A STRONG TOWER
Part 3: Cooked
Mile after mile of low saltbush and bluebush sped past the windows of the Indian
Pacific with
no landmarks to give a sense of location. The Nullarbor was the
world's largest single piece of limestone, its largest perfectly flat landform.
Even
Cook and its two people would be a welcome change for the eyes. They would
be there before long, thank goodness.
Joimus touched Maximus lightly on his arm and made her way out into the aisle
to where Aubrey and Rose were sitting. Rose had been holding Dess for a while
and the small boy, now just a bit over a year old, was delighting in the great
array
of funny faces the Captain was able to make. Indeed, Jack and Rose rather
served
as godparents to the boy and had become quite attached to him.
"Come to Mama," she smiled, holding out her arms. Dess had gotten something
sticky on
Jack's golden epaulette fringe and his little fingers seemed rather attached to it. Such were
the perils of living through epis in full costume. Though, of course, to the Captain it was not
a costume at all, but merely his uniform.
Joimus carefully wiped Dess' fingers with a damp towel before handing him to his
father. After all, stickiness went even less well with faux wolf fur than it
did with
epaulette fringe. Maximus held Dess standing on his lap, eyes sparkling as they
studied one another's faces. Now that he had passed his first birthday a couple
of
months back, young Decimus looked even more like
his father. His hair had been
blended with that of his mother's pale blonde, muting the blackness of the
General's
into a chestnut with golden highlights and seagreen eyes mixed with blue had
turned
out a striking aqua. But, overall, he was definitely his father's son.
Sid, sitting in front of Maximus, shifted to his left so that the boy he himself
was
holding could peer over his shoulder and the child's face could clearly be seen
by
those behind. Still, after
all this time, Joimus got a catch in her throat at the sight of the two-week younger Livi, Bunny's son. In Livius, it was as though Maximus' genes had dominated entirely. Livi had coal black hair crowning a face that was an exact replica of the General's in every way. (See: A YOOK
By Any Other Name for the story of how this came about and Sons of the Fathers for the birth
of
the two sons and how Sid came to be in possession of a son of Maximus' loins.)
Joimus glanced quickly at Maximus. Yes, there was that hard line of his jaw that
always came when Sid deliberately flaunted Livi as he was doing. If it were
hard for
her, she knew it to be much more difficult for Maximus. Though his jaw was set,
his
eyes shone with a mixture of
love and great longing. This was a pain he had borne since that moment in Himself's apartment on Woolloomooloo when it had been announced to him that the child Bunny carried in her womb was...his. He reached out one hand toward Livi and the child grasped it, curling tiny fingers about the General's strong, brown forefinger. 'Mine!' Everything within him shouted
it, cried it to the
heavens.
The train lurched a bit as it pulled into Cook and Sid gathered Livi more
closely into
his arms. "Come to Papa," he said, a bit too loudly.
Maximus' teeth indented his lower lip. Was it because of...purple...that he let
Sid
live? Had he not squeezed the last drops of that on Himself's carpet; had he
not
placed his boot atop it as a sign all that was done, was gone? Sid had
obviously
forgotten what blue brought to red
(YOOK). He studied the immaculate back of Sid's head. The aurora, the waterfall, they played no part any more in their lives. It was over...done. The friendship, the connection...it was as though it had never been. It was worse. Worse than before. Before, he had disliked Sid, had
not
trusted
him. Now he hated him with a hatred deeper even than what he'd felt for
Commodus.
Sid for a time had taken his life, had ended taking his son. He would not let
this
continue. He...could...not.
Feeling Joimus' hand soft on his arm again, he looked into her eyes. She knew
what
he was thinking. Always she did. He searched the depths of her. Did the
memory of
green still linger there? He feared it might. Sighing, he kissed the top of
Dess' head.
Why was it not enough to love the one, to have the one in his arms like this?
Gladly
he would die for this son. He loved him utterly. But the top curve of Livi's
head
bobbed just beyond Sid's shoulder and he would die for that son...too.
"Cripes!" protested Tonia. "I'm supposed to know what all that means??"
"You are, indeed," Colin said, brushing from his lap the last of the shedding
sideburn hairs. "Why, I know it all."
"Braggart," she frowned, though fondly. "It's not my fault I just got into the
dratted storyline."
"True," he agreed. "But you knew that epis continue one into the other. Did
you not see the fine print in the epi contract?"
"There...there...was a contract?" she gasped.
"I'm sure there must have been," he said seriously. "There's never a script, of
course, but there must have been a contract...of some sort."
"Well, I did sign...something," she admitted. "I was told it was the menu
choices
for the dining car."
"Ah, that old ploy, eh?" he chuckled. "It's too late now, though." He pointed
out the
window. "Is time for some exciting leg-stretching."
"She wouldn't actually WRITE leg-stretching as a plot device, would she?"
Just then the conductor appeared at the front of the passenger car. "All ashore
that's going ashore...or whatever. Last chance to stretch your legs for the
next
eleven weeks."
"Eleven weeks?!?" Tonia spluttered.
"Encouragement," Colin explained. "To get off the train. Obviously
if there were
a script, it would have us all getting off the train at this very moment.
But...there
being no script, we need encouragement to do so."
Just then a sharp cramp took Tonia's left calf. "Ow!" she cried, hopping
out
into the aisle to relieve it.
Colin nodded wisely. "Guess you needed more encouragement than most." He
held out one bandaged hand. "Come," he said invitingly. "Let's go, well,
stretch our legs.
The two of them joined the rest of the cast, milling about in the wide, flat,
red dirt
street of Cook. There had been other passengers in other cars of the Indian
Pacific,
but they all seemed to stretch their legs in a different direction from Himself
and
his people.
Max Imel found this strangely suspicious but didn't speak of it to Max, wisely figuring that it would prove a waste of time. Suspicions in epis rarely actually did get one anywhere. Besides,
it would be hard enough, she knew, just getting people to know which Max was being meant
at any particular time.
Himself led them into what would have been the town had an actual town actually
been there. Two people didn't have all that many structural requirements.
There
was an old building of some sort that seemed to be held together by signs that
were
nailed or hung at odd angles.
The largest announced COOK in blue letters...just so's folks would know where they were engaged in pleasurable leg-stretchings...and below that in gold, the more ominous "Ghost City
of the Nullarbor." A rectangular sign under that, hanging crookedly to the right read "Road Closed." Himself looked around. The single red dirt road seemed very open, leaving the town and going off into all the nowhere that lay south of Cook and the even more nowhere that lay to its north.
A rusty sign on the right informed the reader that "Trespassers Will Be
Prosecuted."
Trespassers on what, he wondered. A yellow diamond sign said, "Caution...Speed
Bumps."
He chuckled. Shooting was prohibited on another sign while yet another
prohibited fire and naked flame. If you took down the signs, he was sure the
building
would collapse. He guessed only leg stretching, indeed, was allowed in Cook.
Turning
to his people, he called, "Stretch quickly! We have to get back on the trai...."
Alas, he was too late. All non-epicastmemberpassengers had reboarded and the
train
was even now disappearing down the tracks.
"Wait a minute here!" bellowed Tonia. "I didn't sign on to find myself
stranded
afoot in...in...
in COOK!"
"It's in the script," Colin smiled sweetly, bending to pick up his backpack,
which had
thoughtfully been heaped with the others near the "No Entry Without Train
Control
Authorisation" sign.
"You said there WAS no script," she growled.
"There's not," he agreed.
"Then how...how...?" but cut her own words off, already getting the hang of the
inner
as well
as outer workings of epi machinery.
She had a slight Southern accent, she did, but the epi-accent-allowance being fully
engaged
in Scottish, was stuck with the fact of its being more mentioned than expressed.
"Hair?"
she sighed into the wide blue sky.
"Hair?" Colin repeated.
"Yes," she pouted. "If I'm to be deprived of my accent, I at least deserve a
great hair
mention."
And so it was that when the "No Naked Flames" sign came loose and began to
topple
toward where she was seated atop the accumulated backpacks, that Colin dove
headlong
into the red dust, catching the sign mere inches before it might have deprived
the Southern woman of her head whereupon grew the most marvelous hair in epidom.
It was long. It was curly. And
it
was golden red, red like the very soil of the Nullarbor...though very little saltbush actually
grew in it...yet.
"I don't find that to be all that great of a hair mention," she complained.
Alas, no one
was paying much attention at the moment...or for the moment if you happened to
be a
World War
II pilot...possibly due to what Himself was saying.
"...and, so, it's only a matter of 4 or 5 days walk."
"Walk?" Tonia repeated, climbing to the top of the backpackish mound in
order to
see Himself better. "Walk where?"
Himself pointed south. "To the sea."
"Why would we be going to the sea?" Tonia asked.
Aubrey fixed her with a glower that said such questions were patently
unnecessary,
reasons for going to the sea being obvious to all those of honorable, decent
heart.
"Whales," Himself supplied. "It's the season of the great migration."
When she opened her mouth to say more in her unwritten, slight Southern accent,
Colin
pressed a finger to her lips and shook his head. "It's like the Crimea," he
whispered.
"Ours
not to reason why...."
"Ours but to do and die," finished Franki, who did from time to time bear a
striking
resemblance to Florence Nightingale despite all the blue birds that once held up
the ends of
her cape having been left behind in Toronto. (Toronto Tribulations)
And thus it was that Tonia came to know that a great deal would be required
of her
in the understanding of obscure references as well as in actual intestinal
fortitude in the
face of grave physical, mental, and emotional testings.
"He's...serious?" Rachel queried softly, cuddling into Cort's side. "We're going
to walk
across ...that?"
"You should have been along for the Saltflats of Doom," he smiled. "There were
attack
leopards there." He looked at Maximus, remembering his more General storyline. "Here we only have 50 pound wombats."
As if on cue (and who's to say there WAS no cue!) an exactly 50-pound wombat
woggled
by, stopping to nibble at Cort's forearm hairs (they being available since his
sleeves had
been so attractively rolled up and all).
"Bear!" Rachel shrieked.
Cort laughed despite the pain of follicular severing. "It only LOOKS like a
bear, Rachel.
See," he said, squatting to pet its dark head. "It's friendly."
It pushed into him, knocking him backwards into the red dust, and standing on
his chest
with its short, stubby front legs. To Rachel it looked like a cross between a
pig and a bear.
But whatever it was, she didn't like it standing on Cort. "OFF!" she shouted at
it.
"What's wrong, Rachel?" Himself asked, hurrying up. "Oh!" he said when he saw. "You've
been wombatted."
"Well, UNwombat him!" Rachel huffed. "I need him whole."
Himself grinned at her and then gave the wombat a smack on its rounded behind.
Helping Cort to his feet, he continued to Rachel, "He's a plant-eater. Cort was
in
no danger." He was about to launch into an account of what WAS dangerous in the
Nullarbor, when Broch approached.
"If ye'll pardon my sayin' it, Himsel', but I'm thinkin' we'd best be on our
way." He
had been hiking in Australia for some months now and knew what he was talking
about.
They could make good time in the cool of the evening. What tomorrow's sun would
bring would be another story, a story that might be called "The Sun Also Rises"
except
for plagiarism and the lack of bulls.
