As the others stared up at the contorted windmill, Gypsy stepped out of the Bug House, followed by Sarah Jane. I watched, hoping the Sundance newspaper princess would be smart enough to leave. I could almost make out the expression on Sarah Jane’s face as she took in the warped and tortured mill; I was relieved when she didn’t come to check it out.
Shouldering her backpack—my backpack—she followed a deer trail along the river toward the ridge instead of hiking up the access road, taking a sneaky way off the ranch. It made me twitchy with suspicion. But my diversion was successful, no one gave any indication that they had seen Sarah Jane.
“Now it’s a windmill and a sculpture, Ledge,” Autry said after circling the bent-steel monstrosity half a dozen times. My uncle wiped his brow when he discovered that the windmill still worked. “I’d like to think that this is progress.”
I couldn’t meet Autry’s eyes. He didn’t know I’d attacked the metal tower on purpose. Staring up at the surreal twist of metal, my stomach churned.
“Progress . . . sure,” I muttered. But I’d accomplished what I set out to do. Sarah Jane was gone and Autry and the twins would never have to know that she had been here. Not unless someone told them. And if I had anything to say about it, nobody would.
I went looking for Gypsy as soon as the fuss died down.
“I like what you did with the windmill, Ledge!” Gypsy said as she secured a crown of blue and yellow flowers in her hair a half-hour later.
“Forget the windmill,” I said. “Grandpa said we had a visitor.”
Gypsy nodded. “That’s right! Your friend came looking for you.”
“Uncle Autry says we’re not supposed to talk to Sarah Jane Cabot, Gypsy. She shouldn’t have come here,” I blustered, folding my arms. “She’s not my friend.”
Gypsy smiled like a china doll with a Mona Lisa face. “Okay, Ledge. Whatever you say.”
“You won’t tell Autry or the twins she was here?” I narrowed my eyes at my cousin. Gypsy spun once, then adjusted her flower crown with a curtsy. I took that for a yes.
“So . . . what did she want?”
“Who?” Gypsy cocked her head, dropping flower petals onto one shoulder.
“SJ! I mean, Sarah Jane,” I answered through gritted teeth, trying not to lose patience with my flighty cousin. “Did she—did Sarah Jane bring me anything?” I stammered, half hoping that Sarah Jane might have come to the ranch to return Grandma Dollop’s peanut butter jar. It was a slim hope, and a fraying one, but it was still strong enough for me to cling to.
Gypsy’s thin brows shot up.
“What did you want her to bring?”
“Nothing,” I answered quickly. Too quickly. Gypsy’s brows arched higher.
“She just asked a lot of questions. Mostly about you.”
I held my breath. “What did you tell her?”
Gypsy spun again once, then answered. “I told her that you like to bathe in the river, that you live in Indiana, that you run really fast when you want to . . . and that someday you are going to be an artist.”
“An artist?” I snorted, trying not to look down the hill at the vomitrocious mess I’d made out of the windmill.
Gypsy’s Mona Lisa smile returned.
“Did you talk about anything else?” I asked, redirecting the conversation. “You didn’t tell SJ about our family, did you? About savvies? You didn’t tell her anything about—”
“Ledger, calm down,” Gypsy interrupted. “You’ve gone totally doolally. I almost told her, because . . . well, she really deserves to know. But—”
“Deserves to know? Gypsy—!”
Gypsy’s calm stare stopped me.
“But I didn’t say anything, Ledger. I promise. I showed her the conservatory instead! And the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing chrysalides!” Gypsy sighed, as if sharing her private, glassed-in fairyland had made her happy.
I dropped my head into my hands, pressing my palms into my eyes. This wasn’t as bad as Gypsy telling Sarah Jane our family secrets, but it came close. What would Sarah Jane do with a story about twelve of the world’s largest butterflies taking up residence at the ranch—endangered creatures getting ready to emerge in Crook County, Wyoming?
She’d make it headline news in her paper, that’s what she’d do. I thought of the free Super-Duper Humdinger issue Sarah Jane had threatened me with the week before. I was still waiting for it to come.
Now I was praying extra hard that it wouldn’t.
Chapter 18
“YOU’VE REALLY GOT A KNACK FOR this, Ledge!” Winona declared three days later, after I stopped her from re-lacing wheel spokes wrong for the second time. I was sure that if she continued as she was, the front wheel of the Knucklehead would never stay round.
“Are you sure you’ve never done anything like this before?” Winona continued. I snorted, casting my millionth wary look at the lathes, drills, band saws, and brake presses that took up space inside Gus Neary’s shop. To my surprise, I’d shown a talent for reconstructing the pieces of the bike on more than one occasion, discovering that I could spot a forgotten spacer the way my mom could spot a stain from fifty yards. Still, I sat in the doorway of the open bay as usual, half in and half out of the steel building, multiple escape plans ready.
“Trust me,” I answered. “I’m a whole lot better at taking things apart.”
“I don’t know, kid.” Winona glanced from me to the bike frame, then back at me again. “You’ve obviously got some untapped skills. Heh, if Gus were here, you could be the son he always wanted.”
“I’d rather be the son my dad always wanted,” I mumbled. My throat tightened as I rotated a clamp on the Knuck’s handlebars, but the wave of panic that usually followed thoughts of failure held back. For some reason, talking with Winona was easy, and working with my hands had a way of loosening my tongue. I often found myself saying things to her that I’d never said to anyone. Not Josh. Not Ryan. Especially not Big Mouth Brody.
“I’m supposed to be a runner,” I went on, double-checking the clamp.
“You run every day, don’t you?
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “But I’m not fast—at least, not as fast as my dad hoped I’d be. I haven’t even talked to him since he and Mom left. Mom and Dad called again yesterday but . . .” I trailed off, unable to tell Winona that the first time I’d tried to talk, I’d busted my uncle’s cell phone before Dad could even say hello. After a moment, I added, “I’ll never run the race of a lifetime like Dad did, and he knows it.”
“Those sound like your dad’s dreams, Ledge,” Winona said, still working on the same spoke she’d been fiddling with for the last ten minutes. “What’re yours?”
“What are my what?”
“Your dreams, y’dumb lug!” Laughing, she threw the spoke at me. “Surely you’ve got some of your own!”
“I guess I never really thought about it.” I caught the spoke and shrugged again, hoping Winona didn’t see the way the thin metal rod curled into a corkscrew in my hand. A series of images flashed through my mind: Aunt Jenny’s painting of a boat on the ocean, the infamous melting clocks incident in art class, the twisted arc of the windmill . . . Gypsy’s Mona Lisa smile just after she’d said I’d be an artist.
While I’d gone to the salvage yard every day since meeting Winona, I still hadn’t stepped into its sprawling steel ocean. “Feel free to explore, Ledge,” she’d told me more than once. “There’s a lot more here than meets the eye. All kinds of treasures.”
“Treasures? It’s a junkyard,” I’d snorted the first time she said it, imagining myself rising from the salvage yard the same way Eva Mae had risen from the river. Only, instead of stepping out covered head to toe in gold, I’d come out looking like a giant Transforminator toy or a goofball knight armored top to bottom in rusted metal. I’d be a terrified and terrifying human sculpture—a piece of art, not an artist.
Now, as Winona rethought her approach to the wheel spokes, I shook those same images from my head once ag
ain. I glanced at a massive, mystifying shape that grew beneath a tarp in the middle of the shop, wondering what it might be. The only bit visible was a curve of metal protruding from beneath the coverings like the foot of a giant beast. Whatever Winona worked on when I wasn’t there, she wouldn’t let me see, and I was dying to sneak a peek.
“Sarah Jane would look,” I said under my breath.
“Sarah Jane would do what?” Winona squinted at me, dropping a wrench with a clatter.
“Uh . . . nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
“About Sarah Jane Cabot?”
“Um . . . I guess. Do you know her?”
“Not personally, no. But I know her work—her father’s too. Or haven’t you seen the foreclosure sign out front?”
“But Sarah Jane doesn’t have anything to do with the foreclosure. She’s just a kid,” I replied, not sure why I was defending her.
“Sarah Jane featured Pops in one of her papers not too long before her snollygoster father decided to foreclose,” Winona said. “Gus was so proud of getting in a newspaper, any newspaper, he hung it in the shop.” She rolled her eyes. “I took it down. Every time I saw the headline: Shiver Me Timbers! Gus Neary Be a Former Buccaneer! I started thinking Pop was a retired pirate: peg leg, parrot, scurvy—the works. He already had the eye patch, which is probably why Sarah Jane picked on him. But it’s Sarah Jane’s dad who’s the real picaroon raider, not mine.” Winona stopped her ramble short, squinting at me. “How do you know her, Ledge?” she asked, suddenly wary. “Is Sarah Jane your—”
“She’s not my girlfriend! Not, not, not my girlfriend.” I cut her off, but Winona only burst out laughing.
“Okay! Got it. But really Ledge, I was only going to ask if she’s your friend.”
I returned to the ranch that afternoon with more grease under my nails than river water could wash away. I’d been cleaning up the same way for days. No soap. No shampoo. Removing just enough stink to keep the girls from complaining, I got a hefty helping of wild-boy joy out of going un-combed and un-scrubbed—knowing Mom would never let me get away with such a lack of hygiene.
But my new heights of grime were nothing compared to the layers of red dust Fedora showed up wearing. Fe came back so filthy from her hunting trips with the twins that she practically needed her own highpressure, outdoor kid wash to get the dirt off, while Marisol and Mesquite came back clean as Girl Scout whistles. It made me wonder if the twins had the ability to levitate the dust right off their skin, or if they were simply making Fedora do all their dirty work . . . whatever that might be.
Like me, the three girls kept their mouths closed about their secret daily missions and, for a while, I pretended not to care what kind of trouble Marisol and Mesquite might be getting my sister into. But that evening, when Fedora returned to the ranch tuckered out and sunburned, and with calluses and blisters on her hands, I began to worry.
“Tell me what you’re doing with Mesquite and Marisol,” I demanded, catching up with Fedora before joining the others at the campfire. “Where do the three of you go every afternoon?”
“Marisol and Mesquite say it’s none of your beeswax, Sledgehammer,” Fe answered, hitting me with the rotten nickname the twins had invented, then walking a little faster.
I clenched my teeth. Fe was spending too much time with the older girls.
“Don’t call me that, Fedora!”
Stopping, Fe raised her pointy chin inside her helmet and crossed her arms over her dirty T-shirt. “You’re not Mom. You can’t control me.”
“I am your brother though. Your big brother. Tell me what you’ve been up to or I’ll pound you.”
“Careful, Ledge! Anger is only one letter away from danger.” Fedora started walking again, calling my bluff. She and I both knew I’d never do it. Pinch her, maybe. Pound her, no.
“Next time Mom and Dad phone, I’ll tell them you’re keeping secrets!” I hollered after her, feeling like a hypocrite and a tattletale too.
“You’ve got secrets too, Ledge!” Fe yelled back. “Besides, I bet you don’t even talk to Mom and Dad next time they call. I bet you’ll be too scared you’ll break the phone again! You’ll be a big, fat phone-chicken . . . Bawk! Bawk!” She waggled her elbows, dancing in circles like a chicken.
“Fine!” I spat. “Just don’t expect me to tell you how I spend my afternoons,” I added, even though I was dying to tell someone about my time in the salvage yard.
“Fine!” Fe spat back. “Sledgehammer Stupid-Head!”
“Give it a rest, Fedora!” Both Fe and I turned at the sound of Rocket’s voice. I hadn’t heard him coming up behind us. Fe looked wounded at Rocket’s rebuff. Her lower lip trembled. She wasn’t accustomed to him siding with me instead of her. I wasn’t either. But I didn’t like it when someone else yelled at my sister.
Rocket moved past us to join the others at the campfire. I waited, every muscle tense, thinking he might turn around to ask again if we could talk. But he walked on, not looking back.
Fedora sniffed inside her helmet.
“Come on, Fe,” I said. “Whatever you’re up to, it’s got to make you hungry.” I took my sister’s hand and squeezed it. Then I led her toward the fire, wondering if Rocket had finally given up on giving me his lecture.
When the Super-Duper Humdinger issue of The Sundance Scuttlebutt came out, Sarah Jane mailed my copy directly to the ranch.
Two weeks had passed since Fish and Mellie’s wedding. It was Saturday and Grandpa was dozing on the porch as usual. The colorful yarns of an old afghan meandered across his lap despite the dog days of summer that panted hot breath at everyone else’s heels. I felt a stab of guilt as I looked at Grandpa in his chair. I’d been so wrapped up in everything else—running, the Knucklehead, torturous lessons with the twins—I’d almost forgotten about Grandma Dollop’s jar and the silent promise I’d made to get it back.
Rocket had left early that morning after losing an argument with Autry, making one of his rare trips off the ranch in his own truck—a rusty Ford F-1 that had a way of rolling away from wherever he parked it, the parking brake a goner. Autry sent Rocket into Sundance to collect the mail from the post office and, if there was any truth to Autry’s teasing, to wave away the girls who buzzed around my cousin like honeybees to clover, the same way he waved away Fedora when she begged him to let her ride along.
My parents called just before the nonsensical newspaper arrived.
“Ledge? Fedora? Who wants to talk first?” Autry asked, holding his new cell phone out over the picnic table.
“Me! Me!” Fedora shouted. I only half listened as Fe babbled to Mom and Dad. But I pricked up my ears when I heard her talking about the safest way to use a shovel.
“. . . and if you do that, you don’t fall down if you hit something!” Fe was explaining. “And we’re hoping we hit something big! We’re hoping to find—”
“Ssss! Fedora, shush!” Marisol hissed from her seat at the table.
“Yeah!” added Mesquite. “You’ve talked long enough. Ledger’s turn!” Without giving Fedora the chance to say good-bye, the twins levitated the phone out of my sister’s hand and zipped it my way.
I grabbed the phone before it could hit me in the side of the head, taking a deep breath as I raised it to my ear. Now Fedora would see that I wasn’t a big, fat phone-chicken. But Fe still jammed her helmet back on her head and slid to the far end of the picnic table, just in case shards of phone went flying.
“Tell me everything, Ledger!” Mom’s voice spilled from the phone in a tidal wave of mom-worry—so loud, Gypsy giggled from across the table, covering her mouth with her fingers. “Are you eating, Ledge?” Mom asked. “You need to eat. Are you brushing your teeth? Don’t forget! Flossing? Don’t forget that either! Remember to wear sunblock and don’t let Autry give you too much pop or candy . . .”
I crossed my eyes at Mom’s flood of concern, relieved that her savvy never worked well over the phone. I only felt vaguely compelled to brush my tee
th, and had no impulse whatsoever to tell her everything.
“Are you doing all right, Ledge?” Dad asked when he came on the line.
“I’m running, Dad,” I assured him quickly. Unlike with Mom, I wanted to tell Dad about Winona and the Knucklehead and how I was good at knowing how things went together without even looking at a manual. I wanted to tell him about the windmill and how I’d twisted and bent the tower without destroying it. I wanted to ask whether Josh or Ryan had called or come by looking for me, or if Brody had told half the town that I’d been quarantined in Wyoming with mono or measles or mad cow disease.
“I’m running, Dad. I’m running every day,” was what came out of my mouth.
“That’s great, son,” Dad replied. “But how’re you doing? Are you okay?”
“I think I might be getting faster. But the air’s thinner here, so—”
“Ledger—” Dad began to interrupt, but I never learned what he’d been about to say, because Rocket, just back from town and looking grumpier than ever, chose that moment to drop an envelope down on the picnic table in front of me.
I heard, “Ledge? Ledger? Did I lose you?” Then Dad’s voice was a crackle of static. I let the phone slip from my ear as Rocket pointed, jabbing with a single flashing spark at Sarah Jane’s loopy handwriting: From: S. J. Cabot, Editor
The Sundance Scuttlebutt
To: Cowboy Ledge,
AKA The King of Damage
c/o The Flying Cattleheart Ranch
It was the end of my conversation with Mom and Dad. Autry’s new phone didn’t stand a chance. Neither did the picnic table. This time the nails flew out of the table so fast, no one had time to push them down. After two weeks of holding strong, the picnic table collapsed into a pile of wood, my own hopes that Sarah Jane had given up on her humdinger newspaper collapsing with it.
I snatched up the envelope before any of the others had a chance to get a good look at it. What if Sarah Jane had written about my family and the wedding? What if our secret was out? All the rules broken? What if Sarah Jane had decided to tell the whole world I was defective?