“Remind ya of anything?” he asks.
“Wish it did.” I gather the hair up off my neck so he can fasten the necklace with the tips of his fingers. Billy doesn’t go in much for skin touching. “Ya wanna come say hey to Miz Tanner?” I ask, because he really does need to spend more time with folks who are not me and Keeper and Grampa.
“Not today. Maybe tomorra,” he says, sorta wistful, looking at the pictures one more time before he snaps the locket shut. “You, ah… feelin’ all right about what happened?”
I glance over at sprawled-out and slobbering Sneaky Tim Ray. “Well, I’d rather he didn’t jump out at me every single time I-”
“No… no. Not what just happened. I mean, about the other night.” Billy points to the top of my legs.
I woke up yesterday with bruises on my thighs. Budding lilac now. “Oh, goodness. I’ve been wonderin’ about those. How did I get them?”
“Ya don’t recall?”
“No, I… wait a minute. Clever and me were up to the Outdoor a coupla nights ago. Could I have fallen or somethin’?” Movie watching is our favorite hobby. Shoot-’em-ups most of all. That giant sheet out there turns into something completely different in the summer, in the dark. Us two girls just about pass out with utter adoration gazing at those stars on the screen and God’s up above.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Billy agrees real fast. “Ya musta fell. Ya know how uneven that ground is up at the Outdoor.”
To quote Mr. Howard Redmond of New York City, New York: An operative must pay special attention to the eyes of a subject during an interrogation. If they are darting, this is a sign of lying. Billy’s eyes look like leaves getting chased by a rake. What’s this boy trying to hide?
Stretching his long self even longer, he says, “I got traps to tend to. See ya later.”
“Not if I see you first, little old lady who,” I yell out to his broad back that blends quick into the bushes that his laugh does not come back out of. Because Billy doesn’t get jokes anymore neither. And since his sense of humor got lost way over on the other side of the world, there is little chance of him recovering it. Poor, poor Billy Brown.
Well, I suppose it’s my Christian duty to check on Sneaky Tim Ray to make sure he’s still breathing. Reaching into my leather-like for my compact mirror, I hold it under his nose until it clouds up, a trick mentioned in the pages of The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation. He’s fine. Well, maybe not fine, but he is still breathing. I turn to head back to the drive, but then, I swear, I don’t know what crashes down on top of me at times like a wave. This overwhelming desire to commit such wickedness. I’m helpless to restrain myself. I’m NQR, you know.
I command, “Piddle,” and Keeper readily obliges by lifting his back leg, smiling toothily at the steady stream spewing onto Sneaky Tim Ray’s grimy ankle.
(Already mentioned to you that this dog knows a couple of good tricks, didn’t I?)
Making Hay While the Sun Shines
Miz Tanner is sitting on the porch steps of her yellow farmhouse with Keeper, who scooted on ahead. She’s distracting him with half a sandwich so she can check under his white bandage. I wonder why Billy didn’t mention that bandage. Being of a medical nature, that’d be something that’d usually pique his interest. Guess beating on Sneaky Tim Ray piqued his interest more, which is exactly what is expected of him. It was my grampa who assigned Billy to guardian angel me.
“Hey, Miss Jessie,” I shout, skipping up the last part of the drive, ’cause I always feel tail-waggin’ happy upon seeing her.
“Where you been?” she yells back. “Your grampa just called. Said he dropped you off twenty minutes ago.”
(He keeps a stopwatch on me ’cause I get lost. A lot.)
“I ran into Billy,” I say, coming up and crouching down on the step below her. Miss Jessie’s husband got thrown from a horse some years back and died on the spot, so just her and Sneaky Tim Ray live on the farm now. I’m not gonna tell her about this cousin of hers jumping me in the woods a little bit ago. No. That’d be purely foolish. Nuthin’ bad can happen to my dog.
Miss Jessie sets the bandage back down on Keeper’s head. Tamps the edges with her short-cut nails. “The stitches look nice and clean. Should heal up fine.”
I remember now when Keeper got that cut. It was the night when I came home late from Hundred Wonders, mussed up with mud and my dog in my arms. When Grampa yelled, “What happened? ” all I could do was shrug, and say, “Miss Lydia doctored him,” because I couldn’t recall exactly how Keep’s head got split open. Still don’t.
Noticing my new locket that feels so cool and smooth between my fingers, Miss Jessie asks, “What do ya have there?” Her eyes widen when she sees what’s inside. “I remember the day those pictures were taken. He’s a good man, Billy Brown is.”
Gee, I never thought of him that way. As a man. But he is now, I guess. He smells that certain way men do. A little gamey, I’d call it. And even if he takes time down at the creek in the morning to shave with his straight edge, by the afternoon his beard can get all prickery looking. Since he spends so much time cutting wood and hunting, he’s also got muscles in his arms and back that look hard, but slick to the touch.
“Billy’d make some girl a fine husband, don’tcha think?” she says, giving me a mysterious smile. “Ya gonna ride today?”
I don’t answer right off because I’m still wondering what that smile is all about, but to be quite frank with you, I get so tired asking people what this thing means or that, it really does wear me to the bone some days.
“Peaches?” Miss Jessie asks.
“No, thank you, ma’am. I had a helluva breakfast.”
She strokes my hair and I do the same back to her curls, white as a wedding. “Hon, I meant… are you gonna ride Peaches today?”
“A course I’m ridin’ Peaches today. But would you mind if we look at the filly first?”
“I already collected your eggs for ya, includin’ a few from Henrietta, so I don’t see why not.” Miss Jessie points behind her to a brimming wire basket, which I am mighty grateful to see and tell her so. (Just in case you’re not familiar, chicken coops smell the exact opposite of how eggs taste.)
Leaving Keeper to his sun nap, I follow behind Miss Jessie’s lean-as-a-pole-bean self toward the barn. “How’s your grampa been?” she asks, all Nonchalant: Unexcited.
But she can’t fool this investigative reporter. She’s chalant as hell. Who wouldn’t be? Grampa’s got eyes the color of whiskey. Has all his own teeth, too. And he really does return Miss Jessie’s affections. Maybe not quite as much as she sends out, because he thinks he’s got to use up most of his love supply taking care of me, but I can tell he’s got genuine feelings for her.