Yesterday's Gone: Season One

we started thinking one another were crazy.”
     
    They did stop at the airport to trade the copter for a plane, but only after a small stop first.
     

     
    “Been wanting to get down here for days, but I wasn’t sure when you were gonna show, and I sure as a trip to Disney World didn’t want to miss you.”  
     
    Will winked at Luca as he lowered the helicopter into the mall parking lot, right in front of Nordstrom’s front doors. “Do wish I could’ve looked a lick or two more presentable, though.”  
     
    Will gave Luca an awkward smile then hopped from the helicopter and held his hand out. “Come on,” he said, “I think you should come with me. The dog can stay in here if he wants. He’ll be fine and I’ll be quick. Promise.”  
     
    Will lowered Luca from the cockpit. He was gentle, squeezing the boy’s shoulders as his feet hit the concrete. For a sliver of a second, Luca missed his dad a tiny bit less. His mom and sister, too.  
     
    They broke into Nordstrom by hurling a trashcan through the doors, but Will promised Luca it was okay emergency behavior. He took a grooming kit and a large pile of clothes into the men’s restroom, where he stayed for a while. Luca thought it seemed like a long, long time, and it was, but the time made sense when Will came out of the bathroom looking almost exactly like the man who made the lobster tacos.  
     
    His scary hair and beard were gone. He was the same tall man as before, but looked even taller in jeans and a black tee shirt. His face was freshly shaven, and his scary hair was now shorter, though choppy in places he cut wrong. If Will had any idea how ridiculous his hair looked, he didn’t care. He was all smiles.
     
    “Alright kid, let’s go!”  
     

     
    After a quick swap at the airport, they were flying in a small plane that Will had arranged to be fueled and ready. Will explained that since there was no electricity in most places, they’d be tight on gas. So he outfitted the plane with some kind of fuel bibs which should give them enough gas to get where they were going. But if they ran out, Will warned, they’d need to land somewhere and find a car.
     
    “Where are we going?” Luca asked.
     
    “We need to get to the trees,” Will said.  
     
    “Are we here?” Luca asked as they flew through Flagstaff, above a sudden, beautiful sea of green.  
     
    Will shook his head.
     
    “You don’t seem like you’re an Army person,” Luca said.
     
    “I wasn’t in the Army,” Will smiled, “I was in the Air Force. But I see what you mean. I am a much cooler cat than they usually allow, what with my giant muscles and bottomless charm.”  
     
    Dog Vader whined from the back of the plane, just like he’d been doing every 15 minutes or so since leaving the coast.
     
    “I wasn’t a normal officer,” Will’s voice rose just above the husky’s wine. “The Air Force wouldn’t have been my thing, but I was recruited young. Promises were made and I was young enough to believe them. I was also naive enough to believe that if they wanted me bad enough they’d be willing to pay me what I was worth.”
     
    “What’s Nai-Eve?”
     
    “They needed something I have in here,” Will tapped the side of his head. “You know what a one-horse-town is?”  
     
    Luca shook his head no.
     
    “Well, it’s small. My town was called Leonard. Sits so close between the Kentucky-Tennessee border, folks might argue over which was which, though the ones who said Leonard was in Tennessee would’ve been right. My cousin Jimmy called it a ‘hoof town’ on account of it being so small it didn’t even have the one horse. The Air Force paid for everything, made me feel smart, and got me out of the hoof town.”
     
    “What did they want?”
     
    Will pinched his nose, then stayed inside his thoughts for about a minute. “You know how I said I could see the colors of stuff, and sometimes their sounds? Well, it’s like that, sorta. At least as close as I can manage to explain for now.”  
     
    Will looked at Luca.
     
    “Don’t worry about getting it; you will. Wish it wasn’t so, but it is. And you can take me to the bank on that. I’ve seen more in this life than I ever imagined I would, and I think a lot of that might have been just so I could get it all to you. A lot of what I’ve seen isn’t fit to tell an 8-year-old boy, but I promise you’ll know everything you need to know before you need to know