Firefly Rain (18 page)

“I do,” I said, a little subdued. “Just not quite what I’m used to anymore, you know what I’m saying?”

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the road. “I guess people are a little different where you’ve been spending your time. But you’re here now, and y’all would do best to remember that.” A sudden grin flashed across his face, to let me know he wasn’t disapproving. “Save you any number of fox paws, you know what I mean?”

I thought about Carl for a minute. “I think I might,” I allowed. “But there is one thing left to say about this.”

“Yes?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. With Sam watching out of the corner of his eye, I opened it up and pulled out a twenty. “This is for the gas,” I said, and gave him a glare when he opened his mouth to say something. “Uh-uh. You’re doing me a big favor, and the least I can do is chip in a bit.”

“I ain’t a taxi,” Sam said, and there was genuine discomfort in his voice. “You don’t need to pay me none, and if you insist, I might get offended.”

Irrationally, I felt hot eyes on the back of my neck. I turned to look for a second and saw Asa staring in through the glass of the back. He didn’t look friendly.

I turned back to Sam. “If you don’t take it, Sam, I’ll get offended. I ain’t trying to buy your services here. I’m thanking you for a favor and making sure it doesn’t put you out none. If you don’t take it, I feel like I’m freeloading, and I get enough of that from other folks around here.
Please.
”

He glanced over at me, his face troubled. “I don’t know. It don’t seem right.” In the back, Asa growled. I refused to look back.

“Let me save a little pride here, Sam,” I said softly. “Man’s got to have a little pride.”

“Pride’s a sin,” he answered, but without conviction. “All right, if it makes you feel better, I’ll take it. But don’t be making this a habit, you hear?”

“I’m hoping not to,” I said, and I meant it. Folding the bill up, I stuck it in the cup holder.

“Fair enough,” Sam said, and he reached over to turn on the cassette player. Toby Keith’s singing started up low, with a faint tape hiss behind it. My arm out the window, I tapped my fingers in time against the metal of the door.

“Didn’t figure you for a Toby Keith fan,” I said, trying to make conversation. In return, Sam spun the volume up, loud enough to make conversation impossible.

I stopped tapping my fingers, and neither of us said another word until we got into town.

Sam pulled in on Main Street, two blocks down from the police station. I looked over my shoulder at it as I got out and caught Sam doing the same.

“Thanks again for the ride,” I said.

“As I said, it wasn’t nothing.” He coughed into his hand, then went looking in his pockets for a pack of cigarettes without much success. “Got any plan for what you’re doing today?”

“Not especial,” I said. “Thought maybe I’d see a few places I’ve been meaning to go back to, maybe pick up a paper and read the classifieds. There might be a car I can get my hands on so I don’t have to put Asa out no more.”

Hearing his name, the hound began barking. “Easy, boy,” Sam said, and he moved over to scratch him behind the ears. “Ain’t nothing to get excited about.” But the dog didn’t settle down much, keeping himself fixed on me the whole time. His muzzle was practically quivering, and I could hear the scrape of his nails on the truck bed liner as he pawed it. I half-figured that if Sam hadn’t been there, Asa would have jumped out and gone after me, and all for no reason that I could think of.

I was pretty sure Sam noticed that, too.

“Sounds like a plan,” he told me. “Well, I won’t keep you here no more. I’ll be heading back in a couple, three hours, and I’ve my own business to tend to. So I guess I’ll meet y’all back here in time? Don’t worry none, I won’t go leaving you here.”

“No worries on my end,” I said, “and again, thank you. Two or three hours it is.”

“We’re agreed, then.” He gave a sharp nod, then turned to the dog. “Asa, stay.” Without checking to see if the hound had listened, he turned on his heel and walked off.

“Good dog,” I said, as much to convince myself as anything else, and chose the opposite direction. I didn’t have a destination in mind, but giving Sam some space seemed like a real good idea, and I was having so few of those lately that when one came along, I’d follow it.

A half block down, I got an itch between my shoulder blades, the sort of thing a man’s supposed to feel when someone’s looking down a gun at him. I knew that was a foolish feeling, but I stopped and looked back anyhow.

Asa was staring at me with the sort of intensity you could feel over distance. I was a rabbit to him, that and nothing more, and if he got a chance, he’d be on me. Of that I was now certain, though I had no idea why.

And Sam was going in the front doors of the police station.

“Well, damn,” I said softly, and I turned back around. Giving Sam some space seemed like a good idea indeed.

A couple of blocks and a couple of turns farther on, I finally began to give some thought as to where I might actually be going. Carl had taken care of the most urgent of my needs, and while I did want to get a paper, doing so wouldn’t take a couple of hours. That left me at loose ends, as I didn’t particularly feel like window-shopping, or proper shopping, neither. Asa probably
wouldn’t look kindly on my dumping a load of stuff into the truck bed with him, for one thing, and for another, I wasn’t sure if bringing more things into the house was a good idea. Not until I figured out what was going on, in any case.

That got me thinking about the house, though, and about what had happened down in the Thicket. Carl’s words hadn’t cleared up too much for me, but they had reinforced the notion that there was something in the house—hell, anywhere I went—that just wasn’t right.

I chewed that over in my mind for a bit, then felt the sun coming down hard on me. It was hot and getting hotter. I looked left and right, and saw I was across the street from Hilliard’s Pharmacy. Next to me was some coffee chain shop or other—what some marketing boy had been thinking when he’d put one of those in Maryfield was beyond me. Given a choice between the two, there wasn’t any. Hilliard’s soda fountain was the mecca of my youth, and part of me still harbored the suspicion that the idea of Vanilla Coke had been stolen from one of Hilliard’s soda jerks. Untrue, I knew, but with a stubborn third-grader’s fury I held onto the notion. You need to defend what’s yours, after all.

I crossed the street (
Maynard
, memory told me without looking at the sign; the mental map was redrawing itself nice and easy now), making sure not to jaywalk. No doubt Hanratty would have popped up out of a mailbox or trash can to give me a stern talking to if I had, so I watched the light, waited, and walked over when it was legal to do so.

Hilliard’s hadn’t changed much from the outside, at least. Its sign, its green letters hand-painted on a field of faded gold, hung down over the door, and the breeze had a hard time convincing it to sway even a little bit. The window was still filled with huge
glass vessels of all shapes, loaded with a variety of mysterious fluids in strange, bright colors. The paint on the glass was still gold edged with black, proudly announcing that Hilliard’s Pharmacy had medicines, supplies, sandwiches, soda, and ice cream. Underneath, in smaller letters, were the words I was hoping for: L. H
ILLIARD, PROPRIETOR
. Old Man Hilliard had been called that when I was a kid, and I had a sneaking suspicion Father had called him that in his boyhood as well. He’d been one of the defining figures of my youthful imagination, a big shaggy bear of a man with a white head of hair and a gray beard that hung halfway down his chest. He didn’t look like a pharmacist ought to, according to the television, but he’d been there as long as anyone could remember, and he was as good mixing up medicines and prescriptions as he was at making ice cream sodas. Every kid wanted a job at Hilliard’s after school or come summer, but he didn’t take many, and he expected perfection. Screw up something as simple as a root beer float and you were out on your duff, no questions asked. Old Man Hilliard expected perfection, and by expecting it, nine times out of ten he got it.

I hadn’t even gotten the chance to fail, but that hadn’t made a dent in my enthusiasm. And when I pushed open the door and heard the familiar bells jingle overhead, for a moment I was nine again and counting my pocket change in hopes of having enough for what my greedy little heart had settled on desiring.

It was Hilliard himself who looked up when I came in, looking more like a sheepdog than ever. His mop of hair had grown down over his forehead so that his eyes were nearly hidden, and his beard had gone pure white. His hands were still steady, though, as I saw when he reached up and adjusted the spectacles hidden in all that hair.

“Can I help you?” he asked as I threaded my way through the narrow aisles. The products were new, at least in part, but the layout was the same. Fat men didn’t do well in Hilliard’s, that was for certain.

“Mr. Hilliard? I think I could go for a vanilla cola, if you’re still serving.”

“Huh. I know that voice.” He looked down on me over his glasses. “Now let me think a minute… you’re the Logan boy, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “That I am.”

“Well, then. Vanilla cola it is. You want a scoop of ice cream in that?” He moved over to the soda pumps, as shiny and bright as the day they’d been put in. “That used to be your favorite, as I recall.”

“You’re good,” I said, grinning. “No ice cream this time, I think, but thank you. I’d hate to spoil my lunch.”

“That never bothered you before,” he said, and he drew the soda for me with a surgeon’s precision. He set it down in front of me on the counter as I slid onto a stool, resisting the urge to spin around just for the sheer heck of it.

I said a heartfelt “Thank you,” took a straw from the antique container on the counter, dunked it into the glass, and took a delicious sip. “How much do I owe you?”

“Two sixty-five,” he said. “Prices have, of necessity, gone up a bit.”

“I can imagine.” I dug out my wallet and slapped a five on the counter. “Up in Boston this would go for four or five bucks, easy.”

“Good thing I’m not in Boston, then,” he said, and he turned away to make my change. “There’s enough change going on right here for me, thank you.”

“I noticed.” I gestured in the rough direction of the coffee joint. “When the heck did that move in?”

“Not that long ago.” Coins landed on the counter, and he shoved the pile across to me. “Folks don’t seem to be taking to it, though, which I find to be a good thing.”

“Me, too,” I added, and I meant it. The level in my glass, I noticed, was going down rapidly. “So how are things doing? Do all the kids still line up to work here?”

“Some of them,” Hilliard said with a shrug, and he pulled out a rag to wipe the condensation off the counter. “Most aren’t that interested in hard work and doing things right, but then again, neither were you. So I guess things haven’t changed that much. It’s good to see you back, though. How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know,” I answered, surprising myself by meaning it. “It depends on a lot of things. Right now, I’m just trying to figure out what to do next.”

“That makes sense. If you’re back here from Boston now, with all your kin gone, it’s because you’ve got nowhere else to go. Not that I’m judging you, mind.”

I sucked at the straw, which made crackling noises as it pulled the last few drops of soda up out of the bottom of the glass. “No offense taken. And I’m glad to see you’re still here.”

He snorted, then he stuffed the rag back in his pocket and went off to fiddle with a pile of papers by the register. “Young Mr. Logan, I ask you where else should I be? This pharmacy is my right and proper place. No matter how many big-city coffee shops they try to install on my doorstep, I am not going anywhere until they carry me out of here on a stretcher. Maybe not even after that.” He suddenly flashed me a grin. “I’d love to haunt whoever bought the place after I passed on. I’d look over his shoulder from the other side, just to make sure he was doing things right. And if
he weren’t, well, it would be my bound and duty to let him know, don’t you think?”

I pushed the empty glass away, suddenly uncomfortable. “You don’t have a son to take over?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“If I did, he’d be answering your questions instead of me, now, wouldn’t he?” He turned, spotted an invisible smudge on the mirror on the wall behind him, and rubbed at it with another cloth he pulled out of somewhere. “I never married and never had any children. I just wasn’t lucky that way, though in a sense every child born in this town for forty years has been a little bit mine. At least, the ones with the sense to enjoy an ice cream soda now and then.” His work at the mirror done, he turned back to me and tucked the cloth into his sleeve. “Can I make you another? You’ve got a few years’ worth to catch up on, as I recall.”

“No, thank you,” I said. “I need to get back into training before I can handle two at a time.”

Hilliard snorted out a laugh. “A smart man knows his limits. All right, then, no loitering in the store. Go on, and good luck with whatever you do with the rest of your day. If, of course, you’ve figured that out as well.”

“Nope,” I confessed, and I slid down from the stool. “But I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

“A man lacking direction could do worse than to go see the preacher,” he said. “You might want to think about that.”

“You know, I just might.” Still chewing on the idea, I went back out into the sunshine, the bells jangling behind me.

A smart man, when there’s something going on in his house that ain’t ought to be, goes to talk to his preacher. That’s a simple fact. Usually it’s just something like strife between a husband and wife,
or a man and his conscience, and that’s what a preacher is for, to tell you what the Good Book says about the matter and to set you straight. But all things considered, this trouble of mine was most likely a preacher’s responsibility as well. Even if it was just my mind playing tricks on me, it made plain, simple sense to go to church to maybe find an answer or two.