by Alex Bledsoe
Suddenly Gitterman’s truck leaped away like a spooked frog. Pafford floored it, and the big Crown Victoria’s rumble rose to a solid, intimidating whine. The hash marks between the lanes blurred into a single line.
* * *
At the last second, Dwayne saw the road that led past the fire station. His truck skidded wide as he tried to turn, and both tires on the passenger side left the pavement. He cut ruts into the grass bank and felt the rear bumper slam into the side of the ditch before the tires got traction and shot the truck up, its front end now off the ground. It slammed down onto the blacktop, and Dwayne winced as he bounced up into the cab’s roof. But he was back on the road, and he both floored it and switched off his lights.
* * *
The cloud of dust where Dwayne’s truck skidded off the road was momentarily lit red by the truck’s brake lights. Then it vanished. The Interceptor shot through the dust and for a moment Pafford saw no sign of the truck. Then he spotted the reflection from a distant license plate.
It took Pafford a moment to realize what had happened; the drunken fool was running blind on a moonless night. This could only end one way.
That made Pafford smile.
* * *
Dwayne leaned so far forward, his forehead touched the windshield. He knew the road ran straight for about three miles before it began to weave with the rising terrain. He had to put as much distance as possible between him and the asshole cop before the curves started, because there was no way he could navigate them without headlights.
“Come on, cocksucker,” he whispered. “Come on.…” Thoughts of fucking Bronwyn had been replaced by the chest-wrenching memories of the time he’d spent in jail. He’d rather end up wrapped around a tree than endure that again.
* * *
Pafford gritted his teeth in rage. The truck was slowly pulling away, the license plate now a dim glow at the far end of his headlights. “You’re not getting away from me, Gitterman,” he said aloud. “It’s not happening.”
Then the truck was gone. Ahead he saw only empty road.
His roar of rage made his own ears ring.
As if in response, the license plate reappeared. Now it rushed toward him, and he realized the vehicle ahead was traveling much more slowly than his car. He stood on the brakes, his shoulders straining back against the seat, hands fighting to hold the wheel steady. He stopped barely a car’s length behind the other vehicle.
The old tan Chevrolet station wagon put on its right turn signal and pulled off the road. It sat there with its emergency flashers blinking in the night.
Pafford gasped for air. He smelled the skid-scorched tires and the fresh sweat from his own body. He waited until the blood no longer thundered in his ears before he took his foot off the brake pedal. The cruiser crept forward, and he eased it to a stop, almost touching the station wagon’s bumper. He got out, adjusted his hat and belt, then strode with practiced arrogance to the driver’s window. His legs felt wobbly; he hoped it didn’t show. He shone the flashlight inside the vehicle.
Rockhouse Hicks squinted into the light. “Problem there, Officer Pafford? I got out of your way quick as I could, but you come up on me awful fast. Surely I wasn’t speeding, this ol’ heap barely cracks fifty going downhill.”
Pafford clenched his teeth again. He knew Hicks carried some weight among the Cloud County Tufa population, but there was something indefinable about this old man that always gave him the creeps and, although he’d never admit it, scared him. “Mr. Hicks,” he said, “I was in pursuit of a pickup truck running with its lights out. Did you see it?”
Hicks cleared his throat and spit phlegm past Pafford into the night. “Dwayne Gitterman’s truck?”
“That’s the one.”
Hicks’s expression didn’t change, but somehow he conveyed mockery with his eyes. “No, ’fraid not. Only other car I’ve seen is yours.”
Pafford’s free hand automatically went for his gun, as it always did when faced with an uppity motorist. But he caught himself. Calmly he asked, “Are you absolutely sure about that, Mr. Hicks? There’s no place along here he could turn off. He had to pass you.”
“Maybe he flew over me, then,” Hicks said. “You mind getting that light out of my eyes? Makes ’em water.”
Pafford switched off the light. For a moment afterwards, Hicks’s eyes seemed to glow red with some inner illumination, and their surfaces looked compound, like those of an insect. Then it faded, and the old man said, “Unless you’re going to give me a ticket for not knowing where Dwayne Gitterman is, I reckon I’ll be heading on home. Good night, Officer.”
Hicks started the engine, put on the left turn signal, and pulled out onto the empty highway. His taillights slowly faded into the distance.
* * *
At the first curve, Dwayne had pulled his truck into a tractor path and hidden it behind a stand of trees. He killed the engine, so the only light came from the starry, moonless sky. He guzzled another beer and watched the road for any sign of the trooper. He heard no approaching engine, only the insects in the trees and the pops of his own cooling motor.
Then he jumped and shrieked when someone knocked on the window.
He scooted across the seat to the passenger door, holding the beer can out in front of him like a weapon. He saw a shadow beside the truck taller than the cab. His first thought was It’s fucking Bigfoot! and he started to reach for the pistol he kept under the seat. Then a voice muffled by the glass said, “Don’t be such a pussy, man.”
He switched on the dome light. It revealed the handsome, blank face of Stoney Hicks outside the door. “What the hell are you doing out here?” Dwayne said, his voice high.
Stoney laughed. He was physically very similar to Dwayne, except writ large: taller, broader, and if possible, even smoother with the ladies. He’d left a trail of broken hearts and lovelorn suicides among the non-Tufa population all around Needsville starting when he hit puberty. His voice always sounded sleepy and bored. “Watching you piss your pants, I reckon. What’s wrong with you?”
Dwayne scooted across the seat and out the driver’s door. “That asshole Bob Pafford was after me. I barely got away.”
“Guess it’s your lucky night, then,” Stoney said.
Headlights appeared through the trees as a vehicle approached on the highway. “Shit,” Dwayne said, and started to jump back in the truck.
Stoney grabbed his arm. “Just relax. That’s Uncle Rockhouse. He probably wants to talk to you, seeing as how he saved your ass and all.”
The station wagon pulled in behind Dwayne’s truck and stopped. The headlight beams stayed on as Hicks emerged. He hitched his pants, spit into the dark, and walked over to Dwayne. “Ain’t you a piece of work. Running from the law with no lights on a moonless night. How drunk are you?”
Dwayne swallowed hard, looking from uncle to nephew. Stoney Hicks intimidated him as few men his own age did, and Rockhouse terrified him. The stories whispered about the old man would not have been out of place in a Saw movie. “I dunno … I’ve had a few.”
“You been out to see your old girlfriend?”
Dwayne’s mouth went dry. “Yeah.”
“Yes, sir,” Stoney corrected, and painfully squeezed Dwayne’s right biceps for emphasis.
Dwayne repeated, “Yes, sir.”
“Good. You be sure you keep after her, now. Don’t want her running off with somebody from outside the county.” He stepped close. “Ain’t that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Hate to think what might’ve happened to you if I hadn’t been here tonight. Come on, Stoney.”
Stoney released Dwayne’s arm, muttered, “Pussy,” and smacked him lightly on the back of the head.
Dwayne watched the two Hicks men depart. He stood there for a long time trying to sort through the evening’s events, and it was quite a while before the two strangest things registered on him.
What the hell had Stoney Hicks been doing out here? And why did Rockho
use care about him and Bronwyn?
* * *
Stoney watched Dwayne’s taillights recede, then turned to his uncle. “That boy’s dumb as a damn snail shell. He’s been smoking dope so long, he ain’t got but three brain cells left, and they don’t all work at the same time.”
“That’s okay,” Rockhouse said, and spit into the night. “All he’s got to do is get Bronwyn Hyatt back under his thumb.”
“Why don’t you let me do it?” Stoney said. “Hell, ain’t a girl out there I can’t get on her back.” He wasn’t bragging; in his entire life, he’d never had a girl refuse him. Most Tufa girls knew not to go anywhere near him, but there were plenty of others around.
Rockhouse glared at him. “Yeah, you can git ’em, but you leave ’em useless, so eat up with love for you that they wither up and die.”
He shrugged. “Ain’t my fault.”
“That ain’t what I mean. I want everyone to see the little Hyatt whore bring herself down, not have her be took down by one of us. I ain’t making no martyrs.” He spit again, then shook his head. “She shoulda died in that damn desert. She left here, she took herself and her song away from us, she shoulda fucking gotten her brains blown out. Instead she comes back a hero.”
Stoney said nothing. Now he understood why Rockhouse hated the Hyatt girl so much. Like Rockhouse himself, she’d gone away and found disaster, but unlike his uncle, she’d come back a hero. Even if she’d been part of their clan and not Mandalay’s, the old man would’ve hated her.
“She’s home now,” Stoney said at last. “She’ll be back to her old habits soon enough.”
“Damn well better be,” the old man muttered, and slapped his keys into Stoney’s hand. Then there was a rustle of large age-battered wings, and Stoney stood alone in the dark. He hummed as he walked to his uncle’s station wagon.
18
The sun touched Bronwyn’s face through the window. She blinked and frowned as she awoke; there was no way the sunrise could come through her bedroom window at that angle. She rose on her elbows and squinted into the glare before she realized she was still on the couch, and the light was reflected from a car’s windshield. At the same moment, she comprehended whose car it was.
The excitement was almost too much for her as she struggled to get the Velcro straps in place around her leg. When that was done, despite the protests of her sleep-stoked bladder, she grabbed her crutches and hobbled toward the front door. “Kell!” she almost screamed.
She blinked into the dawn as she emerged onto the porch. Chloe and Deacon sat with her older brother, all of them looking at her. It was the first time she’d seen Kell in two years, and he looked broader, older and more mature. His black hair hung in unruly strands to his shoulders, and his chin was fashionably stubbled. When he stood, she swore he was a good two inches taller. She hopped toward him and he met her halfway with a big wraparound embrace.
“So this is the big war hero,” he said.
“Nah, there’s some lots bigger than me,” she said into his chest. She grabbed a handful of his T-shirt and anchored herself for the fiercest hug she could manage, pressing herself into him. For the first time, she felt like she was truly home, and that everything would be all right.
She pulled back and looked up into Kell’s face. The maturity in his eyes was different, much more like Deacon’s than it had ever been before. She tucked his hair behind one ear. “You need a haircut, mister.”
“And you need dancing lessons,” he said with a grin, then picked her up and twirled her around. She laughed, the first time she’d done so without an edge of bitterness since she’d been home.
He put her down, kissed her on the forehead with a loud smack, and said, “I was beginning to think you weren’t ever going to wake up. Let me see the leg.”
She extended the plastic-sheathed limb for him.
“Ouch,” he said. “Weren’t you also shot in the arm?”
“That was nothing,” she said with a dismissive wave. The gesture toppled her off balance, and Kell caught her. Both laughed and hugged again.
“You better sit down so you won’t have so far to fall,” Deacon said dryly, and pushed a chair out for her.
“Wait, I’ll be right back, I really have to pee.”
“Holler for your brother while you’re in there,” Chloe said.
Bronwyn used the bathroom quickly, yelled for Aiden to get out of bed, and returned to the porch. As she settled into a chair she said to Kell, “I thought you were coming home Saturday.”
“I pulled an all-nighter Friday night to get ready for my last final,” Kell said. “I was too tired to drive Saturday night, and then Sunday morning I got a call from the warehouse that one of the other stockers drove his ATV into a tree. So I worked an extra shift, then got up early this morning and headed home.”
“You could’ve called.”
“He did,” Chloe said.
Bronwyn scowled. “Well, no one told me.”
“Has she been like this all week?” Kell asked.
Deacon nodded.
The door opened and Aiden emerged, rubbing his eyes against the light. “Nobody woke me up,” he slurred. “I’ll miss the bus.”
“You can stay home today,” Chloe said.
“Yeah, you can help me unload my car,” Kell added.
At the sound of his big brother’s voice, Aiden squealed and jumped into his lap with such force that, had the chair not slammed back into the wooden porch rail, he would’ve knocked them both over. Everyone laughed.
“Nice to be missed,” Kell croaked as Aiden hugged him.
“Aiden, let your brother breathe,” Deacon said.
“Let’s all play something!” Aiden cried. “C’mon, we’re all here, let’s do ‘John Barleycorn.’”
Kell looked at Bronwyn. “What do you think? You up to it?”
Sweat beaded along her spine at the thought, but she managed to sound casual when she replied, “Sure, why not?”
Kell got his banjo from the car, and Aiden fetched Magda for Bronwyn. The others gathered their instruments, and for a moment the morning air filled with various tunings and adjustments. Then Deacon said to Aiden, “You’re the one who wanted to play, hotshot, so you sing it. And count us off.”
Aiden grinned happily. He lightly slapped the guitar as he counted four, and then the Hyatt family played together for the first time in over two years.
Aiden sang,
There were three kings came from the west,
Their victory to try;
And they have taken a solemn oath,
John Barleycorn should die.
The others joined in:
Fol the dol the did-i-ay,
Fol the dol the did-i-ay-ge-wo.
Bronwyn held to her mandolin like a life preserver. She played tentatively, sneaking peeks at Aiden’s chording to see if she was both remembering correctly and putting her fingers in the right places. She sang softly as well, her voice tight and thin. But she was singing, she was playing, and she felt the stirring of her long-neglected wings in the music.
And then it happened. First her injured leg began to tingle, that maddening itch sensation that signals healing but makes you wish you were still injured. She flexed her toes and felt the muscles work more strongly than they had in weeks. Her calf, weakened from disuse, ached a little in protest but didn’t give out. And despite the rigid support of the temporary cast, her bare heel began inexorably tapping against the wooden porch.
At first she didn’t even notice it. After all, according to legend, Tufas were born with their feet tapping. But then Deacon lowered his fiddle, looked at her with his slightest smile, and winked. He resumed playing before the others noticed, and she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling.
* * *
Terry-Joe Gitterman slowed his bike as he approached the Hyatts’ home. Something in the air felt different. He stopped just out of sight, hidden by the overhanging trees. He let the engine die, then listened.
; Music drifted down from the house. He recognized “John Barleycorn,” and Aiden’s adolescent voice. Then he picked out the instruments. Guitar, also Aiden. Chloe’s autoharp, Deacon’s fiddle. A banjo, which meant Kell Hyatt had returned from college at last. And …
He felt a lump rise in his throat. A mandolin.
He should feel a sense of accomplishment, he knew. After all, Bliss Overbay, second in line of the First Daughters, had given him an important task, and now he knew he’d accomplished it. Bronwyn was once again playing Magda. Yet he felt the sting of tears behind his eyes aching for release. He didn’t understand until this moment how much he was looking forward to spending time with Bronwyn again, how he wanted to slip his arms around her slender body and guide her strong fingers to the right place.
But there was nothing for it now, he knew. She was playing with her family, and he would definitely be the odd man out. He turned the bike, kicked it into life, and sped away, grateful for the sharp wind in his eyes.
* * *
That afternoon, Don Swayback found the turnoff with no trouble.
He stopped in the middle of the highway and stared at the blatant turn he was certain had not been there before. He saw the intersection of Curly Mane Road, and the turnoff for Jenkins Trail. He saw the spot where he’d had the run-in with the state trooper. But this road, the one now plain before him, simply hadn’t been there that day. There was no way he could’ve missed it. If only he’d thought to take photos for comparison.
He checked his watch. It was two forty-five. He shot several pictures of the turnoff in case it vanished again. Then he considered his options. He could go back to his office and show Sam the photos, proving he’d at least tried to do the interview. Or he could suck it up and actually try to do it for real.
He thought of Susie’s disappointment if he came home with more excuses or, worse, no job at all. He sighed, turned off the highway, and headed toward the Hyatt residence.
