Tossing the sign at his feet, I turned and climbed in the cab of my truck. Putting her in gear, I revved the engine, then drove down the road at seventy miles an hour, kicking up every piece of gravel, taking every divot, so that the chassis shook and the doors and windows rattled. Swerving into the entrance of the ranch, I aimed her at the front door and skidded to a stop with five feet to spare.
It was only as the dust blew past that I noticed a man with a hat sitting on our porch. And it was only when he rose and stepped into the light that I could see it was the sheriff.
Ulysses
As Ulysses watched the Watson boys retreat from the campfire in order to get ready for bed, Stew came to his side.
—They moving on tomorrow?
—No, said Ulysses. The older boy’s got some business to see to uptown. He should be back in the afternoon and they’ll be spending the night.
—All right then. I’ll keep their bedding in place.
—You can keep mine too.
Stew turned a little sharply in order to look at Ulysses.
—You staying another night?
Ulysses looked back at Stew.
—That’s what I just said, didn’t I?
—That’s what you said.
—There a problem with that?
—Nope, said Stew. No problem by me. Just that I seem to remember someone saying at some point that he never spent two nights in a row in the same place.
—Well then, said Ulysses, come Friday, he will have.
Stew nodded his head.
—I left some coffee on the fire, he said after a moment. I guess I’ll go see to it.
—Sounds like a good idea, said Ulysses.
After watching Stew return to the campfire, Ulysses found himself scanning the lights of the city all the way from Battery Park to the George Washington Bridge—lights that held no enticement for him and promised no comfort.
But Billy had told him about the understanding he had with his brother, and it struck Ulysses as a reasonable one. He would stay two nights on the island of Manhattan. Come tomorrow, he and the boy would pass time as acquaintances, so the next day they could part company as friends.
FIVE
Woolly
As they pulled into his sister’s driveway, Woolly could see that no one was home.
Woolly could always tell when a house was empty just by looking at the windows. Sometimes when he looked at the windows, he could hear all the activity inside the house, like the sounds of footsteps running up and down the stairs or celery stalks being chopped in the kitchen. Sometimes, he could hear the silence of two people sitting alone in different rooms. And sometimes, like now, from the way the windows looked back, he could tell that no one was home.
When Woolly turned off the engine, Duchess whistled.
—How many people did you say live here?
—Just my sister and her husband, Woolly replied. Although my sister’s expecting.
—Expecting what? Quintuplets?
Woolly and Duchess got out of the Studebaker.
—Should we knock? asked Duchess.
—They won’t be here.
—Will you be able to get in?
—They like to keep the front door locked, but they often leave the door in the garage open.
Woolly followed Duchess to one of the garage doors and watched as he pulled it up with a rattle.
Inside, the first two bays were empty. The first bay must have been where his sister parked, thought Woolly, because the oil spot on the concrete had the shape of a great big balloon—just like the one in Billy’s book. The oil spot in the second bay, on the other hand, looked like one of those little storm clouds that hang over the head of a character in the funny papers when he’s in a bad mood.
Duchess whistled again.
—What is that, he said, pointing to the fourth bay.
—A Cadillac convertible.
—Your brother-in-law’s?
—No, said Woolly a little apologetically. It’s mine.
—Yours!
Duchess spun on Woolly with an expression of such exaggerated surprise it made Woolly smile. Duchess didn’t get surprised very often, so it always made Woolly smile when it happened. Woolly followed Duchess as he crossed the garage to have a better look.
—Where’d you get it?
—I inherited it, I guess. From my father.
Duchess gave Woolly a solemn acknowledgment. Then he walked the length of the car, running his hand along the long black hood and admiring the whitewall tires.
Woolly was glad that Duchess hadn’t walked all the way around the car, because on the other side were the dents in the door from when Woolly had bumped into a lamppost.
“Dennis” had been very, very upset when Woolly had arrived with the dents one Saturday evening. Woolly knew that “Dennis” had been very, very upset because that’s exactly how upset he’d said he was.