Portrait of a Dead Guy by Larissa Reinhart Read Free Book Online Page B

Bradford Pear flush with white blossoms. I craned my neck, but couldn’t see past the limbs of the oak still clinging to last season’s dead leaves.
    I revved my engine, but that trick never worked.
    Whistling wouldn’t work either.
    A clump of half-chewed hollyhocks grew by the fencepost. A grunt of disgust escaped my lips. I loved those hollyhocks. Wasted half a day adding manure to the Georgia clay to coax them into growing. I loved their colors: dark purples, brilliant reds, and pinks with tips pale as blush and deepening to dark magenta centers.
    However, even the tenacious hollyhocks had become victim to the farmyard terror. The Datsun idled at the corner of the lane while I searched for signs of life in the farm drive. Behind the fence, three of the neighbor’s horses pulled at the long weeds lining the road and watched me.
    “Yeah, it’s me,” I called to them. “He only does this to me.” Or maybe it was the Datsun. Another reason to get this paycheck and toss the clunker.
    I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Bleating floated through the open window, but the cries came from the far pasture behind the shed. My stomach protested the prolonged wait with a clamorous rumble that would have given a thunderstorm a run for its money.
    Maybe I would get lucky.
    The yellow truck accelerated down the lane, churning clay and gravel in its wake. The object of the game was to get to the house before Tater saw me. Either that or I’d have to endure a long walk with him nudging and nibbling me the entire way. I’d be covered in goat schmeg before reaching the house.
    Why couldn’t Grandpa have kept the cows? He never let them roam the yard. Heck, he treated Tater better than his grandkids. My thoughts stopped short at the site of a massive white billy goat trotting out from behind the Bradford Pear. Chewing his cud, he studied the yellow truck barreling down the drive. The buck shook his beard, pawed the dirt, and lowered his horns.
    Much as Tater drove me crazy, I didn’t want to hit him. He’d probably wreck my truck. I pounded the brakes. Tater galloped along the drive like he was Secretariat in the last quarter turn of the Derby while I scrambled to pull the keys from the ignition and open the door. The latch popped as Tater darted around the grill of the Datsun to my side. I squeezed out the cracked door, shoved it shut with my butt, and locked it.
    “You are not getting in my truck again. I have important stuff in there.”
    Tater cocked his head, evaluating my words with amber eyes. His cud swished from cheek to cheek. Evaluation over, he butted me in the stomach, thrusting me against the truck. Goat spittle and dirt speckled my orange tee.
    “Dang it, Tater!” I pushed back. “I hate goats. Has that not occurred to you yet?”
    “You again. I thought you didn’t live here anymore,” said Ed Ballard, glancing over his shoulder at the slam of the screen door.
    “Nice to see you, too, Grandpa.” I bent over and pecked his raspy cheek. “You know that old goat stopped me again. Why don’t you put him in back with the others?”
    I could feel the tremor of a smile, but it disappeared by the time my lips left his cheek. He sat with crossed legs at the rattan table set bought thirty years earlier for the bright yellow kitchen. His small frame appeared delicately old and grizzled, yet the denim britches and work shirt hid muscles as tough and stringy as an overcooked chicken, something you were not likely to find in the Ballard house. A folded newspaper lay on the table next to an empty plate and half-drunk glass of tea.
    “Anybody else here?” I prompted.
    “How would I know? This place is a revolving door for you kids.”
    “I’m right here, old man.” Casey stepped onto the faded linoleum in bare feet. Her toenails sparkled with glittery purple polish and an inch of flesh peeked between her t-shirt and low-rise jeans. “You’d think I hadn’t just cooked you up a fierce