A Dark Path

by Robert E. Dunn

  “I may have a well-earned gut,” Clare spoke up as if joking with an audience. “But the ladies like me.” Then, quietly, he asked the man, “Want to know my secret?”

  “Is it your big mouth?” More table slapping.

  Clare looked at me with a bright spark in his eye.

  “Don’t write that check,” I warned him.

  He turned back to the biker and said, “No. It’s because I’m not a dickless Nazi who smells like road kill washed in piss.”

  There are times in my life I hated all men for their predictability. There are times I had to love them for their foolishness too. I resolved to decide later which of those times this was. Someone was going to have to pay that bill and I wasn’t going to let Clare do it.

  There wasn’t any more table slapping. The biker stood silently.

  I rose from my stool and told him, “You need to get out of here.”

  “I don’t suffer no disrespect.” He answered me but kept his gaze on Clare. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that the whole building, the bar and the restaurant were silent.

  Clare sucked his teeth and it was somehow more insulting than any words could be.

  I said, “You’re going to have to suffer this.” I held up my open badge case and showed my star. “Sheriff’s department.”

  “You think a dyke cop means fuck to me?”

  The silence deepened and took on the color of blowing, dirt. It was the same dun shade of wasted earth that covered me as I lay brutalized and bleeding in Iraq. My vision tunneled. Looking at the biker was like staring through the wrong end of binoculars. He was framed in a black-edged circle of haze.

  I closed my badge wallet and tucked it away into my pocket. Into the soft black edges of my sight came the welcome throb of red.

  Clare saw something he didn’t like. It could have been in my face or my eyes or maybe it was my hand under my jacket, holding my pistol. He got in front of me and tried to hold me back. It might have worked. He might have reached me or pushed me. The might haves, stack up in times like that and make dunes over which the tide of inevitability wash.

  As he faced me, with hands on my shoulders, Clare took a hard blow to the back of his head. I saw, as clearly as I’ve ever seen anything, the arcing fist. On the fat, inked fingers were two silver rings. One had a swastika the other had a smirking, goat faced devil. The fallen angel slammed like a shooting star against Clare. It struck at the base of his skull. The impact was red, gouging meat and blood from an opening furrow. I saw also the turning up of Clare’s eyes and the instant slackening of his face.

  I saw everything, but I couldn’t catch him. Clare crumpled to the floor as though his bones had been magically taken away.

  I could feel the warm blood on my face. Then I sensed the hot flush of anger creep up under it. Without thinking I had somehow changed my choice of weapon. I pulled my hand from under my jacket and it carried my baton. Thumbing the button, it fell, dragged by gravity to its full extension.

  We’re trained not to use the baton above the waist. It is a weapon for subduing by judicious force. My badge was put away. This wasn’t about being a cop. I was a woman facing a much larger man without back-up. There were no rules.

  I whipped the baton forward then snapped my wrist. The weighted end hit the biker in the curled lips. His mouth gaped, showering blood and bits of broken teeth.

  The strike could have been a kiss for his reaction. He surged forward with flailing arms oblivious to the harm I’d done him.

  I ducked his hands and jammed the baton between his legs as I darted to the side. The leverage twisted his feet and dropped him, bloody face first to the floor. Before he finished grunting I was back on my feet.

  The biker got his hand under himself and started to push up. I raised my right foot and stomped down with my heel—into the muscle between his shoulder blade and spine. When the heel hit, I twisted it.

  He sounded like a steam-powered machine going to pieces, all fury and wind.

  After grinding my heel I lifted my foot again and dropped with my left knee. All my weight slammed into his ribs and something snapped.

  What breath he had left was caught in his frozen lung then it escaped in a whistling wail of pain.

  I thought it was over. It could have—it should have been over. But he reached into a pocket with his right hand and pulled out a tactical knife. He had enough life left in him to flick the four inch blade open. Not enough to avoid the impact of my baton. First I broke his hand and kicked the blade away. Then, just for good measure, I whipped the weighted nightstick down on the back of his thigh.

  The biker froze in a rictus of pain.

  The colors in my vision evaporated. I turned to Clare, and pressed a damp bar towel to his wound.

  “Call 911!” I shouted to anyone who might hear, hoping that it had already been done.

  Chapter 13

  The bar rag I had stuffed against the wound in Clare’s head was saturated with fresh blood and old beer. I retrieved a pair of clean towels and tucked them under him. He moaned and fluttered his eyes.

  “Don’t move,” I warned.

  As soon as I said it he twisted his head and winced.

  “I told you not to move.”

  “I’m a tell-me-twice kind of guy.”

  “Then I’m telling you three times—stay still and wait for the EMT’s.”

  Clare’s eyes widened as if he saw Satan himself beckoning. Even with both of my hands holding his shoulders he lurched up, shouting, “Don’t.”

  If he hadn’t moved it would have been the end. Clare’s motion shifted me just enough. When the big and bloody fist flashed down, it only grazed my ear and edge of my jaw.

  The biker, who I had foolishly neglected to cuff in my concern for Clare, was up. He didn’t seem to have as much fight in him though. When his blindside punch missed, he pushed me and ran for the exit.

  “Get him,” Clare grunted as he fell back.

  I was already on my way.

  Some doors are better left closed. I’d always thought of that expression as a metaphor for things better left unknown. The moment I realized opening a door could be a literal transition into a world you hoped to never see again, it was too late. I had chased my own nightmare and caught it in the parking lot.

  The biker who had started everything was standing alone. He wasn’t crouched for action or holding a weapon. In fact, he watched me with such a depth of disinterest, that I should have known he wasn’t alone.

  It was a lesson I learned fast when a hand grabbed me by the hair.

  It was like running out to the end of a steel cable that was tethered to a mountain. All of my speed and momentum disappeared. My feet left me behind, and kicked uselessly at empty air. I didn’t simply fall either. The powerful hand waited for the apex of my swing then jerked me downward.

  I hit the asphalt on my back. The air in my lungs burst from my mouth in a gasping bark of pain. As I struggled to recover the lost breath, my eyes washed out from under my bunched lids and slowly focused.

  Johnson Rath stood over me. “Time to get some things straight.” Then, still with one hand, he picked me up by the hair and punched straight into my left temple.

  * * * *

  “Your mama had a thing for boys on bikes.”

  My eyes were open, but still not focused. We were in a car. Moving. I wasn’t sure if there were any other passengers. I was in the front but didn’t have the strength or leverage to get my head up over the seat.

  It was night. Even so, when Johnson Rath turned from the road to look at me, his eyes were glowing ice.

  “Did you know that?”

  I wouldn’t have answered if I could.

  “She came sniffing around when she was married to that soldier boy. A woman like that is too bent for a straight arrow like him.”

  H
e reached over. The finger I had broken was still splinted. It was thicker and rougher than the rest of his wriggling digits. I thought at first he was trying to get a grip to pull me to him. That wasn’t it.

  He tore away at the front of my shirt. Two of the buttons popped and fell, dead sentries murdered at their posts.

  I grabbed at my shirt and drew the cloth closed. Johnson had already moved on. His squirming digits were under the waist of my skirt. My belt was gone. The linen was frail protection under his assault. The thin string that kept the material drawn up at my waist broke.

  His splinted finger, straight and seemingly lifeless was the worst part of his touch. It moved, cold like a dead fish, on my belly as the other digits scrabbled into my satin underwear.

  I bolted upright, thrusting my hands out in front of me. There was no plan in the effort. It was instinct and rage. Johnson Rath was unmoved. He shoved my hands down then jerked the back of his hand up into my face. The effect of the blow sent an electric charge of pain from my nose down my spine. What was already a muddy perception, became starry and swirled with sickening motion.

  I gathered every bit of will I had—and rose again.

  Without turning or looking, probably without thinking of me as anything but a nuisance, Johnson swung his arm to the side. It was as much a horse-kick as a punch. He hit me between the heart and my collar bone. Something inside my chest convulsed. I fell still.

  Johnson laughed. “Your mama didn’t fight as much as you did.”

  My mouth filled with coppery wetness. It took all I had to spit the blood out.

  Johnson laughed more, like my spit was some kind of great joke. He twisted the wheel and hit the brake at the same time. We swung suddenly off whatever road we were on and bounced hard. The car rattled. It staggered as if drunk. I realized it had to be the same old vehicle I’d seen Johnson take from Dando and my mother earlier.

  A stone rattled under the carriage as we skidded to a stop. The headlights illuminated a low roofed shack with a hand painted sign over the door. It read, The New American Covenant–The Word and The Sword. The lettering was flanked by a crudely illustrated cross on one side and sword on the other. The building itself was bleached bone-white, but white-power slogans in black and swastikas in red were painted all over it.

  From impact or despair I can’t say, but at that point I must have blacked out. My next memory is of opening my eyes and seeing myself. The image was faint and indistinct. It was definitely me. I had the same certainty as a dreamer viewing herself in third person as she drifts into slumber.

  It wasn’t a dream. It was a reflection. I was seeing myself in the windshield of the old car. My body was bent at the waist over the hood. What light there was came from the headlights I was lying between. My shirt was open. Hot metal burned my bare gut. I was grateful my bra was still in place.

  I wasn’t tied. My hands weren’t taped. In no way was I secured. That didn’t mean I could move. Volition was stripped from me. Fear can hold us as securely as any rope.

  Something moved over my distorted reflection. Johnson Rath was behind me. “You’re scarred as shit. Who cut hell out of you?”

  Memory, unwelcome but undeniable, settled into my vision. Two men with knives were in front of me along with the blowing dirt of Iraq. They had raped and cut me. They left me for dead beside a mud wall, and let the blowing dust slowly bury me.

  It’s strange to say how tempting it was to let go. I could have disappeared into that earlier terror—married the Satan who had wooed me for so long—and diminished the current violation. I would have survived. I would not have lived.

  Between then and now—between two times of terror and trauma—I think I understood the moments my mother spoke of. She felt herself bound to travel from instant to instant, in fear of the one mistake that had started it all. I felt like my life was one long moment. One in which I was trapped between the grave and the dying.

  I knew something perhaps she didn’t. Running from the pain gave it a deeper bite.

  I tried to rise. A hard arm dropped onto my back.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about. Was it my attempt to stand? Or was it something he was looking at? I wanted to know—but I didn’t. Then the arm was gone. Both of his hands clapped onto my hips. On the right, the splinted finger tapped at bare skin above my skirt. All the other fingers curled under the waist band. The linen material peeled back without resistance, then sagged over my hip. It caught on a bit of the old car’s loose chrome.

  He pulled. It ripped but didn’t give way.

  That was the moment I refused the darkness—and took my feet from the grave.

  I twisted with a scream.

  Johnson was bent over trying to get my skirt pushed down. His head was just above my hip. I led with my left elbow. I caught him with the sharpest point of bone. It struck just in front of his ear, exactly where the jaw pivots on the skull. A satisfying crunch was communicated up my arm.

  I didn’t stop there.

  Johnson staggered, still bent at the waist, clutching his jaw. I tore myself from the car then kicked, aiming for the same spot my elbow hit. I got pretty close. The big man howled in pain. When he released his face to reach for me, his jaw looked lower on the left side.

  After I had kicked, I’d resettled my feet in a wide stance ready to use them again. The most powerful muscles in a woman’s body are those in the thighs. It is always good to know your strengths.

  Johnson charged forward with both hands out, heedless of his defense. He was still underestimating me. It was impossible for a man like him to imagine being beaten by a woman. When his leading leg planted and straightened, I kicked again. That time I went straight in at the knee. It buckled and he fell, too shocked with pain to scream.

  I wasn’t going to underestimate him. Surging forward, I used my nails to gouge at his eyes. Then I ran.

  Johnson had driven off road into a clearing behind thick oaks and walnut trees. I avoided the path and dashed through the dark woods. As I went, I pulled at my torn clothing for coverage.

  * * * *

  I didn’t know about the search for me. I found out about it later—not that it would have mattered to me if I had known. I didn’t want to be found.

  When I was dragged back into my own life, it was by Billy Blevins. How many more times would he rescue me?

  I had lost the rest of that night, the entire next day, and that night. It was another early morning and the bartender, another friend of Billy’s, called him when I refused to leave at last call.

  Billy got me outside and to his car door. He made the mistake of telling me we were on the way to the hospital. By the time I calmed again, I was lying in the back seat of his cruiser and crying. Billy was driving, and I could see him holding a tissue to his bloody nose. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “We’re almost there. “You’re going to be all right.”

  I started to answer. I wanted to tell him again that I didn’t want to go to the hospital. But when I tried to rise in the seat, I realized I was cuffed.

  Billy had restrained me—and that knowledge flushed the words out of my mouth. I rode the rest of the way in silence.

  Every few moments Billy reassured me, “Everything will be all right.”

  After the fourth or fifth time I told him, “You said that to me before.”

  Billy didn’t answer.

  “Do you remember?”

  Still no answer.

  “It was a long time ago.”

  He wasn’t talking, but he was listening.

  “We were in Iraq. You were the medic in the squad that found me by the road. You did what you could to hold me together in the back of a Humvee. Do you remember that?” That time I didn’t expect an answer. “You had kind eyes. And you looked sad to have to do the things you did to help me. I rememb
er thinking that you had never seen a woman naked before.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “I can hear you lying.”

  His silence was that of an old, empty house—memory and time.

  Billy slowed the car then pushed the wheel over, aiming carefully. I could feel the change as we rolled, once again, from blacktop to dirt. I experienced an instant of panic and raging heart beat before I caught myself. I was with Billy.

  The tires crunched on rocks and packed dirt. They kicked grit up under the car—and it sounded like a hard, slow, rain.

  We went like that for a distance. I began to feel lulled. The road was familiar.

  Billy stopped and put the car in park. For a moment he seemed to be thinking through what he wanted to do. When he decided, he shut off the engine and got out.

  “Come on,” he said opening my door. He helped me to slide out.

  We were alone on a stretch of dirt road. The rutted tracks curved ahead of us into darkness.

  I knew where we were. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Where else should I take you?”

  To the left rose a shallow bluff. It was made up of sandstone laid down over ages. In another process of ages, it was being crumbled to dust by junipers and grapevine. To our right was a fallow field, beyond which was a thicket of overgrowth and a stream. Those were the realities. Everything here bent under the weight of things only I could see.

  In the middle of the thicket was the spot where a girl was murdered. The spot where the car was parked was where I drank myself to sickness more than once.

  “I don’t want to be here.”

  “Tell me one place that you want to be,” Billy said looking up at stars. He turned to face me. “I’ll take you there.”

  It was my turn not to answer.

  Billy turned back to the stars. “When I was a kid, my father always said there should be no goin’ without knowin’. It took me a long time to really get that.” That time when he looked back at me, he put a hand on my arm and urged me to turn away from him.