Hellbender (Murder Ballads and Whiskey Book 2) (14 page)

“I want you to meet my future grand-daughter-in-law. Watch out though, she’s from over the mountain. But I think she’s all right.”

My face got hot and I shook my head, trying to apologize to Alex for the presumption.

Alex received a warm hug from Rachael. My aunt released her, then discreetly pulled a stray blond hair from Alex’s shoulder. Rachael caught me looking and tucked the hair into her back pocket. Fenton gave a bashful wave. But before either could speak, Pap went on.

“I don’t know if you remember this one.” He jabbed a thumb at me.

Rachael grabbed me by the shoulders then kissed my cheeks. She wouldn’t let Fenton get close enough to shake hands, so he slapped my back a few times. A little more gray had crept into Fenton’s temples and into his droopy mustache than when I saw him last. Maybe it was just because his hair had been shorter. Maybe I really wasn’t away as long as I’d thought I was.

“Hey there, old buddy. Where you been?” Fenton said, his words restrained by the weight of the emotion he felt. Even though Fenton and Rachael had never gotten hitched, he was as much an uncle to me as Jamie. I suppose I didn’t realize, until now, that when I left, they lost me, too.

I said, “Looks like the farm’s doing well. You guys are legit now, huh? Selling stinky cheese and booze to all them city folks coming up on the weekends. I saw the truck out front last night.”

Fenton said, “That’s it, buddy. Making them D.C. folks pay us back for all them taxes. Got to fight capitalism with capitalism, right?” He exaggerated the sarcasm in his voice with a big smile.

“New barn, too? Congratulations, you guys. I mean it. You deserve it.” Times had always been tough for Rachael and Fenton. Chloe always wore hand-me-down jeans that Jane had been handed down from Katy.

Fenton swelled a little, then said, “Thanks a lot, buddy. Can’t complain. Sure beats railroading, although we work a little harder for our money. You ain’t ever off the clock.”

Rachael skipped tact and went right for the kill. “You didn’t have to leave like that.” She gave my sweatshirt the same treatment she gave Alex’s. She didn’t find any loose hairs on me, though. She’d trained us well. “I knew you were back. The last time any cows gave bloody milk was the night you left.”

Jesus
. I shook my head and hoped Alex didn’t think any of what Rachael said was batshit crazy, but she was off to the side playing with the kittens. “Word gets around,” was all that I could say.

“Well, next time you let us know what’s going on, all right?” It wasn’t a question as much as a demand. “You meet Preston yet?”

A blue pickup truck pulled into the lane, denying me a chance to respond. My pap’s brother gave a wave.

Fenton waved back as the pickup slowed to a stop. He said, “Excuse me while I give him a hand.”

Rachael said, “Alex, are you all right after last night?” Rachael put a delicate hand on Alex’s shoulder. Instead of letting her hand drop back to her side, Rachael brushed another hair from Alex’s sleeve.

“Last night?” Alex was a bit surprised. “Oh, the restaurant. I’m fine. I think it was a panic attack. I used to have them all the time when I was in high school.” “What happened?” my pap said, annoyed at being out of the loop.

“Lucinda Tasso and Darren Lewis. Chloe can fill you in when she gets here.”

“Stop it. You are not to bring that nonsense here tonight,” my pap said. “These kids are shaken up. You all act like blinking milk is the work of the devil himself. Save it for tomorrow. Or wait until I pass out. I didn’t walk up here to listen to this horse shit.”

Rachael bit her lip. The look she’d given Alex troubled me. And with that, everybody went back to work. I turned to Alex and quietly said, “Yep. You can see why I left? Sorry about that.”

Alex didn’t care. She shrugged and picked up one of the kittens.

In the next twenty minutes the gathering became an assembly, became a party. Alex adopted the kittens as a way to avoid interacting with anybody else. My grandma showed up and gave me one heck of a guilt trip. She drafted Alex to help her out. Jamie arrived with some college kids bearing musical instruments.

Katy whooshed in with her boyfriend in a scream of car stereo and everybody dropped what they were doing to run over and see them. They pulled the new silver VW onto the grass in-between the fire and Jamie’s house. Katy looked more polished than I’d ever seen her. Like she went from a fern to a Pink Lady’s Slipper in just a season. Her hair had been lightened and styled and she wasn’t dressed like a thirteen-year-old girl. Her little floral patterned dress, unbuttoned way too low, made her look like some kind of revivalist rebel. She walked proud and smiled like she was posing for Redneck Vogue. Alex stood next to me, holding a kitten, and asked, “Who’s that?”

“That would be Katy Stefanic. My cousin. Bookworm. Recluse.”

“You sure?” Alex set the kitten in the grass and it squeaked to be picked up again.

“No. C’mon and I’ll introduce you.”

We walked over with Jamie. I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited for somebody to notice us. The guy Katy rolled up with hugged my grandma and Rach and Jamie’s wife, Isabelle, like he was a long-lost cousin or some shit. He smiled, standing there with his stupid flannel shirt and perfectly-groomed stubble like some kind of displaced hipster dipshit.

I got mad. “Who’s this guy?”

Jamie turned to me and said, “Now, now. This is Preston. Talk about a story to tell… C’mon.” He put his arm around me and led me over. Katy spotted me right away and hugged me. “Hey, cous, how you been?”

I shook my head. “Not good.”

She whispered, “That’s what I hear. We’ll talk tonight, okay?” She let me go, except for my hand, which she used to pull me over to meet her guy. “Hey, Pres.”

He stood up straight and stuck out his hand. Katy said, “This is my cousin, Henry Collins.”

He smiled real big, and I couldn’t tell if it was sincere or not. When I accepted his hand he immediately wrapped it up with his other. “Man, I heard a lot about you.”

Trying not to be a dick, I said, “Wish I could say the same.” But I knew the words didn’t have the effect I intended. To divert attention from my behavior, I said, “This is Alex.”

Katy, perhaps remembering her from the funeral, hugged her, too. Then she whispered something in Alex’s ear, and Alex nodded. Whatever it was went on for a long time, with Alex saying “…uh huh, yeah…” and finally smiling at Katy after she finished.

Katy said, “Sure?”

And Alex, her face looking happy and relaxed for the first time in days, said, “Thank you so much.” She looked like she could cry.

Katy grabbed Alex’s hand and headed toward the tent. “Henry, you and Pres get us drinks and seats, okay?”

Preston stood there for an awkward second, before finally saying, “She really worried about you, man. I heard about all the stuff that happened. About your sister. I’m really sorry, man.”

I got mad. I swore if I was a different person I would’ve fucking clocked him right there for assuming he knew anything about me. Instead I just clenched my fists.

But he wouldn’t shut up. “Katy wants me to make time to talk to you, so I’m kind of…I don’t know. I guess I’m just making myself available. She kept saying she knew we’d get on and all that. So, you know…I’m happy to finally meet you. Or whatever.”

I appreciated the effort he was making and finally eased up a little. Keeping track of who knew what wore me out. My mind needed somebody else to take over for a bit. And Preston seemed like the type of guy who’d make it easy to not have to think about anything. “Sure thing, man. I appreciate it.”

“Bueno,” he said, switching direction like a bird hitting a window. He wandered toward the tent. “Drinks and a seat. Which one you want?”

“I’ll grab a table.”

He turned a half-circle, then grabbed my arm. “Hey, man. Rachael is standing by the hooch, and I kind of told her I was going to slow my consumption down, if you know what I mean. Mind if I get the table instead?”

I nodded. Watching him try to keep his brand new Vans clean made me smile.

I grabbed drinks and led the girls back to Preston. Chloe and her boyfriend joined us, then Fenton came over. Neither me nor Preston had to worry about getting drinks after that. Soon I had a nice buzz going and the smile never left my face, except for one moment of clarity when I realized how my drinking had changed since Jane died. How I only drank in large crowds of people.

I’d been too afraid to touch a drop alone. Afraid that, if I let my vigilance slip for just a second, they’d get me, too.

Cousins and great-uncles continued to trickle in, turning the driveway, then the lane, into a parking lot. They brought food and folding chairs and some of them had guitar or banjo cases tucked under their arms. All this happened as the sun slid across the sky and dipped toward Canaan Mountain on the other side of the valley, four or five miles away. It was a circus of pink and gold that lingered the way that only a summer-bound sunset can.

Lines had formed on both sides of long tables without any formal announcement to start eating. Katy looped her arms through Alex’s and Preston’s and pulled them into the long line, saying something about making sure we got pie.

But the food went on for miles, all things I hadn’t tasted in so long. Rachael and some cousins had arranged the multitude of platters, trays and crocks. There were fiddleheads and morels that had been sautéed in butter. Berry and haw preserves and apple butter waiting next to warm loaves of bread and cornbread.

The table bowed with the weight of venison roasted with cranberries and walnuts, rabbit stuffed with a piccalilli of leeks, rhubarb and ramp. I hadn’t seen a meal like this in a really long time, not since I was young. Back before things got so sad.

As soon as we sat back down, Alex’s kitten found her and begged from the grass by her ankles. Jamie joined us with a big plate of food once his students began to play. Old Irish fiddle tunes drifted into the tent.

“That’s a nice touch,” I said.

“Yeah, I said there’d be free food if they came up and played for an hour or two.” Jamie winked, letting me in on his little secret. “Most of them would’ve been happy just to hear Katy and Preston play. But I’ll give them each a few bucks later.”

“Isn’t that a little like buying their affection?”

“They didn’t know I was going to buy it,” he added with a laugh.

“So,” I said, leaning in real close to Jamie, “What did you mean when you asked if I’d heard about Katy and Preston?”

I looked at them—Katy had changed, no doubt about it. She wore a lot of silver jewelry, bracelets and a bunch of rings. Her new man had a silver fiddle string around his left wrist. As a pair, they looked like they were trying really hard to pull off the whole, ‘new Americana’ thing. Like, they were reinventing Johnny and June.

“You really don’t know?” Jamie said, then let me right off the hook. “Long story. Preston is a good guy. Let’s just say he’s really lucky Katy found him. They started playing together this spring. They got themselves a nice little record deal.”

“Get out.”

“From God’s ear, they did.”

“So, they’re legit? This is real?”

“Yep. Nashville, recording time with amazing producers, Gibson guitars and the whole deal. Didn’t come easy. Preston fought tooth and nail for it.” Jamie glowed when he talked about their success. He gave a little wave to his wife, Isabelle, and told her to bring over a few more chairs. “Things happen for a reason, Henry.”

“Jamie,” I said. “Now probably isn’t the time, but when you get a chance I’d like to know what the hell’s going on. Nobody tells me anything.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow, but a lot of this Lewis stuff is just conjecture. The rest has been distorted to the point where it’s more folk-tale than family history.” He peeked over his shoulder, I suspect to see where Pap was. “Supposedly Mary Lewis poisoned her sister thinking she’d take her place by old Mason Collin’s side when the time came for him to remarry. Charlie and Odelia’s mom. But it’s just conjecture, Henry.”

When my pap came over Jamie hushed up and raised his bottle to him. My pap said, “Why do I get the feeling I’m interrupting?”

“You’re not, Pap. Just trying to get Henry caught up.”

Pap said, “This’ll get you caught up,” and gathered a pair of plastic cups from down the table. “Jamie, you joining us?”

“Sure. Why not?”

My pap tapped at a third cup. I leaned over to grab it, and saw that it had somebody’s pop in it. My pap gestured for it anyway, and after I passed it to him he dumped the soda out and filled each of the cups with a few fingers of his alley bourbon. He said, “Drink up before Benjamin gets over here.”

I looked where he’d pointed, and saw my cousin creeping along the food table, chewing and putting stuff directly into his mouth and wiping his hands on his shorts. I turned, raised my glass along with my pap and Jamie.

We drank, and Jamie said, “A bird with one wing can’t fly.” My pap laughed and refilled our cups again real quick.

The second one burned the top of my esophagus and I fought to suppress a cough. I put my cup on the table and stood up as soon as Ben came around. “Where you been?” I knew my eyes were red.

He wrapped me up in a big hug. His breath smelled like Miller Lite. “Levon wanted to go straight to the bag store to pick up a pint. Then I dropped him off at Muttley’s.”