Scumble (20 page)

Compared to the foreclosure, the fact that Cabot had recycled Grandma Dollop's peanut butter jar should've felt trivial. Soon Noble Cabot would have every marvel on the ranch to do with as he pleased. But as I looked at Grandpa, slumped and weary in his chair, my pangs of remorse cut deeper yet. Fedora's old football helmet full of jar lids rested in their place on his lap, the lids catching and reflecting the dull campfire flames like they still had some magic buried somewhere inside them. But all those lids were now reminders—reminders of what had been lost. Of what had been destroyed. Maybe Gypsy had been right about me. Maybe I was an artist—a
con
artist.

Everyone moped around the fire. Marisol and Mesquite showed little interest in their lentil burgers, and Gypsy's gaze was faraway, watching the skies over her brother's house. The heavy clouds provided the perfect cover for Rocket to let loose; I imagined that the town of Sundance would talk for years about that night's electrical storm. Even knowing now that things between Rocket and me had changed—that I could sleep soundly in his house for the first time in weeks—the jagged forks of lightning made me flinch.

Twenty minutes after Rocket's storm finally ended, he joined us by the campfire. Autry looked up with an exclamation of surprise. And despite everything, a smile spread slowly across his face.

Rocket had shaved his beard and tamed his spiky hair as best he could, revealing a smooth face with a strong jaw and the good looks my mom had scolded him for hiding. He'd exchanged his wrinkled T-shirt for a crisp western one. And instead of cologne, my cousin reeked of Static Guard—a whole can of it, I guessed.

Gypsy raised a dimpled smile toward her brother. “Now the whole world can see you, Rocket!” Rocket's newly shaven face bloomed in shades of red. Uncle Autry reset his own expression to neutral to keep from scaring Rocket back into hiding. But he couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from twitching as he asked:

“What's with the best bib and tucker, son? We're not having a funeral for this place yet.”

Rocket crossed, then uncrossed his arms, looking uncomfortable in his stiff shirt. “I'm just going out for a while.”

“Out?”

Rocket cleared his throat, looking sharply at me before answering, “I have a date.”

Crickets chirped.

Embers popped.

Then, “Yes!” Startling us all, Uncle Autry jumped from his stump and cheered, filling the air with a swirl of dusty moths and a frenzy of shimmering, flying things. Autry swept Gypsy off her stump into a spinning jig. “Your brother's going out, Gypsy. Out on a date!” Autry sang as they hopped and skipped around the fire.

The twins dropped their untouched food and got in on the act, whooping and spinning plates and cups into the air above us, clashing and crashing silverware together to make as much noise they could. Hobbled by guilt, I didn't join in.

Soon, my uncle sat back down to catch his breath, still smiling. Just then, no one would have guessed that Autry O'Connell was a man walking a plank, moving closer and closer to the edge of losing everything.

“Thanks, man.” Autry held out a hand to Rocket. “We needed something to make us smile.”

 

Even if I'd wanted more scumbling lessons from the twins in the following days, I wouldn't have gotten them. The morning after the sign went up, Marisol and Mesquite began disappearing with Fedora early and returning home late, all three coming back head to toe in dirt just before dark. Whatever the girls were doing, they were tripling their efforts.

“Can I help?” I asked at breakfast two days later, absentmindedly tying knots in the tops of all the nails protruding from the picnic table, which I'd recently helped Autry and Rocket put back together.

“No, you can't,” Marisol answered, not looking at me.

“You can help
me
, Ledge,” Gypsy offered. “I'm in charge of watching the Queen Alexandra's Birdwings today while Uncle Autry goes into town.” Her face sparkled as she went on. “They've nearly all emerged! Mostly males. But we're hoping the rest are female. Autry says the Alexandras don't usually breed in captivity. They need special plants. But if he can manage it, it could mean big things for the ranch, for the butterflies . . . for everyone! People need to see them! This world is so much better with them in it!” Gypsy kept talking, but I quickly stopped listening, getting up to look for my uncle instead. Autry hadn't joined us at the table.

I found him by his truck.

“You're going into town?” I asked.

“To see if I can talk to Noble,” he answered, his face drawn, all traces of cheeriness gone. I knew I had to tell him about the fence before he saw it for himself, or heard about it from Noble Cabot. I'd wanted to tell him for the last two days; the truth was eating away at me like termites. But for two days, I hadn't found the courage. And I wasn't finding it any better now.

“Y-you're going to SJ's? I—I mean, to Cabot's house?”

Autry shook his head. “I'm going to his office.”

“That CAD Company place?” I asked, trying to swallow.

My uncle turned to look at me, reaching out to grip my shoulder hard. The gravel around his boots shifted and dozens of fat earthworms wriggled up out of the soil, all wiggling and waggling like scolding fingers, while a spider worked busily, building a web in the open window of the truck.

“Ledger. Please tell me you haven't been back to Sundance! Tell me you've followed my
one
rule and stayed away from the Cabots.”

I shuffled my feet. The morning sun wasn't yet hot and I hadn't gone for a run, but sweat still trickled down my spine.

“I—I haven't put a shoe inside their house. Just like I promised,” I answered, feeling lower than the worms at my uncle's feet.

Autry squinted at me, then nodded.

“Good boy,” he said. “Keep that promise!” Releasing my shoulder, he slapped me on the back. The earthworms retreated, though the spider kept on spinning. And I was left wondering more than ever what the trouble between Cabot and my uncle might be.

“What's Mr. Cabot's problem, anyway?” I asked as Autry climbed into the truck. I hadn't been able to get Sarah Jane out of my mind since I last saw her, or stop worrying about what might've happened after she took credit for my destruction.

“Did you turn fire ants loose at a Cabot family picnic or something? Or is this some old family feud?” I asked, plying my uncle with questions. “Did Eva Mae Ransom refuse to share her gold with Noble's great-great-great-great-grandfather? Or does Cabot really just not like anyone who's different? He can't even know
how
different we really are!”

Autry hesitated before starting up the truck. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he watched his truck's radio antenna twist and bend—as he saw it shift from a corkscrew, to a pretzel, to a hook-like question mark as I held my ground. Instantly, I stopped my careless sculpting, realizing that I'd just shown precisely why Noble Cabot might know about—and dislike—our differences.

Uncle Autry turned the key in the ignition, making the engine roar and the spiderweb in his window shiver.

“Just keep your promise, Ledger,” he repeated. “Stay out of Cabot's business!”

W
HEN AUTRY RETURNED TO THE RANCH, the lines in his face were etched deeper than they'd been before he left. Mr. Cabot had refused to speak to him. Instead, he'd instructed two of his workmen to escort my uncle out of the CAD Co. building and back to his truck.

The next day, Autry left his beetle bolo behind and put on a proper suit and tie, headed to the bank, hoping to borrow enough to pay off what he owed.

“Cabot loaned Autry the money to build the conservatory after the twins were born and Autry's wife died,” Rocket had explained when we first saw the foreclosure sign. “But Cabot's beef isn't only with Autry. It's bigger than that. He thinks he's protecting Sarah Jane.” Rocket snorted as he said it. He obviously knew more than he was saying. But when I continued to press him, all he said was: “Wounded animals can be dangerous, Ledge. Some wounded people can be too.” He gave me an apologetic grimace. “Listen to Autry, don't get too close to Cabot.”

No one needed to ask Autry how it went at the bank. He hadn't even parked his truck before dark swarms began hovering over the ranch. Autry sank into an uncharacteristic funk, disappearing into the conservatory for hours at a time, sometimes not coming out until well after dark. We found mealworms in our cereal and cicadas in our socks. The honeybees were lethargic. The lightning bugs didn't light. Even the grasshoppers wouldn't hop; they just sat, sluggish, in the grass.

Calls from Mom and Dad went straight to Autry's voicemail. So did those from Aunt Jenny and Uncle Abram. Uncle Autry battled a case of mule-headed pride, hoping to fix his foreclosure problems on his own, knowing that no one in the family was in high cotton.

I didn't mind that Autry never answered his phone. I hadn't gone for a run since the foreclosure sign went up. I told myself I needed to rest my twisted ankle. But in truth, I needed to figure some things out. I wasn't ready yet to tell my dad that I was building some new ideas for my future.

Fedora and I would probably be going home soon. I guessed Mom and Dad would come pick us up as soon as they found out about the foreclosure, whether they thought I'd learned something about scumbling or not. I was pretty sure I had enough control now not to wreck the van. Maybe, if I kept practicing, I'd be able to go back to school in the fall as well. But I couldn't help wonder: What would Dad think if I told him I wanted to drop out of track and try something new—like art club? What would Josh and Ryan say if I dusted off my LEGOs and Erector Sets? What if I bent the flagpole in front of Theodore Roosevelt Middle School into a lineman's knot and Big Mouth Brody told the world?

Rocket and I began spending more and more time at the salvage yard, driving there in his truck every morning after breakfast. I wanted to fix what I could before I had to leave. The Knucklehead was coming together nicely—even if we were rebuilding it bit by bit, the old-fashioned way. Even if, sometimes, Rocket and Winona got distracted.

“Hello? Kid here! Please keep all goo-goo eyes to a minimum!” I'd shout, shielding my own eyes whenever the two of them got too close. But sometimes, seeing them together, I couldn't help thinking about Sarah Jane.

I worried about SJ in that big old house, with only her father and Hedda the Horrible for company. Hiking down from Rocket's each morning, I'd catch myself thinking I'd seen a glint of green eyes or a flash of white-blond braids in the shadows of the trees around the ranch. Then I'd realize that I'd only caught the glint of green in a magpie's wing or the white-and-tan flash of a running antelope, and I'd be surprised to find myself disappointed.

The chummier Rocket and Winona got, the more time I spent on my own in the salvage yard. The place rocked in my head like a symphonic scrap metal band, the buzzing, itching sensation of ants beneath my skin rarely bothering me anymore. Like growing into a coat Mom bought on sale two years too early, or adjusting to the way my voice had started squeaking and croaking on its way to a lower register, I was getting comfortable with my savvy at last. It was becoming a part of me. A part I was actually starting to like.

Maybe when I got home, everything would fit together.

I practiced as often as I could, trying out new things in the farthest reaches of the salvage yard, so far out I couldn't see the repair bay, hoping that, at such a distance, Winona couldn't see me either.

I took apart the frame of a '61 Corvair and put it back together three or four times—faster each time—wishing I had Dad's stopwatch to clock my speed. Beginning to wish that Dad were there to see me do it.

I created a bridge from the chassis of two dented Range Rovers and a reclining rhinoceros out of an old RV. I even stacked spark plugs like toilet paper tubes to build the Eiffel Tower. This time my tower only leaned a little—my third-grade art teacher would've been so proud. But I still had nothing close to Winona's talent. My rhino looked more like a stepped-on roach, and my bridge wobbled when I walked across it.

After returning to Winona's sculpture garden a dozen times, I pleaded with her to let me peek under the tarp that hid her work-in-progress still inside the shop.

“Please can I see what you're building now?” I begged.

“Okay, okay!” she sighed, giving in at last. “But you have to promise to be nice and not make fun—
both
of you—because it's still in pieces. I keep taking it apart and putting it back together. I can't quite get it right.” Rocket knew all about Winona's artwork; I'd dragged him out to see her sculptures as soon as he joined Team Knucklehead.

“We won't make fun!” Rocket assured Winona. Then he grinned. “Unless it's funny.” Winona thumped Rocket in the chest with a wrench, but he didn't let a single blue spark fly.

“Don't make me take you apart, mister!” Winona threatened.

Rocket and I exchanged glances, then exploded in an eruption of uncontrolled laughter that doubled me over and brought tears to Rocket's eyes. Winona gripped the edges of the tarp, ignoring us.

“Hey, sometimes things have to come apart before they can become something
new.
” So saying, she pulled the covering aside with a flourish. Still chuckling, Rocket moved next to Winona, standing close and gazing up at her creation. Putting on a serious face, the corners of his mouth only twitching a little, he tilted his head to one side, trying to discern a recognizable shape in the hodgepodge of spare parts.