Behold the Stars

by Fanetti, Susan

  Will Keller’s property was of fair size, about half woods, most of the rest arable land, on which, this year, he’d cultivated soybeans. The harvest done and winter coming, the land was lying fallow now. Most of the property lay in a shallow valley, and his whole life, Isaac had loved clearing the rise he’d just cleared on the Keller drive, to see the vista of Will’s white house and red outbuildings—all freshly painted every ten years, even in the hard times—the white gravel drive curving in, all of it surrounded by the vivid greens of the house lawn, the crops, the forest. Like a folk painting. He’d thought it the prettiest property in Signal Bend, and he wasn’t the only one who did.

  It was ablaze, all of it—the house, the outbuildings, Will’s truck at the end of the drive, the white fence along the field line—an inferno of hellfire. The main engine for the Signal Bend Volunteer Fire Department was on the scene, but there was no way it held enough water to battle this blaze. In fact, since it wasn’t pumping, Isaac knew it was dry already. He skidded to a stop and jumped out of the truck, not even looking at Lilli. He leapt into the bed and unlocked the truck box, yanking out his gear. All of the Horde, like most of the able-bodied men in town, were volunteer firefighters. Standing in the bed, he pulled his gear on as quickly as he could, then leapt back to the ground.

  He found Show and Havoc near the engine. Other men in gear were trying to make a firebreak between the blaze and the woods, which they’d fucking need—and now—if they were waterless. Show was on a walkie; Isaac grabbed Havoc by the shoulder and yanked him around.

  “Where’s the other fucking tanker?”

  Havoc’s face was beet red, and soaked in sweat. Isaac could tell from the state of his gear that he’d been in the blaze. “They couldn’t get it started! On its way now, and Show’s putting assist calls in to Millview and Worden. But we’re dry now, boss.”

  “What about the pond—we can siphon that!”

  Havoc shook his head. “Tried. Not enough hose. We’re just trying to keep it back from the woods now, until we get an assist.”

  “GOD DAMMIT!!” Isaac kicked the side of the engine over and over, until Havoc pulled him off.

  Then he heard the screaming—a horrible, strenuous sound full of terror and pain—and he wheeled around. The livestock barn was well engaged.

  “Jesus Christ, the horses! Nobody got to the horses?!” He grabbed a fire ax off the truck and ran full speed toward the barn.

  “ISAAC! FUCK!” Isaac hear Show yelling, and he didn’t care. He’d just had to leap over his friend’s burned body. If he could save one life, even if it was only the life of one of Will’s beloved horses, he was going to do it. This was all his fault. He’d pressured Will not to sell to Ellis. He’d leaned hard—so hard that Will, his friend since grade school, barely spoke to him anymore. Had barely spoken to him. Ellis had threatened Will’s family, and he’d had to move wife and kids to Florida to keep them safe. And Isaac knew, no question, that this fire, this murder was Ellis. And that made it Isaac’s fault.

  Lawrence Ellis wanted Will Keller’s property, and he wanted it now. Having decided to make a major move to take over all of the Midwest meth territory, he’d identified Signal Bend—remote from everything, including law—as a likely location for his mass-production plans. He wanted Will Keller’s property specifically because of its unique physical features—particularly its situation in the valley and the high, dense canopy of its forested acres, perfect for obscuring a facility from air and satellite surveillance. Ellis wasn’t advertising any of that, of course. In fact, as far as anyone knew, Ellis had never been within the state boundaries of Missouri and certainly not in Signal Bend. He worked everything through dummy companies and third and fourth party representatives. It had taken Bart a lot of concentrated hacking to connect all the seemingly random dots.

  Ellis had started out working strictly legitimate channels to acquire Will’s property. But Will wouldn’t sell, even when the offer had gotten very significant. Though the town had lost a lot of its population and most of its small farmers to foreclosure or simple concession to reality, those who stayed did so for reasons far beyond money. The Kellers had farmed this land for generations. Will was every bit as proud of that history and his property as his father had been, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, and generations beyond that. He would not sell to anyone, ever. Certainly not to a random stranger from the city.

  That truth had been iron-clad until Ellis set aside legitimate strategies and went for threats and extortion. First, he set a few of the weaker-spined townspeople on him, trying to flip meth cooks, like Jimmy and Meg Sullivan, to pressure him to sell. When Isaac put a stop to that, Ellis went for Will’s family, starting with vague threats and elevating to dead pets and night prowlers before the Horde sent Liza and the kids to Florida.

  Then things had gone quiet for several weeks, with the exception of the occasional unfamiliar, blacked-out SUV cruising the school bus routes, against which the Horde had set out patrols. They’d achieved a kind of uneasy stasis, waiting for Ellis’s next move.

  Which was now.

  As he ran, Isaac pulled his mask over his face and hit the oxygen. He’d run at the front of the barn, which was not yet engaged. The door was padlocked. He did a heat check and then raised the axe and aimed a blow at the hasp. He got a spark, but no break. Still the horses were screaming, and even through the filter in his mask, he could smell cooking flesh. He raised the axe again and this time struck the wood behind the hasp. He broke the lock away in two more blows.

  By then, he was no longer alone. Havoc, Len, and Bart were with him. Even Jimmy Sullivan was running up, setting his gear on as he came. The rest of the men were working the firebreak. Isaac and Len pulled the door open. The scene that met them made Isaac despair.

  As soon as the door was open, Comet, Will’s daughter’s bay gelding, tore past them, streaming blood and fire. He’d broken open his stall, and his forelegs were all but destroyed, but fear kept him on them. He was completely on fire, tail to mane. Len, who bred horses—and whose best mare had foaled Comet—ran after him. Isaac watched as the horse, panicked and in agony, ran and halted, turned, reared, ran, and halted, over and over again, weakening but still seeking succor. Then Isaac saw Lilli walking steadily, calmly toward the poor beast, putting his rifle, the one he kept in his truck, to her shoulder. She stopped, took aim, and fired once. Comet dropped, his pain over. Another firefighter—Evan Lindel, just nineteen years old—ran up with a fire blanket. Len took it and threw it over the carcass, smothering the flames. Then he ran back to the barn.

  All of it had gone down in a matter of seconds. Behind him, horses were still screaming and men were shouting. Isaac ran into the barn. The horse stalls were on the side of the barn that had not fully engaged. Isaac thought that Comet must have broken out of his stall before he’d caught fire, the panic driving him into greater danger. Sailor, Will’s girl’s old Welsh pony, was dead. Will’s three remaining horses, though nearly feral with fear, seemed unharmed. Isaac, Len, and Bart grabbed the halters and leads from hooks outside their stalls and quickly, carefully led them to safety.

  Sirens wailed from the road—finally, finally, the second tanker was on the scene, followed closely by the Worden VFD. Finally.

  ~oOo~

  When it was over, Isaac walked to his truck and dropped to the ground, still in his gear, sitting up against the back tire. The destruction before him was apocalyptic. The house was a blackened husk, two walls standing, the charred interior of the big two-story clapboard house, the core of which had stood for nearly two hundred years, bared to the world, remnants of insulation and wiring dripping from the gaping ruin like blood from a wound. Every single outbuilding was destroyed, with all of Will’s equipment. The livestock barn was nearly razed, only a few charred boards standing up like rotted teeth. The air was redolent with the stench of burnt goat flesh. Will had kept a smallish herd of Nubian goats, for their milk and for vegetation control. They’d been closed
up in the far side of the barn, the side that had engaged first. They’d likely been dead before Isaac had even arrived on the scene.

  Comet’s body lay, still smoking faintly, in the yard. Will’s body had been collected by the County Morgue. Sheriff Keith Tyler and a couple of his deputies were roaming around. It took a lot to gain the notice of the Sheriff’s department in Signal Bend, but this conflagration had done it. Luckily, Tyler was a friend of the Horde, who took a cut of the meth profit in exchange for playing nice. But Isaac was not in the mood right now to schmooze with law. He closed his eyes and rested his head against his truck.

  He heard footsteps approaching, but he didn’t look. Expecting to hear Tyler’s voice, he was surprised when Lilli sat right next to him, against him, and laid her head on his shoulder. He’d barely seen her since he’d jumped out of the truck, except when she’d put Comet down. He had no idea what she’d been doing.

  “I love you. I’m sorry. I know you loved Will.”

  He turned and kissed her head. “Yeah. You okay?”

  “I’m fine, love. I did what I could to help, but I was never anywhere near the fire.” She held out a bottle of water. “You need this. Drink it now. And apparently part of the volunteer firefighting protocol is to cater the event, because like eight women came with food. That’s weird, right?”

  Despite his exhaustion, grief, and guilt, Isaac laughed. “Round these parts, Sport, that’s how women help. They feed the men. I’m not hungry, though.”

  “No. Didn’t think so. But drink that right now.” He did as he was told. As soon as the cool wet hit his tongue, he was glad he did, and he finished the bottle in one go. Lilli took the empty. “You want another?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  She was quiet for a minute, leaning on him. He felt a little better, like having her close to him let him siphon some strength or calm or something from her. He kissed her head again.

  Wrapping her arms around his arm, she whispered, “You were really brave and stupid, running at the barn like that, not knowing if you had backup.”

  “That’s me. Brave and stupid. Just what you want in the guy in charge, right?”

  Lilli sat up and faced him. “Isaac. You’re a great leader. I’ve worked with a lot of not-great leaders. I see how good you are every day. The way you’re respected, the way you think, the way you know you need Show to remind you to slow down. The way you care. This town is lucky.”

  He huffed and shook his head. She was wrong. He opened his mouth to say so, but Tyler walked up then and stood in front of them. “Gotta talk to you, Ike.” That goddamn nickname. His father’s name. Isaac hated it. He wished he could eradicate it. Instead, he nodded, and he and Lilli stood.

  “I’m going to go check on the horses—we need to find a place for them, Isaac. Is there somebody I should talk to about that?”

  Without thinking about it, Isaac decided. “We’ll take ‘em.” The horse barn hadn’t been used in nearly twenty years, but it was solid. “Talk to Len about borrowing his rig. He’s got a four-horse trailer. They’ll need to be tranq’d after all this, though.” He tossed Lilli his phone. “Can you call Delia Borden? She’s the nearest vet. See if we can get her out here to check them out.”

  Lilli nodded and walked away, already scrolling through his contacts. Isaac turned back to Tyler.

  “Don’t know what I can tell you, Keith, but ask your questions.”

  Tyler was a typical law-enforcement type. Just under six feet, visibly strong, but with a burgeoning beer belly. His face was deeply lined, his skin permanently ruddy, his left arm darker than his right from too many hours stuck out the driver’s side window in the sun. His crew cut was blond, getting duskier as grey began to creep in. He looked like the last guy who’d get in bed with an outlaw MC, but he’d always been sympathetic. “No questions, Ike. I already know I’m not gonna get answers. Nobody’s telling me squat. But something big is going down around here. You and me, we got an arrangement, but Keller was murdered. There’s not much I can do to keep things cool.”

  “I don’t want law handling this problem, Keith. That’s nothing but a mess—for everybody. But there will be justice. There’s gotta be a way.” Isaac looked out again over the desolation that had been his friend’s home. He thought he knew what to do. He turned back to Tyler. “What if Will wasn’t murdered?”

  “Had a bullet through the back his head. Burned to a crisp. Entire property destroyed. How is that not murder-arson?”

  “Any evidence of an accelerant?”

  Tyler crossed his arms. “Ike. Bullet. Through the back of his head. Execution style.”

  “Only if it goes down in the record that way, right? Your M.E.—is he soft?”

  “Ronconi? Yeah. For the right price. But shit, Ike. You understand what you’re suggesting I do?”

  Isaac stepped up close and looked down at Tyler. “You understand that you go down with us if we get Fed heat, right?”

  Tyler stared up at Isaac for a long, hostile moment. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Covering up a fucking murder and arson. This shit is piled way too goddamn high.”

  “I agree. But we still got to shovel it.”

  ~oOo~

  Once Tyler and his crew were clear, the fire engines had headed back to their respective garages, and Dr. Borden had given the three remaining horses more or less clean bills of health and tranq’d them for transport, Len, Isaac, and Lilli loaded them into the trailer and brought them home.

  Len had filled the fourth stall in the trailer with some supplies, including blankets, bales of sweet hay, and a bag of feed, so ultimately, Gertie, Flash, and Ebony had a nice place to bed down. It was dusty, but solid and comfy. They were all dopey and docile at first, and Len joined Lilli and Isaac for a beer before he left. When he left, he gave Lilli a long, hard hug. Isaac watched, not jealous, but interested. He knew Len liked Lilli, but he felt like he’d missed something that had deepened that vague affection into friendship. He thought about asking, but decided to table it for a quieter time. He and Lilli walked back to the stable to check again on the horses.

  Gertie, Will’s wife’s aging dapple mare, was slamming into the stall wall, over and over, hitting with enough force each time that she made a hard grunt. Lilli went to her and started to open the stall. Just as Isaac was about to stop her—warn her never to get into a stall with a distressed horse—Gertie screamed and threw her head up, and Lilli left the latch closed and took several steps back. Gertie resumed her slamming.

  “Hey, missy girl, I just want to help. Not gonna hurt you.” Standing perfectly still, but looking right at the mare, Lilli hit exactly the right soothing pitch. She kept talking, uttering gentle nonsense. It had to be instinct. Lilli was a girl from the suburbs who’d never had a pet before the kittens who were probably wreaking havoc in their house now. But Gertie was responding, her slams slowing. When she stopped and dropped her head, Lilli took a step toward her. Gertie raised and turned her head, giving Lilli a decidedly suspicious consideration, but she didn’t spook this time. Lilli took another step. Gertie tossed her head and then settled. Another step—almost to the stall door now.

  Then Gertie took her own step and dropped her head over the door. Lilli eased her hand slowly up and held it out. Gertie nosed it and then nickered.

  “You’re in, Sport. You’re in.”

  Lilli took the last step. Gertie pressed her head against Lilli’s chest and gave her a shove. Lilli looked at Isaac, worried. Isaac winked. “That’s good. She just hugged you.”

  Grinning, Lilli stepped back to the stall and loved on Gertie for a long time, rubbing her nose and neck, cooing in her ear. Isaac was stunned and impressed. His woman, the horse whisperer. Who’d never ridden a horse.

  Flash and Ebony, both younger and, frankly, stupider than Gertie, seemed to have recovered completely from almost being burned to death. Both had their heads buried deeply in their feed buckets. Isaac checked on them both, blanketed them for the night, then sat down on
a saddle rack and waited for Lilli and Gertie to say good night.

  ~oOo~

  Isaac stood in the shower and let the water stream over his aching body. The nearly-scalding water soothed him. He braced his hands on the tile wall and let his head drop.

  He heard the shower curtain rustle, the rings jingle, and then Lilli’s body replaced the shower stream on his back. Her arms encircled his waist, and she took his balls and cock in her hands. He was soft at first, but the feel of her talented, beautiful hands on him turned him to steel, despite the pain and loss flowing through his veins. Not changing his position, he opened his eyes to watch her hands on him. She laid her head on his back and jacked him off expertly, milking and pulsing, squeezing and teasing, her fingers stroking the underside of his balls in exactly the way she knew he liked. He came fast, hard, and explosively, his semen painting spikes on the aqua tiles. When he was done, he rested his forehead on the wall. Lilli pressed a sweet, lingering kiss to his back and left the shower. Neither of them had said a word.

  She was waiting for him in bed when he came into the room. She’d turned the covers down for him, and he dropped his towel to the floor and slid in, naked, next to her. She rolled to her side, and he pulled her close to his chest. She was also naked, but he made no move to start something, and neither did she. When he kissed her shoulder, she put her hand up and laid it on his head. Then he put his head on his pillow and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lilli woke with a start, sitting bolt upright, her heart pounding. The dream evaporated quickly, as it always did. She looked over, expecting to see Isaac watching her, as he always was when she woke like this. But she was alone in the bed. She sat still for a second and listened, trying to hear if he was in the bathroom or the kitchen. The house was silent. Even the kittens were quiet.