Bobby stepped out of Peck’s and stopped to pick it up for her. Mrs. Mitcham caught my eye, and I waved. She blew me back a kiss and winked, turning to chat with Bobby.
Smiling, I rested my elbows on my knees, remembering the long powdery-purple dressing gown, the one of Mama’s that she’d given me to make into a play dress. I’d worn it to play in the cave with ThommaLyn. I thought about Jessum riding Daddy out to Penitentiary Hole on a tractor, and how he must have looked. I’d have to show Bobby the hole someday.
It had been years, possibly ten or more, since I’d played in that cave. An opening no bigger than six feet tall and maybe eight feet wide with a trail in about twenty-five feet, Penitentiary Hole had been declared “off-limits” by Daddy, who said it was crumbly and too dangerous. But before that, Mama had helped me bury a small time capsule inside. What and where exactly, I couldn’t remember. It was so long ago. And the old cave was probably serving as a coyote den by now. Last year, while he was mending the fence row, Daddy saw a coyote carrying one of its pups out of the hole.
Bobby sprinted across the street and flopped down beside me. He pressed his hand over mine, stilling my speedy thumb, which had been sweeping across my fingertips like a cuckoo clock’s hand gone cartoon crazy. I felt my cheeks take on a shine.
“That Mrs. Mitcham sure is a firecracker.” Bobby laughed and shook his head. He set his Dr. Pepper between us, opened a box of Cracker Jacks, and shoveled a handful into his mouth. “Want some?”
“She could flirt the slippers right off a Gethsemani monk.” I grinned, taking the Cracker Jacks. I poured a few of the molasses clusters into my hand and passed the box back to Bobby. “Thanks.”
“The jail’s still locked and I noticed that Jingles’s car is gone,” he said, munching away. “One of the guys in Peck’s said he thought Jingles and his deputy ran over to Millwheat on a tip about stolen cars.”
“Damn.”
“Besides shopping, what’d ThommaLyn have to say?”
“Nothing much, just that Daddy had called to say he’s running into Nashville today. Probably working on one of his cases. Guess we could head out to the homestead for a bit. Jingles might be a while if he’s off in Millwheat,” I said, crunching out my words with a mouthful of nuts and popcorn.
Bobby rattled the box of Cracker Jacks, pulled out the sticky prize, and handed it to me. He tossed back the remaining candy clusters.
I ripped open the small red-and-white-striped package and laughed at the Lucky Star wishing game—a card made into a tiny pinball game, covered with a plastic bubble. I rattled it, and watched the copper ball roll into the starred-shape YES, then bounce back and slide into the NO slot.
“Make a wish.” I shoved the toy in front of him and wriggled it back and forth.
“I wish . . . I’d gotten a super-duper decoder ring instead,” he pouted.
“Um, it’s NO!” I chuckled. I tilted the toy sideways and studied the words: Yes, No, Yes, No. “Hey, when I was little, I’d always make a wish upon a star before bedtime prayers. Grammy Essie had this quote she liked: ‘A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.’ Phillips Brooks, I think.”
I hoped that was true, because lately it seemed like my prayers for Mama were ricocheting—my wishes fading like a star’s final wink before dawn. I could only pray that I would keep the one I’d made about Bobby. I traced the word Lucky on the card.
“What’s your wish, Mudas Elizabeth Summers?”
“Hmmm . . . I wish—”
Bobby jumped up. The Dr. Pepper fell to the sidewalk and shattered apart—its toothy glass neck rolling into the street. Dropping the toy, I looked up to see a silver Mercedes crawling toward us—McGee’s. Manly Carter, a man Daddy had put away for a short stint a few years back, sat shotgun, sneering out the passenger window.
“Let’s book, Mudas! McGee’s looking for that rooster invoice. We’re not safe here, anywhere, until we find Sheriff or your dad. Let’s go find your dad!”
Panic rooted me to the bench.
Bobby grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me toward the street. He shot McGee the bird as we hotfooted it behind his car, then slammed his fist down on the Mercedes’s trunk.
We barreled past to cross to the courthouse commons, and I looked back and glimpsed my Lucky Star prize being lifted off Liar’s Bench by a gust of wind, my wish tossed like litter into the street. I glared at McGee and his beefy passenger.
Bobby hopped into the Mustang while I dug inside my pockets for the key.
“C’mon, c’mon.” He smacked the passenger door twice.
I fumbled with the key. Finally, I managed to grasp it and fling open the driver’s side door, throwing myself into the seat. With an unsteady hand, I turned the ignition. The radio blared “American Woman.” The car lurched forward twice and died. Trying again, I took a breath and eased off the clutch. The car jerked out onto Main Street.
“Knobmole Hill! Get us to Knobmole Hill!” Bobby rasped. “Then we can make it across to your homestead. He won’t dare come onto your dad’s land!”
“But, Bobby—”
“We have to find your dad. He’s the prosecutor—he’ll know what to do!”
“Okay, okay!” I tightened my hold on the steering wheel. Looking into the rearview, I spied McGee’s car making a U-turn at Liar’s Bench. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see,” Bobby reassured me as I glanced back again. McGee’s tires crushed my Cracker Jack prayers.
20
Powerful Pony
We rode without talking for several minutes, Bobby and I each locked in our own thoughts. Mine, occupied by attempts to bolster my courage, but getting crowded out by fear and worries.
The radio kicked off and on, alternately blaring melody and static. Bobby thumped the dash to change the station and an announcer called out Thursday’s weather: “Hot and sunny.” My clothes seemed to melt into my skin.
We whizzed past Gib McBride’s cornfield and tobacco barn, and rounded a sharp bend. I hit a straight stretch and snuck a peek in the rearview mirror. “McGee’s still behind us, Bobby.”
“With a 289 under this hood, we can haul ass and leave McGee eating exhaust.” Bobby’s worried eyes met mine, his hands gripping the dash. “Keep it tight, Mudas, Satan’s Corner is up ahead.”
“Tryin’.”
“Lean in a little tighter. C’mon, you can do it!”
I felt my forehead bead up with sweat. I was sure I could put some distance between us and McGee if I kept my speed on Satan’s Corner. I pulled into the inside of the curve, putting all my strength in my hands and wrists. If I could just hold it and come out tight and straight, maybe we’d lose them. We were almost out of the curve, when the front left tire hit something—a rock, or a branch, maybe—and the wheel jerked, loosening my hands. Puffs of dust kicked up on the right. A hubcap flew off, hula-hooping toward the shoulder. Both of my tires squealed and the wheel wobbled uselessly in my hands. I could feel the pony slipping sideways. I turned the wheel against the slide, trying to straighten out, and the whole rear whipped back—too hard and too fast. I fought to straighten out the car’s fishtail course.
Bobby yelled out, “It’s Satan’s Corner! Ease up on the gas!”
The car straightened, and it hit me: In our haste to get out of town, I hadn’t put on my lap belt. What a fool! I reached behind me, groping for the belt, but I couldn’t find it and the wheel was growing unsteady in my hand. I returned my other hand to the wheel, giving up on the belt, resigned to my stupidity. Through a haze of fright, I made my way up narrow Knobmole Hill. I could feel the car gaining speed and was almost to the top of the hill when I stole another glimpse behind us. McGee’s car veered around Satan’s Corner. Brakes hissed and swirls of dirt plumed from the Mercedes. Then I lost sight of their car.
“Easy, easy . . .” Bobby urged.
He looked over his shoulder. “I can’t see them. Maybe they ran off the shoulder.”
My thoughts were tangled, images of Mama and D
addy flitting in and out. I thought of Mama and Genevieve sitting in my car, just eight days ago. “You got yourself a powerful pony . . . always wear your lap belt, sugar,” she’d cautioned.
Desperately I fumbled again for the seat belt and managed to snatch it up. I pulled it across my waist, but it failed to connect. As I struggled, the car crested a hill and the rear wheels made a different sound—not grinding, just whipping. My pony had gone airborne.
“Whoa—” Both my hands gripped the skinny steering wheel harder, my nails digging into my palms. “Hang on!”
Bobby hissed through his teeth.
“Oh—” My brain did the math right fast, but came up short on time and distance.
For a quivering second, a flash of Bobby’s kiss streamed across my mind like an airplane’s trailing banner.
My stomach flipped, then grabbed my throat as the Mustang dropped and bottomed out too hard on the blacktop. The car jostled me like a Tilt-A-Whirl. My head bounced off the steering wheel, hard, blinding me for a second. The sound of Bobby’s head smacking the dash broke through the roaring in my ears.
Metal screeched from the pony’s underside, and tires squealed and hissed. My foot took on a mind of its own, slamming hard on the brake. I felt myself being squeezed against the door, the pony going in the opposite direction, skidding sideways. The frame tilted back to the right, onto what must’ve been the side of the road, and kept sliding and sliding.
I leaned against the door, bracing my neck, shoulders, and legs on anything that wasn’t moving. But the car kept going and going—down, sideways, and then down some more—until it finally stopped.
I heard a whimper, maybe my own. Smoke rose from the hood, obscuring my vision and stinging my eyes. I tried to think straight.... Out—I had to get out of the car. I fumbled for the latch, pushing and kicking until the door opened. I crawled out, whimpering for Bobby and hearing nothing in response. I scrambled farther away from the car, thinking maybe I could see Bobby if I could just get away from all this smoke. I called for him again, desperate. After a weighty pause, I heard his door crack open, followed by a thud on the far side of the car as he rolled out and hit the ground. I heard him coughing and breathed a sigh of relief. He was okay. Bobby was okay. Safe in that knowledge, I rolled over and let myself drift off into the darkness that beckoned.
Sometime later, I awoke facedown in Kentucky clay, stirred to consciousness by a loud, staticky version of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.” I cocked my head, listening. The radio must have kicked itself on in the crash. A guitar strumming, fading into mellifluous notes, a horn laddering into Morrison’s bluesy words . . . I sat up, wobbly, and spat out bloodied grit. Pieces of bluegrass and tiny shards of glass plastered my body like decorations on a cake.
I looked around, trying to get my bearings. A thicket of brush and trees obscured Knobmole Hill behind us and a steep drop beckoned a few feet ahead. The car rested upright in a deep rut beside a nearby pine. Peggy sat there, as if mocking me for not wearing my lap belt. “Uh-oh,” I blinked hard. “The muffler’s hanging, Daddy’s gonna bust.” I looked down at my body. No real blood, just a few pricks here and there from the shattered glass. My head felt like Jell-O.
I let myself fall backward and stared up at the blue summer sky. The ghostly promise of a full Sturgeon moon was already appearing, even though night was still hours away. I blinked and then rolled my head back and forth and raised my hands. “D-d-doet, dooet, doo ah ooo-O-et . . .” I slipped into Morrison’s verse and sang softly. My fingers punched the air, orchestrating to the winds. “Doo . . . D-da . . . da-umn right it’s to-oo late to stop now-o-o-ow . . .” I lulled myself back into darkness.
21
Too Late Now
I struggled to come fully awake, willing myself to focus on my name.
“Mudas. Mudas, wake up. C’mon now . . . wake up, Mudas!” His words drummed off me.
Two light smacks on my cheeks and my lids flew open to see Bobby’s eyes full of fear. His face was blossomed with it, so full-mooned it frightened me.
I bolted upright. A deafening chorus of insects and the grating cries of squabbling blackbirds pummeled my brain. I shut my eyes and clamped my hands over my ears. The smell of burnt rubber and oil rode the breeze. A blast of radio static echoed around the hill, bass thrumming before abruptly shutting itself off.
I groaned.
Bobby embraced me. “I thought I’d lost you, Mudas. You scared the crap outta me!” His heart thundered against mine. “Here, let’s take a look at you.” He inspected my face.
“Ouch . . . A headache from hitting the wheel, I think.” I rubbed my temples and rose to my knees.
“Can you stand?” Bobby winced as he eased me up onto my feet. A trickle of blood from his forehead slid down toward his eye.
“Uh-huh.” I swayed and grabbed his arm. “You okay, Bobby? I couldn’t find you. Thought I heard you once, but then everything went black.”
“Yeah, I crawled out of the car after you did.” He grimaced. “Just a few scratches. Busted my forehead a bit.” He wiped his blood-speckled face onto his sleeve. He clutched his side. “Ribs are a little sore from being tossed around.”
“Ribs? Any of them broke?”
“Doesn’t feel like they’re cracked, probably bruised.” Bobby took a slow breath. “It’s bad that you popped that hill flying, but good that we ended up over here behind this brush. McGee probably flew right past us and is running around the county chasing a phantom car.”
“I should’ve taken Gib’s cornfield when I had the chance.”
“We’d likely be in worse shape than we are now. Ol’ man Gib would’ve skinned us alive if we so much as snapped a single stalk.”
I let out a laugh, but it caught in my throat. I buried my face in my hands and sank to the grass. Bobby put his hand on my back, but it felt smothering, like he was taking up all my air.
“Please . . .” I shook my head, my face still in his hands. “Please go away, just give me a minute,” I begged. Bobby moved over to the bluff in silence. Hugging my knees to my chest, I buried my face in their crook.
My body was racked with horrors, my gut hollowed. Thoughts of Bobby dead formed a grim carousal looping in my brain, squeaking: I could have killed Bobby. I could have killed him. Killed him. I could not stand to lose anyone else.
A spontaneous combustion lit my heart aflame, rewired my brain, and sent a singular message through my veins: I loved him. Yes, I was knee-knocking, heart-aching, scent-sense full of love for that boy. For Bobby. It was one of those clarifying moments, when life comes into focus and you see everything exactly how it is and how it ought to be. And just like that, I knew. Plain as day.
After a spell, Bobby came over and knelt down in front of me.
“Hey,” he whispered, tugging gently on the hem of my bell-bottoms. “Hey, I should’ve driven, but there wasn’t time. I’m sorry I made you do that. I just, I knew you’d driven this road a million times practicing in your dad’s car. And it’s a good shortcut, ’cause it’s pretty much empty.”
I wiped my face on my sleeve.
“Hey, look at me.” Bobby lifted my chin. “At that speed, I don’t know any boy who could’ve taken Satan’s Corner any better than you—Hell’s bells, Mudas, I dunno about you, but I do believe that when you tightened that curve, I saw an angel flashing a Come-to-Jesus sign.” He glided his thumb across my wet cheeks.
“Yeah?”
“Sure enough,” Bobby soothed.
“I could’ve killed you.”
“I’m fine.” He thumped his chest, grinning. “And you’re fine. Got a bit of concrete rash going on, but hey, you’re okay. I’m okay.” He swept back my hair and examined my head. “How you feelin’ now? Head okay?”
“Yeah,” I moaned. “I only see two of you; your third just walked away.”
“Good, then give us a kiss, both of us.”
I raised a brow and lightly kissed the air beside each cheek. Bobby chuckled.
“Listen, Bobby, I want you to know how much it means to me, everything you’re doing to help out. Putting me up at your Gramps’ . . . it’s—it’s really cool of you.”
“Aw, c’mon, Mudas. You’re making me blush,” he said.
“Yeah, well. I just thought . . .”
“I know. I also know I’m never going to leave you.” He smiled. “Listen, the car’s got a few dings, a busted side window,” he said. “But I think it’ll be okay. . . . It’ll need to be towed back up to the road, though. And McGee’ll likely realize soon enough that we didn’t take the rest of the hill and retrace his steps back along this stretch to make sure we didn’t pull off onto another road. So we’d best wait, maybe a half hour? Then I can climb up the embankment and try to flag somebody down.”
I took a seat in the shade of a tall bush to escape the heat.
Bobby walked over to the car. He pulled out the Mason jar and stashed it inside the trunk. “Hey, Mudas”—he pointed to my jeans—“you wanna put the senator’s receipt inside the diary?” He held the trunk lid open.
“Yeah, can’t lose this,” I said, patting my jeans, my pocket half-ripped and dangling. I gave him the paper.
Bobby put it with the journal and slammed the trunk shut, then fished out the keys from his pocket again. “Oh . . . Saw some wire in there. Maybe I can hook the muffler back on.”
The trunk latch must’ve frozen because Bobby tried four times to unlock it, before giving up. He checked out the engine, radiator, and hoses. Hopping inside the Mustang, he turned the key. The engine cranked easily. The radio blasted Ike and Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.” Inspired, he got out and unsuccessfully tried to rock the Mustang out of its rut.
Having no luck, Bobby climbed up the bank’s edge. After about three minutes of alternating between standing, pacing, and crouching, he jumped up, waving both hands in the air. He hollered over his shoulder, “Someone’s coming in a truck.”
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