By the time Huck and I got back to Honey Island, Henry wasn’t standing on his stump pulpit anymore. Didn’t surprise me. Huck and I had been gone for hours. But even so, we hadn’t found one single hog bandit clue, and we were worn out.
I jumped up on the landing and dragged the boat into the shrubs so it wouldn’t drift away.
“C’mon, Huck,” I said, sliding the pole inside the bottom of the boat.
Huck looked at me like he’d rather stay right where he was, but he stood up anyway and loped out of the boat to follow me. As we walked up the trail toward the house, I noticed something blue caught in one of the bushes along the edge of the trail.
Huck sniffed at it, and when I crouched down to get a closer look, I knew exactly what it was. It was the piece of material Grandma used as a bookmark in her Bible. That addlebrained Henry James had let it slip out of the place where it always sat marking Psalm 23, Grandma’s favorite passage.
Now who needed forgiveness? I snatched the material from the branch and stomped up toward the yard, hoping I could think of a good way to use this against Henry.
As I pushed open the gate for Huck and me, I looked around. At this time of day, Grandpa was often up on the porch drinking his afternoon jar of tea and rocking in his chair, but the chair was empty. I expected I might see Henry James standing up on the stump near the pecan tree in the yard spouting off more scripture, but the stump was empty too. I wondered where everyone might be.
“C’mon, Huck,” I said. “Let’s see if anyone’s ’round back.”
I turned to be sure Huck was following me, and that’s when I realized, he wasn’t behind me.
I looked past the fence toward the trail but still didn’t see him.
“Huck, c’mon!” I yelled.
I went back through the gate so that I could look a little farther down the trail. I wondered if he had headed back to the boat for another nap. Once I walked back far enough, I saw him sniffing the ground right where we’d found Grandma’s bookmark. Then he headed in my direction, keeping his nose to the ground. He sniffed at the dirt like he was looking for something, and he walked in a strange path like he was following an invisible piece of string.
“Whatcha doin’, Huck?” I asked, but he acted like he didn’t even hear me.
He just kept sniffing and following, sniffing and following. And because he was Huck, he did it all without barking or yipping or growling. So, I followed him. When he got to the yard, he pushed open the gate with his nose, and then he sniffed and walked all around the yard in front of the house and then headed around back. He didn’t pay any mind to the chicken yard. I was thankful for that. He meandered past the pump, wound his way around the storage shed, and then headed toward Grandma’s garden. That’s when I saw Grandma bent over pulling weeds. Henry James sat on a barn stool at the end of the row of snap beans with that Bible lying wide open on his lap. The two of them were so busy talking and laughing with each other that they didn’t even see Huck or me coming.
I bet Grandma wouldn’t be laughing when I showed her what Huck and I had found on the trail. Huck continued to sniff and meander as he walked that invisible path he followed, while I marched and stomped in a straight line right toward the garden, eager to put a little more fear of Elsie Mae into Henry James. But as we got close to Grandma and Henry, Huck got excited and his sniffing turned almost to dancing. His nose was moving along the dirt like he was chasing crickets or something.
“Why, Elsie Mae, where’ve ya been?” Grandma asked when she looked up and saw me.
But I didn’t even have a chance to answer because the closer Huck got to Grandma and Henry, the more excited he became until his excitement took over completely, and he jumped right up on Henry, knocking him off the stool. Henry went one way. Grandma’s Bible went the other. And the pages of scripture fluttered in the air before the book fell with a thud right in the middle of the snap beans Grandma was weeding.
“Sakes alive!” Grandma yelled.
Huck stood over Henry, sniffing and licking him like he was the tastiest bit of food he’d ever smelled or laid eyes on.
“Elsie Mae, come and git this animal offa Henry right now!” Grandma squealed as she hurried over to help Henry.
Animal? Since when did Grandma call Huck an animal?
“Huck!” I yelled, slapping my legs.
I rushed over and grabbed the skin on Huck’s neck and pulled him off Henry.
“Are ya all right?” Grandma asked as she helped Henry stand up again.
“I think so,” Henry said. “But look at yer Bible, Aunt Sarah, I hope Huck didn’t ruin it.”
Huck? Huck didn’t ruin anything. Henry was the one who almost lost Grandma’s favorite bookmark.
“Oh my!” Grandma said, looking at her Bible lying there in the dirt and beans.
Henry reached down and picked it up. He brushed off the dirt and straightened out the pages.
“It looks all right,” Henry said, handing it to her. “That’s a blessing we can all be thankful fer, isn’t it?”
“We can also be thankful this didn’t get lost,” I said, holding out Grandma’s bookmark toward Henry. “Huck and I found it down by the landin’. You must’ve dropped it when ya were down there playin’ preacher.”
“Oh, that old thing,” Grandma said. “That’s just a scrap from one of my old dresses. Not somethin’ to worry about, but this Bible’s been in my family fer generations,” she said, taking it from Henry and holding it to her chest.
I couldn’t believe it! Grandma called Huck an animal, and she couldn’t care less about the special bookmark that I knew had been in her Bible for years saving her favorite passage.
“If that Bible’s so important to ya, then ya probably shouldn’t let him play ’round with it,” I said as I nodded toward Henry.
“Oh, nonsense,” Grandma said. “Henry James isn’t playin’ with the Bible. He’s preachin’ the Word, aren’t ya, Henry?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry said, smiling at me.
I clenched my teeth and knelt next to Huck and rubbed his head, thinking about how I needed to hurry up and find a hog bandit clue so I could be a hero before Henry ruined my entire summer.