I open my eyes to see Seals sitting there, looking me straight in the eyes. I reach over and pat him, then close my eyes again. My hand settles in my lap and that is when I feel something furry moving underneath it.
At first, I don’t register what’s happening. I just stupidly pet it and try to go back to sleep. Then I feel a cold tail. It takes longer than I care to admit what’s in my lap, and by then it really is squirming. That’s what finally drags me back to the surface.
I grab the flashlight and flip it on. There, in my lap, is a damn mouse trying to climb up the blanket I’m wrapped in.
I yell, “Ahh Mattie, oh my God, help me! I’m being attacked!” Mattie jumps up instantly and reaches for the broom.
Where the hell she got the broom from, I have no idea. In one quick motion, she swings it at my head. I move. She swings again. The dogs are barking, excited and dancing around us like it is a damn game.
She misses, thankfully. I throw the blanket off, and it lands on Mattie. Now she’s fighting the blanket, yelling at me.
“Lee, why did you throw the blanket on me? I can’t get the intruder, I can’t see! Take the broom. Save yourself!” she yells valiantly.
I grab the broom and look around, trying to spot the little critter. The dogs are in a full frenzy. Mattie is fighting for her life to get that blanket off. Pure chaos.
“Lee, swing and hit them! The gun is in the bedroom. Run, Lee, save yourself!” Mattie yells again.
I step back and grab the flashlight. All I see is the glow of the fire and Mattie’s ridiculous outline, still tangled in the blanket and fighting to get fre.
I could just let her keep fighting the blanket, or I could pull it off her. Decisions, decisions. Yeah, I guess I should do the right thing and help.
But she did swing at me twice.
I yank the blanket off. “Oh, pipe down, you old sow! I think one of your precious pups put a mouse in my lap, Mattie. Why on earth would he do that?”
Mattie blinks a couple times, looking around. “You old wind bag, you gave him bourbon! He is probably drunk and thought it would be funny!”
“I mean, look at him, he almost looks like he has a drunk, lazy smile.” She was right. He was now sitting at my feet, at attention, with a goofy lopsided grin.
I can’t help but bust out laughing, then I realize Mattie has a gun.
“Mattie, why on God’s green one do you, of all people, have a gun?”
Mattie starts laughing. “Because I’m an older woman living alone. And I won it last month at the gun shop raffle. Though, honestly, I think old Bill just felt bad for me being alone and said I won. I even got free lessons, too when it warms up.” Mattie said proudly.
I have so many questions. “Mattie, why were you at the gun shop? And what kind of gun is it?”
Mattie holds up a finger, grabs her flashlight, and heads toward her bedroom. I hear her rummaging around, then a loud thud. She keeps it in the chest at the end of her bed, by the sound of it.
Oh God. Just what the world needs, Mattie locked and loaded and taking shooting lessons. I’ll never sleep again, I tell you.
Mattie walks back over to the fire and pulls out a Smith & Wesson .38 Special snub-nose out over robe pocket. Yeah, Bill definitely felt sorry for her. Great.
She holds it by the handle, carefully and proudly showing me. “Yeah, this is what I won!” She is so proud, God help me.
Clearly, she can tell I still stunned. “Oh, calm down you old sourpuss. It isn’t loaded. We had that string of break-ins a couple months ago, and I saw the girls on Cagney & Lacy using it. So I wandered in and saw the raffle.”
I don’t even know what to say at this point. “Wow, Mattie. Just wow.” Go put that thing up. And I know all of Silas will sleep better knowing you, Mattie Hightower, have a gun!”
She shrugs, then uses her robe to polish the cold black steel, before taking the gun back to her bedroom.
Seals is still sitting beside me, looking goofy, one ear up and the other flopped down. Damn dog knew exactly what he was doing. Drunk, my old wrinkled foot.
I throw another log on the fire and look out the window. It’s still pissing down snow. Mattie comes back in and settles into her chair, completely unbothered by the mouse. Or by the fact that she nearly closed me with a broom.
“Night, Lee. Thanks for keeping an old woman company in this weather.”
I smile. “Night, old sow, and thanks for not beating me with the broom. Night, Seals and Crofts.”
With love from the town of Silas.
Written by Calden Knox (my pen name and the one you’ll see on my books)
