thirty-six:
wednesday, late night

The slow crunch of tires on the dirt road cut through the night like a gong at a Buddhist monastery.

The sound was unnatural, grinding. A pair of yellow parking lights led the way and, as the vehicle came into view, the lights snapped off. At the same moment, a light popped inside the cab, bringing shape and definition to the truck. The light came out of the driver’s side window and it moved. A flashlight.

The beam stabbed the night, jerked around on the treetops and field and the clouds and came to rest on Allison’s A-frame, several hundred yards to Trudy’s left. The beam whipped across the open space and Trudy ducked and held still on the porch. The beam stopped on her door, three feet away.

And snapped off.

Trudy’s heart tried to crawl its way up the back of her throat. She tightened her grip around the gun, the only one she kept from ex-husband George’s cache. It was meant for bears, if needed.

Her mouth went dry. She sat up, but barely, and tucked herself down by the wicker chair on the front porch. She had an angle on the car. The parking lights snapped back on and the car turned toward her and stopped. Doors opened and the interior light popped on, enough to see two figures stand up, one from each side. The vehicle was a pickup or SUV.

The motor cut. The doors slammed. Boom-boom.

Footsteps headed her way at a deliberate pace. A low mumble rippled across the night. The mumbler was male. Three or four words. The speaker was confident, relaxed.

Trudy moved her butt to the wicker, jabbed her elbows on her knees, perched the gun in two hands. The wicker chattered slightly. The gun shook in Trudy’s hand and she realized now she was stuck. She should have headed inside at the first sign of their lights and started moving away, away, away. Here, she was cornered. Jumping back into the house now would be too noisy, too obvious.

Trudy risked a slow breath, tried to find a place back on the dial toward cool and calm. She flashed on Allison—what would she do? And then Jerry—where was he? And then realized these two walking up the road to her house might have had to go through Jerry to get here and she realized, suddenly, that Jerry might be hurt.

Or worse.

She cocked the gun.

The sound, in this setting, was like a car crash.

“What the—”

The words gave away the distance—close.

Silence.

Trudy aimed high and to the left, pulled the trigger. Her body jerked, the recoil rippled every muscle in her arm and shoulder. Her ears ignited with a high-pitched whine.

She counted to four, aimed high and pulled the trigger again.

This time she was up and at her door, heading inside as the echo faded.

She flashed the light on and Alfredo was already up, eyes ready to kill if needed.

Trudy pointed at his boots as if she had always pointed at everything with the barrel of a gun. He scooped up his boots and she flipped the overhead light back off, her breath coming now in inefficient bursts. She yanked on his wrist with her free hand. They ran through the house in the dark, headed to the back door by the greenhouse.

Twenty yards of clearing separated the house from the woods. She ran expecting a tackle. Her eyes screamed for a scrap of light. She reached the first line of trees, her hand gripping Alfredo’s wrist.

She squatted, pulled him down alongside.

“Your boots,” she whispered. “Los botas.”

They waited.

The shots weren’t enough. Trudy knew it.

Two shapes. Two presences. Right there. Closer to the house, but there. Trudy heard a step. Two. Three-four. One bumped into something, a metallic ring. The pole for her clothes line.

“Fuck me.” Like a growl.

The ping hung in the air.

The back door opened and they were both inside.

She hoped.

Trudy jerked Alfredo again by the wrist and started up around to the front, staying clear of the house. A light flashed on in the corner of her view. Alfredo stayed close.

She hoped there wasn’t a third who had stayed with the car.

It was possible they faced a long night. It wouldn’t take her visitors long to figure out she wasn’t in the house and she could have gone one of 360 directions, all pretty good cover in the night. It was her turf, her advantage.

Their vehicle was a presence, a hint of a shape.

She slowed, eyes straining, free hand up. She let Alfredo go, but he hovered close.

Her hand found the car—SUV.

If there was a third inside, she and Alfredo were dead meat.

Trudy took a breath.

The sound behind the house was an angry slam of the door, ten times the needed force. No words could be plucked from the general guttural wrath.

Time was fleeting, but that depended on whether her visitors thought their prey sought refuge in the woods.

More low grumbles and curses, but they were from the far side of the house.

Trudy turned the gun around in her hand, held it by the barrel, found the smooth plastic casing of the tail light and gave it a firm whack.

Another.

Her finger felt the jagged sharp plastic where she had hammered.

“Vámonos,” she whispered.

She flipped aside the scrap of plastic.

She led the way up the slope on the far side of the pickup from the house. Trudy climbed for two long minutes and stopped, her chest tight from panic and exertion. Alfredo sat next to her, put an arm around her shoulders.

Alfredo was already Zen-like frozen, a cool customer. Waiting roadside at night and wondering about the intentions of strangers wasn’t a new experience.

The driver side door on the SUV snapped open and the light caught the driver’s general size—large—and a flash of dark shirt. The cab of the vehicle obscured his face. The driver climbed in and the light snapped off for a second before the passenger’s side opened.

This guy was in no rush. He stood looking back across the truck at the house. He was heavy set too, or at least bulky. He looked to be shorter than the driver.

“Fucking, fuckin’ A,” he said. “They’ve gotta come back.”

Trudy couldn’t hear the response, but the passenger wasn’t in charge. The light caught his thick neck and nearly chinless profile. If it came down to a foot race, Trudy wasn’t worried. But now that she had put bullets between them, she doubted it would come down to speed or stamina.

“You know—”

The car door slammed with an odd sound like the frame was bent. The motor came to life and the truck started a three-point turn until the headlights pointed back the way they had come.

“Now,” said Trudy.

She led the race back to the house.

Keys. Handbag.

They hadn’t tossed the place. They weren’t after stuff. They were only after Alfredo. The cats were stirred up, but okay.

Back outside, the SUV’s tail lights were far ahead, climbing a low rise. Trudy would close the gap between them when they got closer to Dotsero and once they were on the highway. In a half-hour or so, she’d be right on their tail, the busted light leading the way.

“I know,” said Trudy to Alfredo. She kept her eyes on the dimly lit road. “Oldest trick in the book.”