Land of Bones and Tears

Chapter Five

The Next Path

“I’m telling you that you can’t check into this motel with that dog, miss, so either you find someplace to leave that hound or you can get yourself on down the road.”

I rolled my eyes. Why do people always say that the Northeast is unfriendly and that the great big Northwest is the heartland of America? Couldn’t prove it by the people I’d been meeting. Garrison Keiller, where were you when I needed you? Minnesota, now that I thought about it, not Montana. Those big “M” states always confused me. We were never taught geography in school, not really. One year we had to memorize the state capitals but that was it.  I tried a little bit of O’Keefe charm.

“While I realize that normally you cannot allow a dog into a motel,” I said, giving him what I thought was one of my most engaging smiles, with the dimple flashing, “this is a service animal, so she really is entitled to be in any public establishment that offers lodging.”

By service animal, I, of course, was not lying. I merely meant an animal who belonged to someone who was in the service, but Mr. Snotty Motel Clerk didn’t have to know that. And good ol’ Vasha did have a Marine Corp insignia on the kerchief she wore.  “Aren’t you the best service dog there is, Vasha, girl?” I asked, leaning down to give her neck a brisk rub and him a nice look down my v-neck t-shirt.

“How long did you say you’d be stayin’?” Mr. Snotty asked, still a bit cranky but his tone several degrees warmer than it had been.

I made my smile even brighter as I stood up. “Just a few hours probably. I’m waiting for Colonel Redraven and his grandfather to return. Soon as he does, Vash and me, we’re out of here.”

Mr. Snotty looked around nervously. “Well, I’d hate to seem inhospitable to a service dog and all. But, that dog gets to barking or makes any mess, and ....”

“Wouldn’t happen,” I blithely assured him, though I had no idea whether or not Vasha was the type of dog to bark at every stray bump in the night. I certainly hoped not. But I was exhausted and there was no way I could sleep in the pick-up Red had rented for me at the airport. He’d decided it made more sense for him to drop me off here on the edge of Montana’s border with Canada and fly back and forth to Canada from here. I hoped she behaved. I was exhausted, which was crazy, since I hadn’t done much but sit on my butt for hours on end but somehow that can be more tiring than anything else. And excitement can be wearing when you can’t do anything to burn it off.

Wanting nothing more but to conk out for a couple of hours before Red returned, the wonders of this small town having been exhausted as quickly as I was, I quickly settled business with the clerk before he could change his mind. I arranged for two adjoining rooms, and left the key for one with the clerk in case Red arrived while I was asleep. He had assured me there was no need for me to hang around the airport; he and his grandfather would catch a ride to where I was if they arrived late. So, after sending a text message to him about where I arranged for the rooms, I headed to mine.

A long evening stretched out ahead of me. I found myself talking to Vasha a lot. She was a good listener.

“If it weren’t for this stupid bad leg, I could go running and burn off this excess energy,” I told her. “But that’s not really a good idea anymore and this fine establishment, while worth every one of its...what do you think, two or two and a half stars?  It does not extend to a heated indoor swimming pool.  I think the motel’s sole ice machine being located on our floor does knock it up a half star.”

Vasha looked at me skeptically and scratched her ear with her back paw.

“What, you think I’m too generous? Well, given that it’s cold enough outside that you hardly need ice, you’re probably right. And that clerk would no doubt flip out if he knew you were sitting on that lovely comforter while you lick your crotch, but I daresay you aren’t the first guest to start doing some crotch licking before removing the comforter – which makes me say, I am definitely taking the comforter off my bed before I lie down. No offense, of course.”

I had to laugh at the offended expression I would swear Vasha gave me as I yanked the comforter back from the double bed near the windows. She stopped what she had been doing and jumped to the floor to make a leisurely exploration of the bathroom and small kitchenette. It really wasn’t all that bad. Not that I had any food to cook, but maybe Red would bring something. I frowned at that thought. More likely he would expect that I would have used my time more profitably than sight-seeing and moping, and that I would have picked up some supplies for the long drive to the reservation. Duh.

I looked at my phone. Four-thirty. I decided I had time to take a quick shower, nap for an hour or so and then head out to do some grocery shopping.  I really needed the nap. I sniffed my armpit. The shower was pretty essential too.

I didn’t mean to fall into a deep sleep. But, it had been a while since I had a good night’s sleep and with Vasha curled up next to me, I felt warm and safe. It never occurred to me that Vasha would leave through the adjoining door once she heard her master return.

Somehow, my subconscious figured out that I was alone again, because the nightmare came back, and I was too deeply asleep to get myself out of it, so the terror continued, of being trapped, with no food, no water, and nothing but silence and darkness all around me.

I screamed, for Colette, for Mom, for anyone who could help me, even though I knew how this nightmare ended. No one ever came. Except this time, warm, hard arms came around me and pulled me out of the darkness.

“Hush, little girl, I’ve got you, you’re out of that place now, you’re safe.”

**********

It was late by the time Grandfather and I got in. He’d insisted on saying good-bye to every one of his neighbors, leaving them with some of his belongings as well as plenty of wood, chopped by yours truly, if they were over sixty, which most of them were.  I was pretty strong but a couple of hours of log splitting wears even me out. I was more than ready to go by the time we finally arrived at the airfield.  Grandfather was looking a bit tired too.

“Light’s out in Colleen’s room but I hear Vasha scratchin’ at the door. I’ll let the old girl in so you can relax, and finally believe I didn’t ignore your command,” I teased him.

“Good thing you did, boy. I would have hated for you to waste all that fuel going back to Scotland to fetch her,” he grumbled as he headed for the bathroom. I watched him carefully.  I was tired but he was bone weary, to the point that he was having trouble maintaining that perfect soldier’s posture of his. Best to get him to bed quickly. Not really the time for introductions. Even if Colleen were awake, she’d understand, I was pretty sure she was the understanding type of O’Keefe – more like Luke and Danny than Angel.

I opened the connecting door and just peeked in, hushing Vasha as I satisfied myself that there was no movement from the sleeping figure on the bed.  I closed the door and knelt to greet Vasha properly.

“Hey girl, how are you? Been behaving?” I ruffled her fur briskly as she licked my face eagerly. I let her go over to Grandfather as he came out of the bathroom. He accepted her affectionate greeting. Cheyenne growled, reminding me that she had come in on our heels.  She’d been told to hush when we came in and had settled herself down right away, but the entry of another dog got her attention. She growled, low in her throat, and put her ears back.

Vasha cocked her head and looked at me, as though to ask, you’re not serious about this, are you? I had to laugh, but quickly muffled it, not wanting to wake up Colleen. Grandfather made a clicking noise in his throat, his own signal to let a misbehavin’ pup know she was to cut it out right away.

Chey looked worried but stopped the growling. Vash walked over and sniffed the pup a bit intrusively. Chey whined and looked at Grandfather.

“You stay right there and let Vasha get a good look at you,” he ordered, settling himself down on the bed closest to the two dogs.  He looked over at me.

“Good night, my boy. I am very glad you are here with me.”

“I am too,” I told him.

It was still fairly early for me to turn in, only about ten or so, but I decided to get a shower then see what there was to eat. I hoped that Colleen had stocked up on some food. I’d eaten a lot of Grandfather’s stew but that was hours ago now and we only grabbed a quick couple of sandwiches before flying back here. I’d had to pull some strings to get Chey into the country without a quarantine, which caused a further delay, but eventually we’d made it back into the good old U.S. of A. It just meant I’d left Colleen alone a lot longer than I’d intended. Still, she was a big girl and no doubt had found plenty to entertain herself.

I shook my head at myself as I toweled off. I was getting to be as bad as Luke and Linton. Worrying about a twenty-three year old like she was ten or something, just because she was Luke’s niece. Hell, at twenty-three I’d been in the service for a couple of years, had seen my share of trouble. Of course, I’d always had Luke watching my back. That thought made me wonder what kind of trouble had come up between Colleen and her twin. Seemed odd for two sisters, especially twins who’d been as close as those two, to be on the outs.

Before I could give it any more thought, I heard the screaming start. Which started the dogs to barking. I grabbed some sweats I’d planned to sleep in and scrambled into them as fast as I could, cursing a blue streak as I stubbed my foot against the door in my rush to get out of the bathroom and over to the connecting door.

Grandfather was sitting up.

“What’s wrong.”

“Nothing. I’ll take care of it,” I told him. “Quiet the dogs.”

I went through the door and closed it on the barking dogs, pushing Vasha back with my knee. Colleen was pretty much as I expected to find her, clutching the blankets, staring wide-eyed but sightlessly at the dark room, caught in a terror of her own mind’s making. I’d seen Luke in plenty of similar nightmares. He would look like he was awake but wouldn’t be. Scared the hell out of me the first couple of times; I’d thought he’d gone blind. Danny does it too. It’s almost like a seizure but it isn’t – I’ve questioned Peter enough about the signs to satisfy myself that it’s more like sleep-walking than anything more serious. Danny even does the sleep-walking. Sleep dancing even. Was a real concern when he visited Luke at the base as a kid. I hoped this niece of theirs didn’t do that too, but for now, I concentrated on calming her down.

I sat down on the bed and pulled her onto my lap. She was trembling.

“Hush, little girl, I’ve got you, you’re out of that place now, you’re safe.”

I stroked her hair and kept murmuring soothing words to her, trying to break through to her terrified mind. I had no doubt that she dreamed she was still in that collapsed hotel in Haiti, poor kid. The screaming stopped almost at once but then she broke down crying, for the boys who had been with them who died because she had wanted a snack, for the old lady who had been getting her a piece of pie, for the little girl who’d lost her grandparents, and finally, for her sister.

“Letty, Letty, I’m so sorry.” She was making gasping noises now as she tried to catch her breath. I kept stroking her hair and telling her it was okay, but the hell of it was, it really wasn’t okay. Her friends had died in that earthquake, that little girl was probably in some orphanage, along with her little brother, the boy Luc, who had led us to where she was and helped us save her, and her sister, well, who knew why her sister was estranged from her? O’Keefes held grudges over a lot less than this.

“Colleen, come on now, little girl, pull yourself together, you’re getting me soaking wet with all these tears,” I complained teasingly.  I didn’t mind the tears. Knowing her family as I did, I suspected they were long overdue. But I regretted the joke because no sooner were the words out than she raised large horrified eyes to me.

“Oh...my...god....” she whispered, before pushing herself away. She looked down at her tank top and underpants and then back at my bare chest and sweats. Even in the dark room I could tell her face was turning six shades of red.

“I fell asleep and...” She looked around wildly. “I overslept and forgot to wake up to shop for food and....” She looked again at my chest. “You’re in my room half-naked!” She raised her eyes to my face accusingly.

“You were screaming,” I told her, my hands up and away from her in as placating a gesture as I could come up with. Just then, pretty much on cue, a banging started on the door. She grabbed the blanket and looked wide-eyed at it. I got up and went over.

I opened it to the somewhat portly man who was the motel clerk. I glared and waited for him to speak.

“Uh, there was a commotion coming from this room, and uh, is everything...I told the young lady we don’t allow noise from the dog or anything.” He twisted his hands nervously.

I raised an eyebrow. Turning back to Colleen, who was sitting with her knees up to her chin, the blanket covering her completely, except for her face, I asked her, “Colleen, did you hear the dog barking?”

She shook her head, the faintest hint of a smile dancing across her expression.

I turned back to the clerk, who looked more nervous by the minute.

“No commotion here, no barking here either, just some fucking idiot barking on the door at an ungodly hour as far as I can tell,” I told him in my bored voice. “So why don’t you get yourself back down to your office and let us get back to sleep, okay?”

“Yes sir,” the clerk said, thoroughly cowed. I waited until I saw him head for the stairs then closed the door.

Turning back to Colleen, I saw that she had gotten into some sweatpants while still under the blanket. I grinned at her modesty.  She looked up at me and returned the grin sheepishly.

“I don’t like people looking at my legs. They’re pretty messed up. But...I guess I owe you thanks. The screaming...that was probably me, huh?”

“Screaming? I don’t remember any screaming,” I lied blandly. She laughed shakily. I walked over to the little kitchenette that her room had and looked into the refrigerator hopefully. Nothing but an ice cube tray. An empty ice cube tray.

I sighed.

“Sorry about that,” she said, coming up behind me. “I meant to go shopping this evening but laid down for a nap and well....”

“Understandable,” I said, trying to keep my growling stomach from being too audible. She was pulling on a sweater and grabbing the keys to the truck.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked her.

“To find some food,” she said brightly. “The least I can do.”

“I don’t think so,” I told her. “You’re exhausted and not in any shape to be driving a truck around a strange town, in a strange state.”

“But you’re starving. And I’m too wound up now to go back to sleep. I’ll just go find an all night diner or something and bring back some snacks.”

I raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t Pittsburgh. They don’t have all-night places around here. You’re not going to find some place on the next corner.”

“There are truckers in Montana,” she argued, “and where there are truckers, there are bound to be truck stops where a person can get food at any hour. I’ll just find out where the closest one is and....”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I told her.  “We’ll get food in the morning. I’m too tired to keep you company while you go chasing after food in the middle of the night.”

“What if I don’t want you around while I chase food,” she muttered.

“Then you’ll just have to learn to want to,” I told her solemnly. I knew what her problem was – she was terrified that she was going to have another nightmare. So she wanted to stay up for the rest of the night. Luke used to do the same thing after we got him back from being a POW. He’d go for days without sleep, until he couldn’t go any longer and would collapse where he stood.  A big part of it was the fear of being alone. So, I needed to show her she wouldn’t be alone. But not let her feel self-conscious about it. Not a problem.

“Listen, little girl. You might not need the rest but my grandfather does. He’s not as young as he used to be.  Get back into that bed.” I closed the door after reassuring myself that Grandfather and the dogs were settled down in the one big bed. I left me on her side of the adjoining door, which earned me a wide-eyed look that almost made me laugh but I managed to hide it.

**********

Men who cared about whether you were okay and stayed around to be sure weren’t something I was used to, not in a first person, up close personal kind of way, though I knew they existed, certainly, through observation. My father was more of a walk it off, you’re not really hurt now, are you, kind of person, and my brothers more or less picked up that same attitude by default. And in all fairness, some of my uncles had a tendency toward that too – my grandfather was the original, big boys don’t cry guy, and he liked it best if the girls didn’t cry either.

When I was small, maybe five or six, I remember this time when I borrowed Keir’s skateboard. I wasn’t supposed to – had been specifically told not to – but I had seen him take it down the hill near Mama Rose and Pop Pop Pat’s house and I wanted to try it too. So...I waited until everybody else was busy in their backyard and I borrowed it. I fell – of course – and hurt my ankle so badly that I couldn’t walk. Even worse, I broke the skateboard. I remember looking up that big hill and being terrified. How in the world was I going to get back up that hill and how was I going to hide my “crime” of not only stealing – which was how my borrowing now appeared even in my own mind – the skateboard, but the negligence that had led to my injury and the board’s demise.

It was in the midst of my pain and despair that two very tall, green clad men wearing these funny hats had appeared. I was picked up gently and brushed off by the one with the green eyes while the other somehow miraculously fixed the skateboard. They kept teasing and joking with each other but I remember them both being really kind to me, praising my bravery at daring to take the board down such a long hill, and not falling off until almost all the way down. They even ran interference for me with Keir and Mom.

That had been the first time I’d ever met my “hero Uncle Luke” and his best friend, Steven Redraven, but I never forgot it. Colette and I developed such crushes on Red, as everyone called him, that we insisted on braiding our hair in pigtails for months after that. Doing the math in my head, I figured that Red must have been about twenty-nine then, which would make him....

Forty-six. Twice my age. I sighed as I got into bed, keeping my sweatpants on. I wondered if he remembered the skateboard incident. Maybe someday I could ask him.

Yeah, like maybe when I was forty-six. 

Okay, mortification did not begin to describe my feelings at being discovered having one of my really bad nightmares by my Uncle Luke’s best friend, Red, who had to be one of the hottest men in creation. Dear Lord, the men in our family were pretty well-built but I don’t think any of them could compare to this man in terms of cut. My six year old self had good taste, I decided, and the man only improved with age, so that now, he was absolutely gorgeous. Waking up with that naked torso wrapped around me was the best possible cure for the screaming meemies – until I realized that I had been in the screaming meemies, and who it was who was holding me.

Embarrassment city. Hence the jumping up, and then of course I realized I wasn’t wearing anything more than a skinny T and bikini panties. Which his dark eyes looking down – and boy did he have dark eyes – made me realize. So I went on the defensive – a basketball trait, I guess. But my initial reaction when embarrassed is to get away if I can’t count on Colette to deflect attention, and these days, Colette doesn’t have my back. That realization is always good for a fresh bout of tears every time it hits, and it does hit, without fail, every time, though by now you’d think I’d be used to it. But I’m not. Finding that he was closing the door with him on the wrong side – my side – left me just that much more unbalanced. Because he was doing that caring thing. And suddenly, I felt like that six year old again and my uncle’s friend Red was picking me up and staying around to make sure I was going to be okay. This time he wasn’t protecting me from my mom’s punishment or my big brother’s anger, but from no less danger than my own fear of the dark.

And with that realization, the stupid tears started again.

He came over to the bed I was on and without a word, settled down and pulled me against his chest. He started talking quietly about different places he’d been, countries like Iraq and Turkey, some of the fun things he and Uncle Luke had gotten to do over the years, in between the war parts, and listening to his calm, even voice, I stopped the stupid crying, and eventually, I slept.

“Tomorrow it will all be easier,” was the last thing I remember hearing.

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