by Jeff Seats
Apparently, the second "battle" of the Pride Of Ontario had ended in another draw. Paul lowered himself back into his seat. He folded his arms and tried to act nonchalant but was ready for the real smack down that was brewing.
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“OKAY, SO I guess that means that no one has any phone service out here,” Eddie announced from the front of the bus. He paused in thought then said, “It’s too dark out there now to make it worthwhile to be roaming around. It’s safe and relatively warm inside the bus. At first light, I’ll go find some help.”
Dick jumped up again, enraged. “First light!” He took a step back into the aisle to make himself seen. “I told you I gotta be in Boise!”
Ellie stood, took in a deep breath, and walked up the aisle to Dick, again, then gently tugged on his sleeve to get him to come back to their seats. Dick turned forcefully and pushed her away from him, causing Ellie to stagger backward and land on the floor in the middle of the aisle smashing her elbow on an armrest as she went down. Climbing to her feet, she brought her hand up to the sore elbow but stayed standing where she fell.
When Dick pushed Ellie to the floor, the others stood in alarm ready to do something. But what to do was the question. Paul knew and jumped out into the aisle standing between Eddie and Dick. Paul was finished with this blowhard, and he had the skill set to put an end to him and his loud mouth; skills that he wasn’t afraid to use on this guy.
Dick now stood face to face with Paul. Usually, he could out bluster most people, but it was obvious that this guy was a potential threat. Looking over Paul's shoulder at the driver Dick could see that even the old hippie seemed emboldened by his presence and as if those two weren't enough to take on he saw by the expressions on the other passenger's faces that he had crossed a line in public that he should not have. No one could have accused Dick of being highly educated but in the mathematics of personal confrontation he held a Ph.D. and knew when he was outnumbered.
This time, when Dick felt the tug on his sleeve, he gave Paul one last menacing stare before turning and forcing his way past Ellie moving back down the aisle to his seat where he would be out of sight of the rest of the passengers. Dropping himself heavily into the seat next to the window, Dick rested his head on the cold dark glass and tried to look outside at the desert, away from his problems, but instead all he saw was the reflection of his own sulking eyes staring back at him in the black mirror the window had become.
Ellie looked up at the passengers who were still standing and staring at the loser of a human she was traveling with, or were they looking at her in judgment? Either way, she had stopped caring what others thought long ago. With her eyes, she pleaded for them to mind their own business. After a moment, each sat back down. A tense silence fell throughout the bus.
Paul remained standing, however, and kept looking back at Ellie who was embarrassed by his scrutiny. Looking now directly into Paul’s eyes she could feel heat rise from her neck and into her cheeks with a flush of shyness. He gave her a warm, friendly smile and then she abruptly shook her head, a silent signal for him to stay out of it. Ellie dropped her eyes. What was she feeling? Shame? Attraction?
Ellie turned back towards the man who hurt her and gently sat next to him. She combed her fingers through Dick's hair and cooed soothing words of comfort into his ear, but she could still feel Paul's eyes burning into her.
Eddie returned to his driver's seat when Dick sat down. All this tension exhausted him. That Ranger guy had helped him three times in less than thirty minutes. He needed to thank him. He glanced down at the open bag sitting next to him on the floor. The Beretta 9mm lay within easy reach; a little something “just in case”. For a few fleeting seconds, he thought that he might have been about to experience his first “just in case” moment. Nam had taught Eddie a healthy respect for guns and when to or when not to use them. He wondered if he could have used it if Dick had been more aggressive. He looked to the rear of the bus at the two huddled together. At this moment the blonde stroking Dick's hair looked to him more like a little-lost-girl than the girlfriend of an asshole.
Relieved that tonight wasn’t the time for him to learn whether he would have used his piece, Eddie turned back to the front of the bus and opened the map again to see if he could make sense of where they were. He yawned and conceded that, without daylight, he could do nothing more. Time for some shut eye.
Eddie looked back to his passengers. “I can leave the lights on but with no fuel, the batteries will last only so long. If you all don’t mind, I’ll shut things down and wait 'till morning.”
Getting no objections, or comments at all, not even a whispered grumble from Dick, Eddie shrugged his shoulders and shut off the switches that controlled everything. The interior of the bus fell into darkness except for the glow of cell phones being checked one last time.
From behind him, Eddie could make out the voice of the little girl traveling with her parents. She had been a real trooper throughout all this and now, having to sleep in a broken down bus, well, a little whine from her would be acceptable.
The voice of her mother broke the silence if just by a whisper, “You are such a brave girl my darling. This is not quite the adventure that we told you about but just think of the memories and the stories you will be able to tell your new friends in Baker City.”
Cindra listened to her mother try to make lemonade out of the lemons that this day had brought. Her mother always tried to find the silver lining in any dark cloud, and when it came to her daughter's life, her mother was overly protective, trying to shield Cindra from the big evil world; like she couldn't see what was going on. She may have been only eight years old, but she wasn't stupid.
Cindra was the apple of the O’Neil's collective eye. She was outgoing, creative and her life force could only be described as infectious. A good student, Cindra excelled at everything she touched. The tensions of the past several years should have affected her more than it appeared to have, hearing her parents argue the way they did sometimes would have had an effect on anyone, but the adventure of moving to a new town had over-shadowed the family financial demons. The only stress that was present with her parents now was what came with leaving one life behind and starting a new one. Of course, an eight-year-old can only know and understand so much, but she could distinguish between the types of “conversations” before the decision to move, “How are we going to make the car payments?”; with after, “Do you think the schools will be good in Baker City?” She knew the difference between the angry voice and the concerned one. The later was far more tolerable. She hoped that what her parents said would be true, that she would have fun in their new home and that she would make new friends. Cindra closed her eyes imagining her new life as sleep started to catch up with her.
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WITH THE COMMOTION finished, he hoped, Eddie listened as the passengers bus began to settle in for the evening. From the back, he could barely hear the girl make soothing sounds trying to keep that dick under control. Humph. Good luck with that. Other voices drifted up to Eddie’s ears. He heard the woman's voice from that weird couple traveling together, “Mom and dad, a funny thing happened to me on my way to Portland. First I got on the wrong bus and wound up in Reno, and then I got on the wrong bus again and wound up heading for Boise...Kelvin? Kelvin's just a friend. I’m a lesbian, remember? And he’s a...just what are you Kel?”
Kelvin burst out in a guffaw, “Oh you are so bad!”
Good thing they're headed to Portland. The wine and cheese crowd will eat those two up, Eddie mused.
The snickering continued from the strange pair faded out and, aside from the whispered words of comfort from mother to daughter, he could hear no other sounds. Everyone else was either lost in thoughts or had fallen asleep.
Eddie yawned again, stretched and draped himself over the steering wheel to try to get comfortable. Finally, after the light from the last of the cell phones winked off the bus descended into complete darkness.<
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Ah, some peace and quiet, Eddie thought. He squirmed to find a comfortable spot for his butt and folded his arms across the steering wheel forming a pillow of sorts. He lowered his head onto his crossed arms and looked out to the left side of the bus. Eddie closed his eyes. Ouch! His back screamed at him, and he knew that it would yell even louder at him in the morning along with everyone else. Still trying to get comfortable he sat up again and adjusted his body.
Out through the windshield, he saw that the night wasn't all that dark now that all the artificial lights had been shut off and his night vision had kicked in; even on this overcast, moonless night. Before he set his head down one more time in another attempt to get to sleep something caught Eddie's eyes...something...black. It flew past the bus like threads being swirled around in the wind or wisps of smoke; something darker than the night, a blackness that he could see against the blackest shadows of the landscape.
Wait! Did the black filaments just converge into a shape, the form of a man? Eddie rubbed his eyes and peered into the night straining to see what it was, but saw nothing. Tired old man eyes are playing a trick on me, Eddie thought and shrugged resting his head back onto the wheel. Since his days “in-country” back in Nam, he had not had such an F-ed up day as this one, bar none. Oh yeah, he was so fucked!
If a place is quiet enough the silence can be so oppressive that it can almost have a sound unto itself. The silence of this Eastern Oregon night permeated the bus. As Eddie listened his eyes glanced up into the gray clouds where he knew there was a star field so massive that it almost would have out shown the full moon. He sighed knowing that he was missing one of the joys of being so far from the light pollution of the cities. He yawned again and felt the weight of his eyelids as they lowered and then shut and Eddie was asleep.
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THE FIBROUS THREADS of black danced around in front of the bus intertwining like fingers of smoke caught up in the currents of air rising from a fire; coming together to form into the shape of the shadow of a man standing on the other side of the glass from the sleeping driver.
Eddie dreamt that the dark figure was looking at him with blood red eyes and pupils of empty blackness; studying him through the windshield as though he were a specimen on display.
The Shadow Man peered through the windshield looking past Eddie into the interior of the bus at the passengers. He floated down the exterior and paused at each of their windows taking them in, sizing them up, making mental notes of them all.
In this dream, Eddie wanted to yell out to everyone, to warn them about the man whose feet did not touch the gravel, but his throat felt constricted, voice stifled, as if controlled by an outside force.
The Shadow Man studied the O’Neils, moved on, stopped and took a long look at the Army Ranger. Next, he floated down to Steph where he lingered and ran his fingers across the glass as though he were stroking her hair. At the end of the bus, the Shadow Man saw Dick’s face leaning against the glass. He paused and appeared to be sizing him up, and then he flicked out his tongue in a licking gesture. The Shadow Man then crossed to the opposite side of the bus where he found Jenna and Kelvin and gave them the once over.
“Wake up!” Eddie wanted to warn, and then the Shadow Man was standing looking through the windshield again and straight into his eyes making him freeze with fear.
The Shadow Man smiled and showed sharp, dagger-like white fangs coming from his mouth.
Eddie woke with a start. His heart beat like a drum sounding an alarm, a call to arms. He stared out into the night. He rubbed his eyes to clear them but saw nothing. Unconvinced, he turned on the headlights of the bus. There, threads of blackness swirled about but dissolved before his brain could register their existence. Eddie shook his head and thought to himself, What a silly old man thing; being spooked by what? The dark?
A bit of wind kicked up the dust, swirling it around in the lights. See? Nothing, just the wind. He turned off the lights and attempted to get to sleep one more time. The wisps of blackness swirled over the top of the Pride Of Ontario, then vanished into the night.
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THE LIGHT FROM the rising sun slowly crept across the scrub as it inched westward towards Cascade Stage Lines bus number 7. The overcast of the night before had lifted, and the brightness of the sunrise reflected off the windows of the bus; golden colored light climbed its metallic surface, peeking inside and waking each of the passengers as it fell upon their faces.
When the sunlight splashed across Eddie's closed eyes, he knew that it was time to wake up and come to grips with his situation. Damn! First things first, however, right now his bladder was telling him, in an urgent sort of way, to get the hell up and empty it! He never listened to his dad when he complained about this part of the aging process. But who listened to old guys whine about their bodily functions? Eddie sighed, opened his eyes and sat up. Oh God! His back reminded him that they were going to have issues today.
Eddie sat up straight and stretched; first twisting his back to the left then to the right and felt a pop or two as his vertebrae realigned itself. The vivid dream of the Shadow Man had faded; erased from his memory. He opened the door but, before he exited the bus, he reached into his bag and rooted his hand around the bottom then stopped and brought out a rattling bottle of ibuprofen. He looked at the bottle. 200mg. Ugh. He popped the cap off and poured out the last two tabs into his hand. He was momentarily sorry for his over generosity earlier; giving his new bottle to the Ranger, and the stronger ones at that, but the guy had been a great help and the way he was favoring that knee he would need them more. Eddie shrugged and tossed the brown pills straight into his mouth swallowing them dry with a slight grimace. He placed the bottle back in the bag, saw the Beretta and grabbed it.
When he stood, he looked back to make sure that none of the passengers was looking at him.—He didn't see that Paul was feigning sleep and watching him through his barely open eyelids.—Confident everyone was still asleep, he slipped the gun into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back, adjusted his jacket to make sure that it covered the handle of the gun and climbed down out of his office and into the new day.
The morning was bright and sunny; which was a far cry from the overcast sky of the night before. Eddie stepped away from the bus spending no time enjoying the sweet air. He had business to attend to and made his way to the nearest wall of scrub and stepped behind it unzipping his pants. Relief.
Eddie could hear the other passengers exiting the bus, but paid no attention to them until he finished. This was probably going to be his last private moment for a while, and he chose to enjoy it. When finished, Eddie zipped up and tucked in his shirt, smoothed his pants, straightened his jacket-double checking that the gun was easily in reach and placed his Cascade Stage Lines cap on his head as though he were that young Marine back in Nam getting ready for battle. Then he walked back to the bus attempting to look as official as possible.
The O’Neils exited the bus first and huddled a bit away from the door. Wilson stretched. Marion was trying to comb Cindra's hair and straighten her clothes. She pulled a handkerchief out of her bag and licked it to wipe off the corner of her daughter’s mouth. Cindra did her best at resisting her mother's fawning, but with little success.
As Marion wet her handkerchief again with her tongue Cindra cringed. She hated it when her mother tried to clean her face like this. Yet, she stood there and took it believing that one day her mom would relax and let a kid be a kid. She understood what the term “little trooper” meant when her parents called her that and, frankly, she was getting a bit tired of hearing it. Cindra could tell that her cooperation helped and she could see the love they had for her in their faces but did her mom have to wash her face with spit? She was getting tired of that too!
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EDDIE ARRIVED BACK at the bus just as Marion finished giving her daughter a spit bath and was in the process of vigorously brushing lint off of Cindra’s back; which a
ppeared to be less of a cleaning ritual and more of a spanking. When Marion spotted Eddie, she asked in a tone that foreshadowed how the rest of Eddie's morning was going to go, “Don’t you ever clean the interior of these things?” Wilson yawned and discovered that he had more urgent needs than to listen to his wife complain to the driver, so he moved to the other side of the bus for a little “personal” time.
A noise from the interior of the bus drew their attention to Steph who stood at the top of the stairs. She yawned and stomped down to the ground. Now that she was standing in the broad light of day Eddie really got a better picture of this loan traveler. What he saw confirmed his assessment of her when she boarded the bus in Reno. Steph was one well-packaged woman, and Eddie could understand why she was the center of the ruckus between Dick and his girlfriend: jeans too tight, a loose tank top that flopped open in all the right places and an excess of costume jewelry. When she stretched, her short cut shirt rose up and revealed the bottom of her breasts. “And to think I was trying to avoid sleeping on a bus when I booked this trip. Ha!” Steph said to whoever was listening.
“I like your fashion sense sweetie. Seeing anyone?” Jenna asked Steph as she stepped down off the bus. Steph abruptly stopped stretching and very consciously pulled the bottom of her shirt down covering as much of her exposed skin as possible and then, as an exclamation point, she put her coat on and buttoned it up. Without saying a word or looking at Jenna, Steph moved away making like she was checking out the scenery.
Kelvin, Jenna’s companion/sidekick/straight man followed her off the bus. He snickered at Jenna’s comment and joined her a few feet away from the door where they huddled and continued their private joke-fest.
Next in line to exit the bus was Paul who stepped down in a fit "ready for the day" fashion.