"Whatever's convenient," I said before Hammet could offer an editorial. "Lots of it, please. Piles of it. Mountains of it. These kids haven't eaten in a long time."
She barked an order to Dahlia in the kitchen, then came around the bar to get a closer look at the baby. "That baby looks mighty unhealthy, Arly. What do you aim to do with it?"
"I don't know; I've never had any experience with this size infant. I suppose I ought to try to get some milk in him. You don't have a baby bottle in the back room, do you?"
"Why, this poor little thing needs a warm bath, clean clothes, and formula. You stay here and help Dahlia serve the plates. I'll have Estelle stop by the Kwik-Screw for a bottle and some formula, or at least condensed milk. I'm taking this baby over to my unit."
I handed over the baby, wondering if Bubba or Sissie might object to their brother being carried away by a stranger. Hammet raised an eyebrow, but none of the others so much as turned around as Ruby Bee went out the door. They were, I think, a bit bewildered by the appearance of Dahlia O'Neill. All three hundred pounds plus of her.
Dahlia was taken aback herself, but managed to dish up the plate lunch special and serve Bubba, Sissie, Sukie, and Hammet-who tore right into it as if he hadn't eaten in a week. There were some grunts and snorts, not to mention a good deal of smacking and slobbering, throughout the meal, but no one said a word, obscene or otherwise. Dahlia stared at them, coming out of her reverie every once in a while to dish out another mound of blackeyed peas or mashed potatoes.
I took the opportunity to go over to the pay phone and call Mrs. Jim Bob to tell her the success of my mission, depending on how you gauge success in this situation. "I've got them," I said brightly when she answered.
"You do? Well, it's a relief to know that the little bastards are safe now."
She didn't sound all that enthusiastic, but I didn't allow that to faze me. "Yep, I've got four of them over at Ruby Bee's right this minute. They're almost finished eating, so we should arrive at your house within thirty minutes."
"Have they-ah, have they bathed?"
I glanced across the room at grimy necks, hair snarled with twigs and dried leaves, clothing that the ragman would have turned up his nose at, brown feet, and eight hands glistening with grease. "They look right smart, Mrs. Jim Bob. We'll see you in a few minutes."
I hung up the receiver, then went out the door and around back to see how Ruby Bee was doing with the baby. Estelle drove up as I reached the covered walkway, and she grabbed a plastic sack before joining me.
"What is the emergency?" she panted. "Why in heaven's name does Ruby Bee want condensed milk and a baby bottle? I left Edwina Spitz in the chair, setting lotion dribbling down her neck, to dash over here." I began to explain, but she scuttled around me and went into Ruby Bee's unit, no doubt inspired to hurry by Edwina Spitz's impending fury. By the time I caught up with her, she was sitting beside Ruby Bee on the couch, and the two of them were cooing and making silly faces at a bundle wrapped in a clean blanket.
"Isn't he the sweetest little thing?" Ruby Bee said with a saccharine smile. "I could just gobble up those darling little toes like they were jelly beans. What's his name, Arly?"
"I don't know. The Buchanon children refer to him as Baby."
"Why, that's disgraceful!" Estelle said, bending over to touch a waving hand.
"Can't help it," I said. I waited while they fussed around and eventually got enough warm condensed milk into the baby to satisfy some maternal thermometer that was beyond me. I then mentioned that I was taking the infant to Mrs. Jim Bob's. I was informed that I was not.
If you think I argued the point with those two, you overestimate me. I went back to the bar and gathered up the kids, with a short explanation that the baby would stay with my mother for a few days. Bubba shrugged and belched. Sissie nodded and belched. Sukie stuck a finger in her mouth and belched. Hammet opted for a nofrills belch.
On that pleasant note, I herded everyone out to the jeep and drove out Finger Lane to the Buchanon driveway, which had red-brick pillars on either side and a wroughtiron grill spanning them like a rusty banner. A number stuck on one pillar proclaimed their residence as "Number Four." I was impressed, since I hadn't known we had house numbers in Maggody.
The house was an imposing red-brick box, with a white colonnade and other pretentious stuff. A circular drive, and a discreet sign indicating deliveries were to be made in the rear. Barbered shrubs. Flower beds lined with red bricks. One was supposed to presume it was an antebellum plantation house. If I hadn't known that it was built ten years back, when Jim Bob bought the land for a pittance from an elderly widow with failing eyesight and no family, I might have fallen for it. Ha, ha.
The Buchanon children were making all sorts of noises as they stared at what was by far the fanciest house they'd ever seen. They all gasped when Hammet pointed at the glass in the windows. Sissie said it were higher'n a mountain. Sukie said it were a fuckin' monster house. Bubba, the eldest and therefore most sophisticated, said it weren't neither as big as a mountain, and iffen she said it was he would whup her ass.
I saw a curtain twitch, so I knew Mrs. Jim Bob hadn't fled the county. I turned around to Bubba and said, "I have to decide what to do about your mother. Hammet says she's been gone for nearly a week, and that she said she was going to hunt ginseng. Right?"
"Reckon it's close enough."
"She don't normally stay gone when it's dark," Sissie contributed. "She allus comes back before-" She broke off as Bubba glowered at her hard enough to produce spontaneous combustion.
"Thank you," I said hastily. "Now, no one knows where her secret patch is, which means I can't drive up there to see if she's still there. Do any of you have any idea why she might have gone off like this?"
"Bet a bear et her," Hammet said helpfully. "Probably kilt him."
Sukie's eyes filled with tears. "My mama ain't dead, motherfucker."
"I'm sure she's fine," I said. "Now, this is where you all are going to stay until I find your mother. The woman who lives here is very nice, and she wants you to have food and clean beds. She may seem a bit testy, but she does want to take care of you. Come along and I'll introduce you."
I had to pound on the front door for a long time before it opened to a slit and one eye peered out at me. "I thought they had bathed," hissed a disembodied voice.
"Did I imply that? Sorry, Mrs. Jim Bob, but I knew you'd want to supervise that yourself, since your standards are so much higher than mine." I gave the children a smile and patted Hammet on the head. "Okay, guys, here you are. I'll let you know the instant I find your mother. See you in a day or two, okay?"
Nobody looked real happy, but nobody bolted. They were still standing between the Grecian columns as I drove away, but the door had opened another inch or two, and I presumed Mizzoner wouldn't dare leave them on the porch for fortyeight hours. Why, that would get her kicked out of the Ladies' Missionary Society quicker than the congregation could shout "amen" at the end of one of Brother Verber's knee-busting prayers.
6
The Ommms drifted over the fence in the late-afternoon light. Kevin Buchanon, agonized by indecision (not to mention tortured by temptation), leaned against the sweet gum tree and told himself not to do it. "Don't do it," he said aloud, hoping it would help. "Kevin, you know you don't want to get your ass whipped. You know better. Don't do it."
He squinched his eyes closed real tight and tried to concentrate on a vision of his true love, with her warm, soft, monstrous-big bosoms that liked to suffocated him on more than one occasion, and her marshmallowy expanse of rippling body flesh, and her always sincere invitation for him to crawl up that heavenly path between her legs and do anything he wanted. Not to forget her kindly words of instruction and willingness to learn him all kinds of wondrous things.