The Hum and the Shiver

2

The trip in the Town & Country was as bone jangling as Bronwyn expected. She sat with her broken leg across the folded-down middle passenger seat, padded with pillows that kept it elevated and immobile. Cloud County’s secondary roads were not maintained by the state, and once you left the main highway, they quickly became little more than paired gravel ruts with a grass strip between them. Most Tufas drove vehicles suited to these conditions; perhaps the army should’ve delivered her home in a tank.

Behind them—far behind them, since the last military vehicle was instructed to go very slowly—came the press. Nothing could stop them completely, and a news-channel helicopter even shadowed Bronwyn’s progress. But as Maitland said, it was part of America now to want to know everything about a celebrity, especially a fifteen-minute one. Better to give them something than to stonewall and have them start digging.

The scenery was so familiar that for a moment Bronwyn forgot everything around her and believed she was riding home in Dwayne’s pickup; the slight haze from her pain medication could easily be the low buzz of homegrown pot. It lasted only an instant, but it was disconcerting all the same. She took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate on the fence posts and barbed wire passing in undulating waves.

As they neared her home, people stood along the fence, scowling into the dust raised by the cars. She could not discern particular faces, but their dark hair and presence here identified them. They would never be caught dead in the madness currently possessing Needsville, yet neither would they allow Bronwyn to return home without acknowledging it. It had nothing to do with the war or patriotism; or, rather, it sprang from a kind of loyalty tied to no physical location. It was a concept of “family” unique to this place and to these people, those with the truest Tufa blood in their veins.

“I don’t see any cars or trucks,” Maitland observed. “How’d all these people get here?”

Bronwyn smiled. “Not much is far away from anything else in these hills, if you’re willing to climb up and down a lot.”

“Are these friends of yours? Do you need crowd control?”

“No, Major, these are my people. It’s okay.”

Bronwyn’s family lived in a long single-story home set into the slope leading up to Hyatt’s Ridge behind it. The yard slanted down to a flat area, where the family parked its vehicles in the shade of a huge pecan tree. Other trees hung over the house, hiding it from the scalding Tennessee sun. A wooden fence blocked off the front yard from the surrounding woods, and a metal gate could be closed at the end of the driveway. It was open now, though, and decorated with an enormous yellow ribbon.

Chloe Hyatt sat in a straight-backed chair on the wooden deck porch, her hands in her lap. She watched the approaching dust cloud over the tops of the trees. “Here they come,” she said.

Chloe wore a simple summer dress with a muted flower pattern, colorful but not gaudy. The spaghetti straps emphasized the strong, straight shoulders she had passed on to her only daughter. Her black hair hung to the middle of her back, held in place with a white ribbon. She had deep smile lines and a hint of crow’s-feet, but otherwise looked like she might be Bronwyn’s older sister rather than her mother. Despite her air of reserve, she radiated health and energy the way all true Tufa women did. It was part of what made them so desirable—and so dangerous.

Deacon stood beside Chloe, dressed in his funeral suit. It was the only one he owned, and it seemed silly to purchase a new one for something as simple as his daughter coming home. Deacon was a tall, hard-bodied man with a set to his jaw that spoke of the determination of Orpheus, while the twinkle in his eye was more Dionysian. Like Chloe, there was something about him that was both immensely attractive and subtly dangerous, although in his case it was mixed with humor so dry, it blew over most people like dust from the road.

Both Chloe and Deacon were full-blooded Tufas. That meant they looked as much like brother and sister as they did husband and wife, even though they were related only tangentially, as people tended to be in small communities. Outsiders often jumped to conclusions that embraced old clichés of mountain-family inbreeding; Needsville, though, paid the Hyatts the respect their bloodlines inspired, and that their conduct reinforced.

Eight-year-old Aiden watched the trucks approach up the narrow road. He was lanky, his black hair long and unkempt, and he squirmed uncomfortably in his button-down shirt and khakis. He stood at the bottom of the porch steps, practically vibrating with excitement as the first vehicle made the turn into their driveway. Two more pulled in on either side. “Holy shit,” he said.

“You want me to wash that tongue with lye soap, boy, keep up that language,” Deacon said without looking at him. But he agreed with the assessment. They’d watched the parade and speech on television, glad they decided not to meet Bronwyn in town. “You knew it was going to be a big deal.”

“Yessir,” he said, and pointed at the TV news trucks traveling in bumper-touching eagerness behind the final vehicle. “And I also told you we’d need the shotgun.”

Deacon smiled. “Go get it, then. Shut the gate once the army gets through, then keep them TV peckerheads out.”

“Yessir,” Aiden said eagerly, and rushed into the house.

“You sure it’s a good idea to let him use a real gun?” Chloe said.

Deacon shrugged. “He’ll only be shooting reporters. No real loss, far as I can tell. Besides, for every one you shoot, I bet two more pop up.”

“You’re thinking of lawyers,” Chloe deadpanned. Deacon grinned.

Aiden returned with a 16-gauge side-by-side double barrel slung breech-open over his shoulder. His shirttail was already untucked. He rushed down the hill into the dust. Vague shapes moved through it, but none of them seemed to be Bronwyn. Finally four big men emerged onto the yard, pushing something between them.

Chloe stood. “My baby girl,” she said very softly, and hummed a tune only Tufa mothers knew.

Bronwyn gazed around at the familiar yard, with its old swing set and basketball goal off to the side. Eighteen years of her life had been spent here, yet it seemed far less substantial than the events of the past two. She had to struggle to connect the memories with actual emotions. She remembered using the rented Bobcat to level enough ground so she and her friends could actually play ball; then she’d taken off down the road, intending to clear a new path across the hill to her favorite swimming hole. She’d been eleven then, and it must’ve been exciting. Her father had used his belt on her behind seventeen times that day. Had she been angry about that? Or hurt? She couldn’t recall.

“Bronwyn!” Aiden cried as he bounced down the yard toward her. One of the MPs went for his pistol when he saw Aiden’s shotgun, but Bronwyn said quickly, “It’s all right, he’s my little brother.”

Ignoring the big men around her, Aiden was about to jump in her lap and give her a hug when he saw the metal rings and pins on her leg. He skidded to a stop, eyes wide. “Wow,” he gasped. “Does that hurt?”

“It sure don’t feel good,” she said with a laugh. “But it’s better than it was. Come here, you little muskrat.” They hugged as much as the chair allowed.

“Dad wants me to keep out the reporters,” he said breathlessly. “Gave me a shell for each barrel.”

“What a big, strong boy,” Major Maitland said. “You must be Aiden. You can just run on back up to the house, we have men assigned to guard the gate while your sister’s getting settled.”

“And now you have one more,” Bronwyn said when she saw Aiden’s disappointment. “He can help. The squirrels around here tremble at his name. Right?”

Aiden grinned. Maitland bit back his protest and simply nodded.

“See ya,” Aiden said, and dashed past her toward the gate. Reporters, seeing the end of the line, leaped from their vehicles while they were still moving. They were torn between the certainty of speaking to the people along the road, or the chance of possibly catching a glimpse of their quarry. Many opted to dash for the now-closed gate at the end of the drive. Some looked ready to jump the fence, but the stern Tufa faces looking back at them quickly changed their minds.

Bronwyn turned her attention to the house. It looked exactly as she remembered it, as it probably always would. Along the porch awning hung wind chimes that looked like the tacky ones found in a Pigeon Forge tourist gift shop. When the wind touched them and played their tunes, though, any Tufa instantly knew better.

“Bronwyn!” a reporter screamed behind her.

“Private Hyatt!” another demanded. The voices quickly became a cacophony.

“Take me to the gate,” Bronwyn said suddenly, and tried to turn the chair herself.

Maitland used his foot to block the wheel, knelt, and said, “I think you’d be better off ignoring them.”

“I plan to, but I want to say something to them first.” She met Maitland’s gaze with her own resolute one. “Five minutes, sir, to suck up to the press. You surely can’t object to that.”

He sighed and nodded. The MPs pushed her across the grass, onto the gravel, and up to the gate.

Aiden sat astride the barrier, the gun across his knees. He tried to mimic the stoic stare of the soldiers. A dozen reporters, TV cameramen, and regular photographers battled to get close to Bronwyn. The gate rattled as they surged against it.

Bronwyn smiled into the flashes and held up her hands. “Hey! Hey! Y’all want me to talk, you have to shut up a minute!”

Gradually the media grew quiet except for the fake electronic shutter clicks of the digital cameras. When she had them as silent as they were likely to get, she said, “Y’all, please. I’ve been as nice as I could be to you, talking to you and answering your questions, but this—” She gestured behind her. “—is my family’s home. Y’all wouldn’t want me coming to your place and behaving like this, would you? So please, I’m asking nicely. And you, Tom Karpow, you know exactly what I mean. I talked to you for a solid hour on Nightwatch, you can’t say I wasn’t cooperative. Why are you acting like this?”

The anchorman she designated would not meet her eyes, and the other reporters began to look sheepish as well. It was not her brilliant oratory, she knew, but the combined presence of so many Tufas united in one cause.

In the silence a camera clicked, and some turned to glare at the offending photographer.

“Thank y’all for understanding,” Bronwyn said. “As soon as I’m able, I’m sure the army will have me out stumping for the war. In the meantime, the more you let me rest, the faster I’ll be available again.” She turned to Maitland, who was speechless; even he couldn’t handle the press with such ease. She said, “That’s all, sir. The men can take me to the house now.”

The slope up to the house was harder than it looked, and the soldiers pushing her began to breathe hard with the effort. They stopped below the porch steps, and Major Maitland said, “Hello. I bet you’re Bronwyn’s father, Deke. You must be very proud of your daughter, she’s a real American hero.”

Deacon nodded. No one called him Deke. “If I must be, good thing I am. And I’m proud of all my children.”

If Maitland sensed the mockery, he didn’t let it show. He turned to Chloe just as she raised her left hand, palm out, and touched her pinkie and middle finger with her thumb. The gesture was meant for Bronwyn, who felt a shiver of something stir in her numb heart. She raised her own left hand and responded, palm down, index finger curled.

Maitland said, “And this must be her mother. Ma’am, you two could be sisters.”

“Flirt,” Chloe said with no change of expression.

Bronwyn smiled a little more. Maitland was so far out of his depth, he didn’t even realize he was in the swimming pool. “Well, she’s certainly been an inspiration to all of us. Right, gentlemen?”

The MPs voiced a tight chorus of, “Yes sir.” One of them, in fact, had spent five uncomfortable minutes trying to articulate how honored he was to accompany Bronwyn. She had finally thanked him with a kiss on the cheek just to end the awkwardness.

Maitland looked around the porch. “I, ah… thought you’d have made arrangements by now for her wheelchair.”

“We have,” Deacon said. “We moved the couch back so she can get around it, and put a runner down so it wouldn’t track up the floor.”

“Well, that’s all important, of course, but I thought there might be a ramp out here to help her get in and out…?”

Deacon nodded at the MPs. “Reckon them boys are strong enough to tote one girl up four steps. We’ll manage after that.”

Maitland continued to smile, but his confusion grew too great to hide. “I’m sure they can, but the government sent you money to—”

“Sent it back,” Deacon said.

“Beg pardon?”

“We. Sent. It. Back. You can check. We’ll take care of Bronwyn in our own way. In six months, you won’t recognize her.”

“I’m certain that’s true, but—”

“Major,” Bronwyn broke in. Deacon could string Maitland along for an hour without ever cracking a smile. “I’ll be okay, really. If the fellas can just get me up onto the porch?”

Maitland sighed and motioned to the MPs. They easily lifted the wheelchair and placed it on the porch. Chloe stepped behind it and took the handles. “I appreciate y’all bringing my daughter home,” she said. The gravity in her voice kept the others silent. “And for patching her up. You’re welcome at our table anytime.”

“Why, thank you, ma’am,” Maitland said. A bystander would have thought his graciousness fully genuine.

From the porch Bronwyn could see to the end of the driveway, where the media waved and shouted to get her attention. Her nose itched, but she didn’t want to scratch in case a photograph was taken at that exact instant. WAR HERO PICKS NOSE wouldn’t do much for her dignity. The Tufas along the road moved toward the house, talking softly among themselves. Many of them carried musical instruments.

Chloe found Bronwyn’s hand and threaded its fingers through her own. Bronwyn hadn’t held her mother’s hand in years, and it felt simultaneously alien and comforting. She looked up into the face, so similar to her own, and felt that same tingle in her chest again. It was stronger this time, but still didn’t catch fire.

“When you boys get down to the fence, ask Aiden for permission to open the gate,” Deacon said. “It’ll make him feel big. Besides, if I know him, he’s got them reporters eating out of his hand.”

“Ain’t heard the gun go off,” Chloe said. “That’s a good sign.”

An MP handed over Bronwyn’s crutches, and another deposited two bags of clothes and personal belongings on the porch. “This is all your gear, Private,” he said with a wink.

At least she didn’t intimidate every man she met. “Thanks,” Bronwyn said. To Maitland she added, “And thank you for looking out for me, Major. Doubt we’ll meet again, but I’ll always appreciate what you’ve done.”

He smiled. “I imagine that when the book deals and TV shows come along, you’ll see me again.”

Bronwyn bit back her snide comment; she’d already had innumerable offers for the rights to her life story, for absurd amounts of money. Turning them down had been easy, but of course, everyone around her, including Maitland, thought she was just holding out for more. She let them think so. The truth, her truth, would just confuse them.

She turned to the door. “You do know the wheelchair won’t fit through there with me in it,” she said to Deacon.

He handed her the crutches. “Your arms broke, too?”

“Mr. Hyatt!” Maitland exclaimed. “Look, I know she’s your daughter, and I don’t mean to be rude, but really, is that any way to treat her after all she’s been through?”

Deacon remained impassive. “The bullet went right through her arm, missed the artery and the bone, and it’s healing up fine. Or so the army doctors said.”

“Dad doesn’t believe in coddling, Major,” Bronwyn said with a grin. She slipped the crutches beneath her arms and, with Deacon’s help, pulled herself upright. The pin brace weighed a ton, and maneuvering it was exhausting, but just like the speech, she intended to walk through the door to her home under her own power.

As she crossed the threshold, Chloe hummed a melody older than the mountain they stood on. Like all the Tufa tunes, it was part prayer, part story, and part statement of intent. It signaled to the universe that Bronwyn was once again home, under the protection of the night wind and its riders.

Maitland came down the steps with the MPs behind him. He stopped, looked back at the house, and shook his head.

“Problem, Major?” one of the MPs asked.

“Yeah, there’s a problem. That girl’s wasted fourteen of her fifteen minutes of fame, and doesn’t seem to care.”

“I got family from Kentucky, Major. These mountain folks, they don’t have the same priorities as the rest of the world. I mean, look at ’em—they’d just as soon shoot us as go fishing.”

“Is that what they say in Kentucky?” Maitland asked wryly.

He shrugged. “The sentiment’s pretty universal in these parts.”

Maitland shook his head. “Well, another thirty days and she’s no longer my problem, or Uncle Sam’s. After that, she’ll get her wish. The world will forget all about her. Then we’ll see how she likes it.”

The men in uniform made their way back to their vehicles and departed.

Inside, Deacon helped Bronwyn settle onto the couch. The living room, with its open-beam ceiling decorated with abstract designs, loomed like a protective hand cupping her. “Thanks, Daddy,” she said. “That major is a real piece of work. You should’ve seen what they made me ride on in town.”

“We did. Watched it on TV. They let you keep the boat?”

She smiled. “I asked them that very same thing.”

Deacon went to the refrigerator and pulled out three bottles of beer. He handed one to Chloe and another to Bronwyn. Her doctors repeatedly instructed her not to mix alcohol with the Vicodin, but they didn’t understand the effect simply being back home would have. No painkillers would be necessary from now on. “I also saw Bliss Overbay in town. She looked awful grim.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Chloe said.

Bronwyn clinked the neck of her bottle against her father’s. “And ol’ Rockhouse was still sitting on the porch at the post office.”

“Suits me,” Deacon said. “As long as he’s there, everyone can keep an eye on him. It’s when he’s gone that I get antsy.”

Bronwyn nodded and took a drink. One time Rockhouse caught her going down on his nephew Ripple, who was only slightly less handsome than his other nephew Stoney, the unanimously crowned love god of all the Tufa girls. Unlike Stoney, though, Ripple was smart enough to let her know when he was about to finish, which happened to be the exact moment Rockhouse slapped the car top and demanded to know what those goddamned kids were doing. The next few moments had been messy, and terrifying, and exciting, like most of her favorite experiences. But she never forgot the way Rockhouse looked at her as she scrambled to get her shirt back on. Something in that old man left her, and every other Tufa girl, vaguely queasy.

She was about to ask for more gossip when she heard a faint, regular tapping. She glanced at the front window and saw a sparrow perched on the outside sill, pecking against the glass.

Brownyn looked at her father; he’d seen it, too. They both knew what it meant: a family death in the near future.

“You think that’s for me?” she asked softly. She should have been terrified, but she was too numb even for that. “Is that what Bliss was worried about?”

“Just a bird confused by all the ruckus, honey,” Deacon said with all the laid-back certainty he could muster. “Sometimes it don’t mean a thing.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Sometimes.”

Aiden burst through the front door. He propped the shotgun against the wall just as Deacon said, “That gun best be unloaded, son.”

The boy patted the pocket where he carried the shells. “Didn’t have to shoot nobody, dang it.” He saw Bronwyn, and his face lit up. “Hey, can I show her now?”

“Show me what?” Bronwyn asked.

Deacon nodded. “But make it fast. Bunch of people are here to see her.”

“Show me what?” Bronwyn repeated.

Aiden grabbed her crutches. “Come on, you won’t believe it.”

“He’s right,” Deacon said. “You surely won’t.”