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Two Swords screamed a battle cry at the Owl.
From the east a strong amber light burst through the fog, scorching a violent explosion of the sun. On fear-clumsy wings the Owl flapped away, abandoning both prey and Hunter.
Greylov froze, staring with blinded eyes into the light it could not see, but could feel. With a howl of rage, he darted into the swamp bordering the road.
A battered '57 model pickup wheezed forward, the occupants weary from an all-night vigil at a friend's deathbed.
"Watch out, Henry," the passenger cried and threw up her hand to cover her eyes from what was going to be certain death.
A massive Guardian spirit shoved at the truck.
Bald tires squealed and smoked on the wet surface of the road, the driver fighting to keep control of the vehicle. It screeched to a halt, front tires steaming in the water. The woman leaped from the cab to fling herself at the body on the road.
"Baby, no," her husband cried, and jerked on the hand brakes to keep the truck from rolling the rest of the way into the dark waters. He threw open his door and splashed around the truck to his wife.
"He's alive," she called, weeping tears of relief and laughter. "He's alive. We got to get the boy out of here."
"Baby, you crazy." The man stomped his feet in raged. "He's a biker. Was fighting it out -"
"He's a boy, Henry. A child the same age, mayhap younger, than our baby girl." A sad, sad feeling moved her to touch the slack face of the boy with hands as light as goose down.
"Help me get him to the truck."
"No." Henry was adamant. "No, Mandy. You let him be. He'll probably have friends coming down at any time now. Mayhap they figure we did this."
"Hen-ree." The name was as soft as her touch, filled with sad reproach.
Hand thrown in the air, he grumbled like every long-suffering man everywhere, from Adam on down.
"OK, old woman, get out o' my way." He took Benny under the arms and heaved. "Damn, he's heavy." Henry lay Benny down and rubbed at a kink age put in his back.
The mist hid Mandy's smile. "Wasn't so long ago you used to throw men twice his size in rain barrels."
A snort exploded from Henry.
"Baby, that was twenty-, Lord, woman, thirty years back. I ain't what I was and I ain't mad as I was at that fad hud of a Davis, running his mouth off about you while I was in the Navy."
It was more like fifty years ago, during a warmer, more gentle era. Soft, warm fingers caressed one wrinkled cheek.
"Oh, I don't know. You're still man enough for me, lover."
A glow of pure heat lit the wrinkles of his face.
"He's still too dammed heavy," he said in a grumble, as if to justify his age and withered muscles.
Once in the cab, she told Henry, "Go wet your hankie. I need to wash the mess from this boy's face." God, the scars under all that blood, and the stink. "Phew. Smells like a dead cat."
He glanced at the swamp. Columns of silk-fine mist rose, each the ghost of long dead warriors.
"Huh-uh. You're nuts, old woman."
"Baby? What ever happened to that man who brags about his scars? Where's that man who won those purple hearts and that medal of Valor in 'Nam? He won my heart a long, long time ago."
"I'm going, I'm going, dammit all, woman."
"Now, don't you be cussing, Henry. Ain't manly."
With a woman, the only way to win was to retreat. He threw his hands in the air and was back almost as fast as he had gone.
"Here."
She took the hankie. The smile she wore burned steel into his backbone. Old interfering woman, anyway. Dammed if she didn't always know just what button to push, to make him act like a man.
Proud of her, he smiled, but turned away from the dim light of the cab so she wouldn't see it.
"M'ride . . . where's my ride?"
Mandy listened to the faint whisper. With a soothing caress she lay a hand over the face. The right eye was a hollow mass of scars, still pinkish, under a year old.
"Everything is fine, son. You just lay there and get well."
Benny hoisted himself on one elbow. He collapsed with a groan. So weak, head on fire.
"The Uohali Sun . . . ."
"Is in far better shape than you," she said firmly. "My Henry put her in the barn,
ayotli."
'My child.' He was with family. He was safe.
'Grandfather?'
'It's cool, brat. Love is.'
"Shut up, old man," the woman scolded. "You let the boy get some rest, hear?"
A smile on his face, the eye slid shut and the Owl drifted Benny back into the bruised and bloodied arms of a kid people called Sue and a nightmare that was only beginning.
"You certain you should be up?" Mandy gave him a concerned, maternal squint.
Dropping a nod, his teeth flashed grin. "It's cool, Mrs. Long. Three days are about all I can hack in bed anyway."
Whistling an old Rez tune, Benny smiled at the file's rasp over the head of the axe. It glowed at him. He was aching and tired. Pain dogged his every waking moment and Benny would have been more than happy to simply lay down and rest. And see that girl. The shrink at LeJeune said he was replacing himself with use-me-abuse-me-Susie. That shrink was a nut case all unto himself. A writer, working on the horror war put in a man. He wanted recognition and awe from others of his profession.
"No rest for the wicked," he assured Mandy. "Besides, a man earns his keep. He doesn't lay around and get waited on hand and foot."
She laughed and said, "Somebody should tell my Henry that."
"Allowances are made, Ma'am," Benny said gravelly, "when the lady is as pretty as you."
"Fool. Get on with you."
A dishtowel batted his head. Laughing, Benny dodged out of the screened porch. Behind the barn was a pile of brush and old fence post that had been accumulating, in Henry's words, "Since Moses married white." It would be reduced in size this day, made ready to be stacked on the porch for the stove.
'You know, for a bog, it ain't so bad down here.'
"You ought to know, you're a swamp rat from 'way back."
'The hell you say. I'm mountain ani.' The old man snorted a dry laugh. 'But your grandmother would o' liked it, her bein' Pocono born and bred.'
"Hey, lay off Nana. She was a mine rat, not a bog-buddy."
Henry waved from the barn.
"You trying to get me committed?" There was a snicker. "I'll tell Nana Wya."
Benny smiled into the abrupt silence.
Aching in every muscle, joints creaking in a pleasant way, Benny slammed the axe head in a half-rotted stump. He smiled up at the gnarled blue gum trees and headed back for a rest and a bite to eat. Grandfather whispered his unease. It shivered the hair on the back of his neck. Benny stared up the icy path to the house, steam rolling from under the collar of Henry's old Navy coat. A hiccup belted up out of his stomach.
Slowly, he moved in that direction.
"Yo?" He frowned. "Mrs. Long? Be cool if I hose off out here?" Keeping one ear cocked for a, "Are you crazy, son?" he smoothed the hair down on the back of his neck. Benny stripped off the coat, his jacket and the tee shirt he wore. Mrs. Long said all he needed was a ducktail to complete the ensemble, whatever that was.
Strains of the Gospel Hour whispered through the door. Benny shrugged. Like his mom, when Mandy was caught up in that holy stuff, she was in another world. But with Mom, man, it was literal. In the sweet by and bye of the Forest of the Sun, but yo.
"Hey, God, how about a stanza of 'Angels Watching Over Me'?" Benny snorted a laugh and flicked the finger at the Veil of the Sun.
Behind him, the Warrior Guardian of the Sun Two Swords growled and raised his foot to bounce his charge into the next township.
"What's the use?" He sighed and lowered the foot. On his back, his sword, macana a-Heart-a'-Fire, grumbled, rattling her scabbard. Two Swords straightened the worn leather jacket he wore. His fingers scratched under the sleeveless armhole and came out holding something. It cracked under his nails and he flicked the tiny demon away.
"Yeah, yeah," he said and shook his head. "Just be chillin, it's most fulfillin, squirt. The kid is one stupid brat. Ain't you, Wolf's Cub?"
In retaliation for his complaining about their Benny the fist-sized balance of the sword struck Two Swords a stinging blow on the back of the head.
"Dohi:yi already." Rubbing the back of his head, he grumbled to himself and shivered. 'Heart threatened to slam him again. Hitching up the ragged jeans at his waist, Two Swords rounded on her with a low growl. "Look, if the kid's deef, he's deef. You know how Mom-Eagle feels about us interfering-"
The sword hissed and rattled.
"Oh, shuuuure, 'Heart. I'll just run in and let you-" He slapped himself on the forehead. A resounding clap of thunder sounded in the distance. Birds took flight and 'Heart giggled.
Benny scowled. Funny, it didn't look like rain. Snow was more like it. He tugged the jacket a little closer.
'Heart snarled at Two Swords. He ducked just in a nick of time. The waist length white-blond Mohawk floated in the breeze and tangled with the haft of the sword. She grumbled and jerked free.
"Ouch, darn it, 'Heart. Stop screwing around. Like Old-Man Wya always says, 'Trials and tribulations are what make men out o' boys.' The kid's his own worse enemy, you know that. The brat makes us twice the work." Frustrated, Two Swords groaned.
Grampa muttered an agreement.
To put it politely, the water was invigorating. Like showering under a snow pack. Benny danced around and cursed a little, careful to keep it low gear out of respect for the old woman. He wasn't much on that church thang, like Carl used to call it, but when your mother is a preacher for the People of the Sacred House of Wolves, you stay respectful of other's traditions.
"And a wolf bitch if there ever was one," Benny said and grinned with pride at the thought of his mother. He laughed at that between shivers.
Compared to Nana Wya, Mom was a fuzzy milk-sour pup. On that subject, Grampa was conspicuously silent. Benny grinned. Women are all evil. Thank God.
Done far quicker than he would have been if this were summer, Benny quickly toweled off with the old coat, then threw on his leather jacket. It wasn't too bad, you could hardly see the scorch marks or the place pavement had ripped a hole in the shoulder. He opened the door and stepped into a silent house.
"Mrs. Long?"
An ache grew at scrotum level. Growing uncomfortable, Benny grimaced and remembered to wipe the mud from his feet, then shuffled them. They wanted him to feel right at home, but you act free and easy in another person's home back in the mountains and you could wind up with a third eye, just between and a little above the regular two. A pain. Def'netly to be avoided at all costs.
A pot was spouting ham and lentil soup all over Mrs. Long's immaculate range. Benny rushed to save it.
"Benny? That you, boy?"
He scowled at the pot. Mrs. Long never called him a boy. Henry did, but then he was years older than Benny. Mrs. Long was the motherly sort and he tried to call her Nana, Grandmother.
"Ya, Mrs. Long. Your soup is flooding the kitchen." Or at least the stove. Whatever. It smelled great and he snuck a glance around. No one looking in the door at him. Excellent. He took the stirring spoon and snitched a mouthful.
"Mm. Ow. Hot."
He danced around the kitchen, dribbling soup over the worn linoleum and sucked in a lot of air to cool his scorched mouth.
"Benny?"
"Ma'am?"
"Could- Could you come in here, please?"
Fear tinged the woman's voice. Benny stiffened. The ache was the cold steel of Raleigh's scalpel against his balls. He slipped to the door and sagged onto his knees. An ear, the one that was more plastic than flesh, pressed against the thin wall between the kitchen and the parlor. He heard a sob, choked off and ragged. Teeth bared in rage, Benny surged to his feet.
Ready to charge in and confront whoever was making Old-Woman Long cry he balled a fist. And the odor hit him. Faint, sweet, it clung to his nostrils. Benny hiccuped.
Cologne. Expensive cologne, like the stink snobby Fed agents doused themselves with. Cathouse cologne.
His knees sagged to the floor.
No . . . Dear God, not now. Not to these people.
He had to go, and go now, or the Longs were as good as dead. Quiet, careful of noises, he backed across the floor on hands and knees. A plank squeaked. Benny froze, eye staring at the door to the parlor.
Ten, man. Count to ten. Slow. Then move, like Papa-Bear and Tony taught you the big Tig.
" . . . Ten," he breathed, and moved to the back door. He reached up, opened it. Benny peered out.
Nothing. All looked clear. But the dammed hiccups kept coming anyway. Where was it? Where was the lookout?
'Benny, no-'
Benny dived into the brush along the path and in a low crouch, hurried down to the brush pile and stopped to think.
A gun clicked and his grandfather muttered something most definitely unspiritual.
"I wouldn't, Greylov. I'm under orders to not hurt you, but a good flesh wound wouldn't be much of a problem."
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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