by Lee Lynch
“Shine that thing along here,” Abeo ordered in a rough, grim whisper. Deftly, she made her way to a tree. A shotgun barrel poked out. Abeo disarmed it, then slipped it out of the crook of branches and held it up like a trophy. “You’re right, Jeep—booby trap number one. I hope this is the only one.”
Donny said, “That wasn’t here when I was up here before. I’m starting to get the willies.” She definitely should have told Chick where she was going.
Jeep was staring at Abeo. “How’d you learn stuff like disarming a trap? I didn’t even hear you move.”
“‘Nam,” Abeo replied as she swiftly, noiselessly emptied the gun. “Special Forces. Two tours. When I was a man-child, I had a lot to prove.”
“Stop gawking, Jeep,” Donny told her, although she didn’t blame the kid.
Abe had come out in Nam, of all places. He’d returned to Chicago when he was only twenty-four and launched himself into the gay life like a man granted a reprieve. He’d told Donny that a Vietnamese lover had taught him he didn’t belong over there and he’d soured on the military, blaming macho egos for the killing. He’d found and encouraged what he called his feminine side. Jeep saw only the contrasts, while Donny had watched the transition. And the drug addiction he came home with. And the dealing even after he—she’d kicked. Damn, Abe had been through rough times. Who was she to be judge and jury over his particular sins? Abe may have dealt, but she’d worked for him off and on even before the trip west, not to mention stealing from him. And now it was Abe’s know-how and guts that made her feel like she could handle this. Sometimes she wondered what Abe could have been without the war, without drugs.
“Let’s boogie,” she told them.
“Haven’t we seen enough to get him?” Jeep whispered, slipping back behind the two of them as they crept toward the outbuildings.
“The cops need probable cause to come on M.C.’s land. After I checked this place out the first time, Sheriff Sweet called our friendly State Trooper Bruce, told him what’s going down. Joan’s well-connected, for all her quiet ways. Knows how to bullshit with the guys. We arranged for Abeo and me to stumble on everything we could tonight while we got lost looking for a place to camp. Bruce will bring up the rear with his gang as soon as I give Joan the high sign.” She pulled a cell phone from a pocket in her overalls and held it up. “I won’t get much of a signal out here, but the call will work. I tested it.”
“You hope,” Abeo whispered as they crept ahead.
Donny thought she would pass out from fear when she heard a loud squawk in a bush to their right. Her breath came like she’d swum across Sweet Creek at flood stage. Why hadn’t she told Chick? What would Chick think when they told her about finding Donny’s body out here?
She managed to form her mouth around the word “Wha,” when great flapping sounds came from the same bush. She knew she would laugh later at the image of the three of them frozen in midstep, but that was only if there was a later.
“Turkeys,” Abeo said in a weak voice.
“Turkeys?” Donny repeated. She noticed that Jeep wasn’t saying a word.
“Wild turkeys,” Abeo explained, straightening as the flock fled behind some manzanita bushes deeper in the woods.
“They must have been out foraging when I came before.” Donny giggled. “Oh, lord, don’t get me laughing now!”
But it was too late. Jeep said, “We got spooked by a bunch of turkeys?” and then she was laughing too and holding both hands over her mouth. Abeo was both shushing them and trying to quiet her own escaping giggles.
“Look.” Near the clearing Donny pointed out the barn-like structure, shed, and rusted campers she’d scoped out before. The sight of the place sobered them immediately.
“It wasn’t good enough to call this in when you were here the other day?” Jeep asked.
“What was I doing here, spying for the sheriff? It’s easier to say we’re lost at night. And now we have three witnesses, not only one.”
“Wait. Do I want to be a witness?”
“Do you want to help rescue Chick?”
“Count me in!”
Ahead of them, Abeo stopped. She was sniffing the night air like a hound. “Meth,” she said, all business.
“Where?”
“This closest trailer must be a meth lab. Or the shed. I know that smell.” Abeo had let her voice get gruff. She glanced at Donny. “An evil friend of mine was in the business.”
Donny said, “Uh-huh.”
“There’s nothing worse than a reformed speed freak,” Abeo confessed. “And here I am depriving hundreds of their source. I’d better be well rewarded in heaven.”
“You must have friends in high places if you think you’re going to get into that club.”
“High is the word, bro. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look in the window of that shed.”
They were whispering and keeping low, but Donny felt so righteous at that moment that she was certain she could stride right onto the property, invincible. She was glad she hadn’t given Chick something to worry about.
Abeo scuttled back. Small and nimble, she must have been a gem in the Vietnamese tunnels. Donny already knew Abeo was tough enough to survive anything, even R. She’d probably charmed at least the socks off the women up at Spirit Ridge.
Abeo showed them an empty iodine bottle and foil packets.
“Meth?” asked Donny. Abeo nodded.
“This is a major big deal then,” Jeep said. She took one of the iodine bottles and stared at it, open-mouthed, as if it could tell her something.
“Looks like they process and package the dried weed in that first shed,” said Abeo. “The meth lab is in the second trailer.”
“You saw the weed?”
“Enough to keep your whole county stoned for a month.”
Donny was satisfied. She pulled out the phone. “Wait. Where’s Jeep at? I forgot we shanghaied her.”
They looked uphill through the trees in time to see Jeep jogging toward them. Without warning, she went down. Donny saw the flash through the trees behind Jeep before she heard the blast. The dogs went into a frenzy of barking.
“Sweet Jesus,” cried Abeo. “That’s another one!” They ran toward her, then saw that Jeep, bent, clutching her side, was coming back downhill. She fell against Donny. Abeo pulled Jeep’s hand away. “No blood, Don.”
Jeep’s face was the color of someone in shock. “It hurts to breathe,” she gasped. “I was—looking for the dope.”
Abeo took off, running crouched low, up the hill to the site where Jeep had fallen. A light came on at the complex. The dogs filled the night with howling.
“Oh god, oh god,” Donny heard herself whine. “We’ve got to get out of here! Where’s Abe?” She remembered then to hit the buttons on the phone, fumbling, disconnecting, dialing again. Was it connected? “Help,” she whispered into it. “We set off a trap!” Was that a voice at the other end or static?
Jeep was still bent over, breathing in shallow gulps. “I don’t think my ribs are—broken. But you go ahead. This is all my fault.”
There was too much happening. She’d lost control over it all. Chick would kill her if she got Jeep shot. Was Jeep shot? Was M.C. coming for them? Had someone warned him to set traps? Did her call get through to the sheriff? Did she have to tell Chick about this? Where the hell was—
Abeo appeared out of the trees with the shotgun. She grabbed one of Jeep’s arms and Donny grabbed the other. They took off, forcing a whimpering Jeep to run between them.
Donny said, “The fastest way out is straight down the driveway.”
“No cover!” objected Abeo, but they plunged on.
Donny’s knees felt spongy. Chick would be mad as hell if she got not just Jeep, but them all killed. She lifted the phone and tried to find the numbers as she ran. The dial tone sounded like a rock concert. M.C. must be after them by now anyway.
Jeep gave a hoarse protest. “Can’t run any more!” but by then they were at the truc
k.
Abeo laid the trophy shotgun in the truck bed and shoved Jeep inside the cab, diving in after her. “I hope to god you didn’t puncture a lung, child. We should have taken you to stay with the sheriff.”
“Stop!” shouted a male voice. Far back in the woods another shot rang out.
She was almost in the truck. The key was almost in the ignition. This felt like one of her slow-motion dreams where her legs are too weak to go fast.
Another shot, another voice, closer, shouting. “You’re dead meat!”
She raced the truck backwards and overshot the edge of the clearing because her foot punched the accelerator instead of the brake. Abeo held onto Jeep, anchoring them both. She straightened the steering wheel and shot out of the ditch downhill. She could see headlights jouncing up and down ahead of them.
“There’s your cavalry!” Abeo announced.
“We’ve got him!” Donny hooted.
Trooper Bruce’s car stopped. Donny braked and leapt out, rushing to it. She heard herself babbling about the meth trailer, the grass crop, the trip wires. The trooper talked into his radio. Within thirty seconds police vehicles streamed around them and up M.C.’s road. The woods looked like an airport, thick with searchlights. She even saw Johnny Johnson—the sheriff must have deputized a bunch of people for this operation. Wouldn’t Johnson about have a coronary when he saw they were arresting a brother vigilante.
Jeep was in the car holding onto her side, eyes wide and fixed. “I’m sorry I blew it,” she said.
Donny looked at the pathetic mess in front of her, surprised she didn’t feel angry. “You’re a kid. Kids are supposed to do dumb things.”
“This poor baby,” said Abeo, “got her ankle caught by a trip wire and fell onto a rock.”
“A sharp rock,” Jeep added.
“We’ll wake up Doc Wu. Make sure nothing’s broken.”
There were shouts up near the buildings. Donny felt a little light-headed from the running and the letdown after all the fear, but she was most aware of the need to pee. “I’ll be right back,” she told them. This time she took a flashlight from the truck. She didn’t want to squat on poison oak.
She was tucking her shirt in, flashlight off, practicing what she would tell Chick, when she heard movement up behind her. “Abe? Jeep?”
“Yo!” called Abeo from the truck.
She swung around, switching the flashlight on, and there he was, M.C. himself, crouched, weaponless, as startled as her. They both froze for seconds and then he turned and ran, stumbling, through the brush.
“Here!” she screamed to Abeo as she took off after him, knowing it was a lost cause, wondering how he’d eluded all those cops. This was like the old days of bar fights, but now she wished the cops would show up. Where was her anger when she needed it?
She could hear Abeo entering the tree line behind her and M.C. breaking branches off the grove of little manzanita bushes he’d run into. They grew thicker here and slowed him down. She knew she had only one chance. This was the motherfucker who’d been making Chick’s life miserable. When she got close enough she launched herself at his back. He fell into a bush with her on top, then heaved up and crushed her against a trunk with her arm at an odd angle. She cried out, hanging on with the other arm, and then Abeo was over them, one shotgun trained on M.C., the other under her arm. M.C. went still.
Abeo raised one gun and discharged it into the sky. Pretty convincing. M.C. didn’t know there wouldn’t be anything in either gun now. Donny crawled away from M.C., leaning on her good arm. By the time she straightened up next to Abeo she was laughing despite the pain. “Do you believe this shit?” she asked.
“Yeah,” answered Abeo. “Now I know why you think country living is so peaceful.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Button, Button
Chick wasn’t behind her counter when R sought her out this time. She was at the back of Stage Street Mercantile where she’d come to get the plum corduroy fabric she’d ordered from Betty, an octogenarian who still ran the ancient family store. Chick had gotten worse after her trek up to M.C.’s enclave. Donny had suggested that she keep an antigloom list to help cure her depression. If something made her happy it went on the list and she’d do it, buy it, eat it, or find it. Making bright, soft clothing was right up there in her top ten. She ran an index finger along the yielding ridges of the corduroy.
“What are you turning this into?” R asked, fingering the fabric.
“Luxuriously large overalls.” She swiveled, arms open, to embrace R’s narrow shoulders. R’s clothing smelled so strongly of a fabric softener Chick coughed and stepped back. So much for back to nature. “How are you, sweetie?”
“I’ve always admired your skill.”
“It’s more of a necessity than a skill.” She forced herself out of the trance she’d been in at the button drawers.
This store had a hush to it, absorbing everyday town noises she wasn’t aware of until she was inside. It smelled like her version of heaven, crammed with fabric and craft supplies, sewing notions, and old boxes of faded oddities like hatmakers’ forms. She definitely needed to get the buttons on her antigloom list. She’d fill a glass jar with bright purple and red and sun-orange and key lime green and smoky blue buttons. She’d fill a dozen glass jars and line the windowsills upstairs. The thought made her smile.
“Finding the kind of clothes I like,” she told R, “is truly difficult, and finding them in my size is impossible. I can get denim overalls like Donny’s in a men’s size, but I don’t know how Donny can stand that stiff denim with the steel fasteners. What do you think?” She held the oversized coral-colored buttons to the purple.
“I’d use black,” R replied without hesitation. “This looks gaudy to me.”
Chick gave a warm gurgle of laughter. “Of course it’s gaudy. I live for gaudy.” She noted R’s charcoal cape, her black high-water pants, and pilling navy turtleneck.
R looked toward Betty, who was folding and wrapping patterned remnants with quick, big-knuckled hands. There was a tiny TV on the counter, and Chick could hear a news story about Jenna Bush’s drinking problem. Why didn’t they leave the poor lamb alone? She’d drink too if she had that man for a father.
Dropping her voice, R said, “Donny told me you’d be here.”
Chick grew more alert. She’d sometimes wondered if R didn’t hang out longer at the store than a weekly restocking trip called for. And R never said no to an invitation for a cup of espresso. She seemed to know when things would be slow and Chick alone.
“Is something wrong? Is it time for us to come rescue Abeo from the lesbians? Or, on second thought, to rescue Spirit Ridge from Abeo?”
“Not at all.” R surprised her by blushing. “I find Abeo fascinating.” She held Chick’s eyes with one of her intense green-eyed gazes. “I wanted to know how you are. Has Abeo’s absence made a difference for you?”
“No, she wasn’t a problem. I’ve thought some about you worrying over us. I don’t think my depressions have anything to do with Donny and me. Some of it has to do with fifty coming on like a big neon sign saying, ‘Get it together, you won’t live forever.’ But Donny loves me the way I think everyone wants to be loved. I feel so fully loved that I feel whole in a way I never did before. Does that make sense to you? It’s as if now that it’s finally all right to be who I am, I can be me in the world, doing what I’m meant to do.”
R asked, “Which is?”
“Oh, R, it doesn’t matter. I do everything from a foundation of love, and it makes me feel better and better about who I am and who I do it with.”
“What a romantic,” said R, shaking her head.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a romantic. Donny once pointed out to me that I feel loved best when I’m giving love. When you run a store that sells whole foods, you can do it because that’s what’s hot this decade, or you can do it because you care about your customers. Once you get to be you there’s no limit to the love you can hand ou
t like the guy on the ice cream truck with his goodies.”
“And does Donny get her investment of love back?”
“I can’t help but do that. She fanned the flames and I’m a walking, glowing chunk of charcoal!” She thought for a moment. “I’ve seen this happen, though, where one woman loves another this well. The lover blossoms and thinks she has to move on, not realizing that she needs what and who she’s already got. No, being loved like this may have set me free, but it’s a freedom to grow in place, not to wander. I’d never find this again. If some fever moved me on, I’d only damage myself by trashing Donny and what she’s given me.”
“What a bunch of hokum.”
“You think so? It may be hokum, but it’s good hokum, hokum I can live with. We may not be in top form now and then, but more good times are right around the corner for Donny and me.”
“Right around the corner.” R shook her head. “I don’t think in terms of straight lines and angles. I live in a spiraling world where good and bad blend instead of alternating.”
“You’re the most literal person I’ve ever met, R. It was only an expression. Why would you prefer curves anyway? They don’t give you time to stop and sneak a peak at what’s next. I need to know if it’s safe to go on.” A horn blared outside, a seldom-heard sound in Waterfall Falls.
“As if we have a choice. We always go on.”
“Don’t make it sound like such a downer. Determination is a good thing.” She slid open another wooden drawer. “I personally am determined to find the perfect button. Wow. I’ve never seen anything like these.” They were pink, with spiraling purple lines. “Do these have your name on them or what?”
“I’ve been meaning to mention how much I like the name of your store.”
It took her a minute to make the leap to R’s thought. She was hard to follow sometimes. “We named it after Aretha Franklin’s ‘Natural Woman.’”
“I don’t think I know it.”
“Oh, wow. Did your husband keep you locked up?”