Chapter 34
I made it back a lot faster than I’d come, but even so, I heard several more gunshots before I reached the house and could see what was happening.
I was reasonably sure they were gunshots rather than, say, car backfires or more bursting balloons, because each sharp sound was followed by a short burst of hysterical screams. At least I hoped they were only hysterical. Surely people would be screaming longer and louder if anyone had been injured, wouldn’t they? And fleeing in far larger numbers.
So far, traffic heading away from the house was light—I’d only had to dodge two cars, twelve pedestrians, and a sheep. Though the sheep did puzzle me, until I remembered the trespassers in Mr. Early’s field. I sped up a little. I’d have sped up a lot, but running with Endicott’s heavy box earlier had taken a lot out of me.
I arrived to find that the crowd had completely blocked the road for several hundred yards, and the police were trying to clear a path for the patrol car that was inching its way through. I spotted someone in the back of the car— our neighbor, Mr. Early. He was shaking his fist at the crowd and shouting. The closed car window and the clamor from the crowd drowned out what he was saying, but I could guess what he was unhappy about.
The crowd milling about in front of our house contained a rather large number of sheep. Dad would probably insist on calling them a flock of sheep, but I would argue that they needed to be a lot more cohesive to qualify as a flock. Not to mention better behaved—could these really be the same sedate sheep I remembered dotting the pasture across the road and waddling slowly up and down the hillside? These sheep appeared enraged, or perhaps possessed. Okay, perhaps they were merely spooked at finding themselves in the midst of a large, noisy, unruly crowd of humans. But I had never imagined sheep capable of charging into people and knocking them down. And they were larger than I thought sheep were supposed to be. Giant economy-sized sheep. Did I have the wrong idea about sheep, or was Farmer Early breeding some kind of mutant fighting sheep?
The New Life Baptist choir was belting out an enthusiastic version of “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.” Easy for them to take this philosophically; they were up on the porch, where only the most demented of sheep was apt to venture.
I panicked briefly when I saw red splotches on several of the sheep, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t blood. Apparently Cousin Deirdre had found a new supply of paint and was running about happily spattering the fleeing sheep.
I spotted Michael at the edge of the chaos, looking tired, and possibly in need of rescue, since he was talking to one of my uncles.
“No,” I heard him say as I drew near. “I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere that had a 4H Club I could have joined.”
“No experience with sheep, then?” the uncle said.
“I’ve eaten quite a few,” Michael said. His tiredness probably made his voice sound a bit more savage than he intended.
“I don’t really think that’s going to be helpful here,” the uncle said, sidling away.
Michael nodded to me and stood staring at the passing sheep.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I warned them that they were trespassing,” Michael said. He was panting slightly, as if he’d been running around after the sheep. “Did they listen?”
“Of course not,” I said. “They’re idiots.”
“Some of them started taking down the fence, to make it easier to get to their booths and tables,” he said. “You should have seen how surprised they were when the first few sheep came trotting down the hill. And then when Early showed up with his shotgun and started firing over their heads and yelling about trespassing …”
He fell silent and rubbed his face with his hand, as if exhausted. I put an arm around his waist and we stood together for a few moments watching the crowd.
Both sheep and humans were dispersing. The music dissolved into shrieks when a particularly bold sheep trotted up onto the porch, sending the choir members fleeing in all directions.
On the plus side, by evicting the unauthorized bazaar from his field, Mr. Early had convinced many people that the fun was over for the day. Except for the customers lined up at the yard sale checkout, people were mostly heading for their cars.
On the minus side, once they got to their cars, they weren’t having much luck departing. Every few yards, you could see a sheep standing on the road, gazing thoughtfully into the distance, seemingly unaware that half-a-dozen cars were lined up behind it, honking their horns and shouting at it. No sooner would one sheep amble off the road than another would saunter out.