Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn cocked her head and studied the block. “It does look like a Bat in Flight and that’s for sure,” she said with wonder.
I began to riffle through the open suit box for a sketch of the block in question, when she stopped me dead. “But Bat in Flight, as I remember, flies out ward toward the corner of the block, and this one sure is flying inward and looks a heap more like a Bear’s Paw to me.”
She was right!
It was a tricky little pattern the block sectioned off in five squares across and five down, the center being dark, its corner squares dark, with those adjacent to each comer square, triangled dark fabric patches, forming the wings and tail of a bat, four bats to a block; but, in this case, the pad and toes of a bear’s paw, four paw prints to the block.
I looked at Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn with dawning respect, and then I said, “But Bear’s Paw doesn’t mean any more than Bat in Flight.”
“Not,” she said, “unless you remember that Bear’s Paw is the name of the gulch where Miss Mattie Jackson lives.”
I remembered at last. They used to say, when I was a girl in Mountain Hollow, “Miss Mattie Jackson, up at Bear’s Paw.” Now I was sure that Miss Mattie Jack-son, of Bear’s Paw, was sending a message through the Sunbeam quilt — an Old Maid’s Puzzle to be worked out, block by block.
The next was obvious: a patchwork house set in a ground of flowered material. I called out the name of the pattern almost as quickly as did Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn: House On The Hill. The cut patches were not as true, nor the stitches as tiny — Miss Mat-tie Jackson had become nervous or hurried, or frightened?
The fourth block was a teaser. Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn frowned over it and I riffled through the patterns, whispering names: Drunkard’s Path, a block of four squares; Wild Goose Chase, no, that was sectioned off into diamonds... “Jack In The Box!” I cried. My voice rose and Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn nodded.
I ran for the phone and called the sheriff.
Thank God he was still sitting on his swivel chair at the sheriff’s station. I yelled into the phone that Miss Mattie Jackson was being held prisoner up at Bear’s Paw in her House On The Hill, and just as I banged down the receiver, Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn added that she was being held by five people, or had been held for five days, or something five anyway, because the last block was a V Block, and what else could it mean but five?
I raced back to look down at the V Block, formed of narrow V’s, four of them, so placed on the block that their points came together in the center; the final stitches, not Miss Mattie Jackson’s fine overcast, nor her hurriedly wavered stitch on the Jack In The Box, but an uneven basting that made me fear for her life.
“Well, jump down my throat and gallop my insides out, if Miss Mattie Jackson ain’t in a heap of trouble now,” breathed Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn, and reached out blindly for a place to sit down. I led her to a chair and she dropped, sitting stiffly with her hands folded on her lap.
I finally got Tommy’s head out from under the hood of the jeep and into the shop, and questioned him while we waited for the sheriff to arrive. “Now, Tommy, this is important,” I said seriously. “What did you see when you were up at Miss Mattie Jackson’s this morning?” remembering suddenly that it was no longer morning, but afternoon, and Miss Mat-tie was still being held by five people, or had been held for five days or — my goodness — would be held for five more hours before they killed her and took off!
“Tommy, think!” I cried. “What did you see at Miss Mattie Jackson’s?”
He furrowed his brow, then he smiled. “Why, Mom, I saw the trees and the chickens like always.”
“No, Tommy,” I cried, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him in desperation. “Did you see anything different? Were there any people around?”
He shook his head, attempting to break away and head out for the jeep that was the love of his life.
“You see, Tommy,” I said, my voice shaking, “we think those killers are in Miss Mattie Jackson’s house. Did you go in the house?”
He shook his head vigorously, and I knew that he never did. He brought the monthly supplies up to her door and she handed the quilt out to him. Tommy was not gregarious nor was Miss Mattie sociable. They had that together, the rapport of two loners. “Did you hear anything?”
“Heck no, Mom,” he said, smiling. “Not even the chickens. She told me where to drive so the chickens wouldn’t squawk and stop laying eggs. She said, ‘You drive clear off the road down below and through the trees and up to—’ ”
“All right, Tommy,” I interrupted him. “All right, you can go on out now and shine up the engine of the jeep again,” and I gave him a little shove.
From the minute the sheriff drove up in a jeep, Tommy stuck to him like a burr, probably feeling close kinship with another jeep driver, and stood right behind him while the sheriff and his two deputies leaned over the quilt and Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn explained the message.
“This here,” she said, pointing to the first block of the last row, “is the Old Maid’s Puzzle, that’s how I knew Miss Mattie Jackson wasn’t just throwing on any old piece of patchwork because her brains was dusty, but that she was giving us a message, starting right out with, ‘This here is Miss Mattie Jackson talkin’.’
“Then the next one, Bears Paw being where she lives, and adding the House On The Hill to it, I knew she was tellin’ us that something was going on there. Jack In The Box was real inspirational — I don’t know of anything else she could have used to let us know she was bein’ held prisoner.
“This last one though, has kinda got me,” admitted Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn. “Maybe it means there are five of them cowardly dogs there in her cabin. Maybe it means they been there five days. Whatever, she’s sure trying to convey a message in that there V Block...”
“That’s the V,” said Tommy pointing over the sheriff’s shoulder. “That’s the V of trees where Miss Mattie Jackson tells me to drive the jeep so the chickens won’t set up a ruckus and stop laying eggs. That’s the V right there. Miss Mattie Jackson says, ‘You drive clear off the road down below and go on up to that stand of trees...’ The V, she calls it. ‘It looks like a V,’ she says, ‘and that V of trees cuts off the sound so the chickens won’t be bothered.’ ”
“And so, whoever’s in there with Miss Mattie Jackson won’t hear us until we get right up on them.” The sheriff thrust out a hand. “Son,” he said, “you’ve got a brain and a half on you,” and I wanted to cry with pride. It was the first time anybody had ever told Tommy he had any kind of brain.
“You put that boy’s brain in a jaybird’s head and he’d fly straight and true,” announced Mrs. Frankie Mae Pangborn. “Why don’t you deputize him, Sheriff, and let him drive you up to the V? He knows right how to get there, and he’s the best jeep driver around.”