Once Burned

by Gerry Boyle

  I knocked and opened the door, crossed the kitchen, and opened the door to the studio. Alison was playing the fiddle. Lasha, her back to me, was running a palm sander over the falcon’s wings. I waited for the fiddle solo to end and knocked on the doorjamb.

  Lasha whirled around, startled. Saw me and put a hand to her chest.

  “Oh, you scared me,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She turned off the sander. Walked to the shelf and the stereo and turned the music down. I crossed toward her.

  “I called and texted. You should keep the door locked.”

  “I was going in and out. It was a pain.”

  “When did you get home?”

  “Around four. Slept for a few hours and woke up all recharged.”

  I looked at the falcon, the graceful curves and deadly talons.

  “It looks beautiful.”

  “I’m not sure beautiful is what I envisioned.”

  “Powerful, then,” I said.

  “Closer,” Lasha said. She touched the bird’s wing, running her fingers over the contours, then frowned, like it wasn’t quite right. She was wearing jeans and a red union shirt, her hair pulled back with a blue bandanna. Her hand was bandaged, but there was a glow to her. If Lasha was given to deep mood swings, this was her peak, when she was working.

  Sober. Happy.

  “How’s the hand?” I said.

  “All right. Sore.”

  “How many stitches?”

  “Eight.”

  “Decent cut.”

  “Well, I keep my tools sharp.”

  “Hear from the cops? The fire marshal’s people?”

  “Yes. A young woman came to talk to me.”

  “Reynolds.”

  “Yeah. She was nice, but I think she was trying to figure out if I was crazy. Like maybe I faked the whole thing.”

  “Don’t take it personally,” I said.

  “Oh, I didn’t. Actually, it was kind of interesting. The way her mind works, the questions she asked.”

  “Like what?”

  “At first she was sort of focused on me, asking me stuff and then just watching. It was like it wasn’t what I was saying—it was how I was saying it.”

  “That’s about right,” I said.

  “But then there was this shift and she started asking me about everybody else.”

  “You tell her about Harold and his record?”

  “Yeah, but she already knew.”

  “Woodrow and the army guy?”

  “Them, too, but it’s like I told her; those are the obvious ones. The outsiders.”

  “The outcasts,” I said.

  “Which I’m sort of one of. I mean, I’m not living out in the woods or wearing black overcoats in the summer.”

  “But you make giant wooden monsters,” I said.

  “Mythological creatures. But yeah, I’m sure they think I’m way out there.”

  Lasha smiled again, gave a little laugh, and it was charming. If she was like this all the time . . .

  “So what did you tell her?” I said.

  Lasha walked to the falcon, picked up a cloth from the table, and started wiping the wings.

  “I told her, if it’s not obvious that it’s the obvious ones, then it’s got to be somebody right in the middle of it all. Somebody you think you know, but you really don’t.”

  “Like who?” I said.

  Lasha wiped.

  “Like me,” she said. “Or any of us. When you think about it, you only know the outside shell.”

  “I feel like I know you a little more than that,” I said.

  Lasha glanced at me and smiled knowingly.

  “Jack, last night.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thank you. You were truly a friend in need.”

  “No problem.”

  “And the other thing?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know. When we kissed?”

  I recalled her kissing me, that peck on the neck.

  “Well, I’m not sure we—”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it. I know you’re happily married, with a little girl. You’re a nice guy, that’s all. I mean, I think we could be friends. I’d love to meet Roxanne.”

  She turned and wiped the falcon with her bare hand. Found a rough spot and touched it with her fingers.

  “Yeah, well, maybe sometime. When the story’s done.”

  “Oh, yeah. Because now I’m—what do you call it? A source?”

  “Right. And speaking of which, can we talk for a minute? For the story?”

  Lasha turned to me, leaned back on the table. The falcon eyed me from over her shoulder.

  “Sure.”

  I took out my notebook and pen.

  “After what happened, are you afraid to live out here alone?”

  “Yes, but I’m not running away,” Lasha said.

  She waited for me to write it down.

  “Because this is your home?”

  “It’s my home. It’s my studio. It’s where I create.”

  “But at night? Will you be able to sleep?”

  “Sometimes I sleep at night. Sometimes I sleep during the day,” Lasha said. “Nobody should come here assuming I’m asleep.”

  I scrawled.

  “But if they do?”

  Lasha looked behind me. I turned, too, saw a shotgun leaning against the wall.

  “That loaded?”

  “Double-aught buckshot,” she said. “The guy at the gun shop said it’ll cut you in half.”

  “You’d shoot?” I said.

  “After fair warning,” she said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  She walked to the gun, picked it up, and stepped out the door, through the kitchen and outside. We crossed the grass and walked out into the back field, Lasha carrying the shotgun in the crook of her arm. There was a path where the grass was beaten down and we followed it. I walked just behind her, on her right side, away from the barrel, notebook in hand.

  Ahead of her, fifty feet from the edge of the woods, was a sign, a piece of plywood nailed to a post. She pointed left and right, and I could see that she’d put up a half-dozen of the signs, fifty yards apart. We reached the first one and stepped past it and turned. The words were neatly painted.

  TRESPASSERS AND ARSONISTS

  WILL BE SHOT

  I slipped the phone from my pocket, took a picture. The sign, Lasha, the shotgun. Send this to Hockaday, give him a taste.

  “First it was Kip, that lying piece of crap. Now it’s this guy, the goddamn coward,” Lasha said. “I’m tired of being pushed around, Jack.”

  “Well, that’s pretty clear,” I said.

  “I decided this morning, came to me as soon as I woke up. It was a total epiphany.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I decided right then: I’m not gonna run from these men. I’m gonna stand and fight.”

  We stood and looked at the sign, poking out of the grass like a gravestone, the words a defiant epitaph.

  “Then you probably ought to do a couple more things, Lasha,” I said.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “Cut way back on the drinking,” I said. “Turn down the music. And lock the freakin’ doors.”

  Heads turned when I walked into the general store. Harold glanced up from behind the counter, then busied himself bagging groceries. The girl working with him saw me and stage-whispered, “That’s the guy I was telling you about.” Harold nodded and kept bagging.

  I walked through the store to the sandwich counter, looked up at the menu board. A teenage boy wearing a baseball cap backwards walked up to the counter with a pad in hand. I asked for a tuna sandwich on whole wheat, with lettuce, tomato, and horseradish. He scribbled it down.

  “The name is—” I said.

  “I know who you are,” the kid said, tearing the page from the pad. “You’re the reporter.”

  His tone said that this was not a good thing.

  He turned
away, showing the front of the hat. It said SKI-DOO. I went to the cooler and took out a bottle of orange juice. I was standing back from the counter when Eve Johnson came down the aisle, alone.

  She saw me. I smiled, said hello.

  “Where are the kids?” I said.

  “In the truck with their dad,” she said. “Mom’s night off from cooking. We’re getting sandwiches.”

  “A picnic?”

  She hesitated, a troubled look crossing her face, just a flicker.

  “No, we’ll stay home, I guess.”

  “Peter not going on the road?”

  “No, he’s taking a little break.”

  The baseball cap kid came up and took Eve’s order. Five foot-long ham and cheese, two with peppers, three without. He scribbled, turned away. She turned to me. I moved closer.

  “How’s everybody doing?” I said.

  “Oh, they’re . . .”

  She paused.

  “I don’t know if I want to be in the paper, even if it is the New York Times or whatever.”

  “I’m just interested in how the fires are affecting people’s lives. Regular people. People like you, with families.”

  She moved toward me, away from the counter.

  “Well, here we are. Usually once a week, if Peter’s home, we go to Rockland or whatever. Go to Subway, eat on the waterfront there, in the park. Fridays, me and Pete, if he’s home, we get a babysitter, go to a movie, have a drink, sit and talk. With him driving so much, we need to reconnect, you know?”

  “I’m sure,” I said, slipping the notebook out.

  Eve looked at it, uneasy.

  “So now you stay home. Because of the fires,” I said.

  She hesitated, then looked up and nodded.

  “Pete says we can’t leave the house empty after dark. He says it’s inviting trouble.”

  “You leave lights on?”

  She smiled. “Hate to see our electric bill next month.”

  “How does all this make you feel?” I said.

  “Like a prisoner,” Eve said. “A prisoner in my own home.”

  I wrote that down. Looked up at her.

  “This is really a nice town,” she said. “It’s not like this. It’s like the whole place just went off course, you know? And once it starts, it keeps feeding on itself. People looking at each other differently, not trusting.”

  I scribbled, underlined. That was the story. A small town upended, the foundation of trust shaken.

  “How long are you prepared to keep this up?” I said.

  “Pete says until they catch him.”

  “ ‘They’ being—”

  “The police. The fire investigator people. The patrol.”

  “The citizens,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “Is Pete on the patrol?”

  “He hates leaving us alone,” she said. “Most of the men on it don’t have families. It makes him feel like a wimp or something, which he hates.”

  “I’m sure he would.”

  “Because this is his town, really. He grew up here, his parents grew up here, his grandparents. I’m from Bangor. I like it here, but he feels it’s his duty.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But after what happened to the doctor, he can’t take any chances. With the kids and me.”

  “The house,” I said.

  “He went into the garage, took out all the gas, stuff that’s flammable. The gas for the mower, he keeps that in his truck. Even put the gas grill away, down in the cellar.”

  “Must be hard to sleep at night, thinking that this person’s out there.”

  “Oh, Pete, he sleeps during the day now, when he can. Nights he’s up watching.”

  “With a deer rifle across his lap?”

  “Oh, I told you he’s a trucker,” she said. “Rifle isn’t much use in a truck.”

  “So, what? A nine-millimeter?”

  “Three fifty-seven,” the young mom said. “Pete, he says it’s got stopping power.”

  The baseball-cap guy came back, said my sandwich was ready. I took it from the counter, thanked Eve for her time, and headed for the front of the store.

  Harold was at the register, and the teenage girl was loading frozen vegetables into the cooler off to the right.

  Harold smiled, said, “How’s Mr. McMorrow today?”

  “Jack,” I said.

  “Yessir,” he said.

  He rang up my sandwich and drink. I handed him a ten-dollar bill and he slid the drawer out, counted my change and handed it to me.

  “We thank you kindly,” Harold said.

  I stood there for a moment, then said, “May I ask you a question, Harold?”

  I nodded toward the door. He blanched, the smile long gone. I walked toward the door and he followed. We stepped outside, stood by the bench and the petunias. A truck drove by and the driver beeped. Harold waved.

  “Harold,” I said. “I’ve been talking to people in town.”

  He knew.

  “That,” he said, “was a long, long time ago. I paid my debt to society, whatever you want to call it. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with what’s going on here now.”

  “Well—”

  “Nothin’ to do with it. I’ve worked long and hard to get back to where I am. You go dredging all that up again, mister, I’ll be ruined. Work in this store eighty hours a week, here at four forty-five every morning, middle of the goddamn winter, twenty below, down here every time the power goes out, feeding that generator every—”

  “Harold,” I said. “Easy.”

  “Nothin’ easy about it, all of that brought back up in the goddamn New York—”

  “I want to ride with the patrol, Harold,” I said. “Think you can make that happen?”

  He looked at me, edged closer.

  “And forget the rest of it?”

  “If I get enough of what’s going on now, I won’t need to go digging up the past.”

  He looked at me. I could hear his breathing. Inhale. Exhale.

  “You aren’t as easygoing as you pretend to be,” he said.

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” I said.

  “Eight o’clock. Quik-Mart.”

  “Who’s gonna be with you?”

  “Russell. Barbier.”

  “Will they object to having a reporter along?”

  “No,” Harold said. “I won’t let ’em.”

  It was a little after four. I walked to the truck, got in, and quickly went over my notes, fleshing out the stuff I’d gotten from Eve.

  I’d use the idea that the men in town had to join the posse, protect the women and children. Pete sitting up at night with a .357 on his lap, removing the gasoline from the garage. I thought of my own house, with gas in the shed for the chain saws, the mower. Enough extra gas on hand to send Beth on her way.

  Should I move it? Wait a minute, I didn’t live in Sanctuary. This wasn’t my battle to fight. I thought again. Sure it was.

  A white-haired lady walked past my truck and into the store, canvas bags in hand.

  I picked up the phone, called Roxanne. Waited.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Sophie said. “I answered.”

  “Yes, you did, honey. How are you doing?”

  “Good. We’re in a store that’s all kids’ stuff.”

  “Have you found anything good?”

  “I got new sandals and shorts and a dress that’s orange and pink and yellow.”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s very colorful,” Sophie said. “Mom says it’s—”

  She put her hand over the phone and came back on.

  “The latest.”

  “Well, you are going to be so ready for kindergarten. Are you coming home soon?”

  Sophie covered the phone again. This time it was Roxanne who came back on.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself. Having fun?”

  “Yeah. We’re outfitting our fashion plate.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be the best-dressed kindergart
ner in town.”

  “You only do kindergarten once,” Roxanne said.

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Frozen is at the movies here. She wants chicken nuggets for dinner. She got your gourmand gene.”

  “So you’ll be home when?”

  “Nine-ish. She’ll sleep the whole way home.”

  “I’ll be late,” I said. “I’m riding with the citizen patrol.”

  The white-haired lady came back out. Harold followed her to her car, carrying one of her canvas shopping bags.

  “When?”

  “We start at eight.”

  “I won’t wait up,” Roxanne said.

  “Clair will be around.”

  “We’ll be fine.” Her new face. “What are you going to do until eight?”

  “Another interview or two,” I said. “I’m checking them off, one by one.”

  The phrase prompted something, a significance I couldn’t quite grasp.

  I was searching for it when Roxanne told me to be careful. I said I would. I said I loved her. She said she loved me, too. Sophie kissed the phone and they were gone. Harold put the bag in the backseat of the woman’s car, closed the driver’s door for her. He didn’t look at me as he walked back to the store.

  I rang off, called Clair. He answered, the clank of a tool, music in the background.

  “Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro,” I said.

  “You’re getting better,” he said. “But it’s Vivaldi.”

  “Same tights and wig,” I said. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing much,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “Chatting,” I said.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Next up, the Iraq War vet.”

  “Want some help? I’m thinking you might need some street cred.”

  “Sure. You guys can trade war stories.”

  “While you knit or whatever,” Clair said.

  “There you go,” I said.

  “Forty minutes.”

  “The town common.”

  “I’ll look for the guy doing nothing,” he said.

  “If I’m napping, just knock,” I said.

  Louis Longfellow lived a couple of miles past Lasha’s off the Ridge Road, on the valley side. His driveway was a narrow cut into the woods, the opening marked by signs nailed to trees. They said PRIVATE and NO TRESPASSING. There was a steel cable on one of the tree trunks, an eye bolt screwed into the trunk of another, a big padlock hanging from the eye. The cable was used to bar the entrance, but when we rolled up in Clair’s truck, the cable was down. We drove in.