Deke Brolin Rhol (2 page)

Deke pulled himself up and walked away from the bridge. It was time. Before long, the trees surrounded him again. His only light came from moonbeams slicing through the tangled branches above him. Falling leaves cast against the moon’s light caused strange shadows to come to life in front of him as he meandered down the path. He could see in the distance that he was nearing his final destination. He wondered if he would find what had saved him from the anguish of his foster home so many years ago or if time had forever changed his sanctuary.

His first foster home had been in the city, a place he had been unwilling to adjust to. His foster parents eventually gave up on him after
enduring an entire year of his stony silence. They tried to find psychiatric care for him but the State was unwilling to pay for the expense of it. Unable to deal with his mounting issues, they sent Deke away to another foster home in the country. They hoped that perhaps a more familiar surrounding would help.

At least
in the country he was able to find some comfort in the forests and fields that surrounded the small town. Unfortunately, his new foster parents were miserable to live with. The only thing they cared about was the money they received as a supplement for him and the other foster children. Of course the children never saw a dime of it and were forced to wear the same clothes and scrounge for food wherever they could. 

Despite this,
Deke would eventually meet his savior here. She would become the only person he trusted with his troubled memories. She would help him cope with the feelings of guilt that overwhelmed him. She would show him how to look toward the future, not back into the past. She would become his best friend, his only friend. Without her, the memory of his parents’ death would have consumed him.

Deke
would never forget the day he met her.

Fate
, for once, was looking after him. He still had not spoken a word since his parents died and he had prided himself in avoiding people. But on this particular day something had made him change his regular route home. Unwittingly, he had come upon four neighborhood bullies who were surrounding a petite girl. She looked to be the same age as Deke. Tears were streaming from her eyes as the bullies hurled abusive words at her. She tried to escape their circle but they wouldn’t allow it. They kept pushing her, telling her to go back to where she came from, that they didn’t need another street urchin around here. Confused and scared, she had fallen to her knees. At that point, these animals had begun to throw crab apples at her, staining her white dress with red circles.

Deke
had been stunned by their abuse, their cruelty toward this girl who had obviously just arrived at the foster home. Walking straight through them, he picked the tiny girl up from the ground and without saying a word he guided her away, pushing two of the assailants aside. He would not escape their abuse though. Before he could get a safe distance away they jumped him and began to savagely beat him. The girl was able to escape and quickly returned with help but by then much of the damage had already been done. Deke was covered in blood and unable to speak.

Deke paused remembering the touch of her hand on his ch
eek before he lost consciousness. How could he ever forget? It was reminiscent of his mother.

The girl’s name was Mary Toller and over the three weeks that it
took him to recover, he came to learn that she had never left his side. She would remain there for the next several years.

He
would come to understand that their lives were not so different. She had never known her father and her mother had died eight months earlier of a terminal illness leaving her to fend for herself. Eventually, she had been placed in the foster home. They had both hated the confines of their foster home and decided to discover their own world in the forests.

On one excursion they happened upon a cornfield
on the outer edge of the forest. They soon discovered that the field contained valuable items discarded and left for lost long ago. Every year when the field was ploughed, they would collect the new treasures that had emerged on its surface. These included old coins and strange artifacts which they believed were made by ancient tribes, centuries ago. They carefully buried their cache in an old stone well hoping that one day they could use it to escape the confines of their miserable home.

The field
became their refuge. Over time they built a fort from logs left strewn around the area. The fort overlooked the entire field. They built it about twenty feet from the ground, in a strategic place so that it doubled as a lookout post. Two enormous branches of a large oak tree supported the structure. 

Deke affectionately remembered the times he had spent with
Mary in and around that fort. Those years felt timeless but his fate was about to change again, his second defining moment.

They had just celebrated their
fourteenth birthdays which fell in the same week. On this particular night Deke had snuck into the kitchen to get some food for Mary and the other children but he had been caught by his foster parents. They were incensed and locked down the entire house. Undeterred, he snuck out around the back and climbed the basswood tree up to Mary’s window. After getting her attention, Deke had told Mary to meet him at the bridge at seven the next morning so that they could go to the fort.

He
spent the remaining part of the night roaming the streets. Only the growing light in the sky made him realize that he had lost track of time. When he arrived home the sun was already visible, so he ran straight to the bridge. When he got there, Mary was nowhere to be found. 

He
waited at the bridge for a short time and then walked to the fort to look for her. She was not there either. Becoming concerned he ran back to the house thinking she may have slept in. Mary was not at the house and Deke’s foster parents were in an uproar about her whereabouts. Hearing this had him beyond worried. He tried to tell them about the plan they had made to meet at the bridge. He begged them to come to the woods and help search for her but his pleas fell on deaf ears. They locked him away in his room hampering any hope of him finding her. 

Deke
scowled at the memory of it all. He should have broken away from their grasp that day. If anyone could have found her, it would have been him he angrily thought.

About twelve hours passed before
his pretend parents started worrying about their monthly checks and finally called the police. Deke was furious that they waited so long. The police spoke with all the children in the house, saving him for last. He told them everything, including the plan to meet Mary at the bridge in the forest.

After a two week search of the area, the police came up
with nothing other than a shoe with blood spots on it. Her shoe with blood spots on it. They would not tell Deke where they found it and suddenly he became the prime suspect in her disappearance. 

The police constantly interviewed
him and everywhere he went people whispered about him being a deviant and a savage. He was angry that they wasted their time on him instead of looking for Mary. They were right though. He was responsible, not in the way they thought but because he had been late. He had let her down. She might well be here walking with him today, had he arrived at the bridge on time.

His guilt consumed him. In his mind, only he was to blame. The only frie
nd he had in the world was gone because of him.

When they finally closed the missing persons file and presumed her dead
Deke walked away from life. He lived on the street, alone and broken travelling long distances but going nowhere. He became lost in a world of self-loathing, unable to forgive himself. 

He
travelled from city to city always staying on the outskirts, skulking like an animal in search of food, not wanting to have contact with anyone. After three years of living in isolation, Deke could take no more. Something from deep inside of him was guiding him back to the place where it had all started. He never had the chance to say goodbye to her back then. To say farewell to a friend who once saved him, who had loved him for who he was.

He would have his chance now, for the path he was walking suddenly came to an end and a vast field of rich soil gleaming from the night’s frost lay before him. He stared out over the place he
once called his sanctuary. In a few moments time, it would be his resting place.

It had not changed a bit.
The east and west sides of the field were still divided by a long range of birch trees that jutted out from the woods, stopping about a hundred yards into the field. To the east of this was another pocket of trees which resembled an island surrounded by dirt rather than water. That was his destination.

He walked slowly up along the line of birch trees. They were beautiful. The moonlight made their bark glow in the dark almost like a beacon for lost travelers.
He came to the end of the range and crossed over the field to the island. He hesitated momentarily before walking into the dense bush. A short way in, he found the slightly overgrown path that he and Mary had worn into the ground over the years they had come to this place.

In the distance, he saw the oak tree that he was looking for and hurried toward it. He smiled when he looked up and saw
that their fort was still there. Wasting no time he began to scale the tree’s endless branches. When he reached the bottom of the fort he pushed open the trap door and pulled himself in. Two stumps, that were once used as seats were all that remained inside.

Deke sat down and caught his breath. Looking around he saw the hole in the tree where they used to hide their binoculars and wondered if they
were still there. He reached in and found them, a little rusted but not in bad shape considering the amount of time that had passed. He felt better already. He was home again and could now do what he came for. He could still read what he and Mary had carved into the tree but never finished, “Mary and Deke – Soul,” he flicked open his pocket knife and finished it “Mates Forever.”

It might not have meant a lot to some but he became overwhelmed
. He gazed up into the moon, swiping at the light mist that formed above him with each breath he took. He had come all this way in hopes of getting answers from her. Was she alright? Was she at peace?

Deke paused and reached out to touch the jagged carving in the tree.

Most importantly, did she forgive him? He knew there was only one way to find the answer to these questions.

It was the perfect place for his life’s path to end and his new one to begin. He wanted it this way. It would end as he had lived most of his life, alone with his thoughts. It was comforting to know that at this moment he was as close as he could get to the only person
who had ever understood him. It felt right, although he did have the distinct feeling that someone was with him, watching him. Perhaps there was someone there, for he could hear a faint sound. The sound was growing louder. It was an unusual noise, kind of like the soft slap a wave makes when it hits the sand.

Deke
looked out over the field in the direction the sound was coming from. At first he saw a dim light but it quickly faded away leaving him slightly blinded. It took his eyes a few minutes to readjust to the dark before he saw it.

What was he looking at?
Whatever it was, Deke was sure that it hadn’t been in the field prior to his arrival.

It looked
as though a large mound of dirt had suddenly appeared in the middle of the field. He stared so intently at the object it almost seemed to move.

Deke fell backward into the
fort when he realized it was not his eyes playing tricks on him. It was moving. It began to stand up. He could only make out a silhouette but it was huge. The sun was slowly beginning to rise but it was still too dark to get a clear view.

Deke nervously swallowed
and fumbled for his binoculars. Perhaps he could get a better look using them. His hands were trembling making it difficult to focus but when he held his breath, it seemed to help. Still, the binoculars did not provide him with a much better view. He could only make out a shadowy figure that appeared to have long wavy hair.

His curiosity took over. He had to get a better look. He quietly inched his way down the oak tree hoping that the sweat forming on the palms of his hands would not cause him to lose his grip. He reached the last branch of the tree, the branch that you had to jump up to reach or drop down to get off. Deke hung from the branch for several seconds before letting go. He winced when he hit the ground crushing the leaves under his feet. He stood there frozen, straining to hear if anyone was coming toward him in search of the noise.

So far, so good, Deke thought to himself after several minutes.

Getting down on all fours he began to crawl. He could see a cedar tree on the edge of the field
. It looked like a good vantage point. Every instinct he had was telling him to turn back, but his arms kept dragging him closer.

It took time but eventually Deke
found himself peering through the thick cedar branches. He had hoped the cedar would have provided better camouflage, but it would have to do. He had a clear view now and instantly felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Why had he allowed himself to get this close?