Ashes To Ashes

by Gwen Hunter

  "Mom. Her ankle’s swollen."

  I felt down Nana’s right leg, pressing and prodding, following the natural contours of bone and muscle and tendon, all the while watching Nana for signs of discomfort. There was no change in her expression, which was good, but the left leg was a different matter. Nana’s knee was swollen and painful to the touch, so was her ankle.

  She groaned and laid her head back as I unlaced her work boot. "Jasmine," she whispered. "You do what your mama said and call an ambulance. Then you go tell Moses I’m all right. You tell her not to worry. And while you’re there, get me some clothes. Your mama’s probably gonna cut these offa me and I have no intention of being driven ’round in my undies." Nana’s voice grew stronger as she spoke, but her color was still ashen. I didn’t like the way she looked, and wondered how long she had lain here, alone in the pasture, being chased by a tractor before Big Dog had come to her rescue. And how much longer she would have lain there had I not bothered to let my dog out.

  "Pack her a bag," I mouthed at Jas. "She may be staying."

  "The hell I will," Nana said. At least there was nothing wrong with her eyesight or hearing. I looked hard at Jas, pointedly insisting she do as I said, using one of those "mother looks" that communicated so much more than mere words. Pulling her cell phone Jas nodded and headed for nana’s house at a run. Bish grunted and walked to the tractor. He was still looking for the enemy, but at least his gun was holstered.

  "You make me stay in that hospital, I’ll cut your inheritance in half, my girl."

  "You already gave me my inheritance, Nana. Besides, a doctor will make that decision."

  "Then you call Wallace and tell him to get himself down to that hospital. I want a Chadwick to take care of me, not some fool stranger. Pay me back for some of that education money I spent on him." Since I knew good and well that Wallace had long ago repaid Nana, with interest, for every penny she had spent sending him to medical school, it was an easy mental leap to intuit Nana’s real intention. She thought she could boss Wallace around. What she didn’t know was that unlike the young man she had helped raise, the grown up Dr. Wallace Chadwick was no pushover. She would have little recourse against any decision he might make regarding her care. Nana suddenly rolled to one side and vomited on the ground. Vomiting wasn’t a good sign in a patient with a head wound.

  Brown fingers slipped in beside mine and stabilized Nana’s head as she retched. Wicked nudged me out of the way, much as I had him, pushing with his hip. I checked Nana’s pupils again. Still equal, thank God. But slow.

  "Ash. Someone tampered with the screws on the tractor seat," Wicked said, his voice soft and low. "Is this the first time anyone has used the tractor since the night the dogs died?"

  "Yes." Nana spat into the grass, wiping her mouth with a sleeve. "First time."

  "What did they do?" I asked.

  "They removed the screws, all but two, and they were loose. The vibration of the engine shimmed them free. I can tell by the shiny metal around the bolt holes."

  "Wasn’t runnin’ right either. Better get a mechanic to check it out," Nana said, as she rolled back and closed her eyes. "How long’s this arm gonna hurt?"

  "Several weeks," I answered. "Two weeks really bad." My thumb had been a peculiar exception to the rule about pain following a dislocation. I’d been fortunate. I didn’t think Nana would be. "You shouldn’t plan on doing any heavy work for six weeks. And even if that ankle isn’t broken, you won’t be walking around much."

  Nana snorted. "I’m a tough old broad, my girl. I don’t need an ankle to run a tractor. Or an arm either." Wicked pressed his lips together and shook his head. I shrugged. She was a Chadwick, the name practically synonymous with the word stubborn. I wasn’t about to argue while she was lying in an over-mown field, covered with dirt, smeared with blood and in pain. In fact, maybe I’d let Jas argue with her. My daughter had better success manipulating Nana than I.

  "I’ll call the cops as soon as Jas gets back with her cell," I said. I looked toward the house. Jas should have been back with the blankets by now. My daughter had handled enough crises on this farm to know to grab the blankets and make her calls on the run. Jas knew shock could be— Slowly, I stood, a strange sensation running along my nerves. Jas should have been back. Jas was in the house. Jas was alone.

  "Big Dog," I whispered. "Stay. Guard." I pointed at Nana, breaking into a run in the same instant. Through the fence, I was halfway to the house when I heard the words behind me.

  "Ash?"

  "Jasmine. . . ." And the sound of running footsteps as Wicked and Bish echoed my flight. I slammed through the back door at a dead run and through the kitchen, my eyes adjusting to the dimmer light of the house. And I smelled it. The stale, rancid smell of my attacker.

  Scuffing sounded over the pulse beating in my ears. An angry groan. A man’s grunt came from my bedroom. The place where the blankets were stored in summer. He had Jas. I caught myself on the hallway door casing, seeing a dozen things at once. The broken window beside the office door. Golf clubs scattered across the hall floor. Jack’s golf bag on its side. The vase Alan had given me, shattered into a thousand pieces. The gun I had left on the table.

  I couldn’t use the gun. I might hit Jas. Quickly, I bent and lifted a club, grabbing the grip two-handed. And dashed for my bedroom.

  He was on top of her. Tearing at her clothes.

  She was gasping, blood on her face.

  I pulled the club back and swung, the whoosh of air the only warning. He started to turn, lifting his head. The club made a thwacking sound, whipping down. Wrapped around his neck.

  My speed carried me past him. Giving me only a glimpse of his face. Brown eyes. Oily hair. I landed hard against the bedside table. The lamp fell and cracked, the shade flying.

  He made a strangled sound, rolling from Jas. Clutching at his neck and the club wrapped around it. He had a gun.

  "Ash! Down!"

  I dropped, falling across Jas. Protecting her with my body. Gunshots exploded over me. Someone cursed. Something fell, a hollow, booming sound. Footsteps pounded. Wicked screamed. Breaking furniture and shouts sounded.

  "Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!" Jas panted.

  "Jasmine. Jazzy Baby." I pulled her into my arms and scuttled backward like a crab into the closet. Into the dark. We huddled, our arms around one another. The fight receded. We were closed in a shell of refuge, protected by the dark. "Are you okay? Did he. . . ."

  "No," she said through her sobs. "You . . . you g . . . got here in . . . in time."

  I pulled back. Even in the dark of the closet, I could see blood on her face, a bruise on her cheek. The wild look in her eyes. "He hit you," I stated.

  "Yeah," she said. "I think he broke my nose. I haven’t had a broken nose since I was six."

  "Son of a bitch," I whispered, the words fierce. Jas tightened her grip on my arm.

  "Ash?" Bish’s voice. "Mrs. D.? He’s gone. He got away. And Wicked’s been shot."

  Icy shock rushed through me. I didn’t want to leave Jas. . . . I pulled her to me in one final hug. "Are you sure you’re alright?"

  "Go help Wicked." Her voice was shaking, but calmer, as if she had absorbed some strength from me, like the mother’s milk I once fed her. "Go."

  I crawled from the closet. Bish was leaning over Wicked in the hallway just outside my door. I shoved him away. "Call 911. Bring me my cell and my gun off the kitchen table. And then go stay with Nana. Take the blankets."

  "But—"

  "No buts, damn it. Move."

  "Yes, Ma’am."

  I ripped the brace from my hand, turned on the overhead light and assessed Wicked. He was conscious, his eyes looking up at me, pupils equal and reactive. He was breathing fine. Blood stained his shirt. Gripping it, I ripped the buttons off, exposing his chest. Pain raced up the length of my damaged thumb. The man with the gun would have raped Jas and shot us both. I knew that. Bish and Wicked had saved our lives. Tears welled, blinked viscously away. I pr
obed his chest, searching for entrance and exit wounds.

  Jas crawled from the closet, wiping blood and snot from her face. She was shaking, needing something to do, some way to channel her fear. Bish placed the phone and the 9mm on the floor beside me. "Jas. Take the gun," I said. White-faced in the unforgiving light, Jas took the gun and removed it from the ill-fitting holster. Checked the safety and the clip. Her hands steadied as she worked. Bish took the blankets and ran for the pasture.

  I found an entrance wound on Wicked’s chest, just inside and below his left nipple. Directly over his heart. He met my eyes, his own steady and wide. "Mama Moses kick my sorry ass if I die and leave you to deal with this shit," he said, sounding like the kid from the hood he had been so long ago.

  "Well, don’t die then," I said, giving a shaky laugh.

  "Good idea."

  I knew in that moment that I had used up my quota of luck escaping danger. My attacker had come for the file I didn’t have, evidence I couldn’t identify. He had nearly raped my daughter. Now it was kill or be killed.

  Ninety minutes from the time I first discovered Nana lying in a field with a tractor headed her way, Nana and Wicked were on their way to Wallace’s emergency room, me crouching over Wicked all the way, Jas following in Bish’s car. As soon as we wheeled them through the doors to the ER, they became Wallace’s problem. I had to deal with the police. Again. And this time, Sheriff C.C. Gaskin came, wanting to interview all of us and then see the crime scene.

  Jas was more help than I. She had seen the man at close range, while I could only tell the officers that the attacker had brown eyes and needed to wash his hair and brush his teeth. When the sheriff had finished with us, Macon took him away and filled him in on the problems at DavInc. Or at least the problems he thought he should share. Sheriff Gaskin wasn’t a happy man when the interview was over; none of us were. There were too many things we hadn’t told the police about Jack’s business, too many things that didn’t add up in the sheriff’s eyes, holes in our stories. I couldn’t worry about that at the moment, however. Later. Maybe later.

  The waiting room filled up with Chadwicks over the next hour—most of the Dawkins County crowd coming to show support. Even a few from Ford County showed up to keep watch until the medical verdicts were delivered. Between Aunt Mosetta’s branch and Nana’s branch, there were over a hundred Chadwicks within easy driving distance.

  Toward dark, I informed them that Jas had a broken nose with no deformity, and Wicked had a rib cracked in two places, but no internal damage. The bullet had entered at a sharp angle, bounced off his ribcage, circled the outside of his chest, under his skin, and stopped near his spine. Wallace had popped the .32 round out with a blade and tweezers, ordered antibiotics and dressings and pronounced him well enough to go home. Nana had a concussion, a broken ankle, and a badly wrenched knee. No one would be dying tonight. Still, the Chadwick kin waited around, gossiping and catching up on family business and the latest family news. They had shown up for a wake and acted almost disappointed when there wasn’t one.

  Unfortunately, someone had also called my mother. Josephine Hamilton Caldwell blew in just before dark, weeping dry tears. After all, why muss a perfectly good makeup job? Her emotions were seemingly shattered, and yet not a single perfectly coiffed hair was out of place. Careful to wrinkle neither her linen suit nor the corners of her surgically altered eyes, she fell prostrate into the bosom of her family. On that note, Jas, Wicked, Bish and I left. We had horses to feed, a bed to make up for Wicked, and supper to prepare. My daughter needed the solace of her horses and the safety of family. Wallace, who was getting off at dark, volunteered to take care of getting Nana home as soon as her soft cast was ready. She’d be treated by an orthopedic doc for the break later; the soft cast was temporary support.

  I just hoped the sheriff’s deputies would be through gathering evidence and taking fingerprints at my home. We all needed some peace. They were. Back home, Bish nailed a board over the broken window, checked and armed the security system, and took care of the cops and the horses. He didn’t really want to leave Jasmine, preferring to hover over her and assuage his guilt for allowing her to be attacked. But he didn’t argue either, when Jas and I gave him orders. For a city boy, he was really rather useful, even following Duke’s orders at the barn.

  By ten P.M., I had my injured crew bedded down, Jas in my bed so she wouldn’t be alone tonight, Wicked and Bish in two adjoining guest rooms. Making sure I was armed, I made the quarter mile drive to Nana’s to check on her. There, I discovered a surprise. Several actually. The long driveway was choked with cars and trucks and Chadwicks, and no one looked ready to leave. Some of the prospective mourners had dropped by the farmhouse after leaving the hospital. If they couldn’t have a wake, then they’d have a party. One visitor had even moved in.

  I hadn’t seen Joanetta Chadwick, Wallace’s mother, in years, but she was firmly ensconced in her old bedroom under the eaves, determined to nurse Nana back to health. Whether Nana wanted her to or not. Wallace had chosen the better part of valor and high-tailed it back to his home and the gentle embrace of Pearl, leaving his mother to handle things at the family farmhouse. It was one argument I was not mediating. Instead, I turned for home, but stopped in the side yard when I spotted Duke, Disa, and perhaps a dozen preteen kin, playing children’s games. With Alan Mathison.

  "You put your right foot in. You take your right foot out," they all sang, some in tune, most not, but with Alan’s pleasing baritone leading the way. "You put your right foot in and you shake it all about . . ."

  It looked like he’d shaken most body parts several times in the last hour, as he was sweaty, breathless, and exhausted. "You put your right hand in. You take your right hand out. You put your right hand in and you shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about."

  Suddenly, I joined in. "You put your whole self in. You take your whole self out . . ." The children all turned toward the back of the line and giggled. I joined the row of children and shook my hiney on the proper line, braving the dark of the outdoors and the touch of some really filthy little hands. And feeling a moment of happiness as I sang. I needed the release. I needed the laughter. Jas . . . alive. With only a broken nose.

  "You put your whole self in and you shake it all about . . ." Alan Mathison’s eyes met mine in the dark, his lips turned up in laughter. Even in the night, I could see the devilment in his eyes. And I forgot the simple lyrics. "Okay. Enough," I shouted, clapping my hands. "Everybody. Hide and seek. Tomeka Chadwick, you’re "It". Hide your eyes and count to ten. Everybody else, hide. Go!" Alan’s charges scattered, squealing with laughter. Their squeals were more melodic than their singing had been.

  He took my hand, pulling me into the darkness of Nana’s overgrown sasanqua bush. Untrimmed for thirty years, it towered over the eaves of the house and bloomed all winter long, a profusion of huge pink blooms. It was also a great place to hide for the game. Two little Chadwicks crouched beneath us, giggles muffled behind dirty hands.

  "Alan," I said when I caught my breath, "what—

  "I brought by that spec letter for the Taylor development two hours ago," he interrupted, his voice breathless. "You weren’t home, so I followed all the cars here. I’ve eaten two huge pieces of cake, six chicken wings, a half dozen cookies, a delicious piece of chess pie, and been introduced to more Chadwicks and Chadwick kin than I ever hoped to meet. I’ve also been looked over from head to toe by your Nana for the second time, and been told that I would do, whatever that means. I was afraid to ask. Is it always this way around here?" His lips were close to my temple, laughing into my hair, his voice soft,so Tomeka wouldn’t find us in the waxy green leaves. A child shifted beneath me, hitting the back of my knee, throwing me forward. Alan caught me around the waist, steadying me. So quick, that simple touch. So unexpected.

  I gasped softly. "Shhhhh. We don’t want to be It," Alan whispered.

  I nodded, conce
ntrating on his words rather than the warmth of his hand still on my waist. "The spec letter?"

  "Yeah. Jerel wasn’t too pleased that I prepared one, but I reminded him I was supposed to have total discretion in South Carolina, and that if I fell flat on my face, it was my problem and my job, and he could fire me if I screwed up and lost him money."

  "And?"

  "And he told me it would be his blankety-blankety-blankety pleasure to can me if I did."

  I chuckled.

  "Shhhhh."

  "Sorry."

  "And I wanted to thank you for sending Flo Blankenship to me. She’s far too qualified for the job I offered her today, but if this division takes off, she’ll be the best executive assistant I could hope for. She starts in the morning."

  "You’re welcome," I said.

  "She’s not a spy, is she?"

  "No," I chuckled again. This time a junior Chadwick shushed me from below.

  "Family? A distant Chadwick, maybe?"

  "You’ve been here a while. You see her around?"

  "No."

  "Then she’s not a Chadwick. I think every Chadwick for fifty miles made the trip to see if Nana was about to die."

  "Ahhhh," Alan said.

  Someone spit a long dark stream of fluid off the farmhouse porch into the sasanqua. We all moved back a few paces, into the foliage, out of range of the tobacco chewers on the porch. A long chaw after dinner was a quaint custom that was yet to be bred out of some branches of the Chadwick clan, and I didn’t suppose that anyone wanted to reform tonight.

  "In the interests of fair play, I’ll be sending the county’s best earth movers, graders, and surveyors your way," I said softly, trying not to think about the hand still on my waist, or the warmth at my back that was Alan Mathison.

  "No need. I’ll be taking bids for subs."

  "Lowest bid for graders will land you with Turnipseed and Son."

  "You’re joking," Alan said.