Firefly Nights

The sheriff paused a moment before saying, “Free-and-clear housing, I would expect. Once Campbell’s grandfather passed, he inherited the place.”

So this man is an incompetent pilot with a busted-up leg, and no visible means of support. Great.

Oakes continued. “Campbell didn’t need the motel until recently. Before coming home, he lived on the Matheson estate in Raleigh.” Oakes’s voice held a hint of pride. “Now, that’s a name you’ve heard of, I’ll wager.”

“Matheson? No, sorry.”

“Matheson Fine Furniture?”

Kitty shook her head.

“Well, I’ll be. I thought everybody had heard of Leland Matheson. He’s worth a few cool millions. Campbell lived on his estate and worked as his business adviser and personal pilot for the past three years since he got out of the Air Force.”

Kitty felt as if she were on a roller coaster of good news–bad news. This last bit of information was encouraging. Apparently the nephew had recently held a decent job. But since she was here to take care of this pilot who had just crashed his plane, Kitty couldn’t help wondering if his former employer, doubting his pilot’s skills, had fired him. Figuring the best way to know was to ask, she said, “So, why did your nephew leave his job?”

Oakes frowned. “He said it had something to do with a personal matter. Plus, he wanted to start a business back here where he grew up. Bought his own two-seater aircraft for taking aerial photographs. Unfortunately the fuel line ruptured, so that plan’s on hold.”

A shiver ran down Kitty’s spine. Her father often chartered personal aircraft in his capacity as owner of Galloway Groves. She always found an excuse not to accompany him on trips. The thought of being in a small plane was high on her list of least favorable ways to travel. And she figured that anybody who made a living flying one of those death traps ought to know he was only a loose screw away from disaster.

The sheriff opened his car door and stepped out. “Come on, folks. Campbell should be here in the hospital van any minute. Wanda says the motel key’s under the potted plant by the office door.”

Potted plant? Was he referring to that mildewed pickle crock with three spindly twigs sticking out the top? Kitty guessed he was because that’s precisely where he headed.

She got out and opened Adam’s door. When he remained in the car, she reminded him why they were here.

“Okay, already.”

They stood side by side staring at ten worn-out, run-down, dismal units broken by a peaked-roof office in the center. If a building could droop, this one did. In fact, the entire structure looked as if it was just waiting for the mercy of a wrecking ball.

* * *

“HOW YOU DOING back there, Captain Oakes?”

Campbell turned away from the familiar landscape flashing by the side window of the Spooner County medi-van. “I’m okay, Joe,” he said to the young man in the front passenger seat. “And you don’t have to call me captain. It’s been plain old Campbell for quite a while now.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’re still a hero around here. Everybody knows what you did over in Iraq.”

Campbell glanced down at the fiberglass splint that went from his ankle to his thigh and suppressed a grimace of disgust. Everybody knows what I did four days ago, too, he thought. A few years before, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, he had flown forty successful sorties over Baghdad in a Fighting Falcon. And then on Wednesday he crashed a single-engine Cessna Cardinal into a cow pasture. “My status as a hero, if I ever had one, is over,” he said.

Joe shrugged. “I still remember the stories about you. I think the town council should have had a parade or something when you came back home.”

Campbell focused out the window again, mostly to hide the smirk he couldn’t suppress. Joe didn’t understand. Nobody in Sorrel Gap would have a celebration for a prodigal son who’d been living on Matheson property in Raleigh. A renovated six-room carriage house on the lavish twenty-acre estate was a cultural world away from this small North Carolina town.

And the truth was, Campbell wouldn’t be here now except Diana Matheson had screwed him over one time too many. His future had come down to a choice between his pride and his cushy income, and Campbell had opted for pride. He’d left the estate just ahead of Diana, who caught a plane to Europe to get over her distress. Right. At least he’d been the one to say goodbye first.

The medi-van topped the hill and descended toward the Saddle Top Motel, a sad reminder of Campbell’s childhood and the glory days when Old Sorrel Gap Road was known as the Gateway to the Blue Ridge. Campbell could have afforded better accommodations in town, but so what? The building, as pathetic as it was, was his.

Still, as the Saddle Top came into view, Campbell experienced the same melancholy that gripped him whenever he returned to the cheerless structure struggling to survive in the gap. Only this time it was worse. This time, instead of just feeling as hopeless as the old motel was, Campbell would have to suffer the indignity of being hoisted into his living quarters by the medi-van driver and his helper.

And there would be no easy escape from the gap. Because of his leg, he wouldn’t be able to walk or drive away for weeks. And even after five hours of surgery and a half dozen rods and pins, the doctors still couldn’t tell Campbell for certain that he’d be able to walk without a limp, or ever pilot the Cardinal again. And that was assuming the plane’s landing gear and right wing could be repaired.

Unfortunately this mishap had occurred just when things had started to turn around for him. He had a half dozen contracts for aerial photographs stacked up on his desk. Now he’d have to tell his customers to wait out his iffy recovery or hire somebody else.

Campbell pressed his lips together as a painful draw of air stretched the muscles in his chest. Hard to believe that the dependable Fighting Falcon hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch on her steel-gray exterior during his entire deployment. Four months after he’d started Oakes Aerial Photographs, Campbell had watched the Cessna towed back to the airstrip in shambles.

The van pulled as close as possible to the covered walkway in front of the motel office. Even with two fellas supporting his weight, Campbell knew it wouldn’t be easy to get his six-foot-two, hundred-and-eighty-pound deadweight inside the building.

Joe Becker jumped out of the vehicle and opened the wide side door, giving Campbell a clear view of his uncle Virgil’s patrol car. Once he spotted Virgil at the breezeway where the washers and dryers were located, Campbell scanned the front of the motel for Virgil’s wife, Wanda. He’d never hit it off with Wanda and dreaded the thought of having to endure her interference if she followed through on her threat to take care of him.

But it wasn’t Wanda who appeared at Virgil’s side. It was a skinny purple pole of a woman with electrified blond hair that stuck out every which way. And a gawking, curly-haired kid who looked as if he’d just lost his puppy.

“Oh, great,” Campbell grumbled aloud. “You don’t think somebody actually wants to rent a room?”

Only one lone tourist, an old guy in a vintage Oldsmobile claiming he was experiencing America’s back roads, had stopped at the Saddle Top Motel in the six months Campbell had occupied it. Campbell had sent the fella on his way with an unappealing but very accurate description of the lack of amenities to be found here. He hoped Virgil wasn’t thinking he’d do him a favor by letting someone stay and contribute a bit of income. Campbell didn’t need the money. He needed peace and quiet.

The van driver pressed a lever under Campbell’s seat, and it swiveled smoothly toward the door. “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Oakes,” the man said to answer his question. “I can’t see anybody wanting to stay here.”

The two men each slipped one arm under Campbell’s knees and another around his back. With perfect timing coordinated by a command from the driver, they lifted him from the van. Less humiliating, he supposed, than a ride in a wheelchair, but only slightly so.

The men supported Campbell as he hopped on one foot the short distance to the covered porch. Virgil met him and looped Campbell’s arm over his shoulders to help him stand. The van attendants returned to the vehicle to get Campbell’s equipment, which included the detestable wheelchair, crutches, medical supplies and a bag of prescriptions. Campbell narrowed his eyes to get a look down the sidewalk at the couple standing in front of the breezeway. “Who are those people?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s Miss Kitty Watley and her son, Adam,” Virgil said. “They’re going to stay here awhile.”

Campbell wasn’t certain of much in his life at this point, but he was darn sure of his response to Virgil. “No, they’re not. Tell them to go into town to the Blue Ridge Lodge or the Sorrel Gap Chalet. Nobody’s rented a room at this motel for years.” He took a couple of quick hops toward his front door and regretted it immediately when his chest burned as if his broken ribs had erupted into flames. “There probably isn’t a clean towel in the whole place,” he said to Virgil after taking an agonizing gasp of air and letting his uncle support him.

“Well, there will be,” Virgil announced. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This lady and her kid are going to take care of you while you’re laid up.”

“Like heck they are...”

“Listen to me, Camp. You won’t have to lift a finger. Just sit back and let these two wait on you until you heal.”

Campbell’s sharp gaze connected for a quick heartbeat with the lady’s remarkably round eyes. She attempted a smile and wiggled her fingers from the pocket of a pair of hip-hugging, baggy purple pants. The kid set his lips in a hard, tight line and scowled as if Campbell was his worst enemy. “No deal,” Campbell said. “I don’t want anybody taking care of me.”

Virgil frowned. “You might want to reconsider, Camp. You need somebody and these two are willing.”

Campbell’s innate skepticism took over. “Oh yeah? And how much is this going to cost me? And why would anybody want to stay out here in the first place?”

“It’s not going to cost you anything,” Virgil said. “And they more or less got talked into volunteering as a legal penance.”

Campbell almost laughed. “A legal penance? Come on, Virg.”

“Sort of, yes. They’ve got a small debt to pay to society, and you’re their means to that end.”

Campbell shot his uncle a dubious look. He knew small-town justice worked in mysterious ways, but this was too quirky, even for Sorrel Gap. Was his uncle actually proposing that his incapacitated nephew harbor criminals desperate enough to agree to stay in what amounted to the Sorrel Gap Outback? “What’d they do? Murder somebody?”

Virgil chuckled, but the sound was forced. “Oh, nothing that bad.”

Campbell returned his attention to the desperadoes. The woman, from this distance, at least, didn’t look capable of tangling with a june bug. She worried a pile of dust with the toe of a sandal that had a heel high enough to make Campbell wonder how she didn’t get nosebleeds. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, and he took that as a sign that she was as uncomfortable with this situation as he was.