The Gathering Part II
Sadie
It was Darcy's idea. She was the passionate one. The one that took the bull by the horns and threw herself blindly into anything and everything. She'd watched the blonde haired Reb storm into Justice Hall, despite her warning, and knew that he was the man that would get the both of us out of this hell.
With the marshall and his men inside there was no one to watch us at the back windows of Justice Hall, or to tell us to mind our own business and leave well enough alone. Darcy squeaked when she saw the blonde one take hold of the shot gun and not even flinch when the cold metal turned red hot. I knew what she was thinking when they stumbled out onto the boardwalk.
We would help him, so that he could help us.
Once the men were headed our way Darcy had me run ahead to our tent. We'd been living in a house up until a year ago. That was when I had refused to go to bed with the marshal and Darcy had slapped his face in front of the whole town. We'd tried to leave that same day but a buggy and a single horse can only go so far, so fast.
No one knew the marshall had a dirt bike. Anything motorized had been outlawed in the town since it was built, it didn't even occur to us that the marshall...the man who built the town and set the rules, would also be the only one to break them. That's when Darcy and me started to realize what other rules he'd been breaking. Not rules...laws...that we used to consider our laws..our constitution...our country. What had started out as a dream, a chance to turn back time and live simply, had turned into a nightmare.
I ran ahead to the tent we shared and stoked the fire, adding more wood, lighting a lantern inside the tent and making up the cot. The blonde sergeant would want us to help him nursemaid the wounded man. The more we helped him the more likely he was to help us.
This was the plan. And it was going to work this time.
I tried not to dream while I worked, setting out what little we had in the way of supplies and dumping coffee grounds into a pot. I rushed out to the fire and moved the stew pot away from the flames, setting the coffee pot there instead.
Would I soon be making coffee over a stove? In a caraffe? Would I just go down to the neighborhood coffee shop and buy it, paper cup, plastic lid and all?
No, Sadie, no more dreams. Not until you're free. Not until you're out.
But once the work was done, and those few dead moments remained, I could only dream of what the city looked like now, five years later.
Starsky
"Almost there, Starsk."
"Almost where?"
My partner didn't respond and I tried not to let that bother me. Neither one of us knew where this girl was leading us. Recent events had caused me to be ten times more paranoid than I'd ever been before and I had my ears, the only part me not presently swelling, tuned to every snap of a twig.
It was easier to focus on the little things, like twigs snapping, bushes rustling, the swish of the brunette girl's skirt over the grass, Hutch breathing. The big things, the pain, the fear that I still felt ramping my heartbeat up, choking me like a fist down my throat any time I considered how far we were from the city. From the Torino. From any means of calling for help.
Hutch and I frequently had to ask ourselves who we could trust. In that moment I would have said, "Nobody" and had no regrets.
When we finally left the woods there was a bright fire, a blonde angel in a pink dress, a warm tent and soft blankets. Hutch tried to get me to lie down on the cot but I fought him, knowing there was more to the story than the cuts on my chest and legs. It only took one shake of my head for him to catch on and he knelt on the ground in front of the cot, letting me lean my head against his chest.
I felt his voice rumble in his throat as he coached the girls...Sadie and Darcy, through what he needed.
I didn't want to be awake anymore. I didn't want to be conscious for all the things that Hutch had planned. I was tired of feeling. And damn it all...the wool was still itchy.
Sadie
They knew each other. At first Darcy had been sure that the two were total strangers, but the way the one leaned on the other I knew they were more...much more...than strangers. While Darcy fished through her medicine chest for the aspirin powder, the carbolic and the alcohol, I stepped in and gingerly tried to help the Yankee out of his uniform coat. The moment I touched him, he yanked his hand away.
"Starsky..it's okay. She's gonna help ya." The blonde man muttered, but the Yankee shook his head and mumbled something I couldn't make out.
Whatever he'd said, in seconds he'd managed to make the blonde man go white. They were quiet for a moment. A heavy silence that made even Darcy stop what she was doing and look up.
It was the same horrible silence that had fallen the night Walter had died a year ago. He'd not been one of us...but we'd come to love the life that spilled out of him each Saturday night. When he'd been shot there'd been the same bustle, the same rush to stop the blood, warm the body, soothe the soul.
Then that horrible silence. "The hush of death's angel" Darcy had called it. I thought for a moment that the Yankee had died.
"I'll do it. I'll do it, Starsk, ok?" The blonde man said finally and I felt my lungs release when I saw the dark, curly head nod. "Girls...I'll do it."
It seemed like there was more he wanted to say, but couldn't. Darcy nodded, stacked the things she'd gathered on the end of the cot, and shut the flaps of the tent to give them privacy.
Hutch
I didn't know which had been more cruel.
That the marshal had taken a stick to my partner's back before dragging him by his wrists into town, or that the bastard had made Starsky put his coat back on over the raw wounds to hide the damage from the Saturday night crowd.
Those two thoughts hovered in my mind under the mechanics of cleaning up the mess. It took us twenty minutes to figure out how to get the shirt off, clean up the wounds on his legs and chest and find a position in which he could be comfortable and allow me to get at the damage on his back.
There wasn't a lot of blood. The skin hadn't been broken in too many places but there were welts an inch wide, and a centimeter thick, that glistened against the light from the lantern.
Starsky told me the marshall had done it with a riding crop, which meant that the man had been close. Close enough to see every detail of the damage he'd been doing while he did it.
Cleaning the wounds meant picking threads of wool away that had stuck to the welts, running hot water and alcohol over his back, and doing it all as quickly as possible because there was no other way of saving him the pain.
"Hutch…"
"Yeah, Starsk."
"I'm glad you're here."
It took me a moment to swallow, then I said. "Me too, buddy." My hand went automatically to the sweat-flattened curls on his head and I heard him sigh as soon as I made contact.
I warned him before I laid a linen bandage over the wounds, then pulled the blankets over him, asking after each layer if he was comfortable. By the second blanket he was snoring. I added a third, gathered the used supplies, and left the tent.
The girls were sitting by the fire, Darcy staring at the flames, Sadie staring at me. Starsky had wanted the girls to leave because he didn't want them to see. Not because of his own pride, but because he hadn't wanted to upset them. A man like that didn't deserve what that bastard in town had done.
The longer that Sadie stared at me I realized she understood the look on my face. Far too well.
Darcy stood and took the supplies from my hands and Sadie poured me a cup of fresh coffee. The smell and taste that had been like a fresh breath of heaven before was now bitter and tasted like bile. I drank it anyway.
Sadie poured coffee and rum into two cups then offered to freshen mine and I held out my cup without hesitation. The rum was good, the coffee improved.
"We should try to get him to drink some of this." I said, gesturing over my shoulder.
"I can do it." Darcy offered, but I stopped her.
"Not now. Let him sleep."
I watched the fire, feeling the rum seep into my bones, letting my desire to rip a new hole in the marshall's head go numb. Revenge would feel good, but it couldn't happen while my partner was hurting. Somewhere too, there would be a part of me reasoning that revenge wasn't the answer at all. That I had a job to do, and accomplishing that would be the true revenge. For now I could afford to ignore that part.
"Who-" Sadie spoke, breaking the silence and drawing my attention. She'd taken a seat on a handwoven rug that had been laid near the fire, pulling her legs against her chest in a way that seemed to defy the hoop I could have sworn she'd been wearing. She looked cold and vulnerable. I realized a second later that they had probably given all their blankets to me.
"Who?" I asked, softening my face a little.
"Who are you guys?"
"Just a couple of guys." I said quietly, burying the answer in the rum-soaked coffee.
"No." Sadie said, shaking her head. "'Just a couple of guys' don't bust out of the Justice Hall surrounded by deputy marshalls with guns."
Without warning Darcy grabbed at my hand, reminding me that I had a minor burn there. I winced and finally took the time to look at it, then jumped when Darcy slapped a cloth soaked with cold water into my palm.
"'Just a couple of guys' don't walk away from a gun fight with only a burn." She said, one hand on her hip, lips pursed.
Sadie
I could tell Darcy liked him. She only gave a man the time of day when she was willing to put up with his presence. If her temper flared, it meant something a little more serious.
I watched the blonde guy carefully, relaxing a little when he gave a crooked smirk to Darcy, then closed his hand around the cold cloth. I couldn't tell for sure, because it was so dark, but I think he might have blushed a little. He was too much of a gentleman to say it, but I got the feeling he had underestimated us a little.
He sipped from his coffee cup then set it down and wiped at the palm of his hand with the cloth, obviously thinking about something else. When he finally looked up his face had changed. Suddenly he was serious, businesslike.
"You two saved our lives back there." He said, making eye contact with both of us in turn before he said, "You've gone out of your way to help me and my partner, and I appreciate it."
There was a 'but' coming. I could feel it and my heart sank to my knees. I didn't want to hear it and I started to stand.
"If what I tell you gets to anyone else in this "gathering"...your efforts will have been wasted."
Darcy crossed her arms, wrapping her palms against her waist and pursed her lips. "What about a deal? We want outta here. Out of this town. Out of this hell. Back to LA. From there, me and Sadie can make it on our own. You get us out and we'll do everything we can to help you."
It spilled out into the open like a cup of tacks, the whole of our hopes and dreams laid out at the feet of a total stranger. A stranger who could have been a spy for the marshall for all we knew. Before my mind could run rampant with theories about how the marshall would punish us this time for our disloyalty, the blonde Reb said, "Deal."
He finished his coffee, and stared into the empty cup. "I'm Detective Sergeant Ken Hutchinson. That's my partner David Starsky in there. We're undercover cops."
Neither of us could speak for a long breath. Somehow the blo- the detective seemed to expect us to react that way and he sat waiting quietly for us to catch up. I could only smile softly when Darcy snapped her lips closed and said, "Prove it."
Ken gave a wry smile and said, "I can't, unfortunately. Part of our cover required that we leave our badges in a safe place. We couldn't carry them on us."
Darcy's look didn't change.
"We came here based on rumors from a friend of a cop at our precinct. We expected to find pranksters and equipment malfunctions. Not...Nazi Germany."
Darcy softened a little and finally bent to grab the detective's empty cup. She reached for the pot and poured a half measure of coffee, then shuffled toward me, her hand stretching out for the rum bottle.
"I don't need anymore." Ken said and Darcy smiled, her voice matronly.
"This is for young David in there." She said, then handed him the cup.
Ken reached out and took Darcy's wrist, lifting her hand from its perch on her hip and squeezing it.
"Thank you. Both."
Hutch
It didn't take much to wake my partner. I'd barely said his name before he mumbled something incoherent and tried to turn over. I put my hand against the back of his neck and quietly ordered him to stay put until he stopped moving.
"Got something for ya."
"What is it?"
"Here, smell."
Starsky grunted softly then peered at the steaming cup and sniffed. "Smells like coffee."
"With an added, special ingredient."
With his eye swollen shut, Starsky's depth perception was off a little. It took a few tries for him to get a good grip on the coffee cup but once he had it in his hand he was able to drink the cocktail in a few gulps.
My heart sparked with hope when he gave a satisfied groan.
"What are you grinning at?"
"Nothin'..." I said, not even realizing that I had grinned.
"Hey, c'mere a minute."
Starsky's eyes had closed, but his hand had escaped the blankets, searching for mine.
"What?" I asked, hooking my thumb against his and curling my fingers around the back of his hand.
"I don't.." Starsky began, then stopped, wincing. A moment later I realized it wasn't the physical pain that had caused it.
"Don't tell anybody."
"Starsky…"
"Hutch." Starsky's hand closed sharply against mine and his good eye popped open again to focus on me. "Just you and me." He said, his voice slurred but his tone coherent. "Not the girls. Not Dobey. Nobody knows." Starsky swallowed and a line of salt water appeared between the swollen lids of his closed eye. "Promise me." He said, his voice dropping to whisper.
I matched his grip and promised with every part of my being. "No one's gonna know." I said.
Starsky's good eye closed and he hung onto me for a few more moments, the muscles in his jaw working quietly. I watched the tension bleed out of him, felt his grip relax against my hand.
"One more thing."
"Yeah, Starsk."
"Can I have another cup?"
"Yeah." I said, grabbing the tin cup from the cot and starting to stand.
"Hey, Hutch."
"Yeah?"
"Just the special ingredient."
TBC
