The Shasta Caper, Chapter Twenty-Three is now posted on ImagineNation.

Chapter Twenty-Three

They continued the drive for about a dozen more miles, climbing higher and higher along the winding, dirt road. Once they had to stop and get out, so Jimbo could get the truck up and out of a pothole almost large enough to swallow the whole truck, but with a little push and shove, they got it out. And the help of a large broken tree branch under each pair of rear wheels.

They rode on about another mile, still no one talking to each other, other than for directions, which Nanny almost seemed to have etched into her brain. She knew where every hidden branch of the road was.

"Firepaths." She called them.

"When the fires break out, we need alternate routes to get to the affected areas."

"Do you have many of them?" Samuel asked, intrigued by the complexity of the paths.

"Too many. Usually because some dumbass smoker flipped his cigarette into the dry brush, or one of those family picnics turns into a burnfest."

They were quiet again, until they reached an end of the last branch they took. It stopped before a wall of logs rolled across the road.

"Why's it blocked?" Jimbo asked, as they climbed out to look.

"Officially?"

"Yeah." Samuel answered, almost ready to put a hand on the logs.

"Bears and cats."

Samuel withdrew his hand.

"Unofficially then?" Jimbo asked, taking out his smoker as he called it, to check its chambers quickly for bullets, then safed it and flipped it back into its holster with a series of neat spins.

Nanny watched. "That' s neat. You a real cowboy?"

Samuel almost laughed at the look on Jimbo's face, but he didn't want to steal his thunder..

"Mostly rodeo." Jimbo answered.

Samuel snapped a look at him. Jimbo shrugged. "Gotta do something when we're down on cases."

Samuel nodded. Jimbo was a first class daredevil on top of being a great rancher, mechanic, gunshot and professional detective partner."

"Hopefully that won't be too often." Samuel laughed. "We need to build up a retirement fund."

"Only retirement either of us will ever get is six feet under, I suspect." Jimbo answered cheerfully.

Samuel's attention snapped to his right where Al was clapping his hands.

Jimbo looked that way. "Don't tell  me. They're applauding."

Samuel nodded.

"That's just....sick." Jimbo drawled, then went to the nearest log and peeked through. "I can see some kind of rocky path that heads further up the mountain, right to where the snow edges it."

"Then we better get our equipment." Samuel said.

He and Nanny threw everything out of the back of the truck and Jimbo caught the goods and set them down, including his big snack box.

"You're not really bringing that huge box up the mountain?" Nanny demanded.

Jimbo gave her a hurt look. "You can separate the snacks from a man, but not the man from his snacks."

"Then that's a no?" She replied.

"Yup!" Jimbo answered, and proceeded to make it so by shoving every single candy bar and snack cake he could carefully into his backpack, leaving only room for a single insulated blanket. He snapped the backpack shut, then filled its pockets with extra cartridges, and several hand grenades.

"Aren't those illegal?" Nanny asked.

"Nah." Jimbo replied. "Bought them from a local Marine who sells them from surplus."

"Isn't that illegal too?" She asked.

"Never asked him. The General was too busy giving them away when he wasn't selling them."

She looked over at Samuel, as if he would say it was a joke. He shook his head. "Another story. Legit. A case we helped the Marines with."

"A little flying disc with tiny gray men." Jimbo drawled really slow, savoring the sound of tiny gray men.

She laughed. "You two have got to be the biggest jokers this planet's ever seen, or its greatest  heroes."

"I'll take the latter." Jimbo drawled, then hefted his backpack onto his broad shoulders, cinched its straps under each arm and headed to the left. "I think we can get through this way."

Samuel locked up the truck and left a note saying they'd be back on the windshield.

"No one will ever see that." Nanny warned him.

Samuel grinned. "I think so."

He pressed his hand to the note and the letters on the note blazed white hot a moment. He wrenched the paper away and the letters were still blazing on the windshield. They didn't diminish.

"How'd you do that?"

" A little something I picked up from a friend in Chicago." Samuel said mysteriously, a quick glance from Jimbo making her realize he was already revealing more than he should.

"Ah. A friend in high places." She said.

"More like magic places." Jimbo added, then swept to their left and passed through two bushes, squeezing noisily out of view.

Samuel hefted his own backpack, and threw the last one to Nanny, who caught it and had it over her shoulders and strapped before Samuel could finish doing his.

"That's great." He said as she finished.

"Not really. I've had lots of practice." She followed Jimbo out of view.

Samuel looked back at the truck's windshield where the glowing note brightened the hood, then went through the break of shrubbery as well.

When he got on the other side he gasped. There was an antique wood burning trail parked on rusted rails that dead-ended next to the stack of logs.

Jimbo stood on top the old train engine, waving at Samuel. "This is great!" He yelled.

Samuel climbed across the last logs blocking his path and went to the train engine. Nanny was leaning against it, waiting for him. "Used to be a lot of logging at one time, as well as prospecting before the Rangers put a stop to it."

Samuel nodded, then looked at the beauty rusting there in front of him. He loved such marvels of engineering, even if he would never condone such machinery in this age of climate change. He put a hand on it, stroking its rusty fender. "It's beautiful!"

He walked along it, admiring its mechanics, until he spotted a kind of smudge on the steps climbing up into the engine itself, where a burner door was open for fuel. He jumped up and caught hold of the grip there, and hefted  himself inside. He eyed the floor before him. It was dark with soot, rust and something else. 

Ignoring caution and Al who appeared to warn him off, he stooped low and placed a hand on the smudge on the floor.

WHAM!

Screams. Flashes of light. Men running in terror, their mouths open to scream, but unable to. Others who were, ripping at their clothing, as if the clothing were attacking them, causing the skin on their chests to be clawed open. Bleeding and mortified, the old timers ran like rabbits for their lives from something they had seen. Something coming. Something large. Scary. Monstrous.

He turned to look in that direction, hefting his Winchester to sight along its barrel. That's when he saw it!

A graveyard with a leering piece of the architecture of an old church, but there was something wrong about it, something sinister and dark, foreboding and horrible. Something made its home there something that was rising slowly from the mists of the high snowy plateau and making its way towards him and the others who still dared to stand their ground.

Well, he was afraid of no ghosts, was he?

He aimed his rifle for the heart of the monstrous creature as it continued to climb from whatever hellhole had been made there, then fired.

WHAM!

The Shasta Caper, Chapter Twenty-Two is now posted on ImagineNation

Chapter Twenty-Two

Nanny and Jimbo met Samuel at the truck. Jimbo had a backpack slung over his right shoulder and a rifle on the other. 

"Rifle?" Samuel asked.

"Since when has anything we've done ever turned out exactly like we thought it would?"

Samuel winced. "How was I to know that that saucer would use machine guns to fire at us?"

Nanny gave them shocked looks. "You've fought a flying saucer?"

"Yes." Samuel and Jimbo said at the same time.

"Sort of." Jimbo added.

"Not really totally saucer shaped." Samuel added next.

Nanny threw her hands up in the air. "Nothing about you two surprises me anymore, why should this. Come on. Let's get rolling we got miles to get between us and this place before we can do any serious hiking."

Jimbo slung her backpack into the back and strapped it down. "Hiking. As in how much hiking? Did I bring enough snacks along?"

Samuel eyed the huge box squeezed behind the front seat loaded with food. "Maybe."

"Okay." Jimbo said, and hopped in next to Nanny who sat in the middle. He slung his rifle behind the seat, making sure it was safed, then turned back around. "How far now?"

"We haven't started yet." She told him.

"Wait until  we've been on the road awhile, you'll get used to it." Samuel sighed with resignation.

"Hey!" Jimbo growled.

Al and M sat on the hood of the vehicle and waved.

"The whole family's going, it looks like." Samuel said, waving back.

Nanny looked at him. "I thought I was going crazy when I saw them hanging around you and acting like they knew you."

Jimbo smirked. "Oh, you'll get used to it after awhile."

"Touche!" Samuel replied with a grin.

"You betcha bottom bippy it is." Jimbo grumbled, but not without a smile.

Samuel put the truck into gear and they shot off down the road to the main strip, then turned onto it. 

They shot past the Ranger quarters on both sides, then past the firestation and the police station.

"Police station?" Jimbo sqwaked. "Out here?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised what happens up here." Nanny explained.

"Don't tell me." Jimbo replied. "Let me live with my fantasies of a peaceful place on the mountain for awhile."

"Granted."

"Sammie, this is a woman after my heart."

"And your soul if you're not careful." Samuel added.

Nanny gave him a grin. "You read me so well."

Samuel smiled, then as they approached a sudden branch to the right, Nanny gestured and he swung the truck hard onto a dirt road. It began kind of smooth, with the occasional rough patch, but as the miles drifted past, and the dirt flying behind them, it began to get more rough and have deeper ruts and holes.

"We haven't upgraded this in a few weeks." Nanny explained.

"Weeks!" Jimbo exclaimed. "This is just a few weeks corrosion. Looks like years."

"Gets rough up here this time of year. Lots of flooding."

"Flooding." Jimbo shrieked. "I can't swim."

"Learn." She advised seriously.

He gave her a nervous glance, then looked to Samuel. "Been telling you that for years, Jimbo."

"Not my fault if I have the swimming abilities of a hundred ton boulder."

"You sure splash like one, right enough." Samuel answered flippantly.

"Easy for you to say, Mister Olympia."

Nanny looked at Samuel.

"I was Swimming champion in high school and college. Almost got into the Olympics, but then two people talked me out of it. He gestured to the front hood, where Al winked at him.

Nanny laughed. "He's funny. Wait! I recognize him. He's..."

"Yeah. And she's her too."

"But why are they hanging around you so much. They're dead."

Al made a face, sticking his tongue out at Nanny.

"Death is badly maligned, I'm afraid." Samuel said with a grin.

Al held a thumbs up.

"Oh, I get it, they're guardian angels."

"Not really. Not a chance in hell of them ever earning wings. Not angelic enough."

Al made another face and he and M, who blew Samuel a kiss, vanished.

"Where'd they go?" Nanny demanded.

"To the beyond the beyond." Samuel answered mysteriously.

"The what?"

Jimbo sighed. "Samuel, would you quit pulling her leg."

"Why so you can instead?"

"Point taken." Jimbo said, relapsing back into his thoughtful mode. All the forests sweeping by were taking him back to his childhood when he spent a lot of time with his father traveling through the woods to their favorite fishing hole. Back before.

He felt his eyes beginning to wet.

Without being asked, Samuel tossed him a kleenex box. Jimbo blew his nose. "Thanks."

Nanny laughed. "Like I said earlier. You two are like a married couple."

That got both Samuel and Jimbo to fall into a moody sulk.

Neither one spoke for the next three hours.

Finally, Nanny shoved her foot past Samuel's and slammed on the brakes. The truck slid to a halt almost running off the road, except for Samuel's swift recovery.

"What are the hell did you do that for?"

She gave Samuel a dark look, then Jimbo. "I can't go another mile with two babies. Either grow up, or get out."

"It's our truck." Jimbo pointed out.

Nanny didn't budge with her look.

Finally, both Samuel and Jimbo raised their hands. 

"Give." Samuel said.

"Sorry." Jimbo added. "Won't happen again."

Nanny gave them both quick hugs. "I like you both, but where we're going we can't be sulking or fighting with each other. Our lives depend on us all being right here and now, and ready to act."

"You make it sound like we're going into a war." Jimbo quipped.

"Maybe we are." Nanny said, without explaining, then she stepped on the gas, sending the truck spilling back onto the road again and weaving until Samuel regained control.

"Anyone ever tell you you're a bit pushy."

"Yes, my last boyfriend."

"What happened to him?" Jimbo asked.

"I shot him."

The Shasta Caper, Chapter Twenty One is now posted on ImagineNation.

Chapter Twenty-One

Samuel awakened to the sound of a buzzsaw. It was intermittent, but loud. Jimbo.

He turned over on his bed and saw his friend sprawled across his bed, his whole body akimbo, arms one direction, the legs another. He smiled. He and his friend went back a long time. Both had seen good times and plenty of not so good times and lots more of times that both wished they could forget, but probably never would. Such is the life of a detective and more so of one who is finely attuned to the Infinite as he was and Jimbo by default. 

Sometimes he wondered as he looked at the placid face of his friend, if his friend was more psychic than he realized, but Samuel knew better than to push that angle of investigation as his friend would flatly deny any collusion with such higher orders of things, saying it was all a bunch of hokey pokey and none of his business even if he could access it. But Samuel felt that his friend was hiding a lot about himself. He'd always been that way. 

He still remembered the time they were playing baseball and Jimbo had slid to home base after smacking a ball out of the ballpark and landing wrong, breaking his left leg. Rather than admit he was in pain or it was broken, he had stood up and jumped up and down, whooping his head off, not letting a little...or more likely, a lot of pain...get in the way of celebrating or taking away the spotlight on the winning team, which he had been on at the time.

Yes, he was a team player, a best friend and a humble person in a rambunctious kind of way. He smiled, then slipped into his slippers which he had tucked into his luggage and headed for the balcony. He liked the sunsets and sunrises, and Shasta had some of the best from what he'd seen so far. 

He slid open the French Windows, and tucking the belt of his  robe tighter about his waist, dropped into a lawn chair and leaned on the balcony to watch as the morning sun rose over the valley below, at first tinting the edges of the gigantic trees with gold and silver from the moisture of the morning which was reflecting and amplifying the light, until it's head poked slightly above the horizon, casting golden beams of light through the morning mist curling about the deck of their room and the parking lot below. 

In a matter of seconds the scene had become a fairyland of dancing spots of light, arrows of gold effulgence, silver darts of cascading light and rainbows of dancing slivers of reflections bouncing across the mist and treetops.

"Beautiful as the butt of a gorgeous woman." Jimbo said from behind.

Samuel almost jumped. It was the first time in a lot of times recently when he had been surprised by someone sneaking up on him. He was losing his touch, or else his sense of alarm wasn't kicking in because there was nothing to fear. Or else he was just getting oblivious to his surroundings when they weren't trying to attack, swallow, molest, deface, or destroy him.

"Yeah." He muttered back, barely moving from his elbow perch on the railing.

Jimbo sat next to him and stuck his gigantic feet across the railing until his hairy legs dropped over it at the bend of the knees. He scratched his hairy chest. He was only wearing his shorts. He usually slept naked, but since Samuel was with him and they were in a strange place, he was being more humble about his sleeping posture and attitudes.

"So now what?"

Samuel didn't answer. He was absorbed in the light of the dawning sun. As it rose, so did another. The Shasta Angel, only this time it was the opposite sex. Last night it had been a female, this morning it was a huge, handsome male with the body of a Hercules, holding a blazing sword in its fists, a smile spreading like the light of the sun across its gigantic face. 

It wasn't threatening anyone. The sword was symbolic of the power of God, the Light and its size was an illusion, just to signify that it took its job seriously and was expected to help all those within its shadow, which basically was all of Shasta, or at least all about the mountain.

Samuel suspected from past visions of such that this angel was dedicated specially to the mountain because of its mystical potentcy, and that other and perhaps lesser angels took care of the people living about the mountain, but not on it.

Finally, the sun had risen into full view, edging all the clouds in the sky, and there were plenty, with golden and burnt red edges. The Shasta Angel lowered his sword, then looked directly at Samuel. Samuel felt this huge pressure in his heart, as if the entire universe were trying to squeeze into it for a moment, then the angel vanished and the pressure.

Samuel sat back, rubbing his chest.

"Something wrong, Sammie?"

"No. Nothing at all." Samuel said.

"Now..." He said as he rose from the lawn chair. "We eat and then we find a guide to take us up the mountain."

"Why up?"

"Because the entrance wouldn't be easy to access or the Rangers would've found it by now."

"What entrance?"

"The one that we're seeking."

Samuel headed inside, trailed by Jimbo, who shut the French Windows and blinds, then began climbing into his usual jeans and cowboy shirt, quickly buttoning it up as Samuel slipped into his own more dressy pants, Air Jordans, gold and rust colored sweatshirt and baseball cap with the name Mickey Mouse on it.

In a few minutes they'd both performed their morning ablutions and were ready to exit, check out, then have breakfast.

"So who do we ask?" Jimbo asked as he shot a sizzling hot sausage down his throat, followed by half a glass of orange juice, then a huge slice of pancake oozing with maple syrup and butter.

Samuel winced at the sight, but smiled. "I'm thinking..." He paused, then gestured to the Park Ranger they had met last night. Nanny.

Jimbo's lips curled into a smile. "She turned me down."

"Yup." Samuel replied without comment.

Jimbo looked at him searchingly. "You knew?"

"A little birdie told me." Samuel replied, waving at Al who was walking beside Nanny as she approached their table.

Jimbo slid over for her, but she sat next to Samuel instead, but without touching him.

Jimbo gave her a slight hurt look, but said nothing.

Samuel thanked his friend inwardly for showing some decorum, then turned to look at her. "You'll be our guide?"

"Of course. It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

He said nothing.

"Look." She said. "I'm not stupid. You're oozing vibes all over the place." She looked at Jimbo. "Even your hairy Paul Bunyon here."

"Hey! Who you calling Paul Bunyon?"

She smiled, then tapped his right hand gently with a finger and withdrew it. He blushed, but said nothing more. She turned her attention back to Samuel.

"Another area of expertise I am familiar with is pyschic phoneomena. I have a Doctorate in it."

"Who would have figured." Jimbo blurted out a bit too quickly. "Sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

She laughed. "I know the pants and cap make me much more macho appearing than soft and sensitive."

"Not to me." Jimbo said with a kind voice.

Her turn to blush. She looked quickly away. 

"So, am I?" She asked.

"Sounds like an offer we can't refuse. Right, Jimbo?"

He nodded, afraid of blowing his cover with any more outbursts of conversation. Unusual for him, but appropriate at that moment.

Samuel was about to say more when something dark and humanoid rushed across the restaurant floor in front of their booth, then dove out the front door as it was opened by two entering Park Rangers. Neither one stopped, though both shook as if a sudden cool air had struck them.

Jimbo knew the look on Samuel's face. "You saw something?"

Nanny spoke up instead. "We saw something."

They both looked at her and she was trembling like a leaf. 

"It's the shadow of death. The Waka sends Sergeant Sambo, a Shasta Indian chief, who was over a hundred and ten years old when he died, to warn those about to cross over to the Wigwam in the sky."

"How do you know this?" Samuel asked.

"Because my mother was of the Shasta Tribe. She used to whisper late at night to me such stories to get me to agree to go to bed on time, so I wouldn't try to sneak in late  night TV as I usually did anyway until..."

"Until what..." Jimbo asked, suddenly anxious.

"Until he came into my room one night, his face all dark and sad."

"Waku?"

"No, silly. Sergeant Sambo. The Indian Chief. He's an agent of Waku...the Supreme Deity...the Great Spirit."

"What happened?" Samuel asked, already knowing the answer.

"My mother died. I woke up the next morning, after having stayed up until almost dawn to hear my father weeping horribly. I ran into the living room and he was holding my mother in his arms. "Waku. Waku. Waku." He said over and over.

She looked at Jimbo then, her eyes misting. "I blamed myself for her death. He had come for me, but because I stayed awake, he took her instead."

Jimbo put a hand over hers and shook his head. "Waku. God. Would never do such a thing."

She sniffled. Jimbo hurriedly pulled out a kleenex from his shirt pocket and handed it over.

She blew into it, then looked down into her hands.

"I see him regularly."

Samuel felt this coldness settle into his heart. "Why?"

"I don't know." She said, looking up. "People are dying. But I don't know where. One night, about two nights ago..."

Samuel and Jimbo exchanged looks.

"About two nights ago I felt myself rise out of my body during my sleep and appear in this strange cafe I'd never been to before. I saw two men there."

Her eyes widened. "They looked like both of you. That's why I introduced myself right away when I saw you."

"Holy Crap, Samuel." Jimbo uttered.

"Holy it's not." Samuel pointed out.

Nanny waved at the Waitress as she passed. "Abby, can you get me some strong coffee?"

"Double or triple, sweetie." Abbie asked back.

"Triple triple."

"That bad, huh?"

"Oh yeah!" Nanny replied. "That bad!"

The Shasta Caper, Chapter Twenty is now posted on ImagineNation.

Chapter Twenty

Samuel sat on the edge of his bed, looking out the window at the soft drift of snow that was falling as Jimbo came into the room, gently shutting the door behind him. He looked bushed. 

"Man, that woman is something else." Jimbo sighed, as he almost dropped like a rock onto his own bed.

"I bet." Samuel agreed, still looking outside.

Jimbo shrugged out of his warm jacket and heavy sweater, then grabbed his suitcase and unzipped it. He tore out a pair of thermal pajamas, then headed for thee bathroom. He shut the door and several moments later Samuel could hear the shower running.

Samuel felt a slight presence sit beside him and turned to see Al seated there.

"It's her, isn't it?" Samuel asked.

Al nodded, smiling brightly.

"But how come she acts as if she never met us before?"

Al arches an eyebrow. Samuel frowns, then gets it.

"Jimbo and I were seeing another incarnation of her."

Al nodded.

"But Jimbo never sees those things."

Al shrugged. "Things change."

Samuel brightened. "You mean he's opening up to the Light more."

Al shrugged again. "Perhaps."

Samuel laughed. "Quit playing Yoda with me. Is he or isn't he?"

Al vanished.

Outside a bright light shone into the room. 

Samuel stood up, bathed in the radiance. He moved slowly to the window and then his eye widened in awe. The Angel of Shasta Mountain was standing outside, holding a bright star clapsed between her hands, over her head. Her eyes were as bright as moons and focused on him.

Her gigantic wings, which were really huge whorls of beautiful, radiant energy, swirled behind her, giving them the feeling of motion or movement.

Samuel stood there bathing in the Light and feeling that somehow everything was going the way it should be.

"Samuel, can you throw me my robe, please?" Jimbo shouted from the bathroom door.

The Shasta Angel became a twisting whirl of energy and shot up into the sky, then vanished.

Samuel turned around, grabbed Jimbo's robe and tossed it. Jimbo caught it, then froze a moment as he noted Samuel's expression.

"You look like you just seen the devil."

Samuel laughed.