Once There Were Sad Songs

by Velda Brotherton

  Fearful of interrupting the brief tranquility, she remained coiled in a cramped position on the bumpy floor of the tent. Dried mud crumbled from her skin when she rubbed at sore spots caused by lying on the rocky ground. The gentle song of water sliding over a stony stream bed called to her. What she wouldn’t give for a bath, lying in the crystal clear water, all alone and staring up at the fading stars.

  A lone bird took up its perky tune, another answered. Time moved on, and she saw no use in trying to go back to sleep. She crawled to the doorway and peered out. To her surprise, a form lay crossways a few feet from the entrance. Who it was, she couldn’t tell. Maybe Steven watching over her, hoping for a reprieve. Certainly not Lefty. The smell of smoke lingered in the still night air. A few coals glowed in the fire pit, and beyond were two more dark humps.

  The waning moon hung low in the western horizon, splashed the clearing in gold, trailed a dancing glade over the water’s surface. She listened to the beckoning of its song and scratched her itching scalp through curls layered stiffly with mud.

  Inching her way past her sleeping guard, she crept toward the creek.

  “Where the hell’re you going?”

  Though she recognized Steven’s voice, she let out a startled squawk, and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from awakening the others. Then spoke in a sotto voice. “You scared me to death. Go to sleep, leave me alone.”

  “You always wake up grouchy? I leave you alone, you’ll wander off again. Probably get lost and we’d have to spend the rest of our time looking for you. Where you going anyway?”

  “If you must know, I can’t sleep because I’m not used to going to bed covered in mud. I thought I’d take a bath. I feel wretched.”

  “Wretched? I reckon you went to school to learn to talk the way you do. What’s wrong with feeling plumb shitty?”

  “Nothing, if every word out of your mouth has to be foul. I happen to have a better vocabulary than that.” Aware of how prissy that sounded, but too tired to trade verbal punches with him, she said, “Leave me alone, will you? I don’t need you telling me how to speak or when to take a bath or where to sleep. Besides, we’re going to wake everyone up.”

  The discussion had increased in intensity, as had the timbre of their voices. She didn’t want an audience. Why couldn’t he just leave her be?

  “Not trying to do any of that,” he went on stubbornly. “Just don’t want you stepping on a snake, that’s all. I’ll just tag along, keep out of sight, won’t bother you none. Want to make sure a bear or snake don’t get you. I ain’t going to chase you over a hundred acres ’cause some big ole bugger spooks you. I just ain’t.”

  “Nobody asked you to…” She broke off. Clearly, she would not win this argument. “Okay, fine, be obstinate about it. I’m getting a bath, one way or another.”

  “Obstinate? Another one of your million-dollar words. Try mule-headed, or just call me a jackass and be done with it. Besides, there ain’t no soap or towels, either. Guess you’ll just have to rinse and air-dry.”

  Ignoring him, she muttered aloud to herself, as had always been her habit. “I’ll take my nightshirt down and wash with it. I can put it on wet when I finish.”

  Steven ran to fetch the shirt from where it hung drying, as if she’d asked.

  Together they headed for the sound of running water, Steven pacing along behind her, his mouth on the move. His mood as far from their earlier encounter as possible.

  “Actually, brown bears are ferocious and big as grizzlies. But don’t sweat it, they don’t inhabit these woods. Just little black bears, and they’re harmless unless you get between them and their young.”

  He’d better not have anything else in mind but bears. While none of these men had tried to threaten her, the strong sexual attraction between her and him could well erupt again. What if she could not resist his advances? Again.

  As if unaware of her true concerns, Steven continued to babble on. “It’s the snakes you really have to worry about. Know that song, ‘The Snakes Crawl at Night’? Well, that’s exactly right, they do. Especially after a storm.”

  Snakes led her mind in the wrong direction, and she closed it down. No wonder such goings-on as she’d experienced with him were frowned on by her church. When a man could make her feel the way Steven had, and then keep disturbing her thoughts, well, it was a situation to be avoided.

  “Walking around out here in the dark,” he said, “you could likely step right on one looking for him a warm spot. I can’t believe you were actually going to come out here all by yourself.”

  “I didn’t exactly want an audience. I’m not used to bathing in public. Just because I’m civilized and not accustomed to traipsing around all over the place and living like an animal doesn’t mean I don’t have any sense about the outdoors. I’ve lived in this country all my life. Please stop treating me like an imbecile.”

  His presence disturbed her more than it should have. To get her mind off him, she thought of Reudell, wondered what he was doing. Had he called anyone? Were the women of the church gathering around to cluck over him and pray for her wicked soul?

  “You’re awfully quiet tonight, Liz. Still brooding over our little romp?”

  So he did have it on his mind, and his babbling was to cover it up, much as her thoughts had been designed to forget the episode entirely. “Stop that. You can go right back to camp if you’re going to bring that up. I won’t put up with it.”

  “Hey, just teasing a little. Hell, it was the best thing that’s happened to me in a long while, maybe ever. Don’t think I’m putting you down for it.”

  “Well, it wasn’t for me. I mean…”

  “You mean what?”

  “I was thinking of my husband.” She hoped those words would put an end to his references to their earlier escapade.

  The best thing that ever happened to him. Was he serious? He hadn’t acted that way after it was over. Perhaps what went on with Steven on the surface was a far cry from his innermost feelings. His sarcastic and devil-may-care facade worked like a shell on a turtle. Protected him from the worst life had to offer, even though he occasionally rolled onto his back and couldn’t get up.

  “I want us to be friends. I like you and you act as if you like me. Why can’t we just leave it at that before things get out of hand again?”

  Issuing another of his rude noises, he hurried to keep up. “Friends? Well, that might work, but on the other hand—”

  “Oh, hush up, Steven. You’re giving me a headache.” They had reached the creek bank and she stepped carefully over the smooth rocks. “If you insist on remaining here, you’ll have to turn around and don’t look.”

  “Okay. I won’t look, I promise.”

  Judging by the tone of his voice, he had no intention of keeping that promise.

  “I mean it, Steven.”

  With great exaggeration, he stalked to a nearby boulder coated in moonlight and sat with his back to her. “I’m here if you need me. If you step on an old cottonmouth or anything else like that, just squeal and I’ll dive right in and save you.”

  “Oh, stop that,” she said, but couldn’t help but grin at his silliness.

  Casting a wary glance toward him, she peeled off the stiff jeans and shirt. Better already. She spread them in the shallows, weighted the bundle down with rocks, and took a tentative step into the icy water, gasping aloud.

  “You okay?”

  “Stay right where you are. It’s cold, is all.” She glanced toward him, saw he remained stiffly turned away. If he’d sneaked a peek she hadn’t caught him at it.

  As she waded in, goose bumps scattered up her legs, crawled over her stomach and breasts. Determined, she hugged herself and kept moving, slipping and sliding on the wet, rocky bottom.

  The chunk of moon drifted behind the mountain, leaving a pink-and-gold sky that turned the surface into a shimmering pastel ribbon. She crouched down in the thigh-deep water and rubbed the shirt over her pebbly skin until the mud slicked and
washed away. She could barely sit on the bottom without going under and had to tilt her head back.

  “Is it deep?”

  “No, but you can turn around now.”

  He did. “Don’t worry, all I can see is your head. I’d sure like to take a bath myself.”

  “Don’t you come out here. When I finish, you can take all the bath you want. Why don’t you make yourself useful and rinse out my clothes? I left them under a rock there near the bank. See if you can get the mud out of them.”

  “Oh, sure, make me your maid. I didn’t know when I came out here I would have to wash your clothes.”

  Despite the complaint, she saw he’d squatted in the shallows and begun splashing about, obviously doing as she’d asked. While he did, she went under to wet her hair, worked fingers through to her scalp. This might get the mud out, but what a tangled mess it would be.

  When she came up, Steven was wringing out her clothes and draping them on the rock he had sat on earlier.

  “It’s so good to see a man at work.” Without thinking, she stood, the shirt wadded in one hand.

  At the same instant he turned, and froze. The moment, though it lasted but briefly, burned an image in his brain he knew he would never forget. Though they had fucked in the rain, and double-damn-fucked in the woods, clothing wadded and shoved out of the way, he hadn’t seen her like this. A naked goddess in the misty dawn, long limbs gleaming, blurred outline of uptilted breasts, fingers entwined in her long hair, prim features in shadow so he couldn’t see her disapproval.

  He could hardly bear it. A feeling of desire mixed with poignant loss planted a fist in his gut. A blow that nudged awake the guilt he lived. He had failed the women in his life. Women he’d loved who had loved him. How could he ever find atonement for what he’d done? The answer might be he couldn’t. And without it, she was probably right. He’d have to settle for them being just friends.

  Aw, hell. What was he thinking anyway? The chance of them even being friends was as remote as him becoming president. She would go one way, he another. That'd be that.

  The instant of reverie passed, and he whirled, seeing out of the corner of his eye how she covered herself and turned away, revealing a bare back that gleamed like ivory in the moonlight. She pulled the wet shirt over her head, smothered the vision.

  Tears stood in his eyes and he waited for her to come out of the creek and stalk past him. Instead she stopped at his side. Waited. He didn’t know what to say, nor did he want her to see the shape he was in, so he didn’t turn. Once he brought that pecker to life, it had a mind of its own.

  “Steven?” she finally asked.

  “Uh-huh?” Her serious tone put him on alert.

  “You are a very nice man, and I want you to know how much I appreciate how you’ve been with me. I know I’m schoolmarmish and a real prude. And I know it was wrong of me to let things get out of hand, leading you on like I did.”

  The words shocked him into silence. What could he say, how could he answer that? That he knew he was not a nice man at all? Tell her what he imagined doing with her, and prove it? Or perhaps he ought to just swagger off, say something like, “Aw shucks, ma’am. It don’t matter none.” It did matter, much as he wished it didn’t.

  “I loved a man like you once,” she said, and he could tell she was on the verge of crying. “You remind me so much of him.”

  He found his voice amid the rubble in his throat. “And what happened?”

  “He died.”

  So did I. He kept the thought trapped in silence.

  Caught up by a need to soothe her, he turned, saw the glimmer of tears on her cheeks. On the distant mountain at her back, the first rays of sun tipped the highest trees. It would be a while before the light ran down the slopes and across the valley.

  “Didn’t you ever…? I mean, did the two of you…?”

  “No, we never did. I was only sixteen, and it was the fifties, you know. No one did things like that back then. Not like your generation, where anything went. Sex, drugs, violence.”

  He ignored the barb. “But you loved him?”

  “Oh, yes. I did love him. Sometimes I regret that we didn’t, well, you know. He was a preacher’s son, but wild. I thought I’d die when he got killed. I really thought I would die. I didn’t eat or sleep and refused to return to school that fall. Of course, my mother screamed and ranted, mouthed her church’s twisted faith until it was all I could do to stay at home and not run away.”

  “What made you, I mean, how did you manage to go on?”

  “My daddy. He helped me realize that Levi’s memory would be disgraced if I ruined my life because of grief. He talked to me about all kinds of love, said I would only experience such wonderment if I survived this first loss. That it probably wouldn’t be the last time something horrible happened, but it would make me strong. That the world was something to behold if I just hung in there through the bad to get to the good.”

  Tentatively, he eased an arm around her shoulder, felt her lean into his embrace. “He sounds like a great guy.”

  “He was. I lost him a couple of years ago. You know, he stayed with my mother all those years, and her making his life miserable for all kinds of reasons. Because he wouldn’t bend to her will. Because he was a sinner and would never go to heaven. Because he didn’t believe as she did. And only after she died was he able to go on to the best part of his life. I asked him once how he did it. Why he stayed with her.” She nuzzled against his chest and he closed his eyes. Tight. Waited for her to continue.

  “He smiled and ruffled my hair like I was still his little girl. ‘You and your brothers made up for it all,’ he told me. ‘And now this freedom time is another. And just over that hill waits yet another. And when we die waits yet another. It’s important to go on.’ ”

  She turned her face into his chest and rubbed her cold nose on his skin, like the child she’d spoken of. “That’s the first time I knew that he believed in a higher power. Maybe not a vindictive Lord, who asks the impossible of his children and then punishes them when they can’t obey, but a supreme being who offers peace at the end of the struggle. How I wish I could believe in something. Anything.”

  He felt her tears, hot against his cool flesh. Cupped the back of her head in an effort to ease her sorrow and pain. Wanted her with an intensity he had no idea ever existed. Damn, what was he supposed to do now?

  “I miss him so much. I miss the way I thought my life would be. So much. I wonder what he would’ve thought about what I’ve become?”

  For the first time in his scabrous life Steven wished he could take back all the thoughtless deeds that had led him to be the man he was. And with every fiber of his being he wanted a life with this woman. Not only with a physical lust that would rise and then go away, but with a deep-seated need to be with her, to touch her and talk to her and have her with him, and be good to her, give her the things she so sorely missed.

  Most of all he wanted them to love each other. Forever. And he really didn’t think he could expect or ask that of her, with the evil things he had done weighing him down. Making of him less the man he ought to be, less the man she deserved. He couldn’t ask her to exchange one unsatisfactory relationship for another.

  But at this moment he held her in his arms and they were together. Later he could change his course, make good on his need for repentance, but right now all he wanted was to be with her. She had become his reason for going on, even if she left and he never saw her again. The way he felt about her proved there was something to life after all. And he had to hold her, this very moment, before the dream faded and reality stepped back in. He could hardly stand to see her suffer, and would not add to it, no matter what.

  She turned into his embrace, moaning against the curve of his neck. Her hot breath prickled his flesh until he trembled.

  They remained in each other’s arms for a long while, until fingers of hot sunlight probed at their skin. Neither said anything. When he finally let her go, he could fee
l on his flesh the brand of her breasts, her hipbones, the tickle of the coils of hair hiding that wild secret place in the triangle between her legs. But most of all, imprinted in the cave where his soul dwelled, was the wonder of the true gift she had bestowed upon him. The desire for life. The desire to once more take a long walk in the sun. And best of all, the desire for someone else’s happiness. Hers.

  “I think I’ll take a bath now,” he said, his voice cracking so that he had to clear his throat.

  She trailed her fingers down his chest, smiled wide, and nodded. “I won’t look.” She moved to the rock where he had sat earlier and took up the same pose, causing him to laugh from deep down in his belly right up through his soul.

  He knew, as he waded out into the water, that he would have to tell her what he had done. All that he had done. Perhaps not the true horror of it, but of the acts themselves.

  Perhaps that decision brought on the dream, he didn’t know. They dressed and went back to camp. Because no one was around, they fell asleep in each other's arms in her tent. He came awake to a sound he’d prayed never to hear again. The whop-whop-whopping of a chopper.

  Confused, he gazed all around.

  Mud, water, smoke. What in hell—?

  “Can you walk, buddy?”

  Churning, gritty wind in his face, he reached for the disembodied hand protruding from the darkness above. Someone grabbed his feet and he glanced down into the shuddering mass of gory humanity. Severed limbs, men crying, faceless children screaming a chant he couldn’t understand.

  Lefty’s features emerged from the writhing stygian vision. “Don’t leave me, please God, don’t leave me.”

  A hand tugged at him, gripped his shoulder. “Let’s go, buddy. Come on. Let’s take you home.”

  “No, can’t leave him. Can’t leave Lefty.”

  “Don’t go, ole son, don’t leave me to die.” Hands clawed at his legs.

  Gasping, kicking, he cleared mud and tears from his eyes. Lefty and the battleground were gone. A small girl held his hand, squatting and looking into his face. A young soldier hauled her to her feet, slammed her across the side of the head with a rifle butt.