Gone (Michael Bennett)

It’s just nice to meet folks this far out in the yonder. I live by myself, and when I finally meet someone, all that bottled-up talk just shoots out of me like soda from a shaken can.”
    “Uh, OK, Mr. McMurphy. Nice to meet you,” Juliana said, eyeing Brian, letting him know it was time to get moving.
    “Pleasure was all mine, miss. All mine. Hey, wait. Before you go, let me give you a little something.”
    He fished something out of the creel in his kayak. It was something green in a large ziplock bag. He offered it to Brian.
    “Son, that right there is straight primo hybrid sinsemilla. You will not find its equal in all of North America. I grow it myself with love. Ask anyone in the valley, and they’ll tell you McMurphy’s is a cut above all others. Top shelf, drawer, and notch, as my daddy used to say.”
    Brian stared at him, stared at the bag, stared at Juliana.
    “C’mon, it won’t bite. Hell, I was a kid. You’ll go crazy out here without having yourselves a little fun. Plus, it’s a gift. You don’t want to offend me none, right?”
    “We can’t, Mr. McMurphy,” Juliana said, making up an excuse on the spot. “We’re Mormon. We can’t even drink soda. The use of marijuana would be completely against, um, our way.”
    “Mormons, huh?” McMurphy said, squinting up at her.
    Juliana nodded.
    “Well, isn’t that nice,” McMurphy said, putting the weed back into his creel. “I’ll let you get back to your dad. Respecting your elders is always a good policy. Says that right in the Bible. So long, now.”

CHAPTER 70
     
    MARY CATHERINE HAD SWEAT on her brow and tears in her eyes as she rabidly zested another lemon in the scorching kitchen. Leo was coming over for dinner tonight, on his day off, and she’d learned that he liked lemons.
    And what Leo wants , Mary Catherine thought, grinning to herself as she zestfully zested, Leo gets.
    She already had three chickens in the oven, and a five-pound bag of potatoes boiling in a cauldron-sized pot on the stove. There were still the green beans and the salad to take care of, stuffing to make along with the gravy, but she wanted to get the lemon cake going or she’d be in the weeds.
    Besides the lemons, pretty much everything was from Mr. Cody’s farm, even— Sorry, Chrissy —the chickens. They were probably flouting some FDA regulation to have the criminal gall to eat what they grew, but she had the feeling Deputy Marshal Leo would look the other way after he had a few bites.
    Farm food this fresh just tasted different, Mary Catherine knew from happy experience. Eating it for the first time was like seeing high-definition TV after a lifetime of black-and-white. It was going to be nice having someone new at the dinner table after all this time.
    The back screen door slammed, and Brian, Eddie, and Ricky stood in the mudroom, each one more sunburned and filthy and exhausted than the next.
    She bit her lower lip to keep from bursting into laughter.
    “Would you look at the state of ya! Were you wandering the earth or tunneling through it?”
    “Ow,” Ricky said, taking off a dusty sneaker. “Ow.”
    “Smells good. What’s for dinner?” Brian asked, his filthy finger creeping toward the mixing bowl.
    He howled as Mary Catherine whacked his hand loudly with the zester. Eddie and Ricky snickered.
    “Get your butts upstairs and shower this instant or I’ll drag you out into the yard and hose you down. See if I won’t, and don’t think you’re off the hook for going off by yourselves and skipping your lessons, getting us worried. As if I’m not busy enough.”
    “Why are you so busy?” Eddie said.
    “I told you yesterday. We’re having a guest tonight for dinner.”
    “A guest?” Ricky said. “Who?”
    “Deputy Marshal Leo,” Mary Catherine said.
    “Deputy Marshal Leo?” Brian said. “How is he a guest? He works here.”
    “Mary Catherine, does Dad know about this?” Eddie said, raising his brow.
    Mary Catherine stopped zesting. That was it. She knew the boys were having a hard time of late, especially Brian, but that was it. Like she hadn’t been working her fingers to the bone for this lot. Was she not allowed to have something nice in her life? Something even a little bit hopeful?
    Standing there in the kitchen, she remembered something from when she was a girl. One of her brothers would get cheeky, and her father, after coming in from haying all day or putting up fencing or some other extreme, fourteen-hour task of