“ Good lawd !
What was that?” I dropped the plates on the table and rushed out the door behind
Billy who had already left. I had just
stepped out, but he was already running up toward the road. I ran behind him watching as he scattered the
already scared chickens. They were clucking loudly, wings flapping, running
wildly around the yard. I was just as jumpy, the sound had scared me so bad
that I was quivering inside while I ran.
Billy had made it to
the dirt road and was staring off in the sky, looking one way then another. Moments
later I can up to stand beside him. “What
...w-was that?” I asked winded, putting my hands on my knees to find my
breath. “I don’t rightly know.” Billy
kept staring in the sky, and then he pointed. “But would you lookie there.” I stood up to see where he was pointing and saw
it too; a thick black cloud was rising in the north. “What happened?” I asked baffled.
Billy shook his head and giggled.
“What?” I ain’t seen what was funny. The dark cloud rising
in the sky was scary. It seems to me the woods were on fire. I thought about
the animals that would lose their homes and the trees that would come down. I
thought about the farms and the people. This was bad, but Billy was laughing so
hard that he bent over. “What?” I asked again, confused.
“Them damn fool Franklyn boys done finally done it,” he
laughed. “Done what?” He looked at me with a wide smile on his brown face. “They done finally blown they still, that’s
what,” Billy said. “They done blown themselves up too for sure,” he added staring at the dark
smoke filling the sky.
The Still, the
Franklyn boys, I thought, were they the same men that were in the woods. I
thought about Toothless and his brothers and what they plan for me, and then
I thought about you, Olde Pete. Where
had you gone, what was in those cans? I stood next to Billy staring at the black cloud
now moving toward us and I knew what you had done. I knew. Jesus! I knew!
Suddenly, Billy’s
smile turned into a deep frown. “Shit!” He turned and ran, this time toward the
barn. “What?” I yelled to his back. “Where you going?” I barely heard him when he yelled back “The
wind done changed.”
Copyright © 2013 Glynis Rankin
