Land of a Hundred Wonders

Hightailin’It

Farther down the trail, where the woods thin from oak to scrub, I can barely make out Billy coming toward me, that’s how bad the rain is sheetin’ down. I don’t dare call out to him. Those black-hatted bounty hunters back at the barn? They’re the Brandish Boys. And they got ears bigger than Peaches’s. Well, one of them does anyways. Even as far away as Tennessee, they are legends. I heard a story about when the Boys were hunting a bail-jumping feller from two counties over. By the time those two dragged him into town, that poor man was missing an arm. Word was the Brandish Boys ripped it clean out and near beat him to death with it. Even Grampa, the least jumpy man I know, swallowed hard when he told me, “Wouldn’t wanna be the object of one of those Boys’ searches. They hunt for the fun of it. Reward money’s just the pork in the beans.”

I reach down to swipe off the rain that’s caught up in Peaches’s mane, give her a pat for a job well done. The trail’s so muddy, I don’t know how she’s managing.

“You okay?” Billy asks, drawing up close, trying to shield me from the punishing storm.

“Where’s Cooter at?” I ask, peering around him.

“Keep’s leadin’ him. It’s a straight shot from here to the cottage. He’ll be fine.”

He better be. Rosie needs a daddy. That’s right, it’s just come to me outta nowhere that it CAN’T be Willard that’s Rosie’s daddy. Even though Clever’s sort of a birdbrain, she’s smart enough to pretend that Willard’s the baby’s daddy so he’ll take her back to New York City with him ’til tongues stop wagging. That rascal. She knows damn well if she births a baby of the opposite color around here, folks are gonna give her a flock of grief.

“We can’t hide at the cottage long,” I say. The trail widens enough here that we can ride the rest of the way together. “They’ll figure that out, won’t they, Billy?”

“We got a little time, I think. Jimmy Lee… ya know… that vat accident… he’s kinda dumb.”

“That’s true,” I say, looking up at him. “But the Brandish Boys aren’t.”

Billy whoas up in a flurry. “The Brandish Boys?”

“They were with Jimmy Lee up at the barn.”

“Ya sure it was them?” he asks, surely hoping I’m not.

They’re starving coyotes, those Boys, bunking down somewhere up in the woods between Cray Ridge and Appleville. I’ve seen ’em up close only one time. At the bait shop. One of ’em has a skin condition so his face is covered in angry pink craters and oozes. The other, like I said, he’s got long ears and something not right with his nose. Lacks oomph. (Ya know how mamas and daddies warn their babies about the booger man to keep them in check? Around these parts, it’s those misshapen brothers make children check under their beds.)

Billy says one more time, like he can’t take it in, “The Brandish Boys.” Might be his drenched shirt causing him to shiver. Think not.

“We got to get the four of us someplace safe,” I tell him.

“Blackstone,” he says right off.

“That’s my thinkin’, too.” For now anyways. In Bolivia, they wear these types of jackets called ponchos. My man will look dashing in one of a deep wine color. Since I can perceive no way at all that we’re gonna get out of our current predicament, I believe we’re gonna have to pack our bags and move souther. Pronto.

Reaching the end of the trail, we trot across the road and go down a piece ’til we end up in the cottage’s backyard. The rain’ll make it harder to track us down, but then again, it is the Brandish Boys. What they lack in beauty they make up for in skill.

“We could do with some dry clothes,” Billy says, dismounting and lifting the reins over Sonny’s head, doing the same to Peaches as I slide off. Cooter’s horse, Dancer, is already tied up under the wide tree. “We’ll gather up what we can as fast as we can and head out.”

Nearing the cottage, I can hear the sound of Grampa’s boat rocking against the dock with a knock knock that makes me remember his apple-puckering lips. His grouchiness after getting up from a nap. His buttermilk pancakes and, well… just all the ingredients that get mixed up together to make a batch of Charles Michael Murphy. After he comes home, I’m gonna set him down in his lake chair with a glass of tart lemonade and tell him everything that’s been going on while he was gone, and when I’m done, he’ll push his cowboy fishing hat back on his head and say, “I’m proud as punch of ya, Gibby girl. Ya done good.” ’Specially after I tell him what I’m about to tell Billy. Grampa’ll give his knee-slapping laugh.

“I mighta shot off Sneaky Tim Ray’s pecker.”

Billy swipes the rain off his face and grunts. “Saves me the trouble.”

(I know, I know. I should be feeling ashamed. But it felt so damn good to pull that trigger, not wicked at all.)

Coming around the corner of the screened porch, I hold up for a minute to watch Clever and Cooter, their heads bowed together, but then Keeper gives off a welcome whine, and Clever turns my way, yelping out when she sees me, “Goddamn it! Goddamn it! I thought ya was dead,” throwing open the screened door and herself all over me.

“I’m fine… I’m fine,” I tell her with a pat. "C’mon. Let’s getcha outta this rain.”

Billy heads into the cottage, probably following up on his plan for dry clothes, and Cooter follows.

Once I get her back seated on the sofa, Clever says, “What the hell happened?”

“What do ya mean what the hell happened? I broke Rosie’s daddy outta jail, just like I told ya I would.”

Bringing her eyes up to mine, she locks and loads ’em. “ ’Zactly how long ya known?”

“Figured it out on the ride over.”

Maybe until she just admitted it, it was nothing but wishful thinking on my part. Willard is such a dope that I didn’t want Clever having his baby, who would then grow up and go off spreading that dopiness throughout the world by breeding. (Miss Jessie says it’s important who you pair up with when it comes to the spraying of seed, otherwise you could end up with a foal that’s got some low tendencies.) What the heck has happened to Willard anyways? I bend forward to eye his place. His “contemplating” hammock is hanging half off the yellowwood. He’s a loose end, that damn Yankee is.

Clever is working hard to get control of herself, but as we all know, even though the word is it does, I’m here to tell you, hard work doesn’t always pay off. “Miss Florida’s gonna beat me ’til I’m blue when she finds out Cooter’s the daddy,” she splutters. “Ya know how she lectures about mixin’ blood.”

I want to tell my sidekick she’s wrong. I really, really do. But she knows well as I do that I’d be lying. “Don’t fret. I got a plan.”

“Ya do?” she asks, skeptical.

“Remember from our movie how all the folks down in Bolivia are sorta coffee with two creams in color? Well, soon as this is all over, the five of us’ll move down there after all. Rosie’ll fit right in.” They can’t stay here. ’Cause not only would there be Reprisals: Avengement from both the white and the brown folks, there’d be nobody to help them out with raisin’ the baby. Maybe Miss Florida would pitch in after she calmed down, but only a fool’d count on Janice to do her job of grandmothering. If Grampa stays alive, I know he’d protect them, but what if he…

“Butch?”

“Yeah?”

“I know this may not be the best time to be bringin’ this up… and I feel real bad about ya not gettin’ to investigate for that important Mr. Buster is dead story because ya got so busy with the jailbreak…”

I completely forgot all aboutBuster Malloy Found Dead on Browntown Beach!

“But,” Clever says, “I believe… I’m beginnin’ to have the laborin’ pain. I think Rosie Adelaide’s comin’.”