Page 42 of Which Witch is Willing?
Real strange had become a much harder target for stories to hit just lately.
“He told me he wanted to buy my bait shack for five million dollars!”
Moira’s head felt simultaneous hot and light as all the blood drained away from her face. “Why the hell would he do that?”
Uncle Sal sat up straighter, a look of wounded pride on his brow.
“I guess he knew a valuable piece of real estate when he saw it.”
The real estate in question was a shack the size of a postage stamp on rickety stilts slicked with decades of moss. On a good morning, the seagulls haunting the local garbage dump one bayou over would serenade you with their cries before 9:00 a.m. On a bad morning, the dump trucks would.
“I suppose so,” Moira allowed. “You used the five million dollars to buy this boat?”
A crafty gleam lit Uncle Sal’s eyes. Moira had seen this look before. Usually when he’d just gotten $10 for a $2 bucket of worms from some unsuspecting tourist. “That’s the best part. I traded him my pontoon for this here boat straight across. You believe that?”
Frankly, she didn’t.
Nicholas Kinsgwood parting with five million dollars in cash and a yacht for a bait shack and a pontoon that didn’t so much have a motor as it did a souped-up can opener.
“Well, it sounds like one hell of a deal,” Moira said.
“And you ain’t even seen the half of it.” Sal grasped Moira’s hand in his leathery palm and tugged her to her feet. “C’mon. I’ll give you the dime tour.”
A dime might have been generous, upon further consideration.
“The pool looks a little muddy,” Moira said, regarding the scummy brown surface.
“That ain’t a pool, it’s a noodlin’ pond. The pool’s over there.” Sal pointed to a sunken seating area, which he’d covered with tarps and filled in with water.
“Ohhh,” Moira said. “I see. You brought catfish with you all the way from Stump?”
“Well, yeah,” Sal said, looking at her like she’d just asked him if grass is green. “And they ain’t the only thing!”
As if on cue, the door to one of the lower cabins opened and out tumbled a sweaty elbowing tangle of cussing, sunburnt redneck flesh.
Moira’s heart lurched within her ribcage. “Red! Mookey! Little Earl!”
She greeted them one by one, her nose stinging with both unshed tears and the spicy scent of grain alcohol, sweat, and Old Bay seasoning—which Red insisted worked as good as baking soda on a toothbrush.
Little Earl with half his face grinning, the other half having been paralyzed from the stroke that felled him from a bar stool in the late 70’s.
Mookey, with his pot gut and t-shirt tan—shoulders whiter than a fish belly, forearms damn near the color of brick roux.
Red, lanky as a scarecrow, his whisky-bloomed nose a livid illustration of the color whose name he bore into the world.
“Speakin’ of leaving Stump when did you?” Moira asked once they’d made their re-introductions. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Sal admitted, scratching his head. “Last thing I remember, me and the boys was sitting on the deck, havin’ us a celebratory ‘shine. Next thing I know, we’re here. I wandered out hopin’ to figure out where I’d ended up, and I seen you.”
Moira smiled, certain now that supernatural forces originating with a particular immortal asshole of her acquaintance had been at work here. “Show me somethin’ else.”
The highlights included: the engine room, which Mookey had converted into a makeshift ‘shine still. The stateroom, which had become a skeet shooting gallery with Little Earl’s careful help. And the movie theatre, which Red had turned into a dedicated goat den.
“Ain’t that somethin’?” Red wondered aloud, looking fondly over the heard of nannies and billies slowly stripping the seats of their red velvet upholstery.
“It’s somethin’ all right,” Moira said, pressing her hand to her empty stomach. Traipsing up and down the spacious decks had given her a powerful appetite.
“You hungry, darlin’? I got me some pickled chicken livers down in the kitchen. And the fixin’s for sloppy joes. They always were your favorite.”
