Anderson stayed still as Ruth walked into the other room. There was water coming from under the door of the bathroom just off the stairs. She walked in and found the box with the stone sitting in the sink. Water was pouring out from under the lid at a rate faster than the drain could accept it.
She tucked the shotgun under her arm and picked up the box. Water cascaded down the front of it and onto the legs of her pants as she walked it back to the kitchen. Anderson began to stand the moment she entered the room.
“Sit back down!” Ruth yelled and Anderson obeyed. He was no longer looking at Ruth, but was fixated on the box. She put it on the floor, grabbed hold of the gun again in both hands and then pushed the box with her foot so it slid over to Anderson, leaving a trail of water behind it.
“You found it,” he said, opening it and pulling the stone out with both hands. Water poured over them like he was cupping beneath a spigot.
“What is it?” Ruth asked.
Anderson didn’t answer her. He continued to look at the stone with a strange smile on his face.
“Does this have anything to do with that gibberish you were talking about a great evil?”
Anderson looked up at her, “It’s the proof what I did was right.”
“Is that so?”
“You found one of the stones. There are two more in Ogden Wash. Have you found them also?”
“Wait a minute,” said Ruth. “You said there were seven sacred stones.”
Anderson shook his head, “Joseph Smith was given seven sacred stones. They were split up long ago. Most Mormons don’t even believe they’re real anymore. There are three here in Ogden Wash. So you haven’t found the other two?”
“No. We only know of the one. Are the other two supposed to be in this house?”
Anderson was turning the stone in his hands as water soaked his shirt sleeves and pants.
“At first I thought so, but now I think the other two have been hidden elsewhere,” he said.
“What do they mean?”
Anderson looked up at her again, “They are an omen. They’re telling us to cry for the end of this world and fear for the beginning of the next.”
Ruth sat still. She thought she could still hear the wind rustling past Robert’s place, the loose gutter from the side of the roof banging slightly against the house. She also caught the faintest glimmer of headlights reflecting off the window above Anderson’s head.
He sat in a puddle, his legs splayed out in front of him and his shoulders slumped. Water had stopped beading up on the stone. He placed it back in the box and slowly stood. Ruth tightened her grip on the shotgun.
“I know you called the police and I do not fault you for it. As an unbeliever, you cannot know what awaits you. However, I would implore you to seek the Lord. Seek his guidance. There are things in Ogden Wash that are much worse than death.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Ruth.
Anderson raised his arms out to each side, palms up.
“While I slept here, God told me the next step in His plan. I’m not afraid to die now, Ruth,” he said. “I’m just afraid to die out there.”
He nodded toward the door and slowly took a step toward her, “You must do, what God has planned for you to do. You must bear witness that I spoke the truth and now that you have the stone, you must keep it safe.”
Ruth raised the gun until it was pointed at Anderson’s chest, “Phillip, don’t come any closer. I’m not kidding about this. I’ll pull this trigger.”
Anderson stopped for a moment, his torso a few feet from the end of the barrel. He looked up, closed his eyes and prayed, “Lord God, if this is what you put me here for, let her see what I see.”
He lunged forward and wrapped both hands around the one Ruth had steadying the barrel. Ruth felt an electric charge run through her as her left hand instinctively squeezed the trigger. A deafening boom filled the kitchen and gore sprayed across the cabinets and sink behind Anderson. He slumped to the floor, blood slowly pooling around him as the back door banged open.
“Put down the gun!” someone yelled, but she had already let it slip from her hands.
Javier was only about a hundred yards from the cemetery when the red and blue police lights came into view at Ruth’s place. He stopped the car, pulled out his cell phone and called the bar.
“Jim’s,” J.B.’s voice crackled.
“Get Robert,” Javier said. “Tell him there are police at Ruth’s place.”
Part III
JANUARY
I
It was a little past midnight. While Javier stood at the back door of Ruth’s house, watching the paramedics loading their gear into the ambulance, Robert was inside. He sat in one of the kitchen chairs next to Ruth and held her hand as the police detective from Panquitch took a few more notes in the kitchen. Ruth hadn’t moved from the chair she’d been in when she’d pulled the trigger a couple of hours before. All of the vitality that Robert usually saw in her was gone. In its place was a tiredness, an exhaustion that made him think that all of the sleep she’d ever lost in her entire life had caught up to her.
“Ruth,” he said as he softly squeezed her hand. “I think maybe it would be best if you went upstairs and lay down. I’ll help you up there.”
“I don’t need any help,” she said. Her eyes tired and cheeks sunken, she sat staring at the spot on the floor where Anderson’s body recently lay.
Robert let the silence sit between them until Javier came back inside. There was blood pooled by the sink and small flecks of red along the cabinets.
“Any problems with us cleaning this up once you’re gone?” he asked the detective.
“Generally we send a crew out,” he said. “You sure you want to do that?”
“I think we want to get her house back to normal as soon as we can,” Robert said. “She’s got nowhere else to go.”
Javier walked back into the kitchen.
“You think she’s going to be in any trouble?” he asked.
“Legally?” the detective laughed under his breath. “There’s no way. The guy was wanted in connection with multiple murders and he was threatening her in her home. This is about as clear cut a case of self-defense as I’ve ever seen.”
Robert continued to hold Ruth’s hand and stood up.
“Come on, Ruth,” he said. “I really think it’s best if we get you upstairs.”
She stood slowly but steadily, showing no signs of weakness. Even so, Robert moved behind her, placing a hand in the small of her back and gently guiding her toward the staircase.
“Funny how I’m the one who shot someone today and you’re treating me like I’m too fragile to hurt anyone at all.”
Robert didn’t reply. He followed her up the stairs as Javier pulled towels from the kitchen pantry and began mopping up blood from the linoleum.
J. B. walked into the kitchen.
“You need some help in here?”
“Grab a sponge.”
The two set to work on the kitchen as Robert and Ruth reached the top of the stairs and turned to her bedroom. She sat down on the edge of the four-poster queen sized bed, swung her feet up and lay down.
“You don’t want to climb under the covers, Ruth?”
“I’m kind of warm right now.”
“You going to be all right if I leave you up here alone?”
“I think so.”
Robert looked at her from beside her bed for a moment more. He marveled at just how frail she looked right then; just like his abuela when she was close to the end. He turned and started toward the door.
“Robert?”
He paused and looked back.
“Have you ever seen something and then doubted you saw it?”
“Like when you see something out of the corner of your eye but when you look at it, it’s not what you thought?”
“No,” She turned her head to look him in the eyes, “ I mean have you ever looked right at something, seen it plain as day, bu
t then once it was gone, began to doubt that you actually saw it.”
Robert thought about it for a moment.
“No, Ruth. I can’t say I have. Why are you asking?”
She looked at him for a moment, then turned her head and stared at the ceiling again.
“Anderson didn’t break into the house. I let him in because I saw something coming after him.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know.”
She closed her eyes, “I just know it meant to hurt him.”
Her words trailed off. Robert said nothing. He watched her until she began breathing deeply, then he walked back downstairs.
Javier and J. B. were still cleaning when Robert reached the kitchen.
“Thanks guys,” he grabbed a sponge, got down on the ground and started scrubbing along beside them.
“No problem,” J. B. replied. “That old lady’s done a ton for you. Hell, she’s done a ton for all of us at one point or another.”
“She tell you anything about what happened?” asked Javier.
“Yeah, but I think the shot the paramedic gave her may be messing with her recollection some. She said she let Anderson in the house herself because something was after him.”
Javier looked up from his scrubbing, “Who was after him?”
“Not who,” said Robert, meeting Javier’s eyes. “She said ‘something’ was after him.”
J. B. rocked back so he was sitting on his knees and looked at Javier, “You got here before us. Is that what she told the detective?”
Javier stood up, holding the bloodied sponges and paper towels he’d used to clean up the mess on the floor. He walked over and dropped them into the kitchen trashcan.
“All I heard was that Anderson got into the house. I never heard how, but the policeman said none of the locks were broken. He figured Anderson found an unlocked door or she let him in.”
“I doubt she let him in,” replied Robert. “Before I left for the bar she told me she would watch out for him. She didn’t think he’d come around but she told me she was going to have that shotgun loaded just in case. I think the sedative they gave her is messing with her memory.”
Javier pulled out a new roll of paper towels, sprayed some Windex on the tile by the sink and started scrubbing.
“Well, she must have left a door unlocked,” he said. “Either way, the detective I talked to said she placed a 911 call saying he was in the house. He said they heard the shot when they arrived on the scene.”
The trio finished cleaning in silence.
Finally, Robert got the last of the refuse into a trash bag, tied it off and headed outside with it. J. B. followed him out.
“You going to stay at the house with her tonight?”
“Yeah, I figure I’ll sleep on the couch in case she needs me. I’m going to just grab a couple of things from my place first.”
“Has this always been like this?” Javier said from behind them.
They turned to see him pointing at the back door. The frame had separated slightly from the wall.
“I’ve never noticed it before,” said Robert. “You think Anderson did it?”
“Could be.”
“Well he didn’t knock the door down. So she must have let him in. That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Guess we’ll just have to wait until she wakes up before we find out what actually happened,” said Javier.
The three moved back inside and out of the cold.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Javier.
“The plan is I’m sleeping here tonight. Other than that, there is no plan,” said Robert. “I don’t think it’s wise for me to leave her alone when she’s like this. You two going to check out the cemetery?”
Javier shrugged, “I think I’ve had enough excitement for tonight. The cemetery will be there tomorrow. Maybe we can all go then.”
“Fine by me,” said J. B. He rubbed a finger across a small red dot on the counter top. Otherwise, the kitchen looked spotless.
“You know,” he mused. “I never thought I’d see the day when Ruth Biden would gun down someone. If she did let him in and then shot him, he must have really done something crazy.”
Robert looked up, “If you’d seen him this morning, you’d agree that’s not a stretch.”
Javier nodded, “I’m headed out. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can check that cemetery.”
“You should take off too,” Robert glanced at J.B. “Get some sleep.”
The big man ran a hand up through his long hair and pulled it out of his eyes.
“You believe she’s just delirious?”
“You mean about ‘something’ being after Anderson?”
“Yeah.”
Robert looked toward the back door. From where he stood he could still see the gap where the frame was knocked away from the wall.
“Too soon to call,” he said.
J. B. pursed his lips, nodded and let himself out.
Javier had been on the road a little more than a minute when the front of the cemetery came into view. He slowed down but couldn’t make out much in the dark. There were no streetlights and nothing lighting up the gates. The snowdrifts had piled up high next to the stone wall but he noticed the walkway seemed clear.
As he cruised past the boundary of the cemetery, he gave the Charger gas and picked up speed. Casually, he glanced back up at the rearview mirror and glimpsed something move.
“What the… ” he tapped the brake to slow down and the car came to a stop about 100 yards past the cemetery. Nothing was there now, but he was sure he’d seen it. It looked like someone had stood up.
Javier sat for a moment and stared in the mirror. Finally, he reached under his seat and pulled on a Velcro tab. A flap opened and reaching inside, he pulled out a 9mm handgun. He ejected the clip, looked to make sure it was full and popped it back into place.
Putting the car in reverse, he slowly backed up to the entrance again. There was no moon and the headlights of his car only allowed him to see just past the front gates. Sitting there, pistol in hand, he looked at the wall. Either there was something there, or there wasn’t. The only way to find out for sure was to get out of the car and go look. The question was, how badly did he want to know.
He reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror so he was looking back at himself. His eyes were red from exhaustion. The hangover had lasted well past noon and he’d been running on adrenaline when he’d left the bar for the cemetery to begin with. Add the trouble at Ruth’s place and now he was running on empty.
“Am I being smart or stupid?” he asked aloud.
The engine purred in reply.
“I’m being stupid,” he said.
If there was someone there, they had the upper hand. His headlights and engine noise told them exactly where he was and right now he was in no condition to get into a scrap with anyone, not even a scrawny white boy like Jason Reller.
He laid the pistol down on the passenger seat, adjusted the mirror back to where it belonged and put the car in gear. Slowly he pulled away from the cemetery and headed toward the highway again. As the it faded from view, out of the corner of his eye, something moved just near the edge of the road. He jammed the brakes hard and the car half slid to a stop. In the long stretch of snowy fields leading to the houses by the highway, he caught sight of what looked like a large dog loping back toward the gate.
“Coyote,” he smiled under his breath. He pressed the gas again and headed toward the highway.
II
Robert lay on the couch. It was a little too small for him to stretch completely out but he rested his head on a pillow by one end and let his calves rest on the other. The only light came from the lamp on the end table next to his head. He pulled a battered novel up from the floor next to him and read a hundred pages before his adrenaline and nerves finally calmed down enough to allow him to sleep. He put the book on the floor beside him when his cell phone rang.
Recognizing the
number, he smiled.
“Cindy?”
“I just wanted to check in on you. You need a ride home or anything?”
“I’m not at the bar,” Robert said quietly. He filled her in on the shooting and Ruth. When he’d finished he could practically hear her shock over the phone.
“So you’re there now?” she asked.
“Yeah, she’s sedated for now. I figured I’d better stay the night.”
“Do you want company?”
Robert thought about it for a moment, “No. I was just about to fall asleep myself. Maybe you could swing by tomorrow if you want. I’m planning on staying with her all day just to see how she’s doing. If anything goes wrong, it’d be nice to have someone else here. Especially someone with a car.”
“I’ll be there first thing and I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
Robert heard something in her voice; an invitation for him to say more. He let it hang.
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“I’d better let you get to sleep. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Robert hung up.
Lying on the couch, he could hear the soft snore of Ruth breathing from her room at the top of the stairs. He could hear the occasional gust of wind outside and the random creak of the house. He thought about how nice it would be to have someone nestled up against him quietly sharing all of this.
He closed his eyes, turned on his side and in less than five minutes was asleep.
He found himself sitting in his abuela’s living room. There was a small vase with paper flowers sitting on top of the television, directly underneath a painting of Jesus, blue eyes looking heavenward. A small box of flowers rested on the radiator heater just inside the window. It was summer. The apartment was warm but not overly hot. She sat in her easy chair, watching her shows and holding a Styrofoam cup in one hand. Next to her on the small end table was the jar of snuff (it was Red Top and he remembered it tasted of bitter chocolate). She sat wearing loose blue dungarees, a buttoned, white shirt with a pocket in the front and her salt and pepper hair pulled back behind her. Her skin was deep brown and he could see the spots that had grown from freckles to dark patches across her arms.
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