By and by, my womanly charms developed to their fullest. 36C, to be exact, with just the teensiest bit of surgical help. Mama drove me all the way down to an Atlanta to have my colors done by a fashion consultant and my cosmetics picked out by a professional make-up artist. The artist also taught me to apply false eyelashes to “accentuate the brightness of my grass-green eyes.”
I was, according to popular decree, the most feared rival in the Miss Bigelow County Pageant during the height of my reign back in the mid 1980s. Only Francine Quinlin from Mossy Creek with her waist-length blonde hair and big blue eyes came even close to measuring up, but my singing and dancing beat her baton twirling by a landslide in the talent category. That made me a vital part of Bigelow’s arsenal against our nemesis, Mossy Creek. Everyone in Bigelow loved me for it.
Future Governor Hamilton Bigelow himself—then a state senator and daddy’s first cousin twice removed—had a photo taken with me by his side. My, my, the sun fairly blazed within me then!
But two weeks before the pageant, God must have realized how prideful I’d become. Or maybe those lowlife, black-hearted Mossy Creekers—not ‘Creekites,’ as they like to call themselves, but ‘Creekers,’ pronounced ‘Crackers’ by Bigelowans— saw the chance to strike me down. It happened one evening when I was nineteen and had the bad judgment to cross through Mossy Creek territory alone. A tire on my mama’s Camaro picked up a nail and blew out on a back road. Having never changed a tire in all my born days, seeing as how there’d always been volunteers to do the chore right quick for me, I had no choice but to trek up to the historic Laslow farmhouse to use a phone.
Out of the evening shadows came a huge, snarling, teeth-baring beast from hell. The thing knocked me down and sank its fangs into me. Wasn’t until I woke up in the hospital with a hundred-some stitches in my face and throat that I learned what had attacked me. Tyrone Laslow’s rottweiler.
Folks from Bigelow maintain that Tyrone saw clear as day who was traipsing up to his door for help and took the opportunity to handicap Francine Quinlin’s chief rival. Tyrone swore it was just a case of a faithful but confused family dog attacking a stranger who was on his land. As if I’d been deliberately trespassing or something! My Bigelow kin, mostly lawyers and bankers, got Tyrone’s dog put to sleep and sued Tyrone into bankruptcy so that he lost the farm his family had owned for a hundred years. The Mossy Creekers despised the Bigelows for punishing Tyrone so badly for his dog’s misdeed. I think they felt sorry for the dog, too. But if the Creekers had any sympathy for me, I never knew it. And if the lawsuits on my behalf ever netted any money, I never saw a penny of it. Though my Bigelow lawyer seemed pleased.
I was ruined for life. My future as a beauty queen vanished like morning fog on a hot afternoon, what with all the scars puckering my skin from one cheek clear down to my collarbone.
It liked to have broke my mama’s heart. She stayed in bed for six weeks and cried every time she saw me.
Neighbors tended to avoid looking at me at all—not only because of the pity I stirred in them, but because I was a living reminder of how Mossy Creek robbed us of our rightful crown in the pageant that year. Any battle lost to the Mossy Creekers brings excruciating pain to the hearts of us Bigelowans.
I thought I’d hit rock bottom.
* * * *
That’s how I came to marry Bunkin Brown, the strong, quiet fella who worked in maintenance at a Bigelow rehab clinic, where I spent so much time. I’d known Bunkin at Bigelow High School. You can’t grow up in a small city like Bigelow and not know most of the boys in your own age group. But I’d never paid him any mind until then. I could date the finest and the brightest, and I did. Bunkin wasn’t much to look at, didn’t star on a varsity team, and his folks didn’t belong to the Bigelow Country Club. I did, by virtue of Daddy’s kin insisting that Mama and me always have a membership. I might not talk like high society, but thanks to the country club I can play a mean game of tennis and name the ten best white wines that go with fish. Not that those talents do me much good.
Anyhow, after my face was scarred, the other boys stopped coming around. Bunkin was the only person in the world who didn’t get a pinch-mouthed expression when he looked at me, or, worse yet, that glow of vindication some of my female visitors tried to hide. And those were Bigelowans. Imagine how Francine Quinlin must’ve gloated!
Bunkin was my salvation through those dark, dark times. He listened to my woes and said the scars didn’t make me any less pretty in his eyes.
Come to find out, he had mighty bad eyesight. But that didn’t stop me from marrying him. We moved to Gainesville—a bigger city than Bigelow and a good deal further south toward Atlanta—so he could find a better job, and I could get away from Bigelow, where my deformity seemed bigger than I was. We scraped by to make ends meet, but did well enough. Eventually I gave birth to two fine boys. There was something about being a wife and mother that suited me. Made my heart sing and dance, enough to put Elvis himself to shame.
Guess I was getting prideful again.
Fate slapped me down a second time.
* * * *
Bunkin fell off the roof of our house while fixing a leak and broke several bones, including his jaw, collarbone and spine. His jaw was wired shut, and he was encased in all manner of casts, the biggest of which he’d have to wear for ten months. My poor sweetheart would be in traction, unable to talk or move, except for one finger on his left hand. And since he couldn’t work, we were left with no income and a quickly dwindling savings account.
There was no help for it—we had to move back to Bigelow County. Bunkin’s Great Aunt Winnie, the only kin he had left, a sweet old lady living in Magnolia Manor Nursing Home, sold us the house she grew up in, with no down payment required and owner-financing at a very reasonable price.
Problem was, the house wasn’t located in the city of Bigelow, but in the town of Mossy Creek. And not on the outskirts, either, but smack dab in the center of the historic district, a stone’s throw from the shops on the square.
I was sure I’d hit rock bottom then. I’d be surrounded by my former beauty rivals and all those people who took sides against me after Tyrone Laslow’s dog nearly killed me. Mama, who’d kind of given up on me and moved to Atlanta in search of a husband, said she’d pray for us . . . especially for my little boys, who would have it the worst, she said, growing up in Mossy Creek with everyone knowing they were the sons of Tammy Jo Bigelow Brown.
I tried to keep calm last fall when Chip, my nine-year-old, started classes at Mossy Creek Elementary. I chewed my nails and thanked Jesus that at least Toby, my youngest, had a year or so before he’d have to go.
Sure enough, just as I’d expected, Chip was harassed by the other children. One bully actually badgered him into a fight. And when I called the principal, he refused to take proper action, like suspending the troublemaker. Instead, he locked up Chip and the bully in the same small room for detention after school, every day for a week.
I was furious and worried about Chip, and I threatened to sue the bully’s parents and the entire school system. My poor, cast-encased Bunkin, strung up in traction in his rented hospital bed, looked as upset by Chip’s ordeal as I was, his brow all wrinkled and his mouth crumpled around those wires in his version of a frown.
To make matters worse, my old rival, Francine Quinlin, sashayed past my house every afternoon on her way to lunch from her Aunt Pearl’s bookshop, looking as pleased as a pig in sunshine. And why shouldn’t she be tickled, flaunting her perfect face, fashionable new haircut and beauty-queen legs, which she made a point of displaying in short-shorts. Francine still looked like a teenage pageant queen, but I looked like I’d been whittled with a dull knife.
With Bunkin out of work I couldn’t afford to get my hair professionally cut anymore, and I’d noticed the start of a varicose vein in my right leg. At age thirty-four, I was a has-been in every way, and never felt it more keenly than when Francine strutted her stuff past my house.
I was miserable in Mossy Creek. And lonely inside my own face.
* * * *
The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, was carried into my life by a dog on the property adjoining ours, owned by retired Georgia Tech professor and Mossy Creek town councilman Egg Egbert. The dog was a big, mean, hell-spawn German Shepherd by the name of Killer. The first time I saw him, my youngest boy Toby and I had just come home from Mossy Creek Hardware and Gardening with a new hinge for the back door. No sooner had we stepped out of the car than Killer came charging at us from across Egg Egbert’s yard. I snatched Toby up into my arms and ran for dear life. That dog was less than a hair’s breadth from sinking his fangs into me when I reached my house and slammed the door.
Trembling so violently I could barely stand, I called Chief Royden at the police station, the Bigelow County Animal Control, and my next-door neighbor, Egg Egbert, Killer’s owner. I threatened every one of them with a lawsuit if that dog set foot on my property again.
“Mrs. Brown, that dog’s name is a joke,” old Professor Egbert insisted. “He’s not a killer. He’s about a thousand years old, he loves people, and he was just trying to play.”
“He attacked me. I know when a dog is attacking. I’ve got the scars to prove it, Professor.” And I hung up the phone.
All right, maybe I was a little hysterical, but I had good reason. I remembered that Tyrone Laslow said his rottweiler was a friendly family dog, and look what he did.
More importantly, I called Bigelow Security Systems, which is owned by one of my cousins in Bigelow, and ordered a high, sturdy steel-mesh fence with sharp barbed wire at the top. I charged it to my credit card and tried not to think about how it would take every penny of our savings to pay it off.
Life, limb and my children had to be my top priorities. I understood now, much clearer than before, that we were under siege in Mossy Creek from both human and canine enemies. Between killer dogs, unsympathetic neighbors, and schoolyard bullies, my children would never make it to adulthood alive unless I took extreme measures.
I explained those measures to Bunkin: I’d have that fence installed around the house, withdraw Chip from Mossy Creek Elementary, and teach the boys at home next year. They’d learn just as much from me as they could from Mossy Creek teachers, except I’d keep them safe.
I’ll never forget the look on my poor Bunkin’s face when he realized the seriousness of our situation. If he’d been able to cuss, he surely would have. He never has been the type to tolerate a threat against his family.
“You think I’m doing the right thing, don’t you, Bunkin?” I asked, needing a little moral support. It was a shame he couldn’t talk, or even write, being able to move only one finger. We had a way of conversing, though . . . by means of his finger movement. One crook of the finger meant yes, and two crooks meant no. The poor ol’ sweetheart was so overcome with worry, he repeatedly crooked his finger. Yes, yes. Yes, yes.
Chip was happy enough to stay home from school, and Toby was glad for the company, but when they realized they couldn’t leave our yard to play—and certainly couldn’t let any Mossy Creekers in—they moaned and grumbled about being bored and lonely and having no friends.
“You won’t find friends around here,” I told them. “You’ll have plenty of time to make friends when Daddy gets well and we move away from Mossy Creek.” I didn’t mention that would take at least two years, seeing as how Bunkin would be in that body cast for another eight months or so, then in therapy for a year after that.
The boys pouted, and Chip asked, “Can we have a dog of our own, then, Mama? He’ll be our friend.”
A dog, of all things.
“Absolutely not.” Fear shivered through me at the very thought. Every time I stepped outside my kitchen door, I saw Killer looking back at me from a dog run Professor Egbert had installed in his back yard. Killer yipped and wagged his gray-speckled tail, but I wasn’t fooled.
“A dog will turn on you in the wink of an eye,” I told my boys. “Never forget that, either of you.”
Bunkin clearly wanted to back me up on this, as he lay in his rented hospital bed blinking his eyes and wrinkling his forehead, his breath huffing and his throat working. Together, he and I stood fast against the boys’ pleading.
Young’uns don’t have a lick of sense when it comes to knowing who or what is good for them. As their mother, it was my God-sworn duty to protect them from harm . . . and I meant to do just that.
On Tuesday, a truck from Bigelow Security Systems delivered the steel mesh for our new fence—huge gray bundles of it that covered nearly our whole front yard. By Wednesday, word had spread around town about my plans, and I received phone calls from neighbors, nearby merchants and members of the Mossy Creek Historical Preservation Society.
Even Dwight Truman, president of Mossy Creek’s Chamber of Commerce, called to complain. ”You can’t put that fence up, Miz Brown. It’ll look like a prison. You’ll ruin the aesthetic value of the shops on the square. Besides, it’s against zoning codes. You’re in the historical section of town. No changes are allowed without a permit.”
“We’ll just see about that,” I answered. The workmen were scheduled for Monday week to install the fence, and I had no intention of canceling. And just in case anyone got the bright idea of physically interfering with the work, I reminded everyone who called that I wasn’t good with a gun, but right handy with knives. I’ve been known to have deadlier aim than Tell Chesney at his best in the annual dart tournament.
Folks passing by on the sidewalk paid heed to my warnings, I noticed, taking special care to avoid stepping across my property line, but a few of the most rabid historical preservationists and members of the Mossy Creek Social Society picketed on the street in front of the house.
It wasn’t an easy time for us. I fought my battles over the phone and yelled at the picketers from our front porch. The boys moped around, fought with each other and generally made nuisances of themselves. Bunkin looked blue-deviled all the time, and refused to talk—or in his case, crook his finger.
Who could blame him for being so upset, when we were besieged by enemies? I vowed to hold them off, to protect my loved ones, like a fortress made of steel.
Maybe I’d become too prideful yet again.
* * * *
On the Saturday morning before our fence was scheduled to be installed, I woke to find my boys missing. Missing! Both of them! Their beds were vacant, without a single clue as to where they’d gone. Fear gripped me like the jaws of a rottweiler. I swore to God that I’d gladly suffer any attack, bear up under any torture, if He’d only keep my boys safe and send them back to me.
Though I wasn’t very good with it, I loaded Bunkin’s rifle and set out to find them. I called their names as I searched my yard and the woods beyond, keeping a sharp watch-out for that killer dog—or bears, wildcats, any number of wild beasts that roam old Colchik and the other mountains that surround Mossy Creek. My mind painted frightful scenarios. One was the possibility that the boys had been kidnapped. I tried not to dwell on it, but when a body’s surrounded by enemies, it’s hard to believe that those enemies had nothing to do with a crisis in the making.
By ten o’clock, I’d worked myself into a pure panic. The neighbors, the picketers and other passersby heard me calling my boys and gathered around my yard, pretending concern and nosing around. I didn’t like that worth a damn but couldn’t stop to think about it much. I needed help.
I called family members and old-time friends in Bigelow, hoping I could get together a search party, or at least find someone to lend me moral support if I had to go the police.
Guess I’d forgotten how things are among my Bigelow kin—everyone was too busy with their own important lives to bother with a girl who’d failed them long ago. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.
“If the boys don’t come home soon, call the police,” was the best they offered.
Left with little choice, I finally did call for help. Officer M
utt Bottoms and his sister, Sandy Bottoms Crane—I didn’t know at the time that she was only the department’s dispatcher, not an officer—arrived moments later, both asking questions, jotting down notes, poking about in the boys’ bedrooms and insinuating that they had wandered off somewhere of their own volition.
“Boys’ll be boys, Tammy Jo,” said Sandy Crane. “We’ve got a lot of kids roaming around the mountains this summer. I started a kind of contest to see if anybody can find the bones of our lost carnival elephant. Your boys are probably off looking for ol’ Rose the elephant’s remains. Or they’re playing with friends.”
That only infuriated me. “They don’t have friends around here. And if you can’t find them, I’ll call in the GBI.” By that time, I was sure foul play was involved and only federal agents might listen to me. With each tick of the clock, my heart thudded harder and my fears grew more terrifying.
And my house filled up with more intruders. People came in without invitation—people I didn’t know, or hadn’t seen in years and didn’t care to see. Even Francine Quinlin, for God’s sake. She, along with the other women, talked on cell phones, asking mothers if they’d seen Chip and Toby, or if their kids might know where they’d gone.
I told them they were wasting their time with that line of questioning, but they kept on anyway. The men milled about, talking among themselves and occasionally muttering into walkie talkies, supposedly forming a search party, although it didn’t seem to me that much was getting accomplished.
The conversation level rose to a dull roar in my ears, and everywhere I looked, I saw Mossy Crackers—in my house, in my life, in my way. I felt cornered by the enemy in my own kitchen. I tried to talk above the ruckus, tried to get their attention, tried to tell them to get the hell out, but no one was listening.
Just as my tension drew to an unbearable pitch, I heard Mutt say into his phone, “I think we might better call in the canine unit, Chief.”
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 18
