by Alice Duncan
“He sure is. And Miss Strickland has the voice of an angel.”
An angel? Maybe, but it was increasingly my opinion that she didn’t act like one. I didn’t share that sentiment with my companions, either.
After one more long, loud, impassioned sermon, we all got to sing for a while. Since I like to sing, that part of the meeting was enjoyable, if you discounted the fact that my heart was broken and the fellow I’d assumed I’d marry one day was ignoring me and devoting himself to a woman whom I knew was unworthy of him even though I had no proof of that and she’d only ever been nice to me, the vile seductress. She was a villain. Actually, both of them—Phil Gunderson and Esther Strickland—were villains. Not literally, of course.
I tried not to think about it.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” said Hazel, rising from her seat next to me.
Please don’t bother, is what I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t. I only said, “Okay.”
Lots of other people besides Hazel started moving around during the singing, probably because their sitters were sore from having endured being verbally whipped by the preacher for forty-five minutes while sitting on hard wooden benches. As we sang Amazing Grace, one of my favorite hymns, I saw Hazel, whom I had assumed had got up to get a glass of water from the back of the tent, fawning over Reverend Strickland.
Boy, I didn’t understand what she and Myrtle saw in that man. True, he had a wonderful speaking voice, but he used his voice to ill purpose, if you asked me. Not that anybody did. Also, his looks were against him. While his voice was a powerful instrument, his physical person was reedy and small, and he looked trifling and insignificant to me. Or like a malnourished rat. I allowed as how I might have an itsy-bitsy hint of a prejudice against him because of his sister and his calling, but I still couldn’t see why the rest of the girls in town swooned so darned much. Perhaps they were mistaking him for his message or something, if you know what I mean. Since I didn’t much care for his message, either, I was still stumped. The man didn’t appeal to me one little bit.
Anyhow, Hazel was gushing all over Reverend Strickland, who was smiling and nodding and seemed more than a little pleased with himself, and the rest of us were singing, when I saw Esther Strickland join her brother and Hazel. She said a few words, her face wreathed in smiles. It was interesting to watch the expression of rapture on Hazel’s face fade. It was as if she were a watercolor painting somebody had left out in a storm. All her animation ran down her face like colors running in the rain. Then she said something, probably “Excuse me,” or the equivalent, turned around and walked toward the back of the tent. She got a couple of paces away from the preacher and his sister, then ran for the opening. I thought she might be crying and felt a little sorry for her, although not quite sorry enough to go after her and find out what was wrong and try to comfort her. I know, I’m not a nice person.
I’d forgotten all about Hazel, and Myrtle and I and the rest of the congregation were clapping and singing a rousing version of “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder,” when Hazel came back. Even though I was supposed to be under the influence of Jesus by that time, I found myself not pleased to see her. She seemed to have recovered her composure. In actual fact, she was grinning like the Cheshire cat in Alice In Wonderland. Although I didn’t much care to know why she’d endured this transformation, I was trying to be nice, so as soon as “When the Roll Is Called” was over, I asked her, “What’s got you so excited all of a sudden?”
“I can’t tell you now,” she said. She would. Always trying to drum up drama, Hazel was. “But I can tell you that your little brother is a brat.”
“I already knew that.”
“Do you know that he and the Wilson boys are out there playing baseball when they’re supposed to be in here at the revival meeting?”
“I suspected as much.”
“They ought to be in here.”
“I’m sure they should.”
“I told Jack so, too.”
Oh, boy. I bet that went over really well with my brainless brother. “Oh? And did he drop his ball and bat and rush to the tent to be saved?”
Hazel snorted. “I should say not. He chased me with that stupid bat of his.”
That caught my attention. This conduct was more outrageous than usual, even for Jack. “Oh, dear. I’m really sorry, Hazel.” I meant it sincerely, too, and wished I could tell Ma and Pa about my brother’s horrid behavior without being considered a tattletale. “Jack’s a real brute these days.”
Hazel pruned up her lips. I guess she was trying to look like a long-suffering Christian martyr or something. “That’s all right, Annabelle. Boys will be boys.”
Oh, brother. I’d heard that one before—and always in reference to Jack, who didn’t deserve to be let off the hook so easily in my opinion. Boys will be boys, my foot. “I guess. But I wish Jack would snap out of it. He’s been a real monster lately, and I don’t think people ought to excuse his outrageous behavior. They ought to tell our parents.” If Hazel told on Jack, at least I wouldn’t be blamed for tattling.
“That’s not the only thing I saw out there, either.” I guess Hazel found Jack too piddly a subject for her dramatic tendencies.
Not that I blamed her for not wanting to talk about my brother, since I didn’t either, but I also didn’t especially want to hear her other tale, either, since her tone of voice reeked with impending gossip. That being the case, I said merely, “Oh.”
With much titillation, she said, “I’ll tell you all about it later. And it’s going to knock the socks off of everyone in Rosedale, too. Just you wait.”
Guess I’d have to, which was all right with me. I was annoyed by Hazel’s coyness. Here I was, trying to be a good Christian girl and behaving nicely to her—which was honestly and truly a hard thing to do sometimes, this being one of the times—and she played this silly game and made me want to wallop her. Maybe Hazel Fish was a test sent by God to see what I was made of. Well, I knew what I was made of: a whole bunch of petty human failings. I’m pretty sure I sighed again.
After we sang the last note of “When the Roll Is Called,” the pianist struck up the opening chords of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and Hazel leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Just wait, Annabelle. You won’t believe it! Nobody will!”
Since she apparently wasn’t going to tell me what I wasn’t going to believe, I became even more annoyed with her. “Yeah?” said I, and attempted to drown out with song any further efforts of communication that Hazel might make. Myrtle winked at me, and I felt a little better about things, although I devoutly wished Myrtle would return to earth from her heavenly plane and stop worshiping at the altar of Milo Strickland.
Hazel never did get to sling her latest dirty tidbit at us, presuming she had any intention of doing so, because, lo and behold, who should show up at that precise moment but Phil! I pretended not to notice when he came over to us. But when he said, “Hey, Annabelle, can I sit with you?” what could I do?
I said, “Sure,” and scooted over. I’d just cleared my throat and begun singing the chorus to “The Battle Hymn” when my happiness in Phil’s company suffered a severe setback. All of a sudden, as if she’d materialized out of thin air, Esther Strickland appeared before us. She leaned over and whispered something in Phil’s ear.
Rising, Phil said, “I’m sorry, Annabelle, I have to help Esther out for a little bit.” He rose from the space I’d just made for him.
Esther gave me one of her angelically innocent smiles. “I’m so sorry to intrude, Miss Blue, but my brother needs Mr. Gunderson for a minute.” And she took Phil’s arm and waltzed off with him.
Well! You can bet I saw red for a second, but then I calmed down. At least Phil had sought me out. If Esther had decided she didn’t want him to have done so, I don’t suppose it was Phil’s fault. Well . . . all right, so it was Phil’s fault in that he evidently hadn’t repelled her advances. Heck, maybe he didn’t even realize they were advances. He was a pr
etty naïve guy in many respects, and some men have absolutely nothing between their ears except blocks of wood when it comes to women.
Not only that, but the bitter truth was that even I wasn’t sure Esther’s motives were impure. Maybe she wasn’t trying to lure Phil from my side. Maybe she’d told the truth, and it had been Milo Strickland who’d asked her to fetch him. She exuded an air of innocence that was almost too perfect for me to believe, but my judgment about people isn’t always the best. I’d learned that the hard way during the summer, during which I’d mentally accused all sorts of people of murder, when the real murderers were a couple of folks I wouldn’t have suspected in a million years.
Oh, pooh. I told myself that life just stank at the moment, and that it would get better eventually. Presuming I lived long enough, maybe I’d even be happy again one day. That thought made me think of Kenny and how he’d never get to see another day, much less go through the ups and downs of life, and I got all melancholy again.
Naturally both Hazel and Myrtle had seen Esther spirit Phil away. Myrtle, still singing, looked at me with an expression of such sympathetic understanding on her face that it galled me. Hazel went so far as to pat my hand. Then she leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry, Annabelle. By this time tomorrow, Phil will have seen the error of his ways. Believe me. In fact, everybody in Rosedale will know the truth.”
I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and I didn’t appreciate the sentiment, being too peeved by Phil’s defection and Myrtle’s sympathy to appreciate anything at all at that moment. I just nodded at her to show her that I’d heard what she’d said, even if I didn’t have a notion on earth what she meant by it, and continued singing. To heck with Phil Gunderson and Esther Strickland and Milo Strickland and Hazel Fish and Myrtle Howell and everybody else. I only wanted them all to go away and leave me alone. And, since I knew they weren’t going to do that, I wanted to go away and leave them alone. Instead, I had to sit there, singing, and then endure another bout of fervent prayers from Reverend Strickland.
All in all, Sunday was a really lousy day.
It didn’t get any better when, much later, after we’d all gone to bed, my entire family was awakened out of a sound sleep by the shrill ringing of the telephone. I was the first one to stumble out of bed, grab a robe, and stagger to the kitchen to answer it. When I bent over to retrieve the clock I’d knocked off my bedside table, I saw that it was twelve-fifteen. On Monday morning! I don’t think I’d ever been awake at that hour of the morning before in my entire life, the nightlife in and around Rosedale being somewhat limited.
“Hello?” I said groggily, sounding sort of like one of the bullfrogs that inhabit the banks of the Spring River during the summertime.
“Is this the Blue residence?” a familiar female voice on the other end of the wire asked. I couldn’t place it at first. I thought it sounded worried.
“Yes, this is Annabelle Blue.”
“Oh, Annabelle!”
It was then I recognized the voice of Mrs. Fish, Hazel’s mother. I got a sickish sensation in my stomach in anticipation of something awful to come. Nobody ever called other people at that hour of the morning unless they carried bad news. More awake now, I said, “What’s the matter, Mrs. Fish?”
“It’s Hazel! Have you seen her?”
Had I seen her? For a second I didn’t understand the question. Of course, I’d seen her. Then it dawned on me what Mrs. Fish’s question was meant to imply. “You mean recently? I mean, in the last few minutes or something?”
“Yes!” The poor woman sounded hysterical now.
“No, I’m sorry, Mrs. Fish, but I haven’t. I saw her at the revival meeting this evening. Last evening, I mean, but I haven’t seen her since then.”
“Did you see her leave the tent with anyone?”
“Well . . . she left with Myrtle and me, actually, but then Myrtle and I walked home and I’m not sure where Hazel went. Why? You mean she hasn’t come home yet?” I was becoming more alert, not to mention more alarmed, by the second.
“Yes!” wailed Mrs. Fish. “Oh, Annabelle, I’m just sure something awful has happened to her!”
“I . . . I can’t imagine what.” It was a stupid thing to say. “But let me get Pa. Maybe he and I can go out looking for her or something.”
“Thank you.” Poor Mrs. Fish started sobbing.
“Have you called the police station? I think they’ve got someone on duty all night.”
“I’ll do that now. Maybe Chief Vickers can organize a search party.” Willard Vickers was the chief of police in Rosedale. Technically, I suppose Mrs. Fish should have called Tom Greene, who was the Chaves County Sheriff, since the revival tent had been set up outside the city limits, but usually folks called the police station first and then the sheriff if it became necessary.
“Good idea. You call, and I’ll run by the police station as soon as I’m dressed. Maybe I can show Chief Vickers where I last saw Hazel.” The station was only a block away from our place.
“Oh, Annabelle, you’re such a good friend to my Hazel.”
If she only knew. Nevertheless, I muttered something meant to be consoling, said good-bye, hung the receiver on the hook and turned to see Ma and Pa and Jack all standing there, staring at me with bleary eyes. “Hazel Fish didn’t go home after the revival meeting.”
Ma clutched her wrapper to her throat. “Why, Annabelle, whatever do you mean?”
I thought I’d expressed myself pretty plainly, but maybe Ma was as groggy as I’d been. “I mean the person on the telephone was Mrs. Fish asking if I’d seen Hazel. I told her I’d seen her at the revival meeting, but not since. Then she said Hazel never made it home from the tent meeting.”
Ma and Pa exchanged a glance. Jack said, “Let’s go look for her!” He sounded bright and chipper and not the least as if he’d just been awakened from a sound sleep and then heard distressing news. Didn’t I tell you he was a fiend?
He’d turned, presumably to rush to his room and get dressed, when Ma grabbed him by the tail of his pajama top. “Not you, young man. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Ma!” Jack cried piteously.
“No,” said Pa in a voice I recognized. “You’ve got to go to school tomorrow, young man.”
“But, Pa!”
“Jack,” said Ma in that voice of hers.
Jack heaved a gigantic sigh. “Aw, shucks.” But he shuffled on back to his room. I regret to say that I experienced a moment of grim satisfaction that my horrid brother’s bad behavior was being curtailed. Ma followed him down the hall, I expect to make sure he did as he’d been told to do. You couldn’t trust Jack to behave himself unless he was closely supervised.
I started off to my own room to change clothes when Pa asked, “Are they going to look for the girl?”
“Yeah. Mrs. Fish is going to call Chief Vickers and get a search party organized. I thought I’d stop by the police station after I get dressed and tell them the little I know about where I saw Hazel last.”
“I’ll go, too. The more people who look, the sooner we’ll find her, I reckon.”
“I guess.”
“What can have happened to the girl?” Pa asked. I assume it was a rhetorical question, since I sure didn’t have a notion.
“I don’t know, but I told Mrs. Fish I’d help look.”
“Annabelle,” said Ma, who’d hesitated in the hall. “Why don’t you leave any searching to the men.”
Puzzled, I asked, “Why?”
“Well . . . in case they find anything . . . anything unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant?” Then it dawned on me. “You mean in case they find her dead?”
“Annabelle.” She frowned. “Really, you’re such a tomboy. I wish you’d behave in a more ladylike manner. This behavior is most unbecoming.”
Oh, boy. Here we were, living at the end of the earth, in Rosedale, New Mexico, home of cowboys and Indians and assorted outlaws, for Pete’s sake—well, okay, so there weren’t any In
dians around any longer—but still. “Ma, something might have happened to Hazel. Maybe she fell down and sprained her ankle and couldn’t get up again or something. I’m sure nothing worse could have happened to her. For heaven’s sake, we don’t live in . . . in Chicago!” That was the worst place I could think of at that time of night. The newspaper headlines were always screaming about gang warfare in Chicago and people shooting each other with Tommy guns and stuff like that.
Ma sighed. “Very well. Change your clothes and go out with your father. But stay with the men. Don’t go wandering off on your own.”
“I promise I won’t go off by myself, Ma.” I wasn’t so fond of running around in the pitch dark that I’d do anything so stupid. Even if there weren’t any Tommy-gun-toting bootleggers hiding out in the brush to shoot innocent citizens, there were plenty of gopher holes and rattlesnakes and scorpions and cacti and stuff like that lurking on the desert. No sensible person would tackle such a search alone, even in the daytime, much less at night.
It took all of five minutes for me to rebraid my hair and put on some dungarees and a shirt and grab a sweater. Then, while Pa was still struggling into his clothes, I ran to the police station, my flashlight bobbing wildly. I’d remembered to stuff a couple of extra batteries in my pocket, which, considering the lateness of the hour and the fact that I’d been sound asleep not ten minutes earlier, bespeaks a sensible nature. At least I think it does.
I was wrong about nothing worse happening to Hazel Fish than a sprained ankle. I was out near the revival tent with Earl Wilcox, a deputy sheriff (I guess Chief Vickers called the sheriff’s department), holding my flashlight and bellowing Hazel’s name when Chief Vickers, who had brought along his bloodhound Harley, set up a holler. “Over here!”
You might think it’s easy to figure out where sounds are coming from on a normal night, but that’s probably because you’ve never been searching for someone out on the southeastern New Mexico desert on a dark, cloudy night, with no illumination anywhere except what’s coming from your flashlight. Earl called back, “Where are you?”