Chapter Thirty-Five
Too Little, Too Late
Menace
The next morning, I found some netted sacks in a junk drawer and took Sammy on her first mushroom hunt. I walked slowly, keeping an eye on her in case she became easily exhausted. She’d assured me several times already that her doctor said she was free to bathe, and do all the normal things, but still—I worried about her.
She didn’t show any outward signs of exertion or pain, though, so I kept moving along, squatting down to survey the forest floor every now and then.
“There,” she said, pointing to a big one, near the base of a tree.
“Careful where you step, there will be another. Always is,” I predicted, and sure enough she sucked in a breath and plucked one between her and the first.
I held out the sack and she deposited the Morel, gently into the sack.
“Those things smell funky.”
“Earthy,” I corrected her.
“You sound like a pothead saying that. Earthy . That’s what Sauce used to say about his weed, I don’t know what Earth he was sniffing. Shit always smelled like a skunk’s ass to me.”
I snorted, shaking my head.
“Leave Sauce out of this, he’s a good kid.”
“I miss him,” Sam huffed.
She was quiet for a moment, as we found another patch and set about picking and squinting.
“How sure are you that Auggie hasn’t taken Rumi and reported us being here?”
“Auggie ain’t no snitch. She’s a hardass sometimes, a little too overprotective of her bestie, but she's a stand-up chick.”
Sam nodded, like she wasn’t sure she accepted my words as fact, but she didn’t argue. Soon, the net sacks were full, and we headed back to the house. I tended the mushrooms and packed them up while she showered.
The best I could tell, we had about two pounds. It wasn’t bad for a day's work.
“Why did you put them in so many bags?” She laughed, looking over things with an odd expression. “You could have just put them in a gallon-sized one.”
“Nah. They’re more likely to sell if you give folks the option of buying a half of a pound instead of the more costly pound.”
“Sell?” She squinted.
“Mhm.”
Sam slowly looked around the room and then back at me, “We just gonna stroll through the farmers market?”
“No.” I shook my head gathering the baggies and looking back at her. “We grabbed your purse; do you have cash?”
Her brow rose and I laughed.
“I’m not asking how much, just– If someone needs change, can you make it happen?”
“Oh.” she nodded.
“Good. Put a hoodie on, put the hood up, you can sit at the end of the lane.” I found a cardboard box, cut the sides off and scribbled Morels across the top. Beneath it I wrote the price. Half of a pound for forty dollars or a whole pound for seventy.
She laughed, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she stared at me.
“I’m not sitting out there all day! Nobody is going to stop for eighty-dollar fungus, get the fuck out of here.”
I snorted, staring at her. “You ain’t never lived in a rural area, huh?”
I threw a hoodie on, covered my head and started outside. She followed me out to the road, attempting to reason with me every step of the way.
“At least change the damn sign. I wouldn’t pay more than twenty bucks for that shit.”
I barked with laughter.
“Twenty bucks? Presley would never hire you.”
“Presley?”
“Mhm. My sister Presley has a market for these. I hunt them along the river road up by Grafton. Everything I find, I bring to Presley. This is the price she sells them for.”
“So, you’re used to being a fungus salesman?” She sounded well amused.
“Something like that, more of a trader.” I didn’t bother denying. “But they only grow in a certain season. So, I have to make the most of things.”
“I see. So how much does she give you, if she sells them at that price.”
I shook my head, “She don’t give me money. She gives me weed.”
“What?” she asked, as a car slowed and headed for the opposite side of the wooded road, parking half in the ditch so as not to obstruct traffic when they hopped out.
“Is that sign right?” a middle-aged fellow asked, adjusting his hat. He was half stooped as he approached the towel I’d laid out and looked the bags over.
“Sure is,” I chirped, before Sammy could give away our fungus fortune.
“Oh, that’s a good deal. They get them later in the season at that one market, but they cost more, and they're smaller. Sometimes they’re even slimy,” he complained, as he picked up one of the bags and held it in the sunlight. “These here look fresh.”
“We picked them this morning,” Sammy confirmed.
“I’ll have ‘em.” He nodded.
“Great,” Sammy sounded surprised. “How many?”
He looked at her and then me, “Well, all of ‘em if I’m allowed?”
“You bet.” I nodded and flicked a finger toward the towel, but Sammy was already picking them up for the fellow, so he didn’t have to bend again.
We shook hands and he started back toward his truck.
He paused in the middle of the road and looked back. “You reckon you’ll have more next week?”
“There’s a good chance. The woods were plentiful.” Sammy nodded, even though we hadn’t discussed it.
He laughed and nodded, “I’ll send my wife down on market day. We love them, so do the kids when they visit. We fry ‘em up for a snack and sit on the porch. I just ain’t able to bend and pick them like I used to. Had the knee replaced a few years back, you see? Uh-huh. We’ll be back then; you kids take care.”
“Alright, we’ll look forward to it. Enjoy.” Sammy entertained his Midwest goodbye, while I simply raised a polite hand, hooked her arm and started the walk back.
“That’s fuckin’ crazy,” she excitedly rambled, placing her head against my shoulder.
She did well exercising, but she slept so soundly, I didn’t want to wake her up for another day of hiking. I went without her. She was still sleeping when I got back.
I took my haul to the counter and began the routine of preparing them for sale. Halfway through I heard weight on the basement stairs.
“You really like hunting those things, huh?” she sleepily murmured.
“Not as much as I like money. I got twice yesterday’s haul. I figure if we get these sold, I can give Octavia the money from yesterday. We’ll ride on the rest, see where it takes us.”
“You think that’s wise? Leaving them, when she’s fresh out of the hospital?”
“No. I was thinking I’d use Rumi’s laptop to shoot Henny a message on our way out the door.” I hefted one shoulder, not really sure what other options we had in helping them.
She gnawed on her lip and seemed deep in thought, so I left the mushrooms, washed my hands and went to her.
“Talk to me,” I whispered, gently bumping her nose with mine.
She shook her head like she was chasing away bad thoughts, “It’s just that– People on the news. They always get caught in transition, you know? Remember that lady guard who ran for it with her inmate? I’m pretty sure their adventure ended in a police pursuit and a wreck.”
“We’re not them people,” I lamely countered.
“You said it was safe here, I’m just– Confused?”
“I thought we were. The spot is sound enough, but there are a lot of variables I can’t control or predict. Any one of which could lead to things popping off and people getting stuck in the middle. I can’t risk that. We’re going.”
Her gaze dropped to my chest, and she adjusted her arms to hug me a bit more snuggly, “Just– promise me if they take you alive, you won’t push me away?”
She might as well have spoken in tongues. I heard her well enough, but the way my whole being churned those words around, trying to decipher and make sense of them, left me numb and quiet.
I thought we’d been over this. I thought she understood and accepted the reality of things.
“Menace?”
“Hm?” I blinked finally.
“You know. What you said, about how you don’t do relationships when you’re inside. It’s too late for all of that. You don’t get to hand my heart back just because things don’t go as planned.”
I huffed, unable to help it, but I dropped my head and brought it up with a smile fixed just for her. I hauled her toward me and kissed her crown.
“I could never push you away,” I finally managed, and it was honest enough.
I fucking loved her. I didn’t know how, or when it happened. I didn’t even know how I felt about admitting such feelings to myself. Yet, I couldn’t deny that she’d just told me I had her heart, and for the first time in my life, such sentiments didn’t make me want to hurl it back at the girl and run.
And yet, for completely different reasons…
It did.
She was in love with me. She wasn’t going to stand back and watch me walk to my death. She was a fucking marine. Didn’t they believe in no man left behind? What the fuck was I thinking?
She was gonna end up dead with me!
What if I did entertain this dream of hers? What did that shit look like? Me sitting in a damn cell, as a person who had killed a correctional officer and a mafia assassin. I wouldn’t be sitting long… Or maybe I would. Maybe they’d torture me every day, until right before I was supposed to walk out. Where did that leave her? Sitting at home pining after me for thirty years or better? Letting her youth and life slip by while she found smiles through pen and paper?
Fuck. That.
She was better than that!
She deserved better than me.
As much as the thought killed me, a little part of me suddenly wished she had been on Griz’s bike. Griz would keep her safe. He was a sniper, too, back in the day, she’d probably really have liked that.
I stroked her hair and pushed my thoughts aside, for now, but I knew I had to do something. Even if I let the police take me out, rather than in, would the mob accept that being the end of it? What if Sammy went home to her dad and the mob continued to gun for the Dirty Savages, would she be caught in the middle long after I was gone?
I’d really fucked this shit up. Auggie was right!