Gold Dust

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “What exactly did they say?”

  “It was short, that’s for sure. Said, ‘I know for a fact that two men from northeast Texas is moving other folks’ stock through Austin and on down south. Folks have done been hurt and more are sure to follow. You might find the right people in the Broken Spoke who can give you more than I can.’ That’s the best I can remember. I wasn’t planning on hearing something like that and didn’t write it down.”

  Ned nodded. “I’d bet that call came from family. I get ’em like that ever’ now’n’en.”

  “Anna, go look around without your badge showing.” Cody chewed his lip in thought. It seemed like a safe enough assignment. After she was shot in an ambush when she first came to Chisum, he’d worried over and over that she’d get hurt again. “You might want to start with the sale barns, and I bet if you drop by ‘The Spoke’ you might hear something.”

  She grinned. “A woman won’t draw nearly the attention a male deputy will.”

  Ned chuckled. “Aw, you’ll draw attention, all right.”

  “Be yourself and have a good time.” Cody grinned and tried to hide it. “Pretend you’re on vacation.”

  “I need a vacation after what happened yesterday outside of town.”

  Cody frowned. “What was that? I haven’t heard anything about trouble.”

  “Oh, it was trouble all right, but not like what you think.” Anna stuck the tip of her tongue out, like a little kid telling a story. “I pulled over this car full of men heading for the Mountain Fork River up in Oklahoma to catch some trout. They said they’re fly-fishermen.”

  Ned frowned. “Is that them guys who tie their own little bugs?”

  “That’s it. Well sir, there were two guys in the backseat shaving a dead squirrel and a raccoon.”

  Cody put down his cup. “Hope the coon was dead, too.”

  Judge Rains almost spit out his coffee. Tom Bell grinned.

  It wasn’t full dark when Anna lit up the late model sedan and pulled them over. The driver hung one arm out the open window when she walked up. “Help you, Deputy?”

  She glanced into the backseat where two men were awash in flying hair. Using scissors and a new battery-operated beard trimmer, they were cutting the hair off two animals. “Good lord, what are y’all doing?”

  The man with the scissors paused. “We’re collecting hair for fishing flies.”

  The driver twisted completely around and saw the look on the deputy’s face. “They’re both roadkill, and it’s squirrel season. We didn’t see any harm in getting the coon hair. It’s the best of all, but the squirrel tail hairs would drive the trout crazy. Did I do something wrong to get pulled over?”

  “Well, you’re driving with the dome light on and using flashlights. It looked suspicious, so I wanted to find out what y’all are up to. What are you gonna do with the bodies?”

  The driver shrugged. “I guess throw them back out on the highway?”

  “That doesn’t seem quite right to me, but I can’t tell you why. You’ll have to find somewhere else to dump the carcasses.”

  “We will—”

  His response was cut short when the man with the scissors screamed and flailed as the nearly naked raccoon came alive in his lap. Apparently concussed naked coons don’t like to wake up while getting shaved in the backseat of a car. Eyes wide in shock, it bared its teeth and clawed at the man’s lap to gain traction.

  Anna recoiled as the man with the electric shaver threw open the door and took cover behind her. The other man in the backseat slapped at the pink coon wearing only a moustache and low-cut socks and dove into the front seat at the same time the front seat passenger wriggled out the window like a worm from an apple. Shocked into immobility, the driver responded by doing nothing but make a high, keening sound.

  The coon stumbled through the open door and onto the highway where it staggered and fell over dead, as it should have been in the first place.

  Anna twisted around to find the man hiding behind her still holding the buzzing clippers. “You can probably turn that off now. Driver, get your coon here and y’all go bury them somewhere. You other two quit hiding in the ditch and get gone. Y’all don’t come back through here doing nothing like this again.”

  They drove off, and she staggered to her car, laughing until she was almost sick.

  O.C.’s face lit up. “That’s what the story in The Chisum News was all about this morning! It was a long story about shaving animals for satanic rituals.”

  Anna nodded soberly. “They barely got around the first curve from where I stopped them to pitch the carcasses out. The paper called it ‘Unholy Rituals,’ sick people doing strange things to animals. I didn’t have the heart to call them and explain.”

  They were laughing when Deputy John Washington came through the front door, drawing a half dozen looks from Frenchie’s customers, and at least one glare. He ignored the attention and stopped at the booth full of law officers.

  “Judge. Miss Anna. Mr. Tom. Hate to break up y’all’s fun, Sheriff, but Mr. Ned, you got a call to run out to Center Springs. Some feller out there’s moving a bulldozer on a trailer and the axle’s broke. The dozer snapped a chain and slid off. The highway’s blocked both ways and since the owner don’t seem to be in any hurry to move it, somebody called the laws.”

  “Say who the owner is?” Ned answered the unvoiced question.

  “Bill Preston. Big wheel out of Dallas.”

  Ned gathered his hat and slid out of the booth. “Yeah, and he thinks he’s God’s gift to Center Springs.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The same day they buried Old Jules, Aunt Ida Belle had us up on the dusty second floor of the Ordway Place after school, helping clean it up for Mr. Tom. I didn’t feel worth a flyin’ flip, but I wasn’t going to miss being with him.

  I woke up that morning with a tickle in the back of my throat and a dry cough. I figured it was the smoke and dust from the cotton gin. It usually locked me up something fierce and most of the time I wound up sick. I made it through the school day, feeling like I wanted to lay down and die, but I didn’t want Mr. Tom to think I was trying to get out of helping.

  Uncle James had painted the downstairs and it looked as good as it did the day Old Doc Ordway first built the place. But the upstairs smelled like a musty old building full of dirt dauber nests. Furniture and wooden boxes were stacked and piled everywhere. Piles of dust-covered lumber took up half of the west bedroom. It was separated from the east bedroom by an open area at the head of the stairs that I always thought was a living room.

  Mark was whistling like moving old furniture was fun. “Man, I wasn’t feeling too good when we woke up this morning, but I like this place. I’m glad we came. I kinda wish me and you could stay here after all.”

  “It’d be fun, all right, but this is where the ghosts came from that time I saw them walking down the stairs.” It didn’t matter if was daylight and people were with me, that old place made me as nervous as a cat in a doghouse. I propped a metal headboard of a bedstead against one wall and stopped, wheezing. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

  Mark gave a soft cough. “Something’s in my chest, too. Hold that headboard steady and I’ll put the rails in.”

  A thought crossed my mind. “You know, if we get sick enough, we might get to miss school together.”

  “You’d trade a bad ol’ chest cold for school just so you won’t have to deal with Harlan?”

  Aunt Ida Belle was downstairs looking for more cleaning rags. I glanced over to make sure Pepper wasn’t listening. She turned up the transistor radio she’d propped on the windowsill to get the best signal. “White Room” by Cream was blaring something about rooms, curtains, and horses. Her hair was tied up in a scarf, leaving her ponytail to bob free. She was wearing one of Uncle James’ shirts and it was already dirty, but for once she wasn’t complai
ning about having to work.

  I didn’t like to admit Mark was right. “You know Harlan’s the second toughest kid in our grade.” I didn’t need to say the first was Mark. “He’s wearing me out, and I can’t fight him. I’d just as well take a runnin’ start at the side of the gym and knock my own head in to save him the trouble.”

  “I’ll take care of it for you.”

  “No. You can’t take up for me all the time.”

  “What are you gonna do, then?”

  I couldn’t find an answer that suited me. Pepper saw me looking at that scary little attic door in the wall at the head of the stairs. She wiggled her fingers. “Wooo!”

  Mark saved me again, changing the subject. “I’m not afraid of spirits.”

  “Wookie wookie!” Pepper snorted. “You would have been scared if you’d been around that day Top and I heard footsteps up here clear as day.”

  Mark’s eyes sparkled in excitement. “It was probably some bum who was squattin’ for a while.” He pointed. “He probably lived in there.”

  The little door suddenly looked evil. “Let’s just keep it closed.”

  “Keep what closed?” Aunt Ida Belle puffed up the steps with Mr. Tom right behind her, carrying a bucket of water and a mop.

  I pointed. “That door.”

  “Y’all don’t need to be in there anyway.”

  Pepper snapped her rag at me. “He’s just being a titty baby.”

  I dodged out of the way and got to coughing so much that Mr. Tom came over and whacked me a few times on the back. “Your asthma acting up, hoss?”

  “I guess.” The tickle was down deep in my lungs. “It’s never started like this before.”

  Aunt Ida Belle looked concerned. “Where’s your puffer?”

  “Left it at the house.”

  “Well, come get in the car and I’ll take you to get it.” She waved for me to follow. “We don’t need to let an asthma attack get out of hand. Miss Becky’ll get my goat if you get sick.”

  Mr. Tom nudged a little leather suitcase with his toe. He called it his grip, and it was the only thing he brought with him. “Ida Belle, y’all shouldn’t be doing so much up here. I can clean this place up just fine by myself. Let them kids go out and get some fresh air and I’ll settle in here in my own good time.”

  She gave him a hug. “It won’t take much. They’re not giving it much more than a lick and a promise.”

  I felt heat rise in my face and knew it wasn’t all from feeling bad. Aunt Ida Belle might have seen my expression, because she tickled the back of my neck with her fingernails like Aunt Norma Faye did when she was loving on me. It didn’t feel the same, though. Aunt Ida Belle didn’t have long fingernails. “We’ll get everything swept out and I’ll wash down the walls and floorboards. James brought home some paint for these walls.”

  Mr. Tom’s voice was firm. “I’ll do the painting, then.”

  I coughed again and Pepper whacked me on the back hard enough to rock me on my toes. “Get it up.”

  Before I could answer, Mark gave a soft little chuff that he caught in his hand. Aunt Ida Belle frowned. “It must be this dust.”

  Mark shrugged. “I think it’s something else.”

  “You gettin’ sick too?”

  He shrugged. “Might be.”

  She flapped her arms at us like we were chickens and shushed us down the black-painted wooden stairs. “Well, y’all get on down. I’m taking you two home. Pepper, bring up the mop bucket and some Pine-Sol. We need to get this dusty smell out of here. Mr. Tom, I’ll be back directly.”

  He shrugged off his black coat and draped it over the stair rail, then slapped his black hat on the newel post. “Me and Pepper’ll have this place swept and mopped by the time you get back.”

  Aunt Ida Belle followed us down. By late that night, I started to spiral down.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On Wednesday, four days after they paid Curtis Gaines to spray Gold Dust on Center Springs, Mr. Green took off his shades and met Mr. Brown in front of Nau’s Enfield Drug on West Lynn in Austin. The sun was almost down and the busy street was solid with cars parked along the sidewalk.

  The overhangs in front of the stores stretching down the block advertised Carlson’s Hardware store, office supplies, Winn Furniture, Woolworth’s, and the Majestic Theater. The neon lights on the hardware store’s Holiday Inn-shaped sign already glowed with blue neon light. By full dark, the sidewalks would be lit with dozens of bright logos beckoning late evening shoppers.

  Mr. Green looked like a walking corpse with dark circles under his eyes and pasty gray skin. He dragged deep on his cigarette and blew the smoke out his nose. “At least you’re not sick. I’ve been coughing my lungs out since we got back here.”

  Mr. Brown felt the blood rush from his face. He stopped when a car passed with its windows down. “So Happy Together” by the Turtles washed over them. “Maybe you’re just coming down with the flu or something.”

  “Could be. My throat’s so sore I can barely swallow. I’m gonna get some Parke-Davis throat lozenges and see if they have anything else in there that’ll help.”

  Mr. Brown watched his associate take another drag on his cigarette. “Why won’t you go to the doctor?”

  “I don’t want to leave a trail to show we were here.”

  “Pay cash.”

  “Doctors ask all kinds of questions and I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll slip up, or he’ll get suspicious.”

  “There’s no reason to get suspicious. Besides, Mr. Gray said there was nothing to worry about.” Mr. Brown ignored his own admonishment and glanced around by habit. They’d been walking on the thin side of the law so long it was second nature to check his surroundings from time to time. “You feel like eating? They have a malt shop inside. We can talk in there. I need to get something off my chest.”

  Mr. Green coughed again, bringing up thick mucus that he spat into the gutter. “Hell, no. I’m too old to eat in drugstores. Let’s go to Frisco’s and get a steak.”

  “That’s six miles out of town.”

  “So?”

  “You’re not that sick, then.”

  Mr. Green started to laugh, but the moment was lost when it dissolved into a series of wracking coughs.

  Mr. Brown dug into his pants pocket for a dime. “Let me call Mr. Gray and tell him you’re sick. He might have a safe doctor here.”

  “I’ll see a company doctor when we get back. I’m probably overreacting. All we need to do is wait for Mr. Gray to contact us and then we’re out of this shit-kicking state and back to civilization. Until then I’ll wear it out with Scotch and cough syrup.”

  “You don’t like Texas much, do you?”

  “Not a bit.” Another cough, deep, wet, and tearing. “I don’t care if the Gold Dust really is bad and kills every damn person in it.”

  Taken aback at the venom in his worsening voice, Mr. Brown inclined his head like a dog studying a stranger. “Are you sure you’re up to eating?”

  “I have to have something. We’ll eat, get a few drinks, and I’ll get a cab to take me back to the motel, and then,” he mimicked Mr. Gray’s penchant for quoting the hippie kid’s slang, “as the kids say, we can blow this pop stand.”

  He folded over, wracking his lungs. Mr. Brown resisted the urge to move farther away.

  “Fine, go in there and get some Velvo. That’ll help with the cough.”

  The cough syrup worked and Mr. Green was able to finish his meal in Frisco’s without calling attention to their table. Dark-stained wood-trimmed booths filled one side of the long and narrow steakhouse. A similarly trimmed counter stretched down the other with empty wineglasses waiting in front of each unoccupied stool. Polished cabinets behind the counter gave the establishment an elegant feel.

  Mr. Brown snapped his Zippo to life and lit another cig
arette for dessert. “I have a question for you.”

  “What is it?” Mr. Green finished his iced tea and caught a soft chuff in his hand.

  “We’ve done a lot over the years, everything the Boss asked us to do, and his boss before him.”

  “So?”

  “What we did here bothers me. This is our country.”

  “Thanks for letting me know. Who cares what happens? Even if a few get sick and die, it’s for the betterment of millions.”

  “You know what I mean. I didn’t have any problem with what we did overseas with Third Chance and Derby Hat. Those LSD experiments and mind control stuff on those Asian volunteers…”

  He stopped when the waitress in a white apron came to their booth at the rear. “Coffee?”

  Mr. Brown gave her a brilliant smile and she grinned back. Mr. Green had seen him do that in restaurants and bars across the country and it never failed to get him what he wanted. “Sure. And would you do us another favor?” He continued when she lifted an eyebrow. “I really like that music. Would you mind turning it up just a little more?”

  The middle-aged brunette with an up-doo curl was genuinely surprised. The hairstyle was much too young for her. “You really like this stuff?”

  “Sure do. Who is that singing?”

  “It’s the Cowsills. I think the song is ‘The Park’ or ‘I Love My Flower Girl’ or something. My teenagers like it and that’s all I hear at home. Now they’re piping it in here.”

  “I know, but we travel a lot and most places don’t play the current stuff.”

  She finished filling their cups and winked at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Minutes later the music rose in volume, covering their conversation. It was obvious the older patrons at the nearest table weren’t pleased with “Born to Be Wild” that followed the bubble gum music. The white-haired gentleman snatched the check off the table and rose. His wife followed.