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The demanding ring of the phone brought Millie out of a
light sleep. Stifling a yawn, she reached for it, then glanced down at herself.
After just a moment's hesitation, she switched off the viewer.
"Hello? Millie speaking.... Why, hello,
Mike."
Millie folded her free arm across her stomach and tried
to act pleased at the sound of her eldest's voice.
"Mom, I was wondering . . . is that stranger still
there?"
"Our house guest? Yes, he's still here."
Mike smiled a grimace into the pay phone. He glanced
out the glass wall to his partner. Rumpled and with a thin trail of vomit
drooling down his chin, Milhouser was passed out in the car.
"Just wanted to let you know when I have a few
days off, Mama, and I'll be down to meet this wonder boy."
Mike hung up the phone. Advancement, and so fast it
would make a man's head spin. One arrest of one helpless kid and he was on Easy
Street with one of the biggest programs the United Nations held. But then, the
kid wasn't so helpless, was he? Powers beyond belief, the VanTur woman claimed.
And the Indian had taken out two of their best agents.
In an unconscious gesture, Mike smoothed straw bright
hair at about the place where Benny parted Josh's.
Millie smiled a nervous tick at Ron. Ice gripped her
stomach. "That was Mike. He wants to come home and meet Benny." She
picked up the phone and the ice became a cramp. "I'm going to try to get
hold of Terry Marie." Fear shook her voice and Ron scowled at her.
Ravens called through the brief dusk and circled Benny.
Teeth bared in a snarl, Benny swung clenched fists at
them and wished for a gun.
Now he knew why the birds were gathering. A baby. They
were sent here to guard his son. GalonV-didanwa:ki, Raven-Protectors.
Probably not really birds at all, even if they were as flesh and blood as he
was. Spirit-Birds, sent by the Eagle-Woman and his mother.
He screamed, "Quit spying on me." The hoarse
cry thinned and faded among the trees. Slowly, the fists lowered and the rage
died. He had no right, no right at all to deny a child or woman protection. No
real man did. Fairies turned their backs or raped. Not men.
"Why are you doing this?" he ask the tiny dot
that circled far above the ravens. "You know I have to leave now. Is that
why? You want me to go home and die? Hell yes, kill me and let me go, damn
you."
He crouched under a spreading black walnut. Horses
gathered around him, snuffling in sympathy. The older colt nudged Benny,
pleading for a treat. Benny reached into his back pocket and sighed.
"No-go, little dude, sorry."
The colt grumbled at Benny and went in search of a warm
teat and a little love from his dam.
Benny watched the tall yearling kneel and begin to
suckle under his mother's foal-swollen belly. Better get the little guy weaned
and quick. She was going to drop that foal in another eight weeks. He winced.
One way or the other he wouldn't be here after tomorrow. Either he would leave
alone, or cuffed and stoned in the back of a Fed car.
He groaned into his hands. A baby? God, Sweet-Bottom,
it had better be a boy or they really would have him up on murder charges, for
killing horny teenage boys fifteen years from now.
In the depths of his mind a girl's voice whispered a
sob.
'come home, homehomehome'
Sue. Benny scowled at the clouds scudding across the
night sky. That weird dream again. Sue, his dream girl. Benny uttered a silent
laugh that verged on hysteria. Nightmare was more like it, the dreams all mixed
up with that pedophile, Philadelphia's Juvie Court judge, Harrison, and the
darkened-sun god, the Owl.
Everything he disliked in a girl. Scrawny, pale, short,
with big green eyes always on the verge of tears. She was a wimp.
Use-me-abuse-me Susie.
Her hair was touched with the palest gold, like the
moon. It floated in unruly clouds around a heart shaped face.
Everything he didn't like, Benny told himself in a
stern, mocking voice. She let people push her around. Not at all like the
Amazona he was tangled up with now. When angered, Sweet-Bottom had a ready fist
and a bawdy mouth.
And he had to look up to stare into Sweet-Bottom's
baby-blue eyes, even when he had on his boots and she was barefoot.
And pregnant.
God.
What was he gonna do?
A woman's face swam in the moon. Blond hair, just
touched with the palest of gold.
"Screw this," he said and jumped up. "Chrisake,
du'e, she's only a dream." Sue, a breed who acted like a wimp, and
Sweet-Bottom, a cau, a Caucasian, who acted with all the wild abandon and
freedom of one of the People. "You're a dream," he shouted, "A
figment of my imagination, dammit."
'Home,' a girl's voice groaned. 'Come home,
Benny. They're killing me. Torturing me to death. Please, Benny, save me from
Harrison.'
He shook his head and clenched his fists, eager to lash
out, impotent against a haunting beauty and a woman in need.
From the branches of the walnut an owl watched. It
whispered again, 'Come home.'
"No," he shouted. "No, godammit. Just
leave me alone." He spat on the ground and pounded his fists on his
forehead. Too much. All too dammed much.
'Come home, Benny'
He raced from the weeping voice, threw himself over the
fence and flung himself into the reflecting pool.
The waters were as cold as the pain in his heart and
his head. Making small, worried sounds, ravens followed.
Minutes passed. Benny drove himself up, out of the waters
and onto the bank. Gasping for air, he darted away and ran until he collapsed
from exhaustion.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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