Alone in a Cabin

by Leanne W. Smith

  Blinders that had grown like cataracts over Maggie’s eyes prior to Tom’s betrayal—then persisted stubbornly through the withdrawing of his love, the storms of his confession, the bludgeoning of the sturdy pillars that had held her life together like a bedrock—the blinders were ripped away at last. All the facts were the same, but what she believed about them had changed.

  As confused as Maggie felt, as crazy as she sounded, she knew she had it right now. I see more clearly than I did.

  She wasn’t sure what she ordered for lunch, but she was sure the waitress sized her up more than was normal. Was it because Maggie was a stranger? Or because she sat in the restaurant with the town’s handsome sheriff? Did the waitress think Maggie was guilty of something?

  Canon attempted to make small talk after the woman left. “So, twins. Do they favor?”

  Maggie had spilled a lot of details about the last five months of her life back at his office. She pulled out her phone now to show him an obligatory photo so he could put faces with the names.

  As she thumbed through a string of pictures from Thanksgiving she said, “That’s Cal’s fiancée, Yvette. And this is Mark, Robbie’s boyfriend.” Then she was into the pictures from last summer, the Fourth of July picnic. There was one of the twins. She held it out to show him. “They’re fraternal, not identical.”

  “A boy and girl can’t be identical.” The sheriff was stating facts again.

  “That’s right. Most people don’t know that, because they ask me all the time.”

  “Twins run in my family.”

  Maggie was going to ask him more about that, but as she brought the phone back she looked at the picture again, realizing for the first time that Bethany stood in the background, talking to Tom, who was smiling. Maggie turned her phone off.

  Bethany was already pregnant by the Fourth of July picnic. Maggie had done the math. She suspected that’s why Tom had pushed the divorce papers through so quickly. So his next child wouldn’t be born while he was still married to Maggie.

  Canon smiled. “Nice looking kids. They favor you.”

  Their food came and Maggie ate so she wouldn’t have to talk, but her meat and three went down like cardboard. Canon wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She hadn’t thought to notice that until he reached for his wallet to pay for lunch, insisting she put her purse away.

  On the ride back to the cabin, Maggie’s mind wouldn’t stop swirling with the events of the day. Tom…Zeke…Canon…the headstone…her future.

  She clamped the edge of her forefinger hard between her teeth to keep from crying, a sudden rush of emotion going straight to her eyes. Maggie was tired. Wrung out.

  Had anyone told her prior to this day that ghosts or nightmares could prove a blessing, she never would have believed them. But now she realized it was true—they could—and, in spite of the hard bite to her flesh, she wept.

  Maggie kept her face turned to the window, but presently felt a nudge at her elbow. Canon held out a small packet of tissues. She took them without speaking and turned away from him again.

  All at once the squad car lurched right, then left. Canon was wheeling it around. “Saw something out of place back there. Hold on.”

  Maggie clutched the door handle as ice and snow spewed beneath Canon’s tires. They careened dangerously close to a drop off on Maggie’s side of the roadway. She inhaled and braced for impact, but Canon held it steady, steering the car back into the clear asphalt ruts. He pointed them toward a once-white building with no windows they just passed, on the opposite side of the road from where Maggie had her head turned. ‘Ron-dee-vu’ flashed on a sign with holes in the plastic.

  As they neared the parking lot, Maggie saw a group of men. One was suddenly thrown to the ground, snow spraying up from the force of it. Now another man kicked him. Maggie’s breath caught—this was worse than nearly going off the embankment.

  Canon wheeled into the lot and threw the car into park. The tires slid, then caught. “Stay here! Don’t get out.” The command was barked—not open for debate. Then he was out of the car and running.

  Maggie watched him swing a leg under the back of the man who was kicking, knocking him to the ground beside his victim. When the other two turned, he knocked them to the ground too, before Maggie could suck wind from the shock of it. Now his pistol was out, and he must have been telling the men to keep their hands where he could see them because they each held out their arms. Then they were picking themselves off the icy parking lot, slowly, keeping their eyes on Canon and hands where he could see them.

  Everything had happened so fast. Maggie’s mind raced to catch up. What if one of those men pulled a gun on Canon? She checked the glove box. Sure enough, there was a small pistol lying inside it. Maggie’s fingers shook. She was afraid to take it in her hands.

  With the hard cage behind her head, the crackle of the radio, and the cold steel of the gun in front of her, Maggie’s respect for the sobriety of Canon’s job suddenly soared.

  She watched as Canon motioned the three men to the side of the building then put a hand down to help the one still on the ground. The four of them lined up. Canon was asking them questions and listening, but Maggie couldn’t tell what they were saying. If they turned on him, Maggie would grab the gun and come to Canon’s rescue. He told her to stay in the car, but surely this would be a justified exception. Maggie strained to keep her eye on them.

  Canon looked over his shoulder at the squad car. Would he have taken them to the station were it not for her? Should Maggie get out and offer to wait at this questionable-looking bar while Canon took the men into custody? But what other men might be inside? Only a handful of cars were in the lot. Who came to a place like this on New Year’s Eve?

  Lonely people. That was who.

  Canon kept the three attackers by the side of the building while the man they had beaten limped to his car and left. When the man’s car was well out of sight, Canon motioned with his gun for the other three to go. He stood by and watched until each one disappeared down the road. Then he walked back to his squad car and opened the door, his eyes brushing over Maggie. “You okay?”

  “Am I okay?” All Maggie had done was sit in the car. “Are you okay?”

  Canon eyed the open glove box. He got in and reached across her knees to close it, suddenly grinning. “You were planning to come to my rescue.” It wasn’t a question.

  “If necessary.”

  He cut his eyes over to her as he put the car into gear. “Did you not think I could handle it?”

  Maggie didn’t know how to answer. She was pretty sure by the way he asked the question—and the smirk on his face as he turned the car around—that Canon knew exactly what he could handle.

  “I’m not used to fights in parking lots,” Maggie mumbled as they turned off the highway onto Patterson Road.

  “That was pretty mild.”

  Maggie was silent as they rode past Mr. Thompson’s cottage. It was 3:15. The sun dipped low in the sky.

  “I guess it’s been a full day for you,” said Canon.

  “And for you.” She watched the cabin come into view, then Canon was parking beside her Subaru.

  “Walk me through it again.”

  How could he not be tired of this? Maggie was certainly tired of telling it. But she walked him through it again as they got out and made their way toward the steps. Maggie wondered if this was what law enforcement did—kept having victims go through their stories over and over, to see if they kept the facts consistent.

  Just like a writer.

  “He was right here.” Maggie pointed to the porch. “Curled. Half frozen. I pulled him in, toward the fire. I went back in the kitchen to heat some tomato soup. We got him thawed out.”

  Canon’s boots echoed on the wooden floors as he followed her through the cabin, inspecting again. “You said you doctored his leg, but there are no bandages anywhere.”

  “Hold on.” Maggie grabbed her car keys and went back out to the Subaru. The first aid kit
was undisturbed in the trunk. Inspecting its contents, she brought it back inside. “I can’t explain it. I did, I doctored his leg. I used these. There should have been bloody bandages in the trash.”

  “But there aren’t.”

  “Okay.” Maggie threw the kit on the table and lifted her hands in defeat. “I guess a ghost cleans up after himself.”

  “The neat ones, anyway.”

  Was he smirking at her again? “You don’t think he was really here.”

  This time the sheriff’s look wasn’t satisfied or sheepish, it was frustrated, causing the lines on either side of his eyes to crease again. “I can’t find any evidence that he was, Maggie.”

  “What about the things I wrote?”

  “From all appearances, that’s just fiction.”

  She tried to keep the hurt from showing on her face, but knew she did a poor job of it.

  “Sweetheart…” Canon held out his arms to her.

  Maggie looked up sharply.

  Canon stepped back, his ears turning scarlet. “My apologies. That was inappropriate. I didn’t mean anything by it. Look,” he lifted his hands. “I know I’m skatin’ on thin ice here, and the last thing I want to do is upset you.”

  “I realize you’re doing your job, Sheriff. But…” Maggie shook her head. She could feel tears welling up again, like in the car, before the bar fight. She didn’t want to cry in front of him again. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all this. I think maybe I’m supposed to write Zeke’s story. That’s why he came to me. It was so clear when I was walking back to the cabin from Mr. Thompson’s earlier. That’s the only explanation. Or is it some phenomenon that happens when weather conditions are just right? I mean, he was so real, Canon. He was as real as you are now, standing there.”

  He hugged me, she almost said, but thought better of it. I felt his arms around me.

  Canon balled his fists. Maggie would have loved for the sheriff to hug her, too, but she hardly knew him. Of course that didn’t keep me from curling up with Zeke Thompson on the red sofa. Maggie’s face flushed. Did the sheriff call all women ‘sweetheart’?

  A man in uniform was not only sexy, he seemed so safe.

  But nothing about Canon Dale raised Maggie’s natural defenses. She was simply tired.

  Hadn’t his ears turned red? She could only imagine what kind of scandals a small town sheriff was susceptible to—how careful a footing he must be required to keep.

  Canon might be used to days that started at 4:30 by waking a woman inside a cabin, showing her a frozen gravesite, hauling her in for questioning, barking for her to stay in his squad car while he broke up a fight in a seedy bar’s parking lot, but Maggie wasn’t. Her emotions had run the gamut again, same as the night Zeke first showed up.

  “Look, I hate to ask you this,” said Canon, “even though I know what the evidence points to, but it’s my job.”

  Maggie held her breath and braced for his question.

  “Is there any chance Rodriquez was the man who came to your cabin?”

  “No! That man in the ditch? I’d never seen him before.”

  “I needed to ask.” Then, as if to himself, “He must have died in that ravine the same night he broke out of prison.”

  “Like Zeke.”

  Canon looked at Maggie sharply. “What did Ollie tell you about Zeke?”

  “That he found him frozen on the steps of this cabin.”

  “When?”

  “Two days after he escaped from prison. But he said it must have happened that same night.”

  Canon nodded. “Look, I know as well as anyone Zeke Thompson died thirty years ago, because I helped bury him. The ground was still frozen so hard when Ollie found him, he couldn’t get a grave dug. Had his body under a tarp in his shed when I came asking questions the next day. I reported it quietly, kept it out of the papers, then came back out here and helped him dig the grave when the ground thawed the following Monday. Zeke broke out on a Monday.”

  I died on a Monday. That was a good opening line. Good possible book title, too. Same night I broke out of prison.

  “I don’t question how Zeke died,” continued Canon. “He froze to death. But Rodriquez? I’m not convinced he froze to death.”

  “How did he end up in the ravine?”

  Canon avoided her eyes. “I don’t know. Amos and I didn’t find any evidence to suggest anybody else was out there.”

  Maggie shivered suddenly. You don’t have to worry about that other guy. “Is it possible he slipped and hit his head?”

  “I guess anything is possible.”

  Maggie thought of the loud whack she heard the night Zeke showed up. How much time had passed between that whack and the pounding on her door? Enough time to kill a man then drag his body to the top of the ridge and throw it down a ravine?

  “You don’t think Zeke could have done it?” Maggie’s voice was barely more than whisper.

  Canon shook his head. “I don’t know how I can write in my report that a man who’s been dead for thirty years—a man I helped bury—was responsible.”

  Maggie searched his eyes. “But you don’t think I did it?”

  Canon shook his head again, his face softening. “No. I don’t think you did it.”

  Maggie breathed a little easier. “Is it okay to ask you to let me know what you find out from the coroner?”

  Canon nodded. “I should get your number. In case I need to ask you more questions.”

  Maggie recited it for him. He punched it in his phone. “How long will you be staying?” he asked.

  “I leave tomorrow.”

  “Oh. Tomorrow.” Canon studied his phone. “And home is Nashville.”

  “Yes. But Mr. Thompson said I could come back.”

  Canon looked up. “Yeah?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “Are you worried about being alone? Do you want me to… I can post a deputy outside. All night if you want.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “You’ve got that .22.”

  “I’m not sure it works on ghosts.”

  Canon’s sheepish look crept back. “Are you worried he’ll come back?”

  Maggie wanted Zeke to come back. She had questions for him.

  “I’ve proven I can sleep pretty good on a couch,” continued Canon.

  Now Maggie’s ears turned scarlet. Hadn’t she fallen asleep beside Zeke on that same couch last night? Hadn’t her body fit perfectly into each bend of his? What would Canon think of her if he knew that? She had left that detail out of her report.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be fine.” Maggie tried to make light of it. “You’re starting to sound like my daughter.”

  Canon scowled. He squeezed his knit cap in his hands and stepped toward the door. “Sorry this took so much of your day.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “You’re sure you’ll be okay?”

  Maggie nodded. Canon took a step back toward the kitchen. “Let me check this phone for you, make sure it’s working.”

  She stopped him, putting a hand on his arm. “It’s fine. And I have a cell phone.”

  “What about the fire? Can I build it back up for you?”

  “Canon,” Maggie said. He stopped and looked at her. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Back door’s locked?”

  “I’ll double-check it after you’re gone.”

  “You trying to get rid of me?” he teased.

  Canon really was a nice looking man. Who did he remind her of? Sean Connery, minus the Scottish accent, and minus the James Bond swagger. Canon was plenty sure of himself, but not cocky. There was a difference. Maggie wasn’t sure it was possible for a man to be both sheepish and cocky.

  “You trying to get a supper invitation?” she asked.

  She almost wanted to ask him to stay and eat. But she didn’t. Canon nodded and put his knit cap back on.

  “Evenin’ then, Maggie.”

  She watched him walk out to his car. He
turned back once as if he’d forgotten something. Maggie almost stepped out to insist he come back in. But she wanted to be alone. It was a lot to process.

  Maggie wanted to write her thoughts down.

  17

  “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” Sir Francis Bacon

  Canon drove away from the cabin feeling like a fraud. It wasn’t as if he had lied to her, he simply didn’t reveal everything he knew. Or did he know it?

  That’s just the thing.

  His dreams had been real enough, but that didn’t mean they could be explained. Could you really know something that defied explanation? What were the origins of a dream anyway?

  Canon pictured Maggie sitting in his office attempting to do that very thing—explain something that defied logic. Why couldn’t he have told her then?

  Somehow he couldn’t.

  Canon had known plenty of law enforcement officers who used mediums—usually women who claimed they saw things in dreams, or visions. What was the difference in a dream and a vision? But Canon never thought he’d see the day when he turned to such measures to seek the truth of a thing. If a man knew what he was doing, if he knew where to find the evidence, no hocus-pocus was needed.

  No…Canon was a practical man. At least, he tried to be. He’d seen too much foolish behavior to be otherwise. And as a practical man Canon had not been prepared for the dream…nor was he prepared for Maggie’s testimony…nor was he prepared for Maggie. Was his years’ long lack of sleep finally catching up with him?

  Canon had been forced to swallow hard and look away from her eyes in his office…those jeans…that green t-shirt…her silent tears in his squad car.

  What was he thinking when he called her ‘sweetheart’? He’d actually reached for her! She had looked so confused…so lonely. Canon didn’t want her to feel lonely. She wasn’t in this alone—he was the one who had the dream, after all. And there was the body right where Canon knew it would be. Because of the dream.