It’s Your Lucky Day
Short Story by Susanna Solomon
“Lagunitas: At 5:48 pm a woman discovered a man asleep in a sleeping bag in her back shed. The man told the woman he was cold.” – Point Reyes Light Newspaper Sheriffs Calls Log.
Cold? Beth wondered. What did I care about him being cold?
She hurried inside to get a lantern and a gun. Anyone sleeping in her shed, cold or not, had to go. Taking her blue point hound and her bolt-action Remington .22 she marched back outside.
She jammed the shed door opened with her foot.
“This ain’t no hotel, Mister,” Beth said, raising up her rifle and slamming home a round. She rested her finger on the trigger guard.
The guy eyed the rifle.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am.” His rheumy eyes bloodshot. “I was riding, horse saw something, bucked me. I know it’s not public property, ma’am.”
Again that pleading through bloodshot eyes.
Beth frowned. “This is my house. My land.”
“Sure enough,” he frowned. “Can I stay the night?” He licked his lips. “Ain’t no bother. If you like I can sleep with the horses? The lambs? The pigs?”
“Fat chance of that,” she said.
The hound sniffed the man, stood back, a low rumble in his throat.
The man bent down, pegged the hound as a friend. “I used to hunt in Alabama, ma’am.”
Again that rhythm of talk she’d heard all her life. That lilt that made her hate her father, angry during the day with that voice, those intonations, silent at night when he came into her room.
The hound buried his muzzle in between the man’s knees, tail low and moving fast.
“Not from around here. Don’t recognize you at all,” she cried.
“Fit as a fiddle except for this leg,” the man said, lifting his foot, ankle not holding right. “But I’ll leave you if you like,” he said. “Me and Bessie are best friends.” He rubbed the hound’s ears.
“Tristan, get your ass over here.” The hound left the man, came to Beth, rolled up in the crouch position, tail down.
An owl called in the night.
Beth’s hand shook as she held the lantern. Five miles down a dirt road outside Point Reyes Station. Closest house ten miles away. A hound that was useless to her. A gun loaded and cocked. A man who sounded like her father. She had no choice. She aimed her grandfather’s Remington Model 34.
The man dropped to his knees. “Please,” he said.
A crow cawed.
“Ma’am?”
“Hush,” she said. “God’s talking.”
She paused. “Well, okay then.”
She dropped the rifle to her side and turned towards the house. “God’s in a good mood. It’s your lucky day. Come on in and have some coffee. It’s cold outside.”