Read Online Shadow Knight's Mate by Jay Brandon - Free Book Online Page B

one arm cane. Arden had picked up the other but didn’t hand it to her. Jack spoke to the Chair’s back. “How do you know they didn’t succeed in replacing me?”
    Gladys turned, smiling, and patted his cheek. “If the day comes that I don’t know you, Jack, it
will
be time to retire. I only hope it’s me these schemers try to fool with a double.”
    Twilight had taken the mountains in the distance, turned them into grounded thunderheads. All three stared at the beautyof the darkening desert for a long few minutes. Just as they turned away, Gladys stiffened and said, “What was that?”
    â€œWhat was what?” Jack asked, but Arden had obviously seen or felt it too. She and her grandmother were staring at the western horizon. “It came and went too fast,” Arden whispered. “Like a flaw in the retina, a peripheral hallucination. But if you saw it too—”
    â€œI’m not sure saw is the right word. It was too fast.”
    Nothing more happened, at least not in that part of America. In a few minutes they got into Arden’s car, the Chair in the backseat. After they’d driven a mile, she leaned forward and put her hand on Jack’s shoulder. She had never been motherly toward him. Her touch startled him.
    â€œStay close for a while, would you, Jack?”
    Her voice was a strong combination of commanding, cajoling, and humbly requesting. There was no telling how many people it had swayed over the decades.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” he said.
    The rest of that evening was a very busy one across America. It started out tranquilly, most of the country enjoying pleasant fall weather. That’s why so many people were outdoors, taking walks, sitting on porches, camping out. The adventurous were the unluckiest ones.
    In a mobile home park outside Hot Springs, Arkansas, Len and Mabel Dawes had just tied down for the night. They were on their way south, slowly, from their home in Detroit. This was the first season of their retirement, Mabel from General Motors as an administrative assistant, Jack from the military and civil service. Their three retirements left them very comfortable at the ages of 66 and 68, respectively. They had children and grandchildren scattered around the country, and Detroit had seemed less and less like home the last few years. So they had sold the house, chucked the jobs, and become hobos, as Len put it. Mabel preferred “gypsies.” Hitting the road, they both felt younger by decades,starting over. They held hands half the way south.
    Their tie-down slot featured a tiny patch of green grass, where they sat on folding chairs with drinks in their hands. In a few minutes they might grill something, or decide to drive into town for dinner. They suddenly grinned at each other, realizing their freedom from schedules for the first time in their lives. They had been married forty-three years and felt like newlyweds.
    The sky was a strange mix of vibrant blue left over from the day, gray creeping in from the east, a few dark clouds, and one bright white one, something pasted onto the night sky from a painting by Magritte.
    â€œSouthern, I guess,” Len said.
    Mabel nodded, thinking how wonderful it was to see a brand new sky at her age. She was about to say something along those lines when something crossed beneath that bright white cloud. It moved too fast for the eye to follow. Before one could focus on it, it was some place else. Then it was gone entirely, leaving an unsettled feeling.
    â€œDid you see—?”
    Len nodded.
    â€œWhat kind of plane was that, honey?”
    â€œI couldn’t tell.” Which was saying a lot for Len Dawes, who had flown every kind of military aircraft and several civilian ones, and kept up with the industry.
    â€œYou think there’s some kind of experimental base near here?”
    â€œI guess they wouldn’t tell us about it if there were.” Len pointed his chin at