It wasn't the screaming that haunted Starsky

The Savior Series

by Rae

Savior

Starsky has trouble getting past a mistake he made.

It wasn't the screams that haunted Starsky, it was the moment that they stopped.

He stood in the dark, silent, shaking. Trying to find somewhere else to send his brain. His body. His guilt and shame. There was nowhere for any of it to go. So he shook.

Somewhere behind him, Hutch waited. "Tell me what I can do," he said.

"Nothing." Starsky waved a hand at him, a keep-away motion he'd never used before. "There's nothing." He wished Hutch would go.

"There's nothing you could have done, Starsk. No way you could have known."

Starsky turned to look at him. "I know enough about that bastard. I should have known what he would do. I could have saved that little boy."

"I should know a lot of things, too, buddy. No one knows everything. No one can think of everything." He took two steps toward Starsky.

"Don't," Starsky said, voice tight. "Don't."

"Don't what?" Hutch said. "Don't tell you what you already know? Don't tell you all the screams I've got in my head?" He took two more steps forward. "Don't touch you? Like this? Like this?"

Hutch's hands on his shoulder, on his face, in his hair . . .

Starsky didn't want that. Didn't need that. He tried to push him away, but it was like trying to push a building over onto its side. Couldn't be done. So he stopped trying. He let his hands drop, let his shoulders drop, let his head fall forward.

"See?" Hutch said. "This is what I can do."

Inside Starsky's head, the screaming stopped.

Travel Plans

Hutch thinks of a way to help.

When Starsky began to feel better, Hutch started dropping brochures on his kitchen table.

"I heartermont?" Starsky said, coffee in hand, toast in mouth.

"'I love Vermont,' moron. I talked to Dobey. We're going next week."

Starsky looked at him, and Hutch tried on a grin he'd been saving for a while. It didn't seem to have much effect. But Starsky said, "Okay," and Hutch had to ask him to say it again, because he was sure he hadn't heard him right.

"I'll go," Starsky said. "Maybe I'll be able to sleep if I'm three thousand miles away . . ." He finished off the toast. "Hey, you didn't tell Dobey I haven't been able to sleep?" Hutch didn't answer, of course. "You did. Why'd you do that? I'm never gonna get off desk duty."

"That's why he's giving us a week off." And then Hutch nearly ruined the whole plan, because his mouth said brightly, and without permission: "They have raccoons in Vermont. Squirrels, too!" Starsky put the mug down on the table. Hutch checked discreetly to see if it had cracked from the blow. "And," he said, reassured, "no nudity laws."

"Huh?" Starsky picked up his mug, checked it for leaks, and finished off its contents. "They ain't allowed to be nude in Vermont? How do you take a shower? And, uh, go to bed?"

"'Go to bed'? What are you, twelve?" He switched to his patient voice, the one Starsky hated. "No, idiot, it means there are no laws against nudity. You can be nude in public there."

"That's how you're selling this? I can be nude in public?"

Hutch nodded. "And in bed."

"Okay. I said okay. But I don't gotta be nude, right? You're just saying I can be, right?"

Hutch nodded again, trying to look very earnest. "Me, too, you know. I can be nude, too."

"Sold!"

And Hutch thought maybe Starsky was going to get rid of his nightmare and come out in one piece after all.

I-91

Road Trip!

As soon as they crossed into Vermont, Starsky started looking for naked people. He didn't want to confess his disappointment when none seemed to be immediately around, so instead he complained about the car.

"Four wheel drive," he said. "She told us to rent a car with four wheel drive. That can't be good."

"Well, at least it's red," Hutch said, without any trace of disparagement.

"This isn't red. This is Jeep Comanche Orange. And greenish orange at that." He looked away from the road. "Maybe we need to get you a color blind test." They probably had eye doctors in Vermont.

"Just watch where you're going, will you?" Hutch grabbed hold of the arm rest.

Starsky knew he was driving perfectly well. Hell, it was a straight road, zero traffic, middle of the afternoon, cloudless summer sky. Hutch just wanted to keep him on edge. So he swerved and yelled "MOOSE!" just to play along.

"I think it was a leaf, Starsk." Hutch grunted and moved around in the seat.

"So tell me about this place again? What are we going to do all week? Probably there's a movie theater, everywhere's got a movie theater." He hoped. "Maybe they have HBO in the cabin. We can probably try a different restaurant every night. Or diners. Maybe there's a diner for breakfasts."

"Uh, well, the woman who owns the place makes breakfast every morning. She gets the eggs right out from under her own chickens." He looked through his packet of sightseeing brochures. "Oh, here you go. The Dam Diner." Starsky raised an eyebrow, so Hutch spelled it for him and read the description. "It's near a dam. And a fish ladder."

Starsky saw the glance he gave him, so he made sure to grin appreciatively, though the thought of an egg still warm from the hen seemed vaguely obscene. He didn't ask what a fish ladder was, though. Playing dumb was one thing. Being dumb was another.

He saw Exit 1 slip past, and moved right, ready for Exit 2. Hutch picked up the paper with the directions. Almost there after a long day. Even the movie on the plane had been boring—he didn't even remember what it was. At least he hadn't thought about the kid for a good, well, thirteen minutes. And this car . . . if you could call it that. He was afraid to find out why the cabin's owner had insisted on four wheel drive.

He had a bad feeling Hutch was afraid to tell him.

MOOSE!

Yes, it's a moose.

"You gotta be kidding me," Starsky said as they turned onto the last bit of road.

Even Hutch, who'd been warned, hadn't expected it to be this bad. "It does look more like a dry river bed than a road," he said. "At least it's a four wheel drive, and not the Torino."

"True," Starsky said. He gripped the wheel hard and navigated over an outcropping. "Actually, it's kinda fun even if we're only going ten miles an hour." And then he flung out an arm in front of Hutch's chest, hit the brakes hard, and yelled, "MOOSE!"

Hutch, disgusted, said, "You already played that one. Too jet-lagged to think of a new game?" But then he realized Starsky wasn't joking, and looked in the direction he was looking.

"Yep, that's a moose, all right. Nice big brown one. Gorgeous, isn't he?"

"Yeah, gorgeous. What do we do? Go tell it to move, why don't you? Nature boy."

"You tell it to move. You're the one with the . . ."

The moose lifted its head and stared, and Hutch decided that shutting up was his best defense. He couldn't think of anything else.

"Should I beep the horn?" He hovered his right hand over the button.

"No! Don't beep the horn!"

"Should I just keep going? Maybe he'll move." He put his hand back on the gear shift.

"Why do you keep asking me what to do?"

"You got us into this, so you're the one gets us out."

Up the road a woman appeared, waving a towel or something, and making "come on" motions with her hand. The moose looked at her, looked back at the car, and lumbered off into the woods. Hutch was sure he heard it make a rude noise. Starsky put the Jeep in gear.

"Jesus, Hutch. We could have stayed with Ma for the whole week instead of just overnight. Gone to a show, found a nice disco."

"If you hate it that much here, we can go back to New York early and stay with Ma." He figured it would be better to appear to give in than to argue.

He was beginning to have a doubt or two of his own.

Farm Activity
Starsky likes to watch.

From the outside, the cabin looked like nothing much, though the vines all over it gave it a kind of charm. Hutch was probably going to spend the whole week yakking about the flowers. There were other buildings that looked like a main house and an old barn with nameless and numerous items apparently just tossed in. Across the yard was some kind of workshop maybe. And everywhere chickens, geese, and cats.

Ruthie showed them around, unselfconscious in her extra-large cutoffs and tie-dyed T shirt. She kept shoving her hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand, until Starsky had to wonder why she didn't just tie it back. She told them the names of all the chickens, reassured them that the geese, while loud, weren't attack geese, though the moose was not to be trusted. She said they could borrow a cat for the week if they wanted and that the white bunny was a hanger-on—she didn't know where he'd come from.

Starsky, though exhausted, turned on his charm and asked what kind of geese the little ones were.

"Duck kind of geese. Muscovy."

"They look like geese."

Ruthie told him their names, too. He hoped he wasn't expected to remember them all. He hoped borrowing a cat wasn't mandatory.

A big rooster with black and white feathers suddenly ran straight at a chicken, climbed on her back, did his thing, climbed off, and sauntered away. The chicken shook herself and went back to scratching in the grass. Starsky felt a little aroused—and utterly embarassed.

"Farm Activity, we call it," Ruthie said. "You can watch. They don't mind."

Sophia was in the cabin when Ruthie ushered them in. Inside it was beautiful, light pine walls, hardwood floors, and bay windows. An amazing view of the front lawn, an apple tree, and beyond, thick woods. Above the treeline was a mountain range under a blue and white sky. Not bad, not bad at all. He forgot about the moose. But then he thought about the kid, and felt guilty for deciding to enjoy himself, even for a moment. He tried to shake it off, because Hutch would know. He always knew. It wasn't fair to him, not after all he'd done to make this work.

"Oh," Sophie said, and gave Ruthie some kind of glance that Starsky couldn't read. "Ruthie, you said two guests. I thought they were a couple. I'll just make up the other bed." She found some sheets and blankets high up in a closet.

Starsky carefully didn't look at Hutch, and was surprised and amused when he realized Ruthie had noticed, and had read his non-look just fine. He grinned at her.

She went to Sophia and took her hand. "I think it's okay," she half-whispered. She looked at Hutch. "Right?"

"It's fine," Hutch said, poker-faced. And then he grinned, too.

"You guys get settled and come up to the house later. We'll give you a snack and tell you where all the big exciting destinations are around here."

She and Sophia went through a small gate and across the yard and into the big house, heads together, arm in arm.

Hutch put down the packet of maps and folders. Starsky put down his suitcase.

"How about some Farm Activity?" he said.

Hutch laughed.

Wake Up Call

7 a.m.?

That first night, Starsky slept straight through, which Hutch knew because he hadn't himself. He kept wanting to make sure Starsky wasn't dreaming, wasn't lying awake wide-eyed, wasn't wandering around hitting one hand with the other fist. He kept listening to the quiet, waiting for gunshots, for tires squealing on hot pavement, for children's cut-short cries.

All he heard was crickets and some kind of night bird, and Starsky's slow breaths. And the occasional little snort and whuff that made him smile in the absolute dark.

Around four he heard a rooster call, then another, and then it was silent again until nearly seven, when Ruthie must have opened the barn, because suddenly it was like some kind of madhouse: geese shrieking, hens hollering, and Ruthie yelling something about wild critters who didn't belong in barns. Starsky rolled over and blinked at him.

"What the hell is all that?" he said, and rubbed his eyes.

"I think it's breakfast."

"We gotta have breakfast in the middle of the night? All week?"

"No. Go back to sleep. She said whenever we get up she'll make us breakfast."

Starsky got up anyway and padded off—nude—to the bathroom.

Hutch groaned. Starsky was now wide awake and ready to go do something, and here he was exhausted and still jet-lagged. Starsky wouldn't know he hadn't slept—he'd be expecting to go hit the diner or go down to the river. All Hutch wanted was . . .

"You didn't sleep, did you?" Starsky said above him.

He decided not to pretend otherwise. "Nope."

"Sleep now, then." He touched Hutch's hair, and then tried to make him close his eyes.

"Stop poking me in the eye."

"Okay. Where do you want me to poke you instead?" He leaned in close, like he was going to start making suggestions, but all he said was, "Later, that is. Something for you to dream about."

He put on his shorts and a blue shirt Hutch didn't recognize, and disappeared out the front door. Hutch rolled over and slept.

When he woke up, it was raining.

It's Raining

It rains a lot

After breakfast, Starsky took the paper back to the cabin. The Brattleboro Reformer wasn't even a tenth the size of the Bay City Times. There was no sign of Hutch so he settled into a blue-painted wicker chair, put his feet up on a handy footstool, put his third coffee on a side table, and read about all the things there were to do.

They could attend a casting call at the Neighborhood Theatre, and try out for either Prospero or Ernest.

They could go to Gallery Walk on Friday night and see all the artists' studios and have cookies and wine.

They could visit the petting farm at the Brattleboro Retreat. What was the Retreat? Some kind of health spa? He read on and found an article on page four about a psychiatric patient who'd escaped from the Retreat and had tried to jump off a bridge into the Connecticut River. No petting farm, then. He wouldn't even mention it to Hutch. They were living on a petting farm anyway.

Here was something, though, a riverboat cruise on the river. Hopefully not under any bridges. Snacks served. That sounded promising.

Tours of the county courthouse in Newfane. Nope. No courthouses. Not a chance.

And that seemed to be about it unless Hutch wanted to go buy some antiques or see a glassblowing factory or a very deep gorge or a food co-op.

He looked at the classifieds. They could retire from Metro and instead get jobs as pickers, whatever pickers were, at some big food distributor warehouse, and make twice their current salaries. They could buy AKC registered dalmation puppies, or an ice fishing hut, or a dining room set with one missing chair. Alyssa Sand was to marry Anthony Beach next June. That made him grin.

He set that page aside to show Hutch.

It began to rain.

He set the paper aside and put his head back on the wicker. The cabin had a metal roof, and the rain on it seemed magnified and more intense. He caught a sudden whiff of something flowery and sweet, and took a deep breath. Here there were no sounds of gunshots, no squealing tires. The only children's voices he could hear way down on the next lane sounded happy and safe. Hutch had really pulled off a good one this time. If he would wake up, Starsky could show him how grateful he was . . .

Absolution

Starsky find it in an unusual way.

Around 9.30 that night they pulled off the bumpy road into the driveway, Hutch thinking he shouldn't have eaten so much at Rick's Tavern. A rainy day, a little sightseeing, a lot of "farm activity," and too much to eat. He was ready to sleep again, and the rain on the roof would add the right ambience.

"We should have gotten another order of onion rings to go," Starsky said, and belched, and laughed.

"You didn't mind missing the movie?"

"Nope. We'll go see it when we get back home." He went quiet for a moment while Hutch maneuvered the Jeep into the driveway. "Was kind of wishing we could stay longer. Not go home."

Hutch turned off the ignition, wanting to say something about maybe putting in applications at the Brattleboro PD or the sheriff's department, and not just joking either. He was going to say something about maybe getting a year's lease on their cabin, and maybe a few critters of their own. Something about not caring about no TV and no movies within fifteen miles and no yellow air and no traffic lights and no murders and no screaming children. Something about—

"Do you hear that?" Starsky shoved his door open and got out fast.

There was some kind of commotion in the barn: awful moaning sounds, flapping and squawking, and a teeth-on-edge shriek that sounded as ungodly as anything Hutch had ever heard.

Starsky ran for the barn, yelling, "Go get Ruthie!"

Hutch wanted to shout wait for backup! but Starsky was already shouting himself, shouting and swearing and he wouldn't have listened anyway. Hutch veered left to the main house and up the steps, heart pounding as fast as if he were in some Bay City alley, calling out to Ruthie and Sophia to come out quick, but they were already at the screen door, already running. He turned to let them go past and followed, tripping over the flat stone at the bottom of the stairs.

Ruthie had a rifle.

Jesus Christ.

"Ruthie! Starsky's in there!"

Sophia stopped short and turned back to him, waving her hand. "It's not loaded." She was breathing hard, though it was only a few feet that she'd run. "Don't tell her I told you."

Hutch's heart slowed down a little, but picked right back up when he realized Starsky was now hollering wordlessly, and banging something around. Maybe whatever was in the barn was just as dangerous as any human with a gun. Maybe it had sharper teeth than any knife they'd dodged, and a stronger survival instinct than any drug-hyped crazy clawing his way up a chain link fence at the end of some filthy alley.

Sophia had the flashlight, and pointed it toward where Starsky was. He'd found a pitchfork or rake and had wedged the handle of it behind something raccoon-sized. It was big and dark—and upside down at the top of the window of the hen house. It had somehow wedged itself between some chicken wire and the window itself, less than a foot above where the lower window had been removed. Inside, inches away, the chickens were making horrible bellowing sounds, the geese and ducks were swearing louder than Starsky, and the roosters were sending out an alarm that even Hutch, with his lack of education in chicken language, was able to understand easily.

Sophia's up-pointed flashlight made the raccoon look huge and terrible, but at the same time young and almost vulnerable. It must have been terrified. Its teeth were less than a foot away from Starsky's upraised arms, and what if it had rabies . . .

"Fucking asshole," Ruthie said, but she didn't mean Starsky. She meant the animal that Starsky was holding at bay with his pitchfork. "That's the son of a bitch who murdered Bandy and Victor the other night." She took up a stance with her gun. "Look out. I'm going to kill him." She glared at Starsky. "Don't let him fall inside the coop."

Starsky obviously had nothing to say to that, and threw a wild helpless glance at Hutch. Hutch couldn't think of a suitable don't-worry signal so he just shrugged, and, taking a couple of steps forward, put his hand on the rifle. Ruthie let him take it, and to his horror, suddenly began to cry.

"I hate him," she said. "But it's not his fault. It's just what he does."

Still crying and muttering, she started to rummage around in the dark corners of the barn and found a stepstool. Starsky, still at his post, stared at her. He'd begun to look a little desperate. Hutch didn't want to think what they'd do if the raccoon fell into to the henhouse before Ruthie could figure out a way to get him out of his self-made trap. She climbed up her wobbly ladder and yanked hard at some boards.

"I just put these up the other night," she said. "I thought it was enough. It's never enough. No matter what I do, the foxes, the raccoons, they always find a way to take them. One after another. These are my friends. I'm responsible for them. I keep failing them. Over and over."

Sophia looked uncomfortable. "I'm so sorry," she said to Hutch. "Luckily we didn't have any guests in the cabin the other night." She moved the flashlight so Ruthie could see better. "The other night he got in and we came out too late to save two of them. Ruthie's been a wreck ever since."

They talked quietly and watched while Ruthie pulled down her boards and Starsky held the raccoon in its precarious position. It just hung there, upside down, quiet, and Hutch could swear it was avoiding eye contact with all of them. As soon as Ruthie gave it enough room to turn, it hauled itself upright and out, a few pokes from Starsky's pitchfork helping it along in the right direction. It climbed up into the rafters and stayed there, watching, glaring.

"Oh," Ruthie said to it, "did we hurt you? Sorry." She gave kind of a short almost-laugh that held no humor. "Get the fuck out of my barn before I go put bullets in my rifle."

Starsky was breathing like he'd run a marathon without warming up first. He dropped his arms and looked at Hutch.

"I know how you feel," he said to Ruthie. He put down his pitchfork and started hunting around. He found some dusty boards leaning against a wall. "Got a hammer? I'll help you board the window back up."

Ruthie scrubbed at her face with both hands. Sophia moved toward her but she held up a hand and said, "Don't," and Sophia stopped short. All she did was stand there for a minute, until Ruthie nodded finally. "I'm okay." She looked at Starsky. "Thanks. You saved a lot of lives tonight. So thanks."

Starsky looked at Hutch again, and took a short breath. "Maybe it's better to think about the ones we save, and not about the ones we don't."

Ruthie nodded. "I'll go get the hammer," she said, and disappeared into the dark.

Sophia said, "When you're done, we'll go in and have a couple of beers."

Starsky managed half a smile. Hutch began to breathe normally, and felt his adrenalin start to ebb.

"Hey," Sophia said. "You guys ever play Monopoly?"

Victor (with little Frosty) Bandy

(photos (c)Ruth Rayfield. 1981)

Huggy . . . Bear

He'd lost bad at Monopoly, but in the morning Starsky found he was feeling a lot better. He wanted to get some pictures of the farm before the weather went crazy again. He'd almost forgotten about monster summer thunderstorms. And humidity.'

The sky was clear to the east over the mountain, but if he pointed the camera west, he had to stop up a little and change to a slower shutter speed.

"I keep thinking that chicken looks familiar," Starsky said, focusing his 2X.

"They all look the same to me." Hutch pointed. "That one, though . . . that looks like Huggy."

"That's the one I was talking about. That is who it reminds me of." He lifted the camera. "Go stand next to her."

"I think it's a he, Starsk."

"Whatever. Go make it smile or something. Say 'cheese'."

"Cheese is cows, Starsk."

"Bear!" Starsky lowered the camera and started to back up slowly.

"I said I agree. It does look like Huggy."

Huggy might call himself a bear, but he didn't really look like one. Not like that one, anyway. It was a pretty small bear, for a bear, and while Starsky might not have country smarts, he knew when to retreat. He could hold off a trapped and frightened raccoon, but a bear? And where was its mama?

He could move fast most of the time, but he was pretty sure he beat some record in his flight from the middle of the meadow to behind the fence surrounding their cabin. He did watch over the gate, though, casually snapping a few pictures, in case the mama showed up before Hutch could get to safety. Only later did he wonder what he thought he could have done about it if she had.

He felt bad, of course, when Hutch finally made his way to safety, hair on end, mouth grim.

"When the coast is clear," Starsky said by way of a peace offering, "we can go up that trail and check out the view Sophia told me about."

"You're on your own, pal. Moose is one thing. Bears is another." Hutch flopped into an oversized chair on the porch and tried to hide his hands. Starsky was pretty sure he could see them shaking a little.

So much for Nature Boy. Starsky decided on the spot to retire the epithet. He moved in close and made a show of fussing over Hutch. He even tried to smooth his hair down, until he got his hand whacked and got sworn at.

"I'll go myself then. You can send out a search party."

"I'd find you, Starsky. I'd just listen for the whimpering from up in the tallest tree."

"Nice," Starsky said. "I always know I can count on you."

Hutch muttered something that sounded like, "Wish I could say the same," but when Starsky said, "What?" Hutch pulled at his belt so that he overbalanced and landed right on top of him in the big soft chair.

"Ooof."

"Exactly," Starsky said.

Huggy . . . Bear

Coming soon:

Postcards

Nude in Vermont

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