Christ. I'd give anything to strangle the woman at the other end. Carl gripped the phone until his knuckles looked ready to burst through the scarred and gnarled skin.

“Yeah, Mom. Sure. I told you I can send you a fifty.”

The woman continued to complain at him, Carl passed a hand over his face.

“Yeah. Anything else?”

When the woman reached the end of her list, she cried, “Don’t you forget, Carl. I want that money. Need it, I mean.” The line went dead and Carl was left staring woodenly at the phone’s blank wall screen.

“I love you too, Mom,” he whispered in quiet anguish into the dial tone and gently replaced the phone on its wall hook.

 

An adu:tsi, Carl grimly reminded himself, is better than being a father in a lot of ways. He was only an adu:tsi by default, because Benny’s Aunt Mara didn’t have any brothers still living in the area who could take the kid and teach him the facts of life. So that meant Carl had the unwelcome burden.

He glared down at Todd, sweat from several hours of unbroken, strenuous work-out soaked his tee shirt. Carl’s chest moved in and out in easy breaths. His heart was a little fast, but it was strong and used to hard labor. He got a lot of workout time in America del Sud during the war, then later while in prison where the policy was strictly, No Work/No Eat, and you earned every begrudged calorie twice.

Todd handed Carl a worn five. “For my mat time,” he said calmly to Carl’s angry face.

The kid was always so quiet. Too dammed quiet. It made Carl feel edgy. He shifted slightly, wanting to knock the kid into the next county.

“Don’t sweat it.” He shook his bull head at the money.

Cocking his head to the right, Todd narrowed his eyes. If not for Aunt Anna, he would have done away with Carl years ago when power first came on him.

Going rez – stubborn - on Carl, Todd glared into the sweaty chest. Todd smelled the acrid stink of sweat and alcohol and the faint musky odor of sex, and knew Carl was sneaking out to see Aunt Anna whenever he could get away from Leda. Leda clung to the big man. Uncle Carl despised Leda for it, as he despised any sign of weakness.

He tipped his face up at Carl.

“Wya’s don’t take charity, man.”

Todd grabbed the pocket of Carl’s muscle shirt and stuffed the money in. He spun and stalked away, his back ridged, his head up and proud. All Native, all wolf.

“Jerk kid, anyway.” He took out the five and through narrowed eyes studied Todd. Carl let a small grin play over his lips. His face eased slightly. Maybe this Sacred-Uncle stuff was OK . . . .

His hand cracked down on Leda’s questing fingers. His smile grew hard, sour and biting. “Greedy bitch,” he said curtly. “Your cut is ten times this off one dame in a single trick. What the frig is it with you?”

Sneering at Carl, Leda tossed her head and flounced away.

Feet dragging, Carl followed Leda to the garage. He managed a smile at Benny.

“Didn’t hurt ya today, did I kid?”

Carl’s blue eyes twinkled at Benny.

Baring his teeth, Benny answered Carl with a light pop in the man’s rock-hard belly, then a quick feint at the groin.

“Cheap shot,” Carl gasp, and flinched away.

All innocent and with a grin, Benny commented, “Cheap thrills, don’t you mean, Papa Bear?” Benny glanced at Leda and snickered. No matter how anyone put it, right now he was worth more alive than dead to Leda, to the tune of several million. If she really were stupid enough to harm him, Cindy and the Project would bring Leda’s narrow world crashing down around her ears. Only problem was, was that at times Leda could be triple-nostril stupid.

Carl snorted and cocked an eye at his stepson. He shrugged, preferring not to think of their time at the Manse, and pulled out a quart container labeled Hadly's Pure Mountain Spring Water.

He twisted off the cap, and let Charlie Wya’s pure mountain ‘shine sizzle down his throat.

On his Uohali-Red Sun, Leda sulked and glared at him.

She licked her lips and cried in a shrill, piercing voice that was too reminiscent of his mother’s, “Dammed alky.” Leda glared at him, her face darkening. “You’re gonna get polluted and wreck us on Wilkes-Barre Mountain.” Leda jumped up and dragged the bottle from Carl’s lips. Carl gasp and choked. Leda tipped the bottle up, chugging at it as greedy as a starved baby for mother’s milk.

God, but she was easy to hate. Feeling bitter, Carl’s eyes glittered at Leda.

Striking her with the back of his hand Carl knocked Leda away. The bottle flew from Leda’s hand. In a nick of time Carl snatched the bottle before it crashed on the floor. He grinned, his teeth bare, wolfish with delight.

Capping the bottle, he tossed it at Leda and swung into the saddle.

Leda scrambled to catch it before it hit the ground. She ripped off the cap and a pint disappeared down her throat. Leda staggered up, in vain trying to brush away black coal dirt from her jeans and Carl snatched his bottle from her.

“Dirty bastard.”

She paled, backing away from Carl. “Quit teasing me with it.” Leda whimpered, meaning far more than a bottle of whisky.

He surveyed Leda with a cool look. Carl balled his fists. Gazing down at them, Carl slowly forced his hands to relax around the neck of the bottle.

“Yeah, my mother was a whore.”

Eyes going dull, he stared at Leda and shrugged. “She blackmailed a lot of dudes, telling ‘em I was their kid.”

Closing his eyes, Carl swallowed at the lump of hate and anguish at the shame of not knowing who his father was. Yeah, and at the rage that welled up at his mother, for her eternal mocking him with the fact that even she didn’t know.

“At least the old bitch had me,” Carl whispered. Sardonic, he grinned at Leda, his eyes chilling and filled with contempt as they roved knowingly over the gone-to-pot body.

“Madam Leda.”

“Three guys, Carl,” the shrill voice rang through the garage, “all ask me to shack up with them. Three, Carl. All men. Real men. At least they can get it up for me.” Leda scurried toward the door leading back into the school and safety.

 Amused by something he would have killed her for a year ago, Carl bellowed a snarl of laughter.

“I ain’t your slug, Leda.”

He shook his head, suddenly weary of fighting against things he could not see and matters that were beyond the scope his of imagination.

God, but she had to be the most unlovable woman he had ever balled. He threw her a cocky grin he didn’t feel.

“You coming?”

The Red Sun purred to life under Carl’s gentle touch. He shrugged and eased the Uohali from its place in Bob’s cellar, deftly weaving around the antique cars and motorcycles Bob collected. It moved with a proficiency and control a smaller man would not have been able to achieve with the massive Uohali. He slid in and around the vehicles, graceful, in harmony with the bike.

The Uohali was the best of its line, and she rolled with a feral poise under Carl’s touch.

Leda stared at him, her eyes wide with shocked hate.

He was gonna go back to Anna, the bastard. She’d lose Benny. She had to stop him, too . . . much money . . . at stake. Leda choked.

With a cold and hungry glance at Benny, Leda sprinted after Carl, shouting, “Please. Wait, honey.”

Eyes bright with anguish, Carl stared straight ahead. It wasn’t Anna with him. Anna, at his back, driving him wild with love and . . . and an unspoken need to be held and protected. He blinked, puzzled at the moisture in his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to ease the ache in his heart.

Leda screamed his name. In a dull whisper, Carl said, “Give it up, Leda. Oh God, make her give it up before it’s too late for all of us.”

Why couldn’t he just go home to Anna and leave this dolled-up piece of trash? Man, but he hurt, needing Anna to sooth the pain of their forced separation.

Shaking his head at Carl and the bottle, Benny whispered, “Here we go, man.”

He rolled out of the garage in time to see Leda grab the saddle and hop on.

Carl picked up a little speed and roared across the river and through downtown Wilkes-Barre. They rolled up past the Blackman Street Bar. Since the night of the fight, and Benny’s too close encounter of the weird kind with old man Ryan, now under new management. The parking lot was as empty as Leda’s soul.

The big man snarled a grim leer. No-body knew where those three cruds were, and Ryan sure wasn’t tellin’. The old man was a prick and a half, and you did what he said or else. Carl ripped over the low curb and spat at the black painted doors, then slammed back through traffic, unconscious of Leda’s shrieks and Benny’s cheers alike.

Carl gripped the cups in frustration. Dammit, but he needed to hit somebody. The rage swelled and built in him as they hammered up the slopes towards Mountain Top, dodging the light traffic, pot holes, and deer that came down from the laurel and oak thickets to feed.

Carl unscrewed the cap with his teeth and rocked the bottom up.

Snatching the bottle from Carl’s lips, the woman shoved the opening in between her lips and sucked. She gagged as the raw spirits scorched their way down her throat.

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