The Silver Star(82)

And Maddox was a troublemaker even for the police, filing lawsuits and complaints, evicting tenants, riding the men at the mill, and putting moves on women all over town. The cops knew that just about everyone in Byler except Doris was glad Maddox was gone, and so, despite a few unanswered questions, they were more than willing to shrug the whole thing off.

“Accidents happen.” Uncle Tinsley held up his hands. “ ‘Thought he was a bear.’ ”

He sat in the wing chair for a minute, then he said, “I believe I’ll play the piano.”

He opened the French doors in the ballroom and took the green velvet cover off the grand piano. He propped up the lid, sat down on the bench, ran his hands over the keys, hit a few chords, and then started playing some classical stuff. It sounded pretty good for classical stuff, even to someone tone-deaf like me, and Liz and I listened for a little while. Then she said, “We need to go get the emus.”

Uncle Tinsley was still playing when we left the house. We got ropes from the barn and walked along the road to the hay field. It was near feeding time, and the emus were standing at the gate waiting for us, like they usually did.

After three weeks of trying, Liz had finally gotten Eunice to eat out of the bowl while she held it. It had taken another week for Eunice to let Liz stroke her back while she was eating. That afternoon, as Eunice pecked away, Liz stroked her with the rope, getting her used to it, then slipped it around her neck. Eunice paused, gave Liz a puzzled look, then went back to eating. I quickly put my rope over Eugene.

Liz and I both knew this whole emu-rescue business could turn out to be a big waste of time. Or worse. Now that we’d caught them, the emus might kick us with their talons or peck out our eyes or run into the road and cause a traffic accident. And once we got them back to Mayfield, those darned emus might just escape again. Even so, they were in our care now and we were doing what we had to do.

We led the emus out onto the road. They were a little frantic at first, but then they seemed to find something almost calming about the rope, like it was a relief to give up the fight. Eugene and I were in the lead. He was actually ahead of me, pulling on the rope as if he knew where we were going and wanted to get there. Every now and then a car passed and the driver slowed and the kids inside rolled down the windows and waved wildly at the sight of Liz and me bringing those big crazy birds back home.