by Cal Matthews
“Hey,” I said. I got up off my bed and went to shut the door. Marcus was still in the kitchen, cleaning blood off of his shoes. I didn't think he could hear me, but I didn't want take the chance.
“I wasn't going to answer,” Cody said, and he sounded strange. Guarded.
“Yeah, I figured,” I said, wincing a little.
“I just don't know what to say to you.”
“Okay.”
There was nothing but silence for a little bit and the sound of him breathing. Because it was Cody, and I figured he could out-silence me way longer than I could out-silence him, I said, “I fixed him, in case you were wondering.”
There was a burst of loud exhalation, like Cody had been holding his breath.
“Ebron,” he said, drawing out my name in exasperation. “Really, I - I don't know what to say.”
“How did you know, anyway, Cody? Who told you?” Yeah, this was not going the way I had planned. I had wanted to reassure him, calm him down, convince him that the gutted body we'd found was no big deal. Now I could hear the angry edge in my own voice, and I sighed.
“People talk,” he replied. A pause. “There's always rumors about you, man.” Another pause, and then he said quietly, “I used to shoot pool with Brian Anderson.”
That surely was supposed to mean something to me, but the Brian Anderson I knew did taxes at H&R Block. Nice enough guy, but - oh. Then I remembered. He had called four years ago to help his father-in-law. His father-in-law who had been struck by a stray bullet while out hunting.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “You talked to Brian.”
“Some people think you're some kind of witch.”
I laughed, low and without humor. “I promise you, I am not a witch, Cody. I know that for sure.”
“So it's true. You can . . .” he trailed off.
“Yes,” I said. “I can bring people back from the dead. Animals too. Remember that skunk I had when I was a kid?”
“Jesus Christ, Ebron.”
“So you're saying a lot of people know? Brian Anderson is running his mouth?”
“No. He had a few one night and he knows that we're cousins. He didn't say anything to anyone else. He even called me the next day to tell me to keep it quiet. But people know, anyway, Ebron. People talk.”
“Yeah, I know. So what do you think I should do? Do you think I should stop?” I didn't know why I said that. It must have been floating in my subconscious, but I had never thought about stopping before. Not really.
He sighed. “No, I don't know. Not if you're helping people. I mean, you got a gift, right? You have to help people if you can.”
“I don't want people to know.” I heard footsteps approaching my bedroom door and I stood up. “One sec, Cody.”
Marcus was standing outside the door, his fist raised to knock.
“What?” I hissed at him, holding the phone against my chest.
“Sorry. Just checking on you.” He gave me a little smile, which faded when I didn't smile back.
“I'm fine.” It came out a growl. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I'm fine. I'll be right there, okay?”
He nodded, and turned back down the hall, looking over his shoulder at me and smiling in a way that shouldn't have made my stomach flutter, but did.
“Cody?” I said back in to the phone.
“Yeah, Ebron, I got to go. Just give me some time, okay? We'll talk later.”
I took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, Cody.”
“Don't be.” there was another pause. Then, “I'm really proud of you, Ebron. Seriously, man. I'm proud.”
My chest tightened and I felt tears threatening at the back of my throat.
“Thanks.” I managed to grunt into the phone, and hung up before I could embarrass myself. I took shaky, ragged breaths that could have easily become sobs if I hadn't shoved them away. That word always got to me.
When I was in control, more or less, I rubbed the heel of my hand into my eyes, grinding away the tears, and headed back out to deal with the annoyingly sexy formerly dead witch.
I felt weirded out by having someone new in my truck. Leo and Cody never mentioned the accumulation of garbage and life debris that populated the passenger’s seat, but I couldn’t very well ask Marcus to sit on candy wrappers and old receipts. Marcus waited by the open door, blowing into his cupped hands as I brushed crumbs off the bench seat and scooped a pile of junk into the back. I mashed it all down with my fist, making a heap of empty Red Bull cans, mismatched work gloves, work invoices, and an individually wrapped neon green toothbrush from my last dentist visit. Marcus wrinkled his nose, but he got in. The deer carcass still rattled around in the back, and I hoped he didn't comment on it. Not that he remembered how exactly he'd arrived the night before.
Marcus stared out the window with interest as we drove through town. The blistering cold of the previous few days had given way to weak sunlight, melting the snow into muddy piles of slush along the sidewalks. I expected the temperature to rise again in the next few days, spiking up in small heat waves until finally succumbing to the freeze of real winter. For now, though, the clouds hung heavy in the gray sky, threatening rain. The dim light and dreariness made it feel like early evening, like we’d never see the sun again.
The weather sure wasn't doing Heckerson any favors. It was a ranching town, after all, built around the railroad and spreading out in one long line that had gradually expanded out into more modern, but modest, neighborhoods. The main street, the center of the historic district, was lined with brick buildings with Victorian architecture, which had once probably been lovely but now had the vibe of an aging prostitute. There had been money here, both from the railroad and from the cattle, but it was long gone now and the once beautiful buildings looked wilted, like antique weddings dresses.
In the summer, the streets felt festive, with bright flowers and colorful flags on every light post. Montana really shined in the summer. But late autumn was perhaps the harshest, with nothing but gray light and soggy streets. Even the lights within the stores seemed weak and tepid, lacking any of the warm comfort I usually associated with them.
“How many people live here?” Marcus asked me, and his tone held both sympathy and confusion for the poor denizens of this depressing place. At the moment, I didn't really blame him for his low opinion of Heckerson.
“A few thousand,” I said. “If you count all the people who live out of town on the ranches.”
“Ah,” he said, though I could tell from the way his brows drew together that his understanding of ranches was minimal.
“My family are ranchers.” I said, just to keep the conversation going. I kind of liked making him uncomfortable.
He turned and looked at me. I had the heater going full blast, but the air it pushed out was lukewarm, at best. Marcus hunched over on himself, his hands wedged between his own thighs and the collar of his coat - my coat - up to his ears.
“You're a . . . rancher?” he asked, struggling for the right vernacular.
“No. I'm not. My family has a ranch, but I only help out for branding and calving. Ranching is pretty big here,” I said, stating the obvious. The bank we were presently driving past was called The Stockmen's.
“Did you -” he broke off, looking away.
“What?” I said, interested. “Did I what?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering how you ended up owning the herb shop?”
“Oh. Did I go to college, you mean?”
He didn't miss the edge to my voice, and when I glanced at him, I could see that he was embarrassed.
“No,” I said, making my voice casual. “It was never really an option.”
“Why not?”
I was surprised he pursued it, but I imagined he was one of those people for whom getting a college education was simply the natural way of things. Probably not having a degree was unusual to his family and friends.
“Just . . . too much money. Too far away. I didn't know what I wanted. People like me
don't go to college.”
He remained quiet for a moment, then said cautiously, “I saw the bookshelves in your living room. You have classics next to college texts next to Clive Cussler novels.”
“So?”
“Just an observation.”
“I like to read,” I said defensively.
“Hey.” he pulled his hands out from between his knees and held them up, patting the air in front of him as though I was an angry dog. “I'm not trying to offend you. I was just going to say -”
“What?”
“Not going to college doesn't make you uneducated.”
I looked at him sharply, at his enormous green eyes that lacked any traces of mockery, at the slight five o'clock shadow coming in on his jaw, at the strong bones in his face. I wanted to snarl something at him that would hurt him, make him back off, but there was such innocent sincerity in his voice that I bit back the harsh replies on the tip of my tongue.
“So where did you go to school?” I asked instead, trying to keep my voice even. “Harvard? Yale? Oxford?”
“No, I went to the University of Colorado. UC Boulder.”
“And you studied . . . what? Religion?”
No,” he said softly, and I could hear the undercurrent of anger in his voice. But I still didn't look at him. “I have a bachelor's degree in engineering.”
“Engineering?” He might as well said accounting or dentistry, it was so ordinary. I glanced at him and saw he fuming.
“Yes,” he snapped.
“Why are you upset?”
“Because you -” he waved a hand, his anger making him inarticulate. “Because you think so poorly of me. I'm a joke to you. Some rich kid playing around with witchcraft, like it's theater camp, or LARPing or something. You think I'm stupid.”
“I don't,” I said seriously. “I really don't. Maybe you think you’re playing around but I think you're dangerous, and I think maybe you don't realize that you are.”
That stopped him, and he looked at me imploringly for a second, his eyebrows raised and his face a question. Then he turned away, focusing out the window and I concentrated on the icy roads, turning down the street and driving towards the meat processor's.
There were already several trucks lined up outside of Moretti’s Meats and I pulled my pick-up alongside them. An enormous set of antlers rose up out of the bed of the truck beside mine, attached to an equally enormous elk. I whistled in appreciation.
“That's a beauty,” I said, as Marcus twisted in his seat, craning his neck to see into the bed. He looked back at me with wide eyes.
I smiled at the blatant shock on his face, and he smiled back a little sheepishly.
“City boy,” I teased and his grin grew a little wider. He ducked his head, looking at me from under his lashes. Damn it, it fucking worked; I felt my stomach twist a little, and a thread of interest worked its way downwards.
Several minutes later, as I helped a teenager wearing a blood-splattered smock drag the doe from the back of my own truck, I found myself staring at the pools of blood and a shudder went through me. Most of the blood in the truck belonged to the man sitting in the cab, his curious face looking back at me.
I returned to the truck feeling shaken, the sight of the blood a reminder that there were serious problems for me to deal with, and that as much as I was attracted to him, Marcus was in all likelihood someone I couldn't trust, someone who possibly was an enemy. He had almost gotten me killed, and his coven could be, even now, preparing to move against me. Maybe. Maybe I wasn't the target at all. I felt helplessly confined by my own lack of knowledge.
“So they'll butcher it for you?” he asked when I slid back behind the wheel.
“Yep. Everything will be all neatly packaged for me and I'll have meat for the rest of the year.”
“Hmm. Is it good?”
“I think it is.”
“And what are we doing now?”
“I have to run by my store and check on the pipes.”
“The pipes?”
“Yeah, to make sure they don't freeze.”
“Oh,” he said, and fell silent. Then, in a very quiet voice, “Can we grab something to eat? I haven't eaten since . . . ” he didn't finish but he didn't have to. He hadn't eaten since before he had been killed, of course.
“God, sorry,” I said. “There's a little diner up ahead-will that work?”
“Yes, sure.” he sounded eager and I felt a pang of something that may have been guilt. I should have offered him breakfast earlier.
After you found him squatting in your truck?
Well, yeah. I pushed that vicious little voice away and instead pulled into the parking lot of The Dinner Bell. He followed me inside, his shoes slipping on the packed ice.
I felt eyes on us right away, the door jingling overhead as we walked in. It was Sunday, after all, and The Dinner Bell was one of the only places open on the Lord's Day. All those good Christians watched as we walked down the line of occupied tables and booths and slid into the only open seats, which of course were front and center at the counter. I could tell that Marcus could feel the weight of the stares, too. He was sat a little hunched, his eyes hooded and his mouth tight.
“We should just get food to go,” he said to me quietly.
“If you want,” I replied, catching the eye of the waitress and giving her a smile. She smiled back, but there was a certain wariness I had come to expect. Her eyes flicked from me to him and then back again.
“I do,” he said. He didn't smile as the waitress handed him a menu. He seemed to shrink a little under her curious gaze. I thought of all the sides of him that I had seen so far - the swagger, the bravado, the anger and tears.
“What's the deal?” I asked quietly, when the waitress moved away.
He shrugged. “I just feel really out of place.”
“Eh, don't worry about them,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “They're looking at you because you are with me.”
“Is this not your usual date spot?”
I huffed a laugh. “Nah. Usually I spring for the truck stop on I-90. They have prime rib on Fridays.”
His mouth twitched up a bit, but his shoulders stay hunched, and I wished I could have reached across the little space between the stools and put my hand on his.
I felt someone approaching on my other side, and swung my stool.
“Hey Ebron.”
“Oh, hey, Chad,” I said, my stomach sinking.
Chad Metz – officer of the law, uncle to a little girl I’d resurrected after a swimming accident, Seattle Seahawks fanatic. He was five or ten years older than me, built like a Sequoia but going pudgy around the middle, and he was just so American. He had been in the army. He liked country music. He had an American flag flying on an honest-to-God flagpole in his front yard. He was married with three kids, and he was always inviting me over to barbecue and watch football with him. And I think he sort of had an unhealthy obsession with me, but that might have just been my unhealthy need for validation talking.
“Who's your friend?” Chad asked. I caught of whiff of fresh laundry smell off his Trouts Unlimited tee shirt. His sunny smile split his ruddy face.
“Uh, Chad, this is Marcus,” I said, hoping that my voice sounded normal. “Visiting from out of town.”
Chad stuck his big meaty paw out and Marcus shook it robotically.
“Good to meet you,” Chad said, and clapped me on the back. His voice lowered. “Call me when you have some time. I want to talk to you about something.”
“Ten-four,” I said inexplicably, then winced at my own nervous nonsense.
“I have an idea,” he whispered loudly, leaning in close enough to let me know that he'd enjoyed maple syrup with his breakfast.
“Gotcha,” I said, more forcefully.
He took the hint, looking back and forth between us and then gave me an elbow to the ribs, along with an exaggerated wink. Ugh. I thought that he had had suspicions about me before, but he was definitely jumping to
conclusions now. I wondered if my hickey still showed.
“Say no more, man! At least you treat to breakfast afterwards!” He wouldn’t stop grinning. God spare me the helpful tolerance of well-intentioned hicks.
“Chad...” I warned. My old shop teacher sat two stools down and he gave me an uncomfortable side-eye. Marcus stared intently at the chipped counter top.
“Sorry, man!” Chad gave us both a nod and me another wink.
“I'll call you soon,” I said, and he was still grinning when he walked away.
Marcus gave me a look I couldn't interpret, something between horror and amusement, and I smiled back. “So we're getting the food to go?”
When we finally reached my store, Marcus immediately settled himself in the chair by the front window and set to work on his food, all before I could even get the key wrestled out from the lock. I stood in the doorway, knocking the water off my boots and watched him, enjoying the sight of him eating. It felt faintly voyeuristic, seeing him do something so completely, mundanely human. Almost intimate. He glanced up, mouth already full, and saw me watching him. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, and headed to the back room with my face flushing.
We passed the rest of the morning companionably. The pipes were in good shape, but once started I found that there were plenty of small tasks that needed my attention. I stocked some new products, swept up the storeroom, and worked on repairing the touchy electrical system in the tiny bathroom in the very back corner of the building. It was little more than a water closet, hadn't been updated since the building had been built in the late 1890s, but I sorely wanted a bathroom that I didn't have to share with my customers.
Marcus eventually wandered back to see what I was doing, and found me seeing to the dozen or so fresh plants I grew in the back under UV lighting. His face registered surprise, and I supposed it did rather look like some sort of illegal growing operation, but I saw him relax a bit when he recognized some of the more common herbs.
“So how did you end up doing this?” he asked, hopping up to sit on a stool, his long legs swinging in front of him.
“I just sort of fell into it.”