AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURES

Chapter 8: For Medicinal Purposes Only

"Hando," she sighed.  

"What about Hando?" Marti asked, suddenly concerned.

"That was the police chief in Armidale.  Hando's been arrested."  

"Ack!" Marti dialoged.
*************************************************************
"Have you noticed there's something...strange...about this town?" Steve commented as he, Laura, Biebe, Cort, Sue the Vile, and Ando walked slowly down Beardy Street.  

 

"Not really," Ando replied, "unless you mean that strange ochre-colored roof over there...or, perhaps, the time-displacement waves."
                               

Indeed, it was hard not to trip as one walked.  For a few seconds Armidale was in 2005 and then the next few in 1869.  One never knew if one put one's foot upon a step would it actually BE there when one's weight followed.

 

 

"Ah!" Laura commented. "There's the police station."  

 

 

They walked up the flight of 9 concrete steps and fell into the street-level old jail.  Ando had trodden too hard on some particular wave, stopping its displacement for a brief while.  (The Welsh, as an aside to the reader, are well-known for being careless with their displacement waves like that.  It was the reason King Edward built Harlech.  But that's another story.)  

 

 

Across the small room, his boots propped on a wooden desk, sat the local lawman, a small dribble of chewing tobacco on his chin.  Laura saw Hando in the left of the two cells, his hands wrapped around the bars as he grinned at the sight of Ando.

                                      

"Might I speak with my, um, client?" Laura asked politely.  

 

 

"Client? Him?" he growled, spitting on the floor as he swiveled his chair to look at Hando. "I figgered we'd just hang the bloke come mornin'."

                                     

"I think not," Laura replied.  "May I ask what the charges against him are?"  

 

 

"Broke into ol' Doc Morgan's office," the man said.  "Took some stuff, so they say."  

 

 

"So they SAY?" Laura repeated.  "Who says?"  

 

 

"Folks.  Folks say."  

 

"I'm afraid that won't do at all," she stated firmly.  

 

 

"Who're you?"  

 

 

"I'm his lawyer," she announced, "and I wish to speak with him...now."

He shrugged.  "Help yourself, Missy."

 

 

She crossed the room, her boot heels clicking on the old plank floor.  "Did you get it?" she whispered to him.  

 

 

"They can't prove a thing!" Hando answered loudly.  "I got no stash on me! None!"

                                   

Laura's face fell.  "You didn't get the medicine?"  

 

 

He looked at her, his lids half-lowered.  "Of course I got it!" he huffed."Do you take me for some amateur?"

"But there wouldn't BE any Methylprednisolone in a 19th century doctor's office," she protested.

"It was the Armidale & New England Hospital when I went in," he corrected. "I got the stuff and then suddenly some old doctor was hollering out his front door."  

 

 

"Time displacement," Laura nodded.  

 

 

"Whatever," he said.  "Now get me out of here."  

 

 

"Where is it?"  

 

 

"Show you later.  Get me out of here."

 

 

She walked back to the desk.  "You have no proof he took anything," she stated.

"Don't matter," he smirked.  "Ain't had a good hangin' all week."  

 

 

"But...," she began.  

 

 

He stood, his hand on his holster.  "Now you just run along, Missy, afore somebody gets hurt."  

 

The small groupling of characters went out the door, tumbling down the flight of concrete steps.  Sitting up, Biebe saw a dark shape disappear around the side of the ochre-roofed building and thought he heard a most Buggieish muffled cry.  Leaping to his feet, he ran in that direction, followed by his friends.  The side street was empty when they got there.  

 

 

"What IS this place with the strangely ochre-colored tin roof anyway?" Ando asked.  

 

 

Walking back to the front, Biebe read the sign. "Aboriginal Center & Keeping Place."
                                        

"Keeping place?" Cort asked.

 

 

"Like a museum, I expect," Laura proffered.  

 

 

"Or...," Biebe said, narrowing his eyes, "a blatant clue as to where one keeps one's partially Aboriginal love one has just mistakenly duffed."  

 

 

"You think...?" Cort asked.  

 

 

"I do," Biebe nodded.  

 

 

The six of them entered carefully, every sense on guard for dastardly duffers. There were wall murals and glass cases filled with ancient artifacts.  The teensiest squeak came to Biebe's ears, emanating from a large basket across the room.  He ran toward it but was sent flying by a whack from something long and slender.
           

                      

"Didgeridoo," Sue said.  "Be careful."  

 

 

Cort circled around the pottery display, attempting to come up behind
the basket, but a small buzzing whoosh felled him.  "Boomerang," Sue sighed.

 
                                   

Steve roared, leaping over the pottery toward the dark form just beyond. *CRASH* and he lay under a broken cooking pot.

                                    

Laura's eyes narrowed.  Enough was enough.  She walked straight toward the dark figure, stopping several feet back and dropping into a taut fighting stance despite her long skirt. The form laughed, stepping out into the light, a didgeridoo slung over his shoulder, a boomerang in his right hand.  Over his face he wore a strange cylindrical mask, looking for all the world like he had a cloth coffee can covering his head.  

"Captain Thunderbolt, I presume," Laura said, her lips curving into a wicked grin.  

 

 

"The very same," he replied.  

 

 

"Let the Buggie out of the basket," she said, her voice low, rather menacing. Steve, amongst the shards, lifted his head, appalled at the sight of Laura, totally unarmed and alone, confronting the outlaw.  

 

 

"No," Thunderbolt laughed harshly.  "You think YOU'RE gonna make me?"  

 

 

"Help!" cried Buggie.  

 

 

Laura said nothing, but just looked at the man a brief moment.  She seemed to be gathering herself, to be somehow...coiling.  Suddenly she ran straight toward him and when she was about five feet away, yelled, "Hee.... YAAAAH!" and sent a flying side kick straight into his solar plexus.  He flew backwards, crumpling against the wall, then sliding down it to a sitting position on the floor.  

 

 

Laura rerolled a loosened sleeve roll, turned to look at the open-mouthed Steve, and said softly, "Black belt."

     

Then she loosened the clasp on the basket and helped Buggie out. "Wow!" Buggie exclaimed. "You sure do come in handy!"  

 

 

Laura smiled.  "Are you all right, Buggie?"  

 

 

"Yeah," Buggie said, "but I'm not so sure my Biebe is."  She ran across the room, kneeling beside the furry sheriff just as he moaned and sat up, holding his head.  "Thank goodness for your hat," she said, "or he mighta cracked your head open."

                                 

"Which reminds me," Laura added, "that we need to get the medicine back to camp."  

 

 

Sue helped the slightly dizzy Cort to his feet, not terribly minding that he wanted to lean on her as they walked.  

 

 

Laura extended a hand to Steve who looked at it and said, "Is it safe?"  

 

"For you? Yes," she laughed.

 

 

He grinned back at her and whistled softly.  "I can see there's a lot I need to find out about you."  

 

 

"Indeed," she smiled back.  Then she walked over and squatted in front of Thunderbolt, who was blinking his eyes.  

 

 

"Fred," she said, saving the term 'Captain' for someone she thought more appropriate, "I have a deal for you."  

 

 

"Wh...what deal?" he asked suspiciously.  

 

 

"Help me break someone out of jail and we'll let you go."  

 

 

He looked puzzled.  "I thought you guys were the law.  Why would YOU wanna break someone out?"  

 

 

"We're in a...hurry," she replied.  She squared her shoulders and slightly lifted a perfectly flat, perfectly stiff hand.  "Can you do that?" she asked, her lips smiling, her eyes glittering like a tigress.  

 

 

He flinched back.  "When?"  

 

 

"Now," she said.  "This very minute."  

 

 

"I guess," he murmured, licking his lips.  

 

 

She moved her hand toward him and he practically sank back into the wall structure.  "I'm just helping you up," she explained.

      

 

They all went out the back door of the Aboriginal Center & Keeping Place and circled around toward the police station.  "How'm I supposed to get somebody outta THERE?" Fred complained, looking at the sturdy, modern structure.  

 

 

"Ando," Laura called, "go up the steps and do your Welsh thing."  

 

 

Ando grumped, but she wanted Hando out more than anybody. As the rest of them darted into the alley behind the police station, Ando huffed up the nine steps and trod hard on the threshold.  

 

 

"You see!" Laura chortled as the structure changed into a fairly ramshackle wooden building.  In front of them was a small window, two iron bars set into its top and bottom frames.
                                

"Hando!" Laura hissed.  There was no answer so she looked inside. He was hanging upside-down from a rafter.  "Get DOWN!" she said, low but sharply. "We're here to rescue you."  

 

 

He flipped easily to the floor.  "About time," he glared.  "I was gettin' bored."  

Cort, Fred, and Biebe had popped into the stable across the narrow alley. Suddenly the air was filled with neighs as they returned with several harnessed horses.  

 

 

"Stand back," Fred ordered as he fastened the harnesses to the bars.  

 

 

"Wasn't there something very like this in, um, Silverado?" Sue asked.  

 

 

"Possibly," Laura grinned.  "But we don't worry about such things, now do we?"  

 

 

With a fair bit of noise, not only the bars, but the window and the entire back wall of the jail flopped over into the alley.  "Good job, Fred," Laura said approvingly.  "You can go now, but don't ever Buggie-duff in an epi again."  

 

 

Hando stepped over the rubble, hopping down onto the alleyway. "Hadn't we better...um...get the heck outta here?" he asked.  

 

 

"Assuredly," Laura agreed as they all sprinted down the street.  

When they had reached the safety of Drummond Lookout and stopped to get their breath, Laura said, "All right.  Where is it?"

                                   

"You want my stash, eh?" Hando grinned.  

 

 

"Didn't they search you, Baby?" Ando asked.  

 

 

He frowned.  "Thoroughly," he growled.

    

"Then...where...?"  

 

 

His grin returned and he pressed the bottom curve of a large black bone tattoo. It popped open.  

 

 

"You...you...have...hidden compartments?" Ando breathed, taken a bit aback.  

 

 

"Come in handy," he chortled.  "Have needed 'em more than once."  

Laura took the medicines, putting them carefully in her briefcase.  "We need to hurry."  

Distance being rather relative from time to time, they arrived shortly back in camp.  Laura immediately sought out Stephen and Marti.  "I've got the stash," she said.  

 

 

"I see you've been hanging around Hando a bit too much," Marti snickered.  

 

 

After Joimus had been given the initial 30 mg dose of Methylprednisolone, Himself stood nearby, looking down at the two on the leafbed.  He'd observed how Maximus kept rubbing his thigh and, of course, Joimus would not be able to bushwalk for a while...if ever. Bud's ability to travel, too, was still in grave doubt, and now Biebe, Cort, and Steve all had large headlumps.   So he walked up to Laura.  

 

 

"I hate to do this," he sighed.  "It's breaking canon again, but...may I borrow your (deep sigh) cellphone?"  He called Bellingen and asked that the fleet of SUVs be brought to Cathedral Rocks.  

 

 

"Really?" Marti marveled.  "No more walking?"

"Not for a bit," he smiled.
          

"Where were we going, anyway?" she asked.  

 

 

"Uluru," he replied.  

 

 

"Ayres? Ayres Rock? Why would we have been going there?"  

 

 

"We ARE going there," he corrected.  

 

 

"Why?" she insisted.  

 

 

He shrugged.  "Why not?"  

 

 

"Because...because...we have found Bud?" she tried.  

 

 

"Does 'Eucalyptus' have a script yet?" he asked, cocking his head.  

"Um...not so's I've heard."  

 

 

"Then my answer stands.  'Why not?'"  

Berti had guided Bud to an area of plump grasses where he could lean against a small yook. Slowly she fed him spoonfuls of water and soft bits of fruit. "Easy!" she said.  "Just a bit at a time."  When she saw that he was just about to fall asleep, she sat close beside him and pulled his head down into her lap.  He closed his eyes and she made small, gentle circular patterns with her fingertips on his temples.  When his breathing slowed, becoming deep and regular, she moved her right palm onto his chest.  Her fingers curved slightly, as though she were trying to hold his heart together for him.  

 

Of course she had known the story of his mother.  She had found out about it the very first time she saw him, in fact, but...perhaps... perhaps she had not truly tuned fully in to what it had been like for him as a boy back then, back in that terrible room.  When he had sat there on the picnic bench, saying the words he was saying, such a clear picture came into her mind.  She thought she would never be able not to see it again. Before... somehow...it had always been unimaginably horrible.  Now it was...real.  She kissed her left forefinger, setting it atop his slightly parted lips.  She didn't think she had ever loved him more, ever understood him more, than at this moment. She looked at the way his shirt buttons were pulled just a bit too tight.  Always his clothes seemed like they were not quite big enough, that the emotions that seethed within him might burst through them at any moment.  She smiled at him, fondly, achingly, and the words of a poem began quietly forming in her mind as she studied his face.

Life swirled cape-like before him,
A challenge to his heart,
That organ beating soundly
Though his soul oft ripped apart.
Even when the matador
Stood statue-like and still,
The wind would flap the cape ends
As a torture to his will.
He charged at it quite blindly,
Needing surcease from some rage
That lingered in his corners
Formed too early in his age.
And even when the thrusting horns
Of his anger found their mark,
The pain remained, was always there,
Naked, raw, and stark.
His skin could scarce contain
The seething rising quick
That often trampled underfoot
His peace and left him sick.
For he was born a lover
Who'd not found his thing to love,
Whose song was muted, muffled,
Forced to wear a strangling glove.
He thought that he'd forgotten
Or, maybe, never even known,
That place where capes were folded,
And roses never thrown.
Where all the roaring crowds
In the arenas of his mind
Never yelled for blood, for death,
But smiled and were kind.

Yes, she thought, even somehow more than Maximus, his life was lived in some hot arena. Her heart ached to lead him through the archway... into the shade. Her chin trembled. By God she would surely try.  

 

 

His head turned on her lap and she could see the rolling of his eyeballs beneath his closed lids.  He was dreaming.  "No," he murmured.  "No... don't hurt her....don't. Please... don't."  

 

"Shhhh! my darling," she whispered.  

 

 

Suddenly his seagreen eyes flew open, looking straight up at her. "Berti!" he cried.  "I killed her."

"Please," Joimus was saying.  "I need to go to him."  

 

 

"You must lie still," Maximus replied.  

 

 

"No," she insisted.  "I must."  He sighed, knowing there was no arguing
with her once her mind was set on something.  "Where is he?" she asked.  

 

 

"Not far. Just over to the right a bit."  

 

 

She lifted her shoulders up off the cape, grimacing with the effort. Every muscle, every bone in her body still protested the slightest movement. He winced at the sight of the pain on her face.  She set her jaw.  "Help me?"
                                  

When she had gained her feet, she swayed and would have fallen but for his arms about her that quickly scooped her up.  "Thank you," she murmured. "My favorite place in all the world."  

 

 

She was keeping her eyes closed as Stephen had threatened to bandage them did she not. Maximus walked the 20 steps over to Berti and Bud. She was aware of his limp as he did so. What a time for her to be so incapacitated, she sighed.  

 

 

He bent his knees, lowering her onto the grasses so that she sat propped against him.  Bud had watched their approach, a strange expression on his face.
                                        

“Where?” she asked softly.

 

 

"Directly in front of you," Maximus answered.  

 

 

Bud saw her hand reach out, exploring, trying to find his arm.  He looked in her face.  Why were her eyes closed? Why was she...here? HOW was she here? He realized then that he didn't even know where 'here' was.  Berti felt him tense in her arms.  

 

 

"Joimus," Berti warned softly, "please tread lightly."  

 

 

"I know," Joimus replied.  

 

 

At last her searching fingers found his arm.  She, too, felt the terrible tenseness of the bicep beneath her hand. Slowly she let her fingers move down his arm until they came to his hand.  She curled hers through his and squeezed. "Bud?" she said quietly.  "Do you feel that?"  

 

 

He nodded, which, of course she couldn't see.  "Do you?"  She lifted his hand, bringing it to her chest, placing it over her heart, keeping it there, hers atop his.  "Do you feel...that?"  

 

His jaw worked as the steady beats vibrated up into his palm.  She lowered his hand to her lap, enfolding it between her two smaller ones. Turning her face toward him, though keeping her lids closed, she said firmly, "It was an accident, Bud.  You meant me no harm.   I know that. I know that...completely. You only wanted to protect me, protect Maximus."

 

 

She squeezed his hand tightly. "It's all right, Bud, truly it is."  He began blinking rapidly as his tears brimmed.

                                  

"Bud, we...all of us...know that all you have ever wanted to do was protect those you care about."  She breathed deeply.  "Your mother knew that, too, Bud."  

 

 

"I...I...didn't...protect her," he whispered.  

 

 

"She knew, Bud, she knew you wanted to. But you were just a little boy.  She...understood."  

 

Tears rolled down his cheeks. "I should have...stopped him."  

 

 

"You couldn't, Bud.  You were too little.  There was no way you could have. She knows."  

 

 

"She does?"  

 

 

"Yes, Bud, yes, she does."

He began to squeeze her hand back.  "You? You forgive me...too?"  

 

 

"There is nothing to forgive, Bud.  You only wanted to help."  She smiled warmly at him. "You are my treasured friend...dear to my heart."  

 

 

He folded over onto her lap, burying his face as his shoulders shook with the sobs that wracked him then.  Berti rubbed his shoulders and Joimus stroked the back of his head.  

 

 

Franki, watching, smiled.