Heaven (Casteel 1)

Inside the kitchen a woman was bellowing out almost the same words. The dogs stopped, seeming undecided. While they were, I tossed them the chicken necks and tails and the rest of the feet. They ran to gobble up what they could, not nearly enough, then came at me with tails wagging for more.

About that time a terrible squawking came from the henhouse--and the dogs took off, running toward the chicken coop.

"STOP!" I ordered. "FIRE!" One dog hesitated and looked back at me as I leaned over and set fire to a pile of dead leaves left for some lazy son or daughter to sweep up and put in a mulch pit.

"Ma!" bellowed a giant of a man in overalls. "There's someone settin our yard on fire!"

I ran.

Never had I run so fast, with all the dogs at my heels. Perhaps I ran twenty feet before the swiftest hound was almost on me. I shinnied as fast as possible up a tree, and sat on a thick limb staring down at dogs gone crazy now that I'd shown fear. "Go way!" I ordered in a firm voice. "I'm not afraid of you!"

Out of the darkness came old Snapper running to my defense, and into that pile of younger, stronger dogs he threw his strength just as Farmer McLeroy came on the run with a rifle!

Immediately he fired his gun over the heads of the dogs. They scattered in all directions, leaving me to cringe up there, trying not to draw attention to myself.

Unfortunately, the moon was out. "Ain't that ya, Heaven Casteel?" asked the giant farmer. He could have been one of Sarah's relatives, his hair was so red. "Ya t'one who's been stealin my chickens?"

"I'm the one your dogs chased up this tree, just cause I went huntin for Pa's favorite hound. He's been missing for weeks, and just a few days he came home . . . now he's gone again."

"Get down here!" he snapped.

I gingerly lowered myself to the ground, hoping and praying Fanny and Tom had stolen the chickens and were well on

the way home.

"Where'd ya hide em?"

"Hide what?"

"My chickens."

"Do you think I could shinny up that tree holding chickens? Mr. McLeroy, I've only got two hands."

Behind him loomed three huge sons, all with bushy heads of red hair. All wore thick, coarse beards, and two had flashlights they aimed at my face, and one traveled slowly down to my feet, then up again. "Hey, looky, Pa, she's done gone an grown up t'look like her ma, t'pretty city one."

"She's a chicken thief!"

"Do you see any chickens on me?" I asked, bold as brass.

"Well, we ain't felt ya all ova yet," said a boy hardly older than Logan. "Pa, I'll do t'searchin."

"You will not!" I snapped. "All I was doing was looking for my pa's dog, and that's not against the law!"

Boy, was I learning how to lie, giving Tom and Fanny time to run to safety in the hills.

Those giants let me go near the edge of the woods, convinced I wasn't a chicken thief--just a big liar.

Tom and Fanny had managed to get away with five chickens, and Tom had pocketed six eggs, though only three remained unbroken when he reached the cabin. "We'll save two hens," I said when I reached there, flushed and breathless, "so they can lay eggs and Our Jane and Keith can have eggs every day."

"Where were you all that time?"

"Up a tree, dogs underneath."

We became pretty good at stealing, never robbing from the same place twice. We'd leave Grandpa in charge of our two youngest and set off each night, learning all kinds of sneaky ways to grab what we could. In the gloom of winter twilight, we waited for women to empty car trunks of bags of groceries. Some of the women made four and five trips inside . . . and that gave us the chance to run fast, seize a bag, and quickly leave. It was stealing, out and out, yet we reasoned we were saving our lives, and one day we'd pay those women back.

One evening each of us managed to grab a bag, barely escaping before a woman yelled out, "Help, thieves!" And what I had in my bag was only paper toweling, waxed paper, and two bundles of toilet tissue. Fanny doubled over laughing. "Dummy, ya gotta go fer t'heavy bags."

For the first time in our lives we had real toilet paper, paper toweling, and waxed paper--whatever to do with it? Didn't have anything to wrap up and save in a refrigerator.