Scumble

by Ingrid Law

  Even if I’d wanted more scumbling lessons from the twins in the following days, I wouldn’t have gotten them. The morning after the sign went up, Marisol and Mesquite began disappearing with Fedora early and returning home late, all three coming back head to toe in dirt just before dark. Whatever the girls were doing, they were tripling their efforts.

  “Can I help?” I asked at breakfast two days later, absentmindedly tying knots in the tops of all the nails protruding from the picnic table, which I’d recently helped Autry and Rocket put back together.

  “No, you can’t,” Marisol answered, not looking at me.

  “You can help me, Ledge,” Gypsy offered. “I’m in charge of watching the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwings today while Uncle Autry goes into town.” Her face sparkled as she went on. “They’ve nearly all emerged! Mostly males. But we’re hoping the rest are female. Autry says the Alexandras don’t usually breed in captivity. They need special plants. But if he can manage it, it could mean big things for the ranch, for the butterflies . . . for everyone! People need to see them! This world is so much better with them in it!” Gypsy kept talking, but I quickly stopped listening, getting up to look for my uncle instead. Autry hadn’t joined us at the table.

  I found him by his truck.

  “You’re going into town?” I asked.

  “To see if I can talk to Noble,” he answered, his face drawn, all traces of cheeriness gone. I knew I had to tell him about the fence before he saw it for himself, or heard about it from Noble Cabot. I’d wanted to tell him for the last two days; the truth was eating away at me like termites. But for two days, I hadn’t found the courage. And I wasn’t finding it any better now.

  “Y-you’re going to SJ’s? I—I mean, to Cabot’s house?”

  Autry shook his head. “I’m going to his office.”

  “That CAD Company place?” I asked, trying to swallow.

  My uncle turned to look at me, reaching out to grip my shoulder hard. The gravel around his boots shifted and dozens of fat earthworms wriggled up out of the soil, all wiggling and waggling like scolding fingers, while a spider worked busily, building a web in the open window of the truck.

  “Ledger. Please tell me you haven’t been back to Sundance! Tell me you’ve followed my one rule and stayed away from the Cabots.”

  I shuffled my feet. The morning sun wasn’t yet hot and I hadn’t gone for a run, but sweat still trickled down my spine.

  “I—I haven’t put a shoe inside their house. Just like I promised,” I answered, feeling lower than the worms at my uncle’s feet.

  Autry squinted at me, then nodded.

  “Good boy,” he said. “Keep that promise!” Releasing my shoulder, he slapped me on the back. The earthworms retreated, though the spider kept on spinning. And I was left wondering more than ever what the trouble between Cabot and my uncle might be.

  “What’s Mr. Cabot’s problem, anyway?” I asked as Autry climbed into the truck. I hadn’t been able to get Sarah Jane out of my mind since I last saw her, or stop worrying about what might’ve happened after she took credit for my destruction.

  “Did you turn fire ants loose at a Cabot family picnic or something? Or is this some old family feud?” I asked, plying my uncle with questions. “Did Eva Mae Ransom refuse to share her gold with Noble’s great-great-great-great-grandfather? Or does Cabot really just not like anyone who’s different? He can’t even know how different we really are!”

  Autry hesitated before starting up the truck. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he watched his truck’s radio antenna twist and bend—as he saw it shift from a corkscrew, to a pretzel, to a hook-like question mark as I held my ground. Instantly, I stopped my careless sculpting, realizing that I’d just shown precisely why Noble Cabot might know about—and dislike—our differences.

  Uncle Autry turned the key in the ignition, making the engine roar and the spiderweb in his window shiver.

  “Just keep your promise, Ledger,” he repeated. “Stay out of Cabot’s business!”

  Chapter 27

  WHEN AUTRY RETURNED TO THE RANCH, the lines in his face were etched deeper than they’d been before he left. Mr. Cabot had refused to speak to him. Instead, he’d instructed two of his workmen to escort my uncle out of the CAD Co. building and back to his truck.

  The next day, Autry left his beetle bolo behind and put on a proper suit and tie, headed to the bank, hoping to borrow enough to pay off what he owed.

  “Cabot loaned Autry the money to build the conservatory after the twins were born and Autry’s wife died,” Rocket had explained when we first saw the foreclosure sign. “But Cabot’s beef isn’t only with Autry. It’s bigger than that. He thinks he’s protecting Sarah Jane.” Rocket snorted as he said it. He obviously knew more than he was saying. But when I continued to press him, all he said was: “Wounded animals can be dangerous, Ledge. Some wounded people can be too.” He gave me an apologetic grimace. “Listen to Autry, don’t get too close to Cabot.”

  No one needed to ask Autry how it went at the bank. He hadn’t even parked his truck before dark swarms began hovering over the ranch. Autry sank into an uncharacteristic funk, disappearing into the conservatory for hours at a time, sometimes not coming out until well after dark. We found mealworms in our cereal and cicadas in our socks. The honeybees were lethargic. The lightning bugs didn’t light. Even the grasshoppers wouldn’t hop; they just sat, sluggish, in the grass.

  Calls from Mom and Dad went straight to Autry’s voicemail. So did those from Aunt Jenny and Uncle Abram. Uncle Autry battled a case of mule-headed pride, hoping to fix his foreclosure problems on his own, knowing that no one in the family was in high cotton.

  I didn’t mind that Autry never answered his phone. I hadn’t gone for a run since the foreclosure sign went up. I told myself I needed to rest my twisted ankle. But in truth, I needed to figure some things out. I wasn’t ready yet to tell my dad that I was building some new ideas for my future.

  Fedora and I would probably be going home soon. I guessed Mom and Dad would come pick us up as soon as they found out about the foreclosure, whether they thought I’d learned something about scumbling or not. I was pretty sure I had enough control now not to wreck the van. Maybe, if I kept practicing, I’d be able to go back to school in the fall as well. But I couldn’t help wonder: What would Dad think if I told him I wanted to drop out of track and try something new—like art club? What would Josh and Ryan say if I dusted off my LEGOs and Erector Sets? What if I bent the flagpole in front of Theodore Roosevelt Middle School into a lineman’s knot and Big Mouth Brody told the world?

  Rocket and I began spending more and more time at the salvage yard, driving there in his truck every morning after breakfast. I wanted to fix what I could before I had to leave. The Knucklehead was coming together nicely—even if we were rebuilding it bit by bit, the old-fashioned way. Even if, sometimes, Rocket and Winona got distracted.

  “Hello? Kid here! Please keep all goo-goo eyes to a minimum!” I’d shout, shielding my own eyes whenever the two of them got too close. But sometimes, seeing them together, I couldn’t help thinking about Sarah Jane.

  I worried about SJ in that big old house, with only her father and Hedda the Horrible for company. Hiking down from Rocket’s each morning, I’d catch myself thinking I’d seen a glint of green eyes or a flash of white-blond braids in the shadows of the trees around the ranch. Then I’d realize that I’d only caught the glint of green in a magpie’s wing or the white-and-tan flash of a running antelope, and I’d be surprised to find myself disappointed.

  The chummier Rocket and Winona got, the more time I spent on my own in the salvage yard. The place rocked in my head like a symphonic scrap metal band, the buzzing, itching sensation of ants beneath my skin rarely bothering me anymore. Like growing into a coat Mom bought on sale two years too early, or adjusting to the way my voice had started squeaking and croaking on its way to a lower register, I was getting comfortable with my savvy at last. It was
becoming a part of me. A part I was actually starting to like.

  Maybe when I got home, everything would fit together.

  I practiced as often as I could, trying out new things in the farthest reaches of the salvage yard, so far out I couldn’t see the repair bay, hoping that, at such a distance, Winona couldn’t see me either.

  I took apart the frame of a ’61 Corvair and put it back together three or four times—faster each time—wishing I had Dad’s stopwatch to clock my speed. Beginning to wish that Dad were there to see me do it.

  I created a bridge from the chassis of two dented Range Rovers and a reclining rhinoceros out of an old RV. I even stacked spark plugs like toilet paper tubes to build the Eiffel Tower. This time my tower only leaned a little—my third-grade art teacher would’ve been so proud. But I still had nothing close to Winona’s talent. My rhino looked more like a stepped-on roach, and my bridge wobbled when I walked across it.

  After returning to Winona’s sculpture garden a dozen times, I pleaded with her to let me peek under the tarp that hid her work-in-progress still inside the shop.

  “Please can I see what you’re building now?” I begged.

  “Okay, okay!” she sighed, giving in at last. “But you have to promise to be nice and not make fun—both of you—because it’s still in pieces. I keep taking it apart and putting it back together. I can’t quite get it right.” Rocket knew all about Winona’s artwork; I’d dragged him out to see her sculptures as soon as he joined Team Knucklehead.

  “We won’t make fun!” Rocket assured Winona. Then he grinned. “Unless it’s funny.” Winona thumped Rocket in the chest with a wrench, but he didn’t let a single blue spark fly.

  “Don’t make me take you apart, mister!” Winona threatened.

  Rocket and I exchanged glances, then exploded in an eruption of uncontrolled laughter that doubled me over and brought tears to Rocket’s eyes. Winona gripped the edges of the tarp, ignoring us.

  “Hey, sometimes things have to come apart before they can become something new.” So saying, she pulled the covering aside with a flourish. Still chuckling, Rocket moved next to Winona, standing close and gazing up at her creation. Putting on a serious face, the corners of his mouth only twitching a little, he tilted his head to one side, trying to discern a recognizable shape in the hodgepodge of spare parts.

  “Wow! It’s a . . . It’s a . . .” Rocket scratched his head.

  “You can’t tell?” Winona gave him another thump with her wrench.

  “Oof! Ow! Is it a donkey?” he asked, laughing again as he wrestled the wrench out of Winona’s hand. I stared up at the sculpture too. I didn’t laugh. I recognized the shape immediately: rounded back end, tufted tail, branching antlers sprouting from between two long ears . . .

  “It’s a jackalope!” I said, remembering the broken magnet Fedora bought at Willie’s Five & Dime.

  Winona nodded at me, beaming.

  “See?” she said to Rocket, grabbing back her wrench and jabbing him in the stomach with it. “Another artist can see my vision right away!”

  “Is that what you are, Ledger?” Rocket asked. I looked up, thinking Rocket was razzing me the same way he’d razzed Winona. But even though his smile was wicked and toothy, I could tell from the look in his eyes that his question was no joke.

  I shrugged, even as my face went red.

  “Don’t worry, Ledge.” Rocket winked. “You’ve got a long life ahead of you—you’ll figure out how to put yourself together.”

  The following Monday, the last giant butterfly emerged from its chrysalis, and Rocket brought me a another envelope from the post office. My pulse raced as I recognized SJ’s handwriting.

  To: Cowboy Ledge, Escape Artist

  and Master Fence Bender

  Rocket didn’t glower like he had when he’d handed me Sarah Jane’s first envelope. But he didn’t look Green Giant jolly either.

  “Is there anything you want to tell me, Ledge?” he asked, pointing to the words Master Fence Bender on the envelope. I paused before answering, watching the others go inside the Bug House to see all the butterflies. The twins floated Grandpa into the conservatory in his comfy chair, while Samson’s thin outline followed. Next to Samson’s shadow, Fedora bounced like a jumping bean soaked forty days in Red Bull and then set out in the sun.

  The successful appearance of seven male and five female Queen Alexandra’s Birdwings had improved Uncle Autry’s mood substantially—enough to make the rest of us stop checking our breakfast for bugs. But I still didn’t think it wise to say anything about the Cabots’ fence.

  I crumpled the envelope. “This is probably just one of Sarah Jane’s newspapers. I must have won some kind of free subscription or something. I’ll throw it away.”

  Rocket looked down at the envelope, raising his thumb to his jaw in his old nervous habit, trying to rub at the beard he no longer had. Dropping his hand, he murmured: “Just be careful, Ledge.” But he said nothing more.

  I held my breath until Rocket joined the others in the Bug House. Then I ran to sit on the far side of the potting shed, where I’d be out of sight of everyone—everyone but Bitsy, who followed me, tail wagging.

  I stared at the crinkled envelope for several minutes before tearing it open. I’d been wondering if I’d ever hear from Sarah Jane again. Even if it was only one of her newspapers in the envelope, it reassured me that she must be okay. Besides, as long as this new edition of The Sundance Scuttlebutt was not about my family, it would be good to have something new to read. I still carried SJ’s notebook in my pocket; I’d practically memorized every story in it. I’d finally given in to the fact that, somewhere along the way, I’d actually started liking Sarah Jane—despite all of her cheats and sneaks and tricks.

  But the envelope didn’t contain a newspaper. Instead, it held a letter.

  Sarah Jane had signed her initials in the same crooked way I’d sculpted them into the iron fence before blasting the fence to pieces. Her words, underlined and capitalized, jumped off the paper and climbed into my brain. Adrenaline made my heart race faster; my blood pounded in my ears. Even sitting where I was behind the potting shed, my knees began to hammer up and down. My legs were restless. Itching to run.

  Gah! Sarah Jane’s dad was so mean!

  He’d locked her in her room!

  I had to get there now!

  I leaped up, tripping over Bitsy. Completely under the spell of Sarah Jane’s urgent letter, I didn’t see the twins coming around the side of the potting shed until we collided. Fedora ran past the rest of us, oblivious, and disappeared into the shed.

  I stuffed SJ’s letter back into its envelope. But before I had time to jam it in my pocket or hide it behind my back, Marisol levitated the envelope out of my grip.

  “Did you get a love letter, Ledge?” Marisol baited me irritably as she dangled the envelope six feet above my head.

  “Ooh! Do you have a girlfriend now too, Sledgehammer ?” Mesquite made kissing noises as she swished the envelope back and forth with a flick of her little finger. “Are you and Rocket going to double-date?”

  I didn’t have time for the twins’ halfhearted attempts at torture. Sarah Jane needed me now! Her letter said so. I flicked a finger of my own, startling Marisol and Mesquite by nabbing the envelope, easily creating a lunging snare from the chicken wire strung around Rocket’s garden. The wire snapped up to grab the paper from the air, like a giant frog’s tongue snagging a hapless fly.

  “Whoa! Ledge! When did you learn to do that?” Mesquite took a step back, dropping her ornery attitude in a flash. Marisol also forgot to be snippy and whooped out loud.

  “Whoo-hoo! Our lessons worked! Good karma, here we come! Just in time, too! We needed a solid turn in our luck.” Marisol and Mesquite both rubbed my belly like I’d turned into the golden Buddha laughing in the entryway of Mr. Lee’s Panda Palace.

  Fedora came out of the potting shed just then, clutching a mud-caked shovel and eyeing the sharp edges of the chicken wi
re warily as I unwrapped Sarah Jane’s envelope from its snare.

  “Look sharp, Ledge!” Fedora said. “Don’t get cut!”

  As I took off running toward the south ridge, heading straight for Sundance, I wondered what safety advice Fe would’ve offered had she known where I was going.

  As if she could read my mind, my sister shouted after me:

  “Don’t learn safety by accident, Ledge! Think through it before you do it!” But the morning breeze caught Fedora’s words and blew them away.

  It hardly mattered—I couldn’t listen. Sarah Jane’s letter was still in control of my brain.

  Chapter 28

  FUELED BY THE URGENCY WRITTEN INTO every compelling vowel and consonant of Sarah Jane’s letter, my legs flew on autopilot. I was halfway to Sundance before my head cleared and I started thinking for myself. Still, I didn’t stop. Maybe I’d needed to take a break from running for a while to realize how much I missed it. Wherever my savvy talents were taking me, I was glad to know I could still run if I had to—or if I wanted to. Who said I couldn’t run the half marathon with Dad and join the art club at Theodore Roosevelt Middle School?

  It wasn’t long before I was leaning against my knees, trying to catch my breath as I stared at the fence posts stacked in a pile on the Cabots’ front lawn. How was I going to break Sarah Jane out without alerting Hedda the Horrible to my presence?

  I knew Mr. Cabot wasn’t home. All of Sundance knew it. Mr. Cabot was the Big Boss of the Backhoe, standing tall in his gleaming yellow hard hat as he supervised the total destruction of the T-shirt shop down the street from Willie’s Five & Dime. Now that the five-and-dime had its own foreclosure sign, I wondered how long Willie had before his shop got torn down too.

  I could hear the noise of the CAD Co. demolition vehicles from where I stood in front of the Cabot house. I could see the cloud of dust that rose above the town. I hoped that Sarah Jane was correct about being able to prove her dad was doing wrong by coming after the Flying Cattleheart. The image of those wreckers finishing what I’d started on the night of Fish’s wedding wasn’t one I liked.