Story number three. I'll admit that this story was almost entirely concieved as a vehicle for the fairy tale fracturing I do at the bridge. Anyway, here's my favorite of the class' work.
Cameron Funk
“Fifteen” Page Story
ENGL 4310B/ Josh Russell
Funkrockheaven@yahoo.com
Cigarettes and Thin Mints
We hiked along the rough path that wound higher and higher around the smaller hills and mountains. We’d left the truck back on the side of the dirt road that led to this particular trail, you could only get so far before you had to get out and walk. I did my best to keep up a reasonable pace; it was fairly important to get there by noon, for one thing, the hike took more than a few hours either way, and we only had the babysitter until early evening. My job today kind of depended on keeping to a schedule; this necessity was being severely tested by two increasingly stubborn traveling companions.
The more cooperative of the two followed a few paces behind me, tethered to my left hand by a stout length of rope. While I had little to no experience with farm animals outside of doing my utmost to combat their overpopulation by eating as many as possible, the snowy white male goat was behaving well enough so long as I kept the veggie scraps coming. If I left him hungry for too long, he dug in his hooves and got incredibly difficult to herd about. I idly wondered how goat-herds got them to do anything- I knew my way was crap, more than a day or so of this and the animals would be too fat to do anything useful. So far I was simply calling him “the goat”, it seemed a little cruel to name at this point.
Aubrey was proving to be considerably more difficult. She trailed behind the goat, entirely unprepared for the hiking experience though she claimed she’d been taking our son Chris on these trips since he could walk ably. Her boots weren’t broken in, she hadn’t packed enough water and her trail food consisted of four individual packets of chips and three snickers bars. She called for the fifth rest stop since we’d set out four hours ago and I relented as I had the last four times. I sighed and made my way over to the side of the path, prodding a fallen log with my walking stick a few times. When nothing skittered or slithered out from under it, I sat down and took an apple from my pack, watching as Aubrey pulled a crushed cigarette packet from hers. I took a sip from my water bottle and gave her a look.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I shook my head as she lit one of the cigarettes with a neon-green plastic lighter. She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at me, puffing away happily.
“Just because you’re wearing that god-awful hat and that geeky uniform doesn’t mean you can go all smoky-the-bear on me “Ranger” Doyle.”
I winced, partly because of how silly that air-quotes gesture looked, especially one handed, but mostly because she hadn’t stopped ribbing me about the forestry department uniform since I’d picked her up in the morning. It’d been her idea for me to get a job with a regular paycheck; and while I was morally opposed to the idea of receiving wages rather than being handed neat little stacks of tax-free currency, after a couple of weeks I’d actually come to like the work- it was nice and outdoorsy. They let me keep a rifle in the department truck, and I even have some vague law enforcement powers...although I think they’re mostly limited to giving stern looks to people who hunt out of season or break some of the more extreme park regulations…like smoking or lighting fires outside of designated areas. Hell, I was going to start making fun of myself if I started thinking in regulations.
“Technically it’s Forestry Commission Officer Doyle.” I took a breath and gave my best pleading puppy dog expression. “Look, just do me a favor here. It would look pretty bad if I was found traveling with a willful firebug and hadn’t even made an effort to stop her. And hey, we might even make better time if you had something approaching pure oxygen in your system for more than ten minutes at a time.” I finished my apple and held out the core, letting the goat snatch it up from my outstretched fingers.
“Blow me. I’m not gonna torch the place dork; I promise I’ll be careful. Scouts honor.” She held up three fingers and attempted a look of childlike innocence, somewhat hampered by the lit cigarette clutched between the fingers of her right hand.
“There’s no way in hell you were ever a girl scout.” I looked at her blankly, trying my best not to crack up or imagine what she’d look like in a green beret.
“I was too, for five whole years before I left. All on my own.” She’d started out with a rather cute little pout at my incredulity, but the act had faltered when she’d stumbled over a lie.
“Left all on your own, eh? You weren’t, oh I dunno, forcibly removed? Asked to leave for the moral safety of the troop? Nothing like that?” I grinned, absolutely enjoying her discomfort.
“Bah. They wouldn’t even let me finish my last badges. I was only in it for the cookies anyway.” She shrugged and sat down next to me, smiling sweetly while she pulled the water bottle from my unresisting hand and bopped me over the head with it before taking a drink. “Stop thinking about me in uniform.”
I actually blushed, I hated that I still did that for her in public, let alone out in the middle of no where without any witnesses to point and laugh. “I was not thinking about that…I was thinking about uh, cookies. Yes. Cookies. Thin mints. And those little peanut-butter ones. Yes, nice wholesome cookies.” I grabbed the bottle back and packed it away.
She smiled impishly and leaned her head against my shoulder. Smoke wafted up around us like incense, she shifted her head, looking up at me. “I’ve been meaning to ask though…what’s with the goat? I mean, I doubt that walking goats is official department business- wouldn’t your little ranger buddies be just as concerned if they saw you accompanying strange livestock through the woods…or is this for your other job? Doing some more courier work?”
“First, I’ve been working this job for a couple of month’s tops- I don’t have any ranger buddies yet. Second, I would hardly be wearing this uniform voluntarily, so this is at least partially for the state job. Third, yeah, this is kind of a courier thing; the goat is part of the package.” I hurried on before she dug around more in that topic. “You’re the one who wanted to come along on these little trips, after I took a little time off to make that last delivery.”
“You were gone for three whole days Doyle, it was supposed to be overnight. I missed out on the interview with that magazine because you weren’t there to watch Chris for me.” I was amazed to see her looking concerned; she’d been pretty pissed when I got home from that one. “I just want to have some idea of what you’re getting yourself into. I never know when you’re coming home sometimes…I kind of thought we’d try to get away from that old routine.”
I nodded and looked away, feeling a little ashamed at my carelessness. “I’ll keep you updated from now on, I promise.”
“Damn right you will. Look…your courier job, it’s not anything…you know, bad, is it?” She looked up at me, the parental concern replaced by genuine fearful worry, the kind that could turn into something darker at the right prompt. I saw her eyes dart to the tethered goat and drew the same conclusions she probably had.
“I’m not actually going to sacrifice the goat to some dark…thing babe, it’s nothing from your mothers’ end of things, I promise. Even my substantial sense of profit-seeking is won over by self preservation in this case. I don’t work for those people.” I wasn’t kidding either, there are some people you don’t want anywhere near your resume- all but the most loathsome jobs would dry up in a hurry if I associated with the wrong sort.
“She…she’s not coming back, right? You said she couldn’t come back.” She spoke quietly, watching the smoke rising from her cigarette intently, going very still.
I hated seeing her like this. The massive crack in her otherwise well maintained defenses had always been her mother, a literal wicked witch. She’d tortured Aubrey for years while she was growing up. She’d been the real reason Aubrey had left town with our son. She’d fled for a safe haven states away, and had kept under the radar until the old bat had gotten killed. I had nothing to do with it, though I kind of wish I had sometimes. Aubrey hadn’t known about my connections, my work with the faeries and other agencies at the time. She’d spent years thinking she was crazy, didn’t want me to see any of it, or to draw me into her mothers’ line of fire. I suppose it was noble and all, but I missed out on a chance to help her out, could’ve gotten our lives together before now.
“I helped out on the clean-up after her last little tantrum ‘Bree. You missed out on the storm she called up- capsized a bunch of fishing boats, wrecked the marine biology research center, royally pissed off the water sprites all along the coast. Once someone goes badly in such a big way…well, there are, sort of concerned citizens groups out there- sort of neighborhood watch deals. They stamp down on this stuff pretty hard, no one wants that much attention called to our types.” I shook my head, having seen the results of the summery execution myself. “She won’t come back from what they did to her. I promise.”
She gave several quick nods, reassuring herself quietly. I could see her building up her front again. She puffed down the rest of the cigarette in that nervous manner that’s actually a little frightening to watch. By the time she was finished, she was smiling again, a little brittle, and seemed to be ready to go.
She stood up, carefully stubbed out the cigarette in a patch of dirt and, after I gave her a meaningful glance, picked up the butt and dropped it into our carry out trash bag. I fished a carrot out of my bag and waved it at the goat, shouldering my pack again as we started up the next hill. I checked my watch for the hundredth time, noting that we’d probably make it with a little time to spare. I was quiet for a little while, negotiating loose soil and rocks as the trail got steeper- the final hill almost a set of natural stairs, with irregular steps carved out by the placement of deep roots and rainfall. I gave up talking as until we reached the top- my lungs weren’t exactly tar-free; I just had better sense than to light fires around a giant kindling factory. We were both panting with the effort of the climb by the time we reached the top.
The bridge was an old stone number that was completely and utterly out of place this deep in the forest. It’s one thing when you see those ancient wood and rope constructs that didn’t take all that much time to throw up, and could be easily repaired from time to time. During my rough training, I’d seen a few guys string up a serviceable rope bridge in an hour or so, maybe two. It just wasn’t all that uncommon out here. The stone bridge didn’t make sense. We didn’t have a quarry nearby, there was no heavy human traffic; county records didn’t seem to be aware of the existence of the bridge. It was also too long- it lacked the middle supports you’d think a bridge of its length would need. It was wide and flat, with an arched bottom that spanned across a relatively small gorge- with good light you could see the wide stream at the bottom of the drop. The rocky sides of the canyon were probably climbable, with enough equipment and more nerves than I had. I’m no good at engineering, but some books I’d consulted told me that the bridge was probably anchored into place by its own weight, the pressure from either side pushing the wedged arch together with lots of physics-y words that started to make my head hurt. I decided to fall back on an old standby and assume that it was held up by magic.
There were sets of low pillars on either end of the bridge; they looked cool, and the air coming up from the gorge would probably have felt nice, but I halted at the top of the hill, putting out an arm to stop Aubrey from going any further. She frowned at me but stayed put, waiting for another explanation, and taking advantage of the delay to catch her breath a little more completely.
“Alright, back to the job. Technically I am still working for the state, clearing part of the trail so we can open it up to the public in a bit. The area had been off limits for a while ‘cause of a high incident of what they were calling bear attacks.” I saw her eyes widen and knew what was coming before she said it.
“There are bears out here Doyle? Christ, were you planning on telling me this when one of them lumbered out of the woods to fucking eat us?” Her voice was getting higher with panic, her southern twang creeping into her speech as she got nervous. I held up both hands and shook my head.
“Relax…oddly enough, no. There aren’t any bears around here. I’ve been checking out the area for a while now- no tracks, no dens, no shit, not even any old carcasses. There ought to be bears here, I mean, this is bear territory- but they’re just gone. I’m thinking the troll probably took care of them.” I bit my lower lip and watched her carefully, anticipating a slap or punch that never came. She tilted her head and took a deep breath, glancing at the goat, then back to me and the bridge behind me.
“The troll.” she stared hard at me, her forehead creased with equal parts annoyance and confusion, “You say that like it should make me feel better than the threat of a bear attack.” Her voice was surprisingly level. I wondered how long she could maintain it before freaking out.
“Well…yeah, I mean, it makes me feel better. You can’t reason with bears, and if I shot one, there’d be all kinds of paperwork- I hate paperwork- and it’d just be a big mess really. Trolls are easy. Long as you know what you’re dealing with.” I checked my watch again, and started for the bridge, it was eleven fifty-eight. “Come on, two minutes until he’s likely to show up…just stay back a few feet from where I stop and you’ll be fine.”
I could feel her watching me as the goat trotted ahead, nearly leading me across the bridge now- something in his ancestral instincts must have kicked in, he knew how this was supposed to go and was eager to get to the punch line. I glanced back at Aubrey and motioned for her to follow, feeling that she was waiting for me to let her in on the big joke. She ran to catch up, slowing as she reached the actual bridge…the sides barely came up to the waste, and there was a stiff wind. The goat’s hooves made a clear, ringing trip-trap sound over the stones as we crossed.
“Why is this…troll, more likely to show up at noon?” She asked, wearily edging along the bridge. “Isn’t all this…magic stuff supposed to happen at midnight?”
“Midnight would be ideal- trolls don’t love sunlight, but really it’s more about midpoints. Midday, midnight, they’re halfway marks. It’s more magic-y. Like uh…you know, crossroads, or midsummer eve- oh! Halloween-, that’s a good one. The barriers between the worlds thinner at midpoints- trust me, mostly though; he’ll show up because of this little guy here. It’s tradition.” I tugged at the rope, reigning in the eager little creature; we were approaching the middle of the bridge- I stopped and for a few seconds, the clicking of the hooves on stone as the goat came to a halt was the only notable sound. Then the tinny little sound of my watch’s alarm beeped out signaling- I got a little satisfaction from hearing Aubrey jump in surprise.
On the far side of the bridge, a section of the craggy wall of the gorge slowly moved out of place like a horizontal landslide. Bits of earth moss and stone flowed across the canyon wall until one section reached out and grabbed hold of the edge of the bridge itself. Another section joined the first and now, dangling as it was away from the earth and stone wall of the gorge, it was marginally easier to see the troll in some detail. The two massive arms pulled the swinging body up onto the bridge in one alarmingly swift motion for something so large. Everything about the troll was fluid greens, grays and browns. Soil and moss veins pulsed and flowed under translucent stone skin that filled the air with millstone noise at every movement that would, given enough time, become extremely annoying. It steadied itself on the bridge, taking up the whole width with its bulk, and stalked forward until it stood a few feet in front of the goat, who was giving it a haughty goat look, baying and grunting out some assuredly regal goat speech to its species’ ancient enemy. The troll regarded it with bright, sharp quartz eyes and then switched its gaze to Aubrey and myself.
I gave it a nod and switched my walking stick to the hand that held the goat’s rope, reaching back to take Aubrey’s hand in mine. I felt her squeeze it in a death grip, but didn’t dare look back to reassure her with a look. She was being uncharacteristically quiet- it was a little worrying.
“Howdy.” I said, my neck already complaining at the angle I was holding it in to maintain eye contact with the troll. “Names Doyle, this’ Aubrey” I nodded my head in her direction, “What can we call you big fella?”
The troll seemed to consider this for a moment, and then shrugged its shoulders, eyeing the goat wearily. It finally spoke in crisp, clear English, with a heavy German accent. “Thurs. You will call me Thurs.” Its voice had a hollow scraping quality, much like its movement caused.
“Thurs” I said flatly. “Your name is Thurs. Thurs is Norse word for troll. I didn’t expect to get your true name but this is a little…” I cut myself off, taking a breath; it’d go badly for my reputation if I freaked out about something so trivial. “Fine then, Thurs.” I pried my hand from Aubrey’s and dug around in my pack briefly, producing a loosely tied roll of parchment, good old goatskin vellum- the troll snatched it up and carefully unrolled the note. Hands that should have been far too large and clumsy to perform the task did so smoothly. “Here are my papers. I’m technically working for the Duchess Autumn, though the Georgia Forestry Commission is chipping in- I’ve only got a badge for them, they don’t go in for proclamations really- anyways, the Duchess wants free passage through this area, and the Commission would be ever so pleased if hunters would stop showing up dead and maimed in the creek down there. You are to be compensated with one billy-goat per equinox, of varying degrees of gruffness and, of course, the Duchess will owe you quite a large favor. I’ll make personal deliveries at whatever time is most convenient for you- we’ll work that out later of course.” I cleared my throat and reached back to take Aubrey’s hand again, but she slapped it away and I glanced over my shoulder briefly to see her glaring at me.
“You’re going to let that thing” she spat the word out “eat that goat…and feed him another one…” she paused to work out the equinoxes in her head, “twice a year?” She kept up her stern look- I could just see her thinking about grabbing the rope from my hands, making some sort of desperate escape down the mountain. The goat still seemed to think it was on the verge of something grand.
“Aubrey…it’s a goat. It’s not an angora, it doesn’t give milk. It’s food. Besides, the little bastards really have it coming.” I shrugged and nodded up at the Thurs, allowing him the right to explain. The troll scraped loudly as he nodded, eyeing the goat wearily.
“This is true. They trick us; they drown our young in rivers. They are bullies.” The troll pointed a thick, stony finger at the goat. “It is policy to eat them on site now- no matter how meaty they claim their brothers might be.”
I nodded and glanced back to Aubrey, who wore a bit of a stunned expression. “They’ve been doing it for a long time now- just look at the little guy, if he had a bit, he’d be chomping at it.” The goat was pawing at the stone of the bridge, eyeing the troll with more than the usual amount of malice goats can mange. “We’ve never been able to figure it out really. They’ll be peacefully giving milk, milling about in pens for years- you put one of them out on a stone bridge with a troll and it gets all riled up and murderous.”
Aubrey frowned, clearly a little put off by the sudden shift in the goat’s attitude. “But…well, if you hadn’t brought him up here, he never would have gotten all kill-happy, right?”
“Nope…but then Thurs here would still be all ornery about hunters disturbing his forest, and we’d have nothing to placate him with. For the low, low price of two old gelded,” I leaned back and checked just to be sure. “Yup, gelded goat per year, we get safe passage for anyone who happens to want to come through here and good favor with the old established and esteemed trollish community.” I gave a quick bow to the troll and he responded with a flinty grin.
“Safe passage for anyone who wants to come through?” Aubrey had developed a thoughtful expression. “And one person who wants safe passage is this…what did you call her, ‘Duchess’ Autumn?” She raised an eyebrow, apparently losing her concern over the goat, forever disqualifying her for PETA membership. “Who’s Autumn?”
I blinked, and stared at her for a moment, then looked up to Thurs for some sort of vaguely male sense of companionship, the troll had backed away several steps however upon hearing the tone of her voice. Clearly I was on my own.
“Aubrey…Autumn is- hmm- well, she’s sort of a fairy princess…only, you know, a duchess, not a princess. She’s a sidhe, one of the nobles. She’s also my employer from time to time- purely a working relationship. Huh, you know, I think you might have met her once, back in Savannah. Oh right, you met her at her sons birthday party…um. Shit.”
Aubrey’s eyes had widened with sudden recognition. I briefly calculated my chances for survival if I jumped off the bridge.
“Are you talking about that dried up old bitch that had the nerve, the fucking nerve to pull me aside and tell me I wasn’t good enough for her dear friend Doyle? The one who said that I’d only end up hurting you?” She stood there, hands on her hips, daring me to make one wrong move. I tossed the rope to the troll who gladly caught it, jerking the rope taught with one swift movement that sent the goat into little spasms as Thurs swung him around over his shoulder. He had the ecstatic look of someone who wasn’t going to be involved in a domestic dispute.
“She uh…she didn’t know you at the time ‘Bree, didn’t have a chance to get to know you. Everyone was very busy back then.” I very carefully refrained from admitted that she’d been nearly a hundred percent right, at the time at least, I had won my battle against suicidal slips of the tongue.
“But you still work for her? After she insulted me like that? Hell, she insulted you too; she insulted your taste in women- how could you take that from a supposed friend?” The anger was starting to give way to a hurt look, if she started crying I was in real trouble.
“Aubrey,” I reached out for her hand and only just caught it as she tried to pull it away, “Aubrey- I told you, it’s purely a working relationship. She pays me, I do things for her. You don’t get to pick and chose jobs a lot when you freelance for these types” I waved my hand at the retreating troll, who was enjoying a snack on his way back to the underside of the bridge- bits of red-sodden white wool littered the flagstones, “It was work. And if it helps, apparently she’s a little crazy now anyway. Don’t think I’ll be taking too many more jobs from her. ‘Sides, she was wrong, wasn’t she? Here we are, together again, neither of us has run off for a whole eight months straight…and we’ve got Chris, right? Don’t worry about what she had to say back then. It’s past.” I gave her hand a squeeze and tilted my head, watching her eyes, waiting for that first tear to fall.
She wiped her eyes a bit with her free hand, grinned suddenly and hugely, and punched my arm firmly before pulling me into a hug. “Damn right its past. Good thing you remembered that, or I might have had to kick your scrawny ass. Like I would let that uptight biddy get to me like that. We both know you’re my bitch.”
I smirked and took advantage of the hug as I often did, squeezing her tight enough to make her accuse me of breaking her ribs, while she was still out of breath I lifted her up over my shoulder and started walking back the way we came, carefully balancing her until I stepped off the bridge. She beat her fists against my back until I put her down again at the edge of the downhill slope.
“So if I’m scrawny, what does that make you?” I looked her up and down as she hurriedly swept fingers through her waist length hair, not that she was being vain or anything.
“Adorable with a rabid metabolism.” She stuck her tongue out at me and started carefully skipping back down the trail. “Come on…we promised the babysitter we’d be back before nightfall.”
I let her lead me down the path this time; lagging behind a little to watch her skip with possibly feigned enthusiasm. It was a nice day, we’d made good time. The trip downhill would be easier and I felt like taking my time. Having concluded the business at hand, it was her turn to pull me along back into the business of being a parent.
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