“These might help,” I said, handing him the papers that came with the clutch.
“Oh yeah, right,” he said setting the box down next to the bike. He took the papers from me and read them over. “That makes things a little easier. I won’t have to guess so much.” He sat in the hay cross-legged. “Hey, could you go out to the truck and get the tool box that’s . . .” He stopped himself and then he frowned. “Never mind,” he said getting up.
“What?”
He shrugged and winked at me. “I got to thinking of you being so tough and all that I forgot you were still a girl.”
He went out of the stall and I stared after him, feeling slightly indignant. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. I ran my hand through my hair, still short and spiky, but Meri had trimmed it neatly. I looked down at myself. Jeans, boots and a checkered shirt. Okay, not specifically designed to be attractive, but it wasn’t awful. It was, in fact, nearly the same thing he was wearing. Oh, I thought, and for the first time since I arrived, I felt vaguely uncomfortable with my clothes. I frowned at the door. Meri never made me feel like that.
He came back in with a huge battered toolbox and set it next to the bike with a clunk. He opened it with a well-practiced snap and dug out a small flashlight, flipped it on and started peering around the engine.
“You got a pretty good start, I see.”
“Yes. I did all the easy stuff.”
“Not bad. The clamps for the air hose are on backward, but that’s not a big deal. Looks like all I need to do is to replace the clutch. You laid it down pretty hard, yeah?” He looked up at me, his eyes moving to the scar on my forehead. “It wouldn’t hurt to check it out real good, you know, belt tension, valve adjustments, change all the fluids and stuff. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“How long do you think?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I could probably do it this weekend unless you’re in a hurry. I could come over after work tomorrow, but”— he glanced at the single bare overhead bulb—“we’d have to rig some better lights in here.”
I was in a hurry and I wasn’t. Deep inside I knew that I had already been in one place for far too long. If I were a smart person, I would have him fix the bike now and leave as soon as it was ready, in spite of what I told Meri. But I didn’t want to leave, and a broken bike was as good a reason as any not to. Sergeant stuck his head in through the pasture window and nickered. I went over to him and rubbed the white blaze that swirled around between his eyes. I wanted to stay with Sergeant, too. I would miss him. Sergeant stretched out his neck, nickered softly and nipped at a taillight. Taylor reached over and thunked him on the nose. Sergeant snorted hard and his head disappeared.
“Crazy dumb horse,” Taylor said wiping horse snot off his cheek.
• • •
The weekend came, and I forgot all about Taylor and the bike. Meri had a way of capturing my attention, which she did right after breakfast. We were doing the dishes together, got a little crazy with the suds and finished the chore wearing most of the lemony fresh dish soap. We took what was left of it and headed upstairs to the shower, and that’s where things really got out of hand. I was squeaky clean and still smelled like lemons when I finally made it out to the barn to check on Sergeant late that afternoon. I saw Taylor’s truck outside, but, of course, I hadn’t heard him come up the drive. He was there in the bike stall, sitting cross-legged in the hay, trying to get the old clutch assembly out of the engine.
Taylor only glanced at me when I came in. He seemed a bit preoccupied, so I sat on a hay bale behind him, leaning my back against the wall, listening to his steady stream of curses. In between the four-letter words and uniquely regional phrases, I gathered that some of the gears had jammed together at an odd angle and he was having trouble removing the clutch assembly from the housing. I was learning a lot, listening to him muttering, about the finer points of motorcycle mechanics and the sex life of small waterfowl.
The barn door slid open with a crash. I heard footsteps slamming through the hay and Meri appeared in the doorway. She stood with a shotgun cradled in the crook of her arm. I felt my jaw drop and I started to ask her what was going on, but the look on her face made me freeze. Her face was flushed a mottled red and held so tight that her bones showed through, all angles and planes. She never even glanced at me, only stood there, tension zinging through her body, staring at Taylor with her mouth set in a hard, fierce line.
“Why are you here?” she asked. Her tone was cutting and cruel.
Taylor jumped up from the hay faster than if someone had kicked him. He stumbled backward until he bumped against the far wall. He pressed himself against it, stood staring at Meri, his eyes moving down to the gun, and then back up again to her face. His tan faded to pale except for the two bright spots high on his cheeks.
“Aunt Beatrice sent me,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “She said you had a guest with a broken bike.”
Meri lifted the barrel of the gun so that it wavered somewhere near his feet. “The woods are full of mechanics around here. Why would she send you?”
Taylor’s boots twitched like he was afraid for his toes. “Aunt Beatrice said it would be a good opportunity for us to talk things out since you don’t come into town for any of the shindigs anymore.”
Meri’s face twisted, and the gun barrel rose to point at his knees. “Get out of my barn,” she said in a voice that made my skin prickle. I stood and tried to catch her eyes, but she never took them off Taylor.
He gestured, with a slight jerk of his hand, at the tools and bike parts lying in the hay. “Aunt Beatrice said that maybe if I did something to help you that you might be more inclined to forgive me.”
Meri’s face turned colder than winter, the barrel rose and pointed at his chest. “Have you told her what you did?”
Taylor put a hand over his heart and shook his head, his eyes going wide and white. “I’ve never told anybody, Meri. Honest, I haven’t,” he said. The bright spots on his cheeks grew and spread down his neck. “You’ve never told anyone either.”
Meri’s eyes narrowed. “Who was there to tell? Everyone I loved was gone.”
“You could’ve told Aunt Beatrice,” Taylor said softly.
“And would she have believed me if I did, golden boy?”
Taylor rubbed at his chest. “No. I mean, probably not.” He reached up with a slow hand and took off his cap. He rolled the brim into tight tube as he dug a toe down into the hay. “I’m sorry, Meri. I truly am. I would take it all back if I could. I would make it right if I knew how. You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
The barrel held steady at his chest. “Nothing you do now can fix what you broke.”
“I know that,” he said. “I was just hoping that maybe we could talk or something.”
“I have nothing to say to you and I don’t want you here.” Meri’s hands tightened around the stock. I could see the tendons standing out on the backs of them. “My mom and my dad wouldn’t want you here, either.”
Taylor’s chin dimpled and began to quiver. He unrolled his cap and put it on, pulling the sharply curved brim low over his eyes. He took a careful step forward and, moving slowly, he bent to pack his tools. Meri stared at him. The contempt pouring out of her was so strong that it was uncomfortable standing near her. She kept the gun pointed at Taylor. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger, but it kept inching nearer to it. I backed away from her, not sure what was scaring me more, that Taylor had a gun pointing at his head or the expression on Meri’s face.
Taylor left a line of tools lying in the hay. He glanced up at me. “These are the tools you’re going to need. I’ll leave them here for you. If you follow the assembly pattern on the instruction page you should be all right.” He snapped the lid of his toolbox. “Maybe on your way out of town you can drop the tools off at my garage.” Taylor grabbed the box and stood slowly. He turned his head toward Meri, but his eyes were still on the ground. “I’ll leave now if you’re not
going to shoot me.”
Meri raised the gun and pointed it at his face. Taylor winced. She raised it higher, laid the barrel back against her shoulder and stepped out of the doorway.
He walked to the door and brushed by Meri, who shifted to avoid touching him. He stopped just outside and turned. “Meri, I truly am sorry for all the things that happened. I still think we could make a go of it, in spite of everything. We could be good for each other.”
“It would be good only for you, Taylor.” Meri’s words were clipped and precise.
Taylor frowned at that but then just nodded. He walked out of the barn, and I stepped out of the stall. Meri lowered the gun and set it against the wall. I watched her while we listened to the truck door screech and slam. She was staring at nothing, her spine rigid and straight.
The truck engine turned over with a soft purr. We both stood still and listened as the sound of crunching tires faded into silence. Meri slumped against the door jam. She buried her face in her hands and sank to her knees, her shoulders shaking violently. I stood over her fidgeting, not knowing what to do. I didn’t understand what had just happened. She made a ragged gasping sound. I knelt down beside her and put my hand on her shoulder. She leaned sidewise into me, and I held her, rocking her gently, stroking her hair, but my eyes kept flicking to the gun.
Night was falling and we were still sitting in the throughway on the barn floor, our backs against the rough planked wall. Meri was leaning against me with her head on my shoulder and her arm tucked around my waist, our legs outstretched and tangled. She had not said a word in over an hour. I held on to her, stroking her shoulder, not knowing what else to do, not knowing if I should speak or not. The crickets that lived in the dark corners of the barn started their chirping.
I was out of my depth, uncomfortable and confused. The curve of her shoulder was so familiar to me now, its strength and expressions. I could read her body and understand what it was telling me, but sitting there in the near dark, inches away from a loaded shotgun, it occurred to me that I didn’t really know much about her. She knew a great deal about me. Once I started talking, it was hard to get me to stop, but she only talked about the things that surrounded us, the farm, the house, the weather. She didn’t talk much about herself. I assumed that, being raised in a small town, there hadn’t been much to talk about, outside of what happened to her parents, and she didn’t seem ready to talk about that. Clearly, I’d made a dumb assumption, maybe even a dangerous one.
I heard hoofbeats thudding dully over the grass. Sergeant came into the barn through the pasture door. He walked up to us, put his head down and snuffed in Meri’s hair. She reached out blindly. Her hand found his nose and he huffed into it. Meri shuddered slightly. Her eyes focused and seemed to come back alive.
“I guess he’s looking for his dinner.” She sounded flat and hollow.
“Doesn’t he eat grass?” I asked. “He’s got dinner everywhere.”
Sergeant jerked his head and hit my chin with his nose.
“Hey!” I rubbed my chin and glared at him. He chuffed a wet breath into my face. I guessed it was an apology of a sort. I took it that way anyway and lifted a hand to rub underneath his jaw.
Meri stared at us. There was still something in her face that made me nervous, something unfamiliar and out of place.
“I didn’t realize it had gotten so late,” she said. “I’d better get Sergeant his oats.”
She untangled herself from me and stood slowly as if her whole body was sore. It probably was. My bones creaked when I tried to stand and my butt felt numb. She took hold of Sergeant’s bridle and led him over to his stall. I watched her as she dished out a small measure of feed, changed his water and began to brush him lightly while he munched and stamped. Her face was thin and drawn, chin tucked in, her mouth turned down severely at the corners. It was an expression I’d never seen on her before. It was cruel and cold, like the promise of bad things coming. I didn’t like it, but I hadn’t put it there and I didn’t know how to take it off.
She stopped brushing in mid-stroke and leaned against Sergeant’s flank. He flicked his tail, and it swished against her. I stepped inside the stall and stood behind her, lifting my hand to touch her but dropping it again before I did.
“Meri, tell me what I can do to help.”
“That’s the same thing Taylor asked.” It was the winter voice, cold and filled with jagged ice.
It scared me. “Are you going to point a gun at my head?”
“Do I need to?” She turned around. Her eyes were dark in the failing light, intense and frightening.
The brush fell from her fingers and dropped into the hay. The skin on Sergeant’s flanks rippled and shivered. “I want to kill him, Bea,” she said in a voice as empty as dark. “I want to pull the trigger so bad it makes my hands hurt.”
That made me take a step back. The way she looked reminded me of something big and scary, and then I remembered where I had seen eyes like hers were now. The two men at the Texas diner had eyes like that and voices just as dead. I knew what they were and what they would’ve done to me if I hadn’t seen them first. I never expected to see that threat in Meri’s eyes. Fear tickled along my spine, and I started to back away from her.
“No, Bea. Don’t,” she said, her hands reaching for me. I shied away from her touch, stumbling, slamming my shoulder against the wall. She stared at me, crouched and shivering, and her face crumpled. “I would never hurt you, Bea. Not you.” She held her hands curled in front of her as if something horrible was resting in her palms.
“How can I believe that?”
She closed her hands into tight fists and then opened them again. She rubbed them hard against her jeans. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t understand you at all right now.” And I wondered if I ever had. I’d been quick to trust because her life seemed so uncomplicated and everything she said rang true. I never thought to listen for the things she wasn’t saying. I had missed something. Something scary. I was so tired of being scared. It made me angry.
Sergeant tossed his head and stamped a hind foot. Meri stuffed her hands into her pockets. Her eyes were still dark, but she seemed less threatening postured like that.
“I think you need to explain this to me, Meri,” I said, letting the anger leak into my voice. I forced my knees to straighten, my shoulders to square, but I stayed pressed against the wall. “What have I walked into? Is this some kind of a feud? A Hatfield and McCoy kind of thing?”
She shook her head and took her hands out of her pockets slowly, turning them palm up. They were empty. She held them out to me.
I folded my arms across my chest. “You need to tell me who else is out there that you want to kill or that wants to kill you.”
She dropped her hands. “It’s not a feud, Bea, and there’s nobody out there that I really want to kill. Not even Taylor. Not really. Maybe.” She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t, anyway.”
“If I wasn’t here would you have shot him?”
“If you weren’t here, he wouldn’t have come over.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
Her mouth opened and closed. She looked around the barn and then back at Sergeant, done with the oats, picking at his hay. She shook her head. “I don’t know, Bea.”
That was a real answer, an honest answer, and it made me feel a little less angry and a lot less scared. Whatever hate lived inside her, if it was an honest hate, it could be reasoned with.
“Okay, so tell me what this is about.”
She turned slightly and rubbed a hand across Sergeant’s shoulder. He arched his neck and swished his tail. “It’s a very long story.” Meri fingered the braids I had worked into his mane. “I’ll tell it to you, but can we go back to the house first?”
“Yes, I think we should.” It would be better to hear about this thing in the bright lights of the kitchen and not in the cold dark of the barn.
She smiled softly at me, and the Meri I
loved slowly crawled back into her face. It was an effort not to return the smile, but I wasn’t quite done being angry. She stepped past me, as gingerly as Taylor had stepped past her, as she walked out of the stall. I stepped out behind her. She stood very still with her hands at her sides. Her expression was cautious, wary and waiting.
I took a deep breath, breathing in the smells of the barn, horses and hay, pine and old leather. And the scent of lemon dish soap. I let some of the anger go. I don’t know how long I could’ve held on to it anyway with her standing there like that, waiting for me to say something.
“I’ll make dinner if you don’t mind having something from the freezer.”
Her eyes softened and her shoulders fell just a bit. “I’m not that hungry,” she said.
I huffed at her. “My cooking’s not that bad.”
Meri smiled gently. We both knew it was. She turned to shut the bottom door to Sergeant’s stall and stood looking in at him. Her expression turned wistful and sad. “Sergeant was my mom’s horse, you know. She used to braid his hair like that, twisting in ribbons and things.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” I looked over her shoulder at Sergeant who was standing there with his head bowed, eyes blinking slowly, a small straw of hay hanging from the corner of his mouth. “I’m beginning to see just how much I don’t know. That frightens me, Meri.”
She turned around and stretched out her hand to me again. I looked at it and then over at the gun still leaning against the wall. Meri dropped her hand. She picked up the gun and went to put it in the tack room. When she came out, she closed the door behind her, jiggling the handle to show me that it was locked. She held her hand out to me, again.
As Far As Far Enough Page 7
