by Joan Hess
She didn't look especially pleased, but she grudgingly said they could come in for a plate lunch special-if they minded their manners and washed up first. I went back outside and gathered up my little herd of heathens, not bothering to warn them to watch their language. It would have been as successful as throwing rocks at the moon.
Hammet, however, had most likely related his previous encounter with the proprietor, because no one said a word as they followed me to the bar and sat down on stools. Sissie was carrying the baby, but she put the bundle on the floor before she took a seat. The bundle didn't stir.
I picked up the baby and drew back a corner of the quilt to gaze at a gray, translucent face and two closed eyes. "What's the baby's name?"
Sissie flashed some mossy teeth at me. "We jest calls him Baby. Do you reckon we can get some milk or something for him?"
Ruby Bee came out of the kitchen, armed with a dish towel just in case a savage leaped across the bar. "What do they want to eat?" she asked me.
"Whatever's convenient," I said before Hammet could offer an editorial. "Lots of it, please. Piles of it. Mountains of it. These kids haven't eaten in a long time."
She barked an order to Dahlia in the kitchen, then came around the bar to get a closer look at the baby. "That baby looks mighty unhealthy, Arly. What do you aim to do with it?"
"I don't know; I've never had any experience with this size infant. I suppose I ought to try to get some milk in him. You don't have a baby bottle in the back room, do you?"
"Why, this poor little thing needs a warm bath, clean clothes, and formula. You stay here and help Dahlia serve the plates. I'll have Estelle stop by the Kwik-Screw for a bottle and some formula, or at least condensed milk. I'm taking this baby over to my unit."
I handed over the baby, wondering if Bubba or Sissie might object to their brother being carried away by a stranger. Hammet raised an eyebrow, but none of the others so much as turned around as Ruby Bee went out the door. They were, I think, a bit bewildered by the appearance of Dahlia O'Neill. All three hundred pounds plus of her.
Dahlia was taken aback herself, but managed to dish up the plate lunch special and serve Bubba, Sissie, Sukie, and Hammet-who tore right into it as if he hadn't eaten in a week. There were some grunts and snorts, not to mention a good deal of smacking and slobbering, throughout the meal, but no one said a word, obscene or otherwise. Dahlia stared at them, coming out of her reverie every once in a while to dish out another mound of blackeyed peas or mashed potatoes.
I took the opportunity to go over to the pay phone and call Mrs. Jim Bob to tell her the success of my mission, depending on how you gauge success in this situation. "I've got them," I said brightly when she answered.
"You do? Well, it's a relief to know that the little bastards are safe now."
She didn't sound all that enthusiastic, but I didn't allow that to faze me. "Yep, I've got four of them over at Ruby Bee's right this minute. They're almost finished eating, so we should arrive at your house within thirty minutes."
"Have they-ah, have they bathed?"
I glanced across the room at grimy necks, hair snarled with twigs and dried leaves, clothing that the ragman would have turned up his nose at, brown feet, and eight hands glistening with grease. "They look right smart, Mrs. Jim Bob. We'll see you in a few minutes."
I hung up the receiver, then went out the door and around back to see how Ruby Bee was doing with the baby. Estelle drove up as I reached the covered walkway, and she grabbed a plastic sack before joining me.
"What is the emergency?" she panted. "Why in heaven's name does Ruby Bee want condensed milk and a baby bottle? I left Edwina Spitz in the chair, setting lotion dribbling down her neck, to dash over here." I began to explain, but she scuttled around me and went into Ruby Bee's unit, no doubt inspired to hurry by Edwina Spitz's impending fury. By the time I caught up with her, she was sitting beside Ruby Bee on the couch, and the two of them were cooing and making silly faces at a bundle wrapped in a clean blanket.
"Isn't he the sweetest little thing?" Ruby Bee said with a saccharine smile. "I could just gobble up those darling little toes like they were jelly beans. What's his name, Arly?"
"I don't know. The Buchanon children refer to him as Baby."
"Why, that's disgraceful!" Estelle said, bending over to touch a waving hand.
"Can't help it," I said. I waited while they fussed around and eventually got enough warm condensed milk into the baby to satisfy some maternal thermometer that was beyond me. I then mentioned that I was taking the infant to Mrs. Jim Bob's. I was informed that I was not.
If you think I argued the point with those two, you overestimate me. I went back to the bar and gathered up the kids, with a short explanation that the baby would stay with my mother for a few days. Bubba shrugged and belched. Sissie nodded and belched. Sukie stuck a finger in her mouth and belched. Hammet opted for a nofrills belch.
On that pleasant note, I herded everyone out to the jeep and drove out Finger Lane to the Buchanon driveway, which had red-brick pillars on either side and a wroughtiron grill spanning them like a rusty banner. A number stuck on one pillar proclaimed their residence as "Number Four." I was impressed, since I hadn't known we had house numbers in Maggody.
The house was an imposing red-brick box, with a white colonnade and other pretentious stuff. A circular drive, and a discreet sign indicating deliveries were to be made in the rear. Barbered shrubs. Flower beds lined with red bricks. One was supposed to presume it was an antebellum plantation house. If I hadn't known that it was built ten years back, when Jim Bob bought the land for a pittance from an elderly widow with failing eyesight and no family, I might have fallen for it. Ha, ha.
The Buchanon children were making all sorts of noises as they stared at what was by far the fanciest house they'd ever seen. They all gasped when Hammet pointed at the glass in the windows. Sissie said it were higher'n a mountain. Sukie said it were a fuckin' monster house. Bubba, the eldest and therefore most sophisticated, said it weren't neither as big as a mountain, and iffen she said it was he would whup her ass.
I saw a curtain twitch, so I knew Mrs. Jim Bob hadn't fled the county. I turned around to Bubba and said, "I have to decide what to do about your mother. Hammet says she's been gone for nearly a week, and that she said she was going to hunt ginseng. Right?"
"Reckon it's close enough."
"She don't normally stay gone when it's dark," Sissie contributed. "She allus comes back before-" She broke off as Bubba glowered at her hard enough to produce spontaneous combustion.
"Thank you," I said hastily. "Now, no one knows where her secret patch is, which means I can't drive up there to see if she's still there. Do any of you have any idea why she might have gone off like this?"
"Bet a bear et her," Hammet said helpfully. "Probably kilt him."
Sukie's eyes filled with tears. "My mama ain't dead, motherfucker."
"I'm sure she's fine," I said. "Now, this is where you all are going to stay until I find your mother. The woman who lives here is very nice, and she wants you to have food and clean beds. She may seem a bit testy, but she does want to take care of you. Come along and I'll introduce you."
I had to pound on the front door for a long time before it opened to a slit and one eye peered out at me. "I thought they had bathed," hissed a disembodied voice.
"Did I imply that? Sorry, Mrs. Jim Bob, but I knew you'd want to supervise that yourself, since your standards are so much higher than mine." I gave the children a smile and patted Hammet on the head. "Okay, guys, here you are. I'll let you know the instant I find your mother. See you in a day or two, okay?"
Nobody looked real happy, but nobody bolted. They were still standing between the Grecian columns as I drove away, but the door had opened another inch or two, and I presumed Mizzoner wouldn't dare leave them on the porch for fortyeight hours. Why, that would get her kicked out of the Ladies' Missionary Society quicker than the congregation could shout "amen" at the end of one of B
rother Verber's knee-busting prayers.
6
The Ommms drifted over the fence in the late-afternoon light. Kevin Buchanon, agonized by indecision (not to mention tortured by temptation), leaned against the sweet gum tree and told himself not to do it. "Don't do it," he said aloud, hoping it would help. "Kevin, you know you don't want to get your ass whipped. You know better. Don't do it."
He squinched his eyes closed real tight and tried to concentrate on a vision of his true love, with her warm, soft, monstrous-big bosoms that liked to suffocated him on more than one occasion, and her marshmallowy expanse of rippling body flesh, and her always sincere invitation for him to crawl up that heavenly path between her legs and do anything he wanted. Not to forget her kindly words of instruction and willingness to learn him all kinds of wondrous things.
It didn't help. He shinnied up the tree to the first branch, then wiggled around until he was standing up. He still couldn't see what was going on next door. Scrabbling and grunting, he climbed up several more branches, and took a minute to catch his breath before he turned around to see what he could see.
"Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy," he said in a low whoosh, as his stomach flopped over like a catfish in the bottom of a johnboat. They were naked as the day they was born, all four of them. The men were hairy and uninteresting. But the women-well, that was different, at least in Kevin Buchanon's wide, unblinking eyes. The one with a bun in the warmer was a smidgen rounder, as to be expected. The other one, that being the one with the ripe round perky bosoms, each just a handful, and that flat belly that went all the way down to that dark, fuzzy-
"Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon! You git down from there right this minute! You pa's going be home any time now, and you know what he said he'd do if he caught you up in this tree again!"
He made it to the ground with only a few scratches and a rip in the seat of his jeans. "Gee, Ma," he said, his Adam's apple rippling furiously, "I was just making sure they weren't doing nothing illegal that I ought to report to the chief."
"What's Arly got to do with you being a lowdown peeping Tom?"
"She told me to keep an eye on them. Since she doesn't have a deputy anymore, she asked me to do my civic duty and help her." He was real proud of the inspired reference to civic duty, his ma being big on patriotism and a one-time secretary of the county DAR. The rest of it had been planned over several hours of commode scrubbing. Ad-libbing was not his forte.
"Arly Hanks has a sight more sense than that, young man. I've known her since the day she was born, and I've never seen any signs she's mentally retarded. Which is more than I can say about some folks, present company included. You'd better go in the house and pray for forgiveness of both your sins: lusting at naked ladies and lying to your own mother."
"She did so, Ma. It's supposed to be a secret, though, and I'm not supposed to say nothing about it to anyone, including my own flesh and blood. I swore on the Bible and everything. She says those hippies are breaking the law, and all we need is evidence so we can lock 'em up tighter than ticks on a hound dog's tail."
"Commence your prayers," Eilene Buchanon said, unmoved by the importance of his secret assignment to rid the local environs of dastardly crime. "If you pray real hard, mebbe I won't have to tell your pa that I caught you up in the sweet gum again. His belt's hanging by the back door where it's right handy. He'll be home shortly." She went back to the kitchen to stir the corn bread batter. Kevin trailed after her, explaining her civic duty not to tell anybody, including Pa and especially Pa, about the secret assignment.
Across the fence, the chanting stopped. Poppy lay back on the blanket and massaged her belly. "It's kicking. Does anyone want to feel it?"
"Of course we do," Rainbow said, nudging Zachery. "We all love you and we all love our baby. Isn't that right?"
Zachery obediently crawled across the blanket and put his hand next to Poppy's. "Like, wow. I feel it. Do you think it's all excited by the meditation vibes?"
Rainbow smiled as she joined him next to Poppy's supine body. "That's an intriguing thought, Zachery. I don't know why the baby wouldn't sense the cosmic harmony and want to move with it. What do you think, Nate?"
He lit a cigarette. "Probably taking a crap. Listen, I need the truck in the morning. Got to talk to a man in Farberville about some personal business. I'll drop you off at the store on my way out of town. I should be back by the middle of the afternoon."
"That's impossible," Rainbow said gently. "Poppy has an appointment with the midwife just before noon. I'm going to drive her over and wait."
"Change it. I need the truck. I'll bet you enjoy hassling me all the time, don't you? Gives you a real kick."
Rainbow's smile trembled as she struggled for sympathy, cooperation, and lovingness. "But Nate, the midwife is an old granny woman who lives in a shack on the county road. She doesn't have a telephone, so we can't call to change the appointment. But let's vote on it, shall we? That way we'll follow the communal spirit and strengthen our harmony. Who feels Poppy's need is greater than Nate's?"
Nate threw down his cigarette and stalked into the house. A few minutes later the truck's engine rumbled to life. A cloud of dust blew over the fence, eventually settling like cocoa powder on the three naked occupants of the backyard meditation garden.
"Like, wow," Zachery said, using his finger to draw a happy face on Poppy's belly. Kevin would have loved it.
I had a pleasant evening and a reasonable night's sleep, although I had to remind myself a couple of times that the Buchanon brood was in good hands. Granted they were pious, self-righteous hands, but at least not gnarled and hirsute talons. Mizzoner, the mayor's wife, had good intentions. The Buchanons were tough enough to deal with her.
The next morning I dawdled at the PD for a couple hours. I was about to get in the jeep when David Allen drove up in his four-wheel wagon. "Aren't you supposed to be counseling the youth of Maggody High?" I asked. "Don't they need scholarship applications for welding schools and the mudwrestling academy?"
"I've taken a break. Do you have time to do the same and join me for a cup of coffee?"
We went into the PD, and he looked around while I started a pot of coffee. "This isn't exactly Scotland Yard," he said, grinning at me. "You could put two of these in the auto-repair shop at the high school and still have room for a Trans Am with a bent axle."
"Did you run away from school to tell me that?"
"No, I ran away from school for two unrelated yet intensely compelling reasons. One is that a terribly sincere girl named Heather Riley has made her seventy-third appointment with me, and I felt a sudden urge to leave. She cries so much, I wear an inner tube while I listen to her. I have no idea what her problems are, either, beyond muddled references to harelips and imperiled virginity. I'm not sure if she wants to lose or acquire either or both."
I handed him a cup of coffee and sat down behind my desk. "And the second compelling reason?"
"You were right about the psychic, and I wanted to drink a toast to your keen grasp of the sociological interactions of the town." He took a sip of coffee and made a face. "At a later time and with champagne. Your waterbed or mine?"
I let it go over my head, which wasn't hard since I was sitting down and he was standing up. The Macaroni law of physics. "So the psychic is no longer upsetting the fragile psyches of the senior class?"
"Carol Alice Plummer is not going to commit suicide. She is sporting an eighteenth-of-a-carat diamond ring, and checking out bridal magazines from the school library. As far as I know, she's not even pregnant; it may be the first wedding ceremony in Maggody in which the groomsmen are not armed. Her fiancé, one Bo Swiggins, who has no neck but does have a sly sense of humor, has sworn to win the homecoming game in her honor. For the gripper, as he is reputed to have said in the locker room."
"Then I can see your professional life is under control, David Allen. I wish I could say the same about mine, but I never lie before noon. In fact, I'd better get back to business."
; "Issuing tickets at the stoplight?"
"No," I sighed. I told him about the disappearance of Robin Buchanon and the subsequent problem, collectively known as Bubba, Sissie, Hammet, Sukie, and Baby. "I'm going to drive back up to the cabin and see if she, like a distaff General MacArthur, has returned. I'm not taking any bets on it, though. At the same time, it's hard to envision her deciding to head off across the mountains to points unknown. Her sideline's portable, but her major occupation isn't."
"Turning tricks and making moonshine," he said, nodding. "I'd been in town less than twenty minutes when one of the good ole boys in the subdivision dropped by with a mason jar of the vilest field whiskey I'd ever tasted. Not to say we didn't drink it, of course, but it left scars all the way down my throat. As for her sideline, the ole boy got all choked up when he tried to describe her talents in that arena. Only a couple of the boys have had the nerve to actually go through with it. One of them has never been seen again."
"I see you have no compunctions regarding prelunch fabrications. Actually, I'm worried about her. I'll hunt around for her still, but I doubt I can find it any more than I'll stumble across her family ginseng patch. And why would she be lurking for almost a week at either of those places, anyway?" I leaned back in the chair and propped my feet on my desk. "I can't come up with any theories to explain her disappearance. I wouldn't dream of trying to delve into her possible motives to pull this stunt; she's unlike anything I've ever met. All I know is that she left the cabin with a hoe and a gunnysack, and the children expected her back before dark. Nearly a week ago. She's a mountain woman, not the sort to twist an ankle or grab the wrong end of a copperhead. She probably fries up a mess of copperhead for Sunday brunch."
"I have an idea," David Allen said, perching on the corner of my desk and giving me an impish grin. "Why don't you consult Madam Celeste?"
"That's the stupidest thing I've heard all morning," I replied with an impish grin of my own.