Starfish_ A Novel - James Crowley [44]
Lionel and Corn Poe crouched at the edge of the Great wood, watching the horses.
“What in the hell are they doing?” Corn Poe whispered.
“I suppose they’re bein’ social,” Lionel offered, “but Ulysses shouldn’t be out there in the first place. You were supposed to hold him.”
“Well, what do you want me to do now?” Corn Poe pleaded through clenched teeth.
“We’ll wait,” Lionel told the older boy with authority.
They crawled on their bellies through the scrub, following a series of broken and decaying timber to where the tree line came closest to the lodge. That’s when they saw Beatrice.
She appeared from the far side of the meadow and in a crouched run was soon standing at Ulysses’s side. The big warhorse nuzzled her with his long head and let out a loud whinny. when the other horse responded, the shadow of a man appeared, ducking under the crooked doorframe of the lodge. Beatrice slipped behind Ulysses and the man’s horse, but there was nowhere good for her to hide.
The man scanned the perimeter of the Great wood and then stepped back into the darkness of the lodge. Beatrice took the opportunity to swing up onto Ulysses’s back, but before she could turn the horse, the man sprang from the shadows of the lodge and in two running steps had Ulysses by the harness. The man’s horse spun violently from the commotion.
Beatrice pulled back on the reins, trying in vain to free Ulysses, who instead sidestepped, mimicking the other horse, dragging the man and throwing Beatrice from his back: a sight that Lionel had never before seen. Beatrice and the man tumbled into each other as Ulysses and the other horse bolted from the lodge toward the edge of the woods. The man rolled over and in a flurry of movement was on top of Beatrice.
Lionel froze at the edge of the wood until Corn Poe broke him from his stupor.
“That sonuvabitch is fixin’ to kill your sister!” Corn Poe proclaimed, and then burst forward from their cover and ran screaming toward the man and Beatrice, who struggled in the high grass.
Without thinking, Lionel followed; and before he knew it, had joined Corn Poe on the man’s back. The man tried to shake the two boys with a series of bucking motions, but did not find success until he reached around and grabbed hold of first Corn Poe and then Lionel. He yanked the two screaming boys from his back and threw them to the side, where they rolled toward the sag of the crooked doorframe.
Corn Poe scrambled to his feet, brandishing the small wooden stool that Grandpa had sat on while making the straw man. He raised it high over his head as though he aimed to bring it down, if possible, through the man’s skull.
“Now, hold on!” the man shouted, still pinning Beatrice to the ground but craning his neck sideways to keep an eye on Corn Poe and Lionel.
Corn Poe lifted the stool higher but was interrupted by a shot that rang like thunder across the small valley. The four of them froze and looked toward the woods and the cloud of black, burning gunpowder that rose from the barrel of a large rifle held by a small boy on horseback.
“Let’s all just hold on,” the man repeated, trying to catch his breath and loosening his grip on Beatrice.
The small boy rode across the meadow, his gun pointed directly at Corn Poe.
“Now why don’t you put that there stool down and we can talk, okay?” said the man.
The boy reached the front of the lodge and pulled his horse to a stop, the rifle still trained on Corn Poe.
“Everyone agree? Then, if you still want to put that stool through my head, you’re more than welcome to try it. what’a say? we can talk, huh?” the man repeated.
Beatrice motioned to Corn Poe, who answered by lowering the stool.
“Now, for starters, some names. My name is Hawkins, Avery John Hawkins, and that there is my boy Joshua, but he goes by the name of Junebug.”
“Junebug Hawkins? what the hell kinda name is that?