Townies by Eryk Pruitt

Author:Eryk Pruitt [Pruitt, Eryk]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Polis Books
Published: 2018-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

The old Darcy would have tucked tail and ran. She would have put East Texas—hell, the whole of Texas—in her rearview. That Darcy had been replaced by the current one, who threw her shoulders into the work in front of her. With every table she fixed, every wall she mended, every little destruction wrought upon Chigger’s by that horrible sheriff, Darcy felt herself grow stronger. She was no longer the woman who suffered at the whim of Allan, or any other man.

As she worked, she wondered what she might look like in a pair of two-inch stiletto heels. She considered, for the first time, a boob job. She thought about highlights for her hair.

All of that—and every other thought—came crashing to a halt that Wednesday afternoon when she pulled into the Chigger’s lot and found the building awash in fire.

Upon sight of this inferno, all the fight sapped from her. Darcy realized, for the first time, how small had been her universe, and how infinitesimally tiny she had been within it.

The firefighters, to and fro. The flames, ever upward. Darcy stepped out of her Hyundai to admire the calamity of it all.

On opposite end of the red-rocked parking lot, the sheriff stood with his arms crossed. He shuffled chaw from one cheek to the other. He wore sunshades bright by the light of the flame. He stood flanked by two deputies with schoolboy eyes. He motioned with two twitched, crooking fingers for Darcy to join them.

“Your natural inclination,” he said, “would be to think I had a hand in this.”

He stared further to the flame. “You’d be incorrect.”

“Then who?” asked Darcy. “You have to believe me now that someone is behind this. If you don’t think it was those two women, fine. Who, then?”

Sheriff turned his head upward, as if the answer lie in the stars above. He brought his gaze down to earth, as if it didn’t.

“There’s been a whole lot of mess since you’ve come to town,” he said. “I don’t gamble much, but I know how to read the odds.”

Thick fingers of flame licked the night purple. A rafter imploded, sending a fountain of ember from the center of the building. The neon popped in the Chigger’s sign, hanging on a single hinge.

One of the firefighters whistled. Sheriff turned their way and nodded.

“Shut her down, boys!” called a fireman.

“Shut her down!” called the rest of them.

The hoses lessened. The fire sighed.

“You’re just going to…” She’d answered her own question before it’d been asked.

“I could drain yonder river and still lack the water we’d need to put that baby out,” he said. “She’s going pretty good.”

The Chigger’s sign fell from the door. The plastic bubbled. The wood crackled. Darcy did not step back from the heat. She welcomed it.

“Is there any point in telling you I had nothing to do with this?” Darcy asked.

“Nope.” Sheriff chewed his cud. “Not that I don’t believe you…”

The firefighters took off their hats. They popped open soda cans and drank from them by the light of the conflagration.

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