My father didn’t even look at her. She meant nothing to him. He stood. Taylor stepped in front of both Meri and me. The guard stepped forward and put his hand on Taylor’s chest, fingers steepled, ready to jab.
“I’d like to avoid any unpleasantness if we can, Collier,” my father said to me.
“We’re not going to just let you drag Bea out of here,” Taylor said, “not without a fight. You’re forgetting that the baby’s mine, too, and I’m not about to give you custody of him, not for love nor money.”
My father ran a hand across the lapel of his jacket, smoothing it down. “Mr. McNally, I don’t know how you managed to gain influence over my daughter, but I’m sure it was by some illicit means. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that you are a man with a violent past.” He shot a glance at Weasel who nodded his head vigorously. “I, on the other hand, am a respected public servant and kind and loving father.” Meri’s arm twitched. I grabbed it and pinned it against her side. “There is no court in this world that would deny me custody of my grandchild when given the choice between me and you.”
Taylor’s shoulders sank. He turned to look at me, eyes panicked. I shook my head just a little. It was also a bluff. A good one, but it was still just a trick. Taylor turned back around and drew himself up. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to see about that. But for right now, you’re not taking Bea anywhere.”
I watched the guard reassess Taylor, dismiss him again and turn his attention back to Meri. Tension trembled down her arm. I couldn’t see her face from where she was standing, but I was betting it was just as scary as his.
“Enough of this,” my father snapped at me. “Come along, Collier. Now.”
“No, Daddy.”
He looked pointedly at the guard, who answered his look with a noncommittal tick of his head. He would do it if my father gave the order, but it would be messy. People would get hurt, which meant it might not spin well on the evening news.
“I see,” my father said tugging on the sleeve of his jacket. He turned and nodded to Weasel. Weasel grinned. It was an ugly thing to see. “You have twenty-four hours to change your mind, Collier. I believe you understand the consequences.”
He turned his back to us and walked out of the room. Weasel turned, throwing a smirk over his shoulder that promised very bad things, and followed on his heels. Weasel lived for consequences. The bodyguard backed out of the parlor, never taking his eyes off Meri until he had cleared the door. He stopped in the foyer, gave her a slight bow and disappeared. None of us moved a muscle until the front door quietly snicked shut.
Meri turned and wrapped her arms around my waist. I leaned into her and pressed my cheek against hers.
“Twenty-four hours and then what?” Taylor asked, rubbing at his chest.
I stared at the parlor door. “Twenty-four hours and then he gets nasty.”
“That wasn’t nasty?”
I shook my head slowly from side to side, my face rubbing against Meri’s. “He’s not even warmed up yet.”
“Sheeit,” Taylor said, reaching for the brim of the ball cap that wasn’t there.
Meri and I made love with quiet, intense desperation. She kissed me deeply, her mouth eating at my lips, her whole body grinding against mine as if she were trying to break through my skin and crawl inside me. Her jagged breathing, the hard chafing of her hands and the soft sound of her ohs built and burned and spilled me over the edge. My body spasmed underneath her, my cries lost inside the heat of her mouth.
She was still tense and quivering. I turned her over and began a slow exploration, touching every part of her, trying to memorize every inch of her skin, every freckle, every hair, every bump, both outside and in, with my hands, lips and tongue. I kissed the arch of her brow, sucked at the swell of her breast, caressed her calves and licked long, wet lines over the backs of her knees. I slipped inside her and stroked the secret places that made her writhe and groan, while my tongue made slow, rhythmic circles over the swollen heat of her. She came with a sharp arch of her back and a muffled scream. Then she clutched at me and wept.
I held her tight as her body shook underneath me, her face wet against my neck, her hands pressing me hard.
“Don’t go, Bea. Oh, god, please don’t go.”
“Hush, Meri,” I said, stroking her hair. “Who said anything about going?”
“You don’t have to say it,” she said into my shoulder. “I can feel it all over you.”
“What would you rather I do?” I asked her softly.
“Stay.” Her arms locked around me nearly squeezing the breath out of my lungs. “Stay here with me and let whatever’s going to happen just happen. We’ll think of something.”
I buried my face against her skin and inhaled the scent of her. She smelled like soap and saltwater, rust and copper pennies. “What can you think of in twelve hours that will grow my father a heart?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her arms loosening and falling to the side. Her hands rested lightly on my hips. “Something. There has to be something.”
I raised my head. “You believe in miracles?”
Her eyes glittered. “I believe in you.”
I touched my forehead to hers. “I’ll come back, Meri. As soon as he’s gone, I’ll come right back.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head so that it chafed against mine. “No, you won’t. You won’t come back here. You’ll stay away to protect me and the town. I’ll never see you again. I’ll never get to see our baby.”
I rolled to one side, pulled her to me and held her. There wasn’t anything I could say to comfort her, no lie I could tell that she wouldn’t see through. I had to run, and she knew that if I did, I would have to keep running. I couldn’t come back here because this place would be watched. She would never see the baby. There couldn’t be a baby now. The thought made me sad and angry at the wastefulness of it, but what choice was there? If I tried to stay here, my father would do terrible things to Meri, to this town and its people. If I went with him, he would still do terrible things to them, just for having inconvenienced him, and I promised Auntie that I wouldn’t let that happen. The only thing left to do was to run and keep his attention focused on me. Running seemed like the best choice for everyone, even if Meri couldn’t see it.
I stroked her hair and counted her breaths until she fell into a fitful sleep. I rolled quietly away from her, got up and went into the bathroom. I cleaned myself a little with a swipe of the washcloth here and there, dressed in blue jeans and an old sweatshirt that I dug out of the hamper. There was no point in going for the leathers. They didn’t fit at all anymore. Meri was still asleep when I came out, her arm thrown over her eyes, her hair in disarray, the blond of it scattered all over the pillow. It glittered softly in the moonlight, a soft golden glow, pale yellow against the white pillowcase. She stirred with the soft sigh of a dream. I turned and slipped out of the room.
In my old room, I walked carefully, hopping lightly over the squeaky spots in the floorboards, the first and third. My saddlebags were in the cedar chest, still packed. I dug them out and tossed them over my shoulder. The stairs were dark, and every step creaked just a little. I stepped lightly trying not to wake Taylor who was sleeping on the sofa in the parlor, the shotgun near at hand. Just in case, he said. He needn’t have bothered, but I didn’t feel like arguing with him.
It was too dark to see the pictures in the stairwell, but I brushed each one of them lightly with the tips of my fingers as I passed them on the way down. The last frame, the picture of Sergeant and me, I knocked askew. I meant it as a message to Meri, a parting gesture, but I didn’t know if she would hear what I was saying or not. Maybe it didn’t even matter.
The kitchen door shut quietly behind me. I stood on the stoop and looked around the yard at the familiar things that seemed so strange in the gray monochrome of well after midnight, still far from morning. The air was chilly but not cold. The moon was a thin slip of white, an eye in the black starry sky in the last
phase of a long, slow wink. I stopped in front of the barn and considered the swirls and knots that dotted the pine door. This place really had been a little piece of heaven for me, bone-weary reprobate that I was. I breathed in all the smells that I had grown to love, barn waste and hay, green grass and damp earth, and now the faint scent of apples. I slid the door open.
It was dark inside and smelled of oil and gas. It shouldn’t have. I went into the stall that housed my bike and my foot kicked something metal. I backed out of the stall, found the light switch and turned it on. The bike was lying on its side, kickstand poking into the air, like roadkill in August. It was mangled. Pieces of it were scattered everywhere, and what wasn’t broken was flattened, bent or twisted. I stared at the mess, blinking my eyes in confusion. Violence wasn’t my father’s style. His was a mental game. This wouldn’t be his doing.
“Meri,” I said to myself but then shook my head.
That couldn’t be right either because she had been with me all day. I picked up the gas tank that was lying in a corner. It was mostly intact, leaking only small drops of gas through the feeder hose and in one other place where the weld had been broken. It was nearly empty. The rest of the gas was soaked into the straw. There was a deep dent in one side. I turned into the light. The dent was a crescent moon shape, eerily similar to a hoofprint. I heard a soft snort behind me and turned around. Sergeant was looking at me, his big eyes blinking softly, his ears swiveled forward. I could have sworn he was grinning. I looked at the tank and then I looked at him again.
“Sergeant, what have you done?” I asked him, nearly choking on the fear that rose up sharp inside me. His eyes opened wide, his ears drooped sideways and down. I dropped the tank and went around to his stall. The top door was open. The bottom door was open, too. I stepped inside. There were pieces of rubber and plastic all over his floor. He pawed the ground with a hoof and crunched what was left of a taillight.
“Oh, Sarge,” I whispered.
He swung around and nudged me with his nose, pushing me hard against the wall. He stood there huffing at me, nostrils flaring. A quick and sudden exhaustion rolled over me, a bonedeep fatigue that pulled at my limbs. I couldn’t fight everybody. They were all demanding such different things. Even Meri. Even Sergeant. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t brave enough. I wasn’t strong enough. And now I couldn’t run, either. I was screwed, well and truly. We were all screwed. Laurelvalley was screwed. Even Sergeant was screwed. He just didn’t know it yet. I slid down the wall and sat in the hay leaning my head against the planks. Sergeant bent his head and nuzzled at me, huffing his faintly metallic breath into my face. I slid over sideways and lay in the hay. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be what anyone wanted me to be. Lover, daughter, mother, friend. I just couldn’t do it. I pulled my knees in against my chest, curled my arms over my head and shut my eyes tight.
I was dreaming about the one time I went camping, an overnight wilderness trek with my college biology class to see the things that city people almost never see and mostly don’t care to. I dreamt that one of my classmates struck flint to tinder and lit a small fire to roast some crickets, but I kept throwing log after log onto the flames until they were taller than my head and the thick smoke swirled all around us. It scratched at my throat and made me cough. It was the cough that woke me.
I opened my eyes. The wall in front of me was a solid mass of flames. “Shit,” I yelled and scrambled into the corner. Over the crackle and roar, I heard shouts and frantic neighs from far off in the distance. I looked quickly around. Sergeant wasn’t in the stall with me. I had never closed his door. I don’t think I had closed the outside door either. A burning cinder drifted down and fell onto my hand. I shook it off with a yelp and looked up. Flames were starting to lick at the ceiling above me. The loft was packed to the rafters with well-seasoned hay. I’d put most of it there myself. Smoke billowed from the cracks in the wood, dark and black. Tiny cinders began to rain down stinging my face and hands. I yelled and jumped to my feet. Fire slipped down my throat. Heat seared into my lungs and burned at my cheeks. My knees buckled and I fell coughing and choking. I couldn’t catch my breath.
Ash and sparks swirled all around me like a glowing hot snow. I had to get out. I crawled toward the door, but the smoke was thicker that way. All around me, falling embers started smoldering in the hay scattered on the floor. I bent my head and could see between my legs the smoldering embers erupting into little flares of flame. No choice but to go forward. I crept along slowly, inching my way to the door. The smoke left an achingly bitter taste across my tongue as I struggled hard to breathe. My head turned dizzy and the ground underneath my knees started to buckle and sway. Heat seared across my back. I dropped to my belly and tried to keep moving. The smoke got thicker, and every breath I took sent jagged pains shooting through my chest. The world shrank to the move of a hand, the shift of a knee, the push of a foot. I made it out of the stall and into the walkthrough. I thought I made it at least as far as the door to the tack room, but the smoke was too thick. It fell from the ceiling, touched the floor and smothered me. The world swirled into gray and then faded to black.
I woke again to scorching bright pain. Every breath scraped my throat raw. The skin across my back felt swollen and tight. My cheeks stung. Nausea rose up and swept through me with a short, sharp spasm, clenching my muscles into hard knots. I rolled over and threw up. Hands held my shoulders and head. Voices spoke in sharp, urgent tones. “Jesus, would you look at that.” “Get something on it, before she rolls over again.” “Josh, call this in. I’m going to start a drip.” Someone grabbed my arm, and I felt a prick. My body slowly stopped its heaving. I stayed on my side with my face pressed into the dirt, focusing on the noises that surrounded me, the yelling and shouting, the roar of the fire, the rush of water, the hiss of steam, the crackle and pop of loud radio voices. Someone rolled me onto my back. The bright pain shot all through me, and I moaned a deep-chested sound that made everything hurt worse. Hands lifted me, set me down again and rolled me back onto my side. Something covered my nose and mouth, and I could breathe a little easier. The dark smoke that hovered all around me seemed to clear a little.
I opened my eyes to see strangers bending over me, sharp eyed with faces full of efficient concern. Flashing lights stained their hair blue, yellow and red. Taylor peered over a set of thin shoulders. Soot smudged his cheek as he looked down at me, upset and confused.
“Meri,” I tried to say, but speaking made my throat burn and I coughed with harsh, rough spasms. Someone leaned over me, and I felt another prick in my arm. The coughing subsided. My body began to relax and my eyes to grow heavy.
“Meri,” I called out to him. “Where’s Meri?” I stretched out a hand to grab him, but the darkness welled up and covered me.
Chapter Six: GROWTH
There was light, then there was darkness again, and then a gray haziness, like smoke that filled my eyes. My body felt hot, tight and swollen, and then it felt cold and wet, then I was dry again and parched as the desert sands. Finally, the smoke drifted away on a light breeze that smelled sharply antiseptic. I listened and heard the soft shuffling of feet, the faroff sound of hushed voices. I opened my eyes. White sheets, a tan wall. I was lying on my stomach. My throat burned, and I tried to swallow. Bad idea. Things prickled inside. They stretched and pulled and slid down the wrong way. I coughed, or tried to, but my chest was too tight for me to do more than chuff. I tried to roll over. Needles of furious pain stabbed into my back. I groaned and lay still. Footsteps walked around the bed and Taylor stooped into my line of vision.
“Hey, you’re awake,” he said with a friendly smile that I instantly resented. “Don’t try to turn over. Your back was pretty badly burned.”
I tried to say something, but it just came out as a croak. Taylor put a straw to my lips and I drank.
I tried again. “Hurts,” was all I could manage. The word was broken and distorted.
“Yeah, he said it would,” Taylor said gently.
“The doctor I mean. They’re kind of limited in what they can give you for pain because of the baby.” He pulled a chair up next to the bed and sat down. “The baby’s okay, he thinks, but they’re going to have to watch him real close, because of the smoke and all. You’ve got a good doctor working on you. Your father flew in the best.” He grinned. It was his usual grin, but it was little shaky. “He’s really pissing off the rest of the staff.”
I didn’t know if Taylor meant my father or the doctor. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to care. I decided not to. “Meri?” I asked.
His grin faded into seriousness. “She’s going to be okay.”
“Hurt?”
“Just a little.” He looked away, and I waited. “Well,” he said, not meeting my eyes, “truth be told, it looks a whole lot worse than it is. She has some small patches of third-degree burns and a few second-degree burns in some very strange places, but the smoke didn’t hurt her as much as it did you. She’s still here in the hospital, though, just down the hall.”
“How?”
Taylor sniffed and shook his head. “I don’t really know. Meri still won’t talk to me very much. Old habits die hard, I guess.” He lifted a hand to scratch at his stubble. It was almost a beard. “All I remember is waking up when Sergeant started having a conniption right outside the parlor window. That crazy dumb horse was standing on the front porch having a fit. I heard Meri shout, saw her run down the stairs and out the kitchen door.” He laughed, a short, abrupt sound, and shook his head. “She was naked as a jaybird with nothing but a blanket in her hands. It took me a second to realize that I wasn’t having a dream, and then I grabbed the shotgun and ran after her. I guess I was thinking your father had come to cause trouble. But as soon as I opened the kitchen door, I saw that the barn was on fire. Flames were shooting out of the roof, and Meri was nowhere to be seen. I ran to the phone to call the fire department.”
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