Land of a Hundred Wonders (30 page)

Placing my cheek against the splintering crack in the back door, I instruct Keeper, “Open the latch.”

The Brandishes got their eyes up to the grimy front window. They can't see us from there, but the next window they look through, they'll see us plenty fine.

“Use your snout, your snout,” I urge Keep.

“What?” confused Cooter asks.

I must confess, to save my Billy's hide, I am tempted at this moment by my wickedness wave to let the Boys burst through that door and have at Cooter. Let 'em string him up for murdering Mr. Buster and be done with it, no one the wiser. But what about Clever and Rosie? Their hearts would be broke to bits, I allow anything to happen to him. Same for Miss Florida. If I let these bounty hunters string up her grandbaby, don't think I'd ever be able to eat another piece of her pie without crying all over the crust.

Yanking Dancer off the hay he's munching on, I boss, “Mount,” and cup my hands to give Cooter a leg up.

“Cain't ya see the door's locked from the outside?” he chides, squirming his way onto the horse's back. Squaring himself, he reaches into his pants for the gun, ready to shoot his way out.

What's left of their faces is pressed up to the shed's side window. The Boys are beaming broad when the long-eared one smashes his rifle butt through the glass.

“Cooter, get a good hold.”

Too scared to question, with no time left, he wraps the reins around his fist. Dancer is pawing, snorting and ready.

“Please quit goofin' around and finish up now,” I tell Keep through the crack.

Seconds later, with the loveliest of creaks, the back door swings wide and reveals the ripe green of the woods.

Cooter, sobbing, extends a hand to pull me up behind him.

But one travels faster than two.

“Give 'em my love,” I say, firing the .22 into the air. And just like he was trained to do, just like I knew he'd do, ex-racehorse Dancer, hearing that shot, jumps through the back door like it's a startin' gate.

The Soul of the Matter

I'm lying on my belly in the bushes back behind the shed as the posse, whooping and hat-waving, gallops past me. They're streaking into the trees hot on Cooter's trail. I'm not worried. He's got a head start and the best dog in the world leading him to his heart's desire. By the time Cooter gets to the hospital, Billy will already be there and his daddy will have called Judge Larson and told him about the pictures of dead Mr. Buster on the beach. Cooter will be
Exonerated: To be cleared from an accusation.

I
should
be feeling real happy about all this, but the fact is, what I'm feeling is let down. I've reached
The End
of a whooper of a story I was hoping would have a
much
better ending. Especially for my Billy. Tomorrow he'll walk hands held high down Main Street, declaring himself guilty of the murdering of Mr. Buster Malloy to anybody who'll listen. That's just the kind of man he is. (I'm sure he was just waiting 'til we were all outta harm's way to do just that.) So instead of drinking coffee outta our shoes in the hills of Bolivia like I'd planned, looks like I might be spending the rest of my days bringing Billy pecan sandies in prison on visiting day. Well, like they say, that's the way the cookie crumbles. And I really
do
have a fondness for Cooter, so it's good that I didn't let my wickedness wave pull me under. His black fender hair has even grown on me some.

Miss Lydia hollers from the porch, “Ya can come out now, chil'.”

WARNING:
Do not be surprised by her saying this or anything else from this moment on.
Mystics: Folks who have the ability of attaining insight into mysteries that transcend ordinary human knowledge as by direct communication with the divine.
Miss Lydia knew I wasn't escaping along with Cooter, but hiding under one of her highbush briar berries.

“Comin',” I call back to her. With Billy and Clever and Cooter temporarily safe, my spiritual advisor and I, we got a little time to chat. I've been so busy dealin' with all of these messes, I haven't had a chance to stop by and I've been missing her. When we're through with our catchin' up, I believe I'll ask Miss Lydia to conduct a quick VISITATION with Mama. Then I'll cut some baby's breath to take along to the hospital for Rosie.

As I lower myself onto her porch step, she's shaking her head to and fro in a fed-up way. “I shouldn'ta turned my bad eye to him. I know better'n that. LeRoy Johnson's always been a slippery one. Even as a boy. Why, I could tell you stories that . . .”

While she's busy venting her spleen, I'm enjoying watching black-as-a-piano, slow-as-a-waltz Teddy Smith making his way down the path from Browntown. Too bad he didn't show up a little earlier. He woulda been a big help. (I may have previously mentioned, besides working up at Tanner Farm, Teddy also does heavy lifting with his chest and arms that are rippling in the sun for Miss Lydia.)

Getting to the front yard, Teddy doesn't wave like he usually does when he sees me. Instead he chirps, “Mornin', Gibber. Lydia.”

“Hey,” I call back with a lot of enthusiasm, as it is rare as a good porterhouse that he'll actually speak to you in that tweety voice of his.

Smelling the leftover smoke from the Browntown fire when it comes by on a breeze reminds me to ask Miss Lydia something that's been confusing me for the last few days. “Billy told me that he thinks the coloreds set the dump fire on purpose. The sheriff said so, too.”

Miss Lydia nods in greeting at Teddy, and then says, “Billy's a smart man.” Shucking now in a fiercer way, she adds, “Do you understand why they set the fire?”

I think on that for a minute. “Is it 'cause they'd like to get a brand-new dump that's farther away from their houses? The smell over there can get awfully pungent when the wind blows outta the north.”

“While that may be true, that's not the main reason. They set the fire to call attention to the fact that they don't want to be treated different. The coloreds want to be treated equal to white folks.”

Just about choking on a bean, I ask, “Like
how
?”

“With respect.”

Now, I don't want to pooh-pooh Miss Lydia, her being all-knowing like she is, but that ain't NEVER gonna happen. White folks are awfully set in their ways.

“Did the fire bein' so close scare ya?” I ask, not able to stop myself from staring at the scars on her hands. “It did Billy and me.” But right after I say that, I come to the realization that even though we just about got the poop scared outta us, I myself learned something wondrous as a result of that Browntown fire. It's only natural to stuff sad stuff away, like Billy's war and my crash, but listen here—if you expose those sorrows to the light of day, you might be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Look how it all worked out for Billy and me. Can't be a rainbow without there first being a god-awful storm, right?

“The will of the Lord is strong and sure,” Miss Lydia answers in that versed way she talks sometimes. “His flock need not be fearful. All wrongs will be set right when He seeth them.”

“Is He seething now?”

“I believe He is.”

Wheeling an empty barrow outta the shed, Teddy shouts, “I'm strippin' the stalls this mornin',” not knowing how relieved he should be feeling about his nephew Cooter getting away from the Boys like he did just a bit ago with no time to spare. I'm not going to say anything to him just yet. He'll find out soon enough, along with the rest of Cray Ridge, since I've already come up with my newest headline:

(Don't worry. I perceive this needs a little work. Grampa will smooth it out once he gets home.)

The whole of the Land of a Hundred Wonders is sort of an antique, especially the graveyard. Miss Lydia
rarely
buys anything. Not 'cause she can't afford to, she does just fine with all her tourist business. But she preaches that it's best to do with what the Lord's already seen fit to give us, so I'm quite surprised when I see the shiny brand-newness of the pitchfork Teddy's holding in his hand. When I cleaned the stalls for her last week, the old one seemed to work plenty fine.

Miss Lydia calls back to him, “Careful of Holly, she's got a poor ligament in her right hind.”

I just adore sitting on this veranda with her like this. Her flower garden smelling like Eden and the honeybees bu
zzz
y at work. Cats cranking up their little purr motors figure-eighting between her red silky slippers. Since she can't wear regular shoes 'cause her one foot is damaged so bad that it's painful to feel anything rough rub against it, she wears these.

Tracing the dragon on the slippers with my finger, I ask her, “Ya know what I perceive?”

“What would that be?” she says, her gaze lingering on Teddy as he enters the barn.

“That settin' fire to the dump was a bad plan on the coloreds' part if what they were tryin' to achieve was that respect.”

“Why's that?”

That's one of the things I love most about Miss Lydia. She listens to me like I'm not
NQR
. “ 'Cause everybody is probably thinkin' even more disrespectful about the coloreds now for makin' the whole town stink of burned rubber. Wouldn't it a been more appropriate for them to've just quit pickin' tobacco? That woulda got everybody talkin' in a big way. And if he was still alive, well, that woulda got greedy ole Mister Buster's undivided attention. Ya didn't happen to kill him, did ya?”

I've been praying with all I got that I've made another bad assumption. That it wasn't my Billy that did him in. I've thought about it and thought about it and I can't come up with one single reason
why
Billy would want Mr. Buster deader than a store nail. Really, it's Miss Lydia who's got the best motive for stabbing up her deceased brother, him taking advantage like he did.

“For you,” Miss Lydia says, without pausing at all, “I'll tell the sheriff I murdered Buster.”

Boy, that's a relief! Since I believe Billy would never make it for long in a prison. Being closed up gives him the heebie-jeebies something bad, which wouldn't happen anyway because 'fore it did, I'd break him outta the sheriff's jail. I did it for Cooter. I can do it for my man. Besides, if Miss Lydia confesses to murdering Buster, both of us know that since just about everybody in the county believes she's touched in the head, the worst that'd happen to her would be she'd spend a few weeks in the mental institute crafting ashtrays, and Grampa can always use a couple more down at the diner, so this is not that big a deal.

Heavens to Murgatroid! I just perceived something.

“Since Mr. Buster is dead, you're gonna be the boss now. After they let ya out of Pardyville, ya can go back to live up at the farm.” The second after I say it, I also perceive she'll never leave Georgie. Or Mama. Or the Wonders.

“I own the farm outright now, yes,” she says, snapping a bean to smithereens.

“But what about what's his name . . . I forget . . . Mr. Buster's son? What's gonna happen to him?”

You don't see Miss Lydia smile all that often since people of wisdom see more of the bad in life than we simple people do, but she's giving it a try with the good side of her lip. “Appears that my dear nephew, Bishop, and that Yankee neighbor of yours got carted off this morning. The field boss found what the two of 'em been growin' and called the state troopers, who then asked my permission to burn those hemp plants down to the ground.”

Well . . . well . . . well.

With Willard and Bishop outta the picture, the golden hemp treasure is fair game. Me and Billy and Cooter could go gather up that crop 'fore the troopers show up. We'll take it up to New York and introduce ourselves around that village while Clever is recuperating from the baby coming, and when we're done selling the hemp for lots of cash, I'll make a stop at the offices of Penguin Books to see if Mr. Howard Redmond is at his desk. I have been dying to ask him about—

“Ya can forget all that,” Miss Lydia says, snippish.

(Told ya she can see my wheels working.)

“Did ya realize you got a birthday comin' up?” she asks, outta the blue.

“I do.” I was thinking I'd have a party of some sort this year as I have not had one since . . . actually, I don't remember ever having one. “How old am I gonna be?”

“Twenty-one. That's a milestone birthday.”

“Ya don't say.”

“A milestone means it's an important event, chil',” Miss Lydia says, all of a sudden so supremely solemn. The breeze has stopped stirring. Birds have quit their twittering. Even the cicadas are stock-still.

I really do wish I had my blue spiral notebook with me because it's one of those times when something of great importance is about to happen. This is an almost daily occurrence at Land of a Hundred Wonders and always comes on fast like this. Miss Lydia is about to make one of her PRONOUNCEMENTS.

“The spirits have spoken,” she says, setting down her bowl and floating up out of her chair. “The time for A FINAL RECKONING has arrived. Follow me.”

What I really need to do is get over to the hospital to check on Clever and Rosie and Billy and Cooter, but since I trust Miss Lydia beyond reason, and would not ever disobey her, I go with her into the parlor that's dim with black curtains to protect her eyes that are so sensitive they can see into the future. Candles of white burn day or night, for they are soul cleansers. And AR-TIFACTUALS OF PROTECTION are scattered across her tabletops, their chestnut faces and corn-husk bodies working just dandy to keep away evil spirits. I know there are four-leaf clovers lying beneath the cushions of her green cloth sofa, which is where we always sit when we have our VISITATIONS with Mama. And the ever-present vase full of lilies-of-the-valley looms large and reminding.