Destiny

TWO

Paul Marcus stood on the wooden front porch of his old farmhouse as twilight crept up, the pecan grove filling with buttery light. He sipped a cup of coffee, watching his wife and daughter ride their two horses in from the pasture. He could hear them laughing when Buddy, their border collie, ran in front of them, barking, as if he were ordering the horses to follow his lead to the barn.

Marcus rested his six-foot frame against a post on the porch where hanging baskets, the size of beach balls, sprouted petunias dripping with burgundy and snow white petals. The breeze blew in from the west, awaking the wind chimes, delivering the scent of burning pecan shells and pine straw from his neighbor’s property across the road. A four-day growth of beard on Marcus’s angular face made him look older than his thirty-seven years. His hazel eyes trapped the green of the pines and the deep sapphire of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance.

When he stepped off the porch, a red-tailed hawk lifted from the aged oaks in his yard, soaring above the tree line and over the millpond in the center of his sixty acres. He walked down to the small barn and pasture. A split-rail fence his grandfather had built sixty years earlier separated the barn from the front and backyard of the old home. Honeysuckles wrapped their leafy tendrils around the fence posts, the pale yellow blooms throbbing with honeybees.

The distant whine of a semi-truck straining to climb the mountains was lost when cicadas began chanting in the grove and crickets chirped from the cool underbelly of the barn. The sunset played hide-and-seek with leaves and limbs sauntering in the breeze, causing the old oaks to be painted in deep shadow one moment, then turning a golden light.

“Daddy, I got Midnight to run fast! Mommy and I galloped most of the way home,” said Tiffany, pulling a strand of dark hair behind one ear. She grinned, her green eyes radiant in the light, a dusting of freckles across her cheeks, her small hands at ease holding the reins.

“She did great,” Jennifer said, dismounting.

“That’s my girl.” Marcus stepped up to the horses to help his daughter down. “It won’t be long before you have Midnight jumping.”

“Yep, that’s what I told her on the trail today.”

“What’d she say?”

Tiffany grinned, dimples popping. “She just nodded her head.”

“Okay, lead her to the barn. We’ll get the saddle off and give Midnight a rest.”

“Are we still going for ice cream after supper?”

“It’s Friday night, of course.”

“Yes!” Tiffany smiled and walked her horse to the barn.

“She’s a natural with animals,” Jennifer said.

Marcus turned toward her, the wind shifting, teasing his wife’s chestnut brown hair. Her caramel eyes were playful in the twilight, full lips wet and warm, sensuous as the sunset. Jennifer’s hair was drenched in light, a quiet radiance of love swelled from her eyes, palpable as the glow of dusk. Even after ten years of marriage, Marcus’s desire, his yearning to be near his wife only grew.

He felt an allure, an attraction mysterious as the pull of a magnet, drawing him close to her. The sun dropped below the tree line, squeezing pumpkin-colored beams through strands of trees, the speckled patterns displayed on the side of the faded red barn.

“They’ve arrived,” Jennifer said, pointing behind Marcus. “It’s the first firefly I’ve seen so far this year. They add an impressionist painter’s touch to a summer’s eve.”

“When I was a kid, I filled one of my grandmother’s canning jars with fireflies. I did that one time, and they were dead the next morning. Never caught one again.”

“Hope you gave them a respectable burial.” She grinned and touched her horse. “We’d better get Midnight and Lightning cooled down and into their stalls.”

The old barn smelled of hay, horse sweat, manure, and oil cans. They unsaddled the horses, walked them a bit before taking off their bridles, brushing them while Buddy searched the stall for a mouse he chased from behind a wooden toolbox. Marcus looked toward the far entrance of the barn and could see the full moon slowly rising above the valley, mountains awash in a bone-white glow.

After eating ice cream cones at the Creamy Delight in downtown Warrenton, Marcus and his family started home, just as a dark cloud tumbled over the moon.

“Feels like it’s gonna rain,” Jennifer said, buckling her seatbelt.

Marcus started the car. “Weather forecast said no chance of rain until Wednesday.”

The back roads across the mountains were similar to driving through a black tunnel deep in a deserted coal mine. There were no lights in the distance. The night grew darker with the approaching storm.

“Daddy, I’m cold,” said Tiffany from the back seat.

“I’ll adjust the heat to make it warmer. And, you can wrap up in my jacket.”

The raindrops were large and falling in flat globs — the noise against the roof and windshield sounded like hands smacking the car. The rain fell with such intensity that Marcus couldn’t see but a few feet beyond the front bumper, headlights unable to penetrate the wall of water.

“Maybe we should pull off the road,” Jennifer said, touching her shoulder strap.

“Where? The only place I can think of is County Line Road, and that’s at least two miles away. I’ll put on the emergency flashers. Hope no one hits us from behind.”

Thunder crashed with the ferocity of two speeding freight trains colliding. Lightning exploded, severing the limb off a tall pine — the burst of light illuminating the mountains in a half-second strobe of white light. Marcus blinked hard for a second, trying to scatter the green spots trapped in his retinas, floating above his hands on the steering wheel.

“I’m scared, Mama.”

“It’s okay, baby. We’ll be home soon. Daddy knows these roads well.”

Marcus gripped the wheel, straining to see through the windshield, the full bore of the wipers doing little to move the torrent of water pouring over the car. Then, as quick as the storm arrived, the rain slacked, the wipers now easily pushing the water off the glass. Marcus eased his grip on the steering wheel. He could hear his wife release a deep breath, stress lifting from her chest. “That was unnerving,” she said.

They drove quietly for a half-mile, fog climbing up from the valley and creeping across the road. Jennifer crossed her arms. “This weather is weird, strange. Paul, look over there. Someone’s trying to change a tire.”

Marcus’s headlights panned across a newer model car parked on the side of the road. They could see the figure of a man, bent over, trying to jack up the car. “Slow down, honey,” Jennifer said. “That poor man seems alone. It looks like he doesn’t have a flashlight. Maybe we should help. He could be elderly.”

“I don’t recognize the car or the person.”

“Well, we don’t know everybody here anymore. A lot of new families are moving to this part of Virginia. Even your grandfather was a newcomer to somebody at one time.”

Marcus drove up behind the car and stopped. The man had his back to Marcus’s car and continued adjusting the jack without turning around. The flashing emergency lights filled Marcus’s car with a pulsating maroon blush that had a peculiar ambience to it. He watched it reflect from his wife’s eyes for a moment. “Hand me the flashlight in the glove box. I’ll see if I can help.”

Jennifer found the flashlight, giving it to Marcus. She watched the man. “Why isn’t he looking our way? We’re not that far from him.”

“I don’t know. Like you said, he could be an older man.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Tiffany said.

“It won’t take long. Daddy’s just going to see if that man needs some help.”

“Lock the door behind me,” Marcus said, putting the transmission in park and getting out. The rain was now a mist. He switched on the flashlight and walked toward the parked car. The man crouched next to the left rear wheel, wearing a dark coat, hood covering his head, his back to Marcus. Thunder rolled in the valley and lightning crisscrossed the sky, the Blue Ridge Mountains a backdrop of mauve and dark purple.

Marcus felt something wasn’t right. He could see that the man’s car wasn’t lower at one end because of a flat tire. The man slowly stood and turned around, the hood of his raincoat pulled forward over his head, face cast in dark shadow, fog rising out of the valley and crawling toward them.

“Thought you could use some light,” Marcus said, shining the flashlight on the tire. It was perfectly inflated. The jack wasn’t engaged under the truck.

“You’re a good Samaritan.” The man’s voice sounded distant, and it carried a dialect he didn’t recognize, perhaps from living in different places.

“In this weather, figured you could use help,” Marcus said, keeping the direct glare of the light toward the man’s feet. “You don’t have a flat. What’s the trouble?”

The man said nothing for a moment. He reached inside his coat pocket, pulled out a small cigar and lit it. A red flame illuminated unblinking black eyes. Even in the dark, Marcus could feel the apathy, the veiled contempt from the man’s eyes.

“Trouble?” asked the man, the ruby tip of the cigar burning, the smoke mixing with the fog. “I believe you’re the trouble.”

“I’ll be on my way.” Marcus backed up, not turning around, his senses acute. He could hear drips of water against the car, ticking of the engine, a diesel moaning over the mountain, and a gentle but fragile sound in the night — his daughter’s sneeze.