Brenda had told her she was making Baked Alaska with chocolate sauce for the cook-off, but Pammy had refused to disclose her dish. Brenda and Pammy had perused the contents of the pantry earlier and had made a run to the store for the items specific to their recipes. Alice now took the chocolate sauce from the shelf, opened the bottle and poured crushed anise seeds into the container. She shook as hard as she could—turning the chocolate sauce into licorice sauce. She giggled, and then grimaced at the thought.
She turned off the light, checked to make sure the coast was clear again, and stole back to her bed like a thief in the night.
Settling down beside her husband, who was no longer snoring and had turned on his side, she spooned against him, savoring his warmth, and fell into a deep slumber.
***
The next day, the pounding rain trapped the entire household inside. Throughout the day, they consumed leftover turkey in various forms: turkey hash for breakfast, turkey sandwiches for lunch, turkey and dumplings for dinner. The leftover pies Alice held in ransom for the consumed turkey.
At last the time for the big bakeoff had arrived. Each cook donned her apron and began extracting the necessary supplies from the pantry.
Pammy turned and walked out of the kitchen, returning moments later with fresh unopened bags of flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. She deposited her treasures on the countertop with a flourish and dumped the contents of the open canisters into the trash. She gave her mother a triumphant nod, and said, “Just to keep it fair.”
Alice puckered her lips and narrowed her eyes at her. “Are you suggesting I’d taint the ingredients?” Alice asked with indignation.
Pammy gave her a scolding look. “As if you’ve never done such a thing, Mother.”
Brenda, looking confused, turned to Allen, who shrugged and lifted his hands as if to say—I told you so. She picked up the chocolate sauce and looked at it. “This has been opened.”
Pammy looked at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I made Ethan some chocolate milk. I didn’t think you’d mind. It seemed as though there was plenty there.”
Brenda relaxed. “No, I don’t mind.”
The men had gathered around the table, a deck of cards before them, for a game of gin rummy.
Pammy’s dish turned out to be Apple Berry Streusel, and it received a rousing applause from the men (the official tasters and judges). Alice scowled at her and placed her steaming dish of marshmallow-pecan, sweet potato soufflé down in front of them. With a triumphant humph, she scooped generous helpings for each of them and waited for their verdict. They also gave her a round of applause.
With trepidation, Brenda carried her Baked Alaska to the table and cut each of them a slice, then poured the chocolate sauce over the slice and waited nervously for their response. She was the newcomer, and their opinion mattered to her.
Allen was the first to respond. His eyes flew open wide. He gasped.
“What?” Brenda asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
Brett took his first bite and mimicked his son’s reaction.
Brenda wanted to cry.
“It’s delicious,” Allen finally said, finally finding his words.
“You like it!” Alice exclaimed.
Pammy threw her hands on her hips. “What did you do, Mother?”
Alice looked away, grimacing. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”
Allen groaned, “Aw, Mother, how could you! She’s a guest in your home.”
Alice frowned. “Well! Anyway, who would have thought anise and chocolate would taste good together.”
Chase, who had gobbled his piece down, reached for the plate and cut himself another huge piece. “Brenda wins,” he declared between bites.
Allen laughed. “It looks like you have a new dessert to serve your patrons. What are you going to call it?”
Brenda crossed her arms in front of her, leaned on one hip, glared at Alice, and said, “How about Benedict Alice.”
***
By seven in the evening dinner was over, the bakeoff complete, and the kitchen restored to sparkling beauty. Lacy was feeling claustrophobic. She needed to get out and move around. She wandered onto the back porch but immediately was driven back inside by the gusting wind. As she stood in the doorway, gale-force winds whipping her hair about, she heard a loud crack. Brenda, Allen, and Brett heard it, too and came running to the door.
“What the hell was that?” Brett asked.
They were all staring at her as if she had the answer. Lacy shrugged. “I just opened the door. I was going to go outside for some fresh air.”
“What were you thinking?” Brenda scolded. “There’s a major storm going on.”
Lacy shrugged. “I just wanted fresh air.” Her shoulders dropped as she realized how foolish she sounded.
Chase came running down the stairs. He stopped in front of the group. “I can’t find my dad.”
Lacy suddenly had an uneasy feeling as she looked first at Chase and then at the barn. “The crack,” she said, “sounded like a gunshot.” She turned pale as if she might faint at any moment.
Allen moved to stand behind her, easing her against him for support. “It was just lightning,” he said. “It probably snapped a tree branch.”
Lacy turned her head toward her mother. “I’ve seen Dad.”
“What are you talking about, Lacy? You’ve seen your father where?”
“Here,” she said. “Outside at the pond the first time, and then outside the movie theater.”
“Are you sure?” Allen asked.
Lacy nodded. They all turned to look at Chase, who shrugged. “Beats me. I had all I could do to get Ethan in the car. That guy’s not as light as people think.”
“Where’d you see your dad last, Chase?” Brett asked.
“I don’t know. At dinner I think. He said he was going out to fix the hinge on the barn. He noticed it was coming loose yesterday, and he wanted to tighten it before the storm started.”
“Dinner was two hours ago. Do you think it would have taken him this long?” Brenda asked.
All three of the men shook their heads. Brett said, “I’ll get my coat and a flashlight.”
“So will I,” Allen said.
“I’m coming, too,” Lacy said.
“No, Lacy, you stay here,” Allen said.
Lacy shook her head. “I’m coming.”
Alice came running down the stairs. “Someone’s in the barn,” she said. “And the horses are running loose. They’re scared out of their wits.”
Lacy looked at her mother, feverish panic seizing her. “Do you think it’s Dad?”
Brenda pulled her daughter against her, trying to calm her shakes. “I don’t know, sweetie.”
“I’ll make her some tea,” Alice said. She rushed past them, her slippers swishing on the tile as she hurried to the kitchen.
“Take her into the den,” Allen said, as he shrugged into his coat. “Whatever you do, don’t let her outside.”
Brenda nodded. She led Lacy to the den. Lacy didn’t put up any resistance, feeling like a small child as her mother eased her down on the sofa, sat beside her, and stroked her hair.
Allen was the first to reach the barn. The door stood open. Horses crowded the corral. He stroked a tall mare as she trotted by, whinnying. “Easy, girl,” he soothed. He bent near the door, examining the latch. The lock hadn’t just been broken. Someone had jimmied it. Markings from what looked like a crowbar trailed down the usually smooth frame. He turned toward his father who, with the help of Chase, was attempting to round up the horses. “Someone’s broken the lock,” he shouted, but the wind threw his words back at him.
Chase tugged a reluctant colt away from his mother. The baby bucked and pawed the air with its hooves. Brett tapped him on the shoulder, shouted, “Bring his mama and he’ll come by himself.”
Chase squinted against the pounding rain. He nodded his head. “Oh, yeah, right.”
When the last of the horses had been rounded up
, the three men pulled shut the barn door, securing it with a pitchfork. It would work as long as they were on this side of the door. They would have to repair the latch before they went back to the house. Most of the horses had found their way to their stalls, the rest they eased home, securing each of the doors. They searched each stall but found nothing out of the ordinary. The horses whinnied and pranced in their stalls. Chase didn’t like their unease. He was getting a bad feeling, some portent of tragedy on the horizon.
He rounded the corner, thinking about how he had been treating his father lately. Chase knew it was his fault his mother had died, but it had been a careless accident. He certainly didn’t deserve the treatment his father was giving him. On the other hand, he could have made more of an effort to smooth the rift, rather than adding to it. What if…no, he just would not believe his father was gone, too.
He was thinking about how he could go about opening the communication lines again, when he tripped over something and went flying, knocking his head against the side of the barn. “Damn it,” he muttered, sitting up and rubbing his head. He looked over at the spot where he tripped. He saw something black lying there. He shined his flashlight on it, surprised to see one of his grandfather’s rifles. He picked it up, sniffed the barrel, and then his eyes flew wide. Somebody had recently fired it.
His heart began to beat wildly. He moved his light around the barn. “Hey!” he yelled. “Over here, near the tack room. I found something.”
Thundering footsteps echoed through the barn as the others hastily made their way to Chase. Flashlight beams danced on the dirt floor. Brett leaned down next to him. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I just twisted my ankle. But look what I’ve found.” He held up the rifle.
Brett took the rifle from Chase. “Your father wouldn’t have come to the barn at night without protection.”
“Then where is he?”
“And where is Jackson?” Allen added.
Three pairs of eyes found each other, glowing eerily from the flashlight’s illumination.
“Grandpa, where’s my dad?” Chase choked out.
Brett took a deep breath and let it out. He looked at Allen. “Help him to that bench.”
Allen moved to help him. “Then I’m going to call the sheriff.”
“You won’t be able to reach him. The storm will have knocked out the phone lines. It happens every time. Damned phone company’s too cheap to upgrade to better lines.”
“I have my cell.”
“The wind will be causing too much interference with the cell towers.” Brett said. “You won’t have adequate signal strength.”
As if he didn’t believe him, Allen took out his cell phone, looked at the number of bars he had, and cursed.
Brett shined his flashlight down on the ground. He was familiar with the barn’s layout and found it easy to make his way to the tack room. The door, usually kept locked, stood open. An alarm went off in Brett’s head. Jackson never would have left it open. The tack was far too expensive, not to mention the guns locked inside the gun cabinet. He fumbled his way to the phone, trying it just in case. It was out.
He shined the light around the room. The guns were kept in a steel cabinet set inside a panel in the wall. Both the panel and the cabinet required a combination to open them. Both of these doors stood open. Brett peered inside the cabinet and closed his eyes. “Damn it,” he uttered.
He made his way back to Allen and Chase. “Two rifles and a box of ammo are missing,” he said.
Allen held up the rifle Chase had found on the floor. “Here’s one. Where’s the other?”
Brett locked eyes with his son. “How much of a threat is this man who’s after your women?”
“I didn’t think he would take it this far, but I guess I may have been wrong.”
They heard a scraping noise coming from the closed barn door. Brett took the rifle from his son, checked to make sure it was loaded. “You two wait here.”
“No way, Dad, I’m not letting you go out there alone.”
“I’m just going to the door, to see if I can figure out who’s there. You need to take care of Chase. Go into the tack room and get some ice out of the freezer for his ankle. We need to keep the swelling down.”
Brett made his way to the door. By now the scraping was getting louder. The cattle locked inside for the night began mooing loudly. With his body pressed against the door, Brett asked, “Who’s there?”
The scraping became louder, followed by a meek, “Help me.”
Brett removed the pitchfork and, with the rifle held at the ready, and his body blocking one door, he flung open the other one and gasped as the bloodied body of Jackson fell inside.
He dropped to one knee, grasped Jackson by his jacket and pulled him farther inside. Then he slammed shut the door and replaced the pitchfork. “Allen. I need some help over here,” he shouted.
Within seconds, Allen was by his side, kneeling over Jackson. “What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Brett said.
“Is he alive?”
“He’s breathing.” He tore open Jackson’s shirt. “Give me some more light.” They both shined their flashlights over his chest area. A large hole gaped open on his right side, gushing blood.
“Holy shit!” Allen exclaimed.
“It looks as though he’s lost a lot of blood." He felt around his back. “No exit wound,” he said. “We have to get him to a hospital.”
They both looked at the door. “Can we get out?” Allen asked.
“We have to try.” The truth was he didn’t know if they could get out or not, because he had no way of predicting where Peter Waldrip might be now. Had the sudden appearance of a bloodied Jackson been the sheriff’s doing?
Chase hobbled up. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed upon seeing Jackson. “What happened?”
Brett ignored his grandson’s question, saying instead, “Sit here, Chase.” He tugged the boy’s arm, pulling him into a sitting position beside Jackson. He pulled off his jacket and then his shirt. He rolled the shirt into a ball and pressed it against the hole in Jackson’s side. He looked into his grandson’s frightened eyes, guided his hand to the shirt. “Put pressure here, and don’t let up.”
Chase nodded his understanding.
Brett looked at Allen. “I’m going to try to make it out the back.”
“What if he’s watching the back?”
“What if he’s watching the front?”
“Let me go, Dad.”
He shook his head. “The man has no beef with me. I’m the one he’s least likely to shoot.”
Allen put his hand on his father’s arm. “Exactly. It’s not your beef. Let me go. Mama needs you here.”
Brett nodded. Allen let go of his arm. Turning to Chase, he said, “You keep that pressure on.” Chase nodded.
Allen made his way to the rear of the barn. He opened the door a crack. Nothing happened. He eased his body between the narrow gap, took two steps, and heard the crack of a rifle as a bullet punctured the side of the barn two feet above his head.
In the house, the four women sat sipping tea. Lacy’s mind wandered as the two other women exchanged small talk. She tried not to imagine what might be going on out in the barn. The men had been gone a long time, surely long enough to have found Chase’s dad and returned. An odd thought struck her. Where were all the ranch hands?
She cocked a quizzical look at Alice, who stopped and looked at her. “What is it, dear?”
Lacy shook her head, saying, “I was just wondering where all the ranch hands were. Doesn’t a ranch like this require a lot of help?”
Alice smiled. “It’s Thanksgiving. They’ve all been given the weekend off to spend with their families. Oh, a few of them have hung around, but they’re probably out drinking it up.” She laughed. “They’re good boys, but you know how it is to be young and free.”
In fact, Lacy didn’t know. Young, sure, but free? Never! Not with her dad around. Once, when s
he was around fifteen, a boy had asked her to the school dance. This was an unheard of phenomenon. After all, who would have enough nerve to ask the sheriff’s daughter to a school dance? But he had asked, and her mother had said yes. “Don’t say anything to your father,” she had warned. “I’ll tell him you had to work. He won’t check. Have him come at four o’clock, before your father gets home.”
He had come at four, but as luck would have it, he picked up a nail on the road and had to take the time to change the tire.
As she stood there, dressed in her party attire, glancing impatiently from the car to the end of the lane, she urged him to hurry.
“What’s the big deal, Lacy? We have plenty of time.”
In her mind, she could still hear the sound of her father’s tires crunching the gravel as they drove down the lane and into the driveway. Then her father got out of the car and sized up the situation. He had marched over to the car, yanked the tire iron from the boy’s hands, and changed the tire, throwing the old one in the trunk. Then he grabbed the boy by his shirt collar and threw him into the driver’s seat. He reached across him, turned the key. The engine roared to life, and he’d pointed a finger toward the street.
Her father never uttered a single word during the entire scene. The boy turned momentarily toward Lacy, but she’d looked away. He drove away. That night she had taken five stitches in her mouth due to the mysterious collision with a paring knife.
At school the next Monday, she walked up to the boy and handed him his jacket that he had laid across the woodpile while he changed the tire. Neither of them had spoken a word since.
She sighed at the memory and wiped a stray tear. “I’m going to get more tea.”
Her mother looked at her and nodded. Despite the seriousness of the current situation, she had never seen her mother look so happy.
In the kitchen, she turned on the tea kettle. “Jake,” she whispered, but he didn’t come. She walked to the pantry and opened the door. She took out the tea and turned back toward the counter. “Jake,” she tried again. She sighed. “Where are you, Jake?”
“I’m right behind you.”
Lacy's End Page 31
