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Dry Bones by William Sanders William
Sanders
It was a hot summer day and I was sitting under the big tree down
has been
by the road, where we caught the bus when school was in, when
writing
Wendell Haney came up the road on his bike and told me
fiction
somebody had found a skeleton in a cave down in Moonshine
professio
Hollow.
nally
since the
"No lie," he said. "My cousin Wilma Jean lives in town and she
1980s,
came by the house just now and told Mama about it."
with
I put down the Plastic Man comic book I had been reading. "You stories in
mean a human skeleton?" I said, not really believing it. major
magazin
Wendell made this kind of impatient face. "Well, of course a human es and
one," he said. "What did you think?" antholog
ies, as
He was a skinny kid with a big head and pop eyes like a frog and
well as
when he was excited about something, like now, he was pretty
numerou
funny-looking. He was only a year younger than me, but I? d just
s books
turned thirteen last month and a twelve-year-old looked like a little
in
kid now.
various
genres.
He said, "Gee, Ray, don? t you want to go see? Everybody? s
His new
down there, the sheriff and all."
collectio
Sure enough, when I looked off up the blacktop I saw there was a n, Are
lot of dust hanging over the far end of Tobe Nelson? s pasture, We
where the dirt road ran down toward Moonshine Hollow. Having
Somebody in a pickup truck was just turning in off the road. Fun
Yet?
I stood up. "I? ll go get my bike," I told him. "Go on, I? ll catch up (Wildside
with you."
Press),
contains
I went back to the house, hoping Mama hadn? t seen me talking to
several
Wendell. She didn? t like for me to have anything to do with him
stories
because she said his family was trashy. They lived down a dirt road
that first
a little way up the valley from us, in an old house that looked about
appeare
ready to fall down, with a couple of old cars up on blocks in the
d in
front yard. Everybody knew his daddy was a drunk.
Asimov
? s. Here
Mama was back in the kitchen, though? I could hear her through
he
the window, singing along with Johnny Ray on the radio? and I got
returns
my bicycle from behind the house and rode off before she could ask
to the
me where I was going and probably tell me not to.
time and
I caught up with Wendell about a quarter of the way across Tobe place of
Nelson? s pasture. That wasn? t hard to do, with that rusty old thing his own
he had to ride. When I came even with him, I slowed down and we childhoo
rode the rest of the way together. d, and
the
It was a long way across the field, with no shade anywhere along
strange
the road. Really it wasn? t much more than a cow path, all bumpy
discover
and rutty and dusty, and I worked up a good sweat pedaling along
y of
in the sun. On the far side of the pasture, the ground turned
some . . .
downhill, sloping toward the creek, and we could ease off and coast
the rest of the way. Now I could see a lot of cars and trucks parked Subscri
all along the creek bank where the road ended. ptions
Search
Ã
Now:
blended

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