Light to the Hills: A Novel (61)

“Don’t reach in after him like that. He’s liable to take your finger off,” the strange man warned. Hiccup drew back, her eyes wide.

“Is he mean?” Sass asked. Mean roosters didn’t stay around long at their house. Their daddy said they weren’t worth the trouble and they kept after the hens so much they’d quit laying.

“Just you run him out this direction and I’ll grab him when he comes out.” Sass and Hiccup closed in on either side of the bramble of vines and branches. The rooster fluttered and flapped his wings as he danced from side to side, hemmed in. He had only one exit, and it was in the man’s direction. Hiccup rustled the branches on the right, and Sass thrust her sack as far into the left side of the thicket as she could and flapped it at the bird like a flag. He darted out the back, squawking, his cocky bravado gone, and the man lunged at him, scooping him up and pinning his wings under an arm in a single motion.

“Got him.” The rooster struggled, kicking his clawed feet, but the man held him snug.

He was even prettier up close. Hiccup clapped her hands, delighted.

“Well, there y’are, then,” Sass said, brushing the dirt off her knees.

“I sure do thank you, ladies. He woulda been a fox dinner for certain if you hadn’t come along. I’m strapped right now, but I’d be happy to pay you with a sack of goose feathers or a passel of black walnuts back at the house.”

“No need.” Now that Sass had Hiccup in hand again, she intended to march her home directly.

“You didn’t even get to pet him,” the man said. He squatted and turned so that the fancy tail feathers drooped over his elbow. Hiccup couldn’t resist. She reached out a hand. “He can’t hurt you none from this direction.” The rooster’s tail feathers slid through her fingers, slick as oil, and she let her hand creep up to the plumage on his neck.

“I do believe he likes it,” the man said. Sass huddled down in her sweater. The light was dappled here, and the air started to dampen as the evening dew settled. “What about you, little miss?” he asked Sass. “You want to touch him, now he’s caught?”

Sass shook her head. “Naw. Like I said, we need to get back. They’ll be waiting for us at home.”

“This ’un ain’t the only rooster I got. There’s a whole bunch lives back at my place, anytime you want to come see ’em. Just over the ridge back thataway. Not all of ’em are ornery as this ’un is. He’s my favorite, though. That’s why I’s so eager to catch him when he run loose. Look at that beak on him. I named him Pecker.” His fat tongue poked out between his lips and wet the corners of his mouth. He lifted his free hand and stroked the bird’s neck and down the length of his body. “Nice Pecker,” he purred. “Good boy.”

The bird’s clawed toes hanging in the air like old crippled hands gave Sass the willies. She raised her eyes to the man and swallowed hard. The hand that was in her pocket, the one that didn’t have a hold of her sister, closed on Cricket’s pocketknife, the one she’d used to slice the morels. Sass turned her slight frame to face Hiccup and block the man’s gaze. Her heart pounded in her throat like she imagined the rooster’s had when it beat its wings, tangled in the thicket.

“C’mon, Hic.” She tugged. “Let’s go.” Something hard in Sass’s voice made Hiccup finally pay attention. She stepped to Sass’s side and they started off back the way they’d come, their feet quick. Sass usually had to pull and drag Hiccup along as she dawdled and skipped, but now her short legs kept up with Sass’s longer ones as they hurried toward home.

Sass turned back once to see him standing, the captured rooster cowed in the crook of his arm. The man pretended to tip his hat at them, and then he cackled a barking laugh, like the wild dogs she sometimes heard yip and carry on in the dark. He made no move to follow but called after them, “I got lots of roosters. You can come back and pet mine anytime now.”

They made it home before dark. Mama hadn’t even lit the lanterns for planting yet. They had to wait until the moon was high above the roof anyhow. Most of the way home, Sass scolded Hiccup for worrying about the lost rooster in the first place instead of coming on home like she’d wanted. Sass had promised her an extra story before bed if she’d keep quiet about what had happened. With the bad feelings between Finn and her daddy, she didn’t want to add to the mix, and nothing had really happened anyway. They’d just stayed a little too long, and Sass had known better. She already knew that and didn’t much covet a talking-to about it on top of the way her stomach churned. Daddy didn’t need one more thing to be vexed about.

“You got my knife?” Cricket held out his hand, and Sass dug in her pocket.

“Came in handy,” she said. “Glad we had it.”

“Nothing more useful than a good pocketknife,” Cricket said. “That there’s my best one. Remember that time I used it to fashion a little mouse outta ash wood? Gave him fishing-line whiskers and a slip of leather for a tail. Put him up on the mantel with his nose hanging off, and Mama took a broom and like to beat the chimney down when she saw it. I think it was my best likeness yet.” His shoulders shook with laughter.

“Girls,” Mama called. “Lay that sack of morels on the table and come on out to the garden. Cricket, you do that again and the chimney won’t be the only thing gets a beating.”