Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (23 page)

It was not the kind of exchange I expected of the bitchy Posie I knew.

She got into her car and pulled out of her parking space. As she drove by me, she finally noticed who was standing there in the sunshine. She looked beyond me and recognized Honeybelle's car.

She braked and rolled down her window. Tartly, she asked, “I see you've commandeered Honeybelle's car now.”

“I'm doing my job,” I said. “Running errands.”

“I hope you don't leave Miss Ruffles in a hot vehicle. You wouldn't want to endanger her life, now, would you?”

With that, she rolled up her window and drove away.

I stood frowning, thinking. What the heck did that all mean?

I went home and spent the afternoon second-guessing myself.

At eight thirty that evening, I left Fred dozing on the warm pool deck. Mae Mae was sitting at the kitchen table tirelessly laboring with a pencil and a dime store notebook. Writing down recipes, I guessed. Mr. Carver was upstairs in his apartment with music playing.

The Blues Brothers had gone back to their hotel for the night. I let myself out the gate and walked quietly through the gathering gloom to the appointed place. As directed by the ransom note, I headed toward the stockyard where Miss Ruffles and I had visited the longhorn steers. Inside the houses that I passed, lights were coming on. Air conditioners hummed. Through the windows, I could see families settling down for the night—parents turning on televisions, children going off to bed. In one yard I heard a group of kids shrieking as they captured fireflies. I smelled cigarette smoke beside one house, the sweet hickory woodsmoke of a barbecue from another.

As I drew closer to the stockyard, I caught the whiff of manure on the steady breeze that constantly blew through Mule Stop. The wind never ceased, but I hadn't gotten used to it yet. It was one of the many signs that told me I wasn't in Ohio anymore.

A set of headlights caught me from behind, and I faltered to a stop at the spot where the sidewalk petered out. The vehicle turned out to be a big pickup truck, heading out of town. It rattled past me and kept going. When my heart stopped pounding, I headed for the stockyard again.

As I reached the entrance to the stockyard, I saw a big sign for the upcoming Junior Rodeo. Underneath the sign, a car's engine started up. I could see two figures inside the vehicle. One was a girl who seemed to be straightening her shirt. The teenaged boy at the wheel lit up a cigarette and blew smoke at me through his open window as he drove by. I guessed that I had stumbled upon a teen hangout. No doubt the town's high school kids came here after dark.

The longhorns had already bedded themselves down for the night, unperturbed by the teenagers. By the light of a single streetlamp that glowed over the corral, two of the big steers stood quietly chewing their cud. The rest of them were still, dark shapes on the ground. I peered at them through the rails, but they paid me no attention. Beyond the corral stood a bunkhouse—a long, low building used for assorted municipal purposes, but empty and dark tonight.

I waited, counting the minutes. Nine o'clock came. I heard church bells announce it. I tried to stay calm, but my fears rose with every passing minute. Until I started to get mad. Where was the dognapper?

I paced by the fence. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of the town. The university's drum line practicing on a distant field. The buzz of a motorcycle. The church bells chimed again, a quarter past, and again at nine thirty.

The motorcycle sound grew closer, coming from the big emptiness beyond the town. A headlight jiggled into my view, and I realized it wasn't a motorcycle but some kind of all-terrain vehicle. A dark figure held the handlebar with one hand. He came closer and closer, the noise of the engine sounding like an angry hornet.

“Hey,” I said, half to myself. The ATV was headed straight at me. I moved aside, but the driver corrected his course and bore down on me.

In the nick of time I realized he really was aiming for me, and I barely dodged out of the way before he roared past in a cloud of dust. I glanced back and saw its dusty bumper sticker:
I MAY GET LOST BUT I DON
'
T GET STUCK.

I tried to run toward the corral fence, thinking I could climb high to safety. Or maybe I could make it as far as the bunkhouse. But the driver had cut me off from the safety of the fence. He circled past, driving me farther out into the open space beyond the stockyard. The scrubland stretched to the horizon.

I could barely see the silhouette of a cowboy hat as he went by the second time, but didn't catch his face. He swung the machine in a circle around me, kicking up grit, then cut sharply and came back, accelerating fast. This time he stood on the pedals, and in his free hand I saw a rope swing overhead—a lasso.

Instinct kicked in. I turned and ran.

But he caught me. As the ATV blew past, I felt the rope cinch around my shoulders. It tightened with a snap, pinning my arms, and I fell flat in the dust, all air driven from my lungs. I barely managed to avoid going face-first, but ended up on my side and tasted dirt. The rope bit into me, taut and painful. I bounced on the ground, hit my head, scraped my knees. I panicked. If he intended to drag me out into the scrub, I'd bounce helplessly behind him and be torn to bits in a minute.

The rope stayed tight. But the ATV stopped dead, thank heaven. I felt like an animal—roped and too stunned to fight back. I tried to suck in some air as he strode toward me. But I couldn't make my lungs work.

Then he was standing over my body, yanking me up from the dirt by the rope. He turned me and flung me down on my belly and grabbed one of my feet. He yanked it up behind my thigh. I cried out in pain. In a second, he whipped the rope around my ankle, then did the same with my other foot. He straddled my shoulders, pinning my face into the dirt, squeezing my chest so hard I thought I'd smother. I lay stunned, unconsciously making a noise that didn't sound human.

He grabbed my ponytail and jerked my head up. His breath smelled of pizza and whiskey as he leaned close.

His voice was a rasp. “You leave this alone, you hear? Forget about the dog and stop asking questions.”

I struggled against him, trying to wriggle him off.

He clouted my ear with a gloved hand. “Stop, or you'll get it worse than this.”

He threw me back down into the dust, and my skull rang at the impact. With a jerk, he unwound the rope from my legs. Expertly, he lifted me up long enough to rip it from around my shoulders, then dumped me back on the ground.

A second later, he was gone.

I heard the ATV rev up again, and it buzzed off into the darkness.

I lay panting in the dirt.

I should have been crying, but I was too stunned. I tried to get up but got only as far as my hands and knees before I let out a gasp. I hurt all over. I stayed where I was, taking an inventory. No broken bones. Plenty of cuts and scrapes, though. I took a deep breath, then another. A few more to steady my nerves.

I was almost ready to clamber to my feet when something cold touched my face.

I yelped and scrambled backwards onto my butt. When I opened my eyes, Miss Ruffles stood smiling and panting at me from a few feet away.

Not Miss Ruffles. It was Fred. In my disoriented state, I had not recognized him. He had licked my face. His stump of a tail stirred, and he took a nervous pace forward. He dipped his head and stared at me with friendly concern clear in his brown eyes.

“I'm okay,” I told him, reassuring myself at the same time. “How did you get here?”

His tail wagged a little more. He had followed me, obviously. But his slow pace had only just now allowed him to reach me. He came closer and nuzzled my arm.

That's when I did burst into tears. I hugged Fred, and he let me. His warm body comforted me, gave me the courage to gather my composure.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Boy, I'm glad to see you.”

He wiggled in my embrace, and I let him go. I petted his head, gave his ribs a pat, and climbed to my feet.

The ATV was long gone. All that remained was a haze of dust that hung in the air, glowing from the light of the streetlamp over the corral. The slight breeze was dissipating the dust fast.

To Fred, I said, “I hope you can walk home. Because I don't think I can carry you right now.” I swiped my dirty forearm across my face to get rid of the tears. My cheeks felt gritty.

He gave an all-over body shake that said he didn't care how I looked, but he was happy to see me, too.

My heart filled. I was glad to have his company. “C'mon, then. Let's go home.”

Fred waddled beside me, staying close. I wasn't going to set any land speed records. My whole body was stiffening up fast. My knees were cut and bleeding. I walked tentatively, pausing now and then for Fred to get his breath, too.

My mother's research advice included something about endurance. I struggled to remember it. When confronting difficulties, she said, a scientist had to develop endurance to keep going. Fred and I made slow progress. He stopped twice to lie down. His ribs were heaving, and I thought maybe mine were doing the same thing. I was still scared, still stunned by what had happened. Still not making sense of what my attacker had said. As I waited for Fred to recover enough to get going again, my imagination conjured up my attacker over and over. He might come back for me. And then what? I hadn't been able to fight him off before, and now I was in much worse shape.

“C'mon, Fred. We've got to keep moving.”

We made it back to Honeybelle's house at last, and I saw that the back gate was open just a few inches. I must not have latched it tightly when I left, and Fred had nosed it open. Really stupid of me, considering what had happened to Miss Ruffles. When we got into the yard, I closed the gate firmly this time and latched it. I could hear Mr. Carver's music up in his apartment. Mae Mae's bedroom light was on.

I thought about taking off my clothes and slipping into the swimming pool. The water shimmered, and I could imagine how cool it might feel against my scraped skin and aching muscles. But I didn't want any splashing to bring Mr. Carver or Mae Mae outside. If they found me, I was going to have a hard time explaining my injuries. So I dusted myself off outside and prepared to sneak into the house.

Fred and I tiptoed to the back door and let ourselves into the darkened kitchen. Fred went straight to the water bowl and drank. Then he stretched out on the cool kitchen floor and heaved a sigh of exhaustion. He was asleep a moment later.

I kicked off my sneakers by the back door and headed for the kitchen sink. I didn't want to track dirt through the house. Cautiously, I turned on the water, glad I could see only a bad reflection of myself in the window over the sink. I didn't want a good look at what my face looked like. Carefully, I filled my palms with cool water and gently splashed my cheeks. The water ran down my elbows, carrying dirt and sand into the sink. I leaned weakly there, holding my wet hands against my throbbing eyes. I fought down the urge to blubber again. I was home. Safe. In a few minutes, I would be upstairs in the tub, and then my bed. I longed for sleep.

But the light snapped on overhead, filling the kitchen with a bright glare.

I straightened up and whirled to see who had arrived.

Mae Mae stood in the doorway, wearing her bathrobe and boiling mad. “You're making a mess of my kitchen. Look at that floor! And—Lorda mercy! What happened to you?”

“I … I tripped and fell.” My voice quavered. “Out walking Miss Ruffles.”

Mae Mae's gaze grew more hostile. “Tripped over what? And fell down what canyon? You look terrible. Why—that's blood!”

She stared at my knees. Blood had indeed trickled down my shins and soaked into my shoes.

There was no way to hide my injuries, but I hugged myself, hands trying to cover the scrapes on my arms. Inadequately, I said, “I fell, that's all. I'll be okay in a minute.'

“Whyn't you stop lying?” Mae Mae snapped. “You been lying since you set foot in this house.”

“W-what?”

“I'm sick of your deceitful ways. You've been a shifty little sneak since you sashayed into town.”

“I have not!”

She stormed into the kitchen, yanked open a drawer, and pulled out her rolling pin. She pointed it at my nose. “You bulldozed Honeybelle from the start. She was the kindest, best lady in this whole town, and you took advantage of her like everybody else!”

“I did no such thing!”

“I shoulda run you out of here a long time ago.”

“Mae Mae—”

“You're a snake in the grass, and I have a mind to finally call the police and tell 'em exactly what you did.”

“What do you think I did?”

“It was you.” Mae Mae's eyes narrowed to slits, and her breathing was ragged. “You gave some of those dog pills to Honeybelle. That's how she had her heart attack and died—from you giving her dog pills when she wasn't looking!”

I barely made it to the kitchen table before my legs gave out. I plunked into a chair, stunned into silence.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

If the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise.

—TRADITIONAL

It's strange not being trusted when you're accustomed to being the most trustworthy person around. All my life, I'd taken care of my mother, taken care of her colleagues. I picked up their laundry, did their taxes, even house-sat for a few people and fed their tropical fish. So it was weird and hurtful to be the object of Mae Mae's obvious dislike.

Now, though, Mae Mae advanced on me, a towering figure with the rolling pin raised aloft. “Maybe I can't prove it, but Honeybelle didn't die of no natural causes. It was you!”

The pills I had been asked to give Miss Ruffles were only vitamins. Certainly nothing lethal. But Mae Mae didn't know that. More calmly than I felt, I said, “Why would you say such a thing?”