Miss Julia to the Rescue (21 page)

When Etta Mae turned the car into the driveway at Sam’s—now the Pickenses’—house, she sagged tiredly over the wheel. Her spirits, though, were still as perky as ever.

“Well, we made it,” she said, grinning up at me. “First time I’ve ever run from the cops. Well, first time I’ll admit to anyway.”

The sconces on each side of the front door were on as well as the carriage light at the end of the walk. I could see several lights burning inside the house. I had little doubt that Hazel Marie hadn’t had a wink of sleep since she’d learned we were on the way. As for Lillian, she’d be dozing in a chair somewhere, ready to be up and doing as soon as something needed to be done.

Just as I started to get out of the car, Hazel Marie came whizzing through the front door and raced down the steps. She flew to the car as Etta Mae opened her door.

“Where is he?” Hazel Marie cried. “Did you bring him? Where is he?”

Etta Mae pointed to the backseat. “There he is.”

Hazel Marie bent over to look inside, pressing her face to the
window. Then she jumped back and screamed. “They’ve cut him
off
! What happened to him? Oh, my Lord, they’ve cut him in two!”

Etta Mae grabbed her and held her tight—no small feat—for Hazel Marie was jittering all over the place. “No, no,” Etta Mae said, “it’s all right. His other half’s in the trunk.”

That didn’t reassure Hazel Marie, for she threw her head back and screamed. “In the
trunk
! What’ve you
done
to him!”

Lloyd appeared by her side, his hair mussed up and his glasses askew. He cupped his hands on the window and peered in at Mr. Pickens, who was oblivious to the reaction he was causing.

“My word,” Lloyd said, sounding like a little old man. And why shouldn’t he? He was learning from a little old woman.

“It’s okay, Mama,” he went on, “he’s still in one piece. You just can’t see the other half. Hit the trunk release, Miss Julia, and let’s get him out.”

Getting Mr. Pickens out took the unified efforts of us all, for he didn’t want to be moved and refused to help himself. For one thing, he was still under the influence, didn’t know where he was and couldn’t or wouldn’t do what we told him to do.

James had come outside by then. He stood looking into the trunk, shaking his head and studying the problem before saying, “This gonna be a job.” Which wasn’t exactly news to those of us who’d gotten him in, in the first place.

Lloyd and I crawled into the backseat, trying to wake Mr. Pickens enough to understand what was required of him. “Scrooch on down, Mr. Pickens,” I said, pushing on his shoulders. “Just scrunch back into the trunk.”

He kept mumbling. “What? Who is it? What’s goin’ on?” None of which was any help.

Sticking my head close to where Mr. Pickens’s posterior met the trunk, I called, “Etta Mae, maybe we ought to pull him out head first instead of pushing him back through the hole. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Miss Julia.” She came around to the open door
of the car and did a little studying herself. “Maybe we ought to do some measuring first—make sure his bandage won’t scrape off if he comes out this way.”

I cringed at the thought while Lloyd ran his hand past Mr. Pickens’s waist to see how much room there was.

“Good grief,” Lloyd said, wide-eyed at what he’d felt. “He was shot in the …
you-know
?”

I nodded. “Yes, but it’s not life threatening.”

“Well, if it was me,” he said in that serious way of his, “I wouldn’t take any chances of scraping anything. Let’s push him out through the trunk.”

We had a time of it, because what went through fairly easily on their way in—namely, his shoulders—had difficulty going the other way. As Lloyd and I pushed and guided from one end, and Etta Mae and James pulled on his legs, and Mr. Pickens struggled and complained the whole time, Hazel Marie stood by, wringing her hands and saying, “Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him.” I was about ready to take a broomstick to such an uncooperative patient or just leave him stuck half in and half out. My patience had about run its course.

Mr. Pickens finally came awake enough to help get himself out, but only when Lillian crooned through the trunk, “Come on now, Mr. Pickens. I got a fine roast beef an’ some gravy an’ mashed potatoes, like you like, an’ a great big choc’late cake jus’ waitin’ on you.”

The poor man, unshaved, bent over and trying to pull down his hospital gown—which created a draft in the rear—was nearly driven to the ground when Hazel Marie flung herself on him. On top of that, he was confused as to where he was and how he’d gotten there, mumbling and half laughing in between whatever he was saying. Addled in his head, it seemed to me.

“Etta Mae,” I said, sidling up to her, “I would’ve thought he’d be coming out of his daze by now. They must’ve given him a dose and a half.”

She nodded, watching as James and Hazel Marie guided Mr.
Pickens up the steps onto the porch, with Lloyd right behind them. “Yeah, and I’m wondering if they’ve kept him sedated the whole time. I don’t know, Miss Julia, but Dr. Hargrove ought to see him as soon as he can.”

“That’s going to be right away,” I said, “and he better not tell us to take him to the hospital. Mr. Pickens needs to get in bed and stay there until his system is cleared out. He’s had enough moving around for a while.”

She agreed, then said she wanted to look at his bandage again.

On our way into the house, she was having second thoughts. “Maybe we should’ve taken him directly to the emergency room—let them look at it.”

“If he needs to go, we’ll call an ambulance. I don’t want to get him in and out of that car another time.” I looked at Etta Mae’s watch, which I was still wearing, and saw that it was after three o’clock. “Take a look at him, Etta Mae, then let’s get home and go to bed.”

That was quicker said than done, because by the time she’d checked the bandage and I’d taken her to her trailer in Delmont and gotten myself back home, there wasn’t much time left for sleeping. But I went straight to the big downstairs bedroom and fell into bed after only a brief and hurried toilette. I’d left instructions with both Hazel Marie and Lillian to call Dr. Hargrove at six o’clock even if it woke him up.

Right before sleep overcame me, I started laughing as I recalled Mr. Pickens’s reaction to having his bandage checked. Hazel Marie and James had led him to the bed, where he’d sprawled out on his stomach, heaving a mighty sigh of relief. At that point, Etta Mae had turned back the covers and lifted his bandage to check for bleeding. His head popped up off the pillow and his hand swatted at her. “Get away from there,” he yelled. “That’s private!” Which just goes to show how confused he was, because no telling how many people had had their hands on his privates since the day he’d been shot.

Then I had to laugh again, recalling Lillian’s skeptical look at what I was wearing. “What you doin’ in that getup?” she’d asked, looking up and down at Etta Mae’s white scrub suit that had served me so well in the Mill Run hospital.

“Don’t ask,” I’d said, glancing down at my high waters, which revealed stockinged ankles between the end of the scrub pants and my stacked-heel Ferragamos.

Before long, though, I was sleeping like the dead, but was awakened too early by an awful racket banging somewhere in the house. Thinking the worst, I crawled out, put on a robe and stormed out to see what was happening.

“It’s that carpenter,” Lillian said as I got to the kitchen. “He start in hammerin’ back in the sunroom, buildin’ them cabinets and shelves you wanted. He worked all day Saturday, too, but not yesterday, it bein’ Sunday. He got all that pink wallpaper off in the bedroom.”

“Oh, my word, I’d forgotten about him.” I dropped into a chair by the table, wondering if I should go back to bed or try to stay up. “Did you get any sleep, Lillian?”

“Yes’m, some. I jus’ got here. I got the babies fed so Miss Hazel Marie could sleep in. She happy as a lark, now she got Mr. Pickens back.”

“How was he when you left?”

“Still sleepin’. But Dr. Hargrove say he on his way, an’ I ’spect he there by now.”

“And Lloyd? And Latisha? They get off to school?”

“Yes’m. Here your coffee.” She set a cup before me, and I decided I might as well stay up. “Now tell me what all you an’ Miss Etta Mae get up to while you gone.”

So I did, recounting everything that had happened, from attending a snake-handling service to becoming a kitchen aide worker, which accounted for the scrub suit I was still wearing when we arrived home. One might say that it had been a most unusual weekend for someone who was accustomed to slow and gentle days measured by respectable activities.

Lillian was wide-eyed at the telling, asking over and over about “them snake people,” unable to understand how anybody could believe that fiddling with serpents was an act of faith.

“It’s in the Bible,” I told her, “somewhere, I’m not sure where, but the few verses may have been a later addition. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Who want to add something to the Holy Bible?” she demanded. “They’s enough in there already to keep me busy all my life tryin’ to live up to it. I don’t hold no truck with anybody wantin’ to put something else in. ’Specially something about snakes.” She shuddered.

“Well, you and me,” I agreed, getting to my feet. “I better get dressed, Lillian, and try to make it through the day. I declare, I feel as if I’ve been gone a week with all we’ve been through. And,” I went on, “I’ve got to talk to Coleman because that West Virginia sheriff is sure to be looking for Mr. Pickens. And maybe Etta Mae and me, as well.”

“Y’all in trouble with the law?”

“Well, yes, I guess we are. Which reminds me, I better talk to Dr. Hargrove, too. We’ll make a case for Mr. Pickens getting poor treatment in the Mill Run hospital—being overly sedated or something—whatever we can think of that would require an immediate transfer to better facilities. No judge would hold us responsible under such dire circumstances.”

“No judge ’round here anyway,” Lillian said.

After dressing, I called Hazel Marie to get the latest word on Mr. Pickens’s condition.

“Dr. Hargrove just left,” she told me. “He was amazed at J.D.’s wounds. Said he’d never seen anything like it and J.D. was lucky it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. I couldn’t look, but I could picture it, bless his heart. Anyway, he started him on an antibiotic, but wouldn’t give him anything for pain. He told me to give him nothing stronger than Tylenol if he really needs something.”

“Is he awake?”

“Who? J.D.? About half awake, I’d say. I’ve told him twice how he got home, but he doesn’t remember anything about last night.”

“My goodness,” I said, wondering how something so deeply etched on my memory could be blanked out of his. “What about his wounds? Etta Mae was afraid one of them had opened up. You know, when he fell off the seat.”

“He fell off the
seat
!”

“Well, see, a deer crossed the road in front of us and Etta Mae had to slam on the brakes. Mr. Pickens tumbled off the backseat. He thought he’d fallen off the bed.”

“Oh, my poor baby. Anyway, Dr. Hargrove cleaned it and put on a fresh bandage. He said he thought it’d be all right.”

“That’s good. Now listen, Hazel Marie, if a certain Sheriff McAfee from Mill Run, West Virginia, happens to call, just refer him to Coleman. Don’t tell him anything else, not even that Mr. Pickens is there, or anything.”

She didn’t respond for a few seconds. Then she said, almost whispering, “You think he’ll try to get J.D. back?”

“He might. But if he does, we’ll put Mr. Pickens in
our
hospital under
our
sheriff’s orders, and give Sheriff McAfee a taste of his own medicine.” Try as I might, I couldn’t see that lanky sheriff sneaking through our hospital as a kitchen aide worker.