Graysie nodded and stood up, stretching. “Yeah. It’s food. It’s also medicine. It can be used for lots of things. It’s good stuff.”
A foggy look came over Puck’s face as he dazed off, his mouth hanging wide open.
“Close your mouth, Puck. You look weird when you do that,” Graysie chided him, already wearing the big-sister mantle, and not realizing it. “You don’t want people to think you’re dumb.”
“I’m not dumb,” Puck answered defensively.
“I know you’re not. But when you leave your mouth open like that, you look dumb.”
He bulled up, taking her suggestion as an insult. “I’m smarter than you, Graysie.” He crossed his arms over his chest, flinching a bit as he did. “I’ll find some food, too, so me and Jenny can stay here with GrayMan.”
Graysie rolled her eyes, as only a teenage girl could do. “You do that, then.” She was tired, bored, and her patience was growing thin. She wanted to take a nap. She also felt a bit perturbed at Puck’s nickname for her dad. “His name is Grayson. Not gray man.”
Puck snuggled down in the bed, giving Graysie his back.
She shrugged. “Okay. Take a nap, then. I’m going to find somewhere to do that myself.” She walked out of the room, mumbling under her breath, “Since you’re in my bed.”
But he wasn’t going to sleep. Graysie had just given him permission to do that. He was going to lay there and think about it. He knew of secret place to get food. But he knew it was dangerous and he needed a plan. He wasn’t about to ask her help, though. Not while she was being such a meanie, anyway.
21
The pudgy man jerked Elmer’s shotgun out of his hand and threw it behind him as the Cowboy and the Rake drunkenly stumbled to the end of Elmer’s wagon, slapping each other on the back and stupidly laughing at their good luck and criminal stealth that allowed them to catch something in their trap.
Cowboy pointed his rifle at the end wall of hay. “Pull down a few bales. Let’s take a peek.”
Elmer stood frozen in place, murmuring prayers under his breath that Emma was ready for this. The man behind him didn’t ease up, his long gun pushing into the flab of Elmer’s back, annoying him to no end.
Rake pushed his rifle behind him to hang from a homemade sling, and stepped up onto the edge of the wagon. He grabbed two bales of hay and jumped down, tossing them at the same time onto the ground, and looked back, coming face to face with the barrel of Emma’s gun.
He startled backwards, standing directly beside Cowboy, and threw up his hands. Cowboy kept his gun on Emma.
Emma jumped down, her gun inches from Rake’s face. She jerked her chin at him, ignoring the rifle pointed at herself and spoke directly to Rake. “Tell your friend to drop his gun or I swear I’ll put a bullet smack in the middle of your ugly mug. My finger is on the trigger. We’ll see which bullet lands first.”
The color drained from Rake’s face and his eyes widened. “Drop it or she’s gonna shoot,” he whined to his buddy.
Cowboy laughed, not able to comprehend the seriousness of the situation through his drunken haze. He squinted hard at Emma. “Well, shit! Lookee that,” he said, and let his own rifle drop on its sling. He put his hands up, still laughing, as though it were all a game and they’d lost—fair and square.
Emma rolled her eyes at the idiot. Too stupid to breathe…
Their friend, Pudgy, was still standing fifty feet away, not able to see what they were doing behind the wagon. “What’d y’all find in there?” he yelled.
Emma alternated her gun from Rake’s face to Cowboy’s face. “Turn around slowly,” she said in a steely voice, “and walk out there. This is not a game. I will pull this trigger.”
The men both turned around, their hands still up. Neither was laughing now, except her… almost. Her act nearly slipped when she had to swallow back a hysterical laugh as she watched Rake’s pants darken down his left leg.
Wrinkling her nose, she stepped up and with one hand, lifted the gun from around him and threw it behind her on the ground. She did the same with Cowboy, noticing he was beginning to shake.
“You’re going to walk out there slowly, with me behind you. I’ll have the gun to the back of one of your heads. You won’t know which one—so go slow. I don’t want to trip with my finger on the trigger, now do I?”
The men flinched.
Emma continued. “Tell your friend to drop his gun. Tell him it was a trap. We’re doing the robbing today, and we have two more guns in the other side of the woods trained on him. If he shoots Elmer… you all die,” she lied.
They all three stepped out from around the wagon, the two men in front holding their hands up, with Emma directly behind them, holding up her gun.
Elmer smiled and relaxed his shoulders. “Surprise,” he gleefully said to his own captor.
“What the hell?” Pudgy screamed. “You dipshits let a woman get the drop on ya? You idiots!”
Cowboy sighed, all signs of his buzz completely gone. “Just drop your gun. It’s a trap—better than our trap. They got more guys in the woods and they all got you in their sights.”
Pudgy whipped his head around, looking for proof.
A branch snapped in the woods, the sound cracking through the air.
He jumped, jerking the gun up and poking Elmer hard.
Elmer jumped and whipped around—as fast as an old man can whip around… “Put that damn gun down, son. You accidentally throw a bullet and you’re gonna catch one, too!”
Pudgy knelt down, placing his gun on the ground while watching the woods where the sound of the twig snapping had come from. He slowly backed away from the gun, his eyes wide with fright, and his hands up. He spoke to the woods. “There! You can have it. Can we go now?”
No one likes an enemy they can’t see.
“What you got to tie them up with, girl?” Elmer asked, as he hurried to grab his shotty and Pudgy’s gun. Now he had a shotgun in one hand and a rifle in the other. He tossed one off to the side.
“I can cut some twine off the hay bales,” she answered.
“Not strong enough,” Elmer said gruffly.
Emma thought for a second. “I’ve got a bundle of paracord in my bag,” I think.
“Go git it,” Elmer grumbled, giving the men a gritty stare.
Emma nudged Rake and Cowboy with her gun, pushing them to the middle of the road. “Sit down right there, back to back,” she told them.
“Check their pockets first, girl. They might have a knife. Then make ‘em sit three feet apart,” Elmer instructed. “Just in case.”
Emma looked at Rake’s wet pants, soaked in piss.
She cringed.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed her gun into his back. He stiffened. Standing behind him, she reached into his pocket. From the first pocket, she pulled out a lighter, a handkerchief and a pile of change. She threw it on the ground and reached into the second pocket. He had a knife. She shoved it into her own pocket and then did the same search with Cowboy, not producing much of anything other than a pack of Marlboro lights and a jumbo pack of gum.
“Gimme those smokes,” Elmer said.
Emma screwed up her face in disgust. “You smoke?”
“Not anymore. Been quit twenty years. But I do chew ‘bacca. I’ll take those for just in case.”
Emma scrunched up her nose and threw the cigarettes at Elmer’s feet. She reared back and threw the gum hard into the trees, in the direction of their ‘watcher.’ She yelled in that direction, “Here, y’all share this. Don’t be killing each other over one pack a gum, either!”