TESSA CLAIBORNE

TESSA CLAIBORNE

A

Novel

by Smcallis


This is a work of fiction. No similarities between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 2007 by Smcallis.


For David, (1954-2007)


"Four things greater than all things are, Women and Horses, and Power and War."

―Rudyard Kipling

Chapter 1

ROOTS and CABBAGES

THEY SAY THAT WAR is the purest expression of Nation- hood. I never knew for sure whether that was true or not. What I do know is that I’ve seen war; I’ve seen men stand in line, grim faced, shoulder to shoulder and die in battle. I can only think that there must be a higher calling, a more profound sense of purpose, not to be confused with Nationhood, God or Country that keeps a man standing there, in line shoulder to shoulder with his brother. It is his sense of duty, camaraderie, and his obligation to the man standing next to him that causes a person to stand fast in a firing line amidst the swirl of confusion, black powder and death. I’ve been there, in war, in the thin red line of Red Coats. I know this, I was only thirteen.

I should tell my story. I was born April 20th 1865 in Glamorgan, Wales, to a poor family, in a three room wooden shack tucked in the hills not far from the great coalfields of Cardiff. My Papa, he worked those mines; the hardest purest blackest coal in the world came from Cardiff. In 1865, the world awakened to the great industrial revolution thanks to the invention of Watts and his infernal machine the steam engine, and the colonies, and their cotton and Ely Whitney and his gin. All the industrial might of the empire was hungry for black coal to feed the factories, furnaces, and the steam ships that brought raw goods from far away places in the Americas, India and China.

In America, the great Civil war was drawing to a close. General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox and their President Lincoln was assassinated. My Papa, First Sergeant Robert Chard Claiborne, fought at Balaclava, in the Crimea, the 24th Regiment of Foot under Lieutenant-Colonel James Webster. You might remember the battle of Balaclava, from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Well, I can tell you second hand that on that December day there were plenty of cannon, to the right, to the left and everywhere else. A fragment from a cannon ball took out Papa’s left eye. All this happened in 1854. Papa drew a military pension of two shillings nine pence a month; this was never enough to feed his family, by the time I was born, sixth of what was later to be nine children Papa took a job, the only job a man could do in Glamorganshire, laboring deep in the bowels of the coalmines of Cardiff.

I can still remember Papa coming home at night, his face black with coal dust, like minstrel player. The wick of his candle flame on his felt hat still burning. He was hungry and tired, but he always had time for his family. Papa told stories, he often told stories of battle at Belaclava, and that fateful day when the Light Brigade charged. His 1853 Enfield rifled musket still hung over the door way. I only saw him fire it once, at a stray dog. It misfired.

I was baptized Theresa Elizabeth, but at home, I was never called Theresa, I was always called Tessa. Oh, my was I called. I was the only girl imagine that! I had quite the rough and tumble life growing up with eight brothers and no sisters, in the shantytowns at the foothills of the coal mines. I don’t think I even knew I was a girl until I was ten going on eleven. With five older brothers, all took their place in the mines, and three younger brothers, as the only girl, in a family of nine, it fell to me to do all the cleaning, the washing-up, make the beds, sweep the floor and help Mama with the laundry and keep the fire in the hearth.

Woman’s work, I hated it. I was every bit as strong as any boy in the county, I could run, climb, spit, every bit as well as any boy, but because I had a cunny, I was branded a girl, I was relegated to wash’n up work. I was a servant, and I didn’t like it one bit. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to go to school, growing up amidst the shacks and shantytowns in the middle decades of the 19th century. Papa did encourage all of us to learn to read, and he let us go to winter term when there wasn’t so much work on the farm. It was a five-mile walk; I had to carry the dinner pail because I was the girl.

I don’t think we really knew how poor we were. We never wore shoes from May to October. I don’t think I ever had a new pair of shoes in my whole life, (not at least until I joined the army, but that’s the rest of our story). Thomas, my brother . . . of course he was my brother, I only had brothers! Thomas was a year and five months older than I was, his shoes always fit. When he out grew his, they came to me. Boy’s shoes, boy pants, boy shirts. As I said, I don’t think I even knew the difference between boys and girls until I turned eleven.

Life on a hardscrabble shanty farm was work. It wasn’t as if we went hungry, at least not most of the time. We raised vegetables in the garden, there was “Worthless” the old dairy cow, we had butter and cream. Papa, he always kept a few sheep. Papa’s sheep that was probably the one great joy in my life, the sheep, how I loved to go to the pasture lay on my back in the sweet smelling grass and dream. I played there with the sheep and my dog Jack, broad in the chest, with a bright fox face, short legs and no tail, there was never a dog like Jack. How Jack could heard those sheep. Sometimes there was mutton on Sunday when the Vicar came to dinner. During the rest of the week, there was cabbage. Always Cabbage, rutabagas and leeks, I think I must have turned mostly green by the time of my ninth birthday from all the cabbages I ate. Papa worked hard in the mines and gave Mama every penny, well not exactly every pence, Papa did like to share a pint or two at the pub, but Mama never grudged him.

We kids, we worked hard. One of our main jobs, the little kids, of which I was the oldest, was to hunt along the harbor way collecting any stray bits of rope and twine. In the mid-nineteenth century, all ships used hemp for rigging, when it got wet or worn; it was discarded often in the most casual way. Twisted bits of old hemp rope may not seem very valuable, but it was gold to us. I should tell you that picking oakum is very tedious work and hard on the fingers, my fingers got so stiff and sore, I used to cry, from the long hours spent unraveling those tough hemp ropes down to base fibers. It was hard work for very little money. A buyer in Cardiff paid two and quarter pence a pound for clean rope fiber.

Sometimes when the weather was fair, more often when it was wet and rainy. I took my brothers and we walked along the railroad tracks to pick up coal. It may seem funny, with Papa being a coal miner; we never seemed to have coal for our own stove. I knew how to find coal. The railroads, were so wasteful, if a little coal spilled out as the trains made the sharp bend at Tresimwn, nobody seemed to care. This became our family's main source of coal. My brothers and I could walk the rail bed and pick up half a peck of coal; if we got an early start, we walked half way to Cowbridge and back. At least then we knew we’d have a hot supper. More boiled cabbage.

By 1874, things in Glamorganshire went from bad to worse. By that time my three younger brothers were born. More mouths to feed, my two middle brothers, Wallace and Dewey were killed in a mine collapse. By this time, Papa couldn’t work anymore; he was laid up in bed, dying of what we called back then the consumption. Later, I read in America they called it the “black lung disease.” Papa died in 1875.

That was the year Mr. Squeers came ‘round. Mr. Wallace Squeers of Wallace Squeers, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Esq., in his black coat and tall top hat, his long sharp whip, Squeers came thundering into Glamorgan in a fine lacquered buggy and matching chestnut driving horses. Mr. Squeers, he came around to all the villages and towns of Cardiff offering money to families with young girls. Mr. Squeers told Mama that there was work; work in the great mills in London, textile mills that needed young girls, Mr. Squeers said he could offer her five pounds, and the promise of five shillings a month for young nimble fingers.

Everything about Mr. Squeers was oily and black. Compared to him, I was a dirty disheveled little nothing. I knew something was up, and it was no good. At first, I don’t think he knew for sure whether I was a boy or a girl. He examined me as if he was buying a horse, looking at my teeth, while he talked to Mama; his sneaky hand stole a quick feel under my shirt.

“She seems very skinny, will she work?” Squeers ask, he shoved the saucer further away with a disdainful air. My face burned hot, I knew there was only a little tea left in the tin, and tea was such a luxury! Mama offered Mr. Squeers tea in her best china, the tea sat untouched. He sat there haggling as if I were a stack of chord wood, he puffed on a ten-penny cigar, while great aromatic plumes of smoke circled the room, his mustache quivered.

I coughed, Jack growled.

“She’s strong as a French pony.” My mother assured him; she twisted my ear and shoved me forward.

“Four pounds, five shillings, that’s my best offer.”

Four pounds, nine shillings, that was the final selling price. That was how it was in 1875, ten years after the great Civil war in the Americas, I, a ten-year-old girl, going on eleven, a sovereign subject of the crown, was sold into indentured servitude to a Mr. Squeers of London, a Mr. Squeers of the Great Quadrangle Mercantile and Shirtwaist factory of London.

Hudson Directs Dakota in Short Film

NEW YORK (AP) — Kate Hudson went behind the camera for "Cutlass," one of Glamour magazine's "Reel Moments" short films based on readers' personal essays.

The goal of the competition, now in its third year, is to empower women by producing female-friendly short films and creating opportunities for actresses to direct. This year, the assignment was to capture the essence of happiness, the magazine said Monday.

The contest began earlier this year with stories submitted to Glamour. The magazine narrowed down readers' submissions and asked Hudson, Kirsten Dunst and Rita Wilson to choose their favorites.

Hudson, 28, selected "Cutlass," a generational tale about family and tradition. The short film co-stars Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Virginia Madsen, Chevy Chase and Kristen Stewart.

Dunst, 25, cast Winona Ryder in "Welcome," a modern-day ghost story, and Wilson, 50, directed "The Trap," starring Jeanne Tripplehorn as a woman who finds happiness in trying something new.

The films will premiere Oct. 9 in Los Angeles. They will be screened Oct. 13 in the hometowns of the Glamour readers whose stories are told on-screen. The films will also be available on Glamour's Web site.

■ Glamour: http://www.glamour.com/

RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF

A

Novel

by

smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarity between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by smcallis

Chapter 16 NOT GIANTS, BUT WINDMILLS. “Lea, what will we do now?” Lea sat emotionally spent. Ivan was dead; Lea shot him through the head, the Russian’s brains now redecorated the south stairwell wall. The other Russian, the fat one, Boris, he was dead; half his head lay ripped from his body. Lea was alone. Her friend, her confidant, Guy Painter, he was somewhere down stairs, a billionaire industrialist, was now the enemy. Lea lay crippled, busted up, exhausted on the sixth floor of the Henry B. Horner building. Lea opened her eyes, surrounding by children. The deaf child, Luka, her sister Shaila, and two other children, Kayla, she was four and Shontrell, the only boy was six. The children stood around her, they pressed against her, and presented her with the Ruger―as if it was some mythical exalted weapon like Excalibur. Lea flipped opens the cylinder and shook her head. The weapon was empty, useless there were no more bullets. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She never signed up to be the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Now these children looked to her for protection, they regarded her as some kind of Paladin, a guardian angel, a knight in shining armor come to rescue them. Lea was none of those things. It was Luka, dear precious brave Luka. It was Luka who pressed into her hand Grandfather’s pistol. The very same M11911A1 .45 caliber pistol that Grandfather had used at Stalingrad, Nuremburg, La Spezia, Berlin. At first Lea didn’t believe it―the pistol Lea had left behind in room 629―The refrigerator death room. How Luka, a small little deaf child possessed the courage, the bravery, the intestinal fortitude to re-enter that terrible room, a room where two men already lay dead. How one little girl posses the foresight to enter a room where men sought to suffocated and profit, all for sixteen numbers savagely tattooed on her leg. How one small girl, a brave little cracker girl, could enter such a room, retrieve Grandfather’s gun―A weapon even unto itself, carried a heavy burden, an imamate instrument of monstrous murder and death. Lea wasn’t even sure she possessed such courage. The truth was, Luka was one brave little girl. Grandpa Doc said so himself, “I could teach you to shoot, one day Frauline.” Luka did not associate the decades of murder and death wrought by the pistol. She only knew the happy times, the days spent in Grandpa Doc’s apartment. It was her Grandfather’s gun. The Colt, the M1A1 .45 caliber auto pistol, clad in the finest .99 silver, engraved with all manner of fantastic Aztec pictographs. Lea sat on the floor, surrounded by four children. She held in her hand her Grandfather’s pistol. Shaila fetched a bed sheet, for now, her broken arm was temporarily bound to her side. Four desperate children, seven bullets, and Guy Painter waited down stairs. “Let’s get this thing done.” For the first time in her life, Lea pulled back the slide on her Grandfather’s pistol. It was a religious experience, the weapon actuated with a smooth precision that belied its fifty-year age. There never was such a gun, her Grandfather’s gun. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Lea descended the stairs, entered the foyer and stepped out into the courtyard of the Henry B. Horner building. She wasn’t particularly afraid of Guy. Guy wasn’t what you might call a real gangster; he was a consummate corporate kind of person. He let other people do his dirty work. Lea had done his dirty work for years. Without his Russians, Lea half expected Guy to flee the scene, yet the limousine sat there parked, intransigent. Guy wanted that money; he wasn’t willing to give up so easily, twenty million dollars was a lot of money . . . What bothered Lea the most―what Lea wasn’t quite sure she could do, was kill Guy. Guy was her friend, for the past ten years Guy had been her confidant, a mentor. She wasn’t quite sure if when the time came, she could kill Guy, even after his betrayal, even after all he had done. Lea stepped out into the open. “Guy Painter! I have come for you.” Disheveled, with her blonde hair matted in blood, her right arm bound to her chest in a bed sheet, Lea Swift struck a less than a menacing pose. “Lea!” Guy appeared in the distance, more than seventy-five yards separated them. His Russian goons were dead. Guy had enough horse sense to know that if Lea appeared, his goons were dead. His driver fled after the first shots. Guy was alone, facing the one person in the entire world he least wanted to confront . . . next to that Nazi bastard, Lea Swift was the most dangerous person he knew. Guy was not a tough person; he was not a gunman or a thug. He understood business; he was a billionaire, a corporate financer. Guy hired people like Lea Swift, people to do his dirty work. Now he found himself confronted by his very creation, a consummate gunfighter, wounded, but still very dangerous. His .32 caliber AMT automatic felt very small and inadequate in his pocket, but it was all he had, and all that stood between himself and Lea Swift. His spirits were buoyed somewhat when he observed Lea’s arm bound close to her chest. “The bitch is wounded.” This gave him the only opening he needed. “Lea, we can talk this thing out. This was all a big misunderstanding, Boris, Ivan, those fucking Cossacks, language barrier. Thank God you’re all right!” Guy caught sight of the four brown-faced cracker children hiding in the shadows of the foyer. “Oh―Children, if it’s the children you’re worried about. We can take care of the children . . . education, housing, consider it done. I just need one little thing from you Lea . . . One of the children . . .” Guy saw the gun, a silver gun. Lea continued to advance. She raised her Grandfather’s pistol. “Lea! You don’t understand, we can work this out . . . the hospital, you said you wanted to go to the hospital.” Lea shot Guy Painter at seventy-five yards.

* * *

GRAVEL CRUNCHED UNDERNEATH LEA SWIFT’S FEET. She advanced towards the fallen Guy Painter. Guy lay writhing on the asphalt of the playground of the Henry B. Horner Projects. Shot through the knee, the pants of his 8000-dollar Amari suit was torn and bloodied. Just to be sure, Lea had not missed, she shot to maim. Guy struck a pathetic figure. Crumpled on the ground, his left leg twisted at such a grotesque angle. The .45 caliber bullet had pierced his kneecap and blow off his patella. Whether he would ever walk again was less open for speculation as to whether he would live ten more seconds. An angry Lea Swift continued to advance towards her fallen foe. Gun smoke curled from the silver pistol of her grandfather’s gun like an angry dragon. Lea stood over Guy. He was a spent and defeated man. The billionaire investment banker stared straight into bore of the .45 caliber silver pistol. “I should fucking kill you now, right where you are.” “Lea, please.” Guy said weakly. “Tell me now, muthafucker, tell me why I shouldn’t just fuck’n kill you? I fucking loved you. You were my best friend Guy.” “Lea, we can work this out, I’ll pay you . . .” “You fuck faced Irish prick!” Lea kicked Guy so hard in the ribs he rolled over and groaned. “You think I want your money? Your dirty money? That little girl back there, how the hell are you going to pay her back? You molested her, you abused her, you and your fuck-faced goons tried to suffocate her! No, you’re going to jail my friend. You’re going to sit a long time in Jackson with a soap-on-a-rope . . . kidnapping, drug running, international money laundering, not to mention murder for profit, murder for hire.” Lea signaled back toward to foyer. Shaila brought Lea’s combat webbing. Lea decided she liked Shaila―Note to self―in five more years, hire Shaila. “Cuff him, squeeze ‘em tight, make sure you hurt him.” It was then Guy made his move, the last move of a pathetic and defeated man. He reached for his pistol. His intent was to take the slim black girl hostage. Lea was ready for him, she anticipated his treachery. She already knew exactly how and where she was going to hurt him. Two more bullets, two more .45 caliber slugs tore into Guy’s body. Lea did not intend to give Guy the satisfaction of a martyr death. No, this was kneecapping of the first order. The first bullet shattered his jaw; the second took off the first three fingers of his right hand. Guy was alive; he was fucked-up, but still alive. “That ought to shut you up! Cuff him, Shaila, we’re done here.” It was Noah, Noah Washington who wrestled Guy to his feet and did the actual cuffing. “Mr. Forrest, he called me, he said you might be in some kind of trouble . . .” A lasting relief came over Lea’s face. “Take me home, Noah.” It was over.

EPILOGUE

ALL DURING THE LONG DRIVE BACK from the hospital, the city lights of Detroit sparkled in the night sky. Lea Swift lay curled up with her head cradled in Brad’s lap. Noah drove on, silently. Lea lay curled up on Brad’s lap. Was she a sleep? “Lea?” “Mmm?” “Lea Marie . . . did I ever tell you I loved you?” “Hundreds of times.” “Will you marry me?” Lea smiled coyly, “I love you too darling, after all, we do have a ready made family . . . can we go home now?” The four children slept in the back seat. Lea too fell fast asleep.

FIN

RUFF STUFF

RUFF STUFF

A

Novel

by

smcallis

This is a work of fiction. No similarity between any person living or dead is intended, and any such similarity is purely coincidental. All characters © 1992 by smcallis

Chapter 15

BLACK DOG IN THE NIGHT

PHOEBE VANISHED INTO THE INKY BLACKNESS; a black dog in the night, the mercurial cat sprinted as if greased lightning, clocking out at over 50 miles per hour. The cat zigzagged amidst the arc of the laser sight. Dodging gunshots, sparks and skips of cement fragments that spattered hot against her heals. Angry voices, mostly in Russian, fell faint, along with the murderous sting of a fusillade of gunfire. This too fell in her wake. The cat clutched the cub by the scruff of the neck and did the one thing she knew led to safety. She climbed.

“Kill her.” Guy ordered, calmly, disaffected, too cowardly to watch. He occupied himself with lighting a cigarette . . . while he regarded murder as a necessary business tool; he could not stomach the act. To watch his men shoot down Lea Swift in cold blood, this was too much. After all, he liked Lea, he really did. For ten years he was mentor, father, paramour; he was like a parent with a naughty child. Lea had defied him, he was very angry with her, it was all her fault, she made him do it!

There it was, the tell, the gunshot. Guy puffed with great satisfaction, at fifty dollars a pack, the hand rolled Turkish cigarettes were a luxury even for him. The deed was done, he spat a bit of tobacco from his lips, he could now relax and contemplate his next move. It was the second gunshot, followed by an uncontrolled burst of machine gun fire that shattered his equilibrium. Guy jerked to attention, dismayed, like a man who missed the winning play at the big game. He witnessed the Russians, his bumbling Cossacks, firing wildly into the darkness. It was over, a done deal, one second Lea Swift stood vulnerable, naked, clutching a child, in the length of time it took him to light a cigarette, Lea was gone. The child was gone. All his money was gone!

Phoebe owned the night. She scaled the building easily, past the third floor, the fifth floor and up to the sixth floor and the roof. By this time, she was well out of reach of the two-legers and their “angry hornets” that tormented her. She laid the cub down gently, and sniffed for blood, there were no wounds. She licked the cub; her tongue was like sand paper. She licked the cub until the child revived, giggled even with laughter. The child was strong enough to make a sign.

K ● I ● T ● T ● Y.

Phoebe loomed over her, a monstrous carnivore, a man killer, with a jaw pressure of 2000 lbs., the strength of a hundred men coursed through her frame. She could kill with a swat of her paw, yet the child was unafraid. The cat purred. Satisfied, the cub was strong enough to leave. Phoebe grabbed the child once more by the scruff of the neck, this time Luka protested at being handled so roughly. The cat ignored her and climbed. To the top of the derelict water tower, the highest point on the building, the old wooden water tower, long a neglected icon of old Detroit, complete with a weather worn advertisement for Papst Blue Ribbon beer. Phoebe searched out the perfect cave, a safe hiding place for her cub. She landed softly, on cat pads and lowered the she-cub into its echoic depths. The half-century old interior was the blackest of black and smelled of damp and mold. The child protested, fearful, terrified, her experience of confinement in the refrigerator incomprehensible to the cat. The beast did not understand the child’s fear of abandonment. The child made desperate signs.

T●A●K●E M●E H●O●M●E.

Phoebe ignored her, purred once, and with a prodigious leap cleared the fifteen-foot hole atop the water tower. The cat was gone, leaving behind a frightened, silent child, trapped in the wooden reservoir high atop the Henry B. Horner building.

Now she would kill. This was the time to defend her territory. Phoebe set herself on the parapet, arched her back like a “Halloween” cat and caterwauled the most blood curdling call. She was lord of this jungle, the cat flexed her dagger claws, her jaw full of sabre sharp teeth. The primordial strength of her ancestors coursed through her body, millions of millennia of killer instinct coalesce in her brain. Her weapons were stealth, speed, and six inch sabre fangs. The hunters thought they were the hunters; they were in fact the hunted.

From her perch, high above, the uppermost parapet of the Henry B. Horner building she watched with keen interest as the two-legers moved cautiously, clumsily into the building interior. They thought themselves superior; they carried great metal things that spat out “angry hornets.” Phoebe knew about the “hornets” She knew of their painful sting, she knew how to avoid them. The two-legers, they cast themselves in the role of the hunter―little did they know they were mere mice.

♫ THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE, THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE ♫

Phoebe’s revenge was to be sudden, violent and absolute. She descended the stairs on silent cat pads so secretive no one could hear. She paused to sniff at a pile of clothes; it was “the other” she passed by without a further thought.

The cat was on the prowl.

Boris, and Ivan armed to the teeth, entered the Henry B. Horner building confident they were hunting nothing more dangerous than a woman, a naked woman, burdened with the weight of a child. She could not have gone far. Their flashlights arched back and forth as they searched the bottom floors. Their radios buzzed . . . “Find her!” Guy’s voice squawked, “I swear, that bitch is dangerous, if she gets to her guns, you are both dead men . . .”
Boris snorted, he wasn't afraid of a naked American bitch. Neither he nor Ivan shared the boss' sense of urgency. They did not see the murderous green eyes that cast down upon them, the deadly tooth and claw that stalked them. The two Russians, confident in the protection offered by their thick Kevlar vest, even the half inch thick ballistic plate offered no defence. Phoebe was by design an ambush killer, the neck, throat, windpipe and carotid artery were her targets of choice. A hundred million years of evolution was against them. Phoebe was the perfect killing machine.

Phoebe hated the two-legers. She hated these two-legers most of all, they smelt of sulfur and alcohol. They tormented her; she paused to lick a sore spot on her leg, where a flying chip of concert had cut her. These two-legers now dared to take her cub, invade her range. The law of the jungle was clear, never come between a she-cat and her cub.

HERE PUSSY, PUSSY.

Boris, the fat one, was un-impressed. How dangerous could one naked woman be? He’d whacked more than a few people in his time. This naked wench, burdened with the weight of a child . . . these Americans, these rich fat American pigs, he regarded Painter with disdain. He would find this naked American bitch, he would kill her. He felt a stir in his loins; maybe he deserved something more, da, he would kill this American bitch, but first he though he would fuck her. Boris chuckled to himself. He un-zipped his fly. He checked the slide on his massive .50 caliber Desert Eagle. His flashlight arched around the desolation. Boris ascended the stairs, gun, flashlight, and a Clydesdale-pecker.

Ivan continued to pick cautiously up the South stairway. Ivan focused on the tracks on the stairs. He had seen something that didn’t look right. It was only a shape. He shot at a woman, his boss; Painter said there was not going to be any trouble. Ivan admitted to himself he was caught unaware. It would not happen again. That woman, this American, she turned and ran the devil. He emptied a mag. He paused to reload, when he looked back up, the woman was gone. There was only a shape, a shaggy shape. This worried him; he dismissed it at first, then tales from the Ukraine, tales from around the fireplace, ghost stories his grandmother told of the Wawkalak, a man who incurred the wrath of the devil, who punished those around him by transforming into a beast. Old folk tales of men who became monsters flooded his memory. Ivan snorted, only old stories to scare small children at bedtime. Yet, he could not shake the image of the feral shape that snarled, and then disappeared into the night.

Boris continued to climb. He puffed from the exertion of six flights of stairs. This was too much, he was sick of this wild-goose-chase, the bitch could be anywhere. He rounded the corner and found himself face to face with a small person. A child actually, a small African-American child, not more than eleven-years-old. A beautiful child, with an oval face and liquid brown eyes. Shaila stared at the Russian. Boris pulled back the hammer on his pistol, he checked his watch, he had time.

Startled, Shaila scrutinized the funny Russian man, a big man pointing an enormous handgun, and an even bigger pecker. Growing up in the ghetto, Shaila had seen her share of big guns, and even at a young age, the fith grader knew about peckers and fucking and stuff. She had to admit that she’d never seen a man with such a big gun and a fat dick all at the same time. None of this was good. If she was going to be raped, there was nothing she could do about it.

Shaila remembered Lea Swift's last words to her, Lea promised. "I’ll come for you when it’s all over . . . I’ll kill him for you baby―He’ll never hurt you again.”

Shaila believed.

Shaila cast her eyes on the floor, the Ruger Redhawk lay lifeless, oiled and blue-black, wrapped in its leather cartridge belt, along side Lea's clothes and a Detroit baseball cap. The weapon still smelled of burnt powder, but without Lea to wield it, the Ruger was inert, it had no power. Lea promised to protect her, now she didn't know how that was going to happen. The Russian kicked at the stray pile of clothes, more intent on his mission of murder and sex.

From the upper most stairwell that led to the roof, it was there Shaila first saw the beast. It descended with out a sound, deftly on cat paws, a horrific blackish cat-like creature with fangs, claws and terrible green eyes.

It was the Kitty. Luka’s Kitty! Shaila was at once dumbfounded and filled with terror. Her remorse was sincere, it came over her like a rushing torrent as if on the road to Damascus. She knew she was wrong. All the days, months, years she spent punching, kicking, teasing and otherwise abusing her deaf white sister, came crashing down around her, a huge cascade of guilt spilled out and crushed her soul. There it was―KITTY; Luka said the Kitty was her friend. Had Luka sent the cat to wreck vengeance? To kill her? To extract revenge? No. Luka was not like that. Shaila knew Luka―Luka was the kindest most forgiving soul. If Luka sent the cat, it was to be her guardian angel. Shaila worked her mouth up and down as if to scream.

“Я собираюсь трахать Вас маленькая черная американская сука . . .” The Russian gangster leered, his words were cruel, his face full of hate. What he said was incomprehensible―but his meaning was clear. Shaila took two steps back, her plucky indomitable spirit crushed by terror. She didn’t know which fate was worse, to be raped by this evil man or to be eaten alive by a tiger. Boris never heard the cat creep forward, so intent was he on his vile intentions. Phoebe’s green eyes glowed in the shadows, her hackles raises, six inch fangs a gape, her body a coiled spring, poised to strike. There was no sound.

Shaila screamed.

The Russian died.

* * *

LEA SWIFT LAY A LONG TIME, unconscious on the cold hard unforgiving floor of the Henry B. Horner building. What must have seemed an eternity to the little girl who sat beside her.

Lea groaned. She started to set up, her right arm collapsed under her weight. Her arm, dislocated in the most grotesque way, was useless. The cat, injured herself in the struggle, Lea found herself alone, injured, naked on the sixth floor of "The Hornets."

The Russian was dead.

Lea spat and then puked. The fucking Russian was dead. The cat had done its work, the Russian was dead, half his head lay torn from his body. In the process, in the struggle, Lea had dislocated her shoulder. It was the predator’s price. This was how great cats died, they slunk away into the jungle, victorious but too injured to kill again―they starved to death.

It was only then that Lea realized there was a small person next to her. A young girl, the very same young girl Lea had come with in a sixteenth of a trigger pull of killing. Shaila looked faithfully down on her.

“I knew you would come―.”

Lea smiled weakly, almost in too much pain to care.

“Shaila? You’ve got to do something for me baby. You've got to be brave. Brace your feet against the door jam, now take a hold of my arm and pull. Pull harder than you’ve ever pulled in your life. Pull across my body. One, two, three, PULL!”

The arm popped. The arm popped back in its socket with a sound like a rifle crack. Lea nearly passed out from the pain. The pain was so excruciating that at first Shaila thought she’d done something wrong. Lea reassured her, it was Okay.

"Get my shoes, get my clothes, you've got to help me get dressed . . . there was something else, a memory, a flash of “The Other” of Luka, the smell of old oak and damp.

“Shaila, what’s the highest point on the building?”

“The roof.”

“No, higher, higher than that; what if I wanted to climb higher than the roof? Where would I go?”

Shaila looked puzzled, “The old water tower, I suppose . . .”

“Shaila, my flashlight,” The scent of old oak and musk filled her consciousness. “I want you to go on the roof, and climb up to the old water tower. I want you to get your sister, find Luka.”

“What about you? . . . Your arm is broke. Lea, what can you do?”

“Get me the Ruger baby; I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all.”

* * *

LEA STUMBLED TO HER FEET. She was shaky and weak, her right arm, her shooting arm, was broken, useless. Her grandfather, he could shoot with equal facility with either hand. Lea wasn't so talented. She grimaced, even the simple act of flipping open the cylinder, to check the load was painful. Three copper heads, three bullets, three bullets would be enough. She snapped the cylinder shut, and drew back the hammer.


Now eagles hunted eagles.

Lea crept painfully towards the stairwell; she didn't have a second to loose. She confronted Ivan on the next floor down in his black trench coat and Ushanka fur hat. The laser sight arced in the corridor, searching for Lea. Well, he found her. Lea did not announce her presence, this time there was no gunfighter's code, this was murder, up close and personal.

The Ruger recoiled twice, from thirty feet. Ivan staggered back, fell dead. Then as if a zombie risen from the grave, the Russian stood up, dusted himself off, the half-inch thick ceramic plate stopped even the tungsten cores of the Ruger.

For the next half second time seemed to stand still. The red dot of the laser sight danced across Lea’s white camisole. The Russian curled his lip in a terrible sneer, he yanked back the bolt on his machine gun. What he said, probably translated to “Die you American bitch!”
Lea didn’t hear him, her face showed no fear, a tremendous sense of calm came over her as her cognizance flooded with the memories of that cold January day, when as a young girl, not yet eleven-years-old, her Grandfather took her out behind the barn, a day when she witnessed six milk jugs fall at seventy-five yards. In any gunfight some men draught a breath, some men blink an eye. Lea squeezed the trigger. Even with a broken arm―Ivan fell dead. Shot through the eye.

Lea slumped to the floor; she let the Ruger slip from her grasp

DAKOTA PINS PUSH

WASHINGTON―According to Variety, Dakota Fanning’s next movie project is the dark thriller PUSH. The sci-fi film centers on a group of young American ex-pats living abroad who possess telekinetic and clairvoyant powers, who band together to hide from the U.S. Government agency “The Division.”

The Summit Entertainment Productions is directed by Paul McGuigan (Lucky Number Slevin) from a script by David Bourla. PUSH features Chris Evans, Camilla Belle and Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou. The film, is scheduled to start shooting next month in Hong Kong, for a 2008 release date.

RUFF STUFF

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