The Great Big Fairy

by Dani Haviland

  Benji opened his mouth to say ‘thank ye,’ then thought better of it. “I appreciate it jest the same,” he mumbled and headed back to his surgeon’s task.

  “I said I’d not hurt ye, but it looks like I have to again.” He snorted in exasperation then bent down to look closely at the damages. “Good God,” he uttered softly. “The blade’s still in ye, lass!”

  “I know,” she said slowly, trying not to whimper. “Take it out, please,” she said, this time unable to contain her tears and sobs.

  “Ye can cry all ye want and it willna be a sign of weakness. But it would help with the task if ye dinna heave yer chest when ye did. I mean, cry, but try not to sob. I think that’s what I mean to say. And I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

  “Just be as quick as you can,” she pled, and sniffed back her tears.

  The area around the wound was fairly clean. At least, it didn’t have dirt or leaves in it like the wounds on her back had. He could see the edge of the blade, but could barely feel it. He opened out his sporran again and dug through it. He took out the antibiotic cream, small scissors, sewing needle, and dental floss. The Leatherman was already opened, large blade out, ready for disinfecting. “I’ll need ye, too,” he said as he twisted the tool back on itself, revealing the all-purpose pliers. He threaded the needle with the floss then poured whisky over every part of every tool that was to come in contact with her wound, including his hands.

  “Here, lift yer head.” He held her neck with one hand, the flask with the other. “This should dull the pain a bit. Drink as much as ye can without pukin’.” Jane gave him a blank stare. “Without vomitin’.”

  She nodded and took a cautious sip. She coughed, hurting her side even more. She didn’t speak, but shook her head ‘no more,’ looked up, and closed her eyes. ‘Get on with it,’ she said without words.

  “Lord, help me,” he prayed quickly, then bent to his task.

  He knew Jane was doing her best to be still, but the pliers on bone made her twitch. “Think a happy thought,” he said, then wiped the sweat from his brow on the back of his forearm.

  “You,” she said softly.

  He felt her muscles relax with the single word that described her happy thought. He didn’t have time to appreciate it, though. Her relaxed state was what was needed to get to the butt of the blade. He was able to grasp a big bite of the metal with the jaws of the pliers, and pulled ever so slightly to assure his hold. It was secure. He put one hand on Jane’s ribcage and pulled out the blade, making sure he extracted it at the same angle it had been thrust.

  Jane gulped at the release. It still hurt, but wasn’t the excruciating pain it had been. She took several quick shallow breaths, afraid that the old pain would return, then relaxed. “Is that all?” she asked.

  “Nae, I have to sew ye up, and then use some of that cream I put on yer back. I dinna want this to get infected. It’s gonna hurt again, but I doubt it will be as bad as before. Do ye want to try the whisky again?”

  “Um, yes, please,” she answered, but didn’t move.

  “Here.” He came around in front of her and lifted the flask to her lips.

  She kept her eyes low out of habit, then realized that she didn’t have to with him. She looked up and smiled. “Thank you.”

  “And thank ye fer savin’ my life,” he said with a huge grin. “And thank ye fer the smile. I hope to be seein’ many more of them when yer feelin’ better. Now, take as many sips as ye can handle. Ye might want to leave a few, though. It’s a might early fer me to be drinkin’, but I think I may want to do a little celebratin’ tonight. I think we’ll be doin’ it down the road a bit, though.”

  24 Camo Castle

  “N ow, I’m done with the major doctorin’, but before ye get too comfortable there, I think we’d better get movin’. The men want us gone, but I dinna think it would be wise fer ye to be travelin’ too far with yer wound. I’m sure we can find a place nearby where we willna be seen. I’ll get our gear. Try not to go to sleep; I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  Jane nodded that she heard him, then kept nodding to let him know that she would try to stay awake. Suddenly, her head snapped backwards. While she was nodding, she had fallen asleep, awaking with a start. She realized it would be easier to stay alert if she kept her head still and eyes opened. She would rest when he told her she could.

  Benji sprinted over to their impromptu kitchen. He used a stick to pull the Dutch oven out of the fire, and pushed the coals apart to die out. He bounded over to the tent site, grabbed the bundled mass of blue calico and the rucksack, scurried back to the pot, and grabbed the handle. “Ouch,” he said as he quickly set it back down. He pulled out a short length of the blue cotton and used it as a potholder, grabbing the lidded iron kettle of breakfast cornbread in one hand and the rest of their portable kitchen and pantry in the other.

  He was back at her side in less than two minutes, all of their worldly belongings in a two-foot-square pile at his feet. “Do ye think ye can walk across the creek down yonder where it’s shallow? If ye canna, I’ll carry ye. But, I want to give ye the option. It’s a bit slippery, and I dinna want to drop ye if I stumble.”

  Jane gave a short, shallow chortle, and lifted her head to speak to him with eyes shut. “You hold me up on my weak side and I’ll make it.” Her head flopped forward then jerked back up to face him, her closed eyes suddenly popping open. “This whisky makes me feel funny. Not ha ha funny, but like my body parts aren’t connected to where they’re supposhed to be.”

  “Weel, get up while ye still can then,” he ordered softly, and reached for her left hand. After three false starts, Jane was standing on both feet, but her camo cloth sarong hadn’t come up with her. Benji squatted down quickly and deftly scooped it up, adding it to his bundle of fabric, food, and iron possessions.

  “Come on, Janie,” he urged. “We’ll be jest up the other side of the creek where the road doesna pass.”

  Despite his best efforts at supporting her, Jane slipped a couple of times. She never lost her footing completely, though. “Ye move like a drunken mountain goat,” Benji chided. “It looks like yer gonna be bottom first in the creek, and then yer back up and makin’ forward progress. Aye, ye’d make a dandy basketball player, fer sure.”

  “I’d play basketball or bushel ball or any kind of ball if they’d let me go to college. But, I think I should know how to read firsht,” she complained meekly, her words still slurred.

  “Ach,” Benji replied, “I’ll teach ye in no time flat. It’s not as if I’m goin’ anywhere.”

  Jane suddenly sobered up—or at least she felt like she had. “Am I going with you?”

  Benji felt like he had just been dunked in a pool of ice water. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, about how everything he wanted to do would now involve another person. “Uh,” he fumbled, then realized he was probably frightening her. He bucked up, put on an iron suit of self-assuredness, and said, “Of course ye are; yer mine arena ye?”

  Jane suddenly felt deflated. He thought of her as a possession again. She didn’t say anything, but nodded minimally in servitude body language, just in case he was looking.

  Benji looked up and saw the humbled posture. “I dinna mean like that!” he squeaked, immediately embarrassed that his voice had cracked. He cleared his throat and repeated his meaning with different words. “I mean, yer mine because I thought ye wanted to be mine. Remember, I said that we could choose who we wanted to ‘be’ with in my time. I thought ye wanted to ‘be’ with me. I mean…” he trailed off, not finishing the sentence or even completing the thought as he set foot on solid ground. They were now on the far side of the creek. Last night, he thought that she was fond of him. At least, she was definitely fond of the kissing, and holding onto that part of him.

  He looked up the rise. The unmarked path to higher ground was a little precarious. “Here,” he said changing the subject, glad that the geography had given him the opportunity. “Ye wait here and I’ll take these things
up there. I dinna want ye climbin’ or even walkin’ without me to help ye.”

  Benji practically jumped up the hill, doing his own mountain goat impersonation in scaling the steep bluff. He set down the rucksack and calico, then threw the camouflage cloth over the low tree branches to establish a hunter’s blind. They would be invisible to anyone, even someone looking for them, from the trailside of the creek.

  Discretion assured, he skidded down the rocky escarpment and landed in front of Jane. He bent over with a deep bow and an arm flourish, and asked, “May I help the lady to her castle?”

  Jane shook her head and grinned, not knowing if she wanted to laugh or cry.

  “No?” Benji asked. “Are ye sure? I made a grand home jest fer the two of us.” He changed to a gentler, sincere tone. “There’s no one I’d rather be with, Janie. Ye’ll break my heart if ye say no. Please, dinna tell me no…” he said then lifted her left hand and kissed it.

  Jane rolled her eyes and let him keep her hand. She gave a quick nod. Yes, she’d let him escort her to the ‘castle.’ Jane looked up at the camo cloth tent at the top of the rise. They would be resting and healing right next to the creek where murder and mayhem had nearly ended their lives less than an hour earlier. Even if she died from her wound, at least she had found, been close to, someone who treated her like a human being and had made her smile. Yes, if she died today, she could say she had been truly happy at least once, no twice, in her life.

  Benji helped Jane up to the improvised, poor person’s home with the million-dollar view of the valley. He hadn’t chosen the site for that reason. He just wanted someplace close by that wasn’t near the road where he was sure they would have been shooed away or worse. No, the strategic observation point was a bonus: unsolicited, but appreciated.

  “Before ye travel to the Land of Nod, would ye eat a bit? I’d hate fer ye to get a hangover with yer first taste of whisky. Besides, I have a little pill I’d like ye to swallow. It may take away the pain even more than the whisky.”

  Jane accepted the chunk of cornbread he had broken off for her. She chewed it gingerly. She wasn’t sure what a hangover was, but if it had to do with a queasy stomach and throbbing head, she already had one. She didn’t want to ask too many questions. She had already admitted to being ignorant, but didn’t want to him to know how little she really knew.

  “This is the wee little pill that should make ye feel better all over. Its good fer headaches, backaches, sore shoulders, knifed ribs, stubbed toes, cracked eyelashes….” Benji was looking for a smile, and he got it.

  “What kind of pill is it?” Jane asked. She had never seen a pill of any sort, but didn’t want him to know that.

  “It’s called Ibuprofen. The ladies really like it fer that time of month. It takes care of the backache and bellyache ye get with the curse…or so I’m told. I’ve never had that problem, myself,” he joked, “I’m a tough one.”

  Jane started giggling again then stopped. She had to let him know. “I’ve never seen a pill before. How do you use it?”

  Benji snorted a quick laugh then realized that he was being rude. “I’m sorry. I dinna mean to be makin’ fun of ye. It’s jest that when I’m from, people take pills all the time. Most times, they’re not even needed. Some people think that they make them healthier or smarter. But, sometimes they are needed. Some can take away pains, like this one. Some get rid of infections, ye ken, the fever and pus. Some of them are like my Grannie’s teas, but easier to take. See, ye jest put this little tablet on the back of yer tongue and drink some water. The medicine in it dissolves—that is, breaks up—in yer belly, and goes all over ye through yer blood to make ye better, or does whatever it’s supposed to do.” He inhaled deeply, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. “Ye wouldna believe what some pills are fer.”

  He didn’t want to think about the time those men crammed the little blue pills down his throat while he was unconscious. ‘We just want to make sure you can perform,’ the man with one eyebrow said as he kicked him in the ribs to wake him up. ‘It looks like that thing of yours will be the next star on the porn circuit. You play your cards right, kid, stick with me, and you’ll have all the dope and pussy you can dream of.’

  Benji shook his head again and mumbled, “go away,” then looked over at Jane. She looked frightened. She dipped her head to him, looked him in the eye, and asked without words if he was okay.

  He was glad she wasn’t wearing the slave suit, even if it was daytime. “I’m okay,” he answered gently and sincerely. “It’s jest that I have some bad memories that steal their way into my heid every once in a while. I have to shake them out.” Jane nodded that she understood. “Ye do, too?”

  “aye,” Jane said softly. “Should I take the pill now?” she asked pensively.

  “Here, let me help ye. The first time, it may not want to go down. Open yer mouth and I’ll put it way in the back… Here, drink the water as soon as I have my fingers out of yer mouth. And dinna bite me!” he added with levity.

  Jane held the canteen with her left hand, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes.

  “Now, drink and swallow, drink some more… Ach, ye did brawly, lass,” he said when she downed the pill without gagging. “Now, I want to bind yer wound, and then ye need to lie down and rest a bit.” Benji found the leading edge of the calico fabric and bit into the selvage, finishing off the small nick with a rip crosswise. He stretched out the piece, looked up at her, and decided he would need to tie two of them together.

  “Here, lift yer arms and let me tie this around ye.” He brought his arms around her to grab the other end of the blue bandaging material. Gulp. He hadn’t thought of her nakedness in the confrontation and ensuing fight earlier. Or in the surgery and the stitching that came later. He still wasn’t thinking of her ‘that way’ when they were crossing streams and scaling creek bluffs. But, now the crises were over, and they were ‘home.’ He felt stirrings he knew couldn’t be satisfied. She needed to heal, and he needed to start thinking of something—anything—else.

  He tied off her bandage then patted her gently on her strong shoulder. “Take yer rest and I’ll see if I can do some good while yer mendin’. Here, lay yer heid on my shirt.” He pulled it off over his head. “I’ll need this,” he said as he lifted the blue bundle, “fer somethin’ else.”

  Jane rolled over on to her good side and fell asleep with a smile on her face. The pain was already lessened, or at least it wasn’t bothering her as much. She had seen him blush at her nakedness. It was nice to know that he still felt that way about her. If she slept for a long time, then it would be closer to nightfall when she awoke. She wanted it to be nighttime. Then she could kiss him all night long again.

  Ж

  Benji stayed next to the tree, under the cover of the camouflage print cloth. He pulled out about four yards of the blue fabric, ripped it off, and then tore off another piece the same size. He matched the pieces, wrong sides together then pleated them, ready to tailor. He opened his sporran and took out the needle he had sewn Jane’s wound with and threaded it with real thread this time. He used the only color he had: tan. He snorted; she probably wouldn’t care, although he was sure she’d notice. She was a sharp woman, even if she was uneducated.

  Benji sewed a running stitch from one end of the cloth to the other. He turned it over and used his fingers to ‘finger press’ the seams as his mother called it. He was going to do this right. He was going to make French seams in the Polynesian-style sarong for his African-born friend. He shrugged his shoulders and let himself glow, remembering the horizontal activities of the night before. More than a friend, he sighed. He visualized the two of them, marching down the road—the right road this time—to his Grandpa’s house. He had found himself a mate, someone to be his wife…

  “Shit,” he mumbled. His voice roused, but hadn’t wakened Jane. How was he going to marry her here, now? And how was he going to be able to go beyond second, well, third, base with a vow on his head? One way or another,
he’d marry her, though. If his Grandpa couldn’t figure it out, Grannie was pretty clever, too. Between the three, no four including Jane, they’d solve the matrimonial dilemma. “But first we have to find ye, Grandpa” he said softly.

  Ж

  Benji heard the soft, unobtrusive cough, just loud enough to rouse him, but not enough to sound insistent: Jane was awake. His back was up against the tree trunk: he had evidently fallen asleep. He looked at her and returned her smile. “If ye only ken how beautiful ye were when ye smiled, ye’d never stop.”

  “I have to have a reason to smile,” she said shyly, then shifted her position, scooting closer to him.

  "Why are ye so different?" Benji asked lovingly.

  Jane frowned then looked away in shame, turning her hand over, examining it somberly.

  "Not yer color. I ken why that is: melanin, plain and simple. We all tend to look like our parents. But, what I mean is, why are ye so different to me? I've been with other women..."

  Jane gave him 'the look' when he said 'been.'

  "Aye, I'm not proud of that. It wasna right, and that's one reason for the vow. Whenever you're that close, sharing, um, body fluids, ye really do give a part of yerself, yer soul, to the other person that ye can never get back. But with ye, I ken that I'll be givin’ willingly, in the right way as yer spouse, and all that I give will be magnified, multiplied, because it's ye."

  "Aye," Jane replied somberly, her head still spinning. "I guess that's why I didn't want to give in to the masters or the boss men. I didn’t want them to have that part of me. I was offered extra food and more clothes if I would cooperate. When that didn’t work, they'd bring out the strap or whip or switch...whatever was handiest, I guess. But, it didn’t work. They never got that part of me. But, I made up my mind. I would never do something, anything, if pain or whipping were the motivations. I'd rather die first. I guess…I guess that's why I went with you. I was willing to let that pig whip me to death rather than load those barrels. I know it wasn't that much to do, but he beat me first, even before telling me what he wanted done, just to make a show of me to the men in that town where you found me. He whipped me twice in two days. Of course, he wasn't going to feed me, either. That's when he took that other man's advice about the food and water. Well, I was willing to die of thirst first—I knew I would die of that before starving to death. I've gone long, long times without food, but I could always get water one way or another.