There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (58 page)

             
“Long as y’all are back by one o’clock. You know how your mother is about her food getting cold. I’ll tote Joel on up to our house, if that’s all right by you, Joe.”

             
“Sure thing. Thanks, brown bear.”

Tubby looked to his dad for a sign—his father managed a drawn smile before turning to Mr. Huggins again. Frank Tolson looked like Tubby felt:
Scared shitless. 

             
              *******

Bud and his dad were leaving the museum for their usual Sunday brunch at the diner, when Tubby, Rusty and Josie came strolling up from the harbor. “Hey, guys,” said Bud, his eyes locked on Josie’s face. His heart skipped a beat. She looked good in that yellow dress.

              “If it ain’t the brothers Brown,” Rusty said, with a strained smile. “My dad wanted me to invite y’all over for dinner. He said he’d consider it a personal favor, Bilbo.”

             
By the looks on his friends’ faces, Bud knew that a new development had taken place in their little island drama, probably at the church service. He spit on the ground in disgust. For the first time since he was a little boy he had actually begun to feel sustained happiness. Josie was the greatest thing to happen to him, and here was this dark cloud hanging over their heads that refused to blow over, ruining what should have been the best days of his life. He was also having trouble coming to terms with what his dad had told him, earlier up on the roof. All in all, he was beginning to feel as if he was fighting a killer rip tide, out by Crater Cove; swimming for the nearby beach, only to find himself further and further from shore.

             
His father accepted the invitation, even though it was standing tradition for them to eat brunch together on Sunday. It was hard to say no to Ham.

If the weather was nice, the Huggins’s ate their Sunday dinners in the backyard, overlooking their private beach on Crater Cove. Jessie Huggins had built a large picnic table that could accommodate ten on each side. The same table Jessie and Ham had sat on a hundred times before, whenever they’d had a father/son discussion. Likewise, Ham and his boy. The sun-bleached table was a family heirloom; valued every bit as much as the one-hundred-year-old Grandfather clock in the hallway. By the time the rest had arrived in Bill’s Jeep, Betty Anne and Emma had pretty much gotten everything under way.

With no small measure of relief, Tubby saw that his mother and Betty Anne Huggins were laughing together like old friends at a class reunion. 

Jumping off the back of the Jeep, Rusty echoed that sentiment. “They can’t be too upset if they’re carrying on like that. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear those two have been drinking!”

Josie scanned the backyard, looking for her brother. She saw him playing down by the sandy bluff. He waved at her and then returned to his Match Box cars. “I’m gonna get Joel changed,” she said to Bud, grabbing his hand. “Mind coming over with me?”

             
“We’ll be right back,” he said to Rusty over his shoulder, as Josie dragged him away.

Rusty nodded and said to Tubby as an aside. “She’s gonna get Buddy boy up to date.”

“Oh,” Tubby said, staring after them.

             
They had all gathered at the picnic table, when Josie, Joel and Bud returned. Josie still had on the yellow dress but was now barefoot. Joel had on a pair of tan cotton shorts and a faded Ren & Stimpy
T-shirt. A wax museum ball cap sat perched atop his bushy head.

             
They slid onto the bench seat, alongside Tubby and Rusty. Ham led them all in prayer.

Too nervous to eat Tubby toyed with his food; wondering what the grown ups had in mind for them. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to be all that urgent. Everyone else was enjoying the delicious meal Mrs. Huggins had prepared: fried chicken, potatoes au-gratin, and corn on the cob, picked fresh that morning from Betty Anne’s own vegetable garden. A crisp Caesar Salad, and doughy soft yeast rolls rounded out the hi-caloric bounty. Seeing as how the usually neurotic Rusty Huggins was tucking into his chow, Tubby decided it was okay to put his fears aside for the time being, if not his diet.

He put an ear of corn on his plate and a little bit of salad. It was all he could do to abstain from the rolls.

Bill Brown told a joke that left everyone in stitches, and whatever tension had existed at the table melted away like the butter on the ears of steaming corn. Tubby couldn’t help but notice, though, how Mr. Brown kept glancing his and Rusty’s way…looking them in the eye.

Especially
at Rusty. As if Bilbo had something on his mind he wanted to tell them.

Whatever it was, it went unannounced, and eventually Bill slid his empty plate to one side. “Okay, Hambone. That was mighty tasty, but Rusty said you had something you wanted to discuss?”

The good cheer left the table at once. Tubby felt the tension ratchet up. Only Joel O’Hara seemed unaffected. He was putting away his fifth piece of chicken, his gluttony thus far unobserved by his sister.

Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Ham nodded his head. “That’s right, Bilbo. As I’m sure you know by now, most forecasters have Jack runnin’ straight through us.”

“That’s what I hear. Even if he misses us head on, Jack’s still liable to smack Moon a good one as he passes us by. Bud and I are going over to Beaufort tomorrow to get some steel shutters for the museum. That plywood we used for the last storm didn’t hold up too well.”

“Steel shutters,” Frank Tolson said. “Yeah! That’s just what we need! You mind if I tag along with you?”

“We’d love to have you, Frank. Is the nine a.m. ferry too early for you?”

“Not at all.” He turned to the head of the table. “Ham, will you be joining us?”

Ham shook his head. “Thank you, no. I still have my shutters from the last go-round. The reason I wanted you all here was to invite you along on the
Betty Anne,
when my family and I take her out to safer waters, come Tuesday afternoon. We’d be glad to have you aboard.”

“You mean stay out on your boat until the hurricane passes?” Emma said, hiccupping. It had been a stressful morning, what with the approaching storm and rabies scare, but thanks to Betty Anne, who had spiked her tea with a generous dollop of whiskey, Emma was now numb to the anxiety. “Is it safe out there on the open sea?” 

Betty Anne patted her hand. “We’ll be heading
away
from the storm, Emma. We do it every time a really bad blow threatens us. Our livelihood is that boat, and you’d be surprised at what that big gal will hold. You get Frank to pack up your most precious things—you know, the things you can't replace with money—and Ham will stow them away neatly below deck. The
Betty Anne
has a special hold just for that purpose. That way your things won’t come out smelling like shrimp.” She looked to her husband and smiled. “Isn’t that right, brown sugar?”

Ham chuckled. “That’s right, sweet tea.” He spoke softly to the Tolsons’. “Emma…Frank…no matter what Jack does to your business or home—we’ll help you fix her right back up. Ain’t that right, Billy boy?”

Bill gave the new neighbors a wink and a smile. “It’s the Mooner way.”

Bud thought his dad was being too charitable. Except for the Huggins’s, Mr. Pete, and Garfield, no one had offered them any assistance after the Red Eyed Man killed his mom. As if reading his troubled thoughts, Josie squeezed his knee under the table.

Emma’s eyes grew moist. Frank bowed his head, a thousand-pound weight lifted from his shoulders. Now he could concentrate on his family’s welfare. “Thank you.
All
of you.” He looked to the head of the table again. “Ham, just let me know what I need to do.”

“You go on to Beaufort tomorrow with Bill, and prepare to batten down your hatches at home. Whatever questions you have, he can answer them. He’s been through about as many of these storms as I have. And believe it or not, our homes were always here when we got back.”

“Ham’s right, Frank. This is a bad one, but thanks to her elevation, Moon Island’ll still be here when Jack’s through with us. Hurricane Hugo ripped through here in ’89, but it didn’t take long to put everything right again.” He turned to Ham. “Can I let you know Tuesday morning? By then, we’ll have a good idea of what to expect. Of course, Buddy boy will be going with you in either event.”

Ham nodded. He expected as much from Bill, whose whole life was tied up in that big building. “I’ll save you a spot, my friend. Just don’t you wait too long! I ‘spect we’ll have to shove off by six o’clock if I hope to get out of Jack’s way in time.”

“Where we headed?” his wife asked him.

“I’ll know better by Tuesday, Betty Anne, but since the Weather Channel has Jack rolling through us before the eye hits the mainland, smack dab in Beaufort, I’d say we’ll be plenty safe enough once we get outside of Wilmington.”

Despite the potential disaster the storm represented, th
e
Creep
s
listened to all this preparation talk with a heady sense of relief. They had all been expecting the worst, regarding Bidwell’s little “Rabies Talk” that morning.

After dinner, Ham approached Josie and pulled her to one side. “Joe, do you think it would help if I asked your momma to come along with us?”

Josie looked down at her feet, her toes digging into the sandy back yard. “No, sir, I’m afraid not. Joel and I will be there, though. You can be sure of that.”

As Josie rejoined her friends, and the four of them began to head back up the street towards town, Ham called them back. His wife and Tubby’s folks flanked him, creating a united front. The only parent missing was Bill. He was down by the bluff, smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell phone. He looked worked up and agitated. Punching the air with his finger as he spoke into the phone.

Ham Huggins had on a hangdog face. “Now, about this
rabies
business...If any of you have been bitten or scratched, you’d tell us, wouldn’t you? I mean, like Mr. Bidwell said…this ain’t nothin’ to fool with.”

“None of us have been bitten or scratched,” Rusty said truthfully. “You have my word on that, Dad.” He was hoping his father wasn’t going to pursue it any further than that. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to lie to his old man.

Ham’s eyes searched his son’s face, and finding no deception there, he visibly relaxed.

“Ralph,” said Emma, wringing her hands. “I don’t want you going into those woods. You hear me?”

“He won’t, sweetheart,” Frank said, stroking her neck. He smiled at Tubby. “Will you, son?”

“No, sir. I promise!”

Josie and Rusty readily concurred.

It shouldn’t be any surprise at all that Bud Brown made no such promise. That boy, he just stared off to sea.

             
                          
 
Chapter Thirtee
n
:

             
             
 
Sunglasses at Night

Even though the Moonlite was for the time being closed on Sundays, Frank promised to run
My Bodyguard
that night for Ralph and Rusty, who’d missed most of it the night before, yakking away on the front porch. As Tubby liked to say, it was one of the “neato” perks of living on the lot of a Drive-In. In the interim, the two boys were huddled now over the controls of the
Space Invaders
game at Moon Man’s, battling for the coveted High Score.

             
Meanwhile, Josie rode back to the museum with Bud and Bill Brown. She’d changed into a baggy T-shirt and gray sweat pants, cut off at mid-thigh. Her usual workout attire. Since Shayna still hadn’t returned, Joel was staying over at the Huggins’s until Josie got back from her babysitting gig, scheduled for later that evening.

Bill’s worried eyes slid over to the rearview, finding his son and Josie in the Jeep’s mirror, the two of them gazing contentedly at the road ahead. A smile stole over Bill’s face, erasing the furrows on his tanned brow. Josie was in the backseat behind Bud, her arms draped loosely over his shoulders, her hands tapping his chest in beat with the song on the radio. For a second, Bill didn’t recognize his own son, beaming ear-to-ear like he was.