Kathleen Creighton - Shooting Starr

Caitlyn sat and listened to the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair and the rustlings and scufflings of squirrels in the leaves on the lawn. As she rocked, her hand stroked gently over Bubba’s head. And she shivered…and shivered…and shivered.

C.J. could see her as he came up the lane, sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch with Bubba alert and on guard beside her. Funny-he remembered he’d thought her being in his mother’s house was like finding a fairy perched on a front porch rocker, and here she was. But right then what she looked like more than anything was a statue, lovely and graceful, yes, but lifeless and stone cold.

He slowed to a walk as he turned onto the grass, but didn’t look at his watch to check his time. He knew it had to be one of his best, but the truth was he’d forgotten to set the stopwatch when he’d taken off out of the house after Jess’s phone call. If his sister was worried enough to tell him to “get your butt over here,” well…

He knew Caitlyn had to have heard him coming, but she didn’t call out to him or give any sign she knew he was there. So he called out, “Hey, how’y’doin’? Ready to go for a walk?” Careful not to let any sign of his concern show in his voice.

Not that he fooled her for a minute.

“I suppose Jess called you,” she snapped at him as he came up the steps, chin jutting. Her eyes, thundercloud gray, sparked a warning, and her hand moved restlessly in Bubba’s neck fur.

“Yeah, she did.” He smiled gamely at her, panting a little. “But I was comin’ over, anyway.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about me, I’m a grown woman, not a child. I don’t need a baby-sitter. And I’m not a dog, either. I don’t need to be walked twice a day.”

Her grumpiness amused him. Maybe because Jess had warned him, or he was getting used to her, but where her frosty tone might have intimidated him a few days ago, now he only thought how cute she looked with her hair lying on her forehead and cheekbones like petals of a pale yellow flower. She’d gotten the last of her bandages off this morning, after a consultation set up by Jake between Jess and the doctor, and his mother had trimmed her hair and shampooed it for her. It covered up most of what was left of her bruises and scalp wound so that she looked not so much like a convalescent, now, as a little child woken up from a nap too soon.

“I like your hair,” he said. “Looks good.”

Her hand flew up to touch it, a jerky, involuntary motion that reminded him of a drunken butterfly landing on a flower. Warring emotions flitted across her face: a uniquely feminine pleasure at odds with the darkness of her thoughts. Finally she made a throat-clearing sound and grudgingly muttered, “Thanks.”

He took her hand and drew her up and out of the rocking chair, but let go of it when she tugged, and let her find the railing and feel her own way down the steps. After a moment Bubba hauled himself up and lumbered after her, and C.J. followed, fighting the useless feeling that came over him so often when he was with her.

He moved up beside her as they walked across the leaf-littered grass. He could smell strawberries. He wondered if it was the shampoo his mother had used on her hair. “So, where do you want to go? Wanna go down to the creek? Probably just got time enough before it gets too dark.”

She gave a sharp, bitter laugh at that, and for a moment or two didn’t answer. Then she lifted her head and paused, as if listening to a distant sound. “I want to run,” she said, and her voice was breathless and suspenseful, as if she were already in the starting blocks.

What the hell, he thought. Why not? “Okay,” he said, and was rewarded by her look of surprise.

He took her down to the hayfield, which the farmer had finally cleared of bales the day before. It hadn’t rained in a while and the ground was hard and dry, the grass gone dormant until spring. It was quiet and empty out there, away from the stirrings of trees and the rustle of falling leaves. A little breeze lifted the feathers of her hair as he stood behind her in the lavender dusk, carrying the sweet strawberry scent of it to his nostrils. With his hands gentle on her arms he turned her to face the open field.

“Okay,” he murmured, “nothing in front of you but grass. Go for it. I’ll be right beside-”

She was off before he’d finished, jogging tentatively at first while he stayed where he was and watched her, his soul lifting with purest pleasure at the sight. Then Bubba whined; he looked down and saw the big dog gazing up at him with reproach.

“Wha…at?” he said, grinning. “What’s she gonna run into? She’s got the whole-” Bubba gave a sharp yip and took off. C.J. looked up, and what he saw was Caitlyn running as if the hounds of hell were after her.

“Holy sm-” He took off after her, swearing under his breath.

She was faster than he’d expected, a whole lot faster than anybody who’d almost been shot to death a short time ago had any business being. Plus, the field had a downward slope-not too steep-but way down at the bottom of it, what he’d mistakenly considered to be a safe distance away, far beyond her reach, was the pond. And the direction she’d picked, she was headed right for it, with Bubba loping along at her heels.

C.J. yelled at her to stop, but that only made her run faster, damn her, and ol’ Bubba wasn’t doing anything to stop her, either. Come to think of it, why would he? Bubba was a water dog-a dip in the pond probably seemed like a great idea to him.

C.J. hadn’t ever been much of a sprinter, but adrenaline gave him the push he needed, and he caught up with her a yard or two from the edge of the pond. She was gasping, her breath coming in sobs, while Bubba sat on his haunches and watched her with his tongue hanging out. C.J. had hold of her arm-he was well ticked off at her and prepared to bawl her out good for scaring him like that-but she whirled and struck out at him, catching him in the chest with her fist.

Even with twilight coming on he could see she was crying.

“Leave…me…alone,” she yelled, and her voice was a terrible, raspy sound, like cloth tearing. “Can’t you just leave me alone? I said I wanted to run, damn you. You said- Why can’t you-”

“Dammit, I’m trying.”

“Don’t try! Don’t help me. I just want you to let me go!”

Well, damn. He couldn’t let her go, because if he did she was going to wind up in the pond for sure. And he couldn’t get her to listen to him even long enough to tell her that; he had his hands full just trying to keep her flailing arms and hammering fists from doing either one of them damage.

Truth was, she was starting to scare him. Having grown up with sisters, he was no stranger to feminine tears and histrionics, but this was clearly beyond his experience. If she kept on like this, he thought, she was liable to hurt herself.

“Come on, calm down, dammit!” he yelled at her. “Can’t you see I’m tryin’ to help-”

“Don’t…help.” She bit off the words like a snapping turtle, spitting fury.

And tears! He’d never seen tears like that in his life. It was eerie, seeing all those tears pouring out of sightless eyes, seeing the emotions-silvery flare of passion and darkness of pain-knowing the windows of her soul were only one-way glass. It was almost too much for him. Dammit, it was too much. He could feel his eyes burning, his own emotions heavy in his chest.

“Don’t help me. You can’t help me,” she choked out, “don’t you get it? You can’t fix this-” she jabbed a finger toward her streaming eyes “-can you? You can’t make me see! What are you going to do, lead me around like a puppy on a leash for the rest of my life? You want to help me? Well, I’ll tell you something-it’s too late. It’s too late. I asked you for help and you wouldn’t give it to me. And now Mary Kelly’s dead and I’m blind and you…can’t…fix it.” The thumping of her fists against his chest grew weaker. She sagged against him. “You can’t fix it! Damn you…”

He didn’t blame her for saying that. How could he, when he’d said the same thing to himself so many times over?

When he went to put his arms around her, he was meaning only to give her comfort. That was his honest intention. He had no idea what happened next. He sure as hell never saw it coming. Just, one minute he was reaching out for her, his heart warm and aching with sympathy-and all of a sudden he felt a completely different kind of pain in his midsection, and where his next breath should have been there was…nothing.

He was looking desperately for it, doubled over and clutching his belly, when the next thing he knew he was flying through the air, and the cold, murky waters of the farm pond were rising up and hitting him in the face.

Caitlyn heard the splash and then some hoarse, honking sounds, followed immediately by a smaller splash and a canine yip, though that didn’t fully register in her consciousness until a little later. The rage that had enveloped her cracked like an egg’s shell. The anger drained out of her, leaving her hollow…cold…shocked to her core.

“C.J.!” she screamed. She thought she’d screamed; all she heard was a raspy whimper. She tried it again, then again, and she was staggering, stumbling toward the gasping, whooping sounds, hands thrust out before her like Frankenstein’s monster.

The ground squelched under her feet. Razor-leaved grasses slashed at her clothes. She heard smaller splashes inside the larger ones, which seemed to be of the magnitude of those produced by frolicking whales. Cold water seeped into her shoes; it rose with each step she took until it had engulfed her to the knees. The terror that engulfed her heart was far colder.