by JD Salyers
Shaking her head, she grabbed the cordless phone from its cradle and took it to the fireplace, where she sat down between the dogs. Absent her husband, the dogs were good company. Leaning against Retro's side, she dialed the numbers and put the phone up to her ear.
There was silence on the other end while the call connected. This far out, it always took a moment or two.
But when nothing happened after a few more seconds, she pulled the phone away and looked at it. Yes, she had dialed the right number.
She clicked the phone off and then back on, then listened for a dial tone.
Nothing. The phone was out. She stared at it for a minute and tried again. Still nothing but silence.
Her world shrank. A lot. The dark outside got darker, the snow blew harder against the windows. Quinn took a deep breath and closed her eyes against the sinking feeling that threatened to take her down. Retro whined beside her, sensing her distress. She put a hand on his head, but barely felt the fur against her palm.
What the hell was she going to do now?
She should leave. Just...pack the dogs into the car and get out of here.
That, she knew, was the overreaction of the year.
First of all, the road leading in would be icy now that the sun was down. Second, that same road was treacherous, even in muddy weather. Carved into the side of a cliff, it was steep hillside to the left and a sharp, eighty-foot drop to her right. Third, she might be able to get out of here, and she would try if she had to, but she didn't like driving in the rain, much less the snow. If there was even a light dusting, she would either stay home or ask Ethan to drive her.
Now, of course, she saw the error in that. She should have been practicing - for the day that Ethan wasn't here. Today. She tossed the phone onto the sofa and stood up. Anger ripped through her. Where in the hell was he? Why wasn't he here to help her? Protect her? That was his job. He had promised.
He had promised.
Chapter Six
She swallowed sudden tears and put the phone back on the hook. Walked over to lock the doors, then paused. The dogs would need to go out again if she was going to keep them inside with her.
She opened the door and called to them, then walked out onto the porch, watching as they took off into the yard. They probably thought she wanted another walk.
She was still wearing her coat, but it didn't do much against the wind, so she shoved her hands into her pockets.
That was when she noticed the dogs. They were both on alert, standing stiff at the bottom of the stairs. She followed their line of vision, expecting to see Abel Welch again, but there was nothing there. Only the fields off to the right of the house. The gate that led to another part of the property. The cedars.
After a moment, she saw something move. Light-colored, low to the ground. Under the cedar trees. Burns growled and shifted his weight, but neither of the dogs moved from their spot.
She looked again, but the darkness kept her from making out what they saw. The light-colored thing moved. Well, jerked, actually. Whatever it was, it was quick. She started that way, but paused at the top step and went back into the house.
On the top shelf of the bookcase was Ethan's handgun. She didn't know what kind - she only knew that he kept it loaded. He'd shown her how to take the safety off and cock the gun. He said that was all she needed to know.
She held it tightly in her right hand and went back outside. If Abel was out there, she was prepared.
But this wasn't Abel, she was almost sure of it. She made her way slowly down the stairs and passed the dogs. They hadn't moved and they were still staring hard into the trees.
“Retro,” she said. “Come.”
She didn't tell Burns to stay, so he would come too. “With me.”
They moved to either side of her, which made her feel a million times better. She walked to the end of the porch and stopped there. “Hello?” she called for the second time this evening. “Anybody there?”
Nothing. No answer. No flash of a face looking her way. Just trees and shadows, moving.
It had to be an animal. Had to be. But what kind of animal? She'd never seen a deer move like this, and as far as she knew there weren't any stray dogs around.
But...coyotes.
She gripped the gun harder. It was cold and heavy in her hands.
Coyotes. They normally gave the farm a wide berth, because of the dogs and because Ethan spent so much time outside, around the house, but if they were hungry enough, desperate enough, they might come in close. Other folks on the mountain had confirmed it - lost cats, small mammal carcasses laying in the woods. It had been a long winter.
Burns growled again, and his pace had become more of a slinking. Odd, for him. Quinn wasn't sure what to make of it, but she kept walking.
About a hundred feet from the trees, she pulled the Mag Lite from her pocket and clicked it on. She caught a glimpse of ear, of tail. The coyotes finally noticed her and stopped what they were doing.
And what were they doing? She still couldn't see.
She started that way, but as she got closer, her steps slowed and eventually stopped. She didn't know why, beyond a bitter, nervous feeling in the pit of her gut. But that didn't make sense, because she'd only had this reaction once before...when she was ten.
It was her birthday that day, and her mother, in the middle of slathering pink icing on her birthday cake, had told her to go get her baby brother out of his crib. The party would be starting soon. Quinn was glad to do it - she loved little Tal, and didn't find him annoying at all even though her best friend Chrissy said she was supposed to. She planned on being the best big sister ever.
But halfway down the hall, her steps had faltered, just like now. Her belly had clenched tight, just like now. She remembered hoping that she wasn't getting a tummy ache, because then she wouldn't be able to enjoy her cake and ice cream. In fact, she decided that even if she was sick, she wouldn't tell her mother until after the party, when her friends were gone and the goodies were eaten.
Her mother found her there, standing in the hallway, somehow physically unable to go into her baby brother Tal's room.
There had been no birthday party that day. There had been no cake or ice cream or best friends. There had only been that long, low scream coming from her mother's throat, and then the ambulance ride, and then a funeral. Quinn refused to have a birthday party ever again, and thankfully Ethan understood. That was also the day she decided that all happy moments had a Catch.
Beside her, Burns barked, a sharp sound that ripped through her thoughts and made her jump. The coyotes looked up - three of them, that she could see - and Burns took off. They scattered away from the light and the impending teeth.
Burns,” she called. He paused, mid-step, but didn't take his eyes off the spot where the coyotes had been. Her gut wrenched tighter.
Tonight, there was nobody to go over there for her. There was no mother to find the Catch and take care of the details. There was only her, Quinn, alone in the dark with two dogs and a fear that she couldn't place.
The trees were far enough from the house that she didn't really notice them unless she meant to, and even then it was usually just a glance in that direction. Ethan was the one who loved them and named them and patted them like they were friends.
The wind caught a few strands of her hair and blew them into her face. She scraped them away, took a deep breath, and forced herself to take a step. It was a horrible feeling, just like before. Like she was about to step out of an airplane, or off a tall bridge. Every nerve ending in her body felt raw, every brain cell screamed for her to stop.
But she couldn't stop. She couldn't just walk away and not see.
That was it - the seeing. She didn't want to, but she was the only one. There was no one else to do this for her.
She had to go.
Burns barked again. He was staring toward the darker woods beyond. She glanced in his direction and didn't see anything, but she knew that the coyotes hadn't
gone far. If she went inside now, like she so desperately wanted to, they would come back.
But...come back to what?
The Catch. It loomed there, dark in the back of her mind. That didn't make sense, because she had taken great pains to make sure she could always see the Catch coming, couldn’t she? She kept an eye out for it. She had designed her whole life - the right man, the right career, the proper amount of precaution - to avoid tragedy. So it couldn't be that, right?
The gut feeling crawled up into her throat. She choked out a small sob. Retro nuzzled her hand.
She forced her legs to move.
The thin lights from the yard didn't reach quite this far, so the long shadows of the cedars blended into the woods beyond. For all she knew, there was a ten story monster behind those cedars, ready to eat her alive. The wind howled through the thin trees as she approached, bending the tops and making the thick, sharp needles shudder. She shivered too, cold beyond belief.
Burns was sniffing around the bottom of the trees. She didn't know why, but she didn't want him over there. “Stop it. Burns, come.”
He looked up, looked back at what he was sniffing, and reluctantly trotted her way through the falling snow.
She gripped the flashlight and strode forward a few steps, both dogs by her side again. The flashlight beam juttered with every step and her inner distress threatened to halt her in her tracks, but she didn't dare think about it and she didn't dare stop. If she did, she would never start again.
It was no more than a couple of hundred paces to the cedars, but each one felt like it took an hour. The snow was piling up so that she kicked it out in front of her with her toes. It fell and made speckles ahead, like it was showing her the way.
She knew the way - she just didn't want to go.
Her flashlight caught a hint of yellow, and another sob jerked from her throat. Her feet tried to drag again. If she didn't go forward, she could pretend like she didn't know. Like Schrodinger's cedars. Right?
When she got to him, and yes, she'd known it was him from the moment she started walking this way, hadn't she? She’d known that one mystery, at least, would be resolved at the end of her walk through this storm. The cedars bowed, as if in greeting, too happy for the tragedy they protected. When she got to him, she fell to her knees, blind with grief.
Chapter Seven
She didn't hear the sob that came out of her throat. She felt it, a raw, ripping heat that exploded from her as she reached out to touch him. She almost did, almost brushed the hand that she had clutched so many times. But then she pulled back, unsure.
His face - what was left of it - was as pale as the snow covering his lap and feet. The darkness of his hair and brows stood out starkly, yet even they were frosted over. She fought the urge to brush the ice from his face. His clothes were glossy with ice. Red ice, like frozen wine. Part of his head was gone. One blue eye stared back at her, plaintive and still. Empty.
She could see his yellow jacket flung open and puckered. The coyotes had done that, probably. They would want to drag him away from the house, away from the dogs and the lights. She had interrupted them. Thank God.
Retro whined beside her, but she barely heard him. She was breaking inside, cracking apart. Her ears were ringing. The Catch had come, and like before, it was beyond her ability to understand right now.
“Ethan.” His name burst harshly from her parted lips. Then, more softly, “Oh, Ethan.”
Still afraid to touch him, she reached out and touched his coat. Or meant to, but her hand brushed freezing steel. Shining the light, she saw the rifle for the first time. It lay against his far shoulder, the butt cradled against one leg.
He had done this. She was sure of it. “Why, Ethan? Why would you do such a thing?” she asked, as if he had done some silly thing, like buying a new truck or forgetting to feed the dogs. Her world slid away from her. Her voice was tinny and hollow and sounded far away.
The darkness sparkled and her head spun. She was going to faint.
Beside her, Retro barked.
She jumped, and realized that her jeans were soaking through and her hair was wet. She was freezing, and when she touched her face her tears were icy. She needed to get inside. She needed to call for help.
But she couldn't. The phone was out. What was she going to do? He was too big for her to carry, she knew that without even thinking about it. She crawled away from him, got up out of the snow, and ran back toward the house. The warm lights. The living room where he was supposed to be. And as she ran, she screamed at the dark sky.
She slammed in through the door and landed on her side in the floor, with Retro close behind her. Burns was outside, left behind when she shut the door, but she couldn't care right now. She wasn't capable. He would be fine.
She realized that she was gasping for breath, sucking in huge gulps of warm air. Her body was running on automatic, trying to warm up, trying to make all systems go again. It didn't realize that the Catch was finally happening, and that she didn't want to breathe, or feel, or move, or exist. Ethan was gone, and she was dumped dead on the floor. She didn't think she would ever get up.
The gasps warmed her lungs eventually, and then she began to cry. He was out there, in the dark. So cold. He must be cold. She wanted to hear him stomping snow across the porch and then come in laughing about something the dogs did. She wanted him to give her a kiss on top of the head and ask, “What's for dinner?”
He would never do those things again. He would never lift her off the ATV and tell her to walk because her puns made him groan. He would never grin at her over someone's insistence that the CIA killed John Kennedy. He would never smack her on the butt or kiss her or fold her into his lap on a cold winter night like this one.
She would never be warm again.
Outside the door, she heard a rumble. Burns. Growling.
The coyotes were back.
She would have given anything to pretend like the last hour hadn't happened. It was impossible. It was wrong. Some nightmare that she couldn’t shake.
It was Ethan was out there, and she needed to bring him inside. Before...before. It was her turn to protect him, and she didn't know if she could do it.
The fire warmed her through her coat, and her mind floated. She thought about their wedding and their fights, yes, that all filtered through her mind. But then she thought about the way he always held her and kissed her before he left for work, or lately, the way he came in smelling of cold and fresh air, and the way he came home to her every evening and shared his day, asked about hers. They were a team, he always said.
Of course, he also always said that he was lucky to have her. What had changed?
People always said that a dying man's life flashed before his eyes, but that wasn't true. That life flashed through the mind of the person they left behind.
They were only just beginning this latest adventure. It was a brand new page, and he'd been excited about it. More excited than her - coming back to the land, like his family, had been his dream, not hers. They had liquidated everything back in Atlanta and brought it here, where they were supposed to live happily ever after.
Not...like this. Never like this.
She felt small and cold and lost, and she wasn't sure she could move, even if she wanted to, which she didn't.
Retro licked her hand, then nuzzled his nose in near her ear, making her shiver. She moaned and looked at him with one eye. The other was face down on the rug and she couldn't lift her head. “What happened, Retro?” she murmured. “What happened to him?”
Because Ethan loved life - the good and the bad and the weird, maybe especially the weird. So why had he stepped out, as they used to say? Why had he jumped ship, just as they were about to sail off into their sunset? She remembered sitting at their dining room table in the city, going over the finances, and calculating that they had approximately forty years left. Calculating if they could afford to retire early, and realizing that they could. Easily. The money was there, they h
ad no kids to put through college, and why shouldn't they? Wasn't this what they'd worked for?
He had been thrilled with the idea, excited to show her the ways of the gentleman farmer. She had called him that - gentleman farmer - for a week afterward, until he threatened to call her Bessie if she did it again. He hadn't meant it, he never meant his teasing, and they had laughed at the idea of him running through Belk or Neiman Marcus bellowing “Bessie!” at the top of his lungs. Of course, it never happened.
And now the rest of it wasn't going to happen, either, was it? Because he was gone, with no hints and no goodbyes.
She reached an arm out and wrapped it around Retro's neck. Dragged him to her and buried her face into his bristling fur. He smelled like fresh air, snow, and dog. She cried some more, or she hadn't stopped. She wasn't sure, and it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
She eventually pushed herself up from the floor and then dragged to her feet. Burns was still growling periodically from outside the front door, and she knew she had to take care of Ethan. She had to get Burns inside. She had to find a way to get help.
She didn't know how she was going to do any of those things, and by the time she got back to the front door, she put her head on the cold wood, exhausted.
Before she went out she tried the phone again. Still dead. She tossed it onto the sofa and went to the bedroom closet to get an old blanket. It was a yellow one with satin edging. She liked to curl up under it and read while Ethan watched TV, but she needed it now.
Then she left Retro by the fireplace and went to get Ethan. A sharp blast of snow and wind hit her in the face and stole her breath when she stepped outside. Snow was driving toward the ground now, tiny missiles of stinging ice. She gasped and held the blanket to her face to shield it for a moment. Burns danced around her feet, waiting to see what they were going to do next. He followed her down the stairs and across the yard.
Less in shock now, she bent down to look at Ethan again. It wasn't any easier, but this time she saw more detail. He was wearing a toboggan, but it was almost unrecognizable now. It had once been a jaunty hunter's orange, but now was soaked with the red of his drained life. The right side of his head was destroyed, and what was left was ragged and black. She saw that his jacket was zipped all the way up. Had he been cold when he died? She hoped not - no one deserved that.