The Adventures of Flash Jackson Read Online Free PDF Page B

old everyone except me. I don’t waste time on self-pity, thank you very much. I do what I want. Life is too short to while away sitting around in parlors with your legs pressed neatly together so no one can see your coochie, like some kind of lady-in-waiting, fretting about what’s happened to you. There’s too much to do .
    Which reminded me that old Brother would be expecting me about now. I made my way down to his shed again and gave him a good brushing, talking to him all the while.
    â€œNow, what’s this I hear about you making a break for it yesterday? What’s the matter—you don’t think you have it good enough? Free room and board, and all the attention a horse could want. All you have to do is let me ride you once in a while, and hell, you like that. Yes, you do, you old horse. Now, I can understand you being despondent over this whole business about my leg. You think it means that’s it for us, that our riding days are over. And I know you don’t like Mother feeding you and brushing you and traipsing around in your own personal barn. Well, let me tell you something, horse. This is only a minor setback. A dip in the road. That’s all it is.”
    Shobbety shoo , said Brother. Plbbbbbt .
    â€œYou’re just an ingrate, that’s all. Soon as things get tough, you want to hit the road. Now, you listen up good—we’re in it for the long haul, you and me. If you broke your leg, I wouldn’t just give upon you, now, would I? Some folks would take you out back and give you a bullet in the brain. A hot lead cocktail. Execution, gangland style. Shame on you, you old fleabag. And just where the hell were you going, anyway? Where were you headed when you hopped the fence?”
    â€œI believe he was showing quite an interest in my geraniums,” said a voice behind me.
    I was so startled I forgot I was only working on one gam, and I spun around too fast for the laws of physics to catch up with me. Plop—down I went, into a nice big pile of Brother’s poo. I let loose a streak of words so blue that even I was shocked at myself. A bolt of pain shot up my leg and out the top of my head, or so it felt, and when I managed to get to my feet again I was ready to tear whoever it was a new one. You don’t sneak up on Flash Jackson, not if you want all your limbs to stay in their original places.
    It was a little old lady wearing a tweed skirt suit and an old-fashioned hat. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and she was standing in the doorway of the shed, looking for all the world like some kind of elf.
    â€œMy goodness,” she said mildly. “I haven’t heard those kinds of words since the war, and then it was usually from a man, not a young lady.”
    That was about all I could take.
    â€œListen, Broom Hilda,” I said, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are sneaking up on a guy like that, but you have a few things to learn about manners!”
    The old lady pursed her lips and stared at me. She wasn’t much to look at in terms of size—I mean, she was a tiny little thing—but those eyes took on a steely glint, and suddenly she seemed to grow about three feet. She took in a big breath of air, and I was expecting her to give back to me as good as she got, but she only let it out again. There was a very long moment of silence that she was the first to break.
    â€œâ€˜Guy’?” she said. “Do young ladies in this part of the world referto themselves as ‘guys’ now? My goodness, I have been away a long time, haven’t I?”
    She had an English accent, or at least what I thought was an English accent. The only English people I’d ever heard talk were on television and movie screens, so she could just as easily have been from Botswana and I wouldn’t have known the difference. But everything else about her seemed English too—her clothes, her little hat, even