by Mary Saums
With fall almost upon us, it was hardly a surprise that someone was already testing the waters. Actually, on three previous occasions, I found smaller bits of evidence that uninvited humans had been in the woods in the past two weeks. The blood I’d found that morning, however, changed things, for it was the first to point specifically to hunting activity.
“So, you don’t mind if we stop off at the Pig first?” Phoebe said as she reversed out of her driveway. The Piggly Wiggly is where we always buy our groceries.
“No, not at all. We have plenty of time, I think.”
“Loads. I figured I might as well use it to get my baking supplies. The weatherman predicted we might have tornado warnings this week, so I need to stock up and get busy. I like to take food out to the workers when the electricity goes out, which it usually does when the least little wind blows around here.”
We chatted on the way, Phoebe doing most of the talking since she was excited about the real reason for our outing. She had scheduled both of us for hair appointments at the Beauty Barn that morning. It would be my first visit.
“Somebody has got my place,” she said. She referred to a large motor home that took up a substantial number of parking spots, among them one Phoebe called her own. I knew immediately that the motor home did not belong to a resident of Tullulah.
We walked inside amid a flurry of excited conversations. A number of customers stood about, most with paper cups in hand beside a table of breakfast rolls and coffee, compliments of the Pig. One customer tipped his hat on seeing me, a patrolman in uniform whom I had met not long after I moved here.
While Phoebe got to the bottom of things with the group, I noticed a young man watching us. He stood at the clear plastic window of the manager’s station, an elevated platform by the last cash register. He turned away when our eyes met, or perhaps the manager or a clerk spoke to him at that moment. I didn’t know him, but I had seen him when we parked. I noticed his car behind us earlier when we turned onto the town square as well.
Phoebe rolled a shopping cart to me and we began our trek through the aisles. “That trailer belongs to those movie people. They were in here buying snacks and told the regulars they were thinking about doing some of their filming in Tullulah, rather than doing all of it in Hamilton like they planned.”
Almost every edition of the local newspaper devoted some space to the “movie people” who were working on location just south of Tullulah. Their project, an independent film, required much greenery and rolling hills, both abundant in the countryside that surrounds and spreads out from the bottom of Tullulah’s mountain.
As Phoebe shopped, she moved faster and faster through the store. I managed to keep up but couldn’t understand why she hurried. “What’s the rush? We still have plenty of time.”
“I know, but I want to get back outside before they leave. They might need some local actors. Or actresses. I thought I’d stop and say hello, tell them we’re so happy they’re here and then ask, you know, real casual-like.”
I kept a straight face.
Once through the checkout, I took my purse out of the cart. The automatic doors opened for us as Phoebe pushed the cart outside. She turned to say something to me when suddenly I felt my arm pulled down. At the same time, Phoebe was knocked to the side by a figure that put me off balance as well. All I saw was the torso of a young man in a maroon T-shirt with another shirt, plaid and worn open, over it. The next instant, I saw the back of his dark curly hair as he turned to run away.
“What the…Jane! He’s got your purse!” Phoebe screamed.
I managed to grab the tail end of the open shirt that he had kindly left untucked and pulled him closer, just enough to grasp his arm. I swiveled and used leverage to turn his body slightly and bring him down on his back with a loud thud.
He didn’t move.
Phoebe sucked in a loud startled breath. She held her hands over her mouth and stared down. “I believe you’ve killed him.”
“Don’t be silly. His eyelids are moving.”
“Hey, somebody call the funeral home.”
“Phoebe, don’t be ridiculous, he is not dead.”
“He will be when I get through with him. The very idea, robbing a decrepit old lady. And in Tullulah. No, sir, buddy. This here young’un is not long for this world. Jane, help me get him up and then come show me how to flip him. Just one time, that’s all I ask. Oh, shoot, here comes the fuzz.”
The patrolman she had spoken with earlier walked out the Pig’s door, coffee cup in hand. He didn’t see us at once. An older gentleman who came outside with him looked like he was telling a joke.
The boy moaned a bit and looked groggy as he sat up. Phoebe clucked her tongue. “Too bad. They should have plenty of room for him down at the jailhouse. I guess we should step back so Junior has room to cuff him and haul him off.”
When Phoebe called to the policeman, and while our attention was slightly diverted, the thief took a chance. In an instant, the young man jumped to his feet and sprinted across the lot and out of view, my purse held firmly under one arm. The policeman threw down his cup and gave chase.
He had no luck. After a few minutes, he came back, out of breath and dispirited. He had radioed for backup while looking about for the thief. He didn’t stop to talk with us but hurried toward his vehicle, asking us to wait until he or another officer could take our statements.
Twenty minutes later, the police took our report, but I knew it would do little good. It was the last thing any of us expected.
Phoebe kept looking at her watch. She held up a finger. “Okay, fellows, you’ve got one minute to wrap this thing up because that’s when we’re leaving. Right, Jane?”
Before I could speak, Phoebe locked eyes with the officer taking notes.
He let us go. Her face returned to normal, to the nice church lady and former children’s librarian that she really was. She grabbed my arm and pulled me along, inviting all the policemen in hearing to her house for cake anytime they wished to stop by.
The curls on Phoebe’s head flopped as she ran, bouncing on the top rim of her new all-black fashion sunglasses. When we reached the car, she slung her purse into the backseat. She turned the ignition before fully settling herself behind the wheel. With the shifter in drive, she put the car in motion without waiting for me to shut my door first. I pulled with all my might, managed to close the door, and grabbed the dashboard.
Her foot gunned the accelerator. We jerked out of the Pig’s parking lot with a screech, grinding black rubber marks in the asphalt. I managed a weak apologetic smile for the policemen who watched our departure.
We zoomed to the town square and around it three quarters of the way, taking each corner at a skid. I felt as if we tilted on two tires the whole way round. Looks of horror from pedestrians had no effect on Phoebe’s speed nor did their cries of disapproval break her concentration. Used to Phoebe’s driving, I remained silent as I fought gravity to keep my seat.
She spun the wheel as we turned onto a side street and, taking another turn sharply, the car bumped into the driveway of a gravel parking lot. Beside it sat a very old log building, its front door and wide porch facing the main street. Phoebe stomped on the brake. The back end of the car fishtailed a few feet to the right and the car jerked to a halt as the rear tires sprayed rock and plumes of white dust.
Phoebe pushed the gearshift into park. She turned to me, adjusted her Hollywood shades, and said an enthusiastic, “Yeah, baby. Call me Bullitt.” With a cackle and a rearview mirror check, she hopped out of the car, waving for me to follow.
The Beauty Barn was neither a barn nor a beauty in the usual ways. Its appeal was in the primitive look of its exterior, like something from bygone homesteader days of the West. And, of course, if it had been built in the last days of the 1700s, as it looked, this part of northwest Alabama had been considered the West not long before. The dark, almost black, weathered beams stood out in contrast to the more modern buildings surrounding the odd-sh
aped patch of grass that comprised the Barn’s lot.
We walked up the steps into the porch’s deep shadow. Phoebe shoved the door open to a brightly lit room. The heady scent of fruity potpourri rose from a number of large wicker baskets set about the floor of the reception area. Farther in, we were met with the unmistakable smells of hair salons the world over: shampoos, hair sprays, and the chemicals of hair dyes and permanent waves.
We had only just stepped past the vacant reception desk when a loud voice hailed us from the back of the single large room. “Hey, Phoebe. Y’all come on in.” A tall dark-haired woman wiped her hands on a towel as she walked toward us.
On the way, she checked the progress of other ladies’ style preparations in various stages of completion. She waved the towel in the direction of a row of bubble-headed hair dryers and gave orders to one of her assistants. “Sherry, would you check on Mrs. Thompson’s wave rods for me? Sometimes she curls fast. Especially in front. But check all over, please. Laura, you can go ahead and get the mix ready for Jennifer’s blond highlights.”
She stood before us at last and smiled. “You must be Jane. I’m Bonita. Nice to meet you,” she said as she put her hand out to shake mine. “We’re ready for both of you. Come on back.”
Phoebe and I followed her through the middle of the floor, with a row of stylist chairs to our left in front of a wall-sized mirror. To our right, we passed Mrs. Thompson in her dryer chair, wincing as she endured Sherry’s careful but apparently painful inspection of the tight curlers. Other ladies under the dryers’ bubbles beside her waved to us and smiled.
When we reached the back of the room, Bonita ushered us into an alcove that contained four sinks for shampoos. Only one was in use. Its occupant raised her head, ignoring the strong spray of water intended for her rinse, letting her medium-length hair drip down her back.
“Phoebe! It’s about time you got here. And you must be the famous Jane. Welcome to Tullulah. I hope you like it here. I’m Glynnis Brown. My husband runs the hardware store on the square, so if you ever need anything, anything at all, all you’ve got to do is give him a holler and he’ll fix you right up.”
“Glynnis, you’re soaking yourself,” said the young woman who held the sprayer. She smiled up at the two of us, giving us a wink while she snapped the wet towel from Glynnis’s neck and replaced it, quick as can be, with a dry one. “Okay, lie back where I can finish.”
Another teenaged girl came around the corner and introduced herself. “I’m Teresa. We’re so glad to have you in Tullulah, Mrs. Thistle. I hope you’re getting settled in all right.”
“Oh, yes, quite well, thank you. It’s very nice to meet you all. And what a lovely shop you have here. I’ve been looking forward to coming in. Phoebe has told me so much about it.”
Once our own towels and capes were fastened into place and the shampoos begun, we were able to relax at last after our morning’s ordeal. With Bonita taking care of Phoebe and Teresa taking care of me, the soothing process of shampoo and scalp rub combined would have lulled me into a semiconscious state had it not been for Phoebe’s recount of events at the Pig.
Bonita leaned Phoebe’s chair back to the sink. “You’re a little agitated, Phoebe girl. Has it been an exciting morning?”
“Ha. I’ll say.” Phoebe only needed a few moments to wiggle her body into a comfortable position before she began the first rendition of our adventure. “Bonita, honey, you’re not going to believe what just happened to us. Jane and I were mugged.”
“Mugged? You are such a kidder,” Bonita said. Upon seeing Phoebe’s serious expression, she said, “You’re joking, right?”
Phoebe shook her head. “Nope.”
“Where?” Bonita turned off the water sprayer.
“In the Pig’s parking lot.” After many exclamations of disbelief, Phoebe continued. “Never saw the guy before and probably won’t ever see him again.”
Phoebe’s story was something along the line of a practice run, a bare bones framework on which she could build and add to in future tellings. She touched on all points of the event, yet it was a truncated version in comparison to the saga she related once we were finished with our shampoos and walked into the main styling room.
There, within hearing of a larger audience, she began again. She stretched and flourished the details in a way that suggested a more grand and dangerous plot. It was a most admirable effort. I’d have been impressed had I not witnessed the silly boy’s theft myself.
“There we were, minding our own business,” she said. “We got through the checkout lane and I pushed our buggy outside. All of a sudden, we hear this whoosh.”
I must say Phoebe is an excellent storyteller. I quite enjoyed the manner in which she pitched her voice and paused for effect. Bonita didn’t seem to mind Phoebe’s frequent jerks as she punctuated her words with hand and arm gestures. In fact, she was able to feel when Phoebe was about to move forward. Quite patient Bonita was, waiting with towel in hand to resume her ministrations whenever Phoebe might sit back. Phoebe did so for a while and appeared to have settled down. Bonita shook a plastic bottle and prepared to spray its clear liquid contents on Phoebe’s wet hair just as Phoebe suddenly leaned forward again.
“And then,” she said, “he stuck his arms right in between us and plopped his hands smack on top of Jane’s purse.”
A collective gasp of astonishment came up from the roomful of ladies. “Right down the street? At the Pig?” they said in various high pitches.
“Yes, ma’am, he sure did.”
“I can’t believe it,” Bonita said.
“Believe it, sister. We were attacked in broad daylight right here in Tullulah.”
Various mutterings of shock and disapproval followed. The manicurist in the far corner released her patron’s hand. “What did y’all do?”
Phoebe moved slightly but, feeling the resistant tug of Bonita’s comb, she sat still. To compensate, she spoke in a louder voice, moving her head as much as she could, left and right, to make eye contact with her audience. She pointed to me. “That one right there got him and got him good. Jane put the hai karate on him.”
The resultant murmurs coincided with Bonita’s release of Phoebe’s hair. Phoebe hopped up out of the styling chair. With a flip of both arms, she flung aside her plastic cape and began to demonstrate.
“She sure did. She done like this here, ‘Eeee-yah!’”
Her hands cut through the air with fast movements in a way I’d never before seen and certainly had not done myself. She scissored her hands, the edges out straight, and paused, as if frozen, in a stance she must have copied from one of the martial arts videos of which she has become so fond lately.
“He looked shocked but only for a split second before he started fighting back, like this.” She moved from her stiff pose into a series of jabs with her fists. “What kind of a boy would fight a little old lady? No offense, Jane.”
“None taken,” I said. “But actually, he didn’t really ‘fight’ in exactly that way.” No one paid any mind to me, nor would I have done, with the much more entertaining spectacle Phoebe enthusiastically provided.
“And then Jane did like this, ‘Ooo-waaah!’” Phoebe accompanied her remark with a supposed grab of the wrist and twist of the arm to her invisible attacker. “Right into his breadbasket. He doubled over and then she karate-chopped him on his neck with a ka-whap, ka-whap down on both sides, one right after the other one.” This she portrayed with quick slices downward, another embellishment of the truth. I had done nothing of the sort.
Phoebe stood looking at the floor, her fingers splayed, her hands and feet apart in a gesture one might see on a Broadway stage, or after the death of a Shakespearean character. I half expected a soliloquy.
“Phoebe,” Bonita said, “you’re dripping water everywhere. Here, sit back down.”
“And there he lay,” Phoebe continued, still staring downward, before coming out of her thespian reverie. She looked up. “He looked like he was goi
ng to be napping for some time. I thought he was out cold. Which is why we all relaxed and weren’t paying close enough attention. One minute he was still as could be, and the next he jumped up and took off, running like a streak of lightning.”
She swiped the wet strands of hair that had flopped down over her forehead to either side of her face. At last, she complied with Bonita’s request, let her cape fall back into place, and stepped up once again into her chair.
Laughter and applause broke out, with the ladies’ heads nodding in their towels and pink curlers. They seemed to be directing their approval at me as well as Phoebe, for they smiled and spoke kind words, congratulating me on the attempt to stop our thief.
In that, I had failed. He got away with my purse, after all. I didn’t look forward to renewing my driver’s license and getting a new credit card. Still, I was thankful neither Phoebe nor I were hurt. It could’ve been much worse. At the time, I thought that was the end of it but it was, in fact, the beginning, a relatively harmless event that presaged more dangerous ones to come.
Four
Phoebe Takes Jane to the Bookstore
There are people in this world who are attracted to nuts.
Jane Thistle is one of them. I don’t mean she is one of the nuts. She’s as sane and smart as all get out. What I mean is, she likes folks who are not altogether right in the head better than those who are normal.
I would be the one exception. You couldn’t find a more normal person than I am. But other than me, she goes for the weirdos. I can prove it. Her only other close friend here so far was Cal Prewitt, the local hermit, and he was the weirdest person who ever lived in these parts.
Cal’s dead now. He owned all the woods next to Jane’s house out there in the sticks. That’s how they got to be friends, because he was as much of a nature freak as Jane is. He turned out to be all right, but still, that boy was mighty strange sometimes.
Whenever I introduce Jane to an ordinary person, she’s always polite and friendly. But when we happen upon one of Tullulah’s basket cases and I can’t steer her away, Jane goes beyond polite. She gets extremely interested in whatever strange obsession is rattling around in the other person’s head.