Lucky Strikes (22 page)

“Janey?” I said.

“Who better?”

“Well … I know she's got a head for figures.…”

“She's got more than that. Who do you think's been balancing our books?”

“Uh…” My eyes squeezed down by half. “Guess I reckoned it was you.”

“For a while it was. Then one night, about a month ago, Janey came over and asked me what I was doing. I showed her, and once she saw how
easy
it was—well, she asked if she could try her hand. I'm telling you, Amelia, those ledgers got balanced in about half the usual time. I checked all her numbers, too, five nights running. They always came out square.”

“Hold on. You're telling me the bookkeeper for Brenda's Oasis is a nine-year-old girl?”

“And you're not even paying her. Know what amazes me the most? She does it all in her head. No scrap paper, no adding machine. Pure brain power.”

“But…” My hands met right at the top of my skull. “When was somebody gonna get round to telling me this?”

“She didn't want you to know.”

“How come?”

“She figured you had other plans for her.”

“Well…” I dragged my hands back down my head. “Lord above, they ain't
my
plans, they was Mama's. Or
some
body's. I mean, girls has gotta cook and sew and, you know, get themselves a husband.”

“That's what they're supposed to do?”

“'Course.”

“That's what you're doing?”

I set there a second. Too stunned to speak. “You oughtn't talk that way,” I said at last.

“Why not?”

“'Cause I'm a bad example. I'm what you call the baddest example ever was.”

“Why?”

“'Cause.”

I jerked my face away. Sat listening for a while to the cicadas.

“If you must know,” I said, “I'm gonna die without a ring on my finger. And I ain't asking for nobody's pity, 'cause that's just how I'm made, and I'm okey with it—but that ain't what I want for Janey. That kind of life, Hiram, it's a lonesome valley.”

“You know what?” He dropped what was left of his Lucky to the ground. “The most lonesome people I've ever met have been married.”

I opened my mouth to protest. Then I closed it. 'Cause washing into my mind's view come Frances Bean. Setting all by herself at the end of that soda counter.

And then Crazy Ida in that godforsaken movie theater. Her face opening like the leaves on a plant 'cause somebody was talking to her.

And then, in a long sad line, the women at Mama's wake. Married, all of 'em, and 'cept for Mina and Mrs. Goolsby, not a one of 'em had a husband in tow. They was all walking the lonesomest valley I'd ever seen.

“Amelia,” said Hiram, “society's already gone and washed their hands of us. Why don't we wash our hands of them? Do what we want, live how we want, love who we want. How does that sound to you?”

Well, it was just then the world sent another sound our way. A low rasping, like a gutter scraping against a tin roof. Didn't rightly know what it was till I saw Gus lift his head.
Dear Lord
, I thought.
That boy is growling.

Then come three barks—short and high and sharp. In the next second, he was gone. Galloping like a quarter horse straight for the store. And the chain racing after him, whistling across the gravel and then, with something like a wheeze, snapping tight.

I heard the crash of glass and a man's cry, half-stifled. Then it was my own bare feet I was hearing, dashing cross the gravel.

Hiram was a couple seconds behind, only 'cause he was reaching for the Rayovac. The light exploded around us, dragging shapes out of the dark. A man. And, fastened to his flailing arm, a dog.

With a sad cry, the man flung Gus into the darkness. Grabbed his tore-up arm and hightailed it for the road.

I went after him, but before I'd got more than ten feet, a pair of headlights burst into view. Half-blinded, I swung an arm over my eyes. Heard a door slam, the scream of tires. In the next second, they was past me, churning up the road and screaming toward the mountains.

Sweat dripping off my chin, I turned and trudged back to the station.

The Rayovac was on the ground now, and in the angle of light it cast, I could see Hiram bent over something still and yellow.

Gus.

A second later, that dog was rolling his snout toward the sky and dragging himself up on his breadstick legs. He give his head a shake, and little drops of crimson scattered from his mouth.

“Jesus,” I whispered. “He must've got clobbered.”

Then I heard Hiram's dry chuckle. “It's not
his
blood.”

Gus put his front paws atop my knees and scaled me like I was a mountain. Pushed his face right toward mine and showed me the red coating on each and every one of his teeth.

“You just got yourself a guard dog,” said Hiram.

 

Chapter

TWENTY-TWO

It was but the one brick, but it sure made a nice crater in the store window. Cracked our Star Tobacco sign, too, and knocked over the coffee grinder and took a nice gash out of our rice bin and made a hash of the Del Monte display. By the time it come to rest by the cheese cutter, it'd made quite a career for itself.

We called up the glazier from Riverton. A shortsighted, hard-smoking cuss named Lewis Quint who'd given up drinking and was none too pleased about it. I'd say he swore a blue streak, only the words never made it out his throat.

“Mm firkin gum.”

“What's that, Mr. Quint?”

“I said twenty bucks to replace it.”

Hiram stared at the hole. “How much to make it plate glass?”

“Grrr. Mmmm. Forty.”

Hiram frowned. “And how much to make the whole storefront plate glass?

“Mod sham,
hundred
!”

“That's right steep,” I said.

“Plate glass makes us look professional,” Hiram said. “You said so yourself.”

“Gold plate'd make us look even more professional. We can't afford that, neither.”

On and on we went till Lewis Quint flung down his hat and commenced to jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin.

“Eighty-
five
!”

“Done,” said Hiram.

*   *   *

Well, what should show up that very afternoon but Harley Blevins's butternut Chevy Eagle? Strolling into the station like the lead car in an Armistice Day parade. Earle was already jogging toward it, but I put out my hand to stop him, and after peering inside to make sure there was no other passengers, I went straight to the driver's side. Drug Dudley out of his seat and flattened him against the car.

“Guess you're right proud of yourself,” I said.

“For what?”

“The toilet weren't enough. The whitewalls and that nasty old tar. No, you was gonna break into the store and what? Steal all the Bit-O-Honeys?”

“Girl, you're talking crazy.”

Well, here we come to the problem. There was a real, real, real small chance that I
was
crazy.

See, I'd never once caught Harley Blevins in the act of doing anything. He sure weren't the guy who heaved that brick through our window—he weren't tall enough—and whatever car that feller jumped in sure as shit wasn't a Chevy Eagle. If you was to dust the whole station for fingerprints, you probably wouldn't have found a single one belonged to Harley Blevins.

So there was a teeny tiny little speck of a chance that he was innocent. Only I didn't believe it.

'Course I didn't have no evidence to back me up. All I had was a feeling, and it's feelings that'll get you called crazy. Which there was a teeny tiny little speck of a chance I was.

Anyway, I grabbed Dudley Blevins's left arm and, with the calmness of the
truly
crazy, I unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it up. A few seconds later, we was both staring down at the pale, veined skin of his forearm.

Not a mark on it.

“What the hell is going on?” he said.

“Feller tried to do a number on the store last night. Got his left arm chewed up by our
guard dog
.”

“Left arm?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe you got another one somewhere.”

I said it just to make him mad, but he got quiet instead. Rolled his sleeve down, then got back in the car and drove off without a word. The dust from his rear tires was just clearing when I turned and found Janey, looking cross.

“I could've told you it weren't him,” she said.

I was all set to give her what for, but it looked like something already had.

“Girl,” I said, “you been too long in the sun.”

“Feels like it.…”

I give her a second look, then a third. The sunburn had gone and scalded her throat, left rows of bumps along her skin.

“You feeling hot?” I asked her, holding my fingers to her forehead.

“It's August, Melia.”

“I mean inside.”

“A little.”

“You feeling itchy?”

“Something awful.”

“How's your throat?”

“Pissed off.”

“Show me your tongue,” I said.

She did.

“Okay, put it back in,” I said.

“What do I got? The streptococcus?”

“Something like that. Tell you what, Hiram's going into town to pick up some gaskets. Maybe he can have Doc Whitworth swing by.”

“I'm a nurse,” she said. “Don't nobody need to heal
me
.”

But when we got her into bed, her temperature was 103. By the time Doc Whitworth showed up, the rash had spread all the way down her chest and her back. I probably should have stayed with her through the poking and prodding, but I had to go out on the front porch. 'Cause Elsie O'Donnell was waiting for me there.

Elsie had lived two doors down from us in Cumberland. She was part of a big Irish family, ten or eleven kids, the dad never around, the mama making vats of soap in the backyard. Elsie stood out 'cause she had red hair just like Janey's and was just as conceited about it. Then one day, Elsie took ill. Fever out of no place, crawling rash, throat of knives.

And a strawberry tongue. Just like Janey had.

Elsie hung on two months. They funeralized her in an open casket, and it looked like half her skin had peeled off.

Behind me, I could hear the screen door creaking open.

“It's scarlet fever,” I said.

“Seems so,” said Doc Whitworth.

He folded up his stethoscope and wormed it into a pouch in his carpetbag. “You'll need to bring her in for an injection,” he said.

“Horse serum.”

“It works, Melia.”

Didn't work for Elsie O'Donnell.

“Now, she's going to have to stay off her feet for a while. Which means she'll need looking after.”

“We're able.”

“Just keep her comfortable. Make sure she's got enough liquids in her system and whatever food she can keep down.”

“'Course.”

“Oh, and keep Earle away. He's still young enough to catch it hisself.”

“Yes, sir.”

He hoisted up his bag and walked down the porch steps, pausing after each step, pausing longest at the bottom. “I'm sorry, Melia.”

“What for?”

“Seems the Lord might've chosen not to pile on you folks like this.”

“One more,” I said, “I don't even know the difference.”

*   *   *

Me and Hiram gave the nursing thing our best shot, but we didn't have Janey's knack, and we sure as hell didn't have the time. No sooner would I run inside with some cool water to splash on the child's face than Mr. Marcus Sutphin from Limeton would drive on by in his '27 Hudson, wanting to know why his fan belt keeps slipping. I couldn't tell him it was 'cause he had a 1927 Hudson, so I had to figure out if the bearing was dry or greasy or loose or just plain broken, and that'd take time, and just as Hiram was coming into the house to spell me, Mr. Marcus Sutphin's 1934 girlfriend would get a hankering for Hershey's chocolate almonds, and did Hiram have any of that Blue Moon pimento-and-American-cheese spread? And some Ritz crackers to go with?

Well, that would take the both of us out of the picture, and the only one who could step up with the nursing was Earle, only he weren't allowed nowhere near his sister, so he'd just stand there by the pumps, looking lost as an old kite, and the whole day'd pass like that, in fits and starts and gasps and me as tired by day's end as I'd ever been.

“We got to close up for a day,” I told Hiram. “Or something.”

But we both knew it would take more than a day to get that girl well. There she laid, shivering and dripping, not even enough strength in her to use a chamber pot. And pressing over every pore, the ghost of Elsie O'Donnell.

That night, we was getting washed up for supper when a knock come on the front door. Such a little mouse of a knock, I almost didn't hear it. Standing in the glow of our one lightbulb was Mina Gallagher. Near as surprised to find herself there as I was.

“Chester ain't here,” I said.

“That's not why I've come.”

We stood there.

“I understand you've got a sick child,” she said.

“She'll be okay.”

“Well, I'm…” She skittered her fingers up the side of her face. “I'm happy to sit with her awhile. If it's all right with you. You know, I—I nursed all four of my sister's children through scarlet fever. It takes a few weeks to run itself out and—and the thing is you all are so
busy
with your work, you can't possibly…” The weirdest smile climbed out of her mouth. “And my house is as clean as it's ever going to be.”

I might've stood there the whole day in that doorway, trying to make sense of what I was hearing, but from behind me, I heard Hiram's low soft voice.