Muletrain to Maggody (12 page)

I went into the back room and poured a mug, then took it back to him. The redolence surrounding him reminded me of Raz Buchanon—a combination of stale urine and swamp gas. He was decades younger than Raz, though, and his dark eyes were disturbingly bright. “I assume soldiers stumbling off the battlefield drink their coffee black,” I said. “I’d offer you a bagel, but we’re fifteen hundred miles from a really decent New York deli, and besides that, the local supermarket doesn’t sell cream cheese.”

“This is fine, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

“So why are you here, Private Stewart?” I asked as I retreated behind my desk. “Your comrades aren’t expected until Thursday.”

He slurped the coffee, managing to dunk both ends of his mustache in the process, then looked up at me. “That unit that came up from Little Rock back in ’63, they hadn’t had a decent meal or a night’s sleep for most of a week. Their worst enemies weren’t Yanks, but hunger and dysentery. I aim to feel their pain come Saturday morning. Think how bumfuzzled those farm boys must have been. Here they’d been recruited by a bushy-tailed officer in a crisp gray uniform with polished boots and shiny brass buttons, telling them how they’d save the South and all its traditions. The next thing they knew, they were huddled in leaky tents, gnawing on hardtack, wearing rags, praying the sores on their feet didn’t fester.” He bent over and yanked off one of his boots. “This is what they ended up with, not medals and parades.”

It took a moment for me to regain control of my stomach. “Yes, Private Stewart, I see your point. Would you like to be taken to a doctor in Farberville?”

“Damn field doctors, all they do is amputate. I’m not here to pretend, ma’am. I intend to experience this skirmish just as the original troops did. I stopped by as a courtesy to let you know I’ll be camping on the far side of the bridge for a few days. As long as nobody bothers me, we’ll get along fine.”

“Did you just arrive in town?”

Jeb Stewart, CSA, dropped the boot and stared at me. “Yes, ma’am. Do you have reason to think I didn’t?”

I shook my head, although I wasn’t sure. “A local claims to have seen a soldier up on Cotter’s Ridge on Saturday night.”

“Was the report credible? Was the description sufficient to suggest someone dressed as a Confederate? Were there any details?”

“I’m not sure what he saw, Private Stewart. You’re welcome to camp in the woods alongside Boone Creek, but I can’t promise you’ll be left alone. You may have participated in this sort of thing for years. It’s a first for Maggody, however, and I won’t offer any assurance that you won’t find teenagers peeking in your tent tonight. A kind lady from the Missionary Society may bring you fresh cinnamon rolls tomorrow morning and sweetly ask if you happen to know where the gold is hidden.”

“Gold?”

“Give me a break.” I rocked back so hard that I thumped my head against the wall. “I’m having a tough time believing you came here three days early so you could sit on the bank of the creek and watch your blisters ooze. Despite appearances, we’re not all brain-dead in Maggody.”

“That remains to be seen. Now, ma’am, with your permission, I’ll go set up my campsite. I thank you kindly for the coffee and the warning.” He touched the brim of his cap, then scooped up his haversack and boot and limped out of the PD.

I felt a pang of remorse for my failure to pay any attention to Larry Joe’s purported sighting of a ghostly Confederate soldier, in that I felt as though I’d just encountered one. I was still considering it all when the telephone rang.

“Stonewall Jackson here,” I said cheerfully.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mrs. Jim Bob. “I want you to go check on Lottie Estes. She didn’t show up at the high school today, and I find this worrisome. Lottie is highly responsible, unlike others in the community who fail to abide by their contractual duties to protect the citizenry. Go up to her house, and if she has the flu, see if she needs anything. I don’t know how I’m expected to get through the week without a liaison to coordinate with the impressionists.”

“I don’t make house calls.”

“I will expect to hear from you in half an hour,” she said, then hung up.

I really hadn’t expected the madness to kick in until Thursday or even Friday, but it was obvious I’d been overly optimistic. I decided to stop by Ruby Bee’s for lunch, then drive over to Lottie Estes’s house and listen to her whimper about her stuffy nose and watery eyes. After that, purloined begonias.

Bonnie and Clyde rarely stopped in Stump County.

Ruby Bee was glowering as I came across the dance floor and perched on a stool. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, her nostrils quivering as if I’d brought Jeb Stewart’s stench with me. “You want the blue plate special or not? I don’t have time to fix something special just because you decide to waltz in like a prom queen and expect me to drop everything and—”

“Whatever’s easy,” I said.

“Nothing’s easy! That man from Springfield called to say he’s decided to come this afternoon, which means I’ll have to air two units for him and his assistant. What’s more, some man from St. Louis called and said he’d be coming today to stay until Thursday, when he’s gonna camp out with the Yankees. Here I am, supposed to be cooking and bartending, but—”

“I’ll clean a couple of the units.”

“You most certainly will not! If you so much as set foot out back, you can count on eating burritos from the Dairee Dee-Lishus for a month of Sundays. The only way you can help is to go on about your business and let me sort it out.”

I slid off the stool. “No problem. Will you be needing me later to drive you to a psychiatric facility where you can pound your head against a padded wall?”

Her expression softened for a moment. “I’m just kinda antsy right now. Come by later this afternoon and have a beer with that man of yours.”

“He’s far from mine,” I said drily. “Did he say why he’s coming early?”

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.”