Story Eidetic Sunshine: Daniella and Butch

[Kathy in FL]

This is another one that I apparently neglected to move over. It is not complete but someone asked for it and I'd rather see it housed here than any place else.

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Eidetic Sunshine: Daniella and Butch

Chapter One​

“Here you go Mr. Hunter. Mr. Maddox says these are on the house for you and Mr. Pinder. It is a plenty hot day and you’ve sweated through your vests.”

“Danny you tell Mr. Maddox we appreciate his thoughtfulness but you need to go back inside while we interrogate the prisoners. They’ve clamped their teeth down tight over their identity and what they were doing harassing the medical convoy. Things are likely to get unpleasant for a lady to witness.”

Danny, knowing that Mr. Hunter was one of the few men walking this earth that would even pretend to consider her a lady decided to repay him in kind. She thought for a moment and then said, “I don’t know who they are now but I know who they used to be. They used to work for Mr. Tad Jackson’s road crew until he threw them off for some reason. That would be about six months ago. Jerry Baker’s daughter was complaining about them at the market about a month later saying that her father had given them the heave ho too when he caught them sleeping on guard duty. Haven’t heard where they went after that.”

Mr. Hunter looked at his associate Mr. Pinder and then back at Danny. Danny thought, “Oh brother, here we go.”

Mr. Pinder directed Danny back into the shade of the old truck stop now known, ten years after the solar flare, as Maddox Tavern. Mr. Pinder was a man that looked to be in his thirties but was actually several years younger. The life of a militiaman was not easy, not that anyone’s life was as easy as they used to have it; even more difficult was the life of a Militia Detective which is what both Hunter and Pinder were. Danny wasn’t sure Pinder’s exact age but she knew him well enough that she figured she was in for yet another lecture.

“Daniella …”

“And just who gave you permission to call me by my given name?” Danny asked jumping to the offensive.

Pinder shook his head and gave a sigh. “Don’t start girl. We both know there isn’t anyone to ask permission of even if I was inclined to go begging for it. And we both know you’ve gotten this lecture before … keep your nose out of things.”

“My nose, Butch Pinder, was not into things. I don’t go out of my way to find things out, they just get said in my presence and I can’t exactly unhear them now can I?”

Strangely Pinder seemed to understand exactly what she meant so offered an alternative. “Then how about keeping your mouth shut?”

Danny rolled her eyes. “I’ve tried it. All I got for my trouble was a day in jail after being accused of withholding information by your predecessor. Who, as we both know, now works for the district defense corp. If not for Mrs. Maddox and Father Brannigan I would have lost the kids. That’s really what that creep was after, causing you grief was just icing on the cake. All he would have to do is bring me into things as if I was withholding evidence – which he seems to love to do for some annoying reason – and create doubt in the minds of a jury.”

Butch Pinder did indeed know exactly what she was talking about. “Then stop getting involved.”

“I didn’t get involved on purpose. I get tired of ol’ Bushel Britches Bartolo’s harassment too you know. But this place, such as it is, is my job and since you are the one to bring it up you also know I don’t have any place else I can go to live either.”

Like he hated to even mention it he said, “Plenty of men need a wife.”

With a cynicism that belied her age Danny replied, “Plenty of men may need a wife but all they seem to want is someone to screw around with and clean up after them and make sure there’s food on the table when they want it whether they help put it there or not and cold beer for their belly whether they’ve bought it or not. And I’m not dragging three kids into the kind of hell that inevitably leads to. We don’t have a lot but we’ve got our pride and I’d rather mop puke up off the tavern floor for the rest of my life than whore myself out. Now if you are done picking at me I’ve got work to do.”

Danny turned to walk away but Butch reached over and grabbed her arm. “Stay out of this Daniella. I have a bad feeling. This feels just like right before that raid last year. There is something deep going on. I’m having a hard time figuring it. Might be the same ones as last time come back around for another try.”

Danny sighed. “If you are talking about the Dunst Gang it ain’t them. The leader - George Dunst - got yellow fever during a scouting mission to hit some place along the Big Bend area. I don’t know the exact location but after George Dunst died his brother Harry tried to take over the gang but was arrested and hung over in Jacksonville.”

“And how in the Sam Hill do you know that?!”

“Beau Roberts ordered a case of orange wine for his sister’s wedding. Tito and I delivered it and it turns out her fiance’ – now husband I guess, God help him – works in the radio tower over in Gainesville. He was jabbering away to some guy with a badge – looked like he was a federal marshall of some type though I couldn’t see any stripes so maybe he was just a city cop for all I know – and those are a couple of the things he mentioned.”

Butch winced, “Daniella you have got to stop listening in …”

“And how many times do I have to tell you I don’t have to actively listen to hear people yakking. If people stopped talking the sky would fall. It’s not like I want to remember every word I’ve ever heard in this world. My particular talent ain’t exactly a godsend you know … sometimes feels like it is from the other direction if you want to hear the truth.”

“Then when you hear something like that you should come tell someone.”

Frustrated Danny snapped, “If I told you everything I hear every day you’d be as crazy as everyone is always accusing me of being. I don’t have the luxury of my brain telling me what is garbage and not worth remembering … it remembers everything; what I’ve heard, what I’ve seen, for pete’s sake I remember what I smell, taste, and what I feel, not a single sense is left out. It just all goes into storage. Most of it is just garbage I’d give a whole lot to get rid of. I don’t know what is useful and what isn’t until something comes up to make it that way. Now let go of my arm, you’re hurting me.”

He let go abruptly and said, “I thought it was only what you heard.”

“I should be so lucky. It’s everything, just not everyone knows it so lock your teeth over it, it isn’t exactly something I want common knowledge. The few who know … they either think I’m lying or that I’m unreliably crazy and have to be imagining it. And get that look off your face, I’m not playing Sherlock Holmes either. I don’t like that part any better and ain’t out to earn it.”

“You could … you’re annoying enough. You could use your so-called talent to make big money. Or make a fortune blackmailing people. You could get out of the tavern work completely.”

“I prefer being an honest barmaid to a crooked investigator. Not to mention if I did take the other road I might as well paint a big target on my back … and on the backs of Tito, Joey, and Nita too. We got enough troubles. I’m not bringing any more down on us.”

“Then why tell me?”

Daniella shrugged in irritation like she hated the answer to that question. “Because I happen to know, even if you don’t think much of me, that you ain’t really a bad sort. You’re a man and annoying as Infierno … but better than most I suppose … at least about this stuff. And … if I hear anything worth repeating I’ll see if I can’t find a way to tell you while it is still useful. But no promises. Sometimes I don’t make the connection between the bits of data floating around in my head until after whatever they portend actually happens. I just thought with you thinking things about the Dunst Gang …”

Butch scratched his three day old beard in irritation. “Yeah. I guess the question I need to ask next is why that info hasn’t filtered over to the militia administrative offices and been put on file.”

Daniella snorted unbecomingly. “I don’t have to even guess on that one … probably Bushel Britches.”

Interested in her opinion for his own reasons he asked Danny, “You think he’d do that?”

“You can ask that when you’re sober? Come on Butch, you know him better than I do. You were roommates at the training academy, or so I’ve heard. And you dated the guy’s aunt.”

“Sister … but it barely qualified as dating and whatever it was ended when she moved to Tampa to go to nursing school.”

Danny nodded. “And got sick and died when they had that cholera epidemic run through the hospital. Which as I recall is about the time that Bushel Britches switched sides from prosecution to defense. And we both know why.”

“’Cause his dad and brother got caught setting them bombs on a buncha boats in the harbor because they blamed the port for bringing in the cholera.”

Danny shook her head and slowly backed away from Butch putting both physical and emotional distance between them. “We can throw things back and forth all day long but maybe you should get back to helping Mr. Hunter with today’s work and then talk this over with him tonight. I’ve got enough on my plate. A group of travelers are expected in and they’ve booked meals and rooms.”

“Rooms and meals? What are they made of? Scrip?”

“Better. They’re coal barons out of West Virginia heading to Tampa to pick up a load of imports from further south. Heard a rumor they might even be picking up stuff that had to come through the Panama Canal. And you can get that look off your face, they have plenty of security of their own plus they’re traveling with some sort of military convoy heading to MacDill.”

Butch didn’t look any happier but at least felt he’d made enough of an impression and turned to go back to where Mr. Hunter had the “interrogation” well in hand.

Danny jumped when a voice from under the Tavern lean-to said, “Coulda been worse.”

“Conyo! Tito how long have listening?! And get out from under there before you get snake bit. I just killed a rattler this morning that was sitting as bold as I’ve ever seen on the tavern steps. I was late to work skinning the nasty thing so that Mrs. Maddox could fry it up. As big as it was, if the skin cures we’ll get a good price over at Danner’s.”

Ignoring most of what his sister had said Tito crawled out and while he was brushing the sand off of his clothes he said, “I wasn’t being nosey, I was just wondering why you talk to Pinder so much if you don’t like him none. You made it out like a lot of people know how much you remember … but they don’t. They think you can do magic tricks … but they don’t know about all of it. And if you don’t stop letting him see stuff then maybe he figures out that you ain’t so crazy and can do more than add two and two together and come up with three.”

Danny sighed. “We owe him some … he helped Eddie … anyway it’s not that I don’t not like Butch … he’d be real easy to like as a matter of fact if I didn’t know he has a thing for blonde haired, blue-eyed, light skinned girls. I just gotta keep it in perspective so … I act like I don’t like him. This way he doesn’t think he can play me.”

Disgruntled Tito said, “Girl logic makes my head hurt.”

Danny snickered. “Get used to it Hermano, it always will.” She shook her head. “But now that Father Brannigan has retired from parochial service I have to have someone to tell things to. I gotta cultivate someone and … I think Butch could be it. He’s here at the tavern enough that me talking to him wouldn’t make people wonder why … especially if they see me being cranky with him most of the time. I’ll see what he does with what I gave him this time and maybe start giving him more. You’re right, he is smart … smarter than he lets on too. He’ll figure it out and then …”

“And then maybe you won’t be so cranky with everyone else no more. And just so’s you know I already racked off the batches of wine that needed it so Maddox won’t get cranky either.”

“Thank you,” Danny told her brother with complete sincerity and a hug while she marveled at how tall he was getting. “Did Joey help?”

“Naw. Maddox had him and Nita putting clean sheets on all the cots.”

“Oh Dios … which means there is roughly a ton of stuff for me to get washing. Guess he wants the travelers to see all the laundry on the line to make it look like he spared no expense or trouble.”

“Likely. Need some help?”

“No because I know you had plans to help over at the Giffords. Are they really going to pay you in Scrip?”

“Yeah, about half of it anyway. And I’ll take that to the store to pay on the layaway. The rest is going to be in jerky and some other stuff.”

“Tito, you take some of that scrip and get you …”

“Aw don’t start Danny. When I join the militia next year …”

They both fell silent. Tito worrying about leaving his sister alone to take care of everything until he got out of his apprentice phase and could send money home to her and Danny because while she knew that the militia was the path that Tito had wanted for several years, she still worried and would always worry, it was her job as a big sister and it was hard to let go.

“I better get started on those sheets otherwise I’ll be at it until after the skeeters come out and the evening shift arrives.”

“You sure you don’t need help?”

“Just send Joey and Nita out before you go. If I need help they can be it, if I don’t I’ll find something else for them to do to keep them out of trouble. I’m not liking how Nita is starting to think she should have the same amount of play time Elise gets. I’m going to have to sit her down and explain things to her.”

Not relishing a family argument he asked, “You have to?”

Danny looked at Tito. “It isn’t what I want to do but it looks like it is what I’m going to have to do since she ain’t picking it up on her own. She’s starting to remind me too much of how Delia got to be.”

“Maybe you should write and ask Delia to take her. It’d pay her back for running off from the family.”

“Tito!”

“Well … it ain’t right what Delia did. She wanted what she wanted and now that she’s got it she’s forgot the rest of us. It’s been three years Danny. Sending nice presents at Christmas and a card on birthdays … that ain’t the same as being here day in and day out and helping to keep a roof over our heads.”

“Well, at least she does what she does. And they’re things I … they’re things I couldn’t manage. Even with the trade from our garden and greenhouse.”

“Danny, Nita’s twelve. She don’t need no stupid dolls. And the only use she gets out of them silly dresses is wearing them to church. She out grows them before they wear out. You she just sends aprons and pencils … yeah that’s a nice big sis for you. At least she sends me and Joey useful things.”

“That’s because her husband picks them out.” Danny sighed. “You better get. Scrip is scrip even if it is spent as fast as it comes in.”

Tito patted his sister’s work worn hand where it lay on the fence post to the laundry yard. “Bet if Delia sent you a pretty dress Butch Pinder would stop looking for a pale-faced, lemon-headed girl.”

Danny snorted. “Like I need that kind of trouble. Now scat. Those darn sheets aren’t going to wash themselves.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Two​

A pouty young girl’s voice said, “Aw Danny … I was gonna …”

“Whatever you were gonna can wait until you have a day off; it’s chore time and these sheets aren’t going to wash themselves. Mr. Maddox expects good work for letting us leave the RV in the back and have that land back there for our personal use.”

“Why can’t we rent a room like Elise and her family does? Why do we have to grub for every little thing? The RV is old and it smells and all your stupid plants do is get in the way and …”

Getting tired of the whining Danny decided to let Elise have it with both barrels. “Because both of her parents have good jobs working at the weigh station and because her older brother is still around to help by throwing in his pay too. It takes three people making scrip to pay the monthly rent and all of their expenses to live at the tavern full time like that. And they still wouldn’t be able to afford it if her parents didn’t bring the scraps where things get unloaded at the weigh station. If Elise’s mom didn’t work they could get a little rental on the other side of the ramp in a better part of town and make do. Instead they’d rather spend more and hire everything out including the laundry, cooking, and cleaning so that Elise’s mother can work. Makes no sense to me and no wonder Elise is growing up like she is. Why you want to hang around with a girl that doesn’t do anything but rub your nose in how rich she is I don’t know.”

“She don’t either!”

“And what do you call what she was doing yesterday? She was teasing you for having to do chores when she doesn’t. And she was eating that candy and didn’t offer you a single piece. She’s always making fun of the clothes you wear too and showing off whatever her parents have given her. She’s even getting on Tanner’s last nerve lately and you know how laid back that brother of hers is.”

Nita grumbled, “You don’t know nothin’. If you’d dress nicer you could get a man that would take care of us.”

Shocked despite herself Danny snapped, “You want me to slap you into next Juvember? Or do you think telling me I should whore myself out so your life can be easier is something I should let pass.”

“Don’t be so high and mighty. Plenty of girls do it. Delia did it and look how nice she is set up.”

Up to her elbows in suds Danny was tempted to grab her little sister and run her against the scrub board too. “Are you being stupid on purpose?! For one Delia is married, not shacked up. For two, we don’t know how well she is set up because we’ve never been invited to visit. She sends you a gift at Christmas and cookies on your birthday and you think she’s rich? What proof do you have of that? For three, she might be married but I bet she works her tail off in her in-law’s restaurant. And I bet she worries like crazy every time her husband and his brother-in-laws take their boat out to bring back fish for the market.”

“Stop it! Stop it!”

“No! It is time for you to grow up. This is our life. It isn’t a great life compared to what some people have but we live it the best way we can and it is a heck of a lot better than going to one of those old poor farms … which is where we will wind up if you don’t stop daydreaming your day away wishing for things that will never be. There’s also worse things than the poor farm and you’ll wind up in one if you don’t get ahold of your behavior. Starting with you can forget about bleaching your hair.”

“Did Joey say something?! I’ll slap him soooo hard …”

“You lay one hand on Joey and you’re the one that will get slapped and it won’t be no light tap neither. One, you’re twelve and don’t need to even be thinking of bleach and make up or boys. Two, get over it Nita … Juanita … you are always going to be part Spanish and even if you didn’t take after Daddy’s side of the family, Momma had dark hair and eyes too. You will never be some light skinned, blonde-headed, blue-eye cracker girl. Never. Learn to live with who you are and where you come from.”

Angrily the young girl said, “The teachers up at the school say that we can be anything we want to be.”

Danny rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. They’re talking about getting some brains and putting them to use. You can’t change what you are born to be any more than a man can change to be a woman … dress up the outside and pretend all he wants, that still don’t change the inside. You might be able to hide it for a while but the truth always catches up with you. You want to wind up doing something besides washing sheets and slinging drinks here at the tavern then find your brain at school and train for a job that will get you out of here. Stop hanging around girls that think the only way out is to use sex.”

Snidely Nita told her older sister, “You got brains but you’re still here.”

“And the reason I’m here Chica is because Eddie and Delia have chosen not to be. I know what family means even if they forgot. I remember Daddy saying we had to stay together to be safe and never wander off. I remember Momma saying we had to look after each other always. Eddie and Delia …”

“You’re just jealous,” she spit.

More tired than she wanted to admit Danny told her, “No Nita, I’m not. I’m angry. I don’t begrudge them having a life, but I’m furious they took their shot and just left us to make it on our own with no help. I was fourteen when Eddie decided he wanted to go off and find himself … whatever that means. He promised he would send what he could when he could … and we haven’t heard from him since the day he rode away. Not a letter, card, note, nada. More than likely all he did was find an early grave … probably an unmarked one so we’ll never know for sure. So a year later what happens? Delia wants her shot too and answers some stupid ad to marry some guy she’s never even met. We hear from her twice a year, that’s it. Even after all her big promises to keep in touch and send for us as soon as she settled in. If she ain’t settled after three years she ain’t ever going to be settled. She may have made some money but she is spending it on stupid stuff. Instead of those silly dresses and dolls she’d be better off sending something useful like shoes or a little bit to put towards yours and Joey’s school tuition.”

“But …”

“And while we’re on the subject, you’ll be old enough next month that they won’t arrest me and Tito if you ain’t in school. And if your grades don’t come up I can guarantee we aren’t going to throw good money after bad and waste the tuition so you can sit around and do nothing all day but get bad grades. There’s only a couple of months until Tito goes off to the militia and it will be two years after that before he gets a paycheck. That means I’m all there is between you and getting sent off to an orphanage so if I were you I’d be doing everything I can to make sure that if something happens to me and you are left alone, that you got something besides your looks to work with.”

“Hey!”

“Nita, just because you are twelve doesn’t mean you have to be a stupid twelve. You live behind a tavern. You see the women that sometimes come out at night and wait down by the road. Is that really what you want to be?”

“You are sooooo mean.”

“Oh yeah, I’m mean all right. I work from before sun up until well after sun down so you don’t have to. You get to go to school, have friends your own age, a roof over your head, food in your belly … and a chance to eventually get out of here. I’m never going to get that chance Nita … I’m done. If Eddie and Delia could have hung around a couple more years, let us build up a nest egg, we could have all gotten out but they chose their way … and left me to see that Tito, Joey, and you …” Danny stopped and shook her head. “Nita, I’m serious. You only have one shot at this. If your grades ain’t better by the end of term you’ll be out of school and I’ll sign you up as an apprentice where ever they have room for you whether you like it or not. School was a chance for you to pick your future … you’re throwing that chance away. If I don’t have to pay your tuition then I can afford to send Joey to military school when Tito enters the training academy. At least then you three will be out of this life.”

“I hate you!”

“Good for you. That don’t change the fact that either you do it my way or you’ll suffer the consequences. Now shut up and help with these sheets or shut up and go help Mrs. Maddox … either way I’m tired of your mouth.”

“I wouldn’t help you if you were dying in a ditch! I’m going to write to Delia. She’ll come and get me. Then you’ll be sorry!”

Danny, knowing that she’d been a lot harder on Nita than she could have been, let the girl stomp away towards the tavern. She thought, “Hopefully Mrs. Maddox will knock some reality into the chica’s head. And maybe a letter to Delia isn’t such a bad idea after all. I’ll talk to Tito about it tonight if I can get in before he has to go to sleep.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 3​

Long after the last drunk had been sent home Danny trudged out to the RV that she had called home since a massive solar flare had knocked the world on its butt ten years earlier. For a moment she just stood looking at it. The peeling and faded paint. The rust. The taped over cracks in the glass repaired inexpertly with whatever could be found, including her own homemade glue. The missing tires that were long ago turned into raised plant beds. The ramshackle greenhouse attached to the side of the RV, built during the chaos of the year of the flare as they tried to save all of Momma’s plants. The sagging bump out that was so decrepit that it was supported by limestone boulders pushed in place to keep it from tearing away from the main part of the RV. She snorted. Home Sweet Home. If an RV could look like a haunted house the one that she and the other kids had lived in for the last ten years surely did. She tried to be quiet getting in but found Tito still awake and waiting.

“Why aren’t you in bed?! You’ll never make it tomorrow,” Danny hissed in a worried whisper referring to an introductory course that he needed before entering the militia training academy.

Tito shook his head. “Mr. Hunter said class will be cancelled tomorrow, and probably for the rest of the week too. Something big is going on and all of the instructors are getting called in for active duty.”

Some of the fatigue vanished in Danny as an adrenaline rushed sang through her blood. “So, that’s what they meant.”

“Who?”

“Those regular military men that came in with that convoy this afternoon. They said they were ordered to remain here for another night. The Coal Barons aren’t happy but they can’t do much about it. Looks like something big is about to go down between here and Tampa. Maybe those two guys this morning gave up some information.”

“Maybe. Is that what kept you so late? Getting an extra night out of that lot?”

“Sort of. Lotta little things, mostly in the form of expectations that needed to be met. You shoulda just gone to sleep.”

“Couldn’t. Need to talk to you about Nita.”

“Oh Mother of God, what now?”

“You shouldn’t blaspheme Danny.”

Danny sighed and nodded, “You’re right and I apologize. I’ve just got no patience for her right now.”

“Did you really tell her that you are going to take her out of school?”

In complete honesty Danny recited what she had told their little sister hours earlier. “I told her if her grades didn’t improve by the end of this term that I wouldn’t throw good money away so she could sit in school and do nothing. That I’d sign her up for whoever would apprentice her. That I would then take that money and send Joey to military school with you when you go to the training academy. And I mean every word Tito so don’t bother trying to talk me out of it.”

Sadly the boy shook his head. “That wasn’t very nice Danny.”

“Oh like I’m supposed to just say it is ok that she thinks her life would be so much easier if I’d just get some man to pay me for sex.”

“She did not,” he said shocked.

“Might as well have. And get this … you know how we thought that Joey was just blowing smoke about Nita wanting to bleach her hair? Well she all but admitted that it was true when I called her on it. Tito, I don’t know what to do anymore. If she starts hanging out with boys … you know the rules and how strict they are here in the district about underage sex. One of those decency committees will snatch her up and she’ll wind up in the reformatory until she’s eighteen and you know what will happen to her there. Nita isn’t as tough as she thinks she is … that place will kill her, if not in body then in spirit.”

“Madre de Dios.”

Danny started taking off her worn apron and work shoes. “She threatened to write to Delia but I’m thinking it might not be such a bad idea. What do you think?”

With all the cynicism a fifteen year old boy can muster he responded, “What’s Delly going to do? She didn’t answer a single question last three times you wrote to her.”

“What if … what if this time I send the letter with Father Brannigan. He’s going to a farm the church owns up that way. He’s going to work in the apiary and the farm isn’t too far away from where Delia mails her packages from. If nothing else at least the Father will be honest and let me know what he sees.”

“You still think something is going on?”

“I … I don’t know what to think. But better to know than sit around wondering.”

“Yeah.” Then in typical young male fashion Tito made a face and said, “Nita sure would look like an idiot with blonde hair.” He shuddered.

Danny smiled tiredly and then handed him a small bag. “The night’s tips were better than normal. Hopefully they’ll be close to that tomorrow as well. If they are we’ll pay off the layaway early and save the interest.”

Then Tito gave a proud smile and said, “I paid off the layaway tonight. Got the redeemed slip and all we have to do is go to the warehouse and pick it up.”

“Wait … you what? How?!”

“Mongo and I stopped a horse thief. Mr. Gifford sent his son Cody to the militia office and Mr. Hunter himself came. The guy had a price on his head put there by the Tallahassee office … they branded him and everything. He tried to wear his hat low and his hair combed over. The way he did it was a dead giveaway. We knocked him out and caught the horses he was making off with. Mongo thought that Mr. Gifford would get the reward since we were working for him at the time but we got fooled … seems that Mr. Gifford thinks that rewards go to the catchers, not the reporters and he told Mr. Hunter to make out the slips to us.”

Danny nearly slid off the old vinyl covered bench she’d been sitting on. “You’re kidding me.”

“No I’m not. Even splitting it 50/50 there was enough to pay off the layaway with some left over. Danny … if … if …”

“How much left over? Is it enough to pay your registration fees?”

“Almost.”

“How much do we still need?”

When Tito told her Danny almost fainted … not from fear but from happiness and relief. She ran to the box that was hidden under her sleeping area and quietly counted out what was in there. Tito blinked upon seeing all of the scrip and coins. “Danny … where did that come from?”

“Tips.”

“That didn’t come from tips. You … you count out your tips every night.”

Danny shook her head. “Not those tips. Tips when I … when I used to pass along the odd bit of information to Father Brannigan. There would have been more only …”

Outraged as soon as he figured it out Tito said, “Only Eddie and Delia took it … didn’t they? That’s how they …”

Danny put her hand over Tito’s. “Yeah, they knew. And yeah, they took what there was back then … but … but look, it was Eddie who started it, his idea. I’d put two and two together and he’d … sell the information. It was the only way to make ends meet when they started asking for payment for schooling and all of the other things that it cost to keep us all together. When he left Delia said we wouldn’t be able to make the rent if I didn’t keep doing it. It was her way of trying to keep me in school I guess. And when she left she didn’t take all of it like Eddie did. She could have but she didn’t. She left a note saying she was sorry but that she just couldn’t do it anymore and … well it doesn’t matter; what’s done is done..”

“Yes it does too matter. We had to quit school. We had to go to work doing …”

“So? We’ve studied by ourselves and you passed the academic entrance exam nearly at the top even without school. We didn’t need no stinking classroom or special teachers to show us how to think. We did our best and even though it’s been tight there’s always been enough … and been enough to pay people to look the other way too, rather than having them get in our business and bust us up and send us to different orphanages when we were all underage. That’s worth whatever I had to do. I’m the last one to talk but try and have faith Tito. It’s almost over with. You’ll take this and tomorrow you are going to pay your registration fees. You’ll be able to start on your 16th birthday instead of having to wait a couple of months and miss the early term. Between now and then I think … yes I think I can even come up with the money to send Joey with you. He’s already passed the test and with a letter of reference from Father Brannigan, his teachers at school, and one or two other people he’ll get right into the academic program. You two just need to train for the physical test. Nita … well she’ll either be in school or she’ll be an apprentice. I’ll still write to Delia … as a back-up plan maybe. I just won’t count on anything coming of it.”

“What … what about you Danny?”

Danny felt her chest tighten. Tito was the only one that seemed to care about that part. He’s the only one that ever seemed to care about that part. “Don’t you worry about it. I pretty much knew what my road would be when Eddie left. I’ve never had stars in my eyes like Delia or Nita.”

“But …”

“But me no buts Hermano. I’m eighteen … too old for school, too old to apprentice, and too grouchy for any man. You know me, I like my own way and I’m not about to change just to make folks think I’m on the market. Besides, someone has to pay for Joey to stay in military school – it isn’t free – and no matter where Nita goes she’s still too young to support herself. Then I’m sure you’ll need …”

“What about what you need?!” Tito griped. “You gonna just keep on working in your garden and living in this old RV until it falls apart around you? It was old when our parents rented it for the vacation. Ten years Danny … the plumbing don’t work, all the tanks leak and so does the roof every chance it gets.”

“Only up around the old driving area.”

“You mean where you sleep. C’mon Danny, if we do this then let’s do it right. You and Nita … or just you … come to Gainesville with us when we leave.”

“And do what? I’ve heard jobs are just as hard to come by there as they are here. At least here Maddox let’s me keep all my tips. In Gainesville you have to turn them all in and they get split evenly between all the serving staff after the district offices takes their 10% for the protection fund. Plus there are age restrictions at the bars there … they follow the old-style twenty-one laws. Believe me, I’ve thought about and checked the rules. It’s not like I want us to all be separated.”

“Why do you have to work in a bar at all?”

“Because it is all I’m trained for Tito. It’s my one and only skill. And I’m a heck of a bar maid.”

“You can cook. You run the kitchen as often as you deliver drinks. You make more from your garden and trees than you do working in the tavern during certain times of the year. You also help Mr. Maddox in the distillery.”

“Shhh. You want Mr. Maddox to get in trouble? All we need is some federal inspector breathing down our necks.”

“As soon as the Free Market Trade Law goes into effect all of that stuff will stop. Them federales are messing in things that are none of their business.”

“You know it. I know it. Even the federales know it. But until that law goes into effect they are going to flex their muscles and get as many tax dollars as they can. And if that Compromise don’t work then more than likely it is going to mean civil war. And I’m way too tired to get into it Tito, things are what they are. I just want to be happy for you … and for Joey getting a chance too. Now if we can just get Nita straightened up and settled on a course.”

“But Danny …”

“No buts Tito. Just focus on what can be changed and stop worrying about what we can’t.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 4A​

“Danny!”

Danny winced and said a quick prayer. “Dios I haven’t asked for too many promises but I’m asking for one now. They leave tomorrow. No trouble. No hiccups. Just let Tito and Joey go off to school and let it be good for them. Help me to be able to pay for it and keep them there so they can have a real life. Really, that’s all I’m asking. Let me be able to give them this chance.”

“Danny!”

Danny hurried from behind the RV where she had her garden and fruit grove. “Don’t shout Joey. It’s vulgar and you’ll disturb the guests. Now what is so …”

She stopped and stared at a young woman that Nita was hugging like a lifeline. The woman looked up and said, “Aren’t you even going to say hello?”

Danny’s world swam and she reached out to grab a fence post to keep her balance. She would have fallen anyway if Butch Pinder hadn’t come around the corner to take his horse to the corral and grabbed her arm when her knees started to buckle.

Butch turned and then did a double take as he recognized the woman as well. “Delia? Delia Trespalacios?”

In an overly polite voice the young woman said, “Hello Mr. Pinder. And please, it’s Dunkirk now. May I introduce my husband Mr. Emery Dunkirk?”

The two men sized each other up. Butch nodded before looking back at Delia. “There’s not going to be any trouble. There’s been enough of it.”

“Of course not,” she said. “I came once I got Daniella’s letter.”

Butch looked the question at Danny and she answered, “I sent a letter a month ago. I just … I didn’t expect an answer.” Realizing that Butch still held her upright she straightened her spine and shook off his help but did manage to whisper a shame-filled, “Thank you.”

He nodded and turned to say, “Tito, nothing late. We head out at four in the morning and I’m going to need you awake and aware so you can help Joey. Got it?”

“You’re going to be there?” Tito asked with surprise.

“I have depositions to take to the Leesburg prosecutor’s office. They asked me to ride in with your crew. You’ll board the train there and ride it the rest of the way to Gainesville.”

Tito nodded and even if she wouldn’t admit it aloud, a weight fell from Danny’s heart. Then she looked at Delia and said, “You came just in time. The boys are heading off to school tomorrow first thing.”

“Actually I just came for Nita.”

“What?”

“You asked in your letter and this is my answer. Yes, I’ll take Nita. Mr. Dunkirk’s sister runs a school for girls. We live right next door. And when she isn’t in school she can help me with the baby.”

“What baby?”

“Why my baby of course.”

“When? I never heard about a baby.”

“I sent word when he was born.”

“I … I never got a letter about a baby. The last letter we got was the card for Joey’s birthday.”

“There was a letter in the card. A nice long one. It hurt my feelings when you didn’t … well …”

Danny put her hands on her hips and snapped, “Those blasted postal inspectors. I wondered why you had the extra postage on it. I figured maybe they’d jipped you for the cookies. I’ll ring their tails. Madre de Dios … should you even be traveling? What are you doing just standing there? Tito! Joey! Get a chair for your sister. Now! Nita, stop squashing her. Move. Delia sit down right this instance. And you there … brother-in-law … what will you drink? I’ll fetch …”

Delia started laughing. “God Danny … you’re still the same. Bossy as ever. You’d never …”

Then she looked away trying not to appear guilty. Danny though knew Delia. It’s why she only mentioned Nita in the letter. “Yes I’m bossy. It gets things done around here. And if you take Nita and make sure she gets some training she’ll be better off for it. We butt heads too much. She needs different handling than I can afford to give her … and if I’m honest that I’ve got the patience to give her. Still … let me get everyone something to drink. Mr. Maddox will allow me that. Especially if I tell Mrs. Maddox who it’s for, you know you were always her favorite … and a baby … she’ll have a fit if I don’t tell her right away.”

An hour later Delia said she needed to go lie down with the baby as she’d been up most of the night and Danny needed to finish cooking corn cakes and some other things for Tito and Joey to take with them on their trip and to get them through the first week of their new living arrangements. She put Nita in charge of helping Delia mind the baby if he woke up – might as well start her the way things were likely to go – and she left “Mr. Dunkirk” to Tito and Joey to entertain.

She walked over to the laundry area to find that the boys’ clothes were dry and ready to be ironed and folded so she pulled them off the line, set them to the side and then restarted the laundry fire to heat up the cast iron skillet that had belonged to her mother and grandmother before her. She had things well in hand when Tito called, “Danny?”

“Yeah?” she said as she looked up. “Oh. Hello. I’m sorry, did … did you need something?” she asked addressing her brother in law that had accompanied the boys.

Tito looked at her and said, “Mr. Gifford stopped by and … well … he’s offered to take Joey and me across the ramp and buy us both belts from Danner’s store. As like a going away present. And we’re to take one for Thomas too … he sent home that he was on the last notch of his.”

Danny’s pride briefly prickled but she knew that Mr. Gifford had always been good to the boys, letting them work in trade and after they had proven to be hard workers, in scrip some of the time. Danny nodded, “I don’t need to tell you to say thank you but make sure that Joey does. Belts with real metal buckles aren’t cheap. And make sure there is plenty of growing room with extra notches.”

Tito grinned. “Mrs. Gifford already told him the same thing. We won’t be too long.”

“Just mind what Pinder said. You’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

Tito looked at his brother-in-law, unsure what to say when the man surprised them all by smiling and saying, “You better git while the gitting is good. My sisters always made me wait forever before I could take off. Still do when they get the chance.”

Tito grinned in relief and nodded for Joey to follow him. Danny was left uncomfortably alone with a man she didn’t know. She looked over to the tavern kitchen and saw Mrs. Maddox give a nod letting her know that she’d keep an eye on things.

“You can call me Emery … or Em if you like … prefer Emery though.”

“All right … Emery. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Naw, I’m practically floating now. You can do something else for me though.”

“And that … would be?”

“Explain things. Tried asking Tito but I got the feeling he was afraid of saying something he shouldn’t. You don’t need to worry about making things hard for Delia. I figured right quick what she’s like but that’s ok. I got sisters that make her look like an angel. Was a little rough for both of us at first but turns out we suit each other just fine.”

“Hmm.”

“And furthermore, in case you ain’t figured it … about the only kinda speaking I can do is the plain kind.”

Danny snorted and before she could stop herself she said, “That must have gone over well with Delia.”

Emery gave a small grin and said, “Like I said, was a little rough at first for both of us.”

“If you have Delia figured out and things are ok what do you need explained?”

“The whole of it. Delly … I gave up trying to get it out of her. She … she just …”

Danny nodded understanding the unspoken need that so many people seemed to have to know where the other person was when the flare happened and how they survived afterwards. “She can’t or won’t tell it … the days leading up to and after the flare.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 4B​

Emery was relieved that his sister in law seemed to be plain spoken as well. “Right. That. Something … nags at me. Like I won’t ever understand her all the way until I get that last part of the puzzle.”

Danny sighed. “Well if you don’t mind me working while I talk you can sit on that bench and I’ll see if I can untangle whatever it is that Delia has left out.”

So Danny told it …

“Our family was heading out on our annual camping trip up to Georgia. I have … had … don’t know which for sure these days … an uncle up there that owned a hunting track. He was my mother’s brother and usually there was a big family reunion and from what I remember of them they were … fun. We worked but the reunions were just fun, the whole family thought so. My dad’s job at the time was in Riverview … you know where that is?”

“Yeah.”

“Well Nita was two and had just gotten over being really sick so instead of driving up and camping like we normally did Dad rented an RV … the very one Delia is resting in now … and we attached a trailer with most of the stuff the movers didn’t take. Oh, forgot to mention that we were supposed to move to Georgia to be nearer my mother’s mother as she had started to … slip mentally is the way Momma said it.”

“Is the trailer here just like the RV?”

“No. We’ve still got some things from the trailer but only some of what was in it. Let me explain. There were six of us, plus Poppy and Momma. Eddie was 13, Delia was 11, I was 8, Tito was almost 6, Joey was 3, and Nita was the baby and was 2. Though … Momma was going to have another baby. That was another reason why we were moving. That day we pulled off here in Wildwood at the truck stop … what’s now the tavern. We gassed up and then pulled around back so that Dad could check all the fluids and take a look at a tire that looked like it was getting low.”

“I didn’t know … about another baby.”

“Yeah well, probably because Delia had nightmares about it for a long time afterwards. You remember what it was like that day? Everything worked and then nearly everything didn’t. And then a lot of people stopped working … the people that had pacemakers and medicine pumps that kept them going. That happened pretty fast. Then came the people that depended on medicines that needed refrigeration … like insulin. That’s what happened to our father. He had what they used to call Type I Diabetes – he’d had it since he was a very young boy - but it was under good control because Mom made sure that no kind of food came into the house that might tempt Dad to take a walk on the wild side and mess up his sugar. But he was still insulin dependent and the kind that came in a pill didn’t work for him. So Dad just kept getting sicker and sicker no matter what we did. Then he fell into a coma. Momma was …” Danny stopped and thought about it.

“Momma was a strong woman and I think if there had been time she would have been ok. But there wasn’t time. Everyone remembers the chaos that followed the flare. It wasn’t nearly as bad here as it was in places like New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Kansas City. There it must have seemed like the whole world was coming apart at the seams. Here the flare hadn’t been quite as bad … I don’t know why. Some things stopped working, some people stopped working, but small devices that hadn’t been connected to anything still worked. We had a wind up emergency radio, it still worked. The problem was that there weren’t a whole lot of places still broadcasting. But the news we did hear was terrible. People were just plain crazy all over the world, even the parts that hadn’t taken the full brunt of the flare. But even for those places it was like dominoes falling. Cities and towns were going quiet, then states; around the world whole countries were going quiet. But we were sort of ok in this little part of it.”

“But then something happened?”

“Yeah, just like something happened in lots of places. People going crazy, that was only the start of it. Florida was able to get a hold of things before they got impossible. It was really bad, but not impossible; plus the state still had an agricultural base to fall back on and we didn’t have the really bad first winter like they did up north that killed so many people. Georgia survived too except for the part they gave up around Atlanta and let burn. Miami burned too for a little while until people finally got it through their heads that no one was coming to fix things. But then the people from those places that were used to other people taking care of them and enforcing the rules used up everything in their area and started branching out.”

Danny thought, now comes the hard part.

“Momma was … she was really big and pregnant. Poppy … that’s what we called our father when we were little … Poppy was really fading and Momma was with him in this little building that stood right there,” Danny said pointing to an empty place that was little more than crumbled concrete filled with scrubby weeds. “It’s where they had what they were calling the terminal people. Us kids, we stayed in the RV. Eddie was big for his age and for a long time we let on that he was our uncle and 18 so that they wouldn’t try and ‘do’ something about us kids.”

“But what happened to your parents?”

“I told you people left the cities looking for more. More food, more drugs, more drinking water, more anything you can think of. A lot of them were looking for leaders who promised them whatever they wanted. And some of them found them. They said some people weren’t being fair, they had more than they should; or, they’d say things like survival of the fittest, we take what we want. They justified it a lot of different ways but the end result was always the same … people got hurt and people died. And that’s really what happened to Momma and Poppy. Poppy would have died in a day or two more without the insulin but Momma … she would have been ok except …”

“Except?”

“Well you see the Interstate … or what’s left of it. They just came plowing through here and … and they … they took and destroyed so much. There was this one group … they didn’t even wait to see if you would fight or surrender. Their strategy was that they’d come through and soften places up. The truck stop … it was a hard nut to crack. They thought that must mean that there was good stuff here. There wasn’t, we just had good people here. Truckers are tough and a lot of the people that were here had guns even though they were tourists and stuff like that. Well … they … they softened us up by setting fire to the terminal building even though it had a big Red Cross symbol on it to protect it and by blowing up a few things on both sides of the ramp.”

Danny paused only a moment before continuing. “It was the middle of the night and … and things were crazy. Eddie … some people helped Eddie get Momma out but …” Danny stopped and closed her eyes briefly before continuing. “She was badly burnt and started miscarrying. The baby didn’t survive. It … it took a long time and the pain was so bad at first that she was out of her head. But it was worse when the pain went away … at least for us … because … because that’s when she became lucid and started … started explaining how things were going to be. She made Delia write down a bunch of instructions on how to do things … how she expected her to be the new mother. And she expected Eddie to be the new father … the new Poppy. And I love my parents and would never desecrate their memories but … but it was … it was too much to ask. They tried but it was just too much to ask of them at the age they were. They weren’t … equipped … to handle it. We’d had such an easy life up to that point.”

“You talk … different than I expected. Delly sometimes acts like she’s from different than what she came from but mostly she … she forgets except when company is around that she wants to impress. You talk … like you are, like it isn’t an act … like the way you are with the blokes in tavern, that’s the act.”

Danny chuckled. “Oh I can be a shrew … and worse. Ask anyone around. But even after I had to quit school after Delia left there was a man here that was always on my case. Father Brannigan.”

“The one that delivered the letter?”

“Well, he did then. I thought he might send a Nun or someone else to do it. Father Brannigan … well …”

“Yeah, I got the feeling he didn’t approve too much of how Delly had left things.”

“Oh, don’t let it bother her. I’m not mad at her … not anymore. Might not have said that too long ago but having the boys settled, that’s more important than holding a stupid, worthless grudge about something that can’t be changed. Delia is Delia. She’s always been Delia even when Momma tried to force her to be something different. She’s family. Besides, I have a feeling she’ll get it back with Nita.”

Emery blinked and then said carefully, “Now ain’t that a wicked sorta grin. That’s all I need. My sisters are all wishing my son turns out to be just like me so I get some back too. You wanna curse us both?”

Danny was surprised to see that Emery was actually laughing about it. She smiled and said, “OK, maybe not … you seem like a nice sort of man. Different but still nice.”

Suddenly Emery was serious and said, “You don’t know anything about me.”

“No … and yes. I’ve been a barmaid here since I was fifteen and helped around the place and in the kitchen before that. Just to stay out of trouble you learn to read men. You’re capable of being a rascal, may have even been one at one time, but you’re older now. You don’t need to be a rascal as much as you used to be. Probably the same for Delia … she was … what she was for a long time and now she’s something different. But not completely different. There’s still enough of the old Delia in there that she and I can’t live together so stop looking like you are trying to figure out how to change Delia’s mind. It wouldn’t work and I’ve no interest in it.”

Emery crossed his arms and leaned back in the bench. “She said you’d say that. Apparently she knows you.”

“She knows who I used to be and there’s still enough of that girl left in me that my opinions on that subject are the same. But she doesn’t know who I am now and even if I could live with her, she wouldn’t be able to live with me. Trust me on this.”

“What’ll you do? My sister Lauren will expect an explanation and I’d like to have a nice easy answer for her. Preferably with words of one syllable so she can’t use it to trip me up or make Delia miserable.”

“Whoa, that type is she? Well tell Sister Lauren that I intend to keep working until the boys are set up in work of some type. If Joey needs something more than military school, or if he gets to the end of it and decides that’s not the life for him, I want to have enough saved to get him going. Same for Tito though he’s old enough to know his mind and if it isn’t the militia for him, it could be that he comes back to Mr. Gifford. Mr. and Mrs. Gifford have always had a soft spot for Tito and Joey. They almost adopted them except Eddie …”

“Whatever happened to the brother named Eddie? Delly says she doesn’t know … and doesn’t seem to be interested in finding out.”

“That last part is probably not true. She and Eddie were real close when we were all younger. Close like Tito and I are close now or Tito and Joey. When Eddie left … like I said people thought he was 18 when the flare happened but he was only 13. He grew up way too fast and it … did something to him. He got wild. Bad wild. He was still the head of the house and still tried to be the Poppy but away from us he was … different. Only we didn’t know about it because Eddie was very careful and very protective … he shielded us from a lot. If he had really been 18 maybe … but he wasn’t, people didn’t know, and he … lived the life of a man when he was still just a boy. Four years ago it all got to be too much for him. This older woman was chasing him, expecting him to … to be older like he said he was. She wasn’t a nice woman and she got him involved in with people … well there was trouble. Eddie wasn’t a part of it but he could have been. Butch Pinder … you sorta met him today …”

“Yeah. Seemed kinda familiar with Delly.”

“No need to be jealous if that’s what you’re thinking. Butch … let’s just say girls like Delia and me aren’t his type. Butch … he’s been here as long as we have. And by here I mean here … at the tavern when it was still a truck stop. Mr. and Mrs. Maddox keep a room ready for him when he is around which isn’t always all that often lately. He was traveling with a bunch of friends the day of the flare when their car died and they walked to the truck stop on their way home … only eventually Butch was the only one left because Butch found out he didn’t have a home anymore … he was from near Miami. But see Butch really was about the age that Eddie was only playing at being. And somehow or other he figured it out and tried to look after him, keep him out of trouble, but Eddie is … was … as hard headed as Delia has ever been and was just as determined to go his own way. After the trouble, even though Eddie could prove absolutely he didn’t have anything to do with it, he was going to be named as a … co-conspirator or something like that. Butch told Eddie and Eddie chose to leave. He’d been making noise about it for a while and … and he left. And a part of Delia probably hates him for it.”

“She ain’t let on she’s got too many fond memories of him that’s for sure.”

Danny snorted. “I imagine not. Imagine being seventeen and then barely eighteen and suddenly being the only one responsible for four younger siblings. She and I already butted heads, it got to be really bad and then … then suddenly we didn’t. I didn’t realize it at the time but she was … she was preparing me to take her place. Then she sat me down and explained how things were going to be … in a way it was like what Momma did to her. No ifs, no ands, no buts … she was going away, she’d accepted a position as a mail order bride. There was no discussing it, that’s just the way things were going to work out.”

“You left out the part where she was going to send for you when she got settled.”

Danny looked at him in surprise and Emery said, “Yeah, it came up when I read your letter asking for Delly to take Nita. Can’t say I was happy about it. Oh not you asking if she’d take Nita, but that Delly had made a promise and broken it. We’ll have to work it out between us. She was just going to send a ticket to put Nita on the train but I wasn’t having none of it. My sisters can be rough as an old corncob but they’re still family, if one of them needed me … really needed me and wasn’t just yanking my chain … the hounds of hell wouldn’t stop me from helping them. Delly … she needs to get passed whatever this block is she has. My sister Clarice said she has abandonment issues or some sort of rot like that. Clarice was a child psychologist before the flare and is the biggest pain in the backside you ever want to meet … but she means well and is right more often than not which just makes it all worse.”

The look on Emery’s face made Danny laugh out loud despite the subject under discussion. “You are just so perfect for Delia. You are exactly what she needs.”

Emery nodded. “And she’s what I need. She makes me feel like a man … and treats me like one which is something my sisters never can seem to manage. Which is why I … she doesn’t ask for much. She’s careful like that. The only absolute she’s ever given me is that she was going to send presents to you bunch at Christmas and a card on your birthdays. It’s even in our marriage papers.”

Danny looked momentarily surprised and then supposed she shouldn’t have been. “Delia … it’s Delia’s way. Makes her feel better about leaving … and it was stuff that I never could have afforded. And before I forget I want to say thank you as Delia had said that you always picked out the boys’ gifts, they were always well-received and very useful. They both still have the pocketknives you sent and wouldn’t put their pants on without them.”

Emery seemed very pleased to find it out and that’s when Delia showed up.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 5​

Delia asked, “Do you have to work tonight Daniella?”

“No. It’s my night off. Cindy Brewster is on; you won’t know who she is as she’s only been in the area a few months. I’m just on call in case there is an unexpected crowd or some extra travelers to stop in. Been pretty quiet though so they shouldn’t need me.”

Emery nodded and said, “That Pinder guy made it seem like there’s been trouble. But Tito just shrugged it off and said there’s always trouble.”

“Yes and no. Trouble isn’t unusual here at the crossroads but this has been a busier month than usual. The militia, military, and a couple of other agencies got wind of … I guess some group thought they’d set up a sort of … well … it sounds really stupid but basically someone thought they were king and was going to do what they wanted to do … and what he wanted to do was run an illegal smuggling ring. He was bringing in drugs and other stuff down in Miami and transporting it up into Georgia where he apparently had contacts that would feed it out into other regions. I really don’t think it was the drugs that got him though … no one really cares these days if you want to pollute your mind so long as they don’t have to pay for your upkeep and any dopers that become a nuisance get assigned to work crews outside of their home area. The warrior king wannabe got on the radar because he was into human trafficking … bringing in girls from Central and South America … and the islands so I heard … and selling them as slaves. Taking white girls and selling them to overseas buyers. The thing that was the final straw was he brought in some girls that were carrying some kind of virus and there was a bad outbreak in Daytona as a result; about a hundred people ended up dying and maybe more as they are still trying to comb the ‘Glades where the girls were packed off to. We can’t afford to let other countries think they can just swarm our shores with their cast-offs or excess population or reclamation project. We’ve barely got the infrastructure for the people already here.”

Emery sighed. “It didn’t look that bad around here. Maybe I should …”

“If you are going to try and talk to someone about me or convince me to go live like a lady someplace else you can forget it. This is my home and until I have to find a different place to live this is where I will stay. Like I said, I’m not the kid I was when Delia left to marry you. And I’m a lot tougher than I look. But I’ll never forget that you cared. Just because I won’t do what you want doesn’t mean that it doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the effort or thought.”

Then the boys came back before more of a fuss could be made and from that point onward time went so fast Danny could hardly believe it.

Before she knew it the boys had left for Gainesville, Delia and her family had left to return to their home near Pensacola taking Nita with them, and with the blink of an eye it was a month and then six months later. She didn’t hear from anyone as often as she wished but sending things by mail wasn’t cheap or very fast. Those areas that got their mail off the train had better service, but it took forever and a blue moon for the mail to get from Leesburg to Wildwood and there was no pushing it faster with complaints or it was liable to take even longer.

Danny filled her days and nights with as much work as would fit. She’d never been alone before … felt alone yes, been alone no … and it was a feeling difficult to deal with constructively. Earning money to keep Joey in school and to give the others something to start off their lives with became her only reason for getting out of bed or for going to sleep; if she’d had her wish she would have lived on toast and yerba mate tea, but she knew she couldn’t if she was going to still help her siblings.

Her garden was her one luxury and one pleasure but even it was a source of income. Her mother had been an accredited master gardener and taught classes at the community college and for the extension program. Danny was the only child that had inherited her love of growing things and after her mother’s death it was almost a shrine to the memory of the family to continue what her mother had started.

Then there were tips and she’d managed to invest a little and start her own line of sodas that she sold at Danner’s under an assumed name to keep people from saying their kids wouldn’t be drinking anything that a barmaid produced. Finding bottles was the most expensive part, and getting them back was even harder so she had to add a deposit to the price of each bottle. Danner agreed to take bottles in good condition in trade and since he made a little on the mark up when he resold them to Danny it hadn’t taken that much arm twisting to set the deal up.

It was during all of this wheeling and dealing that Danny discovered she had another talent and she began to dream of one day having a small wholesaler business where she could play middle man between those that had something and those that were looking for something … even if that something was merely information.

Danny still kept her ears open and heard things. She’d filter what she heard through Butch Pinder who only paid her in lectures until he was filled in by Mr. Hunter who, surprise-surprise, had always known where Father Brannigan had gotten his information from. They’d finally come to an understanding though Butch still didn’t like having a female as a paid informant. More than once he said that people that had to be paid to give information likely weren’t trustworthy. The third time he said it she stopped volunteering information. Eventually Butch had to come to her over something and she told him to shove it sideways. It took Mr. Hunter to sort it out and afterwards Danny and Butch were even testier with each other, so much so it became a bit of a running joke with the tavern crowd.

Mrs. Maddox tried to take the sting out of the way that Butch acted but Danny told her, “There’s just no changing the way things are Mrs. Maddox though I appreciate you trying. Butch respects you and Mr. Maddox, I know he does, but he doesn’t respect us girls; never has, never will. He paints us all with the same brush he paints the whores that come out after the sun goes down, at least the ones the decency committees haven’t been able to run off. Butch is just … just …”

“Thick headed?” the older woman asked with an arched brow. “A bit of a hypocrite considering what he has to do in his line of work? Too proud for good sense?”

Danny sighed and shook her head but she also gave a small smile. “And I’m just as bad for caring what he thinks. It doesn’t matter either way in the long run. He got to choose his life; mine was handed to me. We both are making of our lives what we can. If he can’t at least respect me for that then that is his problem.”

“There’s my girl. You show him. You’re doing a mother’s work on a sister’s pay which means you will do whatever it takes to keep the boys in school without getting the cards and flowers in return. How are they by the way?”

And the conversation turned and Danny told what she knew and tried to let the unreasonable hurt she always felt at Butch’s attitude fall off of her like water off of a duck’s back. It didn’t always work. In fact there were a lot of times it didn’t work. Just recently he’d accused her of flirting with a customer when it was actually the customer who had cornered her out in the dark yard when she’d gone to the smoke house to bring in another ham. She was nearly raped and still Butch made it out to be her fault. She’d slapped him and promptly burst into tears, something she never did which only made her more furious so she kicked him in the shin and ran back to the kitchen and refused to speak to him afterwards. Not even Mr. Hunter’s coaxing could make her speak to him and then he left for some deposition in Tallahassee and all she could hiss was “good riddance” when people tried to kid her about it. They finally realized that Butch had somehow stepped over some line and if they wished their drinks served cold and their food warm they would lay off the teasing.

Lunch time about a month after Butch left Danny was doing sheets, a never ending task at the tavern, when shots rang out and she heard Mrs. Maddox and Cindy Brewster both scream. Not knowing what was happening Danny ran to the back of the tavern and into the kitchen and looked out into what was called the tap room.

The first thing she saw was an overturned table and poker chips littering the floor. Then she saw three men stood in there all of them with guns drawn. Other men in the tavern also had their guns out. It should have been at worst a draw but two of the three baddies had Cindy and Mrs. Maddox in a death grip.

“Nobody make a move or these two get it. We’re leaving. As soon as we get far enough away we’ll let ‘em go … but not if anyone follows us.”

The men started backing towards the kitchen door and that was to be their last mistake. Danny grabbed the meat cleaver from the butcher’s block and as the first man came through she struck from behind … literally. The cleaver was so sharp and Danny so strong from all the years of washing sheets and wringing them out, from all the years of carrying heavy trays of drinks, that with one chop she severed his spinal column and he dropped like a rock releasing Mrs. Maddox who promptly grabbed the meat fork that matched the cleaver and stabbed the next man through the door in the temple. Danny’s loud “safe” whistle startled the last man and he hesitated just long enough to get riddled with bullets from over a dozen guns.

“Hellooooo … don’t forget we’re still in here. If you are going to shoot the fool at least make sure your bullets hit him will you?!”

Mr. Maddox rushed in and took his wife of nearly 40 years in his arms and Cindy and Danny looked at each other then walked out of the kitchen to give them a moment of privacy. Cindy leaned over and whispered, “Whatever it is that Ol’ Maddox has, I hope I find me one a little younger to keep for my own one of these days.”

Danny snorted and thought to herself that Cindy had about every flavor of man as often as she wanted now, she’d probably ran across the Maddox type at least three times but hadn’t even noticed she was so busy rushing onto the next one.

When Danny got a good look at the mess in the tap room she growled, “Well the least you could do is pick up your chairs and set them right. Honestly. And kick that broken one off to the side before someone trips over it. Ronnie!”

A young boy about ten years old came running like he was scared not to. Danny told him, “Run and fetch someone from across the ramp … preferably someone with a badge. And tell them they better hurry or they’ll miss taking enough depositions to fill up their report and they’ll wind up having to make it up as they go. And also tell them we need three bodies carted off and if they aren’t quick about it I’m going to drag all three outside in the heat so they can draw flies out there and get nice and squishy. Now move it.”

Men looked like they were starting to leave. Danny asked them, “Where are you lot going? You helped save Mrs. Maddox. There’s a cold pint in that and surely on a hot day like today you’ll enjoy it.”

They looked at each other and then a few smiles started to show as Cindy and Danny refilled the chip and popcorn bowls and even added jars of pickles and salsa that normally didn’t come out until the dinner crowd. Enjoying their cold beverage and snacks the men sat back down to await the law. And unwittingly wound up buying more drinks after all of the salty snakes had been consumed.

A few hours later the evening crowd started arriving and none of them would have even guessed that there’d been an incident earlier in the day. Oh Mrs. Maddox still looked a bit flustered and Cindy had some bruises but that wasn’t unusual. Mrs. Maddox always seemed a bit flustered and Cindy’s usual taste in men meant the occasional bruising. It was Danny who was a bit off. Mr. Maddox put it down to reaction from having to kill a man. Mrs. Maddox assumed she was worried about how it would affect the tavern and her place in it if one day there would be one too many instances and Mr. Maddox decided to retire. Cindy thought she might be on her period as Danny could be death on wheels a couple of days out of the month if you weren’t careful to step lightly. The truth was it was none of those things.

Danny had been forced to do as threatened and drag the three corpses out into the back lot so that the kitchen could be sanitized when the undertaker balked at taking corpses when he didn’t know who was going to pay for their burial; and on top of it, had refused to arrive until he got an official form that the district would pay to put them in the pauper’s yard if relatives didn’t claim them within a couple of days. While she had been dragging them she realized she recognized two of them – Claudio Ocampo and Johnny Bryan - both used to have family in the area six or seven years ago though she didn’t know where they were these days. She’d also stripped the corpses of all valuables because she knew the local undertaker and he considered anything left on a corpse as found gain never bothering to report it. She knew for a fact he saved it up and then took it to Ocala to pawn it or sell it in his brother’s store. And after what she found in these men’s pockets she decided he might be able to heave off to someplace else and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, the disgusting rat. He rarely tipped and when he did it was so small it was insulting.

As a result she had taken three burlap bags and put the belongings in them and placed them in the laundry shed. She’d missed her chance to tell the lawman that had come and was wondering how to catch the attention of another so she could explain before she got into trouble.

Danny stepped outside to throw out a bucket of dirty water when she stopped. “Your angel must have to work overtime to keep you amongst the living. I ought to skewer you. Butch, out of the shadows. This is no time for … Madre de Dios!”

“Not so loud. Just tell me, is the tavern full up tonight?”

“To overflowing. They’re doubled and tripled up. Have you at least seen a quack?!”

“Yeah. Give me a boost to get up on my horse, looks like I’ll be sleeping at the offices.”

With a sigh Danny told him, “Not tonight you won’t. That place is packed too. We had an incident and there is also a crap ton of lawmen in town for some kind of meeting or convention or something. You’d likely have to pick your way across the floor to avoid sleeping bodies and you know someone with plenty of stripes will already have commandeered the sofa in the office.”

“Dammit.”

“Don’t curse,” Danny said although she was tempted to do it herself. “Look, I’ll make those bruises ten times worse than they already are if you make a single thing out of this.”

“Out of what?”

Reluctantly despite being sure it was the right thing Danny growled, “C’mon. I’ll pour you onto Tito’s bed, you won’t hang off much. I’ll be working most of the night anyway. I’ll tell Mrs. Maddox and if she really wants to give me grief over it I’ll sleep in the kitchen.”

Butch’s next statement could have been mistaken for a squawk. “Now just wait …”

Still growling Danny told him, “Shut up Butch, I’m not in the mood for an argument. It’s been a long day and looks to be a longer night. And besides, you’re handy and I can dump off that stuff in your lap and lighten my load.”

“You realize nothing you said made a bit of sense.”

“Butch … oh …” Danny nearly stamped her foot in frustration as Butch Pinder slowly did a face plant in the mud from the bucket of what she’d just thrown out. “Conyo … I should leave you there,” she snapped at his unconscious form.

Instead she marched into the kitchen, had a quick conference with Mrs. Maddox who agreed that men – in particular hard headed men that only seemed to want to create more work for the women around them – sometimes appeared to have so little sense as to be a danger to themselves and others.

“Just be careful. Butch does not wake up a sunshiny personality.”

“That makes two of us. If he growls I’ll cut his tongue out of his head then nail it to the wall for target practice.” Danny shook her head in irritation. “I can hear the gossips now.”

“Then why do it Dear? We can roll him up in a corner some place.”

“Because despite everything Butch is, I pay my debts. I owe him for helping Eddie get … get Momma out.”

“As I remember they didn’t do her no favors.”

Fatalistically Danny nodded and said, “Hindsight that might be true but … but at the time we needed to be able to say goodbye and she said it for both her and Poppy. And since it’s already happened there’s nothing more to be said. Are you sure you can spare me? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Oh go on. Cindy and that new girl Nancy need to carry more of their own load instead of expecting you to constantly pick up tables they drop or forget about. Time for them to learn. There’s lots more girls where they came from if they can’t. And Cindy needs to keep her eyes on her work and off all the pretty men and Nancy to keep her fingers out of the chip bowls.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 6​

“Leave me alone.”

Ignoring the pain-filled petulance in Butch’s voice Danny told him, “You sound like a two year old. Now shut up. I don’t have time for whatever nonsense you’re thinking. If you’re too afraid for your lily white reputation I’ll see if someone will take you to the church and you can sleep on a pew until Sunday service in the morning. The new preacher will like that. He’s even worse than you when it comes to bar maids and I quote ‘other females of ill repute.’”

Trying to wrench away from her with absolutely no success Butch growled, “Oh no you won’t.”

Completely disregarding his wishes Danny told him, “Give me problems and watch me.”

It wasn’t easy but eventually Danny got Butch up the RV steps and draped him over Tito’s bed.

“I’ll help you get your boots off because if I don’t you’re just likely to go head first onto the floor and I’ll trip over you coming in.”

In a slightly different voice Butch said, “Daniella …”

Unwilling to listen to whatever Butch was about to say Danny said, “Give it a rest already. If I see Mr. Hunter – or one of his runners - I’ll let him know where you are. Maybe he’ll have a better idea where you can stay if this still doesn’t suit you.” And with that Danny turned and left Butch staring at a closed door.

Heading to the tavern she stopped, realizing that Butch’s horse was still tied to the rail. She untied the reins and led the animal to the stable to be taken care of by Ronnie. “And tend him well,” she told the boy. “The horse is a good one, part Spanish pony and they’re expensive and if you don’t know that you should. Plus I have no idea how long Mr. Pinder has had him on the road. And if I find out you’ve shirked …”

“No. Never Danny. I’ll look after him the way I do the puppies. I swear I will.”

“You’d better. Because if you don’t …”

Ronnie swallowed hard knowing that getting on the wrong side of Danny might mean being sent back to the orphanage and he’d never go back there if he could help it. Besides, she wasn’t wrong … just grouchy. But being on Danny’s good side could make all the difference in the world. A boy got fed around here and Danny would call him off of a chore to make sure he got to lick the beaters when she was making cakes. She fed him out of her own garden on Sundays. There were full apprentices making pay that didn’t get treated half so well. She also helped him with his homework so he could pass his school tests even if he was up working late the night before. And the other good thing about Sundays is that she always made sure that he got time off to play just like the other boys even if it meant having to take up some extra work on herself. Yeah, Danny was grouchy, but she was all right; the people that ran the orphanage were a lot grouchier. He turned and started taking care of the militiaman’s horse and thought, “Besides, Danny might be scary when she got a mad on but that Pinder fella could be a lot scarier.” Ronnie had seen him find the man that had roughed Danny up and had tore into him from one end to the other. He didn’t think Danny knew about it and he wasn’t stupid enough to get in the middle of whatever trouble there was between her and Pinder. He liked his place now that he’d found one and he liked licking the batter from the beaters and having Sundays off. Why upset the orange cart?

For her part Danny had a longer than usual night. The extra lawmen in town made some of the regular customers nervous. Made some of the travelers even more nervous. People were so snippy and a few left early taking their tips with them. Rather than watch a potentially good night go to rubbish Danny told Cindy to get her butt up to the small dais in the dining room and do a little singing to see if it wouldn’t calm people down.

“I can’t sing!”

“Bull. Just sing a little and then we’ll switch off.”

“You can sing?! Then you do it. I need the tips.”

Danny needed the tips too because there was another payment coming to keep Joey in school and she didn’t want to use all of her savings to do it … but there wouldn’t be any tips if she couldn’t figure a way to change the mood. So she grabbed the old acoustic guitar that Tito and Joey had sometimes played for customers on slow nights and showed everyone who had taught her brothers to play. Danny had learned from her Poppy and they were still some of her best memories.

Mostly she played but she did sing a few song in her deep, sultry voice. She didn’t sing often because it made her sound like a different woman than she was. And because men tended to act silly towards her afterwards. The music she played was a combination of slow and mellow to fast and upbeat, some romantic, some fun, some patriotic, and some a little on the naughty side later in the evening after the families had left. From traditional American folk music to the music of her father’s heritage to regional favorites to acoustic versions of old rock songs that she remembered. It had been several years since she had played even half that long and by the time the last customer left she had blisters on almost every finger.

“You saved the night Danny!” Mr. Maddox whooped as he was counting up the night’s receipts.

Mrs. Maddox smiled and nodded but said, “Hush or you’ll wake the guests Dear. Cindy, Nancy it is too late for you two to be out on the road, someone from the decency committee might stop you and create problems. Get a couple of pallets from the closet and you can stay in Ronnie’s room. The boy is already asleep in the kitchen. Danny …”

Danny had a few things left to do before she could call it a night and said, “I’d better go check on the patient. Mr. Hunter said he would check in but I don’t know if he hauled him off to the quack’s office or left him for me to bury.”

Mr. Maddox asked, “What’s this? What patient?”

“I’ll explain in a bit Dear.” To Danny she said, “I want you to take everything in that tip jar with you … and don’t you dare spend any of it on Ronnie, you already spoil him close to rotten. As for the patient, you just remember what I said and keep a skillet handy and stay out of his reach until he is fully awake. For all I like Butch Pinder, there have been mornings I would have been just as happy to have pushed him down the stairs he’s so foul.”

Agreeing to be cautious Danny gratefully stuffed the tips from the jar into her pocket and then made her way over to the RV to find a guard stationed outside the door. “What on earth?! Lonny Ralston what is going on? Did he actually go and die and you’re holding the wake?”

A growl from inside let Danny know that someone was not in a happy mood.

“Lovely,” she muttered. “Just what I need after a long night on my feet. Yo, Prince Charming … can I at least get my things so I can sleep in the kitchen?”

Mr. Hunter opened the door and said, “Actually I’d prefer if you’d stay with him Danny. Sit on him – or bash his head in if need be. He is somehow under the misapprehension that he is going to be in the posse tomorrow.”

“Oh, so I get to babysit Godzilla. Thanks ever so much.”

More growling from inside made Danny roll her eyes. Mr. Hunter looked momentarily concerned until she winked at him. “My hide is thicker than his is. Go ahead and take Lonny off with you please. Butch I will tolerate to honor my mother … but I’m not having any other man snoop around my place.”

Mr. Hunter was too tired and knew Danny and knew better than to waste time arguing when she was in a certain mood. Besides he was no different from anyone else and assumed she had plenty of experience with men in all their glory, just she was more circumspect about it than Cindy was.

After she had watched Mr. Hunter and Lonny ride off Danny entered the RV. “What? You aren’t asleep yet? Want something to knock you out? You’ve got the choice of chamomile tea, warm milk, or getting your head bashed in further with a skillet. Which will it be?”

In a far from gracious voice Butch snarled, “You know what they’ll think.”

“The same thing that everyone thinks, including you. That I’m no better than the whores that walk the road after dark. Whether I stay in the RV tonight or not won’t change anyone’s mind because they are already made up.”

“Daniella …”

“Butch, I’m not in the mood. I’m doing this in Eddie and Momma’s memory. For them. Not for you. Not for me. So shut up and just accept it if you can’t appreciate it because I am too tired to argue. You make me argue and I guarantee you’ll regret it. I have to be up early in case Donna doesn’t show up. She’s been doing that a lot lately … not showing up. And with the way my luck runs she’ll do it again in the morning or she’ll run off in the middle of the breakfast crowd though with tomorrow being Sunday all there will be is a brunch buffet table where people serve themselves. However, the food still has to be cooked and the tables still have to be cleaned and the dishes still have to be washed. So which is it going to be?”

Butch sighed. “You really don’t care do you?”

“About what people think? No, I really don’t. Caring what people thought never gained me a single thing and usually just caused me nothing but grief. I never had to worry about Tito or Joey so much, just Nita and now that she’s taken care of …” Danny stopped with a shrug. “Now that it’s just me and I figured out that despite me trying so hard and working so hard people decided they could paint me the way they want to regardless … well now I just don’t care even the smallest fraction. It makes things easier.”

“Not even the people at church?”

“Who them? They’re the worst … or I suppose,” she hesitated before saying more honestly. “It isn’t all of them because there are some good people amongst them; but the worst of them seem to come from there. I know most of them are just worried for me and don’t really know what to think. I tried to prove to them but that new guy … Brother Jack … he’s bound and determined to think I’m some kind of what he calls a harlot, like those in the Bible. His face went all pruny every time I came to service and it was causing too much friction in the church so I just stopped going. People should be able to go to church and not have to have the kids constantly being bombarded with sex talk from the pulpit. Makes me wish I had fewer scruples and would tell people exactly why Brother Jack had to find a new parish.”

“And that is?”

“None of your business. Wasn’t any of mine when I heard it either so I’m not going to spread gossip that I can’t prove.”

“But you believe whatever you heard. Why?”

“Because of who told me and under what circumstances. Now drop it. I’m done with that line of work.”

“Really?” Butch asked cynically.

“Yeah. Just like I don’t care what people think of me anymore I’m not going to try and better anyone else’s lives by holding back trouble unless it somehow betters mine significantly at the same time. I’m done with it all. And for tonight I’m done with you. You need to rest and I need to sleep what I can.”

“Daniella …”

“Are you deaf? Leave me alone. You should be happy. I’ve finally listened to all of your lovely lectures and now you won’t have to deal with me anymore for anything. Just show a bit of appreciation for that by not doing anything stupid and getting me in hot water with Hunter. I don’t need the kind of trouble he can cause me.”

“Hunter would never …”

Danny interrupted Butch with an unladylike snort. “He’s human isn’t he? And a male human at that. Never trust anyone not to cause trouble.”

She went forward and sharply drew the curtain to her sleeping area. She’d tried sleeping in Tito’s bed and even in the bed that Delia and Nita had once slept on but she couldn’t get any rest so it was back to the old captain’s chairs. It was almost like sleeping sitting up but she’d done it that way for so many years she decided it was too much work to change bad habits.

Danny’s eyes popped open before the rooster crowed. The sun wasn’t up but the sky wasn’t as dark as it was when she’d finally fallen asleep which told her sun up wasn’t that far away. She’d slept fully clothed so all she had to do was grab a wash cloth and try and creep out.

Her hand was on the door knob when Butch muttered, “What time is it?”

“Just before dawn. Go back to sleep.”

“Can’t.”

“Need to see a quack?”

“F*** off.”

Danny sighed and only by sheer will did she not kick the man in the head. “Butch, you are treading on thin ground. If you need something for the pain just say yes … or no. Don’t give me attitude. Don’t give me mouth or whatever your morning routine is with everyone else. I really don’t care. I do not care how injured you are. I am not a great person in the morning either. You push me one more time and I will flay you and I promise I am a lot better at it than you are … you’re mean, I’m vicious. So, do you need something for the pain?”

After a few moments a reluctant yes slipped passed Butch’s lips.

“Fine. Give me a few minutes and I’ll fix you a tray. I’ll have Ronnie bring it over before he catches the Sunday School wagon. If you upset him I’ll borrow a horse and drag you into the forest and teach you exactly how pissy mean I can be. Ronnie has a part in the program at church today and he does not need to start his Sabbath day off with the likes of your foulness. Understand?”

“Fine. Whatever.”

Danny would have still liked to kick him in the head but as she was trying to be a better person even if she had told Butch she didn’t give a rip anymore she left the RV. She didn’t even slam the door which was almost a miracle in and of itself. She didn’t even poison his breakfast … just doctored up not only his tea but his juice as she suspected he would ditch the tea and try and pretend he’d let her dose him.

After making sure that Mrs. Maddox could manage with the help that showed up she went back to the RV and smiled grimly when she found Butch snoring. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[john70]

great story

please bring us the rest

i would really like to see chapter 17-97

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 7​

Danny was dozing in her garden chair when Ronnie came running in. “Danny! Danny!”

Danny jumped awake and almost snapped until the huge grin on Ronnie’s face registered. “I won! I won! I memorized the most Bible verses!!”

With a grin for the boy’s benefit Danny said, “See? I told you that you could do it.”

“I got a ribbon and everything. Boy did Mrs. Hockstetter almost wet herself though when I told her that you were the one that helped me and made me practice over and over. That was almost as good as getting the ribbon.”

Danny shook her head trying not to let a grin slip. “Ronnie …”

“Oh I wouldn’t tell that to no one else but I know she says nasty things about you behind your back.” Ronnie looked like he’d never won anything in his life and he hadn’t. “So now I know the books of the Bible and all those memory verses, what comes next?”

“Well if they do it the same as they used to, they’ll probably want you memorizing whole passages and not just individual verses. Or maybe it will be the begats … the genealogies. Hard to say for sure. Mrs. Gifford will likely know as she usually helps organize the stuff.”

“Oh yeah, almost forgot … Mr. Gifford told me to give you this. He said it is a list of things his son needed his second term at the academy and he figures if you have it then maybe you can be on the look out in case Tito is too careful to ask for stuff.”

“Thank you Ronnie, this will definitely help. Now why don’t you run over to the kitchen. I put some lunch for you …”

He was off before she could even finish. Talking to herself Danny said, “Just like Tito and Joey … a bottomless pit.”

Not expecting an answer Danny shot to her feet when a voice said, “You could have asked me.”

“What? What are you doing out …”

“Watching you. Never really paid any attention to back here. Didn’t know there was so much of it. And you could have asked me.”

“Asked you what?”

“For a list of what Tito would need.”

“No I couldn’t. Never mix business with personal … you made that plain and clear. I’ll go and see if there is a note for you at the tavern.”

“I’ll go. Need to check my horse. Don’t even know …” Butch swayed.

“Sit down before you fall down. Your horse is stabled. Probably enjoying his day off and gossiping with the other horses for a change. I’ll go see if anyone is looking for you.”

“Daniella …”

Danny sighed. “Fine. Go. And when you get halfway there and fall flat on your face you can just lay there until someone else scrapes you up off the ground. I took my turn last night.” Danny prepared to go back to sleep.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you.”

“I don’t care either way Butch.”

Danny was nearly asleep when there was creak on the bench beside her and she jerked awake once again. “What?” she snapped.

“I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I’m sorry. I … shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions … about what happened last month. Turns out that guy that attacked you has a record for doing the same thing in several other places.”

Danny wanted to spit in his face for bringing it up but finally let it go. “Whatever. It happened. It’s over with.”

“But it isn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? If you expect me to stand up in court and get laughed at …”

“No … no he got transported out. He was a three striker that had run out on his probation officer. I saw him get on the prison ship myself. He’ll be doing time on the barrier islands along the panhandle. Danny, the thing is …. He’s got syphilis.”

Danny shuddered. “Madre de Dios.”

“Danny … did … did he …”

“No. But if it gets out and people thinks that he did …”

“It won’t get out. It didn’t show up until they were doing the physical exam before boarding. When he found out … he tried to hang himself. They put him in special cargo and he went to a quarantine island. He’ll receive what treatment there is but since he has no idea how long he’s had it …” Carefully he asked, “Do you know if any of the other girls …”

Danny sighed. “Yes, I’m aware some of them like to party but Cindy is the only one that is really loose and not even she would sleep with a complete stranger like that. The guy had only been in town less than a day and only wanted to get a drunk on until he was to catch the wagon to Leesburg the next day.”

“You’re sure?”

Danny stood to walk off but Butch grabbed her arm. “I have to ask Daniella. It’s my job.”

“Then ask someone else.”

“I can’t always count on other people telling me the truth. You do even when I don’t like it or want to hear it.”

Danny looked at Butch and scowled. “And what’s all of this about all of a sudden?”

Butch sighed and let go of her arm. “We have moles.”

“You have … excuse me did you just say …?”

“Moles Danny … traitors … in the local militia … and through out the state if my information is correct.”

Danny was shocked and horrified but covered it with anger. “So you just want more information from me.”

“No. I want you to stay out of it. Don’t hear anything. Don’t see anything. Don’t say anything. This goes pretty high. Maybe even out of state. And these people, whoever they are … they’re vicious.”

“Are they the ones that beat you up? You think they know about me?”

“Not because I said anything to anyone.”

“You wouldn’t. But if things are bad … Hunter? I know he’s your commander but …”

“Hunter? No. In fact when I passed him my information last night he was so livid I thought he was going to stroke out.”

Several ideas started coming together in Danny’s head at once. “That raid … the big one six months ago … that wasn’t supposed to happen was it?”

“What makes you say that?”

Ignoring his question she said, “Forget it. I can see it on your face. Someone is very, very hacked off. They must have lost a lot of scrip … lost other people’s scrip.”

Kicking himself for even discussing it Butch said, “Scrip? Hell try oil and coal certificates.”

“Which makes sense.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There’s a doctor staying at the tavern. He was talking about how there’s a new virus popping up all over the place and they can’t figure out how it is being transmitted. It’s the human trafficking part of the picture that gave them away isn’t it. They’re losing their camouflage or whatever you want to call it. And where it is popping up is revealing … Mobile, Rhode Island, places with ports. That’s where the smuggling barons have their strongholds … even DC which means that there are more than likely some politicians involved in this stuff.”

“Danny ...” Butch glanced around. “Don’t say another word. Understand me?”

Ignoring Butch’s caution Danny said, “Tell me truthfully … did you come back to warn me that I’m marked?”

“No.”

“Swear it. Swear it Butch. Because if I am I am going to … I need to make sure nothing happens to …”

“Ease up and breathe Daniella. I got people watching the boys and that brother-in-law of yours turns out to be so straight even my grandmother would have been impressed … at least he is these days. The whole family is. They have their own compound and it’s run like a small city-state. Good people; security is real tight.”

Danny relaxed then jumped. “Ronnie. The Maddox’s.”

“Stop. Like I said, there’s no reason to think anyone knows anything. The posse should really knock the pins out from under some legs but … it’s going to make a few people more dangerous, not less. And if you see or get word of Barry Bartolo …”

“Bushel Britches? So he’s mixed up in this too.”

“To his harry eyeball but only as a small player … a lot smaller than he apparently thinks he is.”

“Which means he doesn’t know who the big bosses really are … he thinks he is one but he’s being played.”

“Pretty much. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. So mind me.”

Absentmindedly Danny said, “Do I look like a dog to be called to heel by the likes of you? I go my own way.”

“Stop looking to make a profit off of this Daniella it is too dangerous.”

Danny nearly slapped him. “Stop insulting me. You are going to do it one time too many and I’m going to flatten your head. I’m a businesswoman, not a fool. But I do have my interests to cover and people to protect.”

“What? That … that isn’t …”

Danny shook her head. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to Butch. I’m not doing anything illegal by state law or federal for that matter. I have to fly under the decency committee radar but that’s because they try and impose rules they have no authority to impose. But authority or no, they could still ‘cause me grief. I’ve never stooped to blackmail before but I won’t stand by and let my family or those I do business with be in danger. I’ll do whatever it is that I have to.”

“Daniella …”

“And stop saying my name like it gives you a headache. There isn’t a thing you can do to stop me. I will do my best to keep you and everyone else out of it just like I always have. But whoever they are they better not mess with me or mine … or there will be hell to pay.”

Butch, despite himself, shivered like a goose had crossed his grave. There was just something about Danny that made him want to shake her … yet something that was scary as hell at the same time. He just wasn’t sure what would come of it this time. All he could manage to think was God help whoever it was that eventually sets her off and following that he thought, “I sure as hell hope it isn’t me.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

great story

please bring us the rest

i would really like to see chapter 17-97

Formatting on this one is really rough so it takes me time to copy it over. I have through Ch 17 for now.

 

[moldy]

I really appreciate all your hard work in posting these. In case I haven't told you lately, I really love your stories. I always learn something.

 

[kyrsyan]

I don't remember this one. I like it.

 

[Siskiyoumom]

This is my all time favorite story of yours! Thank you for posting it here!

 

[ted]

Thank you.

 

[Lake Lili]

I love this story! Top 5 favourites. Thanks so much for putting it up,
Lili

 

[Lake Lili]

Editing note: Chapter Two 4th paragraph, 1st sentance "Getting tired of the whining Danny decided to let Elise have it with both barrels." Elsie should read "Nita"
Thanks so much for this story.
Lili

 

[TeaMom07]

I love this story! Top 5 favourites. Thanks so much for putting it up,
Lili

I must second this!

 

[Lake Lili]

@Kathy in FL - You missed posting Chapter 8.
Thanks, Lili

 

[Kathy in FL]

@Kathy in FL - You missed posting Chapter 8.
Thanks, Lili

That's what I get for multi-tasking. Gah!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Frizzlefrakinfrizzelfrack. And no, the cat did not just sit on my keyboard. I blooped posting order again. What I'm going to do is delete Ch 9, post Ch8 and then repost Ch 9 so everything is in the correct order.

------------------------------------

Chapter 8​

It was almost a month before Danny had heard enough to put what happened into some kind of proper timeline. First the posse; they’d rounded up quite a few people and all of them gave information that it was Barry Bartolo that ran things. Most of those that talked died in prison within days of being taken into custody, some by their own hands after hearing how the others were being taken out in the dark with shives by other prisoners or by “accidents.” You could hear Mr. Hunter’s screams of frustration all the way from Leesburg that the prisoners were dying even after being put into solitary confinement … one was poisoned, one suicide that shouldn’t have happened, and one seemed to die of fright.

Barry was brought in for questioning and claimed he was being framed despite four days of heavy interrogation; then he cracked. Danny still didn’t know what they used to do it and she pretty much didn’t care one way or the other. What she did care about was that the weasel tried to implicate Butch and that he got taken in by the Tallahassee big boys. Butch walked away from the questioning but he was shook up, sick, and on unpaid leave until the last of everything gets straightened out.

Bartolo was put on house arrest – he had a lot of political clout – but you just don’t hack off certain people or make them start getting worried about what you might say. Danny had seriously considered calling in some favors but before she could decide whether there was enough profit in the effort someone shot the guards on Bartolo’s house and dragged him out and hung him in his front yard … an intentionally bad job that didn’t break his neck but had him slowly strangling to death as a form of public torture. Then they raped and beat up his wife, kidnapped his two little kids, and torched the house to destroy any hidden evidence there might be. They didn’t even bother trying to cover up that it was a clean up job by the people that owned Bartolo. As a message it was a powerful one.

Danny’s most immediate concern however was that Butch was sick. Between the beating he took, then before he was healed being “interrogated” by the big boys, and then the mental depression of after having proven his loyalty over and over still being considered a suspect, his immune system was weak and while in Tallahassee picked up a virus that had him closer to dead than alive.

Not even Hunter could change the quarantine laws and without anyone willing to take him he would go into the sick house, usually a death sentence. Danny heard and nearly scorched the earth in every direction. It was one thing for her and Butch to have a personal feud, it was another thing for someone else to go after Butch, especially for something he hadn’t done. Danny talked it over with Mr. and Mrs. Maddox and they agreed to hold her position and then she cut a deal with the local monitors. She grabbed Butch and took him back to the RV. By that time he was too weak and depressed to do much arguing which worried her more than any other symptom he had.

“Butch, either drink this or I will drown you in it.”

“Daniella …” Cough, cough, cough.

It took over a week but Danny finally made headway against the virus. Butch was still weak and anytime he tried to get angry he simply got sick again so he gave up being angry.

“People are going to talk.”

“So? People already talk. Just tell them that it wasn’t your idea and that I’m part dragon and a bitch on top of it. I wanted my way and that was all I would accept.”

“Daniella …”

Danny sighed after helping him to finish getting dressed in a fresh undershirt. “Butch, let it go. I know I didn’t have my wicked way with you and you know I didn’t have …”

“Enough. Do you need to rub my nose in it?”

“What? You want me to have my wicked way with you?”

“Stop already. I know. How wrong I’ve been. Years of being wrong.” Butch sighed.

“Don’t start. You didn’t think any differently than anyone else. Eddie and Delia both tried to warn me. I refused to listen. The decency committee has been after me for years despite never being able to get a thing on me. Just because I can deal with men, and even make deals with them, it never meant that I was sleeping with them to get my way.”

He wheezed, “Why didn’t you say something?”

“And look like an even bigger fool while everyone stood around telling me what a liar I was? No thank you. I learned to handle it. Or do you think you are the only one that the gossips have me in bed with?” Danny chuckled cynically. “Most of the men they have me sleeping with I haven’t even met. According to some I’ve had more bed partners than Cindy Brewster and her headboard has so many marks it is nothing but a toothpick these days. It’s just entertainment value for the masses … what they used to call bread and circuses. Forget it, it is a battle that can never be won. Here’s some lemon and honey water. Sip on it. I’ve opened up as many windows as I can but it is still going to get stuffy in here. After I finish in the garden I’ll come back and hopefully the sun won’t be so fierce. If you aren’t asleep by then I’ll help you outside to sit under the palmetto canopy. Maybe you are ready for some fresh air. Hmmm?”

But Butch was already half asleep so Danny left quietly to tend to her garden and greenhouse. She tried not to let on how much Butch’s lack of spirit bothered her by focusing on what she was harvesting. If music was her father’s legacy to her, gardening was her mother’s. Despite the odds, most of the plants her mother had been transporting had survived over the years. Eddie and Delia had never been interested in the plants, in fact had been annoyed by them. But Danny loved them and in the end had pitched such a royal fit and been so outrageously bad, they had stopped trying to toss them and let her 8 and 9 year old self have her way.

It was hot for April, the warmest year they’d had since the chaos of the Year of the Flare. The flare didn’t just fry the electrical systems on most of the planet it seemed to aggravate the earth itself, setting off earthquakes, volcanoes, and as a result messing with all sorts of atmospheric stuff. It was a domino effect where one calamity caused another which caused another which caused … on and on for many months. Even the parts of the planet that hadn’t been affected by the original solar flare suffered from the resulting geologic and meteorological catastrophes.

There were rumors of places that still ran pretty much as they had operated pre-flare but that’s all they really were; rumors. There were some places better off than others however and they became havens for the rich and powerful or those that were valuable to the rich and powerful. But even such places as that didn’t run just like things used to run. And it wasn’t just because of the temporary interruption of advanced technology. Weather and lawlessness play a huge role in the level of success that people in an area experience.

Wildwood’s microenvironment had allowed Danny to keep the plants and container garden protected with only the use of a home built green house and a fireplace but it had been a near thing in the beginning. Central Florida experienced their own weather catastrophes and citrus fruit was no longer its main commercial crop though its cultivation hadn’t completely died out. Danny knew she really needed to repot some of the trees and bushes in her greenhouse but she hadn’t been able to accumulate enough of what she needed because her assets always seemed to come in with a reason for them going right back out. And even if she did she had a feeling that she would lose some things to the changing weather no matter what she did.

At least her strawberries had done well this year. She had traded most of them to the tavern, holding some of the crop back to make strawberry wine and strawberry soda as well but those she held back in storage in the RV until they would bring more money. She also sent some strawberry leather to the boys and even sent a box of fruit leather and preserves to Delia and Nita. She’d never done it before and had been surprised by a letter from Delia saying thank you. There had also been a letter from Emery’s sister asking for the recipe and giving a report of Nita’s school progress. Seems Nita found out the hard way that Emery’s sister that ran the school only had one way of doing things … her way. Danny tried not to laugh but failed and when she wrote back with the recipe she expressed her appreciation at how efficient and constructive the school was being run. It wasn’t exactly gloating but she put her last worry about Nita from her mind knowing that even if Delia tried to spoil their little sister there was someone there that would balance it out and do their best to see that Nita had something between her ears besides cotton boles.

The strawberries had given out the end of March as had the loquat and lemon harvest. The loquats were common old Japanese plums but she always did nice things with them that most people didn’t. Danny made loquat pies for the tavern and loquat pasties to sell to the tavern guests for boxed meals to take on the train. She canned up left over loquat pie filling to have for off season baking. An old cookbook that Delia had scavenged from the refuse of the old truck stop gift shop had a recipe in it for Loquat jelly that didn’t require added pectin and Danny had gotten a lot of mileage out of it over the years. Sometimes Mrs. Maddox would make a to die for loquat cobbler. When jelly was too much work Danny made loquat jam which was basically stewed fruit (one cup of cooked pulp to three-quarter cup sugar) that she would can up. Spiced loquats and pickled loquats were two of Tito’s favorites so Danny put a couple of small jars in his box of supplies. He wrote back almost immediately to tell her that his commander’s mother wanted the recipes, please and thank you. Fulfilling that request gave her an excuse to check on the boys without making it seem like she was checking up on them. Another item she made for the tavern besides the pies was loquat salsa. Some guests didn’t know what to make of it but the regulars would fight over who got to dip their chip first.

There were two things that Danny made from the loquats that she had to do carefully or risk attention she didn’t need; loquat wine and liquor made from loquat seed pits. Loquat wine has to age at least a year before it is fit to drink so Danny was always playing catch up to the demand for it. Mr. Maddox liked to wink and tell anyone who asked it was a specialty item and hard to come by and charged a premium per glass and a huge commission when someone ordered a bottle to go. Danny didn’t mind because he always share the extra income with her. And a good thing he did because the cost of the special yeasts, enzymes, and the campden tablets she had to have to continue her winemaking business weren’t exactly cheap and often had to be shipped in from out of state or purchased from the import trade negotiators which was a bureaucratic nightmare sized headache. Lucky for Danny she wasn’t above doing a favor to get a favor down the road, and because of this flexibility now had a couple of negotiators that kept her towards the top of their customer lists.

The liquor from the pits was a whole lot cheaper to make with the only thing being costly the vanilla beans she had to ship in special from South Florida. The rest was basically just loquat pits, rose petals and lemon balm from her own garden, sugar, water, and the 90 proof ‘shine that she bought off of the same man that sold to the tavern. When finished the liquor tastes close enough to amaretto that most people can’t tell the difference. In fact if Mr. Maddox is running low on Amaretto before his next shipment comes in he’ll buy a bottle or two from Danny to tide him over until he can fix his inventory shortage.

April hadn’t been quite as profitable as March but she had still managed to put away the next two months of lot rent in scrip, pay Joey’s school bill, and send Tito the things he would need for next term. She harvested both true jaboticaba and false jaboticaba which was actually called “blue grape” though it wasn’t any more of a grape than it was a jaboticaba. She also harvested cherry of the rio grande, grumichama, and pomegranates. All five of those were from container bushes and trees her mother had started. They wouldn’t live much longer in their pots and Danny knew she had to decide pretty quickly what she was going to do … give them up or watch them die, either/or meaning that she was going to lose them in the near future so she enjoyed them while she had them. The jaboticabas (both true and false) and the grumichama was turned into jelly and what was left was eaten fresh saving Danny some grocery money.

The Cherry of the Rio Grande was a great container plant and she would give a lot to have a whole hedge of them. The two she had produced like crazy with the only downside is that since they didn’t last long after they became ripe they have to be picked and used daily which meant she either ate a lot of them fresh or made jams and preserves in small batches. But Danny loved the flavor because it and the grumichama was the closest she had to something cherry-flavored. True cherries were just too expensive for her purse even if Danner’s did sell them dried like raisins and cranberries. This year she has had enough fruit to juice them and experiment with a cherry-flavored wine. It will be months before Danny knows whether her experiment succeeded or failed.

The pomegranates Danny has are dwarf bushes and so are the fruit they produce. She has made a few small batches of pomegranate wine but she is still allowing it to age. What she makes mostly is homemade grenadine which helps in the tavern when people ask for a mixed drink. It doesn’t happen too often though, most people these days just want a beer or glass of wine or a glass of the hard stuff straight up. Not too many fancy customers stop at the tavern preferring the hotel in Leesburg that is closer to the rail line.

The most prolific producer of everything she has harvested in April is the mulberry. The problem with the mulberry is that is the most prolific … and it comes in all in the same month instead of being spread out. The mulberry trees were here before the flare and have survived everything that weather or man has thrown at them. There are now so many of the mulberry trees since areas are no longer mowed regularly that Danny doesn’t even have to worry about the birds getting them all before she can get her fill.

As always Danny’s first order of business is to set aside enough to make at least one batch of wine. The thing about the mulberry however is that the berry is kind of bland so in addition to the berries and other wine making ingredients she has to throw in some grape juice concentrate that she cans at other times of the year. She supposed she could make a plain mulberry wine and use a Bordeaux type yeast but the one time she tried it the wine was just too insipid and got used in cooking instead of drinking.

With the winemaking out of the way Danny turned her hand to making jams and preserves, canning left over juice, and making mulberry muffins for the Sunday Brunch Buffet that the tavern always put on for their Saturday night customers when they had any which wasn’t as often as the old days after the rail line decided that trains wouldn’t run on Sundays at all.

Today however she was trying to come up with something that would jumpstart Butch’s appetite or at least put him in a better mood. She remembered a couple of years ago there had been a carnival and she and Delia had made mulberry candy and hoping to raise a little money to pay for new shoes for Tito whose shoes at the time were being held together by bailing wire that they had scavenged from an old roadside ditch. Danny had already been working with Danner’s to sell her wares under an assumed name and the candies had actually proved very popular. Delia said that she’d even seen Butch buying some and then coming back later for more and being disappointed they were all sold out.

There hadn’t been a carnival since then so maybe Butch would remember and maybe he wouldn’t but either way Danny was willing to try anything at this point. She mixed ground mulberries with equal parts ground nuts. All she had was a mixture of pecans and walnuts but it would have to do. Then she rolled the resulting mess into balls and rolled the balls in sugar. All she had this time of year that wasn’t already set aside for the wines was peloncillo. Peloncillo is unrefined pure cane sugar formed into cones. You use it by grating the cone to get a coarsely ground sugar. Not exactly like the ones they made for the carnival but hopefully close enough.

“What’s all the noise?” Butch asked through the window.

“A surprise.”

Silence. Then, “I’m not much for surprises.”

“Me neither but this one isn’t a bad one. Give me a minute and I’ll bring them in.”

She carefully put the small candies into a tin and after washing her hands carried them into the RV. She put them in Butch’s lap and said, “Here. To sweeten your disposition.”

She walked away not wanting to draw attention to how badly she wanted him to like them. After gathering up the dirty clothes and sheets she was heading back outside when Butch said, “I’ve seen these before. Where have I seen these before?”

“Who knows? I’m going to …”

“Daniella I’m serious. I know these. It … it was that thing … that carnival. The one right after Eddie left. Did you get the recipe out of Danner? I remember every woman in town tried for weeks and he just kept his lips sealed. One even tried to bring a complaint against him because her husband kept pestering her so much about it.”

Danny smiled. “Something like that.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 9​

A couple of hours later Danny trudged back up the steps of the RV to put away the cleaned, dried, and ironed clothing and bedding. She was followed my Mr. Hunter.

Butch tried to stand but Mr. Hunter told him, “Relax Butch, the monitors have released you now that you’ve been without a fever for over a week but you still look like cat puke Boy. You and Danny fighting that much?”

Danny rolled her eyes, set the laundry down, and turned to leave. Butch stopped her. “You made them didn’t you? At the carnival. It was you. Danner just sold them for you … Delia was still here but this isn’t something that she would come up with.”

“Oh Delia can be creative when she needs to be.”

“That’s not what I said. It was you who made them.”

Danny shrugged and said, “Maybe.” She turned once again to leave and said, “I’ll bring your supper … unless … you’d rather take it at the tavern. I can tell Mrs. Maddox that …”

“No. I’m not in the mood for a lot of people.”

“Uh … okay. Ring the bell if you need anything. I’ll be in the garden.”

Some time later Danny was starting to fight the mosquitoes when Mr. Hunter found her. “He’s asleep. Don’t think he meant to be though. You’ve done a fine job of taking care of him. I was pretty sure I was going to have to have another name carved on the memorial.”

“Butch is tougher than that. But …”

“But he was bad off, still is a long way off from being fit for duty. Anyone with brains can see it but it took someone with a good heart to take him in and care for him, keep him out of that damn mausoleum of the dead they call a sick house. I know Butch ain’t the easiest to get along with … and you and him … well …”

“Mr. Hunter I don’t know what birdies you’ve been talking to but you are misinformed. I don’t have a heart. All I have is a wallet where my heart is supposed to be.”

“Uh huh. You keep letting people think that if you want to. I know better. And I’m thinking Butch knows better now too. But … that might cause problems.”

“There is no mixing of business and personal here Mr. Hunter. My family owed Butch an old debt. That’s all this is.”

“Then Butch is more thick-headed than I gave him credit for being. But if he is, at least about this, it might not be a bad thing. Tallahassee is still gunning to connect him to what is going on. They don’t want him back on the roster.”

“Sounds to me like they are trying to punish him for finding out things … things maybe some folks in Tallahassee didn’t want found out.”

Hunter gave Danny a sharp look. “I’m not saying you’re wrong Danny, hell I shouldn’t even be discussing this with you, but I am telling you not to say that where anyone else can hear it. These people … haven’t seen anything near like it since the flare … if they’re gunning for Butch it means that he might know more than he thinks he does. Do me a favor, talk to him. You got an ear for this stuff. Don’t tell me unless you think you’ve pulled anything usable, the fewer people that know the better. And watch yourself here at the tavern. Good place for a sniffer to hide in plain sight. You just be careful.”

“I always am Mr. Hunter. Always,” Danny told the man who took the statement at face value before walking away. Too bad for him.

Danny was tired. Bone tired. Just because she had gotten good at this game, especially over the last six months, doesn’t mean that she likes it. She put her foot on the bottom step and after a few moments battling with herself took the rest of them inside.

“Butch?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you’re tired but we need to talk. And you’re going to need to be awake and able to think when we do it. Can you?”

Butch cracked an eye open. “You want me gone. I’ll …”

“Don’t be an idiot. I said I need you awake and thinking. This is important so pay attention. If you can’t pull your head out of your backside …”

That did it. Butch was ready to burst a blood vessel and fight but he was still sick so was slow enough that he caught the look on Danny’s face before he popped off. “Hunter say something?”

“Shut that window while I get these. We’ll roast but since we’re already going to hell we might as well get used to it.” Butch listened to the tone in Danny’s voice and it made it even more imperative that he figure out what was up.

After all the windows were shut and the shades drawn Danny said, “They’ll think we are trying to hide that we’re having sex. Let ‘em. It will keep them from thinking the truth. Can you do that?”

“Depends on why. I do have my lily white reputation to think of you know.”

“Yeah. And if you don’t think that part of it is going to bother me then you can think again but what I’m thinking trumps the shade of your pale cracker butt.”

Butch tried to sit up and get comfortable but had a hard time until Danny leaned over and helped him. She caught a quick glimpse of Hunter carefully walking towards the laundry shack and was glad she’d already taken care of one particular problem.

She stood there looking through the crack in the drapes so long that Butch reached up and over to touch her shoulder. “Set me up. Whatever it is I need to see.”

Danny sighed. “We got problems Butch. Big problems.”

“I got problems. You got …”

“Butch as much as I hate to say it I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not the reason that you got hauled off to Tallahassee.”

“Wait … what?”

“Here me out. You remember the night you showed up all beat up. You remember me being on a tear?”

“Yeah … but we weren’t exactly on speaking terms so I just figured …”

“Well you were only partially right. Do you remember me telling you – before you face planted at my feet – that I wanted to pass off something to you?”

“To be honest Daniella I barely remember much after getting off my horse except being pissed off the tavern was full. Barely remember you hauling me over here. Remember delivering my report to Hunter but not much else.”

“In a way that’s good. Probably kept you from showing any sign of anything when you were being interrogated.”

“Dammit Daniella, what have you gotten into now?”

“Nothing on purpose and nothing I wanted to be in and to be honest I didn’t think it was anything to begin with until possibly just now … at least not something that would boomerang at me like it apparently is doing. But if you’re going to understand we gotta talk this through and I’m not too sure you ain’t gonna hate me for one reason or another before too long.”

Slowly Butch asked, “Are you part of this?”

“Not willingly and only on accident … and not knowingly until I just put a few bits together.” Danny sighed and leaned back in the chair she had been using to sit in to keep an eye on Butch when he was at his sickest. “I wouldn’t … look, I would never put my family in that kind of danger. I know what you think of me. I know what you think I’d stoop to ..”

“I told you I was sorry about that.”

“No, you were sorry that you wound up being wrong. That doesn’t mean that you don’t think I’m capable of it. There’s a difference and we both know it. And you might be right. But I never have stooped to certain things Butch. I’ve never used my body to get what I want. And I’ve never blackmailed anyone … ever. No matter how much ammunition I might have. I admit I’ve killed more than one man, but I’ve never planned it out and killed one in cold blood. And no, you don’t need to know how many, who they were, or why. You already know about the three that I’ve killed at the tavern over the years, the rest is just left in the past. I accept I’ll have to answer for it on Judgment Day, I don’t need you judging me before hand. I work hard for the money I make and the deals I make … but I don’t cheat the people I make the money off of; I always make sure whatever contract is made I hold up my end. My word means something to me even if it don’t mean much to other people. Understand what I’m trying to say?”

“You are smuggler?”

“No. I stay above the law even if it means losing business. I’m not scared of the law but the difference between me and the average tax cheat is that I understand that there’s not just me to think of. Tito would have a hard row to hoe if he had a sister that was a criminal. Joey too if he eventually goes into the military.”

“So you stay clean for the kids and what it means to them, not because you necessarily think it is that important.”

Danny shrugged. “Yes and no. Let’s just say I’ve lost my respect for most of humanity and those that enforce the laws guarding humanity. A lot of these so-called laws are just ways to trap people or get in the way of people bettering themselves. Wouldn’t want no one to get uppity now would we?”

“Daniella …”

“Shut up Butch. Last thing I want or need are your rationalizations or excuses. You are a good lawman. I’ll even admit that for the most part you are as fair as your job and your conscience allow you to be. But you just haven’t had to deal with certain aspects of life in the same way other people have.”

Danny tried to find the right words and deliver them carefully. “I’m not making excuses or rationalizations on my end either. I think everyone is personally accountable. And I know I am far from perfect but it still makes it hard for me not to be resentful. I don’t want to fall into the same trap that I’ve watched a lot of people fall into. To understand I’m going to have to be … Butch I’m going to have to say things you aren’t going to want to hear but you’re still going to have to hear them. Just also understand that what I say isn’t being said to hurt you or anything else; it is just the way things were and to some extent still are. Can you do that?”

Danny knew that Butch’s hesitant nod was the best she was going to get and so she started the explanation. “Of the six of us I was born with the darkest skin. I’m still lighter than my grandmother was but you know how dark I get in the summer. Just look at me now. I was only out in the garden a couple of hours today and … well, my Cuban heritage is on plain display.”

“I’ve seen your skin … beneath your shirt.”

“What?!”

“It was the night it rained. You came in soaking wet. You thought I was asleep … hell I thought I was asleep … but then you stripped off your shirt. Where did those scars come from? The ones across your back?”

Danny was livid. Then shook her head refusing to get off track and this too was part of the story. “Strange you bring that up. Especially now. And if you ever spy on me again I’ll make sure you’ll have matching scars.”

Sardonically Butch said, “Fair enough. Now tell me.”

Danny could have been irritated at his sudden bossiness after weeks of being sick and then feeling sorry for himself … but she wasn’t. In fact she took it as a good sign. But he was going to be sorry he asked.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 10​

“Eddie hadn’t left yet but he’d gotten lucky and was away making some scrip when they repaired the rail station over in Leesburg. Two years Momma and Poppy had been dead, and we’d been on our own. Tavern was just really starting to make a name for itself. I don’t blame Eddie for being gone, we had to have the money, and I’m not sure it would have changed what happened anyway. Things were finally … things were finally getting better overall, but there were still plenty of pockets of dark. Lots of divisions all over the place … by geography, by wealth or what was left of it, by language and ethnicity … by race.”

Butch growled, “Dammit …”

Impatiently Danny asked, “You want to know or you want to interrupt me with your cussing?”

Butch shook his head angrily. “I remember that year. I had just been inducted into the training academy. We heard about that kind of trouble popping up … it got a few guys kicked out of the academy when they tried to bring it into the dorms … but no one ever said anything about it being around here. From what I had heard around here was almost like a haven.”

Cynicism dripped from Danny’s every word. “Most people didn’t want to know back then, they sure don’t want to remember it now that they’ve buried it so deep and hidden from it so well.” She snorted and shook her head before continuing. “And it wasn’t as bad here as it was in other places; mostly vandalism and a little harassment. But it only takes a little bad to infect a lot of people a little bit and it only takes one person to go off the deep end to make a little bad into a lot worse.” Looking into the past Danny said, “I’d forget if I could. It would make dealing with some people around here easier.” Danny sighed. “Delia, she looks the most like Momma. Nita comes next but both of them can’t deny their Spanish heritage even if they are real light skinned compared to me. Eddie took after Poppy’s father who was a Spaniard; he is light skinned but never burns … always had what Poppy called a cowboy tan. Joey favors that side of the family too. Tito and I though are closer to Poppy’s grandmother’s looks and she was pure Cuban though there really is no such thing since so many races and ethnicities make up the Cuban population that you can have kids of all different colors that come out of the same two parents. I’m still two shades darker than Tito most of the time though his skin tone varies less than mine. I lighten up during the winter, Tito doesn’t.”

A little uncomfortably Butch said, “I’m assuming you’re saying this for a reason.”

“Just setting the stage. It doesn’t really mean anything to me but it sure as heck meant something to people back then … and still means something to people today though they’re more careful about how they let it show or didn’t you read all the options on the federal census they just did? It was a real shock for people to see that mulatto was an option on there and so many different variations of Hispanic. Heck for the international races they asked if whether someone was aryan or non-aryan.” Danny stopped and shook her head. “Sorry, didn’t mean to go down that road. It just blows my mind how over-involved people can get with their psuedoscience.”

“Psuedo … never mind,” Butch sighed. “Just tell it. We can argue people’s stupidity some other time. Might actually be the only thing we ever agree on.”

Danny chuckled wryly in agreement then got serious once again. “The fact that Eddie was off working … well we were sitting ducks and didn’t even know it. It happened suddenly and without warning like someone had wound a crowd of drunks up and then sent them off in different directions to wreak havoc. Honestly is about what did happen from what Father Brannigan put tother. For sure we weren’t the only ones that got attacked. Men came into the yard. Delia grabbed up the kids and made it into the tavern and Mr. Maddox shot a man trying to get in after them. I got taken while I was doing laundry. They carried me off on someone’s horse into the woods and then threw me to the ground when we reached a clearing big enough for them to work in. They started horsewhipping me, saying things like they’d ride me like a filly when they were through or that they’d teach me to be uppity or that I was a half-breed and an abomination or … well it really doesn’t matter what they said, I chose not to listen to them.”

In a voice hoarse with anger Butch asked, “My God, you were nothing but a baby back then. How did you get away?”

“I think being ten years old was why I survived. When you are just a kid you still think someone is going to come to the rescue. So I just kept fighting. I was too scared not to fight. It hurt. Sometimes if I dream about it I wake up hurting just like I did back then. One of the drawbacks of having such a good memory,” Danny sighed tiredly. “But the guy’s arm finally give out, he wasn’t in great shape and whipping someone is more work than most people think. Then they threw me down only I didn’t stay down … I ran … sorta ran anyway. My clothes were barely hanging on me and I kept tripping over palmetto roots. Didn’t get far before I went down hard but in the end it was a blessing that I didn’t have to keep going because I don’t know how far I would have made it.

Father Brannigan had gotten some men together and come looking for me. Father Brannigan, Cleavis Ocampo, and Terry Bryan. They’re the ones that found me. Mr. Ocampo turned the horsewhip on those men … marked them for life the same way they had marked me. Nearly didn’t stop and wouldn’t have if Father Brannigan and Mr. Bryan hadn’t pulled him off. Mr. Ocampo was white but had been adopted by his mother’s second husband.”

“Who was Spanish.”

“Yep. Did you ever hear why the Ocampo and Bryan families moved away?”

“Cleavis died in a freak hunting accident and his wife took their kids and moved to wherever she had family though I never heard where … it was before I was stationed in Wildwood. The Bryans? They just seemed to be here one day and gone the next. I can’t recall hearing anything in particular.”

“And you won’t, at least not the truth of what really happened. Mr. Bryan’s wife got some kind of female sickness – might have turned into cancer in the end, I’m not sure. I am sure that she was in a lot of pain. He … borrowed … scrip to get her into the hospital in Gainesville. She died while getting treatment but he still tried to pay his debt like an honest man. But his debt holder decided to call it all in … and when he couldn’t pay, took his two kids as reimbursement and for all intents and purposes sold them into indenture. Mr. Terry and Mrs. Ocampo actually … well they moved off together but not to Mrs. Ocampo’s brother. They went looking for Mr. Bryan’s kids to bail them out. The Ocampo and Bryan families had been close since before Flare Day. Guess they stayed close.”

“Did you get this through tavern gossip?”

“Nope, from Father Brannigan one night when he had a drunk on. It would happen once or twice a month. I suppose you might say that was the Irish in him but mostly I think it was the devil getting to him. He was a saint on the one hand with all he has given but he’s also just a man and the stress would get to him. I wouldn’t let no one but me take him back to the church manse and he’d talk almost the whole way there, like I was the confessor that he was for everyone else.”

“Jesus.”

“Not hardly so don’t blaspheme, just me paying a debt I can never pay all of. I’ve stayed silent all these years about all the things I know about people around here more out of respect for Father Brannigan than any high ideals anyone might otherwise attribute to me so don’t you go getting any ideas about pumping me for information either because it won’t work. But …”

“But?”

“Those three men that were killed that day at the tavern … the day you came back sick. You never heard their names did you?”

“No, there wasn’t time to get a full accounting of what had happened. It wasn’t too long after that that Tallahassee arrived. Why?”

“I recognized two of the men … didn’t identify them since I didn’t know the investigator in charge, he had too much fool in him for my taste. One was Claudio Ocampo and the other was Bryan Terry so I guess Mr. Bryan found his kids or at least somehow the Ocampo and Bryan families stayed in contact. I haven’t wanted to know how they hooked up after all those years and I sure haven’t worried too much about how they got where they got. But maybe someone should. There might be a story in there.”

“Sum bitch.”

“It gets better.”

“Oh it does does it?”

“Yeah, and this is the part that is going to make me seem … look, I can’t stand the undertaker. He desecrates the living and the dead … and he’s got freaky sex habits according to Cindy, too freaky even for her so you know they gotta be outrageous. So I stripped the bodies and put what I found there in burlap bags. I meant to turn them over to the investigator but he left so quick I didn’t even have a chance. I was trying to figure out a way to turn those bags in without getting caught when you show up and I think my prayers have been answered only you go and keel over in a mud puddle and things start moving so fast … I honestly just didn’t think they were important Butch; or should I say not important the way it is looking like they are important.”

“I can’t say whether they are or aren’t but you’re right that you could get in trouble. Still, unless it is something obvious …”

“They may be why you got pulled in. Had I turned them over maybe nothing would have ever … conyo … I feel like a fool.”

Butch was silent for a moment then asked, “You still got the bags?”

“Yeah and I swear I haven’t touched the contents since I put it in the bags and labeled them. You’ve been sleeping over them the whole time and God help us both if Hunter had been any more suspicious than he already is.”

Carefully Butch said, “You’re … you’re implicating Hunter. Are you sure you know what you are talking about?”

“Yeah. And I know you’re going to hate me for it but hear me out. It might be a matter of life and death for both of us.”

Butch slowly nodded, at least temporarily willing to hear Danny out.

“I don’t think Hunter is … well maybe he is, I don’t know what to think just yet. I never would have thought anything if Hunter hadn’t overplayed his hand just now.”

“Overplayed how?”

“He basically asked me to pump you for information but not let on that’s what I was doing because he doesn’t necessarily believe you know what it is you know.”

“What? Daniella make sense.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. I think he thinks that you know something, he just thinks you don’t realize you know something. And what you know may not even sound like much unless you have other facts to add to it. But he told me to only come to him with something that I thought implicated you which means that he thinks that whatever it is I’ll recognize it … which also means that he thinks I know something. Granted he didn’t say it like that but I’m not as stupid as he apparently thinks I am. Which surprises me … if he knew that I was the one that was funneling info through Father Brannigan he must know that I’m smarter than … I mean …”

Thoughtfully Butch bit the inside of his lip before saying, “Not necessarily. Hunter did know you gave Father Brannigan some information but I realized pretty quickly he didn’t think you understood what you were funneling. He thinks I’m putting two and two together and that you’re mostly just …”

“Full of avarice?”

“Let’s just say he thinks you’d do most anything for your brothers.”

“And by anything you mean everything.”

Butch wouldn’t meat Danny’s gaze. She shook her head. “Fine. But I really don’t hold that against him. In fact I … I kinda feel sorry for him. I’m thinking that he got in over his head and would love a way out, but he has too much riding on it. I think he … possibly anyway … would like a way to appease whomever he owes without implicating either of us.”

“Is this where you add one of those pieces of information I’m missing?”

“You ain’t missing it, you just think too much of Hunter whereas I … I know things. He’s not necessarily a bad man but he’s made mistakes. And some of those mistakes probably got used against him but mostly its his daughter.”

Butch stared at Danny then sighed. “Laurel. I take it she got hooked again.”

“Yep. According to Father Brannigan’s ramblings he doesn’t think she was ever totally clean to begin with. You must have suspected something when Hunter sent her off last year to go live with her mother. Only …”

“Only? What else don’t I know?”

“Hunter didn’t send her to her mother. Her mother won’t take her after what happened last time with her … um …”

Butch sighed. “The thing with the stepbrother.”

With a little relief Danny nodded. “Yeah, that. I …”

“Yeah, I know about Laurel. Not that the mother wouldn’t take her back though. If she isn’t with the mother where is she?”

“She was at that residential facility run by that coalition of churches. It’s near Sebring. She kept running off. They had her in the lockdown ward last I heard but it is just as possible that she got tossed out on her butt for refusing treatment protocol and is now in the hands of … whoever. Or she could still be there and she’s … under the thumb of someone. Hunter always did have a blind spot where Laurel is concerned. She’s my age but … never mind.”

“OK, so you’ve presented pretty good circumstantial evidence I’ll give you that but what are we supposed to know that is so important?”

“Move. Or at least skootch so that I can reach under you.”

Butch did as asked but it took more energy than he expected it would and he silently cursed his weakness. And when she handed him the first burlap bag its weight surprised him and he nearly dropped it.

“What the hell?”

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[DIMDAL]

But wait! There's more!
I love this story :-)

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11​

Danny snorted and said, “Yeah, I said the same thing as I was trying to drag the bodies outside. All three of those men had money belts on them … full money belts, and we aren’t talking paper scrip either.”

After a moment’s hesitation Butch opened the drawstring on the first burlap bag. He looked inside and then pulled out what was obviously a blood and sweat-stained money belt. He hefted it and then quirked an eyebrow at Danny. “Did you count it?”

“No smart aleck, but it isn’t too hard to figure what you’re looking at once you realize they are all blanks.”

“Blanks? No face value?”

“Nope. And the blanks are soft so barring some geologist telling me that this is fool’s gold or that there is a lead core to the disks I’m going to say these are fairly pure and meant for back room trading and not anything you do over a table or in writing.”

Butch nodded absentmindedly while examining the belt further. “They all like this?”

“Yeah, standard issue black marketeer belt.”

“Or drug courier’s belt. I’ve seen these used to bank baggies of powder and pills in easy to sell quantities.”

Danny nodded, not even pretending she didn’t know about such things.

“You measured them and saved me the trouble?”

“All three belts are about 30-inches plus the tie strings. Those double rows of pockets are about one-inch wide … so those blanks are probably ¼ troy ounce each and there are two of them in each pocket. So 120 blanks at ¼ oz. each … meaning each man was walking around with thirty ounces of gold just in the belts.”

“What do you mean just in the belts?”

“Dig a little deeper Detective Pinder.”

Shaking his head at what he considered Danny’s unnecessary levity he upended the rest of the bag onto his lap and promptly started cussing.

“Will you hush?” Danny admonished him. “You want to draw attention … or at least anymore than we’ve already got on us? The way you’re making noise they’ll think … well there’s lots they could think and none of them particularly nice.”

Butch glared at her. “Fine time to start thinking of your reputation.”

“I never had a reputation, or at least not like one of your light-skinned, lemon-headed girl friends. So just …”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Danny had snapped before she thought, a habit she had thought she left behind a few years back. With regret she said, “Just ignore me. Bringing up the old story stirred up stuff I thought I’d dealt with.”

“Bull, you made it personal on purpose.”

“Butch, stay on topic here. I don’t want to wind up with a bullet in the back of my head; not because I’m particularly enamored of this life but because I still have Tito and Joey to take care of, and Nita too for that matter since I don’t mean to leave Delia stuck with it all. That’s just not my way.”

“You ain’t putting me off … but I’m willing to put it aside for now. We will be discussing this again at some point; count on it.”

“I’m trembling with anticipation. Now you tell me what you see here isn’t worth a bullet or two.”

Butch growled a little in frustration but knowing Danny also knew it was useless to try and push her in any direction she wasn’t willing to go. The girl was mule stubborn to the core. Turning to look at the mess in his lap Butch sighed, “Just tell me Danny. I’m getting … I’m getting tired.”

Danny noticed that there was a tremble in one of Butch’s hands that he tried to hide by wiping it on the covers and she decided that compassion was in order … just not where he could tell what she was doing; no need to give him ideas. “Fine. Be that way. And I don’t care what you think I didn’t nick anything. Wouldn’t have done much good had I wanted to. Kinda hard to get that amount of blood out of paper scrip without damaging the raised seal. I suppose you could rinse it but it would be a tiresome job. The federal notes would be easier to clean but harder to get rid of. Not too many people take them locally. The closest exchange office is in Leesburg.”

“But they’re good for interstate travel and bribes, especially as they are what the federal troops get paid with.”

“Yep,” Danny agreed. “The wallet has both state scrip and federal notes. Not necessarily anything to convict a man on so just more circumstantial evidence. Not even adding the other three currencies.”

“Name ‘em.”

“There’s a bag of gold shavings, a bag of gold nuggets and snips, and then there is a bag of old circulated silver coins … like ancient old, last century kinda stuff. Each man carried similar though the third man, the one I didn’t recognize, carried about a third more than what Claudio and Terry had on them. All their personal crap was good quality … not expensive but not cheap either. Good stuff but not what screams “look at me damn I’m rich”. Again, the third man’s seemed to be just a little better than Claudio’s or Terry’s belongings right down to his bedroll and saddle bags.”

Butch said, “I don’t see any saddle bags here.”

“You won’t either. That investigator took them off.”

“But you looked in them.”

“Of course I did after I saw what they were carrying on their persons.”

“Anything in the bags?”

“Nope.”

“Huh? Did you just say they were empty?”

“Yep.”

“Daniella …”

“I’m not yanking your chain Butch, those saddle bags were empty. Of course if I were those men I wouldn’t have left stuff in those bags when I wasn’t around either. And they didn’t. The idiots just had them in their boots.”

“Dammit Danny … I mean Daniella … I mean …” Butch started coughing.

“Conyo, I shouldn’t be teasing you when you aren’t in any condition … here … sip this.”

Embarrassed at his continued weakness Butch got foul. “Tastes like bull piss. Hate that shit.”

“Well excuse me though I’m sure I don’t want to know how you know how the taste compares. Now drink it or I’ll hold your nose and force it down your throat. If I have to deal with this mess, I’m not going to get stuck by myself … so you’re going to live whether you feel like it or not. You understand me Butch Pinder?”

It took Danny a few moments to realize that Butch wasn’t choking to death but trying not to laugh while he drank the concoction that she’d brewed for him to help break up the congestion in his lungs.

“Oooooo, you are so lucky that I need you right now.”

That only made Butch snicker more and Danny got madder. She was tempted to just smother him with a handy pillow. She was pretty sure no one would blame her much and she might even get off with involuntary manslaughter.

Finally Butch had himself back under control. “Daniella, you look like a fritzed out cat.” He reached out and carefully tugged on a curl that had escaped the flat iron and the severe hair style that Danny normally kept her hair in. “I wondered why you tortured yourself with those cast iron tongs. You’re hair is even curlier than Nita and Delia’s.”

“Yeah it is so you can stop pointing it out. I’ve got a mirror and don’t need reminding. It is embarrassing enough as it is. Finish your tea.”

“Already did. Now what is it that I’m not seeing?”

Danny handed him the burlap bag that held the belongings of the third man. “The only thing really different in that one than the other two is that cigar case and the flask.”

Butch opened the bag, verified what Danny had said, then pulled out the two items. The flask had a hole in it. “How’d this happen?”

“During their attempted escape, he was the last man out and was the one that got filled with bullets. The flask took one, that fancy cigar case took another.”

Butch noted that Danny was waiting on him to notice something so he pulled his tired brain back together and tried to be the investigator he claimed to be. After looking at the flask he sniffed what remained of the contents. “This ain’t liquor … and the red ain’t blood. What the hell? Why would someone carry around a flask of red ink?”

“Open the box and find out.”

Butch did and then there came a long, low string of some of the most creative and descriptive cussing that Danny had ever heard. Not even Mr. Maddox could have bested the dictionary that Butch had just dictated. “My, my, my Detective Pinder. Any more hidden talents like that one?”

Butch growled, “Don’t tempt me Daniella. Sum bitch! You obviously know what this is.”

“It doesn’t exactly take an Einstein to recognize a seal set Butch … and one close look at the seal would tell the rest of the story.”

“Dammit to hell and back,” Butch said, almost in awe at what had to be either boldness or abject stupidity. “Carrying around a state scrip seal in a cigarillo case. Damn, damn, damn. Let me take a look at the scrip again …”

“Don’t need to, about half of it is counterfeit. Good counterfeit but I’ve been a barmaid too long not to recognize a knock off when I see one. The thing is I’m not surprised about the seal so much as I am about the quality of the paper. The printing and seal may be counterfeit but that paper isn’t.”

“Let me see,” he demanded. Sure enough Danny was correct but her assessment had been a little exaggerated; it was more like one counterfeit for every three real pieces of scrip.

Butch finished examining the contents of all three bags and then helped Danny put them back where she’d had them hidden. He sat there quietly thinking before looking at Danny and saying, “This is a separate business from the smuggling. I’m not even sure if this has anything to do with the smuggling ring or not.”

“You sure?”

“No, I’m not but smuggling is a different business from counterfeiting. Smuggling needs a market, counterfeiting destroys markets. Smuggling needs inflation, counterfeiting will cause a depression. Smuggling counts on their being a need for something, counterfeiting kills the value of the something it is pretending to be.”

“OK, yeah, everyone knows that if you can’t count on your scrip being good it pretty much destroys the economy and your ability to trade outside your immediate area … it even hurts the smugglers as Mr. Maddox found out when it became impossible for him to buy certain types of liquor after Flare Day. It’s why the state standardized all the scrips that were floating around and instituted the raised seal requirement to validate it … like they do with most original government documents. So are you saying that someone is trying to tank Florida’s economy?”

“I don’t know about tank it, but maybe knock the state down a bit. We lost a bigger segment of the population the two years following Flare Day because of the number of elderly and medication dependent … uh …”

“Don’t tippy toe around it Butch. We both know my father would have died eventually. He had a good life, just shorter than he expected … but he still left a lot of himself behind. Just say what you have to.”

Butch sighed. “Not everyone deals with the aftermath of Flare Day that stoically. Even Hunter … losing his son when his plane went down … lots of other people.”

“Yeah I know. No one seems content until they have your Flare Day story to match it against their own. For some people its like a contest to see who suffered the most.” Danny snorted. “It doesn’t make a hill of beans as my grandfather would have said … and for all I know might still say if he is still alive. What counts is what you are doing now, not what happened to you too many years ago.”

Butch quirk his eyebrow and let it go though he knew what Danny was saying held more bravado than truth. “Florida’s financial situation is a lot better than other states. Oh, you have some with natural resources like coal and oil that don’t do too badly assuming they’ve been able to get the heavy equipment running again but that usually helpful to a small segment of the population. Here in Florida our economy is more varied … we have the year-round agriculture, the aquaculture, the phosphate mines, the timber industry … textiles, import/export at the ports, and a lot more. We also have all the old military bases and installations that have their own microeconomies that feed into the local economies. It has made us pretty damn independent of DC’s control.”

“You aren’t saying that … that the federals have a hand in this?”

“I don’t know what to think right now. If feels like my brain has been used in a game of soccer … kicked all over the place.”

“Then why don’t you rest for a while. I need to get another batch of soda pop prepped.”

Butch snorted. “I can’t believe you are the maker of the Pop’s Pop. I know people that save up just so they can take a date to Danner’s to have a bottle of that stuff.”

Danny gave a satisfied smile. “Good. The more customers the better. I’m trying to get ahead of Joey’s tuition payments. Now stop talking and rest.”

Danny walked away but it took Butch a lot longer to get to sleep. He’d been overlooking a lot about the young woman he watched silently move about in the old RV. He’d considered her just a kid and then a barmaid but that was such a small part of who she was. And if he had figured things out by the small clues he’d been putting together the last couple of months, she really no longer needed to work as a barmaid. He also suspected that Danny might even own a partial interest in the tavern. He suspected instead of an income it insured that she had a place to live … as in it paid her lot rent and taxes on the old RV that was her home and that had become his temporary refuge. He couldn’t say for certain but he suspected it and he doubted anyone, even Tito, knew the extent of her financial dabbling. He had barely begun to unwind all the pies she had her fingers in as most seemed to be sworn to secrecy. He also suspected that she had more to do with that kid Ronnie than the Maddox family did. Danny had an unexpected streak of soft-heartedness that she tried hard to hide but Butch had caught too many glimpses of it to ignore.

What the hell was he going to do now? This was a mess and that was a fact.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[K.B.]

I think i missed reading this one before. I appreciate the opportunity now. Thank you!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 12​

A tired whisper called to Danny from the dark side of the smokehouse as she was taking down a roll of sausage for the next day’s breakfast crowd. “Danny, you got anything for me?”

Danny jumped but some of it was theatrical as she had known he was standing there. “Mr. Hunter, you startled me.” Danny made a production out of settling down and then with a faked frustration she looked around before saying, “I’m not even going to play stupid ‘cause I respect you too much. The honest truth is I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for. If you’d give me some hint?”

Mr. Hunter shook his head. “You haven’t found out anything?”

“Like I said Mr. Hunter, about all Butch does is lay there silently moping. I think it hurts him worse than the other stuff just to think that someone would consider him a suspect in anything. The man is so clean he squeaks when he walks, not that he’s been doing much walking recently. And he sure don’t like me in his business. Last night I tried to talk to him a little bit, kinda find out what the Tallahassee men had asked about and he got so angry and frustrated in short order than I had to dose him and knock him out. This morning he is … well let’s just say that I got gone as quickly as I could. Any word on when they are going to let him go back to work? I want my RV and privacy back.”

“I thought you and Butch had … er … come to an understanding.”

Danny snorted. “Right now the only understanding we have is that Butch is none too pleased that it is me taking care of him. You know he isn’t real respectful of my profession. I swear the man is so stiff he must iron his underwear. I think had he been given the choice he might have preferred being left to die; and the only thing that kept him here is that he is determined to prove to you that he is trustworthy. It’s been all Mr. Hunter this and Mr. Hunter that and what must Mr. Hunter think and surely Mr. Hunter knows …” Danny stopped not wanting to lay it on too think but hoping to see whether there was a guilty conscience under there.

Mr. Hunter for his part grimaced. “Butch always was an idealist. I would have thought the job would have fixed that by now. He’s a good detective but …”

“But?”

“He … well, between you and me there isn’t always room for idealism in this line of work … and in this life in general. But I suppose you’ve been forced to discover that for yourself.”

“Oh I found that out about the time that a lot of people around here developed what you might call intentional amnesia after Russell Hockstetter horse whipped me. Very few men – or women - in the community said a thing about it afterwards.”

Hunter looked at Danny sharply and she gave him look for look. Finally Hunter asked, “You still holding a grudge over that after all these years?”

“Let’s just say … I know who I can trust and who I can’t, and one list is a whole lot shorter than the other.”

Like he’d just thought of something Hunter asked, “Did you ever hear what became of the Ocampo family?”

“The Ocampo’s, now there is a blast from the past,” Danny said like she hadn’t just discussed that very thing with Butch the previous night. “After Mr. Ocampo was shot by Tony Richmond – and that wasn’t no accident and we both know it – Mrs. Ocampo is supposed to have taken her kids and gone to family. Whether she made it there or not I have no clue. I rarely hear news of people once they leave the area. Except every once in a while … like the Richmonds.”

“Why bring them up?”

“It is what I heard about them recently. A few weeks back I heard that Tonya Richmond was listed as a runaway.”

“That’s not exactly an uncommon name Danny. Could be a different Tonya. I doubt …”

“It was a Tony Richmond that had placed the advertisement saying she was a runaway and a danger to herself. All you got to do is put two and two together to get the real truth. What it sounds like is Tonya finally got tired of her father beating her and run off. I hope she gets far away from him and never looks back. And for the record, it wasn’t Cleavis Ocampo that Tonya’s mother was having an affair with that time and we both know it.”

Hunter rubbed his nose and nodded. “That’s a debt already paid.”

“Depends on how you look at it.” Danny stopped her personal digs and sighed. “I’ll try and help you Mr. Hunter but I gotta have some clue which way to look. Butch isn’t like so many others around here. He’s almost too squeaky clean. It is likely one of the reasons he and I have a hard time getting along. A woman can only take so much of that and my patience is beginning to run thin. I’ll keep going for you since you seem to think it is important, but I’m just about prepared to dump Butch on his head if he doesn’t knock it off.”

Hunter licked his lips and scrubbed his face. Danny could see the stress and worry that he was trying to hide.

“I don’t want to plant something that isn’t there,” Hunter muttered. “But people – important people – are asking questions. They want answers.”

“Answers for what? Is this still about that posse business?”

“Not … exactly. Danny, are you certain that Butch hasn’t said anything out of the usual for him?”

“No,” she grumped. “Why do you think I’m having so much trouble with him? If he was to suddenly turn nice or start treating me like … well … I’d probably send for the quack and the undertaker.”

An unwilling smile slipped onto Hunter’s face. “And here I thought you and Butch had … an understanding.”

Danny didn’t even try and not understand. “You keep saying that but Butch thinks he is too straight for that. Not that I might not be willing, he isn’t a bad man and I’ve never heard him to be a hitter … but …”

“But?”

“I’ve got responsibilities and other people to think about. I’ve always tried to live … circumspectly. I know what people think of me and I know they’ve had me in bed with just about every man that has come into the tavern twice, but no. For one thing I just wouldn’t have the patience for it. For two, it’s bad business. For three … well … just forget it. People are going to believe what they want to believe. Butch included. And I guess since you won’t tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for I’ll just keep pecking at him until he gets irritated and starts yelling again.”

“No. Don’t do that.” Hunter stopped and stared off into the darkness. Danny suddenly got the feeling that someone else was watching the exchange between her and the Investigator. “Look, this is sensitive stuff that involves sensitive people. I need to know what Butch saw that day that the tavern was shot up.”

Danny snorted. “Nothing but a face full of mud. It wasn’t until that other investigator … that one visiting from Leesburg … and the undertaker had been gone a few hours before Butch dragged his sorry butt in wanting a bed to crawl into.”

“You absolutely sure about that?”

“Sure I’m sure. I’d already had to drag those three men out into the yard ‘cause no one from the militia office would come get them before they started stinking, especially the gut shot one. And you know how the undertaker is … put it in writing that he isn’t going to get stuck with the expense or you can forget him doing his job for the district. Having to drag Butch out of the mud and get him to the RV … well you were there. He was just so pleasant.”

Hunter scratched his chin. “Who besides you messed with the bodies?”

“I didn’t mess with the bodies. I just got them out of the kitchen so it could be cleaned up before the evening crowd arrived. I dragged them into the back, right over near the refuse pit. It was after the lunch crowd but before the dinner crowd when I went outside and found the investigator telling the undertaker to get a move on. The undertaker was fussing because the investigator had already had the men’s horses moved to the militia corral which meant that the funeral wagon would have to be used and the man was actually fussing that he’d have to clean it ‘cause of the mess the men were in. He wanted extra payment for the trouble.”

Hunter nodded. “That confirms what was … in the report.”

“I don’t know about a report, just what I saw.”

“Could that boy … what’s his name … Ronnie … could he have seen anything? Maybe … tampered with evidence?”

“Only thing Ronnie saw was the inside of a bucket. The boy was sick as a dog and Mrs. Maddox had the quack to check him out to make sure it was nothing catching. He’d eaten a couple of green bananas on a dare and they didn’t set well with him … either end; he was either throwing up or visiting the outhouse. It wasn’t until that eventing that Mrs. Maddox finally let him up and she only let him in the barn ‘cause she didn’t want to disturb the guests.”

“I’ll ask the quack about that.”

“Do. And while you’re at it you can pinch him for me. His prices are getting outrageous. He was already making a pretty penny off Butch, there was no need for him to give us another travel charge when he was already here. And don’t look at me like that. It just isn’t right.”

Hunter shook his head. “Girl, you pinch a penny so hard you make it cry.”

Being totally honest she told Hunter, “I’ll make it scream and beg for mercy if given the chance. I don’t see anything wrong with Dr. Johnson making a buck … but I won’t stand back and watch someone make a buck he don’t deserve.”

Hunter shook his head and then asked once again, “Are you sure that Butch could not have been back any earlier? That he couldn’t have seen anything?”

“No … and you know? I think I can even prove it. He had toll tickets in his boot top.”

“What?”

“Toll tickets. I helped Butch take his boots off and he fussed at me for messing up his stupid toll tickets and getting them out of order. He said he had to turn them in with his report. I put them back in order and … stuck them to the tavern bulletin board. C’mon they are probably still there.”

“No, you bring ‘em to me here.”

Danny did and Hunter looked at them in consternation and then shook his head. “If it wasn’t him then who was it?”

“Who was what?”

Hunter jumped; he hadn’t mean to speak aloud. “Danny did anyone else besides the investigator and the undertaker mess with those bodies?”

“Not in my sight but I was cleaning. That investigator didn’t say nothing about the condition the bodies were in or about me moving them. I actually expected that he would fuss but his didn’t.”

“He didn’t remark on it at all?”

“No sir. Look, I will keep talking to Butch but I really gotta get these sausages in to Mrs. Maddox. She’s a little bit on the warpath tonight. Apparently two of those men that came for the posse left without paying their bill.”

“Which two?”

Danny named them and Mr. Hunter said, “I’ll look into it. And … and you just lay off Butch for now. Instead of pecking at him, you make up sweet to him … and keep your ear open in case he talks in his sleep. I think I’ve got enough to go with for now. But I want him to stay right where he is at. I know you say you want him gone but until they release him for work … and he isn’t getting paid until they approve his return to the roster. I’ll … I’ll see if I can’t …”

Danny sighed. “Don’t. I’ll look after him. But don’t bring the other into it. I don’t want people getting any ideas about me … being Butch’s … paid companion. I don’t need those complications. But I can’t guarantee what shape he is going to be in if he doesn’t knock off the attitude.”

Hunter only nodded half heartedly like his mind was already some place else and working hard. He walked back off into the dark and though Danny wanted to linger in the yard to see if she could find out if there had been someone else observing everything she hurried to the tavern just like she had said she had needed to. She was even met at the back door by Cindy Brewster who said breathlessly, “Mrs. Maddox is looking for you.”

It was a very late night and she didn’t head to the RV until almost three in the morning. There had been some rowdy customers that had to be sent off down the road. One of them had grabbed Ronnie and shook him up pretty bad and Danny herself had a good knot on her chin where the guy had taken a swing at her when she’d stepped in to protect the boy. Danny had gotten so mad that she’d grabbed the man by his crotch, and then while squeezing painfully, she’d pushed him out of the tavern’s front portal and then nearly gutted him when he’d come at her again. The man would have a vivid reminder of his mistake, that was certain; one that ran from his belt-line to his collar bone and another that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

The man had threatened to bring charges and she’d cussed him so long and hard in Spanish that even the long-time regulars were amazed.

“You ever come near me or mine,” Danny finally spit out in English. “And there won’t be anything left of you to find and bury. You were abusing a ten-year-old boy. I’m turning your name into the decency committee, they keep a database of names of people like you and they share it around the state. And that database is also shared with all the local militias. Mayhap I’ll take a run across the ramp and see if your face isn’t already on a wanted poster … or maybe I’ll make sure your face does get put on one.”

The man snarled from where a couple of his friends held him up. “Just ‘cause you sleepin’ with a lawman …”

“He ain’t got nothin’ to do with nothin’ right now. I don’t hide behind no one. You just remember what I said. You mess with me or mine and you will pay a painful penalty. And you can tell your bosses that too.”

“You don’t know …”

Danny gave a wicked smile. “But I do now don’t I? And just as soon as I figure out who you work for reckon I’ll let them know how bad a job you’re doing keeping their secrets. And how big a spectacle you like to make of yourself. Wonder what they’ll pay you back with for that slip?”

The two other men looked at each other and started pulling their friend away. Danny had already committed all of their features to memory – she would have anyway but she made special effort with them – and also listened to all the gossip the rest of the evening about who they might be. What the man that had attacked her didn’t realize apparently was that she’d picked his pockets during the initial brawl. She hadn’t made any effort to look at his wallet while at work and she was eager to get to the RV and go over it.

But before she could do that, she had needed to get Ronnie bedded down which had been no easy feat as he had been very shook up and not a little roughed up. Mrs. Maddox had hired a young girl by the name of Rhonda to help. She was thirteen and had said that Ronnie could sleep in her room if he promised to behave and though Ronnie was a little embarrassed, he was also more than willing.

It wasn’t until all of that was taken care of and seen to that she was free. She was halfway to the RV when she heard a sound behind her that was out of place in the night. She placed her hand in her pocket – where her knife was - but otherwise didn’t make any outward sign that she was preparing to be attacked. Then the RV door opened and for a brief moment Danny worried that someone had gotten to Butch who was not up to protecting himself from the men she’d fought with.

Instead it was Butch in the doorway. “What the Sam Hill Daniella? You know what time it is?”

“Yeah Abuelo I do. Why? Need me to tell the time for you?”

Butch said something rude and then Danny was on the stairs and Butch was pulling her inside and throwing the lock on the door. “Get down,” he hissed.

Danny realized he had a gun in his hand and relaxed. Butch actually felt some of the tension leave her and asked, “You ok?”

“I felt someone watching as I left the tavern. Had a rough night. Could be the one I tangled with but if it is I’ll be surprised.”

“This one has been watching since the birds finally settled for the night … late but before midnight. And what do you mean it was a rough night?”

Butch was still covering Danny and when he moved he accidentally brushed her chin causing her to hiss in pain. “Watch it will you?”

“What the hell?”

Butch sat up and tried to grab Danny but she backed away. “Lay off. I told you …”

“You ain’t said much except it was a rough night. Now you’re going to explain it.”

There was steel determination in his voice and Danny wasn’t sure whether she was happy or aggravated that the old Butch was coming back. “Geez. It isn’t like you haven’t had to answer a call down here. What do you think happened?”

“How rough was rough?”

Danny stared at him in the dark, not liking his tone. “Lay off Butch.”

“Not this time Danny. Not now that … that I …”

She shook her head. “If you start saying something about owing me I swear I will flatten you.”

Danny tried to move and something inside Butch snapped. “Dammit, what happened?” he growled after backing her up against the wall where the old fold out table used to sit.

“Get … off … me.”

“Danniella Trespalacios … I am way too close to turning you over my knee woman. Now answer the damn question.”

Trying a different tact to defuse the suddenly tenser than expected situation, Danny explained what had happened. “And here Mr. Investigator,” Danny said lifting her skirt to pull out the wallet from the pocket of her slip. She tried to hand it to him but his arm got in the way. The arm that was attached to the hand that was touching her knee.

Danny tried to buck away but Butch had her pinned. “What happened? And don’t tell me a story. I’m already about to burst a blood vessel over your chin. You didn’t say nothing about your knee. Look at this bruise.”

Danny looked. “Conyo. I don’t know when they happened. Now move.”

Only Butch was no longer interested in moving. He was more interested in moving his hands. “Your legs. When do you shave them … and how? They’re so smooth.”

“What are you doing?” Danny asked with a squeak in your voice. “And what the devil do you care?”

Butch leaned over so close that Danny could feel his breath. “How?” Butch asked in a guttural whisper.

“I don’t shave them. Delia taught me how to wax my legs. That’s how Momma did it. Said it lasts longer and the hair on your legs is finer so you can go longer between … Butch what are you doing?”

“Damned if I know. God … your legs are amazing. So smooth … and so damn long.”

Danny swallowed a nervous giggle. “You must be feverish or fallen on your head or … or … or something,” she said desperately. “Turn loose Butch. This is the closest to crazy I ever want to be. Now stop.”

“Don’t want to,” he muttered. “Dammit, now I’ll never get you out of my head. God your legs …” Butch stopped and groaned like he was dying.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Danny said trying to get herself out of the most unusual situation she had ever found herself in. And being in it with Butch just made it all the more insane. “Butch, seriously. When you come out of whatever fit you are obviously in you aren’t going to be happy. You’ll regret even talking to me much less …”

“For once will you shut up and let me have a little control?”

“It’s more like you are losing con …” Danny started to say and then was forcibly stopped when Butch’s mouth descended onto hers.

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you very much Kathy. Nice to read after a day of canning.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 13​

That was the craziest night of Danny’s life to that point. Butch’s too for that matter. They never lost a stitch of clothing and all they did was kiss but that’s all either one of them seemed to need or want from each other. It could have easily gone further but neither of them seemed able to take the next fatal step.

Danny woke up and froze when she found herself wrapped in Butch’s arms on the bed he’d been using, but as it turns out she wasn’t the first one to wake. “Don’t,” Butch growled in her ear.

“Don’t what? Lay claim to a little sanity?”

“Nope. Because if you do then I have to.”

“Then you’ve still got whatever you came down with last night. Looks like I need to call a quack.”

“Neither,” he breathed on her neck causing her to shiver despite her best of intentions. “Just tell me I didn’t imagine it. Tell me that Daniella.”

Danny sighed. “I’d be lying if I did, and I don’t do that anymore than necessary. I have enough sins to answer for. But Butch …”

“Stop. Just … stop. And for once listen to me … and actually hear what I’m saying. I want you.”

Danny shook her head but Butch stopped her by nipping at her neck. “Yeah. Yeah I do. And I’ve wanted you for a while. I was ashamed that I did. Anyway I looked at it … you age, your job, you not having anyone to … I … dammit,” he groaned into her hair.

“Sure could have fooled me,” Danny said smiling to cover her confusion and hurt from some of the things that had happened over the years. “And likely you are fooling yourself now. Got gratitude or something all mixed up with being depressed over things and somehow not believing you’ll ever be able to do better. Well …”

“You definitely got a problem shutting up Daniella Trespalacios. But I know a way to fix that.”

They got lost in kissing once again for almost an hour until Danny put a stop to it. “Butch … I can’t. I can’t do this to you, and I can’t do this to me. I won’t be anyone’s private plaything and there’s no way you can make it public. I’ve got … responsibilities. So do you. Damn you anyway ‘cause you know I’ll never be able to forget the feel of you … oh God. I’ll never be able to forget.”

Butch was surprised at the pain he saw on her face. “Daniella …”

“No Butch. As soon as your brain comes out of the fog, you’ll see that I’m right. You’re a law man and I’m just a bar maid and …”

Butch snorted and only let Danny pull away so far. “In case you haven’t noticed I don’t have a job and if you’re ‘just’ a bar maid I’ll eat my horse’s saddle. I’ve watched you Daniella, watched you close the last couple of months. You are a bar maid out of habit and because it keeps your fingers on the pulse of this town, not because you need to be.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do. I know about all your other businesses. If you weren’t paying for the boys and trying to set some aside for their future my guess is you’d be doing pretty well for yourself.”

Danny went completely still. “Butch …”

“I’m not going to say anything to anyone. My guess is you have it set so that none of your businesses know the other exists … and since you have small time partners that benefit from the secrecy, they are more than willing to keep their mouths shut.” Butch tugged Danny over so that she was between Butch and the wall of the RV. “And I’m not going to blackmail you over what I know. If anything, it makes it harder on me knowing I don’t have much to offer right now. But I’ll work on my end,” he said with a kiss on one corner of her mouth. “And you work on your end,” he said with a kiss on the other corner of her mouth. “And eventually we’ll work things out so that we can have it all.”

Danny snorted. “Butch, I don’t believe in fairy tales. I never have.”

“Who wants a damn fairy tale when you can have the real thing?” Butch sighed when he realized that Danny was going to fight him. He should have known it, did, but had hoped for once she wouldn’t. “Daniella, I’m not saying this is going to be easy. I’m not even saying it is going to happen quick … I haven’t forgotten we got us a damn situation hanging over our heads … but I’m willing to try.”

“Why?!” Danny finally snapped. “Why? I know what you think of me. I …”

“Forgive me.”

“I …. Excuse me? What did you just say?” Danny asked, totally flummoxed by what Butch had just said.

“I said forgive me. Sometimes when a man wants something, and wants it so bad … he … he looks for every reason that he can’t or shouldn’t have it.” Butch reached out and brushed a lock of hair off of Danny’s face. “You were always a beautiful girl Daniella … and then you grew into a handsome woman long before you should have. I watched men want you for a long time. I didn’t think … didn’t think it was possible that someone hadn’t … hadn’t …”

Danny stiffened and finally managed to sit up. “Oh and for some reason you are suddenly sure. It’s not like I didn’t just spend the night with you and …”

Butch sat up as well. “Hush. You talk so damn much. And you aren’t listening. I was jealous … damn jealous. I listened to what people said and believed it even when there wasn’t any evidence. That makes me a piss poor investigator. I was looking for a reason not to take a chance.”

“Oh and you’re suddenly sure,” Danny repeated derisively.

“I was sure days ago. You blushed a lot more than a loose woman would when you were helping me. Oh, you likely took care of your brothers enough while they were little, but your face gave you away that you were seeing a man for the first time.”

“Shut up Butch,” Danny said roughly.

“Uh uh. And last night. Your kisses … they were so hot I was scalding … but part of it was how innocent they tasted.”

“You’ve lost your mind. Innocence is not a taste. Now m …”

Butch blocked her in. “Yeah, it is. And I tasted it on you. And we are going to get this worked out before I let you go, and I don’t give a damn what kind of man that makes me look. I want you Daniella and I mean to have you.”

“Well I’m not for sale.”

“Not even at the price of my soul?”

The complete outrageousness of such a statement coming out of Butch’s mouth … especially being directed at her … had Danny gasping for air like a catfish thrown up on the bank of the river. “I’m calling a quack … or maybe even the priest. You’ve obviously been poisoned … or possessed … or something. You can’t mean this stuff you are saying. You can’t have thought this through. You can’t …”

“I can Daniella. I can mean it and I do. And no doubt it is going to take some time for us to work it out but work it out we will. It could take months … maybe longer. You’re right that we’ve … that we’ve both got responsibilities. And there is this situation hanging over us … but there’s other things too.”

Unable to suppress her suspicious nature Danny asked carefully, “What other things?”

Cautiously Butch answered, “I wasn’t gone down South just for a case. I had some personal business to take care of.”

“Personal business.”

“Yeah. I found out … well … like everyone else I’ve wanted to know what happened to my family after Flare Day.”

Carefully Danny asked, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Partially.” Danny waited him out. “I found my brother. He’s married and is working an orchard with his father-in-law. I remember the family from our old neighborhood but don’t know them well. Wayne – that’s my brother’s name – said he’d thought I was dead from all the talk of the time of what had happened in Gainesville. And I believe him. He almost couldn’t seem to let himself believe it was me for a couple of hours but once he had …” Butch stopped and swallowed. “It was … it was harder to leave than I thought. And … and I stopped at my parents’ and sister’s grave on the way back. Well, not their grave exactly but the memorial site where their ashes are buried. They were killed during the civil unrest that followed Flare Day. I … I haven’t even processed all of it yet. It wasn’t just Wayne … one of my uncles and a couple of cousins live not too far from Wayne.”

“Sounds like a lot to process.”

“It has been … still is. I need to send a letter down to them and let them know I didn’t just take off and forget about them. At the same time … this stuff …”

“You want to try and protect them. That’s how I feel about the boys.”

Butch nodded. “Yeah. And I’ve been thinking about that too.”

“Why?”

“’Cause it is all part and parcel of this … what we have to figure out. If I want you, the boys are part of the package.”

“Just how long have you been thinking about this?”

“Not long enough,” Butch admitted. “I don’t have any of it figured out yet. But I will.”

Danny chuckled. “Butch I’m not one of your cases. You aren’t going to ‘figure me out’ in case you have figured that out yet. I haven’t even said I’m going to go along with this lunacy. You’re just feeling cooped up and …”

“Don’t,” Butch growled and Danny got the feeling real fast that there were some things Butch wasn’t going to let pass. “I’ve said I haven’t got it figured out … yet. But I will Daniella. But one thing I won’t stand for is wondering if some man is going to be able to come along and …”

“Butch, you say what you are leaning towards saying and you can forget all of it. I am not some bone to be fought over. I am not something to be bought and sold. I am not …”

Butch kissed her again and breathed, “Damn straight you’re not. I may not know exactly what you are yet but I’m for damn sure whatever it is I want it. And that means I’m willing to work for it. Just tell me woman that I’m the only one … tell me Daniella … dammit I need …”

“Hush,” Danny said putting her hand over his mouth stopping his words and his kisses. “I don’t know what you are Butch and I’m pretty sure you are going to wake up from this dementia fairly soon. But if it means a thing to you, you are the only one I would tolerate manhandling me like this … and saying such lunatic things to me. And I’m never going to say anything to anyone about it either so once you do get your mind back from whatever vacation it has gone on, we can go back to being … friends … or whatever it is that we are. I need to know there is someone on this planet that I can trust.”

“You trust me then,” Butch breathed.

“I must. No matter what people have said over the years, you’re the only man I’ve ever let come through the RV door that I haven’t sent out again head first and more than bruised up.”

“Good,” Butch said right before he tried to start kissing her again.

There was a loud knocking on the RV. Cindy Brewster called through the door, “Danny?! Oh my God Danny, you’ve got to come, you and Mr. Pinder both ... right away … there’s been trouble!”

 

[sssarawolf]

Many thanks Kathy.

 

[SquonkHunter]

Sometimes when a man wants something, and wants it so bad … he … he looks for every reason that he can’t or shouldn’t have it.

Helluva lot of truth in that.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 14​

Danny tried to rush the door but Butch held her back. “What kind of trouble?” he growled.

Cindy Brewster said breathlessly, “Danny, that man you got into a tussle with last night … he got caught red-handed killing the undertaker. And a vigilante mob stole him out of the prison and hauled him off and strung him up ‘til he’s dead! You gotta get out here, you’re missing everything!”

Butch had some choice words to say. On the other hand, Danny said nothing except to tell Cindy calmly, “We’ll be there shortly. Does Mrs. Maddox have everything covered?”

“Yeah but you know she won’t turn you away if you come. They can’t serve hard liquor with it being Sunday without setting off them Decency Committee people but Ol’ Maddox has already had to crack the third keg of beer and it isn’t even noon yet. C’mon will ya?!”

Danny put on her business face though it was a hard thing to do and extract herself from the bed and Butch at the same time. “I have to go,” she told him.

“I’m coming with you.”

Danny’s head came up. “Butch …”

“I told you already Daniella and I mean to show you. Let ‘em talk if they have to suck wind. I know what it means to need a job and I won’t interfere. I ain’t happy with all the looking they’ll likely do but I’ll hold my tongue unless they try and do more than that.”

Danny was already envisioning all sorts of trouble and warned Butch, “The customers flirt, especially after a drink or two. Or they get a smart mouth and put it in overdrive just to get a reaction. Madre de Dios, you’ve seen it yourself. I do not need any trouble.”

“Fine … but any guy grabs you and …”

“Any guy grabs me and he is going to pull back a nub. The regulars know that and the passing through types usually figure out who will tolerate what. Most of them just want cold drinks, hot food, and a good time. We have enough families coming through that the real jerks have started taking their business to Buzzy’s Place.”

Butch shook his head. Buzzy’s Place was a bar, but the bar was mostly for cover. Rumor – and Danny had the proof but that was for a different reason – was that Buzzy was pimping a stable of girls out and paying off someone so they’d look the other way. Problem was that Buzzy liked to run his mouth about who he knew and what. Hunter and Butch had been after the office that covered that area to shut him down for almost three years but nothing ever came of it. And now Danny wondered if that wasn’t part of what was going on too.

Butch moved, but not with the same vigor he normally had. Danny didn’t bother trying to talk him out of it, it would have just been a waste of time. But she wasn’t going to just waltz in through the front doors dragging him along either. She went in the back and told Butch to sit down before he fell down. “I’ll see if someone won’t come out and tell us what is what.”

Mrs. Maddox must have seen them coming because she stepped out and said, “What’s what is that we have a mess. Danny I know it is your day off but …”

“Of course,” Danny said with a nod. “Let me grab an apron out of the laundry. Kitchen or bar?”

“Bar. People are more interested in quenching their thirst along with their curiosity than they are with eating a full meal. Some are ordering sandwiches and nibble plates but I can manage that with the help I have. Rhonda can already run circles around the other girls. I’m so glad you talked us into taking her on.”

Danny glanced at Butch as he tried to stand up and then sighed as he almost fell. “Oh for … Butch!”

“I’m sitting in the bar,” Butch said stubbornly.

With both Danny and Mrs. Maddox silently fussing and sharing unspoken words of irritation over pig headed men they got him installed in an out of the way table where he could sit with his back to the wall and observe without getting trampled by all the traffic. It didn’t take long before people started trying to pump him for information.

The crowd grew and grew and eventually spilled out into the tavern yard. Danny muttered, “What do they think this is? Fourth of July? They want drinks then they can come in and order them at the bar … and pay for them at the same time.”

Mr. Maddox grinned, “That’s my girl. Give ‘em what for.”

Danny snorted. “And if one more of them tries to bribe me to slip him some of the hard stuff I’m gonna cut him off. Do we look like we want trouble with the law? That’s all the Decency Committee would need to push through making this a dry county on Sunday … or all week long like they are working on.” Turning to the next customer she answered in response to his question if they had something besides beer, “Got ale. Got different kinds of mead – dry or sweet. Got enough melomels that you need to read up what is opened on that board behind me. Got a lot of wines that you’ll find listed on the same board that are Sunday allowed. When you get it figured out what you want I’ll …”

“What’s a melomel? That some kind of Mexi drink?” the man asked looking her up and down.

His rowdy companion snickered and Danny shook her head. “Are you sure you want service at this bar? Questions like that might get you forgotten about.”

Another man further down laughed and said, “You tell ‘em Danny.” To the two newcomers he said, “Boys, this little lady will treat you right and never cheat you of your drink. Never have to worry she waters anything down either. As for that melomel stuff … its like a fruited mead kind of thing. If you don’t like fruit wines though I’d stick with the house ale or plain mead if you don’t want a beer. Up to you though.”

The two men turned to her and gave her a considering look. “I want something with a good head on it, not a glass full of foam.”

“We’ve got a stout that the railroad men like when they come out this way. I pull it straight from the keg by the mug. Do the same for the ales we have. If you prefer a glass I’d go with the house lager.”

“Give a mug of the railroad stout.”

Danny pulled the stout and then went on to the next customer. Thirty minutes later the man was back and said, “’S good. Give us a glass of the lager this time.”

Since his scrip was real she did just that. The man kept coming back, trying different things on the board until she said, “Mister? I’m surprised you’re still standing much less walking around, but don’t you think you’ve had enough for a bit? Why don’t you catch a bite to eat, let you stomach catch up and then see how you feel?”

The man belched and scratched his chin. “Watcha got to eat.”

“Nothing here at the bar but if you let me get you a table Mrs. Maddox, the proprietor’s wife, will see you have something in your belly that don’t slosh.”

The man laughed like Danny had said the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time. Danny got the man situated and then came back to the bar. Mr. Maddox laughed and said, “I was just about to cut him off myself. And he ain’t the only one either. These boys ain’t locals. Where are they coming from? And what has your tail feathers lit? Not like you to let a boozer get to you so easy.”

“It wasn’t him. Butch said to tell you that he’s gotten word that Buzzy’s got burnt down by a different set of vigilantes than the one that did the hanging.”

Maddox whistled in concern. “Reckon the Decency Committee people are getting ..?”

“Not sure. Butch says he’ll listen ‘round but there’s nothing he can do about it right now. He ain’t fit for duty yet so isn’t on the roster.”

An oily voice from the end of the bar said, “That ain’t why he’s not on the roster.”

What was said and the way it was said had people way too interested. Danny looked at the man and saw he was one of the men that had been with the guy that had wound up getting hung for the undertaker’s murder. “If you know more then you should take the information to the militia office. As it is they’ll probably want your deposition on where your friend is from and why he murdered the undertaker. In fact, I’d get over there right now before some of those vigilantes decide you had something to do with that murder … or maybe you burned down Buzzy’s for revenge.”

The man found he was suddenly on the receiving end of a lot of curiosity. Danny always wondered why people thought they were going to get away with yakking their heads off without some retribution along the way for their foolishness.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 15​

“Grenadine. Grenadine. Grenadine,” Danny muttered in irritation as she sat at her makeshift desk.

“That stuff you put in drinks?” Butch asked into the silence that followed.

Danny jumped and looked up from the papers spread across the table. “You are supposed to be asleep. The quack said …”

“The quack can take a flying leap. What are you grinding your teeth about?”

Danny missed having Tito around to talk to. He wasn’t always interested in his sister’s wheelings and dealings but he at least listened. “Uh …”

“C’mon. Don’t keep me in suspense. The Tavern run out? Somebody get pickled in a barrel of the stuff? What?”

Danny shook her head. “You’re in a strange mood Butch Pinder.”

Butch was two seconds away from a smart aleck comment about a pot and a kettle when he changed directions and said, “I want to get to know you.”

“What?”

“I said I want to get to know you. Not the you that you let everyone see, but the real you.”

Danny shook her head. “You won’t like her.”

“Instead of assuming I won’t, why don’t you let me be the judge of it?”

For whatever reason – probably mental deficiency – Danny decided to give him what he wanted instead of making a huge deal out of it. “I’ve got an order I’m not sure I can fill without shorting the Tavern.”

“Grenadine.”

“Si … er … yes. I make it. My mother’s recipe.”

“Another one of your businesses I take it.” At Danny’s nod But shrugged and said, “Happens sometimes … shortages I mean.”

“It wouldn’t have happened this time except Maddox sold two cases away to a traveling merchant without telling me. Actually traded them is more correct.”

“Did he get ripped off?”

“No. Not really. It’s just … conyo … I can’t go around telling everyone I’ll do a trade for them, especially not Maddox.”

Trying to braid the facts Danny was letting him see without tying a knot he said, “Yeah, ol’ Maddox can talk … and he ain’t above making a buck either. He just assume that the stock could magically be replaced? Or does he know you …?”

Danny sighed and leaned back from the table a little. “He knows I make the grenadine and I have a hand in making most of the liquors for the Tavern.”

“Most? For how long?”

Danny snorted, “Longer than you’ll be comfortable knowing. Leave it alone Butch.”

With effort he surprised Danny by nodding and saying, “OK. But what? He assumed you’d be able to replace two cases of bottles just like that?”

“Yeah, apparently he did,” Danny said on a sigh. “Last nine months or so Maddox has … look, he’s no spring chicken and Mrs. Maddox, she covers for him a lot. Serving at the bar? No problems. But lately he’s gotten sloppy about … back-room stuff.”

“Is that when and why you stepped in?”

Danny almost played stupid but then shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Before that. Mrs. Maddox and I … well, she’s sharper than people give her credit for being. Mr. Maddox, well the bar has always been his, but it was Mrs. Maddox that added the eats and has kept the place from turning into another Buzzy’s Place. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Maddox is still sharp but he’s … he’s getting older and winding down. Sleeps in more, not because he has the help to do it but because he needs to, to handle the afternoon and evening crowds we get now. If they didn’t still dream about their son and grandkids showing up …”

“They never heard anything?”

“Nothing. Just the initial contact and then the official letter stating they’d been given permission to emigrate into Florida and that they were supposed to board the train and be here within the month. Only it’s been three years and it’s like they’ve vanished off the face of the earth. For seven years they held out hope … then …” Danny shook her head. “They think if they found them once they’ll find them again, they just need to keep praying and hoping.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t. None of my business.” The almost shamefacedly Danny muttered, “ I … I paid a private investigator.”

“Excuse me?”

A little irritated at her confession she snapped, “I said I paid a private investigator. You hard of hearing? People claiming to be Bart Maddox and kids got on the train outside of Omaha. They got their ticket punched as far as their connection in Mobile but what became of them after that I don’t know. They could have gotten detained. They could have gotten their tickets boosted. They could have missed the connection and gotten lost in the system. They could have been robbed and thrown from the train. Mr. and Mrs. Maddox know all the possibilities and probably a few they’ve made up in their nightmares. But nothing stops them from hoping. That hope, it kills them a little at a time … the grandkids’ birthdays, things that remind them of their son … not too many people know, and I’d appreciate it if you’d not mention it or get in their business.”

Butch could see that Danny didn’t like anyone knowing she could, or even would, do something like that. He told her, “I could always …”

Danny’s head shot up and she said, “No. That hope kills them a little at a time … I think absolutely knowing what happened would likely just kill them off in one fell swoop.”

“So you don’t think that the son and grandkids are alive.”

With resignation Danny said, “I’m not sure they were ever alive.”

Butch nodded. “You think someone stole their identity out in Omaha and used it as a way to get traveling money to get out of that hell hole.”

“I think that is more likely than any of the other possibilities.”

Butch was almost sorry he’d brought it up when he realized the Maddox’s situation probably brought up bad memories of Eddie for Danny. He decided to drop it and said, “Ok, so ol’ Maddox has some reason to be slipping a bit besides age. How does that play into you grinding your teeth over grenadine if you are the producer and the supplier?”

Danny was grateful that Butch was willing to drop the other topic. She’d never be able to say with truth that she’d forgotten Eddie, but she was fairly certain that whatever Eddie had gotten himself into when he left, he’d chosen to forget about them. Danny winced at the oncoming headache. She didn’t get them often but when she did she felt hung over for days. “Pomegranates don’t just whistle into existence. I’ve nursed my bushes, and they produce pretty well … Momma planted some of them before Flare Day. But their supply isn’t bottomless and they are very difficult to get fresh at any local market. Even with a decent crop this year I can still only make so much juice. And I decided to try a batch of pomegranate wine this year. It used up most of my cushion. To fill the open order is going to use up all my cushion, and my private supply.”

“Then tell the open order you can’t fill it.”

“Not … not really an option.”

Suspiciously Butch asked, “Why?”

With a sigh. “None of my orders are illegal Butch but the people I sometimes do business with may not always have the same scruples. I normally stay out of their business but the people who placed this order do business with a family that is … let’s just say you would have heard of them. And while normally I wouldn’t care, right now I’m trying not to … to draw unexpected attention from people that might complicate this other situation we got hanging over us.”

In frustration at how complicated things were getting Butch snarled, “Dammit to hell Daniella.”

“Teach you to ask questions next time won’t it. Told you that you wouldn’t …”

Butch got up out of the chair he’d been sitting in and moved a lot faster than Danny had been expecting. “Don’t you dare say it woman. No, I ain’t happy about you having anything to do with certain types of people … even if it is through a back door connection … but I’m not a complete idiot. Just tell me you keep those contacts to a minimum.”

Danny looked at Butch and asked, “Would you believe me if I told you I hadn’t intended to make such a connection to begin with?”

“Yes. You have the boys and Nita to think about.”

How quickly he said it caused a knot at the back of her neck to loosen. “Thank you … for seeing that. And ‘cause … look, I was doing business with this party well before they took up with … big connections. They did it to grow their business. I don’t …” Danny sighed. “That’s … look, maybe I would like to get so big one day that I can pick and choose who I do business with but right now that’s not where I am at. But I’m not careless either. This party in particular knows that. I just owe her a favor.”

“Her?” Butch asked in surprise.

“Yeah. Her. And that’s all I’m saying because you probably wouldn’t believe the rest of it no matter how stripped down a version I give you. Either way though I think I’m going to have to risk it and fill the order. We might need to tap her for some info though we’ll have to be very, very careful.”

Trying to ignore the rest of it and Danny’s wicked grin Butch said, “So you don’t really have plans to stay a bar maid.”

“Who knows what the future holds,” Danny responded with a very Latin shrug. “I can have plans but that doesn’t mean they are what God has planned. Look at my parents. Look at just about everyone around. Fastest way to make God laugh is to say you have plans.”

“So you believe in fate?”

Danny snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up. I don’t believe in fated love or anything like that. Useless, romantic crap is all that is. I see too much of that make believe nonsense with the other girls. Believing every man that gives them a line is ‘the one’ and that he’s going to help her escape from the mierda her choices have turned her life into. And no, I don’t believe in karma either. There is no such thing as fairness or real justice in this life.”

“Then what do you believe in?”

Danny snorted. “Sometimes I wonder that myself. I’d like to believe in what I learned from my parents and from Father Brannigan. Most days I think I do. Then there are the days that I’d like to be on the giving end of some revenge and smiting.”

“Damn sure sounds better than being on the receiving end of it.”

Danny relaxed at Butch’s easy acceptance of how she felt. “What about you? What do you believe in?”

“Used to believe along the same lines as you. Then I started to believe in that oath I made and the badge I wore. These days I’m not …” He stopped, looking troubled.

“You’ll get your job back Butch. You’re too good for them to let you get away.”

Carefully Butch admitted, “Not sure I want it back. At least not this job and this badge.”

“Just because there are a few bad apples …”

“Oh well, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the Militia Investigators are worthless, if I did, I would be steering Tito into something different. I just don’t know if I fit anymore. Don’t know if they’ll let me fit anymore.”

“One thing at a time Butch,” Danny said, worried that Butch would get depressed again.

Butch nodded with a tired sigh and asked, “What else you doing?”

“Wondering if I got the undertaker killed?”

“What?!”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 16​

“Keep your voice down,” Danny said calmly.

“Well it’s a hell of a thing to say.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I did. At least indirectly. Or maybe it’s coincidental. Who knows?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up and explain to me why you think you got the undertaker killed,” Butch said.

Danny reminded him of how Hunter had been goosing her for information. Then she relayed her conversation with him concerning the bodies of the three men. “You see where I’m going with this?”

Butch may have wondered whether he’d work with a badge again but part of him would always be an investigator and he was putting information together with what he’d heard in the Tavern. “The guy knew Buzzy, or maybe Buzzy knew the guy … that’s the word that is floating around. He was some kind of out of town tough. Word spreading is that he was here to do a job.”

“Well that has special written all over it. If he was here to do a job …”

“Yeah. Daniella we need an exit strategy.”

“Disculpeme? What do you mean an exit strategy?”

“Don’t play stupid Daniella, it doesn’t look good on you. You know what I mean.”

“I can’t just pick up and run away in the night. I’ve got responsibilities.”

“Things can be replaced.”

“I’m not talking about things,” Danny growled.

Butch stopped and said, “The boys will be part of the plan and Nita is safe where she is at, more than safe.”

“Tito and Joey yes but … look if these ladrones are as bad as they seem they won’t stop and will plow through people. You’ve heard the stories.”

“Dammit woman.”

“I can’t run. I’ve thought it out. I run, they just go after someone to get to me. I’m not proof against it. Me? I’ll fight like they’re drunks on a bad night … hand them their guts and not cry a drop. They go after someone else to get to me? I can’t turn my back on that. You, the Maddoxes, Ronnie, Rhonda … even Cindy though she’s more likely to give me up than stick on my side.”

Butch looked at Danny closely and realized she was dead serious. “We still need to have a plan even if you don’t think you’ll ever use it. Will you at least admit that much? It’s no different than you doing your books for Tito even though you don’t need them.”

“Oh for … fine. What do you suggest?”

“I’ve got some ideas. Let me work on it. I can’t ask too many questions. People need to think of me as weak, at loose ends, inattentive.”

“But you won’t be.”

“No. But we need to be careful. That means me asking questions like I would normally be doing is out. We’ll both need to keep our ears open. Have you heard from Hunter?”

“He pulled me aside while the quack was giving you a last check over. But he was acting … “

“Acting?”

“He … he’s not sleeping good. If he don’t get some sleep soon he’s going to shoot his own foot off cleaning his gun. Great dark circles under his eyes; keeps his hat pulled low to keep his face shaded so no one gets a good look. But if you are talking to him face to face you can’t help but notice. People are giving him strange looks too. Getting out of his way fast.”

“Does he notice what is happening or not?”

“You mean does he notice how people are reacting to him? Not really. He’s definitely got heavy thoughts taking up most of his attention.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Wanted to know if the guy had come by to harass me any more after he attacked me.”

“And you said?”

“No. That I would have run straight to him if he had. I also gave him something to chew on besides worrying if I was putting two and two together.”

“Daniella …”

“All I did was tell him why I and the other girls didn’t like the undertaker. Then I said that it must have been that the undertaker did a bad job on a friend. Or that maybe the dead guy had heard that the undertaker kept a stash until he could take it to his brother to hock. I’m not sure he bought it though … he wants to but …”

“Why do you say he didn’t buy it? And why do you think he wants to?”

Danny looked at Butch and if he had been anyone else he wouldn’t gotten his boots spit on for his sharp interrogation. Butch caught the look but didn’t ease back. He could either be on the job or off the job, and if he was going to get he and Danny out of hot water he had to be completely on the job whether she liked it or not. “Explain,” he prompted once again.

Danny shook her head and snorted. “Buscador,” she muttered under her breath. “Because he asked why I had tried to spook the guy by asking about his bosses. He was pretty agitated about it.”

Butch was pretty agitated by it as well but tried not to let it get him off course. “In what way?”

“He wanted to know what I knew about the men the guy worked for.”

“And you told him what?”

“I said I had been fishing, look for a way to poke the bear and make him leery of coming at me again. That it didn’t take a professor to see there were three of them, all dressed similar, all with the same make of gun. Biggest thing was that all three tried to pay their tabs with federal scrip. The dead guy got real angry when Ronnie, who’d brought him his bill, said he couldn’t take it, that all we took was state scrip and coins. And that’s when I got involved because he’d thrown Ronnie against the wall pretty hard after giving him a shake that rattled the poor kid’s teeth.”

“Tell me again what happened from that point and tell me if you left anything out to Hunter.”

“Same thing I told you before. Guy tried to manhandle me, I grabbed his family jewels and walked him out the front doors and off the porch. He tried to come at me again even though his friends tried to stop him. I let him know it was a very bad idea and cut him twice letting him know the next time it would be his tripes. His friends are trying to pull him out of there, he’s shouting, I’m giving it to him in Spanish because he’s made me so mad I can’t see straight, I threaten him with the decency committee and checking to see if his name is on a poster which gets his friends really bothered and they’re pulling him with all their strength but he’s not moving and in fact acts like he’s untouchable and that’s when I make a guess and poke the bear.”

“You really were just guessing. You’ve never seen or heard of the guy before.”

“Butch, with the way things are I wouldn’t lie about something that important. I’d never seen the two guys with him either. They’ve never been in or around the Tavern while I’ve been present. I did see one of the guy’s friends Sunday. Idiot came in running his mouth. I let him know that bar stool spins both directions. He left and no one around acted like it was any great loss.”

Butch nodded. “A small crowd followed him across the ramp to suggest he needed to see Hunter to give a deposition and explain what he was doing in the area. I heard he got on his horse and rode off before anyone could find Hunter and make their ‘suggestion’ stick.”

“Couldn’t find Hunter because he wasn’t around or couldn’t find Hunter because he didn’t want to be found and get involved?”

“That’s the question of the day … or one of them anyway. Now what did you mean that Hunter looked like he wanted to believe you?”

“Oh he believed what I was saying about what happened. What he wanted to believe – or so it seemed – is that I thought the guy was just a bad dude, maybe that I believed the undertaker finally got what was coming to him. He read me a lecture about brawling with customers and said if it happened again he would have to ticket me so it didn’t seem like he was showing favorites … that people were beginning to talk.”

“About what?”

“He made out like people were talking about me and him. Nearly made me laugh. If they’re talking it is … uh …”

Butch sighed. “We knew it was coming. Decency Committee will be next.”

“No, it won’t.”

Danny’s tone had Butch looking at her sharply. “Daniella …”

“Let’s just say that certain people need to be very, very careful of living in glass houses and throwing stones. And we’ll leave it at that.”

“You blackmailing?”

“No. Not even if they push me, and they’ve tried on occasion. But they make a wrong step and irritate me and there are things I know about most of them – and if not them their spouses or children – on that so-called committee that would make your hair stand on end. I won’t bother blackmailing, I’ll just make sure certain things come out.”

“What things?”

“I’m neither a snitch nor a gossip. What I know and how I know it is my business Butch.”

“This a line you are drawing?”

“It is a boundary I put in place a long time ago. Having a brain like mine … where I remember everything … it can be a tool or a weapon. Father Brannigan made me promise to never let my anger turn it into a weapon. It is no one’s fault that I can’t forget stuff, but it is my responsibility how I use it. I can’t forget the hurt but I can … can forgive it, let it go before it eats me up. But if I have to … if I have to … I … I will …”

Butch reached across the table and took Danny’s hand. “You don’t like what you can do.” Butch shook his head. “As an investigator I’d love that talent.”

Danny closed her eyes and said, “No. Because you can’t turn it off. Once you know something about someone or something you can never forget it. Once you feel something you can never unfeel it or forget it … hear, see, taste … all of it.” She opened her eyes and looked dead at him. “I still remember how my mother’s cooked flesh smelled. I still remember how it felt each time the whip came down on my back. Every time a customer vomits. All the blood I’ve seen over the years. All … all the pain of losing people. You don’t want this Butch. No one should ever wish for this. It all builds up and there are days …”

Danny shuddered and Butch got a closer look at the woman she was than he’d ever gotten before. The one that continued to deal with the people of this area not because of what she knew of them but in spite of it.

“Butch … just make sure … make sure that …”

“What?”

“That you know what you’re saying when you say you want to know the real me.”

Butch looked deep into her eyes and nodded.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 17​

Monday during the day was blissfully quiet. Good thing as most of the overnighters at the Tavern woke with raging hangovers. Most would be stepping lightly that day and into the next. Monday night at the Tavern was wasn’t nearly as quiet much to Danny’s irritation.

“If you won’t sit and leave the girls alone you are going to have to leave,” she snapped at one persistent drunk.

“You gonna make me Girly?” the man asked snidely.

Positively fed up with how some of the men were treating not only the barmaids but Mrs. Maddox and some of the women customers as well, Danny was about to blow. “Listen you cabron, I’ve had about all I’m taking out of you and your … friends. Buzzy is dead. He got dead ‘cause he got stupid. His stupid drew more stupid until not even his … protectors … could keep the consequences from finding him. This is not Buzzy’s. This is Maddox Tavern. Girls aren’t for sale here. We’re a good place where decent people can come for a drink or something to eat. The customers here know the rules and abide by them and it keeps the Decency Committee out of our hair. You try and bring us the same kind of stupid trouble that you and your bunch brought to Buzzy’s Place and you are going to get cut off and cut out. Got it?”

“Oooooo, I’m soooooo scared.”

When the drunk started laughing like a fool Danny went to leave but he grabbed; however, Danny was ready. “You want to pay what you owe with your family jewels?”

When there was a sharp poke in an uncomfortable location the drunk sobered very quickly. “Do … not … mess … with … me … or … mine,” Danny told the man in a deadly growl.

“You’re gonna be getting’ yours,” the man said spewing his sour breath.

“You think you got what it takes puto?” There was another sharp reminder that had fear floating in the eyes of the now completely sober man who started to bluster. Danny said in a very deadly voice, “This isn’t Buzzy’s Place and I’m not Buzzy. You mess with me or mine you better never close your eyes ‘cause not even death will stop me from finding you and flaying you alive. One way or the other I will see you dragged to hell … and any of your friends that think they can pile on too.”

The tavern had grown increasingly quiet as people realized the drama playing out. It was attention that the formerly drunk man’s friends hadn’t bargained on. Especially when into the quiet came the sound of several guns being taken off safety.

That’s when Mr. Hunter showed up. “Danny, back away.”

“I will when he lets go of my arm.”

The drunk and his friends tried to play it off like a joke that Danny had overreacted to after getting a look at Hunter’s badge and then his face. Danny had rarely seen Mr. Hunter so close to the edge. When Hunter jerked his head a couple of burly militia men stepped forward and put the man and his friends in cuffs and started hauling them away they started complaining. Hunter said, “You were told to not bring this shit here. You know the consequences so you can just cool your heels until it is decided what to do with you.” Danny wasn’t the only one to hear what had been said but was one of the few to think it was an odd way of phrasing it.

She filed it away to think about later because she knew she had a more immediate problem to deal with. Before she could work her way around the room Mr. Maddox called her over to the bar and pulled her behind it. Under cover of putting mugs of ale and lager on her tray he whispered, “Hunter had Butch pushed into a corner.”

“I know it,” Danny said leaving it at that. “Saw it out of the corner of my eye.

Maddox patted her arm as she went to serve the thirsty customers that were already back to having a good time now that the floor show was over with. She eventually made it back to Butch’s table and sat the last mug in front of him. “Your mad is so hot you’re gonna set the paneling on fire.”

“Hunter …” But that was all that Butch could let out around the grinding of his teeth.

“Yeah. He better watch out and stop trying so hard not to let us get set up. It’s gonna get noticed by someone.”

Butch slowly lifted his eyes to Danny’s and said, “That the way you see it?”

Instead of answering directly Danny said, “Keep your ears open and see if people are talking about what Hunter said as he was dragging those idiots off. Something ain’t right.”

Before Butch could say more Danny was called to another table and the night wore on. It never got quite as bad as it had but some of the customers still tried to push their luck harder than they should have. Drunk wagon had to be called again which was normally a rare occasion for a Monday night.

Mr. Maddox happily counted the cash box, but his wife and Danny looked at each other in concern. “Something’s up,” she said to Danny.

“Maybe,” Danny said. “We’ll just keep our eyes open and ear to the ground.”

“I refuse to miss Buzzy’s Place but it did keep the worst of the messes out of the way. There’s too many coming through I don’t know.”

Danny shrugged. “It isn’t the not knowing them, if they went to Buzzy’s you can figure what kind of man they are. It’s how many seem to be hanging around rather than moving on through like such usually do.”

The worry obvious on her face Mrs. Maddox asked, “Could Buzzy have been hiding gang activity on top of everything else?”

“These are too old for a gang but …”

“Oh Lord,” Mrs. Maddox moaned. “Do you think that idiot really went and brought in an organized crime ring?”

Danny looked to see if anyone had overheard the question then whispered, “Keep that kind of talk to yourself. I’ll … I’ll see what I can find out. Assuming there is anything to find out. But you need to make sure the strong box is put away good. And make sure the locks on the walk-in where the liquor is kept stays locked.

 

[moldy]

I've missed this story. To tell the truth, you have so many great ones in process, that I am just happy to get new chapters on any of them!! I have to admit, my favorite characters are Del, Coralie, Doe, Edie, Kaylee, Sissy, Dovie, Leah, DeeDee, Nann, Damaris, and Emi. Just a couple!

Oh, and Aria and Syd and ..... Yulee. I think those are my favorites. Yep, they are.

 

[sssarawolf]

Very big thank you.

I didn't have to do any canning today but I did cook up some cranberries to make jam with and we got the raspberry canes cut back.

 

[babysteps]

I have to admit, my favorite characters are Del, Coralie, Doe, Edie, Kaylee, Sissy, Dovie, Leah, DeeDee, Nann, Damaris, and Emi. Just a couple!

Oh, and Aria and Syd and ..... Yulee. I think those are my favorites. Yep, they are.

You missed Gurl, Kiri and Rocky!

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili