The Lion Returns

Chapter 3

Making Adjustments

Curtis's next arrival home was on June 25. He had a medical discharge, based on his old injuries, and was on thirty-day terminal leave. He'd draw his captain's pay till July 23. As before, Mary met him at the depot. They went to her little apartment—theirs now—and made love. Afterward he dressed in civvies, clothes he'd left behind in '42.

"This week," he said, "I'll talk to Fritzi about getting my old job back. If it's going to make any trouble, I'll settle for sergeant on an undersheriff's pay. And if that's not possible . . . I'll worry about that when the time comes.

"Or maybe," he said, watching her intently, "maybe it's time for you and me to go somewhere else." They'd talked about that eventuality even before they were married, but she'd lived in Nehtaka all her life. It wouldn't be easy for her.

"Somewhere we're not known," he went on, "where people won't realize I don't age. Back before I enlisted, maybe four years ago, people already commented on it. Axel Severtson asked me if I'd been drinking from the Fountain of Youth—that I didn't look any older than when I'd worked for him. And Lute Halvoy said I better hurry up and start showing my years, or people would call me a draft dodger.

"And tight as manpower's got to be, with so many off in the military, we can go just about anywhere and find good jobs.

"Think about it. We'll have to do it sooner or later, and in a couple years, when the war's over and all the guys start coming home, jobs might get hard to find. Might even be another depression."

* * *

That night they had supper at Fritzi's again. "When do you want to come back to work?" Fritzi asked.

"How does next week sound? I'd like to lay around a few days." Curtis paused. "Is Harvey Chellgren still the undersheriff?"

"Ja, and he is a good officer. Maybe a little too political. He likes a little too much to please people. You will be better. And he knows you got the job coming to you, by law and by right. I told him if you take it, I will ask the county to approve a raise for him, to what he's getting now, and we will call him senior deputy. He's got so many friends in the county, the board will probably do it.

"Besides, I'm going to retire in '48, when my term is up. I've already told him I might. He will probably run for sheriff then. You should too. You'd make a better one than him. Then whoever loses can be undersheriff. You two always got along good."

* * *

The first thing bad that happened to Curtis was the next day, when he went to see Roy Klaplanahoo's wife and children. Roy, she told him, had been killed in Germany, in Bloody Hürtgen less than five months earlier, with the war in Europe almost over, and having survived Sicily, Italy, France and Belgium.

It was almost predictable, but Curtis was crushed. He went home and wept before his dismayed wife. Afterward he told her of the battle of Ternass, in Yuulith. Of the thousands killed, all of them his responsibility, his guilt. How many Roy Klaplanahoos had died there? But Roy had been his friend. There'd been a bond, begun in the hobo jungle outside Miles City, carrying forward to Severtson's logging camp, and renewed in North Africa.

He told her of other things that had happened in Yuulith, too, things he'd never mentioned before. They'd seemed irrelevant, there'd been no need for her to know, and they'd have stretched her credulity.

"Do you believe me—Mary?" He'd almost called her Spear Maiden! Despite the two being so unlike.

"I believe you, darling," she answered. "I know you too well to doubt your honesty or your sanity. And I see auras too, you know. I even saw some of your mental pictures when you talked." She paused. "I want you to tell me more about Yuulith. Sometime soon. Share it with me. I won't be jealous of your other wives, I promise. I want to know more about them. They must have been good people."

He kissed her gently, and minutes later they went to bed.

* * *

That night he awoke from a dream. Of the spear maiden, Melody; he hadn't dreamt of her in years. But the setting was different than in earlier Melody dreams. This one was on the battlefield at Ternass. They lay side by side on the grass, talking. Then someone—Varia, he thought—blew a trumpet, and all the dead got up and brushed themselves off. Roy Klaplanahoo was with them, and the tall voitik corporal, Trosza, whose killing had laid heavily on his conscience. They all mingled, talking and laughing. Then one of them came up to him—Lord Quaie, still with the steaming hole in his belly. And he was not hostile. He was gesturing, his mouth working earnestly, but no words came out.

At that point Curtis wakened. It took awhile to get back to sleep.

* * *

He returned as undersheriff the next week, and enjoyed the work again. Loggers, many of them new to him, continued to flood the taverns and halls on Saturday evenings. But his reputation had preceded him. The Nehtaka Weekly Sentinel had given a brief summary of his military record—primarily assignments, actions, and military honors—provided by the Army's Office of Public Information. This inspired men who knew him from before to retell and exaggerate his prewar exploits in Nehtaka County, both as a law officer and a logger.

None of them knew of his exploits in Yuulith, of course.

* * *

Two years after Curtis's return, Fritzi had a stroke. In the hospital, slurring from one side of his mouth, he announced first his appointment of Curtis as acting sheriff, then his own retirement, to take effect at the end of June. In the hospital, and afterward at his home, Curtis sat daily by the bed, healing Fritzi by hand and gaze, sometimes with a silent Margaret looking on coldly. It was obvious to Curtis that she distrusted him.

Ten days later, Fritzi was up and walking, unimpaired. Doc Wesley told Curtis the recovery was a lot quicker and more complete than he'd expected. "I don't know what it is you do, young man," he said, "but I wish I could do it."

Afterward Macurdy imagined Wesley in Oz, apprenticing under Arbel, then returning to Oregon with his new skills. But even if the doctor could be talked into it, it wouldn't be possible. He might survive the transit through the gate—might even retain his sanity—but he'd never make it back.