BACK IN THE LOFT WITH DOCKER AND MORMO: Back to Square One? And who, exactly, is Mormo?

The hypnogogic image of Linda faded.  Still, what was she trying trying to tell me?   I suddenly realized I was sitting with them in front of the bar as the rest of Docker's gang lay nearby just outside the cabin.

I heard Pal bray.
" 'Bout half-past four, y'know," Pal  slapped his leg and pointed toward the beamed ceiling, "when the sun goes behind that there southwestern ridge, the cocksuckers outside bunch up in front of the porch like sled dogs in a blizzard."  He whooped; Docker and Linda screamed.  Tired of them and just plain tired,  I climbed up to the loft to crash.

Docker slid in beside me just before dawn, waking me.  We fucked slowly, with a deeper intensity.  He held me tenderly, crying as he whispered, "Don't ever leave me again, please.  I'm sorry.  Forgive me.  You didn't mean what you said about trying it again.  Promise you won't."
  He loves me, that's all I should care about.  He'd be good to me from now on.  He just couldn't be the dude GGIO wanted.

 

            At dawn, after a few hours spent between profound sleep and insomnia, I dragged myself from under warm covers, feeling a great need for the clean, fresh air I'd savored for the past two days.  Mormo wasn't at his post.  For the first time, I wondered if he always stood guard in the loft at night.  I rarely saw him in the mornings, except the day I escaped.  I dressed quickly, while the boys, Docker, and the couple slept.  I climbed down the ladder, tiptoed across the floor in front of the bar, and left.  During the night, the temperature had dropped below freezing and a light snow had fallen.  A few steps from the porch, the rest of the gang, powdered with a thin layer of white, lay like one large, inhuman heap.   In the shadows, thick frost rimed the shrubs.  I ambled along slowly toward the creek on an unfamiliar path, paying attention so I wouldn't get lost, feeling refreshed by the fragrant, icy air.  The silent beauty of the wilderness made my heart as light as a dandelion seed on the updraft of a breeze. 

Mormo at the creek

            A lumbering, obscure shape moved in the shadows of a thick stand of trees.  A bear, I thought as I hid behind a pine and peeked around it.  A soft wind rose, rustling branches, bringing with it the sound of splashing water.  I crept closer, stooped behind a shrub and parted its leaves.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  The bear turned out to be Mormo.  He stood waist-deep in the creek's swirling, icy froth, scooping up water with his huge hands, curved like bowls, dumping water over his head and dashing it on to his chest.  His braid was undone and the thick dark hair, as well as that growing down from his beard, intertwined with coarse hair covering his enormous body, on which droplets glistened in the early morning sun.  I watched in awe, my teeth chattering.  He turned and started wading towards the bank, shattering the ice edging the creek.  I didn't want him to see me.  I hustled back to the cabin in a Groucho Marx crouch behind scrub brush till I was out of range.  The kids skipped past me on their way to the tree-house.

            "Be down soon!" I shouted after them.

            Once inside, I made a pot of coffee.  The giant might want something warm.  Docker slid down the ladder. 

            "I'm going to bring Mormo a cup of coffee," I said, "He's just coming up."
            "Leave him alone.  He doesn't drink coffee."

            "Oh, tea then."

            "Leave him be, all right?" Docker snarled.

            "Okay, okay.  Man."

            He plopped down in his chair.  I dragged one up next to him and poured us both a cup.  "Where did you meet him?  What's his story?  Where's he from?"

"Look, doll."  He shaded his eyes as though my voice were strong sunlight.  "He does what I say and that's all I want.  He could crush your skull like a melon with one hand.  You want to stay on his good side." 

            "He just seems strange, that's all."  I stood up and headed for the door with my coffee.   "I'm going out and check on the kids".

            "Do that.  I've got business with Pal, anyway, in a shake."  He leaned forward and held his head in his hands.  "And, man, do I have a migraine.  I need to be alone."

            "Okay, Garbo."

I heard him snicker as I opened the door.  "Thought you didn't like flicks," I said.  He threw me a tired glance, shaking his head.

The sun was nearing its apex and Docker's cronies hung out in its pallid rays, some looked my way, grinning; their ladies smirked, lifting their hands as I walked past, on my way to the tree-house.  Covering my nose with my pine-scented scarf,  I picked my way around thawing turds littering the surrounding area, evidence of the gang's reluctance to travel to the trench to relieve themselves.  The boys jumped and howled at my approach to the oak like little primates.  Mormo, wearing a white undershirt and faded jeans, nodded and vanished into the trees along the bank.

Later, I went back up to the cabin to find something for lunch.  Docker was sitting alone on the porch, a rare sight.  The front area had been raked clean of waste and litter.  The others were still hunkered down, sleeping.

"How's your head?" I said.  He took my hand.

"Hey, babe," he said, "why don't you sit out here with me.  Make some lime Kool-Ade.  There's some packets in the drawer behind the bar."

"Okay, sounds nice, only there's no ice."

"Use tap water.  It's cold enough."

I sensed myself softening towards him, feeling almost as strongly as I did when we first met.  He just couldn't be a - I hated even to think it.  I would know, I mused, languidly stirring, gazing into the cold green swirl in the pitcher.  The kids were free to run around.  No one kept their eyes on them twenty-four hours a day to see they didn't try to run off.  His cronies and their women looked at me with new eyes now; and I recalled what he'd told me that day under the trees.  He wants to change, control his off-the-charts mood swings.  Maybe my escape made him realize how much he needed me.  I brought the pitcher and glasses outside, grabbing the opportunity to be alone with him.  The kids' lunch could wait.

We hung out on the porch sipping Kool-Ade, not talking, just listening to the birds, enjoying the sun, while a few men rapped softly with their old ladies in their plots, children napping at their sides.  It struck me that they hadn't been ignoring me at first; just-like they said-didn't want Docker on their asses.

Docker and me at peace (Illus from a book without permission.)

"This is nice, the way it should have been from the beginning.  Quiet.  Birds, trees, you and me," I said, breaking the silence, "You're never out here by yourself."  Time seemed to stand still.  A breeze stirred the tree tops.  "Tell me about the New Hebrides.  When are we going?"  I ventured, "I'll have to go home first and, you know, take care of business, quit my job . . ."

"Sure, hon.  Later.  Soon enough."

"Okay.  How's your drink?"

"Needed a slug of whiskey.  Here."  He raised the almost empty pint from the porch, poured what was left into my glass and turned his gaze towards the woods.  His profile could have been impressed on a coin.

"Are you waiting for them?"

"Who?"

"Linda and Pal.  Where are they?"  I couldn't see Docker's eyes in the shadow his hand cast, but sensed him staring at me.

"You don't let up, do you?" 

"And No-Face," I blabbed away, my mouth suddenly dry, despite the cool beverage I sloshed around in it and gulped down, "I haven't seen her all day, in fact, not since I split.  Did you give her back her mirror?  Where is she, anyway?" 
 I should have quit then.  Some perversity made me go on; I licked my lips.
 "Did she keep you company while I was gone?"
   He paused a second and tilted his head like he was thinking, then stood up very slowly.  The sun was directly in my eyes.  I raised my hand to shield them.

I found myself at the foot of some trees, near the front of the cabin.  My head felt like it was out to here.  I touched something sticky and warm above my left eyebrow and found blood on my fingertips.  A few people hovered around, gaping.  Docker went into the cabin.  Pal and Linda, swinging hands, moseyed up the steps, followed him in, and closed the door.  I tried to stand; pain shot through my spine.  Visions of being trapped here, paralyzed, raced through my mind.  Anger overrode panic and I cursed myself for not fighting him off on the highway when I had the chance, and falling for his con.  I rolled over and slowly stood up.  Dismissing the stiffness in my back, I made for the forest.  Mormo trudged past and scooped me up gently.  "No!  Put me down," I shouted, "I'm going home!  Let me go!"  I struck his face and chest, making as much of  an impact as hitting the side of a building.  He patted my forehead with a cool, wet bandanna as he headed towards the cabin, skirting the upended chair I'd been sitting in.  He pushed open the door and ducked through.

Docker, in his chair, threw us a look.  Pal and Linda hung over the bar, drinking shots.  Mormo climbed to the loft, lay me on the mattress, and covered me with blankets, and went back down the ladder.  The loft trembled.   I threw off the covers and tried to get up and a sharp twinge at the base of my spine stopped my breath.  I closed my eyes and tried visualization.  I don't know how much time had passed; the big man shook me awake and held a cup of bitter tea to my lips. "Drink," he ordered.  Later, he brought up cup of soup.  The rest of that day and throughout the night, I hovered on the borderline of consciousness.  Miasma of pot smoke, filthy bodies, and alcohol fumes, along with voices, floated up. (To be continued.)

Next:  Sally overhears Docker and Pal talking, cementing her suspicions of their involvement in a child-kidnapping  racket. But was this her subconscious mind simply running what she' d read in the newspaper article she'd found in the shed?  Determined to find out, she again plans to escape, this time with the kids.  She must save them!