In his small but immaculate barracks room Marine First Sergeant Jake Weeks took off his uniform for the last time. In his mirror he saw a man who was more at home in a uniform than jeans and a pullover shirt. Tall and lithe with cropped grey hair, blue eyes and leathery tough skin, he looked exactly what he was: a warrior.
Or at least what he was up until today.
He had spent the afternoon in the NCO club laughing and joking with old friends and avoiding the question of what he was going to do now that he was retired. He was, in Marine vernacular, a Lifer. He had joined the Corps at seventeen and he had served thirty years. He had a lot of scars and a lot of medals to testify to his courage.
Yet, now he felt afraid.
"What the hell are you going to do now, Jake?" he asked himself.
He had no family except for his sister. He tried marriage for a while but it hadn't worked. There had been other women along the way but nothing permanent. As one of his former girlfriends had told him, "Jake, you're married to the Corps."
Perhaps she was right. As he took his bags downstairs and started packing up his truck, he felt the same sense of emptiness he'd felt when his divorce was finalized. A few drops of rain started falling as he started his truck. At the same time he heard the low, mournful sound of taps being played. He couldn't see it but he knew somewhere nearby the flag was being reverently lowered by a Marine color guard.
By the time he reached the front gate, the rain was really coming down. A Marine corporal waved him through. His immediate plan was to spend some time with his sister near Atlanta, and outside the gate he turned right following the narrow road to the highway leading south to San Diego. From San Diego, it was about a four day drive to Atlanta. He figured he could make it in less time if he drove hard and ate sandwiches and slept in the truck.
He was barely a couple of miles down the road when his plans changed. His truck was pushing sixty when he caught a glimpse of yellow out of the corner of his eye. His first thought was a deer running from the woods and he was already tapping the brakes and swerving before it registered that it was not animal but human.
He saw long blond hair and a pale terrified face in the reflection of his headlights and then he slid from the pavement onto the gravel edge of the road and somehow, miraculously, kept his truck from landing in the nearby ditch.
The woman jerked his truck door open and scrambled up into the seat beside him. She was shivering from the cold and the fact she had barely enough clothes to cover herself. She wore a black bikini outfit that he recognized as standard costume for some of the girls who worked the clubs in the nearby town.
Her long blond hair was streaked with mud. Mud stained her brief costume. Her face had a bad bruise on one side and there was another bruise on her neck as if someone had gripped her there. Her cheeks were tearstained.
"Please," she said, "please."
It seemed to be all she could say. He got out of his truck and pulled out one of his bags from under his truck tarp. He took out a heavy woolen blanket and a utility uniform shirt and trousers. He told her to wrap the blanket around herself and when she stopped shivering, she could change into dry clothes. She only nodded. Her teeth were chattering.
He stored his bag back underneath the tarp and stood in the rain long enough for her to wrap up in the blanket and change into dry clothes. When he climbed back into the cab, the sodden bikini costume was on the floor of the truck and she sat huddled against the far door, almost swallowed by the blanket and by his old uniform. He thought she looked like somebody's lost kid sister.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" he asked.
She laughed bitterly. "There was a misunderstanding. I thought I was being hired on as a dancer. My boss thought I should do my dancing on my back. He said I was going to be a great asset to him because I looked so young."
"You do look awfully young," Jake said.
"I'm twenty three," she said, "and I'm old enough to know better. The slimy little pervert actually hit me in the face. I told him he was a creep and I ran. I left all my stuff at the club. I don't know where I was running but it started raining and it got dark and I was scared. Then you came along. My white knight." She gave him a fearful glance from across the seat. "You are going to be a white knight, aren't you?"
"I've never been described that way before," Jake said, "but I'm not going to bother you any, if that's what you mean. You're young enough to be a daughter."
He thought he saw a sigh of relief in her face. He didn't blame her. He knew he looked scary sometimes. He had a shrapnel scar above his right eye and another scar across the side of his neck.
"You said you left all your stuff at the club," Jake said.
"Yes. The boss was nice enough to offer me the use of an apartment while I was getting settled. How could I have been so stupid?"
"It happens," Jake said. "Which club?"
"Why?" she asked suspiciously.
"We have to go by and get your stuff," Jake said.
"Oh no," she said. "That wouldn't be a good idea. I mean, you look like you could handle yourself but my boss is a real creep and he's got a creepy guy working for him."
"Just tell me where," Jake said. "And trust your white knight. We'll get it."
She studied his face for a moment and then she nodded and gave him directions. He knew the club. Some of the younger men of his company had frequented it. It was one of those places with loud music and half naked dancing girls. Jake didn't mind seeing naked girls but he preferred clubs with good steaks, good beer and soft jazz.
Jake had to detour to get to the club but the rain slowed to a drizzling mist and there were only a few cars in the parking lot when he pulled into the gravel light. It was a small, squat concrete building advertising cheep beer and wet t-shirt contests. Garish neon lights flickered in the dirty windows.
He pulled around back where there were half a dozen cabins. Jake knew the cabins also doubled as rooms the working prostitutes could take their clients. Jake was surprised the young woman beside him had not quickly caught on to the real purpose of the cabins but she was young and there was a sort of wide eyed innocence about her.
She went into the cabin where she had left her stuff. Jake got out of the truck and put on his heavy field jacket. He leaned against the fender. It didn't take long for her to pack her suitcase but as she was coming out, a couple of men stepped out of the back of the club and started walking in their direction. Jake straightened up.
Jake could see them well enough even if there was still a misty rain. He knew both of them. He heard the young woman gasp as she stepped behind him but he never took his eyes off the approaching men. One was heavyset and going bald. His paunch hung down below a colorful Hawaiian shirt. The other man was bulkier but it wasn't fat. He had thick forearms and a thick neck. He had piggy eyes.
