One in Vermilion

Chapter 1 The first time I saw him, he was helping an old woman across the street. She’d been pulling her small cart of groceries behind her, and the wheel had gotten stuck in a pothole. When she’d tried to pull the cart free, it had tipped, and several boxes and a bag had spilled over the top. Before I could do more than blink, the man rushed forward, scooped up her wayward purchases, and had her bundled off across to the other side. What struck me wasn’t his kindness, or his big, bright smile, though both were welcome in this day and age. No, what really caught my attention was his hat. A brilliant red the likes of which I’d never seen. Somehow still clearly red with just a hint of orange in it. The beanie was pulled down low, and his auburn curls stuck out wildly around the brim. The colors did not go well together. In fact, that shade of red was all wrong for his complexion. But the hat itself wasn’t so much a shocker as the fact that he was wearing it in the middle of July. The light changed, the cars started moving again, and I lost my chance to not only cross the street, but to ask the man why, exactly, he was wearing such a hat in the middle of one of the hottest summers Landry’s Fall had ever seen. I didn’t think much of the man or his hat in the next week. Until I saw him again. There was no mistaking the man or that particular shade of red. I stopped the lawnmower, and used the opportunity to wipe the sweat off my face as I watched him walk down my quiet street. The hat caught my attention, but even if it hadn’t, the six dogs pulling at the leashes he carefully held in his hands would have. No, wait. There were seven dogs. A little Corgi was gamboling around his ankles, staying clear of the bigger dogs and doing its best to trip him up. Today he was wearing khaki cargo shorts and a fitted, though worn T-shirt. The clothes showed off his long, lean, muscular frame, and I was distracted for a moment by the power in his forearms as they flexed and bunched under the strain of corralling that many dogs. Then one of the dogs, a big Husky-looking thing, broke off from the group as far as its leash would allow, squatted, and did his business right on the edge of my lawn. “Sorry!” the man called, a huge smile radiating from his face. I wasn’t close enough to really take in his features, but I could tell his eyes were warm and dark, and that grin was almost enough to be my undoing. “Give me just a sec!” I watched in amazement as he somehow managed to get the leashes into one hand, then twisted his body to lean toward the ground, a plastic bag appearing from nowhere, and getting rid of the evidence. He tucked that bag into another, then gave me a jaunty wave before redistributing the leashes. “All set!” “Thanks.” It took a moment to get my voice to work, and he was already walking away by the time I managed to call out my gratitude. I stared long after he’d disappeared around the corner with his pack. Then I shook my head, restarted the mower, and got back to work. But it was much harder to forget the man and his hat after that.