by JC Gatlin
“Or what?” The veins in Owen’s neck bulged and he raised his fist.
Rayanne squeezed his arm tighter. “Don’t egg them on, Owen. You’re making it worse.” Her voice quivered.
Luger barked, jaws snapping. The furious echoes made it sound as if there were a whole pack of dogs surrounding them, hidden in the trees. Scut held up a hand toward the dog, as if giving it a signal.
“Listen to your little lady, old man.”
“You don’t want to start with me.” Owen broke loose from Rayanne’s grasp and approached Scut.
Dru let her dog loose and the Rottweiler bolted forward.
Rayanne ran to the truck, opened the back door, and pulled the Winchester from the rack above the seat. She swung it around, aimed, and fired a double load of buckshot over their heads. The Rottweiler yelped at the noise and, cowering, ran off to hide behind Dru’s legs. Its muzzle wrinkled back in a great humorless grin that bared pointed teeth.
Rayanne broke open the chamber and the empty shells popped out and dropped to the ground. “You kids need to find another place to party,” she said.
Scut moved toward Owen, but when Rayanne casually shifted the shotgun in her arms and leveled it at him, he stopped.
He raised his arms, as if surrendering. “Calm down, lady, okay? We’re leaving.”
He shut off the flashlight, plunging the campsite into darkness. Rayanne couldn’t see the teenagers leave, but she heard them plunging through foliage and into the woods where they had come from.
When her eyes adjusted to the night again, she saw Owen’s wide eyes boring into her.
“You know that’s empty?” he said.
Rayanne lowered the gun, then let it fall from her hands. It landed on the ground as she ran to Owen. She wrapped her arms around him. He embraced her and held her for several seconds. Neither said a word.
Finally, Owen released her and walked over to the Winchester lying in the grass by the truck. He picked it up. “Where’d you learn to handle a gun like that?”
“You think Luger was the first rabid dog I’ve run into?” She watched him, thankful he wasn’t hurt. Thankful they both were okay. “Who were those kids?”
Owen didn’t answer. He put the shotgun back in the truck. Slamming the door, he marched to the fire pit and kicked sand on the wet kindling.
“Who were those kids?” She walked over to him. “Do you know them?”
He didn’t answer. Moving past her, he headed for the tent. “Those kids aren’t far. They’ll be back.”
“What was he talking about? What did he want?”
She followed him and took a corner of the tent, raising it so the stakes lifted out of the ground. She was about to ask again. She wanted an answer, but thought better of it. They worked silently and efficiently in the dark, and twenty minutes later their tent was folded and stuffed into the tote. As Owen packed it in the truck, Rayanne noticed the guitar lying beside the log they’d been sitting on. The bottle of Merlot had tipped over and the ground was soggy beneath it. She picked up the bottle and wiped away the mud. Then she grabbed the canvas bag that had carried so many possibilities within it merely an hour ago.
Carrying it across her shoulder, she walked around the front of the truck and climbed into the passenger seat while also toting the guitar. “I think there’s a bed-and-breakfast in town. We can stay there overnight.”
He didn’t answer.
She set the guitar on the floorboard and looked into the bag sitting on her lap. Specs of mud dotted the cups and negligee inside, but the granola box was clean. She pulled out a bar and slipped it into her pocket for later. It was the last one in the box.
* * * * *
They drove along the two dirt tracks in the dark. The boat and trailer bounced behind them. Owen flipped on the high beams and they lit up the woods ahead. Rayanne hoped they were still actually on the path as branches struck the windshield and the side doors. They hit something in the road and the truck jittered and swerved. A new wave of expletives rushed from Owen’s mouth and he stopped the truck. He hopped out and slammed the door shut.
Swinging her legs off the dashboard, Rayanne slipped out of the truck and saw the trailer severely leaning to the left. The tire had deflated. In the path, she saw a scatter of broken glass, shards of dark-colored beer bottles in the road.
Owen kicked the edge of the trailer. “Dropp’n F!”
“Calm down, okay?” Rayanne walked to the center of the path and bent over to study the broken glass.
Owen wasn’t listening, and knelt by the flat tire. “They blew a hole in my tire!” He kicked the trailer again, then spun around. “On purpose!”
“They’re kids. What do you want to do about it? Do you want me to change the tire?” She stood and faced him. “Get back in the truck, calm down, and I will change the tire.”
“You’re not changing the tire,” he said, walking to the truck. He took the jack and tire iron out of a compartment in the backseat.
She watched him, raising her eyebrows and waiting for him to continue.
He slammed the door shut and turned to her. “Get in the truck.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “It’s not safe out here.”
“Why?” Rayanne had enough of his silence and placed her hands on her hips as she spoke. “Who were those kids and what did they want?”
He turned away from her. “I don’t know.”
“They obviously knew you. What are you not telling me?” She stepped toward him. She twirled the wedding ring on her finger.
“I can’t deal with this right now, babe. Okay?” He raised the tire iron in the air as if he were swinging a bat. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“So there is something to talk about?”
“No!” He walked to the rear of the trailer and dropped the jack next to the brake lights. It clanged as it hit the dirt. He still gripped the tire iron, though, and waved it as he spoke. “I don’t know who those kids were. I don’t know what they wanted. And I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“I don’t believe you.” Rayanne’s legs were trembling as adrenaline kicked in. She knew she was pushing him. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
He dropped the tire iron and, resting a hand on the underside of the boat, leaned down close to the blown tire. “Believe whatever you want,” he said in a low voice.
Rayanne didn’t move. “Do those kids work for some kinda loan shark?”
He looked up. “What?”
“Did you borrow money from someone?” She waited for an answer. When he didn’t respond, she continued. “We’re bankrupt, you’ve got creditors calling and filing liens, and the IRS is breathing down our backs.”
Owen froze, shutting his eyes and lowering his head. He spoke very slowly, directly. “You blame me, don’t you?”
Rayanne sighed. “Of course not.”
He looked back at the tire, then muttered over his shoulder, “I didn’t borrow money from no one.”
“Owen, we’ve got debt com—”
“I’m not selling cars, okay? I’m not working for your father.”
“If you’d taken that job six months ago, we wouldn’t be confronted with teenage muscle ready to unleash their killer dog on us.” She paced back and forth behind the trailer, running her hands through her hair.
Owen threw up his arms and kicked the dirt. Finally, he stopped and faced her. “Babe, I’m in no mood—”
“You’re in the same mood you’re always in—angry.” She was yelling now. “You’ve been impossible to live with for the last six months, and when my dad offers to help you, you spit in his face and turn to loan sharks.”
“I didn’t—babe, I can’t deal with this right now.” He got to his feet and turned away from her. He walked to the edge of the path and faced the dark woods.
She followed him. “You know what, Owen? This isn’t about the business going under or the collection calls or us almost getting killed tonight.” She wasn’t yelling, yet her vo
ice was firm. “It’s about our marriage and our future. And the fact that you’ve always got some excuse to walk away from it.”
“Don’t start with me, Rayanne. Not right now.” He kicked the tire iron on the ground and walked away, toward the front of the truck.
She tagged behind him. “Our marriage has serious issues, and you refuse to deal with what’s going on.”
“I’m not the one who cut my wrists.” He spoke with his head down toward the tire, as if he were studying it.
Rayanne stiffened. “What did you say?”
“Don’t say I refuse to deal with what’s going on.” He wouldn’t look at her. “You’re the one you can’t get past it. Ever since—”
“Don’t you dare say another word. Not another word.”
“Why, Rayanne? This didn’t happen to just you.”
Clearly, this confrontation had pushed him over the edge and he jumped up, shaking his fist and leaning toward her. He acted like he wanted to strangle her. Instead he turned and screamed and threw his phone into the woods. It smashed against a large oak tree nearby.
“I miss him too!” he screamed.
The sound quieted the crickets. They both stood in the dark, listening to the silence, before Owen turned around. Rayanne stared at the mark on the tree where the phone had hit it.
“Are you happy?” she asked. “We can’t afford a new phone right n—”
“You’re not the only one hurting,” he said, talking over her.
“What are you going to do without a phone? What if a prospective employer calls you?”
He wasn’t listening. “You shut me out, Rayanne. You shut down and shut me out.”
“We can barely cover rent and electric and water and cable,” she said, oblivious to his rant. “Now we’re going to have to buy a new phone.”
“I gave you space, Rayanne. So what do you want me to do? Leave?”
Rayanne paused, studying him a moment. “No, of course not.”
“Then what? What do you want?”
“I’m not ready.” Her eyes teared up again. Not so much from sadness as simply saying the things she had wanted to say for so long. “I can’t. Not yet.”
This made him laugh. “Well, you let me know when you’re ready then.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Really?” he asked. “Or are you waiting for the next weekend Darryl and I are registered for a $100,000 bass tournament.”
“This had nothing to do with that.”
“There’s fifty-one other weekends we could’ve done this, and you insist on commandeering the one weekend that—”
“Stop it.” Rayanne turned on her heel and rushed away from him, to the rear of the truck. “You and Darryl. You and Darryl. If I never hear Darryl’s name again for the rest of my life, it will be too soon.”
“Get used to it because he’s clearly all the family I have left.”
“Great. Then he can put up with your bad mood.” Rayanne acknowledged the insolence with a darting, hateful glance. “Just change the damn tire and let’s get out of here.”
She climbed into the truck and slammed the passenger door. It took him half an hour to change the tire. When he returned to the cab, Rayanne handed him a bottle of water.
“Thank you,” he said, and they drove in silence back to Willow.
9
Rayanne opened her eyes at first light. She was aware that she had dreamed again. Cowering in the corner of two block walls, she found her arms wrapped tightly in a straightjacket. She was fighting to free herself. She didn’t want to be back in the solitaire room. She was better now. She had to get out. She twisted her head, searching for a way. There was light above, from a single window, where a white bird was fluttering. It struck the glass. Rayanne shook the vague images from her mind and sat up in bed. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked around the motel room. She was alone.
After a hot shower, she found a yellow, long-sleeved shirt in her suitcase and slipped it on. The brown “Fish Naked” T-shirt lay on top of the clothes. She really wanted to go home and wash everything and put this whole trip behind her.
Dressed, she stepped outside carrying her bags and walked through the motel parking lot. Main Street stretched before her, and she saw her husband’s black Chevy parked in the Texaco station. Owen was probably talking to the mechanic about a new tire. She didn’t feel like talking to him. Not yet, anyway.
She strode across the street with her bags slung over her shoulder, and entered the corner diner. A redheaded waitress behind the counter greeted her.
“Mountain Dew and an iced tea, no ice,” she replied.
“Bring me a menu,” Rayanne said as she found a booth and set down her bags.
The place was buzzing with locals in for early morning coffee. The town sheriff sat in a booth across from her, and Rayanne remembered him from yesterday, directing traffic along the interstate. Their eyes met.
Dressed in the tan trousers and short-sleeved, button-down shirt of the Willow Sheriff’s Department, he looked well into his fifties. Tufts of swept-back white hair protruded beneath the sides of his cowboy hat. Still, he was clearly in shape and was a man who commanded respect by his very appearance. Rayanne smiled at him and he tipped his hat.
As the waitress moved from behind the counter bringing her a menu, Rayanne saw Owen enter the diner. The door chimed as he walked inside. He plopped down across from her in the booth.
Focused on the menu, Rayanne pretended not to notice. Her dark hair was tangled and she kept toying with it, twisting the ends and combing the knots out with her slender fingers. The waitress placed two glasses on the table: one with Mountain Dew, the other with iced tea, no ice. Rayanne nodded at her, motioning the woman to give them a minute. The waitress smiled, acknowledging her, then turned and left.
Owen picked up his glass and took a sip as Rayanne’s face remained hidden behind the menu. After a moment he set down his glass and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about the blow-up back there at the truck,” he said in a hushed tone. “And I’m sorry about last night too. You know I didn’t mean it.”
Rayanne put down the menu. “Owen, I don’t like the direction we’re headed.”
“Me neither.” He stared at his Mountain Dew. “That morning I walked in the bathroom, saw you lying there in the tub, blood dripping from your arms …”
Rayanne blinked. “I know,” she whispered.
He leaned forward. “We’re both dealing with it, you know. You’re not in this alone.”
“Owen, please …” She hesitated, sipping her tea. It wasn’t the drink she really wanted, but then nothing about this trip had gone the way she wanted. Since that was the case, she decided to go for it. “Let’s put last night—and this whole trip—behind us.”
“You keep saying that, but we don’t. We’ve never even talked about him—”
“Don’t.”
“Since the funeral.” He paused, looked down at the table, then mumbled, “It’s been two years.”
“Stop.”
Owen hesitated. “We can’t keep pretending like it never happened.”
Rayanne sighed. “This whole trip was a mistake. It was a bad idea, and it’s my fault.” She reached for her bags as she shifted in the booth toward the edge.
Owen grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Rayanne, please. It’s been two years,” he said.
She tried to pull away.
He tightened his grip. His voice was low, gravelly, like the Rottweiler’s growl. “Everything that’s happened. It’s my fault.”
“Owen—”
“The business failing. Losing our home. Connor.”
“No!” Rayanne screamed, and jerked her hand away from his, brushing his glass of Mountain Dew. It toppled with a splash and rolled off the table, shattering on the floor.
The crashing glass brought a sudden silence to the chatter in the diner.
Owen turned his head, then slipped from the booth. He bent down and picked up glass
from the floor. Soda had spilled on her bags, and Rayanne moved them to the seat.
The commotion had caught the sheriff’s attention, and he slid out of his booth and approached the table. “Is there a problem?” He lumbered more than walked and looked as if he could be serious trouble if angered.
Still picking up glass, Owen barely acknowledged the sheriff. “It was only an accident.”
“We’re just a little rattled, Sheriff.” Rayanne looked up at him as he hovered over her husband, stooped on the floor. She noticed his badge with the name “R. Petty” engraved in small letters. She smiled at him, thankful for the distraction.
The waitress came to the table with a rag and knelt beside Owen. She mopped up the green soda from the floor as he put shards of glass in his open palm. Sitting in the booth, Rayanne never took her eyes off the sheriff standing above them.
“Sorry about the commotion, Sheriff … Petty,” she said to him. “My husband and I are rattled, that’s all.”
He stared at her. “Is there a problem?”
Rayanne nodded. “We tried to go fishing and some kids started harassing us.”
“Some kids?” He remained standing at the table as Owen and the waitress cleaned the mess from the tile floor. Rayanne noticed the gun in his holster and the radio attached to his belt.
“Teenagers, really.” Owen stood up, holding several pieces of wet, broken glass. “Three boys and a girl. They’ve got a pit bull.”
“It’s a Rottweiler,” Rayanne said.
The sheriff’s mouth moved slightly, as if he was thinking about it, before he said, “Might be the Socash kids. A brother and sister.”
Rayanne nodded. It didn’t matter, she thought. They were leaving anyway. She looked across the table at her husband. “They’re a nuisance. They live in an old shack on the north end of the lake.”
“The north end?” The sheriff thought about it a moment. “It’s a big lake, but I can’t think of anyone who lives up there. The Socash family lives on the outskirts of town.”
Owen sat in the booth, and the waitress took the glass shards from his hands. “The kid’s name was Scut and he had a girlfriend named Dru,” he said. “I think we were on their land or someth’n. There’s a trapper’s shack on it.”
