by Rita Kano
Nash patted her head. “Oh, my sweet baby, you don’t have to say any more. My sweet, sweet baby.” Tears rolled from Nash’s eyes. “You’re a good girl. You’ve told Miss Shirley and me all we need to know. Hush, now. No need to cry.”
“Nash, I’m sorry to jump right to the point of this, but do you think it’s the tree on Luke Atkinson’s property?” Shirley asked.
“I’m sure of it,” he answered.
“100% sure?” said Shirley.
“Pretty much. What are you getting at?”
“If you’re positive that’s the tree, there won’t be any need to take Sue Bell there with us. But if you’re not…”
“Take Sue Bell? I’m not taking Sue Bell back to that place. Look at her. I can’t. I won’t do that.” Nash rubbed soft circles on his granddaughter’s back.
“I don’t want to, either, but =… but if there’s the smallest chance of being wrong…”
“I know. I know. I get it. Just the same, I don’t want to hear any more right now.”
Shirley knew Nash’s resistance came from his heart, not his head. He would have to be pushed.
“Nash, your grandchild is in your arms and I’m not going to rest until Lizzie’s back there too.”
Sue Bell lifted her head from her Grandpa Nash’s shoulder.
“Grandpa, is Martha Ann still at the tree?”
“I, ah… I…” Nash couldn’t answer Sue Bell’s question. He hadn’t seen Martha Ann’s body sprawled out on the ground, in the white snow, pale, cold and alone. The harsh reality pumped up his breaths. He couldn’t take the smallest chance of being wrong about the tree or Lizzie would be the next victim. “Sweetheart, I don’t know where Martha Ann is, but I don’t want you worrying about that now. Okay? It’ll be dark soon. We’ll go looking first thing tomorrow morning… the three of us. We can go the back way through the woods. So we don’t run into Luke.” Nash wrapped both arms around his granddaughter. “That is, if Miss Shirley agrees and wouldn’t mind spending the night here.”
“Me too, Grandpa? I want to spend the night, too,” said Sue Bell.
“Of course you too, cricket face. Just as soon as I tickle that tummy of yours.”
Sue Bell giggled and squirmed as her Grandpa Nash tickled her. She held one arm out to Shirley. “Help me, Miss Shirley. Help me.”
“Miss Shirley’s going to get some of this too, if she ain’t careful,” said Nash. “You want some tickling, Miss Shirley?”
“Run, Miss Shirley,” squealed Sue Bell. “He’s going to get you, too.”
“Maybe your grandpa’s the one who better look out,” said Shirley. “I think the two of us can get him if we work together. What do you think? Want to try?”
“Get Grandpa? Yeah, let’s get Grandpa. Pull off his shoe, Miss Shirley. He’s real ticklish on the bottom of his feet.”
“Is that so?” Shirley reached for Nash’s boot.
“No. No. Don’t do that. I give. I give. Whew,” he said. “You ladies don’t play fair at all.”
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” said Sue Bell as she ran off.
“So, Miss Shirley, how about that invitation of mine?”
“To spend the night? Sure, with Sue Bell as a chaperone… I accept,” replied Shirley. “There is one thing though, Nash. Should we wait until tomorrow? There’s no way of knowing if we have days or hours left before…” the awful truth jammed Shirley’s throat.
“It’s okay. I know how worried you are. I am too. But we have time. The buckskinned wrapped letters were still in the desk drawer this morning when I checked.”
“This morning? Before or after you read the story in the Post?”
“Oh. Right. I see what you’re getting at.”
“I’d feel better if you’d look again,” said Shirley.
“Of course, pretty lady. I’d feel better too. No need for any extra worry.”
Nash opened the desk drawer where put the letters. His face drained to dishwater drab. “Maybe I didn’t put them where I thought.” He pulled open another drawer and another. “They’re gone.” The dreaded words hit him like a hot wire. “They’re gone.”
Shirley scrambled onto her feet. “We have to go tonight, Nash. We have to go now.”
Nash dropped onto his recliner. “I don’t know. I don’t know how we could…” He leaned over, elbows on his knees, hands covering his face. “We can’t go the back way. It’d be way too dangerous in the dark. And there’s only one choice other than that. We’d have to drive right past Luke’s house and you can hear my rickety, old truck coming from half a mile away.” He shook his head. “There ain’t no way. There ain’t no way we’d get past him.”
“Why not push the truck?” suggested Shirley.
“Push it?”
“Yes. Push the truck. I’ve been on that road. And the way I see it… if we push the truck past Luke’s house and around the first curve, it won’t matter then if he hears the motor or not. He won’t be able to tell whether the sound’s coming or going.”
“Luke don’t never know what’s coming or going, for that matter, but somehow that don’t stop him from being in the right place at the right time ninety-nine percent of the time. Except for not winning Sable’s hand that man’s one of the luckiest fellows I ever seen.”
“Maybe so. But I think luck may be on our side tonight. We’ve got something in our favor.”
“What’s that?” asked Nash.
“It’s Christmas, Nash. This time of the year the best gifts come in small packages. The way I see it, the present we’re asking for being wrapped in a one percent chance is a good sign.”
Nash chuckled and scratched his chin. “I ain’t even going to try arguing that. All right, then. It’s settled. We’ll leave here in about an hour. Ain’t nothing lost by trying. If Luke is a creature of habit like most folks around here are, he’ll be settling down in front of the television set, stuffed to the gill and drifting off to sleep.”
“With any luck,” Shirley whispered too low for Nash to hear.
The hour of waiting passed expectedly slow.
“Looks like it’s dark enough,” Nash said from the side porch door.
Sue Bell ran outside ahead of Shirley and her grandpa. But before Nash could lock the door, the phone rang.
Shirley stopped on the lower step.
“It’s Arlene,” said Nash. “Ain’t no doubt in my mind it’s Arlene calling for Sue Bell.”
“Poor Arlene,” said Shirley “I feel so bad about what we’ve put her through.”
“Poor Arlene? Poor ain’t quite the word I’d use. My daughter needs a good hard waking up. If she weren’t so wrapped up in feeling sorry for herself, maybe she’d of seen that Sue Bell was half blind. And Joe may as well have strings attached to his mouth, closing his eyes to everything the way he does. They ain’t getting none of my pity. Neither one of them. Not a bit.”
“So, you’re simply washing your hands of your part in the matter,” said Shirley.
“What?” Nash locked the door and whirled around. “What does that mean?”
“Just hear me out, Nash. Lizzie knew what was going on with Sue Bell. But she didn’t tell. Why? She saw secrets being kept by everyone around her. You made a game of keeping secrets. She idolizes you and everything you say and do. So, she did the same. She played the secret game. From what I’ve seen, Sue Bell’s not the only one who’s been walking around half blind.”
Nash tugged on the door handle. “Safe and sound,” he said. “What you just said is gonna need some why and why now… later. We’d better go now… before Arlene and Joe show up.”
“Yes, we’d better,” replied Shirley.
Chapter 22
The Sweet Taste of Hope
Nash switched the truck motor off at the entrance of the road leading up to Luke Atkinson’s house.
“Looks pretty quiet,” said Shirley. “As far as I can see, the house is dark except for one window.”
“It’s the den light, where the TV is
,” said Nash. “Most likely,” he added, eyes scanning the house and the yard.
“Let’s start pushing, then.”
“No. No. Not just yet. We should sit here a minute, to be sure the motor didn’t get Luke’s attention. If he doesn’t come out onto the porch in a couple of minutes, we’ll probably be okay. If he sees us he won’t let us pass.”
“We’ve got to pass,” said Shirley.
“We will… one way or another. I’ll see to that. We just got to stay on the safe side, that’s all. It’s best that we just sit and watch for a couple of minutes.”
“I’ll count while we’re waiting, Grandpa,” said Sue Bell. “Like Lizzie does. One … two … three…”
“You do that, baby. That’ll be a big help since it’s so dark I can hardly see that tiny nose on your face.”
“Eight … nine…” Nash’s little tadpole continued.
When Sue Bell got to thirty-nine she hesitated. “Uh…”
“Forty,” said Nash.
“Forty-one … forty-two … forty three…” she stopped. “Is that enough, Grandpa?”
“Yeah, baby. I don’t see no big bad wolf sneaking around and there ain’t no grouchy old bear out tonight except me.”
Sue Bell laughed. “I forgot, Grandpa. It’s been a long, long, long, long time since we played that game. Martha Ann liked playing it, too.” She started singing. “Ain’t no bears … out tonight … Papa killed them all last night.”
“Guess what? We’re going to play it right now, sugar baby. So, you know what that means. We’ve got to be real, real… real quiet.”
Sue Bell put one finger to her lips. “Real quiet… sh-h-h.”
Nash patted Shirley’s hand, “Here we go.”
“I’ll help push,” said Shirley, reaching for the door handle.
“No,” said Nash. “The slower the truck moves the better. You stay put here with Sue Bell.”
Shirley wrapped one arm around Sue Bell’s shoulders as Nash carefully opened and closed the truck door. The soft squashing sound of rubber rolling on sand headed toward Luke Atkinson’s place.
Nash pushed and stopped, pushed and stopped. Shirley kept her eyes on the front and side doors of Luke’s house. As the truck rolled closer and closer, the tires pressing against the dirt sounded more and more like hissing breaths.
“I’m scared,” said Sue Bell.
“No need to be, sweetheart. You’re grandpa knows what he’s doing.”
Sue Bell began to sing softly. “Ain’t no bears out tonight … Papa killed them all last night.”
Shirley gave Sue Bell a squeeze and kissed her on the forehead.
Sue Bell stopped singing for a moment and turned her face up to Shirley. “You’re a nice lady, Miss Shirley.”
Shirley began to sing along with Sue Bell as the truck rolled past Luke’s house and the curve ahead came into view in the moonlight. “Ain’t no bears…” she glanced back at the house through the rear window, “…out tonight…” they continued to sing.
Once around the curve, Nash pushed harder and longer. So hard that the truck rolled along on its own for about fifty feet of a straight downward slope.
Nash hopped into the truck and started up the engine. “I think we’re okay now.”
Shirley crossed her fingers.
“I’m going to wish on a star,” said Sue Bell.
The truck rolled deeper and deeper into the woods guided by one dimmer light.
“I forgot one of them lights was out,” said Nash. “Don’t want to turn on the brights, though. I ain’t taking no chances knowing Luke the way I do.”
Shirley agreed. “Nash…” she began, then hesitated.
Nash looked her way, “Something the matter, sweet lady?”
“I… I don’t know. It’s just that I didn’t see Luke’s truck anywhere back there. Do you know where he usually parks it?”
“Don’t have no idea. Like I told you, Luke and me keeps our distance. But if it was me, I’d park it in the barn shelter. It was probably there. You wouldn’t have been able to see it in the dark.”
Shirley couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous. The probablys in Nash’s answers were beginning to add up.
Neither Nash or Shirley or Sue Bell spoke after that. They all stared into the dim glow cast by the one truck light. Sue Bell, being too short to see anything from a sitting position, knelt on the seat with one hand on Nash’s shoulder and the other on Shirley’s.
Each one looked at the other when Nash stopped the truck. “We’re here,” he said.
“I can’t see nothing, Grandpa. Turn the bright lights on.”
“Can’t do that, sugar baby.”
“Why not, Grandpa?”
“Cause playing ain’t no bears out tonight is more fun with a lantern. It’s in the back of the truck. You and Miss Shirley wait right here while I go and light it up. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Sue Bell.
When Nash opened the passenger side truck door, he held the lantern and the plaque … fully prepared for a tree on Luke Atkinson’s property to be the hanging tree.
Once out of the truck, Shirley reached for the plaque. “I’ll take that, Nash.”
“And I’ll take this,” he said heaving up tadpole with one arm.
They walked about twelve feet, listening to their steps crush dry leaves and snap twigs. They were far from alone or unnoticed. Owls hooted, crickets chirped, slithering sounds stopped and started and a pack of hound dogs howled in the distance.
“I still don’t see nothing, Grandpa.”
“You will, baby. “We’re almost there. I know these woods like the back of my own hand. I used to play here when I was a rowdy snip like you. Did some hunting here too… before Luke moved back onto the property.”
“Grandpa. Grandpa. Stop.” Sue Bell wrapped her arms around her grandpa’s neck.
“What is it, sugar baby?”
“I heard something, Grandpa. I heard something moving over there.” Sue Bell pointed into the dark behind them. “Over there.”
“Well, then let’s stand real still and quiet while me and Miss Shirley give it a listen.”
Shirley stepped closer to Nash’s side.
“Yeah, I heard it,” said Nash. “Sounded like a rabbit jumping around to me. What do you think, Shirley? Did you hear it, too?”
Shirley hadn’t heard anything, but she nodded, anyway. “Yes. I think it was a rabbit.”
“Come on,” said Nash, “we ain’t scaredy cats. Not far to go now.”
They had taken only three steps when a light flashed, a door slammed and a gunshot cracked the night wide open like a dried up gourd.
Sue Bell screamed, “Grandpa! Grandpa!”
Nash and Shirley stopped in their tracks, blinded by the intense light.
“Miss Shirley, take Sue Bell,” said Nash, “and get behind me.”
On the other side of the glare, footsteps and a shadow moved. As Nash, Shirley and Sue Bell stared into near blindness, the steps grew louder, and the shadow larger until the shape became a man.
“Luke! What the hell are you doing here?” said Nash.
“Shouldn’t that be my question, Mr. Britt? You’re the trespasser. This is my property… private property … as you well know.”
“We ain’t strangers, Luke. There was no need to fire at us.”
“Fire at you? Is that what you thought? I wasn’t firing at you. Just scared off that old bobcat that’s been hanging around here lately. Saw his eyes glowing. Heard him creeping up. Didn’t you?”
“And you just happened to be sitting in the dark waiting?”
“No. Well, not exactly. I was waiting… yes … not for the cat, though. I’ve been keeping my eye on this place ever since I found a purple ribbon lying on the road.”
“A purple ribbon…” said Nash.
“That’s right.”
“Martha Ann had a purple ribbon in her hair the day she disappeared.”
“Is that so? I didn’t know that. Just k
new a girl’s ribbon shouldn’t be way back here in the woods. So, I started checking round now and then to see what might be going on back here that ought not to be. Figured if some kids was up to no good, it wouldn’t be long before they found their way up to my house with their mischief.”
“Did you report finding the ribbon to Sheriff Pate?”
“Ha. Tell the sheriff? Me knowing your granddaughter, Martha Ann, was missing? And have fingers of suspicion pointed at me? No, Nash. I handle things my way. You know that.”
“Look, Luke. Whatever quarrel you have with me, I’m asking you to put it aside for the time being. And I’ll do the same. There’s something Miss Foster and me gotta do here. Something I don’t have time to explain.”
“I know why you’re here … you and Miss Foster. I read this morning’s paper. Go ahead. I ain’t going to stand in your way. Do what you’ve got to do.”
Nash tossed Shirley a look that told her he wasn’t sure whether to trust Luke.
“Thank you, Mr. Atkinson,” Shirley responded. “It won’t take long. All we want is to hang this plaque on the tree you showed me, if it’s right one.”
“That’s fine with me. Let’s take the child on over there and all find out together. Don’t think I’m assuming out of line that’s why your granddaughter’s here this time of night. That is why she’s here ain’t it?” Luke walked over to the three of them. “Sorry if I scared you, young lady.”