Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

  Strawberry let out a small, somewhat frightened sigh. Pammy felt her own skin crawl at the thought of a girl dying after a beating like that.

  “I thought you meant this Darla girl.” Jill almost sounded chastened. “There’s no way to know if she’s dead.”

  “I agree,” Eagle said quietly. “There’s no way to know. Just like there’s no way to know about the girl I saw. But letting your prejudices get in the way of figuring out what’s happening here—”

  “We’re not the cops,” Jill snapped.

  “Thank God,” Strawberry said. “Thank fucking God.”

  Her vehemence shut down the entire room. She looked at each one of them, turning her entire head to stare at them for a full twenty seconds before looking at someone else.

  She ended with Pammy, and spoke to her as if they were the only ones having the conversation.

  “The cops,” Strawberry said, “don’t care any more than Jill does. In fact, they’d probably say good riddance.”

  “I care,” Jill said. “I just think—”

  “Shut up.” Eagle’s voice was soft. It was even more commanding when it was soft.

  Jill squared her shoulders. She swept a hand at the grocery bag in front of Strawberry. “Make sure you take any refrigerated items out of them. They’re getting warm.”

  Then Jill shoved Pammy out of the way for the third time, and let herself out of the room. The door slammed behind her.

  None of the three women said anything after she left. Pammy almost felt like she should, but if she did, she would simply apologize for Jill, because that was how Pammy was raised. She’d learned to placate—they all had—and she didn’t want to placate.

  Nor did she want to be aligned with Jill right now.

  “So,” Eagle said into the silence. “Did anyone mention a truck when Darla disappeared?”

  She spoke to Pammy, their gazes meeting. Pammy understood. Eagle wanted to calm Strawberry without patronizing her.

  “The father didn’t know,” Pammy said. “He didn’t seem to know his daughter at all. Or what he thought she had become.”

  “Become?” Strawberry’s question was charged.

  “He didn’t understand anything about her,” Pammy said. “He didn’t even know she was gone until she failed to pay rent, and her roommate contacted him.”

  “Did he drive a truck?” Strawberry asked.

  Pammy felt cold. She hadn’t thought to ask. And she had spoken to Eagle the night before. Pammy had known about the truck.

  Both Strawberry and Eagle were waiting for Pammy to answer.

  “He walked in,” she said. “He told me he’d been going from business to business. I never saw what he drove.”

  “I drive a truck,” Eagle said flatly. “It’s not an indictment.”

  “You drive a Ford F-350?” Strawberry asked.

  “No,” Eagle said with just a touch of condescension.

  Eagle’s truck was one of the smaller varieties. It was old, but she kept it up. Pammy had ridden in it a few times. She didn’t really like it. It had uncomfortable bench seats, a broad dash, and it rattled a little as it made its way down the road.

  Eagle’s voice was tight. “I’m just saying that not everyone who drives a truck is a redneck, just like not everyone who drives a VW is a hippie.”

  “Freak,” Strawberry said.

  “What?” Eagle’s tone grew frosty. She clearly thought Strawberry had called her a name.

  “Hippies don’t call themselves hippies.” Pammy spoke up quickly before this situation could escalate further. She had learned the nomenclature the hard way. “They call themselves freaks or heads or flower children.”

  “Freaks?” Eagle said to Strawberry. “I thought you said you didn’t take acid.”

  “I don’t,” Strawberry said.

  Eagle shook her head as if it were all too complicated for her.

  “Look,” Eagle said, “I want to find this guy.”

  “The father?” Pammy asked.

  Eagle glanced at her as if she had asked what happened to the Man in the Moon.

  “No,” Eagle said, her tone still frosty. “The guy in the truck.”

  She turned back to Strawberry. “You said your friends told you to avoid this specific truck.”

  “Hell,” Strawberry said. “It got mentioned at meetings all spring. Before the Park.”

  “But not since,” Eagle said.

  Strawberry frowned. Then she slowly shook her head. “Like I said, I thought he was gone. We thought he was gone.”

  “Any theories?” Eagle asked.

  “About…?” Strawberry asked.

  “Where he went?”

  Pammy had been right. They had initially sent Jill out of the room so that they could talk without her. They were just coming back to that early conversation now as if Pammy wasn’t even here.

  “I didn’t even think of him, to tell the truth,” Strawberry said, “until you mentioned him. That’s when I remembered. I mean, really, I hadn’t heard a word about him in like two months.”

  “Did anybody know him?” Eagle asked. “Did anyone identify him by name?”

  Strawberry’s hand brushed the top of the grocery bag. She was clearly growing more and more uncomfortable.

  “I don’t know, man,” she said. “I don’t know any of this.”

  “Can you introduce me to someone who does?” Eagle asked.

  “Why do you care?” Strawberry’s voice went up. She sounded almost panicked.

  Pammy let out a breath. Strawberry didn’t know Eagle. Eagle hid how much she cared about things.

  Eagle had shown up at the gym one afternoon over a year before, absolutely furious. She had found a woman walking down the street with a cold compress on her bloody nose. Eagle had stopped the woman, made sure the nose wasn’t broken, and then asked where she had gotten the bloody nose.

  Eagle had charged into the gym, determined to put a stop to whoever was hurting that woman.

  “Why do I care?” Eagle asked in that soft voice she had used earlier. She was looking directly at Strawberry.

  Pammy was wrong. The voice wasn’t just commanding. It was deadly.

  “Why do I care?” Eagle repeated.

  Apparently Strawberry didn’t hear the danger. She nodded, then shrugged as if Eagle were asking a stupid question.

  “Why do I care?” Eagle mused. Then she snorted and leaned toward Strawberry. “Why don’t you care? You profess to care about so many things. The oppressed, the Park, the war…. Yet, somehow, you can’t be bothered with two women who have vanished. Yeah, that’s caring. That’s fake caring.”

  Pammy gasped.

  “That’s not fair.” Strawberry looked at Pammy. Apparently, Strawberry had heard Pammy’s reaction. “Are you going to let her talk to me like this?”

  Pammy had stopped Jill for precisely the same reason. Pammy should stop Eagle as well. But Jill had been reacting out of bigotry. Eagle actually had a point.

  Or rather, she had a point that Pammy agreed with.

  She opened her mouth, uncertain what to say.

  But Strawberry sighed, deeply impatient. She had apparently given up on Pammy’s response.

  “Look,” Strawberry said, using that you’re stupid tone. “It’s not just two women who vanished. It’s not just about women. It’s men too.”

  “And that makes it less of a crisis?” Eagle asked.

  “I didn’t say that!” Strawberry shook her head, sounding like a teenager being grounded. She looked at Pammy as if she thought Pammy would take her side.

  Pammy didn’t want to take sides. Or maybe she already had.

  “What are you saying, then?” Eagle asked.

  Strawberry’s mouth thinned. “I’m saying you don’t know what’s going on and you don’t know what we’re doing to stop it.”

  “All right,” Eagle said. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Strawberry said. “It’s not my area.”

  “B
ut something’s being done, that’s what you’re telling me?” Eagle asked.

  Strawberry opened her mouth, then closed it and looked at Pammy again.

  Pammy decided to wait before jumping in. Eagle was right: women were missing, possibly dead. People were missing. Pushing Strawberry was appropriate in this situation.

  “I don’t know,” Strawberry said again. “It’s not my area.”

  “And I return to my original point. You care so much about Biafra and the situation in Vietnam that you can’t even look at what’s happening on your own doorstep.” Eagle’s sarcasm cut the air like a blade.

  “It’s not my fault that these people disappeared,” Strawberry said.

  “It will be,” Eagle said, “if you don’t work with us. If you continue to stop me from trying to figure this thing out, then whatever that asshole in the truck has done—or whoever is making kids disappear—is on you too.”

  “That’s not fair,” Strawberry said softly.

  Eagle laughed once, a cold, hard sound. “Under the law, if you’re protecting someone who committed a crime, you’re an accessory.”

  “I don’t care about the law!” Strawberry said.

  “And clearly, you don’t care about those women either,” Eagle said.

  Strawberry’s face was red. Her eyes were filled with tears. She looked at Pammy.

  “What are you afraid of?” Pammy asked Strawberry.

  Strawberry opened her mouth again, then shook her head, and shrugged.

  “We can’t help if you won’t tell us,” Pammy said.

  “We handle our own shit,” Strawberry blurted. “We’re not supposed to involve anyone with the Establishment. I get enough crap for coming here.”

  “So you’re afraid for yourself and your relationship with your hippie friends,” Eagle said.

  “Shut up,” Pammy said to Eagle, surprising herself. She kept her gaze on Strawberry. “We’re not the authorities. We’re not going to the authorities.”

  She looked at Eagle then, making a point of the gaze. “Right?”

  Eagle nodded, as Pammy knew she would. Eagle had tried the cops and they had failed her.

  “You’ve got to choose now, between your friends and saving some women you don’t even know,” Pammy said. “It seems to me, that’s no choice at all.”

  “You don’t understand,” Strawberry murmured.

  Eagle started to speak, but Pammy held up a hand, stopping her. “We all have a moment in life where we either stand up for what we believe in or we let someone else handle it,” Pammy said. “Right now, you’re letting someone else handle this.”

  “And you’re asking me to let you handle it,” Strawberry snapped.

  “No,” Eagle said. “We’re asking you to help us solve this. A different thing.”

  Strawberry looked at Pammy, then at Eagle. Strawberry’s silence seemed like assent.

  So Pammy said, “Go ahead, Eagle.”

  Eagle straightened, took a deep breath as if she were calming herself, and then said to Strawberry, “I want a list. No, scratch that. I want two lists. I want a list of the people who have disappeared, and I want a list of everyone who has warned you about that truck.”

  Strawberry swallowed hard. Her skin had gone from beet red to pale. The very idea of lists seemed to frighten her.

  “And then what?” she asked. “You’ll give it all to the cops?”

  Eagle was shaking her head. “The cops won’t help with this. You already know that.”

  “So what’s the point?” Strawberry asked.

  Eagle slammed her fist on the kitchen table. The slam sounded like a gunshot. The table bounced and banged against the floor.

  Pammy reached toward Eagle, to stop her from whatever she was going to do next. Pammy had only seen Eagle like this a few times before, and mostly during the People’s Park crap in the spring. Eagle had been mad at the very authorities that Strawberry didn’t like.

  Eagle whirled on Strawberry, who had cringed at the noise, but held her ground.

  “Goddammit,” Eagle said, that soft tone back. “Just how fucking dense are you? I’m pretty goddamn sure a woman is dead because of this guy, and you’re telling me there are other people who disappeared that he might be responsible for, and you can’t be bothered to give me a goddamn list because I might be connected to the government or I might be a—what do you freaks call it? A narc? I’m not a goddamn narc. I’m a fucking concerned citizen. I’m beginning to believe I’m the only fucking concerned citizen in Berkeley—really concerned, mind you, not fake concerned with all your goddamn rallies and your pretty little signs and your stupid fucking marches. It doesn’t matter how much you march and prattle and tell us how to behave. If you don’t fucking care about the people you know who are vanishing off the streets, then why the hell should I listen to you when you tell me what to do? Why the hell should any of us listen to you?”

  She slammed her fist on the table again, and this time, Strawberry jumped.

  Pammy put her hand on Eagle’s shoulder and Eagle shrugged her off.

  “You’re not much help,” Eagle snapped at Pammy. “All your high-minded fucking stupid speeches about self-defense. What does that do? It means that one woman will fight until she’s fucking tired, and can’t fight any more. Self-defense is meaningless. Your little groups that watch the stupid moon landing instead of taking any meaningful action are worthless. And the fact you don’t want anyone to talk about politics? Well, that’s fucking stupid too.”

  Eagle shoved her way past Strawberry and went around the table. Then Eagle stopped, turned, and faced them.

  “All of this? Our little discussion here? This is why nothing gets done in this country. Or anywhere really. Because most people are like you two. Either too frightened to do something or trusting someone else to do it. And then you won’t even help when someone tries.”

  She shook her head.

  “You,” she said, pointing at Pammy. “I don’t care what your goddamn politics are. You’re Nixon’s silent majority, waiting for someone else to do the work for you and quietly disapproving of everyone around you.”

  Pammy felt her face flush. Eagle knew how to get to her. Nothing made her angrier than being called a Nixon-lover.

  “And you,” Eagle said, looking at Strawberry. “You wait. One day, you’ll need someone’s help, and all your little friends will vanish on you. Because they’re not your friends. They’re self-interested assholes who want the media attention. You don’t even believe half of their bullshit, but you believe enough of it to worry more about what they think than you do about the lives of two people.”

  Eagle shook her head and headed to the door.

  “You both make me sick,” she said, and slammed her way out.

  The kitchen reverberated with the remains of her anger. Pammy hadn’t seen anything like that in years, and certainly never from Eagle. Or to be even more accurate, Eagle had never directed that kind of fury at her.

  Tears lined Strawberry’s eyes. She looked at Pammy. “Why do you let her come here?”

  Pammy let out a small sigh, her heart pounding. She cleared her throat and said, “Eagle saves lives. That’s what she does.”

  “She had no right to talk to me like that,” Strawberry said, wiping under her eyelids with the forefingers of each hand.

  Pammy looked at her. Strawberry had brought a lot of people to the gym. She had helped in a variety of ways, and yet, if Pammy were forced to choose between Strawberry and Eagle, she’d choose Eagle every single time.

  “Yes, she did,” Pammy said. “She needs your help.”

  “Funny way to ask for it.” Strawberry was still cleaning her eyes, but she hadn’t left the kitchen. That was a good sign.

  Pammy nodded. “She’s frustrated. She’s used to doing things alone.”

  “What things?” Strawberry asked.

  Pammy thought of all the times Eagle had shown up here after a single phone call, splinting sprained wrists, providing cold
compresses, and, more than once, ferrying a woman badly injured by her husband to a hospital outside of the Bay Area, where the husband couldn’t find her.

  But none of that would impress Strawberry. So Pammy said, “On May fifteenth, Eagle ran into the streets during the riot, just like she did the other night. She patched up a number of people who had been shot, but one kid, he looked like he was going to bleed out. She stopped the bleeding, and sat on the sidewalk with him for hours, until things calmed down enough to get him help.”

  Strawberry raised her head, just a little.

  “A few days later, when Governor Reagan sent that helicopter in filled with CS gas, Eagle realized that the gym was in danger. She ran here, and shoved all of us into the showers, so that we wouldn’t inhale the stuff and it wouldn’t stay on our skins. We didn’t have to send anyone to the hospital, because of her.”

  Strawberry wiped her right eye with the back of her right hand. Then she sniffled.

  “She helps people,” Pammy said. “In small, very real ways. She’s not good at the overall picture. She doesn’t like it.”

  Pammy didn’t add that the fact that Eagle didn’t like it might have come from her service in Vietnam. Strawberry didn’t need to know that.

  “But one on one?” Pammy said. “She’s one of the most honorable, ethical people I know.”

  Strawberry glanced at the door, and said in a small voice, “I didn’t mean to make her mad.”

  Pammy smiled. The smile was a bit strained, but it was real enough. “Me either.”

  Strawberry took a deep breath. “What do I do now? Apologize?”

  “I think we give her some space,” Pammy said. “But it would help if you got those lists.”

  “If I do that, my friends…” Strawberry’s voice trailed off. Then she looked down, shook her head, and smiled just a little. “…but maybe they’re not my friends, right? If they would come down on me for helping someone, even if that someone isn’t one of us. Right?”