"Baby make me feel so good, I just gotta sing." . Green Sun Chapter 19 Cold Drink by Donna Lamb

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"You're all looking at me," said Hollie. She felt self-conscious standing in the shade of the cottonwoods in her skimpy dress with three very male men staring at her. She glanced around as if looking for a place to hide. The big SUV, the cabin and the trees seemed inadequate hiding places but they were surrounded by open desert.

Bruce wiped his face. "Sorry," he said. "It's just...we didn't know you could sing." He took a sip of his beer. The cold drink shocked him a bit, he'd gotten used to drinking barely cool liquids while working the border both during and after his involvement with the Regulators. He took a bigger drink. The day's heat lingered in the air like a threat; not ten o'clock yet and it had reached the high nineties already. He glanced at the two Apaches, they didn't seem bothered by the heat.

Arthur snorted and Mangas chuckled. "It's not just that you sing, Hollie, honey," said Arthur. "You're a lot of fun to look at, you know?" He sucked down some of the ice cold beer, too. There's more than one kind of heat.

"I am?" She looked confused, vulnerable. Arthur blinked. Bruce took a step toward her and she focussed on him. As if pulled by an invisible magnet, she took a small step in his direction.

"How can you sing like that and look so innocent?" Bruce asked. He looked like the question caused him pain.

"I dunno," Hollie said, looking very innocent. Her blue eyes seemed enormous in her guileless face.

"And that song..." Bruce said. "I'd never heard that before. Where did you learn it?"

"I dunno," Hollie said again. "I don't remember where.... I just remember the songs."

"Songs?" said Arthur. "I don't think I'd heard that song before, either." He looked at Mangas.

The old man nodded. "It's an oldie. Do you know any other songs, honey?" he asked Hollie.

"Lots," she said, after staring off into space for a moment. Bruce thought she looked delightfully--well, spacey--while thinking so hard. He took a quick swig of his beer.

Arthur opened his mouth to say something but Mangas told him in Apache, "Don't gather flies, close your mouth. You talk too much, grandson. Listen." Arthur shut his mouth, only someone who knew him very well could have interpreted his expression.

Hollie looked upward into the green canopy of the cottonwoods and the sweet-smelling palo verde. She wrapped the fingers of her left hand around her right index finger, crossed her thumbs and put both hands under her chin. She touched the tip of her tongue against her upper teeth. Then she sang again and while she sang, she danced. She put her palms together and swayed from side to side; she made gestures and took little steps but mostly she danced in place, dancing with her hips. In the same bluesy rhythm she had used before, to almost the same tune, she sang:

One time, I took my baby somethin' cold to drink
One time, I took my baby somethin' cold to drink
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to think

And yesterday, I gave him a bowl of my stew
And yesterday, I gave him a bowl of my stew
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to do

Sunday, my baby and me went to church to pray
Sunday, my baby and me went to church to pray
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to say

Last night, I took him myself and a piece of meat
Last night, I took him myself and a piece of meat
I make him feel so good, he don't know what to eat

You know for my baby, I do most anything
You know for my baby, I do most anything
Baby make me feel so good, I just gotta sing.

Arthur and Bruce finished their beers quickly. Mangas chuckled and sipped his.

Hollie looked pleased.

"Hot day," said Arthur.

Bruce nodded. "I thought you... Nevermind."

"No," said Hollie, looking serious. "That was 'Cold Drink'; 'Nevermind' is a different song." She nodded.

The younger men stared at her some more. Mangas asked her, "Hollie, do you usually sing without any music?"

She blinked. "I dunno?" she said. "I mean, I don't sing...." She trailed off, confused. "I'm not a singer, I mean...." But she didn't remember what she had done before... before the demons found her. She felt scared.

Before he thought about it, Bruce stepped up and put an arm around her. "It's okay, you're safe," he said. She melted against him.

Arthur looked away. "You're some sort of entertainer, Hollie," he said. "No one learns to sing like that without doing it in front of an audience." Of sweaty, horny men, he added silently. He sucked on the empty beer bottle for a moment. "Somebody somewhere is probably looking for you..." He remembered the money. "Oh, shit," he said.

Hollie struggled with her feelings. Bruce's solid reality felt very good. Knowing what the demons had done to her, she wondered why she felt the way she did. I used to be a guy, she told herself. The details remained fuzzy but she knew that her old life had not included being held by men--or singing on a stage, either. But being held felt good, if scary in a different way than her memories of metting the demons. And the idea of performing scared and excited her in another way. She closed her eyes, wondering vaguely if Bruce smelled so good because he was a man or because she was a girl--now.

"What are we going to do about the money?" Arthur asked. He turned to Mangas. "Why am I asking those two?"

Mangas chuckled. "It's fortunate that we own a big hole in the ground full of tiny passages that only a skinny old man can reach."

Arthur grinned at him. "Oh, yeah," he said.

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