A wild and rambunctious visitation to that legendary knoll in what just could be the most accurate depiction of the Custer massacre, except for the gleaming and well-oiled pair of anachronistic .357 pistols, that is. Earth Mother and Daughters, over-pumped cueball torpedo assassins, what just might be a were-hyena, time travel, and the edgy dark humor of Rodolphus make for a frenzied, page-turning, entertaining read. George Armstrong Custer comes to vivid light and life. Storyteller's Last Stand is dark and scary and funny, and very well might be the ultimate last stand for storytellers the world over.
Storyteller's Last Stand
Rodolphus
Available at:
Storyteller's Last Stand
Rodolphus
Available at:
©Copyright 2011
Rodolphus.
All Rights Reserved by the Author. No part of this book may be reproduced
(except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the
publisher, Wolftales UNlimited. This
book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the
product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
Dedication
SFJB,
divine heartless wretch
SJS,
breathtaking, beautiful Soulmate Dream
JC,
what a body and spirit
NW,
sexy elf
EM,
dark princess
SMC,
bitter inspirational fury
PC,
heart friend
CDC,
Angel Love Soulmate
Part 1
He
blinked at the sun , for
just a moment staring fully into the piercing sky stinger, his body trembling
as if he were cold as the sun neared noon .
He braved another peek at the fiery circle in the sky and could not help
drifting back through time for a heartbeat, to another scalding day when the
sun was decidedly unfriendly; however, the suns from his distant past, on
numerous and varied battlefields, never
seemed
as malevolent as these the day-after-day evil orbs of his present.
The sun stalked him. Monstrous, powerful.
Perhaps not as potent as it was when he was thirty years old, but then again
neither was his pecker nearly so savage as the lion he sported in his roaring
days (like the best fish stories, his early-days penis grew ever mightier in
pace with his lengthening, but faltering memory). The sun pounded him, demanded
he submit — it wanted him to lie down like a worn-out dog and put his paws
straight up in the air — a dog! What an insult to a man who thought of
himself as a lion — a lion, damn you all!
Contemplating the sun, he toyed nervously
with a necklace, tugging the chain away from his bony breast, twisting it in
his fingers, caressing the odd pendant which dangled from the end of the gold
chain. If I can live long enough for the decline of the ozone, he thought, just
think how that bastard of a sun will attack me.
The old man stretched on the bench. His spine
crackled and popped. He groaned, rubbed his leathery veined hands (claws) and
coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat (he nearly lost his yellowed chompers along
with the mucus). His frame, although dramatically stooped, was long and
board-thin. The skin of his buck-naked head was splotchy and weathered, age
spotted and stretched too tightly over his skull.
Terrified in the day. Yes, perhaps he was the
dog the sun tempted him to be. Oh, but at night! At night there was no fear,
and time was flexible — the old man could be fifty, or thirty, and most
often of late, ten or eleven years old. Night was good. It released the vapors
of memory, all the phantom smells of youth. Day, however, oh day! Unlike the
night, day was static, it never ever never ever never changed (never), and
terror was always there, always waiting for him; however, there was some small
compensation for the debilitating fear, for along with fear, in equal measure, was bravery. The old man faced the day,
every day, defiantly, shaking his bony fists at the sun.
Bravery, for in the day, when the sun was a
predatory dragon hunting him, the old man trod the earth a lion. Lion War, which once was his name, a
very long time ago — Lion War —
a name earned with his fists and knees and the knife-edges of his hands. When
this bravery of Lion War was upon him
he was perfectly willing to complete the unnatural quest. Truly. He was
perfectly willing to seek out and destroy the Earth Mother, and the hyena in
man’s body, Bright Eyes.
During the night he was a man, an ordinary
man nearing his end. The fear was slim, an insignificant plant with wilted
tendrils, closed pods. He was able to be a man. He relaxed. Breathed easily.
Enjoyed life, an ordinary man. An ordinary man, aged, trembling, usually happy,
hardly able to accept the cruel fate he played no starring role in choosing.
The old man watched young women entering and
exiting the dormitory. He grinned, admiring their fuzzy sweaters and neat
turned-down socks. He refrained, with great concentration, from hooting and
cackling. He periodically lifted an ancient pair of polished silver opera
glasses and perused the young women more intimately. Unfortunately, when he
could clearly discern their features he was not as successful in suppressing
the always-close-and-loud old-man hoots.
“You back again, gramps?”
The old man craned his spindly neck.
“Oh boy, looks like it’s T. J. Hooker time,”
the old man giggled, eyeing the towering campus cop.
“Who, you say?” the big man said, leaning
close, his platter-sized fists gripping and twisting his redundantly large
nightstick.
The ancient one cackled. “Forget it, sonny;
way before your time — but I don’t want to disturb your occupational
duties. I’ll just hoinky-doinky on my way.”
The guard reached and wrapped his paw around
the old man’s drumstick-thin biceps.
“Don’t come back, now, you hear me.”
The old man went still. He eyed the guard.
And he grinned.
“You don’t want to mess with me, sonny-boy,”
the octogenarian said, softly, lightly, jutting his lower denture plate, his
eyes glittering and bright.
The guard, a beefy six-footer, comfortable
with his usually universal talent of intimidation, was surprised that the
geezer — stooped and hobbled as a hunchback — actually was tall
enough to meet him eye to eye. He drew back, swallowing.
“I don’t want to mess with you, do I?” said
the guard.
“No. You do not. I may be pushing
eighty-eight, but in my day I was a pretty tough dude. I was a warrior to
command respect. I beat over fifty injuns, and all I had was my bare hands. I
was a pretty tough dude, all right,
in my day, yes I was.”
“Well, Gramps,” the guard said, tightening
his grip on the insignificant limb, “your day was a long long long time ago,
now wasn’t it?”
“You might be surprised, you dimwit,” the old
man said, eyes flaring with very ungeriatriclike anger — his free hand
rose to his imprisoned arm, peeled back one of the guard’s blunt fingers, and
suddenly the young man of beef and potato sat plunk on the ground, looking up
at the geezer — the old man smiled down upon him. “My day is yet to come,
you dimwit bonehead jerk-off asshole.”
The old man released his hold on the finger
that was nearly as thick as his wrist. He casually strolled away, swinging his
stick and whistling.
The guard, trembling, shakily stood. He
glanced over his shoulder. Thank God none of the broads had witnessed
this — this — this ridiculous spoof, this farce, this, this...he
trembled. Murder! Death! Damn, but the next time he caught the old geezer
peeking at the broads (the ancient
pervert!) he was going to snap his spindly neck! He massaged his throbbing
finger.
The guard watched with lowered brows as the
geezer hobbled down to the drive — and, damn all, if one of those
mile-long limos from England didn’t have the nerve to swing up to the
curb — and then, of all things, there came a spit-and-polish dandy-doo in
a peaked cap speeding around the bus-long car, kow-towing like the tiny yellow
menace he was, to open the geezer’s door. And
then, most shocking of all, the tiny yellow dandy-doo menace turned out to
be a girl! And a very winsome tiny yellow
dandy-doo menace at that, or so the glowering guard judged from a distance of
twenty or so yards.
The geezer turned before entering the
limousine and waved cheerfully to the seething guard.
Maybe the guard only imagined it, but the old
man seemed to be waving with his
middle finger.
“I’ll be back, before you know it, so please
don’t sit here worrying while I’m away,” he assured her, maintaining his vocal
equilibrium, evenly modulated, but was not quite able to suppress the nervous
flutter at the base of his larynx. His luxuriant moustache twitched with the
flex of his jaw.
“Just please God don’t let it snow,” he
muttered.
He was busy packing his camera case, checking
that all his special lenses from the far corners of the apartment made it into
the case, his back to the woman; however, he could feel her eyes consuming him,
palpably, as if a force of alloyed ice-fire emanated from the jagged gaze of
her eyes.
“I suppose reminding you that this creep
probably has a gun won’t do me much good,” she said, finally. Well, that wasn’t
so bad, he thought.
“Well, to tell you the truth, my mom has
called about three times to remind me that he might have a gun; or, in my mom’s
world, he probably is an ally of Sodding Hussein and has a dozen SCUD missiles
aimed my direction. She also told me that Shannon
might have some thugs about to pound the shit out of me,” he replied, finishing
off his camera case, now checking the electronic ear and flashlight for
batteries.
He pulled on his recently mink-oiled
fingerless gloves, yanked them off, and packed them away.
Suddenly she was close behind him — he
dropped his gloves as her hands slithered over his hips, around to his flat
belly, and then down.
“Sharen, I’m already having a tough time
concentrating.”
“I know. Your body language is actually
stuttering. Perhaps this will help.”
In the middle of voicing a protest his eyes
closed. He leaned against her solid body. Felt her breasts push into his back.
He surrendered himself to her embrace. A low groan barely escaped the door of
his mouth and he sighed as she grazed her long teeth over his neck.
She dexterously popped the buttons at the
front of his jeans.
“Something tells me you’ve practiced this
maneuver before,” he whispered between his teeth.
“Only in preparation for when we would meet,
“she said, wickedly, her lips tickling his right ear lobe.
He reached his hands behind him, around her,
over her satin robe, smoothing his hands about her taut thighs, then up
slightly to fondle his favorite place on her perfect body.
“Yep,” she breathed into his ear, “yes sir,
now I know it’s really you, it is, yessiree.”
His breathing was already close to aerobic
arrest. “Did you think I might be somebody else?” he strained.
“Well,” she chuckled, deftly using her palms
and fingers, squeezing him into convulsions, “you hadn’t touched me once since
you came in the door. Nope. Wasn’t sure at all if it was you.”
He stretched his head back to rest on her
shoulder, and her neck craned about bringing her mouth close to his; her teeth
nipped at his too-full moustache and she licked his lips, enticing his tongue
out to meet and embrace. They stood thus, breathing raggedly, silently and
fiercely swaying, for many moments.
“Oh,” he breathed, after a while, “now you’ve
gone and made a mess.”
“I’m coming,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. “You are?”
“With you, that is. To Seattle .”
“No. Sorry. I have to go alone on this.”
“Wrong. Oh how wrong. I’m coming.”
“Sharen.”
“Joo-ulie,” she said, doing a fair tonal
imitation.
“You have me in an awkward position.”
She tightened her grip on him and buckled him
backward so that if she released him he would crash to the floor.
“Yes. Now, I have you. In my power.”
He laughed, nervously. “I could get used to
it.”
She lowered him to the floor where she joined
him, moving around him, straddling his chest, her robe parting to reveal her
long legs in sheer garter stockings (which never failed to plummet his
intelligence level dangerously into the idiot zone). The luminous pink “V” of
her spandex bikini bottoms barely touched his chin. She pressed her hands into
his, their fingers interlocking, and she held him pinned to the floor.
“Tell me why you’re going,” she demanded in
her dark golden voice, tipping her head toward him, her forehead a hand away
from his, her short-styled raven hair cascading into his eyes, tickling his
nose. “You still love her. You want her back.”
“No. Not at all, Sharen. Even before I found
her cache of love letters I knew our marriage was coming apart. I only fought
for her and me so long because of our kids.”
“Well then. Just let it go. She gave you
custody.”
He was silent.
She released his left hand with her right and
then delivered a short but stinging clap to the right side of his face. He
blinked at her.
“Say it,” she said, voice monotone, hard,
loud, and commanding. “You still love Shannon .”
His face warm — feeling raw where she
struck him — Julius smiled at her. A dangerous sparkle shone from his
eyes.
“I don’t think that was very funny.”
She struck him again and though he attempted
to block the blow, he succeeded in trapping her hand only after it had
resounded against his jaw, much harder than the first stinging blow. He
recoiled, bucking his pelvis up hard against her, twining his body about, and
they struggled fiercely, briefly, until he managed to reverse their positions,
with him seated on her chest.
“This is all a game to you, isn’t it?” he
snarled, his temper snaking out of his gut, his voice abrading, far too loud.
“I wonder how much you really do care.”
Her head lifted off the carpet and her hands
struggled against the steel grip on her wrists. She bucked her head at him and
her jaws snapped the air; her pelvis bucked up and hit him, but due to their
fifty-pound weight differential he was able to maintain their positions. She punched
him in the kidneys with her knees.
“Get off me, you asshole,” she snarled.
He complied. He climbed jerkily to his feet,
flushed with equal helpings of adrenaline and anger. He buttoned his jeans,
hands shaking.
She flung herself to her feet and sashed her
robe about her body, motions the brisk, fluent precisions of a mechanical
predator.
They stood a few paces apart, back to back,
both with heaving bodies. Julius took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about that. We
got kind of out of hand —”
“No.”
He peeked slowly about him.
“No, Storyteller. It was me. I was out of
control. And I’m sorry. I knew I was going to do that, as soon as you walked in
the door and didn’t kiss me. Stupid of me. Getting jealous like that.”
He smiled, looking at her, and she undid her
robe and allowed it to shower about her body into a glittering pool at her
feet. He was always a fool for a woman standing before him in bra, panties and
stockings.
She placed her long hands on her lean hips
and tilted back her head to regard him. Her eyes pulsing swirls of light and
darkness, comets rushing past him — irises serene dark pools, and yet with
texture, like multi-hued tree bark; the pupils were independently alive,
pulling, sucking.
“So. Tell me, Julius. If you don’t want Shannon back, then why are you driving 1,200 miles to Seattle ?”
He shook his head. Looked away from her.
“You know how I am about love. Yes, I love Shannon . I suppose I always will, in a strange, disturbed
kind of way,” he said, breathing slower, returning his gaze to her angled and
skinny body. One of her bra straps had slipped over her jutting shoulder. “I’m
a ridiculous romantic. It’s my curse. I really do believe love lasts forever.
And I told her that I loved her and I believe I was telling the truth.”
“And now?” she said, taking one step toward
him. The dangerous edge had returned to her voice.
“And now,” he repeated, lifting his eyes from
her breasts to study her angular chin and its dimple, her mouth that was too
big and full and yet just right; her long thin nose which was too long but
saved because of its last-second slope and upward tilt; eyes that were wide and
wild and curious, always close to flaring anger or churning passion. “And now,
Sharen, I’ve gone and told you that I love you. I do not lie. I’ve been on the
verge of saying it probably since I met you.”
“You didn’t meet me, you ridiculous romantic.
I found you,” she said, taking another step toward him, entering into that
intimate space that brings discomfort with strangers; now only an immense,
intimate heat. “Do you feel that this
is forever? With me?”
He swallowed. Looked at the floor between
them. His forehead touched hers and he felt again the momentary disorientation
at being with a woman of his exact height, six feet two inches.
“You’re afraid, Julie Jacko?”
He shrugged. His eyes darted up and met hers
from an inch away.
She reached, stroked the back of his hand.
Her shining, luminous eyes caught him, held him, pinned him down.
Suddenly the intimate vibrancy was more
overpowering than ever and this time it was he initiating the intricate dance.
His hands the bold adventurers. She lay back, her eyes half closed, borne upon
the winds of inspiration or meditation, and touched and held and guided him.
When his lips sought hers she opened to him and they melded; when his lips and
warm tongue traced and caressed her long throat she arched her neck and sighed;
when his hands whispered beneath her waist, and lower, lifting her up, to him,
she smiled and muttered alien entreaties.
Soon they were the age-old and noisome
two-backed beast and what began as soft and tender artistry now became and
ended in an almost violent broiling of passion, of heat and clutching need. The
evening was theirs, and they made full use of it.
Just before eight o’clock , when Mrs. Hansom would bring the children,
Sharen stretched her spine, her small and firm breasts embracing his throat,
one fleshy golden nipple tracing the line of his jaw. She smiled huskily, her
fingers pushing into his hair, cradling his head, and as his lips opened to her
teasing nipple, she kissed him repeatedly upon the brow, her sharp white teeth
gnawing his eyebrows, her tongue tracing the thoughtful etchings of his
forehead.
“So,” she breathed, stroking her fingers
through and through his hair, “am I coming or not?”
“Four times would be greedy, wouldn’t it?” he
said, smiling lazily between her breasts.
“Idiot. On this insane quest, Oh Valiant
White Knight. I have a very bad feeling about this Bright Eyes.”
“So he’s a psychopath. You don’t think I can
handle a psycho?”
“I have faith in you. You have some tricks up
your sleeve I don’t think you even know about yet. But I’m getting some bad
impressions about this guy, this Bright Eyes. Knowing what kind of woman your
ex-bitch is, it doesn’t make much sense her leaving you and her kids for this
flashy creep. As insecure as the bimbo is, she wouldn’t have enough guts to
leave someone she knows will stick by her, especially for your standard
pusher-dealer pimp-type.”
“Well, that’s one of the reasons I have to
go. Things just don’t add up. I can’t make sense of it, you can’t make sense of
it, my family and friends can make no sense of it, and the twins certainly
aren’t fathoming why their mother deserted them.”
“You’re thinking he’s coercing her with
drugs. If that’s the case, she chose it, and you have no right or means of
pulling the bitch away.”
“I’m going. If it’s drugs, then I’ll be more
than eased of conscience to write her off as a loss. I got her off the hard and
soft stuff for over four years — if she’s returned after all this time,
giving up her husband and children, I think she’ll deserve everything that
comes to her.”
Sharen clucked her tongue. She kissed him
softly on the chin. Then on the lips. Again on each eye.
“Liar. You’re going to charge up there on
your white horse, cross lances with the ogre, and smite the poisonous cup from
the entranced maiden’s lips. Unfortunately, you haven’t considered what you’re
going to do with two maidens.”
He took her chin in his hand lightly and placed
his thumb in the fleshy, feminine dimple (not quite a cleft); with his other
hand he stroked his fingertips lightly over her back. She closed her eyes and
lay atop him. They floated. She lowered her head next to his on the pillow, her
face turned away from him.
“I wish you wouldn’t go on and on about the
White Knight. You’re not the first person to find the metaphor so amusing. I’m
the first guy who will admit I’m a jerk,” he said, softly, into her ear, one
hand feathering her hair, the other continuing to whisper upon her back. “When
I met Shannon , the odds were way against me. I
might have been stupid. Well, I was stupid. I fought the odds, as I always
have. And for a long time I was sure I had won. Beat those odds. Like Custer,
finally, in some pocket of time, firing his pistols long enough, and accurately
enough, dropping enough Indians, until they finally get bored enough to just
ride away.”
She lifted her head and smiled sleepily.
“Careful. You’re wandering dangerously deep into my territory with that
metaphor. Keep clear of American Natives and the old west. Especially with that
prick, Custer. Keep your metaphors, parables and cutesy stories safe within the
confines of the Dark Ages.”
“The only reason I brought up old General
George Armstrong is because he was one of my heroes when I was a boy —
probably because of the date on a necklace someone gave my parents when I was
born. I raided the encyclopedias on him, cheap novels and some good ones too,
and that old Errol Flynn flick, They Died
with Their Boots On.
“Hey, everyone made it perfectly clear Custer
was arrogant, conceited, and made more nasty mistakes than anyone’s entitled
to. His biggest mistake was in charging the odds, every time.”
“So, of course, Julius Jacko, idolizing
Custer, grew up to charge the odds and get his ass kicked,” Sharen said,
rolling away from him, tickling him at the waist.
He caught her hands before she tickled him
into distraction. “Not every time. More often than not I kick the odds in the
ass.”
“Just like Custer,” she snickered.
“Hey, Custer was a good soldier — just
like Schwarzkopf. And Schwarzkopf is a hero. Stormin’ Norman did away with probably twice the
Iraqis that Custer did Indians. And do you know what the odds were of me
breaking through the literary barriers? Even with Jeffrey’s help, do you know
how many manuscripts actually are read, let alone deemed commercial enough to
please sponsors?”
“Ug. Don’t bring up Jeffrey the Weasel when
we’re in bed. And you don’t have to prove to me that you’re special. First
thing is, you can’t compare American Natives to Iraqis. Furthermore, the
problem is, Custer and his dirty deeds, and you and your literary triumphs, and
even some poor fool in dented armor smacking into windmills, has nothing to do
with you wasting a trip to Seattle .
Hush, don’t even launch your rebuttal. You were right, you are too romantic.
“There is absolutely nothing knightly about
this business. What we have here is an ex-addict giving up a quality life and a
quality man to return to her stoner days and wicked ways. She made her choice,
clear and defined. Let her go, Julie. Just let the bitch go. Storyteller,
please, let her go.”
Storyteller's Last Stand
Rodolphus
Available at:
Read FREE Sample Chapters of the Rodolphus Novels:
Read FREE Sample Chapters of the Douglas Christian Larsen Novel:
Cyrano Hercule Savinien de Bergerac
DCLWolf Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment