Chapter 1

Rusty Williams smiled at his mother and opened the door to exit their old and dilapidated mobile. The door stuck slightly, then opened with a slight, but audible click. Opened. The old mobile home sat on rusted jack stands hidden by the dirt berm piled high around the outer edges of the trailer to insulate it from the weather. It was not attractive, but it was “home” to the two of them. It was the only home Rusty had ever known.

I plan to camp out at that old rock slide I told you about. I saw a few rabbits up there and the place is crowded with those big squirrels you like to make into meat pie. Our freezer will be full again with something besides stale bread loaves.

I think the brook trout ought to be running by now and I bet you’d like a mess of fresh brook trout. They taste so much better than those mushy old hatchery fish the state stocks the lakes with. I think I know how to make some money later on, after school is out. The nine year old boy chattered on and jumped from one thought to the next so fast his mother would have had trouble if she tried to follow his ramblings. She smiled and let him talk and plan and change to a new plan, often in the same sentence. No matter how much he sounded like a scatterbrained chatterbox, all his efforts seemed to bear fruit.

A wave of warm pride flowed through her whole being. My son is so grown up in ways I never expected. He feeds us!

Unaware of his proud mother’s thoughts, Rusty went off on another tangent, “I got an idea that maybe I can make some big money selling worms on the back road to the High Lakes. I see a lot of cars take that old back road shortcut all summer long ... I just know I can sell a lot of worms and we’ll get rich! The almost ten year old boy’s enthusiasm amused his mother and brightened her otherwise not so pleasant life. It had gotten a little better in the past three years since Rusty had begun to show a surprising ability to find ways to help feed them.

Ten years ago, the old mobile home had been abandoned by the construction company that brought it there to its present location to act as a field office and foreman’s quarters. After the bankruptcy court and the insurance companies declared it to be scrap and not worth the cost to make the repairs necessary to make it salable, it sat and became a shelter to any vagrant who needed a shelter from the elements. The three who had used it never lasted more than a week before they were arrested or were forced to move on by the trailer park owner. He had hopes he could find a tenant for it.

Pregnant and desperate, Megan Williams moved in and “legally squatted,” in accordance with Colorado State Law and became owner of the place she now called home. She owned the mobile home but not the land it sat on. Half the trailer was on state land and half on land claimed by the park. In a compromise, Megan agreed to pay half rent and all her own utilities. Megan settled in.

She delivered her baby at the local hospital and was sent back to her legal place of residence the very moment the law permitted the hospital to turn her out.

The old propane two burner built in stove top was deemed adequate for her and the baby’s needs. A meager allotment of propane gas was furnished for heating and cooking ... She made small improvements whenever possible. It was also the only home Rusty had ever known.

Megan blinked her eyes as her thoughts returned back to the here and now.

“Honey, you be careful up there. You also know how that deputy would love to find a reason to give you a bad time. Megan smiled at her son’s back when he walked out the door of the mobile home.

She sat on the old couch, sighed and let her mind go back to happier times, when life was more about senior prom and who dated whom. High school seemed so long ago.

Then her thoughts turned to her father and she muttered, “That phony hypocritical son of a bitch!”

Then Megan remembered the night she had told her mother she thought she might be pregnant. Her mother told her father and he threw her out of the house literally. Prominent in local and state politics, his first thought was to protect his reputation and the constantly polished image he tried to project that he was a family man with a loving and devoted family to support him. He panicked the instant he heard “pregnant” and dragged his only child to the front door and shoved her out onto the porch.

Frightened and confused, Megan pounded on the door and begged to be let back into the house. It took five minutes of begging and screaming before her parents permitted her to come back inside.A She packed her back pack and one small overnight bag with her most needed belongs. Five minutes later her father again turned her out. The front door slammed shut with a loud bang, and Megan began life alone with no one she could turn to for help.

Nine days later, a starving and desperate Megan Williams sneaked in the back service entry of her father’s downtown office. She slipped inside and never realized she had been seen by another person in the shadows, a homeless man seeking a place to sleep for the night and on the lookout for anything he could steal.

Megan had punched in the access code to unlock the door and left it ajar after she entered. The man had slipped in seconds after Megan had entered the building. She hurried to her father’s office and eased herself inside the sumptuous room. She opened the closed but never locked floor safe and pulled out the ten thousand dollars kept there for off the books expenses. She took it all and left.

The person who followed her inside the building entered the office vacated by Megan and found a treasure trove! The office wet bar had bottle after bottle of the best liquor to be had in Falls Church, Virginia. He also found a box of Cuban cigars and decided to celebrate. His lit cigar started a fire in a trash can. He panicked, threw an open bottle of cognac at the fire and grabbed two more bottles and fled the scene.

By the tine the money ran out, Megan was stranded in a small community in rural Colorado. She had begun to rebuild her life with a baby and little else. Rusty turned out to be her life saver.

From age six, until the present day, Rusty helped his mother make ends meet. Over-ripe and damaged produce from behind the super market found its way onto the little boy’s old once red wagon.

The wagon had come from a pile of illegally dumped trash someone had dropped off a quarter mile from the space where their mobile homed was situated. Their diet improved.

At first Rusty had not been as selective in what he picked to bring home. He learned and by his seventh birthday, Rusty Williams was well on his way to become a skilled scavenger. He had also learned about edible greens, berries mushrooms and various heritage plants that had been dropped off of supply wagons. Discarded in other ways. One person’s weed was another ‘s salad, breakfast cereal or part of the evening meal.

From early spring to first snowfall, they lived off nature’s bounty as much as possible. The first tomatoes Rusty brought home were too spoiled to trim away the “bad places.” The discarded tomatoes seeded and grew to became a hodgepodge patch of red and green that was shared by their few neighbors who still lived in the adjoining trailer park.

Rusty grew and became a more successful scavenger.

The thirteen year old boy did his best to seem even younger than his actual age. He had practiced that wholesome “all American boy” smile in front of a mirror for hours at a time

At first, his mother had worried about her son’s antics. Then the worry faded into apathy and resignation “Well, at least he hasn’t asked to use my lipstick,” she told herself.

Rusty, on the other hand, had no time for his mother’s concerns, even if he had been aware of them. Ruston Williams was a man with a mission. During the school year He had his routine planned and executed to perfection. Rusty was the most focused young man alive.

Everything about his “aw shuck” appearance was perfectly designed and created to do one thing, sell him to his customers.

The crude sign on a post next next to the boy as he stood by the side of the road completed the illusion. He was the poster boy for the “All American Tom Sawyer Dream” that had never been a reality, except in the minds of Sam Clemens and Norman Rockwell...

Still, the dream lingered on through the the ensuing years, in the subconscious of so many people who wished, in their heart of hearts it was still alive today. The crude printing read, “GARNTEED REAL WRMs.” The final letter “s” was tilted and squeezed in at the end was additional proof of how youthful enthusiasm had taken precedence over careful planning when he made his sign.

His smile touched each passing vehicle that turned onto the narrow paved road. His open smile seemed to greet every car, pickup, van or RV as if this was the one he was waiting to see. To the passers by, he was the true embodiment of a modern day self reliant Tom Sawyer, only not so soft and pretty as the characters who portrayed Tom or his pal Huck on TV or in the movies.

A late model minivan stopped and the youth’s smile grew even larger. The instant the passenger side front window slid down halfway, he asked,”You want my five for a dollar special? Each worm a guaranteed. It’s what most of my new customers start with.” He looked the man straight in the eye and held our a sandwich baggie. Inside was an indeterminate number of dark crimson worms. They squirmed and wiggled with gusto.

The passenger, a man in his thirties, answered, “sorry, kid, I only use African Night Crawlers. They draw fish better.”

The boy snorted and shook his head. “Mister, if you want worms that draw, send ‘em to art class.”

“Surprised by the youth’s fast comeback, the man said, “Ah,” and got no further.

“I guess nobody ever taught you a thing about wormology, so here goes. In the first place those African worms are raised in a different environment where they evolved to be a part of that food cycle over there, a lot different from ours. On the other hand, Colorado worms and insects have evolved to survive and become a part of this micro system. My bait worms are dug from mushroom beds and rotting wood found only near cold running streams and are environmentally compatible. They are also fresher than those you dragged along from God knows where.” He gave his head a faint negative shake.

The smile disappeared and an air of deep sincerity replaced it, “When I make this special offer, my reputation is on the line. I’ll sell you these for fifty cents and you have next to nothing invested in trying them once. For the whole summer I’m here every Friday, Saturday and Sunday all day. If you don’t get your limit using only my worms, I’ll give you double your money back. If my worms don’t out perform those weak imported things, I’ll also give you your next bag of fresh worms free on your word only. I trust you to be honest.” He nodded his head once and took a deep breath.

“However, if my worms do all I claim, you give me five dollars on your next trip by. Deal?” He held the baggie up closer to the man.

“Here,” came the laughing reply. “I’ll take two. I don’t dare out fish my buddy here. He might force me walk home if I make him look too bad. Same deal for him?”

The young man lost his smile and answered, “No sir, only one special to a vehicle. This is how I make my living. I bet your friend will be so glad you thought of him, he probably won’t even make you pay for half the gas you burned to get here.”