Dragonslayer

by Emilie Richards

  Until they left she had never realized the hole the girls had filled in her life. She had never expected to have children of her own. Her own child lay buried in a tiny grave miles away, and with her, Garnet had buried all hopes of another. She had committed herself to helping all the children of the Corners, and when she had done so, she had sealed away her own desire for a child.

  But now that desire seemed to have forced its way to the surface. Perhaps it was her nieces’ departure. Perhaps it was facing a waiting room of babies and toddlers nearly every day. Perhaps it was the small, well-scrubbed survivors of the Corners who arrived each Sunday morning for Sunday school.

  Perhaps it was loving Thomas.

  The last thought left more than a funny pang. It left such longing in its wake that she stopped her preparations and stared unseeingly at the refrigerator.

  She loved Thomas. Love hadn’t blazed into her life. It had crept slowly, insidiously, through all the cracks in her defenses, until one morning she could no longer pretend that what she felt was anything else. Desire was a part of it. Identification with his struggles, his hopes and dreams was another. Respect was an ingredient; compassion for what he had survived was another. But love was more than the sum of all those parts.

  Love was waiting for Thomas to discover the reason for his impotence and overcome it.

  “Are you trying to make the milk come to you?”

  Startled, she turned to find Thomas standing in the doorway.

  “The cocoa’s all done,” she said. “I was just... daydreaming.”

  “Your tree is in the stand. Your small, insignificant, inexpensive tree is scraping the paint off the ceiling.”

  “Goody.” She went to the counter and got the mugs for the cocoa. Then, as he watched, she poured it and topped each cup with a plump marshmallow. She turned and offered him one. “Let’s go sit by the fireplace and drink it,” she said.

  He reached for his. “We don’t have a fireplace.”

  “We’re going to pretend.”

  “Is that a habit of yours?”

  “It’s gotten me through some tough times. My mother taught me. There was one Christmas...” She stopped, wondering if he wanted to hear her childhood stories.

  “Go on.” He started into the living room.

  She followed, setting her cocoa on the coffee table. Then, as he watched, she threw cushions against an empty wall. “Whoops, I almost threw that one on the fire,” she apologized. “Get another log, would you? Then come settle over here with me.”

  “Where are the logs?”

  She shrugged. “Wherever you stacked them.”

  He shook his head, but he stooped and pretended to lift something. Then, as she supervised, he leaned over and dropped his imaginary bundle against the wall. “Did I hit it?” he asked.

  “Perfectly.” She patted a pillow.

  “Sorry, but the fire needs stirring. Hand me the poker and the bellows.”

  She leaned back, smiling smugly. “They’re right beside you.”

  “You moved them again.” He made an elaborate pretense of stirring the fire, then fed it gusts of air with the invisible bellows. Finally, satisfied, he settled himself against the cushions. “Warm enough?”

  “Much better, thank you. Nobody makes a fire like you do, Thomas.”

  “No one enjoys one like you do. So, tell me about that Christmas.”

  “My mother’s choice in men was abysmal. You’ve probably figured that out. I’m afraid Ema learned from her. Mother’s lovers weren’t all abusive, like Ron, but they all had major flaws. Anyway, the December I was eleven, the boyfriend of the moment stole everything that wasn’t nailed down in our house, emptied mother’s tiny checking account and drove off in her car. The car wasn’t paid for or insured, and the boyfriend was never caught.”

  She sipped her cocoa. “Do you have stories like this one to tell?”

  He thought of the Christmas he had received both a baseball autographed by Nolan Ryan and a pony. “Not exactly.”

  “My childhood was colorful.”

  He lifted his cup. “I’ll drink to that.”

  She smiled. “You can guess there was no money left for Christmas that year. In fact, the landlord was threatening to evict us because the boyfriend had also gobbled up the rent money. Christmas was always more show than substance with us, anyway. Mother always wrapped up anything she could find. She’d buy us socks and wrap them separately. One year I got three plastic hair bands in three different boxes. But at least it was a celebration. The year I was eleven, there wasn’t even money for hair bands.”

  “If you tell me it was the best Christmas of your life, I’ll know this story isn’t true.”

  “It sure as heck wasn’t. But it was the most educational. On Christmas Eve Mother came home from cleaning up after other people’s office parties, and we were all moping because we knew the next morning was going to be dismal. Mother got down our Christmas tree ornaments, which the boyfriend hadn’t wanted, I guess, and told us to decorate the tree. Of course, there was no tree, but she kept insisting. So finally Jade hung a bulb on the coat tree in the corner, just to shut her up. It looked pretty silly, so I hung another. In half an hour, we’d strung it with lights and hung ornaments on every arm, even from the light strings.”

  She wriggled closer to him. “Then Mother told us to get out our presents and put them under the tree.”

  “That almost seems cruel.”

  “It wasn’t. She told us all she could give us that Christmas was dreams, but that dreams were important. So one by one, we put our dreams under the Christmas tree. I wanted a new bike, so I wheeled it in. It was bright red, and the chrome was so shiny it reflected the lights from the tree. Ema wanted new clothes, and she modeled them for us, one outfit at a time. She looked beautiful. Jade wanted a piano. We stood around it, and she played Christmas carols for us.”

  She stopped. “It wasn’t our best Christmas, but we survived it. And sometimes I remember that Christmas Eve, and the next day when we ate canned hash and pretended it was turkey and dressing, and I use that memory to make my life better.”

  He wanted to ask her what she pretended now. Did she pretend that they were a normal married couple, reminiscing and strengthening their bonds? Did she pretend that this Christmas season together would be followed by others? Did she pretend that someday their own children would be standing beside them, gazing at another Christmas tree and bringing the Christmas miracle into their lives in a special way?

  “Do you think I’m silly?” she asked.

  “I think you’re incredible,” he said.

  It was a compliment, but it was said with such sadness that she felt hollowed by it. “Your turn,” she said.

  “Mine?”

  “For a Christmas memory.”

  He stared at the fire. It was almost real to him now. He wasn’t sure why, but the memory that popped into his head was of a Christmas spent with Patricia. And he certainly wasn’t going to relate a story about his first wife.

  “How did you and Patricia celebrate?” she asked, when he remained silent.

  He turned his gaze to her, surprised. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Well, she was part of your life. An important part.”

  “Most of the time I was too busy for much celebration. But there was one year...”

  She rolled to her stomach, propping her chin on her hands. “Tell me about it.”

  “She kidnapped me.” He smiled at the memory. “After our midnight candlelight service. Everyone had gone home, and I was still at the church, making notes on what I’d do differently the next year. She came into my study and told me there was an emergency. She said she’d tell me about it as she drove me there. I followed her out, already a little suspicious. When we got in the car, she got right on the interstate going out of town. She told me to go to sleep, that she’d wake me up when we got to the emergency. The emergency was a little country inn on a snow-covered lane. She’d reserved their best
suite for a week. There were no phones, and a blizzard hit the next morning. I couldn’t have left if I’d wanted to. There were half a dozen other couples there, escaping jobs and in-laws and stress. It was the best Christmas we spent together.”

  “Were you angry at her?”

  “No. I think I was relieved.”

  “And you had a wonderful time.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were a better husband than you think.”

  He closed his eyes and lay back on the pillows. “It was one week, Garnet.”

  She crawled closer and rested her head on the pillow next to his. He had no choice but to put his arm around her. “And if you put your mind to it, you’d come up with other weeks and days and hours.”

  For a moment he wondered; then he shook his head. “She was going to leave me. There weren’t enough hours.”

  “Maybe she was just trying to scare you into taking a look at yourself. Did she love you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Fine. But give it a thought or two sometime. Because if she still loved you, threatening to leave might have been just a different version of kidnapping you that Christmas.”

  He wondered. He had assumed for so long that Patricia had stopped loving him. Now Garnet had planted the seeds of doubt.

  She put her hand on his cheek and forced him to look at her. “People never change completely. You can tell me you’re a different man now than you were, but I won’t believe you. The man I know is the same man who was married to Patricia. Maybe at the time you were driven by your desire to succeed as a pastor, but underneath you were the man you are now. She married you because of who you are. I’m lying here with you because of who you are. I can’t speak for Patricia, but I know I would have fought to keep you. I will fight to keep you if our relationship is threatened.”

  He wondered how she could imagine that it wasn’t.

  Loud knocking at the door saved him from making a response.

  “I’ll get it,” Garnet said, getting reluctantly to her feet. “But I don’t care who it is, we’ve got to decorate this tree before you go anywhere.”

  “Find out who it is before you open the door.”

  She obliged him by looking through the peephole he had installed. “It’s Andre. Your choice. Do we open it?”

  “Is he alone?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Thomas joined her at the door. “I’ll let him in.”

  “And I’ll stay.”

  He didn’t protest. He trusted Andre, although he wasn’t completely sure he should. He opened the door and gestured him inside. “You look cold. The temperature’s dropping out there, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t come to talk about the weather.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Garnet took one look at the two men and made her decision. “Andre, we were just having cocoa. I’ll make you some.”

  “I don’t drink cocoa.”

  “Then I’ll heat up some antifreeze or drain cleaner. Something for a tough guy.” She flashed him a cocky smile and left for the kitchen.

  “I know. She’s got a mouth,” Thomas said. “Come on in and sit down. She’ll make you drink the cocoa, so you might as well get comfortable.”

  “Looks like I’m interrupting.”

  Thomas followed Andre’s gaze to the pillows scattered haphazardly against the wall. “We were about to decorate the Christmas tree.”

  “I got my mama one yesterday.”

  Thomas was surprised he had admitted to something so absolutely normal. So harmless and sentimental. “And she’ll probably make you decorate it, right?”

  “I do that stuff for her. I take care of her plants and the yard. She can’t be doing it herself.”

  “She’s still a strong woman. Garnet says she was always there for the neighborhood kids. All of them.”

  “Yeah. I guess.” Andre sat, then rose again immediately and walked restlessly around the room, finally coming to rest beside the tree. “I’m not staying for no cocoa. I just came to tell you I know who shot Garnet.”

  Thomas sat absolutely still. He was afraid to move, afraid Andre would stop talking.

  “It’s nothing you got to worry about. I took care of it.”

  “Did you?” Thomas stood. “Precisely how?”

  “You don’t got to worry about that, either.”

  “I am worried.” Thomas joined him by the tree. “Very worried.”

  “He won’t hurt you or her. I put him in check."

  "Check?"

  "It was a violation. He won’t be coming back to the Corners. He knows if he do, he be looking at the Knights to take care of him once and for all.”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  Andre was silent.

  Thomas made his best guess. “It was Demon, wasn’t it?”

  Andre didn’t deny it. “It was him who shot Wolfman, too.”

  Thomas remembered that Wolfman was the Knight who had been killed in the drive-by shooting that had been blamed on the Coroners. “Demon did that? Why?”

  “A mistake. He was out driving around, looking for Francis. He’d smoked a lotta weed, and it was dark. He saw Wolfman over by Wilford Heights and thought he was Francis, so he took him out. Then, next day when he found out what he’d done, he told everybody that he’d been talking to Wolfman just before the shooting, and he’d seen a car with Francis and his brothers cruising the streets as he was leaving.”

  “All to get even with Francis because Candy left him?”

  “When he heard what happened at Dorothy’s funeral, he started getting scared we was going to talk to the Coroners, maybe find out the truth. So he shot Garnet and made it look like it was the Coroners.”

  “But you knew better.”

  Andre didn’t answer.

  “A man who uses a gun to settle scores when he’s unhappy isn’t someone we need out on the streets.”

  “You think he’s the only one?”

  “No. But I think he’s a lot more erratic than the rest of you kids with your guns and your swaggers and your signs. You’ve got some sense left, Andre. Ferdinand does, too. And those kids I saw on the porch a couple of weeks ago, they’ve got some sense left. Demon would just as soon shoot somebody as pass them on the street. And banishing him from the Corners isn’t going to make a bit of difference to him. He’ll just keep on shooting.”

  “He won’t be able to shoot nobody for a long, long time.”

  Thomas didn’t ask what Andre meant. The young man had already made it clear he had administered his own brand of justice. Thomas knew that in a lot of places and in a lot of gangs Demon wouldn’t have survived to walk away.

  “Tell me where he is now,” Thomas said.

  “What for?”

  “So I can tell the police.”

  Garnet walked into the room with Andre’s cocoa in her hand. “The police?”

  “Demon was the one who shot you,” Thomas said. “I imagine he was also responsible for beating you up. The big surprise is that he also shot Wolfman.”

  Garnet set the cocoa on the coffee table. Her hand was shaking. “Do you know how Wolfman got his name, Thomas?” she asked, looking straight at Andre. She didn’t wait for an answer. “He and Andre were best friends when they were little. Wolfman had a dog, a big husky-shepherd mix. He called him Wolf, because that’s what he looked like. He and Andre used to train Wolf to do tricks in Andre’s backyard. That dog was still alive when Wolfman was killed. I don’t know what happened to him afterward. What did happen, Andre?”

  Andre stared at her.

  “I would guess he died,” she said, her voice shaking, too. “I’d guess that Wolf couldn’t take Wolfman dying. What about you, Andre? Could you take it?”

  Thomas let Garnet’s question hang in the air for a moment before he spoke. “Demon will kill again. He will. There’s only one way to stop him. If you can’t go to the police, tell me where he is. I’ll go to them. He has to be locked aw
ay.”

  “You’d like to lock us all away!”

  “No. I wouldn’t. I’d like you to live on safe streets. I’d like your mother living on safe streets and the kids you’ll have someday living on them. I’d like to live on them. I don’t want my wife shot at anymore!”

  “If you knew the things I’ve done, you’d want me in jail, too.”

  “You are not Demon Harris.”

  Andre turned away, but he didn’t leave. “You don’t know nothing about nothing.”

  “I know about this.”

  The silence seemed to stretch into forever. Then Andre walked to the door. He spoke without turning. “Demon’s at his aunt’s. She lives on Chester. Sally Harris.”

  “Who can testify to what you’ve told me?” Thomas asked.

  “Raygun’s the one who told me. Demon told him all about it. The car he was driving when he shot at Garnet is parked at his aunt’s.”

  “The police kept shards of glass from the car window,” Garnet said. “Maybe they can match them.”

  “With luck they’ll get his gun first,” Thomas said. He watched Andre turn the doorknob to leave. “Thank you, Andre.”

  “He shouldn’t have killed Wolfman.” He walked through the doorway, then he turned. He looked straight at Garnet. “Wolf’s mine now,” he said. “Wolfman’s mama gave him to me.”

  She imagined Andre taking care of the old dog. She looked away, afraid he would see how moved she was that he had admitted it.

  She heard the door close behind him and felt Thomas’s arms come around her. She leaned against him. “I’m pretending I believe in miracles,” she whispered against his shoulder.

  He held her tighter. Because suddenly he was pretending, too.

  13

  Thomas stared at the finished mural. Emotion filled him. Ferdinand had used muted colors and vivid images. One scene blended into another. Jesus on a donkey riding into Jerusalem; Jesus walking on water; Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and at the Last Supper; Jesus on the cross; Jesus risen from the dead.

  None of the multiple images of Jesus were the same. Like the picture Dorothy Brown had donated for the front of the church, these saviors had different faces, different colored skin. The Jesus presiding over the Last Supper was Asian, and his disciples were a mixture of races and nationalities. The Jesus praying in the Garden was Hispanic, dressed much as Ferdinand himself liked to dress, down to the tattoo on his left arm. There was a white Jesus on the cross and a black one risen from the dead.