Ruby Holler Read online

  “Okay,” Dallas said. “If you ever lock us up, that’s what we’ll do.”

  So Dallas and Florida had run down the hill and sloshed through the creek, and then they ran up the opposite hill, and on top of it they whooped and hollered. And when they were tired of hollering they flopped down in the dirt.

  “So what do you think, Dallas? What’s our plan now?”

  Dallas scratched at the dirt with a stick. “What do you think our plan should be?” he asked.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking that these old people—this Tiller and Sairy—they’ve got their hearts set on finding the mighty Rutabago and zinging over to Kangadoon to see that rocking-thing bird. And I’ve been thinking that maybe—now, I’m just saying maybe—I’m not saying for certain sure—maybe it wouldn’t hurt us all that much to go on their trips with them, and—”

  “—then when we got back, we could still catch that night train,” Dallas said.

  “That’s right,” Florida said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking. Is that what you’ve been thinking, too?”

  “Pretty much,” Dallas said.

  “Even though we promised never, never, ever to split up.”

  “This would be an exception.”

  “Like a once-and-only exception,” Florida said.

  “Right,” Dallas agreed. “When we get back, it’ll be just like before, and we’ll stay together and nobody will split us up.” He was picturing himself on the beach, building a hut and eating coconuts.

  “Guess we ought to bury our money again,” Florida said.

  Tiller and Sairy were sitting on the porch swing.

  “Are you going to miss me?” Sairy asked.

  “Of course I’m going to miss you,” Tiller said. “How could I not miss you? You’ve been right here most of the days of my life.”

  “That makes me sound like an old sock.”

  Tiller turned to look at his wife. He knew every line on her face, every expression. Sometimes he felt he knew everything about her, maybe more than he knew about himself. He felt light-headed and weak and had to press his hand against his chest to ease the sudden fluttering inside. “Are you going to miss me?” he said.

  She turned to him. “You feel alright?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure I do.”

  Sairy slipped her arm through his. She wondered what it would be like to be among complete strangers, with people who didn’t know anything about her and who didn’t expect her to be a certain way. “Of course I’ll miss you,” she said. “You’re like an old comfortable boot.”

  “An old, comfortable, handsome boot,” Tiller said. He closed his eyes and imagined the winding river. “Will you miss the holler?”

  Sairy looked out across the hillside, down toward the creek. “If you’d asked me that last month, I’d have said no, but lately, the holler seems more like the enchanting place it used to be. Strange, isn’t it?”

  Tiller had felt the same way, but he was surprised to hear Sairy say it. “So you are coming back, then? You’re not going to decide to stay on that island out in the ocean with your what’s-it bird?”

  “You old boot,” she said. “Of course I’m coming back. And you are, too.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll like being on the river so much that I’ll just go on and on—”

  “Cut that out.”

  “We could cancel our trips, you know,” Tiller said.

  “Naw. Those kids are counting on these trips. It would be a shame to disappoint them.”

  CHAPTER 30

  NIGHTMARES

  That night, wind whipped through the holler in relentless surges, howling through the trees and rattling windowpanes. Thunder boomed and lightning cracked, lighting up the sky in sudden, glaring washes.

  “Dallas?” Florida whispered. “It sure is loud out there.”

  “It’s just thunder,” he said.

  “Dallas? I had a terrible nightmare. I dreamed I was upside down in a boat, under the water, and I couldn’t get out.”

  “Go back to sleep,” he said. “Don’t think about it.” He promptly rolled over and drifted back to sleep, returning to the clear creek he’d left when Florida had woken him. But now a huge wind was whipping the creek and the waves were getting taller and taller, and one giant wave swept him backward over the bank, over a hill, into a jungle, and the wave kept pushing him farther and farther into a tangled mess of trees.

  Downstairs, Tiller was thrashing in his sleep. He was all alone in the middle of a river, and the boat was sinking, sinking, sinking.

  Sairy sat up with a start. She heard the thunder boom and the wind rage around the house. Oh, whew, she thought. It was only a dream. She settled back against her pillow, trying to forget her dream, in which a red-tailed bird had turned into a dinosaur and was lunging toward her.

  CHAPTER 31

  MEDICINE

  At breakfast, Sairy said, “Everybody’s a little quiet this morning.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tiller said.

  Florida swallowed a mouthful of waffle. “That was a putrid storm last night,” she said. “I had some mighty awful nightmares.”

  “Why, me too,” Sairy said. “I got attacked by a red-tailed dinosaur.”

  “You did?” Florida said. “I got trapped by a boat, underwater.”

  “My boat sank,” Tiller said, “with me in it.”

  “I got pushed by a wave into a jungle with man-eating rats,” Dallas said.

  “Hmm,” Sairy said. “Looks like we need a little bad-dream medicine.”

  “Medicine?” Florida said. “Don’t want any stinking medicine.”

  “You might like this kind,” Sairy said, retrieving a tub of freshly made peach ice cream. “Goes good with waffles,” she said.

  “Ice cream?” Dallas said. “For breakfast?”

  “Erases nightmares,” Tiller explained. “Works every time.”

  After breakfast, when they were clearing fallen branches from the porch, Tiller said, “I had a crazy notion just now.”

  “Nothing new about that,” Sairy said.

  “Very funny,” Tiller said. “Do you want to hear my notion or not?”

  “You’re going to tell us anyway, I bet,” Sairy said.

  “You’re awful feisty this morning,” Tiller said.

  “Go on,” Sairy said. “Tell us your crazy notion.”

  “Naw, it’s too stupid.”

  “Tell us,” Florida said. “Even if it’s stupid, tell us.”

  “Okay,” Tiller said. “I had this crazy notion that maybe we all ought to have some rehearsals.”

  “What sort of rehearsals?” Dallas asked. “Like for a play? We don’t know how to do plays and stuff.”

  “No, not a play. You know how you kids went out and had a trial run with our equipment? Well, like that, only this time, it’d be me and Florida trying out our boat. Just a little close-by kind of trip. A day or two or three. And Dallas and Sairy could take a trial hike since they’re going to have to hike so much when they get to Kangadoon. They could hike out of the holler, camp somewhere, hike some more, you know, try out the boots and tents and compasses and stuff. Crazy notion, huh?”

  Everyone else was quiet. Dallas was remembering the huge wave and the rat-filled jungle. Florida was thinking about being caught under the boat, and Sairy was recalling the red-tailed dinosaur.

  “Maybe not so crazy,” Florida said. “Not so entirely crazy.”

  “Maybe not crazy at all,” Dallas said.

  Sairy leaned against Tiller. “Maybe it’s a tiny little genius idea.”

  “Genius?” Tiller said. “Me?”

  “Don’t you go getting a big head,” Sairy said. “I said maybe it was a tiny little genius idea. That’s all I said.”

  CHAPTER 32

  PADDLING AND HIKING

  The air was heavy and hot, and the clear water of the Hidden River was smooth and still.

  “How long have we been slapping these paddles in the water?” Florida asked
. “About eighty gazillion hours?”

  “Four hours,” Tiller said. “You tired? You stop paddling when you’re tired. I can carry on back here.”

  “I’ve never paddled a boat before,” Florida said.

  “Is that right?” Tiller said. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  Florida turned around to look at Tiller. His straw hat shaded his eyes and made crisscross marks on the upper half of his face. “I know you’re not telling the truth,” Florida said. “I know you were getting a bit troubled when we first started off and I couldn’t get the hang of this paddle thing and nearly tipped us over a hundred times.”

  “It takes a little time to get the feel of a boat,” Tiller said. “I wasn’t doing so hot myself when we first set off.” He gazed at the banks and at the sky overhead. He’d wanted to turn back a hundred times. What am I doing here? he kept asking himself.

  “How come this is called Hidden River?” Florida asked.

  “’Cause it’s not on any map, at least not any map I’ve ever seen,” Tiller said.

  “How’d you know it was here then?”

  “My father and I found it. I’ve been down here many times, and I know right where it goes,” Tiller said.

  “Then how come it’s not on a map?”

  Tiller shrugged. “Not everything is on maps.”

  “Well, if this river that is here is not on a map, how do you know that the rivers that are on the maps are really there?”

  “We don’t know, not exactly. Guess we’ll find out,” Tiller said.

  “You mean we might end up in a dried-up smelly ditch someplace and be lost and maybe starve to death in a lost place that nobody knows about, and—”

  “I think we’ll be okay,” he said. She sure has a lot of questions, he thought. Why didn’t I just come by myself? “You’ve got to admit, this is mighty peaceful,” he said.

  Florida stared ahead at the river, a long sparkly slithery thing disappearing around a bend in the distance. “It’s peaceful alright,” Florida said, “except for these dang mosquitoes and flies.” She slapped at her arms. “How come there are so many bugs out here?”

  “Probably no bats around these parts,” Tiller said.

  “Bats?”

  “You ever notice all those bats in the holler, the ones that come out at dusk?”

  “Those flying rat things?” Florida said.

  “Those are bats,” Tiller said. “You ever notice how there aren’t any mosquitoes in Ruby Holler?”

  “Now that you mention it, I did notice that,” Florida said. “How come you don’t have mosquitoes in Ruby Holler?”

  “Because of the bats,” Tiller said. “The bats eat them. Bats are good.”

  “Well, I never would have guessed that any flying rat thing could be good,” Florida said. “But I’ll take your word for it. Maybe you could whistle for some of those bats to follow us on our trip. You think Sairy and Dallas have bats where they are?”

  “No idea,” Tiller said. “Where do you suppose they are right now? How far do you think they’ve hiked?”

  Florida felt quivery talking about Sairy and Dallas. It had been awful saying good-bye that morning. Tiller’s friend had driven them all down to the river, where they’d unloaded the boat and plonked it in the water, and then Tiller’s friend was going to drive Sairy and Dallas back to the cabin so they could set off on their hike. Florida had had an odd feeling when she met Tiller’s friend, as if she’d seen him somewhere before, but she couldn’t place where that might have been.

  They’d all stood around looking at the boat bobbing in the water until Sairy said, “I can’t hardly take all this standing around. I’m going to bust out blubbering.” In a tangle, they’d exchanged hugs, and Tiller and Florida stood on the bank waving good-bye.

  It was all Florida could do not to chase after Dallas and flee. Everything inside her head told her not to trust anybody but him. She had a sudden, cold fear that this was all a trick, a plot to separate her from Dallas. She was mad at herself for letting Tiller and Sairy soften them up with their good food and gentle ways.

  Still, something had made her get in the boat, and something had made her dip her paddle in the water, and something had made her look calm on the outside, while inside she was trembling like a trapped mouse.

  It had taken two hours for Dallas and Sairy to hike beyond the limits of the holler, and now they stood on top of a ridge, looking back the way they’d come.

  “There’s a river,” Dallas said. “See it? Looks like a skinny brown eel. Is that Hidden River? Will we be able to see them down there, you think? Look at all those tiny houses and cars and that skinny river. It’s like a playland. It’s like your carvings.”

  Sairy stared off across the hills. “Dallas, did you ever wonder what you were like without Florida?”

  “How do you mean?”

  Sairy took off her hat and rumpled her hair. “I mean, you two have always been together, your whole lives, but did you ever wonder if you’d be different if you weren’t with her, if you were by yourself?”

  Dallas kicked at the dirt with his boot. He felt as if he was going to throw up. He didn’t like being without Florida. He didn’t like Sairy’s question, either. “I’d still be who I am, wouldn’t I? I’m without her now, aren’t I? Am I different?”

  Sairy studied him. “Too early to tell, I guess.”

  “You’ve been with Tiller nearly your whole life. Are you different without him?”

  “I don’t know,” Sairy said. “Am I?”

  “Too early to tell,” Dallas said.

  “Guess we’d better move on. You’ve got the compass, right? Which way now?”

  “Compass?” Dallas said.

  CHAPTER 33

  Z’S REPORT

  In the alley shack, Z leaned against the door. “So like I said, they’ve already done gone. They’re outta there.”

  Mr. Trepid rubbed his hands rapidly back and forth as if he were warming them. “Already? Are you entirely sure? They’ve all gone?”

  “Gone. Zappo.” Z picked at the wooden door frame, loosening a splinter.

  Mr. Trepid paced the room, talking as he went. “Very good. Now we will start the project I mentioned. Are you prepared to keep this absolutely confidential?”

  Z spat on the floor and eyed Mr. Trepid. “Listen, if you don’t trust me—”

  “Oh no, no, no. Don’t misunderstand me. Of course I know you’ll keep this confidential. It’s just that this is a most delicate—”

  “I got it. Just tell me what I gotta do, and tell me what the salary will be.”

  “How are you at map making?” Mr. Trepid asked.

  “Map making?” Z said. “That don’t sound too exciting to me.”

  “First I want you to survey an area, and I’ll tell you what to look for, and then I’ll need you to make a map marking the locations of—”

  “What is it exactly I’m looking for, and where am I looking?” Z picked at his teeth with the splinter.

  “Down in Ruby Holler, you find their cabin, see? And then you go about, oh, let’s say twenty feet out from it, in a circle, and you look for a stone, and then if you don’t find it, you go, say, thirty feet out and look, and on like that until you find it,” Mr. Trepid explained. He had thought about doing this himself, but he didn’t like rummaging around in the woods and it would take far too much time.

  “A stone?” Z said. “Do you have all your brains? Do you know how many stones there are in the holler? My guess is about a hundred million. Unless you are talking about a special stone, like maybe it’s a green one or a red one or—”

  “I don’t know what it looks like, but my guess is it’s not an ordinary stone. It’s probably a big one, or maybe a pile of big ones.”

  Z raked his fingers through his matted hair. “What’s so special about this stone or this pile of stones?”

  Mr. Trepid had expected this question and he was prepared with an answer. “It marks a source—an oil source,
” he lied. “See, they were thinking of drilling up there, and I’m just a little curious as to where this oil is.”

  “Seems to me,” Z said, “you coulda asked ’em. They probably woulda told you. If it’s on their property, what do they care who knows where it is?”

  “I’m not entirely sure it is on their property,” Mr. Trepid said.

  “So where’s my salary?” Z said. “I ain’t got all day.”

  Mr. Trepid handed him a wad of bills. “That’s just a deposit. You bring me a map, with any special stones marked on it, and I’ll give you the rest of the money. Don’t worry, if you find the right spot, you’ll get a fine salary.”

  “Okay, boss man, but I ain’t spending a year looking. I’ll go see what I see, and if it don’t look too promising, I ain’t gonna carry on scrabbling through the dirt.”

  When Mr. Trepid returned to the Boxton Creek Home, he found his wife lying on their bed with a wet cloth draped over her forehead. He knew better than to ask what was wrong, because she would tell him. She would tell him which child had broken a window and which one had broken an arm and which one had tracked in mud and which one had sassed her, and she could go on like that for hours. So instead of asking her what was wrong, he said, “I have some good news.”

  “I could use some good news, because that new girl broke—”

  “It’s very good news. How would you like to leave this place and go off to an island somewhere?”

  Mrs. Trepid slipped the cloth off her head and sat up. “You have a mighty poor idea of a joke,” she said.

  “I’m not joking. I think in a little time, very soon maybe, we might be coming into some money.”

  “And where exactly is this money coming from? Is it going to drop down from heaven and land at our feet?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve got some … investments, some investments that should be coming through any day now.”

  There was a knock at their door. From outside Morgan said, “Ma’am? It’s time to be getting dinner together.”