Mine: The Arrival (2 page)

“Toby, what do you think you’re doing? Put me
down
!”

He spun her around one more time and then gently returned her to the ground.

Figuring his excitement was due to the deer, she said, “Let’s get your prize into the barn, before the snow starts, and get it skinned.” She headed for the truck.

“What?” He looked past her. “Oh, right. That ain’t why I’m excited.”

“Well, you should be,” she said as she leaned against the side of the truck and took a good look into the bed. “This buck is huge.”

“He
is
pretty big, isn’t he? I figure we could sell at least a hind quarter and still have more than we need.”

“I’d say.” They could maybe get a little extra seed in the spring, start a second field on that plot of land her father had said they could use.

“We can take care of it in a bit,” Toby said. “You’ve got to see this first.”

While she’d been planning their future, her husband had moved back to the Plymouth’s cab and opened the passenger door.

“What are you going on about?”

“Just come here.”

As she walked over, he leaned inside and pulled out something wrapped in a piece of tarp. It was about the size of a football, though the shape was wrong.

She thought maybe he’d shot something else, but when he started to pull the cloth away, she saw it was no animal.

“What
is
that?” she asked.

“Our ticket out of here.”

“Out of here? What’s that supposed to mean? Where would we be going?”

“I don’t know. The city? Wherever you want.”

She looked at him, wondering how much he’d already had to drink.

Reading her mind, he said, “I haven’t touched a drop.”

“Then you’ve lost your mind if you think that…whatever it is, is our ticket to anywhere.”

“Mary, look,” he said, holding it out to her. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

She had to admit she hadn’t. It was metal, but polished better than anything she’d ever seen before. Even as dark and cloudy as it was, she could see her reflection in it. It was in the shape of a rod, maybe two feet long and nearly an inch in diameter, with discs and other rods jetting off it at what seemed to be uniform intervals. One end of the rod was flat, but the other looked like it had broken off of something.

“Here, hold it.” He shoved it into her hands before she could protest.

She braced herself for the weight of it, but she needn’t have bothered. If it weighed a quarter pound, she’d have been surprised.

“What is it?”

“I have no idea,” he said, his smile as big as it ever got.

“Where did you find it?”

“Out on the old Beasley place. Near Craven Pond. Right near where I shot the buck.”

She handed it back to him. “It’s nice and all, but I don’t know how it’s going to buy us anything.” A snowflake drifted between them. She looked up and saw more heading their way. “We’d better get the deer put away.”

But Toby didn’t move. “This ain’t all of it. It came off a-a-a plane or something that fell out of the sky. But it wasn’t like any plane I’ve ever seen before. It had flames shooting out the bottom and it was making some strange noises. It’s got to be worth a lot of money.” He tossed the weird metal rod back into the truck’s cab and circled around to the driver’s side. “Hop in. I need you to go back with me and help load it.”

“Are you blind? It’s starting to snow. I’m not going out there during a storm, and I certainly am not letting you go, either.”

For the first time, her husband seemed to notice the flakes.

“Right now, we need to deal with the buck,” she said.

Toby stared at the clouds, saying nothing.

“Whatever you saw out there can wait until it clears up again. It won’t be going anywhere.”

“It’ll be harder once there’s snow on the ground.”

“Harder is better than getting lost in the storm and dying, don’t you think?”

His shoulders sagged as he turned back to her. “You’re right, you’re right. But as soon as the road’s open again, we go.”

She helped him get the buck inside the barn, and then left him to do the skinning and carving while she returned to the house to get started on hemming the Harrisons’ clothes.

It was an hour and a half before she heard the back door open and the kitchen floorboards creak.

“There’s some potato cream soup on the stove,” she called from the living room, knowing he’d be hungry, “and some fresh bread under that cheesecloth on the counter.”

He didn’t answer.

“Don’t you go looking through the pantry. The soup will warm you up just fine.”

Still nothing.

She lowered the pair of pants she was working on. “Toby?”

Another board groaned, and then something crashed to the floor.

She rushed into the kitchen and found her husband lying next to the stove, writhing, his hands clutching his head.

“Make it stop,” he muttered. “Make it stop.”

“Toby!” She dropped down next to him and tried to keep him from rolling, but he pushed her away. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“M-m-my head,” he managed.

“A headache?”

He cringed and rocked again. “Godawful.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She ran into the bedroom, where she kept some headache powder in the dresser. Back in the kitchen, she filled a glass with water, poured the powder into it, and stirred it up.

“Drink this,” she said, kneeling next to him.

She tilted his head up and pressed the glass against his lips.

At first he refused to open his mouth, but when she said, “It’ll help,” he let the liquid slip inside.

She held him in her lap, willing the medicine to take effect.

“What happened?” she asked after a few minutes. “Did you hit your head on something?”

His look seemed even more pained than it had been when she’d first found him on the floor, and she wasn’t sure he’d heard her question.

When his condition didn’t improve ten minutes later, she gently moved him to the side and hurried to the phone. Picking up the receiver, she could hear Doris Kearns talking to someone on the party line.

“Please,” Mary interrupted. “I need to call the doctor.”

“What happened?” Doris asked. “Is everything all right?”

“Toby’s sick.”

“The flu? That’s going around, from what I hear.”

“Doris, please. I need to call Dr. Fisher.”

“If you’d like, I can contact him for you.”

“Yes, actually that would be great.”

“I’ll have him head right out. Don’t you worry about it.”

Mary hung up and returned to the kitchen. In addition to the agony still plaguing her husband, much of the color had drained from his face. With considerable effort, she was able to get him onto his feet and guide him to their bedroom. She had him lie on the bed and then covered him with every blanket they had. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t running a temperature, but Doris’s comment about the flu scared Mary enough that she didn’t want to take any chances.

Though he finally fell asleep, his face remained strained. Periodically, he had bouts of rapid breaths that made it seem he was running in terror.

Outside, the storm continued to pick up strength, wind howling as it pelted the house with snow. It was so loud that she didn’t even realize the doctor had driven up until he knocked on the front door.

“This way,” she said, and then explained what had happened as she led him through the house.

When they reached the bedroom, he asked her to remain outside while he examined Toby. She didn’t want to, but Dr. Fisher insisted, so she busied herself in the kitchen making him coffee and heating up the soup in case he was hungry. But when she finished, the bedroom door was still closed. She tried sewing again, but every stitch or two she would pause and look toward the hallway. She finally gave up and stoked the fire and then stared out the window at the snow gathering on the doctor’s car.

It was another full half hour more before he finally reemerged, closing the door behind him.

She hurried to him. “How is he?”

There was a slight hesitation before he said, “Resting.”

“I should go sit with him.”

She started for the door, but Dr. Fisher put a hand on her arm. “I think it would be better if he were alone for a while.”

“I won’t make a noise.”

“Let’s leave him be for now.”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “I’ve made some coffee. And if you’re hungry, there’s soup.”

“Actually, I’d like to use your phone if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” She gestured to the box hanging on the wall.

He walked over to it, but after picking up the receiver, he looked back at her. “Perhaps some coffee and soup would be nice.”

“Let me get it for you.”

T
HREE

D
EPUTY SHERIFF JACKSON
Lamar knew full well when the snow began to fall that it was going to be a long day. There was always some jackass who thought he was above the weather and would get himself stuck in a ravine or wrap his vehicle around a tree, leaving Lamar to sort out the mess.

What he hadn’t expected was to get a call from Dr. Fisher requesting his presence at the Gaineses’ house out on the north county road. He knew who Toby Gaines was, mainly because of Toby’s father, and had seen Mary Gaines in town on occasion, but he had no recollection of ever sharing more than a nod with either. As for why Lamar’s presence was needed, the good doctor had been evasive, only saying in a whispered voice, “The sooner you can get here, the better.”

Lamar left his official sheriff’s car at the office and took his personal truck. Before leaving home that morning, he’d enlisted his neighbor’s help to mount the detachable snow blade to the front bumper in anticipation of the afternoon storm. So far the accumulation wasn’t enough for the blade to be effective, but he figured by the time he’d head back to town, that would change. The problems were the patches of black ice that forced him to keep his speed slow, and turned what should have been a twenty-minute trip into an hour-long ordeal.

Dr. Fisher must have been watching for him, because he opened the front door before Lamar had even turned off his engine. As the sheriff approached the porch, the doctor said something into the house and then stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

“Thanks for coming out,” Dr. Fisher said as Lamar made his way up the porch steps.

They shook hands.

“Afraid I’m not going to be able to stay too long,” Lamar told him. “Betty just radioed that some idiot slid his sedan right through the front door of Mill’s Market.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“From what I understand, the driver banged his head but that’s about it. Since you were out here, I told her to get ahold of Dr. Pooler.” Dr. Pooler had been retired for a decade but was always happy to jump in when needed. “So what was so important that I needed to come all the way out here?”

Dr. Fisher lowered his voice. “Toby’s dead.”

Lamar dipped his head and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. He wasn’t even thirty yet, was he?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Damn.” The sheriff took a breath. “Accident?”

“Illness.”

A sad shake of the head. “How did Mary take it?”

“She doesn’t know yet.”

Lamar stared at him. “She doesn’t know? How can she not know?”

“I told her that Toby needed some rest so she’s stayed out of his bedroom. I called my wife and she got here about twenty minutes ago. They’re in the kitchen making up some dinner, I think.”

“Please tell me you didn’t call me out here to deliver the news. I think that’s your job.”

“No, I’ll deal with that.” He glanced back at the house and then at the sheriff again. “You need to see something.”

He led Lamar inside. As they crossed the living room, they could hear the women working in the kitchen. Lamar shot a look toward the doorway and caught a glimpse of Katherine, the doctor’s wife, and Mary standing at a stove. Neither noticed him.

The bedroom was down a short hall. Just outside it, the doctor removed two cloth face masks from his pocket and handed one to Lamar. “Put this on.”

“Is he contagious?”

“My gut tells me no, but better if we don’t take any chances.”

Lamar wasn’t sure he wanted to enter the room at all, but he was a public servant and doing things he didn’t want to do was part of his job. He put on the mask and they entered.

In the semidarkness of the stormy day, the sheriff could make out little until the doctor turned on a nightstand lamp.

“Jesus,” Lamar said. His wife would not have been pleased to hear him take the Lord’s name in vain, but he couldn’t help it.

Toby lay on the mattress, the covers pulled up to his chin. There was something over his chest making the blankets bulge upward, but Lamar barely registered this. His attention was drawn to the dead man’s head.

It was tilted back on the pillow, Toby’s chin jutting toward the ceiling. Plastered on his face was a look of sheer agony—eyes squeezed shut, lips pulled back from clenched teeth, every muscle tense.

Lamar said, “You told me he was dead.”

“He is dead.”

“Bullshit. Look at his face. I’ve seen plenty of dead. They can’t hold that kind of expression.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it myself.” The doctor stepped over to the bed and pulled the blanket down to the man’s waist.

The protrusion turned out to be Toby’s arms lying over his chest, his hands hovering near his collarbone like he was about to grab his head.

“Is it rigor?” Lamar asked.

The doctor shook his head. “He hasn’t been dead long enough.”

Lamar approached the bed for a better look. In addition to the frozen posture, the man’s skin looked.  “Have you tried to reposition him?”

“Give it a shot.”

Lamar hesitated a moment, and then pulled on his winter gloves and grabbed Toby’s right arm. Pulling on it only succeeded in moving Toby’s entire body. It was as if he were a sculpture made from a single piece of solid material.

“What the hell happened?”

“When I arrived, he was already in bed. Mary said he’d complained about a headache and then collapsed. He was asleep when I started my examination, but it wasn’t long before he started…mumbling.”