Blossoms Meet the Vulture Lady (9 page)

The search for Junior was the first legitimate excuse to see Maggie he had had all year. All the rest of his excuses—like pretending to be in the neighborhood on an errand when, actually, he had ridden six miles on an old bike to get there—had not worked. Maggie had blinked those green eyes and said, “What was the errand?” “Just something for my mom.” “What?” “Oh, nothing.” His ears turned red a lot around Maggie.

“How much?” the bigger brother said.

“One dollar.”

Ralphie intended that later, when he actually had to fork over, he would pretend he had meant a dollar between them. The little brother read his thoughts. “One dollar each?”

Ralphie was truly desperate. Maggie had gone on without him. If he didn’t leave right this minute, he might lose her in the woods. “Each.”

They extended their hands, palms up.

“Not now. When we get home. Now go on. Go on.”

“Ralphie?” It was Maggie calling him. “Are you coming?”

Hobbling up the hill on his artificial leg wasn’t easy, but Ralphie hobbled. “Coming!” he called with sudden cheer.

For the first time in his life Ralphie would be alone with the woman he loved.

Mad Mary and Junior were on the rocky ledge in front of the cave—the porch, Mad Mary called it. Mad Mary was in her rocking chair. This was the only piece of family furniture she had. It was a porch rocker, and that was why it hadn’t been burned up in the fire.

Junior was lying on his back. They were both watching the vultures overhead.

The vultures must have been two miles up in the sky, Junior figured. He had never seen anything like it. He had never known birds had fun like that, wheeling round and round, never flapping their wings a single time, getting higher with each turn.

“Oh, wow,” Junior said. These words—
Oh, wow
—had been the first words Junior had spoken as a baby, and he had used them all the time back then. “Here’s a cracker, Junior.” “Oh, wow.” “Here’s a ham sandwich?” “Oh, wow.”

The family used to tease him about it, so now he only used the words when he was too impressed not to.

Mad Mary broke the spell of the vultures by bracing her hands on the arms of her rocker and starting to get up. “We ought to get going.”

Junior glanced at her in surprise. “Why?”

Junior was having one of the most pleasant mornings of his life. Lying on Mad Mary’s porch, watching birds enjoy themselves, eating varmint stew. It was like something a person would pay money to do, buy a ticket for. It was the first real vacation of Junior’s life.

And after their conversation about calling up their dead fathers on the telephone, Junior had felt very close to Mad Mary.

“To get you back to your folks.”

“No hurry,” Junior said. “They know I’m all right.”

The last thing Junior wanted was to get back to his folks. First of all, they would want to hear what had happened, and he would have to start with the unfortunate incident of his trapping himself. It was far, far nicer to lie in peaceful silence with Mary and watch the birds.

Junior changed the subject. “Do the vultures fly like that every morning?”

“Just when the air’s right.” Mad Mary leaned back. “Vultures have a bad reputation,” she said. “Most people don’t like them.”

“I do,” said Junior. “I like them a lot.”

“I do too.”

Mad Mary was glad to lean back and put off returning Junior. This was the first human company she had enjoyed in ten years.

“Down in the tropics people can’t get along without vultures.”

“Why?”

“They eat dead things, keep the jungle clean.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“They never kill anything. Never hurt a living soul, just eat what’s already dead, the way I do. I enjoy the competition.”

“I would too.”

“Over in India—I read this in one of my books, I never saw it for myself—over in India they have towers where they put dead bodies, and the vultures come down and eat the flesh and then the dry bones drop down into the towers—very sanitary.”

Junior’s mouth dropped open. “I wish I could read that book.”

He looked back up at the sky. Now the vultures had begun a long, slow circling descent. Two more vultures joined them. “They must have spotted lunch,” Mad Mary said.

“Do you still have that book?”

“Which one, the vultures or the cave.”

“Both.”

“They’re in there somewhere,” Mad Mary said, nodding toward her cave. “I’ll try to find them for you.” Then she added, “In case you come back.”

“Oh, I’ll come back,” Junior said. “I love it here.”

“Let me help you,” Ralphie said. He held out one hand. Maggie looked from his hand to the log she was getting ready to step over.

“It’s just a log,” she said.

“I know, but a person could fall stepping over a log.”

“Not me.”

“Well, would you please let me help you? I’d like to help you. All right?”

Ralphie’s whole face was red now. For fifteen minutes he had been working up the courage to offer to help her over something, and then he had to pick a log, a stupid log, and it wasn’t even a big stupid log.

Maggie looked up at him. She grinned, showing her chipped front tooth. “Oh, all right.”

“You will?”

She reached out and put her hand in Ralphie’s. He gasped with pleasure. For a moment he was so overcome that he forgot why he had offered his hand.

“So help me over the log,” Maggie reminded him, grinning again. “That’s what we’re holding hands for, isn’t it?”

“Sure.”

Actually Ralphie just stood there, grinning, while she stepped over the log herself. It was such a pleasant experience that Ralphie would have liked nothing better than to keep on helping her over things the rest of his life, but she took her hand back.

“That’s enough help,” she said, then turned and ran up the hill.

“Wait for me,” he called after her.

At last Mud was beginning to dry out. He still paused to give himself a shake every now and then, one of his full body shakes that started at his shoulders and ended at the tip of his tail; but the sun and all the running around had left him almost dry.

The first thing Mud had done when he’d realized he was at last out of the trap had been to run. He had run for half an hour. He didn’t run anyplace in particular. He just ran fast, around and around, making huge circles through the trees and back into the clearing, back into the trees, back into the clearing. He barked as he ran.

“Mud’s crazy,” Vicki said when Mud tore into the clearing for the tenth time.

“You’ll have to start calling him Mad instead of Mud,” Ralphie said to Maggie.

Maggie smiled, and Ralphie thought it was like having the sun come out. He wanted to say something else funny more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. As usual, when he was around Maggie, his mind didn’t work.

“Let the dog run,” Pap said. “I’d be running around like that, too, if I’d been locked up in a coyote trap all night.”

By the time the crowd was organized and ready to leave the coyote trap, Mud was through running. The crowd began pairing up. Mud didn’t hesitate. He knew who he was going to pair up with. Mud got with Pap.

“You know what we’re doing this for, Mud, don’t you?” Pap asked him as they started through the trees.

Mud wagged his tail.

“We’re doing this to find Junior. This ain’t just the usual walking in the woods. This is to find Junior. And we’ll not enjoy ourselves until we do.”

Wagging his tail in agreement, Mud took the lead.

Junior and Mad Mary were on the porch. They were getting ready to leave again. This was the fourth time they had gotten ready, and they were really going this time.

“I wish we didn’t have to go yet,” Junior said, looking around at the ledge, the cave, the vultures—all the things he had come to treasure.

“Well, we do. We’ve put it off long enough. They’re probably searching for you, and it’ll be better for both of us—especially me—if when they find us, it looks like I’m bringing you back.”

“You are bringing me back.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a person got arrested because of the way something looked. And folks are generally suspicious of me. In town they call me Mad Mary.” Junior tried to look as if he never had. “I tell you one thing. I couldn’t stand to be put in a cell. That’s the reason I got you out and brought you here. Being put in a cage would be the worst thing that would happen to me.”

“They couldn’t arrest you and put you in jail. You helped me. You can’t get arrested for helping somebody.”

“You know I was helping you, and I know that, but they don’t. They are who counts right now. Come on.” Mad Mary pulled her shoulder bag tighter on her shoulder.

They started down the slope, through the fissure in the limestone—like steps, Junior thought. Halfway down, Junior paused and looked up the cliff to the cave, the porch, the curtain of laurel.

Beyond, on a high dead tree one of the vultures sat, sunning himself. It was the most beautiful sight Junior could remember seeing. Last summer Junior had finally gotten out of the habit of saying goodbye to buildings and places. But now he couldn’t help it. “Good-bye, cave. I’ll be back.”

“You coming or not?” Mary said.

Junior nodded. “Anyway,” he said as he followed, “if they should arrest you, my brother knows how to bust into jail.”

“I hope”—and this time a smile did crack Mad Mary’s face—“it won’t quite come to that.”

“Me too,” said Junior.

Ralphie was having very bad luck. He had just figured that enough time had passed since he had helped Maggie over the log, so that he could offer his assistance again. He didn’t want to overdo assisting, though. “May I help you over this log? This fern? This twig? This pebble?” That’s exactly what Ralphie wanted to do, so he forced himself to wait perhaps longer than necessary.

He was surprised and delighted that at that moment he and Maggie came to a small stream. Perfect. He was just getting ready to step across and offer his hand. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to say the words. Maybe Maggie would just accept the wordless offer. At that magic moment, when the whole world seemed to be cooperating in his romance, Vern came crashing down the hill.

Ralphie was so startled that he stumbled and fell sideways into the creek. Pain shot through the stump of his leg. He was glad the water was icy because at least that kept him from fainting.

Vern said excitedly, “Pap says he thinks it’s Vulture Roost.”

“What?”

“Where Mad Mary lives. He remembered there’s a cave there. He says his daddy took him there one time and told him it was an old Indian cave. Come on!”

Ralphie would have been glad to come on, but he didn’t think he could get up. Vern was already scrambling back up the hill now, so it was obvious he wouldn’t help.

Ever since Ralphie had cut off his leg with the riding mower, he had not let his artificial leg stop him from doing one single thing. He even played Little League and slid into bases with the best of them. For the first time, there in the creek at Maggie’s feet, he would have given anything to have his own leg back.

At that moment, the absolute lowest of his life, he looked up and saw a beautiful sight. It was Maggie and she was offering her hand to him. She was offering her hand! Ralphie took it and she pulled him up.

And the best part, Ralphie thought, as they started up the hill, still holding hands, the best part was that this time she didn’t have a good excuse for taking her hand back. She couldn’t say “That’s enough help” because this time she had offered.

“How’s your leg?” Maggie asked.

Wisely he answered, “It still hurts.”

“Let me know when it stops.”

“I will,” he said.

Junior and Mad Mary were coming around the old quarry. They skirted the crumbling sandstone.

“I know it’s wrong to wish this,” Junior said.

“What?”

“Well, I wish I could have a baby vulture.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wishing for that.”

“There isn’t?”

“No, I had one one time. It fell out of its nest and it lived with me for two months. I taught it how to fly. For all I know it might have been one of those vultures we watched this morning.”

“I bet it was nice to have a baby vulture.”

“Yes and no,” said Mad Mary. She was using her long stick so easily that Junior wanted a long stick too. He paused to find one. When he fell in behind her again, she was saying, “When I found that baby vulture, the first thing I did was try and put it back in the nest. The parents wouldn’t let me get close. They make a hissing sound, then a rattle, like a rattlesnake. I gave up after a while and took the baby home. The bad part about a baby vulture is that when it gets scared or upset, it vomits up everything it’s eaten. If you could train them not to do that, well, they would make as nice a pet as a parrot.”

“You know something?” Junior said.

“Yes, I know a thing or two.” Mad Mary’s lined face cracked into another smile. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

Junior paused to get his thoughts straight. He wanted to say this right.

“Well, you probably don’t know this, but at my school a lot of kids have spend-the-nights. Like, one kid will invite another kid over to spend the night.”

“They had those when I was growing up, too, but I never went to one. My daddy wouldn’t let me.”

Junior frowned. He was not getting his message across. What he wanted was for Mad Mary to get the idea to invite him for a spend-the-night.

“Actually,” he went on, “probably anybody could have a spend-the-night. It wouldn’t have to be a kid. It could be a—well, anybody. For example—”

Ahead Mad Mary stopped and held up one hand. Junior had been so intent on the wording of his spend-the-night request that he’d walked directly into her back.

“What is it?”

“Here they come.”

“What? Who?” Junior sputtered.

“People,” Mad Mary said.

Mud was in the lead. He had been all morning. He was not sure what they were looking for, but he knew he would know it when he saw it.