Read Online Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 by Frank Augustus - Free Book Online Page B

mother has never had anyone beaten. Now just leave it on the floor for a few minutes and Enoch will finish the rest. Mom will never know. You can come back and pick up the plate later.”
    “Okay,” the girl said tentatively. “If you’re sure that she won’t find out.”
    “She won’t. I promise.”
    The girl laid the plate on the floor and Enoch raced over, gobbling down the entire remains.
    “Enoch…”
    The dog ignored him.
    “Enoch.”
    Enoch finished up the leftover meal and then proceeded to lick the plate clean.
    “Enoch.”
    “Thanks for the leftovers, Jesse. My compliments to the chef.”
    “Enoch.”
    “Yes?
    “I’m going to kill the jackal-head that did this to me and murdered my father, brother, and Asa.”
    “You’d better think that one over.”
    “I’ve thought it over enough. And as sure as fog kills, he’s a dead jackal-head.”
    “That’s easier said than done.”
    “I’ll find a way. There’s got to be a way. There’s always a way.”
    “Jesse, why are you telling me this?”
    “Because I want you to help me. My father was your brother. You’ve got a stake in this, too.”
    “What you are talking about is murder.”
    “Not murder. Revenge. An ear for an ear.”
    “I think that you’d better get some more rest.”
    “Enoch?”
    “What is it?
    “Did you know the jackal-head? The one that Mom called ‘Anubis’?”
    Enoch waited a long time before he answered, then he finally replied, “Yes. But it was a long time ago. We fought against him during the An-nef War.”
    “Who’s ‘we’?”
    “Your father and I. And Hezron.”
    “So why did he want to kill my father?”
    “Your father killed his brother.”
    “I know that. Mom told me. But many people die in war. Their survivors don’t usually hunt down their killers. I’ve heard that even enemies in war can become friends in peace. Why did Anubis hate my father so much that he would hold that hatred for five-hundred years?”
    Enoch said nothing.
    “You know, don’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why won’t you tell me?”
    The dog said no more, but turned and trotted out the door.

     
    The next week was particularly hard on Jesse. He was allowed to leave the bed only to use the commode, and that was a major undertaking that required the assistance of one of the servants. Jesse was not happy when he discovered that the girl that his mother assigned to take care of him was also given that chore. “You’re being silly,” his mother told him when he protested, but a man needed his privacy. Problem was, at ninety his mother still did not see him as a man, and the fact that he was now owner of his ancestral estate did nothing to change that. Being injured was no fun. He was bored, but used his idol hours plotting the death of the jackal-head that had put him in this sickbed. Plotting that was difficult because of the many unknowns. Jesse had never been further than twenty-five miles south of the estate, and Eden’s capital of New Sodom was some two-thousand miles south. Just getting there was a challenge. He would have to travel for days by horse, take a boat downriver for several days more, then go over the Fog Mountains and then cross another river—a vast river that reportedly made the Elmer look like a brook. How he would cross it he had no idea, but when he did he would have to then make his way through a jungle that stretched out for a thousand miles to reach Eden’s capital. Once he arrived in New Sodom, what then? How could he find this, “Anubis” without being detected? Was Anubis even still alive? This last question was problematic considering the bad shape that Doc Paron told Jesse that he had left him in. It was entirely possible that Anubis would not survive the trip home himself. If so, his entire journey would be for naught. That was a chance that he would just have to take.
    The bright spot of each day were visits by Abijah and Enoch. He hoped that Perez would come by and see him, but after