Red Creek Waltz

by Gregory Kay

  So why aren’t the boys coming?

  The knock on the door startled her so badly, she actually jumped.

  She knew Jake wouldn’t have knocked; he had his own key, and that made her hesitate in answering. Visions of State Troopers bearing fatally bad news went flashing through her mind.

  Are you the parents of Jake Estep? I’m sorry, ma’am...

  Shaking her head to clear the unwelcome and terrifying visions, she reluctantly went to the door, taking tiny baby steps, and it took her so long the knock sounded again just as she closed her hand around the knob, making her jump again.

  Oh please, God...

  She opened the door, and was both surprised and relieved to find Joe Bob’s mother and Mary Allison on the other side.

  “Mrs. MacKenzie, Mary Jane! Is everything alright?” The last came out as in a desperate, fear-filled blurt of sound. What if she's here to tell me something...

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. MacKenzie told her, and Kathy stepped back.

  “Please, come on in.”

  As they entered, she saw telltale droplets of moisture on their coats and looked out the open door behind them at the lowering sky and falling ice and snow. It was so dark it already looked like late evening.

  “What’s it doing out there?”

  Mrs. MacKenzie bit her lip. “It’s rain, mixed with snow and sleet. I was just taking Mary home and I...I was wondering if you’d heard from the boys?” Kathy recognized the same fear in the woman's voice she knew had been in her own. For all the problems he gave Sylvia and all the friction between them, Joe Bob was still her son.

  “No, I was hoping you had.” Motioning toward the couch, she asked them to sit down, but Mrs. MacKenzie shook her head.

  “I haven’t seen them since this morning,” she told her, “and I’m worried about Joe Bob, what with this storm coming in.”

  As if to emphasize their fears, the music on the radio cut away to an emergency weather bulletin.

  The storm has reached the mountainous regions of West Virginia, and we’re now taking the full brunt of a mixture of snow and sleet with an expected accumulation of four to six inches. The State Police have reported that heavy icing is already producing downed trees and extremely hazardous driving conditions in the Ohio and Kanawha Valleys. I repeat; the roads very dangerous, and authorities are urging people not to travel unless it's an emergency...

  Her face pale, Kathy turned and yelled, “Frank!” only to see him enter before she got his name all the way out of her mouth. He wore his insulated coveralls and boots, and was already pulling on his heavy camouflage hunting coat.

  “I heard. I had the radio on in the garage.”

  “Are you going after them?”

  He nodded as he pulled the coat front together with a rasping of it's big brass zipper, giving him an excuse to look down and compose his features after the call he'd just taken on his cellphone from his grandmother. All she could tell him was that something was about to happen to Jake, something really bad, and it involved blood. He remembered all to well how she'd saved his own life when he was hanging upside down in that wrecked car, and he barely took time to say goodbye before he disconnected. He wasn't about to tell Kathy that, however, because she'd go into hysterics, he had no doubt.

  “I reckon I’d better. It’s getting dark early, and with this storm rolling in, they ought to have enough sense to be back by now. Even if they didn’t plan on coming straight home afterward, Jake would’ve at least stopped somewhere and called.” Gesturing in the direction the unseen driveway with a jerk of his head, he added, “I've already go the four-wheeler in the back of the truck, in case they need a ride out of the woods.

  Mrs. MacKenzie gave him a relieved look.

  “Thank you. I’ll go ahead and take Mary home, and then get back to the house before it gets too bad.” She paused, and then went on. “Joe Bob and I had...an argument this morning, and he left with both of us mad. Please call me as soon as you find them.”

  “Will do, if they're somewhere that has service,” Frank said, patting the zippered pocket holding his cell phone with one hand while pulling his lined, winter cap with the other, “If not, I'll call just as quick as we get someplace that does.”

  Mary looked at him, her lip quivering as the tears gathered in her eyes.

  “Would you please ask Joe Bob to call me too? He took off kind of quick this morning when Jake showed up.”

  From the glare Mrs. MacKenzie shot her, and the deep scarlet tone the woman's face instantly took on, both Kathy and Frank were able to put two and two together. Kathy controlled her expression better than her husband, who chuckled out loud, much to Mrs. MacKenzie’s embarrassment.

  “I’ll do that, honey,” he said, patting Mary on the shoulder. “I promise I'll have him call you.”

  She abruptly put her arms around him and hugged him, pressing her face into his chest.

  “Thank you, Mr. Estep!”

  Frank held her for a few seconds, then patted her on the back.

  “You know you’re welcome, honey. Now go on with Joe Bob’s mom, so I can go corral The Three Musketeers.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The turned to leave, but Frank said, “Just a minute. Mrs. MacKenzie, did Joe Bob happen to mention where they were planning on hunting today?”

  She shook her head, whispered, “No, he didn't. I'm sorry,” and closed the door behind them. As he gathered up his gloves, Kathy looked at the closed door.

  “I think there’s a story there.”

  “I think I can guess what it is, too,” Frank told her with a chuckle he knew she expected, but was the last thing he felt like giving just now, “How would you have liked to have been a fly on that wall?” He shook his head. “I think she’s actually in love with Joe Bob. Poor little thing; bless her heart, but she ain’t got two brain cells to rub together.”

  “Maybe that’s what Joe Bob needs. He’d drive a smart woman crazy. Besides, she might be dumb, but Mary Jane is kind-hearted, and pretty too, and she's wise in her own way. I reckon all that covers a multitude of sins.”

  Frank kissed her.

  “Then I lucked out; I got all three: pretty, smart, and kind-hearted. I must have been living right.”

  This time, Kathy refused to be distracted.

  “So, how are you going to find them? Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”

  “No, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar Becky does. She keeps pretty close tabs on Scott, and he’s not going to be anywhere she doesn’t know about.”

  He picked up his rifle as an instinctive afterthought, and, when he reached for the knob, she hugged him one last time.

  “Thanks for going after them. You be careful out there, now!”

  He grinned, but she thought it looked strangely forced.

  “Always.”

  Chapter 11

  The three boys trudged along through the rapidly increasing power of the storm, bowed and huddled against the slashing wind that seemed intent on cutting them to pieces. Sleet and snow pelted them like bird shot, stinging and biting at any exposed flesh; they had only gone a couple of hundred yards up the holler from where they left the buck, and ice was already starting to stick to their clothes. The wind howled like a hungry wolf, bending the creaking trees until they threatened to snap under its force. A few did; here and there, they heard the cracks and crashes of limbs giving away unseen in the forest. Underlying it was a faint, higher-pitched, rhythmic sound that didn't quite seem to fit.

  Jake noticed it subconsciously for several seconds, and then came to an abrupt, startled halt when he realized he was humming along to the tune.

  What in the hell?

  Scott was so close he bumped into him, and Joe Bob, head-down against the icy blast, promptly did the same to Scott. His teeth were chattering when he asked, “What is it, Jake?”

  Jake frowned and put a hand to his ear.

  “Listen close. Do you guys hear something?”

  Both of
them strained for the sound, and Scott frowned.

  “It sounds like...music?”

  “Music!” Joe Bob exclaimed, and then cocked his head as the sounds came to him. “It is music! What the hell...”

  “It sounds like it’s coming from over that way somewhere,” Jake said, gesturing farther up into the holler, and Scott grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed.

  “Look! There’s a light!”

  Straining their eyes, squinting against the whirling knives of the flying sleet, they could barely make out a distant glow through the trees and storm.

  “Somebody’s up there,” Joe Bob said in surprise.

  Scott frowned at the unlikelihood of that.

  “I wonder who it is?” He paused, then added, “I wonder if it's...well, you know.”

  Jake knew very well, because he was wondering the same thing, but he shook his head firmly.

  “Right now, I don’t give a damn who it is, just as long as they’ve got someplace where we can get in out of this cold, because we're definitely in a world of shit right now. Come on!”

  As they got closer, they saw the light had the yellowish quality of kerosene lamps, and was spilling from the windows of an old fashioned, white-washed miner’s cabin almost completely hidden by the trees. Single story with a tin roof, it was built Jenny Lind style, with the siding planks running vertically, and skinny vertical batten boards covering the cracks between them. A narrow porch, roofed in the same tin as the house, ran across the front of the structure, with a rough plank front door centered against the wall behind it.

  They had no more than set foot in the front yard when the door opened, and the girl stepped out, the wooden panel blocking the worst of the wind from hitting her.

  “Who’s out there?”

  She was young, probably late teens or early twenties Jake guessed, with long blond hair. The boys couldn’t see much of her features, since she was silhouetted by the light from the open door, but in another way, it revealed more than otherwise. Shining from behind her, it passed through her thin, knee-length cotton dress, silhouetting her figure perfectly, and leaving absolutely no question that she wore nothing beneath it. Her long legs were curved in all the right ways until they joined together in a small patch of pubic hair at the top, and her perky breasts were as perfectly round as grapefruits.

  Scott’s mouth was suddenly hanging open, and, despite being half-frozen, Joe Bob’s split in an ear to ear grin as he appreciatively exclaimed, “Whoa! You reckon she's – ”

  Jake immediately elbowed him hard enough in the ribs to bring a grunt, and hissed, “Shut up, Joe Bob!” before addressing he girl, trying his damnedest to keep his eyes on her face rather than her body.

  “We’re deer hunters, ma’am. We shot one on the other side of Little Back and tracked him over here, but we got caught by the storm. Could we use your phone, please?”

  From inside, they heard two more feminine voices excitedly talking over one another.

  “Who is it, Susie?”

  “Yes, who is it?”

  Turning her head back toward the interior of the cabin, the girl called Susie spoke over her shoulder. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

  “Well don’t just stand there, girl,” a man’s voice ordered from within, “Invite ‘em in.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Turning back to the boys, she smiled and said, “You all had better come on inside before you freeze.”

  They almost fell over one another heading for the door, but Jake grabbed Joe Bob by the arm and hissed in his ear.

  “You better be on your best behavior in there, you damned horn-dog, or we’re liable to be back out in the storm!”

  Joe Bob nodded, then winked broadly and grinned, which did absolutely nothing to reassure Jake.

  No sooner than they were in, the man said, “Shut the door, boys; you’re letting all the warm air out.”

  They willingly complied, Scott pushing the door to. If they had been startled by the girl’s appearance, they were twice as shocked now, since there were two more just like her inside.

  The girls were obviously sisters; their family resemblance was unmistakable. They all looked to be somewhere between fifteen and maybe twenty, with the only real differences between them being maybe an inch or two of height and a shade or two of blond hair. Their blue eyes were identical and twinkled with the same mischievous gleam, and the milky, porcelain skin of their faces parted in similar broad, sincere, white-toothed smiles. They were even dressed pretty much alike, with only the printed patterns of their gingham and calico varying, not the dresses themselves.

  Their father was a big man, not tall, but burly, broad through the shoulders, chest, waist, and hips. He wore heavy work boots and pants, and a long sleeved white shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck. About fifty, his hair had fully gone to gray, but the laughing blue eyes shining in his weathered face clearly showed his paternal relationship with the girls.

  “Thank you, sir,” Jake began, somewhat distracted by the girls who approached with frank curiosity, walking around the boys and staring at them from all angles as if they had never seen such a sight before. Susie put her hand on his right arm, and didn’t take it away. “We’re sorry to bother you, but could we use your phone, please? We need to call home and let our folks know we’re alright, and maybe get them to come with some four-wheelers to get us and this deer back over the mountain.”

  The man laughed out loud, and all three of his daughters joined him, each of them managing to casually touch the boys during the process.

  “Sorry, son, ain’t got no phone, nor electric neither. They never ran 'em up this holler.”

  Scott closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Oh man, I’m in for it now!”

  Before he had even completed the sentence, the shortest of the three girls, the youngest one with the darkest hair and a faint peppering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, hooked an arm through one of his, and proceeded to caress his shoulder with her free hand. When it came, her voice was soft and soothing.

  “Shh. Don’t you worry; it’ll be alright.”

  “Well, sir,” Jake continued, “is there anywhere around here we can get some shelter till morning, or at least until this storm blows over?”

  The man shook his head.

  “This is the only shelter here; last place left in the holler with a roof on it. You all are gonna have to stay with us.”

  Jake had been hoping for the invitation, but good manners required at least a show of reluctance.

  “We wouldn’t want to put you out...”

  “You ain’t putting nobody out. There’s plenty of room, as long as you don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

  Jake looked at his friends and both of them nodded, Joe Bob more than a little enthusiastically. Jake hoped he’d have enough sense to restrain himself, especially around the girls’ father; the old man might not have been any taller than him, but he looked strong enough to pick up any one of them and break them in half.

  “We don’t mind at all, sir. Thank you kindly; we really appreciate it.”

  Over the girls’ delighted squealing at the arrangement, they heard the man say, “Ain’t no trouble at all; we’re glad to have you, son. We don’t get much company up here.” Pushing himself up from his chair, he extended a calloused hand. “My name’s Hiram Jenkins.”

  “Jake Estep, Mr. Jenkins,” he said, shaking his hand.

  “Scott Donald, sir; it’s nice to meet you.”

  “Joe Bob MacKenzie, sir; thanks for taking us in.” Even as he spoke to their host, his eyes kept flicking back toward the girls, and the older man chuckled.

  “I see this young rascal here has an eye for the ladies!”

  The oldest girl spoke up, her voice deep and sultry.

  “And as pretty of a boy as he is, I’ll bet the ladies have an eye for him too.”

  She punctuated her remark by casually brushing her fingers through the subject of the conversation's dark hair and let
them trail down his cheek, and Joe Bob actually dropped his head and blushed, something neither of his friends had ever seen happen.

  “Thanks...”

  Jenkins made a broad gesture at the girls with his open hand.

  “These are my daughters: Susie, Katie, and Elizabeth.”

  As he spoke, each one gave a little curtsy and a wicked grin when her name was called, and never ceased ogling the boys, running their eyes up and down them and not leaving any parts out. Even Joe Bob found it a little unnerving, and Scott turned about fifteen shades of red.

  Their host's friendly look switched to a glare that he turned on his daughters.

  “Girls, where the hell are your manners? Help these poor boys out of their coats and boots, and put ‘em over by the fire to dry!”

  “Ah, you don’t have to do that,” Jake began, but was cut off by three feminine voices.

  “Oh, we don’t mind!”

  Ignoring his protests and the male trio's embarrassment, each girl took one of the boys. The oldest, the one introduced as Elizabeth, came and stood in front of Joe Bob, looking straight into his eyes as she unbuttoned his coat for him. Joe Bob looked right back, and his grin turned into an ‘o’ of surprise when, with her back to her father, she winked meaningfully at him and the pointed tip of her tongue flicked out to lick her lips, wetting them so they glittered, slick in the lamplight. Joe Bob might have been the Don Juan of Morgan’s Knob, but he suddenly realized that look, accompanied by that gesture, was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life.