by Ninie Hammon
And Malachi was able to relax in the company of the “home folks.” He didn’t share battle memories with them, hadn’t been standing beside them, looking at the unthinkable so that it was forever afterward painful to make full eye contact. Looks there were too knowing.
Sam stepped away from him and took off her gloves just as there was a knock at the door and Charlie opened it just enough to stick her head inside.
“Raylynn said you were in here—” She stopped when she saw Malachi. “I’m sorry, Raylynn didn’t say anything about—”
“Band-Aids,” he interrupted and gestured toward his side as he lifted his shirt off the table and began putting it on. “Not major surgery. Band-Aids.”
“I’ll come back later,” Charlie began and then seemed to change her mind. “Actually, finding you here …” She looked at Sam. “Could we talk? Just for a few minutes. I brought something to show you and I think Malachi might be interested, too.”
Sam smiled.
“Actually, the waiting room’s empty and E.J. went running out of here like his hair was on fire a few minutes ago, didn’t say where he was going or when he’d be back.” She looked at her watch. “Almost noon. I declare it lunchtime. E.J. usually has sandwich makings upstairs in his kitchen. If he still has bread we could—”
“Maybe later. This won’t take long.”
“The breakroom it is, then.”
They stepped out into the hallway. Merrie was at the other end, following Raylynn into the “hospital” where the menagerie was housed. She gave Charlie a stricken look.
“S’okay,” Charlie called out to her. “You can help miss Raylynn feed the puppies.” To Raylynn she said, “Bring her back when she wears you out.”
“Are you kidding? She’s way cuter than the puppies.”
The breakroom really wasn’t. It was a storage room, windowless and cheerless, where Raylynn had set up a card table and a couple of folding chairs. A stack of canned dog food boxes had been commandeered for use as a coffee pot stand and Styrofoam cups sat beside it along with a paper cup filled with packets of artificial sweetener.
“It’s not much, but we call it home,” Sam said and flashed her solitary dimple.
Malachi took passing note of how each of the women in the room was … singular, impressive in her own unique way. Sam looked like her face belonged on a cereal box and Charlie was drop-dead gorgeous. Both of them had a presence and he didn’t think either one of them was aware of it, which, of course, magnified the effect by a factor of ten.
He took the chair against the far wall, spun it around and straddled it, resting his forearms on the back. Sam sat down next to him. Charlie stood across from them both. She reached into her purse and took something out and placed it on the table between them.
“See anybody you know?”
Malachi picked up the photograph of three grinning children and held it up so he and Sam could both look at it.
A memory rode into his mind on the back of recognition.
When Malachi finishes counting to a hundred by fives, he looks up and he sees Charlie run off behind that booth where a lady’s churning butter, and then up into the woods. That’s cheating! They’re not supposed to leave the grounds where all the booths are set up that has a big word in the name that he can’t remember, something that sounds like “rinny sauce.”
But they aren’t supposed to be running around playing hide-and-seek either! So he supposes if they’re breaking the rule about playing the game instead of looking at the exhibits, it doesn’t matter if they break the other rule about not leaving the grounds.
He looks around, doesn’t see Sam anywhere. He is “it” and must find and tag one of the other two, and keep them for making a break for the big tree with the funny-looking bent limb at the edge of town, by the sign that says “Gideon.” That’s home base. If he doesn’t tag them before they can run to that tree and cry “olly olly oxen free,” he will have to stay “it,” and it’s way more fun to hide.
If he stays near the tree, no matter where they’re hiding, when Charlie and Sam come out to run for home base, he’ll see them. He’s faster than either of them — they’re just girls — and he can tag one of them before they get to the tree and then they’ll be it and he can go hide.
But he saw where Charlie went into the woods and he’s sure he can find her there. Nothing to hide behind but trees.
If he leaves home base, though, he runs the risk of Sam racing to it and touching it before he can catch her.
But if he finds Charlie, that won’t matter because he’ll tag her and she’ll be it and he can go hide the next round.
He casts another look around. Sam is easy to spot with all that red hair, but he doesn’t see her anywhere. With a final look at the home base tree, he darts around the other children, behind the booth of the churning woman and off into the woods where Charlie went.
Chapter Thirteen
Judd stood with his back against the barn door as the huge dog tried to claw his way in. The animal lunged at the door — bam! — and the latch held, but it might not have if Judd’s body hadn’t been taking most of the weight of the blows.
The dog’s growl was the single most horrifying sound Judd had ever heard. And as the growling animal threw himself at the door again and again, his growling wasn’t the only sound in Judd’s ears. Judd could hear crying, sobbing. And at first he didn’t even realize he was the one blubbering. Not in fear now that he was safe in here, where the lunging beast couldn’t get to him. Now, he was crying in sorrow, mourning the loss of the beautiful, gentle dog that crawled into Judd’s bed at night when it was especially cold in the winter, cuddled up next to Judd … not because the dog was cold — in that fur coat! No, he did it to keep Judd warm.
Buster couldn’t do tricks, not like some other dogs. Mildred taught him the German commands out of that book, but once she got sick, Judd didn’t have the time or the energy to put into teaching him to roll over or beg or shake hands or such as that. Buster learned stuff just by watching, though. He’d sit when Judd held his palm out and Judd realized he’d figured out that’s what Judd wanted cause he held his hand out like that to keep the dog from jumping up for his food. He’d lie down on the floor when you told him. He’d get off the furniture when you told him, didn’t “respond to Judd’s commands,” just done what Judd said to do.
Buster loved to chase butterflies in the meadow in the spring, and seeing that big white dog galumphing through the flowers, pollen going every which way, was one of the best sights in the world. He was afraid of thunderstorms, hid under the bed, liked ice cubes and learned to catch them when you tossed them to him, and he could look as pitiful as a baby seal when you scolded him.
Buster was the best dog there ever was! Judd loved him fiercely.
The beast on the other side of the barn door, launching himself at it again and again, wasn’t Buster. Soon’s Judd seen the foamy stuff dripping off his lower lip, and him walking down the hillside kinda crooked-like, he knew. He didn’t have time to think what he’d ought to do because Buster seen him and charged. Judd made it to the barn and got the door slammed and latched not two seconds before Buster crashed into it like 170 pounds of crazed beast.
Judd’s heart was hammering, and he was gasping for air like he’d run a mile instead of just sprinted across the barnyard to the barn door — the closest place of safety he could see. As he stood there, panting, his body jolted forward again and again by Buster charging, he figured he should have made a run for the house. But he hadn’t had time to think. The barn was closer, and might be Buster could have broken through the back door of the house. His old truck was parked on the other side of the barnyard and he never woulda made it that far. Besides, his keys was in the house.
He was gonna have to calm down some and think what to do, but right now he was so upset his mind was flitting from one thing to another like them hummingbirds that come to dip they little beaks into that red bird feeder that Mildred used to put su
gar water in, so she could stand at the sink in the evening and watch the birds while she was doing the supper dishes.
Judd had meant to keep sugar water in that thing, meant to do a lot of things that just kinda slipped away after Millie passed. By the time he thought how he’d ought to go out there and put sugar water in the thing it had been dried up for months. He filled it up, but them hummingbirds never did come back.
Bam!
Buster lunged into the door again and liked to knocked Judd over onto the floor. With Judd’s back braced against the door, it wouldn’t take that dog more than three or four good lunges and the latch’d break, or the screws would come out of that old barn wood or the door might come off the hinges altogether.
It wasn’t a very big barn and it was old, the wood dry, the outside gray from sun and rain. The big barn was where he hung tobacco from that little bit of tobacco acreage he had, but it was painted black and back farther from the house. This barn was just to put his tractor in, store feed for the chickens and hay, had double doors on the front that opened out big enough to drive farm machinery through, a ladder up into the hayloft and bay doors in the hayloft. Couldn’t open but one of them, though. There was a piece of clothesline wire that hooked the doors to the frames so they didn’t flop open. Without the wire, there wasn’t no way to shut them — unless you could stand out there in midair like you’s Wile E. Coyote when he run out there past the edge of a cliff. The clothesline wire on the door on the right had broke and he hadn’t got around to fixing it yet so if you opened it wasn’t no way to get it closed.
Bam!
Buster hit the door again.
They was a lot of things Judd hadn’t got around to, couldn’t seem to think clear without Millie there to push him off in the right direction.
He’d been thinking about that, about how he had been kinda walking around in a cloud since they put her in the ground. Hadn’t had his head on right and couldn’t think, let things drop, fall through the cracks. Like that clothesline wire.
And like Buster’s shots.
Millie always took care of things like that. When they’d got him, she was determined to let him stay in the house. Cute little white puppy. He didn’t stay little long, and he shed so much white fur all over everything, Millie’d said once if she saved all the fur she swept up in a week she’d have enough to make a whole new dog. Since Great Pyrenees were originally bred for guarding livestock, they was used to thinking on their own — that’s what E.J.’d said when they’d took him in for puppy shots and Millie had complained that he still wasn’t house broke. E.J.’d told her she had to be patient, had to be firm and consistent and if there was anything in the world that woman was it was consistent. Wasn’t long before she’d got that dog to go stand at the back door when he needed to go out. She’d wanted to get a doggie door so he could do it on his own, but wasn’t a doggie door big enough for him by the time he was seven or eight months old. She’d finally give up and let go of her “house dog” dream, put a bed for him on the porch and for a while there, before she got sick, you could put on a pair of black dress pants on Sunday without having to use duct tape to pull all the dog hair off.
After Millie was gone, Judd brought Buster back in and let him be a house dog, didn’t care how much he shed on the furniture. Didn’t even think about it, like he didn’t keep track of stuff you had to do at a certain time. Millie’d wrote everything down on the calendar that was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet from Niagara Falls, where they’d gone on vacation a couple of years ago. He’d glanced at that calendar when he was waiting for E.J. to pick up and seen it was still on February. He hadn’t put nothing on it nor tore any of the pages off since then.
Bam!
Rabies.
Even the word was ugly and scary. Mad dog. Wasn’t no other explanation for it and Buster was all the time out in the woods, chasing one varmint or another. Foxes was carriers, Judd had heard. Bats and skunks and possums. And now that he thought about it the bottom dropped out of his stomach because he remembered. Buster’d come back to the house a week ago Thursday and he had scratches on his snout. Judd’d wondered what he’d tangled with, and thought “you shoulda seen the other guy.”
That was it? Buster’d got bit and because Judd hadn’t had the sense to get him in to E.J. on time for his booster shot …
He made a sound in his throat that was a kind of snorting sob. His fault. Buster was gonna have to be put down and wasn’t nobody in the world to blame but himself.
He noticed then that Buster wasn’t jumping at the door anymore.
Them times when he thought Buster could read his mind — well, right now Judd thought he could read Buster’s. Judd looked across the barn to that hole where he hadn’t been watching what he was doing and hit the barn with the tobacco setter. Knocked some boards out. It was big enough—
Buster’s snarling snout stuck through the opening, then his whole body crashed into it. Wouldn’t take much to break through them weak boards. Not much at all.
Chapter Fourteen
“You cheated,” Malachi told Charlie. She’d handed him a picture of the three of them in first grade and those were the first words out of his mouth after he looked at it.
“Cheated? What are you talking about?”
Sam studied the picture, trying to imagine the other two with missing front teeth, scabs riding their knees, little kids. “I didn’t even know we played together,” she said.
“Do you remember this?” Malachi tapped the picture. Sam shook her head.
“Let’s loop back around here … what do you mean I cheated?”
“You did. We weren’t allowed to go out beyond the booths, and you went running off into the woods.”
A light came on in Sam’s head and she did remember. “The whole school went.”
“Not just our school. All the counties around. We had to get permission slips and my mother did not have any desire to see her baby boy hauled off into the ghost town in Fearsome Hollow.”
“That’s where we were?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah. It was some kind of—” He smiled. “I thought it sounded like rinny sauce, must have been a Renaissance Fair. I don’t know who set it up but it was in Gideon. And all the elementary schools from the counties around brought kids in busses.”
“I remember being in the bus and Mrs. … I don’t remember her name, she wasn’t my teacher, but she said we all had to remain in groups of three.” Charlie parroted, “‘… if one of you gets hurt—’”
“You know, gets struck by lightning,” Malachi put in.
“Is attacked by a crocodile,” Sam said.
Charlie plowed ahead, “… then one of the three can stay with the one whose arm was bitten off by a pterodactyl, while the third child goes for help.”
“That’s why we were together,” Malachi said. “Alphabetical order by last name: R, S and T.” He paused. “Wasn’t E.J. in our class? I don't remember him being there that day, but he'd have been hanging out with the Gibson twins and Chloe Inman.”
“If he'd been with us, that would have changed the dynamic. E.J. never would have suggested breaking the rules,” Charlie said.
“Big doors swing on little hinges,” Sam said.
“I must have remembered that whole thing, stored it somewhere in my head and it was the origin of The Alphabet Gang.”
Sam’s head snapped up.
“Whooooa. The Alphabet Gang?” The puzzle pieces fell into place. Charlie had said she was a writer, but it’d never occurred to Sam she’d meant fiction. Sam assumed she wrote … you know, reports for some big company, or brochures, or textbooks or … but children’s books! And not just any children’s books. “You’re … C.R.R. Underhill?”
Malachi looked puzzled, but even he … “Isn’t that the writer—”
“Of the most popular children’s books in the country! The ones they made into that cartoon series — three little kids who fight dragons.” Sam’s smile grew wider. “Two little g
irls and a little boy and Bonnie has red … is that me?”
“Busted. And yeah, I guess she is you, because it’s clear from this” — she gestured at the picture — “where the idea came from. Allie. Bonnie. Caleb. AKA Ryan, Sheridan and Tackett.”
“So we’re famous?” Malachi wanted to know. “Okay, we’re not famous, but you are … C.R.R. … Charlene Reneé Ryan Underhill.”
“You know where I got that, don’t you?”
Of course Sam knew. She might not remember the three of them playing together as children, but they’d been ‘a thing’ their senior year in high school when Mr. Fischer taught the whole year on The Lord of the Rings. The three of them had become Tolkien groupies.
“The name Gandalf gave Frodo, told him to check into the inn in Bree using the name ‘Underhill … if any name must be given.’”
“So when the black riders showed up, they were looking for Baggins,” Malachi said. “They’d come all the way from Mordor—”
“Where the shadows lie.” Charlie tried to sound like James Earl Jones. “And speaking of shadows, do you guys remember the mist that day?”
“No,” Sam said. “Wait, yes … the mist. I remember. It came down the hillside, through the trees.”
“Where we weren’t supposed to be,” Malachi said, giving Charlie the eye.
“Yeah, we weren’t allowed to leave the area where they’d set up the booths demonstrating things like how to churn butter—”
“—or how to bang on a horseshoe and flatten it on an anvil,” Malachi said. “That particular exhibit was the only one that interested me, but it was a total bomb. Even at — what, seven years old? — I knew there had to be a forge to heat the horseshoe. But there was nothing but a burley guy in an apron, banging on a horseshoe he was holding unnecessarily in tongs. Every once in a while, he’d dip the unheated horseshoe in water. Fail.” He turned again to Charlie. “But you left the grounds to hide. That was cheating.”