Land of a Hundred Wonders

  Billy’s so desperate for me to remember. He’s running the tip of his tongue over his lush lips.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Nuthin’ seems to be comin’ back.”

  “It’s all right,” he says with a downhearted smile. “Maybe it takes a little time, is all.”

  I feel so horribly bad for him. Doesn’t seem like a person should be able to forget that they loved someone even if they are NQR. Important information like that should be stored in more than one place. Why hasn’t Clever told me about this romance between me and Billy? Golly, maybe she has.

  There’s an explosion at the bottom of the hill that makes me think of the crash. The both of us startle. Billy says, “Rrreminds me of . . .”

  “I know, I know.” Even though those gooks were America’s enemies, and he was just doing his job to keep the rest of us safe, he felt so bad about that bloodshedding that he came apart at the seams. That’s why the army sent him home early. Billy wears his heart on his sleeve now. “Ya did what you thought was right for your Uncle Sam,” I remind him.

  “It was a bbbad thing to do . . . all that kkkillin’.”

  What sad sacks we are. Him wishing I could remember and me wishing he could forget.

  Be real nice if Grampa was here right now, he’d say something so meaningful. Smart words that would make a direct hit to Billy’s heart. Because they both got damaged by war—Grampa on the outside, Billy on the inside—those two got something to talk about on nights like this. When certain things mean more than others. I bet Billy has not been taking his calming medicine. He can get extra weepy like this when he doesn’t.

  Pointing to the western sky, I exclaim, “There’s a shootin’ star! That’s a sign, plain as day, that the Lord is forgivin’ you from the bottom of His heart.”

  He won’t even look.

  “Ya know what I learned in the army?” he asks.

  “How to bounce a quarter off a bed and sneak through the woods silent as a vine?”

  “Yeah,” he says, like those skills aren’t nuthin’ to be proud of. “But I also learned that when it comes to people, we’re pretty much all the same. No matter what the color of our skin or the slantiness of our eyes. We were all scared over there the same amount.”

  “I would have to agree with you,” I say, thinking mostly of the color of skin since I don’t know anybody with slanted eyes ’cept for a cat of Miss Lydia’s she calls the King of Siam. What difference does it make what somebody looks like on the outside? The same things make life worth living for all of us, don’t they? A crunchy walk in the woods, your dog by your side. An afternoon on the lake, when all you got to do is think trout and one hops on your line. I guess some white folks believe the coloreds are different feeling on the inside ’cause they’re so different looking on the outside. That’s just not true. Coloreds got a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of soul. And they make the best damn pork barbecue.

  “What ya thinkin’ about?” Billy asks, so full of hope.

  “About the coloreds and how if what you said is true, ’bout them settin’ that fire on purpose, what bad trouble they’re gonna be in.”

  The silky hair under Billy’s arms is twirling in the breeze. His bare chest is brown and smooth as a pine table. Swiveling his head back toward our names in the heart, he says with such yearning, “Anything at all comin’ to mind?”

  “Not yet,” I tell him, but the campfire, the rock, it all seems so familiar. Something is jiggling my cents memory . . . something I can’t quite . . . and then suddenly, it’s like I’m watching the movie screen out at the 57. Oh, look . . . there’s Billy and me. We’re riding through a summer hay field, laughing, touching. Sweet-smelling clover is coating the air. And then the scene changes and we’re swinging off the Geronimo rope down at the beach . . . and then we’re lying around a campfire just like this one and I can feel the crackling heat on my cheeks. Yes. Here at Blackstone. His arms around me. In more than a friendly way. Our names entwined. Rock solid.

  Sweet, sweet Jesus. I really am remembering after all. Only this time it isn’t about Clever getting her driver’s license.

  Billy turns back to me, not seeing what I just saw in my mind. Us. “Ya given any thought to what you’d do if Grampa . . . if he . . . ?” He shakes his head. “All I want ya to know, to remember is . . . he’s not the only one cares for ya,” he says in a tore-down way.

  “Please . . . please don’t cry . . . ’cause I think it’s . . . I believe something is coming back to me. Not in a jar like you said, but ...”

  Raising those lovely eyes of his to mine, he must see true love radiating outta me because he doesn’t hesitate at all when he reaches out for me. Wraps me in his arms like a long-hoped-for gift. How could I have ever forgotten his warm cheek pressed against mine. These satin kisses. The home sweet homecomin’ feeling of Little Billy and me.

  The leftover smoke from Browntown is mixing in with my sidekick’s musky scent. My man, who’s curled close, musta woke up to stoke the fire and add some wood ’cause it’s still flickering. “You asleep?” Clever whispers.

  “No, I was just checkin’ for holes in my eyelids.” (That’s what I always say when she asks me that.) Rolling outta Billy’s arms and into hers, I ask, “What?”

  “It’s about time,” she says.

  “Now? You’re havin’ the birthin’ pains now?”

  Clever raises her eyes toward Billy. “I meant it’s about time you remembered him. He’s still got the engagement ring, ya know.”

  “I do indeed,” I say, showing her the sparkly band I got on my finger. That’s why Billy kept leaving me all those rings in our secret stump in the woods at Miz Tanner’s. And that jar of rice? That was a good hint. (Just in case you’re not familiar, that’s what ya throw at people after they get hitched.) “You knew all along we were plannin’ to get married, didn’t ya? Did ya tell me?”

  Clever’s breath is hitching when she answers, “I . . . we . . . when you never said nuthin’ after the crash, when you didn’t even recognize Billy, me and him and Grampa and Miss Jessie, we got just everybody to go along with not tellin’ ya about the wedding plans ’cause we thought the shock . . . it might be too much for your NQR brain to handle. We didn’t want to make ya worse, ya know? Did we do wrong?”

  “No, no, y’all did just fine. Please don’t cry,” I tell her, catching one of her tears with the tips of my fingers.

  Billy stirs. Sets his hand on my hip.

  “Sure you ain’t mad?” Clever asks, shivering some.

  Like Grampa always says, secrets bear down hard on a person’s foundation, and she’s kept this one for so long. Even though I really do wish she woulda told me, I cannot stand to see her crumbling. “I’m sure, Kid.”

  She draws her eyes close to mine. To see if I’m telling her the truth. “All right, then,” she says, satisfied. “Now we got all that past business put to bed, we need to talk about the future.” Clever places the palm of my hand on her tummy. On her baby. “I don’t believe the two of ya have been formally introduced. Butch, if you would be so kind,” she says in her asking-a-favor voice. “Please say hey to the newest member of our gang. Miss Rose . . . Rosie Adelaide.”

  “Rose? ’Cause of Grampa’s flowers?”

  Clever gives me her chipped-tooth grin.

  “And Adelaide . . . after my mama?”

  When she says, “Ya know how I always favored that name,” I try to answer with a lot of joyfulness, “Nice to meet ya, Rosie Adelaide. Charmed, I’m sure,” but memories come sneaking up on me—one of my grampa in that hospital bed, maybe dying, and another of Mama, already gone—and like a thief in the night, sorrow steals away all my words.

  Back Home

  Morning light is reflecting off the well-deserved gold stars on Billy’s shirt pocket. (His hair smells of wild lavender, by the way.) “Gonna go look around some,” he tells me, slinking off with a bashful smile. Thanks to that idiot Holloway, Keeper’s nursin’ a horrible hangover. Wouldn’t even suck
a raw egg, and he’s listing to port. Clever teases him, saying, “Ya know what ya need? What ya need is the hair of the dog, son.” (Since her mother is the town drunk, she is quite knowledgeable in these day-after-a-hoedown remedies.)

  When he gets done doing his Reconnaissance: The act of reconnoitering, especially to gain information about an enemy or a potential enemy, Billy comes back into the cave and tells Clever and me, “It looks bad down in Browntown. A couple of the shacks burned to the ground and the dump is rubble. But there’s no sign of Willard or the sheriff. Now’d be a good time to hightail it back to the cottage.”

  I would have to agree with him, as would Mr. Howard Redmond, who writes in The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation: Time is of the essence.

  So’s my loved ones.

  After I make sure all’s well in the cottage, after I breathe in Grampa’s smoky smell and say hello to Mama’s paintings, I head out to the lake ’cause I’ve discovered that for some reason, my brain works better the closer it gets to water. Right off, I open my leather-like up on the picnic table and remove the information card the nurse, Miss Tay Lewis, gave me the last time I was at the hospital. It’s got the afternoon visiting hours noon to two printed on the front. From where the sun’s in the sky, I can tell it’s around ten o’ clock, so that leaves me plenty of time. Whistling Billy’s gone looking for a box to pack Grampa’s things in and Clever’s humming like she doesn’t have a care in the world while she’s watering the roses. Even Keeper, who’s sleeping his hangover off out on the pier, is doing so with a smile on his snout.

  But me? Guess you could say I’m only semi-gleeful. Of course, I’m feeling thrilled about Billy and me reuniting. And his believing me. Last night, after a million and one satin kisses, we had bedroll talk. He’s the only one so far that didn’t pshaw me when I told him about finding Mr. Buster dead on Browntown Beach. But there’s another part of me that’s experiencing stomach-churning worry. And it’s not only about Grampa that I’m so worked up. What with all that’s come barreling at me the last coupla days, I haven’t had a bit of time to do any investigating of Mr. Buster’s murder. Sorry, Mama. I can’t write the awfully good story ’fore I solve the crime. And without the story and the resulting admiration beams jetting to heaven, you’re in the exact same position you were in when this all started. Restless.

  Done with her chore, Clever hikes herself up on top of the picnic table, a yellow rosebud pinning up her hair. “Whatcha got that weird look on your face for?”

  “I’m deep thinkin’.”

  “What for?”

  When the cottage phone starts clanging, I swing my legs off the bench and say, “Gotta get that. It’s probably Miss Jessie calling from the hospital.”

  I’m already halfway up the lawn when Clever yells something excited. I spin around to see what she’s so fired up about at the exact same moment Sheriff LeRoy Johnson steps out from behind a big elm not more’n a yard away from me. “Looks like the lost sheep have finally found their way home,” he says, put out. (One thing I gotta say for the citizenry of Cray Ridge—even though pound for pound most of ’em are what you’d consider fat as hell, they’re light on their feet. Must be from all the hunting they do.)

  “Be right back, Sheriff,” I say, trying to scoot around him. “The phone’s ringing off its hook.”

  “It’ll wait.” He latches on to my elbow and practically drags me back down to the picnic table. Depositing me next to Clever, he says, “I got a few questions to ask the two of you.”

  Oh, I just bet he does. But actually? I don’t have time to mess with him. Taking care of Grampa and Mama are #1 and #2 on my VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO list for the day, so I’m gonna take my chances and tell the sheriff the truth. That we don’t have that stupid treasure map. That Cooter Smith and Sneaky Tim Ray stole it from us, so he should go hunt them down and leave us be. He can’t beat up all of us. Can he?

  “Sheriff, about the . . . ,” I try.

  “Why’d ya take off into the woods last night?” he asks Clever, ignoring me like I’m part of the landscape. (The reason he’s chosen to give her the third degree instead of me is because he thinks she’s the weakest link. Not finishing high school and all.)

  “Ya hear me?” the sheriff asks, bending not more’n four inches from her face, and I’m staggered. Though a lout, LeRoy’s not dumb, and should know by now that getting Clever Lever to cooperate with the law gives new meaning to the word Futile: Useless. The girl’s got the will of a mustang.

  I tug on his sleeve. “Sheriff, about . . .”

  “The coloreds burned the dump down last night,” he says, still not taking his hog eyes offa Clever, who’s braiding the ends of her hair and acting all la de da. “And this morning when the smoke cleared, guess who we found in the ashes, burned alive.”

  “Who?” I ask, searching around in my briefcase for my blue spiral. This sounds like breaking news!

  “Buster Malloy,” the sheriff says.

  “WHAT?” I shout. “Why, that’s just—”

  “We already got somebody under arrest for that murder.” LeRoy reaches into his pocket and draws out a pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco. “Thought ya might like to know who that somebody is, Carol.”

  “Why’d I care who killed Buster? He was nuthin’ but another fat old fart who—”

  “Clever!” I scream out before she can say something she’s going to have to pay dearly for.

  Hearing my call of distress, Billy barrels out of the cottage, whoaing at my side. And I’m just gettin’ ready to explain what this prevaricatin’ bully just told us, about Mr. Buster Malloy being found dead at the dump, when LeRoy bends back down toward Clever and says in his most taunting voice, “The reason I thought ya’d be interested in who killed Buster is . . . well.” He pauses to smirk. “It’s a friend of yours we got locked up good and tight.”

  “Ya don’t say.” Clever’s returning smirk could win a blue ribbon,because, really, when it gets down to it, me and Billy and Miss Florida and Grampa are the only friends she’s got, and not one of us is sitting down at the sheriff station behind those black bars. “And who might that friend be?” she asks, so sure of herself.

  The sheriff slips the chaw behind his lip and says, “Why, that’d be Cooter Smith.”

  (Damn it. I forgot about Cooter.)

  Clever gasps, and Billy’s struggling to keep his breathing regular and not doing that good a job.

  “But that’s not right, that’s not . . . ,” I yell before Billy shakes his head at me ever so slightly, letting me know now’s not the time.

  The sheriff says, “We got that uppity boy dead to rights this time. Even got an eyewitness.”

  Clearly shaken, but refusing to back down, Clever sasses, “And who’d that be?”

  The sheriff looks as smug as a bug in a rug. “Tim Ray Holloway will testify in a court of law that him and Cooter and Buster were playin’ a game of craps over in back of Mamie’s and when the dice didn’t go his way, Cooter lost this temper and beat on Buster ’til he was dead. And threatened he’d do the same to Tim Ray if’n he didn’t help him drag Buster’s body onto the dump so he could set it afire.”

  It takes mighty focus for me not to shout out, Why, you lyin’ red-faced baboons! Even though everybody knows that Mr. Buster Malloy had a love of craps, he’s been dead for days already over at Browntown Beach!

  Nuts. I bet I know what he did. When I went back to look for Mr. Buster the other afternoon? And I found that he had up and disappeared like Mr. Harry Houdini? The sheriff musta stole him right out from under my nose! And then he dragged that dead body over to the dump for the sole purpose of trying to pin this crime on Cooter Smith because he hates him with his whole heart.

  (I believe this would be considered a perfect example of what Mr. Howard Redmond calls in his excellent book: A frame-up: A fraudulent incrimination of an innocent person.)

  But ha! on you, sheriff. I got proof Mr. Buster was murdered on that Browntown sand and
NOT the dump. I got pictures!

  Uh-oh.

  Just remembered those shots of Mr. Buster are missing from my stack. Maybe somebody from down at Bob’s Drug Emporium put them in the wrong envelope? Right after my visit to Grampa at the hospital, I’m gonna make a beeline over there.

  “Well, been real nice visitin’ with y’all, but I got a prisoner to tend to.” Turning to leave, the sheriff stops with a chuckle. “Just recalled the main reason I came up here in the first place.” Pointing back and forth between me and Clever, he says, “I believe the two of you got something that belongs to that gentleman who lives next door.” He takes out a pad from his back pocket and flips a few pages. “Mr. Willard called down to the station last night to report that he’s missin’ a map of some sort. Said y’all stole it from him.” LeRoy takes a giant step back toward the picnic table, saying, “Ya don’t mind I have a look in your briefcase for it, do ya, Miss Gibby?” Before I can answer, I certainly do, Sheriff, I mind a whole lot, he’s already plucking at one of the leather-like’s compartments with his porky fingers. Then another. Rustling around the bottom, and not finding what he’s looking for, he slams it shut with a lotta show and says to Clever, “Maybe you’s the one hiding that map, Carol.”

  “Map? What map?” she says in her most innocent-of-all-wrongdoin’s voice. “I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Ya weren’t over at Browntown last night, were ya? Spendin’ the night with the Smith boy? Maybe ya even helped him murder Buster. I know how ya favor the coloreds.” He comes in close enough to sniff Clever, maybe for dump smoke. Or barbecue sauce.

  Clever hawks and spits to the side, says, “Why, no I wasn’t, and no I didn’t, LeRoy. Ya know, I could swear I already tol’ you that. Seems to me”—she bobs her eyebrows at me—“what we got here is a failure to communicate.”