by Jeff Abbott
In the simple mathematics of recess and playground and combat, that scream defeated Tiny Parmalee. He’d been the bully and the aggressor, but he’d been the one to capitulate—and worse: to scream like a girl. I’d done the unimaginable in taking him on. A few thought I’d cheated in using the stake, but the bluish bruises on my throat spoke for themselves about the equality of the struggle. We both were suspended for a week, much to my father’s delight (in that I had done the right thing in taking up for Michael Addy), to my mother’s horror (in that I’d stooped to fighting), and to my sister’s embarrassment (in that she had a crush on Tiny Parmalee’s cousin and I’d set back her campaign to win the boy).
Our first day back, the principal met us in the office and forced us to shake hands. I coughed and did so, averting my eyes from the bruises on Tiny’s face. Had I really given him those? Or had his parents reacted differently to the fight than mine did? Tiny shook my hand and stared blankly into my eyes.
“I don’t want to hear anything about you boys fighting,” the principal chirped. “I don’t want to hear about it happening here or away from school. And rest assured, if it happens, I will hear about it.”
It didn’t. Tiny and I avoided each other like the plague. If we passed in the halls, we didn’t speak or even acknowledge one another. Our friends tried to goad us into fighting again, but we ignored them. Michael Addy slipped a note to me in my math book one day that simply said THANK YOU. I ate the slip of paper before my teacher could see it. Michael and I ended up going through the rest of school together without mentioning the fight again. Michael went to Texas Tech on a baseball scholarship and now coaches for a high-school team in Richardson, a big suburb of Dallas. Tiny barely finished high school, did a stint in the army, and now worked with his daddy, a long-haul trucker.
So that’s why I don’t care much for Tiny Parmalee. We’d had no further run-ins and I’d only seen him once since I returned to Mirabeau. We’d passed each other on Mayne Street as I went into a store and he was coming out. He’d given me the briefest of stares, which I ignored.
Now he was favoring Nina Hernandez with long, goofy looks. She didn’t look too delighted with his attentions; in fact she seemed downright apprehensive.
“Tiny. Ms. Hernandez.” I nodded as I unlocked the library doors. Nina smiled thinly and moved inside. Tiny lumbered near me and regarded my arm, still in its sling.
“Heard you nearly got blowed up,” he said, sneering. There wasn’t direct malice in his tone, just a sort of general bullying that lay underneath like filth under a rug. “What a damn shame that’d be.”
“Thanks for your concern,” I answered, not wanting to waste much air on a response to him. Miss Twyla prevented any further pleasantries by coming up to us both, thanking me again for the use of the library.
The last folks to occupy the community room on the library’s top floor was a Lamaze class, so there were no chairs set up. Apelike, Tiny just popped the metal chairs open and set them wherever he happened to be. I used my good arm to help Nina drag the chairs into the proper positions.
“I think your new assistant likes you,” I murmured to Nina.
She stiffened as if I’d stepped on her toe. “Mr. Poteet, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot this afternoon. It’s just that I feel strongly about stopping Intraglobal. And you should be as concerned about saving the river as Mr. Parmalee is.”
“Oh, I am. I’m just not so certain that our Tiny friend is motivated by ecological desires.” I could be friends with her if she could take a little teasing.
“Tiny’s a fine man,” she muttered, watching her new charge as he scratched his forehead while blankly surveying a map of the world that hung on the wall.
“Yes, he is. And don’t worry about all his eccentricities. He’s a victim of society.” I meant it nicely, but Nina misinterpreted. She snorted at me, pushed her glasses back up on her forehead, and went to confer with Miss Twyla. So much for teasing.
By eight everyone had arrived. Aside from Miss Twyla, Nina, Tiny, and myself, there was a scattering of forty or so people who didn’t own land by the river but had gotten riled up by Miss Twyla. Also present was our esteemed Mayor (and my boss), Parker Loudermilk and his wife, Dee. I remembered that Dee owned some of the land that Lorna and Greg Callahan wanted to buy. Parker, I’ve no doubt, was looking for whatever favorable impressions he could get out of the situation. Parker’s not bad as bosses go—as long as you watch your back.
I saw with some amusement that my old friend Eula Mae Quiff had embraced this latest cause. If there’s action anywhere in Mirabeau, Eula Mae’s usually hovering nearby drinking it all in. She’s a best-selling romance novelist and my favorite of the town eccentrics. (And it’s a wide and varied choice.) Tonight she wiggled beringed fingers at me while she chattered with Miss Twyla and Nina. I figured the outlandish dashiki she sported was to show her concern for the environment, other cultures, and general world harmony.
I took Eula Mae aside when some other folks began talking to Nina and Miss Twyla. “What are you doing here? You don’t even own land on the river.”
“Well, pardon me, Squire Poteet,” she sniffed, running a hand through her graying curls. “I didn’t know you had to have a title to the sacred acres to care about saving the Colorado.”
“I’m not convinced the river’s in danger, Eula Mae.”
“Well, our way of life is. I don’t want a bunch of snotty Houstonians down here on weekends, jamming up our streets and spoiling my view of the river.” She patted my good arm. “Do you need the money you might get from the land sale, sugar? You just let me know. I’ll be glad to loan you some cash. Is your hospital bill making you fret?”
“That’s not the point, Eula Mae. We don’t know much about what tactics this Nina Hernandez is going to use to stop this development. I think she gets ornery if she doesn’t get her way. I just want for there to be reasoned discussion, not a bunch of mudslinging and hysteria.”
“Honey pie, you’re talking about money and people and land. Reasoned discussion isn’t part of that equation. Look at all the problems they’ve had over in Austin with greedy developers from out of state.”
“Look, I know one of those so-called greedy developers—”
“That big-boned Yankee gal with the Polish name?” Nothing got by Eula Mae, and I didn’t miss the amused glint in her eye. Teasing me is probably Eula Mae’s favorite pastime, aside from ogling men and deciphering her royalty statements.
“Yes, that would be her, Eula Mae.” I glanced around to see if Candace had arrived yet—but then, I didn’t know if she even knew about the meeting. “Listen, I know Lorna, and I don’t think she’d be involved with anything unsavory—”
“Jordy, that girl drips unsavory like week-old barbecue,” Eula Mae said. “Itasca told me about her little entrance at the library. And I can only imagine the two of you together. Actually, it’s nearly romantic. Poor lonely Southern lad, cast adrift in the big, heartless city. I’ll guess you met her during one of those dreadful winters and needed a bedwarmer. I bet that chest of hers could heat all of Massachusetts.” Yes, Eula Mae actually talks like her books. It can be real amusing as long as she’s not talking about you. “And how does Candace like your little visitor?”
“Fine, just fine.” I definitely didn’t want to be discussing my love life with Eula Mae. If I wasn’t careful, I’d read it again in the fat pages of one of her potboilers.
She patted my arm again. “I gotta go say hi to the Terwilliger sisters, sugar doll. I’ll catch you later.” She toddled off in the direction of some of the elderly ladies that hovered near Miss Twyla, undoubtedly members of our local widows’ and spinsters’ Mafia. If they were on Miss Twyla’s side, I nearly felt sorry for Intraglobal.
My former uncle Bidwell Poteet (blessedly former since I found out that Bob Don’s my dad meant that Bid isn’t my biological uncle) also appeared, scowled at the audience, and broke into an unexpected grin when he saw me. To my horror,
he made a beeline for me. It was sort of like being hounded by a small, smelly Chihuahua. Uncle Bid is hairless (as far as we can tell, and I’m not about to investigate past his pate) and he always reeks of stale cigarillos.
“Well, boy, I see you nearly got yours.” He poked at my slinged arm.
‘Try to hide your disappointment,” I answered dryly.
“Seriously, Jordy, you are okay, aren’t you?” His husky voice lowered and I thought: It can’t be—not genuine concern for me. I regarded him suspiciously. Maybe I’d misjudged the old toot.
“Yes, I’m fine, Uncle Bid, thank you for asking.”
His scrawny shoulders heaved in relief. “Good. If you died, I don’t know who you’ve got those riverfront acres willed to—and having it tied up in probate right now could sour the deal for the rest of us.”
“Your consideration for my well-being is touching. Like bad heartburn.” I glared down at him. “Why do I have the feeling you’d sell Intraglobal your land even if they were building a nuclear reactor next to the town?”
“Hell, boy, money’s money. If you had one scrap of sense in that brain my brother wasted all that money eddicatin’, you’d know that.” He jabbed a finger into my chest (about as high up as he could reach). “Get some sense in you, Jordy, for once, please. Sell to these folks and don’t listen to that shell-wearin’ Austin hippie up there.”
“I’ll consider that as strongly as I do all other advice you give me,” I promised.
The insult went over his head, since it didn’t have far to jump. “All right, then. You got any questions on how to unload that land, you see me.” His chocolaty dark eyes squinted at me. “I might just buy your land first, you know, then sell it to Intraglobal. I’ll give you a fair price. Think it over, nephew.” He sashayed off, greeting people who forced smiles to their faces, and sat in the back row. He must’ve thought the seating chart was by IQ.
I wasn’t terribly impressed by this show of Poteet family love. If Eula Mae was right and this development had anything unsavory about it, Uncle Bid’d no doubt be nearby, adding his own unique stench to the pot.
Miss Twyla called the crowd to order. I took a seat near the back. As Miss Twyla was explaining the purpose of the meeting, Candace slipped in and sat beside me. She took my hand and squeezed it. “And how was your little dinner?”
I’m not one for public affection, but I kissed her—and then wondered if she could tell my lips had been kissed.
“Fine. She just mostly wanted to talk business.”
“I bet she did.” She gave me an enigmatic look and turned her attention to Miss Twyla.
I glanced around the room again. Bob Don, to my surprise, was not present. I thought for sure he’d want to hear about a land deal that affected him personally. And I felt momentarily stung; he’d given me this land, and now the situation was getting complicated, and he wasn’t here to be with me. Maybe I didn’t matter to him as much as I thought. Wrong; he’d been at the hospital when I’d gotten hurt.
I hoped our mad bomber didn’t know about the meeting; he could take out quite a few people with this gathering.
Miss Twyla ran the meeting like one of her high-school classes. Quickly calling it to order, she summarized Intraglobal’s intentions—and voiced her own (and others’) opposition to the development. After this brief statement, she called Nina Hernandez to the front to tell everyone what “the battle plan” would be. I grimaced at the idea of getting myself into any mess that required a battle plan.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Mirabeau,” Nina intoned with grandiose dignity, “I warn you now; Gregory Callahan is not a man who will take no for an answer. Intraglobal has the resources and the money to get what they want, regardless of whether or not you want this development in your backyard. They will build without regard for the sensitive ecosystem that surrounds Mirabeau”—here I distinctly heard Uncle Bid snort—“and they will despoil the river, the river that has nurtured the town of Mirabeau for over a hundred and fifty years. I’ve dealt with Intraglobal before, with their attempts to develop in other small towns, in both the South and in New England.” She paused, letting us realize that once again the battle was joined.
She produced charts, bar graphs, and tables of data on an easel to show just how much the river would suffer under Intraglobal’s stewardship. She spoke with conviction and assurance—and I found myself liking her more. “They ruin towns, then move on. They don’t have to win again. You can stop them,” she concluded.
“Excuse me, Mother Earth,” a voice called from the back of the room, “but why the hell should we want to?” Uncle Bid being his usual charming self. He’d risen from his customary predatory crouch to his feet.
“And you are, sir?” Nina asked, obviously irritated at the interruption. One could only hope she’d sic Tiny on Uncle Bid.
“Bidwell J. Poteet, Esquire, Attorney-at-Law,” Bid purred in response. “And as one of the concerned landowners, I don’t see a single reason why we shouldn’t sell. Intraglobal is offering good money for this land and the resort community could bring a lot of money into Mirabeau.” There was a buzz of general assent from one corner of the crowd. Apparently some folks supported that view, and I couldn’t blame them.
Nina wasn’t fazed. “The reason, Mr. Poteet, is the way that Intraglobal does business. They probably won’t hire local contractors to build this development; they’ll bring in big-city folks. They target towns like yours that haven’t needed to have serious environmental controls yet and they get their plans approved before the voters can put any sort of ecological leash on them. They’ll build with no regard for what pollutants they spill into the Colorado.” She slammed her hand down on the podium we’d pulled out of storage. “We can stop them. You don’t have to have this kind of development.”
“We need development, missy!” Bid brayed back at her. The Miss Twyla corps of supporters glared at him as one.
“Not this way!” Miss Twyla opted to enter the fray. “I don’t necessarily think that development is wrong, Bidwell, but we want to control how it happens, not just sell our land to folks we don’t know diddly about and let them ruin it and the river.”
I raised my good arm. “Excuse me, Ms. Hernandez. I had dinner with one of the Intraglobal representatives this evening. She showed me environmental impact statements that indicate the effect on the river would be minimal.”
Nina smiled nicely at me. “Those statements are prepared by Intraglobal, Jordan. They emphasize whatever Intraglobal wants them to emphasize. I’m sorry you were deceived.”
Well, that shut me up. I kept my mouth open for a moment in case inspiration hit, but shut it when a sad-eyed Eula Mae shook her head at my naïveté.
The Lord Mayor of Mirabeau (not his official title but that’s how he fancies himself), Parker Loudermilk, rose to his feet and cleared his throat. He had plenty of Cherokee in him and his complexion was dark, his eyes brooding except when he had on his mayoral smile. His daddy had been mayor for fourteen years, and when he died, no one else ran against Parker. It just seemed natural to have a Loudermilk as mayor. Parker was not a tall man, but he had the most erect posture I’d ever seen, like someone had shoved a metal beam along his spine. And I knew from city staff meetings that special cough of his meant all us peons better grovel in the mud. “I think, Ms. Hernandez, that the fine citizens of Mirabeau can rely on their elected officials to protect their environment”
“Your wife owns some of the land,” Tiny called out, then looked embarrassed. His first venture at public speaking. If I’d liked him I’d have been proud of him.
Nina favored Tiny with a gracious smile and turned back toward the mayor like he was cheese on a cracker and she was starving. “That’s right, Mr. Mayor. Mrs. Loudermilk does own some of the involved land. Do you think that you can maintain your objectivity when Greg Callahan starts throwing money at y’all?”
Mayor Loudermilk huffed. His thin, politically weaselly face pinched tight. He didn’t like folks cha
llenging him and I sometimes wondered if he didn’t have a pronounced violent streak under that suave exterior. I’d seen him break pencils with a smile in staff meetings when he thought someone was challenging his authority, and I heard he ran his construction company like a military unit. Junebug and I joked about it after the meetings, but I really didn’t care much for the man. It was a shame; his daddy had been a real fine fellow.
“I don’t really need to worry about the money he might throw at me, Ms. Hernandez, but I thank you for your concern for my moral fiber.”
I saw Dee Loudermilk put a restraining hand on her husband as she rose to her feet. She was prettier than Parker Loudermilk deserved, a slight, wispy blonde beauty with eyes of fierce hazel intelligence. Dee used to be like Candace, doing mostly volunteer work. She’d discovered art, though, a while back and had become a potter. I had one of her own pots in my backyard, an object of strength and sturdiness if not of beauty. Dee’s metaphysical stretches of the boundaries of ceramics escaped any meaningful interpretation from me. I liked her a sight better than I did her husband.
“It’s my land, not Parker’s. I had that land before we married, so it’s not his concern,” Dee said. Parker didn’t look like he agreed with this economic assessment but he wisely kept his mouth shut. Dee’s voice rang out clear as a bell; I guess it was used to out-yelling her husband.
“Regardless, I’m sure that Loudermilk Construction would be interested in bidding on the development work,” Eula Mae put in. She’s self-employed and got more money than God, so she doesn’t have to be cordial to our elected officials.
Parker bristled. Dee smiled at Eula Mae; she was a better politician than her husband. “I won’t sell until we know more about what these Intraglobal people plan, and that’s a promise.”
“I’ll be glad to answer that for you, Mrs. Loudermilk,” a man’s voice, nasal in its Northernness, called out from the back of the room. The voice belonged to a man in a tailored summer gray Italian suit, certainly the finest duds Mirabeau had seen in some time. The floral pattern on his tie would have gotten him thrown out of all the beer joints I knew of. His hair was starting to thin, with strands of blond still clinging to his freckled pate. His face was intelligent, with a rough sensuality to it that suggested he was a man who took a coarse and easy pleasure in life. Lorna stood to one side of him, looking cool but perhaps a touch uncomfortable. I saw her eyes seek me out and she stared hard at me for all of ten seconds. I glanced away and saw that if I wasn’t willing to return Lorna’s stare, plenty of other fellows were. I hoped Uncle Bid, seated right in front of her, wouldn’t drool.
