by Sophie Weeks
“Hey.” And Jon stood up then. “Why don't you go to bed?”
“Because I won't sleep until I know the girls are all right, and Christopher said to disinfect the whole kitchen.”
“I'll help you. You go up and talk to the girls, and I'll start boiling water.”
But Margaret thought of something. “I'm going to tell Gene to throw out the hay in the barn. We can't take a chance with the horses.”
Jon frowned, but finally he nodded. “All right. But if your grandmother asks, you did so without my knowledge.” He winked at her.
She gave him a playful salute and headed for the barn. There, it was quiet and cold, the horses dozing in their blankets. She found Gene sitting outside Pokesalad's stall. “How is she?”
“Oh, she'll be fine. I just keep an eye on her so she doesn't get restless and hurt herself.” Gene looked her up and down. “Have a good night?”
Margaret plopped down on the bench beside him. “Not so much.” She explained what had happened. “I need you to get this hay out of here. We can't take a chance.”
“What do I feed 'em in the meantime?”
“Um. Oats. We bought the oats. Hopefully we can get some more feed in here tomorrow.” Margaret closed her eyes for a minute.
“You look tired.” His voice was very quiet.
“I am. And I still have to check on the girls. And sterilize the kitchen.”
“You need help?”
“Dad's helping, and you've got more than enough to do,” Margaret replied. Then, disliking the abruptness of that, she added, “But thanks.” She stood up, groaning. “Better go change. And I barely even got to show off my pretty dress,” she mourned.
Then he grinned up at her. “Well, what're you waiting for?” At her mystified look, he made a “turn around” gesture.
Margaret blushed at that, and she pulled off her coat slowly. “See? I made it a long time ago, but I redid it for tonight.” Feeling very shy, she turned around, letting him see the lines of it.
Gene gave her a long slow smile when she faced him again. “Pretty.”
But Margaret bit her lip. “Thanks. See you in the morning,” and she pulled her coat back on hastily and hurried into the house. What the hell was she thinking, flirting with a hand, and at a time like this? She was no better than Emilie and her obscene texts. Well. Maybe a little better. She could hear the soft throbbing of pop music from Em's room as she climbed the stairs, and she knocked softly on the girl's door.
“Come in, I guess,” Emilie droned.
Margaret rolled her eyes and opened the door. “Hey, Em. How're you doing?”
“I did my homework already,” the girl snapped.
“Okay,” and Margaret sat down on the foot of the bed, summoning all her patience. “I didn't ask about your homework. I just want to know if you're okay.”
“Sure,” Emilie shrugged. “Why wouldn't I be?”
Margaret thought for a moment, then decided to tell her the truth. “A couple of people got sick—sick like the cows. I just want to make sure everyone's okay.”
“We're all fine. Sam and Bonne-maman are already asleep. Are they going to die?”
“I don't think so—Dr. Barton didn't seem worried enough for that.”
“Who was it?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Snyder.”
“Tina and Jerry's mom and dad?” Emilie looked concerned, and Margaret saw that as a good sign, that she had some stirrings of compassion. Sometimes, when Emilie was being very much a teenager, it was hard to remember she was a person.
“Yeah. The kids are okay, though, we think.”
“Please let me text Tina?” Emilie begged immediately.
Margaret paused to think. Emilie had been doing better, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to know how the Snyder children were doing. “Go downstairs. Help Dad sterilize the kitchen. If you do a good job, I'll give you your phone back in the morning, on condition that you stop taking photos. Seriously, Em, it's just dumb, and legally, it's child pornography. In a few years, you might wish you hadn't done that.”
“I already wish I hadn't done that,” Emilie muttered, but she was already heading out the door and down to the kitchen.
Margaret opened Sam's door quietly after that, but since Sam seemed peacefully asleep, she didn't really think it was necessary to wake her. The Snyders had been very sick; it didn't seem like a very subtle disease. She performed a similar silent check on her grandmother, standing for a long time in the doorway and noticing how old Louise's face looked as she slept. With wakeful animation gone, her grandmother looked like an old woman, and it made Margaret's heart pang. She understood now what Jon had seen when Louise had her heart attack, and why it had frightened him so.
Margaret meant to go to bed after that, but she was restless and overtired. She changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and headed downstairs. In the kitchen, she saw what amounted to a minor miracle: Jon and Emilie working together, talking rodeo, and having a good time. “I'm going out to check Whisper,” she announced.
“Okay, honey. Don't stay up too late.”
“Sure, I'll just be a minute.” She would just visit Whisper, give him a few oats, then maybe take a long bath, she thought. And if her thoughts rested at all on dark-haired cowboys with slow grins, she refused to acknowledge it. She couldn't go around entertaining thoughts like that. All other reasons aside, and there were plenty, her father would kill her.
But Gene was there, hosing out a trough. “Why are you doing that at this hour?” Margaret asked. She shivered—it was freezing.
“You know how much hay is always floating in that trough,” Gene reminded her.
“Right. I suppose I didn't think about cleaning up carefully here. That's smart. I'm going to check on Whisper.”
“I already looked under their tails,” he said, “but I guess he'd probably like a visit anyhow.”
Inside the barn, Margaret shivered again, and she flipped on the oil heater, reminding herself to make sure it was turned off before she went to bed. Fire was always a danger, but they were careful, keeping the heaters on cinderblocks and never leaving them unattended. She slipped inside Whisper's stall. “Hey, boy. Were you waiting up for me, hmm?” she asked, smiling as Whisper nuzzled at her pockets. “No carrots today,” but she found a sugar cube in her pocket for him. Then she inspected the animal carefully, lifting his tail, peering at the fresh droppings in the stall, and finally breathing a sigh of relief. “I guess you're okay, boy. How come?” she whispered.
“Doesn't your boyfriend have any ideas?” Gene was leaning against the stall door, watching her.
“He's not my boyfriend,” Margaret snorted. “I hadn't even seen him in a couple of years. And no, he doesn't know why the horses are okay, or if he does, he didn't tell me.”
“That elder at the harvest dancing said—”
“Oh, Joseph? He caught me and Christopher kissing fifteen years ago and still hasn't let go of it. Everyone thinks it's funny.” She shivered again. “I should go to bed, but I know I won't sleep.”
“Still worried about the girls?”
“No, everything's all right in the house, I just … can you keep a secret?” Margaret spoke quickly, as if trying to get the words out before she could think better of them.
“I don't talk so much that secrets fall out of my mouth.”
That was probably true. “I ate an apple this morning, and I think it was all right, but …”
He was silent for a long moment, processing that. Then he said, “Do you want to come sit up with me in the bunkhouse? It's warmer than the barn.”
“Oh … you must be tired, though,” Margaret demurred. But she wanted to come; she didn't have anyone else her own age to talk to, and family, however dear, wasn't the same as a friend.
But he shook his head. “Come on,” he said, and led her towards the bunkhouse, where she hadn't been for years, not since she'd been a little girl who saw the whole ranch as her playground. It was more comfortable than she remem
bered—probably Rob had put in some improvements in the years he'd lived there.
She pulled a straight chair close to the hot stove. “Do you stay warm enough out here?”
“Sure. It's real snug, most nights. Other nights, you pile on a couple extra blankets. You want a drink?” Gene opened a cupboard, showing her a couple of bottles of brown liquor.
“Not unless you've got some ice in there.”
“Sorry. Plenty of ice outside, though.” He poured two fingers of liquor into a glass and pulled up a chair beside her. “So you didn't tell your family? About the apple?”
Margaret shook her head. “I didn't want to worry them. Dad especially would go through the roof.” She looked idly around the room, noticing the machine parts strewn on the table and the books on the nightstand. “What are you reading?”
“I read science books mostly. Well, as scientific as I can understand, anyway.”
“What kind of science?”
“Physics. Space. I like to think about how the universe works.”
“Mmmm. I barely passed my science requirements. I took botany.” There was quiet for a moment then. The wind was picking up outside, and Margaret leaned closer to the stove.
“It's like when you look up on a clear night, and you can see the galaxies stretching out, as far as you can imagine and farther,” he said, sounding a little dreamy.
“How do you know it's farther than I can imagine?”
“Because no one can imagine it, not really. Infinity—if you think about it too long, you get a little sick.” He finished his drink.
“But what is is finite. The infinite is only negative—space, time, emptiness.” At that, Margaret's stomach gurgled, reminding her that it too was very empty. She laughed. “I guess that's my cue. I should make a sandwich and go to bed.”
But she didn't stand up, and when he said, “No, don't go,” she was easy to persuade. The wind was loud outside, and it was snug there in the bunkhouse. Gene went outside and fetched some snow, making her a kind of rye whiskey snowcone.
He handed it to her, along with a chocolate bar. “There you go.” Then he chuckled. “Guess this isn't what you thought your dinnertime ambiance would be like tonight.”
“Not exactly.” She bit into the chocolate and looked up at him. “No complaints, though.”
Gene sat down again, leaning forward until their knees touched. Margaret felt a hot, sharp jolt at that touch, even through two layers of denim, and she became very absorbed with playing with the melting lump of snow in her drink. “Don't you want to go to bed?”
“Not alone,” he replied honestly. “But that's up to you.”
Margaret didn't say anything then, but she pressed her knee a little closer against his, giving him the tacit permission she knew he wanted. She knew this was a bad idea. Indeed, this was probably the dumbest thing she'd done since a very confusing couple of months when she first “discovered” sex in college. Margaret had paid the price for self-knowledge; now, she wondered what she would pay for this. She turned her hand over, palm up and cupped, as if he were a new horse she was trying to make friends with.
Gene responded to the sweet gesture, covering her hand with his big, hard one. He leaned forward, eyes open, his mouth seeking hers. It took Margaret aback, a little, that watchful face coming towards hers, when she wanted so badly to be blind to everything. She shut her eyes and let herself lean into the kiss, her mouth gently open.
He was a pretty good kisser. She'd known a few better, a few who could bring her to squirming moans with just sweet kisses, but he certainly knew what he was doing. His other hand came up to cup the back of her head, and it made her sigh softly into his mouth with a kind of restful content. It had been a year since she and Alan had parted, and she'd wondered if she was outgrowing the questing desire that had driven her for so long. Now she knew she hadn't, and there was a spice of joy in that, in the way her body sparked against his, like the old engines he spent his days bringing to life.
“Protection,” Margaret gasped, halfway on the lip-locked stumble towards his narrow bunk.
“Yeah,” he groaned. “Yeah.” There was a box of condoms under the bed, and Margaret wondered how much action it had seen. It should have nonplussed her, but she didn't care then, just wanted this, wanted something to make her brain stop its incessant circles of worry and duty and a duty to worry. Here on his bed there were no cousins, no father, no grandmother. She could revel in the slide of his hands over her flesh and admire her own soft shoulders as she let her bra straps slide down.
“Do you like that?” he said, and Margaret said yes, and a little while later she didn't say yes, but just pressed her face against his broad shoulder so he could feel her little nod. Then her brain turned off and her body took over, and they lay together.
Afterward, Margaret didn't mean to fall asleep. Whatever this was, it wasn't something she was going to have a conversation with her father about. But it was warm there in his bed, with the stove still crackling merrily, and Margaret was tired. She drifted into a happy, light sleep, pleasantly conscious of his body, her own relaxed muscles, and a general sensation of well-being.
But she didn't sleep for more than a few hours; his bed wasn't made for two, so elbows and knees were bound to dig in. She awoke, arching her back with an unhappy groan to try and get his elbow out of her stomach. “I have to go,” she muttered drowsily, propping herself up with her arm.
“Huh?” Gene blinked slowly, coming awake.
“I have to go,” she repeated, climbing over him. She looked at the clock—it was nearly four o’clock, and the house would be waking soon. “I fell asleep.”
“Mmm.” He gave a long stretch and smiled up at her.
“My dad will be up in an hour,” Margaret fretted, pulling on her jeans.
“Oh … oh, yeah. I don't guess he'd take too kindly to—”
“To us sleeping together? Definitely not. He nearly broke my ex-boyfriend's fingers when he visited. Plus, in case you didn't notice, he's a little stressed right now.” Margaret wrapped up tightly, her body already protesting being out of the nice warm bed. But when she opened the door, she was still more dismayed. The moonlight reflected brightly off at least six inches of virgin snow, stretched evenly between the bunkhouse and the ranch house. “I'm dead,” she said. Her tracks would be plainly visible, her nocturnal activities plain for all to see.
“Wha—why?” Tugging on his jeans, Gene came to look. “Well, you're wearing boots …” Then he trailed off as her meaning sank in. He frowned and rubbed his chin, then put on the rest of his clothes. When he was dressed, he said, “Come here.”
“What for? I'm not in the mood for lingering kisses.”
He shook his head and smiled, then bent down and tugged her over his shoulder. “One set of tracks,” he said, as Margaret tried to adjust to her sudden change in position, draped over his shoulder. “I got hungry and came in to the house for a snack early.” Then he set out, wading through the snow with Margaret trying helplessly to smother her giggles at his unusual solution.
He didn't put her down until he was inside the back door, and there, in the kitchen, she hugged him tightly, her bad mood quite evaporated. “Thank you.” He was warm and solid against her, and she leaned against his chest for just a moment, then stretched up to give him a soft kiss.
He kissed back, then moved towards the coffee pot, rinsing it out and beginning the first pot of the day. “I should go to upstairs,” Margaret said, but when he turned, holding out a coffee cup questioningly, she couldn't think of a single reason not to begin her day then and there.
CHAPTER NINE
THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED proved Christopher's dire predictions right. The county was shut down, and no one went in or out; though a few of the more independent types tried to get out, trusting to their four-wheel drives rather than the roads, most of those had to be rescued when their vehicles foundered in the snow.
For Margaret, that time was like a strange dream. Outwa
rdly, she was calm and focused, performing all her duties and looking after her family. Inwardly, though, she was all at sea, strange and ill acquainted with the self she was becoming. Every quiet moment she was in the barn, making out with Gene and sometimes going further, right there where anybody could catch them.
But no one ever did. Jon spent long unhappy hours in the office trying to make red numbers turn black, and Louise spent most of her time in prayer now. Her cousins were as self-absorbed as young people generally are, and sometimes it seemed to Margaret that only Gene saw her, only Gene was awake and alive and there.
Hilltown, usually a sleepy burg whose big news was a local feed shipment running late, had suddenly become a hive of activity and speculation. People who normally didn't come to town more than a few times a year, began spending hours at the coffee shop trading the latest rumors about symptoms and evacuations. No one else had gotten sick, though Dr. Barton had more than a few busy days soothing the more hysterically inclined of his patients.
Christopher came to the back door in the middle of one morning, and when Margaret opened it, surprised to see him, he held up his hand. “I just want a cup of coffee with no questions. Every time I walk into the coffee shop, I'm surrounded by ranchers who want answers. I don't have any answers, and I want some damn coffee.”
His words, coupled with his stressed demeanor, made Margaret simply nod and let him into the kitchen. “The girls are at school, and Dad's out at Miss Halford's, getting her list for the next supply drop.” The supply drops were done daily, to prevent panic and hoarding, and the local church organized deliveries to the housebound.
“Perfect,” Christopher said and took a cup down from the hook and poured himself a cup of coffee. He took a long drink. “I really, really miss Carla's coffee. Sometimes I think about marrying her just so I could have a cup of her coffee every morning for the rest of my life.”
“What does Carla think about all this?”
He gave her a look. “No questions, remember?”
“Right. Sorry.” Margaret sat down across the table from him. “You look like hell.”