“I said, what are you doing here?”
He lowered his eyes. “I’m cold,” he said.
“You’re pathetic,” I told him.
“That’s the God’s truth. I am.”
“If it’s money you want, you can just crawl back in your hole. Go on. Nothing for you here.”
He shifted from one foot to another, looked around, his gaze settling on Mr. C’mere’s plate. “That cat ate better than I did today. Or yesterday. All week, come to think.”
I took him in. He was skinny. As skinny as I’d ever seen him. He looked about a hundred years old. My anger slackened, but only a little.
“How’d you find me?”
“Article in the paper.”
“What paper?”
He pulled a crumpled newspaper clipping from his pocket and held it out to me. Mr. C scooted under the porch.
“Farmville Times,” Harlan said. “Front page.”
I took it and read: AROUND THE STATE. Noted Sculptor Adopts Niece. Internationally recognized American sculptor and former cardiothoracic surgeon Henry Royster has petitioned the court for legal guardianship of his niece, Zoë Sophia Royster. Miss Royster is the daughter of the late Mary Elizabeth Cantrell, of Farmville, and Dr. Royster’s half-brother, the late Jude Owen Royster, struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver on North Highway outside Sugar Hill. Dr. Royster and his niece reside at the Royster family home in Sugar Hill.
“So?” I said, wondering if all Mama’s deadbeat friends would show up now. I shoved the paper back at Harlan, but he wouldn’t take it. I let it fall to the ground.
“Sorry I bothered you,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”
As he turned to go, the front door opened and Uncle Henry came out, the others right behind him. “May I help you?” Henry said. “Who is this man, Zoë?”
“Harlan Jeffers. Another one of Mama’s friends wanting money.”
“I’m not,” Harlan said.
“What can we do for you, Mr. Jeffers?” Henry asked.
“Not a thing,” said Harlan quickly, already halfway to his car. He waved over his shoulder. “Sorry I interrupted your dinner. I’ll be going now.”
“Henry!” Bessie called from the door in a loud whisper. “That man’s hungry. Don’t any of you have eyes?”
“Now, Bessie,” Fred warned quietly. “We don’t know this man.”
Bessie shot him a disapproving look. “Mr. Jeffers,” she called out, “won’t you warm yourself by our fire, let us set you a place at the table? We’d be thankful if you would. Isn’t that right, Zoë?”
She frowned in my direction and I nodded reluctantly. “I guess. Come on, Harlan,” I told him.
“I’d be grateful,” he said. “I won’t stay long.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’ll never get rid of him,” I muttered as Bessie escorted him inside.
I walked out to Harlan’s beat-up Ford and tried to peer in. The windows were glazed over with dirt or condensation or both, so I opened a rear door. The smell of stale cigarette smoke and ripe human being about made me faint. I drew back, fanning the foul air with my hand. The seats were piled with clothes, stuff in plastic bags, garbage, papers, and I didn’t want to know what else.
“He’s been living in this car,” I said to Mr. C, who had followed me. “Harlan. As if there weren’t enough going on. Lord.”
Mr. C’mere heard them first. His ears pricked to the excited barking of dogs in the woods. He clambered quick as he could onto the pile of clothes and junk on Harlan’s back seat. Voices called sharply in the trees, and I made out two or three men chasing something in our direction. I slammed the car door shut and squinted. A white blur raced through the near trees. A second later the white deer sped wild-eyed across the yard, the drive, the field, and into the woods on the far side toward the graveyard, a gun-toting horde not far behind.
The men’s shouting grew louder, the dogs’ barking too. A car thundered up the drive, throwing gravel from its tires, heading straight for the house. The sheriff’s cruiser screamed up behind it, the lights on its rooftop flashing. The first car veered off the drive and bumped across the field, and the squad car followed, gunning its engine, trying to pass it. Both skidded and spun out in the mud. At the same time three men carrying shotguns ran into the yard behind two barking yellow dogs with a shotgun-wielding Maud Booker bringing up the rear, everybody panting and shouting and running as fast as they could across the drive and into the field. Everybody, that is, but the dogs, who heard Mr. C yowling inside Harlan’s car and swerved off to bark and scratch at the windows and doors.
Everyone inside the house poured out the front door like panicking ants from an anthill. I took the shortest route across the field, easily beating out the overweight hunters and speeding past the stopped cars. Henry and Fred and the sheriff were all shouting my name, but I wasn’t stopping for anything or anybody. I got to the field’s edge first and took off down the bank on my butt, scrambling toward the graveyard where the white deer thrashed bright as day inside the graveyard fence, too panicky to figure her way out.
As I got halfway down the bank, I saw somebody in there with her, trying to hold her, calm her, and work the latch on the gate all at the same time. Whoever it was must have circled around behind the house and come up behind the graveyard just as she ran inside.
“Hold on to her,” I hollered as I ran. “Don’t let her run!”
The person stopped fooling with the gate, threw down something that had been slung over his shoulder, and grabbed hold of the deer with both arms, exposing his broad back to the first hunter, who was just gaining the bank. I ran to the two of them as fast as my legs would go, and found myself staring into the face of wildness itself.
The stranger was tall
