AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURES
Chapter 5: Darkness and Firelight
She took one long backward step away from him and he felt something inside his
chest beginning to shred. "Oh, shit!" he exclaimed, reaching
out, pulling her to his chest, locking his mouth over her upper lip.
His right hand moved up to the back of her head, holding her close as he
moved his lips to her cheeks, her eyes, then back to her mouth. When, finally,
he pulled his own head back a little to look at her, she just stood there, her eyes
closed, swaying slightly in his arms. She blinked once, twice, then
murmured, "On the other hand...."
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The sun was getting low in the west.
Bud kept his face turned toward it, letting it pull him blindly like some
great, glowing magnet. If only it actually did go down into the
underworld for the night. Perhaps it could take him with it? It was
where he belonged. Why had he not died in that long-ago room as a kid
tied to the radiator?
He should have. He closed his eyes, seeing
again the sprawled form of his dead mother, watching again as the small stream
of her blood crossed the bare flooring, heading toward him. A shudder
took him as he stood there on
the high Australian ridge, once again reliving his attempt to crowd his body
back into the corner, to get out of the way of its flow. Then, on the
black screen of his inner lids, her form changed into that of Joimus' in the
shed. He had not been able to save his mother and instead of saving Joimus, he had killed her. In
his mind her blood washed across the shed toward him, splashing over his shoes,
up his legs. There was no corner for him to tuck himself into and so he
ran, stumbling along the forest trail, the sound of the blood coming always
close on his heels. He ran until he fell heavily, tripping over a rotting log.
He lay there a long time, face down in the
leaves and grass, his fingers dug into the soil. When the last of the daylight
faded, he rolled onto his back, looking up into the silent void of the sky.
No lights came to play and soar this night. There was only
blackness. He lifted his hands up, remembering the rivering of the
strange yellow. It had been nothing, meant nothing, so he let them fall
limply at his sides.
The rest of the cast had not gone very far beyond the summit of the escarpment
before Himself declared they should make camp for the night. They had
camped like this literally all over the world during the last 3 years and so
each one knew exactly what to do. Soon a series of small fires were going
and little clumps of characters quietly discussed recent events. Berti
hoped that Bud had made a fire for himself, was taking care of himself, but she
feared that he had not, was not...would not.
Terry returned from tracking just a bit ahead. "He's heading west northwest," he told Himself. "If he keeps on, you know where that will...."
"I know,"
Himself replied, nodding his head.
Jack wished Sid had settled near some other campfire, but, no, he remained by
the one the Captain had made for Maximus and Joimus and Rose. Sid was
very aware of the Captain's feelings in the matter and a small smile played
about the corners of his mouth as he lowered his lids, studying Jack's
annoyance through his lashes.
"Truly," Sid
agreed, "but I am not leaving." He followed the Captain's movements,
remembering that night in Jack's caravan when he had seen the depth of his
friendship for Maximus. Since then he had known, had understood the
purity of a male friendship for the first time. He lowered his lashes
again, saying to himself, "But he has never known... purple."
"What did you
say?" Bunny asked.
"Nothing," Sid
smiled, "nothing of import."
Joimus had unpacked the cape and was tucking it around Maximus. Stephen had
just left, having rebandaged the leg
wound, and Jack had gathered leaves to make bedding for the General. Maximus
lay back, utterly exhausted, asleep before Joimus finished her tucking.
She was tired, her leg muscles sore from the steepness of the road, but
not quite yet ready for sleep herself. Picking up a long, slender stick, she
poked the fire idly, watching the sparks fly up, cooling into nothingness in
the night. Jack had placed his dark jacket around Rose's shoulders as the
air had chilled with the setting of the sun. Joimus turned her gaze in
their direction, liking the flicker of the firelight as it reflected on the
jacket's buttons and epaulets.
Slightly hesitant, Rose
asked Joimus, "Could you explain to me about the... colors. I would
like to understand."
Joimus smiled.
"It's hard to put into words, Rose."
Jack spoke up then.
"I saw the colors...the lights...in the shed myself. I've never seen
their like."
"It was...freedom,"
Joimus continued, her thoughts taking her far away. "Freedom without
bounds, being without cellular structure, movement quicker than thought." She sighed, looking at Maximus.
"It was...music. I poured myself into and through him and
we...we...made new colors, shadings, new music that had never been heard
before. And...and...I...knew...him. I cannot explain it." She
looked at Rose seriously in the firelight. "We were the same thing. I brought
my yellow to his red and we made...orange... were orange...together."
She shook her head wonderingly at the remembrance. "I...cannot
explain it," she said again.
But Sid knew just what she
meant...and it had changed not less than... everything.
"Truly, you camped like this in Egypt?" Laura was asking Steve.
"And Bolivia," he added. He looked at her as the flames shaded and danced on her features. "But I was always...alone," he thought, "always." He took her left hand and began to trace his fingertip around the edges of each of her long, slender fingers. "I hope," he said softly without looking up, "that you will find you are glad you stayed."
She
smiled. At that moment she was, indeed, feeling glad. Very.
Terry was explaining privately to annsmac about Bud's trail. "He's
not been careful where he's walking," he said, his brow creasing with
worry. "He's falling a lot, stumbling."
"With good
reason," he added, shaking his head. "We need to find him
quickly...before...."
"He WOULDN'T!"
annsmac cried softly.
Terry rubbed his hand over
his eyes. "He may, annsmac, he may."
"Oh, Terry, if only
your equipment weren't still so awfully, awfully blunted, perhaps you could
track him better."
He nodded silent
agreement. When you were in his line of work, bluntness was, well, a
blight upon his capabilities that could well be the deciding factor between
life and death at some untoward moment. For K&R agents, equipment was
everything!
Alex and Pat's campfire was close enough to Jack's that Joimus' attempts to
describe the colors came clearly to their ears. Pat could tell Alex was
listening especially intently and it suddenly dawned on her...why.
"You!" she exclaimed softly. "I forgot
that...you...."
"Have been dead, too?"
he finished for her.
"Yes," she
continued. "You never speak of it."
He smiled a bit grimly.
Indeed, though at least four characters had found themselves dead as the
ending credits began to crawl, he was the only one who had died in the midst of
his film and yet lived.
"Was it
like...that?" Pat asked, nodding towards the next campfire.
The expression on his face
told her it would probably have been better not to ask. He looked at her
almost bleakly. "I was in that hotel room in Mexico when
it...happened," he began. "There
were no colors...no lights. I was back on Mount Suribachi only instead of
Japanese, there were... spiders."
"Spiders?"
"Tarantulas," he
sighed, "giant tarantulas." He tipped his head, looking at the
sky. "Thank God it was brief...didn't last hours like theirs."
"You...you said
'back' on Suribachi. You were there...on Iwo Jima then?"
He dipped his head.
"One of many," he sighed. "One of many. Too
many." He was so taken up by the moment that his hand reached by
habit for the small blue and white bowl he'd kept for years in his pocket. When
his fingers found nothing, he pressed his lips together, blowing out a small
breath. Myra had broken it. Smashed it on the floor. Still,
his thumb pad had traced its curve, bumped across the roughness of its partially melted side for so many years that he could feel
it yet in his nerve endings.
Pat realized from his
expression what he was doing. "Your Nagasaki bowl?"
He dipped his head again.
"Yeah. My bowl."
On the other side of their campfire, Eryn turned to Colin. "He was a
marine? I didn't know Alex was a marine."
"Yeah," Colin
replied, "most people tend to forget that." Colin studied his fellow character. "I think he prefers it that way."
Lachlan and Wanda were at that campfire, too. As it seemed to be a night
for reflection, she turned to him, asking, "Do you wonder did your character
make it past his 6 week life-expectancy at the end of your movie?"
"I think about that...a
lot," he admitted. "I might have," he added.
"Some pilots did survive, you know."
She knew the percentages had
not been in his favor, though, and pressed more closely to his side, glad for
his firm reality against her.
Joimus lay down on the leaves beside Maximus. Even in his sleep he was
aware of her coming and lifted his arm to move the cape over her. She lay there
a long time, awake, watching the firelight on his face as it shaded his skin
orangely. Orange had never really appealed to her before, back... before. Now
every fiber of her being ached with longing at the sight of it. She cupped
her palm lightly over his cheek, sighing when his skin prevented it from going
further.
He opened his eyes at her
touch. "I know," he murmured, taking her hand, moving it to his
mouth where he placed a long, deep kiss in the center of her palm.
"I know."
He fell asleep again, her
hand flat between his two under his cheek. She could not help but smile.
He may be a great soldier, a warrior without compare, but as a man, he
knew more than most how to give of himself to a woman, how to 'be' for her.
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