The Buried Book by D. M. Pulley Read Free Book Online

poor Sally, but he didn’t tell him what happened next. Uncle Leo, Wayne, and Mr. Sheldon had spent hours cutting her up into meat. It still made him sick. Jasper had been told to fetch knives and hacksaws and had to stand there, watching a nightmare play out in the hot sun.
    Wipe that green look off your face. Where do you think steak comes from, boy? Uncle Leo had chuckled as he sawed through her chest.
    Come on, Jas! If you get on this side, you can see her guts come out. Cow’s got four stomachs, you know. Wayne had waved him over to look, but Jasper just shook his head. It was different than looking at rat guts. Maybe it was because he’d tried to save old Sally. Maybe it was because of what Uncle Leo had said about his mother. Either way, Jasper worried he’d never stop hearing the sound of Sally screaming.
    His father’s voice broke in. “Well ain’t that somethin’! Now let me take a look at ya. Did she try and kick ya?” Wendell spun him around, scanning him from head to toe like a doctor.
    Jasper nodded. “But I still got the rope around her hoof. Are you proud of me, Dad?”
    His father’s eyes twinkled a bit as he chucked the boy’s chin. “I sure am, but don’t go and get yourself a big head about it. Everybody’s gotta pitch in on the farm. You were just doin’ your part. So, you been good? Doin’ what your uncle asks?”
    Jasper nodded again. “I cleaned the barn stalls, the chicken coop. Wayne even taught me how to hook up the milkers.”
    “That’s my boy.” His father straightened back up. “Where’s your uncle?”
    “I think he’s out in the shed, working on the tractor.”
    “You go find your cousin for a bit. We’ll play some catch before supper.”
    Playing catch was Jasper’s father’s answer to any problem that didn’t have an answer. If one of his parents stormed out after a fight, the next day his dad would be oiling up his glove. Jasper frowned as his dad hobbled toward the shed. “But, Dad?”
    “Yes, Son?”
    The words I want to go home, I want my mom caught in his throat. They were the words of a baby.
    Wendell nodded as if he’d heard each one. “We all do what we can, Son. You’re lucky to have so many good people lookin’ after you. Do your best to be grateful. Now go find Wayne.”
    He wasn’t going to take him home.
    Wendell Leary walked slightly bent at the waist, limping a little on his left side all the way to the shed. He’d been wounded in the First World War. He’d lied about his age and enlisted when he was only sixteen. Jasper only knew about it because he’d found a picture of his father in a military uniform tucked in an old book called The Sun Also Rises . The blurry young man in the photo didn’t quite look like his father, but the words written on the back read, “Wendell I. Leary, 1917.”
    You don’t want to hear about all that, his father had said. But Jasper had protested that he really did. Don’t go pokin’ through other people’s closets, Son. Them skeletons can be real mean. And that was all he’d say.
    His father’s advice hadn’t stopped him from snooping through drawers and bookshelves, looking for war souvenirs.
    Instead of going to find Wayne, Jasper sneaked around to the back side of the tractor shed. Wayne liked to smoke cigarettes back there. He’d even let Jasper try one after Sally was shot, thinking it might calm his nerves. All it did was make him sicker than he already felt. But he had noticed that there was a good view into the shed through the siding boards back there. Mr. Sheldon and Uncle Leo had been inside sipping corn liquor after their hard-earned steak supper. That was how Jasper had learned that it was Uncle Leo who had forgotten to put the lid back on the well. That mistake would likely cost him over five hundred dollars in milk. He would only get fifty dollars for Sally’s meat over in Burtchville.
    Through a knothole in the shed siding, Jasper watched Uncle Leo climb out from under the