“I didn’t hear about the Livingstons until just before I got here. Why didn’t someone make the effort to notify me last night?”
“Maybe because no one wanted to walk halfway up Cove Mountain,” Mike said irritably. “For God’s sake, Ted, we didn’t roust out everyone on community patrol. We let people get their sleep. There was nothing you could have done.”
A flurry of comments and questions, about both Carol and the Livingstons, drowned out and deflected anything else Ted might have said. He subsided, but he looked sulky about it.
Sela held up her hand, and wonder of wonders, the noise subsided. “Carol will be fine, it was a simple break, but she has to stay off her feet for about eight weeks. The Livingstons aren’t hurt. We have no way of notifying the sheriff, so we did what we could. It looks like a clear case of self-defense. The intruder was armed and shot at them, and Jim was a better shot. The intruder was from the Nashville area. We have his driver’s license, he was photographed and fingerprinted, and Jim gave a signed statement. The man has been buried. That’s the best we can do.”
There was another half hour of basically the same questions asked over and over, just framed slightly differently, and a couple of people who for some reason fixated on minor details that they wanted explained, such as what Jim heard that woke him up.
She caught Mike’s eye, gave him a look that combined “help me” and exasperation, to which he responded with a small smile and a thumbs-up, which wasn’t at all helpful.
As firmly as she could, she said, “Moving on, I have a couple of other things on the list. First, is there a potter in the valley? And a kiln, too. I know there’s a pottery over Townsend way, but I’d prefer one that’s more convenient. There are a lot of people here in the valley who don’t have fireplaces, and they need a heat source. A clay brazier with an oven rack over it would provide both heat and a way to cook.”
That provoked some thought, scratched jaws, and conversation as they worked through the problem set before them. A woman said, “I’ll go talk to Mona Clausen, over close to Dogwood. I think she used to do some pottery, or maybe that was her mother. Either way, she might know something about a kiln.”
“Thank you. Anyone else know anyone who can throw pots? They don’t have to look pretty, they just have to function.”
“My kids did, in vacation bible school.”
There was a round of laughter, but Sela pointed at the man who had spoken and said, “Good, we may need your kids.” She was only half joking.
A few people brought up things that Sela jotted down in her notebook to check out and get back to them. The meetings had taken on a routine. They talked about what would be needed in the immediate future, what had happened in their respective neighborhoods, and some of what they’d need long term, though discussions of the last sort were scary and short, because no matter how they tried to prepare, the truth was they had no idea what might happen. Day to day was easier; they could manage that. Wondering what January would be like scared the stew out of all of them.
She’d talk to Carol about everything mentioned, though she was fairly sure she knew what Carol would say. That way Carol wouldn’t feel left out, because despite her protestations, she had always loved making a show of things—hence the pink streak in her hair, which was growing out. Sela made another note: find a hairdresser who could freshen the pink streak, if possible. That would keep her aunt in good spirits.
Finally people began filing out of the cold store. Without a heat source the inside always felt as if it were twenty degrees colder than it was outside, where the sun had heated the day to around sixty. By the end of the month it would be unbearably cold. Sighing, Sela made another note. Find another kerosene heater, or else tote the one they had—the one they’d been saving for when it would really be needed—to the store for each meeting. Or maybe they’d luck out and find someone who really could make braziers. It was either that or find another place to meet.
Through the windows she saw knots of the others still standing around outside, talking. In the almost two