Dumping Grounds (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 1)

by Lila Beckham

  “Yeah, I bet” Pearl said doubtfully. “You were always so shy; I doubt you did anything near as bad as you think.”

  Kathy smiled sadly. “More than you would think, Pearl. I was scared, but after lightning failed to strike me dead, it become easier and easier to do wrong.”

  “Yeah, I know. Mama and Aunt Faye were always telling us girls we would go straight to hell if we did so and so, but they let the boys get away with everything.”

  “Even abusing us g-” Kathy stopped short, as if realizing what she was about to say, would let the cat out of the bag and expose family secrets that were best kept to themselves. Joshua saw the knowing look exchanged between the cousins.

  The bell dinging and the cook yelling “order up” interrupted the exchange.

  Pearl, smiled and quickly asked Joshua if he was sure he did not want to try a BLT too, saying theirs were the best in town. Kathy looked away.

  “No, I’ve already eat supper, Pearl. Maybe I’ll try it next time.” he could not help but to know what Kathy was about to say and he felt sorry for both she and Pearl.

  He knew that sort of stuff went on in some families. To him, it explained some of the substance abuse problems among men and women in the world.

  Pearl sashayed back to the counter to get Kathy’s BLT. Several truckers came in and seated themselves along the counter. After she brought the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich to the table, Pearl happily went to the counter to wait on the truckers. Pearl flirted outrageously with the truckers, and winked at Kathy who was facing her.

  Seeming to have recovered her slip of the lip, Kathy smiled. “I think this waitress job suits Pearl,” she observed, watching as the truckers handed Pearl money to put into the jukebox.

  “She appears to like it from the way she is carrying on with those truck drivers,” Kathy stated, and Joshua sensed something in her tone of voice that resembled jealousy. Kathy probably wished that she was more outgoing, as Pearl was, and not quite so shy.

  “Flirting with the customers is part of the job. It gets her more tips,” Joshua explained.

  “Well then, my tip jar would be empty. I would never make a good waitress. I get tongue tied talking with men I know, so I’d never be able to flirt with strangers as she does,” Kathy said and Joshua smiled at her causing her to lower her eyes.

  Yeah, right, Miss Kathy. You flirt alright, you just don’t realize it, thought Joshua, picking up his cup to take a sip of coffee. Afterward, he pulled out his cigarettes then asked Kathy if she minded. She told him to go ahead and smoke, it did not bother her.

  Joshua lit his smoke then leaned back. He did not like having his back toward the room, but he was a gentleman, so he let Kathy choose where to sit. It seemed she did not like having her back to a room either, he wondered if it had anything to do with the way she grew up.

  16

  Whispering Pines

  As the bridge came into view, Emma realized it was not the Highway 98 Bridge, which crossed the river near the campground. The bridge ahead of her was a wooden structure. It appeared to be suspended by iron support beams fashioned into trusses.

  Once upon a time, it could have been a covered bridge; maybe partly destroyed by one of the many hurricanes that had swept through in years past.

  Emma was disappointed. She did not remember this bridge at all. She wished with all her heart she were closer to the Escatawpa Campground at Highway 98.

  She was now along a stretch of the river with stands of mature pine trees on either side. The trees, probably planted by the paper mill, swayed overhead. Wind whispered through the branches, gently moving them back and forth. They sighed and sang to the flow of the river.

  The dark clouds and threatening storm following her down the river was getting closer and closer.

  Before she reached the bridge, the storm broke loose. Lightning flashed through the sky causing Emma to search for a safer place to be.

  She would rather stay in the middle of the river than to get out where there was no sandbar, but at least the bridge would offer shelter if she could get under it. There is bound to be dry land somewhere beneath it she reasoned.

  Watching for snakes and undertows, Emma swam from piling to piling to the less cluttered side of the river.

  Debris, fallen trees, and other miscellaneous trash had collected around all the pilings. One side was packed thicker and heavier than the other was.

  When she climbed over the rubbish trying to make her way out of the river, she noticed the collection on the thickest side was a beaver dam, not just fallen trees.

  Maybe the dam would be safer, she pondered, but she did not ponder long, a streak of lightning and a boom of thunder made her scamper faster through the river brush.

  The sound of a motorized vehicle suddenly sounded above the other noises. Emma’s first instinct was to yell to the driver, but then fear gripped her, causing her to duck down and hide. After all, it could be her captors come hunting her. They sure seemed to enjoy the chase the first time they captured her.

  Emma knew she could be passing up an opportunity for rescue, but she would rather be safe than sorry.

  From what she could see of the vehicle, it looked like an older light blue Chevy station wagon. It came to a stop on the bridge above her.

  Emma could hear a radio playing; the music was the same music Earl and Vernon listened to all the time. The car pulled forward several times and then stopped about middle way of the bridge.

  When the rain slacked, Emma heard several men get out of the car. She could hear them laughing and talking.

  “I bet we showed them ol’ boys a thang or two last night, didn’t we.They thought they was gonna whup our ass; well, we showed them didn’t we!” one of them said. The other replied, but not loud enough for her to hear.

  Then she heard and saw something being poured into the river. It took a moment before she realized they were urinating into the river.

  Emma waited quietly, debating if she should let her presence known. Many thoughts ran through her mind.

  She knew they were drinking, and they were probably drunk. Some men liked to take advantage of girls, especially if they are drinking.

  She decided she would rather take her chances in the river than to call out to them and end up in a worse position than she had been earlier, if that was even possible.

  The men finished using the bathroom, got into their car and drove off. Emma waded up the embankment under the bridge then climbed out of the water.

  She saw a full bottle of beer, lying on the ground. Emma knew she could quench her thirst by drinking river water, but not after what she had just witnessed.

  Emma decided she would rather drink the bottled beer if she became thirsty. She stuck the bottle deep into a pocket of the jacket she still wore and then crawled up the incline to where the bridge connected with the land.

  It was reasonably dry under there and snake free as far as she could tell, although she did see a few spiders, moths, grasshoppers, and crickets. They did not seem to mind sharing their shelter with her and she was grateful.

  Emma hunkered down to wait out the storm. She awoke to complete darkness and it surprised her; she had not meant to fall asleep.

  It took her a moment to process where she was, which was on the riverbank, not in the hands of captors. She did not remember even becoming groggy, but she was physically and mentally exhausted.

  Emma sat there a few minutes collecting her thoughts. Even though it was dark, she decided she did not want to wait there any longer, but now she faced another dilemma. Her predicaments was, to either climb out and walk along the road above her, not knowing which way to go or where it might lead, or to stay in the river and float south, where eventually, she felt it would run past familiar territory.

  A pale moon appeared from behind fast moving clouds, vaguely lighting her surroundings; the place now felt eerie. Emma was ready to leave; she no longer felt safe. Never being much of an adventurer into the unknown, Emma made up her
mind. She decided it would be best to stay in the river.

  Emma climbed down the way she had come and made it back to the river.

  The river was swift, flowing much faster than it had before the rain. She was nervous, not knowing if she would be able to float with the river raging so.

  The dead man’s float, as her daddy called it, would probably be her best bet, it had gotten her this far.

  She felt she had accomplished much already, by floating down the river. Emma stepped into the water, doing a belly flop into the river.

  At first, she sunk down deep, but remained calm. Having exhaled all of her breath before falling into the water, she figured she would float back to the top, as a dead man would, but instead the water sucked her deeper into its depths; Emma began to panic!

  Her chest felt heavy and her lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen.

  She knew she needed to swim, but the current was a tough opponent. It beat her back down from the surface into its dark, seemingly bottomless, depth; she struggled on.

  Suddenly, Emma realized she was fighting against the current. She would need to relax to get the results she needed, but it would be the hardest task she had ever faced.

  Emma felt as though she would lose consciousness if she did not get air into her lungs soon. Then she remembered her Aunt Hannah, and her great-great-grandfather Geronimo. No matter the circumstance, they never gave up and neither would she.

  She would sink to the depths of the river if need be and crawl along its muddied bottom until she could climb out and breathe air again.

  Her thoughts were soon mocked. Emma began sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into the river, her toes dragging the mucky, debris littered river bottom.

  Darkness surrounded her as she spun around and around then sunk all the way down. Her entire body now lay on the river bottom. It felt as though she were being pressed to the ground, held down by a giant, unseen hand.

  17

  The Darkness before Dawn

  Still sitting in his rocking chair on the back porch, Joshua awoke. Something had startled him from his sleep. He tried to pull himself together so he could look around for whatever scared him awake.

  While he was down in the bayou, a fight had taken place in front of Miller’s Grocery in Moffettville.

  When Joshua got home about one o’clock that morning, after dropping Kathy back by the Ala-Miss around midnight, he had four messages on his answering machine from Deputy Cook, telling him what had happened and asking what they should do about the boys fighting.

  His beeper, which was still attached to the bloodied pants he was wearing earlier, lay forgotten in a pile on the bathroom floor. It too, had callback messages from the Sheriff’s office.

  He had no sooner gotten home than Deputy Cook came driving up into his yard looking for him.

  “Damnit, Sheriff, where the hell have you been? We was getting worried that something bad had done happened to you.”

  “Not that it is anybody’s business where I went, I went up to the 4 Mile, to get some supper. I forgot to take my pager with me.”

  Deputy Cook looked at his watch and gave Joshua a doubtful look, which did not get past the Sheriff.

  “Now, tell me about the fight,” Joshua continued, “The message said it was in Moffettville, in front of Miller’s Grocery. Why would anybody be fighting there? It wouldn’t a racial thing was it?” Joshua asked. He worried it was racial because of the location. Just north of Miller’s place, across the railroad tracks at Wilson Road, near the old Cemetery was a Negro community.

  “Naw, Sheriff, it didn’t have anything to do with Niggers,” Cook replied.

  Joshua cringed at his deputy’s use of the word nigger. They had done talked about that before, several times to be exact. Nigger was still used prominently in the south. Joshua himself had grown up using it, but it was no longer an acceptable word, especially by a servant of the people. Times were changing. People were changing. Hell, they even had colored deputies working for the county now and one deputy had advanced so far that he made State Trooper.

  “It was them damn boys of Autry Reston’s,” Cook exclaimed, “They was bound and determined to kill Willie Jr. same as their daddy kilt big Willie I reckon, but they bit off more than they could chew when they went to messing with that boy. Him and his cousins, Hannah, Pearl, Patty, and Tom’s boys, nearly ended up killing those boys.

  Seems those boys been feuding for a while now. Those boys belonging to Autry Reston and his kin have been sending messages back and forth at school and such, threatening to whup Willie Jr. because his daddy caused their daddy to go crazy and kill himself.

  I’d heard that since Mister Stringer passed away, Missus Stringer was selling her place and moving over into Mississippi. She’s trying to get them younguns of Willie and Lacey’s away from here.”

  “Well, that might be best, Cookie. Willie and Lacey murdered like they was, and Autry’s suicide has got to be hard on both families, especially the children.”

  “Yes, Sir, I’d imagine so, but them boys are not above the law, neither are Autry’s. They can’t go around beating each other up every time they see one another, can they.”

  “No, they can’t, and we have to see that order is observed. All of them boys are growing up fast. Their testosterone is kicking in and kicking high.

  I will go have me a talk with Dotty Reston tomorrow. It surprised me that Autry’s folks let her back into the fold, especially since her actions indirectly caused all the mess. She hasn’t been out of the clink but a couple of months; I’ve been expecting some kind of shit to get started.”

  “Well, Sir, if you don’t mind me a saying so, the shit done hit the fan. The pile ain’t gone do nothing but get bigger, and stink a whole lot more.”

  “Yep, I reckon it will, Cookie. What did y’all end up doing with them boys?”

  “Well, one of em had to be taken to the hospital. He had a few broken ribs and a punctured lung. The rest of em scattered, left him laying there when we drove up.”

  When Joshua asked who called it in, Cook had replied, “Hell, I dunno Sheriff, but I’d s’pect it was old man Miller. It was in front of his house, being he lives there in the back of his store.

  Of course, it could have been Little Bill, he was probably up at that hour, I don’t s’pect the old man and woman was up that time of night. Most old folks like them, go to bed with the chickens,” Cook said dryly.

  Joshua thought to himself, that for once, he would like to go to bed with the chickens.

  Deputy Cook had left his place about 1:30 to finish his rounds, Joshua had then gotten his bottle off the table and come back out onto the porch to sip him a nightcap and have a smoke before retiring to bed. He reckoned he had fallen asleep in his rocker. That was nothing new; of late, it had become a regular occurrence.

  Now, here he was, wide-awake again.

  However, he still had no idea what had woke him so suddenly. The moon, which had shone brightly earlier in the night, was now gone.

  It was the darkest hour before the dawn… in another 30 minutes or so, the sun would begin its rise and the chickens would be up.

  Soon, he would probably hear Mister Kelly’s rooster, a quarter mile across the swamp, start crowing. He always crowed at the butt crack of dawn.

  Sometimes, the rooster was loud enough to wake Joshua, other times he was not. It depended on how much Joshua drank before going to sleep.

  It seemed the only sleep he got here lately, was on his porch in the rocker. He reckoned this night was not going to be any different as his eyes became heavy and his lids began to droop.

  A crackling noise, which he had heard on previous nights as he sat on his porch, roused him from his dosing.

  Joshua sat upright in his chair, listening.

  He heard the noise again. This time, he pulled his gun from its holster. Not that he was afraid; he did not have any outright enemies that he was aware of, but there were wildcats and panthers that roamed the woods
around his home. He did not want a bobcat to slip up on him.

  Their teeth and claws were sharp as razors and could do a lot of damage to a human body.

  Joshua looked over to where Jack was laying on the swing, but it was too dark for him to see his dog.

  Moments later, he heard a low quiet growl. It sounded as if it was coming from Jack’s direction and he thought he heard Jack move. His eyes swung back toward the river, where the crackling noise originated.

  A white mist rose from the ground near where the waters edge should have been. Slowly, it began moving toward his cabin.

  Joshua was use to mists and fog forming along the waters edge and moving low across the land, but this mist was different; it had a glow about it.

  As it moved, it began to take shape and appeared to be taking the form of a person.

  Joshua was not afraid of ghosts. He grew up with a ghost in his house and ghosts had appeared in and around his cabin since he first moved in, nearly twenty-five years earlier. He often felt their presence around him.

  On several occasions, he had seen them. Most of the time, he heard them, their voices echoing from the past.

  You could not tell it now, because a hundred years of untamed growth blanketed the riverbanks with vines and trees, but many years ago, the Caledonia Plantation, also known as the Moffett Plantation, had cotton fields all along the banks of the river; slaves worked those fields daily.

  It stood to reason that the blood, sweat, and tears of those owners and well as the slaves, was soaked deeply into the earth, and so were their souls, buried beneath its soil.

  As the sun was setting on quiet, late-summer days, Joshua had heard field hollers, shouts, and the moans and groans of long-dead slaves.

  He heard them sing songs in the early morning hours as they headed into the fields and at the end of the day as they came in from the fields.

  He had heard them sing happy tunes, sad tunes, and mournful tunes; all carried to his ears on winds of the past.

  On separate occasions, he had heard at least three different songs sung.