by Joan Hess
"And how much time do you reckon that'll be? You've been back long enough to stop moping around like a motherless calf." Ruby Bee spent several seconds drying her hands on her apron, while I polished off the pie. "That's why I made you an appointment," she said in a voice so low I almost missed it.
"With Estelle? No disrespect intended, but I really prefer my hair as it is. If I ever decide to try a different style, I'll make my own appointment." I said this very calmly.
"With Madam Celeste."
"What?" I said this very excitedly.
"That's right," Estelle said. "Madam Celeste can give you all sorts of advice about what you ought to do with your life. Heaven knows you haven't come up with any good ideas lately. If you want, she can also put you in touch with those who've already gone across."
"Gone across what?" I asked, wishing almost immediately that I hadn't. It was too late, of course, so I decided to blow the whole wad. "The street? The Continental Divide? The fine line between sanity and schizophrenia?"
Estelle put her hands on her hips. "To the unknown. Dead people. Ancestors and folks like that. Madam Celeste conducted a seance for Edwina Spitz and talked to Edwina's grandfather person-to-person. Edwina's grandfather said it was right pretty where he was, and then he forgave Edwina for putting him in a nursing home and never once coming to visit him. Edwina felt mighty relieved afterward."
"Person-to-person and collect?" I said, giving up on a second piece of pie.
Now Ruby Bee put her hands on her hips. "Madam Celeste has expenses just like everybody else, young lady, but you don't have to give her one thin dime. Your visit is a gift from me and Estelle."
"Forget it," I said as I stood up. "I'll visit a psychic about the time I agree to have Sunday dinner with Raz Buchanon. Shall I presume I'm now current on all the significant events of the last six weeks?"
"Not exactly," Ruby Bee said.
She lifted the top of the pie stand so I could get a view of the last slab of lemon meringue, knowing darn well I'd lose a goodly portion of my resolve. Eating is one of my major activities; I'm fortunate to escape without looking like a tub of lard (or Dahlia O'Neill, the local cause of anorexia among the high school girls, who have a reasonable and legitimate terror of ending up like her; although the story that her granny once entered her in the county fair is pure spite-she won that blue ribbon over the mantle for her tomato relish).
"Okay," I said, sitting back down. "Tell me the rest of it."
"You know the Emporium across the county road from the Assembly Hall?" Ruby Bee said as she handed over the payola. "Well, four long-haired crazy hippies bought it from old Merle Hardcock, who was a mite too senile to know what he was doing. In fact, he took the money and bought a big, noisy motorcycle, if you can imagine such a thing. Thinks he's some kind of daredevil and talks all the time about trying to jump Boone Creek."
I winced at the image that came to mind. "I'll see if I can dissuade him. But tell me more about these hippies and the Emporium."
Ruby Bee looked gratified by my attention. "They fixed it up and reopened it last week. They sell hardware, chicken feed, notions, and the regular stuff, but they also sell all sorts of strange-smelling herbs and crystals and little bottles of oil that are supposed to cure headaches and impotency. Right in the store they play weird music that doesn't have any words or melody." She took a deep breath. "What's more, they live together at the end of Finger Road, in that dilapidated old house just past Earl Buchanon's house. One of them told Earl it was a commune. He thought that meant they were communists and was all set to go over with his shotgun, but I told him to wait until you got back from your so-called vacation. Earl's president of the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and real touchy about communists."
(Allow me to digress from this fascinating narrative to explain the plethora of Buchanons. There are hundreds of them sprinkled across Stump County, worse than hogweed. Incest and inbreeding are their favorite hobbies, which has resulted in beetlish brows, yellow yellow eyes, and thick lips. They aren't strong on intelligence; the most they can aspire to is animal cunning. An anthropologist from Farber College once tried to sort out the genealogy, although nobody ever figured out why anybody'd want to do that. Rumor has it she tried to kill herself at the county line, and ranted in the ambulance about third cousins twice removed and fathers who were also uncles and half-brothers. Her family hushed it up with some story about a diesel truck, but everybody in Maggody knew better.)
"I'll see if I can dissuade Earl, too," I said, thinking I never should have left town. "But with the Emporium open again, we won't have to mortgage the homestead to buy nails at the Kwik-Screw, or drive all the way into Starley City for a monkey wrench."
Ruby Bee looked as if she might snatch back the pie. "What about them living in sin and doing all sorts of bizarre things? Why, they sit in the backyard morning and evening-stark naked, I might add-and hold hands and chant all sorts of things nobody can make any sense of. They burn funny-smelling little sticks while they do it, too!"
I curled my arm around the plate, just in case. "How do you know? Have you been out there by invitation? Shall I guess your mantra?"
"I am offended by your saying that," Ruby Bee snapped.
Estelle bobbled her head in support, looking like a hungry guinea hen over a ripe worm. "What they're doing is probably against the law, and you ought to go out there and do something about it before they corrupt all the children in Maggody. Everybody knows they smoke marijuana and engage in group sex like a bunch of farm animals."
"Farm animals don't engage in group sex," I pointed out as I popped the last bite of pie into my mouth. "As long as they do whatever it is they do in the privacy of the backyard, I don't see any reason to stir up problems. They aren't going to corrupt anybody with enough sense to mind his or her own business. For that matter, how does everybody know what they do in the backyard?"
"Kevin Buchanon says he can see their pagan rituals from the top of that old sweet gum tree in his backyard," Estelle said. "His pa caught him and about a dozen other boys in the tree, and whipped Kevin so hard he still can't bend over to tie his shoes. You'd of thought Kevin would have outgrown such foolishness by now."
I started for the door. "Well, I'm not sure who's likely to be corrupting whom. If nothing more exciting turns up, I'll go by the Emporium this afternoon and see if there's any debauchery going on under the notions display. But there are so many exciting things going on in Maggody, and I'm liable to get sidetracked by an armed robbery at the bank or homicide at the Laundromat."
"You are not as clever as you think, young lady," Ruby Bee called to my back.
"And you be at the beauty parlor Tuesday morning at ten o'clock sharp," Estelle added. "I'll take you over to Madam Celeste's and make the introductions." With my ice skates, since hell would have frozen over about the time I did that.
2
I drove to the PD, reasonably pleased with lunch and already testing excuses for not showing up at Estelle's on Tuesday for my appointment with the psychic, of all fool things. The sheriff's deputy, who'd been minding the store during my "so-called vacation" (I'd forgotten to find out the subtle nuance there), flapped a hand in greeting as I came through the door.
"Welcome back, Arly. Have a good leave?"
"I thought I did until a few minutes ago. I visited some friends on the East Coast, camped on the beach, drank cheap wine, gazed at sunsets, and did everything I could think of to forget this ugly place. Anything happen while I was gone? Did we have a rash of bank robberies, holdups, homicides, Russian spies, and international dope busts?"
"Yeah, I had to beat off the ABC, the CIA, the DEA, the EPA, the KGB, and so forth right down to the VFW. Some guy from network television interviewed me, and I received three purple hearts." He gave me a chagrined look as he slapped his chest. "Lordy, I forgot to wear 'em today, just when I had hopes of impressing you."
"I'm sure your wife's impressed enough for the both of us," I said, mo
ving around the desk to my chair, a comfy old cane-bottomed thing that had held my fanny for more than eighteen months without a whimper. Or a splinter. "Anything else?"
"You're going to love this, Arly." He began to edge toward the door. "Jim Bob Buchanon came by couple of days ago and left a little present for you. It's on the table in the back room."
"A present for little old me? It's not my birthday, and it's nearly two months 'til Christmas. Did Hizzoner the Moron miss me so much that he felt compelled to leave a welcome-back present for his favorite public servant?" Despite my flippancy, I was a tad nervous. "Is there a sentimental, storebought card along with it?"
The deputy had cleared the door sill and was eyeing his car. "No card, but he had a message for you that'll make your day-ha, ha. He said the town council voted not to hire a deputy for the time being. Budget's awful tight, he said two or three times, but he didn't look all that sad."
"And the present?"
"It's one of those beeper things like doctors and county agents wear so their secretaries can track them down on the golf course. You're on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."
"You're joking. Please tell me that you're joking."
" 'Fraid not, Arly. But there is some good news-you don't have to clean the PD anymore. Jim Bob said he'd hired a janitor to come in at night and sweep."
I propped my feet on my desk, tilted back in the chair, and closed my eyes. "Somehow, I have a funny feeling about this. I realize I should shoot off some firecrackers and break out in song, but there's something that smells overly ripe about Jim Bob's generosity." I squinted at the deputy. "Since you won't tell me you're joking, tell me why I'm not singing."
He had his car keys in his hand. "Well," he said, easing out of range should anything come flying through the doorway, "your newest employee is Kevin Buchanon. See ya, Arly."
The screen door banged closed, leaving me in solitude to gripe, growl, and curse Jim Bob Buchanon and the other equally treacherous members of the town council. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week seemed extreme, if not unconstitutional, and I didn't fool myself for a minute that I was going to see a pay raise to go along with it. Oh, no, I got a beeper instead, so that I could never hide. Maggody was going to be a one-gun town. Whoopee.
And Kevin Buchanon, who by sheer coincidence was Jim Bob's second or third cousin, was going to invade the PD on a daily basis, which meant I'd feel obliged to be civil to him. He wasn't as objectionable as his more illustrious relative, but he was a pain in the butt. Jim Bob had achieved that level of animal cunning I mentioned, but Kevin couldn't outwit a possum. Kevin couldn't outwit a rock rolling down a hill. I'd have to show him which end of the broom to use. And I'd probably have to show him every day. Worst of all, I'd find myself listening to his personal problems, most of which would center around the love of his life, the apple of his eye, the dumpling in his pot pie, the pork in his pork 'n' beans, a.k.a. Dahlia O'Neill. I was starting to regret that second piece of pie, because I was definitely feeling queasy.
With a shudder, I planted my feet on the floor and picked up the folder of reports the deputy had left on the desk. It wasn't going to be easy to lose myself in them, but I sure was going to give it my best shot. Welcome back, sucker.
Robin Buchanon moved briskly through the thicket, unmindful of the thorns that tried to tear at her arms or poke through the soles of her heavily callused feet. None of that was any bother to her. She carried a hoe and a knife in one hand, a gunnysack in the other. Her eyes were on the ground, darting back and forth as she searched for the telltale crimson berries and five-leaf pattern of the ginseng plant, but she kept one ear cocked for sounds that were not a part of the forest. It took only one ear, since she was more than used to living in the woods and knew every bird and animal sound.
In fact, she liked coons and skunks and snakes and muskrats better than she did most folks, although she didn't mind when once in a blue moon some city slicker from Maggody came to the cabin for a mason jar of hooch and a little romp. Everybody knew she gave as well as she took. She was, however, beginning to be reluctant these days, since she was getting damn tired of all those younguns underfoot. They was worser than field mice. The baby whined if she din't suckle all the time, and the older ones et everything in the root cellar iffen she didn't keep a switch handy. It'd be right nice to pack 'em off to their pappies and have a little peace and quiet-even if their pappies wouldn't jump for joy. As she walked, she tried to think of somebody she could ask if she could make 'em do it anyways. Maybe that woman policeman in Maggody, she decided with a nod. Yeah, she looked right educated and there was most likely some kind of law.
The northern side of Cotter's Ridge was a mite cool this late in October, but it were time to 'seng hunt and she didn't need a damn fool calendar to tell her so. Her worn flannel shirt and tattered jeans held up by a piece of rope didn't help much, but she weren't no city woman what squealed ever' time the wind like to freeze her tits. Hell no.
She curled her lip, exposing a sparse collection of mossy teeth, as she scrabbled up a gully toward the patch. Her patch. It'd been her pappy's afore, and his pappy's afore that. There'd been a worrisome minute when it looked like grandpappy was gonna die right there in his bed without telling anyone where his patch was-grandpappy was about the most ornery sumbitch anybody ever met. But pappy got a bit rough with the old coot and choked it out of him afore he died. It were a good thing, too, because old grandpappy had died right afterward, and 'seng was scarcer than preachers in paradise.
A good 'seng patch was worth a fortune-at least a hunnert dollars every fall, when she sold the dried roots to that oily man what came to Maggody in a big black car. And she'd tended to her secret patch better than she'd tended to her brood of younguns, chickens, pigs, and goat. She always cut the roots real careful, so that there'd be some the next year, and scattered berries every spring. Why, she thought in her ponderously slow way, this patch was at least a hunnert years old by now. And 'seng huntin' was a nice break from making hooch or whuppin' younguns or even lettin' the hound dog get all excited over her like she was a bitch in heat, which was about her favoritest thing.
She was still grinning as she topped the gully. The grin faded as she stared at the half acre that should have been thick with yeller-gold ginseng leaves. "What the goddamn hell…? " she said aloud.
A rage began to bubble deep in her gut. No yellergold leaves, no red berries. No ginseng plants-in her goddamn patch that she loved better than most anything in the goddamn world! A growl curled up along her gullet, growing and sparking and burning until it erupted in a cry of primeval fury. A flock of starlings flapped away with squawks of alarm. A squirrel fled across the branches. A polecat lifted his head to consider the wisdom of investigating, then slunk off in the opposite direction. Only a trio of buzzards in a dead tree on the top of the ridge took pleasure in the sound, which hinted of easy pickin's in the future.
Robin stumbled forward, her fingers tightening on her tools of the trade. Some low-down, thievin' sumbitch had been here, that much she could tell. She began to gnaw on her lower lip as she tried real hard to figure out just what the hell was a-goin' on, anyway. Weren't nobody in sight, and she was pretty sure ever'thing had been okay last spring. But why in tarnation would some damn fool dig up her 'seng patch out here on the far side of the ridge? Didn't make a hog's hair of sense. There was a loggin' road not too far yonder, she remembered. Some sumbitch must have decided to do his farmin' out in the middle of nowhere. But why in her beloved 'seng patch? Her tools fell to the ground as she wrapped her arms around herself and began to wail. It weren't fair. That sumbitch should be tied up agin an oak tree and be learned what a godawful thing he'd done in destroying her patch. Grandpappy's patch.
Below her simian brow, her eyes turned the shade of yeller gold that she should have found. She sure as hell could show him what a sinful thing he'd done, she told herself as she moved toward the tidy rows of plants. She'd just plumb tear up all his
plants and throw 'em in the gully to rot. Rip up those plants the way she wished she could rip off his tongue and dick and feed 'em to the hogs. Mebbe have one of the younguns keep watch and run back to the cabin iffen anyone came back. Then she'd bring some barbed wire and-
A click about shoulder height caught her attention. As she turned, wondering what the fuck was a-goin' on now, her face exploded.
"Of course I understand why you're upset," David Allen Wainright said for not the first time in the last half hour. He took a quick peep at his watch, then sighed and leaned back in the chair. "It's admirable that you're showing this deep and obviously genuine concern for your friend. It's important that we share our feelings, especially during our high school years, when it's common for us to be unsure of ourselves."
Heather snuffled into the tightly wadded tissue in her hand. "I feel really awful, Mr. Wainright. I mean, like I shouldn't be telling you any of this because I swore on Carol Alice's Bible that she got when she was baptized last spring at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall that I wouldn't tell a soul. She's my best friend in the whole world."
"Which is why you've shown such maturity by coming to talk to me," David Allen said soothingly. It was almost two-thirty; surely she'd have to leave in a minute in order to catch her bus. Surely. "Sometimes we're so confused by our emotions that we're at a loss to know what to do or where to turn. That's why I'm here." On the other hand, he had no idea why she was here. No one actually believed someone would commit suicide on the basis of some idiotic psychic's dour prediction.