Truly, Madly Viking

  She started to step up and chastise Jorund for creating a scene. Tourists right and left were gaping at them. In fact, Maggie saw a local newspaper photographer, who hung around the traveling wall in hopes of catching a human-interest story, sit up alertly on the park bench where he'd been waiting.

  His van with the Galveston Daily News logo was parked at a nearby curb.

  But Harry put a hand on her arm. "Wait, Maggie. Let's see how this plays out."

  "But—"

  "Think about it. Maybe, just maybe, Joe will be the one to jolt Steve out of his self-pity. Maybe this is the breakthrough you've been waiting for."

  Jorund, on the other hand, felt like breaking something. Ever since he'd landed in this world, he'd had nothing but problems. Now he, who prided himself on his aloofness, was involving himself in other people's problems as well. With a snort of disgust, he planted Steve on his feet in front of the wall, and glared at several people, who stepped away, not wanting to be in the proximity of flying fists.

  "You have no right," Steve stormed, his green eyes flashing angrily. He shoved Jorund in the chest.

  "Yea, I have every right. You are my friend," Jorund retorted, and pushed him back in the chest. Like two scrappy youthlings we are behaving, Jorund thought. To the side, he heard Mag-he make a tsking sound. Jorund gave Steve an extra shove in the chest and demanded, "Stop creating such a spectacle and tell me, which of these names mark your herd?"

  "Herd? What the hell did you think I was in 'Nam—a cow?" Steve jeered.

  "Nay, you have already told me you were a seal, and a herd is a troop, my friend... a troop of soldiers. Tell me, which of these fallen men were your comrades?"

  For the first time, Steve faced the wall, and his face went ashen as he walked slowly along till he found the names he wanted. Tears filled his eyes, and Jorund noticed that Mag-he's eyes misted over as well. She and Dock-whore Hairy exchanged a look. Was it worry, self-congratulation, or compassion?

  A visible shudder rippled through Steve's body as he moved closer and traced some letters with a forefinger. This had to be a deeply moving experience for him. One name after another he recited aloud in a choked voice. Then, in a deadened monotone, he said to Jorund, and to Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy, who had stepped up to form a half-circle in front of the wall, "During Vietnam, SEAL teams One and Two amassed a combined kill ratio of two hundred to one, with only forty six deaths, and those were mostly due to accidents, not enemy direct fire. It seems obscene, doesn't it, to quote that statistic now, with all the antiwar sentiment, but damn, we were good at what we did."

  "So you have reason to be proud of your work... despite the grief of war," Jorund told him softly, putting an arm around his shoulder. Truly, he understood the man's conflicted emotions: Steve had been trained to be a soldier—in one of the best units of the fighting men—but was horrified by all the bloodletting, some of it needless. Life was not so different between his world and Steve's.

  There were wars that had to be fought for noble reasons, but some wars, in retrospect, were obviously the political games of greedy kings and chieftains.

  Maggie was regarding him as if he were some kind of hero, when all he'd done was comfort a man in need. How little she must think of him if she considered this to be extraordinary behavior on his part.

  Dock-whore Hairy was nodding repeatedly. No doubt he thought the two of them were well on their way to being cured. Well, mayhap Steve was, but Jorund had never been demented to begin with.

  "You have no idea how hard this is," Steve told him in a cracking voice. "Those men depended on me. If I'd done a better job, they might still be alive. The guilt, even after all these years, just tears me apart."

  Appropriately, Not-a-lie started to croon, "I fall to pieces.... "

  Rosalyn offered gently, "Maybe you'd like to go on a date sometime, Steve." Obviously she had another type of therapy in mind for him. They had a vulgar name for it in this new world. It was comparable to a pity-coupling in his world.

  Steve appeared horrified at Rosalyn's offer. Jorund ignored them all and continued speaking to Steve of a soldier's guilt. "Betimes you feel as if it should have been you, do you not? In truth, you question whether this life you lead isn't really your hell on earth... a punishment for some past wrong—though in our land we do not call it hell. It is Niflheim, land of eternal ice, ruled by the queen of the dead, Hel." Jorund shivered violently, as if actually feeling the icy atmosphere of the underworld.

  Steve was staring at Jorund. "How do you know so well how I feel? How come you can put my exact feelings into words?"

  "Because they reflect my own," Jorund answered with a huge sigh. "I lost my wife and two twin daughters to famine a short year ago. And 'twas my fault for not being there to protect them." All the muscles in his body sagged, and he seemed bleak with misery as he saw the empathy on Steve's face....

  "Sweet Lord! I'm sorry for opening healed wounds."

  "Healed? Nay, never healed," Jorund corrected. "Know this, you dunderhead: I make it a practice never to speak of my past. It is a sign of my comradeship with you that I share it now. Let us not broach the subject again."

  Steve inclined his head in agreement.

  But Mag-he and Dock-whore Hairy were staring at him with decided interest. And Jorund realized just how much he'd revealed... secrets he would have much rather kept to himself. Now Mag-he would be asking him all kinds questions: What do you think of your dead wife? What did you think of your daughters? What did you think of the famine? What do you think, think, think. And he had given her that ammunition.

  For the rest of their visit to the wall, Steve was somber, but no longer anguished. In fact, he shared information with those around him about how he'd become a Navy SEAL. And he had some of the men listening, bug-eyed, while he related stories about his baseball career.

  "Hey, aren't you Steve Askey?" someone asked suddenly.

  "Uh-oh!" Maggie exclaimed. She had been deeply touched by both Steve's and Joe's stories, but now she saw trouble approaching in the form of the middle-aged reporter, who had been sitting on the bench. He was now staring fixedly at Steve, eyes narrowed as if to boot up some distant memory.

  "I'm Jack Farrington from the Galveston Daily News," he said, showing a press card for identification. "If you'd just give me a minute for a few questions...?"

  Steve backed away a step or two, as if he'd been attacked. "No, no, you've got the wrong man."

  Even though he used his real name, everyone at Rainbow knew that Steve had been hiding out from his family and the public for the last ten years, and they'd respected his privacy. Apparently that was about to change now.

  Meanwhile, the reporter's camera was flashing away. "Hey, Steve, I don't mean any harm. Just let me get a picture or two. I saw you play in Dodger Stadium back in sixty-nine... your second and last season. Man, oh, man, what a day! You hit three home runs. Some people say you were better than Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams combined... that you could've been the greatest baseball player of all time. Hell, that was just before you went off to 'Nam and..." The reporter's face went red as understanding hit. He glanced at the wall, at Steve, then back to the wall.

  "I am not that man."

  "Why is Steve saying he's not Steve?" Fred asked at that inopportune moment. He had been counting the names on the wall since their arrival, but apparently this was more interesting even than his obsessive-compulsive needs.

  "Shut up, Furr-red," Joe said with a glare, which caused Fred to scurry back to the wall. Then he addressed the reporter. " 'Tis time for you to depart."

  "Who are you to tell me what to do?" the reporter asserted belligerently.

  Oh, no! Please. Don't say it.

  "I am Jorund the Viking," Joe declared. Maggie and Harry both groaned at the same time, and the two attendants stood at the ready, in case there was a need to

  rush the group back to the bus quickly.

  "Jorund the Viking?" the reporter mocked. "Yeah, and I'm Joe DiMaggio.
"

  "Fortunate you are that I do not have my sword with me. You would be missing a tongue for your insolence."

  "Ha! You don't scare me," the newshound cried out as he took one last photo, then literally ran away. He must have recognized the threat in Joe's stance, not to mention his ill-chosen words. Over his shoulder, Farrington shouted, "Hey, Steve, did you know the Baseball Hall of Fame has been trying to locate you?"

  "I think Steve's had enough of walls and halls for one day, don't you?" Maggie observed to Harry.

  "Should I chase him and lop off a body part?" Joe asked her then.

  "No!" she shouted.

  He frowned at the vehemence of her response. "Holy Thor! I was just jesting."

  Then he seemed to think of something else. "I have set back my healing a pace or two today, have I not?"

  "Or twenty," she commented drolly.

  "I need a beer," Steve said.

  "I need an ale," Joe said.

  "I need to get out of here," Maggie said.

  Boot Scootin' Cowboy was a huge success.

  Maggie had never before been to a nightclub in the daytime. But she was in one now. And she was having the time of her life. So was everyone else.

  And it wasn't just because this particular club was a local country-western hangout, as well as a Galveston tourist attraction. There appeared to be a spirit of freedom and comradeship and normalcy in the patients that Maggie had never seen back at the hospital.

  They had eaten a late lunch first... Tex-Mex all around: mesquite-grilled shrimp fajitas with gua camole salads, and strawberry sopapillas for dessert. Everyone had been permitted one beer each; they'd all declined in deference to Steve, who must avoid even a drop of liquor or fall off the wagon.

  Now most of the group was up on the dance floor, alongside other patrons, learning the beginning steps of a line dance. With Brooks and Dunn belting out "Boot Scootin' Boogie," everyone was laughing and smiling, even as they tripped over their own feet. The dance instructors, a cute young blonde in a cowgirl outfit similar to Natalie's and a lean young man in jeans, a cowboy shirt, and boots, repeated the instructions over and over... such things as heel bounce, stomp, shuffle, camel walk, knee roll, vine fight and left, pivot, and lots of scoots and touches. The "touch" call meant a smart slap on the buttocks.

  Joe was sitting across the table from her, shaking his head from side to side at the group's antics, as he sipped at a soda. He was the only one who'd refused to participate in the dancing. Maggie had chosen to sit it out with him.

  He repeated now what he'd said then: "Why would a grown man willingly make such a fool of himself?."

  "It's fun," she declared. "Sometimes people do things just for the fun of it."

  "Idiots, mayhap."

  "Come on now, haven't you ever enjoyed an activity that involved laughing at yourself?"

  "Nay," he answered. "Have you?"

  "Of course. Rollerblading, which resulted in many black-and-blue marks on my rump.... "

  He craned his neck to the side, as if half expecting her to drop her jeans and show him. When she gave him a sharp "As if!" look, he just grinned and took another sip of soda.

  "And roller coasters, which terrify me, but I ride them anyway."

  "Roller coasters?"

  She explained briefly, then noted, "One of my daughters, Suzy, is a real T-type personality. She must have inherited it from her father, because I sure don't have a daredevil bone in my body. Remember, I told you that T-types like to take risks. They revel in being scared to death. My other daughter, Beth, isn't afraid of roller coasters, but she doesn't get the thrill of the thrill, like Suzy does."

  She noticed a slight flicker of emotion on Joe's face at the mention of her girls, but he soon masked it. "And you think I enjoy being frightened?"

  "Well, weren't you frightened riding on top of that killer whale?"

  "Extremely," he agreed, "but I did not engage in that activity by choice. In fact, most times I take no unwarranted risks. A good leader never gambles with his troop's lives."

  She nodded.

  Then he homed in on something else she'd said. "You mentioned your daughter's father being a risk taker."

  It was Maggie's turn to bristle now. She shouldn't be discussing her personal life with a patient. But the atmosphere was so relaxed here, and she didn't want to spoil the mood by making Joe feel he'd crossed some fine.

  "Judd Haskell was a surgical resident at Houston General Hospital. He had only one year to go before he would have been a full-fledged doctor."

  "Another dock-whore!"

  "Joe, you do know that a doctor is a physician, don't you?"

  "A healer?" he asked. His face bloomed a lovely shade of red. "I knew that."

  She narrowed her eyes in disbelief.

  "Well, I didn't know at first, but later I learned about dock-whores being healers on The Guiding Light. Betimes I forget, though. 'Tis such an odd name to give a healer."

  Sometimes it saddened Maggie to hear Joe use such archaic language and misunderstand so much about the language and culture of America. He seemed so normal that she could almost believe he was as sane as she was. "Back to your question about Judd. He died taking a foolish risk... foolish in my opinion, anyway. He was skydiving, and his parachute malfunctioned."

  "Skydiving?"

  "Jumping out of an airplane."

  Joe gasped. She had already explained to him before what an airplane was when he'd commented on the large objects seen occasionally in the sky over Rainbow.

  "Why would anyone willingly jump out of an air machine?"

  "My point, precisely."

  "And you think I am insane!" he exclaimed with a shake of his head.

  Just then the rest of the group came back to the table, all laughing and talking at once. Harry had paused before a mirrored beer sign to adjust his hair drape, which must have gotten mussed during his energetic activity.

  Even Steve had joined the dance lessons, much to Maggie's delight. There were so many good things that had happened today, and she considered Steve's progress the best. His willingness to step up to the Vietnam wall was well worth the field trip. He plopped down into the chair next to Joe, signaled the waiter for a cold Coke, then drawled at Joe, "Coward."

  "If 'tis cowardly to avoid making a fool of myself, then I admit to being such. I never suspected you could wiggle your arse in quite such an attractive manner."

  "Like my butt, do ya?"

  Before Joe could answer with the smart retort she knew was coming, one of the band members announced over the loudspeakers, "We're about to begin the weekly amateur talent contest. Remember, folks, all the winners of these weekly competitions get to come back to Boot Scootin' Cowboy on New Year's Eve for the grand finale. It'll be televised on the local cable network. The top winner gets to make a demo with a major record company."

  Everyone clapped.

  Maggie glanced down at her watch. It was five o'clock. They should be heading back to the hospital about now. Maggie looked at Harry; they both looked at the rapt faces of everyone in their group, including the two attendants, but most especially at Natalie, who was adjusting wonderfully to the nightclub. She and Harry both shrugged, agreeing silently to wait a little while longer.

  Joe stood.

  She and Harry were immediately alert.

  "I'm just going to the privy," he informed them with a clucking sound of disgust. "If I'd wanted to escape, I would have done it at Orcaland, or at the wall."

  They both relaxed and turned their attention back to the entertainment. Even so, Maggie was uneasy till he returned a short time later.

  First a sister act did a clogging routine to the tune of a fast-paced Charlie Daniels song about the devil coming down to Georgia, They were really good.

  Then five boys under the age of twelve, the next Osmond Brothers, she presumed—did a rip roaring medley of country-western hits, like "God Bless Texas," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Stand By Your Man," and "Friends in Low Places."
>
  A college sorority had ten of its sisters do an extremely provocative line-dance routine to the old Rod Stewart song, "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" By the sound of the thunderous applause, the crowd thought they were.

  There were some duds in the bunch, too. A too loud guitarist from Abilene. A shy piano vocalist whose voice could barely be heard over the sound of her music. A young male comedian who must fancy himself the Andrew Dice Clay of Opryland.

  Just before the end of the program, the lead singer of the band took the microphone and announced, "We have one last-minute entry... a little songbird from right here in Galveston whose dream is to become the next Patsy Cline. Hey, a whole lot of women down in Nashville have been tryin' to take her place over the years, but who knows, maybe this will be the one. Let's give a big Texas welcome to our hometown gal... Miss Natalie Blue."

  The nightclub burst into applause, but there was an ominous silence at their large table. Natalie was stunned, her face going as white as her cowgirl outfit, and her fingers, which had been encircling a glass, beginning to shake visibly.

  "How did this happen? Who signed her up?" Maggie demanded.

  As one, everyone's heads turned toward Joe, who was beaming as if he'd just pulled off a big coup. Apparently his trip to the "privy" had involved a detour.

  "Wh-what?" he asked, when he realized no one was tossing congratulations his way.

  The applause was tapering off, and the band leader was saying, "Hey, Natalie, where are you? Time's awastin'."

  "Isn't this what you always wanted, Not-a-lie?" Joe asked.

  "It's not the right time," Natalie whimpered.

  "Pfff! If you're waiting till the right time, you might never get your chance. In my land, there is a saying: 'Gold given by a beggar is no less lustrous than gold given by a king.' "

  "Joe, that has no relevance to this case," Maggie chided. The big hunk had gone too far this time. "You had no right—"

  "I told you, your storytelling skills stink," Steve added.

  "Natalie, you don't have to go there if you don't want to," Harry advised her soothingly. "I'll go up and make your apologies. We can just slip out quietly."