Tribute

man.”
    He shoved her again, sending her feet skidding until she slammed into the back of the truck. “I see you in there. I see you in there, you bitch.”
    This time he raised his fist. Cilla kicked him in the groin, and dropped him.
    “Oh God. Oh my God!”
    Dazed, adrenaline seeping out like water through cracks in a dam, Cilla saw the Good Samaritan racing down the road toward her. The woman had a phone in one hand, a garden stake in the other.
    “Are you all right? Honey, are you all right?”
    “Yes, I think. I . . . I feel a little sick. I need to—” Cilla sat, dropped her head between her updrawn knees. She couldn’t get her breath, couldn’t feel her fingers. “Can you call someone for me?”
    “Of course I can. Don’t you think about getting up, mister. I’ll hit you upside the head with this, I swear I will. Who do you want me to call, honey?”
    Cilla kept her head down, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and gave her new best friend Ford’s number.
    He got there before the police, all but flew out of his car. She’d yet to try to stand, and would forever be grateful that Lori Miller stood like a prison guard over Hennessy.
    Hennessy sat, sweat drying on his bone-white face.
    “Where are you hurt? You’re bleeding.”
    “It’s okay. I just hit my head. I think I’m okay.”
    “I wanted to call for an ambulance, but she said no. I’m Lori.” The woman gestured in the direction of her house.
    “Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Cilla—”
    “I’m just a little shaky. I thought I was going to be sick, but it passed. Help me up, will you?”
    “Look at me first.” He cupped her chin, studied her eyes. Apparently what he saw satisfied him enough for him to lift her to her feet.
    “Knees are wobbly,” she told him. “This hurts.” She laid her fingers under the knot on her temple. “But I think that’s the worst of it. I don’t know how to thank you,” she said to Lori.
    “I didn’t do anything, really. You sure know how to take care of yourself. Here they come.” Lori pointed to the police car. “Now my knees are wobbly,” she said with a breathless laugh. “I guess that’s what happens after the worst is over.”
    SHE TOLD the story to one of the county deputies as, she imagined, Lori gave her witness statement to the other across the road. She imagined the skid marks told their own tale. Hennessy, as far as she could tell, refused to speak at all. She watched the deputy load him into the back of the cruiser.
    “I’ve got stuff in the truck. I need to get it out before they tow it.”
    “I’ll send someone back for it. Come on.”
    “I was nearly home,” she said as Ford helped her into his car. “Another half mile, I’d have been home.”
    “We need to put some ice on that bump, and you need to tell me the truth if you hurt anywhere. You need to tell me, Cilla.”
    “I can’t tell yet. I feel sort of numb, and exhausted.” She let out a long sigh when he stopped in front of his house. “I think if I could just sit down for a while, in the cool, until I, I guess the phrase is collect myself. You’ll call over, ask a couple of the guys to get the stuff out of the truck?”
    “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
    He put his arm around her waist to lead her into the house. “Bed or sofa?”
    “I was thinking chair.”
    “Bed or sofa,” he repeated.
    “Sofa.”
    He walked her into the lounge so he could keep an eye on her while he got a bag of frozen peas for her temple. Spock tiptoed to her to rub his head up and down her arm. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m okay.” So he planted his front paws on the side of the couch, sniffed at her face, licked her cheek.
    “Down,” Ford ordered when he came in.
    “No, he’s fine. In fact . . . maybe I could have him up here for a while.”
    Ford patted the couch. On cue, Spock jumped up, bellied in beside Cilla and laid his heavy, comforting head below her breasts.
    Ford eased pillows behind her head. He brought her a cold drink, brushed his lips lightly over her forehead, then laid the cold bag at her temple.
    “I’ll make the calls. You need anything else?”
    “No, I’ve got it all. Better already.”
    He smiled. “It’s the magic peas.”
    When he turned away, stepped out onto the back veranda to make the calls, the smile had turned to a look of smoldering fury. His fist pounded rhythmically against the post as he punched numbers.
    “Can’t go into it now,” he said when Matt answered.