Disgraced (18 page)

Pal searched for the right word. “Dignified,” she said. “He'd say something like ‘Uncool,' and leave it at that. One against four. Not much he could do, right?”

At least he stood up for himself, Lola thought. But according to Patrick, Mike hadn't been the only one getting shit. She reminded Pal that Patrick had mentioned as much. “He said Mike told him they were on your case, too.”

That long shudder again, starting at Pal's shaven head. Her calves knocked against the chair legs. Lola rose and turned off the light and came back to the table. “Now you can't see me. So just act like I'm not here,” she said. “Were you sleeping with Mike or not?”

“God.” The word came out on a fast-checked sob. “No. Never.”

“But they thought you were.”

“Of course.” Generations, entire centuries, of bitterness in the words, the only assumption, ever, no matter the culture or country, between a man and a woman of different colors.

“What would they say?” Easier to start with the words. Please, God, Lola thought, let it have been limited to words.

“The usual.”

Lola had gotten her share of the usual, but imagined the color aspect made for a different sort of usual. “Such as?”

“You know. ‘Must be getting tired of that ol' greasy dark meat. Try some white meat.'”

“Classy.”

“Or, ‘He's had his turn. When's mine?'”

“As though they had a right to you.”

Pal talked right over her, on a roll now, a festering wound lanced, the purulence spilling out. “‘I hear them Indian boys got little dicks. How 'bout a real man? You won't walk right for days.' Tyson pulled it out once. Waited for me behind the latrine. Called me back, said he had something to show me. ‘Suck on this,' he said. Like I was one of those goddamned Porta-Potty hotties. Thank God somebody came along with a case of the runs.”

So it had crossed the line into action. Lola wished she'd poured a little more bourbon into her milk.

“Did you tell anybody?”

Pal's laugh was worse than anything she'd said. “I can read,” she said when she finally stopped.

Lola knew what she meant. The issue of sexual assault in the military was finally getting traction in the press. Unfortunately, most of the stories had to do with the disastrous consequences to the women who reported assaults. Pal, like Mike, had opted to suffer in silence. At least, thought Lola, she and Mike had each other. Until they didn't.

One last time, she posed the question.

“How did Mike die?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

There was not enough
sweetened warm milk in the world to ease Pal's next words. They should have been drinking gall, Lola thought. Hemlock. Something that would have vanquished forever the images that Pal's story seared into her brain.

The soldiers left the village late. The vehicle coughed to a halt. It was protocol to wait for the replacement vehicle. Nobody was to be out on foot after dark. Skiff radioed in, standing apart from the others. “I think he told them not to come. Or maybe he told them the meeting was running late and he'd call when we were done. Either way, there was no vehicle,” Pal said. “But he said one was coming and that we were to go meet it. So we set out. Leaving a vehicle that for all I know wasn't even broken.”

As Pal spoke, Lola could hear their heavy footsteps in the dust, the clinking of metal gear. Far in the distance, the rising keen of wolves. Overhead, the dizzying swath of stars. Maybe the stars distracted Pal. Maybe she was gazing upon them, marveling as Lola so often had, not realizing that T-squared had come up on either side of her until they seized her arms.

“Hey. Knock it off.” Wrenching herself free. A few blessed, sprinting steps. Hands grabbing at her clothing, her head, the damnable military bun coming loose, her rope of hair perfect for pulling her back into their grasp. Skiff looming before her. “Time for you to be a pal, Pal.” A quicksilver flash in the darkness. A knife, held to her throat. No one to hear her screams.

Mike, launching himself at Skiff from behind. Skiff turning. The knife.

“Holy fuck, man.” This from T-squared. One or the other. Maybe both. “What are we gonna do?”

Skiff, dropping the knife. “We'll deal with that later. Right now, we're gonna deal with this.” And so they did.

Rising at leisure. Stretching. Laughing. Leaving Pal in the dirt where they'd held her down, the cold stars wheeling spectacular and unfeeling overhead. “Hey.” Skiff held up his hand. “What's that?”

An unmusical bell. A pattering of hoofed footsteps. The sheep first, then the shepherd. Shots. Skiff slung his gun back over his shoulder and retrieved his knife from where it lay beside Mike. He wiped its handle on the shepherd's robe, then tossed it down beside the corpse. He took Mike's knife, identical to his own, and stuck it in the sheath on his belt. “Too bad. This guy grabbed Mike's own knife and killed him with it. What a shame. That settles that. Get her away from him.”

Pal had crawled to Mike. She lay across his body. Skiff raised his chin toward T-squared. They hauled her to her feet. Tommy waggled his tongue at her. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

She pulled away. This time, they let her go. But Skiff's whisper followed. “Karma's a bitch, huh?”

The milk in Lola's mug had gone cold. She moved her hands helplessly. She felt as though she should say something, but she didn't know what. Nothing, it turned out.

“That's not all,” said Pal. “When we got back—” She stopped.

“You told someone,” Lola guessed. It was one thing to keep your mouth shut about harassment, to hope it would go away, to know that even if it didn't, it would be brushed aside as whining. But this was different. Murder. Rape.

She couldn't see Pal in the dark room. But Pal's tone was thick with pity for Lola's cluelessness. “No. Oh, no. I did not tell.”

She'd moved zombielike through her first twenty-four hours back, deviating from her normal routines only to duck into a latrine with a pair of scissors, emerging with her hair hacked short, finishing the job later in the shower with a razor. It would be the last shower she took for weeks. Everybody took her behavior as shock over Mike's death. Even people who'd sneered openly at her presumed relationship with Mike showed her some deference. They mumbled their “Sorry's” and bestowed awkward shoulder pats and hugs. The hypocrisy of their verbal sympathy nauseated her. The physical contact was unbearable. There was the ceremony. Mike's boots and rifle, the helmet atop it. Taps. Skiff eased into the space next to her. “He was your family,” he said. Skiff, master of the obvious. “He and his grandfather were all you had after your parents died. Except for some folks up in Montana, am I right?”

Pal dug her fingernails into her palms until the skin broke, trying to stop trembling at his proximity.

“Shame if anything happened to old Delbert.”

She lost her battle with the shakes then. She whirled to face him. “You wouldn't.”

His smile was wide and easy. “Not unless I have to.”

Somehow she choked out the words. “You'll never have to.”

“This is bullshit!” Fur brushed Lola's legs. Bub must have been with Pal as she laid out her story. Now he rushed to Lola's side. “You can't let him get away with that.”

“I can. Or at least I could until you showed up, snooping around, stirring up trouble. What are you going to do when he shows up here? When did you contact the DOD? Does he know that you did?”

Lola stood and moved away from the barrage of questions. “Do you mind if I turn the light back on? Close your eyes.” The dark was fine for listening, but it left her muzzy-headed, uncertain of how to proceed. She squinted against the sudden glare of light. “I'm going to heat up some more milk.”

“Here.” Pal held out the bourbon bottle.

Lola shook her head. She needed to focus. She scrubbed the crust of old milk from the pan, poured in fresh, and sat the pan atop the flame, forcing herself not to stir in the honey while the milk was still cold, anxious for the comfort of warmth and sweetness. The flats of strawberries sat untouched on the counter. She selected a berry and bit into it, looking out the window over the sink. The darkness was less than complete. Dawn came early to the abbreviated nights of summer, first faint light at four-thirty, sunup well before six. They'd talked through the night. Lola wondered if she should put on coffee, or hold out hope of catching an hour or two of sleep before Margaret arose. She tried to retrieve her train of thought.

“I called the DOD last week. I only asked about Mike's death. Nothing else, because I didn't know about anything else. I followed up with an email, because they asked for one. I don't expect to hear back from them anytime soon, and when I do, I don't expect to get anything useful. So you've got nothing to worry about.”

Lola might not have been done drinking, but Pal had no such reticence, head canted back, bottle gurgling. “Ahhhh, God.” She coughed. “Doesn't matter. Skiff's connected. Sooner or later, he'll hear.”

“What do you mean? Does he have an uncle who's a general, or something like that?”

“He's one of those Osbornes.”

Damn Thirty and its incomprehensible genealogy. The milk burned Lola's tongue. She took a cooling breath and awaited an explanation. None came. It seemed never to occur to anyone in the area that outsiders might not be acquainted with every detail of their history. “The Osbornes?”

“Shirttail relative, anyhow.”

Lola was glad Margaret was asleep. If this went on much longer, her quarter fund would expand exponentially. “Who the hell are they?”

“One of the Osbornes was the doctor who did the autopsy on Big Nose George.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Just get to the point.”

Some life crept back into Pal's eyes. “George was a cattle rustler back in the day. They finally put him in jail, but he got lynched after an escape attempt.”

Lola couldn't see why a doctor who'd did an autopsy a century earlier had any meaningful bearing on Skiff's alleged ruthlessness, and said as much. “Sounds like Dr. Osborne was just doing his job.”

“Oh, he did his job, all right. Opened George up, looked around inside, and then skinned him out.”

Lola wished she hadn't been so quick to reject the bourbon. “Jesus,” she said again.

“But he wasn't done yet. Had the hide tanned, down in Denver. Made a pair of shoes out of it.”

“Please tell me he never wore them,” Lola said.

“Not only wore them. Sported them at his inauguration when he was elected governor.”

Lola wondered when the barbarism of humans would cease to horrify. Pal apparently had long ago come to accept it. “That's what we're dealing with here,” she said. “The spawn of a guy who wore man-hide shoes. When he comes after us, we'll be lucky if he just kills us and leaves it at that.”

For the first time since she'd met Pal, Lola finally agreed with something she'd said. “You've got guns,” Lola said. “This is a ranch. And you were in the Army. You have to have guns.” Then regretted her words. She needed Pal to think she was calm, controlled. Not panicked, grabbing at guns to man—or, in this case, woman—the ramparts. But Margaret was sleeping just down the hallway. She wanted a gun between Margaret and whatever danger might come her way.

Pal's answer made her question moot. “Nope.”

Lola's voice rose. So much for control. “How is that possible?”

“Delbert took them. Said he was worried I might use them against myself. Pissed me off. But you know how it is. You can't argue with an elder.”

Lola knew what she meant, but she thought she goddamn well might argue with an elder after all, starting first thing in the morning when Delbert showed up with his doughnuts. Well. Not argue. That was impermissible under any circumstances. But she could ask, ever so politely, that he return them. She'd promise to keep them out of Pal's hands. Unless Skiff showed up. Then she'd give Pal as many guns as she could handle. Her chest was tight. She gasped for breath.

“Hey.” Concern was a new emotion for Pal, as far as Lola could tell. “Are you all right? Put your head between your legs. Take deep breaths.”

Lola bent double. “I. Can't.” The band squeezed tighter around her lungs.

“Easy. Slower. On my count. Breathe in—one thousand one. Breathe out—one-thousand two. Like that. Better? Good. Here. Drink your milk.”

Lola pushed herself up and drank. She was glad she'd heard the bottle glugging above her, and so was braced for the whiskey bite. There was, she estimated, very little milk left in her nearly full mug. She drank deep. Then made a pronouncement.

“This is fucking ridiculous.”

Lola pushed the mug away. “Just look at us. A couple of crazy women. Drinking. Talking about guns. Scared out of our gourds.”

“With good reason, I'd say.”

“Crap.” Lola tried to project a bravado she did not wholly feel. At least, not yet. But she'd spent years chanting the “fake it till you make it” adage under her breath in tense situations. Time to resurrect her old coping skill. “We don't need guns,” she said.

Pal looked appropriately skeptical. “How's that?”

“For starters, it's just stupid. What are we going to do, tote them with us every minute of the day in case he shows up while I'm in the bathroom or something? Or you're out on one of your runs? I can't quite see you jogging down the road with a rifle bouncing around on your back.”

“You'd be surprised,” Pal said.

Lola spoke over her. “We've got something better than guns.”

“What's that?”

“My story. Hear me out.” Lola talked fast, trying to forestall Pal's objection. If she ran a story, put it out there in public what had happened, then Skiff couldn't come after any of them. “Not you. Not Delbert. Not me. And not—” She stopped, unable to voice the possibility that anything could happen to Margaret. “He won't dare. If anything happened to any of us, you'd be on the record as having said he'd threatened you. They'd know right away to go after him.”

Pal's lips pursed. “Lot of good that'll do me if I'm dead. And what's this ‘on the record' stuff?”

Lola had hoped Pal wouldn't pick up on that so fast. She wanted her to get used to the idea, buy into it, before she laid out the ground rules. “It would be best if you let me use your name. News organizations usually don't name rape victims without specific permission. So I don't absolutely have to use it. But it's a stronger story if you put your name to it. And you'll have to report the rape to the DOD. There's no way around that. Otherwise, it's just your word against his.”

Lola had seen storms breaking over Glacier, home of epic weather patterns, that held less menace than Pal's countenance. “And my word's not good enough?”

“For something of this magnitude? Where we name him? No. I'm sorry, but it's not. If you were both civilians, we'd want a police report. Something we could point to, show readers. An official account of what happened, right there in black and white, saying you're willing to stand up and say in public that this happened. Again, they black out victims' names. But something about that official document lends weight to everything.”

The storm broke, instantaneous, daunting.

“No. Fucking. Way. You know how the DOD treats women who've been … You've read the stories.”

Lola trod carefully. “People will want proof. As much proof as they can have without a trial. Something that shows you're not—”

Pal supplied the words. “Making shit up?”

“Well.”

“That's what you mean, isn't it? Do you think I'm making shit up?

Lola's words came even more slowly. “This is, what—the third version? Fourth?—I've heard of Mike's death. I'm going to have to lay out all of those other versions in the story. If people believe your story, it'll show how far those guys went to discredit you.”

Pal's mouth opened and closed without sound. Her eyes went blank. She stood and backed across the room, her movements robotic. Bub's hackles rose. Pal found words. “Do you believe me?”

Lola's gut insisted Pal was telling the truth. She tried to bring her brain to bear. Pal had lied about knowing Cody Dillon. What else had she lied about? She started to ask for an explanation, something to back up her gut. Which was always right. But what if it wasn't this time? She couldn't afford to be wrong on a story of this magnitude. But she'd waited too long to answer, leaving an opening big enough for Pal to drive a semi-trailer through.