Steven Hunley
07-31-2012, 12:09 PM
Welcome again to the end piece of Undercover of Darkness the Adventures of Sin Cargo, the world’s most unpublishable book. Dude has had his South American adventure and returned. While there he sent seeds of a miraculous plant to his girlfriend in an envelope to help cure her son, a hemophiliac teen. He returns in tact, but gets busted soon after. Time in stir and her sister’s jealous machinations have caused Dude to lose touch with Cathy and her son. However, at the close of his sentence he’s assigned to fight a fire up north, in the same state Cathy lives. Will they meet? She’s praying for a miracle, since her son has injured himself in a skating accident, and the prognosis is grave.
Under Cover of Darkness the Adventures of Sin Cargo
by
Steven Hunley
The ranger strode into the barracks with purpose only three days before Dude was to be released and announced,
"We got a big one and it's out of town. Pack up for a few days."
There was more excitement than ever. They packed their gear and civilian clothes. When it headed out the bus turned west and then north to interstate Five. The ranger turned around in his seat and announced where they were going.
"It's on federal land," said the ranger, "so you’ll get federal minimum wage."
"That's great," said a criminal, looking up from a comic book, "where at?"
"Washington."
Everyone that heard took a breath. The trees could be high in Washington and they knew it. Some played nonchalant.
"It'll be a long drive," another said, lounging back in his seat. He pushed his cap down over his eyes.
"I'm taking a nap."
It took over a day of continual driving to get there. By the time they arrived the fire was nearly out. They were only cutting line for two days when the weather gave them a break. A tropical storm came up from the south and did most of the fire suppression work for them.
After that they just sat on the fire. They would climb up on a hill in the middle of the burn and just sit and watch for stumps and bowls of brush to start smoking when the wind picked up. If they saw smoke they smothered it. Everywhere in all directions there were no colors but grey and black, the brown of the earth and the white of granite rock. No green was in sight. The hillsides were devastated and devoid of life. The men had little to do so they'd talk.
"Tomorrow is my release date," said Dude.
"So what 'cha gonna do?"
"I'll wait till they take us home and then party I guess."
"That might be days. By law they can't keep 'ya you know."
"By law?"
"Your release date is your release date; they got to let you go."
"But we're up here. I gotta go back with my homies."
"Not if you don't wanna. Not if you're a free man. A free man doesn’t work for free."
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I’ve worked with you on the line for over two months Dude, and I can tell you one thing. You never let them get you down. I’ve never seen you go for the Okey-doke.”
Dude looked over the hills burnt crisp. A whirl-wind was swirling the ashes sky-high. A bee, drawn to the one speck of color, Dude’s yellow no-max fame retardant suit, buzzed near and then flew off to greener pastures.
“Don’t start now. It’s not like you. A guy like you… they’ll never turn your soul into a cell.”
Sometimes… just sometimes…when someone says somethin to ya, it makes you feel good.
Dude thought about it. Technically he was right. If he was free to go he was free to go. When they walked down to the camp they agreed they’d release him from a local sheriff’s office in the nearest city. He lied and told them he had family nearby. The next day they woke him up early and fed him his last pancakes and eggs. Then the county correctional officer put him in the back seat of a van and the early hours were spent winding their way down from the mountains in a truck. They passed from the burnt areas to the green quickly and the views grew spectacular.
The town was a small town with an Indian name Dude could hardly pronounce much less remember. There were a few tall buildings, a sheriff, a hardware store and all the mom and pop stores small towns have. When they got to the sheriff’s and released him, the ranger took out his wallet. Pushing his Smokey the Bear hat up in front, he gazed at Dude with a serious look on his mug.
"I'll subtract this from your gate money when we get back. Say, you sure you know this place?"
"My aunt lives quite near, over that way," Dude said pointing.
"You said in camp it was your uncle."
"Him too.” Dude fidgeted in his civilian clothes, they were close-fitting, and he’d gained plenty of weight in camp. “They're married. You know how aunts and uncles are...they're...you know…married."
The ranger’s eyes narrowed.
"That's quite a coincidence, the fire being so near and all."
"Yes, isn't it? I can't believe my luck."
"I can't either,” he shrugged. “Well, the law's the law. I can't stop you."
The ranger smiled and shook his head, then handed him a twenty, laughed and drove away. Dude wandered aimlessly all day, savoring the small town, a stranger in a strange land.
“Freedom is a marvelous thing. Just look at that.”
He was watching children play at a park in a sandbox. Then he saw a man flipping a sign like a juggler. As the afternoon turned to dusk, clouds began to roll in, reminding him where he was. He didn't know.
"I'll go to the library and look at a map.”
It was closed.
If he was going to hitch-hike back or grab a freight, which sounded pretty romantic and appealed to our Dudeman, he wanted to know the layout of the land and needed a view. He felt like climbing a tree, but a tree would hardly give him what he needed. A tall building would be better. From there he might see where he was and orient himself. The obvious choice was a tall building nearby which turned out to be a hospital. He took the elevator up as far as it would go, but it stopped short of the last two floors. They were restricted.
"Nothing's gonna restrict my newly freed butt.”
Opening the door to the stairway he started to climb the last few steps.
Dude trudged up the stairs to the top, hoping to get a view. On the last flight he heard someone crying.
“It’s some woman in tears.”
But he thought wrong. It wasn’t some woman in tears. It was his woman in tears.
Cathy heard footsteps and muffled her sobs but remained where she sat as the footsteps drew nearer and nearer. It was hollow, weary footsteps she noticed and little she saw, the stairs were not well lit, until a man’s figure appeared turning the corner.
He hesitated, blinked, and said,
“Cathy!”
They embraced. He didn’t have to ask her why she was there, he already knew. Every minuted counted. Every minute always counts.
“Where’s Alex?”
Cathy took him in the room where Alex was lying.
“They say there’s little they can do, it’s internal this time. If they operate to try a repair, well, you know …more blood.”
She collapsed in a chair and put her head in her hands.
He looked at her, then the boy, then out the window at the gathering storm. The frame of the window had a pot sitting near it, a pot with a familiar plant.
“Cathy, this is it, isn’t it? The one I sent you.”
“It was from you? He’s been growing it for months. He takes it with him everywhere. Silly isn’t it?”
“Maybe not so silly. Get me some hot water, the hottest you can find.”
Cathy left. Dude looked at Alex. The color had drained from his cheeks and he could hardly speak.
“So you kept the seeds and planted them, huh Kiddo?”
“That’s what you said to do,” he answered weakly.
“Good for you.”
When Cathy returned he poured the water into a cup and started pulling leaves off the plant. He hummed a song with unrecognizable words. They weren’t Spanish or English or any she’d ever heard. They were Chiquitano, the language of the people of the real world. They were the words of Hugo’s friends in the forest who’d rescued his butt from the D.E.A, and the words of the old man and his granddaughter who gave him a lesson in ethnobiology he’d never forget.
He’d pluck a leaf, then look out the window at the darkening clouds, then pluck another. Small as the plant was, they were gone within a minute. He placed them in the water to steep.
He added no sugar, or cream, or artificial sweetener. Alex choked saying,
“It’s bitter as hell.”
“Good. That’s how alkaloids are, bitter. Alkaloids ain’t no joke.”
The boy grew silent and drifted slowly into a deep sleep. With each passing second he became more centered.
“There’s nothing to do but wait. Come back outside,” he told Cathy, “we need to catch up.”
The quiet empty hallway became the Hallway of Midnight Confessions. Each one played sinner and then each granted clemency and told the other they were forgiven. Everything that had happened to them was covered in detail; nothing was left out by either side. After that they sat there numb. Finally Cathy spoke.
“Thomas Wolfe says you can never go home again. Do you think it’s true?”
“I dunno… maybe.”
“Between us… I mean, between you and I, do you think it could ever be like it was…” her words began to stumble, “that day on the dock in San Diego? Sometimes, when I'm alone... thinking... I go back there. Do you ever do that?”
Of course he remembered it. Men always remember a first kiss.
“For me that would be impossible,” he said looking away.
“Impossible?”
Her eyes searched desperately for his expression.
He looked up, took her hand, and with his gunmetal eyes, slapped her for the last time.
“It’s impossible for me to go back to a place I've never left.”
She didn’t say a word, only her eyes responded. She took his hand and they climbed up the stairs to the roof together. Some alone is what they needed.
The scene below was lost in darkness, but when the lightning flashed and thundered like a cannon, it lit up the sky and reflected the winding-silver surface of the river below. Then it started to mist, an incredibly warm mist for that time of year. This last storm had come from the south and was tropical down to its weathered bones.
As the mist soaked into the cotton, her dress revealed the soft curves of her breasts. Pure drops of fine rain were next to fall. Alexis’ blood stained the cotton scarlet. But the rain proved too much for it and began to dilute the stain making it fainter each minute. She put her hands on his shoulders and drew him closer just as he was wiping her bangs away from her eyes.
The rain started in earnest then, but was so warm it really didn’t matter to them. Dude was finding it hard to let go of Cathy. Cathy was finding it hard to give him the chance.
Passion began to take over. The lightning flashed again turning the raindrops to amethyst crystals that ran down her arms in purple sparkling rivulets. It soaked her as if she were immersed. Warm saturated cotton revealed the form of the woman to the man. Senses heightened. She became so beautiful he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore and closed his eyes. An embrace and then a sigh. Seas kissed seas begetting oceans. When their storm of procreation was over, they lay exhausted and panted with sanctified breath.
Down in the room Alex’s swelling started to go down, and with it his pain, flowing out like the tide from the pull of the moon round the picturesque abbey of Mount St .Michael. The boy felt more than better, he felt downright poetic.
At dawn when the sun parted the clouds, Alexis’ fever had gone completely, never to return. Neither did the bruising or bleeding nor blood. Imagine, if you can imagine, how they felt about that.
Later that day Cathy called for a cab to take them home. They were out of normal cabs and only had a luxury car available. Things like this seemed to happen to Cathy whenever Dude was around.
They left the hospital together in a large, safe, sure-footed Jaguar sedan. The only person that thought this was odd was Dude, who knew he remembered something about Jaguars but couldn’t remember what. You know how it is with Dude. Always the last to know.
They pointed the Jaguar homeward but as the road wound around and they grew smaller and smaller in the distance, I was never quite sure if they made it home. But as pointed out earlier, the jaguar is the largest and strongest of new-world cats, and always finds his way.
Not being an expert on big cats I don't know if it's true. I leave that, dear reader, entirely up to you.
©Steven Hunley 2010
Under Cover of Darkness the Adventures of Sin Cargo
by
Steven Hunley
The ranger strode into the barracks with purpose only three days before Dude was to be released and announced,
"We got a big one and it's out of town. Pack up for a few days."
There was more excitement than ever. They packed their gear and civilian clothes. When it headed out the bus turned west and then north to interstate Five. The ranger turned around in his seat and announced where they were going.
"It's on federal land," said the ranger, "so you’ll get federal minimum wage."
"That's great," said a criminal, looking up from a comic book, "where at?"
"Washington."
Everyone that heard took a breath. The trees could be high in Washington and they knew it. Some played nonchalant.
"It'll be a long drive," another said, lounging back in his seat. He pushed his cap down over his eyes.
"I'm taking a nap."
It took over a day of continual driving to get there. By the time they arrived the fire was nearly out. They were only cutting line for two days when the weather gave them a break. A tropical storm came up from the south and did most of the fire suppression work for them.
After that they just sat on the fire. They would climb up on a hill in the middle of the burn and just sit and watch for stumps and bowls of brush to start smoking when the wind picked up. If they saw smoke they smothered it. Everywhere in all directions there were no colors but grey and black, the brown of the earth and the white of granite rock. No green was in sight. The hillsides were devastated and devoid of life. The men had little to do so they'd talk.
"Tomorrow is my release date," said Dude.
"So what 'cha gonna do?"
"I'll wait till they take us home and then party I guess."
"That might be days. By law they can't keep 'ya you know."
"By law?"
"Your release date is your release date; they got to let you go."
"But we're up here. I gotta go back with my homies."
"Not if you don't wanna. Not if you're a free man. A free man doesn’t work for free."
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I’ve worked with you on the line for over two months Dude, and I can tell you one thing. You never let them get you down. I’ve never seen you go for the Okey-doke.”
Dude looked over the hills burnt crisp. A whirl-wind was swirling the ashes sky-high. A bee, drawn to the one speck of color, Dude’s yellow no-max fame retardant suit, buzzed near and then flew off to greener pastures.
“Don’t start now. It’s not like you. A guy like you… they’ll never turn your soul into a cell.”
Sometimes… just sometimes…when someone says somethin to ya, it makes you feel good.
Dude thought about it. Technically he was right. If he was free to go he was free to go. When they walked down to the camp they agreed they’d release him from a local sheriff’s office in the nearest city. He lied and told them he had family nearby. The next day they woke him up early and fed him his last pancakes and eggs. Then the county correctional officer put him in the back seat of a van and the early hours were spent winding their way down from the mountains in a truck. They passed from the burnt areas to the green quickly and the views grew spectacular.
The town was a small town with an Indian name Dude could hardly pronounce much less remember. There were a few tall buildings, a sheriff, a hardware store and all the mom and pop stores small towns have. When they got to the sheriff’s and released him, the ranger took out his wallet. Pushing his Smokey the Bear hat up in front, he gazed at Dude with a serious look on his mug.
"I'll subtract this from your gate money when we get back. Say, you sure you know this place?"
"My aunt lives quite near, over that way," Dude said pointing.
"You said in camp it was your uncle."
"Him too.” Dude fidgeted in his civilian clothes, they were close-fitting, and he’d gained plenty of weight in camp. “They're married. You know how aunts and uncles are...they're...you know…married."
The ranger’s eyes narrowed.
"That's quite a coincidence, the fire being so near and all."
"Yes, isn't it? I can't believe my luck."
"I can't either,” he shrugged. “Well, the law's the law. I can't stop you."
The ranger smiled and shook his head, then handed him a twenty, laughed and drove away. Dude wandered aimlessly all day, savoring the small town, a stranger in a strange land.
“Freedom is a marvelous thing. Just look at that.”
He was watching children play at a park in a sandbox. Then he saw a man flipping a sign like a juggler. As the afternoon turned to dusk, clouds began to roll in, reminding him where he was. He didn't know.
"I'll go to the library and look at a map.”
It was closed.
If he was going to hitch-hike back or grab a freight, which sounded pretty romantic and appealed to our Dudeman, he wanted to know the layout of the land and needed a view. He felt like climbing a tree, but a tree would hardly give him what he needed. A tall building would be better. From there he might see where he was and orient himself. The obvious choice was a tall building nearby which turned out to be a hospital. He took the elevator up as far as it would go, but it stopped short of the last two floors. They were restricted.
"Nothing's gonna restrict my newly freed butt.”
Opening the door to the stairway he started to climb the last few steps.
Dude trudged up the stairs to the top, hoping to get a view. On the last flight he heard someone crying.
“It’s some woman in tears.”
But he thought wrong. It wasn’t some woman in tears. It was his woman in tears.
Cathy heard footsteps and muffled her sobs but remained where she sat as the footsteps drew nearer and nearer. It was hollow, weary footsteps she noticed and little she saw, the stairs were not well lit, until a man’s figure appeared turning the corner.
He hesitated, blinked, and said,
“Cathy!”
They embraced. He didn’t have to ask her why she was there, he already knew. Every minuted counted. Every minute always counts.
“Where’s Alex?”
Cathy took him in the room where Alex was lying.
“They say there’s little they can do, it’s internal this time. If they operate to try a repair, well, you know …more blood.”
She collapsed in a chair and put her head in her hands.
He looked at her, then the boy, then out the window at the gathering storm. The frame of the window had a pot sitting near it, a pot with a familiar plant.
“Cathy, this is it, isn’t it? The one I sent you.”
“It was from you? He’s been growing it for months. He takes it with him everywhere. Silly isn’t it?”
“Maybe not so silly. Get me some hot water, the hottest you can find.”
Cathy left. Dude looked at Alex. The color had drained from his cheeks and he could hardly speak.
“So you kept the seeds and planted them, huh Kiddo?”
“That’s what you said to do,” he answered weakly.
“Good for you.”
When Cathy returned he poured the water into a cup and started pulling leaves off the plant. He hummed a song with unrecognizable words. They weren’t Spanish or English or any she’d ever heard. They were Chiquitano, the language of the people of the real world. They were the words of Hugo’s friends in the forest who’d rescued his butt from the D.E.A, and the words of the old man and his granddaughter who gave him a lesson in ethnobiology he’d never forget.
He’d pluck a leaf, then look out the window at the darkening clouds, then pluck another. Small as the plant was, they were gone within a minute. He placed them in the water to steep.
He added no sugar, or cream, or artificial sweetener. Alex choked saying,
“It’s bitter as hell.”
“Good. That’s how alkaloids are, bitter. Alkaloids ain’t no joke.”
The boy grew silent and drifted slowly into a deep sleep. With each passing second he became more centered.
“There’s nothing to do but wait. Come back outside,” he told Cathy, “we need to catch up.”
The quiet empty hallway became the Hallway of Midnight Confessions. Each one played sinner and then each granted clemency and told the other they were forgiven. Everything that had happened to them was covered in detail; nothing was left out by either side. After that they sat there numb. Finally Cathy spoke.
“Thomas Wolfe says you can never go home again. Do you think it’s true?”
“I dunno… maybe.”
“Between us… I mean, between you and I, do you think it could ever be like it was…” her words began to stumble, “that day on the dock in San Diego? Sometimes, when I'm alone... thinking... I go back there. Do you ever do that?”
Of course he remembered it. Men always remember a first kiss.
“For me that would be impossible,” he said looking away.
“Impossible?”
Her eyes searched desperately for his expression.
He looked up, took her hand, and with his gunmetal eyes, slapped her for the last time.
“It’s impossible for me to go back to a place I've never left.”
She didn’t say a word, only her eyes responded. She took his hand and they climbed up the stairs to the roof together. Some alone is what they needed.
The scene below was lost in darkness, but when the lightning flashed and thundered like a cannon, it lit up the sky and reflected the winding-silver surface of the river below. Then it started to mist, an incredibly warm mist for that time of year. This last storm had come from the south and was tropical down to its weathered bones.
As the mist soaked into the cotton, her dress revealed the soft curves of her breasts. Pure drops of fine rain were next to fall. Alexis’ blood stained the cotton scarlet. But the rain proved too much for it and began to dilute the stain making it fainter each minute. She put her hands on his shoulders and drew him closer just as he was wiping her bangs away from her eyes.
The rain started in earnest then, but was so warm it really didn’t matter to them. Dude was finding it hard to let go of Cathy. Cathy was finding it hard to give him the chance.
Passion began to take over. The lightning flashed again turning the raindrops to amethyst crystals that ran down her arms in purple sparkling rivulets. It soaked her as if she were immersed. Warm saturated cotton revealed the form of the woman to the man. Senses heightened. She became so beautiful he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore and closed his eyes. An embrace and then a sigh. Seas kissed seas begetting oceans. When their storm of procreation was over, they lay exhausted and panted with sanctified breath.
Down in the room Alex’s swelling started to go down, and with it his pain, flowing out like the tide from the pull of the moon round the picturesque abbey of Mount St .Michael. The boy felt more than better, he felt downright poetic.
At dawn when the sun parted the clouds, Alexis’ fever had gone completely, never to return. Neither did the bruising or bleeding nor blood. Imagine, if you can imagine, how they felt about that.
Later that day Cathy called for a cab to take them home. They were out of normal cabs and only had a luxury car available. Things like this seemed to happen to Cathy whenever Dude was around.
They left the hospital together in a large, safe, sure-footed Jaguar sedan. The only person that thought this was odd was Dude, who knew he remembered something about Jaguars but couldn’t remember what. You know how it is with Dude. Always the last to know.
They pointed the Jaguar homeward but as the road wound around and they grew smaller and smaller in the distance, I was never quite sure if they made it home. But as pointed out earlier, the jaguar is the largest and strongest of new-world cats, and always finds his way.
Not being an expert on big cats I don't know if it's true. I leave that, dear reader, entirely up to you.
©Steven Hunley 2010