---------Chapter 3-------------

Rogue turned yet another page of the seniors section of the 1912 Lake Brantley yearbook, and about choked on her own breath. Right there, staring out at her from the middle of the page, was Logan. There was absolutely no doubt about it, no eye glass needed. She didn’t think it possible for him to be any better looking than the man she knew and loved, but the photo in front of her proved her wrong! Oh, so very wrong!

His hair was shorter, but the curls were still unruly. He was completely clean-shaven, not a mutton or chop to be seen. He appeared to be looking slightly off camera but Rogue still felt her heart melt as she looked into his eyes. While still holding the intensity she was so used to seeing, they were somehow softer, his face was completely unlined, so smooth looking it hitched her breath once again.

She glanced at the small paragraph of information that accompanied the photo, ~Hmm, Edward Logan Dunn; Most Likely to join a branch of the military. HA! I guess some things never change, huh sugar? Member of the debate team, the football team, captain of the intramural wrestling team?!? OH! My! Gawd!~ Rogue actually stumbled back a step as the irony hit her full in the face.

~Aw, sugar! Those military bastards that messed you up may have taken your memory but they sure as heck didn’t take what made you, YOU!~

Grabbing a scrap piece of paper, Rogue put it in place as a bookmark, gathered her things together and made her way out of the dusty, depressing hole of a room.

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When she got back to the upper levels, and ‘the land of the living’, as she now referred to the more utilized and public areas of the library, she knew the first place she was going was to the computer room.

~OK, first order of business, get copies of this!~ Rogue took a seat at one of the empty computer stations that provided not only internet access and printing ability but was also connected to a rather high quality scanner. Carefully as she could, she place the open yearbook on the scanner glass and chose the settings on the screen for the process.

A few moments later, the page from the yearbook appeared on the computer screen. Using the mouse, Rogue cropped the edges of the preview down so that Logan’s image and the small paragraph were the only things that would be reproduced as a hard copy. Once she had said hard copy in her hands, she proceeded to pour over the yearbook once again, with the eye glass, looking for any other photos of Logan. As she guessed, she found him amongst his fellow athletes in the football and wrestling photos, and lined up behind one of two waist high podiums with the debate club. Once Rogue had done all she could with scanning, blowing up and printing these photos; group photo along with close ups of Logan himself, she returned the yearbook once again to it’s resting place in the dark, dusty hole of the lower levels.

Returning to her place at the computer station, Rogue accessed the internet and went directly to Google. Typing in Logan’s full name – Edward Logan Dunn – she marveled at the number of matching hits for the surname Dunn. Feeling particularly lucky, she clicked on the very first matching link. It took her to a genealogy website. Starting out slow, and thanking the computer gods for the kind soul that designed the site, Rogue began to answer the questions she could in order for the site to help her as much as it could. The more she had to click on the “Don’t know” option, she more dejected she became. She realized that the only things she knew for absolute certain were his name, year of high school graduation, and name of the school. Some things she could make an educated guess about; graduating at an estimated eighteen years of age put his birth year around 1894. She could search 1893 and 1895 with the ‘known’ info rather easily. The yearbook made note of the towns it served, so she only needed to search for information in those locations.

Two hours later, with a splitting headache, Rogue was down to one of the last options she had in the mix-mashed-mess of singular details she had on one Edward Logan Dunn. So far, nothing had panned out for a young man by that name, from that high school, graduating in that year; born in either 1893, 1894, or 1895; and residing in either of the handful of towns that the yearbook talked about.

~ AW! Man! Exponentials were never my strong suit. Wish I woulda paid more attention in Scott’s class! Then maybe I would’ve realized how many different ways you could combine these few bits of info!~

Just as Rogue was about to totally give up hope of finding anything else, the computer ‘beeped’ and the screen changed. Her heart sped up and a knot formed in her stomach. Staring back at her from the terminal screen were a dozen or more links! The historical records page gave her the option to choose from four different tabs, each holding within it information on Edward Logan Dunn, born October 8, 1895, in Brantchville, Alabama, attending Lake Brantley Community School and graduating in 1912.

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I still couldn’t believe the information I found! I was getting so ticked off every time that damnable computer screen would pop up with that blasted “No information found matching the parameters you have indicated” window! I was ready to about spit! The stupid thing must’ve known it was on thin ice with me, because about the time I wanted to knock it off the desk and jump up and down on it, was when it came up with that wonderful page of links!

‘Edward Logan Dunn’, this name o’yours, sugar, is runnin’ around in my head like a tune from the radio; unavoidably and totally stuck! I wonder what your friends called you? ‘Eddie’? BLECH!! NO! You are most certainly not an ‘Eddie’! ‘Edward’? Eh, maybe, but only as a second choice. You were probably Logan then just like you’re Logan now. There’s too much else the same between the young man in this photo and the cage brawler I fell in love with for you to have been known by any other name.

I’ve got all this stuff spread out on my bed now, trying to figure out how best to organize it. I suppose to begin at the beginning would make the most sense. I hunt up the copy of the family tree I found online. It’s short, and doesn’t tell too much other than Logan’s parents were Edward Lawrence Dunn and Margaret Ann Logan. I really wish their birth dates, marriage date or something else was included, but again, I need to remind myself that even this little bit is more than Logan has ever had before. Besides, it does have his birthday listed!

It looks like he was an only child. Part of me is sad over this, but part is also a little selfishly happy. I’m not sure how I’d react to finding out that Logan actually had family. I know I shouldn’t feel like that, but I can’t help it. You get sort of attached when you’ve become as close as Logan and I have over the years, and I’m not sure if I’d be able to so easily share him.

Of course, just because these records don’t show any siblings, doesn’t mean there still couldn’t be any out there. Like I said, it’s short, this tree. More like a sapling if I wanted to take the plant metaphor to a sickeningly corny conclusion. It was Logan and his parents. Period. End of info. It didn’t go back any further and it didn’t go forward. I didn’t find anything about siblings, grandparents; ancestors of any sort really, nor did I find anything about descendents.

I may sound like I totally struck out, but once I had Edward Lawrence’s name I went ahead and did some other searches. I found the old family homestead! I found copies of the county records detailing the elder Dunn’s occupation as a blacksmith and veterinarian. No formal training there, but then, the Alabama of the early 1900’s didn’t seem like a very likely place to find a formally educated people doctor, let alone a formally educated vet! The land surveys and plots for the town haven’t changed much in all these years. Once I had this information I was actually able to go to one of the web’s mapping sites and get an aerial photo of the place!

I was still processing all the mind boggling stuff I was able to find, when a message box popped up on the screen. Somebody had noticed my linking up to the family tree page over on the genealogy website and wanted to know if they could help me! Now, I’m no fool, I wasn’t about to let my excitement get the better of me and end up getting taken by some online hustler. But Mandi turned out to be real cool. She’s a senior in high school, and she lives in what used to be Brantchville! She works in the county clerk’s office and they get a message from the genealogy site whenever someone accesses anything about their area.

I know, I know! It sounds like a perfect scam. Use the emotions of some poor sucker searching for their past to take ‘em for all their worth. ‘Oh sure, I can get you that. I just need a bit of front money to get the ball rolling.’ But Mandi never asked for anything. She was right up front about it all. She gave me the website address for the county so I could confirm what she was telling me, even went so far as to educate me on how to tell if an address is not taking you to where it says it is. I mean, hey, I may be no fool, but that doesn’t make me Bill Gates either. I know how to surf the web, but I’ll also be the first to admit that I can wipe out just as easily as the next guy. Of course, the next guy would have to be Logan! He really doesn’t like computers much, did you know that?

Anyway, so Mandi and I start trading instant messages and before I know it she’s offering to track down the old Dunn homestead and see what’s there, if anything! She explained that with our society being so transient now-a-days, most folks who want to go searching for their ‘roots’ have the problem of not living where they need to be searching. Hence, the position she and a handful of other seniors hold in the clerk’s office.

So now, here I sit, surrounded by Logan’s past. Computer printouts, scanned copies of photos, printed copies of photos; did I mention the fantastic job Mandi did? I’ve got photos of the whole damn property that used to belong to Edward Lawrence Dunn and his family!!

And now I have to figure out how to tell him what I’ve found. I seem to have gotten it pretty well organized. I know I said I wasn’t ready, nor was it my place to go spilling Logan’s personal info to anyone, but I really wish I had somebody I could ask to take a look at it and tell me if it makes any sense to them, reading it cold like this. Scott is the only one who knows so far. And while I trust him with my life, I can’t, one hundred percent, see him being able to keep totally quiet about it. ‘Sides, he’s married to a telepath, no way Jean wouldn’t find out. So scratch Summers. I sure as heck can’t ask Kitty or Jubes. They’ve both got mouths on them bigger than the Grand Canyon. They’d never be able to keep it to themselves and the whole school would know before Logan did! Not the best route to your man’s heart, that’s for sure! There’s really only one sure fire, obvious choice.

So off I go to see the Professor

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