The headlights were too low and too close together to be a truck.
“Know what else I figger, Delilah? You were with Olga and her trained Bear act in a pickup camper on your way to the next carnival stop. You thought my truck was the carnival truck, didn’t you?”
“Shut up!” she said viciously. “Why is that car slowing down?”
“If that’s a state-highway patrol car, he wouldn’t bother old Bird Dog,” I said slowly and distinctly. “He would go on up the highway” — I looked at the odometer — “about six miles.”
The car flashed past us, picking up speed. I thought I caught a glimpse of a dome on the top.
Delilah jerked around. “Was that a police car?”
I let the front wheels wander off to the edge of the road. There was a wrenching jerk as one of the double rear wheels went off the pavement.
“What are you doing, old man?” Delilah shouted.
“Guess I nearly went to sleep,” I mumbled. Then I spoke up loud and clear. “If I’m going to drive you to Houston tonight, I got to have some coffee.”
“You got a Thermos?”
“Nope,” I lied. “Bet you could use a cup of coffee, too.”
“Shut up!” Delilah snapped. She hunched back in the seat. “Where could you get coffee?”
“In the next town. Roy’s Barbecue Stand.”
“Curb service?”
“I’ll have to go inside.”
She was quiet for a while.
“No tricks?” she asked.
“With you holding a snake on me? I ain’t no fool.”
“I’d better go in with you.”
“You don’t have to. Roy’s got big glass windows in his place. You can watch every move I make.”
Hard rain suddenly drummed down. I turned on the windshield wipers. Delilah and I were suspended in a dark, noisy little cocoon, with the flow of our headlights against the downpour our only connection to the outside world. I slowed down.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” I said, being careful to enunciate each word. “I’ll park outside Roy’s. You squinch down in the seat. I’ll go inside, drink a cup of coffee, and order one to go for the road. You stay real still, ma’am, and nobody can see that you’re in the truck.”
“You are mighty cooperative, old man. Why?”
I thought a minute. “I reckon I just want to get you where you gotta go with the least fuss and bother. Then I can tend to my own business.”
“What is your business?”
“Me and my wife got a little piece of land. We got beans, peas, tomatoes, and sweet corn right now. Watermelons and cantaloupes later on.”
The woman laughed. “A farmer! And I was worried. Okay, Bird Dog, you can get the coffee.”
The rain had slackened some by the time we reached Kountze. I pulled under Roy’s big red sign and parked parallel to the highway. There were no other customers. I opened my door. Reaching out, I twisted the rear-view mirror outward as far as it would go.
Delilah scrambled across the seat and grabbed my arm hard. “What are you doing?” she snarled.
“You want to be able to see me, don’t you?” I said patiently. “In this rain, any headlights coming from behind would reflect right in your eyes.”
Her grip slowly relaxed. Then she laughed. “You’re something else, farmer.”
“Yep.” I got out, pulling my collar up to keep the rain from going down my neck. I walked around the truck and twisted the right-hand mirror. She didn’t say a thing.
The air conditioner hummed noisily inside Roy’s Barbecue Stand. I felt its chill through my damp clothes. I blinked in the bright fluorescent lights. Otis Johnson, the night counterman, just looked at me, his lined face impassive. I picked a stool near the middle of the counter and sat down, my back to the highway. Otis got up, filled a mug at the coffee machine, and set it in front of me without a word. Old friends don’t have to talk much.
I sipped the hot black coffee. Mattie would be waiting in the living room at home, all the lights on, wondering why in tarnation I was so late. If all went well, I might be home in a few minutes. If not—
I was still dawdling my way through the coffee, staring down into the half-empty mug, when I thought I heard a noise outside followed by a muffled scream. I waited a while before I looked up to where Otis sat hunched on his stool back of the counter. His hair was nearly as gray as my own. Otis was watching me from under drooping eyelids.
“My wife says things like that ain’t none of my business now,” I explained apologetically.
Otis nodded.
The dregs in the bottom of my mug had been stone-cold for a long time when I heard the door finally open. Otis slid off his stool and went to the coffee machine. I turned slowly around. A man clad in a glistening yellow slicker stood in the door, water dripping from the wide brim of his state-high way patrolman’s hat. He came inside and closed the door.
“No coffee for me, Otis,” he said, taking off his hat and shaking it.
“This one’s for me, Mr. Cook,” Otis said.
The patrolman turned in my direction. “Sheriff—”
“Not any more, son,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m retired — and Mrs. Thompson’s bound and determined to keep it that way.” I peered at him closely. “You Ab Cook’s boy?”
He nodded. “Jim.”
“Well, Jim?”
He sat on a stool and laid his hat on the counter. “When you were sheriff, your policy was to do things peaceably — if possible. Right?”
“Fewer people get hurt that way.”
“The night deputy and I worked it your way. He eased up from the back on one side, and I came on the other. We snatched the door open and had handcuffs on her before she knew what was happening.”
“I wish I didn’t know,” I said. “Where is she now?”
“In the sheriff’s office — cussing you and somebody named Vern. You know what was in that bag of hers?”
“A snake, Jim. A great big snake.”
Jim Cook just looked at me. Otis put his coffee down and moved closer.
“Delilah used it in her act,” I said. “She’s the kootchy dancer with a little carnival sideshow. What about the eighteen-wheeler?”
“One of our officers is at the scene. I’ve just had a long session on the radio with him.”
I shook my head slowly. “Old Arkansas Traveler really got excited about them bears, didn’t he?”
“What bears?” Otis said, his eyes wide.
“Three of ’em,” I said. “Prancing on their hind legs around a stalled pickup camper.”
“I knowed they’s supposed to be bears in Big Thicket,” Otis said, “but I ain’t never seen none.”
“These are trained bears from Olga’s carnival act. She let them out of the camper to get some air.”
Jim Cook continued to stare at me. “There was gasoline—”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I figger Delilah and Olga had been trying to get the camper engine started. They got it to flooding and leaking gas. Olga thought maybe it needed oil and spilled some on Delilah’s dress and shoe. Delilah got mad and crossed the highway to flag down the carnival truck that was coming back for another load of gear. But I came along instead.”
Jim got up, put on his hat, and walked over to the door. He turned around, his hand on the knob. “I remember when you helped us get CB radios for our patrol cars, Mr. Thompson.”
“We had ’em in the county cars. I figgered you boys needed CB.”
“Sure.” He hesitated. “There is one thing, though. The Arkansas Traveler said he ought to report you to the Federal Communications Commission for tying up the emergency channel.”
“My mike musta got stuck accidentally.”
Jim grinned. “Sure it did. Good thing, too. You could have been wrong, you know.”
I could have been. But I wasn’t.
“Samson was middle-aged,” I said slowly. “Medium height. Partly bald, and maybe a little overweight. Wearing glasses, probably.”