It was Jane with a bunch of old wrinkled, gray-haired white women holding onto steel walkers.
“I taught a few classes in Florida. Those were my students in a self-defense class for the elderly.”
“Good Granny Alive, Jane. As feeble as they look? What did you do to help them? Issue Smith and Wessons?”
That made her laugh. “No, nothing so drastic.” Jane took one handgun out of a plastic case and unrolled another one from a black velvet rectangle. “I think we’ll try a couple of these and be on our way. Look all right to you?” she asked, holding them both out to me.
“Sure enough,” I said and rubbed my palms together. “Yee-hah, let’s go.”
Before we left the house, Jane reached in a plastic bag and brought out several boxes of bullets. She dropped them in the pockets of her red over-sized shirt jacket. “I stopped by Mister Wriggle’s store again yesterday afternoon when I realized we would need a good many practice bullets, much more than I bought before. I’m sure I already have some somewhere in those unpacked boxes, but where I haven’t a clue.”
We gathered our hardware and Jane’s biscuit tin and set out through the grassy section of wildflowers at the very edge of Cal Pre-witt’s property. I put on a brave face as we walked by two warning signs that said “Keep Out” and ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot on Sight.” Both were hand-painted red in Cal’s writing, which was scary enough, him being so uncultured and all. My heart fluttered a little bit. I turned my nose up and kept walking, thinking about what perfect targets we made with Jane’s red shirt and my orange Auburn T-shirt and floral stretch leggings. We wouldn’t be mistaken for deer, that was for sure.
We came around a bend in the road and could see a dilapidated house. Instead of a car under the carport, Cal had little mounds of old rusty metal junk on the stained concrete. Against the back wall, a long workbench held smaller piles of what looked like tools and tinier pieces of glass and metal.
“Here we are,” Jane said. She was too polite to say, “Here we are at this awful-looking, rundown excuse of a house,” but that’s what it was. “I’ll leave this tin by the side door, then we can be on our way.”
I shook my head in wonder. “Doesn’t look like he’s spent a dime on this place in ages.”
Jane moved her head to one side. “He does seem quite thrifty,” she said, looking up at the rusted gutter as she came out from under the carport. It didn’t have a drop of paint on it and looked like it could cave in any minute.
“You’re funny. Thrifty’s not the word for it. Crazy in the head is what he is. All that dough and it not doing him a bit of good. They say he has gold and money hidden all over the woods. Pots of it.”
“That sounds like a story children might invent beside a camp-fire,” Jane said, as we walked past the house toward the road again.She brushed her hands off like they had dirt on them even though she hadn’t touched anything on that nasty porch.
Jane still didn’t look convinced. She seemed preoccupied with studying the trees. She kept taking deep breaths and smiling real big.
That’s when it hit me. How had I not seen it before? She was one of those nature freaks. I knew it because she had that look, like Gene Miller’s boy Hoil always had, but now Hoil was a hippie. Still is. It’s the kind of look that makes you think they are a little on the goofy side.
“And,” I said, “his granddaddy was the same way with money. Everybody says that’s why he told Cal never to sell, because he couldn’t remember where all he’d buried stuff and he wanted Cal to keep on looking for it. And not only that, but his grandaddy’s great-great on-and-on grandaddy was supposed to have found a secret cave full of Spanish gold somewhere out here.”
“Stories like that hardly ever have any truth to them at all. No, Phoebe, the treasure here is the beauty around us. Isn’t it
“I taught a few classes in Florida. Those were my students in a self-defense class for the elderly.”
“Good Granny Alive, Jane. As feeble as they look? What did you do to help them? Issue Smith and Wessons?”
That made her laugh. “No, nothing so drastic.” Jane took one handgun out of a plastic case and unrolled another one from a black velvet rectangle. “I think we’ll try a couple of these and be on our way. Look all right to you?” she asked, holding them both out to me.
“Sure enough,” I said and rubbed my palms together. “Yee-hah, let’s go.”
Before we left the house, Jane reached in a plastic bag and brought out several boxes of bullets. She dropped them in the pockets of her red over-sized shirt jacket. “I stopped by Mister Wriggle’s store again yesterday afternoon when I realized we would need a good many practice bullets, much more than I bought before. I’m sure I already have some somewhere in those unpacked boxes, but where I haven’t a clue.”
We gathered our hardware and Jane’s biscuit tin and set out through the grassy section of wildflowers at the very edge of Cal Pre-witt’s property. I put on a brave face as we walked by two warning signs that said “Keep Out” and ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot on Sight.” Both were hand-painted red in Cal’s writing, which was scary enough, him being so uncultured and all. My heart fluttered a little bit. I turned my nose up and kept walking, thinking about what perfect targets we made with Jane’s red shirt and my orange Auburn T-shirt and floral stretch leggings. We wouldn’t be mistaken for deer, that was for sure.
We came around a bend in the road and could see a dilapidated house. Instead of a car under the carport, Cal had little mounds of old rusty metal junk on the stained concrete. Against the back wall, a long workbench held smaller piles of what looked like tools and tinier pieces of glass and metal.
“Here we are,” Jane said. She was too polite to say, “Here we are at this awful-looking, rundown excuse of a house,” but that’s what it was. “I’ll leave this tin by the side door, then we can be on our way.”
I shook my head in wonder. “Doesn’t look like he’s spent a dime on this place in ages.”
Jane moved her head to one side. “He does seem quite thrifty,” she said, looking up at the rusted gutter as she came out from under the carport. It didn’t have a drop of paint on it and looked like it could cave in any minute.
“You’re funny. Thrifty’s not the word for it. Crazy in the head is what he is. All that dough and it not doing him a bit of good. They say he has gold and money hidden all over the woods. Pots of it.”
“That sounds like a story children might invent beside a camp-fire,” Jane said, as we walked past the house toward the road again.She brushed her hands off like they had dirt on them even though she hadn’t touched anything on that nasty porch.
Jane still didn’t look convinced. She seemed preoccupied with studying the trees. She kept taking deep breaths and smiling real big.
That’s when it hit me. How had I not seen it before? She was one of those nature freaks. I knew it because she had that look, like Gene Miller’s boy Hoil always had, but now Hoil was a hippie. Still is. It’s the kind of look that makes you think they are a little on the goofy side.
“And,” I said, “his granddaddy was the same way with money. Everybody says that’s why he told Cal never to sell, because he couldn’t remember where all he’d buried stuff and he wanted Cal to keep on looking for it. And not only that, but his grandaddy’s great-great on-and-on grandaddy was supposed to have found a secret cave full of Spanish gold somewhere out here.”
“Stories like that hardly ever have any truth to them at all. No, Phoebe, the treasure here is the beauty around us. Isn’t it
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