Kicking ass for mi familia.
Back to reality. Or at least, the present. Butterfly knee. That was an odd one. My knee was a butterfly? Look, it’s flitting up yonder to perch on a section of ribbing. It’s sparkling.
Bones, tell me what that means.
Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a butterfly-ologist.
“No, Sir, your knee’s not a sparkling butterfly,” a nurse said. He adjusted my drip. “Get some rest, Captain. I’m giving you a little extra help.”
The words grew legs and slick, furry hides. They spider-walked across my bandaged rib cage then crawled up the injured leg, which was elevated on cushions. When they reached the knee—a misshapen form hidden beneath a small sheet—they squatted, rubbing against the sheet and grunting.
Sweat slid down my forehead. I still have microscopic pieces of that bastard’s body inside me.
I retreated deeper inside my own world, hoping for a magical phone call from Luce; her imaginary body next to mine again, her hands touching me, her mouth on me. I saw a panorama of soft gray mountains. Barns and buildings and the big house she’d shown me in photographs; the sheep and dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, dairy cows, and horses, big trees and fields . . . then snow falling and mist rolling in along a background of hills and wooded hollows.
Luce walked out of the winter mist with her woolies close behind. Sheep, llamas, and alpacas, following their shepherdess. And there was Brim, the cranky she-mule. Luce’s head was uncovered. Her pale hair flowed around her shoulders and down her arms. A soft shawl draped between her arms and her body, which made a slender outline that moved like water.
She gazed straight at me, her eyes somber and worried, sad and hopeful, looking at me, God, looking only at me, while her lips flexed in a smile that scared me. Hurt. Uncertain. What was she worried about? No more yarn metaphors, baby; I want you to strip and wiggle. Gimme the real thing.
No. It wouldn’t be like that.
Luce, relax. We’re a team.
A butcher odor suddenly rose.
I gagged and took a deep breath. The oxygen cannula in my nose made a hissing sound. Sharp fingers pinched my neck. Liver. The stink of the worst food in the world. I don’t like what this means.
“Gus,” she said, stopping so close I could see flecks of snow landing on her hair. “I can’t let you be responsible for me . . . ” a large llama poked his periscoped head in front of her and stared at me.
Luce, who was no more that five-foot-six to my six-five, reached up and gave his head a pat. His dark eyes narrowing into suspicious slits, his lips moving in cud-chewing annoyance, he stepped away at her command. She looked directly at me again. “I love you.” The honey and tea of the Carolina flatlands sang in her voice. God, I felt it down between my legs.
The llama poked his head in front of the camera again, chewing, staring at me. You’re all busted up and angry and you don’t want to fight anymore. So how are you going to save her from the trouble?
What trouble?
The blood smell filled my mind. Blood on the mountains. The trouble here. Danger here.
A homing beacon pulsed blood-red in my brain. I had a new purpose, a new mission in life. War is only ethical if it’s personal. Peace is temporary. Love is forever. Prove you earned it. Kill. This time, kill the ones who threaten your own family.
That’s it. The danger is at home. For Luce. Why can’t she hear me?
I’ve got to get her out of there.
16
“BEWARE THE JABBERTALK, my child! The jaws that flap, the words that quack!
Beware the Hearsay bird, and shun The Farteous BanAllfacts!
On bended knee, Mr. Lewis Carroll, I hope you’re square with this admiring fun. DF
WELCOME TO THE Online Community Bulletin Board for the Crossroads Cove,
Ten Sisters Mountains, and Wild Woman Ridge Districts of
Jefferson County, North Carolina
Dr. Doug Firth, DVM, moderator
SHERIFF WHITTLESPOON came through quadruple bypass surgery with no more than a wee hitch or two. He was transferred to the hospital in Asheville. Delta says he may not come home until after he starts cardiac rehab. Delta dosed his doctors with some of her mystical biscuits and convinced them to keep him there.
Because this is a community news site and I try to keep my ill feelings out of the reporting, I’m passing along this information with not a hint of my mood. Not much, anyhow. Howard Monzell’s memorial service was held at his private farm here in Jefferson County.
Lucy Parmenter is being sought as a suspect in his shooting.
That makes no sense to me or anyone else who knows Lucy. Just as it makes no sense that Monzell was shot multiple times but managed to get back in his bird then fly it into a mountainside.
All we know for sure is that Lucy disappeared along with her mule AND the women Howard stashed up at that old hotel. Let’s call that what it was—a private party house staffed with women forced to have sex against their will.
Monzell’s heirs can sue me for libel if they’ve a mind to. But they have to prove what I said—and what a lot of people are saying—isn’t true. I’m looking at you, Kern Burkett and Amber Monzell Burkett.
Kern Burkett is now Sheriff of Jefferson County. I’m imagining he’ll move as fast as he can to undermine God and country for the sake of Monzell business interests. Mayhaps we’ll see Jefferson County get a SWAT team and one of those military-style armored vehicles that rams into buildings for fun. And police in military gear will come knocking on our doors without warrants?
’Tis an irony that Lucy Parmenter has become a symbol of proud rebellion amongst us—she, who has been talked down about and regarded by some as a peculiar creature with a little of the Spooky Fright about her—yet now she’s accused of shooting Monzell, and for good reason, I predict.
The gun that was found with his body had been fired. There was blood in the snow at Free Wheeler. Not just Monzell’s. Equine blood.
In my opinion, Lucy was trying to defend herself and her pet and maybe those abused women, too. Some are saying she’s a hero. Others say she’s a murderer.
I say let’s find the truth. Trust no view of normal that’s not sound. Look for the facts, not the fancy.
And take no guff from the Monzell empire’s propaganda.
I SLEPT FOR MORE than forty hours, Gutsy said later.
It wasn’t really sleep. I went away. Hard to say where.
I shot Howard Monzell. I killed him.
I enjoyed it.
Self-satisfaction, as Macy called it in our therapy sessions. An important healing and self-love measure. Not that she meant shooting people.
I was no stranger to putting my hand between my thighs. But self-satisfaction was more than reclaiming control of the body, the urge, the orgasm; it was about reclaiming the soul. About the strength to overcome violation; to dismiss violations of the body as nothing more than scratches on the hard surface of the soul’s fortress.
And yet . . . the old voices seeped poison into me.
Someone might think I was asking for it.
Hadn’t you been leading them on, Ms. Parmenter? Flirting with them at your apartment complex? Bringing them cookies in the evenings after you came home from your teaching job? Engaging them in conversation?
Sir, that’s . . . that’s how I how I was raised to treat my fellow human beings. That’s called outreach. Ministering. They had drug problems.
Move to strike that comment, your honor. Prejudicial against my clients.
Ms. Parmenter, just tell us your own motives.
Yes, Ms. Parmenter, tell us if you were trying to get sex and drugs from my clients, two employees of the apartment complex who felt pressured by a pretty blonde school teacher looking for thrills.
Block out
that memory. Block it.
A dark stink rose up in my mind, a blood smell, and a distant sound that didn’t quite register until it grew louder. I was distracted, whispering, “I want to be normal, I just want to be normal.”
What’s wrong? What’s changed?
He’s injured, he’s on medication, don’t overreact.
No, he’s listening to the same sound. He’s smelling that same butcher odor.
A coyote shrieking somewhere high on a ridge? A female fox uttering her unearthly scream for a mate? Not in the middle of winter. And not something I’d hear inside a cave.
I am in a cave. Swear to Dear Methodist Jesus. A cave.
A woman, screaming.
It’s me. It’s my scream. In my mind.
Run, Luce. Run.
I stumbled back inside myself.
Lost in the blood. I love you Gus. Stay safe. Don’t look for me. I can’t come back. I won’t come back.
Dad died because my pain broke his heart. Brim died for me. I avenged her as best I could. And those Mexican women. And everyone in every culture and country and eon and century who’s been killed or enslaved or subjugated.
Live your life. Love your life. I intend to survive without asking anyone’s permission. Never again. I’m in pieces, but I’m not a victim anymore.
The End
The Moonshine King
Coming Fall 2017
The next installment in Lucy and Gus’s story.
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About Deborah Smith
Deborah Smith is the author of more than thirty-five novels in romance and women’s fiction, including the New York Times bestseller, A Place to Call Home, and the Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Crossroads Café. She is also a founding partner of BelleBooks/Bell Bridge Books, a Memphis-based publishing company known for quality fiction and non-fiction by new and established authors. The Pickle Queen is the second of The Crossroads Café Novellas, spin-offs set in the Appalachian world of The Crossroads Café.
Coming soon: Gus and Lucy’s story, The Kitchen Charmer.
Visit Deb at www.bellbridgebooks.com. Also on Facebook at Deborah Smith Author.
The Kitchen Charmer Page 21
