Defiant Page 4

  “Give her the means to protect herself and she’ll get over it faster. It sure worked for Alise.”

  “Sophie’s different.”

  “Because she’s a city girl?”

  “No, that has nothing to do with my decision. It’s true she doesn’t know much about living out here. She hasn’t been exposed to the real world.”

  “Especially not this real world.”

  “She’s had her own real world to deal with. I don’t want to put too much on her.”

  Annie nodded. “Don’t drag it out. It’s hard for everyone.”

  “We’ve all had years to get used to it. Sophie was going to a private school last month.”

  “Private, huh?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking. It was an isolated situation in some ways.”

  “Life’s always been tough.”

  “We don’t have to make it harder.”

  Annie nodded. “So what do you want?”

  “I want you to come with us over to Coturnix and flirt with Donnie Russell so that he thinks he’s going to get lucky. You’ll lead him away from the bar to our truck, we’ll jump him and you don’t need to know what happens next.”

  “It sounds like a mistake.”

  “The council decided.”

  “It still sounds like a mistake.”

  “Why?”

  “I live on a dairy farm. If you provoke a bull enough, they will charge.”

  Wolf nodded. “I know.”

  They crossed the driveway to his truck.

  “Would you like a piece of pumpkin pie?”

  He put his hand on the door handle of his truck. “That’s sounds good but I have to see Billy about backup.”

  “Let me know when and I’ll wear something short and tight. Something I wore when I was twelve should do.”

  Wolf sat in the driver’s seat. “Could you do me another favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would you teach Sophie how to shoot a gun?”

  “Why me? Your father trained you to be the best shot in town. You have an armory up to your place. You’re better at it than I am.”

  “Maybe you can make friends with her.”

  Annie grinned as she gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. “You like her.”

  “Some.”

  “More than some.”

  He shrugged.

  “If it couldn’t be me, it had to be someone,” she said philosophically.

  “Thanks, Annie.”

  SOPHIE LEFT THE STUDIO when it was too dark to see any longer and hurried to the house. It was cold and the wind was driving the fallen leaves like an exodus before a coming storm. She went inside and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Erica was working at the small table. Someone in the city had asked her to do a paper sculpture of a Christmas scene. She had been slicing cardstock into small pieces for days. Now she was putting them together. It would take a week. She would earn almost nothing but if she didn’t take the job, there would be no money for gas.

  Paper money had little value. The payment would be in a few one ounce silver bars. Metal still had value although it depended on where and when. Gas had the most value here. Someplace else it might be different. What people needed had the most value and became coin of that realm.

  “How are you doing on that project?” Sophie asked.

  “It’s coming along. I used to do pop-up books so this is very much like that.”

  “What made you get into welding?”

  “Metalwork,” Erica corrected out of habit. “I came up here because I couldn’t make it in the city anymore and there was all this free metal. It’s as good a medium as any. For a while I made decent money at it.”

  Erica carefully pasted two pieces of paper together and held them in place.

  “Then it was like going over the falls in a barrel,” Sophie said.

  “Yes.” Erica let the paper go and it held. “I tried to keep you at the school as long as possible. I knew it was home to you and this wasn’t.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Nothing is as good as it used to be.”

  Sophie knew that was true for her mother who enjoyed her life in the city and all her friends in the art world. They were so redundantly supportive. Did they understand Erica’s work any better than Sophie did? Maybe so. Perhaps they all spoke that arty, upper West Side language, sort of a secret code between them. If you weren’t in the club you couldn’t understand and Sophie never did. She found them boring and superficial. But maybe that was because they spoke to her as though she was five years old.

  “Try to be a little upbeat, Mom. Wolf invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at his house. His mother will be cooking. He’ll get a turkey.”

  “He’s coming here quite often.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not exactly the kind of boy I wanted for you.”

  Sophie reached for a glass in the kitchen cabinet. “Do you ever know when to shut up?”

  “No.”

  There was something perpetually defiant in Erica, which lead to the protest rallies and the causes to support against whoever the group deemed was keeping the rest of them down. It turned out that the people who were trying to keep them as victims to use as weapons and wedges were the people Erica admired most.

  Erica still hadn’t internalized that truth. She had defended her actions for so long there was nothing else for her, even though it was apparent she had been misguided, mislead and unthinking most of her life.

  This was what the residents of Owl Head didn’t like about her and she couldn’t even realize the problem was not with them, it was with her.

  Sophie thought about saying something else but decided it was pointless.

  “What’s wrong with my wanting the best for you? You’ve had enough problems.”

  “I’m not brain damaged. I’m not defective. This isn’t Light in the Piazza.”

  “I took you to that musical in Lincoln Center not so you would identify with it but because it got terrific reviews.”

  “And there was no chance I was going to identify with the main character who was kicked in the head by her pony and had the emotional age of an eight year old?”

  “Right. No chance.”

  Sophie shook her head. Unbelievable.

  “Are you telling me you thought there was a similarity between the two of you?”

  “What I’m trying to get you to understand is that you think there is.”

  “If I can figure that statement out, I’ll let you know.”

  “You’ve been invited to a holiday dinner.”

  “You go by yourself. They don’t want me there.”

  “Wolf is giving you a chance to assimilate into the community.”

  “How big of him.”

  “You are such a bitch. If this is how you feel, why don’t you go back to the city and your own people? Don’t insult the good people of this town.”

  “Why would I go back?”

  “You’re a true believer. They want people like you. You’re one of them.”

  “What’s there to go back to? How would I get there?”

  “We’ll find a way to get you there and then you can bunk with some of your friends. I don’t have to solve your life for you, you’re old enough to do that.”

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “No. I’ll stay here. I’ll be fine. Take whatever money you have saved and go.”

  “All right.”

  “Good,” Sophie replied and went to her room.

  It was cold and the window rattled as the wind hit it. She sat on the edge of her bed and thought about heat and food for the winter.

  This was going to be hard.

  Chapter 4

  Annie and Wolf went over the mountain to Coturnix in a borrowed truck so the vehicle wouldn’t be recognized. Reilly went in his grandfather’s truck, a piece of farm equipment older than any of them.

  “That’s a short skirt,” Wolf said to Annie, as he glanced
down at her length of bare leg.

  She pulled her jacket righter around her. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

  It was but it didn’t mean he liked it.

  No one was bothering the Russell brothers. They could sell their dope, smoke it, roll in it, do whatever they liked as long as they stayed in Coturnix. Instead, they kept coming over the mountain to prey on the people of Owl Head. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t going to continue.

  “We can’t go in with you, you know that, right?” Wolf said as he turned the truck onto the main street.

  “I know. I have to tease him till he’s good and hard and then get him outside where he thinks the breeding will take place.”

  Wolf smiled. “Yeah, that’s the general idea but I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “You don’t have bulls up to your farm anymore? You don’t remember how it works?” Annie teased him. They’d known each other since before kindergarten.

  No, there wasn’t enough help to run the farm. That wasn’t unique in town since the government had been picking off adult males like it was a shooting gallery.

  “I remember,” Wolf replied as he pulled the truck to a halt behind Reilly’s.

  They all got out of the trucks and stood in the shadows cast by the trees and the lights on in the bar.

  “Go in. Do your thing. Get him out here and we’ll push him into the truck and I’ll take him someplace else,” Wolf told Annie. “Reilly will bring you home.”

  “Okay.”

  They watched her walk to the bar.

  “You think she can do this?” Reilly asked as they went further into the darkness.

  “I wouldn’t have asked her if I didn’t.”

  “Man, it’s cold out tonight.” Reilly stamped his feet as the minutes ticked by. “What if someone recognizes her? What if they don’t recognize her? Who is she? She’s not from here?”

  “She’s from the Eddy,” Wolf replied.

  It was a town just far enough away that traveling to Coturnix wasn’t so difficult but they wouldn’t know her. Wolf had replayed this scenario in his mind at least twenty times. Snatch and grab. If done well it would take less than a minute.

  They had to disappear before any of his relatives or friends knew he was gone. When Darley came out of the tavern, the street had to be empty. No sign of anyone.

  Fifteen minutes passed.

  “We have to scrap this operation,” Reilly said. “It’s taking too long. She’s not safe.”

  “Give her a chance. She has to tease him. Get him excited about his prospects.”

  “Speaking of prospects, what are you going to do about that city girl?”

  “I’m going to try to do the best I can for her.”

  “She’ll turn on you,” Reilly said. “She’s a product of her mother. I wouldn’t trust that bitch.”

  “The mother is a problem but Sophie isn’t. I trust her.”

  “I’m your best friend and I don’t say this lightly. Don’t. Think with your head, Wolf.”

  “It’s not like that, Reilly. She’s already been raped. I’m not going to add to that. When she’s ready, if she ever is with me, then we’ll take that step.”

  “You could have Annie. She’s always liked you.”

  “I like her, too, but Sophie is beyond description. You’ll see how it is one day.”

  Reilly blew hot air on his fingers. “All that romance crap is in the past. You just find someone so you can breed and have children in case there’s a future, there will be someone around for it.”

  “There will be a future. You’ll be my son’s godfather.”

  “Choose a believer.”

  “You believe, you’re just pissed off.”

  “That I am,” Reilly replied.

  They waited a few minutes more then could see the door open. Annie came out, a bit unsteadily with Donnie hanging over her, very unsteadily. He was trying to kiss her and grab her and she laughed as she pushed his hands away saying he had to hold off.

  As soon as they got near Wolf’s truck, Reilly, opened the door and everyone pushed Donnie in.

  “I gave him the sleeping pill like you told me to,” Annie said. “If Doc Doremus is right about it being fast-acting, he should be out anytime now.”

  “Thanks, Annie.”

  Reilly shoved Donnie’s feet inside and slammed the truck door. He grabbed Annie hand and they raced for his truck while Wolf ran to the driver’s side of his own truck and jumped in. Within seconds they were headed out of town.

  Chapter 5

  There was a knock on the studio door and Sophie pushed away from the drawing board and hurried across the room to open it.

  “Hi,” Annie said.

  “Hi.”

  “You thought it was Wolf.”

  “Come on in,” Sophie stepped back as Annie entered. “I did.”

  “I think it’ll be a couple more days.”

  “Do you know what he’s doing?”

  Annie smiled. “I don’t but he sent me to teach you how to shoot a gun.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Have you ever shot a gun before?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever touched one?”

  “No.”

  Erica thought guns were obscene. Pornography was fine since there was no victim involved, but guns were disgusting because guns could kill people. Guns were an open invitation to violence. It was Erica’s deeply held belief that no one needed guns and she had long supported every anti-gun law that was proposed.

  Without guns, there would be no hunting and Sophie was always ready to point out that tofu didn’t grow on trees. Soybeans weren’t a crop in this part of the country.

  “Everyone here knows how to use a gun.”

  “Then I’ll learn.”

  Annie opened her duffle bag, took out a manual and handed it to Sophie. “You can study until I come back.”

  Sophie shook her head. “I don’t read very well.”

  Annie smiled. “That’s fine. We’ll go over it until you remember and it becomes second nature. Okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “This is a nine millimeter pistol.” Annie held out a black handgun. “Take it. It’s not loaded.” Annie showed her there was no magazine with bullets.

  Sophie reached for the gun. It weighed less than she expected.

  “It’s made of a polymer, that’s why it’s light. We’ll break it down and put it back together a couple times so you feel comfortable with it.”

  THERE WAS A KNOCK AT the door.

  “Go away,” Sophie called.

  She’d been arguing with her mother for two days and the studio was the only place to have some peace.

  The door opened a few inches.

  “Didn’t you hear me? Go away!”

  “Sophie?”

  She dropped the pencil, ran to the door and threw her arms around him. “Are you okay?”

  “In danger of being strangled.”

  She kissed him. “Don’t do that again. Please.”

  “I wish I could make that promise.”

  “What promise can you make me?”

  “I promise I will never go away and not think about you so often it hurts.”

  Sophie kissed him again. “No, don’t promise that. I don’t want you to be hurt because of me.”

  Not taking his arms from around her, Wolf kicked the door shut. “There are rules? Don’t we have enough of them?”

  “Not between us.”

  “That’s the only place where there should be rules.”

  She took his hand, led him to the settle by the woodburning stove and helped him take off his jacket.

  “I missed you so much,” she sat as they sat together.

  “You’ve gone without seeing me for as many days before.”

  “But you were in town.”

  “I thought about you. I had an idea.”

  “Just one? I had a lot of ideas.”

  “About?”

  “What to do
with you.”

  “An idea or a promise?”

  “Oh, I promise.” She leaned up against his arm.

  “Let’s hold off on that for just a little bit.”

  “Wolf,” Sophie teased.

  “Do you know anything about art and art history?”

  “Sure. That was my focus in school. They didn’t know what else to do with me. Why?”

  “Do you think you could teach at the school?”

  “Teach kids?”

  “Yes. We still have school a few days a week. It’s not like before but we can’t go uneducated. If you could go to town once a week and spend the day teaching each class about drawing and why art is important to civilization, that would be a help to the people of Owl Head. Not your mother’s kind of art. Real art. There are books in the library.”

  “We have books here,” Sophie replied. “Ones with illustrations.”

  “If you need help with the text, I’ll read it to you.

  Sophie closed her eyes for a moment and willed herself to keep the tears from welling up. “Yes. I could do that.”

  “I’ll talk to the council about it, then we can make all the arrangements to provide for you this winter.”

  “Okay.”

  “Any news up here on the Purchase?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “I’m not. And I need help.”

  “Whatever I can do.”

  “Get my mother back to the city.”

  “What?”

  “She wants to go back and I want her to go back.”

  Wolf scratched his head after removing his hat. “Are you going with her?”

  “No. I’m staying here. I don’t belong there. I couldn’t...” Sophie paused. “I couldn’t bear to be that far away from you.”

  “Is this serious? This is what she really wants?”

  “We fight all the time. She won’t shut up with the thinky thoughts.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what I call the Lucianisms she spouts. We had it out. She resents the town, or that she’s stuck here. There’s no one like her; all her friends are there. I don’t know what the future holds and if there’s more bottom below this, but she’s miserable here and making me miserable, so she should go be with her kind. All that’s preventing the move is transportation.”