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Legs crossed, Ron checked the load in the shotgun. He
snapped it shut. The crack was loud enough to make the women jump.
Ron frowned at the door and poured himself another cup
of coffee.
"Ron Donnelly, you're making a fool of
yourself."
Head tilted back, he stared in cool disdain at his
wife.
Voice low, but the timber harsh enough to make the
many panes of glass in the kitchen tremble in a kind of dispassionate fury, Ron
said, "The hell I am. He gets my baby girl knocked up and thinks he can
just up and run away? Hell no, woman. What kind of a man do you think I
am?" Ron turned to the door, waiting.
With a snort, Millie turned her back on him, her arms
folded beneath still firm breasts. Within, she ached to take the gun and bend it
over Ron's fool male head. The man was acting like he was positively
Neanderthal. She sighed. Crawl back in his cave the minute things don't go his
way. Just look at him, sitting there with John and Bull, in a dead silence. Only
Bull looked happy about it. John was in misery, poor man.
John cleared his throat. He took out his pipe and
loaded it, avoiding Ellen's eyes while doing so. Ellen opened her mouth, then
subsided at a touch on the shoulder from Millie. John glanced up.
"Ron, I think you're going about this the wrong
way."
"Oh?" Ron said. "How the dammed hell do
you think I should do this? Is there a right way?"
John shifted, his eyes steady on his cup.
"No," he said, his words slow, measured by
deep thought. "No right way. Nothing in this mess is right. Except for
Benny."
In righteous anger Boone lunged to his feet.
"What the hell do you mean by that?" He glowered down at the tall,
spare man.
"Bull!" The word was shouted from Ron,
Millie, and Ellen. Playing in the pantry, the children froze and looked at each
other.
John met Boone's eyes. "Benny is a wanted man, so
to speak. You've heard me speak of the Janissary Project."
"Man, don't start up about that crap." Boone
gave an ugly laugh. A look from his father silenced him.
"The Project is . . . it needs Benny. They want
to breed people who seem to have psionic abilities. Benny is - was - their best,
for lack of a better word, breeder. The Manse was a front, one of many for them.
They want him back, Ron, and badly. Perhaps badly enough to kill whomever might
get in their way."
"Like, say, the Longs?" Ellen asked, her
eyes widening in a face gone ashen. "John, you mean they might come in here
and-"
John shook his head. "An elderly couple living
deep in the swamps, possibly. A large white family? No, it would be too hard to
cover up."
"Oh my God." Millie clutched at her heart
and staggered.
"Mama," Ellen and Boone shouted, rushing to
her. Boone put his arms around Millie and helped her into a chair. "Mama,
what's wrong? Ellen, call 911, Mama's face is all gray."
"No. Please sit down, everyone." She looked
at Ron, "Mike is coming. He said they were hunting for Benny. I'm sorry,
Ron, but I forgot in all the excitement. Mike finally got his transfer to
Special Duty."
Ron opened his mouth, torn between what he saw as duty
to country and love for Benny.
"He has to marry Terry Marie," Ron said.
Eyes bright with a relieved grin, he thumped his fist on the table. "They
wouldn't dare touch the boy then."
With a wry, dry laugh, Millie slapped her cup on the
table and dumped some coffee in. "For your information, Ronald Donnelly,
your little girl is near onto twenty-five years old." Ron gave a
noncommittal grunt, and her voice grew cool and brittle. "She did it on
purpose. Told me so. And that it was her life, in fact." Millie sipped on
her coffee and had the satisfaction of seeing Ron choke on his.
"He's got to marry her."
"Stubborn old fool." Millie smiled and
patted Ron's hand. "Your face gets any more red and I'm calling 911,
myself. I know, you just want to keep the boy with you, someone else to teach
your old-dog tricks to." Her eyes grew bird bright with mirth. "He's
just like you when you were that age. A regular ornery little hellion."
He admitted it with a great show of reluctance. Ellen
laughed and said, "Now, don't lie, Mama. Daddy never was little."
Ron looked at John. "What happens now?"
"It's up to you. Personally, I'd send him on his
way." He glanced at them. "And never tell anyone who the father of
Terry Marie's child is."
Ron stiffened, his eyes showed a trace of fear.
"It's like that, is it?"
Staring at him, John sat in silence.
With a groan, Ron hauled his bulk out of the chair and
returned the shotgun to the den. He was a long time in coming back.
Benny fell against the massive bole of an oak and
shuddered, steam rolling up from his collar.
The owl hissed in frustration. With a little help here
and there, he tightened the loop, the noose of agents, bringing them closer to
his prey. Benny would go insane, kill them, and die in turn. Yessss. And bring
despair to this family, as well. Bring them to hate. The body, how long he had
waited to possess the corpse of Grey. How long he had waited to live in the
flesh of men again, and rule.
He cocked an eye. A raven swooped. Others spotted him
and he was forced away from Benny, and the voices in Benny's head softened their
torment and, for a time, faded away.
The VFW was still quiet, the juke box turned down and
the light glowing from the signs still flickering as they warmed.
"You be careful now. You know Doc Harshaw said no
exertion." Millie adjusted the brace on Ron's neck and frowned into his
chest. He was wearing that silly Hawaiian tie Boone sent from spring break last
year. The hips of a nearly naked woman shifted as the tie moved, her eye
winking, lewd with a come-hither look. Well, the fuzzy grass skirt covered her
from waist to mid-thigh, and a long tangle of black threads representing hair
did the rest. Unless you lifted either thatch. Millie glowered at it. Been quite
a while since she had danced that one for Ron. Maybe after they got home
tonight. No, no exertion. Millie sighed and tried not to think of what they both
needed, the joining of bodies and souls, the uniting of their hearts.
Her desire for him was making her sound like old
Mother Donnelly, God rest her soul. Wherever it might have gone.
"I can just imagine what Pastor Nee will say when
he finds we've been bar hopping."
"Now, Millie," Ron said in expansive tones.
"We're only going to this one place, not taking up bar hopping." He
leaned over her and kissed her soundly. "Benny doesn't like restaurants. He
wants to go to the VFW."
Millie shrugged and collected her purse. She knew full
well Benny hadn't wanted to go anywhere, Ron had twisted his conscience a
little.
"Besides, old woman, if Pastor Nee sees me, why,
he'll just have to buy me a pop. He is our chaplain, y' know." And no wet
blanket when the partying begins, either. Nee would just sit in a corner and
drink a bottle of pop, then go home with his wife. Ron winked at Benny and
seated Millie.
"Hey, Lyle?" Ron called across the near
empty hall to the bartender, "how about a round of pops for us and a beer
for the kid?"
The tall, too thin man stretched and rose from the
stool. He took one last, sour glance at the game on the wide screen television
and dug the bottles from the cooler.
Benny reached for his beer, he swallowed hard and
grinned in anticipation. Lyle snatched it back, his face lit with a shifty look
of ridicule. "Let's see some ID, Indian."
"I'm of age," Benny said, his voice cool and
polite. A flushed crept up from the neck of his freshly washed T-shirt,
darkening his face, whitened the scars. Lyle scowled, uncertain now, but
determined to brazen it out.
"ID or no booze."
The look he gave Benny was cold, filled with disdain.
Benny knew that look. He saw it too often in the faces of C/Os at the Manse, and
in the faces of his grandparents, the Greylov's. It spoke volumes of hatred for
anyone even slightly different from the politically correct stance of the
neo-socialist, the nazi party. Something in Benny snapped.
"Oh no you don't, you little idiot." Ron
darted to the bar and snatched Benny off of it. "You cool it." He gave
the snarling Benny a little shake. Benny jerked away and straightened his jacket
with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Just give the kid his drink, would you,
Lyle?" Ron leaned on the bar and folded his hands. Wouldn't do to rearrange
Lysol's hatchet face, not here, not with Millie watching his every move. Some
time soon, though, Ron promised himself.
"I got to see some ID, you know that."
"You sound like a peevish old woman, you scrawny
little twerp." Ron gripped the bar in anticipation of hurdling over it and
crushing Lyle.
Millie ran to the bar and thrust herself between the
men.
"I'm buying, Lyle Hornsby, not the kid."
Millie thumped a five on the counter and prayed it was enough for the beer. Ron
and Lyle looked like they both could be knocked over with same feather at that
point. "Close your mouth Ron Donnelly, and go take a sit."
"Yes'm," he said and meekly followed her
orders. He threw a sly wink at Benny.
Lyle hesitated just long enough to get a glimpse of
the fire in Millie's flinty eyes. Head bobbing on a long crooked neck, Lyle sat
a beer on the bar.
Under his breath, me muttered, "Dang kid needs a
haircut."
Millie smiled and followed Ron to their table.
Benny snatched up the beer and wrenched the cap off
with his teeth. It flowed cold and bitter down his throat. Ahh, man, not bad.
Not as good as Uncle Charlie's, tho'. Unc knows his brew, grows six-row barley
and hops. Does it all from scratch. Does it right. Def'netly better than that
sugar water Millie and Ron were drinking.
Benny slapped the empty bottle on the bar. Lyle glared
from him to Millie and meekly sat another next to the empty.
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