Land of a Hundred Wonders

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.

Billy grinds down the smoking butt Sneaky Tim Ray tosses at his boot, and says syrup slow, the way he does right before he’s about to explode, “Miss Jessie’s keepin’ vigil up at the hospital with Charlie Murphy. He’s had a heart attack.”

“Well, ain’t that too bad,” Sneaky Tim Ray’s lips say, but his eyes say otherwise. “Ya gonna be on your own now, darlin’? Footloose and fancy free?” He laughs and laughs ’til he coughs and coughs.

When Billy bunches his fists, Sneaky Tim Ray, so used to getting pummeled, is alert and harefooted, and already ’bout half gone through the trees.

“Leave him be, Billy. I gotta get to the hospital and you gotta check those horses. Time’s runnin’ out,” I remind him. (As you know, I’m lying. Right after I leave here, I’m heading for the sheriff station to bust out Cooter.)

When he doesn’t respond, I shout, “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Billy answers, finally dragging his feet back to me.

“Love,” I say, taking hold of his hand when he passes it through the window.

“Love who?”

“You, Billy Brown. Y-O-U. And not the same way I love Grampa. That is not a joke, by the way, just in case you thought it was.”

“I know the way you mean,” he says with a lot of confidence. Boy, does he ever seem different! Usually after an encounter such as the one he just had with Sneaky Tim Ray, Billy’s temper would be choking the reasonable outta him. But he seems hardly riled at all. Maybe it’s the scoop after scoop of sweet lovin’ I gave him last night. Maybe all that his Vietnam-bombed nerves needed was a little of that homegrown sugar. (We did NOT pound the snow possum, if that’s what you’re wondering. The both of us agreed that we wouldn’t break out his wedding tackle ’til we’re on our honeymoon.)

“Ya better git,” Billy says, planting a kiss on my forehead with those extra-fine lips a his. “Give my love to Grampa. Drive slow and keep a good lookout. There’s things happenin’ around here that’re makin’ my stomach feel like it’s tangled up in barbwire. Ya know what I mean?”

My stomach is feeling jumbled as well. And yes, I do know what that means. The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation: Gut Instincts:Follow that feeling in the pit of your stomach. Many mysteries are solved by a reporter who followed their gut hunches.

Free at Last

After sliding into a spot in the sheriff station lot, I get to feeling so jumpy that I forget to put the truck in P and it hops halfway to the Methodist church. Sure as May follows June, Reverend Jack will tell me during our visit next week that breaking Cooter Smith out of jail was not an appropriate way for me to behave. (Sorry, Reverend. There’s no two ways about it. I can’t let Grampa or Clever down.) If I don’t cut Cooter loose now, the sheriff is gonna settle this nastiness between them once and for all. Like all feuds, this one goes way back. “Niggas belong in their place, and that Smith boy is overreachin’ his,” is exactly what LeRoy says after he’s had a few too many down at Frank’s Tap. “Like Daddy Carl always said, ya get ’em educated and they’ll turn into rabble-rousers.”

What LeRoy’s referring to is when Cooter went off to that college in North Carolina, but he doesn’t have that right. Miss Florida told me that Cooter was a Blue Devil, not a Rabble-Rouser, which just goes to illustrate how messed up the sheriff’s thinking can get when Cooter Smith is the subject of the conversation. You’re probably thinking it’s his color that makes the sheriff hate Cooter so, but you’d only be a little right. Mostly, it’s love.

Cooter’s mama, Darnell, the one who went missing selling peanuts up roadside years ago? Clever told me that Janice told her that back when the bunch of them were young, the sheriff was badly smitten and having bushels of hot sex with the lovely Darnell. But Darnell, not equally smitten, she up and dropped the sheriff and took up with Cooter’s daddy, Willie. Who Cooter takes after EXACTLY. I mean, like an identical twin. I’ve seen pictures. So that’s why I’ve always thought the sheriff has it out for Cooter. LeRoy was scorned. And he’s still furious as hell.

Focus… Gib… focus. Keep your mind on THE PLAN. Pulling open the station’s front door, I call out, “Anybody home?” The only greeting I get back is Skeeter Davis singing out from a radio, so I make my way toward the back room where I know they do all their important business. This is where me and Grampa get our fishing licenses. There’s knotty wood paneling and file cabinets and telephones and Deputy Jimmy Lee Boyd. His head is lying flat on one of two metal desks next to a burger bag from Teeter’s Drive-In. Boy, this is going to be A LOT easier than Clever and me figured on. Let’s see… from what I remember from my western movies, the cell keys should be hanging on a hook right around this…

“Hey,” the deputy pops up saying, a paper clip stuck to his flushed cheek. “Didn’t hear ya come in.”

A few years older than me, with a button nose and the type of sandy hair that always looks like it could use a wash, the deputy is the only child of Miss Loretta, who owns Candy World. She accidentally dropped him into one of her steel melting-chocolate vats when he was a baby, so Jimmy Lee is well known for being sorta dumb. But good with a gun. Almost always wins the target-shooting contest during Cray Ridge Days.

“Well, hey, Jimmy Lee,” I say. “How ya been?”

“Fine as a frog hair,” he says, trying to hide a yawn. “What can I do ya for today, Gib?”

“I… ah…” (Clever and me hadn’t planned this part out. Least I don’t think we did.) 'I… um…” There’s a CRAY RIDGE DAYS AUGUST 16-23 FUN FOR EVERYONE poster sitting on the corner of his desk. “I… ah… stopped by to see if you or the sheriff wanted to buy some raffle tickets.”

“Already got mine.” Jimmy Lee squints toward the big black clock on the wall. “Almost one thirty, the sheriff should be back from lunch soon. Maybe he’d like a couple,” he says, peeking into the top of the burger bag with a disappointed grunt. “Sorry to hear about your grampa’s heart givin’ out, by the way. How’s he doin’?”

“On the mend,” I say, my eyes scouring the room. I don’t see a cell key hanging anywheres in plain sight and I don’t have a bunch of time to go looking for it. I need to get over to the hospital to make sure Grampa really is on the mend.

Jimmy Lee says, “Been hot, ain’t it?”

“Sure has.”

“Ya hear ’bout the goin’s-on in Browntown?”

“No, I haven’t,” I lie. The jail key must be in his desk or something. “What happened?”

“There was a fire,” he says, getting all revved up.