“Mister, I’ll be getting,” the less drunk friend said and began backing away, his hands in the air.
The shouting had drawn attention, and somebody decided at that point to pull the power cord on the jukebox. The entire bar turned to stare at us from what I could see in my peripheral vision. I kept my eyes trained on the drunk's face, watching for his hand to move.
“Rick, easy,” Tina said from behind me.
“Put the knife down,” I told him.
“Your dog’s crazy, man. He attacked me. All I wanted was a dance.”
I wanted to put a bullet in the floor, next to his head, between his legs. Something awesome and dramatic, but instead I lowered the gun and held it lower, more or less in the direction of the man’s groin. He noticed and dropped the knife and covered up his crotch.
“I don’t want no more trouble,” he said.
“My wife’s dog has been perfectly trained to protect her. She told you to leave, and you put your hands on her. He very gently made you get back, but let me tell you something, he could have easily torn your throat out. He didn’t. He is not crazy, he was very deliberate and calculated with his violence. Just like I will be, if I need to. Now, are we going to have a problem?” My words were low, but I had a feeling everyone in the bar could hear me.
He just stared at me, not saying anything, both hands held over his crotch. For drama, I pulled the hammer back, the action the loudest thing in the room.
“No problem, I’m sorry I tried to knife your dog,” he said in a blubbering voice.
I put the hammer down, made the pistol safe and then holstered it under my shirt. I took a step toward him, and he flinched, but I was holding out my hand while stepping on his knife with my left shoe. After a second, he took it, and I helped him to his feet. Tina was beet red, very angry, but she was standing on the other side of the table from me, whispering commands or comfort to Opus, I couldn’t tell which.
“Get out of here, Dewayne,” Jessica said, a double barrel shotgun resting easy in her arms, held at the low and ready.
That surprised me, but I guess it made sense that the bar had a gun behind it, I’d just thought a double barrel behind the bar was a cliché that writers used. This time, it was the truth.
“Yes ma’am,” the drunk said and scrambled to his feet.
We all watched as he shuffled out of the bar, and a few moments later his less drunk friend paused at the doorway. “Sorry about that, he normally ain’t like this.”
“Just go,” Jessica’s dad called from the table near the bar where he’d been sitting.
He got gone. Adrenaline let down made me suddenly feel like my legs were made of rubber. I was about to sit down when Tina made a sound.
“What?” I asked her.
“Go wash your hands,” she said, smiling despite still being upset.
“Huh?” I asked her, leaning down to pick up the knife the drunk had dropped and set it on the table.
“He peed his pants, that’s why he covered his crotch, and you helped him up.”
I looked at my hands and then back at her. She pointed at Opus to tell me she had everything five by five so I shrugged and went to the bathroom and washed my hands thoroughly. As I was coming out, somebody clapped, and then the room erupted in laughter and talk. I walked back to the table where I’d left Tina and Opus. Tina was laughing, and I saw her put her hand on Jessica’s shoulder, both ladies cackling. Opus was sitting at attention, but his tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth as he breathed fast. He was smiling and lapping up the attention.
“Hey, I had to call the cops,” Jessica’s dad, Curtis informed me.
“Well…” I said and sat down.
“Don’t worry, you have a whole bar full of witnesses. He’s a local, so you did us a favor. He won’t be coming around here no more, not with yellow streaks coming down his pants. Damn, I have to mop the floor now.”
The crowd roared laughter and Tina caught my eye while she was talking with Jessica, she dropped me a wink and made a head bob motion toward the exit. Oh yeah. I was ready to go too.
“Curtis, we’re staying next door, the third cabin down. If they want to talk to me, that’s fine. I’ve had a long day though.”
“Good enough. I’ll let them know.”
Jessica hugged Tina hard and whispered something else to her, and both ladies giggled and said their goodbyes. I waited until Opus and Tina made it to my side.
“The cops might not want to talk to us after all,” she whispered to me as we headed outside.
“Oh yeah?” I asked her.
“Jessica’s boyfriend is a cop,” she giggled.
Uh, then why was she…? That’s when I realized that what little I understood about the female gender was not even half as much as I thought I knew. What had really been going on in there? I had no idea. I’d ask Tina about it later, but I was still coming down from my adrenaline dump. I opened the door to our motel room and flopped face first on the bed, letting my feet hang off the end. Opus let out a low woof sound and hopped up next to me. The last thing I remember, was Tina crawling on the bed, straddling my waist as she worked the knots out of my lower back, then my shoulders. Then—
11
Tina
Tina knew that Rick carried all of his tension between his shoulder blades, and when he flopped face-first on the bed, he was at his limit. It had been a dicey situation. She’d been terrified of the pushy drunk, Dewayne, until she’d seen Rick walking back to their table. When she saw that, she knew he could disarm the situation without having to force Opus to act.
He was her protective dog, had bonded with her on a level that was so deep that, in both of their minds, they were family. One of her biggest long-term fears was that the darkness would find her again and Opus would defend her… Then Opus would pay the price because many people didn’t value the life and care of companions like him the way she did.
If he attacked somebody and was found at fault, even if defending her, they could take him away and it was usually a short walk that ended with a needle. She didn’t want that. So, when Rick had come out, she’d been suddenly relieved. He could handle it, and he did.
He and Opus had moved like a team, just like they had with the guy who had tried to rob her last year. It was like these two instinctively knew how the other was going to react and moved together, as a unit. Opus had never, ever trusted somebody on sight like he did Rick, and she was thankful for the day she decided to put a lot of trust in his instincts; lord knows she had a horrible track record herself.
She straddled Rick’s back, slowly kneading the muscles, starting at his waist and slowly moving up, using her palms and fingers to knead his flesh from the spine out. Opus jumped up on the second bed, but his head perked up when he heard Rick let out a little groan as the tension left his body.
Soon, Rick was snoring softly, his feet hanging off the end of the bed.
“Oh great,” Tina griped, and Opus looked at her, his head between his paws.
“He can’t sleep in his shoes and clothes. Want to help me?”
Opus remained silent, but his big eyes stared at her with love and kindness.
Tina removed his shoes and tried to roll him over. He snored louder and she decided that with him weighing almost a hundred pounds more than her, she’d just strip the blanket from the other bed and cover him up. She briefly thought about sleeping on the other bed, but she knew if she did, the dream might come back.
In the nights they’d spent together, the dream had almost gone away entirely. Before they had moved in together, it had been a nightly occurrence. It had been coming less and less and now that they were rarely apart. That was only a side benefit of having Opus and Rick around. Truth was, she loved him so much it hurt and she didn’t want to scare him with how vulnerable she’d felt before he’d come into her life.
The bathroom door was closed. She rushed from the kitchen to the bathroom and slammed and locked the door. Despite the restraining order, she
was sure she’d just seen Lance’s Oldsmobile parked exactly one hundred yards from the mini-storage.
In the darkness, she hadn’t been able to tell if he was in it. She’d called the cops on him twice before for the same thing, but the police had told her that he wasn’t breaking the restraining order and there was nothing they could do, except talk to him. The second time a detective had gone out and parked behind him, talking to him. Lance made up some lie about bird watching. There was nothing to hold him on, so they let it go, warning him not to follow Tina.
Tonight, he was back, and she didn’t want to call a fourth time. The third time they had told her there was nothing she could do. Tina splashed cold water on her face and felt nauseous. More than once she had considered getting a gun. She could shoot, but she was thinking a pistol, something she didn’t have.
Tonight, she’d get the shotgun out from under the bed and load it and pray she wouldn’t need it. Next, she’d Google dog breeders. She wanted something big, mean, and loyal. She had happened to stumble across a Facebook ad about a local breeder of German Shepherds. She’d have to do the training with the puppy, but—
The sound came from the bedroom. The thump was felt through the wall on which she’d placed one hand to brace herself, while she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Thump. Something sounded like it scraped across the closet door on the wall on the other side of the mirror.
Dread filling her, she opened the bathroom door, ready to bolt—
“You’re having a bad dream,” Rick said, pulling her close, his breath hot on the back of her neck.
Still sleepy, but understanding she’d escaped the dream in time, she let out a shuddering breath and let Rick’s warmth and love wrap her up; protective, comforting.
It wasn’t long thereafter, her snores matched pace with Rick’s.
12
Rick
The policeman took my statement as I was checking out. What happened, what did I do, and who did I do it to. The dog didn’t bite anybody, and that was that. I signed my name, and the entire process was finished as the receptionist at the motel printed out a receipt for me. I felt amazing, and we were only a couple hours away from our destination with most of the day ahead of us. That was how we found ourselves loading up when Tina noticed her front tire was low.
“Hey hon, my tire’s half flat,” she told me.
I cursed quietly. My spare was on the front of the van, and I hadn’t replaced the tire yet. My spare was actually a full size tire mounted on a rim the exact size as my other tires. If this tire blew… I headed back inside the motel and got directions to the closest tire shop. Walking back out, I was mentally planning out my trip. The tire was low, but it didn’t look half flat. I smiled, knowing that I could limp the van along instead of calling AAA.
“What’s got you smiling like a cat that ate the canary?” Tina asked me as I fired up the van.
“We can get the van to the tire shop, we won’t have to call for a tow truck,” I told her.
“Your grin is bigger than that,” Tina teased.
“Last night,” I admitted.
“What, the whole knight in shining armor, making a known troublemaker so scared he peed his pants? For scaring off a knife-wielding rapscallion?”
“I was going for the whole massage that turned into you falling asleep on top of Opus and me, but that other stuff too,” I said, and put the van in gear as she made a happy sound.
More had happened, but I’d had to wake up for that, and I had stayed awake for a while. We’d kicked the dog off the bed, and he’d gone to the other side of the room, guarding the front door.
We’d fallen asleep in a tangle as usual, and when I’d woken up in the morning, it was to the cold nose of Opus reminding me that he had to go outside. I didn’t mention any of that though, but instead followed the directions I was given. Turn right on the service road, and it’d be two miles down on the right. I was going slowly, and I kept an eye on things. Hopefully, it was just a nail or something from the parking lot; it’d suck to have to replace two tires. It wasn’t like a car tire, these were heavier duty truck tires. The lugs had to be put on tighter, the air pressure higher.
“There it is,” Tina said, adding Captain Obvious to the mental list of nicknames I wanted to say.
“Thanks,” I said, and put my blinker on.
I checked my rearview mirror and saw that the two times I’d pulled off the side of the road to let normal traffic pass had worked and I didn’t have a big lineup behind me now. Just an old blue Astro van, but they were still a ways back. I pulled in, and one of the three overhead doors in front of the shop rolled up automatically, with a young man barely out of high school motioning me to drive straight in.
“Opus, you be good,” I told him, not knowing how he’d react to parking inside a commercial building.
“He’ll keep his cool, will you?”
“Of course,” I snarked, smiling.
“What’ll it be? Oil change? Fix a flat?” The young man asked from my side as I rolled down the window.
“That tire went low on me overnight. I have another one that blew out on my trip out here.”
“Long trip?” he asked, seeing my Michigan parks tag on the windshield.
“Yeah, headed to Salt Lake City,” I told him, “So might as well throw in an oil change, too.”
“No problem. If you folks would like to wait in the office, I’ll pull this tire off and get going on the oil change and get you some prices for that spare tire.”
“Sounds good,” Tina said from the passenger side, “I’ve got my dog with me, can I let him out to run in the grass a little bit?”
“Isn’t much grass, ma’am, but he’s welcome to do whatever he needs to do,” the man said looking at Tina, turning red in the ears.
“Thank you,” Tina said and crawled past me to exit out the side door.
She clipped a leash on Opus and was opening the door when I got out.
“I left the keys in it. You have a TV with the news I can turn on a little while?”
“Oh, sure,” Stan said, now that I could see his name-tag.
“Thanks,” I told him and walked toward the side door where the waiting area was.
It had half a dozen chairs, with a countertop where the cash register rested. A TV remote sat on one of the chairs, and the local news was on. I turned it up when Tina turned to me. “I’m going to let Opus run a little bit, do you want to come with us?”
Opus chuffed, as if to say he knew I needed a run, too. Since I felt like I didn’t because running to run was a thing that only the new-me did and I’d had a couple days away from it…
“No, thanks. I want to catch the news. The Antifa protests have been all over the place lately, and I want to see if there are any problems—”
She interrupted my words with a kiss. Opus whined and then made a frustrated sound and got up on his hind legs, putting a paw on each of us and barked happily.
“Jealous much?” I asked him, and was rewarded with a lick on the face.
“Dog slobber,” I said wiping at my face, hamming it up a bit as the dog got back down on all fours.
Opus barked happily, and Tina pushed herself away from me playfully. “We going to get a hotel room tonight?”
“It’s up to you.”
“I’m feeling like a slug for not working out the last couple of days. I am going to take Opus for some laps around here. I just don’t want to go to bed all sweaty.”
“What if I—”
“That’s not what I said,” she told me, and flicked the tip of my nose.
“I’ll get a room. Maybe two, with a door in the middle.”
Opus sneezed at me, more or less telling me my idea was bullshit, and he would take his own bed, or his own part of the bed, something he’d been doing off and on since we’d been together. Tina gave me a little wave and went out with Opus. I waved back and sat down and turned up the volume on the TV.
“…writer of Paranormal Fiction. T
he incident started when his wife was approached by an inebriated man. Their protection dog got involved in the altercation, and the suspect pulled a knife. In true western fashion, the pen-monkey drew his sidearm and held the suspect until the weapon was released before paying their tab and leaving.”
I saw Jessica on the screen, holding up the book I signed for her. “It was over in a flash. I don’t know who moved faster, the man or the dog. In all, it could have been an ugly situation. Weapons and booze don’t mix, but everyone left the restaurant last night in an upright fashion.”
I felt my cheeks burn hearing the story. I had just left a little while ago, and the news was there live. I was lucky.
“Just goes to show you, sometimes all it takes is a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun,” Jessica finished before the news segued into a weather report.
I saw a flash and realized it was Tina and Opus running past the windows, doing their first lap.
“Nothing wrong with that tire that’s low,” Stan said coming in the door, but his eyes were on the jogging form of the other two members in my small family. “Probably got something wedged in the stem and let out a little bit of air. Your second tire is beyond saving. Looks like it punctured, and then shredded.”
“Yeah, it blew out on the highway,” I said, as he finally turned to face me. “I put the spare on.”
“Was the tire that’s low the spare tire you put on?”
“No, it was the rear right,” I told him.
“Okay. I have one of those in stock. It’s $279 for the tire and $45.99 for a full-service oil change.”
“That’s fine,” I told him. “As long as you take a card?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag. “When you get one or two customers a day, it doesn't pay to not take every form of payment.”
That was when I realized that he was the only one there. Nobody was there at the register, and no one else was inside the shop area where my van was now lifted in the air.
Opus Odyssey_A Survival and Preparedness Story Page 8