Blossoms Meet the Vulture Lady (3 page)

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

Varmint stew, she thought again. It was one of her favorite dishes. Her mouth watered.

Mad Mary had not smiled in ten years. She hadn’t seen anything to smile at. The big difference between animals and people, she had once read, is that people can laugh. Well, then, that meant she was more like an animal. It wasn’t likely she would ever smile again, much less laugh.

Still, the lines around her eyes eased slightly at the thought of her supper.

There was a roll of thunder, and Mad Mary glanced up at the sky. The clouds overhead were thunder-gray. In the west flashes of lightning lit up the clouds.

Mad Mary watched and then shrugged the bag higher on her shoulder. She was an expert on local weather. She lived with it day and night.

The smell of wild onions was in the air. It overpowered the smell of rain.

She glanced again at the sky. She took another deep breath of onion air. Onions fresh from the ground were the best perfume a person could want.

Then she made her decision. To herself she muttered, “I reckon I got just enough time to gather some blackberries.”

Wielding her cane, she headed in that direction.

“And nobody’s seen Junior?” Vicki Blossom said for the third time. Her eyes swept around the table.

Maggie answered. “I told you, Mom. The last time I saw him he was in the barn, under the tarp.”

“Me too,” said Vern.

“I ain’t seen him since breakfast,” Pap said.

The Blossom family was at supper. They had been answering this same question since the meal started, but like a detective hoping for a new clue, Vicki Blossom kept asking it.

Now there came a long silence. Vicki Blossom looked out the window. Her hand was pressed against her mouth as if she were trying to hold back a cough.

Under the table Mud chewed a flea on his leg. Mud made a lot of noise when he went after a flea. Then he watched the wet spot of fur for a moment to see if the flea had survived. When he didn’t feel anything move beneath the fur, he licked the fur back into place. Then he dropped his head onto his paws.

Maggie dished up a spoonful of popcorn. Monday nights the Blossoms always ate popcorn with milk on it. As she chewed she said, “Vern and I think he went in the woods,” she paused to swallow, “to set his trap.”

“I thought about that,” their mom said. “But that was hours and hours ago.”

“So it was a coyote trap, that thing Junior was making?” Vern asked.

“Yes.” Vicki Blossom sighed. “He heard Pap say something last night about a reward for a coyote, and he saw himself collecting it.” Every time she finished speaking she put her hand against her mouth.

“They thought they caught the coyote,” Pap said, “did I tell you?” He paused with a spoonful of popcorn in front of his mouth, the milk dripping back into his bowl. “A motorist claimed he hit it on Route ninety-one. He went to the police station to collect his hundred dollars. He went in carrying the coyote in his arms.”

Pap grinned. “Turned out it was a collie he’d hit. Mr. Frank R. Roswell’s prize collie. This man hadn’t even noticed that his so-called coyote was wearing a collar and dog tags.” He wagged his head. “Now he’s got to pay for the collie, and prize collies ain’t cheap.” He shoveled the spoonful of popcorn into his mouth.

Vicki Blossom was still looking out the window.

“Junior will be all night setting that trap, making sure every leaf is just right, every piece of wire in place. Mom, you know how he is,” Maggie said. “Junior’s a …” She paused to spring a new word on the Blossoms. “Perfectionist.”

“I know he is, but it’s not like him to miss Monday-night supper no matter what he’s doing. Popcorn and milk’s his favorite.”

Nobody could deny that.

There was a sudden roll of thunder, and they all lowered their spoons and looked toward the window. The sun was behind the clouds, and the afternoon had turned dark.

“Storm’s coming,” Pap said.

“Anyway, I’m not hungry,” Maggie said. She threw down her spoon. It clattered on the table.

And as if this were the signal they had been waiting for, the others threw down their spoons, too, and got up from the table.

Junior had only been in the coyote trap six minutes, but the six minutes had been so long and confusing and terrible, he couldn’t think straight.

When the trapdoor had first clicked behind him, his mouth had fallen open as if it were connected to the same device. He stared at the door in disbelief. Then he sat back hard and rested his back against the hog-wire side.

“No problem,” he told his sinking heart. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “No problem.”

He pushed against the hog wire with his back. It was just as tight, just as secure as when he had crawled in during its construction and said gleefully, “Nobody could get out of this—not even me, the inventor!”

Well, maybe the hog wire was secure. It had to be to hold hogs. Hogs were strong.

He didn’t even want to think of how many nails he had used to secure the superstrong wire—all he had, that’s how many, every single nail he could get his hands on. And he had pulled the wire high on the top.

He slid his fingers through the wire mesh and felt the top. He had pulled the wire so tight that he could not even reach the nails. He tried to inch his stubby fingers forward. The wire cut the soft flesh between his fingers, and still he couldn’t feel the end.