He gave the pool of blood a wide berth, not wanting to track it through the house. Not because he was squeamish but because it would compromise his traction if he found himself in a fight. He needed to check for a pulse but there was no part of Shuck's neck that didn't glisten with bright arterial blood. He did manage to reach a grubby arm that had flopped free of the blood puddle. Conor was pleased to find no indication of a heartbeat.
"You deserved much worse, you bloody bastard.”
13
Conor rose from the body and pointed his weapon light toward the dark living room. He tried his radio again. "Conor for Wayne, Conor for Wayne."
When there was no response, Conor moved on. The living room was cozy and overheated, the result of a Warm Morning brand wood stove with a brown steel jacket. A tiny glass window allowed Conor to see the red glow of coals inside it. He played his light around the room. It was done in 1950s drywall painted a dingy mint green. There was a deer head mounted over a bulky old television. There was no satellite outside and antennas didn't work in this area, so it was tethered to an old VCR stacked high with cartoons and Westerns.
The door to Conor’s left led to a bedroom. His hasty examination revealed a few rifles and shotguns propped against the wall and hanging from a homemade gun rack on the wall. There was a shallow closet with a few changes of clothes and an old dresser missing two drawers. The floor was bare wood carpeted with dirty clothes.
Another door in the corner of the living room door led Conor to dark, narrow steps. They creaked beneath his feet, doing away with any sense of stealth. It was a vulnerable position climbing those noisy stairs and he had to hope he was faster on the gun than his opponent, if there was anyone waiting on him. He moved step-by-step until he found himself in a two room attic. One room held crumbling boxes and odd piles of cast off family possessions. The other room had once been a bedroom but now smelled of mildew and disuse.
Reasonably confident that the house was empty, Conor tried his radio again. "Conor for Wayne, Conor for Wayne."
"This is Wayne. Go ahead."
"Shuck is down. I repeat, Shuck is down. I’ve taken the house. I need to get this little old lady squared away and then we can see about getting out of here.”
"Is Fannie Bell okay?"
"The bastard coldcocked her. He was getting ready to stomp her brains out in the kitchen floor when I dropped him. He forced my hand."
"Good for you, Conor. I’ll be on the other side of the bridge waiting on you if you need help."
Conor returned to the downed woman and laid his hand across her forehead. Her papery skin felt a little too warm, perhaps feverish. "Are you Miss Fannie Bell?"
The muscles of her eyes twitched and the lids opened with a reptilian slowness. Her brow furrowed when she realized this was not the man she expected to find in front of her. She surely expected Shuck, the miscreant who’d left her in this condition. While Shuck was responsible for her current state, and a lot more, he was at least familiar to her. She didn't have a clue who Conor was except that he was a stranger, crouched over her naked body, with his hand to her face.
She tugged the sheet higher around her neck and tried to recoil from him but the blow to her head had addled her. She wasn't firing on all cylinders.
Conor pulled back and held up both hands up in a soothing gesture. "Easy now. My name is Conor. I was sent to find you by some folks from Pastor White's church. They were concerned about you. With good reason apparently," he added, glancing toward the dead body just feet away from them.
Fannie Bell followed his gaze and found herself peering into the open, lifeless eyes of Shuck Lampkin's. She had no reaction.
"You are Miss Fannie Bell, correct?"
She nodded, struggling to put the pieces together. She attempted to sit up and it took more strength than she could bring to bear. She settled back onto the dirty kitchen floor.
"Don't rush it," Conor warned her. "We're here to help you."
At the use of the plural, Fannie Bell searched about for whom he might be referring to but didn't see anyone.
Noting her concern, Conor explained. "I have a friend outside. We have horses. We can take you home or to the church to be cared for."
"Home," she croaked. When the words hung up, she tried clearing her throat, but had difficulty speaking.
Conor thought she might be dehydrated. It was likely, considering her condition. "Is there any water in the house?"
She pointed to a plastic cooler sitting at the end of the counter. It was round, orange, and had a tap on the side. It was the same kind of cooler seen on work trucks all around the country. Conor got to his feet and searched the cabinets until he found a clean glass. He filled it from the cooler and then returned to Fannie Bell. He crouched at her side and helped her sit up to drink. He felt a little uncomfortable at having his hand on the dry thin skin of her bare back but she needed his assistance. He could tell that he was supporting her weight. Were he to remove his hand, she'd flop over backwards and smack her head on the floor. It was the last thing this poor lady needed after all she’d obviously been through.
She drank half the glass in one long pull and smacked her lips when she stopped. "Thank you." There was little more life in her voice.
"We need to get you dressed and out of here. What can I do to help you?"
She gestured toward her leg concealed beneath the sheet. "That nasty man has me tied like a dog. There’s a chain locked around my leg."
"Do you know the whereabouts of the key?"
She gestured at the dead body with contempt. "His pocket."
Conor stood and circled the dead body. He grabbed Shuck by a sleeve and dragged him free of his own mess. He carefully slid a hand into the man's pocket where he found a pocketknife, a zippo lighter, a nickel, and a small brass padlock key. He returned to Miss Fannie Bell’s side and carefully lifted the bottom of the sheet to expose her thin ankles. When he’d first barged into the house he’d been so distracted by the turn of events that he had not paid much attention to the condition of her leg. He’d spotted it earlier when he’d seen her on the front porch but it was much worse up close.
The oozing wound on her leg was likely responsible for her fever he’d detected. The rusty chain had abraded a deep circle around her leg. The wound had scabbed, reopened, and scabbed again so many times that thick encrustations surrounded it. Red streaks, vivid on her pale skin, shot up toward her knee. It had to be incredibly painful with each movement she made. She'd be lucky if the infection hadn’t spread to her blood. He'd have to send Doc Marty around to see her because he was fairly certain there were no antibiotics in this community to keep this old lady alive.
As delicately as possible, he lifted the stained padlock from her flesh and used the key to unlock it. The grimy shackle unfastened with a click. Conor unhooked it from the heavy chain and carefully unwrapped the entire assembly, trying not to inflict any more discomfort on Fannie Bell than she'd already experienced.
"Where are your clothes, dear?"
She raised a trembling finger and pointed toward the dark living room. "There's a bedroom yonder. I came with a grip full of clothes but ain't been allowed to wear them. That Shuck had the devil in him. I don't know if it was the drink or what but his soul needed the Lord something bad."
Conor knew to what she referred but he hadn't heard anyone use the word “grip” since he was a kid. It was an old term for a traveling bag, a satchel, and it probably dated from the nineteenth century. It was one of the neat things about living in the area. You found little pockets of people who were relatively unaffected by modern conventions. They had the words, the speech pattern, and the dialect of the people who had come generations before them. Ladies like Fannie Bell, who didn't have television and had probably only seen a handful of movies in her entire life, had more in common with the early settlers of this region than with the current residents. Conor loved that.
He returned with the lady’s grip, a fifty year old Samsonite in a
dull blue color. "Can I help you to the fire, Miss Fannie Bell? You might be a touch more comfortable changing clothes by the fire, outside the presence of this cursed man."
She nodded. Conor stepped over her body and planted a foot to either side of the woman's chest. He slid his hands beneath her armpits. "If you just hold onto the sheet, I'll do the work. I'm going to swing you up on your feet. I’ll go easy with you so don’t be scared."
She clutched the sheet tightly around her. In a swift, fluid motion, Conor swung the old lady up like a kettlebell and planted her on her feet. She uttered a sound somewhere in between pain and surprise but Conor held her until he was sure she was steady. In her state he was sure the sudden movement left her head spinning. Once he was certain she wasn't going to tumble over, he moved to her side and escorted her to the living room. He sat her down on a recliner with a human-shaped stain on its light fabric and returned to the kitchen for her bag.
"I apologize for asking this, ma’am, but do you require my assistance? If you do, I promise to avert my eyes.”
She considered it for a moment and shook her head. "I think I can manage but I thank you kindly. I’ll do as much as I can. Lord, I feel weak as a kitten.”
"I'll be in the kitchen and I'll listen for you. You call out if you need anything. Just don’t make any quick movements or you might pass out.”
She nodded warily. “I figured that out when you snatched me up out of the floor like a sack of potatoes.”
While he waited for Fannie Bell to dress, he gave the kitchen a cursory search. He didn't believe in survival by theft but anything left here would just go bad or be stolen by the neighbors. There was no point in that. If there were things in the house that would benefit Wayne's people while they wintered at the firehouse, it was best to take them. Once they returned Fannie Bell to safety and word of what happened to Shuck spread, there would probably be other folks with the same idea. There would be more competition for what paltry belongings Shuck had owned. Conor was reaching for the pantry door when there was a voice on his radio.
"Wayne for Conor, come in."
Conor keyed his mic. "Go for Conor."
"Since I was just sitting out here with my thumb up my ass, I thought I might make myself useful. I came across this bridge one board at a time and I think I tossed all the bad ones. I'm across but wanted to let you know so you wouldn't drop me if you saw movement outside."
"Got it. Can we get back across the bridge as it is or will it need more work?"
"I'll need a couple of more planks. A couple of 2x8s or 2x10s would be perfect. I'm going to poke around the property with my light and see if I can find anything."
"Sounds good. Be careful. I cleared the house but haven’t searched the other buildings. I’m going to give the house a once over for anything your folks might be able to use. Miss Fannie Bell is dressing. When she’s ready, we’ll bolt."
Conor replaced the radio in his pouch and called out to Fannie Bell. "Everything going okay in there?"
"I'm dressed. I'm just sitting here a moment gathering my strength and warming up. I’m sorry."
Conor refilled the glass of water in the kitchen and delivered it to Miss Fannie Bell. "Don’t you be sorry. You’ve been through an ordeal and survived. Now drink up. I think you're dehydrated and will feel a lot better when you’ve replenished your fluids. Are you hungry at all?"
She shook her head. "He fed me decent but you're probably right that I've not drank enough. Honestly, the heat is doing more for me than anything else. I can't remember the last time I was warm."
"Then you just stay put. You sip on that water while I make a pass through the house. With Shuck dead, I'm gonna see if he has anything that might help folks in need this winter. Do you have anything else you need to take with you besides your grip?"
"No. You need to check the dairy. There’s a good bit of canning out there. Shuck’s mother canned a little bit of everything. She just passed away a few months before this all happened. I don't think he ever had to take care of himself. That’s probably why he kept me here the way he did."
Conor patted her on the arm. "Don't you trouble yourself any more over it. He’s dead and can’t bother you again. You sit there and warm up. We've got a long ride through the dark tonight and it's a wee bit chilly out there."
In the bedroom, Conor went to the bed and shook the top quilt out flat. He cleared the guns and piled them in the center of it. He tossed the ammo, both boxed and loose, into the same pile. Shuck didn't have much but Conor found a decent skinning knife, a sharpening stone, and two decent pocketknives. He threw those on top of the pile. That reminded him of something and he went to the kitchen.
There he retrieved a handful of Old Hickory skinning and butcher knives. No country home would been complete without them. From the stone-worn blades he could tell they’d processed a lot of meat. He took them back to the bedroom and tossed them in the middle of the pile. He wrapped the blanket securely around the loot like a burglar’s burrito and tied it shut so that nothing fell out. He lifted the awkward bundle and carried it out to the front porch.
He spotted Wayne dragging two long boards across the yard. "You have any luck?"
"These should do it.”
What folks in this part of the country called a dairy was often known as a root cellar in other parts of the country. It was a cinderblock and concrete structure set back in the hillside so that it was insulated by the soil around it. Items stored in there wouldn’t freeze. Despite the occasional rodent and black snake, it was where Appalachian folk traditionally stored their canned goods, their dairy products, and their root crops.
Inside the dairy Conor found a larger collection of the sampling he'd already spotted in the kitchen. It was a storehouse of sustenance that would have been more common in this area fifty or even one hundred years ago. In old rural America, buildings such as this kept families alive. It would have been their grocery store. It was the fruit of their labor.
Thick pork bellies crusted with coarse salt hung from the rafters by baling twine looped through holes punched in the meat itself. The ropes passed through greasy paper bags that acted as a shield against rodents. Bushel baskets, five-gallon buckets, and dusty cardboard boxes sat filled with potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, and apples. Braided bundles of onions and garlic hung from the rafters. Neat rows of glass jars lined deep shelving. There was canned sausage, canned deer meat, canned beef, and every type of vegetable Conor could imagine. There were soups and relishes and fruits. Conor could have filled the bed of a pickup with this bounty.
Wayne joined Conor in the dairy building, shining his own light at the rows of jars. "Jesus!"
"This is more than we can carry tonight,” Conor said. “It's gold, though. This would be a big help to you folks."
Stunned, Wayne was slow to answer. "It’s a lot of food."
“Of course, I might fight you for one of those pork bellies. There’s nothing like homemade bacon.”
“It’s yours, my friend.”
They backed out of the building and Conor shut the door behind them.
"You should let me take Miss Fannie Bell back by myself,” Conor said. “You start working on getting this stuff packed. Wrap these jars in shirts, socks, towels, whatever you can find, so they won't break in transit. Stow them in pillowcases, suitcases, gunny sacks, anything that we can hang on a pack horse. When I get Fannie Bell to safety I'll come back with a couple of your men and some of your horses. I think we need to get this stuff out of here tonight. That’s the only way you're guaranteed first shot at it. Once I tell Pastor White’s folks what happened, some of them may want to take a gander at Shuck’s place. There’s already enough bad blood between us. I don’t want this to become a sore spot. We take it and we don’t say anything about it.”
"I'm good with that,” Wayne said. “You sure you’re okay with taking her home yourself?”
Conor chuckled. “You need to be more concerned about the folks I run into.”
&nb
sp; 14
Miss Fannie Bell wore the long skirt of the Appalachian Pentecostal, which was ill-suited for horseback with a traditional western saddle. Once they had her across the swinging bridge, it took them a few moments to get her onto a horse and settled. She wore a coat but the bitter night air was harsh against her fevered skin. Conor rushed back to the house to find another quilt and they wrapped her against the night.
“You hold onto that saddle horn,” Conor told her. “Don’t worry about the reins. I’ll lead your horse.”
“It’s dark,” she said. “How do we know they won’t step off into the river?”
“Horses have more sense than that,” Wayne assured her. “They know what they’re doing. The key is to trust the horse and not fight against it.”
“If you say so,” Fannie Bell replied, sounding wholly unconvinced.
Conor swung up onto his own horse. It was awkward to mount with the burglar burrito strapped behind the saddle but he eventually got there. He took up the reins, readied his rifle, and turned off his headlamp. He wished he’d brought his night vision gear but he hadn’t expected to be out this late. The day had taken him on an entirely different course than he’d planned. Although he should have been at home by the fire already he had no complaints. This was an adventure, and he’d always chosen adventure over comfort. The folks at home knew this of him and wouldn’t be too concerned.
“I’ll be back with your men as soon as I can,” Conor told Wayne. “I’ll try to reach you on the radio before we cross the bridge.”
“No problem,” Wayne replied. “Take your time. I have plenty to do. If all goes well we can load up and head home when you get back. I hope to have everything ready.”
“Stay safe,” Conor warned. “Miss Fannie Bell, you ready?”
“I reckon,” she said, her voice faint in the darkness. “It’s in the Lord’s hands now. Him and this horse.”
Conor nudged his horse into motion and tugged on the reins of Fannie Bell’s mount. He wasn’t going to push the horses in the darkness. He’d let them find their own pace and the trip would take however long it took. He didn’t even remember how many miles they’d come, the trip broken up as it was because of the run to pick up poor Bernard from his parents’ home.
Brutal Business: Book Three in the Mad Mick Series Page 9
