Java Sparrow Press

– the Shadowlands – 1

“So … I hear tell, you looking for a few good men.” He says sitting at my table uninvited and clunky. His buddy saddles up on the other side of me like I’m a brood mare he ready to breed with

The saloon got six round tables. The bar got a few chairs and they’re all occupied by people trying to have a good time with their drunk, loud talking. The bar is full and the piano is being played a bit too loud and jazzy.

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“Me? You hear wrong. I’ve said nothing at all.” I sip from my wine glass enjoying the people watching I was doing before these two men sat at my table dark and wild west dusty. They smell like more heat.

“Naw. He hear right. A few good men for three ladies.” Buddy on the side says. “Ain’t but one lady that talk like that in the West and that lady is you.”

“It’s a town, you plum fool.” The woman at the next table scoffs. That impatient, scowling woman sits with her wide hat low and tilted on her head, bent over a bowl, with a strong African and Southern accent, if such a thing can exist. She’s my right hand and left thigh when it comes to stuff like this. Never able to keep quiet for long to feel people out first, wanting to see what people are made of. “Three Ladies, the town. Over by Shadowland.”

Both men turn to look at her, her wide brim low on her face, covering the tribal scars around her eyes because once people see them, they know exactly she who she is. She doesn’t want to be known just yet. She eats gravy, biscuits, and beans like she straight from the fields without a spoon.

The whole saloon seems to go quiet. I sip my honeywine, never able to take shots of brown or clear liquor and stand up straight afterward.

My bosom buddy is scaring off the men we need. She likes to weed out the dogs, as she calls it. Cats fight. Beasts battle but dogs submit. They battle in packs, but won’t fight if they’re alone. I can practically hear her say as she licks her fingers of dripping gravy. I keep myself from throwing my small wine glass her way. I still need her.

“Ain’t nothing in Shadowland but a few good witches.” Buddy on the side smirks like he’s telling a secret he shouldn’t know. Spring. Spring is a shadow. He needs someone to follow. I narrow my eyes at his trembling breaths falling on top of my wine, stale and unwashed. I drain my glass.

“Sireens!” Some strange man screeches like a harmed bird behind us. The fool screeches and right scrambles right on out of the bar like he’s being chased. I crack my knuckles to keep from grabbing my good gal pal up and laying her on her back in a way that she won’t like, with my boot on her chest and my spur in her neck beside the thick vein pumping blood. I see her smirk under that wide brim. She knows I want to cause her bodily harm.

“There are rumors the land nearby that way is protected, yes – we all heard it said over time,” I say.

“You calling it a rumor?” He smirks at me while Spring sits back, the good and proud boy. But my guy, all boyish charm with sharp dimples in his low cut beard, and a dark even colored skin – the West has favored him ain’t moved or shaken. Yet. “You know better than that, Beautiful. We go way back. Don’t sit here and bullshit me like I don’t know better than that.” He leans into me, propping himself on my table.

Me and my bosom buddy got rules for the nature of us. I don’t look at her to see her paws in her bowl but I know her better than I know myself. She ain’t worried about Mr Handsome over here grinning in my face. We got a deal, she and I. We go where we want, if we want. We won’t be each other’s master. But we know where home is. Always come home. But this man is off limits. She never had to say his name all those years ago when the rules were made but I know what she was thinking even then. She sits smacking, swallowing loud, secure because she knows I ain’t going nowhere. She’s home. She is who I’m going to when this is all over with.

“It’s like fairy tales, Handsome. I reckon it’s myth and fable – a small piece of truth in it here and there. But ain’t no telling after all these years which is what.”

“Eden, men can’t even get near that land without turning to ashes and dust.”

“Last man, fall into a pile of bones just like that.” Spring says with a sharp finger snap. Half the bar chuckles and the other half trembles.

“What do you call a wives tale when it’s men saying it and not the little wives?” My buddy says. I never look away from his eyes.

Neither of us answers. He sips his shot, staring me down like we’re in a duel of some kind. “I’d go to the ends of the Earth for you, you know that.” He sighs like he don’t want to talk. His voice is gruff, his liquor rubbing his throat raw. “You got me when you want me. You just gotta say. Is this you saying it?”

It takes a strong will and stiff back to not sigh or tremble when he offers his protection in such a way. His fingers try to crawl toward me but he pulls his hand back. We all know that my buddy got the fastest blades this side of the sun. She’d throw gravy, biscuits, and beans to land that knife in his itching finger. I ain’t ready to wear her meal this evening.

He rubs one hand with the other, starting a fire that smells like leather and sandalwood. “I ain’t said much of anything, I’ll have you know. You come to me with your rumor and tall tales, Old Man. I was sitting here being entertained with my wine which is now all gone. So, it’s time for me to hit the road before the sun goes down. Before the coyotes and pit bulls start roaming the lands.”

“Eden,” he calls softly. I could fall into his open arms for more of that soft concern and worry. The weight in his voice leaves my skin prickly and tingling. I don’t want to be sitting here fully dressed for one more minute. But I breathe through it. We are old news and we can’t go back. Time don’t work like that.

“Kemet,” I call. It ain’t his name but Eden ain’t mine. We gave ourselves new names when we left the South. Free folks. Free names. He smiles just a little bit softening in his own way. He wants to reach out for me. I stand up because it’s going to save his life and my good dress. “Good day to you now, Sir.”

Behind the saloon is the best view to watch the sun go down. I won’t leave that woman stuffing her face like she hasn’t eaten in weeks and won’t eat again for months. I should. I entertain myself with thoughts of getting on my horse and trotting away.

“Eden?” Of course he followed me. I half expected him to.

“What can I do for you, Mister Man?”

“This is serious stuff, Eden. Men can’t get close to that land. You’ll be asking men to die… for nothing. They don’t even get a woman out of the deal.”

“There are plenty of women around these parts. Women that won’t ask questions, women with no strings, they will let you come and go as you please.”

“It’s not the same, you know that.”

“So men want women that they are afraid of? You’re telling me they want to tame a witch, is that it?”

“I don’t know about all that,” He laughs to himself.

“You say they witches?”

“That’s what everybody else says.”

“The women are just women living on land that comes with stories that were there before they got there.”

“The real question is who is coming for those women that they need protection?”

“Slave catchers from the South.”

“They should flee.” He takes a step away from me and looks at the sky. I look toward the doors of the saloon. I’m going to leave to leave that woman. I want to go home. “Are they coming for you?”

“They’re coming for them. For all of them.”

“They would come for all of us, Eden. ”

“They won’t all make it, maybe one or two of the women will be taken.”

“Let them go. Give two of them away to save the rest.”

“Would you let your old buddy go if it was you and him in danger of being stolen and enslaved?”

“It’s different.”

I think about getting another honey wine but I want to have my wine at home instead. He smells good. I let myself think about burying my head in his neck and him wrapping his arms around me. I know better but for a moment I pretend like I didn’t agree to this deal. He’d leave me one day. He’d choose the land, and freedom. I know because I would too.

I got a woman that won’t leave my side. She’s been by my side since we left the plantation, when she could barely speak English. I was her voice and she was my force. Now, we’re both each other’s voice and force. She never left. We both chose independence along with our love and loyalty to each other. These times are not made for a woman to be on her own so we’ve been together instead of alone.

“Just leave. Take as many as you can. You don’t beat the South, Eden – you leave it.”

“We did leave the South, Kemet. We’re in the middle of the desert.”

“There is more desert. Go further West.”

“And into the water? We’re out of land to run to.” I look out into the distance. He looks somewhere else. He’s thinking about something I don’t want to know. We’re just a memory that we haven’t forgotten yet.

“One night.”

“What?”

“Give me one night and I’ll consider it.”

… … … …