Circles in the Sand (21 page)

“Hey, I think you loco too!” Not off balance,
enraged
, El Gordo slid under Hooper’s arm and drew a knife from his boot. Hooper’s last sight was of his guts spilling out as he toppled backward into the Possum River.  

Meanwhile, Clint and Lance held themselves to one beer apiece at a small bar across from the appliance dealer.  Getting directions from the barmaid, they drove up the highway to a Chevrolet Dealer. In his sparse used car lot, the airmen inspected a couple of recent cars. “Jeez, Lance, these are damn close to new car prices.”

“You know it too.”

When they started to walk away, the salesman said, “If you’re looking for some older cars, in good condition. Try our lot over behind here.”

In the second lot, the airmen checked out several cars that didn’t appear to be total clunkers. All were pre-war models. After looking under the hood, kicking the tires and peering underneath three of the least decrepit autos, they test drove a 1938 Packard. “What do you think, Clint?”

“Probably best of the lot, but that’s not saying much.”                                        

As they came to a stop, the smiling salesman was at the side of the car before they could get out. Through the open window, “Great older car…best used one we got. Now that you’re ready to buy, we’ll gladly take your cash.”

“Hold on a bit there, Buddy,” Lance said. He and Clint got out. “The price on the window here is five hundred dollars. That’s not your best price is it?”

“Well, that’s a pretty neat truck with the camper, we can give you a good deal on a trade.”

“Not my truck. Sorry about that. Lets talk serious price.”

The salesman scratched his head. “I don’t have any leeway on a car that fine. You got a problem with that much money?”

“No…I got a problem with your price. You want as much for this wreck as they do for newer cars in the other lot.”

“Yeah, but they ain’t classics, like this Packard.”

“Oh come on now. It ain’t worth a quarter of what you’re asking.”

Smiling again because he thought Lance wanted to dicker, he said, “Now you know that ain’t true. A hundred and a quarter for this gem? You got to be joshing me.”

“Look buddy. I want to buy a car…and you want to sell one. Now I’ve got a reasonable amount of cash on the barrel head.” Lance pulled a leather case out of his back pocket and opened it to show the salesman a wad of bills. “I  don’t have to borrow the money, or get it financed. Right here is two hundred dollars for the Packard.” He waved the bills in front of the salesman.

“You make it pretty hard to bargain. You ain’t from around here are you?”

“No, we’re in the Air Force down in West Layover.” Lance kept the money in plain sight. “But what’s that got to do with cash?”

“Well, since you’re service men in the defense of our country, let me talk to the boss, and see if we got any slack on that prize.” He disappeared into a rickety looking shed. Shortly he returned, smiling  “You’re in luck. Boss is in a generous mood for service men. Two hundred fifty dollars and the Packard is yours.”

“Now you’re talking.” Lance peeled off the bills and handed them to him.

Before driving off, Lance said, “All that jawing has made me thirsty. How about we stop for another blend of hops? At that last place we were in?”

Clint had a beer with Lance. He soon felt like a wet blanket. Lance chatted up the barmaid, and forgot Clint was with him. When Rosy said she didn’t get off until ten, Clint decided he’d rather be chatting up Dorris. He slapped Lance on the shoulder and said, “See you in the morning, Buddy.”

“Oh? Yeah, sure. See you pal.”

Too late to eat at Gilman’s, Clint stopped for a steak in Glasgow. Watching out the window, he saw Fritz’s pick-up pass with Basil at the wheel.
Damn! Can’t I come up here without those assholes showing up? Probably saw my truck out here too. Well too bad if they did.
Clint leisurely finished his dinner. Outside he looked all around for his enemies. Nowhere in sight. He headed back to West Layover.

Lorena told him, “Mom’s at a church group meeting and probably won’t be back before nine.”

“Well…I guess I’ll walk up to Chet’s then.

“If you like my Mom, why don’t you ask her to go to church with you?”

“I know the two of you go every Sunday. You don’t need me tagging along.”

“You wouldn’t be tagging. We’d be happy for you to go with us.”

“Welll…I’d feel out of place. I might even embarrass you. I’m not a Lutheran.”

“That doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t embarrass us. I believe anybody can come to our church…even Catholics…even Mormons. I suppose even an atheist.”

“Huh? You’d let atheists in your church? I find that hard to believe. Have you ever seen an atheist…at your church?”

“Ohh, I was just saying that.”

“Y’know, I appreciate you wanting me to go, but I have to turn you down.”

“Oh, you just don’t want to go. Why not?”

“If I went into a Lutheran Church, my mother would spin in her grave”

“Oh poo. You’re just putting me on again.”

Later, Rosy would look up from Lance’s face, and say, “Oh, oh. Too late…Skunk time. You shoulda left earlier.”

In Chet’s bar, Kline, Alcocke and Jewel sat together at a table, and exchanged lies about their sexual prowess in the Boar Pen. Jewel boasted, “I’m such a favorite with the ladies that I expect to
have
Marie-Elena next time.”

“Bull shit,” Kline said. “Where you gonna get a hundred bucks…for a piece of ass?”

“I don’t expect I’ll need it. She’ll be begging for it so much, it’ll be free.”

The others laughed and threw pop corn at him. Chet said, “Hey Jewel, when Ftitz cuts off your nuts, you’ll be singing soprano.”

“Aw, I ain’t afraid of no loud mouth hick.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t worry about cutting. He’ll probably do with you like they do with steers. Fasten a super tight rubber band around the top of your balls. You’ll just get to watch them rot…and fall off.”

All three of the airmen groaned and reflexively felt of their crotches. Kline said, “Jeez, don’t that hurt too?”

“Oh sure. But a steer don’t know what’s gonna happen. A human being would.”

Kline said, “Yeah, Jewel, the agony of knowing what’s gonna happen is so bad, you’ll want to cut ‘em off yourself.”

“You guys go fuck yourself. Fritz ain’t gonna do anything to
me
.”

When Clint came in, he stopped by the Airmen’s table to say ‘hello’ and ask how they were doing. “Oh I know why you guys are in such a good mood. Now that you’ve been to the Boar Pen, the world looks happy again. Take it easy, I got to talk to Lieutenant Byers.”

The ex-flyer sat at the bar playing liars dice with Tommy Kerns. Clint sat on a barstool next to him, waved to Tommy and said, “Evening, Sir.”

“Hey, Sergeant Greybull, how they hanging tonight?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Good, cause I got bad news for you.”

“Oh? I guess we’re all going to Korea.”

“Nothing that political. S’afternoon, I took the tractor out on the south road to smooth it out some. It can handle a little of that, but not much. It doesn’t have enough guts to carve a path in the wilderness for very long. It’ll be shot in nothing flat.”

“Rats. I thought we finally could get something done here. I got an auger that’s supposed to work on it. Can it handle hole digging?”

“We can try it and see. But what we really need is a cat on tracks. One with some guts. A regular bull dozer.”

“Phew. I’ll get on the horn first thing Monday morning and see if Colonel Jenner can swing that.”

The bar maid said, “My name is Rosalind Barth, but you can call me Rosy, everyone does. I took my maiden name back when I dumped my ex, the no-good bastard.”

“Sorry to hear you’ve been treated bad. You don’t look old enough to be married and divorced.”

“Yeah, well, it was a stupid teen-age thing to do. Just happy I never got knocked-up.”

At first, Rosy had little time for Lance. He steadily worked on her whenever she came near him, asking about her, where she was from, she was too pretty to be working in a bar, (“Gets me bigger tips.”) and fed her tidbits of his travels in Germany. After he tipped her each time he ordered a Coors, she hung out at his end of the bar when she could. Not a large bar. Studying the crowd of from eight to twelve people beside himself, Clint thought most of them came in often. After sitting there for a couple of hours, Rosy leaned close to him and mumbled. “Look, I like you and you seem to like me, but I got to tell ya, my ex is still so jealous, few of the locals want to talk to me very long.”

“Well, by golly, I feel sorry for them, but to my benefit.”

“You might not think so if he comes in.”

“I can look after myself. Had a lot of combat training.”

“That’s fine. But he seldom comes alone. His boss or some other cowboy is usually with him. Probably won’t pick a fight if he’s by himself.”

“Well, I’m not going to worry about him. The way you talk, probably not many of the local guys try to date you.”

“Naw, Basil goes crazy if anyone pays me any attention. That’s why I warned you.”

“Don’t tell me, Basil Tree is your ex?”

“That’s right. Damn it. Know him?”

“Yeah. I’ve already exchanged words with him down in West Lay. If he’s nuts, I don’t believe his boss is much different.”

“I’ve heard that about Fritz too. But he carries a lot of weight around here.”

“Doing his damnedest to stop us building that bomb scoring site. Look, it’s getting close to your quitting time. Why don’t I give you a ride home?”

She looked at him and let out a long sigh. Seeing someone needing a beer, she didn’t answer Lance. When she came back to him she started to say something, but looked up and said, “Oh, oh. Too late. Skunk time You shoulda left earlier..”

Clint followed her eyes and saw Fritz and Basil enter.

Sitting around jawing and drinking beer got old for Alcocke. Looking around for something to do he said, “I wonder if anyone in this remote outpost plays chess?”

Clint turned from watching Byers and Kern. “You bring a set with you Alcocke?”

“Sure have, Sergeant Greybull. Do you play?”

“I’ve played at it some. Get your set. Chet won’t mind if we play here…s’long as we keep drinking beer.”

After Alcocke had the game set up, the other guys sat around to see what it was all about.

“Hey, Sergeant Greybull. Alcocke took one of your men off the board. Is he allowed to do that.” Kline asked.

“Oh yes. That was a legitimate move.”

Kline laughed. “I don’ know. If I was a master sergeant, I wouldn’ t let no PFC do that.”

“Just part of the game. See? I’m gonna get back one of his.”

After awhile the watchers got bored and moved back to their own table. They left Chet’s long before Clint and Alcocke finished a second game, which also ended somewhat indecisively. Looking at his watch, Clint said, “Time passes when you’re having fun. I didn’t know it was this late. Why don’t you put the set away? Maybe we can do it again some other time.”

Clint started to get up as Patton, Elsas and Priebe walked in. “Since you all made it back, the Military Police must not be after you.”

“Naw. We had a good time,” Patton said. Those Army guys and gals know how to have a ball…after work.”

Clint looked at Elsas and Priebe. “How about it you two. Any good-looking WACs over there.”

“Oh yeah,” Priebe said. “Got a date with a doll for next week.”

“He was lucky,” Tony Elsas said. “Competition was pretty rough. Maybe he got a chance because we were strangers.”

“Oh bull shit, Tony  She was just overcome by my studly body.”

“Now who’s bull-shitting,” Patton said.

“What’s the matter Elsas, your Hispanic charm not work on the Army ladies?” Clint said.

“Oh yeah. Worked great with the cutest little Mexican you ever saw. Worked great until that WAC first soldier, the one from their orderly room, came up and said I was sitting in her chair. At first I just looked at her. Then Serena laughs, touches my arm and says, ‘It is her chair.’ I went looking for another dark-haired girl after that.”

“Find one?” Clint asked.

“There’s a lot of good-looking dark-haired girls there. Too bad I spent so much time with Serena, because they were all connected by then. Them Army guys are not slow.”

Clint looked at Patton. “So what did you do all that time, Roger?”                                                 

 “Mainly held down our table…and kept an eye on these two. We were near the bar, and I heard a couple of young troops bitchin’ about competition from the Air Force. Kept an eye on them too, but they were more talkers than fighters.”

“Kline and Jewel were here and left. I suppose back to the hotel. The only ones missing are Lance and Hooper. Clint’s in Glasgow.” Clint spoke to Alcocke, “Seen anything of Hooper?”

“Yeah, earlier. We left before he did. Said he’d catch up with us at the Boar Pen. Never did see him though…and not since.”

“Probably at Gilman’s too.” Priebe said.

“Balls…We can’t go anywhere without running into the Air Force.” Fritz said.

“I’ll be God damned if that bastard ain’t makin’ up to my wife.”

“Basil, you idiot. I’m not your wife anymore.”

“Well you damn sure oughta be.” He strode close behind Lance, who wasn’t looking at him, and pushed his shoulder for attention. “Anyway, knock off pestering my woman, Fly Boy.”

“Hey Basil. Don’t you understand? Rosy is free, white, single, and …you can go piss up a rope.”

Lance had his eyes slanted at Basil. When he felt Basil move again, Lance jammed his elbow into Basil’s gut, and slid off his stool. Basil’s round house brushed by Lance’s head. No power in their strikes. Now close to the bar, Basil grabbed and broke Lance’s beer bottle. Lance whipped up a barstool. He slammed the legs into Basil. Knocked down, Basil lost the bottle. Lance jammed the barstool legs into Basil. Fritz pulled the latter up and away.

“Hey Fritz, you in this fight too?”

“No, no. You had a man down. I just let him get up.”

What’s this? Fair play from Fritz?

Basil overcame his rage. Calmed down enough to raise his fists, he darted toward Lance. Lance moved around, kept out of Basil’s reach. He feinted to grapple with the cowboy. Lance had his back to the door as a deputy came crashing through. Off  balance, and shoved toward Tree, Lance used his motion to head butt Basil.  Going down, Basil cut  across Lance’s face with brass knuckles.  The deputy pulled Lance up. Catching his balance, Lance caught Tree’s crotch with his heel. Tree bellowed “OHHHAHWAAUGH Bastard!” And turned over clutching his testicles. Seeing the deputy holding Lance upright, Tree croaked, “Hang on to that sonovabitch, till I can get at him.”