Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 3

by Jim Baen's Universe! staff

  "You're safe, ma'am." I kept my voice quiet and stood there. Like I said, I knew what I looked like. She'd been spooked enough. I wasn't going to make any sudden moves around her.

  I could see her trying to slow her breathing, trying to regain control. It took her a while, but she did it. She looked around the work shop, but always kept me in view from the corner of her eye. I gave her points for composure. Not too many women would be that strong after experiencing what she'd just gone through. At length, she turned and looked directly at me.

  "Safe?" Now that she wasn't gasping for every molecule of oxygen she could inhale, her voice was soft and sort of furry. I liked it. "So, just how safe am I?" Her expression was serious, her lips pursed.

  "Well, unless those fools get lucky and stumble across us, I'd say very safe. You can clean up, and whenever you feel like it I'll take you to where your car is and you can go home."

  She looked like she was going to say something, but was distracted by a large black nose that was sniffing her leg. "And who is this?"

  "That's Rowf."

  "Rowf? Seriously?" She didn't quite laugh, but her voice danced with humor.

  "What can I say? I liked Rowf the dog best of all the Muppets. So . . ." I spread my hands.

  "Makes sense to me. Hey, Rowf." She rubbed his ears. He leaned into it, evidence that she had good hands.

  She straightened after a moment. Rowf looked at her, then turned and slowly made his way to his bed by the wood burning stove. She cocked her head at me. "Something wrong with him?"

  "Partly years, partly he's pretty sick. Cancer."

  "Oh, that's too bad. He seems like a good dog."

  "Yep." It hurt that I was going to lose him soon. I was closer to that dog than anyone since my dad died.

  She looked at me full on for a moment, then turned her green eyes toward my latest project, standing revealed in the open shipping case. "Wow."

  Serious, but reverent. I liked that. Not for my ego's sake, understand. Just that knowing somebody felt the impact of the work was enough. She looked at it for a long moment, then looked over her shoulder at me. "That yours?"

  "Yep."

  "If that's a Reidinger statue, then you must be Reidinger."

  "Call me John." Okay, she wasn't a kid. I was pleased that she recognized my work.

  "Okay . . . John." She shook her head. "I can't believe I've found the very reclusive and mysterious J. Reidinger. You know," she looked at me from the corner of her eye, "you don't look anything like the only photo of you I've seen."

  "That publicity photo? The one with the slicked back hair, the sunglasses and the leather trench coat?"

  "That's the one. You look . . . older."

  "The beard." She looked confused. "The beard's prematurely gray. Without it I look younger."

  Rowf's ears perked up and he started growling again. I held a hand up. "Looks like they got lucky and we didn't."

  I walked over to the work bench and pressed a button under the edge. A door popped open in what had moments before been only a blank wall. "You'll be safe in there."

  "What is it?" She looked at it with distrust.

  "An old bomb shelter that I've updated some. There's a bathroom and some old clothes if you want to change. The door's steel, and the only lock is on the inside. Hide in there until I tell you to come out." She still didn't look too certain about it. "Go on! They're going to be here in a minute and you need to be out of sight."

  She slipped through the doorway and closed the door. The deadbolts snicked into place a moment later.

  I reached over and hit the garage door button. I decided when I designed the shop that I'd best make allowances for a wide range of equipment, so the shop ceiling is very high and the garage door is almost tall enough to let a semi tractor in. It takes a while for the door to open all the way, so while it was rolling up I stuck a couple of screwdrivers into each hip pocket and stuffed the handle of a six pound sledge through the back of my belt. I didn't want to hurt anyone, but I didn't want to be without options if they had other ideas. It's amazing how innocuous a screwdriver seems, but in the right hands . . .

  There were three of them, all right, standing there blinking in the light like we had a few minutes earlier. I recognized them right off. Oh, I don't mean I knew them, or knew who they were. But I knew what they were. What my dad used to call punks. Wannabe bad guys . . . the type who will hurt anyone weaker than they are just because they can, but who don't have enough brains or enough steel in their spirit to do any more than that. These guys were wearing cowboy boots and jeans. It could just as well have been sweatpants or dungarees hung so low that the only thing that kept them up was the muscles of their butts. It doesn't matter who they are, where they are, the color of their skin—they all look the same to me. My dad told me to have nothing to do with people like that. I've found that to be good advice.

  I spoke while they were still blinking, taking the advantage and putting them on the defensive. "You guys know you're trespassin'?" I also used the urban Italian accent I learned from Joey Delvecchio back during a time I'd spent the last few years trying to forget existed.

  The two outside guys looked to the one in the center. Good. If there was only one set of brains in this operation, that would make it simpler. I hoped.

  "Uh, yeah, we know," the brains said. "My girlfriend got lost and we're trying to find her."

  I started moving toward them. "Lost, huh? Don'cha think you'd be better off out looking by the highway? That is where she got lost, ain't it?"

  "We, uh, we started out there, but we think she came this way."

  "Well, guys . . ." I pursed my lips, ". . . I don't see why anyone would do that, but you can see there ain't no girlfriend here." I stopped a couple of feet away.

  "You sure, mister?" Brains looked at me with what he thought was a hard expression. His bulky friends—who I'd tagged Muscles One and Muscles Two—started edging around me. "'Cause we chased—I mean we followed her here."

  "Well, I'm tellin' you she ain't here. And you're still trespassin', so either beat it or I call the cops." This was sounding more and more like a bad movie.

  Brains stuck his hand in his jacket pocket, which must have been the signal to his muscles, because they each grabbed one of my arms. Dumb and dumber, on cue.

  "Okay, old man." The punks thought they were dealing with someone on the other side of young, which to them meant weak. Dumb, like I said.

  "Where's the girl? If you don't tell me, I'm gonna . . ."

  I waited for Brains to finish spouting all the threats and profanity. I never have figured out why anyone thinks either is impressive. It's all just words, worth nothing until someone acts.

  ". . . so you better open up and tell me where she is!"

  "You done?" I sneered. That got under his skin. He yanked a Saturday Night Special out of that jacket pocket and tried to insert it up my left nostril. From the smell of it, it hadn't been cleaned in a while. He'd be lucky if it didn't blow his hand off the next time he used it. Before he could start blustering again, Rowf came up out of his blanket by the stove.

  Rowf's papers say he's a Labrador Retriever, but if I didn't know better I'd swear there's some Scottish Deerhound in his ancestry. Big dog. Coal black hair, with not a speck of white on him. Even at the age of nine and a half, his teeth were big and white and gleaming. Big bark. And when he lunged up out of that dark shadow barking for all he was worth with his lips curled back from his fangs, all three of the punks jumped. Brains turned and pointed his gun at Rowf.

  "Down, Rowf!"

  The punk pulled the trigger. Rowf yelped and fell over.

  "Kid, you shouldn't have done that."

  He turned to snarl something at me, and I introduced him to the steel reinforced toe of my size 13 work boot—kneecap first, then chin. A moment later, his two friends were on the ground alongside him.

  Last man standing. I stood there flexing my hands for a moment, then I checked the three punks. Muscles On
e and Two were going to be out for a while. So was Brains. I turned to Rowf.

  I went down on my knees by him. He was panting, eyes filled with pain. A large pool of blood told me there was nothing I could do for him. So I sat down on the concrete, placed his head on my lap and stroked him. He struggled to hook one leg over mine, then laid back. I don't remember what I whispered to him. Probably something stupid like "good dog."

  It would have come to this anyway, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with. It seemed like it took forever, but I'm sure it wasn't very long before the panting and trembling ceased. I know I sat there, tears running down my face while I stroked him, until one of the punks started moaning.

  It took a moment to realize what the sound was. When I did, a haze of hate clouded my vision. I wanted to kill someone . . . preferably the punks in front of me. I fought the feeling, and after a minute or so it drained away. That wasn't who I was anymore.

  I slid out from under Rowf's head and laid it down gently. Then I went over to my work bench, put on my work gloves and picked up several items.

  Muscles One was just starting to stir when I rolled him over on his stomach and pulled his arms behind him. Moments later, white plastic zip fasteners had his ankles and wrists tied to each other, then another tie looped between those fasteners to pull his feet and wrists together. Black duct tape looped around his eyes and head two or three times. Muscles Two didn't take any longer to secure.

  Then I moved to Brains, and looped his feet and hands together. Duct tape across the eyes. I was pretty sure that I broke his jaw, but although some of the teeth were cracked, I didn't see any broken. I wiped the blood off of his chin before I slapped the duct tape across his mouth. The rag went into the wood stove, flaring for a moment before I shut the stove door. Last thing I did was wipe off the barrel of the Saturday Night Special and tuck it back into his jacket pocket. I wasn't sure yet what I was going to do with these punks, but I was pretty certain I didn't want traces of my DNA found on that toy.

  I fished my keys out of my pocket and backed my pickup to the doorway. The punks weren't light, but I picked them up anyway and threw them into the truck bed. I could see them struggling with the restraints, and snorted as I slammed the camper shell door. They weren't getting out of those anytime soon.

  Gunny Hackett would have given me points for the takedown and cleanup. I pushed that thought away ruthlessly.

  There was a snick. I looked up to see the shelter door open a crack with a green eye staring through it. I motioned, and she opened the door all the way. "It's all right, uh . . ." I stopped when I realized I didn't know her name.

  "Sharon. Sharon Talbot. So where are they?"

  "Tied up in the back of my truck. They're not going anywhere until we want them to."

  "Great! Now we can . . ." Sharon's face changed. "What happened here?" I followed her gaze to where Rowf was still lying.

  "One of them shot Rowf."

  Her face was aghast. "And you didn't kill him? What did you do to him?"

  "Nothing," I sighed. "Barely. But I didn't do anything to him." Sharon's expression now bordered on bewilderment. "In a very weird way, he did me a favor. I've spent the last two days trying to work up the nerve to put Rowf down. The cancer is wrapped around his intestines and the vet says to operate would kill him. I've let him live as long as he was enjoying life, but he was starting to hurt and just picking at his food." My eyes misted, and I wiped them clear. "I got the drugs yesterday, and dug his grave this afternoon. I was going to do it tonight, after we got back from our walk. But then we met you."

  "And I brought all this trouble on you." She laid her hand on my arm. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be."

  After a moment of quiet, I said, "I have to take care of Rowf. Will you be okay waiting?" She nodded.

  I picked up Rowf's blanket from his place by the stove. His rope chew toy fell out of it. It took me a couple of minutes to get the blanket wrapped around him well enough that I could pick him up without stumbling over blanket ends, but I managed. I nodded to the chew toy. "Would you pick that up and hand it to me, please?"

  "I've got it." She bent to retrieve it. "Go on, I'll bring it."

  "You sure? It's going to be a ways, and it's dark."

  "I'm sure. Just get going."

  The place I had prepared wasn't that far away; maybe two hundred yards to a flat bit of a clearing slightly uphill from the house and workshop. The full moon had risen, so there was plenty of light. Sharon followed in my footsteps, until we stood beside the hole.

  It wasn't the full six feet deep, but it was deep enough. I laid Rowf on the ground beside it, jumped in and then picked him up and laid him down one last time. The blanket had come loose by then, so that he looked less like a mummy and more like he was just covered by it. I pulled the corner back so I could see him one last time, then looked to where Sharon crouched by the edge and held out my hand. She gave me the chew toy and I knelt to place it between his front feet. I knew it didn't make any difference. Rowf wasn't going to play with it any more. I could have thrown it in the trash. But Rowf had played with that since he was a puppy. I remembered endless hours of toss and tug-of-war. In my mind, it was part of him. There was just something right about it being with him here.

  It took a minute for me to make the final move, to smooth his head one last time and pull the blanket back over his form. I jumped and levered myself out of the hole, reached out and took the shovel standing in the dirt pile.

  "This will take a little while, if you want to go back in."

  "No, I'll wait." Sharon's voice was soft, but I noticed her arms were crossed. I took my jacket off and handed it to her before I began the work. It doesn't take nearly as much time to fill up a hole as to dig it. We walked back to the work shop in silence.

  "So," Sharon said when we came in the door, "do we call the cops now?"

  I walked over to the work bench, tossed my cap on it and ran my hands through my hair. "I really don't want to do that."

  "Why not?" I could tell Sharon was pretty upset. She walked around to where she could see my face where I was leaning on my hands on the bench. I almost laughed to see her swallowed in my jacket, arms crossed but sleeve ends flapping empty. "Are you trying to protect those . . . those animals?"

  I turned and looked out into the dark. There were reasons I'd lived alone for years. Some heavy memories. Some secrets with sharp edges. One came forward and filled my mind with a vision of another face. One with green eyes. One that wasn't human. One that I should have protected a long time ago, but had failed. I knew I should keep my silence, but tonight the walls in my mind were very thin. I was so tired of carrying secrets, even those that were just mine.

  It takes time to tear down walls, even thin ones. I don't know how long I stood there, staring blindly into the night, wrestling with myself. I had hidden myself for so long and so well that I wasn't sure I could demolish those barriers. And what was perhaps worse, I wasn't sure I wanted to. You live a certain way long enough, after a while it becomes the right way just because that's the way you do it.

  I won't say it was the hardest struggle of my life. I will say it's one I don't want to repeat. And it took a voice from the past to make the breakthrough. I was pretty much raised by my dad, after my mom died of cancer. Dad wasn't what most people would consider well educated, but he understood people very well. He told me two things, once; one of which I remembered and one of which I forgot until that night. The one I remembered was, "Son, there will always be people who don't like you. Make sure it's for the right reasons." The one I forgot was, "And if you don't want your life to be poisoned bitterness, you have to open up to people and take the chance that they might hurt you." Did I mention that Dad was pretty wise?

  Hearing Dad's voice in my mind was the decision point. I had been a recluse for the last nine plus years. Now it dawned on me that I was well on the way to becoming a hermit. A sudden resolve filled me to change that.

  I came b
ack from wherever I was wandering. Sharon was still there, wide-eyed, so maybe I hadn't been gone too long. "You want to know why I don't want to call the cops?"

  "Yes, please."

  I pointed to a stool near the stove. "Take a seat." She stared at me for a moment, then sat. "You're old enough to remember. What was the big news story ten years ago?"

  Sharon's eyes widened. "The Sha'Chá!"

  I could hear the capital letters in her voice. "Yeah, the Sha'Chá."

  "Did you have something to do with that?" She was excited.

  I wasn't. I held up a hand to hold her back. "Just listen, okay?" I guess I was more gruff than I thought I was, because she shrank back on the stool. "Sorry. I just . . . sorry. Just bear with me . . . this isn't easy, and I've got to tell it right." She gave a slow nod.