4 Chapter 4: Dell Fisher, Part 3

The turn-off for his cabin was coming up.Just a few miles more and he would be on a side road, private and closer to his cabin.The road was unpaved and quite a bit bumpy.Large potholes and the occasional small branches lined his path.He could see the trees giving way just ahead on the right and he slowed the Ford down to 15mph as he turned onto the dirt road.Because it had been a cold, rainy weekend leading up to this clear morning, the dust and dirt remained on the road and it did not cloud up along the sides of his truck.Keeping at a speed of 15mph, the truck still bounced and flopped along the uneven road.Miriam slid a little on the backseat and Dell could hear the metal from his shovel and tools slide around the metallic truck bed.He knew he had only a few more miles on this road to go until he'd reach the cabin.

Patrick had decided not to come home for Thanksgiving this year.He called his dad last weekend to say that he, his wife and their two young kids were going to spend the holiday with his wife's family.He promised Dell that they would be with him for Christmas and they even invited Dell and Miriam to join them.Spending a holiday with the in-laws at their upstate New York condo was not the ideal setting for Dell.He preferred his quiet, hometown in Virginia.He loved Patrick and his wife wasn't half-bad.The children though, four and six years old, were an absolute nightmare.Dell never had a soft spot for children and even though these two were his grandkids, his own flesh and blood, he thought they acted like two wild boars, knocking over everything in his house with a unquenching hunger for more and more cheddar crackers shaped like tiny fish.Crushed-up bits of orange dust would linger all year long in the shag carpet alongside the pine needles from former Christmas trees.

Yes, let the in-laws enjoy the little beasts.Dell had other plans and intended to enjoy this Thanksgiving in peace.

Dell could see the cabin just ahead and he slowed even more as he parked alongside it and a large rusted white tank that once held heating oil.Dell had given up on getting an oil truck out there to fill it up.He thought it wasn't worth the hassle or the price so for the last several years, he heated up the cabin by keeping a roaring fire going in the old stone fireplace.Miriam found it cold and drafty and she didn't like coming to the cabin if it wasn't summer time.Dell thought that was just fine and went there often to hunt and for necessary isolation.

Dell turned the keys in the ignition to the off position and the engine of the reliable old Ford shuttered to a quiet still.He turned to the back seat and leaned over, giving Miriam a good hard poke with one of the keys.She didn't budge.

He opened his door and climbed out the car and then opened the cab's backseat passenger door and took a long hard look at his wife.She lay motionless on the seat, wrapped tightly in a clear plastic tarp.The large tarp wound around her small body several times.He could see the top of her much-greyed red hair through the opened end of the plastic cocoon.

Dell reached in and grabbed a hold of the tarp and gave it a good strong pull.Her body slid out of the car and onto the dirt driveway.He closed the truck doors and looked down at the tarp.He could see the blue from her jeans and the flannel pattern from her shirt through the layers of plastic.Blood had smeared around the area near her head and the tarp did well to contain it.The frozen buck shank would sure serve him well later.He thought about the shank and how satisfying it was going to taste, alongside the yams, canned peas, a cold Coors Lite and the pie that Miriam had gotten from the grocery store yesterday.

He also thought about the day when he came home to find a strange blue car in his driveway.He parked his truck in the street, snuck up to the house and watched through the bedroom window while the bodies of Miriam and a naked man bounced up and down on his bed sheets like a child's teeter totter.

There was no other course of action for Dell than to help Miriam and her lover disappear, much like how he had assisted Lucy and her beau.Nothing was worse than being unfaithful.Death, being alone or engaging in short banter at the bar over a beer did not compare to the feeling of being cheated on.Miriam should have known better, he thought.He thought she also should have known better to duck when a frozen solid buck shank is swinging toward her skull.

Dell reached into the bed of his truck and removed the shovel.With his other hand, he bent down and grabbed a good piece of the tarp's edge and dragged Miriam into the woods.The brown leaves crunched under his foot and the wrapped-up tarp slid along the trail.Dell knew the woods like the many cracks in his favorite gloves.He had just been up to the cabin yesterday while Miriam was shopping at the grocery store.He followed his own path to a small clearing of trees. He let go of the tarp and moved to the center of the clearing.Dell held the shovel with two hands and began to dig through the leaves until he found what he was looking for.A corner of a wood plank stuck out from the leaves and he dropped the shovel.He bent over and slid the plank to one side, grabbed a hold of three more planks of wood and slid them out of the way as well.A large hole revealed itself.It was a dried up old well that used to supply water to the cabin.For years now, Dell had to bring plastic gallon jugs of water to the cabin for bathing and cooking.The outhouse served its purpose for relieving his body of urine and his morning constitution.