MY HEART IN STONE

PART THIRTY-ONE:

“This is all so much to take in,” Glen said, not for the first time since Terry disconnected

with Charles back at Emerald City and corroborated Rachel’s summary of events from

the word ‘Gladiator.’  Rachel looked at the bedside clock: four thirty.  Surely Cort was

 awake by now?  Lisa had called to say she and Finn had returned but since Finn had

somehow managed to find every glob of mud between the hotel and the canoe rentals,

she was going to make the boy take a bath before rejoining them.  Which worked out

great, because despite Glen’s ‘conversion,’ her father was still a mass of skepticism and

doubts.  Rachel knew this to be the engineer in her father, exacting detail and everything

for a purpose…and there were plenty of knobs and corners and missing data in their

story that did not easily satisfy her father’s engineering heart.  Thankfully Terry had

the ability and experience to tell Glen about Rachel’s efforts to retrieve Cort, and the subsequent travels into ‘Gladiator’ which ended in disaster with their competitor, Mikol, abducting Cort.  “How does this connect with why Cort needed to ‘recover’ today?”

Rachel let out a breath she’d hardly been aware she was holding and looked at Terry,

who was stretching a bit and making moves to leave the party, so to speak.  The Aussie

picked up his laptop and turned to Glen.

“I’m afraid I just saw the time and realized that if I don’t make my way back to Deidre,

she’ll start a new quest of her own without me,” Terry said, giving Rachel a sly wink. 

He held out his hand to Glen and they shook.  “Even though we don’t plan to have the

dinner until tomorrow night, you and Lisa and Finn are more than welcome to join us

this evening.  We thought we might enjoy the night scenery at one of the outdoor cafes.”

“Thank you, I’ll let you know in a bit…I need to see what’s going on with Lisa,” Glen

said, a bit stiffly, but well meant. 

There was a quiet pause when the door shut where Rachel stood up to stretch herself

and Glen puttered around the room, ostensibly to absorb what he had learned so far. 

“Dad,” Rachel began, when she couldn’t take the silence any longer.  “I think…I think

Cort’s going to need to know what you think of him, in particular.  I think what’s really important is how you two get along, not all the mess that we’ve been through.”

Glen didn’t answer right away.  For several long seconds he played with the lace curtain

at the window.

“What did Mikol do to him?” he asked at last.

“Well, technically, nothing, once he got here.  It was Mikol’s brand of warping that did

the most damage.  I can hardly explain it myself, knowing what I know about NanoCorp’s version.  If I understood Henri correctly, Mikol’s version of the technology was decidedly

more primitive, and Mikol was too ambitious in his efforts to obtain…people from films

to try and refine the process.  Anyway…” Rachel broke, nearly getting lost in her own

thought, wondering how it was that Mikol even found out about the technology…but that

had to wait for later.  “Mikol’s warp changed some things about Cort that basically,”

here she had to take another deep breath, mostly to keep her blood pressure from rising

at the very thought of what Mikol’s warp had done, “destroyed his ability to go through

the warp again.  Which means, he can never work in a retriever’s capacity with me or

Terry ever again.  Which means,” she added, unable to keep the words from rushing out,

“I am not going to do retrieving again, either.”

“You’re quitting your job?”  Glen asked, much more calm than she had thought he would

be.

“Terry and Dee don’t want us to go…at least as far as working for NanoCorp, but I gotta

tell you, Dad,” Rachel grimaced, “I think after this morning, it's pretty obvious that even

if we wanted to continue the retrievals, we couldn’t.  Let me back up some, though,” she

added quickly, before Glen repeated his earlier query.

She then launched into the account of her arrival in Hromada, meeting Gerta finding

the trail, finding the bones at the base of the castle, describing her despair to Volos,

Gerta’s inside connection to the castle by making Rachel a housemaid, finding Cort

asleep on the couch, and then the disastrous encounter in the kitchen.

“All that while, Gerta and I had been operating with the idea that all that would be

needed is for me to show up and Cort would work with me to find a way out…which is

what he wanted anyway, but we didn’t know that Mikol’s warp had done more than

jeopardized his life, it had wiped out all memory of me, of being retrieved the first time,

his time with me in Emerald City, and the journey into ‘Gladiator.’  All of it, Dad!  And

he was having such a hard time with that, too…well, he told me later…the only people

he had a connection to was Mikol, who wanted to use him as guinea pig for some

experiments he was working, and Henri, who, thanks be to God, had the heart and soul

to try and stave off Mikol’s work as long as possible.  Then Henri found out about me,

and helped me out,” Rachel swallowed, trying to slow down, trying to remember what

she had already explained.  “I kept giving Cort clues as to who I was, but he still didn’t remember, until one final clue…”  she paused, feeling her cheeks redden a bit.  There

was no way she could possibly detail that for her father!  “One clue did trigger his

memory.  Unfortunately, once he did remember, Mikol figured out who I was…Mikol

got very, very, very angry and knocked me unconscious so he could take me and use me

as bait for a wild goose chase around the castle.  In the process of trying to keep up, Cort

fell and hurt himself…and…and we eventually ended up on the parapet of the tall tower. 

Mikol tied me up so I had no way of breaking my fall or had no way of holding on, so

that when I fell….” Rachel shuddered.  “Well, I told you about that, didn’t I?”

“Is his memory the only thing affected?  Did he have a relapse this morning?” 

“Of a sort…I didn’t fully understand the experiences he had until he told me the other

night.  He and Henri described it that the warp scatters the individual, quite literally…

a lot like a Star Trek transporter beam,” Rachel explained with a rueful laugh. 

“Only difference is that the individual is very conscious of this scattering, and the side

effects are that the scattering can still take place well after the individual has left the

control room.  Cort told me it happened to him at least twice while he was staying in

the tower where Mikol kept him.  And,” Rachel swallowed, her mouth dry, “this morning,

when we all went back to show Terry and Dee what had happened.  Terry wanted files

and information…”

“Mikol’s dead, right?  That’s what you told me, right?”

 

“Yes.  We all took a trip back to the castle, Neviditelny, because Terry wanted to get as

much of what Mikol left behind as possible before going back home and he also wanted

to get a visual to go with our report of what happened.  Unfortunately, I think we

triggered something…it may have been simply because Cort was there, again, because

while we were downstairs in the warp room…the warp tried to take Cort again.”

Glen shook his head, but Rachel wasn’t sure if it was because he was aghast or confused.

“He turned blue,” Rachel continued to describe, emotional once more.  She gave up

trying to couch her words in simple terms.  There were no words to make the warp

sound credible unless one saw it happen,  “…and transparent…we all tried to grab

onto him, but he could feel the warp taking him and I can only figure its because Mikol

had some kind of…booby-trap set up that if anyone tried to change things, Cort

would be…erased….eliminated.  And it very nearly succeeded.”

“How…how did you stop it?”

“I don’t know.  I certainly didn’t.  Henri stayed behind as we rushed out of the castle…

it was probably to try and destroy the computers running the warp program, so Cort

could get away.  I don’t know…”  Rachel bowed her head, a bit shamefaced of her

thoughts in those particular moments.  She had been so fraught with terror at losing

Cort, she had forgotten about Henri in the bowels of Neviditelny, struggling to disconnect

the hold the warp had.  “He did something because we had not even reached the car

when we felt this horrible boom shake the ground and we saw stones fall from one of

the walls of the castle.  I thought for sure then he was buried underneath.  I guess he

had set off a bomb or some type of self-destruct.  We all thought he was a goner, trapped

below.  But then Henri came walking out himself…” a smile spread across her face

then at the memory of that joy.  And Cort’s.

“And this is what Cort had to recuperate from this afternoon?” Glen asked, gently.

“Yes.” Rachel came out of her reverie, took a deep breath.  “It took a lot out of him, to

fight off the warp, to stay with us.  It drains him physically, because that’s what happens

…it literally begins ripping him apart.”  She looked up at her father to find an expression

of acceptance on his face.  “I think destroying Mikol’s warp will keep it from happening

again….but Henri told us that Cort was the first one to ever survive Mikol’s version and

we have no idea how its going to affect him in the future.  That’s why we can’t stay at NanoCorp.”

Glen was silent for several long minutes, most of which Rachel was grateful for, because

she’d had to think hard and fast how to compress weeks of twists and turns into a

coherent testimony; and now, she could let her mind tuck the more frightening

implications of events into safe little cubby holes.  Except, a new thought was born

among the others: that the one person she knew she could trust when she re-opened

them and dumped all their contents out was…Cort.  Not her father, as in the old days,

but Cort.  Her father was now someone who needed to be protected from the vagaries

of her own life.

When did I start feeling this way?  She wondered.

It’s because Dad’s having to deal with so much that I don’t tell him everything, she

reasoned.  Still, it suddenly cast her father in a totally new light, and she sat

fidgeting, wondering what to do with this brand new feeling.  It didn’t have a cubby-

hole yet.

“Rachel, I think maybe we should take a break now,” Glen said, straightening as if he

had come to some realizations of his own.  Smiling, he held out his arms to her and she

welcomed his embrace.  “And I think we’ve kept your young man waiting long enough. 

I have to tell you, I think the thing I am having the most difficulty with isn’t all this

fantastical stuff you’re involved in.  It’s the idea that my little girl is moving into a wider

 world of adulthood and expanding her life.  You are so grown up!  And…you aren’t

under my protection any more…and that’s a hard thing to give up, you know.  Hard to

accept that someone else is going to be on the lookout for you now,” Glen said, kissing

her forehead.  “I know as an independent woman, you don’t want to hear that, but

that’s the way we men think.  From what you told me about Cort, I don’t think he’s

much different than me.”

“You’re right,” Rachel agreed, squeezing her father in a hug of joy.  “Let’s go find

him now."

Henri was glad to see Cort had an appetite.  "There's a little restaurant downstairs

in the Mini," he said, "we could get you a bit to eat there, keep an eye out for Rachel. 

She wanted me to tell you she has gone to speak with her father, to try and explain

some more about all of this to him, I would imagine."

Cort freshened up a bit and the two men went down the elevator to the main level.

"I'm hungry enough to eat a horse," he laughed, looking at the list of dishes on the

menu and not recognizing a thing.  "You suspect they have that here?"

Henri smiled and explained what several of the items were and shortly Cort was

eating ravenously.  Henri nursed another cup of tea along, just enjoying watching

Cort.  "The warp," he said, suddenly serious, "I've seen it try to take you before." 

He shook his head.  "I don't know how that works, why that happened.  Mikol must

have had aspects to the thing he shared with nobody."  He put his hand briefly atop

Cort's across the table. "I thought...this time...I thought it was going to...."  He

couldn't finish the sentence, just look at Cort with a depth of feeling in his eyes.

"I did, too," Cort nodded, swallowing a large mouthful. "And it hurts so much...that

warp. You've no idea what it's like, Henri, to go through that thing.  It...hurts...." 

He looked away for a moment.

"Are you feeling all right now, Son, truly all right?"

"Pretty much," Cort replied, staring at his plate.  "Just a little headache, that's all."

Henri sighed, remembering the horrid headaches Cort had experienced after he'd

arrived in Kamen.  "You'll let me know?  If they get bad, you'll let me know?"

"Sure," Cort smiled, "but it's not like that. Not this one. I'll be ok."  Licking his lips,

he continued.  "I think I should talk with Father Pavel again, before the wedding and

all. We have an extra day now, so I was thinking tomorrow.  Can you help me with

that?"

Henri brightened. "I know where his chapel is.  I could drive you there whenever you

like tomorrow."

"Good," Cort nodded, standing.  "Think I'll walk over to that other hotel and sit in

the square a bit and wait for Rachel to come out."

"Is it all right if I accompany you, Son?" Henri asked quietly, still not ready to leave

Cort on his own yet.  "I don't have anything I need to do for a bit.  If you don't mind...."

Cort grinned, looking at Henri, knowing good and well that the doctor in him had

combined with the father, that he wanted to keep an eye on him.  "Not at all," he said,

putting his arm around the older man's shoulders as they headed toward the main door.

Henri explained more about what was what, the history that lay behind certain structures

as they walked.  Once in the main square, they found a table close to the entrance of the

Golden Angel and sat, watching the pedestrian traffic.  Cort leaned way back, propping

his feet on an empty chair in front of him.  "Being back in Kamen this morning," he

commented, "that really made me appreciate...this...this freedom to go where I like." 

He looked at the hotel.  "Just knowing Rachel is in there, that she's going to be coming

through the door there any time...."  He shook his head.  "It's worth...everything.  Just everything."

Shadows that covered the market square were now reaching into the lobby of the Golden

Angel and that certain air of change that comes when people begin their shift into evening activities hung in the dusk.  Rachel broke the news of the location of their wedding

ceremony as they descended the stairs, a development that returned Glen’s skepticism

in full force, but Rachel got the feeling her father was exaggerating the doubt for her,

to alleviate his own nervousness.  A loudly protesting stomach reminded her that she had

not eaten much since breakfast, so the smells wafting from the hotel’s restaurant nearly sidetracked her from the mission of returning to the Mini.  Only at Glen’s insistence that

they step outside did Rachel turn her back on the fragrance of roasting pork and the

sight of the dessert tray filled with fruits and chocolates.

Which was good, because there sat Cort and Henri in the bistro area that was roped

off just outside the hotel.  If she had been alone, she would have held back some to gaze

at the sight of Cort’s long legs stretched out and propped up, would have thoroughly

relished the sight of him leaning back in his chair, looking for all the world as though

he were soaking in the life around him and loving every bit of it.  She would have loved

every moment he sat like that.

As it was, though, Glen…being a man…had no such romantic notions to give him pause,

and compelled her forward.

“Fancy meeting you here!”  She exclaimed as they turned.

Cort's boots and the chair legs hit the cobblestones instantly and he was on his feet, a

delighted smile forming on his face at the sound of her voice.  "Hullo," he greeted,

stepping forward to kiss her lightly then extending his hand to her father.  "Glad to

see you again, Sir."

“Same here, Cort,” Glen replied.  Rachel caught a brief second or two of eyes meeting

and acknowledging something…settled…in the both of them.  That moment alone was

a huge relief to her.  “I hope you are feeling better?” her father asked.

"Much improved, thank you," Cort said genially.  Then he wished he'd chosen other

words since, knowing Rachel so well, he knew instantly she'd latch on to the fact that

he'd not said he was completely fine.  He avoided her eyes, keeping his smiling toward

Glen's.

“Henri, this is my father, Glen,” Rachel said, slipping her hand into Cort’s, entwining

her fingers with his.  The two men shook hands as well.  “Dad, Henri’s the doctor that

took care of Cort and is going to be his best man.”

"My good pleasure," Henri said, taking stock of Glen as he grasped his hand. "You

have a fine daughter there. Very courageous."

“Thank you,” Glen smiled, unable to keep from looking infinitely proud, and then winked

at Rachel, who had barely enough time to react when he added, “although, members of

our family call it a certain lack of fear…or is that common sense, Angel?  Okay okay,”

Glen laughed as Rachel gave an exaggerated gasp, “a lack of fear that has landed her

in the briar patch more than once.”

At first Cort wasn't sure how to take what Glen was saying, especially when he heard

her little gasp. Then he got a mental image of a briar patch with her stuck in its midst. 

Somehow it fit and he knew suddenly what Glen was trying to say.  But Rachel's feelings

were paramount.

"She is a right brave little thing," he smiled, trying to keep it all light, "and if it weren't

for that stubborn courage of hers, I don't think she would have survived what Mikol put

her through, Sir.  I admire her more than I can say."

Uh oh.  Rachel heard Cort’s words and knew he was stalwartly defending her, and loved

him even more for it, but she also knew her father was teasing her to keep his own

nervousness from taking control; and it sounded as if Cort had not quite caught the

affection in Glen’s voice. 

“I think Dad is trying to say that I’ve ignored his warnings to be careful so many times

that courage gains a loose meaning around me,” Rachel laughed, and reached up to kiss

Cort on the cheek. 

“I’m very proud of her,” Glen said to Cort in a more serious tone, realizing that his jest

was a bit off the mark for his prospective son-in-law.  “And I know she’s very proud of

you.”

"Thank you, Sir," Cort smiled.  "Her opinion means everything to me."

"Well," Henri said, "I've got to go talk with Franco and Julian now. I told them I'd help

find work for them in the area."  He shook Glen's hand again.  "I'm sure I'll be seeing

more of you."  Then he hugged Rachel and Cort, and walked off toward one of the

narrow streets leading away from the main square.

“I’ve noticed you no longer use the cane,” Glen said, when the silence that ensued

threatened to become awkward eons.  He gestured to Cort and Rachel to sit.  He had

eaten more during the day, but even then the odors wafting through the square were

tempting.  “I’m glad to see that’s healing as well.”

Cort looked surprised.  He hadn't even thought about his cane since leaving the Mini. 

Where was the thing?  He tried to remember.  Kamen.  He knew he'd had it with him

in Kamen this morning.  He could picture himself walking along, Rachel's hand in his

right, the cane in his left.  He'd been carrying it more than leaning on it by then, his

leg feeling much improved from the nightly massages Rachel gave him.

"Yes," he replied almost vaguely, still trying to recall just where he'd left it. "I think

it's about mended at this point.  Just a little sore yet, nothing much."  Ah, yes, he'd still

been carrying it when he'd gone into the warp chamber.  He was pretty sure he had, at

least. After that, he was sure of nothing.  A quick look of remembered pain flitted across

his face.  He hoped Rachel hadn't noticed.  Her eyes were on him, though, and he

shrugged.  "Left it back in the castle earlier today, in fact," he added.

Rachel couldn't stop watching the interplay between the two, the body language that

usually came about when two men were trying to get a sense of each other.   It was

both interesting and worrisome, if not a bit amusing  She'd not even imagined this far

what a meeting between her father and her future husband would be like, and now she

felt a bit like in the hot seat, wondering if one wrong move would make a difference. 

This fretting was forgotten, however, when Cort mentioned the castle.  She could hear

that Cort was carefully choosing his words on the chance that she had not made it that

far in her talk with her father.

"It's all right, sweetheart," she said, leaning forward to brush his cheek with her hand. 

"He knows what happened this morning.  I told him everything, warp and all."

Cort looked at Glen levelly. "I suppose that sort of thing brings up a load of questions

for you."

Glen answered with a broad smile, but he didn’t speak for a long minute, looking away

into the milling groups of tourists starting to fill the seats of the café, at the soft evening

lamps flickering on and the skies above the square.

“Only one, and it’s more of request than a question…one I know the answer to already,

but as her father, I want to make it a personal appeal,” he finally said, returning his own

level gaze to Cort.

Cort waited silently, wondering what Rachel's father would ask.  He didn't drop his

eyes from Glen's though, maintaining an open gaze that, in itself, was an invitation for

the other man to continue.

“Take care of my daughter,” Glen said, and reached out his hand in offering.

Cort was slightly startled. It wasn't what he'd expected Glen to say.  His lips parted

briefly, then a smile started its spread.  He gripped Glen's hand firmly.  "With my life,"

he said, the truth of it plain in his eyes.

Rachel grabbed a napkin from the table they sat at, not caring if it had been used or

not.  She needed something to clear her vision, because the visual of Glen and Cort had

acquired a shockingly swift blurriness.  Before they could remark on it, however, she

stood, and stretched to cover the fact that tears were on her face. 

“Well, I wonder what’s going on with Deidre right now?  I haven’t really had a chance

to visit with her at all and there’s girl talk to be done,” she said, brightly to them both

when they stared up at her.  “See you both later?”

Cort stood to kiss her good-bye, wondering a bit at the quickness of her departure. As

he turned back from watching her hurry across the square, he sat down, remarking

to Glen, "I think that's her way of leaving us alone for a while."

Glen chuckled.  “I think I’ve grilled her enough and she’s taking an opportunity to

escape.”  He relaxed more in his chair, wishing he had asked her to check on Lisa and

Finn, but figured Rachel probably would without his prompting.  “Rachel also tells me

you are saying your vows by a tree?  Don’t get me wrong – it fits Rachel perfectly to do

that, but I’m afraid she didn’t get much of a chance to tell me why.  I’m hoping you

can enlighten me.”

"I'll do better than that.  It's not far. Would you like to see it for yourself?"

At Glen's assent, the two men headed toward the bridge near the spillway, Cort speaking

as they walked about how he loved the sight and sound of water since he'd grown up with

so little of it around. 

"The tree," he explained, as they entered the edge of the park, "is an ancient lime...

hundreds of years old.  It's seen so much of life, so many people, so many events. 

There!"  He pointed to it across the expanse of grass, smiling at the sight of it.  As

they approached more closely, he guided Glen to the side where the huge, gaping scar

spread down the old trunk.  "But it's this, more than anything, it's this."  His hands

touched again the smooth, curved edge of the scar.  "It's been...wounded, you see, and

everyone supposedly thought that it would die.  It almost did.  But then, well, then the

green came out again and surprised them all."  He was looking at the tree, touching it

fondly, not watching Glen.  "I like that.  I can relate to that." 

At last he turned, looking at him.  "So can Rachel.  It's why this tree means so much

to us.  It's almost the story of what we've been through.  It's not just any tree, you see. 

It's this tree...this old, scarred, yet very, very green tree."  He studied Glen's expression

now, wanting to see if he understood.

There was still enough daylight in the sky that the canopy of leaves cast a green glow

on around them, turning purple in the deeper shadows.  Cort pointed him toward the

placard that explained the lime’s history and after reading it, came back beneath its

shade.  Glen watched Cort caress the tree as though meeting with an old friend, watched

the man smooth a palm across the edge of the scar, a surprising feature that made Glen

look upward two or three times, trying to match the shocking depth of which the scar

took up in the trunk with the airy life in the branches above. 

He was also close enough to Cort to catch the lines of scars on the wrist of the hand

that patted the lime and wondered at it.  What had happened in that movie?  But he

didn’t speak of it; only sat down on the bench to continue looking at the tree.  After a

few moments, he gave a short laugh, feeling very glad to have caught this glimpse of

Cort.  No wonder Rachel loved him. 

“My wife was right,” he said, somewhat to himself.  “Love, not reason, is stronger than

death.”  He pointed to the tree.  “There it stands, beyond all reason, hundreds of years

old, having done battle with wind and rain and lightening, and it looks as full of life

as ever.”

"That's it!" Cort nodded in agreement. "There's no real reason for it. It just simply

would not die."  As he said that, a sudden clutch at his heart brought Maximus to mind. 

Where was he now?  Here he himself was, surrounded by love, about to be married. 

Where was the General?  What had Sid done with him?  He remembered his own

aloneness in the tower room.  Life was like that for Maximus.  Damn!  He needed to

know what had happened to him!  Then he noticed the puzzled look on Glen's face and

forced a smile.  "Sorry.  Was just thinking of a friend, very scarred himself."

Glen saw Cort’s face blanch somewhat, opened his mouth to ask if it was his hip once

more, but with Cort’s explanation, found himself with a new question: what did he know

about Cort?  Really know?

How does one get to know a movie character…besides watch their movie?

“Cort…I didn’t see the movie Rachel says you were…retrieved from…so all I know

is what she’s told me.”  Glen found himself searching for the right words and all he

could think to ask was…  “Who are you?”

"Pretty damn good question, Sir," Cort replied, "and one you have every right to

know."  He touched the scar once more, his fingers sliding tenderly along it, then sat

down on one of the simple wooden benches, stretching his left leg out straight in front

of himself.  "I guess I'm just a man who's very like this tree.  Been through a lot in

my time, yet I've still got branches to spread to the light."  He smiled slightly at Glen. 

"I'm still getting used to this whole thing myself, this whole concept of the movie, I

mean.  I can't begin to tell you what a shock it is to a man to find out such a thing

about his life, about himself."

He leaned back against the edge of the tabletop, his eyes briefly going upwards to

where the indigo light shown in spatterings through the thick, leafy canopy above

them, then fastening on Glen, who was settling on the opposite bench, his elbows atop

the table, listening attentively.  "I have this whole, well, what Rachel tells me is called

'back story', that wasn't in the movie.  But I lived it.  That's all I know.  I lived it.  My

folks died when I was a baby," he explained and I was raised by a grandmother who

was as near to an angel as you can find on this earth."

He smiled again.  He simply could not think of her and not smile. "She taught me what

it is to love, to give and give and never run out of it." His eyes fell to the ground. "Died

when I was 14.  Thought my world had come to an end.  Sure seemed like it."  He shook

his head, remembering.  He'd been too late, too late to save her from the rattler.  She

was already dying as he sat down on the planks, holding her across his lap, rocking

back and forth, back and forth as she left.  He couldn't look at the motes of wheat-chaff

in a sunbeam after that and not be instantly back in that moment.

He'd buried her himself, piling a thick cairn of field rocks above her grave to protect it,

then sat there, alone, watching the sun set behind the barn.  He'd sat there the whole

night and part of the next day before walking away...just walking...out across the prairie.

It was late that next afternoon when Herod had found him, sitting there, shooting

rattlers. But he didn't speak of the grave or the sun or the field.  He just looked silently

at Glen and let him see it in his eyes.

"I was empty, then, just spilled out across the prairie.  Then this man rode by and took

me with him.  I didn't care, you see.  It didn't seem to matter any more.  And he taught

me things I wish I didn't know."  Unconsciously his right hand moved to a non-existent

holster.  Then he realized it and flexed his fingers, trying to release that all-too-

well-remembered feeling of gunmetal in his palm.  "It was a harsh world, nothing like

the farm.  Everything was...different.  Everything."  He looked away, across the park,

sighing.  "I survived by taking what I wanted.  It wasn't...good."  He wiped a hand

across his forehead.  "Finally I took something that was...too much.  After that, I

couldn't take any more.  I was done.  Went off and studied and came back to run a

little mission, sort of an orphanage, a school for mostly little Mexican kids.  Did that

for several years. Then...," he sighed again, "the man came back again.  Not himself. 

He sent a couple of his men.  Burned my mission, killed one of my kids...a little boy. 

Killed him because he tried to get to me." 

His eyes turned back to Glen's.  "They were beating me. He just wanted to get to me. 

To help.  After that, they hauled me off in chains to this little town in the desert that

the man ran like he was king of it.  He had arranged this contest...a shooting contest...

and the best gunfighters had come for it.  He wanted me to fight, you see, but I told

him I wouldn't.  Almost hung me on the spot."  His hand started toward his neck

before he caught himself and put it back in his lap.  "What he wanted, this man, all that

he really wanted, was to face me in a gunfight.  Said he'd wanted to do that since the

first day he saw me.  The rest of it was pretty much just a sham to get to that point. 

He knew it would come down to that.  So did I."

He shifted his position on the board seat. "Bottom line is that I did shoot.  Hated

myself afterwards.  But I pulled the trigger.  Damn if I didn't.  In the end, well, some

other folks and I hatched this plan to blow up part of the town and another shooter

killed the man.  I was pretty beat up by then, smashed hand, other things.  That's

when Rachel showed up. Took care of me, brought me out of all that to where she

works."

He gathered himself a bit, adding,  "You want to know who I am?  I'm the man who

loves your daughter, Sir."  He had no idea what else to say.

Glen watched expressions flit across Cort’s face during his story; as dusk fell it became

harder to do that and so he was forced to simply listen to his words…and actually liked

that because there was a lot in Cort’s voice that spoke of his own scars.  He felt a

particular twinge of empathy when Cort spoke of losing his grandmother; he knew

exactly how Cort felt when he said he was empty afterwards.  He wanted to ask about

the contest, about the man who had challenged him to a gunfight, but kept it to himself,

realizing he would have to see the movie.

“I’m glad for it, Cort,” he instead replied, reacting to Cort’s rock solid assurance.  “It

didn’t take me but a few minutes to see what you feel for Rachel…and I’ve never really

worried about her and the things…the people she’s chosen for her life.  She can be

very…focused at times, to the exclusion of more rational approaches; but as her father,

I’ve rarely had to do anything more than nudge her along the way before she worked

things out.  Unlike her older sister…,” Glen added, and caught himself before the

sentence turned into a rant.  “When their mother died, Lisa was ten, Rachel was eight. 

Like you with your grandmother, I thought the whole world had come crashing down. 

We all felt that way.  The illness was sudden and swift.  We’d barely had enough time to

accept it when she died.”  Glen took a deep breath, wondering how much he should get

into, what Cort wanted to know, what Cort did know.  “She and Lisa had…issues, but

by the time Rachel was in college, I think she had pretty much worked things out. 

Very independent.  I’ve tried to stay involved in her life, even though I just remarried

myself a few years ago.  So it hasn’t been that long ago that I found someone I could be

with…even though I still carry Candace very close to me…”  Glen stopped and gave a

short laugh.  “But listen to me.  I’m babbling.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that

Rachel has seldom let me down in her judgment of people.  She’s made some mistakes,

sure, but never the same ones twice.  I looked at you and heard what she had to say, and

all I can think is if you were willing to give up your life for her, she’s chosen a good man. 

I just…” Glen shifted on the bench as well.  The crickets and frogs were starting their

choir in the twilight and his stomach was beginning to remind him he was missing his

third meal of the day.  “I just figure I’d like to get to know that man a bit better myself.”

Cort found himself really liking Rachel's father.  "Thank you, Sir," he said as he stood,

"I'd like that."  He looked at the sky again.  "Getting dark.  We'd probably better head

back toward your hotel. Must be about suppertime by now."

As the two men walked toward the bridge, both were aware of a growing companionability between them.  Cort had gotten his story out without feeling judged for it.  The way Glen

had responded to him made him feel more relaxed now in his presence. They paused briefly

on the bridge,  leaning side by side  on the railing,  watching the lights  reflect on the

moving water.  "I love this," Cort sighed then turned his head to the right, looking at Glen. 

"I love her. I want you to know that.  With all my heart, with everything I am, I love her. 

You have my word that I will never knowingly hurt her, that I will always cherish her

and protect her with my life."

Glen looked back at Cort, nodded.  “I know,” he said, clapping a hand on the younger

man’s shoulder.  “I know.”

ON TO PART 32

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