by Ward, H.
“Not uncomfortable? Don’t you mean comfortable?”
She shook her head, “I’ll never be comfortable wearing a gun.” She looked at him seriously. “So this is part of the deal if you tell me about—about…whatever it is that’s dangerous for me to know?”
“I have to know you are all in, Amber McShane.” He looked at his watch again, “You still have thirty minutes to catch the bus with Count Chocula.” There was a note in Cal’s voice, Amber thought, like maybe he thought she should.
“Do you always carry around bra holsters?”
“No, I got that while I was gone, special for you. The .38 I had. I wear it in an ankle holster. But American women tourists in Panama aren’t really given to wearing long pants this time of year.”
“Thoughtful,” Amber said, in a tone that made Cal wonder whether she was being sarcastic or not.
“Take your shirt back off,” Cal said.
“What? The gun is making you frisky?”
“No, I’m going to teach you how to draw. When you do it right, you can have it out in hardly more than a second.”
Amber dutifully stripped off her shirt. Cal stood behind her in the mirror and in a blistering fast move, pulled the gun straight down and had it pointed at them in the mirror.
“Holy shit. Not your first time at the rodeo, is it?”
“Not hardly.” He put the gun in her hand, “Put it back in the holster and snap it in.” Amber fumbled a little, but got the gun back in place. “Okay, grasp the grip firmly.” Amber wrapped her hand around the butt. “Pull straight down and point it.” Amber jerked at it, but the gun was stubborn and resisted before she got it out. “You’re pulling at too much of an angle. Put it back, and this time, straight down.” This time when Amber pulled, the holster let go and she pulled it out smoothly. “That’s better, but you’ve got to be able to do it much, much, faster.”
Cal stepped away to give her space as Amber repeated the motion of releasing the gun from the holster and pointing it. After a couple of dozen times, she was doing it flawlessly.
“That’s really good. I want you to practice this every day, I don’t care how good you get, you can always be faster. The motion has to be absolutely instinctive. If you stop to think, you’ve lost a fraction of a second.”
“Okay.” Amber was subdued and Cal was glad to see that she wasn’t turning it into a game or a joke.
Next he brought out two small canisters of pepper spray. “Here are a couple of non-lethal options. They’re both capsicum based pepper sprays but they work differently. This one is a fogger. You can literally make a barrier that hovers in the air for a few minutes and it’s got a range of about fifteen feet. It’s good if multiple people are coming at you, and it won’t blow back on you in the wind. If you use it inside to spray a doorway, you better believe no one is going to be coming through that door after you.” He handed it to Amber. “This one is a gel, if you get it on their face, it sticks like glue. The more they rub at it, the more it penetrates the skin and the worse it feels. It’ll shoot fifteen feet too, but you have to be accurate with it.”
Amber was starting to feel overwhelmed, but Cal wasn’t letting up as things continued to appear out of his bag. “This is a tactical flashlight, it’s super bright and you can blind an attacker with it, or use it to aim your gun, or just to see to get the hell out of some place. This one also works like a kubotan.”
“Kubotan?” Amber repeated, “I have no idea what the hell that is.”
“Technically it’s a stick-like striking weapon. You can use it to hit anywhere that’s going to hurt somebody, and it’s going to do more damage that your hand. See the pointy scalloped edges on the end of this flashlight? That’s hardened metal. Now imagine someone holding that like an icepick and driving it into just about any part of your body.”
Amber flinched. She covered her mouth with her hand, and thought again about the 10am bus to Panama City. What the hell was Cal up to that she was required to pack an entire arsenal? Rationally, the idea of giving hand jobs to a biology teacher was looking a lot more attractive, but intuitively, she knew that she wanted to stay with Cal. All the same, she was feeling a little sick to her stomach. She set the pepper spray down on the bathroom counter, and took the gun and holster out of her bra and put them down too. She pulled her t-shirt on, and then some shorts—suddenly conscious of how she must look aiming a pistol while standing in a bra and panties. It was like some cheap, pulp fiction, cover; thank god, she thought, that she wasn’t wearing a thong.
She picked up her string bag and looked at Cal.
“I won’t blame you if you want to be on the 10am bus, Amber.”
“I—I just need some air. Thirty minutes, okay?” She tried to smile.
She tried not to race out of the door, or grab her backpack as she went. She did walk quickly once outside, gulping at the warm ocean air like a fish that had been beached. It was time to call her parents, she thought. Time to get the hell out of Panama. The safe boredom of another bike tour was starting to seem attractive.
There was a cyber café a short distance away, and Amber stepped in and logged on to her Skype account. She sat there, paralyzed. After a few minutes of feeling flustered because she couldn’t quite work out what time it was in the Netherlands, she dialed her mom and dad. The phone rang and rang, then her mother’s cheery recorded voice kicked in as the voicemail picked up. She finally worked out the time difference on her fingers. It wasn’t five pm yet; her parents wouldn’t be in from work.
Amber listened to the message, then tried to imitate the same cheery tone, “Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Greetings from Panama! Just wanted to let you know I’m fine and I miss you. Hope everything is going okay at home. I’m going to be off backpacking for a couple of weeks, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from me. Love you!”
She clicked the call to an end, feeling somehow both relieved and depressed as she took off the headset and hung it on the little peg in the cubicle. What if her parents had been home she wondered? What might she have said instead? She drew in a deep breath and felt strangely calm as she got up and walked slowly back to Cal’s bungalow. Instead of asking her parents to get her a ticket home, she was heading to a shooting range. Why was she doing that?
When she walked back in Cal’s room, he glanced up from his packing and the look on his face told Amber that he hadn’t expected her to return. He stood up and met her at the door, gathering her into his arms. They stood there, wordlessly entwined for some time, the thump of their hearts slowly synchronizing. Amber realized that she felt stronger than she ever had in her life and for once, she felt like she belonged.
Slowly, she pulled away from Cal, and went to the bathroom. She pulled up her shirt and fitted the gun and holster back into her bra. She dropped the flashlight and the pepper fog into her bag, and slipped the tiny canister of pepper gel into her pocket. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and turned to face Cal.
“First we’re going to the firing range, and then you are going to tell me what you really do.”
Cal nodded silently. Amber looked fierce, Cal thought, not in that lame ass way celebrity gits use the term, but fierce like an Amazon warrior, or maybe, like a lioness. His instincts had been right; this was the woman who could be his companion in all he had to do, the woman who would be strong enough to stand by his side. He picked up his bag, subduing the urge to reach out and touch her, the urge to soften the hard sheen that now burnished her. Cal knew that he had to be fierce too.
Journal Reflection 8
The best defense is a good offense…or is it that the best offense is a good defense? Everybody always thinks Vince Lombardi said something like that, but he didn’t. It was probably Machiavelli, or maybe Mao Tse Tung, and possibly the boxer Jack Dempsey said something like that too. But which is it?
There’s a lot of debate about self-defense—especially when it comes to women—and what really works, and how a woman should protect herself. When it comes to fight or flig
ht, I’ll pick running away every time. Only an idiot sticks around waiting to get hurt. But what if you don’t have a choice? And what if the person coming after you is three times your size or there’s more than one of them, maybe a lot more? What if you can’t run away?
The one thing I know is that you never want to be on the ground. The moment you go down, you are terribly vulnerable. Andre the Giant jumps on top of you, and when you only weigh 125, you aren’t going anywhere. On the ground you can get hit, kicked, stabbed, even shot, and there’s probably not a damn thing you can do about it.
They say…you know, the “they” out there that knows everything…they say that if you perceive a real threat, and you can’t run away, you have to strike first in order to have a chance. Only problem is that to prove self-defense, you have to prove there was a credible threat and that the use of force was justified. If the threatening asshole hasn’t actually done anything yet, well, you might be kind of SOL. Some places recognize lawful “preemptive’ self defense, but other places, not so much. And you sure as heck can’t wreak vengeance after the fact, no matter how terrible the crime was that was committed against you or your loved one. And the biggest sticky wicket is the whole right to bear arms thing, and the United Nations is really not in favor of that.
I looked all this up when I was traveling so much alone, or just with other girls, in Europe. I wanted to know what you could do if someone tried to rape you—or your friend. I was always afraid to carry anything designed for self-defense, though. I mean, every country has different laws, and what if you tased or pepper sprayed yourself by accident? It would be just my luck that I would subdue myself for the guy trying to rape me. I always thought the best defense was to never get yourself in situations where you needed to defend yourself. And I guess I’ve always depended a lot more on my intuition than I would want to admit.
Thinking back on it, I’ve done some pretty stupid things—picking up strange guys, getting into vehicles with people, but nothing terrible ever happened. I’ve experienced a few lousy one-night stands, but never have I had a man try to really hurt me. So is that dumb luck or good intuition? Did I make good choices or did I just miss the opportunity to make a bad choice, like that girl Natalee Holloway who disappeared in Aruba? How do you know if that cute guy who wants to buy you a drink is really a sociopath? And how do you know that he’s meant to be your soul mate?
Chapter 8
The protective goggles were too big for Amber’s face, and they kept sliding down her nose which was driving her crazy. The clunky ear protection was bad enough, but it was hard to focus on the target when the sweat beading up on her face was making the glasses slip. Cal accepted no complaints and no excuses. He had ceased to be Cal, the guy who made her scream in bed, and now he was some kind of hard-ass taskmaster.
It seemed odd to Amber that a beach resort would have a shooting range, but apparently enough people liked their guns to make it profitable. Cal said ranges were easy enough to find all over Panama, so she had no excuse not to practice. She just couldn’t go in packing concealed. Cal had magically produced a permit for the .38 bearing her name, and Amber decided it was better, at least for now, to not ask questions.
For the first hour, Cal was relentless. He made Amber load, and unload the gun, over and over, snapping the safety on and off, until the feel of it became second nature. Then they spent a long time on learning to use the sight. He explained that he had done away with the factory-installed sight, and put on a much, much better one. She also learned that compact guns, while easier to conceal, give up a little on accuracy, hence the top of the line sight. Finally, he allowed her to shoot the gun. He had done some other modifications, and the clip it used chambered sixteen rounds. She squeezed them off slowly and deliberately, pausing each time to get Cal’s critique.
“You’ve got good concentration,” Cal said. “I kind of thought you would suck at this.”
Amber set her gun down in front of her and took off her protective glasses. “I kind of thought I would too.” She tilted her head as she studied him, “For a pilot, you sure seem to know a lot about guns.”
Cal looked around quickly, his voice sharp, “Don’t talk about that here, not anywhere, do you understand?” he hissed.
“Yeah, okay.” Amber rubbed her forehead. “I’m tired Cal. This has been a lot to absorb. Can we go take one last swim at the beach before we get on the bus?”
Her fatigue was visible, and Cal realized that Amber had done everything he asked, and hadn’t joked or slacked off once. He caught her with an arm and kissed the top of her head, “Yeah, of course. You’ve done really great. Let’s pack up and get out of here.”
Back at the cabana, Amber’s mood lifted as she slithered into her bikini. “I need some water, just twenty minutes, okay? Just to cool off and relax.”
Happy to see her bounce back to her vibrant self, Cal pulled on his trunks, and chased her out the door as he locked up. “I need to put this stuff in the office safe, before we go, though, okay?”
Guns and who knew what else were secured, and then they ran full tilt toward the water.
They dove in and swam out until they could no longer stand, and where the water was not only deeper, but cooler.
“How are the beaches in La Palma?” Amber asked as she floated, her hair spreading out on the water.
“It’s nice there. You’ll like it.”
“Are you going to leave me alone in La Palma?”
Cal was quiet for a moment. “Not all the time.”
Amber started swimming for shore, “Then maybe I’ll still go to the National Park.” She turned around as Cal’s eyes bored into her back, “The safe parts, Cal, only the safe parts.”
They showered off quickly and got dressed to travel. Amber put on a skirt and a tank top, and Cal put on a fresh t-shirt and summer weight khakis. Amber pulled her hair up into a ponytail on top of her head, as Cal settled a cap on his. Sunglasses followed for both of them, and they looked like two, fresh-faced, Americans on vacation. They gathered their belongings and caught a taxi to the bus station.
Cal purchased their tickets and they sat on a bench to wait. The other passengers were mostly locals, with a few tourists mixed in. Then, in walked the Hungarians.
“Shit.” Amber poked Cal. “What are they doing here?”
“I imagine catching the bus, like we are.” Cal sighed a little. “Don’t be rude. It will accomplish nothing.”
Denes, in his guileless way, waved at Amber; apparently unaware of how his brother’s evening had ended. Amber gave him a little wave back. The only empty seats were across from Amber and Cal, and the two brothers made their way over. Tomás glared a little at Cal, but tried to be civil.
“Good afternoon,” Tomás said, a little stiffly.
“Hi. I thought Denes’ flight was tonight?” Amber asked.
“It is,” Denes said, “But it keeps getting pushed back. Seems there’s a volcano going off in Iceland that is making a mess of air travel in Europe.” He grinned, “I wanted every minute I could at the beach. We have Belaton Lake back home; it’s big, but not the same as an ocean.”
Amber nodded trying to make polite, small talk, “Yeah, there’s something about the sea, isn’t there?”
Tomás was sizing up Cal, Amber could tell, wondering what Cal had that he didn’t. On the surface, one might be hard-pressed to find one or the other lacking in some way. Both were handsome, and both were athletic. There was a rough edge to Cal though, the kind of indescribable quality one might associate with a cowboy, or a mountain climber, or maybe, a SEAL or an Army Ranger. There was a softness to Tomás, Amber thought, a slick refinement that many women would adore, but which she found somehow, slightly repulsive. Now that she had a little distance, she understood why Cal kept calling Tomás ‘Count Chocula’ and thinking of him as a ‘princeling.’ The difference, Amber decided, was Tomás’ opinion of his own value to the female gender, and his importance to humanity in general. Cal was focused on the
world outside himself.
Cal unconsciously ran the edge of his thumb across the scar on his face and Amber made note of how she no longer saw the scar as something separate from Cal, a mark on him. The scar just was Cal and that sort of summed up her comparison of the two men. Cal was one hundred percent Cal without any effort; Tomás was trying to be impressive.
“So where are you off to?” Tomás asked Amber.
Before she could respond, Cal jumped in, “We’re heading over to Playon Chico.”
Amber tried to not look surprised. Playon Chico was a little island on the Caribbean side of Panama, just barely off the mainland. It was an indigenous area, and had some nice resort accommodations owned by the Kuna people. It was a perfectly reasonable place for tourists to be going, except that it was in the opposite direction of La Palma, which was on the Pacific side.
Amber nodded enthusiastically, “It’ll be peaceful there.” She kept her voice neutral, “So are you still planning on going to Darien?”
Tomás fixed his gaze on Amber, “Yes, I’m going to Darien alone.”
“I wish I could go,” Denes said naively, “But I have to go back to work.”
“That’s too bad,” Amber said. “Oh look, I think this is our bus.”
The Hungarians took seats toward the front, while Cal nudged Amber to keep going toward the rear. They settled in, almost at the back.
“I couldn’t take the Princeling staring at you for the next two hours,” he said with a smile as he flipped up the armrest separating their two seats. Amber snuggled up next to him.
She spoke in a low voice, “So I’m getting the message that I never tell anyone the truth about where we are going or what we are doing?”
“That’s right.” Cal resettled his arm around Amber. “I picked Playon Chico because it’s a bit of a place to get to, an island, not heavily trafficked, and the accommodations are out on the reef, and private.”