Circles in the Sand (15 page)

Clint lurched up from his chair, blocked Tree’s arm above the elbow, drove his fingers into Basil’s stomach. Tree sat down and barfed all over himself. Before he could do anything else, two husky cowboys grabbed him by the arms and threw him outside. Lying in the parking lot, Tree’s muddled thinking tumbled back and through his mind:
I’ll get that sonovabitch…get that sonovabitch…get even…got his rifle…pin for that negra.

Arriving after it was all over, and the floor mopped up, Dorris laughing said, “Goodness sakes Clint. I can’t leave you for a minute without you getting in trouble. I swear I won’t leave your side again.”

It was Clint’s turn to laugh. “Now you show up to save me. In the meantime, Donny, thanks for protecting her while I was gone.” Donny waved and walked away.

The dancing drawing to a close, Dorris stayed in Clint’s arms until the band finished with Good Night Ladies. After three gin and tonics, the music, and the dancing movement in Clint’s arms, Dorris was loose as a goose. By the last note Dorris and Clint had melted together as close as two people with clothes on could.

Disengaging, Clint led her to his truck and lifted her in. Clint felt sick.
I could have her now…if I’d put her in the camper…and it would be okay…for now. Oh my God, Oh my God.
A memory of Miriam in bed clouded his thoughts.
Do I owe Miriam anything? Hell, she cheated on her husband…Yeah with me. Screwing Dorris make me unfaithful to Miriam? Do I care? She’s gone…probably for good.
Reluctantly he closed the passenger side door. He snapped his finger through his trousers against the head of his erection.

He slid under the steering wheel and grabbed the gear shift. Only then did he dare look at her.  She slouched slanted back over the seat with her head supported at the back, and almost touching his shoulder, her legs apart. Her face turned toward him. She saw him through slanted eyes, a small smile on her lips. He started the truck. She gathered herself together and sat close to him.

Clint awoke to hear his door opening. Someone came in and cautiously approached his bed. Not seriously alarmed, Clint still prepared to jump up and attack the intruder. Before he could move, someone lifted his sheet, slipped in beside him. A soft warm feminine form snuggled up to him. He sucked in her fragrance. He wasn’t too surprised…he knew Dorris had the hots for him. Her head was tilted up for a kiss. Clint slid his right arm under her. His left cupped her buttock. He tightened his arms around her, pulled her beasts up tight to him, “Huh?” The slender woman in his bed could not be Dorris! For a few seconds Clint froze. Reluctantly…his will power overruled his erection. Gasping, Clint pushed her aside, sprang out of bed and turned on the light.

“Lorena” he croaked…”Are you crazy? Get out of here!” He wrenched open the door. “Get out…GET OUT! You want to see me in jail for the rest of my life?”

Lorena, in bra and panties, crying, got out of Clint’s bed just as Dorris appeared in the hallway. “What on earth is all the noise…” Lorena clumped out of Clint’s bedroom. “Lorena! What are you doing here? Oh my God!…” Clint’s erection was apparent inside his shorts. She wrapped Lorena in her arms. “Clint, what have you DONE TO MY DAUGHTER?… Oh, I’ll KILL YOU!”

Clint backed away from the two women. “Hey, hold on a minute, Dorris. I haven’t done a thing to Lorena. Ask her. I’d no more touch her than my own daughter. You tell your mother, Lorena.”
If she were my daughter, I’d sure tan her hide.

Lorena, in her mother’s arms, sobbed too hard to articulate words. She shook her head, mumbled, “Uh uh.” Dorris brought her down to her own room. Clint followed. Dorris said, “I believe you, Clint. Please leave us alone now. I’ll get this all straightened out.”

In Dorris’ room, she washed her daughter’s face and tried to calm her down.  “When you quit crying, you have to tell me what is going on.” Looking for any sign of blood, or semen, surreptitiously, she examined her daughter’s panties and thighs.
If she’s lost her virginity, it wasn’t tonight
.

“Lorena, I have to know what you were dong in Sergeant Greybull’s room. You didn’t have any reason to be there. What on earth were you thinking?”

Lorena played with the elastic on her panties. She held her head down away from her mother. “It was dark in his room. I didn’t say anything. I wanted him to think I was you.”

“What? Dear child, are you out of your mind? Why would you do that?”

Lorena held her head up. “He likes you. I know he does. But you went in opposite directions when you came in. If he thought he slept with you in the dark…then he’d feel he had to marry you.”

“Oh my God in heaven. Suppose he doesn’t want to marry me? Suppose he got you pregnant? Then what would you do?”

Lorena mumbled some more. Then struck with another thought she smiled. “If I had his baby, you’d raise it, wouldn’t you?”

“Huh?” For a moment Dorris was stunned. Sighing, she said, “You’d better start thinking straight. If you had pulled off this little stunt, do you have any idea what would happen to Sergeant Greybull?”

“He’d have to marry you?”

“From his jail cell in Fort Leavenworth? If he slept with a fourteen year old girl, that’s were he would be. You didn’t think about that, did you?

“Lorena, I love you deeply. You’re my daughter. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but you better calm down and start using your head.
My God. I nearly did what she did. I wanted too…and she beat me to it… Just as well I didn’t…wasn’t it?

Sunday morning, last night’s late participants avoided each other. The cook handled all the breakfast chores. With few people eating early, he had no problem. If the Gilman ladies ate any breakfast, it was in their rooms when the cook headed that way with a tray. They could walk to church leaving the hotel by the front door. Both Clint and Dorris wondered what they could say to each other when they finally met, as they must. She and Lorena hadn’t said much to each other either.

Dorris hoped going to church would clear her thinking. She was less tormented by Lorena and her adventure with Clint, than with her own feelings about Clint. She had such a good time with him, by the time they got to his truck, she was certain he was excited as she was. She wanted him to take her. She didn’t care about anything else then. Nothing else mattered. She just wanted him to fuck her. In daylight she was appalled at herself even thinking that word, much less wanting it.
But he didn’t do it. He probably couldn’t in the truck…in the parking lot.
She expected they would have got in the camper. But they didn’t, nor did they park somewhere along the way. The extent of their sexual encounter was a somewhat casual good night kiss at the door to her quarters.

Maybe he doesn’t like me as much as I thought he did. But I was his to take. I was sure he knew it. Why didn’t he? What held him back? Was there something about Clint I didn’t know? Did he have some kind of hang-up. Surely he isn’t queer. Did thoughts of a girlfriend in Grand Eclipse restrain him?
These thoughts tormented her throughout the night. In church she felt guilty about having such emotions and thoughts.

By passing up sex with Dorris, Clint’s thoughts troubled him too.
Damn, have I become such a puritan that I wouldn’t fuck her on our first date? Or was I afraid…afraid of it being a one-night stand…of insulting someone I really like…if she objected? I know she wanted it though. Maybe too, I was held back because it would drastically change our relationship here.  Also, maybe as close as we are here, that our having sex would have implied a commitment I’m not ready for. She may not be ready for it  either. Damn. Why couldn’t it be just screwing and nothing more?’

Fritz Deutsch and his mother attended church on most Sundays. Occasionally they brought Fritz’s thirteen year old son Herman to Sunday school. Small for his age, the boy was considered ‘simple.’ Her anguish over Herman’s condition, and Fritz’s purchase of Marie-Elena’s virginity, had been too much for Maybelle Deutsch. She decamped. Mother Deutsch became Herman’s defacto guardian. Her love of gin defeated her aim to be a good parent.

Because of Fritz’s church support, even though she didn’t particularly like him, Dorris always acted cordial to him. Today, when the service was over, he made a point of seeking her outside the church. “Dorris, it isn’t any of my business, but I hear that Sergeant Greybull is trying to get close to you. Those fly-boys have pretty bad reputations around women, so please be careful. You notice there’s none of them in church. What does that tell you?”

“Well, they work some strange hours, Mr. Deutsch, but I’ll keep your advice in mind.”
He’s a fine one to be giving advice about anything, the rat.

Fritz tipped his Stetson and walked away.

During the early afternoon, in their quarters, Lorena sat down with her mother. “Mom, I’m sure sorry about what I did Saturday night. That really was pretty stupid of me. I sure wish I hadn’t done it.”

Dorris felt sorry for Lorena, but she wouldn’t let her off the hook that easy. “Yes, to everything you just said. You can’t erase it. I just hope you learned something from it.”

“I know. I have to think before I act. Ohhh, I ‘m so sorry, Mom. Do you forgive me?”

“Yes, you know I do. Are you going to tell Sergeant Greybull that you’re sorry?”

Lorena broke down, and crying, looked for her mother to hug her. When she quit sobbing. “How can I tell him I’m sorry? I’m afraid to even look at him now. He must think I’m an awful bubble head.”

“Probably. But I believe he is such a good man, he won’t be mad with you…for long.”

“But what should I do?”

“Just act normal. I bet he’ll come around friendly with you. After he does, when you think you’ve got control of your emotions, then tell him you are sorry. He’ll probably be very kind.”

“Oh, I don’t know. How can I even look at him now? Will you tell him I’m sorry?”

“Oh no, darling girl. This is your problem to solve.”

Neither of the Gilmans appeared at lunch or supper. The cleaning lady handed all of the waiting and busing. At breakfast Monday the same crew worked the restaurant.

At work, Clint told the troops assembled in Q-1, “Now that we have a sprayer, lets see how it works. Alcocke and Kline can take turns operating the spay hose.”

“How come we get to do all the dirty work?” Kline said.

With a mild expression, Clint said, “There’ll be plenty of dirty work for everyone before we’re through at this place. But if I assigned the corporals to do it before you, you’d never make any effort to become corporals, would you? You’d figure what’s the use if I still get the dirty work first.”

Alcocke groaned. “That’s just a nice way of saying we’re on the bottom of the food chain.”

Clint and the other NCOs laughed. “Have it your way.”

Once everyone was out in the range and they found the stake, Clint said, “There’s your target. The rest of us need to stand back away. We don’t know how that thing works yet.”
I wonder if our mysterious Indian will show up again?

Up on the truck bed, Elsas started the Jeep engine. When it was running smooth he placed a bucket of diluted white wash under the sprayer intake. “Here Alcocke. Grab a hold of this nozzle and point it at the stake area…hey, wait a minute.” He hollered  back to Clint and the others watching from a short ways away. “He needs to have protective goggles, or glasses doing this job…and maybe gloves. Look in that box of parts and attachments.”

No gloves were available, but with Alcocke’s eyes  suitably protected, Elsas said, “We don’t know how much force this thing has, so hold on with both hands, Alcocke.” Tony Elsas turned on the pump. The hose in Alcocke’s hands bucked and kicked like it was alive. The nozzle wanted to head every which way but loose. Shortly, Alcocke and everything around him, except the stake was covered in white.  Abruptly the nozzle stopped spraying, and only dripped white wash. Elsas stopped the pump and shut down the engine. Alcocke threw the nozzle down. Clint and the others rushed up to help brush the wash off of him.

“There’s some bugs in this system,” Clint said.

Over Alcocke’s muted grumbling, they heard harsh laughter. They looked to the north. A near naked Indian wearing a coyote half-mask crouched on his ankles. He laughed uproariously. Clint started toward him. “Hey. I want to talk to you!”

The Indian stood, faced them with a grim visage, his arms across his chest and a tomahawk dangling from his left hand. When Clint ran closer, the Indian smiled broadly, and cut his right arm down to the side. Clint’s legs seemed mired in the sand. The Indian laughed again and turned to vanish down the rise. When Clint and a faster Kline got to the rise, he was out of sight.

Puzzled, Kline waved his hands in exasperation and said, “Where is he? He’s gone. Where the hell could he go?”

When the airmen had Alcocke cleaned off as best they could, they looked for the Indian’s tracks, or a path, but could find neither.

Kline sniffed at the others, “Now maybe you believe Ross and I saw him before.”

Elsas, a lapsed Catholic, crossed himself. Clint said, “Okay fellows, enough about Indians. There is an explanation for what just happened, we just don’t know what it is yet. Our real problem is making that sprayer work.”

Elsas jumped down and picked up the nozzle end of the hose. He examined its construction and pushed his fingers into massed white wash. He looked at Clint. “Not too good, Chief…nozzle is jammed with white wash…even this diluted stuff.” Disgustedly he threw the nozzle down.

Having shot most of the morning on the sprayer project, shortly the troops went to lunch. Lorena worked in the restaurant but her mother was nowhere is sight. Clint smiling ever so slightly, said, “Good morning, Lorena.”

Without looking him in the face she said, “Good Morning Sergeant Greybull.” Then she read off today’s menu and went back into the kitchen.

The observing airmen couldn’t let that pass. “Good Morning Sergeant Greybull?” Kline mocked. “That was cold, very cold. Makes me wonder what dastardly deed, a certain Sergeant must have done to her mother the other night.” He along with the other  airmen looked expectantly at Clint.