by J. L. Salter
“Bless George. I was just dropping off Emma’s scrapbook order to Diane’s place. Hadn’t even got outta my truck yet. Then come this car real slow. I saw through my mirror he didn’t have no license plate. While I was handing over the order, we both watched them turn up yer road and switch off their lights. Now that don’t seem right, I says to Diane. She agreed and we figgered to go see what’s what. Her Joe was washing clothes over to his maw-in-law’s place, since the old farm house don’t have no drain. Well Diane grabbed some little tube things and said I should carry some old krow-kay stick. I said, No thanks, but if I’m grabbing something, it’s a Louie-ville Slugger. I got my bat from behind the seat in my truck. So we creep on along the woods up there behind yer cabin and see they’s a boy out by that same car. We could hear through the back winders them two inside was hurting y’all. So we circle around behind the car and Diane scares the daylights out’ve that boy while I whack him on the head real good.”
Kelly laughed out loud at the image of Ellie talking a homerun swing on the Dude’s head. Then she felt like she might cry again.
Ellie continued her colorful narrative. “We prop him up on the hood and I get behind the car so I kin move his hand in case the other fellers poked out their heads to check on him. Sure enough, they did. Not long after, I had to whack him again. I was scared I’d kilt him so I checked his pulse and such. Then I tied him up real good. About then I hear a shot, and the other feller come flying out the front door. He lands once on the porch, bounces a little on the steps, and lands hard out in the yard. When he poked his gun at me, I whacked him with my bat and broke his arm bone clean in two. Then I stuffed his shirttail into his mouth. I got the gun here in my pocket.”
Kelly thought the firearm was something they shouldn’t take into the vet clinic, but she didn’t interrupt Ellie’s account.
“I locked him up in the trunk of the car with no plates.”
Ellie took Kelly’s astonishment for a question.
“Naw, he didn’t wanna get in the trunk, but I gave him a choice — get in the trunk, or I take a swing at his noggin’. He picked the trunk. About that time, I see you two dancing around the feller with stringy blond hair. Why on earth do young’uns keep such a meh-uss on their heads?” Ellie shook her own head briefly. “Well, I figure if I step into that square dance I’ll most likely get somebody shot. So I keep the guard’s gun pointing at the blond feller and wait to see if he’ll stand still long enough fer me to shoot him without hitting one of y’all. He never did stand still, but then y’all was able to fix him up pretty good anyhow. I tell you what, though, that Diane’s got herself a mean streak, whacking a feller in the privates, when he’s already down. Of course if she hadn’t done it, maybe I would’ve.” Ellie chuckled.
The Jeep rolled into the empty, dark veterinary parking lot. They both stood, Kelly cradling Perra in her arms. The little dog had stopped whimpering and her eyes were glazed. A minute or two later, Doctor Core arrived.
He nodded at Kelly and started giving instructions. “Ellie, I’ll need your help. Here’s the key. Get the room ready.” Then to Kelly, “Now let me take a real quick look before it’s moved any more.” He maneuvered her over in front of his headlights and quickly examined Perra’s hindquarters. The dog let out a pitiful yelp. Core satisfied himself about something and showed Kelly where to apply light pressure. The doctor held open the front door and then hustled toward the O.R.
Kelly followed. After she placed Perra on the table, Core ordered her out. Kelly was too exhausted and way too emotional to complain.
****
When Mitch appeared in the clinic’s doorway a few minutes later, Kelly rushed into his long arms and blubbered incomprehensibly. He leaned back against the reception counter and continued to hold the woman he loved, as tightly as he could without crushing her, and hoping he’d never have to let her go.
Finally, she composed herself enough to indicate she wanted to sit. They crossed the waiting room to a bench along the wall. Then Mitch noticed her face — the small gash and the bruising around it. “I just got back into town. What happened tonight?”
When she reached up and touched her face, Kelly winced, apparently just then remembering she’d been hit. She shook her head and didn’t speak.
“Diane called me from the cabin. She said you and Ellie were here with your dog. I still don’t know what happened. You’ve got blood all over your shirt.”
“Later.” It was almost a whisper.
Mitch hugged her closely, his arms reaching around her back as he sat closely beside her on the vet’s wooden bench. Whatever her story was, it was sure to be a lulu, and he realized he’d have to wait a while to hear it. Despite the harsh odor of feces and urine from uncountable previous terrified pets, and the noxious smell of disinfectant used to attempt covering it — as long as he was holding Kelly as tightly as physics would allow, he was content to wait.
Ellie came out after nearly half an hour. She acted like she’d assisted with veterinary surgery her entire life. Maybe she had. “Yer little pup’s a strong ‘un. Lost lots of blood, but Doc says she’ll pull through. Won’t be jumping quite as high, most likely, ‘cause the bullet hit near the hip. But that’s a heap better than busting up organs, and bones, and such.”
Getting the good news on Perra released more of Kelly’s tears. Mitch struggled to swallow the lump in his throat.
“Doc says she’s staying here a few days. So you go kiss your dog goodnight, and then one of y’all best take me over to the farm house where I left my truck a couple hours ago. Chet Walter will be saying his stomach thinks his throat’s been cut, because he ain’t had his supper yet.”
Among her tears, Kelly smiled.
Mitch chuckled and said, “Ellie, you’re a Bless George meh-uss.”
Ellie seemed a bit startled, then like she might say something. But she just smiled briefly and then fixed her expression of mock sternness.
****
Kelly struggled to speak. “I don’t know how to thank you, Ellie, for this… and for what you did at the cabin tonight.” Kelly didn’t figure Ellie for a hugger so she just extended a hand.
“Bless George, child. After what you been through tonight, I expect you need a big hug.”
Kelly was startled and the initial embrace momentarily pinned both her arms. Then Ellie loosened her own strong arms and held Kelly by the shoulders. “If I had a nickel for every knucklehead I’ve had to whack to get sense into them, I’d be a rich old lady. Us women gotta look out for ourselfs. You did real good tonight.”
Then Kelly hugged Ellie, each with their arms around the other. Tears moistened the eyes of both.
After a few seconds, they disengaged, and Ellie went outside to wait in the Jeep.
Then Kelly hugged Mitch again. Tighter, longer, merged into one another.
Dr. Core came out in a fast pace, flicked off the waiting room lights, and announced he was about to lock the door.
Both thanked him again and everybody departed.
Ellie drove the Jeep and Kelly rode in Mitch’s vehicle back to the farm house, so Ellie could get her abandoned truck. Then Kelly climbed into her own transportation and Mitch followed her up to the cabin.
Ginny was already gone.
Mitch had been right to insist on Ginny’s departure, but the issue was decided by the authorities. Diane had left a brief note instructing Kelly to report to the sheriff’s office the next morning and explaining the deputies took the girl into custody. Colleen Virginia Cable was wanted for questioning in the matter of a brutal beating and something about someone who died. Diane knew nothing else about it.
Police custody was good. At least Ginny would be safe from Blondie, Cheech, Dude, J.D., and whichever others of the gang might be on the loose. Plus her ankle needed an x-ray at least… maybe to be set, if it was more than a bad sprain. Blondie’s abuse had certainly not helped it any.
Everything related to Ginny sounded quite confusing, but Kelly had concerns of h
er own.
****
Mitch had gently washed the cut on Kelly’s cheek and applied one of her supply of butterfly bandages. Pinching the wound flaps together made Mitch wince as much as it did Kelly. He also made a small ice pack for the swelling around the cut on her cheek, but she used it more for her injured thumb.
Kelly told him a little more of what had happened earlier that night, but clearly didn’t want to talk about it — just to sit close and be held.
Fine with Mitch, he loved holding her. No hormonal jousting, just loving comfort and tenderness.
Kelly actually fell asleep, briefly, there on the loveseat next to Mitch, cradled in his long, strong arms.
Although not at all sexual, having his beloved Kelly snuggled against his chest beneath his arm was about as intimate as it gets. He loved being near her, holding her, protecting her. He couldn’t protect her when she was awake — she was too free a spirit. But when she was asleep, tucked into his embrace, Mitch could definitely protect her.
****
Just seconds before dozing off, Kelly’s final conscious thoughts flashed back to when she’d viewed Mitch’s face through the hole in the rock barricade as they’d dug their way out of the cave. At that time she had only noticed he seemed different. But since then she’d started feeling as though she herself had changed. Now, as she was on the very edge between exhaustion and slumber, she realized both of them — and their relationship — had evolved somehow. Diane’s right, I did find my man in the cave.
She awakened on the couch when Mitch had to shift position because of a shoulder cramp. But Kelly needed more rest, so she’d have to retreat into her bedroom and leave him alone on the loveseat.
Mitch had previously napped on the short couch, so Kelly realized he couldn’t stretch out — not by a good two feet or so. She tried rigging the footstool as an extension for Mitch’s lower extremities, but the couch’s high arms made him come off at an angle. He looked miserable, but those were the accommodations.
When Kelly awoke during the night for a sip of water, she saw her lanky lover sprawled out like a crooked tree limb cast aside by a high wind. She took him by the hand and led him to her bed. She knew Mitch comprehended they would be sleeping only. As badly as his hip hurt from those few hours on the undersized loveseat, Mitch might not have felt like sex anyway. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But surely he would have understood it was not the time for that kind of intimacy.
With Mitch in her bed next to her, Kelly could not sleep well. She apparently dozed off at least once, however, because she dreamed about the evening. As had the real life experience, it soon became a nightmare.
Kelly awoke with a violent lurch and something like a strangled scream stuck in her throat. Mitch awakened and seemed to take a few seconds to get his bearings. In the darkness of her bedroom he couldn’t see her face. “Kelly, are you okay? It’s Mitch. I’m here.”
Damp with cold nightmare sweat, Kelly hugged him again closely, then turned away and snuggled up against him like a small spoon inside a larger one. His long arm draped over her protectively.
Eventually, both fell asleep.
Later Kelly woke again but not from nightmares. She couldn’t sleep with anyone else in her bed — too confining. She slid out from beneath Mitch’s arm and went to the bathroom to wash her face.
Gato, yawning largely, approached with a questioning stare. The big cat surely realized it wasn’t daylight and must have wondered why his mistress was up at that hour. A puzzled-sounding meow seemed to inquire, “Where is that annoying little dog?”
Kelly went to the kitchen, put a kettle on the stove top, and rummaged around for some of Aunt Mildred’s calming teas. None of the names meant much to Kelly, but she recognized the label of the one Mildred had used to help comfort her teenaged niece after Kelly’s parents died in a terrible car crash. It was the same tea her caring aunt brewed when Kelly arrived late one night and told her about the sudden miscarriage.
Aunt Mildred had been such a comfort. Her tea pot and tea collection — and the replacement peonies now blooming luxuriously — were all the tangibles she had from Aunt Mildred, except for a few pieces of oddly-matched furniture.
The kettle whistled and Kelly poured steaming water into her cup. The tea was old and smelled slightly stale; from all those years ago, the specific aroma did not seem familiar. After it steeped for a while, Kelly pulled out the bag and squeezed it against the bowl of the spoon, with one wrap of the flimsy string. Then she added a teaspoon of sugar and sipped.
It was enough of the taste Kelly recalled to remind her — it wasn’t the tea itself which had previously comforted her, it was Mildred. The tea was just the context. Aunt Mildred was the connection Kelly returned to when things were the bleakest, when she’d been terribly, horribly wounded… when she didn’t know what to do next. It wasn’t the tea. Mildred was the kind of person who could comfort someone with a stick of stale chewing gum, half of a popsicle frozen since the previous summer, or a greeting card in the mail. It was her special gift: connection and comfort.
Kelly also realized tea bags, even when sealed in foil packets, didn’t last forever. The ones Kelly had may have been in her aunt’s collection for many years before she died. As Kelly studied the colorful box, Gato moved slowly about the room. The big cat leaned in heavily and moved back and forth against Kelly’s ankles.
Shortly, Mitch stumbled into the kitchen with one hand shielding his eyes.
Great. Now the whole cabin’s awake and it’s only four in the morning. So much for stale herbal tea and solitude.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Tuesday, May 29
Tuesday’s dawn was slow to arrive, and Kelly realized Mitch was out of his element. No change of clothes at her cabin, and his outer shirt had dried dog blood from hugging her at the vet’s office. He also needed a toothbrush, badly. So Kelly sent him home.
He’d said he had a late morning lake interview scheduled not far away and tried to talk her into joining him for lunch later. But Kelly needed a brief period of down time without human contact, partly because she had to garner enough momentum to visit the sheriff’s office and make her statement later.
During the early afternoon at the sheriff’s station, Kelly learned a little more about Ginny’s ex-group. Damon “Blondie” Scrod and the other two with him were wanted in connection with several serious charges, not simply drug theft and drug dealing to support their own habits. The deputies hadn’t pulled everything together yet, but it was shaping up to be a long time behind bars for the punks. Not the least of their current problems was the armed assault at Kelly’s cabin.
So far Ginny seemed to have been more a hostage than accomplice in the earlier crimes, but the deputies still held her because investigators from two other counties were coming over to help sort things out. Ginny had been dodging authorities nearly as much as she’d been hiding from those felons so while they had her, the deputies and police would satisfy all their confusion before letting Miss Cable slip through their fingers again.
Ginny obviously had to leave the cabin anyway, because of how she’d endangered Kelly — and later Diane — due to the pertinent information she’d knowingly withheld.
Secrets! You don’t shatter my trust and remain under my roof.
The combined efforts of Ellie, Pop, and Roger assembled arrangements for Ginny to have a place to stay until her ankle healed, after the police were through questioning her. Since J.D. and some of his cousin’s gang members were still at large, the police promised to keep close tabs on Ginny’s safety. Ellie convinced Pop to ask his niece lawyer — pro bono, of course — to help straighten out the juvenile record which had wrongly been attached to Ginny’s name. Roger asked his wife, a counselor, to meet once or twice with Ginny while her ankle was healing.
Kelly and Ellie had a few minutes of overlap at the courthouse that afternoon, but all they talked about was Perra’s condition.
Finished with her formal statement an
d on her way out, Kelly was still able to hear the beginning of Ellie’s account as Fred Lee Means walked into the area.
“What are you doing over here, Fred Lee? I heard deputies don’t like troopers.” Kelly smiled and hugged him.
“That’s only on TV.” The tall trooper still had his arm around Kelly’s shoulder as he glanced over at Ellie, seated near a deputy’s desk. “I heard about three local ladies taking down three armed druggies and wanted to see for myself. I should’ve known Ellie Graye would be involved.”
“If it hadn’t been for her and Diane Sutton, me and Ginny would’ve been… uh, it would’ve…”
“I know. Those punks will be locked up for a long time.” Means hugged her again. “It was too late to call when I heard about this, and I’ve been out of Pulaski all morning. What happened to your cheek?”
Kelly instinctively touched her wound lightly as she explained. “Pistol whipped is what they call it in the movies. Hurts like crazy.”
Means peered closely. “Don’t pick it and maybe it won’t scar.” He gazed across the room again. “I’m going to go see Ellie.”
When Kelly nodded, her eyes were moist. She lingered in the doorway to hear the interaction with Ellie. While Ellie was making her statement to a deputy, everyone at the nearby desks had stopped their business to listen in on her colorful description.
Ellie paused her report as Means approached the desk. The seated deputy just nodded at the tall trooper.
“Miss Ellie, what’ve you been up to?” Means smiled as he extended his hand.
Ellie grasped his hand firmly and held it several seconds longer than she needed to. She released her grip as Means knelt beside her chair on one knee. “People gonna think yer proposing.”
