Lesley Kagen - Land of a Hundred Wonders

Miss Lydia calls from the porch, “Leave her, Gib. Go quick.”

The shed’s just a piece from the house, closer than the barn. Cooter’s already halfway there, dragging Dancer behind him, and swearing a streak.

I hear the posse now, too, on the other side of the trees. They’re arguing about what direction to go off in. They could head toward Cray Ridge, Browntown, or make the turn our way. Above the rustling, the grunting, the sneeze of a horse, the sheriff hollers out, “Looks to me like the tracks lead off to Lydia’s. We got ’em now, boys.”

I can imagine him fingering the rope on the side of his saddle. Bet Cooter can, too, ’cause I barely get the door closed behind us and he’s off in the corner, attempting to shrink invisible. This shed is where Miss Lydia keeps her gardening tools and old tack and worn-out bushel baskets and plows but nothing large enough to hide either under or behind.

The sound of hooves and leather comes roaring into the yard.

One of the Brandish Boys-it has to be one of them because neither the sheriff nor Deputy Boyd has got a voice that sounds like a bone getting ground up in a disposal-shouts, “Well, ain’t this convenient.” Peeking through a wormhole in the shed door, I can see the one with the seeping skin condition pointing up at the Hundred Wonders Cemetery sign. “We can string him up and bury him all in the same place,” he shouts again, following up with a laugh that is tremendously Bloodthirsty: Encouraging violence.

“Mornin’, Lydia,” the sheriff says, pulling his horse up to the porch steps.

"LeRoy,” she says politely, but doesn’t look up from her shuckin’. “What can I do for you and your friends this fine after-a-storm mornin’? A calmin’ elixir, perhaps?”

The Boys’ heads are swiveling like a pair of lazy Susans.

“The McGraw girl or Cooter Smith been by this morning?” the sheriff asks as he steps down out of his stirrup.

Cooter wails softly from the corner of the shed. “Can ya see ’em? Are they comin’?”

“ Shhhhh … they’re gonna hear ya.”

“What ya do to your skull, LeRoy?” Miss Lydia asks, her eyes still not meetin’ his. “Might have a little something for that.”

The sheriff reaches up to where Cooter knocked him on the head with the limestone rock. The white bandage is dotted with blood. “Ya sure ya ain’t seen those two?”

Miss Lydia strokes her calico cat with her long-fingered good hand. “Nobody’s been by yet today.”

The sheriff bends his leg onto the lowest porch step and with a bowing of his head says, “Ya know Buster is dead, don’tcha?”

Cool as one of her bush cucumbers, she doesn’t answer him with words, just points off to the Wonders sign that LeRoy’s standing next to, like she planned it, which she probably did:

WONDER # 12

ANGER IS AT ITS BEST WHEN BURIED

The Brandish Boys aren’t paying any attention to this exchange of words between the sheriff and Miss Lydia. The other one’s got off his horse now, too, and they’re making their way over to Peaches, not so much walking like normal people, more like a kind of half slither. The long-eared one seems to be the boss, ’cause when he points down at Peaches’s hoof, the other one obediently bends down and scrapes out what she’s got collected in there, which is an old tracker’s trick. Ya can tell where somebody’s been by what your animal has collected in their feet. “This your donkey?” the Brandish Boy yells out to Miss Lydia.

His voice is… it’s… it’s… I can’t really describe it, that’s how genuinely horrible it is. Maybe swampish? Yes. That’s what comes to my mind anyways. A swamp at midnight on Friday the thirteenth.

Miss Lydia lifts her eyes up to the sheriff and says from behind her purple scarf, “Any harm come to that girl, ya best be makin’ sure your will is signed and dated. Same goes for Florida’s grandbaby.”

Ascared as a pumpkin on Halloween, but not being able to stand not knowin’, Cooter joins me at the shed peephole. “They’s worse close-up,” he whispers. “Real worse.”

Like they heard him, the Boys turn away from Peaches and start coming our way.

Miss Lydia calls to their backs, “Wouldn’t go into that shed I was you.”

The Boys flick her warning off like ya do a gnat.

“We got us a warrant.” Sheriff Johnson passes it to Miss Lydia. “The Smith boy killed your brother and we’re gonna see that justice is done.”

"You and me both know that ain’t true, don’t we, LeRoy?” she says, letting the paper flutter to the ground. “On both counts.”

The Boys can’t be twenty yards from us now. Mouths hanging slack, they’re eyeing the shed like it’s fresh meat. I can feel their hunger, and I believe Cooter can as well. He can barely swallow.

Without one word, Miss Lydia reaches behind her chair so fast and brings out a double barrel that she lifts up to her shoulder, aiming at the backs of the Brandishes as she shouts, “Got a dog with rabies locked in that shed.”

Either they don’t believe Miss Lydia or the Boys’d purely relish a roll-around with a dyin’ dog, ’cause they keep on comin’.

“Put the gun down, Lydia,” the sheriff orders. “No matter how much you hated Buster he was still your kin. Don’tcha wanna see right done by him?”

“Call off the Boys now, LeRoy, ’fore I ventilate the both of ’em.”

The sheriff comes up one more step, and it looks like he’s fixin’ to stroke her calico cat, but with a move so daring, he grabs out for the barrel of her gun and snatches it away.

I step back right quick, ’cause on the other side of the shed door, the pock-faced brother is reaching out his gloved hand for the handle. The metal latch swings up, but catches. Over and over. Hand to his heart, Cooter chokes out, “We gotta…”

I gesture to him to follow me as I move to the shed’s back door. I know it’s also locked, but from the outside . With a chunky wood latch held in a bracket. Hundred Wonders is our home away from home. I know its every nook and cranny. So does my dog. I realize now that’s where he disappeared to earlier. He had to get himself into his lookout position.

Placing my cheek against the splintering crack in the back door, I instruct Keeper, “Open the latch.”

The Brandishes got their eyes up to the grimy front window. They can’t see us from there, but the next window they look through, they’ll see us plenty fine.

“Use your snout, your snout,” I urge Keep.

“What?” confused Cooter asks.

I must confess, to save my Billy’s hide, I am tempted at this moment by my wickedness wave to let the Boys burst through that door and have at Cooter. Let ’em string him up for murdering Mr. Buster and be done with it, no one the wiser. But what about Clever and Rosie? Their hearts would be broke to bits, I allow anything to happen to him. Same for Miss Florida. If I let these bounty hunters string up her grandbaby, don’t think I’d ever be able to eat another piece of her pie without crying all over the crust.

Yanking Dancer off the hay he’s munching on, I boss, “Mount,” and cup my hands to give Cooter a leg up.

“Cain’t ya see the door’s locked from the outside?” he chides, squirming his way onto the horse’s back. Squaring himself, he reaches into his pants for the gun, ready to shoot his way out.

What’s left of their faces is pressed up to the shed’s side window. The Boys are beaming broad when the long-eared one smashes his rifle butt through the glass.

“Cooter, get a good hold.”

Too scared to question, with no time left, he wraps the reins around his fist. Dancer is pawing, snorting and ready.

“Please quit goofin’ around and finish up now,” I tell Keep through the crack.