Three Sisters

by James D. Doss

  Forget Mr. Moon’s thoughts—Daisy Perika has appeared on the porch. Toddling along at a sprightly pace for one of her years, she takes a seat on the swing, gives the plank floor a brisk heel-kick. Back and forth she goes. What she’s up to, nobody knows.

  Scott Parris took his eye off the artificial bait long enough to smile at Charlie Moon’s aunt. “Nice afternoon.”

  She nodded. “Yes it is.” Nice and warm.

  “Hope you’re feeling good.”

  A sly little smile. “I’m doing all right.”

  “That’s good.” The witty conversationalist returned his attention to the red woolly-popper, made the final tie. Imagining that he was a famished trout, he took an appraising look at his work. That looks better’n any worm I ever saw.

  This was one of those pleasant interludes when it seemed that everything worth talking about was in the range of Nice to Good.

  Charlie, Scott—enjoy the brief moment while it lasts.

  The old woman in the swing is about to do her thing.

  Daisy Decides to try Finesse

  The operative word is try. And add another qualifier: “to the best of her ability.” Which was not all that much. Being a damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead personality, the tribal elder did not have extensive experience with such foreign concepts as finesse. Deception, innuendo, manipulation—these were the principal tools of her trade. And Daisy’s shop was open for business.

  So, after swinging for nigh unto sixty-four cycles, she addressed the fishermen in this manner: “Looks like a good day for fishing.”

  Moon and Parris responded with agreeable grunts.

  Not the slightest put off by this male conversation, she continued. “Last night, I had an interesting dream.”

  Even this ominous pronouncement failed to get Moon’s attention. Despite the fact that the shaman’s dreams had often proved to be a portent of trouble.

  Ditto for Scott Parris, who was smiling in a proud, almost fatherly manner at what he had begotten (a handsome red woolly-popper), placed it in a plastic tray, and snapped the transparent container shut.

  The determined conversationalist is not discouraged by such minor difficulties as a disinterested audience. Still into the swing of things, the cunning old woman continued her monologue: “That dream helped me to remember something that’s been aggravating me for weeks and weeks.” She glanced at her favorite relative. “Did you ever have a dream that helped you figure something out?”

  “Mmmm,” Moon said. Maybe I should fire all three of those drunk cowboys. That’d teach ’em a good lesson. And send a strong message to the rest of the hired help.

  “My dream was about these three little white girls at an arts-and-crafts fair.” The shaman watched a horsefly circle her knee. Land on me, bloodsucker, you’re dead meat. Mr. Horsefly departed. “There was prizes for the things the kids brought. Like pictures they’d made and sculptures and little clay pots and the like.”

  The on-the-wagon alcoholic felt a pang of conscience. No, I guess that’s a bit drastic. First, I should invite all three of those cowboys to an AA meeting. And if they don’t show up, then I fire their butts.

  “One of these little girls—” Daisy pretended to recall an important detail. “Oh—did I mention they was sisters?”

  The word rang a bell with Scott Parris, who was checking his spinning reel. Sisters? He looked up. “No, I don’t think you did.”

  “Well, they was. Sisters, that is. All three of ’em. To one another.”

  “I have an older sister,” the chief of police said. “Alice Anne. She went off to school in Bloomington, got trained to be a registered nurse, then married a pipe-fitter and moved to Gary. Gary, Indiana. Like in The Music Man.” Seventy-six trombones—oom-pah-pah!

  Moon had closed the loop in his dismal thoughts. There ain’t been a case of hoof-and-mouth in the United States of America since 1929, and Pete Bushman ought to know better than to be spouting off about something bad as that. All it would take is a rumor or two and the Japanese would put a freeze on importing American beef, which is the best in the world. But the rancher, who had his gaze fixed on a far horizon, knew that anything could happen and sometimes did. If one of my beeves was to pick up hoof-and-mouth—I’d be ruined. Finished. Wiped out. Done for. Lacking a pocket thesaurus, he was obliged to let the matter drop.

  Without the least tinge of conscience, Daisy flicked an adorably cute little ladybug off her arm. “A bad thing happened at that arts-and-crafts fair.” The porch swing having slowed while she dispatched the beetle, Daisy energized her pendulum seat with a superbly timed kick. “Two of them little girls got some punch from Louise-Marie—the kind she makes from her family recipe. And they got another cup for their sister. But right after the little sister drank some, she passed out—almost died.” The Ute elder’s voice did not betray her inner tension. “But the punch didn’t bother the older sisters, or anybody else at the fair. I think the littlest sister must’ve had some kind of allergy.”

  Parris frowned. “Alice Anne couldn’t eat peanut butter without getting all green around the gills. And ragweed—all Sis had to do was look at a picture of a plant in a magazine and she’d start sneezing her head off.”

  Which remark penetrated Charlie Moon’s consciousness to provide him with a comforting thought: I bet them steers got into some locoweed. And the one with the sore on his mouth probably got it from chompin’ on a thorn or a strand of barbed wire. Bushman’s getting too old to spot toxic weeds. I’ll send the Wyoming Kyd and some sharp-eyed young men over to check that pasture from one end to the other.

  Daisy closed her eyes. “I thought I remembered what was in that punch. But just to be sure, I called Louise-Marie last night—and I found out that I was right. It was nothing but crushed-up ice and white cane sugar and…” She paused for dramatic effect and got it. “Strawberries.”

  Moon looked at his aunt. “Strawberries?”

  Daisy nodded. “In the punch. That was what almost killed little Astrid. She must’ve been about five or six years old.”

  Now she had their attention. One hundred percent.

  Parris: “Did you say ‘Astrid’?”

  Daisy repeated the nod. “Astrid Spencer.” The aged woman’s lips went thin. “It was her sisters—Beatrice and Cassandra—who gave her the fruit punch.” She frowned at the memory. “The way old Joe Spencer yelled at them girls, I guess they must have knowed that their little sister couldn’t have anything with strawberries in it. But they were just dumb kids, and wasn’t paying attention.” She put her feet firmly on the floor, stopped the swing. “But you’d think that after a bad experience like that, no matter how much older she got, Astrid wouldn’t have ever put a strawberry in her mouth again.” She smiled at her nephew, pushed herself up from the swing. “Well, I shouldn’t be bothering you young men with stories about my dreams, and old-time memories. I expect you’ve got more important things to think about.” She turned, headed for the parlor door. “Like fishing for trout.” After a few steps, she stopped, turned to smile at Scott Parris. “Best bait for rainbows is black crickets. And don’t forget to tie ’em on the hook.”

  He nodded, heard himself mumble, “Horsehair.”

  “Brown horsehair.” She took two more steps, paused again, turned again, addressed the chief of police again: “Did you know Andrew Turner was getting out of the hospital today?”

  Parris shook his head. I thought he’d be in Snyder Memorial for at least another week.

  Moon presented a poker face. Kept his thoughts to himself.

  Not so Daisy. Moon’s aunt was happy to share the product of her cogitations. “I think his sweet little wife got tired of her man being in the hospital, and made up her mind to take care of him at home.” With this parting shot, she departed. The screen door, which was held shut by a long, coiled spring, slammed behind her: Bang!

  This awakened Sidewinder, who had been napping in the slanting sunlight. The rangy old hound got up, gaped his mouth in a toothy
yawn, sauntered by the lawmen without taking any notice of their presence.

  Parris watched the big dog lope off the porch, disappear under it.

  The Ute was gazing wistfully in the general direction of Lake Jesse.

  The hopeful angler made a polite inquiry: “What are you thinking, Charlie?”

  “Pard, I’m thinking we ought to go fishing.”

  Fifty-One

  A Family Outing

  The man in the wheelchair looked up at his cheerful wife, blinked as if full comprehension of her proposal was just dawning on him. Andrew Turner repeated, word for word, what she had said, turned Bea’s enthusiastic statement into an apprehensive question: “We’re going on a picnic?”

  “Right-o. A good stiff dose of the out-of-doors is precisely what you need.” Beatrice offered up a bright, encouraging smile. “It will do you a world of good.”

  “But I just got home from the hosp—”

  “Hold on to this while I push.” She plopped a wicker basket onto his lap. The lid was closed. “And no peeking inside.”

  His curiosity aroused, the patient sniffed. “Fried chicken?”

  She laughed. “It would appear that your nose is not working.”

  Thus challenged, he sniffed again. “Baked ham?”

  Bea pushed him toward the open door. “Wrong again. And you’ll never guess what’s for dessert.”

  Turner gave it a try: “Apple pie.”

  “Afraid not.”

  As they passed the garage, he glanced over his shoulder. “We’re not going somewhere in the car—like to the park in Granite Creek?”

  “Certainly not. I know of a much better spot.”

  As they crossed over the driveway, approached a sturdy redwood picnic table that was sensibly placed in a sunny, hedge-edged oval of lawn, the weak fellow smiled, and felt the initial twang of a manly appetite. When his wife passed this opportunity by, he frowned. “Where are you taking me, Bea?”

  “Into yon quiet forest glen, where goat’s-beard moss grows pearly moist and emerald green, where sprightly fairies dance and lithesome elves do pipe and sing.”

  The snobby wife was always quoting some dead person. “Who said that?”

  “I blush to admit—’tis mine own.” The handsome woman tossed her head in a gesture that could only be described as haughty.

  They passed through a cluster of youthful aspens where a thousand-thousand waxy leaves glittered and chattered in the mild breeze and freckles of filtered sunlight sparkled on the forest floor. It was a delightful little grove, which terminated abruptly as they entered the old-growth forest, where a thick stand of blue-black spruce blocked the sunshine, producing a diffuse, eternal twilight from morning tonight. As they proceeded, the silence thickened, burdened the atmosphere with a chill, gray heaviness. Moreover, the path narrowed.

  This was not that Narrow Path recommended by the Teacher from Nazareth.

  As their way became slightly steep, Beatrice’s exertion in pushing the wheelchair was replaced by a struggle to hold it back. She began to sing. “It’s a long way down…to old Chinatown…a long, long way to go.”

  Feeling better by the minute, her husband began to grin. After the long, dreary stay in the hospital it was good to be home again. Maybe I should think about settling down for a while—behaving myself. At least until I can walk again. And while I recuperate, I’ll have ample opportunity to make plans for the future. The grin became a broad smile, exposing his perfect teeth. Like what I should do with you, my healthy, wealthy wife.

  Down, down they went. A long way down. But not toward old Chinatown. The footpath intersected a long-abandoned logging road, and Bea, just as if she had been there many times before, did not hesitate. Decisively, she took a turn to the left.

  Andrew Spencer did not know when he had lost the grin, but it no longer curled the slit between his nose and chin. “Ah…we’ve come quite a distance.”

  “Yes.” His wife was absolutely—No, “cheerful” does not adequately describe her frame of mind. And the dignified, cultured woman could certainly not be portrayed as “chirpy,” which suggests a frivolous, birdlike gaiety. There is no other word for her hale and hearty good humor—“chipper” is what she was.

  It is not going too far to assert that even on his best day, Andrew Turner did not appreciate chipper women. It is, in fact, not going far enough. He detested them. Her jollity put him off. To put the thing bluntly, it rankled.

  “Bea, I think we’ve gone quite far enough. Let’s stop here and have a bite—”

  “Oh, don’t be such an old party-pooper.” She removed one hand from the wheelchair, used it to pat his head. “We’re just about there.”

  “We are?”

  “Certainly.”

  And they were. Only a few yards down the logging road, the trail abruptly ended in what folks in Kentucky and Tennessee refer to as a “holler.” She brought the wheelchair to a halt in a lovely little meadow that might have amounted to an acre. It was known, to those very few who had been there, as The Bottom. And indeed it was. From this place, every pathway, be it for quadruped or biped, was uphill.

  Andrew Turner blinked at his surroundings and was pleasantly surprised. A small willow-bordered stream rippled along a bed of smooth, shiny rocks, terminated in a mirroring pool encased by clusters of cattails. “It’s very nice.”

  “When we were little girls—Astrid and Cassie and me—we used to come here with our father. We would pick flowers and play hide-and-seek, and in the summertime Daddy would let us wade in the water.” Beatrice took the picnic basket from his lap, began to remove the contents.

  Terrifically innervated by the flower-scented air, the sweet chirping of innumerable unseen feathered friends, and his delightful imaginings of whatever delicacies his wife had prepared—especially the mystery dessert(!), the invalid was beginning to salivate. He watched his wife unfold a navy-blue cotton bedsheet, which would presumably serve as a tablecloth. But instead of stretching it out on the moist grass, she set it aside on a flat-topped granite boulder.

  As she reached into the basket again, Turner leaned to see what she would produce.

  Bea smiled at her famished husband and said, “Honey.” No, she was not addressing her spouse. What the lady had removed was a pound-and-a-half jar of—that is correct. Honey. Tule Creek brand, of course.

  Assuming (correctly) that this had something to do with the mystery dessert, Andrew smiled back. Sweets were fine at the proper time, but what he wanted up front was meat. Potatoes. Deviled eggs. Bread. Cheese. “Where’s the stick-to-your-ribs grub?”

  “Patience.” The wife twisted the lid from the jar. While her astonished husband watched, she began to pour it out—onto a fungus-encrusted pine stump.

  Turner detested waste, also puzzling behavior—and he was not one of those timid persons who prefer ignorance to asking straight-out. “What are you doing that for?”

  She ignored this perfectly reasonable question.

  Which struck him as bordering on rudeness. “I don’t see why you’re dumping perfectly good honey onto a—”

  “I’ve been doing this every day since Charlie Moon found you alive.”

  His pleasant hunger was suddenly replaced by a cold, clammy unease that began to curdle in his gut. The acre of meadow had shrank to a tiny cell. The tall spruce, seemingly loose from their roots, were closing in on him. “Uh—Bea?”

  She was screwing the lid onto the almost-empty jar. “Yes, dear?”

  Assaulted by a sudden rush of claustrophobic fear, Mr. Turner attempted to clear the sawdust from his throat. “I don’t know what’s the matter…but all of a sudden, I’m not feeling so good.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I think we should go home now.”

  She turned wide eyes on her husband. “What about our lovely picnic?”

  “I’m sorry, precious. I seem to have lost my appetite.”

  Her tone was mildly scolding: “After all the trouble I’ve gone to?”

/>   He patted his flat tummy. “I’m feeling kind of…well…queasy.”

  “Poor thing.” She had switched to a cooing, motherly sympathy. “You really don’t want anything to eat?”

  Thinking that perhaps he ought to humor this strange creature, Turner forced a faint smile. “Well, maybe just a little dessert.”

  “Dear me—haven’t you guessed?” She removed a second jar of honey from the basket.

  “Guessed what?”

  “I am disappointed in you, Andrew.” Beatrice was now behind him. “You should have figured it out by now.” Unscrewing the lid from the second jar of Charlie Moon’s favorite brand of honey, she said, “You are dessert.” She tilted the jar. A long, amber stream of honey dribbled down. Onto his head. Over his forehead. Along the back of his neck.

  His voice cracked: “Bea…what on earth are you doing?”

  “In your natural state, you are hardly sweet enough to be considered tasty.” She watched gravity pull at the viscous liquid. “If you were not such a self-centered oaf—Andrew—you might have realized that I was onto you. Ever since that last day of our honeymoon—when you told me that Astrid snacked on strawberries—I have not once addressed you as ‘Andy.’”

  “I don’t understand.” This was half true. Under the circumstances, the wife’s reference to Astrid and strawberries was downright alarming. As to her abandonment of the familiar “Andy,” he had thought that odd, almost too formal—even for Bea. But, like many husbands, Andrew Turner had given up trying to understand his wife. This was to be his downfall. “Listen to me, precious—whatever is bothering you, I’m sure we can talk it out.” He took a lick at honey dribbling down his nose, dripping over his lips.