Lesley Kagen - Land of a Hundred Wonders

“But that’s not what…,” Clever says, choked up some since daddy talk is generally considered Verboten: A taboo subjectbetween us. (Her not knowing… you understand.)

“Yes, my daddy was another man who truly loved his woman.” I’m back to gazing adoringly at the picture above the bed. By the blissful smiles on their faces, anybody can see that Grampa and Gramma were enraptured in love just like me and Billy and Mama and Daddy. “True love must run deep in our family, wouldn’t ya say?”

“Deep as hell,” Clever replies, real huffy.

(Jealous, is all she is.)

“Well, I’m gonna give Miss Jessie a jingle down at the hospital, ” I say, replacing Mama’s letter in the hatbox and putting it back under the bed. “Put those coins back on the bedside table, hear?”

Out in the parlor, I dial up the numbers printed on the hospital card and say, “Charlie Murphy’s room, please.”

On the other end of the line, the phone’s ringing and ringing. Miss Jessie finally picks up and says in a running-out-of-breath voice, “Hello?”

“Hey, Miss Jessie. I’m just about set to head over to the hos-”

She interrupts with, “Oh, Gib, where ya been? Ya better get down here quick. Time’s runnin’ out,” and hangs up without even saying see ya later alligator.

Clever is plumb wore out. It musta been all that daddy talk drained her or maybe it’s coming up with THE PLAN that made her get-up-and-go get up and go. I got her set up real nice on the flowered sofa on the screened-in porch. Two pillows. A packet of crackers sitting alongside her bowl of chicken noodle. Billy, him being such a long drink of water, managed to tape her beloved movie poster up on the ceiling so Mr. Paul Newman and Mr. Robert Redford can watch over her while she rests. Billy and Keeper’ve gone off to check on the mooring of Grampa’s boat to the dock, so me and Clever are alone when she asks, “What’d Miss Jessie say?”

“She said time was runnin’ out, but I could tell that she was in a hurry. She musta read the clock wrong.”

I checked the hospital card AGAIN after speaking to her, just to be sure. Visiting hours are definitely ’til two o’clock. I got plenty of time to get done what I gotta get done and still get over there.

Clever asks, “We clear on the plan?”

“Maybe ya better go over it again.”

She sets her spoon in her bowl, and says, “First off, don’t you dare tell Billy what you’re up to. He’ll try to stop you, on account a him being so righteous.”

“Check.”

“Second off, go and break Cooter out of jail. Miss Florida will never forgive us if he’s found hung, and ’sides that, we owe him. From the old days.”

“Check.”

“Last off, you’re gonna take Grampa’s things to the hospital and have a real nice visit.” Fingering the rose she’s got in her hair, Clever adds with a smile, “Tell him for me not to worry. The flowers are doin’ mighty fine. ’Specially the Texas ones.”

I’m sure Grampa won’t mind being last off. In fact, he’d be disappointed as hell in me if I didn’t take care of this Cooter problem first ’fore I go see him. It’s the cowboy way to stand up for a body that cannot stand up for hisself. ’Specially one that is about to get his neck stretched in a permanent kind of way. ’Specially since that neck belongs to Cooter. Grampa’s as fond of him as he is of Billy. All those years calling birds and cooking together up at the diner have bound those two together like biscuits and gravy and birds of a feather.

After I get Clever replumped, she hands me the still half-full soup bowl, saying in a barely-there voice, “Gib?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re gonna stay focused and remember, ain’t ya?” Her lids are heavy and her breath noodley when she takes a good hard look, first at the ceiling poster, and then back at me. “Don’t think I could bear it if ya let me down, Butch.”

If it’s all the same to you, I’ll drive,” I tell Billy, lifting the truck keys off the hook near the back door. He’s been reteaching me behind Grampa’s back. First time we went out, I was beyond ascared. (Considering what happened to me and my mama and daddy, a vehicle of any sort can feel a lot like a murder weapon. You understand.) But I practiced and practiced on the back roads, and Billy has patience when it comes to me, so I’m not half-bad. The staying on my side of the road part could use a little more work, but my turns are nice and smooth.

Billy’s next to me on the bench seat, holding a box full of Grampa’s jammies, his whittling knife, his Johnny Cash albums, and the bird book with the glossy pictures. I also slapped together a couple of peanut butter and honeys for him.

“Tell me exactly what Miss Jessie said to you on the phone,” Billy says as I back out of the cottage drive, careful to check BOTH mirrors like he taught me.

As much as I hate lying to a Vietnam veteran, the Kid is right. This outlaw business is between her and me. Billy’d never go along with a jailbreak. He’s too law-abiding. I have to ditch him.

“Well,” I say. “Let’s see… oh, that’s right. Miss Jessie asked if you could go over to her place and see if Vern and Teddy need any help with the horses since she’s not sure when she’ll be able to get home.” We’re running down the road next to the lake. Charles Michael Murphy would adore being out on that sleek water today. Casting his rod and reel, spinning Texas tales. “So… ah… I’m gonna drop you at her farm and then I’m gonna run over to see Grampa at the hospital and when we’re done visitin’, I’ll come back to get ya, all right?”

“But-” He cuts off as we pass by Top O’ the Mornin’. A white bag is cartwheeling through the empty lot. The candy-cane window awnings are hanging lifeless. Even the lucky horseshoe looks more crooked. Am I remembering right? Didn’t Clever tell me that Janice and Miss Florida would tend to things while Grampa was in the hospital? Well, if they are, they’re doing a deplorable job.

Seeing the diner abandoned like that is spooking me, and maybe Billy feels that way, too, ’cause the both of us don’t say much ’til I slow down in front of Miss Jessie’s drive-up. Where normally I feel breathless at the sight of all this gorgeousness, the reason I can’t catch air right this minute is because who should be sitting on a stump near the road like a wart on a beauty queen’s face but evil’s own Emissary: Agent.Sneaky Tim Ray Holloway.

“This here’s private property,” he gnarls, when I pull up next to him. “Go away.”

Billy gets out of the truck and stands tall next to this runt. “Miss Jessie sent me to help with the horses.”

“Where’s Jessie at anyways?” Holloway winks up at me. “I’m hungry.”

It’s been bothering me and bothering me why Sneaky Tim Ray would go along with the sheriff’s frame-up of Cooter. True, Holloway is walking the path of the wicked and could be lying about seeing Cooter choke Buster dead over a game of craps just for the kick of it, but… I don’t know. Never known this belly crawler to do somethin’ for nuthin’. Something seems off here. Something isn’t Copacetic: Okay.

Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute.

I just recalled how Sneaky Tim Ray and Cooter ambushed us in the woods last night, stole that treasure map off us. With Cooter behind bars now for murdering Buster… yes… Sneaky Tim Ray can keep that treasure ALL FOR HIMSELF! Next time he comes hunting for me, he’ll be dripping in sapphires and rubies. Because that’s what the treasure’s GOT to be, never mind the lack of an X on that map. Pirate booty. Not prime tobacco like I first thought.