The pearl shot out like a bullet from a .38.
“Got it!” Hank snatched it from midair. He sat, staring at it for a frozen instant. He took a deep breath and sagged back against the trunk. He studied the baby, his eyes a little glazed, before he glanced up at Margaret.
Sweat dripped from his forehead, nose, and upper lip. His shirt was drenched, and his jaw tense. He looked like a man who had just seen hell and lived to tell about it.
“Busy day, Hank?”
His eyes cleared and he seemed to weigh her comment and drilled her with a look that spoke volumes.
“What’s the big deal. I mean, really...” Margaret turned and stiffly waddled back to her corner. After two steps, she paused and turned back, an exact imitation of his own motions. “How hard can it be to watch a little kid?”
* * *
It was harderthan trying to escape from prison. Hank carried Annabelle on his shoulder whenever she wasn’t asleep, and then he was always nearby. Nowhere within reach was anything that could fit up her nose. The other two kids had been fairly easy to deal with.
But fate played him for a sucker. It rained the next three days without stop.
Not light rain.
Not pouring rain.
Torrents and torrents of rain.
The first rainy day Lydia and Theodore argued, nagged, and pinched each other until Hank threatened that if they didn’t stop, he would make them each swallow five raw oysters a day.
Theodore fidgeted and wiggled until midmorning, when he began to whine. First he wanted to go fishing. When Hank explained that you can’t catch fish in a rainstorm, he wanted Hank to take him swimming. He didn’t understand why they couldn’t swim just because it was raining, since you got wet anyway.
So for the rest of the day, he whined because there was nothing to do. He whined because Lydia wouldn’t let him pet Rebuttal. He whined because Hank wouldn’t play poker with him. He whined because he had to stay inside. He whined because Hank wouldn’t let him release Muddy from the bottle. And he whined because Hank only let him play the harmonica for ten minutes—nine minutes too long in Hank’s mind, not that he had much of a mind left.
The second day began with Theodore staring out the door at the rain. He turned toward Hank, sighed with melodrama, and said, “I wish—”
“Don’t wish!” Hank’s hand was on Theodore’s mouth in a blink.
Ten minutes later Hank gave in and let the kid release Muddy from that bottle. It turned out to be a relief.
The genie read to the kids from a Wild West book. Theodore and Lydia sat cross-legged on a mat in front of Muddy, their eyes wide and their breaths held.
The genie read, “‘Big Chief Golden Eagle looked at all his warriors. Then the Indian chief said, “We scalp bad white men and we bring bad medicine down on all who hurt the tribe!” The Indians played their tom-toms, loud war drums that beat throughout the dark and starry western night.’”
Hank watched, then made a note about kids. As it turned out, that one bloodthirsty tale kept the rowdy little suckers occupied for the rest of the day and that night, talking about Indians and buffalo and war paint.
The third day Hank woke up to the sound of pounding—god-awful pounding. Theodore had covered the iron kettle with a shirt, turned it upside down, and he was beating on it with one of Hank’s shoes.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m Big Chief Fire in the Hair! I’m on warpath!” The kid hammered the pot a few more times. “This my tom-tom drum!”
A second later Lydia screamed—that sound Hank had learned that only little girls had—the one that sounded as if they were being skinned alive.
Hank staggered to his feet and crossed the hut. By then she was crying, huge big sobs. “My goat! Look at poor Rebuttal!”
“What the—Theodore!” he bellowed.
“I’m Big Chief Fire in the Hair.” He puffed out his bony little chest and tucked his chin into his neck. “I scalped goat!”
Hank picked the kid up by the seat of his pants and held him up so they were eye level. “You wanna be Big Chief Fire on the Butt?”
“You said you didn’t hit kids.”
