Her mind raced in a thousand different directions. Should she harness her pony and hurry back to the camp? No, that would be too slow. Without Nathan’s help, she’d be thirty minutes harnessing the horse and at least that long again getting back to the camp. If she tried to hurry, she’d end up turning over and dumping out, which wouldn’t help anyone.
Knowing there were people who didn’t want her in this house, it also crossed her mind that it could be a trap. She couldn’t run off blindly and leave the children behind. They’d be unprotected if someone tried to get in. She couldn’t go investigate the fire no matter how badly she wanted to. It was as simple as that.
As much as she hated asking for help, she saw no choice but to enlist the help of a neighbor. She could possibly get to Kendall’s house without the assistance of her horse, though she knew there was no way she’d make it back up this driveway with just her muscles. It was too steep. Making the trip to Kendall’s would be at least a thirty-minute effort, there and back. Thirty minutes that the children would be alone and unprotected. She was going to have to do something she never imagined she would.
“Stevie, I need you to be a big boy and do something very brave. Can you do that?”
Stevie beamed with pride. “You bet!”
“Do you remember Mr. Kendall, the neighbor who came to Mr. Oliver’s funeral?”
“Yeah, he lives that way,” Stevie said, pointing down the farm road, away from camp.
“That’s right. He does. He lives in the house right next to us. Can you run really fast?”
“I’m the fastest runner at the camp. Even faster than Nathan.”
“You can run there in just a few minutes. Much faster than I can get there. I need you to go tell Mr. Kendall that there’s a fire at the camp and I was hoping he could ride up there on his horse and check it out. Tell him Nathan and Kay are still up there. Can you do that?”
Stevie nodded eagerly.
“Then go!”
Stevie bolted away from her like he’d been shot from a launcher. His feet pounded down the steps and he leapt when he was halfway to the bottom, hitting the ground running. She watched him go, fighting the instinct to shout warnings that he be careful. They’d go unheeded. He was only concerned with speed now and maybe that was the way it needed to be.
Sharon went back into the house and called to the children. “I need everyone in the living room!”
It took a few minutes for everyone to straggle in. They were at the far corners of the boundaries she’d set for them and everyone immediately wanted to share stories of what they’d found. Sharon held a hand up.
“I need everyone to listen for a moment. We’re going to lock all the doors except for the front door and I need you to all go in the living room for now. If you want games or books, you can go get them but I need everyone in here where I can see them.”
Tara, always the most serious of the children, crinkled her tiny forehead. “What’s wrong, Miss Sharon?”
Sharon took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “There’s smoke coming from the direction of the camp. I sent Stevie to get help. I just need all of you to stay close until everyone gets back here.”
“But what about Kay and Nathan?” Tara asked.
“I don’t know anything about them yet, but Mr. Kendall is going to go check on them for us.”
“Are they hurt?” Tara persisted.
Sharon sucked in a breath but held her tongue. If there was ever a moment she felt like snapping at the children, this was it. She was terrified for Nathan and Kay, terrified for Stevie, and she had no answers for all the expectant faces looking at her.
“We don’t know anything yet. I need to you do what I asked, though. Find something to keep you busy. Books, drawing, games, whatever. Just something you can do in this room until we know it’s safe. I’ll give you three minutes to get what you need, then I want you back here. Go!”
The children rushed off in all directions, looking for their backpacks of personal items or the packed boxes that held their games. They rushed back to the living room, dumping them on the floor, and then scurrying off for more like it was a treasure hunt.
While they gathered their things, Sharon returned to the porch. She turned her body so that the children couldn’t see her and removed the gun from the pouch hanging off her chair. She confirmed that the cylinder was completely loaded, then tucked it out of sight. In the living room, the children were settling in now, talking amongst themselves as they figured out who was doing what.
The sound of hooves on gravel drew Sharon’s attention to the road. They were coming too fast to be Nathan with the cart. Kendall galloped into sight, a shotgun in his hand, and Stevie’s small body on the saddle in front of him. Kendall stopped at the road and lowered Stevie to the ground. Noticing Sharon on the porch, Kendall gave her a hasty wave and kicked his horse into a gallop.
Stevie ran to the porch and scrambled back up the steps, his breath rapid and his eyes flickering with a satisfied excitement. “I did it! I got Mr. Kendall!”
Sharon pulled him into a tight hug. “You did. You were such a big boy. I’m very proud of you.”
46
Bland County
It had been a long day in the saddle. Jim and Lloyd were both tired and getting short-tempered. Jokes were no longer funny. They simply wanted to get where they were going and get off their horses. Lloyd had written a half-dozen more songs about Jim, each of them worse than the one before it. They all exaggerated his exploits and inflated his body count with one goal in mind — pissing Jim off.
“You know what a narcocorrido is?” Jim asked, interrupting Lloyd’s latest improvisation.
Lloyd quit his strumming and muffled the strings with a hand. “Nope, never heard of it.”
“It’s a form of music. A Mexican ballad. They’re extremely popular. The lyrics are all about the exploits and adventures of drug smugglers and cartel members. Who they killed and how they killed them. That kind of thing.”
Lloyd smiled as awareness dawned on him. “Oh, kind of like I’m doing for you.”
“Yeah, exactly. Sometimes the narcotrafficante, the smuggler, might not like the way he’s portrayed in a song. Maybe he’s embarrassed about some detail. Maybe he doesn’t feel like it was respectful or did him justice. You know what happens then?”
“No.”
“The balladeer ends up dying a gruesome death. You see, writing the narcocorrido is not without risk. Keep that in mind while you keep writing those bullshit songs about me.”
Lloyd scowled and slung his banjo around to his back. They didn’t talk for some time, other than discussing routes, landmarks, and directions. Jim would have been fine with camping for the night somewhere along the Appalachian Trail, which they’d traveled for about half the day. He suggested it repeatedly, pointing out nice camping spots along the way.
Lloyd kept insisting that they were close to the camp and should keep going. Jim only continued on because he didn’t want to have to listen to Lloyd complaining all night about how close they were. It was too late now though. They were off the AT and following a paved road through a wide river valley with heavily forested slopes to either side. The land was fertile and some of the residents were taking advantage of it, their farms bristling with crops. Other farms sat idle, overgrown with weeds, their fields unplanted for reasons Jim cared not to speculate on. Surely death, misery, and suffering were at the root.
“It’s starting to look like home,” Jim said, grinning as he pointed at a column of smoke rising in the distance.
Lloyd studied the smoke with a grim expression on his face. “Don’t get so excited, Rambo. That’s where we’re headed.”
“Maybe not. Could be something else.”
“Not much out there,” Lloyd said. “There’s a few houses along this main road but not in that direction. There’s only the camp.”
“So we’re headed toward that smoke?”
“Affirmative.”
Jim clucke
d at his horse and nudged it into a trot. “Best get moving then. Something’s going on.”
Lloyd sat there for a moment, shaking his head in disgust before kicking his horse into gear. He fell in alongside Jim. “I don’t like the way you get so excited when you smell trouble.”
“That smoke up ahead doesn’t have to mean trouble. Might just be someone burning brush or something.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” Lloyd griped. “If you did, you wouldn’t have speeded up.”
Jim ignored that comment. “How far do you think it is from here?”
“Eh, not far.”
They rode through a four-way rural intersection in the middle of nowhere. An abandoned car sat in one lane, pulled up to a stop sign like it had sat there for a year waiting for traffic to clear. They circled around it and turned right. Passing the car, they peered through the grimy windows, almost surprised that no skeleton sat patiently in the driver’s seat, clutching the wheel in its bony fingers.
“You see that stop sign?” Lloyd asked.
“I saw the sign but didn’t pay any attention to it.”
“It was marked with that same double-M mark, like the one carved into that tree on the mountain.”
“I meant to ask Orbin about that but I forgot.”
Lloyd pointed ahead, to a gravel road branching off the main road. “We turn at the next right. There’s two or three houses along the way before you get to Oliver’s place. Once you pass his house it’s another mile up a rough farm road to reach the camp.”
“That’s isolated.”
Lloyd smiled. “That’s the beauty of it, my friend.”
Jim swung his rifle off his shoulder and hung it across the front of his body. The paved road turned to gravel immediately after they swung onto the farm road. They trotted past a small house with chalky aluminum siding and green metal awnings over each window. A cast-iron eagle, claws outstretched, hung over the garage door. A short distance further, they passed a big farmhouse. A sturdy country-woman stood in the yard, glaring at them with her hands on her hips. She looked both startled and angry at the appearance of the riders, as if she might attack them had she been given more notice.
Jim paid her no mind once he saw that she didn’t have a weapon. He was more interested in the source of the smoke. Lloyd studied her, trying to recall if he’d met her in the years he’d been associated with the camp. They rode past a split tree, a large limb having broken off so recently that its leaves were still green, just beginning to wilt. A thick canopy of trees made a tunnel of the road, blocking the sky and preventing them from seeing the column of smoke.
They could smell it though, the acrid odor hanging in the valley on the hot, windless afternoon. Within the smoke they could distinguish the various odors that made up a burning building—insulation from wiring, shingles, and PVC plumbing pipes. This was not a brushfire. It was a structure fire. Jim had suspected that from the moment he saw the smoke.
“It’s not much farther,” Lloyd said.
They pushed through a long section of tunneled road, the angular evening light creating striated shadows on the dirt road ahead of them. It would be beautiful, almost hypnotic, under better circumstances. Rusty fences ran along both sides of the road, stretched between leaning posts of locust and split oak. Ahead, a circle of brilliant sunlight revealed the end of the tree-lined tunnel. It was a portal into a world lush and verdant.
The transition into the light was so harsh as to be disorienting. Jim squinted against the light, nearly blinded. As his eyes adjusted, he found himself staring at a group of people gathered in the road ahead of them. An old man stood alongside a saddled horse, a shotgun aimed directly at Jim. There was a horse-drawn golf cart with two kids standing beside it, one of them sobbing hysterically. The child was hugging a woman in a wheelchair and that woman had a revolver aimed in Jim’s direction. To the left of the road, standing in the high grass of an unkempt yard, an assortment of wide-eyed children stared at the riders with a mixture of fascination and fear.
Jim reined his horse and it came to a stop like a toy winding down. He kept his hands on the reins, afraid to make any sudden moves. He didn’t know any of these people and they didn’t know him.
As usual, Lloyd was behind. He came barreling up behind Jim, then tugged at the reins of his horse. He took a glance at the guy with the shotgun, then turned his attention to the woman in the wheelchair. “Sharon!”
“Don’t either of you fellers move a muscle,” the man with the shotgun announced. He had the gun aimed between Jim and Lloyd. At that distance, he might hit both riders with a single blast from the scattergun.
Sharon released the tearful girl from her arms and studied the riders. “Lloyd?”
An uneasy smile crossed Lloyd’s face. “What the hell are you still doing here at camp? Why are these kids still here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long, long story,” Lloyd replied.
Sharon agreed. “Same here.”
“You know these people?” Kendall asked.
Sharon nodded. “You can lower the gun. I know one of them. That’s Lloyd. He was a friend of Oliver’s who taught here at the camp every summer. Used to play the square dances.”
Kendall squinted at Lloyd for a moment. “I thought you looked a tad familiar.” He lowered the shotgun.
“I thought the same thing.” Lloyd pointed at Jim. “This here is my buddy Jim. He’s part of the reason we’re here.”
“I’m assuming you all know something is on fire, right?” Jim asked.
There were nods around the group.
“Those young’uns were just up there,” Kendall offered. “They’re lucky they weren’t hurt.”
Lloyd slid from his horse and handed the reins over to Jim. He approached Sharon and wrapped her up in a big hug. “I came to check in on Oliver. I never expected you or any of the kids would be here.”
Sharon’s face grew taut. “Oliver passed away a few days ago from a stroke. As for me and the kids, not all the parents were able to pick their children up before the fuel ran out. I couldn’t leave the children behind so I stayed. Now none of us can leave.”
“How have you fared?” Jim asked.
“Pretty well until recently,” Sharon admitted. “Since camp ended early, we had enough leftover bulk food to carry us through the winter. Oliver helped too. He was always coming up with meat or some canning for us.”
“Wasn’t it cold?” Lloyd asked.
“The dining hall has a wood stove because the hunting clubs use it sometimes. We all moved in there for the winter and we got by. Had a lot of time to play games and practice.”
“I practiced a lot, Mr. Lloyd,” Tara said.
Lloyd smiled at the girl. “That’s good, honey. Maybe I can hear you play later.”
“After Oliver passed, his niece came up here and made a stink,” Sharon said. “She said she was entitled to this place and wanted us out of here.”
“There’s always been bad blood there,” Kendall added. “Her side of the family felt like they were slighted. Goes back generations.”
“Oliver always told me he was leaving this farm to the camp, to help keep it running,” Lloyd said.
Sharon was bobbing her head in agreement. “He did. I saw the will. I had to sign papers at a lawyer’s office. I told his niece that but she didn’t care.”
“Is there a connection between what you’re telling us and that fire there?” Jim asked, pointing toward the distant smoke.
“We were just getting the story on that from these two,” Sharon said. “We’re moving into Oliver’s house now that he’s gone and Nathan here has been hauling loads all day. He was going back to the camp to pick up Kay and the last load of the day when he spotted the smoke.”
“It was those people,” Kay said, wiping at her eyes. “I saw them. They were breaking stuff and then they set a fire in the kitchen.”
“I found her trying to put out the fire,�
� Nathan said. “It was too far gone though. A fire truck couldn’t have saved it at that point.”
Kendall nodded in acknowledgment. “Old building. Dry as kindling.”
Kay wiped her eyes. “They used something to make the fire because I heard it catch. They nearly blew themselves up. They were coughing when they came out.”
“Too bad they didn’t blow up,” Jim said. “That would have solved your problem for you.”
Lloyd, Sharon, and Kendall stared at Jim. They understood the question implied by his statement. Since the fire hadn’t solved their problem, what were they going to do about it?
“This would be a topic best discussed in private,” Sharon said. “Maybe we should all go inside now. I still need to feed the children.”
“I’ll put the golf cart away and turn the horse out,” Nathan offered.
“I’ll give you a hand with that, son,” Kendall said.
Jim asked, “Got a place I can keep these horses tonight?”
“Just follow along,” said Kendall. “We’ll take care of you.”
47
Jim’s Valley
“Hugh says he caught you coming from town last night?”
Pete and Charlie were on garden duty with Randi, picking some carrots, onions, and more tomatoes. It was the first opportunity for Pete to interrogate his friend over his late-night activities. Pete could tell his buddy was dragging. Charlie wasn’t saying a lot and he was sluggish. Randi noticed it too, though she dealt with it in a more aggressive manner than Pete did. She zinged clods of dirt in Charlie’s direction when she felt he wasn’t pulling his weight.
When Randi was done with them, they told her they needed to check their fishing lines.
“Might as well. You’re worthless in a garden anyway. More trouble than you’re worth.” Of course she was grinning. She enjoyed working with them because they laughed at her jokes.
The Borrowed World Series | Book 8 | Blood & Banjos Page 29
