Free The Scavengers by Michael Perry

he’s dressed.
    To get back to the shack before dark, Ma and Dad have to leave now, so I hug them good-bye and let them out the gate. Dookie darts ahead of them, a ragamuffin in a red union suit, zigzagging his way up the trail, stopping to say hello to a toadstool.
    I help Arlinda with the dishes, then go to the barn to prepare my armor.
     
    I made it myself. Shin and forearm guards from stovepipes trimmed in rabbit fur, a breastplate cut from cowhide and strips of steel from a car door, a pair of Toad’s old welding gloves restitched to fit my hands, and a helmet made from a steel dog dish I found in Goldmine Gully.
    As I lay each piece out, I’m excited about going to town tomorrow. I always am. I am eager for the chance to see something other than Skullduggery Ridge, eager to see faces that don’t belong to my brother, Dookie, and eager for the sights and sounds and smells of civilization. Eager just to move. But as I check over each piece to make sure it’s in good shape, and when I turn and see the Scary Pruner loaded and waiting, I am reminded we aren’t just getting ready for some hippity-happity picnic trip.
    I put my helmet on and wiggle it to make sure the chin strap is tight. The helmet is covered in spatters and zigzags of paint left over from when Toad painted the Scary Pruner , and I attached pheasant tail feathers to the temples. I pounded patterns into the leather of my breastplate and then dyed the patterns with berry juice. My gloves are beaded and I punched ventilation holes through my arm guards in a swirly pattern. I decorate my armor because I think it makes me look a little fiercer—although I’m not sure the GreyDevils even notice. It does make me feel a little fiercer. Sometimes that’s just the difference you need.
    I know there will be danger, but it makes me proud that Toad trusts me to come along and help out. Some people would think it was weird that my parents would let me do this, but we live in a world where each of us has to do what we do best, no matter what our age. I asked Dad once why he didn’t help Toad on these trips to town, and he said it was because he had to stay back and guard our place, and Dookie, and Ma. I asked Toad the same question, and he gave the same answer. But something about the way they said it made me think I wasn’t getting the whole story. Plus if Dad was really worried about protecting us, why would he wander off like he does? Sometimes I think the older I get, the less I understand grown-ups.
     
    Toad and Arlinda have always let me know I am welcome in their house, but just as I prefer to sleep in the Ford Falcon when I’m home, when I’m down in Hoot Holler I prefer to sleep in the barn. I keep some blankets and a pillow in my armor locker and sleep on some straw in one of the old horse stalls. There’s an Emily Dickinson poem that goes, “ The soul selects her own society, / Then shuts the door. ” The first time I read that one, I smiled. I’m not mad at anybody; sometimes I just like to be alone. Well, except for a three-legged cat; whenever I sleep out here Tripod curls up beside me and purrs me off to sleep.
    When my bed is ready, I step outside. The final light is fading. From the top of Skullduggery Ridge, I hear a whistle: three long and three short.
    My family is safely home.

15
    WHEN I WAKE UP, THE BARN IS DARK AS A BAT’S BUTT.
    We begin our town trips this early because GreyDevils are useless in the morning. They’re all scattered, lying wherever they flopped when the last bonfire went out and the final drop of PartsWash went gargling down someone’s raw throat. By early afternoon they’ll start to prowl and gather up in their ragtag packs, looking to steal anything they can to trade for PartsWash.
    I get dressed in the glow of my jacklight, then open the barn door. Over Skullduggery Ridge the very first gray smudge is starting to show. I can see a lamp in the Hoppers’ kitchen window, and the door opens into a yellow