“Is that really necessary?” Doris stepped back to snap it off, then gestured toward the rig. “The old girl washes up pretty good, doesn’t she?”
“You look lovely to night, yes.”
“Oh jeez, I walked right into that. I repeat—you’re definitely spending too much time around me.”
Athena hefted a bucket of water. “You were a little hard on Cathy just now, weren’t you?”
“I don’t want her hanging around here.” She twisted the nozzle on the hose, squeezing off the water. “Besides, it’s not like I fired her. She quit on me when I needed her.” Taking the bucket, she heaved soapy water onto the floor of the rig. “She wants to come back, doesn’t she? Well, she can forget it.”
“We need runners.”
“Not like her, we don’t. What the hell good is she if she’s going to get hysterical on calls?” Doris snorted. “Got to run home and spend a week in bed.”
“Some people just aren’t strong enough to…”
“Then they don’t belong here! Strong! Oh Christ, I’ve heard that before. Like it’s a curse. Does that mean we’ve got to spend our lives mopping up after people that aren’t?”
“Isn’t that what we do?”
Doris shrugged. “Never thought of it that way.” She opened a first-aid kit and sorted through it. “Let me ask you something. Don’t you ever, I don’t know, kind of resent all the people who expect something from you just because you’re supposed to be strong? Don’t answer that. Where the hell are the BP cuffs? Oh.”
Athena took the hose, started rinsing down the tires. “Lonny came over the other day.”
“What?”
She turned off the water. “I said…”
“What did he want?”
“To move back in.” She dropped the hose, and it slithered, spitting on the ground.
“So the son of a bitch is out again, is he?”
“He was drunk. He looked…terrible.”
“He didn’t hurt you or anything, did he? I know he tried to get rough with you once before.”
“Doris, I know it’s weird, but I feel so sorry for him. All of a sudden. Him and Pamela. They can’t turn their lives around any more than I can.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do, honey?”
She didn’t answer.
“That’s so hard for me to understand,” Doris resumed. “I mean, I guess it just seems to me there’d be all kinds of things you could be doing. You’re so bright and all. If you w ere someplace else, there’s no telling how far you might go. Don’t look at me like that, you know it’s the truth. Christ, I mean, I’m glad you’re here. It’d be pretty stale for me if you weren’t. You know that, don’t you?”
Again, no answer.
Doris turned on the hose and played it into the rig. With a sudden smell of old blood, water washed brown from the metal to gurgle down the drain. “There was a little bit of a breeze before,” Doris muttered. She saw the look on Athena’s face and followed her gaze into the dusk. “It just keeps on getting darker, doesn’t it?” She shut off the water, and for a moment, they listened to the evening noises, to the katydids, to the hissing leak of the hose. “Just look at that big romantic moon. You know, honey, I remember stories from back home. I don’t know what’s been making me think of them lately. Stories us kids used to tell. Especially ones about a lost tribe of Indians, supposed to live way out in the Everglades. Right out of the Stone Age. Where’s my cigarettes? Great stories. Scary as hell.” Doris chuckled. “Then I got to college and found out it’s all true.” She turned toward a hint of movement. “You leaving?”
“I’m going to the diner.” She forced a smile. “Will you be around later?”
Doris tried not to sound disappointed. “Later.”
Not wanting to go back inside, Athena walked around the outside of the hall. She heard the soft whoosh as the hose came on behind her; she heard crickets in the grass and the distant clatter and whir of cicadas in the trees.
Larry and Cathy stood together in the front doorway. Really together. They jumped apart when they saw her.
Skinny little Larry and Barry’s wife? She hurried to her car, pretending not to have noticed. What’s the matter, girl? Her hand shook as she stuck the key in the ignition. Does this make it worse? Better? She felt shocked at the intensity of her own reaction. What is it? She wanted to put her head down on the wheel. You all of a sudden afraid you might end up stuck with Barry? Isn’t that what you want?
Moonlight spotted the sand: jagged shards of white. Silent as cloud shadows through the trees, the beasts prowled. The humid air churned with insects from which even thick fur offered no respite.
Lean and hideous, held together with sinews and scar tissue, the bitch had learned to move efficiently on three legs, the fourth held stiffly to her ribs at an unnatural crook. The bullet wound had crusted over.
She led the pack. They moved when she moved, paused when she paused. They had to eat soon, especially the small ones that trailed behind. The dense forest offered concealment but little else. Her milk had almost dried, and though instinct told her this litter would not long survive, the imperatives of caring for them drove her forward nonetheless. The runty wild pups followed, even the one with legs that splayed at almost useless angles. Another, barely remembered, had disappeared two days ago.
She sniffed the air and made a low, whining grunt. Agitated with hunger, the brood came loping through the pines, black swift shapes converging.
Food.
Yet, she bristled and growled. There on the changing, scent-charged breeze, she found a trace of…them. And with that recognition, her crippled leg began to burn, and her bared fangs dripped saliva.
The bitch hesitated, wanting to turn back. But now the pack had caught the scent of the garbage heap, and they pressed forward, viciously jostling for position.
Sky through trees: fragments of thinner blackness. Beneath the branches, shattered moonlight flickered over the running beasts.
Pulling off the wide road, Athena parked by the police car. Throughout the drive, she had tried to convince herself that she had nothing to worry about, that Barry would never marry her anyway, but she wasn’t sure whether she found the thought comforting or more disturbing. Though grimy and mud splattered, the diner offered glass and aluminum brightness in the night. As she hurried through the lot, she could see them at the window.
Behind her—a growl. With one hand on her throat, she spun and faced into the bellowing snarl. Claws raking the flatbed truck, a mean bull of a farm dog strained its chain. She stood close enough to be struck by the foul breath, and deep-pitched barks went through her like hammer blows.
As her paralysis eased, she moved away and tried to imagine being savaged by a pack of such animals, brutes like this one, gone feral, the way that poor little girl had been. She glanced back.
The drip and hum of the air conditioner filled the lot with noise, and in the spill of light, the dog’s eyes glowed with utter malevolence.
Watching from across the table, Steve noted the way they greeted each other. No hint of romance. Not even warmth. As though they prided themselves on how cold-blooded they could be. Shuddering inwardly, he glanced around the diner. Fairly good crowd for a weeknight, and if anyone should happen to look over, they’d detect nothing about these two. Cold.
Smug. And yet her eyes seemed neither cold nor smug. Always, he found something in her face, something brave and lovely, a quality that suffused the body she held so erect. Yet again, he studied her. The way she moved could scarcely be described as graceful. The limp remained too distinct, even her smallest gestures too defiant. Yet he felt she possessed a certain elegance, like that of a wounded cat.