HER DARK DAYS

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

“The higher you are … the longer your fall.”

By R. Peterson

Jean Janette Robinson woke up leisurely … smiling. She felt good, actually better than good … great! Although, it took a moment to remember who she was; an eighteen-hour-a-day acting job will do that to a person. Robyn Janette - that’s who she was, Academy Award winning actress and hopefully soon to be a Superstar Grammy Award winner. Her country/pop album Flame Games was number seven on the Billboard charts and climbing daily. Her agent was already writing her acceptance speech. Last night was the best night’s sleep she’d had since … well the night before. There is something absolutely wonderful about falling into bed without drugs and sleeping like a rock; in Hollywood three nights in a row is worth more than an Astor diamond necklace with matching earrings.

Suddenly J.J. realized nobody was lying next to her. He hadn’t left … had he? Oh God! He better still be here! A sudden panic with icy chills washed over her like the cold waterfall shower scene when she played Jane Porter in the jungle epic Tarzan. It couldn’t have been just a dream … not even Tinsel-town writers sleeping on pillows stuffed with cocaine have hallucinations that fantastic. Besides, she could still feel swirling ribbons of goose-flesh running down her arms and legs from where he’d kissed her neck the night before. Things like that aren’t allowed in PG rated dreams. His pillow and the faint impression where he’d slept were both still warm. She brushed her fingers across the silk sheets and her hand tingled with lingering sensations of pleasure.

J.J. slipped into a short, black Azalea Lace robe and almost ran down the stairs. She could smell coffee and hear Seitan sizzling even before she reached the kitchen. She was suddenly hungry - famished and it felt wonderful.

-------2-------

 Johnny Lang turned and smiled as she burst into the room. “Good morning! It’s almost 5:30,” he said pointing to the pink Kit-Cat clock with a swinging tail and eyes that rolled from side to side that he had bought her from a second-hand store. It was now her most endearing possession. “I thought you were going to sleep through church!”

“I have to repent before they let me in.”

Johnny dropped the fork he was holding into the pan as she swept into his arms. “Who the Hell are you, Johnny Lang?” J.J. closed her eyes and allowed the euphoria to engulf her completely.

“Just a guy about to incinerate some soybean bacon. He reached an arm around her picked up the fork, flipped over four slices and then kissed her.

“Can I help?”

“You can pour the orange juice … but try not to burn it this time!”

“Nobody burns orange juice!” She slapped his butt and grinned as she walked to the refrigerator. “What are our plans for the day?”

“I have to be in New York tonight, my flight from L.A. leaves at 2:15. The private jet to Spain leaves LaGuardia tomorrow at 6:20 and I have to be on set in Andalusia by seven Tuesday morning. That means we have about six hours to fool around.”

“No, that means we have twenty four hours to fool around,” J.J. grinned. “I have an apartment in New York and I’m going with you. If you think I’m going to let you spend a night in the Big Apple alone you’re crazy!”

“I thought you were filming tomorrow?”

“Jack Thomas will just have to swallow a few more Xanax,” J.J. smirked as she poured the juice. Both lights on the landline phone on one end of the kitchen counter suddenly flashed like a police car. “Damn it’s him!” she cursed looking at the caller ID. “Do all Hollywood agents have your house bugged?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Johnny said. “I usually sleep in a different Motel Six every night.”

J.J. picked up the phone. “Whatever the Hell it is, it can wait another day or two,” she yelled and slammed down the phone without waiting for a reply.

Johnny poked a slice of vegetarian bacon into her mouth. He had a magic touch. “Mmmm, that is so good!”

            “After we shower, I thought we might take a walk on the beach,” Johnny said. “I always hear my mother’s voice in the waves.”

J.J. grinned. “And what does your mother say?”

            “She tells me to watch out for exotically beautiful, dangerous, breathtaking girls named Jane with a whole lot of animal magnetism.”

            “And why is that?” J.J. led him back up the stairs. He evidently had seen a screening of her last movie.

            “You get too close to the edge of the jungle pit-trap … and you might tumble into love,” Johnny told her.

I hope so, J.J. smiled. I don’t want to be the only one down here.

-------3-------

            The walk on a private beach in Malibu was a dream. Waves rolled onto the sand and tickled their bare toes as they ran and frolicked like children. ‘I never imagined life could be this exuberant - this much fun!” J.J. gasped.

Johnny watched for tiny holes to appear in the sand when the waves receded and dug the clams out with a stick.

            “I’m happy too,” Johnny said. “I thought I’d lost you on Oscar night and I didn’t want to live … if what you call this is living.”

J.J. had not been surprised when the bullet holes in Johnny had healed so suddenly. There was something very supernatural about him … although in a good way. “None of that matters,” J.J. whispered. “All I know is that when I’m with you I feel great … better than great. I feel like I’m in love with living and with you! Please don’t ever leave me!”

“Hanging out with me could be dangerous,” Johnny told her. “The world is always in balance and there is always bad to counter the good. That blissful euphoria you feel inside is just one side of an ancient … coin. You must remember that darkness and sorrow are just a flip away. You’ve heard that your life can change on a dime … sometimes it’s even less than that.”

Johnny tossed the clam down the beach and he and J.J both laughed as a half-dozen screaming seagulls danced around the shell and fought over it.

            “I don’t care about any of that as long as we’re together.” J.J. wrapped her arms around his waist, blew tiny bits of sand off from his cheek … and then she kissed him.

-------4-------

J.J. bought up all the first class seats in front and to the rear on flight 419 from L.A. to New York so that they wouldn’t be distracted. She also had to give three signed copies of her latest CD and have her picture taken with the Delta Airlines ticket agent who claimed she would have to bump passengers … but it was worth it. Johnny laughed when he saw the plane was only half full. “Everyone in LA has a money rake in their back pocket!”

            “At least I won’t have someone asking me if Tarzan really got me pregnant and if I’m going to keep his baby.” J.J. lay back in her seat and stretched out her long legs.

            “I was wondering the same thing,” Johnny said. “But I didn’t want to be nosey.”

J.J. slapped his hand playfully and then let her fingers linger. “I wish you didn’t have to go to Spain. We could spend the week in New York. I know lots of fun things we could do.”

Johnny smiled. “I’ll bet you do but this is my job. I signed a contract.”

            “To hell with the contract,” J.J. said. “You have a bit part in two scenes. What are they paying you – scale?”

            “Yes,” Johnny said. “But my airfare and expenses are paid plus the director said if the scenes work out they might alter the script to give me a bigger part.”

            “I’ll pay you ten times that amount just to stay in New York with me!” J.J. was beginning to get worried; the thought of spending a week without Johnny was terrifying.

            “I’m not the kind of guy who could ever live off from a woman,” Johnny told her. “Not even you.”

            “It wouldn’t be like that!”

            “Yes it would. Maybe not at first but eventually I’d lose my ambition. I’d start clinging to you and become your shadow … and you know what happens to shadows in the bright lights?”

            “They vanish,” J.J. moaned. “That’s what I’m trying to keep from happening.”

            “Don’t worry,” Johnny said. “I’ll never leave you … unless you push me away.”

J.J. was annoyed that the smiling airline attendant kept coming down the aisle and hovering over Johnny. This was the third time she had asked him if he wanted a drink … or anything else. The last time she bent over to take his dinner tray the top two buttons on her airline blouse were undone and strands of her blonde hair had fallen into his lap. There were always plenty of pretty girls at movie locations. They were like bees drawn to honey flowers.

            “I trust you; it’s other women that I don’t,” J.J. pouted. She instantly regretted the statement. She had always found jealousy unattractive. What would Johnny think of her now?

Johnny stared out the window at the clouds streaming past for a moment with his head cocked to one side as if he were listening to something. When he turned back he looked almost sad. “Remember bad times are a part of life,” he said. “I hate it as much as everyone else. All we can ever do is hang on until the coin flips again … but it will … I promise.”

J.J. felt like crying. Does Johnny think I’m a clinger? She closed her eyes and vowed that she would never become that kind of person.

-------5-------

After the plane landed at LaGuardia J.J. and Johnny enjoyed a leisurely dinner at a fairy-light covered outdoor garden called Milk and Roses. Warm sensations! All the waiters were male and J.J. was beginning to feel more confident. She even enjoyed the attention she was getting. Her infatuation with Johnny had made her forget she was one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses soon to be superstar. Smiles all around. The waiter begged for her autograph and squealed with delight when she kissed his cheek. Johnny didn’t seem to mind and even encouraged her to be happy. During desert her phone rang and it was Brent Andrews who was currently on the cover of People magazine as the world’s sexiest man. He said he heard she had just arrived in New York and wanted to take her around the town. “I thought coming here was a secret,” she gushed. Brent Andrews had been her teen infatuation and at one time she had three of his movie posters hung up in her bedroom. “Sorry, but I’m on a date,” she told him.

            “Perhaps another time?”

            “Sure,” she told him.

J.J. looked for any sign of jealousy in Johnny’s eyes or in his behavior but she could see nothing. It’s just me; she thought … I’m the clinger.

-------6-------

The night went by much too fast. Before she knew it Johnny was stepping out of the shower and dressing to meet his plane. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you to the airport? I could call a limo?

            “I’ll take a cab,” Johnny told her. “I want to remember you standing here by the window with the morning light spilling across your hair, not pushing your way through crowds at a busy airport.”

J.J. was already missing him terribly but she knew she had to be strong. “This is an extra key to my apartment and my house in Brentwood. I told the doorman to put you on the list. If I’m not here when you come back … please don’t stay anywhere else.” She handed him a key-ring attached to a grinning white rabbit made of diamonds. “That’s so you’ll remember what we’re going to do when you come back!”

            Johnny took the keys … and then flinched slightly as if he had been burned. “What’s the matter?” J.J. suddenly had a strange feeling of fear sweep over her.

            “Something about these keys,” Johnny said, “a strange kind of Déjà vu feeling.”

            “If you’d rather not take them …” J.J. felt like crying.

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” Johnny said as he took her in his arms and kissed her. “I love you … I want to be part of your life forever!”

-------7-------

J.J. stared out the window and caught a glimpse of Johnny climbing into a cab. Rain was pouring onto the streets in torrents … lightning flashed and then he was gone. An ache settled over her heart that was the most painful thing she had ever experienced. How would she last two weeks without him in her life? She cried until there were no more tears and by shear willpower was finally able to pull herself together. I’ve got to stop this … this clinging … if I don’t I’ll lose him for sure. I’ve got to remember that I’m someone special too … I’ve got to believe in myself if I want him to believe in me. Suddenly her cell phone rang. “Johnny?” she blurted as soon as she picked up.

            “No,” It was Brent Andrews. “But I wish I could storm up that kind of excitement!”

            “Sorry,” J.J. said. “I was just expecting someone else.”

            “I was just wondering if you’d like to get together today … you’re not busy are you?”

            “No, but I really can’t,” J.J. said. “It’s complicated.”

            “Too bad,” Brent crooned. “I had some fun times planned.”

            “Sorry!”

            “Maybe another time!”

J.J. felt more miserable and alone after Brent hung up. What was she going to do for two weeks with Johnny gone? Cry in the apartment day and night? She had to pull herself together her whole world was falling apart because of this strange infatuation. She decided to listen to the radio her song Burn Baby from the album Flame Games was playing. It was as if she had sung the words a thousand times … but never really listened to what they said.

If you want your love to be hot … there has to be flames.

If you want what mother taught … there has to be games.

It’s a cold world so burn baby … burn!

Burn baby burn!

The song ended and the DJ went into a thirty second rant about how hot Robyn Janette was. “If he could only see me now,” J.J. moaned. “I can’t take this anymore. What I need is to make sure this thing with Johnny is real. If it is I can learn to deal with it.” J.J. pressed redial on her cell phone and Brent Andrews picked up on the second ring. “I’ve changed my mind,” J.J. said trying to make her voice sound sexy. “I’d love to do something fun with you today!”

            “I’ll be right over,” Brent said.

            “Just give me enough time to shower and put on makeup!”

J.J. turned the water from blasting hot to icy cold and felt one hundred percent better when she came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. She couldn’t close herself off from people or no one would love her … including Johnny. It would be a harmless afternoon of sightseeing. She could always claim the studio ordered it for publicity. Something nagged at the back of her mind … did she really want to do this? What the hell was she doing?

J.J. gasped. An obviously naked Brent Andrews was in her bed with the covers pulled up around his hairy chest.

“How did you get in here?” She almost screamed.

            “I told the doorman that I wanted to surprise you … I had to play him a recording of our date plans before he would unlock your door!”

            “You recorded our conversation?”

            “I always do, baby. It’s an old Hollywood trick. People remember a lot better when they can hear themselves saying things.”

            “Get out!”

            “Not until I get what I came for!”

            “You’re not getting anything from me!”

            “If I don’t your boyfriend … Johnny Lang is it? He’ll get a copy of our date plans while he’s on location in Spain. I know the director of the film he’s in personally and he’ll be sure to rub him all the wrong ways.”

            “You bastard! That’s blackmail!” J.J. was angry but more than that terrified. Johnny must never find out. How could she have said something so stupid?

            “Call it what you like … I didn’t get where I am by being a nice guy.”

J.J. was in a corner and was suddenly terrified. What would Johnny think if he heard the tape only minutes after he left her apartment? “If I sleep with you … I get your cell phone to stomp to pieces and your promise to keep your damn mouth shut?”

            “That sounds fine,” Brent said. “But you can’t just sleep with me. You have to act like you’re enjoying it. That shouldn’t be too hard. You got rave reviews for your work in Undercovers Cops.”

J.J. allowed the towel to fall to the floor as she slowly slid into the bed. For a brief moment she remembered her childhood fantasy. Would it be the same? Be strong get through this. It was either do this or kill herself. Halfway through the sex J.J. realized it really was just an act. Brent Andrews was as phony in bed as he was on the screen. What did she ever see in him as a girl?

Brent grunted for the last time and J.J. pushed him off her. She felt dirty. What if the bastard lied what if somehow Johnny finds out about this? My God! What have I got myself into? Even if Johnny never finds out … I still have to live with the fact that I cheated on him! She lay there trying to think of the best way to salvage her life. Maybe she should tell Johnny the truth … perhaps he would understand. What if he didn’t?  She couldn’t live without him if he didn’t.

            J.J. heard the apartment door open but was too stunned to move. She was frozen like a nightmare when your feet are on tracks with a train coming and won’t move. Johnny was walking through the living-room. She could feel his presence. No! God No! He dropped his carry-on bag.

“Wake-up sleepyhead,” his voice called. “The flight has been delayed because of the weather … sorry but you’ll have to put up with me for another … six hours!”

He sounded happy. J.J. could feel herself falling but there was no way to stop it. Please don’t come in here.

The bedroom door opened and Johnny stopped in the doorway. J.J. felt the same rush of euphoria whenever he came near her. He stared at the two in the bed for only a moment and then his eyes seemed to glass over with sadness. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I should have knocked.” Johnny turned and walked out. He paused for a moment as if remembering and then dropped the keys with the glittery laughing rabbit on a glass coffee table.”

J.J. heard the keys drop on the glass but it was her heart that broke. And then the apartment door closed and he was gone.

J.J. was too stunned to speak. It was as if time had hit a pedestrian (her) and come to a screeching halt. But she was still alive. She was out of bed and getting dressed in an instant.

            “I guess you won’t need to smash my phone after all” Brent grinned. “Too bad … you really earned it baby!”

J.J. hit him as hard as she could in the face with a tennis shoe before she put it on. Moments later she was running down the hallway with the laces still untied. She had to catch him. Then what? What was she going to say? That she was raped? Lie to the only person she had ever loved?

“Johnny!”

The elevator was too slow so she ran down the stairs skipping two and three at a time. The doorman jumped back as she pushed through the glass doors and onto the sidewalk. How could I ever have been so stupid?

“Johnny!”

She had to find him … try to explain … forever could not end!

            “Are you okay?” The doorman had never seen her looked so disheveled. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have let Brent Andrews in but he had that recording and it was him and he was so insistent …”

J.J. ignored the doorman and ran down the sidewalk trying to look for taxi cabs on both sides of the street … they were everywhere.

“Johnny, Oh my God Johnny! What have I done?” The world was spinning and it was hard to keep her balance - hating herself. Frantic!

J.J. tried to call Johnny’s number but the tears kept washing over her eyes and she pressed the wrong speed-dial button three times. She staggered into a street-light pole banging her head. Finally a recorded voice came on and said the number was no longer in service. She checked and dialed again … the same. Again and again she dialed the number until she finally dropped the phone and took three steps and then crumbled on the sidewalk.

It was no longer two weeks before she’d see him … but never. The truth cut like a cancer surgeon’s knife and she wanted to die on the table.

The pedestrian traffic was coming out in force along with the emerging rays of sunlight. Several people stepped over her but nobody stopped or gave her a second look. There was sticky gum on the sidewalk, dirt on her hands and cigarette butts … all in her hair … and a coin … a penny near her finger but J.J. was beyond caring. She was far beyond anything … even tears … finished.

The rain had stopped and the sun was shining somewhere up above the skyscrapers. All she noticed now were the shadows – long and lonely. It was barely nine O’clock but it was already the darkest day Jean Janette Robinson would ever see … the growing pain in her heart told her it was about to get so much worse ...

TO BE CONTINUED …

           

BAD WATER part 4

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

            Driven insane by the poison lake water, Zachariah’s eyes blazed like Foxfire as he thrust the rifle barrel under the barely conscious Indian holy man’s chin. Blood poured onto the ground from a gunshot-wound in Ghost Bear’s stomach.

“What do you want?” Sheriff Thomas Lang asked in a conversational tone, even though he thought the Mormon Bishop was beyond all reasoning, but he had to try something. The one-hundred furious Blackfoot warriors surrounding the immigrants were unmoving for the time being but they wouldn’t be for long. If their spiritual leader was killed there would be a massacre.

“I want to lead all the lost lambs to greener pastures and the Lamanites to the eternal works of God!” Zachariah thundered. “The good Lord has made this body of water appear in the desert as a testament to his righteousness … we who are blessed among men must not scorn his everlasting gift!” Defiantly, the Bishop lifted the canteen hanging by his side and took another long drink without moving his finger from the rifle’s trigger.

“An earthquake released this water that’s probably been trapped inside a rock cliff for millions of years,” Tom told him. “I don’t know what’s tainted it … but it ain’t good. Look around! Do you see any animals drinking this vile liquid? They won’t because they sense something wrong! My own horse shied away and I trust her more than I do your demented visions of holy gifts!”

He Who Jumps and several other Indians rushed forward ready to thrust their spears through the Mormon leader’s stomach but Crow Feather’s held them back. “While He Who Talks to Ghosts still breathes we must listen to his council!”

Ghost Bear’s wrinkled face was so pale he almost looked like a white man as he raised his lethargic head. The fingers covering the smoking hole in his unadorned buckskin shirt were saturated with blood. His wheezing voice was firm, but often interrupted by coughing.

“For many years I have wandered through these hills looking for the horses and the lodges of our people who have followed the buffalo spirits. They are many … even before the great battle with Yellow Hair. At night the wind brings the smell of their fires but they are too far away and no longer walk these lands. The white man digs in the ground for gold but the Indian knows that in the earth is a place of the dead where the bad spirits linger. Anything of value that comes from under the land has been touched by the demons.” His head drooped for a moment and then he stared at the lake. “Many Devils live in this water and they swim past your tongue when you drink. Your body becomes their lodge and when one is torn down they move into another. To destroy the demons you must burn the lodges where they sleep and all things that they touch. My lodge is old and torn. I don’t think a Devil would like it … but I’m not sure. Today is a good day to die … I can smell the smoke and it is not far. I can hear the buffalo meat sing as it roasts on the fire!”

Ghost Bear stretched out his bloody fingers and grasped the Bishop’s hand that held the rifle trigger. After a brief struggle the gun blasted.

Zachariah was as surprised as anyone when the Indian’s head exploded in a large fan spray of bone, brain and blood. He turned and ran into the lake slowing only when it became waist deep. “Oh God! The eternal father! Bless and sanctify this water to all the souls who partake of it …” he thundered.

All the warriors rushed forward but Crow Feathers was one step ahead. He bashed the Bishop in the head with a rifle butt and knocked away the smoking gun. Zachariah floated for a few moments then began to sink. Crow feathers dragged his arms under the water but could not find him. Within minutes all the Mormons on shore were pinned to the ground. “Do not kill them with knives, arrows or spears,” Crow Feathers ordered. “You heard He Who Talks to Ghosts. They and all their belongings must be burned!”

“I thought they were going to let us go!” Belinda was almost laughing as four warriors bound her and Tom’s hands behind their backs. Tom thought fear does strange things to people.

“Crow Feathers said that from this moment forward our fate and the Mormons would be bound together,” Tom told her. “The chief is a man of his word.”

-------2-------

Tom and Belinda were tied to the same wagon wheel as the Indians gathered wood, dried grass, broken crates and barrels, piling the debris in a mountain around them and the remaining Mormons. “I want to thank you for coming into my life,” Belinda whispered to Tom.

“It looks like we’re going to be nothing but ashes in a few minutes,” Tom said. “Why thank me?”

“I don’t think it was really the water that changed me,” Belinda told him. “I think it was you. I’ve been around a lot of mortal men but I’ve never met a real one before. There is something different about you, some quality deep inside that makes me want to take you with me forever.” Tom didn’t see her turn her head and spit the rotted tooth out of her mouth.

Tom was only half listening to her. He could see Crow Feathers and the others talking in a circle. Most of the Indians had finished and were now waiting with lit torches. It looked like every bit of scrap wood and every burnable twig for a square mile had been piled around those about to be consumed by fire. He could feel the unfired 45 cartridge bouncing on a chain around his neck. It gave him a strange hope. Dr. Descombey’s aged mother had told his fortune from the back of a gypsy wagon years before and this special bullet was supposed to cause his death. All the other details of his future had come true. Even though he’d drained the cartridge of all its gun-powder … he still thought it best to keep it close. Belinda was humming contentedly.

Crow Feathers unsheathed an elk-bone handled knife and walked toward Tom and Belinda holding a lit torch in his other hand. “This woman appears to have driven the Devil away that was inside her,” the chief said, “and you were a fierce enemy and friend to He Who Talks to Ghosts” He reached out and cut the rope that bound them to the wagon wheel. “We have decided to kill you on another day … but the others … those who insist on calling us Lamanites must be burned!”

“Let us go?” Tom was surprised by the angry hissing sound of Belinda’s voice. When he turned Belinda’s eyes were once again the yellow/orange glow of insanity. Her claw-like fingers dug into Tom’s arms. “I’ve waited centuries for this moment,” the demon inside her wailed. “To return to the underworld with you as my prize. Fire is not just something to cook your flesh, it is the doorway to Hell and we’re going to open it together!”

Tom suddenly realized that the demon had never left the young girl … only hidden. “I thought Woman with Rock looked everywhere … where were you hiding?”

            “Inside the bitch’s shoe,” the demon said making Belinda stomp her foot. “I only swallow blood and whiskey so I bit one of her toes off!”

Before Tom could react, the Demon Child wrestled the torch away from Crow Feathers and rising into the air like a banshee swept it around her in a circle. Within minutes, the entire outside ring of the burn pile was an infernal vortex of rushing air and swirling flames.

The heat was blinding and the hot windstorm instant. A flock of birds filled the sky with wings made of fire. Tom covered his face with his hands and tried to stumble through the flames. He felt the demon child grasp his shirt and pull him upward. Her laughter reminded him of the residents of an Abilene sanitarium running onto the streets after a black tornado funnel cloud began plowing a hay field and stock pens just behind the building. On that long ago day he’d ran from a saloon and then clutched a stone well casing as he watched several of the mentally ill get sucked into the air … screaming like delighted children.

            “All the heat is up here! Come play with me!” The demon lifted Tom higher into the air.

Tom forced his eyes open long enough to see the Indians below fleeing in all directions. The screams of the immigrant women and children sounded strangely like pipe organ music.

All Tom could do was clutch the bullet on a chain in his fingers and try to believe the old woman knew what she was talking about. That’s when he felt the first splash of cold water on his face and then another. He thought it might be raining but no rain he’d ever been in dropped water drops as big as barrels. Tom opened his eyes and looked down. The lake was shaking and casting huge walls of water twenty feet into the air. It was another earthquake, bigger than the first and twice as terrifying … but exactly on time.

-------3-------

The demon’s screech sounded like a Union artillery shell falling on the city of Vicksburg. Tom was too young to remember the War Between the States but his father had described it in exacting detail. What was left of Belinda let go of his shirt as she fell. Steam rose in plumes like the water was growing living thing as it covered the banks and doused the flames.

When a dazed Tom landed on the ground he was instantly thrust into a human stampede. Men women and children some still slapping flames from their clothes, ran in all directions most moving their arms and legs furiously even as they were tossed into the air.

With a mighty tearing sound the land under the lake was ripped open swallowing the poison liquid in seconds like a zigzagging serpent. Tom watched as first one wagon and then another rolled into the widening earth mouth along with flailing arms and legs clad in overall denim and calico. Dirt, flames, wind and water, it was as if all the elements of the Earth were being ferociously mixed in a giant desert bowl. Tom closed his eyes this time from dust and flying debris. From somewhere far off he thought he heard a horse whinny and then another. The pounding of hoofs sounded like rolling thunder as Comanche led the stolen Indian horses into the bedlam.

-------4-------

            Tom instinctively grasped Comanche’s flying mane as the high spirited mare charged past. It was a good thing he did. The gaping chasm that swallowed the lake closed up again like a giant cellar door slapped shut by the wind. There were several smaller tremors like muscle spasms from a dying man but slowly a reverence came over the land.

In the stillness that followed, Tom could only hear the anguished sounds of injured men and women and the crying of children. Comanche stopped two hundred yards from where the lake had been and Tom limped back. There were no more than a handful of survivors from the Mormon immigrant party and one partially burned but still intact wagon. The demons seemed to have left with the bad water … the Indians did not return. Belinda and the thing that was inside her were never seen again.

Tom stayed for two days and helped the immigrants gather their belongings and catch the horses. They offered him a ride to Gilmore but he declined. When the overloaded wagon pulled away Tom could hear singing from those who walked behind.

            He almost went back for the saddle and the bags of stolen gold ore that he left when he’d tried to warn the wagon train but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Ghost Bears had said that anything the water touched it corrupted. Come to think of it when Tom recovered the gold ore it was lighter than what had been stolen. Tom reasoned that Dillard and Dodd Cole had probably smashed the ore by the lakeside and then panned out the pure gold in the water. He was sure if that was the case he didn’t want anything to do with it. What was the old saying Money is the Root of All Evil … in this case it was almost surely true.

Tom rode bareback toward South Fork and tried to forget about everything that had happened and tried not to think about what he was going to say to the citizens that elected him.

  

-------5-------

When Tom rode over the crest of the Centennial Mountains he was looking down at the valley where Elisabeth Walker grazed her herds during most of the summer. A cloud of fine dust sifted into the August sky as a group of ranch-workers drove a few hundred steers to where there was better grass and more water. Several of the smiling herders took off their wide brimmed sombreros and waved them in the air as Tom rode passed. One extra fat vaquero mounted on a cantankerous overloaded horse laughed out loud. "La señora del jefe le preocupa que tal vez los forajidos mala te tiro y te dejan en el desierto para buitres comer, pero decimos no! El sheriff es demasiado como un zorro!"

“Perhaps Elisabeth is right and someday I will be killed,” Tom returned the laugh. “Pero no esta vez!"

Elisabeth was helping a young Mexican girl hang wet pants and shirts on a clothes line when Tom rode into the ranch yard. The girl smiled broadly and seemed to dance. "Vemos las declaraciones del sheriff! No murió después de todo!" Elisabeth stared openmouthed at Tom for a moment showing the chipped front tooth that she forgot to cover with her tongue before she dropped the basket she was holding and stomped into the sprawling two-story house slamming the door behind her.

Tom dismounted leaving Comanche to trim the carefully tended Kentucky Bluegrass lawn and walked into the large barn where he could hear a hammer ringing against an anvil. One of the Mendez brothers, who had taken up blacksmithing after he’d injured his leg and lost his brother in a mining accident, limped over as Tom walked through the wide double doors. Paco was holding a red hot horseshoe with a pair of metal thongs. “Gracias a la Santa Madre que cobró nuevamente vida,” he said. “La señora del jefe estaba a punto de cerrar el Rancho … and send everyman out to look for your body!”

“She didn’t look all that happy to see me,” Tom took off his partially burned hat and fanned his head from the heat coming from a stone forge, “and I’m afraid she’s going to be even less happy when I tell her what happened on the trail.”

“Did you get very drunk and marry some whore who works in a saloon?” Paco gave the sheriff an accusing look.

“No nothing like that,” Tom told him.

‘Then everything is fine!” Paco laughed.

-------6-------

They talked for several minutes mostly about the Mendez family back in Mexico and about the amount of money Paco was able to send to them every month and then Tom decided he’d better talk to Elisabeth another time. He caught Comanche and was just about to climb on her back when the door to the house opened. Elisabeth had put on a frilly yellow dress that looked like it had to have come all the way from the east. Her face looked fresh washed and scrubbed and her long auburn hair was pulled back and tied in a ribbon. “As long as you’re here you’d better come inside for a bite to eat and coffee,” she said. “I’ve never turned away a traveler yet and I’m not about to on your account.”

Tom took off his hat and followed her into the house. The inside was furnished far better than the governor’s mansion in Bannock where he got his sheriff job. “I’m sorry but I’ve got some bad news,” Tom told her as they sat side by side at a long table.

            “Oh, and what might that be?” Elisabeth poured coffee into a fancy China cup and placed it in front of Tom along with a bowl of sugar and crème from an ice-house.

Tom shook his head. “Them outlaws won’t be robbing anymore of your ore wagons,” he said. “But I lost the bags of gold they took!”

            Elisabeth grinned without opening her mouth. Her eyes seemed to dance. “Tom, women lose hairpins and men, especially you, lose track of time … but nobody misplaces twenty pounds of gold ore in heavy leather bags!”

            “I didn’t really lose your gold,” Tom said miserably. “After everything that happened I just didn’t want to take the chance to go back after it!”

            “And all this time I thought you were stubborn and would never learn! I think there might be hope for you yet!” Elisabeth smiled as she leaned forward and kissed him.

THE END ?

BAD WATER part 3

Copyright (c) 2017 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

By R. Peterson

            Crow Feathers was an honorable leader of the Blackfoot tribe. The fact that he had turned renegade and led his people off a tiny Indian reservation after broken promises and outright lies from the U.S. government seemed almost justified to Tom. The settlers his warriors killed and the farms and ranches they burned were a horrible retaliation of a proud and starving people pushed onto desert lands with no game, no water and no future.

“Áóoyiwa Ko'komíki'somma!” The dark eyes in Crow Feathers head missed nothing as he gazed at the white man’s wagons sitting in the middle of his destroyed village.

“He says we eat the moon,” Tom told Belinda.

“That’s impossible!”

“It’s just his way of saying we’re all crazy!”

Bishop Johnson, tied to a makeshift cross mounted in the back of a wagon, chose the most inopportune time to open his mouth. “Behold! The hungry sinners come unto God and are filled with righteousness!”  

An angry Indian warrior raised his spear and prepared to plunge it into the Mormon leader’s chest.

“Wait!” Tom yelled using the few Siksika words he knew and a universal sign language. “These people have been poisoned and they don’t know what they are doing!”

Crow Feathers stretched out his arm and stopped He Who Jumps. He stared at Tom, noted the redness of his wrists from the ropes and then quickly turned away after glancing at Belinda. “I will listen to Rides Yellow Horse’s words before we kill our enemies.”

Tom had heard other Indian tribes address him by this name and it made him wonder where Comanche was. He climbed out of the wagon and moved closer so that all could hear him. Just before he began speaking he felt Belinda brush against his side and he placed a protective arm around the kid “Two days ago the ground shook and a large river hidden inside a mountain spilled out onto the desert. I was chasing two outlaws who camped next to the new lake and they became as if possessed by demons after drinking the water.” Tom gestured to the Mormons. Zachariah was smiling as he hung on the cross and a group of women appeared to be dancing silently around his wagon.  “These people are a religious group headed to a settlement on the other side of these mountains. I warned them about the water but they would not listen.”

            “All white men lie!” He Who Jumps yelled. “They sell bottles of the Devil Water from the backs of their wagons.” A murmur of agreement swept through the Indians.

            “This is not the same white man’s whiskey that makes a warrior do foolish things,” Tom told them. “All who drink this water go out of their minds.”

            “What of your woman?” Crow Feathers pointed to Belinda. “Did she also drink this Devil water?”

            “I’m not his woman,” Belinda said then added with a whisper. “Not yet.”

            “Yes,” Tom was finding it hard to explain. “She was out of her head when we were placed together but when she drank the bad water … the demon inside her fled.”

            “Rides Yellow Horse lies!” He Who Jumps lunged forward but Crow Feathers pulled him back. “If demons are in the water she drank … then they are also in her!”

            “Tell Woman with Rock  to look in this white woman’s mouth and listen to her breath,” Crow Feathers ordered. “She will know if the demon has gone … or if it is only sleeping.”

-------2-------

An hour later, an ancient looking female with a face like a dried blackberry dressed in white buffalo robes and supported by two bowed elk antlers she used as crutches hobbled into the camp. She stopped a few feet in front of Tom and took something burning from a stone jar filled with glowing embers. She waved a smoking root in the air and chanted “Awkiii yi nao si ya himiii,” while staring at Belinda.

            “She wants you to breath in the smoke,” Tom told Belinda.

            “What is it?” The girl held tight to the back of Tom’s shirt.

            “Maybe our way out of this mess.”

Belinda took a deep breath and drew the harsh smoke into her lungs. Her eyes watered and after a moment she began to gag and cough. The old woman smiled and then leaned forward and pried open Belinda’s mouth wide. She swept her eyes from side to side as she stared down the girl’s throat then she put her ear next to the open mouth and listened. Her small bright eyes appeared to dart in all directions.

            “What is she doing?” Belinda gasped when the old woman finally released her.

            “Looking for a Devil … and listening for snoring to see if the demon might be sleeping in your belly.” Tom told her.

The old woman hobbled away waving her arms in the air as if she had been bothered by noisy children.

            “Your words are true,” Crow Feathers said. “Three moons ago we felt the land tremble as a door to the underworld was opened and this woman had a bad spirit inside her and the water has washed it away.”

He Who Jumps threw his lance on the ground and stomped away, several others followed him.

            “Will you allow us to leave with our promise of restitution for the damage to your village?” Tom asked him.

            “When all our horses have returned you, the wild yellow thief and the woman may go,” Crow Feathers said. “They follow your horse across the plains and are very hard to catch. We Siksika cannot chase them. Instead we must decide how to dispose of the demons that live in these people. When your woman was possessed by the bad spirit I dragged her from our camp on a horse so that she would not infect others. It is dangerous to kill anyone with a demon inside them for the bad spirit that leaves will seek to find a new body to move into from any that are close. Now my horse follows the yellow one.         

“I’m not his woman,” Belinda said.

            “I am a lawman and my job is to protect these people, Tom told them. “This bad water is something new to me.”  Tom thought hard, and remembered something that might help. “These people have a book that they believe contains much magic. Perhaps something in it will make them well.”

            “I have asked Ghost Bear to come to our camp for council,” Crow Feathers said. “When He Who Talks to Spirits arrives with the rising sun we will go to this lake and discover its secrets. From this time forward your blood and these people are bound together.”

The women dancing around Zachariah’s wagon were spinning faster and faster. Tom noticed that they were still stopping occasionally to drink cups filled with lake water from a barrel mounted on the side of the wagon. One of the men crowed like a rooster as he soaked a torn shirt in the water and passed it up on the end of a long stick to the Bishop hanging on the cross. Zachariah Johnson smiled broadly as he sucked the moisture into his mouth and stared upward at the clouds.  “Halleluiah!” he shouted. “I can see Jesus picking cotton with God!’

            “What’s happening?” Belinda was tugging on Tom’s shirt; her eyes were like a trapped fox.

            “They want their horses back. It seems my horse has led them away. A great Indian medicine man from the north country has been summoned,” Tom said. “He will decide if we live or die.”

-------3-------

None of the Blackfeet seemed to want to get too near the infected whites. Occasionally a brave but mostly women would quickly dart into the destroyed camp grab up some needed object and flee back to a new camp they were making as if pursued by demons. They were careful not to pick up anything they thought the white people had touched. The Indians had posted guards to prevent their captives from escaping.

Tom realized the Mormons were never going to stop drinking the bad water on their own and searched through Zachariah’s wagon until he found an axe. After making sure that none of the Mormons were armed and hiding several rifles, he smashed the blade into the water barrels repeatedly until the staves broke and the water spilled onto the ground. Two young men in clean white shirts tried to stop him with their fists. Tom knocked both of them easily to the ground. “That water was delivered to us poured and stirred by the hand of God,” one boy blubbered wiping dirt from his face.

            “Then he must have had a dirty finger,” Tom told them. “There is a creek over in them trees. From now on if anyone of you Saints wants to drink, you get your water from there.”

            Tom was almost sorry he told them about the other water supply. Late in the afternoon some of the remaining Mormons had unhitched a balking mule from one of the wagons and with great ceremony was baptizing the repentant creature in the stream.

It was an hour after dark and Zachariah was still reciting scriptures from the Book of Mormon by memory with a voice like rolling thunder when a frustrated Tom and Belinda unlashed the wooden cross from the wagon and lowered him to the ground. “What you’ve done is sacrilege!” Two scowling women approached Tom and spat in his face. The Bishop glared at Tom and Belinda like a wounded badger caught in a trap but allowed the women to pull him into a wagon.

            “Perhaps so,” A weary Tom sighed. “But I can’t sleep when it sounds like it’s going to rain!”

-------4-------

Ghost Bear arrived at dawn, walking slowly and without any feathers in his grey hair or other ornamentation. Nevertheless he aroused awe amongst the members of Crow Feather’s camp. The warriors all laid their weapons at his feet as a gesture of respect and submission and the women covered their faces. Only the camp’s children approached him at a run and there was laughter and squeals of delight as he spun them around and tossed them in the air. “He don’t look so ferocious,” Belinda whispered. The old man chased several of the children around the fires pretending to be a bear.

Belinda had been up for over an hour and Tom noticed she had borrowed a clean dress from one of the Mormon women and her hair was brushed back and tied with a ribbon. She no longer looked like a skinny child but a young woman. Before he thought she was maybe twelve years old now she looked more like sixteen.

            “Don’t let Ghost Bear’s interaction with children fool you,” Tom told her. “This medicine man is revered as a great enemy and warrior by most of the plains tribes including the Crow, Cheyenne and the Oglala Lakota.

            “Why do the Lamanites revere their enemies?”

            “Indians believe that strong enemies are a kind of prestige and that fighting is a good thing … if your enemies are weak then you must be also. When an Indian wants to fight you … it is a sign that he likes you and also a sign of respect.”

Crow Feathers tried to gift Ghost Bears with his ceremonial lance but the old man ignored him, instead he approached Tom and Belinda frowning. “That metal thistle stuck on your dirty shirt makes people angry … and they wish to kill you,” he spoke an almost perfect, but spiteful English as he waved a withered hand like a claw in front of Tom’s face. “Your woman looks like dried grass. She would be better off with a crippled dog … than a rabbit who cannot feed her.”

            “Your shabby and stinking clothes are sage brush that hides a wolf raised by skunks,” Tom told him. Belinda gasped and stepped away from the sheriff, not sure she wanted to be close to him.

Ghost Bears looked furious for a few moments and the camp was deathly silent then suddenly he laughed. ‘I sometimes go many winters without any insults,’ he said. “It is good to share a camp with one whose tongue is not afraid of being cut off.”

            “Only a man who believes the insults are true gets mad when he hears them,” Tom told him.

Belinda had been holding her breath and now she released it with relief. “Why didn’t you tell me this Ghost chief was your friend … for a minute there I thought we were in trouble!”

            “Sheriff Thomas Lang is a great leader among the white man,” Ghost Bears said. “Therefore I think he is a man for a leader like me to kill. These other white people have a sickness. I think it is not good to touch them. I am old; it has been many winters since a scalp has hung above my lodge. This day we shall go look at the waters that have come from the spirit world under the land.” Ghost Bears smiled broadly.  “Then we will have a feast and a fire dance to chase the water spirits back into the ground. Perhaps the Sheriff and his woman will join us.”

            “For the last time I’m not his woman!” Belinda shouted.

            The entire camp including the captive Mormons with their wagons and horses forming a protective circle around their Bishop, followed Ghost Bear as he slowly walked to the new lake. Tom thought some of the craziness was leaving most of the religious settlers after they’d stopped drinking the bad water; he just hoped they could all stay alive long enough for things to get back to normal.

            “Don’t worry,” Belinda whispered to Tom as they followed. “He’s just an old man. How tough can he be? Whatever weapon the Lamanite chief chooses I’m sure you can totally beat him!”

            “You don’t understand the Blackfoot tribes or their ways,” Tom sighed. “The fire dance to honor the new lake that he talked about has only three participants … you, me, and a large ring of burning sticks.”

Belinda gasped. “They plan to burn us?”

            “Unless we can totally defeat the fire by draining the lake or dancing our way out of it,” Tom told her with a grin.

-------5-------

            “This demon water has no mouth,” Ghost Bear said when he had walked all the way around the new lake once. He noticed the fresh graves and smiled at Tom. “It will die of thirst as long as the sun continues to rise each day.”

            “What of those who drink the poison before it dries up?” Tom asked.

            “The only bones I see are of your enemies,” Ghost Bear said. “Animals are not as easily fooled as white men. We will camp here and wait. I feel the wind whispering to the trees. Another sign soon comes this way from the spirit world.”

Ghost Bear was right about the feast. A group of warriors left followed by their squaws and a few hours later returned with meat from three buffalo. Even the Mormon women helped, baking bread and picking wild berries for pies. The craziness of the last two days was being replaced with smiles and hospitality. Although Bishop Johnson sat in the ruins of his wagon, muttering and casting dark looks at the Indian’s wise man.

-------6-------

            “It has been many moons since my stomach has been this big,” Ghost Bear said smiling and standing up as he patted his middle. “The lake is afraid of the day and the sun. Perhaps the Siksika will find another way to chase it away … without a fire dance!” He walked through the congenial whites and the Indians smiling at everyone.

            “Does this mean what I think it does?” Belinda stopped crying for the first time in hours. Tom noticed her sliding closer to him and it made him feel uncomfortable. He had enough trouble just dealing with the Indians and the Mormons.

            “I think so,” Tom told her. “The lake looks like it has dropped a foot just since yesterday.”

Suddenly a shot rang out. Tom saw Ghost Bear fall to the ground knocking over a table laden with food. Several women screamed. A second later, Bishop Johnson jerked the apparently gut-shot old Indian from the ground holding a rifle to his head. A hundred Blackfoot warriors rushed forward and then stopped in barely contained fury as Zachariah cocked the gun and placed his finger on the trigger. “This lake is from heaven,” the Mormon leader thundered taking a long drink from a canteen that had been hidden under his coat. Moisture dripped off his long ragged beard. “We will not allow God’s precious gift to be cast aside by a bunch of filthy Lamanites!”

            “Where did he get that damn rifle?” Belinda moaned.

            “From Hell I suppose,” Tom said. “Bishop Johnson seems to have a key to the back door.”

TO BE CONTINUED …