Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

Hicks cleared his throat and spit phlegm past Pafford into the night. “Dwayne Gitterman’s truck?”

“That’s the one.”

Hicks’s expression didn’t change, but somehow he conveyed mockery with his eyes. “No, ’fraid not. Only other car I’ve seen is yours.”

Pafford’s free hand automatically went for his gun, as it always did when faced with an uppity motorist. But he caught himself. Calmly he asked, “Are you absolutely sure about that, Mr. Hicks? There’s no place along here he could turn off. He had to pass you.”

“Maybe he flew over me, then,” Hicks said. “You mind getting that light out of my eyes? Makes ’em water.”

Pafford switched off the light. For a moment afterwards, Hicks’s eyes seemed to glow red with some inner illumination, and their surfaces looked compound, like those of an insect. Then it faded, and the old man said, “Unless you’re going to give me a ticket for not knowing where Dwayne Gitterman is, I reckon I’ll be heading on home. Good night, Officer.”

Hicks started the engine, put on the left turn signal, and pulled out onto the empty highway. His taillights slowly faded into the distance.

At the first curve, Dwayne had pulled his truck into a tractor path and hidden it behind a stand of trees. He killed the engine, so the only light came from the starry, moonless sky. He guzzled another beer and watched the road for any sign of the trooper. He heard no approaching engine, only the insects in the trees and the pops of his own cooling motor.

Then he jumped and shrieked when someone knocked on the window.

He scooted across the seat to the passenger door, holding the beer can out in front of him like a weapon. He saw a shadow beside the truck taller than the cab. His first thought was It’s fucking Bigfoot! and he started to reach for the pistol he kept under the seat. Then a voice muffled by the glass said, “Don’t be such a pussy, man.”

He switched on the dome light. It revealed the handsome, blank face of Stoney Hicks outside the door. “What the hell are you doing out here?” Dwayne said, his voice high.

Stoney laughed. He was physically very similar to Dwayne, except writ large: taller, broader, and if possible, even smoother with the ladies. He’d left a trail of broken hearts and lovelorn suicides among the non-Tufa population all around Needsville starting when he hit puberty. His voice always sounded sleepy and bored. “Watching you piss your pants, I reckon. What’s wrong with you?”

Dwayne scooted across the seat and out the driver’s door. “That asshole Bob Pafford was after me. I barely got away.”

“Guess it’s your lucky night, then,” Stoney said.

Headlights appeared through the trees as a vehicle approached on the highway. “Shit,” Dwayne said, and started to jump back in the truck.

Stoney grabbed his arm. “Just relax. That’s Uncle Rockhouse. He probably wants to talk to you, seeing as how he saved your ass and all.”

The station wagon pulled in behind Dwayne’s truck and stopped. The headlight beams stayed on as Hicks emerged. He hitched his pants, spit into the dark, and walked over to Dwayne. “Ain’t you a piece of work. Running from the law with no lights on a moonless night. How drunk are you?”

Dwayne swallowed hard, looking from uncle to nephew. Stoney Hicks intimidated him as few men his own age did, and Rockhouse terrified him. The stories whispered about the old man would not have been out of place in a Saw movie. “I dunno… I’ve had a few.”

“You been out to see your old girlfriend?”

Dwayne’s mouth went dry. “Yeah.”

“Yes, sir,” Stoney corrected, and painfully squeezed Dwayne’s right biceps for emphasis.

Dwayne repeated, “Yes, sir.”

“Good. You be sure you keep after her, now. Don’t want her running off with somebody from outside the county.” He stepped close. “Ain’t that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Hate to think what might’ve happened to you if I hadn’t been here tonight. Come on, Stoney.”

Stoney released Dwayne’s arm, muttered, “Pussy,” and smacked him lightly on the back of the head.

Dwayne watched the two Hicks men depart. He stood there for a long time trying to sort through the evening’s events, and it was quite a while before the two strangest things registered on him.

What the hell had Stoney Hicks been doing out here? And why did Rockhouse care about him and Bronwyn?

Stoney watched Dwayne’s taillights recede, then turned to his uncle. “That boy’s dumb as a damn snail shell. He’s been smoking dope so long, he ain’t got but three brain cells left, and they don’t all work at the same time.”

“That’s okay,” Rockhouse said, and spit into the night. “All he’s got to do is get Bronwyn Hyatt back under his thumb.”

“Why don’t you let me do it?” Stoney said. “Hell, ain’t a girl out there I can’t get on her back.” He wasn’t bragging; in his entire life, he’d never had a girl refuse him. Most Tufa girls knew not to go anywhere near him, but there were plenty of others around.

Rockhouse glared at him. “Yeah, you can git ’em, but you leave ’em useless, so eat up with love for you that they wither up and die.”

He shrugged. “Ain’t my fault.”

“That ain’t what I mean. I want everyone to see the little Hyatt whore bring herself down, not have her be took down by one of us. I ain’t making no martyrs.” He spit again, then shook his head. “She shoulda died in that damn desert. She left here, she took herself and her song away from us, she shoulda fucking gotten her brains blown out. Instead she comes back a hero.”

Stoney said nothing. Now he understood why Rockhouse hated the Hyatt girl so much. Like Rockhouse himself, she’d gone away and found disaster, but unlike his uncle, she’d come back a hero. Even if she’d been part of their clan and not Mandalay’s, the old man would’ve hated her.

“She’s home now,” Stoney said at last. “She’ll be back to her old habits soon enough.”

“Damn well better be,” the old man muttered, and slapped his keys into Stoney’s hand. Then there was a rustle of large age-battered wings, and Stoney stood alone in the dark. He hummed as he walked to his uncle’s station wagon.

The sun touched Bronwyn’s face through the window. She blinked and frowned as she awoke; there was no way the sunrise could come through her bedroom window at that angle. She rose on her elbows and squinted into the glare before she realized she was still on the couch, and the light was reflected from a car’s windshield. At the same moment, she comprehended whose car it was.

The excitement was almost too much for her as she struggled to get the Velcro straps in place around her leg. When that was done, despite the protests of her sleep-stoked bladder, she grabbed her crutches and hobbled toward the front door. “Kell!” she almost screamed.

She blinked into the dawn as she emerged onto the porch. Chloe and Deacon sat with her older brother, all of them looking at her. It was the first time she’d seen Kell in two years, and he looked broader, older and more mature. His black hair hung in unruly strands to his shoulders, and his chin was fashionably stubbled. When he stood, she swore he was a good two inches taller. She hopped toward him and he met her halfway with a big wraparound embrace.

“So this is the big war hero,” he said.

“Nah, there’s some lots bigger than me,” she said into his chest. She grabbed a handful of his T-shirt and anchored herself for the fiercest hug she could manage, pressing herself into him. For the first time, she felt like she was truly home, and that everything would be all right.