I grab my duck-yellow rain slicker and wet-boots and slip outside. It’s a hard, straight-down rain and puddles, like tiny lakes, cover half of the yard.
Okay, brushes, where are you — oh no.
One rests in the mouth of the boxcar.
I bite my lip and whisper, “I do not want to see Grimy Boy who knows me and knows my family. Did I give him permission to borrow Dad’s stern face? No, I did not.”
“Poole?” I clear morning from my throat and creep ahead. My boots slow to a stop in the middle of the yard. “You aren’t in there, are you?” Nothing.
“That’s good, because you make me nervous and you don’t pay us rent and you probably don’t go to school or change underwear or take showers which makes you a walking germball.” I swipe wet from my forehead. “And all those are very, very good reasons for you to live elsewhere.”
I tiptoe forward, wincing with each loud squish of my boots. Rain drums off the top of the train, the echo pounding out its gaping mouth. I stop an arm’s length away.
Droplets fall from my trembling hand, and I stretch for the brush bristles. I grasp them, squeeze them, watch the slick paintbrush squirm free and land at my feet with a splash.
“Quiet already!” I hiss at my fingers. “For once, will you please cooperate?”
A second paintbrush whistles out from the darkness of the boxcar and narrowly misses my head.
“Ah!” I gasp, grab the brush at my feet, and race toward the house. My foot slips on ghost brush number two, and my butt lands hard in muck. I scramble to vertical. My heartbeat pounds in my eardrums, and I burst through the front door, a brush clenched in each smeary brown fist.
“My goodness, Martin.” Mom recoils. “What on earth —”
“I ran. I fell. I got up. Brushes!”
Slap. They drop into Dad’s big hands. Lani leans over and looks at my rear end.
“Ew! Know what that looks like?”
Dad tousles my hair. “A little mud never hurt anyone. My unkempt appearance was what first drew your mother to me.” He shoots a glance at my pursed-lip, slit-eyed, red-cheeked mom. “We’re late,” Dad continues. “Let’s load up.”
Our Suburban ventures north and leaves the safety of smokestacks and four-lane highways. I sit with my worries. Behind me, a paintbrush-flinging homeless boy lives in my garden. Before me, rotting bones of dead men await. And all the while Charley uses my brain to wriggle closer to Julia. Life is officially horrible.
Lani sits to my left, hands folded, and stares out the window. She’s a picture of Mom. Erect, alert, watchful. After all, one never knows what we’ll encounter in the wilderness. A deer? A vagrant?
“You must be careful for vagrants. Stay vigilant, children.” Mom scans from side to side. “The further one strays from civilization, the nearer you are to the world of desperate savages. I tell you, the wilderness destroys rationality.”
Dad coughs and waggles his head; cranks his seat back further. He smiles the contented smile I only see once a year — on Grandparent’s Day, the day we enter the land of vagrants.
I lean over, tap Lani, and whisper, “What are you staring at?”
She rolls her eyes. “Mom put me on backseat vagrant alert.”
I nod. “Seen any?”
“Only trees.”
I straighten, then lean over again. “I saw somebody in our backyard. In the boxcar.”
“A vagrant? Don’t tell Mom. She’ll freak.” Lani peers out her window. “I don’t want to hear about it either.” She peeks at me. “What did he look like?”
“Honest?” I whisper, and slump down in my seat. She slumps too. I point at my rear, at the dried mud. “Mud. Mud everywhere. About my age too. Inside our garden train crawls one grimy vagrant.” I raise my eyebrows and give an exaggerated nod.
Lani smirks. “Yeah, sure. Earth to Smeary Butt. Like we couldn’t tell who was crawling around in there.”
“Me? Do you think I’d go in there with him? It’s probably the kid’s summer home. Look behind my beautifully painted tomato plants and you’ll find a homeless genius who knows everything about everyone. Freaky.”
She clears her throat. “A brilliant boy in our backyard.”
“Yep. He probably reads our mail and peeks in our windows. That’s it. That’s where he saw Dad’s stare. Grimy must have seen it and practiced it and then he used it on me and Charley.”
Lani bites her lip. “So … today you saw a strange kid appear from inside the boxcar —”
“No. Today I saw nothing, unless you count the ghost brush. The kid whipped it at my head. Yesterday was the day vagrant boy nailed me and Charley with the look, you know?”
“So, of course you told Mom.”
“Tried to, but the kid’s quick. Or maybe he hides in tunnels beneath the train. Beneath the yard. Beneath our house.”
Lani is silent for a few seconds. “I got it. It’s very clear now.” She straightens, faces me, and puffs out air. “You’re stuck in a fantasy story. Let me help you, Martin. You live on planet Earth, Dad still owns his eyeballs, and there is no vagrant growing in our garden!”
“Lani!” Mom turns to Dad. “I trust you’re pleased. The children are falling apart before our eyes. Blubbering and screaming fits. This will take weeks to set right, mark my words.”
“Your words are marked, my dear.” Dad breaks into a whistle — “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
We turn onto a windy gravel road, just wide enough for one vehicle. Ten miles later, gravel turns to washed-out mud. Dad throws the Suburban into four-wheel drive and we plow ahead.
“There it is, everyone.” Dad slows at an oversized mailbox and stares at a break in the woods. “Remember?”
As if we could forget. Uncle Landis and Aunt Jenny live at the end of this … driveway.
“They are aware that we’re coming?” Mom’s hard face cracks and her voice wavers.
Dad reaches over and rubs her tight neck. “I sure hope so.”
Uncle Landis doesn’t know. He can’t. He has no phone. No landline, no cell phone. They have no computer, no television. They are isolated from the world. Dad calls them survivalists, but it seems a sure way to get yourself killed. If a bear attacks, hollering “9-1-1” doesn’t cut it.
Yep, Uncle Landis loves three things: his Jenny, his privacy, and his guns, which stand at the ready in every room — including the bathroom. And it’s hard to do business with the toilet paper roll jammed onto the end of a loaded weapon.
All that weirdness on the other end of this driveway.
Dad backs up, floors it, and we leave the world. Mom flips the all-door lock toggle, and we spin forward. Behind us, mud kicks high into the sky, and the Suburban angles left.
“Not good.” Dad winces. “Hang on.” He cranks the wheel with no effect and we slosh to a stop, our tires eaten by a foot of heavy-duty mud. Dad runs his hand through his hair. “Boyle Company, prepare to march.”
“Most certainly not.” Mom reaches back and holds her hand in front of our faces. “Stay here, children. Your father will go for help.”
Dad opens his door, pauses, and closes it again. “You want to come with me, Martin?”
“Outside?”
“Yes, out — Whoa!”
Dog face mashes against the windshield, and the pit bull hurls his body against the glass. He bares his fangs, barks with full throat, and oozes foam. He’s clearly fresh from a kill and hungry for more.
I’d forgotten about Tripod, the three-legged terror.
Dad laughs and squirts him with wiper fluid — it has no effect on the already soggy beast. But the wipers catch him across the neck and he recoils, hypnotized by the back-and-forth motion of the blades.
“Are you coming, Martin?” Dad reaches back and slaps my shoulder.
I point at the dazed creature. “It might be best if I stay with Lani.”
Dad looks into me and sighs. I sigh too. Because something inside me wants to throw open my door. Not to watch Tripod sink tee
th into my thigh — I could skip that part — but to be on the same side of the glass as Dad. To look back at Mom’s terrified face. That view would almost be worth the stitches.
“Hey!” Lani points. “We’re saved!”
A huge tractor chugs toward us with Uncle Landis sitting high. Tripod leaps off the Suburban and scampers beside him. Moments later, Dad and Landis exchange backslaps, drop to the mud, and stretch chains from our vehicle to Landis’s rig.
“That should do it!” Dad hops back in, ten shades muddier and a good deal cheerier. The Suburban jerks forward and plows through mud to the farmhouse.
Mom turns toward Lani. “Vagrants.”
Dad glances over his shoulder. “Family.”
The rain has stopped. We ease out. From the porch, the screen door slams and Aunt Jenny waddles toward Mom.
“So good to see all of you. Elaina, you look wonderful.” She wipes bloody drippings onto her apron and clasps Mom’s hands. Mom goes white, pastes on a smile, and pulls away.
“And look at you,” she says, her voice breaks. “How are you feeling? Baby Boy Boyle will be here in no time.”
Jenny rubs her stomach and beams.
Mom stares at her bloody hands and gags. “Would you mind if I used the ladies’ room?”
Uncle Landis jumps off the tractor and spatters Lani with mud. “No problem. Septic is down, so you’ll have to use the back-up.”
“Back-up?” Mom looks around.
Landis points. “Outhouse. Follow that trail a piece and you’ll see ‘er. Should be a roll of paper on the.22.”
“We’ll all wait inside, Elaina.” Jenny glances from me to Lani. “Except for your two beautiful kids. A wonderful mucky day like this? I’m sure you two want to get dirty.” She smiles at me. “We’ll call you for lunch and you can get washed up for the graveyard.”
“Actually,” I say, “I wouldn’t mind —”
“Exploring with Lani.” Dad raises his eyebrows.
“Well, yeah. Right. Exploring with Lani.” I exhale hard, nod to Lani, who’s still busy flecking dirt off her face, and we step gingerly toward the barn.
“Shoo!”
We freeze at Mom’s distant scream. Footsteps slap wet ground. She reappears, gun and toilet paper in hand. Mom straightens and throws back her hair. “It is black and small and toothy.”
“Oh, the mink. Landis, you didn’t mention Stinker.” Jenny shakes her head. “Don’t know why that crazy critter made a nest beneath the outhouse, but it’s harmless.”
A silence descends. It’s the silence of Mom’s wrath. She drops the gun, her hands shoot to her hips, and she begins to puff. Bigger and bigger, like a balloon. Lani peeks at me. She knows what I know — Mom will burst and it won’t be pretty.
The Barn Owl clenches her teeth, draws a screechy breath through her nose, and parts pursed lips —
“Come on in, Brother!” Landis throws his arm around Dad and they tromp toward the porch. Jenny whistles for Tripod and follows. That leaves us and Mom and a loaded gun.
I grab Lani’s arm. “Time to leave.”
“How long do we need to stand here?”
Lani looks at me, then back at the cow. We’ve been frozen by this bovine for near an hour, hands shoved deep in our pockets. Bessy hasn’t moved. We won’t either.
“Until the lunch bell. Seems like a safe, clean place, right?” I peek at Lani. “Unless you want to explore.”
Lani shakes her head. “You’re a loser. Don’t take that personally or anything, but this place freaks you out and you know it.” Lani wanders away, calls back over her shoulder. “Now that crazy Julia? If half of what kids say is true, she’d love it here.” She snickers. “Wouldn’t she?”
A distant cowbell clangs, and Lani races toward the house.
“My Julia.” I rub my face with my hands, think about the new layer of farm bacteria covering my cheeks, and wince. “Yeah, she would.”
Twenty minutes and two scrub downs later, we sit down to deer hunks and turkey slabs.
“Yes, sir.” Landis gives Jenny’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “My honey sets quite a spread, does she not? A little thankfulness is in order.”
Landis squeezes his eyelids tight. “Oh Lord, I am thankful for this family. I am also thankful for this meat. At this moment, I do not know which one I am more thankful for. Family or meat. I must tell the truth. But my Jenny. Where would I be without my honey? Amen.”
Dad digs in. Mom pushes extra-rare meat around her plate with her pitchfork-size utensil. It leaves a blood trail.
Landis stuffs a bite into his mouth, waves his fork toward Lani and me. “Let me tell you about this buck you’re eating.”
Lani pauses mid-chew and lifts her napkin to her mouth.
“Last fall a deer — no, badly put — my friend strolls right up to the house. You’ll soon understand my kinship with the animal. This was the largest ten-point buck I’ve ever seen. He gazes at me through that window.” Landis points over his shoulder. “I say, ‘Honey, bring the rifle.’ She says, ‘Which one,’ and I say, ‘I do not care; bring me a gun.’ When she does, that deer cocks his head and presses his nose against the glass. Like a lost puppy. He wants to be friends. Big, gentle eyes. Beautiful animal. Lonely animal.”
Lani, now a pleasant shade of green, stares straight ahead.
“And I rise. I walk outside and around the house. Wouldn’t you know, that deer lets me approach to a distance of six feet? He trusts me. Completely. Would you believe that we were communing? It’s not a stretch. I named him Martin, after our dearly departed older brother.” Landis glances at Dad, sniffs, and grabs Jenny’s hand. “I shared special moments with that deer. Marty passed so quickly. There were things I needed to say, things deep from the heart I never could say, not until that sacred animal arrived and I poured out my heart. Thirteen years of bottled-up emotion spilled out and I wept. It’s true. That beautiful creature lay down and listened to me weep.” Landis wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I’ve rarely felt so close to anything in my life as that deer. ‘Bless you,’ I whispered. ‘Bless you, Martin.’ Then POW! I blasted him between the eyes!”
Mom jumps up, Lani spews Martin all over the table, and my stomach heaves. I look down at my leftover hunk of Martin. I can’t do it.
“Well, that’s the story of the venison. Want to hear about that turkey?”
“No,” I swallow hard. “Please, no. Maybe later.”
“Shoot, I understand. You’re in a hurry to get to the graveyard.” Landis pushes back and stands. “Sweetie, these kids are biting to get moving. What say we leave dessert and dishes and head out?”
“Sounds wonderful, except with roads so wet —”
“Yes. We’ll all be taking four-wheelers. Brother? Elaina? Children? Onward.”
CHAPTER 5
YEEHAW!”
Uncle Landis’s holler floats down from the top of a distant hill. I can’t see him, but I know what he’s doing. Riding rings around the hilltop cemetery. Landis loves to “war whoop” in his maniacal pre-service tribal dance.
“Fool.” Mom shifts in front of me on our ATV. “One day, Martin, Uncle Landis will spin out, and we will arrive just in time to plant him among his forefathers. Won’t that be convenient? Yeehaw, indeed!”
I hear Dad laugh too. He never laughs. Except on this day. His laughs and shouts fill the spaces between the drone of four-wheeler engines. Both Dad and his brother sound like kids. Big kids on sugar highs.
“Use some speed, Jenny.” It’s Landis again. “Give my son a real ride!”
Aunt Jenny squeals. Lani shrieks. She hadn’t looked too healthy mounting the back of Jenny’s Polaris.
I close my eyes and picture the scene. A muddy race on a bumpy track around a bunch of dead spectators. Uncle Landis in first, Dad a close second, and the team of pregnant woman, tummy boy, and whiny girl pulling up the rear.
The four-wheelers’ engines snarl and rev, faster and faster.
Down in the valley, I si
gh, relieved we aren’t moving fast.
Of course, going Mom-slow might be worse.
“Hold tight to the disaster pack, Martin.” Mom accelerates to three miles per hour. “A fall could mean an instant and gruesome end.”
“Instant and gruesome?”
“Are you obsessing about death again? You must let that go and enjoy your childhood.”
“But you brought up —”
“Watch out!”
I reach around her backpack and get a vice grip on Mom’s waist. She slaps my hands.
“Let me breathe or I’ll lose control completely.”
Already happened.
I loosen my grasp and follow Mom’s gaze, all the way down to the washed-out trail that leads straight up cemetery hill. A squirrel leaps playfully around our ATV.
Mom peeks over her shoulder. “See what I mean? In the wilderness, even gentle creatures attack with reckless abandon.”
The animal seems harmless. “We’re being attacked?”
“Predators typically toy with their prey before they plunge their teeth into unsuspecting flesh.” She nods. “Do not be fooled. There is white on the face. Foam, no doubt. You know what that means. R-A-B-I-E-S.”
Some words are simply too horrible for her to say. She squeezes the brake. “Do not move,” she whispers.
We sit motionless. A mosquito buzzes my ear, lands on my neck, and begins to drink. I want to whack it, but Mom’s being vigilant and I don’t dare move. The bug finishes her transfusion, pumps me full of itch juice, and flies away. I wince and glare at our stalker.
“I think that foam is a whitish A-C-O-R-N.”
“Drop the attitude, Martin, and marvel at the cleverness of this creature. It used a decoy in the attack.”
Yes, they are very clever, and I hold my breath. The sneaky beast bounds off, I scratch my neck with gusto, and Mom inches our ATV forward. Minutes pass, and I check the speedometer.
I cup my hand around Mom’s ear. “Are you sure we’re moving?”
“Yes.” She straightens and gives the accelerator a flutter. We crunch ahead. “The others may have reached the cemetery first, but we will reach it alive — mud!”