Another few chapters from this novel in progress. Set in NM, this odd little village has some strange rules to keep the tourists coming but not staying. The dogs run the show.

10. Yes, it was time for a meeting of the Old Guard, also known as the Local Fire and Rescue District Volunteers #306. Those of us who proudly announce that we’ve lived here for more than a decade get together once a quarter, but it seemed that we’d needed an emergency gathering. Things were, as I mentioned, getting out of hand. All because of that damn website! It only popped up since I’d been back from visiting the Northeast but still, sheesh. Cullingstown had no Wi-Fi or cell phone towers and we’d resisted for many a good reason. This list is only partial:  

·      Backed-up traffic.

·      Tour buses puking out fifty visitors with a hunger for documenting every living local.

·      Lines out of Toka’s bakery (good for him but not the rest of us).

·      Cats and dogs wandering through legs and feet begging as if they didn’t have it easy enough, little liars.

·      Rooms for rent.

·      Homes for sale.

·      Airbloodybnb.

I couldn’t keep track of everyone any more and I was tired of trying but what else was I meant to do? Write a spreadsheet? Ask for help?

11. The meeting began late as usual. Some blamed the gale winds and flurries of snow. Some just shrugged. Others were high. We left the dogs outside with Ding, he’d keep them distracted. It wouldn’t do much good if they heard that their own population was on the agenda. And where was Edna with her notepad?

“Ladies, Gents, Freaks and Friends, we have a problem,” I began.

A door slammed and Oona stomped over to the fireplace. Lola and Lenny moved out of her way, a timid couple but long-lasting in town because of it. Oona sat with a huff and puff and we all had to wait and watch her little show of annoyances. Coat stripped off and thrown across Lenny’s chair by the fireplace. Boots tugged and discarded. Sweatshirt unzipped. She was in full hot-flash mode which didn’t bode well for the meeting ahead. Clammy skin made her cranky. I knew from experience, mine as well as hers, and so I smiled what I hoped was a sympathetic friendly acknowledgement. She mock-growled. Then I really did grin.

“Well, now the princess is settled, can we carry on?” That was the voice of Jerry, an old-timer like me and so you’d think we’d be friends, but we had issues. “Just because more people with money are coming earlier than ever, do we really need to panic? Surely we want the business?”

“It’s too much and too early. We don’t have the infrastructure,” said Lenny.

“Are you proposing that we open the Culling Season now? Hmm?” And that was Da-Vid, emphasis on the Id, a newish member of the community, and Jerry’s partner. I know that us queers are meant to stick together but try living near these two! They drove me nuts.

Without sighing, I said, “I’m asking for input.”

The question had been asked: Do we start killing already? Changing the dates from the usual May to September timeframe?

“Who’s at the end of their five-year leases? That should shift a few numbers out.”

“Then there’s those with the six-month trial to be checked on. Mr. Tubs, for example.”

Toka stepped outside for a moment in the silence. I watched Ding and Toka step off the porch and head towards my shed, the dogs following. The new girl at Ding’s right side, tail wagging, listening as the two men chatted. They disappeared with the rest of free dogs into the warmth of the barnlike cave, one I’d built out of local rocks. The chimney puffed out some black smoke and then settled into a pale haze of pinon burning.

Mikey, the dead crow, was in a brown paper bag on top of the outdoor table. I blinked, sad to lose him. Tomorrow, I told myself, I’d dig him a grave on the hill with all the other critters.

I turned back to my living room. Eight of us sat avoiding each others’ eyes, no one willing to say yes or no, not even Oona. I grabbed the pot off the woodstove and poured out more hot chocolate for us all.

“Who else is there?”

“Where’s Edna?” asked Bisket, an artist and busybody. She’s tall, 35 years old, and rail thin, shaped like a tornado with tiny feet and big hair. Her heart’s in the right place though and she’s good with blood, a quality we need as the Rescue crew.

Lenny and Lola, Oona, David and Jerry, River, Bisket and myself sipped.

“The gallery owners need a bit of a shuffle. I’m bored by their renditions of our skies.” That was Da-Vid of course. Bisket bristled at the implied reference to hers, the First Gallery in town.

“What about the hotel owner? Or those DJs playing nothing but Americana?” Lola had very specific musical tastes and Bluegrass did not fit.

Apart from D & J, I’d done a good job with this latest team. We had a similar aesthetic and desire to preserve the town as it was and had been since I’d been a child.

Bisket stared around as no one spoke. Edna usually came to these meetings, on time and with a great memory for the details. Good ideas too. I was running out of them, having had the job for decades now.

“Does anyone want to check on her?” I asked.

“I’ll swing by on the way home?” Lola offered and Lenny nodded.

“The question is, what do we do with all these new people?”

“And dogs,” added Oona.

“And cats,” I added, braver with everyone there. “Unfixed cats.”

The roof sighed and shook in the wind. Toka burst in with an oops, sorry, just as Oona sat upright and began her usual lecture, “We need cats to keep out the mice. The mice bring rats. The rats bring rattlers. Come on, guys, you know all this. Right?”

“But we agreed, in 2004, to fix all cats. The population had stabilized. Until recently.”

“There are more mice! We need my cats. We are talking about mine, aren’t we, KD?”

I finished my hot chocolate and hoped Toka would say something wise. He didn’t. Lenny looked out the window. River didn’t like to rock the boat and kept quiet, the useless bugger. I don’t blame them though, River’s still young and a local who’s never left. Toka’s little sweetheart.

“Yes, we are. You need to fix the cat problem.” My voice had a bit of a wiggle to it but I stood firm in the idea of spaying her cats.

“It’s a problem now? Since when? And what’s with the new dog? I saw her and Ding walking the perimeter of town today. Can you trust her? Does anyone know her family? Story?”

We all shook a big fat no.

“The dog is a mystery.” Lenny smiled. “A ghost story in the making.”

“Let’s call her Mystique,” offered Toka with a dopey grin. “That solves one problem.”

“But do we have to decide right now? Can’t we wait on Edna? Or is this something we can do as a quorum or whatever the phrase is? I don’t mind either way,” said River, placing the empty mug precisely in the middle of the table, then turning it slightly to the right and smiling at the image. Then an inch to the left again. Turn. Wipe. Check. Turn. Wipe. Frown.

We watched. Fascinated.

Or some of us were. Da-Vid stood, picked up the dirty mug and placed it in the sink then sat. “I say we don’t do anything drastic, none of those usual fatal endings but why don’t we give the visitors a taste of Lenny’s ghostly stories? Hmm? Scare them? It’s much nicer to be terrified rather than dead.”

“Going soft?” asked O. Fifth.

Jerry piped up, “Not on my watch. Heheheheheheehehehehhe.”

“Ick.” That was Bisket.

Lola blushed and Lenny stuck a tentative arm across her shoulders, barely touching her. Like I said, they were an odd couple but they drove the Fire Engine and Ambulance on the trickiest of mountain roads without complaint. They also believed in my mission, or rather my father’s mission for Cullingstown. They were hoping that one day, I’d share the secret sauce that kept me young. Oh, and sign over the lease to their property. As if!

Lenny stared at me, willing me to respond to the idea of less bloodshed. My thoughts turned to Miriam, of her picking up that monster spider out the bathtub and placing it on an envelope to take outside. So gentle with all living beings she was.

“Fine. Let’s scare them. We’ll not open the Culling Season just yet but wait and see, is that it? What you all want?”

DIng shuffled inside without gas can or new dog.

I turned to him and told him the suggestion for her name but he shook his head. I told him the suggestion for dealing with the higher numbers of visitors, he nodded.

“Good enough. Meeting adjourned.”

Almost everyone left.