Blossoms Meet the Vulture Lady

by Betsy Byars

  Pap came out of the house yawning. He paused on the top step to stretch. “Vern, you ready to go?” he called across the yard.

  “I been ready.”

  “Maggie, you want to come?”

  Maggie hesitated. It would be more fun to follow Junior’s trail into the woods, but only if Vern or somebody was along for company. This summer, being alone didn’t give her as much pleasure as it used to.

  “Oh, all right.” She moved closer to the pickup truck. Then she yelled, “But I get to sit by the window,” and she broke into a run.

  “I sit by the window!”

  “First one there gets it!”

  Maggie ran across the yard and jumped on the running board. Vern was struggling with Pap’s door while Maggie struggled with hers. They got them open at the same minute, but Maggie ended up in the window seat and Vern behind the steering wheel.

  Maggie grinned.

  Pap came to the car, looking from left to right. “Where’s Mud?” he asked. “Anybody seen Mud?”

  “He probably followed Junior,” Vern said. Reluctantly he slid over so Pap could get in. He hated to ride in the middle. It was unmanly.

  “Followed Junior? Where?”

  “Into the woods.”

  Pap paused. Every day, when he took his after-lunch nap, Mud took a nap, too, under the kitchen table. It was an unusual thing for Mud not to be waiting right there when Pap got up.

  Pap climbed into the truck and swept the empty yard with one final glance. “This ain’t like Mud. He knows it’s can-collecting day.”

  Pap sounded Mud’s signal on the horn of the pickup: one long, two shorts. He waited. He sounded it again.

  “Well, if he don’t want to go …” Pap sounded hurt. He started the engine and steered the pickup out of the yard. On the timber bridge he paused to sound the horn one last time. Then the truck bounced over the rutted road toward the highway and disappeared into the pines.

  “I said ‘Go home!’”

  Junior turned again and put his hands on his hips, his mom’s pose when she meant business. He glared at Mud. Mud slunk toward the nearest tree. Head and tail lowered, he watched Junior through the leaves.

  Junior nodded his head for emphasis. “And I mean it. No coyote in his right mind wants to be around dogs.”

  Junior turned. Actually he loved for people to follow him, even to spy on him. It was flattering. He heard Mud’s footsteps behind him, and he grimaced with false annoyance. He loved to have to tell people again and again to leave him alone. His saddest moments were when they did.

  “I mean it, Mud,” he sang out, this time without turning. He pushed the wheelbarrow over some tree roots and cried “Whoa” when it almost tipped. When it didn’t fall, he said to the invention, “Don’t scare me like that.”

  Mud was coming slower now. He was ashamed. He had been told to go home so many times that it had made him feel bad, genuinely unwelcome.

  Suddenly far away, in the distance, he heard the truck horn. It was his beep—one long, two shorts. His ears snapped up. His head lifted.

  Junior swirled. He heard the horn, too, and he knew he was in danger of losing his only audience. He swirled and reached for his back pocket as quickly as a gunfighter in a showdown.

  “I got something for you,” he said. He knelt.

  Mud’s head was up; he was listening. He heard the sound of the horn again. Wrinkles appeared in his forehead.

  Junior rattled the paper as he opened the ball of hamburger. “See, it’s hamburger. You want some hamburger? Your favorite, Mud, ground round.”

  Mud hesitated. He wagged his tail, but it was at half mast. Junior pinched off a piece and held it out so Mud could smell it. “Here you go.”

  Mud came forward. His nose was running. He couldn’t help himself. He accepted the small pinch of hamburger meat and swallowed it. His golden eyes watched the rest of the meat in Junior’s hand.

  Junior twisted his fingers around Mud’s bandanna so Mud couldn’t pull away if he wanted to. He put the meat in his pocket and patted it. “There’s more where that came from,” he said. When he realized he had Mud’s full attention, he released his bandanna and stood up. He picked up the wheelbarrow handles and pushed.

  The horn sounded again—one long, two shorts. Junior put his hand in his back pocket and rattled the hamburger paper.

  Once again, Mud couldn’t help himself. He followed.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mad Mary

  Since Maggie was by the window, she was the first to spot Mad Mary. “There she is! There she is!”

  “Who?” Vern asked without interest. He was still unhappy about having to sit in the middle. Usually his only competition for the window seat was Mud, and they shared.

  “Mad Mary!”

  Vern leaned forward. His mouth dropped open. Maggie had said the one word that could cause him to look out the window. He had promised himself he would not look out HER window no matter what or whom she saw. But he could not miss a chance to see Mad Mary. He leaned across his sister.

  Mad Mary was standing at the side of the road. She was looking at something in her hand, something she had just taken up from the road. She stuffed it in the bag she kept slung over her shoulder, and without a glance at the pickup truck, she started walking.

  Mad Mary was known for her cane—a long stick, curved at the top like a shepherd’s hook. Kids were scared of that hook. “She’ll grab you with it if you get close,” they said, and they believed it. The cane moved like part of Mad Mary, an extra arm or leg. She was never seen without it.

  “What was that she put in her bag?” Vern asked. He spoke in a whisper even though she was too far away to hear him. He had always had a dread of Mad Mary. If he was by himself when he saw her, he ran into the woods rather than pass her.

  “I couldn’t see. It was either a dead squirrel or a rabbit. It was too flat to tell.”

  “She’ll eat it,” Vern said. “She doesn’t care what it is. She’ll eat skunk.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t eat it,” Maggie said, leaning back thoughtfully. “Maybe she just collects it to make potions and stuff, magic spells.”

  “She eats it,” Pap said.

  Maggie leaned around Vern to look at him. “Pap, people in my school says she’s a witch.”

  “She’s no witch. I went to school with her.”

  “You went to school with Mad Mary?”

  Both Maggie and Vern were leaning forward now, staring at Pap. Both mouths were open.

  Pap nodded. He steered the pickup into a picnic area and pulled on the brakes.

  “What was she like, Pap?”

  “Back then I don’t remember her being no different from anybody else,” Pap said. “Except that her family had more money than anybody in the county and they always kept to themselves. Now let’s pick up cans if we’re going to pick up cans.”

  “How do you know she eats the stuff, Pap?” Maggie said, sliding out. The seats of the pickup were worn as slick as a sliding board.

  “We had a conversation one time. I was getting pop bottles—it was bottles back then. You got two cents apiece for them. I was walking along looking for bottles and I came on Mary. She was scraping up something off the road. DORs she calls them, dead-on-roads.”

  “Gross,” Maggie said.

  “She thinks of it as dried meat—sun-dried meat. She said it’s better than beef jerky. Course, most of the time she cooks her meat—varmint stew, she makes.”

  “Supergross,” Maggie said.

  “She invited me over one time.”

  “To her house?”

  Pap nodded. “She was more sociable in those days. ‘I make the best varmint stew in the county,’ she said. I said, ‘It would have to go some to beat my mama’s varmint stew. It was known statewide. You put red peppers in yours?’ ‘Red and green if I got them,’ she said. We went on like that for a while, swapping recipes, and then she went her way and I went mine.”

  Maggie and Vern were staring at him as
if he didn’t have good sense. Finally Maggie shook her head in disbelief. “Pap, let me get this straight. Mad Mary invited you over to her house?”

  “Yep.” Pap opened a bag of trash in the first container and pulled out two Diet Pepsi cans.

  “Where does she live?”

  “At that time she lived in an old shack by the river. She built it herself, built it out of what was left of the old home place after it burned. Then she had to move when they put in the dam. After that she got less sociable, talked to herself instead of other people. I don’t know where she lives now—in the woods somewhere.”

  “Did you go to the old shack, Pap?”

  “No, I never got around to it.”

  Maggie shook her head in amazement. “I wish you’d gone. Then you could tell us about it.”

  "Well, I didn’t, so I can’t.”

  “Anyway, people in my school say she’s a witch.”

  “I’ve heard that too,” Vern said.

  Pap was going through the second trash can. “Plastic bottles,” he said, his voice deep with disgust. “I hate them things.” He moved on. “Ah,” he said at the next can. “Here we go.”

  He began dropping can after can into his plastic bag. He smiled. The sound of pop cans falling into a plastic sack was music to his ears.

  “Here she comes! Here she comes!” Maggie said.

  This time Vern didn’t have to ask who. He turned and watched as Mad Mary, hook in hand, made her way toward the picnic area. Unconsciously he stepped closer to Pap.

  “She’s coming, Pap,” Maggie said. She tugged his sleeve. “Say hey to her. See if she remembers you.”

  Pap paused to open a Kentucky Fried Chicken box and shake out two cans. “I wish people wouldn’t hide their cans,” Pap said. He wiped chicken grease on the bib of his overalls. “It’s messy to have to—”

  “Pap!” Maggie said urgently. Pap glanced up.

  Mad Mary was passing the picnic area. She was looking straight ahead, her sharp profile angled against the woods beyond. Her wide-brimmed straw hat hid most of her face and all of her gray hair.

  “Afternoon, Mary,” Pap said. He touched his hand to his forehead where the brim of his hat would have been if he had had one on.

  Mad Mary did not answer. She did not change her stride or the rhythm of her cane. She just kept walking.

  Pap shook his head. “Ever since they took her shack away from her, she sure ain’t been sociable.”

  Pap threw the bag into the back of the pickup.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Six-Second Nightmare

  The coyote trap was hidden deep in the blackberry bushes, perfectly camouflaged. It was exactly the sort of spot, Junior thought, that a coyote would be looking for.

  He stood for a moment, wiping his dusty hands on his T-shirt, admiring the way the trap blended into the leaves. Not even a coyote would spot the wire, the trapdoor.

  It would seem like an ordinary little cave in the leaves, Junior thought, a bower. The coyote would hurry in, circle a few times, and then collapse the way Mud collapsed under the kitchen table. It was so perfect that Junior felt he did not even have to put the bait inside for an enticement.

  Junior’s beautiful dream continued.

  The coyote would lie there, panting at first, licking his dusty paws, enjoying the retreat. Then he would smell the hamburger meat. All animals loved hamburger, so Junior knew he was safe using that. He would smell the hamburger, lift his head, spot the beautiful ball of meat, crouch down, smell it, take it gingerly into his mouth, and at that moment the spring would snap, the door would fall, the latch would click.

  Hello, Coyote.

  It made Junior’s blood race to think of it.

  He reached into his pocket where he had the hamburger meat still wrapped in the freezer paper. Carefully he unwrapped it. It smelled good. Junior inhaled the odor. Fresh. It was still frozen a little in the center, but Junior was sure that by the time the coyote came, it would be soft all the way through.

  In his mind the coyote he would catch was the one he watched on Saturday-morning cartoons, the one with lots of expressions. Junior knew exactly which expression the coyote would be wearing when Junior arrived tomorrow, that sort of sheepish, well-you-got-me smile he wore when things didn’t go right. Maybe he would even give one of those comical shrugs.

  And when Junior opened the door, the coyote, resigned to capture, would walk out on his hind legs, like a person. Junior grinned.

  He got down on his hands and knees. Over his head was the trapdoor, strung up by fishing line. Junior had chosen fishing line because it was almost invisible. Even he who knew it was there could hardly spot it.

  The trapdoor was straight up and balanced so finely that it took almost nothing to trigger it; just a touch of the hamburger triggering device would be enough. Junior was proud of that. He was going to put the hamburger meat between tin-can lids, like a tin-can-lid sandwich. And inside the hamburger meat would be the string. If the coyote even sniffed hard at the tin-can sandwich, it could go off, and if he touched it …

  With great care he crawled into the trap. He had spent a lot of time pushing dirt into the trap, covering the edges of wood, and he didn’t want to disturb it.

  Inside, he turned and paused for a minute to imagine it once again from the coyote’s viewpoint. It was irresistible. The coyote would be overjoyed to find this wonderful place. It was roomy enough for a half dozen coyotes, one of the nicest traps Junior had ever seen in his life. He hoped that after he made the capture, the reporters would get a picture of him standing beside the trap. He shuddered with sudden, intense pleasure.

  There was a little dirt on the hamburger meat—Junior had been careless while he was crawling in—and he brushed it off. Only the best for his coyote.

  Junior crossed his legs —there wasn’t room for him to sit erect, so he bent over, facing the back of the trap. This was the most important moment—the setting of the trap. The door overhead was very sensitive, ready to snap shut and lock at the slightest movement.

  He drew in his breath. His tongue flicked over his dry lips.

  He began to roll the hamburger in his hands, as if it were clay. He paused for a moment to admire it. It was as round and smooth as a tennis ball.

  In the shadows of the pine trees Mud watched. His nose began to run. He moved closer to the trap. Junior was too intent to notice. He took the string. He took it very, very carefully because the trapdoor was so sensitive, he didn’t want to … Again he held his breath. He pressed the string into the soft meat.

  Now he pulled out the tin-can lids. One was tuna, one was tomato soup. Junior had not rinsed either one because—who knows?—tuna and tomato soup might be just what the coyote ordered. Junior smiled.

  Then slowly, very, very carefully, Junior squeezed the hamburger meat between the two lids. Perfect. It couldn’t be better. He set the tin-can sandwich at the back of the cage. Perfect. Now all he had to do was back very, very slowly out of the trap.

  He swallowed. His excitement was so great, he was almost choking on it.

  He started backing out. It almost seemed that the trapdoor trembled above him. “Not yet,” he told the door. “Wait for the—”

  He never got to utter the word coyote. He felt hot breath on his bare leg. He screamed. The coyote had filled his mind so completely for the past hour, he had no doubts that the coyote was here.

  He lunged back into the trap. He spun around. It was Mud. Mud was just as startled as Junior and had run halfway across the clearing with his tail between his legs.

  Junior glanced up at the trapdoor. It was still there, straight up. “Thank you, thank you,” he told it. Then the intense relief he was feeling died. He discovered that his hand was on the tin-can sandwich. He had squashed it flat.

  Again he muttered a “Thank you” to the trapdoor. He lifted his hand. He was horrified to see the tin-can sandwich come up with it. The next three seconds were a nightmare.
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  The trapdoor swished down through the leaves like the blade of a guillotine. Leaves, blackberries, bugs, flew through the hot summer air. Then there was the terrible final double click as the trapdoor locked into place.

  Hello, Junior.

  CHAPTER 7

  Blackberry Time

  Mad Mary waded through the creek without bothering to keep her boots dry. The creek ran cold even in July, but Mad Mary did not notice the icy water leaking in through the worn soles, soaking her socks.

  When Mad Mary was a girl, the family had had a servant to polish their shoes and wash and iron their shoelaces. Now her laces were so knotted and caked with mud, she never untied them. If she ever had to take off her boots, she would cut them out and start over.

  She stepped up the creek bank in one long practiced stride. Her stick dug into the mud for support. The old cloth bag bobbed against her shoulder.

  Mad Mary cut through the bushes using her cane to push back the leaves, first on one side, then on the other. The cloth of her skirts was so worn that even the sharpest thorns could not get a tight enough hold to delay her.

  At the edge of the clearing she paused. Her bright eyes raked the ground.

  She closed her right eye. That was her weak eye, and she always closed it when she wanted to see something more clearly.

  The look in her left eye sharpened. Her nostrils flared. There they were. Onions. Wild onions. She was there in four steps.

  “A rabbit, a squirrel, and onions,” she muttered to herself. “I’ll eat good tonight.” She always felt that her stews were better, richer, if there were at least two different kinds of meat and lots of onions.

  She bent and pulled the onions carefully from the soft ground. She brushed the roots over her skirt to remove the dirt.

  When she had gathered a fistful, she turned and poked them into the cloth bag, on top of the two dead animals. The bag had been stained with so many foods, both animal and vegetable, that it had the look of a bag purposefully dyed for camouflage.