Ms. Got Rocks

by Jacqueline Colt

  “Terry are you getting this, is the recorder going?” Rocky asked.

  “Rocky, I’m getting each word.” Terry’s voice through the cell phone was fairly drowned by the screams of the women in the front line.

  A TV reporter was running next to Rocky, she could hear the woman say over and over, “Oh shit.”

  Rocky yelled to her, “My sentiments exactly, can you see what is happening?”

  “Yes, those guys are shoving the women back from the gate. This situation is getting nastier, it is getting out of hand,” the TV news lead commented.

  “Where are the cops, my editor called them a little while ago?” Rocky asked the back of the TV news star’s head as the slender blonde pushed her way in front of Rocky.

  Rocky moved into the slipstream of the slender blonde and followed her flying elbows to the front of the media pack.

  “Terry, I’m right at the front and those guys are carrying sticks, club things, like cop nightsticks. The whole crowd is being shoved back from the gate. Terry, stay on the line, I’m going to hold the phone up so you can hear what they are yelling at the women.”

  Rocky held her little yellow cell phone in the air, and within moments the phone was smashed from her hand and landed on the asphalt parking lot, then someone in the milling crowd stepped on it. The mass of people was now trying to move away from men in the front.

  The yelling was less organized and more frantic than chanting. She could barely see the men advancing toward the group of women who were directly in front of her.

  The men had the wooden batons held in front of them and were pushing the crowd back. Rocky raised her camera over her head and again put it into auto shoot for several seconds.

  “The most appropriate word for the crowd movement would be swirling,” Rocky shouted to Terry. The women in the front of the group are being pushed back into the second bunch. The second group is dividing and each side is moving back. The whole crowd is swirling and very confused around me.” Rocky continued reporting and photographing the scene.

  Suddenly the first rank of women was only five feet in front of Rocky. She could, at last see the faces of the men attempting to dissolve the group of women.

  The overweight man in the middle of the line had a face fire red with anger. Rocky wondered for an instant if he was going to collapse right there. She brought her camera down to her face level and took one frame of the furious face of the man. When she clicked that one off, the man gave a yell to the rest of the group.

  “Now!” he yelled.

  He raised his nightstick and brought it down on the shoulder of the woman directly in front of Rocky. Rocky caught a perfect shot of that happening. At that point, the man saw Rocky and the camera. Shoving aside the very obviously injured woman in front of him, he was striding over his victim and the short distance toward Rocky.

  “Bitch, give me that camera” he demanded of Rocky.

  “I’m with the Auburn News,” Rocky was waving her press pass ID directly in front of his eyes.

  “I don’t give a fuck if you are Queen of the May, I want that camera. Either give it to me now or I’ll take it from you. Come on bitch, you won’t like it if I have to take it away from you,” he yelled at Rocky, spitting on her in the process.

  The TV cameraman was slowly backing away from Rocky to get a better angle on the shot. The camera operator was wondering why Rocky was standing there, she was rooted to that spot as the women ranks were now either even with her or behind her.

  Out of the corner of her eye Rocky could see several of the men using the batons at their waist level; the target was the forearms and elbows of the women.

  She turned to get a photo of the beatings happening in that direction. For a moment, Rocky thought she recognized one of the men. There are not many men with that shining black collar length hair. Rocky was not even sure who it was registering in her brain, there was so much confusion around her.

  The large man in front of her was now yelling in her left ear. He was so close to her it would not be any reach for him to touch her. Something warned her now would be a good time to move away from the front line of women.

  As Rocky stepped backward on the periphery of the yelling and noise of the crowd she heard the tiniest sound bite of an angry Irish accent.

  As Rocky was moving backward away from the man she now recognized, she thought, “Why is he here?”

  This was not the time to think it through, Rocky was the apparent target of the man with the stick. She could see the stick move overhead and she swung her camera out of the way, but she exposed her head by doing that.

  One of the cameras was still running on automatic. Rocky hoped that she got the shot. She pulled Margie’s little digital camera from her pocket and held it in her other hand, she clicked through the memory chips on the red faced, blue eyed large man as he lifted the nightstick.

  The man with the sleek black hair was running toward the angry red faced man and Rocky.

  “Hey man, leave that one alone. Hey, stop, don’t do that.” Callaghan roared as he pushed his way toward Rocky.

  “Stop right now, you asshole. That one is a press photographer and she is my woman. You lay a finger on her, I’ll kill ya man.” Callaghan was near the angry enforcer and had the baton back and up poised for a swing at the man directly in front of Rocky.

  The man threatening her turned his whole body toward the tall man running toward them.

  Rocky, who was still standing like a load of rocks watched as the most handsome man she had ever seen and man who tried to jump her claim was wedging himself in front of her. She felt his spread hand across her breasts, pushing her with such force away from his back that he had knocked her breathless and stumbling to the pavement.

  Rocky staggered crablike back, then regaining her balance sitting on her butt,she clicked off two more shots on the digital. She only stopped shooting because the camera was making peeping sounds, as she stood behind Callaghan.

  “Rochelle, get your arse outta here. Now. Go.” Callaghan was shouting at her with a thick Irish accent.

  He offered her one hand to get off the ground and the other one remained on the chest of the big angry man. It flashed through Rocky’s mind that Callaghan looked like a referee in a boxing match.

  “Okay, Pal, any friend of yours is a friend of mine,” the large red faced man said, raising his hands in submission while backing away from Callaghan. He turned around and ran to the nearest knot of women and again raised his nightstick.

  “Bloody Neanderthal,” Callaghan shouted after the man. Callaghan’s deep blue eyes were snapping with irritated, annoyed energy.

  “What are you doing here?” Rocky shouted at her rescuer.

  Rocky was totally confused at the incongruity of the hunk of an Irish claim jumper from a couple of days ago, appearing in a parking lot of a pharmaceutical company in Sacramento California on the very day of a labor action.

  “Get out of here now, Got Rocks. It is over for you, you have your bloody photographs. Go,” Callaghan shouted at her. She could barely hear him over the crowd noise. His icy eyes were snapping as he threw his sleek hair away from them.

  “Dammit, woman, do you never do as you should? Go. This isn’t done here, and you don’t need any more than what you have,” he implored.

  Callaghan had turned his back on the men and was squared off in front of Rocky. He threw his arm around her waist and turned her to face the street. He hustled her across the parking lot through the throng of confused frightened women.

  “Where is your car?” Callaghan demanded.

  “What are you doing here?” Rocky demanded in return.

  “It is just a job, darlin’. Where is your car?” Callaghan answered and began to cover her like honey with the Irish accent.

  “You are a strikebreaker, full time as a job? You make money beating up innocent people? Except for the times you steal people’s claims?” Rocky was standing at the edge of the street, but she had turned and was looki
ng Callaghan straight in the eye.

  “No, I don’t. This was a day labor job, to keep the strikers away from the gate. Nothing more than that, just a one-day job,” Callaghan was lying to her that this job was a day labor job to him. But he did not prevaricate in that he was not there as a strikebreaker.

  “Got Rocks, go home.” Callaghan said as he pointed at the digital camera that is still peeping. “You don’t have any more batteries. Go home, damn it.”

  Callaghan grabbed Rocky by the shoulders and kissed her hard. Hard enough that her bottom lip was split and bleeding when he turned her loose, giving her a hard shove down the street. He turned again to the factory and raced back into the milling crowd.

  "What the hell?" Stunned, Rocky moved away from the crowd and walked to her truck parked three blocks away. Stunned that she was leaving before the women have left and stunned that she allowed that claim jumper Callaghan to touch her, much less tell her what to do. She called Terry at the paper from the front of the first 7-Eleven she saw on the way. That was when she noticed the spot of blood on the front of her white T-shirt.

  “That jerk bit me,” Rocky announced to the entire 7-Eleven parking lot. They, however, did not seem to care about either her lip or her bloody shirt.

  A few hours later, Terry at the newspaper was excited to see the photos Rocky had rushed through her printer Rocky drove them right down to the Auburn Times before the ink had barely set.

  “Terry, I was so scared that guy was going to hit me,” Rocky told him.

  “If you want to be a press photographer, you’ve got to expect stuff like that,” Terry looked at her like she fell off the turnip truck.

  “Press photographer isn’t on my resume. I have no desire to go to Iraq, Sierra Leone or the insides of Myanmar snooping for a picture. No, that has not one whit of appeal to me. I want to take cute little shots of animals and models wearing overpriced designer clothes,” Rocky proclaimed her goal for the first time.

  Terry’s expression changed; he was now looking at her like she truly did fall from the turnip truck and the looney bin to boot.

  “To each his own, Sugar. These pics are great, thanks for filling in for me.”

  Terry was on the phone attempting to sell some of the photos as Rocky left with her paycheck. She went to the bank and then bought a replacement cell phone and restocked the film in her stash. She did not come out ahead financially on the day’s work.

  The exhausted but still agitated woman spent the rest of the afternoon getting reprints of the photos and storing the photos on two memory sticks. Looking at them again she started to shake uncontrollably.

  That Callaghan guy was in two of the photos that Rocky thought were the best of the lot. Laying guilt on herself, she set them aside to be reprinted for her portfolio.

  Rocky told Lovie and Phoebe, “I’m not giving up my day job to be a press photographer, well I wouldn’t even if I had a day job.”

  The next project was calling to her. The bad day at the labor protest all but forgotten.

  * * *

  “The whole situation didn’t turn out as I thought it would. I didn’t get inside the factory,” Callaghan reported by phone to his boss. “It was a bloody waste of time.”

  “I think it was worth the time,” the boss assured him.

  “What, for finding out how they hire their day labor?” Callaghan was practically sneering over the phone.

  “Something may come of that later, not every operation is going to be a shootout, ya know,” the boss reminded the aggressive, energetic man.

  “The only surprising development was the appearance of the Clancy woman. I damn near had a bloody coronary when I spotted her,” Callaghan reported.

  “What is your take on that?” his partner Clark asked.

  “She was wearing press credentials; she was taking photographs and reporting on a cell to someone,” Callaghan answered.

  “Was she reporting to the Don? Why would he use her, he had enough of the Unistat dudes there to give him the scoop,” Clark said.

  “I have the gut feeling that she isn’t connected, not at all.” Callaghan stated.

  “We’ll see. She may turn into exactly what we need for this project.” the Boss said.

  Callaghan disconnected the cell as he said, “Or not.”

  Chapter 9

  After dinner, the dogs meandered into the cooling evening, while Rocky enjoyed being able to sit in a chair, most especially on her own porch.

  Phoebe was hunting in the meadow and Lovie was running around pretending she was hunting. Lovie the Boxer was not seriously interested in hunting anything to eat or for sport. Phoebe, however, must have terrier bloodlines somewhere, because she took her hunting of rodents seriously.

  Sitting on the porch Rocky watched Phoebe hunting over by the rocks and Lovie was coming from the other direction near the river back to the cabin. Lovie was carrying something she had found. Rocky could tell by the way the big dog was moving that she was proud and excited by whatever it was. Last time she brought in a prize, it was a huge grasshopper.

  Rocky put aside the miner’s moss from the flume of the dredge she was cleaning of gold bits. The cleanup from her Dad’s final dredging could wait while she checked out what Lovie was packing. Whiskey Gap was rattlesnake country, she watched the dogs like a hawk when they were hunting.

  The dogs grew up in snake free Alaska. Rocky wondered if snake caution genes were included in their gene pool.

  The massive brown dog moved around the side of the cabin avoiding the porch. Whatever she had must be good in dog value; she was not going to share. That could be good or not good for the rest of them.

  In case Rocky had to make a trade, she raided the refrigerator for a packet of string cheese and an apple. Lovie’s favorite snacks may be a valuable enough bribe.

  Rocky whistled for the Boxer and she appeared around the porch with her mouth full of brown fuzz.

  “Oh no, Lovie must have killed a rabbit,” Rocky thought, repulsed.

  The dog brought her kill, and dropped it onto Rocky’s foot for admiration. When it moved Lovie put her big paw on the side of it.

  “My God it is alive,” Rocky said to the beaming dog.

  It was a baby bunny. Rocky thanked Lovie and gently examined the baby jackrabbit. Other than being wet with canine spit, there was not an injury to it. Lovie was glowing like a proud mama showing off her firstborn.

  “I get it Lovie, you know this is a baby and it is just the right size to be your baby.” Rocky was trying to reassure the big dog.

  “Lovie, the baby is very cute,” she said to the dog while offering her a bite of string cheese. It was cute; even slobbered on it was cute. The little jackrabbit looked like it may be two weeks old because it had fur and its eyes were open.

  “Lovie, Sweetie, you can’t keep the baby. The baby must go back to his mother,” Rocky told the watchful Boxer as the bunny settled down in her hand.

  Finding an old basket, they nestled the bunny down to rest. Lovie would not allow the bunny more than a foot from her. Lovie put her muzzle next to the bunny and rolled it over with her nose, as she would have done to a puppy.

  “Lovie, we’ll go to the store in the morning and find you a bunny stuffed toy. The baby must go back to his mommy in the morning.” Her sweet old dog was busily grooming the rabbit, not paying a bit of attention to Rocky.

  Bringing the basket and Lovie outside, she picked some of the juiciest tender young blades of lawn grass for the little jackrabbit. Rocky hoped it was already eating greens or they are in big trouble for the night. The baby nibbled on a stalk of grass and Lovie seemed very happy at that.

  Lovie never had puppies. She would have made a splendid mother, though she would also have washed her puppies to pieces. She was again washing the baby, rolling it over and over with a muzzle as big as the entire rabbit.

  “Lovie, the baby needs to rest, you are overwhelming it, even when you don't mean to,” Rocky told the dog.

  Dr
aping a towel over the top of the basket and putting the basket next to Lovie’s bed, the dog seemed content with that spot. Lovie climbed into her bed to stand watch over the rabbit while it rested.

  Rocky was outdoors at dawn, watching jackrabbits in the area she saw Lovie roaming last night. There were many rabbits in the area, scattering when she walked toward them. She was hoping to find the nest and replace the baby in it.

  Having searched that entire section of the meadow Rocky didn’t see nests or baby rabbits free ranging in the area.

  When time came Rocky loaded everyone in the truck and they arrived at the vet office in Auburn when it opened.

  The vet informed Rocky she could turn the bunny loose. It was older than she thought, and could take care of itself. The tech gave the bunny a rabies shot, and Lovie got a booster shot.

  The cardboard carrying case from the vet would be a good sleeping nest for Thumper until Rocky could find a plastic airline kennel at a garage sale. Lovie would understand the kennel concept as a den for the rabbit. Rocky knew that Lovie was not going to allow her bunny to go outside without her. Lovie would bring it back inside. Thumper the jackrabbit, was now part of the family.

  Rocky stopped at the Auburn feed store for dog cookies, rabbit pellets, a litter pan and a salt ring for the bunny.

  Lovie was thrilled with the whole situation, and Rocky guessed she could afford to feed another animal that eats the lawn. She had not seen Lovie this happy in a long time.

  * * *

  The adventure of a lifetime happened so fast that Rocky did not expect it to work out. Dev and Margie needed to back out on the “Adventure of The Lost Dutchman Mine” trip they had bought at the local charity auction. Dev had a high priority meeting with the Interior Minister of Dubai and Margie was going with him.

  They gave Rocky one of the tickets. Friday morning at the last minute she threw Dev’s climbing gear, her climbing shoes, outdoor clothes, Dev and Margie’s cameras,all the batteries and chargers she had into a sports tote.

  Thumper and Pokey the Border Collie got boarded at the vet on the way to the airport, devastating Lovie to leave her bunny until the big Boxer saw the plane.