Muletrain to Maggody (14 page)

“You get a day off almost every week,” said Jim Bob, “along with Christmas and New Year’s Day when we’re closed. Next you’ll be asking for a paid vacation so you can fly off to some island and lie around on the beach. This ain’t a charity—it’s a business.”

“But I got to…find something afore…”

“Spit it out, you chunk of gristle. Find what? You ain’t looking for a couple of saddlebags filled with gold, are you?”

“Not exactly.”

Jim Bob swung around in his chair. “You know something about the whereabouts of this cave? You’d better tell me if you do, because otherwise you’ll find yourself begging for food stamps at the welfare office. Your mama and papa will be so shamefaced that they’ll up and sell their place so they can move to the other side of the county. Buchanons don’t take welfare, even if it means they have to live on squirrel and possum. Remember how they found ol’ Carismatica Buchanon? She starved to death all alone in her cellar because she wouldn’t take any handouts from the government or anyone else. Her body was surrounded by seventeen dried-up cat corpses and what they thought might have been a rabbit. Is that what you want for your family?”

Kevin was having a hard time following how an afternoon off was gonna result in such a scenario. “I don’t know anything about a cave. All I was wanting was to leave now.”

“I think you do know something.” Jim Bob came across the room and grabbed the front of Kevin’s shirt. “Tell me what Dahlia lost or I swear I’ll hold your head in the toilet until you howl for mercy. Does she have a map or something like that? Spit it out!”

“She lost her granny,” croaked Kevin.

Jim Bob’s hand dropped. “That crazy ol’ bitch? Why the hell would you want to find her?”

“I don’t rightly know, but Dahlia sez we have to. Iff’n you’re gonna fire me, I reckon you can go ahead and do it.” He stepped back and stuck out what little chin he had. “I’m leaving now. The bucket and mop are over in the produce department next to the yams.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but instead hurried out the back door and down the steps of the loading dock. He was sweating something fierce, though, ’cause he knew he might have just lost his job once and for all. Dahlia’d be mad, but she’d be a sight madder if he didn’t find her granny. He’d searched until long past sunset the previous night, when even he had realized it was foolish. He’d tripped over so many logs that one of them could have been her body without him noticin’ it.

Things had been mighty chilly when he finally dragged himself home. Supper had consisted of cold collard greens and a slice of bread. He’d been sent to sleep on the couch in the living room, and his whimpers all night had failed to produce a thaw from the bedroom.

So now he had no choice but to suck in his gut and do the right thing.

“So there you are, you little polecat!” Estelle said as she came into the barroom and saw Hammet sitting on a stool just like he thought he was sitting in a pew on Sunday morning. “I have been looking for you up one side of the ridge and down the other for the better of three hours! I was convinced you’d been dragged off by a bear—or worse. Now I find you drinking soda pop and eating a hamburger. I’ve a mind to turn you over my knee and—”

“Calm yourself,” said Ruby Bee as she came down to the end of the bar. “Why don’t you visit the ladies’ room and do something about your hair, then have a glass of sherry? Hammet told me he got lost, so he came down here.”

Estelle was almost sputtering with fury. “Lost? How in tarnation can he say he got lost? You look at me, young man! See these scratches on my face? These bruises on my shins? Here I was worried about you, when all the time you were sitting right here!”

“No, I weren’t,” Hammet said. “I watched a game show on TV where they tell the folks the answers right up front. I wish my geography teacher’d do that.”

Ruby Bee hustled Estelle into the ladies’ room. “You got to remember he’s still a child. He told me he stumbled across Raz’s still and realized he was in danger of a load of buckshot if he lingered. That’s what killed his mama, if you recollect. It was real hard on him.”

“I’ll bet he went so far as to shed a tear, didn’t he? I swear, Rubella Belinda Hanks, you’d take in one of those Mafia fellows if he had a convincing story about how his mama couldn’t make spicy meatballs so he had no choice but to bury her body in New Jersey.”

“Did Hammet show you any caves?”

Estelle dampened a paper towel and dabbed the red welts on her cheeks. “Oh, he showed me more caves than a sow has tits. None of ’em was big enough for a body to squirm into, though. Long about noon, we sat down and had our sandwiches. I did my best to talk about the ridge, but he was turning ornery.” She put the towel into the trash can and leaned against the sink. “About then was when we saw somebody.”

Ruby Bee gasped. “Who was it?”

“I ain’t sure, but he was wearing a Confederate uniform sure as God made little green apples. He was watching us from the bluff above us, and as soon as I looked up, he vanished. I mostly saw his backside.”

“And then…?”

Estelle snorted. “Hammet said he was going off to relieve himself, and never came back. I stayed where I was, thinking he knew where to find me, but I started getting worried after half an hour and went to look for him. I can’t tell you how many times I ran into brambles or stepped in a hole and turned my ankle. My whole body’s black and blue, while he was sitting down here with a soda pop—”

“Don’t get all fired up again,” said Ruby Bee, more distracted than sympathetic. “What’s done is done. The important thing is to figure out who this soldier is and if he knows where the gold is.”

“Why don’t you march yourself up there and sit on a stump until you see him? I’ll wait for you here.”

“You have to admit it’s curious, what with Earl swearing he saw the same thing on Saturday. Do you suppose it’s one of these reenactors?”

Estelle began resettling bobby pins and coaxing curls back into position. “The reenactors ain’t arriving until Thursday.”

Ruby Bee realized Estelle had been out of pocket most of the day. “It seems plenty of them are already here. Joyce said Mrs. Jim Bob was ripping out her hair on account of the folks from Charleston showing up early, along with Miss Hathaway and that treasurer she mentioned—and the professor from Ohio. The filmmaker and his assistant checked into the motel earlier, as well as a reenactor from St. Louis. Millicent called to say she saw a Confederate soldier going into the PD, and what’s more, Joyce saw a Yankee buying tobacco and papers at the supermarket.”

“Sounds like we could film this silly thing tomorrow and be done with it.”

“It might be for the best,” Ruby Bee said, “but there are plenty more soldiers arriving on Thursday. With our drummer boy and this ghost on Cotter’s Ridge, it’s starting to feel kinda crowded, isn’t it?”

Estelle dampened another paper towel to attend to her shins and ankles. “The next thing you know, Bufferin Buchanon will be calling to report Confederates in her attic. She does that every spring.”

“This is just charming,” Corinne said as she looked out at the garden. “You have so much more room to have a spontaneous effect. In Charleston, I have only my walled backyard and a few azalea beds at the front of the house. It must be exhilarating to be able to plant things without any thought to space or organization.”

Mrs. Jim Bob forced a tight smile. “Are you finding your rooms comfortable?”

“Very much so, thank you. I must apologize again for descending on you like this, but we searched all over Farberville for a reasonable hotel. Sweetpea and Simon were quite amused by some of the motels we saw, but I couldn’t bring myself to stay in one that offered XXX-rated videos and mirrors on the ceiling. I’m no more fastidious than my great-great-grandmother must have been, but even she made sure bedrooms were free of vermin.” Corinne took a sip of tea. “Do you enjoy the peacefulness of a quaint little town? If only I could live in the country, with an office and a view such as this. How many books I could write if I were never interrupted by the commotion of traffic, the streetcars, the gaggles of tourists on my sidewalk, the social demands on my time and energy. The ideas would flow like that charming creek at the bottom of your yard. It’s all so rustic.”

Mrs. Jim Bob wasn’t sure how to take this, and she was trying to come up with a response when Sweetpea came strolling across the yard. “Did you enjoy your walk?” she asked like a proper hostess. “Would you like some lemonade and cookies? I’m afraid they’re store-bought.”

“I’d love some, thank you,” Sweetpea said as she sat down. “It’s hard to imagine how terrible it must have been that morning with the confusion, the gunfire, and all those boys dying for the sake of a dozen mules and a cannon. Are any of them buried here? I’d like to lay some wildflowers on their graves.”

Corinne sighed. “It was so tragic. More than six hundred and seventy thousand boys and men died during the war, and less than half of them were identified on the battlefield and taken back home for proper burials. Why, Sweetpea’s great-great-granduncle is lying in an unmarked grave somewhere, isn’t he?”

Sweetpea nodded as she accepted a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Jim Bob. “From all accounts, he was quite the rake about town before he was pressured to enlist. The story is that he got into all kinds of trouble for havin’ dalliances with the general’s wife and daughters and was horsewhipped more than once. My great-granddaddy used to roar with laughter when he talked about it, which he did right up until the day he died. My grandmother would sit next to him and try to hush him up, but she might as well have been driving bees with a peach switch.”

Corinne was not to be upstaged. “There were two boys on my mother’s side, identical twins and rumored to be so handsome they could have any girl in Charleston, who were caught running the blockade and summarily shot. All the girls cried for weeks because they couldn’t get bonnets from Paris and Belgian lace for their hankies.”

“One of my ancestors back in England was hanged for poaching on the grounds of a royal estate,” Sweetpea countered. “Scotland, I seem to recall.”

“Well, one of mine was caught consorting with a lady-in-waiting and locked in the Tower of London.”

“One of mine was beheaded there.” Having neatly won the game, if not the set and match, Sweetpea took a sip of lemonade. “This is real tasty, Mrs. Jim Bob. My mama insists on making it so tart I just want to pucker up my lips.”

“Then go right ahead,” Simon said as he came out of the house and leaned over her shoulder.

Corinne pinched him on the backside. “Mind your manners, Simon. Would you care for some lemonade?”

He sat down. “I’d prefer a gin and tonic.”

Mrs. Jim Bob stiffened. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Simon, but this is a Christian household. I’ll be happy to fetch you some iced tea if you’d prefer that.”

Simon glanced at his mother, who was staring sternly at him. “Maybe later. Come on, Sweetpea, let’s go for a drive. We can check out the site of the skirmish, or even go climbing up on this ridge to find the buried treasure.”

“Oh, what fun!” she said, then smiled at Mrs. Jim Bob. “If you don’t mind, of course. We’ll be sure to be back in time to dress for dinner.”

“No, don’t worry about that,” said Mrs. Jim Bob, feeling more and more miserable. “I’m afraid we’re just going to have a picnic out here this evening. I wasn’t quite prepared for you all, and now it seems Miss Hathaway and Mr. Streek are coming, too. My housekeeper will be here tomorrow, so I’ll have time to fix a nice meal.”

Corinne patted her hand. “We don’t want you to go to any trouble. Perhaps we can all go out to dinner tomorrow.”

Mrs. Jim Bob bit back the urge to ask her if she’d prefer country fried steak at Ruby Bee’s or corndogs at the Dairee Dee-Lishus. “Oh, I enjoy entertaining. I always look forward to the opportunity to have a dinner party for special guests. Sweetpea, you and Simon need to be back here by six o’-clock.”

After the two had left, Corinne took off her shoes and massaged her feet. “The young are so energetic, aren’t they? Every weekend they play golf and tennis, go horseback riding, sail, and still are ready to spend the evening dancing. I must admit my life is a bit more sedentary. I attend an occasional luncheon or tea, but I spend most of my time at my desk, delving into the societal complexities of the South during the War and Reconstruction. What do you do to amuse yourself, dear?”

Mrs. Jim Bob was about ready to mention scrubbing out-houses and frying chitlins for supper when an unfamiliar man came around the corner of the house. He was carrying a suitcase, which did nothing to elevate her spirits. “Who’s that?” she whispered.