Chapter 25
Bodie
Gibson Sibling Group Text [Minus Bodie]
Blair:
Gossip alert
Caught Bodie in the bakery this morning. Not ordering coffee. Not checking permits. MAKING. OUT. With Emmaline.
Colter:
…like full-on making out??
Blair:
Pretty sure a health code violation was imminent. I had to clear my throat just to get them to notice me.
Dean:
Please tell me you took a picture.
Blair:
I have standards, thank you. But couldn’t tear his eyes off her when I asked what was going on. Didn’t even blush. Just said: “Kissing my wife. What’s it look like?”
Fletcher:
He said that to YOU? Knowing you’d immediately tell all of us? Bold.
Gunner:
Bold? That’s feral. Man’s lost the ability to self-regulate.
Hutton:
It’s so sweet!
Everly:
I’m not sure sweet is what Blair is describing. Y’all better brace yourselves. If they were kissing in her kitchen, they’re kissing everywhere else too.
Fletcher:
As long as it’s not on my porch swing. I don’t need that image burned into my retinas.
Colter:
Next time I walk into the bakery, I’m bringing a spray bottle. Like, down, boy.
Blair:
Please do. But admit it—you all kind of love seeing Mr. Stone-Face Gibson acting like a teenage boy with a crush.
Dean:
That IS a teenage boy with a crush. Just… fifteen years delayed.
Gunner:
Calling it now: Christmas toast ends with him kissing her under the mistletoe in front of Grandma.
Everly:
Wrong. It’ll be Grandma ordering them to kiss under the mistletoe. Let’s be honest.
I was five minutes from calling it a day and heading home to my wife, where I sincerely hoped to pick up where we’d been so rudely interrupted by Blair earlier, when dispatch sang trouble in my ear.
“Chief, you might want to swing by Main. Got… poultry on the loose.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose like that would conjure patience. “Define poultry.”
“Chickens. Lots of ’em. Sounds like Doug Milner flagged down a feed truck and something went sideways. Miss Larabee is yelling about begonias. Over.”
Of course, she was. I swung the SUV onto Depot Street, the late-afternoon heat coming off the asphalt like a griddle.
Cicadas tuned up in the maple by the barbershop, steady as a metronome.
The whole town had that baked-in August gloss—sweat at your collar, the air sweet with cut grass and somebody’s charcoal from two streets over.
I wanted a shower and a cold drink and that ridiculous inflatable sofa Ramsey had resurrected, with my wife tucked under my arm for movie night. Instead, I got feathers.
I turned onto Main and hit the lights out of mercy more than necessity.
The intersection by the courthouse looked like a farm exploded: two dozen—no, more—chickens fanned out in every direction.
A crate lay on its side in the back of a feed truck, swinging like a broken jaw.
Birds sprinted under parked pickups, flapped onto the courthouse steps like they were staging a sit-in, and one ambitious hen vanished through the beauty shop’s propped door to a chorus of shrieks.
People had formed exactly the kind of helpful ring you don’t want: teenagers in tank tops bouncing like it was a sport, old men with folded arms doing play-by-play, and the Sasspatch Society on the courthouse lawn doing God knew what, but no doubt already involved.
Before I could key my mic, the town PA system crackled to life, and Uncle Dee’s voice, smooth as butter, rolled over Main Street. “What? We have to do a sound check, sugarplums. Glitter and Grit demands excellence. Testing, testing—one, two—now, hit it!”
The speakers blasted the “Chicken Dance.”
The entire sidewalk turned into a line of flapping elbows. Three kids clapped in unison, and the chickens—God help me—seemed to go faster.
I pulled in half-cocked at the curb, bumped my hat brim down against the sun, and stepped into the chaos. “All right, listen up!” I pitched my voice over the music. “Nobody runs. Nobody screams. We are not making them celebrities.”
“Too late,” Miss Bea called from under a parasol that matched nothing. “They’ve got star quality.”
“Chief!” Doug bellowed from the truck bed, face the color of a ripe tomato. “I swear I latched it. Hit the pothole by the post office and—” He flapped a hand at the carnage.
“Save it, Doug.” I pointed at two high-schoolers who’d once helped me corral a goat off the ball field. “Travis, J.J., you’re deputized. Hands out, make a funnel. Don’t chase—herd.”
“You heard the man!” Miss Glory trilled into a second mic she absolutely should not have had. “Herd, don’t chase. Also, I’m putting on something with more soul.”
The “Chicken Dance” hiccuped off, and the opening guitar of “Free Bird” soared over downtown. A rooster puffed himself up on the courthouse steps like Skynyrd had written it just for him.
“Really?” I muttered, and a woman I didn’t know laughed like I’d told a joke.
I keyed my shoulder mic. “Dispatch, it’s a poultry party. Get me cones for the intersection, and see if Harlan at the feed store’ll bring a sack of corn. We’re going to bribe them.”
“Copy. Also, Miss Larabee says if a single chicken touches her begonias, she will press charges.”
“Tell Miss Larabee to go inside,” I said, and she, ten yards away, shouted, “I heard that!” and didn’t move an inch.
A hen made a break for it toward the bakery—of course—and I lunged, guiding her with the flat of my hand like a soccer goalie in slow motion.
Nothing about it was dignified. Feathers tickled up my sleeve, and a wing clipped my thigh as she jerked past into the alley.
J.J. slid in from the right with a popcorn tub and, by some miracle, got it flipped over the bird like a bell jar.
“Nice,” I gasped, winded. He grinned like I’d knighted him. We slid a pizza box under the tub and walked it back like a makeshift trap. One down, thirty-something to go.
I scanned for worst-case: the toddlers, the street, the one bird now perched in Mrs. Wilkes’s boutique window like it was considering a new life.
“Harlan!” I yelled as the feed store owner jogged up with a fifty-pound sack over his shoulder.
“You’re a saint. Scatter a line from the truck up the ramp. Slow. Make it a runway.”
“You going to buy me dinner?” Harlan puffed.
“Tea and a funnel cake,” I said. “Top shelf.”
“You two are adorable,” Miss Bea cooed into the mic. “Now, for the ladies—”
“I swear,” I said to no one, and then “I Will Survive” came on, bright and bouncy, absurdly perfect, as three hens bobbed their heads in time and followed the corn like they were in Saturday Night Fever.
We made progress: three scooted up the ramp, tempted by the feed; one got scooped with a laundry basket borrowed from the thrift shop; two roosters squared up in front of the hardware store like it was noon in a western.
Miss Glory squealed. “Play ‘Kung Fu Fighting!’”
The song changed with gleeful speed. I pinched the bridge of my nose again and walked straight into the standoff like a man with no will to live. “Gentlemen,” I told the birds. “It’s a Friday. We do not duel on Fridays.”
They ignored me and fluffed their hackles.
I took off my uniform jacket, flapped it like a matador, and both idiots lunged into it.
For half a second I had two angry roosters in my arms, feathers exploding around my face, and then Travis was there with a recycling bin, and we inverted it with a satisfying clack.
“Dude,” Travis breathed, eyes wide. “You’re like… the Chicken Whisperer.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” I said, trying not to cough on a feather, and somewhere, Miss Bea said into the mic, “Put that on the poster, Deedee. ‘Chief Gibson, Chicken Whisperer.’”
“I hate all of you,” I muttered, and caught myself grinning like an idiot because beneath the sweat and the absurd there was a thread tugging me home: the feel of Emmaline’s hands in my hair in the bakery kitchen, the taste of sugar still ghosting my mouth, the way she’d looked at me when Blair walked in and I’d said it plain—Kissing my wife.
What’s it look like?—like I’d finally said a thing out loud we’d both been breathing around.
A hen shot out from under a bench near the barbershop.
I bent, scooped, missed, and nearly kissed the sidewalk.
Heat rippled up in a wave. The air smelled like spilled feed and blacktop and the sweet floral punch of the flower shop a few doors down.
Sweat ran under my collar; a feather stuck to my cheek and refused to be dislodged.
Somewhere behind me, Uncle Dee said, “Chief, you’ve got a little something—right there,” and an entire semicircle of citizens helpfully pantomimed wiping their own faces.
“Thanks,” I said dryly, scraping it off, and a little blonde kid in light-up sneakers offered me a wet wipe from her mom’s purse like she’d been born for this.
“Appreciate you, ma’am,” I told the mother, then the kid, and the kid saluted. I tapped the brim of my hat back. “Ten-four.”
We funneled four more. The beauty shop door opened, and a hen shot out like a missile while three women in foils screamed and then laughed at themselves.
The boutique owner cracked her door, handed me a chicken with both arms like a baby, and said, “We’re even,” then shut it again.
Miss Larabee finally retreated inside after a hen kicked mulch on her sandal, and she declared Main Street an active crime scene.
“Chief,” my radio chirped as I guided a stubborn Barred Rock toward the ramp with my knee. “You’ve got the Sons of the Legion asking if they can sell tickets to this.”
“If they cut me in,” I said, which got a laugh up and down the block. “Tell them no, and also absolutely not.”
“Copy,” dispatch said, trying not to laugh herself.
By the time the sun slanted low and turned the courthouse brick the color of a ripe peach, we were down to the last two: one smart red hen under the bench by the soda machine and a Houdini who kept flying up to the marquee of the old theater like it had purchased a ticket and would not be denied.
“Give me a second,” I told Harlan. I climbed onto a planter—carefully, apologizing to someone’s beleaguered petunias—then onto the low lip of the theater facade and reached for the Houdini hen like a parent plucking a toddler out of a tree.
She hissed like a broken kettle and pecked my thumb.
I swore quietly, then tucked her against my chest and climbed down, laughing because of course I bled for poultry.
At my feet, the smart red hen made a run for it.
I extended my boot toe, nudged—not a kick, just a redirect—and she pivoted right into J.J.
’s waiting laundry basket. He whooped; the crowd applauded; Uncle Dee hit the mic with, “Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Chief Gibson and the Gibson Hollow Youth Auxiliary!”
Applause rolled down Main like a friendly wave. I tipped my hat and got the last two birds up the ramp while Harlan righted the crate. We used bungee cords this time, and then used more bungee cords, because sometimes experience is a better teacher than faith.
Uncle Dee cut the music and leaned on the mic with a sigh of theatrical satisfaction. “Darlings, if this is our sound check, Glitter and Grit will be biblical.”
“Wrong theme,” Miss Glory stage-whispered, and Miss Bea, without the mic, said, “Don’t say biblical,” and then into the mic, “Chief, care to say a few words?”
I wiped my face with the hem of my undershirt, ignored the ripple that went through half the Sasspatch like they’d just seen an ankle in 1872, and shook my head. “No speeches. Contain your chickens. That’s it. That’s the wisdom.”
“Contain your chickens,” Uncle Dee repeated like a benediction. “Put it on a tea towel.”
I signed something for Doug that said I believed in his latch. He offered to buy me a beer for my trouble; I told him he could donate to the community center projector fund. He grumbled and agreed because nobody wants their name read out loud on the PA by the Sasspatch Society as a tightwad.
Travis and J.J. fist-bumped me, feathers still stuck in their hair.
Miss Larabee cracked her door to announce that if any chicken poop touched her porch, she’d move to Asheville.
I told her I’d help her pack. She sniffed and shut the door.
Someone handed me a Mason jar of ice water.
I guzzled it down before radioing dispatch, “I am officially off duty. Don’t interrupt me for anything short of murder. ”
“Copy, Chief.”
I had plans for a date night with my wife, and I wasn’t letting another damned thing interrupt.