“I just wanted to see what would make a tire go flat the fastest.” Billy Dale’s lip trembled.
“Well? Did you answer this crucial, burning question?”
“Wood screw,” Billy Dale said miserably.
“Ten penny nails don’t do hardly nothing,” Jimmy Wayne piped up from his lofty position. “Thelma Carson drove around with on for almost a full week before hers went flat.”
Luke had to bite the inside of his check hard to keep from laughing out loud. He didn’t dare look at Dusty.
“How do you know all this?”
“We checked with Uncle Johnny to see who was bringing in flats to be fixed.”
“And how many people have you done this to?”
Billy Dale looked at Jimmy Wayne, and a silent question passed between them. Then Billy Dale reached under the bed and pulled out a spiral notebook. He counted silently, then lifted his head and said, “Twelve. But we ain’t heard from Betty Wells yet. She’s got that kind of tire that seals itself, though, I think.”
Nate took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, his hands on his thighs. “Why in the world would you do this kind of experiment?”
“Because I was bored. Mama said to get out of the house and quit watching so much television.”
“Billy Dale, you caused those folks a lot of inconvenience. They had to stop by the side of the highway and change a flat in the heat. What if one of them was on the way to something important, and you made them late? What if some old man got out there and had a heart attack in the heat?”
“That one guy almost did,” Jimmy Wayne said. “He was jumping around and cussing like you ain’t never heard.”
“Which guy?” Nate asked.
“The one that shot Mr. Tanner.”
Luke’s blood went cold. Had Derek Broeker been near these boys? “What did he look like?”
Jimmy Wayne wrinkled his nose. “You know what he looks like, you arrested him. He had dark hair and that funny little beard thing, and his pants were all wrinkled like he found ‘em on the bottom of the closet floor.”
Luke breathed again. That wasn’t Broeker, that was just Kenny.
“You should have seen him when he saw you coming.” Jimmy Wayne scooted to the edge of the bed, his eyes wide. “He screamed like a girl. And he ran like a girl, too.”
Luke frowned. Kenny hadn’t run. He’d been nervous and fidgety and about to trip over his own feet, but he hadn’t run, not until the night he escaped from jail. Had the boys seen him after that?
“When did he run?”
“Right when he saw you coming over the hill. When he screamed.”
Luke shook his head. “He didn’t run. He was there when I pulled up.”
“He did too.” Jimmy Wayne’s lower lip stuck out and he slid off the bed and took the notebook from Billy Dale. “See, it says right here.” His grubby finger found a line in the notebook, written in pencil in crooked block letters. “See, it says, ‘subject saw the Deputy come over the hill, then he screamed like a girl, then he ran like a girl up to Henry and stuck something in his vest, then he ran like a girl back to his car, then he stood there acting like he had to pee real bad.’” Jimmy Wayne cast a quick look at Dusty. “I had forgot about that last part,” he said quietly.
“Henry?” Luke was starting to get a headache. “Oh, the tree stump.”
“Yeah, he ran over to him and then ran back to the car. He tripped on the way back and Billy Dale started laughing at him. I thought he was gonna hear us.”
Luke looked at the ceiling. “Was he hiding something in the tree stump?”
“Oh yeah.” Billy Dale’s head bobbed. “He hid something in his vest.”
“What?”
The boy shrugged. “Nothing worth messing with. Just a flash drive that don’t work. It won’t open in the laptop or in the computer in the den.”
“Where is it?” Nate asked before Luke had a chance to.
“Is it in the den?” Billy Dale looked at Jimmy Wayne. Jimmy Wayne nodded.
The group sat staring at each other until Nate threw up his hands. “Well? Go get it!”
The boys bumped into each other in their scramble to get out the door. Nate groaned and rubbed his forehead. “You want a couple of kids?”
Nate took the drive when Billy Dale brought it back, and handed it to Luke. Luke studied it, but couldn’t tell anything except it was, in fact, a drive that plugged into a USB port on a computer.
“Okay, tell me how it went again,” Luke said.
“Are you gonna haul us in?” Jimmy Wayne asked. He thrust his chin out, but after a second his lower lip started to tremble again.
Luke rubbed his chin as if in thought. “Well, it’s regarded as normal operating procedure to offer a lesser sentence if a suspect is willing to cooperate with an investigation. And if the suspect does truly regret his actions and can prove he is willing to cease his criminal behavior.”
“Huh?” both boys said.
“If you answer all his questions, and promise not to put any more nails in the road, he’ll probably just call it even,” Dusty said.
“Oh. Okay.”
Luke had the boys talk him through it again. When they were through, he said, “And no one else was with him?”
The boys shook their heads.
“Have you seen anyone else down there you don’t know, any other strange men?”
“By Henry? Yeah, there was another guy. And old guy, about y’all’s age,” Jimmy Wayne said. “He was looking at Henry, too. He cussed, too. He had black hair and it looks like Grampa’s, all slicked back. We didn’t give him a flat, though. He just stopped to look at Henry, I guess.”
“That sounds like Wayne. He was looking at Henry? Did he go up to him, or just look?”
“Oh, he went up to him. He was tearing up his vest that Mama made. I told him to get his hands off.”
“You talked to him?” all three adults said at once.
“He was tearing up Henry’s suit! You know how mad Mama gets when people mess with Henry’s clothes.”
Nate groaned. “This just keeps getting better. Okay, Billy Dale, what did you say to him?”
“I just told him to get his hands off Henry. I knew he was looking for that thing, and I was gonna give it to him. Except he called me an ignorant hillbilly. So I decided to keep it.”
“Did you tell him you had it?”
Billy Dale grinned and shook his head. “He asked me if I had seen it, and I told him I was too ignorant to know. Then I ran off.”
“Good God, Billy Dale,” Nate said softly. “You don’t even know what kind of guy you’re messing with. This isn’t funny.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. He started to come after me, but then Mr. Tanner came over the hill to see his girlfriend, and he got in his car and drove off.”
Luke’s blood went cold again, and he settled his hip on the edge of the desk. He hated to think what might have happened to the boys if he hadn’t come along when he did.
Luke and Nate looked at each other. “You think he’ll be back for it?” Nate asked.
Luke studied the disk, cursing silently that he couldn’t give the man some reassurance. “I can’t say. The FBI guy said they probably made several copies. But if he came specifically for that one…”
Nate was silent for a long moment, studying the floor between his feet. “Julie’s been wanting to go see her sister in Ruidoso. Maybe this would be a good time for a visit. Be cooler up in the mountains.”
“That’d be a good idea, Nate.” He asked the boys a few more questions, but was satisfied they’d told him all they knew. “You boys willing to cut your experiment short?”
“Yes sir,” they said firmly.
“I still can’t even believe you did that in the first place,” Nate said. “Folks had to pay good money to get those tires fixed.”
“It’s just a little bit of money. And Uncle Johnny said fixing flats was the only thing keeping him in business, so we figured if we could
help him out a little…” Jimmy Wayne turned round, innocent eyes to his dad.
Luke and Dusty stood, and Luke clapped Nate on the shoulder. “Why don’t you give me the number in Ruidoso where I can reach you, just to check up on you.”
“Sure thing,” Nate said.
As he and Dusty left, they heard Nate say, “I don’t care what your mama says, you boys need to stay in the house and watch more TV.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Our prayers are being answered, friends,” Brother Mark said as he walked slowly between the aisles at Friday night’s Jubilee. “Right this very minute, they’re being answered. The street carnival has been a bigger success than we even hoped. The emergency fund has grown, and we’re going to be able to help out a lot of Aloma County citizens this fall and winter. And…” His voice dropped to a stage whisper. “I don’t know if you’ve all noticed the you-know-whats building in the west. I’m afraid to even call them by name, afraid I might scare them off.”
The crowd laughed and many of the choir turned to look, as Dusty did, to the tall gray clouds billowing in the western sky.
“Now, nobody do anything to scare them off. Don’t make any sudden moves or loud noises. And ladies, I want you all to go home, turn on your vacuum cleaners, and point them toward the west.”
The crowd laughed again, and Brother Mark motioned for them to stand for the closing prayer. “We’re going to pray for those clouds to bless this area with some rain. We have faith that He will bless us with what we need. In fact, our faith is so strong, we’re planning one more Jubilee for tomorrow night. I know, tonight was supposed to be the closing ceremony. But I talked it over with Luke Tanner, and we feel that a special celebration service is in order. Like I said, we have faith that our prayers will be answered. And,” he said as he held up a finger, “I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I ought to tell you I do have a little bit of inside information.”
The crowd laughed again, and Brother Mark said, “No, no, not from Him, although we have been praying as hard as we can pray, and God answers prayer. But the inside information I was talking about is this: Mr. Simmons told me before the service this afternoon that his knee has been acting up. And we all know that Mr. Simmons’s left knee is a more accurate weather predictor than Super Doppler can ever hope to be.”
This drew another laugh from the crowd, and as the choir rose to stand with the rest of the crowd, and everyone bowed their heads, Dusty spied a glance at Luke.
His head was bowed, his eyes tightly closed, and his lips moved in silent prayer.
She didn’t mean to stare, but she found herself fascinated by the sight of him in active prayer, and oddly isolated by the knowledge that he had faith in something she didn’t believe existed.
He opened one eye, caught her looking and grinned, his lips still moving.
She looked away, embarrassed.
As the crowd and choir drifted away after the closing prayer, Luke followed her to her pickup. “We have a while before we have to be at Tumbleweeds. How about I go through the drive-through at the Dairy Queen and pick up some jumbo orders of steak fingers and meet you out at your trailer for dinner?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Heavy, greasy fried food before a show?”
“Sure.”
“Make sure they give you extra gravy. And bring me a vanilla Coke.”
He grinned and nodded. “You bet.” He opened her door so she could slide her guitar inside, then gave her a quick peck before he headed for his own pickup.
Dusty sat for a minute with her door open, watching the crowd mill around the square. Women spoke in high tones, men laughed with each other, and children ran around the grass, chasing each other and squealing. With the impending rain and the successful street carnival, spirits were high. It was easy to get caught up in all the excitement.
That was why, she told herself as she turned the key in the ignition, she felt so happy. She was caught up in all the excitement. It had nothing to do with the man who looked at her like he could just stand there and keep looking as long as she’d let him.
Her phone beeped as she pulled into Trailertopia.
Everything set for Shreveport, the text from Alfie said. Double check the itinerary and maps and let me know if you have any questions.
“You sure know how to throw ice-water on a good mood,” she said softly as she read the note again.
Shreveport in five days. One day for travel, two days to rehearse with the house band. Which meant day after tomorrow, she had to hit the road.
The depth with which she did not want to go should not have surprised her. She had known she was losing her distance in Aloma, getting too close to the townspeople. She’d let her guard down and getting involved, not just with Luke, but with practically the entire county. A voice in her head had warned her, and she’d ignored it.
She stared at her phone and leaned against the counter, thinking about ‘the girls.’ Louise and her recorder, manipulating her into leading the choir. Becca and her pregnancy. Corinne, running around her house with curlers sticking out all over her head, completely frazzled. Helen’s hand on Dusty’s shoulder as they posed for the choir picture.
She wouldn’t be around to find out if Becca was able to carry this baby full term. She wouldn’t see Cade grow, or witness how Corinne and Toby were able to keep up with him.
She wouldn’t see Luke, ever again.
She heard an engine outside and looked out to see Luke slide from the seat of his pickup. He still carried most of his weight on his left leg and probably would for a while.
She wouldn’t be around to find out how long.
She opened the door and watched him hobble up, his hands full.
Maybe this time, a little voice in her head said.
This wasn’t the same voice that had warned her to keep her distance. This voice was young. Hopeful. Maybe this time.
Maybe this time it would work out. Maybe this time it would be okay.
Her heart pounded at the enormity of the idea that whispered in her heart.
She folded her arms across her chest to hold it in, to contain it until she had the space and peace to pull it out and examine it more closely. Still, as Luke smiled at her and held out a white foam cup with a straw, the voice spoke again, a little louder this time. Maybe it would be different this time. Maybe…
“You don’t have to glare at me like that. I didn’t forget your vanilla Coke.”
Thunder rumbled in the west, an undertone voice that lived at the far edge of the world. Luke looked over his shoulder in the direction of the clouds, then said, “Let’s eat out here so we can keep an eye on those clouds.”
She sat on a folding chair and he sat in the open doorway of her trailer, his left foot on the bottom step and his right leg straightened before him.
Dusty opened her box and shook her head. “My, my. A heart attack in a box.” She picked up a steak finger and dipped it in gravy, then took a big bite. “Delicious.”
They ate in silence as the sky darkened and the air cooled. Dusty pushed thoughts of permanence, dependence and family from her mind and focused on the more relatively mundane.
“Looks like your Rain Fest is actually working.”
“Of course it’s working. Mother Nature wouldn’t dare reject me. You should see the town. People are lined up along Main Street staring at the sky. I heard Dub at the Grocerette offered a $100 reward for the first cup of rainwater brought in.”
His eyes twinkled and he smiled as he spoke.
“It’s almost as if this one rain will solve the whole world’s problems.”
“You’d think that, the way everyone is acting,” Luke said as he dipped a French fry in ketchup. “It’s not like a few inches of rain are going to do much. Buy everyone some time, until the next time we need it.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking for the past two weeks. One rain isn’t going to make a good crop.”
“Right. We’ll still need more later. And then we�
�ll need it to stop for a while, because too much is just as bad as too little. Believe it or not, we’ve actually had that problem before, too. And then we’ll have to have clear skies during harvest and ginning season.”
“So…” She didn’t want to say ‘what’s the point?’ exactly. But she did say, “So, why get so worked up over one rain?”
He chewed while he thought. “Well…” he said slowly. “This rain isn’t going to guarantee a good crop. But without it, we are guaranteed we won’t have a crop at all.”
Dusty ran her finger around the inside of her gravy container. “Man, I’m glad I’m not a farmer.”
“Me, too. But I’m even gladder there are people out there who are. I’ve gotten kinda fond of eating. Come here.” He put his plate down and patted the step at his feet. “I want to watch the storm while I hold the woman who’s so stormy herself.”
Dusty rolled her eyes, but she felt oddly flattered, and lowered herself to the seat between his legs. She wrapped her arms around his calves as the wind freshened and cooled, feeling the thick bandage around his thigh through his jeans.
He kissed her temple and leaned over the completely envelope her. She felt his warm breath on her cheek and the cool wind ruffle her hair, and again the voice spoke.
Maybe this time.
Maybe this time it would be okay.
Maybe this time she wouldn’t get hurt.
He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “No one has any guarantees, you know. We all have an ax over our heads.”
“That’s a nice image.”
“It’s the truth. No matter what lengths you go to, to protect yourself, you can’t be sure things are going to work out your way.”
The ease with which he seemed to read her mind unsettled her. It was as if he knew the questions she wrestled with. He kept her off balance, constantly confronting her barriers, as if they were no more than glued panels of Popsicle sticks, rather than the bricks and mortar she’d imagined them to be.
“I guess that’s why there’s crop insurance,” she said lightly.
“I’m not talking about the farmers, Dusty.”
“I know that. I’m pretending to be obtuse because I don’t want this conversation to go where you’re heading.”
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