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Show 11 Chapter Two Cap Mullins didn't answer. Josh frowned and gave the owl-hoot call once more, low and mournful. He was perched in the crotch of a big oak below the Mullins ramshackle house where it sat all alone above the creek south of town. All afternoon, ever since fleeing the park, Josh had been miserable. He had taken the back way home, sneaked the wagon into the shed without alerting his mother, and had scooted for the foothills and Cap Mullins place as it grew dark. He didn't want to be home when Mr. Keebler came. Almost directly under Josh's dangling feet, the low answering hoot finally sounded. Jerking up his legs in surprise, Josh looked down to see Cap's wide grin. "Shucks, you make a poor Indian," Cap teased. "I coulda sculped you." "Y'scared me, for cat's sakes." The moon was up now and Josh could see his friend clearly. He was scratching his leg beneath the cut-off jeans. His shirt pocket was torn off and two buttons were missing. Without a mother, folks couldn't expect Cap to dress like some magazine sixth grader. And with a pa who cared for nothing except sluicing for gold in the creek and for a bottle he kept in a paper sack, most people didn't expect much of Cap Mullins at all. |