Mind to Mind: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (27 page)

But this "Earth Mother"
had left us a precious gift. We had some new little angels on
earth. That could not be all bad.

Chapter Thirty-Eight:
Wrapped

Alison said, "I don't see anyone."

I told her, 'Too late. They're gone," and
began hurrying into my clothes.

Alison cried, "My gosh!"

"What?"

"Oom-ray-key-too! Where'd she go?"

Yeah, she was gone too.
Alison was not aware of any passage of time. I suppose there had
been none, from this frame of reference. Her opening statement to
me was actually a continuation of a remark begun before I hit the
crossover. My head was spinning a bit, I'll admit, but I was
thinking of that frozen photograph I'd left behind me here. Could I
have slipped out through a small crack in time? Could all that have
happened—actually happened—in a finger snap? Evidently so, if
happened it had. And I believed that it had.

Alison was helping me into my clothes.
"Thank God you've come to your senses," she muttered.

"I didn't," I muttered back. "I went."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I was caught up
into the third heaven, or some such. I went with Ah-ree-pat-muh and
May-un-chee-tee. I went to
their
Ojai Valley. Let me tell you, Shangri-La never
saw it so good."

Alison was confusedly
checking her watch. She commented, "You haven't had time to leave
the room. Are you okay?

She meant was I sane...not healthy. I asked
her, "Did Oom not have time to leave the room, either?"

I could see it dawning in her eyes then, if
not acceptance then at least wonderment and a predisposition to
accept.

I said, "I bring you bad
tidings, kid. It's over. They've killed the project. Or I think you
called it 'the process.' Whatever, they've decided it wasn't such a
great idea, after all. Maybe they figure this place is not worth
colonizing. So if that was your mission, to save the show, then I'm
afraid you have a failure to report. It's over. Sorry. I had
nothing to do with that. Once I've had time to think it through,
I'll probably feel as bad about this as you."

She bit a lip and said, "Damn it, Ashton, if
you're making this up..."

"I'm sure I'm not," I told her.

I became even more sure of
it a moment later when Frank Valdiva and a Ventura sheriff's posse
came through the door.

"We got your boy," Valdiva told me. "He's
got a hell of a mouse on the jaw, though. What'd you hit him
with?"

"Moral contempt, maybe." I sniffed. "Did you
find the evidence?"

"Yeah, and it's nice and legal, fully
warranted. In the van, as you suggested." He smiled at Alison.
"What's your problem, young lady?"

She replied in a dazed voice. "I'm okay.
Just trying to come to grips with...all this."

He said, "Well, you're the
psychologist. So maybe you can tell me about those guys outside
here."

She asked, "Which guys?'

He replied, "Those guys
out on the lawn. Couple dozen of them, apparently having a
homosexual romp through all this. Keep insisting they were with
women, but there's not a woman among them." He tossed me a wink,
asked Alison, "Know anything about that?"

I did, and it was the
convincer for me. I knew where their women had gone. I pulled
Valdiva aside, quietly suggested that he allow "those guys" to
discreetly withdraw, assured him they had no direct role in the
case.

Gordon Campbell,
though...yeah, a very direct role. This guy was a classic. You
could find his kind anywhere and everywhere—the world model of the
eminently practical, small-minded man. He was the Barnum-style
showman who found King Kong in a crack in time and brought him to
civilization not for scientific enlightenment but as a sideshow
exhibit; the weekend hunter who shot and skinned and cooked a
Sasquatch because it had been a bad day at the hunt and he was cold
and hungry; the petty thief who found himself in possession of a
priceless vase from the Ming Dynasty but tossed it away because it
was cracked; the Siberian tribesmen who...well, you get the
idea.

This guy had stumbled on
to something in his own backyard that conceivably could astound
mankind and lead to a new world vision—or maybe even a whole new
world—but he was content to sit on it and milk it for the few bucks
it could bring into his petty little life. Apparently he never made
an attempt to understand, never really questioned or even wondered
about the truly magical qualities of his "sacred mound," a
temporary gateway in time and space to what many would regard as
Paradise.

Alison's "group" could not—would not—work
with such a man. But they used him. And fed his carnival
instincts. I feel no particular respect for them in that. They
allowed him to convert a world-shaking "experiment" into a
pornographic sideshow because that served their secrecy as well,
and beautifully covered their own involvement in the "process."

I feel that it was a combination of that
manipulative secrecy and crass pornography that set the stage for
Jim Cochran's murder. I believe that Jim was indeed giving me
"God's truth" in the telephone message he left for me just shortly
before his death. How could he possibly have known or even guessed
at the incredible truth about Jane Doe? He was an unwitting
accomplice, drawn into the thing by lust, but then converted to a
cause he really knew nothing about through an appeal with a winning
combination: money and wish-fulfillment.

Alison's "group" recruited Valdiva as well,
with pretty much the same appeal. I learned that Valdiva had been
orphaned himself at a tender age. He had a soft spot there. And a
guy can always use a few extra bucks. He was in a great position
for official influence in the placement of foundlings, and it was a
job he loved to do. He could bend his moral sense to an acceptance
of the quasi-legal position this placed him in.

I tried to blame "the group" for the way the
whole thing soured, but there again we should not leap to harsh
judgment. If they are who I believe they are, then "secrecy" is
their charter and service to mankind their pledge. Their motives
were good. And it just goes to show that no wisdom is ultimate—not
on this plane of existence, anyway.

They did not tell Valdiva or Cochran or any
of the foster parents the true story about these kids. How could
they? Or why should they? The kids would tell their own stories one
day, simply through their accomplishments in a world sorely in need
of finer influences.

And how could "the group"
have known that one of these "alien mothers" simply could not
totally let go of the fruit of her womb? May-un-chee-tee could not
do so. So try to put yourself into the Cochrans' shoes. How would
you deal, or try to deal, with such strange intrusions into the
life of your child? I believe Cochran's story. I believe Georgia
knew about it too. But what the hell could either do about the
situation? They had two sweet kids to worry about.

Jim was wrong, yes. He was wrong first in
swinging a crowbar, he was wrong secondly in trying to cover up the
crime, he was wrong finally in the continued deceit when the thing
came back to haunt him. I believe Valdiva had some wrongness here
too. I believe that he suspected or guessed or wondered but held
his peace. But try to put this all in the context of incredible
events and perhaps the judgment will not be too harsh.

Gordon Campbell somehow
got the drop on Jim Cochran and put a bullet between his eyes. He
did that not from anger, nor in the defense of his own life or any
other's. He did it because he is what he is, a petty asshole, and
because he feared that Jim Cochran was about to blow the whistle on
his sweet little carny. Oom had tried to assure me that Campbell
was "not an evil man." I believe what she meant was that he simply
was not intelligent enough to be truly evil. And, yes, she sent
Campbell to the L.A. hospital to release May-un from the bonds of
this earth. I do not fully understand the process here, but
apparently the violence done to her on this side of the cross
somehow impeded her ability to cross back.

The "group" knew this.
Alison was sent to assist. I think possibly I was "sent," too, but
I'm still trying to find the vehicle for that. At any rate, the
best solution had apparently come from the other side. They slew
the body on this side and raised it up again on the other side.
Please don't ask me how they did that. How did Jesus "raise"
Lazarus, and how did he appear before Paul on the road to Damascus?
You tell me, I will listen.

I will listen to most anything these
days.

I have not seen Alison in
the flesh since that night. I dropped her off at her place and she
walked back into nowhere. She has called me a couple of times,
just to say hi, and I believe I may have caught a glimpse of her on
television just the other day, in coverage of a United Nations
"save the children" event. I don't know who the hell she is,
really, or what her name is or anything else about her. Last time
she called, I tried to pin her down on those "shoes that bind" that
she mentioned in connection with my birth. It's sort of a shivery
thing when you really think about it. But you know Alison well
enough by now to know how evasive she is. Even if she knew for sure
that my mother is not really my mother, she would not tell me
so.

I guess Georgia is doing
just fine. She's back into acting, has a small part in a new sitcom
scheduled for next season. I drop by now and then to see the kids.
Manuel-Manuel told me, last time out, that Vicky Victoria has
"settled down" quite a bit. He also told me that she is psychic. I
advised him to therefore treat her kindly. He rolled his eyes at
that and assured me that he always knocked before he entered her
mind. I can't wait to see these kids grown up. And I have no idea
whatever how many other little "angels" are scattered about this
side of the cross.

Also talked to Valdiva just the other day.
They've got Campbell nailed on the Cochran murder. Dug the lethal
bullet out of the floorboards of his van, found some bloody rags.
The guy is a jerk. Good thing too. He could have built a circus
defense from the facts of this case, but he has been predictably
practical. He has agreed to cop a plea in exchange for twenty at
San Quentin.

That about wraps it, I guess. If I have not
given you sufficient cause to buy this story, or to at least admit
to its possibility, let's still try to be friends. I won't hold it
against you if you won't hold it against me.

Uh, if you are ever up
near the Ojai Valley, stop in and give a look. Even today it is an
enchanted place. The sacred grove is gone already, bulldozed for a
new shopping cluster. But if you stand at the "Shangri-La overlook"
and look out over that valley, as I did just yesterday, you can
smell the sweetness in the air and feel eternity tugging at the
brain- lobes. You might even catch a glimpse of the great herds,
frozen forever in place, or the sad-sweet smile of Ah-ree-pat-muh
as she awaits the monthly return of her Consort, the
Moon.

I think I'll be going back, time to time.
Yeah. I think so.

###

About the Author

Don Pendleton (1927-1995) is
creator of The Executioner: Mack Bolan Action/Adventure series and
the Joe Copp, Private Eye Mystery Thrillers.

He also co-wrote, with his
wife, Linda Pendleton, the nonfiction books To Dance With Angels
and Whispers From the Soul: The Divine Dance of Consciousness, and
the crime novel, Roulette.

Don Pendleton, (1927-1995)

Official Don Pendleton
website:
www.donpendleton.com

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The Ashton Ford Psychic Detective Series of
six novels is available in print at Amazon.