by Joyce Magnin
Ruth, who had her arm out the window feeling the rushing air said, "What do you suppose that reporter fella meant?"
"Ah it's just his nature to be suspicious," I said. "He wouldn't be a good reporter otherwise. He's just looking for a story to get him to the big leagues."
"What are your two talking about?" Stella asked.
"I'm not entirely sure," I said. "We ran into that reporter fella at the Sentinel and he said he had some suspicions about Gilda."
"Gilda?" Stella said. "What kind of suspicions? I mean I should know, shouldn't I, seeing how she's fixing to marry my brother?
I turned my blinker on and passed a hay wagon that was going about five miles an hour in a thirty-five-mile zone.
"I bet it's nothing," I said. "She's new in town. I kind of think he'd investigate anyone new. I heard when Bob the pharmacist moved to Bright's Pond he investigated him and got all bothered when he discovered he scored pretty low on his pharmacy exams. Remember how upset everyone was when they thought we got an inferior pharmacist and everyone would be getting mixed up pills?"
Ruth laughed. "Yeah. I remember. Turned out that young Bob just froze on tests. He's the best pharmacist there is."
"See that," I said. "We should just relax. Get ready for the dance and have a good time."
"I don't know," Stella said. "I never liked Gilda from the start. She's cagy if you ask me."
"And a hussy according to Dot Handy."
"Let's keep our eyes and ears open," I said.
"Agreed," said Stella.
I glanced in the rearview and saw the wind blowing Ivy's hair every which way. She seemed to be hanging on for dear life. Ivy Slocum was a good egg.
Ruth was first to be let off. "See you in a little while," she said. "Now don't forget I got bandanas for everyone down at the town hall."
I let Ivy out in front of her house. "I hope Mickey Mantle is OK," she said. "Thanks for taking me though. I had a good time."
"I'm glad you came, and I'm sure Mickey Mantle is just fine," I said.
Then I drove up to the Kincaid farm. "If I'm lucky," Stella said, "Nate's probably sitting in the dining room poring over his seed packets and agricultural pamphlets trying to figure out what he did wrong. He won't have much to say for a while."
"He'll still come to the dance, won't he?"
"Don't know. But I'll be there and I might just dance with Cliff Cardwell if Nate stays home."
Truth be known Dabs Lemon's words haunted me as I prepared refreshments for the dance. I wasn't much of a cook except that I could make really good iced tea. That was the limit of my expertise. Of course, Agnes always said I made the best tuna salad on the planet. But you don't get much tuna at a western-themed hoedown.
I couldn't help wondering if Dabs had anything on Gilda, as they say. She was a strange character. But she didn't look like a criminal.
Ruth had dropped off a pair of cowboy boots she thought would fit, one of her red and white paisley bandanas, and a set of chaps and spurs she thought would be "cute." I wasn't going to wear them. I did choose a blue and white flannel shirt and found a belt in my closet with a turquoise buckle.
I prepared three gallons of iced tea. It would be plenty. There would certainly be coffee and lemonade.
Not wanting to get there exactly on time I left the house at six-thirty, choosing to walk the short distance to the town hall pulling a wagon behind me carrying the jugs of tea I made. I moseyed past Ruth's house.
"Now don't you look so pretty?" Ruth said when she opened the door. "But where are your chaps and spurs?"
"I decided not to wear them. No offense, they just weren't that comfortable."
"That's OK."
Ruth looked like Annie Oakley in her cowgirl outfit. She had everything just right. She wore her hat hanging down her back with a string loosely tied around her neck. She wore a blue-and-white-checkered shirt with silver snaps, a suede vest with fringe, and a red skirt held at the waist with a leather belt with a large bronze buckle. And to complete the ensemble she wore calf-high, pointy-toed, white boots decorated with rhinestones.
"You really went all out," I said. "Your outfit is perfect."
"Thank you, Griselda. I wanted to be as authentic as I could."
"Where's your lemon squares?"
"Stu came by earlier, while we were at the pumpkin festival, and brought them to the town hall."
"That was a good idea. Let's go pick up Ivy."
As we walked to Ivy's house we saw other townsfolk making their way to the dance hall. Most of them were in western attire, especially the children.
"I've been thinking," Ruth said. "That Dabs Lemon fella might be right about Gilda. She is a little bit of an odd duck, and as far as I can tell, she still hasn't bought groceries or aired out the house. It's like she just sleeps there and then leaves every morning. I mean I'm wondering why she even bothered to rent the house unless of course she was hoping to bring Walter home to it—yeah that makes sense. I bet that's what she was thinking."
"Well she's spending her time at the nursing home, I reckon," Ivy said with a hitch in her giddy up. She decided to wear the spurs and a strange little bolo tie with a slide shaped like a steer head.
The crowd was lining up at the door. We could hear the Barley Boys from the street. They were whooping it up inside.
"They're having a rootin' tootin' good time already," Ruth said. "You got your tickets?"
Ivy pulled hers out of her pocket. "Right here. Three dollars this year. Price sure has gone up."
Ruth and I didn't need tickets since we were on the committee but I always bought one anyway, just to help out with the funding.
Babette Sturgis, in a pretty little corn-colored dress and cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, was taking tickets at the door. She sat on a stool next to a large barrel with the word "DYNAMITE" stenciled on it.
The line moved quickly and noisily into the hall.
I caught Zeb's eye almost immediately. He was all dooded up in his cowboy duds. Denim jeans, flannel shirt, and boots but no cowboy hat. He looked handsome standing near the lamppost obviously waiting for me. But then I saw Gilda sashay up to him swinging her hips like a pendulum. I stopped. She was about as country as she could get I supposed with a green skirt and plaid shirt. But, unfortunately, her hip-high, shiny white go-go boots did not exactly scream country.
"Howdy," I said when we got close enough to them.
"Howdy," Zeb said.
Gilda looked me up and down. "Girl," she said. "You have got to remind me to take you shopping some day. How do you expect to land this nice young man in clothes like that?" Then she patted Zeb's cheek. "He is just so cute."
Zeb blushed and pushed Gilda's hand away.
Ruth looked at Ivy. Ivy looked at Ruth.
"Come on, Zeb," I said. "Why don't we go check out the pies?"
"That's right," Ruth said. "Let's go have us a shindig."
Ivy and Ruth went in one direction while Zeb and I headed for the pie table. A medium-height woman with short brown hair, kind of wavy, wearing a paisley dress stood behind the counter.
"Is that Charlotte Figg?" I asked.
"Yep," Zeb said. "And they're her pies. She must have baked three dozen of them."
We stood off to the side a moment while people gathered around her table. Some were taste testing each variety and others were grabbing presliced pieces on red paper plates for thirty cents each.
"The cherry looks good," I said.
"I hate to admit it," Zeb said. "But her cherry pie is like nothing I ever ate before. It is so good, and she plops a little whipped cream on the top if you want."
"Go on, buy me a piece."
Zeb introduced me to Charlotte.
"This is Griselda Sparrow," Zeb said.
She shook my hand. "Oh, the librarian I heard about. It's nice to meet you."
"You too," I said. "Your pies are becoming legendary around here."
"Ah, that's so kind of you to say. Thank you. Can I get you
a slice?"
Zeb and I walked away with a slice of cherry crumb each. I took my first bite a little out of earshot of Charlotte. At first it was tart but not too tart and then the tartness turned to sweetness that dribbled down the back of my throat. The crust was perfect—flaky and tasty.
"Ah, man," I said. "She should sell these."
The music grew louder and louder as folks took to the dance floor. I didn't know what the Barley Boys played but they sounded so sweet. I saw one guitar player, a fiddler who looked to be a hundred and two years old with long white hair and an even longer white beard, one banjo picker, and a tall stringy man plucking an upright bass. They all wore the same black suit with a white shirt and skinny black ties.
Nate's scenery transformed the town hall into a western style saloon. Bob the pharmacist stood behind a long counter made to look like a bar and served drinks—fruit punch, lemonade, and my iced tea. He played the part well wearing a striped button-down shirt with purple garters around each arm to keep his shirt sleeves from getting wet with drinks.
A long table covered with a red-and-white-checkered table cloth displayed about an acre of other goodies from brownies and Ruth's lemon squares to cookies and even vegetables with dipping sauces homemade by Edie Tompkins.
"Your Full Moon pies—I mean Harvest Pies—look so inviting," I said. "They really do look like harvest moons."
"I was going to put them on the pie table with Charlotte Figg's but then I thought better of it. Let her have her own table."
"Have you tasted her apple?" said Edie Tompkins who sneaked up behind us. "It is just the best, the absolute best. She should open a store."
"She really should," Frank Sturgis said. He was standing near Edie's husband, Bill. "She does make the best pie."
Zeb grabbed my hand. "Come on," he said. "All this talk about pie." He started to pull me toward the center of the floor but Studebaker caught up with us.
"I've been giving it some thought," Studebaker said as he hitched up his pants. They were being pulled down by a pair of six-shooters holstered around his waist.
"Giving what some thought?" asked Zeb just as the four Speedwell boys whizzed past him carrying plates piled high with brownies and cookies. Their mother ran behind them.
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," she hollered, "that's entirely too much food. It's gluttony. Pure and simple—gluttony. You put some of that ham back this minute or you're gonna catch it but good."
"That poor woman has got her hands full," I said. "She is always running after those boys. I mean where is her husband?"
"Over there." Zeb pointed. Pastor Speedwell was standing very close to Gilda near the bandstand. He looked about the same as he always did no matter what the occasion. Tall and skinny with his ubiquitous black suit and shiny black shoes. Except in honor of the western theme of the evening he wore a white cowboy hat, one of those ten-gallon hats.
"Wonder what he's telling her," I said.
"He's probably telling her that Jesus loves even sinful city women."
"I think you're right. Look at her. She is trying so hard to get away from him."
"Never mind them," Stu said. "I'm talking about the treasure everyone is so hepped up about. I want to go looking for it."
"What?" Zeb said.
"The treasure," Stu repeated. "Why don't we go looking for it? No one knows if that fella in the coma ever found it. Why not?"
"Ah, that's just silly," I said. "No one except Walter has a clue about where to dig. I mean that's a lot of ground up there."
"But we have that one clue," Zeb said starting to sound very interested in what Stu was saying. "Between the high road and the low road. All we need are shovels."
"I got shovels," Stu said. "What do you say?"
I half expected to see Stu and Zeb shout a Three Musketeer– type victory call but they didn't because that was when we all spotted Cliff walking across the dance floor. He wasn't wearing cowboy garb except for one of Ruth's bandanas tied around his neck. I must say though that with his leather flight jacket and blue jeans he didn't need a cowboy hat to help with his swagger.
"Howdy," Cliff said. "I saw you all standing over here and thought I'd mosey on over."
"Howdy," Stu said.
Zeb tipped his imaginary hat, and I just said, "Hi Cliff."
"We were just discussing the treasure," Stu said. "I was thinking maybe we should go looking for it."
"I was wondering when someone was going to suggest that," Cliff said.
"So you think we oughta?" Zeb said. "You think we oughta go rooting around the quarry for some buried treasure."
"Well if you don't I will," said Bill Tompkins. He had just meandered close to us. "I mean, what the heck? It's out there. All that money. Imagine that, a million dollars buried so close to Bright's Pond all these years."
Zeb appeared pensive a moment. "Don't you think it could be dangerous? That fella, Walter, got hurt out there. How can we be sure that won't happen to us?"
Bill's eyebrows arched. "No problem," he straightened his shoulders, "we all grew up around the mines. We know how to handle slag heaps."
"I guess we could at that," Zeb said. "But that means we need to split the treasure."
"Fair enough," Studebaker said. "Even Steven. We'll split it—" Zeb counted the people involved in the present conversation. "One, two, three—how about you Cliff? You in?"
Cliff looked at his feet and shook his head. "Nah, I've had my share of treasure hunting, wheeling and dealing and all that. I'm through. Count me out."
"So it's just the three of us then," Stu said. He looked at me. "Unless you want to join in, Griselda, but seeing how you'd be with Zeb, that would be like you get two parts."
"Don't worry, Stu, I don't want any part of the treasure."
It didn't take more than a few minutes for talk of the treasure to spread through the crowd. By seven-thirty the joint was jumping with rumors and theories and guesses about where the treasure might be buried. Folks even stopped dancing to discuss the possibility of a treasure. But that didn't seem to bother the Barley Boys. They kept on picking and singing. Even Jasper York was telling Harriet Nurse his theory. I heard him confiding in her on my way to the bathroom with Ruth. "Of course you can't tell about treasures," Jasper said. "Bank robbers leave false clues all the time—just to throw folks off the scent."
Harriet agreed with him. "You might be right, Jasper. How can anybody trust a thief?"
Suddenly the fair distribution of the money had become a bit more complicated.
"I say it's every man for himself," I heard Bill Tompkins say when I returned. "Finders keepers, losers weepers."
"Me too," Zeb said. "Whoever finds it gets to do whatever he wants with it. Keep it all, split it up, give it away to charity."
That was when Gilda Saucer wiggled on up to the bar.
"Howdy, Gilda," Zeb said. "Where'd you get off to?"
"Nowhere in particular," she said. "I was just hanging around. And then I had a hard time getting away from that preacher fellow. He kept trying to tell me about Jesus, and I kept telling him that I didn't want or need to believe in a ghost. I told him I was good enough just the way I am." She grinned and sipped what looked like lemonade from a paper cup.
No one dared argue with her.
"So, whatcha all discussing?" she asked.
Alarmed glances flitted through the small group until Cliff said, "Treasure hunting."
She took a step back and nearly tripped over Bill Tompkins. "Oh dear, excuse me. I stepped on your toes."
Bill, who had to grab her around the waist to keep her from stumbling, didn't seem to mind. At least not until Edie glared daggers.
"The treasure?" she said. "My dear sweet Walter's treasure? Why, it's his. I'm sure he's fixing to go looking for it just as soon as he can, just as soon as he wakes up from that horrible comatose state he is presently in."
I was prepared for the crocodile tears to pour.
"We didn't mean to step on his toes
," Bill said. "We just figured since he was . . . was, well—"
"Yeah," Stu said. "Since Walter is otherwise incapacitated we might as well—"
"Go hunting for what is rightfully his." Her voice took on an edge that cut the air.
"Now come on, Gilda," Cliff said. "Walter has no claim on that treasure until after he finds it. This is not really the old west. It isn't like he staked a claim."
"But . . . But." Gilda began to sob. "It was what we were depending on to get married and set up our home right here in Bright's Pond. That's why I rented that pretty little house."
Oh boy, she could not have poured it on any thicker.
Cliff did not appear moved by her display of emotion. "Not a whole lot you can do about it, Gilda. If they want to go treasure hunting, it's their right."
Zeb offered Gilda a slice of pie. "I wouldn't worry. I doubt these folks will ever find it. I mean most of them can't find their way around town without help."
She dabbed her eyes with a paper napkin, making sure not to smear her thick mascara very much. Although she did start to resemble a raccoon but that just seemed to endear her more to Zeb.
"Now you got your eyes all red and . . . black. Maybe you should go and pretty yourself up again. You'll feel better."
Ruth and I looked at each other. "Can you believe him?" I whispered.
Gilda put her slice of pie on the table. "Will you watch it for me, please, while I go and . . . and freshen up?"
We all watched her sashay across the dance floor.
"Now see here, Zeb," Studebaker said. "I am still planning on hunting for that treasure. It's fair game."
"Of course," Bill added. "Just because that city woman gets all teary-eyed and misty over it is no reason to keep us from looking."
"That's right," Edie said. "Besides, that man might never wake up from his present state of unconsciousness. You know what I'm saying? And then what good is the treasure doing?"
That pretty much summed up what everyone else was thinking. But thankfully I surveyed the hall and realized that most of the townspeople were oblivious to what was being discussed at Zeb's pie table. "That's good," I told Ruth. "Maybe it'll just be the three of them out looking for that money. I don't think anyone else has a clue or even thought about taking on the quest."