Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

As the cheering died down, Major Maitland eased up to the microphone. “Private Hyatt will make a statement, but as you can see, she’s not up to any questions. We ask that you respect her courage, and her injuries.”

Bronwyn unfolded the two pages of typing with the word APPROVED stamped in red near one corner. She blew into the microphone to check her distance from it. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Thank y’all for being here. It’s great to be back in Needsville.” She stopped for renewed applause. Her voice sounded thin and weak in the loudspeakers, certainly not strong enough to belong to a First Daughter of the Tufa.

“I’d like to thank everyone who hoped and prayed for my rescue and recovery,” she continued. “For a long time, I had no idea anyone even knew or cared about what had happened to me. Now, believe me, I know that to be false. I feel blessed, honored, and grateful beyond words for the love my home community has given me so freely.”

She felt herself turn red. Intellectually she understood, and even agreed with, the need for these words to be spoken aloud. But having to say them still incited those old rebellious feelings. They weren’t as strong as they’d once been, though; it was like the shadow of something that used to be gigantic.

“I’d like to thank the staff of the VA hospital for the excellent care they gave me. I’m also grateful to several Iraqi medical personnel who helped save my life while I was in their care. And of course, to the brave Marines who rescued me.

“I’m proud to be a soldier in the United States Army. I’m relieved that some of the soldiers I served with made it home alive, and it hurts that some did not. I’ll miss them. And now… I’m going home.”

She quickly folded the speech, turned, and this time did not resist when the MPs moved in to aid her. As they carried her down the steps, she made eye contact with a woman in the crowd who had straight black hair and soft, tender eyes. The woman held out her right hand in a fist, wrapped her thumb over the back of her index finger and then turned her wrist and spread all her fingers wide.

Bronwyn said nothing. It wasn’t normal sign language, although it was a sign and she knew the language. But she couldn’t find the strength to respond, and her hands were busy making sure she wasn’t accidentally dropped onto the sidewalk. She was placed in the passenger seat of a shiny Town & Country for her trip to her family’s home, and as the door closed she looked for the woman in the crowd. But, not surprisingly, she’d vanished.

The sense of danger momentarily returned. Certainly it didn’t come from the woman in the crowd, whom Bronwyn would trust with her life and song. But the woman knew about it, Bronwyn was certain. And it explained her serious, even grim expression when everyone around her was cheering.

By the time Bronwyn finished her speech, Craig had maneuvered close enough to get a good look at her face. He’d seen photographs, but he was surprised by how beautiful she was in real life. Mountain girls’ faces tended to have hard edges, sharp planes, and leathery skin; Bronwyn had the high cheekbones and strong chin, but her complexion was smooth and unlined, and still had the softness of youth. Her dark eyes were large and hinted at self-aware intelligence.

Craig scolded himself. He tried to avoid thinking about people, especially women, that way. It was unprofessional for a minister, and unkind for a human being. What mattered was what was inside, not the surface they presented to the world.

Someone jostled him from behind, and when he turned, a camera’s flash blinded him. “Whoa!” he cried, putting up his hand to shield his eyes.

“Sorry,” the photographer said without looking up from his camera’s screen.

As his eyes recovered, Craig realized the photographer was Swayback, the reporter who looked like a Tufa. “Hey, who do you work for?” Craig asked before he could stop himself.

Swayback looked up, alarmed. “Wait a minute, you’re not gonna complain to my editor just because a flash went off in your face, are you? Good grief, there’s a million photographers here, it could’ve happened to anybody. I said I was sorry.”

“No, I just—”

“Tell you what: I work for the Daily Planet. My editor’s Perry White. You tell him all about it.” Then Swayback turned and disappeared into the crowd.

By the time Craig turned back toward the podium, Bronwyn Hyatt was gone and everyone began to disperse.

The trip in the Town & Country was as bone jangling as Bronwyn expected. She sat with her broken leg across the folded-down middle passenger seat, padded with pillows that kept it elevated and immobile. Cloud County’s secondary roads were not maintained by the state, and once you left the main highway, they quickly became little more than paired gravel ruts with a grass strip between them. Most Tufas drove vehicles suited to these conditions; perhaps the army should’ve delivered her home in a tank.

Behind them— far behind them, since the last military vehicle was instructed to go very slowly—came the press. Nothing could stop them completely, and a news-channel helicopter even shadowed Bronwyn’s progress. But as Maitland said, it was part of America now to want to know everything about a celebrity, especially a fifteen-minute one. Better to give them something than to stonewall and have them start digging.

The scenery was so familiar that for a moment Bronwyn forgot everything around her and believed she was riding home in Dwayne’s pickup; the slight haze from her pain medication could easily be the low buzz of homegrown pot. It lasted only an instant, but it was disconcerting all the same. She took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate on the fence posts and barbed wire passing in undulating waves.

As they neared her home, people stood along the fence, scowling into the dust raised by the cars. She could not discern particular faces, but their dark hair and presence here identified them. They would never be caught dead in the madness currently possessing Needsville, yet neither would they allow Bronwyn to return home without acknowledging it. It had nothing to do with the war or patriotism; or, rather, it sprang from a kind of loyalty tied to no physical location. It was a concept of “family” unique to this place and to these people, those with the truest Tufa blood in their veins.

“I don’t see any cars or trucks,” Maitland observed. “How’d all these people get here?”

Bronwyn smiled. “Not much is far away from anything else in these hills, if you’re willing to climb up and down a lot.”

“Are these friends of yours? Do you need crowd control?”

“No, Major, these are my people. It’s okay.”

Bronwyn’s family lived in a long single-story home set into the slope leading up to Hyatt’s Ridge behind it. The yard slanted down to a flat area, where the family parked its vehicles in the shade of a huge pecan tree. Other trees hung over the house, hiding it from the scalding Tennessee sun. A wooden fence blocked off the front yard from the surrounding woods, and a metal gate could be closed at the end of the driveway. It was open now, though, and decorated with an enormous yellow ribbon.

Chloe Hyatt sat in a straight-backed chair on the wooden deck porch, her hands in her lap. She watched the approaching dust cloud over the tops of the trees. “Here they come,” she said.

Chloe wore a simple summer dress with a muted flower pattern, colorful but not gaudy. The spaghetti straps emphasized the strong, straight shoulders she had passed on to her only daughter. Her black hair hung to the middle of her back, held in place with a white ribbon. She had deep smile lines and a hint of crow’s-feet, but otherwise looked like she might be Bronwyn’s older sister rather than her mother. Despite her air of reserve, she radiated health and energy the way all true Tufa women did. It was part of what made them so desirable—and so dangerous.