“Eudora. Call me Eudora.” A strong name, Val had called it. With a rush of confidence, I went on. “You’re not as mean as you want people to believe,” I said, for the pleasure of watching her jaw drop. “I bet you secretly want me to read that book.”
“My ass.” She turned to go inside.
But I could have sworn I saw a tiny smile chase over her lips as she did.
Robert E. Howard
(January 24, 1906 – June 11, 1936)
Born in Parker County, Robert Ervin Howard grew up in the Brown and Callahan County communities of Cross Cut, Cross Plains, and Brownwood. He attended Brownwood High School and Howard Payne College, and published his first works of fiction in school newspapers. He later wrote poetry and short stories for popular magazines. His main interest was in science fiction and fantasy. In 1932, he created the character Conan the Barbarian. Howard committed suicide at age 30. His Conan character has become known worldwide through books, magazines, and movies.
A WOMAN WITH A PLAN
There turned out to be a catch to the offer of supper, though: the meal was freeze-dried rations like military MREs. I am positive now that our soldiers are battle-ready. The food by itself would make a pacifist ready to spray bullets. Val wisely said he wasn’t hungry and disappeared outside.
Personally, I didn’t blame him for escaping. Our meal consisted of rehydrated powdered eggs scrambled with what could laughingly be called meat loaf. Val might have had the best end of the deal, out there with no food. No surly pregnant teenager. No clingy cat.
“Isis.” Suddenly Glory spoke. “Interesting name for a cat. If, that is, you understand the significance of it.”
Another gauntlet thrown.
But this time I was ready. “Personally, I think her brother Ra would testify that Isis could hold her own with any warrior goddess.”
An arched eyebrow, then a short nod of acknowledgment from Glory. Touché.
An answering, very satisfied nod from me. Maybe I was getting the hang of this warrior woman thing. Heaven knows I needed all the help I could get.
Silence ensued for a bit. Glory was not much on idle chit chat.
Then, “There’s a sword fighting competition.”
“What?”
“At the festival next June in Cross Plains.”
A notion occurred to me, based on the mural, the paintings inside the gun shop and the dome. “Are you entering?”
She only grunted, but I could picture it all too clearly, the more I thought about it. “I think you should. Do you know how to use a sword?”
Her gaze cut to the side. “Of course.”
Of course. I wasn’t actually surprised. “Speaking of which, where’s the copy of Sword Woman?”
Glory stood abruptly. “You don’t have enough time. It’s dark, and you need to be on your way.” She clomped into the kitchen area with its wood cookstove, the first one I’d ever seen outside of photographs. The woman did have a weird thing for the past.
“We can leave later, drive all night if we need to. I have to wait for Val, anyhow.”
“Your young man appears to have skedaddled.”
“His duffel’s still in my car. He’ll be back.” Maybe. Not that I was exactly sure I wanted him to. “I’ll clear up while you get it.” Eating, however lousy the food, had restored some of my energy and spunk. I rose. “Alex, we need to help—” I glanced around for her.
“Sh-h . . . over there.” Glory gestured. “Poor kid. Let her be.”
I followed her pointing and spotted Alex, a seashell spiral in a papasan chair with Isis nestled in the center. Isis had one eye open, lest she have to remind Freki and Geri why dogs should shy away from cats. Her claws might have been tiny, but applied to a nose, they did the trick, the dogs had discovered earlier.
“Well.” I shrugged. “Looks like I have plenty of time.” I grinned at her. “Unless, of course, you’d like me to move on and leave Alex with you. Being’s how you’re the woman with all the answers.” I smiled, and I could tell without a mirror that there was more than a little of Big Lil in it.
Her eyes went to slits. “I’ve been blackmailed by better operators than you.”
I waited her out until the silence stretched out to a catgut-twang, like how Jelly would tune his guitar when he was stoned and keep turning and turning the key until your ears were bleeding from the screech.
“Oh, all right.” She clomped over to a safe that stood beside the refrigerator. Doesn’t every kitchen need its own gun safe?
She returned with a paperback, small and yellowed, cradled as tenderly as any newborn.
I’d expected something more impressive, given the big deal she’d made over it. Still, I reached out for it.
She yanked it away. “Don’t touch,” she barked. “I told you it’s a first edition.” Carefully she tilted it upward so that I could see the title. The Sword Woman. A stunning creature clad in nose-cone breastplate brandishing a sword, prepared to take off a man’s head with one stroke.
I’d wanted to take a man’s head off now and again, but this woman was literally about to do so.
I was mesmerized.
She turned the book over. I bent closer.
I drink, fight, and live like a man—said the back cover title.
The great black-whiskered rogue lunged at me like a great bear as he sought to drag me into his embrace, but as I wrenched out my sword he seemed suddenly sobered by what he saw in my eyes. As if he realized at last that this was no play, he gave back and drew his own blade.
He wielded his sword with strength and craft, and well for me that I had learned the art from the finest blade of all. My quickness of eye and hand and foot was such as no man could match. Blackbeard sought to beat me down by sheer strength, but this availed him no better, because woman though I was, I was all steel springs and whalebone, and had the art of turning his strokes before they were begun.
“Bitch!” he roared in swift fury, his eyes blazing. “I’ll have you for that! You drink, fight, and live like a man,” my enemy mocked.
“But shalt love like a woman!”
“Now that’s a tough cookie,” Glory said.
I had to agree. Shoot, even Big Lil wouldn’t dare tangle with Dark Agnes. Suddenly, I went from curiosity to an absolute certainty that I had to read this book. Dark Agnes, I bet, could reconnect me with my Viking blood. She would not have worn ice-pick heels at Fat Elvis—except for the intimidation angle. She wouldn’t have let any fanny-pincher slide by because she was afraid of losing her job. She would more than likely have located Sister by now.
And would never have let Sister down like I did.
“Glory . . . ” I stared hard into Glory’s eyes. “I really need to read this.”
“You sure do. You intend to take care of that little girl and her baby, you’ll require more than good intentions.”
“Where can I find another copy?”
“Well . . . just so happens, I have a photocopy taken from a damaged volume.” She waited, with that same smug smile as before. She wanted me to plead some more, I would have bet the farm.
Dark Agnes would never plead.
But I didn’t have a sword on me.
That book could contain lessons for me, I just knew it. Here was another sign from Sister, a critical one. Though I could imagine how Sister might be snickering. Pea, girl, your imagination gets carried away sometimes. Part of me began to back down immediately. Flights of fancy had always made trouble for me.
But a new, lower voice, solid iron, spoke to me. So you’re going to give up, just like that, Eudora? Play it safe yet again?
Hey, I was on this journey, wasn’t I? I had taken a big chance, just packing everything in my car and hitting the road.
“How fast can you read?” Glory’s voice yanked me away before I found a good comeback for what I already knew to my marrow was Dark Agnes.
“Very.” I was still staring at the book.
Glory glanced at her watch. “It’s gettin
g late.”
I frowned. “It’s only nine o’clock. Val’s not back. I’ll hurry, I promise.”
“I rise early. I need my sleep.” She paused, considered. “Here’s the deal. You can stay the night, you and your menagerie. Lights out by nine-thirty, though.” She waited for a protest, but I didn’t hazard a word. “After breakfast, you help out a little around here and then I’ll give you the copy. Once you finish it, you pack everyone up and leave me be. ‘Course, I still think your young fella must have split already.”
She wasn’t going to distract me with Val. I kept my eye on the prize. “I’ll grant that someone your age needs her rest, and I don’t mind admitting I could use a good night’s sleep myself.” Triumph was already painting itself on her face, and I couldn’t have that. “But—”
“No buts, girlie. Take it or leave it.”
“Uh-uh.” I let instinct take over. I couldn’t explain why this woman fascinated me, why her challenges energized me, but they did. She did. “But—” I pointed at a painting. “You tell me a story about one of these warrior women before bed.”
Glory did a double-take, then frowned. She was silent for what felt like an hour.
At last, she nodded. “Big girl, you just might be interesting, after all.”
I couldn’t recall the last compliment paid me, unless you wanted to count Black Dude’s long, slow down and up. I finished clearing the table, but it was with a very big smile stretching my chest and wanting real bad to work its way out.
A lot of weird noises crop up in the darkness. Have I mentioned I’m not good with nights?
It was very, very dark in the country.
Alex was tucked in the papasan chair with Isis, who—traitor—seemed perfectly content to snooze the hours away with her.
To distract myself from all that was spooky, I settled back to mull over Glory’s tale about Athena, the goddess of invention and wisdom and the female counterpart of the god of war, Ares. Interesting that she created such tools as the bridle, the yoke, the plow and the rake. She came up with mathematics and musical instruments like the flute and the trumpet, along with being the one who taught homemaking skills to mankind and gave humans the ideas for creating civilization.
When she went to battle, Athena liked order and strategy, whereas Ares just liked to fight. He championed the Trojans in that famous war; Athena sided with the Greeks. At her behest, they constructed the Trojan horse, to the everlasting sorrow of Ares and his gang.
I did admire a woman with a plan. If only I had a better one myself. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but it was hopeless. Only a few more hours before I got to read Dark Agnes.
Don’t bet on it, came her voice. You are not remotely ready for me.
Or maybe it was actually Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. You want the truth? Those demonic eyebrows! That snarling lip! You can’t handle the truth!
I shifted on the lumpy sofa, caught by a sudden vision of the nosecone breast-plated redhead facing off with Devil Jack himself. The very idea had me stretching in delight—
Something teetered on the end table, a metal sculpture I’d spotted earlier, a skeletal concoction of K-bar knives and pressed tin angel wings. It rattled like a flipped coin, on its edge and slowing, but before I could feel my way to it, it stopped.
My breath did, too, as I waited to see if Glory, tucked away in her pasha’s bed hangings, would awaken. That bed was a surprise, I have to say. There was nothing soft about Glory; I could swear she teethed on razor wire.
Yet there she was with a lair draped in silk of so many colors I was flat dizzy, forest green and burgundy, purple and royal blue, a touch of bronze and downright decadent French king gold. Pillows everywhere and a mattress you could surely fall smack into and need a ladder to climb out of.
Of course, with my nine-thirty bedtime mandate, I hadn’t actually witnessed her lying down on it. I barely got my teeth brushed before lights out.
My eyes had been open long enough that they’d adjusted, and I was surprised to see just how much the moonlight illuminated. There was a door not far away. Since I wasn’t sleeping, I wondered if I could locate the copy and manage one of my tried-and-true read-in-the-bathroom sessions.
Then I remembered that the bathroom door was about six feet from Glory’s bed. And Glory knew her way around guns.
Okay, Plan B. I was going outside. I’d retrieve one of my faithful book friends and read in my car by the flashlight I kept in the glove box.
But just before my foot touched the floor, I crossed myself, though I’m not Catholic, and just for good measure, I sent up an insurance plea. Sister, if you’re up there waiting instead of down here where I need you to be, please do not let me step on anything scary or get snakebit outside or savaged by javelinas or whatever else might be lurking out there, okay? Because you know how I get.
I swallowed hard, my earlier bravado fading. It was night, the worst time to be alone, and that was what I really was, alone. Surrounded by strangers inside and wild creatures out there.
Step One, remember? Be Brave. How could I ever succeed in my quest if I gave in to fear now? With my heart thumping to beat the band, I gingerly lowered my sole, touched something skinny and wiggly and nearly screamed—
Until it dawned on me that I had just stepped on the strap of my own stupid purse.
As I rounded my car, I spied Val asleep in the back seat, all the windows down due to the heat. In this part of Texas in the summer, it was only a smidgen cooler at night.
I didn’t want to wake him, so that meant I couldn’t pop the trunk to get a book, but I knew I’d just toss and turn if I went back inside. I wanted to be on my own turf, among familiar things even just for a few minutes, and if I was really quiet, Val would never have to know I’d been there. I eyed the open window, then wiggled myself through into the front seat, not exactly an easy proposition when there was so much of me to fold up.
Fortunately, I’m quite limber. Something Jelly appreciated, back before the bimbo.
Since Val didn’t wake up, I took a minute to just watch him. I might never get another chance before we parted, and I was curious about him. Even in sleep, he seemed a little on guard, sort of like the waking Val was always alert despite his easygoing facade, ready to respond to the moment, to switch course in an instant.
What was it that had made him so . . . temporary? Even though he’d made a strong impression on me, I realized I knew next to nothing about this man, his past, what he wanted from life.
Oddly, for someone so present, so forceful, he didn’t seem in a hurry to get on with his pilgrimage. For a minute or two, I thought again about keeping him—only as a companion, of course. A fellow traveler. Maybe I had no interest in romance, but he was good company sometimes, a peculiar mix of cynic and charmer. Funny and kind of thoughtful, like how he found ways to watch over Alex without tipping his hand.
He went toe to toe with me, yes, but he didn’t use anger to get the better of me. He wasn’t intimidated by my height like a lot of men were, and though he told me when he thought I was wrong, he didn’t try to cut me down to size in other ways.
So who was he, really?
His eyelids fluttered as I leaned on the back of the seat, chin propped on my hands. He gave me a sleepy grin, and I couldn’t help but grin back.
Maybe this was my chance. “Where exactly is it that you live?”
He jolted. Flung out an arm and smacked it on the door handle, cursing. “Damn it, Red, I was dreaming. You haven’t tortured me enough today?” He shoved to sitting.
And we nearly brushed noses.
All of a sudden, the inside of the vehicle got crowded. I was acutely aware that we were alone in the night.
“I was trying to sleep,” he complained. “You should be, too.”
“I’m usually not much good at that,” I admitted.
“Why not?”
I didn’t have a simple answer, so I switched topics. “You missed supper. Are you hungry?”
&
nbsp; “I hitched into town. Had a burger.”
“Glory said there was no place to eat around here.”
“Maybe she didn’t think you two should be in a honky-tonk.”
“There’s a honky-tonk? Where? Is it on the way to Abilene?”
“I have no idea. It’s outside a place called Jewel. Why?”
“I just wondered. The man who wrote Conan lived in a town named Cross Plains, and Glory says it’s somewhere around Abilene. There’s a festival.”
He barked a laugh. “A Conan the Barbarian festival?”
“Yes.”
“Glory’s got a thing for old Arnold, doesn’t she?”
“That’s not the real Conan.”
“You’re an expert?”
“No, but Glory is.” I paused. “There’s a competition at the festival. Swordsmanship. You ever handled a sword, Val?”
He settled back. “Never had the pleasure. You?”
“No, but I bet Glory could teach me.”
His eyebrows arched. “You thinking about hanging around, Red?”
I snorted. “Of course not. Who fights with swords?” Though now that I’d verbalized it, the prospect taunted me. “Anyway, I have to find Sister.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
I wished I could see his expression better before I answered, but there was no help for it. “No.”
“Where’s the last place you saw her?”
“She was—” Suddenly, my throat clogged up. I turned from him. Stared into the darkness as I summoned my nerve. “Don’t laugh.”
“I promise.”
My voice was barely a whisper. “Dead.”
He shook his head. “What?”
“She was dead.” I faced him defiantly. I was not going to care what he thought.
A very long pause. “Are you hoping to contact her through a medium?”
Maybe he wasn’t totally close-minded, but I was alert for a sneer. “No.”
He seemed at a loss, but he wasn’t making fun of me, and it was a relief to tell someone the truth. “I think she’s been reincarnated or will be soon. I have to find her new body.”
The Goddess of Fried Okra Page 8