Circles in the Sand

by D. Sallen

  “No, it’s not his dong.”

  Puzzled, Basil turned toward Tawny and glared, “then just what the hell does he do?”

  “Okay. If you promise to do it too, I’ll tell you how.”

  “All right. Anything he can do, I can do too…and better.”

  Tawny hooked her arm around Basil and whispered in his ear. “That’s what you have to do…now.” Basil paled under his sunburn. “That’s what he does before he fucks us. Dirty little bastard maybe knocked me up. I was so excited I didn’t know he didn’t use a rubber, until too late. In spite of that, he comes around pretty often. We like it so much he gets a reduced rate.”

  “And that’s what you girls think is so great. I’ll be damned. I won’t do it. Any guy that would do that probably sucks cocks too.” He got dressed. “He do that to the other gals…without a rubber?”

  “After he tricked me, they make him put one on first.”

  “Hey, he do that to Marie-Elena too?”

  Tawny gasped. Her face flushed. “Welll…I..I don’t think so… I don’t know!…Can’t tell him…Why don’t you ask her?”

  I don’t want to ask her, but she sure sounded like she knew about it…first hand…If he did…did he fuck her too? He left, slamming each door he went through.

  Back at the ranch, Fritz wasn’t there. Next morning when Mrs. Deutsch finally appeared, she said Fritz had caught a train to Grand Eclipse. Wouldn’t be back for a few days.

  Later, after she collapsed in her usual gin stupor, Basil invited Herman to the bunkhouse for more cowboy training.

  “C mon. You need more practice to be a cowboy. You do want to be a cowboy, don’t you Herman?”

  Herman’s face displayed his confusion. “Herman be cowboy. Bassl hurt Herman more?”

  “So…it hurt a little. Cowboys don’t worry about a little hurt. I get hurt all the time, but I don’t even care.

  “Cowboy tool hurt Bassl?”

  “No, no. I never feel little hurt. Working on range sometimes I hurt hand or leg. Cowboys don’t notice little hurt. You be cowboy you can’t feel little hurt.” Seeing Herman’s troubled face, he said, “You squirt cowboy juice good. Feel good to you?…Herman…squirt cowboy juice feel real good to you?”

  The boy’s face screwed up again. “Yah…feel good. Cowboy tool hurt Herman.”

  “Don’t worry, Herman. Only hurt first time. Next time only feel good when you squirt cowboy juice. Okay? You be real cowboy then.”

  At McCunes, Lilith, nurse that she was, insisted on examining Clint’s wound every day. He thought she fussed more than necessary. Seemingly to him, she took advantage of the examination to touch him as much as possible. He didn’t voice his opinion. If she wanted to brush her breasts past his bare back or arm, he wouldn’t complain. He just acted like he didn’t notice. He heard her exasperated sigh after a particularly slow caress without any reaction from him.

  After Lilith looked at Clint’s arm, she said, “It’s looking pretty good. I think we can dispense with the sling, but you still have to be careful with your arm. Bound to be stiff at first.” He won’t be able to keep that between us anymore. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a sleeping man. Until now, there hasn’t been one around here that I wanted. I’ll have you, Clinton Greybull… tonight…for sure.

  Damn sure don’t want to encourage her. Gees, doesn’t she know how flagrant she is? Good thing Dorris doesn’t see any of Lilith’s ‘Tender Loving Care.’

  “Clint, you know I have to fix breakfast every morning for Ollie.” She slid her hand on his shoulder. “It wouldn’t be any more trouble to feed you too.” Smiling into his eyes, “Why don’t you have breakfast with us too?”

  “Gosh, that’s really generous of you Lilith, but breakfast is kind of an early assembly for the troops. I need to be there, particularly since I moved away from them.” He hurried out the door, hoping it didn’t look like he was fleeing.

  Weary, Clint slept deeply that night. He dreamt of sex with Miriam…except…Miriam was never on top before. But when he awoke it wasn’t Miriam’s body who was using him….but he really was awake…he wasn’t dreaming…and he really was being fucked by a woman…and he was helping her! He blurted, “Lore…” and caught himself. “Who?”

  “Lilith, silly…don’t stop.”

  No point in stopping now. Too late. I’ll be sorry tomorrow, but not right now. When he finished, she hadn’t, and stayed in place. He said, “How did you manage…”

  “You were dreaming of me already. (like hell I was!) Nature just took it’s course.”

  “Holy Cow! Are you crazy? You’ll get us in all kinds of trouble. Where’s Ollie?”

  “Asleep. He won’t know I’m here. After a couple shots of bourbon, he all but passes out.”

  Clint tried to slide out from under her. She held him fast into her. “In a moment, “ she said

  “Whoa. You’ve put me in a bind. I don’t know what to think. But this has to be a one night stand. No repeats.”

  ‘That’s what you think, Sergeant Greybull. (Clint had never heard of a succubus.)

  Clint grasped her hips and lifted her off of him. “Hey! I don’t have a rubber on! You might get…”

  “Pregnant? I hope so. Ollie will be so surprised. Nighty-night.” She kissed him and left.

  Oh jeez, Sergeant Greybull, what kind of a mess are you in now?

  The other airmen didn’t learn of Jewel’s technique until the following Saturday. Depressed, in a fit of pique, angry at Jewel for possibly impregnating her, Tawny told Kline. He didn’t really believe it. No one did that. He couldn’t talk about it at Gilman’s.

  After lunch on Sunday, when he heard the NCOs were going out to Q-1 to work on some details, Kline volunteered to go along. Tony Elsas said, “When did you start offering to volunteer anything…except your big mouth?” Tony smiled, so Kline just shrugged.

  After everyone settled down in the office, Kline said, “It’s a good thing all of the NCOs are here. I’ve heard something I can’t believe, but I gotta tell you.”

  “If you don’t believe it, why you gotta tell us?” Tony Elsas said.

  Since he had all of their attention, Kline told them Tawny’s story. He wished he had a camera on all of their faces.

  “Not the first time I heard it.” Elsas said. Still puzzled, the others just looked at him. “Last year I was stationed at Nellis, Las Vegas that is. I hardly knew this guy. He bunked in the lower bay. Anyway, he claimed to be a writer of some sort, sported a white suit, had a head full of red hair. Young guy too, corporal. Anyway, damn near every Friday night he caught a bus to L.A. But get this. Every Sunday came back riding in a convertible driven by a stunning girl. Different one each time.

  “Jealous as shit. Guys in the lower bay figured the only way he could be scoring like that, was if he was a pussy eater. They’d heard rumors of some guy in L.A. He lived with four starlets, who shared an apartment. He didn’t get to fuck them. They didn’t want to take a chance on getting pregnant. So for his room and board, and spending money, he had to go down on all four.”

  Kline looked disbelieving, “At the same time?”

  “No, dummy. How could he do that? Anyway, the guy in the white suit must be doing the same thing. One Sunday after the girl left, guys from lower bay ganged up on him, took his clothes off and gave him a GI shower with scrub brushes. When the First Shirt heard about it, they claimed they did it because he never took a shower, just doused himself in cologne…which I believe was true.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Patton said. “In any case, Jewel ain’t the first one that ever did it then.”

  Clint sighed. “I don’t know. But I got things to do that are more important right now.” Darned If I’m going to tell them what kept Miriam from straying too far. Good thing I didn’t do that to Lilith…she’
d never let go. Wow! What a fiasco!…Ho boy…hope Doris never finds out. Would Lilith tell her? Wonder if I’ll ever get to do it to Dorris.

  After finishing with his paperwork, Rodger Patton said, “Considering the wind and rain we had last night, I’m going to mosey on out and see how our RADAR target fared.”

  Tony Elsas said, “Hey, I’ll ride along with you, Rodger. Can’t get enough of this @#$%&* site.”

  On the way up the north road, as the target came into view, Patton said, “From here it don’t look too good. Wind must have really tore it up.”

  Circling the target to get a closer look, Tony Elsas said, “I don’t think the wind did that.”

  They saw both sides of each aluminum sheet dangling or twisting in the light wind.

  “Me neither,” Patton replied. “Looks like they’ve been sliced right down the middle.”

  “Yeah, wasn’t too tall. Barely touched the top sheets. Maybe reaching from his horse…or standing on his truck.”

  “Balls. We got plenty of aluminum sheets. We can fix that, but do we have to start patrols out here after dark?”

  “Yeah, or find a way to keep track of Fritz Deutsche and his buddies.”

  Getting back in the Jeep, Tony Elsas pointed to the southeast. “I never saw a bunch of buzzards like that around here before.”

  “No, me neither. Must have spotted something big. Probably on the bomb site. We better take a look.”

  They headed that direction just driving over the rough landscape…slow going. They saw more of the big birds circle overhead. “Those are dirty evil birds.” Tony Elsas said.

  “Yeah, and something large must be drawing them. Too bad we don’t have a couple of shotguns. I’d like to blast them back to hell.”

  When they got closer, Elsas said, “I can see a large bloody carcass…through gaps among that cluster of hacking, demon birds.”

  With Tony waving his hat, and both men yelling, Rodger speeded up and drove straight at the buzzards. The birds squawked and flapped their wings, but didn’t fly up. With his stomach churning, Rodger braked right up at the carcass. “Holy cow! That’s a man!”

  “Oh my GOD!” Tony Elsas barfed over the side of the Jeep.

  Staked out on the ground were the remains of a nude human being. Rodger Patton leaped from the Jeep, charged the birds, waved his arms, shouted, “Go! Go! Git you demons!”

  Elsas ran at the birds from the other side, waving his cap, screaming, “Get away! Get out of here! Beat it, Beat it!”

  Both men continued to scream at the buzzards, ran at them, threw clods of dirt at them…drove them back. Patton knelt by the body. He held his kerchief over his nose against the overpowering smell of the rotted corpse. “Couldn’t be here long. Buzzards haven’t finished him…but there ain’t much left. Wonder who the hell it is…and who did this to him?” Tony Elsas knelt and crossed himself. Standing, his bloodless face a visual scream, he crossed himself again. “How could anyone do that? This is unreal.” Fearfully he looked all around them. “What we gonna do?”

  “I can’t leave him for these birds.”

  “Don’t have much choice.”

  “Help me remove the canvas roof. I’m going to cut him free from those stakes. Maybe we can cover him then.”

  “Ya know what. See that whitewash? This the center of target one?”

  Rodger looked around. “Ya got me. So much of this place looks the same. If it is…there might be a stake right in the middle of him.”

  Back in the Jeep, Patton drove as fast as he dared over the rough countryside. “I’ll drop you off at Q-1 to tell Clint. I’ll continue into West Layover to notify the sheriff.”

  In Q-1 Clint said, “What’ going on now? Patton drops Elsas and speeds away.”

  Elsas ran into the hut. “There’s a body staked out there…buzzards eating it!”

  White faced, the three airmen stared at Elsas. Clint recovered first. “Wha…what?”

  “Yeah, dead body…vultures picking at it.”

  “Slow down, start over…Tell us from the beginning.”

  When Elsas finished, Kline shouted. “That might be Hooper. We need to get out there!”

  “Hold on, calm down.” Clint said. “Dead. He’s not going away. The guys covered him. Sheriff’s business now. Unless he says no, we’ll follow him out there.”

  They waited outside until they saw Sheriff Radecker’s white pick-up. He followed Patton in the Jeep. When Radecker saw them waiting he stopped. “You guys follow along if you want.”

  Clint ran over to get in the Jeep with Patton. He hollered to the rest, “Take the weapons carrier.”

  By the time the men got back to the body, the buzzards had tried their best to remove the Jeep cover. The three vehicles stormed at the birds and scattered them into the air. The airmen remained at their vehicles while Radecker and Kerns approached the body. Initially all Sheriff Radecker could say was, “Damn…Damn…Damn. How will we ever know who that is…and who did it?”

  Clint walked back to the weapons carrier. Observing grim faces and tense bodies he said. “You sure you guys want to see this? You don’t have to. Cover your noses if you do.”

  At first, no one spoke. They could smell the corpse. Then Kline, who was twisting his cap, stood and said, “Well, shit we’re out here now. Might as well.” He jumped to the ground. The others followed. Nerves on edge, with shaky legs, stomachs churning, they walked on eggshells to join the lawmen. They just weren’t prepared for the sight under the cover. Sickened, Jewel and Kline turned away and threw up. Aghast, Priebe sniffled and held back tears.

  “Oh God…Oh God…Oh God,” Alcocke moaned. “Who could have done this? Who could be so God damned evil? That looks like Apache torture…staked out on an ant hill. I can’t believe it.”

  The sheriff pulled the Jeep cover back over the body. “Tommy I want you to stay out here and keep those buzzards away.” He looked at the airmen. “How about one of you guys staying for awhile too. It’ll be some time before the county coroner and state police get here.”

  Clint said, “We’ll pitch right in. I’ll rotate one of us out here long as necessary…two if necessary, so Tommy can take a break.”

  “That’s decent of you Clint. I appreciate your help.” He drove off immediately.

  Still white-faced, Kline’s shaky voice said, “That might be one of us…could be Hooper. I’ll take the first shift.”

  Clint looked Kline over. He wanted to say, ‘you okay?’ but that might be demeaning. The man had volunteered. “Okay, Mitch. I’ll rotate someone every two hours. Meantime, I’ll get you guys some food and water.”

  In town Clint filled two water bottles, and then asked Lorena to make up some hardy sandwiches for a couple of guys on guard duty.”

  “Oh my goodness. What do they have to guard on Sunday?”

  “The word will spread in a hurry, so I’ll tell you. Kline and Kearns are standing guard over a body found out on the bomb site. It was staked out on the ground. Buzzards fed on it. I don’t know how they’ll know for sure, but we’re guessing it may be Hooper.”

  Lorena gasped. Her hands flew to her face. “How horrible. Oh that is so awful.” She asked the cook to make up the sandwiches while, crying, she went to tell her mother. Her face wrenched, her mouth agape, Dorris came out to see Clint.

  “I can’t believe what I heard. It’s just too horrible. The body staked to the ground? Oh, it’s just too terrible. Please don’t tell me any more about it now.”

  “I won’t. Got to get back out there with some water and grub.”

  The other airmen didn’t say much, at supper…just picked at their food. Finally Alcocke asked what was on all of their minds. “Do think the body is Hooper, Chief?”

  “I can only guess so. Don’t know if anyone else is missing around here.”
r />   “Could that spooky Indian have done it?”

  “Not if he’s a real spook. I’m gonna get my hands on him. Then we’ll find out.” If Hooper, who will notify his next of kin? Me? I hope not. What the hell is going on around here? Who the hell could imagine the things that happen in this little jerk water place? Feels spooky just being here. What’s going to happen next?

  During the night, the coroner and a state police patrol arrived to take charge of the body at target one. The coroner didn’t want to remove the corpse until the police detectives and scientific personnel investigated the scene first. No telling what they could miss in the dark. Early in the morning a team of detectives arrived. One of them took statements from everyone who was involved in the discovery.

  Clint told all of the troops at breakfast they still had a job to do. Back at Q-1, Patton was to continue supervising the work. Rodger sent Elsas and a crew to repair the RADAR. Clint outlined to Lance how to find the location for the other two observation towers at target two. Once that was done, Patton would show Lt. Byers where to drill post holes.

  Promptly at eight-thirty Clint tried to contact Lt. Pearsall or LC Jenner. He got through around nine-ten. After Clint brought Pearsall up to speed, all the later could say was “Holy cow.”

  A few minutes later LC Jenner came on the line. “I’m beginning to wonder if we haven’t placed you in the middle of a disaster area. That’s two men gone out of a potential thirteen. We’ve planned for a drone operator/mechanic, but no use sending him yet. I hate to ask, but what other problems do you have?”

  “Nothing new, that you didn’t know about before now. Lt. Byers is really helping out. He dragged the tractor through a couple of target circles, but only to remove undergrowth and outline the circles. Need that dozer to make them visible from the air.”

  “We’re still working on that. How are the rest of your troops working out?”

  “Just great, Sir. They do enough bitching, but they do a lot of joking around too. Seems like everyone gets along reasonably well, and they all damn sure pitch right in. Our smart mouth was so concerned that the body was another airmen, he volunteered to stand guard and drive off buzzards.”