Chapter Two Gordon
“You have to take the truck out to the red brick apartment house.”
I look up from the station copy of The Pine Ridge Gazette. Captain Sunderland is standing over me, mustache twitching as he tries not to laugh.
I don’t have that problem, nor do I need to ask, “What red brick apartment house?” There’s only one in Pine Ridge, across from the campus, on the town side of the river.
It can’t be on fire, or there would be a station-wide alarm blaring.
And he said I need the truck, so I don’t think it’s idiot college students who’ve done something stupid, like supergluing themselves together for a dare. “What is it?” I ask, rising.
When I stand up, I dwarf Cap by a good ten inches, and he’s not a little guy.
If he ever wondered how come I’m the only guy in the department who can reach the top of the truck without a stepstool or needs size seventeen boots, he never shows it.
He’s a human, so he’s oblivious to a lot of things, like the gray-green color of my skin and the little underbite with tusks that most trolls have.
“Lady has a cat up a tree. You’re going to need the ladder; might as well have something to carry it. If we get a call, you’ll have to abandon Mr. Mittens and rush to the real priority, okay?”
“Its name isn’t really Mr. Mittens, is it?” I look at him in horror.
“No, the dispatcher didn’t say that. It could be, I guess.
All I know is that Dottie says the lady is crying—not so much because she’s worried about the cat, or that the cat is in imminent danger, but because she’s sick of this place, everything has gone wrong, and I quote, ‘I need my cat out of the tree and my day un-fucked.’”
I wince. “Oh, joy. I bet she’ll be screaming at me to ‘hurry the hell up’ the whole time I’m trying not to get clawed in the face.
” Cats don’t like trolls. Most animals don’t.
I don’t blame them. Most trolls survive by stealing cows and sheep from farmers and shepherds, but they’ll eat any meat they can catch, even humans.
Of course, I can’t tell Sunderland that I don’t want to go on the call because I’m a troll.
He’d send me to the shrink, and I have no desire to explain my hang-ups to a guy who can’t understand that self-loathing and repressed anger are the norm for any troll who has to walk away from his whole family and childhood in order to “be good.”
Maybe being a firefighter was taking the whole “redemption” for the sins of my kind thing too far.
“Nah, Dottie says she’s actually really nice. I bet you know her—Andrea Flores?”
I’ve lived here for six years, and I don’t know half the people here. “Nope.”
“Yes, you do! She’s the music teacher up at the elementary school. She teaches Dottie’s kids. Did you see the holiday show?”
I shake my head. I don’t have kids at the school, so why would I? Sometimes, Sunderland seems to forget that I’m a true loner, no nieces or nephews around here, no little kids who’ve adopted me as an uncle since I’m a parent’s best friend. Nothing like that.
“Short little lady, I think Dottie says she’s part Filipino, and the kids adore her.
She made them all something... lumpia? Whatever, some rolled-up things, and taught them a lot about different cultures and instruments.
She makes it fun, brings in foods and clothes from different nations when they learn about that country’s music.
Teaches piano, too. Dottie’s boy, Brady, is actually practicing the piano at home without being bribed. ”
“She told you all that on the phone?” I ask, getting my gear (mainly for the coat and gloves to protect me from cat claws).
“No, during the spring concert two weeks ago. Brady played real well for a third-grader. Had a solo and everything. Oh! I know. She played at church last week, after the organist moved away. They’re looking for a new one, you know.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t know. Don’t go to church. Don’t like organ music. Or any music, really.” Trolls don’t have a lot of music. They have chanting and rock banging. It’s usually pretty violent, and none of it’s melodic.
Sunderland shrugs. “You need to get out more, you big hermit.”
“Is there a point to this, Sheriff Andy?” I grimace, knowing Sunderland hates when people compare Pine Ridge to Mayberry. Believe me, if they knew what I did, they’d never make that comparison again.
“The point is, she seems like a nice lady, and I don’t think you’re gonna get an earful. Maybe calm her down a little.”
“Me? Calm people? I mean, in a car accident, yes, I’ve been known to calm someone in hysterics. This is a cat. This is not my field.”
“You are a firefighter, you ass. This is Day One stuff. Besides, you are the definition of calm. Never seen you flustered, Gord.”
I huff and climb into the truck, taking the smallest one known as Mean Jeanine. “I’ll get the cat and tell her to take it to Dr. Peterson if it’s showing any unusual signs of heat stress or illness. It was a hot one today.”
“It was. All right, Gordo, see you tomorrow.”
“See you. And don’t call me Gordo.”
Andrea Flores paces by a tree in front of the apartment complex and flags me down with an urgent wave and a little hop, her miserable face momentarily lighting up.
“Thank you for coming!” she calls as soon as I park.
“Yep. Cat?”
“Cat. Stubborn little numbnuts,” she mutters, pointing up into the thicket of leaves.
“I’ll be a minute,” I tell her, and drag out the ladder.
“That looks heavy. Do you need help?”
I give her the once-over. I don’t think she could carry my helmet, let alone a ladder.
She’s short and slender, and sure not dressed for heavy lifting.
She’s in a dress that’s stained with grass but still clings to every small curve.
Frankly... Andrea Flores looks like a fashion model on a bad day.
She’s gorgeous, like a princess in the old fairytales, if the fairytale spat her out into the modern world and gave her a hard time.
“No, thank you.” I shoulder the ladder myself and head towards the tree.
“Are you sure? I’d come over—or go change and climb up myself, but I was so afraid that if I took my eyes off of him, he’d run off.
I promise I’m not one of those careless cat owners, either.
I never let him out. I know how cats are bad about finding their way home.
I... It was a day.” Her beautiful dark onyx and chocolate hair cascades over her face and shoulders as she tries to twist it back up into a bun, giving me an apologetic smile.
I don’t know what’s happening to my lips, but I think they tried to return the gesture. “No problem.”
“I appreciate this so much, Officer... Oh, do you say officer or...?” Her puffy eyes and anguished face can’t disguise the fact that she’s incredibly beautiful.
“I’m Lt. Gordon Rockland. Just call me Gordon.” I lean the ladder up against the tree, pull on my coat and gloves, and give her a nod.
“They sent out a lieutenant for a cat in a tree?” Andrea sounds stunned.
I can’t blame her. “We’re a small station. Two full-time officers, four part-time.”
“That’s not much. What if there’s a fire at the college?”
“We have thirty volunteers on the list,” I grunt, then make eye contact with the cat. To my surprise, it doesn’t hiss or spit—just stares.
I start to sweat under my helmet, which I also donned, mainly for the face shield function. Cat claws on the face sound terrible. “Is he calm? Does he have his claws?”
“He’s usually a sweetheart, a total lapcat. I’ve had him since high school. I think he sensed I was leaving for ten days and he didn’t want me to go.”
“Claws?” I ask again.
“Oh, yes. It’s cruel to de-claw them, you know? Like cutting off a person’s fingertips.”
“I heard. Just like to be informed before I go in.” I scale the ladder slowly. I don’t want to scare the cat into running higher up or running and jumping onto the roof or something. “Got treats?”
“Tuna?” Andrea asks, rushing to hold it out to me.
She’s so short that I have to come down several steps to reach it, even when she’s in these strange shoes with big flat heels and laces all over her foot. Sandals meet heels, I guess. “Thank you.”
“Th-thirty volunteers are a lot.”
Why do people in emergencies try to make small talk?
I guess this isn’t an emergency. “Mmhm.” Half of them are members of the paranormal community.
Three Wymark warlocks who can put down almost any blaze before it turns into a two-alarmer.
Ian Fenclan, the big old Orc, King Silverbow, the pretty boy hockey player, even with his dodgy knee, and the two mothmen in town, our own smokejumpers. But I can’t tell her that.
“It’s good for a small town.”
“I guess being civic-minded is important here.” An edge creeps into her voice, and I don’t like it.
“Mmhm.” I don’t like it, but I’m not gonna talk to her about it. I’m creeping up on the cat with the tuna outstretched like an offering to a supreme being, moving nice and slow.
“If you’re not volunteering for everything, you’re going out of your mind, I guess.
There’s nothing to do in this town. It’s...
It’s such an old people town. And everyone is paired up.
It’s like, if you don’t have a significant other, what do you do?
There’s a movie theater, a bowling alley, hockey games...
Things you go to with someone. And the only bar or thing that’s close to a club is that roadhouse outside of town that’s kind of... Yeah. I wouldn’t go there alone.”
Well, she’s right about Jax Alley. “Good cat,” I say, and almost die of shock when the cat, who has its claws embedded in the wood so far that I can see the little pink sheaths around the base of each little white claw—gives me the cutest, sweetest meow, head turning towards me.
If a cat could talk, I would think it just said, “Thank God you’re here. Save me, big ugly non-human!”
“Almost,” I tell the lady beneath me, eyes locked on the cat. I put the tuna in front of him, right under his nose. He takes a tentative sniff and waits.