Vengeance is Mine (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-seven

I'd seen where the last of the wild dogs were using the little branch out back of the Ordway place to get to the trash barrels behind the school house. The dogs hung around there, knocking the barrels over and eating the scraps us kids threw away. They'd killed a small house dog across the road from the gym only the day before when Miss Dovey let her little Chihuahua mix out to pee.

I knew Grandpa would get my butt if he heard I was shooting up around the school or gym, so I decided to wait for them not far behind the Ordway barn. I left my bike parked beside one of the bur oak trees in the front yard, and climbed through the gate. I didn't figure Mr. Tony or Miss Samantha would care, since they'd been over to the house and were friends.

Tall summer grass dried upright in the pasture, and polk salad grew higher than my head against the prairie style barn. I'd always liked that barn with its drive-through center hall, horse stalls, and tack rooms under wide gambrel roofs. The tall, cathedral-like interior was held up with rough-cut timbers that supported the open beams. A hay loft covered the front quarter of the building.

The doors were partially open, so I avoided the tall weeds, intending to walk the length of the open hallway to the other end. Light shining through the cracks in the walls lit Mr. Tony's car he'd backed into the wide hall. There was plenty of room on each side between the car and the stalls. Dust motes filled the bright slabs of vertical beams, and the long unused barn smelled of dirt, instead of hay and manure.

I thought about going on through before I realized I could crack open one of the back doors and use the whole building as a blind. The shallow draw down the slope wasn't a hundred yards away, and I knew I could hit anything at that range.

Only a couple of minutes later, two wild dogs loped into the open. I'd seen them before and figured they were the last of the pack that hurt Hootie. A lump formed in my throat as I shouldered the rifle, clicked the safety off, and lined up on the largest of the two shaggy mutts. My finger tightened on the trigger and two shots rang out, surprising me. A second later I lowered the rifle and saw the Wilson brothers walk out of the woods.

They stood beside the bodies for a moment, then reloaded their rifles and disappeared. I clicked the safety back on, wiped my leaking eyes, and dang near had a heart attack when I turned into Mr. Tony standing only a couple of feet away.

“Oh!” I was so startled that the barrel of the .22 swung toward him.

He casually reached out and caught it with one hand. “Hello, Top.”

I quickly lowered the rifle. “I'm sorry, Mr. Tony. I didn't intend to shoot you.”

He nodded. “Who was that outside?”

“The Wilson boys.”

“What were they shooting at?”

“Dogs, wild dogs.”

“You people sure do shoot a lot.”

“They finished off that pack that almost killed Hootie. Those were the last two, I believe.”

He leaned past me to look through the rear doors. When he did, I noticed a bulge in the pocket of his khakis. It sure looked like a gun to me. He noticed where I was looking. “Yep, I saw someone coming in the barn and came down to check it out. I didn't know it was you.”

“I left my bike beside a tree in front of the house.”

“I didn't see it. I came out the back. Do people here usually wander on other people's property without permission?”

His eyes hardened, and I couldn't figure out if he was mad or not. “Nossir, but since Grandpa knows nearly everybody, I didn't think anyone would care…” I drifted off, because I knew it wasn't right the minute I decided to shoot from the barn. Most folks in Center Springs don't mind if you hunt in the fields and woods, but going into another man's barn was wrong.

Mr. Tony scratched his neck. “Well, I won't say anything to your grandpa, but it might not be smart to come around here without permission. I thought you were a burglar and you might have gotten hurt.”

I couldn't meet his eyes, so I looked down at the soft, sandy floor. “I won't do it again, Mr. Tony.

“All right.” He slowly scanned the wide hall between the stalls, and the open trusses overhead. “This is only the second time I've been in here.”

“Uncle Cody says this was one of the fanciest barns in the county at one time. Not too many of them have built-in corn cribs and tack rooms.”

“What's that?”

“This.” I led him back to the front double doors and the small room to the left. The wooden floor in there was about a foot higher than the rest of the barn. It reminded me of a cage with wooden bars going sideways instead of up and down. Through the dusty horizontal slats you could see wooden boxes and barrels stacked around the edges. I opened the door.

Mr. Tony leaned in and poked at some dried up horse harnesses and bridles hanging from nails. He pointed at the outside wall. “What's that door? It looks too small for adults.”

I almost laughed at the city guy. “It's there so you can reach inside without going around.”

He grinned. “I guess I don't know much about your world, Top.”

“You want to see something cool?”

“Sure.”

I went inside and jumped on a small trap door set in the floor. “You know what that is?”

“No, what?”

“A tunnel that comes all the way out here from the house.”

“How do you know that?”

“Me and Pepper were crawling around under there a while back and we found it.”

Mr. Tony shook his head. “And why were you kids under a house?”

I decided to confide in him, because after all, we'd already told Uncle Cody. “We were looking for a way into the house through that hole in your kitchen floor. When we told Uncle Cody, he thought it was pretty funny, because he'd done the same thing with old houses when he was a kid. He told us about a trap door under the staircase that led to the tunnel that comes out right here.”

“Why would anyone want a tunnel from a house to the barn?” He thought for a minute. “Oh, the weather. The farmer could get to his livestock when it was snowing or freezing.”

“Nossir, moonshiners made it.”

His frown told me he wasn't following. “Back during Prohibition, the Ordways started running short of money, so they built a still in here. They drove cars through, loaded them with whiskey, and drove out pretty as you please.”

“An old tunnel sounds dangerous to me, after all this time.”

“We peeked in with a flashlight. Whoever built it did a great job. It ain't a dirt tunnel ner-nothin'. The whole thing is lined with solid cedar planks and the supports look like bodark.”

There was that frown again.

“Bodark is a tough tree that grows around here and the wood don't hardly rot. Most of the fenceposts are made out of it”

“So it's solid?”

“As a dollar.”

“That's good to know. I might take a peek at it one of these days.”

“Can me and Pepper go with you? I'd-a gone the first time, but she's deathly afraid of spiders, so we had to back out.”

“Sure.” He ruffled my hair.

Adults were always doing that, and messing up my Boy's Regular haircut. I rubbed it back into place. “I guess I need to go now. I'm sorry I bothered you. I only wanted to finish my job.”

“Is your vendetta over?”

“My what?”

“Vendetta. Your blood feud with the dogs.”

“Yessir. I reckon I'm done.”

He studied me for a long moment. “I think you did what you needed to do. Now, why don't you go back to being a kid again?”

“I don't know if I can.”

“Try. That time will be gone pretty soon, and you'll wish for childhood some day.”

“I'd rather be grown up.”

He sighed. “C'mon, kiddo. I'm out of cigarettes. Walk with me to the store and I'll buy you a Coke.”

“I'd rather have a Dr Pepper.”

He sighed again. “I'll never understand your lingo.”

Chapter Thirty-eight

I finally convinced Pepper to join me on an archaeological dig late in the day on the last Saturday of the month. The weather still didn't seem like October. A couple of cool fronts pushed the heat away for a while, but it came back again. A stronger cold front was supposed to be on the way, but it wouldn't be soon enough for me.

“That sounds about like something you'd want to do,” Pepper complained when I told her my idea while we were sitting in the lawn chairs under the mimosa tree. The humidity wrapped us in a great, sweaty weight.

“You're starting to remind me of Lucy.”

“Huh?”

I reached over and rubbed Hootie's ears. “Lucy, from the Peanuts comic strip. You're getting more and more crabby every day.”

“That's because I'm getting older. They say hormones change you.”

“What's hormones?”

“When you change, you know, like growing these boobies.”

My face flushed. I never liked her to talk like that, even when we were alone and the adults weren't around. “Well, you need to quit complaining so much, and I imagine Miss Becky is getting close to finding a new soap to wash your mouth out.”

“I'm getting too old for that, besides, she's too busy making preserves and butter to give away.”

“You ain't too big for a whuppin' across them new tight Levis of yours. And where did you get that shirt?”

She tugged at the tail. “This is called a peasant shirt. All the cool kids in the city are wearing clothes like this now.”

“Well, just because you dress like one of them hippies, it don't mean you
are
one.”

“They have good ideas that'll change this world for the better.”

“They're nothin' but a bunch of long-hairs havin' sit-ins all day and listening to music and smoking that pot.”

Pepper saw Mr. John pass on the highway at the bottom of the hill. She jumped up from her chair and ran across the yard, waving her hand. “Mr. John!”

He saw her, tapped his brakes, and pulled into our gravel drive below the house. He stopped in the yard and Pepper leaned in his open passenger window. “Mr. John, will you take us with you to Miss Rachel's?”

He raised an eyebrow and gave us a wide smile. “What for?”

“We want to meet her, and her kids.”

He tilted his hat back. “Mr. Ned or Miss Becky say it was okay?”

“Sure.”

I shot Pepper a look. Instead of outright lying, I tried a different tact. “We'd like to go with you. Grandpa said there may be Indian artifacts in that draw a ways behind her house. I'd like to see if I can find any.”

“Artifacts?”

I wasn't sure Mr. John knew what the word meant. I'd only gotten a good grip on it in the last few days myself. “Yessir. Artifacts are stuff left over…”

He finished the thought for me. “…from a long time ago. I know what they are. They's artifacts all around this country, if you look hard enough. There's one right over there, across the road.”

I was startled. “How can you see anything from here? All I can see is trees.”

“Yep, and that one old tree right there that grows up about four feet and then bends to the southwest before it straightens up? That's an Indian sign.”

“Bullsh…” Pepper barely caught herself, remembering who she was talking to. “What do you mean?”

“Miss Pepper, my great-granddaddy told me they'd bend small trees toward good water, like Center Springs down there, so's others could find it easy. When the trees grew, they kept that shape, and will always point toward water. They's trees like that all over this county.”

I couldn't believe we lived next to an Indian signpost all that time and didn't know it. “You sure?”

“Sure as shootin'! Now, what makes you think they's artifacts behind Rachel's house?”

“We heard some men found a few while they were digging up fill dirt back there.”

Mr. John grinned wide. “I kinda believe you, Mr. Top, but Miss Pepper, you want to go and be nosy. Ain't that it?”

I felt embarrassed, but Pepper whooped. “We can't put anything over on you, can we?”

Mr. John gave us a grin and raised an eyebrow. “Ummm hummm. All right, y'all get in, since Miss Becky said it was all right. I got some milk in there that don't need to get no warmer.”

Even though I felt bad about Pepper lying to Mr. John, I didn't see any reason why we couldn't go, now that she'd gotten us a ride. I sent Hootie back up to the house, because he still wasn't feeling up to snuff, and he went like it was his idea. Since he got chewed up, he tended to stay close and didn't seem interested in going anywhere.

We piled in the backseat and made room between the paper sacks of groceries. Mr. John put the car in gear and drove straight up to the house. Pepper's eyes grew wide, because she knew what he intended to do.

Miss Becky heard the car and came outside to lean in Mr. John's open window. “John, did you arrest my grandkids?”

He cut a look across the car at Pepper. “I 'magine one might need it 'fore long. Pepper, go ahead on.”

Knowing she was had, Pepper didn't have any choice. “Can we ride over to Miss Rachel's house with Mr. John? We ain't met her yet, and I want to go somewhere's else besides this house and ours.”

The adults passed one of those looks I hate, and then they took to nodding like one of them stupid bobbing dogs that people put on their dashboards.

“All right.” Miss Becky patted Mr. John's arm. “Don't let 'em wear out their welcome.”

“Yessum.”

A minute later, we were on the highway. “Now ain't that better, Miss Pepper, asking permission instead of sneakin' off?”

Pepper sulled up. “I guess.”

Mr. John didn't take his eyes off the road. “That's right. Do things the right way and you won't get into no trouble, and you won't get others in trouble with you. Now, you don't have to answer, but think about something on the way there. Nobody knew you was gonna get in the car here with me, but both you kids need to remember that we look different, and people might think I was up to somethin' takin' y'all off. Do you see what I'm sayin'?”

Pepper didn't look at him, but she nodded.

“Times is changin', but they ain't changin'
that
fast. Colored, white, it don't matter to me, 'cause I love the both of y'all, but you don't know what folks is gonna think or say, seein' y'all with me. Now, if somebody asks, Miss Becky can set 'em straight. See?”

“I didn't think of that.” Pepper's voice was small.

“Y'all ain't lived long enough to know. You'll learn.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, we pulled into Miss Rachel's dirt yard. She was sitting on her porch in a cane-bottom chair, shelling peas into the apron in her lap. Two little girls about six or seven years old were playing with a toddler in the bare yard. They had a beat up old stewer and a couple of tablespoons for toys. The little girls dipped sand in the stewer, and the toddler used the handle to dump it out, laughing a deep, congested laugh each time. I'd never heard a baby with a voice so deep.

Miss Rachel dropped an empty hull into the tall pile beside her chair. She waved. “Who you got with you, John?”

“Couple of outlaws I found on the trail.” We started to slide out. “Uh uh. Y'all hand me them sacks befo' you get out t'car.”

I caught myself frowning at Mr. John's voice. He never sounded like that around us, but with Miss Rachel, he changed the way he talked.

“Bring them young'uns on up and lemme have a look at them little things. Boy, you po as a snake.”

They sounded like Mr. John's old aunt, Miss Sweet, who was a healer. If it wasn't for her, I believe I'd have died one night from a bad asthma attack, but she mixed up a drink from leaves and roots that got me easy and opened my lungs up.

Miss Rachel's windows and doors were open to catch the breeze through the rusty, holy screens. Houses in our part of northeast Texas were built up off the ground with a crawlspace underneath, but Miss Rachel's was taller than any house I'd ever seen and I could have walked underneath by barely bending over. I bet it had never seen a paintbrush. The steps leading up to the house were raw boards on a tall stringer.

“Top, Pepper.” Mr. John pointed at the kids coming around the side of the house. “Y'all meet Belle and Bubba. They're the oldest of this herd. Those two gals 'bout closest to y'all's age are Jere and Daisy. Now, let me see, the rest are Betsy, Frederick, Christian, Daisy, Josephine, Bessie, Myrlie, and Florynce.” He pointed to them one by one with a thick finger. “The baby there is Bass Reeves. He's named after the first colored U.S. deputy marshal.”

I knew they didn't all belong to Miss Rachel. Grandpa told Miss Becky she was also raising her sister's kids.

Miss Rachel split another hull, ran her thumb up the inside to pop the peas free, and reached for another one. “
You'll
be marshal one of these days.”

Mr. John shook his head. “I don't know 'bout t'at, Rachel Lea. Don't know I'd want it if they'd give it to me. I got to likin' hangin' round this part of Lamar County.”

She stood, gathering the shelled peas in her apron. “Let me get these on the stove, and I'll see what else I can find in them sacks for y'all to eat.”

A voice came from inside the car. “John?”

Mr. John trotted over and picked up the microphone. “Go ahead, Cody.”

“Go to channel ten.”

It wasn't unusual for them to switch channels so they could talk without so many ears listening in. Grandpa and Uncle Cody did it all the time. “Hold on.” Mr. John dialed the two-way. “I'm here, Cody.”

“Where you at?”

Mr. John's eyes flicked toward all of us on the porch. “Rachel's.”

“Good. I need you quick. There's been a wreck out here at Gate Five, and I need all the help I can get.”

“Sure 'nough.”

“It's some of your people, John. They're hurt bad, and more are dead than alive.”

“Good thing the road is open over the dam. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Better make it ten. I need the help.”

“I'm rollin'.” Mr. John hesitated.

Miss Rachel had heard enough. “You go on. Get word to Mr. Ned that he can come pick the kids up when he's ready. They wanted to stay and play anyway. Two mo' won't make no difference in this gaggle. Besides, we need to get to know one another.” She winked. “Don't we, Miss Pepper?”

Mr. John waved bye and left in a spray of gravel.