Pilot’s Forge #5
She stood at the split-rail fence, breathing in the clean mountain summer air.
It stayed cool up here even in summer, and the birds sang their hearts out in the crisp sunshine.
It was so peaceful, she could pretend that nothing had happened last night.
Only the faint smell of gas told her otherwise.
Instead of tears, anger welled up. She was through crying. The police had better find Sam first, because if she did, she was going to make him pay.
Her kitchen door opened and Merritt came out. He looked freshly washed, his hair wet. Her mood rose.
“Figured it out?” she said.
He nodded. “I haven’t washed with water for a long time. Felt good.”
She couldn’t help it; she laughed. “Merritt, are you bullshitting me?”
He laughed too, but a little uncertainly. “I don’t—”
It didn’t matter. She was suddenly happy. Sam had done his best but he hadn’t broken her spirit. She put a hand on Merritt’s arm, and nodded at the barn. “Watch.”
He followed her gaze. Led by Katahdin, the horses filed out of the barn, their heads nodding peacefully as they walked out to meadow.
When they reached their pasture, they began to trot and then to canter and buck.
Merritt tensed. “Watch,” she whispered. Katahdin moved in a floating trot, the big bay horse lifting each hoof as if he were in a dressage test, his neck arched.
The horses circled the pasture, disappearing down the hill and then they could hear the thudding hooves as they galloped back up.
When they settled to graze, Edith finally stirred.
“Gets me every time,” she said.
For a second a flash of sadness shadowed his eyes. “That was . . . That was incredible.”
She still had her hand on his arm and blushed. She turned the caress into a comradely slap on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll make you breakfast. We have a full day ahead of us.”
She made him scrambled eggs, grits, toast and strong coffee, and they sat at her kitchen table.
Earth food tasted pretty damn good, Merritt decided after the first few cautious bites.
He hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in pretty much for ever.
He was so deep into his breakfast, he was almost surprised when she spoke.
“That key you gave me last night. How did you get it?”
“I doubt you’ll believe me,” he said. “I hardly believe it myself.”
“Try me.”
She listened as he gave her the whole story, and when he was finished, she was silent for a long time, swirling her spoon in her grits.
“You ’re right,” she said at last. “I don’t believe you.
But that key you gave me last night? In the Great Depression, when my family left Tennessee for California, they brought that key with them.
It was a symbol of this place. That key went missing in my grandparents’ day. ”
He thought of how the key landed at his feet, with the wormhole behind him and closing fast, drawing him towards the attacking madman.
At first he thought it was a figment of his brain, trying to make sense of the collapse of space-time.
Had he conjured that key out of the past – their past?
But his past was her future, and maybe in more ways than one.
“I told you I was Crane, right?” he said. “Well, I’m part of the Crane clan, though I doubt we share much of the same DNA.”
“Distant cousins,” she said, her voice dry.
He laughed. “Really distant. Yeah. In my time, the Cranes became one of the greatest clans in the galaxy. Three hundred years ago, the Cranes built the arks to take humanity off Earth, and we settled the known worlds, terraforming and transforming as we went.”
She looked puzzled. “What? Why would we leave?”
“Because Earth died. The sun became an unstable red giant, way sooner than anyone expected.”
Watching her absorb the news was like watching someone get kicked in the stomach in slow motion. She looked out of the window and he knew what she was thinking. This beautiful country with its horses – her home, her land – consumed by an angry sun.
“All of it?” she said. “I mean, it’s all gone?” She turned to him. “How do you stand it, knowing that Earth is gone?”
He surprised himself with his own answer, because until she asked him he never knew that it was something he had to stand.
“We spend our lives looking for her,” he said. “No matter where we live, no matter what station or what planet, no one ever stops looking.”
She looked stricken. “I wish you hadn’t told me. I wish I never knew. I’ll never be able to stand it, never.”
Merritt got up and went to her. He meant only to comfort, and he put his arms around her, but she lifted her face to his and they kissed.
Her lips were soft and he pulled her close, letting his hands fall to her waist, smoothing over her hips.
She put her arms around his neck, and their kiss deepened.
Somehow they made it upstairs to her bedroom, scattering clothes along the way, and in the cool breeze from the open window they made love on her rumpled bed.
It was afternoon before Edith woke from her doze. The room had gotten chilly. Merritt had both his arms around her as if he didn’t intend to let her go, but he dozed too, and when she stirred, he muttered a protest.
She kissed him. “Not going anywhere.” She didn’t want to. It felt good, lying in his arms, their legs entwined. The iron key lay on the bedside table where she had put it the night before. She sat up to pick it up. It was cool and heavy in her hand.
Merritt sat up behind her, wrapping his legs around her, nibbling along her neck. “What is it?” he said, between kisses, keeping his hands around her waist. She shivered, losing her concentration for a moment.
“I think this key is the crux,” she said. “Somehow this key got lost so it could bring you here. But a key is nothing without a lock.” Edith pulled away and started to get into her clothes. She tossed Merritt’s to him. “If this is my grandparents’ key – where does it fit?”
They both hesitated at the top of the stairs to the cellar, shining their flashlights into the dark.
The stairs weren’t steep but they were in darkness by the bottom.
Merritt got the impression of an earthen room, supported by timbers.
Old ceramic jugs and rusty washtubs, and a tangle of copper tubing in one corner.
“What’s all that stuff?” Merritt asked.