Running Out of Night Read Free Page A

crouched in the corner. She looked right wild.
    An empty harvest basket set beside the steps. I picked some extra meat and apples, turnips and taters, and tucked them inside to fix for supper. I didn’t want to have to make any more trips down into the cellar.
    “You stick right where you are,” I said, waggin my finger at her. I hooked the basket onto my arm, slung Pa’s victuals sack over my shoulder, and climbed the steps. When I poked my head above the floor, I heard Pa movin acrost the attic.
    “What you goin to do? Run out the door and into that pack of dogs?” I asked, but I didn’t give her a chance to answer.
    I climbed out, lowered the trapdoor into place, nudged the bench back over it, and set down the heavy basket.
    Pa run into somethin, and it thudded onto the attic floor. A flood of bad words come from him. I grabbed my tin cup, gulped a mouthful of water, and scurried over to Pa’s powder horn. He were backin halfway down the ladder when I unscrewed the plug and spit the water into the horn. There weren’t no way he could shoot with his powder wet. Just as I replaced the cap, Pa’s boot hit the kitchen floor.

D ogs can see ghosts and will bark when the ghosts are nearby
.
    I handed Pa the horn and pouch. He looped the long straps around his neck, then looked round the messy kitchen. “What you been doin here all mornin? Don’t you know how to work?” he asked as he jabbed the barrel of the gun into the center of my chest.
    I didn’t dare look at him or let him see he’d hurt me.
    Pa picked up his victuals sack, walked out the door, and slammed it hard. From the small, hazy mica window, I watched as the dogs circled his legs like they hadn’t seen him for days. The neighbor’s hounds, who’d been sniffin all around the yard, turned and headed back toward the porch. I could hear him yellin at them. Tellin them toget off his farm (like they knowed this was his farm), and threatenin to shoot them if they didn’t.
    Pa walked acrost the yard with half a dozen dogs slinkin behind him, noses to the ground, tails down. Then they stopped, circled him, snuffled their noses into the soil and up into the air, like they was smellin fresh-killt deer. They turned and made a yelpin run for the porch again.
    He picked up a water bucket, hurled it at the dogs, and promised to shoot them all. “Worthless!” he said, and yelled a string of words he usually saved up for me.
    I watched till I couldn’t see Pa or hear a dog barkin anywhere near. From somewhere in the woods, I heard the muffled sound of a shot. Close by, a raspy blue jay scolded, and a redbird hidden in some bushes called
purdy, purdy, purdy, purdy
.
    I wondered where my brothers was. With my luck,
they
would come home too and expect me to fix up more victuals for the hunt. I were gettin tired of liftin up that door and worryin about all the things that was a tick away from goin wrong.
    Two years ago, the last time Grandpa and me went to church afore he passed, the preacher told me that my “good common sense” kept me alive. My good common sense told me to go get that girl out of the cellar and out of my life, but my heart, the thing that gets in the way of my common sense, were tellin me somethin else.
    “Mama, what should I do?” I asked. “Am I goin to get the beatin of my life tryin to help her?”
    No answer.
    “Mama, please, just give me a sign what to do.”
    No answer.
    I wished that just this one time my mama could answer. That someone could tell me what were right and what were wrong. And why did I have to take a beatin for someone I didn’t even know, or care about? Someone who probably wouldn’t give me a butter bean if I were the hungry one. Why should I risk my own hide for her?
    I quick-like righted the kitchen and picked up my big fanny basket but then set it back down. I wanted to go out and pick some tomaters and work around in the garden, but I needed to tell that whatever-her-name-was trouble girl that things was safe