Bound for Home (Tyler Cunningham Shorts) Read Free Page B

Good Chinese ), because she insisted that their dumplings were less doughy and Kung Pao more spicy. I could survive either place, so I didn’t mind indulging her ( if it reinforced her desire to help me with my research projects ).
    She ran upstairs to ransack various databases and websites, while I digested the informatio n already sorted on the table. We had both finished our appointed tasks in time to help Jeanie, the librarian working the front desk, close the library down for the night after chasing the last retiree out into the still-light evening. Cynthia and I jammed her new material and a sub-set of the material I’d just been reading into my backpack for another look later this evening, and headed down the hill, walking towards the Crappy Chinese restaurant.
    It was pretty crappy, but still better than any Shepard’s Pie I’ve ever had.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Helgafell Farm, 6:10am, 6/5/2002
     
    I noted the time when I rolled off of the tarmac and onto the rutted dirt of t he driveway to Helgafell Farm … because I note things like that ( and then remember them forever, like everything else that crosses the threshold of my consciousness ), but also ( and especially ) because 610 is the fifteenth number in the Fibonacci Sequence. I could see the big farmhouse, and assorted barns and other bunkhouses and sheds, about 400 yards past the gate and gatehouse … and gate-guard … all of which waited for me less than twenty yards off of the main road, Route 86. He must have heard my Honda Element slow down and turn onto the dirt, because he was waiting for me in the middle of the driveway by the time I rolled up to the gate.
    “Good morning,” the tall man said. “You must be the next level, although you seem a bit young for the role … if you don’t mind my saying so.”
    I waited for him to say more, but he seemed content to stand there, with a small upturn on both ends of his mouth, bre athing in the cool morning air. His hat and gloves and puffy coat indicated that he had to be from downstate ( no Adirondacker would layer up like that on this 40 degree morning ). He looked comfortable standing there, waiting for me to do something … comfortable standing, comfortable with the hour, comfortable with the cold, and comfortable with himself. He carried some grey and some gut, and didn’t try to hide or minimize either.
    “Maurice said something.” I guessed.
    “When I asked him to leave, he promised that it wasn’t over, and that he was bringing it to…” he gestured with his hands to indicate me, and him, and the gate, and the Adirondack Park.
    “He’s a sweet old man, wo rried about his granddaughter.”
    He nodded and seemed to settle, although he was still standing straight and tall, and looked into the fields and morning ligh t behind me, towards Whiteface.
    When he didn’t answer my comment about Maurice, I continued, “ So I guess I am the next level. Maurice is my landlord and I told him that I would come out and see what I could find out about Sophia. My name is Tyler.”
    “Heimdall … John Heimdall. Pleased to meet you Tyler.” He didn’t offer his hand, as I hadn’t. I sometimes go weeks without touching another human, and wondered if he was the same … and how ( if ) he felt about it. I aimed for amusement and a chuckle, but clearly missed; “Is something wrong?” he asked.
    “No, but someone’s Norse is showing. Helgafell is one of the Norse heavens, and also a holy mountain.” I said sweeping my behind me and around past John’s shoulder at the mountains all around us. “Heimdall is a Norse God, a guardian who brings the gifts of the gods to mankind. He’s also out of place in Helgafell, which is a place for good souls who aren’t warriors, which I suspect you might be.”
    “I live and work h ere as a favor to the church,” he said, gesturing to the gatehouse, which couldn’t have been more than a few hundred square feet in total. “My duties as