IN THE TIME OF FOG

By Jo Anzalone

PART ONE: (The direct continuation of Desperate Measures)

NOTE TO READER: To understand the 'why' of Maximus' condition,

you really DO need to read the last several chapters of Desperate

Measures.

He had been...somewhere...he didn't know quite where. Where

had ceased to be important. Like time. Or even existence. Waiting

was all there was. It had become enough.  He didn't even really

know what he was waiting for. But in a place where waiting is all

there is, the reason for it sifts away.

Then he was wet. Water was being squeezed over him and there

was motion behind it, movement as though he were being wiped. Vaguely, he looked through the slits between his eyelids. Something
white was there. He gazed at the white, detached, utterly unable

to solidify its form  into anything meaningful. It made low noises

that floated around him, never quite reaching him. Then it was

gone.

He lay listening to the trickle of water.  It had become the only

thing he could hear. Water...flowing away. He drained away

with it, trickling, part of it, into the dark crevice.

Then the trickle was gone, replaced by lights and sound that

roared, and if he could have thought it clearly, he would have

thought that meant he had flowed entirely away and was now

being sucked into the netherworld.  But such a thought was

beyond him right now and so he merely lay, the colors
reflecting into his eyes.

The lights sailed away into some oblivion other than the one

where he dwelled and the sound of the water came back once

again. He sat, but only because a tree supported his back. His

head was too heavy for his neck and hung forward into the

moisture that veiled itself against his face. He breathed.

Breathing was enough. More than enough.

"Come on, Marcus!" she laughed, pushing a pin through the

floppy beige straw hat she always wore on walks. The wide brim

almost completely hid her short, wavy, honey-brown hair. She

was wearing soft, tan slacks and an ivory shirt with flowing

sleeves, rolled up halfway to her elbows.

Marcus dashed through the door, his big paws sliding on the

polished hardwood flooring, crashing into her legs.  "Oooof!

You are such an ox! Do you know what an ox you are, you big

galoot?"

Marcus stood, tongue hanging out, looking up adoringly at his

mistress. Caroline smiled and squatted to wrap her arms around

his neck, ruffling his fur.  Marcus at three weighed 120 pounds,

large even for a German Shepherd. Caroline's husband, Alexander,

had bought Marcus for her a week before he left for his second
tour of duty in Iraq.

"He'll keep you company while I'm gone," Alexander had said.

"Keep you safe for me until I come home."

"It's not my safety that concerns me," she'd replied.  She'd been

right about that. Four months later a IED took Alexander's life. 

He'd come home to her in a box and all she had left was a folded flag...and Marcus.

They'd lived together in what had been his parent's house on the

edge of the city.  But large corporations had steadily built

headquarters in the area, huge complexes of buildings like the

one the locals jokingly called Emerald City.  Every day more

and more of the old residences that had once been almost out

in the country, fell to the bulldozers. She'd sold the house to

a developer, taken the money and the dog and driven out into

the real country, almost two hours from the city, and found a

small house nestled among trees, a house with no other houses

for miles around.

"There," she said to Marcus. "That's our new home."  It had

been white, but she painted it pink, painted it herself. It had

a wide porch surrounding it on three sides. She painted its

square, wooden pillars forest green.  "It's mine," she laughed

at Marcus, who'd gotten a blob of pink on his tail, "and I can

jolly well make it look like a rosebud if I jolly well WANT to!" 

Marcus was the only male who'd live in it and he didn't care

how feminine it looked. Nothing mattered to him but that he

could lay his head across her legs in the night, could go on long

rambles with her in the early morning.

Her boots thudded lightly on the brick pathway she had made,

the path that led to the entrance gate. In the two and a half

years she'd lived here, she gotten a fast-growing rose to arch

over the wooden pickets that formed the gate. Each time she

came out to get her mail, she paused, just enjoying the look of

it.

"Artists can paint with flowers, too, Marcus," she'd told him

many times.

This morning a fog lay thickly on the land and she headed off

across the field toward the woods, her head tipped up to enjoy

the gentle, wet touch of it on her cheeks. "You never know what

you might find in a fog, Marcus," she said, pushing back a

branch to pass by.

Marcus whuffed slightly, eyeing a rabbit munching clover not

all that far away. But he stayed with Caroline, stayed as close

as though leashed.

They walked just a bit, not far, when Marcus stopped, pressing

against her legs, a low growl rumbling deep in his throat, every

muscle in his body tense. "What is it, boy? Do you see a fox?"

She squinted, trying to determine what he was staring at. Just

beyond a small creek, a dark form was at the base of a tree.

Marcus' hackles were in full rise. Caroline took a step forward,

wanting to see what it was, but he put himself broadside across
her path.

"It's all right, boy," she soothed. "I'm sure it's all right." Pushing

on his neck firmly, she made him move aside. He didn't like it,

his growl growing louder. A few steps more in the fog and she

could see that it was a man, a man sitting, leaning against the

tree. "Are you all right?" she called, noting the droop of his head

and shoulders.

He didn't answer and she came closer, Marcus still pressing

against her, still growling. "Are you all right?" she repeated,

cocking her head, studying him. He had slick black hair, drops

of foggy moisture clinging to it. His clothing was nothing less than...strange. Some blue scrap of something that had rough

neck and armholes cut out of it. She paused, wondering for a

moment if he might be some sort of escaped convict. But he

didn't move, didn't even really seem aware of her or the dog.

She squatted beside him, trying to see his face more clearly.

His lids were slightly lowered and he was staring steadily at...

nothing. She sucked a small breath sharply in. On the news,
in magazines and papers, she had seen faces like that, faces of

men who had been terribly mangled, men who were waiting

for death. Had Alexander looked like that in the last moment
before he died?

Marcus had stopped growling and was sniffing the man's

shoulder. Then he made some sort of decision and began to

lick the man's cheek just above the line of his beard. Caroline

watched him. "So you think he's ok, eh?" she remarked,

turning her eyes back to the man's face.

"Can you hear me?" she asked. Still no response. Reaching

out, she cupped his chin with her fingers, lifting it. Marcus

stopped licking, observing quietly.

"War?" she asked firmly. "Were you in the war?"

His misty, seagreen eyes blinked once. "War," he said, followed

by a long, shuddering breath that seemed to suck him back into

the fog.

She pulled back her hand, running her fingers idly through

Marcus' ruff. "I don't know why, Marcus, but I have this odd

feeling like he was waiting for us." She turned her head, judging

the distance back to her house. Making a little clucking sound,

she said, "Don't think he's got the oomph to make it. Looks like somebody pulled his plug."

Standing, she drew a cell phone out of her pocket. "Hank?

Caroline here. Look, I'm just inside the edge of the woods

where that old pine snag sticks up. You know where I mean,

right beyond the small creek? Good. Look, I've got somebody

with me who needs help getting to my house. Think you can

come and offer a hand? Ah, thanks, Hank! I really appreciate

it."

She put the phone away, surprised to see Marcus lying with

his head across the man's legs. "Hey," she said. "You only do

that for me!"  She was glad of it, though. Marcus had the same judgment about this guy that she did, and his dog's instinct

was probably a sounder basis for it than her own thoughts.
All she knew was that as she looked at this dazed man, that

perhaps Alexander had looked like that. Had anybody helped

him? Or had he just eventually slumped over and died where

he sat? She wasn't going to let that happen to this man.

Within a few minutes she heard Hank coming across the field.

He lived in the small room over her garage, a leathery man in

his early 60's who helped her with the harder work around the

place. A Viet Nam vet, he'd moved from place to place most of

his life, getting odd jobs here and there. He was good with horses

and she had a small stable with two. He grew hay for them in

the field on the far side of the barn, and always seemed to find something that needed repairing, something that could use

tending to. He didn't want much in the way of pay, just a place

to hang his hat, something useful to do until he felt it was time

to move along. He'd been there for a year and a half now, joining Marcus in a certain watchfulness over her well-being.

"Who you got there, Miz Caroline?"

"Can you help me get him on his feet?" she replied, not answering

his question.

Tipping back his hat, he eyed the man sitting against the tree.

"What in the gol-durned...WHAT is he wearin'?"

"Never you mind that, Hank," she said firmly. "Just help me get

him into the house."

"You want...him...inside your house? Do you...?"

"I do," she interrupted. "He needs help."

"Probably a criminal," Hank muttered, though he, too, noticed

how Marcus had his head across the man's legs. "Dog likes him,"

he commented unwillingly, bending to slide a shoulder under the

limp arm.

Caroline did likewise on the other side, and with a bit of a

struggle, they got him on his feet. He hung there between them,

not really bearing any of his own weight on his feet.

"Doesn't he talk?" Hank asked as they made their way toward

the field, the man's odd boots leaving drag-paths in the heavy

dew.

"He said, 'War'," she supplied.

"Why'd he go and say that?"

"Because I asked him if he'd been in the war. And he nodded and repeated the word."

Hank looked at the man's profile from time to time. He'd seen

that look, seen it when Sam had been machine-gunned on the

edge of the rice paddy. Seen it while he held him, pressing his

hands to Sam's chest, trying to staunch the blood as they waited

for the chopper that was too late in coming. He knew about that

look. He'd seen it...often.

"Look, Miz Caroline," he said when they paused mid-way in the

field to catch their breath. "This here feller, he's seen some hard

things. And he ain't just...right...any more. You know what I

mean? You need to call somebody to come and take him off your

hands. You know that, Miss Caroline, you know that's what you

should do."

She smiled grimly. "No, Hank. I don't need him 'taken off my

hands.'"

"In there?" Hank asked, when she guided them toward her studio.

"You want to put him in my bedroom, Hank?"

The small house had only two bedrooms, one of which she'd turned

into an art studio. There was a day bed in the studio, and they lay

him across its cabbage rose-printed cover. "Looks a might strange

lyin' there, don't he?" Hank commented, stepping back, running

a hand through his silver hair.

Caroline had tossed her hat on a chair, shaking her curls out in

to their usual disarray. "Thanks for your help, Hank," she said

over her shoulder as she headed for the small bathroom between

the two rooms.

"What you plannin' on doin' now you got him here?" he asked,

cocking an eyebrow.

"Clean him up a bit, see if I can get some food in him," she replied.

"You aimin' on doin' that yourself, Miz Caroline?"

"I'm a big girl, Hank. I can manage fine. You go along and tend

to the horses, ok?"

"But...."

"The horses, Hank," she said firmly, running warm water into

a small basin.

"Ma'am," he said, tipping his hat and heading for the door,

muttering under his breath.

Basin in hand, she squatted by the daybed. He was dirty, but it

looked as though some attempt had recently been made toward cleanliness. Soap did not appear to have been part of that,

however. She slid some towels under and around him and washed

his hair as best she could. Marcus participated by thoroughly

licking the man's right arm.

She smiled at the dog. "Not that you're doing a bad job or anything,

my friend, but I hope you won't mind if I come along after you with

a soapy rag."

His tunic-like attire was filthy, caked with salt deposits, rancid

fruit juices, and stains from heaven only knew what. There was

even a fair amount of sand. "Sand and salt? Have you been at

the beach?" The nearest salt water was far away. How could he

have gotten so far inland with so much sand and salt still on him?

Going into her bedroom, she slowly pulled a flat box out from

under the bed. It was her one giving in to sentimentality. She'd

left every thing else behind in the city, everything but the flag

and the dog and her art supplies. It had been time to start over.

That was why the house was pink. Because it was HER house,

fresh and feminine and hopefully free of ghosts. Except for this

one box, which she'd not taken out from under the bed in the

two and a half years since she'd been here. She sat on the bed,
holding it across her lap, her palms flat on its lid.

"I don't even know why I kept this," she said to Marcus. It was

the outfit Alexander had been wearing his last day with her, the

day before he shipped out. She unfolded the light blue denim

shirt, the jeans with a small tear on one thigh. Resisting the urge

to press them to her face, she carried them into her studio.

"Yes, I do believe you are about the same size as Alexander," she announced, "though a bit on the skinny side right now."

She smiled slightly, knowing how scandalized Hank would be, but sliding the tunic up over his head anyway. "It's much easier to

finish washing him this way," she explained to the carefully

observant Marcus.

The man's eyes were still open slightly, but he seemed totally

detached from what was happening to him. She paused, looking

into his eyes. "Are you in there?" she asked.

When he was dried and dressed, not an easy task she had to admit,

she stood, heaving a tired sigh. "Sorry about the lack of underwear

and socks, but Hank'll pick you up some soon. Hope that's ok."

In the kitchen she made a pot of chicken soup. Hadn't her mother

told her chicken soup was the cure for just about everything? She propped pillows at the end of the day bed and tugged him into a
sitting position, tucking a towel under his chin. That had been

wise. Her first spoonful went in and came right back out.

"Listen, Mystery Man, you are going to eat this soup. So just give

it up and swallow the blasted stuff."  She tried again, only a tiny

bit of broth in the spoon. Slipping it between his lips, she quickly

tipped his chin slightly. He swallowed. "Ah," she said to Marcus,

"you see. A bit of perseverance pays off every time." It took 45

minutes, but she managed to get most of the soup in him.

She settled him back down, pulling a light blanket over him,

carefully arranging his hands atop the cover. Did he never close

his eyes? She tried to shut them for him, gently sliding her palm

over them. They opened immediately, not wide, just those small

slits he kept them in.

"No," he breathed. "Tigers."

She licked her lips, studying him. Tigers, eh? Kneeling beside him,

she called Marcus close. "Listen to me. Marcus is here, right beside

you. Marcus will keep the tigers away. You hear me? Marcus will
keep the tigers away."

Crossing the room, she sat at her easel, looking back at him, then

picked up a bit of charcoal and began to sketch. As her eyes

flicked back and forth between him and her paper, she noticed

that his right hand moved. Marcus had lain his head on the day

bed beside him and inch by inch, the man's fingers moved until

they were buried in the fur of the dog's neck.

She smiled. "Good dog," she whispered.

ON TO PART 2

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE

BACK TO INDEX

BACK TO DESPERATE MEASURES, PART 23