Down Hill Water

Down load Part Seven

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Frank’s Coming

            "They're the pig's peas," Fred said.  "She has to have something now and then.  Are there any leftovers that we won't eat in the fridge or scraps from making dinner last night?"
            Yeah, there's some stuff in that bowl over there and another bowl of something in the refrigerator you can give her," she said.  "I suppose you would like to bring her in the house to warm up a while too."
            "No, I think I'll pass on that.  She's too hard to get out of here, once she gets in.  Last time she got in here, she knocked over all the furniture before we wrestled her back outside again.  I think I'll go sweep off the couch on the porch for her though.  I might even find her a blanket or something.  There is a kind of tarp like thing out in one of the sheds I could throw over her once she finishes eating."
            He went to the refrigerator, took out the bowl of leftovers, combined it with the bowl from the counter and turned back to Ellis.  "Where's those peas?"
            "They're in the back of that cupboard."  He pointed to one of the lower cupboards.
            Fred opened the door and took out what was left of a large cloth sack of peas, put a couple of hand fulls into the bowl and slid the sack back under the counter.  Picking up the broom, he went out on the front porch, set the bowl down and swept the snow off the couch.  Effie oinked and grunted happily when she got to the bowl and Fred reached down, stroking the thin coarse hair on her back and sides, before he went back inside.
            "Jesus, it's cold out there," he said as he shut the door and set the broom down.  "I think I better put on a coat to find that tarp."  He picked the thirty-eight up off the counter and went to the coat hooks for his coat.  "I suppose we should keep these handy today," he said, poking the gun down the front of his pants and went out the back door.
            Francine picked up the tobacco that lay in the center of the table and began rolling a cigarette.  "You want me to make you a real cigarette, Ellis?"  She said smiling across the table at him.
            "Sure, why not?"  He answered, getting up and going into the parlor.  He checked the stove and finding it doing okay, he picked the candy tin up and brought it back into the kitchen.  "Maybe, we should fill this thing up with enough joints to last a day or two and then stash the rest of the dope somewhere hard to get to, so we're a little better prepared for the cops, if they come."
            "Yeah, that's a good idea.  Get out the big bag, and I'll roll up a bunch of them and then we can hide the bag somewhere.  I suppose we need to dig out all the pipes and roach-clips and anything else that has to do with drugs too.  Where do you think we should stash all that shit?"
            "I was thinking we could put it all in a bucket or something and bury it under the hay mow in the barn," he said, picking up the cigarette she had set on the table between them.
            "We better make it so Effie can't get at it.  That would be a real bummer if she found it and ate it or something."
            "There used to be a big metal can out in the granary with a lid that fits real tight.  I'll go look for it in a bit.  I think if we move some of the hay and dig a hole for the stuff, then cover it back up with the hay, it would be safe from both Effie and the cops."
            Effie had finished her mixture of peas and scraps and began to root at the door, just as Fred returned with the tarp.  He called softly to her and patted the cushions on the couch.  She nosed over to him and with a little more coaxing, climbed up onto the broken down old couch and lay down.  Fred covered all but her snout with the tarp, stroked her soft nose and came back inside.
            "There," he said, taking off his coat and hanging it up, "that ought to keep her happy for a while."
            "Hey Fred," Ellis said, "we were just thinking that we should clean the place out of all our dope related shit and ditch it, until this thing with Frank's over with."
            "Yeah, good idea."
            "Do you have any pipes or anything up in your room?"  Francine asked.
            "I have one pipe is all, I think.  Duncan has a couple, I'm sure and I don't know what John has.  Where you plan on taking all the stuff?"
            "Ellis was thinking of burying it under the hay mow."  She reached over to the stove, picked up the coffeepot and filled her cup, then set the pot on the table and slid it toward Ellis.
            He filled his own cup along with Fred's and set the pot back on the stove.  They sat quietly watching Francine roll joints for a few minutes and then Fred picked up one of the deftly made little cylinders, inspected it's craftsmanship and put one end in his mouth.
            "You got some fire, Ellis?"  He asked.
            Ellis tossed him a book of matches.  He lit the joint and handed it to Francine, who paused briefly, took a hit and passed it on to Ellis.  Footsteps were heard on the stairs and Duncan came around the corner into the kitchen.  Ellis held the joint out to him without a word and he took it.
            "Where's this go next?"  He said, still trying to hold his breath.
            Fred held out his hand, Duncan handed it to him and then went into the bathroom.
            When he came out, he picked up a cup from the dish rack, filled it and sat down.  "Well, what's up?  Is this the day Frank finds us?"  He asked without really looking for an answer.
            He didn't get an answer.  He just got a question.
            "You got any pot or paraphernalia around that could get us busted?"  Fred asked.  "We're going to clean out the house except for what we need, so if the cops end up out here, we're ready for them."
            "Yeah, I got a couple things up in my room," he answered.  "When are you going to do this?"
            "Oh, I don't know.  After we eat something, I guess."  Fred took a hit on the joint and passed it to Francine.
            Francine waved it away, jumped up and opened the oven door.  "Fuck!"  She said.  "I'll bet I just burned the shit out of the cakes."  She reached in, grabbing the pan with her bare hand, jerking it away immediately, shaking it in the air and then sticking two fingers in her mouth.  "Goddamn that fuckers hot!"  She rolled her sleeve down over her hand, pulled the pan out of the oven onto the open door and looked at the cakes.  They had darkened some, but weren't black yet.  She felt one.  It was dry and hard on the surface, but felt like it might be soft yet inside.  She snatched it up, took it to the counter and taking a knife from the dish rack, she cut it open.  "Well," she said turning around to the boys at the table, "they won't be as good as they could have been, but they're edible.  A lot of butter might help."
            She went to the refrigerator, took out the butter and set it on the table.  Ellis reached down, picked up the pan of cakes lightly with both hands and quickly put it on the edge of the table.  He shook his hands as well.
            "Jesus, that is hot," he said, sliding the pan to the center of the table.
            Francine set three butter-knives on the table and sat down.  "Go for it," she said.  "They'll be a little dry, but they'll be okay."
            "Like Boesel always said; 'brown's burnt and black's done'.  They look alright to me."  He grabbed up one of the knives, cut open a cake and proceeded to spread butter on it.
            The others followed.  They sat eating and making small talk.  They each finished one and split the remaining two, each getting half.  When they were done, Ellis stood up, placed the pan and knives on the counter and crudely wiped the crumbs off the table, into his hand with his sleeve.  He held the handful of crumbs for a moment, looking at them and then popped them into his mouth.
            "Waste not, want not," he said, chewing them up and swallowing them.
            "Oh God, you're gross," Francine said, contorting her mouth into pinched shape that indicated her disapproval.  God only knows, what was on that table besides crumbs."
            Fred and Duncan each licked the end of a finger, picking up the crumbs Ellis had missed and eating them.
            "You guys are all gross," she said, shaking her head at the lot of them.
            There were several thumps from upstairs and the sound of two sets of feet coming down the stairs.
            "Looks like the love-birds are up," Duncan announced as John and Molly appeared in the kitchen.
            "Well, sleep in why don't you?  It's almost ten o'clock," Francine said, laughing.
            "Oh, we were really tired," John said sarcastically.
            "Doesn't look like anyone's going to school today," Duncan said, taking the last drink of his coffee.
            "It snowed last night," John explained as Molly headed for the bathroom, "and we can't be driving after a snow.  You know how dangerous it is."
            They all laughed and John went to the sink, picked up two cups and walked around the table to the stove.  He picked up the coffeepot, poured what was left of the coffee into the cups and went back to the counter.  "That's it for the coffee," he said as Molly came out of the bathroom.
            "I'll make some more," Francine said, starting to get up.
            "Oh no, I'll get it," Molly said walking to the sink.  "I haven't done anything around here yet.  I might as well make some coffee."  She stood on her tiptoes to give John a quick kiss and then began making a fresh pot of coffee.
            John sat down in the last chair, looking at the scatter of cups and the pile of various other things, congregated in the center of the table when Ellis wiped up the crumbs.  He spied the open candy tin, now completely full of freshly rolled joints.  They were lined up side by side, three layers deep and four in a row, with one extra, sitting diagonally on top.  "Francine's been doing her job, I see," he said, reaching for the joint on top.
            "Yup!"  She said, with a smile.  "I rolled up a baker's dozen, but the little tin will only hold twelve."
            "Well, I guess we better get this one smoked up, so you can close the tin."  He picked up a book of matches from the cluttered pile and lit the joint.  Choking slightly, he took a drink of his coffee and handed the joint on to Fred.  "You know, we need one more chair in here, so we can all sit down," he said looking around, hoping to see another chair.
            "There's another chair in my room," Francine offered.
            "There's one in my room, too and Fred has one and..."  Ellis began, but was interrupted.
            "Yeah, and there's one out in the barn somewhere and there's two in the granary, I think," Duncan threw in.  "We've got plenty of chairs around, even if we're short on other stuff."
            "I'll grab the one out of my room, for now," Francine said, standing up to get the wooden chair from her room.  As she threw the pile of clothes that lay on the chair onto the bed, she could hear Punt's loud bark pierce through the walls of the house in a series of rapid high pitched howls.  She returned to the kitchen, chair in hand, as John went to the window.  He looked down the empty wind-swept expanse, to where the road came around a corner.  There was nothing to see, but Punt kept up his barking and the other dogs joined in.
            Fred too, went to the window and as he got there, a car came into sight in the distance.  It was light blue with a dark top.  John's heart throttled forward, pumping faster.  He knew it was Frank immediately.  The image of that car had fastened itself to his mind the other day, when he and Molly had seen it in town and it had hung there constantly, waiting for this moment.  He just stared down the road at it coming toward them.  He was frozen and speechless.
            "Well, is that him?"  Fred asked.
            John nodded, but didn't say a word.  He couldn't.  Molly stepped to the window, looking out, just as the car went behind the granary sitting out at the head of the driveway.  When it reappeared, it pulled into the driveway, slowed and stopped behind Duncan's Toyota.
            "That's him!"  Molly said.  "Oh, Goddamn, that's him."
            Ellis had already grabbed the shotgun, handed it to Francine and was picking up the rifle when Molly spoke.  Fred turned from the window and picked up the thirty-eight from the counter.
            "Hey Molly," Ellis said moving toward the back door,  "Do you have anything to say to him, because if not, you don't have to."
            "No way!" she answered.  "I have nothing to say to him.  In fact, I'm not even going out there."  She turned from the window and went into the parlor.
            "I'll go out the front, Ellis and you go to the back.  We don't let him in the house, right?"  Francine said, as she moved to the door out onto the front porch.
            "Where should I be?"  Fred asked, still standing next to the counter.
            "I think you should stay in here for now, just in case he gets in, somehow," Francine said.
            "I don't want him more than five feet from that car, if we can help it," Ellis said opening the door to the back porch.  "Let's just let him talk a little and then run him out of here, if we can.  Better hurry, he's getting out."
            Francine and Ellis went out different doors and met Frank, from about thirty feet away, as he stepped out of his car.  The dogs had quit barking and were walking around the car, smelling the tires.  He shut the door to his car and began to walk around the front of it to the house.  As he reached the front bumper, Francine called to him.
            "Hey!"  She yelled.  "Don't come any further."  He looked startled, but took another step.
            "I said don't come any closer," she yelled again, as Ellis cycled a shell into the chamber of the rifle.
            Frank heard the sound of the rifle and stopped.  "What the hell's the matter with you people anyway," he said reaching inside his coat.  "You sure as hell aren't very friendly."
            "Listen here Frank," Francine said calmly.  "We know who you are and why you're here.  Molly doesn't have anything to say to you and she isn't going to see you, now or ever, so you might as well just turn your ass around and get the hell out of here."
            "Look honey, this ain't none of your business, so why don't you just stay out of it and send Molly out here, right now."
            "Tell you what Frank," she said, still calmly, but showing a bit of anger.  "If you call me honey again, I'm going to blow your fucking head off.  Molly isn't going anywhere with you and you better just leave, right now."
            "I'm not going anywhere, until I see Molly.  You tell her to get her stuff and get out here.  And why don't you put that gun down before you hurt yourself.  You're not going to shoot anyone," he said, pulling his hand out from under his coat.  He held a large automatic pistol, like the Colt Fred had coveted in the hardware store, several days before.  He held it out for Francine to see.  "I've got one of those too, but I will shoot someone, if you don't get Molly out here right now."  He took another step, but stopped as she leveled the shotgun toward him

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Copyright © 2007. Ed Gnaedinger.