by Gemma Bruce
Terrence grabbed his arm. “You better go on home, Arnold. And you can tell Henley that we’ll be out to talk to him in the morning.”
“Hey, you got nothing on my boy.”
“That isn’t true,” said Larry, the biker. “Henley’s been making a nuisance of himself, and everybody, including Ms. Excelsior, has had enough.”
“Well, shit,” said Arnold. “Ms. Excelsior. Guess you’re too young to remember her last escapade. But we remember it, don’t we, boys?”
He was met with silence and unfriendly stares. He snorted. “Seems like everybody’s got a short memory.” He pushed through the crowd and went out the door, slamming it behind him.
Terrence turned to Cas. “We found Henley’s van abandoned up on Highland Avenue. It had skidded off the road and hit a tree. But they won’t get far. There’s already four inches of snow on the ground. We’ll pick them up for questioning as soon as it lets up.”
“We can go out looking for those no-good scoundrels right now,” said Elton Dinwiddie. “We can organize a posse.”
“Yeah,” agreed several others.
Cas shook his head. “Thanks, Elton, but at this point, it’s Julie’s word against theirs. I’ll take her out tomorrow and see if she can identify Henley’s van.”
“Won’t be tomorrow,” said Henry. “The storm’s moved in. So if you want us to go, we gotta go now.”
Cas looked at the group of men crowded into the little waiting room. Old and out of shape, the younger ones didn’t even know Julie, and yet they’d all come to help. You didn’t find people like that just anywhere. He looked at Julie to make sure she realized how they felt. Julie was gone.
“Julie?” He looked over the group again. “Where is she?”
“She and Tilda left,” said Larry. “She seemed upset.”
“Well, hell, who wouldn’t be,” said Elton. “They’ve probably gone back to the Roadhouse. What do you say we all go join them?”
Julie sat in the passenger seat of Tilda’s pickup, watching the snow fall through the swish-swish of the windshield wipers, as Tilda drove slowly up the middle of Main Street.
“Why don’t I just take you to my house? We can build a fire, pour us a couple of brandies and have a sleepover. This is gonna be a big one, maybe more than two feet.”
“Thanks, but ...”
“Look, hon. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t pay any attention to Arnold Baxter. The men in that family are born mean and spend their whole lives getting meaner.” Tilda reached over and patted her knee. “Everyone else was real concerned. They offered to go out and look for you. And Elton and Henry were champing at the bit to go arrest Henley and Bo.”
“I know. And I appreciate it. I overreacted. A moment of ...” Julie shrugged.
“Déjà vu?” Tilda supplied.
Julie nodded. “Oh hell, it was just like last time.” She dashed an escaped tear from her cheek.
“Would you stop it? Do you think you’re the only person ever humiliated by this town? Shit happens everywhere. We’re no worse than the next place. And you’d know that if you hadn’t left.” Tilda waved her hand before Julie could form a reply. “The rest of us had to swallow it and get on with it. I’m not saying that leaving was wrong, but it was probably the worst way to deal with something like that. Hell, they forgot about it a week later, when a new scandal came along. But since you weren’t around to know that, you just carried it with you all these years.”
“I didn’t.”
“Sure you did. It’s like grieving. You gotta go through it sooner or later. And the longer you wait, the harder it gets. You’re as prickly as a cactus on the desert. The first night you came into the Roadhouse, your chin was stuck out so far, I thought you were gonna trip on it. I know that look. Hell, don’t you think I felt it often enough? Tilda Green, trailer park cheerleader. It was a miracle they even let me on the squad. And let me tell you, they didn’t let me forget it for a minute.”
Julie frowned at her. “They were mean to you?”
“Oh honey. But I just rah-rahed my little heart out and studied hard and went to community college and look at me today.” She slowed down and turned into the Roadhouse parking lot. “And if all the women in town don’t love their husbands hanging down at the Roadhouse, well, that’s their problem.”
Tilda parked in front of the bar. “At least come in for a drink.”
Julie opened the door. “Thanks, but I really have to go see to Smitty and the chickens.”
She scuffed through the snow toward her car and realized she didn’t have her keys. Tears of frustration welled up and she didn’t even bother to stop them.
Tilda rolled down her window. “Need this?” She held up Julie’s bag. Julie hurried back and reached for it, but Tilda held on. “How long are you gonna keep running, girl? The bear stopped chasing you years ago.”
Julie pulled the bag out of Tilda’s hand. “I’ll be fine.”
“You can have a place here,” called Tilda. “There’s plenty of room.”
Julie waved without turning around, then got into the Volkswagen and drove away just as the first truck pulled into the parking lot.
“I got work to do,” said Terrence, when only he and Cas were left at the station. “And you better get home, before it gets any worse.”
There was nothing Cas would rather do than go home, except go to Julie’s, but he did have a responsibility to the town and he wouldn’t shirk it.
She’s going to leave me, he thought. She’s going to walk out. Just when they had reached a new place of trust.
“Uh, Cas?”
“Right—thanks, but I’ll stay here for the rest of the night. Take whatever calls are coming in. Edith and Lou won’t make it in if this keeps up.”
Terrence nodded and left to start plowing.
Cas sat in his chair and stewed. What he really wanted to do was go after Julie, but she probably needed a little space. Hell, she hadn’t even waited around to thank all those people for trying to find her and so hadn’t heard their real concern for her. She was probably already back at Excelsior House, fuming, and blaming it all on him and packing to leave.
Damn. Wes had depended on him to see things through this time, and instead of arriving like a knight on a white horse, he had managed to bungle the job.
All this time, he’d been building a new fantasy. Not from the past but for their future. From the moment she’d stepped out of the woods, even before he recognized her, he’d known her. Felt it down to his bones. He’d embarked on a new journey right there, sitting on the cold ground. A fantasy of finding his missing half, his home.
He slapped his forehead, waves of pain reverberated through his skull. A fantasy. Was that all it could ever be?
She’d never said she loved him. Not even in the midst of incredible sex. But he couldn’t be mistaken about those moments when he felt so connected, could he? Had it all been one way? No. He was sure of that at least. There had been moments. But moments didn’t make a life together.
Hell, they did if you had enough of them.
He wasn’t going to give up yet. He picked up the phone. The line was dead. He stood up and looked out the window. At least six inches of snow already. If it kept up, he wouldn’t be able to make it up the hill for days. But she wouldn’t be able to make it down.
It was close to three when Julie finally tumbled into bed. She’d meant to start packing, but fatigue washed over her in a giant tidal wave. First thing in the morning after the chickens, she told herself, and crawled into bed.
She missed Ulysses’ wake-up call, missed Bill’s echoing warble. When she finally awoke, the sun was pouring through her window, so bright that she closed her eyes against it. She rolled her head to look at the clock. Nine-thirty. Damn. Her beauties would be in a foul temper. She smiled at her little joke, then dragged her ass out of bed.
She was stiff and had several bruises from her run-in with the van floor. And the night came flooding back, wrecking what was at
best a decent mood. She pulled on her clothes, brushed her teeth, and went downstairs to feed the chickens.
She opened the kitchen door. Smitty ran out and promptly disappeared. Julie looked out onto a world of white and she blinked against the glare. White. Everywhere. In the trees, on the ground; her car was a mound of white, the shed something from A Space Odyssey. At least two feet of snow had fallen while she slept. Smitty waded out of the snowdrift and barked.
“Shit. The exhaust pipes!” Julie leapt off the porch and sank up to her knees. There was no way she could make it to the gazebo without shoveling. She staggered as she turned around in the snow. Slipped and slid up the steps and grabbed a snow shovel off the back porch.
It only took a few minutes for her to realize that it would take too long to shovel a path to the hen house. If the snow had covered the generator valves, her chickens could be dead. Would be dead if she didn’t get to them now. She began dragging herself through the snow, dragging the shovel behind her. Smitty waded ahead, doing little to break the trail, but doing his best.
He barked at her from the mesh fence and pawed at the latch. He backed up a few feet, and sending out sprays of white, he sailed over the mesh fence.
Julie watched in amazement as he disappeared into the snow bank on the other side. Slowly he reemerged and began swimming his way toward the ramp which appeared only as a triangle of snow along the surface of the winter wonderland.
Julie trudged after him, the snow seeping into her shoes and freezing her pants legs. It seemed to take forever for her to reach the gate. And of course, there was no way to open it.
She threw the shovel over, then grabbed the top of the fence. The metal cut into her work gloves, but it began to give, and little by little, she pulled the fence down and herself up until she could roll across it to the other side. She had to crawl to the ramp and by the time she got there, she was breathing hard, and everything hurt: her lungs, her legs, her fingers.
Smitty had cleaned off the top of the ramp but he couldn’t unlock the door. Julie clambered up and yanked it open.
She smelled it before she even entered the coop and a little piece of her died. Gas, which meant the generator had been suffocated by the snow. Which meant the carbon monoxide had been building up for a long time before that.
No chickens ran to peck at her, demanding food. Please, she prayed. Please. A battery-operated emergency light had come on, and she could see hens asleep in their nesting boxes. Others were on the floor where they had fallen from their perches. Julie stumbled back to the door and pushed it back and forth trying to circulate fresh air.
Then she heard a week peep at her feet. She looked down in time to see Ernestine tumble onto the floor. Julie picked her up and rushed her outside, warming her in her arms and willing her to live.
Ernestine flapped once and was still.
“No!” cried Julie. And shook the hen. “Wake up. Please.” Ernestine lay inert and after a few moments, Julie lay her down in the snow. She had other chickens that might be saved.
“I’m sorry,” Julie murmured, almost choking on the words. Her throat burned and she steeled herself to go back inside. Ernestine twitched. Julie peered at her. No, it was her imagination. Her hope. Then Ernestine shivered, ruffled her feathers, and let out a weak squawk.
“Ernie!” Julie scooped her up and hugged her, tears blinding her even more than the sun’s reflection. She stuck her inside Wes’s jacket and turned to see Smitty herding several very groggy chickens down the ramp.
“Good boy,” she said as she passed him. She lifted up two more hens and took them outside, where they immediately sank into the snow.
They were going to freeze if she didn’t get the heat going again, and she had no idea what to do.
“Just wing it,” she said out loud. She grabbed the snow shovel and waded around to the side of the gazebo where the generator was housed. It was completely covered by snow. She started digging. Soon she was sweating with exertion and shivering from the drying sweat. She stopped to stretch her aching back; she needed help, but she was afraid to take the time to wade back to the phone and call Maude.
And then she saw a figure emerging over the wall. At first she thought it must be Maude, but this figure, though bundled in coat, scarf, hat and gloves, was much slighter than Maude. Someone had come to help. And whoever it was had come from Reynolds Place. She didn’t care who it was. At this point, she’d be happy to see Marian if she knew how to start a generator.
Julie watched in awe as the figure lumbered awkwardly down the hill. It took her several seconds before she understood why. The person was wearing snow shoes.
She went back to shoveling until a shadow blocked out the sun. She straightened up and was only mildly surprised to see Melanie standing over her.
“The generator’s out, right? It always does that in bad weather.”
Julie grinned at her. “Chickens suck, huh?”
“Give me that,” said Melanie. She wrenched the shovel from Julie and in a few minutes the generator casing was clear. “I’ll need tools. They’re in the shed.” Melanie tossed Julie the shovel and pried the top off the generator.
Julie slogged down the hill, dug an opening around the shed door and squeezed inside. A moment later, she was lugging the toolbox back up the hill.
Several engine parts were lying on the engine cover. Melanie opened the tool box, took out a screwdriver, and stuck her head into the opening of the generator. “You can start putting the hens back in,” she said, her voice echoing from inside.
Julie saluted and grabbed the first two chickens she came to. Most were huddled together on the ramp and were only too happy to follow her back inside. A few minutes later, the generator whirred to life. Thank you for small favors, said Julie.
Then she remembered Hillary. She hurried to the back of the gazebo and found her alive and sitting on her nest. Bill was standing nearby, looking woozy but alert. Smitty lay between the wall and the nest, curved around the two birds like a woolly blanket.
“Generator’s fixed,” said Melanie, maneuvering her snow shoes through the open door. “Are they all in?” She clomped over to Julie. “What the hell?”
“The happy couple,” said Julie. “Hillary’s nesting. That’s Smitty.”
Melanie just rolled her eyes and went outside again.
It took a while to convince Smitty to leave the love birds, but he finally padded out into the snow. When Julie came out behind him, Melanie was standing on the ramp looking up. Julie looked up, too. Ulysses was perched on the roof of the gazebo.
“How did he get up there?” asked Julie, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t scare him.
“Flew,” said Melanie, keeping her eyes on the rooster. “But now the dumb shit is afraid to come down. Come here, you stupid bird,” she said in a gentle, cooing voice. “Do you want your wattle to freeze? Not to mention your teeny-tiny rooster dick. Get down off the goddamn roof.”
Ulysses spat at her.
“You dumb fuck,” she sang softly.
Julie had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
In the same soothing voice, Mel said, “You’ll have to go around to the other side and frighten him.”
It took Julie a second to realize that Melanie was talking to her and not Ulysses.
“Just make a lot of noise and rush at him. He should come down on my side. If he turns on you, cover your eyes. He’ll be vicious.”
Julie swallowed. Oh great, she was going to play Oedipus to his Ulysses. And if she did get him to move, he would head straight for Melanie. “You too,” she said and waded to the back of the gazebo.
Melanie nodded. “Now.”
Julie rushed at the rooster. At first he didn’t move, just turned his head in her direction and looked at her with contempt. At least it looked like contempt to Julie.
Then Melanie put her hands to her mouth and shrieked, a sound so dreadful that Julie almost fell backwards. Smitty started barking. Ulysses stretched his wings,
ready for a fight. He rose off the roof, and Julie instinctively covered her eyes. When she opened them again, Ulysses was gone.
She couldn’t see Melanie, either. Then Melanie shrieked and Julie ran back to help. Ulysses was standing on the ramp. Melanie stood between him and the door. Her arms were spread out like a Valkyrie. Ulysses shrieked back. Melanie held her ground.
It was amazing to watch. Where had she learned to do this?
From Wes, of course. And a big piece of the puzzle fell into place.
“Come on, you dickhead,” screamed Melanie and feinted toward him. It was all that Ulysses needed. He charged her. Julie screamed. At the last second, Melanie ducked aside and Ulysses flew through the door. Melanie slammed it behind him.
“Nyah-nyah,” she called through the door. To Julie she said, “He’ll calm down in a minute and be thankful his sorry ass is inside where it’s warm.”
“Good,” said Julie. “Why don’t we get our sorry asses inside and have something warm to drink.”
Melanie looked down at the house. “I gotta go.”
“Come on,” coaxed Julie. “I’d enjoy the company.”
Melanie shrugged and tramped slowly across the surface of the snow while Julie trudged through the drifts to the back porch.
Julie opened the door and held it for her. Melanie hesitated, then leaned over and released her snow shoes.
“I haven’t changed anything,” said Julie, guessing this was Melanie’s first visit since Wes’s death. And for some reason it was really important to Julie that she came in now.
“I know I saw a tin of cocoa here someplace.” She nudged the girl inside, then began to rummage through a cabinet, giving Melanie time to get used to things.
“It’s in the cabinet above the cutlery drawer,” said Melanie.
Julie got the tin down and heated milk on the stove top. Then she stripped out of her wet outerwear; waited for Melanie to reluctantly peel off her coat and hat. She wore no makeup and the winter hat had pressed her hair to her face. She scrubbed it with her fingers as if knowing what Julie was thinking. All it did was make it curl softly around her face.