Eyes at the Window

by Deb Donahue

  “Nothing has changed since the last time we talked,” she told him firmly. “This little girl plans to be your new neighbor for a long time. I suggest you get used to it.”

  As Miranda drove away, however, she actually did feel like a little girl. Her hands trembled and she couldn’t relax the tension in her shoulders. She also couldn’t forget the tinny music box tune that had seemed to linger even after she’d awakened from her nightmare. Or her grandmother’s dream words, “The things you do will come back to haunt you.”

  Chapter 9

  The hunting had been good that morning. Two fat rabbits had been kicked out of the brush on Luke’s way back from his spy nest by Hunter’s place. Butch had been especially excited when Luke bagged the second one because that usually meant a little something extra included in his dry dog food for the day.

  “Not today, boy. Sorry.” Luke put the second kill in his game bag and pulled out his knife to gut and skin the first. He had plans for the extra carcass.

  The camp site he’d set up three weeks ago was a small hollow circled by scrub bushes. A large oak spread its branches over the leaf-strewn ground and one large root thrust out of the dirt to make a great bench. The first night here he’d actually rolled his sleeping bag under one of the bushes, but he hadn’t counted on how cold the fall nights were in the Midwest. That had prompted him to move to the barn, despite the risk of detection.

  Luke built a fire and struck a match to the kindling. The blaze, once it got going, felt good against the chilly morning air. Frost began to melt in a circle surrounding the heat. Luke washed the blood off his hands with water from his canteen then held them to the flames to dry and warm up. Spitting the skinned rabbit with a sharp stick, he suspended it over the cooking fire. Before long the smell of cooking meat began to make his mouth water.

  Butch was drooling also, staring at the rabbit like it might try to run away. When he ran his dripping tongue across his muzzle a third time, Luke had to laugh. The Shepherd looked at him with a doggy grin and Luke ruffled the fur between his ears. The dog sent him a loving if pleading glance.

  Butch had actually belonged to Luke’s brother before. Then his twin had decided to do a “walk-about.” That’s what he’d called it, laughing and calling himself Crocodile Dundee before Luke could. They’d always seemed to know what the other one would say before the words came out.

  The walk-about had actually been a drive-about. For months Luke’s brother had driven from town to town, state to state visiting out of the way places and sending postcards home. “I’m doing this for you, bro,” said one message on the back of a picture of the world’s largest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota. “You’re living vicariously through me.” Once he’d even sent a postcard of the world’s biggest mosquito from Komarno, Manitoba.

  The first message Luke had received postmarked Greenville had simply said, “Running low on funds. Planting corn like a common laborer. Who’d a thunk it?” Then two weeks later, the last missive: “Struck it rich! Harlan Hunter’s a gold mine, brother, as long as I play it cool.”

  Then, silence.

  Cell calls had gone directly to voice mail for a while and then ceased to go through at all. Just when Luke had begun to wonder what was going on, he received an envelope postmarked Greenville. It was dated weeks earlier. The hastily scribbled note inside gave no details other than that his brother had been made a fool of by his employer and he was going to make him pay. “I wanted to let you know, Luke,” he’d written, “just in case.”

  The letter proved to be the last straw. It seemed like “just in case” had actually happened. Luke set out for the last known location of his gadfly brother: Harlan Hunter’s farm.

  He’d known something was off even before he got there. What kind of “gold mine” could cause his brother to drop off the radar completely? What did “just in case” mean? Luke had not trusted the boyish enthusiasm of the last postcard and was alarmed by the tone of the letter. Get rich schemes had been his brother’s weakness ever since graduating high school and always led to more trouble than riches. Luke even had to pay the price once for his brother selling stolen phones a “business partner” had claimed were refurbished factory rejects.

  The rabbit was tough but tasty, singed around the edges but a welcome change from the canned and dehydrated food he’d been eating lately. Hiding had been necessary since the second day after his arrival in Greenville.

  Sissy had recognized him immediately that first day. Or thought she did. “Well there you are, boy,” she said when she answered Luke’s knock at the door. “Where on earth have you been? Harlan and Bob had a hell of a job getting the planting all done after you took off like that.” Her admonishment had been tempered, however, with a huge smile. She invited him in for coffee, talking so much that Luke was halfway through his first cup before he had a chance to tell her who he really was.

  “Twins?” she’d exclaimed. “Why, I’ve not seen two boys so close in looks as you two. Course, it has been a while since your brother was here, mind you.”

  She told him how upset Harlan had been when his hired hand disappeared halfway through the planting without a word of warning. “Here one minute, gone the next morning.” No, he hadn’t said a word to anyone about where he might be headed. They’d all been thrown off balance by his unannounced departure.

  Sissy had puttered around the kitchen as she talked, cutting Luke a slice of home baked peach pie, chatting about how hard it was to find reliable hired hands. It seemed clear that this woman had no clue where Luke’s brother had gone.

  It had been Bob Meeks’s reaction that set off Luke’s alarm bells. When Meeks walked in the kitchen door and saw Luke sitting at the table, he’d turned as white as if he’d seen a ghost. Luke felt certain he would have turned tail and run if Sissy hadn’t introduced them to one another immediately. Then the man’s stance had turned wary, an attitude that was mirrored in Harlan Hunter’s reaction when he joined them a minute later. Hunter, however, handled his obvious surprise with more finesse, shaking Luke’s hand and saying he hoped he hadn’t come there looking for work.

  “I would have been happy to hire you if your brother had proved more trustworthy,” he’d said. “But I don’t want to take any chances you might leave me in the lurch like he did.”

  Luke had resisted to urge to jump to his twin’s defense since he didn’t know what had really happened. He assured them he wasn’t looking for work, but was just passing through the area. Instinct prompted him to act like he thought his brother was still living there.

  “He seemed really happy here,” he’d told them. “I figured he’d finally found a place to set down roots. I’m disappointed to find he hasn’t.”

  “He contacted you?” Harlan’s voice had a hard edge to it and he looked at Luke with narrowed eyes.

  He thought that was the moment when he decided to stay in Greenville and do some more investigating. The suspicion clear on both men’s faces for the rest of the short visit made it clear they were worried his brother had told him something they didn’t want known.

  That was also the reason why he decided to make his stay as clandestine as possible to keep an eye on Harlan Hunter and figure out what that “get rich scheme” had been all about. Greenville did not have motel or hotel anyway, and Riverside was too far away. He decided to camp nearby for a few days. When he heard at the grocery store in town that the Preston farm next to Harlan’s had been deserted for months, he figured it was the perfect spot to lay low. He made occasional trips into town to ask a few questions and get supplies, but tried to stay as invisible as possible. On one of those trips, he’d spotted Miranda through the grocery store window.

  The sight had made it clear she was here to stay. Just when it looked like he might be getting somewhere, this woman had shown up and made things more complicated. Luke hadn’t yet figured out if she was involved in whatever Hunter was up to or not, but at the very least, she was an obstacle he needed to get out of his way.
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br />   Butch’s whine broke into Luke’s thoughts. The dog had watched Luke’s breakfast being chewed down to the bone with remarkable restraint but could remain silent no longer. Luke took pity on him. “Good boy, Butch,” he said, throwing a few rabbit bones his way. “Enjoy it. You deserve a treat.”

  Butch crunched noisily on the bones while Luke spread the cooling ashes of the fire and smothered any remaining embers with damp dirt. Shouldering his rifle, he headed back to the abandoned barn, Butch on his heels.

  When he reached the barn, however, he paused, looking around the corner toward the house. The woman’s car was gone, just as he’d hoped. This time it looked like she’d taken the dog with her as well. He’d had an idea ever since she saw him that one day. When he’d turned and realized she was watching him, he thought sure he was in trouble. Raising his arm in a casual wave had been an instinctive gesture that he hoped would label him as harmless. The last thing he needed was for her to report him as a trespasser.

  Telling Butch to stay, he approached the house carefully, just in case he’d been wrong about either the woman or the dog being gone. No alarm was raised, however, by the time he reached the porch.

  The door was locked, but he’d figured out long before she arrived how easy it was to pick the ancient lock. One of the first things he’d done before moving into the barn had been to check out the house. He’d been inside several times, in fact, since he found out about Hunter’s interest in the place.

  She had been busy in the short time she’d been there. The whole downstairs was habitable again. She’d left a light on above the stove and the refrigerator was humming companionably. In the dining room it seemed strange to see a couch in front of the fireplace, but he could see it would be a great place to sit and watch the flames. The table had been moved closer to the window seat and had been polished to a gleaming shine. The front room was a hodgepodge of diverse tables, chairs and bookcases, with a turntable and radio set on a buffet in front of the picture window at the front of the house.

  In the bedroom her clothes were neatly folded in drawers according to type of garment. He went through them quickly, trying not to leave them disarranged and messy. The only thing he found of interest was a .38 revolver. A full box of shells had been tucked into her night table.

  She hadn’t really done much to the upstairs except move some furniture into the rooms. Nothing he found there or downstairs gave him any reason to think she was a threat of any kind. However, neither did he find anything to explain why she was there.

  There was only one thing to do and one place to check before he left. Returning to the porch, he took out the second rabbit carcass, now stiff and curved from its position in the game bag. He found twine in a box of junk by the corner railing and used it to tie the corpse from the rain gutter just above the front steps. The carcass swayed as he tightened the last knot. Blood dripped on the thirsty boards beneath it.

  Luke surveyed his work and nodded in satisfaction. He wasn’t sure how she had interpreted his casual wave the other day. He’d been especially cautious in the days following in case she had called the sheriff to report him as a trespasser.

  That hadn’t happened, but it still could if she continued to catch glimpses of him, and especially if she found the nest he’d carved out for himself in the loft. He hoped that finding this meat offering on her door step would either provide proof that the stranger she’d seen was a harmless, friendly hunter, or would scare her so much it sent her packing. For his part, making her leave would be preferable. Then things could get back to normal. He could figure out what had happened to his brother and get out of here before the nights grew any colder.

  Going back into the clean kitchen, he felt a twinge of guilt. She was obviously trying hard to make this run down shack feel like home. He was a heel for hoping to scare her off, but he knew that was the best way.

  There was one more thing to check before he left. Looking around to make sure there was no sign that he had entered the house, he locked the kitchen door from the inside so she would not be able to tell he’d been there. Then he went down the basements stairs.

  The steps creaked beneath him as he descended. The light shining through the small dirty windows provided enough light to see by, though he didn’t much need it. He knew his way by now. He’d been there several times before, always careful to leave everything just the way he’d found it.

  He stopped to listen at the root cellar door, just in case. The first time he’d found this room, he’d heard them behind it, talking, moving things around, and had to leave quickly to avoid being detected. Today, however, all was quiet and Luke stepped into the musty smelling room, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 10

  As she drove home, Miranda’s anger grew as she thought about Harlan’s clumsy attempt to make the farm seem like an albatross around her neck. Trying to scare her off with tales of ghosts and rumors was completely ridiculous. If anything, all he’d done was increase her resolve to stay.

  Knowing that the property had probably been an important part of America’s history made her even more determined to keep it. If it had once been used as part of the Underground Railroad, it made more sense to have it registered as an historical landmark than to sell it to Harlan.

  “That’s what I’ll do,” she told Rufus as she pulled in front of the gate at the head of her lane. She would go to the local library on Monday to research the history of the house and talk to someone about the requirements needed to have the farm’s historical past officially documented. There might even be public funds available that could be used to restore the house to its former glory.

  When she got out of the car to open the gate, Rufus hopped out also. When she pushed open the gate, he bounded up the lane toward the house, apparently eager to get home. Miranda pulled inside but then stopped and got out of the car. All week she’d left the gate open to make it easier for the workers she’d hired to get in and out. The entrance was far enough away from the house that she had little fear of Rufus somehow getting onto the road and being hit by a car.

  Today, however, Harlan had left her feeling anti-social. So not only did she close the gate, but she also wrapped the chain around the post and clicked the padlock shut. If Harlan wanted to bother her again, he’d have to give her advance notice and ask permission.

  When she pulled up in front of the house, though, all thoughts of Harlan Hunter were swept from her mind. Rufus had reached the porch ahead of her and was dancing on his hind legs barking furiously. Hanging over him, swaying slightly in the breeze, was a dead rabbit.

  The breath caught in Miranda’s throat and she gripped the steering wheel with whitened knuckles. She looked all around for signs of an intruder, the hairs prickling at the back of her neck. No one was in sight.

  Her mind raced. Was this a warning of some kind? A threat? Did someone else want to scare her away? Harlan and his hired hand had both been at the fair when she left. It was impossible that they had somehow made it home ahead of her.

  She approached the porch carefully, breath held. The rabbit had been gutted even though the pelt was still attached. There were only a few drops of blood on the floor below. Apparently the carcass had been field dressed elsewhere before being left at her doorstep.

  Surely someone wanting to scare her would have left a far more gruesome mess for her to find. The rabbit was hung from its hind legs like a hunter might do with a recent kill. Was that it? Had her mysterious hunter come to visit and left behind this strange housewarming present? If that’s what this was, what kind of man would do such a thing? It made no sense to her.

  Miranda looked toward the timber as if she might find someone standing on the edge of the trees again, waiting to wave an arm in greeting. The sun shone bright and warm. A gentle breeze rustled the multi-colored leaves of the maples and oaks but no mysterious stranger stood among them. The loft window in the barn was also empty of any watching figure.

  Retrieving a knife from the kitchen, she
cut down the “gift” if that’s what it was. She was torn about what to do with the rabbit. The sensible thing to do was toss it, preferably in a way that Rufus would not be able to get to it. But she’d had rabbit stew once that her grandmother had made and it had been delicious.

  Unable to make a decision, she procrastinated. Retrieving a plastic storage bag, she wrapped the rabbit up and put it in the refrigerator. She knew she would probably end up tossing it, but wasn’t quite ready to commit to that yet.

  Between the argument with Harlan and the mysterious rabbit, Miranda had lost that sense of satisfaction and peacefulness she’d had first thing that morning. The afternoon was still a beautiful one. Rufus chased real and imaginary squirrels, toads, and leaves through the orchard. Miranda felt just as restless as he seemed.

  She glanced at her watch. Even with the early sunsets of the season, there was plenty of time for a hike in the woods. That might work off her excess energy. Besides, there was a possibility she might run into the man she’d been seeing. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, she didn’t want to think too much about.

  She stuck a bottle of water in her backpack and strapped on her shoulder holster, frowning as she remembered Harlan’s objection to guns in general and her carrying one in particular. How dare he try to foist his opinions on her? She knew how to handle a firearm better than most men. Carrying it increased her confidence and courage.

  She tried to talk herself into exploring the barn when she reached it, but couldn’t quite gather enough nerve. The huge doors at the side of the barn gaped open and looked like they had not been rolled shut in years. At the rear of the building was a feedlot surrounded by the remnants of a barbed wire fence. A shutter on a side window swayed a little in the breeze, but the window itself remained motionless and empty.

  At the edge of the woods, she paused. This was where the man and dog had entered the timber the first time she’d seen them. Searching carefully, she actually found footprints and several paw prints parallel to it. At least she knew she hadn’t been dreaming or imagining anything. Rufus seemed particularly interested in the spot as well, snuffling the ground and marking a clump of grass near the paw prints.