Not-Just-Anybody Family (15 page)

“Go way! Shoo!”

Mad Mary stepped onto the highway. “Shoo!” She waved her arms. Her torn sleeves flapped in the still air.

The two vultures looked her way. They had the carcass of a rabbit between them. They had opened it quickly by pulling in opposite directions. One vulture dropped its part, the head, spread its wings as if to take to the air, and then changed its mind and folded them.

Mad Mary was still a hundred yards down the road, no real threat as yet. They knew Mad Mary and were used to competing with her for highway meat.

The vulture lowered its bald head to the rabbit.

But Mad Mary was running over the shimmering asphalt now, closing the distance. “I said ‘Shoo!’” She threatened them with her cane.

One vulture hissed. The other took a few steps across the road, but leisurely, like a barnyard turkey. The hissing vulture dug its beak quickly into the meat and picked at the dead rabbit. It got hold of a piece of intestine and pulled.

“I want that rabbit!”

Mad Mary flew at them. Now she was close enough to be a threat. Four more strides and she would be able to hook one of the vultures around the neck with the end of her long cane. Both vultures ran down the road, building up speed, and took to the air.

Mad Mary ran a few feet beyond the dead rabbit. She watched the vultures settle on the limb of a nearby tree. Then she eased the rabbit over with the toe of her boot.

“Fresh meat,” she muttered to herself.

Then she lifted her head. She heard the sound of an approaching truck.

Leaning down, she picked up the rabbit with one hand. The vultures had popped it open and pulled out part of the insides. Other than that, the rabbit was perfect. Mad Mary liked to get meat that hadn’t been run over five or six times. It was juicier.

Like the fat possum she had found last week and dined off for two days, the rabbit had just taken a light bump on the head from some rear tire. The body was still limber—couldn’t have been dead twenty minutes. She slid the rabbit down into her stained shoulder bag.

The truck was blaring its horn. The driver had spotted Mad Mary.

Mad Mary didn’t even glance in the truck’s direction. She walked leisurely to the edge of the road and stepped off into the grass. Then, head down, poking the ground with her long shepherd’s cane, she moved along with steady soldier strides.

The truck blew its horn again as it passed. Mad Mary felt the exhaust, the sting of dust, but she did not look up. There was nobody in the whole world that she wanted to see. She hadn’t even nodded to a living soul in three and a half years.

The vultures watched from separate limbs of a nearby dead tree. When the truck passed, they flew down to the spot where the rabbit had lain. They checked to see if Mad Mary had left them anything. Then, although she had not, they continued to walk around the damp spot on the highway for a few moments.

As they took to the air again, Mad Mary turned the curve of the highway, jumped the ditch, and headed into the woods.

“I just figured out what it is,” Maggie said.

She and Vern were at the creek. Maggie was sitting on the raised bank swinging her legs out over the water. Vern was making little rafts out of twigs and vines and sending them down the shallow, shifting current, watching them plunge over the waterfall.

“What what is?”

He released his fourth raft and frowned as it headed for the willow tree.

“I bet I know what Junior’s making.”

“What?”

His raft was caught against the roots of the tree. He could barely see it through the curtain of willow branches. He waded across, parted the branches, and got his raft.

Vern enjoyed making small things. He spent money every Saturday for a plastic model, but no matter how hard a model he got, he was always finished by Sunday.

“Well, if you’re not interested, I’m not going to waste my breath telling you,” Maggie said, turning away. She stuck a blade of grass in her mouth.

“I’m interested. What’s he making?”

“Oh, all right. He’s making a trap.”

“A trap?” Vern looked at her for the first time. “What kind of trap?”

“Coyote.”

“Come on. Even Junior’s got better sense than to set a trap for a coyote. That’s like setting a trap for a polar bear or …” He paused to repair a loose vine. “Or a crocodile.”

“Weren’t you listening last night at supper? Yesterday Pap heard on the news about a coyote that’s loose in the area. They think it got away from Farmer Brown’s Zoo, only Farmer Brown won’t admit it because it’s been killing people’s chickens and lambs, and he doesn’t want to have to pay.” She slung her braids behind her shoulders with one practiced shake of her head. “Junior wants the reward.”

“How much is it?”

“A hundred dollars.”

“Shoot, for a hundred dollars I’d make a trap myself.”

Vern’s last raft had now gone successfully over the fall, and Vern watched his fleet of rafts, four of them, sailing down the creek, moving in and out of the long shadows of the trees.

“Are you really going to make a trap?” Maggie asked. “I’ll help.”

“No, I’m helping Pap this afternoon.”

“Doing what?”

“Collecting cans.”

Every Monday afternoon Pap went around the county collecting beer and pop cans that people had thrown out of car windows and left at picnic sites. It was his job, the most satisfying he had ever had. He started when he wanted, quit when he wanted, and got paid for what he collected. Vern was his assistant.

“Oh, I forgot it was Monday. Anyway, Junior probably used up all the hog wire. Did you see how big his trap was? Big enough for a pony.”

“Junior never was one to conserve.”

“No.”

Vern’s rafts were out of sight now, on their way—he liked to think—to the ocean. He imagined them bobbing in the first gentle ripples of the tide, then riding the curling waves out to sea. Although he had never actually seen the ocean, the picture was clearer than a lot of things he had seen.

He climbed out of the creek without using his hands, by digging his toes into the cool slimy mud and turning his feet sideways to take advantage of rock and root ledges. At the top he waved his arms in the air in a rare moment of imbalance.

Seeing her advantage, Maggie yelled, “Race you!” She broke into a run for the barn.

“That’s not fair. I wasn’t ready!” he called after her. Then he couldn’t help himself. He broke into a run and began to overtake her.

Mud was following Junior into the woods. Three times Junior had turned around, hands on hips, and said “Go home, Mud. Go home! I mean it. Go home!”

So Mud knew he was not wanted. Still he followed. He could not help himself. He knew Junior had a ball of raw hamburger meat in his back pocket.

Mud had been lying under the kitchen table, taking a nap, when Junior slipped into the house. Without opening his eyes, Mud knew it was Junior. Junior in the hall … Junior in the dining room … Junior in the kitchen. When it was Junior opening the refrigerator door, Mud opened his eyes.

Junior was on a straight chair, reaching into the freezer. Mud crawled out from under the table, stretched, and sat attentively.

Junior took out a frozen package of something and began working on it with a butcher knife. Finally Junior cut off a chunk. Frozen chips sprayed onto the linoleum floor.

Mud moseyed over. He smelled one, licked it up. Hamburger! It was hamburger! Mud’s nose began to run.

Raw hamburger was Mud’s favorite thing to eat in the world. The only time he got it was when Pap wrapped it around a worm pill. “Catch!” Pap would say. Mud always caught. He thought all balls of hamburger came with a hard, foul-tasting center that you weren’t allowed to spit out, but still he loved it.

With eager care Mud sniffed the floor until he was sure he had gotten every crumb. By then Junior was gone.

Mud pushed open the screen door with his front paws, bounded out, and, ears flapping, ran for the woods. He could not see Junior, but the faint scent of hamburger followed Junior like a wake.

He caught up with Junior in the pine trees. “Go home!” Junior said immediately.

Mud was surprised. He was almost never sent back to the house. He sat down.

“I did not say ‘Sit,’ I said ‘Go home!’”

Mud pretended to obey. He took a few steps toward the house. When Junior was once again pushing his wheelbarrow, Mud followed again.

Junior spun around. “I said ‘Go home!’ Watch my lips. Go home! I do not want you scaring off my coyote. Go home.”

Again, Mud pretended to obey. Then, again, he followed. Sooner or later Junior would break down and give him a piece of hamburger meat.

Following as closely as he dared, nose wet with desire, Mud went deeper into the woods.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1986 by Betsy Byars

978-1-4804-0267-6

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