Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey Page B

sit. They sat. And when they was finished tellin’ me what they come for, I went into the room and come out with you wrapped in a blanket in one arm, and the rifle loaded and cocked in the other. Be the Jesus, they never had much to say after that. One be one, they rose up and walked out, the reverend first, then his Missus, and May, and Jimmy Randall last. And if it wouldn’t for throwin’ a fright into you, I believe I would’ve put a bullet in Jimmy Randall’s leg that day, ’cuz the ones from away, they got no sense of how things are around here. But, when your own kind turns on you, that’s what turned my stomach that day, and been turnin’ me stomach every bleedin’ day since, and they knows that me finger itches to pull a trigger every time I walks past their judgin’, shameless faces.”
    I fingered the berries that were resting on the palm of my hand, hearing Nan’s breathing over the sound of the wind and the surf.
    “Heh, me darlin’,” she said, so low that it might have been the wind whispering. “I’m not one for pretty words, but it was a blessed evenin’ the day that you were born, ’cuz the shack’s been warmed ever since—even though I knows the cold you feels sometimes.”
    The berries rolled onto the ground and I turned my face from Nan’s as I tried to pick them back up.
    “Do you want your tea?” I asked.
    “There’s a girl,” Nan said, sitting back on her rear, and splaying her black-stockinged legs out in front of her like two rounded stovepipes. “You got me maudlin, you have. Now, go stand on them rocks and see where Jose is. Heh, I dare say she’s tucked into a sod, havin’ a nap by now. Be the Jesus, she’s not one for work, heh?”
    Josie was nowhere to be seen. I scampered around several more mounds, calling out her name and searching over the barrens. Nothing. I heard Nan bawling out something and I turned back. Climbing on top of the knoll where I had last seen Josie, I saw Nan standing on the edge of the cliff, her fists raised and flailing through the air, the wind breaking her screams and tossing them thither. I stood for a minute, a sickness creeping through my stomach. Then Nan started running back to where we had left our backpacks. Only it wasn’t a backpack that she was reaching for, but the rifle. Turning, she ran towards the edge of the cliff again, her body loping from side to side as she thrust her heavy frame forward. Then I was running, too.
    “Get the hell’s flames back, Kit!” Nan hollered as I come up behind her on the edge of the cliff. Roaring out Josie’s name, she pointed the gun down to the beach and fired. I shoved myself in front of her and stared in horror as Josie, cuddling up to Shine on a log besides a bonfire, dropped the liquor jug that she was holding to her mouth and, scrabbling to her feet, started running up the beach. Shine come to his feet behind her, a stream of blood running down his face from where Nan’s bullet had winged him, and railed his fists up towards Nan.
    Bang! Another shot fired out from besides me and Shine leaped backwards as the bullet slammed into the rocks beneath his feet. Then he was running down the opposite end of the beach from Josie.
    “Run, you bastard!” Nan screamed, firing off another shot, this time at a punt that was pulled up alongside and must have been Shine’s. It jumped as the bullet rammed into its side, and Shine come running back into sight, swinging his fist up at Nan, and trying to push his boat off from shore. Another bang, and a piece of the rudder splintered beneath Shine’s hand, and Shine, his roars broken on the wind, cursed Nan to hell before scrabbling out of sight down the beach again, blood dripping from his face and fingers.
    “Get everything together, Kit,” Nan sung out, swinging herself back to the backpacks. “There’s no tellin’ what that bastard’ll do next.”
    “What about Josie?” I asked, hurrying after her.
    “She’ll make her way home along the