Stranded

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Strongly enough for him to hit Hiram on the head and push him out the window? Is that what you’re saying? Oh, Ivy …” Kelli shook her head and smiled. “Wait until you meet him. Wait until you see his cemetery. See what you think then.”

  Up ahead I could see Norman’s shack sitting on the crest of a hill. A rusty metal roof topped walls of weathered, unpainted wood. A spiral of smoke drifted from a tall stovepipe. A wooden porch with ramshackle steps ran across the front, firewood stacked beside it. An honest-to-goodness outhouse stood off to one side, a shed that I guessed was a chicken house just beyond it. A rooster, crowing mightily, paraded on the roof of the house, and hens scratched where the ground wasn’t covered with snow. Norman had shoveled pathways to road, outhouse, and chicken house.

  “Does he ever get snowed in?” I asked.

  “Sometimes. This winter hasn’t been bad so far, but Uncle Hiram said Norman had to snowshoe to get to town some winters. When he did that, he’d sometimes stay at the house several weeks at a time. A bone of contention, I’d guess, if a wife happened to be in residence. But Hiram had his loyalties and wasn’t about to budge concerning Norman.”

  An old pickup surrounded by snow stood a few feet from the house. The fenders were muddy brown, the hood a faded blue-green, the bumper a length of rusty metal pipe. It looked as if it had been cobbled together from stray parts of various other vehicles. A block of wood supported one wheel with no tire. A brown hen flapped her wings on the roof of the cab.

  “That’s Norman’s Dorf,” Kelli said.

  “Dorf?” I repeated, not certain if she meant the vehicle or the hen.

  “It started out as a Ford, the hood anyway, but Norman rearranged the metal letters to turn Ford into Dorf.”

  I suspected Ford would appreciate that. I doubt they’d want their name on this strange conglomeration of parts.

  “I think the chicken on the pickup is Ginger, of Ginger Rogers fame. Marilyn is one of the other brown hens.”

  I took a wild guess. “Marilyn as in Monroe?”

  “Right. She’s one of Norman’s favorite actresses. Unfortunately, Julia died a while back.”

  “Julia as in … ?”

  “Julia Roberts. Norman’s favorites are not limited to long-ago ladies.”

  I didn’t think we’d make it all the way to the house, but Kelli churned right on up the last steep section and slammed to a stop within a dozen feet of the porch.

  Norman opened the door and stepped onto the porch, one hand lifted in greeting, big smile on his face. He had a bushy gray beard, a skimpy ponytail, dark pants held up with red suspenders, a plaid shirt of some indeterminate color, and unexpectedly, rather expensive-looking, sheepskin-lined leather slippers. A gift from Kelli or Hiram, I suspected.

  “Kelli, halooo!”

  Kelli slid out of the Bronco. “Hi, Norman,” she called. “I brought some feed for the chickens and some blackberry balsam for your stomach. How’s it feeling today?”

  “Can’t complain.” He rubbed his skinny midsection.

  She reached back in the Bronco for a sack. “And some reading material too.”

  I didn’t know whether to stay in the Bronco or get out. Norman didn’t look like your average suburbanite, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the chickens wandered into the shack on occasion, but were there even more reasons why people called him Nutty Norman, reasons of which I should be wary?

  Well, you know me. Too curious to just sit there, I slid out. Directly into a muddy puddle, of course.

  “Norman, I brought someone along to meet you. This is—”

  Kelli didn’t even have a chance to get to my name. Norman spotted me, and his eyes targeted me like a security camera in a parking garage. Paying no attention to the sloppy snow/mud mixture on the pathway, he bore down on me like a bearded freight train.

  11

  Norman had his own cemetery, Kelli had said. Who was in it? The last unwelcome visitor?

  I caught a few more details as Norman thundered closer. A bit of egg caught in his whiskers. A few too few teeth in his yellow-stained smile. A grease stain the size of a handprint on his pants leg. Big, calloused hands.

  Then I realized Norman wasn’t advancing on me in hostility. Norman was looking at me as if I were the biggest gold nugget he’d ever seen, his eyes lit up like Christmas lights, smile warm enough to boil the puddle around my feet.

  “Glory be,” he breathed. “An angel is come among us.”

  Norman was apparently pleased to see me, delighted even. A generous attitude, even a bit poetic with his angel statement. But I wasn’t sure but what hostility might be preferable, since I also wasn’t sure what he had in mind here. A big bear hug, at the very least. I thwarted that by stepping behind the Bronco door and thrusting my hand out for a shake.

  He shook it enthusiastically. “I ain’t seen nothin’ the likes of you ’round here in twenty years.” He tilted his head, the egg in his beard undisturbed by the movement, and studied me with open admiration. “Glory be,” he repeated. He also continued to shake my hand. “I’ll have the Dorf runnin’ in a few days. I’ll drive into town, and maybe we can take us in a movie.”

  “They tore the movie theater down several years ago, remember, Norman?” Kelli said gently.

  “Oh yeah, I keep fergettin’. Well, maybe we could get us some dinner at that fancy Café Russo. Hiram and I been there. Last time I had me some fancy Italion thing with everything but the kitchen sink in it. Anyway, I’m a-comin’ for you,” Norman assured me with a solemn nod. “You can count on that.”

  Not a time waster, ol’ Norman. When he wanted something, he zeroed in on it. Unfortunately, at the moment, that something appeared to be me.

  Kelli came to the rescue. “Now, Norman,” she chided, “Ivy just got into town a couple days ago, and she’s not even settled in yet. She’s living in Hiram’s house, and she’s going to be librarian for his new library at the Historical Society. She’s also done some private investigative work, and is looking into the circumstances of Hiram’s death, so she’s very busy.”

  “Private investigative work” exaggerated my abilities, but I didn’t bother to correct her. I was mostly thinking uneasily about Norman’s obvious amorous attentions. But another glance at the pickup reassured me. The Dorf didn’t look capable of an excursion into town anytime soon.

  “Ivy? That’s you? Ivy,” Norman repeated wonderingly. He was down to my fingertips now, but he wasn’t letting go. “Now ain’t that the prettiest durn name ever? I planted me some ivy once, right there by the side of the house, but I think maybe the chickens ate it.”

  Ginger had jumped off the pickup and was now pecking at my shoelaces. I had the uneasy feeling she might have in mind eating this Ivy too. I don’t know all that much about chickens.

  “Okay, let’s get these groceries and this chicken feed unloaded.” Kelli handed Norman and me each a sack and wrestled the bag of chicken feed to the door of the Bronco.

  Norman looked at my plastic bag and said solicitously, “Now, that looks a mite heavy for a delicate little thing like you.” He took my moderately sized bag as we headed for the house, ignoring Kelli struggling along behind with the fifty-pound bag of feed slung over her shoulder.

  I tried to protest, but Norman was having none of it. He gave me a little elbow push toward the porch. I remembered that unwashed-body-cigarette-smoke-and-garlic odor on the sheets at Hiram’s house, and here I was getting the full-strength, original version of it. The inside of the shack smelled even more strongly of garlic.

  “Makin’ spaghetti and meatballs,” Norman said. “Raccoon meat, best they is. Maybe you two can stay fer supper?”

  “I think Kelli wants to get back to town before dark.” And if that wasn’t Kelli’s plan, and it came down to a choice between eating raccoon and striking off for town on my own, I decided I’d strike.

  “That’s too bad. Got some good garlic biscuits too.”

  Kelli had carried the feed over to the chicken hous
e, and now she came in with the last two bags of groceries. Norman was stirring his pot of spaghetti on the old woodstove, and Kelli poked me in the ribs.

  “I think you’ve made a conquest,” she whispered. “Norman seems quite smitten.”

  “Glory be,” I muttered.

  He headed back toward us, and I instinctively ducked behind a chair. I wasn’t sure but what he’d try for a bear hug yet. From this point I had a good view out a grimy window. Across a small valley, snow had melted, revealing piles of old mine tailings sprawling down the mountainside like dirty avalanches. They were still bleak and barren, but trees had grown up around them, softening the raw ugliness. Trees and brush had filled in the eroded ravines too, and three deer were following a trail twisting along the edge of the trees. I could see why both Kelli and Norman dreaded the destruction a huge, open-pit mine would bring. Peace and serenity and beauty truly did reign here now, even though there was a certain undertone of garlic.

  Then I spotted something closer. Off to one side of the chicken house a picket fence enclosed a square with pieces of board poking up through the snow. Kelli saw me looking.

  “That’s the cemetery,” she said.

  “Who’s in it?”

  “Rita, Marlene, Betty, and I don’t know who else. Most people, when their chickens stop producing, have roast chicken or chicken stew or something. But Norman can never bring himself to do that. Of the chickens scratching around out there only a half dozen are still laying. The others are retired, and if the coyotes or something don’t get them first, they’ll wind up in the cemetery with their own little headstones.”

  A chicken cemetery. This gave me pause for consideration. Sometimes, when it seems likely I’ll never be able to go back to Madison Street in Missouri, I think about settling down out West on a couple of country acres with a few chickens and space for Koop to roam. But now I saw that what to do with chickens gone elderly might be a problem. I’m fond of chicken in any form, fried, roasted, or fricasseed, but I doubted I could bring myself to chop off the heads of my little fowl friends any more than Norman could.

  So, how did this affect my suspicions about the possibility of Norman’s involvement in the murder? Could a softhearted old guy who couldn’t even kill his chickens for food kill an old friend even in the heat of a tequila-fueled argument?

  Kelli could read my thoughts; I knew by the way she was smiling at me. See? her knowing gaze said. No murderer here.

  I had to admit that was surely the way it looked. But then, I reminded myself, that raccoon hadn’t swan-dived into the spaghetti pot on its own. Norman had put it there, which suggested his softheartedness had its limits.

  “We’d better head back right away,” Kelli said. “That road isn’t improving any.”

  “Oh, don’t go yet.” Norman sounded distressed. “Maybe …” His gaze cast around the two-room shack as if searching for something to entice us to stay. “We could play us some cards or something until the spaghetti’s ready.”

  “We really do need to be going.” I was pleased to hear the firmness in Kelli’s statement.

  “Okay.” Norman gave a sigh of resignation. “I got some books out in the Dorf to send back with you. I’ll go get ’em.”

  We stood on the porch to watch him. The rooster was on the hood of the Bronco now, peering through the windshield, or maybe admiring his reflection.

  “The rooster is John Wayne, of course,” Kelli said. “Actually, probably about John Wayne the 10th, since the roosters are always named John Wayne.”

  “Of course.” I glanced back toward the pickup. “Norman has the books in the pickup because … ?”

  “He just likes to sit out there and read.”

  Norman approached the pickup on the driver’s side. But instead of opening the door, he grabbed hold of the top edge of it and with a surprisingly agile twist of body propelled himself through the window.

  Kelli didn’t appear to consider this unusual. “The doors haven’t opened for years,” she explained.

  Norman definitely had his peculiarities. But there was also a certain practicality to elements of his lifestyle. If human friends aren’t available, why not chickens? If your pickup doors don’t open, why not go through a window? If raccoon is what you have available for meat, why not give it a try? Different, yes, but nothing that necessarily warrants a branding of “nutty.”

  He tossed the books in the Bronco. “Heard anything more from that big-shot mining guy?”

  “I think I convinced him they had about as much chance of getting hold of the Lucky Queen now as I have of being voted in as mayor of Hello.”

  Norman grinned. “Good. I been listening to a talk show on the radio about a place down in South America where they got chemicals running outta some big mine like soda pop out of a can. Poisoning and polluting hundreds of square miles of jungle.”

  “That isn’t going to happen here.”

  “Don’t know why Hiram could never see what damage it could do here.” I think Norman frowned, though it was hard to tell with all those egg-speckled whiskers.

  “It’ll probably be at least a week or more before I can get back again. Anything in particular you need?”

  He opened the sack of books Kelli had brought. “No, don’t think so. Hey, all right! You brought the book by that woman who married the alien. They was here again last night.”

  Kelli didn’t say anything, but I ventured, “They?”

  “Spaceship that flies over here regular.” Norman nodded knowingly. “They’re watchin’ us, you know. Keepin’ track. I send ’em welcome signals all the time.” He tapped the side of his head, apparently to indicate how he was broadcasting the signals. “One of these nights I think they’re gonna land and offer me a ride, maybe take me back to their planet.”

  Kelli still didn’t say anything, and I gathered she had decided silence rather than reasoning or argument was the way to go with Norman on this subject.

  Well, maybe he was just a teensy bit nutty, I had to admit. But who was to say with absolute certainty that no UFO aliens were circling the earth, maybe even getting ready to offer an invite or share a bowl of raccoon spaghetti?

  “Okay, we’re going now,” Kelli said briskly. “You take care of yourself, okay?”

  Norman followed us out to the Bronco, coming around to my side as I got in the car. “It’s been a real joy meeting you, Ms. Ivy.” He blinked suddenly. “It ain’t Mrs. Ivy, is it?”

  I was tempted to say it was indeed Mrs. and let him assume there was a current Mr. to avoid complications, but my tongue always freezes up on untruths, even if they’d be helpful or convenient. “No, I’m a widow.”

  “I’m right glad to hear that.” Then, realizing that wasn’t exactly the tactful thing to say, he added, “But sorry about your loss.” He put a hand over his heart.

  “Thank you.”

  “You come on out again, anytime. I’m looking forward to it. Might be a while afore I can git the Dorf runnin’ and git to town,” he added on a regretful note of realism concerning his transportation. He peered through the open window of the Bronco, and I think he was searching for a hand to shake again, but I was prudently sitting on both of them.

  I thanked him for the invitation also. Kelli backed down the steep part of the hill. Norman, flanked by a chicken on either side, waved good-bye. Marilyn’s brown feathers, I now saw, had a golden tinge, as befitted a chicken named for a blond goddess.

  “Well, you have to say one thing for Norman,” Kelli said as we slipped and slid down the steep hillside.

  “What’s that?”

  She patted my leg and smiled. “He has excellent taste.”

  A truck and two men arrived at the house to pick up the books the following morning. I helped load the cardboard boxes they’d brought along, a bit dismayed at the men’s cavalier attitude toward books. I’ve always been one to cherish books, to treat them with loving care, and these guys tossed them around as if they were indestructible widgets. I even yelled at on
e of the men, and I’m not generally a yelling person. “Be careful! You’re tearing the pages in that book!”

  These were guys, I reflected sourly, who probably figured the best use for the pages of a book was exactly what the pages of old Montgomery Ward catalogs had been used for long ago.

  After two truckloads, with me accompanying the second load like just another widget, everything was scattered around the floor of the Hiram L. McLeod Memorial Library looking as if an earthquake had struck. Two different women were on duty today. One was Doris Hammerstone, a tiny, bent over, pink-scalped lady who regarded me rather grumpily, apparently blaming me for encroaching on the emergency fund she’d been guarding so zealously. The other was Myra Fighorn, who spent her time dusting industriously. I had the feeling I’d better not get in her way or I’d be dusted too.

  Neither, beyond initial introductions, invaded my domain, and I spent the day getting an overview of what Hiram’s library contained and doing a preliminary separation of books into major categories. The overhead mural was a bit oppressive. I was sitting directly under it, and the trash floating on the pond scum appeared to be old vegetables, eggplant prominent among them. If there was an artistic message in the mural, I was missing it. But I soon found I could ignore the overhead vegetables and went happily about my work. I walked home at four o’clock feeling quite pleased with the situation.

  Abilene was also pleased with her situation and told me about helping care for the half dozen animals Dr. Sugarman was boarding, plus the two cats he was trying to find homes for. Stella Sinclair had brought her pig in because it wasn’t eating satisfactorily, in her estimation. Dr. Sugarman had spayed two cats, and someone had brought in a dog with a peculiar skin condition that both Abilene and Dr. Sugarman found most fascinating. Personally, talking about it made me feel more itchy than fascinated, but I’m not quite the animal person Abilene is.

  “Oh, and Dr. Sugarman gave me this,” Abilene said as we sat down to spaghetti and meatballs, made with good ol’ ordinary hamburger, for supper. She set a booklet about traffic laws in Colorado, information people had to know to pass the test for a driver’s license, beside her plate. “He says I need to have a driver’s license, so I’m going to study this and get one. I can, you know, kind of drive already.”