Scumble

  The next morning, I got my run in early. Running cleared my head. And with a savvy like mine and scumbling teachers like the twins, my brain cells needed to be crystal. As I ran, I tried to convince myself that Marisol and Mesquite might be able to teach me something. Their control was flawless. But as soon as my first lesson began, all my doubts returned.

  “Does a drop of water know it’s part of a river, Ledge?”

  I rolled my eyes as Marisol shouted philosophical-sounding flapdoodle at me from the riverbank. The sun burned one side of my face as I sat, stripped to my shorts on a large boulder in the middle of the rushing current, watching the twins surround me with the small kitchen appliances from inside their house.

  “Does a crank spring know it’s part of a toaster?” Mesquite made her expression serene as she floated a gleaming, stainless steel four-slice toaster my way.

  “Meditate on the heating mechanism, Ledge.”

  “Concentrate on the crumb tray.”

  I tried to do as the twins instructed, focusing on the toaster. But for all their talk, the two girls got bored fast watching me stare uselessly at the appliance.

  “Just break it already, Sledgehammer!”

  “Smash it!

  “Crash it!

  “Bash it!”

  “Shut it!” I yelled back at them. “I’m trying!”

  Marisol and Mesquite tisked their tongues in a perfect imitation of Great-aunt Jules, then flipped me backward off the boulder. I came up spewing brisk water and bad words, immediately sending pieces of the four-slice toaster floating down the river—along with the blender, the food processor, and the blades of a rotary eggbeater.

  My lesson the next day wasn’t much better. Fedora chanted her animated “Bricka bracka firecracker, sis boom bah!” as Marisol and Mesquite blindfolded me before levitating washers and bolts my way. Their goal? To see if I could sense the approaching shrapnel and dodge it before it hit me.

  I couldn’t.

  The girls beaned me three times in the head, twice in the chest, and once below the belt—or, in my case, below the drawstring—before I was ready to throw in the towel. Or to use it to strangle my cousins in their sleep.

  The twins had been scumbling so long it was second nature. I began to realize that they didn’t actually know how to scumble. They simply did it because they always had.

  Occasionally, during “lessons,” I’d hear a crackling sound and look up to find Rocket watching my failures from a distance.

  “Focus, Ledge!” Mesquite would say, snapping her fingers in my face. And Marisol would flick my nose. “Ledger! Pay attention!”

  But it was hard to concentrate when Rocket stopped weeding and leaned against the garden fence to watch, his expression grim as he observed my humiliation.

  On my third day of lessons, the twins chained and padlocked me and Fedora to the sticky trunk of a pine tree halfway up the east ridge, then left us there until I managed to break us free. That was when I decided I’d had enough of the girls’ cutthroat coaching. Stomping back down the hill, I found the twins leaning their identical mountain bikes against the potting shed behind the garden after a nice long ride. If only I could’ve been back home riding bikes with Josh and Ryan and Brody instead of letting Marisol and Mesquite entertain themselves at my expense.

  Wishing the girls’ bikes were in as many pieces as my pride, I shot the two bicycles an enraged, unblinking glare. In moments, alloy rims flew like Frisbees, chains slithered to the ground, and pedals sailed like hockey pucks. The side of the shed looked like it was under attack from a rabid, robotic porcupine as one hundred and forty-four wheel spokes thudded into it.

  I was getting good at wrecking bikes.

  “That was awesome, Ledge!” Marisol commended me with a hearty jostle, not even giving me the satisfaction of making her mad as pieces of her bike continued to rain from the sky, taking out two of Rocket’s tomato plants and riddling zucchini leaves with bolt-sized holes.

  “You aimed that time, right?” Marisol asked in an excited voice. “You busted the bikes on purpose!”

  “See?” said Mesquite. “Practice makes perfect. Or, in your case, practice makes pieces.”

  I scowled. Had I aimed? I hadn’t even been aware of feeling the familiar icy itch of my savvy hitting my system. Even if I’d shown a hint of control, could breaking something on purpose rather than by accident really be considered progress? Somehow, I didn’t think so.

  I was lucky none of the sailing pieces hit the glass roof of the Bug House. I could picture a bicycle wheel crashing through the roof to hit Gypsy on the head; she spent every day in there now with Uncle Autry, watching over the Alexandras. But knowing Gypsy, she’d probably just smile and think it was peachy keen that the sky was raining bicycle wheels.

  The twins may have been happy to celebrate my bicycle butchery, but I knew that when Rocket saw the damage to his garden, I’d be mincemeat.

  It was time for me to make myself lost.

  Chapter 16

  IT WAS ONLY A FIFTEEN-MINUTE run to get to the salvage yard, though I hadn’t known when I set out that I’d end up at Neary’s Auto Salvage Acres. I’d been heading for Sundance, thinking Rocket might not kill me quite as dead if I had Grandma’s last surviving jar in my hands. But reaching the sign for the salvage yard, I’d stopped, drawn to the sea of scrap. Ruined vehicles covered the open, rolling landscape: trucks, cars, tractors, even an RV and an old boat or two.

  I followed the access road into Neary’s, looking out at the bone orchard of broken-down bolt buckets. Maze-like lines of metal radiated from a single large, steel structure, a building that appeared to double as a repair shop and a house.

  I didn’t know what I was doing. Or why my knees knocked so badly. Here, everything was already broken; I shouldn’t have been scared. But walking into the salvage yard, the metallic taste in my mouth grew so strong it made me want to spit.

  A slim figure emerged from the steel building and I stopped. It took me a minute to realize that the person approaching was a lady. No older than Rocket, the woman had an ink spill of straight black hair working its way out of a hair band to frame a perfectly oval, copper-colored face. Her eyes were as sharp and black as chiseled obsidian as they surveyed me.

  “If you’re looking for Gus, he isn’t here,” the lady called out. But lady might not have been the right word for this woman—not with her gray-green coveralls coated collar to cuffs in axle grease.

  Striding toward me in rubber-soled work boots, she clutched a set of ape-hanger handlebars in her hand. As she drew closer, I could see the name Winona stitched on her coveralls.

  “And the policy at Neary’s is: You fix it, you buy it! So watch your step, kid!” Winona winked at me and smiled.

  “Gus?” I choked, remembering what Sheriff Brown had said when he came to the Flying Cattleheart almost a week before: My truck got busted up about the same time the kids were in Willie’s shop—my truck and one of Gus Neary’s bikes, which fared a heap worse.

  Crud, I thought, knees knocking worse than ever.

  I looked past Winona into the fabrication shop behind her. Sure enough, a pile of scrap metal powder-coated in shimmering gold paint glinted just inside the door like a haul of treasure ready to be buried.

  Crud, crud, and super crud.

  “Gus isn’t here?”

  “Nope,” Winona replied. “Pops took off for Vegas like the old fool that he is, thinking he might win himself enough money to save this dump.” She pulled the rag from her pocket and wiped at a smudge of motor oil on her cheek.

  Glancing again at the rubble of the Knucklehead inside the shop, I asked, “Is Gus coming back anytime soon?”

  “I haven’t heard from Pops since the day he left,” she answered. “And after I came to help him out, too! I even brought the Harley he restored for me so we could enter it in a bike show in Spearfish to try to win some cash. It was worth a try, right?”

  “Er . . . what kind of Harley?” I asked, flinchi
ng, pretty sure I already knew the answer.

  “I had a ’47 Knucklehead. Now I’ve got a kit.” She pointed over her shoulder toward the pile of dismantled pieces. My stomach felt like lead. Inside my chest, my heart hammered against my ribs: My fault. My fault. My fault.

  “The bike will go back together, of course,” Winona added. “But not in time for the show.” She shook her head. “If running away from problems were an Olympic sport, ol’ Gus would have a wall of medals.” I frowned, thinking maybe Gus Neary and I should start our own pro team. Winona cast another long look behind her at the ruined Knucklehead.

  “I thought we might be able to rebuild the bike together—you know, make it one of those father-daughter things—but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

  Thinking of the half marathon, I knew exactly how she felt.

  “I could help you.” The words were out before I could stop them.

  Winona rested the chrome handlebars over the back of her neck, gripping the ends on either side of her shoulders like a milkmaid with a yoke—only tougher.

  “I don’t even know who you are, kid. Or why you came here in the first place.” She raised a quizzical eyebrow, signaling that it was my turn to start spilling.

  “I’m Ledge. Ledger Kale,” I said, starting with the easy part. I held out a hand to introduce myself, the same way Sarah Jane had when she climbed out of my family’s minivan. Only, instead of batting my hand away the way I’d done to Sarah Jane, Winona smiled . . . and shook it.

  Chapter 17

  “AH, LEDGER! DID YOU HAVE A good ramble?” Grandpa asked as I jogged up.

  I nodded and smiled, water dripping from my hair after a dip into the river.

  I’d stayed at the salvage yard until the afternoon shadows had grown long, listening to Winona talk bikes and reading through a dusty Knucklehead manual as she started sorting pieces. By the time I returned to the ranch, I was happier than I’d been in weeks.

  Forgetting that the Knucklehead wouldn’t even need rebuilding if it weren’t for me, I hummed a contented, tuneless hum. I liked the idea that I was fixing something for a change. It gave me the confidence to climb the stairs of the log house when I thought I saw Samson sitting solid next to Grandpa Bomba. Maybe I could tell him about Winona and the salvage yard.

  But when I got to the top of the stairs, the chair next to Grandpa was empty and the screen door was swinging shut. A corner of my good mood got chipped; I wished that Samson would show up and stick around for a change. If he could appear for Grandpa, why didn’t he trust me enough to let me see him? Was there something about him he didn’t want anyone else to see?

  “Where is everybody, Grandpa?” I asked, surprised when Grandpa Bomba stood from his chair without help. His bones made cracking, popping noises that woke Bitsy where she slept at the foot of his chair. She lifted her head and wagged her tail.

  “Your uncle’s checking the bee boxes,” Grandpa answered, his voice shaking only a little. “And the rest of the herd? Who can tell where they’ve got to. The twins disappeared with Fedora after lunch—out hunting again, I s’pose. Said they were hoping for better luck today.” Lately, Fedora had been tagging along behind Marisol and Mesquite nonstop, but the twins seemed happy to have a plucky new sidekick.

  “Hunting?” I asked, realizing that I’d never paid attention to what Marisol and Mesquite did once they were done with me, their token karma booster. Now I wondered what Marisol and Mesquite might be wrangling my sister into. Hunting? I could picture Fedora in her helmet, crouched low in the grass, lecturing the twins about the dangers of bows and arrows or the right and wrong ways to safely set a snare.

  “What are the vegetarians hunting?” I asked. “Wild tofu?”

  Grandpa chuckled. “Your cousins have got other prospects in mind, I reckon.”

  “Prospects?”

  Grandpa just smiled and stretched again. “Rocket’s rustling up some wire to put around his garden to keep the rabbits and the crank springs out,” he continued. “And Gypsy’s giving your friend from town a butterfly tour.”

  “Friend from town?” I echoed, confused. “What friend from town?”

  Grandpa waved in the direction of the Bug House, trying his best to wink. “A pretty girl came looking for you earlier, Ledge. Can’t remember her name now.” He scratched his head. “But I do remember she had two.”

  “Two?” I repeated, even as the chair next to Grandpa’s shuddered.

  “Two first names,” Grandpa clarified, not even glancing at the chair. “Betty Jo? . . . No, that’s not right. Mary Ann?”

  I shut my eyes and whispered, “Sarah Jane?”

  “That’s it!” Grandpa slapped his leg and snapped his fingers. “But since you weren’t here, Gypsy took it on herself to entertain your girlfriend till you got back. You know how she is about them butterflies. Loves ’em more than a box full of mittened kittens.”

  “No.” I shook my head in disbelief. “No . . . no . . . no!”

  “Ledger?”

  “I’ve got to go, Grandpa!” I had to rescue Gypsy from the grip of Sarah Jane. Gypsy was too nice. Too sugar-gumdrops, stick-to-your-teeth sweet. Sarah Jane Cabot would run over her as easy as if she were driving one of her dad’s CAD Co. demolition wreckers into the side of Candy Mountain.

  “And she’s not my girlfriend!” I hollered as I leaped from the porch, vaulting up and over the railing, not bothering with the stairs. But the ground on the other side was farther down than I’d expected, and my leap was going to land me on my face for sure.

  I should’ve wiped out. I should have busted bones. Only, before I could, the earth jumped up to meet me with a rumble, accounting for my error in judgment by catching me halfway.

  “Thanks, Grandpa!” I shouted over my shoulder, wondering where in the world Grandpa had found the strength to raise a column of earth and gently level it flat again.

  “Don’t thank me, thank Samson!” I heard him call back. I couldn’t guess what he might mean. But with bigger worries elbowing to the front of my crowded mind, I knew I’d have to mull Grandpa’s comment over later.

  Still looking back at Grandpa, I bumped into Rocket as he came around the corner of the house carrying a heavy roll of chicken wire.

  “Gah! Sorry!” I backpedaled as I squawked a skittish apology.

  “Ledge!” Rocket dropped the wire. “Hey, Ledge! Stop! I need to talk to you.”

  “Later!” I took off toward the Bug House before Rocket could yell at me for sending a hailstorm of bicycle parts down on his garden. Before he could give me another lecture about being careful.

  “Ledger, just stop for a minute! There’s something I need to clear up.”

  I didn’t stop. I valued my life too much. And I needed to put myself between Sarah Jane and Gypsy fast. I could just picture Gypsy telling secrets—giving Sarah Jane a handful of seeds that she could water to grow a giant, wordy beanstalk, a story so big, so fantastic, that people would come flocking to the ranch just to see if it was true.

  “Later!” I repeated, heading for the conservatory, relieved when Rocket picked up his roll of wire and shouldered it toward the garden, head down, work boots stomping.

  But when I reached the door to the Bug House, I didn’t know what to do. It was still too dangerous for me to go inside—I pictured swarms issuing from the busted roof to descend on the town of Sundance in legions of wings and legs and pincers and stingers. I circled the building twice, trying to figure out what my next move should be. Then stopped to pace outside the door.

  Ten minutes passed, as slow as ten hours, and I thought I could hear voices on the other side of the door at last—girls’ voices—laughing and chatting, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  I had my hand on the door handle when I saw Marisol and Mesquite coming over the ridge, Fedora walking between them carrying a shovel over one shoulder and a small pickaxe over the other. At the same moment, Uncle Autry appeared at the top of the path that led from the bee boxes to th
e Bug House.

  Autry and the twins couldn’t find out that Sarah Jane was at the Flying Cattleheart. They’d blame me for sure. If they kicked me off the ranch, where else could I go?

  I had to distract the others—to keep them from seeing SJ. I remembered the night of Fish’s wedding and the way I’d puckered up to Sarah Jane to keep her from seeing Rocket’s sparks. I needed another distraction. Kissing everyone on the ranch was definitely not an option . . . but the windmill on the other side of the log house just might be.

  I was at the base of the windmill in a flash. The late-afternoon breeze toyed lazily with the faded wedding streamers that still clung to the cross braces of the twenty-foot steel tower. Above me, the blades of the wheel turned slowly.

  I didn’t want to wreck the windmill. I just needed a commotion big enough to keep all eyes away from the Bug House for a short while. Gypsy and Sarah Jane had been standing at the door. Sarah Jane would step out at any moment.

  Gripping the cross brace closest to me, I ignored the sharp, metallic taste now becoming so familiar. Grinding, scraping noises rent the air as I began to bend the four towering supports of the windmill, making them totter. The windmill wobbled, a drunken mechanical spider that had lost half of its legs. Rocket and Grandpa looked up. Bitsy barked. I could see the others changing direction: Autry racing toward the windmill, the twins and Fedora moving at breakneck speed down the slope of the basin.

  As the beams of the windmill swayed and groaned, I tried to strike a balance—to hold the thing together while allowing it to twist like crazy. I did my best to tame the chaos, inside and out, breathing through my panic the way Dad taught me to breathe through a side stitch. But I continued to let the itch and prickle of my savvy flow. I knew I couldn’t maintain my concentration long. Sarah Jane needed to get her butt out of the Bug House now.

  Then she needed to skedaddle.

  Fast.

  By the time the others reached me, the tower leaned over the rubble of the fallen barn like a daisy stuck into the brim of a squashed straw hat.