Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1)

by Hughey, J.

  “Oh, that’s so great. We planted some cold weather vegetables but they need a greenhouse.”

  “I told you,” Sara said when we shared a sisterly our-parents-are-whacko look.

  “It took some elbow grease,” Mom said, ignoring us.

  “I’ll bet you have some deer pressure,” Boone interjected.

  “We will,” Mom said. “There’s a neighbor with a…oh, what’s it called?” She made a cork-screw motion with her finger, “…oh, yes, a post-hole auger coming up tomorrow so we can put in some fencing. We’ve never had a garden here, but Matt’s parents are giving us pointers.”

  “And tools,” Dad added with a chuckle. He and Mom rose to clear the table. Boone stood up, too.

  “I’ve had some experience with fencing. I can help with the posts, maybe get the plastic framed out before I go tomorrow,” he offered as he sat his plate by the sink.

  Dad seemed especially relieved to have an experienced hand at his disposal. “We’d sure appreciate that. You probably shouldn’t rush west anyway.”

  Boone and I helped to clean up, then he stayed in the kitchen to call home while the rest of us went to the living room. The cold black cube of a wood stove squatted on a hastily arranged square of patio pavers in front of the fireplace, its exhaust pipe disappearing into what used to be a cozy fireplace. The chimney now served as the receptacle for the waste fumes of a more efficient heat source.

  I told Sara about Gloria’s new home, relieved when she said she didn’t mind. The stuffed animal, at the time it had been given to me, meant something significant. To her, my treatment of Gloria reflected proportionally my sisterly affection, and woe to me if the hippo fell unnoticed between my bed and the wall, or had an eye twisted slightly out of alignment. Tonight, hopefully, Gloria helped a frightened girl with pink boots fall asleep, wherever she was.

  I heard Boone start to leave a message and scooted back into the kitchen to scribble our phone number down for him to repeat.

  After he hung up, he shrugged. “I left a voicemail this time, at least. Thank goodness Mom got the electronic mailbox from the phone company so it works whether the power is on at the house or not.”

  “Hopefully, Drew will get through to them, too,” I said. “Or maybe he already has.” Boone’s older brother hadn’t been heard from. The worry weighed Boone down. His eyes became sort of haunted when we talked about Drew, though every conversation ended with our mutual reassurances he faced no dangers in Alaska not already inhabiting the place when he got there.

  As we unloaded supplies, I felt guilty at Mom’s praise for my shopping success since I’d done nothing but silently castigate her bizarre requests. She was downright chipper as she stocked all the over-the-counter medications and ointments I’d scored. She flipped seed packets by the corners like single-serve envelopes of hot chocolate mix ready to be poured into a steaming mug of hot water on a frigid winter day.

  Boone handed the box of ammunition to Dad who secreted the cartridges off to some special storage area for items of deadly force. Mom assigned everything but the tampons a spot in the dining room-cum-storage area or the garage, which, it turned out, was like the dining room on steroids. Every square inch of floor space not stacked with firewood or filled with all the hastily rearranged junk that always lived in our garage now held prepper supplies. Mom caught me bent in half, verifying the demotion of our dining room table, visible only at the legs, and unceremoniously shoved in a corner, its surface covered with an old sheet and stacked with bags of fertilizer.

  “Taking up bomb-making?”

  “No. Though if anything around here is going to blow up, I wish it would be that table. Hand-me-down from Nana’s move to Florida. I’ve never liked it, but she said it’s an heirloom.”

  Text to Mia:

  The whoosh of Sara starting the shower in the upstairs bathroom woke me. I stared at the sloping ceiling of my room, where the shadows of leaves and branches decorated the butter-yellow in the lacy network of sunlight piercing the forest before entering my window. I never closed the simple muslin curtains ’cuz someone would have to be fifteen feet up in a tree to look into my room.

  I did a much better job of primping for the day than I usually would and found Boone at the kitchen table with a syrup coated plate and a mug of coffee in front of him. His damp hair lay forward and spiked in all the right places, and I resisted the urge to poke my fingers in it to mess it up.

  My heart clenched. He planned to leave today. The eruption continued on Day 29, according to the morning show blaring from the living room, further removing hopes we’d be returning to our budding romance any time soon. I turned toward the coffeepot to hide my grimace.

  Sara moped and whined about going to school while the rest of us got to stay home. “They even cancelled the football game tonight.”

  After walking Sara down the driveway to make sure she got on her bus, Dad pulled a cluster of metal “U”s out of the garage to signal the commencement of the garden operation. I cradled a second cup of coffee as I picked my way across dewy grass.

  Tiny markers punctuated the rows of tilled earth. The wee signs announced Mom and Dad’s hopes for broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, lettuce, and chard. (Chard sounded even less promising than kale.) Some of the rows flaunted bright green sprouts already, though. Mom directed Dad and Boone to the lettuce and spinach row first, where they sunk the “U”s, comprised of two half-circles separated by a three or four inch cross brace for stability. Clear plastic draped across these made a tiny tubular greenhouse over the row. Boone and Dad unearthed some old bricks behind the garage to weigh down the edges at intervals.

  “That’s a good toe-stubber right there,” Dad said.

  The sound of a heavy engine echoed up the driveway. My jaw dropped as I saw my grandfather maneuver a small gray tractor steadily up the rise of the driveway. A collective thought caused the four of us to freeze. We each wondered if he knew how to stop the square nose aimed right for Boone’s twenty gallons of gas.

  Finally, Grampa pushed his left foot down, and the old tractor eased to a standstill while the engine roared at the same volume. He pulled a knob that looked like it should dispense a candy bar instead of doing what it did, which was make the motor stall out. A titan-sized corkscrew swung lazily from two arms on the back of the tractor, a creaking agricultural pendulum marking time in the reversal of human progress.

  Dad helped Grampa down. “Hey, girlie,” Grampa croaked. He yanked me with thin age-spotted arms into a stiff hug. “Kicked ya out of the highfalutin’ school, did they?”

  “Hi, Grampa,” I said. His shirt smelled like mothballs. “Where’d you get the new wheels?”

  “My neighbor Paul’s sugar is bad today. His wife wouldn’t let him bring the tractor so I drove it up.”

  I introduced Boone. He and Grampa shook hands and sized one another up from beneath the brims of their faded ball caps.

  “Boone’s helping with the garden before he drives the rest of the way home,” I explained. I wanted to get that tidbit in at the beginning, since Grampa didn’t think the boys of my generation had much of a work ethic.

  Dad commenced scratching his head while staring at the tractor. It could have been a fighter jet or a space rocket for all he knew about running it. Grampa joined him in staring. If anyone in the Perch family knew how to manipulate equipment, it’d be him, yet he didn’t appear eager to climb back aboard. Mom chewed on a thumbnail, not enough to break it off, but enough to show her concern about our slow progress.

  Boone waited with his hands shoved down in the front pockets of his jeans again. After thirty seconds, he asked, “Umm, do you want me to run it?”

  Dad turned. “Do you know how?”

  Boone shrugged. “I grew up on a ranch, sir.”

  “What do you think, Dad? Can we trust a cattle man with Paul’s pride and joy?”

  “Reckon so,” Grampa said.

  Boone walked around the tractor once, paying particula
r attention to the connections to the giant corkscrew. He hopped into the seat like a pro. With pedals depressed and the push of a button the size of a gumdrop, the engine fired. He wheeled the tractor to a corner of the garden, lowered the corkscrew, backed up a bit to straighten it, pulled a lever to make the spiral start to turn then pulled the lowering lever again to make it bore a cylindrical hole in the dirt.

  In a few minutes only the final spiral of the corkscrew remained above the soil. He idled the engine before pulling the candy bar knob to silence it.

  “That’s about three feet. Will that do you?” He asked the question in a general way, unsure who had the final say-so in the project.

  Dad grabbed a big post from a stack along the driveway. Boone eyed it then nodded. “We better not go deeper or the deer will jump it.” He revved the auger up again and plunged it in and out of the ground, making a tidy fall of dirt and small rocks like a Land of the Lost ant-hill entrance.

  “Three on each side?” he asked. At Dad’s nod, he moved the tractor so the auger would dig at the center of a long side of the garden. Dad and Grampa placed the post, with Grampa supervising the amount of tamping needed between each layer of soil they added.

  Mom looked over at me with eyebrows raised. We smiled, mutually amazed, knowing the hole digging alone would probably have taken the full day and at least one trip to the E.R. without the Nebraska cattle rancher leading the charge.

  He knocked out the holes in no time. The rest of us set the posts. Dirt clung to the sheen of sweat on my arms. Mom went in the house for some work gloves and returned with the wireless telephone in hand as Boone shut the tractor off from hole number six.

  “Boone, it’s your parents,” she half-whispered, still lisping.

  He leapt off the tractor and said an anxious “Hello?” on his way to the front porch.

  We worker bees continued our jobs. I, for one, shoveled and packed dirt like a dutiful farmer girl, but it was hard to miss his side of the conversation.

  Hi, Mama, how are you? Oh, hey, Dad, I didn’t know you were on, too.

  What a relief you’ve heard from him. He’s having trouble getting out of Alaska?

  I’m in Indiana.

  It’s a little town called Sycamore Springs. I gave a friend a ride home from college.

  Yes, she’s a girl.

  Mama, that isn’t important right now. Are you still at home?

  Okay, good, I should be leaving here in an hour or two…puts me there by, I dunno, midnight?

  He had his back to us and head bowed, but something they said made him stand up straight. What do you mean, you’re leaving? Where are you going?

  What cousin in Iowa?

  What about the stock?

  He stood, silent, listening for a long time.

  Well, give me the address. I’ll come there instead.

  That doesn’t make any sense.

  Yes, sir, I know who I’m talking to, but I'm —

  After a few attentive minutes, his voice grew sharp. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it? If Drew were there, you’d have someone to help you. I’ve wanted to come home for weeks —

  Where am I supposed to go, he said with a quiet urgency. A breeze kicked up, effectively camouflaging his words and swirling a blizzard of autumn leaves around us to settle on the garden.

  We studiously tamped and shoveled.

  His parents talked for a long time again. His shoulders hunched forward. I wanted to go to him, to put my hand on his back, but the closed-up posture warned me away.

  Keep in touch with me, okay? If you can’t reach my cell, maybe you can leave a message here. Violet can text me.

  Yep, that’s her name.

  Yes, Mama, it is a nice name. When are you leaving the ranch?

  A hand shot out to the side in exasperation. I still have plenty of time to get there. Let me come help you.

  His head shook “no” as he acquiesced. Yes, sir. Give me the phone number and address where you’ll be?

  He pulled out his cell to tap a note into it.

  That’s all you have?

  Yes, sir, I know you have a lot to do. You take care.

  There was a slight pause while his father must have hung up the phone and his mother started talking to him.

  No, Mama, I don’t understand any of this. This is bull crap, you two wandering off to some secret location when I’m less than a day away.

  Pause.

  He’s a Ramer. But there’s stubborn and then there’s stupid.

  His mom talked for a long time. He scuffed his foot on the porch floor as he listened, probably getting his ear chewed off for calling his dad stupid. He started shaking his head again near the end.

  Yes, I know how to use the bank. Promise me you’ll let me know where you’re really going when you get there. This Iowa plan sounds like a story a teenager would make up.

  I love you too, Mama.

  He stared at the handset of the phone until he figured out what button to push to cut the connection. Then he continued to stare at it like it owed him more information. Or a different answer. He twisted once, and I had a vision of the phone launched like a long pass into the woods. He finally looked around him, recalling where he was.

  Mom, Dad and Grampa pretended not to watch, but I openly studied him, hoping for a sign of how to help. The brave face he tried to impose on his features failed. My chest ached in sympathy. I recognized the need to escape from prying eyes and find some privacy, and I knew the place to go. My shovel thudded as it hit the ground.

  I tossed the phone on the glider with the raggedy seat pad, grabbed his hand, and led him off the porch. Raspberry thorns snagged at our jeans on the path to my small clearing corralled by laurel and my imaginary force field.

  I squeezed his hand. He bent a slender branch in half, angry, hurt, and embarrassed, all at the same time.

  “I came here every day over the summer, rather than go ballistic with Mom. No one ever bothered me.” I patted his chest and said, “Parents suck. Scientific fact,” and walked away.

  Sometimes a person needs to be alone to fester a little bit. Especially when parents are involved.

  He didn’t fester long. He re-emerged in less than twenty minutes, took half a sandwich from a platter Mom had brought out during his absence and stood back to assess our sorry attempt at tacking one end of the woven wire fencing to the first square post.

  “Do you have a screwdriver?” he asked.

  He used said tool to pop out every tack we’d painstakingly put in, moved the fencing to the outside of the post, eyeballed the rest of the garden and set the bottom flush with the ground. “Hold that,” he said. I rushed to comply, doing my best to keep it steady while he pounded the U-shaped tacks in place with a few effortless taps of the hammer.

  Dad quickly got the hang of it and became a decent assistant. The woven wire equaled the diameter of thin licorice laces and felt chalky under my fingers. A metallic tang hung in the air as I held the fencing steady. Boone’s hands were sure and calm, but the set of his shoulders reminded me of yesterday at the rest stop when he’d backed Sneaky into his thieving truck.

  By the time we finished, with one end of our enclosure loosely wired to the corner to make an awkward gate, Grampa snored on the porch.

  Mom stood back with her hands on her hips and a proud smile splitting her face. “This is wonderful. We could never have done it without you, Boone.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve built miles of fence, Mrs. Perch.”

  “I can tell.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Do you think you can drive the tractor home so Grampa doesn’t kill himself or somebody else?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And I’ll make a big dinner. After I take another painkiller,” she said cheerfully.

  Tears pricked my eyes. She had neatly planned his afternoon and evening so it would be natural for him to stay, at least tonight.

  I’d never ridden on a tractor before. I’d had a choice between riding on the
tractor with Boone or in Dad’s car with Grampa. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

  Now I stood on the metal floorboard with my butt leaning on the red fender curved over the huge, rapidly spinning tire. Boone coaxed it to a speed that made the wind blow through my hair. The tractor bounced when we hit swales in the road. I laughed out loud then grabbed at his shoulder when we hit a pothole. He grinned at my giggles, but slowed, cautious to the core.

  We pulled into diabetic Paul’s driveway. His wife waved at me from their concrete porch.

  “Thank you,” I called. “We got the fence done.”

  She squinted at Boone.

  “This is my friend, Boone,” I yelled. I didn’t want to get dragged into the two-hour conversation preordained if we went anywhere near her porch. “Do you want us to take the thingy off or anything?” I pointed to the auger.

  “Nah. The Criders want to use it,” she called.

  Grampa waved at me from down the road.

  “Grampa’s waiting. See you!” I yelled as I pulled Boone across the gravel to my grandparents’ modest house.

  We were quickly sprung. Grandma had left a note she’d gone to the library, and Grampa eagerly reclined in the old blue chair where he would doze to Weather Watcher.

  I backed Dad’s sedan out of the driveway and watched Boone in my peripheral vision. I wanted more details on what was going on without being nosy. “Any good news about Drew?” I ventured after half a mile, figuring it might help if I started with the positive.

  “He called at the beginning of the week. By the time he got out of the wilderness, the commercial flights were all jacked up. The planes have to land in California or the southwest. No guarantee of getting any farther east. He decided he is either going to buy a car or try to get a train ticket to get on the eastern side of this mess.” He tapped his fingers on his dusty jeans. “I don’t understand why they didn’t call me. They talked to him on Monday. What are they trying to protect me from?”

  “What are they doing now?” I asked as if I hadn’t eavesdropped on his entire conversation.