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Cindy looked them over. One man's face barely showed through white bandages. He leaned to one side, his face gray with the pain of a shattered jaw and the surgery that removed twenty shattered teeth. Gray, Grey. Cindy had a sudden and frightening premonition.
The office was all light colors, with a crystal vase with a single Lady Jane rose a bright blue spot. In one corner, a small owl sat and watched and listened. In the other was a raven. The tiny owl glared at the raven, who snickered.
The soft Virginian accents of old money and the best schooling Europe could provide grew harsh. "Where is he?"
"Ms VanTur . . . " Hardened, fearless men turned from the darkening face.
The winter look of her turned to spring and Cindy laughed.
"Idiots. I warned you." Head tipped back, arms crossed, pushing her breasts tight against the white of her office blousa, Cindy came from behind her desk to study each man. Benny was alive. That was all that mattered. "You watch those helpless brood cows at the farms, gentlemen, and think he's just as they are. Dark and humble, silent. They watch you behind your back, you know, and wait. Where's Ainsworthy? Tell that fool to get in here. Did he stop at a bar again? Where is he, Junior?"
She looked from one to the other. Not a man of them met her gaze, not even the tall one Ainsworthy trained and gave the nickname of Junior, Mike Donnelly. Cindy took a deep breath. Leaning against the desk, she asked in a quiet voice, "What happened?"
He awoke with a start, teeth bared at the agony of memory and dreams of Cindy-the-Warden. If Satan was head of all Wardens, she was one hell of an understudy. Benny scratched at the faint scars on his throat where corded muscle created a hollow.
The dozen or so people of the tsi:ge:O tribe melted into the shadows. Ever polite, they held tiny hands over their mouths to cover smiles of joy. The end was coming. The Great Cleansing was drawing near. All of Mother's creation wept with joy.
Henry and Mandy Long were good people. They didn't deserve to die. Not like that.
Then Benny smiled sadly. The Longs had gone as they wanted to go, together, in their right minds, still deeply in love. They were family. They were
Danwa:ki:i, People of War.
'So you're gonna sit on your ass and do what?'
Without answering the old man, he got up, rolled the tarp and blanket into a tight bundle and strapped that on the
Uohali Sun, every motion slow and deliberate. The wound itched, and in a bare matter of days, perhaps only hours, it would be crawling with voracious feeders. They had their uses. The worms would clean out any infection before they started on live meat.
Man. He smiled at the Uohali Sun. Like his stepfather's, it was a Red Sun, almost scarlet in color. Carl was another who was killed because of him. The smile died.
Benny glanced up. The sun was almost gone. In the dark, agents wouldn't know who it was. Already he could hear the soft rustle of early bats awakening to feast on things that inhabited the night. One slipped near and he held up his hand.
"Night-Sun Messenger, tell Mom . . . Tell her I'm cool."
The bat swirled around him and passed on the message to others. In less than an hour a bat hundreds of miles north screamed the message at Anna Wya.
She nodded, whispered her thanks, and turned slowly into the house in Sandy Valley, Pennsylvania.
The Uohali bounced out of the tiny glen and Benny took her back to the Longs'. A quarter mile from the driveway, he pulled off the road and shoved the
Uohali Sun into a tangle of wild Muscatine grapes. On quiet feet, he slipped through the swampy woods and crouched behind a ragged althea bush.
Cars, trucks . . . Mandy's beloved flowers were ground under the wheels of vehicles crammed in any available space. Thrill-seekers milled around. When the police looked away they tore mementos from wherever they could take them. One large vehicle had the marking of a local television station on it.
Of the agents or their cars, there was no sign. One thing they were good at, Benny knew to his bitterness, was being invisible to the public eye.
Yeah, only two stretchers being loaded in the meat wagon. Ol' Josh and Ainsworthy were long gone. Chopper, probably. Benny felt a chill and then saw her.
"Oh Christ, Wolf of God. It's the Warden! Cindy's here." Man, would you look at that arrogant bimbo, like she owned the place, and owned the Longs.
That last thought came too close to reality. As it was, Smith had been ready to clap the Longs in chains. Better dead than working for Goodie VanTur, that Nazi loving bitch.
"Bet she has a Illivitch Lenin doll and mounts it every night like Hitler did."
He back away with as much haste as caution would allow.
A faint whimper made him freeze, knife in hand, ready to pounce, if necessary to kill to retain his freedom.
"Grammy and Popeye are in Heaven."
"Geezis freekin- God!"
Benny clutched his heart and felt dizzy. From behind a massive, storm-twisted live oak came a tiny child, her eyes huge and swimming with tears. She reminded him of an orphan fawn he had seen once, wandering in the hills of home.
"A man tolded me that," she said in a child's lisp. Her hands scrubbed her face and twisted at one of a dozen cornrow braids her mother lovingly coiled into her hair. She blinked and shivered. Benny opened his arms and his heart and she fell into them. Her frail body shook with quiet, despairing sobs and Benny lay his head on hers and rocked the child slowly, crooning a lullaby his mother sang to him about a Wolf and an Eagle and the Sun.
The tiny doll of a child cried herself to sleep in his aching arms. Benny lay her down and stole back to the
Uohali. He returned with his only blanket, wrapping her in a warm cocoon of red lama wool.
They had gotten away with it. Totally. Like always, the bastards.
He balled a fist and rammed it on the battered tank. The Uohali shuddered with anger, and Benny forced himself to be calm.
A small roadside store, like hundreds all up and down the rural south, came into view. Benny eased onto the berm and parked near a sagging front porch. No gas pumps, but he still had over a quarter of a tank. With a wince, Benny dragged his bad leg over the saddle. He needed a break, and a drink, as well as something to kill the fly eggs that he knew he had missed. Inside the store a radio blared, and a woman's voice spoke in dispassionate tones of the Longs' murder, now two days passed.
Benny went to the section of medicinal supplies and took a small bottle of spirits of turpentine. He moved on through the dingy white store.
Hunger reared its head. His stomach, laughingly referred to as Benny's wolf by Anna, growled and rumbled.
Feed me.
He hadn't felt much like eating, the deaths of the Longs was too fresh in his mind. Benny snarled a quiet laugh. That gracious, pretty bitch, Cindy, wouldn't like it, him missing any meals, let alone fasting. It made the sperm count drop.
Benny grabbed a pound sack of corn chips and a liter bottle of ginger ale from the cooler. Beer? No. No way this beady-eyed creep was going to sell alcohol to him. He didn't need it anyway. He wanted coffee, not that he needed a stimulant to stay awake. The senseless murder of the Longs' did that, and guilt. If he had gone, left them in the night, they would still be alive.
He passed the meat counter and the wolf snarled.
Feed me!
Taking out his wallet, he counted the money there several times. Not very much, not to get him to Pennsylvania and the Pocono Mountains. How long since I ate last? Benny shook his head. Supper the night before - Before that happened.
Bite the fat guy!
Benny smiled and closed his eye. Maybe . . . if he worked at odd jobs, he could make it last until he got home.
Please, Gray-Wolf Rider??? FEED ME!
Acting like he never encouraged the wolf, Grampa started whistling in a dull monotone.
Tiny, suspicious eyes glared at Benny.
"Yo, could I please have one of those steaks?" He tapped the flyspecked glass over the cheapest cuts. "Yeah, gimme a pound of the ribbon."
"You want I should cut it into finger steaks?"
Benny nodded.
Counting out his money, Benny paid for the soda and the meat, then put the chips back with a hungry sigh. Good food, but no value to the guts.
Benny snatched the white butchers paper wrapped steak from the counter and ripped it open as fast as his trembling hands could manage.
The tiny piggish eyes of the tall storekeeper widened in bug-eyed fascination while the tough ribbon steak went down in all its raw glory. Benny's teeth flashed and he picked shreds of ala tartar from his teeth.
Washing it down with the liter of ginger ale, Benny wandered out to watch a fiery sun drop behind the mist-shrouded Dismal Swamp.
No less grayed and rickety than the building, chairs ranged across the dilapidated porch. He chose the strongest looking one and leaned back, his feet propped on the rail. Benny tipped the chair back along the clapboard outer wall.
A patrol car slid up, Sheriff's Dept, Currituck County, on one door. It rolled in next to the
Uohali Sun. Benny watched it, his eye wary.
A huge man squeezed out. He was tall, heavy-set, and when he removed his sunglasses, had the look of warriors in deep-set eyes. He looked like a man who had seen the worse the world had to offer and bedammed if he would allow it to use him again.
The eyes swept in open admiration over the motorcycle. They narrowed to black ice when they took in its rider.
Benny nodded and raised the soda bottle in a respectful salute.
The storekeeper met the deputy at the door.
"Hey, Ron." He glanced at Benny, who glanced back in cool politeness. Benny's skin began to crawl. The hair on the back of his neck twisted and raised.
In a thin whisper the storekeeper said, "That there kid, he ate a pound a beef, man, raw." Another quick look, and he led the deputy into the store.
Benny leaned his head back against the warped siding in an effort to hear what was said. The voices were muffled, but the walls uninsulated in the cracker-box building.
A laugh from the cop. "Hell, I like my steaks that way myself. When my Millie allows. But you know Millie."
The ragged sound of the ancient soda cooler blasted through the walls. Benny cursed in a low ragged hiss through his teeth. The cooler door slammed shut.
"Ah, good pop, man." The cop belched and chuckled.
The storekeeper turned up the radio on a song. Benny's feet hit the porch with a thump. He made a show of wandering back into the store. Hard, black eyes watched him go to the cooler, take a ginger ale out. Benny tossed four bits on the counter and wrenched off the lid of the bottle with his teeth. The sweet, peppery ginger ale went a long way towards calming the nervous buzz in the pit of his stomach.
The song was interrupted by an up-date on the Long murders. The woman's toneless voice droned on, then was replaced by an energetic pitchman trying to hard-sell furniture. A savage itch developed between Benny's shoulder blades.
Benny tossed the empty in a recycling tub and strode out. The black eyes of the deputy scorched a hole between his shoulder blades all the way out the door. Nervous tics jumped on his face. A hiccup belted out and Benny scowled. His head dropped in shame. Old man Greylov mocked him often about his tendency to hiccup when frightened, saying no man would do such a thing.
Benny hunched his shoulders and dragged his leg over the saddle of the Uohali.
Resolve hardened. He was going home, going back to Pennsylvania and the mountains. Maybe for the last time. Bad habits are hard to break, and the habit of being on the run the hardest of all.
'Sometimes,' Grampa told him, 'the only way to freedom is death.'
The deputy stepped out onto the porch. Eyes narrow and thoughtful, he watched the
Uohali Sun and the short kid rip out onto the road. His radio hissed and the dispatcher called his name. Ron trotted to the cruiser.
He had to go back, to find out . . . To find something. He wasn't certain just what, but answers were there, in laurel thickets and the oak covered mountains. Freedom of a sort as well. He and Carl lived, really lived, for a year after their escape from Leda Melancowski. The mountains and forests welcomed them, hid them, protected and fed them. What Carl learned during that year had, as Carl said, 'Saved my ass plenty, down in America de Sud.'
Cindy would never give up, not until he was dead, or under her thumb and in a collar.
What a waste that babe was. She was smart, beautiful, had the stuff to be anything she wanted and the brio to take her there. Instead, all she could see was some friggin Noble Prize for breeding slaves. Watch out! Nutzoid Nazi bimbos on the move.
Home. I'm going home. But where the freek is home.
Benny lowered his head and a fine mist of graveyard soup obscured the view.
A short hard laugh barked from him.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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