by A. M. Flynn
She thought it was her mother who had orders not to barge in. For any reason.
He opened the door and stepped inside. She had a fire going and it was warm.
“Hi,” she said with a smile. “You don’t have to knock. Just come in.”
“Not yet.”
“Okay. Did you come to check on my progress with Annabelle’s Christmas present?”
He held out a book.
She looked at him curiously.
Wolf shrugged. “I came to read to you.”
Sophie put down her pencil.
“I didn’t know what you like. I talked to the librarian and she gave me this. P.G. Wodehouse. I’ve never heard of him. She said he was famous for being funny.”
Sophie lowered her head.
“I thought humor would be a good thing.”
She didn’t move.
“Don’t cry on the drawing or you’ll ruin all the work you’ve put into it.”
Raising her head to look at him, the tears were drawing lines down her face.
He waited for her to say something.
It was such extreme consideration, her throat tightened but she managed to speak. “Are all the girls in town in love with you?”
“Hardly.”
“Sometimes it’s so difficult to understand people,” Sophie said with a smile and shrug.
“Sometimes.”
“We can sit on the settle. It’s near the fire and the cushions are good.”
Wolf took off his jacket, put it on a chair then went to the wood-framed sofa and sat. Sophie sat at the end of the settle and pulled her legs up under her.
Wolf opened the book. “My Man Jeeves,” he said, reading the title. “By P.G. Wodehouse, published in 1919.”
“I’m confused. Is a man a valet?” Sophie asked.
“We’ll find out.” Wolf began to read.
“Jeeves—my man, you know—is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked ‘Inquiries.’ You know the Johnnies I mean. You go up to them and say: ‘When's the next train for Melonsquashville, Tennessee?’ and they reply, without stopping to think, ‘Two-forty-three, track ten, change at San Francisco.’ And they're right every time. Well, Jeeves gives you just the same impression of omniscience.
“As an instance of what I mean, I remember meeting Monty Byng in Bond Street one morning, looking the last word in a grey check suit, and I felt I should never be happy till I had one like it. I dug the address of the tailors out of him, and had them working on the thing inside the hour.
“‘Jeeves,’" I said that evening. “‘I'm getting a check suit like that one of Mr. Byng's.’”
“‘Injudicious, sir,’” he said firmly. “‘It will not become you.’”
“‘What absolute rot! It's the soundest thing I've struck for years.’”
“‘Unsuitable for you, sir.’”
“Well, the long and the short of it was that the confounded thing came home, and I put it on, and when I caught sight of myself in the glass I nearly swooned. Jeeves was perfectly right. I looked a cross between a music-hall comedian and a cheap bookie. Yet Monty had looked fine in absolutely the same stuff. These things are just Life's mysteries, and that's all there is to it.” Wolf turned the page.
“Almost a hundred years ago,” Sophie remarked.
“Yes,” Wolf replied. “After the war to end all wars.”
“For the next ten years they didn’t have a care in the world. The 1920’s were one big party.”
“I suppose so.”
“Wolf,” Sophie started. “Did you go out to eat before bottom?”
“Yes.”
“Around here?”
“Yes, there was a nice restaurant on the lake that we would go to for special occasions. The last time was my parents’ anniversary. There were lanterns strung from the trees, and a local band played their favorite songs all evening. Everyone had a good time.”
“Because you could all see what was coming.”
“Yes. I think we all knew that was the last time we would all be together and mostly happy.
“My father had explained it to me as best as he could but I was still young. You don’t have the life experience to understand situations outside your own small world.
“He knew. He had prepared. Everything was organized and he tried to help others.”
Wolf stopped for a moment. “You must have eaten out all the time in the city.”
“Yes. My mother didn’t cook very much since she was busy with her friends and art, so we ate out or got takeout. It was so easy. You could go down the street and get whatever you wanted and then bring it home and eat watching a movie on television.” Sophie said then paused. “I miss Chinese food. Did you have that here?”
“Yes. They left very early on. Once deliveries stopped what was the point in staying?”
“You can’t fault anyone for trying to find someplace a little easier. We used to go down to Chinatown. We used to go to Little Italy. New York City was amazing.”
“I’ll bet it was.”
“Did you ever go there?”
“No.”
“Owl Head is so different from the city.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Do you know what the city is like now?”
“I’ve heard some things. There’s nothing for you to go back to.”
“I don’t want to. No, I’m good with this.”
He looked at her curiously.
“I think it’s like mourning someone who’s died.”
“It’s exactly like that. Do you want me to keep reading?”
“Yes, please.”
After reading several sections, Wolf closed the book. “To be continued,” he said.
“You’re coming back?”
“If you want me to.”
“I would like that very much.”
“Maybe you’d prefer a different book.”
“I doesn’t matter to me at all. Whatever you’d like to read. Maybe you want to read about Horatio Hornblower if the library has it.”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s a series of books about the English navy.”
“This is good.”
“Is it funny to you?”
“It’s not going to make me laugh but it’s not serious.”
“People once thought it was funny.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“It was written in the 1920’s, everyone was happy then. Maybe everything seemed funny.”
“Like the air had turned into laughing gas,” Wolf replied.
“Have people changed that much?”
Wolf handed her the book. “Yes.”
“For better or worse?”
“Worse.” He stood. “You can look at the illustrations. They seem good to me.”
Sophie got up, put the book on her drawing board and handed him his jacket. “Thank you. This was the best afternoon,” she said as they walked to the door.
“Since you’ve been here?”
“No. Ever.”
AS WOLF DROVE HOME, he thought about Thanksgiving. The lights were on at home, his mother finishing dinner preparations.
“I didn’t think you were going to be here this early.”
“I didn’t go to the café because I didn’t want to see anyone.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s best you don’t know.”
“I can’t tell you not to get involved. You will anyway. You’re just like your father in that.”
“Am I?”
Nora looked at her son, and saw that he wasn’t going to say anything else about it. “Yes, you are.”
“Is there room for two more for Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll just make more potatoes if you don’t get a big turkey. Who do you want to invite?”
/> “Erica Cook and her daughter. I don’t expect the mother will be very good company but it won’t be much of a dinner up there.”
“And you feel a responsibility to the daughter because of Donnie? It was the council’s decision not to act.”
“Did anyone believe talking to Henry Russell would make a difference? He’s as slimy as a greased snake.”
“I think they hoped. It’s not your fault Donnie came back over the mountain.”
Wolf washed his hands at the kitchen sink since he had just checked the generator one last time before the day was done. It ran almost constantly. The silence up at the Cook house was so intense it had taken him a little while to realize what was missing. Everywhere else he went everyone had a generator going, the noise was the soundtrack of their lives since bottom.
“Or is it more than that?”
He sat at the table.
“Don’t tell me it’s better if I don’t know that, too.”
“What was it like when you met Dad?”
“Oh, that’s a question and a half.” Nora put the loaf of fresh-baked bread on the table. Most families in the community made bread two or three times a week. Store-bought bread was a thing of the past.
“You know your father, there’s no one like him. He was seeing someone at the time. He says they were friends. Somehow our paths kept crossing. It seemed like a coincidence until I realized he was arranging it.”
HE KNOCKED ON THE STUDIO door.
“Who’s that knocking on my front door?” She sang as she crossed the room and opened it. “Who does he think he’s looking for? Could be the Big Bad Wolf but it’s not.”
“Why are you in such a good mood?”
“It’s not the Big Bad Wolf at Little Red Riding Hood’s front door.”
“What song is that?”
“How do I know? I have an excellent memory for life’s debris.”
He didn’t come inside.
Sophie’s smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s going to start to snow soon. Do you want to take a walk?”
“Is it more than a walk? Is there a talking aspect, too?”
“Nothing bad, mostly it’s just about taking a walk. I think there’s an old lumbering trail,” Wolf looked across the sculpture field then pointed, “over there.”
Sophie took her jacket from the hook by the door then went outside.
“Will you be warm enough? It’s cold.”
“Thank you, I’ll be fine.”
They walked in silence until they reached the trail.
“Do you have a thing for snow?”
“There’s a quality to the air when it snows. Dense. Dampened.”
“Wolf.”
“What?”
“That’s a lovely observation.”
“I’ll be away for a couple days, so if you need anything tell me now.”
“People go places?” She teased.
He smiled. “Yes, people do leave town.”
“I knew there are truck deliveries or we’d have nothing. I realize the gas must be transported somehow to somewhere.”
“You don’t need to know more about it than that. The less you know the better.”
“So you’re going to Philadelphia for a Cheese Steak sandwich and will eat it while looking at the Liberty Bell.”
“Totally psychic. I better be very careful what I think around you.”
“Mr. Open Book. I can mind-read you without breaking a sweat. Too bad I can’t keep some of this warmth from going up the mountain for tonight.”
“Are you warm enough in the house?”
“Yes, I was kidding, please don’t worry about it.”
“It can get very cold here in the winter.”
“Then I’ll move from the bedroom and sleep by the stove.”
“How are you coming on the portraits?”
“I’m done with both. My mother is making the frames and doing a nice job. She decided to go with metal.”
“Sophie...”
“No, she’s not using used tractor parts. You’ll be surprised at what she can do with some wire and metal rods.”
“She asked me if it was possible to pay off the car conversion with welding. No. Everyone in town knows how to weld.”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t need to. But we learn early how to do as much as possible. Plumbing, carpentry, electricity, auto mechanic. She needs to find a real skill that’s worth something.”
“She can make quilts.”
“So can the Anabaptist women on the other side of town.”
“What are they?”
“It’s something like an Amish community with a couple very large dairy farms that pump out a lot of gas. They’ve always been very self-sufficient but, unlike the Amish, they drive cars and live in this world. Whatever modern means anymore. Feels like we’re regressing.”
“Enough of the small talk. Why did you bring me out here?”
“Because it’s going to snow and I wanted to share that with you.”
“Okay.”
“And to invite you, and your mother, to Thanksgiving dinner.”
Sophie was surprised and thought for a moment. “Thank you for the very kind invitation but I think we have plans for that day.”
“Really?”
“Yes. People do go places. We’re going to Buenos Aires. We just couldn’t face another big dinner, all that cooking, all that cleaning up.”
“Do you have anything for dinner?”
“She’s pretty good at making something from almost nothing and I don’t want to impose. I don’t want...”
“Tell her to put her party manners on and it’ll be fine.”
“All right.”
A snowflake touched Sophie’s cheek. She looked up and could see small bits of snow falling. The air still, she could hear the sound as it hit the dry leaves.
“You know there’s a chance that one day I’ll leave and I won’t come back.”
Sophie was quiet for a long moment. “This time?”
“This time I’m coming back.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They stopped halfway up the mountain as the snow fell.
“Do I have to ask you to kiss me or will you eventually get around to it on your own?”
“I don’t go around kissing everyone,” Wolf replied.
“Is there an answer in there?”
Wolf pulled Sophie to him and kissed her for the first time.
“That’s the right answer,” Sophie said then kissed him in return as if she was afraid this was the time he wasn’t coming back.
Chapter 3
They conducted surveillance in Coturnix. Reilly borrowed a car so they wouldn’t be recognized as they drove around town looking for Donnie Russell. He spent most evenings at the only bar in town. So did his brothers.
“This won’t be easy,” Wolf said as they watched the entrance to the tavern.
“Half the time he comes out with his brother, Darley.”
“We need someone to help us.”
“He’s not that big.”
“It has to be fast. He can’t make a sound or otherwise we’ll have everyone inside outside and on us.”
“Billy.”
“Yeah, Billy is good. He spends all day pushing cows around it shouldn’t be a problem to pull Donnie off the street.”
“I think we should end it and throw him in the crack.”
Up on the mountain, there was a rent in the rocks that went down a couple hundred feet. It was dangerous, so that’s where the kids always went.
“He’d be found.”
“Not if we do it right. Leave some beer bottles up there. Leave some joints. We know he smokes. If someone should come upon the body, and I don’t see how they’re going to get down to it, it’ll be obvious he slipped and fell to this death. The end.”
It made sense. Donnie dealt in endo. That was the main crop these days in Coturnix. It had always been someth
ing done in the backcountry, hidden, but now it was done in plain sight since there was no law to track the growers down. Selling it was easy. Most people wanted to be numb to what was going on. That was pretty much the problem in Coturnix. They weren’t keen on work.
“Too close to home, Reilly. Let’s stick with the original plan and get him the hell away from here.”
“Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
Wolf started the car. “I think we should ask Annie for help.”
“Annie? She’s not that strong.”
“She’s sexy and I don’t think he’s ever seen her.”
“Use her as bait?”
“Yeah.”
They drove back over the mountain.
“ANNIE, I HAVE A FAVOR to ask.”
Wolf had driven up to her family farm and found her out in the field behind the house, fixing the fence.
She had long blonde hair the color of straw and blue eyes the color of the summer sky. Wolf remembered her from that last year at school. All the boys were panting after her, but with two brothers they couldn’t do anything else. She had been transformed from the rounded little thing into a sinewy farm girl, who could keep up with the chores right alongside her brothers.
“Okay.”
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“I wouldn’t say no to you. But make it worth my while and help me with this wire.”
“Where’s Nedward?”
Her twin brothers, Edward and Nye, had always been name-melded.
“They went to deliver a couple cows to the Fenadays.”
Wolf pulled the wire taut while she stapled it back onto the post.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
As the wind gusted up the hill, she pulled off her deerskin gloves and pushed the stray hairs off her face. “What do you need?”
“Donnie Russell raped Sophie Cook.”
“I heard about that. She’s that new girl from the city. Is she okay?”
They started back down the hill. “Yeah, she’s resilient.”
“Are you going to give her a gun?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Don’t think. Just do it.”
“I don’t want to put a gun in the hands of someone who’s upset enough as it is.”
“Is she that upset?”
“She was hit, punched, dragged, thrown to the ground and raped. She’s not over it.”