In the distance, Sir Ferrari and his men stood beneath a palm tree, watching.
I shook my head. A few moments later we returned to our gear. As we put it back on, I became aware of Suzie humming and singing something. I leaned in close to listen, and smiled at what I heard.
“Brave brave Sir Robin, brave Sir Robin ran away.”
We hugged the mountain ridges until midnight, then turned west. We reached Calabasas shortly before dawn. Crefloe directed us to an empty field just off Mulholland Highway at the end of a cul-de-sac. He cursed under his breath when he saw the house.
“It was empty last time I was here, say six months ago.”
“It looks like someone’s moved in,” I said.
A dull light burned in one of the second floor windows. Something a candle might make.
We found a copse of trees to camp a football field’s length away.
I ordered Crefloe and Suzie to stay put while I conducted a three-sixty-degree recon of the area. A lone horse stood on one edge of the field. It appeared to be in good health, which made me wonder if it wasn’t being cared for. I never saw any other evidence of habitation, either nearby or over at the house. I returned to our hide and pulled out my binos.
Crefloe had curled into a ball, hugging his pack, a blanket drawn over him, instantly asleep.
Suzie lay on her side, her eyes wide, unsleeping.
I saw movement at nine through my binos.
A girl. She couldn’t have been older then eleven or twelve. She climbed out of a basement window of the main ranch house. Her hair was pulled back into pigtails. She wore a soiled shirt, shorts, and sneakers with no socks. She remained on all fours for a long minute, turning her head left and right like an animal. Then she suddenly straightened, stretching her back when she came to full height. With one fearful look back at the house, she headed toward the corral.
I ignored her a moment and instead trained my binos on the main ranch house. I went from one upper window to the other. It took a few minutes, but then I saw it. A hand on a curtain, pulling it back. I never saw a face, but one was undoubtedly there in shadow. Watching the girl, or watching for something else.
I looked toward the girl, who was petting the neck of the horse. She seemed to be whispering to it, saying something only they could know.
Suzie rose to her knees and peered out from between a branch.
I switched my gaze to the window. The hand was gone. I searched the front of the house and noted that where before the house had seemed empty, now it seemed full. Windows stared back at me, no… not at me… at the girl and the horse.
Suddenly the front door burst open.
A narrow man with a scarred face filled the doorway, the heat of his gaze so hot that the girl felt it, turning toward the man.
Her face lit with fear.
The horse felt it. It snorted, shook its head, and danced a few feet away from the girl, as if to say, you’re on your own.
I noted suddenly that Suzie was by my side, watching.
The man turned and went back in the house, leaving the door open.
The girl bolted, running pell mell toward the house. She dove on the grass and skidded in front of the window. She clawed at the latch, then hauled herself inside.
Suzie gasped.
I switched back to the door. Still open. Still empty.
Then I heard a thin peal of scream from somewhere inside.
Crefloe was instantly awake and by my side.
“What was that?” he said.
Suzie covered her face and wrapped herself into a ball.
I thought about what I’d seen and what it might mean. Then eventually I said, “None of our business.”
Suzie cried beside me.
We waited four more hours during which time two men and a woman left the building and headed into the barn presumably to take care of the horses. I had Crefloe do a three-sixty on our hide sight to make sure there wasn’t any counter surveillance. I didn’t like being so close to this place. Whatever was going on inside, as unsavory as it seemed, could probably be explained if those inside felt the need to explain, which I doubted they did. When Crefloe returned, he pointed to a route that would keep us concealed until we were far enough away to move with purpose.
Suzie didn’t want to move. I spent ten minutes cajoling her, trying to get her to get up, but try as I might she wouldn’t have any of it.
Crefloe gave me an eye as if to say, we gotta get out of here.
I shrugged. What was I to do? We suddenly had a hundred and thirty-pound anchor that wasn’t going to let us move.
Then I grinned sadly.
WWWSD?
What would William Shatner do?
I scrolled through my list of his love conquests and tried to find logic within.
Miramanee appeared first — a dark haired woman from a tribe of space Indians who believed Captain Kirk to be their god Kirok. Although he had amnesia at the time, Kirk successfully convinced her that he was a god, proceeded to impregnate her, then watched helplessly as both her and his unborn child got stoned to death by her people when he couldn’t figure out how to use the magic obelisk.
No lesson learned there.
Sheesh. I’d forgotten how harsh the original episodes could be after the politically correct Next Generation series.
Then I remembered Shayna who was his flirtatious love during the episode The Gamemasters of Triskilion. She didn’t understand the feelings that were butterflying inside of her and didn’t understand this strange thing called love. In the end, he taught her that she didn’t have to fight, but instead, surrender. It wasn’t lost on me that surrendering to Kirk in the arena was a metaphor for surrendering oneself to their emotions. Michelle was the one who’d pointed that out back when we were in our cells… back when everyone was much more innocent.
No help there either.
Then of course there was Rayna Kapec from the third season episode Requiem for Methuselah. Although she turned out to be an android created by a human who was born in Mesopotamia in 3834 BC and couldn’t die, Kirk fell so hard in love that he couldn’t live without her. His love was so all-consuming that Spock had to wipe her from his memory with a Vulcan mind meld.
I sighed.
I know what William Shatner would do, but it wasn’t helping. And then an idea struck me. Unless, the solution was an amalgam of all the three women. Miramanee, Shayne and Rayna and how Kirk approached each of them.
I knelt beside Suzie and asked, “What would William Shatner do?”
She ignored me, staring instead at the ground and sobbing.
I prodded her with my right hand. “I’m asking you a question, what would William Shatner do?”
She made a noise and rolled away.
I couldn’t believe I was on a mission where one of my people was on the ground throwing a tantrum and wouldn’t get up. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t a tantrum. It was a symptom of something larger. I already knew she was having nightmares. She also continuously fell into fugue states where she was reliving the circumstances that most affected her. This avoidance and reluctance to leave was something new altogether. As if part of her didn’t want to see what was going on, but the other didn’t want to leave without doing something. And I had no one to blame but myself. Knowing I never should have brought her wasn’t helpful. I could stare at the past with 20/20 glasses all day long and make the perfect decision, but that wasn’t how life worked.
“Hey, Suz. Come on, talk to me. What would William Shatner do, huh?”
“Fuck William Shatner,” she mumbled.
I laughed. “From what I hear, you’ll have to stand in line for that.”
I thought she’d rise to the comment, but instead, she buried her head in her hands.