It was June, two months after that first drought-breaking deluge, and Dad was sleeping late again. So Rusty had to skip the last day of school, and milk the cows, and water the sheep, and check to make sure none of the chickens had gotten out in the night like they had that one time, and nearly drowned in the mud and clay slurry that was their backyard now.
But while he was out sludging his way through the field, he noticed two things.
The first thing, was that the creek down the slope was full, fat, and the lightest shade of brown it had been ever since it had been reinflated by unending rainfall.
The second thing, was that at some point, while he was in the middle of walking between each chicken coop, the rain had stopped, and the sun was starting to peek out.
Rusty lingered over the last couple of coops, casting suspicious looks skyward, but the sun kept getting bigger, and the clouds kept getting smaller.
“RUSSELL!” his mom yelled, and Rusty almost dropped the milk buckets, as he picked them up and hustled back houseward. “Don't you be lollygagging, boy!” she said, hands on her hips, as she glared at him over the red tip of her cigarette. “I'll tan your hide, if you're stalling on chores again.”
“No ma'am! It just stopped raining and that surprised me some!”
Mom blinked. Then she looked up. “Huh,” she said, and the anger was out of her voice, just like Cy flicking a switch and the lights in his room going back to normal. “I'll be darned. I didn't even notice, but I ain't heard the sound of rain on the roof for a time. I'll be darned.”
“Can I go swimming? The river's clean, more or less!”
Mom pursed her lips, and squinted at him, and for a moment he was afraid she'd tell him no on general principles. Then she sighed. “As soon as the others get home from school. Boys first, you'll be with'em. I'll get Sue to mind the girls, after you're done, so don't spend more'n half an hour. And make sure Bill and Todd and Nathaniel don't drown, they never learned swimming.”
“Yes'm!”
“And put that milk away 'fore it spoils!”
“Yes'm!”
It was a pain, hauling it down to the cellar and pouring the milk into the tanks for pickup later, but he got it done fast, and tackled the rest of his chores head on. He knew his mom; he'd have exactly half an hour, and if he was late he'd have less. There was no telling if the rain would start again tomorrow, or if the river would be as swollen and perfect if he delayed. This was it, and Rusty knew he had to make the most out of this glorious opportunity.
And so, when the muddy yellow school bus came rolling down the road, and his shrieking brothers and sisters piled out, Rusty was waiting at the door with his patched old hand-me-down swim trunks. A few garbled words of explanation got the idea across, and backpacks and books went flying as his five brothers ran for the clothes drawers, hunting for something that could pass as swimwear.
His duty done, Rusty beat feat through the mud, running down the slope to the river, and leaping in with a mighty cannonball. He'd been scarcely six when Cy had taught him how to do this, but the satisfying crash, and the shock of the cold water on his skin made him laugh when he surfaced, paddling forward and flailing his legs under the water until his feet found their footing.
It was smooth at the bottom of the creek, smooth with mud and the wear of the flood. Rusty stood on his tip toes, let the water run under his jawline. He was tempted to float, but he couldn't quite remember how it went, and judging by the shrieking horde of siblings rushing his way, it was a bad time to try. So instead he half paddled, half-walked in slow motion upstream, away from where they were preparing to join the deluge.
Then they were in, he was underwater for a few worrisome moments as eighty pounds of squealing kid dogpiled him, and the next few minutes were full of mud and fighting and watery coughs, and laughter.
Things settled down after the initial chaos, and Trent and Bill joined forces with Rusty to take on the others, Ray Ray and Nathaniel and Jonas were happy to go all out against them, and Todd mainly bobbed up and down in the shallows and dug up mud with his feet, transferring it to his hands and threatening to throw it at anyone who got near.
It was pretty fun. It kind of made up for all the dripping leaks, and all the buckets Rusty had to constantly empty each morning. And the mold he had to comb out of the sheep. And the mud that got everywhere... yeah, it was here too, and yeah, it'd be all over their feet while they walked back to the house, but that was at least fifteen or so minutes in the future, and Rusty was in the now, trying to dodge and feint around Ray Ray to give Jonas a good ducking. (He didn't feel right shoving the smaller ones under, but Jonas was fair game. Besides, he'd gotten Trent good, and he had it coming.)
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
It was Nathaniel who saw the stranger first. Later on, when his parents tried to get it out of him, he'd say that he was just THERE all of a sudden. One second there was nothing but the low wire fence at the edge of their property across the river. Then the stranger just WAS.
If Nathaniel could've communicated a little more clearly, he could have told them how the man almost seemed to fade in, like a picture coming out of static on a television screen until it firmed up into something visible, something whole, and the static around him which wasn't static, but little dancing lights that weren't light, exactly, but something the eye couldn't quite make out... yeah, but Nathaniel was seven, and not too great at articulating things which, to be fair, wouldn't have been believed if he were older, anyway.
But it was Nathaniel's gasp, and sudden paddling back in the water that made Rusty turn from where he was watching the house, waiting for Mom to call them back, to look across the way and see the wizard for the first time.
The man had to be a wizard. He couldn't be anything else.
He stood there with the western sun crawling down behind him, stood there leaning on a thick, gnarled staff that twisted and bulged with asymmetrical boles and strange angles. His beard was down to what must be his navel, and he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat that might have had a point, it was hard to tell with the light where it was. His clothing swept the ground. It could have been robes, it could have been some kind of oversized coat. It was hard to tell.
Even while he was backlit, Rusty could see his eyes. Hard. Glittering. Two shards of smoky burned glass against linoleum white sclera. Later on he would learn that they gave off a light of their own, but right now as his brothers noticed and fell silent one by one around him, all that Rusty could think was that the eyes were wrong, as wrong as the eye spots on a butterfly, false eyes meant to frighten predators... and prey.
The wizard cleared his throat, in the sudden silence. “I seek one among you—”
And that's when Todd threw mud at his face.
He had him dead to rights.
The wizard was mid-speech, mouth open, eyes fixed on Rusty's gaze.
He should have eaten about three ounces of Texas dirt.
But the second the mud hit him, he flickered, flickered like a flame dancing in the wind, and suddenly he was three feet from where he'd been.
Magic! Rusty thought, and he felt pure joy surge up through his belly, up like air in reverse passing through his lungs, up into his mouth and brain with a blast of happiness. I knew it! I knew it was real!
Dimly, he was aware of his brothers screaming and shouting and splashing. His peripheral vision caught their backs as they fled, and through the roaring in his ears, he heard the pattering of bare feet on the mud, as they ran away from whatever the hell this guy had going on. They wanted none of it.
But Rusty knew what was coming. And as the man continued, Rusty waded the creek, stood tall and smiled a big, big smile at the words coming out of the wizard's mouth.
“I seek one among you to save my world. The dark lord's power grows daily, and hope is almost lost. But prophecy speaks of a chosen one, and at last, I believe I have found him.”
“YES!” Rusty punched the air. “YES! YES YES YES HAHAHAHHAHHAHA!”
When he stopped whirling around, he became aware of the wizard squinting at him with a look something like his Pa normally reserved for coyotes before he went and got the gun. “Are you simple, boy? Are you stricken in your brain?”
“What? No. No, I mean... I'm the chosen one. Right? I have to be.”
The wizard's hard eyes softened. “Yes. Yes, of course you are. There is no time to be wasted, then. Take my hand, if you would be the hero of legend.”
Something made Rusty hesitate, just for a moment. He glanced up at the house, saw the pack of his brothers almost to the back door. Saw a flash of light from his brother's window, where he was no doubt still working on his dream invention.
And he knew he had to act now or never, because if he hesitated any more, his mom might come out and forbid him from being a chosen one.
He didn't know what he'd do if that happened.
So he pushed any trepidation to the wind, reached out, and grabbed the wizard's hand, as gnarled as his staff, as dry and warm as old wood.
“Close your eyes,” said the wizard. “Trust me on this, child, you do NOT want to see what lies between.”
Rusty did, and after his whole body seemed to shiver and lose most of its weight, after he almost felt himself floating off the ground, and the air was really, REALLY hard to breathe for a second...
...Rusty opened his eyes on another world.
*****
“What. The. Fuck?” Cyrus Colfax hissed, as he lowered the half-converted telescope from his eye, and stared at the now-empty patch of riverbank.
“Oh shit, oh no. Mom! Dad! Wake up, we've got PROBLEMS!” he said, as he ignored the screaming pain of his phosphorous-ravaged muscles, and wheeled his chair straight out of the room, almost running over a few shrieking brothers.
But they got out of the way as Mom came running, apron flapping, spoon in her hand. “What? What's going on! Settle down, what's wrong!”
Cy bellowed, his voice drowning out all the babbling and howling of his siblings. “Get Dad! I think Rusty just got Gandalfed!”