Miss Julia Hits the Road

by Ann B. Ross

  When the danger was past, and I was trying to slow my heart rate, Sam said a word or two that I’d never heard from him before. I didn’t rebuke him, for there were a few similar ones running through my mind. I reached up to Little Lloyd, patting him and reassuring myself that he was still with us.

  What a relief to the see the last of those two. It was just as I’d always believed: regardless of what you’re driving, it’s the other drivers you have to watch out for.

  Chapter 32

  The next stop was a closed-up fish camp on the side of the road. Babe’s Fish Camp, to be specific, a shack peeling down to bare wood, a screened porch on the front, and a dock listing on a lake that rippled with raindrops, but not a soul there doing any fishing, boating, or camping. Two cars and a blue pickup were parked on the side and, as we pulled in, four women, waving and smiling, ran over to us.

  “Running kinda behind, aren’t you?” one of them asked, but in a kindly way. I declare, she didn’t look like a biker chick to me, in spite of her leather jacket with its Harley emblem on the back. She looked like someone who ought to be home baking cookies, not standing out in the wet weather holding an umbrella and a deck of cards. But I’d already learned that the motorcycle culture attracted all kinds.

  Sam drew an eight of hearts, and Little Lloyd, to his dismay, drew a three of diamonds. “Phooey,” he said. “I’m not having any luck.”

  “Yes, you are,” Sam said. “You’re working on a straight flush. See, you’ve got the two, three, and four of diamonds.”

  “Oh, yeah, I do, don’t I?” Little Lloyd grinned at his score card, delighted with the discovery. “And you have a pair, Mr. Sam. You beat me so far, but it’s not over till it’s over.”

  “Got that right,” Sam said. “Now, Julia, let’s see what you get.” He drew a card from the deck that the woman held out. “Four of hearts. Not much help there.”

  “All I’m interested in,” I said, “is getting her initials on my scorecard, so she can testify in my behalf, if it comes to that.”

  Sam double-checked the woman’s official card, just to please me, I know, and it did. “How far ahead of us are the others?” he asked her.

  “They left here, um-m-m,” she said, gazing off in thought. “Maybe ten minutes ago. A good ten minutes, though.”

  “We better move on, then.”

  “Can we wait just a minute?” Little Lloyd asked. “I have to use the bathroom bad.”

  I was relieved to hear it, for I did, too.

  “Sugar,” the woman said, “I’m as sorry as I can be, but everything’s closed up tight. You’ll have to go in the bushes if you can’t hold it.”

  That piece of intelligence put me temporarily on hold, since I preferred suffering to making use of an outdoor facility, but Little Lloyd said, “I can’t.” And he scampered off beyond the cars to relieve himself.

  But little boys don’t take long to do their business, and he was soon climbing back up behind Sam. Sam revved the engine and away we went again.

  I declare, I was about to get used to the current method of travel. It didn’t take any effort on my part at all. I just made myself comfortable, all scrunched down and covered up, reveling in the fact that we’d survived two legs of the trip. Only two more stops and we’d be completing the circle and on our way back to Red’s Stop, Shop and Eat.

  Sam pointed ahead, drawing my attention to beams of the setting sun slicing through the fog, lifting my spirits immeasurably. Still, it was getting on in the day, which, with the early sunsets, meant that dark would overtake us before long.

  “Next stop, eleven miles, Julia,” Sam said through my speakers. “If Pickens isn’t waiting for us there, I’m gonna have to whip him.”

  I smiled at the thought, though I was glad Sam couldn’t see me. He wouldn’t have appreciated it. Mr. Pickens, a former police officer and current private investigator, was a smooth operator from the outside. But for my money, he was rough as a cobb, and no retired lawyer who’d sat behind a desk all his life ought to think of tangling with him.

  We met little traffic on the road, and no other bikers trying to scare us to death. But Tammi was still trailing us. She stayed some distance behind, but whenever I glanced back I could see her headlight beam coming steadily on.

  Lord, if I let myself think about what was in front of us—two unknown bikers—and what was in back of us—Mr. Pickens’s red-headed former wife with who-knew-what mayhem on her mind—I could’ve gotten quite agitated. So I didn’t think about them. I thought instead of coming in with proof sufficient to snatch that check out of Thurlow Jones’s hand so I could reclaim my house before Clarence Gibbs took a wrecking ball to it, putting Lillian and me both out on the street.

  I was so taken up with these musings that it was a surprise to feel a deceleration in our forward movement and to see a number of cycles parked along the sides of a combination filling station and convenience store.

  “Well, they’re here,” Sam said as he pulled us into the lot and parked along the side of the building, out of the way of any cars that needed to get to the gas pumps. So, I thought with a smile, Mr. Pickens has escaped a whipping. He would’ve been relieved, if he’d known about it.

  “How about some coffee, Julia?”

  “I’d love some,” I said. “But first, you’ll have to excuse me.”

  “Why?” Little Lloyd asked as he slid off the back perch. “What’d you do?”

  “Nothing, yet. But I’m going to if I don’t find a ladies’ room. Preferably the indoor kind.”

  “Oh,” he said, slipping off his helmet and running in to see his mother.

  “Help me out of this thing, Sam, if you will.” And with more help than I thought I needed, I landed on solid ground again. Lord, I was stiff from being cooped up in that little capsule, but the worst thing was the flattened condition of my hair when I took my helmet off. For the first time in my life, I sympathized with Norma Cantrell.

  Walking stiff-legged while I ran my fingers through my hair to give it some lift, I followed Sam into the store. To our right, as we entered, we saw Hazel Marie, Mr. Pickens, and the others in our riding group clustered around a few tables. And to my surprise, there were some from the group who’d left before ours. I waved at two women from the church, and Mary Alice McKinnon, all of whom had brought in sizeable sponsorships. They were drinking coffee and eating hot dogs from the rotating cooker on the counter. The smell of coffee, so strong that it was probably burnt, filled the air. But burnt or not, I wanted some.

  “Finally got here, huh?” Mr. Pickens called out to Sam, one of his teasing smiles on his face. “Pull up a chair.”

  Hazel Marie ran over to me. “Are you all right? We were about to get worried. I don’t guess you’ve heard anything from Binkie, have you?”

  “How could I, Hazel Marie? I’ve been on that machine, just as you have. And I’m fine,” I said, grateful for her concern. “Mr. Pickens just went faster than I was prepared to go. Now, Hazel Marie, I need to visit the ladies’ room. Where is it?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.” And she led me around a counter filled with all kinds of chips and toasted one thing and another, past another counter loaded down with Clorox, Tide, and Tidee-Bowl, and finally, next to a shelf filled with cans of motor oil and car wax, we located a door in the back with a female figure painted on it.

  The door suddenly opened and out stepped Emma Sue Ledbetter. I declare, I’d never seen her looking so good, in spite of her homemade biker apparel. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were sparkling.

  “Julia!” she yelled. “Isn’t this the most fun you’ve ever had?”

  “Well, hardly. But I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

  “Oh, I am,” she assured me. “The only thing wrong with it is Deputy Daly, who wants to putter along like a Sunday driver. I say, if you’re going to hit the road, you ought to hit it like you mean it!”

  “The roads are slick, Emma Sue,” I said, looking longingly at the restroom door.
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br />   “Look, Julia,” she said, leaning close to me. “Larry’s so mad at me that he may divorce me, in spite of his views on the subject. So, if I’m going to do this, I might as well get the most out of it. Now, I’ve got to go. We’re pulling on out.”

  “My word,” I said, thinking that the worm had certainly turned. As I watched her skip off, Hazel Marie drew my attention to the empty restroom.

  “It’s a one-holer,” Hazel Marie said, “so I’ll wait out here.”

  It was small, with just enough room to turn around between the johnny and the sink, but it was welcome nonetheless. I soon rejoined Hazel Marie, feeling like a new woman.

  Mr. Pickens made places for Sam and me at the tables and put steaming styrofoam cups of coffee in front of us. Little Lloyd already had a soft drink, which certainly wasn’t good for him but I decided to overlook it. He’d found a seat on Mr. Pickens’s knee, and it warmed my heart to see that strong arm around the boy’s thin shoulders.

  Hazel Marie got up again to make a purchase, and I took the opportunity to lean over to Mr. Pickens and whisper that his former wife was looking for him. He turned pale and looked around to be sure Hazel Marie was out of earshot.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered again. “She lays low when we stop, but she’ll be coming around the mountain as soon as we start up again.”

  “Oh, Lord,” he moaned, leaning his head on his hand. “I don’t need this.”

  “This should teach you to look before you jump into something you can’t get out of so easily,” I said, feeling that he needed a lesson in exercising better judgment.

  Since the rain had stopped and we were halfway along our route, some of the pressure to push on seemed to’ve lessened. Everybody was laughing and talking, discussing the rain and the road and the best way to handle both. Mr. Pickens seemed in no hurry to get started again, refilling his cup and telling some long story about a motorcycle policeman who lost control of his machine coming off a ramp in Atlanta, went airborne, and flew across three cars before landing in the back of a tomato truck. It seemed to me that he was taking some pleasure in lingering, knowing that since Tammi hadn’t shown up here she was probably dawdling somewhere on the side of the road, feeling cold and miserable. But I may have misjudged him.

  “Look, Mr. Sam,” Little Lloyd said, pointing out the front window at the same time that the two bikers who’d almost run us off the road roared passed the store. “There go those Harley Fat Boys that passed us.”

  “Well, how about that,” Sam said, frowning. “Wonder where they’ve been.” I wondered, too, for they’d been ahead of us, and we hadn’t passed them. Yet there they were, going past us again. I surely did not want to catch up with them, and was happy to see them moving on.

  There was a great deal of cutting up as a deck of cards was brought out by the proprietor of the store. Little Lloyd was pleased with another diamond, but Sam drew a ten of spades, which didn’t do him a bit of good. I drew a another jack of something, hearts, I think, but all I cared about was getting the proprietor’s initials on my card. It crossed my mind that I should’ve brought along a notary public so Thurlow Jones couldn’t question my participation.

  Sam got up from the table, saying that he needed to check his gas tank, and Mr. Pickens went with him.

  I watched through the window as Sam rolled his motorcycle to the front of the store, while he and Mr. Pickens talked. From Sam’s hand motions, he seemed to be telling about the close call we’d had from those two fat boys who were now ahead of us.

  By the time they came inside and returned from a visit to the men’s room, the rest of us were getting up from the table and pulling on our coats. I dreaded crawling back on that machine, especially since it was clouding up to rain again. The lights around the gas pumps made the highway seem dark and gloomy, and the lateness of the day didn’t help matters. But we were beginning the next-to-last leg, so it was downhill, so to speak, from then on.

  As the other riders climbed on their cycles, I accepted Mr. Pickens’s help to get back in my seat. “I’m going to stay close for the rest of the way,” he told Sam. “With this weather, it’ll be dark in a little while, and I don’t want to lose you three slow pokes.”

  One motorcycle after another got kicked, cranked, and ignited, stirring up an awful noise. They moved out onto the highway and were gone in a minute. Mr. Pickens cranked his and sat idling with Hazel Marie hanging onto his waist, which I took as a sign that she was speaking to him again.

  With all the commotion, I’d paid no attention to Sam’s prolonged efforts to start our vehicle until Little Lloyd said, “What’s wrong with it?”

  Sam turned off the ignition, then switched it on again, with no resulting catch in the motor. All it did was grind like it wanted to catch, but just couldn’t manage it. “Blamed if I know,” he said. “It doesn’t want to start.”

  Mr. Pickens left his bike and came over to ask an entirely unnecessary question. “Won’t start?”

  “No,” Sam said with some asperity. He took off his helmet and wiped his forehead. “It turns over, but won’t catch. You got any ideas?”

  “Maybe,” Mr. Pickens said as he squatted beside the cycle and surveyed the motor.

  Hazel Marie left her perch and came over to see what was wrong. “Maybe it needs oil,” she said.

  Mr. Pickens looked up at her from his heavy eyebrows and grinned. “I bet that’s it,” he said, as he messed around with the motor, testing wires and such like. “Run bring me that tool kit in my saddle bag, Little Lloyd.”

  “Yessir,” he said, eager to be of help.

  Mr. Pickens said, “Crank ’er again, Sam, so I can hear what she does.”

  Sam turned the key in the ignition again, but nothing happened. Not a spark of life in it.

  Hazel Marie watched all this, then she said, “I can tell you one thing that’s wrong with it.”

  “What’s that, sweetie?” Mr. Pickens asked, somewhat distractedly, I thought. He had his head practically inside the motor, fiddling around with the greasy thing.

  Hazel Marie pointed at the back of the motorcycle. “It’s got a flat tire.”

  We all turned to look, and Mr. Pickens sat down hard, just disgusted. “Well, dang,” he said.

  Sam came off his seat like a shot. “How’d I not see that?”

  Mr. Pickens crawled on his hands and knees and examined the rear tire, while Sam and Little Lloyd hunkered down beside him.

  “It’s been slashed,” Mr. Pickens said, running his hand around the tire. “And not long ago, or you would’ve known it.”

  Little Lloyd threw out his arms and whirled around. “This just bums me out!”

  “Who’d do such a low-down, underhanded thing?” Hazel Marie demanded.

  “Those fat boys!” I said, suddenly putting two and two together. “Why else would they pass us, stop somewhere, then pass us again? This . . . this sabotage was what they were doing in between.”

  “But why, Miss Julia?” Little Lloyd asked, sounding as if he wanted to cry. “Why would they try to hurt us when they don’t even know us?”

  “Well, that is the question, isn’t it?” I said, but I was thinking of a few answers. “What do you think, Sam?”

  “I think somebody doesn’t want you to finish the Run.”

  “So do I,” I said, darkly. “And, for my money, there’re only two candidates for that dubious honor. Clarence Gibbs, who would give his eyeteeth not to have to sell to us, and Thurlow Jones, who’s promised to give more than he wants to give.”

  And then there was Tammi, who’d certainly had the opportunity, but no motive, at least that I could see.

  Chapter 33

  “You may be right,” Mr. Pickens said, as practical-minded as ever. “But a flat tire doesn’t explain why it won’t crank.”

  Sam had been giving the motor a closer examination, knocking and tapping at it. “Good Lord, Pickens. Look at this. Somebody’s knocked the heads off every one of the spark plugs.” He stood up an
d looked at me. “Well, Julia, I guess this is the end of our run. We’ll have to see if Red can send a trailer to pick this thing up. It’s gone its last mile today.”

  “Can’t he send the parts so you can fix it?” I said, stung by the thought of giving up so easily. I’d risked everything—life, limb, and home—and come so close to winning the prize. The thought of losing practically at the last minute because of an unfair and criminal act was more than I could stand.

  “Take too long, I’m afraid,” Sam said, looking as discouraged as I felt. “We’d never make it back by five o’clock.”

  “Don’t worry about a deadline,” Mr. Pickens said. “It’s not a race, so you can come in anytime. What counts is the best hand, and from what I’ve seen of yours, Miss Julia, you’re pretty much out of the running anyway.”

  “No,” I said, clutching my pocketbook because I needed something to hold onto. “No, Thurlow Jones told me five o’clock. If I’m not back by then or if I’ve not made every stop, that check stays in his pocket. And,” I took a deep breath, figuring they might as well know the worst of it. “And if I don’t hand over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Clarence Gibbs by ten o’clock Monday morning, he’ll withdraw his offer to sell and take possession of my house, as well.”

  “What!” I didn’t know who said it, but probably all of them, for they were all gaping at me. Sam was the first to recover. “Tell me what you’ve done, Julia.”

  So I told him and said I was sorry for having done it, but it’d been the only thing I’d known to do. “It was for Lillian,” I said, as Sam slowly shook his head and Mr. Pickens ran his hand through his hair in amazement.