The two men were furious with one another, and no one could get them to calm down. Not even Sheriff Bendix, who stood between them like a referee at a prizefight.
“It was just an idea,” Mort said for the third time. The lifelong naturalist had proposed a botanical theme for this year’s festival—complete with a wildflower exhibition, guest lectures and an orchid contest.
“Well, it was a stupid one,” Howard replied tersely. “Are you out of your wood-pecked, termite-infested mind? How many people in this state do you think will give a rat’s rear end about seeing a slide show on how to identify a bunch of poseys?”
Mayor Wickham spoke up from the sidelines. “It doesn’t seem in keeping with the history of the festival, Mort.”
Mort swung on the mayor, an action that left him more than a little breathless. “Since this is only our second festival, and the first was such a god-awful failure, I don’t see how it can mess much with the history of the danged thing.” He took a sip of oxygen, then whipped his mask away so he could turn back to Howard. “And my idea has as much merit as a harmonica contest or watching a bunch of morons being used as human bowling balls.”
“At least people won’t fall asleep in the street!”
Evidently, some of the other Broken Yoke citizens thought Howard had a point. There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd.
Rafe slid down in his chair, wondering why he’d let Nick talk him into coming here. He’d been back in Broken Yoke for two weeks, but it already felt like a lot longer.
A reed-thin older woman at the front of the room stood up. Beside Rafe, his brother inhaled sharply. “Uh-oh,” Nick said under his breath. “Here comes trouble.”
The woman said in a crisp voice, “I have an idea.”
The years since Rafe had lived here suddenly swept away. He remembered this woman—those small, sharp eyes, the posture that made her look as though she’d snap in two if someone tried to bend her. Polly Swinburne. Paranoid Polly, the kids had called her. Rich. Widowed. A bit “off.”
“Why don’t we have a naked festival?” she suggested.
Okay. Make that a lot “off.” Rafe groaned, wishing he had stayed back at the lodge.
The room went deathly silent for a long moment. Finally, Sheriff Bendix cleared his throat and asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Polly, what exactly is a naked festival?”
Polly practically went pink with enthusiasm. “Well, you all remember that I went to Japan for vacation last year?” Several gray heads bobbed. “They celebrate something there called Hadaka Matsuri. All the participants wear loincloths, and one man is chosen to run naked through the streets. Everyone tries to touch him.”
“Touch him where?” someone asked.
“And what for?” Mort Calloway added, looking like all the oxygen in the world wasn’t going to be enough to keep him from passing out.
“Just to touch him,” Polly said. “He’s supposed to bring good luck and absorb evil. The custom’s over twelve hundred years old in Japan.”
“Well, it isn’t gonna last twelve seconds here in the good old U. S. of A.,” someone else said, and everyone laughed.
Polly looked annoyed. “This year there were ten thousand participants and over three hundred thousand spectators. Excuse me, but I thought the idea of having a festival was to make money.”
“Where would people in loincloths keep their wallets?” Howard asked.
A few people giggled, and after that, the discussion deteriorated even more as several ribald comments were made. Polly subsided with a scowl.
A few more ideas were trotted out. Not surprisingly, the owner of the Silver Saddle voted for a beer festival. Someone suggested they repaint all the storefronts to look like bare wood, throw down two feet of dirt on the streets and pretend to have returned to the 1850s. Wesley Macgruder, the owner of the local Feed and Seed, recommended they convert one of the abandoned mine shafts into a thrill ride. The ideas went steadily downhill from there.
Nick leaned close to Rafe. “Wesley may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot,” he whispered, “but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
Rafe shook his head. “Tell me again. Why exactly did you think I should come to this thing?”
Nick grinned. “Because Matt refused, and I needed a buffer between me and everyone else.”
Rafe knew better than to believe that excuse, but he nodded anyway and settled back in his seat, tuning out the sound of angry voices.
When he’d first come back to town, he’d known that it would be difficult to reestablish a relationship with his father. After all the harsh things that had been said between them during that final argument, after all the years of noncommunication, there was no way he could waltz back into Sam D’Angelo’s world and expect a warm welcome.
In that, he hadn’t been disappointed. He knew that if his father tried at all to meet him halfway, it was strictly for the sake of Rafe’s mother. Pop would do anything to please Rose. Even make nice occasionally with a son he probably considered a first-class bastard.
But Rafe had also anticipated a cool reception from his brother Nick. He’d never had a problem with his brother Matt and younger sister Addy, but Nick—the two of them had seldom gotten along as kids. Nick was a stickler for order and obeying the rules, and Rafe, well…Rafe had always figured rules were for other people.
So he was surprised that Nick didn’t seem to hold much of a grudge against him. Time seemed to have mellowed his big brother. It could be because he was a married man with kids of his own now. A brand-new baby son, in fact, in addition to a teenage daughter who had discovered boys big time.
Did Nick finally understand what it was like to find yourself on the opposite side of a chasm from someone you loved, with no clear way to make the leap that would bring you back together?
Rafe felt a nudge against his arm. Nick was drawing his attention back to the front of the room, where his father seemed to have won the floor.
“…can argue this from now until Christmas,” Sam D’Angelo was telling them all.
In spite of the wheelchair, his father still had a commanding way about him. He’d turned sixty just a few months ago, but he was as powerful a presence in the room as he’d been years ago, when he’d stood by Rafe’s hospital bed and told him that he was no longer welcome in his house.
“So what do you suggest, Sam?” Sheriff Bendix asked.
“I suggest we form a committee to investigate the best theme ideas we’ve been able to come up with here. Explore all possibilities. Eliminate the most problematic of them, then bring the two most viable ones back to the group for a vote.”
“There have been an awful lot of ideas pitched tonight,” someone behind Rafe pointed out.
“Very few that have actually been thought out,” Sam said, waving away the
