Waiting for Augusta (6 page)

I touched the golf ball in my throat. “Don't know. What are you running from?” My eyes drifted to her arm bruise. “Are your parents mean or something?”

“I don't have parents anymore. But no, they weren't mean.” She tossed the clean rib bone into a bush, her eyes fixed on the place it disappeared. “Mama died when I was a baby, and I lost Daddy on the day I turned eleven.”

“So he died and you just ran off forever?” I was impressed.

She shrugged. “There wasn't anything left for me, so I started following the tracks. Now I'm wandering. That's my story. Part of it, anyway.” She picked up a twig and started using it as a toothpick. “How much money we got?”

I dug through the bag and started counting. It didn't take long at all. I counted again, thinking I must have missed some bills, but nope. “Forty-one dollars and twenty-three cents.” With the safety net of his blindness, I felt fine shooting a dirty look at Daddy. “Must have been a real slow night at Pastor Frank's.”

“We'll make it work.” Noni didn't sound worried. Maybe she was better at making things work for herself than I was.

“How long have you been on your own?” I asked, tucking the money into the bottom of the pack. “You don't look much older than eight.” She was about the same size as me, just with a bigger mouth.

She kicked her shoe against mine. “Neither do you. I haven't been wandering long.” She drummed the twig along her teeth. “And I'm eleven, not eight.”

“I'll be twelve on Saturday.”

She did her fancy one-eyebrow raise again, adding a
click-click
with her mouth, like she was telling a horse to get going. “You don't say. Looks like we're the same age, at least for a few more days. Well, happy early birthday to you. We're going to Augusta, right? That's what you said in the kitchen when you were talking to yourself.”

“Yep. And I wasn't talking to myself.”

“That's right, you were talking to ashes, which makes much more sense.” She traced one of the Marlboro patches on the backpack. “Never been to Georgia. Have to get us a bag of Georgia peaches. We've got forty dollars, you said? Okay, here's where you get glad that we're in this together. I'm good with organizing things.”

And by that
, the willow winked,
she means taking over
.

“We'll take a bus close as we can,” she said, “and then camp to save money for food. Where's the nearest bus station where no one'll know you?” She looked excited, like it was her daddy and her mission, not mine.

“Seven miles. Town called Heart.”

Noni rubbed her hands together. “Okay, listen up, crazy. We better get the earliest ride out of town. We might as well sleep for a couple hours first.” She patted the ground. “I'll wake us up at four or so.” She disappeared into the sheet tent. “You sleep outside.” She didn't have a watch, but for some reason I didn't doubt that at four o'clock I'd be shaken awake.

Noni's head popped out again. “Hey, Benjamin Putter? Did you bring a lot of paint and paper?”

“Enough. Why? And how'd you know my name?”

“Heard your mama call you Benjamin and saw your last name on the sign by the back door. And I thought maybe I'd try painting something later on, that's why. Now leave me alone. I'm trying to sleep. Gotta big day tomorrow—first day's when they look the hardest, so we got to make a good break from the Heart station. Could be tricky. Don't want to get caught.” She yawned loudly. “Us needing to save your dead daddy's everlasting soul and all.”

Instead of rolling into a heap like she appeared to be doing, I stepped over to the stream where a little moonlight held. Got out my paint box, crouched by the stream, and dipped a brush in. The first painting was simple.

May Talbot always loved the way skipped stones on the water let off circles that ended up touching one another and overlapping. I'd spent hours learning to get the
watercolors to do that, starting with the biggest circles, keeping the outside faint, and going inside each one until I got to the smallest. I added a lily pad. I'd told May that I loved painting them. I told her I liked to picture frogs and dragonflies resting there, because sometimes they probably got tired and the lily pads helped them be right where they wanted to be without sinking. May hadn't laughed when I'd said that. She could have, but she didn't.

When the painting was finished, I put a rock on the corner of the paper so it wouldn't blow away and cleaned the brushes in the current, not seeing the color leak out but knowing it was leaving just the same.

A rustling came from the sheet. “I hear you moving around out there like some kind of garbage-eating raccoon. Can't sleep if I think someone's gonna steal that extra pork. What are you doing?”

I don't know
. “Cleaning my brushes.”

“Oh.” Noni poked her head out and rubbed her eyes. “Know something? I do believe that you, Benjamin Putter, are the most interesting person I've ever met.”

“Me?”

“Yep, you. Goodnight, Benjamin Putter.”

“You can call me Ben.”

“I like using full names.”

“Then what's yours?”

“Just Noni to you.”

“Fine. 'Night, Noni.”

I put my box away and curled up under a curve in the willow's trunk, using my backpack for a pillow and sticking Daddy's urn in the crook of my elbow. Tomorrow I'd be leaving my smallest of small towns in Alabama for the first time in my life, with my father's cremation urn and a girl who was most likely trouble. Daddy used to call me a box turtle. Said I was more comfortable tucked in a shell than out in the world. He also used to say that a person who does magic tricks is suspect because you can't trust anyone who keeps an animal in their hat. But maybe his view on things and on me would change with his death. Maybe mine would, too.

•  •  •

It seemed only a minute later that I woke up with my arm hugging Daddy and my head hugging dirt. Getting my bearings, I looked around for my backpack. Took me another minute until I saw it. Noni was beside the stream, sifting quietly through my bag down where the break in tree cover let the moon give her a little light. She pulled out the cash bills, and without glancing around, stuck them in her back pocket. Then she stood up, left the bag, and walked out of sight.

T
eamwork,
Daddy used to say. Golf is a solitary game that requires teamwork: The body, the mind, and the spirit all have to work together to produce an outcome. Those three things must touch each other and change each other and bleed together until they become focused on the same thing. It takes the Holy Trinity on your side, he'd say, then duck a swat from Mama. She hated when he blended golf and God together. She'd blush and say,
Bogart, with that talk, you're going straight to
—and he'd scoop her up before she'd finish and kiss the last word away, and they'd twirl together for a minute and be their own trinity, just Mama and Daddy and whatever made them love each other.

I thought about that while I watched the person I'd stupidly trusted steal my money and leave me behind as the moon got its last moments in before dawn took over.

I could still hear Noni's feet shuffling through the brush,
but that was soon drowned out by my own heartbeat, beating out its shocked
see that, did you see that
, pounding out its angry,
big-eyed thief, she's a big-eyed thief
, or maybe just banging out repeated rounds of
leavin' you again, someone's leavin' you again.
It's hard to tell what a fierce heartbeat is saying, even for me.

“Come on, Daddy.” I scooped him up and scooted down to the creek.

She's only stealing what you already stole
, said the backpack. “Not helpful,” I told it, sticking Daddy inside and slipping it over my arms.

Noni wasn't too far away, and soon I saw her, paused at the other side of the creek, her head tilted up while she looked at the moon and chewed on a long piece of the wheatgrass that grew near the water. I couldn't help but watch her. She looked like a girl stuck in a painting, thinking about secrets that you'd never find out. After a while, a determined expression settled on her face where an unreadable one had been a minute before, and she walked off, straight through the trees and brush.

I was too thrown off to yell. Instead, I crossed the stream at another low spot, followed her to the back of the Hilbert property, and watched her skip straight to a clothesline hung with a variety of pants, shirts, and dresses.

After studying the possibilities, she chose a long-sleeved light blue dress with pockets that I'd seen Ginny
Hilbert wear at school, yanked it down, then scooted into the Hilbert's henhouse. She came out shortly after, dress on, her old clothes under one arm and her pockets bulging. With her free hand, she found a good-size rock and stuck a number of bills on their back porch using the rock's weight to hold them down. On her way back into the woods, she picked up a small metal bucket and hissed as she passed by the bush I crouched behind, laughing when I jumped.

“Glad you're awake, scaredy-cat,” she said. “It'll save us time. Change into a different shirt—yours is all tore up.” She turned her back on me and waved a little circle in the air. “Go on. Switch clothes.”

I looked down at my chest. “It got ripped on the fence.” I changed into another shirt, adding the ruined one to the Hilberts' burn pile. “You can turn around now.”

She faced me and nodded. “Tuck it in when we get to the station. People'll think you're a runaway or something. Don't argue. We should look at least halfway nice for the bus ride. I'm wearing a dress, and I never wear dresses. Take off that backpack so I can put my old clothes in there.”

“You stole my money.” I pointed to the long-sleeved, button-down shirt in her hands. “You probably stole that, too.”

“This shirt was my daddy's, if you need to know.” She pointed to the lumps in her pockets. “And I didn't steal the money, I wanted some eggs. Haven't had any since . . . Well,
it's been a while. I saw those chickens pecking around their yard last night when I went exploring a little. I was coming back for you.”

“Sounds like a lie,” Daddy said.

I wasn't sure I believed her either. “How come you took all my money with you?”

“
Our
money, Benjamin Putter. You and me are in this together.” She tapped the backpack and unzipped it, pushing her clothes inside. “Along with your daddy in there. Now, I'm happy to help you, but I had a serious hankering for eggs.”

“How are we supposed to cook them?”

She swung the bucket an inch from my nose. “This maybe. Haven't figured it out yet for sure, but they'll keep.”

Daddy let something out like a growl. “Get that money back, Ben.”

“Gimme my money back,” I told her.

She pulled it from a pocket and handed it over. “Our money. Don't be greedy. Which way to Heart?”

I pointed north. “We hop on a road up there a ways and then follow it straight east.”

“Well, let's get going. Say, what do you want for a name?”

“What?”

“You know, in case we have to say who we are.”

I thought. “Bobby Jones.”

Daddy laughed. “Gimme a quote, son!”

Without thinking, I recited his favorite. “Golf is the
closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots, but you have to play the ball where it lies.” Inwardly, I gave myself a kick. Try as I might to ignore them, all of Daddy's fact speeches and golfer quotes had been planted into me against my will and had settled in like golf-happy brain ticks, burrowing into my mind so deep that I'd never get them out.

Noni looked at me a little funny. “Good to know, crazy. I'll be Betsy Jones.”

We walked north on a dirt road, and I watched Hilltop fade behind us as we cut across a tobacco field to a crossroad. Daddy was mumbling about something, so I hung back a good ways to listen to him while Noni walked ahead. It was still dark out, but the sky was getting a little lighter. We had maybe a two hour walk to Heart.

“Something's tricky about that one, Ben. Can't trust a runaway.”

It
was
strange that she seemed so eager to hop onto my trip. And Daddy was right. There was something about her that made me think she'd be leaving me sooner rather than later. Hopefully not with the money. “I'm a runaway, too.”

“But you've got a purpose. You're on a road trip with your old man. Just the two of us, spending quality time together.” His invisible hand reached out to smack me on the back. “You and me, going to Augusta National Golf Club, can you believe it?” Ashy hands rubbed together with glee inside his
urn. “And the Masters. I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. We'll be right there with Hobart Crane for a whole tournament. He's my favorite.”

Unless there was a bus straight to Augusta, the chances of us watching Hobart Crane play the whole tournament weren't good. But I didn't want to bother him with that detail just yet. “I know, Daddy.”

“Hobart grew up in a small town, just like me and you. Poor boy playing at the Masters. There's a dream to shoot for, right? I doubt that girl even knows the name ‘Hobart Crane.' ”

Noni was far ahead now, slapping her sides like she was keeping rhythm to something. “Maybe she has a purpose, too.” I thought about how she'd looked back at the creek, her head tilted up at the moon. I thought about how she was trusting me for some reason. “Let's just get to Heart.”

I'd only been to Heart once. Daddy's brother, Uncle Luke, had traveled from Georgia to visit about two months back. He'd called on the telephone to talk to Daddy now and then, but I'd never met my uncle until the day when we'd all gone out to meet his bus at the station. That was right after Daddy found out he was real sick for the second time. Luke was a golfer, too, and had made it three years on the professional tour, but never qualified for the Masters before his back got hurt and his career ended. He'd taken a job at a public course in Georgia as consolation.