Bad Sun Rising

           The night promised pleasure, with its romantic backdrop of a purplish black sky smeared with stars. Everette’s lips promised even more pleasure as she undid every button of Austin’s shirt, replacing each one with a soft kiss. She made it down to the waistband on his jeans, when the blue and red lights caught her attention as they reflected off the truck’s rear windshield. Groaning, she sat up and stared forlornly over her shoulder, watching the cop car approach.

           “Feel like giving them a show?” Austin grinned, his hands moving to her waist, holding her steady as he flexed the muscles in his abdomen, and raised his chest. Even sitting like this, with her straddling his thighs now, Austin wasn’t looking up into her eyes, or even straight into them. There was some magical component in Austin’s genes, or maybe it was in the food that his farmer father grew, but it made Austin head and shoulders taller than just about everyone he knew. “After all, they work so hard, for such little pay.”

           “Not the kind of show you’re thinking of,” Everette answered, moving off his lap and looking for where her shirt had been thrown. 

           The ride to Reuben's had taken a half-hour from the police station, which was located in the middle of town. Although Reuben had a small garage attached to a gas station in town that took care of quick oil changes and repairs. Tractor-sized vehicles and more substantial repairs were dragged out towards his property to be worked on by Reuben, his sons, and Everette. As far as Jason knew, Everette lived forty minutes down the road toward the nearest university, but from the number of times he spotted her around town, he gathered that she came back rather often. When the officers saw Austin’s truck along an access road, Stanley laughed and flicked on the patrol car’s lights. “Better give the kids a heads up.”

            “You think she’s got more to tell you about Carson Adair?” Jason asked from the passenger seat. Any other motives for the long, late drive were left unsaid, though Jason couldn’t imagine it was the only reason to hunt her down on a Saturday night, especially since the case had been cold long before Jason ever showed up in Alloway. No leads had warmed it up recently, and there was no reason a friendly chat could not wait for Monday.

            “Everyone’s got more to say, especially about Carson,” Stanley answered, as they followed the road towards Austin’s truck as far as it could go. In the headlights, they saw a tall, broad-shouldered man grab something off the truck’s roof and toss it to a much smaller woman.

            As far as Jason could surmise, the reason they were looking for Everette in the first place was due to the lack of things said about Carson Adair, but any thought on the matter was stricken from his mind the second Jason’s eyes fell on the monstrously tall cowboy standing by the truck. “What the hell do you feed them out here?” Jason asked, as he sized up Austin, the phrase gentle giant flashing through his mind.  

            Stanley shrugged, “For a husband and wife of limited stature, Austin’s parents sure know how to grow them.” Each of their five sons and daughters were a head and shoulders taller than one parent, and still had to look down to meet the eyes of the other.  Stanley guessed Austin’s paternal grandpa had been equally tall, but the old cook strode off into the woods after his wife had died some years ago, and was rarely sighted since. Without the older generation to compare it too, Austin’s height was just a mystery.

            Before either officer could get out of the car, Everette slipped a long, flowing white shirt overhead. It flirted silently with the soft breeze, unlike the tattling tall grass that readily gossiped about her ventures.

            “Decent, Everette?” Stanley called, looking at the field for a moment, following a set of tracks made by Austin’s truck, as Jason followed the other. The latter officer’s eyes remained downcast for a longer, more respectful minute than Stanley.

            “Why? I got a reputation to be careful of?” Everette returned, walking to stand in between the officer’s and Austin, who was leaning against the tail of the truck. Even in the dark, Jason could see her wide, welcoming smile, her eyes reflecting excitement at the dance in which she was about to engage.

            “Your uncle does,” Stanley answered.

            Leaning against the tail gate, Everette’s smile broadened. “You got it all wrong, Officer. Uncle Rue loves Austin, on account that he goes to college with the intention to be a doctor. I already surpassed expectations, being the first in his family to get into a university. If I came home with Austin’s babies, he’d be sublime.”

            “Is that right? He bothering you for some grandnephews and nieces already?” Stanley chuckled.

            “Has been for about two years already, only he surmises that he’s earned the right to call them grandchildren at this point,” Everette answered. Austin had come next to her, sitting on the tailgate. His long legs nearly touched the ground and his hand rested around a mason jar filled with a clear liquid that sure wasn’t water.  

            “I suspect his logic is about right,” Stanley answered.

            Shrugging, Everette said, “I just don’t think he gives his oldest two sons enough credit, and he’ll have to wait a long time before Dave’s old enough. He has trouble talking to the girls now, but I think once he grows into himself a little more, he won’t have much trouble anymore.”

            “Where is Dave? Aren’t you supposed to be watching him while Rue and Mary are out of town?” Stanley wanted to know.

            “He’s got a pizza, and I unblocked all the adult channels. What more watching does a twelve-year-old need?” Everette wondered. Always seemed suspicious to Everette that a teenager needed watching, but she knew it was more for her than Dave. Their youngest son was never much trouble, and was more academically successful than their first two. Despite her move from their homestead a couple years prior, they needed their anxiety abated about her whereabouts during certain nights of the week more than others.  

            Shaking his head, Stanley said, “This is why your uncle asks me to drop by when he and Mary leave for the weekend.”

            “Is that why you’re here? Uncle Rue asked you to stop by?” Everette inquired. “Is it because last the boys were unsupervised, they started a kitchen fire? They don’t have to worry, Will and Shawn are out somewhere trying to impress their girlfriends, and Dave is too afraid of me to try and do anything his older brothers might do.”

Sometime during their conversation, her hands had snuck into the pockets of her wickedly short jeans. Their limited fabric did make her legs appear longer, though nothing made her look tall with a man of Austin’s size next to her.

            Simply, Stanley answered, “He worries.”

            “You’d think I was related to bunch of criminals,” Everette joked, though it went unacknowledged by anyone else in the field. “So which one are you here about? I don’t have to bail anyone out, do I?”

            Austin interjected, “They should just configure that into your financial aid.”         

            “You think they would? It would be a huge help,” Everette said back, without turning to look at her nighttime companion.  

            “Tonight, our jails are surprisingly bereft of any Adairs,” Stanley told her, before the two young adults spiraled the conversation into a red herring.

            If Stanley had more to say about what he was after, there was no chance to say it before Everette’s smile widened. “So, thought you’d come shake some trees to see if anything fell out? I’m not the lawbreaker in my family, Stanley. Fortunately, I’ve got just enough of Uncle Rue in me.”

            Sternly, Stanley agreed, “Right. Except for when it comes to speed limits.”

            Offering a small, careless shrug, Everette made no claims of innocence. “At least, I adhere to the useful ones.”

            “And ones about under aged drinking, assault, and aiding and abetting criminal activity are all useless,” Stanley finished for her.

            In disagreement, Everette said, “Half of that was taken out of context, and the other half can’t be proven.”

            "So that's not an open bottle of moonshine?" Jason shined his flashlight over the truck bed, revealing the cooler, and the mason jar Austin’s hand curled around.

Giving it a callous look, Everette replied, "It was made legal. Mostly."

             Turning off his flashlight, Jason said, "But you don't look like you’re of legal age."

             "Are you looking, Officer?" Everette taunted, her playful grin returning to her lips.

             Jason wouldn't be the first officer to do so, though his current partner never had. Stanley was worse in other ways, but in no way that Everette held against him. Jason was new to her, however, so she cocked her hip and arched her back enough to make Austin hide a snort into the bottle of moonshine. Everette didn’t exactly care for bras, and the way the moonlight emphasized that fact put the moment on a shelf in the back corner of the library, where the shadows hide the desires of its patrons. Shamelessly, Everette flirted, "Do you like what you see?"

             "Not particularly," Jason said, "It's supposed to get chilly tonight.” Austin choked on the liquid in his throat, but Jason continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “I hope you have a sweater. Despite how warm it makes you feel, drinking lowers your core body temperature."

             If he thought Everette was going to be intimidated, shamed, or impressed, he was wrong. Smirking, she answered, "We were doing just fine in that department, before you showed up. Besides, I haven’t been drinking, and Austin 's twenty-one."

             "And he didn't share the tiniest of tastes?" Stanley mocked. 

             His reprimand earned him a roguish grin, and even more rakish reply. "Only from what I got off his lips. One of us had to be sober enough to drive, and you know how I love to drive."

            She brought the conversation, into a circle, Jason realized, with a talent they only teach in a southern curriculum. From her reputation, Jason knew that she did love to drive. Even her car was infamous. After a summer of restoring it herself and painting it an iconic red, Everette dubbed her car La Rouge, without any cares to the lack of creativity or originality that her cousins whined about. It took only a few races before the name changed, much to her chagrin, to Redneck Roulette.  

            “So now we’ve established that I’ve done nothing wrong, what is your cause for stopping here,” Everette asked rather directly for the well-practiced circles she had been talking with Stanley. “I’m sure Rue asked you stop by, but I’m sure there’s something other on your to do list than telling me what you think I’m doing wrong and to inform me that I might need a sweater.”

            "Just making sure all our citizens are doing okay. Your uncle asked us to come out, and we saw Austin’s truck here-," Stanley started. 

            Before he could get much further, Everette interjected, "About a mile into my Uncle's private lands, and far off from his driveway, or his house. Why you always trying to catch me doing something wrong?"

            In every interrogation where there is a polite discourse of talk-around, there is a time when it has to draw to a close. Jason guessed they were nearing that edge, when Stanley hurled them right over it. "You’ve Adair blood in you, and it’s always itching. Everyone can see that.”

            Though her wide grin faded into a small, closed smile, Everette gave no other sign to how Stanley’s words might have bothered her. It was something echoed more often than not, and after hearing it enough, Jason suspected Everette started acting in way to give the gossip some truth. What an old, repetitive story he saw too often in his career wearing blue. Stanley continued, "Look at you now, scrambling to get dressed before we could get out of the car, with an over-sized cowboy hanging off you. What do they feed you boy?"

            Before Austin could decide how to respond, Everette responded with a sharpened edge to her voice, "I didn’t think two consenting adults on private land was illegal. You’re not here on behalf of Rue, or for my benefit. You're here looking for something to lord over me, something to make me spill about my daddy's evil enterprises. Well, I can't gab about what I don't know.”

            Her smile was gone, but a dubious thought in Jason’s mind was increasing as he weighed Everette and Stanley in his mind. All he could do was watch his partner, and size him up against Everette. As the façade of the southern belle slipped away, Austin pressed against Everette’s back, one arm on her shoulder, the other sliding across her chest. She had to put her hand on over his wrist to keep him from taking too many liberties, though his movement calmed her, letting her regain herself.

            "You think you're tough," Stanley told her, but this time she let them wash over her as she leaned back against the strong, mollifying wall that was Austin. "You go down this road, then you're gonna end up exactly like your mamma."

            "That’s enough, Deputy," the burly cowboy finally spoke. To his credit, he didn't sound that bad for having drunk half a bottle of moonshine on his own. Then at his height, half a bottle might not have done much damage. "If you ain't got no reason for being here, then you need to pass on. This is private property, and you ain't got no right talking to Everette that way. You’ve fulfilled your duty to Reuben, now you can present your case for staying here, or move right along."

            Stanley tipped his hat. "I didn't aim to offend, but I got reason to be here, and Everette knows what that is."

            Quietly, Everette said, "Pretty sure I got nothing to say to you.” Didn’t all criminals become silent when they felt the tightening of the noose. 

            "Ms. Everette Leigh," Jason interjected, before Stanley could derail their objective any more. "My partner and I went at this all wrong, and for that I deeply apologize. We have no right to be out here ruining a night between two consenting adults, especially when you and I haven't been formerly introduced, though I believe our paths have crossed a time or two in the station."

            Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a business card and approached the truck as he extended his arm towards her. Standing at the tailgate, he presented the business card to Everette, who looked at him for a long minute. A dubious expression masking her face, she finally accepted the card and studied it with raised eyebrows. Since she'd grown up in this town and no one who worked here was ever new to her, no one had ever handed her a business card- except when Doug Mathers had gotten clean and worked hard to graduate as a dental assistant, but who wouldn’t be proud at defeating three generations of addiction. In the dark, she couldn't exactly read the card, but assumed it had his name and number arranged in an official manner. Jason continued, "I am Officer Jason Amory. If you ever need me, for whatever reason, no questions asked, call at any time. I’ll always be there."

            Everette Leigh doubted that no questions would be asked, especially for anything bad enough to make her call the number. After a moment of staring at him cockeyed, she accepted the card and slid it into her pocket. As she did, she cast a quick glance at Austin before offereing a cursory, "Thank you, Officer Amory."

            "If you can stand our intrusion into your night just a little longer, we do have one important question to ask you," Jason said, "It's not one that you're going to like, so forgive me, but I need to know where your daddy is." 

            "I don't know.” There was a different tone to her voice, now that the licentious and overconfident shield had fallen away. Her voice was soft and lowered in volume as the words spilled out. If Jason didn’t know better, he would have thought that Everette looked momentarily lost over the confession, as if it spilled out by accident.

            Still, none in the field was surprised by the expected answer. "I understand, and won’t scare you into telling me different. It wouldn’t feel right, especially not to someone with so much promise,” Jason told her, just as softly as he had spoken. He didn’t react when he saw a flicker of interest in her eyes. Slowly, he let the doe come to him.

            Tilting her chin up, she echoed, “Promise?”

            “I heard you attend a prestigious program on a full scholarship. That is an exemplary indication of promise, is it not?” Jason returned.

            “You’re laying it on a little think, aren’t you Officer?” Everette asked, trying to regain some footing of control. “For someone who wasn’t looking.”

            Refusing to be drawn into another circular round of conversation, Jason stuck to his original purpose. “You’ve a chance at something better than what your relatives can offer you. As much as you love Carson Adair, he's an anchor to a life you don’t want.”

           Shrugging, Everette replied, "Like what? What am I lacking so much because of my father? As you said, I’m in a prestigious program."

            "If you wanted the life he had to offer you, then why are you already half-gone? You only come back here when someone you’re related to needs you. Aren’t you tired of being half here, and half-following the life you do want? If you wanted Carson’s life, you wouldn’t have applied to a university to begin with,” Jason answered.

            Everette raised her eyebrows. “Really? While I might be the first to go to college on my saintly uncle’s side of the family tree, it seems to me all the criminals in my family are rather well educated. Don’t get me wrong, I have many relatives with questionable intelligence on the Adair side, but Carson was not the first among his brothers to go college. I guess the file the police has on the Adairs is either lacking, or there’s a new cop in town who didn’t read all of the orientation material.”

            He could feel that he was losing whatever interested he had generated, so Jason said the first thing that came to mind in order to regain control. “Don't you want something better than this? Better than this town?"

             Jason hoped he pegged her as the kind of person who wanted to get a better life, the kind who would throw everything against the East wind, so that she could chase the western sun to something else, anything else.  Instead, she countered, "You hate this town so much, you go in search of a better one."

            “The sheriff is ready to have you court ordered to talk, Everette," Stanley replied, burning through whatever good will Jason had generated with Everette. “And I don’t think the time you’d spend in jail refusing that order, would be beneficial to you.”

            “Then do it,” Everette dared placidly. "If you had enough evidence that I did know such a thing, you wouldn't have wasted your time driving out here without it."

Desperate to mitigate the damage Stanly’s lost temper had done, Jason told her, “We’re not here to threaten you.”

            "Your Adair blood is going to get you in trouble," Stanley cut off Jason’s peace-seeking efforts. "When it does, you won’t have a choice."

            "Then why would I give up my get out of free jail card?" Everette returned. 

Stanley sighed, "What do you think your mamma would say?"

            "She died not giving up on him, and not telling you damn a thing," Everette pointed out, "And I think you've already played that card tonight."

            "The last she heard, he called her from Cancun," Austin interrupted, before either Stanley or Everette said something that couldn’t be retracted. 

            "You fooling with me, boy?" Stanley said. After all, it was doubtful Everette would spill familial affairs to someone who did not share the family name, no matter how close the two of them were.

            "Why? Because it’s information she already told you earlier this week?” Austin challenged.

Looking sharply to his partner, Jason gaged Stanley’s reaction. If Everette had received a call from her father, and reported it to Stanley, it wasn’t information that Jason was given. Then again, just because Everette reported the call, didn’t mean she spoke the truth about it. Austin went on, “He said he's stayin’ some place called Hotel Rosa."

            Jason doubted that Everette would revealed such a specific detail about Carson’s whereabouts. Despite Everette’s promise and Carson’s absence, the Adairs were still a criminal family. Before Jason could find a gentle way to draw out the truth, Everette sighed. “Just be honest about what you want, Stanley. Carson’s not the Adair you’re after tonight.”

            “I am here about Carson. The way he behaves towards the two of you, one might think Orson was more your brother, than cousin,” Stanley replied.

            Everette made no indication that the implication was true or false, but she did say, “You know exactly what Orson is to Carson, though I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at.”

            Stanley continued, “You expect me to believe that Orson gets out of prison in just a couple of days, and that Carson is going to stay hidden in Mexico? That he hasn’t tried to make any contact with either of you?”

            “Are you under the impression that Orson is any more open to taking Carson’s calls than I am?” Everette asked. “Who was it that brought me back from Mexico? Who was it who told Carson to never come back? I guess it’s understandable. You didn’t see Orson toss Carson halfway across a bar.”

            Quietly, Stanley returned, “Who hijacked a train to stop Orson from joining the military?”

            Everette swallowed, and Jason pinched his brows together. Hijacking a train? Did criminals still commit such antiquated crimes? Maybe the stories and the descriptions were true of the last, great outlaw with the wild west blazing through his veins. Instead of replying to the question asked, Everette gave the answer she wanted to give. “Orson is not a dutiful, mindless follower. Why do you think Orson getting out of jail is going to be a trigger for anything Carson has planned?”

            “You tell your cousin that he better not be looking for any retaliation,” Stanley responded, conceding that he wasn’t going to get the answers he imagined Everette had.

            “Orson did all he needed to do, at least, that’s what he told the judge,” Everette replied, recalling the words that turned what might have been a suspended sentence into two years in prison. For a moment, she stared at Stanley, who gave returned with a hard look. Finally, Everette relented, “If anyone was going to retaliate, it would have already been done. And if I could control Orson, he wouldn’t be in jail. He’s doing better these days. Gotten a lot of professional help for . . . whatever it was he didn’t leave behind when he turned in his army boots. Carson might be the king of grandiose gestures, but that train kept moving. No one has ever been able to stop Orson from doing what he was going to do. I can relate your concerns, but I can’t stop them from becoming true.”

            The stare-down resumed, until Stanley nodded, saying some wise crack about staying safe and using protection and the police went off in their car, headlights driving away. After watching them drive away, Everette laid back on the truck bed with a long exhale. Austin stretched out next to her, and Everette curled against him. A sudden chill a crept into her warm summer night, just as Jason predicted.

She didn't say anything, and the silence hung above them, until Austin asked, “Wanna fuck?” It wasn’t so much about getting the night back on track, as it was his desire to erase any damage Stanley’s words might have done. Eloquent words escaped him, besides his surprising verbal score on the SATs, they usually did.

            “Yes.” Everette rolled on top of him, hands flying to the buttons of his shirt. Leaning forward, she pressed a kiss right where each button would have rested against his skin, putting them right back here the evening began. If she tried hard enough, maybe she could just cut every image and sound relating to Stanley tonight.

            As the patrol car reversed onto the access road and started the long haul back to town. “Did you get what you came for?” Jason asked Stanley. “Just what were you after.”

            Tightly, Stanley gripped the steering wheel. “I guess you don’t know much about Orson Adair.”