Land of a Hundred Wonders

my elbow, he guides me behind a tree. “What’d you do?”

“Whatta ya mean?”

“Last I heard”-Billy peeks around the bark at Cooter-“he was in jail and you were on your way to the hospital and then comin’ right back for me.”

“Ohhh… that’s right.” I hadn’t really thought out how I was going to explain all this to him. “Ya know good as me, if somebody didn’t get Cooter outta that jail right away, instead of lyin’ here, the sheriff’d be fitting him for a rope necktie right about now. Ya want that on your conscience, fine, but I have no intention of burnin’ in hell for all eternity. I’m ascared of fire. So I broke Cooter out and then I went to the hospital.”

Billy kicks at a rock, sending it halfway to Madison County.

“I had to do it for Clever. You know how she favors him,” I say, waggling a finger in his face. “And for Miss Florida. And Grampa. What about the cowboy way?”

“I might could understand you breakin’ him out,” Billy says, beginnin’ to look basset houndish. “But what I don’t understand is… why didn’t you ask for my help?”

“ ’Cause Clever was right when she said you’d try to stop me on account a you being so righteous, and I couldn’t let you do that.” I place my hands on his cheeks and make him look me in the eyes. “Ya understand, dear heart?”

Billy hooks my bangs behind my ear, sighs out in surrender, “Grampa all right?”

“Oh, my goodness, I forgot! What good news! You are not gonna believe where he’s on his way to in a plane gettin’ driven by your daddy and-”

Cooter, clearing his throat to get our attention, says, “Ya think y’all could hold off on catchin’ up on the latest news?” He toes the sheriff. “He ain’t gonna stay out forever, ya know.”

“What you yappin’ about, Smith?” Billy asks, struttin’ toward him.

Now, to the best of my knowledge, these two haven’t been spending time together in recent years. Not counting that night Cooter and Willard were chasing us through the woods looking for the treasure map, I believe this is the first time Billy’s laid eyes on his old pal in a long while. Like I mighta mentioned earlier, Cooter used to hang out at Blackstone Cave with us in the old days. Georgie brought him around first, and then Cooter and Billy got pretty close, and then Clever and Cooter got even closer than pretty close. But nowadays, Billy’s not what you’d call the social type. And even if he was, I believe Cooter grew up to be too much of a mischief maker for Billy’s taste.

I’m back to staring down at the sheriff, who is NOT a sight for sore eyes. The rain’s bouncing off his forehead, and the blood from where Cooter bashed him on the head is paling pink and flowing fast. “Boys?”

The both of them are too busy playing cocks of the walk to pay me any mind.

Cooter mumbles out to Billy, “ ’Bout the other night. Stealin’ the map. Weren’t nuthin’ personal.”

'Y’all?” I got my two fingers against the side of the sheriff’s blubbery neck, trying to find a pulse like I learned in the Red Cross First Aid Class. Don’t know if I’m sad or glad when I find it beating like a tom- tom. “We should get him off the road, don’tcha think?”

Billy gives the sheriff a good long look and then commands Cooter, “Grab his other foot.”

Me and Keeper following behind, the two of them drag his body into the woods and down into a shallow ravine, Billy helping himself to the sheriff’s sidearm before he buries him with fallen branches and damp leaves but good. Standing right there next to him, I swear, even I wouldn’t know that beneath this pile of greenery lies LeRoy Johnson.

I give Billy a glowing look. How talented is my knight in shining ardor!

He gets my meaning and says shyly, “Special Forces.”

Indeed. Miss Lydia of Hundred Wonders will tell you there are ALWAYS special forces at work in the world. Never mind that we can’t see them. They’re there, guiding us, arranging for us to be in the right place at the right time. Gifting us when we really need a little help to get us through.

Look at Cooter, for instance. He didn’t get drafted into the army the way Billy did. Miss Florida says it’s on accounta his feet. “Flatter than an ironin’ board.” See that? The special forces knew Cooter had to stay home and work night and day so he could help his gramma out.

From back down at the road, Deputy Boyd’s voice rings out of the county car’s radio. “Ya there? It’s me, Jimmy Lee. Sheriff Johnson?”

“That there is the sound of reveille,” Billy says to Cooter. “Can you make it?”

Grimacing, Cooter tests his weight on his hurting leg.

Billy doesn’t ask him again, just throws him over his shoulder like he’s saving him from a horrible fate, which I s’pose he is.

All my nose is picking up on is the smell of green alfalfa hay and baling twine. I check with Keeper to see if he’s sniffing up either hide or hair of Sneaky Tim Ray since my dog can whiff dubious intentions from an acre away. People can hide their badness from one another, but the scent of wrongdoing is pungent and unmistakable to our four-legged friends.

After Billy sets Cooter down gently on a pile of loose hay in Miss Jessie’s loft, he takes out his army knife from his belt and rips through the muddy pants. Goodness. Cooter’s leg is a rainbow of bruises. I touch my still tender ones.

“Could ya fetch that doctorin’ kit from the tack room? And some alcohol,” Billy calls over to me.

“Sneaky Tim Ray’s usually got some stashed up here,” I say, heading off toward where he beds down.

“Not that kind of alcohol, Gib, the rubbin’ kind,” Billy says, further inspecting Cooter’s leg, pressing here and there. “But now you brought it up, the other kind might do some good. I gotta adjust this knee. I think it’s dislocated.” Sweat’s waterfalling off every inch of Cooter Smith and his breathing doesn’t sound regular.

Doin’ like Billy asked me, I jump down the loft stairs two at a time, shouting over my shoulder, “Keeper, keep keepin’ a snout-out.”

The barn is still and cool. Smells like it oughta. The stalls are picked clean and the water buckets brimming. Some twangy country tune I never heard before is coming from the radio that Miss Jessie always leaves on, “to soothe the savage beasts.” But there’s something else… something like hushed-up talking is coming from around the corner near the wash tank. Must be Vern and Teddy, thank the Lord! Cooter will be happy to see his uncles, and I will, too. So in knowing those strong men will come to our rescue, Surprise! is on the tip of my tongue as I step into the open, and it sure as hell IS, because it is NOT my good friends the Smith brothers I hear yakking away over their aisle sweeping. It’s Sneaky Tim Ray, hissing into the ham radio Miss Jessie keeps for when the phone lines come down after a storm, “I’m tellin’ ya, Jimmy Lee. They’s here! Turn your car around and get your dumb ass over here. And bring that reward money with ya.”

Frozen solid in fear, I can’t even speak, until something cracks deep inside me, and “Biiilly!” comes spurting out.

Hearing me, Sneaky Tim Ray lets out with a hoot and charges my way. But not for long. Billy leaps down the hayloft stairs, wrassles him to the ground, and with one good punch to the jaw, Holloway’s out cold.

“Ya there? Ya there?” Deputy Boyd is calling tinny out of the CB speaker. “Tim Ray, answer me.”

“He told Jimmy Lee where we’re at,” I cry. “What’re we gonna do now?”

Billy gives a thoughtful look, then throws open a trunk in the aisle and begins unwinding one of the flannel bandages they use to keep the horses’ legs from getting nicked up when they go for a trailer ride. “I’m gonna wrap Cooter’s knee best I can,” he says, sprinting to the loft stairs. “Pull out three of the horses. Get ’em ready.”

Not daring to question, I dash into the tack room, check the nameplates on the bridles and yank them free. No time for saddles.

By the time the two of them make it down the loft stairs, the siren sound is coming down