Twisted Creek

by Jodi Thomas

After haggling for a while, he finally agreed to pay me three dollars and a bushel of apples for the mounted fish. The money smelled of bait and the apples he brought in looked like he’d picked them off the ground by a wild apple tree. I wondered if I’d been had, but he was hauling off a stuffed bass so the deal couldn’t be all bad. We shook on it.

  “What did you do for a living before you retired?” I asked just out of curiosity.

  He grinned. “As little as possible.”

  Then, without a hint of barter, he offered a buck for two of Nana’s biscuits. She wrapped them in waxed paper and handed them to him across the pass-through.

  Ten minutes later, the mailman drove up in a battered, blue hatchback and delivered a sack of mail.

  “I’ve been holding this till you got here,” he grumbled as though angry that it took me so long to show up. “All you got to do is put it in order and the folks around will pick it up. You’re the one drop I’m allowed in this area.”

  I peeked in the bag. Most of it looked like catalogues for fishing equipment.

  The mailman nodded his good-bye as if he were in a hurry, but stopped at the road to talk to Willie, who was hauling the bass to his truck.

  Wondering why the mailman had been so unfriendly, I studied him from the porch. He was a tall, thin guy in his forties with thinning hair and fingers so long they must have had an extra knuckle in there somewhere. Alien hands, I decided, like E.T.

  I laughed suddenly. So far all the men I’d met in Texas seemed strange. Luke, my under-the-bed monster, was turning out to be the best of the lot. Though he wasn’t exactly handsome, he was a lot easier on the eyes and nose than the other two.

  Almost as if he heard me thinking of him, Luke stepped from the side of the house.

  “Morning,” he managed.

  “Morning,” I answered.

  When the mailman crunched back across the gravel in front of the porch, Luke slipped into the shadows.

  “Sorry, miss,” the mailman began. “But I have to have the bag back. It’s U.S. Postal property.” The spider of a man looked as if he thought I might make a run for it with his official bag.

  I dumped the rest of the mail out on the porch.

  As the mailman watched me, I asked, “Want to buy one of the heads out by the fence?”

  “Nope,” he answered, “but you got any more of those biscuits? Willie said you were selling them. Jefferson never had anything worth eating to sell with his coffee.”

  I led him to the pass-through window.

  Nana wrapped two more biscuits and passed them along with a small paper cup of coffee. “The coffee’s free to uniformed men,” she said, “but the biscuits will cost you.”

  While the mailman folded back into his hatchback, a dented Mustang rattled down my road, pulling a flatbed trailer with two canoes. Boys, so young they must have been skipping school, asked if they could set their boats off from the dock.

  I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. While Nana wrapped more biscuits, I helped them unload.

  When I walked back from the dock, I noticed Luke standing by the side of the house watching. “Did you mean it about helping out?” I yelled.

  “Yep,” he answered without looking overly interested.

  I decided to spend a few more dollars of my traveling money. “I could pay you ten bucks an hour, plus meals, if you’d help me get this place in shape.”

  He nodded once. “What’ll we do first?”

  I looked around. The list was endless. “How about we clean out the rest of Jefferson’s things from upstairs?”

  He followed me up and we worked without talking.

  By noon, Nana had made twelve dollars in biscuit sales and I’d made another three off a deer head.

  After a lunch of soup and sugar cookies-left over from our dollar-store raid-Nana decided to cut the good parts out of the pitiful apples I’d traded with Willie and make fried apple pies. While she baked, I tackled the boards covering the front windows.

  I didn’t think it would be hard. I’d seen men put the hook of a hammer between a board and a wall, then pop it off. Only problem was whoever nailed the planks over the windows forgot to leave any room for the hook. After five minutes of struggling, I had splinters in my palm and had managed to hit myself in the knee with the hammer. All the boards were still in place.

  Manual labor had never been my strong suit, but you’d think with two years of college I could manage to get a few boards down. I’d even tried using a few carpenter swear words Nana wouldn’t notice, like “screw you, you knot-holed plank.”

  It didn’t work.

  I wasn’t surprised when Luke stepped onto the porch and took the hammer away from me. I must have looked like an idiot. His big hand wrapped around the first board and with a tug he loosened it.

  In the sunlight I could see that he wasn’t near as dirty as I thought. His clothes were worn, but relatively clean. He wore a pair of hiking boots and an old fishing jacket. He didn’t look directly at me. I caught myself wishing he would, just so I could see his blue eyes.

  I shook my head, disgusted with myself. I wasn’t nearly as starved for a man as I was for color. It was pathetic.

  While Luke worked, I sat on the porch and sorted the mail, tossing most of it in a plastic laundry basket with my uninjured hand.

  He made easy work of the boards, then lifted them over his shoulder and carried them to one of the sheds. I’d waited for him to say something when he returned. He didn’t. I couldn’t think of any way to open a conversation.

  To my surprise, he lowered on one knee beside my chair and pulled a knife from his pocket. It was one of those expensive kinds that could do anything. Pulling the tweezers from the end, he took my hand and began pulling out splinters with no regard to my yelps.

  I tried to pull away several times, but he held my hand firmly against his bent knee until he was finished.

  The nearness of him made me nervous. He wasn’t flirting; in fact, he wasn’t even friendly.

  When he finally let go and folded up his knife, I cradled my hand and said, “Great bedside manner, Doc.”

  He shrugged as if he could care less what I thought. “Get some antiseptic on that. Jefferson used to keep it in his desk drawer.”

  After picking up the hammer, he was halfway to the shed when I yelled, “Thank you.”

  He didn’t even turn around.

  Wandering back inside, I opened a few bills addressed to Jefferson Platt. None were overdue, telling me that for some reason Uncle Jefferson paid his bills in advance.

  Tucked between two shelves, I found a neat little office space complete with an old Hunter desk and a lamp. The half-moon desk had nothing on it but a dented juice can full of pencils, another ledger like the one I’d found beneath the cash register, and a half-used tube of antiseptic. The top of each shelf was lined with file boxes, dusty from years of storage. I made a mental note to check in them when I had the time. Anything that dusty couldn’t be too important and the reading would be no more interesting than the other ledger.

  As I rubbed a few drops of the antiseptic on my palm, I searched the tiny office for any clue as to who Jefferson Platt had been. There were no personal documents. No pictures. Not even an old calendar with dates marked out. I opened the one file box I could reach to find receipts dated in the eighties.

  I had the strange feeling Uncle Jefferson cleaned up everything in his office before he died. Or someone else had. How could he be so neat about some things and leave his rooms upstairs such a mess? I wasn’t surprised to find the second ledger empty. I almost felt like he’d counted his days off in the old ledger, then left the new one for me. But how could he have? I didn’t even know the man.

  But Luke had. He’d even known where Jefferson kept the medicine. I decided I needed to have a long talk with Mr. Blue Eyes.

  “Company coming up the road,” Nana yelled even before I heard a car.

  I didn’t make it to the front door before someone pounded on it f
ull force.

  I thought of darting up the stairs and yelling that I’d seen enough strangers for one day, but whoever it was didn’t sound like he had much patience.

  Reluctantly, I opened the door.

  The uniformed man before me eclipsed the late-afternoon sun. He had to be close to six-six and wore a hat that added another three or four inches. The gun belt around his ample waist held enough ammo to wage war. Though he didn’t look much over forty, his sideburns were the same silver of his Colt.

  “Miss Daniels?” He smiled down at me as if he were talking to a child. “Allie Daniels?”

  “Yes.” I straightened to all five-feet-one of me and stared at the lawman. “May I help you?” The only reason I could imagine that he’d be here was that he’d figured out I wasn’t supposed to have this place and he’d come to evict me.

  The huge man laughed. “You ain’t much bigger than a chigger, darlin’.”

  I stepped back and waved him in as anger settled over nervousness. Why was it some people think it is fine to comment on my stature yet I can’t return the insult?

  I mentally continued to add up the lawman’s crimes when he used an endearment. I swear, I’d been born hating men who call all women “dear” or “honey” or “darling.” It always made me feel more like a product than a person.

  “Hot out there for September.” He walked into the store part of the main room and looked around as if he had a right to inspect the premises. “You’ve done a good job of cleaning up the place. Last time I was in here, Jefferson was closing it down and there was trash everywhere.”

  He glanced back at me and straightened as he added, “I’m Sheriff Raymond Fletcher. Just dropped in to meet you and let you know I’m around if you have any problems.”

  “I’m-”

  He didn’t give me time to finish. Strike three.

  “Oh, I know all about you. Jefferson told me you’d be coming.” The sheriff propped his foot on one of the stools running alongside the bar.

  I was getting a little tired of hearing that everyone knew I was coming, but I didn’t comment. The giant seemed more interested in talking to himself than anyone else, so I saw no need in interrupting.

  “That old man said he made a good living out of this place, but I don’t see how. After September there’s no one out here during the week but what I call the Nesters. I come out and check on them regular just to make sure one of them hasn’t died or started up some other kind of trouble in my county. No matter how much of a nothing this little lake settlement is, it’s part of my jurisdiction. I make a point of knowing what’s going on in my county.”

  “Nesters,” I squeaked like the chorus in a doo-wop band.

  Sheriff Fletcher grinned. “That’s what I call the people who live out here year-round. Misfits mostly. Folks people in town wouldn’t put up with.” He walked toward the passthrough and continued his lecture. “Now on the weekends you’ll find lots of fishermen and a few of them mountain-bike riders showing up if it’s not raining.” He winked. “I don’t allow any of them four-wheeling trash. Cut up the trails, you know, and make all kinds of noise.”

  He lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes just a fraction as though it occurred to him that I might be one of them.

  Luke backed through the swinging door with a tray of fresh, hot pies. He took one look at the sheriff’s back and returned to the kitchen. With the next swing of the door, Nana came out carrying the same tray. They’d switched so fast it reminded me of the little doors on a cuckoo clock.

  “Sheriff Fletcher, I’d like you to meet my grandmother,” I said, wondering why Luke hid in the kitchen and wishing I’d been smart enough to join him when I’d heard the sheriff’s knock.

  Nana set the tray down on the counter.

  The lawman turned slowly, not taking his gaze off me until politeness forced him to acknowledge Nana.

  “Afternoon, Sheriff,” Nana said. “I’m glad you dropped by. I was hoping to get someone to try my pies. I haven’t made them in years, but I think I remembered my momma’s recipe.”

  Removing his hat, he nodded toward her. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  I was “darling’” and my grandmother was “ma’am.” I couldn’t help but wonder if it was age, or the pies, that garnered respect from the sheriff.

  He walked over and picked up one of the miniature pastries. “I’d be glad to test them for you.”

  Five minutes and four pies later, Sheriff Fletcher and Nana were talking as if they’d been friends for years. Neither seemed to notice when I picked up the broom and stepped out onto the porch.

  I could still hear their conversation. Nana asked if he had kids and Fletcher listed all the grand points of his sixteen-year-old son, Dillon, before adding, “I got a daughter who married right out of high school, but my boy is going to go all the way through college. Criminal Justice, you know. I’ll bet in ten years he’ll be in the FBI. I taught him to shoot when he was five and he knows the law as well as I do. He’s been begging to go with me in the squad car since he could talk.”

  Nana packed a few pies for the sheriff and as she walked him to the porch he told them he’d be back on Monday. As he drove away, she whispered, “Luke said he doesn’t like that man.”

  I looked up from sweeping, hating to admit that I agreed with the lake bum I’d found hiding under my bed. “Did Luke say why?”

  Nana watched the sheriff’s car clear the gate. “Said he thinks he’s better than folks around here.”

  “Luke sure does a lot of talking to you. He never says more than a few words around me.” In truth, I could swear he’d been avoiding me as much as possible.

  Nana shrugged. “Maybe I listen.” She walked back into the house. I didn’t have to ask where she was going. I knew it would be the kitchen. Her soap opera was about to come on. She’d fix her one cup of tea for the day and sit in front of the little TV. Then, when it was over, she’d go back to work, fretting about the soap opera stars’ problems as if they were her own.

  While the TV blared, I found a quart of green paint and spent the hour painting trim around the old shelves. If we got kicked out of here tomorrow, at least I would leave the place better than I found it.

  I wasn’t surprised Luke had disappeared. A few hours of work was probably more than he wanted to do, otherwise why else would he live at the lake? There was a hardness about him and I wondered if it was a shell, or went all the way to the bone.

  Not that it mattered. He wasn’t my type.

  I laughed suddenly, realizing I didn’t have a type. Unless you count losers. I remembered one guy who’d gone four dates before he talked me out of my clothes and then never called again. The loss of him didn’t matter as much as the feeling that he thought I must not have been worth the bother. I couldn’t even say he was my first love. I was twenty-six and never had a first love. A few one-night stands I regretted. A few boyfriends who left before they had to use the “L” word. A few almost, who never worked out.

  No loves.

  After supper, I curled into the bay window seat and watched the sun set. The lake seemed so still, so lonely. I leaned back against the windowpane and listened to Nana run her hand across her wind chime. She’d hung it in the kitchen just as she always did. As always, the music it played made me smile and feel at home.

  A while later, she passed by and kissed me on the head. “Good night, dear,” she said. “I’m turning in. Sleeping is always good on cool, cloudy nights.” Her old hand patted my shoulder three times. I love you without words. “Are you heading up?”

  I shook my head. “I think I’ll stay down here for a while.” I lifted the blank ledger as if it contained something inside for me to do.

  Nana turned and climbed the stairs.

  Just after dark I noticed a fire burning in the pit out by the dock. The day had been endless. We’d cleaned both upstairs and downstairs. While Nana had washed and hung clothes on a line out back, I had explored the outbuildings. One had worthless t
ools in it, another parts of old boats. Behind the buildings, several old cars had been parked and left to rust. None looked like they would be worth hauling into Lubbock to try to sell.

  The only thing I’d found of interest was a fat cat. He stared at me awhile, then decided to follow me inside. Nana called him General and offered him milk. From then on he was more at home in the kitchen than we were.

  I grinned. Having a pet made it seem even more like home.

  As a fog settled in around Jefferson’s Crossing, I went up to bed. The air felt heavy with the smells of the day-paint, baking, and cleaners. Our rooms were stark, almost cell-like now that we’d thrown all of Uncle Jefferson’s junk away. I promised myself I’d let Nana buy a few pots of those plastic flowers she liked at the dollar store and maybe some curtains. A few touches would help.

  After an hour, Nana was snoring and I hadn’t closed my eyes. I decided I’d landed in purgatory. Somehow, we were stuck in a location that wasn’t heaven or hell. We had food and a roof, but no dreams. Once I got the place clean, I had no idea what I’d do.

  Drive into town and look for a job, I answered myself, then frowned. Part of me didn’t want to leave.

  I climbed out of bed and walked to the window. In the years of traveling around, I’d somehow forgot to pack my dreams in one of the moves. When I’d been in school, I’d always felt I was waiting to live-that somehow life lay just around the corner ready to take my breath away. I’d be working in a famous art museum somewhere, talking to creative people, jetting off with friends or at worst teaching at a fine private school and saving my money to travel with Nana in the summer months.

  Nowhere in those dreams had there been endless, mind-numbing jobs and people who thought becoming floor manager would be the ultimate measure of success. Not one dream had even hinted at an old lake house on a muddy bank in the middle of Texas.

  Staring out at the water, black except for the reflections of firelight dancing along its ripples, I longed for the beauty of the masters. As I stared, the tall form of Luke moved against the firelight that seemed muted in the foggy night.

  My curiosity rose as he lifted the basket I’d tossed all the useless mail in that morning. Slowly feeding the fire, he let the catalogues and magazines tumble into the flames.