Champagne for Buzzards Read Online Free PDF Page A

wove in and out of stalled traffic. At every crosswalk I waited for someone to look into the bed of the truck and start shrieking. If that happened I’d play dumb, my best act.
    I should have at least made sure the hand was covered. Yeah right, as though that was going to happen. No way was I getting close to those bones.
    I crept through town waiting to be caught, expecting the waking nightmare to get worse.
    Once I crossed over the causeway to the mainland my panic subsided and my heartbeat eased its mad tattoo. It was even better when I merged onto the freeway. I thought my troubles were over. Not even close.
    That’s when the wind caught the tarp, sending a blue corner snapping back and forth outside the back window, the grommet striking the window like a bony knuckle rapping to demand entrance. Why the hell hadn’t I tied the tarp down? But then I would have had to get close to the monstrous thing, would have had to reach into the truck bed and pick up the tarp, pull it tight over the body and see the hand again, touch what it had touched. No, no, no…not going there. Let it flap.
    Too many Stephen King books gave me a vivid picture of what driving around with a dead body on board meant. At any moment that hand would slither into the cab and grab me, bony fingers wrapping around my neck and choking off my breath with a maniacal chortle. My head sank down closer and closer to my collarbone, going into protection mode, to make death by skeleton as difficult as possible.

CHAPTER 7
    Independence was now full of shoppers — pulling out of the hardware store parking lot in front of me, stopping to talk to neighbors or just jaywalking. I drove through town at a snail’s pace and watched the sky for the return of the buzzards.
    When I turned off the road and onto the long twisting lane to the ranch house, my heart was going triple time. “Thank God,” I breathed. My relief was boundless.
    Tully was out in front of the house on a riding lawn mower, going around and around in circles, a cloud of dust following him as he cut what was supposed to be lawn but was mostly weeds and bare patches.
    Near the house the driveway divided, one fork going left to the barn and the working part of the farm and the other arm going around to the front of the house. I went right and pulled up in front of the house. I slammed into Park and jumped out of the truck while it was still rocking. “Dad,” I screamed, running like no lady should or could.
    Maybe it was that one word or maybe it was the way I tore into the yard, but he’d already shut off the tractor and was running across the lawn towards me.
    He swept me up into his arms without asking anything, just holding on tight to stop my trembling. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said over and over, although he obviously didn’t know how untrue that was.
    Uncle Ziggy came down off the porch in his awkward limping jog. “What’s wrong, what is it?” His hands gripped my shoulders while Tully made meaningless soothing sounds as old as time.
    I freed an arm and pointed to the truck. “There, there,” I said. They both looked to the truck and Tully asked, “What, honey, what is it?”
    â€œAn arm, a man I think, there.”
    They started towards the truck, holding me between them. “We have to go to the other side,” I told them at the tailgate. “It’s sticking out over there.” I stared at the blue covering, waiting for it to move. We shuffled together around the truck with the two of them still holding onto me. I balked when we got closer to the thing. “I can’t,” I said.
    Tully left me with Uncle Ziggy and went and lifted the covering.
    Tully jumped back. “Jesus Christ.”
    So that answered my question. The hand was still there. I’d been praying it would disappear on the drive out from Jacaranda.
    Ziggy pulled me away and shoved my head into his neck so I