Since the Lord had not shown any indication that the medicinal use of wine was against His wishes, Abe and Shorty rationalized that everything must be copasetic. So, for the next three evenings they made their nightly visits to Miller’s store and the abandoned bowling alley where the three of them shared a pint. Meager rations for men who were used to putting that much away in two or three swallows. Splitting it with Horace made it even worse. By the time they got back to the sleeping room each night they had already walked off any benefit the alcohol may have brought to their systems. Things just weren’t working out, but they were afraid to increase their allotment without getting a direct approval from the Lord.
“Maybe we should’ve got His okay first,” Shorty said as they exited Miller’s with two pints instead of one.
Abe shrugged. “If He says it’s too much we just won’t drink both of them tonight. We’ll save one for tomorrow.”
“That’d probably work,” Shorty said with a nod of approval.
“Let’s go ask Him,” Abe said, stuffing his bottle into a jacket pocket.
Having finalized their plan they turned at the corner and headed in the opposite direction of the boarded-up bowling alley.
“Ya know, Mr. Douglas,” Shorty said as they walked down the street towards Guthrie’s Mercantile. “It seems kind of strange doesn’t it. I mean us being together like this and talkin’ to the Lord, and everything. It’s kind of like a fairy tale.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, Mr. McDougal, but I guess you’re right. I don’t ever remember getting along with anybody like me and you have. As far as talking to the Lord, well, it ain’t natural, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s what I was tryin’ to say,” Shorty said. He looked back over his shoulder. “Where’s yer dog?”
Abe glanced around. “I thought he was with us.” He called Horace a couple of times then shrugged it off. “Oh, he’ll be along. Let’s hurry it up.”
After four days of repetition Horace knew the routine. When the men stopped in the liquor store he headed straight for the bowling alley. But when Abe and Shorty didn’t show up after a few minutes he started backtracking and caught up with them just as they were opening the first bottle in the Lord’s alley.
“I was hopin’ ya’d given up on us,” Shorty said when Horace sat down at their feet. “I suppose yer wantin’ some of this.” He motioned to Abe that the motorcycle casing Horace had used before was under the trash bin. “Here’s to ya,” he said, and poured a small measure into the casing. Then he and Abe passed the bottle back and forth, each taking small mouthfuls and letting their tongues absorb the alcohol slowly. Still, in a matter of minutes the bottle was empty and the Lord hadn’t shown up. They took that as a good sign. Abe held up the second bottle and Shorty nodded an okay. In another few minutes that one was gone as well and the Lord still hadn’t come to see them.
They settled back against the wall and let the wine warm their innards.
“Mr. Douglas?” Shorty asked a little while later.
“Huh?”
“Do ya think He’s fergotten us?”
“I was kind of wondering about that myself, Mr. McDougal.”
“Ya know it’s been over a week since we’ve seen Him.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Abe, absently twisting the cap on and off the bottle. “Maybe we’ve done all He wanted us to do.”
Shorty stared at the brick wall across from them. “It’s sort of strange, isn’t it? Him comin’ like that? Tellin’ us to get cleaned up then just leavin’ without another word?”
“Maybe He doesn’t care anymore,” Abe said after a moment’s thought. “Or maybe He’s just too busy. I don’t know, Mr. McDougal. Maybe it wasn’t the Lord in the first place. Have you wondered about that?”
“That thought’s crossed me mind more than once, Mr. Douglas. But whatever the case, ya know we’re bein’ awful hard on ourselves with the rationin’ and all.”
Horace nudged his casing over to Abe’s foot. “Sorry, boy. It’s all gone,” Abe said. “And I guess the Lord is too.” He got up and tossed the bottle into the big bin. “Come on, Mr. McDougal. Let’s go home.”
With Horace lagging far behind them they moped along until they reached Miller’s Store which was still open. As if they had one mind between them they both stopped at the same time and stared longingly through the window. The temptation was overpowering. “Supposing I was right about the Lord being through with us, Mr. McDougal,” Abe said, after a moment of watching three other customers walk out with their brown bags. He didn’t wait for Shorty to answer him. “You wait here for Horace, I’m going in to get some more and we’ll go over to the bowling alley.”
Shorty bobbed his head. “Yer a man after me own heart,” he said as Abe opened the door. “Make it a couple of big ones.”
Horace had yet to show up when Abe came out of the store and asked about him. “We’d better go check on him, “ Abe said, although that meant they would be heading away from the bowling alley and back towards the Lord’s alley. They were almost back to Guthrie’s Mercantile when they spotted the old dog plodding around the corner of Fast Albert’s cycle shop. “He must have gone to sleep,” Abe reckoned aloud.
Shorty stopped and started to turn. “It’s gettin’ late, Mr. Douglas,” he said. “Seein’ as he’s okay, I’m thinkin’ we’d better be gettin’ on over to the bowlin’ alley.”
“As slow as he’s walking,” Abe argued, pointing to Horace, “it’d take him an hour to get there. And I don’t want to wait that long, do you? We’re here, we might as well stay.”
Shorty eyed the alley entrance then the dog then Abe. “Oh, I suppose it really doesn’t matter,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “Let’s go.”
Horace was just meeting them. “Come on, boy,” Abe said. The old dog slowly reversed his course and followed them back into the alley.
“Just like old times, huh, Mr. McDougal?” Abe said after they had gulped down a couple of long draws from their bottles.
Shorty wiped a dribble off his chin with a coat sleeve. “Mighty tasty, Mr. Douglas. Here’s to ya.” He tipped his bottle again and drank down another hearty amount.
Horace padded up a few swigs later, laid down, wrapped his forepaws around the casing and waited silently for his share.
“Do you like it here, Mr. McDougal?” Abe asked as he poured the old dog a drink.
“It’s some better than the bowlin’ alley,” McDougal replied. “At least I can see who I’m talkin’ to here.”
Abe shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean the alley, here. I meant Midvale. Do you like it here in Midvale?”
Shorty set his bottle down near the rain-spout. “Oh, it’s all right, I suppose. What’re you drivin’ at?”
“I was just wondering if it’s about time to hit the road again. Washington, maybe. That’s where you said you were going this summer, isn’t it?”
“That was me plan ‘til I met up with you. Then things got kind of skiwiffy with the Lord and all.”
“You think this is all my fault, don’t you?” Abe asked, giving Shorty a stern look.
Shorty lowered his eyes from Abe’s glare. “Well, no. That is I couldn’t say fer certain that it was all yer doin’. But it’s never happened to me before.”
“Me neither,” Abe flashed. “I didn’t ask Him to look us up.”
“That’s me point, Mr. Douglas,” Shorty said, raising his eyebrows. “He didn’t come down here to find us. He came lookin’ fer Abraham, if ya recall. I don’t know why, and I’m not faultin’ ya, but the thought has crossed me mind that if I’d not been with ya, it’s possible that He still wouldn’t be knowing me whereabouts.”
“So, you’re sorry we ever met?”
“I didn’t say that, Mr. Douglas.” Shorty laid a hand on Abe’s shoulder. “Puttin’ the Lord aside fer a minute, yer the best friend I’ve ever had. As long as ya’ll have me around, I’ll
be here fer ya.”
“Even if the Lord decides to come back?” Abe asked.
“To be honest with ya, I’m thinkin’ He ain’t comin’ back. But even if He…” he trailed off. “What’s that?” He pointed across the alley to a tiny green ball that seemed to be bouncing in and out of the bricks a foot off the pavement. It looked as though someone was dribbling a phosphorescent ping-pong ball against the wall, but no one was there.
Abe strained to watch the movement. “Beats me,” he said. “Maybe it’s time we got out of here.”
Shorty leaned over at the waist. “It looks like a torchlight of some kind but I’ve never seen one that color. Kinda fascinatin’, ain’t it?”
Abe set his bottle down next to Shorty’s, got on his knees and motioned to Shorty that he was going to crawl over to get a better idea of what it might be. But before he could move, the dot of light mushroomed to the size of a baseball. He slammed back against the Irishman and huddled into him. For a moment the ball hung motionless in mid air as its color changed to a brilliant laser red. It pulsed twice then suddenly dissolved, leaving the alley so dark that none of them could see what the others were doing.
Trying to save himself from being trampled by the two frantic men, Horace kicked his casing dish out of the way and scrambled to get his feet under him. The casing ricocheted off the garbage bin and Horace kicked it again. This time Abe could hear it spinning down the alley “This way,” he yelled. All three of them dashed out of the alley as fast and as straight as they could under the circumstances and huffed their way to the Salvation Army Center. Horace hid under his pile of rags while Abe and Shorty bypassed Peon’s empty desk and headed for the stairwell.
It was early yet and the sleeping room was unoccupied. Abe flicked the lights on and ran down the row of beds to the shower room where he doused himself with several splashes of cold water. McDougal took a more direct approach and stepped into the shower stall, clothes and all, and turned the cold tap all the way on. It was twenty minutes before either of them felt they were sober enough to talk about it.
“He must be awful angry with us,” Shorty spoke first, after they had dried off and changed their clothes.
“Yeah,” Abe said, agreeing with Shorty’s intuition on the matter. “I wonder why He didn’t say anything?”
“Awful, awful angry,” Shorty said, shaking his head.
Abe sat down on his cot and put his face in his hands. “I sure wish we hadn’t been talking about Him like we were. He could have done us in right there for that, Mr. McDougal. Do you know that? Just zapped us and we’d have been gone. I wonder why He didn’t?”
Shorty had a blank look on his face. “That’s a tough one, Mr. Douglas. From what I’ve heard of Him, He’d do it without so much as blinkin’ an eye.”
Abe stared off into the emptiness of the room to collect his thoughts. “Maybe, Mr. McDougal, that wasn’t Him tonight,” he finally spoke his mind and Shorty let out a gasp at the remark. “Well, it didn’t look like Him, really,” Abe went on to finish his train of thought. “And not speaking to us, that’s not like Him either, is it?”
The idea that what they saw may not have been the Lord sparked the Irishman’s curiosity. “Fer the sake of argument, let’s say it wasn’t Him after all. What is it ya’d be proposin’ it was, Mr. Douglas?”
Abe narrowed his eyes and gave Shorty a very serious look. “I don’t know yet, Mr. McDougal, but tomorrow we ought to go back over there in the daylight and see if we can figure it out.”
“Are ya thinkin’ someone could be trickin’ us?”
“That’s possible don’t you think? Or maybe we’re just imagining the whole thing. If you think about it, it only happens when we’ve drank a little too much.”
“Well, as fer me,” McDougal said, shifting nervously around on his cot, “I know what I saw and I know I saw it. I just don’t know what it was I saw, don’t ya see? It wasn’t just in me mind.”
Abe’s brow furrowed as he tried to keep up with Shorty’s sputtering. “Does that mean you’ll go with me tomorrow and look around, or not?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t be missin’ it,” Shorty said with a nod of his head.
Immediately after breakfast Abe and Shorty approached Captain Hedges to ask his permission to take a couple of hours off to check on a friend they hadn’t heard from in a while.
“I hope everything’s okay,” Hedges said as he approved their absence.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure He’s doing fine, it’s just that we’d like to see for ourselves,” Abe answered. “We shouldn’t be too long.”
“So we’ll just be off then, Capt’n,” Shorty said to close the conversation, then ushered Abe out of the office.
Horace tagged along until they started to enter the alley to do their detecting. He stopped short, whimpered once then turned tail and left at a trot. He was well on his way back to his bed when Abe and Shorty sat down beside the big trash bin to start their investigation.
“Now, we were sitting right here,” Abe said, holding up the two nearly full wine bottles they had left by the rainspout. Shorty nodded a ‘yes’. “And the light came from right over there.” He pointed a bottle at the bottom of the opposite wall.
“That’s the exact spot,” Shorty agreed as he etched the spot in his mind. They got onto their knees to keep a level sighting of the spot and crawled over the rough pavement to the wall.
“Right here,” Abe said, touching the tip of a finger to the bricks.
“Ah, ha!” McDougal exclaimed a find. “Would ya have a look at this, Mr. Douglas?” He bent over to eye the end of a small diameter pipe that was embedded in a mortar joint between two bricks. It was eight or nine inches to the right of their reckoning point but close enough to have been the source of the light.
“What’d you find?” Abe said excitedly, almost in the Irishman’s ear. He pushed Shorty out of his line of vision and put his own eye in position to peer into the tiny hole.
“Can ya see through it?” Shorty asked, pushing his face up next to Abe’s.
“No, I can’t. Will you give me some room, here?”
McDougal cowered back. “I just wanted a wee look meself,” he said.
Abe pulled back. “Go ahead, but I just told you there’s nothing there to see.”
Shorty held a hand up to shield the light and pushed his nose against the brick. “Yer absolutely right, Mr. Douglas. I can’t see a thing. But that doesn’t necessarily mean our thinkin’s all that wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Abe said, giving him an odd look.
Shorty sat back on his haunches and rolled his eyebrows as he deduced his thoughts. “If it was me on the other side of the wall wantin’ to put the fear of the Lord into someone, I’d be pluggin’ me hole up when I was done. Isn’t that what you’d be doin’ if ya didn’t want to get caught in the act, so to speak?”
Abe’s face lit up in a wide smile. “Mr. McDougal, that’s exactly what I’d do,” he said, giving Shorty a firm pat on the back.
The little man bobbled his head and chuckled at his accomplishment in figuring out the great puzzle. He picked up a piece of paper and started wadding it into a little ball. “Well, we’ll just be fixin’ that,” he said with a snicker, and attempted to stuff the wad into the end of the pipe.
Abe grabbed his hand. “Wait a minute. Let’s just leave it like it is and come back tonight and have some fun with it.”
“Ya mean to backfire the joke on him?” Shorty asked with a laugh in his voice.
Abe winked at him. “Come on,” he said, walking to the trash bin. “We’ll figure out something at work.” He put the caps back on the two bottles, hid them away in the rainspout and sent Shorty for Horace’s casing dish to put under them to hold them in place.
Under a steely blue sky that evening Abe and Shorty giggled their way back to the alley to pull their big surprise on the culprit behind the hole in the wall. Horace joined them
in the walk but as they neared the alley it was apparent that he had had enough of the place. He did not want to go in. When they got to the alley’s entrance he sat down and whimpered.
“Come on, Horace. Come on, boy,” Abe called, trying his best to coax Horace into joining them but the old dog was adamant.
“Shhh! Just leave him,” Shorty said quickly. “Do ya want the law comin’ down on us again? Let’s just begin without him. He’ll be along in a minute or two.” Abe nodded, and Shorty walked over to the rainspout. “I’ll just get the bottles and we’ll sit over there closer to the wall.” He retrieved the bottles and they guzzled down a big swig each, after which Abe dug a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pint of Kentucky bourbon.
“Where’d ya get that?” Shorty said in a surprised tone.
“I’ve been saving it for a special occasion,” Abe said, looking at the bottle. “It’s my birthday tomorrow, but now’s as good a time as any to celebrate it. Here,” he said, handing the bottle to Shorty, “have a real drink.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” McDougal said, taking the bottle. “So it’s yer birthday? I didn’t know that.” He uncapped the bottle and tilted it to Abe. “Well, here’s wishin’ ya all the best in the New Year and flushin’ away all the bad in the last.” He toasted, then poured a slug into his mouth, closed his eyes and swallowed. “Waaaahah…” he coughed as the heavy liquid burned its way to his stomach.
Abe took a hefty amount for himself. “Goo…oo...ood stuff,” he wheezed then swallowed a drink of wine to kill the fire in his throat.
They passed the whisky back and forth until it and their wine was gone, and they were drunker than they had been since their first night in town at Carson’s place. So occupied were they with their drinking that neither of them noticed the orb of green light until Abe put a hand up to see if he was still wearing his hat. His eyes caught the glimmer as it danced a little circle on the wall in front of them. He slapped Shorty on the arm. “It sheems to me, Mishter McDougal, that the time ish at hand,” he slurred, and winked both eyes at the Irishman.
As they had planned, this was the signal for McDougal to put the scheme into action. He gave Abe the double-eyed returning wink, opened his jacket front and fished around for the piece of tree branch he had stowed away earlier. He found it then took out a sock and wrapped it tightly around his right hand. The light intensified. “That’s mussh better,” Shorty said, now that he could clearly see the pipe. He positioned his stick just under the hole and waved two fingers in the air to let Abe know that he was ready for phase two.
Seeing that McDougal was ready, Abe set his attention on the bouncing of the light. When he figured it was about to land on the end of the pipe he clinked the bottom of a bottle on the pavement. That was Shorty’s cue to ram the stick down the pipe and destroy someone’s very expensive flashlight at the other end.
When Shorty heard the clinking sound he moved as quickly as he could to line the stick up with the pipe. When he thought it was in the right place he drew back his right hand and slammed it against the end of the stick. The stick sped like a rocket down the pipe for four inches, then came to a dead stop and broke into three pieces. Shorty yelped and started shaking his hand. Had the stick not been so rotten it would have surely penetrated the sock and attached itself to his palm.
Abe hurriedly crawled over to him to see why he yelped and to check on the outcome of their plan. The light obliged by blossoming into a cloud-like ball that lit up the entire alley around them. Abe scooted up to McDougal who was rubbing the palm of his hand vigorously on his pants-leg. “What happened?” he asked, and looked down to check the pipe.
“Me damned shtick broke!” Shorty wailed.
At this remark the light flared and rumbled in a deep voice. “The twig was not damned, Thomas. But you two are coming very close to that possibility yourselves.”
Still too drunk to realize the true extent of what was happening Abe swung around to see where the voice was coming from. Just as quickly, he turned back to look at the pipe which was partially filled with the remains of the tree branch. “Was that you?” he asked Shorty.
Shorty edged over to whisper in his ear. “I’m thinkin’ ya made a terrible mishtake in yer judgment of the shituashun, Mr. Douglas.”
“What do you mean, I made a mishtake?” Abe said. “You were in charge of gettin’ a proper shtick.”
“I ain’t talkin’ about me shtick.”
“Then what are you talkin’ about?”
Shorty made a thumbs-up motion and rolled his eyes upwards.
Abe’s eyes followed the two movements until he was looking straight above them and into the bright light. “Oh, Lord!” he gasped, and dropped his gaze to the pavement.
“If you are quite finished,” the light said. Heads down, they both nodded, and the light continued. “In our opinion you are equally at fault, and that is not pleasing to us. To answer your questions, you have not been forgotten, but our patience is growing thin.”
The strong words from the light brought a sudden and total sobering to their minds, as if the party had never occurred. Abe raised his head for a second then looked back down. “You had something you wanted to say, Abraham?” the light asked. Abe shook his head, but McDougal raised a hand. “Yes, Thomas?”
“Is it true, Lord,” Shorty said, squinting into the light, “all those awful things they say about ya?”
The brightness of the light ebbed a bit. “Everything has some truth in it, Thomas,” the light said without really answering his question, but it made sense to McDougal. He drew his knees into his chest and tried to shrivel up.
“I’m thinkin’ we’re in a lot of trouble,” he whispered to Abe, and closed his eyes.
“You are not in that much trouble yet,” the light said in a solemn but threatening tone. “But if you do not take action to change your habits very soon we will be sorely tempted to change them for you. Now, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
The top of Shorty’s baseball cap moved back and forth in several quick little jerks
“Would we?” the light blared.
“No,” Abe finally answered for both of them.
“Good,” the light said, in a more civil tone. “Now, just to make absolutely sure that we have an understanding this time, when you were told to cleanse yourselves, we were not referring to your clothing.”
Abe inspected his hands, turning them over twice to check his palms and fingernails then he held them up and looked back into the light. "We tried, Lord, honestly we did, but some of this dirt’s going to take a while to wear off.”
The light flickered briefly. “Let us rephrase it, Abraham. We want all the drinking stopped now!”
Abe turned to Shorty who was still sitting in the tucked position with his head between his knees. “Did you hear that, Mr. McDougal? No more drinking.” McDougal’s cap bobbed up and down. “He heard you, Lord,” Abe said on Shorty’s behalf. “And I promise I’ll never touch another drop. We’ve learned our lesson, Lord. From now on we won’t drink anything stronger than coffee. Isn’t that right, Mr. McDougal?” When Shorty didn’t respond, Abe elbowed him. The little man flinched like he had been hit with a hammer. “The Lord’s waiting for you to tell Him you’re through with the drinking,” Abe said, pointing above them.
McDougal slowly raised his head. “You can be certain of it, Lord. Ya’ve got me word on it. Now, what’re ya goin’ to do to us?” he said in a shaky little voice.
“Thomas?” The light softened as it spoke his name. “Stand up.”
“Yes, Sir,” McDougal snapped, and quickly got to his feet.
“This is not a schoolroom, Thomas. I am not your teacher, and regardless of what you have heard, we are here to help you, not to destroy you.”
The little man’s face reflected the deep relief he felt. He took off his cap. “Ya’ll never have a more loyal supporter than Thomas McDougal,” he sa
id, putting his arm around Abe’s waist. “And that goes fer Mr. Douglas, here, as well.” The distant wail of a siren seemed to affirm the Irishman’s oath.
“Good,” the light said as a final remark. “We will be holding you both accountable to that.” With a great burst of brilliance, it was gone.
“Lord?” Abe called out too late. He turned to Shorty. “I wanted to ask Him what we’re supposed to do. Or did He tell us and I missed it?”
“I ain’t the right one to be askin’,” Shorty said, sitting back down next to Abe. “I was so busy recountin’ me life and worrin’ about where I’d be spendin’ me next one that the only part I recall is about us not bein’ destroyed.”
They sat silently for a long while letting the experience roll over in their minds. “We can’t keep this to ourselves,” Abe said at long last, echoing the workings of his heavily laden mind. “He must want us to tell someone.”
McDougal looked as though he was at a total loss. “Do ya have anyone in mind?”
“Captain Hedges, I guess,” Abe said, but it sounded like he was already having second thoughts.
“What if he takes it like Brother Elkins did?” Shorty said.
“I know,” Abe answered. “But who else do we know?” He paused for a second then his face lit up. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, standing and pulling Shorty to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Shorty held onto Abe’s hand and balked. “Where’re we goin’?” he asked, trying to keep Abe at bay. “What’ve ya got in mind?”
“Just follow me, Mr. McDougal,” Abe said as he moved towards the alley entrance towing the confused little man along. “Oh, no!” he gasped when they exited the alley and he saw the police car with Robins and Clements in it. Robins screeched the repaired cruiser to a stop after jumping it over the curb right in front of Abe and Shorty.
“Top of the evenin’ to ya, Officer,” Shorty said, and politely tipped his cap as Clements came bumbling out of the car.
“Up against the wall,” Clements fired at them, and pulled his nightstick out to reinforce his order if necessary. It wasn’t necessary. Abe and Shorty faced the wall and put their hands over their heads. With total disregard for their comfort, Clements slapped his hands roughly up and down their pant legs. The frisking done, he spun them around to face him. “Okay,” he growled, “where’s the dog?”
“The dog?” Abe asked, surprised by the question.
Clements contorted his face into a most frightening visage. ”Yeah, I said the dog. You know, woof-woof, red hair?”
Not wanting to lie and not having the quick answer Clements was demanding, Abe flashed a ‘Help me’ look at McDougal.
Shorty jumped in. “Ya realize, don’t ya, that the Lord’s got his eye on ya this very minute?”
The officer’s distorted face twisted up even more. “You realize that I’m the law, don’t you?”
Abe jerked back when he said it. “There’s no doubt in our minds of that, Officer,” he said quickly.
“And yer doin’ a wonderful job,” added Shorty.
“So, where’s the dog?” Clements repeated his original question.
The brief exchange had given Abe time to fathom an answer. “We honestly don’t know where he is right now,” he said.
“It was an awful fright ya put in him with yer stick,” Shorty added. “It’s possible he’s gone ferever.”
Clements glared at them. “Uh-huh,” he grunted his disbelief of their stories then slammed his night-stick against the wall between them.
“Clem?” Robins leaned over the car seat and called. “We gotta be going.”
“Just a second,” Clements answered, holding up a hand. “You got lucky this time,” he said, turning back to Abe and Shorty. “But if we should happen to see that sorry excuse of a dog,” he paused to smack the stick against his palm. “Well, you get the picture, don’t you?”
“Get a move on!” Robins yelled over the static of his radio.
“Remember what I said,” Clements called back over his shoulder as he opened the car door and got one foot inside. At the same time Horace came wagging around the opposite corner of the Mercantile building.
“Get yerself outta here!” McDougal warned.
Horace stopped dead in his tracks, and Clements started climbing back out of the car, his face glowing red. “What did you say?” he screamed.
“I said, God bless yer mother dear,” Shorty quickly lied, and sent a little wave to the fuming officer.
Clements mumbled some unintelligible curse and threw an arm in the air to accent his frustration, then forgetting to duck his head he slid into the car. His fancy blue cap with the gold braid and the silver shield on it hit the top of the door’s frame, fell off and plopped into the puddle of dirty water from the leaky spigot in front of the store.
To Robins it looked like Clements had finally got into the car. He hit the accelerator. Clements still had the door open and was reaching to pick up his hat. “Stop! Stop!” he yelled, but he wasn’t fast enough with his hand or his shouting. The front tire dropped off the curb onto his hat and splashed the muddy water all over his outstretched arm. Robins reacted as fast as he could and slammed on the brakes.
“No! No!” Clements yelled again as the front wheels locked up and drug his hat out of the water.
“What do you want me to do?” Robins yelled back at him.
“Just stop,” Clements said. “Don’t move, okay?” Robins nodded, and Clements got out of the car and looked down at his hat under the tire. He gave Robins a hand motion to back up, and Robins hit the accelerator again. “Easy!” Clements screamed, then bent down to pick up what was left of his hat. He shook his head as he carried the mess back to the car with the reverence one might show a stricken animal. “Look what you did!” he blamed Robins as he slumped back into the cruiser.
Leaving the two officers to sort out who was at fault, Abe and Shorty hurried to get out of their sight and find Horace before they did. They scurried around the corner where they had last seen the old dog and found him crouched behind a small bush that concealed only his head. “They’re after you for sure,” Abe said as he and Shorty slowed just long enough to warn the old dog. “You’d better never let them see you.” Horace rose up and fell in behind them.
“Keep low, me lad, they’re right on our tails,” McDougal cautioned when Robins touched off his siren and fishtailed around the corner on his way to a more important call. Fearful that the officers would return they quickened their pace and headed home.
Ezra Taft and two other men were entering the door to the Salvation Army Center when Abe and Shorty arrived. “It looks like we’re not going to be able to talk up there,” Abe said referring to the sleeping room. “But we do need to talk. Let’s go around to Horace’s place.”
Horace had already settled in. “So what’s yer plan?” Shorty asked after they moved the old dog out and sat on his bed.
“I might be wrong in this, Mr. McDougal. But it seems to me that the only people who might listen to us is people like us. You know, guys like Ezra Taft and, who was that fellow you were telling me about?”
“Ya mean Charlie Belew?”
“Yeah, him. Those guys might believe us.”
“I wouldn’t be countin’ on it, Mr. Douglas. Mr. Belew ain’t no one to be messin’ with. That’s why I told ya about him. He’s a mean one and I’m thinkin’ he might be a little crazy, too.”
“Well, maybe not him, but you know what I mean.”
Shorty took his cap off and twisted it around as he thought on the idea.
“That’s the only thing I can think to do,” Abe said.
“Well, if ya think it’d work let’s go up there and try it out on Mr. Taft and his friends,” McDougal said, and started to get up.
Abe held a hand up to stop him. “Not just yet,” he said. “I was thinking more along the lines of a meeting. You know, get a bunch of them together a
nd tell them all at the same time.”
“How do you suppose we could be doin’ that?” McDougal asked like it was an impossible feat.
Abe patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to leave that up to you, Mr. McDougal. I’ve got some studying to do.”
Shorty did a double-take with his eyes. “Yer askin’ me to round ‘em all up?” he asked in a loud voice.
“No,” Abe answered. “I’m telling you. Get as many as you can together and we’ll have our meeting in the Lord’s alley tomorrow night at eight o’clock.”
Shorty shook his head. “I’m thinkin’ yer as crazy as Charlie Belew. Do you know what yer doin’? When this is all over tomorrow night we’ll fer certain be leavin’ town and it won’t be because we want to…” He stopped short of making his whole point and a look of deep understanding shone on his face. “Oh, now I see what yer up to,” he continued. “Ya know we’ll be laughed outta town don’t ya? That way we can leave without getting’ the Lord’s permission. I knew ya should’ve been a doctor. That’s a smart move, Mr. Douglas.”
Abe stared at him blankly. “I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, Mr. McDougal. I just think I’ve got to do it this way. You just get everyone you can to come to the alley. Now I’ve got to go see the Captain before he goes to bed.”
“Ya goin’ to tell him?”
“No, I’m going to borrow a bible.”
Chapter 12