The Buried Book Read Online Free PDF

here, alright? He’ll skin ya for sure.” Wayne grabbed him by the arm and led him through the house and back onto the front porch.
    “What is this place?”
    “Used to be Grandma’s house before she died. Pop grew up inside, you know.”
    “Did—did my mom grow up here too?” Jasper already knew the answer but wanted to hear it from Wayne.
    “Sure enough. Pop, Aunt Althea, Uncle Alfred, and Aunt Pearl.”
    “What happened?” Jasper asked, pointing to the hole in the roof.
    “There was a fire, dummy!” Wayne tousled his little cousin’s hair.
    Jasper squirmed away. “I’m not a dummy. I can see that. But I mean, why? How did it catch fire?”
    “No one knows for sure. I heard it was wild Injuns!”
    “Really?” Jasper’s eyes grew wide. The closest he’d ever come to a real-life Indian was listening to the Lone Ranger show on the radio.
    “Yep. See, the old Fox and Sauk tribes used to live around these parts back when it was nothin’ but a forest. They used to fight the Iroquois nation in these great battles with bows and arrows and knives made from bone.” Wayne fired an imaginary arrow at Jasper. “They buried their dead braves right where we’re standin’.”
    Jasper looked down at his feet.
    “They didn’t like white folks like us buildin’ a farm here, so one night they crept up on the house.” Wayne lowered himself into a crouch and crept low through weeds toward the house. He reached behind his back for his imaginary bow and quiver. “They let loose flaming arrows right through the windows and sent the whole place up. Whoosh!”
    Wayne leapt up making fire flames with his hands. “Poor old Granny! She didn’t have time to get out. Aaaahhh! ” he screamed and fell to the ground as if dead.
    “She burned up in there?” Jasper whispered, staring slack jawed at the fallen roof. It wasn’t funny. He’d never met his grandmother. She’d died long before he was born. Wayne seemed awfully lighthearted about the whole thing. Like it was just a story he’d heard on the radio.
    “Yep. Pop came a-runnin’. He jumped on old Ginger and galloped after those Indians. Chased ’em clear to the next county.” Wayne made a gun with his hand and galloped across the overgrown yard.
    “Did he kill any of ’em?”
    “Might’ve. Can’t be too sure how many. See, that’s why nobody comes out here no more. Those Injuns might come back for their revenge. Got it?”
    Jasper nodded even though most of the story didn’t make sense. If the Indians wanted revenge, they could just go to Uncle Leo’s cabin down the road and burn that house down too. But there was no doubt that something terrible had happened there. He stared up at the broken window looking out from the attic over the fields and tried to picture her face behind the tarry glass. All he could muster was a shadow.
    “We gotta get out of here before Pop sees us. He’d tan our hides for sure.” Wayne led Jasper away from the house and back through the cornfield.
    “Isn’t he gonna skin me anyway?” Jasper asked. The corn leaves slapped at his cheeks, reminding him of the whupping that was waiting for him back at the cabin.
    “Probably not too bad. He knows it’s been tough on you.” Wayne stopped and turned to Jasper. “You just got to start acting grateful’s all. Pop thinks he’s done saved you from a slow death in that city.”
    “A slow death?” Jasper immediately thought of his mother.
    “‘Can’t no one breathe right there,’” Wayne imitated his father’s gruff voice. “‘If you ain’t livin’ off the land, you ain’t livin’ at all.’ And that sort of thing.”
    Jasper nodded. The smoke of the mills and car factories did get thicker than fog in downtown Detroit. Then there were the streets he wasn’t supposed to go near after sundown. Does my mother think I’d die a slow death there? he wondered. Is she trying to save me?
    He dismissed the idea. All his life, she’d hated spending time at Uncle Leo’s.