The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,268

offer up another woof.

Letty rolled her eyes.

“I can’t believe I was waiting for an answer,” she muttered, as she yanked the door open then stifled a gasp.

A young girl about the age of ten was huddled on the seat. Her stringy blonde hair was plastered against her head and face, and her sodden clothes clung to her frail, little body.

“Lord have mercy!” Letty squealed. “Where did you come from?”

The little girl started to cry.

“Oh, well, for pity’s sake, don’t cry,” Letty muttered, then pointed at the two-holer seat. “Scoot over. We’ll talk about all of this later.”

The little girl stood abruptly and started to run out.

Letty grabbed her arm.

“Wait, honey, wait. I just gotta use the facilities. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

The little girl turned her face to the wall, giving Letty the privacy she needed.

“Dang it,” she muttered, as she undid her belt to lower her pants. “I could’a just stood outside in the yard and peed my pants and gotten the same results,” she muttered, as she tried to peel down the wet clothes from her skin.

The wooden seat was cold against her bare backside as she sat. The raindrops echoed inside the small outhouse like bullets against the wood. The scent of human waste, green wood, and nearly a week’s worth of rain was an overwhelming smell. She wondered how long the little girl had been in here, and figured she must have been bad off to choose the outhouse instead of coming to the house.

Letty eyed the little girl’s thin body as well as the scratches and bruises visible on the back of her neck. She did her business, and then pulled up her pants. The child appeared to be in pretty sad shape.

“You okay?” she asked, and laid her hand on the little girl’s shoulder.

The child flinched, and then cowered.

“Not another one,” Letty muttered, thinking of Alice. She patted the child gently on the back and took her by the hand. “Are you hungry?”

She nodded without looking up.

“So, let’s go find us some breakfast, what do you say? We won’t hurt you,” Letty added, then led the child out of the outhouse into the rain. “Let’s run,” she said, but soon found out that wasn’t feasible. One of the child’s ankles was bruised and swollen. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were hurt. Here. Put your arms around my neck and I’ll carry you.”

Ignoring the rain running down the back of her shirt, Letty bent down and picked her up. When the little girl’s arms curled around her neck, an odd, almost comforting feeling swept through her. Except for carrying Alice’s baby, she’d never been around kids in her life, and yet this felt so right.

Conscious of the shivering child and the continuing downpour, she hurried as fast as she could toward the house. Halfway there, she looked up to see Eulis coming out the back door. He bolted off the porch and into the rain, coming toward them on the run.

“For the love of God, Leticia, what’s happened here?”

“She was in the outhouse. Her ankle is hurt.”

“Here, give her to me,” Eulis said, and took the child out of Letty’s arms before either one could argue. “Get on inside out of the rain,” he ordered. “We’re right behind you.”

Letty could tell the little girl was beyond caring who had her, just as long as she didn’t have to walk. Satisfied that something constructive was being done, she made a run for the porch, then inside the house. She pulled off her muddy boots at the door and then ran to the parlor where Alice was cooking breakfast.

“Alice! Alice! Go get some dry rags and a quilt and hurry!”

Alice looked wild-eyed, but did as she was told, running upstairs as quickly as she could manage to move. By the time she got back, Eulis was there and kneeling by the fire. At first, she didn’t see the child, and then when she did, was horrified by her condition.

“Oh lordy! What’s happened here?” she asked, as she began helping Letty strip the child of her sodden clothes.

Eulis turned away, removed the food from the fireplace, and added another log. The women spread the child’s clothes out to dry, then dried her off and wrapped her in the quilt.

“What’s her name?” Alice asked.

Letty shrugged. “She won’t talk to me.”

Alice sat down flat on the floor, then pulled the little girl into her lap and began to rock her in a gentle, comforting way.

“You must be