An Accidental Family. Darlene Graham

the door ajar. She stepped into the ray of the fog beams. “It’s me, Gran.”

      “Rainey? Honey? Is that really you?”

      “Yes, Gran. It’s really me.”

      “Lord Almighty, child. I sure wasn’t expecting you in the middle of the night.”

      “I know, Gran. I’m sorry for just showing up this way. It’s sort of an emergency.”

      The screen door creaked and a woman appeared under the faint globe of light. In its glow, Seth could make out a tiny stick figure in a pale robe, with a long gray braid trailing over one shoulder. “An emergency?” she said. “Well, come on up, then. All of you.”

      As the crew climbed rickety, rotting steps to the screened-in porch, the dogs took up a fresh round of barking.

      “Killer! Butch!” the tiny woman hollered. “Hush up!” The dogs trotted up the steps to her side and she said “Stay,” pointing one finger at the ground. She braced her feet wide and waited…clutching a shotgun across her middle.

      As Seth’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was gratified to see that the old house had a high upstairs addition that jutted out well above the treetops. He could see the glass of a large window winking in the moonlight, but it was facing east. He would need a place with a clear view of the road at night.

      He followed Rainey and the boys up several flights of crude steps that twisted and turned toward the porch, while the little old woman held the shotgun like Moses’s staff. Several times Rainey pointed out rotting places in the steps, warning, “Careful. Be careful.”

      When he got to the landing at the top, Seth found himself staring at the business end of the shotgun. “Who’s this strappin’ fella?” Gran said with a jerk of the barrel.

      “Gran—” Rainey began with a note of exasperation.

      “Ma’am,” Seth interrupted. “You can put the gun down. I’m with the Tenikah police.” He stepped around the boys so she could see the reflection of his badge in the weak light.

      The old woman flicked on the safety and the shotgun disappeared into the folds of her robe. “Cain’t be too cautious these days. Grace Chapman.” She thrust out a knobby hand and Seth gently clasped it.

      “Seth Whitman,” he said.

      “Whitman? A cop? You related to that cop that was killed out near the Rune Stones some years back?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” He kept his eyes off Rainey, who stood hovering near the boys in the porch shadows. He didn’t want to see the look on her face if she added two and two. He didn’t want anybody’s pity over Lane’s death. It was long past. There was nothing he could do about it now except avenge it. And that was exactly what he intended to do.

      Gran turned on Rainey. “You look awful, girl. Is everything all right?”

      “Not exactly.” Rainey sighed.

      “What are you doing here with the law at this ungodly hour? And who are these youngsters?”

      While Rainey introduced the boys and explained that they were her charges from Big Cedar Camp, and what had happened, Seth took stock of Rainey’s Granny Grace.

      The old lady was pretty much what he had expected. In his police work, he had often encountered elderly women exactly like her, tucked back into these hills. They tended gardens they’d scratched out in their beloved rocky soil, they babied paltry livestock, they fashioned stunning quilts from the scraps of their lives, and they basically preferred to be left alone.

      The ones he’d seen in Tenikah rolled their decrepit cars into town once or twice a week to attend church, visit the post office or buy provisions. They reported trouble to the police like faithful little tattletales, appearing at the station to shout into the microphone in the glass security window. So-and-so was burning leaves despite the burn ban, or a newspaper stand lay facedown in the creek with the cash box pried open, or one of old man Goodner’s cows was loose out on the highway again. As the junior officer on the force, Seth often had to follow up on all this nonsense.

      “Land sakes! That’s awful!” Gran said when Rainey reached a stopping place. “Come inside then, all of you.”

      “Ma’am?” Seth halted their progress. “What’s behind your place?”

      Granny turned. “The house sits at the top of the ridge. The backside drops off into the river.”

      The place might actually work. When he got everybody settled, Seth decided he’d walk the perimeter, check for a lookout.

      The two women continued to talk nonstop as Seth and the boys followed the tiny lady inside the house. She lit an antique oil lantern and set it in the middle of a round kitchen table with a red-checked oilcloth spread on it.

      Seth felt as if he’d stepped back in time. The boys, he could see, were stunned by these unusual surroundings, or maybe they were just too tired to care. Likely none of them had ever seen a place like this, except in the movies. Even Dillon seemed subdued, taking in the cluttered room with wide-eyed fascination.

      But Seth had been in houses like Grace’s plenty of times, though never one quite this solidly frozen in time. The kitchen where the six of them stood in an awkward ring, softly lit by the glow of the lantern, was little more than a box lined with crooked white cabinets yellowing with age. Clean but dented pans were stacked on an actual wood-burning, cast-iron cook-stove. A home-sewn feedsack curtain concealed the guts of a huge enamel sink where bunches of enormous carrots with the green tops still attached lay at an angle. All manner of dried herbs lined the narrow windowsill, tied in neat bundles or propped up in tiny colored-glass medicine bottles.

      Covering every inch of wall space were animal skins and American flags, crosses and family photos, postcards from trips to far-flung places like Eureka Springs, Arkansas. A small refrigerator, run off the gas-powered generator, Seth assumed, was plastered with all manner of cheap magnets. Some were frames with tiny pictures of a little girl in them. Rainey? A bowl of fresh peaches ripened in the corner of the counter next to a large bin that was stamped Bread.

      It looked like the kind of place that had produced meal after hearty meal for decades and didn’t know how to stop. In fact, Seth imagined there were cookies resting under the embroidered dish towel that covered a plate in the corner.

      “So, we have to have a place to hide the boys,” Rainey said, finishing up her story, “We have to keep them safe until Seth can catch those men. I hate to put you in a fix, Gran, but I couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. I hope you can help us.”

      “You know you can always come to me if you’ve got trouble, honey,” Gran said. “I bet you boys are hungry as horses.”

      She reached for the towel-covered plate and folded back the corner. Sure enough. Cookies.

      “Sit down, then, and eat.” Gran encouraged them with a sweeping gesture and the boys tumbled into the dinette chairs. “You should eat, too, Rainey,” she said, eyeing her granddaughter’s slender frame. “Looks like you’re still not eating enough to amount to a hill of beans. You look plumb peaked, matter of fact.”

      “I’m just tired, Gran. It’s been a long night.”

      Rainey leaned her hips against the counter edge and Seth positioned himself at a distance, one shoulder propped against the doorjamb.

      “You’re welcome,” Gran chirped as she passed the boys the cookies, “you’re very welcome,” even though none the three had uttered a word of thanks.

      When Granny held the platter out to Seth he said, “None for me, thanks.” He was impatient to get everybody settled in so he could check over the place and begin his watch.

      While the boys ate greedily, Grace poured milk into cut-glass tumblers, then seated herself in the last chair. She and Rainey resumed a carefully worded interchange, back and forth, about the boys, about their various histories, their various problems,