“I’ve got to go out there, but can I trust you to stay inside?”
She nodded.
“I’m not bullshitting you. They’re bad news. Okay?” She bobbed her head again, and he removed his hand from her mouth. “Don’t let them see you.”
Moving quickly, he snatched his coat off the peg, opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch, hollering, “Stay where you are.”
The two men had crossed the road to his gate but stopped when he shouted at them. He covered the distance in long strides, smelling them before he got halfway to the gate. They reeked of wet wool, stale tobacco, sour mash, and body odor.
Scraggly, unkempt beards covered the lower two-thirds of their faces. They wore stocking caps pulled over their brows. Dressed almost identically in heavy coats and canvas pants tucked into rubber boots, the only features distinguishing one from the other were the couple inches’ difference in their heights and the double-barreled shotgun cradled in the shorter one’s left arm.
They were his nearest neighbors but they’d never spoken, and the only interactions he’d had with them had been contentious.
On more than one occasion he’d had to clear his yard of empty liquor bottles and beer cans that had been chucked out the window of the pickup as it jounced past. Twice the wall of his shed had been peppered with buckshot, possibly fired from the shotgun the shorter of the two was holding now. One day he’d returned home to discover a dead raccoon on his porch. It hadn’t died of natural causes. Its head had been severed.
Meanness for meanness’ sake. He detested that.
He figured the pair were trying to provoke him into retaliating. He didn’t give them that satisfaction. Instead, he’d ignored the incidents and had looked the other way whenever they drove past.
He’d been biding his time.
Now, he’d almost reached the gate when the one with the shotgun leaned forward and spat tobacco juice over the fence in his direction. The stringy mess landed just shy of his boots. The other was somewhat more polite. He touched the rolled edge of his cap in a mock doffing motion.
“Hey, friend. I’m Norman Floyd. This is my little brother, Will.”
Norman waited for him to introduce himself.
When he didn’t, the elder Floyd hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “We got a bit of a problem.”
“I see that.”
The pickup probably hadn’t been road-worthy to begin with. One of the front fenders was missing. All four tires were bald. The camouflage paint job looked as though it had been applied by an amateur hand. The loose tailpipe had been attached to the rusted rear bumper with a strand of barbed wire.
Now the front grill was wrapped halfway around the trunk of an evergreen that had been partially uprooted upon impact and was listing thirty degrees. The truck’s busted radiator was emitting steam.
“You shouldn’t have been on the roads today. Too icy.”
“Well, yeah, you’re pro’bly right.” Norman shrugged and gave him a goofy grin, which he would have to be a fool to trust.
Meanwhile, the other, Will, was looking beyond him into the yard, curiously taking stock of his pickup, the shed, the cabin. He hoped to God that Emory had taken his advice and was staying out of sight.
He would kill the two Floyd brothers if he had to, but he’d rather not have to today.
Norman said, “We’re neighbors, you know.”
“I’ve seen you drive past.”
“You know where we live?”
He did but thought it best not to let on that he did. He nodded toward their wrecked truck. “You shouldn’t try to tow it until the roads are clear.”
“What we figured.”
“Well, be careful. You should be okay if you stick to the shoulder so the gravel can give you some traction.” He disliked turning his back to a man holding a shotgun, but he hated even worse the idea of the brothers thinking that he was afraid of them. He made to turn, but Will spoke up for the first time.
“You figuring on us walking home?” He expressed his opinion of that plan by spitting again.
“What we thought,” Norman said in a whine, “was that you might give us a lift. It ain’t but a mile, mile and a half, up the road to our place.”