Free Bravado's House of Blues by John A. Pitts

we got before the fish hit that reef and see what we can salvage for our customers.”
    Marta left them to their work. She looked back from the doorway, at the crew, then at Steve, lying strapped to a loading pallet, still in his EVA suit. They might survive, even become a real crew, Marta thought, but she wished the cost hadn’t been so high.

HOW JACK GOT
HIS SELF a WIFE

    N ow, don’t be thinking you know the littlest rind of Jack’s legend. There’s more to the tale then many a folk realize. I’ll grant ya he’s a handsome fella, but the trouble with Jack is his tendency to high off on some fool adventure. Don’t get me wrong, he’s give as good as he’s got, but sometimes the telling is a lot taller than the deed.
    But I do love him, the scoundrel, since the first time I laid eyes on him. You shoulda seen him rollin’ over the hill that fine spring morning, wrastlin’ a bear for the sheer love of fightin’. I’d been sleeping under a tree when I heard what sounded like somebody swinging a sack full of polecats. You never heard such spitting and crying—and don’t get me started on the cussin’. His momma would have been plum ashamed of the way that boy used the king’s English. By the time he and the bear noticed me standing there under a tree with three loaded sacks at my feet, the sun had swung up over the horizon, flashing the pink and purple of her bloomers across the sky.
    Man and beast ceased their feuding long enough to look me up and down once or twice. Jack, well right away I can see he’s sweet and funny, and a little bit on the lecherous side, by the grin that stole across his face. The bear didn’t take as much notice of me, except for the fact I’d been recently dipped in honey by a giant before I’d made my escape.
    “What’re ya’ll starin’ at,” I asked the two of ’em.
    The bear just let out a low rumble and licked his chops.
    “Who might you be and why in blazes are you standing there drippin’ honey all over my sleepin’ clover?” Jack asked, puffing his chest out and hooking his thumbs in his suspenders.
    “Name’s Molly,” I said with a brief curtsey. “I don’t see no posting, or notices that claim the ground under this oak tree belongs to you, nor mister bear,” but I likely figured the bear had the greater claim.
    “Name’s Jack,” Jack said, striding right up to me and holding his hand out like as to shake my own.
    The bear grumbled again, raising up on his hind legs and showing off every inch of his eight foot length.
    “Big bear,” I said, impressed.
    “Purt near a hundred stones,” Jack said with a smile.
    “So, why are you boys tearing across the greenness of God’s good earth and depriving a tired girl a chance at some decent sleep?” I asked, giving him my best withering stare.
    Jack, he just grinned like a fox in a hen house, all teeth and meanness. “Why, for the fun of it.”
    Typical answer from a man, I reckoned. “And what does the bear get out of it?”
    The bear fell back down on all fours, pawed at the ground a couple times, and sorta roared in my general direction.
    “See,” he says to me.
    I just shook my head. “You want to go acting all a fool, please do it someplace else. Killing giants and witches makes a girl tired. I need a bit of shut-eye.”
    Jack and the bear both fell to the ground laughing. I stood, showing the three bags at my feet, watching the two of them, rolling around in the first flashes of the brand spankin’ new day.
    When they finally were quit of their merriment, Jack stood again, and faced me square. “I can see you’ve got three bags at your feet.” He paced around me to the left. “What’s in ’em?”
    “Why, gold of course,” I said as sassy as I could to cover the lie. “I just told you I killed a giant and a witch, weren’t you listening?”
    I turned slightly, keeping him to my front, but trying to keep an eye out on that ole bear.
    “But how do we know it ain’t just full of laundry you