Double Grades

by Kristine Robinson

  What we shared together was fun, and real. I wish that things were different so that the next time I see you I won't have to either run from you or try to kill you. I want you to know that you're a beautiful girl, and that I'll always fondly remember you. That being said, I'd really appreciate it if you stopped chasing me. The reason that I answered your telegram was that you sounded smart and capable, not like everyone else who had answered. Yes, I put up the advertisement in the local paper to see if anyone out there was actually looking for me hard enough that it should concern me. When you answered, I was concerned.

  And I know this is how you make your living. And I also realize you might pursue me for reasons other than money, especially after what we shared together . . . but I ask you to rethink that course of action. I'm alone in this world, Samantha, and that's the way it has to stay.”

  Emma hadn't signed the letter. My eyes filled with tears, and soon they were streaming down my face. I wasn't sure what to do. I walked around and around the campfire, trying to figure things out. How had it all gone so wrong? I wanted to know what I could to fix things, how I could tell her that I'd forget all about the bounty. But would I? What we had shared was extraordinary, but I also knew that people shared things like that and then the next day they meant nothing. I wasn't sure what it meant to me now.

  The sun was slowly rising in the sky, and the town still smoked like an old cigar stuck in between wanting to ignite and go out. I decided the best thing I could do was hit the trail. But before I did I surveyed the horizon to see if I could make out any members of the gang taking chase after Emma. I wanted to see if she was full of shit or not, if she had taken off to pull them away from me—to protect me.

  I could barely make them out, but the gang was indeed moving from the town's smoking rubble across the desert in pursuit. I wasn't sure what to do, they were too far away to really shoot at accurately, but then I wondered why that would stop me. I quickly pulled my long gun out of its scabbard and rested it on my horse's saddle. I aimed high, so high there was no way there was accuracy, but that didn't stop me. When I let off the first shot, I peered over the saddle, waiting for the reaction.

  It took a few seconds for the bullet to get there. I knew that as far away as they were the rifle's report would sound confused. They probably wouldn't know whether it was coming from their front, side, or from the rubble behind them. Their horses spooked, and a few of them wheeled about wildly. I waited a few minutes for them to calm down. It wouldn't do to just rain lead down on them. I wanted to slow them down, not give away my position. One thing I noticed that made me smile was that they didn't even look toward the mesa. They were so certain they had everyone scared stiff of them they'd never thought about how leaving a campsite half set up meant that anyone could come along and utilize it with little to no effort.

  When things calmed down, and the group of bandits started to spur their horses to a trot, I let off another shot. I aimed even higher, this time, hoping to send it whining over their heads. Again the horses went crazy, but this time one of the bandits fell off his saddle. Without thinking, I slid my rifle in its scabbard, mounted up, and started out into the desert the opposite direction of the bandits. I hoped that I'd bought Emma some time, and I also hoped that the bandits would be too stupid to figure out where the shooting had come from. Even if they did, by the time they made it to the mesa, I would be long gone.

  As I rode out once more across the desert plane, I thought of Emma. I knew that I would keep pursuing her. The bounty was high, and the emotional stakes even higher. If she turned out to be an amazing person, maybe I could forget about the bounty, and we could make a life together. However, if she turned out to be otherwise, I could always bring her in. Or at least that's what I told myself as I rocked back and forth in the saddle with the horse's gate. There would be many long days of riding ahead, but I'd brought water I'd found at the campsite, and I knew that what lay ahead of me was better than what lay behind me.

  There would be another town, and there I would gather my thoughts and myself. I needed to rest, and figure out what my next move was. And I needed to hurry, because Emma wasn't waiting for anyone. Not even me. Not that I expected her to, by any means. She was, after all, an outlaw. And outlaws led lives on the run. As a bounty hunter, I led a life of chase. It almost seemed to perfect, and I knew it wasn't perfect at all. But thinking about it kept my mind off the heat and the desert wind. Soon the sun was sinking in front of me, and I knew that the next town was close.

  When I got to the next town it wasn't just a little spit of humanity. There were large buildings and streets that bustled with traffic. In one of the saloons there wasn't sawdust on the floor, and I met an old friend there. We hadn't seen each other in years, but it seemed like yesterday we were chasing cattle rustlers across the desert. We talked about my most recent experiences, and I was glad that he could empathize. I told him about Emma, about the feelings she manifested inside of me with her presence and touch.

  “Well,” Brad said. “Looks like we should be headed out after her.

  “We will,” I said, having already known Brad would want to help. “But for right now I'd just like to sit and talk, maybe get a nice room at the hotel and take a bath.”

  Brad nodded. He knew how nice it was to take it easy after a harrowing experience. We both leaned back and our chairs and sipped our beers. A band took the stage and started playing old songs. I looked out the window to see the desert stars twinkling down at me, and I smiled. There would be more adventures, and another day. And now, with an old friend, I felt ready for anything.

  Just as we were about to walk up the hotel stairs to our room, someone covered my eyes from behind. I could tell who it was by their smell, and that made me feel strangely alive. There was so much I had missed about Emma, and I hadn't realized one of the things was her very essence. I turned and wrapped my arms around her, and we held each other for a few seconds.

  “Brad,” I said. “This is Emma. Emma, this is Brad, an old friend of mine.”

  Brad tipped his hat and went to make accommodations with the hotel clerk for a room of his own. The night held the night held so much surprise, and so did the future” so much promise, and so did the future.

  ~ THE END ~

  Bad Tornado

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  A Western Lesbian Romance

  Emily

  I want to be the best meteorologist I can be, but also know that there is a lot that I need to learn. I'm lucky to have a senior videographer with me, to be a mentor, and to show me the ropes. We're headed to a little town that just got destroyed by what is being reported as the biggest tornado ever. We'll be the first station on the scene, but I get the feeling we'll need help from the locals. I hope there is someone there who can be a guide of sorts. I really need this assignment to go well, and hope it does.

  Monique

  I've been living on my families ranch, working and keeping to myself, for years now. The small town that was just ravaged by the elements was the closest thing to civilization in my small corner of the world. Now that it's been nearly wiped off the map, I wonder what will happen. What is needed now more than ever is for the media to pick up the story and run with it. There is so much that the rest of the world has going on, but right now the people that need help the most live only a short ride in my trusty truck from me. I hope there is something I can do to help.

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  The ride had become something like a dark horror attraction, as I drove the news van through an area that had just been hit by a massive tornado. My cameraman, Ed, Kept commenting that things looked bad, really bad, way worse than he'd thought they would be. That worried me because Ed was a veteran of the station. He'd covered all kinds of terrible events and natural disasters—he'd even gone down to Katrina to capture some of the floodings on film.

  I was the newbie here, and it was hard not to be reminded of that. Even with a few years of covering the more mundane s
ide of weather reporting, I still had a hard time being taken seriously as a meteorologist. It was such a male dominated job, and the few females that did exist within its very narrow confines were there because of how they dressed, or the way they batted their eyelashes at the camera. But not me. That just wasn't the way things were for me. I knew that I was attractive, and had no problem holding my own in a conversation, but it was hard not to think of myself in the terms that others saw my peers.

  As I navigated the streets of the broken town, I thought of what it had been before the twister devastated it. One of the idyllic small towns that existed in the state of Oklahoma. It had been miles from anything worthwhile, a remnant of a railroad which had once brought great prosperity to all its stops. But now the railroad was all but dried up, and with it, the wealth which had once flowed.

  The town once had a large, what appeared to be white, water tower. Whatever it had looked like exactly was hard to tell from the torn wreckage left behind in the wake of the twisting winds. "The finger of God," that's what some had called it as they'd watched it smash the town into bits. There were a few things left standing, somehow, and some of the neighborhoods had been spared, but not many. There was a diner, a gas station, some other places of business, a whole lot of rubble, and a bunch of empty parking lots. Most of the cars had been picked up and flung great distances, some of them even dozens of miles, away from the town. There was a good chance the total damage cost would take months to tally up completely, and there was no way to include the loss of life in this, but it had to be staggering. So far there were no reports of fatalities, but I didn't think that would be the case for much longer.

  “Over there,” Ed said. “See that old style plantation house? Yeah, the that is torn open. That'll be a great shot. We'll line you up just right so there is no way people at home won't be being attention!”

  “You've got such an eye for cinema,” I said. “I'm glad you're here to help me out, Ed.”

  "Oh, don't even mention it," Ed said. "You know if I wasn't here then I'd be back at the station, hidden away in some small room, looking at hours and hours of video footage that someone else didn't edit properly the first time around. I know it's bad form to bitch, but at some point I really have to wonder if I'm helping train the younger generation, or if I'm just picking up the pieces after they fail miserably at something I could have done right the first time in half the time!"

  As I step out of the news van the ground feels like a sponge underfoot. I can tell by the texture of the land that it's near its saturation point. I look over at Ed as he moves to set up the camera's tripod a little ways away from where he's pointing for me to stand. We stage in front of the house, and I know it'll be an iconic bit of footage for the station to run. It's still early morning, about eight o'clock. The storm passed through around midnight last night, so it's fresh news.

  Ed motions for me to move a few paces to my left, and I do. Then he counts down with his left hand that he's going to start shooting in five, four, three, two—Ed always uses nonverbals during filming, he says that if we can manage to do it during optimal conditions then we just might be able to do it when mother nature turns ugly.

  “Hello, this is Emily Plath, reporting from the small town in central Oklahoma that was hit last night by the biggest tornado ever recorded. Behind me is a house that was lucky enough to have most of it remain standing, but the rest of the town wasn't so lucky.”

  Ed panned to the left, slowly sweeping the lens so it could take in the destruction wrought on the rest of the buildings. I waited a few beats, then started talking again.

  "What you're seeing now is what is left of the small town of Heanser, a former railroad town that has been struggling for the last few decades. What will happen next is largely up to the government. Will there be reconstruction for the people that live here? Or will the town be abandoned because doing so would be too costly?"

  Ed quickly panned back to me. I squared my shoulders up for the camera just before I was in the frame.

  “Only time will tell. As for now, I'm Emily Plath, signing off.”

  "That was great," Ed said. "I'm glad we shot here. That's some great raw footage. I'm going to upload it to the station right now and tell them to run it as live footage, that way if there is anything wrong with it, they can just say that it was shot live and that's why there are small flaws in some parts."

  I wasn't sure what to say. In the past when Ed would say something like this I'd ask to see the film, but I could never see the flaws he'd talk about. Instead, I only saw what appeared to be extremely well-shot footage. Ed had his own ideas about how things should look, and the stationed always agreed with him. Some of the work Ed shot had gone on to be used in documentaries or shown around the world via the station's partnership with the Associated Press. If Ed saw flaws, then there were flaws, plain and simple.

  As Ed scurried back to the van and got busy with the relatively quick process of footage upload, I reminded myself I needed to focus. Standing in the middle of so much destruction made it easy to want to zone out, take myself to a place that hadn't just been hammered into the ground by one of nature's most powerful and unpredictable forces.

  What was the angle now?

  When Ed came back from the van he had a small smile on his face.

  “The station wants us to stick around for at least the day,” Ed said. “And they also want to see shots of how the tornado has affected the landscape. We need to get in touch with someone around here, I don't know who would be best, maybe a farmer?”

  As Ed finished speaking the family slowly emerged from what was left of the house we'd just filmed in front of. The children all had puffy eyes from crying, and the father seemed to be in shock as well. I didn't know what to say, but I knew I had to say something. Ed drifted back into the van slowly and closed the door without slamming it. If there was one thing Ed didn't like to do, it was hearing how people didn't like him to film what had been their former lives, all torn to pieces. So instead of taking the chance, he mostly made sure to beat a hasty retreat.

  “How are you folks?” I asked.

  “Happy to be alive,” the father said.

  I spoke with the father and mother as the little ones hid behind them. When I inquired if they knew anyone that would be able to take me to the more remote parts of the twisters trail, both of the parents answered at the same time.

  “Monique,” they said.

  Then the father explained that Monique was a rancher on the very outskirts of the county. She had a thing for weather and studied it in her spare time. When I was back in the van I'd already started driving before Ed had a chance to put his seat belt on. I explained on the way, excited we could get some help from a local.

  Chapter 2

  Monique is French. At first she spoke to us in her native tongue, until Ed finally stepped in.

  "Lady, we already know you speak English. We aren't here to give you a hard time," Ed said. "We only want someone with a knowledge of the land to give us some information."

  Monique nods and signals that we should follow her inside of her ranch house. The land around the ranch has been untouched by the tornado, but it's on a crest of a long ridge that overlooks the town that still smolders, miles away. The ranch house itself is small, and when we enter, I'm not surprised that it's only one room. It's nice though, full of furs hanging from the walls, and a few pieces of art. I'm not sure where to sit until Monique speaks to direct us.

  "Go ahead and sit at the table," Monique said, suddenly speaking perfect English. "I guess I should be kinder to you folks. It seems like the rest of the world has forgotten about that poor town. Hell, I've forgotten about it. I couldn't tell you its name if you paid me to. But I do know the lay of the land that surrounds it, in about one hundred miles in any direction. I don't know if that's the kind of person you are looking for, or if you're looking for someone who has been more affected by the storm. Because, as you can see, the twister didn't even come close to my litt
le house."

  Ed nodded as he accepted a cup of coffee from Monique. I signaled that I didn't want any—being caffeine sensitive, I didn't want Monique's pitch black coffee to give me a panic attack.

  “We'd like to see how the tornado affected nature around here,” I said. “So, I guess, maybe a forest or something that would really show our viewers what happens to anything that is in the path of one of those things?”

  Monique nodded as she sat down at her small table with a steaming cup of coffee.

  “I know exactly the place,” Monique said. “We can go there now and still make it back here by dark. I think you two should spend the night. I know this might sound silly, but with so much chaos it's not good to be out there after dark by yourselves. Especially because you're from out of town.”

  Ed and I nodded. It made sense, what Monique was saying. There hadn't been any reports of looting, but that probably had to do with business owners owning firearms and posting up on top of their buildings. There wasn't any way to tell for sure because there had been so little reportage done one the disaster. If Monique said it wasn't safe, I believed her. Many of the residents of the small town had lost everything, and some of them would be desperate. I didn't want to end up on the wrong end of someone's hysterical robbery, and I could tell that Ed was relieved to have lodging figured out. I usually left that up to him, and this time it would have been especially difficult.