Title: Golfing the Old
Chisholm Trail
Copyright 2001
Author: emmastark
Rated: ~R~
Disclaimer: All original TAT characters
belong to Stephen J. Cannell and Universal
Archive: Yes
Warning: War memories, language
Comments: Please
Summary: Response to the A-Slash
Missing Scene Challenge -- Recipe for Bread
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Golfing
the Old Chisholm Trail
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Come along boys and listen to
my tale,
I'll tell you of my troubles
on the old Chisholm trail.
Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea,
Come a ti yi yippee, come a
ti yi yea,
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...and then they pull out the
club... a club, BA,
and they stand over you. You close you’ little
eyes while they’re windin’
up, BA, and then
they swing that club with all
their might...
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BA
floored it (just because he felt like it) and the van shot away from the
high-rise apartment building.
Face
climbed over Murdock and into his seat.
“Well, I hope you’re all happy,” he said. “I’m homeless now.”
Hannibal
took the cigar that Face handed him.
“We’re all homeless, Face.
That’s part of the fun of being fugitives.”
“But I
can forget about it for a few brief, blissful moments when I’m lying between
silk sheets.”
Murdock
took a golf ball out of his pocket and began to draw a face on it. “You could come stay with me, Facey,” he
said.
Hannibal
turned and gave Murdock an assessing gaze.
Murdock
glanced up at Hannibal, then sat the wide-eyed golf ball on the “legs” of his
fingers.
“You
could come too, Colonel!” the golf ball said in a hoarse falsetto, kicking
excitedly. “Sleepovers are fun!”
BA
made an abrupt left turn off of Wilshire, away from the VA, and Hannibal turned
back around.
“MPs,”
BA said.
“Damn.” Hannibal rolled down his window, letting in
the murky LA air. “I guess none of us
are sleeping over at your place tonight, Captain.”
Murdock
frowned. “Aw, Hannibal… Tuesday’s
spaghetti night.” Murdock set the golf
ball on Face’s shoulder.
“Home,
home on the range,” it sang, like a record played fast. “Where the soldiers and NVA play…”
Face
turned to look at Murdock, shoving the golf ball off his shoulder. “Deer and antelope.”
“Try
your place, BA,” Hannibal said.
BA
nodded, and headed back toward Inglewood.
“Me
an’ Faceman are turtles who have lost their shells,” Murdock said to his golf
ball. “Naked and alone, out in the
cold, cruel world. You know what I
mean. It’s the same for your people…”
BA
glared into the rearview mirror. “I
gonna throw yo’ people out the window, foo’, you keep talkin’ to ‘em.” He looked at Face, but Face was staring
steadfastly out the window, looking for MPs.
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BA’s
room was staked out too. It wouldn’t be
for long (the MPs didn’t seem to feel comfortable on 18th Street),
but for the time being, it wasn’t safe for him to go back.
They
ended up staying at Hannibal’s. All of
them.
Murdock
suggested they start a campfire in the front room, sing songs all night and
roast marshmallows, but Hannibal vetoed that idea, and they ended up having
canned chili and saltine crackers and rolling their sleeping bags out by the
heat register instead.
Hannibal
disappeared into his bedroom after dinner.
BA and Face fell asleep to the sound of Murdock humming the theme song
from Bonanza softly to himself.
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When
Face woke up, sometime in the middle of the night, Murdock was curled against
his side. There was a ring of golf
balls around them, a fairy circle with faces drawn on. BA had a circle around him, too.
Face
sighed.
Murdock’s
thinly veiled references to what had happened to the “golf balls” had gotten
more and more detailed as the day wore on.
Riffing on metaphor and memory, variations on themes of torture and the
need to escape. The plight of the golf
balls mirroring their own experiences a decade before.
Face
didn’t want to remember.
He had
been happily not remembering all day.
Easy
enough to be distracted by the destruction that always seemed to follow in
their wake. (Hopefully the real Mr.
Tony would appreciate what had happened to the penthouse suite as an
opportunity to redecorate, as opposed to a full-out disaster.)
It had
been distracting seeing Lin, too. And
nice. Nice seeing him and catching up a
little, but…
He
didn’t want to remember.
He had
come to equate memory with pain, and decided to live without either years
before. Living today, today, today,
now, now, now.
He’d
never looked back. Never, except…
Murdock
cuddled closer into Face’s neck, breathing warmly. “Come along boys and listen to my tale…” he mumbled,
half-singing. “I’ll tell you of my
troubles on the ol’ Chisholm Trail.
Come a ti yi yippee, come a ti yi yea…”
Face
squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel
Murdock’s breath on his ear.
Except
when Murdock needed him to.
Face
could feel Murdock’s eyes on him.
“’Member
me over to the other side, Facey,” Murdock said. “I been stuck in the bad places all day.”
Face
breathed out. Opened his eyes and
stared up at the ceiling. Then pulled
Murdock’s head onto his shoulder.
Richter
had told Murdock that words were like boats that could carry you through the
dark waters of your memories, and Murdock had clutched onto that thought. He’d been putting himself back together for
years. And he was determined, now, to
rescue the rest of them on that same boat.
Haul them, memory by memory, through the darkness and back into the
light.
How
could you turn down somebody who was trying to save you?
“Remember
the bread,” Face said. “Remember?”
“Tell
me it, Face,” Murdock said.
Face
didn’t hear BA slide his sleeping bag closer.
He didn’t see Hannibal step outside his bedroom door at the sound of
their soft voices.
Face’s
eyes traced the lines in the ceiling like a map in the dark. He rubbed his eyes, and saw Vietnam.
“They
made BA work both shifts, because he was the strongest of anybody in the camp,
and they couldn’t stand that we were strong,” Face said wearily. “Do you remember?”
Murdock
nodded against Face’s shoulder.
“They
were making us break ground, but we never knew for what, and it turned out to
be for nothing. Just to break us.”
“Just
to try,” Hannibal said softly, into the darkness.
“Just
to try,” Face said. “But it went wrong,
because at the shift change, they left BA in the field and Lin could get to
him.”
“With
the bread,” Murdock said.
“We
were starving,” Face said. “Hurt and
sick and starving. Me and Hannibal had
dysentery, then, and they kept trying to make you say you were CIA.”
“The
Bell telephone hour,” Murdock murmured.
“Ring, ring.”
Face
could see Murdock as he had been behind his eyelids. Murdock’s arms had been so thin you could close your thumb and
fingers around them. He’d trembled from
the electricity they put through him (wires hooked up to the radio), but he’d
given the VC soldiers hell anyhow.
Talking at them when he couldn’t move and staring them down when he
couldn’t talk.
Murdock
patted Face’s chest gently. “Then what
happened?” he said.
“There
was no place to hide the bread,” Face said.
“All we had to wear were rags.
And they killed you if they found you hording food. But BA hid pieces of bread in his mouth
anyhow, then fed the rest of us like birds at night. Little pieces of bread that tasted bitter, like ginseng.”
He
remembered BA propping Hannibal up against his chest. Hannibal had been delirious with fever. BA had taken bits of bread out from his cheeks and stuffed them
between Hannibal’s lips with his fingers.
When
Face couldn’t lift his head from the ground (dysentery and exhaustion forcing
his body down to the red dirt), BA had fed him, too.
“They
kept us alive,” Face said. “BA and
Lin.”
“We
kep’ each otha’ alive, little brutha,” BA said softly.
Face
felt his throat closing. He patted
Murdock roughly on the shoulder, then untangled himself from him. He turned on his side, toward the wall.
Hannibal
nodded at BA, and BA reached over and grabbed a handful of Murdock’s t-shirt.
“C’mon,
foo’,” he said. “You gotta sleep now.”
Murdock
shook his head and threw an arm possessively over Face’s back.
BA
frowned, but let Murdock go.
“We
stayed strong an’ we escaped,” Murdock said loudly. “We stayed strong. That’s
how the story goes.”
“That’s
how the story goes,” Face murmured. He
was diving down into sleep. Trying to
get beneath the memories and dreams, into the dark, low, quiet place.
“Happily
ever after, the end, Face,” Murdock said.
“Right, Face?”
“Come
a ti yi yea…” Face said. His voice
slurred a little. “Let papa bear tell
the bedtime story t’morrow night, ‘kay Murdock?”
Murdock
nodded.
“Go
sleep now, ‘kay, Murdock?” Face said.
“Can we go to sleep now?”
“Yeah,”
Murdock said. “We’re home on the range,
now.” He pulled his sleeping bag up
over his shoulder and buried his head in his pillow. Pulled Face closer.
“’Night, Face,” he murmured. “G’night, Hannibal and BA.”
Hannibal
said goodnight and BA growled.
Everything
was quiet.
“Say
goodnight, Gracie,” Murdock said softly.
A
small, tinny round voice, somewhere in the darkness, said, “Goodnight, Gracie.”
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The
three men on the floor fell asleep quickly.
It had been a long day. And
remembering takes a lot out of you.
Hannibal
sat in the kitchen in the dark, drinking coffee and keeping watch over the
others. And remembering the taste of
bread.
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~fin~