by Jill Barnett
Hank scanned the group one more time, then crossed his arms. “Eat!”
They looked at the skillet as if it were a monster. “Just try ’em! They’re great. Go on.”
Lydia stared at one, then slowly picked it up. She brought it to her mouth, looked cross-eyed at it, and swallowed hard. She looked up at him, then back at the oyster. She dropped it like it was on fire. “I can’t. I just can’t!” She shuddered and wiped her hand on her skirt a few times.
“Hey, buddy.” Hank nodded at the kid. “You’re a man. Go ahead. Show these sissy girls how silly they are.”
The kid shook his head.
“Go on!”
Theodore picked one up, then quickly exchanged a worried look with Lydia. He brought it to his small mouth, his freckled nose wrinkled, and he paused.
Hank gave him a go-on nod.
The kid took a deep breath and gagged.
Hank shot across the mat, slammed his hand over the kid’s mouth, and ran outside with him. He left Theodore at the same oleander bush where he’d lost his guts.
He stormed through the door and stood there, scowling.
Annabelle was rubbing oysters in her hair and ears.
Lydia’s gaze was locked on her folded hands. “What’s going on?” Smitty asked, yawning. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was.”
He picked up the oysters and walked over to her. “They won’t eat!”
“Really?” She craned her sunburned neck a little, then flinched slightly. “What are you feeding them?” “Oysters!” He shook the skillet in her face. “You’re making me dizzy.”
“Oh.” He stilled his hand. “Look at these.”
“Ummm.” Her eyes lit up and she reached for one. She had it in her mouth in two shakes. “Good,” she said with her mouth full.
“You’re damn right they are!”
She grabbed three more, popped them in her mouth one by one and nodded. “Mmmm. Mmmm.”
She flinched suddenly. “Ouch!” Her eyes grew really huge, and her sunburned cheek bulged with the oyster.
Hank stared at her.
The lump of oyster shifted from cheek to cheek, then she raised her hand and spit into it. “Oh, my. Will you look at that!”
He blinked once.
“A pearl!”
He didn’t breathe. He didn’t move. He couldn’t. She held up the most perfect black pearl he’d ever seen.
Chapter 22
“Did you say what I think you just said?” Margaret stared openmouthed at Hank. He held Annabelle, who was squirming and screaming and kicking for all she was worth.
“She’s got the pearl up her goddamned nose.”
Margaret blinked, then opened her mouth. “How—” She cut herself off, then shook her head. “Never mind.”
He stared at the baby as if she had two heads, then he looked up, frowning. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”
“No, of course not. It’s perfectly normal to have a pearl stuck up your nose.”
“Shit, Smitty! I need your help here. How the hell do we get it out?” He was agitated and began to pace even faster than before.
Margaret studied the baby’s nose. There was a slight bulge high on the bridge. “Let’s press on the side of her nose and force it down.”
“I did that. That’s when she started screaming and kicking.”
“Hold her and I’ll try. But first take her over to the trunk.”
They walked across the hut and laid the baby down. “Hold her down, Hank.”
“She hates me,” he muttered.
“Mama! Mama!” Annabelle tried to get up. Her small face was red and angry. Tears poured down her cheeks. She kept trying to reach for Margaret, kicking her feet when Hank wouldn’t let her go.
Hank’s tanned skin grew pale as if someone were sticking bamboo under his fingernails.
“There, sweetie. It’s okay, Annabelle. It’s okay.” Margaret stroked her arm and leaned over her. She lifted her hand toward the baby’s nose and Annabelle screamed as if she was dying, and she twisted her head and began to bang it against the trunk.
“Damn!” Hank’s hands were shaking. “Can’t you pry it out?”
“What a good idea. Get me a crowbar, will you? Then we’ll just cram it up her nose. Babies and jammed doors are so much alike.”
Hank swore under his breath.
Margaret tried to think, but she realized that they were both just standing there—two adults—staring at a screaming toddler and neither one of them having any idea what they should do.
“Just hold her while I think for a minute.” Margaret stood back and began to catalog details, to analyze the situation.
Hank picked up the baby and held her out in front of him, staring at her nose and her teary face. He set her back down on the trunk, and they just eyed each other. He brought his finger up to wipe a gnat from her tear-streaked cheek, and she started crying again. Louder.
He stared at the baby with the same look the judge had given Margaret her first day in court.
A second later Lydia and Theodore came through the door. They looked at the baby. Lydia picked up a piece of fruit. “What’s the matter with her?”
“Annabelle has the pearl stuck up her nose,” Margaret told her.
“Oh.” Lydia casually peeled the banana. “She does that all the time.”
Hank’s jaw jutted out like a mule, and he bellowed, “She sticks pearls up her nose?”
“Peas,” Theodore said matter-of-factly.
Hank swore three choice words, which Annabelle repeated in a sodden voice.
“Once she put a rock up there,” Lydia said with her mouth full.
“An’ that Indian-head penny, too. Remember, Leedee?”
“How did they come out?” Margaret stared at the baby. Annabelle sat in the middle of the trunk, quietly sucking on her fingers, tears streaking her pink face. She eyed them suspiciously.
“Mama always made her sneeze.”
“Sneeze?” Margaret nodded, tapping a finger against her lips. “Yes, sneezing would do it.”
Hank picked the baby up so fast even Margaret was stunned.
“What are you going to do?”
“Watch.” He sat down on the mats with the baby. He set her in his lap, her back to him, and he held her feet in his big palms. “Where’s your nose, kid?” “Nose.” Annabelle pointed to her nose.
“That’s right. So . . . where’re your knees, kid?” “Kneez . . . ” She wrinkled her face up and blew out her nose—one side of her nose.
“That’s a good girl.” He looked up at Margaret and mouthed, “Watch.”
She nodded.
“Knees?” Hank asked again and gently slid his hand near her mouth.
“Kneez!” Annabelle’s face puckered up.
Hank slid his hand over her mouth.
She blew a big breath out her nose.
The pearl shot out like a bullet from a .38.
“Got it!” Hank snatched it from midair. He sat, staring at it for a frozen instant. He took a deep breath and sagged back against the trunk. He studied the baby, his eyes a little glazed, then he glanced up at Margaret.
Sweat dripped from his forehead, nose, and upper lip. His shirt was drenched, and his jaw tense. He looked like a man who had just seen hell and lived to tell about it.
“Busy day, Hank?”
His eyes cleared and he seemed to weigh her comment, then drilled her with a look that spoke volumes.
“What’s the big deal. I mean, really . . .” Margaret turned and stiffly waddled back to her corner. After two steps, she paused and turned back, an exact imitation of his own motions. “How hard can it be to watch a little kid?”
It was harder than trying to escape from prison. Hank carried Annabelle on his shoulder whenever she wasn’t asleep, and then he was always nearby. Nowhere within reach was anything that could fit up her nose. The other two kids had been fairly easy to deal with.
But fate played him for a sucker
. It rained the next three days without stop.
Not light rain.
Not pouring rain.
Torrents and torrents of rain.
The first rainy day Lydia and Theodore argued, nagged, and pinched each other until Hank threatened that if they didn’t stop, he would make them each swallow five raw oysters a day.
Theodore fidgeted and wiggled until midmorning, when he began to whine. First he wanted to go fishing. When Hank explained that you can’t catch fish in a rainstorm, he wanted Hank to take him swimming. He didn’t understand why they couldn’t swim just because it was raining, since you got wet anyway.
So for the rest for the rest of the day, he whined because there was nothing to do. He whined because Lydia wouldn’t let him pet Rebuttal. He whined because Hank wouldn’t play poker with him. He whined because he had to stay inside. He whined because Hank wouldn’t let him release Muddy from the bottle. And he whined because Hank only let him play the harmonica for ten minutes—nine minutes too long in Hank’s mind, not that he had much of a mind left.
The second day began with Theodore staring out the door at the rain. He turned toward Hank, sighed with melodrama, and said, “I wish—”
“Don’t wish!” Hank’s hand was on Theodore’s mouth in a blink.
Ten minutes later Hank gave in and let the kid release Muddy from that bottle. It turned out to be a relief.
The genie read to the kids from a Wild West book. Theodore and Lydia sat cross-legged on a mat in front of Muddy, their eyes wide and their breaths held.
The genie read, “‘Big Chief Golden Eagle looked at all his warriors. Then the Indian chief said, “We scalpum bad white men and we bring bad medicine down on all who hurt the tribe!” The Indians played their tom-toms, loud war drums that beat throughout the dark and starry western night.’”
Hank watched, then made a note about kids. As it turned out, that one bloodthirsty tale kept the rowdy little suckers occupied for the rest of the day and that night, talking about Indians and buffalo and war paint.
The third day Hank woke up to the sound of pounding—god-awful pounding. Theodore had covered the iron kettle with a shirt, turned it upside down, and he was beating on it with one of Hank’s shoes.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Me Big Chief Fire in the Hair! Me on warpath!” The kid hammered the pot a few more times. “This my tom-tom drum!”
A second later Lydia screamed—that sound Hank had learned that only little girls had—the one that sounded as if they were being skinned alive.
Hank staggered to his feet and crossed the hut. By then she was crying, huge big sobs. “My goat! Look at poor Rebuttal!”
“What the—Theodore!” he bellowed.
“Me Big Chief Fire in the Hair.” He puffed out his bony little chest and tucked his chin into his neck. “Me scalpum goat!”
Hank picked the kid up by the seat of his pants and held him up so they were eye level. “You wanna be Big Chief Fire on the Butt?”
“You said you didn’t hit kids.”
“That was four days ago. I changed my mind.” Theodore was chewing on his lip.
Hank gave him a hard look meant to make the kid squirm. “What did you use on the goat?”
“Scissors.”
Hank set the kid down and held out his hand. “Hand ’em over.”
For a kid who could shear a goat in a couple of hours, he moved about as quickly as time moved in a prison cell. He dug into his pockets, took out shells and rocks and pieces of colored glass, then dug through the other pocket and pulled out a wad of string, a broken piece of a sand dollar, two more rocks, a piece of a crab shell, and some funny-looking little scissors with handles shaped like hummingbirds.
Hank frowned down at the kid. “Where’d you get those?”
Theodore stared at his bare toes. “Leedee found them in the sewing basket.”
“Go give them back and apologize to your sister.”He shuffled over to Lydia, who was sniffling. “Sorry, Leedee.” He stuck out the scissors. “Here.” She took them and buried her head in the goat’s bald neck.
“Now go sit!” Hank pointed to a corner. “There! And don’t even think about moving until I say you can. Got it?”
Head down, feet dragging as if made of lead, Theodore trudged to the corner and plopped down.
When the sun broke through on the fourth morning Hank had a new understanding of kids—the clear understanding that he didn’t know a damn thing about ’em.
A couple of days later Margaret sat on the beach, using a bamboo and banana leaf parasol, protection against the intense rays of the sun. Lydia and Annabelle were playing with the sand crabs a few feet away. Annabelle chased them, giggling when Lydia placed one in her cupped hands.
A childish war whoop fractured the peace, and a second later Theodore came tearing across the sand. For an hour or two each day, Hank had been teaching him to swim in the freshwater pool near the waterfall. Theodore ran past her wearing a pair of men’s drawers they’d found in one of the trunks. They were sizes too big, knotted at the back of the waist and the legs stopped midcalf. But he didn’t care. His arms churned as he ran into the water, splashing everyone within a few feet.
Hank came walking over the dune in that loose-hipped stride he had. He’d cut the legs off his prison pants for swimming. His chest was bare. He walked past her and stopped, watching Theodore in the water. His back was crossed with scar stripes that were dark purple and welted.
She covered her mouth with a hand and closed her eyes for a moment. The whip marks Theodore had seen. She knew she had to keep the reaction from her face. Hank’s pride wouldn’t take pity from her or anyone else.
“Hank! I won!”
“You cheated, kid!”
“Come on in!” Theodore called just as a wave hit him in the back and almost knocked him down. He laughed.
Hank ran right past the girls and dove under a wave, surfacing on the other side, his black hair sleek as a seal and his body, scars and all, shimmering in the sun and sea.
She felt as if the breeze had suddenly stopped as she sat there, watching him teach Theodore how to ride a wave. For reasons she didn’t care to analyze, she was unable to look away. She watched them laughing and racing, each trying to outride the other by selecting the wave that would push him farther up the sand.
She shook her head after a minute of silly ogling, and she turned to say something to Lydia. There was a look of quiet longing on the girl’s face while she watched her brother and Hank laugh and ride the foamy crest of the waves.
Margaret stood and casually walked over to Lydia. “Would you like to go in the water?”
“I can’t swim,” she said, not looking at Margaret. “You can still wade if you’re careful.”
She looked down at her dress, then shook her head. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Look at those sissy girls!” Theodore called out. “Can’t swim! Can’t swim! Too bad you’re not a him!” He made a face at them and stuck his thumbs in his ears and wiggled his hands. Hank stood there, his muscular arms crossed. He laughed with Theodore.
Lydia looked at Margaret. She could see the girl wanted to go in.
“What would your mother do if she wanted to go in the water?”
Lydia looked up at her. “I don’t know.” Her face grew serious, then she gave Margaret a clear and direct look. “What would you do?”
Margaret dropped her parasol on a blanket in the sand. “I’m not going to take that from those two. I’m going in.” She picked up Annabelle and set her on her hip, then she looked at Lydia. “Are you coming?”
The girl looked at her brother, who was being his most obnoxious, prancing through the waves as if only men could swim.
“I’ll make certain you’re safe. Here . . . ” Margaret set Annabelle on her small feet. “Take one of her hands.”
Lydia slid her hand over Annabelle’s plump one, then she looked at Margaret.
“Ready?�
� Margaret asked her.
Theodore was chanting again.
Lydia looked at him. A whisper of a smile lit her lips and she nodded.
A few minutes later the three of them were wading into the water, lifting Annabelle over the small waves that slapped against their skirts and sprayed foamy saltwater in their laughing faces.
Chapter 23
Muddy was free. Finally. And flying. Purple smoke trailing behind, he soared in the blue sky above the beach, the cooler air washing over his beard and face. His vest flapped against his bare ribs and chest as he spiraled up in the air like smoke from one of Margaret’s meals.
He flew low over the beach where Theodore and Lydia were digging in the sand. They turned their bright faces skyward, pointing and laughing in that free way children had.
Muddy dove down and snatched Theodore’s cap right off his head, then watched him jump up and down, before he flew back for another low pass and dropped the hat in Lydia’s lap. She grinned and waved the cap.
He soared by again, then did a series of rolling somersaults in the air, the bells on the toes of his shoes tingling like wind chimes, and a second later he landed in the sand between the kids, his feet flat, his arms out, and a wide grin on his face. He’d always been a bit of a grandstander.
“Take me flying, Muddy! Please!” Theodore jumped up and down.
Hank stood nearby, his arms crossed like a palace guard. He drilled Muddy with a look of intimidation, then shook his head in disgust and walked into the water, diving under a wave. Muddy knew Hank still wouldn’t accept him, that he hadn’t acknowledged him as anything other than an annoyance.
Muddy stood between the two older children and held out his hands. “Come. I’ll take you both flying.”
“Me, too?” Lydia said in a voice that was almost a squeak.
“Do you want to come?”
“Leedee’s a sissy.”
“I am not,” Lydia said firmly and took a hold of his hand.
“Hold on tight,” Muddy warned, then he made one of the smoothest ascents he’d made in two thousand years.
A child holding each hand, he rode the wind, flew in smooth banked turns that cast lumbering dark shadows in the sand. Their hair flowing back and their cheeks fresh and rosy, they soared with Muddy as he flew over Margaret, who watched them with one hand shielding her eyes and one hand holding a makeshift parasol of banana leaves.
