Justified (7 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“Oh, Fawn, I would have been scared to death.”

I couldn't look Ruthie in the eye when I said, “It helped to have Tyler there.”

Late Tuesday, the two of us sat on the edge of the cement holding tank in the side pasture at Ansel and Velma's house. Our feet dangled in the hazy, green water while I replayed my horrible visit to Dr. Tubbs. “But when they did the ultrasound, everything looked normal. Dr. Tubbs said the lotion I used interfered with the Doppler.”

Ruthie became unexpectedly quiet, staring into the cold well water. “That must have been terrifying.” She lifted her eyes. “I'm so sorry.”

Her compassion startled me, and I blinked. Ever since I left the doctor's office, my tears flowed easily, sometimes from the roar of heartbreak, sometimes from the echo of relief.

She squeezed my hand and slid into the shallow water, four feet deep. “Man, it's hot today.” She moved slowly to the middle of the concrete tank, stirring up moss with each step. “I wish we were at the lake instead of here.”

Usually by the first of September, the temperatures in Trapp dipped into the nineties, but our little town continued to hit the century mark daily. The cement-sided cattle trough didn't compare to the swimming pool I grew up using, or to Lake Alan Henry, where Ruthie spent countless summer Saturdays with the Picketts, but it cooled my feet nonetheless. I figured I would eventually get used to its murky water and the goldfish flicking past my ankles. In the meantime, I couldn't bring myself to get all the way in. I told Ruthie I didn't have a proper swimming suit, but truth be told, I didn't want to get dirty.

“So, tell me about your date with Tyler. After the doctor's appointment?” Ruthie floated on her back.

“It was
not
a date,” I insisted. “But he took me shopping afterward and bought me several maternity outfits.”

“Did he say why he's acted like such a moron for the past year?”

I trickled water down my arms. “I've decided to forgive him.”

Her voice clipped, but I had a feeling most of her impatience lay with me, not Tyler. “You're going to fall in the same trap again.”

“A child needs two parents.”

She looked away from me and squinted into the sun hanging low in the sky.

I shouldn't have said that. Ruthie's father left years before, and she still hadn't healed from the damage he caused. “I'm sorry, Ruthie. I wasn't thinking.”

She swam away from me, and then turned. “Okay, then. My tattered childhood is evidence that a child needs two parents, but your father daily proves not every man is sufficient for the job.”

“Tyler isn't as bad as my father.”

“Tyler's a mean drunk.”

I counted to ten. “You're right, but when he's sober, he's not a bad person.”

She tilted her head back in the water, soaking her hair so it would fall smoothly down her back. “Are you just interested in him because the church expects you to be?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I don't care about that anymore.”

“Good.” Ruthie gave me the
Who cares?
sign. “But you're still stuck in some kind of victim mentality.”

“You listen to too much talk radio.”

“You could call them and do a show.”

I wished we would talk about something else, because every time I thought about Tyler, I felt like I was riding the Ferris wheel at the tricounty fair. Only this time, instead of clinging to my mother's hand, I was all alone.

“Can you help me out this week? Ansel had me take the Chevy to a mechanic in Lubbock.”

“Changing the subject, are we?”

I lifted a shoulder.

“What's wrong with the Chevy?”

“The air conditioner is out. Something about a compressor. They said it'll be ready Saturday.”

She frowned. “Dodd and I can take turns getting you to classes this week, but I don't know about Saturday.”

A rustling sound behind me caught my attention, but before I could turn, a tanned male body barreled across the yard, whooping as loud as a Santa Fe train engine. He set one foot on the side of the holding tank and did a front flip, landing on his back and splashing water all over me.

Grady.

Dodd called from the barbed-wire fence where he and JohnScott were climbing over the metal stile. “Sorry about that, you guys. I try to leave him at home, but he keeps following me.”

I wiped water from my face while Ruthie laughed. “You can only do so much.”

She leaned out of the water and kissed him, causing Grady to make a gagging motion with his fingers. “Ruthie, you and Dodd are so cute, I could puke.”

I smiled at Dodd. “Congratulations on your engagement. Ruthie told me all about it. She's a lucky girl.”

“I'm the lucky one.” He stepped into the water and stood behind Ruthie, wrapping his arms around her waist and leaning over to nuzzle her neck.

JohnScott, standing to the side with his hands on the wet cement, shook his head at me and shrugged.

“Dodd, you are
not
alone
,” Grady said loudly.

“You're just jealous.” JohnScott chuckled. “Get yourself a girlfriend.”

“Coach Pickett's got a point.” Dodd pulled Ruthie to the side of the tank opposite JohnScott.

Her back was still pressed against him, and she giggled softly before focusing on me. “Fawn, Grady is going to be Dodd's best man, and—”

“Because I am the manliest man in the world,” declared Grady.

“The manliest man without a girlfriend,” crooned JohnScott under his breath.

“You don't have a girlfriend either, Coach. I thought we were united in this fact.”

“He's the head coach,” Dodd said. “That gives him an automatic man card, with or without a woman by his side.”

“Anyway …” Ruthie looked at me. “I wanted to wait until Dodd was here before I asked you. Would you be my maid of honor?”

I felt my mouth curve upward in a smile, and I thanked God for the reflex action. I felt numb. I had planned on being a bride, not a bridesmaid, but so much had happened in the last year, my heart didn't know what to feel. But numb was good. Numb was easy. Numb was safe. “I'd be honored, Ruthie.” I cringed as I pictured myself in a tent-sized maternity gown. “When is the date?”

“Sometime in November. After your baby comes. Ansel and Velma's yard will be awful that time of year, but there's no way we're waiting for spring.”

Dodd buried his face in her neck again. “We're certainly not.”

“Please. That's disgusting.” Grady groaned and went underwater.

When he resurfaced, Ruthie spoke softly to Dodd but loud enough the others could hear. “Fawn was just telling me about her doctor's appointment. The baby's heartbeat sounded irregular at first, but when the doctor ordered an ultrasound, everything checked out good. It was just a problem with her lotion.”

“Oh, man,” Grady said. “I'm sorry.”

Dodd nodded. “Glad everything's all right.”

The coach turned his back to us and sat on the edge of the holding tank, staring across the pasture. If he heard the discussion, he gave no indication, and a noticeable lag in conversation followed. Apparently he didn't care to hear the boring details about my office visit.

Grady's eyebrows bounced three times, and then he eased toward JohnScott with only his head above the water, a mischievous grin on his face.

JohnScott glanced over his shoulder right as Grady pulled him backward into the water, dunking him as though in baptism.

The coach came up coughing, then stood and shook his head twice, slinging water out of his curls. “Grady, be glad you're not playing football under me anymore, because you'd be running laps for a year.”

“I thank the good Lord for that every day.”

“That bad?” JohnScott asked.

“Worst experience of my life.”

I smiled, knowing Grady had idolized Coach Pickett since the day they met. “We don't believe that, Grady. Not for a second.”

“Fawn?” Grady stood straighter and peered at me. “It's about time you got in the water too.”

I held out my palms. “I'm good right here.”

“Okay.” All four of us looked at him, surprised he backed off so quickly, but then he cocked his head to the side. “You don't want to get in. Fine.” He swept his hand through the water and splashed me full in the face, taking away my breath. “But you didn't say anything about getting wet.”

“Stop it, Grady. She's pregnant.” Ruthie splashed him, and Dodd joined her.

Soon water was hitting me from every direction, and I held up my arms to shield myself. After a few seconds, I realized I would be less of a target in the water, and I slid off the wall. The skin on the back of my legs hurt from being pressed against the cement for so long, but the water felt good. Someone, probably Grady, kept splashing me in the face, so I submerged and swam a few feet to the left, hoping he would give someone else his attention. I surfaced and wiped water from my eyes, only to receive another faceful. I submerged again and swam farther around.

With five adults in the small tank, I kept nudging into legs. I groped for the cement side, careful not to bump my head on the rough hardness, then rose out of the water, but only so far as my nose.

I found myself looking directly into Coach Pickett's eyes, inches away from me. His nearness embarrassed me, and I desperately wanted to look away, to hide behind something so I could escape his penetrating gaze, which seemed to expose my faults. But I couldn't move.

The flurry continued around us as we both looked at each other in surprise. We were so close, I could see drops of water on his eyelashes. I clutched the cement with my fingertips, as he rose slightly above the water. His eyes roamed down to my mouth, in and then out of the waves, and I held my breath.

JohnScott looked like a different person. Wet and startled and no longer my history teacher or the head coach or my friend's cousin. But someone else.

Someone interesting.

He pushed off the cement wall and swam away from me.

When the splashing settled, I crouched at the far side of the tank, trying to calm the butterflies flittering in my stomach. I stood up, pulling my wet T-shirt away from me, then once again perched on the edge of the tank. I avoided eye contact with all of them and wondered if any of them had seen.

Grady flipped in the water, attempting to stand on his hands, and Dodd and Ruthie laughed together on the other side of the tank, sharing a few kisses. Apparently they hadn't noticed.

I couldn't look at the coach.

But maybe I'd read more into it than I ought to. Maybe he hadn't noticed anything peculiar. Maybe we simply bumped into each other.

Probably, it was
nothing
. Nothing at all.

I swung my legs over the side and stepped toward a lawn chair to retrieve my sandals. “I better get home.”

As Ruthie voiced her objections, I finally glanced at the coach, but when my eyes met his, he turned away.

Shame settled over me like a warm mist, and stifling heat pressed against my chest, reminding me of a sauna Mother and I had sat in too long on vacation one year. By the time we left the room, I was light-headed and almost fainted.

I wanted to faint now, to succumb to blessed unconsciousness. Because whatever happened between JohnScott and me in the water was definitely not
nothing
.

Chapter Seventeen

JohnScott installed my new window-unit air conditioners one evening while I was at class, leaving a note apologizing for not catching me at home. But he knew my schedule.

Whatever.

My house was remarkably cooler, but the refrigerated air left me feeling like smut because the coach couldn't bear to be in the same room with me. After dinner I escaped my guilty conscience and settled on a kitchen chair that I pulled to the back porch. The tableland on that side of the house, unlike the front, stretched into the distance, as flat as if God had poured a concrete slab all the way from Trapp to the top of the Panhandle. Squatty cedars and sagebrush grew near the house, but beyond them lay the first of countless cotton fields, where a green John Deere tractor spent the day rumbling in monotonous rotations.

The scent of freshly plowed earth reminded me of my father. Except his tractor was a Kubota, not John Deere, with an enclosed, air-conditioned cab so he could work in a comfortable, isolated cocoon.

My phone chirped in my pocket. A text from Ruthie saying she and Dodd couldn't take me to get the Chevy at the repair shop on Saturday morning, but JohnScott would pick me up at ten. Oh joy.

A pair of scissortails swooped back and forth above my head, their yellow bellies plump and full of bugs that otherwise would have found their way inside my house. A pain suddenly shot through my right calf, and I flexed my foot, trying to ease the muscle cramp. These were happening more often lately, and my doctor had given me the profound advice “That happens sometimes,” which seemed to be his diagnosis for many of my pregnancy symptoms. I had learned not to take myself too seriously.

When the cramp intensified, I slammed my glass of iced coffee down on the porch rail and pulled my toes toward my shin as I massaged the rock-hard muscles of my calf. After a few moments, the pain eased, but every time I released my foot, my calf would tighten again. Gingerly I put weight on my leg and hobbled down the steps into the backyard to walk it off.

I stopped at the corner of the house, resting my hand on the rough wood of the siding as my muscles cramped again. I bent to knead my calf but tensed when I heard a hollow shaking behind me. It started as a timid chirrup not unlike a cricket but quickly increased to a threatening vibration that sent goose bumps up my spine. I knew that sound.

My leg immediately turned to granite, but I took a slow, painful step away from the diamondback rattlesnake. A sudden movement would be dangerous, but even my slow progress caused another more intense shake of its tail.

The back porch loomed to my left, and in one swift yet lumbering motion, I grasped the railing and stepped up with my good leg, raising myself three feet above the ground. As I awkwardly climbed over the rail, another rattle sounded, less threatening, and then it stopped altogether.

I leaned over the rail to locate the reptile but saw only a rectangular opening on the side of the house. Some sort of access to the open area beneath. The snake must have been resting there to escape the heat of the setting sun. Well, it would have to find another place to cool off. I gently bit my bottom lip, remembering Sophie Snodgrass's stories.

I had seen snakes on my family's ranch, but I'd never had to deal with them myself. My father or the foreman usually shot their heads off with a twenty-two, but one time a small rattler ventured into the yard when all the men were at work, and our maid took after it with a garden hoe. She chopped until the animal resembled ground meat.

I considered the hoe option but didn't want to get that close. Besides, I didn't have a hoe. I stepped off the porch, took a wide path around the corner, and peered under the house into the darkness.

Sure enough, a midsize rattlesnake lay coiled in a small mound, relaxed and resting. The diamond design on its back alternated its gray, black, and white pattern, and the now-silent tail protruded from the center of the scaly pile, ready to shake again should the snake feel threatened.

I would have to stand there and keep an eye on it while I called someone to come kill it. If it got away, I would never be able to go in and out of the house knowing the thing slinked around the property.

My father was out of the question. He would use the incident as ammunition, firing even more condescending remarks my way.

Tyler would undoubtedly know how to kill a snake, but he lived all the way in Snyder.

And since it was a Thursday, Dodd and Ruthie had classes at Tech. Not that they could help anyway.

Ansel would have come in a heartbeat, but Ruthie had been describing him as more and more feeble lately. I hated to be a bother.

That only left one person in my short list of friends, and I dreaded calling him.

For a few seconds I considered the fiasco at the holding tank, but then I pulled my cell phone from the back pocket of my shorts and knocked my pride down a few notches. JohnScott probably considered me a flirt, but he could shoot the head off a snake from twenty feet, without a hitch.

Fifteen minutes later, his truck sped into the front yard, and my body reacted as if a professor had called my name to stand and recite the Gettysburg Address.

I checked on my reptile friend, but he hadn't moved at all. Not when I slipped into the house to use the restroom. Not when I retrieved my glass from the porch rail. Not when I sneaked a few bites of cake.

I stepped around the side of the house but stopped short when I saw who the coach had with him.

“Clyde and I were eating at the diner when you called.” JohnScott lifted his chin as he walked across the yard. “Hope you don't mind I brought him with me.”

“Of course not,” I lied.

“He knows about diamondbacks.”

I seriously doubted the middle-aged man knew much about snakes, since he'd been locked up for twenty years. Perhaps JohnScott had brought him along so the two of us wouldn't find ourselves alone with an awkward topic looming over our heads. If that were the case, I applauded his judgment.

The ex-convict stood by JohnScott's truck with his back to me, and I tried not to stare at the tattoos running up and down his arms. When he turned, he held a long pole and a burlap bag.

I tapped my foot. “You brought a gun, right?”

JohnScott crossed his arms, but Clyde only looked between us with a humored smile on his face. “How are ya, Fawn?”

My cheeks warmed at my rudeness. “I could be better, but thank you for coming.”

“Aw … that's okay. I kind of enjoy wrestling rattlers.”

“You do this often?”

He glanced around the front yard. “Before I get into that … where is the critter?”

“Oh, it's back here under the house. Hasn't moved since I first found it.” I turned toward the side yard, walking briskly.

“Hold up there, Fawn.” The coach jogged two steps and brushed my elbow with his fingertips. “Let's take things slow.”

“Fine with me, but the thing's not going anywhere.”

As we crept toward the back of the house, I said, “So you're going to shoot it, right?”

Clyde's gaze roamed back and forth. “No reason to kill the beast flat out when we can snare her.”

“You mean, like, catch it?”

Clyde chuckled as though he knew an inside joke, and he held the pole like a walking stick, only the pole had some sort of pincers on the end. His bent posture, coupled with the shaggy, blond hair shielding his face, reminded me of a lunatic in a horror movie.

I pointed to the open space at the corner of the house. “It's in there.”

The two men inched toward the crawl space while I sipped coffee and speculated about JohnScott's impression of me at the holding tank. He didn't act like he remembered the embarrassing episode at all.

“I didn't take the time to go out to my house for my gun.” JohnScott spoke without turning around, and I noticed the brand of his jeans. They fit more snugly than Tyler's. “We were two streets over from Clyde's trailer, so we picked up his gear. Lucky it worked out this way.”

“Lucky?”

“Yep.” He turned and scanned the ground around me. “Because your rattler took off.”

My scalp prickled. “What? It was there a second ago.”

I stepped toward the open space, but Clyde raised a palm. “Why don't you get on the porch.” As an afterthought, he stepped to the corner of the house and inspected the raised platform, the railing, even the covered ceiling. He turned to me and glided his hand through the air like a used-car salesman. “Please.”

I glanced at JohnScott, who couldn't seem to take his eyes off the ground, and then I returned Clyde's smile. “Certainly.” I didn't like the idea of Clyde taking charge no matter what kind of experience he had. “So how do you know about snakes?”

The coach's gaze left the ground long enough to roll his eyes at me, but Clyde only sidestepped to the crawl space and squatted slowly, giving the impression of a tall elevator lowering to the bottom floor. He peered inside. “There we go, JohnScott. She only moved back a ways, trying to find a cooler spot. It's hot as blazes out here.” He got down on one knee, leaning closer to the opening and extending the pole slowly into the shadows. “Watch out now. I'm going to pull her toward me with the J-hook, so I'll have more control.”

The coach put his weight on his back foot in case he needed to bolt, while Clyde continued to speak smoothly. “I've shore enough wondered about that serpent in the garden of Eden. Evil little thing. But this one?” He jerked the pole, then flipped a handle on the end. “This one ain't evil.” He stepped back from the house, and the rattlesnake writhed on the hook, clamped in her midsection. “This girl's just a little riled.”

“Whoa,” JohnScott said. “That happened so quick, I barely saw what you did.”

Clyde's description of this girl being a little riled seemed a gross understatement as the reptile flopped and jerked on the end of his pole, the tail now pulsing angrily and filling the hollow beneath the house with its enraged clamor.

Fingers of unease inched over my scalp, leaving me chilled in the warm afternoon air.

“Nothing to it,” Clyde said. “The main thing is to keep her at the opposite end of the hook. She can't strike that far, so you're safe as long as she's at the other end. Then you simply move her around a bit until you can clasp her in your tongs. But not too close to the head. Don't want to kill her. Not yet anyway.”

I peered over the porch, realizing I had gripped the railing until I had a splinter in my palm. “Am I missing something? Why do we not want to kill it?”

Clyde motioned for JohnScott to fetch the bag, which looked like an oversize pillowcase. Then he maneuvered the snake into it, released the clamp, and pulled drawstring. The bag jerked once before going motionless. “Aw, Fawn, she'll probably end up dead, but I've got a friend that can milk the venom first. And another that'll want the hide for belts and such.”

“Milk the venom?”

He hummed a yes. “They use it to make antivenin.”

“To treat bites?” asked JohnScott.

Clyde nodded, continuing to search the area around us. “The good Lord provides.”

I hadn't expected Clyde Felton to hiss religion at me. I'd been a Christian my entire life, and he only recently found God in a prison cell. I curled a strand of hair around my finger, realizing I didn't know how long Clyde had been a Christian. “I don't think God would mind if we killed one snake.”

“It might be more than one, I'm thinking.” The way his neck jutted forward got on my nerves, and he still searched the grass as though Godzilla might jump out any minute. “Yep, there's her mate.” He gestured to a pile of logs twenty yards to the side of the house. “They often run in pairs. That one's found a cool spot in the shade of the woodpile.”

Shivers went up my spine as I followed his gaze, and I began searching the yard myself.

JohnScott shook his head. “Good thing you came with me. I never would've known to look for a pair.” His I-told-you-so smirk didn't go unnoticed, but maybe I deserved it.

“And it's a good thing we didn't bring a gun. The shot would've scared this one away.” Clyde rested a fist on his hip. “You tackle this little boy, JohnScott. Might as well learn.”

The coach looked from the snake to Clyde, then down to the clamp on the end of the pole. “When I shoot them, I don't have to get that close.”

Clyde laughed. “I know, but as long as you keep him a pole's length away, you're all right. It's not like he can fly.”

I sought safety on the porch again, glancing at the crawl space as I walked past.

The coach took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, Clyde. I'll do it.” He reached for the J-hook. “But stay close, so if I mess things up, you can snatch the pole.”

“Aw, you ain't gonna mess up. Piece of cake.”

The two of them walked toward the woodpile, and I wondered what would happen if they were bitten. I had never heard much about people getting struck by rattlesnakes. Lots of rumors over the years, but nothing ever came of them.

Clyde squeezed the coach's shoulder. “You're more likely to get struck by lightning than a snake.”

JohnScott glanced at the sky above his head, sprinkled with cotton-ball clouds. “Not today, I'm not.”

“Use your hook to uncoil him, then reach in and pick him up.”

In five seconds, the second snake squirmed in the clamp, and JohnScott whooped. “I can't believe I caught a rattlesnake. Fawn, look at this thing.”

I looked at it all right—from the safety of my perch on the railing, which may or may not have been strong enough to support my weight.

“Fawn's hiding over there on the porch.” Clyde smiled, prompting me to climb down.

Clyde took the J-hook and explained the mechanics of getting the angry snake into the bag.

My teeth grazed my bottom lip. “So Clyde, tell me again how you know about this sort of thing.”