Checkout Time

From the book Landfall and Other Stories

Copyright 2008 by Joshua Busch

Lemond woke and he knew he was making them late. The light was all wrong; he had slept in later than he thought, but how much control do you really have to wake yourself up?

"Get up, little brother, it's almost check out time for Sir Marlbrant," says Razzel, who looks to Lemond like he has been up for an hour at least. He looks fresh and clean, which is no surprise, because Razzel's fiancé will be there at the inn. So will Sir Marlbrant, muses Lemond.

"I'm awake; I'm awake," he blinks his eyes like an owl and asks, "What is for breakfast?"

Razzel glares at him, "You say that like there's going to be something different for breakfast unlike the thousands of other breakfasts that we've had that were all the same. Oats and be glad for them."

Lemond says, "I'm not hungry."

Razzel says, "You better eat; you never know how much of a fight Sir Marlbrant is going to give."

Lemond relents, "Fine," and gets out of bed, crosses the cabin over to the kitchen, and rummages for the all too familiar oats that he mixes with water.

Razzel joins his brother at the table as Lemond eats. Lemond thinks Razzel looks dreamily lost in thought.

Lemond asks, "Who are you thinking about? Katria?"

Razzel makes a tisk noise and says, "What's it to you? And for all you know I could be thinking of how we're going to get Sir Marlbrant to check out."

Lemond says, "But I know better. You're probably thinking of what you're going to say to Katria. Something about how she looks today. I know you think about that stuff. I caught you once talking into the mirror, practicing, when you thought I was asleep."

Razzel, nonplussed, says, "When you were in bed? That could have been anytime, because you're always sleeping. You sleep more than a bear in winter."

Lemond mocks, "Oh Katria how your skin shines like alabaster on this fine morning with the sun all a-glow-"

Razzel punches Lemond on the arm, knocking the spoon out of Lemond's hand.

Lemond says, "Hey, just because you're bigger doesn't give you the right to be a bully."

Razzel says, "Doesn't it?" but he doesn't mean it. There are too few people in their lives for them to terrorize the other unduly.

Lemond finishes getting ready while his brother waits impatiently.

The two brothers leave their one room cabin and their farm. On the way out the chickens dart this way and that, cows moo, and the sheep contentedly eat the grass. Lemond closes the gate behind him and they walk the thin dirt path to the wide county road that all travelers going through the region walk or ride through. The land is slightly hilly with an even mix of open spaces and stands of trees that float like islands in the sea.

Even though it is early Lemond feels sweat form on him brow and his skin starts to feel clammy against his clothes. It is the middle of summer. They walk the county road for an hour before they arrive at the inn, which is alongside the county road with trees all around it.

Lemond squints and says, "Something’s not right here."

Razzel stiffens and says, "All those horses. And look at the way they are laden with all those satchels. What normal traveler would need to carry so much?"

Lemond sighs and says, "Thieves."

Razzel says, "Outlaws," and Lemond feels a tinge of fear, because in a time of war outlaws go unchecked and do things they wouldn’t dare to do in times of peace. Lemond and Razzel’s father is off in the war. The lord of the land called his vassals who had to follow. The common men went too, not that they were required to, but the promise of the spoils of war are often too great to pass up, and it didn’t help that last year’s crops had been bad ones and Lemond and Razzel’s father was desperate for gold, and the money they would have gotten for the fall harvest wouldn’t come in time to hold them over, so he had gone with the others to war.

Lemond says, "Six horses."

Razzel whispers, "Katria."

Lemond says, "Good thing Sir Marlbrant hasn’t checked out," and both laugh at the thought of the large older knight, but their laughter doesn’t really cut the tension that they both feel. Lemond, even though he’s only twelve, knows that they are about to most likely be faced with an impossible situation. Razzel is older, but he’s only sixteen, and they are only two, and there are six outlaws in the inn who are up to no good, but the brothers can’t just walk away, because Razzel’s fiancé is probably being roughly handled.

Lemond asks, "Do you have a plan?"

Razzel answers, "Let’s be squirrels."

Lemond says, "You mean draw them out of the inn and have them chase us."

Razzel says, "Do you see another way?"

Lemond says, "No, but they need to see us though. Both of us."

Razzel glares down at his little brother.

Lemond answers the glare by saying, "I’ll be in danger either way, so who cares if they see me or not."

Razzel blows out the breath that he was holding and says, "Are you going to use it?"

Lemond measures up his older brother and says, "I suppose this is why I have it: for times like these."

Razzel grunts and walks towards the inn; Lemond trails after him, but Lemond thinks they are close enough and he bellows out loudly with a screech, "A woo uh ugh. A woooo uhhh ugh."

Razzel spins on him and barks, "Too soon," but he turns back as the inn door slams open. Two men amble out, looking annoyed and bothered, longing to be anywhere but outside in the open where there isn’t food, drink, and a chair.

The two men see the boys. The men stop and gawk at them. Razzel draws out a sword and Lemond pulls out a dagger. They both hold their weapons up for the outlaws to see. One of the outlaws, turns, and yells back into the inn, "We have some locals out here."

Two more men go outside and they form a line. The men start walking towards the boys.

Razzel says, "I think it’s time we were going now."

Lemond, feeling bold and wanting them to follow, yells, "Catch us if you can," and the two brothers run into the trees. The four men give chase. The men all have swords and assorted pieces of armor that they must have stolen off of better men. Lemond tries to think like a squirrel. What would a squirrel do? Run, leap, climb, hide, run, but keep moving, quicker than any larger animal.

Razzel abruptly comes to a stop, picks up some rocks, Lemond does the same, and they resume running again. They stop and throw rocks as far to their left as they possibly can. They have a lead on the men and Lemond hopes that the men split up to investigate the noise that the landing rocks are making.

Lemond says, "Let’s climb."

Razzel grunts for an answer and they begin to climb a huge, sprawling, and branch filled tree. They are half way up when Lemond hears a succession of snapping twigs, and Lemond looks down to see two men. Internally, Lemond rejoices; the men split up.

Razzel whispers, "Do it."

Lemond nods and one of the men says, "There they are up there, like two song birds." The men approach the tree and both wear menacing grins.

Razzel says at a normal speaking voice, and with urgency, "Do it."

Lemond tries to relax the best he can as he straddles a massive tree limb. He concentrates and one of the men slowly rises up off the ground as if he were on the end of invisible strings, pulling him upwards. The man howls some unintelligible string of words in protest. The other man stops to watch, slack jawed.

The man in the air is brought up higher and higher until he is level with Lemond and Razzel, the man looks at them beseechingly, but the man continues to keep rising up and up. It’s not like the men would give mercy to the boys if they looked at the outlaws the way this man is with his wide imploring eyes that are full of fear and dread.

It has been a long time since Lemond has used his gift around other people. He had only showed it to one other person in the last seven years and that was six months ago. The hunters, or poachers, as some called the rag tag band of dirty nomads, had been passing through on the county road. They typically stay a week until the natives tire of the hunters squatting on their lands.

There had been an eleven year old girl who took a liking to Lemond and Lemond to her. Lemond had taken her on walks through the woods to show her the secrets of the land, but when he ran out of mysteries to show her he showed her his gift.

At first he lifted rocks to her amazement and then he lifted a rabbit into the air, and then the girl had asked Lemond to lift her. He had never lifted another person before, but he knew it wouldn’t be any different than lifting anything else that he had easily lifted with his concentrated mind.

The girl rose up with delight and screamed, "I’m flying; I’m flying. Make me move," and Lemond had moved her through the air, and the girl kept saying, "I’m flying; I’m flying," until she grew tired of it and Lemond set her down. The girl had kissed him on the cheek for the flight and she had held his hand as they walked back to where her people were camped. Her hand was dirty like she was, and like all the hunters were, but Lemond hadn’t cared, because he had never held a girl’s hand before. The next day the hunters had left.

Now the outlaw is ten feet above Razzel and Lemond. The boys are fifteen feet up in the air. Razzel hisses, "That’s high enough," and Lemond hesitates and the man floats stationary in the air. Lemond doesn’t want to do what he knows he has to do, but the outlaw wouldn’t show him any mercy if the position were reversed, so Lemond does it. Lemond stops concentrating and the man drops speedily drops down the twenty-five feet to the ground.

The man howls in pain upon impact and says, "My leg, my leg, it’s broken. My leg," he says piteously.

Even from up here Lemond can see the other outlaw’s eyes are bulging from what just happened in a matter of thirty seconds. The outlaw turns away and runs.

Razzel hisses at Lemond, "Quick, use your gift again. Those screams are going to bring the other two down upon us any minutes now, and I would rather face two instead of three."

Lemond looks at the man moaning on the ground, pushes down the pity he feels for the man, and Lemond looks at the outlaw running away. Lemond concentrates and the man is kicking his legs in the air as if he could run on the wind.

This comical flailing in the air reminds Lemond of being by the lake. No one else was around. He swam under the surface of the water, looking for fish. Lemond had seen a fish and he made it fly out of the water and up into the air. He had stood up and tried to grab hold of the wet and slippery fish. The fish had wriggled in his hands in its protest, but Lemond was able to drag the fish onto the shore.

The fish hadn’t belonged in the air and neither does this man. The outlaw kicks his feet and whips his arms; he is trying to hold onto a branch but he can’t get a grip. The man is going higher and higher; he has to know what is about to happen, and then it does. He plummets to the ground, but he doesn’t scream or move.

Razzel says, "Let’s get down from here before the other two get here."

And so the two scramble down the tree. Lemond keeps looking back and forth between the two men on the forest floor. One isn’t moving and the other is moaning. When Lemond went to bed last night he thought it would be a simple matter to force Sir Marlbrant to check out of the inn; he never could have imagined that he would have to hurt men in order to prevent them from harming him.

Lemond is down from the tree and he walks over to the man who isn’t moving. Lemond bends down and checks for a pulse and he finds one. Razzel yanks him away by pulling roughly on his sleeve.

"We have to get out of here. They are going to be here any minute," rasps Razzel.

Lemond comes to his senses, realizes their dire predicament, and he starts to follow his brother who is running.

Now running, Lemond hears something from behind, "There they are," and Lemond pumps his legs faster with fear giving him a rush of adrenaline.

Razzel stops at the head of a long and wide stand of thorn bushes. He smiles and slowly enters through the valley of thorns. Lemond follows and is repeatedly stuck by the thorns and he does his best to ignore the sharp pricks pulling on his clothes and on his exposed skin: his face, his arms, his neck, and his hands.

Razzel says, "Here they are. Get behind me and use your gift on one of them. Quick."

Lemond moves behind his older brother. The men are at the beginning of the thorn bushes. Lemond forces himself to relax. One breath and another and now he is centered. One of the outlaws rises up into the air.

He yells, "What the? How’s this happening?"

The other man doesn’t move towards the brothers; he stands, open mouthed, watching his compatriot go up and up in the air. Eventually the man comes to the point where Lemond had dropped the other two, but his conscious is weighing him down, and he decides not to drop this one. Instead, Lemond deposits the man on the tops of a tall tree; the limbs rock back and forth, barely able to hold the man’s weight; and the man doesn’t dare to move.

The other man is holding his sword up and he elbows his way through the thorns, coming at the brothers. There isn’t time for Lemond to calm himself and use his gift on the advancing outlaw. Razzel’s sword and the man’s sword clang, metal on metal, as they slash at one another. The man is stronger, but Razzel is younger and quicker, and Razzel gets behind the man.

The outlaw roars in frustration and Razzel cuts a stroke down at the man’s ankles. The man goes to turn towards Razzel, and in doing so, falls to the ground, grasping his left ankle.

Lemond goes past the prone man with a quizzical look on his face.

Razzel says, "The Achilles tendon. He won’t be able to walk on it."

Lemond nods his head and looks up at the other outlaw at the top of the tree who isn’t moving but darts his head left and right, looking for safe way down, but Lemond knows the man won’t be able to find one, because if he dares move then the thin branches will give way and send him on his way down to the ground.

Lemond is numb from all of this. Acts like these are not supposed to be experienced by twelve year olds. Sure this world is a rough one, but he’s not even a teenager and he’s facing horrors that some never have to face.

Razzel says, "Come on. Katria is with the other two. We have to get to her."

They run back towards the inn and on the way Lemond asks, "Why didn’t the other two come with these four?"

Razzel shrugs the best he can while running, but Lemond has a feeling that he knows why. These two men are the masters of the rest and that must mean that they are the powerful members of the group who lead the weaker ones that they just faced.

Lemond can’t believe that this is happening. The part that he can’t believe is that Razzel really asked him to use his gift. Razzel of all people? Their mother had had the same gift, but she loathed it, and rarely used it. She saw that Lemond had it and she repeatedly warned him not to use it.

"Don’t use it, honey, it is a thing of evil," she would say and he could barely understand how something so fun to use could be evil. So Lemond tried his best to keep his practices with his gift secret, but his mother would catch him and berate him.

Then their mother had died and afterwards when Razzel caught his little brother using his gift; Razzel would pick a fight with Lemond and never won. Lemond got the message and dared not use his gift anywhere near his older brother, and now, today, Razzel asked him to use his gift.

Lemond can see the inn and there is a man out front, sitting on a rocking chair. He sees them but doesn’t get up. Razzel and Lemond get closer and closer and the man leisurely stands up and leans against the wooden building.

The outlaw pulls out his sword and says, "Well, I don’t know how you two boys were able to outsmart my companions, but this is where your success story comes to an end I’m afraid."

Lemond watches the man swing his sword in easy and graceful loops and Lemond knows that this man is deadly good with a sword and that Razzel has no chance against this warrior. Lemond relaxes, concentrates, and hurtles the rocking chair at the man’s head. The sound of breaking wood fills the air and the outlaw falls to the ground unconscious and bloody.

Razzel, smiling, says, "One more to go."

Lemond says, "The leader."

Razzel says, "With you and your gift we could take on an army."

Again Lemond is amazed at Razzel’s acknowledgement of his gift. His brother hadn’t done so since before their mother died, and it all came rushing back to Lemond. Seven years ago Lemond hadn’t locked the fence and a cow had gotten out. Their mother had gone out, in the rain, to fetch the cow. She had come back drenched from the cold rain; she had come down with pneumonia and she died.

Razzel had blamed Lemond for her death. Countless times he had said, "If you had closed that gate, then she would still be alive. It’s your fault she’s dead."

And that isn’t something that anyone wants to hear or bare, but as time went on Razzel said that less and less until he stopped saying it. Before their mother’s death Razzel used to enjoy seeing what Lemond could do with his gift, but then their mother had died and Razzel took up his mother’s mantle and tried to prevent Lemond from using his gift.

One evening, crying, Razzel had told Lemond, "Don’t you know why I don’t want you to use your gift? She had the same gift and every time I see you use it I am reminded of her and how she’s not with us, and how you are the reason she’s dead, but I also see that she is more in you than she is in me, like I am some unworthy piece of her that she didn’t care enough about to give her gift to. What I see in you is what I see lacking in myself," and he trailed off.

But all that is behind them and they are here now, about to face some outlaw chieftain. Lemond fears for what he will see when they enter through the inn’s door. Will Katria be safe? Katria is sixteen, four years older than Lemond, and she had always been like a big sister to him.

Razzel, with sword drawn, opens the door. For show Lemond has his dagger, but he is well aware what his real weapon is.

The boys enter the inn and the scene is grizzly. Lemond sees the same open space, which he’s seen a thousand times, which has a couple rows of long tables with thick chairs up against them, the fireplace, and the bar. The goings on of today are not the norm. Sir Marlbrant is tied up to a chair; his head is sloped down and resting on his chest. Katria is visibly uncomfortable sitting on the lap of a thin man who seems to be enjoying Katria’s discomfort. He sees Razzel and Lemond and the man’s amusement fades away.

The outlaw chieftain says softly, "Up now," and Katria vaults off of the man and goes behind him, and against the far wall.

The thin man stands and says, "Well, well, what do we have here? Two local boys pretending to be men; and if you stand here then you must have found a way to dispatch all of my men. Impressive I must say. With such skill as you boys have it’s too bad that you didn’t go with the men to the war."

Every time the man says, "boys," Lemond loathes the man more and more, because when he says, "boys," the man says it so scornfully, like he is talking to beetles or some ants.

The outlaw chieftain continues, "And you can imagine that I find myself to be a little curious as to how you did it. No don’t tell me. Let me guess. One of you has the gift. I can’t fathom what kind of gift you might have, but it’s one strong enough that it can fell five men who are by far your betters."

Razzel hisses, "Men who rob, burn, and kill aren’t our betters."

The outlaw laughs, "I see my reputation precedes me. Ah, but I see you two are anxious to rid this inn of the likes of me. However, you should know, and I’m not even sure why I’m giving you this little warning, but I too have the gift."

At that Lemond’s eyes bulge. There are all kinds of gifts in this wide world he knows, and the longer you live, the more practice, and the better a person becomes with anything they do, including fine tuning their gift. Lemond knows that he has gained more and more control over his gift as he gotten older. Lemond is more apprehensive about this confrontation than any of the others he just had with the other outlaws.

The outlaw chuckles, "Little one, you just gave yourself away. It’s you with the gift," and the next thing Lemond knows is that his head feels like it has just exploded. He’s had headaches before but nothing like this. The only thing that he can do is fall to his knees and clutch his head.

Lemond hears Razzel say, "What have you done?"

The pain is so strong that Lemond closes his eyes and he moans. Lemond forgets about everything else and everyone else and tries to block out the pain or make it go away, but it isn’t like stepping on a nail, because he can’t simply yank out the source of his agony. Time doesn’t exist, just the ceaseless throbbing.

Then eyes open; the pain is gone; Razzel is sword fighting with the outlaw chieftain. Lemond realizes the reason his agony is gone is because the outlaw can’t use his gift while he is distracted with fighting his brother.

Katria screams, "Razzel," in alarm as the outlaw slashes Razzels’ left arm. Almost instantly Lemond sees blood on Razzel’s shirt sleeve.

Lemond also sees that Razzel is no match for this outlaw and that Razzel is going to get more hurt or worse, if he doesn’t do something about it.

Lemond remains on his knees. He concentrates deeply and focuses the best that he can. The outlaw rises up off of the ground and he is launched at the ceiling. It happens so quickly that it seems to happen in the blink of an eye. One second the outlaw was on ground sword fighting and the next second he is thrown against the ceiling where his head is bashed hard against the unyielding wood. The outlaw falls to the ground limply, unconscious, and no longer a threat.

Lemond gets up and he sees that Razzel and Katria hugging one another. It’s over. They did it. All six of the outlaws can’t hurt any of them anymore. Lemond feels numb and he feels like crying, but he won’t let himself do that.

Lemond has a deep desperate wish that his mother were still alive, so he could ask her about the gift and how he is supposed to live with it. But she would probably only say, "Don’t use it," but what a huge waste that would be. No, he won’t be like her and run from her gift; he will find a way to make use of his gift, and no one is going to stop him from using his gift, not his brother and not the ghost of his mother in his head. Not anymore.

Razzel who is there, helping his brother stand up, says, "Lemond, we did it. You did it."

Katria is there too, puzzled, she looks at Lemond quizzically, and she asks, "You did that? How did you do that?"


Lemond says, "You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."