Grits, Guns & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 2

by John G. Hartness

  “Can you show me on this map where your sister’s house is? I really need to find these people.” I unfolded my topo map and dug a Sharpie out of my backpack. Esme looked at the map for just a second before taking the marker and putting a small circle down. I plugged the GPS coordinates into my handheld and figured it was a little more than another hour to get there. My watch told me it was about two o’clock, so if I wanted steak for dinner, I was gonna have to get a move on.

  “Thank you so much for your help, Esme. I really appreciate it.” I stood up to leave, but she grabbed my wrist. Her grip was strong for somebody so apparently frail.

  “Please come back by and visit me sometime. It gets very lonely here in the woods, all alone.” She pressed herself into my side in a distinctly non-old lady fashion, and I felt myself blush a little. I danced backwards a little and got out of the cottage before Granny Esme decided to really throw herself at me. I mean, I love the ladies, and I’d dipped my toe in some older rivers from time to time, if you know what I mean, but I draw the line at fooling around with women who remember V-J Day.

  Once I was back outside, I followed the GPS southwest past the house and was soon back into the deep woods. I kept trying the Bluetooth, but even though it felt like I was traveling higher and higher, there was no signal. I guess there are still a few places that cell phone companies haven’t invaded yet. And, of course, I end up in all of them sooner or later.

  I trekked deep into the woods, so deep that I could barely see the sky. My sense of time went all wonky, and I couldn’t tell if I’d been walking for one hour or three. All I was sure of was that my feet were sore, my water bottle was empty, and if I didn’t find this woman’s house pretty soon, I was going to need to find a stream or some other source of fresh water. Just when I was starting to think thirst was a serious problem, I stepped out into a clearing, almost identical to the last one.

  Just like her sister’s place, this cottage sat in a cleared patch of woods, with a nice little picket fence and a neat little chimney blowing a thin plume of white smoke up into the late afternoon sky. There was no cliff behind this cottage, just more woods, but otherwise it was almost indistinguishable from the first one. I stepped through the gate and up to the front door, raising my hand to knock.

  The door opened before I touched it, swinging in to reveal a beautiful fifty-ish woman dressed to kill in slinky black pants and a clingy black shirt that wrapped around her midsection and fastened in the center of some truly impressive tracts of land with a sparkling pendant. The brooch, not that my eye was drawn to that area at all, was a Celtic knot work that looked familiar somehow. Then I remembered that her sister wore a necklace of the same design. I supposed it was a family thing.

  “Hello,” she said with a raised eyebrow and a smile. “I’m Minerva, and you must be Robert. Esme told me you were coming.” Her dark eyes shone with anticipation, and her red lips turned up to mine invitingly. I stepped forward, into the cabin . . .

  And shook myself back to my senses. “Sorry to barge in like that, ma’am. Could I trouble you for some water? My bottles ran out a while back, and I think thirst has made me forget my manners. I’m really sorry about that.”

  Something flashed across her face faster than I could track, but it was gone before I could even swear it existed and was replaced by a sweet smile.

  “Of course, dear. Let me hold your . . . sack and I’ll refill your supplies.” I handed over my backpack and watched as she walked over to the sink. I took in a deep breath as I checked out her ass. For an older chick, she was smokin’! Her butt cheeks looked like a pair of kittens playing in a pillowcase.

  I snapped out of my contemplation of her rear to see her looking at me, a little smirk on her face. Busted. I realized she was waiting on me to answer, and I had no idea what the question was.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say? I guess I was out there a little longer than I thought. Do you mind if I sit down?” I stepped over to her couch and took a seat. The cottage was almost identical to Esme’s on the inside too—a little sitting area, a kitchen, a dining area, and a hallway leading off into the back. I noticed one thing conspicuous by its absence, though.

  “Y’all don’t have TVs?” I asked.

  Minerva paused halfway across the living room and looked at me like a startled rabbit. “Um . . . no, we . . . um . . . never have enjoyed television the way some people do.”

  “Huh.” I shrugged, reaching out for the water glass and knocking back half of the tumbler in one gulp. “Well, can’t say as I blame you. There’s never anything on except smut and bad news. You’re probably better off reading a book.” I looked around, but there were no bookshelves, either. Or board games, or computers, or anything a person might amuse themselves with. These women kept some strange households.

  “Yes, well, the library is in the back of the house. That’s where I spend much of my time. There, and the bedroom.” Her voice was like smooth velvet, and before I noticed, she was on the couch with me, pressed tight against me. “Is there anything else I could get for you? Anything?”

  I looked down into those dark pools and felt myself slipping away, just comfortable to sit there on the couch with her and leave the lost men to their own devices. But then I remembered Skeeter, and Agent Amy, and that steak I wanted for dinner, and my focus went sharp again.

  “Yes ma’am, there is. I’m looking for some hikers that vanished near here, and a park ranger that went missing this morning. I visited your sister because her cottage is near the last known destination of one of the hikers, but she didn’t seem to know anything. She told me I should talk to you because you might have some idea where these men have vanished to.”

  That shadow flickered across her face again, almost too fast to see but not quite, then she answered me. “Well, there was a man by here this morning, looking for another man he said was missing. I told him I hadn’t had the company of a gentleman caller in some time and that he should talk to Grissy.”

  “Who’s Grissy?” I asked.

  “Grissy is our youngest sister. She lives a little further into the wood.” Just what I needed, another hour of hacking through honeysuckle and dodging deer poop. My steak was fading into dream territory with every minute.

  “I thought Esme said she brought the climber here. She said he was hurt and you were nursing him back to health.”

  “Well I was, but he got better and went to visit Grissy for a few days.”

  “I thought he just went missing two days ago?”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that, young man. I just know that he was hurt, and the moment I got him all healed up right as rain, he ran off with my little sister.” Her dark eyes flashed, and I got the feeling this wasn’t the first time a guy she was interested in made a play for the younger sis.

  “So you told this to Ranger Jerry?”

  “I did indeed, and just like all the others, he ran off to little Grissy’s house.” Bitter, party of one, your table is now available. I decided it was time for me to get out of there before this chick started boiling bunnies and swinging cutlery around. I stood up from the couch and reached for my bag.

  “Thanks for the water, but now it looks like I need to go see your sister and get this mess all cleared up.”

  She just sat there on the couch, looking up at me like an abandoned puppy. And abandoned puppy with huge knockers spilling out of her shirt, but a puppy just the same.

  “Do you have to leave? Aren’t you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here? With me?” At that last bit, she stretched out one long leg and ran her bare toes up the inside of my leg. As her foot approached the promised land, I stepped back out of reach. Her foot dropped to the floor, and she gave me a pout before standing and going to open the door.

  “Well, you have fun with little Grissy, but remember how to get to my house when you want to talk to a real woman.”

  “Yeah . . . That reminds me. I don’t have any idea where your sister lives. Could you mark it on this m
ap for me?” I held out the map and a Sharpie, and she took them both in a huff. She stomped over to the little table, marked an “X” on the map, and stomped back.

  “Here. Now get out.”

  I did just that, and kept one hand on my knife as I backed away from the cabin. No way was I letting that one out of my sight. I thought to myself as I left the clearing that maybe it was a good thing these chicks lived deep in the woods. I heard the sound of something big and probably hungry rustling around in the woods nearby, but that didn’t worry me nearly as much as the thought that Minerva might be following me.

  The map took me over a couple of rivers and through a helluva lotta woods, but Grandmother’s house was nowhere to be found. Okay, it was more like a couple of little streams that I managed to hop over without even getting my boots wet, but there were plenty of woods. Another hour or so of clumping through the woods brought me to one more clearing, marked just where Minerva said it was on the map. And once again, there was a tidy little cabin in the center of it.

  The cabin looked a lot like the other two, your basic log cabin, but with a nice picket fence around it and a little flower garden out front. There was a big overturned pot by the front door of this one, though, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was for. It looked like a giant stewpot, a good five feet deep and six feet around, but it was made out of porcelain instead of cast iron. On the ground next to it was a porcelain stirrer, but it was thicker than anything I’d ever seen before. In my stew experience, you just needed a cast iron pot about four feet around and three feet deep, and growing up we always stirred ours with a busted oar from somebody’s jon boat, but this rig was a lot fancier.

  The rest of the cabin could have come out of a fairy tale, it looked so stereotypical. There were even window boxes full of flowers. A thin tendril of smoke wafted up into the air from the brick chimney, and the scent of cooking spices filled the air. I stepped into the clearing and walked up to the front door, a little entranced by the delicious smells. I raised my hand to knock, but the door opened before I had the chance to bring my meaty fist down on it.

  A blast of good food smells wafted out and floated around my head, taking me back to some of the best meals I’ve ever had. Mama’s fried chicken and gravy danced on my tongue, while memories of my college girlfriend Brittany’s spaghetti sauce tingled feelings a little lower. I even thought I smelled Waffle House chili in there for a second. Don’t judge me, you ain’t lived until you’ve been knee-walking drunk at three-thirty in the morning in Birmingham, Alabama, eating Waffle House chili at the bar with one hand while you hold your buddy’s head out of his grits with the other hand.

  I blinked a couple of times to cut through the food smells and the memories and looked down at the woman who stood in the doorway. I had to catch my breath all over again when I saw her.

  “Y-you must be Grissy,” I managed to stammer while I drank in every inch of her. And they were some good-looking inches, too. She had long, dark hair cascading down over her shoulders, exotic part Asian-part Latina-part American-all hottie features that made Angelina Jolie look boring, with big brown eyes, dimples in her cheeks and a smile that melted my heart and stiffened a couple of other things.

  She had a slender neck, smooth skin and long, long legs in a short, short skirt. She was barefoot, and her toes were painted a crimson to match her fingernails. She had on a men’s tank top tied up to show a flat belly with a silver ring in her bellybutton and exposing enough cleavage to make me want to dive in there and explore for a day or so. In short, she was hot.

  “Yes, I’m Grissy. What brings a big, strong man like you all the way out here?” She reached up and stroked my shoulder as she asked the question, and when the words came across her lips, I had no idea what the answer could be.

  “I - I - I’m just taking a hike, I guess,” I said after a minute of staring into those pools of blue. I might have diverted my gaze a little further south once or twice, too, but it was in a purely respectful way. And I didn’t drool. Or if I did, my beard caught most of it.

  “Wow, you must be thirsty. Why don’t you come in, have a drink of water, and sit down for a minute. After all, it’s soooo hot out there.” She turned and walked into the cabin with me in tow. I followed her like a bulldog chasing a convertible, not having any idea what I was going to do with it when I caught it. She motioned to the couch and I sat. She didn’t so much sit next to me as she oozed in beside me, pressing all her curves up to every inch of the side of my body. All thoughts of water went right out of my head. Come to think of it, pretty much every thought went right out of my head. I just sat there, enjoying the feel of all that soft womanliness pressed up against me.

  “Now,” she continued, trailing a fingertip down the line of buttons on my shirt, “what brings a big, strong man like you out to my cabin deep in these woods?”

  Somehow I focused my thoughts enough to answer her question. “I’m looking for some people. Several men have gone missing in these woods lately, and when I spoke to your sisters, they thought maybe you might have seen them.” I pulled a couple of pictures out of my back pocket and showed them to her.

  She glanced down at the pictures for about an eighth of a second, then turned her dazzling smile back to me. “Never seen them before. Now, why don’t we get better acquainted before dinner?”

  I was all set to call her out on not even looking at the pictures, but then she had to go and mention dinner. Now let’s review—I arrived on her doorstep after traipsing through the woods all damn day, chatting with her oldest sister, practically being molested by her middle sister, and now this most delectable thing had to go and mention food with me sitting in the middle of an olfactory orgasm zone. Well, my stomach did what it does when somebody mentions food—it grumbled out a little “hello” to the room just to remind us all that it was there. She heard my stomach growl—hell, people three states away probably heard my stomach growl—and giggled. Like she thought my barbaric manners were cute.

  I’ve been called a lot of things by a lot of women, and a lot more by their fathers, husbands, brothers, boyfriends, and priests. But I’m seldom what anybody thinks is cute. And it’s even more rare that I get giggled at. So I didn’t really know what to do with the situation. So I sat there like a jackass with a giggling sex kitten laughing on his chest, with all the appropriate jiggly bits of her doing what jiggly bits of women do when they laugh. So yeah, I didn’t mind being giggled at so much.

  After a few seconds of confusing frivolity, she looked up at me and said, “Sounds like somebody’s hungry. Would you like to join me for dinner?” And she batted her eyelashes. She batted. Her. Damn. Eyelashes. It was about as cute as a bucketful of kittens. And I was hungry.

  “Of course. I’d hate to leave you out here all alone to eat by yourself. Besides, it smells delicious. What are you having?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. I won’t be alone. As a matter of fact, my sisters should be along in just a few minutes. We always take our meals together.” I wondered about this since old lady Esme didn’t look like she could walk across her living room without breaking a hip, much less meander through the woods for two hours to get here. But then I caught another whiff of whatever was in the oven, and I didn’t care so much about Esme. I did make sure that Bertha was still in her holster, though. Minerva scared me a little.

  “Do you have anywhere I can wash up?” I asked. “I’ve been tromping through these woods for hours and I’d hate to sit down at your table all grimy.”

  “Of course. Right through there.” She pointed down the hallway that led, I assumed, into the rest of the house. I heaved my bulk up off her couch and walked down the hall. The door to the right was open a little bit, so I peeked inside. Nope, that ain’t it. I pulled the door to her bedroom shut, but not before I took in the huge canopy bed in the center of the room and thought about all sorts of gymnastics that a guy my size could put a woman her size into in a bed that size. I turned to the opposite door
and tried the knob, but it was locked.

  The door at the end of the short hall opened into a small bathroom with an old-fashioned claw tub and a cute little pedestal sink. I closed the door, took a long-needed leak, and set about making myself some level of presentable. My hair looked like a bigger rat’s nest than normal, so I took my ponytail down and ran my fingers through the mop, trying to tame it a little bit. I had no luck, so I opened the medicine cabinet in hopes of finding an old boyfriend’s comb or something that I could use. I wasn’t snooping, really. Much.

  No comb, just a bunch of old glass bottles with paper labels on them. I grabbed one down but couldn’t read it. The script was spidery and faded, but also written in some kind of Latin or Greek or hell, if I was being honest, it coulda been Korean for all I knew what it was saying. I put the bottle back and went back to washing my hands and face. I reached over to the side of the sink for a towel, and with all my usual bull-in-china-shop grace, knocked it to the floor. I knelt down to pick up the towel and saw something gold and shiny behind the toilet. Never one to leave something shiny behind, I reached down and pulled out a cheap gold star with the name “Davis” on it below the symbol of the National Parks Service. My brow knit, I slid the badge into a pocket, and clambered to my feet.

  Or at least I started to clamber to my feet because just about the time I got to kneeling position, the door opened behind me. I turned to see Grissy standing there, looking pissed and holding a black iron skillet. In my experience, that’s always been a bad combination.

  “You just had to get all snoopy, didn’t you? Couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could you?” I didn’t bother trying to answer because she swung the skillet at my head like Babe Ruth in Yankees Stadium. I dove under the swing and scrabbled forward, trying to get out of the bathroom and somewhere that I could defend myself without having to shoot the really hot girl with the really big pistol. I ran into Grissy’s legs, and instead of bowling her over like I would expect a 350-pound dude to do to a hundred-or-so pound woman, it was like I’d run into iron bars. I looked up in surprise and saw nothing but skillet rushing down at my face. The world exploded into stars, and that was the last thing I remember.