Jack Kerley - The Hundredth Man

Then I heard a crashing sound up ahead."

I said, "Me going through that rotten door."

For a split second I was tumbling through the boat, sliding in mud and blood and coming to rest with a 12-gauge at my eyes. I shook the scene from my head.

Harry said, "Thought I'd go see who was disturbing my pleasant little nature hike. Then I see that damn boat up in the air…"

Two full days behind us and the event was settling into a blur. My hands weren't too bad, or wouldn't be when the fingernails returned.

The knife slit in the meat of my hip felt like someone had sewn bees in there. They gave me a crutch at the hospital but I'd left it in the car, more trouble than it was worth. I pushed myself up from the table.

Ava's hand reached for mine. "You OK?"

"I'm gonna go lean on the rail. My ass is stiffening up."

Her hand squeezed mine and I looked into her eyes. They looked good, clear and sharp and green as the sunshiny sea. She winked one at me and my heart skipped a beat. I patted her hand and gimped toward the deck rail. My idiot cell phone chirped from the table. I should have never let it out of the cooler bag.

"Grab that, would you, Harry?"

He said, "Probably another damn reporter. Or Squill trying to make nice again."

Though I didn't circulate the cassette, Squill picked up heavy tarnish.

He'd been booted from investigations and assigned the title "media liason'; the press probably deserved him. He was again reinventing history and had called earlier confessing he had been completely duped by Burlew, so sorry. It was pathetic, but that was Squill.

"Ryder's place," Harry said. "Hello?" He stared at the cell, then looked at me and shrugged.

"Nothing. Wrong number, I guess."

Harry flipped the phone on the table and lumbered into the house to refill the peanut bowl. I leaned my back against the rail. Ava joined me, putting her elbows on the wood, staring quietly out into the Gulf.

The sky was cloudless blue and a tight chain of pelicans moved low across the waves.

I said, "The first time you stood there, the wind blew your clothes tight against you and I had lascivious thoughts."

She slid a breeze-blown strand of hair from her eyes. "It seems so long ago."

"That I had lascivious thoughts? Odd, I thought I recalled several from this very morning."

"I had every intention of showing up sober. But fear got the best of me. Fear of myself."

"You were full of ghosts, some you invented, most were real."

She nodded, took a sip of ginger ale. "I've talked with Dr. Peltier.

It's going to be different. Very different."

Clair was making peace with her own demons, no longer brandishing them at others. I'd spoken with her last evening, and knew today she was meeting with an attorney specializing in divorce. I was anxious to see how she looked when she looked free of Zane. Might her eyes turn even bluer?

I said, "You're going to the meeting tonight?"

"And tomorrow, and the day after that. Whatever Bear says to do, I'm doing. I like going; when I leave I feel lighter, like dancing on air." She she set down her glass and stood on tiptoe to put her lips lightly over mine. I heard Harry slide the door open, return to the deck.

"What's this stuff I'm seeing?" he said.

I paused, ran several combinations of words through my head.

"Kissing and blissing?" I ventured.

"Damn," he said, eyes wide in feigned shock. "The boy finally got one right."

I started to launch some grief his way but the phone twittered again.

Harry set the peanuts on the table and lifted the phone. "Ryder's.

Uh-huh. He's right here. Yes, ma'am, hang on just a second." Harry looked at me.

"It's a Dr. Prowse, Evangeline Prowse."

I nodded. Harry brought me the cell. I turned to face the waves and brought the phone to my ear.

"Carson? Carson, this is Evangeline Prowse." Her voice dropped low.

"I'm sorry, Carson. I'm afraid I have some bad news? Terrible news."

"My God, what?"

The voice trembled. "It's Jeremy, Carson. He's dead… a suicide. He hanged himself."

I heard the words but couldn't make sense of them. "Jeremy? No, there's no way he'd "

"Last night. Or early this morning. He left a note? It's addressed to you."

"I can't believe this, it can't be true. My brother would never "

"Do you want me to read the note, Carson? I don't have to, it's personal. I can send it."

I took a deep breath, let it drift from my chest.

"Yes, go ahead. Please read."

The sound of paper unfolding. Then Evangeline's hushed voice.

"Dear Carson, I apologize. I did not know it was your womb-man he was after. My translation of the materials was wrong in that area. I was sure he wanted the other one, the one in charge, Peltier. I don't know if that would have mattered in my sending you astray, but I think it would have. I hope so. Love for now and always, Jeremy." That's the whole text," Evangeline said quietly. "I'm so sorry."

I stood in my box in the air above an island, looked down the strand, and considered Evangeline's call. With the sudden clarity of revelation the sun seemed to light the world from every direction at once, nothing had shadows. The water stretched forward like a vast carpet of green, the white of the sand, blinding. I looked at Ava and Harry, saw the concern in their eyes, shot them a thumbs up, It's all right, everything's all right. Much as I tried to contain it, a smile spread across my face. I lifted the phone back to my ear.

"You almost got it perfect, Jeremy; the intonation, the rhythm. But Dr. Prowse never goes by the name Evangeline."

Silence from my caller.

I said, "She calls herself Vangie. It's always Vangie."

I listened for any evidence of a kindred being at the far end of the connection. With waves in the distance and breeze through my hair, I pressed my palm against one ear, the phone against the other, and listened hard into the silence. Then, for a slender moment, the breeze fell and the waves poised soundlessly between rush and retreat. I closed my eyes and discerned the lightest hint of breathing, as near as the blood in my veins, as far as the burned-away years: I heard the swift and shallow breaths of a frightened child all alone in the dark.

My voice said, "I love you, brother." Then I hung up on the past. At least until tomorrow.