by Mark Justice
“Ma, have you had anything to eat today?”
“I had that soup you fixed me.”
“That was last night.”
“And it was good.” She smiled to let him know she was playing with him. She sat up, sighing with the effort. “Hand it over, Tex. And get me a fork.”
Jubal hurried into the kitchen to fetch silverware and napkins.
“Want some water, Ma? Or juice?” he hollered.
“Just coffee. I made some this morning.”
He poured her a cup, added a little cream, then returned to the living room. His mother had opened the Styrofoam box and was staring warily at the contents.
“I guess it’s Wednesday, huh?”
“Eat some of it. Please.” He handed her the fork and napkins. He set the coffee on the end table.
She ate a forkful, chewing slowly. She looked ten years older than she normally did and it broke his heart. His mother was always so active, so vital, volunteering at the church’s day care, and at the Red Cross. Now he could see the deep lines etched into that kind face, and she looked as though she’d lost 20 pounds in the past week. He could not remember her having an illness more serious than a slight cold.
He sat on the couch next to her. She had been watching a disc of one of his father’s favorite shows: an old Western called Gunsmoke. Dad had loved it as a child and had tried many times to get his wife interested in it. It wasn’t until after his death that she watched it, and now hardly a day passed without a viewing.
They sat silently, his mother chewing as they both watched Miss Kitty pine for Marshall Dillon.
Finally, Jubal said, “Ma, I’m calling Doc Mitchell.”
She swallowed, then set the Styrofoam box on the coffee table. She picked up the coffee from the end table and took a drink. “No, you won’t. This is just a little bug. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“Ma, it’s all over town, like some kind of epidemic. I’m calling Doc.”
She waved the suggestion away. “Just sit a bit and tell me what’s going on.”
Jubal shrugged. “Same old stuff. The diner was only half full, ’cause of the virus.”
“Is Damon still sick?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m going over there next.”
She patted his arm. “And how is Fiona? She’s not sick, too, I hope.”
“No, she’s fine.”
“Well when you stop by that drug store, you tell my future daughter-in-law that I need something to kill this bug, okay?”
“Sure, Ma.” Speaking of his fiancée made him feel a little better. And maybe Fiona would have a suggestion that might ease his mother’s symptoms.
“And what about this thing up in the desert? Anything new?”
Jubal shrugged again, just as he had always done when talking with his mother. He was aware of it, but helpless to do anything about it. “Nothing but gossip.”
“They say it’s terrorists, though nobody’s taking any credit for it. That right there is enough to make me suspicious.”
Jubal rolled his eyes. Here we go.
“I was just a girl when they hit us the first time.”
“I know, Ma.”
“And I never forgot the sight of those people jumping from that burning tower, knowing they were going to die, just wanting another second or two of life. I never forgot it.”
Jubal patted her hand. “I know.”
He expected her to be at least a little teary-eyed, as she usually was when she told the story. Yet when she turned to face him, he could see anger there. “That’s why it’s sacrilege to lie about a terrorist attack. It’s bullshit, Jubal. The army or the CIA has screwed the pooch again and the bastards are covering it up.” She pointed at the remainder of her lunch. She had eaten maybe a fourth of it. “Now put that away and let me nap. Then go see about that fat old sheriff.”
Jubal put the rest of her lunch in the refrigerator before he went to his room and shut the door. He called Doc Mitchell’s office and left word with Rosario, Doc’s long-time secretary, that Jubal would appreciate it if Doc could drop by the house to check on his mother.
There were advantages to living in a small town.
Jubal opened a drawer and withdrew a small notebook. He flipped through several pages before he found the name he was looking for.
Luke Dressen had been one of Jubal’s best friends at NMSU. Luke had kidded Jubal constantly about his plan to return to Serenity to work. As far as Luke was concerned, big cities were where the excitement was, and he planned to join the FBI in one of their major field offices. Jubal would never forget Luke’s aw-shucks grin on graduation day when his friend had said he had accepted a job with the Pahrump Police Department back in his hometown.
Jubal punched in Luke Dressen’s number. They hadn’t spoken for nine months or so, but still kept in touch via email. In fact, Jubal had received a packet of Luke’s patented so-bad-they’ll-make-you-groan jokes three weeks ago.
Instead of a ring, Jubal heard a flat metallic voice informing him that all lines were unavailable until further notice. The announcement was followed by a fast busy signal.
He hung up and thought about what Pops had said at the diner. Were the roads into Nevada really blocked by military vehicles? Jubal had a suspicion that he might have to call a friend on the state cop force and ask a few questions.
But that would have to wait.
He returned to the living room and found his mother dozing, while on the screen Festus was trying to explain to Matt that he wasn’t sleeping; he was just resting his eyes. Jubal pulled the comforter up to his mother’s shoulders. He heard her murmuring, the words too faint to understand. She must have been dreaming, and for some reason he could not understand, this disturbed him.
He turned off the TV, locked the door and went to his cruiser.
Beethoven’s third symphony, the “Eroica,” played on the cruiser’s radio. As he pulled out of the driveway, Jubal began whistling along with the second movement—until he realized it was the funeral march portion of the symphony. He abruptly stopped whistling, but left the radio on anyway; you didn’t shut off Beethoven.
A sharp static burst interrupted the music for a moment, but then the signal cleared again.
Sheriff Damon Ortega lived clear across town from Jubal’s mother, which wasn’t actually that great a distance in a town the size of Serenity. But Jubal took Lone Peak Road instead of Main Street. Lone Peak was a dirt road which ran parallel to the town on its east side; Jubal admitted to himself that he was taking it so he wouldn’t have to drive through the middle of town again. He was avoiding the business district although he knew it was his job to patrol up and down the main thoroughfare, but all those near-empty sidewalks made him nervous. Besides, Lone Peak would take him out to Damon’s a lot quicker.
The conditioned air in the car felt good, and out here, amid the wide-open sun-drenched desert beyond the town’s edge, he could almost imagine that things were just fine.
Jubal turned up the radio and pressed down on the accelerator.
In a short while, the deputy pulled up in front of a silver-paneled house built into the side of a small hill. Parked in the dirt yard in front of the house was a shiny, black Dodge Beamrider truck: Damon’s pride and joy. Hell, the solar-powered vehicle, which Damon washed every day religiously, probably cost more than the solar-powered house the sheriff was so proud of.
Jubal turned off the radio with some reluctance; he did not want to face the silence. Usually he didn’t mind the quiet; in fact he cherished his quiet times. But today, he felt down and lonesome and he knew the silence would only intensify these feelings.
A mourning dove cooed its particular song as Jubal rang the doorbell.
No one answered, so he jammed his thumb against the button again.
The door swung open.
“Okay, okay,” said the large shadowy shape inside the door’s frame. “Don’t break the damn thing. C’mon in.”
Jubal removed his sungla
sses and entered the house.
“Man, it’s dark in here. You’d think a fancy all-solar house would be lit up like...the sun,” Jubal said.
“I need it dark in here. Me and the sun aren’t getting along too well just now; it aggravates my symptoms.” As if on cue, Damon barked a lung-rattling cough.
Jubal winced. “That sure doesn’t sound good, Damon.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
The old guy sounded weary and rundown.
“So, what did you bring me?” Damon said.
Jubal’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. He could now see the sheriff dressed in a red and white striped bathrobe. His unkempt graying hair was a nimbus around his square head and dark bags hung beneath his watery eyes.
“This is something Patty made for you, Damon. I think if you eat it, it will make you feel better.”
“If it’s Wednesday, it must be roast beef.”
“Damn, that’s pretty good, chief; Ma did the same thing. I can never remember what food they’re having on which day at Conchita’s.”
“Well, you should try to remember. How are you going to become sheriff someday if you can’t remember details?”
Jubal nodded sheepishly.
“Now let’s sit down in the living room before I fall over and you have to pick my fat ass up off the carpet.”
Damon dropped onto the wide sofa. The coffee table in front of him was covered with Kleenex boxes and used tissues.
Jubal set the carton on the table in front of Damon. “I’m going to get you a fork, chief.”
“Nah. Not right now; I can do that later. Sit. Sit.”
Jubal sank into the indicated leather chair; it was very comfortable. Damon sure had some nice things. Not bad for a small town sheriff. He must certainly know how to invest his money.
“Don’t tell me you came all this way just because I had the sniffles? You and the other boys have a town to patrol.”
The other “boys” called in sick too. But Jubal wasn’t ready to tell Damon that yet.
“I brought my ma some lunch, so I thought I’d swing by and drop some off for you too.”
“Thanks, son. How is your mother by the way?” Damon said.
“Same as you. Really down with some bug. Did the doc make it out here yet?”
Damon shook his head and whooped out a cough that made Jubal cringe. The older man grabbed a handful of tissues and rubbed them against his forehead.
“I don’t need a doctor; I’ve had worse than this,” Damon said. “God, is it hot in here?”
“Do you want me to turn up the air conditioner?”
Damon sat still and didn’t respond for a while, then: “I hope Rafe and Denny aren’t out delivering meals on wheels too. Crap, who’s watching the town?”
“Well...”
“C’mon. What is it?”
“Rafe and Denny called in sick this morning too.”
“What the—? Nora?” Nora was the dispatcher-slash-receptionist.
Jubal shook his head, staring down at his hands, where they wrung in his lap.
“First, my kids. Now this.”
Jubal’s head came up. “What’s wrong with your kids, chief?”
“Oh, nothing I know of, but I can’t call them for some reason. The satphones seem to be down, and my old cell phone doesn’t work worth shit.”
Jubal noted the despondent tone creeping into his boss’s voice. And like the fear he’d seen in Pops’s eyes earlier, it worried him. The sheriff, his greatest hero after his own father, should not sound like this. Jubal sat up straighter in his chair.
“Listen, chief. I have everything under control. I feel fit and so do Fiona and Patty down at Conchita’s. And I saw Pops Perez at lunch, and he looks strong as ever. There’s no beating that old guy, is there?”
Damon said nothing, his head hung low, and Jubal began to think he had fallen asleep. Then the sheriff coughed again.
“Jubal, I think I need to rest a little. If you see Doc Mitchell, be sure he takes care of everyone in town before he comes out here. You hear me?”
“Sure, but Serenity needs you on your feet...”
“Shit, boy. You know that little sweetheart of a town pretty much runs itself. Everything will be fine; don’t worry.”
“Sure it will, chief. I’ll take care of everything.”
Damon was silent again.
“Chief?”
The sheriff began snoring.
Jubal stood and watched the man for a moment. He had a lot of love for Damon. The man had been his father’s best friend and one of his most loyal deputies. When Sam Heironimous had robbed that bank in El Paso, he thought Serenity would be a nice, safe place to hide out. He hadn’t counted on a small town having real law enforcement. But Sheriff Danny Slate had been following the news and recognized Heironimous’s truck the instant it turned down the lake road. Jubal’s father had been heading down there with Damon to drown a few worms. When he spotted the truck, the sheriff had pulled his old .45 from the console and asked old Damon to call it in.
If Heironimous, that dumbass, recidivist lowlife, had just kept the scattergun inside the car, he would still be alive.
And so would Jubal’s dad.
Sometimes it was hard for Jubal to look at Damon without remembering the big man coming to the house to deliver the bad news. He’d always had a big, round baby face and that morning it was so contorted with grief that Jubal and his mother immediately knew what he was going to say.
In the ten years since, Damon Ortega had done everything he could to be there for Jubal and his mom. While Damon could never replace his father—at home or on the job—Jubal appreciated the effort and he knew most of Serenity did too.
Jubal quietly closed the door. It seemed he’d spent most of his day trying not to wake people.
He started the cruiser, cranked the AC and turned the radio down. He satphoned the NMSP District Three Post in Roswell, and he recognized the dispatcher who answered.
“Dooley? Jubal. How you doing?”
“It’s hotter than the ass end of a bitch in heat, son. Other than that, I’m tolerable. You?”
“I’m okay. ’Bout the only one in town, though.”
“Y’all got the bug, too, huh?”
“Yeah. Don’t tell me it’s spread to Roswell?”
“Hell, Jubal, half the post is out. They’re so desperate they’re talkin’ about givin’ me a gun.”
Jubal laughed. “Remind me to stay here.”
“I talked to Larry Jeffers at the Albuquerque post this morning. They got it bad up there.”
“I feel their pain,” Jubal said. “Everybody in the office is out today except me.”
“No shit?”
“Nope. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got to run some errands and we don’t have a dispatcher, so—”
“Sure, ol’ buddy. If I hear anything, I’ll ring you. Still got the same cell number?”
“Yep. I appreciate it, Dooley.”
On the other end of the line, Jubal heard a series of loud coughs.
“Dooley? You okay? They didn’t give you that gun already...”
“Funny,” Dooley said, then coughed again. “It’s my allergies or somethin’. Anyway, go take care of your, uh, errands.”
“Something you want to say?”
“Naw. I just heard y’all got real good service down there at your Rite-Aid.”
“Dooley?”
“Yeah?
“Bite my bag.”
Dooley laughed until he started to cough again. Jubal punched the END button on the satphone.
The Rite-Aid did have good service; they just weren’t very busy today.
Jubal walked past the greeting cards, magazines, laxatives and sinus medicines until he reached the pharmacy. A tall woman in a white lab coat and jeans was sprawled in one of the customer chairs in front of the counter, a paperback book in her hands. On the cover a shirtless man with long blonde hair and large arms was embracing a woman in an old fa
shioned low cut gown.
“Hey,” he said, “I heard that crap gives you an unrealistic expectation about romance.”
Without looking up from the book, the woman said, “I tried to find one about a short deputy who falls in love with the most beautiful pharmacist in the state, but they were all out.”
“I’m not short. You’re just freakishly tall.”
She stood up with the grace of a ballerina. A very tall ballerina. She was an inch taller than Jubal, so she didn’t really have to bend down to kiss him. She just liked the effect.
For a brief moment, all of Jubal’s worries vanished. She tasted like honey and peppermint and he felt the same way he always did when they touched: like nothing could ever harm them.
Jubal had known Fiona Huerta his whole life. She had been the next-door neighbor who had picked on him when they were kids. An unapologetic tomboy, Fiona could run faster, jump higher and throw farther than any boy in the neighborhood. After he stopped hating her, he was in love with her.
Fiona’s parents had been best friends with his folks. Her father had come from Torreon; her mother was a native of New England. From grade school on, Fiona enjoyed introducing herself as New Mexico’s only Mick Spic.
They were in high school before she showed any interest in him, but after she finally said yes to one of his constant date invitations, they had been inseparable.
When she left for UNM in Albuquerque, he didn’t sleep for a week, worried that she would find someone else.
He shouldn’t have worried. They stayed in touch by phone and email nearly every day. Every couple of weeks he would borrow his roommate’s car and drive up to Albuquerque or she would come to Las Cruces.
In their sophomore year, he had picked her up and driven her back to Serenity after her parents died in a house fire.
During spring break of their junior year, he proposed. She accepted on spring break of their senior year.
Fiona always had to do things her own way. That was okay. He was content to wait. There had never been anyone else for Jubal and there never would be. She was simply the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she was his other half.