Free Light Before Day by Christopher Rice Page B

to share it with women like Lucy, women who saw him for the jackass he was and forgave him for it.
    "Or maybe it was your special friend?" Mike whispered.
    "Your breath's gonna make me throw up," Lucy said.
    Her sharp tone brought a flash of pain to his eyes. "Hey. Look, Luce. I know I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about your—"
    He saw her glaring at him and stopped talking. For a second Lucy thought he might not mention the story she had told him a few days earlier, after he had plied her with Strawberry Boone's and lured her into his F-150 for a drive out 198 West. The sex itself had been fine. Lucy wished she had been able to keep her mouth shut once it was over with.
    Instead she had told Mike a story she had promised never to tell anyone, a story her father had repeated to her through a haze of morphine years before. It scared Mike so badly he hadn't said much for the rest of the evening. Now he was going to use it to make fun of her in some way, just so he could get it out of his head.
    "Hey, Joey!" Mike called over one shoulder. "Remember that story I was telling you about?
    Shit! What was his name again, Luce? El Mariachi or something."
    "El Maricon," Joey answered. "It's Spanish for fag."
    "Right," Mike said. "But this ain't no redecoratin', Queer Eye for the Straight Guy kinda fag now, is it, Lucy? This guy is badass, right?" He laughed nervously.
    Lucy glanced up to see Caroline looking at cleaning products, then tried to focus on an US
    Weekly photo of an emaciated former child star who had just been carted off to rehab. Mike returned his attention to his buddy. "He rides around the hills on some hog, blowin' up shit right and left. He wears a black motorcycle helmet so no one knows who he is, right? And according to Lucy here, he carries a machete on his back. You know, like, in a holster, so he can just reach up . . ."
    Mike reached up into the space behind his back, then whipped his hand forward. ". . . and whack your fucking head off like X-Men or something!" His head twitched.
    "I heard of him before, dumbass," Joey said. "The guy's just a fairy tale."
    Joey's comment stabbed Lucy in the gut. The story her father had told her had been far too specific and gruesome to be dismissed so easily.
    "So what do you think, Luce?" Mike asked. "You think your homo hero had anything to do with what happened down in Avenal?"
    "Shut up, Mike," Lucy said.
    Mike turned to see Caroline Hughes standing several feet behind him. She had pulled her lustrous red hair back into a ponytail and her white tank top revealed broad shoulders and biceps that were as big as a woman could make them without looking like a freak. A strange light had come into her eyes and the sight of it was enough to silence Mike Harberson where he stood.
    "I want to know what you're talking about," Caroline Hughes said. Her voice was low and hoarse. Lucy thought it might be a smoker's voice, but the woman's face was taut and unblemished, save for the gold freckles that gave it an almost muddy sheen.
    "I asked you a question," Caroline Hughes said.
    "No, you didn't," Mike answered. "You gave me an order. Bull dykes don't give orders around here. This ain't San Francisco."
    Caroline closed her eyes briefly, gave Mike a brief nod, and turned on one heel. Lucy was about to take a breath when the woman spun and landed Mike with a sucker punch that sent him stumbling backward into a rack of sunglasses.
    Before Lucy or Joey could make a sound, Caroline was on her knees, holding the back of Mike's head against her breasts with a grip so tight it looked like she would pull his stringy hair out by the roots. The knife she held to his throat had a six-inch blade and a five-fingered rubber grip on the handle.
    Tears spit from Mike's slitted eyes. Lucy almost felt sorry for him until she remembered what Caroline Hughes had been through—her mother burned to death just because she had gone to visit one of her students in trouble. Maybe Mike Harberson was finally