Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (3 page)

“I'm waiting to hear if you think I'm an ogress. … Oh, Ralphie, hurry up. We're never going to get home at this rate.”

Ralphie cleared his throat. “No, you're more like an—oh, I don't know—an ogrette.”

“Ogrette!”

“That's a small ogress,” Ralphie went on conversationally, “like a dinette or a kitchenette.”

“Stop this bicycle!”

“Gladly.”

“This minute!”

“It's stopped.”

Actually the strength that his anger at Maggie had given him had worn off, and the bicycle had pretty much stopped on its own.

Ralphie braced his foot on the road. He waited while Maggie climbed off the bicycle.

“Ralphie, I want to say just one thing to you. This is Mad Mary's bag, the bag she collects her food in, and inside the bag”—she pulled the handles apart—“is a possum that has—”

“Seen better days,” Ralphie interrupted.

“Don't try to be funny.”

“Close the bag, please. One look at a dead possum is enough, Maggie. I don't need to see it twice. And I sure don't need to smell it twice. Throw that thing away.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“It's evidence.”

“Of what?”

“Mad Mary may have been kidnapped, and you're wasting time asking stupid questions and calling me names.”

“Maggie, people don't go around kidnapping a woman who hasn't had a bath in fifteen years. Now, throw that bag away and get back on the bike.”

“If I get back on the bike, this possum gets on with me.”

Ralphie breathed in and out twice without speaking.

“And also,” Maggie went on, “you'll have to take back what you said—about me being an ogrette.”

“I stick by that.”

Maggie's green eyes narrowed. “Then I'm not getting on the bike.”

“That's up to you.”

There was a silence. Ralphie was the one who broke it.

“All day long,” he said, apparently speaking to the handlebars of his bicycle, “no, make that all month long, you've been taking me for granted. Do this, Ralphie. Do that. Stop here. Start there …”

There was another silence. Ralphie looked up, this time directly at Maggie, who waited for the rest with her arms folded over the dead possum bag.

The flower was still in the end of her pigtail where he had placed it in happier, pre-ogrette times, but it was beginning to wilt.

Ralphie said, “You use me.”

Maggie drew in a sharp breath. This was the first time Ralphie had ever said anything critical to her.

Ralphie could see that she was hurt. Well, he said to himself, she wasn't a princess. She had to learn how to treat people. Just because she was the most beautiful girl in the world didn't exempt her from being nice. She should be grateful to him for the lesson instead of looking at him like somebody from the North Pole.

Mud burst out of the woods beside them. His nose was in the air. His eyes shone. He jumped the ditch in one graceful leap and closed in on the bag in Maggie's hands.

Mud had smelled this bag from the Blossom porch. It was this bag that had drawn him like a leash through the woods, that had separated him willingly from Pap and Junior and Dump.

And this bag was worth all his efforts.

Maggie let out her breath. “Well.”

Ralphie said, “Deep subject.”

Maggie said, “I don't think that's funny.”

Ralphie said, “I didn't mean it to be.”

Mud approached the bag slowly. His eyes were bright with interest. The pungent scent caused the hair to rise on the back of his neck. It was Mad Mary's scent. He knew that scent and distrusted it.

But mingled with that scent was the smell of death and of things Mud didn't even know of yet. Mud had never been able to resist the smell of mystery.

He moved closer.

Ralphie said, “So, are you getting on or not? Make up your mind.”

“Not.”

“Maggie—”

“That would be using you.”

She flung the word “using” over her shoulder like an insult. She started up the hill on foot.

Mud, nose in air, followed.

After a minute, Ralphie began pedaling slowly after Maggie and Mud. He kept fifty yards between them; this was enough distance so Maggie couldn't hear if he was back there or not. He knew she was too mad to turn around and look.

Maggie made the turn into the farm. She crossed the bridge. She still hadn't looked back.

Ralphie continued to follow. He coasted down the hill and brought his bike to a stop by the Blossoms' front porch.

Maggie was in the house calling, “Pap! Pap!”

Vern's voice answered, “Pap and Junior went for a walk.”

“Which way?”

“I don't know. There are hot dogs on the stove, but they taste funny.”

“Vern, look.”

“At what?”

“Vern, this is Mad Mary's bag—the one she collects food in.”

“What?” Vern must have jumped up from the table fast, because Ralphie heard his chair tip over.

“We found it beside the road, Vern. Something terrible has happened to Mad Mary.”

“What?”

“I think she's been kidnapped.”

“Why?”

“It's just what I think. Something's happened to her, or she wouldn't have dropped this bag. And I'm going to find out what!”

Maggie came back on to the porch. Now, for the first time since the argument, she looked at Ralphie.

“Oh, are you still here?” she asked.

“No, Maggie, I'm not here. I went home.”

Maggie sat down on the steps. She held Mad Mary's bag on her lap for a moment and then shoved it to the side. She looked down at her pigtail and saw the drooping flower in the end. Ralphie thought she might take this opportunity to pluck it out, throw it to the ground, and grind it to death with the heel of her tennis shoe.

Ralphie held his breath.

Maggie sighed. She lifted her head and looked at the trees.

Mud was the only one in motion, but it was slow motion. Mud didn't want anyone to notice he was closing in on the bag. His nose had started to run.

In a crawl, pulling himself along with his front paws, he reached the bag. He stretched out his head and rested it on the handles. He lay as if he were asleep, but he had never been more awake in his life.

He breathed deeply, trying to puzzle out the various smells. The sounds of his deep inhalations were the only sounds on the porch.

Maggie glanced at Ralphie out of the sides of her eyes. “There are hot dogs on the stove.”

“No, thanks,” Ralphie said. “I'm not all that hungry anymore.” He kept standing there.

Ralphie had fallen in love with Maggie two years ago in a hospital room. She had been sitting on Junior's bed, her green eyes shining. Even if she hadn't been telling the story of how she and Vern had busted into City Jail, he would have fallen in love with her.

He still loved her. He guessed he always would.

He kept standing there. He wanted to go home—he had never wanted anything more in his life—but he couldn't.

This was what love did to a man, he thought unhappily; it affected the feet. It literally nailed a man to the ground.

He looked down at his feet.

Suddenly Maggie yanked the bag out of Mud's reach. “No, Mud, leave that alone! Bad dog!”

She gave Ralphie another sideways look. “If you don't want a hot dog, you might as well go.”

“That's what I was thinking.”

“Well, go!”

She sounded as if she were talking to Mud instead of a person.

To Ralphie's surprise and relief, his feet came loose from the ground. And as if he were not taking part in a miracle, as if walking like this were a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence, Ralphie slung one leg over his bike.

“Good-bye,” she called after him.

Without turning around he said, “Good-bye, Maggie.” He was pleased that his good-bye sounded more final than her good-bye.

Legs aching, heart breaking, Ralphie headed for home.

“Pap!”

Maggie ran to meet Pap and Junior at the edge of the woods. Her braids flew out behind her.

“Pap, something terrible's happened!”

Pap stopped in place. He put one hand over his heart as if to protect it.

“Your mom?” he said.

“No. No, Pap, it's Mad Mary.”

“Mary?”

“Yes, Ralphie and I found her bag by the road—you know, her food bag! The bag was there and she wasn't. I think she's been kidnapped.”

Pap's elbows trembled a little as his mind worked over the news. “Mary Cantrell?”

“Yes, Pap, and she's never without that bag.”

“No, I don't believe she is.”

“I think she had a struggle with someone, and during the struggle she dropped the bag so she could defend herself and …”

“Mary's bag.”

“Yes, Pap, and there was a possum in it. Pap, when was the last time you saw her alive?”

“Well, let's see. It was last month, I guess. Me and Vern were collecting cans and she gave us a wave.”

“I saw her two weeks ago,” Junior piped up. “She came by the house. She said, ‘Junior, a black snake's taken up residence in a corner of my cave.' She said, ‘Come see him, if you'd like.' I said, ‘I will.' She said, ‘Don't wait too long. He might decide to travel.' I said, ‘I won't.' She said—”

Pap interrupted with, “But there didn't seem to be anything wrong?”

“No.”

“This is important, Junior. Did she have her bag?”

Junior rolled his eyes up in his head, as if to find the answer there.

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes, because it was full of nuts and she offered me some.”

“I wish we knew somebody who'd seen her after that.” Pap started up the steps and his eyes fell on Vern. “You haven't seen her, have you, Vern?”

Vern cleared his throat. “Where would I see her?”

“I was just hoping.” He turned to Maggie.

“Where exactly did you find this bag?”

“I could show you. It's not far. Why?”

“Because I want to look for the cane. If her cane's there, too, I'll start to worry. Let's go. Vern, you coming?”

“Why would I come?”

“To help!”

Vern came slowly down the steps and trailed after the rest of them.

“But why would anybody want to kidnap her?”

Junior asked as they started through the trees.

Maggie said, “Ralphie asked the same question, and I didn't know the answer; but since then I've been thinking about it. Pap, I think Mad Mary's rich. She could be, Pap. Her family was.”

“She could be.”

“Well, I'm like Pap,” Junior said. “I'm not going to start worrying until I see her cane, and I mean it.”

*     *     *

“Uh-oh.”

The breath went out of Pap as he saw the cane. It lay at his feet in the grass.

“Uh-oh.”

The cane had been made long ago from a birch tree and was shaped like a shepherd's crook. Local kids were scared of it. They said, “She'll catch you with it and cook you in a pot.”

But Junior loved this cane.

He bent now and picked it up. The cane was taller than he was.

He had admired Mary's way with her cane, the way she could part the forest with it was like something from the Bible. He had fashioned canes for himself, but his canes had not held the magic that hers did.

Now, in his own hands, the magic seemed to have gone out of hers as well.

He reached up and encircled the cane with his fingers. He chose the exact spot where she held the cane, and he knew he was right because the wood had been darkened there with the oil from Mary's hand.

“Now are you starting to worry?” Maggie asked.

Pap nodded.

“Now do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Pap said, “I believe.”

Vern ran back to the house so he could make a telephone call without being heard. He dialed Michael's number.

Michael's mother answered, and his heart sank.

He tried to give his voice an official sound.

“Could I speak to Michael, please? This is an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency, Vern?”

“I've got to tell him something that he really, really needs to know.”

“You've already talked to him once. You should have told him then.”

“I didn't know then.”

“Michael,” she called, “are you through studying?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can talk on the phone for five minutes.”

“Michael,” Vern said. He was suddenly short of breath. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“Something happened to Mad Mary.”

“What?”

“I don't know. They found her bag and cane by the road. Maggie thinks she was kidnapped.”

“I don't believe anybody could kidnap her.”

“Me either.”

“So what do you think?”

“Well, I think maybe she dropped them there on purpose.”

Michael drew in his breath. “Yes! She dropped them to make everyone think she had been kidnapped.”

“Yes!”

“And you and I would get the word and go back to the cave and she really would kill us this time.”

“But if we don't go to the cave—” Vern lowered his voice. “My family's coming in. I can't talk. Junior's already heard too much.”

“I can't talk either,” Michael whispered.

“Save me a seat on the bus.”

“Right.”

Vern hung up the phone and was standing innocently by the sink when the family came in the kitchen.

Friday morning came at last. No one in the Blossom family had slept well. Pap was worried about Mary.

Maggie was worried about being an ogrette. Vern was worried about being found out. Vicki was worried that her new pants suit was too loud.