'Til Death (A Rebel Ridge Novel) (13 page)

A couple of names caught his eye, and then he leaned forward, a
little surprised to see them bunched together. Dolly Walker. Margaret Walker.
Ryal Walker. Prince White. Wendell White. It took him a few minutes to realize
they were listed in alphabetical order.

He stared at Meg’s name. He’d had no idea she was there.

He went back to reading and found a note penned in the margin
near the bottom, almost as an afterthought.

Wayne Fox and grandson Lincoln Fox fishing
all afternoon. Lincoln Fox at grandfather’s house until approx 7:30
p.m.

He scanned the report, trying to find when they’d gotten the
call about the fire and found a note where the call had come into the sheriff’s
office at 8:15 p.m. Then he searched for a report from the fire department as to
when the fire had started, but there was nothing else.

It figured. This was Rebel Ridge, not Dallas. There was no fire
marshal to run an arson test. Just the word of bystanders who found an empty gas
can. Then another bit of info surprised him. Fagan White was the one who’d
called in the fire to the sheriff’s office. He went back and read the names on
the list of witnesses at the fire. How did the one brother who wasn’t there
become the one to call in the fire? This deserved some investigation for
sure.

Granted, his stepmother, Lucy, was their sister, and they’d
been at the house a time or two before. But he knew for a fact that Lucy didn’t
like them coming over, and she had left early that morning for a family funeral
on the other side of Lexington. Her brothers would have known that she was gone.
Why hadn’t they gone, too? They wouldn’t have been dropping by to visit, knowing
full well she wasn’t there. Still, he guessed if they’d been driving by, they
could have seen the fire. The house wasn’t that far off the road, and Linc
remembered that he’d seen the glow of the flames before he got there, too.

He closed the file, then laid it aside. He would read more
later, but right now he needed to do something to take his mind off the past,
and there were several hours to kill until his supper date with Meg. He changed
into his work clothes and headed for the door. He had a rick of wood to haul to
Aunt Tildy’s, and he wanted to talk to her about what he’d read. He glanced up
at the sky as he got in the truck. It looked like that storm was coming for
sure. He just hoped whatever came out of those clouds stayed liquid.

A short while later he pulled up to his aunt’s house and hit
the brakes. There were three pickup trucks in the front yard. Unless she was
having an impromptu party, he was guessing there were some sick or injured
people in her house. Rather than block anyone’s exit, he drove around to the
back to park, then went in the back door and found her and three men standing
around the kitchen table.

“Aunt Tildy?”

She looked up and when she stepped aside Linc saw the trembling
man stretched out on an old oilcloth on top of her kitchen table, caught up in
coils of barbed wire.

“Come in, son. George here got himself in something of a fix.
Do you happen to have some wire cutters in your truck? We could use another
pair.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and hurried back outside.

He came back on the run, shed his coat, put on a pair of
leather gloves and slipped into place around the table where the others were
methodically cutting away the rusting barbs from George’s clothes and skin.

The others gave him a quick look and nodded, but they were too
caught up in helping their friend to pay him much attention.

The pain on George’s face was as obvious as the tears on his
cheeks.

Tildy pointed at the coils still wrapped around the man’s head
and shoulders.

“We’ve figured ourselves out something of a system here. If you
make a cut down close to the wire beneath him and then hang on to the wire that
comes loose it will work better. Then cut off what you’re holding on to as far
down as you can without making it worse. Lay what you cut away on that pile on
the floor.”

He got what she meant and glanced down at the man. “I’m real
sorry,” he said. “I’ll try not to hurt you.”

“You can’t do much worse than what I already done to myself,”
George said. “It’s the last time I’ll ride a four-wheeler, I can tell you that
for sure.”

Tildy paused to stretch a kink out of her neck, adding even
more to the explanation.

“George was out hunting. Thought he was just riding through a
brushy patch and didn’t know it was an old fencerow. The posts had rotted away,
but the wire was still caught up in the underbrush. I’m guessing from the amount
of wire we been cuttin’ off that it was a four-wire fence. He’s lucky it didn’t
blind him or cut a major artery, and even more lucky that his son was following
a short distance behind in the truck. His family tried to get it off, but there
was some wrapped too tight against that big vein in his neck, so they brought
him to me.”

“I know some about accidents,” Linc said softly as he made the
first cut. George was shaking so hard it was difficult to separate the wires,
and Linc knew it was from a mixture of shock and of pain. He kept talking,
hoping it would help distract the man. “I work construction myself. Had an
on-the-job accident about six months ago. Got myself electrocuted. I’m here to
tell you that dying isn’t so bad.”

George’s eyes widened. “You sure nuff died?”

“Yes, I did,” Linc said as he snipped another length of barbed
wire loose and dropped it into the pile near the wall. “The bolt of electricity
knocked me down, and went straight through my body and out my boots. They said I
was flatlined for more than four minutes. I woke up in the E.R. with some
big-time burns and no memory of how I got there.”

The man standing beside Tildy paused. “Did you see the light?
You know...the one they say everybody sees when they have one of them near-death
experiences?”

Linc made another cut, then held the wire firmly until he had
snipped it away.

“No. I didn’t see the light. But I saw my daddy.”

“Is your daddy dead?” George asked.

Linc nodded. “Since I was seventeen.”

Now everyone was caught up in the story, and Tildy caught
Linc’s eye and nodded her approval as she quickly went to work cutting away the
wire wrapped around George’s crotch while he was distracted.

One of the other men spoke up. “What did your daddy say?”

Linc paused. “He told me to go home, so I did. That’s why I’m
here.”

“So you’re from here?” George asked.

Linc nodded but didn’t add anything further.

Silence followed as they all kept cutting, but the story had
bonded the man on the table with the stranger in their midst. It was nearly an
hour later before they finished.

“That’s the last of it,” Tildy said as she dropped the bit
she’d pulled off onto the pile.

“I’ll get this out of your house, Aunt Tildy,” one of the men
said, and wrapped it up in a bundle with a roll of masking tape and carried it
out to his truck.

George was still trembling from pain and shock, but he wasn’t
spewing blood from any important veins, and that was what mattered.

Tildy handed him a tin of salve.

“You go straight home, take a hot shower and make sure you wash
all these punctures and cuts up real good. Have your wife put some of this
ointment on every place the skin was opened, and then get yourself down to the
doctor for a tetanus shot. All of this misery will have been for nothing if you
go and die on us.”

George shuddered as he stood up. “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out
his wallet and handed Tildy a ten-dollar bill. “I know it ain’t much, but it’s
what I got. You’re a lifesaver, Aunt Tildy, and that’s a fact.”

Tildy took the money and put it in her pocket. “I’m happy to
help.”

George started to take a step, and then his legs went out from
under him. Linc caught him before he fell.

“Well, hell, that was embarrassing,” George said.

“Adrenaline crashing,” Linc said, and slid an arm around his
waist. “I’ll walk you out to your ride, okay?”

George was shamefaced that he was wobbling like a drunk, but he
took Linc up on the offer.

“I thank you,” he said as, with Linc’s help, he followed his
friends out to their vehicles.

“That’s my boy’s truck,” he said, pointing to a dusty black
Dodge with a dented fender. “If you can help me to it, I’d be obliged.”

“Sure thing,” Linc said, making sure to keep a tight grip to
keep him from falling.

As soon as George was settled in the seat, Linc stepped back to
close the door, but the man grabbed him by the arm.

“I never did get your name,” he said.

Linc took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any.

“My name is Lincoln Fox. But my friends call me Linc.”

The man’s eyes widened as he took in Linc’s height and
breadth.

“I’m grateful for your help, Linc,” he said, and offered his
hand.

A little shocked, Linc shook it, then stepped back and closed
the door, and waited for them to drive away.

But George wasn’t through with his questions and rolled down
the window.

“About when you died...”

“What about it?” Linc asked.

“Do you reckon you know why your daddy wanted you to come
home?”

“Oh, I know why. He wants justice. Someone got away with murder
up here, and he sent me home to find them.”

Then he turned around and walked into the house, knowing he’d
just lit the match to a wildfire of gossip that would soon be springing to life.
And the oddest part of it all? After all the dread and waiting for just the
right time, it had come out in a moment of impulse. What was even more
surprising was how light the load felt once the words had left his mouth.

Tildy was inside cleaning up the mess they’d made in her
kitchen. She already had the oilcloth in the washing machine, and was scrubbing
down the table and floor with a strong Lysol cleanser.

“Need some help?” Linc asked.

“No. I’m fine, Linc. This is a pretty common occurrence.”

He picked up his gloves and coat. “Then I’ll go on out back and
unload the rick of wood I brought.”

She looked up briefly and smiled. “You are a good man, Lincoln.
I am so grateful that you came home.”

Linc nodded. “Me, too, Aunt Tildy. It won’t take long to
unload. I don’t suppose I could talk you into a cup of coffee when I come
back?’

“Coffee and some pie,” she said.

“I’ll be quick,” he said, and headed outside.

The air felt damp against his skin, as if it was gearing up for
a downpour. He worked quickly, wanting to finish and get home before the weather
changed.

When he came back inside the kitchen smelled clean, the room
was warm, and coffee was dripping from the coffeemaker into the carafe below.
There was a big cherry pie out on the counter, and a knife and two plates beside
it. He took off his coat and was washing up at the sink when Tildy came back in
the room.

“I had to get out of those clothes,” she said. “They were
covered in blood and rust. My, my, but that was quite a mess George got himself
into, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am, it was.” He stepped back to watch as she cut pie
and poured coffee.

“You carry the cups. I’ll take the pie,” she said, and headed
for the table she’d covered with a fresh red-and-white gingham tablecloth.

Linc slid into a seat, remembering all the times he’d watched
her do these simple tasks and taken them for granted. Life had taught him to
never take anything for granted again.

When she pulled out a drawer in the sideboard for tableware, it
squeaked.

“I need to rub that wood down with a bar of soap,” she
muttered.

“You keep a good house, Aunt Tildy.”

She looked up with a smile. “Why, thank you, Lincoln! Don’t
wait on me. Dig into that pie, and there’s more where that came from if you want
it.”

He took the first bite, savoring the flaky crust and sweet-tart
cherries on his tongue.

“So good, but then I knew it would be,” he said, and kept
eating.

Tildy chattered about the day, and what she’d been drying in
the herb shed and the ginseng she’d harvested earlier in the fall, and then
finally she asked him what he’d been up to.

The pie was gone, and he was working on his second cup of
coffee as he leaned back and began to explain.

“I went to the sheriff’s office this morning and got copies of
the file they had on me, then I saw Meg Lewis in the grocery store and talked
myself into a supper invitation at her house tonight.”

She smiled. “I’d say you’ve been busy. I remember you two used
to be real sweet on each other when you were young. How do you feel about her
now?”

He sighed. “It’s hard to say. All the old feelings for her are
still there, but we’re different now, you know? The boy loved the girl, but I
don’t know if the man and woman are going to find their way back to that, or if
they even should. Maybe it’s about starting over. I don’t know, but I’m sure
interested in finding out.”

Tildy reached across the table and patted his hand. “That’s
about as wise an answer as I could have hoped for. Take your time, I say. Know
what’s in front of you before you take the next step.”

“Speaking of steps,” Linc said. “I’m curious about some things
I was reading in the file.”

“Ask away. If I know the answer, I’ll sure tell you.”

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “You and
Grandpa were at the fire.”

“Before it was over, nearly everybody on this side of the
mountain was at that fire.”

He nodded. “I guessed that.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember much of anything except driving up and seeing
the house engulfed. I remember running toward the house and then something
exploding. I came to on the ground by my truck, flat on my back and looking up
at the stars. Someone was yelling at me.”