Fourteen

"When you got up to go fishing," Xena started, "I tried to go back to sleep but I just stayed in bed and waited for light."

"I must of finally dozed off for a couple of minutes," she gave me one of her looks that meant that she didn't think that she really, really dozed off.

"I must of been half in sleep and half out, sort of dreaming and not dreaming.  You know what I mean?"  I nodded that I knew what she was trying to say. "I remember thinking that I heard a baby crying, and then another crying.  I didn't quite know what was going on, but I had a feeling that I'd heard that baby crying before.  Somewhere."

I watched her think for a second.  She turned to face me head on and then continued.

"I didn't want to look out the window, I didn't know why, but I hesitated the longest time until  the baby started crying again.   Remember that movie where the girl heard those sheep  crying?  It was like that.  I was afraid to look out the window and see sheep.  But that's not what I saw when I got my nerve up and looked."

"Remember that bus that pulled in next to us?  We couldn't see it in the dark, but now I could easily see that it was one of those church  buses with pictures all over it of bloody parts of bodies.  One of those buses that drive around to the towns back home and preach to the people about abortions and babies and the evil of being a woman."

"Yeah," I said, "I remember when they parked next to the school that one time when we were doing the high school was putting on some Halloween plays."

Xena nodded.  "Yeah, they don't like plays either.  Not women or girls or fun things like plays."

"So?" I asked.

"Out the window between the van and the bus they'd started a campfire, for breakfast I guess, and they had a crate of rabbits sitting on a folding chair.  A teenage boy was killing the rabbits, he had about four or five laid out on a little card table and he was killing the rabbits with his hands and then putting them on the table and a older girl was beginning to skin them.  Well, I've eaten rabbit before, it was OK but the boy was holding still another rabbit in this hands and twisting in until it died right there and then he dropped on the table with the others.  The sound of the cry was almost  like the sound of a real baby."

"I got up and opened the door and stepped up to the boy and stared at him."

"Back off, bitch," he said, "without hardly looking at me."  

Xena clenched her jaw and continued looking straight ahead.  "Then he called me some more names that I won't bother you with."

"You back off," I told him, "quit torturing those rabbits.  Then he finally looked at me with this hateful stare, then smiled, I know you!  I saw you back in Kentucky, up in one of those shanty mountain towns."

"He pointed at me, looked at the girl and said I was a white trash whore and then asked with a sneer what I was doing in the van."

"Get father," he said to the girl.  "We'll see what you're doing here."

"It's none of your business," I told him.  "And stop torturing those animals, there's laws you know."

"About then a man appeared on the steps of the bus, the girl had gotten the man to come out and see what was going on."

"Son," he said.  "What's that thing saying to you?"  He nodded toward me.

"It's one of those whores of Babylon, sleeping right next to us all night."

"The man was medium tall and fat, with a white shirt and black pants and shoes.  He looked like one of those preachers we'd see every month or so back in the township.  He stood and looked at me like I was dirt."

"Yes sir," he said in a loud voice, "I see the harlot. He took the last step down from the bus."

"I don't know they kept calling me names.  I was dressed in my jeans a shirt, certainly not like one of those painted women in dark holla back home.  I never even tried any of that makeup. Yech!"

"Well one thing led to another and I started yelling.  I should of known better.  I do know better but just can't help myself when I get going."

I thought to myself, quiet little Xena?  I knew she had opinions but it was like pulling teeth to get her to say anything to me.

"Finally,"  Xena said, "I knocked the table over and the dead rabbits fell off and landed in the dirt."

A silence, "that's when he hit me."

"The kid?"

"No, the father, he'd come up behind me and just let go and hit me in the face.  No warning at all."

"Then what happened?"

"I couldn't believe it, but then before I could hit him back the boy jumped on me and put me in bear hug and swung me around and let me go into the front of the van and then he took a step towards me like he was going to hit me also.  But I kicked him good, I bet he didn't walk for awhile.  That's when I decided that I better get out of there and find you so I ran around the bus and into the woods towards the lake but didnt' see you.  I went in the wrong direction.

"What did the crazies do?"  I asked.

"Well the boy was yelling all kinds of cuss words and the girl had just stood there and watched everything so I don't know what she was doing but then I could hear the old man, the father, coming after me.  He was yelling something about seeing me get my just due and quoting bible words at me and I better come with him to get saved from my evil ways and on and on until I lost him and went back towards the bus.  Where," she paused for dramatic effect, "I cut the tires on the bus and then jumped in the van found you."