Deer heads and old guns decorated the walls of Walter’s wood-paneled living room. They gave me the creeps. Over a potbelly woodstove hung a framed saying stitched in needlepoint: Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. On a bookshelf stood a silver-framed photograph of a teenaged couple dressed for the prom. Next to it was a neat stack of books by Louis L’Amour. By the looks of them, they were all stories about cowboys. Even though the room was crammed with stuff, everything had its place.
We stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what to do.
“Go on. Sit your butts down,” Walter said, and chose an overstuffed chair for himself.
I went straight for the wooden stool under the window where I’d spotted the amber.
It was gone. The only thing left was a ring of dust.
“Mighty interested in that window ledge, are ya?”
“Uh, I just thought I’d check on Leroy.”
Before he’d let us in the house, Walter had made us tie Leroy up outside.
“Your mutt’s in front, not out back. And I know what you’re after, so don’t try pullin’ the wool over my eyes.”
Busted. My stomach tied up in a hard knot. My eyes flicked around like one of those cat clocks with a wagging tail. It’s what always happens when I lie, which is hardly ever. I’d thought maybe this situation had qualified as a special circumstance, when being dishonest would be OK, but I was wrong.
So, as usual, the truth was best. I moved the stool next to Violet and Noah, and sat in front of Walter Brinker, face-to-face. “Mr. Brinker, I know you have the piece of amber with the frog in it. I need it. It’s a matter of life or death.”
Walter squinted at me, cold and hard.
“Are you sure that lil’ old hippie lady from the Wildflower didn’t send you to sniff me out?” Walter tapped one of his wrinkled leather cowboy boots on the brown-speckled linoleum floor.
“She didn’t send us exactly,” I said. “She told us it was possible you had the frog amber and we asked her where you lived.”
“We insisted,” said Noah.
“Begged, actually,” added Violet.
“Well, sorry to stomp on your campfire, Missy, but that little piece of rock ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Great!” Violet said. “I guess that means you don’t really need it.”
“I didn’t say that, now did I?” Walter growled. “It’s the only thing that makes my pouch here worth a dime. Which is about all it’s worth most days. Blasted thing barely works.”
“How long have you had it?” I couldn’t imagine why the magic in his fanny pack was so weak.
“Goin’ on seven years. Got it from the witchy lady. A buddy of mine had brought her out to my place when I was so drunk I could hardly see straight. She unzipped her pouch that was kinda like this one and pulled out all sorts of potions that fixed me right up. After that I was hungry as a baby bear. I kept goin’ on about wantin’ a big juicy burger. I’ll be jigger-swiggered if that woman didn’t open her pouch and pull out a giant wad of tinfoil. Inside was the biggest, juiciest darn green chili cheeseburger you’ve ever laid your eyes on, and it was still hot as blazes. I reckoned it was her bewitched pouch, so I got to thinkin’. If it could deliver up burgers, what couldn’t it do?”
“You sure you weren’t just seeing things after all that drinking?” asked Violet.
“Nope. It was real, all right. And then I had me an idea that got me feelin’ smarter than a tree full of owls. I’ve always had a hankerin’ to win the Texas State Lottery. I figured if I had myself a pouch, it could just as easily cough up the winnin’ ticket as it did a burger. I went on down to that hippie place and bought myself one, except the witchy woman wouldn’t let me leave with it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Said she had to charge it up overnight with that piece of froggy amber. Told me to come back the next day. I couldn’t hardly sleep a wink, imaginin’ what folks would say when ol’ Walter Brinker won the Texas State Lottery Million Dollar Grand Prize.”
Violet quickly glanced around Walter’s dinky trailer. “So, uh no offense, judging by your place here, it looks like that didn’t work out so well.”
“Cheeky little gal, ain’t ya? Well, first day I did find myself a genuine Texas Lottery ticket. Scratched off the silver paint with my lucky nickel and won 250 bucks. I couldn’t believe my good luck. But the next day I only found me a ten-buck ticket. Day after that it was five. By day three my pouch was empty as a tin cup. It got me wonderin’ whether that lady had pulled a fast one. I took the dang thing back three times. Every time she made me leave it overnight so she could charge it up.”
Walter shifted in his chair and stared at his boots. “Not that I’m proud of it, but the last time I picked up my pouch, I swiped the amber. Had to or it would have been as useless as a bump on a pickle. Still gotta recharge that thing every dang night. Never again found a 250 buck ticket. In fact, it never coughs up more than five or ten bucks a day, and sometimes it’s as empty as a dried up old creek bed. Considerin’ I have to drive a hundred miles down to the Texas border to cash ‘em in, I wait for the winnin’ tickets to pile up before I head down there. Otherwise it would be costin’ me too much in gasoline. However, one of these days? I’m gonna unzip this and find the million-dollar big boy.”
Looks like Walter had hoped to buy the goose that laid the golden egg and wound up with one that laid the plastic kind instead.
“Mr. Brinker?” I said. “I know the secret to keeping the fanny pack charged for a super long time.”
I swear I saw his hands jitter. “Well, spit it out girl.”
“I have a friend who has one just like it. It stayed charged for thirty years because mostly she uses it to help other people. Hardly ever for herself. That’s what keeps the magic working.”
Walter snorted. “Well that won’t do me a lick of good. Why would I do somethin’ like that? I got nobody to help anyway.”
“There’s always someone to help,” I said.
“Let me get somethin’ straight. I invited you anklebiters in here ’cause I thought you could tell me the secret to gettin’ my pack to pay off like it should. Now you’re speakin’ nonsense. What good does it do to help someone else out when I’m the one needin’ help? Dumbest dang thing I’ve heard. I think you half-pints best hit the road. You’re wastin’ my time.”
Walter stood and shoved open the front door.
“You don’t get it,” Violet blurted out. “Madison’s Grandma Florida could die if we don’t recharge our fanny pack. You have to give us the amber.”
Walter snapped the door shut and stared at us, scratching his head.
“Florida ain’t a grandma any more than I’m a Pinto pony. And she ain’t sick. I saw her a couple days back at the Davis-Fleck Drugstore havin’ it out in front of everybody with that daughter of hers.”
“Uh, not that Florida,” I lied and stared down at my Keds so Walter wouldn’t see my eyes flicking.
“Girl, you’re a lousy fibber. Who are you kids anyway?”
Should I level with him? Would it be worth the risk to save my grandmother?
“Look, we can’t tell you everything,” Noah said just as I was about to spill the beans. “But we need that amber and we’ll do almost anything to get it back.”
Walter returned to his chair and leaned so close to me I could practically count every pore in his face. “Maybe I don’t care who you are just so long as we make a deal. I’ll hand over the amber …”
“Which you stole in the first place,” Violet pointed out.
“Makes no never mind. Like I said, I’ll hand it over if you get something for me first. I’m guessin’ that if you know Florida, then you know Jack.”
As in my Grandpa Jack?
“Years ago Jack Brown and I used to play poker over at Rocky’s Lounge. I lost one too many games to him and didn’t have the dough to cough up my debt. I was hopin’ I could pay him off in homebrew whiskey, except Jack didn’t want none of that.”
Knowing my grandpa, he probably wanted Walter to live up to his word, fair and square.
“So he made me hand over the key to my storage locker. The scum-bucket who owns The Big Lock-Up Storage Shed was one of our poker buddies. He refuses to let me get my stuff until Jack comes off his high horse and gives me back my key. My whole life’s in there, or it is if that scoundrel hasn’t raked it clean to pay off my debt. So here’s the deal. I’ll loan you the amber if you get that key back from Jack. It’s a little silver one with my initials—W.B.—painted on it in red.”
Walter glanced over at a clock on the bookshelf.
“Now I’m pretty sure your ten minutes is up. Don’t bother showin’ your faces again without my key.”
And with that he pushed us out the door.