by Chloe Garner
There was a quiet knock on the door and he got up to let Samantha in. She smiled at him in an awkward is-everything-the-same-as-it-was-last-night way, and he stood to the side to let her in.
“You want coffee?” he asked.
“Sure.”
She looked at the one made bed.
“He didn’t come home at all?”
“Usually doesn’t.”
She nodded. He put a cup on the table for her and resumed his seat.
They sat and they drank coffee.
A few times, he felt like he should have started a conversation with her, but he couldn’t think of anything to say, and he didn’t really feel like talking. She watched him with a quiet absentness that made it comfortable rather than awkward, and eventually he went back to staring at the curtains.
He refilled his cup when it emptied, holding up the pot toward her. She nodded and he walked across the room to fill her offered cup, then put the pot back on the stand and sat back down.
They sat and drank coffee.
“Should I make more?” he asked when he hit the bottom of his cup again.
“It’s up to you,” she said. “I’d drink more.” She laughed. “It’s awful, though.”
He grinned.
“It is.”
He put the cup aside and slouched down in his seat, realizing after a moment how inappropriately close his knee had gotten to hers, but she hadn’t seemed to notice. He moved his foot back, but didn’t sit back up any.
“You weren’t in a hurry this morning, were you?” Samantha asked. He laughed without looking over at her.
“He’ll be surprised we caught something this quickly.”
“What would you normally do?” she asked.
“Wander. Go stay with friends. Drink lots, stay up late, sleep in late.” He paused. “Sometimes we go to games.” He grinned. “Once we drove to Key West and went home with some of the local girls from a bar… I slept on their couch and went out swimming and sailing and drank with street performers.” He laughed again. “I don’t think I saw Jason all week.”
She nodded.
“The things you must have seen,” she said. He agreed, checking his coffee cup again.
“Yeah.” He nodded, then got up to make more coffee. “Yeah.”
Halfway through the second pot, Jason unlocked the door. Sam looked up.
“Coffee?” he asked, motioning with his cup. Jason shook his head.
“I had breakfast with Trina.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Now, let’s get you to New York.”
Samantha looked up at him placidly, and he looked at Sam, eyebrows up.
“We’ve got a thing out west. Hikers disappearing. Yellowstone.”
“Crap,” Jason said. “Anything else to go on?”
“He’s looking. There’s just so much water there.”
Jason nodded.
“You sure we can’t swing by New York on the way?”
“No, this looks like an eighteen year cycle. We’ve only got about a week left.”
Jason sighed.
“And after I had such a good morning.”
“Oh, come on. You don’t hate me that much,” Samantha said. He squinted at her.
“That has nothing to do with it.”
She shrugged and stood.
“I’ll go get my stuff.”
Sam motioned an acknowledgment with his cup and went to go clean out the bathroom.
<><><>
“So why is water important?” Samantha asked in the car. Sam turned to put his back against his door, draping an arm down the back of his seat.
“Don’t really know. It’s like, human souls don’t rest well when they drown. Half the variations of spirits we have on record exist around water. A lot of them are opportunistic.”
“That sounds like a euphemism.”
“Means they kill anything that goes by,” Jason said. “Lot of them never show up again. We have lodging tonight?”
“I figured we could head for Arthur’s. Once we get there, we’re camping.”
Samantha stretched to look over the back seat.
“You’ve got tents back there?”
“Means we’re sleeping in the car,” Jason said. She nodded.
“Ah.”
There were a few minutes of silence as Jason pulled onto the interstate, then Sam heard Samantha sigh. He looked back at her. She pulled her hair down and shook it out.
“All right, Abby. I guess it’s time.”
“What?” he asked.
“Has she got a cell phone back there?” Jason asked. Sam shook his head. Jason straightened to look at Samantha in the rearview.
“These are my new friends,” Samantha said. “That’s Jason and that’s Sam.” She laughed. “Yeah, he can’t stand that we have the same name.” She paused and bobbed her head back and forth. “Of course not. No one gets to call me Samantha.”
“Seriously?” Jason said, straining again to look at Samantha as he straightened the car out from passing a semi. Sam shook his head. Samantha laughed.
“Yeah, I know, I missed you, too. You know.”
“Sam, who are you talking to?” Sam asked. Samantha sighed and narrowed her mouth for a second, thinking.
“My best friend,” she said. “Abby.”
“Who’s Abby?”
She raised her eyebrows at him like she had already answered that.
“Is she… here?”
Samantha laughed, glancing at the seat next to her.
“She is now. I know, babe. I’m sorry. I just… I’m doing something now. It wasn’t time, before.”
Jason glanced at Sam. Sam pulled his mouth sideways and shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said. Jason shook his head.
“Flashes of sane, then another tidal wave of crazy.”
In the back seat, Samantha laughed again.
“You’re going to like these guys, Abby. Real live cowboys.”
<><><>
Samantha spent the entire morning talking to Abby in the back seat, laughing and gossiping. By lunch time, Jason was feeling dangerously unstable.
“Make it stop, Sam,” he said. “Is she praying?”
“Sam… Is Abby… God?” Sam asked. Samantha frowned at him.
“We’re both offended. Abby is human. Oh, will you check on the pastor at the church… Memphis. Um… Timothy Langer. I wiped out a couple of fire demons who were stalking his son, but I’m not sure they were on the right track when I left. Needed more help.” She paused. “Stupid Grizzlies. They make me angry. Yeah, yeah, obviously. Anyway, I think that’s it.” She paused longer. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. I’ll talk to you soon.”
There was quiet.
“Is it over?” Jason asked.
“Is she gone?” Sam asked. Samantha pulled her laptop out of her backpack and shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe.”
She started tapping on the computer and Sam and Jason looked at each other.
“You want lunch?” Jason asked.
“I guess.”
<><><>
They called ahead to let Arthur know that they had a guest traveling with them. Sam endured the lecture from their one-time mentor with as much patience as he could muster.
“I know, Arthur.”
“I understand.”
“We know that, Arthur.”
“No, we aren’t.”
“I know.”
Jason glanced at him and grinned malevolently. Sam rolled his eyes, trying to ignore him.
“I know, Arthur.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, we know.”
“Yeah, tell Doris we can’t wait to see her, too.”
He hung up.
“At least I can stop reminding you now what a bad idea this is,” Jason said. Sam laughed.
“Oh, yeah, he covered all the bases.”
Jason got out to pump gas and Sam left to go get snacks from the gas station. When he go
t back, Samantha was crawling under the passenger seat.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she shimmied back up and over the front seat to pull a cord out from under his seat. She produced a cigarette lighter conversion to a plug and plugged in the cable.
“Need more juice,” she commented. She pulled the cord snug from the back seat again so that it lay flat against the console, then nodded to herself and resumed typing on her computer. Jason got back in.
“Are you going to be in trouble?” she asked. Jason shook his head as he started the engine back up.
“We’re grown ups, now. We do what we want.”
<><><>
“What the hell were you boys thinking, taking in a stray like that? She looks like she’d knock over in a stiff breeze,” Arthur said as he opened the door to Jason’s knock.
“Would you like some tea, dear?” presumably-Doris said from behind him, peaking around at Samantha. She winked. “I suspect the boys are going to be a few minutes.”
“Lovely,” Samantha said, carefully maneuvering around Arthur. She turned to look back at Sam and Jason in the doorway, rolling her lips in to contain a smile, then followed Doris into the kitchen.
There was emphatic speech behind them as Doris pulled a kettle off the stove and waved in the direction of the front door.
“Don’t take him too seriously. Rangers and their rules.”
“Rangers?” Samantha asked, giving Doris a chance to keep secrets than she didn’t intend to tell. Doris laughed.
“Exactly. Have a seat, dear.”
The woman was in her mid-fifties, perhaps, and vibrant. Samantha sat at the kitchen table and took a moment to take in the decor.
“Your home is lovely,” Samantha said.
“Ought to be. Taking care of it and Rangers that pass through is my only job these days.”
The floor was an antique-yellow tile and the walls were country-yellow, with American-rustic themed items hung on the walls - a butterfly house by the back door, an American flag painted on driftwood above a doorway. It felt safe, like nothing actually bad could exist in a world where a kitchen could look like that. Samantha smiled and happily accepted the steaming cup of tea Doris offered her. In another room, Arthur continued to boom.
“So which one of them are you actually traveling with?” Doris asked. Samantha blushed, despite herself.
“We’ve only just met a couple days ago,” Samantha said. Doris’ eyes teased that that wasn’t an answer. “They’re just looking for the first opportunity to get rid of me.”
Doris snorted.
“Sure, of course they are. And then they call you because they have some time off, and would you like to go to a shooting range with them, and then they’re spending weekends at your house and your daddy wants to know what their intentions are.”
Samantha laughed.
“I won’t have that problem, not that I ever would. I’m an orphan, as of a few years back.”
Doris put her tea cup back down onto the saucer on the table in front of her.
“I’m sorry, dear.”
Samantha shrugged.
“I’ve found peace with it,” she said. Doris tipped her head back and opened her mouth to speak, holding her mouth for a moment.
“Have they told you…?” she asked. Samantha shrugged and nodded, sipping her tea.
“Sam mentioned it. They don’t know about me, though.”
Doris nodded, picking up her tea cup again and crossing her legs.
“Still at the mysterious stage, then.” She nodded. “Good. You keep that up as long as you can. You can’t ever get it back.” She winked. Samantha laughed. “What’s your name, dear?” Doris asked.
“Samantha,” Samantha told her. “But I only ever go by Sam.”
Doris laughed and Samantha grinned.
“Jason wants to call me Sammy, but I told him he’d eat my knife if he did it.”
Doris tipped her head knowingly and grinned.
“You tell him he can call his brother Samuel if he doesn’t like it. See what he thinks of that.”
Doris considered her.
“You’ve got an air to you. And a knife in your boot.”
Samantha took a breath and nodded.
“Yeah, I do.”
Doris shook her head.
“Are you going to bring trouble down on those boys?” she asked.
“Not if I can help it,” Samantha said. Doris frowned.
“They can handle themselves, and nearly any trouble you bring along, besides, but they’ve got a job to do. It’s about the only Ranger rule I abide by. If you’re getting in the way of them doing what they’re set on this Earth to do, you need to reevaluate what it is you’re doing.”
Samantha nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Doris smiled and patted Samantha’s knee.
“That’s all I need to hear. Would you like some more tea?”
Arthur, Sam, and Jason made their way into the kitchen at that point, Arthur slapping Sam on the back and laughing. The man sat in Doris’ empty chair and leaned back, regarding Samantha. The room grew quiet as the other three stood, watching.
“They told me about the Night Hag,” Arthur said. Samantha nodded, waiting.
“Said you never blinked.”
She nodded again, putting her tea cup down and sliding the saucer away from the edge of the table, then folding her fingers over her knee. Arthur leaned forward until his eyes were level with hers. She could smell his aftershave and the musky scent of a man who had spent the day working outdoors.
“You’ve seen some things,” he said evenly.
“I have.”
“How many weapons are you carrying right now? In order of accessibility?”
She ducked her head a little and blinked, then straightened and regained his eye. She reached down slowly and pulled the stiletto out of her boot and laid it on the table, then pulled the hunting knife with the serrated back edge from her hip and laid it alongside. She stood and slid the iron baton from its clasps on the outside of her thigh and laid it beside the other two. She took off the long-sleeved button up she wore over her tee shirt and pulled the gold-plated steel version of brass knuckles out of the elastic band on her arm and set those next to the iron rod. She pulled up the side of her shirt and slid vials out of the slots in the harness there and set them on the table one by one.
“Holy water.”
“Anointing oil.”
“Ash from doves’ wingfeathers.”
“Powdered night-blooming salvia.”
She sat again. She heard Jason choke.
“That’s all I’d like to show you, if that’s okay.”
He nudged her backpack with his toe and she pulled it up closer to her chair.
“And in there?”
She pressed her lips together.
“More.”
He nodded.
“You aren’t going to tell me what you are, are you?”
“If you’d like me to prove I’m human, I’m happy to. Beyond that, no.”
“Are you running?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Not from anything by my own past. No one is looking for me.”
“How did you find the boys?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Either coincidence or divine appointment, depending on how you take that kind of thing,” she said. “I wasn’t looking.”
“Is dinner ready, Doris?” he asked.
“Just waiting for the plates,” Doris said.
“Put it all away,” Arthur said, touching the table and nodding at Samantha. “The backpack stays by the front door.”
She glanced down at it, up at him, then back down. The room waited. She sighed and nodded.
“Okay.”
She stood and lifted the backpack, but he touched her wrist.
“We have boys around here to do that. Ladies sit and are served.”
He motioned to Sam.
“Put this with my stu
ff.” He pointed at Jason. “You set the table.”
Jason groaned, but went to a cabinet. Sam looked at Samantha for a long moment before she handed him the handle on the backpack and slowly sat again.
“Welcome, visitor,” Arthur said, resting his hand on Samantha’s shoulder. “For tonight, you are a member of this house.”
For a moment, as she watched Jason set the table, it stung how much that meant to her.
<><><>
“All I’m saying is Arthur and Doris liked her,” Sam said.
“That’s what you took out of all of that?” Jason asked.
“What? They did.”
“It doesn’t make her one of us,” Jason said.
“I didn’t say it does.”
“We still take her home.”
“Sure.”
“So it’s settled.”
“I’m just saying it wouldn’t be that bad.”
“If what?”
“If we stayed busy and she stayed with us for a while.”
“But we’re taking her home.”
“As soon as we get a chance.”
“Don’t root against this, Sam,” Jason said.
“What does it matter?” Sam asked.
“I don’t want you hoping she sticks around.”
“What, I’m not allowed to enjoy having someone around who isn’t going to ditch me the first time a set of pretty legs goes by?”
“You don’t know that.”
Sam snorted.
“And I don’t always ditch you.”
“Fine, you don’t. But…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need to get laid.”
“That isn’t what this is about,” Sam said, looking out the window.
“What is it about, then?”
“Having her around wouldn’t be that bad. Just for a little while.”
“You guys do remember I’m back here,” Samantha said.
“Keep it to yourself, Crazy Parade,” Jason said.
Samantha laughed through her nose, rubbed her forehead, then smiled and shook her head at Sam’s apologetic glance before she returned to her computer.