Tumbleweed Skies Read online

  Then I realized why it didn't look right. That dog had a bird in its mouth! Without pausing for one second, I yanked open the bedroom door, pounded down the stairs, and charged down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the back door, yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOO!" the whole way.

  That dumb dog got to the yard just as I did. I must have startled him because he opened his mouth and dropped the bird lickety-split.

  "Bad!" I yelled. "Go away!" I hurried to the bird and picked it up, my heart bursting with sorrow. It looked like I was going to have to put on a funeral, like Judy and I did the time her hamster got loose and met up with the wrong cat.

  The bird was black and white with a blue shine in its dark feathers. It lay very still in my hands. I couldn't help myself; I started to cry. I was trying to think through what kind of funeral I could have for this bird, seeing as how I'd never even met it before that very moment, when I heard someone behind me.

  "Ellie?" It was Uncle Roger.

  "That dog killed this bird for no good reason," I told him. I hoped he understood from my tone that if that dog was his, he might want to have a word with it.

  Uncle Roger stepped forward and squatted down in front of me. He looked the bird over, and while he was doing that I felt something move.

  "It's alive!" I gasped, almost dropping it in surprise.

  "Yep," Uncle Roger said. "And by the way, that was our neighbor's dog, Bailey. He's a nice fella, really. I'm sure he was just playing. He wouldn't have meant any harm to the bird—which is a magpie, by the way."

  "Is it going to be all right?" I asked. I didn't bother to tell him that he was wasting his time trying to improve my opinion of that murdering fleabag of a neighbor's dog.

  "Let's take it in the back porch and have a closer look," Uncle Roger said. "And be ready to tell your grandmother you're sorry for running through her house hollering a moment ago. She's not much used to that sort of thing and I don't reckon she'll be taking it well."

  Uncle Roger was right about Grandma. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes blazing. I could see that she was about to lecture me so I spoke up quick.

  "I'm awful sorry for yelling and running through the house," I told her. "But this bird was in a dog's mouth! And I rescued it. Now we're going to see if it's okay."

  "You don't yell in my house again," Grandma said. She glanced at the magpie. "And no birds in here!"

  "Don't worry, we're just taking a quick look," Uncle Roger said. Grandma turned away.

  Uncle Roger put the bird down very carefully, sitting it on its feet before he started to examine it. It didn't take long to realize that one of the wings looked different than the other. I watched, hardly daring to breathe as he checked them.

  "Well, it doesn't seem to be broken, so I guess it's some other kind of injury," he said. "A sprain maybe, or bruising. But the bird won't be able to fly until it's healed, which leaves it pretty defenseless."

  "I'll take care of it until then!" I cried. "We can't let it die."

  "I reckon there's a cage out in the shed that you could keep it in," Uncle Roger said slowly. "But you'll have to feed it."

  I jumped up and down and clapped. "I will! I will!" I promised. "But what will we name it? Is it a boy or a girl?"

  "It's hard to tell with magpies," Uncle Roger said. He put his hands around the bird and lifted it gently, holding it securely against his chest. "Right now it needs to be bandaged up more than it needs a name."

  I thought a bandage would be a bit small to help this magpie's wing, but I didn't say so. I followed Uncle Roger to the barn and was surprised when he rummaged around in an old flour sack and came up with a long, white strip of cloth.

  "This should do it," he said. He wrapped the cloth around the magpie's injured wing and body, so that the only part that wasn't wrapped was the good wing. He sewed the end closed with a big needle and some kind of string.

  All the while that this was going on, the magpie just stared, but as Uncle Roger finished tying off the string it let out a squawk.

  "Ree!" it cried. "Ree! Ree!"

  "All that racket is a good sign if I ever saw one," Uncle Roger said.

  "I guess," I said. "It sure isn't going to win any singing contests, though, that's for sure."

  "Magpies aren't exactly songbirds," he agreed with a chuckle. "But by the sound of it, at least this one is going to be okay."

  "But I still don't know what to call it," I said with a sigh. "Are you sure you can't tell if it's a boy or girl?"

  "If I had to pick one, I'd say it was a boy. To be on the safe side, why don't you call it something that goes good for either one?" Uncle Roger suggested.

  "Like what?"

  "Well, Sammy for instance. Sammy can be short for Samuel or Samantha."

  I looked at the bird and then back at Uncle Roger. I felt a smile showing up on my face. "That's perfect, Uncle Roger!" I said. "Sammy is a perfect name for this bird."

  "But now don't get too attached," Uncle Roger said. "Soon's it can fly again, it'll be gone."

  All day long I couldn't stop thinking about Sammy. Every chance I had, I snuck off to the shed and checked up on him. It helped me steer clear of Grandma too, since she stayed in a grumpy mood all day. At least, I hoped it was a grumpy mood and not her regular, everyday way of acting.

  Uncle Roger and I spent most of that evening hunting up food for Sammy. We dug up a few earthworms and gathered together a disgusting collection of flies, beetles, and other bugs.

  "Magpies are carrion eaters too," Uncle Roger told me.

  "Are there any of those around here?" I asked.

  "Carrion is just a word for animals that are dead," Uncle Roger explained. "Sometimes I find dead moles and mice and such in the field. Sammy would eat things like that, too."

  I stared at him, horrified. Bugs and worms were bad enough, but picking up dead old rodents was more than I could stand.

  "Maybe you'd rather just feed Sammy worms and bugs," he said quickly.

  The bugs were all dead. Uncle Roger gave me the cover from an old Eaton's catalogue to slide under them after we killed them. Once they were on it, I lifted them up and dumped them into a small jar without touching them. That was especially helpful for the ones that got squished. They looked dry and hard and much smaller than when they'd been alive.

  I would have preferred to let Uncle Roger take care of picking them up, but he said I might just as well learn how to do it myself, because he wasn't going to have time to be scrounging up food for a bird every day.

  The worms, on the other hand, were alive in a big jar of earth. Uncle Roger punched some tiny holes in the lid with a hammer and nail, so there'd be enough air, though I didn't see why anything that lived in dirt needed air.

  When we'd finished collecting food for Sammy, Uncle Roger double-checked that the cage was good and secure. "Seems solid," he told me, "but when you come in here in the morning, just open the door a crack at first and peek through to make sure that Sammy is in his cage."

  "Do you think he could get out?" I asked.

  "It's not likely, but you never know. Now, I've got a few things to do before my day's work is done. You run along inside and get ready for bed."

  I went in quietly, hoping to avoid Grandma. But, when I opened the door into the kitchen, I saw her sitting at the table. Her back was to me and she was shaking her head.

  "I told her," I heard Grandma say. "I told her not to go to that dance."

  Five

  I was born on June 4th, 1944, which is also the day my mother died. Since I never got to know her, it might seem strange that I miss her. But sometimes I really do.

  Daddy talks about her a lot. It almost seems that his stories have turned into memories to me. I look at her picture and can practically see the things he's told me about. Things like the way she covered her mouth with her hand when she giggled and how she liked wildflowers better than the ones they sell in flower shops. She hummed songs when she
was cleaning house and wore white gloves to church every Sunday.

  My mother's eyes were blue and they smiled a lot, unless she saw a person or animal that was hurt. Then they filled with tears and her bottom lip trembled, because she had a big heart for anything that was suffering.

  Daddy's told me the story of how they met so many times I could have told it myself. I never did, though. I just kept asking him to tell it again.

  "She was like a vision," he'd say. His arm would snake around me and he'd tug me over and kind of tuck me under his arm. He'd smile down at me, but then his eyes always moved off to the day he was talking about.

  "I met her in '42. It was just after the third time I tried to join the army and couldn't get in on account of my eyesight. I was angry at that time—angry that I couldn't serve my country the way a man ought to. Most of my friends had enlisted and I couldn't stand being in the old neighborhood. It set me on the road, kind of drifting around the countryside. Next thing I knew, I was harvesting nearWeybolt. One Saturday evening I found myself at a barn dance there."

  I would sit up straighter and listen hard when he got to that part. Because my mother was next.

  "She was there that night. Pretty as a picture, your mother. First time I laid eyes on her, I knew she was the girl for me."

  He and my mother had met at that dance and fallen in love. When Daddy moved on, the only thing he thought about was finding a good job so he could marry her.

  He wrote to her every week, only she didn't answer his letters. That didn't stop him though! Once he got his job at the mill, he just headed right up there toWeybolt and went straight to her house.

  When he knocked on the door, Grandma answered and told him my mom didn't want to see him. She sent him away. Daddy drove out the gateway and onto the road feeling like he'd taken the flat side of a shovel right in the stomach. But then he saw my mother standing on the side of the road, waving for him to stop. She'd heard what had happened at the door, and had snuck out and run to the road to meet him.

  While they drove along talking, my mom told him that she'd never received any of his letters. That's why she hadn't written back. But she still loved him too.

  And then my father realized she'd put herself in a bad spot, running off that way. The only solution was for them to get married right quick, which they did.

  My mom wrote to her family, but her parents never answered that letter or any of the others she wrote over the next year. Not once. Only her brother Roger wrote back. One time, he even came to visit for a few days.

  Then I came along. But there were problems, and my mom died shortly after giving birth to me. Daddy says she saw me, though, and even in that short time she had with me, she loved me with her whole heart.

  He sent a telegram to her family with the terrible news. They arrived the same day and took over the arrangements. They wanted my mother to be sent back to Weybolt to be buried. My grandmother insisted it was their right because they'd had her for her whole life until he came and took her away. And, she told him, look what happened then.

  My father didn't have any fight in him, because of being heartbroken and all. He just let Grandma do what she wanted.

  Over the years he wrote them once in a while and sent some pictures of me. Now and then he got back a note from Roger, but there was never anything from my grandparents. Then, when I was three, my grandfather died. The only time he'd ever seen me was when I was just born.

  Since I knew the whole story, I understood right away what Grandma meant that evening when I went into the kitchen and found her at the table muttering, "I told her not to go to that dance. I told her no good would come of it."

  I stood real still, hardly daring to breathe. It didn't matter. Grandma turned after a moment and saw me there. Then she said something horrible.

  "You and your father," she said, "you killed her, the two of you."

  I couldn't believe anyone could say such an awful thing. It made me want to hit her, even if she was my grandmother. I wanted to clench my hands into hard, tight fists and pound on her until she took it back.

  Words rushed into my head—loud, angry words—but they wouldn't come out of my mouth. That was good, because if I'd said what I was thinking, Grandma would most likely have thrown me out, and I would have had nowhere to go.

  The worst thing was I'd wondered that very thing before. I'd even asked Daddy, but he swore that wasn't the case. He said that it had been Momma's time to die and that because of me she was able to die happy.

  But what if Grandma was right? I didn't think I could bear that.

  Six

  It took all the courage I had to go downstairs the next morning. I paused on every single step and hoped and wished for Uncle Roger to be there in the kitchen. But when I got to the end of the hall I saw that Grandma was alone at the table.

  My legs felt like they were going to turn around and run back upstairs all on their own—and they might have too, except Grandma spoke up.

  "Your porridge is getting cold." She nodded toward a bowl on the table. "Come and eat."

  I made my way obediently to the table and hoisted myself onto the wooden chair nearest the bowl.

  "Thank you, Grandma," I said. I almost knocked my breakfast over when my spoon skidded through the milk and across the rubbery surface of the porridge, and banged against the edge of the dish. Catching it in time, I tried again more firmly and brought a lukewarm glob to my mouth.

  When Daddy makes porridge it's hot and sweet and delicious. This was hardly lukewarm and there was barely a hint of brown sugar. I didn't care. Eating gave me something to do, something to look at, and I went about it as slowly as I could.

  Grandma sat there until I was about halfway through, and then she got up and crossed over to the sink. She poured hot water from the kettle into an enamel basin, added a few dippers of cold from the bucket under the pump, and started washing the breakfast dishes.

  I gulped down the rest of my porridge and hurried over with my bowl. I picked up the towel and began to dry the dishes that were already piling up in the drain tray. It was a relief when the last thing was dried and put away and Grandma told me to find something to do outside until it was time for lunch chores. I was only too glad to escape out to the shed—and Sammy.

  "Ree! Ree! Ree!" he screeched the second I stepped into the shed. He might have had a bruised wing, but I can tell you that his voice was strong enough! It sounded like the sharp, creaky sound of a door hinge squeaking.

  "I don't speak Magpie," I told him, "so you might as well settle down."

  Sammy tilted his head to one side and stared at me crossly. His dark eyes seemed to say that he didn't think much of my comment.

  "REE!" he squawked even louder. "REE! REE! REE!"

  "Yelling isn't going to do you any good," I told him. I gave him a stern look right back, which just set him off again.

  "I'm saving your life, you know," I told him. "You'd get gobbled up first thing if you were free."

  Sammy's head bobbed up and down a couple of times, like he was agreeing with me. That made me laugh, which seemed to interest him. His dark little eyes watched me closely.

  "That's more like it," I said. "And don't forget that I'm the one feeding you, so you'd better be nice to me."

  "Ree! Ree!" he answered. Actually, I'm not sure he was answering, but it kind of looked that way.

  I unscrewed the lid from the jar we'd put the worms in and hauled a long skinny one out of the dirt. It dangled for a second or two and then started to scrunch in on itself, getting shorter and shorter. I dropped it into the cage. Sammy hopped over to inspect it. As soon as he tilted himself down to start eating it, I turned and hurried out of the shed.

  I guess it was silly, but I felt guilty about that worm. It didn't even help to tell myself that if Sammy had been out on his own, he'd have been gobbling down worms left and right. I was the one who'd dug that worm up and handed it over to be eaten.

  I kicked around the backyard for a bit, trying n
ot to think about it. That was a lot harder than I expected. Before long, I was even imagining that worm had a sad, worried look on his face when I dropped him into Sammy's cage, as if he'd known he was being sacrificed.

  Why do I have to die so this bird can live? the worm in my head was wondering.

  It bothered me until I made up my mind to go back in there and rescue that worm—if it wasn't already too late. But just as I was turning to go back into the shed, a big black car came lumbering into the driveway.

  The car itself wasn't particularly interesting, except that it seemed to be driving itself.

  That got my attention.

  Forgetting all about the worm (which was probably in Sammy's tummy by then anyway), I hurried toward the car.

  I stopped and stood still as soon as I reached the front corner of the house. There was no sense in crowding a driverless car.

  The door began to swing open. I took a couple of steps back. My heart beat harder. Then feet and legs appeared and, as the door closed, their owner came into view.

  It was the tiniest man I'd ever seen. He was only a little taller than me, and last month, when Daddy made a new mark on the doorway at home, I was four feet four inches. He put me in mind at once of a little elf, with bright, shiny eyes, a pink mouth and cheeks, and a sharply pointed nose. His eyebrows arched like upside-down Vs, although that might have been because he was surprised to find me standing there. "How do, ma'am!" he said. His voice was odd, too—squeaky but grown up at the same time. "Are you the new lady of the house?"

  "No, sir," I told him, even though I could see he was teasing. "My grandma is."

  "Your grandma?" His eyes grew rounder and bugged out.

  "Yes, sir. My Grandmother Acklebee."

  He shook his head and then slapped it as if he was trying to wake himself up.

  "Mr. Cobb." Grandma spoke from the doorway, where she'd appeared.

  "Mornin', Mizz Acklebee, ma'am." Mr. Cobb swept one arm out to the side and bowed at the waist. "I was just making the acquaintance of your—"