She set the gun gingerly on the top of the nightstand and picked up the papers that had been lying beneath it. Each page held a few numbers, a name, and a bunch of other words that Addie didn’t understand. The first page read:
PROSPECT #56807/Black Betty
Sire: Grand Champion Whiplash
Dam: Roho
Champion bloodline (yes)
Gameness (yes)
Each page went on and on like this. She was still trying to make sense of it when she heard someone coming down the hallway. In a panic, she shoved the paper and the gun back into the nightstand.
“Addie?” Bobby stuck his head inside the room. “Girl, what are you doing in here?”
“I was just . . . I was looking for the bathroom,” Addie managed to squeak out. “This house is so damn big, I guess I got lost.”
“Well, this ain’t it.” Bobby motioned her out of the room. “The one downstairs ain’t workin’, so you’ll have to go upstairs.”
“That’s okay,” Addie replied. “I can hold it.”
Bobby shrugged. “If you say so. I got the tools we need. Let’s git.”
Addie didn’t protest. She followed him out into the Delta sunshine, past the tall grass and crumbling steps, and into the safety of Bobby’s truck. She didn’t look back as they drove away.
CHAPTER 19
THE ROAD TO THE FLOYD FARM SEEMED PARTICULARLY BUMPY as Addie sat in the passenger seat of Wanda’s car. She was nervous, and it was a feeling she couldn’t shake. She couldn’t figure out why. The last time she’d seen Jasper had been at the farm, and they had left everything just fine.
“What’s wrong with you today?” Wanda asked. “You’ve been quiet since I picked you up.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay, whatever.”
“I swear, I’m fine!”
“I still can’t believe Bobby agreed to come tonight,” Wanda said.
“I think your revelation to him the other day really changed his point of view,” Addie replied.
“Mommy?” Bryar peeped from the backseat.
“What, sugar?”
“What does rev . . . revlashun mean?”
“Revelation?” Wanda swiveled her head around to look at Bryar. “It means to tell a story that nobody has heard before.”
“Oh,” Bryar replied. He leaned his whole body forward in his booster seat. “What story did you tell?”
“It was kind of a grown-up story,” Wanda said. “Remember that Mommy talks to other grown-ups about grown-up things sometimes?”
“Yes.” Bryar sighed through clenched teeth. “I don’t like those stories.”
“Speaking of grown-up things,” Addie began. “Do you think you might be able to find a sitter for the B-Man in two weeks?”
“I’m sure that I can.”
“Great,” Addie replied. “I’m going to be twenty-eight that Saturday.”
“How come you didn’t tell me? We need to have a party!”
“That’s why I’m telling you now,” Addie said. “I haven’t celebrated my birthday in a couple of years. I figure now is as good a time as any to start back up again.”
There were cars everywhere when they arrived at the farm. Everyone was dressed in red, white, and blue. Wanda and Bryar were wearing matching star-spangled T-shirts and cowboy boots. In fact, Addie was wearing her very first pair of cowboy boots—they were hot pink. The color thrilled Addie. She hadn’t even known that a person could get cowboy boots that color.
People carried baskets with delicious contents and jugs of sweet tea under their arms. Children whizzed past them unattended with sparklers clutched in their fists, glints of fire flickering to the ground below. The air was thick with sweat and excitement.
Bryar skipped ahead of them, occasionally looking back to make sure his mother and Addie were following. “Mom! Mom! Mom!” he chanted. “Look! Sno-cones!”
“That will flat-out ruin your shirt,” Wanda replied.
“I’ll be careful. Promise.”
“Those sno-cones look pretty good. It is sweltering out here,” Addie said. “Let him have one, Mom.”
“I could just kick whoever invented the sno-cone. They obviously never had to do laundry.”
“My mom never let me have them as a kid,” Addie said. “She thought they were too messy. You two would probably get along.”
“Fine!” Wanda threw up her hands in defeat. “You two go on and get a sno-cone. But sit down with them!”
Bryar gleefully took Addie’s hand and pulled her toward the line. He looked up at her and said, “What flavor are you gonna get?”
“I don’t know,” Addie replied. “Maybe purple?”
“Purple isn’t a flavor.” Jasper was standing there, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t smiling. In fact, he was scowling.
“I’m going to have red,” Bryar said.
“Still not a flavor,” Jasper countered.
“He’s four,” Addie said.
“And how old are you?”
“I’ll be twenty-eight in two weeks.”
“We’d like one red and one purple, please,” Jasper said to the man wielding the sno-cone machine.
The man nodded and set himself to work. “See?” Addie nudged Jasper. “He knew what you meant.”
Jasper handed Addie and Bryar their sno-cones, tipping his hat to them as he walked away. He didn’t say anything else to Addie. She wondered what he was so stressed about.
“Hey! Wait up!” Addie handed an already stained and soggy Bryar off to Wanda and then jogged after Jasper. “Listen, if you’ve got other stuff you need to be doing, I understand.”
“I don’t have anything else to do,” Jasper replied. His tone was gruff, agitated. “You just walk too slowly.”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to be running a race.”
Jasper slowed down. “No. I’m sorry. I forgot you’re only about as tall as a nine-year-old.”
“I look at least twelve.”
“You always have a response for everything?”
“It’s part of my charm.”
“Actually, if you don’t mind, I have a few things I need to check on.” Jasper’s gaze shifted from Addie to the expansive pumpkin patch. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Sure,” Addie replied.
Jasper motioned for Addie to follow him. He led her to a vehicle that looked like a cross between a four-wheeler and a miniature truck. The word POLARIS was written on the side. “Hop in.”
“Don’t I need a helmet to ride on this thing?”
“No.” Jasper started the engine. “There are no helmet laws in the state of Arkansas. Besides, this isn’t a motorcycle. It’s an off-road vehicle.”
“I forgot I was hanging out with a lawyer.”
Jasper grinned as they rattled along, his mood lifting with every bump. Addie sulked next to him. It annoyed her that he seemed to enjoy her the most when she was uncomfortable. It was almost as if he did things on purpose just to watch her squirm.
“Where are we going?” Addie called out over the roar of the engine. “It looks like we’re leaving the pumpkin patch.”
“We are. I’ve got to go check on a couple of things on the actual farm. We still have to keep it running, you know.”
“Oh.” Actually, Addie hadn’t known. The closest that she’d come to farm life was the time she’d visited a petting zoo in St. Louis. She had a feeling that didn’t count.
They slowed down when they approached a field with several machines. “Those machines are harvesting cotton,” Jasper said. “Cotton-picking machines use rotating spindles to pick or twist the seed cotton from the burr. Then doffers remove the seed cotton from the spindles and drop the seed cotton into the conveying system.”
“Wow,” Addie replied. “Is it complicated?”
“It’s not so much.” Jasper shrugged. “The hardest thing is just keeping the damn boll weevils out.”
“The what?”
“The boll weevi
l. It’s the insect enemy of cotton. It can complete an entire life cycle in three weeks, lay two hundred eggs per female—each in a separate cotton square, ensuring the destruction of each—and spread rapidly, covering forty to a hundred sixty miles per year.”
“Sounds intense.”
“It is.” Jasper’s voice was serious. “It can destroy an entire crop, which will in turn destroy your bank account. I’ve got to go over to that machine just to the right of us,” Jasper said, pointing to a green machine standing stagnant in the field. “It broke down this morning, and I’ve got a guy out there working on it.”
Addie stood up and followed Jasper. As they approached the machine, she could see a man hunched over to one side, his face hidden. He straightened up as they approached him.
“Mr. Floyd,” the man said. “I think I’ve ’bout got ’er fixed up.”
“Good,” Jasper replied. “What do you think caused it?”
Addie studied the man in front of her. He looked young. He was smaller than Jasper, with thick dark hair and windburned skin. He looked like a farmer in a way that Jasper did not. Addie stuck out her hand to him and said, “I’m Addie. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’m Loren.” His gaze was set squarely on her chest. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. “So, you and the boss man an item?”
Addie choked back a laugh. “I, uh, well, we’re . . .” She didn’t know what to say. How had she not thought of this before? What were they? She certainly hadn’t expected some cowhand in the middle of a cotton field to ask for a status update.
Jasper stiffened. He stepped closer to Addie. “We better get going. I need you to get this thing running before lunchtime.”
“Yes, sir,” Loren said, a broad smile plastered across his face. “You let me know if you ever figure out that answer, Miss Addie.”
This kid was brazen.
Jasper turned and strode back to the vehicle, dragging Addie along with him. “So all this land,” Addie said, hoping to break the tension, “belongs to you?”
“It belongs to my father,” Jasper corrected her.
“That’s what I meant.”
“My father and I are two very different people.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then you’re one step ahead of most people.” Jasper stopped the vehicle. He gazed out into the field surrounding them. “You’re new here, so I don’t expect you to understand the ins and outs of a place like Eunice.”
“I’m trying to understand,” Addie replied. “But the people here sure don’t make it easy.”
“Twelve hundred acres of this land has been in my family for almost two hundred years,” Jasper continued. “The Floyd men have always been farmers.”
“But you became a lawyer instead.”
“The land on the other side of this fence,” Jasper continued, “is all my land. It’s just about twenty acres, but it all belongs to me.”
“Twenty acres sounds like a lot to me,” Addie said.
Jasper smiled. “You would think that.”
“So what do you plan to do with the old barn and what’s left of the house?”
“Demolish it,” Jasper said matter-of-factly. “There’s no saving it. It’s too far gone to be of any use.”
“Then what?”
“I’m going to build a house.”
“A house? For you?”
“Who else would I build a house for?”
For some reason that response cut her. Of course he was building a house for himself. Just for himself. “What will you do with all that’s there now?”
“Throw it away, I guess.”
Addie hopped off the Polaris. “Care if I go over there and take a look? I’m dying to see what’s inside that barn.”
“Snakes and rusty nails are what’s inside,” Jasper replied, following after her. “I swear, I’ve never met a person so interested in trash.”
“It’s not trash just because it’s old,” Addie said.
“I know, I know.”
She waded through the hip-high grass to the entrance of the barn. It was leaning far to its left side, as if one strong gust of wind could topple it for good. “How long has it been since anybody lived here?”
“Decades,” Jasper said. “They’d abandoned the place long before it went into foreclosure. We were just teenagers when they moved off. Left all their livestock, dogs, even half their belongings in the house.”
“Why?”
Jasper shrugged. “Nobody knows, exactly. Old Man Jones died when Redd and the rest of us were in junior high. I guess his mama couldn’t handle it all by herself. She tried for a while, having eight boys and a farm to take care of.”
“Eight?” Addie was aghast.
“Not much to do around here but farm and have babies.”
“Well, you’d think with all those boys she would’ve had some help.”
“You’d think.” Jasper thumped his foot on a stray board. “But that’s only because you don’t know the Jones boys.”
“I ran into him the other day while I was walking Felix,” Addie said. “He was sitting in front of some run-down house.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“He give you a hard time?”
Addie shrugged. “He called me a Yankee, which I gather is an insult.”
“People around here call everybody who isn’t from here a Yankee,” Jasper replied. “What were you doing downtown?”
“I told you. I was walking Felix.”
“You shouldn’t be down there by yourself.”
“I’m not a child,” Addie said. She rolled her eyes. “I can handle myself.”
“It’s not safe down there.”
“Why not?”
“It just isn’t.”
“That’s not a good enough reason.”
It was Jasper’s turn to roll his eyes. “There are plenty of places you can walk Felix that don’t include getting that close to the Mississippi River.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“Just be careful down there,” Jasper replied. “Redd Jones hangs out down there for a reason.”
“Maybe he knows what happened to Felix.”
“I wouldn’t go around asking people what they know.”
“Well, somebody knows something,” Addie said. “Somebody had to have seen or heard something.”
“I’m going to give you some advice that you probably won’t take too kindly to,” he said. “People around here don’t want you burrowing into their business. They want to be left alone. A few lonely old women sitting on the front porch gossiping is one thing, but an outsider coming in and asking lots of questions where she isn’t wanted is another. It puts people off, Addie. It makes them angry.”
“I’m not burrowing into anybody’s business.”
“Good.” Jasper nodded. “Keep it that way.”
“But a decent person doesn’t just shoot a dog and leave it to die,” Addie finished.
“No, he doesn’t,” Jasper agreed. “And it isn’t the kind of person you want to accidentally rub the wrong way.”
She decided against telling him that she’d also been inside Redd’s house with Bobby. Besides, she wasn’t sure what to make of what she’d found, and she didn’t need Jasper in her head telling her it was nothing. “I’m trying not to do any burrowing or rubbing,” Addie said.
A devilish smile appeared on Jasper’s face. “Good to know,” he replied. “Good to know.”
Addie stepped inside the barn. Grass had grown up in between the wooden slats, dirt and debris everywhere. There were rusty tools hanging from the rotting beams, swaying menacingly in the breeze. There was an old couch in the corner, its metal coils sticking out like curls on a child’s head. With every step Addie took, something creaked or cracked or was crushed beneath her feet.
“We shouldn’t stay in here too long,” Jasper warned her. “It’s not safe.�
�
“Can I take a few of these loose boards with me?” Addie asked. “Some of them are still in pretty good shape.”
Jasper was standing in the doorway, his hands shoved down inside the pockets of his jeans. “What for?”
“I have an idea.” Addie bent down and picked up a stray board. That’s when she saw it. Coiled inside the couch cushion next to the metal springs. A snake. “Jasper,” she rasped. “Jasper!”
“What?” Jasper vaulted forward, following her voice. “What’s wrong?”
Addie clutched the boards to her chest, afraid to move. It saw her. It was watching her. “Snake . . . snake . . . snake . . .” She repeated the word over and over.
Jasper took several swift steps toward her. “Cover your ears, Adelaide.”
Addie wasn’t listening. The snake was moving. It was swaying back and forth. If it had haunches, it would have been on them. It was going to bite her. She knew it. She fell back when it lunged, the bullet from Jasper’s gun whizzing by her ear. The snake’s head popped like a cherry tomato, the bloody body writhing around the coils of the couch.
Addie sat there for a minute, stunned. Her ears were ringing. She could see Jasper in front of her, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Addie? Addie? Are you okay?” He was shaking her.
She blinked. “I’m okay.”
“I told you there were snakes in here.”
“Did you shoot it?” She let him pull her to her feet. “With a gun?”
“What else would I have shot it with?” Jasper asked. “I told you to cover your ears.”
“Does everybody have a gun in this damn town?”
“You’re from Chicago. People have guns in Chicago.”
“The criminals have guns in Chicago,” Addie replied. “Cops have guns.”
“Well, down here we don’t wait for the law to show up. We take care of our own business.”
Addie grinned at him. “You’re such an enigma, Jasper Floyd. A gun-toting farmer with a law degree.”
Sit! Stay! Speak! Page 11
