Creation Ranch 21

Lois and Hap are united and set out to salvage family members.

Chapter 21:  Changed Man

 

 

There in the darkness Lois caught her husband, Hap’s, hand  and though she could not see him, she knew that not only was there a man in the darkness beside her, there was a new loving man there, a man willing to work with Deag, and more there than just her smile, a smile in the darkness meant just for her that stemmed from her that she could not see, nor hear, nor would she have been able to sense it, but it was there, as surely as his hand had been found in the dark where his smile had been waiting for her all along also, but more than all of that was the knowledge Deag had put both their smiles there; miracles that rivaled the raising of Lora and Eric, the halting of the slaughter; the saving of her people, the Havolls, of which she was now one, and Hap was now one; a sweet, wonderful, glorious victory, a miracle in the face of utter annihilation. 

There in that darkness as her own words rang in her ears she heard a voice say something that voice was never meant to say to anyone.  “I love you,” it said, and it was the voice of her lover, Hap, of course but it was also the voice of her God, Deag, and when she squeezed the hand of her man, she knew she also squeezed the hand of her Deag; she understood where the Deag was, how he had always been, how his messages had never been heard before, and she was filled with incredible joy, that need not be spoken to be communicated and could only be communicated by one who knew what she knew.

Then she felt his lips on her mouth there in that spiritually lit place in the darkness where she saw more than she had ever seen in the light of day, felt the desire in his manner, the need for acceptance in his heart, and all of her hatred for this man was gone, all of her desire to be loved by him was fulfilled, and as they made love somewhere in the grass that grew so plentifully at Creation Ranch a child was conceived and her name was a strange one, Ebbela, which meant Love in the native language of the Deag.  Thus though they would call the little girl born of that conception, Love, her name would officially always be Ebbela.

By morning they stood on the path back to Ghalb, a strange place to be if you were a Havoll and even stranger if you were nothing more to the Ghalbans than an unsuccessful leader of a revolt against goodness, but there were people in that horrible town Hap and Lois felt akin to, people they could not go to Creation Ranch without, or at least without trying to convince them  they should come along in the Deag’s love.  However, the couple was not totally aware that was what they were up to, they merely felt a need, and had in them a desire to salvage the lives of their people in Ghalb first and then of course the only person in Dacica they owed any sort of debt.

Unlike the trip back to Ghalb for no orders were given as to go, or where to go, nor what to do when they got there and as they walked they were overtaken by a young lad with all his belongings in a sheet tied to a broomstick.

“Eli!” Lois said, “What?  Where do you think you are going?  You belong in Creation Ranch now.  I forbid you to go back to Ghalb, ever again.”

The lad never broke stride.  He had a closer kinship to the same people Hap and Lois knew than they did themselves.  They were all the family he had ever known such as it was.  If anyone felt a burden to see them changed it was Eli as they rounded the bend, all too soon, that led to the meadow where the infamous ambush had been staged.

“Halt!” echoed through the trees in the stillness without even a breeze to cover its sound.

Hap, Eli, and Lois, all three, came to a full stop at the same exact time.

“You Havolls, what is your business with the Ghalbans.  We are a condemned people like our leader.  We have no claim in what you have now.”

Eli recognized the call.  It was Hey’s voice!  Blaine Keycosa was now apparently the fearless leader of the Ghalbans, having never been entirely the ring leader and always as sidekick or at best in charge of a whole army owned by another, but now in this new extreme difficulty, taking the fore probably because he had no choice.

“Blaine?” Eli called.

“Blaine Keycosa, is that you?” Hap caught on right away.

“Hey, I think you had better let us pass unharmed.  Am I right?” Eli shouted at the woods where in a short while there was a rustle here and a rustle there as Keycosa’s army was defeated with just one word, the name of its leader.

“What was all that about?” Lois wanted to know.

“It was nothing.  No one in Ghalb can stop us.  Didn’t you hear the Deag just now tell us, and them, the same thing?” Hap said as he and Eli smiled.

“He knew my father,” Eli said and left it at that which seemed enough for Lois.

Then as they traversed the rest of the way without incident, the whole trip seemed very boring in fact even when Eli began to talk about his sister, Briana, and Hey as if they were old friends as he recalled anything comical, anything in the least part positive with the others; telling childhood tales on Briana and parenting ignorance and bloopers on Hey’s part.

Lois then listened as Hap explained about Hey and Mrs. Robbins, Tony Keycosa, and even as he rambled aimlessly about his mother, and even his father and Percival Ewodo; the trip winding down as they came upon Hey’s Inn the next day about 2:00 in the afternoon.

When the three walked in, Hap and Lois, arm and arm, and Eli smilingly in the lead, Hey simply nodded and Briana, who had apparently been waiting for them silently took them up the stairs to their rooms, one for the newlyweds, and one for her brother, Eli, who was home again, but slept in a room in style now, unlike she, herself, did.

“It is good to see you, Briana,” Eli said but she only grunted and went back down the stairs to her little cubbyhole in the back of the bar she shared with Hey, who despite his faults had never been anything less than properly behaved when it came to the kids, he called his helpers.