She knows this is a small town after all. POPULATION: 23,000. Isn’t that what Google said?
A protest of some sort is taking place a little distance away from the dolphin sign. Shannon views some of the placards put up by the protestors: ‘OUR LAND IS BEING RAPED BY WHITE PEOPLE’. ‘GIVE US BACK OUR LAND’. The protestors are mostly in modern day clothing, but some of them have chosen to don their Native American garb, complete with moccasins and feathered headdresses.
“Nice greeting,” Jared remarks.
“Maybe that’s the point. They want people from outside this town to see what is being done to their land.”
“It isn’t their land.”
“It was. A long time ago.”
“Well, it isn’t now. They sold it for a song.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly how it happened.”
“Hah,” he says.
That shuts her up, because when Jared is in one of his moods, it’s no use talking to him. It would only aggravate the situation.
The Toyota breezes past the protestors and rumbles on.
As they near the town, the usual buildings that populate a small town start to appear. A bait and tackle shop. A gas station boasting a convenience store. A café. Two cafes. A bed and breakfast. Then the town proper begins to take shape. Banks. A five and dime. Gracious houses. Restaurants. More gas stations. An Applebee’s. An AT&T building with a generous parking lot. A Walmart’s.
The tallest building they have seen so far is the AT&T, which tops three floors. A fire department sits next to it, though Shannon decides that fires here are probably put out on their own in seconds by the torrential rain.
Anchoring the town square is a lovely old church with stain glass windows.
“Look out for Pine’s Bluff, will you?” Jared growls.
He is not in a better mood because his clothes are starting to dry in the car’s heater and they are beginning to emit a rank odor. She supposes she smells no better.
“I have no idea what we’re looking for,” she says.
She supposes she should have asked the handsome blond man where Pine’s Bluff is. But honestly, the situation didn’t allow it. It was one akin to a Mexican standoff, and if you were pointing imaginary guns at each other’s heads, it wouldn’t be too cool to ask: ‘Um, where is this dueling spot you speak of again?’
The town slopes up from its center and the hillside dots with more houses. Every one of the houses is different in style, and every one of them comes with a neatly structured garden. Perhaps they give out prizes here for neatness, because it is truly a picture perfect town. When it is not obscured by rain, of course.
Shannon teases out her cellphone from her purse. She is glad she left her purse in the car earlier or the rain would have soaked through the suede. She shouldn’t have bought suede. It is notoriously difficult to keep clean. Once suede is wet, weird imprints are left on it, like geographical maps of strange countries.
She taps her GPS application. It isn’t foolproof, but since Jared won’t invest in a Garmin, it’s the best she can do.
“Are you looking?” he says.
“I’m looking.”
His impatience makes her nervous. When she’s being hurried, she tends to type in the wrong letters on the Android touch screen.
Before she can press ‘Done’, he exclaims: “Pine’s Bluff!”
She looks up.
The sign before the huge white mansion says: ‘PINE’S BLUFF’. OK, no mistakes to be made there. The house itself is very Pacific Northwest in design with many sprawling wings, gables and lots of wood paneling and plenty of roofs in every aspect of the three floors it boasts. But the parking lot which is half filled with cars suggests it is a commercial building.
The white Merc is parked at a spot marked ‘Reserved’. Either the Merc’s owner is a ‘Very Important Person’ or he actually owns the place. Shannon remembers the ease in which he mentioned ‘Pine’s Bluff’, as though it is a territory he has staked out and laid out the land mines and heavy artillery.
The rain has tapered off to a drizzle. There is an umbrella in the car, but someone has very wisely put it into the booth, and neither she nor Jared has bothered taking it out. Good planning, this.
The car grinds to a halt. The parking lot is fringed by lawns, and she glimpses a flower garden beyond those lawns going to the back of the mansion.
“Come on,” Jared says. “We better remove our bags if we want to change into some dry clothes. I don’t reckon on starting a fight if I’m sodden.”
“You’re not going to start any fight.”
She knows he has to struggle daily to keep his temper under control, and she knows it’s not his fault really. It’s the chromosomes he has in his makeup and the hormones coursing through his flesh. To ask him to be any different would be to ask him to alter his own DNA. She might as well shoot a tranquilizer dart into him.