Once in a Blue Moon

by Sharon Sala

  “That’s fine,” the clerk said. “Just have a seat while I get the paperwork together.”

  Cathy sat down beside the desk. It did cross her mind that doing this might somehow reveal her location, but she was counting on the fact that Blaine had given up. Kind of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind reaction. It was time to trust the universe on this one, because she was tired of running.

  A few minutes later, the clerk finished the paperwork, and Cathy signed the rental agreement.

  “You’ve rented it for two weeks, so if you think you’re going to need it longer, let us know,” the clerk said.

  Cathy nodded. “Yes, I will, but I’m certain I won’t. As soon as I can, I’m going to Savannah to lease or buy one.”

  “If you have any problems with this one, you have our number. They’re bringing the Jeep around to the curb, and they’ll explain all of the features to you.”

  “Thank you,” Cathy said, then took her paperwork and went out the front door.

  A couple of minutes later, she saw the car coming and smiled. It was a far cry from the white Lexus she’d driven in Vegas, but it suited her.

  The driver pulled up to the curb and got out. After they checked out the Jeep’s condition together, Cathy got inside and started it up. The driver explained a few more details, and then Cathy backed away and drove straight to the Crown for groceries. It was wonderful not to be dependent on others anymore.

  She went inside without a grocery list. It was the first time since her arrival that she hadn’t had to choose her purchases based on what she was able to carry home, and today she was stocking up.

  She pulled a shopping cart from the stack and was moving toward the baking aisle when Alice Amos waved at her from the checkout stand.

  “Hi, Cathy! Good to see you out and about.”

  Cathy smiled. “Thanks. It feels good to be mobile again.”

  The greeting was nothing more than a simple hello between acquaintances, but it made Cathy feel like she belonged. Someone knew her. And the longer she was here, the more people she would meet. It felt good just to be in the world where someone else knew her name.

  After that, she got down to serious shopping, and by the time she checked out and loaded up to go home, there were seven sacks of groceries in the back of her car. Canned goods. Baking goods. Extra cuts of meat for her freezer. Fresh vegetables and eggs. Extra dairy. And since Duke had mentioned it was his favorite soft drink, she had a six-pack of Coke. Now all she had to do was get home, unload it, and put it away.

  But having a car made her curious about parts of Blessings she’d never seen, and for the first time since she’d come, she turned left at the end of town instead of right and drove down across old railroad tracks into a neighborhood far less welcoming than she would have imagined.

  The poverty level here was a slap-in-the-face reality, which didn’t go along with the image she had of this little town. People had been so good to help her. Why weren’t they helping down here as well?

  She only drove through a couple of blocks before she realized people were aware of her presence. She was a stranger in their neighborhood, and they were wary. She didn’t want them to feel anxious in any way, so she turned at the end of the block and left.

  But the memory of that place, and the hopelessness she’d felt, stayed with her.

  * * *

  Moses Gatlin went to town to pick up some new skirting to winterize their old trailer house. Georgia wasn’t known for hard winters, but weather was so strange these days that they didn’t want to take a chance on their pipes freezing.

  J.B. stayed behind to finish removing the old skirting and clean up around the trailer. They didn’t have a lawn mower, but they’d set their trailer where the old house used to be, and the grass didn’t grow much where it had exploded and burned. Still, there were enough grass and weeds around the steps and at the ends of the trailer to make the place look shabby. And now that they were in the money from the cattle-rustling venture, J.B. was trying to elevate their lifestyle.

  So he went to the toolshed to poke around for some kind of clippers and found his granddaddy’s old scythe instead. He had vague memories of the old man using it to cut the grass down back in the day and decided if Granddaddy could do it, so could he.

  But the scythe was rusty as hell and hadn’t had an edge sharpened on it in at least two generations, so he took it back to the trailer, got the whetstone they used to sharpen their hunting and kitchen knives, and set to work.

  It took a while to get that rust off before J. B. could even begin to start whetting the cutting edge, but he knew how to do it. He’d been at it for almost an hour when he finally paused, then ran his thumb lightly against the edge to see if he had it sharp enough to take down the grass. After a couple more strokes of the whetstone, he set that aside and got up to try it. When it took the tops off the grass without effort, he grinned.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” he said, and began swinging it back and forth across the grass, just like he remembered Granddaddy doing it.

  A few minutes later, he heard the sound of their old truck coming up the road. That meant Moses was back, and J. B. wasn’t quite through. In his haste to finish up, he moved closer to the concrete steps than he meant to, and on the downswing, the tip of the scythe hit the hard surface and bounced right back against his leg. He screamed out in pain, then grabbed at his leg as the blood began to gush.

  Moses drove up into the yard just in time to witness the accident and got out on the run, then dropped down on both knees beside his brother.

  “Let me look. Let me look,” Moses said, and when he saw how deep the gash had gone, he yanked off his belt, wrapped it around J.B.’s leg just above the cut to form a tourniquet, and all but dragged his brother to the truck.

  “What are you doing?” J.B. cried.

  “I got to get you to the hospital in Blessings, or you’re gonna bleed to death. That cut went all the way to the bone. Now hold onto that belt and keep it tight. This is gonna be a wild ride.”

  And it was.

  The old truck bounced around through the dried ruts, and then spun out when they hit gravel before they finally reached blacktop. After that, Moses stomped the accelerator all the way to the floor.

  “How fast are we going?” J.B. asked.

  “I ain’t got time to look,” Moses muttered, as he passed the city limit sign going into Blessings and then was forced to slow down drastically once he started through town. By the time he pulled up to the ER entrance, he was shaking.

  “Stay here,” he said, “I’m getting help,” and he jumped out running.

  Seconds later, an orderly and a nurse came running out pushing a gurney. They transferred J.B. onto it and pushed him into the entry, leaving a blood trail as they went.

  Hope Talbot was on duty in the ER when they pushed him past the nurse’s station, and she followed them and Dr. Quick into a trauma bay. Within seconds they had his work boots off and the leg of his jeans cut all the way to his thigh.

  “Aw, man…you ruined my pants,” J.B. groaned.

  “Just shut it, brother. You need your leg worse than you need your pants,” Moses said.

  So J.B. shut it, talking only to answer questions from the doctor or the nurses.

  It wasn’t until Dr. Quick was beginning to suture the wound that Hope noticed the bloody boot prints around the bed where Moses Gatlin had been standing.

  For a moment, she forgot to breathe as she stared down at a gash in the heel of the left boot. That looked just like the one in the pictures Duke had taken from the site of the rustling. She knew orderlies would start mopping this all up the moment they were finished, so she grabbed her phone and snapped a couple of pictures.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Quick. Excuse me a moment,” she said, and ducked out of the room.

  Dr. Quick looked at the other nu
rse and grinned.

  “Bless her heart. I told her being pregnant and working the ER was going to be tough.”

  But he couldn’t have been more mistaken. Hope wasn’t sick at her stomach. She was on the trail of rustlers.

  She sent the photos to Jack, then called the police department.

  “Blessings PD. This is Avery.”

  “This is Hope Talbot. Is Chief Pittman on duty?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ask him to come to the ER stat, but with no sirens. I think I might have found our cattle rustlers.”

  “Yes, ma’am. On the way,” Avery said.

  Hope disconnected as Avery dispatched the chief.

  Lon was on patrol and had just driven past the park when he got the call. He headed to the ER running hot, then cut the siren before he turned off Main Street and headed to the hospital.

  Hope was standing outside the entrance. He pulled up behind an old pickup already parked at the doorway and got out on the run.

  “What’s happening, honey?” Lon asked.

  “I didn’t know who else to call but you. I know you didn’t work the incident, but I didn’t want them to get away or have the opportunity to dispose of the evidence. I might have found our rustlers.”

  She showed him the photos Jack had just sent her of the boot prints from the site, and then she showed him the bloody prints from the ER.

  “Wow,” Lon said. “Who do those belong to?”

  “Moses Gatlin,” Hope said. “As you know, their place isn’t all that far from ours. And it’s even closer to Mr. Bailey’s place where the rustlers gained entrance to our place. I know it could be a coincidence, but—”

  “You did the right thing,” Lon said. “If you’ll send those photos to my phone, I’ll take it from here, and you won’t have to be further involved.”

  He waited for them to show up on his phone. As soon as they did, he gave her arm a quick pat.

  “You’re off the hook now, sister. We don’t need you or baby getting any deeper into this mess.”

  Hope hugged him. “Thank you. You’re the best brother-in-law ever,” she said, and ducked back inside.

  Lon made a quick call back to dispatch.

  “I’m gonna need some backup at the Emergency Room, and tell them to hurry.”

  * * *

  Moses was focused on Dr. Quick’s instructions for how to take care of the wound and when to change the dressings when there was a commotion at the door, and then Chief Pittman and two officers walked in.

  “Dr. Quick, I’m going to ask you and Rhonda to step out of the room now,” he said.

  Quick blinked. “I’m just finishing up. If—”

  “Is his life in danger?” Lon asked.

  “No, sir. He’s good to go. I was just giving instructions.”

  “Then I’m going to ask you both to step out.”

  Quick glanced at the men, wondering what they’d done, but he didn’t hesitate. He took his nurse’s arm and escorted her out.

  Both brothers were in shock.

  “Get some pictures of those,” Lon said, pointing to the telltale prints in the blood. He wanted his own photo proof of the scene, too.

  Deputy Ralph quickly obeyed.

  “What’s going on?” Moses asked. “If you think this injury had to do with a fight or something, then, no sir, it did not. He cut his leg with a scythe while he was cleaning up the yard.”

  “It’s not about his leg,” Lon said. “Whose footprints are those?” he asked, pointing.

  Moses turned. “Why, I guess those are mine.”

  Lon pulled up the photos from the site of the rustling that Hope had just sent.

  “Do you recognize these prints?” he asked.

  Moses stared down at the mud and the grass and the clear boot print in the mud that matched the one in the blood, and all of a sudden his heart skipped a beat.

  “How about this picture?” Lon asked, and flipped to a broader scene showing the empty cattle cube sacks and the cut fence wires.

  Moses looked. His mind was spinning. There were a thousand things he could think to say, but he couldn’t get them said. He’d known. In the back of his mind, he’d known the risks the day he took the money from the sale of the first steer.

  “What the hell are y’all carryin’ on about? Let me see!” J.B. cried.

  Lon held out the photo of the bloody boot print, and then showed him the same print in the mud and then the scene at the fence.

  All the color in J.B. Gatlin’s face went south. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted.

  Moses shrieked, “Doctor! Doctor! Come quick!”

  Dr. Quick dashed back into the room, saw his patient, and glared at the chief.

  “What did you do to him?” he cried.

  “Showed him a couple of pictures that linked them to some cattle rustling. I’d guess he fainted.”

  Quick checked J.B.’s vitals, then sighed. “Yes, he’s fine. Sorry for shouting. Proceed as you will,” he muttered.

  Lon looked at Moses.

  “Anything you want to say to me now?”

  Moses shuddered. “We did it. We weren’t raised this way and I knew it was wrong, and we did it anyway. I’m sorry. If I could take it back, I would, but it’s done.”

  “Turn around, and put your hands behind your back,” Lon said. “Moses Gatlin, I’m arresting you for—”

  At that point, all sound faded as Moses turned. He felt the cold steel of the handcuffs around his wrists, and then dropped his head. The possibility of frozen pipes in the trailer had just become the least of their worries.

  By the time J.B. came to, Moses was already at the jail being processed. Lon and the other officer transported J. B., booked him, and put him in the cell next to his brother.

  “What’s gonna happen to us?” J.B. asked as Deputy Ralph closed the cell door behind him.

  “County has the case. Sheriff Ryman will transport you both to the county jail, and you’ll go from there. Sorry you boys took this route in life. I have to say, it sure did surprise me,” Ralph said.

  Moses ducked his head.

  J.B. just looked away.

  As their mama used to say…what’s done is done.

  * * *

  Jack was a slightly shorter, stockier version of his big brother, Duke, but when it came to taking care of family, they were just alike.

  He tried to call Duke after Hope called him, but it went to voicemail, so he just sent her the pictures she’d requested, left Duke a message, and took off into Blessings to make sure Hope was okay and the rustlers were behind bars.

  Finding out the rustlers’ identities had been shocking. Jack had gone to school with J.B. Gatlin. He and his brother had never been anything but law-abiding people, but Jack had heard they’d fallen on hard times after their mother, Beulah, died. It appeared they’d taken the easy way out to recoup their losses.

  The ER was busy by the time he arrived, so Jack didn’t do much more than check Hope out, give her a hug, and praise her for being so observant.

  “You get off work at 4:00 p.m., right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Shift will change at three, but it’ll take every bit of an hour before I can get away from here,” Hope said.

  “So how about I pick up something for dinner and take it home. We have all kinds of stuff to make side dishes. I just thought it would save a lot of fuss and mess if we weren’t cooking some kind of meat. Does anything sound good to you?”

  Hope laughed. “Everything sounds good. I’m going to have to be careful and not eat my way through the next seven months. I know…get some ribs from Granny’s, and if there’s any of Mercy’s chocolate pie left, bring me a piece.”

  “Will do,” Jack said, then gave her a quick kiss and left.

  Hope sighed as she
watched him go. “Best husband ever,” she muttered, and then went back to work.

  * * *

  By nightfall, Hope Talbot was the talk of the town, and as it always was with gossip in Blessings, the story had morphed from Hope seeing the bloody boot prints and putting two and two together to being the one who’d put the cuffs on Moses Gatlin herself.

  When Duke finally realized Jack had left him a voicemail, he listened to it on his way back home and was shocked by what he heard, but even more so at learning the identity of the men who’d stolen their cattle. Like Jack, it sickened him to think it had been their own neighbors who’d done it.

  When he finally reached the house, he parked at the back entrance as he always did, then sat for a few moments, contemplating the facts of what he was about to do.

  He had never lived anywhere else in his life but on this property, in this house, and he felt a twinge of sadness that things were going to change.

  But he wouldn’t deny for a moment that this change was all for the better. On a phone call to Rhonda Bailey earlier, she had confirmed that they were already thinking of putting their old place up for sale, and they would certainly give him the first option. They were having the property appraised, and once they did, they would let Duke know what the family wanted to ask for the property.

  He’d asked permission to go through it, and she told him where they’d hidden the key. That’s where he’d been when Jack was trying to call him—walking through the rooms and checking out the structure and the floors and the roof.

  The bones of the old house were sound, and most everything inside was in good to decent condition, but it was all out of date and needed remodeling. If everything went as planned, he was going to make Rhonda Bailey a fair offer on behalf of her father, and he was guessing they would gladly accept it. Her father’s nursing-home care was costly.

  Finally, Duke got out of the truck and went inside. He was thinking about what kind of meat to take out of the freezer to make for their supper when Jack got home. When he saw Jack carrying in a sack from Granny’s Country Kitchen, and then he smelled the aroma, he smiled.

  “I see you cooked supper tonight, via Granny’s,” Duke said.