Dark Shines My Love by Alexis Hart

Dark Shines My Love

By Alexis Hart

Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

Shakespeare ~ Midsummer Night's Dream

December 24, 1971

Dark Garden Plantation, Louisiana

Venomous shrieks filled the Louisiana night. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Patric covered his ears and struggled to block out the angry shouts of his parents.

"I swear to you, Lucia. Nothing happened. This is all a huge misunderstanding," his father said.

"How can you deny what I saw with my own eyes?"

"I am not having an affair with her. She came out here and just as I told her to go back into the party, she kissed me. I have no feelings for her."

"Get out!"

The tumbler his mother had been holding sailed through the air and Patric ducked. It crashed against the wall over his head. Shards of glass rained over him and slid down inside his flannel shirt. He covered his face with his hands and fought back tears. No matter how much he wanted to cry out, he couldn't let his father catch him spying.

"Why do you always have to resort to violence when you don't get your own way?"

His father's voice boomed and Patric wanted to make him stop yelling. He listened to his mother's sobs and longed to run out and comfort her, but that would earn him a beating.

"Don't you dare try to make this out to be my fault. I'm not the one who's doing God knows what with the entire town."

Boot heels clicked on the brick pathway and the smell of his father's cologne lingered after he passed. Fearing punishment, Patric held himself perfectly still.

"Lucia, your melodrama bores me. I told you nothing was going on, and I meant it."

"Liar! How many times have you told me the same thing?"

"Lucia. Enough! Go back in to the party and we'll discuss this later. You have a son who needs his mother at Christmas."

To Patric, the silence said more than the hurtful words. He waited for his mother to say something, but she remained silent. A chill crept the length of his spine and he shivered. He closed his eyes and curled up tighter against himself. Silently, tears fell from his eyes as slivers of the shattered glass scraped against his flesh. The cool night air blew across the balcony and cooled the moisture on his back. He waited.

"This is it, Michael. After tonight you will never do this to me again. I'm taking Patric and we're leaving."

Patric's sadness turned to joy. "Oh, Mother!" He gave up his hiding place behind a shrub and ran to his mother.

Both his parents heads turned to him, but Patric only noticed the woman standing in the shadows.

"Go inside, Paddy." The pain quivering in his mother's voice drew him toward her like a magnet.

He ran to her side and hugged her waist. "Can we really leave, Mother?"

"No. Go inside." His father's voice echoed as the palm of his hand made contact with Patric's head. He fell hard onto the ground.

The corner of a square terra cotta planter dug into his forehead and blood trickled down into his eye. Patric held in the fear as his father advanced on him.

Temples visibly throbbing, anger flashed in his father's eyes. "Get up!"

"I'm sorry, Father, I didn't mean to hear. I was trying to see the other guests and you came out."

His mother stepped between them and Patric sighed. "It's all right, Paddy. No one is angry with you. Just run inside and Mama will be in soon." She leaned forward and extended her hand to help him up.

"No, you won't make him a sissy. You coddle him like a fragile little girl. He's a boy and if you take him away he'll never become a man."

"I will take him away and he'll be whatever he wants."

"You are so wrong, Lucia. Neither of you will ever leave Garden View. You'll never leave me."

Unable to stand the cruelty of his father's words, Patric climbed to his feet and ran. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him and as far as they could. It wasn't until he reached the bank of the river that he collapsed onto the damp grass. The cool moisture soaked through his blue jeans and he shivered.

He rolled onto his back and hundreds of tiny nerve points prickled. He stared up at the vast darkness of the sky. Where are the stars? Why couldn't he find the moon? These and so many more questions cluttered his mind, pushing in between the blocks of throbbing and haziness. Closing his eyes, he fought against the pain wearing him down. Patric lay on the bank of the Mississippi River and willed the night to disappear.

How could his parents be so cruel, and at Christmas? Why had his father said such horrible things to his mother? His beautiful, kind and loving mother, the belle of New Orleans.

Pain spread down his neck and throbbed in his back. His shoulders stung for reasons he didn't understand. His body ached, from pain and loneliness. Fear. Never in his eight years could he remember being so afraid. The fear made him angry. He could hear his father's voice in his mind, "Fear is unacceptable."

Clenching his fists, Patric lay in the wet grass and prayed for the last time. Please God make it all disappear.

November 30, 2000

Dark Garden Plantation, Louisiana

"Get the hell out of my house," Patric raged, his heart racing.

"Mr. LeClerc, I didn't know it wasn't allowed."

He sucked in a deep breath trying to find some control. None came, so he forged on. "How could you think I would pay you to do God knows what with your boyfriend in my house?" Patric LeClerc fought against the crushing press of pain rising inside him. He collapsed into the dining room chair and lowered his head to rest against his forearms.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Get me my damn pills and then get out. Tell the service to send the next incompetent wretch over." He listened to the retreating footsteps growing softer as the nurse hurried down the long corridor. He cursed the hardwood floors and the echoing of every little noise in the God forsaken house.

She weighed considerably more than the last nurse they'd sent and the rapid clicking of her heels indicated her to be shorter as well. The scent of her lilac perfume lingered in the air, its cloying fragrance intensifying the pounding in his temples. Clutching his head, he struggled to gain control of his pain. Calm. He had to calm down or the throbbing would only increase.

Clicking heels echoed in his head, only they weren't in his head. Patric sensed the nurse as she entered the room. He gritted his teeth and waited for her to hand him his pills. The shadow of a hand passed in front of him then moved back and forth before disappearing.

"Don't play games with me. Just put the damn things down and leave me alone." He waited for the tapping of the prescription bottle hitting the table. Silence. "Are you deaf?"

"Sir, I was told not to leave you alone. I'll lose my job if I go."

Patric clenched his jaw against the hum her annoying voice caused in his ears. "That's where you're wrong. I pay your salary and you've already lost your job. Now give me the pills!"

She slammed the pill bottle against the table, the sound ringing out like a gunshot in his head. Groping with trembling hands, Patric fumbled with the bottle. Several of the tiny pills scattered onto the table. Damn it! He scanned the marred wood table with his palms, searching desperately for his relief.

Finally, his fingertip brushed against a tablet; he picked it up and shoved the pill into his mouth. Patric swallowed against the bitter aftertaste, then laid his head back down on his arms, and waited for his reprieve, limited as it would be. Peace never came for long. He slipped away to a different place as he waited. The place was never better or happier, just different. Again he wondered what he had done to be so cursed.

As the agonizing moments passed, his mood dipped dangerously low. His mind continuously replayed the moans of his former nurse engaged in some sexual act in his house. What the hell right did she have enjoying herself? What right did anyone have? God, he couldn't even remember what a woman's body felt like. He drifted to sleep, bored with his own self-pity and loathing.

What he assumed had to be several hours later, Patric awoke. Alone. Before he could get his bearings the shrill ringing of the phone startled him. He let it ring. If Alexander Graham Bell were still alive, he'd gladly strangle him.

* * *

The windshield wipers on Callie's old model Volvo scraped across the window. The scratching noise grated on her already taut nerves. I must be insane. The wind and rain whipped about outside, casting eerie shadows down over the secluded road. She gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned cold and white, struggling to keep the car under control.

The path curved and without warning she saw the monstrosity, standing ominously dark in the middle of a strand of trees. Dark Gardens Plantation. Home. The single word struck her as peculiar; she'd never called anyplace home, and yet in some twisted way, this came naturally.

Lightning flashed up toward the sky and she got a better look at the hell house, as her boss had referred to it. Dark shutters covered floor to ceiling windows along the front of the house. She counted ten just on one side of the front door. The double entry stood dead center in the middle of the house, at the top of a ridiculously long flight of stairs.

Why would anyone build a house you had to walk up so many steps to get into? At least she didn't have much to carry. Callie pushed her remaining questions aside and shifted the car into gear. The answers didn't matter. She wasn't here to like it. She was here because she didn't have anywhere else to go. As she got closer to the house, her apprehension only grew worse.

"Geez, I think I took a wrong turn and ended up in Transylvania." Weeds choked down the trees and bushes, obviously ignored for too long. She hoped with all her soul that things would look better in the light of a sunny day-and not only for her sake.

A small gray kitten purred a vague response and poked its nose out of the hole Callie had cut for him in the top of the box. When her life had fallen apart, she'd only been able to save two things. She looked down at Mardi and smiled. The curious feline had managed to get locked out of her apartment while everything was going on, and was so saved from a fate worse than-well he was just saved. Now she had her clothes and two priceless treasures.

She glanced up at the house. Shaking her head, Callie concentrated on navigating the gravel driveway. She peered out the window and looked at the surrounding landscape. "Kinda dark out here, Mardi. You gonna be okay?"

Meow.

"I am not afraid of the dark. How could you say that?"

Meow.

"I know it's just a house. But have you seen how big it is?" Callie laughed for the first time in weeks. "Of course you haven't. I've stuffed you in a box like some kind of animal."

Purr.

"Soon, baby. We're almost there, and then I'll let you out. No more boxes for you. With a house this size, it's party time for Mardi Gras." She rubbed the small pink nose poking from inside the box.

By the time she parked the car in front of the house the rain had lessened to little more than an annoying drizzle. Not enough to matter, only enough to get you wet. Callie stepped out of the car and leaned against the roof. Her black and white polka dotted slicker kept her arms dry, but cold drops of rain slid down inside the collar and made her shiver.

The house looked more like an over-sized mausoleum than a plantation. All she knew about Dark Gardens was that its owner was blind and obsessively reclusive. Her report said he hadn't been out of his house in over eight years. Thankfully, he was mostly self-sufficient. Her job would entail cleaning, cooking, and companionship. She would make good money and they'd have a roof over their head.

"Well, Mardi. Lets go."

Meow.

"Yeah, I hope he's awake too."

* * *

Callie rang the bell again. She'd been standing on the porch for ten minutes and hadn't even heard a rustle from inside. Finally, she twisted the knob, thankful when it turned.

"Hello. Mr. LeClerc? Are you home?" Of course he's home. He's a recluse. "My name is Callie Carpenter. I'm the new nurse."

Callie stepped into the vestibule and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The front foyer held no decoration or furniture. She saw a doorway directly to the left and another directly to the right. Both doors hung slightly ajar, but no light came from either. Several more steps in and she saw it.

Lightning flashed and the grandest staircase she'd ever seen blinked before her. The wide steps ascended to a platform that branched off in either direction. Then she realized the lightning flashed above the staircase. She set her box down on the floor next to her.

"I'll be right back, Mardi."

When her foot landed on the first step, an odd sense of foreboding seized her. Attributing it to nerves, she continued. When she reached the landing, she looked up. Centered above the stairs, hung an enormous crystal chandelier. Suspended from beams under a magnificent skylight it dangled in ominous brilliance. "Incredible." Her breath caught in her throat and she couldn't tear her eyes away.

She jumped at the sound of a thump behind her. "Mr. LeClerc is that you? I'm the new nurse."

"Stop yelling. I'm blind, not deaf."

The cold brusqueness of his voice sent a shiver creeping up her spine. She could barely discern his shadow at the foot of the stairs. He began to retreat as she moved closer. By the time she reached the last step, she caught only a glimpse of his back before he disappeared into a room. Hurriedly, she checked on Mardi then followed her new employer.

Like the main room, this one held no light. A few steps into the parlor she bumped into a small table. "Do you mind if I turn on a light?"

"Yes, I do," he snapped. "What do you want?"

"I'm the new nurse. The agency told me I needed to be out here tonight. I tried to call before I came, but no one answered, so I packed-my things and drove out."

"Bully for you, Mrs. Cartwright."

Sarcasm swam around her as he spoke. "My name is Callie Carpenter, and its Miss."

"Whatever your name is, I don't need a damn nurse. So you can take your self and your things and go home." She heard him move in the far corner of the room, but still couldn't see him.

"I wish I could," she whispered softly.

"Then do it!"

She gasped at his harshness, surprised he'd heard her. "I'm sorry I said that. It's just-I don't have anyplace to go."

"That's not my problem. Now get out."

Callie could almost hear his teeth grinding against one another. His words sounded so clipped that she wondered if he weren't in pain. Her sympathetic nature justified his rude behavior, and she chalked it up to loneliness.

"Sir, I need this job. I don't have any family and I don't have an apartment anymore. I'd appreciate it if you'd at least give me a chance to prove I can do this job."

She stood in the darkness, listening to the silence for several minutes. Finally, she heard him move.

"Miss Carson, I've lived in this house for most of my life and I assure you I can take care of myself."

"I have no doubt about that, Mr. LeClerc. I'm not actually here to take care of you. I guess I am more of a housekeeper than a nurse. The fact of the matter is, I need this job."

Callie knew she didn't need to beg. If he made her leave she could get another assignment, it may not offer her a place to live, but she'd manage. She found herself wanting to stay and find out more about this mysterious man. He ex-husband, Jason, would accuse her of living in another of her Florence Nightingale fantasies. Maybe because she hadn't actually seen her new boss yet, or maybe because of the house he lived in, whichever, she'd convince him to let her stay.

"I really would like to stay."

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I'm the Salvation Army and that I care what you want."

He hesitated before he went on, and Callie cut in. "No, Sir, you are not a charity organization." You'd need a heart to be that. "I only hope-"

"Lets get something straight right now, Miss Carter. This is my house and you will stay the hell out of my way.

"Yes, sir."

"If you so much as breath in my space, you're out of here," he snarled.

Callie sighed a breath of relief. She could stay. "It will only take me a minute to bring my belongings in." How sad was that statement? Nearly everything she owned fit into a few small boxes and her car.

"Your room will be at the top of the left stairs. Second door. If you need anything, get it yourself."

"I'll have to go back into town in the morning to pick up a few more things and take care of some business. Is it okay if I bring my-"

"Bring whatever you have to. Just remember, you have the left side of the stairs and I have the right. Stay out of my way."

Callie stepped forward to thank him-a door closed across the room-and then she closed her mouth. He'd walked out and left her standing alone. She hadn't even seen his face. Switching on a lamp, she looked around the room. Upon noticing the sparse furnishings, she justified the reason. Maybe since he's sight impaired he doesn't like a lot of things in the way. He just doesn't like anything. "And it's Carpenter," she whispered.

"I know," he whispered softly. Patric stood inside the tunnel listening to her move around the room. He saw the shadow of the table light she'd turned on. Leaning against the panel, he let the cool wood ease his tension.

She was different. He couldn't quite figure out how, but he sensed she wouldn't be as easily bullied as the others before her. He'd definitely heard fear in her voice, but he perceived it as a confident fear. A week or two would do little to interfere with his hectic schedule. Yeah right.

His body acknowledged her presence on the other side of the slide panel and he remained perfectly still. The secret door vibrated as her hand rested on against it. None of the other idiots had discovered the locations of his hidden panels, but he had a feeling he'd need to be more careful with Miss Callie Carpenter. He'd tried to get more of a sense of her, but she hadn't gotten close enough. He hadn't let her get close enough.

When he heard the study door click shut, he made his way down the narrow corridor and up the stairs to his room. Not bothering to turn on the light, he undressed and climbed into bed. He lay on top of the crisp sheets, listening to the house. Timbers creaked, shutters rattled, and even from across the expanse of the house, he could hear her moving around in her quarters. The floorboard at the foot of her bed creaked and she stopped. He knew she'd stopped because the next six boards also creaked. He'd meant to get them repaired-for nearly six years-but hadn't bothered. He'd seen no point in it.

Her bedroom door opened and she walked down the hallway. Where was she going? Probably snooping around the other rooms in the west wing. They all did it. One nurse had even stolen from him, but a few years in prison would cure her of that mistake.

Patric dozed off to sleep while listening for his new companion to return to her room.

www.hartofthematter.com

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Shines-Love-Alexis-Hart/dp/1590802527/nikkileighaut-20

PSI Blue by Robert Walker

Asian American Detective Aurelia Hiyakawa is the FBI’s secret weapon—and Rea, as her friends call her, will continue to thwart horrendous crime committed by the planet’s worst monsters if only she can keep ahead of the IRS, her child’s rebellious nature, a troublesome friend with wedding plans to marry a lowlife shiftless cretin, and if she can keep her Victorian bed and breakfast’s roof from falling through before the mortgage comes due. Unable to balance her bank book, this psychic detective for the FBI’s Psychic Sensory Investigation Unit (PSI) is absolutely one hundred percent ON when she makes multiple “blue sense hits” and is herself a stormy force to be reckoned with as a blow against evil in all its undeniable forms.

P R O L O G U E

The child, hopelessly tied, furiously fought against his bonds, but without result, and he felt dizzy from going round on the merry-go-round with the wooden seahorses, tortoises, dolphins, and other water animals. And he’d tired of hearing the demon ask, “Are you havin’ fun yet?” and then slapping on more paint each time he went around on the machine, and then the madman just cackling like a delighted old hag.

In a single turn of mind, the demon had taught him to hate the once loved joyous sounds of the carnival, as this particular fun-land had become a wicked carnival, creating a poisonous hatred that spread like jet black ink over the boy’s mind—a murderous hatred for his jailer.

This spreading poison of anger, horror, and hatred seared his young brain as if it lay on a hot Arizona pavement, and the mix of music, movement, and terror of a painful bondage—the cold hard reality of handcuffs--with the stench of paint the monster slapped his face with, turned the dark-skinned boy to thinking how high his level of hatred must rise before it became real--as real on the outside as on the inside? What would it take for his hatred to have a corporeal counterpart—someone big enough and strong enough and powerful enough to kill this satanic madman who taunted him and meant only harm to come. He felt the terror rising; he’d been led here by the nose, been made a fool, and amid the pretty sights and sounds had not realized that his body and soul were being bartered over—that he’d stood idle while being traded off like a slave to the madman, who was busy painting his terrible mural at the time.

The mural ran all along all the walls of the round room at the center of which stood the old merry-go-round. Somehow the massive mural had grown as if organically from a peaceful and lovely depiction of angels in a park holding onto one another and kissing. This scene stood at the center on two sides. But the carnival man--who called himself Carnivore Man--now busily and obsessively created a deplorable, grim red and orange hellish world in which Satan straddled all of the lost souls of Hades—lost souls who lay not beneath a usual dark subterranean cauldron normally depicted but rather bodies in a row below a sea of fire. All of the art was being painted over scenes portraying turn of the century cityscapes with busy stevedores working to unload packed ocean going vessels docked at the end of market street, people milling about smoking, shouting, haggling over scales and prices.

Carnivore Man was having trouble getting the sea of fire and foam to rise off the wall, to ‘sing’ as it were, to look as real as he wanted. At one instant, he pretended to want young Toby’s thoughts, and how Toby might improve the depiction of Satan’s sea if he were the artist. “What can we do with it? What should we add…what should we take out? What do you think, Toby?” When all the while, he really didn’t give a rat’s ass about what Toby thought, and all the same while, Toby suggested a white to gray foam here, a lilac blush, it had all been a charade down to the maniac’s sly use of the pronoun we.

“You be good,” he slapped on the last of the paint, covering Toby’s hair and head and the last unpainted portion of his face—even as the squealing old merry-go-round took him off again for another revolution.

“You be good, boy, and maybe I’ll let you live,” he said just before Toby spit in his eye.

Toby Slayter, whose thirteenth birthday it was, had awakened to a kaleidoscope of color and the sound of the Calliope music filling this place and his mind; so loud in fact, it seemed to fill his every orifice, pore, and cell, and yet no one came rushing to the boy’s rescue here in this strange back-of-the-yards area of the carnival. No one wanted to challenge Satan.

Sometime earlier, during the course of the evening, he’d been drugged and staked here--tied to a hard, cold brass post that spiked through the backside and out the stomach of a carved walrus. A surreal sort of crucifixion for the unfeeling walrus, but an even unhappier circumstance for Toby. As the boy found himself restrained here on the outer edge of insanity and the wood platform, his ankles dangling over the side, his shoes and clothes replaced with thick oil-based paint, he knew he’d been consigned to Carnivore Man’s Hell. He’d been placed on the outer ring of ‘the ocean’ with no sign of the saving grace of the Blue Lady except as he saw her go by amid the painted figures on a myriad of murals in this place—murals presumably painted by his conqueror. But Toby knew that the murals stood still, that it was he and the damn walrus who were moving.

Toby knew immediately and instinctively how vulnerable he was, and that he lay sprawled naked, his body almost entirely lathered in the lurid red-orange paint. The paint odor, thick and pinching, choked off his breathing with an overwhelming metallic odor.

“Just a bit more…just a bit more,” chanted the brush-wielding madman.

Only little dabs of Toby’s head, hair, and face remained to be painted now as his restrained body moved with the dizzying merry-go-round.

#

The villainous man in paint-streaked rainbow-colored red pants and shirt uniform dribbled orange, yellow, green, and blue from his palette, but mostly he slapped the child with a paintbrush dripping with blood-orange; Sears’s cheapest oil-base bulk buy—an exterior deck coating. He was nearly finished with his masterpiece. Just had to do the close-in work of the recesses about nostrils, the coil of the ears, and the eyelids. Usually the hardest part to deal with. Kids fought like hell during the last finishing touches, but soon after, the skin unable to breathe, they’d quit flailing.

Toby Slayter would join two other neon ‘works of human art’ in the spook house—one eye-popping chartreuse and one neon moon-glow yellow, so a blood-orange kid would just set the others off perfectly. Other of Satan’s victims didn’t get that honor or ease of passing; others—for no accountable reason that the handyman-turned-murderer could fathom—somehow invited a week-long torture session. It was satanic of him, he knew, but it was also the only way he could ever feel anything; only through the pain and suffering of a child, could he arrive at any sort of heightened sexual gratification. He understood the needs of a number of infamous child killers labeled as sociopaths, like the Red Demon of Russia who he’d seen in a film called Citizen X. Some would call him a monster. Some scientific types like those who trained under Dr. Mitchell Graham and FBI agents who understood the inner workings of DNA imprinting, or just plain old ancestral wiring in the brain, might call him a throwback to the early European Kurgans, blood-thirsty savages, survivors of the last of the ice age glaciers. Kurgans today could be found on every street corner. Such men would likely gawk and drivel and spit tobacco wads at the sight of his art, while the scientists might call his artwork the expression of the long-dormant, recessive genes of pagan ancestors. Might even say his art was an expression of primal urges.

He consoled himself that all art invariably must first pleasure the artist, perhaps more in the doing than in the final product, and he was an artist after all, however macabre the content. The children on the street and those who found their way to the carnival, and especially those who found their way to his side of the curtain, just called him Satan. They knew intuitively in their little hearts and minds and spleens that Satan always assumes on this plane a pleasing human form. The Devil made me do it had all to do with the supernatural taking on a natural shape. In this case that of a humble man doing a simple necessary job that brought a smile to the lips of a child.

But it had been proven by authorities and demonstrated by Oprah on her TV show that children did not heed warnings, and whose fault was that?

Certainly not his…and not even Satan’s. Kids gotta learn; in a sense, he dispensed a public service here. His victims brought it on themselves. All he did was put out the lure. If these damned kids were not evolved enough to avoid his simple lures, then what kind of future did they have in the first place? And if not painted and put on display here, then what else lie ahead for them? They invited him across a certain threshold when they accepted him, when they eased back on their natural instincts and their god- given fear and got comfy around him. He then took complete and swift advantage like a long-tongued frog that strikes a fly at an impossible distance. Not the frog’s fault, frog is just following its frog nature.

His close-in detail work in the eyelids of Toby Slayter was complete now. He felt confident no one had heard the boy’s cries over the music. It proved either no one cared or that the Calliope created a perfect cover for the carnival handyman and billboard poster artist.

Enough coatings and no one would recognize the child as anything but a sculpture hanging in the fun house, his body just another beacon in the darkness.

At his feet, Carnivore Man noticed the activity of fire ants that’d discovered the sticky spill from when Toby had dropped his free Coca Cola when the rufee had hit him.

“Damn bloody ants,” he muttered, stopping long enough to grab a canister of Raid. He fired off the toxic spray too close to the tiny creatures, sending them in a cascade of blown air in all directions. He cursed as the new chemical odor mingled with the paint stench. His nose twitched madly now, uncontrollably, and he feared his throat would clog as it hit him. The odors made Carnivore Man feel both nauseous and light-headed.

He left his art and the boy for the moment, found his cot in the back room and lay down to regain his bearings. It had been another all-nighter.

O N E

(a Buddhist or Japanese ideograph/pictograph or symbol as header for each chapter as per what was done with the Indian pictographs in my Edge Series—highly effective: say symbol of man, woman, rat, home, tears, etc. in Japanese lettering)

Children at play in the shadow of a wrecking ball that beats a rhythm with jackhammer screams: baparrumpf-kerrrrcrack! Baparrumpf- keycrack! Vaparrumpf-keycrack! All amid squalor and trash and discarded bottles, broken pyramids of bricks in dusky red and gray yards like a red bone factory; discards mixed with dull brown adobe crumbling to dirt…all visited by and bathed in a blinding blue light that transforms the brick yard of destroyed buildings into a lush green-carpeted park filled with stylized, rigid trees in a land where no wind blows the leaves, and no birds flirt among the branches. Within the eerie stillness, a verdant Gauguin-like green hue is cast overall, replacing all that is dirty red brick and dull adobe with a warm, glowing still life in which the children are now angels in stiff-winged pose, lifting up on tiptoe to embrace one another, some floating in the thralls of their embrace like Chagall lovers. But the children-turned-angels, like the trees, are rigid, stylized, posed as if painted onto a canvas with great care and trepidation, fear of a wrong rendering? Overall a pair of curious childlike eyes framed in a rectangle opening in the sky looks on. The eyes of God? Those of an angel, a cherub? No, Aurelia recognizes the questioning orbs as her own at perhaps age five or six. Yes, they are her own innocent eyes. She is like the artist Dali who painted himself into his own canvass, depicting himself as a child dressed in a sailor suit, holding a balloon and observing the strange life created out of his own mind, curiously wondering at its existence, purpose, and meaning-- and wondering if perhaps it came via some supernatural filter. She often felt the same way while looking on at her own visions. What did it mean, and why the dark horn-rimmed edges of a frame around her eyes, like seeing herself in a rearview mirror, only the bridge of her nose showing with her symmetrical black eyebrows, the penetrating, searching black Asian eye on the left, and the odd cerulean blue eye speckled with green that had somehow stamped her mother’s Irish indelibly upon her right.

It was as if she looked in from out if a box, some kind of trap. Caged perhaps. Only able to see from a tiny barred window in the corner of the universe of a single portion of a canvass too vast to contemplate at once. Painting, art—it was at the heart of this mystery: To all who enter this garden beware…beware its lull, its lure, its peace as mere illusion or was there more indeed than illusion here, some powerful message, some thematic counterpart, some echo of whispers, some inherent warning as when Aurelia’s mother so often said, “If it appears too good to be true…then like as not…it is too good to be true.” Some warnings go up like red flags, but the moment was shattered again by the strange music of modern construction: baparrumpf-kerrrrcrack! Baparrumpf- keycrack! Vaparrumpf-keycrack!

The new environment seems a dream, and it is just that, a dream within a dream within another dream, and from some far away place on a distant dimension, Aurelia’s Irish Wiccan mother, Loretta, reassures her in a voice deep within the coils of her cerebellum like a favored memory, a reassuring recompense—“Dear…it’s just a dream… only a dream. And a dream can’t hurt you.” Even in death her deceased mother kindly lied. “You can put your mind as ease; find pleasing sleep if you put effort into it.”

“But Mother…shouldn’t pleasing sleep come effortlessly?” she’d asked at age four, to which Mother had no answer.

“The darkness within that tells you to embrace your fears can make you strong in a dangerous world.,” had been her mother’s reply.

Now this ‘harmless’ adult dream had come repeatedly, had evolved over a series of screenings now for over a month. The children had not at first had angel wings; now the park children had angel wings, and they kissed one another in less rigid manner with each visit. Loosening up. And, they held hands and hugged and chased butterflies and sparrows streaming now through the greenery when in the early versions there were no birds. Now even the stylized trees and leaves were taken on the sheen of full-blown life.

And there was the angelic blue light batheing the entire scene. The angel children played lovely music, and they splashed in the fountain, giving vent to their sense of gaiety and mirth, when suddenly the blue light was replaced with a sinister darkness that blotted out the green until it became black, and now a red glow filled the sky like an angry single Cyclops eye, blotting out even her window on the scene for a flashbulb second.

The devastated landscape returned with added horror, bodies now buried in the rubble that had been the brickyard before.

Then the brickyard became fluid, the bricks dissolving into red clay and finally into a red mud and morphing into a red ocean. In this flaming ocean lay naked and helpless the angels joined by humans, male, female, child and adult alike. Now in a wreathing river of one another’s bodies, the features and limbs of the child angels all coalesced as if mixing colors in a jar—bodies spiraling fluidly--like blood dropped into water.

They were all caught below the surface of the red ocean current that had engulfed and obliterated the greenery and the blue light. They lay caught in a tangle of coral wreath that cut and bled them, and like a dancer with graceful moves, straddling the children as a giant, a Lucifer creature with a dragon’s tale like an external back bone thrashed as he stood dominating the helpless, writhing masses of children below him.

Nothing of kindness or caring, nothing but horror and mutilation filled the mind of the Hellion as he stabbed children with his scorpion’s tail, paralyzing each with its stinger. Then the red demon in the red sea devoured each helplessly paralyzed blood-orange-red child with a glee beyond joy. Repeatedly, the small angelic life of each prisoner in this strange coral nest disappeared into the demonic as if swallowed whole by the straddling giant.

Aurelia Murphy Hiyakawa awoke in her night slip, nestled in her bed, her wide Oriental eyes jade green, searching the room even as her brain searched the horrible dream for useful clues, images, symbols that might make sense. But nothing of the sort readily leapt to fill in the blanks of what this vision might portend.

“Does it ever?” she audibly reminded herself.

She realized now that shivers shot through her. The images had been so powerful, so real beyond mere dream to what Jung called the Big Dream—the life-altering dream. On the nature of the dream that sent her to a divorce lawyer to alter her real life accordingly or live life in a perpetual state of suffocation. Her friend Etta scoffed once, “Aurelia Murphy Hiyakawa, you are the only person I know who ever divorced a man on the say so of a little bad dream.”

“It was no little dream, it was a big-assed nightmare! A whopper of a dream and a compensatory one at that, and Carl Jung would have run screaming from that marriage long before I did.”

Now this dream. So real. So large. So much so that she prophetically guessed it related to one of her cases at FBI headquarters, but which one and how? So large this dream that her thin frame had shaken and perspired from the heat of Satan’s coral reef! A fiery bubbling cauldron red to orange reef that burned with far-reaching flamed fingers below the unnatural waters of Satan’s domain until you looked closer and realized the bloody reef was made up of bloody bodies.

“Silly,” she told herself and the silent room. “I don’t even believe in freakin’ Satan or a place called Hell.” She had learned from her Buddhist father that hell was the life many men made for themselves. Her kindly, sweet father had told her once that in a sense, planet Earth was the asylum for the universe and that this is why mankind was placed here. That the human race was a child, and one in need of much therapy. And that heaven and hell existed only in the mind; that we control the controls, and how we perceive the world and ourselves is up to us. He said one day science would catch up to mysticism and prove it right.

In any event, Hell was not a physical location where demons and devils and agents of Satan sat about contemplating attacks on mankind—much as the egocentric child wanted to believe--but such symbolism certainly floated about in the minds and genetic wiring of countless generations of Christians as well as other religious followers. So the symbolism and the sum of all such fears could certainly be counted on to have meaningful resonance.

But what were these recurrent images and sounds and that stifling, choking air filled with odors of earth and vermin and metal and decay and sweetness like the mix of flowers left too long at a gravesite?

Why did such things assail her now with these odd night sweats? Something wicked this way felt just over her horizon, coming at her with such force as to have sound and odor? And from what mysterious source? Who had now repeatedly sent these signals that held her telepathic mind in such rapt embrace? Who was it seemed bent on her receiving such horrid snapshots from the ether of an astral plane as busy and as populated with thoughts as conscious life was populated with the babble of tongues? A sea with currents filled with life’s images and symbols, and the myriad of modern new currents from electronic images. All of it bombarding every sentient creature on the planet.

Who were the angels…the children? What time frame was it? Past, present, future? Where might the green green park bathed in blue light be? Was it a real place or a figurative one? A billboard sign or a metaphor? What did these colors signify beyond hope and courage and honor and honesty? And what of the giant watery Satan and his coral hell so filled with vibrant, living fires of every shade of red? Was it an event long over or one approaching? Or was it ongoing...in the now?

She stared across at her image in the mirror across from her bed. She saw a beautiful woman with a mix of Asian and Caucasian features in a blue chemise nightgown alone in bed, seemingly destined to be alone for the rest of her life.

“Perhaps maybe the horror of the bad recurrent dream is beginning to take its toll,” she told her image and brushed back her long-flowing black hair with both hands.

The dream had begun soon after the divorce. Perhaps it was as Leslie Polkabla, her shrink, had said: “It merely reflects your inner turmoil, Aurelia—the angelic in you being overwhelmed by Tomi Yoshikani’s venomous and self-centered need to punish you.”

“Punish me? For what? He’s the one that broke our marriage vows, and became abusive!”

“All the more reason for him to hate you for divorcing him. The arrogant Japanese-American mogul some call the Japanese Donald Trump? And you sue him for divorce and child support? Get real.”

Aurelia knew she’d never see a dime of child support or alimony from the cheating bastard and consummate liar. He had an army of lawyers arrayed against her. Certainly, the horrid dream of an idyllic pasture—like her once comfortable lifestyle, like her once comfortable old Victorian bed and breakfast—the very roof over her and Nia’s heads--turned to a raging underwater fire in which she and Nia drowned while straddled by this Satan—certainly it could all pertain to the war going on within her deepest psyche, the war that had sent the demon in her life, Tomi, on the path to destroy the very person he once proclaimed his one true, undying love.

She desperately tried to piece the dream and the reality together, starting with the question of how Tomi had become first estranged, then verbally abusive and mentally cruel to graduate to open physical abuse that began with breaking and throwing things, and evolved into wanting to break or throw her. And she had not seen it coming. And she had not predicted his having gotten involved with other women. And yet she called herself a clairvoyant, a seer.

Her marriage ended one night in a spate of fighting and with her sending Tomi packing at the point of her Smith and Wesson FBI .38 special.

Sure, the children with angel wings must represent her and her daughter Nia, and these children were being destroyed by a demonic force that had somehow taken up residence in Tomi, once a loving, caring, tender man, and her dream was exactly what Dr. Polkabla said it was, a compensatory dream…a dream that compensated for what’s now going on at the in her waking life, her unconscious attempting to deal with her conscious decisions and choices—bad choices.

One of the children dying alongside her and the other children in the dream park kept pointing an accusing finger. Nia, she imagined. Her once loving daughter, so filled with an unconditional love for her in years past, now blamed Aurelia for the loss of her father. The poor child had witnessed the ugly final fight, and she had seen the gun her mother had wielded at her father.

Aurelia accepted what her mind now told her about the images that appeared relentlessly pursuing her. “It has to be what Dr. Polkabla says,” she whispered to hear herself again.

Then she heard a noise in the house. The old bed and breakfast she had purchased after the divorce--under the mistaken belief that payments would coincide with alimony installments--had its share of things that went bump in the night. But this…this was something new. She had bought the old place in a rash of “smart” investing with the nod of her financial advisor as a combination IRS write off and a future for Nia, an investment that would, in time, become a cash cow for Nia when she was old enough to take it over, and should anything happen to Aurelia, who admitted to a sense of fatalism. In her line of work, anything could happen. But the cash cow had already become the money pit instead! It was an exceptional day when the old place didn’t demand attention and repair.

Rae quietly slid from beneath the sheets and out of bed, and silently she found her bedside weapon of choice, a heavy Glock 9 millimeter.

She inched toward the door, down the corridor, looking in on a sleeping Nia for a moment. Knowing there were no guests in the house until tomorrow, and that the live-in maid Enriquiana had the weekend off to visit her mother in Costa Rica…Aurelia feared the worst. What was this noise?

She held the huge firearm ahead of her, prepared to fire, capable of it, trained to it. Again, more noise. The source the kitchen. Someone coming through the sliding glass doors in there.

She tentatively reached out for the light switch, an image of the satanic beast of her dreams coming through her back door, and she hesitated turning the light on. What if she were confronted with the very demon of her nightmare—Tomi Yoshikani doing some sort of O.J. number coming at her like a Ninja in the night?

Another part of her mind told her that such a fear must be faced no matter its nonsense, tantamount to a child’s night terrors.

At the instant she turned on the light, a toaster was knocked to the floor with a rattle, and she shouted, “Freeze or I shoot!”

Nia screamed in reply. “Jeeze, Ma! Don’t shoot! It’s me, Nia!”

Aurelia stared at her fully clothed daughter sneaking back into the house from a night of partying with God knows who and God knows where. Nia shook now like a leaf, terrified of the next nanosecond, certain a bullet would rip through her insides like she’d seen so many times on TV and in the movies.

“I can’t believe you were going to kill me!”

Aurelia looked at the gun in her hand and put it on the kitchen island beside the knives, pots and pans. “Damn it, Nia, I could have killed you! Are you crazy? I went by your room. Who’s in your bed?”

“Pillows McGee.”

A stuffed toy the size of a Bengal tiger beneath the sheets.

“Geeze Zeus! I might have killed you! Where in the name of heaven’ve you been? And how long’ve you been sneaking out this way?”

“I wouldn’t have to sneak out if you’d just let me be.” Nia, still shaken, pushed past her mother, going for her room.

“Stop!” Aurelia ordered.

“I just want to go to bed. Can’t we discuss this tomorrow?”

“After one thing.”

“What?”

Aurelia stepped up to her daughter and threw her arms around her, tears freely flowing now from both. The long, heartfelt, quaking, more- tears-welling-up hugged lasted an entire minute. It’d been a long time since they’d been so intimate, and it felt good. Too bad it had taken a near bloody, just-averted tragedy to come to this embrace.

“Sorrry…I’m so sorry,” Aurelia repeatedly said.

Nia took up the mantra. “Me, too. Sorry…sorry…sorry.”

“I thought you were a burglar.”

“And you’ve got to stop going for that damn gun every time you hear a board groan in this old house.”

Once more, they found refuge in the word sorry, which erupted repeatedly from each, filled as it were with meaning far greater than this incident.

Tearfully, Aurelia said, “Nia…what’s become of us?”

“Whataya mean, Ma?”

“This sneaking in and out like a stranger I don’t know. The lying.”

“Lying? I never--”

“Nia, a stuffed toy tiger beneath the sheets as your decoy? Come on…. I might well have killed you!”

“Maaaaaa…it’s all right! Nobody was killed. You’re a trained marksman.”

“All right? It’s hardly all right! I could’ve killed you!” Rae repeated.

“Sit down, Mom. You want something for your nerves?”

“Nerves? I ought to have my head examined. Should’ve sent you to that camp we talked about!”

“I’m screwed up enough, Ma. I don’t need Shrink Camp! It’d only make things worse, and you can tell your buddy Polky or whatever her name is the same!”

Aurelia gritted her teeth and found a seat. Her knees did feel weak. “All right, I want to know exactly where you’ve been and with whom?”

“I was just out with Trudy and some friends is all.”

“How long have you been sneaking out this way?”

“I wouldn’t have to sneak out if you’d treat me like an adult!”

“Do you call this adult behavior?” Rae fired back.

Nia pulled away and rushed for her room, Aurelia in pursuit, but Nia was quicker on the stair, and she slammed and locked her door before here mother could put a foot in it. A person’s room was sacrosanct in this household, a place of refuge, and a closed door stood…respected…as hard as that was at such a time.

She stared at the door as if her eyes might penetrate it, and she imagined Nia inside softly crying, leaning against the door. They had grown so far apart, and for that brief moment in the kitchen when they held onto one another, it was like she was younger again, accepting of her own vulnerability and needs. Now this. She slams a door in her mother’s face, going back to the offense-defense strategy Nia had taken for almost a year now. “Damn it,” Rae said. Her words and her groan could be heard through the door, but she got nothing in return from the other side. But from the other other side--Aurelia’s Gaelic mother’s voice wafted through her mind as if her ghost meant to continue helping raise Nia, but Mother’s advice—“She needs a good talking to from your father. Ten minutes with him’ll set anyone straight.”

“You think so, Mother? Too bad he’s no longer with us any more than you are.”

“Hey,” replied the ghostly voice from within, “life has a way of working out….and remember ‘When one door closes, another door opens.’”

“That’s cute, Mother. We did put it on your tombstone like you asked.”

“Who are you talking to?” It was Nia. She’d pulled the door open as Rae started back toward the kitchen to retrieve the Glock and go back to bed.

“Ahhh just to myself, Nia. Just talking to myself.”

“You’re so strange, Mother. No way I can ever have a normal mom is there?” Nia slammed the door closed again. Rae dropped her head. “N o, sweetheart,” she shouted at the door. “The Greenbrier High PTA would not accept me into their fold! Sorry!”

Burritos and Gasoline by Jamie Beckett

Title: Burritos and Gasoline

Author: Jamie Beckett

1

Call me crazy, but I believe life comes to us preloaded with its own inertia. Think of it as Newton’s First Law of Humanity. The point where science leaves the lab and delves silently, secretly, into the lives of each and every one of us.

Yes, it’s true. I’m sure of it.

There is most definitely a force that propels inattentive, unfortunate souls like myself through doorways we know we’d be better off not walking through. It pushes us to do things that are best left undone. Selfish, destructive things that can only backfire and do us harm. Yet somehow, against our own better judgment, we do them anyway. And we pay a high price for being so habitually reluctant to heed our own inner voices.

Fortunately, there is evidence that even the most self absorbed and blatantly arrogant examples of humanity can redeem themselves, given certain conditions and the proper motivation.

At least that’s been my experience.

The series of events that initiated the end of my own carefully guarded existence remain crystal clear in my mind. Even now, years after the fact, I can still mentally run through the movie of my life in all its cinematic glory. Oh, what a ride it’s been.

My all but unavoidable downhill slide began on an otherwise unremarkable Friday afternoon in an unabashedly blue collar town known as Manchester, Connecticut. The exact time was 5:05 PM.

Even before that much deserved dose of reality bore down on me, I was suffering from a desperate case of the emotional blahs. Which, I freely acknowledge, was pretty much the norm for me in those days. Still, I didn’t have the slightest suspicion about what sort of surprise might await me as I drove dejectedly to work that morning. In only a matter of hours, my less than vibrant outlook on life would be forced to change in a big way. And not for the better, I might add.

Manchester, like so many towns that came into their own during the golden days of the industrial revolution, can be viewed in one of two ways. How you choose to see it depends very much on your point of view. It could easily be taken as a lovely little working class town, full of charmingly narrow streets, majestic leafy trees, a multitude of tidy parks and several thousand residents who represent the salt of the earth. The place exudes a certain southern New England charm that cheerfully embraces and celebrates the town’s hard working, mechanized roots.

Then again, it could be viewed as a prime example of urban decay, where the potholed and cracked asphalt streets are thickly lined by weather beaten, multi family homes inhabited almost entirely by families who are either too poor or too dumb to move somewhere more prosperous. Somewhere like East Hartford, perhaps.

In general, I subscribed to the latter opinion. A fact that I’m not the least bit proud of.

I lived nearby, in East Hartford, which borders Manchester to the west. I suppose you could say that my hometown was distinguished from Manchester primarily by being a more economically hopeful place overall. It wouldn’t necessarily be true, but you could say it. Others certainly have.

I believed that degrading theory with all my heart in those days. Although if I’m being honest, I didn’t have much heart left at that point.

Even further west, only one short river crossing away from my own apartment, was Hartford, the capital of the state. In Hartford there was opportunity. White collar jobs in government office buildings or the crisp, clean, modern glass and steel high rises of the insurance industry paid much better than most of what was available on the east side of the river. A certain measure of status was attached to having a job, or even better, a career, in the city. To be employed in Hartford was to be upwardly mobile. Those who were lucky enough to steer their cars west with the morning commute were seen as being headed in the right direction in life. Those lucky bastards had hope. A big, rosy, flashing neon sign that read, “Prosperity!” was on their horizon.

My drive to work took me the other way, to Manchester, which forced me to squint into the rising sun as I made my way. I lived in East Hartford, hardly more than walking distance from downtown Hartford and a substantially better life. As a matter of fact, I’d lived in East Hartford for the entire 42 years of my existence to that point. But I drove the wrong way to work. Each morning I steered toward that blue collar kingdom with a chip on my shoulder and a scowl on my face.

It was that fact more than any other that caused the color to slowly bleed out of my life. The act of driving eastward, away from the opportunities of the city, eventually caused me to become a shell of the man I was convinced I should have been. I’d achieved so little, my life was barely a thin shadow of what my boyhood dreams had suggested for my future.

To be blunt, I was 100 percent dissatisfied, disgusted and disinterested in any aspect of even my own life, let alone anyone else’s.

Then the hands of the clock ticked over to 5:05 PM. Things were about to take a turn for the worse.

As I pushed my way through the door to the Personnel Department, which was my habit on Friday afternoons, I took three deliberate steps toward Mildred Hanrahan’s desk and extended my right hand without comment or eye contact. This wasn’t an expression of affection or gratitude or even basic civility. In retrospect, I have to admit a sense of shame that I never showed poor Mildred the least bit of courtesy. Back then I saw her as something of a human cash machine. For Mildred was the secretary to Ted Winters, the personnel manager at what I perceived as the dumpy little company where Mildred and I both worked. A company that shall remain nameless for fear of possible litigation. I'm sure you’ll understand, considering the circumstances.

It was Mildred's sad task to hand out paychecks every Friday afternoon to a long line of hurried, haggard employees who wanted nothing more than to get their checks and hit the bars hard and fast. It was a duty she performed without the slightest hint of enthusiasm or charm.

Who could blame her, really?

My hand remained extended momentarily, but no envelope passed between Mildred and me as was usual. Instead she spoke, a fact that in and of itself should have tipped me off that something was wrong. Mildred never spoke to me. I never spoke to her either. All in all, we were even.

“Ted wants to see you,” she chirped, chewing a wad of gum, big enough to choke a lesser woman to death.

“About what?” I asked. The suspicious nature of the moment began to dawn on me. Mildred looked up at me wearily, chewing to beat the band. She never got the chance to answer.

“Frank, come on in,” Ted’s voice called out from behind his half-open door. The entrance to his office was located only two short steps behind Mildred’s desk.

With butterflies suddenly flapping madly in my stomach, I made my way into the personnel manager’s office for only the second time in my life. My first visit had been eight years before, when I'd been interviewed, then hired to work for the company as a CNC router operator. Suffice it to say the firm was a leading manufacturer of circuit boards. I'd prefer not to be any more specific than that.

Over the course of the eight years I'd been a part of that organization, I'd seen Ted a number of times. Our paths had crossed in the hallways, occasionally in the men’s room, and once or twice at the company Christmas party. We nodded in a familiar manner, of course. But neither of us had ever said anything of importance to the other since the day he’d clapped me on the back, shook my hand and welcomed me aboard as an employee of the company.

That was about to change.

“Have a seat, Frank.” He waved a hand at the lone empty chair in front of his desk.

Ted was my age, but looked ten years younger. Skillfully placed dark curls hung gracefully across his forehead. His suit jacket hung on a rack in the corner, crisp and clean. Nobody who encountered him on the street would take Ted Winters for a factory worker. More likely they’d peg him as a stockbroker or a lawyer rushing to catch a quick lunch with a client.

His office was another story, however. The wallpaper was beige and unremarkable, the bookshelves dusty and unkempt. Aside from the empty seat he’d indicated, there was only one other chair in the room, his. I hadn’t noticed it eight years before, but Ted’s desk was one of those build-it-yourself deals you can pick up at discount stores for cheap. The room struck me as being every bit as depressing as the reason I’d been invited into it was curious.

Sitting down as instructed, the sudden movement caused a wispy cloud of fiberglass dust to shake loose from my rumpled work clothes. The tiny glass threads begin dancing in the air spontaneously, gently circulated by the air-conditioning duct blowing across the ceiling above my seat. Within seconds, gravity began to drag the delicate cloud of minuscule fibers earthward. While watching them fall I said the only thing that came to mind,

“Okay.”

“Frank, we’ve got a problem.” Ted was matter-of-fact. He didn’t hem or haw or beat around the bush in the least. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.” The words rolled smoothly, effortlessly off his tongue. There was no emotion of any kind in his voice.

I returned his gaze with the blank expression of a man who’s only recently received a sudden, debilitating head injury. “Huh?” I said.

"It’s your attitude, Frank.” Ted wasn’t apologizing and he wasn’t about to backtrack or try to rephrase the salient point of my visit to his office. He merely proceeded to form the news into neat little bite-sized portions that he no doubt assumed I would find more easily digestible.

When it came to personnel matters, Ted Winters was the consummate professional. He didn’t show his feelings one way or the other. For all I knew, he was mentally working out the potential benefits of changing auto insurance providers while we were having our little chat. The man was that emotionally detached from his work. He was a wonder.

Ted continued, “Your productivity scores have been sliding for months . . . you’ve received three consecutive unsatisfactory reviews from your supervisor and from what I’ve been able to gather, you haven’t made any effort to correct these inadequacies at all.”

Throughout the entire exchange, brief as it was, Ted was polite, dispassionate and unshakable as he delivered the bad news. I, on the other hand, was having great difficulty getting myself mentally up to speed. I watched his mouth move for several more seconds, although not a word was sinking into my addled brain. By the time the gist of his message finally began to register, I realized that Ted was holding an envelope in his right hand, offering it to me. Slowly, unsteadily I took it. The envelope contained my paycheck. The one I’d expected to receive without comment from Mildred moments earlier. Now here it was, weighing on my mind far more than it did my hand.

As it turns out, the thin slip of paper inside that envelope represented the last paycheck I’d ever receive from an employer. No more would I take money in exchange for hours of mind-numbingly dull work each week. Not that I didn’t want to. But in a tight job market, a man in my position was left with limited options.

I'd given so little thought to each of those previous 400 odd paychecks. The first one got me excited, I imagine, although I have no clear recollection of picking it up or feeling anything one way or another about it. The last one certainly caught my attention, though. My head was swimming. The rest of me was locked in place, not moving an inch. I was dumbfounded.

“Good luck, Frank.”

Ted stood deliberately as he reached out to shake my hand. I rose unsteadily and shook the offered appendage, as much out of reflex as anything else. Then I turned to the open door and slunk out. Mixing among the throngs that were lined up to receive pay envelopes of their own from Mildred, I felt oddly out of place. For her part, Mildred sat as quietly as ever, diligently working her way through the pile of envelopes on her desk and the associated line of workers that stretched out through her doorway and into the hall beyond.

Shouldering my way through the crowd, I began making my way toward the main exit as best I could. The walls seemed to heave and swell as if they were attempting to expel me from the building. The floor beneath my feet felt as if it had softened to the consistency of marshmallows. Time lost all relevance, except for the fact that I wanted to get out of that hallway, out of the building and out of the company parking lot, as fast as I possibly could. Unfortunately, try as I might, I felt as if I was unable to move any faster than a hobbled octogenarian using a slightly irregular walker.

Finally, after pushing myself with great effort down the hallway toward the cold, bitter world that was no doubt waiting patiently to add to my humiliation, I reached the steel exit door. Pressing against the panic bar with my hip, I oozed out onto the damp sidewalk, confused, embarrassed and just beginning to realize exactly how deep a hole I’d stumbled into.

The sun was still hours away from disappearing behind the curvature of the earth. But it was shaded mightily by a steel gray Manchester sky that caused the look and feel of the whole day to run together.

The calendar suggested it was the middle of summer. But the sky above my head looked more like late fall. The thermometer struggled throughout that dreary afternoon to reach 70 degrees. Yet, even considering that relatively warm temperature, overtones of the chilly, depressing nature of autumn were pervasive. The atmosphere surrounding me looked and felt more or less the same as it had when I’d arrived for work at eight in the morning. At lunchtime the world had looked just as bleak. By five minutes after five in the afternoon, nothing had changed much. At least not in the meteorological sense.

A light drizzle teased my nose and beaded up on my eyebrows and hair as I trudged to my car. The damp air caused my blue jeans and cotton work shirt to feel tighter, restricting movement, making it hard to breathe. I tugged at my collar, to no avail. Air flowed to my lungs only with great effort. My scuffed, dirty boots weighed a ton. One shoelace had somehow come undone. Rather than stop to tie it again, I let it drag behind me. The boot loosened slightly with each step.

My only thought was to get away. If my boot had fallen completely off, I’m sure I’d have continued on with only a sock to cover my foot. My embarrassment was unimaginable in its enormity.

With considerable effort, I quickened my pace.

Around me were straggling bands of my former co-workers laughing, joking and enjoying the freedom represented by a Friday afternoon. I on the other hand was just at that moment coming to realize exactly how isolated I was from the 200 or so men and women I’d shared a working environment with up until only a few minutes before. Not one of them made my list as someone I would count as a real friend. Then again, I didn’t really count anyone else in the world as having a solid spot on that list, either. I talked to no one as I made my way through the parking lot and no one talked to me. Much like my relationship with Ted’s secretary, Mildred, we were even. All of us. I knew I wouldn’t be missed on Monday.

The world and I were at odds. Yet even with that critical tidbit of information gnawing away at the back of my brain, it still hadn’t occurred to me that I was rapidly making the transition from being a deeply troubled man to being a man in deep, deep trouble.

There is a profound difference between the two conditions. I didn’t know that then. I also didn’t know that I hadn’t hit bottom yet. I’d find out, though. Oh, how I’d find out.

Web Site: http://jamiebeckett.com

Amazon.com link: http://www.amazon.com/Burritos-Gasoline-Novel-Jamie-Beckett/dp/0595409121/

Sacred Ground by Rita Karnopp

SACRED GROUND

BY Rita Karnopp

Website: www.eternalpress.com

Release date: Nov. 7, 2007 Eternal Press

Chapter One

_"K

eep your damn buffalo on your side of the fence," Brett Turner shouted.

Willow Howling Moon watched the most irritating man she knew stand in the stirrups and stare down the fence line, his glare unmistakably fueled by his anger. If she could get past his arrogance and narrow-mindedness, she might admit he bordered on handsome, with that curly wheat-colored hair edging his collar beneath a worn Stetson hat. Ranch work rendered him lean and muscular and in better shape than most men who worked out.

"My damn buffalo haven't crossed onto your property since 1890! As usual, your mouth is speaking before you've had a chance to think, if you think at all," she snapped, gritting her teeth.

"You think twenty head of my prized cows died from brucellosis without one or more of your ancient beasts giving it to them?" He wiped his brow on the back of his leather glove.

The gesture didn't fit the spoiled, rich-boy image she had of him. Uncomfortable under his steady gaze, she swung into the saddle. This cowboy had a way of unraveling her nerves. She raised her chin and stiffened her back.

"My buffalo have been tested for brucellosis," she informed him, looking directly into baby blue eyes flanked by too-long dark lashes. They gave him a look of innocence she knew didn't exist. "Your sickly cattle didn't die from any buffalo of mine." She gave his herd a glaring once-over. "Find someone else to blame for your misfortunes." She reined her mount away from the barbed fence, then into a slow trot away from Brett Turner.

"I catch one of those ugly horned beasts on my property, and I'll shoot it!" Brett shouted.

"You'd better think long and hard about firing a gun at my stock." She reined and turned in the saddle to face him. "You can't afford to spend any time in jail now, can you?" Noticing his clenched jaw, Willow Howling Moon paused. She caught a glimpse of a faraway gaze, an almost sad expression, before he quickly covered it with a look of defiance.

"Keep them on your side of the fence and you won't have to worry about it. I suggest you keep that wild kid of yours on your property, too!" A smug smile tipped the corners of his mouth.

She brought her horse to a complete turnaround and raced back toward him, moving as one with her mount. Her hair had escaped from the leather tie and flew behind her like the mane of her horse. She didn’t care how it looked at this point. She glared at him. If he had any smarts he'd read the fury and back down.

"Listen, Brett, I can take your accusations and insults with a grain. But, I won't tolerate them when it comes to my son. Lance hasn't been on your property―"

"Since 1890? I've heard that one," Brett interrupted. "I thought I'd remind you, again. I don't like Sean associating with any―"

"Indians?" she spewed the word out with an inflection of disgust. "I know how you feel about Indians. Bear in mind, I don't have control over your son. He comes over to play, and I'm not about to make him feel unwanted. He's welcome, it's more than I can say for you."

Lifting the reins, she moved her mount closer. "Sean doesn't seem to notice Lance is Indian. Prejudice is a learned behavior. I'm sure, given time, you'll have him hating us, too."

"I don't hate you, Willow, but I do hate drunken Indians as a whole. Always have their hands out, expecting to be paid for the injustices done their ancestors. Hell, we've all had life kick us in the ass. We all could be waiting for a handout. You have this great ranch, and you're still out there fighting for Native American rights. Makes me sick."

Willow took a deep breath. "You’re so narrow-minded, you wouldn't know the right and wrongs of it if I spent hours explaining. I don't expect you to change nor to understand. You have no idea what we face today."

"They face large handouts and do squat with the money."

"Shows how much you know," she snapped. "The average Indian lives in poverty. The reservations are nothing but a place to hide from the rest of society. Many are still waiting for forgotten promises."

"They should close those damn reservations and make the Indians mix with society. This Indian revival thing is crazy. Learning the language of their ancestors . . . how stupid. Who are they going to talk to?" Brett snickered.

"Somewhere in that ignorant persona you must feel a certain respect for other cultures. Native Americans were forced to forget their belief in Napi, the Great Spirit. They were forced to speak English and punished if they spoke their native language. They weren’t allowed to dress or practice the old ways. Their code of ethics would put today’s society to shame." She wondered why she bothered explaining anything to this man.

"Native Americans should be a thing of the past, like Vikings and knights in shining armor. Indians have to learn to blend with society. You're wasting your time trying to convince me otherwise. Nothing would, or could, change my mind." Brett adjusted his hat. "And I repeat; I don't want Sean playing at your place. Indians don't supervise their kids. They just let them run wild."

"That's a crock and you know it!" Willow exploded. "We don't raise our children any different from the typical American. Where do you get these warped ideas?" She shook her head in disgust. "Sean’s a nice kid. He and Lance love feeding the ponies and―"

"I don't want him at your place," Brett interrupted. "It's as simple as that! Nine-year-olds don't think about consequences. If Sean gets hurt, I'm holding you personally responsible."

"It's surprising he doesn't have that spoiled little rich kid syndrome like his father."

"You may have a cute little ass and a face that puts most women to shame, but once you open your mouth, a man forgets all the rest. I don't want Sean playing with Lance. That's all there is to say. Remember it!" He whirled his chestnut around and pushed the animal into a hard, full run away from her.

Willow couldn't remember them ever talking without arguing. It always ended with one or the other running in the opposite direction.

Amidst her anger, his comment about her cute behind and a face that put most women to shame came to mind. Did he really think that? She refused to allow his semi-compliment to soften her anger . . . she told herself, even though it already had.

* * *

Damn, that woman got his blood pumping, and he’d pushed his horse harder than he intended. Brett brought the animal to a halt on top of the ridge and led him around to face the backside of his property.

Willow rode across the plush green meadow, then crossed the trickling Dog Creek. As

always, the sparkling water angered him. He gritted his teeth and drew in a deep breath. A lack of water had always been his major concern. Damn his great-grandfather. What could have possessed him to buy land without obtaining water rights? Plain stupid!

Endless times Brett wanted to put Willow Howling Moon Jenkins in her place. If she ever decided to reroute the water and bypass his property, he'd lose everything, plain and simple. The entire situation graveled him. Whenever he allowed himself to think about it, which wasn't often, his blood pressure skyrocketed. To be controlled by a woman, an Indian woman on top of it, wore on his pride.

Now, as he watched her, he couldn't help feel a stirring. When she rode that prized pinto, she was beauty in motion. He hadn't missed how her full breasts moved seductively beneath her beaded Indian shirt. She always wore her long shiny black hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, secured with a single beaded and feathered leather tie. When her hair worked loose and flowed around her, primitive and free, it excited him. Her shapely bottom bounced sexily in the saddle. She posed an impressive looking woman for an Indian.

He couldn't stand Willow Howling Moon Jenkins, yet something about her intrigued him, pulled him toward her. God, he hated what the Indians had become, yet she radiated a vitality that drew her to him like a magnet. Damn! He wouldn't allow himself to think about her.

Brett gently nudged the belly of his chestnut and headed for home. His anger had settled, not as quickly as it had erupted, but that was something he'd always worked hard to control. Willow pushed all the wrong buttons, making him forget to hold back. His comments had been cruel, and he wasn't proud of himself. Honest but not proud. The hurt look in her eyes told him he wasn't being fair or considerate. Insensitive might be the right word.

If only he could believe she had nothing to do with his recent streak of bad luck. If only . . .

* * *

"If only that man didn't get me so damn riled," Willow Howling Moon said under her breath. The sound of pounding horse's hooves drew her attention across the valley. She watched her son race toward her. He waved, and she returned the gesture. Lying low on Spirit Dancer's back for greater speed, he passed by her in a cloud of dust, giving a shrill whoop. He would have made a fine warrior, she thought, smiling at him proudly.

"A-pe-ech-eken," he shouted at her.

"Why?” she asked, pleased he'd chosen to speak Blackfoot. She'd struggled to instill pride in his heritage. His looking more like his white father than Indian didn't help with her goal. He loved the horses and the tribal dancing, and she used those interests to encourage him to learn others he didn't find as important. "I'd planned a leisurely ride home. Give me a good reason to hurry and I'll consider it."

"Thunder's having her calf!"

"You're kidding! That's certainly good enough reason for me," she shouted over her shoulder. Willow tapped Whirlwind's side and let the horse have her head. With a skill born of instinct and years of experience, she picked their way among the trees and rocks, finding the trail without effort. They returned to the ranch in half the time that it took to leave.

Her feet touched the ground before Whirlwind came to a complete stop. Glancing around at the darkening spring sky, and drawing in a moisture-laden breeze, Willow rushed to open the barn doors.

"Help me get Thunder inside," she told Lance. "She won't like it, but I don't want her and her baby getting soaked tonight." Willow tapped Thunder's backside gently with a willow stick.

"She's not gonna make it inside, look she’s dropping that calf right now," Lance said, excitement in his voice. "Would you look at that, Mom? Thought you said she's gonna have trouble."

"It's not over. Step back and let her do what comes naturally. We'll help if she needs―"

"Mom! The hind feet are coming first! The calf is backwards!"

"Easy girl," Willow coaxed Thunder to the ground. She watched the calf's feet slide back into the large animal. "You'd better go call the vet. His number is under the buffalo magnet on the fridge." She soothed Thunder's stomach with large, circular rubs.

Lance ran toward the house, filling her with pride. He took responsibility seriously, a trait not often found in boys his age these days.

"Take it easy, Thunder. You're giving birth to the first buffalo calf on the Arrowhead Ranch, just like my father wanted. Don't let me down, girl."

"Doc Tanner said he'd be here in about an hour," Lance said between breaths. "I told him he needs to come now. He's at the Tumbling T."

"I don't think Thunder will wait an hour. Did you tell Grandpa Antelope Tipi?"

"He's getting some of his potions."

"You go help Grandpa; I'll stay here with Thunder. Remind him to bring the Bowie hunting knife. and have Grandma Sings Always boil some water."

"She’s making Dutch apple pie, and it smells great. She said we'll celebrate with it."

"I'm hungry already. Go now and help Grandpa," she instructed. "Oh, Lance, bring some rags and old towels from the basement closet."

With concern she watched the huge shaggy animal and thought about what this calf meant to her People. She was glad her husband wasn't here to voice his usual opposition where the buffalo were concerned. She couldn't help feeling a shimmer of guilt at being glad.

As a young girl, she'd always dreamed of marrying for love. But her father described a different destiny. She quickly realized her dream would never be reality. She’d been chosen to protect the sacred, ancient burial grounds of her People, which spread across the backside of Gordon's land. Taking her responsibilities seriously, she married him. It had been the first step, of many, her father had envisioned in regaining the land of their ancestors. Soon step two would be fulfilled with the birth of this buffalo calf, born to the People.

She'd done her duty, but she'd also paid the price. Where Gordon could have been gentle, he'd been violent. Where he could have been bonding, he chose conflict. When he could have been a loving father, he found ways to push his son away.

Although Gordon's death seemed poetic justice, she found herself haunted with guilt. Surely no man deserved to have his body torn apart by wild dogs. She should have felt a loss by his absence the past six months. She should have mourned his passing, but she didn't.

"We're back." Lance ran up to her, breathless.

Willow jumped, startled from her reverie. Her son had an air of excitement about him. "I'm glad. Thunder missed you."

She nodded to her father, but remained silent. Although a large man, her father possessed great gentleness. He wore a necklace of many colored beads, representing the rainbow, which endowed him with supernatural power and wisdom. He held his head erect, proud. His long black-and- gray-streaked hair fell loosely upon his shoulders, framing an aged face. His dark penetrating eyes hinted at hidden secrets and knowledge of the old ones, guarded and preserved.

He sat on a blanket more ancient than he. With care and experience, he rolled, between his thumb and index finger several pieces of dried sweet grass, the sacred grass of the People. He chanted, soft and steady, calling out with throaty tones to the sky and earth.

"What is Grandfather doing?" Lance whispered, as her father raised the smoking grass.

"He's showing respect, first above to the Creator, then down to Mother Earth. He'll now do the same to the Spirits of the Directions. Tell me, Lance, what are they?" she asked, continuing her soothing rubs to Thunder's stomach.

"Grandfather will start by facing east. See, I'm right." Lance sat back on his heels. "It's the source of light and understanding."

Willow noticed the look of satisfaction on the face of her young son. "Now he's facing south. Watch how sincere his movements are."

"South is the direction of youth, where all things are made to grow. It's my favorite direction," Lance said, excitement building in his tone. "I suppose west is your favorite." A teasing look washed over his once serious expression.

"Right." Willow made a face at him. "The direction of old age. Just remember, it symbolizes wisdom of the elders."

"If Grandfather doesn't hurry, the direction of north is going to get him wet," Lance said, giggling into his palm.

"I agree That storm's almost here." Willow wiped several wet droplets from her face.

Silence settled between them as they watched Grandfather Antelope Tipi direct the smoke to float across the suffering animal. Willow felt Thunder relax beneath her palm. Her father had a gift, an ancient gift . . . the power of healing. Some people laughed at his old ways, but she never did.

"How come Doctor Potter isn't here yet?" Lance asked, moving to sit next to his grandfather.

"Good question." Willow responded in a hushed tone.

Her father spread a white paste across Thunder's tongue.

"If Mr. Turner knows we need Doc's help for delivering a buffalo calf, we might not see him for hours,” she spat. “You can be sure Mr. Turner wouldn't consider this an emergency."

"You're wrong, as usual," Brett returned her harsh tone with his own.

"What are you doing here?" She jumped to her feet.

"I'm here to help―"

"Like hell you are! You expect me to believe you drove over here to help me, an Indian woman, deliver a buffalo calf? Please! Give me some credit for brains."

"Doctor Potter had some heart arrhythmia while he was out at my place. He's going to be fine, just needs to take it easy for a couple of days. He's the reason it's taken someone so long to get here. He asked me to come and help with the calf. A suffering animal is what matters. Even if it’s a damn buffalo."

"What exactly do you think you can do, that I can't?" she asked, watching him struggle to suppress his anger under the appearance of indifference.

"I have some training in animal science." He leaned over Thunder. "She's acting pretty sluggish. You give her a sedative? That can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing."

"Antelope Tipi gave her something to relax her.” Willow glanced at Brett and read concern in his expression.

"I'm supposed to trust some ancient mumbo jumbo?"

"Nope. I didn't ask you to. It's your choice to be here. Leave if you find it too much of a challenge." She fell silent and watched him press Thunder's stomach high, then low. He pulled on long plastic surgical gloves and inserted his hand into the birthing canal. "The calf is presenting itself breech. Both mother and calf are in danger. I'm going to try turning the calf. There's no time to waste. You'll have to help." He hurried to his truck.

Sean slammed the truck door and shuffled toward Lance.

"Hi, guy," she said with forced cheeriness. "You boys better stay at a distance and keep quiet. If things get . . . tense, and I tell you to go to the house, I expect you both to get tracking. Understand?" She looked at the twosome. They both nodded, moving back to sit with their backs against the barn door.

Several cold droplets reminded her of another potential problem. She couldn't think of that now. They’d take one thing at a time. If only Doctor Potter had come instead of Brett Turner. The crunch of gravel made her turn. Brett approached carrying a large black vet bag.

"What do you think you're doing, you're not a veterinarian?"

"You're right, but I'm the next best choice you have at this moment. I've finished all but my job experience hours under a licensed vet, to become one myself." He set out several instruments on a clean towel he'd spread on the ground.

"I didn't know that," she muttered. "But if you haven't had field experience yet, you really don't know what you're doing, do you? I mean, there's a big difference between reading something in a book and knowing what to do. What are those for?" she asked, observing the straight row of ominous looking knives, clamps and needles.

"A C-section. We need to be ready just in case," he answered, without looking at her.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" His glaring response caused her to fall silent. She had to admit having Brett help was better than no help at all. She didn’t want either animal to die. She swallowed what remained of her pride and asked, "What can I do to help?"

"Tell your father to pack up his feathers and rattles and get out of the way," he said, kneeling behind his patient.

"I guess it's impossible for you to stay civil for more than a few minutes. Why did I expect anything different?" she asked, between clenched teeth. "Thunder needs my father. He stays!"

"There's no time to argue, Willow. Pull on a pair of gloves and get down here."

While he pushed and pulled the calf inside Thunder, Willow snapped on long latex gloves.

Brent grunted slightly. "Whatever Antelope Tipi gave this animal, it's sure effective."

"How's it going?" she asked, dropping to her knees alongside Brett.

"Hold this position while I double check where the cord is," he directed.

She moved in closer. "I've got it," she said, struggling to keep her balance and remain motionless as he moved knowing hands around the birthing cavity. She became aware of his warm breath on the back of her neck.

"Be ready. When I say pull, I want you to give it all you've got," Brett said.

Willow glanced at him, confused by his sudden change in character. She'd never seen this side of Brett Turner. It made her feel more on-guard than his arguing did. She'd have to distract herself with conversation or her body might betray how his closeness affected her. "Why did you quit school? Too much work for a rich rancher's son?"

"Rich had nothing to do with it," he said, glancing her way. "Hand me that bottle and sponge. This will sterilize the birth opening some. My father was dead set against my becoming a vet. He hated it so much, he wouldn't give me a penny toward my schooling."

"Why would he be against something so worthwhile and what you wanted?" Willow sat back on her heels to give him more room to work. "How'd you pay for it all?" She drew in a breath of burning sweet grass, and her father's soft chants calmed her.

"I worked two jobs and studied in between. I'll admit it was difficult, but I did what I had to do. It was my dream." He reached his hand back into the laboring buffalo. "This is it, pull!"

Willow pulled on the struggling calf, guiding it through the opening of its mother's body. Brett grabbed her hand in an attempt to help lift the newborn. She glanced at him and paused, finding warm blue eyes staring back at her. Uneasiness washed over her. Once again she realized she didn't know this Brett Turner. She tore her gaze away and settled it on Lance and Sean.

"Boys, grab some towels and be ready to dry our newcomer," she shouted, while helping Brett bring the struggling calf into the world.

A silence fell over all of them.

"He is a sacred buffalo," Grandfather Antelope Tipi said in a quiet tone. "It is considered sacred and has been revered by Plains Indians for centuries. This is a sign."

"That's all superstition," Brett snapped, turning away from the old Indian.

Willow could tell Brett seemed impressed, even awed by the rare sight before him. She wondered why he tried so hard to hide it. The story of White Buffalo Woman, which had been told and retold through generations, prophesied she would return to the People in times of need. The birth of a female white buffalo is an important event.

"I've never seen a white buffalo," Lance said, his voice equally hushed as his grandfather’s. The boys moved in closer for a better look.

“It’s an albino, might be somewhat unusual, but many animals have albino births,” Brett offered.

“Not albino with black nose and black eyes,” Antelope Tipi pointed out. “The last time a white buffalo was born was nineteen-ninety-four, in a small town in Wisconsin.”

“That’s right, Father. That was on a small farm in Janesville, Heider farm, I think.”

"Wait 'till I tell the kids at school! Can we take him to show everyone?" Sean asked, crowding alongside Lance.

"We may have to consider having a school field trip here." Willow smiled at their eagerness and noticed Brett watching the calf with great interest, in spite of himself.

"Wow, Mom! He's beautiful," Lance said.

"Yeah, Mom . . . Willow. Can we dry him off?" Sean asked.

"You boys stay back," Brett ordered.

"Oh, let them wipe the baby off. It'll be something they'll always remember," she said.

They raised affirmative thumbs-up at each other. Willow wondered what Brett would say if he knew the 'x' scar on their thumbs meant they were true blood brothers. She smiled, liking it.

"Please, Dad?" Sean asked, his tone bordering on a whine.

"Okay. But stay clear. We're far from done here and I don't want you in the way," he answered, working on his patient.

Aware of his intensity and gentleness, she handed Brett a plastic bag, and he cleaned the area without hesitation. He did appear to know what he was doing. "Why didn't you finish what you needed to become a vet?"

"I had a ranch to run, a son to raise, and a mother to think about instead of myself." He looked concerned and moved his hand back into the laboring buffalo.

"Something’s wrong with Thunder, isn't it?" She inched closer for a better look.

"Not exactly. There's another calf." He pressed his hand in deeper.

"What? You've got to be kidding! Did you hear, boys? Thunder is going to have another calf. We're having twins! No wonder she was so big. Doc Potter never said a word." Glancing over at her father, Willow watched his rhythmic rattle and listened to his steady chants. Somehow she got the feeling he knew they weren't done before they did.

"Why isn't she loose with the other wild animals?" Brett grunted with an effort to pull.

Willow moved to stand beside him, ready to help. "You might say she's more of a pet than a wild animal. The boys have been playing with her for years. Now I'm grateful. Otherwise, this much human contact might have been a shock to her." She felt Brett’s body heat and found it unsettling.

"The boys shouldn't be anywhere near a buffalo, wild or not. They're unpredictable." He guided first the calf's head, then legs through the opening.

"If I'd felt the boys were in any danger, you can be sure I'd have taken action. Besides, the buffalo is looked upon as the animal given to our People by the Creator. The correct name is bison. In Blackfoot we say Enee, meaning bison."

Brett rolled his eyes upward, and she shook her head. She concentrated on her father's soft chanting and drew in the faint scent of the purifying sweet grass, comforted by his presence, in spite of Brett's negativity.

"Grab hold, this one doesn't seem to be struggling too much. He may need some immediate attention." Brett rubbed his sleeve across the sweat that rolled down his forehead.

Willow grabbed a strip of cloth and wiped off his brow without thinking. The gesture seemed personal . . . too personal. Uneasy, she pretended a need to check out the boys, feeling his stare for only a few seconds. She stood and gripped the newborn's slimy legs. Brett lifted and she pulled. With a minimal amount of effort, together they brought another buffalo calf into the world.