"She sure did. She must have known half the county-and in the Biblical sense, if you follow my drift. I don't see how we can find out who all was blessed enough to father any of the children."
The baby bottle now depleted, Ruby Bee wearily took the stool next to her. "Me neither. It ain't like we can go over to the county hospital and ask to see the birth certificates. I have a hard time seeing Robin in a hospital bed with a doctor hovering over her. She'd have had a midwife-if she had anything at all. It's just as likely that she dropped the younguns while hoeing potatoes in the field. Might not have even noticed at the time, for that matter."
"But that's a beginning," Estelle said, straightening up. "What's a beginning, for Pete's sake? Searching potato fields?"
"The midwife out on the county road. We could ask her if she went to Robin's cabin to assist in the delivery of any of the babies. Then, if she says she was there, we can ask if Robin said anything about who the fathers were. That's a fine idea of yours, Ruby Bee. I'm right proud of you for coming up with it."
"I suppose so," Ruby Bee said with a sigh. "I just hope Arly doesn't get all hot and bothered and commence to thinking we're interfering again. She like to have had steam coming out her ears last time."
"We're not trying to find Robin Buchanon; we're just making discreet inquiries about the fathers. It's not even near the same thing as interfering in one of her so-called police investigations. After all, if fathering a bastard was a crime in Stump County, the jail'd be so jampacked that the convicts would have to make reservations to serve their time."
"I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe I'm having one of those premonitions like Madam Celeste has all the time, but I don't know if we're doing the right thing."
"Now, Ruby Bee, just look at that sweet sleepy baby. Doesn't he deserve to grow up with a loving pappy to take care of him? Besides, we'll just hop in my station wagon and run out to the midwife's house to ask. She's such a senile ole granny that she most likely won't be able to tell us anything. There's no point in acting all mystical and muttering under your breath like a psychic with laryngitis. Get your Closed sign and hang it on the door. We'll wrap up Baby and take him with us, and we'll all three be back in less than an hour. It can't hurt anything."
Ruby Bee nodded, but she was still having Severe Misgivings.
If I thought nothing ever happened in Maggody (and that theory was on the moth-eaten side by this time), I hadn't realized the extent of true nothingness. It was moderately amusing at first. I parked a good ways from the dope patch, and spent most of two hours lugging equipment from the four-wheel to a spot I felt was distant enough not to be seen should the weekend gardeners appear. I pitched a pup tent, unrolled my sleeping bag, lined up the cans of soup like little tin soldiers, spread out my gear, and generally got myself organized.
By then it was blacker than the inside of a cow, so I fixed a pan of soup on my stove, then crawled into the tent and dined on vegetable-beef and saltines while reading by flashlight. I didn't worry too much about someone seeing the faint light in the middle of nowhere, because no one would be dumb enough to approach the patch in the dark. The only person dumb enough to do that was sitting in a pup tent on the back side of Cotter's Ridge having an intimate experience with Campbell's finest. At some point I felt the need to put on heavy wool socks, and a little bit later a pair of gloves. Finally, dressed in every item of clothing I'd brought, I got into the sleeping bag and shivered until I fell asleep, reminding myself that this was my brilliant idea and that I was doing it for all the right reasons.
Hammet managed to delay the reunion for several hours, first by bursting into tears and wailing so loud that David Allen pulled over to the side of the road. Hammet then allowed how he jest couldn't face his siblings 'cause they would be so fuckin' upset it'd set him off again. He agreed that something to eat might help, and tried not to grin all the way down to Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill. For some odd reason it was closed, so David Allen offered to take him home for a quick sandwich and a soda.
That were even better, Hammet decided, letting his face crumple up again for good measure. Big tears rolled down his checks while he tried to figger out how to stay away from that thin-lipped ole bitch's house as long as possible.
"Look at all these here houses," he said admiringly as they drove through the subdivision. "Do you know all them what lives in 'em?"
"No, just the ones next to me. You do realize we're going to have something to eat, then go straight to Mrs. Jim Bob's house, don't you? I promised Arly that I'd break the news to everyone, and I feel guilty about the delay."
"Arly wouldn't mind. She's real nice about that sort of thing. Don't you think she's a right nice lady?" Hammet stole a quick look from under his brow. "And knockers-she's better built than a sow what's suckling a dozen babies. And she can cook real good, too, and she never talks dirty unless'n she's mad."
David Allen parked in his driveway and gestured for Hammet to get out of the wagon. "I can see you're smitten with her, but don't you think she's too old for you?" he asked as they went into the house.
"I never said she weren't old as the hills." Hammet wandered around the living room, examining the crumpled beer cans and old pizza boxes while his host went on to the kitchen. "You happen to be married?"
"Once upon a time I happened to be married. In fact, I have a little boy a few years younger than you. I'm fixing bologna and cheese-you want mustard or mayonnaise?"
"Where's your boy?"
David Allen poked his head out of the kitchen. "He lives with his grandparents in Farberville. Mustard or mayonnaise?"
"Both," Hammet said decisively, since he wasn't sure what either was. He recommenced to wandering. "Whose toys are these?"
"Mine."
"What does you do with them?"
"I launch them into the air, then try very hard to find them when they come down. Then I glue them back together and launch them again."
"Iffen you don't want to bust them, why do you launch them in the first place? Why not jest leave them on the shelf?"
David Allen stopped spreading mustard. "A good question. I enjoy the launch, and I have a radio thing to help me track them when they crash. It's sort of exciting…I guess."
"Mebbe if you was a kid," Hammet said, dismissing the crazy notion. "What happened to your little boy's mama? Was she kilt too? How come he don't live with you no more?"
"Because he needed a mother to take care of him, and the best I could do was a grandmother. He also needs to live near a doctor. As for his mother, she died from a nasty disease."
"My ma was kilt by a bear. She damn near kilt him first, but the ole thing was bigger than the broadside of a barn, and he had teeth sharp as knives, and big, long claws that could rip out your guts," Hammet said, proud of the way his ma'd tried to fight off the bear. "She din't die of some dumb disease."
David Allen came into the living room and put a plate on the coffee table. "It would be more exciting if a bear attacked your mother, wouldn't it?" (Techniques for Today's Intervention Therapy, Chapter Three: "Denial as an Expression of Grief.") "But you and I both heard Arly say that your mother was killed in a hunting accident, didn't we?"
Hammet hadn't studied the technique in effect. "Yeah, she said that 'cause she thought it'd make me feel better than iffen she described how my ma's guts was all ripped into tatters by a fuckin' bear. There was most likely blood splattered up in the trees to the top branch. Arly probably had to look all over the place to find my ma's arms and legs-or what was left of 'em. Why, little Sissy'd start bawling and keening and carryin' on if we told her that." He snatched up the sandwich and jammed it in his mouth, regretting the reference to his sibling. He sure din't want to remind David Allen they wasn't doing what Arly'd told 'em to do.