John cut loose with the twelve-gauge, the shot rattled through the leaves above. He shucked another round into the chamber. “The next one’ll cut you in two. Hold up your hands like I said!”
A bearded man with a ponytail raised his hands as high as possible in a comic reach for the limbs high overhead. “Hey, don’t shoot me!”
“He’ll do it if y’all don’t listen.” Cody stepped into full view. “Everybody on your knees. Hands behind your heads and cross your ankles.”
“That’s a lot to listen to, Sheriff.” Ponytail stood stock still, complaining. “And I don’t like no woman deputy in on this.”
“I don’t care what you like.” Cody’s voice was sharp. “Do what I said. Everyone on your knees, now!”
One of the hippies on the pallets in front of Ned turned their attention to Anna. “Dude. Be cool. Which do you want us to do, man? Get on our knees or cross our ankles?”
Ned wondered if he’d directed the question to Anna because she was the only female. He didn’t let her answer, though. “Do both, like the sheriff said.” Ned’s voice was filled with frustration. “It ain’t that hard, boys. Knees first.”
“It is if you’re high.”
“Hands behind your heads…then cross your ankles.”
“Don’t shoot.” Still another moonshiner stepped into view from Ned’s left, tugging his zipper up as casually as if he were alone. He was a river rat Ned recognized from the joints across the river. “I’ll do it, but I didn’t want anybody to see my tallywhacker.”
It startled him so bad Ned almost pulled the trigger on his pistol aimed at the closest prisoner on the ground in front of him. Anna swung around and covered him. “Get those hands up or I’ll shoot it off.”
“She can do it, too.” Ned had to take a deep breath.
“She ain’t got nothin’ but that little thirty-eight.”
“She’s a good shot.”
Anna’s voice finally came through loud and clear. “Not much of a target, though.”
With the moonshiners cuffed and transported to the Lamar County Courthouse by two highway patrol deputies, Ned returned to the still and stared at the gleaming copper boiler.
Anna joined him. “What?”
“That’s the biggest and prettiest still I’ve ever seen. I believe somebody’s been shinin’ that copper.”
She examined the huge boiler. The whole thing was as polished as a brass musical instrument. “I guess I’m ruined for the rest of my life since this is the first one I’ve ever seen.”
Ned didn’t get her joke, but Cody’s laughed filled the air as he and John joined them. “That’s why I’m gonna do something special with it.”
“What’s that?”
The look on the Cody’s face showed that he wasn’t completely comfortable with the whole idea. “Just came through on the radio. The mayor wants to show it off as the first still to be busted under his office. There’s a truck coming. I’m gonna set this still up in the old wagon yard for the paper. They’re gonna take a picture of it.”
“O.C. might not like that idea, this being evidence and all.”
“It’ll only be for a little while, and besides, we’re gonna have to make some room to store it.”
Ned hefted the axe in his hand. It was his tradition to chop holes in a boiler so it could never be used again. He pointed at the crates of quart fruit jars filled with clear whiskey. “So what are you gonna do with all this?”
“A cameraman from The Chisum News is on the way. He’s gonna take a picture of everything, then we’ll pour it out.”
Ned shook his head and turned away. “It ain’t like it used to be. Now we’re putting on shows.”
“Changing times,” John said. “Changing times.”
Chapter Twenty
Three hundred and twenty miles to the southwest, Mr. Gray took one last look around the empty office they’d been using for the past six months to be sure he hadn’t left anything. All the humidity was gone, and Austin breathed deep of the air scrubbed clean in Canada. The room was fresh and comfortable for the first time since he’d rented it.
The desk drawers were empty, and the only thing he found was a dust bunny on the floor. He was about to leave for Washington when the phone rang three times before it stopped. He rested an index finger on the receiver and plucked it off the cradle on the next ring.
“Yes.”
“We might have a problem.”
Gray recognized Mr. Brown’s voice. “What’s that?”
“Mr. Green woke up dead this morning.”
Unmoved, Gray stared out the open window at the buildings across the street. “Heart attack?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Forgo the levity. What happened?”
“He didn’t answer the phone when I called to say we were leaving. I had other accommodations and went by the motel, but he didn’t come to the door. I had to badge the desk clerk before he would let me in. Mr. Green was in the bed. It looked like he died hard.”
“I’ll get a cleanup crew out there.”
“Too late. While I was sanitizing the room, that nosey desk clerk went back and called an ambulance. I didn’t think you wanted any more attention, so I backed off.”
Mr. Gray’s stomach clenched. He’d hoped to get both of his crews in and out of Austin without incident. Now things were complicated.
“I told him those damned unfiltered coffin nails were gonna kill him.”
“I don’t think it was the Camels.”
“You think somebody killed him?” Mr. Gray went cold, thinking that Soviet agents might have become involved in the operation. If they stole information about Gold Dust or, God help them, one of the canisters of bacteria, every man, woman, and child in the free world was in trouble. His gut feeling was that the “benign” bacteria were, in fact, dangerous.
“I do. I think it was us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think it was the Gold Dust. He came down sick not long after we finished.”
“Watch out with the details. You aren’t on a secure line.”
“I know how to do my job. I’m in a phone booth.”
“Are you sick?”
“No. What do you want to do?”
“Nothing.” Mr. Gray’s mind raced to create an explanation for his associate’s death. “People die every day from a million causes. You said you sanitized the room?”
“I have his real papers and gun.”
“Good. We’re finished here. You go deep until further notice.”
Mr. Brown was silent for a long moment. “We’re just going to leave his body there?”
“What would you like for me to do?”
“Have him transported back to his home. He has a family.”
“I assume you remember the contract you signed.” Mr. Gray picked up the phone by the finger well under the cradle and walked to the window, trailing the long cord.
“Yes, the one that said we were on our own if we got caught.”
“Correct.”
“But I thought that referred to foreign countries.”
“It wasn’t location-specific.” Gray watched the activity on the street. All looked normal, but he never took anything for granted. A blue ’63 Chevrolet sedan had been parked in the same place for three days in a row. The sun’s glare prevented him from seeing inside.
A long sigh came through the receiver. “I just think he deserves better.”
“His family will get a call in a day or two, how about that? They’ll also get a nice check from Humbold Industries to satisfy his contract.”
“All right. I’ll wait to hear from you.”
“Fine then.” Mr. Gray hung up, wiped the phone down with a handkerchief, and finished by polishing the doorknob as he left.
Chapter
Twenty-one
It was dusk when a car passed on the two-lane highway beyond the trees blocking the road from Cody and Norma Faye’s house. The tires hissed on the pavement. A hawk sailed over the treeline and a squirrel scampered out of sight in a pecan tree.
Center Spring Branch chuckled over a two-foot waterfall not a hundred yards away from the house, the clear water continuing downstream over gravel and skinny sandbars. Late evening shadows stretched across the pasture, shading Cody’s front yard.
“Supper sure was good.” Tom Bell mimicked Cody and leaned his straight chair on its back legs against the wall on what used to be his own porch. The first cool front of the year had pushed out the humidity with the promise of changing leaves in the near future.
“Norma Faye learned from her mama. Don’t tell Miss Becky, but Norma Faye’s fried chicken is the best I ever tasted.” Cody worked a toothpick between two teeth. “Listen, about Mexico…”
“You know, this house fits y’all better than it did me.” Tom rebuilt most of the old house in the months he lived in Center Springs. “I believe the best thing I did was make this porch bigger.”
“You can have it back, if you want. Me and Norma Faye can move to Chisum. A couple of folks on the city council want me to live there anyway. Said a sheriff ought to live in town.”
Tom rested his hat on the porch rail and scratched his white hair. “Nossir. I deeded it over to you, legal. I don’t need a whole house. It was good of James and Ida Belle to let me move into their second floor. You know, I doubt I have very many more years left on this old Earth anyway.”
Cody didn’t like the direction their conversation was headed. “Hey, I just remembered. There’s still a trunk full of your stuff in Ned’s barn.”
Tom grinned. “I wondered what y’all did with it. I’ll get and take it over to my new digs in a day or two.”
“It was pretty heavy.” Cody felt oddly embarrassed. It was almost like he’d been snooping in Tom’s dresser or closet. “You know, we opened it up. There’s still a lot of ammo for that BAR of yours. There’s some letters and stuff, pictures, clothes.”
“I sure wish I had that rifle back. I had to leave it and my pistol both down there in Mexico.”
“Well, we didn’t take nothing out of it.”
Tom chuckled. “Wouldn’t have missed it if you did. I was dead, remember? I’ve about forgot what all was in there. What went with those gold coins I had in there?”
Startled, Cody cropped his chair to all four legs. “Gold? You have money in there? Why, it’s in the barn…”
Tom’s wry grin was as close as he came to laughing out loud. “Settle down. I’m just kidding you.”
A soft cough stalled their conversation. Cody watched the kids walk down the drive in the late evening shadows. Pepper joined them on the porch, sitting cross-legged beside Tom. Hootie followed and curled up on the greenest patch of grass in the yard to catch a breeze. The boys sat on the steps.
Cody knuckled her head. “What are you outlaws doing out this evening?”
Top leaned an elbow on the porch. “We wanted to come see Mr. Tom.”
“It’s a school night, and besides, I thought y’all were sick.”
As if Cody’s question reminded the boys they still weren’t feeling up to snuff, Top coughed and Mark cleared his throat. Pepper pushed Mark’s shoulder. “They say they don’t feel good, but they manage to get up and come over here.”
Mark pulled a strand of hair behind one ear. “I don’t feel good, but it ain’t bad enough to stay in bed.”
Top shot Pepper a glare. “I’d be in bed if Miss Becky’d let me. This cough’s wearing me out and I think it’s getting worse.”
“How’d you know Mr. Tom was here?” Norma Faye came out on the porch with a handful of warm teacakes and passed them around.
Pepper held a knee and leaned backwards. “I was listening in on the party line and old lady Whiteside was telling Thelma Prichard she saw you turning in here a little while ago.”
Norma Faye felt the boys’ foreheads to see if they had fever. “You’re both warm.”
Top coughed into his hand. “Throat tickles.”
“Is it your asthma?”
“Partly.”
Norma Faye grinned and nudged his shoulder. “I bet you didn’t bring your puffer with you.”
“Naw.”
“Y’all probably got some kind of bug that’s going around.” Tom bit into a teacake and chewed. “I heard up at the store that there’s a dozen folks around here, hacking and coughing.” He grinned at the kids. “Y’all should have been here a minute ago. I had your Uncle Cody going pretty good. Told him I had gold hid in my old trunk.”
The kids exchanged glances and Cody frowned. “All right. What are y’all up to?”
“Nothing.”
“Pepper, your nose is growing.” Norma Faye leaned on the porch rail.
“Tell ’em,” Mark said.
Pepper almost rubbed her nose, but instead threw him a look that said shut up. For once the boys were working on her. Top’s grin was white in the gathering gloom. “Go ahead and tell ’em what you told that nasty gal up at the store.”
Norma Faye’s eyebrow rose. “Nasty gal? Top, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“She was.” Mark wiped the crumbs off his hands. “She showed up with a shirt that was near-bout painted on, asking questions about buried treasure.”
“It wasn’t buried treasure,” Pepper interrupted. “She’d heard that somebody buried stolen money up at Palmer Lake.”
“And you got her going on something else.”
The look she shot Top was electric. “Fine then, but you two can’t keep a secret to save your lives.” She watched the adults for a reaction. “Daddy has a gold coin he got from Bill Preston for some building stuff up at his store. Said he didn’t have his checkbook nor cash on him and offered it up instead. I took it to show these two loudmouths here and still had it in my pocket. That gal they’re talking about was poking them big boobs of hers at everybody on the porch and it kinda made me mad, so I showed the coin to her and told her I found it out by Palmer Lake last year.”
Top couldn’t help himself. “And then she told her that old story of buried gold and that gal got all worked up. Just ’bout that time, Mack Vick rode up on his horse and told everybody you were back, Mr. Tom. We lit out right then, but I heard she talked Mack into taking her out to somewhere around Palmer Lake and they’ve been looking ever since.”
Top quit talking and coughed long and deep. He leaned over and spat a thick wad of green mucus off the porch.
Cody watched Top rub his chest. “Gal, you need a whippin’, but that’s a good story. I know who you’re talking about. She was there with a couple of other men. That’s why I keep seeing strange cars up at the store. I think you might’ve started a gold rush.”
“So you noticed her too?” Norma Faye raised her eyebrow again in fun.
“Sure did! She’s staying at Bill Preston’s house…”
“Isn’t his wife in Dallas?”
“As far as I know.” Cody grinned. “Anyway, she’s been up at the store a couple of times since, and she’s hard to miss.”
Tom plucked a crumb off his white mustache. “You know, I bet there’s gold buried all over this county.”
“What makes you say that?”
“People didn’t trust banks back during the Depression. If they’re like everyone else, most of ’em buried their hard money in the ground. I’m sure more than a few died without telling anybody, and for sure it’ll still be there.”
Cody cut his eyes at the old Ranger. “I’ve heard stories like that, too. But we don’t need strangers showing up out here and trespassing on private land. Me and Ned have enough trouble dealing with drunks and cattle rustlers.”
“Gold rush.” Top’s face lit
up. “Hey, how about we go out to Palmer Lake and do some looking ourselves?”
“That’s not your land. You want to look for gold, dig around some of these old house places where Ned knows the owners.”
Pepper rested her chin on one fist. “Mr. Tom, where do we dig, if we decide to go looking?”
“Well, I’d try around trees that were close to the house. Look for three that form a triangle and dig there. Maybe near a well, in a toolshed, or around something on the land that’ll last for a while. I heard tell of an old man who kept his burn barrel on top of his gold stash. He’d roll it out of the way to get at it, then move the barrel right back where it was.”
Norma Faye rose. “You two are worse than these kids. Y’all are just pouring gas on a fire. These three’ll dig up half the county now. Folks won’t be able to walk without twisting an ankle in a hole.”
“Yep, and you two remember, I heard a story about a feller who was digging for gold in one spot and gave up.” Tom winked at Norma Faye. “Along come another feller and saw the hole and thought, ‘hey what if he didn’t dig deep enough?’ and then turned up a treasure chest with one push of a bilduky.”
“You’re mean. Don’t listen to him.” Norma Faye rapped Tom on the top of his head. She nudged Pepper with her shoe. “You three need to get on home. It’s full dark and Miss Becky’ll be expecting you.”
Stars were shining overhead when the kids left after their goodbyes. Cody watched them disappear into the darkness. Hootie rose from the cool grass and followed. “I wonder why that patch there is so green when the rest of the yard’s burning up.”
“That’s where I burned the scraps when I was working on this house.” Tom finished his teacake. “The grass always grows back better because of the ashes.”
Cody slapped a mosquito. “Well, I guess I’ll tell Ned tomorrow about these gold hunters. I swear, I’m gonna jerk a knot in Pepper’s tail one of these days.”
Tom chuckled. “They’re just kids. One of these days you’ll look up and they’ll be grown and you’ll wonder how it happened so fast. Enjoy ’em while you can.”
Gold Dust Page 11
