Mischief In Maggody Page 7

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  Mrs. Jim Bob's knees were getting sore, but she kept her lips tight and her head bent to a pious tilt, trying not to ponder the heretical idea that Brother Verber was a mite long-winded. Especially when she had things to discuss. She couldn't help but notice the floor of the church was dusty, which went to prove she'd been right all along when she said Perkins' eldest was doing a poor job of cleaning. She stole a quick peek at the windows above the choir loft, then hastily closed her eyes. Yes, they were streaky, just as she'd imagined they would be. And Perkins' eldest carrying on about how she always used ammonia when she wiped the windows. Everybody knew ammonia didn't streak.

  "Amen," Brother Verber said in a deep, melodious flow of vowels and consonants, clinging to the final sound until it tickled his nose. He just loved it when his nose tickled, even if it meant a sneeze was coming.

  "Amen." Mrs. Jim Bob stood up and brushed off her dusty knees. "I appreciate you taking the time to pray with me, Brother Verber, and it did warm my heart. Now I'm hoping you can offer some counsel about a difficult problem."

  "You know better than anybody that that's why I'm here, Sister Barbara. What sort of problem do you want to discuss?"

  "It concerns something that has arisen between Mr. Jim Bob and me."

  "Problems of an intimate marital nature?" Brother Verber said, striving for the proper balance of sympathy and distaste. Sometimes, he knew, he sounded too enthusiastic when asked to counsel his flock about what all they did in the privacy of their bedrooms. And the stories he heard were enough to make a grown man blush. It was hard to imagine some of the lurid, disgusting, filthy animal practices he'd heard about over the years. In fact, only last week he'd been obliged to order some magazines (to be delivered in plain brown wrappers) so he could study the photographs and be more understanding of his flock's depravities. His old magazines were falling apart from all the studying he'd done.

  Mrs. Jim Bob sat down on a pew and took out a tissue to wipe her forehead. "Brother Verber, you know I would never permit Jim Bob to even hint at anything unnatural or contrary to my Christian upbringing. When I agree to fulfill my marital obligations, we do it precisely like the Good Book says we should, and we don't dillydally about it, either. I wouldn't consider some unspeakable atheistic variation."

  "Of course you wouldn't," Brother Verber said, swallowing his disappointment. He plopped down next to her and patted her knee with a pudgy hand. "Now, you take all the time you need to mull over this problem, then just let it come right out. I'll sit here quietly and wait." He patted her knee some more in order to encourage her to mull.

  "I have had a disagreement with my husband, long distance since he's still at that municipal league meeting all the way down in Hot Springs. I told him about something I intend to do. He ordered me not to do it. I told him that it was the morally correct thing to do. He raised his voice, Brother Verber. He went so far as to yell at me over the telephone. All the operators in Hot Springs probably heard him." She took a swipe at her eyes with the tissue, then tucked it in her cuff.

  "What is this thing you intend to do?" Brother Verber asked. He patted her knee a little bit higher to show his support in case she changed her mind and wanted to talk about a delicate sexual matter. "I know in my heart that anything you want to do will sit right pretty in the eyes of the Lord. Surely your husband knows that, too. But you're going have to tell me all about it, so's I can make an informed counsel of the matter."

  "That is not the point," she said as she inched down the pew. "The point is that I intend to disobey my husband for the first time in thirty years of marriage. I took a solemn vow to love, honor, and obey him. The very thought of disobeying him rips my soul, Brother Verber. Rips it like it was wet tissue paper."

  Brother Verber did some inching so he could pat her knee to show his soul was ripping as fast and furious as hers. "I see you have a very complicated problem. You did the right thing to bring it to me. But I still don't know what you're talking about, so you'd better just spit it out, Sister Barbara."

  Sister Barbara inched for a few seconds, then said, "I am going to take some poor, starving, motherless orphans into my home. I am going to feed them, bathe them, and instill Christian morals and values in them. I am going to see they receive an education so they can make something of themselves in the future. And I'm going to wash their mouths out with soap until they learn to speak in a civilized fashion!"

  "I think that sounds beautiful, Sister Barbara. More than beautiful. I think that sounds downright saintly." He inched down the pew so he could pat her saintly knee. "Why would Jim Bob object to something so charitable?"

  "I am speaking of Robin Buchanon's bastards."

  Brother Verber's hand halted in mid-pat. His florid face turned even redder, and the pores seemed to widen on his nose until they resembled lunar craters. "Say what?"

  "Robin Buchanon's children. It seems the disgusting slut has disappeared in a totally irresponsible way. They have been alone in that primitive shack for the best part of a week, with no food or moral guidance. I almost cry every time I think of those poor, abandoned, dirty, starving bastards."

  Brother Verber tugged on his lower lip as he tried to digest her proposal for sainthood. He'd seen those nasty little brats in the past, and they were by far the nastiest little brats he'd ever had the misfortune to see. The lot of them should have been drowned at birth. "I'm beginning to understand," he said cautiously. "Jim Bob doesn't want to open his home, his hearth, and his heart to the little waifs?"

  "He started swearing before I even finished my explanation," Mrs. Jim Bob said with a sniffle of outrage. "His remarks were uncalled for and rude. I was quick to tell him so, but he kept right on with his curse words."

  "He swore at you?" Brother Verber said incredulously. He started patting her knee again to express his dismay. "What precisely did he say?"

  "Nothing a good Christian woman can repeat, especially in the House of the Lord. Brother Verber, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I'm going to have bruises all over my upper legs if you don't stop patting me."

  "My deepest apologies, Sister Barbara. I was carried away with my heartfelt response to your story of verbal abuse and outrage. I was doing a terrible thing. I cannot believe I was doing such a terrible terrible thing. Why, if you were to come by the church tomorrow and lift your skirt to show me horrid black-and-blue marks all up your thigh, I'd be so ashamed I couldn't live with myself" With a look of anguish (or something like that), he moved away from her and hung his head to stare over his girth at the floor. Which was dusty, he noticed.

  "I would never do anything to cause you that kind of grief," she said solemnly.

  "No, it's clear I deserve to be confronted by my venereal sin of overenthusing. I feel mighty badly about this, Sister Barbara, mighty badly. I fear I've taken a step in the direction of eternal damnation by causing you the tiniest bit of pain, just when you were inspired to do something selfless along the lines of an African missionary converting savages to the Lord. Do I hear Satan putting a check by my name in his ledger of sinners? Are the angels wringing their hands at my unforgivable actions? Are the sweet baby cherubims crying out their sweet little eyes?"

  "My leg is fine," Mrs. Jim Bob said, sorry she'd ever brought it up to begin with. "I just mentioned the possibility of bruises, that's all. Why, I'd be offended if anyone suggested your tender hand could cause me pain and suffering."

  "Is it too late to pray for salvation?" he said in a hollow voice.

  Mrs. Jim Bob glanced at her watch. "Well, actually it is. I've got to run along now, Brother Verber. I'm afraid Arly's already fetched those poor little bastards and will be looking for me." She stood up and gazed down at his bent head. "Why don't you come by the house this evening, Brother Verber? I'll have a nice, fresh pecan pie and a cup of coffee for you. You can be thinking about how I can get around this 'love, honor, and obey' problem."

  He gave her a watery smile. "Will you allow me to ease my mind about those bruises
I may have inflicted on your knee?"

  Mrs. Jim Bob nodded, then hurried down the aisle and out the door before he suggested a "before" and "after" view of the knee in question. Which he seemed to think went all the way to the bottom hem of her girdle. She drove down the highway, turning her head the opposite way as she passed the Emporium since it was owned by a bunch of drug-using, naked devil worshippers, and slowing down as she came to the PD.

  Arly's car was gone, which meant she wasn't back with the bastards. At the Kwik-Stoppe-Shoppe, Mrs. Jim Bob parked and went inside to buy several bars of good, old-fashioned lye soap. After a moment of consideration, she told the pimply clerk to put the entire case in the back of her car. She then drove home, went to her bedroom, sat primly on the edge of her twin bed, and unclipped her nylons in order to inspect the damage.

  "Well, it wasn't worth fifteen dollars," Estelle concluded tartly. "I'd estimate more like fifteen cents."

  Ruby Bee moved the popcorn bowl down the counter to a more convenient location. "So all she did was tell you to keep wearing aquamarine? Except for your beautician's uniform, that's all you wear these days-and no man with a funny accent has stopped you on the street or offered to fly you across the ocean on a jet airplane to Paris, France."

  "I don't know what got into Madam Celeste," Estelle said, shaking her head. She tossed a piece of popcorn into her mouth and sucked off the salt. "She kept looking out the window, and she didn't hear half of what I said to her. It got right tedious having to repeat myself over and over, like my tongue was the needle on a scratchy record. In the middle of a description of the man with the accent-she thinks he has a mustache, by the way-but in the middle of this, Mason came in and asked-"

  "What kind of mustache? A big handlebar, or one of those pathetic little things that look like they're drawn with an eyebrow pencil?"

  Estelle frowned over the bar. "I'll thank you not to interrupt me, Ruby Bee Hanks. I don't happen to know what kind of mustache, because Mason came in and asked Madam Celeste how she felt. She said she was feeling better, but then she upped and told me she had a headache and that the session was over just like that. It was all I could do not to say something, if you know what I mean."

  "Not one hint of what kind of mustache?"

  "Not one hint; I already told you that. I felt as if I'd been swept out the door like a ball of cat hair. What's more, she had plenty of time for Carol Alice Plummer. I chanced to meet her while I was walking down the road, and she-"

  "Who'd you meet?"

  "Don't mess with me, Ruby Bee. You can see with your own eyes that I am upset. If you're going to interrupt every single sentence that comes out of my mouth, I'll just go home and talk to the mirror. At least I won't be interrupted all the time."

  "I didn't hear to whom you were referring," Ruby Bee said indignantly. "I can't follow your story if I don't know who we're talking about."

  "Carol Alice Plummer, if you must know, Mrs. Hard-of-Hearing. You know her-her pa works at the body shop in Starley City, and she's a right cute girl with medium-light ash-blond hair. I seem to recollect she's a cheerleader and keeping company with the Swiggins boy what's on the football team."

  Ruby Bee slid the popcorn bowl back within reach, having surreptitiously moved it while she was being yelled at most unfairly. "So Carol Alice came out of Madam Celeste's house just before you got there? Did she have anything to say?"

  "I will tell you if you give me half a chance. She was bouncing down the road like her heels were rubber, with a kind of dreamy look on her face. I said good morning in a neighborly voice, intending to ask her if she might want to lighten a few dark streaks in her hair, but she went right past me. You'd of thought I was a ghost!"

  "Well, I never," Ruby Bee gasped. "Isn't it a shame the way the young folks are reared these days? You'd think they learned their manners at the hog lot in Hasty."

  "Or at Raz Buchanon's knee."

  "Or from a carnival huckster with tattoos."

  "Or from Robin Buchanon," Estelle contributed, enjoying the exchange. "Or from a traveling vacuum cleaner salesman. Or from a-"

  Ruby Bee stuck up a finger. "Did I tell you what happened earlier today? It was most puzzling." When Estelle shook her head, Ruby Bee related the confrontation with the puny, vile-mouthed Buchanon child.

  "I can't believe he talks like that," Estelle said, tossing off her beer with a snort.

  "But the strangest thing is why he was with Arly. She never did say anything about why he was in her custody or what crime he had committed. If you'd heard him, you'd probably guess murder or armed robbery." Ruby Bee took a handful of popcorn and pensively chewed it. "It's outright mysterious, if you ask me. Why on earth would anybody want anything to do with Robin Buchanon's bastards? They're such dirty, nasty things that the social worker crossed them off her clipboard and never mentioned them again. The school wouldn't take them, as sure as I'm standing here. I thank my lucky stars I don't ever have to see any of them again. But I sure would like to know why Arly had that savage with her."

  "Why don't you ask her when you see her?"

  Ruby Bee had to agree that was likely to be the best plan. She even wondered why she hadn't thought of it first.

  The patches of sunlight twitched and flickered as the breeze rippled the oak leaves. Although it was October, the heat had swelled all afternoon and was hot enough to raise a sweat, had anybody been hiking on the north side of the ridge. Nobody was. It was calm and quiet, just the way it's shown in a primary-level picture book. If you listened real hard, you might be able to hear a train way down at the bottom of the hollow. Once the leaves were gone, you might even have a fair chance of seeing a flash of silver or the dull red of the caboose rumbling loyally on the tail end of the train. But except for a hoe and knife, and a rotting gunnysack beside them, there was nothing to prove civilization was right down at the bottom of the mountainside.

  You wouldn't have to listen too hard to hear the flies buzzing, though. The big old blue-green ones were the loudest as they danced on the clotted nostrils and crawled on the dried-out lips of the body still lying there, undisturbed by anything except that drawn by instinct to decomposing flesh.

  The two eyes could have been glass for all they saw. The mouth, opened in a moment of surprise, was shaped for all eternity to offer the first syllable of a common curse word. The rest of the body had been gnawed by predators, but not so fiercely that you couldn't recognize the various parts of it. One foot lay twisted under a thin wire stretched between two almost invisible metal stakes. There were other wires around the half acre that should have been thick with ginseng but wasn't, and those wires were attached to funny-looking contraptions whose purposes were not at all funny.

  "Why, here's Arly now," Ruby Bee chirped. "Were your ears burning a while back? Estelle and I were discussing a minor puzzlement, and we decided you were the one to clear it up for us."

  I came across the ten-by-ten dance floor and leaned over the bar to put my hand on my mother's shoulder. "You know, Ruby Bee, you're the most compassionate woman in Maggody. You're probably the most compassionate woman in all of Stump County, for that matter."

  "I am?" she said, easing from under my hand.

  "Yes, indeed. That's why I thought of you when I needed help. I knew I could count on Ruby Bee Hanks to do the decent, charitable thing." None of this was easy, but it was the best I could come up with. I licked my lips and plunged back in. "You've always taught me to care about less fortunate folks, and you've been an inspiration to me all my life."

  "I have?" She retreated down the bar to get the beer tap between us.

  "Cross my heart." I drew an "X" on my chest and tried to look just a shade misty at all those warm memories I didn't have.

  Ruby Bee (now the Sister Teresa of the bar-and-grill industry) studied me for a full minute. "You didn't just drop in to spew out the compliments. What do you want from me, Ariel Hanks?"

  (A small digression. If you don't know by now, I was not named after the
etheral character in The Tempest. I was named after a photograph taken from an airplane. Ruby Bee loved the sound of it, and she never was one to win blue ribbons at the district-wide spelling bee. As a whole, the Hanks clan has always gone in for exotic-sounding names. The fact that there was a German measles epidemic about the time Ruby Bee was born is not mentioned in her presence. Work on it.)

  "Do you remember that little kid I brought in earlier? He was starving, and your good cooking saved him from death," I continued.

  "That awful creature with the filthiest mouth I've heard in all my born days? Is that the one you're referring to, Miss Smarty Pants?"

  I hung my head. "I am sorry you had to hear some of those words. He's had a tragic upbringing, little Hammet, and he just doesn't know what to say in the presence of a fine, moral, kind, generous woman like you. He was so ashamed of himself that he cried all the way home."

  "I can imagine," Ruby Bee said, her arms crossed and her voice chilly. She was all the way down to the cash register by now. "So why are you telling me all this and buttering me up like I was a hot biscuit from the oven?"

  I told her how Robin had disappeared and the children had been without food for more than three days. I added very firmly that I intended to deliver them to Mrs. Jim Bob as soon as they were fed-and that I'd promised them the best home cookin' in the county in order to lure them off the mountain. I tossed in a quick aside that Mrs. Jim Bob's cookin' was hardly comparable to certain other folks' efforts. I concluded with a vividly drawn picture of malnourished children outside in the jeep, almost too weak from hunger to walk through the door of the most outstanding grill in all of Arkansas. I did not mention that said victims were probably ripping up the seats of the jeep, if not ripping off the radio for a transaction at the pool hall.