Maggody And The Moonbeams

"Need a lift?" Jacko asked softly.

"What I need is a little help. He has a gun, and by now he may be crazy enough to use it. When I yell, turn on your headlights and I'll take it from there."

"Shouldn't I get out and punch him in the nose or something gallant like that? Of course I don't know who he is, but I'm sure he's a villain."

"Stay in the car and"-I glanced at his backseat-"protect your children."

I stepped back into the middle of the road as I heard Corporal Robarts coming. As he reached the bank, I yelled, "Here I am, asshole!"

As he jumped over the ditch and landed on the road, the headlights caught him in the face. I took the opportunity to grab the gun out of his hand and send him sprawling backward. He went down with a splash.

"Very impressive," Jacko commented. "I didn't realize you were quite so aggressive. Is this typical of your behavior?"

"I need another favor. Will you go back to the lodge and tell the deputy that I need his assistance?"

He paused. "That may complicate things for me."

"Such as being charged with kidnapping?"

He shushed the children and got out of the car. "I have full custody. My ex-wife was given only supervised visitation, but she took the children while they were playing in the yard. It's taken me two months to find them."

"Then you didn't kidnap them," I said as I went over to Robarts and planted my foot on his back. He said something I hoped the children could not hear.

"I'm concerned that they might be taken into protective custody while this is sorted out. She'll start up again with how I was neglecting and abusing them. Her lawyers and mine will be back to having lunch at the country club and haggling on the back nine."

"I can't stand here all night, Jacko."

"You have his gun."

"He's not going to let that bother him, and I'm reluctant to shoot him. There's already been enough suffering at Camp Pearly Gates."

"I'll go find this deputy for you. Would you mind if I called you in a few weeks?"

"Try the Maggody PD. I don't keep tidy office hours, but I'm usually around. I appreciate this."

"And you ought to," he said as he got into the car and began to back down the road toward the lodge.

17

"You went and did what?" Raz said, gaping at Dahlia. She might have been kin, but she sure as hell wasn't acting like it.

"I took the mule," she repeated.

"Now why should I believe that?"

"I don't care if you do."

"Does Perkins know?"

"Maybe, maybe not." Dahlia sat down on the edge of the porch. "You and your sow might ought to decide what you want to do. I can wait if you want to crawl on your belly to the pasture and take a look. All I'm tellin' you is I took the mule."

"Where? It ain't all that easy to up and take a mule, you know. It requires a certain talent."

She jiggled the double-stroller with her foot and gave the babies a sober look. They stared back, just like they knew they wouldn't be getting braces if she didn't hold her ground. "Your grandpappy weren't the only mule charmer in Stump County."

Raz had to sit back and think this over. For one thing, the mule might be in Perkins's shed. Or dead, if it got to that. He'd been watching the last day or two, and the mule hadn't been anywhere to be seen in the pasture.

"Are you claiming to be a mule charmer?" he asked.

"I didn't say that," Dahlia replied. "All I said was I took the mule."

"And did what with it?"

"I don't recollect, right offhand. Why should you care? Go find another mule."

Raz spat on the yellowed patch of grass. "Mules are mules, but, well… Marjorie's taken a fancy, and…"

"Then here's what you're go

"That's all?"

Dahlia smiled sweetly. "Give me a holler when you get back to town and we'll finish our business. Don't go thinkin' you'll tell folks about this. Sows can be charmed, too."

"Why, look who's here," said Estelle as I came walking down the dock. "Maybe we ought to call Brother Verber to come offer a blessing. He ain't had much else to do since Mrs. Jim Bob went through his bag and poured his wine out the second-floor window. He was sitting out here earlier today, looking like he was trying to figure out how to turn water into wine, but the Almighty wasn't cooperating."

Ruby Bee kept her eyes on the plastic ball drifting in the water. "About time you showed your face."

I sat down beside her. "So what's been happening?"

"Why do you care? You upped and vanished more than two days ago, like it weren't none of our business. I'm just your mother, after all. No reason why I should care, or even notice. We had ham and beans for supper last night. The cornbread was burnt on the bottom, but I'm not used to the oven just yet."

Estelle handed me a plastic bottle. "Better put some of this on your nose," she said. "The girls are still moaning about their sunburns. Larry Joe got so fed up with hearing it that he told them to stay in their cabin. He sez the bleachers will be finished this afternoon. I reckon we ought to go up there and have a look."

"I can't hardly wait," said Ruby Bee, still refusing to look at me.

I slathered my nose with sunblock, then wiped my hand on my shirttail and poked her shoulder. "You want to hear about it?"

"None of my concern."

Estelle scooted closer. "Well, I do. What on earth led Anthony Robarts to kill those two women? Where are the rest of them? I walked up that way yesterday, and it was clear they'd all left. It seemed real sad, the bunks all stripped and the garden already losing to the weeds. All I found was a diaper lying in the weeds and a notebook with drawings of the lodge and the lake. Whoever drew them might consider another career."

I made a tactical decision to ignore my mother for the time being. "Corporal Robarts did what he thought was the only way to protect his mother."

"His mother?" gasped Estelle. "Mrs. Jim Bob kept telling us about the charity and the sick little children and how they could frolic on the softball field and-"

"I know," I said, "but Willetta Robarts was the one who convinced volunteers at the community service agencies to screen potential recruits. She wanted women who felt trapped in unbearable situations and had nowhere else to turn. They were told they could have a safe place to live and the chance to earn enough money so they could move on. They never knew she owned the company store, in a ma

"Why did she make the others go and shave their heads?" asked Estelle, always a cosmetologist at heart.

"So they'd be too intimidated to leave," I said, wishing Ruby Bee would at least acknowledge that she was listening. "That's how you create a subservient class, by isolating them and making them feel conspicuous. She would have fit well into the landed gentry two hundred years ago."

Estelle sucked on her lip for a moment. "I reckon I'd stay in my house if I looked like that. Ruby Bee, do you recollect when Elsie McMay gave herself a home permanent and burned her hair so bad she looked like she'd been caught in a forest fire? She pretended she was staying with her third cousin over in Jonesboro, but she had to come out for groceries and-"