Part Two
Swan Song
Of all she knew of men, men most likely already knew of themselves. That when men fall asleep in strange places, they awaken again in a start, and wonder just where in the hell they are, and what on earth they have gotten themselves into.
As Bella imagined it, this now must have been happening to the soldier who lay in the barn, her barn with the egg. That egg, near him. Near as if the soldier, Cullen, were protecting it, which Cullen was.
Yes, he awakened with a start. He must have. And Cullen had to have uttered, "What the fuck!" given off through his hoarse, phlegm-filled voice as he shook himself out of his sleep.
And with this realization that a so-called national treasure snored away in the vicinity, must have had mystification on his face. Pure mathematics had to play through Cullen toward how he could calculate out of the very serious spot of trouble this was.
Or once Bella thought it out again as she imagined the lieutenant patting about the hay and looking at the rotted wood walls, could it be she was the one in the real trouble? Maybe even more trouble. Could she be the goat for the egg?
Hard to say. Hard to tell.
Because on one hand, his deficit could possibly be her gain. After all, she had a soldier and Humpty Dumpty in her family's barn, which in itself was a coup, a grand coup. The only problem with that was Bella didn't yet feel it.
She felt, instead, the weight of the pancake batter bowl, which began as enough for two, then soon became enough for four, then on second thought, eight, when Bella considered the egg's size.
And just with that consideration, Bella felt a breath behind her, an old breath, which fell on her neck lightly as could the sensation of wisdom and forethought.
Bella turned to find Carlisle, who immediately leaned past her to sniff at the griddle and all else atop the stove. Then he noticed the largeness of the griddle.
"Carlisle." She bowed. "Mr. Poet."
He squinted at the griddle. "Is there company over for breakfast?"
Bella deflected the question. "You were up late last night?"
"How would you know as late as you came in?"
Bella shrugged. "My farm, my rules."
He nodded, but did so only after a long stare at her. Then Carlisle said, "It's good of you to take me in. This isn't a world fit for someone like me."
"Reckon not, Mr. Poet. Maybe if you temper your words."
"And maybe if I cut off my own hands and decide to no longer to feel." He gave a sardonic laugh. "Yes, laying brick would be more the benefit for myself to the world, especially as I've long since realized the danger I'm in."
"Yes, Baud Carlisle," Bella responded. "The poetry you write is louder than bombs."
She then turned back to pour the batter, which he watched with suspended interest. Then, with the batter sizzling, Bella asked, "Ever wonder why you were kicked out of so many homes before now?"
"Sure," Carlisle answered. "Because I hadn't yet found someone with nothing to lose. Such as yourself that is."
Bella had no argument to the contrary. She had nothing to lose. Because as it was, desperation was her bedfellow, as well as exploitation, both of which had long since been intruders into her life.
And so here once again were those intruders in the form of Cullen and the egg. Usually, the intruders were rebels who got stashed up there in the barn's rafters. Rebels and their weapons, all stashed in the barn.
Sure, security forces knew to look there, leaving Bella suspect. But as of now, nothing was found. Yes, she was a rebel, but a clean rebel whose farm stood up to being turned over with the continual raids.
Of Carlisle also knew Bella.
"New souls are amongst us, aren't they?" Carlisle sat at the kitchen table. He crossed his legs and waited for an answer. Bella gave none.
"I have a large bucket of batter. That only says it's initiation day." She paused. "The pancakes are for the new recruits, which you can meet of course."
Carlisle waved his chaffed, cracked hand.
"I've met enough recruits in my day, Comrade Swan. I'm full up with bright-eyed, bushy-tailed rebels. Maybe some other time. As for now, I have propaganda to write."
He got up and left. Bella stood still a moment, thinking, wondering, plotting, then decided to pour the batter for the pancakes, then more batter for more pancakes, then more until the stack reached near her shoulder and the kitchen was thick with smoke.
Afterward was bacon. Eggs? Well, considering her rotund and oval guest, to serve eggs to the egg may have been too cruel, even by Bella's own insensitive standards.
Of course as a rebel, Bella had to be insensitive. A middle-height, dark-haired woman in her mid-twenties who now owned her parents' farm, who while now struggling inside the kitchen with a plateful of pancakes, yes, she had to be insensitive, or at least insensitive enough to also pick up her 10-millimeter handgun which could shoot through tank armor.
Sheesh, if her parents only knew she hid criminals, rebels and terrorists in the barn? The conniption they would have after finding out what crouched among the hay bales, lay flat in the rafters, or stood straight up in the tight confines of the corn silo.
Her parents hated the rebels, hated even more the idea of rebellion. Anything as much as a whisper of insurrection was quickly silenced in the house or out in the fields, particularly if rebellion involved Bella, who was the Swans' only child.
This was why the now dirty, pungent and rangy rebels, often came to stern warning from her father and mother when those rebels were just local kids.
"Your system will not sustain you in lieu of theirs," Bella's father called out in the stuffy tone that spewed from all gentleman farmers in the province.
Bella always concluded it a hideous display that her father should raise a rake, hoe, or antique double-barreled shotgun toward Jacob and the rest, who came round with their propagandist outlay.
And Renee Swan, so much a domesticated mother under the thumb of proper wife of proper man of proper country, would assert the same after wiping her hands with a dishtowel, only to wag her index finger at "the gang" after they bounded up in old wrecks of cars assembled with spare parts and eager wrenches.
"Do your parents know what all of you are up to?"
"As sure as the sun rises, Renee," Charlie shouted. "Their parents have no clue. If their parents did know, the ears of each boy here would be boxed and their fathers' switch taken to their arses."
An ear boxing. An "arse" switching. And all to quell rebellion in the land of Egg which would soon be fed pancakes. The Boys of Jacob, Bella thought as she walked with a serving plate laden with Cullen and Humpty's breakfast, a mass so heavy, she needed to bend forward to carry it.
Those Boys of Jacob would never do with slapped ears and asses. Bullets would be the only things to stop them. That was the case when she, Jacob and the others were kids, and was surely the case now.
She pounded the barn door. In response, a gun clicked from inside.
"It's me. It's Bella. I've something to eat for both of you."
The door slowly opened. Cullen's eyes appeared from the barn's dim interior and peered into the space behind and around Bella.
"Alright."
He widened the door and watched her step forward. Cullen could have been smiling, but Bella wasn't sure because of the lack of light. He did to have the awareness of someone who'd been up for a while, this being a little before 7AM, or again, someone who may not have slept in the last three hours since sinking the moving van into the lake, then loping off to here with the egg, it wearied and huffing, complaints dribbled from its fishy lips in slobbery sighs that the terrain was too hard on its feet.
"Still warm, though no butter and syrup. Sorry."
The lieutenant shrugged. "It's food, ain't it?" He took the serving plate and nodded. "Thanks for this. It's a trouble for you, I know."
"'Tis, yes."
"I'm sure he will appreciate it." He nodded to the slumbering mound of white shell, covered by a horse's blanket.
Bella clicked her tongue. "Like I give a fuck, yeah? I just want him with enough strength for both of you to be away from here."
"Just like that?"
"No, far before just like that, Lieutenant. It's a mistake, 'tis true. But you'd both die for sure out there in the dark or day."
"Thank you for the mercy," Cullen said.
"Oh, thanks, eh? Nothing cares that you've a rifle and he a position as the state's drunken jester."
She looked away then, like this were almost a painful admittance.
"It's the world's way at large, I reckon, Lieutenant. As you call it, mercy I guess, must be of some repose, even on your behalf."
Cullen nodded, then he held up the plate and said, "Well, again, thanks."
"Yeah. Best tuck in then before they grow cold."
Bella turned for the barn's door, but stopped when he came up in front of her.
"Don't go yet. Stay awhile. Having company's good."
"I can't stay and you can't either. Patrols come round as do rebels. If I'm not out in the fields soon, they'll start sniffing round the place."
"We eat fast. I know the egg does. It's hard rumor it swallows food without chewing."
Cullen smiled at his attempt toward a joke. Then his eyes brightened.
"Hey," Cullen said. "Want to see how you wake the national mascot?"
"Don't care."
"You will at a cocktail party when the joke's bounce off one guest then the next."
She huffed. "Cocktail parties. Be serious."
He put the serving plate on a hay bale. "Watch carefully, Comrade."
"I'm not your comrade, soldier. Show respect for the title."
He squinted. "Right then, rebel. Watch carefully…"
Cullen moved toward Humpty's huffing frame. He leaned close to the pie face and whispered, "The kingdom has forgotten you,"
The egg immediately shot up and came to low, bellowing cries and tears. Cullen leaned back, hiccupping with laughter as
Bella growled, "Shut him up before someone hears."
Along with the hay bales, the farm machines and tools, all under the dimness of the barn's interior, two stern and unforgiving wood chairs populated the barn.
One was in use as Cullen's seat. The other was waved off by Bella who decided to pace, while Humpty Dumpty waved the chair off as well, the egg knowing if it sat on it, the entire assembly would burst into splinters.
So the egg, still stinging from its rude awakening, sat like a child, legs out, on the hay-strewn floor. The platter while on the egg's pond-sized lap, disappeared into abundant flesh that poked out from beneath the dark blue vest.
With massive hunger, Humpty forked chunks of pancake into a mouth that stretched the circumference of the enormous egg head. And as it ate, only in spates did Humpty care about Bella's presence, looking up now and then with the small red eyes that seemed more concerned with guarding its food than anything more. Bella glared back in return, until she said:
"If I know my people, their noses are already to the ground. And the guard…" Bella looked directly at Cullen. "Your lot when they came, well, I'm certain you have an inkling of what they can do to people like me."
Humpty sat up straighter from the platter, fork in hand. The egg belched horrifically. A rotten smell coming from its stomach, which Bella furiously waved off.
"But where are we to go?" the kingdom's mascot asked.
"It doesn't matter to me where you go. What matters to me is that you two not stay here. I'll give you both 'til noon. You can sort things out until then. I'll even be nice and tell you where a couple safe spots are along your way. But you have to be careful as folks might not help the likes of either of you."
"Yes, but," Humpty began, "that tells us nothing."
"Oh, so you'd rather I tell you something?" Bella laughed. "Have I not just told you nothing? You know, egg, you'd be a much better symbol if you just for a God damned moment forgot your sense of entitlement."
Humpty blinked his small red eyes, cross with acute fury.
"Both my symbol and entitlement go hand in hand, lass."
"Aye, egg, and there's the problem, right?"
"As if you have another symbol in mind?"
"No, I don't. No symbol comes to me. Especially after you bullocksed up everything a symbol is supposed to mean, you drunken piece of garbage."
"I beg your pardon, madam!"
"Right!" Cullen said. "Right then! Enough arguing. We're to be out by noon, yeah?"
Bella nodded. "Fine."
"Can you first then give us the lay of the land?"
Bella gave a wry smile.
"I'd love to."
PART TWO TO BE CONTINUED…
