hired hand’s house he didn’t know that much about sophistication.”

“I know he was ruthless, Cole, but he was good to me. He made me a better woman.”

“You were always a good woman, Geneive. Why did you leave me?”

She sipped at her cocoa and a tear dripped into it. I reached out and wiped the tears from her cheek with my thumb. She flinched with the contact, but relaxed into my hand. She sighed.

“Because you never recognized me, even after ... even after I died.”

“I’m sorry, Geneive. I don’t know what to say.”

“When I was fourteen, Billy Sanders convinced me to let him put his hand in my panties. He was sixteen and knew stuff. He said he’d teach me. His finger in my pussy was just the start and while he pushed his cock into my virgin pussy, I heard a bell ringing far away and all of a sudden, a dirty old cowboy in a whorehouse was ripping his way through my maidenhead. I was flat on my back on a smelly bed crying while he pumped into my dry pussy and left me three pennies for a tip. Caitlin was thirteen.” I looked at her in horror. I knew Caitlin had been a whore for longer than the little time I knew her, but I didn’t know the extent of her abuse. Thirteen! Shit! “I don’t know why I was sent into her. Maybe it was punishment for my sins. I visited her at least twice a year. The first time was just long enough to feel the pain and horror. The whorehouses that you went to—don’t tell me it wasn’t you, but Kyle; you were there—they were never houses of pleasure. They were always houses of pain. I don’t blame you. When you showed up in Kyle, I thought that was why I was there. I was there for you and you would rescue me.”

“Um ... thanks, or I’m sorry, I guess.”

“When you came back and cried for her—for me—I just wanted to find you and love you the way I knew it could be. And then in the morning, you left. You went to find that Indian girl. I knew then that I’d lost you. Except that Kyle came back and made a stone for me. It was the first time I knew how much he cared. Not you. Kyle. The first time I’d been able to leave the room, and I did it with him. It gave me hope. When Kyle stopped coming to the whorehouse, I was lost. It seemed like I could only leave with him. But he went out west to help the Indian girl and I didn’t see him again.”

“Shit, Geneive. How long were you out?”

“There, months and months, trapped in that whorehouse bedroom. I lost track of time. Here? A few weeks. You remember. You tried to call me but my mom broke us up.”

“I thought you’d used her to break up with me. Then when school started, you were mad at me, but we got back together again. For a while.”

“It was weird. It was when the first bell rang in school that day and I saw you in the hall. It was always a bell that rang when I shifted. I’d been released from that hell, but you still didn’t recognize me. I thought if I did some of the things we’d done together back then, you’d see it was me, but all the things we did were things you’d already done to me. I couldn’t understand how you couldn’t recognize me.”

“And then Joe. He recognized you?”

“Right away. The first time he looked at me at the restaurant, I knew he was a time traveler. And he knew I’d been there. He had Cal’s memories of fucking Caitlin. I had Caitlin’s. They weren’t all that pleasant for me, but they were this special secret only we could share.”

“Do you still go back?”

“Go back? Cole, is Kyle still alive? Can you still go back?” There was a trace of excitement in her voice for the first time. “Can you take me? Cole that’s all I wanted from Joe. I thought he could maybe somehow take me with him when his coyote howled. I want to go back to before Caitlin got pregnant and stop the little bitch from aborting. Can you do that, Cole? Can you take me?”

“Oh God, Geneive. If I could do things like that, I’d go back and stop Kyle from getting killed. I’d stop Caitlin myself. I’d probably kill Cal Despain right away. We can’t change the things that happened. Even when we’re back there the past is the past.”

“You got everything, Cole. You got a wife and child back then and you’ve got a wife and your cousin is pregnant. I know she’s the one I always shared you with. I found out a long time ago. You still go back, don’t you? The only thing I ever wanted—the little baby to hold in my arms—she threw away and I can’t have. I hate you!” Tears were streaming down Geneive’s cheeks. I had to do something.