“I’m thinking the metallic wrappers may put them off,” she replied.
Harlan signed: Mylar. Like what fancy balloons are made from. Not very thick.
Willa nodded. “Not sure if they’ll chew through it or not. I think we need to mark our territory. Boys, I hope your bladders are full. Go around the bushes in a complete circle.”
Harlan snorted. Cricket giggled. Both boys did as they were told, urinating on the dry grass encircling their food cache.
Willa had no idea if it would work, but it couldn’t hurt. Most animals were put off by the scent of humans. Since animals used their own urine to delineate territory, they should understand human urine meant the same. Boy pee said: Stay outta our stuff! The notion of talking urine made her smile. Maybe she would utilize the concept in one of her books.
As the trio plodded homeward, tired and full from their adventure, Harlan’s hand suddenly shot up — the gesture for STOP. She watched her brother’s head tilt sideways as his keen ears identified a sound. The hand’s next gesture was to point urgently downward with three fingers — the signal for HIDE.
Cricket and Willa knew better than to say a word. Harlan could hear a mouse crawl over a twig from a dozen paces away. He heard something nearby that he didn’t like. Willa grabbed her friend by a scrawny arm and pulled him into a clump of juniper. Inside the dark thicket, Cricket huffed and puffed like a damn freight train. Willa punched him in the bicep, then pinched his nostrils together, forcing him to breathe through his mouth.
She heard now what Harlan had picked up seconds earlier: Men talking.
“Don’t seem right, though. I don’t care how smart she is,” a man said. Willadean recognized the voice. It belonged to one of the perimeter guards, the one Serena Jo argued with a couple of days earlier.
“Ain’t just about her being smart,” came the reply. “She hauled all that gear from Knoxville. That bought her status.”
The voice sounded similar to that of the first man. Of course it did. The two were twin brothers.
“I call bullshit on that,” said Everett, the one who had spoken first.
“You can call bullshit all day long. Ain’t gonna change anything,” replied Otis. “If it weren’t for that U-Haul and everything she was smart enough to load it up with, we wouldn’t be in such good shape.”
“We’d be doing just fine. Holler folks have been taking care of business for generations. Little Miss Smarty Pants made life easier, but she didn’t save us from anything.”
Otis grunted a noncommittal reply, but said nothing further. During the conversation, the brothers had been walking in the direction of the juniper clump. She pinched Cricket’s nostrils tighter. She didn’t know where Harlan was hiding, but the men would never discover him. Even Willadean couldn’t find him when he didn’t want to be found. Harlan could practically become invisible when he wanted to. She and Cricket weren’t as talented. Plus her friend breathed like a TB patient. He probably had some sort of asthmatic condition, which was proving to be inconvenient at the moment. She covered his mouth with her other hand just as the men reached their hiding place.
“Maybe I just need to get into her Levi’s.” Everett stood just a few feet away now. “Show her what these fingers can do besides play the fiddle.” Willadean heard something in his tone that made her reach for her knife.
“Good luck with that, brother. She’s an ice queen. I heard after she squirted out them kids of hers, she closed up shop.”
“Maybe she ain’t met the right customer.”
Both men laughed. Thankfully, the guffawing sound was receding now. Willadean released her hold on Cricket’s mouth, but not his nostrils.
Just a couple more minutes...
Finally, she let him breathe properly.
“They’re gone,” she whispered.
Harlan’s frowning face appeared between the juniper branches a moment later, deft fingers signing furiously: Did you hear what they said about Mama?
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied. “It’s just guy talk. Doesn’t mean anything. Besides, she can talk care of herself.”
“What did they mean about getting into her Levi’s?” Cricket asked.
Willadean and Harlan rolled their eyes simultaneously.
“When you’re a little older, I’ll explain the birds and the bees to you.”
Harlan snorted.
“They better leave your mama alone,” Cricket said, scrambling out of the juniper after Willadean.
“Or what? You gonna ride up on a white stallion to save her?”
Cricket’s chin quivered. “I ain’t got no stallion, but I got this.” He withdrew a rusty steak knife from the bib pocket of his overalls.
“Where’d you get that? The dump?”
“Don’t matter where I got it. I’ll use it on anyone who tries to get into your mama’s Levi’s.”
Willadean smiled with affection at her friend. “Okay, killer. Just don’t cut yourself with that rusty blade. Have you ever gotten a tetanus shot, you little hillbilly?”
Cricket shrugged. “I got some shots so they would let me in school. Don’t know what was in ‘em, though.”
“How about I ask Mama to get you a better knife?”
“You think she has one in that U-Haul?”
Willadean pondered her answer. She and Harlan knew more about what was in that U-Haul, currently hidden a mile or so from the village, than anyone else. Serena Jo had sworn them both to secrecy. Not even Pops knew about all the stuff she had brought from Knoxville. Some of the firearms and ammunition had already been distributed to the folks who hunted for food and kept the perimeter secure. But there were additional weapons — along with a ton of other useful items — secured in the truck with a heavy chain and
