Thicker than Blood

  “They’re hoping it’s feeding time,” May shouted over the din.

  For the first time, Christy laughed, but not because she thought anything was funny. What a simple life May led. No booze, no cigarettes, no drugs. She bet May was even still a virgin.

  Christy looked into the cab at the back of Jim’s head. And he was another case study. He obviously wasn’t getting any from May or the other women.

  Most of the men she’d known, except maybe Hunter, had only one thing on their mind. But Jim had several opportunities to hit on her earlier today and hadn’t. He and everyone else had been nothing but kind. Why?

  The truck dipped drastically, and her back thrashed against the metal side. Because they didn’t know her, that’s why. She was just May’s older sister coming for a visit. Everyone be on your best behavior for the visiting stranger.

  They stopped at the crest of a hill Christy couldn’t believe they actually planned to use for sledding. Jim positioned the lights to shine on the run, which looked more like a cliff. These people were either on something or crazy.

  “You’ll love this,” May said, jumping over the side of the truck. Scribbles did the same.

  Christy took the longer route, opening the tailgate and carefully climbing down.

  “Who’s first?” Beth said, stealing a sled from the pickup and pitching it in the snow at the top of the gigantic hill.

  May took the second and threw it alongside the first. “We oughta let Chris go. She’s the guest, after all.”

  “No way,” Christy said. “One of you. Make it back alive.”

  Ruth moved forward. With her leather cap and white scarf she looked like a flying ace. All that was missing were goggles.

  May pushed Beth. “You go too.” Then, cupping her hands to make the words echo, she announced, “Ladies, take your mark.”

  Beth and Ruth stepped back several feet behind the sleds. Christy realized with surprise what they were planning. Two grown women, one practically old enough to be her grandmother, were doing the belly flop.

  “Get set . . .”

  Beth and Ruth tensed.

  “Go!”

  They ran for the sleds, lunged, and sent themselves zooming over the edge. Their screams lasted all the way to the bottom.

  May yelled, “Who won?”

  “I did!” Ruth shouted.

  By the time the racers tramped back up the hill both were winded but thrilled. Man, they got pleasure from the simplest things around here.

  “You’re next,” Beth said, handing Christy the sled’s rope.

  She took it but not without protest. “I really don’t think so.”

  “Come on,” May urged, leading her to the top. “You don’t have to do the belly thing. Just sit down and we’ll push.”

  “Why don’t we double up?” Jim said.

  She shot him a look. Did he mean she and him?

  “Beth and I’ll take one, May and Christy the other,” he added.

  She was tired of the nagging. Maybe if she took a run they’d stop bothering her. She slowly placed herself at the front of the toboggan, and May got in behind her, holding on to her waist.

  “Trust me,” May whispered into her ear. “It’ll be fun.”

  The hill looked even more frightening when she was about to throw herself down it like a kamikaze.

  “Ready?” May asked.

  Christy wasn’t. Not at all. She glanced at the others. Beth and Jim looked ridiculous, filling up the entire sled probably meant for one ten-year-old. They spilled over the sides like a swollen loaf of bread in its pan. Beth gave her the thumbs-up as Ruth got ready to push both sleds.

  The violent shove came, and Christy’s heart dropped with the sled. She screamed as stinging snow kicked up into her face, and they whipped forward, faster than she imagined possible. She couldn’t see a thing as they plummeted through the darkness.

  “Stay straight! Straight!” May yelled as the sled tilted. She jerked Christy to the left, trying to compensate. Too late. They both tumbled from the sled only halfway down the hill. Christy landed on her face, her mouth and nose crushing into the snow.

  By the time she rolled onto her side, Scribbles had reached May, attacking her with his tongue. May giggled, playfully trying to push him away.

  Way up at the top was Ruth’s form, shrouded in the headlights. Beth and Jim’s run was just ending. She could see them as specks in the distance, standing and giving each other high fives.

  “Didn’t I tell you to keep it straight?” May said.

  Christy shook her head, fell backward into the snow, and laughed. Really laughed. Laughed so hard she started coughing and her sides ached. What a gas. She’d actually done it.

  ***

  Hunter propped his feet on the checkout counter, For Whom the Bell Tolls resting in his lap. He’d just gotten off the phone with Mr. Kurtz. What could they do now? Christy’s apartment was destroyed, and no one knew where she was.

  He picked up the Hemingway. In the beginning he’d tried to be objective. Christy wasn’t exactly without her share of blame. But as time went by, he kept remembering the way Vince had treated Abby. Any man who would abuse a woman like that didn’t deserve to be trusted. Somehow he’d known Christy was telling the truth about Vince framing her. He just had to find some way to prove it.

  Turning the book around, he stared at the author’s photograph. And saw it.

  Hunter’s feet were off the desk in a second, and he straightened in his chair, seizing the book with both hands. He gawked in disbelief at the words beneath the author’s picture. How had he missed them?

  Photograph by Arnold—Sun Valley.

  Five words, but the most important point in distinguishing a first state dust jacket from the second state. A first state had no photographer credited. The second state did. A multi-hundred dollar difference. Hunter distinctly remembered looking for the point when he bought the book from that elderly man. There was no way he would have forgotten to check.

  The truth startled him. This wasn’t the same book he’d displayed in the case.

  Flipping to the flyleaf, he would have sworn it was his own handwriting that advertised the price and edition. And Hemingway’s signature was unmistakable on the title page. But anyone who was smart enough to switch the dust jackets surely could manage to switch the books and forge a signature too.

  It would be easy enough. A first edition book with a second state dust jacket could be bought for a couple hundred. The actual book would look exactly the same; it was only the photographer’s credit on the dust jacket that would be different. Forge a signature, and at first glance, the book would look identical to the one you stole. But why go to all that trouble?

  Hunter stared at the wooden beams on the ceiling. What if the purpose of the fake was to incriminate someone else? Then the thief could keep the real first for himself.

  Hunter placed the book on the desk. It made absolutely no sense for Christy to have created this duplicate to leave it in her car in plain view.

  Hunter scooped up his phone and punched in a number. “Eric? Hunter. I need you over here right now. . . . Yeah, now. It’s very important. I’ll owe you one.”

  Replacing the receiver, he regarded the book. He’d have to check the signature first. Eric was an expert with celebrity signatures, specializing in authors. He’d verified the authenticity of Hemingway’s before Hunter paid the guy.

  If this was forged, he’d know for sure within the hour. And if so, it would mean the real signed first edition was still out there. Find it, find the thief. That would be enough proof to convince even Pop.

  Hunter’s wheels started turning. He knew where to look.

  Chapter 16

  May flipped the page of her Bible, pulled her covers to her chin, and rested back on her pillow. She tried to read the words slowly, but she was having trouble concentrating. She kept thinking about Chris sleeping on the sofa. She’d brought a suitcase. Without even checking
with her. Was she just assuming May would put her up, no questions asked?

  With effort, May reined in her thoughts. “Dear children,” she read, “let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

  She was trying to do that. But what if Chris never apologized? What if even now she was just using her?

  “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”

  May closed her Bible and turned off the light, staring at the ceiling. If only she could pick up the phone and call Aunt Edna. Auntie would understand more than anyone. What would she say about Chris?

  Emotion pushed up May’s throat when she thought back to the day of her baptism. Auntie had found her crying in the church bathroom right before the ceremony. She remembered being just as angry with Chris then. With all the families packing the church that Sunday, Auntie would be her only relative.

  May could still hear the old woman’s soft voice. “You have a choice, honey. You can hold on to this unforgiveness and let it consume you. But I guarantee you’re the one who’s going to suffer. Not Christy.”

  “She should be here,” May had sobbed.

  Auntie gently held her by both shoulders, looking right into her eyes. “Yes, she should be. But I’m here. Your church family is here. And more importantly, the Lord is here with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. He’s a friend that sticks closer than a brother or sister. If you never see Christy again, you will always have Him.”

  May rolled onto her side in the dark bedroom. She’d kept the unforgiveness in her heart all these years. Instead of being angry, she should be praying for Chris. That’s what Auntie would’ve done.

  ***

  Christy snapped awake on the sofa, clutching her blanket, gasping for air. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Vivid was the tiny hand with two fingers ripped off and the bloody stump on the leg where the foot should have been. Blood was everywhere, mixed with shards of bone and pieces of skin and cartilage.

  She dug her head into the pillow. She wasn’t supposed to have seen. The nurses, catching her horrified gaze into the trash can, had rushed her from the room chatting about coworkers, new cars, and clothes as if nothing had happened. As if their frivolous chatter would erase the sight from her mind.

  Never.

  Christy tried to stifle her cries and come back to the here and now. She was in May’s house. May’s living room. In the darkness here on May’s sofa. But the repulsive dream remained, each frame a permanent snapshot in her mind.

  It might have been possible to forget if it had only been a nightmare. Everyone knew dreams were figments of the imagination. But this one wasn’t just a dream. It was a hellish memory. Those scenes actually happened to her fourteen years ago. And to him.

  Throwing back the blankets, Christy knelt, shaking, in front of her suitcase. She flipped it open and groped under a sweater. Her fingers found the cool bottle of sherry, and she carefully removed it from the suitcase and held it up so the one dim light from the kitchen caught the green glass. This was the only thing that had ever been able to make the dreams fade.

  A fresh pack of Winstons in one hand and the sherry in the other, she dropped onto the sofa and unscrewed the bottle. Lifting it to her lips, she tried to fill her mouth with as much as she could on the first stinging swallow. She ripped off the cellophane on the pack of cigarettes, poked one in her mouth, lit it, and greedily sucked.

  She leaned back into the cushions. Somehow she knew it was a boy. Sometimes an infant, sometimes a toddler, he haunted her at night. Only this time she’d seen him like he was: a mangled corpse tossed in the trash bin. Christy covered her mouth to muffle another sob as tears fell down her cheeks. He’d been innocent. He hadn’t deserved what she did to him. She was the one who deserved to die, not him. She was the guilty one.

  The minutes passed as she took leisurely swallows of sherry, and her eyes were drawn toward the gun case. The spotlight from the barn reflected off the glass of the case like an eerie white eye.

  Just a few feet away. Within easy reach.

  How many times had she planned suicide? Twice she’d had pills in her hand. But she’d never gone through with it, mainly out of fear she wouldn’t be able to finish the job properly. But with a gun . . .

  Everyone was asleep. If she could just find the shells it would be simple to remove one of those guns and end the madness. . . .

  Before the sound of footsteps registered in her brain, May was already halfway down the short hall, coming straight for her. “Hey, Chris, I—” Her sister’s eyes locked on the sherry in Christy’s hand. “I . . . thought . . .”

  Christy scrambled to get it out of sight.

  May glanced at the floor where she’d set it, then back at her face. “My turn to check the cows. I was hoping you were awake so maybe you could join me.”

  How could she have forgotten? May told her they checked the cattle around the clock this time of year. She should’ve known she’d be caught.

  “You go right ahead,” Christy said. “I’m going to the bathroom and back to bed.” She stuffed the cigarettes into the waistband of her sweatpants and stood up with the bottle of sherry held against the side of her that was farthest from May. She attempted to scuttle around her sister.

  But May caught her arm. “I’d love the company.”

  She pulled away.

  “Just thought it might be nice,” May whispered. “We could talk.”

  She stood with her back to May, wanting to snap something nasty. But she had to get a grip. May hadn’t done anything. Isn’t this what she came for? Finding out what May was really like? Did she want to wreck any chance she had of knowing May again? If only May hadn’t seen her this way.

  Christy slowly turned around. What a loser she must look like. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

  “Meet me outside in five minutes,” May said and quickly slipped into the kitchen.

  As soon as she was gone, Christy hid the sherry back in the suitcase. Then she sat on the sofa, checking herself. She didn’t think she’d drank enough to affect her abilities. Her dream was still clear. That was a good sign. If she was drunk, the dream would’ve faded.

  Please don’t let me make a fool of myself.

  When Christy finally stepped out into the night, bundled in the layers and coveralls May had left out for her, the cold still took her breath away. Inside May’s pickup wasn’t much warmer, but at least they were sheltered from the wind. Christy shivered against the vinyl upholstery, watching the snowflakes swirl before the headlights. She should never have agreed to this.

  May started the truck, and with a groan and a lurch they headed toward the pasture in the same direction they’d taken to go sledding. “Keep your eyes peeled for new calves,” May said, jumping back inside after closing the gate behind them. She grabbed a handheld spotlight powered by a cord in the cigarette lighter and swung it along the fence where some cows had gathered.

  Christy clung to the door handle as they rocked over the bumps. Should she address what happened in the house? Surely May was wondering.

  Christy watched her hang out the window with the spotlight aimed underneath a stand of cottonwoods. What did May think of her now?

  “Look.” May pointed toward the trees. One of the cows stood hunched over a steaming calf. May leaped out, leaving the headlights pointed toward the animals.

  Christy reluctantly followed, clomping through the snow behind her.

  “Past couple years we’ve had to watch the herd even closer than we used to during calving season. Coyotes love veal for breakfast.” May stopped a few feet from the animals and squatted to watch them. “I love wildlife, but coyotes . . . they do brutal things to calves. If they just killed and ate I could deal with that. But they’ll usually only eat the hindquarters and leave the poor calf suffering.”

  Christy shuddered at the tho
ught. That’s why they had those guns.

  In a few moments the new calf was trying out its wobbly feet. With determination he planted one shaky hoof and then another on the ground. Falling once, he tried again, tottered, but finally managed to steady himself enough to nuzzle up to mother’s udder.

  “I never get tired of watching that,” May said. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s an awesome privilege to witness a life begin.”

  Christy was silent. Not the sanctity of life thing. Not now. She went back to the truck, leaving May to continue her philosophical musing by herself. Christy watched her from the cab and thought she saw May bow her head. Great. She was praying. What could that mean?

  When May returned, she switched the heater fan to high.

  “Don’t you ever get lonely out here?”

  “Sometimes. But town’s not too far away.”

  “You’ve got a lot of guts to be doing this.” She meant it as a compliment.

  May seemed to take it that way. “Or stubbornness.”

  “This was your dream, wasn’t it?” Christy’s voice got quiet. “And now it’s come true.”

  May nodded, but she didn’t verbally respond. Christy guessed why and cursed the bank that would sell her sister’s life out from under her. One look into May’s eyes and she knew how much this place meant to her sister.

  “What about you?” May gave the truck gas, and they were moving again. “Did your dreams come true?”

  Christy kept her eyes focused out the window. May had already found her half-drunk. Didn’t that tell her enough?

  “I never had any dreams. You had enough for both of us.”

  “You know, Ruth wasn’t even looking to hire anybody.” May shook her head, smiling. “But I knew about her from some friends and how she was alone doing all this by herself. One day I just came barreling out here and asked for a job.”

  “She told me.”