Tony began to rise from the ground, Wesley jumped from his back into the snow, and they froze like plastic soldiers.
“Brrr. Go on, go potty, girls,” Karen yelled from what must have been just forty feet from them. Can she see the Yukon?
After shooting a worried glance at Tony, Wesley’s eyes became transfixed on the dogs, whose name tags clinked at their collars as they moseyed and sniffed a little ways out from the house.
“C’mon, girls, hurry up, do your business! It’s freezing out here. Let’s go!”
Everything appeared as if it was going to be okay until, virtually at the same time, the dogs picked up their scent and started barking.
Taking off like trained security hounds, the collies darted through the snow, as they seemed to fly five feet with each stride. Coming to within a few feet of Wesley and Tony, the dogs ducked, jumped, barked, and growled—baring big white teeth and severely testing Wesley’s bladder.
The knocker from the front door rattled. Karen must have gone inside. Then, floodlights bathed the yard with light.
Wesley looked frantically at the lit-up ground then at himself. He and Tony were still in the dark, where they stood frozen, pressed against the house.
The door burst open again, and footsteps could be heard up on the porch.
This is it… Uncle Everett and I are finally gonna have our showdown.
Karen leaned out around the corner of the house and peered down into the yard.
In the white of the floodlights near the side of the house, the dogs barked and growled at something in the shadow. It was probably just a rabbit or stray cat the girls had cornered.
To be on the safe side, Karen hurried back into the house, glancing behind her as she did, and bolt-locked the door once inside.
“Ev…Everett.”
Her husband was just starting to stand when she got to the doorway of the family room. “The dogs are barking at something right outside there.” She pointed to the window near Eddie.
“I heard ’em.” Everett went to the window and cupped both hands around his eyes to cut the glare as he peered outside.
“It’s probably just some critter.” He turned to Eddie. “You wouldn’t believe the animals we see out here.”
“Would you take a look?”
“Yeah, hon. I’ll go.” Everett squeezed Karen’s arm, smiled at his brother, and moved toward the door. “You guys sit tight.”
“I’ll come, too.” Eddie began to follow.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Everett called as he reached the side porch door. “The last thing you need is to fall on some ice. I’ll be right back. Why don’t you guys make us some cocoa or decaf or something.”
“Sounds good.” Karen thanked God she was preparing coffee for Eddie rather than helping plan his funeral. She tried to rest in the moment, doing her best to mask the mounting frustration of having to postpone her discussion with Everett.
“Eddie, have a seat in the kitchen. I’m going to make sure you have everything you need for bed. I’ll be right back.”
Eddie limped slightly as he made his way to the kitchen.
Karen focused on putting one foot in front of the other on her way to the guest bedroom. “Just keep going. You’ll get through this,” she mumbled. “Get your eyes off yourself.”
She smoothed the bedspread and puffed up the pillows on the guest bed, reminding herself that God’s timing had brought Eddie to Twin Streams that night. Turning out the lamp and going to the window, Karen peered outside and gradually took in the dreamlike scene that unfolded before her.
The dogs were no longer beneath the window, but something dark stained the snow. And something shone in the distance. Bright red taillights—in the yard.
No. Not right. That shouldn’t be there…
Blood in the snow!
The dogs had cornered people. But who? DeathStroke freaks?
Frantic yelping sounded in the distance, by the road. Rosey…Millie!
Now, headlights swerving.
In the yard!
Smashing through the manger scene. Spinning…taillights.
“Oh my…nooooo!” Karen screamed. “Everett!”
Eddie was by her side in an instant as she fought with the heavy porch door, yanking it open into the frigid night.
“Everett!” She dashed down the steps, into the snow.
“Here,” he yelled to the backdrop of a car engine roaring into the night. “It’s okay. I’m okay, honey. We need to get Millie to a vet. Don’t come out here, babe.”
Karen’s heart came up to her throat with a squeal as she ran toward his voice, through air that became saturated with the smell of gasoline.
Rosey trotted, puffed, and limped into the light to meet Karen, who began to spring toward Everett when her eyes finally spotted him in the indigo night, cradling a heavy, lifeless Millie in his lap.
“Ahh!” Karen fell to the ground next to Everett and the collie. “What’s wrong?”
The air vacuumed out of her when she saw the thick, shiny band of blood covering the dog’s head, ears, and neck. “What happened?” Karen moaned. “Did that car hit her?”
“She’s been cut—bad.” Everett hoisted Millie up into his arms as he got to his knees, but her head dangled there, odd and grotesque. “She’s alive, but we need to get her help—fast.”
Everett balanced on one knee then grunted as he stood, lifting Millie.
Karen took in the surreal scene as Eddie put an arm around her shoulder. The spotlight that illuminated the manger scene was gone. Pieces of the wood figures lay in splinters on the snow and half-buried in the muddy tire tracks that circled the yard and trailed off in the distance toward Old Peninsula Road.
Everett trotted toward the garage with Millie in his arms. “Karen! Get the keys to the Honda, and some rags. Do you know a vet open this time of night?”
She made a beeline for the porch. “Animal emergency in Chappaqua! I’ll drive.”
“I’ll go with you.” Eddie followed as fast as he could into the kitchen.
“Eddie, no.” She searched for her keys. “You’re hurt. You need to rest.
“I can probably—”
“Please. We’ll be fine.” She finally retrieved the keys from a black leather purse in the pantry and looked around the room, asking herself what else she needed to do or take. “I’d feel better if you stayed here anyway. Just make sure Rosey’s okay.”
“Isn’t there anything else I can do?” He met her at the door to the garage and held it for her.
Karen hit the lighted green button to open the garage.
“I feel bad just sitting around here,” Eddie said.
Everett yelled for Karen to hurry.
“Eddie,” she locked eyes with him one last time, “if the higher power you mentioned earlier is God, you can pray for Millie.” She raced down the steps. “And get the door for Everett!”
Eddie made his way down into the garage and opened the back door for his brother while Karen got in to drive. With his chest and hands covered in Millie’s blood, Everett ducked into the backseat holding their beloved collie. “Let’s roll!”
Karen fired up the white Honda and zoomed back out of the garage. Get us there in time, Jesus. Please…
Cutting the wheel, she took one last glimpse at Eddie, who looked so helpless yet whose life seemed so dangerous. She stepped on the gas and whirled the car down the driveway, pleading with God to forgive her for the judgment she’d allowed to fester in her heart toward the dark brother who’d found his way to Twin Streams that night.
8
A RIBBON OF ORANGE sunlight brushed across the gray canvas of the eastern horizon the morning after Millie died. It was cold and brittle, and Everett prayed for Karen as he watched her tiny silhouette far out on the ridge. Arms crossed, head down, she kicked up one slow step after another. It seemed to him she was trying to reach the warmth of the sun, maybe to disappear into that painting.
Everett stood in the frozen yard amid wha
t remained of the broken pieces of the wooden manger scene and Millie’s splattered blood. As he searched for Millie’s missing dog tag amid the debris, Everett noticed Eddie staring out the guest room window.
The Bedford police had come and gone fifteen minutes earlier, filing a report about the white Yukon and promising to patrol the area more frequently. It wasn’t until Everett looked more closely at the manger remnants that he made a peculiar discovery. One figure was missing completely: the baby Jesus.
After scanning the property, the police pointed out to Everett and Eddie that footprints were in the snow adjacent to the house, beneath several windows. Two people who’d been wearing boots.
Looking out at Karen, Everett’s spirit became as gray as the morning. A depression he used to know so well fought to resurrect itself. Once again, guilt climbed onto his shoulders and camped there. Millie’s death, his brother’s troubles, strangers meddling in their lives—it all brought Karen grief. A grief she’d seldom known before she hooked up with the black sheep rocker.
Everett’s bloodline, his past, was nothing but sin and darkness. Sometimes he couldn’t shake the lie that God was punishing him for his rebellious years. He knew it wasn’t true, but in his weaker moments, he entertained such thoughts.
“Sorry about all this.” Eddie sauntered up in the snow wearing sweats and an old winter jacket of Everett’s.
“It’s not your fault.” Everett had one hand in his coat pocket and the other clutching a mug of lukewarm coffee.
“I hope not. I don’t know why they would have followed me here, after they just beat the tar out of me.”
“Who knows. I’ll go with you today to pay what you owe.”
“Do you know who may have done this?” Eddie asked.
“No. I just feel bad for Karen. I’ve brought so much baggage into her life.”
“She’s a wonderful woman.”
“Way beyond anything I deserve. Every once in a while I feel like if I truly loved her, I would have let her go.”
“That’s crazy, man.”
“I’m serious. Ever since she and I hooked up, there’s been trouble. Her house burning down in Kansas, her kidnapping—”
“But that’s all behind you guys. Zane Bender’s gonna spend the rest of his life in the big house.”
“I’m sure he has friends.”
“His friends would have done worse harm than this.” He kicked a piece of the broken manger scene. “Maybe this was some freaks on a joyride. They had one too many—”
“They sliced Millie’s neck! And why were they looking in our windows?”
“Who knows, man. Maybe they used to be fans.”
These were fans? These barbarians?
Everett walked a few steps toward Karen and stared out at her. “She doesn’t deserve this…nastiness. You and I are used to this kind of stuff, but not her.”
Eddie walked toward his brother. “Why is life so hard, Ev?”
The question surprised Everett like the ring of a hotel wake-up call. Here was a desperate man—his own brother—plumbing the depths of life and eternity itself, and all Everett could do was wallow in his own self-pity.
“I think it’s hard because God wants us to rely on Him.” He examined Eddie’s bandaged face. “He doesn’t care about a lot of the stuff we think is important, like big houses and cars and money. He doesn’t think like we do. What’s important to Him is that we understand how much He loves us. He lost a Son, too, you know? He knows your grief.”
Eddie motioned toward Karen. “Oh, so He causes us trouble and pain to force us onto His team? He kills our sons in car wrecks and makes our kids rebellious? He ruins our marriages and hooks us on gambling? That stinks!”
Everett frowned, shook his head, and forced himself to keep his cool. “Dude, I know where you’re coming from. But listen to me: God didn’t cause that stuff to happen—”
“I know what you’re gonna say,” Eddie interrupted. “He allowed it. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you Christians believe? Everything goes through His fingers first. Why? That’s all I wanna know—why have we suffered so much…loss?”
“Bro, just hear me, okay? I understand your anger and doubts. But I want to ask you something. Could it be those are the wrong questions?”
Eddie stuck an immovable finger into Everett’s chest. “If you don’t ask those questions, then you’re just plain ignorant! Christians talk about this loving God, but they have no explanation whatsoever for all the carnage and heartache in this world.” Eddie turned his back and stomped off.
“Look at me,” Everett said.
When he jerked around, Eddie’s bandaged face was scrunched up in a scowl, his mouth sealed shut.
“Could it be that when calamity happens in this world, in our lives, that maybe God wants us to ask ourselves, are we ready to meet our Maker—the God who holds everything together?”
Eddie huffed away, kicking the snow, reminding Everett of their father’s temper.
“He is a loving God. Look at the patience He had with me. All my addictions and rebellion. All the women I used. All the people I led astray. But He waited for me, dude. He drew me to Himself. And God’s being patient with you, too, Eddie—”
“Oh, I’m loving every minute of it, believe me.”
“But you’re here, aren’t you? You’re alive. I know your world’s been shaken to the core. I know David’s gone. But you’re here with me, today—right now. Are you ready to meet Him—face-to-face?”
Eddie charged back, squaring off with Everett. “Let me ask you a question. Is my son in hell?”
The wind left Everett. “Eddie—”
“You see, brother, if I believe the way you do, I lose, any way you slice it.”
“I feel responsible for David—”
“Nothin’ you can do about it now.”
“I can still help you and Sheila, and Madison and Wesley.”
“Look, Ev, I love you.” Their eyes connected. “But frankly, our family—what’s left of it—has no interest in God, at least not the one you so blindly insist on serving. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends and stay close. I want that. And I appreciate your help last night and with the money I owe. But—”
“He’s also a God of judgment, Eddie.” Everett splashed what was left of his cold coffee onto the snow and stared down at it. “Did you ever think your family might be in the condition it’s in because you’ve made bad choices?”
“Who do you think you are!”
“Just someone who’s found a better way.”
“Yeah. The only way, according to you.”
“It’s true, Eddie. We’re each going somewhere when we die—heaven or hell. I just want you to understand that the only way to heaven—to the Father—is through the Son.”
“Look, I told you I believe in a higher power. Can’t that be good enough for you? Geez.”
“Not if that higher power isn’t Christ.”
“Well it’s not, okay! You’re so narrow-minded, Everett. I’ll serve my god, my way!”
“That is such a cop-out, Eddie. I know, because all my life I was the king of cop-outs. Who are you to make up your own god and your own truth?”
Eddie exhaled heavily. “Thanks for the Sunday school lesson, brother.” He set his face to the wind and headed for the house. “If you need help burying Millie, let me know.”
The ground out on the ridge was almost frozen. Everett and Karen had dug Millie’s grave for thirty minutes, mostly in silence.
“Would you please let me finish this myself?” he asked.
“I need to do it.” Karen continued digging, red-cheeked, runny-nosed, and resolute on finishing the task.
“I can’t find the baby Jesus figure from the manger scene.” He pounced on his shovel with all his weight. “I guess they took it.”
Karen sniffed and continued breaking up the softer dirt that he had already loosened below the hard surface.
After several more minutes of working, Eve
rett rested both hands on his shovel handle and looked back at the house, perhaps a half mile away. It was tiny in the distance, and something he never thought he would share with such a precious partner.
After all, he was a renegade. He’d grown up neglected by his mother and in utter fear of his abusive father. His soul had once been a bastion of bile and transgression, pride and rebellion. Clearly, he did not deserve a woman of grace like Karen, nor was he worthy of God’s forgiveness. Yet he had them—both. And he found himself breathing thanks to God with every fiber of his unworthy being.
Other than the slight whistle of the breeze, it was winter quiet, muffled, as if they were in their own secluded little piece of world.
Everett stared back at the spot where he’d had the awkward conversation with Eddie. Millie was still in the trunk of the Honda. It was going to be a long walk to get her out to the ridge. Rosey lay nearby, with her pretty head between her paws on the ground in front of her, raising a dark eyebrow every now and then. It grieved Everett to think about how much she and Karen were going to miss their friend.
“We can get another partner for Rosey if you want, honey,” Everett said. “Maybe a puppy—or an adult who needs a home.”
“Why would they take the baby Jesus?” Karen attacked the dark soil.
“I don’t know.”
She squinted up at him. “Are the murderers connected with your brother?”
“I doubt it. So does Eddie.”
“Well…do you have any other explanation? Who did this!” she yelled. “Why?” She went back at the dirt with a vengeance—a side of her Everett had never seen.
“I just don’t know, honey. Maybe it was some drugged-out DeathStroke fans.” That haunting feeling crept up on him. You’re paying for your past. And now, so is she. “I’m sorry.”
The craving for booze came so strong and sudden, it actually took his breath away. You should have let her go.
Karen was down in the hole now, sweating and out of breath, throwing shovelful after shovelful onto the growing mound of earth beside the grave.
Full Tilt (Rock Star Chronicles) Page 6
