Maggie Daniels
Moonlight and Mistletoe
Scarlett’s Good Luck Hoppin’ John Southern Heirloom Recipe for New Year’s
Take one pound of dried black-eyed peas and soak overnight in large boiler.
Next day add smoked ham hock, salt, and black pepper to taste. Simmer until very tender.
Pour over helping of cooked rice. Serve with side garnish of chopped sweet onion, ketchup, and Tabasco sauce to taste.
Guaranteed to bring good luck if you’ve got your mouth full when the New Year comes in. At least in the South.
One
“Turn down those christmas carols,” Sheriff Buck Grissom shouted. “Confound it, this is supposed to be a jail!”
As the recorded strains of “Deck the Halls” faded away under the invisible hand of a deputy in the jail’s office, he turned back to the county social worker. “Am I glad to see you, Susan,” he said fervently. “I need some help.”
Susan Huddleston looked at Sheriff Grissom’s six-feet-four-inch, Marine-trained body in its crisp black and tan uniform, thinking she’d hardly ever heard the sheriff admit he needed anyone’s help. In their now-past relationship this had been one of their great problems: Buck was as stiff-necked as they came, even as a lover.
Behind the sheriff hung the brass-framed, life-sized portrait of Buck’s father, Sheriff William Rutherford Grissom, Sr. The elder Grissom had been big and handsome, too. That is, if you liked steely blue eyes, mahogany-red hair, and a jaw that looked as if it were carved from native north Georgia granite.
“It must be something big,” Susan said, choosing her words carefully. “I’ve never seen you this – ah, concerned.”
“Concerned?” He gave her a distracted look as he opened the door to the women’s part of the jail. “The way I feel I could cancel this damned Christmas altogether. I wish I had taken up my deputies’ offer of that expense-paid fishing trip to Florida, to go with that rod and reel they gave me on my birthday.”
Susan fought down a sudden desire to smile. The Jackson County sheriff’s department wanted Buck to have his long-delayed vacation. Christmas in the mountains was usually a crime-free, quiet time – perfect, the department thought, for a Florida deep-sea fishing trip.
It wasn’t that Buck’s staff didn’t love him, they just needed him out of their hair for a while. Anyone who had to live with the late William Grissom, Sr.’s, hard-driving, sometimes unbearably perfectionist son needed some time off occasionally. But Buck had turned down what his deputies had considered a foolproof offer. His staff was getting a little desperate.
Now he held the door to the cell block open. “Nothing’s going right,” he growled in Susan’s ear. “For one thing, I’ve got that court injunction prohibiting the living manger scene from being shown in front of the courthouse, just served today. That manger scene’s an institution, Susan, it’s been displayed since nineteen fifty-two. People around here just don’t understand what’s happened.”
Susan looked around the cell block, never crowded at any time but now, at the Christmas holidays, virtually deserted. “Buck, the issue is separation of church and state,” she reminded him. “And the courthouse lawn is government property.”
He turned to glower at her. “Dammit, Susan – Christmas has nothing to do with civil rights!”
She didn’t blink. “This time it does.”
“Now you sound like those parasite lawyers.” He led the way through the men’s part of the jail, empty except for one lone form sleeping in the drunk tank. “Christmas,” Sheriff Buck said firmly, “is a time to bring folks together, not split them apart, and everybody’s fighting over this thing. I’ve had the whole of Jackson County all over me – telephoning, dogging me at home, wanting to know why I can’t do something about getting Mary and Joseph and Sally Holborn’s youngest that was voted Best Child to Play the Infant Jesus back in front of the courthouse in time for Christmas shopping.”
Buck, hearing earsplitting screams, stopped so quickly Susan nearly ran into him. Just beyond the open door they saw a county deputy, Moses Holt, dragging a violently resisting female over the plastic tile floor. They couldn’t see her face as she half slithered, half bounced along since it was hidden by a gypsylike mop of black hair. But a hiked-up skirt revealed two long, shapely if dirty bare legs, and a bottom covered with gray-pink underwear panties. The air was blue with language that Jackson County, still a stronghold of old- fashioned values, seldom heard from female lips.
“Whew,” Susan murmured.
“Mose, we can’t have this going on.” The sheriff had to raise his voice to be heard over a colorful description of what Deputy Holt could do with his future existence. “Where’s Mrs. Graham?” The matron handled the prisoners on the women’s side of the jail.
Deputy Holt didn’t have time to answer. “Don’t just stand there, Sheriff, come help me,” he panted as the prisoner’s free arm snaked out and wrapped around a bar. “She grabbed hold of the desk while I was trying to fingerprint her, and it took me near forever to get her loose.”
The girl suddenly swung her head close to the deputy’s ankle. Moses Holt jerked his leg away just in time.
“That’s our problem right there,” Sheriff Buck said, frowning. “She might be a juvenile, Susan, but I can’t say one way or the other. She hasn’t stopped long enough for me to get a good look.”
Carefully, Susan stepped back for a better view. If the girl was a juvenile she had no business in the county jail. Not that she wanted to get involved with this, Susan told herself; in the year since she and Buck had called off their engagement one could say they worked reasonably hard at a friendly, if not yet totally objective relationship.
