Land of a Hundred Wonders

by Lesley Kagen

  She cannot answer ’cause she’s biting on her hand, so I reply for her in a different voice, deeper, “Who’s there?”

  I go back up the scale again. “Is Sneaky Tim Ray’s pecker home?”

  “Sorry,” I bluster, “Sneaky Tim Ray’s pecker ain’t home. Ain’t ya heard? Gibby McGraw shot it off.”

  These birthing pains must hurt something fierce because what Clever’s doing would only be considered grinning if you look at her upside down.

  “That true?” Cooter asks, buzzing around us . . . not sure where to land. “Ya shot that boy’s pecker? Off?”

  “I believe so.”

  After the pains have ebbed, Clever shoves me on the shoulder and starts laughing her lungs out. “Ya always did have skills with a gun, Butch. Ya’d have to be good to get a bead on something that small.”

  “Clever!”

  “What? I seen it a few weeks ago over at the Tap. Holloway was airin’ it out, tryin’ to interest Janice.”

  (Please forgive her. Being lawless and godless like she is, Clever can be not appropriate at all. Even when she’s trying. Which she isn’t.)

  But now that she’s brought up her mama, this is when I probably should tell Clever about how I found Janice in the drunk tank down at the sheriff’s station. But I’m not gonna. Cooter knows what I’m thinking and I can tell he agrees. That’s just plain good manners, not reminding your sidekick that her mama has a better relationship with Mr. Jim Beam than she does her own girl.

  “Speakin’ of airin’ out, guess what? I got the treasure map!” I say, trying to keep her good spirits on the rise. “So y’all are gonna be okay now.”

  Clever says, “Dang, you are, too. In all this upset, I forgot to tell ya. While you were gone breakin’ out Cooter, Miss Jessie called up to the cottage all the way from Texas. She told me to tell ya that Grampa is doin’ just fine.”

  “What do ya mean?”

  “The heart attack?”

  “I recall that, but I don’t know where and why Miss Jessie is with him and I’m not.”

  “ ’Member? They took Grampa to Texas in Big Bill Brown’s airplane and they’re gonna give his heart an operation.”

  “No, that’s not right,” I say, befuddled.

  “Is, too,” Clever says, gettin’ short. She despises her word to be questioned. “When I called down to the hospital lookin’ for you when you didn’t come right back, I made that varmint Darlene Abernathy tell me. She said the operation’s supposed to make his heart steady and that—”

  “Shhh . . . ya hear that?” Cooter whispers, haunches hackling.

  Hard to hear much of anything with the thunder giving off its best licks, so I check to see if Keeper’s gone into point, which he would if something wicked was coming our way. He’s not paying a bit of mind, too busy giving himself a lick bath. Straining to hear what Cooter heard comin’ up the trail, I finally catch it on my love radar. “Oh, that’s only Billy.”

  Not a minute later he rides back into the cave, slides outta the saddle and says, “I covered our tracks best I could and didn’t see . . . them.” Can’t blame him for not wanting to say their names out loud. That’d be akin to evoking the devil. But ya know, I don’t think that’s fair. We need to tell Cooter and Clever, let ’em know that what we’re up against is more’n just the sheriff and his dumb deputy. Like Grampa says, “You can’t win a fight ’lessin’ ya know who your enemy is.”

  So I clear my throat and announce, “When Billy says he didn’t see them, what he really means is, he didn’t see . . . the Brandish Boys.”

  “The Boys?” Clever says, giving a willies tremble. “Who they huntin’?”

  I jut my chin toward Cooter. “Sorry to be the bear of bad news . . . but there’s a reward on him, Kid.”

  (Ya know how I mentioned earlier that she ain’t afraid of anything? I forgot about the Brandish Boys.) Clever is letting loose with one of her ear-piercing wails and Cooter looks a whole lot less colored, that’s how bad he’s waning when he finds out the bounty the Boys are comin’ for is none other than himself.

  “No sense gettin’ all worked up. We’re safe for the time bein’,” Billy says, jabbing Cooter in the ribs, none too gently, maybe still mad about him holding that gun on him in the woods the other night. “Why don’t ya tell us why everybody wants this treasure map so bad?”

  Cooter, trying to recover from the shock that it’s you know who that’s coming after him, says, “Ya ain’t gonna believe me if I do.”

  “Try us,” Billy insists. He sure does smell good. Safe, and a little muddy.

  Cooter stabs at the map that Billy lays out on the ground in front of us. “Ya see those red lines? That’s the treasure up at the Malloy place.”

  “We already figured out where it is,” I say. “What Billy’s askin’ you is . . . what the hell IS the treasure?” I am picturing us draped in pearls and ivory and sequins and silver. “It’s gold, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it’s gold,” Cooter admits.

  “Bless Patsy! That just about solves all our problems, right?” I shout, reaching for Clever, who looks so relieved.

  Cooter adds, “Wish it was, but it ain’t the kind of gold y’all are thinkin’ it is.”

  What I’m thinking is, to the best of my knowledge, there IS only one kind of Gold: A valuable yellow metal.

  Clever asks, “What kind of gold is it then?”

  “Hemp,” Cooter says.

  Me and Clever and Billy—the three of us look a lot like we just heard the world is flat after all.

  “I’m sorry, I believe I misunderstood you. Did you say hemp . . . h-e-m-p?” I ask him.

  Cooter nods. “It’s a special kind of gold-colored weed that comes from Colombia.”

  “That’s in South Carolina,” I tell Clever, since she’s not so good in geography.

  “Not that Columbia. There’s another one,” Cooter says. “In South America.”

  Right where we’re headed?

  “This kinda hemp is real strong,” Cooter continues. “Willard says he can sell it Up North for a lot of money to folks who wanna get high.”

  “That’s nuthin’ but dumb Yankee talk,” I tell him, already beyond losing my patience. “Everyone knows ya can buy a hemp rope at Ready’s Hardware if you need to climb high.”

  Cooter says, “I’m not meanin’ the climbin’ kind of high. I’m meanin’ the kind of high ya get from smokin’ weed.”

  Billy says knowingly to me, “Smokin’ hemp can make ya feel real relaxed. High is just another word folks use to describe that feelin’.”

  I already knew that relaxing part from observing my next-door neighbor. Willard’s the poster child for relaxation. “So you’re tellin’ us there’s no emeralds or diamonds or candelabras buried up at the Malloy place? That the treasure we’ve been COUNTIN’ on for Rosie is just some . . . some dumb old weed that gets ya high?”

  “Tha’s right,” Cooter says. “Willard and Bishop planted the seeds in the spring.”

  This sounds so completely off. “How did Bishop Malloy happen to meet up with somebody like Willard?” I ask.

  Cooter says, “Don’t know ’bout that. All’s I know is that come next month they’s gonna harvest the hemp, dry it in the old barn, and take it back up to New York to sell in a place called the Village.”

  I’m not sure how everybody else is taking this news, but I feel like I got drug into a wet hole and left. Even if we all went up there to the Malloy farm, and stole the hemp out from under them, Clever can’t very well go draggin’ off to New York to sell it to villagers. Mothers, good mothers, the kind Clever’s gonna be, not like her mother, they don’t do those kinds of things. They paint watercolors and at night they stroke you with so much tender that you fall asleep in their arms breathing in their lily-of-the-valley scent.

  “The sheriff’s in on it, too,” Cooter adds.

  Surely, Cooter is mixed-up. “Well, if the sheriff is in on it and Willard was the one planted it, then they know right wher
e that hemp is, so what the hell they need the map so bad for?”

  “They don’t need it to find the hemp. They wanna get the map back to make sure nobody else finds out about what they’re doin’.”

  Clever, just getting her breath back from a pain, asks Cooter, “How did ya get messed up in all this anyways? With Sneaky Tim Ray?”

  He says, not ashamed at all, “Holloway got wind of what Willard and Bishop were up to and came to me suggestin’ we figure out some way to cut ourselves in. I told him gettin’ ahold a the map’d be the first step. Not sure how Holloway found out y’all had stolen the map from Willard, but that’s why we was trackin’ ya down that night.” He shrugs. “I needed money. Gramma’s gettin’ elderly.”

  “Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute. First things first,” I say, trying to mask my disappointment behind an enthusiasm that I DO NOT feel. No treasure? I’d been thinking once we dug it up, we could keep a tiara for Rosie and maybe a couple other geegaws and sell the rest of it to Miss Montgomery at her downtown shop called Precious, which, amongst other things, has got a lot of fancy bracelets and broaches in the glass case right up front. We coulda used the cash she’d give us to buy boat tickets to Bolivia. Since that’s not happenin’ now, we gotta come up with another plan. My friends are not trained investigators or as perceptive as I am. It’s my professional duty to take charge. So after thinking on it a spell, focusing to make this picture clear as can be, I announce, “I know what we have to do. We gotta . . . number one on our very important things to do list . . . we gotta get Cooter clear on these charges. Prove that he didn’t murder Mr. Buster Malloy. We should forget about the treasure for the time bein’ ’cause what good will it do us if the Boys catch up with him, right?”

  Our breathing sounds like a treed barbershop quartet.

  “But how we gonna do that? Prove that Cooter didn’t murder Buster.” Billy’s got a funny look to himself when he says that. I don’t know what I’d call it exactly. Maybe Duplicitous: Feeling one way, but acting another.

  I musta forgot to tell him. “Show ’em, Cooter.”

  He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the photos of dead Mr. Buster Malloy on Browntown Beach. After he passes them over to Billy and Clever to take a gander, their faces light up like the Fourth.

  Billy says, “We gotta get these pictures to somebody fast ’fore—” He stops. Too late. We all know what he was about to say. They’ll shoot first, ask questions later.

  Relentless: The Brandish Boys.

  The Truth Doesn’t Always Set You Free

  As dark draws deeper into the cave, Clever and me are cuddlin’, consoling each other over the—there ain’t no treasure ’cept for some stupid gold weed that gets ya high—news. The boys are a ways off, opening tin cans, slicing cornbread, and speaking in whispers. We can’t build a fire ’cause Billy says the Brandish Boys will spot the smoke, so we have to eat cold grub. After we get something into our tummies, we’re gonna decide what our next move should be. Keeper’s at the mouth of the cave, his snout twitching.

  Even though Clever says her stomach feels like somebody reached in and pulled it out, nothing can stop her from vigorously sniffing on the dead Mr. Buster pictures. “Ya know who I think murdered him?” she asks me.

  “Who?”

  “Miss Loretta.”

  “Why’d she wanna murder Mr. Buster?” I ask, more than a little curious.

  “Well,” Clever says, using her storytelling voice, “I was gettin’ me some peanut brittle last week when Buster came into the shop to pick up a bag of his butterscotch candies.”

  (She means she was stealing some peanut brittle last week.)

  “When Miss Loretta apologized for not having them done up yet, Mr. Butter got real ugly with her,” Clever goes on. “Told her, ‘Ya better get on the stick, Retta, or I’ll take my business elsewhere,’ and slammed outta the shop. And Miss Loretta, when she was stickin’ her little tinker bell back up to the door, she said, ‘I could wring his stinkin’ neck, that’s what I could do. Goes and gets hisself elected governor and now he thinks he’s even more better than everybody else.’ ” Clever flashes the pictures of dead Mr. Buster in front of my face. “And look here . . . that’s just what somebody done, wrung Mr. Butter’s stinkin’ neck but good.”

  That’s just so goddamn dumb. Miss Loretta of Candy World is always rantin’ on like that. It’s the heat in her kitchen melts her patience away. Everybody knows that it’s best to go and buy your sweets early in the morning ’fore it gets so hot in that shop. I don’t point that out to Clever though. She can get awfully ratty.

  “Ya doubtin’ me?” she asks, when I don’t pipe in to agree with her.

  “Not doubtin’ exactly.”

  “Ya ain’t callin’ me a liar, are ya?”

  “No . . . no, I am not callin’ you a liar.” Trying like the devil to keep her calm, the way Billy told me I should, I think fast. “Hey, Cooter told me something real dishy!” (This’ll calm her down. She’ll eat this up. Dirty gossip about high-and-mighty folks is Clever’s most favorite thing in the whole world next to shoot-’em-up movies, and stealing, and roses, and funerals, and I guess now, Cooter.) “On the way home from the jailbreak, he told me that he believes that Georgie Malloy didn’t die of natural drownin’. Cooter thinks Mr. Buster murdered Puddin’ and Pie!”

  “Already knew that,” Clever says, yawning in my face. “Suppose ya don’t know either that Buster was not only Georgie’s uncle but also his daddy.”

  Laboring a baby must make you temporarily insane! “Poor ole girl. That’s just not possible,” I explain to her slow and pronounced. “It’s common knowledge somebody can’t be somebody’s uncle and at the same time his daddy . . . that is just not humanly possible.”

  “Ya think I’m dumb, don’tcha? Ya think just ’cause I didn’t finish high school. Well, I got news for you. Buster forced hisself on Miss Lydia one night when he was drunk, and nine months later out popped Georgie!”

  “Billy!” I yell. “Come quick. Ya gotta ride Clever over to the mental institute at Pardyville.”

  “Why, you little . . .” She lunges for me, her hands clawed up and ready to give me one of her dreadful Indian burns.

  "Y’all quit! This ain’t no time for you two to be jumpin’ on each other,” Cooter shouts, rushing over to separate us. “We gotta stay calm. ’Specially you.” He passes Clever a plate full of chow that she turns her nose up at. “What she’s tellin’ ya about Mr. Buster forcin’ hisself on Miss Lydia is true, Gib.”

  “But . . . how . . .” This is just too much information for one almost Quite Right reporter to take in! My brain feels like it’s under one of those attacks Billy’s always flashing back on. Only the sky’s not sheeting bullets, but news. Miss Lydia was taken advantage of by her own brother Buster Malloy? And she bore him a boy? And that boy was Georgie Puddin’ and Pie? No wonder she likes to listen to that opera music so much. (Even though they’re well known for their excellent salad dressing, there’s always something tragic going on with those Italian folks.)

  “Ya absolutely sure ’bout that, Cooter?” I ask, taking my supper out of his hand. “That Mr. Buster took advantage of his own sister?” Everybody knows these types of family unions happen from time to time in the hollers, but here in Cray Ridge?

  We got a larger population to choose from when it comes to courting.

  “Just as sure as I am that a lot of folks gonna be happy as hell Buster’s dead,” he says, digging in. “Gonna be hard to find out who actually murdered him since just about everyone hankered to.”

  Uh-oh.

  It’s just occurred to me that I may have overlooked a few things.

  “Whoever it was that murdered Mr. Buster, the importance of perception in meticulous investigation says in the means, motive and opportunity chapter that a person would have to have all three of those things in order to commit a crime,” I blurt out.

  Clever frowns. “I already told ya. Miss Loretta murdered Buster. Sta
bbed him with that sharp fudge-cuttin’ knife and then wrung his neck with those powerful candy-makin’ hands a hers.”

  “Clever,” I say, “the knife and her hands are the means, and I’ll give ya the fact she knows where Browntown Beach is, so I guess she had the opportunity. But what’d be Miss Loretta’s motive?” I can tell by the way she’s cockin’ her head at me that she is not familiar with the meaning of that word. “Motive means a damn good reason for doin’ something. Just ’cause Mr. Buster irritated her some in the heat of the day, that is not a damn good reason for Miss Loretta to kill him. Hell, if irritation was a good motive to murder, half the town’d be dead!”

  I mighta said that all a tad Condescending: Displaying a superior attitude, because Clever snipes, “Goddamn you, Gibson,” and claws up her hands again. Thank heavens an awful birthing spasm stops her in her tracks. Billy checks his watch. Because he’s delivered a lot of foals up at High Hopes, he explained that when the pains don’t have much time between them it’ll be time for Rosie Adelaide to make her way out. He’s brought sheets from the cottage and has got his trusty army knife to cut the cord that’ll be attached to the baby.

  “Please accept my deepest of apologies for gettin’ you all worked up,” I tell Clever once the pain’s straightened out. “During the course of my investigation, I promise I will question Miss Loretta.”

  She gives me back a rumpf.

  I break off a piece of my cornbread and toss it Keeper’s way. Bet he’s wishing as much as I am that it was a trout pulled straight out of the lake this afternoon by my peg-legged-fishin’-cowboy-whittlin’-bird-watcher. “It’s just . . . I’m so worried about Grampa and Mama isn’t resting in peace and—”

  “I know, I know.” Clever won’t straight out apologize for her part of the spat, ’cause that’s not her way, but she is making a peace offering when she says, “All this chasin’ and jailbreakin’ and drownin’ and birthin’, this is just like one of our western movies, isn’t it, Butch?”