Story A Day - Day 2

 I am a little under the weather today so I wrote a Drabble. But I did retain the spirit of the prompt by making up a town that I haven't used in any other story.

 

To curtail rampant crime in Maize, Neb., the Mayor Johnathon J. Johns unveiled a dramatic program. Each night, road crews would place barriers on random streets and remove barriers from others, creating an ever-shifting labyrinth that would prevent evil-doers from making a quick getaway. “As a second layer of protection,” Johnson announced, “the crews will switch the street signs around. The criminal masterminds won’t be able to find our homes, let alone rob them. The system may come with some initial confusion, but law and order is our primary concern.”

The fledgling campaign was canceled when Amazon called to complain.

Story A Day - Day 1

 The Bridge

by Calvin Beam

As far as Ceruliman Battlebeard could see, which wasn’t far considering his 4-foot-2 frame and a case of myopia, the bridge looked a bit run down. Almost all the capstones were missing, random stones were missing from the parapets, and an ominous crack from each side of the roadway looked like they would meet in the middle. 

It was not a bridge that deserved to be guarded by a warrior and a dragon, who both stood on the far side. 

The dwarf pulled his scarf tight around his face and moved forward with a mix of youthful exuberance and common-sense fear.

Two glances came his way as he stepped onto the stone, but glancers then resumed their conversation.

Battlebeard hoped to arrive at the palace before nightfall, but now his path was blocked.

“Hello traveler,” said the warrior. Up close, Battlebeard could see she was a tall woman with lines around her eyes and mouth, and hair flecked with gray. She leaned heavily on asward slightly taller than the dwarf. Squinting up at the dragon, Battlebeard could see his skin was leathery and his complexion mottled. His scales showed the cracks of age.

“Why are you blocking the …” Battlebeard said, then stopped short. “I know you,” he said to the woman. “At least I know of you. You’re Axen, the warrior princess, aren’t you?”

He did not add that she looked much younger in the paintings he’d seen.

“I am,” she said. “And this is Slog.”

“Are you going to kill him?” Battlebeard said. He trembled at the thought.

“He’s my friend,” Axen said. 

“But you’re a heroic slayer of barbarians and beasts,” Battlebeard said. “This must be trick. You lured him out of his cave and you’re going to ambush him here.”

“I live under this bridge,” Slog said. His voice came down like thunder over a distant hill. “You want to know why? Because dwarves live in caves and they’ve gentrified most of us out of the market.” If Battlebeard had looked up and squinted, he would have noticed the dragon’s eyes had narrowed with irritation.

“I thought trolls lived under bridges.” Battlebeard’s head was spinning.

“There was a troll some time ago,” Slog said. “We had a heated discussion about ownership. Now I am the owner.”

 Battlebeard inhaled deeply. There wasn’t another bridge for miles. He looked down at the swiftly moving river. Dwarves don’t ford.

“I order you to allow me passage,” he said suddenly, and with much more volume than he intended. The blood drained from his normally ruddy face, making him appear beige.

The dragon snorted and two black rings of smoke to rise from his nostrils. “Order?” he growled. “Pray tell me your name, young dwarf, so I can notify the next of kin.”

Battlebeard drew his short sword. “I am Ceruliman Battlebeard, soon to be legendary. Great warrior, tell this dragon to stand aside or I will dispatch him.”

The dragon made a sound like chewing tobacco destined for a spittoon, and Battlebeard’s toes burst into flame.

The dwarf yelped, then stamped his feet and kicked the walls of the bridge to put the fire out.

“That wasn’t very nice, Slog,” Axen said.

“Not in the habit of being ordered about,” the dragon mumbled.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” Battlebeard said, rising up to his full height and holding his sword aloft.

He heard a sound like wind rushing through the trees and a moment later, the flick of Slog’s tail caught him full on the chest, sending him flying 40 feet to the other end of the bridge.

A minute or so later, Battlebeard unballed himself and, with some effort, he rose and limped back toward the dragon, his sword raised.

“You do realize this will end badly,” Axen said to him.

“Why are you taking his side,” Battlebeard whined. “You are a legendary hero. And he is a …”

“What’s this?” Axen said, and she touched his cheek. Battlebeard’s scarf had come undone during his recent flight, and when the sun peeked from behind the clouds, something glittered on the dwarf’s face.

Slog lowered his head and with a dragon’s eye for gemstone value he said, “It’s a diamond chip embedded in his face.”

“It’s, um, jewelry,” Battlebeard said.

“Strange place for it,” Axen said.

“No it’s not,” Slog said.

“It is,” Battlebeard said. His lip quivered.

“Tell the truth,” Slog thundered and Battlebeard squeezed his thighs together to retain control of his bladder.

“It was an accident,” the dwarf said as the story came tumbling out. “I was in diamond-cutting class and I was clumsy and this chip embedded itself in my cheek. No one can get it out and the other students were merciless. They called me …”

“Chip?” Slog said.

Battlebeard sniffled and nodded. “So I’m running away to the palace to become a legendary warrior for the king. And then I’ll go back home and they’ll all be sorry they made fun of me.”

Axen studied the diamond. “It’s down to the bone,” she said. “But I’ve dealt with injuries like this before.” 

She pulled a dagger from her belt with her right hand and a water skin from the same spot. She drank and Battlebeard thought he caught a whiff of brandy. “A toast,” she said to Slog and held the blade up to his nose.

Fiery dragon breath turned the blade dull orange, then to bright yellow, and finally to nearly white. Battlebeard was paralyzed with fear.

“Now don’t move, darling,” Axen said. “If you scream or jerk away I’m just as likely to send you on your way with an eyepatch.”

She gave him a swig of the brandy, then told him to close his eyes. She put her left hand behind the dwarf’s head. Battlebeard felt a searing pain and the world went black.

The dwarf had no idea how much time had passed when he groaned and began swimming back to consciousness.

“He’s awake,” Slog said. 

Axen placed the diamond sliver in Battlebeard’s hand and closed his fingers around it.

“There’s a scar,” she told him. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“Is it gruesome?”

She held up a small piece of metal and Battlebeard saw a longish red line along his cheek. “Oh my,” he said.

Axen turned to the dragon. “Slog, can you spare a scale?”

The dragon scratched with his enormous nails and a frying pan-sized piece flaked off at her feet.

She handed it to Battlebeard. “You listen to me, young dwarf. You take this scale and your scar and you skittle on back to your cave and tell them about the great battle you won with a dragon. And then you sit back and let them buy you drinks while you tell the story again and again.”

“Don’t use my name,” Slog said.

“But that isn’t true,” Battlebeard said.

“There’s a lot of legend in legendary,” Axen said. “Slog, how many men have you killed?”

“Thousands,” Slog said.

“How many have you really killed?”

“Six, if you count the guy who was so scared he jumped in the river and drowned.”

“See, Battlebeard, the legends are made by the storytellers. Make your victory grand and enjoy it. Now scoot.”

The dwarf considered this for a moment, then politely thanked the warrior princess and the dragon and scurried back the way he’d come.

When he was out of sight, Slog said, “Care for another adventure?”

“I’d rather have a chardonnay,” Axen said.

Calvin Beam

Calvin Beam was born in Philadelphia and received his bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri. He survived a 30-plus year newspaper career with his sense of humor intact, although the same cannot be said for his retirement account. He lives in Chattanooga, Tenn., where the pace of Southern life suits him just fine.

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In For A Penny

by Calvin Beam

I was sweating like a politician testifying under oath. It was August, and despite my best attempts to get my desk fan to work by jabbing a screwdriver into the electrical parts, the blades refused to turn. In my desk drawer was a bottle of bourbon. I could trade some of it for ice from the accountant down the hall, but I wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
I was still deep in that mental debate when a feminine voice waltzed across the room and cut in on my reverie.
“Hello,” was what I thought I said but the word came out like the last gurgles of a coffee maker. There are women who can make a lumberjack gnaw through a redwood, and I was looking at one.
“Are you private investigator McMurtry?” she twirled.
My name is on the door and the office is big enough to hold me, a desk, a guest chair and a filing cabinet that doubles as a coat closet. I swallowed my sarcasm and nodded.
Penny was a meandering conversationalist. I didn’t have anywhere to be, so I let her spill her life story. It was an idyllic childhood. Her parents sent her to Singapore when she was seven so she could work in a T-shirt factory. At 12, they moved her to Okinawa where she learned martial arts from an old Japanese guy. At 16 it was on to India, where they arranged a marriage. She was divorced at 18 because her husband didn’t want to join her in the seven-year biosphere experiment her parents had signed her up for.
“Sounds swell,” I said. “Any regrets?
“I never learned to carry a jug of water from the river on my head,” she said. “Everyone needs a marketable skill,”
I nodded. “So why do you want to engage the services of a private investigator?”
“Oh,” she said, as if the thought of hiring a detective had just occurred to her. “I want to find my twin sister sister, Paige. I tried using the internet to search for her but I kept getting ‘Error 404, Paige not found.’”
OK, so she wasn’t tech savvy.
“Does Paige have a last name?”
“Of course. Well, she used to,” she said.
I looked at her like a dog staring at a can opener.
“I mean, I’m not sure what it is now. “It used to be the same as mine.”
I waited. She smiled and waited. I broke first.
“And your last name is … “
“Pierre,” she said. I tried to wrap my mind around the perverse parents of Penny and Paige Pierre.
I looked at the remnants of my coffee and the little torn paper next to it. “Pierre like the Pierre sugar packets?”
She giggled. She actually giggled. “Like the Pierre Sugar Corporation,” she said. “My parents are rich. Well, they were rich until they died. Now I’m half rich and Paige is half rich.”
Half of any figure with a lot of zeroes behind it is still a figure with a lot of zeroes behind it.
“Sweet,” I said, and then immediately regretted it. But my mind was already starting to envision a transmission repair for my Toyota coming out of the payment for this job. And then, dammit, my better angel made an appearance. “Don’t you have a lawyer who can tell you where she is?”
Penny pouted pointedly. “That meanie won’t tell me anything. He just keeps sending me checks.”
I poked my better angel in the eye with the screwdriver and quoted her an exorbitant price, plus expenses. She signed a contract. And then Penny Pierre floated out of the office on a cushion of wealthy privilege.
I took a drink to celebrate, then got to work. It took eight minutes on Google to crack the case. Yeah, I timed it. I searched the society registers for Paige nee Pierre and found a wedding announcement. For a beautiful rich girl, she had married well. From there it was a hop, skip and a dark web jump to an address. It was the kind of address where the cops pull you over for driving a Toyota and then Taser you through your open window.
Screw the Toyota. I leased a Porsche and added it to my expenses.
I puttered up to the Paige Pierre Pendergast household and rang the bell. You could have knocked me over with a sugar cube when she answered the door herself.
After I explained who I was, she invited me in and browbeat me into having a bourbon with the deftly logical argument, “Would you like a drink?”
A few sips later, I laid out my purpose and Paige Pierre Pendergast went pale.
“You simply can’t tell Penny where I am,” she said. My curiosity was piqued. And then she offered to cut me a check for an amount that slapped my curiosity around like a punk and stuffed it into a trunk alongside my gagged and bound better angel.
For one month I shuttled back and forth. I told Penny that Paige kept moving and changing her name. I told Paige that Penny was closing in and I had to throw her off the trail. They kept writing checks.
OK, maybe you think I’m a bastard. Sometimes I do too. Sometimes I wonder why one rich sister wants desperately to find the other and the other rich sister desperately doesn’t want to be found.
And then I sit back on the porch of my new vineyard in the south of France, open a bottle of Penny red or Paige white depending on my mood, and all those feelings just swim away.
Then I wonder if naming my vintages Pierre wasn’t a bit too cheeky. But who would buy a wine called McMurtry?