Merry's Marauders (Book #2 ~ Scenic Route to Paradise, refreshed 2016 edition)

by Andrea Aarons

  Half an hour later, Sylvia and Tina came up. They began to do a victory dance for Merry, and even Nikki joined in; hitched at the elbows to swing each other around. Merry laughed at their antics.

  In spite of her aching feet and spinning head, Merry grinned, reminiscing. Her sister Kate was notorious for doing a victory prance when happy. “You remind me of my sister, Coco!” She told them using Kate’s nickname.

  Sylvia said, “You cannot go to bed until you tell us the whole thing... Luz is back and she brought our homies with her!” Merry laughed again and promised to tell them all that they wanted to hear after she slept and after she had five or six of Mrs. Ortiz’s tortillas.

  Merry went down the ladder. She still didn’t have a room and a bed, so returning to the lounge, she gingerly removed her shoes. Then shedding her parka and gun, she wrapped herself in a blanket and slept until noon.

  Chapter 8 High Drama

  Merry felt a presence. Dreaming? She had been sound asleep but something disturbed her sleep. It was the light and shade shifting across her face. With eyes remaining shut, she pulled her blanket over her head. He was there and in her mind, she pictured an imposing Malak standing over her with muscled arms crossed and black brows pulled together in consternation. Merry was wide awake now. Her eyes were open under the coverlet. Pulling down the lip of the blanket, Merry peeked out. There he stood with arms crossed as she had imagined but it wasn’t Malak - it was Junior.

  “What?” she asked irritably.

  Junior, full of self-importance said, “The captain wants to see you!”

  “Oh...” Merry then said mischievously, “Tell Patsy I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Junior’s eyes bugged out like he had been spit upon. Merry added quickly, “Just kidding. Is he in the kitchen?”

  Junior glaring, nodded. He turned toward the hallway and said over his shoulder, “You should have brought Angel back.”

  Merry could hear the generator humming. She scooped up some clean clothes and ran across the hall to a bathroom. Turning the shower on, Merry rinsed off thinking of Junior’s parting words. Did she have a choice? Of course, she wanted his sister, Angel back in the fold. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? God added Angel Tapia to the halfway house but she left on her own accord. Merry was just finished brushing her teeth when the water stopped flowing. The generator was shut off for the day.

  It had been a mere ten minutes since Junior brought her Mac’s message when Merry made her appearance. Sylvia, Consuela, Luz and Nikki were pretending to be busy around the stove and kitchen sink. Attentive, Patsy was not pretending but kneading her hands painfully as she stood by the counter.

  Mac sitting at the table with the men glanced at Merry and when he looked away, Merry looked at Patsy and pointed to her mouth signaling something to drink and eat. Mac dismissed Lenny and Tom Biggs and then turned to Merry as she sat down at the far end of the table.

  “Come over here.” He told her gruffly, “I won’t bite.” As she came forward, pulling her bare feet off the chilly floor when she sat adjacent to him, he added almost inaudibly, “Thrash you with a willow stick yes, but bite - no.”

  She forced herself to overlook his threat as Patsy came over with a cup of hot coffee and the pot for Mac’s refill. Sylvia and Consuela were scrambling to put together a breakfast/lunch plate for her. Luz was scrubbing already dry dishes with a dish towel. Merry saw the A-frame ladder folded together and leaning against the back wall - out of the way until guard duty on the roof rotated again. There was a stack of boxes next to the ladder and she recognized the label as a whiskey brand. She thanked Patsy but didn’t make eye contact with her because of those cases against the wall. Merry stared at the boxes.

  Lenny and Malak had gone out last night to bring a dozen cases of whiskey back with them? When she put the ladder out for Lenny in the wee hours of the morning, he had climbed over the adobe wall with a case of whiskey, she now realized. Suddenly, her God driven indiscretion came into perspective - at least in her own mind. Her concern for the women behind the counter hoping to hear Mac’s verdict and see Merry’s demise or victory and Patsy’s worried hovering, diminished and then vanished from her thoughts, altogether. Merry peering over her upturned cup at Malak’s stern face went from anxiousness to indignation. Patsy stepped away and Malak opened his mouth to speak but Merry said, “Did you and Lenny risk your lives and our safety for seven, no! eight cases of whiskey? Don’t tell me... Please, if those cases over there are truly bottled alcohol... I had a very difficult night and I don’t think I can bear to hear the truth about your haphazard venture last night!” She put her mug down harder than she planned and some of the coffee leaped out like a rogue wave at high tide. All the women heard her but she didn’t care. Their eyes as one looked to the cases stacked against the wall.

  Luz bringing Merry’s plate slowed her step. Malak face showed surprise and then indifference. He had no intention of disclosing the huge amount of liquor stored in the garage across the street. Merry checked herself. It was an unplanned outburst but now she regained control of her mouth. Luz put her plate down and retrieved the coffee pot. Merry said, “Thank you, Luz... I can see you are going to be a real asset to our household.”

  Malak said with a heavy accent, “Thank you, Luz. Now take the women and go do something else - somewhere else!”

  Merry was nervous again. She would have to deal with the liquor problem later. Patsy hurried out and the others followed, with Sylvia reluctantly last to leave the kitchen. Merry blessed her food quietly and thanked God for the previous night success. When she looked up, Malak’s angry eyes were on her.

  Merry was hungry and even Malak’s imposing posture didn’t dampen her appetite.

  “Where should I start?” he asked hypothetically. His words were restrained but as his list of her insubordination grew, his voice rose and again, his accent thickened. When she was finishing her third tortilla, Malak had pushed from the table and was pacing about the kitchen cursing in the D’Almatan language. At least, Merry assumed he was cursing; he didn’t seem to be bestowing a blessing upon her. Finally, returning to the table, he stood and pounded the surface as if to get her undivided attention. “Explain yourself!” he shouted.

  Merry processed Malak’s anger differently than he did. She genuinely feared this handsome and somewhat savage foreigner who seemed to thrive on the dangerous situation they were in but his temper now exposed did not cause her fear. Her trepidation came from his calculated and controlled behavior when her world was falling apart. She understood passion, outburst of emotion and even undisciplined anger as he was expressing toward her now. But, Merry couldn’t reconcile in her mind, a strength of character and inner purpose that continued in the face of impossible odds. Where was he drawing this fierce confidence from? Malak from D’Almata did not know her God and therefore, he did not have the eternal anchor and reference point that was her source of strength.

  How did he do it?

  While these thoughts played about her mind, Merry hesitated a moment too long. He banged the table top again. Merry sitting Indian style with her feet folded under her, uncurled.

  “I know you don’t want excuses but I will explain myself and take whatever discipline you think best,” she said softly. Malak had sent everyone from the room but even the wino living under the bridge must have heard his shouting. They wouldn’t hear her and she hoped he would follow suit. “First of all, I am sorry,” Merry told him speaking so quietly that he leaned forward. She admitted to herself that her voice sounded abnormal after all his yelling and thumping. She stood and took her plate to the counter and returned with the coffee pot. “Discipline is important always but even more so now and I see how I have undermined your leadership. Forgive me for that,” Merry said simply looking up into his face across the corner of the table. She refilled his coffee cup and her own. Sitting again she said, “As you know, I am a Christian... the kind that talks to the Creator but also the kind of Christian that hear
s from the Creator.” Malak’s arms came up and folded at his chest. His austere appearance unchanged.

  She said, “Yesterday as we sat here discussing our assignments you mentioned something about a window of opportunity closing. When you said that, my God spoke to me. He gave me an additional assignment besides the one you had given. Somehow I knew that Luz, one of the original halfway house residents was locked up in the county jail and that God wanted her out.”

  As Merry explained, Mac watched her eyes take on a faraway appearance just as he had seen yesterday. He recalled her inner struggle but at the time he had no idea what had come over the young woman. Putting aside his questions he nodded for her to continue.

  Merry told him how she got a plan and then put together the needed items. She didn’t tell him about her pistol. Looking towards the kitchen drawer, Merry said, “When I was getting something from over there, I had a picture pop up in my mind of not only Luz but several women following me out of the jail,” she said and then grinned. “It was a crazy plan and all I could do was wonder how God would make it work. I decided to do my part and let Him do His part and so He did.”

  “I left most of the stuff in the arroyo that swings wide around the jail facility, taking inside only what I needed,” Merry said. She went on to explain how she went in the front door like any regular ministry night and signed in as a volunteer. They gave her the usual laminated orange ID card to move around inside the facility.

  Merry had half guessed and half trusted that she was hearing from God when she headed through the locked hallways of the place. At each door, a buzzer had to be activated which allowed a security cleared visitor access into the next jailhouse section. When she came to the women’s area she asked one of the trustee inmates working in the hallway, where Luz was held and the trustee told Merry, “Omega.” Asking a guard for the Omega group to be released for religious study, specifically Luz Garcia, proved correct. Four women came out of the Omega area into the classroom.

  Luz was amazed to see Merry. At 22, Luz had decided to make a change. When she was confronted with her need for Jesus... a Savior to make that change truly complete, Luz bowed spikey bleach blonde head and prayed. Several months later, her natural dark hair was grown below her ears, covering the tattooed name of her first true love at the base of her neck. Luz had a hard life but she kept a sweet disposition. She hugged Merry and wanted to tell her how she ended up in jail again but Merry shushed her. Merry didn’t have a watch and there was no clock to be seen; she estimated that there was almost two hours before the nightly headcount.

  Like a normal ministry night, Merry asked the inmates a few questions. Immediately, she understood the other three women including Kelsey whom she had run-ins with many times over the last several months - were not interested in the Bible but only in getting out of the confines of Omega for a short two hour break. Merry told Malak in spite of their unbelief, she sensed God wanted these others freed too. She had them hold hands and pray with her. As she prayed, Merry introduced her plan of escaping with Luz. When she said “Amen,” looking up, Kelsey was staring at her.

  “Holy Roller, you’re taking me out too or I’ll scream the roof down,” she told Merry. The two other women concurred that they would do the same but Kelsey had confidence in Merry and the others had confidence in Kelsey. Luz cursed and thought they were all crazy.

  Pulling off the extra garments she wore in, Merry handed out shirts to replace their yellow jail tops and then, the four playing cards she brought with her. The card backs were a fluorescent orange just like the ID card visitors were given when one came through security at the front door. After rearranging their jail uniforms, they attached the “ID” with a clothespin. Merry pulled a few more items from her pockets to accessorize the escape outfits, and they were ready to walk out. Although their transformation was not perfect, God would use their effort. They got through all the locked doors by activating the buzzers but the front door was the challenge.

  Kelsey needed to get out first because she had already threatened to pull the plug if they left her. Merry wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t leave Kelsey behind once Luz and she exited, so Merry agreed. They got to the log book and Merry went to sign out. First, she had to covertly sign-in and then out for Kelsey who she had named Donald Duck. The guards didn’t recognize Kelsey although she was only mildly disguised by Merry’s minimal pocket assortments brought in from the outside.

  “Go on out to the truck, Duckie,” Merry told her. “I’ll be right behind you.” There was no truck of course. They had prearranged to meet in the arroyo. She did this three times with the other gals in the bathroom waiting to be led out with Merry as the foil.

  Merry told Malak, “Under normal circumstances this ruse would never work but everyone at the jail is overworked and stressed out right now. And God made it work, period. So they waited down in the arroyo for me and we made our way back here. I handed out sweaters and some extra shoes I brought with me but left in the arroyo.”

  Merry skipped several details not wanting to trigger a new round of yelling. She said, “It never occurred to me until later to ask for your help or approval but by then I was well on my way.”

  Mac barked out a laugh. “Preposterous! You must think I ride a goat,” he said. Merry heard someone laugh in the hallway and her guess that there were eavesdroppers hiding within hearing distance, was correct. Knowing that “riding a goat” was a phrase unique to D’Almata, Merry smiled slightly but raised her eyebrows at his accusation that she was lying.

  “Anyway, I’ve made up my mind to ask you the next time I get an inclination to do something so... so outlandish. After all, we’ve allowed you to be in charge here and so...” but she didn’t get to finish.

  He laughed again and Merry found his mirth extremely rude. He said, “You allowed me? My dear little fawn, I took charge and none of you... including and especially you, had a choice.” He challenged her with a thrust of his jaw and a dark glare that would have peeled the polish from her toenails if she had been wearing any. He stared until she looked away.

  The sinking feeling of fear in her chest returned. “Well, then I suppose next time I won’t tell you,” she said spitefully although she realized her words were careless and didn’t fit the discussion.

  Mac snatched her up out of the chair. Her coffee cup went flying, spilling the cold coffee about the tabletop and the mug shattered on the floor. Merry gasped. Malak held her by her shoulders; her face inches from his. There was anger and determination in his face reinforced by the dark eyebrows above his eyes.

  “This is not a game! You will never do anything like that again,” he said but released her when she began biting her lip. Her eyes were tearing up and Malak stepped away from her. “If you are having little talks with your God, tell him I will beat you and confine you to a cell in the dungeon... or somewhere for a very long time if he asks you to do anything so ludicrous again. He will understand. Your God knows and He will not have you endangering yourself and so many - again, I trust.”

  Merry was rubbing her shoulders. His grip was like a gorilla and she would remember not to speak so negligently again.

  He cocked his head, his jaw tight and forward again. “Now promise me... Swear by your God that you will not act alone again like this while under my care,” he said. Malak repeated, “Promise me!” He was shouting again.

  “Okay. All right! I promise,” Merry said. He was scared for her, that much was obvious. Her father had acted similar to Malak when she was about five years old and had refused to look both ways at the intersecting streets in front of their house while riding her bike. She had just graduated from trainer wheels and she had told her father that she hadn’t bothered to look for approaching cars because God would take care of her. Her father, Vance Merriweather had shouted and wrung a promise from her in almost the exact way Malak was doing. Years later, Merry realized her father had reacted in fear for her although at the time when she was five, she found his reaction harsh.
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  Merry repeated her promise and then she with a trembling hand reached out to touch Malak’s sleeve. She said, “Mac, I’m sorry.”

  The exploding look that had been building upon Mac’s face for the last few minutes was suddenly diffused. Merry was sure she surprised him with her words and action but she didn’t want anymore drama. Mac was right in that this was not a game and therefore the household needed to minimize strife and work together for the common good and safety of the entire group.

  “Right, then,” Mac said. He left her standing there with the coffee spill and the broken cup. Merry shook her head to clear it from the confrontation and began cleaning up the mess.

  Chapter 9 Party

  Mac had gone over the wall when the others, including Tom Biggs gathered again in the kitchen. The young women were in awe of Merry, even Kelsey as they overheard Mac’s yelling, cursing and pounding. As the older women fiddle about aimlessly in the kitchen, they clucked and tut-tutted in response to the scene.

  Tom Biggs said, “Well, merry, Merry quite contrary - you sure got out of that dilemma without too much damage. I cannot say I don’t blame ‘ol Mac and I suppose they do throw mutinous folks into their dungeons over there in the Adriatic. Fifty lashes and all that.”

  After some time of recounting the details of last night and then, the confrontation with Mac, Patsy called a meeting of all the women. She wondered out loud about the redhead holed up in the nurses’ quarters. Tom left the women to their discussion and Mrs. Ortiz offered to try and get the nurse, Sarah Todd to join the meeting. She went down the hallway towards the front door as Patsy instructed the women to each ‘find a chair’ and gather at the dining table.

  Patsy knew Kelsey, as the woman was infamous in Santa Fe. Kelsey was not quite 40 years old and had been in and out of trouble since her childhood. She was an Anglo resembling Fiona of the Shrek animation but with a tattoo of thorns about her neck. Her sandy-brown hair was trimmed to a bristly-buzz cut excepting a short tuft dyed black at her bangs. Patsy and Merry knew her to have a heated temper and a poisonous tongue.