The Miscreant by Brock Deskins Read Free Book Online Page B

reason to prioritize. Drink, letter, brush cutters.”
    Matt shook his head. “I really think you have a drinking problem.”
    “Yes, but only as long as you stand around doing nothing. Hop to, man!”
    ***
    Matt walked briskly down the worn dirt paths winding through town. It was early morning, and people were just finishing breakfast and going to work. Garran’s house was one of the larger homes in town; built by his father during a more profitable venture not long before he disappeared.
    Nina answered Matt’s knock with a disapproving scowl. “Oh, it’s you. In case you haven’t heard, Garran’s locked up.”
    “Yes, ma’am, I know. That’s why I’m here. Garran needs me get something for him that will prove his innocence.”
    Nina scowled even deeper. “He ain’t innocent of nothing. I told him he was gonna get himself in real trouble if he didn’t change his ways, and now he has. He’s just like his father.”
    “But if I can help prove he didn’t do it…”
    “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. It don’t matter either way. He needs something to set him straight, and maybe this is it.”
    “Whatever he has done, being sent to prison as a rapist is not the answer. How can you do that to him? You’re his mother!”
    Dwight appeared in the doorway, looming over Nina’s head, and glared at Matt. “It don’t matter, boy. It’s already done, and there ain’t nothing gonna change what’s going to happen no matter if he’s guilty or innocent. Now get your skinny carcass off my porch and don’t come back here again.”
    Nina backed out of the entryway and slammed the door in his face. Matt walked away and looked around for an answer to his dilemma. He was not the imaginative sort Garran was, which was probably why he rarely found trouble unless he was with him.
    “What would Garran do?” Matt asked himself.
    His eyes darted to the chicken coop behind the house. He glanced around once more before racing behind the small animal pen. Matt captured the morning sunlight with a palm-sized magnifying lens and lit a slow match. He held the smoldering twist over the straw carpeting the coop and wondered if Garran was a good enough friend to become a criminal for in order to help him. He was not certain, but he knew that he was such a friend and dropped the slow match onto the thatch.
    Matt ran from the henhouse while the straw began to burn. He hid behind the woodpile stacked next to a nearby home and waited. Chickens began squawking and ran into the small pen as smoke billowed from the coop. Flames began licking out of the doorway and windows, and Matt wondered if anyone was going to notice before the entire thing burned down.
    Mirabelle, the woman whose home he was hiding behind, raced to Garran’s house and pounded on the door. “Fire, your coop’s on fire!”
    Dwight ripped the door open and looked as if he was going to strike the woman for disturbing his morning nap. His ireful eyes went wide when he spotted the flames.
    “Nina, grab buckets and pots!”
    Garran’s mother ran from the house close behind Dwight gripping two buckets and a stew pot. Dwight took the pot, furiously worked the handle of the nearby pump, and filled it with water. Nina took over the pump while Dwight ran the short distance to the coop and flung the pot of water onto the inferno. Chickens fled through the now open pen and sought safety from the conflagration as fast as their legs and useless wings would carry them.
    Matt sprinted from his hiding place, ducked into Garran’s house, and ran upstairs. Garran’s room was in a slovenly state of disrepair. He tossed discarded articles of clothing toward one corner of the room in search of the letter. More than one rat squeaked its displeasure and scampered from the room as he dug through the mess.
    He looked out of the window, saw there was little of the chicken coop left to fuel the remaining fire, and was about to give up his search when one of Garran’s tobacco twists caught