tools. “Animals got a lot more sense about dying than human folk. They know it’s the cycle. Livin’ and dyin’, they’re not so different, except for those of us left behind.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I said.
“It took me a while to get there, Carson. Maybe I believe it ’cause I have to to survive. I can only say I’m a more peaceful man since I came to that way of thinkin’.” He gave Bilbo’s rump a gentle slap. “Turn ’em out now, and I’ll be on my way.”
I pulled money from my pocket.
He shook his head. “No, I won’t take the money. When my mama was dying, Mr. Lynch mixed up her medicine special. When we didn’t have the money, he mixed it for her anyway.”
“The horses are my responsibility, not his.”
He gave me his sharp blue gaze. “It’s one and the same and you know it.”
I was about to argue when I heard a vehicle pull up. I walked to the barn door and looked out, surprised to see Michael Batson walking toward me from his red vet truck.
“Carson!” he said, his face breaking into a wide smile. “What a surprise.”
“Michael,” I answered, knowing it was no surprise at all but my meddling mother. “What brings you here?”
“Spring vaccinations for the horses. Dorry implied you were having a conniption to get it done.”
“I see.” I realized that my sister now rivaled my mother in games of manipulation.
“Hey, Dustin, how’s it going?” He held out his hand.
The men shook, then Strange gathered his tools. “I’m done here, Doc.”
Michael glanced down at Bilbo’s feet. “I wish you’d come over and work out of my clinic. Folks could come to you instead of you having to drive all over tarnation.”
Strange shook his head. “I like drivin’. I like to look at the woods and think.”
Michael nodded. “Well, the offer stands.”
“Thanks, but I like it the way it is.” Strange inclined his head, then he was gone, his slender frame slipping out the barn door and casting a long, thin shadow across the patch of dirt in front of the barn.
“You called him Dustin,” I pointed out.
“I don’t like the name Strange. Dustin’s a little different, but if more people were like him, the world would be a better place.” He took Bilbo’s lead rope and moved him so he could feel in his mouth. “Dorry said I should float their teeth, too, if they need it.”
“Dorry’s mighty good at tending to everyone’s business,” I said.
He laughed. “I thought this might be a setup. She asked me to lunch, too.” He released Bilbo’s head and started toward his truck. “I brought a Biloxi paper. I figured you’d want to see the front-page splash you made.”
“Don’t take it in the house,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to.” He walked out of the barn and returned in a few moments with three vaccinations and a stainless-steel bucket containing a rasp to file the sharp points down on the horses’ back teeth. “This won’t take long at all.”
After we’d finished with the horses, Michael led Bilbo while I took Mariah and Hooligan out to the front pasture. We stopped at his truck and he handed me the newspaper.
Bridal Veil Killer Strikes After 24-Year Hiatus, the headline screamed across the top of the page. My stomach knotted. If I’d ever doubted Brandon’s total disregard of responsibility, I didn’t any longer. Right below the headline was my byline. Mitch and Avery would both know I had nothing to do with the way the story was played, but most people didn’t understand that.
“You’re making quite a name for yourself,” Michael said.
There was no criticism in his tone. Michael wasn’t a man prone to panic, so he didn’t see the potential damage such an article could do.
“It’s a frightening situation, but this—” I shook the paper “—isn’t going to help. My boss is an idiot.”
Michael put his equipment back in the truck. “I’m not staying for lunch, Carson.”
“Mother and Dorry will be disappointed.”
He touched my chin, a whisper of a caress. “I don’t really care what they think.”
“I figured you’d want to be home for lunch with Polly and your daughter.” I held his hazel gaze.
“Polly’s filed for divorce. She wants a husband who gets off at five and comes home smelling of aftershave and money instead of cow shit. I’m not the man for her.”
I had a jolt of memory. Polly was standing in front of Elliot’s Jewelry Store on Main Street. It was a hot summer afternoon. We were eighteen, just graduated and wondering what the next fall would bring for us.
“I’m going to marry a rich man,” Polly had predicted. “Mama says you can love a man with money as easily as one without.”
June Tierce had been with us. June’s future was set. She’d gotten a full academic scholarship to Ole Miss. She claimed the school was filling a quota for black females, but I knew better. June was brilliant.
“Money doesn’t have anything to do with happiness,” June said to Polly.
“Of course it does,” Polly said with a grown-up snap in her voice. “Try being without money if you think it’s not important. It’s the only thing my mom and dad fight about.”
“Carson, are you okay?” Michael touched my arm, and I left the past to return to the barnyard and my former lover looking at me with open concern.
“I’m fine. I was just thinking of Polly.”
“She’s still a beautiful woman. She’ll find someone who gives her what she wants.” He shook his head. “I was foolish to think she’d—” He broke off. “Anyway, tell your folks I send my regrets. The truth is, I’ve got a herd of cows to vaccinate over in Vinegar Bend. It’s going to be a long day so I’d better get after it.”
I headed home before lunch, telling my parents that I had work. No one questioned me, but no one believed me, either. Greene County was dry. At one time my parents kept liquor in the house, amber and clear liquids for an afternoon highball or the frequent visitors who came to play cards or have dinner. It was only recently that the cut-glass decanters had been emptied and not refilled. I was the cause of that.
Almost home, I stopped at a small joint tucked away in the piney woods of Jackson County. The state blue laws had once dictated that liquor could not be sold until noon on a Sunday, but with the arrival of the casinos, times had changed for the Gulf Coast. I asked the bartender for a screwdriver, and she handed it over without even blinking.
When I got home, Mitch had
