Blossoms and the Green Phantom (2 page)

The puppy had tried to hide in the garbage. Only his head was visible, but Pap figured that if the rest of the puppy was as miserable-looking as the head, the pup was in some trouble.

“Our fears were correct, Mud. Some miserable excuse for a person has put a puppy in here, and no telling how long he’s been without food and water.”

He snapped his fingers and whistled. Mud whined at the bottom of the ladder and scratched the bottom rung. “Not you,” Pap told him over his shoulder.

He leaned into the Dumpster again. “Come on, boy, come on over here. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The dog cringed in the far corner. His whole body was trembling. He tried to squirm deeper into the garbage. “Come on, boy, come on.” Deep in the trash, the puppy’s tail wagged with feeble hope.

“Oh, he ain’t going to come, Mud. That’s bad news. I got to go in after him.”

Pap hated to go into a Dumpster. He never minded before his knees gave out, but Pap knew that a man with bad knees had no business in a Dumpster. Still, once Pap had seen the skinny little brown-and-white-spotted puppy down there in the garbage, cringing with fear and yet wagging his tail with hope, he had no choice.

“There ain’t enough garbage for me to climb out on, Mud, so I’m going to have to take the ladder over the top with me.” Pap had one foot over the edge of the Dumpster now. “This is a pitiful pup, just skin and bones. And he’s got ticks on him, I can see them from here.”

He had one foot on the ladder and one over the Dumpster. The position didn’t feel right to Pap. “This ain’t going to work, Mud,” he said, but he was really talking to himself, working it out as he went. “My other leg’s better than this one. Well, anyway, this leg ain’t going no higher. That’s for sure.” He struggled with the knee.

“I’ll put that one back down, and then I’ll put this one over—No, Mud, it just plain ain’t going to work. I’m going to have to go home for Junior or Vern. I’m coming down.”

At that moment, as his foot came over the top of the Dumpster, he lost his balance. He pitched forward, leaning over the Dumpster on his stomach, teetering on the edge. His foot that had been on the top of the ladder, kicked the ladder away. There was a yelp of pain from Mud.

Pap hung on the edge of the Dumpster for thirty long, painful seconds. He was more in the Dumpster than out, and he kicked with his feet, and tossed his head back, trying to throw his weight the other way. His whole body had become a terrible, awkward see-saw.

If he had to fall, which he knew he did, he wanted to fall to the ground rather than into the Dumpster.

It was a losing battle. Pap knew it, and he looked down into the Dumpster to see where he was going to land. That was bad. The bags of garbage were on the far side, just loose trash lay beneath him.

He made one last struggle to slide backward to the ground, but he felt himself slipping the other way. His long yell of fright rang out and then echoed in the Dumpster. There was a heavy thud, and silence.

Mud had run under the truck when the ladder struck him in the head. The ladder had hit him over the left eye, and the eye was bleeding. He blinked rapidly to clear it.

With his good eye, he looked at the place where Pap’s old boots had disappeared. His brow was wrinkled. His ears were flat against his head.

After a moment Mud crawled out from under the truck. He walked toward the Dumpster, cautiously circling the ladder. His tail was between his legs. His left eye was closed.

He barked once. There was no answer. Mud pawed the Dumpster. He barked again.

This time when there was no answer, Mud began to whine. He moved around the parking lot in an uneven circle, whining and pausing occasionally to look at the Dumpster.

Finally, Mud crawled under the truck. He lay down. Then he licked his front paw and began to draw it over his swollen, wounded eye.

Vern was not on his way home either. He was one mile down the road at his friend Michael’s house, and he was jumping up and down on bedsprings. He and Michael had pulled the bedsprings out from the storage shed to use for a trampoline. This had been Vern’s idea.

“Let me have a turn,” Michael said at last.

“Sure,” Vern said quickly.

Vern bounced three more times, pretending he was having more fun than he was. Then he leapt off the springs and made a solid landing in the dust, arms out to his sides. It was, he thought, the way gymnasts landed after a perfect routine. He glanced at Michael to see if he was impressed. He did not appear to be. “Your turn,” he said.

Vern sat with his back against the oak tree while Michael bounced up and down for a while. “It’s more fun if you do tricks,” Vern called.

Michael tried a sit-bounce without success. He didn’t bounce back up. He tried a knee-bounce and cried, “Ow!” He lumbered off the springs. “That hurt,” he said.

He pulled up his jeans to examine his knees. “Let’s don’t do this anymore,” he said.

“All right, let’s shoot your BB gun,” Vern said quickly. “I’ll make a target and you get the—”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Come on.”

“No. We did that all day yesterday.”

To Vern, this was no reason not to do it again today. He felt he could happily have spent the rest of his life shooting Michael’s BB gun.

“Let’s ask your dad to let us shoot the rifle.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Come on.”

“No!”

“Then let’s get your fishing rod and go down to the creek.” Michael was the only person Vern knew who had a fishing rod, not a homemade fishing pole—he had one of those himself. This was a fishing rod, with a reel and a fiberglass case.

“No, I’m tired of those things.”

Vern could not understand how Michael could ever become tired of a BB gun, a rifle, and a rod and reel, three things he would have given anything to own. Still, he did not want to lose a friend who had access to them. He said, “What
do
you want to do?”

“You know.”

“What?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I want to go to your house.”

Vern stopped breathing. He and Michael had been friends for exactly two weeks, by far the best two weeks of Vern’s life. Michael was not only the first friend Vern had ever had, but he was the ideal friend. Michael lived the way boys were supposed to live, Vern thought, and owned the things boys were supposed to own, like BB guns. The one cloud on the two-week friendship was the fact that every now and then Michael said the very words he had just said, “I want to go to your house.”

The reason Vern had made the bedspring trampoline in the first place was because he sensed Michael was once again about to make the suggestion. Now all that labored jumping had been for nothing. The suggestion had come anyway.

Vern sighed. He did not want to take Michael home. He did not want Michael to see that he himself lived all wrong and owned nothing. He also did not want Michael to see his family, because Michael’s family was different. Michael had two parents, a mother and a father, and the father—it was the father Vern really envied—did things with his children, like let them shoot his rifle.

“There’s nothing to do there,” Vern said, kicking his foot in the dust.

“Well, there’s nothing to do here either.”

Vern gaped at Michael. He wanted to list again all the pleasures—the BB gun, the rod and reel, the—

“Let’s go,” Michael said.

Vern sensed from Michael’s tone of voice that he was not going to be put off. He got slowly to his feet. He brushed off the seat of his pants.

“Mom,” Michael yelled, “we’re going to Vern’s house.”

Michael’s mom came to the door. Michael’s family had only been living at the farm since June, and they had not met many neighbors. “Where do you live, Vern?” she asked.

“About a mile down that way.”

“Are your folks at home?”

“My mom and my granddad and my brother and sister are. My dad’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess it’ll be all right, Michael, but you be back by suppertime.”

“I will,” Michael called happily. He kicked the stand up on his bike. It was a ten-speed bike, the exact kind Vern would have chosen for himself.

Vern pulled his bike away from the tree trunk where it had been leaning. It was an old bike of his father’s, so old it did not have a kickstand. Kickstands probably hadn’t even been invented back then. It also had, to Vern’s shame, balloon tires.

With Michael in the lead, the two boys pedaled down the dusty drive. As Michael turned onto the main road, he stopped. “Who’s that?” he asked, astonishment in his voice and expression.

Vern stopped his bike beside Michael’s. He looked down the road where Michael was pointing.

He swallowed. It was Mad Mary, and she was picking up a dead animal from the road. She examined it and, satisfied, tucked it into her shoulder bag.

“Who is that?” Michael asked again.

“Mad Mary,” Vern answered.

Mad Mary had been a friend of his grandfather’s all his life. Now, ever since she had rescued Junior from the coyote trap, she had become a family friend. It was something else about his family he didn’t want Michael to know.

“She eats things she finds on the road,” Vern explained, careful not to reveal too much. “She lives in a cave.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“From a distance. I didn’t want to go too close because of the vultures.”

“Vultures?”

“Yes. They roost over her cave.”

Michael looked at him with respect. “You’ll have to take me there sometime.” He hesitated. He nodded his head in Mary’s direction. “Is she dangerous?”

“She knows me. I better go first.”

“Thanks.”

With Vern in the lead, the boys pedaled down the road toward Mad Mary. She was on the left-hand side of the road now, striding along in her man’s boots. Her long, crook-necked cane matched her stride.

As they passed her Vern raised his hand. “Hi, Mary,” he said. Her head snapped up, and she looked at him with her bright, piercing eyes. “Afternoon,” she said.

Vern leaned over his handlebars and began to pedal faster. He was relieved she had answered, yet disappointed she had not spoken his name.

“Come on down,” Maggie called to Ralphie. “You can be my first audience.”

Maggie had never been happier in her life. Her happiness had begun two weeks ago when her mom had spoken that magic sentence, “Maggie, I think you and me ought to get ourselves up a trick-riding, mother-daughter routine.”

They had been sitting at the kitchen table, across from each other. Maggie had been looking at her nails, wondering why they wouldn’t grow.

Maggie had lifted her head, a quick birdlike movement. She thought she hadn’t heard right.

“Are you serious, Vicki?” Pap asked.

Pap was at the sink, cutting up fish for supper. He turned in surprise. Fish water dripped on the linoleum floor, but no one noticed.

“Yes, I am serious.” Vicki looked at Pap over Maggie’s head. “B.B. called me this morning. Thelma’s out of the Wranglers, and B.B. wants me back. It was B.B. who thought up the mother-daughter idea.”

At one time, when the Blossom children were small, the whole family had gone on the rodeo circuit. Vicki Blossom was a trick rider and performed with the Wrangler Riders between events. Pap, in his younger days, had done rope tricks. Cotton Blossom, the children’s father, had been World’s Champion Single Steer Roper.

Cotton Blossom had been killed by a steer in Ogallala, Nebraska. After that Pap and the kids stayed home on the Blossom farm, and Vicki went with the Wrangler Riders by herself.

“Maggie always has been a natural,” Vicki went on. “She could stand up on a horse before she could stand up on the floor. When she was five years old she won first place in the barrel race in the Junior Rodeo.”

“I know that.”

“So what do you think?”

“Well,” Pap went on, “I think it’s up to Maggie, but if it’s my opinion you want—”

“I do, Pap, we both do.”

“Well, she’s a Blossom, and we Blossoms are known for doing what we set out to do. As I see it, it’s up to her.”

Maggie had been sitting there hardly breathing while they talked about her. Her eyes had gotten larger and shinier. Before her mother could ask the question, she answered it. “I want it more than anything in the world.”

“Then, go for it,” Pap said. “I wouldn’t mind getting back on the circuit myself.” He turned to the sink. “I probably couldn’t do nothing more than pick up pop cans from under the stands but …”

“Then it’s settled!” Maggie’s mom reached across the table and took Maggie’s hands. She squeezed her daughter harder than Maggie could ever remember having been squeezed before.

This made Maggie brave enough to ask, “Will I get to have a white satin shirt like the other Wranglers?”

“Shug, you’ll have the shiniest white satin shirt of the bunch.”

Ever since that evening Maggie had not had one single moment of anything but pure happiness. Even when she fell off Sandy Boy and landed hard on the ground, even when she hurt herself, the happiness was still there inside, whole and unharmed.

While Ralphie coasted down the hill on his bike Maggie said to her mom, “Here I go!”

Her mom slapped Sandy Boy on the flank. “It’s all yours.” Maggie dug her heels into the horse.

“Be careful,” Ralphie called as she started across the field. He couldn’t help himself. He had never seen Maggie on a horse before. It worried him, not only because she seemed so careless about her safety but because, in some more troublesome way, he sensed she was about to ride out of his life.

Maggie turned in the saddle. “Ralphie, trick riders can’t be both good and careful. My mom told me that, and my mom’s the best.”

Ralphie leaned on the seat of his bike and concentrated on not looking as stupid as he felt. His cheeks burned. The tips of his ears turned red. Maggie grinned and flung her braids over her shoulders.

A path had been worn into the grassy field, a wide oval where Maggie had been practicing her trick riding. Maggie was riding fast. Ralphie wanted to ask if she was going too fast, but his ears were still burning from his last stupidity.