Coming to Collect

The woods that covered the Dovetail property were mostly pines and spruce, and their endless needles provided a soft carpeted forest floor for Susie Dovetail to run through, which she did almost daily. Her younger brother, Emmett, would try to tag along sometimes, but his eight years was clumsier than her twelve, and he usually became frustrated from falling down so much, leaving Susie to have the woods for herself.
    Today she was bolting around the thick, gnarled trunks of trees with a particular hop in her step. She’d finished her chores around the house early, and was able to get outside while the landscape was still misted in a fine dew, and the freshness of the earth and endless green things filled her nose with a most welcome scent.
    She rounded a uniquely sharp curve in the shallow trail that led around their property, and came to a stop beneath a tall spruce. She sat down against its trunk and caught her breath. After a few minutes, she went about her favorite part of the run, carving another notch into the big spruce’s trunk. She’d made hundreds of them over the last few years, and the tree stood out ornately patterned among the rest. She took out her pocketknife and began to whittle, until she’d dug a fresh groove into the bark.
In the distance she could hear the warbling sound of her father’s harmonica, and she could picture him cradling it against his bearded face on the front porch to the small homesteader cabin.
    Susie stuck her pinkies in either corners of her mouth and whistled back to her father in a long, high tone. She wiped her brow and started back for the house; lunch would be ready soon.
    After finishing her plateful of potatoes and roast, Susie sat back in her chair and looked out the window as the rest of the family carried on.
    “Mother, when do we die?” Emmett asked.
    “Not for a very long time,” she said.
    “How long?” Emmett said.
    “Don’t disturb your mother,” his father said.
    “But when?”
    “Why are you so worried about it?” his mother asked.
    “I have lots to do,” Emmett said dignified.
    His mother chuckled.
    “You do, do you?” she asked with a playful tone.
    “Mmm hmm, I’m going to be a cowboy, and a pirate, and a space man. I think space man will take the longest,” he said.
    His mother cleared his plate and set paper and colored pencils in front of him, which he devoured and began to draw.
    “And you, Susie? What do you want to do?” she asked from the kitchen.
    Susie was paying only mild attention, too busy staring out the window at the small shape that was getting bigger on the dirt road. It was a black sedan, bumping up and down as it approached the house.
    “Who’s that?” she asked, and Emmett whipped round to inspect.
    Susie’s father stood from the table, and walked slowly for the door.
    “Never you mind,” he said, and went outside.
    The sedan pulled alongside the house at a casual stroll, and inside were two men dressed in expensive looking suits. Susie’s father paled in comparison in his worn jeans and wrinkled button-up shirt, and the gesture seemed convoluted when the man who had been the driver of the car extended his hand for a shake. Her father said something, and did not shake the man’s hand.
    “Who are they?” Emmett asked.
    “I don’t know, why don’t you go ask them,” Susie said and stuck her tongue out at her brother.
    “Dessert?” their mother called from the kitchen.
    “Yes please!” Emmett said and rushed back to his place at the table, forgetting all about the men outside.
    “Susie?”
    “No, thank you,” she said and kept her eyes peeled on the meeting outside.
    The man who was the driver was speaking with his hands a lot, and he never stopped smiling. It was a frightening thing to see, such a manufactured expression that seemed to masking a blankness underneath. The other man stood with his hands clasped, and said nothing, his own face was blank and lifeless. Susie’s father was listening intently, but he only mouthed a few words back whenever the driver man stopped talking. He was shaking his head a lot at her father.
    After a few more minutes of this, and still during the horrible lip smacking Emmett made while eating his piece of apple pie, the men got back in their car and piloted it back down the hill. Susie’s father stayed on the front porch, looking dazed, and sat down in his rocking chair to smoke his pipe.
    Susie opened the door slowly, and came out to sit with her father when she was sure Emmett would not follow. He was still enraptured in his questions to Mother, and didn’t notice when she left.
    “Who were they?” she asked her father.
    “Never you mind, it’s no worry to us,” he said.
    “Sure looked serious,” she said.
    Her father puffed his pipe and looked out along the treeline.
    “Can we go into town this weekend?” she asked, trying to change the subject. “There’s a carnival coming to town, and Bobby Harper said there were going to be rides.”
    “I’ll speak with your mother,” he said, still watching the trees.
    She wanted to say more, but he would scold her for prying too much, so she stood back up and kissed his cheek before going back inside.
    “Maybe we could ride the Ferris wheel together like when I was little,” she said.
    He smiled.
    “Maybe,” he said.
    She went inside.     
    Later that evening the fire was lit and the family was in their beds, with Emmett fast asleep holding a small toy rocket ship while Susie tried to hear what her parents were saying through the walls. She couldn’t make out anything, but her mother sounded upset as her father spoke.
    Their voices died down, and Susie rolled over on her side, falling asleep to the low moan of the wind against the cabin walls.
    When she woke, there was already the usual morning commotion going on outside her room, with Emmett’s bed empty in the room they shared and his questions filling the dining room. Susie rose slowly, still thick with sleep, and swung her long legs over the edge of the bed.
    She was starting to become a woman, as her mother had put it, but to Susie it just felt as though her body was betraying her. She had gone through a prolific growth spurt, but though was almost at her full height at twelve, her chest and hips were still only mild bumps on an otherwise bean-stalk girl. She wiped the sleep from her eyes, and stepped out to join her family.
    The routine went the same for most of the week, with Susie out running the trails until around noon-time when lunch was being prepared, and then joining the family for the rest of the day. But on Friday, as she was catching her breath and trotting back up the trail, she saw the black sedan pull up to the house again.
    She hid behind a tree just down the slope from where the men stepped out of the car, and made sure she couldn’t be seen. Once again, her father stepped out of the house and came to speak with the men beside the car.
    “Morning Joe,” the smiling driver said, reaching his hand out to Susie’s father.
    “Gentlemen,” he said.
    “Have you decided about our proposal?” he asked.
    “My mind hasn’t changed,” he said. “I only feel sorry about the gas you must be wasting driving back and forth.”
    “Oh it’s no trouble,” the driver said, sneering his terrible smile. “It’s a beautiful drive.”
    “Cut the s**t,” the other man said, and the driver changed his tone.
    “Mr. Dovetail, we’ve been more than generous in fulfilling our end of the bargain,” the driver said with a rising tone. “And now it’s time for you to do the same.”
    “You can’t have her,” he said, and Susie leaned in to listen harder.
    “It’s all been agreed on, Mr. Dovetail. I’m afraid there’s no more you can say in the matter,” the driver said.
    “There’s a great deal more I can say,” her father said, and there was a quiet fury in his eyes.
    “Now let’s not be hasty. Wouldn’t want to do anything regrettable, now would we? The contract has been fulfilled, Mr. Dovetail. You’ve had a great many years of good living on this hilltop thanks to the part we’ve played for you. And now we want what is owned to us,” the driver said.
    “Your debt is outstanding,” the other man said.
    “I won’t give her to you,” he said.
    “Now, now it’s only for a few years. We’ll have her back to you when she’s fifteen, as long as you cooperate. Otherwise, she might not come back at all,” the driver said.
    “You’re foul men,” her father said, and the driver chuckled.
    “Just men of principle,” he said.
    Susie’s heart was pounding.
    “We only want what’s owed, Mr. Dovetail,” the driver said. “Nothing more.”
    “I’ve made my decision. Make yours,” her father said.
    The driver’s smile faded as he dropped his gaze and sighed.
    “So be it,” he said, all feigned pleasantry gone from his voice. “You want to be a hero? Fine.”
    He stepped aside, and the second man reached in his suit coat, retrieving a glinting revolver.
    “Inside,” he said, and the three of them moved towards the front door.
    Susie was screaming in her mind. Adrenaline was surging through her, and was still trying to decide what to do when she heard her mother scream from inside the house. Susie bolted for the sedan and dug in her pocket for her knife.
    She huddled around the car’s shape as she tried to look in the cabin windows, making sure she wouldn’t be seen. First she tug her knife into both back tires, then she came around crouching to open the driver’s side door. She slipped inside the car and dug around desperately for something, anything that would be useful.
    The car was pristine, and smelled brand new. There was nothing except snubbed cigarette butts in the ashtray. Susie tried to think, and finally figured out how to let go the parking brake, and in a moment the car began to roll. She laid on the horn with her fist, and a loud bleating filled the woods as she dove from the car and started running into the woods back to her initial hiding spot. The second man came barreling through the front door, and Susie watched as he struggled to catch the car, running alongside the driver’s side door as it picked up speed and bumped wildly on the uneven road.
    She was just about ready to start smiling at her luck, when the crack of a gunshot came from inside the house. She looked over to the front window, but couldn’t make out anyone inside. The second man was still running after the car, but a bump whipped the sedan off course and it tumbled to a crashing stop in the ditch on the side of the road. Susie took her chance, and ran as fast as she could to the front door. She reached it in moments, and turned and pushed the door knob in one motion. Inside, her mother and brother were on the couch, and her father sat in a chair with the revolver in his hand, aimed at Susie. The driver was lying face down on the floor, with blood pooling from his side. Susie froze in place, but he was steady in his aim, looking right down the barrel at her.
    “Daddy?” she said.
    “Susie, get down!” he yelled, and Susie dropped to the floor as he fired two shots, hitting the second man as he cresting the front stairs towards the open doorway. Upon seeing half his skull fan out into a fine vapor, her father dropped the pistol and her mother began to cry.
    
    They buried the bodies deep along the trail, so that a bear or coyote wouldn’t go digging for them. The car was rolled along into the woods, until reaching Broadmoor Lake, where it promptly sunk to the bottom after a few heaves from the whole family. It took Emmett only a week to be back to his usual questionings, and only seldom asked about the men or where they came from. Susie went back to her daily running, still marking her notches on the old spruce, but stamped her feet harder now along some parts of the trail, to make sure any loose dirt was tamped down tight.

Reviews

[DavidRyanM]

Good read, man. Once again, the ending is awesome. Brings everything back around but progresses as well. In this line : "First she tug her knife into both back tires, " did you mean "Dig" ? I like this collection of shorts that feel like they're in a place we all know yet not at the same time. If you had a theme for a book of short stories, it should definitely be the scenery that ties them all together. Love everything I've read. Is it me or does it feel a little sinister that the little girl stamps down the dirt when she's running? I dig it. Adds a sense of her maturing and not being afraid when she gets older.