The Hum and the Shiver

by Alex Bledsoe

Craig threaded through the crowd lining the street until he reached the incongruously new post office building. Rockhouse Hicks sat in a rocking chair on the porch. Something about the old man stopped strangers from approaching him, and even other locals gave him plenty of space, inside an invisible circle that kept everyone else away. The effect was almost tribal, as if Hicks were a chief or medicine man. Craig’s research on the Tufa, though, insisted they were all fervent individualists with no hierarchy, so he couldn’t be any sort of leader. Unless Hicks’s peculiar birth defect—six working fingers on each hand—fulfilled some unknown community superstition, Craig could only work with the idea that people avoided the old man because, simply, he was a shit-head.

  But with the Tufa, you could never be sure. Dark haired and dark skinned, yet not white, black, or Native American (although often content to be mistaken for any of the above if it meant they’d be left alone), the Tufa kept their secrets so close that, to Craig’s knowledge, no one even knew how they’d turned up deep in Appalachia. Yet when the first official Europeans had reached this valley three centuries earlier, the Tufa were already here, living quietly in the hills and minding their own business.

  Craig, however, was determined to reach out to everyone, even (or especially) the ones no one else would accept. One of the first things he learned was that no one in Cloud County really liked Rockhouse, and he sympathized with the mean old man’s isolation. So he leaned against the wall beside him and asked, “Ever seen a helicopter over Needsville before, Mr. Hicks?”

  Hicks slowly turned. He had sun-narrowed eyes that made his expression impossible to read, but the hint of malevolence shone through. Craig imagined that as a younger man, Hicks had been serious trouble.

  “Reverend Checkers,” he said.

  “Chess,” Craig corrected with a smile.

  Hicks continued to glare at him. Then just as slowly, he returned his gaze to whatever he’d been contemplating before. Craig knew this counted as a dismissal, but he wasn’t giving up that easily. “She’s getting quite a welcome. Can you see okay from here? I bet they’d let you sit up on the podium if you asked.”

  “Seen that girl since she was knee-high to a wet fart. Don’t reckon she looks that different now.”

  “Now she’s a hero, though.”

  Hicks said nothing, but spit out onto the tiny lawn at the base of the post office flagpole.

  “You don’t think so?” Craig persisted. “She killed ten enemy soldiers single-handed.”

  “They say.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  Hicks spit again and shrugged. “Wasn’t there. Don’t trust stories about killings unless I see the corpse myself. Been burned that way.”

  The hint of mystery piqued Craig’s interest, and the annoyance in Hicks’s voice felt like as big a triumph as a whole congregation answering the call to salvation at the end of a service. Any reaction Craig got from the old man was a step forward, a break in the isolation. “Well, I’m going to see if I can find a better spot to watch from. Y’all have a good day, Mr. Hicks.”

  As he worked his way back along the road, he bumped into the man he’d seen earlier, the Tufa reporter. He said, “Excuse me,” and tried to catch a glimpse of the name on the press pass. It read SWAYBACK.

  * * *

  The yellow ribbons tied to trees, fence posts, and telephone poles, clichéd as they were, made Bronwyn feel surprisingly warm inside. She recalled tearing ribbons from some of the same trees when she was a kid, convinced they were too hokey to have any meaning. But now that they were displayed for her, she understood them in a new light, even if she still thought they were inane.

  Like Cleopatra on her barge, she was towed slowly down into the valley toward Needsville. She sat in the ludicrous chair and gritted her teeth against the vibrations going through her shattered leg bones. Somehow they’d mounted a leather recliner to the foredeck, with a modified footrest to support her injured leg. It seemed solid enough, but did nothing to make her feel less ridiculous. She thought about waving with the back of her hand turned out, like Queen Elizabeth, or mouthing “This is so lame,” as Nancy Kerrigan had at Disneyland. But at least for a little while longer, she was still a soldier; she’d do neither.

  She wanted to stare straight ahead, at the fresh lines painted on the highway after the state repaved it earlier in the spring, but there was no resisting the pull of the mountains. At first she looked only with her eyes, cutting them enough to see the lush trees and rolling slopes visible past the MPs standing at the deck rails beside her. But like that first taste of liquor to an abstaining drunk, it only made it worse. The leaves sang to her, tunes blew through the breeze, and for a moment something that had been silent and still since she’d left this place vibrated deep in her chest. But it was only a moment; like everything else, it faded to numbness and left her aware of its presence but unable to actually feel it.

  Except somehow, she sensed danger. Not the immediate kind as she’d known in Iraq, but real nonetheless. It was like a shadowy animal glimpsed over the tall grass that ducked out of sight the instant before she turned to look directly at it.

  It took twenty minutes to drive the half mile from the city limits to the bandstand and podium set up outside City Hall. The crowd’s response was every bit as loud as the helicopter’s engine. Bronwyn saw few heads of straight black hair or dark sullen eyes among the throng; and, as she expected, Rockhouse Hicks had not moved from the post office porch. It was okay, though; she’d have plenty of time to see the locals. These strangers weren’t here to see her, anyway; they wanted the Bronwynator.

  Two MPs carefully carried her to the stage, where Maitland provided the promised crutches. Her injured arm could barely do its job, but it was a matter of pride that she stand before these people. She reached the podium and waited patiently while the applause continued and the cameras fired away.

  As the cheering died down, Major Maitland eased up to the microphone. “Private Hyatt will make a statement, but as you can see, she’s not up to any questions. We ask that you respect her courage, and her injuries.”

  Bronwyn unfolded the two pages of typing with the word APPROVED stamped in red near one corner. She blew into the microphone to check her distance from it. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Thank y’all for being here. It’s great to be back in Needsville.” She stopped for renewed applause. Her voice sounded thin and weak in the loudspeakers, certainly not strong enough to belong to a First Daughter of the Tufa.

  “I’d like to thank everyone who hoped and prayed for my rescue and recovery,” she continued. “For a long time, I had no idea anyone even knew or cared about what had happened to me. Now, believe me, I know that to be false. I feel blessed, honored, and grateful beyond words for the love my home community has given me so freely.”

  She felt herself turn red. Intellectually she understood, and even agreed with, the need for these words to be spoken aloud. But having to say them still incited those old rebellious feelings. They weren’t as strong as they’d once been, though; it was like the shadow of something that used to be gigantic.

  “I’d like to thank the staff of the VA hospital for the excellent care they gave me. I’m also grateful to several Iraqi medical personnel who helped save my life while I was in their care. And of course, to the brave Marines who rescued me.

  “I’m proud to be a soldier in the United States Army. I’m relieved that some of the soldiers I served with made it home alive, and it hurts that some did not. I’ll miss them. And now … I’m going home.”

  She quickly folded the speech, turned, and this time did not resist when the MPs moved in to aid her. As they carried her down the steps, she made eye contact with a woman in the crowd who had straight black hair and soft, tender eyes. The woman held out her right hand in a fist, wrapped her thumb over the back of her index finger and then turned her wrist and spread all her fingers wide.

  Bronwyn said nothing. It wasn’t normal sign language, although it was a s
ign and she knew the language. But she couldn’t find the strength to respond, and her hands were busy making sure she wasn’t accidentally dropped onto the sidewalk. She was placed in the passenger seat of a shiny Town & Country for her trip to her family’s home, and as the door closed she looked for the woman in the crowd. But, not surprisingly, she’d vanished.

  The sense of danger momentarily returned. Certainly it didn’t come from the woman in the crowd, whom Bronwyn would trust with her life and song. But the woman knew about it, Bronwyn was certain. And it explained her serious, even grim expression when everyone around her was cheering.

  * * *

  By the time Bronwyn finished her speech, Craig had maneuvered close enough to get a good look at her face. He’d seen photographs, but he was surprised by how beautiful she was in real life. Mountain girls’ faces tended to have hard edges, sharp planes, and leathery skin; Bronwyn had the high cheekbones and strong chin, but her complexion was smooth and unlined, and still had the softness of youth. Her dark eyes were large and hinted at self-aware intelligence.

  Craig scolded himself. He tried to avoid thinking about people, especially women, that way. It was unprofessional for a minister, and unkind for a human being. What mattered was what was inside, not the surface they presented to the world.

  Someone jostled him from behind, and when he turned, a camera’s flash blinded him. “Whoa!” he cried, putting up his hand to shield his eyes.

  “Sorry,” the photographer said without looking up from his camera’s screen.

  As his eyes recovered, Craig realized the photographer was Swayback, the reporter who looked like a Tufa. “Hey, who do you work for?” Craig asked before he could stop himself.

  Swayback looked up, alarmed. “Wait a minute, you’re not gonna complain to my editor just because a flash went off in your face, are you? Good grief, there’s a million photographers here, it could’ve happened to anybody. I said I was sorry.”

  “No, I just—”

  “Tell you what: I work for the Daily Planet. My editor’s Perry White. You tell him all about it.” Then Swayback turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  By the time Craig turned back toward the podium, Bronwyn Hyatt was gone and everyone began to disperse.

  2

  The trip in the Town & Country was as bone jangling as Bronwyn expected. She sat with her broken leg across the folded-down middle passenger seat, padded with pillows that kept it elevated and immobile. Cloud County’s secondary roads were not maintained by the state, and once you left the main highway, they quickly became little more than paired gravel ruts with a grass strip between them. Most Tufas drove vehicles suited to these conditions; perhaps the army should’ve delivered her home in a tank.

  Behind them—far behind them, since the last military vehicle was instructed to go very slowly—came the press. Nothing could stop them completely, and a news-channel helicopter even shadowed Bronwyn’s progress. But as Maitland said, it was part of America now to want to know everything about a celebrity, especially a fifteen-minute one. Better to give them something than to stonewall and have them start digging.

  The scenery was so familiar that for a moment Bronwyn forgot everything around her and believed she was riding home in Dwayne’s pickup; the slight haze from her pain medication could easily be the low buzz of homegrown pot. It lasted only an instant, but it was disconcerting all the same. She took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate on the fence posts and barbed wire passing in undulating waves.

  As they neared her home, people stood along the fence, scowling into the dust raised by the cars. She could not discern particular faces, but their dark hair and presence here identified them. They would never be caught dead in the madness currently possessing Needsville, yet neither would they allow Bronwyn to return home without acknowledging it. It had nothing to do with the war or patriotism; or, rather, it sprang from a kind of loyalty tied to no physical location. It was a concept of “family” unique to this place and to these people, those with the truest Tufa blood in their veins.

  “I don’t see any cars or trucks,” Maitland observed. “How’d all these people get here?”

  Bronwyn smiled. “Not much is far away from anything else in these hills, if you’re willing to climb up and down a lot.”

  “Are these friends of yours? Do you need crowd control?”

  “No, Major, these are my people. It’s okay.”

  * * *

  Bronwyn’s family lived in a long single-story home set into the slope leading up to Hyatt’s Ridge behind it. The yard slanted down to a flat area, where the family parked its vehicles in the shade of a huge pecan tree. Other trees hung over the house, hiding it from the scalding Tennessee sun. A wooden fence blocked off the front yard from the surrounding woods, and a metal gate could be closed at the end of the driveway. It was open now, though, and decorated with an enormous yellow ribbon.

  Chloe Hyatt sat in a straight-backed chair on the wooden deck porch, her hands in her lap. She watched the approaching dust cloud over the tops of the trees. “Here they come,” she said.

  Chloe wore a simple summer dress with a muted flower pattern, colorful but not gaudy. The spaghetti straps emphasized the strong, straight shoulders she had passed on to her only daughter. Her black hair hung to the middle of her back, held in place with a white ribbon. She had deep smile lines and a hint of crow’s-feet, but otherwise looked like she might be Bronwyn’s older sister rather than her mother. Despite her air of reserve, she radiated health and energy the way all true Tufa women did. It was part of what made them so desirable—and so dangerous.

  Deacon stood beside Chloe, dressed in his funeral suit. It was the only one he owned, and it seemed silly to purchase a new one for something as simple as his daughter coming home. Deacon was a tall, hard-bodied man with a set to his jaw that spoke of the determination of Orpheus, while the twinkle in his eye was more Dionysian. Like Chloe, there was something about him that was both immensely attractive and subtly dangerous, although in his case it was mixed with humor so dry, it blew over most people like dust from the road.

  Both Chloe and Deacon were full-blooded Tufas. That meant they looked as much like brother and sister as they did husband and wife, even though they were related only tangentially, as people tended to be in small communities. Outsiders often jumped to conclusions that embraced old clichés of mountain-family inbreeding; Needsville, though, paid the Hyatts the respect their bloodlines inspired, and that their conduct reinforced.

  Eight-year-old Aiden watched the trucks approach up the narrow road. He was lanky, his black hair long and unkempt, and he squirmed uncomfortably in his button-down shirt and khakis. He stood at the bottom of the porch steps, practically vibrating with excitement as the first vehicle made the turn into their driveway. Two more pulled in on either side. “Holy shit,” he said.

  “You want me to wash that tongue with lye soap, boy, keep up that language,” Deacon said without looking at him. But he agreed with the assessment. They’d watched the parade and speech on television, glad they decided not to meet Bronwyn in town. “You knew it was going to be a big deal.”

  “Yessir,” he said, and pointed at the TV news trucks traveling in bumper-touching eagerness behind the final vehicle. “And I also told you we’d need the shotgun.”

  Deacon smiled. “Go get it, then. Shut the gate once the army gets through, then keep them TV peckerheads out.”

  “Yessir,” Aiden said eagerly, and rushed into the house.

  “You sure it’s a good idea to let him use a real gun?” Chloe said.

  Deacon shrugged. “He’ll only be shooting reporters. No real loss, far as I can tell. Besides, for every one you shoot, I bet two more pop up.”

  “You’re thinking of lawyers,” Chloe deadpanned. Deacon grinned.

  Aiden returned with a 16-gauge side-by-side double barrel slung breech-open over his shoulder. His shirttail was already untucked. He rushed down the hill into the dust. Vague shapes moved
through it, but none of them seemed to be Bronwyn. Finally four big men emerged onto the yard, pushing something between them.

  Chloe stood. “My baby girl,” she said very softly, and hummed a tune only Tufa mothers knew.

  * * *

  Bronwyn gazed around at the familiar yard, with its old swing set and basketball goal off to the side. Eighteen years of her life had been spent here, yet it seemed far less substantial than the events of the past two. She had to struggle to connect the memories with actual emotions. She remembered using the rented Bobcat to level enough ground so she and her friends could actually play ball; then she’d taken off down the road, intending to clear a new path across the hill to her favorite swimming hole. She’d been eleven then, and it must’ve been exciting. Her father had used his belt on her behind seventeen times that day. Had she been angry about that? Or hurt? She couldn’t recall.

  “Bronwyn!” Aiden cried as he bounced down the yard toward her. One of the MPs went for his pistol when he saw Aiden’s shotgun, but Bronwyn said quickly, “It’s all right, he’s my little brother.”

  Ignoring the big men around her, Aiden was about to jump in her lap and give her a hug when he saw the metal rings and pins on her leg. He skidded to a stop, eyes wide. “Wow,” he gasped. “Does that hurt?”

  “It sure don’t feel good,” she said with a laugh. “But it’s better than it was. Come here, you little muskrat.” They hugged as much as the chair allowed.

  “Dad wants me to keep out the reporters,” he said breathlessly. “Gave me a shell for each barrel.”

  “What a big, strong boy,” Major Maitland said. “You must be Aiden. You can just run on back up to the house, we have men assigned to guard the gate while your sister’s getting settled.”

  “And now you have one more,” Bronwyn said when she saw Aiden’s disappointment. “He can help. The squirrels around here tremble at his name. Right?”

  Aiden grinned. Maitland bit back his protest and simply nodded.