by Martha Carr
“Yeesh. What is that smell?” Rex sniffed the perimeter of the kitchen and stopped once to scratch the baseboard and listen for critters in the walls. After a moment, he snorted and continued into the workshop. “Luther, you smell that?”
“Like something died in here? Oh, yeah.” His brother came from the opposite side of the house and circled the living room before he sniffed down the hall. “Huh. Johnny, you got any dead rats in your workshop?”
The dwarf grunted. “No.”
“What about a vole, huh? Kinda smells like vole.”
“No way. Johnny, this smells like a skunk’s been rubbing its butt all over the—” Luther’s nose bumped into his master’s ankle, and he sniffed farther up the dwarf’s leg before he sat back on his haunches and licked his muzzle. “Johnny.”
“I’m busy.”
“Johnny, you wrestle any skunks lately?”
Rex sniggered.
“Now why the hell would I—” Johnny stopped, raised one arm, and turned his head slightly to sniff. “Dammit.”
His tools and the spy-bug landed on the worktable with a clatter and he stepped around Luther into the hall.
“I knew it! You’ve been wrestling skunks!” The smaller dog trotted after him, panting. “How does that work, exactly? You know, without getting your skin melted off by that spray. That shit’s nasty, Johnny.”
Rex chuffed and curled to nip at the base of his tail. “It’s him, bro.”
“Johnny can spray like a skunk?”
“Y’all need somethin’ else to focus on.” Johnny nodded toward the back of the house. “Outside.”
“Don’t have to tell us twice.” Luther spun and headed to the dog door. “Hey, Rex. Maybe we’ll find a skunk.”
Rex licked his muzzle and trotted slowly after his brother. “Yeah, and you can wrestle it. If you get your skin melted off, you can tag me in.”
The dwarf shut the bathroom door behind him and took the moment of privacy to double-check his pits. Damn. It’s only been two days. I think.
He hopped into the shower and took his sweet time. A familiar tune made its way to his mind, and he started humming. Let’s see that kid try to pin the tail on this song—
The humming stopped immediately, and Johnny chucked his loofa against the wall of the shower. She ain’t here, numbskull, and can’t hear you fallin’ apart at the seams because you had to go diggin’ through the past.
With a scowl, he cranked the water to its highest heat and forced himself to finish the shower before it boiled him alive.
When he stepped out with a towel wrapped around his waist and walked to his room, habit made him glance through the open door of what was now Amanda’s bedroom. She’d kept what was there when she’d first come to stay with him—the purple camo blanket, the bedspread, and the star-shaped light dangling from the ceiling. The things he’d bought her and she hadn’t chosen to take with her to the academy were scattered everywhere. Socks hung from the desk chair. Hair ties littered the floor and the dresser. A book propped open upside down on the desk was titled Crossbows for Beginners.
A thick knot of emotion caught in his throat, and he grasped the handle to yank the bedroom door shut with a bang. I need to get outta here. It’s my cabin and my home and now, I got the ghosts of two girls livin’ in it with me.
Thirty minutes later, he pulled Sheila to a stop in the parking lot in front of Darlene’s trailer with a roar and spray of gravel. Tripp Bolton poked his head above the open door of his pickup and looked at where the gravel had peppered the side of the cab. “Oh, ho, ho. Gotcha now, Johnny.”
The dwarf jumped out of his Jeep and shut the door. “Yeah, Tripp. You got me. Merely another guy needin’ a fix of somethin’ homecooked and—”
“You’re the one been throwin’ rocks at my truck!” The man grinned and shook a finger at him. “I been wonderin’ what the hell that was for years. I thought it was them damn kids down at the Sallerville place chuckin’ shit when I ain’t lookin’. It’s you.”
The bounty hunter glanced at the small, almost invisible dents in the side of the black pickup and nodded. “Sorry.”
“Shit, Johnny. You solved the mystery of a lifetime.” Tripp laughed easily. “I guess that’s what you do, ain’t it?”
“Uh-huh. Bill me if you want.” The dwarf strode to the stairs to the raised trailer.
Tripp slipped into his vehicle, still laughing, and shook his head. “Johnny and Sheila. Hot damn.”
Darlene’s wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been over the last two months, and only four locals sat alone at individual tables while Fred leaned half passed-out on the bar. Johnny closed the door softly, hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, and chose the closest barstool.
“Heya, Johnny.”
“Helluva hot one today, ain’t it?”
He grunted in reply and climbed onto the seat. The last thing I’m fixin’ for is a friendly chat.
The door at the back of the bar swung open, and Darlene emerged with two paper-lined plastic baskets in hand. She gave Johnny a warm smile. “Be right there, Johnny.”
“Yep.”
“All right, Fred. I fixed you up somethin’ nice.” She set one basket in front of the drunk and patted the bar.
The man blinked wearily and stared at the basket. “I didn’t order this.”
“No, but you been here for four hours. If that won’t soak up at least some of the booze in your gut, I don’t know what will.”
“You’re a…shweetheart, Darlene. But I ain’t—”
“One meal for every four hours of straight drinkin’, Fred. Those are the rules.”
“Well…if they are…”
“Of course they are.” Darlene nodded and stepped around the end of the bar. “But don’t you think for a second that I’m not chargin’ you.”
The other patrons chuckled.
“I can get that.” Bobby Harland started to stand from his table and got a glowering stare from Darlene in return.
“What do you think this is? You sit yourself down right now, Bobby. I’m not runnin’ a serve-yourself.” The woman scoffed and dropped the basket on his table while the other hand went to her hip. “And I can walk six feet much easier than you can. How’s the knee?”
He grinned at her and took the napkin-wrapped silverware on the other side of the table. “Better now that you’re here.”
“Huh.” She studied him with a smirk. “How long has it been since you used that line?”
“Since the last woman who turned him down!” Harry shouted from the far end of the trailer. The other locals laughed and ate their meals at their one-person tables.
“Well, now the clock’s reset, honey. Eat your crab cakes.” Laughing with them, Darlene returned to the bar and snatched the rag off her shoulder to wipe at the permanently embedded sticky patches in the wood’s rough grain. “Now, Johnny. What can I getcha?”
He looked up at her with a self-deprecating grimace. “Got anythin’ for vengeance?”
She stared at him. The other patrons in her trailer-diner stopped their low murmuring between tables and the space fell completely silent. Even the crunch of the baskets’ paper lining and the slow, meticulous chewing had stopped.
The dwarf sniffed. I reckon I came on too strong with that one.
“Who was it, Johnny?” Rick called from his table. “We’ll set him straight for ya.”
“Yeah.” Pete nodded and thumped a fist on the table. When Darlene darted him a warning glare, the man hunched his shoulders and removed his fist. “Young’uns can be right assholes, Johnny. She ain’t been two days at that school, but it don’t surprise me she already got her heart broken.”
Johnny turned slowly on the barstool and frowned at the man. “’Preciate it, Pete, but that ain’t it.”
Harry chuckled and popped a handful of fried oysters into his mouth. “Pete ain’t got it through his thick head yet. Amanda ain’t no pinin’ kiddie gon’ let her heart get broken in two days.”
“Naw, that
kid’s got more’n that flowin’ through her. She can take care of herself, yessir. How’s she doin’ at that new school anyhow, huh, Johnny?” Bobby asked and wiped a thick smear of tartar sauce off his beard.
“As far as I know, just fine.” Johnny turned away and slumped his forearms onto the bar. Everywhere I go, it’s Amanda. Of course she told the whole damn town where she was headed.
“Then what’s the problem?” Harry asked.
“No problem.” The bounty hunter clenched his fists and stared at the bar’s worn, stained wood.
“You look like you lost a trophy catch,” Rick added.
Bobby crammed a forkful of crab cake into his mouth and said around his food, “I thought that was his normal state—ain’t it?”
The dwarf pounded a fist onto the counter and stared straight ahead with wide eyes. “I thought y’all came here to eat!”
Fred jolted in his seat at the opposite end of the bar, saved himself from falling onto the floor, and snatched a French fry and crammed it into his mouth. The other locals ignored him, as usual, and stared at Johnny. Darlene cocked her head and studied the bounty hunter curiously.
“Hell of a way to work up an appetite,” Pete muttered before he took a huge bite of his Po’ Boy.
“Sure, Johnny,” Darlene said gently and flopped the rag onto the bar. “I got just the thing for what ails ya.”
She retrieved his staple bottle of Johnny Walker Black from the well, but he shook his head. “Thanks, darlin’, but I ain’t drinkin’ today.”
One of the locals gasped and immediately tried to cover it with a fake cough. The others turned their attention to their baskets of food and no one said a word.
The proprietor returned the whisky bottle slowly. “Well, that was merely the appetizer, honey. Now you sit tight and let me handle the rest.”
He nodded at her before she turned toward the back of the bar and the door leading into her homemade kitchen. She glared at the locals who continued to shoot Johnny wary, confused glances before she disappeared behind the door.
Maybe this was a bad idea. He took a few deep breaths and finally straightened his hunched shoulders. But if anyone can make a dwarf forget about lying federal bastards and the murdering sonofabitch they let slip away, it’s Darlene and her cookin’.
The front door of the trailer opened with a creak, and Arthur walked in, a broad smile stretching below his white handlebar mustache. “Heya, fellas.”
The other locals murmured hellos but kept their attention on their baskets.
“Huh. You know, I heard’a the mid-week slump, but it ain’t like y’all got nothin’ to complain about.” Arthur saw the dwarf at the bar and grinned. “Johnny. It’s the first time you’ve beat me here in a hot minute.”
When the bounty hunter didn’t reply, he glanced around the trailer and frowned when the other locals shook their heads at him in warning.
“Now what the hell’s goin’ on in here, huh? Y’all look like the bogeyman rolled in and took all yer toys.”
“Or he never left,” Bobby muttered without looking away from his crab cakes.
“Hush up, you ol’ git,” Harry whispered harshly.
Bobby spun in his chair to glare at the man. “Ain’t no one talkin’ to you, Harry.”
“Ain’t no one talkin’ at all,” Rick muttered and glared at the large man with the injured knee. “We came here to eat, remember?”
The old-timers grumbled at their tables and returned to their meals with scowls instead of their usual easygoing smiles.
Arthur scratched the side of his face, then brushed the stray hairs of his handlebar mustache that tickled his upper lip and strolled toward the bar. Johnny sat rigidly at the counter. He stared directly ahead and didn’t move when Arthur took the stool directly beside him. “How ya doin’, Johnny?”
“I’m doin’.”
The old-timer nodded. “Uh-huh. That’s clear as a bell, all right. But I reckon there ain’t a ‘just fine’ attached to that.”
He grunted.
“Is the kid doin’ all right at that school o’ yours?”
“Ain’t everythin’ about the kid, Arthur.” At least not that kid. The dwarf rubbed his mouth and his wiry red beard before he thumped his hand onto the bar.
Arthur shifted on the stool, leaned toward his friend, and lowered his head as he muttered, “You know as well as I do that ain’t the truth. It might be true for the rest of these good-for-nothin’s sittin’ around starin’.”
The man turned to glare at the other locals over his shoulder. Caught in the act, the old-timers shifted and grunted and got the hint. One of them ripped a nervous fart and no one said a thing.
“Once a kid’s in the picture,” Arthur continued and turned to face the bar again, “ain’t nothin’ not about them. Amanda doin’ all right?”
“It ain’t Amanda.” Johnny cleared his throat. “Mostly. I ain’t worried ʼbout her, at least.”
“Sure.” The man nodded sagely. “But it is a kid on your mind.”
The dwarf’s head tilted from side to side. That’s what I get for knowin’ folks who know my whole life. “Might be.”
He didn’t have to say any more than that. Of all the locals out there who knew what he could do with traps and guns and tech and the occasional breaking up of a fight, Arthur was the only one who knew about Dawn.
The rest of it on folks’ lips is only hearsay and rumors, and I ain’t fixin’ to feed ʼem one way or the other.
His old friend leaned over the bar, studied the rows of beer bottles lined up where liquor bottles normally were at any other legit bar with a license, and sniffed. “The past has a way of catchin’ up with us. I tell you what, Johnny. Learnin’ how to not let my old mistakes rip me apart was one helluva thing. Life’s funny that way, and I ain’t sayin’ that ’cause I’m closer to the end o’ mine than when I made those mistakes. Understand?”
Johnny snorted and looked slowly at the man beside him. “You forget I still got seniority on you, old-timer?”
“Not when you bring it up every chance you get.” Arthur chuckled. “It don’t mean I ain’t lived a life worth livin’, just the same.”
“Uh-huh.”
The door behind the bar popped open, and Darlene emerged. Instead of a paper-lined basket, she carried an actual plate loaded with the type of Southern feast that didn’t fully exist on any menu, even if she’d had one.
“Hot damn,” Bobby muttered and sniffed the air. “That is the best smell in the whole damn state.”
The woman set the plate in front of Johnny, took a set of wrapped silverware from the pocket of her apron, and nodded in satisfaction. “Just like I told ya, Johnny. That’ll set ya right.”
He stared at the meal. Blackened catfish filled the center of the plate, surrounded by heaped piles of sweet-potato mash, mac ’n cheese, collards, cooked okra stewed in tomatoes, two slices of fried green tomatoes, coleslaw, and baked beans. Two ramekins of tartar sauce and a lemon wedge balanced precariously at the edge of the plate. “It looks fine, Darlene.”
“’Course it does. That there okra’s a family recipe, Johnny. Mind you eat all of it or my great-grandmama Alice is sure to turn in her grave. Maybe she’ll even leave it to pay you a midnight visit.”
“What’s all this, Darlene?” Rick called from his table. “You been holdin’ out on us this whole time?”
“And how come we never get plates?” Pete added.
“Y’all mind your own.” She pointed at them. “And if I gave y’all plates, I’d be pickin’ the pieces up off the floor with the rest of the mess you old goats leave behind. Especially you, Pete. Yeah, I’m takin’ stock.”
Pete scowled and returned to his meal as the other locals chuckled.
Darlene wiped her hands on her apron and nodded at Johnny. “Don’t let it get cold, now. Want a Coke?”
“Water’s fine, darlin’. Thank you.”
She turned briskly to take a paper cup and fill it at the small bar sink. “Ho
w you doin’, Arthur?”
“I’ve seen worse days.”
“Better days too,” Harry called as he wiped his mouth and tossed the crumpled napkin into his empty basket.
“Better’n yours?” Arthur turned to grin at the man over his shoulder. “You bet.”
Darlene set two cups of water on the bar and stuck her hands on her hips. “You fixin’ to eat somethin’ too?”
Arthur glanced at the steaming plate in front of Johnny. “I don’t suppose you got any more of that sittin’ around back there.”
“Not for you.”
He rolled his eyes playfully. “All right. How ʼbout one of them oyster baskets? And throw some o’ that slaw in there on the side.”
“That I can do for ya.” She nodded at the dwarf and gave him a warm smile. “Whatever it is, Johnny, you know you got friends ʼround here.”
“Always have.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” The woman put her hands on her hips and waited.
Johnny looked at her, then nodded and unwrapped his utensils to dig into the okra and tomatoes first. “Yep,” he said around a mouthful. “Great-grandmama Alice will be sleepin’ like a baby tonight.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s what I thought.” With a final glance around the trailer, Darlene disappeared through the kitchen door again to prepare his companion’s meal.
Arthur leaned toward the bounty hunter and staring longingly at the mountain of food on the plate. “You know, friends are known to—”
“Not this friend. Get your own.” He shoved another forkful into his mouth and chuckled through his nose when the man leaned away again quickly.
“Every damn time. I swear, Johnny, if I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d say that woman’s sweeter on you than the rest of us.”
“That ain’t sayin’ much, though, is it?”
The old-timers burst out laughing at their tables. Harry stood and dropped his usual seven dollars on the table for his meal as he tried to hold back his smile. “Y’all got some nerve over there, I tell you what.”
“Ain’t nothin’ you never heard before, Harry,” Pete said.
“That’s Johnny payin’ us a compliment,” Bobby added.
“Uh-huh. Y’all can eat ʼem up much as you like. But don’t wring any necks in here, huh, Johnny? Least not until I’m gone.”
