by Sharon Sala
“I’m sorry you aren’t gonna be our new ma,” the girl said. “I think you would have worked out just fine.”
Ally’s heart went out to the young girl. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “But you can’t pretend something you don’t feel. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. That’s what Mommy always said. She also said to marry someone a sight smarter than Pa.”
Ally bit her lip to keep from smiling as she handed the girl the sack of food.
Loretta Lynn Detweiller sighed, then eyed Wes, who was standing at the sink washing dishes.
“Hey, mister?”
Wes turned around.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said.
Wes smiled. “It was a pleasure to meet you, too,” he said, and realized he meant it.
At that point Freddie Joe came in, looking for his last child.
“Hurry it up, girl. The boys are already in the car.”
“Miss Monroe was just giving us some leftovers, Pa.”
“Thank you,” Freddie Joe said, then glanced at Wes one last time. “I’m real sorry for your loss.”
Wes was touched by the simple fact that he realized the man meant it.
“Thank you, and I’m sorry for yours.”
Freddie Joe felt shame all over again. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by what I said about your boy.”
“I know,” Wes said, and then added, “Would you do me a favor?”
Freddie Joe shrugged. “Like what?”
“Don’t ever take your kids for granted.”
Embarrassed that he felt real emotion, Freddie Joe nodded quickly. “Yeah. Yeah. See you around.”
And then he was gone.
Ally took the dishcloth out of Wes’s hand and pushed him toward the living room.
“Go sit with the men before they completely blow a fuse.”
Wes grinned. “Is my helping you that bad?”
She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. I can promise you that you’re the first man they’ve ever seen who lifted a hand to help a woman in the kitchen.”
“Then it was high time they did,” Wes muttered.
Suddenly bashful, Ally ducked her head as she smiled.
“Thank you, though. More than you will ever know.”
“I didn’t do anything but eat your good food and laugh at the jokes.”
“You did, and you know it,” Ally said. “You’re a special man, Wes Holden, and I wish you weren’t so sad.”
Wes sighed. “So do I, Ally, so do I. But thanks to you, I’m getting better every day. However, I think I’m going to leave before I outstay my welcome.”
“Never,” Ally said. “But I’ll say goodbye to you here.”
She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss, then moved away before he could react.
“Don’t stay away too long.”
Wes touched her head, then ran his fingers down the length of her braid.
“Take care of yourself,” he said, and the moment he said it, the mood shifted between them.
“You’re talking about Roland Storm, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Tell your father.”
She frowned. “I’ll think about it.”
Wes had to accept that, for now, he had done all he could.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he said.
“Soon, I hope.”
He nodded, then left the room.
Gideon looked up as Wes entered.
“Come sit down,” he said.
“Thank you, sir, but I think I’d better be getting back. I have to get up pretty early.”
“How do you get to work?” Porter asked.
“I walk.”
Danny whistled softly between his teeth. “Dang, man, that’s a long walk.”
“It’s not too bad,” Wes said, then added, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you…all of you.”
Gideon stood and shook Wes’s hand. “Same to you, son,” he said.
Porter got up. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“There’s no need,” Wes said. “It isn’t far.”
“No. I insist,” Porter said.
Wes suspected there was more than a ride in the offer, but he didn’t resist.
“Sure, why not?” he said, and followed Porter to his truck.
Porter didn’t speak until they were out of the driveway and starting up the road.
“How did you come to be here?” he asked.
“What do you mean? West Virginia, or here in this place?”
“In this place…in my uncle Dooley’s house…being friendly to my sister.”
Wes sighed. This was no less than he would have done, had he been in Porter’s place.
“In a manner of speaking, I guess I just ran away from home.”
It was the last thing Porter expected, and because it sounded so honest, he relaxed his guard.
“You mean, because of what happened to your family?”
Wes shrugged. “That was part of it, but I was already pretty messed up before that. Basically, it was the last straw of what was left of my sanity.”
Porter frowned. “Listen, mister. I’m the first one to say you’ve had a hell of a deal handed to you, but I don’t want my sister to get hurt.”
“Your sister was kind to me when I needed it most. I would never hurt her…in any way.”
“She’s falling for you. I can see it on her face.”
“I have feelings for her, too,” Wes said. “But they’re all mixed up with my grief. Bottom line is, I feel guilty for caring.”
Porter frowned. “Nothing personal, but work it out—or get out.”
Wes nodded. “Fair enough.”
At that point, Porter pulled up in front of the little house.
“Heck of a house, isn’t it?”
“My son would have loved it,” Wes said, and got out. “Thanks for the ride.”
Porter nodded, then put the truck in reverse, backed up and drove away.
Nightfall was just minutes away. Sunset had already come and gone, and the fireflies were out, flitting about from bush to tree doing whatever it was fireflies did. Too keyed up for sleep, Wes went into the house, got a can of pop from the refrigerator and went out the back door.
There was an old metal bench underneath a stand of hickory trees at the edge of the backyard. Wes brushed off the leaves, tossed aside a downed bird’s nest that had blown out of the trees and eased himself down. He popped the top on the can and took his first drink. It was cold and sweet going down, with tiny shards of ice that melted instantly on his tongue. Margie always wanted her pop to be icy. She would have loved this one a lot. Wes stared at the can for a moment, then up at the darkening sky.
God. He’d just had a thought of his wife that hadn’t made him want to scream. Oh, the pain was there, but not as heart-wrenching—not as hideously final—as it had been in the past.
He sat for a few minutes more, drinking from the swiftly warming can while the emptiness of his life shifted to a new place in his heart. He wasn’t sure, but there was the possibility that he was learning how to remember the love without feeling the loss.
Finally, with one swallow left in the can and the sky awash in pink and purple hues, Wes stood. Acknowledging his weary body and aching muscles as having done a day’s work, he lifted the can to the heavens, toasting the sunset, as well as the memory of his wife and his son.
“To you, my love, and to you, my little man,” he said softly, and took the last drink.
Then he crumpled the can and went inside.
Back at the Monroe house, Gideon alternated between talking about Pete Randall’s recovery and trying to pry information from his sons about their new job.
Danny and Porter were oddly noncommittal about their boss and what they were doing. All they would say was that it was the dirtiest job they’d ever had, and that Roland Storm was a half bubble off plumb.
Then Gideon made an out-of-char
acter comment that Storm looked like the cartoon version of Ichabod Crane. It was so unexpected that they all had to laugh. To Ally’s relief, it lightened the mood and things shifted back to normal.
Later, as she was putting the last of the clean plates into the cabinet, Porter came inside carrying the freshly laundered clothes he and Danny had worn that day.
“I didn’t know that dryer cycle had finished or I would have gotten those for you,” Ally said.
Porter stopped. The nervous tic was back at the corner of his eye, as was the muscle jumping in his jaw.
“No. No. You don’t touch what we wear to work.” He started to walk away, then stopped again and looked her in the eye. “Ever.”
Panic spread quickly, but she couldn’t let him walk away without a better explanation.
“Damn it, Porter! You can’t just say something like that and expect it to be all right.”
“That’s just it, honey. I don’t know why, but I don’t think anything is ever going to be all right again.”
Ally pressed her fingers over her lips to keep from crying out. She wanted him to explain but was afraid she couldn’t bear the truth.
“Please…Porter…whatever it is, just walk away.”
He looked down at the clothes he was holding, then at his hands. They were shaking, and it was nothing to the shakes he had inside. He felt as if he was standing outside his body, watching himself coming apart. He didn’t know what was happening, but he damn sure knew why. Whatever was in those “herbs” Roland Storm was growing, it was inside him now. He’d walked the earth that had given it life, breathed the air in which it had grown, and been symbolically washed in its blood from the constant flow of sap that had come out of the ends of the cut stems. He didn’t know what it was, but he suspected it was deadly. The last thing he wanted was to go back up there again, but he’d already been exposed to whatever it was, and he and Danny had talked about it all the way home. They would finish harvesting the crop for Roland Storm. And when every last stalk was off the field and in the sheds, they were going to set fire to the whole thing and burn it to the ground. Then they were going to torch the fields and burn off the stubble. Whatever evil he’d created would be gone.
Saturday morning blew in with the wind. It whistled down the mountains and flew into Blue Creek without a by-your-leave, yanking freshly laundered clothes from the line and blowing trash cans about in the streets.
With the wind at Wes’s back, he made good time going down the mountain to work, but he was hoping it would die down before noon, which was when the store closed on Saturdays, or it would be tough walking uphill against it.
After that, he would have a whole day and a half to himself. The yard needed to be mowed and the house to be cleaned, but nothing else was pressing. The thought of all that solitude made him nervous, although he thought he was ready to face it.
Scooby the cat wrapped himself around Wes’s ankles as Wes slid a fifty-pound bag of sweet feed onto the dolly and wheeled it toward the loading dock where Melvin Peterson was waiting. The feed was for Melvin’s son—or rather, his son’s 4-H project, a little Hereford steer he called Doofus.
Wes had already seen pictures of both the son and the steer, which had done nothing but put him in a bad mood. Instead of accepting why he felt the need to lash out, he blamed his problems on the cat.
“Dang it, Scooby. You’ve already been fed. Go catch a mouse or something,” he said shortly, then shrugged at the smile Melvin Peterson gave him. “He’s a pest,” Wes added.
“Good mouser, though,” Melvin said.
Wes dumped the bag of sweet feed into the truck bed and then handed Melvin his paid ticket.
“Have a nice day,” Wes said shortly.
Melvin eyed Wes thoughtfully, then nodded.
“Heard you saved them two men in the wreck the other day.”
“I didn’t save them,” Wes said shortly. “I just put out a fire.”
“Same thing,” Melvin said, then settled his cap a little tighter on his head and drove away.
Wes picked up an empty bucket, but instead of hanging it on the wall, he drew back and flung it as far across the warehouse as it would go, just missing the side of Harold’s head as he walked into the storeroom.
Had it been anyone else but Wes, Harold would have fired him on the spot. But he could tell by the look on Wes’s face that he was already sorrier than a man had a right to be.
“I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” Wes said.
“Was it something Melvin said?” Harold asked.
Wes shuddered visibly, then combed his fingers through his hair in mute frustration, but he didn’t answer.
Harold frowned. “It’s almost noon. Why don’t you go on and clock yourself out, and get an early start on the weekend? I’ll close up back here.”
Wes didn’t move. Instead, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. His shoulders hunched as if he was bracing for a blow; then he dropped his head.
For a while, neither man spoke, then it was Wes who broke the silence. He looked up, and Harold found himself staring into Wes Holden’s eyes, unable to look away.
“Melvin showed me a picture of his kid and his steer,” Wes said.
Harold grinned.
“Yeah, he’s pretty proud of that boy. Only one him and Gretchen could have, but he does tend to run on a bit about the kid.”
“I had a son,” Wes said.
Harold heard the past tense and couldn’t bring himself to ask more.
Wes turned away.
Harold could see him swallowing back tears. He felt like crying along with him.
Then Wes added. “The only thing he wanted in life was to be old enough to grow whiskers so he could shave. He didn’t make it.”
Harold cleared his throat, then yanked out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
“I’m real sorry, Wes.”
Wes nodded. His footsteps were slow as he crossed the wooden floor, then moved into the front of the store. The bell jingled as the door swung shut, leaving Harold alone in the quiet. He stood there for a minute, then did something he hadn’t done in years.
He closed the store early.
The way he figured, if someone’s chickens had to go without scratch until Monday, then it was that someone’s fault. Life was too short. He was going to go fishing.
Fifteen
Ally waved goodbye to her father as he left for work, watched her brothers walk out of the house as if they were going to a funeral, then sat down in the living room and cried. She was afraid—as afraid as she’d ever been. They’d been at this almost all weekend. She was even more afraid for them now than before. She needed to talk to someone, but there was no one she could trust. She didn’t want to go to Granny Devon, mostly because she was afraid of what she might say, and she could no more betray her brothers by talking to her father than she could trust her father to understand.
But the longer she sat, the more convinced she became that she had to see for herself what was going on with Roland Storm. Convinced that she’d made a positive decision, she changed into a T-shirt and jeans, then traded her sandals for a pair of walking shoes. She could take Porter’s ATV partway up the mountain, but she would have to park it at least a mile from Storm’s house and walk the rest of the way so as not to be heard.
With purpose in every step, she hurried to the barn and threw the tarp off the ATV.
Ally was nervous as she started up the road. What she was going to do was as intrusive a thing as she’d ever done. She wasn’t the kind of woman who butted into other people’s business, nor was she a woman who ever passed gossip along. Yet here she was, going to snoop on her brothers and their employer. She hadn’t even thought of what she would do if she found something wrong. All of her focus was on just getting there.
Roland was sitting in a corner of the third drying shed, staring at what the Monroe brothers had brought in today. Sap was oozing out of the ends of the stalks, spilling into puddles below the t
ables. Ants were everywhere, crawling on the stalks and drowning themselves in the puddles. The brothers had told him about the dead animals they kept finding in the field, and Roland knew that unless he did something soon, this devastation was only the beginning.
Last night, after he’d finally gone to bed, he’d had the satisfaction of realizing what he’d done wrong, but it gave him no peace of mind. During the years of his research, he’d only used the leaves, drying them the same way marijuana was cured. Each time he’d started a new phase of his research, he’d simply gone to the field and pulled leaves from the stalks. Not once had he cut the entire stalk and carried it into the lab. If he had, he wouldn’t be facing this runaway disaster. Then again, if he had, he would probably already be dead.
Yesterday he’d learned that the stranger in the old house was an ex-soldier named Wes Holden. But that didn’t explain his interest in Roland’s business, and he was too bothered by his crop’s mutation to delve further. After the Monroe brothers had gone home, he’d taken some of the stalks into the lab, then gone out to the barn and brought in the last of the lab rats he had on site. There was no time to run the proper tests, but if what he suspected was true, then time would be the least of his problems. He’d started by doing a quick-dry process on the leaves, then running his old set of tests on the first pair of rats. The rats had reacted as he expected—first highly agitated, then lethargic to the point of being rendered unconscious before starting the cycle all over again, so he knew that the property of the leaves was still the same.
Then he took another pair of rats and put them in the cage with oozing chunks of the stalks. The inside of the cage was soon coated with the stuff. The rats gnawed on the stalks, their behavior quickly changing to something approaching drunkenness. They staggered into each other, then into the walls of the cage as if they didn’t know they were there, all the while snarling and snapping at each other.
But it was the third set of rats that proved his biggest fear was no longer a fear, but a fact. He taped their mouths shut so that they could neither lick nor eat any part of the stalks, then dipped them in the sap, rubbing it firmly into their skin. When they were thoroughly coated, he took the tape from their mouths and set them loose in a third cage. Within an hour, they had begun to gnaw on their own feet and on each other. Blood began to ooze from their eyes and ears, but it was their constant, high-pitched squeals of pain Roland couldn’t forget.