Read Online Riding Shotgun by Rita Mae Brown - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rita Mae Brown
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mute.”
“Is every hunt club as weird as ours?” Laura asked.
“Hunt club? Laura, every group of people in every country around the world
and
in every century has been weird. People are crazy as hell. You might as well learn that lesson now. Just wing nuts.”
“Aunt Grace, where’d you pick up ‘wing nuts’?”
“From you, Laura.”
“Oh.”
“I like ‘doesn’t have both oars in the water’ myself,” Cig chimed in.
“Elevator doesn’t go to the top,” Hunter said.
“Somebody shot the dots off his dice.” Grace sang the phrase.
“A quart low,” Hunter added.
“Fruitcake.” Grace again. “Or how about lost his marbles?”
“Looney Toons.” Cig slowed for a stop then swung wide as she turned right out of the dirt road and onto the blessed macadam. “Listen, you aren’t getting me off the track no matter how hard you try. Hunter, you ride in front of Harleyetta.”
“She’ll run me over, Mom.”
“No, she won’t. You’re bigger and smarter but she will run over people like Roberta on Reebok. She scares the hell out of people.”
“Should have stuck to Harleys.” Grace reached in her vest pocket for a hair net.
“She’s got that burnt metallic orange one,” Laura said. “Same color as her eyebrows.”
“If I had a motorcycle I could cut gas costs.” Hunter tried to lean forward but couldn’t so he flopped back.
“You will drive that ‘8I Toyota truck until it dies.”
“It’s already got over a hundred sixty thousand miles on the speedometer. The day of doom fast approaches.” He sounded like a TV preacher.
“Yeah, well, you’d just better pray that truck lasts until you get to college because there’s no money for another one.”
“What about selling the tractor?”
“Hunter, how do you propose to run a farm without a tractor?”
“The way our illustrious ancestors did it.”
“Our illustrious ancestors didn’t have to pay minimum wage, smart guy,” Cig replied. “Now, just get your butt in front of Harleyetta and
don’t
let her pass you.”
“What about Binky?” Laura elbowed her brother. “He won’t stay in the back, I bet.”
“Binky will fall in next to Roberta and that will keep him happy.”
“Say, you don’t think—?”
“Grace, get a grip. Roberta wouldn’t take up with Binky if he were the last man on earth.”
“Well, to hear Roberta tell it she’s been without male companionship for a long, long time.”
“So have you—to hear you tell it.” Cig smiled too sweetly at Grace who held up her fingers to indicate two points.
Before they could bicker, Muster Meadow came into view and sure enough, Harleyetta was there, along with Roger Davis, scowling by the hound trailer. Must have been a bad night because her eyebrows wiggled and waved, burnt orange, of course.
6
Harleyetta was her real name. Her father, a Hog devotee and general wild man, christened her himself. At thirty-two, a nurse, she had “bettered herself,” as people say, with her marriage to Binky West. She’d also chunked up; not that she was fat, more square than fat. Good-hearted and impulsive, Harleyetta was not afflicted with tact, but if you told her a secret she made heroic efforts to keep it, since so few people ever confided in her.
Not especially bright, she could be quick on her feet. No one would ever let Harley forget the time in Sunday school—she was ten—when the teacher asked the name of Noah’s wife and she replied, “Joan of Ark.”
Often her wrong answers were more interesting than people’s right ones, and it was that tilted creativity combined with a bubbling energy that had attracted the wealthy, lost Binky West. Marrying Harleyetta, one of his many acts of defiance, could have saved him, except he never let her forget where she came from—he ruined it for both of them.
Cig and Grace waved as Cig pulled the rig around, truck nose outwards. The dirt road into Muster Meadow, an oldfarm along the upper James River, was packed
“Is every hunt club as weird as ours?” Laura asked.
“Hunt club? Laura, every group of people in every country around the world
and
in every century has been weird. People are crazy as hell. You might as well learn that lesson now. Just wing nuts.”
“Aunt Grace, where’d you pick up ‘wing nuts’?”
“From you, Laura.”
“Oh.”
“I like ‘doesn’t have both oars in the water’ myself,” Cig chimed in.
“Elevator doesn’t go to the top,” Hunter said.
“Somebody shot the dots off his dice.” Grace sang the phrase.
“A quart low,” Hunter added.
“Fruitcake.” Grace again. “Or how about lost his marbles?”
“Looney Toons.” Cig slowed for a stop then swung wide as she turned right out of the dirt road and onto the blessed macadam. “Listen, you aren’t getting me off the track no matter how hard you try. Hunter, you ride in front of Harleyetta.”
“She’ll run me over, Mom.”
“No, she won’t. You’re bigger and smarter but she will run over people like Roberta on Reebok. She scares the hell out of people.”
“Should have stuck to Harleys.” Grace reached in her vest pocket for a hair net.
“She’s got that burnt metallic orange one,” Laura said. “Same color as her eyebrows.”
“If I had a motorcycle I could cut gas costs.” Hunter tried to lean forward but couldn’t so he flopped back.
“You will drive that ‘8I Toyota truck until it dies.”
“It’s already got over a hundred sixty thousand miles on the speedometer. The day of doom fast approaches.” He sounded like a TV preacher.
“Yeah, well, you’d just better pray that truck lasts until you get to college because there’s no money for another one.”
“What about selling the tractor?”
“Hunter, how do you propose to run a farm without a tractor?”
“The way our illustrious ancestors did it.”
“Our illustrious ancestors didn’t have to pay minimum wage, smart guy,” Cig replied. “Now, just get your butt in front of Harleyetta and
don’t
let her pass you.”
“What about Binky?” Laura elbowed her brother. “He won’t stay in the back, I bet.”
“Binky will fall in next to Roberta and that will keep him happy.”
“Say, you don’t think—?”
“Grace, get a grip. Roberta wouldn’t take up with Binky if he were the last man on earth.”
“Well, to hear Roberta tell it she’s been without male companionship for a long, long time.”
“So have you—to hear you tell it.” Cig smiled too sweetly at Grace who held up her fingers to indicate two points.
Before they could bicker, Muster Meadow came into view and sure enough, Harleyetta was there, along with Roger Davis, scowling by the hound trailer. Must have been a bad night because her eyebrows wiggled and waved, burnt orange, of course.
6
Harleyetta was her real name. Her father, a Hog devotee and general wild man, christened her himself. At thirty-two, a nurse, she had “bettered herself,” as people say, with her marriage to Binky West. She’d also chunked up; not that she was fat, more square than fat. Good-hearted and impulsive, Harleyetta was not afflicted with tact, but if you told her a secret she made heroic efforts to keep it, since so few people ever confided in her.
Not especially bright, she could be quick on her feet. No one would ever let Harley forget the time in Sunday school—she was ten—when the teacher asked the name of Noah’s wife and she replied, “Joan of Ark.”
Often her wrong answers were more interesting than people’s right ones, and it was that tilted creativity combined with a bubbling energy that had attracted the wealthy, lost Binky West. Marrying Harleyetta, one of his many acts of defiance, could have saved him, except he never let her forget where she came from—he ruined it for both of them.
Cig and Grace waved as Cig pulled the rig around, truck nose outwards. The dirt road into Muster Meadow, an oldfarm along the upper James River, was packed
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