Ozark Trilogy 3: And Then There'll Be Fireworks Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a rock that got warm each day in the sun, and all but slamming her door behind them. They were back out in the weather and the downhill trek ahead of them before they could catch their breaths, and they heard the thump of that bucket as it hit the wall when she gave it a toss across the room.
    “Well!” said Granny Frostfall. “I’ve seen manners, and I’ve seen manners ... but she does beat all. She is every last thing she’s made out to be, and some left over, and I’ll wager she eats nails for breakfast when she’s got no company to see her.”
    “She has a reputation to maintain,” pointed out Granny Hazelbide.
    “What’s important,” said Granny Gableframe, “and all that matters now except for getting down this dratted mountain, is that she’ll do it.”
    “We’re sure of that, Gableframe? I don’t see it!”
    “Oh, we’re sure,” said Gableframe; and Granny Hazelbide and Granny Sherryjake agreed. “We had her the minute she asked us to tell her about it, don’t you know anything atall? If she’d turned us a deaf ear, now, and refused to even listen, and sent us all packing without so much as letting us tell her why we were here ... well, that would of been Troublesome’s way.”
    “Oh, yes,” said Granny Hazelbide. “We’ve got her fast, the Twelve Corners preserve us all.”
    “But how’ll she know where to go? How to find the ship?”
    “I had that all on a slip of paper before ever we started up this overblown hill,” sniffed Granny Hazelbide. “And tucked away safe in the pocket of my skirt. And it’s tucked away safe now in her own hand, everything she needs to know. She gave that bucket quite a fling, there at the last, and she may well pitch the bench we sat on into her fire—but she’ll keep that piece of paper safe. Every last de tail she needs to know, it’s on there.”
    “Law, Granny Hazelbide,” said one or two. And “My stars, Hazelbide.”
    “Well, I know her,” said the Granny. “I know her well.”
    “Can’t say as I envy you that.”
    “I don’t envy my self that, but there’s times it’s useful,” said Granny Hazelbide. “And now let’s us head for home. Might could be we’ll make it before dark. Like Troublesome said, it’s a sight faster going down than coming up.”

Chapter 3
    Smalltrack was neither a supply freighter nor a pleasure craft. The smell aboard, in spite of a powerful scrubbing, made you instantly aware that it had been a fishing boat for a very long time. Having the Mule aboard didn’t improve matters, since Dross had no respect whatsoever for a human being’s ideas about waste disposal; she added a new fragrance to the prevailing reek of blood and entrails and ancient slime. The captain and the four men of his crew had been on workboats of one kind or another all their lives; if they noticed the smell atall, they paid it little mind. They knew themselves fortunate that it was wintry weather, and no hot sun broiling down to bring everything to a constant simmer and perk. As for their passenger, if she found conditions not to her liking, they didn’t mind that atall.
    If pushed, all five would have acknowledged a relish for the idea that Troublesome of Brightwater might not be all that comfortable crossing the Ocean of Storms to Kintucky in their racketydrag old boat. They didn’t precisely want her to suffer, being good-natured men, but they were in mutual accord that she had a trifle discomfort coming to her. If the mechanisms of the universe saw fit to provide that discomfort without any call for their hands meddling in it, why, they found that positively Providential. It spoke to their sense of the fitness of things.
    They were Marktwainers—four, including the captain, being Brightwaters by birth, and a single McDaniels finishing up the party—and they were conscious enough that the woman who spent her time silent on an upturned barrel in the stern, looking out over the rough water, was their kinswoman. It comforted