Chapter 11 #2
Asher grinned. The banter felt good. It took his mind off the nightmare he’d had, and the day ahead of them.
“On another note, Dylan is on the way with a metal detector. Dad’s good. He’s in PT every day and when they walk him up and down the hall, the security guard is right behind them. I imagine it’s quite the sight. The nurses will be glad to see the back of us when he’s released.”
“I’m packed,” Nora said. “If you’ll run me back to the house before he gets here, then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You haven’t eaten anything yet,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’ll get something at home.”
Ash was already feeling her absence, but understood the need. “I’ll get your things.”
Gunner was stirring sugar into his coffee.
“Nora, I have something to say before you leave. Thank you for the honesty and the help, and for taking the scab off of a sore I’ve been nursing for the last twenty years.
I don’t know why Brenda was the way she was, and I’ve been so bitter, and so angry at her.
At the age of seven, all I felt was rejection.
I kept thinking that if she’d loved us, she wouldn’t have done what she did.
” He took a deep breath. “Then last night in my sleep, I remembered the note from the tooth fairy. Oh… I knew the story of it, because I’d heard it repeated, but I didn’t actually remember it on my own.
Until the dream. I remembered that after she slid it under the pillow, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘Love you forever.’ Asking us to remember that day and that night, and the last time we saw her alive, unlocked that memory.
I don’t know why she did what she did to Dad, or why she got caught up in Brandt’s world, but it wasn’t because she didn’t love us, was it, Ash? ”
Asher shook his head. “No, buddy, it wasn’t because of that.”
Tears were rolling down Nora’s face. “It’s going to be okay, honey. It’s all going to be okay.”
Gunner nodded. “I’ll get your stuff,” he said, and walked out of the room.
Asher picked up a dish towel and began wiping away the tears. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
“I think we’ll call it even. Get your coat, big man, and take me home.”
Gunner came back with her things, and then they were gone, driving away from the bar and up a side street on the way to her house.
* * *
Dylan didn’t tell Angie what was happening other than Jacob was on the road to a full recovery and he was going home for a couple of days to help out there. But for the first time in days, he felt hopeful that this was going to end the cloud of suspicion and speculation under which they’d lived.
He was pushing the speed limit, full of anxiety and expectation, but when he saw the familiar sign of the Yellow Rose Café in the distance, he began to relax. He was almost home.
A few minutes later, he passed the café, then the gas station, then took the turn into the driveway leading to their house behind the bar. Even as he was pulling up to park, he was wondering if what they were looking for was buried somewhere out there.
He was circling the SUV to get his things when Ash and Gunner came out to greet him.
“Good to see you. I’ll get your bag,” Gunner said, then carried it inside.
“That’s the metal detector,” Dylan said, pointing to the box.
“I’ve got it. Come in out of this cold,” Asher said.
Dylan paused as they were passing through the kitchen and looked at the basement door. “It’ll be a hell of a thing if it’s down there after all this time, won’t it?”
Asher nodded. “I hope it is. We need this over with.”
“Okay. Just let me get my stuff put up and we’ll get this party started,” Dylan said.
Ash was already reaching for his pocketknife to start opening the box. “I’ll unpack the detector. We can figure out how to use it afterward.”
“I know how,” Dylan said. “I’ve used them on job sites before. Fairly handy in locating where old plumbing lines run beyond housing sites.”
“Awesome, then you’re going to be our dowser. Only we’re trying to find a money box, not a water source,” Ash said.
A few minutes later, the brothers were gathered in the kitchen. They had the metal detector assembled and had just begun charging the battery in it.
“It will take a good two hours at least to fully charge this,” Dylan said. “Is there anything to eat here? I’ve had one cup of coffee and no breakfast. I’ll settle for anything,” he said.
“I could do with breakfast, too,” Gunner said.
Asher knew the day ahead was going to be tough for all of them. Might as well begin it with good food in their bellies.
“Then let’s go see Pearl about biscuits and gravy, then swing by Belker’s for groceries before we go home.”
* * *
The Brandt brothers’ intent on making a second run at the Tumbleweed stalled when Freddie came down with the flu, then Everett caught it, too. They were both running fevers, aching from head to toe, and huddled up beneath the covers.
Freddie had decided somewhere around midnight last night that his life was in peril. The room was spinning, and his fever had spiked. He got up and staggered down the hall to his brother’s room.
“Everett! I’m sick. I’m bad sick,” he moaned.
Everett groaned. “Well, damn it, Freddie, so am I. Take something for the fever. Drink lots of water, and get back under the covers.”
Freddie headed for the kitchen. Everett had been smoking weed there and the scent made his head spin.
He got a glass of water, staggered back to the table.
His vision kept blurring, and he had to hang on to the back of the chair to keep from falling as he sorted through the pharmaceuticals spread out before him.
Unfortunately for Freddie, when he reached for the acetaminophen, he picked up one of Everett’s party drugs instead. He made it back to his bed, pulled up the covers, and then laid there waiting for a measure of relief, but what he got was a waking nightmare.
Birds that morphed into bats began flying across his line of vision. A naked woman with green skin was sitting on his feet and fire was dancing across his bed. He was convinced that he was dying in hell.
He started crying and screaming. “Everett! Everything is on fire. I think I’m dying. I’m dying in hell. Save me, brother! I don’t want to die!”
It was the “everything is on fire,” comment that made Everett ignore his raging fever, throw back the covers, and run faster than he thought possible, considering the floor undulating beneath his feet.
But when he got into Freddie’s room and saw nothing but the blown pupils in Freddie’s eyes, he cursed.
“Damn it, Freddie! You’re not dying. You’re high. What the hell did you take?”
“Meds for fever,” Freddie said, and pulled the covers over his head to keep away the dive-bombing bats.
“Like hell,” Everett muttered and went to the kitchen to investigate.
A bottle of acetaminophen was sitting beside a glass of water, but there were only three of the four Ayas he dumped there last night before he put their clothes in the laundry.
Freddie was riding an ayahuasca high. Hallucinating at the max, and now Everett didn’t dare go back to bed for fear of what Freddie might do to himself before it was over.
Frustrated beyond words, he ran the last three Aya pills through the garbage disposal, pulled the quilts off his bed and headed for Freddie’s room, only to find an empty bed. He looked under it, then in the closet, then heard water running in the bathroom, dropped his quilts, and ran.
Freddie was standing under the shower in his pajamas and picking at a loose tile on the shower wall.
“Bugs crawling in my hair. Someone in the wall trying to tell me something.”
Everett rolled his eyes. “Don’t pick at the walls. You’ll let the bad guys in. Don’t forget to use soap in your hair,” then walked out into the hall and turned up the thermostat. Their inheritance was farther away now than ever. This was going to be a long-ass day.
* * *
It was nearing eleven o’clock when the Kingstons headed down the basement stairs with the metal detector. Never had the basement looked as huge as it did at that moment. It was like standing before an enemy they weren’t sure they could defeat.
“Do we start at the back and work forward, or start where we stand?” Dylan asked.
Asher turned around and pointed. “We start beneath the stairs, and keep our sweep path four bricks wide, from east to west. We know it won’t be beneath the shelves, because they’re only six inches above the ground.
She could never have dug beneath that. We’ll move the stuff stacked on the floor as we go. ”
“Got it,” Dylan said, then walked beneath the open stairwell and began the sweep.
Ash and Gunner were responsible for clearing the pathways, moving crates of Jacob’s special whiskey orders. Moving boxes of Christmas décor, remnants of Jacob Kingston’s life. There was even a box of their old toys.
It was heavy work and slow going. Nearly two hours later, they were nearing the back third of the basement when Asher called a momentary halt.
“I hear something going on outside. I need to make sure it has nothing to do with the Tumbleweed,” he said, and bolted up the stairs with his brothers behind him.
Asher ran into the bar and immediately saw the issue. Someone had sideswiped a truck pulling a bull hauler, and there were longhorn bulls about the size of yearlings running in every direction.
Some were in the Tumbleweed parking lot. A couple of them had cleared out the people at the gas pumps, and some were already running past the Yellow Rose, across the highway, and out into the land on the north side of Highway 86.
One man was sitting in the open doorway of the truck cab holding his head. The hood was up on the car that sideswiped the hauler, with steam spewing out of the radiator. There were people coming out of the Rose, and from the gas station, trying to help round up the runaways.
“What a mess,” Asher said. “Grab your coats. They’re going to need all the help they can get.”