Storyteller, Colin & Anne Brookfield [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

knew when I left my office to come here this morning that I was going to finish up as the fall guy. So you can shove your job!”

“Get out of my office!” shouted the steaming Director. “Wait in the anti-room and don’t attempt to leave the building.”

Geoff was starting to wonder where he had parked his brain. Agents would already be sifting the evidence. Had he overlooked anything? Had anyone set him up?”

Almost six hours of mental turmoil passed before he was again summoned by the secretary, and returned once again before the Director.

“You are the most impudent blighter I have ever had the misfortune to deal with,” growled the Director.

Geoff was feeling slightly mystified. The face in front of him was obviously fighting very hard to prevent a broad grin from winning.

“Well Agent 3074, your earlier statement proved to be correct. Your friend James has verified the forensic aspects. A tin of the same green lead paint was discovered in your boss’s garden shed and he is now in custody. We retrieved the cat from your garage, and the paint residue between its paws has checked with your findings.”

“By the way sir, who’s been lumbered with the cat now?”

Ignoring the question, the Director continued. “And by the way, you were correct in your assumption that you would never be returning to your office. In fact, you now have the much larger one vacated by your ex-boss. So try and live up to the new responsibility, and don’t think you will ever get away with cheeking me again.”

“No sir!”

“Oh! One last thing, the cat that you stole from your Department Head is without its home now, so it has been returned to your garage. Mervin is now your property, and that is official.”

The Dream Catcher

The search for the missing Howard Nightingale aircraft had started to wind down; six weeks had elapsed since breaking off communication with ground control. On board had been a small child and its parents, for who there now seemed little hope. Search aircraft had trawled the rugged terrain along the Nightingale’s flight-plan. To complicate matters, some areas were cloud covered and there were lakes that could easily swallow an aircraft out of sight.

Then the strangest thing happened. A tiny child bearing many cuts that had almost healed was found wandering in the small settlement of Spokane near the Bitterroo mountains of northwest America. Around the child’s neck they found a leather cord, attached to which, was an old Indian talisman. He was soon identified from photographs in the national papers as David, the boy from the lost aircraft.

The continuing story in the papers was filled with questions:

Who found him? Who had looked after the child and fed him? Who brought him to Spokane and by what means?

The child was too young to be interviewed, or give any kind of coherent answers to questions. The constant interest in the boy from photographers and reporters was quickly nipped in the bud by his aunt. She had already taken on legal guardianship, whilst in the fervent hope that his parents might yet be found. Only current news sells papers, so other stories soon eclipsed that of David’s.

His aunt lived in one of California’s holidaying tourist playgrounds where everybody talked, and lived fast in the moment. It was the perfect anonymity, where no one would find interest in strange happenings; it proved to be the right place for David’s schooling. So gradually, he and his aunt were able to drift away from that terrible event.

Nevertheless, even though David was growing up, his past experiences still came up in conversations at home occasionally, but his aunt had now become intrigued by the sketches of what appeared to be, an Indian Shaman that David frequently drew so well.

“That’s him! The dancing and singing man who saved me,” he would often say.

Many years later she reminded him that his ‘funny’ sketches seemed to have set him off in the right direction, because he had eventually become a qualified artist.

Perhaps things might have remained very much the same, had William Fray not come into his aunt’s life. True, she was no longer a ‘spring chicken’ but neither was Mr. Fray. It was soon becoming obvious to David that this relationship had a serious and enduring probability to it, and therefore it might be time for him to venture out into the world on his own. After all, he was achieving some well paid commissions for sketching and painting.

The moving moment arrived with the letter from the real estate agent, informing him that his parent’s home, that had been rented out for many years was now vacant, and they were awaiting new instructions. David now had somewhere of his own to live and new friends to make.

He had been going out with a young lady friend for a while and had confided to her, his strange childhood history but perhaps went a little too far; the bottle of Beaujolais they were sharing, probably said a great deal more, which he couldn’t remember. He mentioned how he used to regale his aunt about the chanting, dancing American Indian who helped him after the plane crash in a very wild place, and that it had always fallen on deaf ears, or followed by words of discouragement. So he told his young lady that it finished up as his secret, an alarming one at times.

“During quiet solitary moments,” he continued, “I could often mentally visualise that dancing, chanting saviour of mine in the clearest possible way.”

Sensibly that would have been a good stopping point, but unfortunately the Beaujolais seemed to have other ideas. The following morning, she phoned to say she was going out with someone else.

Secretly, he was relieved and found the changed arrangement a happier one.

He moved into his parents old house, which kept him busy for a while redecorating as well as completely refurnishing it, and happily, his artistic work soon enhanced the social side of his life. For most people that would have been their continuing and satisfactory way of living, but as he was about to find out, unexpected events can influence one’s direction.

A free ticket to a circus – of all places – and a bored moment had conspired to have him seated (not too comfortably) in a front circus seat with his feet almost in the sawdust. He never liked clowns, but the ones at play in front of him proved to be the exception. He was also rather impressed by the scantily clad young lady who flew a long row of back flips across the arena, finishing with a full twisting layout back-somersault into a gainer front. He was getting better entertainment than he’d expected. Then a very large elephant was led in, together with the equipment for its tricks, but Jumbo it seemed, had other ideas.

David could see it was agitated which then quickly turned to fury. He was rooted with terror, not just from the elephant, but equally so from the fast growing sounds of the old Indian mantra inside his head – or was it outside? The mantra’s flourishing vocal ornamentation was jumping erotically back and forth from legato to agitato, interspersed by gigantic base to treble octave leaps. Most of the audience had now scrambled away from the path of the enraged animal, but David’s feet kept him where he was until the elephant was all but upon him. Then it stopped; it reached gently out with its trunk as if to say, ‘what’s all the fuss about’? The transformation was remarkable, and Jumbo was led quietly away by his keeper.

There was no escape. People rushed over with their questions and remarks about the strange rhythmic dance they had seen David do around the elephant.

“But I never left my seat!” he exclaimed.

“We know what we saw,” replied the excited voices around him, “and we could see your mouth muttering something silently to yourself. What are you? How can you do that stuff?” He could see the cameras appearing all over the place, which was his cue to leave without delay.

It was in the papers the following day about the dancing mystery man, who mesmerised an enraged circus elephant. He resigned never to go to a circus ever again, or ever relate the matter to any of his friends.

A few weeks later the phenomenon repeated itself, only this time, he was about to cross a busy road when a child scampered to imminent death beneath the wheels of speeding vehicles. In the next second, David found himself standing on the other side of the congested road with the child at his side, and his head full of the same (now fading) chant. The witnesses were uttering much the same as he had heard at the circus, except they were talking about the inhuman speed by which he had carried out the rescue. Again, he got away immediately in an effort to preserve his anonymity.

He was a bit concerned about going out after that, but a few days later there was a surprise visit from his friend James Hamlin. He was a freelance surveyor for feasibility studies concerning road and bridge construction in rugged terrain.

“I’ve been asked to give my opinion on a project for a large public works company. It’ll be rough going, but there’ll be plenty of time for fishing. Want to come along? It’s well up north; about two hundred miles east of Seattle.” The offer seemed like a godsend, so David jumped at the chance.

They were on their way within a week, and he soon discovered that long conversational journeys, eventually drains away all their best kept secrets. Surprisingly, James didn’t seem to bat an eyelid at David’s input.

Accommodation had already been arranged in “Couer d’Alene”, a few miles west of Bitterroo Mountains. James suddenly noticed the pallid apprehension on David’s face.

“I have been concerned about your reaction to this area David, I understand it’s close to where your mystery started. Worse still, we are probably too close to Spokane where you were first found, and of course, the crash site which was never discovered. So we need to get your mind occupied. I’ll have a word with the hotel manager, he might arrange a fishing trip for you or, you can join me during some preliminary aerial mapping that has been arranged.”

“I’ll go for the latter,” David replied gratefully.

He was not so grateful the following day as the small aircraft occasionally leaped skywards, or dropped like a stone to the vagaries of the Bitterroo Mountains thermals. The impossible terrain was densely overlain with magnificent trees and few distinctive features.

“The Company wants to get logging roads into these areas if it’s possible,” James indicated. “Shame really. Nothing is sacred anymore, including my breakfast. I almost parted company with it on the last thermal lift, but I can’t blame the pilot for the aerial acrobatics.”

They went up again the following day, only this time David was dreaming about all that peaceful fishing he could have been doing. He would have seemed a wimp or ungrateful, to have declined another aerial battering.

“Area Eight site coming up,” shouted the pilot over the engine noise.

James smiled and looked towards David, but the smile quickly melted off