AHMM, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Why? Was the bus late?"

  "She was early, didn't know ‘xactly what time it came, so she had to wait."

  "She sat there all the time, right there in that chair?"

  "No, after a while she went outside and walked up and down the street for a while. Watchin’ for it, I'd guess."

  "So she got on the bus.” She didn't make it question.

  "Well, the bus came in. The driver got out and took off the bundles of newspapers and stacked them outside my door like he always does. Right there where the newspaper boys come and pick them up. Then the driver, he got in and drove off."

  "And she was on the bus?"

  "A'course she was. When the bus drove off, she wasn't here no more."

  She looked at her watch. It was time to get back and get her bread in the oven. There wasn't time for any more questions and she couldn't think of any more. Anyway, it was settled. Thora had left, and hopefully, Anna would eventually get over it.

  Thomas, too, she hoped.

  * * * *

  After she delivered her loaves of bread to the school, Bertha decided to stay around during lunch hour so she could watch for Thomas and Anna. Lunch was almost over before she saw Thomas. He was coming in through the main doors.

  "Thomas, stop a minute."

  Thomas stopped and smiled, but it wasn't as wide as it usually was.

  "I was looking for Anna too. Do you think you could bring her by my place on the way home from school?"

  "She, um, didn't come to school today, either."

  "Oh . . .” Bertha paused for a moment to consider the implications of that. “Do you think she's all right?"

  It was Thomas's turn to think about what he was about to say. She could see the look of anxiety on his face as he began slowly.

  "Last night, Mr. Tullis, well, he got in a screamin’ fit. He was shoutin’ your name a couple times too. My mom, she heard it too."

  Thomas stood there as if he had transferred his burden to Bertha.

  "You gonna do something, Aunt Bertha?"

  "Thomas, I talked to Mr. Adams down at the tourist cabins. He says Thora got on the bus and left."

  "Anna, she don't think so."

  "It's been a great shock to her. It will take her a while to adjust."

  Thomas just shrugged his shoulders.

  "You run along now, and stay out of trouble."

  He went, but she thought he was dragging his heels as he walked down the hall toward his classroom. He stopped just before he got there, turned, and ran out the side door of the school. She thought she knew where he was going and what he was going to do. Nevertheless, she wasn't sure she approved. Sluffing, for whatever reason, was still sluffing.

  She also thought about her parting advice to him. It was good advice, and she ought to be taking it herself, washing her hands of the whole Anna thing. But a moment later, she recalled her conversation with Adams. It didn't take much thinking to realize he hadn't actually said he saw her climb on the bus. Only that she was gone when the bus left.

  Another thought, a darker one, occurred to her. Only reluctantly, she considered it. And only reluctantly decided there was another errand she ought to do.

  * * * *

  The feed store where Dave Henley said Tullis worked was located on a railroad spur about a quarter of a mile from town. Bertha parked her car in the shade of a grain elevator and opened her car door. She hesitated for a last minute conference with herself. What she was about to do was certainly crossing the line into serious meddling. But it was a short conference. She stepped out of her car, closed the door, and walked quickly to the entrance.

  Inside, she looked around to see if Tullis was where he might see her. He wasn't, and she headed directly for a small office in one corner. The door was open and she stopped in the opening.

  "I'm looking for the manager,” she said to a man sitting behind a desk.

  "Ma'am? How may I help you?"

  "I want to talk to you about someone who works for you."

  The man leaned his chair back and waited for her to say more.

  "Tullis is his name."

  "Tullis . . . humff . . . you mind telling me what your interest is?"

  "I was wondering about his schedule. Say, when he takes his lunch hour. It has to do with his daughter,” Bertha said, and lowered her chin and looked at him past lowered eyebrows.

  After a pause, he let his chair tilt forward and pointed toward the front of the store.

  "You see that little cashier woman out there? Think she could carry a hundred-pound bag of chicken feed out to somebody's car? Well, she's had to try it a few times. Same with me. And then I'd find Tullis off asleep in some corner. ‘S okay for me to tote things once in a while, but I hire a warehouseman so's she don't have to do that. I fired the lazy son-of-a—” He paused, remembering his manners in front of a lady. “—lazy son-of-a-gun three days ago."

  "So he was working here on Monday?"

  "Was, till about two o'clock. Supposed to take lunch at twelve, but he probably slept through it. Came by around two to say he was going for lunch, breath so strong, would've wilted an apple tree. I told him t’ go ahead, but he didn't need to bother coming back."

  Bertha added this bit of information to what she had already accumulated, and sighed heavily as she considered what it meant.

  "Well, I thank you for your time."

  "You're not here to ask me to hire him back, are you?"

  "No."

  "Humff . . . good. Man's as lazy as a hound dog in the sun. Even when he's sober."

  As she walked back to her car, she made up her mind.

  It was clear Tullis wasn't at work when Thora either got on that bus . . . or didn't.

  * * * *

  Returning from the feed store, Bertha's most direct route took her past the auto camp on the outskirts of town. If he had left the feed store at two, she thought, Tullis might have been driving by at the same time the bus was due. That made it important to find out what Mr. Adams had really seen. She quickly applied the brakes and stopped at the tourist cabins again.

  She spoke to him as he approached his office, coming from the line of cabins.

  "Tell me again about Thora Tullis getting on the bus, Mr. Adams."

  "What's so danged important about that?"

  "Just tell me what you saw. Exactly what you saw."

  "Just what I already told you."

  "What time did the bus leave that day?"

  "Schedule says it's supposed to leave at two o'clock ever’ day."

  "And what time did it actually leave?” Her tone required a more exact answer.

  He thought a moment. Deciding, perhaps, whether to answer at all.

  "Well, it mighta’ been a little after . . . probably five or ten after, maybe. Maybe more. Th’ driver was hurryin', gettin’ the papers off, tryin’ t’ make up the time."

  "And did you actually see her step up onto the bus?"

  He hesitated for a long moment, very much aware that Bertha was giving him her schoolteacher's stare again.

  "Well, no . . . I guess not. Not to see her actually climb on the bus, that is. I'm a busy man, can't stand around watchin’ every li'l thing alla’ time.” He hurried to add, in his slightly whiny voice, “But she was here in plenty of time for it. She waited for it. A’ course she got on it. Sure she did. Why wouldn't she?"

  She heard him, but about half his protests were delivered to her back.

  * * * *

  This time she found Dave Henley in his equipment shed trying to figure out why his tractor engine was running on only two of its four cylinders.

  "Never had this kind of trouble with a horse when I was a kid,” he said. “If a horse couldn't work, he was sick or he was dead, and it was easy to tell which was which."

  "If you were back to horses, you'd be complaining about all the feed you'd be stuffing in him all winter."

  Dave smiled. “I remember my dad doing just that. He bought one of the first tractors in the coun
ty. You come looking for me or the marshal again?"

  "The marshal. We've got to find Anna Tullis and talk to her."

  She told him about Anna's absence from school again today and about the shouting match Thomas had heard the evening before. And of Tullis's late evening visit demanding to come in and look for something Anna left.

  "Did she leave anything?"

  "Not that I could see."

  "Strange behavior, but I don't—"

  "I went over to talk to the manager of the feed store. He told me he fired Tullis, and it was the same day Thora bought her ticket for the bus. And in plenty of time for him to have driven by and seen Thora waiting for it. On top of that, I just talked to Adams. When it came right down to it, he can't swear he saw Thora climb up and get onto the bus."

  The marshal thought about that for a moment.

  "Could also mean she got on that bus and Tullis came home after he was fired and found her gone and just went off to find a little taste. Although, bein’ illegal and all, where he gets the stuff is anybody's guess."

  "We have to talk to Anna.” Bertha paused to lower her chin and look at him through lowered eyebrows. “Even if Thora got on that bus, the child needs help."

  Dave took a long look at his tractor before he turned to face Bertha.

  "Guess it wouldn't hurt to pay a call . . . at least, see why she's not in school."

  * * * *

  Dave walked back from the Tullis residence and leaned on the window of Bertha's car. She had followed him, but at his insistence had waited in her car.

  "Nobody answered to my knock, front or back. But the back door was open a bit. I walked through the house. No one there, Tullis or the girl. Place looks empty. From the looks of things, he's packed up and gone. Car is gone too."

  "What do you suppose has happened?"

  "I think he's just decided to leave town and move on. That's probably why she wasn't in school today. Maybe he heard of work somewhere. Wouldn't be the first to pull up stakes."

  "I'm still worried about the girl."

  "They've gone. Why don't you go on home? I'll let you know if I hear anything different."

  Reluctantly, Bertha drove away. She tried to convince herself Dave was probably right. Tullis was just going to try his hand somewhere new. Maybe it would be better for Anna, too, she thought, to start again someplace that didn't carry so many memories of Thora.

  * * * *

  It wasn't until she had almost reached her kitchen door that she noticed something was wrong. The screen door was standing open, its spring disconnected. And her back door was slightly ajar. A closer look revealed one of the panes of glass had been broken out.

  She stopped, feeling almost as if a giant fist had slugged her a good one. This sort of thing was unheard of in this town. Who would do such a thing? Hardly a second later, she had a pretty good idea who would do such a thing and she stepped back, wondering whether Tullis was still in town, or heaven forbid, still waiting inside.

  After a few seconds she heard footsteps behind her. She turned.

  "He's gone, Aunt Bertha. He drove away,” said Thomas.

  "Mr. Tullis? He was here?"

  "We saw him coming and hid in your old granary. We watched through the cracks. He broke the glass and went right in."

  "'We,’ meaning you and—"

  "Yeah. I've been helping her hide out."

  The broken window quickly forgotten, Bertha hurried to the granary.

  Anna came out of the door, shoulders hunched as when Bertha had last seen her. Bertha put a comforting arm around the girl.

  "What happened?"

  The only response was a quiet sob. Thomas spoke at her elbow.

  "Her pa said they were goin’ t’ move. She didn't want to."

  Anna made a slight nod to affirm Thomas's statement.

  "Come in, Anna. I'll bet you haven't had anything to eat all day. We'll get you something and then you can rest a bit."

  Anna nodded and moved toward the house and Bertha leaned over to whisper into Thomas's ear.

  "I want you to go to your folks's phone and call Dave Henley. He's probably home by now. Think you can tell him what's been happening?"

  Thomas paused only long enough to glance once at Anna before he nodded and took off at a run. Bertha shuddered and hoped he would hurry. She didn't know what she'd do if Tullis showed up looking for Anna.

  * * * *

  The doors were locked, the broken pane covered by a piece of cardboard cut from an old cardboard box and held in place by carpet tacks. Bertha knew it wouldn't keep anyone out, but it was comforting to have it closed.

  Her guess that Anna hadn't eaten anything all day was correct, and Bertha had made food her first order of business. On short notice, it was only bread, butter, and honey, and a little warm milk. But it was enough to make Anna a little sleepy.

  Now, with her stove poker standing by her back door in case of need, Bertha set about preparing a good thick soup. But she was often interrupted. Every time she heard the sound of a car, she rushed to a window to see whose it might be. At the same time, she kept an eye on her backyard. And on Anna, who was still peacefully asleep. Time was trickling by, and she was worried because it was getting dark and she hadn't heard anything from Dave, or even a report back from Thomas.

  She was just moving the pot to a cooler part of her stove when a car approached and stopped in front of her house. She held her breath as three of the car's doors opened, then let it out as she saw the driver was Thomas's father. He was accompanied by one of his neighbors and Thomas. The two adults were armed, one with a shotgun and the other with a rifle. She met them on her front porch.

  "The marshal told us what's been happening,” said Thomas's father as he climbed the front steps. “He thought a couple of us ought to, well, watch out here. Maybe even—” He paused to take a quick look around the neighborhood. “—spend the night watchin’ your place."

  "Then Tullis, he's not . . ."

  "Uh . . . well, they're not sure where he is.” he said. “They found his car broke down a while ago, and then Jake Gourley said somebody stole his DeSoto. That Adams feller, runs the auto camp, claims he saw Tullis drivin’ outta town in a DeSoto a while ago. Dave and the sheriff's people would like to talk to Tullis about that, too, so they're out lookin', watchin’ the roads. But the marshal, he thought we ought to come over here anyway and, y’ know, keep an eye on things."

  "Well, I'm certainly glad to see you fellows."

  Bertha briefly considered how reliable Mr. Adams's report might be but didn't pursue it. Instead, she turned to Thomas.

  "You're helping too?"

  "Only for a while,” his father answered, “then he's going home."

  The boy looked away, disappointed, and slumped onto the top step. The two men picked up their guns, nodded to each other, and glared seriously into the darkening streets surrounding the house.

  * * * *

  After her nap, Anna seemed more relaxed and she sat quietly at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Bertha's soup. Thomas had been invited in for a bowl of soup, too, but he had finished his and had been dispatched to refill the coal bucket for the kitchen stove. When he returned with it, he stood by the stove, not sure whether he should sit down again or to rejoin the men on the front porch. Bertha's attention was on the girl.

  "Anna, why were you looking for your mother?"

  Anna glanced at Thomas before answering in a small voice.

  "'Cause I thought she's somewhere. Hiding from Daddy, maybe."

  "Why did you think that?"

  "'Cause I found her things."

  "Thora's things? Where?"

  "In Daddy's car. I told him, an’ he got real mad."

  Over the next few minutes, Bertha listened as the girl, a few sentences and fragments at a time, told enough for Bertha to piece together what had been happening. That morning, Tullis had announced they were moving to another city and told Anna to pack her things. She refused and quickly ran out of the
house and hid in various places until Thomas found her later in the day.

  The whole thing had started a few days before when she had come home from school to find a note from Thora saying she was leaving. When she showed it to her father, he became angry and began to blame Anna.

  The next day when she came home from school, he started in again, blaming Anna for her mother's wanting to run out like she did. After a while, she had gone out to the car to hide, crouching down in the back seat. It was almost dark when she noticed a few of her mother's things on the floor between the front seats. She had gathered them up and put them in her purse. The next morning when she looked at them in the light, she saw they were things she thought Thora would have taken.

  That was when she began to think Thora hadn't gone away, but was hiding somewhere. She decided not to tell her father right away. Instead, she just wanted to find her stepmother. It wasn't until she had returned home from Bertha's house the evening before that she told her father exactly what she had found in the car.

  ". . . but I wouldn't tell where I hid ‘em,” she said.

  Tullis had probably searched his own house and hadn't found them, Bertha thought, and had come here as a likely place to look. He must have thought Anna had really found some kind of evidence that Thora hadn't gotten on the bus. But Dave might say that any of Thora's belongings could have been left in the car at any time.

  "Where are they, these things?"

  "Here . . . I hid ‘em here."

  "Where? Will you show me?” Bertha said.

  Anna nodded. She went to the big kitchen stove, kneeled in front of it, and reached her hand under and in back of one of the fat, shiny legs at one corner. When she took it out, she was holding her purse, the one Bertha had seen her clutching the day before. She crossed back to the table, clicked open the snaps, and turned it upside down.

  At first only a few things fell out: a small mirror and a tattered lace handkerchief. Just what one might expect to find in a child's purse. But there was more. Another lace handkerchief, this one smelling of perfume, a shiny gold compact, a fairly new tube of lipstick, and a heavy silver ring with a large turquoise stone. The latter obviously not cheap costume jewelry, perhaps worth more than a few dollars. The weight and workmanship made them all clearly adult accessories. Anna shook the purse again and something else came out. It was a small piece of yellow cardboard. Bertha picked it up and turned it over a couple of times.