Don't Cry for Me

by Sharon Sala

  “Oh, damn it, don’t look at me like that,” Quinn said, as he put on his pack and slung the rifle strap over his shoulder. “I’m not gonna leave you. This is your lucky day, buddy, because you’re coming home with me.”

  He picked up the puppy, waiting until he settled in his arms.

  “You okay now?”

  The pup looked up and licked him on the chin.

  Quinn grinned. By the time he got this dog home, they were both going to need a bath and flea powder.

  He started walking, feeling good that the day hadn’t been wasted after all. Rocked by the sway of Quinn’s steps and his own weakened state, the puppy fell asleep in his arms.

  It was nearly an hour later when Quinn reached the Jeep.

  The puppy looked nervous when Quinn laid him in the seat but settled after Quinn got in beside him.

  “I figured out what we’re gonna call you,” Quinn said, as he started the engine. “We’re gonna call you Moses, because I found you wandering in the wilderness. I think it’s a good fit. How about you?”

  The puppy crawled across the seat, then laid his chin on Quinn’s leg, looking up at him with big mournful eyes.

  Quinn grinned, put the Jeep in gear and drove away with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on little Moses’s head.

  * * *

  Mariah had been drawing diagrams all morning of how she might lay out the garden plot, scooting the packets of seeds around on the table and trying to remember how much different vegetables bushed out as they matured.

  Dolly had heard through the Walker grapevine that Mariah wanted to plant a garden, which got her just as excited as Mariah had been. She gathered up some seed packets left over from the garden she’d just planted, packed up some leftover casserole and drove over unannounced.

  She honked the horn as she pulled up to the house, then grinned and waved when Mariah came out.

  “Hi, honey! I brought food. I hope you haven’t had your lunch.”

  “Just in time,” Mariah said, and held the door open for Dolly, who came in with her arms full.

  “I brought leftovers. They just need a little reheating. I’ll put this in the oven,” Dolly said.

  “What is it?” Mariah asked.

  “Just a casserole. A little bit of this, a little of that. Truth be told, it’s what we always did with leftovers. This one has chicken and vegetables with a biscuit topping. You’ll like it.”

  Mariah grinned. “I’m sure I will.”

  Dolly put it in the oven, then waved at the sack she’d put on the end of the counter.

  “That’s for you,” she said.

  “For me?”

  “Yes, look inside. James told me he’s going to make a garden spot for you and fence it in. I’m so excited. I used to help Mama plant a garden up here every year. I know right where the soil is the best. I want to show you, so you’ll know where to tell James to plow, okay?”

  Mariah nodded, then almost squealed when she saw the seeds Dolly had brought. Okra, two kinds of lettuce and some field peas.

  “Quinn can get you some seed potatoes down in Boone’s Gap. Do you know how to cut them up to plant?” Dolly asked.

  Mariah nodded. “Make sure each chunk of potato has at least one eye, but two is better?”

  Dolly beamed. This girl was going to fit in just fine.

  “Come with me, honey. I’ll show you where Papa had the garden when we lived here. The land is rich and loose, no clay, no rocks, and on just enough of a slope that it has good drainage.”

  “That would be great. I’m not sure when James is coming, but I hope it’s soon.”

  “I think he’s coming tomorrow, after he finishes his route.”

  “What route?”

  “The mail route. He’s the mail carrier for Rebel Ridge.”

  “Oh, I think I heard Quinn mention that before.” Mariah thumped her head. “I’m having a difficult time retaining new information. The doctor said it would pass.”

  “Eventually everything does,” Dolly said, and led the way outside.

  Later, after they’d eaten and Dolly had left, Mariah couldn’t quit smiling. She was beginning to feel like she could actually fit into this family and this world.

  * * *

  It was just before sundown when Quinn pulled up to the cabin and parked. The pup immediately stood up in the seat, then jumped onto Quinn’s lap, once more making sure he wasn’t going to be left behind.

  “It’s like this, Moses, after we cross this still-new-to-us bridge that you’re on, you’re gonna have to learn some manners.”

  He gently rubbed the puppy’s frail, bony head and then opened the door. Moses jumped out behind him, then stumbled from weakness.

  “Come on, little guy, I’ll give you a lift up the steps.”

  He picked up Moses and had started toward the cabin when Mariah opened the door. She took one look at the puppy and met them at the top of the steps.

  “Oh, Quinn! Oh, my Lord…what happened to him? He’s so thin. Who does he belong to? Where did you find him?” She turned her attention to the dog. “You poor little baby. Will you let me hold you?”

  Then she held out her arms, and Moses went from Quinn to Mariah like a baby reaching for his mother. Feeling somewhat abandoned, Quinn managed a grin.

  “Well, I thought I found myself a pup up in the high country, but it appears that what I found was your pup. He’s half-starved and as friendly as can be. He also has fleas and bad breath. Can you handle it? Oh, I named him Moses, because he was wandering in the wilderness.”

  Mariah headed back into the cabin baby-talking the pup, leaving Quinn on the porch still talking to himself.

  He watched her walk off with the puppy, loving her more at that moment than he’d ever loved her before, and then followed them both inside.

  A couple of hours later Moses had been fed, bathed and doctored. Quinn cleaned up first, and then sat with the pup while Mariah showered.

  The little dog had curled up at his feet, but with his eye on the door where Mariah had gone. Quinn continued petting and stroking him, telling him what a fine dog he would make when he got some weight on him, all the while knowing that when it came to the pup’s loyalties, he was going to be second best.

  It was the peak of irony that Quinn had brought home the only competition he would ever have with Mariah, but a fact was a fact. Both the males in this house were in love with the same woman.

  That night, when they went to bed in the loft, Mariah slept with one hand on Quinn’s arm and the other hanging off the bed touching the puppy’s back. As she slept, she started to dream, and as usual, the dream quickly turned dark. At first she suffered in silence, but as the dream evolved, so did her fear.

  The first time she moaned, Quinn sat straight up in bed. Moses was already on his feet.

  Mariah flinched, then kicked, like she was trying to run.

  The puppy looked up at Quinn, as if expecting him to fix her. Just as Quinn rolled over to turn on the light, Mariah screamed.

  Moses leaped onto the bed and began to bark.

  Mariah woke abruptly to find the puppy straddling her legs and Quinn’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Oh, my God! What did I miss?”

  “I think we just found the alarm clock you need to yank you out of an episode.”

  “What happened?”

  “Moses barked. You woke up.”

  Mariah sat up and put her arms around the little pup’s neck.

  “Good boy, Moses, good boy.”

  Quinn added to the praise with a soft pat on the head. “You’re my hero, little guy. Way to go.”

  Moses didn’t know what he’d done. All he knew was that the bad stuff he’d sensed was gone and no one was mad. He dropped down onto the bed between their feet.

  Quinn turned off the light, and then slid his arm beneath Mariah’s neck and pulled her close. She rolled over onto her side and threw her arm across his chest, taking comfort in the steady heartbeat beneath her ear,
then closed her eyes.

  Outside, the owl that claimed the roof above them for a perch suddenly hooted.

  The pup’s head came up.

  “It’s okay, buddy, he lives here, too,” Quinn said.

  After that, peace came in increments.

  A quiet sigh without an accompanying sob.

  The soft flutter of the owl’s wings as it took off into the night.

  The clock ticking on the wall downstairs.

  And the little snort from a half-grown pup with a gallant heart.

  Sixteen

  It was what mountain women called the witching hour. The sky was black with clouds, without a star to behold, and the moon was on the wane. The cloud cover was perfect for what Lonnie had come to do.

  He arrived at the mine just after midnight. The chopper pilot killed the lights but kept the rotors turning. Lonnie jumped out, ducking beneath the backwash as he ran.

  Buell was standing inside the mine with a rifle slung over his shoulder. After a month on a job and more money in his pocket than he’d ever had at one time in his life, he should have been happy, but it was just the opposite.

  Guilt lay on his heart like a stone. He was at least twenty pounds lighter than he’d been when they started, and he’d lost that subservient manner he’d once had with his brother-in-law. He hated Lonnie’s guts for being trapped in this mess but lacked the balls to walk out.

  “Is it ready to go?” Lonnie asked.

  “Yes,” Buell said. “I told them you were here. They’re on their way out with the first load.”

  Lonnie looked into the darkness at the far end of the cavern.

  “I don’t see a fucking thing,” he snapped. “I can’t wait all night.”

  Buell just stood there, letting Lonnie rant. Within seconds a faint glow appeared in the darkness, and as it grew brighter, it became apparent there were men behind it. When they got closer, Lonnie could see they were driving forklifts hauling pallets loaded with the bales of street-ready cocaine.

  He smiled. This was the second batch to go out this month, and the money just kept rolling in.

  “Load it up,” he ordered, waving toward the chopper and the pilot standing beside the open bay. Then he turned to Buell. “There’ll be a new load coming in from Mexico in two nights. I’ll be back to make the buy. I’ll need you and two of the others here for backup. Make sure you bring your rifles.”

  Buell glared. “I got tricked into stirrin’ up your cocaine, but I ain’t turnin’ into your bodyguard and windin’ up in some gunfight. You want muscle when you do business, bring it with you. And this is your official notice that I am no longer on twenty-four-hour call. You want a night watchman, hire one.”

  Lonnie flinched. Where was the fear he would have expected? This anger surprised him. He wanted to argue, but not in front of the men.

  “On second thought, a bunch of hillbillies used to shooting squirrels aren’t who I need backing me up on a drug deal. Forget I mentioned it.”

  Buell lifted his head in anger. “Just because you’re wearin’ fancy clothes and a big diamond ring don’t change the fact that you’re just as big a hillbilly as the rest of us. Gertie’s still your mama and Portia’s still your full-blood sister, and all the diamonds and money and fancy cars in the world ain’t gonna change that.”

  Lonnie pushed a finger against Buell’s chest. “You work for me. You do what I say or else.”

  “Or else what?” Buell snapped. “You wanna shoot me? Go ahead. Right now I’d rather be dead than keep doin’ what I’m doin’ for you. But you won’t have a single employee to do your dirty work when it’s over. And for what it’s worth, they wouldn’t let you walk off this mountain alive.”

  Lonnie blinked. He hadn’t seen this coming.

  “Fuck you. Get a little money in your pocket and you get a conscience,” he said.

  “I kill animals. Unlike you, I don’t kill people. But don’t ever threaten me again or I might have to change my mind,” Buell snapped.

  Lonnie took a deep breath, making himself calm down. He didn’t know when it would happen, or how he would do it, but he was going to make his sister a widow. No one threatened his life and lived to tell. It pained him to make her sad, but she would thank him in the long run.

  He pointed at Buell, aiming his finger at him like a gun, then mimed pulling a trigger.

  Buell flipped him off.

  And that was how they parted.

  The night crew loaded the cocaine and went back inside.

  Buell went home, crawled into bed with Portia, then woke her up and fucked her. Something told him he’d better get it while the getting was good, because if he turned his back on Lonnie Farrell again, he would be dead.

  * * *

  Mariah began hearing the chopper before she was really awake. In her mind she and the other soldiers were watching it come into camp with the wounded. Medics were running toward it carrying stretchers, and the rotors were turning the sand into a maelstrom. In the distance, she could hear shelling from the firefight close by.

  She felt something cold against her hand and then sat up with a jerk. Moses was standing beside the bed, waiting to be acknowledged, and Quinn was nowhere in sight. It was then she remembered that he’d been called out just before dark to help search for a child who’d gone missing from a campground.

  “Sweet puppy, how do you always know when to bring me back?” she asked, and ruffled the hair between the growing pup’s ears.

  She started to lie back down when she realized she was still hearing a chopper, and it scared her. Always before, the sounds of war had disappeared when she came to.

  She jumped out of bed, her legs shaking and a knot in her belly as she started down the stairs. The sound kept getting louder and louder, like it was right over the cabin. Her heart was pounding, her hands damp with sweat. This must still be a dream. She only thought she was awake. All she had to do was look out the door and there would be sand as far as the eye could see. That was how she would know it was still a dream. That was when she would wake up.

  She stumbled to the door as the sound began to recede and ran out onto the deck. There was no desert, no sand. Just trees looming in the dark. She looked up. The sky was black. No stars, no moon—and no lights anywhere in the sky from flying aircraft. But she could still hear it. Frightened, she ran around to the other side of the deck, searching the skies for a sign, but there was nothing. She looked out across the meadow, but without a moon it was impossible to see anything specific. The only thing she could make out was the chicken wire fence around the garden to the south of the cabin.

  By now Moses was at her heels, whining with every step she took. He sensed her panic but couldn’t understand it.

  Mariah ran back into the house with the pup beside her, then shut and locked the door.

  “What the hell? What the hell? What’s happening to me?” she moaned, and began to pace.

  Moses barked. She turned and touched the top of his head as he thrust his cold nose against her palm. The pup felt her discord. She wished she would heal as quickly as he had. Where he’d been skin and bones, there was now muscle and thick red fur.

  All these weeks she’d been getting better, getting stronger, learning to deal with the episodes without feeling like such a failure. But this was new. She’d never had a hallucination like this and been awake.

  She ran her hand through her hair, fingering the edges of the scar along her scalp. Was some long-hidden damage just now coming to the fore? Was an aneurysm ballooning, pushing on sensory nerves and waiting to explode, or was she just finally losing her mind?

  Shaking from panic, she crawled up into Quinn’s chair, pulled her knees up against her chest and hid her face. She should have known the devil wasn’t done with her yet. She’d wanted Quinn and this life too much, and this was what she got for wanting. Maybe it wasn’t her fate to be happy.

  * * *

  Quinn was tired and itchy. They’d traipsed all over a good portion of the
park before the little boy had been found, but it was all part of the job. Except for a few bug bites and being scared of the dark, the child was safe and unharmed.

  The sun was just coming up when Quinn drove up to the cabin and parked. He got out, stretching wearily, and couldn’t wait to get a shower and crawl into bed. When he unlocked the front door, Moses met him at the threshold.

  “Hey, buddy,” Quinn said softly, and squatted down to pet the gangly pup.

  Then he saw Mariah curled up in the chair. His first thought was that she must have had a bad episode to be down here instead of up in their bed. He stepped inside and shut the door, then hurried to her side.

  She seemed okay. No skinned places, nothing bloody or swollen, so he didn’t think she’d taken a fall.

  He put a hand on her arm.

  “Mariah? Honey?”

  She jumped. “Huh? What? Oh, Quinn, it’s you. Sorry, you startled me.”

  “I’m sorry, baby, but since you were asleep in the chair, I thought you might have had a bad night. Are you okay?”

  Immediately the dread came back into her heart, but when she saw the fear on his face, she knew she wasn’t going to tell.

  “I had a bad dream, and then Moses and I were awake, so I took him out to pee. When we came back inside I sat down for a bit. I don’t remember falling asleep.”

  “It’s just after six. Why don’t you get back in bed? I’m gonna shower and then crawl into bed myself. I’m beat.”

  “Did you find the little boy?”

  “Yeah. He got out of their tent to go to the bathroom, and then got turned around and couldn’t find his way back. Poor little guy. He was scared, but he’s fine.”

  Mariah got up and started to hug him when he stopped her.

  “Honey, I stink and I itch. Let me go shower, then I promise you a big hug and a kiss.”

  “I’m going to let Moses out. I’ll be up in a minute,” she said.

  Quinn blew her a kiss and then headed for the utility room, stripping as he went, but instead of going back upstairs to clean up, he showered downstairs. When he came out, Mariah was already in bed. Moses was on the floor next to her, curled up on his rug. They were both asleep.