Anna Schumacher - End Times

“Is it trumpets?” a guy in an army uniform asked.

“Might be a sax,” suggested a grandmother with a big bag of knitting in her lap.

The bus driver shook his head. “The sax has more groove,” he insisted.

“And it ain’t no tuba, either,” the woman who’d been eating coconut flakes said firmly. “Not low enough.”

“It’s trumpets,” the army guy said firmly. “Sounds just like ’em—and I’d know. I used to be in a marching band.”

The bus sputtered through a turnaround, past a sign welcoming them to the town of Carbon County (pop.: 3,901; elev.: 6,394 ft.), and into the dusty parking lot of Elmer’s Gas ’n’ Grocery. A recent rain had washed through town, and a single, golden ray of sunlight peered through the still-steely sky.

“You got a bag under here?” the driver asked as Daphne climbed off the bus, the trumpet blasts growing shriller with the first cool breath of fresh mountain air.

She nodded.

“Well, hurry up and get it out—those horns are starting to give me the creeps.”

Daphne grabbed her duffel from beneath the bus and stretched her legs. A sudden high note sounded as she glanced around at the parking lot’s cracked pavement and the tree growing through the window of the abandoned Sleep-EZ Motel across the street.

“There she is!” Uncle Floyd called from across the parking lot. He lumbered toward her, his face open in a wide, affable grin, and wrapped her in a bear hug. His hair had gone gray around the temples, and he walked with a bit of a limp, but he still had the same broad shoulders and mile-wide smile she remembered from her childhood. The same as her dad. “Just in time to witness this miracle from God. Good to see you again, niece!”

Burying her face in the wood-smoky smell of his plaid flannel shirt, Daphne felt her shoulders relax for the first time in months. To Uncle Floyd, she wasn’t a burden or a victim or a murderer. To him, she was still just Daphne.

He held her at arm’s length. “Lookit you: a grown woman. Little skinny, but a couple weeks of Aunt Karen’s cooking will fix that.” He laughed good and deep.

“Do you know where that noise is coming from?” she asked as the bus pulled away, kicking up a cloud of dust as it turned onto Buzzard Road.

Floyd grinned. “Isn’t it amazing? It just started, practically the moment I got in the truck to come pick you up. It’s like a sign from God, coming from the heavens.”

Daphne frowned as she followed him to his ancient, rust-spattered pickup. “But there has to be an explanation,” she said. “What about the high school band? Maybe they’re practicing?”

“Doubt it,” Floyd said amiably, hoisting himself into the driver’s seat. “Music got cut from the school budget years ago.”

Daphne rolled down her window, letting the long metallic notes sweep in on a brisk, clean breeze. “Maybe it’s a trick of the wind?” she suggested. The air felt so fresh and pure on her face, it seemed almost possible that it could manufacture a sound exactly like a trumpet fanfare.

Floyd’s laugh rolled deep and rich from his chest. “Could be,” he surmised. “But I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never heard anything even remotely like it.”

He swung the pickup onto Main Street, passing the movie theater where Daphne remembered going to see cartoons with the Peytons as a child. It was boarded up, a lone P hanging haphazardly from the marquee. Beyond it, more stores were shuttered permanently, with dusty For Rent signs in the windows and tattered awnings flapping in the wind. She noticed with a pang that the ice cream parlor where she’d always ordered a chocolate cone with double rainbow sprinkles had been converted to a pawnshop—and even that looked like it hadn’t been open in months. The village that she remembered as a candy-colored vacation mecca seemed more like a sleepy town ravaged by the recession, a drive-by on Highway 80 somewhere between Cheyenne and Salt Lake City.

“Hey, Hal!” Floyd called to a man sitting on a bench outside the hardware store. Daphne vividly remembered visiting her uncle there, the way he’d held her up to see the wall of flashlights and brightly colored electrical tape and helped her open the gleaming drawers full of every size and type of screw, proudly explaining to her how he’d organized them all himself.

“Floyd!” Hal, whose big, round ears stuck out of the side of his head like a pair of bolts and washers, creaked to his feet. He wore a faded flannel shirt and overalls, and the grin under his baseball cap was enormous. “Can you believe this?” He gestured at the sky. “Like it’s coming straight from heaven!”

Floyd slowed to a stop, his engine idling. “Like a sign from God,” he agreed.

“Straight out of the book of Revelations!” Hal peered into the truck. “Say, is this your little niece? She ain’t so little anymore!” He grinned at Daphne. “Last time I saw you, you had a bullfrog in your hands that you refused to let go. Did you bring this miracle in with you on the bus, or what?”

Daphne shook her head. She dimly remembered Hal as her uncle’s boss, the owner of the hardware store. “I’m clueless,” she said. “Maybe there’s a band or orchestra visiting from out of town?”

“Visiting Carbon County?” Hal whooped, underscoring a series of low, brassy notes that seemed to boom straight from the sky. “That’s a good one. Wherever they’re from, I can guarantee there’s even less to see here.”

“Well, I should get Daphne home to unpack—and see what the missus has to say about all this.” Floyd pointed at the sky. “Ten bucks says she’s already called Pastor Ted.”

“That’s one bet I’m not willing to take,” Hal chuckled. “See you around, Floyd.”

They chugged on down the street, the trumpets waxing and waning like a fire alarm all around them. Daphne was starting to feel like the music was following her—no matter how far they drove, it always seemed to be coming from just over the next bend.

“It’s good the hardware store’s still open,” she said. “You must be glad to be working.”

Uncle Floyd’s grin disappeared, and the lines in his face grew heavier. “Well, Daphne, I guess that’s something I should tell you. Times are a little tough around here, and business hasn’t been so good lately.”

Foreboding tickled the back of her throat. “Are you only part-time now?” she guessed.

“Not exactly, no.” He concentrated heavily on the road, not meeting her eyes. “Hal kept me on for as long as he could, but it’s all he can do to keep the lights on. I’ve been out of work since December.”

The tickle in her throat turned to a full-fledged ache. Why hadn’t Floyd mentioned that when she called? If she’d known the family was struggling, she would have found somewhere else to go. But before she could ask, Floyd pulled the pickup past a stand of scrubby pines and up to a narrow trailer home propped up on cinder blocks. Auto parts, old metal lawn chairs, and a long-forgotten birdbath rusted on patches of dry brown grass out front.

“Here we are.” His tone, behind a jovial grin, was almost apologetic. “Home sweet home, trumpet fanfare and all.”

Daphne gaped. “You’re still living in the trailer?” she asked before she could stop herself. The last summer she’d visited, when she was eight, the kitchen table had been spread with blueprints for the house Floyd planned to build. He’d been so proud when he pointed to the guest room where her parents would sleep, then to the square that would be Janie’s room, big enough for two twin beds and all the sleepovers the girls could dream of.

Again, Floyd avoided her eyes. “I never could quite scrape together the money,” he said as the mysterious trumpets sounded a mournful note. “Tax rates went up, and the bank’s been pretty stingy with loans. But you should see what Karen’s done with the place—we got a new living room set a few years back, and everyone swears the foldout’s as comfy as a real bed. You’ll be snug as a bug in a rug.”