Standard disclaimer. These aren't my characters--they belong to Alliance, et al. Please don't sue me for borrowing them.
Written because I always wanted to see more of the "elder statesmen," so to speak . . .
"Being dead isn't quite what it's cracked up to be," Robert Fraser said. "Oh, sure, you get some rest, and you don't have to worry about money or eating or any of that, but it isn't the same as being alive."
"Well, Bob, I think that's why they call it death," Buck Frobisher said, knowing full well Fraser would just ignore him.
"I can't *smell* anything," the dead Mountie continued. "I'd give anything to smell a good venison steak--or beaver. Now there was good eating."
Frobisher rolled over. Ever since that train ride, his old partner came to visit when he couldn't pester his son. He felt a pang of sympathy for his old friend. There was nothing quite like not being wanted or needed, like not having a use, but Buck was at an age where sleep was a precious commodity and not one to forego lightly.
It was all he could do these days to carry out his duties. Years in the saddle and out in the Arctic cold had begun to take a toll on him. His joints were a lot stiffer than they'd been when he and Fraser had patrolled the Rat. He couldn't mount a horse quite as easily as he'd once been able to, and his inspector apparently didn't need someone with Buck's years of experience in the field on his force. Buck had been relegated to serving as a glorified receptionist and clerk.
Getting old had to be at least as bad as being dead, and he told his deceased friend so.
"Nonsense," Fraser snorted with a wave of one hand. "Being dead's far worse."
"You don't have the aches and pains," Buck pointed out.
"Exactly," put in the ghost. "I'd give my right arm to feel that old bullet wound I got in the skirmish with Robidoux back in '52."
"You nearly *gave* your right arm in the skirmish with Robidoux, and it wasn't in '52. It was in '56."
"Don't be silly, Buck. It was '52."
"Apparently the mind goes in death just as it does with age," Buck retorted, "because it was in '56. That Presley kid was on the radio when we broke into the shack."
The dead Mountie stared off into the distance, his mouth open slightly. "Ah. Ah, yes. I remember now. '56 it was. If I hadn't given Benton my diaries, I could have checked."
Buck gave up any attempt at sleeping for the night. Fraser was obviously there for the duration. He pushed himself up and dragged the pillows behind his back before leaning against the headboard. "So how is Ben these days?"
"Oh, he's fine," Fraser said. "Fine. He ought to settle down, though, find himself a wife, have some kids. He ought to do it before it's too late."
Buck rubbed his forehead. "I thought perhaps he and the lovely inspector--"
He wasn't allowed to finish, for Fraser cut in with, "Nonsense! Benton wouldn't get involved with another officer, especially not his superior. That woman has put him through more misery than a winter spent on an ice floe above the Circle." Fraser sat back with a sigh. "It isn't like the old days, Buck. Not like when we were young. Nothing good can come of this letting women take over the force. Oh, sure, there are some women who can do the job, but this one of Benton's--well, it just doesn't bear talking about."
While Inspector Thatcher wasn't one of Frobisher's favorite people, he thought her a competent administrator. She knew the business. If she lacked field experience, it wasn't entirely her fault. These days there were a lot of officers on the force who'd rarely if ever set foot outside headquarters in one of the country's cities. The days of men like him and Robert Fraser, even of Fraser's boy, seemed to be disappearing with the horses and the uniforms that were increasingly replaced by civilian clothes among the upper ranks. Thatcher had sand, and that was what mattered in Buck's eyes.
"Oh, I don't know," Buck said. "Some of the women are very competent, and I'd rather look at Meg Thatcher on a daily basis than old Barstow. Remember him?"
Fraser shuddered. "An old friend of mine from the States used to have a saying--'He's so ugly he could turn a funeral up a side street.' I immediately thought of Barstow when I first heard him say it. You'd think a man that ugly would be hiding somewhere."
"Well, not many wanted to work the outer reaches of the Territories, Bob," Buck reminded him. "There was a time when you weren't that keen on it either."
A glint of steel appeared in the dead Mountie's eyes. "And I learned my lesson. The city was exciting and it was different, but it didn't take me long to recognize I belonged elsewhere." He broke off and sagged a bit. "Sometimes I think Caroline might have been happier if we'd gone to a city."
"Do you ever see Caroline?" Buck asked. he wasn't entirely sure how being a ghost worked.
"Not often," his old friend conceded. "We spent so little real time together that it's like we have nothing in common any more. She died so long ago, and I've been busy watching out for Benton. She tells me he can take care of himself, but I hear him call when he needs me. I need to be ready. She seems to understand."
Buck could read between the lines. He'd never doubted that Robert and Caroline loved one another, but he also knew they were two people who needed their own space. They loved passionately, but they also needed their time apart. Benton had been the one who'd suffered for that. Instead of growing up with two loving parents, he'd grown up with grandparents who'd never been certain what to do with him. Benton had been an adult almost from birth, and Buck had often wondered if the young man had ever really known what it was like to be a child or to share the love of his parents.
"She visits him, too, you know," Fraser said after a moment. "Benton doesn't recognize her, but she goes to him. He was too young to clearly remember her, and there weren't any photographs really. The only one I had I carried in my pocket my entire life. It saddens her that he doesn't remember."
"Doesn't she just tell him who she is?" Buck asked.
"Oh, no. No. She can't, you see. He can't see her at all." Fraser shook his head. "He only sees me because he knows to look. He doesn't know to look for her, and even if he did, he might not recognize her." He sighed. "It's a tricky thing, this ghost business. His grandmother was right in his hospital room once, and he couldn't see her, either."
Buck shuddered. Robert Fraser's mother was a woman to be reckoned with. He could easily imagine Benton choosing not to see her.
"You know, Buck," Fraser continued, "there are other things I miss about being alive. I miss the way things feel, textures. The softness of a pelt, the smoothness of leather, the scratch of wool. I can't feel a damn thing. I even miss the bite of the wind roaring down from the pole. Good, clean cold. Nothing in the world quite like it, Buck."
Amen to that, he thought. He had reached a point in his life where he'd rather feel the warmth of the sunshine, though. "We had good times, didn't we?" he asked and was surprised he'd said it aloud.
"That we did, Buck," his friend replied. "That we did."
"What would you do if you were still alive?" he asked. It was a question that nagged him at the oddest moments. His friend hadn't lived out his years to his natural end, and he wondered sometimes what Fraser felt he'd left undone. Apparently there was something, or he wouldn't come around so often.
Fraser thought about it. He stared into the distance as Buck had seen him do so frequently in the past. It was a look he wore when he had something to work out for himself, something Buck also saw in the son.
"Spend time with Benton," he said at last. "It's something I should have done while I was alive."
"I used to tell you that," Buck said gently.
"You did nothing of the kind," Fraser retorted, and Buck was nearly drawn into an argument. At the last moment, though, he saw that glint, the one that told him Fraser knew better.
"I most certainly did," Buck continued, knowing his contradiction was expected. "You always started out by telling me I was getting too soft spending so much time with my daughter, and I always told you that you were growing too hard and should spend more time with your son."
"Nah," Fraser said with a shake of the head. "I would remember something like that. I do remember you spent a lot of time with your girl, though."
"And I don't regret a moment of it," Buck said. "Childhood is precious, and every parent who shares it gains from the experience."
Silence fell between them, but it wasn't the same comfortable quiet they had once shared. "Do you think there's something wrong with Ben?" Fraser asked at last.
Buck considered his words carefully before speaking. "I think he's a fine man, Robert. He's an excellent officer and a credit to his uniform. He has all his limbs and all his teeth, and as far as I know, he's free of disease." Buck paused a moment. "If you mean do I think there's something else wrong with him, something emotional, then I don't know. I do know he's never been aware of how other people react to him."
"You mean how women react to him," Fraser corrected.
"All right," Buck conceded, "how women react to him. Julie has loved him for years, and she's done nothing to hide her feelings. The entire Territories probably knows how she feels, but Benton never saw it. it happens over and over again to him, but he doesn't recognize it." He scratched his chin a moment. "Is there some flaw in him? I don't know. Either he's disciplined himself to ignore it and thus avoid being hurt, or he has no idea what love and affection are."
"And spending time with him would have changed this?" Fraser asked, and Buck could hear the note of censure in his voice. Dead or not, his friend didn't like Buck's frank opinion, and while he didn't think Fraser was responsible for the quirk in Benton's nature, he couldn't help but think the younger man's lonely childhood did have a lot to do with it. He had never had a toy, seldom had a real friend, and except for his mother, had never had a person just hold him and tell him he was loved.
"Perhaps not," Buck said. "Perhaps so."
"I'd like to be a grandfather," Fraser said, changing the topic abruptly and again staring through the bedroom wall to vistas beyond. "I've always envied you that, Buck."
Frobisher didn't reply at first. He wondered what it would be like to only be able to look at his grandchild, to know the boy would never see or speak to him. He couldn't imagine having to stand on the sidelines of his grandson's life because he couldn't hold him. He wouldn't want to be in Fraser's boots, a ghost rather than a breathing, hugging, roughhousing grandfather. "I'm sure you will be," he said at last. "Someday."
Fraser sighed heavily. "Dawn in about an hour," he mused. "I suppose you'd like some sleep."
Buck smiled. Robert Fraser always skated away from anything too personal. It was a trait that had obviously not been altered by death. "I might, but since I'm already up, stay as long as you like."
"Do you remember that time up in Sachs Harbour when Jack Dalhousie decided to build an igloo?" Fraser asked. "I've thought about him a lot lately. Remember how he . . . ."
As his friend recounted the tale, Buck saw an advantage in having a ghost. At his age, many of those who shared his life were gone, and it was nice to know someone remembered him and valued him for his experiences. It was pleasant to reminisce about things his younger colleagues didn't understand and people who existed only in the memory of one old man. As long as he lived, so did they, and many of them deserved to live forever, including Robert Fraser. He could only hope that someday someone would keep him alive the same way.
END
Leigh A. Adams
adderlygirl@yahoo.com