by Anne McAneny
Macy dashed from the store, her blond hair drifting behind her, the bell ringing out in the still-stunned silence of the disbelievers. Through Boyd’s front window, Macy could be seen shoving the ticket into her front pocket and hopping on her bike. As she pedaled away, fading to a vaporous cloud, the scene remained inside Boyd’s.
Richie Quail reached across the counter and grabbed Boyd by the front of his wrinkled shirt. He yanked the smaller man forward and nearly pulled him off the ground. “You sold that ticket to a minor, didn’t you, Boyd?”
“No, sir.” Boyd’s eyes found the floor. “Her and her Momma came in the other day. Yesterday, matter of fact.”
“You’re lying!” He cast Boyd away like a bait fish too small to be useful, then he walked over and locked the front door before lowering the blind on the main window.
“Richie,” the sheriff said with no attempt to disguise his weariness, “what do you think you’re doing?”
Quail bucked up to full size and skewered each of them with his intense gaze. “We’ve been thrown together—the five of us—for a reason,” he said.
“What are you going on about?” Adeline said. “Let me out of here.” She stepped to the register to pay, but Quail drew all the attention in the room yet again.
“Listen up! All of you. Strike, you and Jacqueline, you got what, a hundred thousand in medical bills? Two hundred? Jacqueline’s going to live and that’s great, but for what? To work three jobs so you can claw your way out of debt the rest of your lives? You’re never going to be able to afford those kids she wants to adopt.”
Quail spun to Adeline next. “And what about you? I saw you drooling over that ticket. You told me not five minutes ago that you aim to make something of yourself. With a bit of seed money, you could finally do it.”
“I know I could,” Adeline said. “I got good instincts about business. I just need a leg up.”
“So why her?” Quail said, pointing in the direction Macy had gone. “Why some little waif of a girl who didn’t even buy the ticket legally? Believe me, her mother doesn’t know what’s up half the time—depressed and crying over that two-bit bounty hunter she was dumb enough to marry.”
“Yeah,” Adeline said, “I never did like him.”
Quail dug in. “He’ll get his hands on half that lottery money, you know”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that. While you, Adeline, you work as a lowly secretary for years. And you, sheriff, you count pennies for the rest of your life. Where’s your breaks?”
“What about me?” Mrs. Elbee said, pinching the plastic covering of her bread. “I deserve a break.”
“You sure do, Grace,” Richie said. “You ain’t had it easy with George drinking away half your earnings.” He took the group’s measure in one sweeping glance. “Who’s looking out for all of you? I’ll tell you who: Richie Quail. But none of us gets a break unless we’re all in it together. You heard the girl. We’re the only people in the world who know she won.”
“Stop it right now, Richie,” the sheriff said. “I’d best not hear of anything happening to that girl or her ticket.”
“What are you proposing, Richie?” It was Mrs. Elbee, squeezing her bread into dough. “’Cause you’d best spit out your idea fast, before that girl gets home and tells the world she’s won.”
The real Richie Quail—the one in the front row—who, due to the strange phenomenon inside the tent, appeared less real than the one at Boyd’s, tried again to rise from his seat, but he was immediately and roughly restrained by Rafe’s henchmen, squeaking out nothing but, “Now hold on a gosh-darned—”
Meanwhile, the Quail inside the store got down to business. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. Either I get a share of that money or nobody does, including the girl.”
“Hold on a cotton-pickin’ minute,” said the sheriff.
“You’re crazy,” Adeline added. “We can’t steal her ticket. She won fair and square.”
“That’s just it!” said Quail. “There was nothing fair about it. She’s a minor, not allowed to buy a lottery ticket. And if I report that technicality, nobody wins.”
“But like I said,” Boyd stammered, “she was here with her mother.” He sounded so sheepish that not even a toddler would have believed him.
“For God’s sake, Boyd,” Quail shouted, “give me ten minutes and I’ll produce a dozen witnesses who claim you sold that girl a ticket while her mother was nowhere in the vicinity, and they’ll all be a damn sight better at lying than you.”
“I’ll be one of them,” Grace Elbee said, her voice as reedy as her expression was menacing.
“But, Richie—” the sheriff began.
“It’s true, Strike, and you know it. Once I put a bug in their ear, those lottery bigwigs will pounce like starved leopards. They’ll force the truth from that girl, and then nobody gets the money.”
“Then don’t put a bug in their ear,” the sheriff said.
“Can’t do that,” Quail said.
“Why not?” said the sheriff.
Quail smiled, and his malevolence had never been more palpable. “Because I’m Richie Quail and it would go against my principles to stay quiet about such a situation. Now we’re gonna track that girl down right now and offer her fifty thousand bucks on the spot. Cold, hard cash—”
“Nobody’s got that kind of money,” Adeline said.
“I can come up with it if I need to,” Quail said. “We tell the girl she needs to give us that ticket or else we report her, in which case nobody gets nothing. Believe me, I’ll put the fear of God in that child.”
“It’ll work,” Mrs. Elbee said, breathing hard. “It will definitely work.” She bit at the loose skin on her lip, the bread in her hand now the size of a large roll. “But we’ve got to hurry!”
“I’m still not clear on—” the sheriff began.
“Listen, Strike,” Richie said, barreling up to the much shorter man. “This here’s your one chance. Pay off your bills and keep that lottery money from going back to the state. The girl wins. We all win.”
Adeline approached the sheriff and stood close, laying a hand on his shoulder. “All we’re doing, Sheriff, is making a business proposal.” Her breathy voice had to be tickling his ear. “Not our fault that she and Boyd broke the rules, and she still comes out ahead, way ahead.”
Quail puffed up. “A winning ticket in Beulah, South Carolina—imagine! We could improve this town like nobody’s business. Heck, this’ll put us on the map.”
“We’ve got to decide now!” Mrs. Elbee yelled, working herself into a fit.
“What about me?” Boyd said in his boldest voice yet.
“We’ll cut you in,” Richie said, barely affording the wispy clerk a glance. “Not a full share—that wouldn’t look right—but more than enough for you to keep your trap shut.”
Boyd waggled his head to and fro, weighing the offer.
“Let’s go!” Adeline said, grabbing the sheriff by the arm and dragging him along. “Now!”
“She’ll be home any second!” Mrs. Elbee shouted, throwing the bread on the counter and declaring she would never pay for such a deformed loaf.
“We’re gonna get us some money!” Quail yelled, his hands clapping together and his fat face beaming.
As the sheriff reached the door, he mumbled, “Guess it can’t hurt to ask.”
In Rafe’s world, where we the audience were now willing prisoners, there was no fade to black. A new round of darkness slammed down, harshly depositing us back in the present, but only for a split second as the whizzing of tires on a bumpy road, punctuated by snippets of excited conversation, filled our ears.
Chapter 51
A Minute Before the Thump
“You’re putting me on!” Hoop said, shoving his fishing kit into his pocket.
“I swear on every home run The Babe ever hit,” Macy said, beaming. “You’re the first one I’m telling! What a birthday present for Momma, huh?”
Hoop and Macy were on Hoop’s favor
ite stretch of Old Pleasant Road. Not only did cars avoid the road due its array of ruts, bumps, and blind curves, but it had faithfully delivered him scores of times to his favorite snake-hunting hideaway. It was on Old Pleasant Road that he’d spotted his very first hoop snake at age five—or so he claimed. He’d been riding on the back of his mom’s motorcycle when she’d paused on the side of the road to adjust her helmet, and a hoop snake had rolled right past her front wheel. While she’d tried to convince him it was nothing but a red bicycle tire, she’d still allowed him to traipse to the swamp in search of it. When he came up empty, he claimed it was only more proof of a hoop snake.
See, Ma? That hoop snake rolled into the swamp, unlooped itself, and swam away.
He’d gone home that day and told his father that the mystery object had been too shiny for a bicycle tire and that nobody in Beulah owned a bicycle with a red tire anyway—certainly not one with black eyes and a mouthful of tail. He declared then and there, at age five, that he’d have himself a hoop snake for a pet one day, shrugging off all arguments to the contrary. His mother had wasted lots of breath trying to talk him out of his fancy notions, but she tended to live in a murky reality, where dreams didn’t quite pan out and plans never got much past the planning stage. It’d be years later that Hoop realized the only place his mother felt hopeful was on her bike—a Harley more suited for a man than a woman, but one that had become a natural extension of her body. Hoop liked to believe that when his mom had those two wheels purring beneath her, she, too, might believe in hoop snakes.
Hoop looked at Macy now, discouraged. It was an expression so foreign to him that it felt strange on his face. He kicked a pebble.
“What’s wrong, Hoop?”
“This is gonna change things, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” Macy said with a wide grin. “I’m gonna be richer than rich.”
“No, I mean between you and me.”
“Things between you and me ain’t even started. Not really.”
Hoop gasped. “What are you—”
“Well, you don’t think I’m staying in this peapod of a town, do you? I mean, girls with money don’t date boys from the likes of Beulah. And as for tonight’s plans, well—”
“I can’t believe this!” Hoop said. “This is not what I—”
Macy burst out laughing and slugged his arm. “Hoop, I’m kidding. Come on, you know better than that.” She looked away bashfully for a moment, but then returned her eyes to his. “Nothing’s gonna change, least as far as I can help it. I’ll see you tonight, just like we planned.”
Hoop smiled and slugged her arm in return. “You do know, don’t you, Macy?”
“Know what?”
“That all the money in the world can’t bring you happiness.”
“Course I know, but it can make being sad a lot more fun.”
Hoop laughed, unguarded and big. “Now that’s what I call a fine outlook, Macy, a fine outlook.”
“Gotta go,” she said. “Gotta get Momma to sign this ticket. Richie Quail just told me so.”
Hoop’s eyes turned to slits. “You be careful who you trust, now. Keep everything quiet for a while, least till you’ve got it all figured out. Like, I wouldn’t go telling your dad.”
Macy looked aghast. “Hoop, are you saying my dad’s a no-good, dirty, lying cheater who’d do anything to get his hands on my millions?”
Hoop kicked another pebble and squirmed in place. “Kinda, yeah.”
“Well, you about nailed it, then.” She winked but then turned somber. “Hey, promise me something.”
“Whatever you want.”
“If anything comes between me and this ticket, you gotta take care of Momma. I need her to be okay.”
Hoop scrunched up his mouth. “Don’t even talk like that, but yeah, of course. As long as you promise we’ll be together forever.”
Her smile provided all the answer he needed. “You never give up, do you?”
“A giving-up person is not a snake-catching kind of person, and I, Macy LeGrange, am a snake-catching kind of person.” He shrugged his slim shoulders. “Ain’t never gonna change my mind about you. And if you decide not to have me in this life, you’ll have me in the next—’cause we’re all hoop snakes in the end.”
He gazed at the girl he adored, a sudden sense of foreboding pulling him closer. He reached out a sure hand and touched hers, linking them together without pretense for the first time. Then he leaned over her handlebars and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. It was the first time he’d ever touched his lips to her skin, and the warmth of it nearly knocked him off his feet. When he pulled back, she was scrutinizing him, searching, yet awed, as if finally believing that it was indeed possible to find a soul mate in the boy next door.
Hoop smiled in a special way. The boy was known to have a hundred different smiles, but he’d rarely found a chance to use this one. She smiled back before lifting herself onto her pedal and pressing down, but she did glance back one more time as her bike coasted away. “What a day, huh, Hoop? What. A. Day.”
Hoop couldn’t agree more.
Macy had just gotten going when Hoop headed down to the swamp’s edge and stepped knee-deep into the water, silent as a heron, still as a rock. He’d always been able to camouflage himself with minimal effort, almost as if he were born to it. His dad had told him he was more in tune with nature than a stick bug sitting on a twig. Hiding in plain sight, his mother used to call it. But when an unnerving sensation grabbed hold of his gut, he whipped around to check on Macy. She tended to wobble when distracted and he suddenly needed to make sure she was okay; a turtle had once landed her in a ditch, and last year, a butterfly had sent her head-first into a patch of poison ivy. She looked fine, though. No wobbling.
He’d just returned his attention to the water when he heard a familiar engine roaring down the road.
Chapter 52
Light—sudden and absolute—coated the audience, but of a different sort this time. Sunlight. Streaming in from the window just over the sheriff’s shoulder as he drove his black-and-white down the road. It was still early morning.
We, the audience, were made to feel that we were in the car with the loathsome foursome.
The sheriff sped down the road as if in pursuit of a criminal. Quail, crammed in next to him, hogged more than his fair share of the front seat while Mrs. Elbee was squeezed tight against the passenger door. In the back, Adeline DeVore sat by herself, squished up against eight large boxes.
My perspective—everyone’s perspective—was from that of the boxes. Rafe had somehow given us the perspective of the empty seat, yet we were still able to see the contents of that seat.
“What’s in these boxes, anyway?” Adeline whined from the back.
“Old clothes and kitchen supplies,” said the sheriff. “I was headed to Goodwill this morning after Boyd’s.”
“Wish you’d done it first,” she said.
The sheriff frowned. “Wasn’t exactly planning on passengers today.”
He rounded the bend where the road veered toward the swamp. Richie Quail, meanwhile, was behaving like a kid unleashed in a toy store for the first time. He reached out and pressed a button near the center of the console, causing splashes of red and blue lights to cascade around the edges of the car.
The sheriff hit his hand away and shut off the exterior lights. “Cut it out, Richie! Don’t be touching everything!”
“I never been in a police car before,” Richie said, laughing and pointing. “What’s this do?”
“Siren,” the sheriff grumbled. “Now sit tight. We’ll be coming up on her soon enough. Who’s gonna do the talking?”
“I should do it,” Adeline said. “I’m real good with kids.”
“Please,” Richie said dismissively. “If anyone’s going to do the talking, it’ll be me. That girl owes me two months of—”
“Absolutely not!” Mrs. Elbee shouted. “You’re a bear, Richie. I know her. I’ll—”
“
Maybe we oughta let the sheriff do it,” Adeline yelled from the back.
“Yeah,” Richie said. “Make it real official-like.”
With a rascally grin on his face and a quick side-eye to the sheriff, Quail slammed his pudgy finger down on the thin metal lever to switch on the siren.
The blaring sound stabbed mercilessly in my eardrums. Surely, everyone in the audience was experiencing the same thing. Just as my hands were about to shoot up and cover my ears, I spotted the back of Macy’s head . . . Macy’s perfect head . . . her honey-blond locks swishing freely back and forth. She pedaled hard, riding on the extreme edge of the road, and she even seemed to be trembling a bit, probably because of the horrible siren bearing down on her.
“Dammit, Richie!” the sheriff screamed. “Draw a little more attention to us, why don’t you?”
Richie smacked at the lever and switched off the siren but ended up knocking the lever clean off. It clattered to the floor of the car near the sheriff’s feet.
The sheriff glanced down to where the lever should have been. “For God’s sake, what’d you do now? You knocked—”
Quail leaned left, jarring the sheriff while reaching down and around his own girth to find a half-inch lever no wider than the spoke of a bike.
“Let it go,” the sheriff said.
“No, I’ll get it,” Quail said. The whole of his weight pinned the sheriff’s body while the upper folds of his massive arm pressed against the wheel, rotating it fifteen degrees to the right.
As time slowed down and my heart became paralyzed with the imminence of the next moment, I tried to scream, to grab the wheel, to steer anywhere else. But I was nothing but a mute, immobile passenger, forced into futility. Forced to bear witness.
Macy’s head came closer. Her bike loomed just ahead.
“Look out!” Mrs. Elbee screeched, throwing her arms up in front of her.
“Oh my God! Turn! You’re gonna hit—” Adeline DeVore squealed as her white-knuckled fingers grabbed the back of the seat, her nails nearly ripping the vinyl.