by Sheri Leigh
"I heard," Shane replied, not looking at her. He didn’t say anything else and she tried to read his eyes, but they strayed away.
"They're going to have the head mounted and put up in the Sheriff's office," said Jake, who was standing near them.
"They aren't really?" Dusty asked, incredulous.
Jake grinned and blew a stray piece of his long, dark hair out of his face. It settled back over his left eye. "If they aren't, they should."
"What’s so interesting over here?" Evan wandered over from the pool table. Chris was deciding on a shot, and it took him forever in his meticulous, deliberate way.
"The infamous Clinton Grove kitty-cat," Dusty told him. "What do you think? Should they hang its head in Thompson's office or not?"
"I think—" Evan started.
"Drop it," Shane said in a low voice. He didn’t even look at them, but the two words were enough. The subject was dropped and the game resumed. Jake went back to being a spectator.
"Shane?" Dusty put her hand on his arm. He jumped, looking at her. As always, the jolt was almost electric when she touched him, and she hated herself for it. "You okay?" She was calculating, keeping her voice at just the right, concerned tone.
He hesitated, opening his mouth. Then he just shook his head. "I'm okay," he replied, but his face told her something else. Things were not okay at all. "Hey, can you come out to the path with me this Friday? "
Dusty looked toward the bar. Lee was in conversation with Will Cougar, who had stopped by for a few after work. Sam's eyes were on her, as always, his gaze uncomfortably steady. Dusty raised a hand to him and smiled.
"I can't," she told him, standing up. "I promised Sam I'd have dinner with him."
"You serious?" Shane raised his eyebrows. Dusty nodded. She had agreed to Sam’s invitation under the stipulation that they were "just friends," and would stay that way. She felt sorry for Sam, but she’d grown to like him a lot, too.
"I've got to get back to work." She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."
He smiled, shaking his head. "I can't figure you out."
She shrugged, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Thank god you can't, she thought, looking back at him for a moment. If you could, you'd probably kill me.
* * * *
Aside from the Starlite, Larkspur at night was like a ghost town. Most of the place was asleep by nine o'clock. The curfew had some effect on the late night partiers, but not much. Most were already in by eight or nine, unless they were out at the path. Driving on Cass, on her way to Sam's, the traffic light went red, then green, then yellow, and no one else was there to stop for it. The neon lights of the Starlite flashed in the distance, but everything else was closed for the night.
Dusty's was the lone car on the road, and it felt eerie. The only light came from the Jeep's own headlights. She began looking for Wanda road as she neared the cemetery. She knew it was near Clinton Grove, separated from the cemetery by a stretch of woodland.
Behind her, red and blue lights flashed and she glimpsed them in her rearview mirror. Puzzled, she steered the Jeep to the side of the road and rolled down the window in the cold night air. Deputy Walker approached her wearing a heavy coat over his uniform.
"Hi, Dusty," he said, leaning down. She was shivering. "Where are you headed?"
"Sam's," she said. "Sam Lewis. I'm eating dinner over there." Dusty pulled her coat around her.
"I didn't recognize the car," he apologized. "We're supposed to check out anything suspicious and I couldn't read your plates. The bulbs around them are burnt out."
"Oh. Sorry,” Dusty apologized, looking at him in the light from the flashers. “I thought it was all over?"
"Better safe than sorry, that's what the Sheriff says,” Matt told her. “We caught a pretty big bobcat, and we're pretty sure that's what's been causing the trouble. Sorry about stopping you like this."
"It's okay, Matt," she said. "I know you're just doing your job. Can I go now, or are you going to give me a ticket for the burnt out bulbs?"
"No, just get them fixed, okay?" He took a step back. "It's all just precautionary, anyway. We ought to be clearing out of here within a week."
"That soon?" Dusty asked, shivering.
"Yup. Maybe we can get back to normal, then, huh?" She looked at him, and it seemed his expression was almost pleading with her, or maybe even with himself, to believe what he was saying. She shrugged.
"I hope so, Matt."
He tipped her a wave. She waited until he’d turned off his flashers and pulled away. He made a u-turn and headed back toward town.
"I hope so." But she didn’t believe it any more than he did.
* * * *
"C-c-come on uh-in." Sam opened the front door. She’d found it—the only house on Wanda, a dead-end road and difficult to find with no street lights. The house was huge and in serious disrepair. There were sections where the windows were completely boarded up.
"It's getting cold out there." Dusty unzipped her coat as he closed the door behind her. "I think winter's finally here."
"Truh-try riding a b-bike in this." Sam made a face as he took her coat. He opened the closet and hung it on the handle of a vacuum cleaner and shut the door. Dusty smiled to herself when she saw the mess—sneakers, boots, coats.
"Smells good." Dusty looked around the foyer. The ceiling was high above them. She glimpsed a curving staircase as she looked through the archway. A chandelier that hadn’t been dusted in twenty years hung from the ceiling. The house had a musty undersmell.
"It's spuh-spuh-spaghuh-hetti. It's the only thing uh-I know huh-how to c-c-cook that isn't uh-out of a c-c-can," he said with a little laugh.
"You live in this big house all by yourself?" Dusty asked, looking around. "How do you keep it clean?"
"I duh-don't," he said with a shrug. "C-come on. I'll shuh-show you where I luh-live."
Dusty followed him past the archway. It must have belonged to someone rich once, she thought, looking around. It was dingy now, in need of a serious cleaning, but a taste of what it had once been remained. Dusty looked up the staircase and there on the wall hung a huge portrait.
"Who is that?" Dusty asked, tugging at his sleeve. Sam followed the direction of her gaze.
"Muh-my fuh-father."
Dusty looked at it a minute longer, taking in the fierceness of the old man. It must have been taken later in life, because his hair was completely white and hung to his shoulders. He had blue eyes, like Sam’s.
"C-c-coming?" Sam asked.
"Yeah." Dusty took her eyes off the picture and followed him down the long hallway and past at least five closed doors. The house was strangely built. At the very end of the hall was a light-washed room.
"Muh-mine," Sam said proudly.
It was a small one-room apartment of sorts. There was a bed, a table, a make-shift kitchen equipped with a stove, sink, refrigerator, one counter and a few cupboards. A door at the other end she assumed to be the bathroom. It was sad to see this little place, so cramped and small, surrounded by a once-great exterior.
"It's nice," she said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
"Thuh-thanks.” He smiled. “Duh-do you want something to druh-drink?”
“Soda?” She looked at the strange configuration of things hanging over his bed. As she drew closer, she realized they were masks. He had ten of them, all different, hanging over his bed.
“They were muh-my father’s.” Sam handed her a Coke. She took it, looking at each mask in turn, wondering what they were made of. “Nuh-Native Uh-American masks.”
“Interesting,” Dusty commented.
“Suh-sit.” Sam offered her a chair at the kitchen table. “It's ruh-ready."
Dusty sat down, looking around her. It was a pretty big room, but there was no window. It seemed dreary—lonely. She looked at Sam, busying himself with dinner and humming. He seemed happy, content, but how could he be, living alone with no family or friends?
"Have you always stayed in this room?" Dusty asked as he set the food on the table. It smelled delicious.
"Yes." He served her spaghetti and then served himself. "My fuh-father lived in the buh-basement, and this was muh-my place. Better than duh-down thuh-there."
Dusty tried to imagine this scenario. "What was your father like?"
Sam looked at his plate for a moment, using his fork to wind strands of spaghetti around and around on his plate. His hands shook because of his palsy, making it difficult to keep on the fork.
"I nuh-never huh-had friends,” Sam started. “Huh-he was my onluh-ly real friend. I tuh-take care of huh-him."
"You must miss him," Dusty said, taking a bite of a meatball. "I miss my brother, too."
Sam, his head down, eyes glued to his plate, said softly, "Uh-I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," Dusty told him, but Sam just shook his head.
“Uh-Are you still having buh-bad druh-dreams?” Sam watched her as she took a drink of Coke.
“You know, that’s weird.” Dusty reached into her blouse and pulled out the talisman. “Since you give me this, I really haven’t! I’m wondering if it really is magic.”
He smiled, chewing, his eyes following the motion of her hand as she tucked the necklace back into her blouse. “It is.”
She paused, her fork in mid-air. “Magic?”
“Yes.” He nodded, swallowing and opening his can of Coke. “Don’t you buh-believe in magic?”
Smiling, she shook her head. “The only magic I’ve ever seen is on TV. You know, David Blaine and his deck of cards, David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear. That sort of thing.”
Sam laughed. “That’s not magic. Those are truh-tricks.”
“What’s the difference?” Dusty noticed how his eyes followed her movements when she picked up her napkin.
“Magic is ruh-real,” Sam insisted. “It’s about faith, a duh-deep belief in something outside yourself. Yuh-you have it. I know, because the druh-dream-eater works for you.”
Dusty smiled. “That could just be a coincidence.”
Sam shook his head, his eyes on hers. “Muh-my mother had it, too,” he told her. “Duh-deep faith in magic.”
“But I don’t,” she said, taking a bite of spaghetti. “I don’t have any faith.”
He just smiled at her from behind his soda can.
“Do you have a picture of your mother?” Dusty asked, glancing around the room.
Sam got up from his chair, moving in his slow, jerky way. He opened his night table drawer and pulled out a small book, coming back and setting it next to Dusty.
It had a black cover with the word “Mother” in red on the front. She gave Sam a little smile when she picked it up, beginning to flip through the pages. There was a woman smiling at the camera, the beach at her back. There were pictures of her dancing, cooking, laughing, kissing the cheek of an old, gray-haired man.
“She’s beautiful,” Dusty murmured, turning the page. She had forgotten all about her dinner, engrossed in the album.
The next page was the woman and a very fair-skinned man, his head nearly shaved but obviously blonde. It was a wedding photo—her white dress, his uniform. There was another one, where the old gray-haired man was glaring at the couple, obviously not pleased.
“Your grandfather?” Dusty pointed to the old man. Sam nodded, drinking his Coke.
She gasped when she turned the page. This was the house, beautiful, opulent, like a shiny new penny. And here was Sam’s mother, gardening, cooking. These photos were different somehow—she was still smiling, but the light had gone from her eyes.
“What happened to the house?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Haters,” Sam replied, watching her flip the pages. “Muh-my father called them ‘haters.’ They didn’t luh-like my muh-mother or muh-me. Thought she was a witch and I was a…a retard.”
“They ruined the house?” she asked with a frown.
“Truh-tried to burn it down twuh-twice.” He nodded. “Muh-my father went to the auth-auth-authorities many times. Nuh-nothing was ever done.”
“She was pregnant with you here?” Dusty asked, showing him a photo of the woman in what must have been their backyard, standing near a red rose bush. Sam nodded again.
“Oh, and this is you… Sam, this is you!” she exclaimed with a smile, looking at the little baby bundled in the woman’s arms. There was another one, with the father, Roy, his face blank. He looked older than in the wedding photo…of course, he was.
“Yuh-yes,” Sam agreed. She turned the page and found it blank. There were no more.
“She died then?” Dusty frowned, putting the album back on the table. “Lee told me. He said it was an embolism.”
Sam smiled, but it was a grim thing. “No. She died of a bruh-broken huh-heart.”
“Oh, Sam.” She sighed, picking up her fork again.
“Uh-I was bruh-broken,” he told her, looking down at his plate. “Muh-my father didn’t want a bruh-broken son.”
“Don’t say that.” Dusty reached out and put her hand over his. He looked down at it and then at her. “You are not broken.”
“Huh-he was angry.” Sam turned his hand over in hers, taking it, squeezing. “Huh-he didn’t want me thuh-this way.”
“No,” she breathed, feeling his pain.
“Nuh-no one has ever really wuh-wanted me.” His eyes were on their hands, twined together.
“I do.” Dusty squeezed his hand. He lifted his face to hers, hopeful. “I mean…I want to be your friend.”
“Yuh-you do?” He looked so disbelieving it made her heart hurt.
“I am your friend, Sam.”
"Yuh-you're muh-my friend?" he asked hesitantly.
She squeezed her fingers over his. "Yes," she assured him.
"Thank you," he said softly, raising her hand and rubbing it against his cheek.
She was a little frightened by the intense look in his eyes.
* * * *
“Sorry, but I have to pick up the rest of the beer." Shane pulled the Mustang up in front of his house and shut the engine off. He pocketed the keys and looked over at her. "You can stay in the car if you want. I won't be long."
Dusty looked at the house in the fading sunlight. The small one-story drooped. Two shutters hung askew, leaving bare wood showing. The white paint was faded gray and the corner of one window had been replaced with a piece of cardboard.
"No," she replied, opening the car door. "I'll go with you."
He put his arm across her shoulders as they approached the house.
"My dad's home," he warned, opening the front door and leading her inside.
Dusty inspected the small living room with its dingy green carpet and turquoise colored walls. A man snored loudly in a reclining chair while Cops radiated from a television set equipped with a set of coat hanger antennae. The man, wearing boxer shorts, had a beer resting on one arm of the chair and a cigarette dangling precariously between the first two fingers of his left hand.
"My dad." Shane steered her toward the kitchen, connected to the living room by an archway. Dusty glanced over her shoulder at Shane's father, trying to see the resemblance. He had a pot belly hanging over the top of his shorts, and his dirty blonde hair did indeed look very dirty. He had a fuzzy beard growing.
"He's a permanent fixture there." Shane took two six-packs out of the fridge. He pulled one off the plastic holder and popped the tab. "I just kind of ignore him."
"Does he work?" Dusty shook her head when Shane offered her some of his beer.
"Off and on. Mostly off. I bring in money for this place working at Vikings," he said, referring to the auto parts store over in West Lake. "But he doesn't do much of anything except seasonal work and collecting unemployment."
Shane took another drink of beer. Dusty looked back into the living room. He was a big bear of a man.
"Hey." Shane tugged on the sleeve of her jacket. "Come here." Dusty went reluctantly and he wrapp
ed one arm around her waist. He kissed her lightly and rested his cheek against the side of her throat. "Don't worry about me."
"I don't worry," Dusty replied lightly, breaking the mood by picking up one of the six-packs. "Come on, they're all going to get to the path and there won't be any beer."
"They'll bring their own," Shane told her, grabbing the other six-pack and following her out the door. "Everyone drinks everyone else's anyway."
"That's not fair." Dusty got into the car and put the beer on the floor.
"It's okay." Shane put the key into the ignition. "Everyone's too drunk to care by end of the night." He pumped the gas pedal twice before starting the car.
"And, hey…" He put the car in reverse and backed it quickly and easily out of the driveway. "Who said life was fair, right?"
* * * *
The path never failed to amaze Dusty, although she’d been there dozens of times. It was so isolated, so completely theirs. The circular area had been leveled years ago, no one could remember why anymore, leaving only one natural pathway in and out.
"We're here!" Shane called out his open window in the direction of their group. They always parked on the west side.
Billy and Chris had their cars parked in an unfinished semi-circle around an already burning bonfire. Shane completed it by pulling up next to Chris.
"Party time." Shane leaned over toward Dusty, his face inches from hers. "You ready?”
"I'm ready if you are," she replied and kissed him.
"Okay, you two love birds, break it up!" Billy called through the driver's side window, Meg on his arm.
Shane moved away from Dusty and picked up one of the six-packs from the floor. Dusty picked up the other one and got out of the car.
"Here." Shane tossed the keys over the hood of the Mustang. "Flip on the radio." Dusty missed the keys, but Jake, standing behind her, caught them with one hand.
"Gotta be quick." Jake said with a smile, looking at Dusty with one eye. The other was covered by the long strand of hair that always hung over his forehead. "Here, I'll trade you."
She handed him the beer and he gave her the keys. Dusty crawled back into the car and put the key into the ignition, flipping on the radio. WCSC, the only rock station Larkspur picked up, was the only station allowed on Shane's radio. Creedence sang about a bad moon rising and she left it.