A String through Midnight

This woman would have stood out anywhere. Bright red hair almost the color of living flame, she was tall, almost my height. That would make her just a little less than 6 feet, maybe 5’10” with a strong build, not skinny or fat but a muscular, athletic in between. WOW. I said to myself again. Well, she wasn’t getting away without me talking to her at least. She was already in the truck and as she had climbed up into it I noticed how well shaped her legs and thighs were. They were definitely not your average legs stuck into a pair of tight jeans. When I rapped on the window she jumped but let it down with a press of a button. The soft whirring of the electric motor was the only sound. She didn’t even ask what I wanted. Just stared at me with the most unusual pair of eyes I had ever seen. Hazel could mean so many things and right now hers were green with gold swirling through them. As I stood staring back at her like some high school kid, she cleared her throat. “Yes.” “Are you moving in today?” I asked sounding like a total idiot. Suitcases and boxes filled the back seat of the quad cab and even though I couldn’t see it I was sure the back was full too under that nice fiberglass cover so what else would she be doing. “Yes.” No elaboration, nothing to add, not even the hint of smile. “Do you need help?” I offered. Trying to be friendly and helpful as I could be. That’s what sheriffs were supposed to do, right? “No.” No, “thank you.” No, “butt out.” Just, “no.” Well this wasn’t getting me anywhere. “I’m Sheriff Johnson, Martin.” I introduced myself holding out my hand to shake hers. “I know.” She said quietly but didn’t raise her hand to return my friendly gesture. Mystery lady wasn’t shy or she wouldn’t be staring back at me without dropping her gaze or blushing, so that wasn’t why she wasn’t talking to me and didn’t want to return a simple handshake. What was wrong with this woman? “If you need anything my office is just down the street.” I offered again. This woman was extremely difficult to figure out. Most people would have said more than four words by now but she didn’t seem to want a longer conversation. “Yes.” She said and raised an eyebrow asking if there was anything else I wanted to get off my chest. How could she say so much and say absolutely nothing at the same time? I stepped away from her truck and she rolled up the window, put the truck in reverse and drove away. She never asked for directions or help of any kind. Most new people had to be guided around for the first couple of weeks. The country roads and cow paths that were supposed to be roads, crisscrossed and meandered around so bad that most got lost whenever they wandered beyond the buildings of the town. Mystery lady had gone the right direction first time and turned at exactly the right dirt road out of town that she should have. She didn’t have a GPS on her dashboard so how did she know where to go? Mystery lady was getting more interesting every second. When I went into the post office it was just buzzing with talk. “Martin.” I heard my name called by Mrs. Moody, the silver haired skinny little woman that ran the post office and with the help of her equally thin and nosey husband, the general store. She was almost hopping up and down with whatever news she had. “Did you see her?” She asked in a high-excited voice. “Yes.” I nodded. “Well, what did you think?” She asked trying to get my opinion out of me before she gave anything away. “Quiet, very quiet.” I answered honestly. “She opened up a box here in town. Her name is Amanda Fleming. I gave her a copy of the policies that we are supposed to give and she read through them so fast I don’t know how she managed to move her eyes like that.” “Did she saying anything else? Where she was moving from or what she did for a living?” I asked my curiosity peaked. “No, I tried to ask but all I could get were one word answers and if I got more pushy than that she just looked at me like I was being nosey and didn’t answer. Just sort of stared a hole right through me until I went on to something else. She is an odd one, pretty enough to give most of the young men delusions of grandeur but I don’t think this one will be a very easy conquest.” I agreed. “They will still try. You know some of the men around here don’t have a lot of common sense especially about stuff like that.” “And how about you Martin?” Mrs. Moody asked with a motherly chuckle. “Just how much common sense do you think you are going to have when it comes to our new lady?” “Oh, probably enough to get me out of the trouble I will get myself into.” I agreed with a hearty laugh. I wasn’t that much smarter than all the other guys in town. I just knew when to back off and there were a few that didn’t. She wouldn’t be an easy push over and I had to ask myself just how much damage she was going to cause to a lot of the male egos around here. I had already suffered a little bit of that. I knew I wasn’t a homely man and the fact that she wouldn’t give me the time of day was not just a disappointment but let a little air out of my ego too. “So are you going to go a calling?” Mrs. Moody pressed. “Madame. That would be rude. Not even giving somebody the chance to unpack before you were intruding. The old Jacobson’s place is going to take a lot of work, especially if she plans on spending the winter up here.” Whether she knew it or not Ms. Fleming was in for a tough go and I hoped she wasn’t against asking for help because she was going to need it. It took until the next afternoon before I had my first problem from the old Jacobson’s place. One of our town’s Romeos had been the first casualty of the war I could see brewing. Greg thought of himself as a ladies man but to hear all of his old girlfriends talk; he didn’t really have all that much to brag about. He was a man of average looks but to me Greg was little on the slow side and more than a little bit hot tempered. Still in his mind he was quite a catch. So it came as a very rude shock to him that not only would the new lady turn him down so fast but also sent him running home with his tail between his legs. The way she did it I found absolutely hysterical, at least at first. “Martin that woman up at the old Jacobson’s place is a nut case.” Greg Miller said as he came charging in my office late Friday afternoon. I had sort of expected something like this to happen but not nearly this fast. “Now how could you know that already, Greg?” I asked trying to keep the laughter out of my voice. “Well I went up there wanting to make sure it was okay to hunt. I go there all the time and I didn’t want her thinking I was just trespassing.” He started. So that was the excuse he used for his visit, not all that creative but reasonable. “When I asked her if it was alright she got this funny look on her face and asked why should she let me on her property. I told her it was the neighborly thing to do. Then do you know what she asked next?” “No what?” This was proving to be very interesting. At least Greg had gotten more than one word answers out of her. “She asked where she could get a hunting license for those? Those what? I asked back. I was thinking most city folk don’t know that the only thing in season right now are rabbits, squirrels and just plain varmints but that isn’t what she was asking about. She asked what type of license you needed to hunt neighbors. It sounded like great sport and she had never hunted those before.” I almost blew the soda I had been drinking out of my nose at that last part and it was all I could do not to laugh. That woman had a mean streak in her. Looking at Greg I realized he had taken all of it very seriously. He was sweating and nervously swallowing. Greg could be an idiot at times but Ms. Fleming had scared him down to his socks and that didn’t happen very often.