Water of Life

 “Maebelle,” I called after her, “is this the cabin?” She didn’t reappear or answer. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected we’d arrived at Caleb’s old family homestead where his granny now lived alone. He’d pointed it out once. Of course, I’d been quite turned around at the time.

A shell click-clacked into a shotgun’s chamber. I knew that sound well enough and dove for cover behind a pile of lichen-covered boulders. My panted breath hung in the November air. And ain’t that what comes from soft living? Riding around in automobiles all day took a man’s strength as sure as sitting in prison for six months.

“Git on outta here.” The old woman’s voice was coarse. “It’s mine now.”

Although I could hear her, I could hardly see her through the dense wooded hillside above me. What I did see, most particularly and quite well, was the shotgun hefted to her shoulder and pointed square at the rocky outcrop that shielded me. For the moment.

It stood to reason she couldn’t actually hit me. Caleb had described his grandmother as at least eighty, and I was a good fifty yards away. Nevertheless, I felt her bead right on me and that she had no qualms about dropping me where I cowered. Just another missing city slicker.

Maebelle had reported a gunshot, and here was granny ready to shoot me. But everyone in these hills seemed to carry a weapon around all the time. The old woman was likely to be afraid of whoever had arrested Caleb. Or she greeted all visitors with death threats.

“Sorry,” I shouted. “But ain’t it important now? I’m—” I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Caleb actually knew my name, but the few other folks I’d met in this little town did not. They thought I was some Welshman named Jones from Chicago. Just a precaution in my line of work. But Caleb might have mentioned me to her. “Sean Joye. A friend of your grandson.” I stuck my hands in the air and stood up.

“Hold it right there.”

The clouds parted for a moment, and a ray of sunlight glinted off the barrel. Through the trees, I saw her limp across the clearing in front of the cabin.

“Which grandson?”

I was worried about Caleb, impatient to get back to the city with my cargo, and tired from the climb. But demands for information from her seemed the wrong play.

 “Caleb Callow, ma’am,” I said, in my best tea-with-gran tone. “He was to deliver some goods to Holmes’s feedstore this morning. Items for a St. Louis customer.” That customer being the Judge.

 Last spring, in America but a few weeks, I’d been nicked doing something stupid. Judge Dolan— “the Judge” to the entire city— had dismissed the charges, lent me a quarter for a haircut, and pressed this errand-runner job upon me.

When I’d inquired about Caleb at the feedstore, Holmes had hazarded a guess that he might be out with Maebelle. I allowed that was possible. But, no matter his devotion to her, business was business, and Caleb was a man of business.

“What, he weren’t there?” said the old woman.

“Ma’am, I’m lowering my arms, ‘cause they hurt, and I’m coming on ahead, ‘cause I’m cold—”

A spray of buckshot spattered the oak leaves overhead. A squirrel dropped at my feet. I drew a breath, and my heart began to beat again. “Nobody in town’s seen him all day.”

“Come on then. Bring the critter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I picked up the animal, warm and plump with fat stored for winter, and trotted up the path toward the cabin.