Page 27 of Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride

The junkyard was located in a vast, played-out gravel bed. Razed earth and rock walls formed the boundaries of a wide, flat area about twenty-five feet lower than road-level where they stood. It was acres in size and had an earthen driveway that curved down into it. Hundreds of cars in various states of rust formed crooked rows that made no sense to the unenlightened eye. On the far right, a blue and yellow car-crusher waited with its mouth open. A yellow forklift was parked nearby.

“No gate?” Harry asked.

“No need. Slap-Jack Jimmy and his cronies watch over it all day, and three Rottweilers guard it all night.”

“Slap-Jack Jimmy,” he said, monotone.

“Right.”

He nodded. “So, you just drive right in?”

“Not if you like your car,” she said. She watched him look at the downward sloping, curved driveway, and see what she saw, the crumbling edges, the steep drop on the open side, the broken bits of glass winking in the overripe Texas sun.

He nodded. “So, where’s the uh… office?”

Maria pointed at a cinderblock shack out past a pancake stack of flattened cars. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

She liked that answer a lot but slapped his elbow away, laughing when he offered it. “You’re feeling better,” she said as they walked down the driveway.

“If the car’s here, the tile is here. I have hope.”

“Not if the tile is what the car-thief was after,” she said. “And it’s looking like it was.”

“He’d never find it. Not where you hid it.”

Maria bit her lip.

Harry said, “What?”

“I wasn’t tryin’ to hide it, or I’d’ve picked a better spot. I’m thinkin’ a tackle box sticks out like a sore thumb in the desert.”

“We’re only near the desert,” he said.

“Either way, let’s not jump to conclusions until we talk to Jimmy.”

They traversed a path between two rows of cars to the square, cinderblock building. Its door stood wide open. Two male Rottweilers and one female lay snoring side by side, in front of an electric fan, but there was no sign of Jimmy. “Guess he’s out,” Maria said, turning to Harry.

He was holding a finger to his lips going, “Shhh.” His eyes were on the dogs, and they were wide. The snoring had stopped.

Maria turned again, as the huge beasts spotted her, surged to their feet, and lunged.

“Maria, look out!” The next thing she knew Harry was pulling her behind him, and standing between her and the rotties, who had stopped in their tracks to stare at him.

“It’s okay.” Maria peeked around Harry’s shoulder. “Hey, Hoss, good boy. Hello, Little Joe. You’re a good dog, yes, you are. Hey, Lorretta. What a pretty girl.”

The dogs wiggled their stump-tailed butts and smiled, dripping drool as Harry finally lowered his arms, which he’d been holding behind him to either side of Maria.

She came around him and crouched to greet the dogs.

“You know them,” Harry said. “Of course you know them, you’re the town vet.”

The words were like warm honey. “Town vet,” she repeated. “That’s the first time anyone’s called me that. My mom’s been the town vet forever.”

A sharp whistle from off to the right sent the dogs running to where their human was making his way toward them. Jimmy wore his trademark bib overalls, no shirt, and a stained brown bowler hat. Maria waved, and Jimmy waved back, moving toward them slowly. He had a pronounced limp and swung hisarms when he walked, to help himself along. It would take him a minute.

Maria brushed her hands together, releasing a dog-hair cloud, then she turned to face Harry full on and looked him dead in the eye. “You just got between me and five-hundred pounds of junkyard dog.”

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