Free Maude March on the Run! by Audrey Couloumbis Page B

sucking noisily on a peppermint. The firelight was barely enough for me to read by; it wasn't sufficient for Maude, who couldn't see things close up so well. After a minute, she was only ignoring me.
    “Don't be so hard on Marion,” I said. “He wants to get to Uncle Arlen as bad as we do.”
    “Bad
ly.
”
    I scanned the stories again, trying to figure in all those fellows they let loose and see if the numbers added up. Nothing about me, of course. I never got used to being ignored in these news reports.
    “It's the unfairness of it all that gets to me,” I said.
    “Well, you're lucky if that's all that does,” Maude said.
    I looked my question at her.
    “If they're not locking the door on you, you're fine,” she said.

NINETEEN

    M ARION STAYED GONE LONG ENOUGH TO TAKE A turn around the property. He found a garden claw we could use to poke the fire, and a glove. Only the one glove, big for Maude and small for him, but the leather was thick enough for handling a hot pot. He threw it on top of our sacks.
    “All the comforts of home,” Marion said as he sat down with us. We were all sleeping in the front room around the fire.
    “I was just thinking the same thing,” Maude said to him. A roof over her head and a fire to warm her feet, along with a surfeit of peppermints, had put her in a mellow frame of mind, considering her earlier mood.
    Over our heads a butternut rolled across the floor. There was some scrabbling around up there that meant the current owners of this house had come home to dinner.
    “Squirrels,” I said.
    “All the comforts,” Marion said, and grinned.
    “There are not enough marks on this map,” Maude complained.
    “It looked fine to me,” I said.
    “I believe I can add to it,” Marion said. He went at it witha pencil, making Uncle Arlen's lines darker and the print a little larger. Before he was done, he was entirely back in her good graces.
    She said, “How far do you think Uncle Arlen has gotten?”
    “He's been gone four days,” Marion said. “He ought to be right about here if he's making a change of horses every so often.”
    I watched and saw his pencil point did not come anywhere near halfway. “That's all?”
    “The man has to sleep sometime,” Marion said, as if he himself stood accused of slowpoking. “He can't ride hard all the time, no matter how fresh his horse. His old bones won't like to take such a pounding.”
    This was no doubt true. Uncle Arlen was a sturdy fellow, but he had passed the quarter-century mark last year.
    We had dried out the horse blankets as best we could, and Maude folded that quilt for a pallet. She didn't offer to share it with me. We were no sooner settled and watching the fire die down than a bat glided over our heads, silent, and went on to the next room.
    “Holy Mulroney,” Marion said, flattening himself to the floor as it swooped back toward us.
    Maude's eyelids flickered, taking in the uninvited company. She wasn't in the least bothered by bats and could have taken care of it, but she didn't look inclined. Her eyes were half closed.
    Bats bothered me only a little. I got up to open a window to get rid of it—that is, I hoped it would take the opportunity to leave. It made another pass just as I leaned out to throw the shutters wide open.
    Marion yelled, “Get down, Sallie!”
    More startled than frightened, I ducked, but the bat veered away from the open window and disappeared into the next room again. It could circle around all night, and I made up my mind to let it.
    “Quick, run back here,” Marion said, still rather loudly.
    Maude shushed him.
    “Those things will suck your blood,” he told her.
    “They do not,” Maude said.
    “Then what do they eat exactly?” Marion said. “Just tell me that.”
    She couldn't tell him, and neither could I. We only had Aunt Ruthie's word for it that they didn't suck blood. A creepy crawling feeling down my back chased me to my horse blanket.
    “I think it's time we went to