A New Jeopardy

Part Nine
by Jo Anzalone

A New Jeopardy...part 9

He licked his lips, aware of the mingled taste of carrot and honey. "How strange," he thought. "Why is that there?"

Reaching up with his hand, he touched them with a fingertip. "Sticky," he said, his bewilderment growing. Where was he? He tried to sit up but that only served to make him painfully aware that every muscle in his body ached.

He must've moaned for within a matter of seconds a voice said, "Lie still," and he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Here," the voice came again, soft and gentle, "drink." And he felt his head being slightly lifted as cool water trickled into his mouth.

"Th...thank you," he managed to murmur, turning his eyes to the side to see who was holding the leather flask. In the flickering firelight he saw a slender woman. She wore an ankle-length gown of some creamy material and about her slightly stooped shoulders draped a worn shawl, knitted long ago from soft pale blue wool. Pieces of its fringe were missing here and there and a small hole, unpatched, lay near her thin collarbone. His seagreen eyes moved up and down her form, studying her. She had to be 80, at least, yet she still retained the grace of the beauty of her long ago youth, especially in her eyes and around her mouth. Silver-grey hair hung in one thick braid over her shoulder, almost to her waist. In her right hand she held the leather flask while her finely-veined left hand was curled around a tall walking staff. She was back-lit by the fireplace and seemed to his eyes almost to have a halo-effect around her hair, her shoulders. There was something quite angel-like about her presence and as he stared at her he could not help himself but ask, "Am I dead?"

She smiled, then, shaking her head in amusement, and set the flask down on a bedside stand. Her hand now free, she lay it across his forehead. It felt cool to him, and light as butterfly wings. "No," she said, her almost lavender eyes dancing, "you seem quite alive."

"How...who...?"

ROWRF! Two giant white paws appeared on the side of his bed and an enormous and very, very wet tongue bathed his cheek. "Jasmine!" laughed the woman. "Down!"

His eyes had widened as the huge St. Bernard's head woggled back and forth right above his face. "Down!" she repeated, more sternly this time and the big beast flopped herself back down to the floor, settling after a couple of turns onto a green and black braided rug in front of the fieldstone fireplace.

"That," she said, indicating the dog with a wave of her hand, "is Jasmine." She stooped, ruffling its ears affectionately. "She's my best friend."

Biebe tried to raise himself on his right elbow to peer over at the dog, but again pain shot through him and he let out an involuntary gasp.

Instantly her attention returned to him. "Do lie still," she ordered, though in the most gentle of commands.

"Wh...what happened to me?" he asked, his voice sounding a bit weak.

As she arranged his pillow and pulled up the down comforter a bit more snuggly under his chin, she explained, "Jas found you lying near the railroad tracks just beyond my garden."

"Railroad tracks?" he repeated."Why would I be near railroad tracks?"

"I have no idea," she said. "But not long before, the Polar Express passed by on its way to California. Could you have been on that?"

"I...I don't think so," he murmured, his brow knitting with his effort to remember...something. "Oh!" he exclaimed as his fog parted a bit and he clearly saw himself with his fellow cast members in the area where they had come upon Maximus and Joimus in the forest.

"Did you recall something?" she asked.

"My friends," he said. "I was with my friends... and...and Buggie!"

"Is that your horse?" she inquired, curious about the unusual name.

"No," he replied, blinking back a tear. "She's my...special lady."

"Ah!" she said, understanding. "Where is she now?"

"I...I don't know," he said, closing his eyes.

"Could she be on the train?" the woman probed.

He shook his head mutely. He remembered no train. All he remembered was a sudden rustling in the underbrush and a low growl. After that, until he had awakened in this bed, there was...nothing.

He slept briefly, awaking to find her sitting in an oak rocker not far away,
writing in some sort of notebook. "What is that?" he asked.

 

She capped her old fountain pen and looked at him, still keeping her even rocking rhythm. "My poems," she replied.

"You write poetry?"

"Always," she said, her lips curving into a lovely smile.

"What is that one about?"

"The snow," she said, her eyes wandering to where the flakes had piled up on the sill of a small window near the door. "Jasmine and I were walking in the snow this afternoon and the way it sat so fluffily on the dry seedheads of my garden, " she smiled again, reaching out a foot to stroke the side of her large dog, " to me it looked as beautiful as the summer flowers. And, so...I try to put it into words."

"You live here...alone?" he asked.

"Oh, no," she said. "I live here with Jasmine."

His eyes roamed about. The entire house was obviously this one room, the only door the one leading outside. The walls were square-cut logs with wide, white chinking between them. They looked very old and he wondered when the cabin had been built.

"1763," she said, having followed his eyepath.

He noticed the spinning wheel in one corner, a butter churn, the row of crockery lining the mantel. It dawned on him, then, that there was only the one narrow bed. "I...I'm imposing," he whispered.

"You are not," she replied, getting to her feet and tending the fire.

He felt really confused. How had he gotten to the railroad tracks? Where was everybody else? Why couldn't he remember?

She came and stood beside the bed, brushing his hair back off his forehead. "I know you are bewildered," she said, "and so I will tell you this." She looked down at him with eyes wiser than any he had seen before. "When Jas found you, you were not as you are now."

"What?" he gasped. "What do you mean?"

"You carry on your chest the mark of the bearwolf's teeth." His hand flew up to his chest, pressing against it hard, his pulse beating faster. Quickly she rested her own soft hand atop his as she continued. “It was immediately obvious to me that someone had gotten to you in time with battery acid." She moved her hand back to his hair, carefully pushing away from his face its wandering strands.

"B...battery acid?" he repeated.

"Yes. And good it was, too. For you were no newly-made bearwolf yourself, " she nodded her head comfortingly, "but only a bunnybear."

"I...I was? Did I say anything?"

She chuckled lightly. "No, the silence of the bunnies makes that an impossibility."

"How...how...?"

"Figwort and bindweed," she answered his unasked question, "with just a bit of willow sap." She opened the drawer in the bedside table, taking out a leather-bound book so old it was nearly falling apart. "My great, great grandmother's pharmacopoeia, " she said. "In these parts it was thought wise to pass down the ancient knowledge of bearwolf lore, but no one had ever survived long enough to have the battery acid treatment...and so it was never really known if the figwort mixture would actually work as a cure." She smiled benignly down at him. "But obviously it does."

His lids felt very heavy and he blinked them hard, trying to keep them open.

"Sleep now," she said, "you'll feel better when you wake."

It was no use trying not to sleep, so he let himself drift off, the pleasant crackle of the fireplace acting as his lullaby. Settling back in her rocker, a quilt over her legs, she pulled out a pad of blank paper and began to sketch him as he slept. Quickly and expertly she drew his beard with little feathering strokes of her pencil. She smiled as she drew, humming softly. She liked his profile and, asleep, with his facial muscles relaxed, he did rather resemble a lovable teddy bear. At that thought, she turned her head, studying the fuzzy, old teddy that sat sat slouchily atop the trunk at the foot of her bed. Yes, there definitely were similarities.

When he woke again it was morning and a bright sun flooded the small window with its light. He blinked, staring in amazement for sprays of blooming wisteria hung there like an outside valence. Where was the woman? He sat quickly up, pausing in his search at the discovery his body no longer ached.

The door opened and she entered, her arms filled with field daisies. "Good morning!" she said brightly. "Would you be feeling hungry now?"

He thought about that briefly, realizing that, yes, he was practically starving. She arranged the flowers in a large blue crock, then turned to the cast iron stove, beginning a happy clatter of pots and utensils. He cleared his throat. “The snow? Where is the snow?”

“Outside, I expect,” she replied. "It seldom snows in the house."

"But...but...the flowers," he stuttered, pointing at the daisies.

"Nice, aren't they?" she smiled. "I've always thought that if I were a flower, I'd be a field daisy."

"Where...?"

"Settle yourself at the table," she said. "Breakfast is almost ready." Gingerly he lowered his feet to the plank floor, not yet trusting the wholeness of his body. She watched him out the corner of her eye, but kept stirring the pancake batter. When he found he could stand as well as ever he could, he grinned despite his bewilderment. His boots lay near the fireplace and he slipped them on then sat at the small wooden table in one of the two chairs. He studied her back as she cooked. She didn't seem to want to answer his questions, and he had so very many of them.

"Might I ask your name?" he inquired, trying a different approach.

She turned, a long-handled wooden spoon in her right hand, her left cupped slightly below in case it should drip. "Charlotte Caroline," she replied softly.

"A rather Southern name for a Pennsylvania lady," he remarked with a smile.

"I know," she said.

He cocked his head as he continued looking at her. "Have you lived here long?"

"Yes, very long."

"Why so near the railroad tracks?"

"There are many reasons," she said, pouring batter onto the hot cast iron griddle.

His sheriff's mind was piqued. "And those would be...?"

Looking at him over her left shoulder, she replied, "You. You would be one of those reasons."

He licked his lip thoughtfully and ran his thumb back and forth along his jawline.
"Why me?"

Without turning from the griddle, she said, "Why not you?"

He sighed. He was getting nowhere. "Is it not hard for you," he asked, "living here with just your dog?"

"No, not hard," she said, crossing the room carrying a plate stacked high with pancakes and setting it in front of him. "Let me get the syrup. " She reached into a cupboard and pulled out a small crock. "Make it myself," she added, placing it near his plate. He was too hungry to continue his questions. He truly could not remember the last time he had eaten. And they were so good! He ate ten.

"Almost time to go," she announced when he was finished.

"Go?" he repeated blankly. "Go where?"

"The train will be by again any minute."

"Why," he asked, "his brow creasing deeply, "would the train come by here...again?"

Her eyes dancing, she shrugged and said, "It just...does that."

He tipped back in his chair, locking his seagreens on her lavenders. "Charlotte Caroline, I need to know what is going on here."

"Yes," she agreed, "I know you do." She walked toward the cabin door, holding her hand out to him. Slowly he got up and crossed the room toward her. "Your hat," she reminded, "don't forget your hat." He picked up his big bearskin headgear from where it sat on a small stool. As he neared the door, he could hear the distinctive sound of an approaching steam engine. Taking her hand, he stepped over the threshold.

"My God!" exclaimed Alex. "It's BIEBE!" Alex and the Countess had gone to the baggage car looking for anything that might be of use given their unpleasant upcoming circumstances. Alex had found an old crowbar and pried the lock off the big steamer trunk. Inside, curled on his left side, lay Biebe...sound asleep.

"Be careful!" cried the Countess. "Don't let him bite you!"

Their voices woke the sleeping sheriff, who sat up, wriggling a kink out of his shoulders, and looked blinkingly around in the dim light of the baggage car. "Hullo, Alex," he said, yawning prodigiously.

"John!" Alex said, squatting beside the trunk. "Are you you again?"

Biebe blinked twice, slowly, looking at Alex curiously. "And who else would I be?" he asked.

"How did you get here?" the Countess inquired, still a bit suspicious.

"Where...where is 'here'?" Biebe asked, finally awake enough to realize he had no idea where he was.

"This is the baggage car of the Polar Express, John," Alex explained. "You disappeared an hour or so ago off its back balcony."

Biebe rubbed both palms roughly over his eyes. "What?" he exclaimed. "What are you saying? I was in the clearing where we found Maximus." He looked back and forth from Alex to Pat. "Wasn't I?"

Alex and Pat exchanged meaningful looks. "You were, John," Alex said, "but then you were bitten by a bearwolf and became a bunnybear."

Biebe had no memory at all of being bitten, but somehow the word 'bearwolf' did sound strangely familiar. He knew he had heard it spoken recently. "There's no known cure for bunnybearness, John," Pat added, narrowing her eyes at the sheriff. "How are we to know you are not still a...?"

"He's TALKING!" Alex exclaimed, beaming at John. "THAT'S how we can tell he's all right! Bunnybears can't make sounds."

That convinced even the Countess and so she proffered an arm along with Alex to help Biebe out of the box. "But how...how, John, did you stop being a bunnybear?"

"I have no idea," he said, rubbing his forehead. "Why are we on a train? Where are we going?"

Again Alex and Pat exchanged meaningful looks. Alex gulped and said, "I'm afraid it's not good news, John."

"No, John," continued Pat. "We are about to plummet into Bottomless Gorge, Kentucky."

Biebe's eyes widened and his jaw dropped a bit. "Come on into the passenger car," Alex urged. "We'll explain more there. And, besides," he added, "Buggie needs you."

The trio turned, making their way through the baggage car. The Countess, walking behind Biebe noticed a large bulge in his pocket. The Countess always noticed large bulges. "What's that in your pocket?" she asked.

"What?" he said, reaching his hand down to investigate. He pulled out a large piece of thick, folded paper. It was faded and yellowed and cracked a bit as he opened it. Holding it up close to the swinging oil lantern, he looked at the paper, then his knees buckled and he sat down hard on the floor.

"What is it?" Alex asked, taking the paper in his own hands. He held it so Pat could see it, too.

"It doesn't make sense," she said. "Why would such an old, old paper have THIS on it?"

Alex studied it thoughtfully. It was a sketch, faded with great age, of Biebe, asleep in a narrow bed, covered by a puffy down comforter. Sitting beside the bed, watching him sleep, was a large St. Bernard. Below the sketch were scripted in ink the words, "I am like the road in the night, listening to the footfall of its memories in silence."

"What does this mean, John?" she asked, handing the paper back to him. Biebe sat there on the floor, gazing at the sketch, remembering the daisies, the pancakes, Jasmine...all of it. Charlotte Caroline had taken his hand, had walked with him through the door of her little cabin. She HAD! Hadn't she?

"Come, stand up, John," Alex urged, taking hold of his upper arm.

"He seems dazed," Pat commented, looking worriedly at the sheriff. "Are you
OK, John?"

                                   

How could they know what his eyes were seeing. "I'm...fine," he murmured vaguely, almost walking right into the door. Guiding him carefully across the coupling, they entered the rear of the passenger car. He blinked, shaking his head, trying to clear his brain, trying to find where his Buggie was sitting.

"Watch out for the FedEx box," Alex cautioned as they led him down the aisle.

"What's in the box?" he asked.

"Jack," Pat said with a sigh. "Jack is in the box."

"Why?" he inquired, his eyes still searching for Buggie as he talked.

"He's a bunnybear," Alex explained. "Like you were."

"Oh, really," he said, his voice still strangely vague. He felt an odd pull to reach into his pocket again, this time his hand coming out with a small pouch. He didn't know how he knew but he knew he knew it was toadflax and bindweed powder mixed with a bit of willow sap. "Here," he said, handing the pouch to Alex. "This'll fix him right up."

Then he saw her! She was concentrating so hard on her basket weaving that she wasn't aware of his presence yet. He slipped into the space behind her seat, leaned over and wrapped his arms about her, burying his lips in her dark hair and keeping them there.

"Ack!" said Teller. "Now there's nothing keeping us from plummeting!"
He, however, had no way of knowing just how very, very, very...wrong...he was.

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