Marty frowned, making the gash in his face start bleeding again. “I come all this way, just to hear that bad news and get tossed around by a damn windstorm.”
“Look, we don’t know who you are and have no interest in your business,” Justin said. “We just want to preserve the integrity of Rumton and a casino doesn’t mesh with that goal. Were you going to build a retirement community, too?”
“Nah, those blueprints were just to show the mayor and Aaron Ackworth, to make them think that’s what Lester planned to build.”
“So who came up with the casino scheme?” Justin said.
“Lester and his buddy, the senator. Ackworth turned them on to Rumton, which would have made an ideal location. My people were just supposed to provide the backing to make it all happen.” Sighing, Marty pulled the flash drive out of my laptop and pocketed it. “We got to start being more careful about who we do business with.”
I shivered, wishing Aaron had never crossed paths with Lester. “Well, the casino isn’t going to happen, but you’ve got your key fob back.”
Marty shrugged, deciding to cut his losses. “I’m out of here.”
Lester spoke up, weakly. “You leaving me to die, Marty?”
“Got no use for you and the old Indian man anymore.”
Pop’s shotgun remained on Marty. “Old Indian man?”
“Lester has documentation to prove his father is from an extinct tribe. We just had to wait for the legislation to go through, which would give the tribe federal recognition. Then we could put the plan into action, and we’d already have the tribal-owned land on which to build the casino.”
Disgusted, Pop shook his head.
“You people never seen me. And I never seen you. Far as Lester goes, nobody’s going to see him again.” He aimed the gun to kill Lester, but Lester was gone. A trail of blood led to the front door.
Cursing, the mobster ran into the kitchen and kicked the ax out of place. The door swung open and beautiful early morning twilight filtered in as he slipped out and headed for the driveway. We caught a glimpse of a jacked up jet black Hummer leaving, bouncing over fallen pine trees.
It neared seven in the morning and I thought with joy that we were all going to live. The bad guy hadn’t shot anyone. We’d made it through Hailey. The house hadn’t come apart, and the surge hadn’t flooded us out. And even though Lester was still out there somewhere, he was injured and being chased by a pissed off mobster.
Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we slowly went outside. Lakes of standing water surrounded the house, and it looked like a war zone. Downed trees lay broken and twisted everywhere. A wooden fence post had pierced the wall of a storage shed, and stuck halfway into it like a toothpick in a chunk of cheese. Justin’s car rested on its roof, a few hundred yards from where he’d parked it. Somebody’s johnboat hung from the branches of an oak tree, and a section of Pop’s roof had blown off a corner of his attic and lay in a heap at the end of the driveway.
But I looked up and saw heaven. A clear blue sky, lightening with the sunrise. A stillness so perfectly quiet that I heard only the blood pumping through my body, and the sound of air moving in and out of my lungs. An immense and overwhelming sense of relief washed through me. Almost giddy, I felt more alive than ever before in my thirty-one years. I reached for Justin’s hand, and intertwining my fingers with his, realized I wanted to spend time with him. Much, much, much more time.
“Let’s get inside,” Pop said, and whistled for Flush and Bandit. “Won’t be long now before the rest of her moves over.”
“What?” I said, frozen in place.
He looked up. “We’re in the eye of the storm, Lass. Hailey hit us dead center on. Another fifteen or twenty minutes, the other half of her will move o’er us.”
Justin pointed to the horizon. In the distance, a vertical wall of solid grayish black cloud advanced steadily toward us. Lightning flashed deep within its guts, and mini funnels spun out of it, like spokes on a moving wheel.
I wanted to scream or cry, but was too flabbergasted to do anything other than stand there, unmoving.
Millie went back in the dark house first, and on either side of me, Pop and Justin put an arm around my shoulders to lead me in.
“No worries,” Pop said. “House took the first half of her without too much damage. We’ll get through the rest of her okay.”
“Have a piece of cake, and you’ll feel better,” Millie said. “I made it with a pineapple and cream cheese filling.”
Chapter 25
As Pop predicted, we did make it through the second half of Hailey and surprising myself, I actually slept through most of it. When she’d finished blasting Rumton and we ventured outside, the damage looked the same as it did during the eye of the storm. Only there was a lot more of it.
It was Monday afternoon, and the cloud cover rapidly dissipated to reveal a gorgeous sky. Birds returned to explore their new habitat, and a few animals, like squirrels and rabbits cautiously came out of hiding to investigate. We didn’t have electric or telephone, but I was thrilled to find that my satellite internet service worked fine. I went online and sent Sheila a short email to let her know we were okay, and that I’d call as soon as I found a working phone. Justin fired off a few emails of his own, to Avery and to the office, before removing boards from the windows so we could see inside the house without using flashlights. We showered in cold water, used jug water to brush our teeth, dressed and headed out to see who needed help. Justin loaded a chain saw, gas can, and ropes into the back of my Range Rover, and everyone except the cats piled in to go. A frazzled Bandit practically clung to Pop but Flush jumped in as though we were off for a Sunday drive and hadn’t just been through hell.
Destruction lay scattered everywhere. A blanket of huge, uprooted trees and thick, broken foliage covered the ground, along with building debris and household items.
It was slow going, as we had to make several stops to clear fallen trees from the flooded roads, at least enough for a vehicle to pass through, and I quickly realized why Justin brought the chainsaw. Residents milled about, assessing damage and checking on each other. When they found something of value, they staged it in a central location, sort of like a lost and found, where people could claim what Hailey took. Elwood’s carvings had turned up everywhere, and stood in a line on somebody’s front lawn, a wooden army of animated characters. The cleanup effort was already underway.
When we stopped in front of Millie’s house, everyone fell silent. It had no roof at all, and most of the walls had ripped away from their foundation. We saw all the way through the house, to her back porch, where oddly, an unharmed wooden swing defiantly hung. Everything between us and the swing had been drenched and tossed around, like contents of a giant blender.
We got out for a better look and, in shock, Millie cried silent tears as the realization sunk in. Her house had been demolished. Sniffing, she suddenly straightened up, blew her nose loudly, and stomped straight through the standing water and debris to her back porch.
“I love this swing,” she declared, and sat down to swing. Putting an arm around her, Pop sat, too. I kept my fingers crossed that the bit of framework holding it up by chains didn’t come crashing down on them.
“Well, Maddie,” Pop said after a while. “You can live with me. I’ve got plenty of room. And my place needs a woman’s touch.”
Wiping away a stray tear, she nodded. “Darn right it does! I could do a lot with that old house.”
“Maybe we’ll decide to open that bed and breakfast, after all, if you want to cook for the people.”
Millie’s face brightened. “Really?”
He patted her back and she kissed his face and I was the one who wanted to cry. Pop and Justin unhooked the porch swing and loaded it into the Range Rover, securing the hatchback with rope. With Justin at the wheel and Flush in the back seat between me and Millie, we continued downtown.
The storm had flattened a string of buildings, and their cinderblock foo
tprints were all that remained. But luckily, they were old retail shops, vacant for years. We were relieved to find the brick movie theater still standing, seemingly untouched. Already at her post inside the ticket window, Amy handed out free cases of bottled water. Volunteer firefighters compiled lists of which residents needed help covering broken windows, or roofs, or clearing fallen trees from their driveways and roads. Or, in some cases, needed a place to live. But miraculously, they told us, not a single person in Rumton had been seriously injured or lost their life to Hailey. The police chief and a crew of volunteers were out making the rounds, and reported in on battery operated two-way radios. It looked as though Rumton had been very fortunate.
We made it to Chat ‘N Chew to find a crowd gathered around something on the sidewalk. I thought it might be an injured animal, the old black and tan basset hound perhaps, and ran up to take a look. Mumbling incoherently, Lester sat propped against the brick wall, tied up with what looked like a pair of trousers and a tablecloth. I wasn’t even going to ask whose pants they were.
“Hiya, Hon!” Bull shouted. “Everybody okay at Pop’s?”
“Aye,” Pop said, walking up with Millie, the two of them holding hands. “What happened ‘ere?”
“Lester got caught up in Hailey’s back side, and ended up here, lookin’ like a drowned, beat up possum.”
“And Bull tackled him!” someone said.
Bull hooted. “Yep, I sure did. Took him down, just like I did with Bucky Junior that time he got all liquored up at his mama’s party. After what Pop told me on the phone, I wasn’t letting this shyster get away!”
“Somebody shot him in the shoulder,” Gertrude yelled. “Bleeding’s done stopped, though.”
Bull nodded. “Wonder if it was his friend, who shot him?”
“Friend?” Justin said.
“Short fellow in a parka. He come bustin’ in here with a gun drawn and said he was looking for his friend Lester to settle up on something. But when the guy saw Lester, he put his gun away and doubled over, laughing like crazy. Said something about the wrath of the people in this town being a fate worse than death. Whatcha suppose he meant by that?”
Since the electric had gone out, and her generator powered the walk-in cooler, Bull enlisted some help and fired up a giant grill outside, to cook the contents of her freezer. Anybody that cared to stop by got a free meal or a plate to go. Our crowd gratefully accepted hotdogs, including Flush and Bandit. As soon as we ate, we crept towards Devil’s Tail, slowed by pools of receding flood waters.
Even with the four wheel drive vehicle and chain saw, it was rough going. We had trouble locating the original dirt road, but Pop navigated and Justin maneuvered the vehicle in the direction of the shipwreck site. The jagged bottom halves of snapped pine trees stuck out of the ground everywhere, and the previously dense foliage surrounding them had been stripped to reveal bare limbs. We drove through mud and water until it became unsafe to do so, and found a patch of high ground to park on.
When we came to a stop, Flush jumped out and took off to investigate. Much calmer after being out in sunshine, Bandit let go of Pop and followed the dog. I heard barking, and then a belly-flop splash. We got out to spot a narrow creek of flowing water, about fifteen or twenty feet wide. Dog paddling right down the center of it, Flush chased a floating stick. It moved faster than he did, though, and spiraled in a mini eddy when it hit a wall of oncoming saltwater. Like a giant funnel, the creek opened into a wide, winding channel that churned muddy water through it.
“Lord God Almighty,” Pop said. “It worked.”
“It’s open! Devil’s Tail is open!” I jumped up, slipped and fell on my butt, completely not caring about the mud or the bruise that would come. “I can’t believe it worked!” Justin pulled me off the ground and into a hug.
Laughing, he wiped a glop of mud from my chin. “That’s Skirr Creek, flowing from the waterway. Only before, it was a trickle. Now it’s wide and deep enough to feed the canal.” He shook his head, looking very much like Pop. “I’ll be dammed.”
“So the canal winds eastward to the ocean, right?” I said. “And it’s big enough for boats, right?”
“Aye,” Pop said, wiping an eye with the backside of his hand. “Bout a mile of winding, I’d imagine. And plenty big enough for fishing boats.”
“Then this is where our marina should go,” Millie said.
Pop nodded, agreeing.
In awe, we stood and stared and dreamt of Rumton’s marina. And then we looked around, and realized all the wreckage we’d piled into a giant heap was no longer there. The remains of The Aldora had vanished.
Pop smiled. “Ocean took her back.”
Dripping wet, Flush bounded up to us and shook his entire body, starting with his head, to spray a wide arc of muddy water. Following Flush, Bandit appeared, and scampered up Pop’s body to sit on his shoulder. Chirping happily, she clutched something between her front paws. Justin took the shiny object, and grinning, handed it to Pop.
“What is it?” Millie and I said together.
Green eye sparkling, Pop flipped the item high into the air and caught it. “Gold coin of some sort.”
Chapter 26
Hailey made headlines worldwide and journalists couldn’t quit talking about her. Millie flipped off the television. The day was cooler than usual, but pleasant, and we’d decided to walk to the town meeting. As we headed out, Pop told Flush to stay. Content to lay in the yard, he barked once at the cats, but didn’t bother to chase them. Pop had talked Millie into letting her cats outdoors. Which reluctantly, she did. And they loved it. They weren’t de-clawed, and their favorite place to hang out was the sprawling live oak in front of Pop’s house. Millie’s swing hung from the same tree, and she’d sit and read while Bandit and the cats frolicked above her.
It was Wednesday, and I had another glorious two weeks in town, after which I would travel on an as-needed basis. In light of new information, and a recommendation from Justin, Shine partners approved reinstating the Rumton revitalization project and agreed for Justin to remain as well. If we played our hand right, it could mean national headlines for the agency, which translated to a good dose of prestige and almost guaranteed new business. Although distraught about Aaron’s resignation from the firm, the partners were very happy with me.
The meeting had been called on a day’s notice and I kept my fingers crossed for a good turnout at the movie house. We were officially announcing the reinstatement of the revitalization project, even though everybody already knew everything. They knew Millie had moved in with Pop and wanted to open a bed and breakfast, they knew water flowed through Devil’s Tail, they knew about Lester and his foiled plan, and they knew the whole Emerald Eye story. As I’d learned, Rumton didn’t do secrets very well. The only thing they weren’t aware of was the possibility that Flush’s food bowls might be valuable Ding ware, and that if they were, Pop planned to put all the money into the revitalization effort, in the form of a charitable foundation.
A string of cars, trucks, one riding lawn mower, and two horses greeted us when we turned the corner. It looked like the entire population had come, and my heart pounded from nerves. I’d wanted a good turnout, but this big of a crowd meant one of two things. Either the people were fully behind me, or they were ready to chase me out of town. There would be no middle ground. A fleet of generators sat side-by-side near the front doors, and were careful to step over the tangle of cords.
“There she is now,” Gertrude yelled, when we went inside. “With Justin, her new beau! I told you it had to be somebody from ‘round here!”
“He’s from Atlanta, Gertrude,” somebody countered. “They work together at that agency.”
“Well sure, he hangs with them prissy city boys,” Gertrude relented. “But he’s a Rumton man. Heck, him and Avery practically grew up here.”
We made rounds in the lobby, circulating and shaking hands, while Pop introduced me to people I’d not yet met. The volunteer squad hustled to serve
drinks and generator-powered popcorn, and one of them told me they hadn’t been as busy in years. The big rubber boot was already half full, and the meeting hadn’t begun yet.
Fifteen minutes later, Councilwoman Delores called the unofficial gathering to order and thanked everyone for coming. The first thing she did was ask the police chief for an update on Lester. Acting as though he’d single-handedly broken the case wide open, he explained what I’d suspected all along – Lester Spear Smoak was a con artist and a criminal. He’d been arrested on several charges, but the first degree murder of Riley topped the list. Currently incarcerated at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, he remained in their hospital. The chief went on to say that the feds were interested in Lester, as was the state of Texas.
“Be fine with me if the rat ends up in a Texas jailhouse,” Millie said from her theater seat. “Those Texans don’t mind executing’ a prisoner!”
The chief finished by recognizing Bull for restraining Lester at the Chat ‘N Chew until county law enforcement arrived to haul him away. Cheers and whistles followed, and Bull stood up to take a roundhouse bow.
And then it was time for me and Justin to talk. He started by tossing out a few statistics on other small towns who’d turned around their economic situation by implementing a revitalization plan. Then he turned the podium over to me and I looked into the faces of some two hundred people.
“I’ve learned so much since coming to Rumton last month,” I began, “and I can’t even put into words how thankful I am to have had this opportunity. But what we need to discuss today, is whether or not you like the idea of turning Rumton into a themed town to attract visitors. No big developments, no high-rises, no shopping malls…; but rather small, quaint shops and attractions that will bring in families who want a friendly, unique experience. Families who will spend a night or two, and spend some discretionary dollars.” I took a deep breath, and told them about several small towns that catered to tourists in unique ways. If we capitalized on the pirate theme, I told them, we’d be enhancing and actually preserving the town’s identity by resurrecting its roots.
Carolina Booty Page 24
