Читать книгу The Rain Sparrow - Линда Гуднайт, Линда Гуднайт - Страница 7

1

I’m tired, boss...tired of bein’ on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain.

—The Green Mile

Present Day, Honey Ridge, Tennessee

Brody hated Fridays.

He knew what would happen if he went home. So he didn’t. He hung out at the library until it closed, and then, wishing he had money for a hamburger, he wandered down to his spot on Magnolia Creek. It was a pretty good hike, a couple of miles out of town past the Griffin sisters’ peach orchard and through a hundred yards of tangled weeds, but at eleven, he was up for it. He could have run that far and not been out of breath.

When the night surrounded him and clouds gathered in the inky sky, he once more contemplated going home. He was hungry, but food wasn’t always worth the trouble. He wasn’t afraid of the dark or of being alone deep in the country. Home was a whole lot scarier.

Stretched out on the cool earth with his hands stacked behind his head, he listened to the peaceful night sounds, the sawing rhythm of katydids that sometimes grew so loud he felt as if they were inside him, and the splash of bullfrogs diving from the nearby bank.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. It was probably somewhere far off, clean over in the mountains. He wouldn’t worry about that. He didn’t mind a little rain. If he had to, he could hightail it past the inn to the abandoned gristmill, even though the place was kind of spooky.

The mill was probably haunted. That’s what his buddy Spence said. The last time they’d gone there to explore, Spence had heard something and freaked out, so Brody would rather not go to the mill unless he had to.

Would the old man be passed out by now? Or would he be waiting with clenched fist and a hankering to take out his hatred of life on the good-for-nothing son of the good-for-less woman who’d left them both so long ago the boy had forgotten her? Mostly. Somehow it was Brody’s fault that his mother had left, and the old man never let him forget it, though he never gave a reason. Brody was pretty much clueless about his absentee mother. His angry father he understood, but thoughts of his mother left him lonely and nursing guilt he didn’t understand. He must have done something really bad to make her up and leave that way.

A mosquito buzzed somewhere in the humid darkness. He listened close while the pest came in for a landing, waited until the sound stopped and then he swatted. A few bug bites was better than the alternative.

He didn’t like killing anything, even bugs, but as the old man would say, “It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Eat the dog before he eats you.”

Something about that didn’t sound right to Brody, but what did he know? That’s what the old man always said. A punk kid like Brody didn’t know nothing.

He sighed at the moon and closed his eyes.

Better catch some z’s and wait awhile longer. The old man was a bull, and once enraged, he had blood in his eyes. Clint Thomson was seldom anything but enraged on payday, especially when it came to his good-for-nothing son.