Frank’s Coming

	"They're the pig's peas," Fred said.  "She has to have something now and then.  Are there any leftovers that we won't eat in the fridge or scraps from making dinner last night?"
	Yeah, there's some stuff in that bowl over there and another bowl of something in the refrigerator you can give her," she said.  "I suppose you would like to bring her in the house to warm up a while too."
	"No, I think I'll pass on that.  She's too hard to get out of here, once she gets in.  Last time she got in here, she knocked over all the furniture before we wrestled her back outside again.  I think I'll go sweep off the couch on the porch for her though.  I might even find her a blanket or something.  There is a kind of tarp like thing out in one of the sheds I could throw over her once she finishes eating."
	He went to the refrigerator, took out the bowl of leftovers, combined it with the bowl from the counter and turned back to Ellis.  "Where's those peas?"
	"They're in the back of that cupboard."  He pointed to one of the lower cupboards.
	Fred opened the door and took out what was left of a large cloth sack of peas, put a couple of hand fulls into the bowl and slid the sack back under the counter.  Picking up the broom, he went out on the front porch, set the bowl down and swept the snow off the couch.  Effie oinked and grunted happily when she got to the bowl and Fred reached down, stroking the thin coarse hair on her back and sides, before he went back inside.
	"Jesus, it's cold out there," he said as he shut the door and set the broom down.  "I think I better put on a coat to find that tarp."  He picked the thirty-eight up off the counter and went to the coat hooks for his coat.  "I suppose we should keep these handy today," he said, poking the gun down the front of his pants and went out the back door.
	Francine picked up the tobacco that lay in the center of the table and began rolling a cigarette.  "You want me to make you a real cigarette, Ellis?"  She said smiling across the table at him.
	"Sure, why not?"  He answered, getting up and going into the parlor.  He checked the stove and finding it doing okay, he picked the candy tin up and brought it back into the kitchen.  "Maybe, we should fill this thing up with enough joints to last a day or two and then stash the rest of the dope somewhere hard to get to, so we're a little better prepared for the cops, if they come."
	"Yeah, that's a good idea.  Get out the big bag, and I'll roll up a bunch of them and then we can hide the bag somewhere.  I suppose we need to dig out all the pipes and roach-clips and anything else that has to do with drugs too.  Where do you think we should stash all that shit?"
	"I was thinking we could put it all in a bucket or something and bury it under the hay mow in the barn," he said, picking up the cigarette she had set on the table between them.
	"We better make it so Effie can't get at it.  That would be a real bummer if she found it and ate it or something."
	"There used to be a big metal can out in the granary with a lid that fits real tight.  I'll go look for it in a bit.  I think if we move some of the hay and dig a hole for the stuff, then cover it back up with the hay, it would be safe from both Effie and the cops."
	Effie had finished her mixture of peas and scraps and began to root at the door, just as Fred returned with the tarp.  He called softly to her and patted the cushions on the couch.  She nosed over to him and with a little more coaxing, climbed up onto the broken down old couch and lay down.  Fred covered all but her snout with the tarp, stroked her soft nose and came back inside.
	"There," he said, taking off his coat and hanging it up, "that ought to keep her happy for a while."
	"Hey Fred," Ellis said, "we were just thinking that we should clean the place out of all our dope related shit and ditch it, until this thing with Frank's over with."
	"Yeah, good idea."
	"Do you have any pipes or anything up in your room?"  Francine asked.
	"I have one pipe is all, I think.  Duncan has a couple, I'm sure and I don't know what John has.  Where you plan on taking all the stuff?"
	"Ellis was thinking of burying it under the hay mow."  She reached over to the stove, picked up the coffeepot and filled her cup, then set the pot on the table and slid it toward Ellis.
	He filled his own cup along with Fred's and set the pot back on the stove.  They sat quietly watching Francine roll joints for a few minutes and then Fred picked up one of the deftly made little cylinders, inspected it's craftsmanship and put one end in his mouth.
	"You got some fire, Ellis?"  He asked.
	Ellis tossed him a book of matches.  He lit the joint and handed it to Francine, who paused briefly, took a hit and passed it on to Ellis.  Footsteps were heard on the stairs and Duncan came around the corner into the kitchen.  Ellis held the joint out to him without a word and he took it.
	"Where's this go next?"  He said, still trying to hold his breath.
	Fred held out his hand, Duncan handed it to him and then went into the bathroom.
	When he came out, he picked up a cup from the dish rack, filled it and sat down.  "Well, what's up?  Is this the day Frank finds us?"  He asked without really looking for an answer.
	He didn't get an answer.  He just got a question.
	"You got any pot or paraphernalia around that could get us busted?"  Fred asked.  "We're going to clean out the house except for what we need, so if the cops end up out here, we're ready for them."
	"Yeah, I got a couple things up in my room," he answered.  "When are you going to do this?"
	"Oh, I don't know.  After we eat something, I guess."  Fred took a hit on the joint and passed it to Francine.
	Francine waved it away, jumped up and opened the oven door.  "Fuck!"  She said.  "I'll bet I just burned the shit out of the cakes."  She reached in, grabbing the pan with her bare hand, jerking it away immediately, shaking it in the air and then sticking two fingers in her mouth.  "Goddamn that fuckers hot!"  She rolled her sleeve down over her hand, pulled the pan out of the oven onto the open door and looked at the cakes.  They had darkened some, but weren't black yet.  She felt one.  It was dry and hard on the surface, but felt like it might be soft yet inside.  She snatched it up, took it to the counter and taking a knife from the dish rack, she cut it open.  "Well," she said turning around to the boys at the table, "they won't be as good as they could have been, but they're edible.  A lot of butter might help."
	She went to the refrigerator, took out the butter and set it on the table.  Ellis reached down, picked up the pan of cakes lightly with both hands and quickly put it on the edge of the table.  He shook his hands as well.
	"Jesus, that is hot," he said, sliding the pan to the center of the table.
	Francine set three butter-knives on the table and sat down.  "Go for it," she said.  "They'll be a little dry, but they'll be okay."
	"Like Boesel always said; 'brown's burnt and black's done'.  They look alright to me."  He grabbed up one of the knives, cut open a cake and proceeded to spread butter on it.
	The others followed.  They sat eating and making small talk.  They each finished one and split the remaining two, each getting half.  When they were done, Ellis stood up, placed the pan and knives on the counter and crudely wiped the crumbs off the table, into his hand with his sleeve.  He held the handful of crumbs for a moment, looking at them and then popped them into his mouth.
	"Waste not, want not," he said, chewing them up and swallowing them.
	"Oh God, you're gross," Francine said, contorting her mouth into pinched shape that indicated her disapproval.  God only knows, what was on that table besides crumbs."
	Fred and Duncan each licked the end of a finger, picking up the crumbs Ellis had missed and eating them.
	"You guys are all gross," she said, shaking her head at the lot of them.
	There were several thumps from upstairs and the sound of two sets of feet coming down the stairs.
	"Looks like the love-birds are up," Duncan announced as John and Molly appeared in the kitchen.
	"Well, sleep in why don't you?  It's almost ten o'clock," Francine said, laughing.
	"Oh, we were really tired," John said sarcastically.
	"Doesn't look like anyone's going to school today," Duncan said, taking the last drink of his coffee.
	"It snowed last night," John explained as Molly headed for the bathroom, "and we can't be driving after a snow.  You know how dangerous it is."
	They all laughed and John went to the sink, picked up two cups and walked around the table to the stove.  He picked up the coffeepot, poured what was left of the coffee into the cups and went back to the counter.  "That's it for the coffee," he said as Molly came out of the bathroom.
	"I'll make some more," Francine said, starting to get up.
	"Oh no, I'll get it," Molly said walking to the sink.  "I haven't done anything around here yet.  I might as well make some coffee."  She stood on her tiptoes to give John a quick kiss and then began making a fresh pot of coffee.
	John sat down in the last chair, looking at the scatter of cups and the pile of various other things, congregated in the center of the table when Ellis wiped up the crumbs.  He spied the open candy tin, now completely full of freshly rolled joints.  They were lined up side by side, three layers deep and four in a row, with one extra, sitting diagonally on top.  "Francine's been doing her job, I see," he said, reaching for the joint on top.
	"Yup!"  She said, with a smile.  "I rolled up a baker's dozen, but the little tin will only hold twelve."
	"Well, I guess we better get this one smoked up, so you can close the tin."  He picked up a book of matches from the cluttered pile and lit the joint.  Choking slightly, he took a drink of his coffee and handed the joint on to Fred.  "You know, we need one more chair in here, so we can all sit down," he said looking around, hoping to see another chair.
	"There's another chair in my room," Francine offered.
	"There's one in my room, too and Fred has one and..."  Ellis began, but was interrupted.
	"Yeah, and there's one out in the barn somewhere and there's two in the granary, I think," Duncan threw in.  "We've got plenty of chairs around, even if we're short on other stuff."
	"I'll grab the one out of my room, for now," Francine said, standing up to get the wooden chair from her room.  As she threw the pile of clothes that lay on the chair onto the bed, she could hear Punt's loud bark pierce through the walls of the house in a series of rapid high pitched howls.  She returned to the kitchen, chair in hand, as John went to the window.  He looked down the empty wind-swept expanse, to where the road came around a corner.  There was nothing to see, but Punt kept up his barking and the other dogs joined in.
	Fred too, went to the window and as he got there, a car came into sight in the distance.  It was light blue with a dark top.  John's heart throttled forward, pumping faster.  He knew it was Frank immediately.  The image of that car had fastened itself to his mind the other day, when he and Molly had seen it in town and it had hung there constantly, waiting for this moment.  He just stared down the road at it coming toward them.  He was frozen and speechless.
	"Well, is that him?"  Fred asked.
	John nodded, but didn't say a word.  He couldn't.  Molly stepped to the window, looking out, just as the car went behind the granary sitting out at the head of the driveway.  When it reappeared, it pulled into the driveway, slowed and stopped behind Duncan's Toyota.
	"That's him!"  Molly said.  "Oh, Goddamn, that's him."
	Ellis had already grabbed the shotgun, handed it to Francine and was picking up the rifle when Molly spoke.  Fred turned from the window and picked up the thirty-eight from the counter.
	"Hey Molly," Ellis said moving toward the back door,  "Do you have anything to say to him, because if not, you don't have to."
	"No way!" she answered.  "I have nothing to say to him.  In fact, I'm not even going out there."  She turned from the window and went into the parlor.
	"I'll go out the front, Ellis and you go to the back.  We don't let him in the house, right?"  Francine said, as she moved to the door out onto the front porch.
	"Where should I be?"  Fred asked, still standing next to the counter.
	"I think you should stay in here for now, just in case he gets in, somehow," Francine said.
	"I don't want him more than five feet from that car, if we can help it," Ellis said opening the door to the back porch.  "Let's just let him talk a little and then run him out of here, if we can.  Better hurry, he's getting out."
	Francine and Ellis went out different doors and met Frank, from about thirty feet away, as he stepped out of his car.  The dogs had quit barking and were walking around the car, smelling the tires.  He shut the door to his car and began to walk around the front of it to the house.  As he reached the front bumper, Francine called to him.
	"Hey!"  She yelled.  "Don't come any further."  He looked startled, but took another step.
	"I said don't come any closer," she yelled again, as Ellis cycled a shell into the chamber of the rifle.
	Frank heard the sound of the rifle and stopped.  "What the hell's the matter with you people anyway," he said reaching inside his coat.  "You sure as hell aren't very friendly."
	"Listen here Frank," Francine said calmly.  "We know who you are and why you're here.  Molly doesn't have anything to say to you and she isn't going to see you, now or ever, so you might as well just turn your ass around and get the hell out of here."
	"Look honey, this ain't none of your business, so why don't you just stay out of it and send Molly out here, right now."
	"Tell you what Frank," she said, still calmly, but showing a bit of anger.  "If you call me honey again, I'm going to blow your fucking head off.  Molly isn't going anywhere with you and you better just leave, right now."
	"I'm not going anywhere, until I see Molly.  You tell her to get her stuff and get out here.  And why don't you put that gun down before you hurt yourself.  You're not going to shoot anyone," he said, pulling his hand out from under his coat.  He held a large automatic pistol, like the Colt Fred had coveted in the hardware store, several days before.  He held it out for Francine to see.  "I've got one of those too, but I will shoot someone, if you don't get Molly out here right now."  He took another step, but stopped as she leveled the shotgun toward him.
	"You better stop right there, or you're going to wish you had," she said.
	Molly had gone upstairs.  She opened the window in Duncan's room that looked out onto the driveway.  "Hey Frank!"  She called.  We're done.  I told you that back in San Diego.  It's over, go away and never come near me again."  She shut the window and stepped back.
	"You fucking little bitch," he screamed.  "You get out here right now.  I mean it, right this fucking minute."  He aimed the pistol at the window where Molly had stood.  "You get out here, or I'll start shooting."
	Molly turned to leave the room when she saw the pistol pointed her way and then Frank began to fire.  He pulled the trigger three times, paused and then pulled it twice more.  He was shooting at Molly, or at least the upstairs of the house.  Francine and Ellis froze momentarily and Frank ducked down behind the car.  Effie on the other hand, didn't freeze.  She came off the couch at the sound of the first shot, lumbering down onto the porch and then into the yard.  She headed straight for Frank and the origin of the ear piercing shots.  The snow flew to the side as she quickly plowed her way across the yard and disappeared around the back of the car.
	"What the fuck!"  Frank grumbled as she came around the rear of the car on a dead run.  He quickly turned toward her and fired the Colt again.  The bullet grazed her hip causing her to squeal loudly, but it didn't slow her attack.  She was on him like a football tackle, blitzing an opposing quarterback, knocking him out from behind the car, into the open driveway.  He lay face down in the snow between Duncan's car and his own.  They all watched, as she clamped her strong jaws down on the first part of him she came to.  It just so happened that this first part of him was his neck.  She bit down on the back of his neck and began to shake her head.  Frank yelled and squirmed.  The gun had flown off into the snow and he was now on even terms with his enraged assailant.  As he squirmed to free himself from Effie's vise-like grip, he made the mistake of turning on his side.  She loosened her grip, just enough for his neck to rotate slightly in her mouth and then bit down again.  Frank gave out a loud shriek ending in gurgles that sounded like he had been submerged in water, but it was only his own blood bubbling through a hole his windpipe as he tried to scream.  He made one more gurgly attempt to yell out and then thrashed silently in the snow for a few moments.  Francine and Ellis took several steps toward this gruesome scene before stopping, while the others looked on from the kitchen window.  Even Effie backed away from him as he struggled for breath.  One or more of her sharp teeth had ripped a gaping hole in both sides of his throat, and he tried to cover these with his hands.  It was futile and he didn't struggle long, before the burbling sound subsided and he lay still.  Ellis went up to him slowly, being careful not to get into the blood that lay thick around him and spattered the snow in a wide circle.  As he approached, Frank gave out one last bubbly breath of air, quivered violently and then lay completely at rest.
	Francine came up beside Ellis and together they stood in silence, looking at the form of what was once Frank.  His Frank-ness had already gone out of him and what lay before them was nothing more than tissue.  Francine's first thought was; 'what a mess'.  She knew that someone would have to clean it up and she hoped it wouldn't be her.  Frank's body lay in a pool of blood that had melted the snow down to the bare ground in places and formed reddish slush around the edges.  The snow was covered in large patches with blood for six or eight feet in all directions and both cars had a splattering as well.  The dogs had taken notice of the scene at the onset, but had stayed clear of the action.  Now they walked stiff-legged around the area, sniffing the blood stained snow.  Effie returned to the now-still remnants of Frank, sniffing the gaping hole she had made in his throat.  She rooted her nose into the wound once or twice, then nudged him a little, like a gunfighter might check the state of someone he had just shot, or a hunter might poke a slain deer and then she backed away.
	Fred came out of the house first.  He held the pistol in one hand like it weighed a hundred pounds.  He stepped slowly off the front porch and across the lawn to where Ellis and Francine stood staring into the snow before them.  The guns they once held firmly, now barely hung at their sides by limp fingers at the end of even more limp arms.  Duncan came out next.  He stood for a moment, looking at Frank's body, laying on it's back, one hand still loosely clutching at his throat, the other, half buried in the snow beside him.  He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it.  John and Molly finally ventured out of the house and stood on the front porch.
	"What's going on?"  John asked hesitantly.
	Duncan turned back to the house and began to shuffle toward them, nervously puffing on the cigarette.  "He's dead," he said, walking past them into the kitchen.
	Molly stepped off the porch and cautiously walked across the snow filled yard to where the others remained frozen in place.  So many thoughts swam around inside her head that she couldn't separate them out.  There was an overwhelming feeling of relief, but it was mixed with a sensation of loss.  It wasn't so much a loss of Frank as it was a loss of her past.  All the pieces of the huge puzzle that had brought she and Frank and everyone else, to this bloody place in the snow, seemed to drift away.  They took on a distance that made them more like someone else's past instead of her own.  She felt numb.  She stepped up between Ellis and Francine, taking Francine's hand and leaning her head on Ellis' shoulder, she held her breath for a moment
	"Is it over?"  She asked.
	"He's dead, Molly," Francine said, squeezing her hand.  "He can't hurt you anymore."
	The dogs had become braver and now, sniffed at the body as it lay cooling in the snow.  Effie had lost interest.  She had done her part and was slowly making her way to the barn.  Fred convulsed slightly as a chill crept up through him.  He turned silently and went back into the house, setting his gun down on the counter as he passed.  He sat down on the couch before his fly tying materials, put a hook into the vise and began aimlessly wrapping thread onto the hook.  Ellis and Francine and Molly backed away from the body together, slowly turned and walked back across the lawn.  When they reached the house, John met them and took Molly's hand as she stepped up onto the porch.  She broke down, bursting into tears and buried her face in his chest.  Ellis and Francine went into the kitchen and shut the door, leaving her alone on the porch with John.
	"Jesus Christ!  Now what?"  Francine asked no one in particular, laying the shotgun on the counter and looking out the kitchen window to the dreadfully still scene in the driveway.
	Ellis set the rifle in the corner, walked to the stove, picked up the coffeepot, which had been perking away, and sat down.  He sat there holding the pot for a few moments, then poured his cup full and set the pot down next to it.  He took his tobacco from the table, rolled a cigarette and lit it, leaning back in his chair.
	"Well, what do we do now," Francine asked again, turning from the window.
	Ellis looked up at her, blew out a thick cloud of smoke and shook his head.  "I don't know," he said.  "I suppose we have to get the damn sheriff out here to look at this mess."
	"Yeah, who's going to do that?"  She asked.
	"I will, I guess."  He took a drink of his coffee and set the cup back down on the table.  "Fred and I can go in and tell them what happened.  You can bet they'll all want to come out here and dig around.  There'll be a lot of questions, but there shouldn't be too much trouble.  We didn't kill him or anything.  We didn't even have to shoot at him.  He did all the shooting and then Effie ..."  He paused for a moment and then resumed.  "Effie ...  Shit, I can't believe it.  She just ripped into him, like a fucking cougar or something.  It was like one of those safari shows on TV.  I'm not sure I even believe it."  He stood up and went to the window, looking out at Frank lying motionless in the blood stained snow.  Francine reached over and took hold of his arm.
	"It's over," she said.  "It all happened so fast.  One minute we're just sitting around drinking coffee and then here we are again, five minutes later doing the same thing, but it's all different.  Everything's changed, or has it?  I can't tell anymore.  It's all so unreal.  If it wasn't for Frank lying out there, I'd think it didn't happen at all."  She turned, looked out the window for a moment and then turned back to Ellis.
	He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him.  "Well, I guess we better clean out the house and go tell the cops."  He let his arm slide down off her shoulder, stood looking at her for a moment and then walked into the parlor.
	Duncan sat watching Fred wrap thread around the fishhook.  He had wound so many times around the hook that it was barely visible under the lump of thread.  They both looked up as Ellis entered the room, but neither said a word.  Duncan looked pale.  He took another cigarette out of his shirt pocket, lit it off the one he still held and butted out the old one in the ashtray on the coffee table.
	"I guess we better get our shit together and then go report this to the sheriff," Ellis said, opening the parlor stove to check the fire.
	Fred leaned back from his fly and looked up at Ellis.  "Yeah," he said.  "Let's gather up all our dope stuff and ditch it, and then I'll drive us into town.  I guess this is better than if one of us had shot him.  At least we don't have to deal with that."  He got up and went out the back door to his room.
	"Hey Duncan, Why don't you go get anything you have that we could get busted for and bring it down here."
	Duncan nodded and went upstairs.  John and Molly came in from the porch.  Molly had wiped the tears from her cheeks, but looked worn and confused.
	"What do we do now?"  John asked.
	"We need to get this place ready for the cops to snoop around and then go tell them what's happened."  Ellis said.
	John shuddered at the thought of the sheriff, but nodded his agreement.  "I'll go up and gather up anything I have upstairs.  It'll just take a minute."  He went up leaving Molly standing, shaken in front of the door to the front porch.  Francine went to her and put her arms around her, holding her close.
	"It's okay now," she said.  "You'll be okay.  He's gone forever.  Let's go sit down in the parlor.  Can I get you some coffee or anything?  Ellis could you get us some coffee?"
	Molly shook her head and followed Francine into the parlor, where they both sat down on the couch.  "I just can't believe this is happening," she said.  "It's just all so awful.  Frank's just out there on the ground, lying there all ripped open."  She shuddered and then began to sob again.  "I'm sorry, I can't help it.  It's just so horrible.  That pig just killed him.  I didn't know pigs could do that."
	Ellis came in, set two cups of coffee on the low table and then went back into the kitchen.
	"I guess so," Francine said, taking Molly's hand.  "At least none of us had to do it.  God, he could have killed you the way he shot at the window up there."
	"Yeah, he broke the window," she said.  "I heard it break just as I got out of the room."
	Fred came back into the house with a small paper sack and threw it on the kitchen table.  "Have you got anything to gather up," he asked Ellis.
	"I think I have a couple things out there," he said and headed out the back door.  When he returned, both John and Duncan were standing in the kitchen around the table.  Fred put all the things they had gathered, mostly pipes, into the sack he had brought down and rolled it up tightly.  He reached under the counter, pulled out the bag of marijuana, put the smaller sack into it and pushed it across the table in front of Ellis.
	"Here, you have a good place to hide this?"  He asked.
	"Yeah, I think so," he answered.  "Why don't you come and help me?  We need a shovel.  I wouldn't mind putting this stuff in some kind of tin or something though.  I'd hate to have Effie dig it up."
	"I think there's a plastic bucket with a lid in the machine shop, but it'll mean digging a bigger hole.  I don't think Effie will bother it.  Why don't we just bury the sack and then cover the whole thing with a lot of hay?"
	"Okay, I guess that'll be enough," Ellis agreed, taking his coat off the hook by the back door.  Fred did the same and together they went out.
	The cold air and the sight of Frank, still and dead in the middle of the driveway, sobered them as they made their way to the barn.  The dogs had quit sniffing around, but they seemed to be guarding the area.  Like sentries, they paced around the scene, about twenty feet back.  Neither Fred nor Ellis paused as they passed the body, but instead gave it a wide berth, staying out of the blood.  In the barn, they could hear Effie grunt and snort a few times from under the mow, but she didn't show herself.
	"She must be hiding from the cops," Fred said walking to the back of the pile of hay.  "Shit, I hope they don't haul her off and lock her up for murder or whatever they'd call it."
	"They'd probably just declare her a vicious animal and have her killed," Ellis said looking around the barn.  As he looked, he noticed that the barn's loose siding-boards, were only on the outside of the structural timbers, but then, as his gaze took him further, he detected a place where there were boards on both sides of the thick beams holding up the building.  This meant, there would be a hollow place between the outer siding and the light planks on the inside.
	"What are you looking at?"  Fred asked.
	"What if we dropped the stuff down inside that wall over there," Ellis said, pointing across the barn, where he had been looking."
	"What are you talking about, inside a wall?"
	"Come here, I'll show you."  Ellis walked across the barn, with Fred behind him, to the spot he had been looking at and crawled up on the wheel of an ancient hay rake.  From there, he could reach his hand into the top opening between the two layers of boards.  "See, if we dropped the sack in here, it'll fall to the bottom and we can just take the bottom board off when the heat's off."
	"Yeah, that might be better.  It sure would be the shits if Effie did eat it, or even worse, drug it out for the cops to find."
	Fred handed Ellis the bag and he blithely dropped it down into the hollow wall.  They could hear it rattle on the sides as it fell and they both agreed that it only made it half way to the bottom.  Ellis hopped down, made sure he hadn't left any tracks that would lead to their stash and they left the barn.
	On the way back, Fred reached into his pocket and produced the candy tin, holding it out for Ellis to see.  "I thought we'd need some tuna between now and when we're rid of the cops for good," he said, putting it back in his pocket.
	"We still have to ditch it until they're gone," Ellis said, sounding a little concerned.
	"Yeah, I know," Fred explained,  "I've got a place on the way up the stairs to my room, where there's a loose board and then another hiding spot inside that, just big enough to hold this tin.  No one will ever find it.  Besides, the rest of the place is clean and we're going to the cops for help."
	"The spot sounds okay, but as far as going to them for help, I don't think they're going to be very helpful, if you know what I mean."
	They came to where they needed to walk around Frank and paused momentarily.  Ellis shook his head as they walked on.  "Jesus Christ that's a mess.  You wouldn't think there'd be that much blood in a person.  It looks like ten gallons, spread all over the fucking place."
	"Yeah, no shit.  That pig really went after him, didn't she."
	"It just blew me away.  I wonder if she's still the sweetie-pie she always was, or has she got the taste of blood now and she'll turn mean."
	"I don't know," Fred said as they reached the back porch.
	They stamped the snow off their feet and split up, Fred going to the back of the house to stash the candy tin and Ellis, into the kitchen.  Everyone was sitting in the parlor.  All but Francine looked like they were in a mild state of shock.  Ellis too, felt well stressed.  It certainly wasn't like 'all in a days work' or anything, but he didn't feel shaken either.  Francine looked like she had taken on a motherly roll that Ellis hadn't seen before as she tended, almost nursed, the wounded.  John had joined Molly and Francine on the couch and sat, hands folded in his lap staring straight ahead.  His face was pale and waxy looking, without expression.  Duncan sat in one of the overstuffed chairs, smoking a cigarette.  He too had a blank appearance and sat quietly, looking at the television, which was not on, but sat, black and silent against the wall.  Francine rambled on about anything that came to her mind, just to fill the space and hopefully crowd out the fears and anxieties that battered at Molly's consciousness.  They all looked up as Ellis entered the room.
	"Well, I guess we're ready to go tell the sheriff what happened," he said, plopping down in the chair by the door.
	"Yeah, I suppose the sooner the better as far as they're concerned," Francine noted.  "You guys hid the dope real good I hope."
	"I think it's hid pretty well.  They won't find it anyway.  We may have to tear the barn down to get to it, but at least the cops won't get it, and neither will Effie."
	"What's going to happen to Effie?"  Molly asked.
	"Man, I don't know, but it could be the end of her, if they decide to be assholes about it," Ellis answered.
	"You can bet they'll be assholes," Duncan added.  "They don't know how to be anything else."
	Fred came in and stood in the doorway to the parlor.  "You ready to go?"  He said.
	"As ready as ever," Ellis answered.  "Hey look, somebody's got to make sure that the dogs and Effie don't fuck with the body out there.  I guess we could put the dogs in the house before we go, but you have to keep an eye on the pig.  She's in the barn now, but she might wander out here again."
	"Fred reached over from where he stood, opened the door out onto the front porch and called the dogs.
	Ellis stood up and started out of the room.  Francine patted Molly on the leg and jumped up from the couch.  "Hey wait a minute," she said, catching Ellis as he entered the kitchen.  He turned back to her and they stood silently for a moment before Francine said anything.  "Don't worry about us, we'll be okay here until you get back."
	Ellis put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze.  "I know you will.  We'll be back as soon as we can, but you know who'll be with us, probably a bunch of them."  They kissed briefly, parted and Francine turned back to the parlor.
	"Oh hey," Ellis said to everyone in the room.  "Remember none of us did anything wrong, so all we have to do is tell the truth and we should be clean.  No one has to make up anything.  Just tell the truth and we'll be okay."
	He and Fred went out the back door and to Fred's car.  The Volvo sat on the far side of Duncan's Toyota with Frank's car partially blocking its exit.  After Fred had started the car and warmed it up for a minute or two, he jockied around, backing up and pulling forward a few times, before he was free to drive out onto the road.  Once out, they made their way easily toward Colfax.  Frank's tracks in the fresh snow were the only sign of travel on the road, until they reached the second farmhouse and then only one car had pulled out and headed in the same way they were going.  When they came to the paved road, the plow had pushed the new snow off to the side and the asphalt showed in large patches between the snow pack that still remained in places.  Ellis rolled a cigarette and smoked quietly as they traveled smoothly along and Fred didn't complain about the smoke.  When they reached town, traffic was light and parked cars dotted the sides of Main Street.  Christmas decorations hung from the lampposts and several people meandered along the sidewalks carrying packages.  They drove most of the length of this main drag to the courthouse and parked in the small parking lot in front of the sheriff's office.  Fred shut off the Volvo and they both sat motionless for a moment before getting out.
	"Well, here it goes," Fred said as he shut the car door.
	"Yeah, no shit," Ellis agreed.  "Let's get this over with."
	They walked up the short flight of stairs and entered the stark office.  A short, plump, scowling deputy met them at the counter and sternly asked if he could help them.
	"I think we need to see the sheriff," Fred said, leaning on the counter.
	"He's on the phone right now, what do you need?"  The deputy asked.
	"I don't really know where to start," Fred said, "but we have a dead guy lying out in our driveway and..."
	"What do you mean a dead guy?"  The deputy interrupted.
	"We'd just like to explain the whole thing to the sheriff, if you don't mind," Ellis said.
	"Well, he's busy," the man said curtly.  "I can take care of you."
	"No, I think we better wait for the sheriff," Fred said peering around the deputy to the back office where the sheriff had just hung up the phone and was writing something at his desk.
	"Look, the sheriff is busy.  I told you, he's on the phone and you're going to have to deal with me for now."
	"He's off the phone now and we want to deal with him."  Fred had raised his voice some in hopes of attracting the sheriff's attention.
	The deputy looked irritated, he flushed, put both hands on the counter and bristled.  "There's no reason for you two to become a problem here.  You better just tell me your story or we'll have to lock you up for a while until you're a little more cooperative."
	"Lock us up for what, wanting to talk to the sheriff?  Ellis said loudly.  "Come on man, just get the sheriff and let's get this thing over with."
	This time the sheriff took note of the disturbance and came out of his office.  "What's the matter out here, Jack?"  He said approaching the counter.
	"I've got a couple of stubborn kids out here that say they have a dead person somewhere, but they aren't talking."
	"Look," Fred began, "we have a dead guy at our house and a fairly long story to go with him.  We just want to sit down and tell you about it."
	"Alright, come on back to my office and we'll see what we can do," he said turning toward the back of the large room.  The deputy opened a swinging wooden gate and they went into the sheriff's office.  "Hey Jack, would you get me some coffee."  He turned to Fred and Ellis.  "Do you boys want some coffee?"
	"That would be great.  Thanks," Ellis answered.
	Make that three cups," he ordered.
	The three of them sat down in the office.  The sheriff slid a pad of paper in front of him, picked up a pencil and looked across his desk at Fred and Ellis.  "Well, you say you have a dead person out at your place, tell me about it."
	Fred and Ellis looked at each other for a moment trying to decide who would do the talking and then Ellis leaned forward.  "I suppose I should start at the beginning."
	He told the story, starting with the phone call from Frank, threatening to haul Molly back to San Diego by force if necessary and continuing through the restraining order, he finally detailed the events of the morning.  The sheriff wrote on the paper as he talked, filling several pages with notes.  Ellis didn't leave out a thing and when he had finished, the sheriff leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, looked first at the deputy that had been standing by the door since bringing in the coffee, and then at Ellis.
	"Well, that's quite a story, boys.  I guess we better go out there and take a look."  He looked back at the deputy.  "You better get a hold of the coroner and maybe grab Bill and Jeff.  We'll go out there and check this thing out."  He looked back at Ellis.  "I remember the restraining order," he said.  "That was a week or so ago, wasn't it?  In fact you came in here with the girl and her brother."
	"Yeah, I was here then," Ellis answered.
	"I'll need a complete statement before we're through, but let's go out there now and survey the situation.  Where's this pig now?"  He asked.
	"It was sleeping in the hay in the barn, when we left," Fred answered.  "We told the people that are out there to keep her away from the body, but she didn't seem to show much interest in messing with it anyway."
	"Good," he said getting up and taking his coat from a hook on the wall.  "Hey Jack, did you get hold of the coroner?"
	"Yeah, I have him on the phone right now.  Where are we going?"
	"Tell him we're going out to that shabby rental of Haines, on Rebel Flat Creek.  He knows where it is, but he'll have to come in from this side, because the other way is snowed shut."  He looked at Ellis for reassurance on the road condition and when Ellis nodded, the sheriff ushered them out of his office into the waiting area.
	"Did you get a hold of Bill and Jeff," the sheriff asked the deputy.
	"I can't reach Bill, but Jeff's going to pick up Roger and meet us out there in thirty or forty minutes," Jack said, starting to put on his coat.
	"You're going to have to pass on this one, Jack," the sheriff said, walking out through the swinging gate in the counter.  "Someone's got to watch the shop.  We can't just leave the place empty."
	Jack grumbled under his breath, hung his coat back up and sat down at one of the desks.  Fred and Ellis followed the sheriff out of the building to the parking lot.
	"You want to ride with me or take your own car," the sheriff offered.  "It doesn't matter to me, but one of you will probably be coming back in here anyway to fill out the report."
	"We'll take our car," Fred said, "but thanks."
	They got into their respective automobiles and headed for the farm.  Fred pulled out of the parking lot onto the main street, with the sheriff right behind him.  It took about twenty minutes to get back to the farm and when they reached home, Fred pulled into the driveway, parking well away from the body, still lying undisturbed, between the two cars.  The sheriff pulled in, stopped behind Frank's car and called someone on his radio before getting out.  He was a large man in his fifties.  He looked as if his chest had slipped and now hung down over his belt.  He zipped up his coat with difficulty, walked around in front of Frank's car and stood looking at the body.  Fred and Ellis had already gotten out and walked up to as near the scene as they felt comfortable.
	The sheriff stepped cautiously up to the body, knelt down and examined it for any signs of life.
	"Well, he's dead as hell.  You say your pig did this," he said, standing back up and carefully retracing his steps back away from the corpse.
	"Yeah," Ellis said.  "I've never seen anything like it.  I saw a pig bite a chunk out of a kid in high school, but it was nothing like this."
	"Well, we better get the area taped off.  Don't you guys get any closer, I don't want any extra tracks in there confusing things."  He went to the patrol car, opened the trunk and took out a wooden box, a little larger than a loaf of bread.  Setting the box in the snow, he took out a roll of yellow tape, with 'POLICE LINE' written on it over and over and walked back to where the body lay.
	"You boys can give me a hand here, if you would," He said looking around the yard, and then at the house.  "This old place hasn't changed much in the last thirty years or so.  I used to date a girl that lived here before I met my wife.  The place was a little better kept up in those days, but then every thing around here seemed to be better kept in those days.  I don't think people care as much about their homes as they used to.  It used to be about all most folks had, but now everyone has a car, maybe even two or three, and a boat, and God only knows what else.  I mean, look at this place.  It could sure use a coat of paint, and that broken window up there needs fixing."
	"That's where he shot at the house," Fred remarked.  We're going to have to fix that or freeze this winter."
	"Let's get this area roped off and take a look at what we have here," the sheriff said, going to the back of Frank's car and tying one end of the tape to the rear bumper.  He then walked around to the front of Duncan's car, made a wrap around the radio antenna and went to the lilac bush by the backdoor, making a couple of wraps around a branch.
	"Does this mean we can't use the backdoor for a while?"  Ellis asked.
	The sheriff stopped, looking around for a moment.  "Well, if I had a stick or something to put in the ground, somewhere about there," he pointed to a spot near the snow covered sidewalk, "I could leave that open for you."
	"I think we can come up with a stick or two for you to put around," Fred offered.  "I'll get something."  He went to the machine shop and returned with three pieces of water pipe about four feet long and a sledgehammer with a broken handle.
	The sheriff pointed to a place between Duncan's car and the house and Fred drove one of the pipes into the ground.  The sheriff removed the tape from the lilac bush, wrapped it around the stake and went to the house by the back door.  Here he found a Screw-eye in the siding, possibly left over from an old gate.  He passed a loop of the tape through the eye, slid it over the large rounded end, sticking out from the house and went on to the front porch.
	"Was it up here you say the girl with the shotgun was standing?  What was her name again?"
	"Francine.  Yeah, she was standing right there on the porch," Ellis answered.
	"Whereabouts?  Was she right out here?" he pointed to the edge next to the yard leading off to the driveway.  "Or was it back a ways?"
	"No, she was right out there by the edge, I think," Ellis explained.  "I was over there by the backdoor and that lilac bush, and I was paying more attention to Frank than I was to her."
	"I see.  Maybe you ought to get her out here, so I can get a good picture of what went on."  He made a wrap of the tape around the post holding up the roof of the porch, then turned and looked out across the lawn toward the driveway, as Ellis went in the backdoor.  "Well son, your name was what again?"  He said, glancing at Fred, still standing back on the snow packed sidewalk to the rear entrance.
	"Fred.  My name's Fred Wilson."
	"We need another stake over here, Fred.  Go up by the house there and cut across in my tracks."  He gestured to where he wanted Fred to walk, then backed out into the front yard a few steps and pointed to where he wanted the stake.  Fred drove the pipe down several inches and backed away.  "That looks good," he said fixing the tape to it and going on to the rear bumper of Frank's car, where he had started.  He walked back near Fred and was standing looking at the scene, when another car with two deputies drove up.  They barely pulled in the driveway, stopped and got out, walking to where Fred and the sheriff stood.
	"What do we have going here, Mike," one of the officers asked.
	"The body's over there," the sheriff said pointing to Frank.  "They say the pig did the job."
	The deputy looked at the corpse and started to walk that way, staying outside the tape line.  "Holy cow!  It sure made a mess."
	Ellis and Francine came out onto the porch and the sheriff, looking their way walked over to them.  "Hello, I'm sheriff, Mike Hepfrey," he said.
	"My name is Francine Mathews," she said, putting her bare hands into her coat pockets.
	"Show me where you were standing when you came out on the porch with the shotgun."
	She moved back next to the couch, surveyed the porch for a second and then stepped forward to nearly where she was when he asked.  "I was right here at first, when I told him to stop and not come any further.  I stayed there for a while, but then he started to come closer, only a step or two, and I took another step out to the edge here," she moved to the edge of the porch, "and pointed the gun at him.  He had his gun out by then and I didn't want to take any chances.  That's when Molly opened the window up stairs and..."
	"Wait a minute," the sheriff held up his hands to stop her and looked at Ellis.  "And where were you at this time?"
	"I was over there by the back door."  He went to the end of the porch and pointed around the corner to the back door.
	"Let me see," Mike began.  "I need to get this straight.  Maybe we ought to go through it, just like it happened.  Why don't you go back over there where you were and we'll try and reenact this thing?  Where were you, Fred?  Fred, that's right isn't it?"
	"Yeah that's right," he answered.  "I was in the house, but I saw everything from the kitchen window."
	"Good.  Then, you can play the part of this Frank fellow.  You go over by his car and start, as if you just stopped and got out.  Don't touch the car though."
	Fred went to Frank's car and they ran back through the entire thing three times before the sheriff was satisfied.  While they were doing this, the coroner showed up and after a little chat between he and the deputies, he went into the taped off area to look closely at the body.  When he was done with a brief inspection, he stood, retraced his steps and went over to the sheriff, who still stood in the front yard.
	Well, what do you think killed him?"  The sheriff asked.
	"I'd say some kind of animal with strong jaws.  Kinda strange though," he paused, rubbed his chin and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.  "There's only two bites, one on the back of the neck and then the one on the throat that made all the mess.  I'd say he bled to death from the one on the throat.  The bite on the neck doesn't look like it did much damage, but that tear in his throat got the jugular and he could have bled to death in about a minute or two."
	"What kinda animal are we looking for, would you say?"
	The added commotion in the yard had finally alerted Effie.  She nosed her way out of the haymow and headed for the house.  Her limited eyesight made it difficult for her to tell what was happening, but she had acute hearing and could tell there were strange voices coming from the driveway.  Her hip burned from the bullet that had grazed her, but her memories of the incident had already begun to fade.  She silently ambled up the path from the barn, until the scent from the strangers and the smell of blood reached her sensitive olfactory system.  No one noticed her approach until she was about thirty feet from the two deputies that stood with their backs to her, looking at the finality she had made of Frank.  As the slight breeze drifted up an ocean of smells and sent them swirling up her nostrils, she grunted once, let out a shrill squeal and began to trot, teats wagging, in the direction of the officers.  They jumped nearly out of their skins, turned and instinctively drew their guns, pointing them at her.  Fred, who stood near the deputies, turned toward the squeal, saw the drawn guns and shouted.
	"Stop!  Don't shoot!"  He begged, stepping quickly toward Effie as she approached.  "She won't hurt anything.  She's a pet."  Effie recognized Fred's voice and turned toward him, making those contented little oinks and grunts that she let out when she was pleased.  Ellis had seen the situation develop and had run out into the driveway to intercede as well.  Together, he and Fred bent down over the pig and began to reassure her that everything was okay.  They talked softly to her and scratched her ears and nose.  It was then that Fred noticed for the first time that she had been shot.  He put his hand on her flank, touching the path of the bullet that had slid along her rump, making a groove five or six inches long and about a half- inch deep.  She flinched and let out a squeal, twisting back toward his hand, but she made no attempt to bite him.  The two officers pointed their guns in the air, but stayed at the ready for her to become aggressive and stepped toward her cautiously.  The coroner pointed at her and turned to the sheriff.
	"There's your animal, I'd say," he said and then walked in her direction.
	The sheriff followed him and together they stood watching Fred and Ellis make a fuss over the pig.  Fred did his best to examine the wound on her hip.  It had quit bleeding and didn't look to be serious enough to bother with, so he left it alone.  Effie put her nose in the air, sniffing the new smells of the strangers and sauntered toward one of the deputies.  He backed away from her, gripping his pistol tightly.
	"If she's the killer here, I don't want her anywhere near me," he said.
	"Don't worry," Ellis said, standing up to follow her.  "She's friendly.  Like Fred said, she's a pet.  I think she was just protecting us."
	The coroner stepped up to her, looking closely at Frank's blood that had splattered on her during the earlier melee.  "This sure looks like our killer," he said, turning to the sheriff.  "You can see the blood all over it, especially around its head.  I'd have to make some tests, to make sure it's the victim's blood, but everything seems to looks consistent.  I'd say you have your perpetrator right here."
	"Well that about settles it then," Mike said, "but we have a few more things to tie up before we can call this thing done.  First, where's this gun the victim had.  We need to find it."  He turned to Fred.  "Where'd it go?  Did anybody see it?"
	"After he shot at the house and Frank ducked down behind the car, I never saw it again.  I just heard him fire it at the pig and then he was lying out there," Fred said, pointing to the body.  I remember seeing both his hands waiving around and he didn't have the gun.  It must be somewhere over there by the car."
	"Well damn," the sheriff said.  "We've sure messed that area up, tromping around in it, but we better find it.  You boys stay back and let my people look around here.  Jeff, you and Roger, see if you can't turn up the gun and I'll finish this thing up in the house."
	At the mention of the sheriff going into the house, both Fred and Ellis shuddered a little, but they had always known that it was coming and they showed no signs of their nervousness.
	Mike turned to Ellis.  "Can you put that pig somewhere she can't get out of for a while and then I need to talk to the ex-wife for a few minutes along with the rest of the people that were here.  I also need to get a hold of one or two of the bullets the victim fired into the house."
	"Yeah, I can lock her into a makeshift stall in the barn, but I'll have to get something to lure her in there with.  Here, I'll take you into the house and find some kind of treat for her."  They went up onto the front porch, Francine opened the door and they all went into the kitchen.  The dogs sniffed curiously at the new stranger and Francine sent them to the parlor.
"That explains all the dog tracks out there, I take it," the sheriff said upon entering, but paid little attention to them.
Duncan, John, and Molly were at the kitchen table.  Duncan sat smoking with an ashtray full of cigarette butts in front of him and the others were drinking coffee.  The sheriff introduced himself and asked if he could sit down.  Ellis dug around in one of the cupboards for the sack of peas and poured a few into a bowl.  He offered the sheriff a cup of coffee, which he accepted and then left to lock up the pig.
	Back outside, he and Fred managed easily to coax Effie to the barn and into a fenced stall that had been used the year before to hold the six piglets that she was the last of.  When they came back from the barn, the deputies had just found the pistol buried in the snow.  One of them had pulled out the clip with the remaining bullets and then cycled the action to remove the one in the chamber.  The coroner was bent down over Frank again with his back to them and they went past him to the back door, going into the house.  The sheriff had gone upstairs with Duncan to look for bullets and the others still sat at the kitchen table.  Fred joined them and Ellis checked the fire in the parlor.  The fire was nearly out and he began tampering with it.
	"How's it going in here?"  Fred asked.
	"Okay, I guess," Francine answered, leaning forward and picking up the pouch of tobacco.  "He didn't interrogate anyone, really.  He just had everyone tell what they saw happen.  He did kinda ask Molly more about her past with Frank than he had to, but it didn't seem too bad.  What did you think, Molly?"
	"It was okay," she said.  "I don't really know.  Everything just seems to run together right now.  One minute I feel like I should be glad that it's over and he can't hurt me anymore, but I'm not glad, really.  The next minute I think I should be sad, but I'm not sad either.  I just don't know what I am.  It's like it's just too much at once."
	John reached over and put his hand on her.  "It's going to be okay.  It's just going to take a little time," he said patting her arm.
	Ellis came back into the room and sat down, taking up the tobacco and papers just as Francine finished with them.
	"Here," Francine said, in a near whisper, reaching to take back the makins.  "You don't want to smoke those ratty twisted up fuckers you make in front of the sheriff, do yah.  Let me roll that for you."
	He gave her the tobacco and papers, but not before making a wrinkled up face at her.  She made a similar face back at him, then smiled and tossed him the cigarette she had just rolled.
	"Here you can even have this one and I'll roll another for myself."
	The sheriff's footsteps sounded heavy coming down the stairs.  He rounded the corner into the kitchen carrying a plastic bag with three bullets in it.  He looked first at Francine rolling the cigarette and then at Molly.
	"I found these bullets right about where you said they'd be, ma'am," he said holding up the sack.  He then looked back at Francine.  He watched her intently as she rolled her fingers just right, producing the perfect cigarette.  She looked up as she licked the paper, found herself being watched and froze momentarily, before she finished licking.  The sheriff smiled, reached down and picked up the pouch of tobacco, taking a sniff of it.
	"That's not very good tobacco," he said, setting the pouch back on the table, "but that's a fine looking cigarette.  I haven't seen anyone roll as nice a looking smoke in a long time.  And I don't believe, I've ever seen a lady roll one that nice."
	Francine smiled.  "Well, thank you," she said, holding it out to him.  "Do you smoke?"
	"Yes I do," he said, starting to reach for the little cylinder.  He then paused, having second thoughts, before finally deciding to accept.  "And yes I will, thanks.  I never did get the hang of rolling these dang things, but it'd be a pleasure to smoke one as nice as this.  He held it up and inspected it, shaking his head, smiling all the while."  He took a Zippo lighter out of his pants pocket, popped up the top and lit the cigarette, choking slightly as he did so.  "Boy, that's strong tobacco.  You sure you didn't put a little something else in there?"  He grinned as he said this, but it still made Ellis nervous.
	Francine rolled a third cigarette and the sheriff reached across the table, lighting it for her.  "Thanks," she said, taking a long drag and blowing out a thin but dense stream of smoke.  "What's going to happen here?"
	"Well," he began, leaning against the counter.  "We've pretty much finished our initial investigation.  If we ever find that gun, you say this guy Frank had, then we can..."
	"Oh, they found it out there," Ellis interrupted.
	"Oh good," he continued.  Well then, we'll compare the bullets from the gun, to these here, I dug out of the woodwork upstairs and if they match, which I have no doubt they will, then I suspect that we'll conclude that the whole thing happened the way you folks said it did."  He shifted his weight and reached forward, flicking the ash off his cigarette, into a tray on the table.  "We have to go through all the proper motions, you know, but I can't see anything that would get in the way of you all going home for the Christmas vacation, here next week.  There is one thing that troubles me a little.  You all seemed pretty much ready for this guy.  I mean the part about meeting him at the door with guns drawn and all.  How did you know he posed enough danger to be that ready for him?"  He took a drag on his cigarette and settled his large body against the counter.
	Molly shifted nervously in her chair, uncomfortable with having to answer anymore questions, but she finally pulled herself together, sat up straight and looked up at the sheriff.  "I've known Frank for a long time," she said.  "He's always been violent.  I can't tell you how many times he's come home after being in a fight somewhere.  He always had a gun around, usually on him, and I've seen him threaten people with it any number of times.  He also made it fairly clear that I was going back with him, no matter what.  I was scared."  She waived her hand around the table to indicate the rest of the group.  "I guess I convinced them to be scared too."
	Francine stood up, went to the stove, opening the eye on the top and looked into the firebox.  "I guess we were just playing it as safe as we knew how.  No one ever wanted to shoot anyone, but we didn't really want to get shot either and we weren't about to let Frank just drag Molly off to God knows where."  She bent over taking up the bucket of coal Ellis had set on the floor earlier and carefully poured a little into the fire.  She returned the bucket to the floor, replaced the eye on the stove and picked up the coffeepot.  She swished what was left around in the pot and then turned back to the table.  "Anyone want the last of the coffee?  I'm going to make a fresh pot."  No one said a word.  She poured it in her own cup and went to the sink.
	"Oh yeah," the sheriff said with a chuckle.  "There is one more thing.  I need a brief written statement from each of you.  I have a bunch of statement forms out in the car so you won't all have to traipse into the office, but we do need something written down and signed from all of you.  It doesn't need to be long, but be accurate and try and keep the story in chronological order."
	"What about Effie, the pig?"  Fred asked.
	"Well, I can't see that we need to do anything about her, really, but if she shows any signs of turning mean, you better get rid of her.  You can call me and I'll take care of it if you like, but you better watch her.  I've heard of pigs getting mean as they grow older and this one's had a taste of blood, so it might even have more of a tendency to do so.  I guess it's up to you folks, but I'd sure watch her."  He walked to the window, looked out to the scene in the yard and turned back around to the group.  "It looks like they're about done out there.  I guess we'll take the body out of here, but all the blood out there isn't going to go away for a while.  If you had a hose or something you could wash it down, but in my experience, that only spreads it around worse.  Time is really the only thing that does much.  It looks like it could snow more here real soon and that'll help.  Oh yeah, we'll send a wrecker out to get that car out of here real soon, but don't anyone disturb it."  He went to the door, then turned back, holding the stub of a cigarette up.  "Thanks.  By the way," he said looking at Molly.  "I hate to ask you this right now, but I have to.  What would you like to have done with Frank's body?  You're still the closest relative, legally and it's your decision."
	Molly shuddered.  "I don't know.  I don't want anything to do with it.  I suppose it should go back to California.  His parents are there in San Diego."  She shuddered again and leaned back into the chair, folding her arms in front of her.
	"Well, we'll look into that.  Say, bring me those statements as soon as you can, a couple days at the most would be best.  I'll let you know if anything else turns up, but other than that, have a nice Christmas."  He opened the door and went out onto the porch.  Before he shut the door, he turned back around, stuck his head in the door and said;  "Oh, would one of you come out and get the statement forms.  It would help me get out of here sooner."
	Fred was closest to the door and he stood up, following the sheriff to his car.  He took the forms and started back to the house, but turned back as the sheriff addressed him.
	"Say, we're going to leave this tape up for now, and it would be best if you folks stayed out of here and remember, don't even touch this car.  We'll probably want to take a bunch of prints off it, when we get it back into town.  It looks like there's enough room to get that other one out, if you jockey it around a bit."
	"We won't touch it," Fred said.
	"That little girl that was married to the victim, seems plenty shook up.  Is she going to be okay?  We do have some counseling available, if she needs it."
	"I think she'll be okay," Fred reassured him, "but we'll take you up on the counseling if she needs it.  It's all just pretty confusing for her you know.  She doesn't really know how to feel about the whole thing.  Oh, by the way, you guys were real understanding.  I sorta thought that your investigation would be as much of a nightmare as the deal with Frank was in the first place, but," he paused trying to think of what to say next, "but it wasn't.  I guess I feel better about the whole sheriff's department now than I did before.  That guy in the office seemed kinda bully like though."
	The sheriff chuckled.  "We're working on him.  He's a little too serious, but I think he'll come around.  I've got to get this thing wound up before it gets too dark.  I'll send a wrecker out for this car, sometime tomorrow.  You folks have a nice Christmas."
	"You too," Fred said, turning and going back in the house.
	Once inside, Fred breathed a sigh of relief.  "Well, it looks like it's pretty much over," he said, tossing the forms on the table.  "Except for these."
	What do you think, Duncan?  Wasn't that better than one of your soap operas?"  Francine asked.  Molly moaned, leaning her head on John's shoulder.  "I'm sorry Molly," she said.  "That wasn't nice, I just meant," she paused for a moment, "I don't know what I meant."  She picked up the tobacco and began rolling another cigarette.
	"That's okay, it's over now and I just have to figure out where to go from here."  She put her arm around John's middle and nearly moved onto his lap.  "Do you think we could go into town in a little while?  I have to tell Dave and call my parents."  They're just going to freak out."
	"Sure we can go whenever you feel up to it," John assured her and then looking over at Duncan, he asked.  "Is it okay if we take the car?"
	"I don't care.  I might go in with you, but I have to do something with that broken window first."
	"I'll take care of that for you," Ellis offered, "but we'll just have to put a board or something on it, until we get some glass."  He got up, went into Francine's room, looked at several scraps from the bed construction that leaned against the wall and returned to the kitchen.  "It doesn't look like that stuff in there will do it, but I can find some plywood out in the barn.  I have to go down there and let Effie out of prison anyway.  When the cops all leave, I'll do it."
He went to the kitchen window and looked out.  The coroner and one of the deputies were struggling to get Frank into a body bag without covering themselves with blood.  Once in the bag, the sheriff and the other deputy helped lift and they slid the body into the back of the coroner's Plymouth station wagon.  The coroner had a few words with the sheriff, got in his car and drove away.  The deputies stood in the driveway discussing something for several minutes and then, they too got into their automobiles and disappeared down the road.  Ellis turned from the window and walked to the table.
	"Well, they're out of here," he said.  That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."
	"They sure gave me the creeps," John remarked.
	"Actually, I thought they were real decent," Fred said, "except for the guy back at the office.  The sheriff was really pretty nice.  I may even vote for him next election.
	"When have you ever voted?"  Duncan asked.
	"I've voted a few times and he may get me to vote again.  What the hell, it'd be better to have him as sheriff than some asshole, like that dick-head we first ran into.  He was just going to throw us in jail for walking in there."
	"Do we dare burn one?"  Ellis asked.  "I could sure use a hit or two right now."
	"They won't be back today, but we better leave the big stash in the barn for a while," Fred cautioned, getting up and heading out the backdoor to where he'd hid the candy tin.  When he returned, John and Molly had gone upstairs to get ready to go to town and Francine was down on her knees, nosing around in the cupboards looking for something.
	"What are you doing in there?"  Fred asked her, but she didn't answer.  He lit a joint and sat down, handing it to Ellis.  He took a hit, leaned back, holding it out to Francine, who still prowled around in the cupboards with her back to him.  "Here, smoke this.  What are you looking for in there, anyway."
	"She turned, took the joint and held it for a moment before taking a drag.  "Oh, I was just looking I guess," she said.  "I just wanted to see what all was in there."  Then handing the joint to Duncan, she asked;  "Do you think you'll want to eat something before you go into town?"
	He looked at his watch.  "No.  I think if we hurry, we'll be just in time for dinner at Dave and Carol's."  He chuckled.  "We've become such mooches, but God she's a good cook."
	"She's got a little more to work with than I do, out here.  I was just trying to figure out what to fix.  I wish we had a big fat roast or something.  Let's see if we can find something like that for a nice Christmas dinner.  By the way, who all's going to be here for Christmas."
	"John and I won't," Duncan said, "and I think he's planning to take Molly home with him, but after what happened today, I don't know if that's still on."
	"I don't know what I'm doing," Fred said, getting up and walking to the window, where he looked out onto the yard and driveway.  The large bloodstain in the snow, now appeared as only a dark spot in the diminishing light.  "I should go up to Deer Lake and have dinner with my folks.  My sisters coming over from Seattle, with her family and it would be nice to see her, but I haven't decided whether to go up there or not.  It's a long way just to have dinner.  I'll have to see how I feel about it later."
	"What are you going to do, Ellis?"  She asked, shutting the cupboard door and getting up off her knees.
	"Oh, I'll be here," he answered.  "I don't think I'd be welcome at my folks house yet.  We had a big blow up, right after I got back from Mexico and I haven't been back there since.  I think I'd rather just stay here."
	"Well shit," she said, wrinkling up her face.  "That's only two of us for sure.  It's hardly worth making a big dinner for only two."
	"We don't have much in the way of big dinner stuff around here anyway, so it doesn't matter," Fred said, turning away from the window.
	"You'd be surprised what I can do with damn little," she said, glancing at him.
	"Well I don't have to worry about it," Duncan remarked, "I'll be basking in the warmth of suburbia, with electric heat and a soft shag-rug.  And since grades don't come out until after Christmas, they'll still be under the illusion that I'm on the honor roll."  He laughed, got up and stretched his arms above his head.  "Well, I guess I better get ready to go into town.  I may go by the bar and fleece a few of the frat boys at a little pool."
	He went up stairs to his room, fumbled through his pile of clothes for something to wear, and returned.  He had put on a different shirt and a pair of shoes.  John and Molly came down, they all put on their coats and left.  Duncan had to pull forward and back up three or four times to get his car out from in front of Frank's car and then they headed off down the road.  The house was silent for a while.  Fred returned to his fly tying, Ellis went up stairs to measure the broken window in Duncan's room and Francine, after putting a pot of potatoes on the stove to boil, just sat quietly in the kitchen, smoking Ellis' tobacco.  Ellis had a piece of thin plywood in his old room out back that neatly covered the window and he nailed it temporarily over the opening, thinking that he would repair it properly when he found a piece of glass.  Even if he never found the glass, only the top half had been broken, so it wasn't like Duncan would be left in complete darkness.  By the time he had finished blocking off the window, Francine had finished cooking up the potatoes, to which she had added some onions and an ample amount of garlic, and the three of them sat in the parlor to devour this meager meal.  After eating, they sat around in front of the television watching some old movie until nearly eleven-thirty and then they went to bed.
	Francine and Ellis' love-making was less exciting than the night before, but it did pull them closer into the web that would soon bond them beyond their physical attraction to each other.  They were just drifting off to sleep, when Duncan, alone, came home and stumbled awkwardly up the stairs to his room.  After several loud thumps and a bit of rustling around, the house was silent and they all fell off into the dream world intended for such times.
	The next morning, Francine woke first and crawled over the side of the bed railing.  She gasped slightly as her feet hit the cold floor and she quickly dressed, going into the bathroom.  When she came out, Ellis was stoking the stove in the parlor.  It had snowed another couple of inches and was still coming down.  The flakes were large, but not, what Ellis though of as a sign of letting up.  It was Saturday, Duncan could be expected to sleep until noon, and judging from the time he had come home the night before, it was a near certainty.  After Francine made a fire in the kitchen and put the coffee on, she and Ellis sat smoking and talking about the events of the day before.  Fred came in from the back, still looking half asleep and plopped down in one of the chairs with a wide yawn.
	"No coffee yet?" he said.  "I should have stayed in bed another ten minutes."
	"When do you think the sheriff will come get that car of Frank's out there?"  Francine asked.
	"I don't think he'll come out himself," Fred remarked.  "I just think he'll send a wrecker from Colfax out here and drag it away.  Why?"
	"Oh, I was just thinking I'd like to know what kinda shit's in there," she said.  "Nobody's even looked inside it yet, not even the cops."
	"Yeah I know.  I wouldn't mind looking inside there myself," Fred agreed.  "You never can tell what he may have had with him."
	"You guys are bad," Ellis scolded, "but now would be a good time, what with the snow about to cover up all the tracks we'd make."
	"Well then, let's do it."  Francine stood up.
	"Okay, but we better wear gloves, so we don't leave any prints," Fred advised.
	"And we better be careful that we don't leave any signs, or we could really be in trouble," Ellis warned.
	They dressed for the cold and went out to the car.  There were plenty of footprints, half filled with snow on the driver's side of the car, but none on the house side, so they decided to entered the car only from the side with all the tracks.  First they carefully moved the yellow tape out of their way.  Ellis opened the driver's door, reached in and took the keys, handing them to Francine.
	"Here, check out the trunk," he said and she went around to the back of the car.
	Fred opened the rear door and crawled in.  The backseat was nearly empty, with exception of a couple paperback books and a heavy coat.  He felt under the front seat.  First, he pulled out an empty beer bottle.  He could feel the normal paper garbage that accumulates in places like that, but when he reached over next to the brackets that held the seat in place, his hand touched something hard and heavy and squareish.  He knew it was a pistol before he even had a chance to remove it.  It made his heart beat a little faster as he withdrew his hand clutching the object.  When he saw it, his heart almost stopped.  It was another Colt forty-five auto.  It was just like the one Frank had shot up the house with and just like the one he had coveted in the hardware store several days before.  He froze.  His mind immediately began to flip back and forth between whether he should keep it or not.  It only took several flip-flops before he concluded that Frank sure wouldn't need it and it really made no difference in respect to the evidence the cops needed.  'What the hell, he might as well keep it himself,' he thought.
	"Jesus Christ!"  Francine called as she opened the trunk and threw back a blanket that covered the contents.  "Holy shit!  You gotta see this."
	Ellis had just opened the jockey-box, but hadn't looked in.  He slid back across the seat and got out, going around to the rear of the car.  Fred, on his knees, backed out of the vehicle, leaving the forty-five lay on the floorboards and together they stood next to Francine looking into the trunk of Frank's car.  She had uncovered the 'mother load'.  There, lying under the blanket were three long shiny guns.
	"Shit Francine, there's your shotgun," Ellis said pointing into the trunk.  "That's a Model 1100 Remington.  It even looks like a twenty-gauge."
	"Wow!"  Fred exclaimed.  "Look at that."  He reached down and picked up one of the guns.  It was an M1 Garand, military issue.  He held it carefully, pointing it at the sky, turning it in his hands in admiration.  "I shot one of these in the navy."
	"Okay, wait a minute," Ellis cautioned.  "What are we going to do with this stuff?  If we keep these guns, we have to be really careful.  Man, I don't want to get caught with any of this shit.  I think the mild manners of that sheriff would change real fast if he thought we'd even snooped around in here, much less taken a bunch of shit."
	The guns were sitting on three paper sacks full of something and Francine had managed to pull the middle one out from under them.  She tore open the tape that held the sack shut and opened the bag.  "Oh my God!"  She burst out.  "Look at this," she said, holding the sack out for them to see.  In the sack were four neatly pressed bricks of marijuana, each looked as though they must be a kilo in weight.  Fred and Ellis stood speechless, looking into the bag.  "I don't know about you guys, but I think we better keep this shit.  And I think we better hurry up and get it out of here so the snow can cover our tracks."
	"Alright," Fred said,  "What do you think, Ellis?  You think we ought to take all this stuff?"
	"Oh yeah.  It's too good'a shit to leave for the cops.  Let's drag it all in to my old room for now and get this car closed up again."
	"Good idea," Francine agreed.
	Fred took the Garand, went back to where he had left the forty-five, picked it up and went into the back part of the house.  Francine and Ellis took the three sacks and the two other long guns in as well.  They set them in Ellis' box-bed and returned to the car.
	"Well, let's check the rest of this thing out and then stay away from it," Fred said, crawling back into the rear of the car.
	"Yeah, the sooner we get this done, the better," Francine agreed.
	Fred dug around under the front seat on the right side of the car, turning up nothing but garbage and an oily rag.  Francine continued rummaging around in the trunk and came up with a paper sack with a small amount of ammunition for each of the guns, another bag of pot and a container filled with small white pills.  Ellis went through the glove compartment, finding a checkbook, the normal registration and a few maps, another pistol and an envelope full of money.  Fred backed out of the vehicle and went back to the trunk where Francine stood looking at what she had uncovered.  Ellis joined them holding the gun in one hand and the envelope in the other.
	"Look at this," he said holding out his hands.
	"Jesus, he had enough guns with him, don't you think?"  Fred exclaimed.
	Ellis stuffed the gun under his arm and opened up the envelope, holding it out to them.
	"Holy shit!"  Francine said.  "How much is in there?"
	"I don't know, but it looks like a lot.  Look at this."  He flipped through the bills as best he could with gloves on.  "There's a bunch of hundreds in there."
	"I think we better leave something for the cops to find, or they might get suspicious," Fred cautioned.
	"That's true," Ellis agreed.  There's enough tuna in those three bags in the house to last us forever.  Maybe we should leave this one in here for the sheriff and then he'll feel like he really scored big.  What's in there, three kilos?"
	Yeah, there's only three in this one," Francine answered.  "How about this jar of pills?  It looks like speed to me.  I sure don't want any of it.  How about you guys."
	"Fuck no.  We don't use that shit," Fred answered for both he and Ellis.  "Let's leave that shit in here too.  You know, if they don't find a bunch of money on Frank, they might get suspicious if they don't find any in the car either.  Maybe we should leave some of it in the car."
	"That's a good idea," Ellis agreed.  He opened the envelope and tried to finger through the contents with his gloves on, but failed miserably.  Taking off one glove, he flipped across the top of the bills, being careful not touch anything but the edges.  "Jesus, there must be three thousand dollars in here."
	"Wait a minute," Francine said.  That money should be Molly's.  She's the next of kin and you can bet the cops will just confiscate it for some reason or other.  Like it was drug money or something.  But I agree, we should leave some for the sheriff to find.  We better take all of it but," she paused for a moment, coming up with an amount,  "let's say three hundred bucks and we can save the rest for Molly."
	Yeah, that sounds good," Ellis agreed.  "Three grand or so in an envelope doesn't look too weird, but three hundred, just seems, like not enough.  There's a checkbook in the jockey box. We could slip the money in there.  Lots of people carry money in their checkbook."
	"You're both right," Fred said.  "The guns are really Molly's too.  I don't think she'll want them, but they are hers.  Why don't we do this.  Put the three hundred bucks in the checkbook, ditch the rest until she gets back from Christmas with John and then give it too her when she gets back.  I just think she's to close to the edge right now, to even take it, maybe, but she'll want it later, I think."
	"What about the guns?"  Ellis asked.
	"We just ditch the guns until she comes back too, and then we ask her if we can have them, or something like that.  Shit, I don't think she'll care at all.  But now this is the part I don't know about.  Do you think she'd mind giving us a small loan, until after the students come back and we can sell some of the pot?"
	"Probably not," Francine answered.  "How much of a loan were you thinking of?"
	"Shit, I don't know.  It would be kinda cool to have, say, a hundred bucks a piece.  You know, Christmas and all."
	"That seems like a bunch, but what the hell, we won't have any trouble paying her back.  We might as well," Ellis said, sliding back into the front seat.  He took three hundred dollars out of the envelope, put it in the checkbook, shut the glove compartment and got back out of the car, putting the envelope into his shirt pocket.  Francine picked up the sack containing the ammunition, tucked it under her arm, rearranged the trunk, so as to look like they hadn't been in there and closed the lid.  When they had shut the doors, they replaced the tape exactly as it had been before and then stood looking at the car for a few minutes trying to decide how to erase the tracks they had made in the area.
	"Hey," Ellis began, "there's nothing we can do about the snow we disturbed on the car, but that should be okay if it keeps snowing for a little longer.  The tracks we made all over the place could be covered by a lot of dog tracks though."
	"How are you going to manage that?"  Fred asked.
	"Let's get the rest of this inside and I'll show you," he answered.
	"There's nothing else to take in, but this bag of bullets I found in the trunk," Francine said, holding it out for them to see.
	"And this," Ellis said, handing her the money and the pistol.  "Be careful with that.  It's loaded."
	"All guns are loaded," she said, taking the gun and the bills.
	"We need a stick or something that I can throw for Punt and then we can throw it back and forth through this area.  He'll track back and forth through there a bunch of times and the cops won't be able to tell what went on around there."
	Fred found a ball on the front porch behind the couch and they played catch for a few minutes while Punt and the other dogs ran around in circles, obliterating the foot prints they had made in the vicinity of Frank's car.  That completed, they went into the house.
	Francine opened the kitchen door and went in first.  Her nose told her immediately that something was wrong.  There was a strong smell of burnt coffee and the coffeepot sat on the stove perking furiously.
	"Oh shit," she exclaimed, setting what she carried on the table and running to the stove to grabbing up the pot.  The handle was hot and she set it immediately back onto the top of the stove.  Grabbing up a towel that lay on the back of a nearby chair she picked it up again and carried it to the sink.  "I'll bet this shit will be good now."  She started to pour it out.
	"Oh shit wait, don't pour that out," Ellis yelled.  "It might not be dead yet.  Here, let me have a cup of that before you do anything as drastic as dump it down the drain."  He went to the sink, picked up a cup from the drain rack and held it out for her to fill.  She shook her head, but poured a little of the steaming liquid into his cup.  It hadn't boiled down to where it was thick yet, but it was black as night and smelled bitter strong.  He raised the cup to his nose, taking a deep whiff.  "Now that's real coffee," he said, smiling and holding the cup out for her to finish filling.
	"If you say so," she said.  "How about you Fred?"
	"Why not?  We can let Ellis drink it first and if it kills him we'll just split his share of the spoils, if it doesn't, we can drink it."
	"Yeah, might as well.  It's going to be a while before there's any more."  She poured two more cups full, set one in front of Fred at the table and poured the rest down the drain.  She emptied the coffee strainer in a sack under the sink, refilled it with fresh grounds and filled the pot with water.
	"Well that was quite a haul."  She said as she set the coffeepot on the stove and sat down.  "What all did we get?"
	"Well, let's see," Fred began to enumerate.  "There's four, five guns, two pistols and three rifles.  Well, one of them is a shotgun."
	"Two pistols?"  Francine questioned.  "I only saw this one."  She pointed to the revolver that Ellis had picked up off the table and was in the process of unloading.
	"Oh, I found another one under the front seat, just like the one he used to shoot up the house.  Anyway, there's the five guns and some ammunition."  He reached for the sack on the table before continuing.  "Then there's the money.  We ought to count that, by the way.  And then there's the mother load of dope.  What was that, twelve kilos in all?"  He dumped the contents of the sack out onto the table.
Out dumped bullets for each of the guns.  There was a box of forty-fives, 30-06 cartridges for the Garand, twenty gauge shot gun shells with number two buck shot, a box of 357 magnums for the pistol Ellis held and two boxes of twenty-two bullets.  Fred spread them out on the table and looked at each one.  He picked up one of the boxes of twenty-two cartridges and held it out to Ellis.
	"That other rifle must be a twenty-two.  I didn't even look at it."
	"Yeah I didn't either, but it was fairly small.  I think it was a little slide action of some kind.  I'll have to take a look at it."  He took out the envelope and counted the money.  There was thirty-six hundred dollars bills.  He took three hundred dollars, set it on the table and put the rest back in the envelope.  "Jesus, there's thirty-six hundred bucks in here, all in hundreds."
	"That had to be dope money," Fred said.
	"What are we going to do with all this stuff?"  Francine asked.  "I mean until things cool off.  It just doesn't seem like we want to have it around until the cops are done nosing around here."
	"I suppose we should ditch everything somewhere for a while," Ellis agreed.  "What if we hid the pot and the money in the barn and took the guns down to Gale's for a while."
	"Do you think we can trust him," Francine asked.  "I mean shit, you guys know him pretty well, but Jesus, we just committed a felony, I think."
	Fred and Ellis looked at each other and smiled.  "Don't worry about Gale," Fred said.  "A little felony won't bother him any."
	"I don't think we should tell John or Duncan anything about it, at least for now," Francine suggested.  "Maybe after they get back from Christmas break, but for now, what they don't know won't hurt them and it might make them real nervous."
	Fred and Ellis agreed as long as Molly was going to be left in the dark about the money and guns anyway, they might as well not bring any of it up, until they all got back, after Christmas.
	It was settled.  They would bury the money and dope in the middle of the stacked straw in the barn and they'd take the guns to Gale's.  Ellis picked up the ammunition, put it back in the sack and took it along with the pistol back to his room.  When he returned, he sat back down and took a drink of his coffee, wrinkling up his face as he did so.
	"Jesus Christ, that's awful," he said, taking another drink and shuddering.  "It gets better though, the more you drink."
	Francine had rolled two cigarettes while Ellis was out and she slid one across the table to him.  "You have a match?"  She asked and he lit both of their smokes.  The three of them sat quietly for a few minutes before Fred got up and looked out the window.  Effie was rooting around in the snow where she had dispatched Frank.  The snowfall had nearly covered the red stain, but her snooting around was bringing it to the surface again.
	"I suppose we should stash all that shit before Duncan gets up or John and Molly come back," He said, turning around and leaning against the counter.  "They must have stayed at Dave and Carol's last night, which means they'll probably show up here with Dave too."
	"Yeah, let's go do it.  You never can tell when they'll come," Ellis agreed, but made no move to get up.  "Can I finish my coffee first?"
	"Sure, if you think it's worth finishing, but we shouldn't wait too long.  The sooner we do it the safer we'll be.  You think Gale will be around this morning?"
	"He probably went hunting, but he should be back by now.  Alright, I guess this coffee isn't worth dawdling over."  Ellis gulped down the rest of his coffee and got up.  "Hey Francine, are there any groats left?"
	"Yeah there's a bunch.  I'll throw a few in the oven.  You guys better hide that stuff good.  Jesus I'd hate to get busted for all that shit.  I don't know which would be worse, the dope or the guns."  She got up, went to the tin full of groats on the counter and took out several, putting them on a plate,
	Fred and Ellis put on their coats and started out the back.  Ellis paused, turned back around and pointed at the table.  "Hey, why don't you put that money somewhere out of sight."
	"Okay," she said, picking up the three hundred-dollar bills.
	The door swung shut behind them as they went into the back of the house.  They first picked up each of the guns in turn, admiring them.  Fred had trouble setting down the M1 Garand or the forty-five.  If there were ever any two guns he wanted, these were them.  Ellis picked up the twenty-two rifle and examined it carefully.  It was small, thin and delicate, with an octagon barrel.  The forearm slid back and forth to cycle the bullets in and out.  The hammer sat exposed at the rear of the action and it had a tube magazine.  It was rather old with most of the bluing worn off and the stock was scratched and dented, but it seemed to be in sound working order.
	"Goddamn, do you know what this thing is?"  He asked Fred, who still stood fondling the Garand.
	"I don't know.  It looks old though."
	"It's a model 1890 Winchester.  This is kind of a rare little gun.  Oh, I don't know if it's really rare, but it is a nice little rifle.  I want it."
	"Fuck it.  It's yours.  I have a twenty-two and if Francine takes the shotgun, I think she'll be happy.  Besides, I'm taking both the forty-five and the Garand, unless somebody has any objection.  What's that other pistol you found in the jockey-box?"
	Ellis picked up the revolver and turned it to read the name stamped on the side of the frame.  "Shit, it's a Smith & Wesson.  At least Frank had good taste in guns.  These are all pretty damn nice weapons.  I wouldn't mind having this one too."
	"What the hell, take it.  If Francine snivels, we can sell a bunch of dope and buy her a nice new one."  Fred laughed.  "Well shit, let's get this dope stashed before anyone comes."
	"Yeah, no shit.  It looks like we're going to be doing some dope dealing anyway," Ellis said with a chuckle.  "Let's get this stuff buried.  It makes me nervous, just sitting out here like this."  He set the pistol in the bed and picked up one of the sacks, containing the kilos.
	"Let's stuff these guns down in your sleeping bag for now.  I'd hate for the wrong person to come in here and see this arsenal just lying around in the open," Fred urged, sliding the Garand into Ellis' moth-eaten old bag.
	"Yeah, good idea," Ellis agreed.
	Fred picked up the other two sacks of pot and together they headed out the back door.  The snow was coming straight down.  As they passed Frank's Ford Galaxy, they could see that their tracks had already been nearly obliterated and the evidence of their crime would soon be wiped completely away.  They hurried past the red stain and on to the barn.  Effie had returned to the haymow and she made several low pitched oinks to them in greeting, as they came through the large open doorway.  The stack of straw had been diminished considerably from the job securing the well, but there was still quite a pile.  They un-stacked the top twenty or so bales, stuck the money in with the opened sack of pot, wedged the twelve kilos of tuna down into the remaining stack and then re-stacked the bales neatly.  Standing back for a look, they agreed that it looked as benign as it did before.
	"I wonder if we should get a few bags from the other stash for Christmas presents?"  Fred mussed as he stood, staring blankly at the pile of straw.
	"Christmas tuna, huh," Ellis snickered.
	Yeah, I was thinking we should lay some pot on Gale for sure and probably Dave and Carol.  I can't think of anyone else right now, but I'm sure I could if I tried."
	"There's John and Duncan," Ellis added.  "I'm sure they'd like to take some home with them for the break.  If we grabbed a half dozen bags out of there, we'd have enough for a while."  They went over to where they'd dropped the sack down into the wall.  This time Fred jumped up on the old hay rake and looked down into the dark space between the boards.
	"How far down do you think it fell?"  Fred asked sticking his arm down into the hole.
	"Oh, I don't know.  It seemed like about half way.  You'll never reach it that way."
	"Oh no," Fred said pulling his hand out of the opening clutching the sack.  "Look at this.  It was only down a little over a foot."
	"That shit wasn't as well hid as we thought.  It must have knocked something else down, because I swear, I heard something clunking around in there, about half way down.  Probably just some junk or an old mouse nest."
	"No kidding, we'll have to do better when we put it back," Fred said, throwing Ellis the sack.  "Here, grab six of those bags out of there and let's get rid of it again, only this time, a little deeper.
	Ellis took six of the baggies out of the sack, threw it back to Fred, who dropped it back down the hole and they left the barn.  The snow was coming down hard enough that their tracks from the house were nearly covered.  When they got to the scene of their crime, the tracks around the car were covered and the Galaxy itself was layered with snow.  Fred went to the Volvo, started it and they went into the kitchen.  Francine had put a few groatcakes in the oven to warm and a fresh pot of coffee was ready on the stove.  Francine checked the oven, decided the cakes were ready, pulled them out and set them on the table.  She placed the coffeepot on the table as well and sat down.
	"While you guys were down at the barn, I went out and looked at all the guns we scored.  I like the shotgun.  I don't know if I'd want to trade it off to Gale or if I'd rather keep it.  I kinda like that pistol too."
	"Which one," Fred asked, hoping it wasn't the Colt.
	"That revolver, the 357, but I'll bet you two are already fighting over it."  She picked up the coffeepot and filled all three of their cups.
	"Oh, we're not fighting over it, but Ellis kinda had his eye on it," Fred said.  "I tell you what we were thinking though."
	"What's that?"
	"What if we sold some of the pot and bought a gun, just for you?"  Ellis said.  "I think it might take about one of the kilos and you could have just about whatever you wanted.  What do you think of that?"
	"Hum.  That sounds okay.  I've always had my eye on one of those little stainless steel thirty eight revolvers, Smith makes, but I'll have to think about it more now."
	"I think we could handle that," Fred said.  "Oh, by the way, we stashed the dope in about the middle of the stacked up hay out there, just in case you need to know."
	"Are you guys going to take the guns all down to Gale's pretty soon?"  She asked.
	"Yeah, we're going down there as soon as we finish eating, but we'll be right back," Ellis answered with his mouth full of groat cake.  "If we all filled out our reports on the deal with Frank, we could take them into the sheriff when we got done."
	"God, I don't feel like doing that right now and besides, we don't have John's or Molly's anyway."  Fred put his feet up on one of the chairs and took a drink of coffee.
	"Or Duncan's," Francine threw in.
	"Well alright," Ellis conceded.  "I guess that's out for now, but we need to get that done as soon as we can.  The sooner we get it done and turned in, the sooner we can get away from having to deal with the sheriff."
	They finished eating their cakes, Fred and Ellis packed up the guns, Gale's double barrel included, and they drove down to Gale and Liz's.  Gale was completely amazed at Frank's demise and how it happened.  He was willing to hide the guns for as long as needed and he was more than happy to take a couple of ounces of marijuana off their hands, in return for the help he had given.  They climbed back into the little Volvo and drove back to the farm.  As they turned off the paved road onto the gravel lane that dead-ended at their place, this time of year, they met a wrecker towing Frank's car into town.  They were both happy to see it go and they returned home on a cheerful note.
	When they arrived at the farm, Duncan had just gotten up and sat in the parlor, bleary eyed in front of the television, with a cup of coffee.  Francine had already started her report of the incident and she encouraged them to do the same.  They sat down at the kitchen table with her and began the unpleasant task of writing the whole thing down.  Francine finished hers and leaned back in her chair, watching Fred and Ellis struggle.  Before they finished, Dave's Volkswagen pulled into the driveway and stopped.  Dave, Carol, Molly and John got out, looked at the bare remnants of Frank that now showed only as a slight reddish cast in the snow and came in the back door.
	"Where's this fucking Killer pig?"  Dave said as he came into the kitchen.
	"Jesus Dave," Carol scolded.  "Have a little couth.  Not everybody's as happy about this as you are."
	Molly turned, gave her brother a cold expressionless look and left the room.  John glanced at him and shook his head disapprovingly, following Molly to the parlor.
	"Now see what you've done.  You can't just keep you're big mouth shut."  Carol took off her coat and sat down next to Francine.  "Hi, I'm Carol.  That's Dave."  She pointed back over her shoulder with her thumb as Dave went into the parlor to try and apologize to Molly for his insensitivity.
	Francine smiled, introduced herself and offered Carol a cup of coffee.  Dave came back into the kitchen, pulled a chair out from the table and put one foot up on the seat, leaning on his knee.
	"I'm Dave," he said looking at Francine.  "I'm the one that says all the wrong things."
	"I see," Francine said and then turned back to Carol.
	"You want'a burn one, Dave?"  Fred asked.
	"Sure."
	"We gotta go outside.  We never know when the sheriff might drive in here for some reason."  Fred went to the hooks by the door and took down his coat.  Ellis did the same and the three of them went out the back door.  Once out, Dave couldn't quit asking questions about Frank's death.  Fred and Ellis gave him a blow-by-blow account and showed him the extent of the bloodstain, up close.
	When they were all done, Dave laughed and said; "Goddamn, after all that getting ready and everything and the fucking pig takes him out.  I can't hardly believe it.  Well all I can say is that I'm glad the fucker's gone.  He's been a pain in my ass for a lotta years."
	They finished the joint and went back in the house.  Fred went into the parlor and sat down in front of his fly tying.  He stared at it for a while, trying to decide whether to tie a fly or watch some lame movie on the tube.  John and Molly had disappeared up to their room and Duncan was curled up under a blanket in one of the large chairs.  Dave and Ellis sat down in the kitchen with Francine and Carol.  They had been talking about the incident with Frank, but more along the lines of its implications to Molly's future with John, than about the gory details of the actual death, like Dave had been interested in hearing.  Dave lit a cigarette and offered Ellis one, which he took, broke off the filter and smoked.  After twenty or thirty minutes, Carol reminded Dave that she had a commitment in town soon and that they should be getting back.  They put on their coats, Carol made Francine promise that she would come visit her when she got a chance and to think about having Christmas dinner with them.  Good-byes were said and they left.
	Fred wandered into the kitchen and announced that he was going into town to get his mail at the post office.  Anyone who wanted to go with him was welcome, but he thought he might not come back until late.  Francine and Ellis declined.  Francine reminded him that he should finish his report on Frank's death.  He grumbled, but sat down and finished it on the spot.  Duncan had finished his report.  No one could quite figure when, but somehow he had done it without anyone noticing and he decided to go along with Fred into town to play some pool.  Most of the students would be gone for Christmas already, but there might be someone left around to take a few bucks off of and he went upstairs to get ready to go.  Fred arranged to take one of the hundred dollar bills into town and buy some tobacco and food, particularly a nice beef roast for Francine to cook for Christmas dinner, which would be in three days.  Molly came down from her's and John's room and asked if there was some way they could bring her car out to the farm so it wouldn't just sit on the street in front of Dave and Carol's over the vacation.  This seemed easy, if Duncan was willing to drive it back when he came home and when he returned downstairs, he agreed to do just that.  Molly also announced that she would, in fact, be going home with John for the vacation and Francine and Ellis were welcome to use her car if they needed.
	It was starting to get dark when Fred and Duncan pulled out of the driveway and headed down the snow-covered lane on the long road to town.  Molly and John curled up on the couch to watch some old movie and Ellis went out to the back of the house to get one of the baggies of pot for Francine to roll up a fresh batch of joints.  When he returned, he sat down, rolled a cigarette and continued to work on his report.
	"You know, I hope Fred does go up to Deer Lake to visit his family," Francine said as she twisted the ends on a rather poorly made joint.  "It would be nice to just be alone here for a while."
	Ellis looked up from his writing.  "That would be kinda nice," he said.  "A little peace and quiet wouldn't hurt around here for a change.  We could do a little skiing and just lie around and get stoned."
	She smiled a rather coy smile and then went back to her joint rolling.  "We could do a lot of things, if we were alone around here."
	They sat silent for some time.  Ellis finished his report and she rolled the entire ounce of pot into joints.  Fred had taken the candy tin with him, so she put them into a bowl from the cupboard.  Everyone agreed that they were hungry, so Francine and Molly decided to make something to eat.  After it was made and eaten, the four of them watched television for some time and then went to bed.  Fred came home late and Duncan followed in Molly's VW a few moments later.  They both were loud and stumbling drunk, but managed to get themselves to bed without incident and the house was quiet.
	Morning came gray and still.  The snow had stopped falling, but not until it built up several inches.  Molly was the first one up.  She stoked the fire in the parlor and started one in the kitchen before Francine crawled over the side of the big crib and joined her.  They had sat talking at the table for most of an hour, when John came down from upstairs.  Ellis finally rose and wandered into the kitchen, looking half-asleep.  He put on his hat, but no coat, picked up the empty coal bucket, from beside the stove and went outside to relieve himself.  When he returned, he had filled the bucket.  He set it back beside the stove, picked up a cup from the cupboard and sat down at the table.  Francine leaned back to the stove, took the coffeepot from the stove and set it on the table within his reach.  He filled his cup and pushed the pot back in her direction.
	"Fred and Duncan were sure loud when they came home last night," he said.
	"No shit," John agreed.  "I think they were drunk, the way they stumbled around."
	"Yeah, I know," Molly said.  "I don't see any dents in my car from this side.  I don't think I would have had Duncan bring it out here, if I'd known he was going to be so drunk."
	"Yeah really," Francine agreed.  "That's kinda weird though.  Those two don't usually drink like that.  I wonder what they ran into to prompt that."
	"Oh, they probably ran into someone having a party or something," John pondered.  "I suppose Duncan will be so hung-over that I'll have to drive to the coast.  I guess that's okay though; I've done it before.  I hope the passes are cleared off before we get there.  There shouldn't be too much traffic by now.  I'd think that most of the students left yesterday or the day before, but it's still six or seven hours, in this kinda weather."
	They drank the entire pot of coffee and Molly was making a second pot, when Fred came into the kitchen.  He sat down and yawned.  "Boy, that was a late one," he said.
	"No shit," Ellis agreed.  "Where'd you guys go, to get so stumbling drunk?"
	"Oh, Duncan played a bunch of pool with one of those fraternity guys and after he took ten or fifteen bucks off him, the guy invited us up to the frat house to a party they were having.  I didn't get that drunk, but Duncan sure did.  I tried to talk him into leaving Molly's car there, but he wouldn't hear of it.  It turned out okay though, I guess, cause he didn't wreck it or get busted for driving drunk."
	"Did you get some food for a Christmas dinner?"  Francine asked.
	"Oh yeah," he answered.  "I got a whole bunch of stuff.  It's in the refrigerator."  Then looking over at Ellis,  "I got you some tobacco too.  I think I put it in there too."
	"Are you going to be here for Christmas?"  Francine asked.
	"No.  I guess I'll go up to my folks.  They sent a letter down and my sister and even my cousin are coming over from Seattle, so I better go up there.  I'll probably come back the next day though.  I can't handle too long with that group, so I think a couple of days will be enough.  I think I'll leave later today and then maybe I can go ice fishing tomorrow if the weather's nice."
	"How long are you guys going to stay on the coast?"  Ellis asked, looking over at John.
	"I don't know for sure, but we'll be back before New Year.  After you see all the old crowd a time or two, there's really nothing to do over there.  Besides there's always a good party over here somewhere on New Year's eve.  I guess there is over there too, but Tacoma's such a shit-hole anyway, I'd rather be here.  Besides, Molly doesn't know anyone over there."
	"I don't know anyone here either, except you guys and Dave and Carol," Molly commented, getting up to check the coffee.
	"Well shit, maybe we could have a party out here on New Years," Ellis mentioned.
	"That'd be fun," John said.  "We haven't had a party out here for a long time.  Oh, I don't care.  It's up to you guys, if you want one.  We'll all be gone, so you'd have to arrange it.  It might be fun though."
	"We'll think about it," Ellis promised.
	The coffee was ready and Molly brought the pot to the table, filling everyone's cup.  Francine went to the cupboard, took a joint from the bowl she had filled the day before and returned.  She lit it and started it around the table.  The room fell silent except for the rhythm of deep breaths.  About the time they finished, Duncan showed up, looking even more disheveled that usual and flopped down in the remaining chair.  He looked around, bleary-eyed and yawned.
	"Well, it looks like I missed the tuna," he said.  "I could have really used that.  I feel like someone set off a bomb inside my head.  God, I don't know what possessed me to drink so much last night.  In fact, I don't know how we even got home."
	"You drove," Fred reminded him.
	"Drove what?"  He asked.
	"You drove my car," Molly said.
	"Oh yeah, that's right," he said laughing.  "I'm surprised I made it in one piece."
	Francine got up, took another joint from the bowl and handed it to Duncan.  "Here smoke that," she said.  "Maybe it'll all come back to you."
	"Thanks.  I need that.  Hey John, can you drive to the coast today?"
	John smiled.  "What did I tell you.  He gets all fucked up and I have to do the driving.  I suppose I can.  When do you want to leave?"
	"I don't know, but I suppose we should leave by noon.  It'll still be dark by the time we get there."
	"Why don't you and Molly finish filling out your reports before you leave?"  Francine suggested.  "And then Ellis and I can take them all by the sheriff's office tomorrow.  It would be nice if we got that done and maybe we won't have to see those fuckers out here anymore."
	"I wouldn't count on that," Fred said.  "I'll bet we see them at least one or two more times.  They aren't going to pass up a chance to check us out a few more times.  Oh by the way, there's a load of coal in the back of my car that we'll have to get out before I go up to Deer Lake."
	"Oh great, that ought to be enough to make it most of the way through the vacation," Ellis said.
	"What vacation's that?'  Duncan asked.  "You're always on a vacation."
	"School's pretty much a vacation for you, Duncan," Ellis returned with a laugh.
	The six of them sat around talking and smoking for most of an hour.  John and Molly filled out their reports with the prompting of the others and then they went upstairs to get ready to leave for the long drive to the coast.  Duncan also readied himself and by the time they were all fitted to leave, the sun had broken through the thin cloud cover and the weather looked nice for the lengthy drive.  Duncan threw his few things in the back of the station wagon and started the motor.  John and Molly had considerably more baggage and by the time they had finished loading, the area behind the rear seat was full.  With John driving, Molly beside him and Duncan sprawled in the backseat, they started to pull out of the driveway.  Suddenly they stopped.  Duncan jumped out and ran back into the house.  Ellis and Francine watched from the kitchen window, wondering what he'd forgotten.  He burst through the front door to the kitchen.
	"Shit, I almost forgot!"  He said, slamming the door and heading for the stairs.  "I have to take a couple text books home, to make it look like I'm studying."  The words trailed off as he ascended the stairs.
	Fred, Ellis and Francine laughed as they heard him rummaging around in his room.  "Hey we were going to give those guys some pot to take home with them," Fred said, turning toward the back of the house, where the tuna was hidden.  "Hold him here until I get back."
	Fred went out, grabbed two lids and returned.  Duncan was waiting.  Fred found a brown paper sack in the cupboard, put the baggies into it and handed it to Duncan.  "Here, we kinda thought you might need this to get through the vacation."
	"Wow!  Cool.  We sure could.  We could probably find some over there, but this'll sure take the hassle out of it."  He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.  "See you guys, sometime before New Years."  He shut the door and returned to the Toyota.  They pulled away and presently disappeared around the corner in the distance.
	"Well, I suppose I should get ready to leave myself," Fred said picking up his coffee from the table.  "I don't think I'll leave for a while, but at least I'd be ready."
	"When you're ready, I'll help you get the coal out of the car," Ellis offered, sitting down at the table.
	"Yeah, I can too," Francine added, going to the refrigerator, opening the door and looking in at the numerous things Fred had put in there the night before.
	Everything was in two large brown grocery sacks that had been squeezed into the large open space in the middle of the refrigerator.  She pulled the sacks out and set them on the counter to sort through.  There was a nice looking roast, about six to eight pounds, along with sweet potatoes and fresh carrots.  He had also bought some white flour, sugar and a can each of pumpkin pie mix and mincemeat.  There was also Ellis' tobacco, a whole eight-ounce can of Top and two pouches of Drum, a foreign import that Ellis had only tried once before.  There was a box of brown sugar, two whole pounds of real butter, a bunch of things to make a fresh tossed salad and tucked into the corner of one of the sacks were two large candy canes about a foot long.  She pulled them out of the sack, laid them on the counter and chuckled.
	"These are a nice addition," she said, turning to Fred, who now sat at the table with Ellis.
	"Yeah, I thought you two needed something that looked like Christmas around here," he said leaning back in his chair.  "Oh, here," he took the candy tin out of his pocket and laid it on the table, "I don't need to take this with me, but I should take a few joints up to the lake."
	Ellis picked up the tin, opened it and took one of the nicely rolled joints out.  "Let's burn this one and you can take the rest of them with you.  Will six be enough?"
	"Oh yeah, that should get me by for a day or two."
	"Don't cut yourself short," Francine commented.  "It's not like there's a shortage of pot around here."
	"I have a little wooden box I carved, out in my room, I just might give you for a Christmas present.  I think maybe you should fill it up for your trip."  Ellis got up, went out to his old room and returned with a small wooden box.  The top had been carved to look like a group of Palouse hills with a tiny river flowing through the middle of them.  The lid was hinged in place and there was a brass clasp that held it shut.  "Here, fill that up."
	Fred transferred the joints from the tin into it, shut the lid and picked it up, admiring its motif.  "Wow, that's nice.  I've never seen this one before.  When did you make this?"  He asked.
	"Oh, about a year ago.  Notice it's just the right size for joints.  I think you can get about a dozen in there."  He reached up to where Francine had put the bowl full of numbers and set it on the table.  "I think you better put a few more in there.  You never know, your folks may want to get stoned for Christmas dinner, or you may want to burn one with Santa."
	"Yeah right," Fred said with a chuckle.  He opened the box and Ellis put another five or six joints into it.  "Well, I am going to get ready and then we can move the coal."  He got up and went out the backdoor.
	"Oh boy," Francine said, turning from the counter.  "We're going to have the place to ourselves for a couple of days."  She walked to where Ellis sat and standing behind him, she put her arms around his neck, giving him a hug.  He raised his arms and returned her affection as best he could from the seated position he was in.  "You know Ellis, I could almost get to like you if I'm not careful."
	"I'm a likable kinda guy," he said,  "I don't know how you could help but fall madly in love with me."
	"You think so, huh?"
	"Sure, why not?  With all my fine qualities, I should think I'd be irresistible."
	"Irresistible, huh.  Right!  I can hardly resist just pinching the shit out of you."  She reached down onto his stomach, pinched up a sizable portion of skin between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed hard.  She squeezed as hard as she could.  He flinched and sat straight up, with a squeal.
	"Jesus Christ!  What the fuck are doing?"  He pulled her hand from his belly and quickly rubbed the spot where she had pinched him.  "Goddamn, why did you do that?"
	"You were just so irresistible, I couldn't help it," she answered laughing and jumping away out of reach.
	"Jesus, that hurt.  You're going to be sorry you did that.  I'm going to get even later.  I think I might just have to spank you."
	Francine affected a coy little shiver.  "Oh boy, I can hardly wait."
	"Yeah, you just keep it up and you'll get yours.  I think I'll wait until you're not expecting it, besides, I wouldn't want to embarrass you in front of Fred."  He picked up a pouch of the Drum tobacco from the table and leaned back in his chair again.  "Let's try some of this new tobacco, Fred brought."
	She picked up the other packet of Drum, looking at the blue wrapper, while Ellis tore open the seal on the one he held.  "This stuff's made in Holland," she said, throwing the pouch back onto the table.
	"It smells good," Ellis said, as he took a deep whiff of the open pouch.  He poked his fingers into the bright-cut leaves of tobacco, pulling out a stringy wad of the light brown material that reminded him of coarse steel wool and set it on the table between them.  "It sure looks different from Top."  He picked up a small blue packet of papers from his lap, where they had fallen from the flap of the pouch as he opened it.  Look at this they even furnish their own papers."  He pulled one of the papers out, felt it between his fingers and tossed it on the table.  "I kinda like the feel of those."
	Francine picked up the paper, tested it for strength and thickness and began to pull bits of the stringy tobacco from the glob Ellis had set on the table.  It had been cut into very fine strips and seemed almost like pulling bits out of a ball of wadded up hair.  "God, this stuff is a weird consistency.  I've never seen any tobacco that looked like this."  It was malleable and hung together, making it easy to form on its own.  She rolled the tobacco alone between her fingers and came out with a crude brown cylinder that she held out to Ellis.  "It looks pretty easy to roll," she said, dropped the loosely shaped fibers into the paper and rolled it into a fine cigarette.  Ellis pulled another paper from the packet and rolled a cigarette for himself.  It turned out better than his average, but it was only a distant cousin to the exemplary product that Francine had produced.  When he had finished twisting down the ends, she lit the match she had been holding, and lit both their cigarettes.  They both took slow even drags and blew out thick clouds of the poisonous vapors.  They could have been doing an advertisement for the tobacco company, the way they played the role of connoisseur tobacco tasters.  They each took a couple more hits from their cigarettes and blew them out.  Ellis even tried to blow a smoke ring that failed.
	"This is pretty good stuff," he said.
	"Yeah, I like it.  It's real smooth."
	"It sure beats the hell out of Top, don't you think?"  He asked.
	"Oh yeah, but I'll bet it costs a lot more too.  You're going to have to get a real job to smoke this stuff, regular."
	"Not if I can help it," Ellis said laughing.
	She chuckled as well and they sat enjoying a better cigarette than they were used to.  Punt scratched at the door and Francine got up, letting him in.  Fred came in with a satchel of his belongings and threw them down in a corner of the kitchen.
	"I'll go see how close I can back the car up to the backdoor and we can load the coal."
	Ellis got up, went to the parlor and opened the stove.  He poured the little bit of coal from the tin wastebasket into the fire and closed the door.  He brought the basket back into the kitchen and set it down by the cook stove.  Opening the eye on the top, he looked in on the fire.  Deciding it didn't need fuel, he set the eye back into the hole, picked up both the basket and the bucket, still half full, and went out on the back porch.
	Fred had pointed the rear of the Volvo toward the backdoor and was starting to back straight across the place where Frank had been mauled to death by the pig.  During the night, the snow had whipped around one of the lilacs and deposited itself in a drift, a foot or so deep, over the stain, covering it completely.  Fred hadn't built up enough speed to carry him through the drift and he came to a stop in the middle of it.  He tried to move in either direction a couple of times, but each time resulted in only the spinning of his tires.  He rolled down the window and asked Ellis if he'd push.
	"Which way you want to go?'  He asked.  "You want to keep coming back, or just get out of there?"
	"We're this far, let's keep going back.  You can always push me out again."
	Ellis went to the front of the car and together, with Ellis pushing and Fred feathering the clutch, they maneuvered the car up to within a few feet of the backdoor.  With the spinning of the tires and Ellis tracking through the area, the bloodstain returned.  Anywhere they had disturbed the fresh snow, the blood rose to the surface.  The spinning tires had even thrown some of the stain up onto Ellis' leg.
	"Oh shit, now I have Frank's blood on my pants," he said, reaching down trying to brushing it off.
	Fred got out, opened the trunk and they moved the coal, bucket at a time, into the bin on the back porch.  When they had finished, Fred carefully took out the tarp the coal had lain on and closed the trunk.
	"You want'a push, or should I try it first?"  He asked.
	"Why don't you give it a try first.  I'd just as soon not tromp through the blood again, if I don't have to."
	Fred got into the car, started it and began to pull away with minimal spinning of his tires.  Ellis stood in the doorway watching.  When he got to the drift, he gave it more gas and the tires spun, throwing snow and blood back toward Ellis and the house.  He ducked into the porch as he saw it coming and missed the bulk of the spray, but the house was covered.  Fred reached the driveway and stopped, getting out of the car.  As he looked back at Ellis, emerging from the back porch, he could see the siding around the door was covered with red snow.  It stuck to the side of the house and covered the walkway with splatters of red.  Ellis had been struck by several clumps and he stood in the doorway, brushing himself off.
	"Jesus Christ, Fred!  You sprayed blood all over the fucking place."
	"Shit, I'm sorry," he said, laughing.  He was sorry too, but he laughed anyway.  Ellis made a funny sight, franticly trying to brush the blood stained snow from his clothes.
	Fred walked back to the house surveying the gruesome reminder of Frank.  "Boy, I really did make a mess, didn't I?  I better get out of here before Francine sees this, or she'll kill me."  He laughed again and they went into the house.
	"Well, I'm out of here," Fred said as he went through the backdoor.
	Francine had put a couple of groatcakes into a small paper sack and set them on the duffel bag Fred had thrown in the corner.  He picked up the bag and the sack, walking to the door.  "What's this?"  He asked, holding up the little sack.
	"Oh, it's just a couple of cakes, to get you to the lake," Francine told him.  "I thought you might get hungry before you got there.  Have you got everything you need?  Have you got your pot?"
	"Yeah, I'm ready.  Well, I'll see you guys in a couple of days.  You're going to turn these report things in to the sheriff, right?"
	"Oh yeah, we'll go in there tomorrow, first thing and give them to the sheriff personally," Ellis promised.  "I don't really want that one deputy we saw in there last time to even look at them if I can help it."
	"You can't.  If he wants to, he'll read them anyway," Francine pointed out.
	"Well, like I said, I'm out of here.  See you after Christmas."  He went out the front door across the porch and to the Volvo, warming in the driveway.
	Francine and Ellis stood in the kitchen, listening, just listening to nothing.  There was nothing to hear.  There was no television, no talking, no stereo.  There just plain wasn't anything to hear.  They even breathed as little as possible, so as not to hear their own selves.  Suddenly the refrigerator came on.  The little whir of the fan and pump split through the silence like a twelve-cylinder diesel locomotive starting to climb a steep grade.  They looked at each other and laughed.
	"There's always something to spoil the quiet, isn't there?"  Francine noted, walking to the stove.  She picked up the coffeepot, went to the table and sat down.  "You know, sometime I'd like to have a whole day with no sound, but maybe the wind," she said, still holding the pot.  She filled her cup then Ellis' and set the pot back on the stove with out getting up.
	"What do you say we have something to eat and then go skiing?"  Ellis asked, sitting down to his coffee and taking up the pouch of Drum.
	"That sounds like a plan.  Where would you go?"
	"It's kind of a long hump back up after you're done, but it's really nice down in Union Flat.  There's the creek and it's kinda forest like down there.  It's a pretty exciting ride getting down there too."
	"Yeah that sounds cool.  There's not much ready to eat except groatcakes."  She got up, went to the tin on the counter and opened it.  "Looks like there's still four left."
	"That's plenty.  Let's heat up two and take two with us," he said, putting the final twist on his cigarette.
	Francine took two of the cakes, popped them in the oven and sat down.  The candy tin lay open on the table.  Ellis got up, took the bowl full of joints from the cupboard and sat back down.  He put as many of the little marijuana cigarettes in the tin as it would hold and closed it.  There were still more than a dozen left in the bowl and he gathered them into one hand, holding them out to Francine.
	Do we have something to put these in so I can ditch them properly?"
	She went over to the cupboard under the sink, reached into the sack of garbage that sat there and came out with the baggie that the pot was in originally.  "Here, will that do?"  She asked.
	"That'll be fine.  I just wanted to put it somewhere the sheriff wouldn't find it if he shows up looking for the reports while we're out skiing."
	"Why don't we lock the house?"
	Ellis laughed.  "Lock the house?  You can't lock this place.  There aren't any keys or locks.  I don't think there ever has been.  I'll just stash this back where Fred put the other lid we grabbed out to give to Dave and Carol.  And then we can just take the candy tin with us for now."
	The sound of dogs barking edged through the thin walls.  They looked out the kitchen window to see a pickup truck coming up the road.  It was too new to be any of their friends and as it turned into the driveway, Ellis recognized it as Haines, the landlord.  He pulled in behind the VW and stopped.  Ellis put the baggie of joints into his coat pocket that hung by the backdoor and went out on the porch.
	"Hi Jim, how's things going?"  He asked as Haines made his way across the red stain in the snow.
	"Pretty good.  Jesus this is kind of a mess here," he said pointing to the bloodstain and then following the splatters of red up onto the house, he asked.  "How the hell did it get way up there?"
	"Oh, Fred got a little rammy this morning after we unloaded some coal.  He kinda spun his tires and threw a bunch of it up onto the side of the doorway there and all over me.  I was going to get a broom and see if I couldn't sweep it off there."
	"Well, What the hell happened out here?  Mike called me yesterday and told me someone got killed by a pig or something."
	"Yeah, no shit.  Come on in and have some coffee and I'll tell you all about it."
	They went into the kitchen.  Ellis introduced him to Francine and they all sat down at the table.  Together, they told the story while Jim listened intently.  When they had finished Jim pushed his cup toward Ellis and smiled.
	"You got a little more coffee?"  Francine reached over, took the pot and refilled his cup.  "Thanks," he said.  "Well, it sounds like I missed the excitement.  And it sounds like Frank won't be missed much either.  Too bad he made such a mess out there, but I guess that'll go away in time.  Are you getting any hassle from the sheriff's department?"
	"It doesn't seem like it," Ellis answered.  "We have to go in there tomorrow and turn in these reports on what happened, but they all seem to be pretty mellow about the whole thing."  There was one fat little deputy in the office that gave us some shit right when we went in to report the thing, but we haven't had to deal with him since."
	"That sounds like Jack Ramsey," Jim said  "He's kind of a knot-head.  I've had a couple of run-ins with him, myself.  He's not what I'd call harmless, but Mike usually keeps him in the office so he doesn't get in too much trouble.  I like Mike, the sheriff, though.  He's really not a bad guy at all."
	"He seemed nice enough," Francine agreed.
	"How's everything else around here?"
	"Oh, pretty good.  We covered up the well the other day, so maybe it won't freeze this year, but other than that, things are about the same as always."
	"You're heating the place with coal now it looks like."
	"Yeah, we never did get any wood in this year, so that's all there is," Ellis informed him.
	"Where you getting the coal?"
	"Don't ask.  You don't want to know."
	"Oh, I see."  He scowled at Ellis and then chuckled, dropping the subject.  Well, I suppose I ought to be getting back to my cows and Lavern.  God, I don't know which is the most trouble."  He glanced over at Francine.  "Lavern's my lovely wife, you know."
	"I gathered as much," Francine said.
	"You two going to be around for Christmas?"  He asked.
	"Yeah, we'll be here," Ellis answered.  "Everyone else went home for the holiday, but we'll be around.  We thought we might ski down into Union Flat this afternoon, but mostly we thought we might take advantage of the quiet around here with everyone gone."
	"Well I guess I'll take off.  Hope that pig doesn't try and get me as I go out.  It'd be a hell of a deal to end up as nothing more that red stain in the yard, like poor old Frank."  He got up, grabbed his coat off the back of the chair and went out the front door.
	When he had gone, Francine opened the oven and took out the groatcakes that had been in there since before Jim had come.  The oven hadn't been very hot luckily and they hadn't burned, but they were dry as toast.  "Boy these are going to need some butter and jam.  I forgot they were in there."
	Ellis broke one open, lathered butter on it and then put on an ample amount of jam.  "When they're this dry, it just gives you an excuse to put more good stuff on them," he said, crunching into it.  They ate their cakes, had another cigarette and prepared to go skiing.
	They didn't want the dogs to follow them down into the flat because of the many other dogs that lived down there, so they left them in the house.  The sun was out, bright and sparkly on the snow.  Again, Francine led the way as they headed up the valley to where they cut up over the hill and onto the ridge.  Once on top, they stopped, resting from the steep climb.  To the South, the snow-covered ground broke away gently at first and then steepened as it neared the valley floor.  The wind had sculpted the snow to look like waves, frozen in place.  The sun reflected off the snow in a million little sparkles, making them squint their eyes.  Back to the North, the mountains of Idaho lay hidden in a blanket of low clouds that looked like they may still be shedding their burden of icy moisture and a pair of Red-tail hawks hung in the light breeze above them, gliding effortlessly to and fro.  
	"Well, here's the fun part," Ellis said, pointing down the hill toward the valley that held Union Flat Creek.
	Francine pushed off first and Ellis followed.  He pushed hard with his poles, trying to catch up to her and in a short distance came up beside her.  They skied along side by side, picking up speed for a while and then Ellis edged in front, leaving her to follow in his wake.  By the time they reached the sharp corner near the bottom, they had picked up considerable speed and Ellis leaned hard into the turn.  When he reached the bottom and slid to a stop, he looked back up the hill just in time to see Francine round the corner too far to the outside, careen out of control and fly off the roadway into the brush that lined it.  He started back up the hill to help her, sliding in the same tracks he had just made on his decent.  He had gone only a short ways when she emerged from the bushes un-hurt, but covered with snow.  He stopped and waited for her to join him and together they continued to the bottom, where they stopped for a minute so she could brush the snow off her.
	"Nice crash," he said.  "I wish I had a picture of that one."
	"Jesus, I could have killed myself.  It's a good thing those bushes were kinda soft."
	"Let's go down through Gale and Liz's place and get next to the creek.  Then we can follow it for a ways."  He slid off across the road and down into the flat with Francine behind him and they skied along next to the creek for some time in silence.
	They crossed many animal trails leading to and from the water.  Some tracks left deep impressions in the snow, made by deer or coyotes and others, made by smaller animals like mice barely scuffed the surface of the deep white powder.  They crossed the trail of one of these smaller critters headed for the creek that stopped abruptly a foot or two from the water.  Its tracks ended in a wide depression of disturbed snow where a hawk had found a meal.  At one point, they came across a stick poking from the ground near the water's edge.  A light chain, securely attached to the upper end of the stick, hung down and disappeared into the snow.
	"Look at that," Francine called to Ellis, who was several yards ahead of her.  He slid backwards in his tracks to where she had stopped and looked where she was pointing.  "That's one of those fucking traps, I'll bet."
	"It's probably one of Gale's muskrat traps," he said.
	"No shit."  She side stepped down to the edge of the water and began poking in the snow with her ski pole.
	"What are you doing?  You can't be fucking with someone's traps."
	"I know Gale's a close friend, but I can't just go by one of those goddamn things with out tripping it.  Trapping is just so cruel.  It's not even like they're killing the thing for food.  They just kill for the sake of killing the poor thing.  I mean, what the hell, they get a couple of bucks for the hide and then some asshole lines a pair of gloves with it for some rich bitch that doesn't even know where it came from.  Jesus Ellis, I know Gale would be pissed as hell, but I can't just leave a trap set like that."  She continued prodding under the surface until they heard a sharp snap and then she pulled the trap up out of the snow, attached to the end of the ski pole.  She reached down, pried the metal jaws from the tip of the pole and let it fall to the ground.
	"You know that what you just did is actually against the law?  I mean, to fuck with a guy's trap line, may even be a felony."  Ellis shook his head in dismay.  "I don't like trapping either, but I can't see screwing with Gale's traps.  I mean shit, it's not for me to make that judgment."
	"You didn't.  I did.  Christ Ellis, we have to make judgments all the time.  What would the place be like, if we never made any at all?  Your decision not to go in the army was against the law, but you didn't have any problem with that.  It's these kind of rebellious acts that gets things changed.  I'm just working for a change in the way things are done.  You do the same thing.  We just don't agree on this one."
	"Well, I guess I do agree with you about trapping being bad, but I just can't mess with a friends trip like that.  You go ahead and do what you have to do, but I won't get involved in this one."
	He skied on up the edge of the creek, enjoying the crisp air and the sunshine that accompanied it.  Francine followed, looking for more traps, but Gale had hidden the rest more effectively and she found none.  They saw a coyote standing in the brush watching a deer that stood drinking from the creek a hundred yards in front of them.  When the coyote saw them, it slid quietly back into the woods and vanished.  The deer too became aware of them and gracefully leaped the narrow creek and bounded up the hillside across from them.
	A couple of miles up the creek from where they had begun, they came to a house, a barn and a cluster of outbuildings.  It sat in a narrow part of the valley, hunched up next to the stream where its spring flow must certainly invade their domain.  It seemed odd that people would crowd a stream, which would certainly rise up into their lives at least once a year.  Francine and Ellis stopped and gazed at the small farmstead.  It looked well kept and tidy.  The house had a fresh coat of white paint and the green trim tastefully accentuated the design of the turn of the century architecture.  The barn too had been painted recently and new shingles covered the straight lines of the roof.  The out buildings were less crisp, but they were in good repair and the grounds lay clean and unencumbered by the kinds of junk and machinery that normally accompanied such areas.  The creek ran in wide curves down through this arrangement of structures, separating the barn and one of the outbuildings from the rest.  A small bridge across the stream, barely wide enough for a wheel barrow, connected the two halves of these people's little world.
	"That's sure a cute little place, isn't it," Francine said, as they paused their steady progress up the creek.  "I think I could live pretty happily in a place like that."
	"I like the way the creek wanders through the barnyard, but I'll bet you have to have a boat to get around in the spring," Ellis noted.
	"That would kinda add a new dimension to doing the chores, wouldn't it?"  She added with a chuckle.
	"Not to mention, needing waders just to do the dishes.  I'd think that they get water in the house some years."
	"Well, maybe I'll pass on this place," she said, taking the groat cake out of her pocket.  "I kinda like dry feet in my kitchen."
	Ellis looked around at the narrow horizons, noticing the diminishing light.  "I suppose we should be getting back.  It looks like it'll be getting dark before too long."
	They turned around and headed back down the creek in the same tracks they had made coming up.  The slight slope and the previously packed snow, made traveling a bit easier, and they made it back to Gale and Liz's house in about a half hour.  It was now time for the long hard climb to the crest of the hill that separated Union Flat from Rebel Flat.  They thought about visiting Gale and Liz, but decided against it and began plodding up the hill they had skied down earlier.  When they came to the spot where Francine had flown off the roadway and into the bushes, they stopped to look at the crash scene.  There were several broken branches on the bush she had smashed into, but there was no evidence of a fall.  She had merely missed the turn and skied into the bushes.  They continued trudging up the hill, one step at a time. The wax they had put on the bottom of their skis to prevent sliding backwards, had worn off and they had to work hard to keep from slipping.  By the time they reached the crest of the hill, they were both out of breath and exhausted.  Ellis fell over on his side in the snow.  Francine leaned forward, letting her poles support her and panted.
	"Well, that's the hard part.  It's all downhill from here," she said.
	"Yep," he answered, "and it's a good thing.  I don't think I could go another inch uphill."
	"I'll race you home."
	"Jesus, you sure have a lot of energy."
	"You're just a wimp, Ellis.  Let's go."  She pushed off with her poles and slid away down the hill.
	Ellis watched her from his vantage point on the ground as she picked up speed and then got up.  She had taken the road they had come up earlier.  It made a couple of long sweeping curves, traversing the side of the hill and was not the shortest way.  He quickly climbed to the top of the little hill that sat just across the road from the farm and then skied down the steep hill that would bring him right to the driveway.  As he nearly flew down the hill, he could see her working hard to get as much speed as she could on the almost flat road.
	"You better hurry," he yelled from halfway down.
	She looked up, saw him and worked even harder, but he had the advantage of speed and he pulled into the yard nearly fifty feet in front of her.
	"You cheated," she said, as she slid up beside him.  He just smiled and said nothing.  "You're a cheater, Ellis.  You took a short cut."
	"I gave you a head start.  Or maybe I should say, you took a head start.  I'd say you cheated.  I just skied the straightest way home."
	He turned to go on to the house and she slid up next to him, giving him a push.  His balance was precarious and he fell over into the snow.  She took her skis off and leaned them against the side of the house.
	"You're kind of a poor sport about it don't you think?"  He took his own skis off without getting up, made a snowball and threw it at her, hitting her in the back.
	"That does it," she said, turning and rushing him.  She pounced on him before he could get up and for a moment they looked like a couple of kittens wrestling in the white powder.  Francine managed get a few handfuls of snow in under Ellis' coat and down his neck, before he realized he was under attack, but finally he prevailed, working his way to the top and sitting on her, he washed her face with snow.  She spluttered and swore she'd get even, but laughed all the while.  When she quit struggling, he brushed the white stuff from her face and bent down, kissing her.  She pulled him to her, rolled them both over onto their side and managed to get one more wad of snow down the back of his neck as they embraced.
	"Now who's the cheater," he said jumping up onto his feet.  She just lay there and laughed.  He held out his hand to help her up, but she refused it.
	"I don't think I trust you." She said, getting up on her own.
	Ellis leaned his skis against the wall on the back porch and they went into the house.  Ellis checked the parlor stove while she looked into the cook stove and then they sat down at the table.  They each rolled a cigarette and sat smoking for a few minutes before she got up to see if there was any coffee left in the pot she had left on the stove.  There was about a half a cup for each of them, which she poured into the cups on the table and then made more.  After setting the pot back on the stove, she walked over behind Ellis and put her cold hands down inside the front of his shit.  	"You're going to have to warm me up now," she said.
	He jumped from the cold shock on his chest, but didn't resist her.  "I think I might be able to fit that into my busy schedule," he said reaching up and pulling her down closer to him.
	"And when do you think you could fit that in?"  She asked.
	"I think there's a little gap in my appointment book for right now," he said, scooting himself into a position to face her.
	"How nice," she said and sat down, straddling him in the chair.  They kissed several times, then groped awkwardly at each other's clothing, managing finally to get most of it removed and before the fresh coffee had begun to perk, they were making love amidst the pile of clothing on the kitchen floor.  When they finally returned from their sensory excursion, they did it to the smell of fresh coffee.  It had been perking for some time and smelled strong.  Ellis rolled to his side, onto the linoleum floor.  It was icy cold and he shuddered as he got to his feet.  Francine lay on her sweater and both of their trousers for a moment and then she too got up, gathering her clothing as she did.
	They both dressed quickly to preserve the heat they had produced during their love making and then Ellis went into the bathroom while Francine removed the coffeepot from the stove.  She dumped what was in their cups down the sink, filled them with fresh coffee and sat down.  Ellis came out of the bathroom and joined her.  He reached into his shirt pocket expecting to find the candy tin, but it was not there.  He sat wondering what he had done with it for a moment and then began looking on the floor.  There it was.  It had fallen from his pocket only minutes before, during their encounter under the table.
	"Aha!" He said, holding it aloft.  "I knew you would try to hide this from me, if I gave you a chance.  And then I let myself be beguiled by that cheap under the table trick.  How foolish I've been."  He crawled across the floor a few feet to where she sat and used her legs and then shoulder for support in getting up.  On his way by, he kissed her softly on the cheek.
	"You're a goof, Ellis," she said laughing.  "Sit down and have some coffee."
	He sat, opened the tin and took out a joint, tossing it on the table between them.  She picked it up, lit it and they sat quietly smoking for a few minutes,  Presently, Francine set the joint in the ashtray, looked intently at Ellis and asked;  "Do you think we did the right thing, taking that shit from Frank's car?  I mean, I know it's against the law and all, but that's not what I mean.  I mean was it wrong.  You know, wrong, like in bad or something."
	Ellis laughed.  "Shit I don't know.  I guess it depends on who you ask.  I can tell you one thing though.  Frank sure doesn't need the shit.  We left enough money to bury him, if it comes down to that and the cops would just destroy the dope.  That seems like it would be a crime in itself.  The guns would probably end up in the hands of some sheriff's deputy and they've already got plenty.  So what the hell.  It seems like, if nobody gets hurt, we're doing okay.  From a legal point of view, however, we've been more than bad and we'd probably go straight to jail with out passing go.  I don't think I'm going to worry about that, except to be real careful."
	"Well, I guess.  It just doesn't seem quite honest, or something."
	"I don't think honest has anything to do with it," he said taking a drink of coffee and then reaching over, picking up what was left of the joint she had set in the ashtray.  He lit the stub of a roach, took a drag and handed it to her.  "I think it's one of those 'waste not, want not' kind of deals.  If we don't take these things, they'll be wasted and that's all there is to it.  It would sure make me sick to see all that pot just burned up in some big incinerator.  And the guns, pilfered away by those fat little deputies, who each have enough guns to start a war already.  I don't think that would be right either.  So, I'd say that we're doing the right thing for sure."
	She laughed.  "It sounds like you have it all figured out.  I'd sure hate to take that argument into court, but it sounds good on the surface, I guess."  She leaned back in her chair, took a drink of coffee and sighed.  "I suppose we ought to eat something.  There's still a few eggs in there and some potatoes that'll rot if we don't eat'em pretty soon.  There's even a few slices of bacon.  We might as well cook up that shit for dinner.  I'm going to make a really nice meal for Christmas, but I don't know why.  I guess it's just one of those habits we get into.  The meaning of Christmas has pretty much faded out of sight, as if it ever really did mean anything much anyway.  Now there's a religion that got misinterpreted from the very first.  I'll bet it didn't take but an hour or two for the apostles and everyone else to figure out a way to profit monetarily from the ideas old J.C. laid out.  I suppose that if the Romans had just stayed out of it, things might not have turned out so badly, but anytime you get big government involved, you're going to get a mess.  And now, all those faithful believers just pray for presents.  Gimmy this and gimmy that, without an inkling of Karma, you know, the old, 'what goes around, comes around' kinda deal.  Those poor fuckers don't seem to have a clue about the big cycle."
	"What cycle is that?" He asked.
	"Oh you know, the whole idea of Karma and how you get pretty much what you give.  I guess that's what worries me about all the shit we grabbed up of Frank's.  I just hope something awful doesn't come down on us."
	Well, like I said before, we just kept all that stuff from going to waste.  I think we fit right into the cycle.  Frankly, I should think we might even get rewarded."
	She stood up, going to the refrigerator, with a chuckle.  "I think you could justify anything, Ellis.  You could have probably even explained away his actual murder, if that's what had happened."
	"Oh sure, that would have been easy.  He was one of those flawed organisms that needed to be dispensed with and we would have just been the hand that did it.  And as it turned out, the powers that be, just put the job in the hands of Effie and I think that probably happened because it was less of a hassle for everyone.  Shit, it's even easier this way for the cops.  It may not be as much fun as if they had had an actual murder, but hell, how often do they get a killer pig to talk about.  I mean shit, by now they have the drugs and money we left in the car and they have a big-time drug dealer, brought to justice by a fucking pig.  It's almost like one of their own boys was involved."
	She laughed and took the eggs, leftover potatoes and the few strips of bacon from the refrigerator and set them on the counter.  "Hey, while I'm working on this stuff, you might check the clinkers in the parlor.  I think that fire's about out and there's a lot of shit built up in there."
	Yeah, that's probably a good idea.  I'll fill up the coal buckets too while I'm at it."  He got up, looked into the parlor stove and preceded to remove the clinkers.  He took them outside, dumped them near the front porch and returned, filling the bucket with coal as he came through the back porch.  He also refilled the bucket that sat next to the kitchen stove and then went into their bedroom, picked out a record and put it on the record player.
	Bob Dylan's raspy voice droned out into the room accompanied by his wailing harmonica.  Ellis came into the kitchen and nosed around at the counter, willing to help Francine if she so wished.  He was more in the way than help and she ordered him to sit down.  He shuffled to the table and sat.  Picking up the new Drum tobacco he rolled a cigarette and lit it.  Putting his feet up on one of the chairs, he leaned his head back blowing a series of smoke rings.
	"This really is nice tobacco," he said.  "I suppose with all this pot to sell, we'll be able to afford good smokes for a while."
	"Not me," Francine said, turning for a moment to look at him.  "I'm going to save as much of my share as I can, to help me finish graduate school."
	"You mean you're going to save the pot for graduate school or you're going to save the money for school?"  Ellis asked.
	"The money, you dip-shit," she said, scowling at him.  "By no later than next fall, I'm going to be back in school and within a year from then, I'm going to be doing molecular research somewhere."
	"That must be weird, to have a destination out there.  Back when I first started grad-school, I had visions of teaching art at some university.  I think it was just those visions, that made me lose interest.  The very thought of being part of that big bureaucratic system, packing people into the same standard shaped mold, just gave me the creeps.  I just couldn't get into the mold, myself and it was one of those things, where if I wasn't willing to play the game their way, then I wasn't welcome out on their play field.  I don't know.  It may be different in the science departments, but it sure seemed that way with the art department."
	"Oh I don't know about that.  If anything, I'd think it's even worse in the sciences, but you just have to play their little game for a while and then you can go do your own thing, when you're finished."
	"Yeah, I guess.  I just couldn't put up with all the bullshit and I couldn't imagine myself a teacher somewhere in the end, so I just started pushing at the edges of their little envelope and they kicked me out of their club.  I suppose they could see that I wasn't going to make a dutiful club member and they didn't want to risk the consequences, so it was easier to get rid of me then than it would have been down the road.  Actually, it's probably better in the long run, but I can't say that I have any goals at this point, at least from a career standpoint anyway."
	"Maybe you should just go be an artist," Francine encouraged.  "You know what they say; 'those who can, go do it and those who can't, go teach it'."
	"Maybe, but I don't think being an artist is a career or anything like that.  It's more a way of life.  It's kind of an immersion into the whole process of making something that speaks to the society, or even just one person could be enough I suppose.  It's more of an all encompassing religion or something.  It's hard to explain.  I guess that explanation part is one of the things that got me into trouble at school.  They didn't like the way I explained it.  It didn't fit their concepts of what it was, or is, and they couldn't handle the dissension.  Shit, they gave me A's for my work and then kicked me out for having a bad attitude.  I guess they're right about the attitude part though.  I really do think the whole program they promote, stinks.  That's why I told them that, 'Art's shit, let's call it like it is'.  It's that whole 'Ebony Tower' kind of attitude they adhere to that pisses me off.  It's like they miss the whole point.  They get into this kind of touchy-feely trip, where they try and teach everyone to be creative, but all in the same way.  You can't teach people to be creative.  That's one of those things that you either have, or you don't and what they c ould be teaching, they just shine on, because most of them don't really understand it either."
	"What's that," she asked, "that they should be teaching?"
	"The technical process, they should be showing these people how to actually make a painting, or a clay pot, or whatever it is that they're doing.  None of the instructors, or at least damn few of them, really know what the fuck they're doing, so how could they teach anyone else how to do it.  Real Art schools do a little better most of the time.  I took a pottery class from a guy back in New York that did pretty damn good, I think.  He made us learn all about clay, from the ground up and then we got to make something, but we had to learn how to control the medium first.  Before we were allowed to make anything else, he gave us a piece of clay a certain size and we had to learn how to throw a twelve inch cylinder, you know on a potter's wheel.  He made us learn how to control the material first and then we could go on and make an actual pot.  The creative process is only as good as your ability with the craft itself.  Most of the teachers I've seen, don't know how to handle the actual craft, so they just skirt around the edges of it and put their energy into babysitting a room full of kids that don't know why they're even there in the first place."
	"Oh, I think all fields are a little like that.  Even in science, they don't teach that basic nature of the universe like they probably should, and then there's all the political crap.  You know, one professor trying to top another, even one student trying to be more important than the next.  They all think that their own particular field of study is more important than any other.  Then there's the old principal of 'publish or perish', where they take all these professors that might otherwise be good teachers and they force them to publish some damn paper on something they don't know anything about.  I had a physics 101 teacher one time that could take the dumbest kid on earth and really get him to understand some pretty complex stuff and he could also stretch the hell out of the gifted kids as well.  The administration came to him one day and told him he was going to have to start publishing some scientific articles, or they may have to let him go, in favor of some young person that was more in vogue, you know publishing and all that.  The teacher, who was about to retire in a few years anyway, told them to stuff it.  He had been hired, he said, to teach young people to become scientists, not to be one himself, and he was going to go on as he had been.  Little did the administration know that he was probably as close as they'll ever come to having a real scientist working for them.  I think I learned more from him than I ever did from all my other professors put together.  Our whole education system has gone to hell, if you ask me.  It seems like we've traded quality education for quantity education."
	"You could say that about a lot of things," Ellis agreed.  "In fact, we've even traded a quality of life for a quantity of life.  It seems like the more people we cram onto the earth, the bigger the percentage of'em there is that are on some kind of bummer."
	"That whole trip with over-population, is another biggy that most people won't even discuss.  I mean shit, there's people that actually think the damn place can hold as many of us as we can produce.  The idea that there's getting to be too many of us, is completely off their list of possibilities."
	"Well, what do you expect?"  Ellis asked, with a grin.  "God told them 'to go forth and multiply'.  They're just doing what they were told to do by God, himself."
	Francine shook her head and walked to the stove with a frying pan, placing it over the heat.  "Well, we sure have multiplied alright.  Even if the place could support an unlimited number of people, I can't imagine that the quality of life would be worth much.  We'd all be packed in here like cattle in a stockyard.  Can you imagine what it'd be like, if the whole world was as populated as Calcutta, or any big city, for that matter?  I don't care if the world can hold ten times, or even a hundred times the people that are on here now, I think we better start cutting back, and cutting back fast."
	"What if we allowed every two people to have just one child and then we had both of them fixed so they couldn't have any more.  As soon as the baby's born, both the mother and the father get their tubes tied.  We could cut the population in half in just one generation and by another half in the next generation.  Shit the place would be back where it should be in no time at all."
	"That could lead back to no population before too long," Francine noted.  "What would you do about that?"
	"At some point, you'd have to change the rules," he answered.
	"That doesn't sound too bad.  At least it would be fair.  It's not like some people would get a bunch of kids and others wouldn't.  Every pair of people would get one and that's all.  I don't want anymore than one anyway.  I'm not sure I even want one.  I was such a pain in the ass for my folks that I'm sure my Karma would give me a child as awful as I was."  She laughed, turned the bacon and went back to the counter for the potatoes.  "Maybe I could give my right to have a baby to someone else."
	"Yeah, I don't know how that would work, what with one kid for every two parents, but I suppose something like that could be worked out.  I'm sure the whole thing would be damn hard to implement, but it seems like we have to do something.  We people, just use the place up too fast for our own good."
	"Oh, that's all too depressing.  Let's talk about something else.  Tomorrow's Christmas eve, Ellis.  Maybe we should get a Christmas tree, when we go into town.  You could hang a bunch of your little carvings on it and I'm sure I could come up with some cool stuff to put on it too.  We could have a real nice little tree."
	"It'd have to be a damn small tree.  This place is pretty full of shit now.  In fact, I don't know where we'd put one."
	"Oh, I don't know.  It was just a thought."  She stirred the potatoes, slid them to one side of the pan and went to the counter for the eggs.  She broke four eggs in the frying pan, scrambled them lightly and sat down.  "This'll be ready in a minute.  Why don't you grab a couple plates?"
	Ellis got up with a moan, took two plates off the shelf, grabbed a couple forks from the dish rack and brought them all to the table.  "You want something to drink?"  He asked.  "I think there's a couple of those beers left in the fridge."
	"Yeah, that'd be cool," she agreed.  "Is there a good movie on the tube, tonight?  I just feel like flopping down and watching something simple.  An old movie would be best."
	"There'll be a movie on at least one of the channels at nine o'clock.  I think it's on the worst of the three channels, but maybe we can turn the antenna a little and make it better."
	"Isn't the antenna on the roof?"
"Yeah, but you can reach right out John's window and move it.  When we get ready to watch, I'll go up there and move it around and you can tell me when it's best."
	"Okay," she said, getting up and stepping to the stove.  "This stuff's ready, hand me those plates."
	Ellis grabbed a plate in each hand, held them next to the stove, for her to serve into and then set them on the table.  "Oh shit," he said heading for the refrigerator.  "I forgot the beer."  He brought the beers to the table and sat down.  Francine was already sitting and she picked up her fork as he sat and began to eat.
	They finished most of their meal before Francine looked up and set down her fork.  She took a drink of her beer and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.  "Hey, how hard is it to get to the pot we confiscated from Frank's car?"
	"I takes about ten minutes to move enough bales to get into the center of the stack," he answered.  "And then about the same to put it all back.  Why?  You want to try it out and see how good it is, don't you?"
	"Yeah kinda, but that sounds like way too much to do tonight, especially in the dark."
	"We might try it tomorrow or something in the day, but you're right it would be a lot harder tonight and we'd never get it back looking right in the dark.  We better wait.  I'd like to try it too though.  I hope it's good stuff."
	"We can wait," she said, picking up her fork.  "Besides we have plenty of good pot already rolled up ready to go."
	They both resumed eating and presently there was a scratch at the door.  Ellis got up, let in Punt, followed by the other two dogs and sat back down.  Birthday and Sundance went into the parlor, taking their favorite spot, curled up nose to nose on the couch.  Punt came into the kitchen and stood between the two of them looking as hungry as he could.
	"Back you mutt," Ellis said to him, scowling.  "Go lie down."  Punt lay down on the floor right where he had stood.
	"God that dogs's an unmannerly beast," Francine pronounced.
	Ellis chuckled, but didn't say a word.  He knew it was best to stay away from Francine's feelings about the dogs.  He finished eating his dinner, picked up the tobacco from the table and leaned back in his chair, to roll a cigarette.  Francine concluded her meal as well, placed her plate on top of Ellis' and sat patiently, waiting for him to complete the rolling of his cigarette.  He took great pains to spread the tobacco evenly and tuck the lower edge of the paper in behind it and then gave it a roll between his thumbs and forefingers.  The result was a reasonably well shaped paper cylinder with tufts of the stringy tobacco sticking out of both ends.  He took a pencil out of his shirt pocket, poked the tufts back into the paper tube and held it out for Francine to inspect.
	"They're getting better," she said, reaching out for the makings, which he handed her.  She rolled another perfect cigarette and stuck it in her mouth.  Ellis lit both their cigarettes and they settled back into their chairs for a pleasant after dinner smoke.
	Francine sat thinking about the past weeks.  It had been hectic to say the least.  She thought about the blow up with Duncan that had nearly sent her back out on the streets.  It had worked out in the end and she was glad of that.  Not only did she still have a place to live, but she had become friends with Duncan as well, not to mention the others that lived there.  Then there was all the tension caused when they had armed themselves in preparation for Frank.  She mustn't forget, she thought, how she and Molly had traded boyfriends in the midst of things and then the timely death of Frank himself, at the hands of the pig.  Maybe that should be, at the snout of the pig, but nevertheless, the involvement of Effie added a twist to the whole thing that gave her the chills.  She and Ellis had both froze, when Frank had started shooting.  What would have happened if the pig hadn't charged out into the yard.  Would either she or Ellis have unfroze enough to shoot back?  She didn't know.  And then, if they had killed Frank instead of Effie doing it, there would have been a whole lot more to-do about the death than there was, or at least had been so far.  It looked to her, like things had turned out far better than they could have.  And then there was all the loot they had hauled out of Frank's car.  She might be able to save enough out of her share of the pot, to pay a whole semesters tuition.  She looked over at Ellis.  He sat staring at his hands.  God only knows what he's thinking about, she thought.  She leaned forward, placing her hand on his and he looked up at her.
	"Let's fix the TV antenna and go snuggle up in front of the movie," she said with a soft, but luring smile.
	Ellis pulled his feet off the chair across the table from where he sat, onto the floor and then stood up, sliding his own chair back.  "Well, let's go do it then," he said.
	"Do what?"  She asked, with a raising of her eyebrows and the same enticing smile.
	"Fix the antenna, you lecherous wench," he said, tucking in his shirt-tail and walking into the parlor to turn on the television.
	She got up as well, set the dishes in the sink and followed him.  The old vacuum tube type television finally warmed up enough for the picture to come on and the screen displayed its normal snowstorm.  It was agreed that Ellis would go upstairs, twist the antenna pole around and she would tell him when it was best.  This they did and after a bit of trial and error, they managed to obtain a reasonable picture.  Ellis returned to the parlor to find the dogs had been banished from the couch and Francine had a blanket ready in case they got cold or wanted a little extra privacy from the prying eyes of those three curious mutts that usually lay around in the way or filled the room with dog-farts.  She lay down against the back of the couch making as much room for Ellis as she could and motioned for him to join her.  He squeezed in next to her and they spent the next couple of hours snuggled up together watching the movie, 'The African Queen'.  After the movie, they watched the eleven o'clock news.  Ellis swung his feet off the couch and sat up.
	"Well, they aren't doing much in the way of making any exciting news," he said yawning, "we might as well go to bed."  He got up, stoked the fire and damped it down as far as it would go and turned off the television and the light.  Francine tidied up a few things in the kitchen, brushed her teeth and crawled into bed.  Ellis went outside to pee, taking the dogs with him.  It seemed warmer than it had previously and the stars were obscured by a thick layer of clouds.  He finished his business outside, returned to the house, brushed his teeth and climbed over the side rail of the bed to where Francine had already begun to warm things up.
	"I think it's going to snow tonight," he said.
	"How do you know that?" She asked.
	"I just know things like that." He answered.  "You'll learn."
	She snorted lightly and they drifted off to sleep, curled together in their warm bed of straw.
	Morning eased into position, creeping up on them from the corners of the room.  Ellis opened one eye and found that light seeped into the small orb, bounced around gently and finally triggered the electrical connections, to bring him to consciousness.  He was warm.  He had slept like a rock and wondered if he had grown moss during the night.  He could feel Francine next to him.  She too was warm.  He reached over, running his hand the length of her body, from her hip to her shoulder.  She rolled toward him and wrapped a leg around his waist, pulling herself closer.  She moaned lightly and yawned.
	"What time is it?"  She asked.
	"I'd say about seven-thirty, judging from the light out there," he answered.
	"Did it snow?"
	"Of coarse it did.  I said it would, but I can't see how much from here."
	"You think you know everything, don't you?"
	"Most things, but I don't know how much it snowed," he said, with a chuckle.
	"Why don't you get up and make coffee?  I have a dream to finish."  She yawned again and pulled the covers over her head.
	"Sure, you just take a little nap and I'll take advantage of you while you're asleep."
	She mumbled something Ellis didn't understand, straightened out the leg that held him tightly to her and rolled over with her back to him.  He crawled out from under the covers, over the side rail and onto the cold floor.  As he dressed he could see that it had snowed several inches, covering everything with a fresh layer that softened still further, all the forms of winter.  He went into the bathroom peed and looked at the thermometer.  It had warmed during the night, bringing the mercury up nearly to twenty-five.  He opened the parlor stove, fished out the largest of the clinkers, poured in a can of the dusty coal and went to the kitchen.  The cook stove was cold, allowing him to take the clinkers out with his hands and set them into the bucket.  He wadded up a section of an old newspaper, put the last scraps of kindling on top of them and sprinkled in a little coal.  Taking a wooden match from on top of the warming oven, he lit the paper and closed up the stove.  There were several cups of cold coffee left in the coffeepot, which he poured down the sink and proceeded to make a fresh pot.  This done, he picked up the tobacco from the kitchen table, went into the parlor and sat down to make a cigarette.
	There was a scratch at the door indicating the dogs wanted in.  He finished rolling his cigarette, let in all three dogs and sat back down.  Both Punt and Birthday tried to greet him at once.  Punt growled and birthday backed away until Punt had received his morning pets and lay down.  Birthday then advanced, wagging his tail, for his own greeting.  Fred's fly tying materials were still set up on the coffee table and Ellis sat staring at them, thinking he should try to tie a fly of his own.  He had never tried before, but from watching Fred, it didn't look too hard.  He placed a hook in the little vise, wrapped some of the thin black thread onto it and looked through the box of feathers and fur for what to tie on next.  Pulling out a likely looking tuft of hair and a small feather, he secured, first, the fuzzy hair, spreading it the length of the hook and then the neck-hackle from what must have been a black rooster chicken.  He then wrapped the hackle around the hook, four or five times, splaying the barbs of the feather in a spiral, as it wound its way forward on the hook.  He made several wraps of thread around the tip of the hackle-feather to keep it in place, tied a double half-hitch and placed a drop of lacquer on the knot.  His cigarette, which he had put in the ashtray on the table, had gone out, he picked it up, leaned back on the couch and re-lit it.
	He smelled the coffee perking before he heard it and then that familiar rhythmic sound of bubbles popping, came through clearly.  They sounded just like the coffee advertisement on the television.  He listened to the boiling water rise up the tube inside the coffee maker, spill out at the top and flow back down through the fresh grounds, picking up little bits of this small bean's chemistry as it went.  It made him think of the geysers he had seen in Yellowstone Park, some years before, on a summer vacation trip with his parents.  That was a fine trip, he recalled.  They had made it to the park just in time for a large earth quake that shook the ground so hard that it cracked the Madison Dam, a few miles up river from where they had stayed in a dumpy little motel.  He could remember getting up in the middle of the night and looking out the window into the parking lot, where the cars were bouncing up and down.  Presently, the motel manager knocked at the door to inform them that they may have to evacuate the town, because of the danger caused by the crack in the dam.  Ellis and his family waited no longer, but instead, they left the motel in the wee hours of the morning and headed for the park.  He could remember standing near Old Faithful and watching it erupt, spraying steam and boiling water high into the air, like a giant coffeepot.
	He got up, went into the kitchen and slid the coffee to the edge of the stove, where it was cooler.  His coffee cup from the day before sat on the table, still partially full.  He dumped the dregs down the sink, filled the cup with fresh coffee from the pot and sat down, to make another cigarette.
	"Hey Francine," he called.  "The coffee's ready"
	She mumbled, rolled over and stuck her head out from under the covers.  "God it's cold out there.  Do I have to get up?"
	"Not unless you want fresh hot coffee," he answered.  "I think I'll make a batch of groatcakes."  He went to the cupboard, took out the appropriate utensils and ingredients and began mixing them into the gooey dough that would become groatcakes.  Francine got up and after a brief trip to the bathroom, she went to the counter where Ellis was spooning out little globs of dough onto a large cookie sheet.  She slid an arm around his waist, giving him a little squeeze.
	"Hi," she said.  "What's up for the day?"
	"Nothing much, except we have to turn in all the reports on Frank, to the sheriff."  If you really want a Christmas tree, we could look around for a small one.  We're about out of dog food and I was thinking about getting a bottle of wine for the holidays."  He took the pan, set it in the oven and sat down at the table.
	Francine grabbed a cup from the dish rack, filled it with coffee and joined him.  "Maybe we should go into Pullman after we're done at the sheriff's office.  I wouldn't mind going to the hardware store."
	"What do you want there?"  He asked.
	"It's a secret, but you'll find out tomorrow."
	"You're not planning to buy me something for Christmas, are you?"
	"Maybe," she said smiling.
	"Now you're going to make me have to think of something for you," he whined.
	"Not really, but I could think of a million things I want."
	"Like what?"
	"Clothes for one."  She put one foot up on the table, exposing a hole in the sock she wore.  "I suppose I'd be happy with almost anything."
	"We could go by Dave and Carol's.  Fred and I were going to give them some of the pot we brought back from the coast.  I really hate to take it into Colfax though.  It'd be just our luck, to have the sheriff want to shake us down or something, but we could stop back by here and then go into Pullman."
	"Yeah, it's kinda out of the way, but it would be safer.  We have all day, so it wouldn't make any difference."
	"We'd probably have better luck finding a small tree in Pullman too," Ellis mentioned.
	"Okay, we'll do it that way.  When do you want to go?"
	"Oh, I don't care.  In an hour or two, after the cakes are cooked and we eat something.  We could even go somewhere and have a hamburger or something for lunch."  He got up, grabbed the coffeepot and filled both their cups."
	"How hot was the oven, when you put in the cakes?"  She asked.
	"I don't know.  I didn't look, but it felt pretty warm."
	She reached over, opened the oven and peered in.  The thermometer said two hundred and fifty degrees.  The cakes had puffed up and were beginning to brown.  "They look like they're doing just fine," she said closing the oven door.  "We might as well go in as soon as we eat something then.  I want to get back here in time to bake some Christmas cookies.  We can't go through the holidays without some cookies."
	"Oh, aren't you just the picture of domesticity."
	She scowled at him, but didn't say anything.  Ellis picked up the candy tin from the table, took out a joint and held it up.  "You ready for one of these?"  He asked.
	"Sure why not?  We should probably be stoned when we go visit the sheriff, don't you think?"
	By the time they finished smoking the joint, the cakes were ready and Francine took them out of the oven.  They each ate a couple with butter and jam and put the rest in the tin breadbox on the counter for later.  Ellis went outside to Molly's VW, started it and came back into the house.  They stoked both fires, turned down the dampers and headed into Colfax.  The snow from the night before had evenly covered the car tracks on the road, but it hadn't drifted.  Traveling was easy and when they came to the paved highway, the plow had already cleared the roadway down to the pavement in most places.  Ellis parked in front of the Courthouse and they climbed the short flight of steps to the sheriff's office.  The same deputy that had hassled Fred and Ellis before was behind the counter and he seemed no friendlier this time than last.
	"Well, did your pig kill somebody else or what?"  He asked as they stood at the counter.
	"No.  We just have some paperwork for the sheriff," Ellis answered.
	"Let's see it," the man demanded, in a gruff voice.
	"It's for the sheriff," Ellis announced.
	"I thought you might have learned a little cooperation since you were in here last," the deputy asserted.
	"You should talk about cooperation," Ellis said.  "I kinda thought you might have learned how to be less of an asshole, but I guess that would be too much to ask."
	"You listen here kid," the man said reaching across the counter, grabbing Ellis by the collar and pulling him toward him.  "I'm going to have to teach you a few manners."
	"Hey, what the hell you think you're doing," Ellis yelled.  "Get your hands off me."  The sheriff had just come out of his office into the waiting area, and approached the three of them.
	"What's the problem out here?"  He asked.
	"This punk kid just called me an asshole," the deputy asserted.  "And I'm about to teach him some manners."
	"I'll take care of this, Jack," the sheriff said.  "Why don't you go sit down?"
	"But he called me an asshole.  You can't let these punks get away with that kinda thing."
	Jack, sometimes you are an asshole.  You go sit down and we'll have a little talk about it, when I'm done here."  The sheriff waved the man away and turned to Francine and Ellis.  "Well it looks like you have your reports done," he said pointing to the papers Francine carried.
	"Yeah, everybody filled one out," she said, handing the papers to the sheriff.  "I think you'll find them complete.  Do you need anything else from us?"
	"Not for now, but there will be a coroner's inquest in a week or so and you should all come in for that, just in case the judge has any more questions.  It's not really mandatory, but it can speed things up, if there are any loose ends.  I'll let you know when it is.  How do I get a hold of you out there?  What's the address and I'll mail you a card or something?"
	Ellis gave him the address and he wrote it down.
	"Oh, by the way, there was a bunch of drugs in the car and a fair amount of money," the sheriff told them.
	"Really!"  Ellis said, sounding as surprised as he could.
	"Yep, there was five or six pounds of marijuana, along with a large amount of what we think are amphetamines and some three hundred dollars in cash.  That pig of yours should get a medal.  He, or she, I guess it is, just made the largest drug bust in the county."
	"Maybe you should give her a reward and we could buy her some food with it," Ellis said, with a chuckle.
	"Not a bad idea.  I wish I could, but I think that might just stretch the rules a little too far.  I'll look into it however and if something can be done, I'll let you know."
	"Well, if that's all we can do for you, we'll be going," Francine said, turning from the counter.  "Let us know when the coroner's thing will be and we'll come in."
	"Sure enough," the sheriff answered.  "You folks have a nice Christmas."
	"You too," she said, opening the door and they left.
	Once outside, they got back into Molly's VW and headed back to the farm to pick up the pot for Dave.  As they reached the edge of town, Ellis reached in his shirt pocket for his tobacco.  He felt something metallic and pulled it out of the pocket.  It was the candy tin full of joints.
	"Holly shit," he said, holding it out for Francine to see.  "I had this dope in my shirt pocket the whole time.  It's a good thing they didn't fuck with us."
	Francine shook her head.  "That's not too good, but what the hell, as long as we have it, we might as well smoke it."  She took the tin, removed one of the joints and lit it.  "Here, you take that and give me your tobacco.  I'll roll a couple of cigarettes."
	He handed her the makings and puffed on the joint while she made the first cigarette.  When she finished, he handed the joint to her and took the cigarette.  She took a couple hits on the joint, handed it back and made herself a cigarette.  When they pulled into the driveway, the dogs danced as usual and Punt made a couple of snaps at Birthday, when he got too close to the car.
	"Do you need anything in there?"  Ellis asked.
	"Not really," she answered, "but you might check the fires."
	"Okay," he said, opening the car door and heading for the house.  He grabbed the baggie of pot for Dave, put some coal in both stoves and returned to the VW.  They drove the shortest way to town and directly to Dave and Carol's.  They presented them with the baggie and brought them up to date on the ordeal with Frank, leaving out the money, pot and guns that they had found in the car.  Carol, again, expressed her wish for them to come in for Christmas dinner, but Francine said she was looking forward to a quiet meal with Ellis.  A merry Christmas was wished around and they left to go shopping.  They stopped first on Main Street.  Francine went to the hardware store and Ellis wandered down the street to a clothing shop.  They agreed to meet in the bar across from the hardware, when they had finished.  Francine knew just what she was looking for and went directly to the display of Case pocketknives.
	Ellis on the other hand, had no idea what he was looking for, but figured that if clothes were what she needed, then he'd try to find her something to wear.  He ambled up and down the isles with a blank look on his face.  Presently a clerk approached him and asked if she could help him find something.
	"I don't know what I'm looking for, to be real honest," he said.
	"That makes it kinda hard," the clerk said.  "Are you looking for something for yourself, or someone else?"
	"Someone else," Ellis answered.
	"Man or woman?"  She asked, trying to narrow it down.
	"Woman," he answered.
	"Well, you're in the right department to find something for a woman.  Is she a girlfriend or just a friend?"
	Ellis looked at her wondering if that really mattered or was the clerk being too nosy.  She was young and pretty, probably in her last year or two of high school.  She had an innocence about her that he thought was most likely incapable of prying into someone else's private life.  The simplicity of her demeanor disarmed him and he had to decide which it was.  He really didn't know the answer.  He and Francine hadn't defined their relationship.  It was just one of those gray blurs that hung softly in the background.
	"I don't know," he said, looking blankly at the clerk.
	She smiled and stepped a little closer to him.  "That's nice," she said.  "I mean that's a nice place to be in a relationship.  It's so exciting when you're always guessing.  You have the choice of pushing things in either direction.  You can get her something in the adornments category, like jewelry and perfume, or you can stay on the friendship side of things and get her something more practical like socks and shirts."
	"Wow!  I hadn't thought of it that way," he said, looking at her, now in a different light.  He hadn't expected this kind of philosophic approach from someone so young.  He thought for a moment about which direction he wanted to steer their relationship.  He didn't know what he wanted.  "What if I get something from both categories?"  He asked.
	"That kinda leaves you in the middle of the road, but it doesn't close any doors.  Let's start with the practical.  What does she need?"
	"Well everything really, but I guess she needs socks more than anything right now," he answered.
	"Now we're getting somewhere.  Follow me and we'll see if we can't find her something nice in the way of stockings."  She led him around the corner and down the next isle to a display of socks.
	There were so many different kinds and colors that it nearly made his head spin.  His eyes finally landed on a row of wool stockings, some in plain colors and others with patterns knitted into them.  He picked a pair with a pattern from the display and held it out to the clerk.  She nodded agreement with his choice and he reached for another pair with a slightly different pattern.
	The clerk smiled and said; "Now we have the practical side taken care of, let's take a look for something that will evoke her emotions."  She led him back down the isle to a display counter full of jewelry.  "How about some earrings?"  She asked, stepping behind the counter.
	"Maybe," he responded, a bit overwhelmed by the shear number of choices.  The were at least fifty different earrings in the glass case.  The young woman pointed to several that didn't seem right and then she picked up a pair that immediately caught Ellis' eye.  They depicted a small golden dove, centered in a silver peace symbol.
	"These are on sale," she said, turning them over to read the price tag.  "They're marked down to only seven ninety-five.  They're made of sterling silver and the dove is real gold plate."
	"Those are nice," he said, taking them from her.  "I think she'd like those.  I'll take them and these socks.  In fact I think I'll get one more pair of socks."  He and the clerk went back to the stocking display, Ellis picked out another pair of socks and then she led him to the checkout counter.  He paid for the articles and after they both thanked each other, he left.
	Francine stood in front of a large wooden display case with glass covering the front.  Inside were several dozen knives.  There were about a half-dozen hunting knives and the rest were folding knives of many different sizes.  Some had one blade and others had two or three or four.  She looked for a few minutes before a clerk approached to assist her.
	"Do you see something you would like to look at," he asked.
	"Well, I'm trying to find a nice knife for my boyfriend," she responded.
	"Well, we have quite a few choices in here.  Do you want to get him a sheath knife or a pocket knife?"
	"I think a pocket knife," she answered.  "He does a lot of woodcarving."
	"Let's see, we have several knives that are designed just for that purpose," he said pointing to three knives through the glass.  "Would you like to take a look at them?"
	"Please."
	He poked around behind the display case and brought three small boxes out, laying them before her on the counter.  He opened each box and took the knives out, handing each to her in turn.  She looked at each one, opening and closing the blades and after considerable time, she picked one with three blades and an antler handle.
	"I think I'll take this one," she said putting it back in the box and sliding it toward the clerk.
	"Very well," he said.  "I think he'll be quite pleased with your choice and if it doesn't fit his needs, we can always exchange it for another one."  He put the other two knives back into the case, led her to the cash register, where she paid for the knife and then left.
	As she jaywalked across the street to the bar, she could see Ellis coming up the sidewalk toward her.  They met in front of the bar and decided to go in for a beer and sandwich.  The floor was covered with a fresh layer of sawdust and there were nearly a dozen other people sitting around eating and drinking.  They went most of the way to the rear and sat down at a table near the pool tables.  A young blonde girl behind the bar asked them if they would like to see a menu and they said they would.  She brought the menu and returned to the bar.  After they had looked at the menu, and decided on a choice for lunch, Ellis turned toward the barmaid and ordered two sandwiches and two large beers.  Before their lunch was served, a bearded fellow that Ellis knew casually through Dave and Carol came over to their table and sat down.
	"Hi," he said.  "I hear you guys had some excitement out at your place the other day."
	"No shit," Ellis said, shaking his head.
	"What the hell happened out there anyway?"  The fellow asked.
	Ellis told most of the story and Francine added a few details.  They finished the tale as the barmaid brought their lunch to the table.  She too had heard that something exciting had happened at the farm and they had to tell the story all over again for her.  The bearded man stayed at their table while they ate most of their sandwich, asking further questions about the incident and when he was satisfied he got up, remarked as to his amazement of the tale, said goodbye and left the bar.  Ellis and Francine finished their lunch, played two games of pool, which Ellis won and then left themselves.  They got into the Volkswagen; Ellis started the motor and turned to Francine.  "Do you want to look for a tree first, or go to the grocery store?"  He asked.
	"Oh, let's see if we can find a little tree first," she said.
	"Okay."  He pulled away from the curb and headed to a place where the Boy Scouts were selling Christmas trees.  It being Christmas Eve, the selection was rather sparse, which made choosing a tree fairly easy.  There were only two that fit their needs and they had little trouble agreeing on one.  They paid the boy, tied the tree on the roof of the car and went to the grocery store.
	Ellis pulled through the store parking lot and went around back.  "I can't help but look in the dumpster," he said.  "Besides, it's Monday and they usually throw really good shit out here on Mondays."
	"You're just a true dumpster diver, Ellis.  I think it must be in your blood.  You probably come from a long line of..."  She paused for a moment looking for the right word.  "Refuse," she finally said.  "You come from a long line of refuse collectors."
	He stopped the car beside the big metal box containing what Francine had called refuse and opened the door.  "See, look at that," he said, stepping out of the car and pointing to a cardboard box sitting beside the dumpster.  He looked in the box to find an assortment of fine vegetables.  "No shit!  Here's enough salad to feed half the town.  There're tomatoes, and green onions, and two or three avocados.  Shit, there's even a head of lettuce in here along with a bunch of green peppers.  I'll bet that guy that runs the produce department set this shit out here just for us."  Francine held the front seat forward and Ellis slid the box onto the rear seat and went back to look in the dumpster.  The large steel container was nearly full of flattened cardboard boxes, but sitting on top of them, were two egg cartons.  He opened the lids and found them both full of fresh eggs.  "Somebody must be wishing us a merry Christmas," he said, handing Francine the cartons.
	She set the eggs in the box of vegetables and they went around to the front of the store, parked and went in.  They grabbed a shopping-cart and began rolling along through the isles.  Francine selected a twenty-five pound sack of each, potatoes and onions, putting them on the wire shelf below the basket.  Ellis picked out a case of Cascade beer and a gallon jug of cheap red wine.  They ambled up and down the aisle looking at everything.  It was the first time either of them had had enough money to buy anything they wanted, without pinching pennies.  They basked in the thought of being able to buy whatever they wanted, but it didn't tempt them to frivolous spending.  Francine picked up several spices and a large box of powdered milk.  Ellis made a face, as she set the box of milk into the basket and she assured him it was only to cook with.  They added a large bag of dog food to the cart, went through the checkout stand and left.
	"Do you think we have room for a sack of pig food?"  Ellis asked, as he stuffed the dog food behind the seat.
	"I think so, but that's about all," she answered chuckling.  "We've pretty much crammed the poor little car full."
	They drove to the Grange Supply, where they bought some pig food and filled the car with gasoline.  As they were about to leave, Ellis turned to Francine and said;  "you know, I'd like to pick up some twenty-two bullets and then stop at Gale's for that little Winchester rifle."
	"Do you think that's a good idea?"  She asked.
	"Well, it's so old that it wouldn't be registered to anyone and there's no way it could be traced to Frank.  I was just thinking that it might be fun to take it out for some target practice."
	Yeah, that would be kinda fun.  Go ahead."
	He went back into the store, bought several boxes of ammunition and returned.  They drove out of town on the main highway to Colfax until they came to the turn off to Union Flat.  When they were safely out of sight of the highway, Ellis pulled a joint from his pocket and handed it to Francine.  She lit it and they proceeded along the windy road smoking in silence.  When they came to Gale and Liz's, he pulled the car into their driveway and stopped.  Ellis reached behind the seat, picking up the jug of wine and they got out, heading for the house.  Liz met them at the door with a smile and welcomed them in.
	"Hi, we're out spreading Christmas cheer," Ellis said, setting the jug on the kitchen counter.  Gale came in from the living room and took four glasses out of the cupboard, placing them on the table.  Ellis cracked open the jug, poured the glasses full, picked up one and offered a toast.
	"Here's to cheap wine, good dope and clean living," he said, holding his glass in the air.
	The others picked up their glasses, joined in the toast, clinking the glasses ceremoniously and they all drank.  The four of them sat at the kitchen table, talking for some time before Ellis mentioned that he wanted to get the little Winchester rifle they had stashed there earlier.  Gale went upstairs and came back presently with the gun, setting it in the corner near the backdoor.  After they had smoked a joint and drank a second glass of wine, Francine and Ellis left for home with the rifle.
	They pulled into their driveway to the usual dance of the dogs, stopped and went inside.  They stoked the fires and relaxed in the parlor for most of an hour before Francine got up, announcing that she was going to make a batch of cookies.  She went to the refrigerator, took out the leftover soup from several days before, along with some things she needed for the cookies and set them on the counter.
	"I think I'll heat up this soup and some cakes for dinner," she announced.  "And we can make a big salad to go with it."
	"That sounds good," Ellis agreed, getting up from the couch.  "I suppose I should go out to the car and bring all that stuff in here before it freezes and dies."
	"That would be a good idea," she allowed, setting the pan of soup on the stove.
	It took several trips to and from the car to get its contents into the house.  The sacks of dog and pig food, he put in his old room out back along with the presents he had purchased for Francine.  The rest he brought into the kitchen.  Once the groceries had been put away, he returned to his old room to wrap his gifts for Francine and then went back outside to get the tree off the car.  Even though they had gotten the smallest tree they could find, it was still way too big to fit in the house.  He cut off the top two feet, attached it to a wooden base, he made from two scrap boards and brought it into the kitchen.
	"Where do think we should put this?"  He asked, holding the scraggly  thing out for her to see.
	She turned form the counter, where she was mixing the cookie dough in a large bowl.  "How about on top of the TV," she suggested.
	"Sounds good," he agreed and took the tree into the parlor.  It fit nicely on the television and he went out to the rear house to find something to decorate it with.  He gathered several little carvings, a ball of string and a small jar of washers from the shelf in his room.  Using the string for hangers, he hung the carvings from the tree and then began hanging the various sized washers from the little branches as well.  When he had finished, the tree looked as nice as if it had been adorned with store bought decorations and he called Francine in to look at it.  She chuckled and said that it looked very nice.  She also said that she had some bright strips of cloth to add when she was done with the cookies.  They returned to the kitchen and Ellis made a salad with the gleanings from the dumpster, while Francine finished dropping the cookie dough, in little globs, onto a large metal cookie sheet and then put them in the oven to bake.
	When Ellis had had finished cutting all the vegetables for the salad, he placed them in a large crockery bowl, tossed them slightly and put the bowl into the refrigerator.  He then went out to his old room to get his presents for Francine.  It had gotten dark since he was out there wrapping them and he had to feel around to find where he had left them on his cluttered workbench.  His hands seemed to touch every thing he owned as he felt around in the darkness.  By feel, he identified most of his tools, several articles of clothing, some pieces of exotic wood for carving and then finally his hands rested against the newly wrapped packages, one large and soft, containing the socks, the other, a small rectangular box, holding the tiny earrings.  He gathered these up and went back into the main house.
	Francine set her dirty dishes in the sink and went into her room to find the piece of red cloth she had seen poking out between two records albums under the stereo.  Sure enough, it was there.  It looked like part of a red cotton shirt, but there wasn't enough of it to be sure.  She tore several long thin strips off one side of the bright fabric, then spreading what was left of the cloth out on the bed, she took the new jackknife, for Ellis, out of her pocket and laid it on the material.  She wrapped the cloth carefully around the knife, folding in the loose ends as she went and then tied it fast with a short piece of string.  She held it up, looking at it and smiled.  Then, taking the small red package and the thin strips of cloth, she went into the parlor, where Ellis sat on the couch, rolling a cigarette.  She slipped the knife under the tree draped the torn strips of red fabric on the branches and sat down next to Ellis.
	She snuggled herself up close to him, put her feet up on the coffee table and folded her arms in front of her.  "I think the tree looks real nice, don't you?"  She said.
	"Yeah, I like it.  Your little red rags added just the right amount of color.  They go real nice with the old rusty washers."
	"You know something, we ought to play some cards after we eat dinner.  Do you like to play cards?"
	He thought for a moment, more about cards in general than about the question.  He hadn't thought about cards, or playing cards, for a long time and he had never seen a deck of playing cards at the farm.  "Yeah, I guess I do," he said.  "I can't remember when I played cards last, though.  In fact, I'm not sure there's any cards around here."
	"Oh yeah, I saw a deck up in John's room.  I'm sure they're still there.  I'll go get them."  She hopped off the couch, went upstairs and returned presently with a deck of standard playing cards.  They had a picture of a chicken on the back of each one.  "Here they are," she said tossing them on the table and sitting down next to him again.
	"What kinda cards do you want to play?"  He asked.
	"Do you know how to play Gin Rummy?"
	"I think so.  I've played several kinds of Rummy.  I played a lot of Racehorse Rummy with my dad, when I was a kid."
	"That's a little different than Gin, but it's close.  I'll explain it to you after dinner.  In fact, I think the soups hot enough.  We might as well eat right now and then I can beat your pants off at Gin."
	She got up, went into the kitchen and took the salad out of the refrigerator, setting it on the table.  Ellis followed, taking two bowls from the cupboard and going to the stove.  Francine filled the bowls with soup while he set plates and silverware on the table and they sat down.  They each took some salad and began to eat.
	Francine finished first, slid her chair back from the table a few inches and leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table.  She watched Ellis, as he chewed his last several bites of dinner.  When he had swallowed the last of his salad, he pushed away the plate, leaned back in his chair and looked across the table at Francine.    She had a glassy look in her eyes and a gentle smile that lifted just the corners of her mouth.  She seemed to be off, somewhere in the distance, but at the same time her presence filled the room with warmth, beyond that of the stove's radiance.  He thought he could see her aura glimmer a light blue-green about her head and shoulders.  As he sat quietly, taking in as much of her strength as he could, he noticed the translucent glaze that covered her eyes, cleared slowly, until she seemed to look right through him with a sharp piercing stare.  Her smile straightened slightly as she let her tongue drift slowly across the edge of her lips, moistening them before she spoke.
	"You know Ellis," she said.  "We really are kinda lucky.  To have become friends, before we became lovers.  Even if it was just a short time.  I feel like we know each other pretty well already and I like what I know.  I guess time will tell, but I think we can make a go of it."  She got up, went into the parlor, returning with the deck of cards and sat back down.
	As she shuffled the cards and began to deal them out, Ellis felt warm all over.  This warmth went deep into his center, even beyond his physical being and into his soul, where her last words still swirled around, mixing with his own thoughts of her.  He knew she was right about their short experience together having been good.  He knew his feelings for her were stronger than his understanding of them and he felt like he was on a runaway train, rolling down a set of rails that merged into one in the distance.  His apprehensions of their involvement together slid gently away into the past.  Like downhill water, seeking that gentle union with its own kind, he knew they were merely two small streams at their confluence about to mingle into a stronger force that would continue to travel along its journey to the sea.
	She finished dealing and picked up her cards.  Without conscious effort, he too picked up the ten cards she had scattered in front of him and arranged them in his hand.  They each drew from the deck and discarded in turn for several rounds.  Ellis' hand changed, only slightly as the cards turned, one at a time, before him.  Francine drew mostly from his discards until she filled her hand, smiled and laid down her cards.
	"Gin!"  She said.

The End

58