Lonesome Lawmen

Five-2

Dani would be the first to admit that going to a country western bar probably wasn’t the best decision in her present circumstances. Wasn’t the worst either. Getting blind, stinking drunk would be the worst choice. No matter how appealing insensibility was, it was not an option.

The soda, sadly not her usual, cradled between her hands lacked the ability to blunt the feel of Dark Lord hunting her. Thank goodness the honky tonk country band was playing loud enough to ease the sensation. With a killer and the Feds on her heels, she’d wondered about the wisdom of going out with Carolyn Ryan and her writer’s group, who were now out on the floor pushing their tushes with a carefree confidence that Dani could only pretend to feel.

She would envy them if they weren’t such a friendly bunch. There was no room for envy in the midst of their kindness. No room for anything but the need to hold it all together. It helped that there were different stages to trauma, just like there were differences in an ocean when you’re drowning. Dani had seen all those stages when Meggie died, knew each one intimately.

That first, knock-you-overboard, white-edged wave was followed by a shell-shocked disbelief at finding yourself in deep water. Then there was a period of helpless floundering. Luckily the shock sets in fast, providing a measure of protection as the body accustoms itself to this new order of existence. This semi-numbed period was sometimes marked by an efficient coping that lulls you into thinking rock bottom could be avoided, or at least well managed.

Unfortunately, there was not a dignified or graceful way to drown. In the end, grief fills you up, weighs you down without mercy. The collision with rock-bottom was so overwhelming, you almost don’t notice that there was no way left to go but up. When you do, the decompressing trip to the surface was a dreary, endless exercise without shock’s buffer to blunt the pain.

After Meggie’s death, Dani had made it back to the surface of her life. Instead of landfall, she had found herself bobbing in a world forever changed. One where grief was an ocean surf that sometimes knocked her down with its wildness. At other times it seemed content to lap a melancholy reminder that memory was all she had left of her little girl.

Dani knew the drill. Knew where she was in the process. She didn’t know how long she would be there. Only time would tell that, time that was friend and enemy. She couldn’t speed it up or slow it down, couldn’t control what others would do with their allotment. So she sat in the honky tonk, inhaling the scent of booze, sweat and tobacco. Exhaling the stench of blood, fire and flesh. Letting the pounding music fill her up. Using the chattering crowd as a buoy to stay afloat.

A cowboy at the other end of the bar lifted his beer can in her direction. After a slight hesitation, Dani mirrored the move. She’d played this part on the community theater stage back home, knew just how wide to force her plastic smile when the cowboy, a cop—she was very familiar with the breed by now—exchanged his bar stool for the one next to hers.

“So, little darlin’, would you like to take a turn around the floor?” He leaned close, his breath puffing warm and beery into her face.

“I don’t really know the steps.” Dani spared a brief, longing look at the milling dancers, the brisk music promising an appealingly, thoughtless motion. “Is that a problem?”

“Not to me, darlin’. I’m a good teacher and you look like a fast learner.” He held out his hand with a wide, good ol’ boy grin.

Dani set her drink down, let him lead her onto the sawdust strewn floor. His arm hooked strongly around her waist, pulling her against a chest that was country hard and scented with Zest soap and Brut after shave. She had forgotten how nice it felt to be held by a man.

“Just follow my lead,” he said.

She nodded, hoping he was right about her being a fast learner. She needed light feet for more than pushing her tush if she was going to dodge the Marshals Service and Dark Lord until she got her day in court.

Step…kick…step…days…cross and kick…nights…step and push that tush.

One step at a time, it would eventually be over. No problem, she told herself sturdily, then stepped on her partner’s toes.