An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (22 page)

     It didn’t take Dave long before he realized that he’d forgotten a very important item. After he pushed the needle through the rabbit’s hide a few times, his right thumb started to develop a blister.

     “Darn it!” he said aloud.

     He’d forgotten to pack a thimble.

     Now, a lot of husbands would have merely gone to their wife’s sewing kit in hopes of finding a thimble large enough to fit over their thumb.

     But Sarah wasn’t a seamstress.

     Sarah’s idea of repairing a loose hem or missing button was throwing the garment in the nearest Goodwill collection box and heading to the store for a replacement.

     That habit had frustrated Dave in the past, because he considered himself thrifty. Sarah considered him cheap. But it all boiled down to the same thing.

     “That’s the way I was raised,” Sarah would tell him. “So it’s not my fault. My grandmother had an old Singer sewing machine that she willed to my mom. Mom made a planter out of it.

     “That’s what we did in my family. We planted things. We didn’t sew. So sue me if you want, but I am the way I am. So deal with it, Bucko.

     “And by the way, if you’re going to sue me, you’ll have to wait until I get back. I’m headed out to Kohl’s.”

     The memory brought a smile to Dave’s face, and he even chuckled.

     With no thimble available, he did the next best thing by tearing off a piece of duct tape and wrapping it around his thumb four times.

     Problem solved.

-42-

     A few nights later, Dave carefully approached the Woodards’ front porch. He’d waited for several days hoping for a break in the cold. And in fact, it had gone above twenty degrees two nights in a row. He was hoping it would go higher, but it dropped again instead.

     He had no doubt that the weather gods were laughing at him and saying, “You should have gone when you had the chance, bonehead.”

     It was just after ten p.m. and he was hoping his friends were still up.

     He rapped on the door.

     “Frank! Eva! Are you awake? It’s Dave.”

     He heard shuffling in the house almost immediately.

     From the other side of the door he heard, “Just a minute, Dave. Eva’s looking for her housecoat.”

     A few seconds later the door opened, and Frank, dressed on flannel pajamas and a thick robe, stepped aside to let him enter.

     Dave looked down at the pink bunny slippers on Frank’s feet.

     “Don’t ask,” Frank said. “It was a joke gift from a friend with a weird sense of humor. But they’re damned warm, so I don’t much care how they look.”

     “How are you, my friend?”

     “I’m fine, Dave. And how are you doing?”

     “Oh, you know. I’ve been better. But I’ve been worse too. I’m still counting the days.”

     From the kitchen came another voice.

     “Hello, Dave. Get comfortable. I’m going to heat us up some coffee.”

     Then the unmistakable sound of the generator being fired up in the garage.

     “Thank you, Eva. Sounds good.”

     Frank led his friend into the living room and they sat down in front of the fire. Dave noticed that the mattress the couple slept on in front of the fire was leaning up against the wall.

     “Does this mean I caught you before you went to bed this time?”

     “Yes. Your timing is getting better. We were starting to wind down, and would have been in bed in another half hour or so. But…”

     Eva walked out of the kitchen and finished his sentence for him.

     “…but we’d much rather visit with a friend and find out what you’ve been up to.”

     “Oh, the usual. Just trying to find enough stuff to keep me busy, and counting down the days until this blasted winter is over with.”

     Frank said, “One of the neighbors collects copies of the Farmer’s Almanac, dating back into the 1800s. He says this is the worst winter on record for San Antonio.”

     Dave chuckled.

     “Yeah, I kinda thought that might be the case.”

     Eva sat down on an easy chair.

     She turned to Dave.

     “We worried about you on Christmas day, home alone all by yourself. Did you get through it okay?”

     “Oh, yes, actually it was better than I expected. I spent the whole day sipping hot chocolate and watching old home movies. I relived every Christmas my family and I have had together. It was a real treat seeing Sarah pregnant again. And hearing my girls sing Christmas songs together, and giggle when they messed up the words, was the best Christmas gift ever.

     “Oh, and that reminds me. I brought you guys a couple of things.”

     “Really?”

     Dave went into his backpack and pulled out the two pairs of mittens he’d sewn days before. He handed the smaller set to Eva and the larger ones to Frank.

     “I didn’t know what size you needed. If they don’t fit, I can alter them or make others. I have plenty of rabbit furs at home now.”

     Eva’s eyes formed tears as she slipped them on her hands and then walked over to hug Dave.

     “They fit perfectly. And they’re so warm. Is that rabbit fur on the inside as well?”

     “Yes, ma’am. They’ll keep your fingers nice and warm even when you’re outside for awhile.”

     “Thank you Dave. You’re so thoughtful.”

     Frank said, “Yes. Thank you, my friend. I feel bad because we have nothing to give you in return.”

     “Nonsense, Frank. You two have given me something way more precious than these things. You’ve given me your friendship, and a lifeline. I have someone I can come and talk to. I can interact with other humans now, and that may be just the thing I need to keep from going insane. So thank you for that.”

     “Well, it’s a little late now, but Merry Christmas to you, my friend.”

     “The same to you, and God bless you for your kindness.

     “Oh! There’s something else too. I almost forgot.”

     Dave reached back into the backpack and pulled out the brick that he’d thought was cocaine.

     He noticed that Frank’s eyebrows instantly raised. The last vestiges of a suspicious lawman’s mind, he guessed.

     “Oh, don’t worry, Frank. It’s not what it looks like.”

     He handed it to Eva and said, “It’s raw coffee beans. Sarah ordered them off the internet. They came from Brazil, and there’s a little card inside that tells you how to make them sprout and how to plant them.”

     Frank’s mouth immediately watered at the prospect of fresh coffee.

     Eva said, “Oh, my goodness. Thank you, dear. But why give something so precious to us? Do you have more to plant yourself?”

     “No, ma’am, this is all of them. I didn’t find them soon enough to plant them last spring, and I won’t be here to do it this spring. And I don’t know if they’ll be any good if I let them sit for another year.

     “Frank told me you like to grow things and have a green thumb. So I was hoping maybe you could plant the beans when the weather finally warms again. Maybe if you produce enough, you can pass some around the neighborhood so others can grow their own coffee. And maybe you’ll let Sarah and I come by for a cup occasionally when we get back from Kansas City.”

     Eva was like a little girl. She grinned from ear to ear and was positively giddy.

     “Well, you already know that you’re welcome anytime, and I can’t wait to meet Sarah. She sounds like a wonderful woman. If she’s a gardener too, then we’ll have many things to share, and I’ll bet we’ve got other things in common too. And I promise you, the very first beans to come off the plants will be put aside to pay you back for these.”

     She got up and hugged Dave again, then wiped a tear from her eye.

     “You know, when something like this happens, you don’t realize how much you’ll miss the little things. I’ve actually had dreams about having a cup of coffee that was fresh and flavorful, instead of old and stale. Thank you so much.”

     She turned to Frank and asked, “Did you ever tell Dave what they call him around the neighborhood?”

     “Yes. The ‘angel who comes in the night.’ But that was just when he brought rabbits and seeds to share. Now that he’s sharing his coffee, I reckon the neighborhood will promote him into sainthood.”

     Dave got up and started to put his parka back on.

     “Oh, don’t go, Dave. You just got here. Stay and visit awhile.”

     “I’d love to, Eva. But I have another mission I need to do tonight, and I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

     Frank stood up and asked, “Is it something I can help you with?”

     “No thank you, my friend. This is something I have to do myself.”

     “Will you come back soon, and stay and visit next time?”

     “Yes, I will. Very soon. I promise.”

-43-

     Dave left the Woodards’ home and walked half a block to a black Ford Explorer, stalled in the middle of the street like thousands of others around the city.

     Long before he knew Frank and Eva, on the day the power had gone out, he had unknowingly just driven past their house when his engine died.

     Now here it was, on the very same spot, covered with dust and a few frozen cobwebs on the undercarriage.

     The street had a very slight grade. He’d never noticed it before the first time he lugged eight bottles of water from his house to Frank’s. Then it was so noticeable he felt like he was climbing Mount Everest. Until that time, though, he always thought it was flat.

     He guessed it was no more than a one degree down grade, maybe two at the most. But he hoped it would be enough to either do most of his work for him, or at least make it easier to push the vehicle home.

     He chose this night to do it for several reasons. There was no snow on the road. High winds a couple of days before had blown most of it away. The afternoon sun’s rays were enough to evaporate the rest, even though the temperatures never went above freezing.

     In addition, there was heavy cloud cover tonight. Absolutely no light from the moon and the stars that would enable others to see what he was doing.

     He had night vision goggles in his backpack, so he’d manage. The goggles worked best when there was moonlight or starlight to amplify. But they also worked to amplify the vague glow from the clouds. It was dark, but he’d manage.

     He slipped his car keys from the pocket of his jeans and put them into the ignition. After the better part of a year, an action he’d once done several times a day now seemed somehow awkward to him.

     He had a strange vision of turning the key and hearing the engine suddenly roar to life.

     Yeah, right.

     Instead, he turned the key to unlock the transmission selector without making a sound.

     He looked around one last time to make sure there was no one else on the street. Then he shifted the vehicle into neutral and crossed his fingers.

     Dave didn’t really expect the Explorer to start rolling on its own. The truth was, he was hoping it would, though.

     When it didn’t, he stepped back onto the pavement and, with one hand on the steering wheel, placed his other hand on the door frame and leaned into it.

     It started to roll. Very slowly at first, and then picking up momentum with each step he took.

     He wouldn’t notice until later that the right front tire, on the side of the vehicle he couldn’t see, was almost flat. And when he saw it, he’d curse under his breath and wonder if that was what kept it from rolling home on its own.

     But that was later. Now, his present problem was keeping the momentum going to prevent the vehicle from coming to a standstill again.

     It wasn’t hard to push once it got rolling, but it was still a strain on legs that hadn’t been on a weight machine at the gym in well over a year. And which had gotten little exercise of any kind lately either.