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25 BAR THE DOOR

25

BAR THE DOOR

With her visit to Morgan Slyke, on a Monday in August, more than nine months earlier, Vida unexpectedly became vulnerable to Belden Bead, the closest thing this rural county had to a gang boss. Now the consequence of her encounter with Bead, eight months ago, has put her under the thumb of Nash Deacon. Or so he thinks.

Red roses are a lover's gift, but the photo of Belden Bead is a rapist's threat. Deacon means to say, I know where his body lies, and though you and I will enjoy a creepy romantic courtship because it titillates me, the outcome is already determined. When I am ready to have you, then you will submit to everything I demand.

Using the long-neck butane match with which she lights candles for her dinner table, she sets fire to the picture of Bead, burns it in the kitchen sink, and washes the ashes down the drain.

After pouring the water out of the floral arrangement, she drops the roses into the plastic bag lining the kitchen trash can.

She goes to the cellar, where steel shelving units hold a year's worth of canned and freeze-dried food against the day when foolish politicians might precipitate a food shortage. Famines are seldom the fault of nature, nearly always the consequence of either human idiocy or a sinister intention to use starvation as a weapon.

At least for the short term, she intends to carry a handgun. Her uncle's rifle, shotgun, and pistol are in appropriate cases, atop one of these shelves. Or they were. Deacon has been in the house long enough to discover the weapons, and confiscate them.

He could return while she's showering. Or sleeping.

Installing new deadbolts will provide no security. A police lock-release gun is the ultimate passkey.

In the smaller building behind the house, where the pickup is parked and the propane-fueled generator labors, her uncle Ogden's workbench and tools await her. Because of the skills he taught her, Vida has been able to attend to everything that needs to be repaired.

Here also is an uncommon weapon, concealed behind the supply of lumber and plywood that she uses for various projects. Days after Anna Lagare's visit, Vida dreamed of the fortuneteller whom she'd met long ago. In the dream, she'd been told to acquire this thing. That nameless woman is to her an oracle, and she doesn't question such instructions. She had driven out of state to make the purchase at a shop where no ID was required. She had since practiced for hundreds of hours and had become a master marksman. At the moment, she needs only to assure herself that the weapon is still where she's hidden it, and it is. Nash Deacon has not found it.

From her supply of lumber and plywood, she selects an eight-foot-long birch two-by-four. She locks it in the pair of woodworking vises at opposite ends of the workbench. With a handheld circular saw, she cuts it into forty-two-inch lengths.

From a cabinet of many drawers that offer a variety of nails, screws, nuts, bolts, fasteners, and other small items, she selects eight two-inch screws and then four steel-strap U-shaped brackets, each of which features two holes in one of its legs. She carries all that, plus a power drill and selected drill bits, into the house.

In the kitchen, she bores four holes in the doorjamb, two on the left, two on the right. She changes the bit to convert the drill into a power screwdriver, anchors the brackets, and inserts one of the two-by-fours. With that entrance barricaded, she doesn't bother engaging the deadbolts. She repeats the process at the front door.

Whenever she's out of the house and the two-by-fours aren't in place, Deacon can enter, but he can no longer surprise her when she's at home.

At last she can take a shower and steam away the muscle pain that lingers from the labor at the placer mine, without worrying that she might be reenacting the key scene from Psycho .

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