Shadow (Part 3of 3)

            “What’ll it be? Missy,” the bartender asked.

            “That’s Ellen to you, Pete,” she said.  “You still got Jack back there?”

            “Oh, Ellie, how ya doin’?  Long time no see.  Where’s the pooch?  Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels off the back bar, poured a double shot, and placed it in front of her.  Then he set the bottle there too.  He looked at her for a minute.  “Everthing OK?” he asked.

            She smiled and raised her glass.  “Cheers,” she said.  She wanted to keep a low profile.  This was not the time to talk about Shadow, certainly not the time to break down and cry.

            Pete nodded and moved around the semi-circular bar to wait on a new customer.

            Ellen sipped her drink for a few moments.  It warmed her throat, and then the rest of her, part by part, until it finally warmed the cold steel resting next to her heart; but the liquor did not warm her heart.   She took a moment to look around.  Nothing had much changed.  It looked like someone had cleaned the place up over the summer, added a bit of paint, and changed a few of the pictures.  Hand-drawn dirty jokes still littered a bulletin board; the stupid rubber chickens still hung upside down over the bar; and the peanut shells had not been swept from the wood plank floor since, perhaps, last month.

            There were two dogs lying in front of the giant wood-burning fireplace.  One was an Alaskan Husky and one was a German Shepherd.  Both stretched out and slept as though there were not a care in the world.  Shadow used to sleep in front of that fireplace.  Ellen felt her fingernails digging into her skin.  She unclenched her fists, took a deep breath, and tipped the shot glass.  Then she refilled it.

            By now the hard edges of reality had become a little fuzzier and a little warmer.  Even the music began to sound good.  Ellen decided to challenge the pool table.  She put down her quarters and carefully picked a cue off the rack, nice and straight, exactly ½ inch, fairly new tip, #18, and evenly weighted.  She pushed the bottle of Jack back for the time being.  Right now she had drunk just enough to be good, anymore and she wouldn’t be able to hit the broadside of a barn.  She made sure the little pistol rested hidden and secure between her breasts.

            She paid no attention to the uncomfortable jock who was her opponent.  She broke the rack and immediately pocketed the one and the thirteen.  After deciding on the small ones, Ellen continued to shoot till only the eight ball remained.

            Someone shouted from the other end of the bar, “Hey Pete, come ‘ere, and bring the booze; I got a story for ya.”  He laughed.  “Was hunt’n bear one day, but got me a damn. . .”  He stopped talking. . .  He spotted Ellen.

            The laughter stopped Ellen in her tracks, her attention riveted.  Instantly she recognized the pair.  She had dreamt about them often, every feature, every evil trait, the beaver tail that nearly hid the man’s blue-black ponytail, but not quite, and the red-bearded one’s disgusting countenance.  She looked at them right in the eye, one at a time.

            The one in the hat winked.  “Hi ya, girlie.  Yur a preddy damn good shot, ain’t ya?

            Ellen looked back at her eight-ball shot, ignoring the comment.  Now was not the time to lose her cool.  It was with nerves of steel that she took careful aim.

            We’ll just see what kind of shot I am, she thought.

            Calmly, though her insides were writhing, and her head was exploding, she sank the eight-ball, a neat bank, off the rail, into the lower right pocket.

            “Good game,” her opponent said weakly.

            “Thanks,” she said.  “You can have the table; I’m going to sit the next one out.”

            Not wanting to call attention to herself, she resumed her position at the bar, and her date with Jack Daniels.  The sight of the murderous creeps struck her hard.  She was dizzy with anger and grief, and by now, brave with booze.  When she was certain the two men were no longer paying any attention to her, she dropped down, off the barstool to the floor below.

            There she crouched while she removed the pistol.  She had a perfect view of the two men from the waist down.  Taking a deep breath, she rubbed the pearl handle, and trained the barrel on the bearded one.  Ellen aimed right between his legs and squeezed the trigger.  Being slightly drunk, she missed and hit him in the knee cap instead.  He screamed in pain and fell off the barstool.  Before anyone could figure out what was going on, Ellen took aim at his beardless buddy; and this time she did not miss.  The bastard would not produce any fatherless offspring anytime soon.

            “You will pay!”  Ellen screamed.  “He never left the property.”

            The bar was in bedlam.  Pete tried to keep the clientele under control; someone with first aid experience went to help the two men; and the local authorities, who just happened to be in the bar throwing down a beer, grabbed the woman who had gone quite mad.

            “Have you gone crazy, Ellen?”

            She said nothing.

            The Judge said, Guilty.”

            She said, “His name was Shadow.  He was my best friend.”

            Sometimes, when Ellen laid on her bunk, on her back—just so—and looked up, the sun would come in through the bars—just so.  The light would play off the steel shafts that reached three stories high.  It would remind her of the sun coming in the tops of the birch in her woods at home.  Loss latched itself to the inside of her head, and she feared the future.  If she could not allow the memory to fade, she would surely carry it into the next life—and then she would be in hell.

            One day she looked up through the prison bars into the shattered sunlight and remembered that she used to pray.

            “Are you still there, God?” she said.  “I’m ready to talk to you.”

            It was high-noon, and springtime, and the light shined down brighter and warmer.  Ellen felt the lump in her chest begin to thaw.