Lee Martin - Late One Night

Missy closed the door, and Ronnie felt a tremendous rage filling him. How dare she turn down his request for money and then sit in judgment of him? He tromped on back down the driveway and got into his Firebird. His hands were trembling. He backed out of Missy’s drive, dropped the Firebird into first gear, stomped the accelerator, and tore up the blacktop to town.

But he didn’t stop in Goldengate. He slowed enough to get him through there without calling attention to himself, and then he went on to Phillipsport.

Brandi was with a customer at the counter when he stomped into the Wabash Savings and Loan.

DeMova Dugger was finally getting around to taking down the last of the twinkle lights they’d put around the window for Christmas, and when she saw him, she said, “Hey, Ronnie. Brandi’s with a customer right now.” The customer, Henry Greathouse, was renewing a certificate of deposit. He was a bachelor farmer, tall and gaunt in his bib overalls, his barn coat riding up in the back due to his stooped shoulders. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” DeMova said. Her big glasses had slipped down and were resting on her cheekbones. She had that cheery grin on her face like she always did and a new frosted hairdo that she was happy with, so she was in a good mood when she went ahead and said to Ronnie, “How’s life treating you?”

She had no idea what that would do to him, but what it did was toss him even further into his rage because, of course, life wasn’t treating him well at all and hadn’t been for some time.

He stopped for just an instant and gave DeMova what she would later call “a look to kill.” Then he went on toward the counter, where he crowded in next to Henry Greathouse and said to Brandi, “How in the world can you think I’d ever do a thing like that?”

“Ronnie, I’m working,” Brandi said. She tried to keep her voice even. “I’m helping Mr. Greathouse.”

Henry Greathouse took a step to the side and studied Ronnie the way he must have a hundred or more bulls in his life when he was trying to herd them and could tell they were getting chancy.

To Ronnie’s credit, he calmed down enough to apologize to Henry. “I’m sorry, Mr. Greathouse. I’m not looking to cause a scene here.”

“You need to take it easy, son.” Henry’s voice was steady. “That’s what you need to do.”

Ronnie was tired of people trying to tell him what to do — Brandi telling him not to press charges against Wayne after he clocked him with that tire iron, Missy telling him what could and couldn’t be done with the money for the girls, and now Henry Greathouse, a man he didn’t much know, telling him to take it easy.

“Damn it, Brandi.” Ronnie slapped the counter with his open hands. “You believe all this talk?”

“I’m working, Ronnie.” This time Brandi’s voice had an edge to it. “We can’t talk about this now.”

“Did you tell all this to Laverne Ott?” Ronnie’s voice was rising as if he and Brandi were the only ones in the Savings and Loan. “Did you tell her you thought maybe I—”

“I talked to her.” Brandi cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “I told her you were at the trailer that night, and I told her you pulled that knife on me.”

“My knife? I was just trying to show it to you. I was just trying to explain.”

“I can’t have you being like that around the girls. What else did you expect me to do but to talk to Laverne? Especially if it’s true that you did what it looks like you did.” Tears welled up in her eyes and her voice shook a little. “Good God, Ronnie.”

“You’re not going to cost me my girls.” Ronnie swept his arm across the counter, scattering the documents Henry Greathouse had been resting there. “I mean it, Brandi. I won’t let that happen.”

DeMova Dugger said later that she was afraid he might come after her as he was on his way out. He had that kind of look on his face. He was mad, mad, mad.

Said Henry Greathouse, “That boy was out of his head.”

Brandi asked DeMova if she could please finish up Mr. Greathouse’s business, and then she slipped back into the break room, found the card Laverne Ott had given her at lunch, and called her cell phone to let her know what had just gone on.

“I’ve never seen him so mad.” Brandi was still trembling. “I’m afraid he might go after the girls.”

“Don’t let him get Sarah and Emma after school,” Laverne told her. “Can you get off early? I’ll be waiting for you at the grade school. I’ll call for the sheriff if need be. Don’t worry, Brandi. I won’t let him harm those girls.”

As soon as Brandi got permission from Mr. Samms to leave work early, she called Missy.

“It’s Brandi,” she said. “Please don’t hang up. I know I treated you bad last night, but now I’m in trouble.”

For a long time, Missy didn’t say anything, and Brandi was afraid to go on — afraid even that Missy had already hung up the phone.

Brandi couldn’t know that Missy was standing in her house looking out the front window, distracted by the sight of Shooter Rowe in the field across the road. He was leading one of Della’s goats by a rope around its neck. He was leading the goat toward the woods at the back edge of the field, and Missy couldn’t keep from wondering why he felt compelled to do such a thing, and why he had a shotgun cradled through the loop he made with his free hand stuck into his coat pocket.

Finally, she found her voice. “He was here this afternoon. Ronnie. He wanted money.”

Brandi wondered whether he might be thinking about running, maybe taking the girls and hitting the road, or worse — and she could barely bring herself to believe this — maybe he was about to do something more horrible than that. Maybe the girls were in danger. If he’d set that trailer on fire, then who knew what else he might do, especially now when he was so mad.

“I’ve talked to Laverne Ott,” Brandi said. “We’re worried about what Ronnie might try to do. I’m leaving work early to meet Laverne at the grade school in Goldengate. We want to make sure Ronnie doesn’t try to get Emma and Sarah. Do you think he wanted money so he could run off?”

It was at this moment in the conversation when Missy saw Shooter stop a moment at the far end of the field. He got down on one knee, resting the shotgun barrel across his leg so it wouldn’t droop to the snow-covered ground. With his hand, he scratched the goat’s head, leaned in close and rubbed his face against his neck.

“That’s what it seemed like to me,” Missy said.

Shooter got back to his feet, tugged on the rope, and continued leading the goat across the snowy field.

Mr. Samms came out from his office and began sorting through some papers on DeMova Dugger’s desk. He was a tall man with narrow shoulders and a long, slender neck. From time to time, he raised his head and gave Brandi a disapproving look.

“Missy, I can’t be there for the girls every day after school.” It hurt her to have to say this, tore her up to know what she was about to ask. “I know we’ve never been friends, but I don’t know what else to do.”

Shooter slipped into the woods with the goat. Missy watched them though the bare trees. They climbed a hill and then went down the other side and disappeared from her view. Crows called from somewhere across the field. She heard the anguish in Brandi’s voice, and though she knew she’d always hold her to account for Ronnie walking out on Della, Missy couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the mess that Brandi was in the middle of now.

“I’ve talked it over with Lois and Wayne,” Missy said. “They know I can give the girls a good home, a good life. That’s what Lois and Wayne want. Brandi, Pat and I are godparents to the girls. In the eyes of the State of Illinois, that makes us relatives. That makes us someone who could get custody.”