The work also had included “Red Power” stickers, front and rear, twins to the one she’d seen on Aunt Jean’s Jeep. The mechanic, Charlie, had said he’d take them off if she insisted, but they were a substitute for whatever words young Alice had scrawled in the dirt he’d washed off along with the GOOK BITCH DIE inscription. Protection. This car guarded by an attack midget.
The grocery store had shoveled a path through the roadside snow piles, salted the sidewalk, neat and clean. She snickered at the sudden image of the store growing arms and legs like a Russian witch’s folktale hut, shoveling the sidewalk and bowing low to invite patrons in. The door had a cheerful little brass bell hanging inside, jingled to let her into coffee smell, fresh donut smell, small-town friendly. And a pink-faced woman in a plain gray dress popped out of the back at the sound of customers. Susan poured herself a paper cup of coffee from the simmering pot at the front counter and pulled out her wallet to pay the posted fifty cents.
“I was hoping you could give me some directions.”
The woman smiled, open face, no Gook problem here. “Sure. Where to?”
“Woman name of Jean Haskell. She asked me to come over to her house. You know where she lives?”
The smile vanished. “No.”
Susan blinked. “She said she lives right in the village, everybody knows her.”
“No, I will not give directions to that house.” The woman stopped and shook her head. The smile came back, a little tense this time. “You’re a stranger here, a foreigner, you wouldn’t know. Please don’t take this wrong. Jean Haskell is an evil woman. People can find their way to Hell without my help.”
What the fuck? “She helped me out when I had car trouble. Seems like a nice old lady, if a bit gruff. I wanted to stop by and thank her.” Susan didn’t think this would be a good time to talk about target practice.
The woman shook her head again. “The Devil hides his traps well. His works may look like help, but they are helping you on the way to Hell. Stay away from Jean Haskell if you value your soul.”
Shit. Ask for directions and get a sermon, complete with extra brimstone. So much for Christmas-card villages and friendly shopkeepers.
“I’d still like to thank her. I’ll ask at the bar. Thanks for the coffee.” Susan edged away toward the door, a creepy feeling that she didn’t want to turn her back on this woman.
The smile had vanished again, looked like for good this time. The woman’s lips had thinned and her eyes lowered in a squint, as if she was memorizing Susan’s face. “That bar is another tool of Satan. If you go into such places, please do not come back here. We prefer to sell to Godly people.”
Susan couldn’t help herself. “Seems I remember a bit in Scripture about Jesus turning water into wine to keep a party hopping. He didn’t mind a little singing and dancing and drinking. What’s your problem?”
And then she was out the door before she could hear any reply and get drawn into a catfight. She really needed to keep her tongue under control. In a small town like this, she didn’t need any more enemies. Carlsson, the eagle murderers, racist pig truck stop cashiers, now holy roller bigots . . . .
What comes next, a pirate ship on the horizon?
What came next was the bar, then she’d try the Post Office. She swung the door open, not sure what she’d find in this den of Satan, and found just what she’d expected—a long dark wooden bar with a bunch of bottles lined up behind it, stools in front, a guy polishing glasses at the taps, booths on the opposite wall. It looked like Hell was having a slow afternoon—two customers total in the place, talking over half-empty beers in a booth. She took a deep breath. This place smelled welcoming, too, beer and people and cigarettes and wax polish. A place she could feel comfortable. She wondered where that would twist wrong and bite her.
She smelled fresh coffee, too. Susan closed the door behind her. A pot simmered on the end of the bar, just like next door, its sign posting the price as forty-five cents a cup. Competition for the souls and caffeine addictions of Stonefort? She felt self-conscious about the cup in her hand, bringing a rival’s product into the place.
“Excuse me, I was wondering if you could give me some directions.”
The barkeep smiled and nodded, apparently no problem with illegal alien coffee. Not heavy on the words, though.
“Jean Haskell’s house? She said she lives right in the village?”
He nodded again, didn’t lose the smile. “Just head east past the town wharf, first left turn, then first right. Long cape-style house right on the bay, no paint, picket fence out front. Old place, probably the oldest house in the county. You can’t miss it.” He didn’t seem to have any problem with short, round, white-haired Satanist aunts.
“Thanks.” She put her hand on the door, paused, thought about small-town feuds, and turned back. “The lady next door wouldn’t tell me. Anything I ought to know?”
He shrugged. “You’re the Eagle Lady, right?” Somehow he capitalized that into a title. “Old, old story, you wouldn’t know. That’s Mrs. Reverend Dobbs. She’s married to the preacher-man up at the Congregationalist Church, the big white one on the green. Aunt Jean’s Catholic, that’s bad enough, worshiping the Pope and all those graven images. And those ministers still think they’re the established state religion. They’ve been feuding with the Haskell witches for about three hundred years now. Something to do with that little trouble down in Salem.”
Susan couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Witches? Salem? The man was pulling her leg. She closed the door on his chuckle, climbed into her Dodge, and drove. First left past the wharf, first right.
“You can’t miss it,” the barkeep had said, and there it stood. The house rambled along through the snow like a section of granite ledge, up and down and in and out, gray unpainted clapboards and shutters and doors and windows, clean and sharp and square so that the silvery weathered wood didn’t mean neglect but just nothing wasted on paint and false appearance. Cape style, he’d called it, full first floor and steep-pitched roof with dormers and gable windows for the second-floor rooms. The whole thing looked like it had grown there.
“I belong. I have stood here for centuries,” it said. “I’ll be here for centuries after you are dead and dust. Any questions?”
She slowed in front of the picket fence, more gray wood, no rot, no loose boards. The house looked like a fortress, the more she studied it, deep-set windows like gun-ports, those shutters were solid wood, must be two inches, three inches thick, they’d stop bullets. Shutter hinges showed the green of old bronze, cast bronze like rudder pins. Heavy. Heavy like the roof, gray slate in perfect condition, more of that sense of forever.
She pulled into the gravel driveway, parked next to that old Jeep wagon, again the no-frills solid stuff. That car gave a different image here, not worn and rusty and tired but strong and enduring. The whole picture said that Aunt Jean would keep that car as long as it ran. It met her needs. Susan remembered the woman in the store, the bitch in the store, and shook her head. No cheap tricks here. Satan would have gone in for more flash and less substance than she was seeing. And Susan wondered why she was paying so much attention to the house, to the atmosphere, to the personality. She felt like she was meeting a person, not a pile of sticks and stones.
The door opened as she got out of her car, framing the child, Alice Haskell. The kid was still chewing gum, but she’d dumped the transistor radio and headphones. Susan paused at the threshold, feeling a sense of warmth and home and protection wash over her with the savor of lamb stew simmering on a black iron cookstove, fresh bread baking in the oven, an overtone of apple pie. Welcome.
And then she looked at the door in passing, with a double-take—three inches thick, layered cross-ply planks, the grain looked like oak. The walls measured at least two feet thick, not two-by-four studs, no wonder the windows sat so deep. This place was a fortress.
The kid noticed her stare. “Oak logs under the clapboards. Stood up against British cannonbal
ls, back in the War of 1812.” She closed the door behind Susan, a heavy iron latch thumping into place. An oak bar leaned against the wall and Susan noted forged iron brackets to hold it, in case a burglar brought along his battering ram. And the windows had inside shutters as well, just as heavy as those outside. Fortress.
Indian Wars? But these were the Indians . . . .
“My niece stretches the truth a little, oui?” Aunt Jean turned from stirring a pot on the stove, must be that lamb stew that made the kitchen smell heavenly. “The British fired on the old part of the house. This is the new kitchen. I hear you had words with Helen Dobbs. Don’t let her bother you. She’s harmless.”
News traveled fast in a small town. Phone call, the moment Susan left the bar? Susan shivered. Aunt Jean’s tone had carried a sense that if the woman wasn’t harmless, Mrs. Reverend Dobbs would have a problem. A serious problem.
This was the new kitchen? Wood stove, kerosene lamps, a hand pump next to a slate sink? Broad plank floor polished by generations of feet, ceiling low enough that anyone over six feet tall would have to watch his head? But a phone hung on the wall, an old black monster that probably dated from Alexander Bell’s own time, electric lights flanked the kerosene lamps, and a chrome faucet had joined that hand pump at the sink. More jarring, one entire wall flaunted professional-grade electronics that would do credit to a recording studio. And rack after rack of albums stood next to it, enough to stock a store. A big store.
Aunt Jean nodded at the stereo and tape equipment. “The House doesn’t like it, but only grumbles a little. It knows that is why Alice puts up with my rudeness. I buy her music. This silly child spends enough on music to feed every hungry family in Sunrise County.”
She waved her spoon at the stew pot. “Hungry people. You will stay for supper, oui? There is plenty.”
“I wouldn’t want to put you to the bother . . . .” Actually, she would want to. That stew grabbed her by the nose and made her drool. And the bread baking, smelled like whole wheat, heavenly. Sure beat the prospect of another can of beans.
“No bother, my daughter. And we need to give the House time to get to know you. Then, if you have more trouble, come right here. The House will let you in. Any time, day or night, even if I am out, the House will let you in. The House will protect you.”
There it was again, the House as a person. Susan decided that maybe Aunt Jean was just a touch . . . flakey. A lot of old aunts got like that. But a nice flakey. The kind of flakey who still could work magic in the kitchen.
The old woman studied her for a moment. “You are used to running from trouble, oui? This is a place to run to. It has always been so. But you must learn to stand up to trouble. We do not run. When we see evil, as you have seen evil, we fight.”
Susan shook her head. “Small Gook girl, slums, father missing and mother works twelve hours a day, other family thousands of miles away. Running was the only thing that worked.”
“Non. You must not call yourself that, my daughter, must not think that word. ‘Gook’ is your enemy’s word. Just as I am not a ‘squaw’, for all that we gave that word to the English. You are a woman from an old and brave and powerful people. You are a warrior. You are a warrior with family here, standing beside you in this land, in this house.” The old woman stood for a moment, calm grim face claiming the power to make that happen.
“Now. You brought your pistol? Ammunition?”
Susan nodded.
“Go outside, Alice will show you where. Learn the basics. Do not expect to learn quickly. Vraiment, a pistol is a hard weapon to learn. Inside a house as small as that state trailer, a man is a large target and close. You will not need to be an expert, ma chère.”
She turned and frowned at Alice. “Do not show off too much. Doctor Tranh needs to hit a man at ten feet or less, not a rabbit at fifty yards. Two shots, pause, two shots until the man is down. Weapon held close to her body, protected. Point, not aim.”
Her words chilled Susan. Even more, the way she spoke—calm, certain, deadly, nothing that went with the short round white-haired flakey-aunt and the heavenly kitchen smells.
Alice looked sullen again, but she picked up a fat black automatic from the counter, the slide locked open, two pistol magazines, and a box of ammunition. Back out through the kitchen door, she led Susan along the side of the house and around back, toward the bay, along a path shoveled through the snow.
They came to an alcove between sections of the house, sheltered on three sides, facing south, the snow only an inch or two deep here and a weathered picnic table waiting. Green earmuff sound protectors, man-sized profile targets, and a grocery sack full of aluminum cans made it into a shooting range looking over the water to the next point of land miles away. More surreal stuff.
The kid put her gear on the table, handed Susan a pair of earmuffs, and settled another pair on her own head. Not a word, still chewing gum, she slammed a magazine into her pistol, released the slide, turned, and fired. A rail fence separated them from the water, cans standing on the top rail, six of them, spaced about two feet apart.
BAM-BAM, BAM-BAM, two shots, pause, two shots, just like Aunt Jean had said, and at each pair a can jumped off the railing and then jerked sideways in midair with the second shot and the next can jumped before the first one hit the snow. Echoes rolled back from the far point, water spouts died in the bay where the bullets had hit and skipped like stones, and a faint haze of powder smoke stained the air. All the cans lay in the snow, holes punched through the thin aluminum. Beer cans, Susan noted, blinking, Molson. Aunt Jean liked Canadian beer.
Twelve shots, twelve hits. Ten seconds?
Even with the earmuffs, Susan’s ears rang. The kid popped the magazine from her pistol, worked the slide, caught an ejected cartridge in mid-air, and set everything down on the table. Still chewing that wad of gum. Fifteen seconds had passed, maybe, since she’d picked up that pistol, unloaded.
Twelve shots, six cans. Dead. Deadly. A kid. Looks too small to hold that pistol.
“I’ve been shooting since I could pull the trigger. Aunt Jean’s better, no matter what she says. Now, lemme see that Walther you bought.”
Moving in a daze, Susan reached into her pocket and pulled out the tiny gun. Twelve shots, twelve hits. Susan’s Walther held six cartridges, but Alice hadn’t needed to reload. How many shots did her pistol hold? Brass still gleamed from the magazine she’d used . . . .
What did that tell her about these Haskell women, about this House?
Susan shivered. It wasn’t from the wind off the bay, either. How did this kid know what kind of pistol I bought?
XIII
Dennis sorted through his critter crisis kit and then glanced up at Rick Bouchard. “What’s your best guess on body weight?” Tranks, antibiotics, eye ointment, pressure bandages, sutures, surgical junk, some of which he even knew how to use . . . .
He never claimed to be a veterinarian. He did get drafted sometimes, above and beyond the call of rehab duty—few licensed vets had the desire or the training to tackle an injured bear or moose fifty miles down a bad road in driving rain at midnight. Medical treatment of choice in those cases, sans Dennis Carlsson, would be the trooper’s or deputy’s sidearm.
And word-of-mouth had spread about Carlsson’s uncanny way of soothing animals, treating animals, saving animals from that .38 slug between the eyes. Pragmatic cops knew that results mattered and knew what channel of the CB radio to call any time of day or night. Pragmatic veterinarians gave him supplies and training. Nobody asked him for a diploma.
Nobody until that bitch came along. Ms. Doctor Tranh to you.
Rick stared off across the water, estimating. “Based on the tracks, I’d say three or four hundred pounds. She was dragging the deer, makes it hard to tell. About the weight of a large black bear.”
“I’m going to figure low. She’s hurt bad, infection, weak, you smelled that den. Full dose with the trank, she’d probably die.” Dennis checked his dosage tables and measured o
ut tranquilizer for an estimated two-fifty, a large deer, healthy and juiced with adrenaline, or small to medium bear. Then he fitted the hypodermic dart to the end of a strong ash pole.
That pole was his friend. More than once, it had been all that stood between him and a pain-maddened black bear. Eight feet long, and the bear could reach out more than half that distance with front paws and claws. Not nearly enough margin for feeling safe, not with his hands two or three feet up the pole, but it had worked. So far. Just brace the butt against your hip and keep the length of the pole between you and the bear, no matter how much he runs you around the woods. Like the old-fashioned boar spear. Hold on and wait for the trank to take over.
Good thing the straps on his plastic foot had stood the strain. If Dennis wanted fresh nightmare fodder, all he needed was the image of that foot breaking in the middle of a wrestling match with a bear. He could count on his own body, feel when something reached its limits. Phantom pain or no, that foot didn’t have nerve endings . . . .
And he didn’t know the design specs. Maybe he should go out and buy one of his own, Bionic Man, donate the GI version to land-mine relief. Payment for some of the mines he’d planted . . . .
He shook those thoughts out of his head. His hands jittered a little, holding the trank stick, his muscles juiced up with fight-or-flight, just like always before combat. That old Carlsson response to danger, that Bear response to danger if I believe Aunt Jean.
He wasn’t sure he did.
“Right. Okay.” He glanced down the shoreline, along the ice and snow and the bare cobbles below high tide, sea temperature still not cold enough for ice on moving salt water. Not yet. Next week, probably.
That wind-throw spruce lay there, dark, sprawled and broken like the dead soldiers on Monte Casino in Dad’s memories, hiding . . . something. Or not. Just a hunch, just a hint from Bear maybe, but he felt the same focus that had warned him time and time again in the jungles and paddies and shit-stinking hamlets of ’Nam.
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