Blue Jesus: a Novel by Tom Edwards

Author:Tom Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2009-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

It’s only been three days, but it seems like forever since I got Early away from the bait farm. When we got back to our house Grandma had all the lights on and the house looked like a ball of fire against the mountain. As we came across the meadow I could see her pacing on the front porch and I knew she was looking for me. She was walking mad, digging from one end of the porch to the other, her fingers working the hem of her apron, gathering thoughts. I knew I was in trouble.

I snuck Early up to the barn and tried to get him settled. He wouldn’t stay in the tack room where Pa’s been sleeping, so I hauled an old mattress up to the hayloft and made him a place up there. His hiding place is behind some hay bales, and unless you know he’s up there you’d miss him. I got him a flashlight and some old Screen Secrets I keep hid in the barn. I know them by heart and don’t care if they get wrecked. There’s a water pump next to the stalls and if he has to go the bathroom there’s an old outhouse behind the barn, or he can just squirt out the door like Will. I planned on sneaking food out of the kitchen when Grandma wasn’t looking. Near as I could tell, Early’s biggest problem was going to be boredom.

Boy, I can read Mr. Finch like a book. He made a beeline for our house the minute he discovered Early was missing. Will told me he and Grandma had a knock-down, drag-out fight on our front porch. Mr. Finch called Grandma a lying thief, and she called him an ignorant, drunken hillbilly. I always miss the good stuff.

Mr. Finch went into town and came back with Sheriff Williams. Will said the sheriff looked sorry to be confronting Grandma, but said it was his duty and Early belonged at home. Mr. Finch said he wanted to search the house, but Grandma said if he did it’d be over her dead body. She gave the sheriff her word that Early wasn’t in the house and promised to call when she found out what happened to him. I came in about three hours later.

My grandma’s got an icy stare. I read about somebody with an icy stare in a Nancy Drew. I can’t remember the book, but Nancy was confronted with an unkempt stranger with long, greasy hair, a sardonic sneer, and a chilling, icy stare. Tonight that was my grandma. She blessed my hide up one side and down the other. She called me irresponsible, reckless, foolish, and a bitter disappointment to her in her old age. That just wrecked me.

I told Grandma I had no idea where Early was, but I thought she’d be happy he was away from the bait farm. That did it. She grabbed me by the back of my neck and flung me down on the sofa in the front room.

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