When Venus Fell (46 page)

But the guests adored Ella. She was comfortable in the role of hostess. Carter looked as if he’d burst with pride at the compliments she received.

I continued to stand at the screen door to the cluttered kitchen porch, being ignored. Finally Isabel noticed me and slid to a stop. “Mr. Rubins, the publisher of the retired-teachers’ travel magazine, found a hair in the fried chicken. Thank goodness he mentioned it just as Ebb set the platter down. So we’re scrambling to serve something else. FeeMolly won’t tolerate a hair. Not even one.”

I wasn’t going to brave FeeMolly’s bad mood. “
Hasta la vista
, ladies. I’m going back to the music room and crouch behind the bar.”

Dylan suddenly wailed from a corner. He was cornered in his stroller. Isabel ran over and picked him up. “Here’s what you can do! Take Dylan for a walk. He’s so fussy! Here.”

Before I could protest my lack of maternal skills she slid the chubby, sweater-suited baby into a coat, mittens, and a knitted cap, then set him in a cloth sling and brought him out on the porch. I grudgingly donned Gib’s quilted jacket, which hung on a peg along the porch wall. Isabel held out Dylan cheerfully, “Now you put your arms through the sling there, and there; turn around—that’s it—I’ll latch this clasp across your back, and voilà! You’re wearing a baby on your chest! It’s the latest fashion trend.”

I looked down at Dylan. He looked up at me. We were both too amazed to make a sound. He drummed his heels into my rib cage on both sides. “Ouch.”

“Take him for a walk around the yards,” Isabel urged. “He
loves
to walk, and you’ve got a good thirty minutes before dark.”

“Terrific,” I said with no enthusiasm. I lumbered down the porch steps. I felt as if I’d suddenly gained thirty pounds,
all in my breasts. Doing what came naturally, Dylan sank one of his tiny, strong hands into my sweater and grabbed the nearest soft spot.

“I bet you learned
that
technique from your cousin Carter.” I pried his fingers off and trudged onward. Shag and about six other dogs trotted after me, then veered off to chase a rabbit that raced through the apple orchard. The cold evening air felt damp; the sky was lower and grayer than the day before. I ambled awkwardly toward a cluster of old wooden sheds on the far side of the yards, where the hills were lined with rows of wire trellises covered in the naked, spidery vines of cultivated muscadine, blueberry, and blackberry.

One of the sheds was no more than a peaked tin roof supported on either side by thick peeled-log posts. The shed sat off by itself, with a large truck partially parked under it, so that the truck’s sun-faded red cab protruded from one end. Its scraped and dented metal bed had a high wooden tailgate and head-high wooden sides screened with fine-mesh hardware wire to keep out foraging critters.

This was the Hall’s low-tech garbage-processing system. Cans and bottles went into separate boxes for transportation to a recycling center in Knoxville. Paper went into a burn pile beyond the horse barn.

The kitchen’s meatier food scraps were fed to the dogs and cats, but the rest of the leftovers went into large plastic garbage cans that one of Ebb’s ex-husbands, Elmer—who ran a sporting goods shop in Hightower—carted off to spread on his bait-worm beds.

As I walked along a path behind the fruit-vine trellises, I glanced toward the garbage truck. Two thirty-gallon galvanized-steel garbage cans were locked inside the bed. As I squinted into the shadows I thought I saw movement in the back of the truck. Suddenly one of the trash-can lids clattered to the metal floor.

“I bet one of the cats got in there,” I muttered. “Come on,
Dylan, my little nipple-twister, let’s go chase the kitty out of the trash cans. The last thing we need is ripe garbage spread from here to yon for the guests to smell.”

I marched up to the tailgate, peered through the screen in the dim light, and banged on the wire. “Shoo, cat! You want to end up in Fee-Molly’s stew?”

A chubby black form darted from behind the cans. It was several times taller than any cat, too wide to be a dog, and too upset to be a tame farm animal of any known variety. My nose curled at its odor, a stink like rancid lard. Two beady eyes met mine. The small, black, nasty-smelling
thing
took one look at me and began trying to climb the walls of the truck bed. Falling back down repeatedly, it began bawling with piteous, growling wails.

My heart stopped. “You’re a baby—”

Dylan waved his hands at something behind us. I whirled around. A large, full-grown black bear galloped toward Dylan and me. I assumed she was the cub’s mother. She opened a mouth full of pointed teeth, and roared.

I ran toward the front of the truck. Dylan bounced merrily in his sling. I grabbed the handle on the passenger door and jerked it open. The window was rolled down. I scooted onto the seat and reached for the window crank.

A babyish growl came from behind me. I pivoted wildly and looked down. A cub about half the size of the other one huddled on the floorboard under the steering wheel. It looked up at me with a wad of greasy waxed paper in its mouth. The shredded remnants of a lunch bag were strewn around it.

I had no idea whether a cub that small would attack or not. I shoved the door open and bounded outside again. I began screaming steadily and at the top of my lungs, like a female gibbon alerting the other monkeys to danger.

My four-hundred-pound Mama Bear nemesis was less than a dozen strides away, and gaining on me. Still screaming, I launched myself at the truck’s hood and scrambled clumsily. I made my way on hands and knees to the windshield,
staggered to my feet, and climbed up on the cab’s roof, and then—a foot higher—onto the roof of the shed.

The bear circled, growling. I squatted on the peak of the slippery tin roof, my arms curled around Dylan. He chortled and waved his hands. The dogs returned, adding their high-pitched yelps to the chaos. Most weren’t brave enough to close in on the bear, but at least Shag and his blue-eyed brethren began nipping at her hind end.

She couldn’t have cared less. She uttered one gut-twisting bellow after another as she rose on her back legs and shoved the truck with her front paws. She snarled and paced, swinging her head and sniffing the air, while her cubs scrambled to get out—a feat that obviously proved harder than getting in. Suddenly the mother bear bit the truck’s front bumper. Then she used it like a footstool and started climbing. She got up on the hood and bit the windshield wipers. I had horrifying visions of her coming right up on the shed’s roof. She roared at me and started climbing.

A shot rang out. The bear slipped and tumbled off the truck’s hood like a huge black marshmallow. Once she righted herself she swung her head toward the Hall. I’m sure the average, unmotivated bear would have run for the hills long before dogs and guns became an issue, but with both of her cubs trapped in the truck, dogs and gunshots only made her pause.

I peered frantically down the path beyond the vineyard, yelling, “It’s a bear, it’s a bear!” to be helpful. Gib ran into sight. He tucked a large, wicked automatic pistol into his belt. In his left hand he held the antique, ceremonial Scottish claymore that hung by the Hall’s front doors.

He threw back his head then gave a ferocious shout that made the bear bristle. She bounded forward as he reached her, swatting the tip of the sword with her front paw. Gib parried then thrust, nicking the tip of her nose enough to draw blood. She shook her head then turned around and defiantly bit the truck’s right front tire. Gib jabbed the sword’s tip into her rump.

With that prodding she galloped around to the truck’s opposite side. Gib climbed nimbly atop the truck and handed me the pistol, butt-end first. The gun was heavy enough to make my arm sag when I took it.

“Use both hands,” he lectured calmly. “The gun’s cocked and ready. Aim for her eyes and pull the trigger if she gets up here again. If you have to kill her, do it.”

“I will,” I said just as calmly. Screaming had weaned me from nervous confusion. I absorbed his confidence and felt strong. I had a baby to protect. How primitive we are when life and death are that simple.

Gib crawled down into the bed of the truck. The half-grown bear cub pounced at him and caught his left arm with its claws. His shirtsleeve ripped. He lightly smacked the cub with the flat side of the sword, and when it backed off he reached over the tailgate, jerked the bolt on the latch, and the tailgate fell open.

The cub scrambled to the edge and tumbled off. Gib swung the tailgate up again, and locked it. Then he climbed back up beside me on the roof. Knotting both hands around the claymore’s engraved silver handle, he frowned as he tracked the mother bear’s continued, ferocious pacing beneath us. “She ought to leave now,” he said. “There’s no reason for her to hang around after her cub’s free.”

“There’s another cub in the cab,” I explained.

He looked at me askance. Then he sighed. “I
hate
it when that happens.”

He climbed down, again. When he landed beside the truck the mother bear roared and came at him on her hind legs. Gib jousted with her, keeping her at bay, but she wouldn’t give in. When she slapped the sword hard and knocked it out of his hand I panicked. I didn’t want to kill anything’s mother, but this was, after all, a battle between females to protect their own. She had her cubs. I had Dylan and Gib.

I wrapped one arm around Dylan’s ears, thrust the heavy
pistol out with adrenaline-inspired strength, and aimed at the bear’s broad forehead. “I’m going to shoot,” I yelled.

“No, wait.” Gib grabbed blindly for the latch on the driver’s-side door. His stiff, scarred fingers performed their simple service like an unyielding hook. The door swung open. The other bear cub rolled out like a balled-up mealybug and hit the ground running. It bolted in the direction its older sibling had taken, straight for the safety of the woods.

The mother bear pivoted and galloped after it. The dogs chased her for a few seconds, then, panting, lay down in the grass under the muscadine vines.

In the newly restored silence, my own breath sounded like a tidal wave.

Gib picked up the sword, then looked at me. I had the gun trained on the woods where the bear had disappeared. “Easy now,” he said. “I know that gun isn’t as lethal as pepper spray, but it’s a helluva lot louder.” A thin trickle of blood slipped from under his torn shirtsleeve and dripped from his left hand. I stared at it. My stomach churned. “I think I’ll stay right here for a few months,” I said.

Dylan, meanwhile, had started to yawn.

Gib climbed up patiently and took the pistol from my frozen grip. “Come on down, Goldilocks. The three bears are off in the woods settling the profound question of whether their hearing’s gone. You scream like a banshee.”

Gib tucked the pistol in the back of his trousers, then held out his hands. I clambered down with enough grace, but my knees shook when I reached the ground. We turned and saw a crowd running our way—most of the guests and all of the family. Isabel, crying, unlatched the baby harness and cuddled Dylan to her chest. I sagged gratefully. Gib put his arm around me. “I think this weekend is doomed,” he said, “but all that matters is you and Dylan are safe. And I’m proud of you.”

“I’ll love you forever,” I answered, just low enough that only I could hear it.

•   •   •

Right after dinner it began to snow. An hour later, the electricity went out and the gas furnace broke down.

We parceled out quilts, brought in extra wood for all the fireplaces, moved mattresses downstairs so that people could gather in the lower rooms, and patrolled two dozen kerosene lamps that were lit throughout. Ruth showed up in her four-wheel-drive truck with extra wood and propane tanks for emergency space-heaters. “We should have known better than to open in the winter,” Ruth complained to Isabel. “Simon had the good sense to shut down when the weather was about to turn bad.”

“But he never turned people away,” she replied. “And some of the best weekends were snowy.”

“This isn’t snow. This is a
blizzard
. Guests will be broiling each other’s gizzards for snacks before it’s over.”

When Isabel tearfully reported this conversation to Bea, Bea snorted. She consulted with Olivia, then told Gib, “It’s time to call on Bacchus, the god of wine! Go tell the guests. Free liquor for all!”

The situation turned into a giant adult pajama party, and the Hall took on a different, ghostly nature as the lamplight and firelight turned back time. I played dance tunes and Broadway ballads in the music room; people danced and drank hot-rum ciders and feasted on platters of Fee-Molly’s cheese straws and pastries.

“People eat so
much
when they’re drinking in the dark,” Ella joked weakly as she traipsed back to the kitchen for another plate. Carter caught her by one arm. “You’ve done enough. I’ll haul these groceries.”

“Sit,” I agreed. “You’re so tired you’re wobbling.” Ella immediately snuggled down in a chair by the fireplace in the family den. I brought her a glass of brandy. She refused it, smiled at me, and in a few minutes fell asleep. I pulled a knitted throw higher over her shoulder.

“Is she okay?” Gib asked from the den doorway.

“She’s just tired. When she gets nervous she loses steam in a hurry.”

Sometime after midnight the guests burrowed into their makeshift beds on the floor. Isabel, Gib, and I slumped at the kitchen table with exhausted relief. “Ruth’s going to staff the front desk for the rest of the night,” Gib noted. “Ebb’s back on duty at dawn.”

Min walked in. “I checked on the guests. I just hope nobody got on the wrong mattress. I haven’t got the energy to break up a fight.”

“Or an orgy,” I added. “I hope rumors don’t get around about that apple-muffin technique.”

Gib rubbed his forehead. “The snoring reminds me of the Marine barracks after a long night on leave.”

Min groaned. “Pigs, bears, broken furnaces, snow, no electricity—this is a disaster.”

Isabel shook her head. “I may be wrong, but I think the guests are having fun.”

“They’re being polite.”

“They’re having a unique experience,” Gib countered. “We know that much for sure.”