The Ninth Nugget by Ron Roy Read Free Book Online Page B

at the kids. “I’m a magician. I’m trying to be an actor, but there’s not much work.”
    Ed Getz had long arms, tapered hands, and thin fingers.
    “Cool!” Josh said. “Can you do tricks?”
    Ed nodded. “I’ll show you some later.”
    They walked to the main house, then into the dining room. A moose head hung over a wide fireplace. Lassos, spurs, saddle blankets, and bridles decorated the walls.
    In front of the fireplace stood a long table and benches. Jud, Thumbs, and three others were already seated. Lulu was placing food on the table.
    Ma and Pa Wheat came out of thekitchen. Ma said, “Hi, kids, take a seat.”
    Pa tapped a spoon against a glass. “Say howdy to Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose from Connecticut,” he said.
    A woman wearing a western shirt and jeans said, “Hello, I’m Fiona Nippit.”
    “And we’re Seth and Bonnie Clyde,” said a man sitting next to a pretty woman with long blond hair.
    Lulu bustled out of the kitchen carrying a heavy tray of food. “Eat while it’s hot!” she said. “What you don’t eat now is leftovers tomorrow!”
    Everyone began passing platters of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and steaming vegetables.
    With twelve people at the table, it got pretty noisy. The kids learned that Fiona was a nurse from Chicago. The Clydes had just gotten married in Florida and decided to spend their honeymoon at a dude ranch.

    Only Thumbs didn’t join in the dinner table chatter. While everyone else talked, he just ate.
    For dessert, Lulu served apple pie with ice cream on top. By the end of the meal, they were all rubbing their stomachs.
    Pa stood up. “It’s almost dark. Jud’ll build us a bonfire out back. And unless I miss my guess, Thumbs will tell you about the grizzly bear that roams these parts.”
    Josh shot a look at Thumbs. “Are there
really
grizzlies here?” he asked.
    For an answer, Thumbs winked and held up his hand with the missing thumb.
    Everyone helped carry stuff into the kitchen. When the table was cleared off, the kids went outside and walked down the path. They found Jud and Thumbs arranging firewood inside a circle of tree stumps.
    It had grown almost completely dark. Dink saw a few fireflies in the bushes near the pond.
    “Have a seat,” Jud told the kids, motioning toward the stumps. Theywere joined by Fiona, Ed, and the Clydes.
    Thumbs struck a match on his belt buckle. He knelt and lit some dry pine needles under the branches, and soon the wood caught.
    The flames cast each face around the fire into shadow.
    “Is this great or what?” Josh said. “Man, I wish I could stay here longer than a week.”
    “Me too,” Dink said.
    Then Ma, Pa, and Lulu came outside. “Got something to tell us, Thumbs?” Pa asked.
    Everyone looked at Thumbs. The reflection from the flames made his eyes appear red under his hat brim. He began to speak in a hoarse whisper.
    I’ll never forget that night,” Thumbs said. “It was a dry summer. There was a lightning storm, and one ofthe strikes caused a fire. The woods in the hills began to burn. We was sittin’ here, just like now. Suddenly, a bear cub came a-runnin’ out of the trees. Itwas a young’un, just a bitty thing. You could tell it had been burned. It was whimpering, like in pain. We caught the cub, took it inside. Lulu put some butter on the burns.”

    Thumbs paused. The only sound was wood crackling in the fire.
    Dink glanced over at Josh, sitting next to Ruth Rose. Josh’s mouth and eyes were wide open.
    “What happened to the cub?” Ruth Rose asked.
    Thumbs’s red eyes turned to Ruth Rose. “Next morning, we took the poor critter to the vet’s office,” he continued. “When the little thing was all healed up, the vet sent it to a zoo someplace in California.”
    “Good!” Josh said.
    Thumbs swung his gaze back at Josh. “Bad,” he said. “The momma grizzly came later that night. She torethrough here, howling for her young’un. Probably weighed seven hundred pounds, that grizzly did.