Chapter 50

Once we had the fire started in the metal oil drum, the sides of the drum heated fast and the women gathered around to warm their hands. The snow was still coming down pretty good, but the wind wasn’t blowing like it had been at daylight.

“Rondo, let’s you and me take the sleds down first, before we let women get on them and get hurt.”

“Josey - I’ve never done this either. Do we sit on them or lay down?”

“From the pictures I’ve seen, you lay down and use these handgrips to steer and stop the sled. Come on, we can do this. This is what we’ve been wishing for.

Anna told me, “Josey, we watched kids snow sledding up in northern Missouri. The boys would let the girls lay on top of them and two would ride down the slopes together.”

“Then you come get on top of me and we’ll take the first ride.”

With our sled on top of the levee, I lay on it with my feet hanging off the back. Anna lay on top of me with her hands holding onto the shoulders of my coat.

Ava yelled, “Are you ready!”

“Yes, give us a shove.

“Hang on, Anna. Here we goooooo...”

Anna was screaming in my ear and I was laughing so hard, I could hardly hang onto the hand grips. I thought we would stop when we got to the bottom, but we kept going another hundred feet or more. When we stopped, Anna and I stood to look back.

Rondo and Emmylou were flying down the levee about fifteen feet over from where we made our tracks. Both of them were screaming and laughing when they flew right past where Anna and I stood. When they stopped, they pulled their sled back to where we were.

“Josey, that was the most fun I have ever had in my whole life. Let’s get back to the top so the others slide down,” Rondo told me.

“Here comes two more, now.” I looked up to see Naomi and Clara coming down the slope. They were screaming louder than Rondo and Emmylou, as they flew past us.

By the time we pulled the three sleds back to the top, we were tuckered out. The sleds don’t weigh anything while pulling them empty through the snow, but walking up the side of the levee is a bitch. From top to bottom - where we stopped - has to be over two-hundred and fifty feet, and most of that is on the slope of the levee itself, with a 1:3 rise on the sides.

After everyone had ridden the sleds down twice, I told Rondo, “I’ll take the Cat down to the Montague Farm, to help Kellie and Stella hitch the sleigh, and load the other three sleds. Then I’ll make a run out to the County Line road, and turn up past Hanks place, then out out to Granny’s road. If the state or county hasn’t plowed the snow off the highway, I’ll make that long run back into town.”

“Josey, I can do that...”

“You stay here with the women and girls. Keep your guns strapped on and keep a watch for anyone who may come this way. Even in this snow storm, I don’t trust no one anymore, since all this crap started the day we got back.

“Stella, you and Kellie come get on the Cat with me and we’ll clear the road to your house. I’ll help you hitch the sleigh and load the three sleds before I leave.”

“You mean we get to ride that big Bulldozer with you?”

“Sure, come on and I’ll show you how to climb up the tracks to the seat.”

As soon as they were seated on either side of me on the wide seat, I shoved the throttle wide open, then pushed the stick forward all the way.

Kellie yelled above the roar of the diesel engine, “This thing is loud! But just look at all that snow sliding off to the side of the levee.”

When we arrived at the barn, we checked the horses first. They still had plenty of hay - and the water is set to keep dribbling into the water-trough day and night – hot or cold. I helped them throw more hay down into the hay racks, from the loft - just in case we didn’t make it back tomorrow.

They knew which horses were buggy-horses, and we caught two of them to put the buggy harness on them.

Stella told me, “Josey, you must have harnessed horses before.”

“No, but I’ve harnessed mules and plowed cotton day after day, for weeks at a time during the summers I was going to school.

Kellie wanted to use the bathroom before they leave, and I went with them to the house.

While they were in the bathroom, I looked for a stairs to the attic. This high-pitched roof with no upstairs still has me thinking there must be a big attic up there. When they came back I asked them...

“This sure is a tall house, not to have an upstairs. Is there an attic up there?”

Stella told me, “When we lived here with Daddy, there was a big attic which was floored, and we used that to hang clothes out to dry in the winter. When we came back here to tend the horses, after the farm sold - they gave us a key so we could use the bathroom and check the house now and then. We noticed there was a metal door where the wooden door to the attic used to be.”

“A Metal door? Show me where it is.”

They took me to the back porch, then opened another door into a storage room.

“See,” Kellie pointed to a heavy steel door set into a steel door-frame.

“Do you have a key to this door?”

“No, Mr. Wainwright told us there was nothing in the attic, and for us not to worry about it. He said it had been used as a private storage room by the previous owners.”

“Well, I guess that explains everything.”

“We do have an extra key to the house, if you want it. We carry this one with us all the time, anyway.

I took the extra key and put it on my keyring. Already, I was planning to bring Rondo back with me and check this place out.

“You girls be careful on your way back. I’ll be back over there on the levee with y’all as soon as I plow the road down to Granny’s and check the paved road to see if I need to clear it...

“When we leave the levee today, we’ll take these horses and the sleigh to my house. There are two stalls in the barn out back and there’s plenty of hay and water too.”

“Josey, if we had time, we’d love to get naked with you again.”

“I don’t have any condoms with me, and we sure don’t need you girls getting pregnant any time soon.”

“We know, but it sure would be fun.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to get naked and fuck around, back at the house, especially when the weather warms up.”

I watched as they left riding in the sleigh, with those high-stepping buggy-horses prancing through the snow.

Before I left this place - I had to take one last look at that steel door.

Inside the storage room, I looked for any place a key could be hidden. There were empty cabinets and empty closet shelves, but I didn’t see any keys.

There was a metal step-stool over in the corner and I pulled it over to the door to stand on. I could barely see over the top of the metal door-frame and ran my fingers down along the groove between the wood and metal. I knew as soon as my fingers hit it, this was the key.

Two keys as a matter of fact.

When I stepped down, I tried the key and it slipped right into the door lock. The door opened outward, and I opened it slowly, looking inside. There was another door. This one looked like it could be the original wooden door to the attic. I tried the knob but it was locked too. The second key on the small keyring fit this lock - and again, I opened this one outward slowly as I looked inside. There was the staircase leading to the attic. I took the steps two at a time and when I reached the top, I was shocked to see so many leather suitcases, exactly like the ones Wendy Skelley gave me to keep.

The latch was locked on the first suitcase I tried to open, and I tried another. The third latch I tried, opened - and I laid the two sides open to see bundles of hundred dollar bills packed neatly inside. I slipped a few hundred out of a bundle to put in my pocket, then closed that suitcase. I hefted a dozen or so, to see if they were all loaded. I even stepped on top of the stacks where they were stacked neatly, ten high. I hefted one in back, on the very top row and all of them were loaded.

There was no way I could get a count, there were so many. They were stacked so high, I couldn’t get to the very back to count. Across the front, I counted fifty suitcases and they were stacked ten high, but they weren’t stacked one on top of the other, which made it hard to count. Just looking, I knew there were at least six – and possibly as many as eight hundred suitcases.

It took someone a long time to store these suitcases up here, and someone - other than Jason Skelley knows this money is stored here and - that someone - will be coming back for it.

After closing and locking both doors, I kept the keys and hurried toward the kitchen door.

I was almost out the door when I had an idea how to rig this place so I’d know if anyone has been here other then me. I went back into the kitchen, and after opening cabinet doors one after the other, I found what I was looking for. The flour bin.

I took a cup from the cabinet, scooped up half a cup of flour and hurried back to the storage room. Using my fingers, I sifted a light dusting of flour in front of the metal door, then when I closed the door to the storage room, I dusted the doorknob lightly, and the floor at the bottom of it.

Back in the kitchen I dumped the flour - cup and all, back in the metal flour bin and locked the door behind me.

Just as Rondo and I both thought, this has to be their main stash and I would bet all the hundred dollar bills in my pocket, Honas Wainwright is the one - or - one of the ones, who knows about it.

When I left the Montague Farm, I headed south to hit the County Line road leading to the gravel road that cuts off toward Hanks place, and on to Granny’s house. There were no tractor tracks or horse tracks and I knew no one had tried to get here since it snowed.

I hit the Collin’s County gravel road leading to Hank’s and shoved the throttle forward again. I could see the tenant houses in the distance and Hank’s red brick house just the other side of them. As I neared the houses, the hired hands stepped out on the porch of each house, waving and laughing as I waved and passed by.

When I stopped at Hank’s house - Hank, Joe, and Buddy stepped out. I didn’t shut the Cat off, I just left it idling and stepped off into the snow to stand near his pickup.

“Josey, we heard you coming on that Cat - way before we could see you through this snow. We didn’t know what in the world was making so much noise until we could see you headed toward us ... I told Joe and Buddy - That’s Josey.“

“Rondo cleared the road over to the levee from my house, and we took the women and girls over there to ride the sleds down the levee. I’m headed up past Granny’s now. I see where you’ve been out in your truck, do you know if the highway has been cleared back to town?”

“It sure has, and it must have been the county road-grader that cleared the highway, they even cleared the road to Miss Early’s house from the pavement. I went up to check on them this morning and they told me the county road out to the highway, and even the highway has been plowed.