Soldiers - a short story

SOLDIERS

Jim and I crossed the state line at noon, black Kansas thunderclouds chasing up behind and miles of highway still ahead. Swirls of ocher powder daubed the once pale sky. Tumbleweeds rolled along the highway like steel balls in a giant pinball machine. A heavy wind whipped the car, scaring pheasant and jackrabbits lolling in the ditch.

Awakening from a fitful dream, I rolled up the windows of Jim’s old beater and pulled a bandanna over my face. Earlier that morning we’d left Omaha, stopping only once to relieve ourselves by the side of the road. Jim’s mood, like the weather, was foul. He hadn’t spoken in two hours. Refraining from disturbing his trance, I folded my arms, braced myself against the seat, and closed my eyes, trying to lock out the storm, Jim’s mood, and the piston drone knocking beneath the hood.

Three miles across the border, the storm caught us, turning dust into rivulets of mud on the car’s hood. Rain blistered the windshield leaving only flashes of visibility between labored swaths of slow-moving wiper blades. Then a billboard, barely visible through the downpour, alerted us to a truck stop up ahead. When we reached it, we found a weather-beaten filling station beside a roadside juke joint.

Jim parked the car in the gravel parking lot.

“Let’s stop. I’m tired of fighting this storm,” he said.

The storm hadn’t tired of fighting us. As we ran for the front door, it bombarded us with falling missiles, thunder shaking the walls as we entered. Removing our wet ponchos, we shook ourselves like two retrievers, and then blinked, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dimness. When they did, we saw five dismal patrons gazing back at us.

Moving shadows, cast by neon beer signs, danced across the four dingy walls. Through the pallor, a middle-aged bartender behind the counter polished a glass with a white rag. A beefy man played pool alone the faded rose tattoo on his hairy arm matching the exact hue of his sleeveless T-shirt. Before continuing his lonely game, he gave us a quick once-over. A couple, immersed in a whispered conversation, glanced up at us. An old man in a wheelchair, his rheumy eyes never blinking, watched as we approached the bar.

Jim slapped his palm against the counter, stared at the bartender, and said, “Two draws, and a tequila shooter.”

“You boys old enough to drink?”

When Jim glared without answering, I said, “We’re both twenty-one.”

Red hair and ruddy Irish complexion melded with Jim’s high Indian cheekbones, and even when he smiled he seemed angry. He wasn’t smiling. With a frown on his own craggy face, the bartender glared back at him until he finally noticed our short hair and clean shaves.

“Soldiers?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Artillery?”

“Infantry,” Jim said.

As the bartender smoothed greasy black hair and mustache with his fingers, muscles in his neck twitched.

“Guess if you’re old enough to fight, you’re old enough to drink.”

He laughed, and it quickly drew into a dry, hacking cough.

“Damn right we are,” I said.

As he watched us from the corner of his eye, the sullen bartender drew the beer. As he did, Jim started bullet holes in his back, even as I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow. When the bartender returned with two beers and a tequila shooter, Jim immediately killed the shot. When he slammed the glass against the bar, the resultant sharp sound echoed like the crack of a small caliber rifle through the room.

Finishing his beer in one long pull, he nodded at the two empty glasses and said, “Again.”

As he drew another beer from the tap, the bartender’s neck muscles twitched when he reached behind him for the tequila. Jim finished his second shot and glanced around the room like a stray cat in a strange barn.

“Easy,” I said, eyeing his empty glass. “Still got ourselves a long way to go yet.”

He smirked and asked, “In a hurry, Sport?”

Intent on the couple in the back of the room, he didn’t see me shake my head. The man, looking like a middle-aged farmer, was dressed in overalls and a baseball cap. The woman’s weather-beaten face pegged her as his wife. We watched the farmer slam his hand against the table, hard enough to rattle both of their beer mugs and glare as if he were about to strike her.

“If you had a lick of sense, woman, you’d know what a fool question that is.”

Apparently, she didn’t, and her unspoken reply filled the room with silent reverberations. As we watched the scene unfold, Jim’s shoulders tensed, and he stepped away from the bar. Grabbing his elbow, I held on.

“Not this time.”

Jim tried to stare me down. I stood my ground, shaking my head. Then, immersed in our trance, we both jumped when the bartender slapped his hand against the counter. When we wheeled around, he was leaning over the bar with an amused look on his whiskered face.

“Didn’t mean to scare you boys. Nother beer?”

“Sure,” I said.

He asked our names when he returned.

“I’m Paul, and this is Jim.”

“Proud to meet you. Name’s Ezekiel, but people around here just call me Zeke.”

I shook his hand; Jim didn’t bother. Instead, he asked, “What’s the story of the old man in the wheelchair?”

“Rivers is his name. We call him Old Man Rivers,” he said, chuckling at his little joke.

The old man in the wheelchair glared at us through the crumpled mass of wrinkles obliterating his withered face. Angry gaps pitted the man’s features, weathered and spongy as fallen white cake. A half-smoked cigarette rested between gray lips. Like tangles of red snakes on cold stones, broken capillaries veined his nose and eyes. With gnarled hands clawing the wheelchair and bony arms like the plastic limbs of a child’s discarded doll, he looked like warmed-over death.

“I’m buying,” Jim said. “Give him whatever he wants.”

After pouring a shot of bourbon, Zeke tilted the old man’s head and dribbled liquor into his mouth, causing his blotchy tongue to wriggle like an earthworm growing desperate on a sharp hook.

Jim smiled and said, “Make it two.”

As I was watching Zeke whiskey-nurse the old man, someone tapped my shoulder. Six inches from my nose the pool-shooter invaded my space, smiling insanely and blinking one discolored eye that looked to me like a spoiled eye yolk. I backed against the bar. When he spoke, his stale breath smelled like battery acid gone even more sour. Stumbling slowly over his words, he said, “I’m Doyle. Was a soldier once myself. Old Man River’s my Daddy.”

“Oh yeah?”

Doyle grinned and pumped his head like a long-handled water pump. “Nah, not really, though I like to call him that.”

Noticing Jim’s amused smile, I backed even further away from the counter. Doyle pivoted and followed me like a machine gun on a swivel turret. Lightning struck, shaking rafters and sucking air from the room like a giant accordion. Doyle grimaced and drifted back to the red glow emanating from the swaying fixture above the pool table. Raising an index finger, I signaled Zeke to bring more beer.

He grinned and said, “Doyle’s a little nuts. Myra takes care of him.

“Myra?”

“Lives with the Stewarts,” he said, pointing at the couple in the back. “Looks after Doyle, and he takes care of Old Man Rivers. Bring them in every morning. Comes and gets them every night.”

Zeke’s mention of Myra prefaced her appearance through the back door—a pretty girl with pale skin and colorless blonde hair. The thin and wispy fabric clung in blue waves to every subtle feature of her diminutive frame. And, like a low cloud wafting slowly in a gentle breeze, she approached the counter and squeezed in between Jim and me. Zeke placed a glass of white wine in front of her.

“You must be Myra,” Jim said, suddenly becoming verbose.

“Yes.”

“Rain’s a little heavy outside. We come in to drink beer and wait it out,” he said.

In a lilting, whimsical voice, she replied, “Come in and I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”

As Jim listened to her recite the line from the old Dylan tune, his neck inexplicably flushed the color crimson. As if reading my thoughts, Myra turned and studied me with pale, unnerving eyes.

“The storm’s dark and frightening.”

“Yes,” I said, suddenly at a loss for words.

“Have you met Zeke, Doyle, and Old Man Rivers?”

“Yes,” I said again.

Dismissing me with a coy nod, she daintily picked up her glass of wine and went to the old man, stroking his neck with cashmere fingers. As Jim had done, River’s ruddy skin flushed. Static electricity, brushed up by her fingers, raised thin hairs on his head as a booming clap of thunder rocked the roof and the wind whistled through the loosely fitted windows. Again, rain blistered the outside walls and darkness began draping the windows with muted gloom.

“Myra,” the farmer called. “Come answer Mary for me. Tell her what a fool question she’s asking.”

Moving fluidly away from the bar, Myra glided to their table and listened as the woman cupped her hands and whispered something into her ear. After answering, Myra turned away, leaving the woman to rest her head on the table and weep.

When Myra returned, Jim asked, “What’d she want?”

“Her daughter, Emily, is gone. A car accident separated them. Mary asked if I knew when Emily would join them again.

“Did they take her to a hospital out of town or something?”

“She’s where she’s always been,” Myra answered.

“Then. . .”

Before I could finish the question lingering in my brain, Myra placed a finger on my lips and shook her head. “You don’t need to understand,” she said. “The storm’s not over yet.”

Excited by Myra’s perfume, Jim gently touched her cheek. She didn’t move away.

“I wouldn’t mind getting to know you a little better,” he said.

“Forever?” she asked.

Letting his hand drop, he caressed the length of her willowy arm and said, “For as long as you want.”

“Don’t talk to her like that!” an angry voice said.

Behind Jim was Doyle, his teeth clenched in an irritated scowl. He quickly wrapped a hairy arm around Jim’s neck and yanked it. Jim slammed an angry fist at Doyle’s jaw, then tossed the surprised attacker over the counter and dived over after him.

A weighted club appeared in Zeke’s hand. With a practiced swing, he tapped Jim lightly on the neck, just below the base of his skull. He sank to the floor.

“Ain’t hurt too bad,” Zeke said, glancing up at me. “Be just fine when he wakes up.”

After helping drag Jim’s inert body to a chair, I rejoined Myra at the bar. She was staring at the ceiling as she sipped her wine. She seemed disinterested in the whole affair.

Glancing at my empty beer, and then at Zeke, I said, “Better have another.”

“Sure you can handle your liquor?”

“Jim didn’t start it,” I said, frowning at Doyle.

Doyle was still on the floor, grinning like an idiot as he rotated his swollen jaw with his hand.

“Maybe not,” Zeke said as he drew another beer.

Myra said, “Where have you been, Paul?”

“Afghanistan. We just got back and finished our leave.”

“Saw lots of action, did you?”

“Yes.”

“Kill many of the enemy?”

Her question, asked with a curious smile, took me by surprise. “Maybe a few,” I answered.

“And Jim?”

“I’m sure he killed his share,” I said. “What’s the name of this town?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Seems a bit familiar, but no I don’t.”

Zeke chuckled and said, “You’re in Inferno. Inferno, Oklahoma. Hotter’n hell in the summer.”

“Could you love a girl like me?” Myra asked, interrupting Zeke’s vivid description.

“Guess maybe I could,” I said.

“You love someone else?”

“Life,” I said. “With the war and all it’s about the only thing I’ve thought about along those lines.”

“Life is a fickle virgin,” she said, her pale blue eyes suddenly glowing like cold pearls.

“And you?” I asked. “What do you love?”

Myra licked her lips and glanced at Jim. He was conscious, though still moaning as he massaged his neck. Without answering my question, she turned to leave but stopped as if having second thoughts. I rubbed the icy remnant her touch imparted when she squeezed my hand, and then I watched her walk through the door. Holding it open, she stood looking at me.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

“Come with me and I’ll show you.”

“Can’t,” I said. “Have to get back to the post.”

She extended her delicate hand toward me, waiting for me to grasp it. “I promise you won’t be sorry.”

I started to follow but remembered Jim, still lying on the floor. Another clap of thunder sounded, closer this time, shattering the trance and causing me to blink. When I opened my eyes, Myra was gone. Quickly, I downed my beer and tossed some money on the bar.

“Still mighty nasty out there,” Zeke said. “Better have another beer.”

“Not today.”

Bracing Jim beneath my shoulder, I started for the front door. Curiosity stopped me beside the couple’s table. I stared at the weather-beaten woman until she glanced up at me.

“Sorry about your daughter. How old was she when she died?”

A single tear trickled down the woman’s face, and she said, “Emily’s not dead.”

“But what about the car accident?”

The woman’s lingering eyes held me locked in place. “Emily wasn’t in the accident. Just Ralph and me.”

Breaking her cold stare, I pulled Jim out the front door. He staggered alone to the car, revived somewhat by the rain. Taking the keys from his shirt pocket, he tossed them to me and slumped into the passenger seat. I gunned the engine and hurried away before the wipers could clear the ruthless onslaught of rain. A mile down a deserted highway, I glanced into the rearview mirror and searched in vain for the two buildings. They were gone.

Far away, behind reality and disappearing foothills, lightning and thunder flared and crashed like distant firefights. Further still, when the rain finally ceased, filtered light mingled with road dust blown up by our racing tires. As I stepped on the gas and stared into the rearview mirror, swirling ocher powder looked almost like a delicate hand, beckoning me to return.

Maybe tomorrow, but not today.

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• Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He authored the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans, the Paranormal Cowboy Series, and the Oyster Bay Mystery Series. Please check it out on his Amazon author page. You might also like checking out his Facebook page.