Disclaimer: There's some lack of ownership going on here, potentially of more things than Tin Man but I wrote this chapter last night and exam brain is unable to recall what it is. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with MMT. Odd if it did.
Author's Note: So some of you (including Quality Control) seem to think I am being mean to Gulch...um, *runs away*.
PS Officer Gulch would like to apologize to the ladies present for some of the language in this chapter, not that it was his fault.
...
DG crouched down beside the barn, hiding behind the long grass and assorted farm implements, trying to get the lay of the land – or the emotional environment as it were. Officer Gulch was reacting true to form, throwing himself into the nearest manual labour he could find. Apparently he'd decided to cut enough firewood to last him for the next couple decades or so, the sixteen year old wondered what small forest had been denuded of trees in order to assuage the cop's inner turmoil. Watching the steady swing of the axe, the farm girl could almost hear the thoughts, the memories that were doubtless replaying in the policeman's mind as he tried to drown them out with physical exertion.
Whoosh, thunk.
"What did you expect?"
Whoosh, thunk.
"You think that we had something special? That I was going to settle down with you, have 2.5 kids, live in a house with white picket fence?"
Whoosh, thunk.
"You think I want to get stuck is this pathetic little town like you let yourself be?"
Whoosh, thunk.
"I've got too much ahead of me to allow myself to be tied down to some small town cop..."
Whoosh, thunk.
"...honey, you were just a way to pass the time..."
Whoosh, thunk.
"...you're a nice guy Elmer, but you know how it is: nice guys finish last."
Hands clenching into fists around her offering, DG growled. She'd wasn't a violent person, but at that moment she'd have loved more than anything to have been able to give that bitch a lesson regarding the proper treatment of Officer Gulch. There was precisely one person allowed to make the cop's life miserable, and until someone else came along that could be counted on to do it with a measure of kindness, the girl was not about to share the privilege.
Unfortunately, DG had been constrained by circumstances not to intervene. She, like everyone else, had not expected the cop's arrival on the scene – the sixteen year old had been in the midst of a dilemma over what to do with certain new information she'd stumbled upon when he'd come through the door, causing DG to scramble for cover lest she be discovered. Mr. Honest Cop had a tendency to take exception to things like teenagers trying to acquire alcohol after all. As it was, however, the policeman had been too preoccupied with finding his supposed girlfriend in a rather compromising position with one of the local truckers to even consider checking for miscreants. Officer Gulch had just stood there, frozen in place, staring at the woman as she rained mockery down upon him. Trapped in her hiding place, cut off from the exit, DG had been forced to just sit there and listen, knowing full well that it would only be worse for him if he knew she was present.
By the time it was over, the sixteen year old was weeping tears of anger and shaking with rage. He'd just begun to recover from the death of his parents, just started to regain his Gulchness, now, thanks to that harpy and the inevitable small town gossip, everyone knew Elmer Gulch's girlfriend had been sleeping around behind his back, completing his humiliation. There was no way DG was going to let that go unanswered for.
Whoosh, thunk.
Brought back to the present by the rhythmic sound of the axe, the farm girl wondered how he would take her solution. The policeman had been a bit more volatile than usual in his grief – if one could apply the word volatile to someone as even-tempered as Officer Gulch – and one never knew when he would decide to go all tiresomely Honest Cop on a person, there was a good chance he'd take issue to her actions. On the other hand, he was a great believer in justice...
The shrill beeping of his watch alarm interrupted the rhythm, resulting in an uncharacteristic fit of temper as the policeman flung his axe across the yard and pivoted towards the house. DG's squeak of alarm, however, as the axe bounced off the barn towards her, brought him up short. Dancing back hastily from the sharp edged missile, the sixteen year old realized she'd lost the opportunity to retreat unnoticed and hastily hid her hands behind her back.
"Sorry, DG, you alright?" Officer Gulch asked anxiously as he rushed forward to discover the source of the noise, "That was a da...dashed stupid thing for me to do...wait a minute," he cut off abruptly, blinking in realization, "what are you doing here?"
Hesitating, DG looked up at him sheepishly then slowly brought her hands into view. The cop blinked again. As the girl opened her hands to give him a better view, the policeman's head shot up to look at her with furrowed brows. Whatever his response would have been, however, it was forestalled by the roar of an engine and the crunch of gravel under fast moving tires.
"Get up into the barn loft, right now, and don't come down until I say so," Officer Gulch commanded, picking up the axe and moving back towards the wood pile.
By the time DG had herself hidden away in a good spot, where she could observe the coming confrontation, the vehicle was already tearing up the driveway towards the cop. The policeman, meanwhile, had gone back to chopping wood as if he'd never been disturbed.
"Where is she?" the driver shrieked over the screech of tires as she brought the car to abrupt halt far closer to the cop than DG was comfortable with.
Officer Gulch glanced placidly at the bumper a mere two feet from his knees and replied urbanely, "Where's who?"
"You know damned well who I'm talking about," the woman snarled as she slammed her way out of the car, "she ain't at home which means she's come to hide behind her own personal bodyguard."
"Don't recall signing up to be anyone's bodyguard," the cop mused with rather convincing puzzlement, "you mind enlightening me?"
Sucking in an outraged breath, the woman glared at the policeman who looked back with utter unconcern. Had her face not been mottled red with rage and partially covered by the most ridiculous straw hat, she might have been considered pretty, as it was, however, she resembled nothing so much as a yapping pit bull as she spat, "I'm talking about the little bitch you're always so worried about..."
"Language Roxanne," he interrupted mildly, carefully setting aside the axe, "there might be ladies present."
Eyes narrowing dangerously, Roxanne's lip curled back in a sneer, "I'll use whatever fucking language I please, when I please. You want to be a damn doormat that's you prerogative, now where is the little bitch?"
The cop looked to his left then his right before patting his pockets and replying, "Well I don't seem to have a mirror on me, perhaps the ones in your car would be of use?"
DG nearly crowed with laughter. Go Officer Gulch, she cheered. Roxie looked about ready to attack the policeman in her fury.
"Where is DG?" the woman ground out at last, "I know you're hiding her, you're the first person she'd run to."
The sixteen year old thought rather indignantly that she didn't need to hide from someone as petty as Roxanne; she was only doing so now on the policeman's orders. Besides it was incredibly satisfying to watch the generally non-confrontational cop get a little of his own back.
"May I ask why you are looking for her?" he inquired with continued feigned ignorance.
Roxanne almost blew up in response. "What did she do? What did she do?" the woman howled, "I'll tell you what she did you worthless, dirt licking swine," she bayed shrilly, but it shortly became unnecessary for her to do so as the wind chose that moment to catch her hat just right, sending it spinning into the dirt. The woman shrieked in alarm and dove after it, but not soon enough to prevent both observers from getting a good look at what had been hidden beneath. Roxie's head had been partially shaved in rough uneven patches, the hair that remained varied wildly between army regulation and two feet long strands. One eyebrow was completely missing; the other had random tufts ripped out of it. DG, carelessly sweeping off a board with the long red locks Roxanne had been so proud of, marvelled at how much one could accomplish when their victim was in the habit of taking sleeping pills.
The policeman, naturally, did not laugh at the woman's distress, he was merely choking on the dust the wind had kicked up.
Ramming the hat back down on her head, Roxanne hissed, "You dare..." breaking off, apparently beyond words. "Fine," she yowled at last, storming back towards her car and wrenching open the door, "protect the little bitch, you can't always be there and when I get my hands on her I'm gonna-"
The car door slammed shut abruptly before she could enter. "You'll do what?" he demanded flatly in a tone of voice the town was gradually learning to recognize meant that they were no longer talking to Elmer Gulch, hometown boy, but rather Officer Gulch, local law enforcement. "You'll do what?" he asked again staring the woman down, "Threatening bodily harm is against the law, you hurt one hair on that girl's head and I'll have you arrested for child abuse before you can even gloat about it. Have a nice day, ma'am," he finished on a professionally distant note, removing his hand from the vehicle and stepping back.
Eyes narrowed in impotent rage, Roxanne spat venomously, "Speak for yourself, have fun chasing the little girl, maybe I'll bring some charges, make it easier for you." Slamming the car door behind her, she tore out of the driveway as viciously as she'd arrived.
More than a little peeved with the parting insult, but pleased with the encounter overall, DG practically skipped down the barn ladder and out into the yard. Officer Gulch was exiting the house when she arrived, carrying a large bag and a box of matches.
"Here," he said, handing them over to her, "the garbage needs burned, make sure you don't miss anything," he added with emphasis.
The sixteen year old's jaw dropped. "Officer Gulch," she gasped outrageously, "are you...could you possibly be telling me to destroy evidence?"
"What evidence?" the cop inquired with raised eyes, "I didn't see any evidence. Saw you with a handful of hair, sure, but without something to compare it to, who's to say who it belongs to. Highly circumstantial that, could never get a conviction."
Grinning, DG skipped forward to give him a hug.
"You let me know if she gives you any trouble," he told her seriously.
Scoffing, DG said scornfully, "You think I can't handle her."
Lip twitching slightly, Officer Gulch mused, "I'm sure you could, but you know where to draw the line, I'm not entirely sure she does."
"What on Earth were you doing with someone like her anyhow?" she asked severely.
"Love is blind?"
Snorting, she muttered back, "Hormones are at any rate."
"Oie!" the policeman protested.
Patting him on the arm, the sixteen year old hesitated a moment before mumbling, "Mama Gulch wouldn't have wanted you to settle."
Officer Gulch went utterly still. Opening and closing his mouth a few times, he eventually managed to murmur, "For someone who pulls as many stupid stunts as you do, you are disturbingly perceptive sometimes, do you know that?"
"Says the kettle," DG pointed out, "going for that bi-"
"DG."
"-tter hag when you could have pretty much any of the teachers at school and more than half the nurses at the hospital for the asking..."
"Eh?" the startled cop uttered.
Rolling her eyes, the teenager huffed, "You are so oblivious. Think about it, you've shown up I don't know how many times hauling a little girl you've just saved from some danger or other, fussing about like a mother hen..."
"Hey!"
"...the maternal instincts have got to be firing off the charts; you're lucky none of them have clubbed you over the head and dragged you back to the cave already."
"Are you giving me dating advice?" the flustered policeman demanded, "Miss Never Had a Date."
Turning her nose up in the air, DG fired back airily, "Not my fault that no one around here meets my standards," somebody went and set the bar pretty damn high, she added internally, "and we weren't talking about me, we were talking about how you need to find a nice girl, someone who appreciates you, someone who doesn't think that nice guys should finish last. If I ran the universe they wouldn't."
"Oh really," Officer Gulch commented drily, "I guess I'll just have to visit this universe sometime. You don't happen to have a long lost relative do you? Perhaps a cousin matching your specifications, a little older, a lot less crazy, decidedly less prone to getting me in trouble?"
"Aw, you'd be so bored if that were the case," the teenager pouted, "Besides I don't have any cousins, but I tell you what, I'll keep an eye out."
"Wonderful," he stated with mock solemnity, "now weren't you supposed to be doing something?"
"Ah yes, evidence to burn, you know," she speculated, waving the hair about, "for a moment there earlier I thought you were going to go Honest Cop on me for this."
"Hmm, well, thought about it, but..."
"But?"
Shrugging, he continued, "Officer Gulch happens to be off-duty right now, and he needs to take a break occasionally; Elmer Gulch, however," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "found it to be rather entertaining."
Giggling, DG averred, "Elmer Gulch is a menace."
"Too right he is," he agreed, "now scoot, there's some cinnamon buns in the oven that ought to be ready any minute now.
DG scooted; magic words, those.