Joan Hess - Maggody And The Moonbeams

There are moments when you just want to cast your fate to the wind. This was not one of them.

I was unarmed. I'd been trained in one-on-one combat at the academy. Supposedly, I could take on a Ninja warrior or a psychotic twirling without a baton. If Chief Panknine had a weapon, he'd had enough sense to keep it well out of Deputy Robarts's reach. I wondered how much damage I could do with a bad attitude and half a Snickers bar.

Not much.

I cautiously opened the door that led to the cell. The scratching sound intensified, but I couldn't identify the source. If I'd been back in Maggody, I most certainly would have found my gun and put one of my last three bullets in it. As it was, I was armed with a rolled-up copy of a magazine devoted to lake trout.

"Someone there?" I called.

"I reckon you be wantin' this feller."

I realized there was a door at the end of the short hall. "What feller?"

"The one what ran away this mornin'. You want him, come and take him. I got better things to do."

I opened the door with a certain amount of trepidation. Duluth Buchanon was being held upright by a citizen who looked and smelled worse than Raz Buchanon. His beard dribbled over his gut in strings so drenched in tobacco juice that they might have turned to amber. His pale eyes were entirely too intense.

"Found him hunkered in my barn," he said. "I ain't got time for the likes of him. You don't want him, I'll cart him down to the pond and put a bullet up his nose. The catfish will dispose of him afore too long."

Duluth gave me a panicky look, but had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.

"Are you Crank Nickle?" I asked.

"I ain't the queen of England."

"No, I suppose not," I said. "I would very much like to take this trespasser off your hands. Chief Panknine will appreciate how you did your civic duty."

"Dumbshit scared my cow."

"Perhaps you might enjoy participating in a firing squad later this afternoon," I said as I yanked Duluth inside. "Say about four?"

"And miss the last round of the PGA finals? You jest tell Chief Panknine to keep his prisoners outta my barn." He stomped off before I could respond, assuming I could have.

I took Duluth to the front room, sat him down, and poured him a cup of coffee. He looked like hell, which was to be expected, considering the depth of his hangover. I gave him a moment, then said, "Well?"

"Well-what?" he growled.

"I'm hoping you have some innocuous reason for being in Dunkicker. Your great-aunt lives here, for instance, and needed you to plant pole beans and cucumbers. There's an orphanage somewhere down the road that has a leaky roof. You were ready to repaint Ruby Bee's kitchen, but you were torn between oyster shell and ivory. You tell me, Duluth."

"Norella."

"What about her?"

"Her mother finally got around to mentioning that she'd called a few days back. Said her and the boys was staying at an old church camp, and that she'd be moving on shortly. When folks in Maggody started buzzing about how the teenagers were going to a church camp, I figured it might be the one where Norella had taken the boys. Like I told you, she didn't have much cash, and her car leaks oil bad."

"So you followed the bus?"

"Right till it turned down the road. I decided I'd better wait till it was dark, so I parked my truck behind that old coot's barn. I'd brought a cooler with a couple or three sixpacks, and after I finished those, I remembered I had a bottle of whiskey under the seat."

"And finished that, too, I assume. What were you doing staggering alongside the highway-looking for a liquor store?"

Duluth gave me a watery look that came from either embarrassment or a doozy of a headache. "I was real nervous about seeing Norella. More likely than not, she'd start screaming at me and trying to claw my face. One time she bit me on the ear so hard you can see the scar to this day. Look right here." He pulled his ear forward and waited until I produced a properly horrified frown. "I was gonna press charges for assault, but then I realized if she was locked up, her family might not be willin' to take care of the boys while I was working."

"Probably not," I said. "Then you never went down the road to the campgrounds?"

"Hell, no, I dun told you what I did. You seen Norella and the boys hanging out down there?"

I shook my head. "How do you think she came to find out about Camp Pearly Gates? Did she go there as a kid?"

"I about had to hogtie her to get her to church on Sundays. She always said everybody was real snooty, looking down their noses at her like they thought she bought her dresses at yard sales. Soon as we got home, she'd send the boys to their room and cuss up a storm. I got to where I dreaded Sunday mornings, knowing what I was in for the rest of the day. I'd just keep turnin' up the volume on the football game, but she didn't care even when the Cowboys was playin' Tampa Bay."

"Must have been tough, Duluth," I said, wondering what his sons had thought during the weekly ordeals. "One more question: How'd you get out of the cell?"

He rubbed his temples so hard I was afraid his head might shatter. "It don't make any sense, but I'll tell you. After Brother Verber left, I took a piss, then crawled back on the bunk. I must have dozed off, 'cause the next thing I saw was this… uh, this…"

"Alien?"

"Yeah, this alien unlocking the cell door. I pulled the blanket over my head, and when I finally got up the guts to look, it was gone. Putting up with Brother Verber's one thing, but I wasn't about to find myself being the subject of unnatural medical examinations in a flying saucer. I beat it back to my truck, but the damn thing wouldn't start. I decided to stay in the barn till it got dark, then find a pay phone and call my cousin Leroy to come get me."

"But Crank Nickle found you first."

"Reckon so. Any chance I can call Leroy from here? I'll leave fifty bucks to pay the fine. I mean, all I did was get drunk. That ain't much of a crime these days."

"No, I guess it's not," I said, "but you'll have to remain in custody for the time being."

"On account of being drunk?"

"It's a little bit more complicated than that." I gave him what remained of the candy bar and locked him in the cell. He didn't much like it, naturally, but I assured him that the aliens were on their way back to Alpha Centauri and I'd find him something more substantial to eat.

One of the Beamers had unlocked the cell door, for some reason. Willetta Robarts would have to wait until I could try to talk to them.

Or so I thought.

"Please, my dear, tell me what's going on," said Willetta Robarts as she came into the PD. She was dressed in a gray silk dress and the sort of hat more often seen at Ascot than at rural Baptist outposts. "I was chatting with Sister Silvester when I saw you drive behind the church. Everyone here in Dunkicker is aware of the crime, but no one knows what to think. Sister Silvester was literally dribbling with distress, but she hasn't quite been the same since her boy joined up with those heathens in Greasy Valley. You must tell me if you've made any progress."

"Not much," I said. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"I have a better idea. Why don't you come to my house for a nice Sunday dinner? Colleen is making fried chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed peas with onions, biscuits, and rhubarb pie for dessert. You do like rhubarb pie, don't you?"

I would never, ever, not for a second or even a nanosecond, have considered this if I hadn't needed to ask her some questions about her dealings with Deborah and the Daughters of the Moon. "I shouldn't," I said reluctantly, as if debating the wisdom of going to the prom with the captain of the football team-which is not to imply I'd gone to the prom, having instead spent the evening on the bank of Boone Creek with Masie Cockran, drinking cheap wine and plotting our escape from Maggody. According to Ruby Bee, who keeps a stranglehold on the grapevine, Masie's currently a weathergirl in Fort Worth and hasn't set foot in Maggody since the day after our high-school graduation.