Blue Stew (Second Edition) (24 page)

Operating purely on light whims, Walter turned up the intersecting street that would take him past Nigel’s house. Beyond that was Kall’s store. Maybe he would pay Kall a visit? Or, maybe he wouldn’t: he had no reason to plan that far ahead, as pleasant as he was finding the present aimlessness to be.

Some minutes later he motored uphill past Nigel’s place. He saw Nigel’s car in the driveway so he gave a passing toot on the horn.

Seconds later, a grey tabby cat sprung across the road and scampered up Doris Hanes’s steep dirt driveway. Walter wondered if it was one of Doris’s cats—did that mean she was home? The last time Henry had driven Walter to work, he had mentioned—as they’d passed—that he’d heard that Doris was still seeing a psychiatrist intensively and that she was refusing to return home.

Walter—now beyond the driveway and nearing the ridge of the small valley—sincerely hoped that Doris had found the courage to rid the house of whatever demons had entered the place that dreadful night. It
was
a lovely house. The natural, open aesthetics were very appealing to Walter, and the view from the porch was beautiful. The kitchen probably needed to be re-floored, though . . .

Driving along the same ridge that, farther along, Kall’s Tractor Supply resided on, a road sign appeared ahead on the left that Walter, with his mind so far adrift, hadn’t anticipated. Brown Hill Road, it said. It was the road Maddie lived on. His mind didn’t make it beyond this simple acknowledgement; he just pressed the brakes and turned the wheel.

Brown Hill Road was an old gravel road that sloped gently downhill. The land that surrounded this stretch of the road was dryer and rockier than most of Sutherland: rugged bushes, brambles, and patches of exposed bedrock took the place of the area’s typical forests.

Walter had a funny idea, then, that he might end up spending a lot of time in his future cruising in his new car down this very road, if he played his cards right that day. His stomach twisted into a knot at the thought.

Walter discovered that it was obvious, once he actually considered what he was doing, that he was just going to drive past the Wendell farmhouse. It opened him up to too many chances for an awkward first encounter, trying to track Maddie down on what he knew to be such a large property—especially when the day was still in its morning hours.

A mile on, the road began to slope back uphill, and the forest to his right—which had filled out again near the bottom of the hill—cut starkly away to wide-open grazing land, separated from the road by a stone wall and some low barbed-wire fencing. Walter didn’t see any of their cows, though he knew that the Wendell’s owned quite a few.

Looking back to the road, Walter gasped and nearly slammed the brakes, but he stopped himself in time. It was too late. She had seen him before he had seen her.

Not far up the road, Madeline Wendell was pulling a cart in the same direction he was driving. Walter surely would’ve admired how her butt creased pleasantly inside her tight, dirty jeans as she twisted her body around, if it wasn’t for the fact that she had twisted her body around in order to look directly at him.

Walter allowed the hill to slow his car to a crawl as he froze like a deer in headlights. His mouth went dry. And then Maddie moved her cart off the road, and Walter snapped out of it, and all he could think to do was laugh and shake his head.

“Nice going, dipshit,” he muttered to himself.

Maybe she hadn’t recognized him in his new car and he could’ve kept motoring past unidentified—but Walter saw no good reason to risk being so rude if she
had
recognized him. He accelerated carefully up beside Maddie and put down the passenger window.

“
Walter?
” Maddie leaned her head to one side in order to look through the window. Her unkempt hair fell across part of her face.

“Hi Maddie,” Walter was relieved to hear how calm he sounded as he brought his car to a halt. “What’cha got there?”

Maddie looked about, appearing flustered, before noticing her cart, “Oh. Cow poop.”

She laughed, and Walter couldn’t contain the big smile that took hold of his face.

“You’re not coming all the way from
Kall’s
, are you?”

“No. I just like to take poop for a walk up and down the road sometimes.”

Walter’s mouth flapped as he tried to think of something smart to say to that.

“Our truck’s in the shop,” Maddie now explained with a shrug.

“
Damn
. That’s a
long
haul with so much manure.”

“I’m passionate about my poop, I guess.”

Some combination of her soft, confident voice, her sweet, understated grin, and how much she evidently enjoyed the word “poop”
was enough to make Walter decide, right then, that he probably should marry this girl.

“But,
hey
, what are we doing talking about poop?” Maddie’s pitch rose to an enthusiastic level, “I’m talking to Sutherland’s elusive new celebrity, aren’t I!”

“Elusive?”

“That’s what Channel 8 called you this morning.”

Walter laughed, “I guess I
have
been ignoring their calls . . .”

“Have you been watching much of the recent coverage?”

“No, actually.”

“
Really?
Well, I saw your picture on the news last night above the caption, ‘Walter Boyd, Reluctant Hero.’”

“‘
Hero’?
” Walter scoffed. “No, if I was a
hero
, I would’ve tackled the scrawny twig of a man and wrestled the rifle out of his hands, instead of fleeing like a wuss. Then we wouldn’t have a dangerous psychopath running loose right now . . .”

Walter had simply been trying to sound modest. He actually hadn’t thought about it until now, after he’d said it. He definitely
could
have rushed Timothy Glass in the dark and stood a very good chance of disarming the bony, pale shadow of a man. A small seed of guilt took root then—what if Timothy went on to instigate
more
atrocities?

Maddie, however, only saw it as it had been intended: modesty for modesty’s sake.

“Shut-up and stop being so charmingly modest. Braylen Taylor told your story for you, buddy. He said you defied Timothy at gunpoint, dove across the room to cut the power, and then dodged gunfire to escape. If it wasn’t for you, Timothy would still be hard at work stewing up more of that horrible stuff!”

Being called “charming” slowed the growth of the seedling of guilt and regret, certainly.

“Yeah,” he drawled. It was true what she said. He even knew it, too. But still, “I could’ve
definitely
taken the fucker down after I cut the lights . . .”

“Well, I could’ve
definitely
gone to his house a month ago and hit him across the face with a shovel, too.” As cold as it was outside, Maddie now stopped to wipe a line of sweat from her slight, rounded nose. “Don’t play games with hindsight, Walter. No one ever wins.”

Walter grinned, nodding, “You’re
right
.”

Unfortunately, knowing what’s right and acting on what’s right had long been separate things for Walter.

A gust of wind whipped up suddenly, the type of gust you see most often late in the fall, when there are no leaves to keep the cold wind in check and soften its bite. Maddie’s blonde hair flailed wildly for a moment, then came to rest around her head all twisted and frizzed.

She didn’t attempt to fix her hair. Something about this was so refreshing to Walter: she seemed so comfortable and at-ease in her world.

“So what are you doing in my neck of the woods, anyways?”

And there it was. Walter wasn’t sure how they’d gotten so far without coming to it.

He could easily say that he was out driving his new car around town on a lovely Sunday morning just for the heck of it, and then segue into a casual proposition for lunch from there. That had been the general idea in his head when he had first pulled up beside her, actually. But, after this short period in her presence, Walter now felt that that would be
too
casual and natural. He wanted to make his feelings more transparent; he felt really bad about blowing her off before.

“Maybe I came to see you?”

Maddie raised an eyebrow, “Well, either you did or you didn’t.” But, Walter felt sure he saw something light up in her eyes.

“You know, I hate to be a walking cliché,”—Walter felt his face begin to warm as he spoke; hadn’t he decided that this would be
easy
?—“but after going through all that . . . what do they say? Oh: It scared me straight. It took me back and made me reevaluated my priorities and blah-blah . . .” Who says “blah-blah” in actual conversation? Walter knew his face must be deepening in hue, but he powered on, “It helped me see what I
really
want to get out of life. Maddie—you were the first person I thought of when I got away safely that night. I want the companionship of a smart, strong, beautiful girl like
you
.”

Walter thought his cheeks might burn clean off his face, now. Did he
really
just say all that out loud?

Maddie seemed to be at a loss for words . . . but . . . was that the cold wind making her eyes water?

“Maddie,” Walter laughed stiffly, “want to go somewhere for lunch today?”

“Walter,” her soft voice was interrupted by another, smaller, burst of wind. “Walter, did you know I had the biggest crush on you in high school?”

“
No
. . . really?”

“C’mon . . . we
all
did. You were the hot hockey jock . . .”

Walter shook his head, “That was a lifetime ago . . .”

“You’re still a young guy, Walter.”

“I guess . . .” Walter was growing very uneasy. She seemed to be avoiding his question.

“Walter,” Maddie started again. That gentle voice had the power to kill him right then, Walter suddenly realized. “I think I
still
have a crush on you. Every time I would go around back at Kall’s . . . when I saw you, I’d feel like I was in high school again, watching your games . . . the butterflies . . . and you
still
didn’t really seem to know I was there . . .”

“I’m sorry,” said Walter with emphatic sincerity, “but maybe
I
wasn’t there . . . I’m here
now
.”

“That’s a
good
line,” Maddie smiled, and Walter melted. “You know the thing they say about farmer-types? We’re hardheaded. We get stuck on ideas and can’t be persuaded otherwise, even after so much time . . . and even if the ideas start to seem . . .
less
perfect.”

Walter swallowed, “I know. I’m no heart-throb hockey jock anymore . . .”

“Well, maybe I’m too stubborn to care,” said Maddie. “Yes, Walter, I would
love
to get lunch with you today.”

Walter was certain that whatever feeling of perfect bliss victims one through five felt while on the Blue Stew could not have matched this. He didn’t respond, not beyond the giant, goofy grin now stretching his face apart.

“Although, do we have to wait for lunch? I’m pretty hungry
now
. . . how about brunch?”

Walter stammered, “Yeah.
Yeah
. Sure! What . . . um . . . so do you need to drag this cart back to your house? I can get out and help,” Walter put a hand on his seatbelt buckle.

“No, no. Do you . . . do you mind that I’m a filthy mess right now?”

“
No
.”

“Then let’s just go now! The Silver Tap Sugar Shack is still open,” she said as she opened the passenger door. Gesturing at the cart she’d just ditched, “I can deal with that later. It’s all bullshit anyways.”