Muletrain to Maggody Read online

  Ruby Bee shook her head. “He just said that he’d be along around the middle of the afternoon with somebody named Terry. You reckon that’s a girl or a boy?”

  “All I reckon is that it’s none of our business. Have you heard anything about Lottie Estes? She didn’t show up at the high school this morning.”

  “That ain’t like her. How’d you hear about it?”

  I told her about Mrs. Jim Bob’s call, then promised to pass along Lottie’s prognosis so that the local version of Meals on Wheels could pound on her door with chicken soup and banana pudding.

  Lottie’s car was parked in front of her house, but she did not respond to my repeated knocks. I peered in all the windows, but as far as I could tell no one was inside, including her cats. It was curious, I will admit. I wasn’t inclined to break into her house, though, since she might have gone off with a niece in the same fashion Petrol Buchanon had done a few days earlier, taking her cats with her.

  If I’d had a cell phone, I would have called Mrs. Jim Bob, but the city council had declined to pay for one and I was damned if I would out of my own pocket. As it was, I headed for Hazzard to deal with grand theft botanical.

  Waylon Pepperstone froze when he saw the Confederate soldier wrestling with a tent. Wasn’t anybody supposed to arrive until Thursday, but here was this guy all dressed up like the reenactment was scheduled to start in twenty minutes. He was thinking what to say when the reb spun around and shouted, “Who the hell are you?”

  “Private Pepperstone, Union army. My outfit’s out of Missouri. You?”

  “Private Stewart, Second Mississippi. Now I know who the hell you are, but I don’t know why the hell you’re standing there.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “And I didn’t expect to see you, either,” said Jeb. “Now that we’re past the preliminaries, would you care to explain why you came creeping up on me? I’ve cut some bastard’s throat for less.”

  Waylon tried to swallow, but his mouth was drier than a wad of cotton. “I don’t know where you get off saying I crept up on you, Private Stewart. I was looking for a place to camp for a few days, that’s all.” He reminded himself that he had fought valiantly and to the bitter end most recently at the Battle of Pea Ridge, after which he’d been commended by his superior officer for puking in a most realistic manner. “What you doing here, Johnny Reb?”

  “Same as you, obviously.” Jeb held up the palms of his hands. “You can camp here if you want, long as you’re not some fuckin’ farb with a battery-powered DVD player.”

  “Hell, no,” Waylon said, relaxing. “Couldn’t afford one if I wanted. You don’t mind if I pitch my tent over here? I won’t bother you. I was thinking I might try to catch a mess of crappie for supper. I’ve got some cornmeal in my mess kit.”

  “And I’ve got a chunk of lard, though it’s probably rancid by now.”

  Having bonded over the promise of a tasty meal, the two privates from opposing armies pitched their tents, peeled off their homespun, hand-sewn wool jackets (replete with brass buttons with the authentic patina that could only be achieved by a lengthy soak in urine), and found a flat rock alongside Boone Creek in hopes of catching supper.

  Kenneth Grimley wasn’t at all sure what he was getting into as he came into the bar, which was apparently also a motel and most likely the sort of establishment in which rooms were rented by the hour. Resisting the urge to wipe off the bar stool with his handkerchief, he sat down. The place appeared to be deserted, and for good reason, since the decor was reminiscent of the worst of the fifties. It would not have surprised him if James Dean had swaggered out of the men’s room and paused to comb his ducktail before belligerently demanding a burger and a beer.

  Therefore, he was surprised when a scrawny boy came out of the kitchen and said, “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  “Ain’t none of your damn business.” The boy went behind the bar and poured himself a glass of soda. “If you’re aimin’ to have lunch, you’re shit out of luck. Ruby Bee’s out back, vacuuming on account of folks arriving early for this war thing. She’s twittering something awful, like a spider crawled down her back. You want something to drink?”

  “Are you old enough to serve beer?”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “You old enough to drink it?”

  “I believe I am.” Kenneth extended his hand. “I’m Kenneth Grimley, here to do presentations at the schools before the reenactment. And you are…?”

  “Hammet Buchanon, drummer boy, althoughs they won’t give me my drum and keep dragging me up to the ridge like I was on an expedition for”—he stopped and crinkled his forehead—“National Geographic. You ever seen them on TV? They’re all the time sneaking up on gators or zebras to watch ’em screw. You’d think grown folks would have better things to do.”

  “No gators or zebras on the ridge, then?”

  “I reckon not. You want a beer?”

  “That would be fine,” said Kenneth, who was, to put it mildly, mystified. “So you’ve been engaged not only to play a drum, but also to search for wildlife in the midst of procreation? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “I dunno.” Hammet filled a mug and set it down in front of his very first customer. “You want some pie, too?”

  “Thank you, but no. Can you tell me how to get to the home of Jim Bob Buchanon?”

  “What you want with that fuckhead?”

  Kenneth recoiled. “Is this your customary vocabulary?”

  Hammet sighed. “I get into all kinds of trouble at school and at the foster home. The social worker keeps saying I’ll grow out of it, but I ain’t so sure. How ’bout some pretzels?” He scooted down a basket, although this time with less vigor, so that it did not go flying off the end of the bar as it had done the previous night.

  “Tell me, Hammet, is there a reason I might not want to locate this…Jim Bob Buchanon? Do you have a grievance with him?”

  “Might be the other way around. What kind of presentations do you put on? Do you stab damn Yankees?”

  “I am a general in the Union army, dear boy. My uniform is blue, and my heart lies with General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln. This part of Arkansas was evenly divided between the two factions. A good fifty percent—”

  “Do you kill anybody,” said Hammet, “or do you just bore ’em to death?”

  “The latter, most likely.” Kenneth took a swallow of beer, although he would have preferred a glass of white wine, even of a recent vintage. “You’re a drummer boy, you said. I don’t remember such a persona mentioned in the journal.”

  “It’s kinda secret. All I’m s’posed to do until Thursday is go wandering all over Cotter’s Ridge with Estelle, huntin’ for caves. Just ’cause I growed up there don’t mean I know about every hole. I got so damn tired of it that I told Estelle I was gonna take a piss and then snuck back here so’s I could watch TV. You wanna come to my room and watch cartoons? We can snitch that apple pie out in the kitchen and take it with us. Iff’n you want, you can take one of these bottles and get snockered.”

  “You say you grew up on the ridge?”

  “Yeah,” said Hammet, lifting a glass dome in order to stick his finger into a lemon meringue pie. He sucked on his finger, then smoothed over the meringue and conscientiously replaced the dome so the flies couldn’t get to the pie. “I had to grow up somewheres, dint I? I guess your kids grew up in a fancy house and got new bicycles for Christmas every year. The only thing I ever got for Christmas was a smack for talking to the ladies from some dumbshit church. They was always too scared to come up to the cabin, so they’d leave their boxes of old clothes and sacks of canned vegetables at the edge of the yard. Her would have shot ’em if they’d come any closer.”

  “Goodness,” murmured Kenneth, whose studies in the Civil War era had been confined to battles and back room strategy sessions. The general populace, with the exception of plantation owners and barricade r
unners, had never interested him. He wasn’t sure this feral child did, either, except for the reference to caves on Cotter’s Ridge. Federal depositories, one might say. “No, I never had any children, but if I’d had a son, I’d like to think he would have been as clever as you. It must be very difficult to remember all those caves on Cotter’s Ridge. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re keeping some of them a secret just to trick this woman named Estelle.”

  Hammet glanced at him. “Why would I want to trick her?”

  “Because someone else might make it worth your while.”

  “How much you talkin’ about?”

  Kenneth hoped his smirk was not too obvious as he said, “Then you do know about more caves. You are a clever boy, aren’t you?”

  “Mebbe. How much?”

  “That would depend on your degree of success—and your willingness to keep this between the two of us. It would defeat my purpose if word were to get out and we ended up with a dozen people trailing after us.”

  Hammet figgered it was okay with him if this peckerwood wanted to pay hard cash in order to do something that plenty of other folks was already busy doin’, some in uniforms and some, like the old lady he’d seen scampering through the trees, in regular clothes. He was about to name a price when the bar door opened and a tall fellow came ambling across the dance floor.

  Kenneth Grimley decided the man looked like the sort who spent months exploring remote jungles and paddling canoes in waters thick with piranhas and poisonous snakes. And going into caves in search of species of blind newts and carnivorous fungi.

  “Hey, pal,” the man said to Hammet, “you running this establishment these days?”

  “Ruby Bee’s out back, gettin’ rooms ready. You want a beer or somethin’?”

  “I’m Jack Wallace,” he said as he sat down a few stools away from Kenneth. “I’m filming the documentary for the historical society.” He paused to stare at Hammet. “By any chance, are you related to Ruby Bee? Grandson, maybe?”

  “I would be iff’n Arly hadn’t sent me away,” muttered Hammet.

  Kenneth felt better now that it had been established that the man was not a professional fortune hunter. He held out his hand and said, “Kenneth Grimley here. I’m one of the two impressionists. Are you planning to film any of my presentations at the local schools?”

  “That’s up to Miss Hathaway, but I suspect she may be a stickler for authenticity. There were no debonair generals at the skirmish, just weary boys hoping to someday see their mothers and sweethearts.”

  “And a drummer boy,” said Hammet as he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Elsie McMay and Eula Lemoy stood in the parking lot outside the county jail. Although they’d discussed possibilities during the drive from Maggody, neither had come up with a remotely credible ploy.

  “I think we’re sticking our noses in an ant hill,” said Eula, who kept trying to edge away. “We’re likely to end up sharing a cell with Lottie—if they haven’t put her in solitary confinement.”

  Elsie clung to Eula’s wrist. “We don’t even know she’s in there, and here you are ready to think she’s on death row awaiting the electric chair. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours as of yet. It takes years before they can carry out the death penalty. Besides, all she was doin’ was trespassing. That’s hardly a federal offense.”

  “There are probably all sorts of valuable antiques in the Headquarters House. They most likely think she was there to case the joint. She didn’t exactly buy a ticket and take a guided tour.”

  “Because it was closed.” Elsie took a deep breath, then dragged Eula into the front room of the building. A young deputy looked up from a magazine with a photograph of a deer on the cover.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  Elsie stepped forward. “We’re here to visit somebody.”

  “Visitation hours are from five to seven weekdays, two to five on weekends.” The deputy flipped a page in his magazine. “You better call ahead. Prisoners with too many disciplinary demerits aren’t allowed visitors.”

  Elsie flicked the magazine to get his attention. “Then we need to know if this particular person is here so’s we can come back at five o’clock.”

  The deputy put down the magazine and picked up a clipboard. “Name?”

  “I’m Elsie McMay, and this here is Eula Lemoy.”

  “The prisoner’s name.”

  “We don’t know,” Eula said bravely, fully expecting to be handcuffed and dragged down a pea green corridor to a cell with an iron cot, a bare lightbulb, and a bucket.

  They certainly had the deputy’s attention by now. “So you want to visit someone whose name you don’t know?” he asked.

  Elsie held out her hand. “Why don’t you just let me look at the list?”

  “So you can pick one? We don’t do that. This information is confidential. You have to tell me the name.”

  “We don’t know for sure that this person is here. This person could have escaped out the back door for all we know.”

  “No one’s escaped since before Christmas, and he got out through a window in the rec room. Sheriff Dorfer was fit to be tied.” The deputy paused, wondering if he ought to call someone with more experience dealing with senile old ladies. “Now either tell me who you’re looking for or stop wasting my time.”

  “Do the prisoners wear orange jumpsuits?” asked Elsie. “If they do, you got one hunkered down at the edge of the parking lot.”

  Cursing, the deputy stood up and hurried out the entrance. Elsie snatched up the clipboard, looked down the list, and then hustled Eula outside. “Get in the car,” she said as the deputy came panting up to them.

  “Where’d you see this guy?” he demanded.

  “Why, I must have been mistaken. My eyesight’s not as good as it used to be. Back when I was your age, I could read the fine print on an aluminum can in a ditch. These days it’s a miracle I can see the ditch at all.” With a little laugh, she got into the driver’s side and carefully backed up, making sure she didn’t run over the deputy’s foot. Once they were on the street, she said, “Lottie’s name wasn’t on the list. I suppose we ought to thank our lucky stars she wasn’t arrested after all.”

  “I suppose so,” Eula said doubtfully, “but if she’s not in jail, where is she?”

  7

  When I got back from Hazzard, I stopped at the PD and called Harve to report that the begonias had been recovered behind a church, most likely because the miscreant had been overwhelmed with floral remorse. I was sure the appropriate commandment would be covered in the upcoming Sunday service at said church, with a teary confession ensuing.

  Case closed.

  “I never much cared for begonias myself,” Harve said, “but Mrs. Dorfer’s real fond of them. Have you figured out when you’ll need Les and Willard? We’re always understaffed this time of year, and I can’t spare ’em to go sit on their butts and watch make-believe soldiers ride around on mules.”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m guessing that the arrival of the muletrain will be staged on Friday. There are only about a dozen participants, so traffic shouldn’t have to be delayed too long and I can handle it. Saturday morning is going to be the problem. I’ll find out and call you back in a day or two, okay?”

  “It may be petunias that she’s partial to,” Harve said, then ended the conversation with a belch.

  I was reluctant to face Jack Wallace just yet, so I called the high school and asked if Lottie had appeared (she hadn’t), and then called Elsie and Eula to find out if they’d heard from her (neither was home). If I called Mrs. Jim Bob, I was liable to find myself assigned to hang bunting on the front of the Assembly Hall or to whip up a batch of brownies to welcome the troops when Johnny came marching home, hurrah.

  Procrastination being one of my favorite pastimes, I wrote up the begonia-theft report for Harve’s office, and was debating whether to stop by my apartment to apply lipstick when the telephone rang.

  “Now you listen here, you
ng lady,” Mrs. Jim Bob began before I could say anything, “I thought I told you to check on Lottie. Here it is the middle of the afternoon, and all you’ve done is sit there like a toad under a rock while I’ve changed sheets, polished furniture, cleaned bathrooms—”

  “Lottie’s not answering her door and the cats aren’t there. If the town council wants to authorize it, I’ll break a window to get inside. She may be a bit perturbed when she gets home, though. She’s only been missing half a day.”

  There was a moment of silence. “You’re going to have to do something if she’s not home by this evening. In the meantime, go over to the rectory and check on Brother Verber. I’ve been trying to call him since early this morning.”

  “I am not your social secretary,” I said.

  “That’s well and fine, but you have a responsibility to make sure folks aren’t dead in their beds. I’d drive over to the rectory myself, but I simply don’t have time.”

  She hung up before I could respond. I decided to forgo the lipstick and take my chances at Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill. Being the conscientious defender of law and order that I was, however, I walked up the road to the silver trailer next to the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall, noted that Brother Verber’s car was not parked outside, rapped on the door a few times, and was headed toward the eponymous bar when an unfamiliar car cut me off.

  The driver, a woman with ethereal blond ringlets and a magnolia blossom complexion beginning to decline after a few seasons of wear and tear, smiled at me. “Are you a police officer, dear?”

  I’d forgotten that I’d changed into my uniform before going to Hazzard. Most days I just pin on my badge, which looks as though it came from a box of Cracker Jacks (and well might have). “I’m Arly Hanks, Chief of Police. Can I help you?”

  “I do hope so.” She extended a slender hand. “I’m Corinne Dawk. This charming girl beside me is Frances Yarborough, but everybody calls her Sweetpea. The lazy boy in the backseat is my son, Simon. We’re here for the reenactment. We’ve been invited to stay with Mayor and Mrs. Buchanon.”