Free Old Wounds by Vicki Lane

growl awakened her. She sat up, realizing that the massive object taking up the lower third of the bed and forcing her sleeping self into a cramped fetal position was a dog. “Hush, Ursa!” She reached for the dog’s snout and held it shut. “It’s just that coon at the birdfeeder again. No barking! You’ll wake Rosie.”
    With a dissatisfied grumble, the big dog put her head down. Elizabeth switched on her light and looked at the clock on the chest of drawers beside the bed—3:32 a.m. She grimaced and then realized that she was very thirsty, undoubtedly the result of drinking more wine than usual. With a low command to Ursa to stay, she swung out of bed, shoved her feet in her slippers, and went noiselessly toward the kitchen. No lights were necessary; twenty years’ familiarity guided her steps.
    A dim light shone from the kitchen doorway and Elizabeth’s brow wrinkled.
I thought I turned that off. Maybe Rosie
—Then small clinking and rustling sounds came to her ears.
    “You’d better not be getting into that garbage, James!” she hissed as she rounded the door and headed for the pantry. A light glowed faintly behind the curtain covering the doorway of the little room just off the kitchen. Here were stored canned goods, cleaning supplies, and dog food. The refrigerator was hidden away in this nook, as well as receptacles for garbage and recycling, and James had more than once whiled away an agreeable hour in here, examining the garbage and trying to get into the dog food container.
    “What
are you doing, you bad dog!” She whipped the curtain aside, sure of what she was about to see. “You’re going to—”
    What she did see stopped her mid-sentence. The refrigerator door was open—the source of the light—and a dark figure leaned into the interior. On the floor beside the creature’s filthy feet were containers of leftovers, their tops awry. The smell in the little room was very strong.

M ISS B IRDIE AND C LETUS
    June 1984
    S UNDAY AFTERNOON :
lunch and the heat had made everyone drowsy. The grown-ups were rocking lazily in their chairs under the shed. Laurel lay sprawled on the mattress in her corner, fast asleep. Her red curls, damp with perspiration from the exertion of insisting that she didn’t want to take a nap, were plastered against her plump cheeks. One arm encircled Rex, the stuffed dinosaur her mother had sewn of soft blue brushed denim; the other lay extended, hand splayed open like a fat pink starfish.
    Rosemary sat at the rough table under the window her pa had cut in the side of the barn. From this perch, she commanded a view of the winding gravel drive that snaked down the hill to the hard road, almost half a mile away. Just at the moment, she was two people. One was Rosemary Goodweather, writing in her diary, reading an Oz book, and enjoying an after-lunch glass of milk with a handful of cookies. The other was Shining Deer, the Indian princess keeping watch against enemies.
    Rosemary took a careful sip of milk and dispatched a cookie in two bites. She put down her pencil and raised a hand to shade her eyes.
    Shining Deer peered out of the window, scanning the horizon with her keen, hawklike vision. All was well in the Valley of the First People, from the nearer meadows where the deer and buffalo and spotted horses grazed in peaceful harmony to the tall Sacred Mountains that lay purple in the distance, many moons’ ride from this place. No marauding settlers appeared to disturb
—
    Shining Deer stiffened. Around the nearest bend in the road came an old woman and a younger man. They both wielded sticks to help them in their ascent. The man was carrying something that dangled from his shoulder. Friends or foes? No matter. The tribe must be alerted! She would sound the alarm.
    Pa! Mum! There’s people coming! Rosemary ran to the door of the barn, eager to deliver her news.
    There was a gratifying, bustling reaction. Her mother quickly looked around, picked up the empty beer bottles