On the Edge of Twilight: 22 Tales to Follow You Home by Gregory Miller Page B

that, fry. We didn’t figure you’d take it so ruff, though it is a bit of a trial when you don’t see it coming. But that’s always been the best way to let a newby know what’s goin on with Miss Riley, since no one’d believe otherwise.”
    I wiped my mouth and sat up. Jim and Dale were outta sight, but Miss Riley was sittin on her stump again and starin at me with those faded olive eyes of hers, smiling that hoary black-toothed grin.
    “You’re dead,” I said, and pointed at her. “You gotta be.”
    “Ha!” she spat.
    “You saw her chest,” Chris said. “Look agin.”
    I peeked over, and that big old hole was still there in her gullet, but it didn’t look too bad from what it was before.
    “She’ll get better,” Chris said. “She always do.”
    “Come on by an do the same any time!” Miss Riley cackled at me, but I couldn’t look at her again, an didn’t feel too steady on my legs.
    Chris put a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get back to the house and go for a drive. You’ll get your answers. It’s time.”
    * * *
    We got back to the house and didn’t even go inside at all, but went straight for the old Model A Chris’d bought from Doc Weaver for twenty clams. And when we was inside and rolling down the road toward nowheres, Chris started talking.
    “Here’s the thing about Miss Riley,” Chris said, staring ahead. “How old you say she is?”
    “Eighty-five,” I said, cause that was the oldest I could imagine.
    Chris shook his head. “That end of town she lives in? Back when Grampa was a boy there was a big flood, and a heap of people died. You know that, don’t you? You better, the way Gramma keeps on about it. OK, so most everything from there was either warshed away or left to rot, so nobody’d have to think about all the people that got kilt, and so they wouldn’t disrespect nobody’s memory by building it all up again. Except Miss Riley stayed, because she was there then, and already old, and she lived through it even though she was swept away more’n a mile. She came back when no one else did.”
    “That flood was almost a hundred years ago!”
    Chris nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “I ain’t saying anyone gets it. And I guess you’re wondering how she does it? Well she doesn’t do much of nothing, as fur as I can tell. She just can’t damn well lay herself down and die.
    “Before Grampa passed on when you was little, he took me out for my first hunt and showed me what I showed you today. Miss Riley, she goads hunters into doin it, and finally long ago one of em did it for the first time, and ever since it’s been kinda traditional-like for some of them to take a shot at her every year at the start of the season. Good luck, they say.
    “But Miss Riley, I know why she keeps at em. She keeps at em cause she keeps hopin one of em will do her in right and kill her. It don’t happen, though. Sometimes it takes longer and sometimes it takes shorter, but she always gets better. Even so, she won’t never give up.”
    We was both quiet for a bit, and I watched the blue November sky meet the road as Chris kept drivin.
    “How come she don’t die?” I finally asked.
    Chris sighed, then shook his head and wrinkled his nose. “There was talk of great sadfulness and all the kind of things you’d think’d go along with such a queer situ’ation. Somethin bout her son gettin kilt and her swearin to stay until he got back, and him not gettin back, so her stayin on and on. But now she’s ready to go, and been ready for a long bit now.”
    “You think that’s true?”
    “Mebbe. But one thing I know is when folks don’t get the ins and outs about any given thing, they make up somethin so they think they do. And that’s what happened, I guess. But ya know what I think? I think there ain’t always no reason for everythin. I think she don’t die cause she don’t die. That’s her lot, jus like it’s some’s lot to die young. She’s durn tired, has been since