Jessica winced. So rude!
“Do you know what’s wrong with the dogs?” Jessica asked, trying to lessen the edge Scott had put everyone on.
“No ma’am,” the man answered now completely ignoring Scott and Josh. “We were hoping to take them in to the vet and get an autopsy done. If it’s okay with you … we could take them off your hands.”
“Sure …” Jessica said when none of the men answered and the silence dragged on. “Do you have some way to move them?”
“We have horses back on the road. We only live half a mile up the road … neighbors … “ the man said, with emphasis as his eyes scanned over Jim, Josh and Scott. “If we get them there we can get the county wildlife officer to come and take them.”
“Great …” Jessica said and looked at Scott, and Josh. They stood, staring at the men, guns still raised. Jim had lowered his gun but didn’t seem interested in communicating beyond his initial interaction.
Jessica sighed. “Come on in … “ she said motioning the strangers over, “I’ll give you a hand.” As she moved to crouch over the first dog both Scott and Josh reached out to stop her, but missed. The strangers were busy climbing through the hole in the fence and didn’t notice.
“Hi, I’m Peter.” The older man said, crouching down in front of Jessica. Extending his hand.
“I’m Jessica,” Jessica said taking his hand and shaking it.
Jessica heard a growl from behind her. It sounded like Josh, Scott and Jim at the same time. Peter didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s my grandson Ricky …” Peter said indicating the teenager standing beside him.
“Hi,” Jessica said extending her hand to him. He took it and nodded.
“And my son Steven.” Jessica shook his hand also.
“Nice to meet you.” Jessica said. Although the natural and polite thing to do would be to introduce the men … she didn’t think it would be a good idea. “Should we start with this one?” She asked hoping to distract them from the social faux pas.
She began to reach under the bum of the dog when she felt a firm grip on her arm.
“I’ll do it …” Jim said quietly into her ear. Jessica stood up and stepped out of the way as Jim and Peter hefted the body into the air.
“I’ll give you a hand with the other one …” Scott said from behind Jessica and she saw Steven nod in agreement.
Scott, Steven and Ricky moved toward the other body. And soon they all disappeared through the hole in the fence and out of view.
“Get on Chestnut Jessica.” Josh said from behind her. His voice had been controlled, calm, but when Jessica turned and saw his face, she froze. Josh was livid. His face was bright red … veins and eyes bulging. She hadn’t seen him this mad in so long. “Get on the damn horse Jessica!” he barked.
Jessica swung onto Chestnut. Josh didn’t follow. He stood in the clearing, weight resting on one hip, rifle gripped firmly in his hand, staring at the hole in the fence and waiting. Within minutes Scott and Jim came back through the hole.
“They’re gone …” Jim said as he and Scott neared. As Jim was about to pass by Josh, Josh raised his arms to the side and smashed the butt of his rifled into the side of Jim’s head. Jim fell like a brick.
“No!” Jessica screamed and flew off the horse, running toward Jim but Scott caught her around the waist and held her hard against him. She tried to struggle free but she could barely move, Scott’s arm pinning her in place against him.
“What are you doing Josh?” she demanded. “Jimmy, Jimmy, are you okay?” Jessica asked her voice tinged with hysteria. Jim groaned and began to move on the ground, bringing his hand to his head.
Hearing the tone of Jessica’s voice … seeing her face, Josh began to regret hitting Jim … but he was so mad.
“What the hell?” Jim asked as he slowly got to his feet, shaking his head.
“Jimmy!” Jessica cried, and now tears were running down her face.
“It’s okay Jess,” he said raising his hand to her. “Calm down … it’s okay. I think Josh has something he’d like to say to me …”
“Damn right I do!” Josh thundered shooting daggers at Jim with his eyes, but unable to keep from shifting his eyes to Jessica. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. And he realized now that hitting Jim like that in front of her had been a big mistake too. He should have waited until they were alone. “What the hell was that all about? Why would you fucking introduce Jessica to the neighbors? They’d barely seen her. We could’ve gotten away with barely any contact. Instead you introduce her! Have her shaking their fucking hands! Are you insane? Do you realize that if Riley or Angus were here, that would have been a bullet to your head rather than the butt end of the rifle?”
Jim was raising his hands, palms out, in surrender.
“I appreciate your restraint … really I do.” Jim was saying while blinking and shaking his head. The blow had been anything but restrained. He was feeling woozy. But he noticed the terror on Jessica’s face. Scott held her in a vice grip, she could barely move, and had in fact given up on it. Instead she hung from his waist, dangling like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf.
“For starters … can you put the damn gun down!” Jim said.
“No I can’t.” Josh replied, anger still burning in his voice. “I’m not sure I’m done with it yet.” Jim tilted his head toward Jessica.
Seeing the expression of stark terror etched onto her face made Josh promptly drop the gun. “I’m not going to use it Jessica.” Josh said, the fire gone out of his voice. “I’m just really pissed right now.”
“Okay.” Jessica said. “But you hit him pretty hard Josh. Can I please go and see if his head is okay?”
“That’s Scott’s call, not mine.” Josh replied.
Jessica tried to look over her shoulder at Scott, but couldn’t see his face.
“Scott, please?”
“Not until Jim explains himself. And then you explain yourself. You’re not exactly innocent in all of this Jessica … you went out of your way to speak to them.”
“That’s just because you were so rude!” Jessica bellowed, forgetting to be concerned about the anger in Scott’s voice.
“What?” all three men said in unison.
“Geez, have you no social skills at all?” Jessica demanded. “You were completely inhospitable! You can’t just snap at people, holy cow!”
“You spoke to them because you thought we were being rude?” Scott asked in complete disbelief.
“We could have blown them all away.” Josh said. “I’d say that in comparison we were down right civil.”
“That would’ve been lovely.” Jim said. “A blood bath … really inconspicuous.”
“And so your solution was to introduce them to Jessica?” Josh asked.
“Let me ask you something Josh,” Jim said forgetting about his head for the moment and stalking toward Josh. “Which do you think is better. Our friends make it home, tell their friends all about our encounter and say … ‘Well, there were four of them. Two of them were very rude,” and he gestured wildly at Scott and Josh, “one was really quiet,” he pointed at himself, “and then the girl was nice. Also an excellent shot … she killed both dogs.” Or …. “There’s something seriously wrong with our neighbors. They practically shot us, ran us off their land, and they kept hiding someone from us. It looked like a girl. Maybe we should get the sheriff to come up and check them out. Well?” He demanded.
“You introduced her to make us seem more normal?” Josh asked. He couldn’t have looked more surprised than if Jim had said that he was actually a woman.
“Holy shit!” Scott said in awe. To him there hadn’t been any option other than to fight. It seemed so black and white. But clearly Jim was far smarter than he ever gave him credit for. Scott looked at him in a whole new light. Jim was likely as tactically smart if not smarter than Riley. He couldn’t believe it.
Josh had reached the same conclusion. He bowed his head as shame washed over him. “I’m sorry man …” he said. “Here, take the rifle,” he said handing it over to him, “crack me on the head. I deserve it.”
“Forget it Josh, I don’t want to hit you.”
Josh slid his eyes over to Jessica who still hung from Scott’s grasp … looking at Jim like he was about to break. “I’m sorry Jess. You must think I’m a real jerk.”
Scott let Jessica down and she ran over to Jim and began feeling his head.
“I don’t think you’re a jerk Josh,” Jessica replied, “but you should never ever turn on each other like that. There can’t possibly be a reason good enough for that!”
Josh felt like the biggest heel in the world.
“I’m okay Jess, really.” Jim said as she fawned over him. “But, out of curiosity, how did the first interaction you’ve had with the outside world, in years, feel?”
“Christ …” Scott murmured as he looked over at Jessica. He saw Josh wince also. Of course … Jim had just proven that Jessica was telling the truth about not running away. She could have screamed bloody murder … begged for help. But she didn’t.
Jim was a real piece of work.
Jessica seemed taken aback as well.
“I guess that’s true.” She said leaning back and staring at Jim. “It was okay … I was too busy being embarrassed by Josh and Scott’s rudeness …” she said glancing from Scott to Josh, a smile developing on her face. “Next time … please, let me do the talking.” She giggled.
‘Next time,’ the words reverberated in Scott’s head. His first response should have been asserting the fact that there wouldn’t be a next time. But he wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
“Next time?” Josh said with a laugh, “Honey, there ain’t going to be a next …”
“Josh.” Jim interrupted. He shook his head when Josh looked over at him. “Never say never.”
Jessica looked from Jim, to Josh, to Scott and realization set in and with it excitement. “Do you mean it? Could I see those men again? Do you think there are any women in their family?”
“Whoa, whoa Jess.” Jim said holding his hands up, “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. We still have Riley and Angus to deal with. I’m just saying that it may not be a bad idea to give these two,” he nodded his head at Scott and Josh, “some social lessons. You know, just in case.”
“Oh fuck off.” Scott muttered annoyed that he, the most social of the five of them had given Jessica such a bad first impression. He watched a flurry of emotions cross Jessica’s face as she recovered from the disappointment of not getting the friends she’d hoped for out of the neighbors. And as Jessica finally seemed to accept the situation, he had an epiphany. A kaleidoscope of images flashed through his mind. Jessica riding the horses full speed, shaking hands with the neighbors, looking excited about the prospect of having friends, and then accepting the fact that it wasn’t going to happen … but it could. It could happen and Scott knew how. He was so astounded by the idea, it was so radical by his standards that he could only gape in wonder . He had to run it by Jim and Josh, get their buy in. Jessica giggled uncontrollably snapping Scott out of his daze. He surmised that Jessica had misinterpreted his reaction as one of pretend anger because she was rolling her eyes up at him in the same shy way she did in the bedroom when he was trying to be funny.
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