Jude Murphy always walked in the North Woods like he owned the place. Obviously he didn’t but it had been his home since the summer of 2016 when he returned from his military service. Since then he had lived in the woods as a hermit, although he left often to visit his sister and her family .. and some of his old friends, like Adum Brate. They all knew how his service had changed him, but he could talk about very little of it. He blamed the neaute of being an Intelligence Operative … but the truth was, he had plenty of healing to do. The scars on his body .. the most visible on his face … only told a partial tale. But for now he was enjoying a quiet afternoon at home.
Nick Callahan walked through the woods to check his traps. He was older, thinner and weathered. His beard and hair were long and scraggly. His jacket was tattered and his boots showed signs of many patch jobs. He was lythe and alert to the forest, a part of it. He crouched quietly by the first trap and removed a bloody dead rabbit who’s neck had been perfectly broken “That’s what I like to see…” he muttered to the stillness. Something was moving in the second trap “Fuck…” he hissed. He bagged the dead one and took out his knife. Damn meat would be less tender when they panicked in a trap. Adrenaline toughened them. Nonchalantly he drew his knife across it’s throat causing a blood spray. He let it bleed out on the ground “You’ll have to be stewed….” He bagged it too. The other traps were empty. He reset the first two and headed down the path.
He walked wordlessly up to Jude Murphy sitting in front of his cabin and handed him the better rabbit.
Jude had just come out of his hut and spotted Nick coming into the clearing that was ‘his place’. He takes the rabbit and looks at it. “Nice.” He moved to his campfire, which was littered with stumps and logs, but also had ‘homier’ touches like decently clean blankets and pillows for when his family insisted on visiting him. Of course, they had not .. the last time he’d seen his family was at the dinner which ended with all of them going into isolation. He and Nick were clean, they now knew and so they had no problems getting ‘close’. Not that huggy, wuggy closeness that his nephew's lover enjoyed. More the closeness of two loners who selectively enjoyed each other's company. He sits on one of the stumps and takes his skinning knife from its box by the fire and begins skinning the catch. “You’ve caused quite the stir in town.” he murmurs, his eyes on his skinning. “I got a call from Adum Brate, even.” he chuckles a little bit. “You had some damn fine cops on your crew…” is about all the clue he gives to what he means.
Nick plunk down on another stump and starts skinning the other rabbit, chuckling to himself “Well let em stir.” He sighs a little “Yeah I know. A lifetime ago.” He gestures at the cut on the rabbit’s neck “Trap must have tripped wrong….had to kill this one. It’ll be stew…..”
Jude grins. “I plan on it. First time they hear your voice in damn near three years. Had to have been a sight to behold. Adum won’t say anything. He’s got his own worries, but he seemed glad you’re still alive.” He parts skin from rabbit. “I told him you weren’t alive. Not the way he and your old cops might want you to be. I told him to just let the spirit rest. He will. And he’ll probably tell your cops to do the same .. if they make him.” He looks at the cut rabbit. “It happens. But feel free to blame your student.” Jude was half Nick's age. Jude would be 33 later in the year while Nick would be turning 70. “Either way, it’ll be a fine stew between you and me.” As much as Jude teased, he had almost all of the same knowledge as Nick when he had met Nick just after the earthquake. Part of his military background. Almost. But Nick had taught him plenty. But Jude readily admitted that he did not have the wisdom of age behind him, like Nick did.
Nick nods “As it should be.” He takes a large pot from by the fire and slides off the rest of the rabbit's skin and lets the skinned creature fall into the pot. He saves the skin for tanning. Nothing would be wasted. With a bigger animal he’d save the fat for lye soap but rabbits didn’t get enough fat for rendering until the colder seasons. “The forest has taught you more than I could ever hope to know Jude. I’m still learning from it…”
Jude keeps working on the larger rabbit, setting the skin aside, but before he does, he deftly slices off one of the rabbit’s feet. “For my nephew. Owen. Seems he has himself a little one on the way.” he snorts and works on preparing the rabbit for all of the things they will use it for. He nods at Nick’s words. “But you’ve been learning longer than I have. I’m glad to have had some of the learning from you I didn’t have to pick up on my own.” he continues working on the rabbit. "What should we do with the meat?” he wonders aloud. “The stew will be great and we’re near the end of our winter stores.” they dry some and freeze some .. but come the end of April and the beginning of May … it’s all fresh all the time.
Nick ponders the meat question and then says “Brine it in salt water and slow roast it so it’s not so tough. Maybe rub it with wild sage…..I’ll go pick some mushrooms. Chanterelles should be about ready.” He looks at Jude “Owen, isn’t that the young one?” He frowns a bit wondering if one of the kids got in over their heads.
Jude nods. While they both had gardens growing things, they also relied on what grew wild on Alexandra island .. especially in the North Woods. “Sage advice.” he quips. Much of his sense of humor was coming back. Just slowly and definitely different from when he was younger. He nods at the guess. “Well, Seamus is the youngest. Owen is just 18 years old. But Seamus was the one who you’d expect to have kids with different mothers all over town. Still … 18 is plenty young to become a father, and from the intel I got, it literally happened the first time. She’s got a 5 year old … but that’s a mess. They’re going to give it a go. Online and then she’s moving here with her kid … and from there… who knows. Owen is an unknown now. I can’t guess what will happen anymore.”
Nick chuckled about the sage quip and then pondered the rest with a detached sense of wonder.”Hmmm…” He had left the life of family behind. Another lifetime ago he’d had a daughter. She was lost to Cedar Point. Then later the love of his life. There was only the forest now and young Jude. Jude didn’t ask too many questions and he was a keen observer of patterns, ebbing and flowing with them in a natural rhythm. Nick understood that.
Jude quickly, but efficiently finished his work and stood long enough to get the brine solution, setting the rabbit in it. He came back and poured them both coffee. “I don’t know. My experience with family is very limited. If not for my sister…” he shrugs. “Anyway, the town is in the grips of the virus. Three dead just here. Patient Zero, Bitteto, and another whose name I haven’t bothered yet to hack for.” If not for his equipment, they’d know next to nothing being in the North Woods. It has always been scary enough to keep the kids away, but since they vanished in the fog, Nick and he had set booby traps … nothing lethal, but it kept folks on the access road, where Jude believed they belonged. “Shay, Fiona and Vincent have recovered, but I’m starting to think they might not get their Halloween wedding.” he half glares at Nick. “And yes, I promised to go … in uniform, no less.”
Nick raises one brow and gives a rare wry smile “Uniform? Well it’ll make em happy if it happens.” He furrows his brow a bit “Do you hear anything of Tallulah’s daughter...Anna Wright? Is she well?” He gets a guilty look on his face just briefly. A part of him felt like he should be watching over Anna but his own grief made any of that impossible. And now, time had passed. He may have vaguely hinted at it to Jude but never outright explained.
Jude snorted, but said nothing about going to his niece's wedding in his military uniform. Nick had never seen it, but from their talks knew it had quite a few decorations on it. When Nick mentioned Anna, he turned his head, curbing his shock so that the look was not sharp. He answered casually, as if Nick asked the question regularly and so the answer was no big deal. “She’s still with Phoenix Moon. Healthy and happy. They bike out to The Farm now and again. I guess for milk, eggs and meat … I think they eat meat. Couple serious pacifists.” Truth be told, Jude kept as close an eye on Anna as he did his own family. She was an extension … as was Nick .. he never said it aloud, of course, but he’d be surprised if Nick didn’t know it as well as his own name.
Nick looked relieved and then asked his next potentially anticipated question “And Tamela Douglas? She was my daughter's partner? And Stephanie Yamada...the 4 girls...with my Eryn were thick as thieves…. I just like to know…curiosity...” He looked appreciatively at Jude like he did know Jude was watching. Clearly Nick still cared, even though he tried not to engage. Jude was discreet and he appreciated that.
Jude looks at Nick. “She’s doing well. Happy, or as happy as it gets on Alexandra these days.” he replies. He stretches out his long legs. “She doesn’t go to The Farm .. but she still does outreach. Josh Green kept that going once things settled down.” he pulls his legs back to himself and rests his forearms on his knees. “Yea … Stephanie…” Nick hadn’t asked about Stephanie .. about any of them really .. in all these years the men had known each other. And in some ways … Jude suspected it would be the hardest thing for him to hear, as it was very interlinked to Tallulah. “She and Mike married. On Falcon Island. But then … the quake in Cedar Point. You know they moved here, like so many from there did. She’s a Reinhardt now. And Mike adopted Tristan, so he’s a Reinhardt too. They’re very happy, I know this for a fact. Michael is my brother in law. So Stephanie ...” he’s assuming Nick knew this, as Jude had told him about his sister, her husband and their kids. Jude didn’t speak much about Michael because of Stephanie and knowing that might not be the best for the man with all he was going through after the two quakes. “They all visit that memorial of yours.” he tells him. “I don’t know how they reacted to your call in … if they even know it was you. But … sharp cops...” he knows it’s possible both women heard it … and that it would be a shock. He considers offering them .. something … but while he knows Phoenix after a fashion, he doesn’t know Tamela as well. As a matter of fact, he isn’t sure if she ’s ever seen him. Maybe when he got pulled into work on The Farm. But Stephanie … was different. But he would do it. For Nick. He looks evenly at Nick, but does not verbalize the offer.
Nick closes his eyes and just sits for a moment, taking all this in. He often did this, rooting his feet into the earth. They visited his memorial. Had he caused harm by calling into that radio station. He opens his eyes and then speaks “Life and death are liminal states of being Jude. Maybe I’m just a walker between the worlds. You are…..not everyone gets it…” He trails off and closes his eyes again like he’s slipping back into a trance.
Jude nods. “The Nick Callahan those people know is dead.” he says it as a fact and, to him, it is. He pauses a moment. “I … I understand it. Your body lives. Because you’re a survivor. I …” he shrugs and blows out a breath. “Envy you your death.”
Nick nodded and then opened his eyes “You envy me my death….” He turned slowly to Jude “Tell me about that.”
Jude considers the older man. They had known each other for so long, and in a way, he owed Nick insight he never allowed before. “I could have died.” he huffs. “God knows I wanted to.” he blows out a breath and backpedals. He has to for any of it to make sense. “My family is Irish Catholic. You sort of get that from Colleen, John and their 4 kids. But … my parents … when my mom got pregnant with me, neither of them wanted another kid. But .. no abortion. They named me after the patron saint of lost causes and basically foisted me on Colleen.” he blew out a breath. “She almost didn’t get married because of me. But I told her I would be OK and I knew she loved John. So she got married, and I finished raising myself. After high school was military. Colleen was great. She had John and kids and I didn’t want to interrupt her life. Our parents love the shit out of her kids. Their grandkids. They don’t even talk about me.” he clears his throat again. “Anyway, I wound up an intelligence officer, promoted and decorated and promoted. Sometimes I would come back and have 6 months of letters from Colleen waiting for me. And I would reply and tell her I was alright and would come home as soon as I could. And I always did. Came back here .. told Colleen and the kids great stories, made her believe that I was busy, but happy. Happy Uncle Jude. And then off to some other country on some other intelligence gathering mission.” he drops his head.
“Then I fucked up and got captured.” he motions to his face, knowing that Nick had seen how badly most of his body was. “I didn’t talk, but this is how I wound up. I was liberated … A lot of fevers and infections and shit that nearly fucking killed me. I was in bad shape again. I seriously just wanted to die.” he snorts. “And then my mail caught up with me. Colleen was having trouble. She needed me. It was one of the first times she had out and out said she needed me. Found out John was shutting her out and she’d actually left him this time … she took the boys and Fiona stayed with John.” he clears his throat and drinks deeply of his coffee. “I wrote her back and told her I loved her. Told her I knew John loved her, because he does. Told her she couldn't make her boys into men. Suggested she keep telling him family therapy or divorce. She even filed, I found out. And that made John come around.” he paused. “I got out of the hospital before Christmas and came here. I only wanted to be alone. Regretted living. But this was my … compromise.” he motions around the patch of land he lives on. “Built this place so I could be around for my sister. Here, I was alone, but still close to Colleen.” he shrugs. “I’m retired, but still do work for Canada. That's why I have such neat toys.” He refers to his military grade computer and satellite phone. “But the Jude Murphy Colleen knew died a little at a time, but mostly in 2015 and 16.”
Jude paused and poured himself another cup of coffee. “You lost everything but your life and came here because they made you. Anna and Tamela and Stephanie. Made you come here before you could heal. And then that other earthquake and … you let everyone think you were dead. I always envied that about you. You’ve been able to heal more thoroughly than me and I’ve been here twice as long. Because you didn't have to play happy Nick or be there when one of them needed you like I did. Don’t get me wrong. I love my sister, but it’s been rough healing with Happy Uncle Jude breaks.” he blows out a breath and drinks all of the hot coffee. He’d probably talked more to Nick in the last few minutes than the last few years.
Nick listened intently and patiently with the same intense serious facial expression from start to finish. “Maybe your way is braver. Harder and braver. That’s a lot shit Jude. thanks foe telling me.” He looked around at some of Jude’s specialized equipment “I know you can’t reveal specifics but are you working on any assignments...now? Watching anyone or anything?” He’s genuinely curious about it all.
Jude relaxes a bit. There is some feeling of having unloaded and that feeling of closeness that comes with it. “You’re welcome.” he replies and then looks at his equipment. “Since the earthquake and fog … or rather since we came out of it … my assignment has been that. What happened, why it happened and if it's possible it was done to us.” he confides. “World events the last several years have sort of kept Alexandra under the radar. Groups like the Pleiades Cult and the Quake Takers aren’t as far off the mark as people think.” He gives Nick a sidelong glance. “But while we were in the fog, I gave myself the assignment of finding out who that old man who walked into my woods and set up a homestead was.” he teases.
Nick looks extra curious and leans in when Jude mentions the Quake Takers and then gives another wry grin when he’s referred to as well “Well you’ve found the most troublesome one then.” He jokes. But then he turns serious again “I used to have a police file on Morgan Wright from his Quake Taker days….it’s gone of course physically...but some of it…” He taps his temple “Is in the vault.”
Jude nods. “I bet.” he chuckles. “I know the connection between you and Wright because of my conversations with Michael. You’ve already been cleared by my ‘superiors’, since I am, of course, retired. That's why they came to see me once the ferry reopened. Wright is definitely someone I’ve been looking at since he came here. I was put on Cedar Point literally just before the quake. Which is probably why I’m still alive.” he snorts at the irony of his luck. “You probably know that of those who survived, at least half came here to Alexandra. And then got stuck here, as well.”
Nick snuffs out an ember from the fire with a twist of his boot “I’m aware they’re here. I was in a state for sure but the old cop brain is hard wired.” He tilts his head and muses “I’ve been cleared…..guess I’m not officially dead in the intelligence world. Morgan was convinced all the taken were alive somewhere. I both hated him for it and wanted it to be true….” He admitted. “I mean I don’t know here...that’s some new age shit going on in that old pothead’s noggin. But who knows right? Lately my thinking is less...linear.”
Jude nods. “You had more than your fair share of losses in Cedar Point.” He doesn't need to name names. “And no … you’re not dead to my … department ... “ he shrugs. “Just redacted, which can sometimes be the same thing.” he strokes his beard. “Yea … Wright … hell most of the Quake Takers are already considered a bit insane, but that suits me just fine. There are maybe two people whose intelligence I can not only gather, but then use because it isn’t poisoned by possible pre existing mental health issues. Ironically, I am close to them both. You and my brother in law.”
Nick’s mental gears appear to be visibly turning “Brother in law….I’m guessing you mean Michael not John if we’re talking about Cedar Point? Are you allowed to talk about that? Whatever Mike knows….” He trails off on an inhalation and then tosses another log on the fire and stokes it.
Jude nods. “I can talk about it with you.” he explains. “See, Michael lived as a closeted homosexual pretty much all of his life. He was the ‘find em, fuck em and forget em’ sort of guy. Then he fell in love with a man named Harley Bell … who ‘died’ in one of the Cedar Point earthquakes just as they’d gotten engaged and Mike was going to come out of the closet. He didn’t, but he did move to Cedar Point … got himself a job … and in the 2016 Earthquake, he saw what happened to Lee Chen Wright.” he pauses and pokes at the rabbit in the salt water bath.
Nick looks mildly surprised by Micheal’s past, given he’s now with Stephanie but processes it quickly and moves along. After all his own daugher was a lesbian, human love sexuality was complicated. He more inwardly chides himself for not having some sense of it with a man who worked on his force. His head jerks sideways as if reacting to a sharp pain at the mention of the Earthquake but then he slowly swivels back “What happened to Lee Chen Wright? What did Michael see?” He stares open mouthed after his question like the words are just hanging between them.
Jude is watching Nick and, when he asks, replies. “Apparently he saw Lee vanish into a shaft of light that appeared at his feet and then vanished like nothing was ever there.” he strokes his beard. “Needless to say he never told you, but he eventually talked to his partner and another witness, but not to Wright's disappearance … to Bells. His old boss. Apparently he’d been drugged and shamed and Christianized into thinking he’d imagined everything until Michael showed up believing him.”
Nick sighed “I’d say that’s some Twilight Zone shit but after the fog…..and so many vanishing without ever finding the bodies….” He pokes at the fire with a stick “So who all knows?” His mind raced. What could it all mean?
Jude nods. “Who knows, indeed. Michael obsessed for a while, but ultimately he dropped it all.” he considers. “Marriage and fatherhood may have helped, but I guess it was the Fog. How many strange fucking things can a man deal with before he just concentrates on what’s directly in front of him.”
Nick pulled the stick from the fire and looked at the end of it. It was a good thickness for whitling. “How many indeed Jude. How many indeed.”
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