Storiesonline.net
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                                 Echoes
                               by Sea-Life

Copyright© 2008 by Sea-Life


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Description: Sam Kendall died of bad living and a poor heart in 2007, but instead of an infinity of nothingness, or heaven, or anything else he might have guessed, he found himself falling. Falling back to 1961. Back to his own 14 year old body. But soon he discovered he wasn't the only Sam Kendall to fall back to this time and this body. Echoes are never alone, after all.

Codes: ScFi TimeTr
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Chapter 1: The Fall


Hindsight is 20/20, so they say. Trust me, 'they' have no idea how true that is.

My name is Sam Kendall, and I was 60 years old when my first life ended. It should have been no surprise. I was a candidate for a heart attack and had been for years. I was sedentary, overweight and fighting off high blood pressure, the onset of diabetes and high levels of cholesterol; fighting and loosing. The trend had my doctor nagging at me every time I saw her.

Even then, I might have lived if I hadn't been alone and out in the country where no one would normally expect to find me. I'd been having one of those 'detached' days, where I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin. The kind of days where you want to stare up at the stars and imagine yourself free of your bills, and your aches and pains, free of your own thoughts even. Safely an uncounted infinity of soft layers apart from everything. It was a familiar feeling. One I'd gone through many times over the years, and a feeling I didn't like to share, so I went for a drive after work, out into the hills and down the old dirt road that ran along Sheep Creek.

It was late in the summer, and the skies were clear, with the stars showing as bright points in the early darkness. The moon was a glow behind the nearest hill, promising to brighten the valley in a few hours with its light.

I almost wished there were snow on the ground. I remembered hunting in this valley with my father, before he died. I remembered how the valley looked, covered in snow and bathed in the full moon's glow.

The memories brought me back a little ways from my detached feeling, and I got back in the car and headed home, and I might have lived even then, but I hadn't gone ten feet when I could feel it. I had a flat tire!

I hadn't had to change my own flat tire in a few years, and the particular tire that went flat? Never. Wrestling the spare out from under the back of the truck, and getting the jack in place, I began cranking, sweating already, and anticipating how tightly the nuts were going to be on the wheel, and how hard to get off. I was right too. Damn those nuts were on there! Probably had been air-gunned on at the factory, or the shop in back of the used car dealer where I'd bought her.

I didn't know shit about cars, and hadn't been able to afford a new one since my early adult years when I was still single and working a good paying job and long hours. I bought used cars and ran them into the ground before I moved on to the next one. This truck had actually lasted a lot longer than the average. I was going to miss it when it was time for it to go.

The first pain hit me then, and dropped me like I'd been clubbed. I fell back against the side of the truck in a sitting position, and could feel myself trying to catch my breath around the pain, but I couldn't do it. I heard myself breathing, short little gasping breaths, but I couldn't seem to feel the air reaching my lungs, and as the edges of my world began to fade into unconsciousness, my last thought was of the damned truck, and how for the first time I would be the one going.

I wondered about the afterlife, and thought of Patrick Swayze and pottery wheels. Well sort of. When I realized that the fading consciousness that was me, in my dying body was being echoed by a blossoming consciousness outside that dying body, somewhere in front of the truck and above my now empty body, I regained a sense of myself and of consciousness, and felt myself being pulled somewhere, and at the same time came a desire to move up and out, towards those brightly shining stars that seemed so much more brilliant and burning now; but I was being pulled, pulled hard, away from my own death. Patrick Swayze my ass.

I didn't know at the time, but I was being drawn back through time. Unlike the old 'Time Machine' movie from the 60's, I didn't see images of the past flashing before my eyes. I just fell backwards into infinity, a quiet rushing emptiness without form or definition.

Except ... There were bumps, moments of resistance, where I felt some sort of energy build up before I seemed to absorb it into myself, breaking through the resistance and I was moving again.

So it went, bump, bump, bump, bump, and a fleeting picture with each of them, of some scene that I should have remembered, if they were scenes from my past, but my mind wasn't my own at the moment, and then once again, or perhaps at last, blessed darkness.

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"Hey Sammy!" A voice called. I opened my eyes and saw the sun shining in a blue sky, a grassy sloping lawn with a row of cars lined up on the road in front of it. It looked familiar somehow, but I wasn't sure why. "What?" I answered automatically. Nobody ever called me Sammy anymore.

"Wake up dude! Your Mom's here," the voice said. I looked over, and saw a strangely familiar face attached to a boy's body. "You must've really been zonked out buddy. You act like you don't know where the heck you are. You act like its the first day of school not the last, c'mon summer's here!"

The boy waved an arm behind us, and I glanced back at the building behind us. I recognized it immediately. Cold Lake Combined School.

The moment I recognized the building, I remembered who the skinny kid next to me was. Benny Argus. I hadn't thought of Benny in years.

It took perhaps another couple heartbeats for me to ask myself, if this was the junior high school Benny, then what was I?

"Sammy!" I heard from the street, my mom's voice like I barely remembered it.

"Coming!" I hollered back. "See ya later Benny."

"Later," Benny said with a wave.

I ran down the grassy hill headed for mom's car. I almost stumbled then, because the car fixed things even more firmly in my head. Mom had gotten her driver's license, and Dad's used 1956 Chevy 210 sedan in the winter of 1961 when he had bought himself a 'new-last-year' 1960 Chevy K-10 pickup truck. He used a similar four wheel drive rig for work, as he was spending more and more time traveling dirt roads and mountain trails for the State of Oregon. He liked the four wheel drive, so decided that's what he would drive.

What fixed it in my mind that this had to be the start of the summer of 1961 was mom picking me up from school. She only did it a few times, right after she got her license, and just as eighth grade was getting over. By the time I started high school, the novelty had worn off, I was being an ass, and the school bus went right past our house.

I jumped into the front seat with mom and reached over and gave her a big hug. I had tears in my eyes and images of the cold, wet 
December day when I had stood at her funeral in my head.

"Well, I don't know what that's all about Samuel!"

"Just glad to see you, mom," I answered, looking back out the window so she wouldn't see my tears.

"I certainly want to see those tears gone by the time we get to Nileson's."

Nileson's? I sat there staring out the window, panicked as I tried to remember what she was talking about. I tried to remember back to the first time I'd finished the eighth grade, not expecting much. Those years and the ones in between were nothing but a blur to me.

But...

While I sat staring off, I felt an echo of the 'bumping' I'd felt somewhere during the journey, and I felt things come into focus, just a little. What had happened the last time I'd gotten into this car on the last day of eighth grade?

It came to me then. We'd driven over to Nileson's Mercantile & Feed. Mom had lined me up a summer job.

Oh man did I remember it now! This moment coming up was my first major act of rebellion against my mom, and by extension, dad too. I refused the work, in protest over not having been consulted, and I continued to protest over the summer and into ninth grade. I refused to work, I refused to participate in pretty much everything, even the stuff I enjoyed. I spent the summer sitting in my room reading.

It was the beginnings of my sedentary life, and by the time high school started, it had become habit and routine. It lost me good friends like Benny, who to be honest, stuck with me through everything, even when I didn't acknowledge it.

By the time we pulled into Nileson's, I was determined not to make the same mistake this time around, assuming I was going to be here long enough to have an impact.

Mr. Nileson had two sons who had worked at the Mercantile & Feed; Peter, the older of the two was in college now and not coming home this summer while he did some traveling. That left an opening for someone, and that someone, according to the plan, was going to be me. I guessed I'd be working with Brian, the younger son who was a sophomore in high school. There was a sister too, Belinda, I think, who was a senior, but I didn't know if she worked at the store or not.

I was big for my age, not a physical specimen or anything, but I wasn't a toothpick like my friend Benny Argus either. I was going to be fourteen in August and I was already 5 feet 10 inches. Taller than my dad by an inch. Mom was tall too, for a woman of her day, and I had topped out at six-two in adulthood.

"Sammy, I think you're going to do well working for me," Mr. Nileson began when we shook hands. "I won't lie to you though, some of its going to be pretty physical work. But I won't let Brian wear you down, and if you think he's being to tough on you, you let me know, you hear?"

"Yes sir," I answered.

"Your mom says you have a bike, and can ride it to work and home."

"Yes sir. Its not that far from home to here. I could even walk," I suggested.

"You should ride the bike to start with Sammy," Mom suggested. "Until you see how tired you are going to be at the end of the day."

I nodded, my only response, and this was followed by a quick tour of the store, the feed sheds and the equipment yards out back. Brian was in High School in Hermiston, which meant it would be a close call to see which of us got to work first every day. They got out earlier than we did, but he had a bus ride. Maybe a car ride if he was driving. I wasn't sure, maybe his sister was driving. Like I said, I didn't know to much about the Nilesons.

The tour was more to reassure my mom, I think, than it was to orient me.

"You'll start on Friday at nine o'clock, okay Sammy?" Mr. Nileson told me as we walked back to the car. "Brian still has two more days of high school. When he can be here to work with you, you can start."

Great, I actually would get a couple of days to do nothing, or as much nothing as I could stomach. I was still of two minds on that subject.

On the ride home, mom offered me a little reassurance.

"I'll be home the first week. You can call for a ride home at the end of the day if you're too tired."

I again felt as if my ability to at least feign normality was threatened again when Ned lifted his head from the porch and came bounding my way. Without even thinking, I raised my left hand to my side and up above my head and let him leap up to butt his head against my palm.

To hell with getting my life back, I had my dog back! I sat down on the porch and buried my face in Ned's neck. Ned leaned into me in return, and I could feel the stored up warmth of the afternoon in his fur.

Ned is a Gordon Setter, and I got him for Christmas in 1954. I had just seen 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea a few days earlier, and when I got him as my Christmas present, I had to name him after the swashbuckling Ned Land. He had been a handful as a puppy, but had grown up to be a calm, loyal friend. He too had been a victim of my rebellion, and when I began refusing to take him for his daily exercise, dad had no choice but to give him away to another family. Not this time damn it!

I went into the house with some trepidation. I remembered well enough where my bedroom was, and where things were in general, but I didn't think I'd pass muster if someone asked me to fetch a broom, or any other of a hundred mundane things that I knew would be here, but which in my mind were decades beyond being even a dim memory.

My room was a safe start, and Mom's hollered instructions to get out of my school clothes before I went anywhere gave me a purpose, so I went running up the stairs to my room to change. At the top of the stairs I had to stop and marvel for a moment at the concept of running up stairs.

My room was as I remembered it, but in a strangely idealized sense. The dresser, the bed, the closet, everything was as I remembered it, which was a rose-colored set of memories, because I also remembered the dark pit it became during high school at the height of my rebellion.

I changed clothes, taking off the newer black Lee jeans that had come from this year's trip through the Sears winter catalog and slipping on a pair of denim Levis. I also took off the newer plaid long sleeved shirt I wore and replaced it with an older short sleeved shirt. Shoes were another story, if it wasn't raining, or go-to-church Sunday, I was in my Red Ball Jets. I'd lucked out this year and gotten my shoes while on a trip to Portland, rather than out of the catalog, and the Red Balls were the shoe every kid demanded, and where I lived at least, seldom got.

During the change into my 'play' clothes, I'd taken the opportunity to take a good look at the thirteen year old Sam Kendall body I only vaguely remembered. I didn't remember it that well, except for the recollections I had of not being fat at this age. I wasn't exactly in shape, but I wasn't even pudgy yet. Being tall for my age, I seemed all leg and arm.

Puberty hadn't hit me yet, and wasn't due to for another year if things followed the course of my last life. I remembered the embarrassment of Freshman year, being one of only a couple unfortunate boys who hadn't been hit by the change, and having to shower our immature, hairless bodies in amongst the others. It was another of those memories of growing up that I did not look back on fondly. Unfortunately, it was one I wasn't going to be able to do anything about. I touched my immature cock and felt a little tingle. 'Well, at least things appear to be in working order', I thought to myself.

Clothes changed, I ran back down the stairs, smiling at Mom's yell to slow down. I entered the kitchen at a more sedate pace and began nosing around for a snack.

"Sammy, there are apples in the bin, or else you can make yourself a sandwich," Mom suggested.

I grabbed an apple and headed out to the porch where Ned was waiting for me. He sat patiently watching me eat my apple, which was warm and juicy, far different than my recent memories of apples which had been store-bought, refrigerated and with a sharp, acidic bite to them. Those 'recent' memories were from almost fifty years in the future. Forget them for now. I was either dead, dreaming, or I was truly back in 1961.

Once I'd finished the apple, I let Ned lead me wherever he expected us to go. I trusted his memories of what I should do next far more than my own. He led me down the road, and we hadn't gone a hundred yards when I realized we were headed towards Willow Creek.

Willow Creek was the natural leftover that remained after Cold Lake had been dammed up and made into the Cold Lake Reservoir. It was a small creek, and placid, running pretty slowly between the reservoir and the Columbia river. The creek meandered pretty good, going a lot further than the four miles that was the as-the-crow-flies distance, but it only got steep and fast when it got close to the Columbia. In our neighborhood it was a slow and lazy stream, with pockets and pools of water here and there shaded by willows growing along the banks.

We ran a good mile, Ned and me, until we got to 'the spot'. It was a small pool, too shallow at one end for a good swimming hole, but deep enough at the other end to make a good place to wash off the heat of the summer. Ned headed straight for the water as soon as we got there. He was supposed to be a gun dog, not a water dog, but nobody had ever told him that. He loved the water. I'd left his ball at home, not remembering its existence until that moment, but glad, knowing that he'd loose it in the water, and that with Ned's canine sized holes chewed in it, it would have sunk to the bottom.

Ned splashed and played on his own for a suitable amount of time and then searched for and found a suitable stick to bring me. It was a good one, thick as my wrist and a foot long, smooth, hard and dry. I tossed it across the pool and high up the opposite bank, and as I watched Ned go chasing after it, I stood, awash in memories and emotions.

Ned and I had been playing for a half an hour or so when I heard a holler from down the creek. I turned to look and saw Benny waving and running my way. I waved back and waited for him.

"Here you are! Geez, I stopped by your house but your mom said you had taken off. You were supposed to meet me at Harwell's, remember? What happened?"

My brain spun, trying to think of what to say.

"Man! Sorry Benny. Mom took me over to Nileson's after school. I've got a job there starting Friday morning. After that, everything else kinda flew out of my head."

"A job? That's cool, I guess. I'm going to have to start working for my dad pretty soon too. I was hoping to hold off on it for a while, but if you're working, I might as well start right away."

Benny plopped down beside me as we both waited for Ned to return. Benny's folks wouldn't let him have a dog, so Ned was unofficially his other boy. In fact Ned brought his stick straight to Benny and Benny was soon getting his turn at throwing the stick.

Mr. Argus, Benny's dad, owned and operated the local newspaper, the Cold Lake Clarion. It only published three days a week, and Mr. Argus was also the local distributor for the Portland Oregonian and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer — what we just called 'the P.I.'. He slipped a local advertising insert into their Sunday editions, and also did a lot of flyers and posters for local events. Benny was going to work for his dad, and take over the business someday. Benny, not his older brother Julian, who was going to die in Vietnam in just a few years.

I sat blinking back the tears over that memory, and Benny caught the emotion on my face.

"What?" He asked.

"Just thinking," I stalled. "We're going to be in high school next year."

"Yeah." Benny responded with a sigh.

"We're going to be able to hang out at the swimming hole with the other high school kids," I said out loud, realizing it almost as I said it.

"The grubs are going to get control of the spot," Benny moaned.

The grubs were our name for a bunch of younger kids who hung out at the spot whenever we weren't using it. We lay on the bank of the creek, soaking in the sun and mourning the loss of our 'spot', sacrificed to the future.

Neither Benny or I had a watch, but Ned had a built in meal tracking system, and when he decided it was time to go, we both knew we should head for home. We chased Ned down to the road and then I walked with Benny as he walked his bike back up to the road. We split up when he took off on the bike down Burnside Road, headed for home. Ned and I continued on up Lacker Road to my house.

Dinner was just leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I sweated through the mealtime conversation, wondering if I was going to slip up somehow, and praying it was an if and not a when.

"I forget, when is Dad getting back?" I asked. I knew he must be traveling, as he did a lot of it, but I had no clue what the current schedule was. I seemed to be benefiting from a pretty good dose of clarity about some things since my return, but those memories were almost a half century old for me.

"Friday," Mom answered. "He'll be home before you get done with your first day of work."

"Great," I responded. School was out, and the memorial weekend was coming up. We usually did something as a family over that long weekend, but I had no idea what the plan was for this year.

"Did Benny find you?" Mom asked.

"Yeah, I was supposed to meet him at Harwell's after school, but the surprise you sprung on me at Nileson's had me so busy thinking about Friday that I completely forgot."

"Was he disappointed to hear you would be working all summer?"

"Not really. He's going to be working for his dad too, so we're both resigned to catching each other in the evenings or on weekends."

"What about Carrie?"

"Don't know yet," I answered through a bite of meatloaf. "I would have normally talked to her on the way home from school." Which was my one last little dig at her for the whole springing-a-job thing, and I smiled to let her know it wasn't a serious dig.

Carrie Ralston was my second closest friend, after Benny, and she lived closer, so I actually saw her more often than I did Benny.

I remember deciding when I was ten that I liked girls, and that I was no longer going to dismiss them out of hand as potential friends and playmates. This met with some resistance from Benny at first, but since this mostly meant including Carrie back into our activities, a place she had held when we were all younger, it didn't take too long for him to make the shift with me.

It certainly helped that by the time she was twelve, Carrie was a certified cutie. I may not have hit puberty yet at this age, either this time or the first time, but I didn't then, and wasn't planning now, on letting that get in the way of appreciating Carrie. I may not have yet been marked by the passing of puberty, but Carrie had, and gloriously.

This gave me an agenda for my time between dinner and bedtime, so as soon as I'd done my chores and gotten washed up, I headed up the road to the Ralston's. Their house was only a block away, or what would have been a block if we lived closer to town where there were cross streets and houses on every lot. The only things between our two houses were a couple of empty lots and Mr. Garrison's house. Mr. Garrison was a widower, and a bit of an eccentric, which had made him the bogeyman when we were little, but he turned out to be nice enough once we got over our fears and talked to him.

Burt Thompson was visiting when I got to Carrie's house. Burt was already in high school and a grade ahead of Carrie, Benny and me.

"Hi Sammy!" Carrie called from the porch as I ran up.

"Go away kid, we're busy," Burt said, completely serious, and with a look that suggested he was definitely not kidding.

"Stop it!" Carrie ordered. "We are not too busy."

"What's up Sammy? Why weren't you on the bus today?"

"My mom picked me up," I explained. "I thought she was just still showing off her car, but she took me down to Nileson's. I'm going to be working there all summer."

"Does Benny know?" Carrie asked.

"He does now."

Burt was getting increasingly aggravated at being left out of this conversation.

"This is stupid!" he said forcefully, shouldering his way past me down the steps. "Carrie, when you decide you want to stop hanging around with babies, give me a call."

He peeled off on his bike, a Schwinn Tornado, just like mine except for the color. He was trying to spit up a patch of gravel as he did, but mostly he hopped the back tire up in the air a few times before getting up some speed.

"Funny that he's the man and I'm the baby, and we both ride exactly the same bike." I commented.

"Oh please!" Carrie moaned. "If I want to hang around with babies, Burt Thompson would be near the top of the list."

Carrie and I sat on her porch for about an hour, getting caught up on things. We already knew what most of the summer plans were — or at least I was supposed to know. I had to try a weak 'remind me again of what your plans are?' gambit, but it worked. The halting, awkward nature of the conversation had more to do with the memories I had of Carrie from our first life, and the slow distancing and dimming our friendship endured. I kept having to shake those visions off to see the Carrie in front of me.

Carrie reminded me that she was going back east for the summer to spend some time on her Uncle Elias' farm in Indiana. They would be leaving a week after memorial day and not coming back until just before school started.

"It all kind of works out," I decided out loud. "You'll be gone, and Benny and I will both be working."

"Benny's working too?"

"Yeah, he said his dad's been asking, and now that I'm working, he figures he might as well."

"It'll be good. At least you guys will have money to spend when school starts. I won't be working at all, except farm chores."

"I don't know about pocket money," I complained. "Mom didn't tell me she had a job lined up for me, and she hasn't told me what my plans are for the money I'll be making. In fact that was the one thing Mr. Nileson didn't think to mention. I have no idea how much he's paying me!"

Carrie laughed at that, and I suddenly remembered how much I enjoyed making Carrie laugh. Her smile was more spectacular than a sunset.

We made arrangements to meet the next day at The Spot, each of us promising to bring whoever we could scrape up to be there by eleven. I waved goodbye and began the dash home.

I got home and used one of my precious weekly phone calls to call Benny and let him know what was up for tomorrow.

"Okay, I'm your man," Benny told me. "Come over first thing in the morning."

I spent a few minutes visiting with mom after hanging up with Benny, and then Mom nodded towards the stairs, "Measurement time."

It was the last day of school. I had a very traditional marking spot on the door jam of my bedroom where my growth was recorded, three times a year. Beginning of school, Christmas day and the last day of school. Before I could get cleaned up and ready for bed, I had to stand against the door while Mom marked off a new line on the door with a pencil. "A half an inch since Christmas!" Mom told me.

I had managed to outgrow 'bath time' before bed when I was ten, and had been allowed to take a shower in the morning. This was usually fine because I was normally up well after dad when he was home, and he was my main competition for the shower in the morning. Mom still preferred her baths, and the bathroom with the big tub was in their room and the bathroom with the shower was downstairs.

It seemed I had been running on autopilot most of the day, bouncing from moment to moment on barely-there memories, patience and subtle questions here and there. I wasn't surprised at all when I plopped down to make my bedtime prayer, still on autopilot. God and prayer were a big part of our family, even if the local church frowned a bit on mom's 'forward' nature.

I did stop and think for a moment, there on my knees. I'd outgrown the need for a bedtime prayer pretty quickly in the first life. But if ever there was proof that there was something bigger than all of us pulling the strings, I was it. The only thing that kept me from it was, I wasn't sure what the heck to pray for!

In the end I closed my eyes, bent my head and sent off a quick 'thank you, and I'll pray better tomorrow'.

Later that night as I lay on my oh so familiar bed in my utterly familiar room, wearing my utterly familiar but long forgotten 13 year old body, I wondered whether I would wake up in the morning. I wondered where I would wake up, or more precisely, when. Was this a dying man's dream, or a Frank Kapra version of the old 'my life flashed in front of my eyes'?

Only tomorrow would tell, and sleep drew me there.



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Chapter 2: Reservoir


It took a couple long minutes, laying in bed the next morning after my eyes opened, to wipe the silly grin off my face. I hadn't been sure what I would find come morning. Hell, I wasn't sure I'd find morning!

Ned popped his head over the edge of the bed as soon as he heard me moving around, and I reached down and patted his head. He'd need to go out as soon as I was dressed. In fact, that made me think about what I'd have to do starting tomorrow. His big exercise of the day usually happened after school, but now that I was working, I didn't know if I'd be able to run with him in the afternoon. I'd have to start getting up early enough to take him for a run before work.

"Might as well get started today." I told him.

By Kendall family tradition, the first day of summer vacation was a day off for mom. I was on my own for breakfast. Instead of heading down for a shower and some breakfast, I threw on a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt and headed out the door with Ned. I grabbed the tennis ball off that was Ned's current object d'fetch off the porch, and headed up Lacker, past the Ralston's, towards the intersection with Weisse Boulevard.

Weisse was a diagonal cross road that abutted a bunch of cross streets running west, but also hit Lacker and Burnside running East. It was a pretty ambitious bit of running, and maybe I was biting off more than I could chew, but day two of my return had me determined to make sure my life turned out different this time, and that particularly included not becoming the slug I had been in my first life.

I set what I thought was a moderate pace for myself, throwing the tennis ball ahead for Ned and letting him chase it down and run it back. Weisse was a pretty busy road, and was paved, so I held the ball until we got to Burnside. Ned was ready for a little more ball chasing by then, so we went at it again, still with a little more care than we had used on Lacker. There were more houses here, and less open area to throw the ball that wasn't someone's yard.

Mom's car was still in the driveway when I got back to the house, so I decided she wasn't planning on making a complete escape for the day. I grabbed a drink of water in the kitchen and took a glance at the clock above the stove. Damn! It wasn't even 7:30 yet!

After a nice hot shower and a change of clothes, I decided I was hungry. I hadn't heard any sounds of mom stirring upstairs yet, but I figured she'd stir plenty quick if she smelled breakfast cooking.

I had another of those 'pause and think' moments while I tried to rebuild for myself some memory of what I knew how to cook at this age the first time around. I'd been a bachelor most of my life, and was a decent cook, but as I remembered it, at fourteen I had mastered French toast, pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon.

I didn't want to risk using the bacon I found, as there was only the one package, and I didn't want to risk discovering it was meant for something else. We had plenty of eggs though, so I decided to scramble some of those and began looking around for things to scramble up with it. There was a quarter of an onion, wrapped in cellophane in the fridge, part of a green pepper, and some leftover link sausage that must've been a part of yesterday's breakfast.

I felt safe using leftovers, and while I had our cast iron frying pan heating up on the stove, I thought about making coffee. If Dad were back, there would already be coffee on, and Mom drank it, so I felt safe in making a pot. The question was, would they care if I started drinking it? Again I tried dredging through memories that were mine once removed. I drank it when we went camping I remembered, and when Dad and I went hunting it was considered an essential, and I drank it black.

The next question was, did I know how to make coffee in this old electric percolator style coffee pot? Mr. Coffee was a decade away, and I'd certainly get some serious questions if I up and started talking about French coffee presses and coffee bean grinders!

I didn't want to sweat the onions before I added them, but I did want to heat the sausage a little and cook the green pepper some to soften it slightly. I did the sausage first, throwing the chopped up pepper bits in with them when it was time. While that was going on I cracked six eggs into a bowl and added a little salt and pepper as I scrambled them.

Mom came downstairs as I was finishing the eggs. I'd decided to add some toast at the last minute and four slices were already done and another four were almost set to pop.

"Sammy, this is a surprise!" Mom said.

"Morning Mom. When I got home and got cleaned up, I was too hungry to wait."

"You've already been out?"

"I woke up early and decided to take Ned for a run. I figure I'm going to need to do that every day, since I don't know how tired I'll be at the end of the day, once I start work. He needs his exercise, and its probably the only way I'll be able to give it to him every day."

I must have pleased Mom with that breakfast, and the explanation, because she offered to do dishes after we ate, and didn't say a word about my cup of coffee. I did my morning chores, which was mostly making my own bed, cleaning my room and making sure the garbage was out if it was garbage day. We didn't have a lawn to mow, but I did have two cars to wash, alternating one a week. That was a Sunday chore though, so unless Mom asked for something special, I was done when I came down from my room.

While I was in my room I took some time to study the calendar on my wall. This was May 18th. Two weeks ago, on May 5th, Alan Shepard had become the first American in space. Freedom 7 was the watchword on every red-blooded American boy, and the first time through these events I had very much been one of them. The last two weeks of school, as I remembered, had been chock full of Alan Shepard book reports and essays.

School had gotten out yesterday and Memorial Day was less than two weeks away. The calendar reminded me that the federal law that moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May hadn't happened yet, so the holiday wasn't going to be a long weekend like I was used to. Still it raised questions in my mind.

"Mom, is my job going to change our Memorial Day plans?" I asked when I got back downstairs.

"No Sammy, don't worry about that," Mom said. "Nileson's is going to be closed on Memorial Day and Mr. Nileson has already said you can miss work on the 29th, so we're still going to be camping for almost four straight days."

This news reassured me and worried me at the same time. Tomorrow, once my new job started, I would be traveling new ground for sure. I'm sure I already had to some degree, my day yesterday had certainly not included my visits with Benny or Carrie. Something as concrete as a Memorial Day camping trip? Those were peak events in my young life, and the upcoming one never happened, canceled around me as I sat sulking in my room.

The same train of thoughts that brought those concerns brought a moment of brightness with it as well. The first time through, Dad and I argued pretty harshly when he got home, and he had taken the belt to me pretty hard, for the first time really. He told me later in life that he regretted it. I sure regretted the pain, and this time through I wasn't going to be getting that!

"What do you have planned today Sammy?" Mom asked.

"Carrie, Benny and I are going to see how many of the gang can meet up at the creek."

"Are you going to spend all day?"

"I guess it depends on who shows up, and what everyone wants to do."

"Why don't you get a couple of packages of hot dogs out of the freezer," Mom suggested. "I'll give you some money and you can stop at the store and get some buns."

It was almost 8:30 by the time I left the house. I jumped on my bike and with Ned loping alongside, headed for Benny's house. Once I was on Burnside I stopped on the way at Roger and Amelia Cort's house to see if they were going to be able to come to the spot. Mrs. Cort answered my knock.

"Good morning Mrs. Cort," I began when she opened the door.

"Well, good morning yourself Sammy," she laughed. "You're awful early!"

"Are Roger and Amelia here?"

"They're still in the kitchen eating their breakfast," she told me. "Go on in, you know the way."

I found I did too, and without having to dredge things up.

"Thank you!" I tossed behind me as I made my way to the kitchen.

"Sammy!" I got simultaneously from the two of them. They were twins, they could hardly help it.

"Hi guys!"

"What's going on?" Roger asked.

"I'm on my way over to Benny's," I explained. "Carrie thought we should all get together at the creek today, and I want to see if you guys can come."

"Hey mom!" Roger yelled, despite the fact that his mom was standing right in the doorway.

"Yes, you two can go," she answered before he could even ask. "Are you spending the day?"

"I think so," I answered. "Mom is letting me take a couple of packages of hot dogs, and I'm stopping at the store to get buns."

"Amy, I'll give you some money and you can get some chips or something at the store to take with you." Mrs. Cort offered.

"Great, thanks Mom, can I grab a jar of relish from the cellar too?" Amelia asked. Only her mother called her Amy. She hated it and preferred Amelia. 'Amy is too plain and ordinary', she would complain. Roger was Roger. 'Just plain old Roger for me. Amelia can be special and outstanding for both of us.'

"Sure sweetie, but take one of the small ones, and be sure to bring back what you don't use." Mrs. Cort cautioned.

"Okay, I'm off to Benny's," I told them, "We'll be there by eleven, if not sooner. See ya there!"

Even if we'd managed to get everyone who was even a peripheral member of the group we usually spent our idle hours with, it would have been no more than a dozen. Erik Osterhaus was in Portland with his parents. Sissy Mitchel was stuck babysitting her baby brother. The Carmody brothers already had plans with some friends from the other end of town. Luther Harwell could come, but he had to be back at four, or as he said, 'My Dad will rain down fire and brimstone on my ass.'

This was the report I got from Benny as soon as I saw him. He apparently had been burning up the phone lines, not as reluctant as I was to tie up the family phone.

I told him about the hot dogs, and the Cort's bringing relish and maybe getting chips or something. The relish was welcome news, as Mrs. Cort made it herself, from her own homemade pickles, and it was as good as you could get.

"What about Carrie?" Benny asked. When I said I had no clue, he hopped on the phone and called her house. I only heard his end of the conversation of course, but it was brief.

"Hi Mrs. Ralston, is Carrie there?"

"Oh, okay."

"Well, its starting to look like we'll be taking food and stuff, and wanted to check with her."

"Oh, okay. Thank you Mrs. Ralston."

"She's not home," Benny told me. "Her mom says she's over visiting with old man Garrison."

"Oh," I offered, at a loss for whatever else to say in response.

"Her mom says not to worry though, that she'll be bringing something."

We had no sooner finished that conversation, the phone still warm from Benny's hand when it rang, making both of us jump.

"Hello, Argus residence. Benjamin speaking."

"Oh hi Luth!" Benny said, letting me know it was Luther Harwell.

"Really?"

"Even better, Luth! See you when you get there. Do you need help hauling it form the road?"

"Okay, we'll be ready."

I stared at Benny as he hung up the phone again, one eyebrow raised.

"Luther says his dad cut down a bunch of scrub alders on the back of his property a couple of weeks ago, and there's a good bit of it available for us to use as firewood if we want it."

"Great!" I said. "What was even better?"

"His sister Celia is willing to do the driving if we want to pack it up to the creek. They'll be by to pick us up in about five minutes."

It was fast approaching 9:30 by now, and I still needed to pick up the hot dog buns Mom had given me money to buy. I should have time when we got back from dropping off the firewood, especially if Celia would drop me off at the store on her way back into town.

The Harwell's owned the local drug store, and Mr. Harwell was a pharmacist. They had a genuine soda shop in the store that Mrs. Harwell ran, and it was one of our main hangouts, as it was for most of the teenagers in Cold Lake. The Harwells were also the only black family in Cold Lake. Funny, but with the memories I could muster from this life and the first one, I couldn't find a single instance where that mattered to anyone I knew.

It was also an absolute incontrovertible truth that Celia Harwell was about as drop-dead gorgeous a woman as I remembered seeing in either life. Even Carrie couldn't compete. Of course Celia was nineteen or twenty, so she was as far removed from me and my social sphere as Alpha Centauri was from Earth.

I had my bike and Ned with me, so we jumped in the back of the truck along with the firewood and headed out. It was a fast ride by truck, with little or no traffic on our edge-of-town dirt roads. We were there and unpacking the truck within five minutes.

Looking at the pile of alder logs, which ranged from about an inch and a half to four inches in diameter, and a mostly uniform eighteen inches in length, I figured it would take the three of us, Luther, Benny and me, two trips to get it all where we wanted it, but there were two canvas cloths laying in the bottom of the truck that the wood had been laying on, and I figured we could use them to build ourselves a carrier for the wood so we could do it in one trip.

I motioned at the cloths to Luther and he got the idea immediately.

The two tarps were the old olive green that smacked of army surplus, and there were a ton of one inch wide canvas strips sewn into the underside of both tarps about two feet apart. The long sides of both had seams sewn with a heavy black thread that suggested they had been cut from something larger and then their edges dressed.

We laid the two pieces out on the ground next to our pile of firewood and contemplated how to make them work for us. They were both the same size, about twelve or so feet long and three feet wide.

In the end, we just stacked the wood in the center of one piece and laid the other piece on top. Then we twisted the ends like we were wrapping a taffy, and Luther and I each took an end, with Benny delegated to running alongside with a hand firmly on one of the straps to keep the whole thing from untwisting. At a quick jog, it took us ten minutes to make the round trip, and we were back to Celia and the truck. Benny jumped in the back with Ned this time and Luther and I prepared to climb in the front seat with Celia.

"Sammy wants to know if he can get a ride all the way into town?" Luther explained. I smiled.

"Your reputation's going to get damaged being seen riding in a car with me Sammy," she warned.

"Are you kidding?" I responded. "Being seen with the most beautiful girl in Cold Lake? It's going to boost my reputation, not damage it."

I said it with such instant and unthinking sincerity that I think I surprised her. She blinked once, smiled and shook her head. "Get in."

Celia started up the truck and pulled back out onto the road, headed back to Benny's.

"Woman," she said, out of the blue a moment later.

"What?" Luther and I both echoed.

"Most beautiful woman, not girl."

"Oh, okay," I agreed.

A long moment of silence later, all three of us burst into laughter. Behind the laughter though, I sighed deeply. The old man that was me from the first life would have chewed off his own arm for a chance to be next to a woman as beautiful as Celia. The young me from this one wasn't far behind him.

We dropped Benny off at his house, and I hollered for Ned to stay with Benny.

"That's a smart dog," Luther said when Ned hopped out on his own and followed Benny.

"A good dog," I added, "the best."

Nileson's Mercantile sold a lot of stuff, but they didn't sell groceries. For that I needed to go to the Cold Lake Market. It wasn't a huge store, but it offered all the essentials and necessities, so you didn't have to go all the way into Hermiston to do your casual shopping.

I thanked Celia and Luther as they dropped me and my bike off at the store. "See ya up there!" I hollered at Luther as they pulled away, and threw a wave at both of them. I leaned the bike against the side of the store and went inside. The market always seemed cool and dark, and had wooden floors in the front that creaked in spots.

I grabbed my two packages of hot dog buns and went to the counter to pay for them.

Mr. Taylor owned the Cold Lake Market. He was about my dad's age, shorter and rounder, with curly red hair. He even had red hair on his arms. I got blasted by another memory from the first time around, and remembered thinking he looked funny cause of the color of his hair and the thickness of it on his arms the first time I saw him, but that impression never lasted very long, first time or this time. On him, it looked right.

"There you go Sammy," Mr. Taylor said, handing me my change.

"Thank you sir," I answered, stuffing the coins in my pocket.

"I hear your going to be working over at Nileson's, Sammy," Mr. Taylor said.

"Yes sir," I answered.

"That's too bad son, you should have come to me first. I could use a strong young man here at the store."

I fought the urge to laugh. Mr. Taylor had a reputation as a skinflint, and had trouble keeping employees, especially kids.

"Yes sir," I responded. "My mom arranged everything though. I didn't even know about it until yesterday."

"I see." He said, his smile lessening slightly. I knew that Mom seldom came to the market unless Dad or I went with her, and she did most of her shopping once a month in Hermiston.

I smiled, threw out a "Thanks again, Mr. Taylor," and headed for my bike. The adult me from the future wondered if there was some past history between Mom and Mr. Taylor that I hadn't learned about the first time through.

He had to ruin my exit by hollering, as I left, "Say hello to Helen for me." Helen being my Mom, of course.

Ten minutes later I was back at Benny's, and I stopped only long enough to pick up Ned and tell Benny I'd see him at the spot if he wasn't ready in time to meet me at the intersection. Ned and I zoomed home at full speed.

When I got into the kitchen I saw it was already after ten. Mom had the hot dogs and some other things in a paper bag for me, but I rejected that idea immediately and headed out to the shed to get my backpack. I grabbed my camping knife and sheath for it while I was there. I stopped to slide the sheath onto my belt and spent a few minutes with the knife stone taking the winter's dullness off the blade.

I brought the pack into the kitchen through the back door and stopped at the back storage closet and grabbed an old quilt that had belonged to Ned for a while before we'd found him a heavy army surplus wool blanket that replaced it. It was still clean, and had been washed many times since, but Mom wouldn't use it for anything now.

I folded the quilt into the bottom of the pack and began pulling things out of the paper bag to see what she had thought I would be taking. There were the hot dogs, still slightly frozen, a small mason jar of ketchup and another of mustard, and a jar of store bought relish. I put the relish back in the pantry. Thanks to Mrs. Cort, we were not going to need that!

When I went to the pantry I noticed the door to our cellar was open, and took the stairs down to see what mom was up to down there.

Mom didn't put up a lot of vegetables, like a lot of the women in Cold Lake did, but she did jar a lot of the apples we got from our two trees, and she made blueberry jelly every year, if she could get Dad and I to go berry picking with her. The other thing we kept in the cellar was Dad's home made root beer.

I had another one of those memory blasts right then as I remembered Dad's root beer. Oh man, was it good! It was sorted into two sections. The bottles with black tape around the neck were considered off limits due to alcohol content. The untaped bottles were fair game, but the unspoken rule was they were saved for special days.

Mom must have decided this was a special day, as she had a dozen bottles of the untaped stuff off the shelf, and she was stuffing them into socks. I blinked at that for a second, and a bout then mom saw that I was there.

"Don't look so dumbfounded," She said with a laugh. "These are socks from the darning bag. I figured they'd make good protection for these bottles so you could pack some up to the creek with you."

Mom's darning bag was a family joke. Our socks went in when they developed holes, but they seldom came out again. Mom hated to sew, and really hated darning socks.

We carried the dozen bottles upstairs and while mom set about arranging everything into my backpack, I decided to use one of my rare phone calls to check on Carrie.

"Ralston residence, this is Carrie," Carrie answered.

"Hi Carrie, its Sammy. I'm about packed here," I said, noticing Mom stuff a towel into the top of the pack and begin tying the top closed.

"Me too," she answered. "Is Benny ready?"

"He was still getting ready when I left his house about fifteen minutes ago. I told him I'd see him at the creek if he wasn't at the intersection when I got there."

"Are you taking your bike?" Carrie asked.

"Yeah, Mom's got me loaded down pretty good," I answered.

"Okay, I'll take my bike too. I'll be at your house in a few minutes."

"Okay, Goodbye," I finished, hanging up the phone. It was one of Mom's rules that you always say goodbye at the end of a phone call, but sometimes it just felt weird.

"The hot dog buns are just under the towel Sammy," Mom said as I was trying on the pack for balance. "Be careful when you take it off not to throw it down, you'll squish the buns or break the bottles."

"Yes Mom." I considered those facts too self evident to have needed a caution, but it must be part of the official Mom Handbook, so I didn't say anything else.

I made sure Ned had a chance to eat before we headed out, and with a last minute thought grabbed one of the beef knuckles out of the cooler. We got them from the butcher shop in Hermiston for practically nothing, specifically for Ned to have as a treat.

I got off the porch just in time to see Carrie coming down the road towards the house, and I walked out to meet her, grabbing my bike from where I'd leaned it when I got home.

"Ready to go?" Carrie asked.

We began biking our way towards the intersection with Burnside, keeping an eye out for Benny, but we didn't see him, and there was no sign of him when we looked down the road towards his house.

"I guess we'll meet him there," I said after a minute.

We pedaled the rest of the way on the rode, and if I hadn't been carrying breakables and squish-ables of one kind or another, we probably would have kept riding down the trail to the river. As it was, Carrie and I both got off and began walking our bikes down the trail to the spot without any discussion.

The sun was high enough in the sky and the day warm enough that both of us were feeling pretty warm by the time we got to the spot. We left the bikes in the usual spot along the trail side of the grassy rise that separated the trail from the creek.

Our spot on the creek featured a shallow grassy slope that ran down to the creek itself, with a cluster of willows at one end that marked where the creek itself took a turn. A single elm tree, slightly higher on the slope and slightly apart from the willows was our favorite shelter from the sun.

Carrie noticed the pile of firewood immediately.

"Wow, where'd all the wood come from?"

"Luthor. Benny and I packed in in earlier this morning," I answered. "His dad cut it down on the back of their property and said we could have it."

"You guys packed it all the way from the Harwell's house?" Carrie, asked, sounding impressed.

"No, that would have been impressive though, if we had. Celia drove us out in their truck with it. We just packed it down the trail."

The water in the creek, being escapement from the reservoir, and running through mostly open ground, wasn't exactly cold, but in the shade by the willows it was colder than the surrounding air, so I pulled off my back pack and headed down there.

"Going to get wet already?" Carrie asked.

"Nope, but I've got some stuff that needs to be kept cool, so I figured I'd better find a spot in the water for it."

"Good idea. I've got something that needs to be kept cool too."

Carrie had a much easier time with hers. Other than a towel, like I'd packed, and some paper napkins and plates, the space in her pack was taken up by a single large yellow Tupperware party bowl, and that bowl was full of strawberries!

"Wow! Where'd you get those!" I asked.

"Mr. Garrison. I spent my morning picking strawberries off the hill behind his house."

On top of the bowl of strawberries there sat a hot water bottle!

"What the heck is that? I asked.

"A hot water bottle, dummy," Carrie replied. I looked at her with my best evil eye, and she giggled. "I filled it with water last night and stuck it in the freezer."

"This is as good a place as any to put all the food as it shows up." Carrie suggested.

I pulled out the hot dogs and buns and left them here too, but in the shade of a willow rather than in the water. The mason jars with the ketchup and mustard went in the creek though.

Carrie said she was both impressed and disgusted by the socks that cushioned the bottles of root beer. She'd had Dad's root beer before too, and was glad to see it as part of my provisions. I carefully de-socked the bottles before putting them in the creek, and stuffed all the socks into the longest of them and stuffed the bundle into a side pocket of my pack.

I laid the blanket I'd brought out under the elm tree. And set my pack down behind it.

"Where'd you get that?" Carrie asked.

"It used to be Ned's for a little while until we found him a better one. Since then Mom refuses to use it for anything, so its been sitting in a closet ever since then. Its been washed." I said somewhat defensively.

"That sounds like your mom alright," Carrie laughed. "Is there room for two on it?"

"If the two is you and me," I answered.

I scared myself with that answer. I wasn't sure that the Sammy Kendall I had been the first time would have ever been anywhere close to that aggressive. The question still remained, to what degree did I want to interfere with my old life? Certainly I'd already made about as big an impact as possible the very first day back in it.

"Of course it is," Carrie said, leaning over to kiss my cheek. To be honest, the rest of the day was a blur.

Despite the pleasant fog, I did enjoy the rest of the day. Benny showed up about ten minutes after we'd gotten the blanket spread out, and he quickly had his loot in the shade by the creek.

"What did you bring?" I asked as he came back up to the elm.

"Ah! That, my friends, is the reason I wasn't able to meet you at the intersection. I've got a dozen full ears of sweet corn, still in the husks and ready for roasting."

That was the way the day went. Magical. Everyone who came brought a pleasant surprise it seemed, or was a pleasant surprise all by themselves.

Sissy Mitchell made it after all, her dad had a flat tire in Hermiston, and by the time they got the spare on and the flat fixed, he decided against trying to go into Portland after all. She brought a couple of boxes of cookies, paid for with her baby sitting money.

The Carmody brothers even made it, deciding, when they began hearing whispers that there was going to be lots of food, to ditch their crosstown friends in favor of our event. Dale and Leo's parent's were dirt farmers from way back, and there wasn't a lot to spare at their house, but they brought their guitars, and everyone who knew them knew one thing for sure, the two of them could play. Dale in particular had a great voice and could sing practically anything.

The Cort's showed up at the same time as the Carmody brothers, and I wondered about Dale and Amelia as I saw them walking together over the rise, with Dale watching Amelia and with her watching him back. Roger delivered the relish to the creek and announced there were two bags of potato chips and a bag of Fritos as well.

Kevin Pratchett showed up just before noon. He'd seen Celia downtown and heard the news from her. He was one of the gang, and doubly welcome because he was packing a basket full of cold fried chicken.

"Hey Luther!" he called out. Luthor had shown up right after Benny and was down by the creek playing with Ned.

"What?" Luther answered.

"Celia says to tell you that you're off the hook for the day. You don't have to be home by four."

A day of miracles indeed. We ate cold fried chicken and chips for lunch, waded and sat in the warm water of the creek, listened to Dale and Leo, and sang along. We tried a game of touch football later in the afternoon, but Carrie, Sissy and Amelia quickly grew tired of it.

Dinner was hot dogs and roasted corn. Luther had brought sodas as well, and those, along with the extra one or two most folks had brought served for the early drinks. We saved the root beers for dinner.

We did a serious session of sing-along after dinner, and it was enjoyable for me, sitting on the blanket with Carrie, our shoulders touching, but we were all worried about getting things packed up and home before it began getting dark, so we slowly began cleaning up and packing our things away.

Ned was going to sleep well tonight, even if I didn't. He'd had a dozen playmates today, and everyone took more than one turn playing with him both in and out of the water.

I was going to be tired too, I knew, but I had a job to start in the morning and the feeling of Carrie Ralston's kiss still lingering on my cheek and in my memory. 



-------

Chapter 3: Shape Shifter


I woke up early to take Ned for his run. I had an alarm clock, and I'd set it for six. Ned looked at me oddly, but gladly padded along beside me down the stairs and into the kitchen. I let him out the back door to let him take care of his business while I got the coffee on. I was definitely going to want a cup or two before it was time to head down to Nileson's.

With the coffee on, we headed out the front door. I was grateful for the automatic percolator. I'd hate to have to make the coffee on the stove where it would have to be watched. It could happily perk up to strength while Ned and I ran.

We took the same route as the day before, and the results were pretty much the same. Ned was happy and I was sweaty when we got done. This time I'd thought ahead and put my work clothes out in the downstairs bathroom before taking off, so after my shower I was able to slip into them and head straight for the coffee.

Mom was awake and making breakfast. It smelled very wonderful before I even made it into the kitchen.

"Pancakes and sausage sound good Sammy?" she asked.

"Oh yeah!" I answered, pouring a cup of coffee and taking an appreciative sip.

Breakfast was good, and I got in a second cup of coffee, after which I had to endure an inspection to ease Mom's mind about my work attire. She insisted that she was driving me to work my first day, and that meant getting the bike in her car somehow. Fortunately, cars from this era were truly boats, with space galore, and Mom's 210 was no exception.

Mom dropped me off a few minutes before nine, and I had Mr. Nileson and Brian as an audience while I got my bike out of the back seat of the 210.

"There's a bike rack in back where you can put that, Sammy," Mr. Nileson called out. "Brian will show you where."

There was indeed a bike rack, under a low covered porch in the back, and my Tornado became its sole occupant.

"Dad's got some stuff to go over with you in the office, and then we'll get started, okay Sammy?"

What I got from Mr. Nileson was a lecture on responsibility and punctuality, a work schedule that showed I was working four days a week during the summer, plus any extra day when freight came in, which was usually once a month. In the winter I could only work after school, so assuming I lasted, come winter I could work six days a week, but only Saturday would be a full day.

"The law says I can hire you for $1.00 an hour, Sammy. Even if you were an adult, the minimum wage is only $1.15., but since we're a retail store and you're a student, the law says I can pay you less."

"Okay," I agreed. Heck, at a dollar an hour, I'd get rich pretty quick!

"I'm going to pay you that dollar an hour, but I expect you to mostly be working in the feed and seed bins to start, and that is hard work. A man's work. If you prove you can handle it, I'll pay you a dollar and a quarter an hour."

My grin must have grown wider, or he anticipated it, because he didn't even pause.

"But ... that won't be until at least the beginning of July, okay?"

"Okay," I repeated.

I had some papers to take home, and Mr. Nileson showed me where the employee mail slots were so I could pick out a slot for my papers until it was time to go home. It was also a sort of break room, with a coffee pot and a counter with a sink and a refrigerator. The middle of the room was filled with a round table and six chairs, as well as an old, worn looking sofa against one wall. I took advantage of the opportunity to put my sack lunch in the fridge.

The feed and seed bins were hard work. Under Brian's tutelage, I spent my first day learning how to pour feed of various kinds into burlap sacks, run them through the seamer to seal them off, and stack them.

The feed came in separate from the other freight, and was stored in huge bins that were like miniature silos. There were different feeds for cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens and horses. There were a few other kinds of specialty feeds, but they came already sacked.

The first step in sacking feed was to clean out the hopper. The various bins all fed a single hopper using a swiveling chute arrangement. Once you'd filled the hopper, you used it to fill the sacks. It was dusty work, but dry, and not unpleasant smelling. The first day we sacked chicken feed, and Brian told me that we sold more of it than all the rest combined.

"The other feeds are mostly additive feeds, with special nutrients or vitamins in them that the animals need. They get normal food, hay or whatever, and this stuff is just a supplement. The chicken feed though is what most of the farmers in the area feed their chickens all the time."

The seamer was like a big sewing machine that used twine instead of thread.

"Make two passes with the seamer," Brian explained as he was showing me. "Flip the sack after the first pass, and then run the back side through again; and keep your fingers away from the foot!"

I watched as he did it, and saw that there was going to be a trick to getting the sack flipped without wasting twine. Brian flipped the sack with what I knew had to be years of experience, and the seamer barely paused as he did it. When he was done he had a small loop of thread to be cut off the end of the sack that left less than a foot of wasted thread on the floor.

I got shown, but I didn't get to do, until the hopper was almost empty.

"Okay, you do as many sacks as you can get out of what's left in the hopper."

I'd been watching pretty closely. You filled the sack just so full, and folded the burlap at the top in just a certain way, crimping the edged at the sides when you folded. I tried to duplicate it as closely as I could. The really hard part was holding the weight of the sack while keeping the folds flat and aligned for the seamer. My first sack had a pretty wavy seam when I finished, and the two lines of twine crossed each other once, which I hadn't seen any of Brian's do. The second wasn't much better, but I thought I wasted less twine making the flip. The third sack only got filled half full.

"What next?" I asked, hefting my partial sack of feed.

"Load the hopper again and fill more sacks."

And so we did. My last sack from the tail end of the feed in the first hopper load got finished from the beginning of the second hopper load.

"That'll be our starting sack for the next run," Brian told me. "Put it over there for now." I saw a table with several other sacks on them, and hefted the sack up onto it. There was a pile of really big clothes pins in a basket, and I saw the other sacks were held shut with them, so I grabbed a couple and closed my sack.

We wound up filling the hopper two more times in fact, and filling and seaming sack after sack. I got to do the last couple sacks at the end of each hopper full, and I was getting better with the seamer. My seams were straighter, though nowhere close to Brian's perfectly straight ones, and I was getting closer on limiting the amount of wasted twine.

"Now we stack the bags of feed we've finished sacking." Brian told me.

I don't know if it was conscious or not, but I noticed that Brian referred to the sacks as bags, once they were filled and seamed.

We had a low flatbed cart with real rubber tires that Brian took me to get.

"The carts always gets stored here when not being used," He said.

The cart came out of another covered area like the one where I'd
parked my bike at the beginning of the day, but this one had a concrete floor and wasn't elevated. It was along the side of the big equipment shed that stood alongside and slightly back from the front of the main Mercantile building. There were probably a dozen carts and other things under there too, hand trucks and wheelbarrows and a few things I wasn't sure of.

As interesting as filling sacks had been, stacking bags was hard work! We stacked them on the cart first, twenty at a time, and then hauled the cart around the corner to the sales area of the yard. There were already stacks of feed here, and the chicken feed was in pretty serious disarray.

"We need to consolidate all these partial stacks of feed towards the front and then stack these new bags behind them."

We had finished the rearranging of the old stacks and had just started on stacking the new stuff when Mr. Nileson came our way, stopping and waiting for us to stop what we were doing.

"How's Sammy doing so far?" he asked, once we'd stopped.

"Pretty good," Brian said. "He's already getting pretty good running the seamer, he just needs to get used to the weight of the sacks and he'll be doing straight seams, no problem. I didn't even have to show him how to do the seams, he just figured it out from watching me."

"Good," Mr. Nileson said, giving me a nod. "Listen, we just got an order phoned in for a hundred bags of chicken feed from Art Shauls over in Charlestown. Sounds like he got in an argument with his regular feed store. You two take a short break and then get on that order."

"Sure thing Dad, the argument wasn't about not paying his bill was it?" Brian asked.

"No," Mr. Nileson laughed. "But he's paying cash up front anyway this time."

So we took a break, washing the dust off and sipping a glass of ice tea in the break room. Brian said his mom tried to keep a pitcher full in there at all times, and if there was a pitcher in the fridge it was fair game.

We went right back to sacking chicken feed once we got done with the break. We counted the feed we'd already sacked that was still back at the hopper, and there were 63 already bagged. We bagged another hopper full, which got us up to a hundred and eight, so we threw the hundred bags for Mr. Shauls on a pallet truck, another item that came out of that covered area, and ran them up to the loading dock, which was on one side of the feed area we'd been rearranging stacks in earlier.

"This the Shauls order?" The man at the loading dock asked. I recognized Mr. Greer, I knew his sons Chuck and Bob, who were older than me and in high school, and his daughter Rebecca, who was a year younger than me. He was also the coach of the Little League team that I used to play on.

"Hi Mr. Greer," I said.

"Hi there Sammy. I heard you were starting work here today. Are you enjoying your first day?"

"Yes sir," I answered.

"We're going to miss you this year, Sammy."

"I was only an average player, Mr. Greer," I countered.

"Well, you could have been pretty good if you'd have worked at it. You always had a good eye, and you're quick for your size."

I took the compliment with as much good grace as I thought I could get away with, but I remembered that kids my age should be embarrassed by compliments, so I went with that. I stared at my shoes and muttered "Thanks."

"If this job whips you into shape, you should try out for the high school team. You're going to grow some soon too I'd guess. You'll be the tall and rangy type they like to put at first base."

I thanked him again and Brian and I headed back to the feed and seed bins. Mr. Greer had given me something to think about for sure. I had loved playing baseball the first time around, and along with Carrie and Ned, was one of the things I most regretted loosing.

"He's right you know," Brian said as we began filling the hopper again. "Chuck and Bob told me their team in Hermiston could use all the help it can get next year. Half their starters graduated last month."

My first work day ended at 2:30 in the afternoon. Three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon were all I would work except on freight days. We had a half hour lunch between 12 and 12:30. The bike ride home wasn't bad at all, but the shower sure felt good.

Dad got home about an hour after I did. I got a nice hug before he too hit the shower, and I made myself scarce by taking Ned for a walk so he and mom could say hello.

Dinner conversation was equally divided between talking about Dad's job, my new job and the upcoming camping trip.

Dad's job was a little bit of the same stuff, different day kind of story. I tended to think of him as a surveyor, but that wasn't true. He did do a lot of surveying as part of his job, but really he was an engineer for the State of Oregon, and his job involved mostly keeping track of the impact of the dams being built on the Columbia River by the Army Corp of Engineers. Ronald Reagan was decades away from his fascination with the phrase 'trust, but verify.', but Dad's job was essentially the verify part of the State's 'trust' relationship with the federal government and the Army Corp of Engineers.

His work on the McNary Dam had brought him to back to Oregon in 1947, the year I was born. I'm not too clear on the details, but I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad had been an item before he left for college and became an item again the minute he was back. They must have been, because I was born barely ten months later, and I think the wedding was a bit rushed. Those events might be the source of whatever was up with Mr. Taylor.

Dad kept right on doing what he was doing when the Dalles Dam began in 1952, and just added a bigger load when the John Day dam began construction in 1958. He had been gone a lot the last few years, but the work on the Dalles Dam was done now, and he was mostly kept hopping by the work at John Day. That this dam was further away than anything he'd worked on since I was born was a contributing factor to the time he spent away from home.

"Dad, what are you going to do when the John Day dam is done?" I asked.

"Well, that's a good decade away, more or less, and I hope to be in a position to retire out of the State by then and maybe open my own engineering business. It would mean moving I think."

I remembered that dream from my first life. It was one Dad didn't get to realize the first time. The money was just never there. Maybe the new me would be able to make a difference.

That bit of wool-gathering got Dad derailed in talking of his work, and he naturally was interested in how my first day had been. I told him pretty much everything, including what Mr. Greer had said about baseball.

"You're likely to be pretty sore in the morning Son," Dad cautioned me after hearing my tale.

"The Absorbine Jr. is in the downstairs medicine cabinet," Mom said. "You should take it up with you when you go to bed tonight. You might need it in the morning."

"Did I hear right that your running with Ned in the morning now?" Dad asked. I nodded.

"Skip the liniment until after your run," Dad suggested. "You may decide you don't need it if you loosen up enough from the run."

The rest of the evening should have been spent talking about the camping trip, and it did start that way.

It should be noted that Oregon in 1961 did not have a lot of state parks, outside of the coastal regions, and the ball was barely rolling on the state's park system. Where we were, camping was truly roughing it. There were places that could be considered relatively tame, and Mom had managed to hold out for her favorite this year I discovered. My attitude had aborted this trip the last time through, so I had no memories of it, or of this discussion.

Hat Rock was on the Columbia River, flat, close by, and in Mom's view, 'safe'. It was going to become a very nice little state park a few decades down the road, but right now it was just a good place to go to enjoy the river, and that was what we were going to do. We didn't really have boating in mind, not owning one, and the only fishing Dad liked was fly fishing.

The conversation had been mostly Mom, with me throwing in an enthusiastic comment, based on what I knew and remembered about the Hat rock area. It suddenly struck me that Dad wasn't saying anything.

"Dad. Is there something wrong?" I asked.

"Well, yes and no."

"Honey, what is it?" Mom asked.

"I'm not going to be able to go camping."

"Sweetie! Why not? Did something happen at work?"

There was a long pause between that last question and Dad's answer.

"A few days ago the President announced that the second project for the new Peace Corp would be taking place in Columbia, assisting farmers and small communities with farming, construction and public sanitation projects. That announcement also signals the beginning of some ground work, which I'm going to be a part of."

"Dad! You're going to Columbia?" I asked, shocked. There'd been no sign of this in my first life that I could remember.

"No! No! I'm just going to be part of the team setting up the engineering guidelines for the Corp's training center. Congress hasn't even funded the Peace Corp yet, its still all based on an executive order signed by the president, so this is strictly a voluntary, pay-your-own-way project at the moment, until they can get funding."

"How long?" Mom demanded.

"A month," Dad answered. "Through the end of June. I'll be home in time for the fourth of July."

"When?" Mom said, a little softness back in her voice.

"Three days," Dad told us. "I leave in three days for St. Louis University, but I don't think that's where I'll wind up staying, its just a meeting-up point for some of the engineering types. Everything is still pretty fluid at this point, and the President's appointed his brother-in-law to head the Corp, so we'll probably go somewhere convenient for him, unless he delegates our part to someone he trusts."

"You sound as if you're not sure what's going to happen, Dad."

"I'm not, but I believe this is the start of something special, and I want to be in on it in some way, even if its only to get things started for the younger people involved."

We didn't talk about it, and I only knew the whole story because of conversations I'd had with him later on in my first life, but Dad had been one of many too-young boys who tried to get into the army at the start of World War II. He might have made it despite his age if the army hadn't discovered he was almost completely deaf in his right ear during his induction physical. That had kept him out of the war, and kept him out of Korea as well, and he'd always regretted not being able to serve his country. He hid his hearing problem well, but he had spent quite a bit of time 'engineering' his life to minimize its impact.

I too had grown used to compensating for it the first time through, I hadn't even thought about it this time. This was my first urge to be able to fix something that was unfixable. There were some treatable kinds of deafness, but even in 2008 when my first life ended, treatments for the kind of deafness dad had were mostly theoretical, with a lot of hope held out for stem cell therapy if they could ever get the government to loosed up the restrictions on research.

Ever the engineer, I remember Dad claiming once that he had 'trained' his good ear to be even better than it was, so that he heard pretty dang good for being mostly a 'monaural critter'.

That night in bed I had lots to think about once again. I had no memories of Dad making this trip in my first life, and I had to guess that my rebellion had cost him this opportunity the first time through. At the same time, I remembered that last night's bedtime pondering had been about how the camping trip hadn't happened the first time, and now it seemed it had been destined never to happen. How was I going to keep track of what I might or might not have affected this time through, with such a cascading series of might-have-been events?

-------

With Dad always ready to travel at a moments notice, the three days he had to prepare for this trip must've seemed a huge luxury, I did not see Dad when I got up in the morning. I was stiff and sore, as predicted, and I spent a good bit of time stretching out and loosening up the sore muscles before I threw on my running gear and took Ned for his run. I changed things a little this morning by running the same triangle route in the reverse direction.

I was still guessing that the distance was close to three miles. This morning my legs were telling me that whatever it was, it was about a mile too much. I had to walk about half the remaining distance until I got home, and the legs were a little wobbly in the shower, but by the time I was dressed and eating breakfast with Mom and Dad, a little of the ache was back, but most of the wobbly was gone.

Mom told me there was no bike riding to or from work today, I'd be getting a ride both ways.

"Tomorrow is a day off," Dad said as he dropped me off at work. "I want you to skip the run in the morning. I'll take Ned for a walk in the morning, and you can take him for a walk in the afternoon, but no running tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, Dad," I agreed.

I went around the back and came in through the back door, checked the break room for a sign of anyone, and finding no one, headed back to the feed and seed area to find Brian. He wasn't there, but I noticed a note pinned to the hopper, which was full.

Sammy, 
I'm over in the lumber yard. I'll be back shortly. 
Go ahead and start sacking the feed that's in the hopper.
Put them on a pallet truck like we used yesterday
for Mr. Shauls. The order ticket is on the clipboard
on the post by the table.

Brian

I checked the order ticket, curious to examine one. I hadn't really paid any attention to the paperwork yesterday, too intent on learning the actual work. The name at the top of the ticked said 'Sutton'. I didn't recognize the name from either life, but that wasn't all that surprising. The first item line on the ticket said PF, and the quantity had '25Bg' written in it. Beneath that were the letters AN, written in a flourish that finished by looping around the two letters, enclosing them in a circle. Beneath that, in the same handwriting was the word PAID, written in all capitals. There was no amount written on the ticket, but there was a cash register receipt stapled to the back of the ticket, which I didn't bother with. How much Nileson's was charging the customers for the feed I was bagging wasn't something I needed to know at this point.

I checked out the seamer before I got started, just making sure everything looked like I expected, and then headed over to the shed to get a pallet truck, throwing a pallet on it from the pile nearby.

Once I had the pallet and truck where I wanted them, I began sacking the chicken feed that was in the hopper. The sore legs made quite a chore out of holding a filled bag of feed while feeding it through the seamer, but other than that, it was business as usual. I had more than half the order filled by the time Brian showed up to check on me.

"That's looking good," He said as he pulled up on the smaller of the two fork lifts that worked the yard. There was another, even smaller one that I'd already seen working the loading dock where we'd taken Mr. Shaul's load of seed.

"Where was that yesterday?" I joked, nodding at his ride.

"Holding up the big Yale forklift while they fixed a flat tire on it," Brian answered. "We can usually get it if we need it, unless there's something else going on. Depends on how busy the yard is."

My second day, other than the brief solo stint that morning, was pretty much like the first. Dry, dusty and physical. Dad picked me up at 2:30 that afternoon and asked me how I was feeling.

"Hot, dirty and tired," I answered.

I got a cool shower and a nap when I got home, but it wasn't restful. In my sleep I could feel myself crashing through those bumps again, over and over again, feeling fiery splashes in my brain and washing over my aching muscles and even through my bones. I woke in a hot sweat, feeling more worn out than I had when laid down.

Another shower took care of the sweat, and I decided a long walk with Ned was what I needed. We walked down to where the trail led off from the road to the spot, and I thought about walking the trail and trying a little soak in the cool waters of the creek, but as tired as I was, I was worried about dozing off in the afternoon sun. Even with Ned there to watch out for me, I wouldn't have a second person, and that was one of Dad's rules I wasn't about to break.

The walk back to the house wasn't quite as hot as the walk down. I had the sun mostly at my back and a light breeze had sprung up. Even though it did little more than push warm air around the already warm air, at least it kept the perspiration from building up on me as I walked, and that provided its own cooling feeling.

Dinner was some sort of baked chicken casserole. It wasn't really all that memorable, but I had seconds, and there was a lot of milk to wash it down with. Like a lot of grown men, I'd lost my taste for milk eventually in my first life, but so far in this second one, it was delicious.

After dinner there was some talk about Dad's trip, and what we might do after church the next day, and some talk about how the end of the school year went for me, during which I spent a lot time being vague about everything.

That night I prayed again, this time a little more coherently, and with some conviction, though without the zeal I threw in during my most fervently religious days back in the first life. Unless some alien appeared tomorrow to tell me that I had been selected to be part of some great experiment on an alternate Earth, this had to be the work of God, and I only knew one, so he got the attention. Hell, I was thirteen and sixty, barely getting started in one life and already dead in the other, and somehow after dying in one life, I was reborn as myself in another. I could only pretend at having the answers to anything.

I had not been the kind of person who marked the passing of time by the events of the day. If you asked me if a particular team won won the world series, I could say yes or no, but probably couldn't pick the year for almost any of them. I knew who was going to be president, and if I sat down at a calendar, I could probably mark off the years that they were in office, but wouldn't be able to do it off the top of my head.

Still, there were things I knew. Later this summer the world would begin talking about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, as they raced towards Babe Ruth's home run record. When Maris set the new record with 61 home runs, half the world would hail him, half would hate him, and most of them would be in a rush to forget him.

I wasn't going to get rich betting on sporting events that I remembered from my first life, but there were a few things I knew that might work out that way. The Maris record for one. But how does a thirteen year old living in rural eastern Oregon go about placing a bet, let alone finding someone to take a weird bet about someone breaking the home run record?

My sleep was again awash in that feeling of 'bumping' that I'd felt when I'd fallen back through time, and I woke up sweaty and hot again the next morning. The previous day's muscle aches were gone, it seemed, but replaced by aching joints, particularly my knees.

I found the coffee already made and poured myself a cup to take back to the bathroom with me. Dad and Ned were nowhere to be seen, so I assumed Dad was giving Ned a run for me.

I took a good long shower, trying to spray away the new ache, but it didn't seem to help. I threw on my running shorts and a t shirt, not wanting to start in on a clean set of clothes just to have to change for church. With some clothes on and a second cup of coffee poured, I thought to look at the clock in the kitchen and realized it was only seven, still three hours until church.

Mom would be down soon to start breakfast. I looked in the fridge, but didn't see anything that identified itself as today's breakfast fixings, so decided not to try to get a jump on things.

Mom made her appearance a few minutes later, and sat with a cup of coffee for a minute with me before starting breakfast.

"What were you planning on making for breakfast?" I asked.

"I thought I'd fry up some eggs and potatoes and either sausage patties or bacon, depending on what your Dad wants," Mom answered. Sound good?"

"Sounds great," I told her. "I seem to be really hungry the last couple of days."

"Working steady will do that to you,"

Mom got up then and began pulling things out of here and there.

"Can I help with anything?"

"Can you get me a sweet onion from the pantry?"

I nodded, and headed for the pantry door, looking for the Walla Walla onions, which were also grown here in Umatilla County. Everyone in our area was known to stock the locally famous onions, and we were no exception. Wheat may be the area's biggest crop, but the sweet onion was the most distinctive, and as I knew, was only going to get more widely recognized as time went on.

"A small one!" I heard Mom throw over her shoulder as I disappeared into the pantry. An 'average' size Walla Wall was still usually pretty big compared to most onions, especially since Mom's were hand picked from the local farmer's own selection.

I found one that looked about right and brought it out. Without thinking, I brought it to the cutting board by the sink and took the ends and the skin off with a few efficient slices and a quick pull. I rinsed it off in the sink and began to dice it into small bits, assuming it was going to get added to the potatoes. I caught myself halfway through, as Mom was staring at me.

"When did you get so good at chopping vegetables?"

I was standing there at a loss for words when Dad and Ned came through the door.

"Honey, watch this," Mom said immediately. "Sammy, go ahead and finish chopping that onion."

I had been a bachelor a good part of my life, and especially in the last ten years of it, a real Food Network junkie. I was a pretty accomplished home cook, and a previous lifetime of habit had just peeked through the veil and into my parents lives. I didn't have a clue as to what I should do.

What could I do? Mom had already seen what I could do. I diced and I prayed.



-------

Chapter 4: A Sieve in Time


"Sammy! Quitting time!"

Brian was yelling at me from across the yard, and I barely heard him over the hum of the seamer. I didn't take my eyes off the bag, or the seamer's foot until I was done with it, but once I had the twine cut and the bag on the table I looked up and waved in acknowledgment.

Two weeks after starting work, I was now sacking feed pretty much on my own. It was repetitious work, but not rocket science, and it freed up Brian to work more with the yard crew. I was also now trusted to 'process' the order tickets.

Nileson's sold a little bit of everything, especially feed, grain, lumber, pipe and other plumbing supplies, and it was the local place to go for farm equipment and other do-it-yourself hardware.

In this part of the world, in the early 1960's, there was no such thing as deciding to be a Do-it-yourselfer or not as I had been used to towards the end of my first life. If you didn't do it yourself it didn't get done, and if you didn't want to live that way, you needed to move to the city and become an apartment dweller. That was so much the pervasive attitude it almost rose to the level of being official.

The feed and seed was one of Nileson Mercantile's basic offerings, and while the flow of seed in and out was seasonal, most of the feed came and went in a constant, steady stream. There was always feed to be sacked every day, either for an order or for the floor.

"Don't forget tomorrow's a freight day," Brian yelled, as he saw me going towards the back of the store. "See you at eight instead of nine."

I got home to an empty house, except for Ned, and he at least was happy to see me. With Dad gone back east, Mom was spending a lot of time 'visiting' with friends and neighbors. She wasn't much of a gossip, to the best of my recollection, so I assumed this was actually visiting, rather than gossip sessions. Not that some of that didn't wind up happening anyway. Hell, I even heard gossip at work at the Mercantile.

With Mom not at home, and tomorrow being an earlier and longer work day than normal, I decided to check on Benny. Carrie had left for Indiana three days ago, so it was Benny and I against the world for now, although Roger and Amelia Cort had been involved in pretty much all of the things we'd done since school got out. Not that there were a lot of them. Benny and I were both working six days a week.

I was beginning to think that Amelia might be interested in Benny, because she seemed to always wind up in his vicinity whenever we did end up doing things, which mostly meant hanging out at the spot or down at Harwell's.

Benny was busy when I called, getting ready to go with his family to a get-together with another family. I told him about the upcoming freight day for me, and told him I'd see him this weekend.

I still needed to give Ned an opportunity to stretch his legs, so I went upstairs to change, stopping for a moment as I did to look at the deposit slip for my first paycheck, pinned to the corkboard on the wall behind my desk.

Paydays at Nileson's were the fifth and twentieth of every month, which meant I'd gotten paid at the beginning of the previous week, and the first paycheck of my life had been for seven days of work; two Saturdays, at six hours each, and five other days of three hours each. Twenty seven hours of work, and after the various taxes were taken out, the check had been for almost twenty dollars.

The discussion about what would happen to my paychecks happened the night before Dad left for his trip. Their amazement at my sudden ability to slice and dice veggies had been tabled in favor of this new conversation, which I was actually glad to hear, despite its potential impact on my finances.

I shouldn't have worried, I guess. Dad's position during the discussion was revealing, and for me, profitable, at least in the short term. It sounded as if Mom's surprise job was a surprise to Dad too, and he raised the point that echoed through my reality.

"What if he had refused, Helen?"

"Well he didn't Bill."

"But he could have, Helen."

"But he didn't, Bill."

I wanted to interject an 'I was going to', but they were addressing each other by their first names, and that was never a good sign.

Fortunately, whether Mom's decision had been good or bad, there was no bad result, and assigning blame was not a big part of their natures, and while he was upset, Dad wasn't one to dwell on what was past. He simply told me that my first two paychecks were mine to do with as I pleased, and any savings plan would begin only with my third paycheck. This made me happy, and whatever crimp this put in Mom's plans, she saw she was outnumbered and the matter was settled. Starting on July 5th, I would begin depositing all but five dollars of each paycheck into a savings account. Except that Mrs. Nileson had already mentioned that we would be getting paid on Monday the 3rd, rather than Wednesday the 5th, to allow for the holiday.

Mom and I had already been to the bank in Hermiston to set up a dual account which required both our signatures to withdraw funds. I knew this was a polite fiction for the near future. Until I turned sixteen, she could sign my name along with her own and it would be legal.

While Ned and I jogged over towards Burnside, I wondered about the future, both the one I remembered, and the one I was heading towards now. When I got to Burnside, I glanced down the road towards Benny's house, and the Corts, no signs of any activity down that way at all.

I decided to keep on going, and Ned and I ran the rest of the way to the start of the trail to our spot on the creek.

'What the hell, ' I decided, and turned onto the trail and kept right on running. I shoved Ned's ball into a pocket on my shorts, to remind him that we didn't chase the ball here, and kept half an eye out for a good stick for him. The other eye was still turned inward, as I remained more or less lost in thought. I still spent every quiet moment I found myself in thinking about my circumstances, and the miracle of living my life over again, and the ability to make changes to that life.

When we got to the spot, Ned went crashing into the water first thing, and I followed him, stopping just long enough to slip my shoes off before dipping my feet in the water. The cool feeling was very nice, but I was mindful of the rules, and since there was no one else with me, I stayed out of the water, and went up by the elm, finding a nice shady spot, and stretching out for a nap.

With the sounds of Ned splashing around, and the shade of the tree to shelter me, I got my mind completely on my concerns, and as I relaxed, they came into clear focus. I was a time traveler within my own life, and I had already changed my own future dramatically. That change had already impacted my family, including Ned, and who knew how it might effect others down the road.

It was not just about going back in time either, other changes were becoming obvious. The nightly 'bumps', the sweating while I slept and the aching joints had persisted.

I was beginning to have some clue to what all but the bumps were about. The schedule of my push through puberty had changed. In just the two and a half weeks I'd been here, my body had began to sprout hair, thicker and faster than the first time, and about a year earlier than in my last life. I now had legitimately dark patches in my arm pits and my groin. Last night I'd decided to check on a hunch, and measured myself on my door jam, comparing my self measurement against the mark Mom had added my first day back. Unless I was screwing up the measuring, I had grown an inch and a quarter since that day.

I had added an inch somewhere else too, and that was even more surprising. If this kept up at the current pace, I'd be bigger than I had been in my previous adult life before the summer was out.

I was already looking forward to changing one of the biggest negatives of my first life, the humiliation of being one of only three boys to start high school without pubic hair. I was also going to be far more fit than I had been the first time. I don't know if it was the same sort of unusual acceleration, but the running with Ned and the heavy work at Nileson's was already starting to have an impact on my muscles. I definitely had more muscles in my arms, legs and shoulders than I had in my first life. I didn't have a lot of experience with fitness in either life, but I had the impression that these changes were happening faster than would be natural or normal. Having recently been moved back in time almost fifty years sort of opens you up to the possibility of unnatural occurrences.

I worried about other things, especially about changing the future. Dad's mention of President Kennedy while talking about his Peace Corp job reminded me of his assassination, only a few years away, along with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy before the end of the decade. That led me to other events in my old life, The Challenger disaster, the Marine barracks in Beirut, the World Trade Center bombing and the events of 9/11. I thought about John Lennon, the Exxon Valdez, and Vietnam.

Vietnam. Crap. I was going to graduate from high school in the spring of 1965. The war, and the draft would be in full swing. I had four years to find a way to avoid or accept military service.

Vietnam had probably saved my life the first time around. I know that sounds crazy, but it did. The draft lottery didn't start until 1969, but 1965 was the year that LBJ really escalated things, and I was drafted two months out of high school. I was firmly convinced by that time that life was no bed of roses anyway, so I reported, and was in Vietnam before the year was out.

I was no great soldier, but I lived through it, almost unscathed, at least physically. It has been said before, and more eloquently than I could, but war changes you. It woke me up from the self-induced walking coma I had slipped myself into, and brought the world back to life for me.

You can know history, and you can have knowledge based on personal experience, and the two may overlap, but they are utterly, utterly different kinds of knowing.

Yes, I knew things, and knowing them, perhaps I could prevent great tragedy, but I'd already seen how things that had changed in my personal life wound up happening anyway, for completely different reasons.

Yes, I knew things, but I was a boy, thirteen going on fourteen and not even in high school yet. How was I going to influence things from the tiny corner of the universe that was Cold Lake, Oregon?

Yes, I knew things, but who could I tell? How could I feel safe, carrying the information I did, if it became known? Even if no one believed me, I would be treated like I was crazy, perhaps even taken away from my parents and locked away somewhere with the other mental patients.

That I was here was incontrovertible, but a reason for my return had not been revealed to me. Would it be, some day? Would I discover that my return was for a purpose, beyond the second chance at a good life that it gave me?

If I had a purpose, I would find it or it would find me. If I was meant to reveal the fact of my return to others, the moment would come when I would make that decision. In the meantime, I would be content to work on my second chance and the mostly unknown future of Sam Kendall. For certain, I had four years to work on whether this Sam Kendall was going to try to re-experience Vietnam. Those thoughts processed, I drifted off quietly to sleep.

-oOo-

My first freight day at Nileson's had not gotten off to a good start. I woke up late, and had to beg Mom for a ride to work, or I would have been late. Because I was rushing, I forgot my baseball glove, and I had to miss a chance to get a little workout in with Mr. Greer. We had been doing that during breaks, and sometimes a little before work started. He was disappointed that I didn't have my glove, but he did make me an offer that I was happy to agree to.

"Sammy, you need some time with a bat in your hands this summer too, and on a baseball field. Why don't you come over to the field tomorrow after church. Chuck and Bob are going to be there, and I'd like to see you hit the ball a little. You always had a good eye, but no power. With the workout you've been getting here you might just be more of a power hitter than a contact man like you used to be."

I always had been pretty good at getting on base. I just couldn't hit it very deep, and wasn't much of a runner once I got on base. Mr. Greer might be right. Maybe with all the work and all the running, that had changed.

"Yes sir, I'll be there."

"Do you still have cleats that fit?"

"I don't know sir. I haven't tried them on since last year."

"Well, wear them if they fit, and bring them with you if they don't. I'll try and find a pair from someone to swap you."

So I guess forgetting the glove wasn't that much of a bad start, but the freight was bad enough!

Cold Lake wasn't a stop for the railroad, but there was an old short line that ran through town on a route that used to be run between Hat Rock and Hermiston before it meet up with another short line that ran a similar kind of small scale route to Pendleton. It saw almost no traffic anymore, but several of the local businesses had joined forces to create the Cold Lake Commerce Society, and they worked out a deal to lease a short haul locomotive on a regular schedule from Union Pacific to bring their freight on consolidated cars out on what was now called the Cold Lake spur. The old passenger terminal that had once existed beside the track had been torn down and replaced with a warehouse and freight yard, small by most standards, but suited to the purposes of the folks in Cold Lake.

That Cold Lake Commerce freight yard was a half a mile from Nileson's Mercantile, and on the opposite end of town from Weisse, the main road that made the big diagonal swath through town. A few years ago Mr. Nileson had paid to have a private spur track hand built that ran right into his equipment yard. They even leased what they called a 'mule', which sort of looked like a pygmy locomotive, but with regular wheels with rubber tires as well as railroad steel wheels. It was yellow with the word TrackMobile printed in block letters on the side. I remember thinking it was 'really neat' when I was younger. To be honest, I still did.

I showed up at the Nileson's Mercantile yard at 8, but the adult crew had been over at the yard since 5 this morning, loading freight from the consolidated cars into the Nileson-specific cars, two of them, along with a third car which was full of feed. The car had internal partitions, and the large central one was full of chicken feed and the two smaller partitions had sheep and horse feed, one type in each.

Yes, I spent my first freight day shoveling feed onto a portable conveyor belt that moved the feed from the rail car to the storage bin, and I did it for six straight hours. I never felt so dirty, dry and tired as I did at the end of that day. The only bright spot the whole day was the brief lunch, which Mrs. Nileson and a group of the adult men's wives provided for the entire crew. Fried chicken, cold potato salad, and all the iced tea you wanted, and with lemons in it too!

Lunch was far too brief a respite, but I ate it with the other men as an equal, and that felt good, even if it was quickly and thoroughly washed away by the dry, rattling sound of shovel after shovel full of feed. It also earned me an extra day off, and so I had a glorious Saturday and Sunday without work. This freight day was atypical because of the feed shipment, Brian told me. We'd worked side by side doing the shoveling.

"We only get the grain shipments three or four times a year. Regular freight days will be a lot different. We'll get to help the yard men or the loading dock crews."

"What about after the summer's over and school starts?"

"We won't get days off from school to do freight days. There's enough men to handle it without us, but like today, the two of us handled pretty much all the grain transfers. Except for the setting up and moving that Arne did with the conveyor truck, we were pretty much on our own," Brian bragged.

"Which lets two of the adults do something else," I added.

"Exactly, and that's why Dad wants us around on freight days, though as much work as we did today, he can't be calling it special treatment."

I understood why the label of special treatment might be a problem the boss's son wouldn't want to have. Brian was a hard worker though, and he really seemed to be interested in the business, which I'm sure made his dad happy.

The first thing I did when I got home from work was to check on my cleats. I suspected that my recent growth spurt was going to have made them a tight fit at best. I tried on the rest of my shoes and discovered that I was in trouble. The only shoes that came close to fitting were the ones I wore to work and everywhere else, my Red Balls. Everything else was tight bordering on painful.

At dinner that night, I broached the subject. "Mom, I think I've got a problem."

"What's that Sweetie?"

"I've had some sort of weird growth spurt since school got out, and I've barely got any clothes or shoes that fit me."

"Really? Stand up," She ordered. I did and she looked at me, and at the shirt and pants I was wearing.

"You do look like you've grown some."

"I measured myself on the door jam, and I think I've already grown over an inch since school got out."

"Really!" She said with some alarm, "That's pretty fast. Have you had any growing pains?"

"Well, I've had some achy joints and stuff, but I thought it was just because of the running and the work at Nileson's," I confessed. "But Mr. Greer has been talking to me about playing high school baseball, and I was going to go over to the field after church tomorrow. He asked me if my cleats still fit, and I said I didn't know, so I went up to try them on, and they were so tight it made me try my other shoes, and then when they were all tight, I tried some clothes, and they were all tight too."

I said it all in a jumbled rush, as if I were confessing a dark secret, and in my own mind, I guess I was worried that this was lifting the lid a little on my time traveling return.

"Sammy, relax, its not your fault if you're having a growth spurt, the question is, are you still growing?"

"I think so," I answered. "The achy joints haven't gone away, and I..."

I genuinely faltered here. Second lifetime or not, discussing puberty with your mother is an awkward thing.

"What?" Mom asked, concerned now.

"I'm getting hair." I said, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

"What? You need a haircut?"

"No," I said, resorting at last to pulling my shirt up, showing her the tufts of dark hair in my armpits. "I'm growing hair."

"Oh," She said, calmly at first. "OH!" She said again more stridently the second time, followed by laughter, which she cut off quickly. "Oh Sammy, I wasn't laughing at you, I was laughing at how dense I was being."

I got a hug then, and a kiss on the forehead.

"I'll call Doctor Sterling tonight, and we'll get you in for a checkup, just to make sure. Monday after work we'll run into Hermiston and find you a few things to last the summer, since you'll probably outgrow more things before the summer is out."

The miracle of the times, and living in a small town. Mom could call the family doctor on a Saturday evening to make an appointment.

Sunday started with a good breakfast of ham and eggs, and church was nothing out of the ordinary. I missed seeing Carrie and her family sitting in the isle across from us. Mr. Ralston didn't go back east with the rest of the family, but I didn't see him. Perhaps he was too busy, with all the help gone from around the house, or maybe he just liked being able to skip a Sunday service with no one around to make him go.

I went straight from church to the baseball field, riding my bike the half mile between the field and the church, which were both on the north end of town, outside of the town proper. I wasn't even sure of Cold Lake was even a 'town proper', at least as far as the state of Oregon was concerned. Dad described Cold Lake as just a wide spot in the road, mostly.

It had been nice to have two excuses for not dressing up for church. I had to wear something I could play baseball in, and my 'going to church' clothes didn't fit anymore. I sure hoped that coach Greer had some larger cleats, or else I'd have to play in my Red Balls.

The Cold Lake community had only one baseball field, and it was where all the little league games were played, as well as the occasional pick up game for older kids and adults. There was only one little league team, and most of our games were played in Hermiston, Stansfield, Hinkle and Echo. Most of the teams we played were from the Hermiston Little League, and they had six teams most years. Echo was even smaller than Cold Lake, and sometimes they didn't even have a team at all.

Coach Greer was already at the field, along with his sons.

"Hi Coach, Hi Chuck, Hi Bob," I said as I slid to a stop beside the fence that separated home plate from the road.

"Hi Sammy," Came the response, in triplicate. As I got my bike situated, I looked out and saw that there were already a couple other kids out on the field, the ones who weren't dragged along to church on Sunday, I guessed.

I brought my old cleats over to Coach Greer, and he gave me a grin when he saw them.

"You tried 'em on?"

"Yes sir," I answered. "They're really tight."

"I figured, the way it looks like your growing this summer. Here, try these on, they're a pair of Chuck's old ones."

These fit pretty good, and Coach Greer eyed them pretty good, trying to make sure I wasn't missing something. The leather seemed a little thin on them, and it looked like the laces had come off of two different pair of shoes, but they felt comfortable.

"These probably won't last you more than a year, Sammy, but they should last you through the baseball season."

"Thank you Mr. Greer." I don't know why I felt I had to call him Mr. Greer at that moment, rather than Coach, as I'd been calling him since I got here.

"That shirt wont do either, I think," Coach Greer commented. I was wearing a long sleeved flannel shirt and a pair of canvas pants that I used for work. The pants were a little short, but I was wearing long socks, so it looked more or less normal. The shirt, like everything else I had, was a little tight too, and it was going to be hotter than hell in the eastern Oregon sun.

"Here, try this one on," Coach Greer threw me a long sleeved pullover shirt, the kind most teams used in the area. I unbuttoned my flannel shirt enough to pull it off over my head and pulled the shirt on in its place. It fit nicely, although the sleeves were a bit long.

Once the gear had been sorted out, I went out with Bob to get warmed up. Chuck was a catcher, and he had a little more preparation to go through to get ready.

It had been fifty years since the Sammy Kendall that wore this body had last touched a baseball. The Sammy I had been in 1961 was still influencing things though, and it didn't feel too uncomfortable. Bob and I played catch for a little bit, and then spent some time throwing some grounders back and forth. By the time I had gotten the leather of my glove feeling comfortable, there were another dozen kids there, most of them from the little league team, but Benny was there, as well as a couple other older high school kids besides Chuck and Bob, one I knew, Mark Menalo, and one I didn't, named Joe Porter.

"Joe's folks have a ranch about halfway between here and Charlestown," Bob explained as we were introduced. "He's going to be a freshman at Hermiston High next year too."

"You going to try out for the team?" I asked.

"I was thinking about it," he answered. "I've been playing since I was little. I'd hate to give it up now."

"Your Dad okay with it?" Bob asked.

"It took some convincing, but he likes baseball too, and Mom reminded him that I was his son, not a hired hand, and any ranching I was going to be doing wasn't going to be interfering with a normal life, or her and I would be headed back to Jerseyville, and he could join us or not."

It was mostly the way he said it, but we all laughed pretty good at that. We understood how it was with Moms, and who ran things at home.

"Jerseyville?" Pete Armonk asked. "Where's that?"

"Illinois, actually," Joe said. "Southern Illinois."

"Wow, my Dad's in St. Louis right now, how close is Jerseyville?"

"Pretty close actually. What's he doing back there?"

I looked around at everyone, suddenly aware that I wasn't sure just how public the knowledge was regarding Dad's whereabouts.

"He's setting up some engineering stuff for the Peace Corps." I answered.

"Really?" Bob said. "That's cool!"

"How long's he going to be gone?" Chuck asked, joining us by then with his dad.

"I'm not sure. He should be home by the fourth of July, but maybe sooner. He was just supposed to do some preliminary work with a bunch of other engineers. To be honest, I'm not even really sure he's still in St. Louis, that's just where he went from here."

"The season's over, and we're just here to have some fun, so lets see if we've got enough players to have a game." Coach Greer said.

We did a quick head count, and not counting Mr. Greer, we only had sixteen kids.

"Tell you what. I'll pitch for both teams and Chuck will catch for both teams to start. Anyone here interested in pitching or catching next year?"

Three kids raised there hands. I recognized all of them, and knew that Karl Harding wanted to be a catcher.

"Karl, I know you want to be a catcher," Coach told him, "and I'll let you fill in for Chuck a few innings, okay?"

Karl nodded in response. He was pretty shy and didn't talk much.

"You two wanting to pitch or catch?" Coach asked the others. They both replied that they wanted to pitch. "Okay, same deal. I'll fit you in for a couple of innings."

Coach Greer had Bob and Chuck be captains, and they took turns picking players. They took me and Joe Porter as their first picks, and then moved on from there. The other high school kids all got picked first, of course, but nobody cared, since we were all going to get to play. They played paper, scissors, rock to see who got to bat first, and Chuck's team won.

Bob had me play first base, which made sense from what Coach had said at work. A kid named Leslie Robbins played second base, Roger Cort played shortstop and Warren Osterhaus, Erik's little brother, played third base. Bob took center field, and the right fielder was Gus Perkins and the left fielder was Tony Simmons.

I didn't think I did all that well at first base, to start with. I wasn't sure of where I needed to play, and kept dredging my memories for where I remembered seeing players position themselves, but all my memories were from a future that had already happened once, and who really pays attention to that sort of thing if you're not a baseball nut? I bobbled a few catches, and was probably out of position a couple of times, letting ground balls get by me, but I still had the good reflexes that had served me well before, and I did feel quicker than I remembered ever feeling. Benny was the only left handed player on their team, so I didn't field too many ground balls to my side of the field at all. Mostly I had to suffer through the unfamiliar act of catching throws from Les, Roger and Warren.

I batted fifth in our batting order, and didn't get up to the plate in our first turn at bat. I led off our second at bat, and managed to hit a nice contact single over the shortstop's head that felt very familiar. Benny struck out behind me, Tony Simmons hit a pop up infield fly that kept me on first base, and then Warren Osterhaus struck out as well. Coach Greer had already warned us that those of us who hadn't played in a while were going to be rusty at the plate, and not to get upset, we'd get our eye back. I was just hoping that the first time up hadn't been a fluke.

I didn't bat again until a couple of innings later, but the Coach had been right, and we seemed to be having more success getting on base. There were runners on first and second when I came up, and Bob stopped me as I headed towards the plate.

"Remember Sam, you've got some more muscle to work with than you used to have. Try putting a little into it this time."

"Okay," I answered, still not convinced I was going to be a power hitter overnight.

Coach Greer must've guessed what Bob stopped me for, because the first two pitches he threw were pretty low. I swung at the first for a strike, but held up on the second one. The third pitch was either a mistake, or Coach trying to see what I had, cause it was right down the middle, and I put the bat on it with everything I could muster. It wasn't a home run, but it hit the high fence that ran around the outfield only a few feet below the top, and I made it to third before the center fielder could catch up to it and get the ball in.

Bob came over to coach third base, and while the two of us stood there, he asked me how it felt.

"Good," I answered with a big grin.

"Your footwork sucks buddy," he returned, grinning himself. "Once we teach you how to step into the ball you'll be a menace!"

Sammy Kendall, a menace at the plate. Imagine that!



-------

Chapter 5: Horses and Hearts


Towards the end of July, long past the Fourth of July excitement, and with the heat of the summer in full force, I got invited out to Joe Porter's ranch to ride some horses.

I'd seen some of his Dad's horses in our Fourth of July parade, and made a comment to Joe at our next baseball Sunday how neat I thought they were. Their family had taken part in our festivities rather than the larger events in Hermiston, only because Joe said that this was where his friends were. He picked me up after church on Sunday, one of the rare ones where we didn't have baseball.

Actually, his sister Janet picked me up, with Joe along for the ride, since Joe was the same age I was. Damned if Joe didn't have a gorgeous sister too. I smiled as I said hi when we were introduced, but I was shaking my head as I slid into the truck alongside Joe.

"What?" Janet said, seeing the shake, and the blush I was sporting through my summer tan.

"I'm sorry, but I'm an only child, so I'm not used to the older sister idea." I offered, but Janet wasn't buying it.

"Yea, so..."

"So ... that my friends have older sisters I guess I can understand. What I can't understand is why they all have to be gorgeous."

"Oh geez!" she said with a snort. "How old are you again?"

"I'll be fourteen in August," I answered.

"Good Lord. Joe, you make sure you keep an eye on him around Greta."

"Who's Greta?" I asked.

"My little sister," Joe answered.

"You have a little sister and a big sister? Oh man!" I moaned in sympathy.

"Worse. I have four sisters. The youngest two are twins, and they're both eight."

"How old is Greta then?" I asked.

"You're about dead-on halfway between our birthdays. I'm about six months older than you, and she's about six months younger," Joe said.

Janet would look over at me every few minutes and shake her head and laugh. I didn't know whether to be embarrassed or worried.

Joe asked his sister to take us straight to the barn, rather than drop us off at the house. The horse barn was a couple hundred yards from the main house, and I think Joe's intention was to avoid the rest of his sisters for now.

It had been a long time, I told Joe, since I'd ridden a horse, and he double checked the saddle and gear for me as I got my horse ready. I was riding a horse called Hack today, a solid, dark sorrel. Joe rode his own horse, Champ, who was a striking dun, with beautiful markings, particularly the stockings, which were a dark, muddy brown near the ground fading smoothly to a dark, dusky gold at the body. The mane did a similar fade from front to back, and the muzzle was a darker blend, somewhere between the two.

We filled two canteens with water, and made sure the horses had a good drink before we rode out on a northeasterly course, headed, my internal compass told me, for the river. We'd hit the Columbia River Highway long before we got to the river, but I knew it would be nowhere near the busy highway I remembered from my first life.

Some folks see Eastern Oregon as a desolate place, and rely on the description, 'high desert' to describe it, but it is nowhere near a desolate place, and especially not so as you get close to the Columbia. This time of year it tries hard to match that lazy man's image, with high temperatures, dry winds that never seemed to stop, and a seemingly endless supply of dust. But hidden in the dust and rock are treasures if you're looking, birds linger among the sage and scrub, and you can see snakes and coyotes, foxes and cougars. Even in the driest, hottest days there are living and growing things.

We rode for several hours, making a big loop around a rough rocky outcrop that stood a few dozen feet above the surrounding terrain. We talked about baseball and family, and living in small towns. Joe missed a lot of the things that even a town as small as Cold Lake offered.

"Janet's back for the summer, so its not too bad," Joe admitted as we rode back into the ranch. "She can drive, and she takes my sisters places all the time, which is a nice break for me. I'm sure they see it as a nice break from me as well," he followed up a moment later.

It took us a while to get the saddles cleaned up and put away, and Hack and Champ rubbed down and fed.

"Time to face the music," Joe said. Even if I was going right home we'd have had to go to the house to get a ride, but I was staying for supper.

Sunday supper was a big deal at the Porter ranch, and especially so when there was company, Joe told me as we walked up the porch, apologizing in advance for any potential embarrassment.

The twins were the first to greet us, Rose and Lily, two cute-as-a-button eight year olds with big eyes and full of giggles. Mrs. Porter was next, coming out of the kitchen, apron on and her hair done up high in a way that said it was just to keep it out of her way while she cooked. She was a slightly plumper version of Janet, and I saw where all the Porters I had met so far got their look, she had the dark hair and blue eyes that Joe, Janet and the twins all shared.

We had already knocked the dust of the trail off at the horse barn, But Joe's Mom told us to go get washed up for supper. Joe led me to a utility room at the back of the house with a big double sink, the utility kind, and we washed up, even wetting our hair and drying it off. There was a communal comb on a shelf with a few other odds and ends, so I didn't have to go back in with my hair just slicked back with a towel.

Coming out of the bathroom with Joe, I saw Greta for the first time.

If I hadn't been the old man I was inside the young Sammy Kendall, I probably would have made a tongue-tied ass of myself, because even as I was, I was nearly stunned to a stupor. Here was the true beauty of the Porter family. A vision with long, dark, shiny hair, sparkling blue eyes, long arms and legs, and all arranged in a very pleasing package.

As I finally focused, and saw Janet beside her, I grinned, a little lopsided I think, but recovering quickly.

"I was wrong," I said to Janet.

"Wrong?"

"My theory," I added. "Its not just older sisters apparently."

I saw Greta blush then, and knew that Janet had already told her what I'd said when I met her.

I managed to keep the universe upright and on an even keel all through dinner. Mr. Porter showed up just before it was served, and shook my hand before we all sat down. He was tall, thin and sandy haired, and all the Porter kids looked like Mrs. Porter and nothing like him, though I guess I could kinda see his jaw and eyebrows a little in Joe. Dinner was fried chicken and mashed potatoes, with peach cobbler for dessert. There was only one thing I remembered from the dinner conversation, when Mrs. Porter asked me if I was going to be a freshman at Hermiston high school in the fall.

"Yes Ma'am," I answered.

"Joe too of course," She offered, adding "Greta too."

"Greta too?" I said weakly.

"She's a smart girl, and has been skipped a grade," Mrs. Porter boasted.

Joe groaned, Greta blushed and I gulped.

-------

Work soon became just that, work. Brian Nileson moved on to work with the yard crew most days, and I worked the seed and feed bins by myself. I saw some ways that the sacking and seaming could be made easier, but they all required a table that could be raised and dropped quickly, and other than hydraulics or some complicated mechanical scissoring pedestal arrangement, I couldn't see a way to do it and still be practical and economical. I also didn't want to engineer myself out of a job. I saw Mr. Greer on the loading dock quite often, but he was working and so was I. We didn't play catch in the mornings before work, unless we were having a rare non-Sunday get together after work at the field.

Dad got back from his trip on August 3rd, it was almost a month later than he had expected, and he looked tired but happy.

"It was all skull sweat for a change, son," he told me, "no hiking through the boonies."

I could understand how skull sweat might wear you out. I'd spent a few nights since my return thinking myself to exhaustion. During the time that Dad was gone, I'd returned again and again to the idea that I had to tell someone about what had happened to me. I could think of no one I trusted more than my father, and that was from the perspective of the Sam Kendall who had lived sixty years. I had spent hours searching my memories for some upcoming event that I could use to prove the truth of what I would tell him, and I found it.

"Dad, can we sit down and talk tonight after Dinner?" I asked while we ate.

"A family discussion?"

"No, just you and me for now, but probably Mom later."

"Sure Son, We'll get together in the den after the dishes are done."

The dinner conversation was mostly about what he had done and where he had been. The group he worked with had stayed in St. Louis after all.

"I spent most of my time doing research and talking on the phone long distance," Dad told us. "Once a week we got together and had a meeting to argue about everything we were doing. Those were fun. The people I work with normally aren't the types to appreciate a good argument."

We talked baseball, and Dad was very curious to see how I was doing with my new position, and the new power at the plate. Mom made me take my shirt off and show him my muscles, and that of course led to the embarrassing discussion of the 'changes' I'd been going through.

"Well I could see that you were noticeably taller the minute I saw you," Dad told me, "so I wondered."

"The boys that have been playing baseball together are going to have a big game and picnic next Sunday," Mom added brightly. "We will have to go and watch Sammy play!"

It was true. With school starting at the beginning of September, and other commitments drawing a lot of the players away, we were having our last game on Sunday the 13th. Mr. Greer wanted to get the families of all the kids together for a big picnic to celebrate, and even though it was still almost two weeks away, the moms were planning like mad.

It was my day to do dishes, but Mom helped with the drying, and we were done pretty quickly. While I was doing that, Dad had been getting caught up on all the old newspapers we had saved for him, but there was little in the way of local news that was worth recapturing, except perhaps for some of the Fourth of July event descriptions. When I came out of the kitchen he folded up the paper he was in the middle of and we headed for the den.

The den was really Dad's home office, they just didn't call them that these days. Most of the reference books he had collected over the years were on shelves here, along with some others, including, I think, his old college text books. He had a desk and chair, but there were two comfortable stuffed chairs in the room as well. Dad closed the door behind us and took one, motioning me to the other.

"Okay, Sammy, I'm all ears."

"Thanks Dad," I began nervously, "First, you need to know that what I'm about to tell you is going to sound impossible, but its true, and I can prove it I think, but its going to require some time."

"Okay," Dad said, sounding unsure himself now.

"I have lived this life before, completely. The Sam Kendal I am died of what I think was a heart attack while trying to fix a flat tire on August 28th, 2008. I had just turned 60 a few days before."

"Son..." Dad started to say.

"Dad, I have a complete set of memories. Memories of things that haven't happened yet. But I already know that what I do can change the future for the Sammy Kendall that I am this time."

"How do you know that, and what kind of memories?" Dad asked.

"The day I died, I felt myself falling ... pulled really, and when the journey was over, I woke up in this Sam Kendall's body. It was the last day of school and I was waiting outside the school for Mom to pick me up. In my first life, that surprise job at Nileson's did not go over well. I felt betrayed and I not only refused the job, I got mad and stayed mad through the rest of my school years. This time, that didn't happen. I took the job and my future changed."

"So you're really a sixty year old man in this body?"

"Yeah ... Yeah, but it mostly feels like I'm a teenager again," I admitted. "I have the old memories, but the Sammy that was here when I got back is still here too, I can feel it, and he and I are sort of in this together."

There was more of course, and I tried to explain the bumps, but I wasn't even sure myself yet what they meant, so it left both of us confused.

"Dad, the proof I can offer will be the Sunday of the baseball game, the 13th. When the people of Berlin wake up that morning, they will discover that East German troops have sealed off the city and divided it with barbed wire fences, splitting Berlin into a West Berlin and an East Berlin."

That had Dad pretty quiet for a long time. I could tell there were several times when he wanted to ask me questions, but stopped.

"Obviously, there are a lot of questions I'd like to ask," he said finally, "but there's no sense doing that until we've the proof come next Sunday."

"I agree," I answered. "But I should tell you now that there are some questions I won't answer. I won't tell you when anyone we know dies, unless I think its something we can and should change."

"And that's the real reason for telling me, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I worry about how I might be changing things, and there are things that happen in the future that I would like to change, but don't think I'll be able to, tragic things."

"Foreknowledge is not the great thing we might imagine it to be then?"

"No," I answered, the tears starting to flow. The telling of my secret had brought a sense of relief, but at the same time it brought a renewed sense of helplessness and fear. Dad stood, and I stood with him and let him hug me as I cried. We stood like that for a long time before Dad finally spoke.

"You have no idea how suddenly weird hugging my own son feels."

I had to laugh at that, a snorting, blubbery kind of laugh that helped choke off the tears and get my mind back to a calmer place.

"Thanks Dad," I said, starting to dry my tears with my sleeve.

We talked for a little while longer, mostly abut the differences since my return. He was sad to hear how we had grown apart after the big blow up, and his having to find a new home for Ned.

"I told your Mom something like that might have happened," Dad said in the end.

"But it didn't happen this time, Dad. Please, let it go. You can't worry about the way that life turned out. This one is already proving far, far better."

Dad gave me a guilty smile, realizing that he had been about to get angry with his wife for something that hadn't happened as far as their reality was concerned. Then I saw Dad raise an eyebrow and give me an odd look.

"What?"

"So, are you going to be able to make us rich?"

"You mean like with the stock market and that sort of thing?" He nodded. I'd guessed that this would come up eventually.

"To be honest, I don't know. I was not an investor in my first life. I remember some things, like companies starting up, and new products being announced, that sort of thing. I could think of a couple to keep an eye out for, but beyond that, I'm not to sure what I'll remember. I know who wins the World Series this year, and you know the home run race Mantle and Maris are having?"

"Yeah?"

"61. Maris is going to hit 61 home runs and break the Babe's record on the last day of the season. The Yankees go on to beat the Reds in the series in five games. I remember it because I had followed the M&M boys all season, and by the time the series rolled around I was in basic training, and the series was a big bit of home for all of us."

"Basic training?"

"I didn't even try for college the first time, and got drafted."

"Vietnam?"

"Yeah. Changed my life."

I refused to discuss that topic any further, and anything else would have just been fishing, so we ended our meeting and I went out to take Ned for a late walk while Dad got Mom to agree to wait a while before she heard anything about our discussion. I kind of would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that talk, but two lifetimes or not, I was happy to let them be the parents. Nobody likes to have their childhood illusions shattered, and that included me, so I might have been curious, but it was a curiosity that I didn't really want eased.

The next morning over breakfast, Dad told me that he was going to have to do a lot of catching up with his regular job now that he was back, so he planned on being gone for the rest of the week and most of the next. I asked about the weekends, and he said he'd have to see how it went. If working this weekend meant he could be home for the big game, that was what he would do.

I got into quite a big discussion at lunch on Wednesday. Brian had mentioned high school football, and Mr. Nileson wanted to know if I was going to try out. I understood that football would have a big impact on my free time, and would probably mean I would have to quit work, or else work drastically different hours. School in general had held out some chance of that, but football would pretty much guarantee it.

I had been thinking about it, but not with much seriousness, up until this point. My new and improved body made the prospect of playing football a lot more attractive to me, but I didn't really have much sense of the game. There were no organized youth leagues for it like there were for baseball, and all my football experience was from playing pickup games, touch tackling, mostly. The aching joints had gone away by this time, but I'd grown three inches over the summer, and I'd beefed up considerably. To be honest, I looked at myself and I didn't even see the adult Sam Kendal I remembered from my first life.

I'd gotten pretty lean and mean during my army days, but I'd never been this tall, ever, and even in my fittest I'd have been better described as wiry. At 13 going on 14, I was definitely something beyond wiry. In truth, this was the part of this second lifetime that I was having the most trouble explaining to myself.

In the end I had to tell Mr. Nileson that I didn't know yet what I would do, but that if he couldn't afford to wait for me to decide, I'd understand. He agreed that he could give me at least until the beginning of school, and we shook on it. I knew he valued me as an employee, just as I knew, with sons of his own, he appreciated my dilemma.

I told mom about the discussion when I got home, and she looked serious for a moment, nodding her head. "You've proved yourself to me Sammy, if you choose football over working for Mr. Nileson, I'll know that its not for the wrong reasons."

With high school looming in my future, and the possibility of college perhaps keeping me out of Vietnam this time around, I was at a continual loss for something to devote myself to. Me, Sam Kendall, the boy who knew the future, couldn't pick a path to follow into it. The only thing I'd found any enthusiasm for so far had been baseball, and with the advantage of my unique perspective, didn't have to wait for my parents to tell me that sports was not the way to plan for one's future, whether you had talent or not.

In the army I had been a grunt at first, just another soldier slogging through the rice paddies. Later I'd wound up reassigned to the military police, and that was what probably kept me from getting shot, although there were plenty of people that might have wanted to shoot me. The military police gig wasn't even the typical armband and on patrol thing either, I was a good file clerk for our unit, and the army decided those skills could be better employed being a file clerk for a military detention center in Long Binh. We were a holding tank for soldiers who'd gotten into trouble. Most of them were held for a few days or weeks before being sent back to their unit, and some were held until they could be sent to Saigon for court martial, or if they had had a field court martial, for rerouting to Leavenworth or some other military prison.

The army experience had left me with no love for law enforcement. I had seen too much hatred directed my way by too many guys who had just been messed up by their situation and the madness that the experience in country provided. Hell, all I did was process paperwork, and I still got spat on in the streets.

My time in the army, and in Vietnam may have allowed me to get my head on straight, but it hadn't given me direction. When I got home at the end of my tour I went to work in Seattle working on a loading dock on the waterfront. I drove a fork lift most of the time I was there, but moved on a few years later, moving to Portland to work in a concrete plant. Neither job required much, nor left me with any skills to speak of, though the fork lift skills got me work occasionally in later years.

I took some community college courses here and there over the years, got my red cross lifesaving certificate, a CPR card, dabbled a little in local theater, mostly to give me a way to fill my nights that didn't require booze. During my booziest years the theater stuff just meant I was drinking with a different class of people.

I dumped the booze when I met my first wife Corinne. She walked into our theater guild rehearsal one night in Spokane, where I was going to once again have a bit part in yet another production of The Merchant of Venice, the fourth time and the fourth community where I'd played a part in that play. Within two weeks I had a serious need to be seen as a desirable mate, so I dumped the booze and found my first respectable job since I'd left the army, working for a horse breeding outfit in Coeur D'Alene, just east across the border from Spokane in Idaho.

Horses were familiar enough, and my part of the work, which had little to do with the animals themselves, was maintaining the breeding and sales records for the rancher during the season, and winter maintenance and fire watch on their remote facilities the rest of the year. It was really no less of a grunt job than any other I'd had, and it had an air of respectability that satisfied Corinne. We were married three months after I took the job.

I spent more time during the rest of the summer that year thinking about those years of my first life than I ever did again. Probably more time than I'd spent thinking about them while I was living them! What I came away knowing was that there was nothing in there that pointed towards the future I was going to live this time, and so for now, I was a lost soul, looking for a star to guide me and a road to set my foot upon.

And in the midst of all that, I was busy being a boy getting ready to turn fourteen.

-------

Dad did get home that weekend, late Saturday night. He brought me a first baseman's glove from Bashor's in Portland. And we spent the night getting it to feel comfortable in my hand.

"You're going to have to get used to the bigger basket," Dad told me as I waved it near the living room floor, pretending to sweep up a throw from third. Dad said it was the same model as Bill White, the St. Louis first baseman wore.

It did feel awkward, and I guessed the biggest problem would be pulling the ball out of the big wicket on those occasions when I would need to throw to second, or to the pitcher covering first. "Thank, Dad."

We talked about the possibility of football, and he made it clear that it was my decision. We didn't need the money, and the amount I might save in four years was not going to make a big difference in funding college if I decided I wanted to go. He didn't say as much, but I suspected that my parents had been saving for that possibility for a long time, perhaps even since I was born. Still, if I could get a scholarship, athletic or academic, it would be one less thing for them to worry about once I was away from home.

"Do you like playing football?" Dad asked me at last.

"I don't know," I confessed. "What we're talking about, with pads and helmets and full contact? I don't know what that's like. I could discover I love it or hate it, once I've tried it. What makes it attractive at all is that I think I'm growing a body that is going to be suited to it."

"The contact will be the unknown quantity," Dad said. "You can love it, hate it or decide to endure it, but I think you have to love the contact to be considered good."

I thought he was right, and just didn't know how I'd feel about it until I tried it. That pretty much decided me, then and there. I had an itch to discover that out about myself now, and I don't think I could have chosen to step away from it. Whether I still felt that way after the first hit? That remained to be seen, but one way or another, I was going to find out.

Dad came to watch us play the next day after church, and we had a fun time. Most of us played out of position, just blowing off steam in preparation for the big game next week.

I did ask for a couple of innings at first to try out the new glove. It was going to take a little adjusting to, but I had a feeling it would go smoothly. Something seemed to be moving me smoothly through the changes and newness. For now I could be happy to let it.

The next day at work, I let Mr. Nileson know that I was going to try out for football. He was pretty understanding, which made me think he had anticipated my decision. I did tell him that if I decided I didn't like it, I would still be willing to work. He said that if he still had an opening, he'd take me back, but he couldn't promise to hold on to the job for me, which I understood.

The day of the big game seemed to arrive in the blink of an eye. Dad turned on the radio first thing, mindful of my prediction, but there was nothing on except religious programming, except for one big station we could get out of Spokane, and it was in the middle of something that sounded canned. We didn't hear any news during church that morning either, although Pastor Collins did stop the service to mention the game, inviting the congregation to attend, suggesting they bring a dish and join the celebration.

"I think the church ladies were feeling left out," I heard Mom whisper to Dad.

The topic of the Pastor's sermon was 'God's Purpose'. I didn't normally pay attention to the sermon, and couldn't tell you what the topic had been for any other one I'd sat through, but that one struck a chord with those of us boys playing in the game today, since those were the terms he couched the sermon in, saying that 'we all had a position to play in God's game.'. It struck an even deeper chord with me personally, of course. I still struggled to understand the purpose of my return, and perhaps better than most, I could both question and believe in God and a purpose in life, and for both at the same time.

I was surprised to see the entire Porter family at church, and trust me, the porter ladies dressed up for church was a sight to see. I could barely keep my eyes off of Greta, and I wasn't sure I was glad or not when I caught her looking my way as well.

There was a big introduction of the two families outside the church, with Dad complimenting Mr. Porter on Joe's baseball skills, and Mr. Porter complimenting Dad on mine. Joe and I looked at each other and smiled over that. Mrs. Porter said that the ladies had to go get changed into something more fit for baseball and barbecue, and Mom offered them the use of our house for that purpose, since she was doing the same. Somehow I got the feeling that this little arrangement had been made in advance by our Moms, and that the formal stuff now was just that, a formality.

Dad offered to give Joe and his Dad a ride with us to the field, which they accepted. Mr. Porter grabbed a cooler out of the back of the large Studebaker station wagon they'd driven. I could see where they needed it to get all those women from place to place, but I also saw that Janet had the truck with her, so I guessed she had her own plans for after the game, or else all those dresses took up even more room than I thought.

When we got to the field, it was a field transformed! There were bleachers along both baselines, and behind the bleachers on the right field side there were a group of men from the church, along with a lot of the dad's of us boys playing the game today, setting up tables. I saw a couple of big cookers already smoking over by the right field dugout too.

There wasn't a lot of time to ponder what made this such a big event, a final game between a bunch of kids that had started playing a little pick up baseball during the summer. Twenty three kids hit the field, prepared to have fun and play like it was the last game of the World Series.

The teams were still divided in pretty much the same fashion as they had been the first day when Bob and Chuck had picked teams. We'd gained a half dozen or so other players since then, so we had full teams on both sides, and even a few players on each bench. Bob was still coaching us and playing center field, and Mr. Greer was the umpire at home plate. We even had Pastor Collins and Mr. Argus as umpires today. Chuck was still coaching the other team, but he wasn't playing at all. He was a high school senior, and the oldest of us kids by quite a bit. Bob was the next oldest, and he was a sophomore.

We did the full formal warm ups, mostly to give the two pitchers a chance to get their arms loose. There was a coin toss and everything, and Chucks team won the toss and chose to bat in the bottom half of the inning, so our team was up first!

Luther Harwell was our lead off man. He had begun playing halfway through the summer, and he was a perfect lead off batter, with a good eye, a penchant for hard line drives in the gaps, and blazing speed on the bases. Even knowing each other as well as we did, Luther was a difficult out, and he managed a slap single over the head of the first baseman to lead off the inning.

Roger Cort was our number two man, and he hit a ground ball back up the middle that went off the pitcher's glove towards the gap between second and first, and the second baseman got to it in time to throw Roger out, but Luther was standing on second. Bob Greer batted next, and he looped a fly ball to center field that was caught, but it was deep enough to allow Luther to tag up and advance to third, and suddenly, I was up to bat. Two outs and a man on third. Bob mouthed 'swing away' as he trotted past me back to our 'dugout', which was just a bench alongside the field.

Roy Lundy was the pitcher for the other team, and he grinned at me and shook his head. He hated giving up hits to me, remembering too well the Sammy Kendall from a year ago.

I just took the first pitch with the bat on my shoulder. Low and away, but on the corner for a strike. Time for me to shake my head, but I had a feeling that Roy was going to try to feed me that low and away stuff again, so I waited for the pitch, caught the flight of the ball, felt the timing, and lit into it.

I loved that new muscle. My teammates were pretty happy too, at the moment as we all watched the ball clear the fence deep in the furthest part of our field between center and left. I took the bases, not wanting to show Roy up, it had been a good pitch, right where he had wanted it to go. I was greeted by Luther and Warren Osterhaus, the next man up. Warren made good contact, but the Joe was their second baseman, and he made a brilliant, diving snag and threw Warren out from his knees. Our half of the inning was over.

We had the better lineup at the plate, but in Roy, Chuck's team had the best pitcher, and Tony Simmons, our pitcher, struggled. He gave up a run in the bottom half of the first and two runs in the second.

We scored again in our half of the third, and Tony finally had a three up, three down inning, retiring the side on three straight grounders, two to the short stop and one to me. I didn't have to move at all to gather it in, and it was a quick two steps to the bag, not even requiring a throw to Tony rushing over to cover the bag.

We played a couple of scoreless innings, and then in the top of the seventh, I came up to bat with the bases loaded. Our number nine hitter, Gus Perkins, had gotten on base with a smart single just past the glove of a diving Joe Porter. Luther had followed suit with a similar drive to the second base side, and that got us two men on.

Roger Cort struck out on a good change up from Roy, but then he walked Bob, on a wild pitch that wasn't quite wild enough to allow a fairly slow running Gus to score. Bases loaded for me.

I'd lined out right to the third baseman my last time up, and I saw Chuck signaling everyone to play back. With the slow Gus at third, it would take something to the outfield to score a run.

The first pitch was a ball, and the second a swinging strike, as I went for something high and tight that I should have resisted. The next pitch was in the same place, and I did lay off that one. Two balls and a strike, and I fouled off the next pitch, with a moon shot that faded back over the backstop and into the road behind it and made the count two and two.

Roy had probably thought he had me with the next pitch. It was a curve, something I'd never seen him even try to throw, and it twisted me up good. I got a piece of it though, and fouled it off to the left side. Still two balls and two strikes.

I'm not sure what Roy was thinking then, but he threw one straight at my head, and if I hadn't flopped like a dieing fish, it would've tagged me. As it was, Mr. Greer got pretty mad and threatened to eject Roy if it happened again. Maybe that was why Roy just threw a hard fast ball straight down the middle on the next pitch. I ripped it hard and high, right down the first base line and about ten feet above the first baseman's head. The ball continued to rise, but didn't quite clear the fence, bouncing to the ground and taking a funny hop towards the left field corner. I was rounding first about that time and headed for second.

I saw the second baseman signaling for the ball and motioning like he was reaching for the catch, but I heard a voice yelling 'Third! Third! Third!', so I rounded the bag and kept running, looking for someone near third base giving me signals. I saw Roger Cort with both arms up in the air. I wasn't sure what he was signaling at first, but when he pushed his palms out flat, I put on the skids and pulled into third standing up. I had just enough time to look up and focus on the plate before the ball came zipping in to the catcher's glove.

The three runs that scored on my triple proved to be all the cushion that Tony needed. Chuck's team threatened to score, getting runners on base in the bottom of the seventh, eighth and ninth, but only managed to get one of them across the plate. The final score was six to four, and both teams gathered at the center of the field for a huge pile on and celebration. Who knows how long it would have lasted if Mr. Greer hadn't managed to remind us over the din that there was barbecue waiting.

-------

The picnic following the game seemed just as artificially amped up as the turnout for the game. Once I'd filled my belly with some ribs and potato salad, I found myself alone with Dad for a moment.

"Dad, what's going on here?" I asked.

"What do you mean, Son?"

"This game, and the picnic, and the turnout. It seams like a huge overreaction to me."

"I think Mr. Greer has an announcement to make in a bit, you 'll have to wait until then." Dad told me.

Before Mr. Greer could get to that, a couple men came running from over by the parking lot. They'd been tuning in to listen to a baseball game when the broadcast was interrupted to announce the news of the Berlin Wall going up. Dad found me and we stood together, with his hand on my shoulder while we listened. It caused quite a stir amongst the crowd there, and it was some time before things quieted down enough for Mr. Greer to make his announcement.

"Folks, thanks for coming out today to help me celebrate baseball, and the joy it has given me all these years, coaching our children and watching them play and learn together."

There was a big round of applause at that, and Mr. Greer had to wait for it to die before he continued.

"I want to tell everyone here today that I do not plan on missing a single day in the coming season, but I have been told by the doctors in Portland that I have cancer."

Mr. Greer paused then, mostly I think due to the weight of it, of getting the words out. There was utter silence on the field, beyond the sound of one woman's emphatic 'Oh Lord!'.

"I have been told that there is a good chance that I can survive this because I was lucky and it was caught early. I'll be going to Portland early next month for surgery and a new series of tests. Someone from the family will try to remain here during this time, and you can contact me through them."

Mr. Greer was very upbeat about his prognosis, but I now understood this day's events completely. He was saying goodbye, just in case he didn't get better, and didn't have another chance.

Mr. Greer's news, combined with the Berlin news had folks a little down, but the Greer's would have none of that. A huge cake, along with a huge pile of watermelons were brought out, and it was time for dessert.

The news and everything else almost kept me distracted from Greta Porter, but she showed up after a while with Joe and Rose and Lily. I worried immediately, because his parents and my Mom were with them.

"Sam, I know this is kind of a bad time to begin thinking about it, but your birthday's at the end of the month, right?" Joe asked.

"Yeah," I said, nodding, "the twenty fifth."

"I was talking to Dad about inviting you out for a horse camping trip on your birthday, but he had a better idea," Joe said.

"Sam, I was thinking we could have a big weekend camping trip, and you could invite a few of your other friends along, and spend a couple of days down on the Columbia."

"Honey, are you cooking up plans for Sammy again without telling him?"

"No, nothings happening without Sammy's approval this time." Mom answered defensively.

"It was entirely my idea," Mr. Porter offered. "I brought it up to Mrs. Kendall and she insisted we come straight to you to discuss it."

I think it sounds like a great idea, if I can get off work that Saturday."

Everyone laughed at my concern, and somehow, I knew it was a done deal. 



-------

Chapter 6: Last Light of Summer


On the following Tuesday, Carrie Ralston and her mother returned from their summer in Indiana. Carrie had discovered that I was at work when she stopped by the house earlier in the day, and was waiting for me on the porch when I got home. I think that she was way beyond surprised and on her way to shocked at my appearance.

"Sammy? Oh my God!" She said before I'd even hit the first step.

"Hi Carrie."

"What happened to you?"

"I had a good summer, grew a little, put on some muscle."

"I guess! You're so tall!"

I could see it, the totally lost look in her eyes, and I offered her a quick bit of comfort.

"Its okay. I'm still me." I said. That got a nervous giggle at least. "It just seems like a big change cause you weren't here to see it happen."

"How?" She asked, as I stopped to sit down beside her. Ned was at my side immediately, expecting his after work walk. I gave him a good pat and stood again."

"Feel like a walking and talking?" I asked.

"Sure."

I grabbed Ned's ball from the porch and we headed down the road towards Burnside.

"First, and I guess it has to be kind of obvious, and its embarrassing, as you do remember, but puberty, you know?"

"Yeah, I figured that one, I guess."

"You remember how stupefied Benny and I were last year when you had your big changes?"

"Yeah, and I don't like the way you say 'big'." She said, but she giggled when she did.

"Well, to us that was the operative word, unless you wanted us to use impressive or amazing."

"I remember what you guys were like, trust me."

"Yeah, but we got to see it happen gradually, and it still made us stupid."

"Okay, I got that part."

"Well, the timing might have something to do with the rest. I started running Ned every morning and working at Nileson's, and the work was pretty physical, you know? Hauling bags of feed and seed and that stuff, so the combination of things really had an impact on me, just as I was getting the word from my body that it was time to unleash the hounds, so to speak.

"Unleash the hounds ... You goof."

We talked about the summer, and what each of us had missed, and I told her about Mr. Greer, and the big game, and she was sorry she had gotten back too late for that.

"What are you going to do for your birthday?"

"Oh man! Well, Joe Porter, he's someone new that I played baseball with all summer. Anyway, his family lives on a ranch about halfway between here and Charlestown, and they're going to have a big horse camping trip, and I can invite some of my friends."

I got it out in a rush, and perhaps an ill-considered rush, because it wasn't until I'd said it that the thought of Carrie and Greta meeting each other entered my mind.

"Oh darn, and I haven't been here all summer. The Porters wouldn't think I belonged, would they?"

I didn't really want to go where I could see the conversation heading, but I owed it to Carrie, so I went on anyway.

"Well, they left it up to me, and the only one I've invited so far is Benny. Joe has four sisters, so I assumed there would be girls along, so I don't think they'd rule it out for that reason."

"Do you really think it would be okay?"

"I'll call Joe when we get back to the house and find out. You'd better make sure its okay with your parents too."

"You're right. I'll ask them as soon as I get home. I don't think they'll be worried as long as there are adults along to watch us."

That got us as far as the start of the trail leading to the spot, and I let Ned chase the ball pretty hard a couple of times, throwing it across the dry wash that marked it off. With a good coat of dust in his coat, we turned and headed back up the road, letting Ned run off most of the dust.

We talked about Indiana for a while, and about how the summer had been at the spot, or rather about how it had not been. Too many of us had been too busy this summer, or gone, I slyly reminded her. We had spent very little time there at all.

We stopped for a moment at the gate in front of my house, and had our first awkward moment in a long time.

"Well, I'd better get in there and call Joe before it gets to late." I said finally.

"Right. I'll ask my folks first thing about the camping trip."

We managed a clumsy wave, and I headed in the house to call Joe.

Joe had no problem with another girl who was not one of his sisters coming along, and he confirmed that his parents wouldn't either, as long as they had the approval of Carrie's parents. Since I was using my precious phone time, I called Luther and invited him too. He had been the only one on my list besides Benny.

Thursday, the 24th of August, Dad and I sat down with Mom and I told her the entire story. Dad's confirmation of my prediction of the Berlin Wall going up was a big help, but it was my sure knowledge of how the home run race ended up and that year's world series results that brought out her practical side.

"Dear, shouldn't you be planning a trip to Las Vegas or something?"

"What?" Dad stuttered.

"Well if you believe in what Sammy has told us, and he has given you that kind of information, shouldn't you be making bets or something?"

"But I know how much you hate gambling!"

"Well this isn't exactly gambling, now is it?" Mom answered with the utter logic only a mom can have.

So Dad began planning a trip, and so did I. My planning was hindered at first when Mom began attempting to outfit me for a safari to the plains of the Serengeti. I reminded her it was going to be horse camping, not the typical family car camping that she was used to. My horse was going to have to carry everything I packed.

Carrie called or came over practically every day to talk about what she would need, and to ask questions, which for the most part I had no answers for. To be fair, Benny was almost as bad. Finally, I called Joe and related my tale of woe. He put his Dad on the phone and he gave me the short list. A warm sleeping bag or trail blankets if we preferred. Along with that, two changes of clothes and a few spare pairs of socks and underwear. Denim jeans or other tough material suitable for being on horseback. Toothbrush and whatever other toiletries we felt we would need, walking shoes and swimming gear, and that was it.

Yes, Mr. Porter actually used the word toiletries.

I think the parents network went into high gear after my phone call, and the relevant moms were informed, because Mom stopped trying to get everything but the kitchen sink into my bag.

Friday afternoon at two, I finished my last day at Nileson's for the summer, and maybe forever. School would be starting the fifth of September, just after the Labor Day holiday, and in the intervening time I had a weekend camping trip, a birthday, and a Mom-sponsored shopping trip to Portland. This all took place during the glorious ten days off I would have between today and the fifth.

I got home, showered, changed into my camping clothes and had my already organized and packed bag on the front porch, and all in half an hour.

Mom dropped me off at the field. The three friends I'd invited, Benny, Carrie and Luther Harwell, were already there, and we were going to be picked up by the Porters. Benny had seen Carrie already since she had gotten back but Luther hadn't, so the two of them got caught up while we waited.

The wait wasn't very long, as The Porter's pickup, with Janet at the wheel and Joe in the seat beside her, pulled up only a few minutes later.

"Well, this'll be fun," Janet said with a snicker when she got a look at us. When I spotted the looks on both Joe and Carrie's faces, I suddenly had to agree. Especially when Joe abandoned his seat in the cab of the truck and jumped in the back with us.

Janet waited while we got ourselves and our bags arranged in the back of the truck, and then with a wave at the parents, we were off.

"So, you're a friend of Sam's?" Joe asked Carrie, who had managed to wind up sitting next to her. Luther answered before she did.

"Her, Sam and Benny have been like the three musketeers since they were in diapers. Right down to the all for one and one for all motto."

"One for all and all for one," Carrie, Benny and I corrected simultaneously, causing a round of laughter.

I saw Joe's attraction to Carrie, and realized that it appeared to be mutual and, from the way the two of them were acting, high-powered.

As we rode I wondered again about how so far I kept finding things that didn't happen in my first life not happening in the second one either, for different reasons. I was tempted to be a little put out at first, because of course I'd always believed that one day Carrie would be my girl. But I also had a little case of Greta on the brain, so the older me was able to peek through enough to keep the younger me from letting all those new emotions run away with us.

"Damn Joe," Luther added a few minutes later, "I think you and I have the two hottest older sisters in Oregon."

"You're the one?" Joe responded.

"I'm the one what?" Luther asked, confused.

"The first time Sam came out to the ranch with me, Janet picked us up like she did today, and he made some comment like — 'geez, why are all the older sisters of my friends so gorgeous.' or something like that. I'm guessing he must've meant your sister then."

That had everyone, but mostly Carrie and Benny, going on about the beauty of Celia Harwell. I tried to stay out of it entirely, not wanting to give Luther or anyone else more ammunition.

The arrival at the Porter ranch house was almost as interesting as the introductions at the field had been. Rose and Lily came running out and the two of them introduced themselves to Carrie, who they hadn't met yet at all, and reintroduced themselves to Luther and Benny, who had met them at the picnic after the big game. Greta arrived a moment later, and I swear that when Greta and Carrie spotted each other it was like an invisible force sprang up between them that prevented them from making contact, like trying to push two mismatched magnets together. Greta had an odd expression on her face, and when Joe introduced her, the expression altered, but didn't go away.

"Carrie, this is my younger sister Greta. Greta, this is Carrie Ralston. She, Sam and Benny have been like, best friends forever."

"You're the girl who was away for the summer?" Greta asked.

"Yes," Greta answered. "You're Joe's little sister?"

Carrie emphasized the word little, and Greta grinned at that. "Yeah, I'm about six months younger than Sam, and a year younger than Joe."

So it stayed a little silent in the truck for a moment, before Janet reminded us that we all had gear to get out of the truck, and we all got busy.

"Bring your stuff out to the horse barn," Greta said. "You'll be able to pick out a horse and get your stuff reloaded into the saddle bags."

The last time I had been here, I had seen a big log building going up on the other side of the horse barn from the house, and it looked pretty much finished on the outside now, though you could tell that things were still being done on the outside due to all the tools cords laying around it.

I had the feeling Mr. Porter was planning on running some sort of dude ranch or other tourist operation. The old me thought it was a pretty wise move. The Columbia River had gotten a lot of press in recent years, and there would be a lot of curious people who would be willing to come experience it.

-oOo-

The ride down to the river was nice, but I could have seen doing it early in the morning when it was cooler. By leaving in the middle of the afternoon, we bore the brunt of the day's heat, both from the sun, still high enough in the sky to be a factor, and from the heat of the ground, which had spent the day absorbing it, and which seemed to radiate it back up at us through the dust.

The dude ranch scenario for the Porter ranch seemed even more likely when we finally got across the highway and down to the river. A group of people had obviously arrived in advance of us, and tents and cooking gear had been stockpiled in the area we were going to be camping in. We were just off the edge of what I thought would have been the actual Hat Rock State Park, once they got around to creating it. We had a nice stand of black cottonwood for shade. The river itself looked inviting, but swimming was dangerous in the main current, even for strong swimmers, so we had to stick to the side shallows where the river's flow was slowed.

The supplies may have been delivered in advance, but we had to set up all our own gear, and there were some immediate discussions amongst the group as to who would be in what tents. It was going to be Joe and I in one tent and Luther and Benny in the other. The tents we had were actually big enough that all four of us guys could have slept in one of them, as much as Benny, Luther and I were used to making do during previous camp outs.

I confess as well that the thought of Carrie and Greta sharing a tent had me nervous as well.

The dinner on our second night, officially my 'birthday dinner' in fact, was prime rib roasted over the campfire, accompanied by sweet ears of Walla Walla Corn roasted right in the fire. The horseback riding, the canoe trip earlier in the day, even the laying in the sand soaking up the sun in the late afternoon was fun, though in a way I wasn't really used to.

At one point I sat in the afternoon sun, my back against an old snag of a tree trunk that had been captured and half buried by the sand. I was reading The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. It was my birthday present from Carrie, and though I had seen the Charlton Heston movie version in my first life, I'd never read the book.

I had been intrigued by the book from the moment I'd unwrapped it, and I might have kissed Carrie over it, but the looks I saw from both Joe and Greta, and the way Carrie pulled back from the hug more quickly than she might have in the past confirmed what I already suspected. I'd thanked her again out loud and told her I'd start reading it right away, which was what I was doing out here by myself.

Greta came walking up when I'd about gotten the first chapter read, wearing the aquamarine one piece swimsuit she'd worn for the canoing, along with a light open shirt as a cover up and a straw hat.

"Hi!" I said.

"Hi," she answered, suddenly shy. "Can I sit with you?"

"Sure!" I said, with totally unfeigned enthusiasm. I put in the fancy Indiana University Bookstore bookmark that had come with it and closed the book, setting it carefully on the towel I had brought with me.

"Is it a good book?"

"So far. Michaelangelo was an interesting guy, and those were very different times."

"I wouldn't have thought to buy you a present like that."

"You haven't known me as long. Carrie and I have been close friends for a long time, we know each other's likes and dislikes pretty well."

"I've only known Carrie for a few days, but I sure know one of her likes," Greta said with a certain conspiratorial tone to her voice.

"Yeah, I think your brother has stolen the girl I once thought was going to be my high school sweetheart."

"You see it too then? They went for a walk downriver a bit ago."

"I see it too. I'm not sure whether it was an at-first-sight thing with Joe, or whether there was something about the new me she didn't like."

"I think its a little of both. She keeps saying you're so tall now, and she doesn't smile when she says it."

That made me think. Joe was about as tall as I used to be before my growth spurt, and practically the first thing she'd said when we saw each other had been about my being so tall.

"I think you're right. Joe is as tall as I was at the beginning of the summer."

"Does it bother you then, Carrie and Joey?" Greta asked, and her tone changed completely then.

"No ... to be honest, No. Maybe in a little of the lost-dream sort of way, you know? The regret about something not happening that you thought would be good."

"Yeah, I can understand that."

"I might start to not miss it at all, maybe, if you decided you wanted to sit a little closer," I said. It was all the old man me could do to get the fourteen year old me to say it, but I got it out, and Greta gave me a wicked smile and slid over to sit beside me, close enough for me to slide my arm around her and let her lean in. We sat like that for several minutes in absolute silence, and for me at least, absolute bliss.

"I like tall boys," Greta said at last breaking the silence.

"Good," I said in return. "I like beautiful girls named Greta."

We did not have a make out session. We did find the opportunity to kiss a couple of times, but they were pretty chaste, but unhurried, at least until we heard the clanging of the dinner bell calling us to lunch. We both stood then, me grabbing my book and towel, and both of us dusting the sand off. Greta stepped in close for another kiss, and finally this one moved us beyond chaste, as we were pasted against each other with some heat and dueling tongues.

"Wow!" I said when it ended.

"Yeah," Greta agreed breathlessly. "I wanted to do that the first time."

To make sure there was no mystery remaining about the new situation, we walked back hand in hand. I saw the smile on Carrie's face, and the quickness with which she reached for Joe's hand right away. We were all smiles as we sat side by side, two couples together and friends, to chow down on our hamburgers.

We were back at the ranch and headed home Sunday night. I had a pretty normal Sunday supper with Mom, Dad and Ned, who had missed my two day absence as much as, if not more than my parents. He certainly was more transparent about it. My birthday was tomorrow, almost tonight, since I was born at 1:43 am, and Dad suggested that since I didn't have to work, we could do the family birthday celebration whenever I wanted.

"Breakfast," I said. "I'll get back from my run with Ned, shower and dress and enjoy breakfast and birthday all at once!"

I was sound asleep when 1:43 rolled around, and when it did, I was suddenly dreaming.

I was on that lonely dirt road, with the car sitting where I'd left it, the flat tire off and leaning beside it. The valley was as I remembered wishing it had been, covered in as light dusting of snow, reflecting the gleam of the full moon. I walked around the car, touching a fender with old-again hands. When I got back to the flat tire, a young, pale and thin boy was fitting the spare, rocking it back and forth into position.

"Here, let me give you a hand," I offered.

"That's okay, I almost have it. You have to watch out. Doing this could kill you."

When he turned to face me as he spoke, I saw it was me. The me I was back in May. The me I was in my first life, before I'd fallen back to 1961. Somehow I knew this was really me, or him rather. The boy whose body I shared this time around.

"Does it bother you?" I asked hesitantly.

"It was confusing at first, somehow not being quite me, or quite in control anymore."

"Do you understand what happened to us?"

"No, but its more than just you and me," he said, tightening the last nut and rising, looking for the hub cap.

"There's no hub cap. This old beater never had them," I said to stop him. "What do you mean its more than us?"

"There are others. Other Sam Kendalls."

"More Sams or more Sammies?" I asked.

More Sams, mostly, but I think there's another Sammy too. I can't tell."

"So you're the reason I remember what was supposed to be going on in my life so well?"

"Our life, and yes, my memories helped, but we're doing things that I can't help with now."

"Oh yes you can. Yes you are. Its your reactions that let this be a teenager living his life and not just an old man reliving one."

"Good. I'm liking this life, since you arrived. I've seen your memories of what happened the first time. I'm glad it didn't happen again."

I thought about what had happened over the summer, and the changes, both in our life and in ourselves.

"Do you think we've changed so much physically because of all the Sams and Sammies being in one body?"

"Maybe so. I don't know."

"Will I meet the others, like I'm meeting you?"

"I'm sure of it, in time," he said with a smile that seemed to be almost transparent. I could see the snow covered field behind him through it.

"When?"

"Happy Birthday!"

I woke with those words in my head and the sound of my alarm clock echoing it in my ears.

-oOo-

It was registration day for high school freshmen who hadn't attended Junior High in Hermiston. I was surprised by the number of us, seeing probably fifty or sixty kids lined up at the ten tables that represented the various options we had. Joe, Carrie, Greta and I tried hard to get into as many of the same classes as we could, but a lot of the classes were already full or close to it, having been filled by Hermiston kids who'd signed up for them the previous spring. The process was a blur, and an interesting one. Where we could, we signed all four of us up, and where we couldn't we signed up as couples. The exception was Phys Ed, where we had to sign up by gender, and Home Ec, which was a course that was only offered to girls, just like metal shop or mechanics would be for boys only when they were offered as elective classes next year.

I sighed. This might be the sixties, but it was still the stone age as far as women's rights and equality of the sexes went.

We did manage to get all of us into freshman English and Civics. Greta and I were also together in Science and freshman Math. Greta grumbled about that. She wanted to get into the algebra II class, but it was too full, and as a student who had already advanced a grade, the school was apparently intent on making sure she didn't take on too much too soon. I was thrust in on the old Sam Kendall's less than elegant mathematical coattails, so there was no question of advanced placement for me. I had been something of a poster boy for scholastic mediocrity in junior high.

Once we were signed up for our academic classes, those interested in sports were allowed to go talk to the coaches who were here. Joe, Luther and I were set on baseball tryouts later in the spring for sure, and football right away.

Only the coaches for the fall and winter sports were here, football, basketball, wrestling and cross country. I'd forgotten about cross country, and it was actually an even earlier sport than football.

Joe was determined, as I was, to participate in Football and baseball for sure. He thought he might like to try wrestling too, but it would be hard to do two winter sports at a time, and football required a lot of time.

All three of us were interested in football for sure, so we walked over to the coach together. He introduced himself as Coach Turner, and he was a large man, with a very military style flat-top haircut and a huge gut.

"Any of you boys play organized football before?" he asked after we'd given him our names.

"I have sir," Joe said. "Back in Illinois."

"Were you any good?" the coach asked, with semi-seriousness.

"I don't know sir. It was a small school, a lot smaller than here, and we played our games against a bunch of other small schools. We did pretty good though, the two years I played."

"Call me coach, no need to use sir with me," he said. "How about you two?"

"No coach," we both said at the same time.

"Just touch and flag football with our friends back home in Cold Lake," Luther added.

"Well, there's a big adjustment to suiting up in pads and a helmet and playing against others who have experience. Are you both sure you want to try?"

"Yes coach," we both said, again almost simultaneously.

"Alright. What positions were you thinking of trying out for?"

"Running back," Joe said.

"Safety," Luther said.

"Tight end," I said.

"We'll see," he said. "First practice is in three weeks. Any of you planning on trying out for cross country?"

I hadn't thought of it until then, but all the running I'd been doing with Ned had me feeling like it was at least worth a shot.

"I am coach," I said.

"You don't look like the cross country type," he said honestly.

"Well, I've been running three miles a day every day, and sometimes twice a day all summer. I wasn't doing it with cross country in mind, but it would be interesting to see if all that running has meant anything."

"You're going to have fun then, as our seasons overlap. Coach Reed and I have an agreement about students who want to do both. We'll let em, and if they're good at both, we'll work to make it possible, but if either coach says its a waste, you'll get dropped, faster than you would if it was your only sport. Understand?"

"Yes coach," I answered.

"Good, make sure to let Coach Reed know you've already talked to me and he won't give you the same lecture all over again, okay?"

"Okay coach."

We got a handful of forms to fill out and signed by our parents, a sheet with practice schedules and games dates, and then we were on our way. I still had to find coach Reed, so I promised I'd meet everyone out front when I was done.

Coach Reed was pretty much the exact opposite of coach Turner. He was tall and thin with a pronounced Adam's apple and glasses.

Practice for both sports had already started, even before school's first day, so I was going to be coming in late. I told coach Reed about football and having already talked to coach Turner, and he only asked me two questions.

"Have you been running this summer?"

"Yes coach, every day."

"How much did you run?"

"Three miles every day, and some days six."

"Okay, we have Saturday practice at ten am, see you tomorrow."

Oh crap, I hadn't even thought about having practice before the first day of school! It was a good thing we didn't have Labor Day weekend plans, but it was going to mean I had to break a promise to Greta.

I met everyone at the front of the school, and found Benny Argus there along with Erik Osterhaus and the Carmody brothers.

"You just missed Sissy Mitchell," Benny told me. "She had to leave right away."

I gave Greta a quick kiss, which the Carmody brothers found interesting.

"Sorry to break a promise, but I signed up for cross country as well as football, and there's a practice tomorrow at 10 in the morning, so I can't come over for lunch."

"Oh darn!" Greta offered with an exaggerated pout. "Luther said you were going to go out for it, but I didn't think it was going to mean something like this."

It does mean I'm going to be pretty busy after school and on weekends until football season is over. Can you handle that?"

"I think so," she answered, and glanced over at Carrie.

"Greta, Sissy and I signed up to try out for volleyball," Carrie teased. "We're going to be busy too."

"And I'm going to be in the marching band, I hope," Greta said, "so we'll be at a lot of the football games together."

My birthday present was my savior for that Saturday's practice. Mom and Dad had gotten me a Honda C100 motorcycle. This bike was going to become the biggest selling vehicle in the world, over time, and it was already known for being about as reliable as could be, and unlike a lot of the small two stroke scooters that predated it, you didn't need to premix the oil and gas.

With a top speed of barely 40 miles an hour, I'm sure Mom and Dad thought it was a safe transportation solution as well.

Although they weren't a legal requirement yet, and the models available were pretty clunky, A helmet came with it. It didn't have a full face shield, but had a built-in visor that came down below the eyes to help keep the wind out of your eyes. There hadn't been a leather jacket or anything, but I spent some of my hard earned money a few days later getting myself a nice leather bomber jacket to use as a riding jacket.

I had been amazed and very, very happy when I had been handed the keys and escorted out to the side of the house where it had been hidden. I had ridden to Hermiston and back several times, reveling in my new mobility. I had of course ridden to Bennie's, Carrie's and to the Porter ranch several times. Thank God gas was still cheap and the Super Cub used it efficiently!

I wore my running shorts and T shirt under my riding clothes, but packed a small backpack with my running shoes, a small towel and my boy scout canteen full of water and drove the route to Hermiston High Saturday morning, leaving at nine. It was only an eight or nine mile drive, and most of it was straight down the Hermiston Highway, but I was still unsure of the turns I needed to take once I got into Hermiston proper, so I wanted to give myself time, in case I made a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Even with the turns and parking, I was at the field a half an hour early, and I was surprised to see I wasn't the first one there. There were three guys there already stretching on the grass. I walked over and introduced myself.

"Good morning guys," I began. "I'm Sam Kendall, from Cold Lake."

"Ah, one of the farm boys. I'm Matt Thorsen," a lanky redhead said, holding out a hand. "These two are Boyd Curtis and Dave Beauchamps." Boyd was a little thick in the middle to be a runner I thought, but Dave looked like he might be a runner. I found out later that his last name, pronounced 'beacham', was spelled very differently, and he had an accent. He was from New Orleans, which he slurred into 'Nawlins' with his accent, which I found entertaining.

"I'm not a farm boy, but I am from farm country," I told them. "My Dad works for the State, he's a civil engineer."

"What does he do, exactly?" Boyd asked.

"He keeps track of all the stuff all the Columbia River bridge projects are doing, to make sure it doesn't have any bad effects that the State doesn't want. At least that's the short answer. He spends a lot of time in the boonies surveying and talking to the Army Corp of Engineers."

That was good enough for them, and with my riding clothes off and stowed, I began stretching out as well.

"You run much?" Matt asked.

"Every day, sometimes twice a day for the last three months or so."

"I mean in races," Matt corrected.

"No, never," I answered. "I've never even timed myself."

"Be sure to let coach know." Dave said. "He'll want to time you on a three mile run."

"Thanks coach, any other advice?" I said with a laugh. The three of them caught the good natured intent of it, and didn't take offense.

"Yeah," Boyd said. "Matt is a Junior, and the best runner on the team. Listen to him and you'll do okay."

With everyone stretched out, Matt led the three of us out onto the track to jog a little while we waited for everyone to show up. It didn't take long, and by the time the coach came out, there were a dozen of us on on the field or track. He blew his whistle and we all gathered around him.

"Okay people, we've got one new guy here, as I'm sure you've all noticed. His name is Sam Kendall and he's from Cold Lake. We have no times on him, so we're going to run him on a three mile interval and see how he does. The rest of you can run the course we've been running. Who wants to volunteer to help with Sam?"

Matt raised his hand immediately, and seeing that, no one else did.

"Okay, Matt, you can afford a day away from the routine. Everyone else, get running!"

With some humor, the other runners took off, headed towards the south end of the field. Coach Reed, Matt and I walked over to the starting line, marked by wooden posts in front of the grandstand.

"Twelve laps is three miles. Try to run a comfortable pace, but don't be a slacker! When you finish the twelve laps, keep running till I say stop," Coach held up the stopwatch above his head. "Go!"

I ran like I was running Ned, thinking I could maintain that pace for about as long as I wanted. We ran a full lap before Matt said anything.

"This is a good pace for a real marathon, you know, the whole 26 miles and 386 yards?"

"Yeah?"

"Too slow for the usual cross country run. Five Kilometers is a little bit more than three miles, did you know?"

"Yeah," I answered. "Is that the distance you usually run in cross country?"

"Yup."

"Okay." I picked up the pace then, running like I did on those days when I needed to get Ned run and back home so I wouldn't be late to something or another. We ran another full lap before Matt said anything else.

"Good. Good pace. Lets keep it and see how far we can go with it."

"Uh huh," I said. Talking wasn't so easy at this pace.

We ran the rest of the twelve laps in silence, only hearing Coach Reed's hollered 'Mark!' as we finished the twelfth lap. Matt picked up the pace, and I struggled to stay with him and then decided it was stupid to try. I dropped back to the same pace I'd just been running and ran two more laps before I heard the coach call stop.

I was breathing pretty hard and those last two laps had really gotten my lungs burning.

"Stretch out and stay loose," Coach told me. "Don't sit down."

"Lungs on fire?" Matt asked me as he stretched beside me.

"Yeah, those last two laps really did it to me."

"It wasn't the two laps, it was just that little stretch where you tried to follow me. You hit your limit. You'll stretch that limit out, I guarantee it."

Most of the rest of the team were back from their run by the time we were cooled down. I went over to my pack and brought out my canteen and took a sip of water.

"That's always a good idea in this heat, just remember not to guzzle it," Coach said. Once we were all together, he announced the results.

"Well team, I'm pleased to tell you that your new team mate, assuming he can run across open ground as well as he did on the track, is already capable of beating everyone of you except for Matt, Boyd and Steve, and Steve is going to have to work hard if he wants to remain our number three runner."

I wondered for a second who Steve was, but didn't have to wonder long as I spotted a kid with glasses and a John Deere baseball cap glaring at me. I didn't think much about it, but in the parking lot, he made sure to stop and make a comment about my bike.

"Geez, what kind of pussy motorcycle is this?" he said loudly, laughing and pointing at it. "You can't even hear it running!"

Matt, whose car I had parked next to, since it had been the only one in the lot when I got there, started to turn to say something, but I jumped in first.

"This is a birthday present, and I've had it for less than a week," I explained. "I'm only fourteen, and the state says I can't legally drive anything more powerful. The reason its so quite is that it has a four cycle engine instead of those two stroke lawnmower engines you're used to. I'll be happy to ride it until I'm old enough to drive a car, and your opinion of it, not being my parents or my girlfriend, doesn't mean anything to me."

"Glad to see you aren't going to let Jackson bother you," Matt said from over the hood of his car. "See you Tuesday."

We didn't train on Sundays, and we had practice before school every day of the week, unless we had a meet, which were usually on Saturday. We were expected to run at least three miles every Sunday on our own. I wasn't going to see Steve Jackson again until Monday, but I didn't need to wait until then to know I had made my first enemy at Hermiston High. 



-------

Chapter 7: Article of Faith


Having my bike made getting to school and back pretty easy. Except for those rare days when the weather was nasty, I had no problem. September in the high desert of Eastern Oregon was not exactly prone to bad weather, so I hadn't faced that dilemma yet.

Cross country practice proved to me that I was fast enough for the team, but I still had a few things to learn. The course we ran here ran through much of the artificial parks and green spaces that Hermiston had, but most of it was flat and brown, just like the rest of the countryside this time of year. Matt was a definite resource, explaining about route markers and picking routes.

"That's what makes cross country so interesting for me," Matt told me. "Nobody has to run exactly the same route in a race, and the route you wind up running can definitely make a difference."

Our course included a stretch that went down into a ravine and then back up and along it, and I could see we would have an advantage over visiting teams, once we were familiar with it. Just as they would have an advantage when we were running on their home course.

Steve Jackson was still going out of his way to be unpleasant to me, and he soon had an unexpected ally. On the first day of classes, I found Carrie cornered at the freshman lockers by Burt Thompson. I walked over quickly and stood beside her.

"Burt, you might want to get out of this girl's face before her boyfriend sees you."

"Really asshole, what are you going to do about it?" Burt said before turning my way. He'd recognized my voice, but I had the pleasure of seeing yet another reaction to my summertime metamorphosis. "Geez Kendall, what the hell happened to you?"

"Clean living," I told him, causing Carrie to giggle. Joe arrived about that time and slid up to Carrie on the other side and slid an arm around her shoulder.

Carrie dropped a brief kiss on his cheek and offered a soft '"hi sweetie."

"Who's this?" Joe asked.

"This sophomore is Burt Thompson. He seems to think that Carrie would make a good girlfriend," I answered, emphasizing the sophomore part.

"Ah, well too bad she's already got a boyfriend, huh?"

"Who the hell are you?" Burt said incredulously.

"He's my brother," came Greta's voice as she slid up beside me and slid an arm around my waist. "Joe Porter's his name. I'm his sister Greta. I believe you've met my boyfriend Sam?"

Greta's spiel was said with such an artificial air of elegance and 'high society' politeness that after a moment of stunned silence, the four of us all burst into laughter. As Burt stormed off, I spotted Steve Jackson in the crowd, glaring at me. I'd forgotten Burt, but I wasn't about to forget Steve. I had two enemies at Hermiston High, not one. Lovely. First day of school, with not so much as even a single class under out belts and we'd had an unpleasant run in.

We hardly had time to make anything of it, as we were all due in first period freshman English. It was one of the classes that the four of us shared, and it was the reason we were all collected together at the lockers first thing in the morning.

"We'd better get to class before the bell rings," Carrie suggested.

"Where's room 111?" Joe asked. Greta and I stared blankly in return, but Carrie 'harrumphed' at the three of us.

"Am I the only one who spent time making sure they knew where the classrooms were?"

We just nodded and followed Carrie to class.

Freshman English, it turned out was really 'English Composition', so we were instructed by Mrs. Irving, the teacher. Our seating assignments were alphabetical, and I was several chairs and several rows away from Greta, Joe and Carrie. Bennie, having the distinction of being the only student in the class with a last name starting with 'A', had the front left corner desk. Being from a publishing family, this seemed somehow appropriate.

The first thing Mrs. Irving wanted to do was get a sample of everyone's handwriting. In these days before the home computer, handwriting and penmanship were still an important thing.

I had already discovered that I still had the smooth and relaxed hand that I remembered from the end of my first life. Having never been much of a one for computers, I had stuck to pen and paper for most things, and I brought a lifetime's practice to class with me. My handwriting may not have been beautiful, as some of the girl's practiced scripts were, but it was clean and efficient.

To get a handwriting sample, Mrs. Irving asked us each to write a paragraph of whatever we wanted. It could be a poem, or a quote or from something we read. I wrote out the second paragraph of The Agony and the Ecstasy, which I had finished reading just the day before.

"I'm not well designed" thought the thirteen year old with serious
concentration. "My head is out of rule, with the fore
overweighing my mouth and chin. Someone should have used a plumb
line." Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy

That paragraph, peeking into the thoughts of Michaelangelo as a boy my own age, had pulled me in and captivated me.

We handed in our samples, and moved on to a discussion of Mrs. Irving's expectations. She expected each of us to be able to construct a sentence properly, to be able to critically deconstruct any sentence we were given, and to be able to discuss the parts of the sentence intelligently. This was our goal for the end of the year.

Unlike many of the classes we would take, this class would last the entire year, and we would get credit for each semester of it. I felt it would be good review for me, and I had every intention of paying far more attention this time through. I had fallen in love with reading the first time, but had barely paid attention to the rules of English, because of course, they were rules, and thus something to be ignored.

We were issued text books, and told that we would need a notebook, dedicated completely to this class. We would learn to build sentences by writing, we were told. Letters, articles and stories.

"You will not have to worry about being judged on the quality of the story," Mrs. Irving said. "You can worry about that if you wind up taking Creative Writing as an elective."

Freshman Math was next, and the class was on the other side of the school building. Carrie wasn't in this class with me, but Greta and Bennie were, and fortunately, Bennie had also had the sense to scout out the classrooms in advance.

This class was officially Algebra I. Greta was still grumbling about not getting into Algebra II.

Ten minutes into class, she stopped grumbling, or else I was too busy to hear it. Mr. Halsey, the teacher wasted no time and had us scrambling to solve an equation he had written on the board, telling us we were free to use our text books if we needed to. He let us founder for another ten minutes, and then began talking and writing on the chalk board. I was scribbling down everything he wrote like mad while trying to make sense of what he said at the same time.

I was just about to surrender when he stopped talking.

"Alright, let me repeat all that a little more slowly," he said, and he did, going over everything he'd just said, pointing at what he'd written as he got to it, and I began to see what he was talking about a little, and how it might apply to the equation we were first given. I was finally able to glance over at Greta and saw her grinning, so I knew she had it, and probably far better than I did.

We had not been given seating assignments in this class, so Benny, Greta and I were sitting together in the middle of the room, with Greta in between us. I glanced past Greta at Bennie, and he seemed to be concentrating pretty hard, but didn't look scared or lost, so I concentrated back on Mr. Halsey and the equation. I had a solution for it now, but I looked over everything on the board again and my notes to see if I could see something that looked wrong.

"How many of you think you have the answer?" he asked at last. I raised my hand along with Greta and a slightly hesitant Bennie. Four others had their hands raised as well.

"Everyone with their hand raised, write your answer in large letters in your notebook," he said, and then after a pause, "now, without looking around, hold them up in the air so I can see them."

I held my notebook up for what seemed to be quite a while until Mr. Halsey finally told us to lower them.

"Half of you got that right, and two of those who didn't probably made a common mistake."

He wrote the number 47 on the chalk board as he said this, and that was the answer I had written. I saw Greta's grin and knew she'd gotten it right as well.

For the rest of the class, Mr. Halsey talked about Algebra, and how we all used it in our day to day lives without realizing it. I got the impression he was really speaking to the rest of the class, the part that hadn't raised their hands. He talked about variables, and that they were really common and shouldn't be something to be feared.

"In the basic math that you've already learned, the answer was the only part of the question that was unknown," He said. "In algebra, we will learn how to answer questions when even some of the question is unknown."

He gave us examples from life of things we did every day like shopping or fixing things around the house, or even playing sports where we had to solve for an unknown, and had most of us shaking our heads at how familiar these examples of the dreaded algebra were.

"Most of what you will really learn in this class is logic, deduction and pattern recognition," Mr. Halsey said just as the bell was ringing to signal the end of class. "It is building new tools to let you use the math you already know."

All of us except Bennie had American History in room 115, back on the other side of the building, so we rushed to make class, but as we went, Greta said what I was thinking.

"I think we're going to consider ourselves lucky to have had this man for a teacher before we're done - he is going to be a great teacher."

We had Luther Harwell and Sissy Mitchell join us for American History, and as interesting and dynamic as Math promised to be, American History promised to be the antithesis. Mr. Spier spoke in a dull drone that was almost sleep-inducing. At the same time, he seemed interested in reciting dates and events, but left our textbooks and assigned reading to weave it all into some semblance of a narrative for us.

Lunch followed American History, and since the cafeteria was only a couple of doors away from our locker area, we dropped our books off first, collecting Carrie and Joe in the process, and then headed for the food!

Hermiston High wasn't so big that it needed to have staggered lunch hours, but it was big enough that the lunch room was packed. There were as many kids attending here from outside of Hermiston proper as there were from the city itself. Going home for lunch was not an option for most of them, and freshman and sophomores are pretty limited in their lunchtime transportation options.

The mix, from 14 year old freshman to seventeen and eighteen year old seniors made it interesting at lunch time. The seniors had their own section of tables, as did the lettermen and cheerleaders. I looked for, but didn't see Matt Thorson, the only upperclassman that I knew so far. I didn't see him, but I did see Dave Beauchamps, and gave him a nod. The freshman section of tables, or at least the unclaimed seating appeared to be in a far corner section, and we headed that way as a group, but I made sure we passed by Dave's table as we did.

"Hey Kendall, how's it going?" Dave said as we drew near.

"Pretty good so far, for the first day," I answered.

"These all your fellow — what do you call yourselves? Cold Lakians?"

"I don't think I've ever heard anyone ever refers to us collectively," Carrie said.

"I've heard the Mayor say 'Citizens of Cold Lake' once, when he was making a speech," Bennie said, "but I'm not sure either, and I should know if there was a collective term."

"Well, you Cold Lakers better just grab a table today, but we'll see if we can integrate you in with some of the cross country team tomorrow okay?" Dave said.

"Sounds good," I said with a smile.

We did find an empty table, and arranged ourselves at it. A few other Cold Lake kids spotted us as they came through the line, and we added them to the mix. I spotted Dale and Leo Carmody sitting at a table with some kids I didn't recognize, and asked Luther if he knew who they were.

"Not sure, but I think those are the infamous cousins that they're always hanging with."

Lunch was some sort of chicken casserole, some green beans, a slice of bread and some fruit cocktail, and it was all purchased with punches from a 'lunch ticket' that I'd had to buy before school started. Keeping a home made lunch from going bad had seemed like it would be an issue to me, so I hadn't thought of trying it, and Mom and Dad considered school lunches as a cost of doing business in the enterprise they called 'Raising Sammy', so I accepted it for what it was and hoped my teenage stomach could handle it.

Joe, Luther and I had had our schedules changed after we'd registered for classes, moving us into the 7th period Phys Ed class. This was something that was done for everyone who went out for football, and allowed football practice to start before the end of school so that we could actually get home at a reasonable hour.

I had registered for one of the few electives available to freshmen, but that had been axed as well in favor of 6th period study hall. It was felt that football players needed in-school time to complete their homework assignments, apparently. I only had one actual class after lunch and that was 5th period Earth Science with Mr. Akins in room 163. Carrie and Joe were in the class with me, but Greta was still in French I, the elective class that we'd both signed up for.

Earth Science looked like it was going to wind up being somewhere between interesting and boring. The teacher seemed capable of generating some interest, but I didn't expect to be taught anything in this class that I didn't already know. This was an area that had been a strength in my old life. Mr. Akins himself might be fun. He cranked out several truly atrocious puns in the first class, and if that was a sign of things to come, I would not be totally bored in class.

The study hall was full of football players, and this first day I was content to actually get my homework done as soon as we got there. There was little to do at this point, mostly some reading for history, and our first assignment in English, which was to create a profile of ourselves using one of the examples in our textbook as a model. It amounted to a fill-in-the-blanks exercise more than anything, but it was a launching pad to other more complex assignments.

There was no math homework, but I read the first three chapters of the text and did the exercises at the ends of each of them. It was old, familiar-yet-unfamiliar territory. The old me had forgotten what he knew of it decades ago, and the young me was seeing it for the first time. Even so, I seemed to be finding understanding pretty quickly. Maybe the two minds had a little of the two brains working for them. I read the first two chapters of the science text as well, just to see what it looked like.

There appeared to be a conspiracy afoot, because the study hall teacher told all of the football players that they were dismissed to the gym fifteen minutes before the end of the period. We took off en masse, admonished to do so quietly, and I asked one of the older looking guys nearby if it was always going to be like this.

"Except for any boneheads who really need the study time, it probably will, yeah," he said, followed by, "who're you?"

"Sam Kendall, freshman from Cold Lake and prospective tight end sir!" I said with a salute, which got me a grin in return.

"At ease, Kendall. I'm Jake Warner, left offensive end."

"Nice to meet you," I replied, holding out my hand. We shook awkwardly, doing it as we walked.

"You always do that?" Jake asked.

"Try to. One of Dad's rules when I turned twelve."

"If you wanna be treated like an adult, you have to act like one?"

"Yup. You too?"

"Amongst other things."

There was not a separate locker room for football, so we had to change in the regular gym locker room. The sixth period gym class just getting out had to share the room with us while they changed to go to their last class of the day. I, of course, had nothing to change into yet. I heard Coach Turner call my name, along with a dozen others, including Joe and Luther, and ask us to follow him.

We gathered, at the coach's direction, around a pile of pads, jerseys, helmets and other gear. The stuff in the pile did not look to be in very good shape.

"You men are trying out for the team, and until you make the team, you will have to make do with the gear you find here, unless you brought your own pads?"

Nobody nodded in the affirmative to that, so the coach continued.

"Get geared up and report to Coach Barnes on the field. Those of you who have experience with this stuff help those who don't. If I find anything that's on incorrectly, I'll ask that person who helped them, and that person will run laps. Clear?"

"Yes Coach!" we all yelled.

Joe, along with about half the guys in our group had experience with the gear, and we spent more time sorting out appropriate sizes than we did getting it on. Joe was explaining to those clustered around him as he went why things went where they did, and why the order of some things was important. I had a helmet that fit decently, but the jerseys were all either too tight or too loose, so I settled for too loose.

When we were done, Joe and the other guys all checked each other's work, and when they were all happy, we trotted out to the field. Most of those with actual uniforms were already out there stretching out and getting warm. We saw maybe half a dozen men beside Coach turner on the field wearing white polo shirts and red shorts and baseball caps.

"Anyone know which one is Barnes?" Joe asked. One of the guys pointed to a short, barrel-bodied man standing near the sidelines. We ran over to him and stopped.

"Anyone else still in the locker room?" he asked.

"No Coach," the one who had pointed the coach out answered.

"Okay. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Coach Barnes. You will address me as Coach or Coach Barnes, nothing else. Understood?"

"Yes Coach!" we once again yelled in unison.

"Alright. Our first goal is to get you all warmed up and stretched out, then we're going to have you all do a little running to see how fast you are."

We were soon paired up and running through a series of stretches and exercises. We did that for about ten minutes before the coach blew his whistle had got us all back over by the sidelines. We were joined by four students wearing white t shirts and the same red shorts and caps as the coaches.

"Just to be clear, anyone in a polo shirt, cap, shorts and whistle is a coach. Anyone in a t shirt, cap and shorts is a coach's aide. You mess with my aides, you mess with me. Understand?"

"Yes Coach!" came the soon-to-be familiar reply, and with that we were lined up in two lines, and we began running sprints, with a pair of the aides taking notes on a couple of clipboards alongside the coach and two others with stopwatches and clipboards at the other end of the route, which, based on the markings on the field, figured to be about 40 yards.

The guy who was beside me in line definitely looked like he wasn't going to be trying out for any of the speed positions, and I finished my forty more than a few steps ahead of him. Whistles blew, stopwatches were clicked and notes were scribbled, and when the dust cleared? Well, we just moved on to something else.

"Who here can show me the sidestep?" Coach asked. Joe and the other experienced guys raised there hands. Coach pointed at one of them.

"What's your name son?"

"Petro, sir. Dave Petro."

"Okay Petro, go on the whistle and stop when you hear it again."

We all watched as he ran sideways when the whistle blew, legs crossing in an odd scissor motion. When the whistle blew again, the coach got us lined up in rows, an arms length apart.

"When I blow the whistle, you run left like you just saw Petro demonstrate. When I blow the whistle again, you change directions and go right. Every time you hear the whistle, you stop and reverse direction. Got it?"

"Yes Coach!" came the already automatic reply.

We ran through a half dozen different exercises, some of which required strength, some agility and some requiring both. By the time we were done, everyone was sweating pretty good and a couple of the guys looked ready to drop.

"Alright. Give me laps around the field. If you can't keep going, drop out, otherwise we'll tell you when to stop."

I picked up my Ned-running pace and kept it for the two laps. Two of the guys, the ones who'd looked fatigued before the run started, didn't even make it the two laps. My sprinting partner was one of them. Luther, Joe and two other guys kept up with me for the two laps, and another three afterwards. As we crossed the starting point in a group, the coach called out.

"Last lap, as fast as you can!"

I kicked it into high gear, and Joe stayed with me for a quarter lap. I felt for another gear to go to and found it, leaving Joe behind. I crossed the finish line a good ten body lengths in front of him, but man did my lungs burn!

Two of the aides were there with cups of water and towels, and I sipped my water gratefully and threw the towel over my head to shade my neck from the sun. I saw the rest of the aides scribbling furiously.

Once we'd all cooled down, the Coach called us together. There was a new coach with him.

"Alright, Welch and Parker, hands up." The two who had dropped out before finishing the two laps raised their hands. "Sorry men, but you didn't make the cut. Coach Turner needs a certain level of conditioning from his players, and you two just aren't there."

You could see the disappointment in the two faces, but Coach Barnes threw them a bone.

"Listen, we appreciate the effort you put into it, and if you come to tryouts next year in better shape, you'll get another look with a clean slate, okay?"

That did seem to make the two of them feel a little better, and they got a good send off from the rest of us. They really had tried hard, they hadn't been dogging it.

"Alright, those who are wanting to try out for offense, form up on my right. Those who want defense, form up on my left. Pick one, even if you think you might be able to play both. We'll find out more as we go along."

I moved over to the offensive side along with Joe, and watched Luther move over to the defensive side.

"Defensive players, you'll be coming with me. Offensive players, this is Coach Roberts. You're his worry now," Coach Barnes said with a grin before he began jogging across the field, his group in tow, to join a larger group. He moved surprisingly well, I thought, for someone his size and shape.

"As offensive players, you are either going to be what are called 'skill positions or line positions. Skill positions are; quarterback, fullback, halfback, wide receiver and tight end. Tight ends will get a little of both, but for normal purposes, it is also a skill position."

I nodded my head at that. It made sense. I would frequently have to be a blocker.

"The offense conditions together, we study together and we train together," Coach Roberts continued. "Every position in our offense is a skill position. If you cannot play your position with skill, we will find someone else who can. We will work hard to teach you the skills you need, and we expect you to work hard to learn them."

The coach was really getting into lecture mode now. He was actually pacing back and forth as he spoke.

"Beyond that, your job is not just to learn what we are trying to teach you, your job is to assist your teammates wherever and whenever you can to help them learn what they need to know. You can compete for a position, but if you aren't also working to help your competitors succeed, you are not doing everything you can for the team."

He stopped then and gave us the classic hands on hips pose.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes Coach!" we screamed.

"Very good. Keep the gear you've got on now, you'll be getting replacements, but it may not be right away. Kendall and Wilkins, please remain, the rest of you can hit the showers, that's it for the day."

Coach Roberts stared at his clipboard until the rest of the group was gone.

"Wilkins, our records show that you played quarterback last year for the school you were at. Is that true?"

"Yes Coach," Wilkins replied. "But I was only the third string back up."

"Didn't your team win your conference last year?" Coach asked.

"Yes Coach."

"Well our backup quarterback moved to Montana of all places, and our third string quarterback from last year graduated. Coach Turner appreciates your desire to play wide receiver, but wants you to try out for quarterback as well. You okay with that?"

"Sure, I'll give it a shot."

"Okay. Kendall, you listed Tight end, and you look like you've got the size for it, but based on the times you've turned in today Coach Turner wants you to try out for wide receiver as well. You okay with that?"

"Sure," I said.

"Shower up men. We'll see you tomorrow." With that, Coach Roberts turned and walked away.

"Sam Kendall," I said to my teammate and competitor, offering my hand as we walked towards the gym.

"Wade Wilkins." He said as we shook.

"Where did you go to school before here?" I asked.

"Ukiah, California," Wade said. "The Wildcats. Our starting quarterback last year was a freshman like I was, and really, really good. I didn't see myself having much chance to start there, and I'd given up on the idea of even being a quarterback by the time we got here, so I tried out for receiver instead."

"We didn't get to see our times, so I have no idea how our speeds compare, but I really do hope they decide that they need you at tight end, I'd sort of been hoping to be able to avoid the whole 'leader' thing that quarterbacking always demands."

I just looked at him without commenting, and that was enough to get him to expand on the thought.

"Not that I can't take on the role, I can, I was just looking forward to the lack of stress," he explained.

"Wait until the first time someone like Luther Harwell knocks you on your ass a split second after you've touched the ball," I answered with a grin. "You can talk to me about the lack of stress then."

I was tempted, once I got out of the locker room, to ride over to the Porters ranch, but I figured I had parents at home dying to hear about my first day, and a dog anxious to see me, so I headed home.

Dad was interested in the sports report, but asked about the classes first. Mom was interested in those, and in my general reactions to being in high school. I covered the essentials, though I didn't mention Burt Thompson or Steve Jackson. I told them about the classes, the teachers and the adjustment my schedule already had to undergo in order to accommodate football.

I took Ned for a nice run after that, wondering how I was going to manage getting him his exercise once I got truly busy at the beginning and end of every day. I was thinking I might have to ride the Super Cub to take him for his run before cross country practice. I would have to be really careful if I did, to make sure he didn't get in the habit of following it at other times.

I called Greta before dinner, and we spent a good fifteen minutes on the phone, only stopping when Mom called me to the table to eat.




-------

Chapter 8: Romance Lives


Life and school quickly slipped into a pattern. Not a comfortable pattern. Nothing could be comfortable that had football practice as a part of it.

The classes were fine, and after a week, I had decided I was going to like my English class more than Math, despite my initial impression. Mr. Halsey didn't fade, rather Mrs. Irving came on strong.

We had our first cross country meet the weekend after school started. It felt strange the first time, to be wearing the red and white colors of the Hermiston Bulldogs. We ran our own course, one I'd now run almost every day for a week. Our opponents were Stanfield, and I placed seventh.

I became intimately familiar with the ravine section of the course when Steve Jackson bumped me off the trail and down a twelve foot embankment. His timing was perfect, except for a single Stanfield runner who witnessed it, we had been alone. I managed to slide down to the bottom of the drop without injury, and begin picking my way along the bottom looking for an easy way up and back on course. I finally had to double back a little and crawl back up the sides of the ravine a hundred yards back from where I'd been knocked in.

I should have finished fifth at the very least. Stanfield only had one runner whose times were better than mine, so even if Steve Jackson had managed to finish ahead of me this time, a result I thought was unlikely, I would have only had Matt and Boyd from our team ahead of me, and the Stanfield runner. If Jackson had beaten me, fifth. Otherwise fourth.

Once I'd crossed the finish line, and received the glad greetings from Greta and my folks, I gathered with the rest of the team to wait for Coach Reed. I walked up to Jackson with my hands clasped behind my back. I wanted no mistake about who started it if he decided to be violent, not that I expected it.

"Congratulations Jackson." I said.

"What? Get away from me asshole," he said dismissively.

"No, I really want to congratulate you for your race smarts," I said. "The first race of the year was the right time to make that move. Congratulations on trading a fourth place finish today for a guaranteed finish behind me in every race we run in the rest of the year."

"Yeah, right," he sneered.

"No, I mean it. I was going to spend my time this fall concentrating on football, and letting the chips fall where they may in cross country, but now I'm motivated. You've motivated me."

That was all there was time for before Coach Reed was calling for our attention. Boyd and two of our other runners had listened in with interest. Coach congratulated Matt for the best time of the day, and Boyd for finishing second in a personal best time so far.

Greta came home with us for lunch, and she got a tour of the neighborhood, including a leisurely walk with Ned and I to the spot. It was still pleasant enough, but there were a couple of younger kids there already, so we didn't linger, though Ned did get a couple of good splashes in. Later, Greta and I got some good kissing in, and even a few instances of wandering hands were recorded as successful. Dad and I dropped her off at the ranch just before dinner, and there was a much more chaste kiss executed on the Porter front porch.

True to my prediction, Steve Jackson never finished ahead of me again, and as the season progressed, I pulled further and further ahead of him, to the point that I was beginning to think I might be able to catch Boyd one of these days. The season ended before I could though, and Boyd was a Senior. He escaped before I could catch him.

Football was another story. I was both more and less successful on the old gridiron. I had a lot to overcome as a player, not being familiar with the game in either life. What I did have was speed, and enough speed that it was surprising to me. I also had quickness, Coach Roberts reminded me.

"It is one thing to have quickness, Kendall, and another thing entirely to be quick," Coach would yell at me. "You are born having quickness, but you must be taught to be quick."

There was only one other receiver who could match my times in the forty, and I was several inches taller than him. Wade Wilkins wasn't as fast as either of us, but he had good moves, and as a quarterback, already had a better understanding of routes and patterns than I did.

Assuming I could learn to play the position, the tight end job was mine. There were no other contenders, and besides myself, the only person getting time at the position was last year's backup halfback, a guy named Greg Blake.

I was a source of great frustration for the coaches, my not having played and my unfamiliarity with even the basic terminology of some of the things I needed to know.

I studied football like I was studying algebra. It was a foreign language, only casually related to other things I knew, but it was a language I was determined to master as quickly as possible.

Yes, the question had been answered. I not only didn't mind the contact, I seemed to thrive on it.

I may have been struggling to learn something new, but Joe was truly in his element. He was already pushing the returning halfback from last year's team, and was guaranteed to get a lot of time this year.

Wade Wilkins may have already proved himself too valuable at quarterback to remain in the hunt for a job at receiver. Two days before our first game he was officially moved into the number two quarterback spot.

I had three basic routes in our offense, and our first game against the Pendleton Buckaroos, I got to run all three of them multiple times. All three were deep routes, and the idea was to try to take advantage of my speed and height and get behind the defense, and then just reach up and make the catch over them. My primary pattern was called 'Rail 1' in our offense, and it was me streaking down the sideline at top speed for thirty yards. If I was open I was supposed to turn and look for the ball, and if I wasn't, I was supposed to run another ten and look again.

The Buckaroo defensive line was massive. The average weight and height was quite a bit greater than ours, but their secondary was slower and too small. I caught three passes, each one for over thirty yards, the last one for a touchdown, as I kept running another twenty yards when the safety made a desperate gamble and missed the tackle. The pressure on our quarterback kept the aerial onslaught from dominating though, and the running backs had a hard time getting past the line of scrimmage. When they did get past, they had some significant runs, as once again speed was on our side. I caught one pass from the tight end position for a short gain, but it was the only play I got in at the position. I was still too new to the blocking schemes. We won 17-13.

Being on the football team was an automatic entry into the upper levels of Hermiston High society, and having a touchdown in our first game added to that glamor. Cheerleaders became our friends, and I'm sure that if Joe and I didn't so obviously have girlfriends, some of them would have been willing to be more than friends.

Social acceptance meant we were expected to attend things like dances and parties. Dances I was willing to consider, but parties, especially non-freshmen parties had me concerned. Greta shared my concern, as did Carrie. If we hadn't been there to suggest otherwise, I think Joe's natural inclination would have been to go and do whatever was offered.

What was a definite yes was the Columbus Day Dance. This was the first official school dance of the year, and it was seen as setting the tone for the school year, socially. Greta and Carrie were dieing to go, and to be honest, I was looking forward to it as well. I even had a new suit to wear.

Included in the information that I'd received from Coach Turner on registration day, was a note listing items required for participation. All traveling athletes were required to wear a suit jacket, white shirt and tie. We headed for Portland at the first opportunity and after an early breakfast and a long drive, arrived downtown just in time for lunch at the Aladdin in the Lloyd Center.

The Lloyd Center had opened in Portland in August of the previous year, and the JC Penney there was our first stop. An off-the-rack suit for travel was item number one on our list, and the suit I got was loose enough on me that we all hoped it might still be usable the following year, though with the way I'd grown this year, who knew what size I'd be next year. I got a decent charcoal gray suit and several serviceable white shirts to go with it, as well as a couple of ties.

For my good suit, the one to wear to dances and other social events, we went to a store called Estes. I spent the afternoon getting fitted for a suit, this one a dark gray suit, almost black. The suit was going to be made in such a way that there would be plenty of room to let it out as I grew, but there was only so much growing room that could be built in, so again we had our fingers crossed. I was totally amazed at the differences in the kinds of service we received at Estes. The people at JC Penney had seemed knowledgeable until I'd had the tailors at Estes to compare them to. The tailor who fit me for my trousers even spoke of customizing the fit to accommodate my 'package'. I'd never even considered the possibility.

No, never in my first life had I ever had a tailor-made, custom-fitted suit. I was never that kind of guy. Even the suit I got married in was off the rack.

Ties, shoes, socks, even a hat, which I didn't think I'd ever wear, were part of the ensemble.

The Columbus Day Dance was a jewel suspended in the middle of a momentous nine day stretch at the beginning of October. On October 1st, the last day of the regular season, Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's home run record, hitting number 61 against the Yankees greatest foes the Boston Red Sox. Dad had placed dozens of bets, the largest of which were in Las Vegas, and he had expressed a lot of faith in me, he'd bet everything he could. When it was all said and done, he'd won 30,000 dollars. Only the Vegas bets had to have taxes paid on them, and the 30,000 figure was after taxes. Dad was grinning like mad, and he took half the winnings and immediately began making World Series bets everywhere he could, adding to the bets he had already made.

On October 4th, the day before the dance, The Yankees won game one, as Whitey Ford pitched a 2-0 shutout against the Cincinnati Reds. The next day the Reds would even it up, winning by a 6-2 margin. Even the three Yankee errors couldn't be blamed for the difference, and everyone began talking about a back and forth series that would be won at the wire in game seven. Dad and I knew better.

The game was a secondary concern that day. The dance was held in the gym, and the cheerleaders and the football and cross country teams had been recruited to decorate the gym. That meant a fake set of ships and sails along one wall of the gym to represent Columbus' ships, and some tacky 1960's style Indians and their accessories.

Freshmen are ever cursed to need rides to such things, and unfortunately for us, the only older sibling also going to the dance was Janet, Greta and Joe's older sister who was a senior. Since her date was picking her up, we had no fellow student transportation, so we had to settle for a parent. We had let them fight it out, but in the end Mrs. Porter did the driving, using the Porter's almost brand new Ford Econoline Station Bus. The Station Bus was essentially the Ford panel van with windows along both sides and passenger seats installed. It could very easily haul the four of us along with Bennie and Sissy Mitchel, who were riding with us.

Its funny, but it was the cars that kept me thinking I was in an old movie. The clothes, the haircuts, the music, everything spoke to the time I was in, but it was the cars I really noticed.

since Carrie and I were neighbors, Mrs. Porter brought Joe to pick her up first, and then they picked me up. I rode with Mrs. Porter up front at first, because we were going to be picking Greta up back at the ranch. The Mom's had all decided that none of their daughters were going to get shortchanged on the experience of being picked up by their dates.

Carrie was gorgeous, and Joe was beaming, and sweating bullets at the same time. Carrie's dress was cut low enough to display some pretty firm-looking evidence of her femininity. Joe was trying to keep his eyes from tracking in the wrong direction, but it appeared to be a loosing battle.

Bennie was next, and he hopped in as we drove over to the Mitchell's, which was just a short distance away down Burnside. We waited patiently as Bennie went to the door, and there was the obligatory pause as Mrs. Mitchell took pictures.

"Don't worry Sammy," Mrs. Mitchell said as the flashbulbs going off flared through the living room window, "you'll be getting the same deal shortly.

I did too, but I didn't care. Greta Porter was a vision. A silk and satin miracle. I never even noticed the flash bulbs going off, and as far as I knew, someone could have manually posed me for every picture. Whether I was able to avoid Joe's fate with the direction of my eyes, and yes, Greta's evidence was just as visible and certainly at least as marvelous, was a mystery. I was mesmerized, and the spell didn't really break until we were inside the gym.

The Hermiston High student body was just over two hundred, and it looked like at least half of them were currently stuffed into the gym. There was no band playing, just records at the moment. Ben E. King's 'Stand by Me' was playing when we walked through the door, and with the acoustics that only a high school gym can deliver, it sounded magical. Before we'd made our way to a table the song had ended and been replaced by Booby Vee's 'Take Good Care Of My Baby', which was the current number one hit. It got played at least once every time the band took a break. Even as popular as it was I was tired of it before the night was out. It was a little of this and a little of that from the last couple of years' top hits until the records stopped and the band began to warm up.

Live music, this early into the sixties and given our rural location meant big band music to the powers that be at Hermiston High, which was alright to dance to, especially when I realized that the younger me remembered the dance steps Mom had taught us at the beginning of junior high school pretty well, and I still had a good handle on the dancing I'd picked up again during the swing dancing revival that had been all the rage at the end of the 90's. Most of the dancing we were doing was far more sedate than some of the stuff I saw then, but between the two of us, we were a dancing success, and even a smash, to a degree. Joe had not been so keen about learning to dance when he'd had the chance, so I got to dance quite a bit with Carrie too. Greta didn't seem to mind, she and Carrie had come to some sort of understanding about our being lifelong friends.

There was punch and dancing, and a lot of socializing. Mark Bodicker was the starting quarterback and team captain of the football team, and he made a point of stopping at our table with his date, Jennifer Brooks. They were both seniors, and Mark was already set to go to Oregon State in Corvallis. Like a lot of locals, agriculture was the field of study he planned to pursue. Jennifer's plans were much more vague, and I got the impression she was waiting for a marriage proposal. Mark was planning on trying out for the Beaver's football team as a walk-on.

Matt Thorson and his date Becky Strand stopped by as well, but Matt lingered longer, and when the music started, asked Greta to dance. I asked Becky as well, and the four of us stepped out on the floor. Becky was a very nice armful, and all grown up in all the right places. Becky danced very well, and complimented me on my dancing.

"Most freshmen boys are at that awkward stage, ya know?" she offered as we walked back to the table. "Even if they know the steps, their arms and legs aren't always cooperative."

Becky, it turned out, had two brothers in junior high that she had spent the summer teaching to dance. She saw everything tonight in the light of that experience, and I think she was glad to be back to what she considered normal.

Steve Jackson was at the dance, and I caught a glare from him now and then, but at least he was with a date. His date was a shy redhead named Alice. She was actually a pretty girl, but she blushed spectacularly, and that was just my observation from a distance. Steve was always careful to stay on the opposite end of the dance floor.

Burt Thompson was there too, but he was one of about eighteen guys who were there stag. There were fewer girls there without dates, but enough to keep Burt and the others dancing if that was what they wanted to do. Burt had the nerve to come over and ask Carrie for a dance, but Joe stepped in and made it clear that Carrie wouldn't be dancing with him now, or ever. Burt objected to the hand Joe put on his shoulder and knocked it off, stepping back and raising his hands in an odd motion that I guessed was supposed to be a 'cool' version of a boxers stance.

"C'mon Porter, step over here and let me knock you on your ass."

Burt hadn't more than said the words before the huge left paw of Bear Thompson, our starting center, was on Burt's shoulder. Burt spun, swinging wildly. The punch hit Bear in the chest, but he didn't even blink.

"Oh shit! Barry, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, you're always sorry you little shit. Get the hell out of here before someone kicks your ass, cause if they do, I'll be kicking it again when I get home."

Burt was gone like a flash, dragging a few of the other wallflowers with him.

"Sorry about my cousin," Bear said.

It had never occurred to me that Bear Thompson and Burt Thompson were related. They didn't look alike, except for their hair, now that I looked back on it.

"Bear, I guess we didn't make the connection, sorry you had to get involved."

"That's okay. His mom and mine are sisters, and I'm always cleaning up his messes."

"So if he makes a mistake and I kick his ass, you won't mind?" Joe asked.

"Nah. Not unless you do some permanent damage, then I might have to be officially upset. Personally though, I have no use for the little shit, so he deserves whatever he gets."

I had pretty pathetic high school memories from the first time through. I had been a brooding loner who participated in nothing, offered nothing extra and expected the same. I had no friends except those who refused to stop being my friends, which meant Carrie and Bennie, and even they were friends-at-a-distance by the time we graduated. The first month of school this time through had already provided me with more fond memories than the entire four years had the first time.

-oOo-

The fall moved towards winter with amazing speed. Cross country was a bust for the team, and individually I never did finish behind Steve Jackson again, but I was seldom among the top four finishers in a race. Matt Thorson had a good year, winning most of the meets we were in, and all the in-conference ones.

"You've got good speed Sam, but you need to think about shorter races," Matt told me towards the end of our season. I was thinking along the same lines by then myself, and wondering if the baseball season and the track and field season's conflicted. A quick look at the schedules confirmed that they did.

"Coach, can I ask you something?" I asked Coach Reed as we were leaving the field after our last meet of the season. It was the end of October and Halloween was a few days away. We had already missed the cut for the state cross country meet, though Matt was eligible to run individually. Hermiston was out of the running for any kind of team honors, but Matt's times were good enough to qualify him at the low end of the field.

"Sure Sam, what's up?"

"Who coaches the Track and Field team?"

"I do, along with a few others, are you thinking about coming out for track?"

"Yes sir, but I'm afraid it'll conflict with baseball, and I plan on going out for the baseball team for sure."

"Yes, there'll be conflict, but we do try really hard to schedule everything so there's as little of it as possible. The coaches have an agreement similar to the one we have between cross country and football."

Little did I or Coach Reed know at the time, he because he couldn't and I because it was just not something I would have ever paid attention to in my first life, but almost exactly a month from that day, Oregon State would capture the NCAA Cross Country title when Dale Story ran the four mile race in 19 minutes and 46.6 seconds in his bare feet. Coach Reed would have no problems recruiting runners the following year.

There was a Halloween dance, the school's second of the year, and the decorations in the gym were designed to recreate Frankenstein's castle, and there were more Werewolves, vampires and Frankensteins, both mad scientist and monster than you could shake a wooden stake at. Throw in a handful of mummies and a zombie or two, and you get the idea of what the gym looked like that night.

I considered being cute and borrowing something from the future, but dismissed it eventually as a bad idea. Greta, in the meantime had this incredible dress that, to me, looked just like the women's outfits I'd admired in the one movie I'd seen that summer that I'd enjoyed, Morgan, the Pirate, starring Steve Reeves.

It took little to convince Greta that we could go as Morgan the Pirate and his pirate princess. We may have both been freshmen, but she sure had the figure to make that dress come alive! My swashbuckling outfit was a little harder, but all it took was a shirt with those loose, puffy sleeves, a hat with a big feather and a sword. I faked up some leather extensions for my Red Wings and I was in business.

There was no live music for the Halloween dance, and that meant more rock and roll. We were still a few years from the Beatles and the beginning of the British invasion, but Elvis was busy being Elvis, and others were signaling the rise of rock and roll as a musical genre to contend with. We still got lots of Patsy Cline of course, not that I minded. That woman could sing, and she had been in a car accident that summer.

It was funny, but you could see the sadness in some folk's eyes whenever they played anything by Buddy Holly or Ritchie Valens. The Night the Music Died was now two years old, and still a fresh memory for some.

There was a lot of Frank Sinatra and Pat Boone, and I appreciated them less than I thought I would. I think it was the original me putting his mental foot down. Crooners like Frank and Pat just didn't present the right image, I guess. We got the Drifters and a lot of 'doo-wop', like Dion and the Belmonts, because that style was still going strong. Fine with me, it was another variant I had liked.

In a nutshell, the Halloween dance was fun. Fun was had by all.

Almost.

Burt Thompson had been handled at the previous dance, thanks mostly to cousin Bear, and with Bear in attendance at this dance as well, we expected quiet inactivity from that front, but Steve Jackson was still hovering on the periphery of my perception, a glare sent my way every time he caught my eye. I could see signs of annoyance on his dates face, and wondered how much she knew about the situation. His date was Alice, the same girl he'd brought to the Columbus Day dance.

During a break in the dancing I grabbed Matt Thorson for a moment.

"Matt, I think you need to have a word with Jackson," I told him.

"Has he done something?" Matt asked, looking around for Steve.

"No. Nothing but glare at me all night," I admitted. "His date can't be having a good time though if he's going to spend the entire night like that. Alice is it? Is she just a date for the dance, or is she his girlfriend?"

"Alice Fenner. She's his girlfriend. Has been since junior high school." Matt looked me in the eye. "You really are just concerned that Alice Fenner isn't having a good time?"

"Well, I'd love to not feel his glare burning holes in the back of my neck, but yeah. I don't want his problem to ruin anyone's good time. I can handle Steve if the time ever comes, I just think dances are supposed to be fun."

While Greta, Joe, Carrie and I sat, sipping some punch and getting our breath back, I watched Matt walk over to Steve and Alice. Even from twenty feet away, I could see Steve go bright red in the face, followed by a snarling comment to Matt that we were too far away to hear. That was followed, weirdly enough, by Alice slapping him in the face and practically running towards the door, crying. Matt grabbed Steve by the collar and said something to him, nose to nose, then shoved him away and towards the fleeing girl. Once the two of them were out of sight, Matt headed our way.

"That didn't look good," I said as he sat in a chair beside us.

"That asshole really blew it with Alice big time," Matt said, shaking his head. "When I told him that you were asking for a truce so that everyone could just have a good time at the dance, he asked if you'd come crying to me. I told him you were concerned about Alice not enjoying the dance because he was too caught up in being pissed at you."

"That when he went all red?"

"Yup. Then he moved beyond angry and into stupid. He told me that this was between him and you, and Alice's feelings didn't matter."

"Oh shit!" I snorted.

"Yeah. So I told him to stop being an asshole, to get his act together and go apologize to his girlfriend before she decided he wasn't the guy she thought he was."

"Damn! I hope he succeeds. I didn't want to see anything like this happen."

"I know you didn't, I hope you guys can at least enjoy the rest of the dance. I'd better go find my date before she begins to think I was kidnapped by pirates."

That got a good laugh, given our costumes, and when we got up to dance again after he left, we were feeling a little better about the way things had gone.

A dance later, as we walked back to our table, we were surprised to see Alice Fenner standing there.

"Are you okay Alice?" Greta asked.

"Sort of," she said, almost too softly to be heard over the music. "Steve apologized, and he's promised to make it up to me, but I told him I couldn't stay at the dance now, so he's getting his car."

"We're sorry you feel like you have to leave early," I told her.

"Its okay, its not your fault really. Its our fault, and maybe even partly my fault."

"What?" Carrie said, "How can you say that?"

"Steve and I have been a couple for a long time. Since before junior high school, really," Alice explained. "In junior high we were the couple, you know? King and Queen of the school, except they didn't really have that sort of thing there. Steve had grand visions of us having the same sort of status in high school, but freshmen are freshmen, you know? And I'm so shy, you know? I never got comfortable having to work at being popular."

"Its okay," Greta said, giving her a hug. We're not trying to be that couple. Sammy and I have only been a couple since this summer to begin with, Joe and Carrie too. We're still trying to figure out things you two must've faced years ago!"

"I just wanted you to know why Steve feels so threatened by you. Its not just about the cross country team, in fact that's the least of it."

"We appreciate it, Alice, thank you," I offered. She gave Greta a hug, and tip-toed up to kiss my cheek, and left, brave little smile still attached.

"Man I hope she's really okay." I said.

"Who knew," Greta said, "my boyfriend's a softie!"

"Hey!" I said after the laughter at the table died down. "I can't help it if I have a freshly new perspective on romance. A certain someone here at the table with me might have something to do with that."

That got me a nice kiss, and a slow, weepy number came up right on cue. Greta hugged herself very tight to me through the entire number, and I was very, very appreciative, as she soon could feel. She pressed herself against me even harder in response.

Joe was spending the night at my house after the dance, and Greta was spending the night at Carrie's, and Mom was supposed to be picking us all up, so when it was getting close to the end of the dance, I wasn't surprised when some kid I recognized came by and said it looked like my Mom was there early to pick us up.

"Let me run out and check with her," I told everyone, "Let her know we've got a dance or two to go and then we'll be out."

"What if she doesn't want to wait?" Carrie asked.

"Well, then I'll pout and come back in and tell you guys we need to go."

I had just gotten through the main doors of the gym and begun scanning the parking lot for Mom's car when I registered some movement out of the corner of my eye. I raised my right arm instinctively, turning my head away, thinking someone had thrown an egg or something. A bright light flashed in my eyes, and then the world went dark.



-------

Chapter 9: The Sergeant


I opened my eyes and saw myself, twice. I saw me, Sammy Kendall — the me I'd already met, and whose body we both now occupied, but standing a few feet off my other shoulder was another Sam Kendall, and this one looked a lot more like the new me than the old one. "I know which one of me you are, Sammy," I said giving him a nod. "And you?" "Sergeant Sam Kendall, United States Marine Corp," came my answer. "Hmm. I did the military bit in my own life, but I'm guessing you did it with enthusiasm?" No answer, other than a scary grin. "Sammy, we needed to bring this Sam out now, because of the danger, and because you need to know how to protect us," the younger Sammy explained. "But I still don't get to know what the big picture is?" "Need-to-know-basis, Sam," the Sergeant said. "Right now, you don't need to know. In fact, right now its important you not know." "But I need to know something, or you wouldn't be here?" I asked. "Exactly, old man," the Sergeant laughed. "Now come over here and do what I do.

It should be easy, I would think, teaching yourself something you already knew. Problem is, me in multiple numbers was not exactly simple addition. It wasn't even simple multiplication, and who the hell understood what was going on in the first place? Someone, somewhere, I had to believe.

Still, the me that taught was a patient teacher, and the me that learned was a quick study. I seemed to be a quick study in general this life, with all the iterations of Sam Kendall hiding beneath the surface of me.

I learned to move. I learned to see with more than my eyes, and hear with more than my ears. Within the infinite possibilities of my own mind, the scene could change to match the lesson, and it did, many times. Jungle, desert, mountain and forest. City, town and village.

Time, in the unconscious world where I learned was not the same, it seemed, and Sam and Sammy learned all the Sergeant could teach, until sleep was once more allowed to creep in.

-------

I think I woke up multiple times, once while moving, flat on my back with someone in a white coat staring down at me, and again while I was being lifted by a couple of other white-garbed forms, but when I woke up for real, I was in the hospital. Mom and Dad where there, which was different than my last hospital memory, and the room was far different than the last hospital room I had been in. I missed the beeping and blipping of the equipment I had been used to. I wasn't hooked up to a big computerized device that could monitor everything. Seeing the two of them, I tried to say something, but it just came out as a groan.

"He's awake!" I heard Dad say.

"Oh Sammy!" Mom cried, trying to rush over. Dad actually grabbed her arm and held her back.

"Helen stop!" he cried. "Broken ribs, remember?"

"Broken ribs?" I gargled. Dad walked over to the door and called "He's awake!" through it.

A man in a white jacket and a stethoscope came to stand beside and over me. A white clad nurse came to stand on the other side. She began taking my pulse, holding my wrist and staring at the watch on her wrist. The doctor held a little penlight up to my eyes, moving it around, and began generally poking and prodding.

"Sam, I'm Doctor Garrison. How are you feeling?"

"Broken ribs?" I repeated.

"Yes son, and a concussion. You've got a dislocated shoulder as well, although that went back into place pretty smoothly, and there doesn't appear to be anything but minor damage to the joint or the tissue."

So I got to spend a couple days in the hospital, mostly for observation, and I left with my torso wrapped to protect two broken ribs and my right arm in a sling to take the load of the mistreated shoulder joint. By the time I left, I knew exactly what had happened, and the name was Steve Jackson.

The slight glimpse of movement I'd caught almost cost me my life, the doctor told me, but also potentially saved me from far more serious injuries than I wound up sustaining. As I raised my arm and turned, I deflected the blow of the baseball bat Steve was wielding from the back of my neck where it had been aimed. Unfortunately, I deflected it up and into the side of my head, just behind my right ear. The blow was robbed by much of its force when it was deflected, but it still had a fair amount left, and it knocked me out cold.

The broken ribs were from the three kicks Steve got in before someone came rushing up to stop him. None of the damage was serious, but it did effectively end my football season, at least as a player.

Shortly after breakfast the next morning at the hospital, I was visited by two officers from the Hermiston Police Department who were investigating the assault. Officer Owens and Officer Black introduced themselves, asking if I felt up to answering a few questions.

"Sure," I said.

"We already have a pretty good description of the assault itself from other witnesses at the scene, but we'd like to know what you remember of it," Officer Owens asked.

"Not much," I answered truthfully. "I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and thought someone had tossed an egg or something, so I raised my arm and turned, to try and duck it. The last thing I remember after that is a flash of light, and then nothing but vague images until I woke up here."

"Do you have any idea what might have led the alleged assailant to do this?" Officer Black asked.

"Yeah, not that it really makes sense," I answered. I told them the whole story then, of the first day of cross country practice, the earlier mood at the dance and my efforts to enlist Matt Thorson as an intermediary, and finally of Alice Fenner's exit from the gym and return.

"So this appears to be an act of jealousy?"

"Don't ask me to interpret his motives," I complained. "I barely understood his attitude to begin with, I never did anything to him except run fast and make some friends at a new school."

Steve Jackson was a junior, and his actions got him expelled. He was seventeen and that was the only reason he wasn't charged with attempted murder. As it was, he never went to trial on the assault with a deadly weapon charge. He plea bargained a suspended sentence in exchange for his joining the navy and getting the hell out of Hermiston in a hurry.

In a way I was glad. I had never wanted anything bad to happen to anyone, and that included him.

The football season finished with little in the way of team or individual glory, though we did win more games than we lost, which I was told was an improvement over the previous year. We were still a small team on the lines, and only our better than average speed kept us in most games. Our kicking also sucked, and that always hurt us in close games, as we couldn't kick a field goal reliably from any distance, and not at all from any further than 30 yards.

Restricted to the sidelines, I offered my services to Coach Turner in whatever capacity he thought he could use me.

"Son, I have plenty of pencil pushers and towel boys." Coach told me. "You're still a member of the team, so grab a play book and a clip board and come hang out on the sidelines during games. Take the opportunity to learn the offense inside and out. You're going to be a big part of it next year."

So I roamed the sidelines.

With my arm still in a sling for the first week, the clipboard option was out, but once the sling was gone, I toted one happily. In the meantime, I was free to study the play book, and beyond that, I took it upon myself to watch the opposing team's tight ends and receivers while our defense was out on the field. I was no sideline genius, I didn't yet understand football well enough to understand everything I had been doing, let alone the entire team. I memorized the facts of the play book like they were dates and battles in my history book. This mirrored my current history strategy — memorize now, understand later. Unfortunately I was beginning to think that the understanding portion was going to come in a later year, under a different teacher. Mr. Spier was not winning my confidence so far in his ability to instill anything beyond the raw facts of history.

I was no sideline genius, but the new Sam Kendal I'd met, and who had trained me during my unconsciousness must have been a football player, because a lot of things started to make sense more quickly than they had before. There was a lot of room for improvement on our team, and with the rest of the receiving corp and our quarterback graduating at the end of the year, it was going to be interesting to see what we were like for my sophomore season. Hell, it would have been interesting to see what we would have been like for the rest of my freshman season, if I'd been able to play.

Wade Wilkins still got little time in at receiver, even after I was out of the picture. He was the number two quarterback, and far too busy with those duties to be in at receiver except for rare instances when the coach threw in as many receivers as he could. Wade was a far better quarterback than he gave himself credit for, and if Mark Bodicker hadn't been a senior, team captain and all around nice guy, Wade might have wound up starting towards the end of the year. He was going to be the starter next year, and there wasn't anyone on the team who doubted it, except perhaps for Wade himself.

The other big problem with having my arm in a sling? Riding my bike to school and back was absolutely out of the question, and in a ruling by the court of Mom, absolutely forbidden for at least a month after the sling came off. Mom's ruling stood, even when the doctor said I was healing very rapidly. I had a feeling that the appearance of another 'bump' in the form of Sergeant Sam Kendal was going to add again to my physical and mental 'situation'.

Poor me. I had to be content with spending more time with my girlfriend. As for transportation to and from school, the football team decided collectively to fill the gap so I wouldn't have to suffer the ignominy of riding the bus, or gasp!! being dropped off by my mom.

Every morning and afternoon I enjoyed the service of a rotating series of upperclassmen as my chauffeurs.

The limited transportation options did leave me with far more time by myself. I was amazed at how quickly I'd gotten used to being part of a crowd.

I used the extra time alone to work out, doing all the drills and exercises that the Sergeant had given me. It was after finishing them that I felt deadly. Only then, and only for a few minutes. The Sergeant was no Kung Fu wizard, it was a little too early for that chop sockey stuff anyway, but he was proficient at his craft, and I now knew how to quickly and efficiently disable a foe. I knew how to kill one too, but hoped it never came to that.

The boost my bump gave me this time didn't manifest itself with size and power as the first one had. This one was all about quickness, awareness and perception.

-------

As hot as the summers in the high desert of eastern Oregon are, the winters are worse. When the snow comes, it comes hard, and deep. November, December and January are when we get the most precipitation, and given the time of year, it is usually snow. We didn't get foot after foot like they did in the mountains west of us, but we got our share. These were the only months of the year when our precipitation came close to hitting the national average, and even then it was the low end. I could only wonder at how much worse it would be if so much of the coastal moisture didn't get trapped by the mountains between the coast and the high desert.

Thanksgiving came and went, and this was one of the years we got to spend it with Grandma Kendall. Grandpa Kendall had passed away when I was five, so I only had vague memories of him. Grandma Kendall was another story. She came out every few years for a visit, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Dad picked her up in Portland and drove her out while I was in school. When I got home from football practice, there she was still as much larger than life as I remembered.

With the perspective available to me, I thought of Grandma Kendall as a remnant of a different age. She carried an aura of refinement and civility, tinged with excitement and daring that made me think of The Great Gatsby and the jazz age. Of course she was of an age where she would have been in her prime in those years. The aura was probably well earned, and not illusory in any way.

"My!" was her first comment, upon seeing me. "You have certainly grown since I saw you last! You're the spitting image of your Great Uncle Taegan."

Grandma Kendall spent a week, and four of those days I was out of school. She came to the homecoming football game, which was a rare home game for us this year. We were usually the opponents for some larger school's homecoming game, but this year we hosted Stanfield, who were looking for a game a little closer to home than they usually settled for.

I was on the sidelines with my clipboard as we walloped Stanfield 34 to 7. Our defense was looking better and better as the season progressed, and unlike the offense, we wouldn't lose much next year. Only one starter was a senior.

Greta absolutely fell in love with Grandma Kendall, and vice versa, I think. Grandma knew very well who Carrie was, and when she saw the two couples that the four of us made, she was, I think, bemused, to say the least.

"Its interesting how life works out different sometimes than you think its going to, isn't it Sam?"

I got to hear Grandma Kendall tell me all about Taegan Kendall, who was, according to her, 'a rough customer', a womanizer, brawler, confidence man and scoundrel of the first order.

"Truth be told, he was who I dreamed of running off with, rather than your Grandah, Sammy. But in the end I discovered that Conway Kendall was the man for me, and in every way, if you must know."

It was strange to hear a little bit of a brogue creep into her normally refined eastern seaboard tones when she spoke of her childhood.

"Conway Kendall made this family, and raised the rest of us up to be more than we were before him, and the world is a sadder, wilder place without him."

The very definition of my girlfriend's sense of humor followed that statement, said with a morose detachment that suggested that we were not in the world of Grandma Kendall's thoughts as she uttered it, only a certain Conway Kendall. Greta let out a great sigh, straightened her back and kissed my cheek and patted Grandma Kendall on the shoulder.

"When I'm a widow, and Sammy is long in the grave, I can only hope I remember him with the fondness and reverence you show your Conway, Grandma Kendall."

Grandma turned and looked at her with wide, unblinking eyes for just a second, and the rest of us stood on the edge of shocked, teetering over outrage for just a second. I saw the crinkle at the corner of her eyes and the smile begin, just a second before Grandma's first giggle escaped. we all lost it ourselves a second later and the entire room broke out in riotous laughter.

"Oh Greta!" Mom said when the room finally grew quiet once again.

That Thanksgiving saw a bond develop between my Grandmother, Greta and me. She claimed a place in both our hearts and volunteered herself as our co-conspirator in 'matters of the heart', as she phrased it, and any other ways that we felt necessary.

"When I was your age, things were both wilder and more refined than they are now," she told us during a private moment. "I have seen and overcome things that you would not believe of me, and some of them I only overcame due to love, both the love I gave and the love I received. I am frailer this year than last, and weaker this year than last, but I have a good ten years left in me, and I intend to see them spent ensuring that those strong Kendalls who remain, and those strong women who love them," she said with a kiss to Greta's gloved hand in hers where she held it as we walked, "have what they need to succeed."

Stunned doesn't begin to describe it. 



-------

Chapter 10: Future Imperfect


The time Between Thanksgiving and Christmas break was a quiet time at school. Basketball season had started, but I had no interest in it, except as a spectator. As if in compensation though, the number and intensity of the social aspects of my life seemed to increase a thousand fold. Of course there were more church activities, and the activities this time of year were among those I didn't mind, so I pitched in when asked. Greta, Carrie, Joe and I usually did so as a group, and we were frequently being joined now by Bennie Argus and Sissy Mitchell, who were insisting they weren't dating, but who always managed to show up together at whatever was going on.

The Cold Lake high school kids sort of got it with both barrels, getting asked, and being expected, to pitch in for local activities in both Hermiston and Cold Lake.

Friday, December first found the six of us as a group, along with Brian Nileson and Erik Osterhouse, helping to string lights and tinsel down both sides of main street. We had a man from the utility company who made sure we didn't get in trouble with the power lines, but we were using hooks already mounted on the poles, and they were a good six feet below the power lines themselves. We didn't have one of those cherry picker rigs like I was used to from the end of my first life, all we had were two pickup trucks with tall ladders.

The lights we were stringing were heavy duty, commercial lights designed for outdoor use, and Mr. Bowles, the utility man, would hook each string into power right on the pole from a special outlet that was there for this purpose. His wife was with us, and another married couple, their friends the Fieldings. The ladies were in charge of untangling the strings of lights and tinsel, which were also bigger and heavier duty than what you saw on your tree, and the guys were in charge of testing the lights for dead bulbs. These were the old style light strings where the entire string went dead if one bulb was out, so it was a pain to find the dead bulb. Thank God Main Street was only six blocks long in Cold Lake! Of course, in a larger town, you wouldn't ask for high school kids to volunteer to string lights, I imagine.

We took turns, both on top of the ladders as well as feeding strings from the bottom of the ladders and testing strings alongside the trucks. We had plenty of hot cocoa and hot spiced cider to drink, Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Field had brought popcorn and oatmeal cookies. There were more than enough people doing the various tasks that each of the couples had a few chances to sit in the cab of one of the trucks 'to get warm'.

Greta and I got warm alright! With so many people so close, there was no opportunity to get overheated though, which was probably a good thing.

There was going to be a big church party this weekend where the local nativity scene would be assembled in front of the local Presbyterian church, which was the only church actually on main street, and right across the street from City Hall. It was set up on Presbyterian property, but it was a joint project of all the local churches, including ours. Mom and Dad were big on doing this project every year, and as was the case with a lot of my recent activities, they did theirs as couples too. Along with the Ralstons, the Porters, the Arguses and the Bertrams. Mr. & Mrs. Bertram were friends of theirs, but they had no children, and lived on the other side of town, so I didn't know them as well as the others.

With the parents all planning to be out for a long afternoon and evening of nativity building and socializing, Carrie, Joe, Greta, Bennie and I were planning on spending the time out at the Porter ranch. Joe and Greta's sister Janet was going to chaperone us, which was going to be interesting, since her boyfriend Ross was going to be joining us as well.

The girls had decided to cook us all a big dinner, with a pot roast, boiled potatoes and green beans. There was talk of pie for dessert as well. In the meantime, being teenagers, we were consuming cookies and hot cocoa. With Rose and Lily at the house with us, we weren't going to be creeping off as couples looking for dark corners to spend time in, so we planned to play some board games and maybe some cards.

"Do you guys want to sing Christmas carols?" Rose and Lily asked in their synchronized manner.

The twins, as it turned out, had amazing voices, like two bells, clear and high and pure. They started out doing the Little Drummer Boy, and they impressed us all.

I was surprised to discover that I had a decent voice, lower than I remembered from Christmases in my previous life, and I found I did not have a tin ear, something I knew all too well that I did have in my first life.

All the Porter kids had good voices, and I already knew Carrie could sing. She had always been the best singer in our group, but she was going to have to at least share that title with the entire Porter clan, it would appear. Ross Koslowski, Janet's boyfriend had a nice deep voice, but he had very little confidence in it. He was happy to sing along though, after all, everyone can sing Christmas carols.

"Okay, music corner!" Janet called, and everyone got up and headed back to the far corner of the living room, where there was a small piano and a guitar. Janet picked up the guitar and Joe, showing yet another side to him that I didn't know, sat down at the piano.

We sang and we played until the parents got there, and then we sang a little more. We were sounding pretty good by then, and the twins had taken to improvising above the rest of us just a bit, adding a whole new level of depth to the songs. Mom told me on the ride home that she got chills when we did 'Oh Holy Night', that was how good it was.

I could see the Porter clan becoming a family band, maybe becoming Oregon's answer to the Cowsills or the Osmonds. Of course neither of those family groups had found widespread recognition yet, so I had to explain to Mom and Dad, who at least I could explain it to. I threw in the Jackson Five while I was at it, but I didn't say a word about the unappealing morass of weird that was Michael Jackson's later life.

That discussion led to a longer one once we got home about upcoming events, looking towards what we could use to our advantage, of course.

There was little I remembered about the remainder of 1961 that could be used to our advantage. There was no SuperBowl yet, as the AFL and NFL would not merge until 1970.

The Rose Bowl was a big event each year, and I even knew who won this year. Not because of the teams, or anything special that happened on the field. I remembered it because of the great prank some students from the California Institute of Technology would pull, altering a carefully planned placard display, set up by the Washington cheerleaders, where people in the stands held up placards in a coordinated display to create huge words and pictures. The Cal Tech students stole and re-did the printed instruction sheets, thus altering the displays. The most obvious of which, and the one that truly showed it to be a prank and not just bad planning, had the crowd forming a huge sign with CALTECH displayed on a plain white background. The Huskies beat the Minnesota Golden Gophers 17-7, but they had been the winners the year before and were the favorites again this year. Gambling on the game would be minimally profitable.

The upcoming year didn't contain a lot that I thought useful. I remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis, Marylin Monroe's death and Wilt Chamberlain scoring 100 points in a single game, but I didn't remember specific dates.

I did remember, later that night, laying in bed, that the 1962 World's Fair was in Seattle. I made a note to ask Dad if we could go. I didn't remember going my first pass through this life, nor even being asked if I wanted to.

The change from 1961 to 1962 was a subdued one that year. There had been a big car crash the year before and four people had suffered serious injuries. One of them, a sixteen year old boy named Joshua Temple had died. Parents weren't letting their kids out on New Year's Eve this year, and most of them were not celebrating like they had in the past. Greta had dinner with me, and we spent a few hours after dinner kissing and cuddling on the couch, but Mom and Dad dropped her off at the ranch on their way to a small party at the Arguses. Not that it wasn't out of their way, but they didn't care.

I didn't even bother to stay up until the magic hour. I was in bed and asleep, dreaming of Greta. Greta faded out of my dreams though, and during the long, infinite stroke of time that was the striking of midnight, I was once again visiting with myself, only now we were four.

Wayne Kendall was me, but me when I was 35. Wayne is my middle name, and I hate it, but this Sam Kendall apparently felt differently.

He wore an interesting suit that looked almost like armor and carried a helmet that looked like a cross between the ones the astronauts wore and a gas mask. Sammy and the Sergeant were there as well.

"You are the Sam Kendall that never faced them, and I'm the one who lasted the longest against them. I didn't win. Winning isn't possible. Outlasting them is."

"Who are they? When are they coming?"

"When they come, there will be no hiding. You will wake up one day, and most of civilization will be gone. Only a few will remain. Then will begin the only battle that ever takes place. A battle to survive."

"How much time? When are they coming?" I repeated.

"You have time to learn to survive. You have time to learn, to adapt, but you can't afford to waste it."

"He'll survive," the Sergeant said. "He's learned well."

"You've trained him to survive attack," Wayne Kendall said. "He needs to learn to survive life."

"Sam knows things already," Sammy said in my defense. "He can ride. He knows how to breed horses."

"That's a good start. Learn to raise livestock, and cultivate the soil. Learn to track and hunt. Learn how to make fire and shelter. Learn how to tend your wounds and aid the sick."

This sounded like good advice to me, despite the armored man's refusal to say anything more about who 'they' were.

"The Sergeant has taught me a lot. Even Sammy has taught me things I needed to know. What are you going to teach me?"

"My purpose is to warn you, and I've done that. Other teachers will come."

"How long?"

"Ronald Reagan will not have time enough to win his race."

"Why me then?" I asked. "Why going back to one past from all these others?"

"You will be a focal point. Like a seed crystal, your presence will change the course of certain things, accelerating some, altering others. It isn't important that you know what things. It is your presence, not your action that is important."

"But to be present, I have to survive." I guessed.

"Exactly."

I hardly had time to be pissed before I fell back asleep, and this time a normal sleep. When I woke up, it was indeed 1962. A new year in my new chance at life, only it wasn't going to quite be the chance I had thought it would be.

That was the last thing I heard before the dream faded and I woke up. Shit! Ronald Reagan? Did he mean his race to be President? He had been governor of California too, before that. I didn't give a damn about Reagan even when he was President. I didn't have a clue when he would become governor of California. Shit! Always more questions!

As always after a meeting with the Sam Kendalls I shared my mind and body with, I felt energized and powerful when I woke up. I took Ned for his run, and was fixing breakfast when dad came downstairs. He didn't look too bleary-eyed.

"You don't look too bad for a New Year's Day," I joked.

"No, it was a pretty quiet night. I think your mother had too many glasses of champagne though. I had to practically carry her into the house this morning when we got home."

"Should I not fix her breakfast then?"

"What were you planning on making to go with that bacon?"

"Just some scrambled eggs."

"Make enough for her too. She can reheat it later."

"Alright," I said, continuing to fry bacon. "You want toast with yours?"

"Yeah. We have any orange juice left in the fridge?"

"I think so," I said with no conviction.

"I'll look. Do you want some too if there is?"

"Sure." I was distracting myself as I cooked, with thoughts of what I should tell Dad. I had been able to convince him that I had come back to this time from the future, but would he believe the rest of what I was learning?

"Dad?" I had made my decision. Now was no time to stop trusting the good man I knew my Dad to be.

"Yeah son?"

"I have a better idea now about why I was brought back in time. Not a hundred percent, but a better idea. Can I tell you about it while we eat?"

"Of course."

I saved off a mom-sized portion of the bacon and eggs, and divvied up the rest between us. There was still plenty of the Cort's preserves to go with the toast, and Dad did find plenty of orange juice.
"I'm not alone in here," I began. "The Sammy who was here before I came back is here with me. But there are other Sam Kendall's, four of us so far. Sergeant Sam Kendall has been teaching me to fight and survive, but last night I met a new one. Wayne Kendall."

"So not everybody hates your middle name like you do?" Dad teased.

"Apparently not," I answered. "Wayne Kendall has warned me that I need survival skills, but not the kind the Sergeant has been teaching me. He says I will need to be able to ride and hunt, raise animals and grow crops."

"It sounds like he's warning us that civilization is going to collapse," Dad said.

"I think its even more than that. I think the 'they', whoever or whatever they are, are going to kill or take most of the people on Earth. There will only be small pockets of humanity left when they are done."

"Why?"

"I don't know. This whole thing has been something out of science fiction to begin with. Maybe we're a failed experiment and our ultra advanced alien scientists have decided its time to clean off the petri dish and start over. Maybe they've been raising us as a crop, and we're finally grown large enough to make a meal of. Maybe they're just mean and evil."

"When? How long?"

"That was the question I kept asking. The closest I could get was the pronouncement that 'Ronald Reagan will not have time enough to win his race.'," I quoted.

"Ronald Reagan? The Actor?"

"Yeah, that Ronald Reagan. In my first life, he was governor of California, then President of the United States. I remember that he became President at the beginning of the 1980's, but I don't have a clue when he first became governor of California."

"Lord," Dad muttered. "We don't know who will survive amongst us do we?"

"No, but we don't know the method or manner. It could be that we will be safe because we live in such a small town, and they are only taking the population centers. It could be a plague, and some random few will survive it. It could be some big asteroid smashes into the planet and wipes out most everything. It could be big city-sized spaceships hovering over the big cities beaming down rays of destruction."

"But these other Sam Kendall's, they seem to think that you will survive, in fact your purpose in coming back, their coming back, to this one time and place ensures that you will?"

"In a way, yes," I answered. "A part of their coming back seems to be adding to the me that is here. I believe I am faster and stronger than I could have been. I'm quicker, and I learn faster. I seem to be having no trouble with school at all, memorization is very easy."

"you are being enhanced in some way by this?" Dad asked.

"Yes, I think I am," I answered, shaking my head. "Hell, Dad, its embarrassing to say, but ah ... the enhancements even extend to things you wouldn't expect. Puberty was much more generous to me this time than last time."

Dad gave me a blank stare for a moment, then glanced below the line of the table towards my crotch. A single Leonard Nemoy-like eyebrow went up. I blushed.

"No, don't feel embarrassed about what's happening, and don't feel reluctant to say what you think about this," Dad said, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder. "The entire experience is far too outside of reality already to begin to worry about sounding boastful about what's happening."

"What should I do?" I asked. There was real confusion in my voice, and I'm sure Dad didn't have to strain to hear it. The hand on my shoulder became a hug.

"Proceed as normal but prepare for the worst," Dad answered finally. "Standard operating procedure for all engineers." 



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Chapter 11: Field of Dreams


The start of spring brought back mobility. With clearer roads, I had safer use of the Honda, and easier running with Ned. Greta had her fourteenth birthday in February. It was a little too cold for a camping trip, so her Dad took her shopping in Portland instead. Boy did she shop! She came back with a truckload of new clothes and a Honda Super Cub like mine. Matching mobility!

A few days later, we arranged to be alone at my house, and we got naked and did a little exploring. Greta Porter naked is even more breathtaking than Greta Porter clothed! Greta Porter naked and exploring my body with her lips and tongue is somewhere far, far beyond breathtaking. I did manage to take her breath away twice that first time. We agreed that we were going to wait to have actual intercourse, at least until we were sophomores. It was a pledge, crouched above a naked, panting and enthusiastic Greta, that I could have easily broken. I managed, but oh how excruciating honor can be.

February also brought baseball with it. Baseball tryouts were held on the fifteenth and sixteenth, a Thursday and Friday.

I was one of three kids who tried out for first base. I was the only left-handed one, and the tallest, but Doyle Stokes had a lot more experience at the position than I did, and had already played a lot of first base the previous two years. Graduation had claimed last years starter at the position, and Doyle saw this as being his year.

I might have been relegated to second string first baseman, but I clobbered the ball when I got my turn at the plate. I stroked three really long screaming line drives and one shot high off the fence.

"Coach Greer told me you were a big hitter," Coach Mantee said from behind the batting cage. "You have a good swing too. You keep it up and we're going to have to find a position for you to play on a regular basis."

Once again Wade Wilkins was there, being the other new guy. His gun of an arm for football turned out to be a pretty big gun for baseball too. His fastball had a lot of fast in it, and he had a hard breaking curve that could be hard to get a handle on. Coach was very happy to have us trying out, and he showed his appreciation by working us even harder.

I'm not a sucker for much, but in my first life, I was a sucker for the combination of Kevin Costner and baseball. Two of my absolute favorite movies of all time were 'Bull Durham' and 'Field of Dreams'. I think it was because both movies offered such open, heartfelt views of the soul. Bull Durham gave you a view into the soul of the sport as seen through the eyes of the people who played it. Field of Dreams sort of did the reverse; it peered into the souls of those who loved baseball, and used baseball itself as the microscope. I loved those movies, and if I believed what had been hinted at by Armored Sam Kendall was true, they weren't likely to get made this time around. I made a personal pledge to myself to squeeze as much of those feelings into whatever baseball I wound up having between now and whenever the mystery date in the future as I could.

Baseball looked as if it was going to be interesting. In addition to Joe, Wade and I, there were quite a few familiar faces from the football and cross country teams, including, to my surprise, Boyd Curtis, who was hoping to be Brian's replacement at catcher once he graduated.

School was going well, though there had been a few bumps. A composition I had written for English class had caused a bit of a stir. The title said it all. 'Cultural Attitudes and their effects on Sexual Equality.'

I know, it sounds like a thesis, but the actual paper was not so dry. In it I mostly railed against the opposition to women's equality in America, and the attitude, unsupported by anything except anecdotal evidence, that women were somehow the 'weaker' sex. Mrs. Irving loved it, but she was afraid it wouldn't be well received by the principal, the superintendent of schools or the school board.

Yes, I was using my second chance to say some things I'd always regretted not saying the first time around. So sue me!

Greta loved it, as did Carrie. Carrie perhaps more than Greta. Greta's mom loved it as well, and though I felt I had been liked well enough in the Porter household, I was subsequently elevated to even more of a 'member-of-the-family' status.

Over the course of the winter I had talked to Mr. Porter quite a bit. What I had seen of his ranch had suggested to me that he was planning a dude ranch, or something similar. He confirmed that, and we talked about the plans he had for the upcoming spring and summer. The river played a big part in his plans.

"The Columbia is the real star of any sort of back-to-nature experience in this area, Sammy," he told me one night. "It dominates the entire region, and always has. Water is life, they always say, and the Columbia is life on a large scale then, right?"

I had to agree, and that conversation gave me a clue, perhaps one reason why I was the one, or one of the ones who had been singled out to be a focus. I knew the Columbia, and appreciated it.

I signed up on the spot. Mr. Porter was looking for experienced ranch hands, and I wasn't one, but when I told him I'd be willing to work for nothing more than room and board, he had to ask why.

"A agree with you about the Columbia, and with this cold war talk and everything, I think having the kind of skills you're talking about needing for this operation may be important some day. At least as important as putting a little money in the bank."

"What about college?" he asked. "Don't you need to save for that?"

"I have a college fund, and its full enough for four years of college. I don't see myself becoming a doctor, or something that would take more college than that, but even if I do wind up wanting that, there's time to earn for that and do this too."

"Okay, we'll do it that way, Sam. But I'm even paying the kids something for their work in the business, so as soon as I decide you're earning your keep, you're going to get a paycheck, okay?"

So the deal was done. We shook on it and went back to enduring the winter. When spring, and baseball season began to bring it back to the forefront though, I began spending even more time at the Porter ranch. Well, it was becoming the Porter Ranch, both words capitalized. The first paying customers were due a week after school got out.

The big spring dance was sponsored by the freshman class, and was scheduled for Friday, the sixteenth of March. Greta and Sissy Mitchel were the two co-chairs for the planning committee, and got together over at Sissy's one night to brainstorm a plan. I was there mostly as Greta's boyfriend and Bennie was there in something of the same capacity with Sissy. The rest of the planning committee were all Hermiston kids, so most of the meetings would have to be at school, but Greta and Sissy wanted to get a head start.

"We need a theme," Sissy said. "The Juniors have already laid claim to West Side Story for the Junior/Senior prom this year."

"Do we want to do a movie theme too?" Greta asked.

"What? Swiss Family Robinson?" Bennie asked. It had been the big movie the past year, at least for kids. Perhaps too much so for these purposes.

"How about Ben Hur?" I suggested. "Roman Togas and the Ides of March and all that?"

I wasn't thinking of John Belushi's and Animal House when I said it, but I flashed on it once I had, and smiled.

"What?" Greta said. I was still formulating a response when Bennie saved me.

"He's just picturing you wearing a toga. A short toga."

I got a slug on the arm, but accompanied by a big smile, so I just nodded in agreement.

"Yup. Sorry," I said.

"No you're not, but that's okay." Greta said, scrunching up to me a little tighter than before.

So they decided to run that idea by the rest of the committee and see what they thought.

Meanwhile, baseball practice was in full swing. Bob Nileson's big brother Chuck, a Senior, was the team's catcher, no doubt about that. Karl Harding, who had been one of the guys from Mr. Greer's big game this summer wanted a shot as backup catcher, but he was going to have to fight Boyd for the job. It was a tough call, in my mind, because Boyd had a gun for an arm and looked to be a better hitter, but I felt like Karl knew how to manage his pitchers far better than Boyd did.

I was still learning new things, or relearning old ones, every day. I had a much better eye at the plate this time around, and in addition to the new power at the plate, I was slowly developing into a difficult out as I learned to judge the strike zone and the pitches I saw from our pitchers. I remembered being very much a hit-or-miss prospect at the plate in my first life.

It was the first week in March when Coach Mantee began sitting down with individual players during practice, I was the third one he talked to.

"Kendall, tell me what you think of our team," he asked me.

Man, I had to think about that for a minute! I had been asking that question of myself, but the answers had been more about me and my place than the team generally. I knew what I thought though, and decided honesty was the best policy.

"We have a very good catcher and two good pitchers. Our infield is pretty good, although third base is a question mark in my mind. Everyone I've seen you put there has some weakness, either in the field or at the plate. Same with right field. Brian Nileson is as good a center fielder as we could ask for and both the guys you've been putting in left field are good, and you don't lose anything when you swap them."

I paused, more to take a breath than anything else.

"Okay, what else?"

"Well, the rest of our pitching is a big unknown to me, because I don't know what is considered good in our league, and I haven't seen a lot of the other pitchers throw much. We have some real speed on the base paths, especially Joe. We have three or four really good hitters and another two or three decent hitters, and the rest tend to run hot-or-cold on any given day."

"I have to say the picture you paint is not too far from mine," Coach Mantee said. "Where do you see yourself on this team?"

"Well, you know I wanted to try out for first base, but I don't see myself at that position regularly until Doyle graduates. If the question is where do I think I can contribute the most in the meantime? Third base would be my choice. I think I've got the quickness for the infield."

"I would tend to agree with you, but making that decision could cause some hard feelings. Nick Ingersoll is the guy I've been putting at third, and he was the backup third baseman last year. If I put you at third, he either takes right field, or he sits on the bench and I put Gordy in Right and Louis in left."

Gordy Marler and Louis Pruitt were the two guys who'd been sharing left field so far. They were both good fielders with good arms, but I wasn't sure about their batting. I hadn't been paying that much attention to them, since they seemed secure in their spots.

"Well, you're the coach not me. How's Nick's bat compared to those two guys?"

"That makes it even tricker. Nick's got a lot of power, but he also strikes out a lot. Louis is a good spray hitter and gets on base a lot, but he's the slowest of the three of them on the bases. Gordy is a good consistent hitter, but he's a singles hitter and not much else. Good speed though."

"If I don't play third, do you still have a problem?"

"Everything except the hard feelings from Nick." Coach said, shaking his head. "Get back out there, and keep up the good work."

The next three practices I split time with Nick at third, and near the end of that day, Coach Mantee had his meeting with Nick. At the end of practice, Nick approached me, and I could see he was visibly upset.

"Kendall, you got my base," Nick whined. Sorry, it just sounded whiny to me.

"Where did Coach put you?" I asked.

"Right field," as if that was an indictment of me all on its own.

"You could have wound up riding the bench, so maybe its not as bad as you're thinking." That did make him pause. I continued to fire. "Right field's not the same as it was in Little League. The hitters in high school are going to be hitting the ball out there more often, so your not being shuffled off to someplace safe."

"You still got my base," Nick said it again, but I could tell his heart wasn't in the argument anymore.

"You've got decent power, but Coach says you strike out a lot. Maybe I can help you develop a little more patience at the plate. If you wait for your pitch, you'll strike out a lot less and get more hits."

"Why would you help me?"

"Because baseball is a team sport asshole, why do you think? If I help you get better, I help the team get better."

So the Nick Ingersoll situation was defused, and for this year at least, I was the starting third baseman. I spent an extra half an hour after practice with Nick working on his batting. Sometimes Brian worked with us and sometimes Wade did. When it was Brian, I pitched to Nick and Brian talked non-stop about the pitches as he received them. When it was Wade, he did the pitching and I did the talking.

The first game of the season was set for the day after the freshman dance. The theme had been officially announced as 'The Ides of March', and there were a lot of people in togas. It was too early in the sixties for the more liberal attitudes of the decade to be in evidence, but a lot of girls were showing a lot of leg, and that was a good thing. I was introducing myself as Senator Octavius, and telling people to call me Otto. I didn't remember when Spiderman first showed up in the comic books, but with the events hinted at by the other Sam Kendalls, I didn't think it was going to be an issue. Doctor Octopus wasn't likely to be on anyone's mind in a few years, whether the character had appeared or not.

This dance went well, there were no incidents like there had been with Steve Jackson at the beginning of the year, and there was a local Hermiston band, though I don't remember what they were called, That wasn't too bad, but they were a little 'twangy' for my tastes. Someone in the band could really wail on the old steel guitar, but it made every song they did sound a like a 'Grand Old Opry' version, which made it interesting when they did 'Lets Twist Again' by Chubby Checker, not to mention songs by the Shirelles and Dion.

Our season opener was at home against Power City. Their team was a big mystery at the beginning of every season, we heard from the upperclassmen, because they had a lot of students who moved there for only a year or two, then left as their parents moved on once their jobs with the dam construction ended or changed location.

They started a pitcher named Glenn Roberts, and he was very good. His fastball wasn't any faster than anyone we'd seen so far, but he had a wicked curve ball and a very deceptive change up. He retired the side in our half of the first inning, leaving me to bat lead off in the second. I got lucky and dinked a weak single over the second baseman's head, after making a late adjustment to a pitch that had me fooled, but was just slow enough to get some wood on. I was stranded there when the next two batters popped up and flied out respectively.

Wade started for us our first game, and he was pitching a fine game as well. He had three strike outs and only one batter had gotten anything past the infield, and that had been a simple fly ball out.

It remained scoreless until the 6th inning when their lead off batter advanced to second on a misplayed grounder that got past the left fielder, Gordy Marler. After the next batter struck out, Wade gave up a clean single to left field that scored the runner on second despite a great throw to the plate from Gordy. The batter had advanced to second on the throw, but was left stranded there after the following two batters failed to advance him.

The top of our order came up in the seventh inning with the score still at one to none. Joe stroked a nice single past a diving third baseman and Wade moved him over with a clean single to left. Brian knew the pitcher would be trying to be careful with him, so he sat on four straight pitches and walked the bases full. There I was, the big hitting cleanup man at the plate with a chance at a grand slam.

I may be living a charmed life this time round — well, except for the big disaster I had been told was looming on the horizon — but I didn't hit the storybook home run. All I got was a bases clearing double that left me on second base and the score 3 to 1 in our favor. I scored two batters later after consecutive long fly balls from Nick Ingersoll and Chuck Nileson. Bennie grounded out to end the inning, but things were suddenly looking very much better for us, and Wade got refocused and bore down on the opposing hitters, not letting anyone get past first base the last two innings. We won it in the top of the ninth, 3 to 1. We'd opened the season with a win!



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Chapter 12: Sammy with a Twist


We finished the baseball season at 13 and 5. The season included some good, quality wins against tough opponents, but we had trouble with every big city team we faced, and we wound up not making it out of our own league tournament in the post season. It was a big disappointment for the seniors, especially Chuck Nileson, who had really hoped we would have the firepower to advance.

We were better than the year before though, even Chuck was willing to say so. In fact, Chuck went out of his way to make sure the new guys knew that. Chuck had been the quiet leader of our team during the season, and sure showed it then.

After that first game where I'd struggled to get hits early on, I hit consistently and well, with a home run in seven of the next eight games, including three multi-homer games. I finished the season with only a single fielding error, a bad reaction to a funny hop on a line drive down the third base line, twenty one home runs, twelve doubles and three triples. I stole nine bases and got caught stealing five times. Joe Porter had a higher on-base percentage and batting average than I did, and, despite playing shortstop, the hot spot, he finished the season with only one error as well. Nick Ingersoll was still going to be a project, but he was much more patient at the plate by the end of the season, raising his average a good fifty points from the previous season, and dropping the number of strikeouts considerably.

I felt good about that season, and wondered if there'd be another. The uncertainty about the predicted and impending near doom which might or might not wipe out most of the inhabitants of Earth did tend to be a damper on my enthusiasm. A damper that got noticed by Carrie. She might be the future and present unrealized former love of my life, but she was still the person who had known me the longest amongst my friends. She stopped by the house Sunday after church, and she was there with questions.

"Somethings bothering you Sammy," she said once I'd closed the door and turned to face her after she steamed through it and into the living room. "You're distant and distracted. You are out there having fun with the rest of us, but you're not enjoying it as much as you should, and I want to know why, before the others notice it, and especially before Greta notices it and thinks its her fault!"

"You're right, of course," I said immediately. "I knew that you knew me too well to keep fooled, but I was hoping to make it until the end of school."

"Well!" she huffed, for lack of anything better to say at the moment. She had been expecting a lot more resistance and my apparent total capitulation threw her completely. "Of course you couldn't fool me."

My confession of sorts had disarmed her some, and derailed her charge down the warpath, as I'd hoped it would.

"I can't say anything more for now," I said in a conspiratorial tone. "It'll have to wait until school's out for the summer. Will you back me up on that if Greta or the others notice anything between now and then?"

There were only a few more weeks of school left, and I struggled to think of what I knew about the coming months that could convince Carrie, or anyone else, of the truth of my story. There was little I remembered about 1962 that I could use, and I wracked my brain trying to find something.

It finally came to me a week later when Greta returned 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' to me. She'd borrowed the book over the winter, looking for something to read when she was stuck at home with nothing to do. I had been thinking of sports and politics and disasters that I remembered, when there were other things I did remember that really stood out for the old me.

I may have ruined my life in many ways during my high school years, by as a social self-reject and recluse, I read a lot, and during those years I developed some lifelong fascinations. Two of my favorite authors were going to die this summer, a month apart. William Faulkner would die on July the seventh, and Herman Hesse a month later on August ninth. Steppenwolf, the Hesse novel that would have a huge impact on me wasn't going to even be published until next year.

Carrie was the one that this information would convince, and she would convince the others. I would have to start small.

I let Mom and Dad know at dinner that night.

"Carrie was here today. She's noticed I'm acting differently, and wants to know what's up."

Mom drew in a sharp breath, "Oh my! What did you tell her?"

"I stalled her," I told them. "I admitted that yes, something was up, but that I couldn't say more until school was out."

"Do you think she'll accept that?" Dad asked.

"For now. I've asked her to back me up until then with the others, and she's agreed."

"You made her a partner in crime," Dad observed. "Clever."

"Perhaps lucky too," I added. "There's little I remember about the coming summer, but the two things I do remember will strike her more closely than anyone else."

So I explained about Faulkner and Hesse, and started to explain about the only other thing I really remembered, the Cuban missile crisis, when I suddenly remembered Marilyn Monroe. It came back to me so suddenly that I caught my breath.

"What?" Mom asked. "Did you remember something else?"

"Yeah," I answered, shaking my head. "I can't believe I almost forgot this one, because I'd already remembered it once since I've been back. Marilyn Monroe is going to be found dead on August fifth, four days before Hesse dies. It'll be called a drug overdose, and she'll be found nude."

I wasn't going to tell either of them that the reason that particular date stuck so clearly in my mind was because in my first life, I'd said something truly horrible to my Mom that day, and she'd slapped me, hard. No connection really, just those two things happened on the same day, and I had always remembered the date because of it.

I had been such a self-absorbed little prick back then. Its a wonder I lived through it.

Carrie's confrontation had obviously triggered something. That night in my sleep I found myself once again on that lonely road, beside my old truck in the moonlight. There was no tire being fixed this time, and Sammy and Wayne were sitting on the back tailgate laughing when I materialized, or whatever it is I do.

The tires looked fine, but the hood of the car was up, and when I looked in that direction, Wayne and Sammy rolled their eyes and motioned in that direction. I walked towards the front of the car, but the hood of the truck came slamming down, and a girl, a tall girl with hair like mine and my eyes stepped around the fender to my side of the truck, cleaning her hands on a shop rag. She had a baseball cap on and was wearing a set of mechanic's coveralls with 'Stick' stenciled on the breast pocket. There appeared to be actual breasts under both the pockets, though nothing to write home to Mom about.

"Hi there Sam," She said, holding out a freshly cleaned hand. "Sammi Kendall, nice to meet you."

"Sammi?" I asked, momentarily lost.

"Yeah, sorta short for Samantha, but you can call me Stick."

"Stick?" I echoed weakly.

"Yep. I got tall at the beginning of high school too, like you did, but since the rest of my girlish figure didn't catch up for a few years, I got tagged with 'Stick' by Bennie Argus."

For the first time I glimpsed past the curtain and into the depths of infinity. In an infinite universe, with infinite probabilities, the probability was that there would be an almost equal number of male and female Sam Kendalls.

"Nice to meet you," I said with a grin.

"What?" she said, reacting to my grin.

"I always wondered what I'd look like if I was a girl," I answered. "Without getting too weird here, I have to say I'm glad to see Samantha Kendall is an attractive woman."

Sammy and Wayne both laughed from the back of the truck, and Sammi and I walked back to join them.

"That's why you're the Head Kendall in Charge," the Sergeant said, slapping me on the back. "Sammy here and I were both thinking the same thing, but neither of us had the brass to say it to her."

Sammi hopped onto the tailgate, sitting between Sammy and the Sergeant.

"Look at us and look at yourself, Sam," Sammi began. I did as she asked. It was strange to think of how comfortable I felt with the three of them, after so little time. Of course this was all a dream and they were all me.

I looked down at my own hands. My old, liver-spotted, worn hands. I looked at the old, out of shape body behind them and the relaxed-fit clothes that covered it. I was the old man me here again, unlike when the Sergeant had whipped me into shape.

"We are all different, but we are all you. You are each of us. We are all, Sammi, Sammy, Wayne or whatever, the same person, shaped by our different lives into different manifestations of the being we are, but in the end, we are that being, whether taken alone or collectively."

"So in the end, the manifestations all come together to be the one being we always were?" I asked. "Is this the answer to what comes after death?"

"That's life's most persistent question, isn't it?" Sammy said. "What comes next?"

"But you're giving a trick answer to the question Sam," the Sergeant added.

"We were one being before death, we are one being after death, we were never apart, so there can be no coming together," Sammi finished.

"Then what is this? Why are we here, and who has made it possible?"

"We are in your dreams, Sam," Sammi answered.

"You know why we're here. To try to find a way to survive what's coming," the Sergeant added.

"We aren't prophets or seers, Sam," Sammi said softly. "We don't really know who's made this possible any more than you do. We know what we know, and we know, without knowing how, what our purposes are in coming back here with you in this way."

"So what am I here to learn this time?" I asked.

"Well, we want to pin things down a little for ya," the Sergeant said, "Let you know that the Reagan timeline is sorta iffy. He'll run for Governor in 1966 and would be sworn in January 3rd, 1967..."

"Except that... ?" I asked.

"Except that sometime after the summer of 1966, but before the election, the shit hits the fan and everything changes," the Sergeant finished.

"So sometime between the beginning of September and what, the first or second Tuesday of November?" I asked.

"You pretty much got it. A little research on your own time can pin it down to the exact day," the Sergeant said with another slap on the back.

"Okay, but if you could tell me that, then what's Sammi here for?"

"Sam," she said, hopping up off the tailgate of the truck, "let me introduce you to the grand mystery that is the internal combustion engine."

I woke up and it was morning. Ned was staring at me from beside the bed, his head cocked and a funny look on his face. I reached out to pat his head as I got up to go for our morning run.

"Don't suppose there's a half dozen or so Neds, spun up out of probability and stuffed in your skull too, eh?" I asked. Ned chose that moment to sneeze. More answer than I'd expected.




-------

Chapter 13: Prophet and Seer


With Carrie convinced that she was helping me keep a secret, the last few weeks of school passed uneventfully. Unlike the year before, I had lined up my own job, and this time, there would be no surprises.

The fact that I was going to be working for Mr. Porter at the Porter Ranch, taking city folks out to experience a few nights on the high desert or on the Columbia river had most of my friends believing it was because of Greta, but that was only a part of it. I wanted to learn the area, and especially the river.

Shortly before the school year ended, I gave Carrie a visit at her house for a chat.

"Carrie, I made you a promise, and I'd like to keep it over the holiday weekend. We need to arrange a get-together. A dinner or something. You and Joe, Greta and me, Bennie and Sissy, maybe Luther and Brian Nileson. I'd like to invite Matt Thorson and Roger and Amelia Cort too."

"A dinner sounds good. When and where?"

"Good question, and one I don't have answers for at the moment. I'll get back to you, but I wanted you to know I was working on keeping my promise."

The Memorial holiday would have been a good time, but that day marked the beginning of the summer season for the Porter Ranch, and for most of America, and since the holiday hadn't been moved to Monday yet, the thirtieth was a Wednesday this year, the middle of the week. We had the weekend before it to enjoy, and then it was full time work for almost everyone. So those last few weeks of school, while everyone was worried about finals and yearbooks and the end of school, I was busy getting a dinner arranged.

Mom and Dad, offered to host my dinner, and it made sense to have it at our house, since they were both already in on the secret, so to speak. Luther and Matt Thorson both accepted the invitation. Matt asked if he could bring his girlfriend Abby, and I said yes, of course. Luther said he had a girl he'd like to invite as well. I knew his date to both the big school dances this year had been Rebeca Jeffreys, and that was who he planned on inviting.

I was surprised when Roger Cort didn't make the same request. Sissy Mitchell and Bennie had been dating all year, but Roger didn't have anyone he felt comfortable in inviting apparently.

Brian Nileson wanted to come, but he was going to be out of town with his dad on a buying trip for almost the entire time between the end of school and the Memorial holiday. Work was starting up full time for him at the Mercantile, and he and his dad were going to be on a business trip to Portland and San Francisco. I really wanted him in on the secret, with the eye to getting the entire family in on it. Having a large stock of the kinds of things the Mercantile had on hand, and the kinds of things it could have if Mr. Nileson ordered them, could come in handy. Very handy.

Mom and Dad had a minor argument over the menu, with Dad wanting to barbecue something and Mom wanting to do spaghetti. I surprised both of them by voting for the spaghetti. I was going to be eating stuff off the grill all summer long. I'd have all the barbecue I could stomach before the summer was over.

Once I had responses from everyone, I concentrated on getting out of school and getting ready for my first day on the new job. I was going to spend a lot of time on horseback, so I needed to add to my gear, mostly with more jeans, and shirts. I wasn't much of a one for cowboy hats, but I was going to need one as part of the outfit. I rummaged through the collection of used ones that the Porter's had on hand and settled on a well used, but still serviceable straw hat that felt good and fit perfectly just above the ears.

The big expense was my new cowboy boots. I'd grown too much in the last year to fit the old pair still sitting in my closet, grown too much to even fit into my Dad's, and I hadn't looked at getting them when we went shopping for school because I'd gotten a pair of Red Wing work boots instead. I could've worn the Red Wings, but the kind of wear you got from riding was different, and the Red Wings were my motorcycle shoes.

Yeah, I know, I would have made fun of me for calling it a motorcycle too, but it was all I had for now.

As the day of the dinner approached, my nerves got worse and worse. I was having trouble sleeping, and there were no dream visitations to blame it on. Truth be told, I would have welcomed another visitation, but it didn't look like it was going to happen. It didn't either, but I did see Sammi in the bathroom mirror. I'd been forced awake at two in the morning by an achingly full bladder, a groggy dash for the bathroom to relieve the pressure ensued, and as I washed my hands after, there she was, looking back at me from the mirror.

"This is as good as we could do Sam. Relax. Get some sleep tonight. The same reinforcements that have made you faster and stronger and smarter are going to make people want to trust you and follow you. As long as you believe in yourself, so will they."

"Thank God!" I said in relief, more to myself than to Sammi. "Thanks Sammi," I added, looking up at her reflection in the mirror.

"No problem!" she said with a smile. She began to fade in the mirror, my own reflection slowly replacing hers.

"Oh! By the way. Nice package!" a faint giggle sounded in my head, and I shook it, wondering if I was still groggy from sleep, or whether that had just happened.

Whether it had happened for real or not, my subconscious must have bought it, because I slept like a baby the rest of the night and slept in until almost ten.

"Hey there sleepyhead," Mom said when I came down the stairs.

"Hi mom," I said, looking around her into the kitchen to see if there was any breakfast left.

"There's bacon in the fridge, and I saved you a couple of waffles, they're on the plate in the bread warmer."

"Mmm," I mumbled, "thanks."

"Didn't you sleep well?" Mom asked.
"No, in fact I had a good sleep last night, for the first time in days really."

"Your dad and I were worried that you were worrying about tonight."

"Oh I was too, Mom," I gushed out. "Something fierce, but I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and saw one of my others selves in the mirror, and she told me that it would be fine."

"She?" Mom asked.

"Well, yeah, She. The laws of probability suggest that there should be an equal amount of female and male Sam Kendalls."

I saw the look in her eye, and pulled her in for a hug.

"Yes Mom, Samantha Kendall, the daughter you might have had, was tall, pretty, and smart."

This revelation threatened to throw Mom completely off track, so I had to remind her that we had a big crowd coming, and she had promised spaghetti.

My internal head count had fifteen people, counting Mom, Dad and I, and there was no way we were serving dinner for fifteen at our normal dining room table, or in our small dining room. The question was, did we want to try and use the living room or not? We considered the furniture rearrangement possibilities, and decided the living room was not an option, not if we wanted to use it after dinner for revealing the secret. As it was, we were going to have to scrounge up some chairs from somewhere, or have people sitting on the floor. We were able to split the difference, essentially, by extending the dining room table out into the living room and adding folding chairs, borrowed from the Argus', who had a bunch of them. The smaller table in the kitchen was used as a serving line so that we didn't have to pack food back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room. All in all, it worked out well, and the dinner itself went fine, everyone there knew everyone else to some degree or another. Matt and Luther's girlfriends were the two least known among us, but weren't strangers. Mom and Dad had even met Matt's girlfriend Abby at several of the team's cross country meets.

The spaghetti was delicious, as was the salad and garlic bread Mom served with it. Desert was ice cream with some of Mrs. Cort's finest peach preserves as topping. Everyone made sure to tell Mom how much they enjoyed it - several times!

When Mom started trying to clear the empty plates and bowls from the table, she had volunteers immediately for help with all the cleanup, including the dish washing. Dad, Luther, Matt and I disassembled the extension to the kitchen table and got the parts stored away where they'd come from. The living room was straightened up and ready for occupancy by the time we'd come back in from the storage shed.

Coffee, tea or root beer were offered, and soon everyone was sitting, drinks in hand, in the living room. I stood by the kitchen doorway, looking at everyone, my stomach roiling just a little again. It was time, and there was no going back.

"A few weeks ago," I began, nodding towards Carrie. "Carrie came to see me. She had noticed that I wasn't behaving like myself, and she wanted to know what was up."

There were some murmured comments, mostly towards Carrie.

"She was right. Something was up, and I asked her then if she would wait until school was out to hear the explanation. She agreed, and that is the purpose of this dinner tonight."

"God, your not sick too, like Mr. Greer, are you Sammy?" Bennie asked in an anguished voice.

"No, not sick, but in some ways better and worse. I died, Bennie. Dead and gone, but not gone how you would expect, and not dead when you'd expect."

I got a collective 'huh?' from everyone in the room.

"I died of a heart attack in August of 2007." I let the year sink in for a moment. "I had just turned sixty. I died trying to change a tire on my truck. When I died, I left my old body and was drawn back here, to my young body, and I woke up in it sitting on the grass outside of school, the last day of eighth grade."

"Oh my God!" Bennie said. "Was that why you were so out of it Sam?"

I nodded my head at him and grinned. "I had to yell at him to get his attention when I saw his mom pull up to get him." Bennie told the room. "He was completely out of it, I thought I was going to have to kick him to get his attention."

"Beginning that day, there were two Sam Kendall's in this body. The one who was here already, and me."

I spent quite a while talking about my first life, and what had happened to the Sam Kendall who lived it. I didn't glamorize it at all, pointing out all the things I saw as failures in my life. Matt was the first to ask the question I'd been waiting for.

"So Sam, is this a second chance? A chance to live your life over?"

"I thought so, at first, but I've learned since then that it is a much more complicated situation than that." I paused for effect, and once it felt right, I dropped the other shoe. "I'm not the only Sam Kendall to come back to this time and this body. There are two others so far, and more to come, though I'm not sure how many.

I talked about Sammy, the Sergeant and Sammi, and how they had each taught me things I needed to know.

"We've come back with a mission, I'm told. A mission to save humanity, because sometime between September and November, in 1966, the world as we know it is going to end. Somewhere in those months, most of the humans on Earth are going to be wiped off the face of the Earth."

"How?" Luther asked.

"I don't know," I answered.

"Is it going to be nuclear war?" Carrie asked.

"No. Well, I'm not sure, but I don't think so. From what I know so far, I believe it is going to be aliens." I paused again and saw they weren't processing that yet. "From outer space. Aliens from another planet, or another galaxy, or who knows where."

Half the people in the room broke out in laughter at that moment.

"Oh man!" Joe yelled. "You really had us going there for a minute, Sam!"

I let the laughter die, and when they all began to see that I wasn't joining in with them, it died quickly. I looked at dad, and he nodded, stepping forward.

"When Sam told me this last summer, I found it hard to believe too, so he gave me some proof. He told me that Roger Maris would hit 61 home runs, and break the Babe's record on the last day of the season. He told me about the Berlin Wall going up, and a few other things. When the first of them came true, I took a trip to Vegas and made some bets. Every prediction he made came true, and we've made over thirty thousand dollars because of it."

That got a loud swell of noise going, and we waited again for it to die down.

"I'm not asking you to believe me yet," I offered. "Instead, I want you to have the same kind of opportunity to confirm that I'm telling the truth. I've got a few pieces of information to give you of things that are going to happen this summer, and we can get together again afterwards."

"Are you going to get rich in the stock market?" Greta asked, prompting laughter from everyone.

"No, that's not very likely. I can only use what I can remember, and I was no stock maven or investment wiz. Beyond some big events, none of which will apply until well after the deadline we've got, I never followed or was interested in anything to do with the stock market. The same goes for sports and other things. There are some things I remember because I can associate them with specific dates or events in my own life, but most things I remember from my life are personal and worthless for those kinds of schemes."

"So what do you remember that you can give us to use as proof?" Sissy Mitchell asked.

"Deaths," I answered. "I remember the days some people died."

I waited, but no one had a reaction to that announcement, save for remaining quiet.

"The first isn't until July sixth. Its William Faulkner." Carrie gasped, as I new she would, but I heard Mom and Dad both take a breath as well. "The next month, on August ninth, another author, Herman Hesse will die."

"Who?" Abby asked.

"Herman Hesse. He is a Nobel Prize winning author," I explained, "But the work that will be the best known, for our generation at least, is called Steppenwolf, and it won't actually be published until next year."

While the group was absorbing that, I thought about the next piece. This is the one that was going to seem most immediate to them all, because everyone knew her.

"But before Hesse dies..." I threw out. I waited until I'd gotten their attention back fully. "A few days before that, on August fifth, Marilyn Monroe will be found dead of a drug overdose, in an apparent suicide. She will be found in the nude, and it will be a huge sensation."

Certainly the Faulkner news would be big enough to make even the local paper, and Bennie would have access to that news and anything else that came across the wire. The rest of them would have to depend on the more normal sources, or keep tabs through Bennie. Everyone left that night with a lot to think about, but when they left, they'd given their word that they wouldn't violate the trust I'd shown in them.

Greta treated me oddly for a few days after that, I'm not sure if it was because of my story, or because she learned that Carrie had known me so well as to spot something that she couldn't. Her mood, if that's what it was only lasted a couple of days, and it was gone.

During those couple of days the Porter family and their employees, which now included me, were busy making the ranch ready for the first paying guests. I had quickly gravitated to working with the horses. I had a whole other lifetime's experience working with them, and it showed. There were four families coming to spend the first week of the season at the ranch, and they were all from some place in New York state.

I learned that it was three brothers and a sister, and their spouses and children. Bob, Leo, and George Foster and their sister Mattie Watkins. Between the four of them they had eight kids, ranging in ages from three to seventeen.

Mattie Watkins was the oldest of the four siblings, and something of a budding matriarch of this rapidly expanding family. Three of the eight kids were hers, including the oldest, Matt Watkins, the seventeen year old. Matt proved to be a real piece of work. He didn't want to be there and generally hated the whole world, if not the entire universe. He reminded me of me, to be honest. The old me at that age had been similarly in hate with all that existed.

His youngest sibling was Mattie Jean, a precocious twelve year old who was attached at the hip to twelve year old Diane, oldest daughter of Leo and Doris Foster. Those two were set to become the bane of my existence for the week that they were with us. The 'terror twins', as Diane's little brother Eddie called them, decided I was cute, and began to buzz around me at every opportunity. Greta nipped it in the bud at the first meal on the river, as she 'sashayed over', and yes, the way her hips moved, sashayed is the only way I can think to describe it. Shimmied, maybe, but that implies something rapid, and this was languid, slow and ... predatory.

Greta sashayed her way over and onto my lap, sliding up hard against me and drew my face down for a very major league kiss. Once the kiss, and the steam it generated had dissipated somewhat, she turned slightly on my lap, spreading her legs and placing my left hand on her thigh. Very high up on her thigh, and looked at Mattie Jean and Diane.

"I know you little girls are thinking of trying to steal my boyfriend, but I'm warning you right now, you can't compete, and Sam has me - what would he want from either of you?"

Of course we were working, so Greta's little demonstration was cut short at that point as we got called over to help with cleaning the dinner dishes. While we were elbow deep in the suds, Mrs. Porter came over with some dish towels.

"That was quite an effective demonstration dear," she commented, "Can I assume Sam's hand is allowed to find such places at other times?"

"Its not about where Sam's hand is going, is it?" Greta replied, glancing at me.

"This is about where your mind is going, and Mrs. Porter..." I ended in a pause.

"Yes?" She asked.

"We're not going where your mind is, were not going that far."

"You're not?" she actually sounded surprised.

"No, we're not, Mom," Greta answered. "We're teenagers and we're in love, so we're going some places, but we haven't gone there ... yet."

That brief conversation set some wheels in motion that I wasn't to learn about until summer was almost over. Mrs. Porter was a big fan of Margaret Sanger, and so had heard all about the newly developed birth control pill, which wasn't in wide spread use yet, but which was available. A trip to Portland happened shortly after that first trip with the Foster/Watkins clan, a trip which left me reaping the benefits a few months later.

I tried hard, very hard, to spend as much of my time when we were away from the ranch with the man Mr. Porter had hired to be the trail guide and 'lore master', as he phrased it. His name was Carlos Arellano, and while he was very knowledgeable when it came to the river and the high desert around it, his true value to me was in his trail skills. I had been hunting with dad in the past, but Carlos taught me to hunt. The first lesson I learned was amazing in its simplicity, and more amazing for how blind I was to it until he had stated it.

"Hunting isn't about killing Sammy," He told me, "That is a decision that comes only after the hunt has been successful."

The first few times we hunted together, neither of us had anything more than a knife on our belt. We hunted rabbits, antelope, grouse and snakes, and we didn't kill a single one. During that time I learned the second lesson.

"How to hunt, that is an answer that changes all the time. Why?" Carlos asked one day as we rode together across a ridge east of Helix. I remained silent, not having a ready answer.

"Would you hunt a man the same way you hunt a rabbit?" he asked when I failed to answer.

"No," I answered. At last, a question I knew the answer to!

"No," He agreed, "and so it is true that there are many ways to hunt."

So I learned about wind and weather, time and trail. I learned about dust, mud, rock and water and about animal behavior. Hunting was day and night, light and dark, gravity and heat, smell and touch and always, Carlos would say, a touch of the infinite unknown, to keep us humble.

By the middle of July, I'd talked to everyone who had come to dinner, and they had all been convinced by the accurately predicted death of William Faulkner. Now the majority of them felt we should get all the parents on board as soon as possible. I agreed, and beyond that, I still felt I needed to get the Nilesons on board.

Luther was convinced we needed his dad and as many doctors as we could get in on things as well.

"Drugs and medical supplies are going to be hard to come by if all the big cities go up in smoke," Luther told me. "Even if they don't, if the people are gone and everything else gets left untouched, we'll need people who recognize what's what."

"I agree," I told him. "The question is, who, when and how. Your parents are a good start, and since there are a lot of calls from everyone to get their parents involved, I think we should have another meeting before the first of August."

With all the Independence Day festivities so recently past, there was nothing to rally around as an excuse for a get-together, so we did a little feeling out of the various people involved and settled on the 27th of July, a Saturday. We invited everyone who had been at the last dinner, and their parents, as well as Brian and Chuck Nileson and their parents. Because I had a feeling, I invited Carlos Arellano too. Luther called a couple of days before, to ask about bringing his sister Celia, and I told him of course he should bring her.

The biggest problem had been scheduling around the Porters. Their business was in its first year, and Mr. Porter wasn't willing to take even an afternoon off if the ranch had guests. Fortunately for us, they had a last minute cancellation, and no way to fill it.

We picked a spot by the reservoir. It was a well known spot, but a little hard to get to compared to the river, but the only ones we had to worry about were Matt Thorson and his girlfriend Abby Marchand.

We did expand some more, adding Erik Osterhaus and his parents, as well as Bear Thompson. I was going to wait to ask him about his parents, because of Burt Thompson, and the fact that their moms were sisters.

It was a good size crowd. Too big, Dad decided, to worry about cooking more than burgers and hot dogs. Mom and Mrs. Nileson each made a large potato salad, and Mrs. Osterhaus brought baked beans and the Caldwells came with fresh several cases of fresh picked corn for roasting in the fire.

We set up a net and played a little volleyball, threw a baseball and a football around. I let everyone take turns playing fetch with Ned. There was a horseshoe pit that had been set up here years ago, and someone had made sure to bring some shoes, and the dads were all occupied with that until it was time to begin burning the meat. I'm not sure what the moms did, beyond hovering over the table of food performing small miracles of organization and display, but I did notice that my mom, Carrie's mom and Mrs. Porter had their heads together frequently.

Once the food had been served and eaten, it was time for my spiel again, and the newcomers to the secret in the crowd reacted as you would expect. Once again Dad spoke of my revelations to him of coming events, and of the money we had made from the few things I could remember that could be used in that way. The most recent predictions to be proved true was mentioned by Matt, Luther and several others, and that's where I once again told the newcomers that I didn't expect to convince them without evidence. The Hesse and Marilyn Monroe deaths were revealed, and as it did during our last get together, the movie star's death was the big shocker, though I did see Mr. Argus shaking his head over the Hesse news.

"I only ask that you give me a chance," I said once the babble had died down. "You will soon have the evidence to make a decision on, and I truly hope you believe my story and are willing to help, because I believe we are being given a chance here, a chance a lot of Cold Lakes didn't get. I don't know it for a fact, but it may be that every possible Sammy Kendall and every possible Cold Lake, and every possible Earth where those places existed has had this happen, and this sending of multiple minds back to this one body is the only chance we have of getting even a single possibility safely past this."

Only one of the people invited needed no convincing, and that was Carlos Arellano. He came up to me during the hubbub towards the end of the evening and shook my hand.

"I will be ready whenever you need me. I wondered what there would be, what purpose you had. The world fights for itself."

Carlos had always struck me as a wise man, but I wouldn't have pegged him as having the makings of a mystic, but he surprised me then.

"How did you know?" I asked.

"I hear them when you speak,"

"Hear what?"

"Echoes." 



-------

Chapter 14: Seed Crystal

By the middle of August, I had over fifty people who had come to believe in my story and my purpose. They were split almost evenly among kids and adults, with most of the kids being high school age. We met again on the fifteenth of August, at the Porter ranch. The big main room of the Porter ranch guest house was large enough to hold twice as many people, if everyone was friendly. For the first time, I laid out what I saw.

"Its 1962. The end of summer is approaching, and we're on the clock," I began. "We have four years, because when summer ends in 1966, a different clock starts ticking, and there's not going to be a lot of time on that clock."

I saw a lot of nods at that, a few people were even taking notes.

"As a group, what is our biggest asset in surviving the loss of most of the world's people, and possibly its infrastructure?" I asked. Dad knew the answer, as we'd had this conversation already, but he remained silent. When nobody spoke, or raised their hand immediately, Carlos raised his.

"Carlos?" I acknowledged, giving him a nod.

"The river," he answered. "Water is life."

"Carlos has hit it on the head," I confirmed. "Water is life. The Columbia river, and other river systems in this country and around the world will become important to those who are left, particularly in areas like ours. Water will let us grow food crops and raise animals. We can hope that the river will continue to provide us with power to provide us with lights and run our tools and equipment."

"That means we should take some steps to make sure that there are people around after the event that know how the dams on the river work, and people to tend the generators and power lines," Mr. Argus said.

"Right now those people are providing the power and water that is slowly turning this part of the country into a major producer of cattle and wheat," Dad added. "North of us in eastern Washington state, they are growing apples and grapes. All made possible by the water of the Columbia and the long, hot growing season."

"So yes, we will have to take those steps and many others," I agreed. "We're going to need to secure stockpiles of supplies, equipment and expertise. The capacity to make new equipment of the kind we are used to would appear to be going away along with the cities that support them. No more cars will be made, no more tractors, boats, planes, tennis shoes, eyeglasses, hearing aides or light bulbs."

"Factories will shut down," Mr. Porter added. "Refineries, power plants, railroads and airlines."

"That means that when our clothes begin to wear out, we will have to make our own to replace them." Mr. Thorson offered, beginning to grasp the scope of it. "When we run out of gasoline for our cars, we'll have to ride horses. Our boats will all be sailboats. Even if we have pilots, we won't be able to fuel the planes to fly them. We'll be back to being isolated communities with weeks and months of travel between them."

"Maybe," Dad added into the silence that followed. This caused a loud rumble as fifty people tried to ask him what he meant all at once. He waited for the room to grow quiet again, then explained.

"We can make fuel that can be used in diesel engines, particularly if we make sure we find the right equipment. Diesel engines are capable of running on almost anything that burns, and some are pretty efficient using alcohol as a fuel. I don't know that we'll be able to keep flying, but our cars and boats, tractors and trucks should remain useful for as long as we can keep them running."

"The fuel that is left wont last forever, but while its still good, there should be plenty of it for the few people who are left." Mr. Harwell commented.

"We still don't know how people will die, or how those who are to be spared will be recognized?" Bennie asked.

"No," I answered, shaking my head. "I keep hoping to get more information, but it comes when it does and no sooner."

"If we've got four years, then those of us with businesses need to run them into the ground." Mr. Nileson said suddenly. "We need to maximize our profits for the next three years, pool those profits and then go on an end-of-the-world spending spree."

That shut the room up for a while! Mr. Nileson's comment was stunning, and almost right, but Dad had already had one thought that anticipated just such a comment.

"More than that," He added. "Those with businesses need to maximize their efforts so that three years from now, they can each get a massive line of credit extended. We should all go as collectively deep into debt as humanly possible. Four years from now we all need to be buried in debt. Four years and three months from now, there will be no one left to collect it."

The silence that followed that pronouncement lasted only a good long minute, and then was broken by a giggle from Mrs. Argus. Soon there was a second, and a third, and most of the room was laughing thirty seconds later. Just as the laughter began to die, Mrs. Argus spoke up.

"Oh honey!" she exclaimed breathlessly to her husband. "I always wanted to be a scofflaw!"

That broke the room up again, and it was time for me to step into the conversation again.

"You see now the enormity of what is about to happen. The drastic alterations we must make in the way we think and plan. Now we can go home and think on this, and hopefully, have ideas. Let's meet here again a week from today, and bring your ideas with you."

Our worlds moved on within their expected orbits for a while, just on sheer inertia. The next batch of guests arrived at the ranch, and we were off to the river with another session of 'roughing it'. I conspired, whenever possible, to spend as much of the time as I could with Carlos.

Joe had joined us a half dozen times over the summer, but he seemed more interested in the river side of things, and Carlos and I went into the desert and the cliffs and hills around the river rather than the river valley itself.

Mr. Porter ended his season early, deciding that he was going to have to make some drastic changes to his plans if he was going to be able to use his business to our best advantage. That was the reason there were no guests at the Porter Ranch when my birthday rolled around. That's why Greta was able to usher me into the most luxurious room there on my birthday. There were candles and chocolate, Nat King Cole playing softly in the background, and silk sheets on the bed. Greta left me at the door and walked over to stand in front of the bed.

"I've been on the pill for two months now, Sammy."

"The pill?" I said, a bit dazed.

"The birth control pill. I know you've heard of it," Greta answered me with a giggle that dissolved into a throaty laugh.

"Baby? Come unwrap your birthday present."

Fifteen is a very good age.

My future has already happened. My past is happening again, but my present?

My present was excellent. My present was excellent three times that night. In the now dark room, as I joined again with my sweet, sweet Greta, I heard her moan as I seated myself deep within her.

"Ahhh..." she breathed, followed by a light giggle.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm Greta, the gift that keeps on getting," she moaned.

"Oh yeah..." I breathed into her ear as I drew myself out and then thrust back in.

Fifteen is a very good age. I fell asleep with my lover in my arms, with her sweet breath on my neck, and her taste on my lips.

-------

When the dream began, it began with the sound of clapping and whistles, and cheering.

In my dream, I opened my eyes to find myself standing by my truck in that valley, receiving a standing ovation from Sammy, Wayne, the Sergeant, Sammi and a new figure that I didn't know.

Well, I knew it was going to be me, but that was not so big an identifier as it once was. The newcomer was wearing a sweater with a scarf and a pair of corduroy trousers with soft, brown loafers. He had a mustache. I'd always hated wearing a mustache, and the only times I'd ever grown one was when it was part of a full beard.

"Hello Sam," he said, once the applause died down. He held out his hand for a shake. "I'm S.W. Kendall. You can call me Sam."

This version of me was older even than the Sergeant, a little more out of shape too, though certainly nowhere near as bad as I had been in my first life."

"Am I finally getting to see a version of me that went to college?" I asked.

"You are, Sam," Sammi gushed. "S.W. Is a college professor and a novelist."

"A novelist!" Well, this me looked the part, I guess. "Were you a struggling novelist, a famous novelist, or somewhere in between?"

"Somewhere between famous and struggling, I think," the Author answered. I had already decided I would think of him that way. "I have had two novels that have been at number one on the New York Times best seller list, and there was talk that the second one was Pulitzer prize material, but someone else won."

"What were your novels called?" I asked.

"The first of the best sellers was 'The River of Daylight'," The Author answered. "The second was 'The West Running Shore'."

S.W. Kendall was a professor of American History at the University of Washington when his end came. He didn't exactly teach me anything, not in the sense that the others had, but he gave me his understanding of some things, and the benefits of some of the years of research he had done, both as a historian and an author. What I knew when I left was going to help us bridge the gap from our high tech, electronic society, to the middle tech, mechanical and electrical society we must hope for. It wasn't so much knowledge as it was perspective.

"You're not going to be able to keep everything," he told me during one of the silences. "You'll do well to preserve the knowledge and hope it will still be there when future generations are ready for it."

When our session broke up, I made a point of asking for more information on what would happen when the aliens came, and it was Sammi who told me.

"Alright Sam, but this isn't going to be easy for you to deal with," Sammi warned. "Come sit down."

I sat on the tailgate of the truck, with Sammy and the Sergeant on each side of me.

"Sam, think of the alien visit as a harvesting. On all the Earths, in all the realities they've visited, they've left no one. Not one of those Earths had even a single human left when they were gone," Sammi began. This was far worse than they had led me to believe it had been. Far, far worse. "But on this Earth, they are going to be blind to some people, and pass them by."

Sammi drew in a deep breath and I felt Sammy and the Sergeant each wrap an arm around me. Knowledge bloomed in my mind, and I saw the visions of how it would be. The swift and sudden disappearance of a world's people.

"No one will survive Sam, save for you, and those you have had physical contact with. Flesh to flesh."

"Oh my God!" I said, after a moment of stunned silence.

"You are the seed, Sam," the Author spoke through the tears. "The crystal around which humanity will bloom again."

I had been prepared to shoulder a load, to be a leader if I needed to be, to be that prophet who led his people out of the wilderness, to borrow a scenario from Sunday school. But I assumed I was going to be just one of many. The enormity hit me then, and I began to weep. I wept for the billions I could never know, and their sad and sudden end because of it. Sammy and Sarge tightened their grips, and Sammi, Wayne and the Author joined in the hug. I buried myself in it and wept.

I woke, sobbing deep, heart-aching sobs. I woke sitting up and in Greta's arms. She was sobbing with me.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

"Because you are," she answered. "You sadness makes me sad too."

"I'm going to have to change our plans a little," I told her. I've seen the truth at last, and its scary and sad, and its me."

"You?" Greta asked, confused.

"Me," I answered, and began to explain.



-------

Chapter 15: Glad Handing the Fates


The future was in my hands. Literally.

Dad always told me not to underestimate the value of a firm handshake. Now it seemed a handshake from me would mean the difference between life or death. It was difficult to get my head wrapped around the reality of that.

How many hands can a man shake in four years, if he works at it? If I shook a hundred hands a day, every day for four years, I could save 146,000 people. Less than the population of even a middling sized American city. There was probably no way I was going to be able to do that many, because there were other things I had to do.

Greta had taken my explanation that morning, as we lay on those now soiled silk sheets, and absorbed it whole, adjusting faster than I had expected.

"Well, I think I got my flesh to flesh contact, don't you?" She asked with a smoky purr.

"Oh yeah, and no rationing it for you, my sweet. You're going to get way more flesh to flesh contact than anyone else."

"Well, nobody but me will be getting this kind of flesh to flesh contact from you, that's for sure," Greta humphed. Then, after a pause. "Well ... unless I decide they can."

"What?" I asked, shocked.

"Well, we may decide we need to ahh ... spread the wealth eventually, you know, to repopulate the planet and all that?"

"You can think of that now?" I asked. "After last night?"

I was prepared to be a little pissed, but Greta was already too familiar with the way my mind worked.

"Well, I probably wouldn't have ever had such a thought after my night of bliss. My night where the man of my dreams took my virginity, and gave me his. My night where I woke up to find my lover weeping uncontrollably in our bed... ?"

Okay, I guess I had maybe changed the scenario a little bit with that performance.

"Okay, but still, what makes you even think those kind of thoughts to begin with?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" Greta said. "Have you seen how my sister looks at you, or Celia, or even Amelia Cort, since the truth has come out?"

"Well..."

"Of course I think Janet was looking at you that way before the announcement. She and I have similar tastes, you know, and you've grown a lot this summer. You're at least three inches taller than you were last summer, and more filled out."

She reached down and covered my groin with a hand. "More filled out all over." I looked up and she was blushing.

Our night may have ended with our third, but our day began with our fourth.

I was young and I was in love. I hardly thought of Janet at all.

-------

Dad took the news with his usual aplomb, and he agreed that it changed everything. He had two ideas immediately, and I agreed that they were both good ones. School was starting soon, and in the time between my birthday and the first day of school, the two of us took a tour of every hydro project on the Columbia. Our tours were thorough, top to bottom jobs, and I met and shook hands with every engineer, technician and supervisor that it was practical to. There were electricians and pipefitters and skilled craftsmen of every kind, hard working, experienced, educated men, and I was saving them as fast as I could.

The first week of my sophomore year, I declared my candidacy for student body president. I was laughed at by all the upperclassmen when I made the announcement during the first assembly, but I was serious, and I had supporters. Bear Thompson's decision to support me was a big boost, as was Matt Thorson's support. I politicked nonstop, standing at the front door of the school handing out buttons or flyers and shaking hands. Always shaking hands.

To make time for my campaigning strategy, I had to drop cross-country. The decision didn't keep me from attending as many meets as possible, to shake hands with people in the audience. I was taking the opportunity on Sundays as well to attend church as far as was practical to drive my scooter on Sunday morning.

It didn't take long, the second Sunday after I'd begun, to find someone who I couldn't shake hands with. It shocked me to the core. I actually broke out in a sweat and found my muscles locking up before I could even begin to bring my hand up. The experience so unnerved me that I sat in the church parking lot for an hour before I felt comfortable climbing on the Honda and heading for home.

Dad had been meeting with his supervisors at the state for the past few months in an effort to change the nature of his job. He wanted to get out of the woods and on the job sites, with the intention of meeting even more of the skilled men and women involved. My latest revelation had been an epiphany to him almost as much as it had been to me, and he dropped the plans, and had been burning up the phone lines talking with some of the people he'd worked with setting up the job corp training program. I wasn't completely sure exactly what he had in mind, but Mr. Porter began coming over and the two of them spent a lot of time in Dad's office.

While this was going on, school and life proceeded as usual. I lost the election for school president, no surprise there, but I kept looking for ways to expand my chances for making human contact. I did get some opportunities through an unexpected source. Carlos Arellano was a respected member of both the Hispanic and Native American communities. The younger Sam Kendalls in me wanted to call them indians, but the Author and I won that battle. Carlos himself didn't care. Both terms, along with Hispanic were too generic for him.

I got an introduction to the Umatilla tribe, and there was a lot of hand-clasping there. Carlos had asked for a long weekend, and together we had driven north into Washington to meet with several tribal gatherings of Yakima, Chinook and Coeur d'Alene indians, followed by a quick trip into Idaho for a gathering of Nez Perce, Shoshone and Paiute tribes.

The federal government wouldn't start recognizing these tribes and making attempts at restoration until the seventies in my first life, so for these people, it would never happen. For them though, every one who met me would survive the coming end, and receive the ultimate in instant reparations. Federal recognition, in the life I'd already lived would spur the scattered peoples of many tribes, particularly in the northwest and Alaska, to get back in touch with the history and traditions of their cultures. Languages that were dieing out were preserved, and those who still spoke them suddenly had students interested in learning from them.

"Carlos, how is it so many of the tribes are gathering at the same time?" I asked him as we were headed west again, headed back to southern Oregon to meet with the Burns Paiutes.

"I didn't have anything to do with it," Carlos said. "I called a few people, and discovered that all these groups just happened to be meeting all during the same few days."

"You don't think it's a coincidence, do you?" I asked.

"No. Neither did the tribal elders I spoke to. A good many of those I spoke to, you've met, and I've told them the truth of what is to happen. They are working to prepare their peoples to gather again when the time comes."

I shook a lot of hands that weekend. The tribal leaders were very active in getting their people out to meet me. As a cover, Carlos, who was a minor celebrity among some of the tribes, was introduced as a visiting hunter and warrior, returning the skills of the people to its former glory. I was his chosen apprentice, and the enthusiasm and thoroughness with which the elders greeted me swung the opinions of most of those I met. I think I shook close to a thousand hands over three days, and another couple hundred Hispanic leaders and community members as well, in small communities scattered across Washington and Oregon between Spokane and Portland, the two big-city ends of out journey.

Carlos and I talked a lot on the road between meetings. I drove, some of the time. This was the early sixties, and rural Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Driving lessons for a fifteen year old were possible in a much less formal manner than in the future. Most boys my age raised on farms or ranches had been driving the family truck for years. The world moved at a slower pace in this here and now, but there was a practical recognition that on a farm or ranch, there was a difference between what was considered 'grown' and 'grown up'.

I was concerned that we would be encouraging the survival of multiple groups who would work at cross purposes to each other when we were on the other side of things. I spoke of my concern to Carlos.

"That is a valid concern, and there are some things we will have to encourage in the next few years that will make that unlikely," Carlos answered, then asked, "you didn't meet anyone during this time who you felt you couldn't touch?"

"No, that was kind of surprising, actually," I admitted. "I figured the odds would mean I'd have to meet one or two."

"The elders didn't invite certain people to meet you. They had a sense of what kind of men would be rejected."

There was a long stretch where we were both silent as I considered that. Finally I spoke my mind.

"And if the political rivals of the elders happened to be excluded, well, that's just a convenient side effect?"

"People are people, Sam," Carlos said. "There will always be politics. I think you will need to have some faith in those who guide you. If we take a wrong path, they will let you know."

I had to agree with that, but the specter of politics and a struggle for position and power now and in the future didn't make me happy.

Football made me happy. I skipped Cross Country, but definitely had no intention of missing football this year after being forced to miss most of it the previous year. Coach Turner was glad to have me back, and with an offensive line of mostly seniors, he expected that Wade Wilkins and I were going to have big years. I hoped he was right. Wade looked to have no competition for the starting QB slot, and I couldn't see it working out any other way, to be honest. He just had too good an arm, and was too quick on his feet. Having the ball in his hands in the backfield gave us another running threat every time we snapped the ball. He had told me last year that he had what it took to be a leader. The question was, did he have the desire?

Pre-season practices followed the experience from last year, except I didn't have to go through the tryout process at the beginning. I was already a member of the offense. Because I had my own ride, I was usually a little earlier than most arriving for the morning practices when we started. Wade was usually there as well, and I began a habit of playing catch with him to get his arm and my legs warmed up. I left most of the throwing to him, but I did wing it back now and then. The motion felt good, and I found I had plenty of power, even if I wasn't quite as deadly accurate as Wade.

Two weeks after practice started, they had a welcome back dinner for the returning players and their parents. New players weren't invited, which is why I didn't get to experience it my first year. I was very glad for the opportunity to meet the parents of most of the players, and I went out of my way to shake hands with all of them before the night was out. Jake Warner, a senior this year and a fellow hand shake proponent that I'd met at the beginning of last year's season made a point of meeting my parents and having his meet mine.

"Dad, this is Sam Kendall. Sam is going to be a big part of the offense this year, and I'll be seeing him off my shoulder a lot as a tight end, but I expect he's going to be too valuable as a receiver to spend much time there."

"A pleasure to meet you Mr. Warner," I said as we shook. "Allow me to introduce my parents, Bill and Helen Kendall."

As his dad and mine were shaking hands, Jake added, "Mr. Kendall has Sam shaking hands as a rule, just like you do me."

"I hope our boys carry that lesson on in life," Dad said to Mr. Warner.

"I agree, and I suspect they will," Mr. Warner answered. "I hope our boys do well this year, on and off the field."

Mrs. Warner was home with Jake's two little sisters and brother, and Mom was quick to say she hoped they got a chance to meet in the future. As adults do, the conversation quickly led to the three of them arranging for a get together, and barring any objection from Mrs. Warner, which nobody seemed to expect, we would be getting together for dinner next week sometime.

Wade Wilson and his parents were already at the table where we were supposed to sit, and those introductions were soon being made. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were friendly enough, though I thought Mr. Wilson was a bit over the top on the 'manly braggadocio' routine. We were joined by the Porters, accompanying Joe, and Colin Kesterman, the other starting receiver and his parents. Colin was the only senior left on offense outside of the linemen, who were all seniors. The table was filled out with the fullback Mutt Manson and his dad. Mutt wasn't his real name of course, it was Horatio. Yeah, he really did prefer Mutt, and so did we. Even his dad called him Mutt.

It was the 1960's, and high school football or not, the running game was still dominant in the sport. The old '3 yards and a cloud of dust'. Mutt was built more along the lines of Jake Warner or Bear Thompson, except that he didn't have Bear's gut. He was very quick for his size, and the prototypical straight-ahead runner. With him at fullback and Joe's zig-zag, high speed running game, we were well equipped to do well on the ground this year. The question at the table over dinner became what the passing game would be like.

We sat through a few speeches from Coach Turner, the principal, the mayor of Hermiston and one of our local representatives to the State legislature. I realized while we were sitting at the table a hundred feet away that the politician was one of those people whose hand I couldn't shake. The second so far. I wondered how many I wold meet in the next four years, and what it really meant.

The dinner was great, and it allowed me to meet and greet a lot of the player's parents, though not all. A good many of the moms were home babysitting younger children that night. I found myself annoyed by the matter-of-fact way this was accepted by everyone, but I had to remind myself that this was still only 1962.

We had dinner with the Warners the following week. Jake's two little brothers were a blast, Ian was eight and Robbie was six, and they were bundles of endless energy. We played football with them in the back yard while dinner was cooking and the parents were busy.

Because I had this tight end's body, the offense soon included an end around option, and I found I liked getting the ball in the backfield. It was one of what the coach called our 'rabbit' plays. Rabbit was short for 'pull a rabbit out of the hat', and it was our bag of trick plays. My morning sessions of catch with Wade before practice wound up adding me to the rabbit bag again when Coach came over to me at the end of practice.

"Kendall, Wilson tells me you have a pretty good arm? That true?"

"Sure, I guess, Coach," I answered hesitantly. "Wade's the expert. If he says I have a good arm, I'll believe him."

"Not good enough, Kendall, lets see it." He turned and hollered, "Kesterman!"

"Yes Coach?" Colin said, running over.

"Twenty yard button hook, from here. Go!"

Colin barely had time to register the surprise before he had wheeled around and began sprinting down the field. Coach tossed the ball he held to me.

"Hit him with this. You know the route."

I did, and the slight delay in handing me the ball and giving me those instructions had used up almost all the time it took Colin to run the route, I had no time to think, so I just cocked my arm and let fly, hitting Colin in the numbers.

"Nice," Coach said once Colin was back with us. "Lets try something a little longer. Fly route, forty deep."

That was a simple straight route. Run forty yards downfield, and look for the ball. I loved being on the receiving end of that route. It was strange being on the passing end of it.

I wasn't even close to getting the timing right the first time. All the timing I knew for that play was from the receiver's side of things. I waited way to long to throw the ball. We ran it one more time, and it was a little better the second time, but this time I threw a little early. Colin did a good job of reacting to the change though, and was able to break off the route and catch the ball.

"All right, I've seen what I need," Coach said, and dismissed us.

Our first game of the season was in Walla Walla. The Blue Devils were usually pretty tough competition for us, being a much larger school, but when Luther Harwell ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown, we began to feel pretty good about our chances. There wasn't much time to savor the feeling though, as the Blue Devils marched the ball down the field on their opening possession. Only a brilliant defensive play on third down kept them from scoring a touchdown. They had to settle for a field goal. The score was 7 to 3 and I hadn't gotten on the field yet. That quickly changed as Luthor was only able to get the ball out to the 25 on their second kickoff.

Coach tested their line, running Joe off tackle left, Mutt up the middle and Joe off tackle right the first three plays. Unfortunately, we only gained nine yards, and had to punt on 4th and 1.

Their punt returner had to fair catch the ball on his own fifteen, and our defense did a much better job the second time, allowing only a single first down before forcing a punt.

When I got back on the field, we were at our own thirty, and the first play was again Joe off tackle left. The second play though was that twenty yard button hook to me, and I caught the ball, getting smacked as soon as I had it in my hands. First down Bulldogs. The next play was Joe off tackle right, and this time he broke through the line and gained fifteen yards on a very nice run. Colin Kesterman had a nice catch on a crossing pattern for eight more yards and it was second and two on the Blue Devil 27.

Wade came into the huddle, and put his helmet on Mutt's as we stood around them.

"Mutt, they're going to be expecting me to plow you through the line for that two yards, but we're not going to do that, okay?"

Mutt nodded his head, and Wade made us all laugh when he added, "Nod bigger, their defense is watching.

While still pretending to talk to Mutt, Wade called Blue Zoom 32. That was me, running the fly pattern into the corner of the end zone. The huddle broke and I lined up, wide right, and turned to look at the line for a second before squaring up. I saw probable double coverage, and wondered how I could lose some of that. On the snap, I broke down the right sideline, waiting until I was five yards past the line and broke left, like I was going to run a crossing pattern, then spun back right, down the sideline again, full out, trying to make up the time I'd burned juking the near defender. The deep defender, who had been thinking he was going to be one side of a sandwich, saw me shed the first guy and reacted, coming shoulder to shoulder to me in single coverage. With him on my inside shoulder, I just motored into the end zone and out jumped him for the ball in the corner of the end zone. 13 to 3 Bulldogs.

That was the highlight of the game for me, I caught eight more passes for a total of sixty five yards, but none in the end zone, and I could never quite break free after the catch. After burning the defense early, I drew a lot of coverage, and that opened Colin up. He caught two touchdown passes, both relatively short dump passes into the end zone. He had a total of twelve catches for a hundred and fifteen yards. Joe scored twice and Mutt once, and the final score was 42 to 17.

Our first two dances of the year had no surprises. No attacks, no jealousy, nothing. Well, there was dancing, and teenage girls in dresses.

Football and dances, and even the classwork was good for me. I had a lot going on in my head, and that didn't even count the other versions of me. School kept me grounded as I worked on grasping a concrete vision of how to proceed. As I was expressing some of these concerns to Dad one night, he told me he would have something to announce soon, and would probably save it for Thanksgiving dinner.

The big game of the year was against the Axemen of South Eugene High in Eugene. This was the largest school we'd face this year unless we made the playoffs, and like us, they were undefeated coming into the game. We had six straight wins but their school had a student body that dwarfed ours, and had a proportionally larger pool of players to draw from.

Where the difference showed up was in the lines. Theirs seemed to mass half again as much as ours, and even our strongest linemen struggled against them. Still, thanks to some gutsy play by our seniors, we were only down 10-0 at the half, a mere ten points. I'd caught three passes in the first half, for a total of thirty six yards and no touchdowns. I'd caught at least one TD pass in every single game so far this year and would gladly have the streak snapped if it meant we could win.

The coaches knew we weren't feeling down about our performance in the first half, so they didn't waste any time building our morale. The offense took over one side of the locker room and the defense took the other. Coach Turner shuttled back and forth between the two groups. Coach Roberts began laying out a plan for getting past their defense and into the end zone. Eventually he got to me.

"Kendall!" Coach called.

"Yes coach!"

"We're finally going to let that option pass play see the light of day. You ready?"

"Yes sir!" I answered. I had been practicing that damned play at every practice all season, and we were finally going to use it, of course I was psyched.

"Okay good, but that's not going to be enough, so here's what I want..."

We got the kickoff to start the second half. Joe got a seam on the left side and ran it back to the 38, and we had first down and good field position to start. The first three plays were right out of the first half's play book and our first half highlight reel, a pitch to Joe running left, a pass to Colin crossing, and a plow ahead play with Mutt that got us a first down, and then a couple more yards to give us a first down at midfield. Another running play, with me at tight end blocking on the left side with Jack Warner, got Joe six yards, then a draw play for Mutt that only got us two. It was third and two, and the coach sent in my option play.

"Okay," Wade said in the huddle, "this is the play. I will be hauling ass down field. Sam will be looking for me around the ten. Somebody try to meet me and the ball down there to make sure I get into the end zone."

We started to break the huddle, but Wade called us back.

"Wait a minute and listen up. If I catch the ball but don't get in the end zone, we're going to run the exact same play, but it'll be a real end around. They haven't seen Sam carry the ball into the line yet, and they may not be prepared for the power he can deliver, got it?"

'Crap!' I thought to myself. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound, and this was the reason I wanted to play football. I lined up wide right and on the snap juked a step forward and then spun, running back across the field, collecting the ball in the breadbasket with Mutt and Joe blocking for me as we ran left. I tried hard not to track Wade with my eyes, but I could see in my peripheral vision that he was burning down the field, and when I knew it was time, I stopped, planting my left foot and snapped the throw. I was on my ass on the turf a split second later, and by the time I was able to get back to my feet, I knew the end around wasn't going to be necessary. Wade had found the end zone, and we were down by three points, 10-7.

The knowledge that Wade could run and catch, and that I could throw seemed to throw their defense off, but their offense was still as tough as ever. Coming into the last few minutes of the game both teams had scored another touchdown and we were still down by three, 17-14. We had one time out remaining and the ball, first and ten on their thirty three, with three shots at a first down, or else we were going to hang our hopes on Bennie's toe.

We gained four yards on the first play, a counter trap that finally worked, letting Joe slip the gap for a short gain. The second play was incomplete to me, thanks to a nice play by the defender who just manage to tip the ball as I was closing my hands on it. The third play was another pass, to Colin this time, and he caught it just short of the first down marker. Wade looked at the sidelines and then called our last time out.

In the huddle, the argument was about going for the tie or the win, of course. Coach wanted the tie and Wade wanted the win. Wade's convincing argument left me feeling a little hollow.

"Coach, they haven't seen Sam run the end around yet, and they know he can throw now, so their linebackers will have to play for the pass."

So that was the call out on the field.

"Blue Bull 32. Hut!"

Again I juked my fake forward, spun and ran back across the field, taking the handoff from Wade, and running with Mutt and Joe. I raised my arm at the same point as the last time, but it was just a quick wave and then I dropped my arm, tucked the ball and headed for the seam in the line I'd hoped would be there. Mutt took out the only player who looked like he was prepared to meet me there, and I was past the line, and looking for a lane. I didn't see anything at first, but I heard Joe call 'right!', and as I looked right, he was knocking a defender down and there it was! I stepped hard into the turn and blew past the pile Joe had caused, running full out in the open field now. I had the first down, but there were only 40 seconds left on the clock above the end zone.

I slowed slightly, turning back towards the center of the field, as someone closed off the sideline I had been shooting for. The defender saw his opportunity then and hit me where I held the ball, trying to knock it loose. He should have tried to tackle me. I shrugged him off and kept going. At the five, I found the safety barreling in full speed, but I had six inches on him and probably fifty pounds. I stiff armed him, and rolled past the cornerback coming from the other side, and was in!

Touchdown Bulldogs!

There were still 27 ticks of the clock left, and after the kickoff, and a relatively short return, there were 12 seconds. Coach Barnes had the defense playing for the long ball, and that let the Pirates hit a pass on the sidelines to get out of bounds with another first down at their own forty six with six seconds left. Another short pass to the sidelines gained them five more and left one tick on the clock as they called a time out, their last. The Hail Mary at the end would have been the classic ending, but Bear Thompson broke through the middle and Tony Espinoza, one of our linebackers hurtled over him to block the pass. The ball bounced back and off the quarterback's helmet and hit the dirt. The horn had already sounded. Bulldogs win!

-------

The next game was homecoming, against the Pendleton Buckaroos, and we rolled over them 112 to 34. Joe Porter ran for over two hundred yards and four touchdowns and Wade Wilson passed for over four hundred. Hell, even I had over a hundred yards passing, and that was all strictly from our end around option! Colin and I had three touchdowns each, Mutt had two and even the defense scored one on a a fumble recovery that got picked up and run back.

Our last game of the season was against Irrigon, and we were their homecoming game. We won that game, against a fired-up Knights team and a hostile crowd. Coach Taylor pulled most off the starters after the first quarter with a 27 to 3 lead. Even with our second string, we won going away 54 to 12.

"I believe this is our year," Coach Taylor had stopped the bus in the middle of nowhere on the ride back to Hermiston, and began to speak. Not a speech so much, as no longer being able to keep his feelings bottled up.

"I believe this is our year. Our offensive and defensive lines are full of seniors with experience, smarts and a desire to leave a mark. Next year, we'll have to replace both lines."

Coach was walking up and down the aisle of the bus as he spoke.

"Last year four kids from Cold Lake walked in out of nowhere and blew me away. Bennie Argus is the best toe we've had on a Bulldogs team in all the years I've been coaching here. Our kicking game used to be a weakness, and now it's a strength. Luther Harwell is a defensive rock in our backfield, and on special teams. He's leading the team this year in tackles and take aways."

At the front of the bus, he stopped and put his hand on Joe's shoulder.

"Joe Porter has shattered the Hermiston rushing record books this year. He's now the leader in yards on the ground, both game and season. He has the record for touchdowns in a game and in a season. he and Mutt Manson complement each other perfectly. After crunching the numbers, we believe that Joe is also going to finish the season as the conference rushing leader."

Then the coach's eyes were on me, and I wondered why it seemed he had saved me for last.

"We might have done almost this well last year if someone hadn't taken a baseball bat to Sam Kendall." That generated a laugh from everyone. That bat was an official team joke, usually brought up when talking about slackers at practice.

"This year, Sam is healthy, and with his size, speed and head for the game, he's becoming virtually unstoppable. If we played him at tight end, like he had hoped to be when he first tried out last year, he would be the best tight end in the state, maybe in the country. Even only filling in occasionally, he is officially the leading tight end in the conference."

I got cheered over that, just as Joe, Bennie, and Luther had been earlier.

"He will, if the numbers we've got are accurate, finish the season as the number one wide out in the conference, He too has broken records at the school for yards in a game and in a season."

Finally coach walked over to stand next to Wade.

"Wade Wilson was a freshman last year as well, and when he came to us, he had decided he wanted to be a receiver. He'd given up on the quarterback slot, but we convinced him to try out, and he soon showed us he was going to be the quarterback of our future. That future is now. Wade has not just been a far better quarterback for us than his coaches at Ukiah ever dreamed he could be, but he is our team leader. His leadership, on and off the field, his clarity of thought and intelligence on the field were what won us the day in Eugene, and I would be surprised if there was anyone on this team who felt different."

Wade got his cheers then, and Coach Taylor had been right. There wasn't a one of us who didn't think that ultimately, it was Wade who had brought us to where we were this season.

As the bus pulled back out onto the highway, I went looking for Colin Kesterman. He was sitting with Brian Spense, one of the offensive linemen.

"Hey Brian, can I steal your seat for a few minutes to talk to Colin?"

"Sure Sam. No hanky panky," Brian said with a leering grin.

"Geez Brian, I mean Colin is kinda cute, but you've met my girlfriend. Do you think I'd settle for Kesterman?" Just the typical jocks on a bus kind of chatter, but Brian got up and gave me his seat.

"What's up?" Colin said as I sat.

"I just wanted you to know that your name should have been mentioned up there just now by Coach," I said. "You and I complement each other perfectly, just like Joe and Mutt do."

"Thank you Sam," Colin said, holding out his hand. "I appreciate your thinking to come over and say that to me."

"Well, you deserve it," I replied. "You're still teaching me things every game, and your still the guy who catches those crucial, 'where'd-he-come-from' passes that get us just enough yards for a first down when we absolutely need them."

We were a happy bunch when the buses pulled into the school parking lot. It was late, but a lot of the parents and supporters were there to greet us. Greta jumped into my arms almost as soon as I was off the bus.

1963 blew in on a series of winter storms that dumped snow all over the high desert and up and down the Columbia River valley from Portland to Pasco. It laid a look of bleak emptiness that matched my mood, and the mood of most of my teammates. We'd swept through the first round of the playoffs, only to be matched up against South Eugene again in the second round at the district quarterfinals.

The Axemen ran roughshod over us in the first half of our game, and only amazing performances from Wade and Joe put us back in the game. In the end, we won it on Bennie Argus' toe, with a fifty-four yard field goal that should have never succeeded. Somewhere though, Bennie found an extra few yards, and his foot won us the game.

When we played Portland's Wilson High in the semis the next week, we had nothing left, emotionally or physically. We didn't fold, but this was a large school and a talented team. When it came time to dig deep and look for a little something extra, the tank was empty. We lost 21 to 10.

You would have thought we had won, by the reactions of those waiting for us at home. We were all a little too depressed to give it the perspective it deserved at the time, but by the time that winter storm had blown in, we all saw just how much of a success our season had been. No team from Hermiston had ever gone so deep into the post season. Even the people of Cold Lake saw it as their victory.

-------

Over Thanksgiving dinner, Dad and Mr. Porter revealed the scheme Dad's mystery idea had evolved into.

"With the cooperation of some high level people in the Peace Corp, who at this point are thinking of disasters like those that could be caused by the missiles in Cuba, we are going to be doing two things," Dad explained.

"The first is that every single new incoming Peace Corp volunteer is going to be filtered through the Porter ranch from now on," Mr. Porter added.

"The second is that we will have a have a world-wide debrief and brain storming session in October," Dad continued. "Every single current and former member of the Peace Corp training staff will attend. This means everyone from the scientists and engineers down to the craftsmen and technicians who were used to train the volunteers the Peace Corp has been sending out to third world countries."

I had to think about that for a bit. It sounded like Dad and Mr. Porter were hedging their bets and hoping to have as many people with the skills we need here when the event happened as possible.

"This very well could include some political heavyweights, so we'll have to play that by ear." Mr. Porter concluded.

The rest was all details and logistics. I was beginning to consider logistics a four letter word in my lexicon.

Thank God for the decent lead time at least, because some of the things that most of the people had settled on as essential were logistical nightmares at best. There was a medical convention in San Francisco in July of this year that Mr. Harwell and Doc Peterman, the town doctor were convinced I should go to. Every hand I shook there could be not only a life saved, but a lifesaver's life saved.

All the adults involved were working hard to get their parents and other relatives to come to Oregon for extended stays. If they all came, Cold Lake's population was going to double sometime after September of 1966.

There remained a sense of urgency for most folks, even with three and a half years to go before the event. There were too many unknowns still. No certainty, not even about the event happening at all, really. A lot of people were taking a lot of things on faith, and a few key predictions that had come true. Dynasties had been built on flimsier things than this, its true, but many things had failed utterly that were born of far firmer stuff.

I spent my time during the heart of the storm on horseback on the high plateau and foothills east of Pendleton. Carlos was teaching me to understand our kind of winter, and the art of survival in it. There was a rhythm to it, I learned. A pace that it was a waste of time to try to beat. A measured, thoughtful pace that gave you time to see your mistakes coming and head them off. Time to check things twice and do things right the first time, because if things got shot to hell, there might not be a second time.

I learned how to take care of a horse during harsh weather and desperate situations. A horse can handle an awful lot, but will kill itself doing what you ask it to, if you're not careful. So I learned not to ask more of my horse than I asked of myself, and maybe, learned when it would be the right time to ask for more than it had, and save my life, or someone else's.

Several times, sitting out in the open desert late at night, the moon up and the snow laying flat and all aglow with reflected light, I saw the ghostly outlines of Sammy, Sammi, the Sergeant and the Author standing around me. I don't know if it was a waking dream or a hallucination, or just plain exhaustion, but they stood with me feeling the night and the winter, and I was comforted. 



-------

Chapter 16: Pockets of Knowing


The Umatilla Ordnance Depot was going to be a problem some day. It had been storing military ordnance, mostly ammunition, since it was built in 1941. That meant everything from .30 caliber bullets to bombs. Big bombs.

Unexploded ordnance was going to be a big enough problem on its own, but the real problem here was that since just a few years ago, the depot had begun storing chemical weapons, including nerve gas.

It would be a threat to everyone left behind. Plans had to be made to deal with what remained. Plans that, by necessity cannot be direct, because we are a shadow group operating in secret and led by a high school student. Plans that depended on someone surviving to implement them.

More handshaking and smiles.

"A pleasure to meet you Colonel Baird," I said, holding out my hand.

"My pleasure entirely, son," the base commander said. "We're tickled pink to have the MVP from the state champions visit us. But why on earth is someone like you even interested in someplace like an army ordnance depot?"

"My dad's a civil engineer," nodding at Dad as I began my well rehearsed answer. "Together we've toured the dams from one end of the Columbia to the other, and there's a certain fascination there, you know, for the way things are done? Since I'm thinking of an engineering degree myself, these kinds of places, with their special needs are very interesting."

"Well its mostly just a lot of steel and concrete, but its important work," the Colonel bragged. "Especially now that we're storing chemical weapons."

"Really, I'm more interested in the people than the concrete. That's the piece of it I won't get exposed to in college. The people who live and work in the things we build. I confess, just the idea of chemical weapons make me a little nervous."

"Well, we'll take a look at those places, and meet the people who work with the stuff, but to be honest, I'm no more comfortable with them than you are. I'm more of the 'bullets and blankets' kind of guy. These chemical weapons are a whole different story. At least we don't have to worry about the nuclear stuff here."

It was strange, after having lived through the days following 9/11 and the paranoia that followed, to see so little concern over information that would have gotten the Colonel a quick court martial in the last few years of my first life. Terrorists, and the idea of them, was much different in 1964 than it was towards the end of my first life.

I got the full tour, glad handing the officers and enlisted men alike in each and every place. I indeed saw everything from bullets to blankets safely stored here. Some of which could be of use when the time came, but most of which was very deadly and very dangerous.

"Well, that's it!" Colonel Baird announced after climbing up out of a deeply buried bunker. "You've seen everything but the mess hall. Speaking of which, how about we visit there next and see what's for lunch?"

"Sounds like a good idea," Dad said. "I know I heard Sam's stomach grumbling several times down in that bunker."

We laughed over that, but it was true. My metabolism was still on high, despite having no intention of playing football in the coming year.

I met and shook hands with every cook, dishwasher and potato peeler in the mess hall as well. The meal was very U.S. Army. Hot, plentiful, and ... yes, it was hot and plentiful.

We talked football while we ate, and I again got to see how a game could capture the imaginations of grown men. We discussed both championship games. This year's and the year before. People here remembered details of that excruciating loss to the Lake Oswego Lakers better than I did. As people talked of the many miracles of that season, I reminded them that the biggest miracle of all was that we were even there.

"We graduated 98 percent of our offensive and defensive lines the year before that. We went into that season with only two returning starters on the line, and half the line that year were sophomores. They were the real heroes of that season. Certainly not me."

That generated a lot of complements over my modesty and team loyalty, but I firmly believed it. We lost in the state championship that year, by a 49 yard field goal. The last few seconds of the game ticked off the clock while the ball was in the air.

There was less drama to talk about in this year's championship. We had dominated our conference, the tournament and the championship game. The final score was 61 to 17, and I caught three touchdowns and threw two more. That title, and the MVP award I received had been the keys to getting me into places like this. Places I would have never had a chance to see normally, particularly in such detail.

"Colonel, what percentage of the base's personnel would you say I've met today?" I asked towards the end of the lunch.

"Gee, close to all of it, I'd guess, except for the night shift guards and a few people who are on leave," I could see the curiosity in his eyes, over my question.

"Just like we were talking about the linemen on the Bulldog team being unnoticed, I often wonder how many people involved in any operation go unnoticed and unrecognized. I like to try to recognize everyone who has a part, because of it. So people know they're appreciated too."

And I really believed that. It was a belief I'd picked up from Dad, and I had taken to myself. If you had a part, you deserved to have pride in it, and to receive recognition for it.

For the last few months, we had been seeking out the smaller military bases in Oregon and Washington close enough to the river to be practical. Places like Camp Bonneville and The Yakima Firing Center. A few places like the UOD. What was going to happen to the chemical weapons stored there, or to the nuclear weapons material in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and places like them that I knew from my first life had become major ecological concerns? That was a very, very good question.

It was early August, and I had another birthday coming up soon, my eighteenth. Only one more after this before the world changed forever. Things had been going at a breakneck speed, far too fast and far too distracting in some ways. Graduating from High School had been just a task to get through. I had graduated third in my class, behind Greta and Bennie, so at least I didn't have to make a speech.

The sports awards I could have done without. We had racked up a lot of them in the last three years, two regional titles in baseball, and the state championship in football. Wade, Luther and I had been heavily recruited, especially by west coast schools, but with the knowledge we all shared of what was coming soon, we had hoped to stay close to home. Our dilemma would have been large, if it weren't for the athletic director up in Pullman. He offered all three of us full scholarships and an offer to play both football and baseball.

Several of the sports writers of the day were stunned at our decisions, especially mine. Thank God we were not yet in the days when the media's 'right to know' trumped everything, as it had been towards the end of my first life. Here and now, my simple announcement that the decision had been made based on my education interests and a desire to remain close to home were enough.

Meanwhile, my mind was on things beyond the impending start of college. Mr. Porter's herd of horses was prospering. He had brought them in because he saw them as perfectly adapted to an environment that combined the high desert, the Columbia river, in all its aspects, and the mountains and forests beyond it. They were hardy, sure-footed, good in both the snow and the heat, and amenable to training for a variety of uses. Their distinctive brown and gold markings seemed to be a dominant trait. We had bred the stallion to a few other mares outside the herd, and all the offspring were similarly marked.

Another little side trip we'd made during the summer had been to several of the larger, more powerful radio stations along the river. When the time came, we were hoping to broadcast over them, reaching survivors who weren't in Hermiston or Cold Lake. There would be tiny clusters of them at bases and in small towns all across Washington and Oregon.

A bump as we were turning off of the highway brought me back to the present. I had let my mind wander for most of the ride. Dad must have sensed my reflective mood and left me too it.

"Almost home," I said, turning my head towards him and smiling.

"Pleasant thoughts?" he asked.

"Just thinking about what we've done and what we still need to do," I answered. "We're close to the point where we stop hiding. We're almost to the final stretch."

"Remember, you are under orders from your mother and I," Dad teased.

"I know, enjoy this year of college," I said with a laugh. Mom and Dad were disappointed that I was only going to get one year of 'the college experience'. Mom hadn't even gotten one day of it herself, but she says being married to Dad is the same thing. Dad believed it would help keep me grounded going into the event, whatever it was going to be.

Greta was waiting with Mom at the house when we got there, and while Mom was content to wait on the porch for Dad to come to her, Greta came flying out to meet me, launching herself into the air, and into my arms, locking her legs around me, and only waiting long enough for us to make eye contact and have that unspoken moment of mutual recognition and acknowledgment before laying some serious lip lock on me.

"Wow!" I said, when I finally had a chance to draw breath. "I was only gone overnight sweetie, did you miss me that much?"

"Yes, I did," Greta breathed into my ear. "I kinda got used to going along on these road trips. It was murder having to stay behind this time."

"Well, that was the last of those kind," I told her, kissing her nose. "Our road trip to Pullman is only a day away."

Joe, Luther and I had to report early to school for football. In order to ensure our signing with the Cougars, Coach Clark had allowed us to stay off campus. Something freshman in general, and freshmen football players in particular weren't normally allowed to do. We bought a four bedroom apartment building a block from campus with some of Dad's Las Vegas gambling money and Joe, Carrie, Greta, Luther and I were planning on living there. Luther was currently between girlfriends, so had no one to share his room with. One of the local widows, Mrs. Emerson, was going along as our house mother to give us some semblance of propriety, and she would get the single downstairs bedroom in the building. She was one of a few people in Cold Lake who were older and unattached that we had already made plans collectively to watch out for. She was actually a pretty tough old bird, and had a lot of old-time skills that were going to make her an asset down the road, but she was slow and weak, and needed someone to help with the heavy stuff. That was Luther, Joe and I in a nutshell. Handy for the heavy lifting.

Joe was getting the old family truck, the one that had pulled up at the ball field with his sister Janet in it that first time four years ago. I already had my wheels; Dad's Chevy K-10 truck. He was driving a used but very well maintained military surplus 4x4 with a diesel engine. He was in the middle of negotiating a deal for a fleet of them. The diesel engines could be made to run on other forms of fuel, and they were mechanically simpler and more robust than most of the gasoline engines. Thank God we didn't have to deal with the electronics-laden cars I remembered from my first life. No catalytic converters yet either.

The trip to Pullman was, in fact, the reason Greta was waiting for me at Mom and Dad's house. While I'd been gone, she had been helping mom clean and pack my stuff. She was already packed, had been for three days, and had already helped Mrs. Emerson get her stuff packed as well. Mrs. Porter, Mom, Mrs. Harwell, Mrs. Emerson and Greta had already taken a trip to our house in Pullman and had it stocked and supplied.

I already had our two Honda Super Cubs mounted in the back of the truck, riding in a special cradle that Mr. Greer and I built out of some spare parts laying around the back of Nileson's Mercantile.

Mr. Greer seemed to have done well with his cancer treatments, and was one of our biggest supporters amongst the townsfolk in Cold Lake. There were sure a lot of us who were glad to see him well enough to be back at work and coaching baseball again.

Everything else was going to get packed under a canvas sheet, but barring a truly unexpected event, there would be no worries about rain getting our things wet. August in the Palouse was pretty dry, and while we weren't a part of what was officially considered the Palouse, Cold Lake and the area around it were all part and parcel of the same region. Exactly who decided what was and was not an official part of something with no official status was a mystery to me anyway.

Dinner that night had something of a going away party feel, despite the fact that we would all be driving up together the next day. We got together with the Porter's, the Harwells and the Ralston's at the Ralston's house. Like our house, some serious furniture rearranging had to be done to accommodate everyone, and we ate at a table that filled their living room. It was quiet and boisterous at the same time. It wasn't just the start of college, it was the marking off of the last stretch towards the event next year.

There were no sleepovers that night. Everyone went home to be with their own families. Joe and Greta had some little sisters to spend some time with, and Luther Harwell had little brothers who were going to need the same kind of attention.

It had been one of those kind of nights, still, deep and meaningful. I half expected a visitation in my sleep, but none came.



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Chapter 17: The Wild Season


Our house was just north of the campus at 117 Cider Lane, a small dead end road that hooked like a candy cane. We were about three quarters of the way around the handle of the cane, in a two story cottage.

The three bedrooms upstairs were not all of a size. The back bedroom was the largest, about half again as large as either of the front bedrooms. The front bedrooms however had huge dormer windows with awesome window seats and a view towards campus. The back bedroom had smaller windows, even though it had more of them, and no window seats. Somehow it had been decided that Greta and I would have the back bedroom. There was also a small sitting room behind the stairway that enjoyed the view from the other front window, and there was a small sofa, two overstuffed chairs and a coffee table and radio.

The living room and kitchen downstairs were cozy and warm, and even more so with Mrs. Emerson in residence within them. She was a warm, sweet dumpling of a woman who wore an apron like a uniform and always seemed to have something in her hands being peeled or sliced.

Joe, Luther and I had no real time to let the true atmosphere of our new home away from home sink in. We were in meetings and practices immediately. Coach Clark left a no-nonsense impression during recruiting, and he did little to change that impression during the first few days of meetings and practices. He also left no doubt that passing was not his primary focus on offense. We were run ragged, and those who had already had a season or two under him laughed at us and told us we were fools for coming to WSU. Tom Roth, the quarterback, was quick to point out that if we were fools for coming, what did that make him and the other returning players?

We were no ship of fools though. We were a rhinoceros of fools, a tank of fools. We were buried in the dirt and mud and banging our way through it for yardage and whatever glory Coach Clark permitted us to enjoy.

The practice schedule barely left us time to be students. Against the advice of the coaching staff, I ran for the student council, and spent what little free time I had shaking hands and asking for votes. I had a light class load. This was for the experience after all, there would be no sophomore year.

There was little energy left over. Greta and Carrie complained, at first, but understood that we were only going to have the one year, and that we intended to give it everything we had. The two of them complained at first of a few guys deciding that absent boyfriends should be replaced. But if we could dredge up the will to run another 50 wind sprints for Coach Clark, we could dredge up enough energy to meet these idiots and explain things to them. Could and did. Once they'd met us, they were very understanding of our point of view on the matter.

I should have expected it, but I was just too dog tired and preoccupied with football. I 'woke' in the middle of the night to find myself once again standing beside my old pickup truck on that lonely dirt road. Sammy, Sammi, The Sergeant and the Author were there, and standing in front of them was another me.

"Hi Sam," he said with my voice.

"Hi Sam?" I answered back.

"Call me Slammin' Sammy," he said. "Its what the sports writers nicknamed me."

Slammin Sammy was wearing a Baltimore Orioles uniform, and had a bat on his shoulder.

"So," I said, looking him over. "Professional baseball, eh?"

"You got it," he said, stepping over to shake hands. "I never fell for the football thing as a player. Did go to WSU like you though. You're going to be messing with a little history this year, Sam."

"Well, I'm kind of used to the idea of that," I answered with a snort.

"Yeah, but I mean WSU sports history in this case. This was a special year for Cougar football. This team became known as the 'Cardiac Kids', and they're somewhat legendary, at least as far as WSU alumni are concerned."

So we talked baseball, and we talked sports and athleticism in general. This Sam Kendall definitely shared my new physique.

"You didn't think that you just got it from thin air, did you?" he asked. "All me, kid. All me."

This version of me was just a little bit arrogant, I decided. But he had a keen sense of humor, throwing in little jokes as we talked. I knew it was time for the conversation to get serious when the rest of the echoes gathered around.

"Sam, you have had questions about how the event is going to work, and what is going to happen," Sammi began.

"We haven't said too much so far, but now its time to reveal a little more," Young Sammy added. "Ask us."

Damn! Finally. I caught my breath and tried to lock my gaze on all of them at once.

"Okay, when everyone goes, what's going to happen to everything else? The buildings and roads and such?"

"Nothing," the Author answered. "Almost everything will be left behind."

That was good news, and what I had been hoping to hear. I'd had visions of everything man made disappearing, and all our work to gather supplies and secure sites winding up being a wasted effort. Then the word 'almost' echoed back in my brain.

"Almost?" I asked. Slammin Sammy grinned big at that. No, I couldn't keep think of him as 'Slammin' Sammy', it just grated on me, and with his own arrogance to guide me, the Star seemed to be a good fit.

"Good boy! The aliens who are doing this don't really 'see' the buildings and roads and other human construction, but some things do register for them, and since they are in one sense, cleaning up after themselves, they will not leave any nuclear weapons, fuel or refined radioactive materials behind. They won't leave concentrated amounts of chemical and biochemical weapons behind."

"But there could still be small amounts left here and there, away from places like the ordnance depot?"

"Yes, so you'll have to be careful."

"What about other refined products? Gasoline, heating oil, that sort of thing?"

"We're not sure," Little Sammy said finally. "Large refineries maybe, but smaller sites?" He left that question unanswered.

"You're not sure?" I said, with perhaps a small trace of anger in my voice.

"We're sorry, but we only know things that rise to a certain level of conscious attention by the aliens. These kinds of things haven't risen to that level, so we don't know," the Sergeant said, defensively.

"I'm sorry," I returned. "I should be happy with whatever you can tell me. Your uncertainty just took me by surprise."

"Us too," Sammi admitted. "And don't forget, we keep talking about this in the future tense, but for us, its all happened already. We're from the future too, remember."

"Do we need to worry about the aliens seeing those of us who survive?"

"No," the Sergeant explained. "They don't really see people as physical objects, and so those people who you've touched are not giving off the 'vibrations' anymore that they recognize as being people."

"Vibrations?" I asked, jokingly. The Sergeant caught my mood.

"Yeah, well I'm just a grunt without his gun. You get an explanation using the words I know, okay?"

"I know a lot more words than the Sarge, and I couldn't do any better describing it," the Author added with a laugh.

"What about the people who I can't shake hands with?" I asked.

The joking mood died instantly. Slammin Sammy slammed his bat into the ground. "There may be people who already don't have those vibrations. They might survive too."

"Why does that make you angry?" I asked.

"There may be other actors in this drama besides us," Sammy said. "Not echoes of other people, but other forces besides those we think we know of, and they may be trying to influence the results."

"Wild cards," yhe Author suggested. "There are those who think there should always be a balance to the forces applied."

"Who?" I asked. "What other actors? What's really going on here?"

I started to fade out, and as I did, the Star plopped his bat back on his shoulder and spoke the words I didn't want to hear.

"Can't tell you that, Sam. You never save the world in a vacuum though. Too much involved. Have a good year."

I woke up to the sounds of my own voice in my ears, and unanswered questions rattling around in my head. They were driven out by the sound of Greta's voice.

"Happy birthday Sammy," she breathed into my ear, before she shifted in the dark and I was lost in the bliss of a little early morning birthday gift.

Our first game of the year was against Iowa, and we won 7-0. None of us freshmen played much, but since it seemed that coach Clark's roster moves were mostly made as a matter of attrition, we would get into a game before the season was over. Iowa was a Big 10 team, and beating them on their field was a big deal. We had another Big 10 team the very next week though, and we were soon too busy getting ready for the trip to Minnesota to savor the win against Iowa.

During our practices, I lobbied hard with our quarterback to use me in the offense. I was a head taller than anyone else on our team, and based on the Iowa players I'd seen, I was going to be taller than the safeties and corners that I would be facing. I was also going to be faster. I was faster than anyone on our team, offense or defense, and I pushed those facts at Tom. He had a nice arm and I thought it was a waste to not take advantage of it.

We beat Minnesota, but just barely. I still didn't get into the game and the 14-13 squeaker didn't sit well with Tom Roth. He argued with Coach Clark about it and I don't know if it decided it for the coach or not, but I heard Tom yell at one point about how insane it was to go into a fight with a gun and two bullets and only load one bullet into the gun.

I played the following week against Idaho, and so did Luther and Joe. We didn't start, and we didn't play a lot, but Coach Clark began to use us situationally. I didn't know it of course, but the victory against the Vandals was the first of those changes in WSU history that the Star had mentioned. Yeah, I had started calling him that. They were the Kid, The Sarge, the Author, the Tomboy and the Star. The Echoes. They should have been singing doo-wop.

The Idaho game was our first home game of the season, and after two straight wins against the Big 10 to open the season, we had a huge, enthusiastic crowd to face the Vandals. Of course, their campus and ours were only eight miles apart across the Washington/Idaho border, so there were plenty of Idaho students and fans in attendance as well.

The first time I touched the ball in a game for the Cougars, it was to return a kickoff. I ran it back 43 yards and put us at first and ten on the Idaho 48 yard line. The second time I touched the ball was late in the third quarter, and finally I got a play in from scrimmage.

"Listen pimple," Tom said in the huddle. That was his nickname for me - pimple. "Coach put you in, coach says throw, I'm going to throw, and we're not going to waste time with some cutesy short pass. You line up right and run the Triple D route down to the ten."

That was going to cut the margin thin, I thought. Tom was dead on accurate out to thirty yards, and beyond thirty, he had some accuracy issues. Not my call to make though, so I ran the route, and damned if he didn't hit me spot on at the ten when I turned left towards the middle of the field and looked for the ball. At that moment, those actions seemed to happen in slow motion and freeze-frame, both at the same time.

Turn.

Ball.

Hands.

I pulled the ball into my chest, spun back to my right and saw a jersey and the end zone. I didn't have time to do more than lower my shoulder, and I met the helmet of the defender with my shoulder pad at full speed. I swear it sounded like a thunderclap!

I staggered, a single step to the right before I recovered. The defender was flat on his back about four feet away. I didn't wait for the universe to stop spinning around me, I still had the end zone in my sights, and two more long strides at full speed had me in. Touchdown Cougars!

The effectiveness of that pass aside, I think what won coach Clark's heart was the sound of it. I hadn't been the only one who thought my collision with the defender sounded like a clap of thunder. So did most of the people on the sidelines. It also didn't hurt that the defender had to be taken off the field on a stretcher. Nothing made coach Clark happier than the thought of pain and punishment, and if it was the other team receiving it, all the better!

The next two games were against Villanova and Arizona, in Spokane. The Cougars played two or three games every year in Spokane, and this year our two games were back to back.

Joe was sharing time at halfback with Bob Simpson, the Cougs returning stand-out running back, and the two of them were enjoying the holes that the line and our tougher-than-nails fullback Larry Eilmes were opening up for them. We won going away against Villanova 38-14 and shut out Arizona 27-0. Halfway through our season, and we were undefeated, and two of our wins had been against Big 10 teams on their own fields. Still, we had five more games to play and only one of them was at home. Next up was a trip to Indiana to play the Hoosiers.

Classes were going fine. Basic freshman courses in Math, English, History and Biology hadn't proven to be much of a challenge, although again, I enjoyed the writing parts of the English class. Unfortunately the class seem intended to make sure the lessons of English structure and composition that we were supposed to have learned in High School were truly there.

The trip to Indiana was terrible. The weather was lousy, the food was crap and most of the people I tried to shake hands with thought I was nuts. Maybe it was a Midwest thing; I got lots of odd looks, but very few refusals.

Once the game was under way, things improved considerably. The trip itself seemed to have taken something out of a lot of the players, but Luther, Joe and I seemed unaffected, and the Indiana game was our turn to shine. The Star had hinted during our conversation that this was considered something of a miracle game by the WSU faithful, but it was no miracle this time. We drubbed the Hoosiers 43-10, and Tom found me in the end zone three times.

Two weeks later we would beat Oregon by an identical score in front of an enthusiastic crowd for our last home game of the season. In the intervening week we beat Oregon State 21-8.

Our last two games of the season were against Arizona and Washington. We had been humiliated in the Apple Cup the previous year, getting blanked by the huskies. We might have already had our eye on that prize, because we faltered against the Sun Devils, barely managing to pull out a win 13-12 with a last second, barely-over-the-crossbar field goal with two ticks left on the clock.

Coach Clark reamed us a new one six ways from Sunday when we got back to Pullman, and had us running sprints till we couldn't stand up.

The Huskies had a couple of top-notch running backs that year, and they threatened to run over us early. Mason Mitchell in particular dominated us in the first quarter.

Coach Clark adjusted our run defense, reassigning Luther to cover the run. This was effective, almost cutting their ground game to nothing. They kept running Mitchell and Medved at us, hoping to wear us down, but they didn't know just how much easier a game was compared to one of Coach Clark's practices.

Meanwhile, what was good for the goose was good for the gander. Joe was breaking off long runs against the Huskies defense almost at will, and every time they found a way to clamp down, Tom Roth would find me over the middle, or streaking down the sideline. Whenever they thought things were settled, we'd remind them what a good runner Larry Eilmes was, and he had several really huge gainers against them, particularly in the second half.

The game was almost a blowout in the second half, and Tom and coach Clark really spread the wealth. I had a TD catch, as did Ammon McWashington. Joe ran for one and so did Larry Eilmes. The final score was 35-19. The Cougars had finished an amazing undefeated season!

Football. Baseball. College.

The experiences I had wanted to have before the world changed were over too. I had played hard. I had shaken a lot of hands and touched a lot of people, and in their way, a lot of them had touched me back.

I had a summer, and a little bit more before the world I now lived in ended, and the world I would have left began. My days as a boy, and as a student were over, and in the coming months, I would see what the world asked of me, and what I would become.



-------

Chapter 18: Summer Seeds amid the Fall


In my first life, the 1965/66 Rose Bowl was won by UCLA 14-12 over Michigan State. I remembered this game for some reason. It had been a big upset, I think for UCLA to win, which they did with a last second goal line stand.

Michigan State had already wrapped up the national championship by beating Notre Dame by the time we played them in Pasadena, and we played them to a standstill for three quarters. It wasn't until the fourth that they got to us. We answered with a feeble field goal in the dying minutes of the game, but we ended our otherwise perfect season with a 7-3 loss to the national champions in what was the showcase event of the era. Even Coach Clark couldn't find much displeasure to express on the long, black and blue trip back to Pullman.

With football over, and 1966 now under way, I had the rest of the winter to canvas the students, faculty and staff here at Pullman. I had a crazy idea of managing to save the entire faculty and staff, and with the facility, faculty and staff intact, we could maintain the university on some level as a place of learning. Only time would tell if that dream was possible or not. I went to every function, event, gathering, get-together, luncheon and tea I could, and when I did, I schmoozed to high heaven. I was the glad-hander's glad-hander.

Professor Belmont, my History teacher cornered me at a faculty luncheon just before the start of the baseball season. "Mr. Kendall, is it just me, or do I see you at a lot of these functions?"

"You do, Professor," I answered, trying to be non-committal.

"Are you planning to run for office some day Kendall?"

"I may," I offered. "I definitely plan on living somewhere on the Columbia River, and I do want to be known as more than an athlete by the time I'm done with college."

"Well, you have the handshake down pat, and you seem earnest enough," the professor said, with the undertones of a silent 'harumph' in it. He smiled slightly though before adding, "Be careful around some of these old lions, they'll peg you for a sycophant, and your grades will suffer for it. Particularly with your increasing notoriety as an athlete."

"Thank you Professor, I'll be working pretty hard to avoid that happening. I'm physically gifted and love football and baseball, but they are not the most important things in my life. Not even in the top three."

"So you've shown in my class. Keep up the good work."

I had a lot of respect for Professor Belmont. History class was still a lot of mindless memorization, but on top of that, he encouraged honest discussions about the real world events and conditions that surrounded them. Some of it was pretty entertaining, but he would always fire back with a good overview of the social, cultural and political realities of that day that helped you to understand why things happened the way they did. Granted, when the events were from five hundred years in the past, sometimes those explanations didn't help all that much, but at least he was offering some, which was far more than I'd come to expect from Mr. Spier back at Hermiston High.

The expectations going into the start of the baseball season were very different than those of the football team. The Cougars had won the AAWU 'North' championship the previous year and the returning players expected to win it again this year. Coach Brayton was a home grown hero, having played three sports at WSU, becoming the school's first ever All-American selection as a shortstop in 1947. We were not coming into this team as saviors, we were coming in as more fuel for the already dynamic Cougar dynamo.

We'd lost All-American John Olerud Sr., who'd graduated the previous year, but we still had Dale Ford, who looked to have one of those kind of years, and we had coach Brayton. In our first series, I saw action only as a pinch hitter, getting called on twice, grounding out the first time, but belting a very satisfying double over the second baseman's head in the bottom of the seventh.

I won't bore you with the details of the season. The baseball season was nowhere near as exciting as football had been. I got to play some, knocked the ball around a bit, and basked in the glory that was a well oiled baseball machine loaded with legitimately good talent already and coached by someone who was already something of a legend on the Palouse.

We were knocked out of the College World Series by Ohio State, the eventual champions, who had a great team, setting us down solidly, 8-4 in our final game of the year.

-oOo-

The summer of 1966.

I'd have loved to spend it being young and in love, but I had other things to do. I had spent the previous summer traveling the region shaking hands at churches services, quilting bees, county fairs and every flee market and roadside stand we came across. Dad's Peace Corp summit was scheduled to begin at the end of this one, and to get ready, I had several dozen people I had to visit, all across the country. People with skills who didn't know how valuable this made them. Blacksmiths, glass blowers, millers and weavers, coopers and wheelwrights, tanners and teamsters. Not the teamsters we think of today, the union guys who unloaded ships and handled freight, the old fashioned kind — drovers and muleskinners, men who could handle horses and mules in teams.

Dad, with Mr. Argus' assistance, had spent the past few years identifying the country's leading experts and craftsmen, and together, had spent some time making a list of who to try to reach.

We began that journey with something personal. Dad, Mom, Greta and I, flew back east to Boston. Grandma Kendall lived in MarbleHead, Massachusetts, in a yellow house that sat on a bluff and overlooked the sea.

When we arrived, Grandma had everything packed and put away carefully, The house was empty except for Grandma and her best friend Emily. The two of them sat, calmly sipping tea as if nothing was about to happen. We had a nice visit with the two of them before Dad and I left for Portsmouth to meet our first craftsman, Peter Martens, a sail maker. Greta gave me a kiss and told me not to worry, they'd take good care of Grandma Kendall and see her home safely. GRandma had been insistent that I NOT touch her friend Emily.

"I can't convince her to come with me, and she would wind up left alone here, a helpless old woman with a kind heart and nothing else." Grandma had said, then leaned in to confess, "When I tried to insist, she accused me of being a lover of women and wondered if I was planning on sneaking into her bed once she had me away from home."

She laughed when she saw my jaw drop at that, and must have decided I was ready for more of the same. "I've been to the isle, and its a pleasant enough place, but lacking a few amenities which I had always preferred."

"The isle?" I'd asked.

"Sapphos, dear by," She's anwered, patting my cheek. "Really, I hadn't thought you were so sheltered, what with all those previous lives sharing things."

Calculated to have that effect or not, I began to see my gentile grandmother in a new light.

The trip to Portsmouth was a quick one, and Peter Martens was a cheerful, pleasant person who didn't believe a word of what Dad and I told him. Unfortunately, I wasn't remembering anything from the news of the day that could be useful in convincing him, or anyone else. He shook our hands anyway, and I asked him to remember us when the time came.

We had debated the practicality of revealing what we knew to those people we were meeting, and decided in the end it was our only option. The people back in Pullman lived nearby and were a large self-contained group. They didn't need to know everything up front to survive. These craftsmen were going to be spread all across the country, and it was important to us to give them a chance to judge for themselves and come with us ahead of the impending event. Peter Martens had been the first disappointing test of our story.

Hugh Schmolk was our second test, in Plattsburgh, New York. Hugh was an old school blacksmith and metal worker who had been teaching a generation of blacksmiths sprinkled across the entire eastern seaboard.

Strangely, he believed us almost right away. When we got to the part about my having returned from 2007, he had a question immediately.

"So, my friend from the future. Do we have men on Mars by 2007?"

"No," I answered, "we had probes, including several very successful mobile probes - wheeled vehicles, that had been sending back incredible stuff, and an orbiting satellite, but no men had been sent to Mars."

"Why not?"

"Well, mostly money, I think," I answered. "I didn't follow things any more closely than the average American, maybe less, but I think it was mostly a matter of the cost."

"The Moon?"

"Yes, we did put men on the moon. More than once." I answered.

"Who was the first?" He asked.

"An astronaut named Neil Armstrong. July 20th, 1969." That was one date I didn't have any trouble remembering.

"You don't say," and just like that, he was on board. Who knew that an old-school blacksmith who had been tucked into the Adirondacks for forty some years would have been a space nut. Hugh Schmolk was.

We left Hugh packing his things into his truck. He planned to drive to Batavia, New York and take the train from there.

"My daughter Alicia lives in Batavia with her husband Nick," Hugh told us. "The both of them are already well trained blacksmith's apprentices, and they've got nothing to tie them down. Nick describes the place as halfway between nowhere and nowhere special', and 'Licia agrees."

We gave him all the contact information he would need to get in touch with the folks back home and took off for Clifton, Tennessee. We actually took pretty much the same route Hugh was probably going to take, but we kept going along the southern shore of Lake Erie until we got to Toledo and then headed south on what was supposed to be I-75, but it seemed like the signs changed from interstate to state and back again very frequently, and I was never sure exactly which we were on. Dad was doing the navigating, and I gladly left it up to him.

Clifton, Tennessee was the home of Homerus Gilead, muleskinner. Homerus was a 'tobacco-spitting, son-of-a-preacher-twice-over, no account reject of the army', and that was his own self description. He was a bow-legged, hairy cuss, that was my description. He listened to our spiel, smiled and spit.

"Dunno 'xacly what all that means, but you need mules and a skinner. If'n ya got good greenbacks, I'm your man."

So we didn't so much recruit Homerus, as hire him, but once the event happened, perhaps he'd be a little more receptive. Moving his three dozen or so mules was once again a task for the railroads, but Clifton's location on the Tennessee River made moving the animals by barge much cheaper and easier, so their trip started out a little bit the wrong direction, headed down the Tennessee to Florence, Alabama before beginning the railroad leg.

We spent several days in and around Clifton, mostly arranging to pay for the various legs of the trip he was going to have to make and helping him stock up on supplies. He was bringing all three of his daughters, and eight grandchildren with him. It appeared that the Gilead clan was moving west.

After Zigging south to Tennessee, it was time to zag back north to Carthage, Illinois to find Ira Neatham, a glassblower and bottle maker with a deep background in both the art and science of making glass. Ira was a hard-nosed businessman who took what he was doing and where he was doing it way too seriously. He barely gave us the time of day, so we scratched him off our list and moved on, hoping that the handshakes I'd spread around his plant would pay off later.

It was a relatively short jump from there to Fergus Falls, Minnesota to meet Jack Barclay, trapper, tanner, furrier and, if the stories we'd heard were true, a dog-musher.

Jack was fifty three, had a bad leg and a hacking cough that he said was from too many years of inhaling tanning fumes. His shop in the outskirts of Fergus Falls was a marvel of old stonework and clay, "but in the winter its colder than hell everywhere more than three feet from the stove," Jack told us. All we had to promise him was a new shop with a real heating and cooling system, and a promise to accept two of his apprentices.

We were done with our zig-zagging by the end of July. During our journey we'd met with more successes than failures. Peter Martens and Ira Neatham weren't the only ones to say no, but there weren't too many more, and a few of the no answers were offset by assistants or apprentices stepping up, willing to apply what they'd been learning. We'd met all our goals and even met a few we hadn't set, like our garnering of an experienced dog musher in Jack Barclay.

A month from my birthday I was back in Cold Lake, Greta and Ned by my side and a sense of the unknown really starting to build. I was probably the only one using my birthday as a milestone, because I was the only one who knew I sometimes got visits on my birthday from my other selves, but for me, the nearer the end of August came, the antsier I got. Greta understood; she'd heard my tales of those birthday visits.

Stories of a 'doomsday cult' began to spread, even making the newspapers in Portland and Spokane. Very little of the information printed was accurate. We had increasing concerns about security though, and we had to find people willing to act in that capacity, especially around Nileson's and the other half dozen locations where we had been storing equipment and supplies.

We were in the middle of 'the Great Debt'.

Mr. Nileson, Mr. Harwell and a half dozen other business owners, along with a handful of other relatively prosperous folks, were currently digging themselves deep into debt buying massive quantities on credit. Grandma Kendall even chipped in, getting her bank back in Marblehead to extend her a 50,000 dollar line of credit, using her house and property as collateral.

Mr. Greer had been in charge of building a series of large pole barns to store long strings of rail cars which we were 'stealing' from the railroad and filling with everything under the sun, clothes, shoes, boots and underwear filled more than a couple cars. Work gear, winter gear, the stuff people would need to survive. We still had hopes, more concrete now, that we would have shops and stores galore to pilfer after the reaping. It would be months before the railroads began to miss those cars and start to track them down.

If these years of preparation sounded like they went smoothly, they did, for the most part, but there were hitches. Steve Jackson came home from the Army, and began trying to build some opposition to me and to the group of those who believed. There were those who had shaken my hand and then just as gladly joined Steve in speaking out against me. Burt Thompson was first in line. We would not all be one happy family come the reaping, that was clear. In my own mind I was convinced that even the actual reality of the event wasn't going to bring some of those people around.

It was from some of them that the newspapers got hold of the 'doomsday cult' information. There were constant calls to the police claiming we had done this or that, or reporting 'suspicious activity'. Fortunately, the local police, as well as the State Troopers stationed in the area were all believers.

I expected to raise a huge stink back at Pullman when I failed to report for early conditioning camp. I had a line of excuses prepared, but I was also fully prepared to tell them that I was renouncing my scholarship when the stalling was no longer enough.

My birthday visit was almost unsettling in its ordinariness. None of my other selves had anything new to reveal, no new slice of the Sam Kendall reality came forward. I might as well have brought party hats and a cake so we could blow out candles.

I did get some cautionary tales, especially from the Sergeant and the Author.

"You have seen recently that there are those who are going to survive along with you who don't like you," the Sarge cautioned. "Just because your story will irrevocably be proved true doesn't mean they'll 'see the light' and fall at your feet."

"Steve Jackson is out there, and he still has friends and followers. Burt Thompson has never cared for you. Many of the people you have met have no real opinion of you, and they could decide to oppose you for no reason other than they see it as a way to gain personally," the Author told me.

"So you can't focus on the known dangers," the Star continued. "There will be unexpected ones, and they could show themselves at any time."

"They could work against you in secret for years, creating problems you might not even realize were the work of an opponent," Little Sammy said. "Not everyone likes to duke it out."

"Some favor the dagger and some poison to kill the king. The king lies dead just the same," S.W. added, as if quoting someone. Perhaps himself.

"Be sure of those you keep close to you Sam," Sammi suggested. "Those you trust to guard you must be trustworthy."

"When the scythe has swept and the world is empty of all except those you have saved, you will be savior, by the very definition of the word," the Author explained. "Whether you choose to lead when the time comes, as you have until now, is up to you. But regardless of your decision, people will look to you for leadership because you are their savior."

I was distracted that morning as Greta, Mom and Dad joked about my birthday and the dinner they had arranged. It was going to be a small group, just them, Grandma Kendall, Joey, Carrie, Bennie and Carlos.

Carlos had become a very permanent fixture in my life since I had met him. He was more than just a teacher; he was a mentor, guide and trusted advisor. I took him aside after dinner and told him my concerns and my conversation about security with my other selves.

"They are wise to caution you," Carlos said. "You leave that problem to me, and I'll take charge of your security."

"Good! I trust you more than anyone except my immediate family, and this is no job for any of them," I said with some relief. "I had hoped you would have a suggestion, but this is even better."

So Carlos Arellano became my chief of security, and I began to think of myself as being the potential leader of those who would remain.

-oOo-

The Peace Corp brain trust and field workers began to filter in about the middle of September. I had managed to keep Coach Clark guessing so far, but he wasn't the type of person to allow himself to be given the runaround, so I didn't expect it to last much longer. I called him on the seventeenth.

"Coach Clark, this is Sam Kendall."

"Kendall! What's your excuse this week?" he asked, but cut off any attempt at an answer. "No, I don't want any more excuses Kendall. I want to hear you telling me you are hauling ass towards Pullman as soon as you hang up the phone. Is that what you're going to tell me son?"

"No coach, I'm telling you that I'm officially renouncing my scholarship for personal reasons, and will not be returning to Washington State."

The silence on the other end of the phone was miraculous. I'd finally found a way to render the coach speechless.

"Kendall, this had better be a sad attempt at a joke son," he said at last. I could practically see the flecks of spittle flying from his mouth as he said those words.

"No coach, I'm sorry, but its no joke. I won't be back, but I'll say this. Come see me at Christmas in Cold Lake. It'll be easier to understand by then."

I hung up on him then. Left him cold, and hated myself for having to do it, but there wasn't any other practical solution. Bert Clark was not the kind of man to be swayed by stories of time travel and aliens.

I left the house for the Porter Ranch. I had everything packed for a long stay, planning on remaining there until the event was past. Mr. Porter, Dad, and a group of others, including Mr. Nileson had turned the Porter Ranch into an impressive compound during the past four years. The original 'big house' intended for the tourists had been duplicated three times over. It had become housing for a good many of our craftsmen while they looked for suitable locations for themselves, and of course there was plenty of room for the Peace Corp contingent who believed they were only visiting.

One thing that had caused quite a bit of debate early on had been the issue of the families of those Peace Corp personnel invited to the ranch. I had been adamant about making sure they understood that they were welcome to bring their entire families.

The initial wrangling had been over the cost. Dad had seen my point of view immediately, and he had suggested we offer to subsidize the travel costs as much as possible for those who might otherwise not be able to afford to bring their families.

"We can't afford this!" Mr. Argus had argued at a meeting the previous year.

"Its only money, and what good is it going to be to anyone soon?" I'd countered.

"We'll have to build twice as much living space as we had planned." Mr. Nileson countered.

"No, we won't," Dad answered. "These people will be living together with the people we've already planned for, not apart. We'll need more room, but not that much more."

"These are people we are counting on to provide survival skills when they're needed," I reminded everyone. "What good is it to have them if they've lost their own families? How do we motivate them if we've made no attempts to save their families along with our own?"

That had been the clincher. Once I'd shifted their perspective of the problem from the practical to the personal, they understood, and the plans had been adjusted and the efforts redoubled. I could only hope that, if we did survive, future generations appreciated the qualities of these men who worked so hard on behalf of people they didn't even know.

Greta and I spoke at length and often about what our lives would be like. She had been very upbeat about things initially, and had even made a few cute suggestions about sharing me with other survivors, but as the time grew closer, her apprehension grew as well.

"Sam, I wanted to do lots of things with my life, before I knew the world was going to change," she told me one night. "I had dreams of being a lawyer, or a doctor, or even a physicist."

"You don't have to give up those dreams because of the way the world will change," I offered.

"No, I don't have to change, but I see a need to. You are going to be the leader of these people. You know it and I know it, and so do a lot of other people who know you. To do those other things, I would have to put aside being a full partner in your life for however long it took. I can't see myself anywhere but by your side, so what do I do?"

"I confess I never envisioned a scenario where you weren't there with me, sharing in everything that's coming. You're right in that I'm going to have to be a leader. I'd been denying that to myself for some time now, thinking that I could lead by example without being seen as a leader."

"Oh Sam, that could never happen," Greta groaned. "Too many people see you as a leader already."

"I know," I admitted. "That was made clear to me by the others on this last visit. I also know I will need your strength to make it through this. I will fail without it."

"You have it," Greta said, pulling herself closer to me. "And not just mine. There are a lot of us who are ready to lend you our strength."

"Yes, I see and appreciate that now, but your place will be special, even amongst those closest to me, won't it?" She nodded silently, squeezing my arm.

"That's why I need to stop my indecisiveness and do something I should have done a year ago at least!" I said, stopping cold in front of her. "I'm sorry Greta, but I'm not prepared for this. But I'm certain its the right time."

I dropped to my knee in front of her, pulling her hand into mine.

"Greta Porter, will you marry me?"

There was a long pause as Greta's face was slowly transformed by a huge grin that she seemed to be fighting to control.

"Of course, you fool. Now get up here and kiss me!"



-------

Chapter 19: Events


The wedding was, by necessity, a very public affair. Only Grandma Kendall could have managed to throw such a grand and elegant affair together in so short a time. We weren't sure how many more days or weeks we had left before the event, but we wanted our marriage to be an established fact in people's minds before it happened.

Reverend Carmichael, our local minister, and minister to most of Cold Lake presided. He was one of the doubting Thomas' amongst our supporters, having seen the same 'evidence' most of the rest of the locals had. His faith was a barrier to this new 'belief' as he described it, but he had too much respect for too many of the people who were involved, so he agreed to 'wait it out', as he put it.

I chose Bennie, Joe and Luther as my groomsmen, with Bennie as my Best Man. He had been my best friend for too many years to be supplanted by Joe or anyone else.

Greta picked Carrie as her maid of honor and her twin sisters were her bridesmaids. Mr. & Mrs. Porter gave her away and Janet played the organ and sang. The service was held outdoors at the Porter Ranch and we had standing room only, as most of Cold Lake was there, and a large contingent from Hermiston as well.

The decision was that a honeymoon was needed, and I managed to insist that it be a short one, and made it stick. We were delivered, via a chauffeured 'limousine' that was really a very nice four door 1965 Chrysler New Yorker, to The Seward Hotel in Portland for two days and nights. Carlos drove us himself and told me confidentially that he was staying in the same hotel, a floor below us while we were there. I had his room number if I needed him.

I had the feeling that his two new 'trainees', Huck and Dwight Scales were somewhere nearby as well. They were the two bodyguards that Carlos had invested me with. The two brothers claimed to be pure-blooded Cayuse, and descended from great chiefs, but there was no way to prove either of those things one way or the other. What the two brothers did have was an utterly unshakable loyalty to Carlos, and by extension, to me. Carlos was training them to keep me safe, and to do it in as unnoticeable a fashion as possible.

I remembered the Seward Hotel from my first life. It had been renovated and renamed in the '90's to the Governor Hotel. In the mid sixties it was still a pretty grand place, and very much in the middle of downtown Portland. I'd attended some pretty fancy get-togethers there with my horse breeding employers - schmoozing some important buyers. This was the first time I remembered actually staying in it though, and the 'bridal suite' was the picture of opulence.

The wedding had been an early afternoon affair and our attendance at the reception had been brief, just long enough for Greta to get in the first dance with me and a special dance with her dad, and then we were in the Chrysler and on the road. It had been a long ride into Portland, even with the big engine the New Yorker had, and we had sipped a little champagne and nibbled on some strawberries and chocolates, but there was no privacy screen, so we mostly kept our hands to ourselves and talked about the wedding and the people. We joked with Carlos about cramping our style, and he joked about changing his plans and not sleeping on the couch in our suite after all.

"Mrs. Kendall?" I asked, as soon as the bellhop was gone and we were alone in our room.

"Yes, Mr. Kendall?" she answered, batting her eyelashes.

"We have dinner reservations in one hour. I believe that will allow just enough time to get out of this wedding finery and get showered and changed."

"Really, time for all that?" she giggled.

"Well, and perhaps time for something in between."

And there was. A slow, sweet, glorious something.

-------

Dinner that night was late, but it was elegant, delicious, and washed down with two bottles of the hotel's finest bubbly. The staff at the Seward didn't seem to care what our actual ages were, we were a bride and groom on their honeymoon, and that meant champagne!

After dinner we went for a quick walk up 10th avenue and back down 11th, just long enough to settle our meal. Later we lay in bed, flushed and feeling pleased with ourselves. Greta lay against my side, glowing with a fresh sheen of perspiration and the athletic yet feminine plane of her tummy moving in time to the rapid in and out of her breathing. We were both breathing a little hard after our recent coupling, and both a little shiny with sweat. Neither of us minded at the moment. We'd earned the sweat!

Greta turned and caught my eye. Her pupils were open wide in the dim light and I could see her nipples were still hard, or maybe hard again. She slid up my torso and buried her face in the nape of my neck. It took a moment, but I realized that she was crying softly on my shoulder.

"Love? What's wrong?" I whispered. Greta pulled her head up a little so we were cheek to cheek.

"I just had a sudden feeling that this was going to be the last normal moment of my life," she said, but then paused and shook her head. "No, Not normal ... The last special moment of my old, normal life. I suddenly felt like this was going to be it."

"Then lets savor it," I said, leaning in to touch my lips to her soft, tear-stained cheek.

And we did, again, until sleep took us at last.

The morning started late. We woke at nine, which was hours past the time either of us would have normally been up. We showered and threw on some casual clothes to explore the streets of Portland. We had this day and another night. Tomorrow morning we would be heading back to Cold Lake.

It was just after our early lunch or late breakfast, walking down Yamhill toward the Willamette River. We were window shopping and enjoying a cool but pleasant day when Greta tugged on my arm

"Sam! The sky!" She whispered.

I looked up, and saw the blue afternoon sky was full of sparkles and light. I felt a sudden breeze that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"OH my God! This is it," I said out loud.

"What is it?" I heard someone nearby say. I looked around and saw the other pedestrians scattered across the sidewalks and streets in the vicinity staring up at the sky as well. I had an urge to rush to the nearest and touch them, but it was too late. Everything moving slowed to a stop. People, cars, bits of paper swirling in the wind. Steam from nearby vents beneath the sidewalk.

The sparkling sky rushed through and past us, and while my body felt it wash through, and my mind and soul felt a hard tug, my eyes watched as every person within my field of vision became a body shaped bundle of sparkling light, which shimmered, then shivered like light reflected in a crystal hanging in a window. A shivering light that slowly faded, the sparkle dimming until Greta and I were alone on Yamhill Street. Suddenly, almost alone in the world, and the net of the Reapers passed, and the world sped up again. A car up the street crashed into another. A car that had been parking behind me didn't stop as it backed up and kept moving in my direction. I jumped out of the way and watched as it slowly crashed into the flower box at the edge of the building, cracking the dry, painted wood and spilling dirt and gravel in a little pile on the back fender of the car.

"Are you okay?" Greta asked into the suddenly still air. I waited for the sound of suddenly empty cars crashing in the distance to die.

"Yeah," I answered, turning to her. "Did you feel it?"

"Like something was tugging at me, for just a second?" I nodded. "Yeah, I did. Strange huh?"

We were interrupted by voices. We turned back up Yamhill and saw Huck and Dwight Scales running in our direction.

"That was it, wasn't it?" Dwight asked. "The Reaping, or whatever you call it. That was it!"

"Yes, I'm certain it was, Dwight," I answered. "How are the both of you feeling?"

"Fine!" Dwight answered. Huck nodded his head in agreement. Huck didn't talk much.

"Listen, we need to get back to the hotel and find Carlos and anyone else in the area who's still around. There are probably going to be a few people I've meet over the years living and working in the area."

We were about four and a half blocks from the hotel, so we grabbed a nearby car and headed back to the hotel. I laid on the horn the entire trip, honking out a staccato beat that would definitely be heard as a signal by anyone left to hear it.

Carlos was in the lobby of the hotel with two other people, one I recognized as our waiter from the late breakfast we'd had that morning and the other the bellhop from the night before. Carlos had given them a brief explanation of what had happened and why they were still there. Their names were Bill and Artie.

"Listen up guys. There are other people who I've met since we arrived. The front desk clerk from yesterday. The Maitre De from dinner last night, the chef who made our meal. The doorman working the door last night. If you can figure out who those people were and call them, we'll try and get them all here as soon as possible.

"I know the doorman," Artie the bellhop offered. "He lives here at the hotel too. I'll go check on him."

"Good, bring him here." I told him. "You can leave the explanations to me if you'd rather." I saw the obvious relief on his face when I told him that.

"Can I offer everyone some coffee?" Bill asked. "I'm feeling kind of useless right now, but I can at least fetch coffee."

"That would be good, thanks Bill," Greta said. "Do you think you could double-check the kitchen too while you're doing that? We don't want anything that was left cooking to burn and start a fire."

While Bill was gone Artie returned with the doorman, a tall, older man with mutton chop sideburns. He'd looked very distinguished in the livery he'd been wearing at the door the previous evening, but he looked a little less elegant in a pullover shirt and a pair of casual slacks. His name was Frank Pendown, and he knew how to contact the other people we hoped to find still here. He set out to the office behind the front desk to make the calls, and while he did, I sent Artie, along with Huck and Dwight to make a room by room search, making sure to turn off any showers left running, unplug anything electrical that could cause a fire and otherwise make each room safe and secure.

I put a little crimp in Bill's coffee mission when he returned to find even fewer people waiting than when he'd left. I took my cup gratefully though.

"Bill, why don't we set up a station near the front of the dining room? Move the coffee pot, some crackers, cheese, whatever we can find that would be good casual snacking fare?"

"Sure, that would work until we get a little more settled," Bill agreed. "There are some really nice cold cuts and cheeses back in the kitchen. I also left some of the things in the roasters slow-cooking. Cezyn can check them when he gets here." The two of them took off, leaving Carlos and I alone.

"I'm worried about the folks back home Carlos."

"They'll be fine, Sam. There are plenty of level headed people back there to keep things from getting out of control. Your Dad and Mr. Nileson are both very well respected individuals."

"Sure, and so are Mr. Argus and Mr. Harwell. I'm worried that they'll be worried about us and try sending someone looking for us."

"Got it covered," Carlos answered with a grin. "Soon as things look stable down here I'll be heading over to the Western Union office. "Jimmy Tyndall showed me how to use the Western Union gear to send messages, so I'll fire off a message up the line to Cold Lake that way. Jimmy knows to keep listening for survivors for a while after anything happened."

"Go ahead and take off now," I told him. "The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned, and everything is under control here."

"You got it."

Frank came back out of the office a few minutes later. I'd decided I needed to sit and had plopped down in one of the comfortable overstuffed chairs. Frank plopped down in one facing me.

"I was able to get through to Cezyn Ilyescu, the chef, and Sherman McElhaney, the Maitre De. Cezyn is confused, but is coming in as soon as he can get here. Sherman is very distraught, he had a wife and three daughters. He was going to take a shower. I'll call him again in half an hour to check on him. If we can get him to come to the hotel at all we may need to go get him. He lives out by the Portland Golf Club."

"Do you know how to get there?"

"Sure. I've been there before," Frank said. "Sherm was always inviting people over for picnics and parties."

"Don't wait for him to finish showering, get out there right away. We don't want him to be alone right now if we want him to survive."

"Of course," Frank nodded. Should I go armed?"

"You should be safe. You might be better off not taking one unless you feel you might need one if Mr. McElhaney has gone off the deep end?"

"No, I don't think it'll come to that. I think I'll steal a cab from out front. I've always wanted to drive one of those." And with that, Frank was gone out the front of the Seward and off to find his friend.

The hotel had a fair number of floors and rooms, so by the time Huck and Dwight got back with Artie from securing the rooms, they were ready for a break. Greta took them to where she and Bill had set up their snack station and got them started on building sandwiches. I followed them in, refilling my coffee cup and grabbing an apple from the offerings on the table. Artie filled us all in on what they'd found.

"Good thing we made our check. We found showers running in six of the rooms, and one faucet running in the sink that had filled with water and was overflowing. Huck found that one, cleaned it up too."

"The maid's cart was in the hall nearby, I just grabbed some towels to sop it up," Huck said quietly. "No big deal."

There were no stories of irons or other electrical items abut to play havoc with the building, not even any burning cigars or cigarettes left to burn down. There were some rooms with pets still in them and Artie had made note of them so that they could be cared for, or at least set free. A few cats and small dogs and one bird.

"I walked through the door and heard a voice say 'What's up Jack?" Artie said. "I didn't see anyone so I called out, 'Hello?', and the same voice answered back. 'Hello.' I thought it sounded a little funny, but kept on talking and walking slowly into the room. I just came around the corner to the bathroom door and saw the bird. When it saw me it called out 'What's up jack' again."

"Had ya going for a minute though, eh Artie?" Dwight teased.

"Sure did," Artie answered. "Didn't take long to feel pretty spooky about things."

"Those are the feelings you're going to have to fight," I told them. "Remember, you're not alone. There are a lot of people left back home in Hermiston and Cold Lake. There's another big batch of them in Pullman, and there'll be smaller groups of people in smaller towns all over Washington and Oregon."

There was a sound at the door, and I saw Carlos pointing a finger at me, like it was a gun.

"Mission accomplished, but you're forgetting that not everyone who made it through is going to feel happy to be owing it to you. You still need to keep a guard up."

"You're right," I told him, upset with myself for forgetting. "What did you hear from home?"

"Jimmy had messages for you from your Dad and Bennie Argus," Carlos explained. "Your Dad says everyone's doing well and they're sending teams to check on Hermiston and Pullman. Joe Porter and Carrie Ralston are leading the Pullman team and Mr. Nileson and Mr. Harwell are leading the team to Hermiston. He tells you to get home as soon as you can do it safely."

I nodded my head at that. The plans for Hermiston and Pullman had been in place for quite a while. Of course dad was going to want me to exercise caution. No problem, I planned to.

"What does Bennie have to say?" I asked.

"He wants to remind you that they should have the big transmitter in Hood River up and running by the end of the day and to keep your radios tuned to 1230 on the AM dial."

"Great, it sounds like everything is going according to plan so far. Hopefully the radio broadcasts will get picked up by the remaining folks up and down the valley and across the Palouse. That's the plan anyway."

Cezyn Ilyescu, the chef came in shortly after that, and we reintroduced ourselves.

"You are the newlyweds from last night, yes?" he asked in heavily accented English.

"Yes, you remember us then?" Greta asked.

"Of course! To forget a beautiful young woman like you? Is impossible I think, eh?"

Cezyn, who asked us to call him 'Zin', asked if we had thought ahead to dinner, and of course we hadn't. It was late afternoon by this time.

"Well, I was not scheduled to cook tonight, but what is dinner for such a small group?" Which made him stop and think for a moment. "There are some not here, I think, but how many will there be?"

"Two more besides us, unless some stragglers show up," I answered.

We were not disappointed by Zin's offering. Several items intended for that night's dinner menu had already been cooking, including a truly outstanding prime rib roast, which was the main course of choice for most of us later that evening.

When Frank returned, we met Sherman McElhaney, and the poor man was a real basket case, and who could blame him? We comforted him as best we could and he got the explanation of why he had survived and his family had not. When he learned that shaking my hand the previous evening had been the difference, he looked at me with hollow eyes and a sad, haunted face. "How long have you known?"

"Almost five years," I answered, having trouble returning his gaze.

"How many do you think you've saved?"

"Thousands, I hope."

"You weren't counting?"

"No," I answered, and as I did, I began to cry. "It would never be enough, there would always be people who deserved to live that I couldn't save. I couldn't save Kennedy back in '63, and I knew it was going to happen. I knew! But what would have been the point, if I couldn't also save him from the Reaping? Who was going to let a teenager touch the President? Instead, I touched as many people as I could, but I couldn't focus on the numbers, because then I'd have to think about the number I didn't save."

We cried together over those immutable facts, and over numbers. That actually seemed to help him in some way, the knowledge that it wasn't something he did, or didn't do. Not some flaw in him or his little girls. Just numbers. By the time dinner was done, his mood had improved considerably and he no longer had that haunted look that had so bothered me earlier.

We gathered in the front lobby area again, using the large sitting area, as we had all day to sit and talk.

"There are two options I can think of here," I began, once we'd all found a seat and had our coffee cups. Tea, in Zin's case.

"Option one?" Frank asked.

"You all come back with us to Cold Lake as we begin to take stock and get moving on the rest of our plans for making sure we can survive this."

"Then option two is to stay here?" Zin asked.

"Yes, if enough of you are willing, you stay here and we make the Seward our headquarters in Portland. Take in stragglers, if there are any who make it here, and provide a safe place to stay and eat whenever someone needs to come here. At least while the food and power situation hold out."

That began a large babble of questions and panicky alarm from the new folks, who had no idea of our preparations.

"Please, calm down. The power situation is one of the things we have spent a long time working to preserve. Fortunately, the hydroelectric power network along the Columbia is new, clean and semi-permanent. We've spent a considerable time making sure that the people needed to maintain those systems survived."

"We've done a lot in the years we've had to prepare," Greta told them. "Power is one thing. Our biggest problem there will be isolating the unused sections of the grid. We'll have only a limited number of crews capable of responding to things like downed power lines and that sort of thing."

"Food is another matter. We feel confident that we can continue to grow the staples we'll need. We have people from the area where we live with the know-how. People who've been growing wheat, lettuce, beans, tomatoes, and other commercial crops for decades, even generations. We also have some theoretical skills with other crops, and particularly rice, which isn't something you would normally try and grow around here, but who knows?"

"We do have some concerns about transportation," Carlos added. "We know that gasoline goes bad after a while, and so does diesel fuel. There are ways to counter that, but the amount of fuel left to us may be very limited. We've been investing some effort into making sure we had access to diesel engines that could be modified to run on things like ethanol."

"You have been planning for this then?" Bill said with some relief.

"We have," I confirmed. "at least as much as we were able without being locked up as crazy."

"Were you rich then?" Zin asked, which drew chortles from Greta, Carlos and me. Huck and Dwight probably weren't up on the details.

"No," Carlos answered. "Do you know how they paid for everything they did?"

He got a round of blank stares and head shakes.

"They didn't!" he laughed, slapping his knee. "They did it all on credit!"

After a moment of stunned silence, Bill, Frank, Zin and Artie were whooping it up and pounding each other on their backs.

"That's rich," Artie finally got out. Bill started to snicker, prompting looks before he finally explained.

"I just realized! No more Internal Revenue Service."

"No tax day!" Frank cheered.

"There's a lot to think about, and that includes what you'll want to do next. We very much would like to keep a base of operations going here, and if none of you want to stay, we'd find others to do it, but your knowledge of the town, and of this hotel in particular would be helpful."

My comment sobered them up some, and I knew it was probably time to adjourn for the night.

"Get some sleep and think on it. We'll talk more in the morning."

I was still on my honeymoon, technically. Greta made sure to remind me on the elevator ride up to our suite. I let her go first in the bathroom to get cleaned up. Maid service had already been through before the Reaping, so we had clean sheets. I guess we could have just changed rooms if the old sheets were still there. Nobody wants to sleep on a day old wet spot.

I was beginning to really like Zin.

We were enjoying a leisurely brunch the next morning, with the ham that had been cooking last night having been transformed into eggs benedict this morning, when we began to hear a honking noise and a siren from somewhere.

"Is that coming from outside?" Bill asked.

We got up and rushed out to the main entrance of the hotel. The sound of a siren, accompanied by the honking of a car horn were obvious from out here, and were getting closer very quickly. When the car finally came around the corner at the end of the block, we saw that it was an army jeep, in the traditional colors, with a front-mounted siren on the grill, kind of like old style ambulances used to have. There were two men in the jeep, and as soon as they saw us standing in front of the hotel, the honking stopped, followed a second later by the siren.

The jeep pulled up in front of us and the man in the passenger seat, an officer got out and came around to the sidewalk to meet us. He spotted me and snapped a salute.

"Good morning Mr. Kendall, I'm Lieutenant Evans, we met at the Umatilla Ordnance Depot."

"Its good to see you again, Lieutenant," I said, holding out my hand. We shook, and I asked him what brought him in such a hurry.

"Well, we weren't rushing so much as we were trying to make sure we didn't miss you. We heard that you would be returning to Cold Lake today, if all was going well."

"We were planning on it, though we're all starting a little late today."

"Mr. Kendall, Colonel Baird sends his compliments sir, and asks that you stop by the depot on your way back. He has what is probably going to be very good news for you."

"Good news?" Greta asked.

"Very good news, ma'am," he answered.

"The chemical weapons?" I asked.

"Yessir. They're gone. Completely gone, as if they had never existed. Every box, barrel and container is empty, and there's not a trace of any residue."

"What about Hanford?" I asked, thinking immediately of the nuclear fuel and weapons stored there.

"Colonel Baird is leading a party there himself as soon as he's had a chance to talk to you."

"Lieutenant, have you and your driver had breakfast yet this morning?" I asked.

"Some toast and coffee was pretty much it," the Lieutenant replied. "We left at first light this morning to try and get here before you left."

"Well, we've been feasting on some excellent eggs Benedict ourselves, and I'm sure there's more than enough for a couple more appetites. Why don't you and... ?"

" ... ah, Corporal James, sir. A pleasure to meet you again," the Corporal said, holding out his hand.

Over the remains of our meal, I laid out an obvious truth that I wanted to make sure every soldier still in uniform heard.

"You understand don't you, that the U.S. Army no longer exists?"

"I beg your pardon?" Lieutenant Evans said, but I saw the Corporal nod his head.

"You're nodding your head Corporal?" I observed.

"Ray," he said. "Call me Ray. There's no United States left. No President, no Congress, nothing but us and whoever else you've managed to save. So how can their be a U.S. Army if there's no U.S.? Thought about that first thing last night after we heard the Colonel tell us about your radio broadcasts."

"My God!" Lieutenant Evans said.

"Its okay, really." Greta said.

"No, its not that!" he said, blushing now. "I can't believe I didn't think of that myself."

"Well, its going to start occurring to a lot of your fellows back at UOD. The question is, what will they do about it once they have? How about you Ray? You jumped in the jeep this morning and drove the Lieutenant here. Why?"

"Well, There may not be a U.S. Army any more, but there's nothing else anymore either, so where would I be hoping to go? I've got my three square meals a day, and a warm, dry place to sleep. That might change down the road I suppose, but I grew up on a farm, so I figure I have some skills that would keep me going in this brave new world."

"Brave new world indeed," I said to Ray, then finished, paraphrasing the rest of the quote, "that has such people as you in it, Ray."

"I figured you'd take me for a Huxley fan, but I prefer the original Shakespeare too." Ray answered, laughing.

"Huxley's brave new world was about utopia at the cost of our humanity, but we're not about achieving utopia here. We're worried about survival. Still, Mr. James, this conversation reminds me that we went to very great lengths to preserve as much of the staff and faculty at Washington State up in Pullman as possible. We're not sure how well its going to work out yet, but we hope bright people with an interest will be able to go there. Keep it in mind."

"Yes sir," he said with a nod. It was easy to forget that I was younger than he was.

"Now, all us good creatures should be about ready to hit the road. Frank, you still sure you'd rather stay here?" I asked.

"Yes, thanks. I'll stay at the hotel, its comfortable and familiar, and I know the most about the nooks and crannies."

"All right, then lets get this show on the road. Ray, you and Mr. Evans can lead, and we will be stopping at the depot on the way. C'mon people, there's a brave new world out there waiting for us."

The ride to the Umatilla Ordnance Depot was about three hours. We followed Lieutenant Evans and Corporal James all the way, with Carlos driving a butcher's delivery van loaded with meat. A lot of things were probably going to be found spoiled and rotten in the next few months in the cities. Carlos had just stumbled across this van parked in front of a butcher shop, loaded down with sides of beef, the engine still running.

"No sense letting it go to waste, and we do need a third car to do this right." Carlos told us. Huck and Dwight would drive the Chrysler, and ride rear guard in our three vehicle convoy.

"Take these, and keep them close!" Carlos said as we climbed into the cab of the delivery truck. 'These' were pistols, two each. I checked mine. One looked like a standard police .38 caliber. The other was a larger .45 caliber with a longer barrel and quite a bit heftier. Both were loaded, with one in the chamber. I looked over the safeties on both to make sure they were on, and that I knew how to flip them off quickly.

Greta's were both .38 caliber, I saw, and she was just finishing her check as well. "Extra ammunition?" she asked.

"There are two boxes of .38 calibers and a partial box of .45 caliber in the glove box. Huck and Dwight have more ammunition in their car, as well as some rifles."

Greta gave him a hard look. He tried to ignore her stare for a while, but finally couldn't anymore.

"Okay, its a little bit of overkill, but better safe than sorry. That's also the reason we've got an army walkie talkie in every car. We don't want any surprises."

Greta grinned at him, glad to have gotten under his skin, even if just a little.

The first two hours on the road were uneventful. The same cars littered the highway heading home as had been there when the Lieutenant and Corporal James had come into Portland, but now, in the full light of day it was easier to appreciate the wreckage. All of these cars had been traveling at highway speeds when the Reaping happened, and when it was over, continued on at highway speeds until they either slowed to a stop without a foot on the gas, or crashed into something.

Just a little more than two hours into the drive, the jeep, a mile ahead of us on the road, swerved suddenly, almost turning over before recovering, and sliding into a concrete barrier. We didn't have to wait to discover what had happened. The sound of a gunshot rolled through the gorge a split second later. Someone had shot at them!

Carlos swung the wheel and slammed on the brakes, sliding the rear end of the van around until we were facing the way we had come. He didn't high tail it out of there though, instead he grabbed the walkie talkie from where he'd put it on the van's bench seat, between the two of us and thumbed the transmit key.

"Lieutenant, is everyone okay?"

"The Lieutenant's been shot," came Corporal Jame's voice after a minute. "He's been shot in the right shoulder."

"Get both your asses under cover. You've got a field kit in the jeep right?" Carlos asked. "Use it!" He growled without waiting for an answer. He flipped channels on the radio and growled, "Dwight!"

"Yessir!" Came the response.

"We've got at least one shooter. Probably a rifle from the canyon wall or someplace high. Find him."

"Yessir."

"Huck!"

Yeah?" came the response.

"We've got one wounded up in the jeep. The Corporal will probably be rendering first aid. Get up there and make sure he does it right."

"Yessir," came the reply.

"All right, listen up you two. We've practiced for some of this, but were in it for real now, so lets make sure you're all on my page, okay?"

"Okay," Greta and I answered.

We saw the Chrysler go by us at full speed, interrupting Carlos for a second. Huck was driving bent low over the wheel and in the brief moment his presence registered on my eyes, I saw him shift from one side of the wheel to the other. Once he was past, Carlos continued.

"We've got about three thousand pounds of beef in the back of this van, and all that beef is now between us and the shooter. If all we've got is a single sniper, then we're okay. Personally, I doubt that this is a single person. Not to be acting so quickly. This smells like a planned trap, based on your being 'alone' in Portland and sure to be on your way back as soon as things went down. I expect more than one attacker, and I expect we'll see them moving on us in force at any time."

"Who is it?" Greta asked.

"Who knows?" Carlos said. "Someone who went along with things but is carrying a grudge. Someone who sees an advantage for themselves in getting rid of the obvious leader of the survivors. Not everyone who heard the story had to believe in the happy ending, or at least, preferred an ending of their own choosing."

"What next?"

"Next we back this van up until we can join Huck and our two soldiers. I'll drive us in reverse, but I'm going to need Greta to use the mirror on that side to spot for me," He added a snort of laughter, "I don't want to stick my head out the window, at the moment."

So we drove backwards, with Greta calling out 'left' or 'right', but it was mostly a straight shot towards the jeep, we only needed to turn at the end to get close to the side of the highway where the jeep had come to a stop. We could see Huck, and Corporal James crouched besides the jeep, with the Lieutenant sitting with his back against it. Greta slid the side door open enough to see them and talk through the crack.

"How is he?" Carlos hollered.

"Doing okay," Huck answered. "The Corporal did a good job before I got here, and together we managed to get the wound packed and the bleeding stopped. The bullet looks to still be in there somewhere though. He'll need to see a doc as soon as possible."

"Can he walk?"

"Not much, but he can go a few steps if you want to move him."

"Good. Greta, open the door the rest of the way. Sam, the middle of the bench seat folds forward. Jump over the back and pop it forward. As soon as there's a clear path, call go, and we'll get the Lieutenant in here."

I jumped over the back of the seat, into the open space behind the middle of the seat. It was an odd arrangement, allowing the driver to have access to the back of the van while still providing a full bench seat, rather than two chairs like most delivery vans I had seen before. As I stood in the doorway leading into the cargo area, I saw a bunch of burlap sacks, which looked like they were used to provide insulation for the frozen meat. I gathered up a good bunch of them then hollered "GO!" back through the doorway.

A few seconds later, the van rocked a little and I heard some serious grunting and groaning as Huck and the Corporal helped Lieutenant Evans through the door, past the seat and into the back with me.

"There's a bunch of burlap sacking here that you can use to lay him on," I offered.

"Thanks," Corporal James grunted as they swung the Lieutenant around. "Huck, you got him for a moment?"

"Yeah, go," he called. The Corporal dropped down to spread the sacks around near the door and Greta handed an army blanket through the doorway that one of the men had brought from the jeep. While we were getting the Lieutenant comfortable, we heard a rifle shot, followed by a pistol shot, and then quiet again.

"Hope that was Dwight finding the bad guy, and not the bad guy finding Dwight," Carlos said.

"Either way, that shooter's out of action or too busy to worry about us," Huck said. "I'm going to move up by the barrier alongside the highway some and see if I can see anything."

"Be careful," Carlos cautioned. Huck just nodded and took off through the passenger side door, running in a crouched position to the river side of the highway before disappearing over the barrier and into the brush.

"we've got to assume we are facing more hostiles, so I want you two to stay low, stay with the Lieutenant and keep your heads away from the windows and doors. Let me and my boys take care of things. If we need you, we'll let you know. Okay?"

We nodded. I felt a little frustrated because I'd spent a lot of time with guns under Carlos' tutelage, and knew I could hit what I was aiming for. I knew I didn't know enough about how to not get hit first though, and that was why Carlos kept us with our heads down.

We did our thing, sitting on the floor of the van with Evans, tending to him as best we could. The shock of the wound had set in, and he was having some trouble staying awake, even through the pain. I wondered if the Corporal or Huck had given him something while they worked on him at the jeep.

"All clear," Carlos called into the van, and I was out the door like a shot, wanting to know what was what. Carlos waved me over, and I came to stand beside him at the back of the van.

Dwight and Huck were walking down the highway towards us. Huck was carrying someone over a shoulder, like a sack of seed. When they got to the jeep, he tossed the body into the back of it, face up. I stared at the face, but didn't recognize him. I stared a long time. I had wanted Carlos to be right, and recognize my attacker. I wanted to be able to nod my head and say 'yes, I understand why this man would hate me.' I wanted to, but I couldn't. A future flashed in front of me, a future where I would spend the rest of my life wondering if that unknown face in the crowd was waiting to draw a weapon. Waiting to kill.

We reached the depot in the afternoon, taking a much slower, more cautious trip the rest of the way. Colonel Baird met us, and we did a quick tour of several of the areas where the chemical weapons had been stored. It was true, the chemicals and their containers were all gone. The normal supplies and munitions remained though, and would certainly be useful. Although I wasn't sure I liked the thought of all those mines and explosives laying around.

Colonel Baird reminded me that as long as he could keep a core of the soldiers functioning as a unit, they'd be in about as safe a place as it would be possible to keep them.

We talked about his trip to Hanford and what we hoped he'd find there, or not find.

"We'll leave in the morning," he said once we'd returned to our cars, "but you have people anxious to see you back home. We'll throw a couple more jeeps on your convoy here as escort you home. You better get your butt home to the rest of your family."

And so we did, and were received with a lot of hugging and crying. Not all the crying was joy at our safe return. Some was just because with us there it was suddenly okay to remember all those we lost to the Reapers.

We gathered the people, as we could, and we did begin to investigate, sending teams to the nearby towns, sending convoys to Spokane, Seattle, Boise, all the larger cities within driving distance. Here and there they we even ran into a survivor. It was those survivors who cemented the miracle of my involvement in the whole thing. Random survivors, who all turned out to have met me somewhere during my life. Every survivor told the same tale, of the sparkling sweep of blue energy and the feeling of being tugged briefly. Every tale was the same when they gathered to tell them, and gather we did.

We gathered at the river, and prepared to build a new world.


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The End
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Posted:  2008-01-27
Last Modified: 2008-03-26 / 12:11:00 am
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