When his gut growled ominously, he tossed aside the lettuce and prowled through the vehicles parked alongside the building. All of them were locked. He supposed he could bust out a windshield with a rock, but it wasn't gonna do him much good to steal CDs or magazines. It wasn't gonna do him much good if he saw a key in an ignition switch, for that matter, since he didn't know how to drive.
One truck caught his attention. It was parked nearest the steps leading up to the delivery dock, and a spray-painted sign on the wall indicated that the space was reserved for Jim Bob. Slashing the tires would have been entertaining, but required a knife or a screwdriver. He found a sharp rock and scratched lines across the doors and hood.
The problem was, he thought as he threw the rock into the trees at the back of the parking lot, Arly weren't nowhere to be found. Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill was darker than the inside of a cow, and all the motel units were locked.
There weren't no way of knowing if the shack was still standing up on Cotter's Ridge. Even if it was, the only food he might hope to find there would be scraggly carrots and maybe a few ears of corn in the garden. Catchin' critters was harder than it sounded, and it wasn't like he had matches or anything to make a fire.
The church was likely to be empty on a Saturday afternoon, he reckoned. He could at least stretch out on a pew and get some sleep.
Running away was damn hard work, even harder than memorizing multiplication tables and state capitals.
When I returned, Estelle's station wagon was parked in front of the lodge. Jarvis and Billy Dick were unloading it, while Heather, Amy Dee, and Lynette watched from the veranda.
"Finished with lunch?" I asked them.
"Was that what you'd call it?" said Heather. "My pa's hogs eat better than that."
"And we had grapes for dessert," Lynette added.
I tried to look encouraging. "Grapes are good. Were they green or red?"
"Brown and mushy," muttered Jarvis as he went past me, bedding under his arms.
I found Larry Joe in the living room and told him about the two sacks of cheeseburgers in the bus. Once he'd rounded up the kids and led them toward the ball field, I went into the kitchen, where Big Mac and Parwell were washing dishes under Mrs. Jim Bob's unwavering supervision.
"I assume you bought the bit," she said to me.
I had no idea what she was talking about. Bought the bit? Bit the bullet? Bought the farm?
"The four-inch bit for the drill," she continued. "That is why you took the bus into Dunkicker, isn't it? I'd like to think you weren't looking for an establishment that sells alcoholic beverages."
I slapped my forehead. "Oh, the bit! The hardware had one, in a box on a shelf in the back corner. The Lord's looking after us, Mrs. Jim Bob."
"I will not tolerate blasphemy!"
Ruby Bee came into the kitchen. "Where's the skillets and the mixing bowls?"
Mrs. Jim Bob sucked up a breath. "Although it is kind of you to offer to assist, Ruby Bee, I think it's better that the teenagers take responsibility for meals. They tend to assume that food simply appears on their plates."
"Fine," said Ruby Bee. "You just make sure they understand whose decision it was to have spaghetti and lima beans, instead of fried catfish and hushpuppies."
"Hushpuppies?" said Brother Verber, joining us. "Those moist, delicious morsels of cornbread and a delicate flavoring of onions, crisped to perfection and just beggin' for a dollop of butter? The Good Lord created hushpuppies, Mrs. Jim Bob."
"As He did lima beans," she responded tartly.
Tears welled in Brother Verber's eyes. "I'm gonna go upstairs and study my Bible, but I have a feeling that the Good Lord didn't have much to say about lima beans."
"Nobody has much to say about lima beans," inserted Estelle. "Not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, if I recollect. Loaves and fishes, on the other hand, were on the menu on one occasion."
I left them to battle it out, grabbed the last sandwich off a tray, and went to make sure Darla Jean had not made good on her implicit threat to leave.
Which she had.
4
I walked to the cabin, collected my sleeping bag and duffel bag from the ditch beside the road, and went into the cabin. Darla Jean was not there-surprise, surprise. I dumped my gear on a bottom bunk, checked the stalls in the bathroom, and wandered around, trying to figure out where Darla Jean might have chosen to deposit her shampoo, mousse, conditioner, hair dryer, rollers, makeup kit, stuffed animals, lurid magazines, candy bars, and cigarettes. In that all six girls seemed to have brought identical survival kits, I couldn't tell.
However, it looked as though all six remained fully equipped for any crises of a cosmic-or cosmetic-nature. Being a trained professional and all, I concluded that Darla Jean would not put herself in a situation that might lead to bad hair, and therefore was more likely to have headed for the lake instead of the highway.
I ambled down the road. The songbirds were out in full force, trilling, warbling, and screeching. Foliage was lacy enough to permit glimpses of cabins identical to ours scattered higher on the hillside. The insects, both butterflies and less engaging species, had determined they were safely past the final frost and were on the lookout for blossoms and blood. Critters rustled in the leaves, but I'd grown up in the pastures and woods surrounding Maggody, and nothing short of a skunk was worth worrying about.
Music, however, was. Rattlesnakes rattled, but they did not harmonize. Crows did not form string quartets, replete with violins, cello, and bass-if that's what I was hearing. I wasn't sure. I pushed through some brush and squinted at the lake as sunshine hit my face. Two flat-bottomed fishing boats were visible, but both were at a distance and did not look like the source of what was increasingly sounding like an adulation of springtime, courtesy of Vivaldi.
The New York Philharmonic, if present, was deftly hidden. The only potential conductor in view stood at the edge of the lake, leading his invisible orchestra with a pliant plastic rod. Rather than a tux, he was wearing a flannel shirt, a torn khaki vest, baggy pants, sneakers, and a canvas hat adorned with those weird little feather doodads beloved by fishermen.
"Hello," I called as I thrashed my way toward him with all the stealth of a backhoe.
He looked back. "Yeah?"
I came through the final barrier of briars. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"I hope you're delivering a pizza," he said, his face creasing genially. "Otherwise, it looks as though I'll have bologna sandwiches for supper again. A couple more days of this, and I'll be out of mustard."
He was not unpleasant looking, despite the stubble on his cheeks and the stains on his clothing. Nice chin, clear blue eyes, only a hint of gray in the hair visible beneath his hat. I could easily imagine him (after an overnight stay at the Fly By Night dry cleaner's, anyway) striding down Wall Street to his corner office with a window overlooking the East River. His receptionist would have a gelatinous English accent, and his private secretary would be named Kaitlin. Men called Brett and Bart would bring him coffee and simper. Senior partners would propose him for membership in politically incorrect clubs.
So maybe I was making a bit of a leap. "No pizza," I said, wishing I'd stayed in the cabin long enough to wash my face. "You camping here?"
He put down the rod. "Well, that's my tent."
"Mr. Vivaldi hiding in there?"
"I'm not trespassing, am I? I have a fishing license, and I thought this area was-"
"I'm not from the fish and game commission, and I don't think anyone cares if you are trespassing. I certainly don't."
"How kind of you." He came across the muddy expanse and studied me. "Jacko."