If so, he’d take the turtle back to the lean-to and plug up the hole so she could cross the porch to chop weeds from the garden or kill a chicken for supper. Ace slept like a snake, with one eye open. She wouldn’t try sneaking out into the night again. The raw place on her arm was scabbed over, but still she kept watch on the poker. Hoot owls would steal your soul if you stared into their knowing yellow eyes.Īce left by way of the flooded creek bed, and Dance sat as she did every day in a straight-backed chair by the window, wishing her life away. Just the thought of the thing being so close gave her the shivers. Her old man knew she’d never cross that porch. It never did grow back.Ĭold sweat broke out across her forehead and under her arms. Her little brother Dimmert pulled the turtle one way while she pulled the other until the end of her finger snapped right off. Everybody knew a turtle wouldn’t let go until it thundered, but there was not a cloud in sight. She remembered screaming in fright and pain that day at the creek. The motion was enough to take her right back to her childhood and the day a snapper much like this one grabbed hold of her. One morning after Ace left, she’d watched with apprehension as a raccoon clawed at the screen, hoping for a tasty meal.Ībsently, she rubbed the stump of her right index finger against her chin. She didn’t have to look to know he’d lower it into the gap, then grunt as if he was working hard while he tacked a piece of window screen over the turtle’s hole to keep other varmints away from his prize. Jumping back, Dance let the curtain fall. Its head weaved about like a blind man’s. He caught her watching and so lifted the turtle high. As always on the mornings he left her alone, he raised the trapdoor in the porch and leaned it against the wall.
Arms bowing from the weight of it, he strutted back to the house. He paused in front of a rickety lean-to by the barn, rummaging around for the varmint Dance knew he would withdraw. In the mornings fog rose like smoke from the surrounding mountains, and at night panthers prowled the ridges screaming their lament.ĭance Shelton’s thin hand parted tattered curtains as her husband, Ace, trekked across the yard. The sturdily built cabin was just one room with one door and two fair-size windows looking out over a rough-sawed porch floor. You’d have to be lost to find the place, set as it was up a holler overgrown with thorny locust, tangled devil’s shoestring, and poison ivy as dense as mosquitoes on a riverbank.
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