Big Yellow Taxi
Chapter 9
"Is that a Honda?," Rick asked as he slowed to a stop and started to look over the motorcycle that was parked closest to the long metal rack of bicycles despite his wife's obvious annoyance. She was holding onto the newest member of their family by the makeshift leash Rowan had given her. The puppy was bigger than most fully grown dogs and seemed to be much more interested in staying with his former mistress than he was in going home with his new owners. After a few high pitched whines and one half hearted howl, the puppy darted back towards Rowan, yanking his rope leash taunt and dragging Lori back a few steps before she managed to get her footing and stop the young dog from running free.
"Some of it," Daryl answered. He had very few things in his life that he was actually proud of and his bike happened to be one of them. When Rick had stopped to look at his bike without any urging it made Daryl more excited that it normally would to have someone look at his bike. Showing the bike to Rick meant he could also show it to Rowan and Daryl was curious to see her reaction to the machine.
"Built it myself from the frame out," Daryl added, leaving out the part about how most if not all the parts were either salvaged or stolen. The men conversed back and forth a little about the bike while Rowan and her large black dog hovered nearby. Rowan knew as much about motorcycles as she did about cars. Nothing. She didn't even know how to drive. The only thing with a motor she had ever tried to drive was a moped. And that had been a complete and total disaster. As soon as she got going on it her skirt had flown back into her face and she had panic clutched the gas, sending herself flying straight into a lightpost. But as Daryl talked with Rick about his bike she leaned close, looking over Daryl's bike and nodding along like she knew what he and Rick were talking about when in fact it sounded to her like they were talking in another language.
"Ever considered selling it?," Rick asked. Daryl shook his head enthusiastically, earning him a chuckle from the other man. He tried to keep his attention on Rick, who he was talking to, but he was distracted by Rowan's behavior. Daryl had been watching her out of the corner of his eye. She had walked a small circle around his bike, looking at it from all angles before she took a few graceful steps forward. Tank had been shadowing her movements but when she stepped closer to the bike the large dog sat down and stayed back like he wasn't sure he wanted to get too close to the odd looking vehicle. Rowan's arm stretched away from her body, one slender hand reaching out until it grazed over the seat of his bike. While Merle was fond of taking girls for rides on his bike, Daryl was not. Watching Rowan stroke her agile fingers over the leather seat felt more intimate than his contact with her in the pantry had been. Watching her, he wondered what it might feel like to have her riding behind him, her arms wrapped around him and her breasts pressed in tight against his back.
"Nope," Daryl answered. He had never thought about selling his bike, though Rick wasn't the first person to ask him about it. One man even offered him a job working in the garage section of the large motorcycle dealership he owned. But Daryl turned him down, knowing a good steady job like that would require a background check. One he couldn't pass.
"Rick!," Rick's wife hollered, not bothering to hide her impatience any longer, "wrap it up I can't hold this dog back." The puppy had managed to wrap it's rope leash around Lori's legs and she was dangerously close to falling forward onto her face into a large pile of freshly laid dog turd. Rick and Daryl's conversation ended abruptly as the man rushed over to rescue his wife, leaving Daryl and Rowan alone near his bike.
After she felt the well worn leather of the seat, Rowan trailed the tip of one finger up the frame to grip down on one of the handle bars. Daryl hesitated, fighting the urge to move forward and wrap one arm around her waist. The normal insecuritites he had reared up inside him. No woman wanted a dirty redneck like him laying hands on her. He wasn't good enough. Wasn't smart enough. Didn't have a job and didn't even have the money to pay the power bill to get the lights on in his dumpy ass trailer.
Daryl took one long deep breath in and blew it out slowly through his pursed lips. He forced all those feelings down inside him, emboldened by the way Rowan had been smiling at him just a short time before. One foot after the other he closed the small distance between them and placed one hand over the hand of hers that was wrapped loosely around the handle bar of his bike. His other arm circled her waist, the rough pads of his fingers coming to rest on the waistband of her long skirt. She didn't lean away from him as he had feared, but smiled and tucked herself into his side.
"Ever ridden on a bike before?," he asked her, feeling like he was using the worst pickup line out of the full book of worst pickup lines. But Rowan just shook her head, her big eyes getting wider as she looked up at him.
"Seems like it would be scary," she added, sucking in the full middle of her lower lip and nibbling it before letting it slide out from between her teeth with a almost inaudible pop. Her hand rose up, coming to rest on the center of Daryl's lower back. There was a nasty raised scar directly under her hand and Daryl was glad he had his vest on. She wouldn't be able to feel the scar through the leather. "You must be very brave," Rowan told him. Daryl's first impluse was to assume that she was teasing him, but he could see nothing but complete sincerity in her big dark eyes.
"Could take you fer a ride sometime," Daryl said, his statement coming out sounding more like a question. Rowan glanced down at the bike before she looked back up at him, her eyebrows now knitted together with concern.
"But what if I fall off?," she asked. Daryl smiled at the simple innocence of her question. He would never let her fall off his bike.
"That's why ya gotta hold on," he told her. Rowan heard the timber of Daryl's voice change as the aura around him flushed with red. Suddenly she got the feeling that maybe just maybe they were talking about a different sort of ride. One she was much more eager to take than a ride on his bike. Daryl's eyes were as blue as the clear sky behind his head and she almost felt herself getting lost in them, forgetting everything that was going on around her. His hand was resting on her hip and the callous on the side of his thumb was stroking a tiny circle of fire on the exposed skin above the waistband of her skirt. She blinked her eyes and got a tiny flash. Her visions were never precise as her mother's sometimes were. Rowan had only inherited a glimmer of her mother's gift. All she saw this time was a delicious image of her hands against Daryl's bare chest, the tips of her fingers bending to scrape her nails gently over his skin.
"Hold on to what?," she asked, her hand moving up his back as her body tucked in closer to his. Rowan was on the tall side of average for a girl and she liked that when she was this close to Daryl she had to tilt her head back a little in order to look into his eyes. It made her feel delicate, something she knew very well she wasn't.
"Hold on to me," Daryl said, his voice low and quiet. Rowan slipped the hand that was resting on the handlebar out from under his and shifted her body so she could wrap both her arms around his waist. She hugged him close and rested her head against his chest.
"Like this?," she asked. Daryl's tounge suddenly felt like it was glued to the roof of his mouth. It was all he could do to let out a grunt of the affirmative variety. Rowan hugged him closer and hummed her enjoyment at finally being able to wrap her arms around the man. His chest was as broad and strong as it looked. And his body felt different from the men she had known before. Daryl was thicker and his muscles felt different from the ones the men in her community got from dancing and yoga and braiding rope hammocks. Rowan knew she had really only waited a few hours but it felt like she had been waiting a thousand years to get him in her arms. And now that she had a hold of him she didn't ever want to let go.
"Better come out to my car so I can pay you for the dog," Rick hollered over once he had suceeded in saving his wife from certain disaster. He actually felt a little bad for interrupting the little love scene that was playing out over near the bikes. But if he didn't get this dog home and into the bathtub to wash the goat smell off Lori was going to have his balls for breakfast. Carl also looked like he was getting bored and Carl had a tendency to wander off when he was bored. If he wandered off around here nothing bad would happen but it would take them hours to find him.
TWD
Daryl finally let go of Rowan as she leaned into the car, giving her puppy one last hug and kiss goodbye. She would miss all her babies, but she was glad her puppy was going to a good home. The cruiser had King County Sheriff's Department printed on the side and the boy was begging his dad to turn on the sirens and the lights. His mother reminded him that the noise might scare his new dog. This quieted the boy down in a hurry and he climbed into the backseat to wrap his arms around the giant slobbery pup.
Rick handed Rowan an envelope that Daryl assumed contained a large stack of money. He wondered how much she got for each dog but felt uncomfortable asking. Luckily Rick broached the subject.
"We agreed on $1800, right?," he asked. It was more than he would normally have been willing to pay for a dog but her knew the money was for a charitable cause. He and Rowan had spoken about that in the emails they exchanged. Rowan nodded and smiled a huge grin at Rick that showed off the one crooked tooth she had that stuck out a little further than the rest on one side.
"Right," she announced, "Once I sell the rest of my puppies we will be halfway to building our wildlife bridge." Rick smiled and stuck his hand out for Rowan to shake. She grabbed it, but instead of shaking it properly she gripped it lightly and gave the same funny like courtsey she and Ayla had given Daryl and Merle back at the farmer's market. "Blessed be to you and your beautiful family," she said. Rick shuffled his feet awkwardly and Daryl was happy to see he wasn't the only one that had been unsure of what the proper response to Rowan's unique statement was.
"To you as well," Rick finally said, "and good luck with the bridge. We've had far too many wildlife related crashes out there. When you ladies get that bridge built you'll be saving more lives than just the animals."
Daryl wasn't sure what bridge Rick was talking about, but his words seemed to have an emotional affect on Rowan. She leaned in and offered the man a chaste kiss on the cheek before she stepped back and waved goodbye to the boy and the puppy in the backseat.
After the cruiser pulled out and disappeared around the bend in the gravel road, Daryl and Rowan headed back towards the festival area. Daryl asked her about the bridge and she explained what she and Rick had been talking about. Her community owned a lot of land. Most of it was undeveloped. They did have a few cabins out near one of the lakes, but most of the land they intentionally left as nature intended. That was until the state came in and built an interstate highway right smack through the middle of it. They had gone to council meetings. Fought the construction every step of the way with paperwork and protests. But eventually they had lost and the highway had been built. Rowan got very emotional just talking about it. And seeing her upset made Daryl feel angry in new way he hadn't felt before. Anger at whoever had made such a gentle woman feel so bad. He didn't often feel anger at social inustices, seeing them as just another normal part of life.
All the animals natural migration patterns had been disrupted. They were dying by the dozen out in the highway traffic. So Rowan's mother came up with the idea to build a wildlife crossing across the top of the highway. They found a construction company that was willing to build the bridge for them at a reduced cost. But no one was going to build something that extensive for free. So Rowan's community and several of the neighboring communites were currently raising money to pay for the bridge.
"I think I know the place you mean," Daryl said, "Up a little ways north of here, closer to the mountains?" Rowan nodded. "I usedta go hunting up there a lot," Daryl announced. The words were out of his mouth before he realized he had just admitted to not only hunting and killing the cute little animals that Rowan was ready to cry her eyes out over, but he had also announced that he had been poaching on her land. His eyes got wide and he started to stammer, trying to think up some way to take the statement back. Rowan stopped and rested her hand on his arm, her touch radiating calm vibes through his body.
"It's okay," she assured him, "My dad hunts. And while we may own the land, no one owns the mother's creatures. They are here for the benefit of all." Seeing that her words had visibly relaxed the man at her side, Rowan smiled at him. "My dad built a hunting cabin up that way. You can use it next time you go up there if you want to," Rowan offered with another beaming smile.
Daryl wasn't sure what to say. He already felt like Rowan was a little too good to be true. That was before he saw her interact with her dogs. And now she had some sort of family hunting cabin that she was offering up for him to use anytime he felt like it. It didn't feel real and Daryl brought his hand up to scrub at his face, expecting any moment to wake up from the dream he was having. He felt a bit like a hungry child that had finally gotten a piece of candy in his hands and was afraid that at any moment someone else might swoop in and take it away.
"This is my place," Rowan told him as she gestured to the large building behind her, "I just need to put this money away and then we can go back to the festival."
Daryl followed her down a brick lined path. There were attractive beds full of flowers on either side that Rowan pointed out to him. One was a medicinal herb garden. Another was full of plants that they made tea out of. That one was Rowan's to take care of. She explained that was why it had more weeds in it than the other gardens. Rowan swung the unlocked door of the building open wide so her large dog had room to charge inside. Daryl expected he would wait outside but Rowan paused in the doorway, making it obvious that she intended for him to follow her inside.
Once Daryl got inside it became obvious to him that a lot of other people lived inside the building besides Rowan and her mother. They walked through a communal lounging area. There were old comfy looking couches, one bookcase full of books and another full of board games, a large table with a puzzle laid out on it that looked about halfway finished and another area that was covered in an old rag rug with bean bag chairs scattered around on it. Another section appeared to be set up for children. There was an old plastic playhouse and a bin full of dolls and toys.
After passing through the lounge, Rowan led Daryl down a wide hallway. She pointed out which room belonged to her friend Ayla and which one was her mother's. And then she stopped in the doorway of her own room. Tank was already making himself at home on her unmade bed. The room was painted in a light minty green on two of the walls that Daryl could see and the third was covered in a mural of painted flowers. But what was surprising was that there were a lot of native american decorative touches. A woven indian blanket covered part of the large queen sized bed. A dreamcatcher hung from the wooden headboard. A white buckskin fringed dress was hanging, displayed like it was more for looking at than wearing.
Daryl could tell just from looking at the stuff that it was authentic and not the white trash gift shop style crap that the people he knew hung up in their trailers. As he looked at it, still hovering in the doorway because he didn't feel right just charging into Rowan's bedroom, one tiny piece of the puzzle that was Rowan fell into place. She had to be at least half native american. That would explain her wide high set cheekbones and her long silky black hair. And not only that. Daryl now knew that the tiny touch of an accent she had was likely because she also spoke some variation of a native language.
"You can come in," Rowan told him. She crossed the room and shoved the envelope of cash into a sewing basket that was sitting on top of an antique wooden dresser. Daryl took one small step inside the room, still hovering close to the doorway. "Sorry about the mess," Rowan added in an offhand way like she really wasn't sorry at all for making a mess in her own room. "When I turned 25 my mom started refusing to clean my room for me," Rowan added with a giggle. Her mom still cleaned her room and changed her sheets once in a while but she liked to pretend she didn't.
Daryl snorted out a laugh, secretly grateful that he now had some idea how old Rowan was. He had been guessing she was a lot younger than 25 and was happy to know she was closer to him in age than he had guessed. Not to get it confused. She was still way too young for him, but at least she wasn't jail bait young.
"How much money do you have left to raise for your bridge?," Daryl asked, trying to make some sort of conversation as he leaned forward over Rowan's bed to get a closer look at her dreamcatcher. It was intricately woven with little stones strung onto the net. They were tiger's eyes, the same as the one that Rowan had on a chain around her neck. Dangling down from it were long strings of buckskin that had beads and turkey feathers attached to the bottoms of them. Daryl lifted one feather, enjoying the silky texture of the feather before he let it slip from his fingers.
"Another 50 thousand," Rowan announced. Daryl about choked on his own spit.
"You raised 50 thousand dollars already?," he asked, not sure if he would believe her even if she said yes. Rowan giggled and shook her head, letting the lid of her sewing box snap closed.
"I raised around ten," she corrected, "or it will be ten once I sell my last puppy." Daryl glanced nervously at the sewing box on her dresser, the image of Merle robbing that woman he slept with earlier that morning was fresh in Daryl's mind. Rowan had almost ten grand in a little purple and white flowered box on her dresser. The door to her room had been hanging open too, and the building was unlocked. They were having a big party. Rowan was so innocent in the ways of the world. It made Daryl feel protective of both the woman and her stash of carefully saved charity money.
"You should start lockin' yer door," Daryl told her. Rowan smiled. It was sweet of Daryl to worry about her. But she knew no one would take her money. People sometimes borrowed things without asking, but she had never had anything deliberately stolen from her before. Plus no one in her community had any need for a large sum of money. Everyone she knew considered money to be a necessary evil. There were some things they weren't able to grow themselves, like rice and bananas. So they needed money to buy those things. But money made people greedy for more food than they could eat and more clothes than they could wear and giant rooms in giant houses that sat empty because they didn't have enough friends and family to fill them. No one she knew wanted that much of it.
Rowan moved closer and turned her attention to her dreamcatcher, eager to change the subject. "My father shot that turkey last summer for the feast that comes at the end of sundance festival," Rowan explained, "He gave me the tail feathers to bring me good fortune." She liked watching Daryl touch her dreamcather. Dreamcatchers protected the person sleeping under them from nightmares. Beause of that they were considered to be a very personal item. Most people wouldn't have touched hers without asking first. But she liked that Daryl did. Watching the feathers slip through his fingers made Rowan aware that more than anything she wanted to sleep with Daryl under the watchful eye of not just any dreamcatcher, but the one her father made for her. The web would catch their bad dreams and disolve them once the light of day streamed in through the window, only allowing the good dreams to flow down through the feathers and in to their unconcious minds. Rowan had a feeling that Daryl had a lot of bad dreams. And she wanted to be the one to chase them away for him.
