First, the history lesson. “Do you know who I am? My family has been here so long they ruled over your people like kings. My son runs this town, and you’d be good to remember that, Roan Gray.”
“Half my lineage was here a millennia before your family even knewhereexisted Mrs. Veronica, and my other half touched down on ships the same time as, if not before the ships that brought your kin here,” Roan said, calm and respectful, two traits in a combat that made her perfect for the role of Santiago’s chief deputy.
“I will see you fired and thrown in your own jail if you lay one hand on me you Black-Indian witch!”
Mrs. Veronica pointed an unsteady finger at Santiago.
“And you, I will make sure these are your last days as sheriff of this town, Santiago Stillwater.”
Roan reached for the door handle and pulled. And the old woman escalated, hitting and scratching at Roan’s hand to keep her from opening it.
Roan hissed as one of Mrs. Veronica’s manicured peach-colored claws drew blood.
That was it.
Santiago stomped forward and Roan backed away. He reached into the open window, impervious to Mrs. Veronica’s weak blows and scratches, and wrenched the door open soforcefully the woman nearly tumbled out as he broke the door’s spine.
Getting out of the car on unsteady feet, the older woman stumbled to the opposite side of the road where there was at least a twenty-five-foot drop. Once she’d gotten as far away from her car as possible, she clutched her chest and began to wail.
“Help me!” she cried out loud enough for the people stopped down the road to step outside of their cars to get a bird’s eye view of Mrs. Veronica’s antics. Except for the unfamiliar SUV with out-of-state plates that came to a stop behind Clark Shetfield’s truck, everyone else on the road was local.
Not even ten seconds later, Deputy Derry pulled up behind the out-of-towner and parked. He went into his trunk and walked down the hill, placing “slow” and “caution” signs and flares. Roan had already done the same for anyone descending the mountain. Thank goodness no one had come down the mountain yet.
Checking the extent of the damage to Mrs. Veronica’s car and the area where the fender gouged out a long strip of mountain, causing a fallen tree to block the road, Santiago sighed. It was gonna take over an hour to get this mess cleared up.
Dragging a frustrated hand over the back of his neck, Santiago threw a glance over his shoulder, uneasy that the town’s drunken matriarch had gone silent.
“Oh, my freaking God,” Lauren muttered. Traffic had come to a complete stop. The people parked ahead of her were outside of their vehicles looking up the mountain.Dammit, these people took rubbernecking to a whole other level,Lauren thought as she laid a heavy hand on her horn. She was slightly behindschedule and needed to get this train back on track and chugging along. Her response only garnered curious looks before the people faced forward again.
Shit.
If she didn’t get over the steep uphill switchback soon, she’d miss check-in and have to find another place to stay. At night. In the unknown wilds of the Smoky Mountains.
To hell with that. Putting her car in park, she killed the engine and stepped outside to see what the problem was so she could organize quick action and resolve it.
A cop car pulled up behind her with flashing lights but no sirens. The officer walked to his trunk and pulled out flares and safety signs and placed them along the road behind his car. Lauren watched him complete his tasks and head back up the hill toward her. Tilting his hat, he nodded and gave her a charming smile before saying “ma’am” and continuing to hike up the steep incline.
Standing outside of her car, Lauren could now see that there had been some kind of accident ahead and there were other police cars already on the scene. She debated getting back into her car and waiting for the road to clear, but the people ahead began to mill around and chitchat as if they were at a tailgate party.
“Hey there Derry.” One woman wearing a red-and-white checkered dress waved as the young deputy passed them. There were two twenty-somethings, one male and the other female, who didn’t acknowledge the deputy.
“Hey there, Gina,” the young cop called back.
“A real mess up there,” an elderly man in overalls and a soiled T-shirt said. He stood next to a towheaded tween who appeared excited by whatever was happening. “Be careful Derry, a wild cougar done got loose and is spitting mad,” the old man said.
They all laughed: the woman in the checkerboard dress, the couple in the first car with two kids under five, the wiry man with bloodshot eyes, and the twenty-somethings.
“She’s already clawed strips out of Deputy Roan so you might want to let the sheriff handle it,” checkered dress, Gina, said.
These people obviously all knew each other, and Lauren, the only onlooker who wasn’t White, felt her otherness acutely.
“This could all be an ambush,” she muttered, reaching for her pepper spray in the arm pocket of her car door, placing it in the front pocket of her sweatpants. Some lookout had probably radioed ahead, told them a lone black woman was driving up the mountain with California plates and now they were all executing a plan to steal her SUV, her belongings, beat her to death, and bury her body up here in one of those hollers Loretta Lynn sang about. Lauren didn’t even completely know what a holler was but knew it was a part of the mountainous landscape.
“Fuck this,” she snapped and stomped up the incline, passing the others with her hand around the tube of pepper spray. She eyed each person with suspicion—even theChildren-of-the Corn-looking kids—and silently dared any of them to try something. Not that she was a black belt, but she needed them to understand that they’d end up as tree fertilizer before she would.
“You ain’t from around here, so maybe you wanna trust me when I say, hang back and stay downwind of this little shit show,” the woman in the checkered dress said, her tone kind but strong.
Now that Lauren had an open view of the road, she could see where the cruiser blocked off traffic from above, and where an old school Pontiac’s hood was crumpled like tin against the side of the mountain.
