Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

by Jackie Lynn

  “All the bikers were surprised that anybody would try and rob this dealer,” she continued. “He is apparently notorious for having a bad temper.”

  Rose nodded. “If he was the guy that was robbed and he was the guy who had Jason killed, that would make sense.”

  “Anyway, what has everybody talking, is that all three of the guys who pulled off the robbery are either missing or dead.”

  “And Jason is one of them?” Rose asked.

  “I assume so. He just said the bartender had heard that one guy was found shot, the other had been in a mysterious bike accident, and the third one hasn’t been heard from since the robbery.”

  “So, Jason is probably the one who was shot, right?” she asked.

  Rhonda nodded.

  “Is that all?” Rose asked.

  “That’s all he’s got,” Rhonda replied.

  “Then it does sound like what we thought. This drug dealer got robbed and then went looking for revenge.” Rose stopped, trying to sort through the information. “Except there’s still something that the dealer is looking for, something that he thought Jason took and that Chariot now has.”

  Rose glanced back at the bag on the counter and was just about to get up and continue searching it when they heard the sound of gunfire coming from somewhere inside the campground, somewhere near the sites at the woods.

  SIXTEEN

  Call the sheriff and I’ll go see what’s happened,” Rhonda instructed Rose. She had jumped up from the table and headed over to reach behind the counter. She grabbed a flashlight and moved to the door.

  “No, I’m going with you!” Rose replied, and both of the women jumped off the porch and hurried in the direction of where they had heard the gunfire.

  They both ran, thinking that it came from the back part of the campground, near the sites at the edge of the woods. They sprinted up the driveway and around the camping cabins and the Boyds’ trailer to find Old Man Willie standing at the front of Chariot’s tent with a shotgun in his hand. He had it aimed at the tent.

  Only one or two lights came on in some of the rigs, but no one seemed to be venturing out to investigate. Rose was glad that no one else was camping in the tent section of Shady Grove. She knew that the campers along the river may have heard the shot, but no one would have heard it as loudly as Rose and Rhonda. She hoped everyone would just assume it was a car backfiring or something from the other side of the river.

  “Willie!” Rhonda yelled, when she saw what was going on. She shined the light in the old man’s face. “What are you doing?”

  She and Rose were spent from their run from the office. Rose dropped down, holding her sides, trying to catch her breath. She turned to Rhonda, who was a bit winded from the run but not as much as Rose. She wondered how her friend stayed in such good shape.

  “He was trespassing,” Willie finally replied, squinting at the light in his eyes. His words were clear and he was to the point. He glanced over to Rose, still bent down. “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, her breathing labored.

  “Who was trespassing?” Rhonda asked. She glanced around, throwing the light in all directions, and still didn’t see anybody.

  Willie gestured with his chin into the tent. As if being signaled to make his exit, a man walked out with his hands in the air. Rhonda turned the flashlight on him. Rose stood up and both women studied him; he wasn’t anyone they recognized.

  “Your guy is crazy,” he announced as he stepped out. He ducked as he came through the flap, but he did not lower his hands. Like Willie, he squinted at the light being shone in his eyes.

  Rhonda lowered the flashlight a bit.

  He appeared young, twentysomething, Rose thought. His long brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a loose-fitting leather jacket.

  “What are you doing in that tent?” Rhonda asked. She stood next to Willie. The shotgun was still aimed in the man’s direction.

  “I heard something, an alarm or something that kept buzzing. I’m in the tent in the next site,” he said, pointing with his chin to the right of where he was standing. “It was annoying me.”

  The other three looked over and saw a small tent pitched just beside Chariot’s. It was for one person, small enough to fold up and put in a backpack. His pickup truck was parked on the other side of it.

  “What’s your name?” Rose asked.

  “Booker,” he replied. “James Booker.” He kicked a small rock from under his boot. “I called this afternoon,” he added. Then he stared at Rhonda. “Look, can I put my hands down?” he asked. “And would you turn off that light?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet,” she answered.

  There was a pause as the group stood waiting, trying to figure out what they should do. In the silence they heard a kind of beeping noise, low but constant.

  Rose shrugged at Rhonda, suddenly remembering the reservation she had taken earlier in the day. She thought the name he gave did sound familiar. She thought that it was the name of the man who had made a reservation. Rhonda signaled for him to step aside and Rose moved behind him through the flap and into the tent. She was gone only a few seconds when she came out with an alarm clock. The buzzer was going off. She showed it to the others and then, stepping over to Rhonda and standing under the flashlight so that she could see the dials, she switched the alarm off. The noise stopped.

  “See?” the intruder said. “That’s all I wanted to do,” he insisted. “I stood at the tent for a while, calling out for somebody in there. When nobody answered me, I thought they had taken off somewhere. So, I had just stepped in to turn the thing off myself when Shotgun Man over there came to the tent to kill me. That’s all I was doing,” he added.

  The two women waited, studying him. Rose lifted her shoulders at Rhonda, shrugging. She thought the story was credible. There was a clock making a noise and it was kind of annoying. She would have done the same thing.

  Rhonda nodded. “Okay, you can put your arms down,” she instructed him. “Slowly,” she added.

  The man did as she requested. He turned to look at Willie. “Do you mind telling your security guard to lower the gun?” he asked. “He makes me nervous,” he said with a sneer.

  Willie grinned. He seemed to enjoy the attention.

  Rhonda made a gesture to Willie, signaling him to reposition his weapon away from the camper. He lowered the gun beside him, but kept a close eye on the man still standing in front of him.

  “This place is nuts,” the man added. He shook his head. “I just wanted a little piece of ground to sleep on for the night. I didn’t want to bother anybody. I planned to get in my tent and sleep.”

  Rose looked over at Willie and noticed that he had a flashlight in his shirt pocket. “Can I borrow that?” she asked.

  Willie nodded and handed it to her. She turned it on and walked into the tent. She looked around to make sure nothing was missing from Chariot’s things. She tried to recall how it had looked earlier in the evening when she had stopped by to get the young woman to walk over to Thomas’s and later when she and Old Man Willie had stopped outside the tent before meeting the sheriff.

  It seemed that everything in the tent was the same. Except for the purse and small bag that she had already seen with Chariot and at the office, nothing seemed to be any different than before. The sleeping bag and the pillows were untouched. There was still a duffel bag stashed in one corner filled with clothes, and the small metal table was still standing.

  Rose glanced around again and was about to exit, letting Rhonda know that everything was fine, when she noticed a pink book sticking out from the bottom of the sleeping bag. She walked over, pulled it out, and saw that it was a photo album. She recognized it to be the one that Chariot had asked her to locate, the one she had mentioned in their ride over to the hospital.

  She opened it, turning the pages, and saw lots of pictures of a little girl—Constance, she recognized—all dated and marked with a note. She read
some of them and suddenly felt very intrusive. She then closed it. She stuck it under her arm and was about to walk out. Just as she did, a photo card, as small as a quarter, slid out from one of the album pages.

  Rose bent down and retrieved it. She immediately recognized it to be a photo card, the tiny ones for the new cameras. It was exactly like the one Mary had showed her when she bought a digital camera only a few weeks earlier.

  Mary had wanted to take lots of pictures of her sister while she was visiting and she had gone over to Memphis and bought a new digital camera. She was learning how to use the camera when she showed it to Rose. They had both commented at the size of the small memory card included with the camera. They read the instructions and learned that Mary could remove the card and use it with a computer to make photograph prints at home or take it to a pharmacy or discount store and use their computers and printers. They had loaded the software on Ms. Lou Ellen’s laptop because the computer at the office was too old.

  Rose stuck the memory card in her pocket, assuming that Chariot had taken digital pictures and that the card included more photographs of the little girl. She stuck the album under her arm and walked out to join the others. She wasn’t sure if Chariot could have the photographs while she was in the West Memphis jail, but she had promised to get it for her.

  “How does it look in there?” Rhonda asked Rose.

  Rose nodded. “It’s fine,” she replied.

  “What have you got?” Rhonda asked, seeing the album at Rose’s elbow. She wondered what her friend had taken from the tent.

  Rose glanced down at the album. “Some pictures,” she reported. “Chariot wanted them.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure the sheriff will let her keep them in her cell, but she asked me to get them for her.”

  Rhonda nodded.

  The man standing at the tent seemed to be watching Rose with the album. “Well?” he asked. It appeared as if he wanted permission to leave Chariot’s tent.

  Rhonda sighed. “It’s okay in the tent, then?” she asked Rose.

  “I’d say it’s fine,” she replied. “It doesn’t look like anything’s missing,” Rose added. She stuck the album under her arm. She noticed how the man seemed to be studying it. She turned to Rhonda. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

  “Uh, yeah,” the man replied, sounding agitated with all of the commotion and attention surrounding him. It was as if he had grown tired and bored with the entire situation. “Can I go then?” he asked, glaring at Rhonda.

  She nodded. “Yep,” she replied, still holding the flashlight in his direction. “Next time, though, Mr. Booker, that you’re disturbed about a noise at another camper’s site, call the manager on duty. We’ll take care of it for you. Don’t go trespassing into other people’s stuff,” she said.

  “Is that your manager on duty?” he asked, looking at Willie. “The one who fires his shotgun in the air, scaring people to death.”

  Willie grinned.

  “He’s one of them,” Rhonda replied. “The others carry machine guns,” she added.

  Rose laughed.

  “Just stay out of other people’s property,” Rhonda added.

  “You don’t need to worry,” the man replied. “I’m leaving anyway. I’ve had enough of West Memphis, Arkansas, and the Shady Grove Campground.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m afraid that if I stay here another hour, I might just wake up and have a shotgun at my head.” And then he spat on the ground and turned and walked away in a huff.

  The three residents of Shady Grove watched as he marched to the site beside them and started taking down his tent.

  “You think he can do that in the dark?” Rhonda asked.

  Rose shrugged. “I guess he’s going to have to if he’s planning to leave now,” she replied.

  They kept watching him and Rose suddenly had a funny feeling about him. She shone the light in his direction and she noticed the emblem on the back of his jacket. It was a white lightning bolt.

  “So, what happened?” Rhonda asked Willie, disrupting Rose’s thought about the jacket.

  “I saw him over here and thought he was messing in Chariot’s stuff,” Willie confessed. “I didn’t hear no clock buzzing,” he added.

  Rhonda and Rose smiled. They both knew that Willie was hard of hearing and often missed subtle sounds at Shady Grove. Still, Rose could see that Rhonda was not angry with her friend. He kept a good eye on Shady Grove, especially after-hours. And after he spoke up in Chariot’s defense when she met the sheriff, Rhonda and Rose could tell that Willie had developed some rapport with the young camper.

  Rhonda and Rose were glad to see Willie reaching out, since he was known to be a loner. Rose often worried about him because he stayed to himself so much. She was just about to ask him about Chariot, about why he was suddenly interested in this camper, drawn to this young woman. But when she looked over at him, seeing clearly the way he was protecting Chariot’s property, and recalled how soft he seemed standing next to her before Chariot had left with the sheriff, she decided not to ask. After all, it was none of her business what Willie felt for Chariot.

  Rhonda patted him on the shoulder. “You were just doing your job, Willie,” she reassured him. “That’s why you make the big bucks around here,” she added playfully.

  She and Rose knew that Willie got free rent at the campground and a few dollars every week. Other than that, he didn’t take home any income from Shady Grove. Even though Lucas and Rhonda had tried to give him a regular paycheck, the arrangement of free rent and a few bucks was the way he liked it.

  Rhonda glanced back over at the man they had found in Chariot’s tent. “You reckon we should give him a refund?” she asked.

  Rose shook her head. “Nah,” she replied. “He was here long enough to put up his tent, that counts for a night’s stay.” She smiled at Rhonda.

  “Willie, though, I have to ask.” Rhonda turned back to the man standing next to her. “Were you going to shoot him?”

  Willie dropped his head. His voice was low and confessional. “Weren’t nothing but birdshot in there anyway,” he replied. “It wouldn’t have killed him, just made him sting a while.”

  Rhonda and Rose laughed. They stood outside and waited until the stranger finished tearing down his campsite, loaded his light brown pickup truck, and pulled out of the campground. The dust swirled behind him as his taillights gave a red glow down the path. It was Rhonda who noticed his license plate.

  “Where did Mr. Booker make his reservation from?” she asked Rose.

  Rose considered the question and saw the same thing that Rhonda had just seen. “I don’t remember,” she replied, recognizing the same plate she had seen on Chariot’s car. “But I know it wasn’t South Dakota.”

  The three of them watched as the truck headed down the driveway toward the main road to West Memphis.

  SEVENTEEN

  It was under your sleeping bag.” Rose got a call from Chariot early the next morning. She was at the office after having only just a few hours of sleep the night before. She and Rhonda had said good night to Willie and then walked back to the office for another hour’s worth of conversation. They had both agreed that the stranger they met was planning to search Chariot’s tent, but had been interrupted by Willie.

  Rose didn’t have too much to go on with just his name, James Booker, and credit card number. He had made the reservation using a cell phone. She hadn’t gotten any information from him except a form of payment. She planned to get his mailing address for her records when he checked in.

  When Rose took the reservation she had not thought anything was out of the ordinary. Having seen his South Dakota plates, however, she knew something was fishy about the man suddenly appearing at Shady Grove. Rose wondered if he might return to finish what he started. Rhonda reassured Rose, however, that Willie would not go to sleep and that he would watch Chariot’s tent for the rest of the night. Both women decided they needed some rest, so they left the office about 2:00 A.M., and went
to their trailers to sleep.

  It was about 7:00 A.M. when Rose got to the office and about 7:30 when Chariot called. She had wanted to know if Rose had learned anything new and if she had found the photo album with the pictures of Constance.

  “Oh.” The young woman sounded relieved. “Thank you so much for looking. I don’t know what I would do if I lost that,” she added.

  Rose smiled. She had taken the photo album with her back to her trailer and even though she thought it was none of her business, she had flipped through the album pages before falling to sleep. Seeing the pictures made her consider again the possibility of having children. Rose was still not certain about whether or not she had given up on the idea of being a mother.

  “She’s a very photogenic young lady,” Rose commented.

  “Yes, and she loves to have her picture taken,” Chariot responded. “She doesn’t get that from me or Jason,” she said.

  Rose smiled. She had noticed how the little girl loved to grin for the camera. Rose assumed that because of all of the photographs the foster mother had taken for Chariot while she was in prison, Constance had become very comfortable in front of the camera. She had big smiles for every picture.

  “What phone are you using?” Rose asked.

  “It’s out in the main hallway of the jailhouse,” Chariot replied. “The calls are free if they’re local,” she added.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Rose responded, understanding how the young woman was able to call her without having any money. She knew that they had locked up Chariot’s purse when she was taken in the previous night.

  “How’s the ankle?” Rose asked.

  “It’s better,” Chariot replied. “I think the swelling went down,” she noted. “But it’s turning purple and it still hurts to try and walk on it.”

  “Yeah, sprained joints tend to do that,” Rose said. She wondered how far Chariot had to walk. Had she taken a shower or gone to a cafeteria? She didn’t know what jail was like and didn’t know if they provided any assistance for those with problems ambulating. She wasn’t sure if they had even let her keep the crutches since Deputy Davis had made some mention of how they could be used as weapons. Allowing Chariot to keep her crutches had not been decided before Rose left to go back to Shady Grove.