Traveler

(This story left me in doubt over which category to place it under. There is no sex in this story, you will understand why when you read it. I hope you enjoy the read, I did the best with the idea that stuck in my head and wouldn't let go.)

My very special thanks go to LSEiland for her editing.

I had been chasing this ghost for over two years now. It all started as a conversation with a boat builder friend of mine. He mentioned a story I may be interested in for the paper. The trouble was, every time I tried to get confirmation on anything, sources either denied the alleged facts or up and disappeared.

This guy was only known by the name of the Traveler. Anything else about him became a mass of contradictions. The Traveler was middle aged; he was a hundred years old; he only used the waterways to get around, yet had been seen in two states a hundred miles apart at the same time. This man was wanted for murder in Kentucky, yet no such crime was on record. The Police had nothing on him, but every water ways authority official I talked to said that Traveler had passed through here a couple of days ago.

My boat builder friend had asked around for me and was met with silence from many or told to leave the Traveler be. Yet to me, this Traveler had become an enigma I just couldn't put down. I had invested over a thousand miles, and two years of my life, on this story. Even my editor had told me to walk away, calling it a dead end. Label it professional pride, but I just couldn't give this story up.

I had just got a call from a contact I had cultivated over in Missouri. My lead said that some woman had come to him and asked about me, and if I was still snooping around. He said she had some information, but would only talk to me face to face. For nearly a month, steady negotiations had taken place via my contact, and finally lead to me sitting in the corner booth of a diner.

She was already a half hour late. I was just about to chalk this down to another dead end when my corner of the diner got dark. I looked up at a woman staring down at me. Her smile put me at ease. She put out her hand, and her smile just got bigger.

"I guess you're the reporter looking for information about Traveler?"

Standing and holding her hand got me a real good look at her. Eye contact seemed to be important to her since she never took her eyes off me. She stood about 5-foot-6-inches tall; a brunette with deep brown eyes that made you never want to look away.

"If I ask you to walk away from this story, would you? Even if I said 'please walk away from this story,' would you?"

I contemplated what to say for a moment and I realized that I was torn over this whole thing. But, two years of my life had been spent on a half-baked story; whispers and denials of a man who either didn't exist, or is a hundred years old. The woman watched as I slowly shook my head.

Her smile faltered for a moment. She then shrugged her shoulders and sat down across from me, picking up the menu as she did.

"Well if you want this story, it's going to cost you lunch since I've not had any breakfast."

I laughed and mentioned that for a story to cost me so little was a welcome relief. She just looked at me and winked before her attention was once again on the menu. The waitress came up and the woman told her what she wanted, and that she was to put it on my bill. The waitress looked at me for confirmation and I nodded before she wrote it down and left.

"So, Mr. Robert Douglas of Illinois, what do you want?"

Felling that I may actually be getting somewhere with this story, I pulled out my notepad and also placed a small tape machine on the table. I asked if it was okay to use this since I couldn't even read my own handwriting at times.

She laughed, and I listened. Damn what a sweet laugh she had. This woman watched as I spent a few moments setting things up.

"I would have thought you had everything ready."

My first thought was to say nothing, but then I stopped what I was doing and once again looked at her.

"With the time it's taken to get you here via our mutual friend, I wasn't even sure until you stood in front of me that you would actually turn up."

"Which, of course, brings us back to my original question, Mr. Robert Douglas."

Her eyes got hard; she placed her arms on the table and leaned on them. She waited, almost taunting me to answer her question and daring me to listen to the answer.

"Do you mind if I ask you your name first?"

Again she shrugged her shoulders.

Her answer was one word, and that one word left me wondering who she really was.

"Traveler."

The pause in our conversation was made even longer because her food came and she set about it like she hadn't eaten in weeks. She must also have seen the frustration as I packed away my notebook and pens.

"Now cool your heels, Mr. Robert Douglas of Illinois. For two years you have stuck your nose into my business, and now it's my turn to find out why?"

At first I wasn't going to answer her; two fucking years of my life. Countless hours of research and dead end leads led me to this... This street urchin. My editor was right; it was time to get back to the real stories out there.

As I made to get up, something very sharp buried itself into the zipper of my pants and rested against my cock. It was cold and very sharp and the urge to move was quickly cancelled out by the need to keep all my bodily parts attached to my body. Her eyes had changed. Although the smile still graced her lips, her eyes burned. There was no longer any life within them.

"There are a couple of things you may need to learn in a hurry. Don't stick me with the bill for my lunch, and when I tell you to cool your heels, I would advise you to do just that."

"You realize this is assault?"

The smile just got bigger. Some life seemed to return to her eyes, but not much. It was almost as if she was enjoying her own private joke.

"Nope, this is called getting your attention. Assault is leaving you dead out back by the dumpster."

My comfort level rose when I pulled my notebook back out of my bag. Her knife left my pants, leaving all of my body parts intact. She watched as I put the word 'Traveler' at the top of the page, and smiled as she went back to eating.

"If it helps, my real name is Cassie. The day my daddy died, the name Traveler was passed onto me. I haven't heard anyone call me by my real name in almost eight years now."

In that one sentence, I understood just a little more. No wonder Traveler could be in two places at one time. When I asked my sources about Traveler, they all thought I was talking about this girl. Gender was just assumed. We talked some more, but only in generalities as the contents of her plate rapidly decreased.

My gut instinct told me to hang in there, yet the woman across from me gave me no impression that spending two years looking for a ghost was going to be worth it. My frustration grew as it became evident that she was giving me nothing that could justify those two years of investment in this supposed story were ever going to be worth spit.

"Two years of fucking research gone down the drain."

By now she had finished her lunch, and the waitress was pouring a refill of coffee into her cup when both of them heard my words. I looked up and apologized, placing my pen once again onto my pad and scoring a line right across the page.

This time, I stood and caught both of them unexpectedly as I asked the waitress for the bill; even following her to the till so I could leave with just a little dignity and all my body parts intact. Two years of chasing a story that had so many dead ends, and now I understood why.

Traveler wasn't one person, it was a family. Two fucking years of my life and now I knew. I wasn't chasing ghosts, I was chasing myths. Folk stories that had gotten handed down through the generations and changed just a little to suit the times, and the teller. My editor was going to give me a ration of shit for this when I told him. I'm sure the words 'I told you so' would get dropped into the conversation somewhere.

*******

A year later, I got a call from my boat builder friend. Although he wouldn't talk much on the phone, he did extract a promise for me to pop by later that day. Even when I pulled up outside his office and noticed him leaning against the door, it was plain to see he had a look like someone had just shot his dog.

"Coffee?"

"Sure, although something tells me I may need something stronger later; so, why the secrecy?"

He waited until I had my coffee in my hand before he went round to his desk and pulled a bottle of Jack out of the drawer. He then placed a newspaper next to it, folding a page he obviously wanted me to read.

"Look Bobby, I felt like shit when you came back from that meeting with Traveler and told me it was a dead end. I know how much time you put into that story... The thing is."

Even as he slid the newspaper along his desk, I was undecided if I wanted to read it. Both of us knew I would, but I was determined to hang it out until I had, at least, finished my coffee. After all, a man has his principles. My friend just sat and watched me, saying nothing. Sadly there is one thing about being a reporter; curiosity.

A word that means so much and can get you into a heck of a lot of trouble all at the same time. It seems a young lady named Cassie Marshal had gotten into a bar fight. The odds were tilted against her since it took three men to put her in hospital. One of the men was in the same hospital, and the other two were now in jail awaiting trial.

I couldn't help myself; I smiled. My humor at the situation was short lived. As I went to hand my friend back his paper, I noticed a story that the paper had obviously decided was unrelated. That same night, a boat caught fire and was totally destroyed on the waterway.

Thanking my friend, and leaving, I made a few phone calls. My friend on the waterways authority gave me the name of the boat that was destroyed and told me that the fire department said it looked like arson. My next stop was the hospital, an hour's drive away. I hoped that Cassie would see me when I got there.

*******

"Well, well, Mr. Robert Douglas of Illinois... To what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

For the first time, I was at a loss as to what to call her. The Traveler story still wrangled with me.

"It's good to see you're still breathing Cassie."

My answer seemed to peak her interest.

"And you give a shit, because?"

This time, I smiled. Even though I walked away from the Traveler story, it never really walked away from me. My contacts at the waterways authority still kept calling with bits of information. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was a non-story, thinking or hoping perhaps one day it would be.

Now, perhaps, I was looking at the story. As I made myself comfortable on a seat next to her bed, I pulled out my notebook, even adding to the drama by making it look like I was re-reading my notes.

"Let me see; bar fight. You do have several witnesses detailing that you didn't start the fight. All of the witnesses say you gave a good account of yourself since each of these guys had a good fifty to eighty pounds on you."

This time I looked into her eyes.

"Not to mention the fact that each of these guys were armed with chains, boathooks and knives."

Silence. Oh, she smiled, kept her eyes on me and tried to take a peek at my notebook but other than that, she just sat there. So I turned over the page and started again.

"The Paramedic told me he had to plug three stab wounds before he could do much else with you. Two busted ribs on your left side and three bruised ribs on you right side. Want me to go on?"

Again, she smiled.

"Hell, why not; you're telling me more than this dump-of-a-hospital has been telling me, so go for it."

I knew the rest by heart, so I put my notebook away. The Police got there first to find one of the assailants badly needing hospital treatment, one unconscious, and Cassie still in a fight with the last of them. They brought the assailant down with a taser and Cassie promptly collapsed on the floor.

By this time, more police and an ambulance had arrived. One stab wound in the leg just nicking her thigh muscle, one to her left side tearing at muscle and bone on the way in and out, and one aimed at her heart. The knife guy didn't get enough pressure on the blade for that one, but he was right on target.

Even when I interviewed the paramedic that treated Cassie this morning, he was reluctant to say much. A coffee or two loosened him up a little, and telling him I knew Cassie helped. I was glad he didn't ask how well I knew her.

"She had lost so much blood, sir. I plugged the knife holes in her and got as much fluids into her as I could, but I felt like I was going through the motions with this one. Those three guys did a real number on her. The bruises around the ribs had already started to form. I patched her up as best I could and got her to the hospital real quick."

The only time he smiled was when he said that when a police sergeant came in, he told one of the cars to act as an escort for the ambulance. When I said to the paramedic that a witness stated that one of the assailants had kicked Cassie between the legs, he flinched.

After a moment, he nodded his head and told me that when he cut her pants off to get to the leg wound, the discoloration to the skin around her underwear gave him that impression. But since there was no sign of blood from that area, he didn't want to cut her underwear off while the police and so many people were still walking around.

He left that wound for the hospital to deal with. The one other wound on her was a nasty gash on her right palm. It seems 'knife man' was the busiest of the three. I could tell that this one incident had left an impression on him, more so that Cassie had actually survived than anything.

I still got no indication that Cassie was going to tell me anything, so I continued.

"As you can imagine, since you're in hospital, your records are still confidential. So I haven't checked that paperwork out."

Cassie laughed. The wince was a clear sign that she wished she hadn't.

"Oh, I can fill you in on that one. Ten minutes in surgery and a slap on the wrist to tell me not to go into bars on my own in the future."

Cassie said it with as much conviction as she could muster. She seemed to forget I was a reporter. She also lied. An hour in this hospital got me talking to one of the surgical nurses that attended to Cassie. They were in surgery for four hours, dealing with three knife wounds, internal injuries to both her leg and chest area, and bleeding.

The nurse counted six pints of blood going into Cassie on the table. That's not including what they stuck into her while she was still on the critical list. When I mentioned the man kicking her between the legs, the nurse came close to tears.

"She was a mess down there. When we cut her panties off, the surgeon had to take a step back and compose himself again. It was clearly done with a boot on. The seams of her jeans were still visible along her labia area; such was the force of the blow."

Cassie still gave me nothing, so we sat and chatted about her boat; although she made light of that conversation as well.

"I remember once when I was still doing some schooling, I read about those Vikings. When their chief dies, they send him away on his boat and shoot burning arrows into it. I guess those three got there timing wrong. Perhaps I was supposed to be on my boat when it went up in flames."

The nurse came and told me that visiting hours were over. Cassie and I watched each other for a moment. I'm not sure if either of us had anything left to say. I stopped at the nurse's station for a moment so I could get some background information. It was clear to see that Cassie was in an observation room. The picture on the screen showed Cassie with her hands to her face, sobbing her heart out.

*******

I got a call from reception that some detective wanted to talk to me. They sent him up and he introduced himself, telling me that he was investigating the bar fight. He mentioned that in the ten days that Cassie had been in hospital, I had been her only visitor. Then he asked me of my involvement in the case.

There was no reason to go all secretive on him, so I told him everything; from my friend finding out about Traveler, right up to my visit with Cassie at the hospital. What few notes I had, he read in the file I handed him.

"Some of this goes back two years. Why were you on this so long, and yet have so little in this file."

"Two things, detective; at the time, Traveler was an enigma I couldn't put down. All that time, it just felt like I was chasing a ghost. Second, the water people are a secretive bunch, as I'm sure you have found with your own investigation. Hell, you have to be two-generations-born around the waterways before you're even deemed a local."

"Information was slow - and got slower- until Cassie came to me and asked me to walk away from any story regarding Traveler. Once I realized the truth behind Traveler, I did walk away until I read about Cassie in the newspaper."

Whatever I said must have struck a chord with the detective, because he nodded his head before handing me back my file. I walked him back to reception as we talked about Cassie.

"The hospital wants to release her, but she still needs to convalesce. She refuses to give any names of friends we can contact, and her boat is nothing but scrap now. We need her out of the area for a while, until things cool down. The three men at the bar were brothers. People in the area are starting to take sides."

"But they started the fight. Every witness I talked to said the same thing."

"You don't understand the ways of the water people, Mr. Douglas. Traveler bested three men in a bar fight. Freight companies who want their materials moved remember that, and when she has another boat under her, she's set for life. Or, as long as she has a life."

We shook, and he left. I called my friend on the waterways authority and he flat out refused to talk to me. The detective was right, people were taking sides now. On a hunch, I talked to my editor. The fact that the police had just been here leant weight to my idea, and he agreed.

I was on a plane three hours later, and standing face to face with my contact at the waterways authority, George Beckwith, two hours after that.

"You shouldn't have come. I told you I didn't want to talk to you."

"George, you introduced me to Traveler; what the hell is going on?"

For such a long time, he stood staring at me; fidgeting from foot to foot, trying to decide what to do.

"Look... If you can help her, then do it. The authorities have already cut her loose. You're wasting time; the waterways are no place for her anymore."

George walked away, climbed into his car, and left. Part of me felt I had started this, and that's the part I listened to. I phoned the detective when I got to the airport. He had everything ready by the time I landed, and Cassie silently watched the scenery pass as she sat in the back seat of my car an hour later.

It still took me two hours to get home. I helped Cassie into her room and showed her everything I thought she may need.

"You're still too badly banged up for me to hitch a hammock in here, so you're going to have to join us freaks and sleep in a real bed."

"Well, I hope no one's watching. I'm never going to live this down."

I truly hoped no one was watching as well. My first hurdle was changing the bandages. With her hand still bandaged up, the nurse dressed her for me before we left. I made a list of what the hospital gave me, and took the list with me to the drugstore. When they asked, I just said I wanted three of everything on the list. The girl behind the counter asked who I was going to war with.