Tomorrow River

by Lesley Kagen

  “Why, thank you, kind sir,” I say, smiling down at Remmy. Grampa Gus couldn’t be more wrong about the Tittle boy. He’s not minin’ sludge. He’s Sir Galahad.

  “My pleasure.” E. J. whips his coonskin off his head with a great flourish and a growling stomach. “Better get over to the drugstore now before Vera closes up.”

  I say, “Give me a minute to talk to Sam,” but when I look over to where him and the sheriff and Curry were gathered, there’s nobody there. “Where’d they go?”

  “You can catch up with him tomorrow,” E. J. says, looking down at Remmy and tugging at me. Remmy’s already coming to. “We got to skedaddle if you want to get Woody something to eat. And that scarf.”

  Stepping over Hawkins, I accidentally on purpose genuflect on his gut and he lets out a groan. I ask E. J., “That’s nothin’ more than his usual hot air, don’t you think? Papa has been keeping company with Abigail, but he can’t really be planning on marryin’ her.”

  He says, “A course he’s not,” but I know by the way he’s avoiding my eyes as we make our way off the carnival grounds that he’s not being truthful with me. No. E. J.’s lying through his knight-in-shining-armor teeth.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  WELCOME banners are hanging from the old-fashioned street-lamps.

  Downtown is decked out for the party. Tomorrow these cobble-stone streets will be swarming with folks who’ve come to buy souvenirs. Just about anybody who wants to can peddle pictures of Robert E. painted on velvet and whittled figures of Traveller and stone replicas of Natural Bridge. Every knickknack under the summer sun can be got at the temporary booths that are lining Main Street. The permanent shops are spruced up, too, with MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME signs perched in their windows. Sidewalks are scrubbed clean. Streets swept. Founders Weekend is a big deal, but honestly? I’m dreading the whole darn thing. Feels to me like another storm is bearing down on us instead of a good time. I should be home right now battening down our fort. And it’s not only my sister who is on my mind. You know, we had that blowup with Remmy Hawkins. When he comes all the way to, he’ll start looking for E. J. and me, wanting to even the score. Was Remmy telling the truth or was it just more of his usual foolishness? The thought of Papa marrying Abigail Hawkins . . . her vile red hair lying on Mama’s percale pillow. Her thin lips drinking out of our mother’s teacup in the morning. Stroking our mama’s things with her stinking gardenia hands. Papa would probably make Woody and me call her Mama. People like to say that you can get used to anything, but that’s not true.

  E. J. and I are short-cutting to the drugstore through Mudtown. Negroes young and old are out on their porches sipping out of beer bottles and listening to their bluesy music. A lot of the men are bare-chested and the women have fans in their hands and their skirts hiked up. There’s kids playing Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Billy Come Over. Most everybody shouts out, “Evenin’” or “How do.” They’re used to seeing us come down this street to visit with Blind Beezy, who isn’t out, but the lights are on in her front parlor. She must be knitting and purling like a madwoman. Tomorrow folks will be lined up and clamoring for her loud shawls and sweaters and scarves.

  As we turn onto Monroe Street, E. J. gets a twinkle in his eyes and says, “Ya wanna do a sneak up on Beezy? I sure could use a quarter.”

  All the years we’ve been trying to take her by surprise, we have never once been successful. I’d love seeing her, but we really shouldn’t. I promised Woody I’d be back soon. Then again, E. J. went out on a limb for me tonight when he popped Remmy in the nose. I owe him.

  We come in low-to-the-ground through Beezy’s backyard like we always do. Once past her garage, we make a sharp turn at the peony bushes and tiptoe around her gardening patch. She grows okra, which is flowering nicely. E. J. is in the lead and he’s crouched over so far that his belly is all but dragging on the grass. Once we’re even with the birdbath, E. J. gives me the zipped-lips sign and points up to her parlor window, which is open, of course. The heat of the day has spread into the evening.

  Beezy’s talking to somebody. A visitor’s come calling. Could it be Mr. Cole? Forgetting that we’re trying to be stealthy, I almost jump up and say, “Hey!” because I am really missing those nights on the porch with him and Beezy. I could point out some constellations to him real quick, chat about the men going to the moon. That would be nice. Maybe Beezy’s got some chicken pot pie prison-style in the oven. I could take some back to Woody.

  “Ya got to do it this way?” Beezy’s croaky voice drifts through the window that we’re hunkered below. She sounds . . . scared? That’s very unusual. She’s the bravest woman I know.

  “Believe me, if there was another way to go about this . . . Sam asked me to stop by. He doesn’t want you to worry.”

  I look at E. J. and he’s as perplexed as me. We recognize that Northern voice. It belongs to Curry Weaver.

  “It’s a God-forsaken, horrible thing,” Beezy says. “I never imagined he was capable of planting—” She stops. All I can hear is her radio selling toothpaste and the kids down the block playing Red Rover, until she calls out in her usual trilly way, “Is that chickadees settin’ to . . .”

  Uncanny, I tell you.

  Curious as all get out about what the two of them are talking about, but not wanting to be drawn into a long visitation with Beezy, I don’t answer her and neither does E. J.

  We just back out of there the same way we came. Sneaky as two rampaging elephants.

  It didn’t sound like Curry was asking for a handout like a lot of the hoboes do when they go door-to-door. Beezy said something about “planting.” Were they talking about gardening? But that’s a pleasant subject that she can really warm up to and she sounded kind of horrified. I ask E. J. when we make the turn onto Montgomery Street, “What do ya think Curry was doin’ over at Beezy’s? What were they were discussin’?”

  “Do I look like a newspaper?” he says, using one of my own smart mouth remarks on me. He shoves his hands into his jeans pocket and his pants are so big they almost fall down. He’s being unusually peevish because he didn’t win his quarter. “Could we go back and try again?”

  “Absolutely not. I promised Woody . . . wow!” I say as we turn into the town’s main square.

  The Beautification Committee has trimmed the band shell in flags and the gardens have been weeded and planted with red geraniums. The life-size statue of the Father of Our Country is rubbed to a nice sheen. Tree trunks are wrapped in gray crepe paper—the color of the Confederacy. This square is where the Parade of Princesses will start on Saturday morning.

  “Race ya for a sundae,” E. J. says, perking up and pointing towards Slidell’s, which is across the square directly next to the courthouse.

  “Naw, I don’t feel like racin’,” I tell E. J. like I always do, but then I peel off fast, like I always do. Being quicker on my feet than the winged messenger Mercury, I win most of our footraces by a mile. But I’ve decided to let him be victorious this time. Our sidekick is looking very starved this evening.

  We run across Jefferson Street, shoving and bumping each other. We use the front door of the drugstore to stop ourselves. “Beat ya by a step,” E. J. says, bent over laughing.

  “Hold up there,” somebody shouts from behind us. Still not used to being able to come and go from Lilyfield whenever I want, I freeze in place.

  From the reflection in Slidell’s window, I can see the sheriff’s car idling at the curb. And he’s got a passenger. Sam Moody is in the backseat. He leans forward and says, “Evenin’, Shen. E. J.”

  I go up to the car and squat down so I can see more of him below his baseball cap.

  “What’s goin’ on, Sam? You and the sheriff doing some Founders Weekend joyriding?”

  He shrugs, smiles. He has got the nicest teeth. Lined up like veteran’s headstones. He must’ve inherited them from his father because Beezy’s are tan and detachable. I’m just about to ask him if he knows why Curry Weaver was over at his mama’s hou
se when Sam says, “When I saw you and E. J. dashing across the square, I asked the sheriff to stop so I could let you know before you heard from somebody else.”

  “Hear what?” E. J. asks.

  “The sheriff is taking me in,” Sam tells us.

  “Dang it all!” I am feeling more upset for me than him. After I got back to the fort, I planned to feed Woody and then the two of us would head over to the Triple S and sit on the steps of Sam’s cabin and talk about Mama’s passing. He has to know that she died and just didn’t say anything to us because he didn’t want to take away our hope. Our Speranza. Now he’s gone and ruined it all.

  “What did you do?” I say. “Did you fall off the wagon?” I picture him and Curry over at the carnival grounds. Did that hobo say something to get him mad? Then Sam planted his fist on his chin and the sheriff was called in? Yes. That must be what happened. That’s why Curry was over at Beezy’s. He was apologizing to her for getting Sam arrested. But they all looked so friendly when I was watching them through my binoculars. I’m confused. “Did you get in a fight with Curry Weaver?”

  Sam gives me an incredulous look. “Why would you think. . . it’s . . . it’s not like that.”

  “Well, then how is it?” I ask, practically feeling the steam coming out of my ears.

  “Shen . . . somebody reported to the sheriff that I had something to do with the disappearance of your mother,” he says.

  “What? Why that’s . . .” I grab on to the half-raised car window to keep myself from tipping over backwards. “That’s—”

  “Real wrong,” E. J. says, running over to the driver’s side of the car. “Beg your pardon, but that’s not right, Sheriff Nash. Sam and Miss Evelyn were the best of friends. They spent every Tuesday after—”

  “E. J.!” I shriek, giving him the cut-throat sign over the roof of the car.

  He looks back at me, stricken. “I mean . . . they knew each other a little but not so much that—”

  “Calm down, son,” Sam says with a hint of a smile. “You’re going to blow a gasket.”

  No matter how hard we were trying to keep Sam and Mama’s friendship on the q.t., seems like somebody found out. And unwitting E. J. has just confirmed it.

  “Sheriff,” I say, putting on my most powerful Carmody smile, “I don’t know who it was that told you Sam had something to do with my mother’s disappearance, but whoever it was, they’re mistaken.”

  Andy Nash doesn’t acknowledge me. He stares straight through the windshield and says, “I think you better go home now, Miss Shen.”

  Vera, who must’ve been watching what was unfolding from behind Slidell’s plate-glass window, juts her head out the drugstore door and says, “Everything all right out here?”

  Gazing into his light-colored eyes, I ask, “Is it, Sam?”

  “If you could run over to the station to feed Wrigley, that would be much appreciated. And don’t worry.” And then to the sheriff he says, “All right, Andy.”

  When the car pulls away from the curb, I’m shivering in my sneakers, but not because I think that Sam had something to do with my mother’s passing. I know he didn’t. There was somebody back in the clearing with Papa that night, but it wasn’t Sam. There is no way he could’ve made it all the way back to his cabin by the time I told Woody that I’d go looking when she was wailing, “Mama . . . gone.” I don’t care if Sam did answer his cabin door sweaty and with a shotgun.

  E. J. is watching the county car disappear behind the courthouse. That’s where the jail is, down in the basement. He’s looking like he hopes a truck comes by and runs him down.

  “I see that accusin’ look on your face.” He comes fast to my side, waving his hands like he’s got something awful stuck to them.

  “You two, keep your voices down and get your butts in here.” I forgot about Vera. She’s still standing in Slidell’s open door in her peach waitress outfit and white shoes. “Got two brown cows already made up,” she says, and goes back into the shop looking vexed.

  E. J., who normally wouldn’t have to be told twice when it comes to anything as delicious as one of Vera’s root beer floats, doesn’t budge.

  I say, “You heard Sam. Somebody already reported to the sheriff about Mama and his friendship. What you said makes no difference at all. At least you didn’t mention that she’s dead.” I have never seen E. J. cry. Not even when he got bit by that sick dog and had to have those shots in his stomach. He’s got to be thinking the same way I am about how bad this could be. I guarantee you it’s halfway through town already that half-breed Sam Moody has been taken in for questioning in the disappearance of the white wife of Walter T. Carmody. Of course, I’m mad that he blabbed, but I can also feel his upset. E. J. panicked when he saw Sam in the back of the car, that’s all. Under normal circumstances, he is very tight-lipped. I knock his coonskin cap off his head so he can bend down and wipe off his watering eyes without me noticing. Opening the drugstore door, I say, “Ya hear that?”

  E. J. shakes his head about off.

  “Are you tellin’ me that ya can’t hear two brown cows mooing their heads off?”

  “Shen—”

  “Shut up and get in there, you fool,” I say, giving him a kick in the keester.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It’s ten past closing at Slidell’s.

  The tan counter with the red vinyl stools runs along the right wall of the shop. The lights are off, except for the one above the grill, but I can still see the aisles chock-full of soaps and hot-water bottles and coloring pads and crayons and anything else you might need. In the way back of the shop is where Mr. Slidell sits on a stool and doles out his pills. He’s a grouch. Vera told me that he’s all the time crabby because he’s been married to his wife too long. That I can understand. Sara Jane Slidell is the treasurer of the Ladies Auxiliary. She always went out of her way to be snooty to Mama, who she referred to as “the gal from up North.” It didn’t seem to bother our mother all that much when Mrs. Slidell was rude to her, but it did me. (I might’ve dropped a box of weed killer in her award-winning rose garden one night. I’m not saying that I did. But I might’ve. Twice.)

  E. J. and I are dawdling near the front door, not exactly sure what to do. We’ve never been in here when it’s empty. The drugstore, especially the lunch counter, is usually bustling. When Papa was still sitting behind the bench, he almost always came home to check up on Mama’s whereabouts when Saint Pat’s bells struck twelve. Then he’d come back here to join the other members of the Men’s Club who traditionally eat breakfast at Ginny’s Diner and meet again at Slidell’s counter at noon. That’s how Vera knows His Honor personally. She serves him his tuna fish on toast, no pickle, no chips.

  Vera looks up from the counter she’s wiping with a checkered red towel and calls, “What are you waitin’ for? An engraved invitation?”

  Vera is twenty-eight years old, but looks younger with that pinkish skin that strawberry blondes have, a smattering of fairy kisses across her nose and eyes the color of a July sky. These days she’s a wonderful cook, but Beezy told me that she used to work entertaining the sailor boys over in Norfolk, where there’s the world’s largest naval base. Vera’s tough in her personality on the outside. Rough trade, you know. But on the inside, she is as mushy as one of her marshmallow cloud sundaes. She’s an animal lover, just like Woody and Mama. Over at her place, there’s a parrot named Sunny Boy living in a wrought-iron cage. He can say, “Ahoy, sailor, hop aboard,” and a few other things that I’m not allowed to repeat. Vera told Woody and me that she moved from Norfolk to Lexington “to get a new lease on life,” and now she works at Slidell’s and sings in the church choir. That’s how her and Mama became friends. They met over “Amazing Grace.” The Auxiliary Ladies don’t like Vera neither, but their husbands sure do. They’ll drop their keys on the other side of the counter and look up her skirt when she bends over to pick them up. As Grampa likes to put it, Vera is “built like a brick shithouse.”

  Sausage cu
rls are escaping from her hairnet and her red fingernail polish is chipped at the tips. “What was that all about? With the sheriff and Sam?” she asks, setting down the two brown cows.

  I can’t look at E. J. when I explain, “Somebody told the sheriff about Sam and Mama’s friendship.” (I’m not sure if Vera knows that her good friend is dead. She probably does since she’s tight with Beezy, but unless she says something, I’m not going to tell her that Mama’s passed. That would be mean.) “He’s takin’ Sam in for questioning in her disappearance.”

  “Admiral Jesus H. Christ,” Vera says, very rattled. The lines between her eyes look like her first initial—V. “That changes things.”

  I take a slurpy sip of the float and say, “Not really. I’m sure it’s just routine.” But then suddenly, something pretty bad occurs to me. What if the sheriff knows that Mama is dead, too? If he does, then I know from spending many hours in my father’s courtroom that the first thought that will come to his mind is foul play. Law-men can’t help it. They’re born suspicious. That’s why they become policeman and not poets. Yes, murder is what will dart across the sheriff’s mind. Before Papa threw our television set out the window, my favorite show was Mannix. When people went missing in that show, every stinking time they never made it back home alive. Joe Mannix would look and look, but those missing loved ones always turned up shot in an alley or stabbed on a park bench or smothered in their sleep the way Yolanda Merriweather was by her husband, Jimmy.

  Seems like when a wife gets murdered, it’s almost always by her husband, but Papa didn’t do that to Mama. The most superior court judge in Rockbridge County placed his hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the law, not break it, no matter how furious he got at his willful wife. His Honor could lash out at her, even kick her when she was down, but he could never take her life.