Blossoms Meet the Vulture Lady (4 page)

He pulled his hand in and poked it out at the corner. He could feel the screws at the top, the huge screws that held the four corner supports. He could reach those, but that did him no good. His heart sank lower. The screwdriver was back in the barn.

There was only one answer. He would have to go out the way he had come in: through the door. He licked his dry lips and bent low to inspect the latches.

The door was latched on either side—double latches, and both of them had caught. It hurt him to remember how happy he had been at finding two latches in Pap’s junk box. “Double security,” he had cried in the dusty empty barn. He had even danced a little around his invention.

He slipped one dirty finger through the hog wire and tried to jiggle the latch. It was firm. He tried the other side. It was caught firmly too. And the only way to open them, he remembered, was with the blade of a knife. You slipped the knife in and flipped up the latch.

“Piece of cake,” he had cried when he flipped them open, a hundred years ago, back in the Blossom barn.

The knife was back at the barn, too, lying on the ground beside the screwdriver.

Junior glanced at his watch: 3:05. Junior shook his head. He guessed that he had been in the trap about twenty-five hours. Tears filled his eyes.

Actually it had only been six minutes, time enough to realize that he was not going to get out of the trap without outside help.

He spent the next six minutes yelling “Help! Will somebody please let me out of this thing! Please!” at the top of his lungs. He spent the next two minutes listening for sounds of help on the way.

He spent the next two minutes weeping, bent over his knees, his tears rolling down his dusty legs.

A bee buzzed in from the blackberry bushes, and Junior batted it away. “Haven’t I got enough trouble without you?” he sobbed.

Junior heard a noise. His head snapped up. His swollen eyelids opened.

He swirled around, prepared to meet the glint of wild, golden coyote eyes. For the first time the cage wasn’t such a terrible place to be.

There was really only one place where the coyote could sneak up on him. The sides and back of the trap were covered with blackberry bushes; only the front faced a clearing.

And just beyond the clearing, standing behind a tree, watching through the low branches, was Mud. Relief flooded Junior’s body like cool water. He had completely forgotten about Mud!

“Mud! Good dog! Come here, boy, come here, Mud. Good old Mud.”

Mud flexed his legs and shifted his paws in the pine needles. He did not come.

“Mud, come on, boy! It’s me—Junior!” His voice was high with fake good spirits and real despair. “I was just kidding back there in the woods when I told you to go home. I’m glad to see you, Mud. Come on, Mud.”

Mud did not move.

Junior had a sudden inspiration. His head flew up so fast, it struck the ceiling of the trap. He didn’t stop to rub it. He reached for the tin-can sandwich. He didn’t have to bother about being careful with it now. He dangled it from the string like a yo-yo.

“You want some hamburger, Mud? You want some of this?” He waved it in the air to entice Mud. He said, “Hum-hum, is it good. Remember?”

He pinched off a piece, stuck it on the end of one finger, and poked it through the hog wire.

“Look, Mud. Look what I’ve got. You want some?”

He beckoned to Mud with the finger, luring him closer.

Mud’s tail had started to wag. It was sweeping pine needles right and left.

“You do? Well, come on over. Come on, Mud. Good dog!”

Mud got up. Slowly he came across the clearing. He kept his eyes on the ball of hamburger meat, but he was not happy about himself. This whole trip with Junior had been wrong. As soon as he got over feeling bad about one thing, there was something else to feel bad about.

“Come on, Mud!” Junior tried to speed him along by putting extra enthusiasm in his voice. “Come on!”

Mud continued to walk in his slow, ashamed way, his eyes on the ball of pink meat stuck on the end of Junior’s finger. Not until he was there, at the hog wire, did he lift his head.

“See?” Junior said. Junior allowed Mud to eat the meat from his finger, to lick his fingernail.

“Did you like that? Was it good? Want some more?”

Junior’s plan was to get Mud right up against the hog wire and to grab him by the bandanna. Then he would hold Mud so tight that Mud would begin to howl. Mud always howled when he was held tight. “Don’t hold the dog,” Pap was always saying. “The dog’s like me—he don’t want to be held!”

So Junior would hold and Mud would howl—and Mud howled like something out of a horror movie.
Ahwooo-ooo-ooooo-ooooo
. It would raise goose bumps on your arms if you didn’t know it was just a dog. Mud would howl, and somebody would hear him, and somebody would come.

Mud’s soft tongue licked Junior’s finger one last time. Junior had a hard time not trying to go for the bandanna right then. He decided to wait. He said calmly, “You want another piece. Here you go.”

He dug out another piece with one finger. This time Junior held it inside the hog wire. Mud could reach it with his tongue, and while he was reaching … that would be the time to … The tone of Junior’s voice had made Mud suspicious. He backed away.

“Don’t you want it?”

Junior got a bigger piece. “I’m not going to do anything to you,” Junior said. “I’m not going to do anything even if it is your fault that I’m in here. If you hadn’t poked your nose on my leg and scared me—Anyway, what can I do? Look at me. I’m locked up in a cage. Come on. I just want you to have this nice piece of meat. I know you like it.”

Mud came forward. This time he stopped just out of Junior’s reach. There was a long moment while Junior held the meat and Mud looked at it. Junior held it closer.

Mud came closer, but something told him not to go too close. He stretched out his neck.

“Here you go, good dog!”

Junior’s fingers curved back toward the cage, bringing the meat away from the wire. His other hand was there, the fingers locked in the hog wire, waiting. His fingers flexed, ready to grab the bandanna when the opportunity came.

“Don’t you want it?” Junior asked. Sweat was rolling down his face. His tongue flicked over his dry lips. “Take it!”

He had the ball of meat between his fingers now, scissorslike. He beckoned Mud closer.

Mud came.

This was the moment, the opportunity Junior had been waiting for. His fingers hooked into the bandanna, and he pulled Mud hard against the cage.

Mud bucked like a horse. He twisted and pulled and yelped. He threw himself into the air. He tried to duck under the collar and slip his head out.

Junior held on tight. Finally Mud stopped fighting and rested against the cage. His wild eyes were rolled in Junior’s direction.

“See, now you just have to howl until somebody comes,” Junior said. He was out of breath from excitement. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.

Beneath his fingers he could feel Mud trembling. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “But I can’t let you go yet.”

Mud began to whine.

Good, Junior thought. Mud always whined a little before he howled.

Junior’s fingers were beginning to hurt. The wire was cutting them. He switched fingers very carefully. Then those fingers began to hurt.

Junior got the inspiration of his life. He would tie the bandanna to the cage. The ends were just long enough. He would take the ends of the bandanna and slip them through the hog wire and knot them.

Getting the ends through the hog wire was easy, but he was having a hard time tying the knot with one hand. Maybe he could let go of the bandanna just long enough to take the ends. There, it worked. Junior had one end of the bandanna in each hand. He bent to make the knot.

At that moment Mud flung himself back so hard that the cage rocked. Junior thought it was going to topple. He let go just long enough to keep from hitting his head.

The next thing Junior saw was Mud’s tail disappearing into the woods.

“Come back, come back!” he cried. But Junior knew Mud would not return. He gave one final plea: “Mud, at least show them where I am.” But he didn’t think Mud would do that either.

Mud was gone for good, and Junior cried for an hour with helpless frustration. At the peak of his misery he rocked back and forth, hitting his head against the cage and not even feeling it. Then he stopped for a while, then he cried again.

The afternoon dragged on. Bees droned in and out of the cage. The sun beat down on his head. His eyes were so swollen from all the crying that he could hardly see. His nose had somehow swollen, too, inside, so he had to breathe through his mouth.

Finally, to ease the pain in his crooked back, he curled up in a small ball. As he lay there on the hard wood, he realized he was nothing like that coyote on Saturday-morning cartoons. That coyote was always ending up the victim of his own traps, too, but then he got right back out.

The unfairness of it brought new tears of misery to his swollen eyes.

I
—, he thought—this was his last unhappy thought before he slept—
I don’t make a very good coyote.

The Blossoms were on the front porch of the house. Vicki Blossom was giving orders. Pap, Vern, Maggie, and Mud were taking them. Supper was over, and the search for Junior was about to get under way.

Overhead, thunder rolled again in the western sky. This time the sound was louder. The storm was coming closer.

“All right now, what we’re looking for is wheelbarrow tracks. If we can follow those, we’ll find Junior. There’s about—” She broke off and looked up at the threatening sky. “There’s about three hours before night. We’ve got to find Junior before then.”

She looked at them, one by one, as if to impress on each one the seriousness of the situation. They didn’t need her looks to tell them that. Since supper an uneasy feeling had come over all of them. This was not one of Junior’s usual absences. This time Junior was absent—each one knew this—because he could not help being absent. Something had happened to Junior.

Pap was the only one who spoke. “I sure do hate it when somebody’s missing.” He shook his head slowly, back and forth. “It leaves a hole.”

In the silence that followed, Mud moved closer to Pap and leaned against his leg. Pap stepped aside, catching Mud off balance.

Mud straightened and looked longingly at Pap. He had the feeling that there was an enormous distance between him and Pap instead of the few inches that actually separated them.

Ever since Pap had come home from can collecting and said, “Well, where were you when I needed you?” in a certain accusing tone, Mud had known he was out of favor. It was the first can collection he had ever missed.

“Go on, I don’t want to pet you.” Pap had gone into the house and shut the door in Mud’s face.

“I’ll pet you, Mud,” Maggie had said, but Maggie’s hugs only made him struggle harder to get to the screen door so he could scratch on it and follow Pap inside.

And even after Maggie let him in, all Pap said was “I said I don’t want to pet you.”

Mud could not bear being out of favor with Pap. In the past hour he had done everything he could to make up to Pap for his desertion.

First he had pushed his head into Pap’s hand, giving Pap the chance to scratch his nose. Pap had not. Then he had poked his head under Pap’s hand. Pap’s hand had been like a cap on his head for a brief, satisfactory moment, and then Pap had moved it. Then Mud had rested his chin on Pap’s leg during supper. Pap had shrugged him off. Now Mud moved closer to Pap for another try at leaning against his leg. Pap said, “Let’s go.”

Pap went down the steps so heavily, the boards bowed beneath his weight. Mud went behind him, staying close, hoping to hear Pap speak his name or touch him in the old pal-to-pal way.

The five of them followed the wheelbarrow tracks into the woods. Junior had taken a curving, weaving route, skirting trees and large rocks. It was easy to follow because Junior had been in a hurry and had torn up the moss and pine needles.

“Junior!” Vicki called. “Oh, Junior!”

No answer.

They tracked him through the creek. The wheel had been stuck briefly in the mud. It had apparently taken Junior three separate tries to get it up the bank.

“Junior! Oh, Junior!”

Still no answer.

At the edge of the old wheat field they ran into trouble. The ground was hard, and the old wheat so broken, they couldn’t find a single mark.

“Here’s where we split up,” Vicki said. “Fan out and if you see anything, holler!”

With their eyes on the ground they proceeded slowly across the old field. Every now and then Vicki would pause to call Junior and to say in a worried way, “He ought to be able to hear me by now. Why doesn’t he answer?”

“Now, Vicki,” Pap would answer from across the rows of stubble. To calm himself he muttered, “We’ll find him. We’ll find him.”

“Here’s the track! He went this way!” Pap called suddenly. Being the one to spot the wheelbarrow tracks, particularly after a long time of looking, gave Pap a good feeling. “Over here!” he called. Pap’s voice sounded so good that Mud bounded over the wheat field to him.

“Come on, Mud, let’s find him,” Pap said. He reached out with one hand and brushed Mud’s head.

Mud happily took the lead. As he bounded to the woods his tail began to wag.

Mad Mary stopped with her hand reaching for some low blackberries. Her hand dropped to her knee.

“Well, look at that. Somebody put a little child in a cage.”

She knelt. Her ragged skirts flared out around her. Mad Mary had not changed her clothes in five years. When one skirt wore out, she just put another one on top of it. She had layers of rags now, some so old and colorless, even she did not know what the cloth had once looked like.

As she bent forward, her boots dug into the dust Junior had piled against the trap. Her socks bagged around her thin white ankles. She leaned her weight against her cane.