Lightning Game (GhostWalkers 17)

“Where are Patricia’s other two children now? The daughter and son?”

“Her daughter, Maggie, is in her last year of college. She’s been studying in the field of artificial intelligence and robotic engineering. It just so happens that one of the leading experts in the field of AI has a research lab where I live in Louisiana and has been looking for someone really intelligent to work with her that would be open to traveling and giving lectures. I’ve asked her to keep an eye on Maggie. I’m hoping Maggie meets her requirements and she offers her a job. That way I can know she’s safe.”

“That is so like you.”

“Nick, my nephew, joined the service. The Air Force. I keep an eye on him as well. He’s doing very well. Patricia has some arthritis but nothing major yet that worries me. I’m watching her right shoulder. She broke her arm a couple of years ago. It was a fairly bad break, up high, in three places, and I didn’t like the way it healed. She waited too long before she could get out of here to get help. The winter was bad and all of the kids were gone. Cells weren’t working. It was pure luck that old man Gunthrie decided to check on her. It was a long trek for him in the snow in the middle of a blizzard. Who knows why he even decided to check on her.”

“I can tell you really like him too.”

“He’s a strange man, Jonquille. I guess we’re all a little strange. Luther is the kind of man who will give you the shirt off his back. Anything he has, unless you try to take it from him. Then he’ll hunt you down and put you in the ground. He isn’t a forgiving man either. He remembers everything. He doesn’t own a car or a truck, and I can’t recall that he ever did. There’re miles, miles between his place and Patricia’s, but he made that trek in a blizzard to check on her because he was worried. She has closer neighbors, but none of them thought to do it.”

Rubin went silent when a family of raccoons, making tentative stops and starts, came out of the trees, going cautiously from rock to rock. Using the cover of grass, they made their way to the silver ribbon of water. Standing occasionally on their hind legs to peer around them for enemies, they dropped back down to eat and drink from the stream. The younger raccoons ignored the demands of their parents and rolled around together in several fights after chasing one another over the rocks and through the grass.

A pair of foxes came to the water’s edge on the other side of the stream, eyed the raccoon family warily but drank and stayed for a short minute or two. Mice and lizards scurried underfoot. A few rabbits hurried to make their burrows before the sun was too high in the sky. The clouds continued to shift with the wind, blowing across the sky, by turns darkening it and then allowing the light to come shining through with stunning beauty.

They were silent as they watched the animals take turns in a truce, drinking together at the stream. Life could be like that. Little moments where the world held its breath and everyone got along, and then it would explode again and everyone would be enemies.

Rubin tightened his grasp on Jonquille’s hand, pulling it to his chest. He had a very precarious hold on her, and all he could do was try to show her who he was as a person. Let her know he wasn’t a soldier with Whitney. He wasn’t any part of Whitney’s bizarre world in spite of having started there. He was a soldier, yes. He was a GhostWalker, yes. He wanted a wife and a family. He wanted a partner. An equal. He wanted to give her time to get to know him and hopefully she would choose him.

He did have quite a lot he could offer her. He rubbed his chin on the back of her hand as he thought about it, his gaze fixed on a young buck walking cautiously to the stream to take his turn. The buck was clearly a juvenile, velvety buds for horns, his head bobbing as he took one guarded step after another. He would pause and swing his head around alertly. Freeze. Move forward a few more steps and then stop again. Finally, the little buck made it to the edge of the stream, where he dipped his muzzle in the water.

It was a calm scene. Jonquille remained just as still as he did. He kept all movements slow as he rubbed sensitive bristles on her soft skin. Drawing the energy from her shouldn’t be difficult, not when he could direct it the way he could. He considered how to do it. The mechanics of it.