The Sweet Taste (Perry County)

by Roy F. Chandler

  From the paved road behind, a biker powered past the truck following me and came alongside Big Blue, the rider concentrating on holding his machine upright through the rough going. It was a dumb stunt; the road was narrow, potholed, and slick.

  I let off the gas so the rider could get by, just as my front wheel dropped into a deep mud puddle. Soup-thick muck rose in a wave and the motorcyclist was in exactly the wrong spot. The slop drenched him as though he had been dipped. Momentum took him past, before he broad slid to a safe stop in the middle of the road, almost alongside the other more deliberately parked motorcycles.

  It was a hilarious scene, worthy of a TV bit. I felt for the guy. His bike was a handsome Harley Davidson of classic vintage. Black, with everything possible chromed, the machine was special. Now it dripped filth and would require extensive cleaning.

  The rider was special, too. He booted out his kick stand and climbed off, dripping muck and mopping at his bearded face.

  The guy was a monster. Not merely big, like a lot of Harley riders, with beer fat a foot thick all over them. This biker was at least six feet six and surely weighed three hundred pounds. He wore a black leather vest over a wrestler's torso so pelted with dark hair it resembled an animal's fur. He stood on legs like trees and had those monstrous kind of thighs so thick that they scrubbed together when he moved.

  All of a sudden I didn't like what I was seeing.

  There were half a dozen Harleys parked in the clearing and their riders were a mass of black leather, peculiar helmets, and lots of tattoos.

  The pickup behind had me boxed in, or I might have reversed straight out of there. The muddied monster wasn't smiling and his cohorts weren't laughing. It wouldn't be rational to blame me or my truck for their friend's stupidity in trying to pass, but bikers wearing metal on their boots, with big wallets chained to their belts like this bunch flaunted, weren't noted for careful reasoning.

  I brought Blue to a stop, cut the engine, and got out looking as contrite as I knew how. I held my arms out disarmingly with my palms up and tried to placate the crowd.

  "Hey man, I'm sorry. I didn't see the puddle. Nothin' I could do."

  Without answer, the monster moved in on me. He moved lightly, almost on dancer's feet, the way only a few really big men can. He wore a skull-fitting crash helmet that looked like an inverted kitchen bowl. All I could see were piggy, narrow-set, black eyes, surrounded by an acre or so of scraggly beard.

  He stopped almost against me, and I was conscious of Blue's hood, only a step behind, barring any chance of running, an option I belatedly wished I had kept open.

  I was immediately enveloped in a goat-like aura, so thick it should have been visible. The giant must never have bathed. He did have teeth. Blackened and broken, they looked as though they could hurt all the time. Along with the jagged fangs came a breath that could have dazed a camel. It crossed my mind that I could be about as bad off wrangling with this human animal as I had been with the grizzly sow. Then I had a magnum. This time I was empty-handed.

  But I knew things. In the army I had found hand to hand fighting interesting and had tried to absorb it. A little judo and some karate mixed with the military's "Unarmed Defense for the American Soldier" had given me a useful bag of mean tricks. If the biker got rough, I would make my move.

  What a joke! The guy had twelve inch wrists. I didn't see a neck at all. Those monster thighs guarded his groin, and his organs were buried within inches of fat-layered muscle. Maybe his knee? Each looked as strong as an oak log.

  One of the bikers yelled, "Don't take nothin' off him, Jello."

  Jello? My mind registered the gross misnomer even as the giant's hands reached almost gently for me. He closed grips that squeezed like vises under my armpits and raised me off my feet so that I dangled almost eye level with him.

  I hung there feeling helpless and horribly embarrassed. Should I thrash around and make him madder, or submit, like the child I was in his grasp?

  He held me like that, one hundred and seventy pounds of scared carcass while his friends gathered closer. There was a lot of hooting and yelling, but I couldn't register it. I saw Jello's eyes contract and felt his body gather itself. Somehow, I guessed what was coming and almost got a hand in the way.

  Wordlessly, soundlessly, holding me in place, Jello smashed his helmet squarely at my face. My moving hand caught some of it and flattened a fingertip, but the rest struck my nose and forehead. The wallop was devastating. That it failed to knock me out was remarkable, but my strength drained instantly, and my mind reeled with pain and vertigo.

  I couldn't tell up from down. Hearing shut off and tears clogged seeing. I felt myself flung backward against the truck hood and my bad ribs lit up with a pain so familiar it almost brought me around.

  I saw Jello through a reddish haze and felt blood filling my mouth. It was like the bear all over again, and I was at least as helpless. The monster shook me back and forth, then crashed a fist alongside my head. It set my ear on fire, and I began fighting back with a desperate hunger to stay alive.

  I lashed with my feet, feeling them strike his shins, and I flailed and clawed with my hands, but couldn't reach his face. I spit blood on him and tried for his crotch.

  Annoyed, the gorilla flung me aside. I landed badly, skidding on a shoulder with my sore ribs blazing.

  The flash of the river caught my eye, and without hesitation, I went for it. I didn't try to get up; I just scrabbled and struggled for the water's edge.

  Bellowing and thigh slapping, Jello and band watched me go. I flopped over the small bank and scraped through the rocky shallows. Stones tore at me, and I thought of broken bottles, but all I wanted right then was distance.

  They stood on the bank, sneering and laughing, and one heaved his beer can at me. I was finally floating, just barely, and clutching at an Iron pipe someone had driven into the river bottom.

  The thrown beer can inspired others. One found a stone and fired it at my head. He missed and the clearing's easy rocks had long been tossed into the river. Then a skinny armed geeky looking guy found half a concrete block. Jagged edged and weighing twenty pounds or so, if it hit me, I could be bad hurt. I wasn't that far out in the river, and I wasn't sure my condition would allow drifting downstream. The block holder was measuring his throw when a woman's voice turned them.

  It was the driver of the pickup that had come in behind me. She was standing with her door open, yelling into a CB radio mike.

  "State police, state police, some bikers are murdering a man at the river, by the Duncannon underpass."

  She didn't give the cops a chance to answer, just kept yelling directions and calling it murder, again and again.

  Jello said, "Let's go." They were the first words I'd heard from him, and the best I ever hoped to hear.

  Frustrated, the guy with the block heaved it onto Big Blue's hood where it bounced and cracked the windshield. Inspired, the rest of the crew assaulted the truck. One produced a wrench from a boot top and shattered my headlights. Another reclaimed the cement block and worked it down the side of the truck's body. Jello twisted the open driver's door until it was junk. Then they mounted their cycles and thundered off, the woman still yelling into her microphone.

  Water supported, my beaten up body wasn't too bad, but the thought of moving made me want to cry. The CB woman came to the bank edge and another appeared beside her.

  The first was a good-looking woman, shapely in jeans and shirt. Against the sky her hair appeared soot black and shadowed her features. I guessed I couldn't be too near death if I took all that in.

  She asked, "Can you get up?"

  Good question. I hitched myself around, trying to get onto my hands and knees. My face ached like a sore tooth, and my battered ribs made me want to howl.

  Seeing my difficulty, the lady said, "Oh hell!" and splashed into the river. She got me under an arm, and I was able to get my feet planted. Together we lurched ashore, she balancing both of us, while I concentrated
on getting each foot a half step forward.

  I wanted to collapse on the bank, but the gal kept me going, yelling for her friend to get the passenger's door open. With fractured ribs I couldn't pull, and the step up into the cab felt McKinley high. As hard as it was, getting in was a right decision. Once down, I doubted I'd have been able to go further.

  The CBer was all business. "Sally, you follow in my truck. I'll drive this guy to the doctor's." She piled in and was fastening her seat belt before I gathered enough air to talk.

  "No doctor. If you'd get me home. I'd appreciate that."

  She looked surprised. "You got a place around here? Your license reads, Alaska."

  "Yeah, over in Watts. It isn't that far."

  "Man, you are beat up. You could be hurt inside. A doctor ought to go over you."

  "Later, maybe. I think I'll be OK, if I can just get home."

  She shrugged in resignation. "If that's what you want. Tell me how to go. I don't know the roads out there too well."

  We rattled out the lane, my rescuer holding her door almost closed with an elbow. She eased over the potholes, but each jolt was a killer, keeping my pain alive.

  We had to go all the way across the Susquehanna to turn to the left on Route 22. It was a weird traffic pattern and took forever, we finally started upriver, and she pointed with her chin and said, "There are your friends."

  Yep, there they were, or at least there sat their motorcycles. The bikes were lined in front of what had been a service station. There was a sign ending in Club, but I missed the first part. The gang hadn't gone far; maybe they came there often. I hoped so.

  She said, "Now in a movie, we'd whip across and gun this tough truck right down that row of Harleys and turn 'em into junk."

  I tried to chuckle, but it hurt too much. "Guess we'd need a bigger truck, and I don't want any more of that guy Jello today."

  I should have left today off the sentence. It would be best if everyone figured I was whipped. What I might or might not do, was way down the pike. Staying alive for the next week or two would be worry enough for now.

  My benefactor drove swift and smooth. Big Blue wasn't hurt where it counted. I supposed we were alike there. Some repairs and we'd both be back in shape.

  "Nice truck. It's got twice the power of my Chevy."

  She glanced across, still concerned. I suppose I wasn't the best looking specimen she had sat beside.

  "You sure you're all right?"

  I tried to sound positive. "Once I'm home, I'll just crawl in bed and stay there until I feel better. It'll be OK." She appeared dubious, but let it go.

  "I'm Lori Shoop. Who are you?"

  Her name tugged familiarly, but I couldn't concentrate enough to place it.

  "I'm Gene Perry. I used to live around here."

  The truck lurched. She was trying to look at me while driving.

  "Well I'll be darned—I couldn't see through that beard." She added a bit caustically, "Half your head swelling up like a pumpkin doesn't help either."

  It was nice that she knew me. Seemed around my age, but I still couldn't remember her.

  She said, "Now I know where we're going. Way in, past Vonnie Doyle's, but I can't remember the road from there."

  "Get to Doyle's and I'll point it out."

  I slumped the best I could and tried to doze away the misery. I had pain pills in my gear, left over from my grizzly agonies. I had almost tossed them. How many were left? Enough I hoped. Stoically enduring pain wasn't my strongest suit.

  Near the Doyles' road a pickup tore past, going the other way. Lori said, "Spider Seeber. You've got a lousy neighbor, Gene."

  "Yeah, it's a wonder somebody hasn't shot old Spider before now."

  She was silent for a minute, probably listening to my groceries clattering all over the truck bed. I recalled a black leathered jazbo up in the truck kicking the load around.

  "You just getting in. Gene?"

  "Yep, but Stacy Doyle's gone over the place. It'll be livable."

  Following directions, she turned up my road and drove slowly over the moss and leaves covering the crushed shale lane. Trees overhung the path so the truck wheeled almost silently through a sun dappled tunnel. A turn hid the cabin, and we burst sort of unexpectedly into the clearing. Even in my punched out condition, the place plucked heartstrings.

  Jim Doyle had run his Brush Hog around the open ground, giving the yard a semblance of being mowed. The cabin crouched beneath a pair of virgin hemlocks so old their trunks were three feet through. During my father's time, lightning had blown the top out of one and the tree tip had come down through the roof like a spear. To be safe, Pap had gotten a climber to top the other one. Now the big trees were squattier and thicker than you might expect.

  The hemlocks needle fall coated the tin roof inches thick, and lay even deeper on the flatter porch roof. The cabin appeared thatched, like an English cottage. Primitive it might be, but right then it looked more comforting than a Holiday Inn.

  I waited in the truck cab until Lori found the key behind a window shutter and got the door open. Then I eased my way out of the truck, moving only what really had to move to get inside.

  A foot ran a new agony up my leg. I managed a glance down, seeing the chuka boot distorted by swelling. Lori saw me looking.

  "Looks bad; Jello stomped it when you first went down."

  Good God, I hadn't even felt it. Bring on the bed. Old Gene Perry couldn't make it much further.

  While my personal nightingale and her friend brought in my groceries, I fumbled through my duffel bag for pain pills.

  Somewhere in there I had one and a half gram codeine tablets. Red Harston's men always carried a bottle of the tiny pills.

  Deep in the bush a hurt man could need to kill pain for long periods. One client stepped off a cliff edge during a white-out, when fog settled in so tight he couldn't see his front sight.

  The hunter was lucky. He struck a steep talus slope and slid nearly a quarter of a mile before stopping, course he was broken up some. We dosed him with codeine, and one of us went for a helicopter, unfortunately the fog stayed in, and we were four days getting the injured man out. Without the pain killer, he would have been in real agony, and shock might have finished him.

  Apparently I had put the codeine in a safe place because I couldn't find it. My half bottle of Percodan was easier. I popped open one of the Pepsis I had picked up at Mutzabaugh's and washed down a pair of the pills. Just doing it made me feel better, in a half an hour I would be floating, with pain blocked and distant. Now, if I could just make it to the bed.

  Lori Shoop's friend was Pam somebody. I missed the last name and wasn't up to asking. The girls were the kind I like. They knew how to work and got at it. While I worried out of soaked and filthy clothing, they got the water pump on, organized the groceries, and parked Big Blue around behind the house. Pam laid a fire in the air tight stove, in case it turned chilly.

  Clad in wrinkled pajamas, I collapsed on the bed, still bloody faced and fouled by river water. Lori wasn't settling for that. There wasn't any warm water yet, but she sponged the clotted blood off my mug and took a look at my swollen foot. Her conclusions were brisk, but I was grateful for them.

  "Well, your nose is probably broken, and it's bled into your beard, which looks really ugly. You've a knot on your forehead that could wear a hat. You'll get a black eye from it." I'd found that much out myself from peering into my bedroom mirror.

  "I haven't seen your ribs, but the way you move all hunched over suggests some are probably fractured. Your foot is swollen. Maybe bones are broken, maybe not. That Jello stomped it hard enough, but your boot might have saved it some.

  "Other than that, you need a bath and your breath stinks of blood you've swallowed." She frowned as though considering. "Guess you'll live after all, but it would be smarter to be in a hospital."

  She was right, but I'd mend. I always had. Though Lori hadn't worked out the reasons, I wanted no record of Gene Perry seei
ng any doctor. As far as Jello and his bunch would know, the bearded Alaskan had just kept on going.

  Pam was anxious to leave. The girls had already put in a couple of hours getting me home and properly laid out. I was just as anxious to see them gone. When I am hurt, I prefer being left alone. Like any wounded animal, I needed a chance to lick my wounds.

  Lori wasn't that sure about it. "Maybe I should stay here tonight. Pam can take my truck in and pick me up tomorrow in time for work."

  The painkiller was taking hold, and I could shake my head without it coming off.

  "No way. I'm grateful for all you've done, but I'd like being left alone right now. I've been this bad before, and I know how to handle it."

  Still unsure, she milled around, checking to make sure the water heater was functioning and straightening my things. She emptied my pockets and hung the soggy clothing over the porch railing.

  By now I was feeling fine and had to summon myself to get her going. "OK, Lori, that's good enough. Let it be; I'll check with you in a few days."

  She went out, and I heard her around my truck. She returned with the pump shotgun I kept behind the seat and the bandolier of shells. They went under the bed where I could reach them, and she seemed satisfied.

  "OK, we're on our way, but you call me. Gene. If I don't hear, I'll send an ambulance out for you."

  The threat was idle, but I appreciated the care.

  "I'll call, Lori." I hesitated, wanting the right words, but in the end I just fumbled through. "I want you to know that I'm aware that you may have saved my life. No telling how far those bikers might have gone. That concrete block alone could have...." I wanted to shudder but the Percodan had me afloat. You could have stayed out of it, and most people would have. Hell, that bunch might have turned on you."

  She stood in the doorway, black hair framing her face, posed the way she had been on the river bank.

  "Anyway, you thought clear and you acted strong. Not many could have and fewer would have. I'll thank you better when I'm up and around."

  I needed a closing and came up with it. "Calling the cops on the CB was real smart thinking, Lori. Scared those apes away." I tried to grin. "I hope the state police didn't waste too much time looking."