Page 6 of Wrangler

Amber had told someone that they were on the plane and they were run off that very night. No, they didn’t go back to the plane they’d been in, and none of the others either, as far as he could remember. He didn’t know who she told, but they had all the doors shut with some kind of liquid metal that he couldn’t tear open for anything. Damned kids.

“What is it you wanted to ask me? I was thinking, and I don’t care for what I was thinking on. So you go on and distract me again, and I’ll feel better.” She asked him if he was sure that the kids were here. “I am. I told you that I had me a buddy that let me look at the recordings of who got on which plane. He told me about the glitch that happened when they disappeared for a bit, but they came here. Didn’t I tell you that it was going to be easy for us to find them? I have friends in high places, I tell you. Very high places.”

He didn’t. He didn’t have any friends at all. It had cost him nearly five hundred dollars to get the ten minutes that he’d needed to find his kids. Rollin had told him that he had to pay upfront, too, and that had him digging into their emergency stash instead of being able to put him off until they came back with the kids. No one trusted anymore. Not for a damned thing. It didn’t cost him no more than a few minutes to see where the kids had gone when he’d had a bead on them near the takeoff place they’d been standing. They were with a couple too, not that he knew them but he did wonder for a minute if they were getting anything from them too. Then, nothing more about them.

“Well, you can bet that sooner or later, someone is going to get fussy about this card we’re using. And when they do, we’re going to be out on our asses again.” He just smiled at his wife and told her that it would be hard for them to get into trouble this time. “What did you do? I have a feeling that I’m going to love it.”

“You are. The kids, they’re providing us with a place to stay. I saw that show about identity theft, and I decided that since I know their social numbers, I’d fill out an application in their name. Amber, she might not know it, but she got us a goodly amount on a VISA so that we can live like high hogs. I got one for Junior, too, but I’m saving that one for later.” She asked him why later. “I thought maybe we’d use his number and get us a card to do some traveling. You know, see the world? It’s been a while since the two of us have had any kind of vacation. People don’t realize just how hard it is tonot work and eat, too. I was actually thinking about writing a book on all the things that we’ve figured out.”

The two of them talked about the book. He even had Patsy take notes on the things that they’d figured out on their own. He knew as well as she did that they’d not write it. Even if they were given an ungodly amount of money to do it, they were just too lazy to do something like that. It would seem like work and the two of them didn’t work unless they had to. Which there was never a circumstance where it was work or die. Nope. They didn’t cotton to working at all if they could get out of it.

They were going to have dinner out tonight. Pizzas were just too mundane for them when they had money to spend. But they were limited in where to go tonight without a car. The town had three pizza joints, a burger place a fast-food sub place, and that was about it. The place didn’t even have a big grocery store either, but a little bitty one that hardly carried anything that he liked. None of it seemed to be anything that either of them wanted to partake of.

“I know. We’ll get one of those rides into town. What’s it called? You know where they pick you up and cart you around. What is it?” William told her what he thought it was called. “No, I don’t think it’s called an Ugg. Those are fancy boots. Remember when I had me a pair of them? Boy, oh boy, were they warm. And I’d like to have another pair of them, too, if we find somewhere to get them.” Patsy looked at him, confused. “What was we talking about?”

“I don’t remember either.” They talked about going into town, which reminded them of what they were talking about. “We must be getting old if we can’t even hold a conversation about rides for more than a minute, don’t you think?” She told him that he might be old, but she wasn’t. “You’re older than me, Patsy, remember that?”

“Like you’re that much younger. What is it, ten days or something like that? I tell you what, someday I’m going to be…I’m going to be…where was I going with that?” He told her that she was going to have to be tested again if she kept forgetting shit. “Both of us are getting to that point. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Patsy had been forgetting things a great deal lately. Even little things like programs they’d be watching on television. If a commercial came up, then she’d not know what it was they’d been watching. Him, too, but he wasn’t vocal about it. It worried him, not just a little bit, either. She started crying and talking about her mother again.

“My momma, she had that disease. You know what it is, the forgetfulness one.” He asked her if it was dementia. “Yeah, that’s it. She couldn’t remember if she was going to the bathroom or coming out until she shit herself. I don’t want that. You just kill me off if it gets that bad.”

He wouldn’t, not for all the money in the world, but he could tell her that, and with her having a forgetfulness problem, she’d never know that he hadn’t done it. No siree. He couldn’t kill her off for nothing. She was his better half. Hell, she was more than half of him. But he did worry about them a bit more of late.

“I’m going to start telling you things when I remember them. You know where I’m going. And I’ll do the same for you. So we don’t forget where we’re headed. This right here is what my momma didn’t have. Someone to look over her.” They both knew why, too. Because they’d shoved her in a nursing home and forgot about her. “You think my momma died from that Alzheimer shit? I ain’t thought about her in a long time. Maybe she’s gotten better by now.”

“She died. I told you that about fifteen years ago.” She nodded and asked him if he was sure that she’d died. “I’m sure. I told you, too. Honey, don’t be fretting so much. We’ll be just fine and dandy once we have money from the kids. You’ll see. They’ll want to take care of us in our golden years.”

William had a sudden thought that it was doubtful that their kids would want to take care of them at all. More than likely, they’d do the same to them as they’d done to Patsy’s mother. Shove her into the cheapest nursing home they could find and forget about them. That made him sad a little. To think that his own kids wouldn’t have—

“We’ll need to find us a place to stay where people are around. That way, if we wander off or something, they can guide us back home. Do you suppose we should have thought of that before? Tohave some friends around?” He said that it was much too late for them to be making lasting friendships now. “I suppose you’re right. Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? I don’t know how we’ll get there, but it might be fun for us.”

“Excellent idea, my dear.” It was, too. They’d have to find them a way to get there and back but he knew that it would cheer them both up. “Isn’t there some kind of ride thing where people will come and get you and take you home? What’s it called? You remember? Ugg or something, right?”

~*~

Amber was walking to the shop with her brother when she thought about all the things that were going on at their home right now. Mostly, it was just natural stuff, she supposed, that one did to a home. Making things decorated for the fall season with pretty pillows and such.

Also, it was the harvest season, and she and Wills had been sent out to find someone selling sugar. She had suggested the grocery store, and when she did, the little people, Pancake in charge of them all decided that they’d need to buy things from the store so that people, humans they called them, didn’t get suspicious about them suddenly having a lot of jellies and jams. She loved their energy.

“Do you care if I get me some potato chips, Amber?” She looked at him and asked him if the faeries had made him some. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I explained it all that well. The ones that they made me were as big as my head and had sprinkles on them. Blue told me that everything tastes better with sprinkles on it. I just agreed with him. So, can I have some real chips?”

She stopped walking and looked at him. “They put sprinkles on chips? Were they cookie chips or something?” He told her that they were regular chips but huge and covered on both sides with pink and yellow sprinkles. “That’s just…I was going to say gross, but that’s not fair because I’ve never tried them. How are they?”

“You got it right. It’s just gross.” She okayed him to get some chips, making sure that he got a couple of different flavors so that he could show them what he wanted next time. “I’m going to get some salsa chips too. That might be fun to try and make them understand what they are and salsa. I love having them around—”

When he suddenly stopped speaking, she pulled him to her and looked around. They had the faeries with them, so she wasn’t really worried about them getting hurt, but it wasn’t like her to allow the little people to get hurt, either. She saw her parents just as they entered the candle store across the street.

“Go inside and stay there.” Wills nodded but didn’t leave her. “I promise you; I’m not going to be doing anything stupid. I’m just watching to see if they come toward us.”

“Nobody will tell them anything.” She’d heard that as well. That the townspeople wouldn’t tell where they were staying nor would they mention seeing any strangers in town either. “Amber, come inside with me. We can see them from in there.”

“I’m going to.” Wills started pulling her toward the door when she wanted to keep an eye on the other couple. After a few minutes of being in the grocery store with her brother, she saw their parents coming out of the other shop. This time, however, they were being pushed out with a broom. “I wonder what that’s about.”

“They got them a credit card that they’re using with your name on it.” Amber looked at the clerk who was at the window with her. “They were in here the other day trying to get them something to grill out on their deck. Had them about five hundred dollars worth of steaks and wieners. I was surprised to see that they could get all that stuff in one cart what with the grill being as big as a cow. Is that there, your parents, honey?”

Nodding, she asked the clerk, Betty, how they had gotten a credit card with her name on it. Nodding as she rang out the next person in line telling her how her son, just twenty years old, had come in to buy some beer the other night. Amber decided that she wasn’t going to trust Betty with any kind of secret. She didn’t seem to understand privacy. Or maybe she did and just didn’t think that it applied to her for whatever reason.

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