****
Johnny was puzzled by the reactions of the tribesmen who watched him climb out of the SUV and open the gate. He could both see and feel that they were very upset about something, but they were also unduly excited and astonished to see him. “Does Two Bears still recover?” he asked. “I have two more injured that need help at the Healing Place.”
“That place is no more,” they told him. “The hollow log burned to the ground and all in it have perished. You were said to have been killed in it also.”
Numb with shock, Johnny climbed back into the SUV and let Jake drive them up the driveway to the cabin. Billy pulled a camera from under a seat and took pictures as they moved through the trees. They parked near the old log cabin next to a strange new car that looked totally out of place.
To Johnny’s surprise Angela Welborne climbed out of it and looked at him disapprovingly. He had forgotten that she was at the cabin. “So you’re alive, you son-of-a-bitch,” she said angrily. “They said you were dead.”
“No. Have you heard news about my mother and the others?”
“They said that all of you were dead.” She said it without a shred of emotion.
“Johnny!” shouted Elizabeth, from the doorway, eyes red from crying. She ran to him and they held each other closely, not saying another word.
“I thought so,” said Angela. “You better make up your mind who your fiancé is, and what kind of future you want, Johnny Goth.”
Elizabeth pulled out of Johnny’s embrace and looked up into his eyes. “They said you were killed.”
“Unlikely,” he replied, a smile forming on his face.
“Well, your Mother is dead,” injected Angela, spitefully.
Johnny turned his head to look at Angela. Having her here made it even more apparent that it was Elizabeth he truly loved. How he could have ever agreed to marry Angela was totally incomprehensible to him.
“Also unlikely,” said Johnny, smiling wider, his eyes returning to Elizabeth.
“Johnny,” exclaimed Elizabeth, “do you know something?”
“I know that Mother is alive. I can faintly hear her calling to me right now,” he explained to Elizabeth, speaking too softly for Angela to hear him. “But she’s in bad trouble.” He ran to the SUV. “I’ll carry Dooley and you carry Ned,” he told her, as he opened the back gate of the SUV and gathered Ned’s small form and placed him in her arms. “Follow me, quickly,” he instructed her, as he picked up Dooley and walked rapidly around the cabin and towards the forest. Elizabeth followed as quickly as she could, carrying the strange creature she had just been introduced to. Angela, puzzled, followed them, suddenly aware that Johnny may be totally lost to her, but still determined to get something out of her long investment in him.
“Dooley!” shouted Fred Simple joyously, as he ran from the cabin to catch up with Johnny.
Johnny paused briefly to show the professor that it was indeed an ailing but living Dooley that he carried. “I have to get him to help now, Professor.”
“I’m coming with him,” insisted the Professor, grasping one of Dooley’s limp hands.
“That would be very difficult,” started Johnny.
“I don’t give a damn. You have no right to stop me, no damn right at all.”
“I think you’re right,” agreed Johnny. “Very well, you can come with us too, Doc. But I’ll go ahead with Dooley; it will get him to help faster, and get me to the fire. You should help Elizabeth with Ned. Ned is Dooley’s close friend, and mine. Dooley would want it that way.”
“You’re all crazy,” shouted Angela, as they walked further ahead of her. “Dead is dead. Johnny, stop this nonsense!”
Nobody paid any attention to her. After Johnny got everyone but Angela past the inner fence and its two guards, he continued ahead, carrying Dooley, at first running incredibly fast and then, to the astonishment of perhaps even himself, flying through the air several meters above the path, moving at much faster than even his running pace.
“Oh my gosh!” stuttered the Professor, in astonishment. “I think I am crazy.”
Angela smiled to see Johnny showing his powers openly, then cursed for being excluded from it as he disappeared from her sight.
Elizabeth was beginning to expect the impossible from Johnny, and said nothing. She redoubled her efforts, breaking into a jogging pace that the Professor, though unburdened, had a hard time matching.
“I am crazy, I am crazy,” repeated Professor Simple, whenever he had enough breath to do so, as Johnny and Dooley disappeared ahead, among trees of impossible size that bordered the forest path they followed.
Elizabeth still said nothing; her primary focus was on carrying little Ned quickly and smoothly. As she did so she also pondered whom it was that she was carrying. Ned? She had heard the name many times since she started teaching on the Reservation, but had never met the mysterious Ned, the infamous playmate of children and player of innocent pranks.
Until now. As she run carrying him, the blanket wrapped around him gradually loosened, exposing hairy face and body, horned head, and cloven feet. She recognized what he was now. Ned was undoubtedly a mythical creature, one of several types represented by the woodcarvings of the Goth cabin. She absorbed this latest this realization without even breaking stride. Whatever else he was, Ned was a close friend of the children she taught, and of Dooley and Johnny. That was more than enough to keep her running with him, tired and astonished as she was.
Angela was left cursing at the inner gate. Two armed guards wouldn’t let her continue one step further but were nervously looking beyond her. Towards and beyond the cabin, growing sounds of heavy-duty logging equipment could be heard. Jake and Billy, who had been mute observers to the whole strange business, got busy on their radios and cell phones, redeploying all Artistic License forces towards the Goth place. This wasn’t over yet, they figured. Not by a long shot.
****