Land of a Hundred Wonders

  Her vengeful self is practically vibrating in victory when she hisses back, “Miz Tanner left this note for ya,” and spins an envelope across the desk at me that looks like it’s already been opened and licked closed again by her been-all-around-town tongue.

  Dear Gibby,

  We’re taking Charlie to Houston, Texas. Dr. Sam has arranged for him to see a special doctor who’s going to perform heart surgery on him. Sorry we couldn’t wait. Big Bill is piloting us. He’s also promised to send some of his boys to help out at the farm.

  Your grampa wants you to say your prayers to you know who and go stay with Mr. and Mrs. Bailey until he gets back. And keep away from Browntown.

  Miss Jessie

  “How long is this all s’posed to take?” I ask Darlene, trying like hell not to give her the satisfaction of seeing me sob in relief. “In other words, when’s Grampa gonna be back home?”

  “I’m sure I don’t have the slightest idea. Take care now, ya hear?” she says, when her receptionist phone starts ringing. On my way out the sliding glass doors, I hear her yowl, “Cooter Smith murdered Buster Malloy? And he’s ’scaped? A reward? How much?”

  Outside in the parking lot, pausing to get my bearings, I look up to the western sky. Lightning’s swimming through the black clouds like electric eels. As I hurry back to the truck, it’s easy for this trained investigator to perceive two things.

  Another storm is headed our way.

  And that varmint Darlene Abernathy is one hard-hearted woman.

  Like a Greased Pig

  When I fired up the truck engine, Cooter was dead to the world and is only just now rejoining us living as I steer us out onto Route 12. “How was Grampa feelin’?” he asks, cranking down the window farther, not that it’ll help. The air’s hanging like velvet.

  I pass him the letter Miss Jessie left for me.

  When he’s done reading, Cooter says, “He’ll like bein’ back in Texas, don’t ya think?”

  “He will. He’ll like that a lot.” I wish I coulda gotten his Johnny Cash records and whittling knife to him ’fore he left. I hope that Houston is near a lake. He needs a lake. And his peach schnapps.

  Cooter asks, “Where we headed?”

  “Browntown,” I say, thinking we better get someplace safe ASAP.

  “Tha’s maybe not the best idea ya ever had. Tha’s the first place they’ll come lookin’ for us. Didn’t ya mention something earlier about goin’ to get Billy?” he asks, rubbing on his leg. “Where’s he at?”

  “He’s . . . ah . . . he’s at . . .” Where the heck did I leave him? Let’s see . . . we were at the cottage and then we saw that wart Sneaky Tim Ray and then we were talking about love and how our tummies were feeling all balled up and . . . that’s right. “Billy’s at Miss Jessie’s,” I say, making a quick turn onto Tanner Farm Road. “I know you didn’t kill Mr. Buster, by the way. I got the proof.”

  “Ya do?” Cooter says, rousing himself.

  “I do.” But when I reach back to my waistband to retrieve the snapshots that I boosted from the sheriff’s desk, the truck gets away from me and starts to drift and I slam on the brakes, but then forget about the steering part, and the next thing I know, we’re stuck in a ditch on a tilt. “Damn it all!” I shout, but I’m also thanking the Lord in all His glory that we made it this close to Miss Jessie’s place. If need be, I can fetch Billy to come help us. We landed soft, but I ask anyway, "Y’ all right?”

  “Fine,” Cooter says, picking up the pictures that’ve slid across the seat. Even though Mr. Bob from Bob’s Drug Emporium can be a stinky little tattletale, he knows his way around a darkroom. Anybody can see those gaping holes in Mr. Buster Malloy’s heart. And the Geronimo rope dangling above the glistening sand. Clearly, the man is dead on Browntown Beach and NOT the dump. Cooter spends some time comparing the two shots I took. There is a close-up one. The other’s from far off. Mr. Howard Redmond advises in his chapter Using Your Tools: Two or more photographs are beneficial to lend perspective at any crime scene.

  “Well?” I ask, proud of my photo-taking skills. “What do ya think?”

  Cooter should be showing some relief that he’s holding proof of his innocence in his hands, but instead, he says with a lot of sadness, “Seein’ that rope . . .”

  “Now, now, don’t start worryin’. We won’t let the sheriff hang ya. Me and the Kid got a plan.”

  “It’s not that. The rope . . . reminds me of Georgie. He sure did love swingin’ into the lake. ’Member that, Gibber? ’Member how loud he’d shout Geronimo?”

  Not exactly. What I do remember, though, is that those two boys? Cooter Smith and Georgie Malloy? No matter the color of their skins, they were blood brothers. Inseparable.

  “Ya miss your Puddin’ and Pie?” I ask, calling Georgie by his pet name.

  “Things seemed a whole lot better when he was alive, don’tcha think? Been a patch of bad road since he left us.”

  Poor, poor Cooter. Maybe I should rub on his black fender hair. Or give his wide shoulders a deep massage. I got strong hands from riding every day.

  “Not a day goes by I don’t wish I woulda stopped Georgie from goin’ out on the boat that day with Buster,” he says, running his finger down the picture.

  It was me who found Georgie’s body washed up on Browntown Beach in almost the exact same spot where I found Mr. Buster’s. Something like that is real hard to forget. The lake flowing outta his ears. Eyes like tarnished quarters. “Are ya talkin’ about the day Georgie accidentally drowned?”

  “That weren’t no accident,” Cooter spits out. “Everybody in town, they don’t say it out loud, but they all know that Georgie was murdered. Buster claimed Georgie dove into the lake to cool off while they was fishin’ and he got the cramps, and Buster, not being able to swim, couldn’t save him, but that’s nuthin’ but a lie.”

  “WHAT?” Am I the only one hasn’t heard this? Or maybe I have and just don’t remember. “Why would Mr. Buster want Georgie dead? He was his own nephew!” I’m trying to recall and not having much luck what Mr. Howard Redmond says in his chapter entitled Why People Kill. Cooter’s gotta be wrong. Nobody could be so evil as to murder sweet Georgie. That boy sweat sugar. His death had to have been an accident. “Cooter? Answer me now.”

  He’s quiet as a moose.

  “I just broke you outta jail, I believe you owe me a little something for that,” I say, using what Clever would call a feminine wile. The laying upon of guilt. (Which I am not proud of, by the way, but a reporter has to do what a reporter has to do. I NEED to know this information for my awfully good story.) “I repeat, why do you think Mr. Buster killed Georgie?”

  “Ya ain’t squeezin’ that outta me. I already said way more than I shoulda. ’Sides, we ain’t got time now for storytellin’. We gotta git. The sheriff and his boy gonna come lookin’ for us soon.” It’s the fourth time he’s checked out the back window. “You’s in as much trouble as I is, ya know?” he says, shouldering the truck door open.

  “Wait for me,” I bark out. “Ya can’t barely walk.”

  “If I gotta crawl, I’m gettin’ outta here.”

  Cooter’s right. Deputy Jimmy Lee will’ve come to by now. Even dumb as he is, he more’n likely mentioned to the sheriff how I paid a visit to the station right before their prisoner went missing. I bet they’ve already started rounding up the dogs. Folks around here are always up for a good hunt. Throw in that reward money I heard Darlene squealing about on the hospital phone, they’ll be thrilled to track us down.

  Oh, how I wish Grampa was here to take care of this situation. He’d call a town meeting, pass the pictures around of Mr. Buster dead on the beach. Explain everything in that easy-peasy voice of his. And when he was done, the men would smoke what they got and the women and children’d have shortbread and milk, and this whole mess would draw to a close. This Cooter mess anyway. There’s still the treasure map mess. The sheriff threatening to come after me mess. The Clever giving birth mess. And Grampa’s n
ot here.

  “Let’s take the paddock path up to Miss Jessie’s,” I tell Cooter. “It’s quicker.” Pushing on the driver’s-side door, I give it all I got, but it won’t move an inch.

  “It’s gettin’ caught up in the mud. Get out this way.” Cooter reaches back through the passenger window for me. Our fingertips are barely touching when he gulps out, “Mercy,” and slides down the side of the truck out of my reach.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, scooting over the rest of the way. Leaning out the window, I can see him cowering in the ditch. “Your knee give out on ya? I’ll go get Billy.”

  Cooter snivels, “Too late for that.”

  “Whatta ya mean?”

  I turn my head back toward the road where he’s pointing. Yes. It is too late. Those flashing red lights barreling our way can mean only one thing.

  Sheriff LeRoy Johnson has come to do his job.

  Surrounded

  I don’t want the sheriff comin’ over to the ditch side of the truck. He’s sure to notice the upchucking Cooter’s had. “Slide under the truck. Take the pictures with ya, just in case LeRoy gets it in his mind to search me.” (Which he will.) “And for crissakes, hush up,” I warn Cooter as I move toward the front bumper. “You’re pantin’.”

  Spinning halfway up Tanner Farm Road, the county car makes a turn back and glides to a stop not two feet from me. “Afternoon, Miss Gibby. Didn’t think that was you at first,” Sheriff Johnson says, using his most mannerly voice. (He doesn’t mean it. LeRoy’s been eating at the diner for years. I know how much he enjoys playing with his food ’fore he eats it.) “When’d ya start drivin’ again?”

  “Well, let’s see . . . just today, yeah, today is when I tried drivin’ again. Wanted to go to St. Mary’s to see Grampa. Guess I could use a little more practice, huh.”

  “Yeah, the hospital’s where I figured you’d head,” he says, prying a bit of lunch outta his teeth with a toothpick. “And Darlene Abernathy was kind enough to confirm your visit.”

  (That varmint.)

  I ask firm, making sure LeRoy knows Grampa WILL be coming back so he better watch his step, “Did Darlene also tell you about how Big Bill Brown, the richest man in Grant County, is flyin’ Miss Jessie and Grampa to Texas so he can have an operation on his heart to make it all better?”

  The sheriff puts on a face of such stupid sorrowfulness and says, “That don’t sound too promisin’, does it now?”

  (What a ball of grease. That’d suit him just fine, wouldn’t it? Grampa being dead AND having Miss Jessie all to himself?)

  “Well, thanks a lot for stoppin’, but I best be goin’,” I say, backing up toward the trail that runs through the woods. Billy’s waiting on me right up at Miz Tanner’s. I got to get to him. He’ll know what to do ’cause all of a sudden, I feel real ascared and tiny. Even though I’m not letting on, LeRoy bringing up the operation like that has set the contents of my heart scattering every which way. What if he’s right? What if Grampa doesn’t recover?

  “Hold on,” he says, heftin’ himself out the squad’s door. “Got a few questions for ya.”

  “Isn’t that kind of a waste of your precious time, Sheriff? You know me. Dumb as anthracite coal,” I answer, suddenly feeling a whole lot more sure of myself. Because there he is. This girl’s best friend.

  “My deputy tells me you paid a visit this afternoon down to the station.” LeRoy comes close enough that I can smell his sweat mixing in with his Vitalis. “Now it seems I’m missin’ a few things.”

  His heart is set on framing Cooter for Mr. Buster’s murder, but if somebody gets ahold of those pictures of Mr. Buster dead on the beach and not on the dump—I know, and he knows, he won’t get that chance. What’s more, this beast’ll lose his star for attempting to perpetrate that nasty deed.

  “Haven’t ya heard?” He’s got me jammed up against the truck’s grille. The gun I took outta his desk is pressing into my sacroiliac. “Your deputy fell into a chocolate vat when he was a baby,” I say, focusing my eyes back on the tree line. (Just like I told you he would, he tracked the sheriff down and now he’s drawing back into the lime green of the undergrowth, concealing himself just like Billy taught him. Won’t take him long to assess the situation.)

  Jerking his head this way and that, the sheriff asks, “What ya lookin’ at?”

  Keeper.

  “I asked you a question.” The sheriff brings his eyes back to mine. Rain clouds are somersaulting across his mirrored glasses.

  “Looks like another bad storm is comin’,” I say with a knowin’ smile.

  “ ’Nuf of this foolishness. Where’s Cooter at?”

  “Who?”

  “You’re aware that what ya done, breakin’ that boy outta jail, is called aidin’ and abettin’ and is punishable by law, correct?”

  Between getting chased after and pawed on and Grampa’s heart attack and remembering my love for Billy and well, just the whole kit ’n’ kaboodle, you’d think my NQR head would be feeling tromped on, wouldn’t ya? But watered like a desert flower after a drought of forty days is more what it feels like. Blooming with stimulating ideas.

  “I know who’s got that map of Mr. Buster Malloy’s place you want so bad,” I say, hoping his greed will get the better of him.

  “And who might that be?”

  “Sneaky Tim Ray. I were you, I’d go get it from him right this minute and then ya could be rich and move away to someplace far, far away and . . .”

  Circling his hands around my waist hard, he snarls, “Tell me where that boy’s run off to and give me them pictures of Buster you stole outta my desk. I’m done messin’ wit’ ya.” When I don’t do what he’s telling me to do, he kicks my legs apart. “Looks like I’m gonna hafta search ya.” He’ll find the .22. “On second thought.” He looks skyward, reaches back for his handcuffs. “With this storm about to break loose, be better we did this in a more private place.” (What he means is, he wants to take me off somewhere so he can whip it outta me without interruption.) “Why don’ you and me take ourselves a little ride, Miss Gib?”

  Now, if you woulda sped past us out on the road a few minutes ago, you mighta said to yourself, “Why, lookee there, it’s LeRoy Johnson helping out that Not Quite Right gal who has gotten her truck into a ditch. What a nice thing for him to do. He’s for positive gettin’ my vote come election time.”

  But oh, my dear, dear friend, that is the trouble with unmeticulous perceptions.

  The limestone rock Cooter’s got ahold of should do the job neat. And from behind me, in the woods, above the calling cicadas and dancing black gum leaves, Billy’s new boots are creaking fast my way. Keeper, being so brave about the lightning, will have fetched him. I’ve wheedled my hand to the back of my pants. The gun is greased and ready.

  We got this good ole boy surrounded. He just don’t know it yet.

  At the Gallop

  We’re all standing over him, including Keeper, who pokes him in the gut with his snout to make sure the sheriff is done but good.

  “That was smart, sneakin’ in the ditch like that, Cooter. Excellent bushwhack.” If I had my leather-like I’d gold star him up but good. Where is my briefcase? In all the commotion, I . . .

  “Gibby, could I have a word with ya?” Billy asks, with lips closed tight. Cupping his hand around my elbow, he guides me behind a tree. “What’d you do?”

  “Whatta ya mean?”

  “Last I heard”—Billy peeks around the bark at Cooter—“he was in jail and you were on your way to the hospital and then comin’ right back for me.”

  “Ohhh . . . that’s right.” I hadn’t really thought out how I was going to explain all this to him. “Ya know good as me, if somebody didn’t get Cooter outta that jail right away, instead of lyin’ here, the sheriff’d be fitting him for a rope necktie right about now. Ya want that on your conscience, fine, but I have no intention of burnin’ in hell for all eternity. I’m ascared of fire. So I broke Cooter out and then I went to the hospital.”
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  Billy kicks at a rock, sending it halfway to Madison County.

  “I had to do it for Clever. You know how she favors him,” I say, waggling a finger in his face. “And for Miss Florida. And Grampa. What about the cowboy way?”

  “I might could understand you breakin’ him out,” Billy says, beginnin’ to look basset houndish. “But what I don’t understand is . . . why didn’t you ask for my help?”

  “ ’Cause Clever was right when she said you’d try to stop me on account a you being so righteous, and I couldn’t let you do that.” I place my hands on his cheeks and make him look me in the eyes. “Ya understand, dear heart?”

  Billy hooks my bangs behind my ear, sighs out in surrender, “Grampa all right?”

  “Oh, my goodness, I forgot! What good news! You are not gonna believe where he’s on his way to in a plane gettin’ driven by your daddy and—”

  Cooter, clearing his throat to get our attention, says, “Ya think y’all could hold off on catchin’ up on the latest news?” He toes the sheriff. “He ain’t gonna stay out forever, ya know.”

  “What you yappin’ about, Smith?” Billy asks, struttin’ toward him.

  Now, to the best of my knowledge, these two haven’t been spending time together in recent years. Not counting that night Cooter and Willard were chasing us through the woods looking for the treasure map, I believe this is the first time Billy’s laid eyes on his old pal in a long while. Like I mighta mentioned earlier, Cooter used to hang out at Blackstone Cave with us in the old days. Georgie brought him around first, and then Cooter and Billy got pretty close, and then Clever and Cooter got even closer than pretty close. But nowadays, Billy’s not what you’d call the social type. And even if he was, I believe Cooter grew up to be too much of a mischief maker for Billy’s taste.

  I’m back to staring down at the sheriff, who is NOT a sight for sore eyes. The rain’s bouncing off his forehead, and the blood from where Cooter bashed him on the head is paling pink and flowing fast. “Boys?”

  The both of them are too busy playing cocks of the walk to pay me any mind.