Along Came A Soldier

Her soldier who had gone on a mission to buy a car, quipped, "Still not enough cars rolling off the assembly lines, but motorcycles are. This one sure is a doozie!"

"It sure is," June replied. "Did you buy it?"

"Yep. We just joined the mobile society."

In a few minutes, her arms wrapped tightly around her husband's waist, they barreled around the courthouse square. This was their introduction to the new two cylinder Czechoslovakian "Chek" motorcycle. Happily, they were unaware that an incident involving the Chek would soon set the police on their tail.

Before that happened, they found there was an aggravating problem with this vehicle. The gasoline had to be mixed with the oil before being poured into the tank. If even a speck of dirt or lint got into it, the motor would stop. Then Dick would have to clean the carburetor before it would start again. This quirk had been inconvenient, but on their trip to Mansfield to see June's family it went beyond that to something more disturbing.

About ten miles into their trip they stopped in the village of Utica for gasoline and soon, they were again on their way. By now total darkness had descended. This didn't bother them as the headlight on the motorcycle cut a bright swatch through it.

A couple miles north of Utica, the light suddenly dimmed and the motor coughed, sputtered and stopped. "Uh, oh!" Dick muttered as they found themselves sitting on a motionless vehicle. After they hopped off, he pushed it to the side of the road. The flashlight he took from the saddlebags barely provided enough light for him to start the work on the carburetor. He'd no sooner said that he must have gotten some dirt in with the fuel when they saw a car approaching from the south.

"Good!" June exclaimed. "Maybe someone can give us a hand." But what happened next showed her that she had been too optimistic.

First they found themselves surrounded by a bright light and then heard a deep, pugnacious male voice ask, "What are you doing out here with a girl that young this late at night?"

At first they were too blinded by the spotlight to make out the speaker's face. When the light was doused, Dick could see the Utica police emblem on the car door, and two uniformed men in the front seat. Relief in his voice, he explained what had happened and concluded by saying, "If you would flash that spotlight over here, I could have this thing cleaned out in a few minutes, and we could be on our way."

Instead of helping him, they berated him for having June out on a lightly traveled highway this time of night. "Don't you know how dangerous that can be?" the tall, beefy one demanded.

Then his partner, turning to the frightened young woman, snapped, "Does your mother know where you are?"

Too intimidated by the sight of the officer's hand resting casually on his revolver, June's eyes widened as she stammered, "No Sir, not exactly."

This seemed to bring more of their wrath down on Dick's head before the larger of the two men ordered her into the cruiser. Before the door was slammed after her, the driver told Dick, "We're taking her back into town. When you get your little problem fixed you can come to the station." Then with June seated in the back seat, they drove away and left Dick stranded along the dark highway. She felt like a lost child when she looked out the back window and saw the pitiful light cast by his flashlight disappear from her sight.

A few minutes later when the officers made their way into the small town of Utica, the burlier of the two asked, "Young lady, what were you doing out there?"

June's response, "My husband and I were on our way to my mother's house in Mansfield," dropped like a bomb in the darkened interior of the patrol car.

First there was a stunned silence from the front seat, before the questioner stammered, "Your hus... hus... husband! You're married?"

The second man muttered through clinched teeth, "We'll just leave you here at the restaurant where you can have a coke while you wait for him. I'm sure he'll be along soon." While these words rang in June's ears, they pulled to the curb long enough for her to scamper out of the back seat.

As she stood on the sidewalk and looked after them, she felt in her pocket for the nickel it would take for a coke. When her hands came out empty, she turned away from the restaurant and started back to where they'd left her husband. As she walked along the dark deserted street, she thought of the fun she and Dick had been having before the cycle died and then how unexpectedly she had been plucked away from him by the policemen, then unceremoniously dropped like a hot potato on this dark lonely street.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a loud gunshot. Feeling her heart race in pure terror, she ducked into the safety of a store doorway. The sound triggered a memory of a horrible night when she was a little girl and her family had lived in the cave house. As she cringed in the doorway, her mind flashed back to that night and her father's cry of, "Help, Priscilla, I've been shot!" She still had nightmares of the sight of her father stumbling into the kitchen and of the blood seeping through his white shirt and trousers.