Once There Were Sad Songs

by Velda Brotherton

  When he turned to look at her, moonlight splashed across his face and he gave her such a soul-shattering grin her heart cried out for him. What was he doing following those two battered warriors around on whatever useless mission they were on? Why didn’t he go home and be of some use to those who needed him? In those mean streets of his. She wished he would tell her more about his sister Dory and his granny so she could get to know him better. This strange, unusual man from a place so remote as to be alien to her.

  “You like Steven, don’t you?” he asked.

  “I...I suppose. I’m not sure. He seems so...”

  Palm up to stop her stammering, he chuckled. “No need to be ’shamed. There’s something about him needs saving. It’s a dangerous idea, though, ’cause he don’t want to be saved. He keeps stumbling around trying to figger the best way to check out of this world. And Lefty will see to it for him, sooner or later, I’m afraid.”

  For a moment she couldn’t speak over a lump in her throat. Then she brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek. “I thought they were friends.”

  “Yeah, well, what that mean Cajun considers friendship is a whole ’nother matter from what you or I or even Steven thinks. I just keep hoping the sly mother-fu—sorry—will go too far one of these days and Steven will walk away. Save hisself. He does that, I’m heading home, too.”

  “So you consider yourself his guardian?” This was an idea she hadn’t imagined up to then, and now that he had brought it up, she saw the trio in an entirely different light. “So saving him is a dangerous idea, but yet you’re willing to risk it.”

  Shadow grunted. “I ain’t such a fool as that. I wait, that’s all. Steven, he have to do the saving. Woman like you ain’t got a place in this. Best you leave. I’d hate to have two white folks to look out for.”

  For a moment she thought he was joking and started to laugh, but he cut her off. “I’ll go now, and I thank you kindly for the downright tasty fixin’s. We’ll try not to be a bother to you no more, but I do wish you’d just pack up and leave before something happens you won’t be able to handle.”

  He was gone before she could reply, lithe body swinging along the path and out of sight in the moonlight-spattered darkness.

  Steven heard Shadow creep into the tent and wished he knew what he and Liz had talked about. It should’ve been him who stayed, who watched her move about clearing things away, graceful arms swaying as if she were dancing. She reminded him of Jennie in that way, filled with grace and substance, deep thought. Valuable and vulnerable. Something easily destroyed.

  Restless, he turned over, fought sleep to keep away the nightmares.

  Tomorrow, they should leave. Been here long enough. Time to go. Pack up their measly belongings, bundle them on the backs of all three bikes, and roar off, leaving her—the woman he’d dragged out of the lake—to her own devices.

  He’d like to take her to some fancy motel and lay down beside her on clean white sheets and just hold her naked, sweet body in his arms, feel what it was like to be human.

  That too could be a nightmare in its own way. Grunting with impatience, he drew his knees up to his chest, distressed by the stirring in his groin.

  ****

  Moonlight nearly as bright as day poured through the tiny screened window of her tent. If she could sleep, Mary Elizabeth knew she would dream something outrageous, but she couldn’t, and so she lay staring through the screen door, which she’d left uncovered by the flap. Every time she closed her eyes she beheld the most sinful visions. Her and Levi... her and Steven. The two men changed places while performing acts with her that were beyond her comprehension. She clamped both hands between her knees to keep from touching herself, setting off the desires reawakened by her flight to this place. Why had it been so simple to walk away from her religion, her husband, her home, her job, yet now it was proving so difficult to function in the world to which she’d escaped? And worse, seemingly impossible to leave it. No answer came to mind.

  She must've slept, for she was awakened by lights sweeping across her tent, a harsh squealing of tires braking disrupted the still night, jerking her upright and sending her heart racing.

  Had those foolish boys returned for another go? Well, they wouldn’t find it so easy to terrorize her this time.

  Grabbing the flashlight, she wrapped a quilt around her shoulders and scrabbled to the doorway, intending to leap out yelling and screeching. Scare the wits out of the little delinquents. Instead, she saw pulsing red and blue flashing through the trees and lighting the sky. Eerie shadow dancers flitted through the woods. The zipper wouldn’t open for a moment, but her frantic fingers finally wrenched it apart. She would not cower in the tent, not this time.

  Standing, she could see the parking lot and two patrol cars, doors standing open while several uniformed men with flashlights approached the tent of the three men.

  Without thought, she raced toward them, knowing full well what excited cops might decide to do to men like Steven, Lefty, and Shadow.

  “Police, freeze!” came a shouted command. Many shouted commands, actually. A cacophony of them, until she could no longer make out what was being said.

  In the cross patch of light from the moon, she saw Shadow duck walk out of the tent and come upright, looking like a stork alighting from a slippery slide. Lefty, caught running for the woods, windmilled his arms like broken blades caught in a high wind. Steven drew up and braced himself like a gunfighter, legs wide apart and hands at hip level.

  Oh, God, what had he done with the big pistol? Had he ever recovered it from the woods where he dropped it during the scuffle of their game? She hoped not, or he might decide to have a shootout with these men of the law. Go out with guns blazing. A thing he might well be capable of, if she could believe Shadow and her own eyes.

  Her wavering attention came back to the scene before her. Rounded up and surrounded by four armed policemen, the three hardened criminals, all wearing jockey shorts that gleamed white as flags, appeared to humbly await their fate.

  The officers, who obviously took their jobs very seriously, crouched around their prey, revolvers in one hand braced by the other. Only then did she realize that she too was in a spotlight and one of those guns pointed directly at her. Articulating a sound like gargling thick syrup, she struggled not to vomit. All other thoughts vacated her brain, leaving only one. She did not want to get shot.

  The one pointing his weapon at her gestured with it. “We’re just gonna try to do this the easy way with no one getting hurt. Bring your hands out from under that blanket and let it drop real slow.”

  She wanted to, she truly did, but she had such a grip on the wad under her chin all she could do was squeeze even harder and try not to fall down because her legs had turned to mush.

  “Now, lady!”

  Jumping a foot, she turned loose of the quilt and the flashlight, so that there she stood, once more imagining that her nakedness was revealed despite being covered by a sleep shirt similar to the one she’d ruined in the games of the night before. She prayed she was caught in some kind of revolving nightmare and in reality lay in her bed at home where she belonged.

  Make this all some crazy dream, and I’ll be good, so good, she silently promised the God she’d fled from so recently.

  “Move, over there with the rest of ’em,” the policeman ordered.

  Considering that she was terrified senseless and could feel neither her feet or her hands, it was difficult to obey, but she did, sure her disembodied head floated unassisted to Steven’s side.

  “On your faces in the dirt. Arms out at your sides. Do it now!”

  The three men did as they were told; she screeched “What?” in an indignant voice.

  From his prone position in the dirt at her feet, Steven said, “Better do it. Get your tail down here now. They ain’t fooling.”

  “You’d know better than I. I will not lie on my face in the dirt with my naked behind exposed to the world, thank you.”

  �
��Goddammit, Liz, get your naked behind down here, now.”

  “I haven’t done anything. I’m not a common criminal and I won’t be treated like one.”

  “Lady, you’ll hit the ground or I’ll put you there,” the biggest of the four officers declared, and holstered his pistol to do just that.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Steven breathed into the dust.

  Hands on hips, she clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from clacking together and glared at the bully.

  “Leave the lady be,” one of the others said. “You can see she ain’t exactly armed to the teeth.”

  Appalled, she gazed down to see her breasts, nipples hard nubs against the cloth of the shirt. Quickly she hugged her arms across her chest, glared at the officers, then turned her wrath on the three men on the ground.

  “What’d you guys do, hold up a bank or something? Hey, I don’t know them. I’m over there. See?” She turned, pointed toward her campsite, then hurriedly went back to hugging herself.

  Two of the officers put cuffs on a complacent Shadow, but Lefty fought them and they wrestled him to the ground in a brutish skirmish of grunts and curses. When they bent over to cuff Steven, he said something she couldn’t hear and one of them hit him on the back of the head. The other fastened the cuffs on, then they both lifted him to his feet by yanking on the chain between his wrists. Clearly, they’d had enough from the men.

  He made a sound down in his throat and she knew they’d hurt him. Anger boiled into her throat.

  “Hey, stop that,” she shouted. “He’s not resisting.”

  Ignoring her, they set to tossing stuff around. Another officer threw everything out of the tent.

  Though she knew it wouldn’t help, she tried yelling again. “Make him stop that. Do you have a search warrant?”

  The cops stopped, laughed heartily, then went back to what they were doing.

  “Those things belong to these men. You can’t just tear through them like that.” She cleared her throat, fright cutting into her voice, but she went on anyway. “If you find anything, it won’t be admissible."

  The uniformed man who’d been barking all the orders turned on her. “Goddamn, lady, if you’ll excuse me. You’ve been watching too much television. Besides, I thought you didn’t know these yahoos.”

  “I don’t, but I read a lot, and I know something about the law.”

  All four officers stopped to stare at her, and her voice squeaked and faded. She wanted to shut up but had a dreadful feeling she wouldn’t.

  “Then you should know, ma’am, that with a citizen’s signed complaint we have the right to—”

  “Obtain a warrant, which I haven’t seen.” She took a furtive step toward Steven, as if he might protect her should they all come after her.

  “Stay put, lady.”

  She froze. “Well, where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “Your warrant. Where is it?”

  The one in charge sighed. He faced her, but she couldn’t make out his features because the flashing lights formed a blinding backdrop.

  “It might interest you to know, ma’am,” he explained, “It is illegal to carry firearms in a state park. Discharging of same constitutes a further violation. One of these gentlemen did just that, and in the direction of some innocent youngsters, I might add. We have a complaint. Now, are you prepared to throw yourself in with these three yahoos, whose firearms we’ve confiscated for evidence? If so, you may go to jail with them, where we’d be pleased to let you demonstrate what you know about the law. That’s just fine with me, with all of us. Otherwise, button that lip of yours and we may let you go back where you belong.”

  Steven hissed at her, actually hissed! “Leave this be, Liz. Just leave it be. Go home where you belong.”

  “I will go where I damn well please.” Turning toward the officer, she said, “I want to file charges.”

  Steven choked, Shadow growled, and Lefty muttered something that sounded like “bitch” and probably was.

  The uniformed man eyed her balefully. “Christ, what now? Hank, get the hell out here.”

  The one still tossing stuff out of the tent poked his head through the opening.

  “Now, ma’am,” the leader drawled, “Just what did these men do to you? Take you prisoner, rape you, hold you hostage? What? Come on, girlie, you don’t have to be afraid. We got ’em cuffed, so you can just come along and we’ll let you fill out a complaint against them too.”

  All through the harangue, she’d stared beyond the man’s shoulder, hoping God would send a bolt of lightning down to strike her dead on the spot. Once the man finished, she saw that they all stared at her. The four policemen and the three bikers.

  God, how had she gotten in such a mess?

  They continued to stare, the lights kept flashing. She struggled for words, her tongue feeling as huge as a baseball.

  Clearing her throat, she began. “There were, there were four of them. They attacked my campsite, destroyed my belongings. One of them broke my lantern. He... I mean, these guys, well, they came to my...to my rescue and ran them off. That’s all they did. They were just being law-abiding citizens.”

  Again, Steven choked, but the other two “law-abiding citizens” were struck dumb.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” the lead officer shouted. “I’m just about to lose my patience here.”

  She took a deep breath, wished she were anywhere else but there. Well, almost anywhere else. “So am I. It seems you have a criminal element in your fine county, and some of them decided to have a little fun with me. A woman alone. Maybe I will go with you, and we can have a line-up, or whatever you call it. I’ll just follow along when you arrest these fine gentlemen.” She swept a hand around to indicate the three handcuffed men. “That’ll save us all some time. You won’t have to come all the way back out here for me when you catch them. Now, if I recall, one was about seventeen. He had dark hair and a square jaw on a pimply face I won’t soon forget.” A quick look at Steven revealed his mouth hanging open. Beside him Shadow shook his head slowly back and forth, lower lip caught by his teeth. To keep from laughing, she presumed. Lefty stared at the ground and refused to look at her.

  Evidently she had struck the officers totally dumbfounded, for they said nothing. She hurried on before any of them could regain some semblance of sanity.

  “I assure you I am an upstanding citizen. I vote and I have a driver’s license and a credit card and a job. Might I suggest you bring in the complainant against these men? I have a feeling I could identify him as one of my attackers. How’d that be?”

  “You hadn’t ought to get so sassyfied, lady. You have any idea what you’re doing? Throwing in with these long-haired hippy boogers? Hell, they ain’t worth your little finger.”

  “I have no idea what they’re worth, officer. And you don’t know the worth of my little finger.” She almost choked on that, but managed to go on. “I barely know these men, other than that they were kind enough to rescue me from possible rape and they happen to be human beings.” She was no longer trembling, in fact was rather enjoying the confrontation.

  “They used a goddamned deadly weapon against a few randy teenagers out for a good time. A bit of an overreaction, I’d say,” the one called Hank said.

  “I don’t recall saying that,” she said.

  “Saying what?”

  “Drop it, Hank,” the older officer said. “You’ve said enough as it is.”

  Turning to Mary Elizabeth, his own revolver hanging down at his side, he asked, “Are we to understand that if we take these men in you’ll press charges against Tom...uh, the fella who signed the complaint against them, and if we don’t take them in you’ll let the matter drop?”

  “I didn’t say that either.”

  Shadow snickered and Steven exploded in laughter. Lefty rocked back and forth on his heels like someone ready to jump.

  “Then what the goddamn hell... Exactly what are you saying?”

  Sensing t
hat she finally had the upper hand, Mary Elizabeth sighed with exasperation to show her own patience had just about come to an end. Considering she was naked under a nightshirt that barely covered her knees, and facing seven furious men, she was doing pretty well.

  “What I’m saying is, if you don’t follow the exact letter of the law with these three, uh, gentlemen, I intend to see that the proper steps are taken. As to the other, since no one was hurt in the skirmish, I’ll settle for an anonymous reimbursement for the items that were destroyed and say nothing more about it. That’s provided, of course, these men are treated, shall we say, fairly.”

  “Jesus Christ, Darryl,” Hank shouted. “What you listening to this shit for anyways?”

  The one in charge, who finally turned out to have a name, Darryl, holstered his weapon and squinted at Mary Elizabeth. “Take their cuffs off.”

  “Aw, hell,” Hank said, and waved his gun around in the air. “I say we take ’em all in, let the judge sort it out in the morning.”

  Goosebumps crawled across her shoulders, and her trembling legs twitched as if they might be able to run after all.

  “Put that blamed thing away afore you blow someone’s head off. I don’t recall asking for a goddamned vote. Just do what I said. Now.” Darryl swiveled toward Mary Elizabeth. “I’m going to tell you how it’s going to go down, ma’am. These men will immediately strike camp, pack their things, and leave my jurisdiction, which is this entire county. That means,” he shouted, turning toward Steven, Lefty and Shadow, now uncuffed and rubbing their wrists with much growling and muttering. “Don’t let the sun rise on your scabby butts. And begging your pardon, ma’am…” He turned back toward her, lifted his hat to scrub at thinning hair, and finished, “I’m afraid that goes for you too. Ma’am.”

  He screwed the hat carefully onto his head, smiled tightly, and turned away.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but Steven scampered to her side, waggled his head sharply, and said, “Hush, now, Liz. You won.”

  “What about—?” she began.

  “Lady, goddammit, don’t push it, or by God I’ll haul the lot of you in and let the judge work it out. Take it or leave it.”