Secrets Past - chapter 1

March 1855



The sound of pounding hoof beats, eating up the ground behind him, sent shivers up William’s spine.  He hunched forward over his stallion and dug in his heals, urging his horse to gallop faster.  The powerful animal dropped down and lengthened his stride.  If William had any doubt as to whether the riders advancing on his position meant him harm, it vanished when a shot rang out in the night.  He ducked lower, hugging his mount’s neck, clutching its course mane.  A dense tree line appeared ahead of him in the fading light of dusk.  If he reached the forest, he had a chance.  Here, in an open field, if they were decent shots his pursuers would have him.  He sent up a silent prayer for his luck to hold a little longer.

It did not.  The next shot found its mark.

The impact nearly knocked him from his horse.  Instantly, his left arm dropped to dangle at his side, useless.  It took but a second more for his adrenaline saturated mind to register pain.  He clenched his teeth and gripped tighter with his right hand, struggling to stay astride.

Just as he entered the Dark Forest, another shot pierced the still night, echoing through the trees.  They missed!  Then, with a shrill cry of shock and panic, his horse stumbled.  At such speed, the misstep sent the rider and horse hurtling end over end through the chilled night air.  Time slowed and sound stopped until the bone jolting landing brought it all back into sharp focus.  The collision with the cold, hard ground alone would have been enough to force the air from his lungs, but the sharpened piercing pain in his wounded shoulder assured it.  He rolled several times, crashing through thick underbrush that clawed at his face and grabbed his clothing.  The last flip, landed him flat on his back.   

For a few minutes, William lay gasping for air that would not come, his racing heart sending a steady stream of warm blood into his shirt and coat.  Nothing else mattered, not the certainty of the death of his favorite stallion, Zeus, or the sounds of his pursuers fanning out to search for, find, and finish him.  Panic rose from deep in his gut, nearly consuming him.  At last, he gulped in several lungs full of air.

With the opposite hand pressed into his throbbing left shoulder, William took in his surroundings and refocused on escaping.  Or at the very least, hiding.  The quarter moon slowly rising above the naked tree limbs allowed him some sight.  The high banks of a deep ravine rose into the night sky on two sides.

Carried by the wailing wind, the whinnying and grunts, sounds of the stallion suffering above, pierced William’s heart as surely as a bullet would if he were found.  Anger mixed with sorrow deep in his chest.  The gunmen were sure to be zeroing in on his location by following the heart-wrenching echoes.  William peered up and down the bank.  Climbing back up to the animal to put an end to his misery would be impossible with his wounded shoulder.  It took great effort just to roll to his ‘good’ side and crawl to his feet.  But still, he tried, unable to walk away while Zeus suffered nearby.  He clawed into the bank with his good hand, clutching roots and rocks, only to repeatedly slide back to bottom after any small progress. The sounds from above ceased and he slid down for the last time.  Grief held him in place for a moment.

Must keep going.  He struggled to rise.  So much and so many lives depended on his reaching his destination alive.  He stumbled forward still holding his wet, sticky shoulder with the opposite hand.  Even the slight jarring caused by his slow progress along the muddy creek bed sent excruciating spikes of pain shooting through his torso.

They were getting closer!  The sound of snapping twigs and leaves crunching beneath booted feet, came from every direction.

“The bloody bastard has to be around here somewhere,” a man snarled from just to his left.  “Spread out.  Find him!”

William dropped to the bank and held his breath.  Relief washed over him, as they moved away.  It was a mistake, he realized after when he tried to get up.  The five minutes or so that he lay perfectly still, stiffened his tense and torn muscles.  He repeatedly gritted his teeth to suppress a groan as he rose and moved along.

He lost all idea of time and direction as the loss of blood sapped his strength and clouded his mind.  His last fall to the ground barely registered.  Scattered, random thoughts came and went, as did his consciousness.  His younger sister would be all alone in the world if he died.  If he lived and succeeded in his mission, she would never see him again and still believe him to be dead.  Damned if he did.  Damned if he didn’t.  If he died, would he see his mother and father again, on the other side?  Would they at last be happy and smiling as he remembered them in his childhood, before the attack?

Slowly, he became aware of the silence; silence all around him but for his own raspy, labored breathing.  The nearby tawny owl ceased his eerie call.  Even the wind, that had howled all day long, died. 

A single tiny pinpoint of light appeared in the bare limbs above him and quickly grew in intensity.  Was this the end?  His end?  Had he failed in his mission?  Would others, countless others, now suffer and perish due to his failure?

The light was joined by another and then another.  Soon the tree tops glowed, all around him, as if aflame.

A movement or a noise—which he was not certain—brought his attention around to his left.  He peered into the outer darkness, beyond the strangely glowing trees.

“Who’s there?” he called out, his voice as weak as he felt.  “Show yourself.”

He strained to see.  No one answered.  No one appeared.  His gaze wondered back to the ethereal lights above.  Was this what death looked like?  Was this the gateway to the other side, to his next life?  Or his eternal end?  His eyelids grew heavy.

Again he sensed a presence to his left.  His breath caught in his throat.  What was not there a second ago, stood studying him with her pale, blue eyes glowing whitish against the shadows on her weathered face.  The woman, bent and wrinkled from a long, hard life, slowly smiled. 

“You did not believe the last time we met.  Do you now?”

“Witch,” he rasped.  “I knew you were a witch the first time I laid eyes on you.”

Her yellowed teeth gleamed and the tips of her silvery hair blazed in the ghostly light from above as she threw her head back and cackled.

She grew serious, her pale eyes narrowing.  “You still do not truly believe, even after what you have seen in your own mind’s eye.”

“What I have seen?  You talk in riddles, old woman.”

“In your dreams.  You have seen the inevitable.  The end.” 

His chest tightened at the mere mention of his nightmares, nightmares that had plagued his sleep for months.  “How do you know of my…dreams?”

“It is not how I know of them that is important.  It is what I know of them.  Do you remember the warning I gave you?”

He glared at the old woman, anger building with his every breath.  She was the pinnacle of his torment, this witch, this evil specter.  His life had been irrevocably altered, since the day he’d met her.  Before that day he had been blissfully unaware.

“You have a long and treacherous journey ahead of you, Keeper,” she stated again, as she had that day, the day his life ceased to be his own to live.  “A dark angel awaits you.  She can be your salvation or bring about your ruin.  The choice is yours.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.  “More riddles.  You and Kimble both speak in riddles.”  He forced his heavy eyelids to obey one last time and they opened to find only empty blackness where she had stood.

He fought against it with what little strength he still possessed, but darkness descended upon his mind and his eyes would stay open no longer.  His strength seeped from his body as surely as his blood.

“We have waited so long for you, William.  Fear not.  All will be well…”

The unknown, soft, feminine voice began very near his side but quickly faded away into the shrouding mists in his mind.

#

William woke slowly to filtered sunlight warming one side of his face and the sounds of a forest.  Somewhere nearby a stream splashed and gurgled.  The first birds of spring chirped above and small creatures rustled the leaves on the forest floor around him.  Upon opening his unusually heavy eyelids he found that the sounds were real and not part of his odd dream.  Where was he?  How had he ended up sleeping on the hard, damp ground beneath him?

All at once, it came back.  Well, most of it.  The end was still a confusing blur.  Could it be real?  It had to be, for not in his wildest dreams could he have conceived such a ludicrous tale.  Not even in his fertile childhood imagination when he had raced through the orchard behind his home fighting fierce dragons with his younger sister.

Must get up.  Someone had been hunting him—could still be hunting him.  Searing pain shot through his shoulder and down his left arm as he tried to rise, sending him back to the ground in a hurry, moaning in agony.

The unmistakable clicking sound of metal on metal forced his attention away from his pain.  With great effort, he rolled onto his back to face the gunman.  He would know his killer.  The man who took his life would have to do so while staring him in his eyes.  The short, black pistol, trained on him, shook ever so slightly in an unsteady hand.  Instinctively, he reached for his own gun, his hand partially obscured from the view of the woman aiming for his heart.

“Don’t move!  Who are you, and what are you doing on my property?”  The slender female’s dark eyes held his gaze unflinchingly, but her shaky hand and quivering, soft, husky voice belied her outward showing of bravery. 

Her softly curving hips and long legs were, oddly enough, sheathed in what appeared to be a snug fitting pair of men’s breeches.  The charcoal gray wool jacket she wore also fit as if it had been tailored to mold to her breasts and slim waist.  Her dark hair was mostly hidden beneath her black hat.  A few windswept tendrils hugged her jaw line. This beautiful creature was one of the gunmen?  Surely not. 

“I’ve been shot.  I need help.”  He didn’t have to feign the raspy sound in his voice.  Would it work?  He slowly raised his hands in a show of contrived compliance.

Her dark eyes swept over him and widened when they came to his blood soaked shoulder.  They then strayed from him, for but a second, to glance around.  It was not long enough.  “You’ve been shot?  By who?”

“You are the one holding a gun on me…madam.”  He could actually feel his body weakening more with each passing second.  I have to get this situation turned around and quick.

Her gun lowered.  “I didn’t shoot you.  I don’t even know you.”

“If you didn’t, then who did?”  He let his eyes slide away from hers as if to scan the area.  It was a ploy, but again his weakening, pain strained voice he did not have to fake.

Her gaze left his for longer this time, long enough for his fingers to reach for and close around the cold hard steel of his weapon.  The movement caught her eye—but too late.  The business end of his gun now pointed towards her chest.  Her weapon hand rose.

“No, madam.  Do not force me to fire on you.  If you didn’t shoot me, I mean you no harm.  I only require your assistance.”  He couldn’t picture himself snuffing out the light in her wide, lovely eyes, but knew he would have to if it came to a choice between her life or his own.  He had a greater good to be concerned with and couldn’t allow anyone to stand in his way, not even the beautiful woman before him.

Several emotions raced across her face.  Surprise, fear, and finally resignation narrowed her dark eyes.

“I’ll call for an ambulance.  You need a doctor.” 

“Ambulance?  What is—”

She reached towards her pocket.

“Keep your hands where I can see them…and do not call out.”  His own gun began to shake in his weak hand.  “And no doctors…incompetent fools…all of them.”

She frowned.  “How am I supposed to help you if I can’t call for someone?”

He could feel himself fading.  “No doctors.  I’ve lost enough blood.”  His gun slipped from his fingers and his hand dropped back to his side.  “What…is the date?”

She hesitated, her gun suspended in midair, pointing somewhere near his left foot.

“The date?”  She moved closer, frowning in confusion.

“The date—what is it?”  She surely thought it an odd question under the circumstances, probably thought he had lost touch with reality and maybe he had, but her answer meant everything.

“March tenth.”  She dropped to her knees, gingerly lifted the lapel of his coat and winced at what she saw beneath.

“The year… What year?”  His voice sounded weak even to his own ears.  How long had he lain there?  How much blood had he lost?  More than he could spare, he decided, since he was as weak as a newborn. 

Her gaze snapped back to his face and her frown deepened.  “It’s 2010.”

“God in heaven.  It did happen.  2010.”  He closed his eyes.  His entire body began to shake.  “Dead.  They are all dead.”

His eyes slid closed.  The last sound he heard before oblivion descended upon him, was her soft, husky voice talking first to someone else and then to him as she came closer still.

“Ralph, I am in the forest near the start of the first ravine.  Bring the four-wheeler, haul-wagon, and several blankets.  There’s been an accident.  And hurry—  No, no, I’m fine.  It’s someone else.” 

The sweet, fruity scent of pears filled his nostrils as her fingers brushed his hair back from his forehead.

“Hold on, William.  Hold on.” 

She knew his name?  But how?