Deep South (45 page)

When the sound was gone, she was still standing on her front step.

She was scared. Craven, soul-sucking fear made her want to whimper and hide. She'd been beaten; blinded and beaten into the ground. An unseen man had tried to take her life with the brutal pounding of his fists.

She was scared to stay out on her front walk, exposed, knowing another blow would undo her. And she was scared to go in her own house, scared of the shadows under the eaves and the dark places behind the door. She wanted to cry but was afraid a sound, even the smallest breath of a sigh, would call down some evil.

Anna had been afraid before-many times. Fear was good, heightening the senses, adding fleetness to the feet. But never like this. Not the knowledge that she could be shattered into so many pieces that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put her back together again.

The longer she stood in the waspish moonlight the more frightened she became, unable to go in, unwilling to stay out. Fleetingly, she had a picture of Frank finding her in the morning, cowering on the stoop, her mind gone. The image should have been absurd, but it wasn't. It felt prophetic and loosed another bowel-jangling wave of terror.

From within, Taco starting barking. The sudden staccato stab of sound hit her like a cattle prod, and she flinched. The animals.

Even in the face of a paralyzing terror she'd not felt since childhood nightmares, she would take care of her animals. "It's me, Taco," she said and pushed open the unlocked door. Her vocal cords had seized up along with the sphincters of her body and the words emerged as a high-pitched whisper. Despite the Minnie Mouse voice and Raging Bull face, Taco recognized her. She was greeted with a whine, a whapping of his tall against his bedding and the sti" an uncleaned kennel.

Taco was a cripple. Frank went off duty at three-thirty. The poor animal hadn't been out since breakfast. Guilt was added to the stew of emotions in Anna's soul. Taco didn't help any by taking the blame on himself, looking at her with shame in his dark eyes, his bedding stretched out where he'd pulled his bandage-swathed body as far from the scene of the crime as health and strength permitted. Shoulders and head were pushed up against the metal where the furnace had stopped his progress. Atop the heater, belly spread on the summer-cool tin, Piedmont had risen above the offal, but Anna noted with a second wave of guilt, the cat had not abandoned his friend. "Poor old guy," she said to the dog, shamed by how joyfully he greeted her worthless self, grinning and trying to wriggle close enough to slather her with canine caresses. "It's not your fault; it's mine. Let's not talk about it." She knelt with great care, trying to keep her head balanced on its precarious perch at the apex of her spine.

"Let's get you outside. Your poor bladder must be the size of a weather balloon. What a guy. Superdog." Anna crooned compliments to Taco for holding his water in hopes he'd forget he'd slipped in other areas as she worked her hands gently under his seventy-five pounds. Or was it now seventy?

What did a dog's leg weigh?

Whatever it was it was too much. The blows to her shoulders and the side of her neck, the hairline fracture of her humerus combined to drain the strength from her arms. She could not lift Taco, and she started to cry.

Kneeling on the hardwood, she rested her forehead against the lab's side and wept because she was a terrible ranger, a damn Yankee, a woman, a cripple and a lousy pet owner, useless to man and beast, Had there been worms nearby she couldn't even have cateri them; she was not worthv.

Knock!'-:ig at the door scared her so badly that her wretched sobs were jerked up in a violent hiccup and she froze as a rabbit freezes in the shadow of a hawk. The knocking came again. She flinched at each rap as if the knuckles banged on her skull and not the hardwood of the door.

Anna? It's Paul." The announcement of the sheriff's name did not comfort. Perhaps he would go away if she played dead. Hugging the dog, Piedmont butting worriedly against her ribs, Anna tried to make herself invisible.

Behind her, she heard the door pushed open. Taco began to bark, high alarm barks that cut into her bruised brain with the delicate touch of a double-bladed axe.

"Oh Lord! Are you all right? Anna..

Footsteps sounded on hardwood followed by the muffled tread of shoes on the Navajo rug. Then warm arms were around both Anna and the dog. Taco stopped barking. Piedmont fled the crush, leaping back to the top of the heater. "Did you fall? What's happening?

Talk to me, Anna. Do you know your name? Where you are?" Paul Davidson's hands were running over her head, her neck, down her arms, as he deftly sought injuries in the way of those accustomed to field medicine. His skin was warm, his hair fragrant, his breath sweet, his touch gentle.

For the first time in more years than she could remember, Anna wanted help, wanted a man to lift her burdens just for an hour or so, wanted to be held, told everything was going to be all right, tucked into bed. A piecemeal fragment of an old play her husband, Zach, had starred in at dinner theater in New Jersey the year they'd been married flashed to mind. Harvey. The psychiatrist sharing his greatest fantasy: to lie and rest, a beautiful woman holding his hand saying "there, there..." That's what Anna wanted. She wanted it from Paul Davidson. Yet she could not unbend, not even to speak. There was an iron band around her heart-or her brain-made of two parts suspicion and one part self-preservation. Anna didn't trust him, and she couldn't remember why.

Tears came again, weak and womanly.

Lest he see them and judge her as she judged herself, she buried her face in Taco's side. He licked her elbow, the only part of her he could reach. Prickles of affectionate angst scraped her scalp: Piedmont reaching down from his perch to claw concernedly at her hair. Anna knew she did not deserve such loyalty and the tears came thicker, hotter, drenching the foul-smelling fur she hid her face in.

Paul's warm hands left off their search for wounds. Whether he deemed her structurally sound or beyond saving, he walked away.

Feeling both safer and abandoned, Anna pulled her face out of Taco's side and disentangled the cat's claws from her hair. In a minute, when she heard the front door close behind the retreating sheriff, she would stand up. Sit up. Something.

Instead of the slamming of a door, footsteps returned. Anna stifled [email protected] an impulse to dive back into the dog and another to hide her face in her hands. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes.

All that is required is that I look sane for a minute or so, she told herself. Say something like "I'm fine" or "It looks worse that it is." She opened her eyes a slit. Looked to Taco for courage, to Piedmont for attitude, but still she didn't speak. "Come on," Paul said. "Upsa-daisy.

I'm running you a bath. While you're soaking, me and the critters will get squared away. Take our evening constitutional." Anna allowed herself to be led, coaxed, managed. It was sufficiently uncharacteristic that she wondered at herself even as she watched, a disinterested third party. Maybe it was the painkillers. Maybe it was the pain. Whatever had robbed her of her will, it was consistent. She said nothing till she was standing by the tub, the sheriff unbuttoning her shirt. Then she managed: "I can undress myself." Had he argued, she wouldn't have protested.

Her clothes dropped where she stood. Unlacing boots was a exercise in pain and enfeebled frustration, but it never crossed her mind to call him back. When she finally attained it, the hot bath was heaven.

Paul tapped on the door twice. Once he offered to bring her wine.

She refused and knew she'd quit drinking. Again. Maybe for good this time. Mississippi was bound to have AA meetings. Tomorrow-the day after-she'd think about that. The second knock was to bring her dry, clean pajamas and tell her dinner was ready.

Piedmont slipped in with the pi's and took his accustomed place on the edge of the tub, snaky orange tail swishing in the water. Idly, she wondered if he did that intentionally to take her mind off her troubles.

Dried, pajamaed and ensconced in the Morris chair, Anna sat while Paul brought her dinner of tomato soup and half a tuna fish sandwich. It was the meal her mother had served whenever she was sick, and Anna felt herself tearing up again as he set the tray across her knees. "You don't have to do this," she said to ward off the untoward emotion. "Yes, I do." He pulled up a footstool and folded himself down at her feet. A newly washed Taco dragged himself over to be near Davidson.

Traitor, Anna thought unkindly as she spooned soup into her mouth.

I filed for divorce today," the sheriff said. Anna forced the soup down through a suddenly constricted esophagus. That was it; that was why she'd not trusted him. The memory returned and with it a burning flush of shame. Mrs. Davidson had called to pay her respects shortly before Anna was attacked. The ensuing madness--or her own need to forget it-had driven the scene from her mind. "We were married for eight years," Davidson said.

"We've been separated for three. I filed for divorce today," he repeated. "Why did you wait three years?" Anna asked.

I never needed a divorce till now." Tears came and Anna was helpless to stop them. Truth be told, she didn't try. They washed away the rusted iron she'd felt clamped around her chest. "Do you want to go to bed?" he asked kindly.

Anna laughed and didn't mind that it hurt. "Yes. Now I want you to take me to bed."

The End