A Serial Short Story Series
Book One: Regard Feels The Heat
If you are new to the tale and want to start reading from the beginning:
Chapter Three
“Dad, you in here?” Regard called as she kicked the front door open. Fester squeaked and jumped from her shoulder onto the old-growth fir burl coffee table that sat in the middle of their living room.
“Where the hell else would I be Dew Berry?” came a voice from the kitchen.
“Ugh.” Regard cringed when she heard her dad’s nickname for her, “When are you going to let that dratted name go? I’ve been able to say ‘blueberry’ for at least twenty years now.” she said as she placed the to-go bags onto the burl table.
Her father just chuckled and ambled into the living room. His limp was more pronounced today. Thirty years of timber falling had taken its toll on his body, especially on Bud’s knees.
Bud hobbled over to Regard and plopped next to her on a couch that was new when Regan was in office.
“Temple burgers with double bacon?” he grunted reaching into the white bag and pulling out a grease-soaked, paper-wrapped lump.
“You betcha.” Regard replied as she took a huge bite of her burger.
“Yummmm.” She sighed.
“Don't know how you can enjoy that fine piece of meat seeing how you wrecked it with all those peppers," Harry grunted as he looked in abject horror at the deep fried jalapeno pieces that were spilling out of Regard's burger. "Becky Huntsucker called while you were gone. She needs a cord of firewood.”
Regard groaned. “Well seagull saliva on a shingle, today’s a real dirt pile of delight.”
Bud smashed a fry into Harry’s delectable smoky fry sauce and said, “It’ll make you tough, quit your bellyachin.”
“Dad, I don’t know if you’ve noticed lately, but my toughness might be at an all-time high. As you well know, you are privileged to be living with Ptarmigan Cove’s reigning arm-wrestling champion.” Regard replied with a mock self-important tone.
Her father let out an exasperated sigh, complete with a mustache twitch, and threw a French fry at her. It bounced off of her shoulder and hit the plywood floor. It’s tenure as a floor fly was short-lived as a little ermine paw out from under the blue and white floral monstrosity of a couch and drew the potato wedge underneath.
“You got sauce on your mustache, Old Man.” Regard said as she stood up.
“At least most of my food in my mouth and not on me.” Her father teased.
Regard looked down at her blue flannel shirt, sure enough, a big glob of fry sauce trailed down the front of her like a nightshade-tinged lava flow.
“Well drat.” She exclaimed as she snatched a napkin off of the table and began wiping.
“You got the dishes,” She quipped grabbing her keys and work gloves, “smell you later, tater.”
Regard took in a deep breath as she slammed the front door shut. The alders were leafing out and the scent of spring mingled with the briny odor of the nearby Pacific. Their home was built on a bluff overlooking the cove. Her dad and mom had cobbled together a cabin out of rough-cut cedar and pressed plywood before Regard was born, and after she came along so did another addition to the patchwork abode. Their house made about as much architectural sense as the Louvre being constructed out of cardboard.
“But it’s still home.” She whispered as she hopped into Babe’s seat and fired the big blue truck up.
Regard backed Babe up to the massive pile of yellow cedar firewood next to their home.
“Someday I am so going to get that splitter.” She grumbled for the sixth thousandth time.
The pile was half as large as the cabin, and all of it had been hand split. The earthy smell of cedar wafted into her nostrils as her feet hit the sawdust and bark-covered ground. Regard spent most of her days bucking up logs and chopping firewood. Her log supplier, Dubious Dave, had brought her a huge load of yellow cedar snags last week and on days she wasn’t out delivering lumber or firewood, she was splitting wood or milling lumber. The town’s annual Logger Days was coming up and she had her sights set on the arm wrestling trophy.
“Arm wrestling champion three years running. That sure has a nice ring to it,” she said to herself as she slipped on her white work gloves and began tossing firewood into the back of Babe.
A little while later, with the truck loaded, she stripped off her gloves and walked to the truck to take off. Fester was perching right on top of the steering wheel.
“Busted little buddy!” she said. “You can’t have mom’s dreamcatcher and you know it.
Hanging in Babe’s rearview mirror was a little dream catcher that her mother had made. Regard’s mother was Alaska born and raised, and as a child, she had made the dreamcatcher in grade school when the local native elders came and taught them traditional crafts. It’s black and red wrappings had faded over time, and the white feathers dangling from its intricate leather bindings had yellowed from the years of light exposure.
Fester, knowing that he had been caught in the act of blatant art thievery, squeaked and slunk onto Babe’s bench seat. He burrowed under Regard’s grey sweatshirt and proceeded to deliver an offended diatribe of orca-sized proportions.
“Don’t give me any of that Matlock talk, you know you’re not supposed to touch it.” Regard chided as she shifted the truck into gear and started down the hill.
Becky’s house was a blue box of a place next to the grocery store at the bottom of the hill. Becky’s husband, Fred, was the pastor of one of the two churches in town. Of course, this meant that Becky knew everything about everybody, purely because she was concerned about the town’s spiritual health and all.
Regard backed into the Huntsucker’s narrow driveway and hopped out of Babe, the truck’s driver’s side door screeching reminded her of the current state of her spine. She definitely needed a soak in her mother’s big “clubfoot” tub, as her dad called it.
“You behave now, we don’t want a repeat of last time.” Regard admonished Fester who gazed at her in a way that could be described as innocent or terrifying depending on how you looked at it.
“Regard! How are you doing?” came a voice that Regard liked to refer to as Half-Life Helium.
“Good afternoon Becky.” Regard replied, “Would you like me to stack it in the same place as last time?”
“Sure, sure, that’d be fantastic.” Becky’s voice lilted upward at the end of every statement, hearing it was like being stabbed in the base of your brain stem with a porcupine quill.
Like all self-important servants of the Good Lord, Becky felt it was her personal duty to play flock shepherdess, and she lit into Regard with an epistle of inquiry the likes of which Saint Paul couldn’t construct.
“So, how’s your father doin? Hmm? Haven’t seen him much. You know, he really should come to the singles social at church, how long’s your mother been gone now dear, ten years? That’s a Regency level of mourning. Your dad is still a handsome man and could use someone to care for him.”
Now, Regard knew the last thing in the world that her father would want to do is attend Becky’s singles social, but she and her father shared the same ornery streak, and by her reckoning, he was up one on her, so she replied.
*“Well, that’s super kind of you to think of Dad. You should totally stop by and visit with him. I bet with an invite from you, he’ll come to your social.” *
Regard had finished squaring up the sides of the firewood stack like her grandfather had taught her as a child. You build a nice square on each end before lining out the bottom and building the stack up. Papa had taught her that a properly stacked cord of firewood was a work of art and glory to look upon. She wasn’t sure if that was important, but doing a good job was, and so she continued on with his method.
“How delightful!” Becky squealed as she clasped her corpulent hands together. Today she was wearing an outfit that Regard liked to refer to as Alaska chic, a pair of salmon pink yoga pants, complete with a moss green tunic that had the most horrific flower embroidery trailing down the front, and to top the ensemble off a pair of brown Xtra Tough boots encompassed her feet. Regard wondered if they had to special order them, as Becky’s calves were about the same size as two well-fed baby seals.
“You know, dear, you should come too. Don’t you want to start a family of your own? You’ll blink and be too old to have children!” Becky’s voice ratcheted up to earsplitting eagle scream level.
Regard stopped mid-stacking and smiled as she dryly said, “Honestly, I think I might be infertile. You might want to have your prayer group keep me in their prayers.”
Becky’s face crumpled like a vacuum sucked bag of smoked salmon, and before she could reply another voice joined the conversation.
“Becky! You’ll never guess what just happened! I helped VPSO Beare solve the skiff burning crime. You know I didn’t put it all together until I had my coffee this morning, but the more I thought about it, it just made sense. It really did.”
“Marla, dear, what on earth are you talking about!” Becky exclaimed as she ran her hand through her short bottle-blond hair. Her rotund face was starting to glisten. Regard figured it was from the strain of watching her work on the wood.
“Oh. Hello, Regard.” Marla MckDuckett said as she walked up to Becky’s side. Marla MckDuckett’s husband was one of the mill bosses and as such, she was one of the most influential and wealthy people in town. She prided herself on her appearance and was currently wearing an oat colored cashmere sweater and skinny jeans that probably cost more than Regard’s monthly grocery bill. She even went so far as to not wear Xtra Toughs and was instead wearing a pair of leather English riding boots.
“Marla.” Regard replied, her tone as cold as The North Slope on the winter solstice. She had no desire to talk with the fake, saccharine-sweet harpy of manipulation and continued stacking as if both the top tier members of the Righteous Ruth clan weren’t standing there.
“Well you see, the Holy Spirit struck me at about two this morning with a strong urging to get up and pray. So I did. I just got down on my face and sought the Lord. I didn’t even know what I was to be praying about, so I just opened up and let Him flow through me.” Marla gushed in a tone most holy.
“Amen sister. The world needs more prayer warriors like you.” Becky said in affirmation.
“Anyway, as I was praying, a light shined on me through our living room windows. I stood up and saw that awful lout John Derby’s pickup drive by. It was two in the morning, Becky, and I knew the Lord had woke me up to see that scene. Imagine how shocked I was when I heard what happened to the Lodge’s skiffs the next morning. You can bet I rang up Officer Beare and let him know what I saw, right away!”
“Oh, the Lord used you as an instrument of justice, Praise Him!” Becky ejected, her voice had hit such lofty heights that Regard shuddered.
“Did you see Hey Buddy in the truck?” Regard asked as she stacked the last piece of yellow cedar on the rick.
“It was his truck, dear. Who else would drive that monstrosity?” Marla replied.
“Well, as everyone in town knows, he always leaves his keys in it and has an open-door policy on the heap, so you can’t really know it was him, can you?”
“Well, between my eyewitness testimony and with his lighter found at the scene, Officer Beare has enough evidence to arrest him and charge him with arson, so it’s really an open and shut case.” Marla spat back.
At that moment a screech was emitted from Becky that had to shatter a wineglass somewhere. Her vocal emittance was so high on the sound scale that Regard and Marla both clutched their ears in agony.
“THAT RAT HAS MY PRECIOUS ANGEL!” Becky wailed.
“Fester!” Regard bellowed as she tried, rather unsuccessfully to choke back laughter, for her ermine friend was scampering out of Becky’s front door with something in his mouth.
Fester wove a remarkable pattern through the two women’s legs, all while simultaneously showing off his prize, and hopped up into Babe with athleticism that Regard found admirable.
Regard pointed at the ermine with her index finger and growled. He dropped the winged figurine in the seat and tilted his head, a picture of sleek innocence. Regard picked up the angel figurine and turned toward Becky.
“I’m terribly sorry, we’re still working on his training. He’s just such an amazing mouser though, and you know the lower classes, we always have a vermin problem in our places.” Regard said, biting her cheeks.
Marla looked beyond offended, but Becky just looked relieved to get her angel back, and clutched it close to her ample chest while handing Regard a white envelope of cash.
“I’m sure the Lord smiles upon you for showing kindness to His creatures Regard, but I have to insist if you bring another wood delivery to me, that you leave that rodent at home.”
“You would look down on an ermine for his God-given instincts.” Regard said in feigned shock.
“That rodent needs to learn some manners, just like you do girl. I’ve always said you shouldn’t have stayed with your father after your mother died. The way you have turned out is just so tragic. I’ll pray for you.” Marla replied with a crocodile smile of false sympathy.
“Two eggs in a glass, if that don’t rhyme, then kiss my ass.” Regard replied with a cheery smile as she hopped into the truck.
Check back soon for Chapter Four!
Regarding the images in this post, my book cover art was commissioned and designed by my super talented friend Tabi, AKA The Scarlett Queen. Check out her work on Instagram.
The little ermine image came from Pixabay.