Lucky Strikes (27 page)

We held each other hard.

“Let's get our daddy,” I said.

The blood was curdling out of Hiram as we carried him to the garage. I looked up then and saw Janey floating toward us like some apparition. Her bed quilt was wrapped round her, and in her arms was a mess of bandages—her whole supply, best I could tell. She knelt by Hiram and wrapped his midsection till the blood had slowed to a leak.

“Hush,” she said. “All is well, brave soldier.”

“We got to get him to a doctor,” said Earle.

But I didn't want to move him again, not if we could help it, and our only telephone had gone up with the store. I took Earle very gentle by the shoulders, stared right into him.

“I need you to drive into town.”

“No.…”

“The keys is on the post just inside the front door. You head
east
, okay? Anywhere you see a light, you start banging. Someone opens the door, you tell 'em there's a fire and a man's been shot.”

“What if I don't find nobody?”

“You keep going. Worse come to worse, you drive yourself to Front Royal. You remember where the fire station is?”

“Corner of North Royal and Peyton.”

“That's my boy. You keep going till you get help, and then you come right back, you hear?”

“Why can't you come with?”

“'Cause I gotta save the house.”

His eyes clouded as he stared into that glacier of smoke.

“We ain't got time for this, Earle. When it's all done, I'll set and weep with you, but right now, I need you to park yourself in that there truck, can you do that for me?” I dabbed his face dry, cupped my hand under his chin. “You're my big man.”

In a matter of seconds, his taillights was swallowed by smoke—but not before they called out the still form of Harley Blevins.

And in that instant, I saw Earle disappearing into a different kind of smoke. A police interrogation room with no windows, just sheriffs and deputies. Blinding him, kicking and punching and jabbing him.
Was it you shot the gentleman in question?
Was it you?

Next second, I was taking hold of Harley Blevins by the arms and dragging him straight to the blaze.

Telling myself the whole way that I was just dragging out an old carpet or a bag of kindling. The heat was monstrous on my face and back, but I kept going till I was within reach of it. Then I planted one foot on Harley Blevins's hip and pushed till he was rolling into the fire's arms. His overalls went black, then bright orange. Steam rose off him, and his flesh crackled like something on a spit. His own words come rocketing back.

Nobody's gonna be looking overmuch for holes.…

The rest is just heat lightning. Flashes in the dark.

I've got my ear to Dudley's mouth. Making sure of the breath that's coming out. Staring down at his hard, soft face. Dragging him … where?…

I'm watching martins and jays and mockingbirds, bursting from their homes in the eaves and screeching into the night. Thinking of all the
life
that's been over our heads all this while. A whole other world pressed on top of ours …

I'm watching the roof of the store peel back like a sardine tin. Watching a gale of flame boil toward the sky, spit out plume after plume …

I'm watching the first sparks land on the front porch of the house.…

I'm stumbling toward the well. Sending down the pail and drawing it back up. Running to the house and flinging the water and running back to the well. With each pass, the air in my lungs shrinks down. A thimble … half a thimble …

Couldn't tell you how many times I traveled from the well to the house and back again. Might've been ten, might've been a million.

I do recall that somewhere in the midst of the scurrying, the queerest notion entered my head. It was almost like the smoke was swaddling me. Hugging me so tight that when at last I went crashing to earth, it bore me up a little so I wouldn't land too hard.

Then it pulled away of a sudden so I could see all the things that'd been shut from sight. There was Dudley sleeping off the knot in his head. There was Earle driving down Strasburg Pike. Mama! In her best gingham dress, waving from the far side of the road. Clear as sun in her Joan Crawford slippers.

And alighting right in front of my face—out of nowhere and out of nothing—that old redbird. Peering into me with eyes so large and dark, it weren't no trouble to swim right through.

 

Chapter

TWENTY-NINE

A sound. Lonesome as the moon. Rising, falling, rising again.

Dudley's face, pale and beady. Earle's face swimming round it.

A man I don't know, bending over me. Hat says
VOLUNTEER FIRE
.
That's funny—he don't look like a fire.

The dark folding over me. Like a blanket draped over a birdcage.

 

Chapter

THIRTY

“
Mama…”

I woke to air. Running through me like current. My eyes blinked open, gazed round.

Light was streaming over me.
Sun
light, sawed into diamonds, sprawling cross a woolen blanket.

Atop that blanket lay an arm.

My
arm.

I commanded it to rise. It did.

There was another arm did the same thing.

Piece by piece, I put the world back together. I was laying in something that looked very like a bed. I was wearing a light cotton gown with a paisley pattern. To my right was another bed, empty. Between me and the bed was a small nightstand, with a vase of marigolds on it.

(I hate marigolds.)

Straight ahead of me was a window. Directly above me, a skylight. To my left, a wooden bench … and in the bench, a shape. Gathering feature the longer I looked at it. Rising and speaking.

“Mornin'.”

Dudley.

“Don't talk,” he said.

Well, if you've learned one thing about me by now, it's that I don't like taking orders. But here's the funny part. I
couldn't
talk. My fingers went dancing up my throat, aiming to pry the words loose, but all they found was plastic.

“They put a tube in,” explained Dudley.

A tube.

I leaned over and saw a squat metal tank below the bed.

“It's oxygen,” said Dudley. “You took in a lot of smoke, Melia. The tube's to help you breathe till you can do it on your own.”

Oh, the strangeness of it. Not able to call your air your own.

“It's only for another day or two,” said Dudley.

I laid there, stunned, all the same. Then Dudley handed me a legal pad and a pencil and said, “Write down whatever you want to know.”

I set the pad in my lap. My fingers curled round the pencil, then jerked across the paper.

What day?

“Monday.”

Which meant the day before was Sunday. Which meant the day before was … what?

I glanced up at Dudley.

Your head?

“Aw.” He give it a shy rub. “It's all right. I still get blurry, but they say it's gonna pass, so…”

I stared at the pad. I watched the pencil form the names.

Janey

Earle

“They're fine. Staying with the Gallaghers. Janey's setting up and being bossy.”

I scrawled another name and was surprised to see whose it was.

Gus

“Giving Mrs. Gallagher plenty to clean up after.”

I paused. Then I wrote …

House

He drew in a breath.

“Your front porch is a goner, but the rest of it's still standing. There's a lot of smoke damage and stuff, but y'all should be able to move back in before too long.”

But what if we don't want to?

“Anything else?” asked Dudley.

I swallowed. Tried to get the pencil to write, but it wouldn't.

“Hiram,” he guessed.

I nodded.

“He's hanging on, Melia. They sewed him up right pert, but there's some healing still to do.”

See him?

“He ain't woken up yet,” said Dudley. “Soon as he does, I'll come find you, okay?”

Without even thinking, I scrawled …

Thanks

“Well, if that don't beat all. I just got me a thank-you from Melia Hoyle. Tell you what, I'm gonna take that goddamn paper home and frame it.”

Shut your yap

“Now that's more like it,” he said.

I think I must've dozed off not long after. Slept on and off through the afternoon, then woke to voices in the hallway. I could hear Dudley saying, “She ain't ready!” And some other voice, quieter and deeper, till at last it rose into hearing.

“Son, I'm gonna say this one more time. Step aside.”

Next thing I knew, Sheriff Claude Motherwell was standing in the doorway with his white-blond hair and his raw face and his dyspeptic belly.

“How are you, Miss Melia?”

I made a circle with my pointer finger and thumb.
A-okay.

The sheriff dragged the chair over to the side of the bed and dropped himself in it.

“I wanted you to know how sorry I was to hear about your latest losses. God is my witness, I believe y'all have took more punishment than Job.”

There was a stretch of silence. Then the sheriff give his fat thighs a slap.

“Hey, now, got something needs clearing up, you don't mind.” He picked up the legal pad from the floor. “Seeing as you're able to
write
.” He tossed the pad in my lap. “What do you know, here's a pencil, too. Makes things easier, don't it?”

He was smiling everywhere.

“Now, Melia, we in the Warren County Police Department pride ourselves on being
thorough
, know'm sayin'? So when Mr. Blevins's remains come in, we didn't just shove 'em in some drawer somewhere, no, we called in a medical examiner, and we got a post
mortem
done. You know what a postmortem is?”

I nodded.

“Well, it's a peculiar thing, Melia, seems there was a—a
bullet
hole in Mr. Blevins. Passing all the way through. You still with me?”

I nodded.

“Now I know, what with everything going on, you had a lot to trouble your mind that night, but … I was just wondering if you could tell us who fired that bullet? You can write it down if you don't mind.”

I had to stop now and then to keep the pencil from flying ahead of me. When I was done, I angled the pad toward the sheriff.

Mustve been same varmints

shot Hiram

The sheriff frowned.

“You get a good look at them varmints?”

I shook my head.

“License plate? Uh, body type? Coloring?”

I shook my head. Then I wrote …

Dark

“Well, here's where I'm having trouble,” the sheriff said. “I can't rightly figure what Mr. Blevins was even
doing
there. Seeing as you and him wasn't on the best of terms. I mean, why would he even be hanging round Brenda's Oasis at such an ungodly hour?”

I stared out the window. Purple shadows was bleeding down from the mountains. A monarch butterfly was dozing on the ledge.

“Melia?”

Tryin g to

put out f ire

“You're…” The sheriff's eyes squeezed down to lumps. “You're telling me Harley Blevins was trying to put
out
the fire?”

And when I nodded, he set back in his chair.

“How would he've known there was a fire to put out?”

I shrugged.

“Melia, I'm gonna need more than that.”

So I wrote the words for him. Neat and slow and even.

Mustve been driving by

The sheriff give a soft chuckle. “Just driving by, huh?”

I nodded, kept writing.

Miracle

“Well, yeah,” said the sheriff. “That
would've
been a miracle.”

Very slow, taking care with each letter, I wrote …

Harley Blevins
=
hero

Saved us

Tell the world

The sheriff read the words to himself. Read them a few times more.

“So that's your story?” he said quietly. “You're abiding by it?”

He leaned in and give me the searchingest look a body ever give another. Didn't make a whit of difference, though, 'cause there weren't an X-ray in the universe was gonna see through me.

Abiding

His head dropped a little. Then he set back up and, with delicate fingers, pulled the sheet off the pad. Folded it in three and tucked it in his shirt pocket.

“I assume Mr. Watts will confirm your account when he comes to.”

I nodded.

“Reckon I'll be on my way, then.”

He was near to the door when he turned round one last time.

“Ol' Harley sure underestimated you, didn't he?”

I went without the oxygen tube for an hour that afternoon. Two hours next morning. Morning after that, I was walking. Dragging the tank for the first two laps round the floor, then going without.

What I hadn't done yet was speak. But when Dudley come round Thursday morning, he made a point of asking me how I was, and not having any legal pad nearby, I went ahead and answered.

“Fair to middling.”

I could see him wince, but I believe my shock was greater. That desperate creak of a voice. Like something that'd been living in a cave all its life.

“Don't you stew,” said Dudley. “Voice is the last thing to come round, that's what the doc says. Here's the thing, though—I hear Hiram's ready for visitors.”

“Give me an hour.”

I went back in my room and practiced speaking in that new voice of mine till it stopped scaring me. By the time Dudley come back, I was very near to resigned.