Turkey Ranch Road Rage by Paula Boyd Read Free Book Online Page B

hand on her hip. “And the horny toads. That’s why they’re here, Jolene. Haven’t you been paying attention?”
    “Ah, yes, the horny toads. I’d love to hear your explanation for that one right after you tell me how you’re not an accomplice in a bombing—a pathetic excuse for a bombing, but a bombing nonetheless. Blowing up feed stores is against the law, Mother. A real no-no. Somebody’s going to jail.”
    “Don’t you get smart with me, Missy.” She snapped her nose upward again. “Nobody knows exactly what happened or how so don’t you start thinking you do. I certainly had nothing to do with it. I was here with you all morning. Never stepped foot off the place.”
    That was true in terms of a physical alibi, of course, but that’s all it was. “Oh, you’re involved, and we both know it. How deep you’re in is what I don’t know.”
    “I didn’t invite those AAC people here,” Mother Accomplice snapped back. “They just showed up.” She grabbed a dishtowel from the drawer and wiped the counter out of habit. “They’re not from around here, and I made allowances for that, but quite frankly, some of them are just plain peculiar.”
    Look who’s talking. I uncrossed my arms, sighed, heavily and grabbed my keys and billfold from the kitchen table. “I assume if I head down the main street of Bowman City I’ll find the Feed, Tack and Computer Store.”
    Lucille nodded begrudgingly. “Won’t be much of a story left by the time you get there. It’s twenty minutes at least. Everybody will probably be gone by then. Be better to just write a story about me from here. That’s really the bigger issue anyway.”
    “I’m going to the feed store.” And there will be no story writing. “Because you know, and I know, that exploding paint cans in front of the courthouse and rabbit chow raining down Main Street are connected to you because these things always are. And this time, Mother, I am going to find out what’s going on and put a stop to it before the actual shooting begins. Although that’s technically not possible since bullets have already been flying. They were your bullets, of course, and we all know—”
    “You made your point, Jolene.” Lucille flung the towel down and mashed her lips into thin little painted lines. She managed to mutter something I was better off not hearing then ended with a quite audible “I’ll get my purse.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so. You’re not going anywhere. You are not to leave the house. Do not even think of leaving the house. Leaving the house is not an option. You are to stay inside the house.”
    One must be explicit when giving Lucille directives as she is taking meticulous mental notes as well as drawing loopholes in them at the same time. “Do not open the doors and do not answer the phone. Phones. Don’t make any calls from any phone. Or hand signals from the window.” I did not add this last directive facetiously. She’s done it. As more flashes of the things my mother has done—and her perfectly illogical rationalizations for doing them—flashed through my head with big red warning lights, I revised her orders. “On second thought, why don’t you just go to your room and stay there until I get back. Pull the shades, turn off the lights. Take a nap.”
    Lucille took these directives fairly well, or either she wasn’t listening. Yes, my vote too. A closer look told me her face was now in thinking mode rather than teeth-gnashing mode. It was not necessarily an improvement. “The leader goes by the name of Tiger,” she volunteered, clicking her inch long nails together. “That bunch he has around him acts like he’s the Second Coming or something, swarming him like a bunch of gnats, ready to cater to his every whim, and all he does is stand there and stare.”
    “Ah, the Great Horned Toad Messiah.”
    Lucille scowled. “That’s not funny.”
    “You know, it really kind of is, and I’d like to see it firsthand.”
    “Well, you