If she could’ve spoken she would have told him it was terrifying and wonderful. If she could’ve opened her eyes she would have done so, sure it would add to the rush. If she could’ve made a sound, it would have been a tremendous whoop. Eyes closed, mouth closed, arms hammer-locked around him, she rode with the wind to a place she had never been.
Hurtling along while totally blind, swaying back and forth, up and down, soon upset her equilibrium. Fed a desire to see her own death coming. Snapping her eyes open wide, she beheld scrub oak and saplings, clumps of grass and huge boulders, the narrow path on which they rode, all rushing toward them, sucked in and spat out behind the monster bike.
Breathless, she uttered, “Oh, my goodness,” like a child. Closed her eyes. Which was best, or worst? She couldn’t say. Open they came.
Up ahead, a thicket of huge trees loomed, and she locked her arms so tightly around him he grunted.
“Oh, no. Oh, don’t. Oh, slow down.” Eyes shut, toes curled, butt clutching the seat, every organ in her body screaming, she ducked her head. Changed her mind about viewing her own death.
From down deep inside him, laughter roiled. He braked the bike into a slide.
“Here it comes. Don’t put out your feet. Don’t.” She repeated the litany, knew that if she could have moved at all she’d have stuck both feet out to catch the bike as it rolled over.
The skidding machine roared and backfired, sprayed dust and debris that pecked at her face. She held her breath until she absolutely couldn’t do so any longer. As she dragged in a great mouthful of grit, the bike stopped moving, its engine throbbing as if anxious to break free of the reins, continue its race toward infinity.
Feet gripping the pegs, arms locked around him, she gasped, opened one eye, then the other. The world tilted, taking her stomach with it.
“You can turn me loose now, at least a little.” He made a playful gagging sound.
Terror bled away and in its place a rush of excitement, of expectation, of unbridled joy. And a vivid awareness of self, of him, of their bodies touching. Tiny atoms exploded inside her, permeated with the sweet taste of honey and sunshine.
If he noticed anything, he didn’t comment as she loosened her hold, prepared to dismount.
“Hang tight.” To her dismay he walked the bike carefully through the trees, one foot on each side to traverse a steep trail.
They weren’t there yet. She braced herself for what he might come up with next.
“Could use one of those mountain bikes in this terrain,” he said, as if to himself. Then maneuvered slowly along a deserted log road on a flat bench clinging to the mountainside.
Overhead a thick canopy of leaves allowed an occasional flash of light. Clumps of fat cedar cast long viridian shadows, and critters flitted noisily in the woods. Several inches of decaying leaves paved the road along which the bike crawled. Another cool, rain-scented breeze disturbed the close heat, and distant thunder rivaled the throaty purr of the engine.
Under her ear his breathing whispered, his heartbeat thudded, and she kept her head resting against him, though they were barely moving and she could have sat up straight. The sound of his heartbeat was so reassuring, so ordinary, she couldn’t bring herself to move away.
“Seems a damn shame, doesn’t it?” He braked, cut off the ignition, planted a foot on the ground on each side.
“What?”
Silence assailed them. Even the birds quieted in the presence of this strange monster.
“Making so much noise in such a peaceful place. Like we have no respect, or something. Makes you almost wish we hadn’t come here to mess it all up. Some things are best left alone. God, look around you. Isn’t it awesome?”
She did and it was. Trees so thick the ground under them was clean as a park. Here and there clumps of wildflowers displayed their brilliant hues against the muted forest floor. Ferns grew thick in patches, brambles heavy with white flowers she knew were blackberry bushes formed huge patches in spots of sunlight.
Through the vest Steven felt her shivering. “Hey, you okay?”
It took her a while to reply, and he was about to ask again when she said so softly she might have been speaking in church, “Oh, my, yes. I’m very much okay. That was wonderful. The kids would say ‘fantastic.’ ”
“Makes you feel good, huh? Free, sort of. That adrenaline rush.”
“Good is an understatement, free is better. Awed is best.”
“Well, let’s go some more, then. Gotta make tracks or we’re gonna get wet.” He kicked the bike back to life and shot off the bench and down a steep incline to a gravelly creek bank. Following the twisting stream bed for a while, they came to a great gash that cut downward.
She held on tight, then laughed. Wait till they made the jump, then he’d see how brave she was. These heavy Harleys weren’t made for such shenanigans, but he didn’t care. What fun was life if you only did what you were supposed to?
Without warning, he squeezed the throttle, topped the rise and sailed skyward. Hanging in the air, he could almost imagine he could fly until there came the moment of truth, the moment when gravity grabbed hold and tugged and pulled and twisted until there was no choice but to fall back to earth. Too soon the heavy machine began to drop like a stoned albatross.
What would it be like to just fly up and over this place, carrying with him his struck-silent passenger? Had he frightened her into unconsciousness? If so, she’d passed out hanging on for dear life.
Before he could consider her condition further, the rear wheel thunked to earth, jarring his bones. He leaned forward into the landing, wrestling for superiority over the Harley that insisted he tumble butt-over-head-bone. But he didn’t...they didn’t. Once again he had won the game, and he skidded the beautiful machine to a halt with a yodel of victory.
Hard on the shocks. Probably get a lecture from Lefty when he had to jockey with them some more before he could ride the thing properly again. Who the hell cared?
Grin fading, he concentrated on the woman clinging to him. Her breath came in sharp gasps. No other sound out of her. What if he’d traumatized her?
He tried to pry the finger-locked hands loose from around his middle, but they were welded to him.
“Liz. Lizzie, girl, you can turn loose now. We’re at the bottom.”
“Uh-oh. I don’t think I can. Are we alive?”
She sounded okay, if maybe a bit weak. He cupped a hand over her bunched fists, hard as a bundle of rocks. “Yes, we are, and sure, you can. Just let go. Start here.” He rubbed at the knobs of her knuckles until they loosened a bit.
She made a funny little noise down in her throat and shifted against him.
“Atta girl. Now, just slide off, easy-like.”
She dismounted, shook so hard he thought he might ought to get off to catch her when she fell. He kicked down the stand, lifted a leg over the gas tank, and twisted, prepared in case she did a nosedive.
Face bloodless, she sidled open one eye to peer at him. “You jackass. You...Oh, my God.” She groaned again, clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide.
He caught her around the waist from behind, held her while she upchucked her dinner into the bushes. He offered her a rag only slightly smeared with oil, and she mopped at her face with it, leaving some of the stuff on her chin and one cheek.
“It gets easier the more times you do it.”
“Easier? I don’t think I can live through it enough times to make it easier.”
“Well,” he said, trying not to laugh but botching it. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said. “It was... I’ve never felt so, so... There aren’t any words, but I liked it, I truly did. Even if I did, uh—”
“Toss your cookies?” he finished for her. “Hell, I didn’t mean to make you sick, I just—”
“Tried to scare me to death, that’s all.” The wobbly voice cleared some.
“No, I just needed to get down off that bank the
quickest and easiest way.”
“And so you flew.” She staggered and grabbed at him.
God, he hadn’t had so much fun in years, and he could barely keep a straight face. Gazing at her wildly windblown hair, fired by an errant long ray of sunlight slicing through the darkening clouds, at the high color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes, he thought even with oil smeared on her face this was one gorgeous woman, whether she knew it or not. She was just as pretty on the inside too, where it really mattered. Not that her being pretty didn’t matter. It certainly did. Making love to someone as pretty as her would definitely be easier than making out with a mud fence. Though one of the best lays he’d ever had was so ugly he’d thrown her skirt over her face before beginning. Damned if he could remember her name. He'd been on R&R in Hawaii and she told him before they began that she was from Minneapolis and was never going back to that hellish cold climate.
He steered away from reminiscing about the past.
The long gaze he gave Liz must have embarrassed her, and she looked at him kind of funny and pulled out of his grip.
Maybe he’d just lay her down right there and get this initial contact over with. Hell, she might even let him. Before he could find out, Lefty and Shadow burst from the stand of willows where they’d earlier scoped out their campsite.
Lefty bellowed a greeting. “Hell’s going on out here?”
Damned if he'd let the cocky little shit get in a word of objection to her presence. “I got her, brought her back, too.”
She hopped up and down beside him crying out like a little kid. “Did you see us? We made it. We’re here. I rode his motorcycle.” She pronounced it “motor-sickle” and he smiled at her. At the moment she could do no wrong.
“Best get settled. That storm’s not going to wait much longer,” Shadow said.
Overhead, the sky sported grayish yellow bruises that blotted out the sun. The air was sticky, hot, and deathly still. A portent of what was to come. Dread washed over Steven, like something bad was about to happen and him powerless to stop it. And it wasn’t the storm, either. He turned to look at the woman, to touch her, to take her hand and make sure she was all right.
Moist green eyes met his gaze square on, and he had to bite his lip to keep from sweeping her up and running off into the woods, her hung over his shoulder, like a damned caveman.
Dear God, had he lived all his life to only now learn what love was like, or was this pure and simple lust after a long, long dry spell? Maybe he was charged with the electricity of the storm, and once it passed the feeling would go away. He hoped so, for he feared love more than just about anything in this world or the next.
Nothing had the power to destroy a man like the love of a woman, for a woman. No time for that now. He went to work on the bindings around her things.
****
Liz helped Steven drag her stuff off the bike, stood aside as he stomped out a place to erect her tent within the stand of willows.
“We’ll put the door facing that way, away from ours, so you’ll have privacy.”
The wash of sunlight vanished, the boil of clouds casting them into an eerie yellow haze. Overhead the storm cracked open the sky in a bright ball. The ground moved with the thunder that followed. Driven by the threat, Shadow and Lefty stowed the remainder of their belongings inside, then watched Steven’s antics. Lefty glared at her occasionally, as if she were somehow responsible.
Steven kept calling her Liz, issuing suggestions as to the proper way to tie down the tent, and they did it together.
Odd how she’d begun to think of herself as Liz, crawling out from under that other name as she would a used-up skin. His christening had filled her need for change, and the name signaled a rebirth of sorts.
How many times could a person be reborn?
“Time to eat before it hits?” Shadow asked, eyeing the purple underbelly of clouds.
She came up with some cheese and crackers, all she’d managed to grab before Steven hauled her off. The men added cans of sardines and cold beer. She hoped they had more food than that, considering where they were.
Lefty continued to glare at her with his raging dark expression, and refused to address her directly or call her by name. A storm brewed inside him that could be more deadly than the one overhead.
They quickly finished eating and disposed of their garbage. Steven rose and brushed his hands as if he’d completed a particularly difficult task, then looked down at her. “Ready?”
A drop of rain hit her cheek when she looked up.
“Let’s go fishing,” he said. “Quick. Now’s the best time. Come on.”
Like a little kid, he pulled her to her feet. A knot turned loose down in her belly. Just unraveled and slithered away.
“Did you get the poles?”
Confused, he looked around. “No. Wait here just a minute. I’ll get them.”
She watched him jog off backward, as if to keep an eye on her.
From inside the ragtag tent Lefty yelled, “What the hell for?”
Steven’s answer was too low to hear, but he soon came out carrying a telescoping fishing rod.
“It’s got a hook. Kind of rusty, but it’ll do.”
“What about bait?” she asked, peering with some doubt at the much-used piece of equipment.
He headed off and she followed, not sure where this perfect fishing hole he’d spoken of was. “We’ll dig some worms or catch some grasshoppers. Too bad we ate all the sardines, we coulda put one of them on here.”
“I don’t think that would work.”
“You never can tell.” He broke through some brush, scrambled down the creek embankment to a brown pool of lazy backwater. Dead trees lined the edges, casting somber shadows where leaves and bits of debris circled slowly across the surface in a counterclockwise motion.
The storm held off and a brief shaft of sunlight broke through a gash in the clouds, stabbed at the water. Steven pointed at a large undulating form. “Look, see him?”
“Oh, yes. A big one. A bass, I think.”
He bent, cupped his hand into a clump of weeds and came up with a fat brown grasshopper, held it out to her.
“You put it on. Bring you luck. Sometimes fish’ll bite on anything you offer, other times the best big gob of worms in the world won’t do.”
She took the hook and the struggling insect and threaded it quickly onto the hook, rubbed the spot of brown spittle off her finger.
“Wow, I’m impressed.”
She bowed. “It’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget how.” Grabbing the pole she tossed the insect out onto the water above the slowly swimming fish. The lead sinker dragged it downward.
“What do you think? Think we’ll catch anything?” he asked.
“You won’t, but I might.”
“Oh, sure. Well, it must be nice to be so sure of yourself.”
“You don’t have a pole,” she told him and jiggled the bait up and down to tempt the bass.
“I had hopes you’d share. You’re not having much luck.”
“Give it time. Besides, fishing isn’t about the catching, is it?”
“Then what is it about, smarty? I do hope you’re not one of those ‘It’s not who wins or loses but who plays the game.’ ”
A cool breeze popped up and drifted through her hair. Her heart swelled until she could hardly contain the feeling of contentment that filled her every pore. “Sometimes. But with fishing it’s about finding the perfect spot and you go there on the best day ever with someone you really care about. Doesn’t matter if you catch any fish.”
He didn’t say anything, and she swiveled to cast him a quick look. Met the somber gaze of eyes reflecting the clouds, and turned back quickly.
Steven couldn’t stop staring at her. The way her hair danced as if alive, her eyes sparkled, her mouth screwed up when she worked the rod. An energetic raw charge of stormy air prickled goose flesh along his shoulders and down both arms. The sensual aroma of damp, hidden places pl
ucked at his nostrils.
Thunder rumbled, the wind freshened and turned cooler. His leather vest flapped open and sweat dried on his chest. He wanted to say her name and couldn’t. It was like he was caught in a place where he could neither move nor speak, but could only watch and experience. Like one of those crazy dreams he used to have while living in the wilderness. He expected at any moment to see ghostly shadows emanating from the deep woods. Telling him he was in the wrong place and this was the wrong time, that this woman was definitely the wrong woman. He should run, would if he could, but sensed it was much too late for that.
He reached out and touched her arm with the tips of his fingers. Later he recalled only bits and pieces of the moment. Her expression when she turned, the round O of her lips, the widening of her eyes. It was at that moment that the tornado funneled down out of the cloud bank, swaying, roaring, heading right for them. Its great, dirty gray trunk unearthed whole trees and fist-sized boulders and spewed them out into the sky.
She gripped that damned silly little fishing rod, frozen where she stood, gaping first at the hideous storm then back at him. And all he could do was save them both. Somehow keep them from being sucked up into that vortex of swirling debris.
For a crackling instant he thought they were saved when the thing made to swing off to the north, but then before his sigh of relief exploded, the ugly black trunk finally made up its mind and headed straight for them.
The vicious gale snatched shouted warnings from his mouth. He grabbed her and propelled them both up the rise and down into a depression away from the water. They tumbled into deep dry leaves, him spread-eagled over top of her and covering her with sprawled arms and legs. Overhead, the huge tenacious beast cracked trees and flung rocks and limbs through the air. Torrents of rain poured in dark sheets from the riotous sky. Heavy objects thunked onto his back. The place where they lay began to gather water. He pulled her head up out of it and cradled her in his arms.
****
Gasping, choking, she clung to him and the stupid fishing pole. All around the deafening monster chewed at the land as if famished. In that moment she was so afraid of dying that she could not think or make a sound. Just held on until the storm abated, the rain lessened and the roar faded into the distance.
Once There Were Sad Songs Page 14