arkansastraveler (13 page)

“Sir,” the blond officer said, “please stay out of this.” He clamped the steel cuffs around Gabe’s wrists. Behind me, one of the punks snickered.

Emory and I turned to glare at him.

“Shut up, you lowlife jerk,” I said.

He flipped me the finger.

Gabe’s face showed no expression as the officer patted him down, looking for weapons.

“In my left rear pocket is my wallet,” Gabe finally said, his voice calm. “My badge is in it.”

“Mister,” the cop said, his voice thick with sarcasm, “I know my job.”

“What about them?” I pointed at the smirking young men who’d started the fight. “They’re the ones who caused this! They’re the ones . . .”

“Ma’am, please keep your voice down,” the barrel-chested cop said, finally putting his gun away. “There’s no need to yell.”

“The heck there isn’t!” I shot back.

“Let me handle this,” Emory said low in my ear. He walked over to the officers, who’d just pulled out Gabe’s wallet. Under the glaring parking lot lights, I could see a
vein throb in Gabe’s temple, purplish and taut against his skin.

“Crap, Mike,” the blond officer said. “He
is
a cop. Oh, man, he’s a chief.”

“Are you sure?” the barrel-chested officer replied, his damp face slightly panicked.

At that moment a dark blue Oldsmobile pulled up, and Grady Hunter stepped out. He stared at the scene for a moment, an uncomprehending look on his face.

“Grady, for cryin’ out loud, call off the Sugartree Gestapo,” Emory snapped. “This is Gabe Ortiz, Benni’s husband.”

Grady looked at Gabe kneeling on the ground, then at me. “Mike, Dwayne, uncuff Chief Ortiz right now.”

“Shit,” the blond said under his breath.

He undid the cuffs, and Gabe stood up, ignoring Dwayne’s offer of a hand. He walked directly to me and took my arm, inspecting it. “
Querida
, are you all right?”

There was only a slight bruising where the man had grabbed my arm. Gabe ran gentle fingers over the swelling.

“I’m fine,” I said, reaching up and touching his jaw. It was still stiff and hard as a block of steel.

After speaking with the officers, Grady Hunter walked over to us.

“Mayor Grady Hunter,” he said, holding out his hand to Gabe. “My deepest apologies, Chief Ortiz. Our officers here in Sugartree have been a little jumpy lately. They’re young and impetuous. I’m sure you understand.”

Gabe took his hand but didn’t answer.

I piped up, “How come those officers weren’t jumpy enough to aim their guns at that white trash?” I said, pointing to the skinheads who were inching their way toward their car. “They started it. That one pulled a knife on me.”

When I looked down at the ground, the knife was gone. And I was willing to bet that it wouldn’t be found on any
of them. When our attention was on Gabe being handcuffed and searched, they’d most likely ditched it.

“Bobby Lee, Delton, Carl, you boys stay right where you are,” Grady said. “I want a word with you.” He turned back to us. “Again, I apologize for this misunderstanding . . .”

“Misunderstanding, my ass,” Emory said. “Those little peckerwoods started this, and we want to press charges.”

The mayor looked at Emory calmly, his politician’s face benign. “Who threw the first punch?”

Emory’s face turned red. “Now, Grady, they were harassing us.”

“I do believe, Emory, maybe the only person who has a viable cause to press charges here is Chief Ortiz or his wife.” He turned to Gabe. “Do you want to carry this any further, sir?”

Gabe looked over at the young officers standing next to their cars. Their faces shone with sweat. They couldn’t meet his eyes.

He shook his head no. When I started to protest, I felt his hand squeeze my upper arm, so, trusting his judgment, I reluctantly kept quiet.

“My condolences on your son, Mayor Hunter,” Gabe said, his voice kind.

A wave of shame came over me. In the commotion I’d completely forgotten that Grady had lost a son early this morning. Whatever Toby’s problems, he had still been Grady’s child.

Grady nodded. “Thank you, Chief Ortiz. I’ll give those boys a good talkin’ to, sir. The officers, too. Again, I humbly apologize. This won’t happen to you in my town again.”

Gabe turned back to me and Emory. “I think our evening is over.”

“It is for me,” Emory said. He turned to speak to Elvia. It was only then we realized she was gone.

He turned back to us, his eyes bright with panic.

I glanced over at the Dairy Queen. Inside, back in the corner, I could make out a small huddled form. “She’s inside.”

Emory started toward the building, but I grabbed his arm. “No, let me, Emory.”

“I have to go to her, Benni.”

“Trust me. Let me talk to her first.”

“Okay,” he said, unconvinced. “But I’m right behind you.”

Gabe and Emory followed me inside the building. We walked across the cold room to where Elvia sat in a booth, staring straight ahead, focusing on some unknown scene. I slid in across from her while Emory and Gabe stood next to the table. When she looked up at me, the fear in her eyes brought a heavy lump to my throat.

“Elvia,” I said softly. “We’re going to drive home now.”

Unshed tears caused her eyes to look blacker in the harsh restaurant lighting. “Home?” she said, her voice curt and low.

“Back to Aunt Garnet’s. Everything’s okay. See, Gabe’s all right.” I looked up at him. “Emory’s all right.” I reached across the table and took her cold hand in mine. “Elvia, everything will be okay. I promise.”

“You can’t promise something like that.”

She was right, and I felt foolish for saying the words, but like all Anglo people who are confronted with overt racism and feel helpless, I wanted to do or say something to convince her that not all of us are as ignorant as those jackasses.

“Hermana, por favor,”
Gabe said, touching a hand to her shoulder.
“Vamanos a la casa.”

His simple Spanish words seemed to restore some of her confidence.

Emory, unable to contain himself any longer, said in a voice broken with emotion, “Elvia.”

She looked up at him, her black eyes staring into his green ones, then slid out of the booth. He pulled her into his arms and started whispering in her ear.

I nodded at Gabe. “Let’s wait for them outside.”

In the parking lot Grady Hunter was still talking to Toby’s three friends over by their car. One of them smirked at us, and for a split second I wished I had a loaded shotgun in my hand.

I slipped my hand into Gabe’s. “Let’s wait around back so we don’t have to look at those pathetic jerks.”

“No,” Gabe said, staring directly at the young man until he looked down in discomfort. “We’ll wait right here in front so they
can
see us.”

I squeezed his hand. “Elvia was really scared.”

“She had a right to be,” Gabe said.

The silence between us was heavy and a little frightening to me. I knew this was a situation I would never truly understand, something Gabe and Elvia shared that I couldn’t. I turned his hand over, kissed one wrist, then looked up at him and whispered, “I’m so very sorry, Friday. We should just go back to San Celina tomorrow.”

He kissed the top of my head and said, “Sweetheart, if we let this ruin our visit, then they’ve won twice. Do you understand that?”

“Is that why you wouldn’t press charges?”

“Making this situation bigger than it needs to be will only cause problems for your aunt and uncle and Emory’s dad. I don’t want to do that and I didn’t think you would either. They have to live here. Besides, Grady Hunter has enough on his plate right now, don’t you think?”

“You are such a good man.”

“Just a practical one.”

It was past ten o’clock when we got back to my aunt’s house and everyone had retired for the night.

“We’re going to sit out here on the porch for a while,” Emory said.

I leaned over and hugged my friend. “I’m sorry, Elvia.”

“Oh,
gringa loca
,” she said, hugging me back. “It’s not something you could help.”

A short time later, Gabe and I were lying in the carved magnolia bed and I was telling him the history behind the bed, trying to make him laugh and erase some of the ugliness of the night’s incident.

“So my great-great grandfather, Hezekiah Neebuck Mosely, told my great-great grandmother, Sadie Juanita . . .”

“Just a minute,” he said, sitting up, his back against the headboard. The carved magnolia blossoms made a wooden halo around his head. “Your grandfather was named Hezekiah Neebuck?”

“Neebuck is actually short for Nebucanezzar, but he was always called Neebuck.”

“Hezekiah Nebucanezzar.” He shook his head. “And what’s with Sadie Juanita?” he asked. “Juanita?”

“Juanita’s always been a popular name in the South. I’m not really sure why. They called her Neeta.”

“Let me get this straight. Neebuck and Neeta?”

I poked his bare chest. “Would you let me finish the story before you start making fun of my relative’s monikers?”

“Proceed,” he said, his eyebrows lifting in amusement.

“The story goes, Grandpa Neebuck begged and begged Grandma Neeta to marry him, but she had her choice of beaus since she was the town doctor’s only daughter and was real pretty besides. She was dating seven different men, one for each day of the week. All of them wanted to marry her. Well, Grandpa Neebuck knew he had to do something to stand out from the crowd so he had this cherry wood bed custom-made in New York and sent down by railroad. Sugartree was the last stop on the line back then, and there was just a big tag on the wooden box that said—Hezekiah Mosely, Sugartree, Arkansas. He had it brought to this very house, which his daddy built when he was a boy, and set
it up right in the middle of the backyard, causing his neighbors’ tongues to wag to no end. When he took her out that night for ice cream, he brought her back here and took her around to the garden. He’d made up the bed with his mama’s hand-stitched, double-wedding-ring quilt and her best embroidered pillowcases and sheets, and when Grandma Neeta saw it, he knelt down and said, ‘Sadie Juanita, I can’t promise you a bed of roses, but I can offer you a right nice bed of magnolias.’ They got married three months later and spent every night for the next sixty-two years sleeping in this bed.”

“How could she say no?” he said. The smile I’d been angling for came to his face.

“How could she, indeed?” I answered, throwing back the very same quilt and placing my lips on his solid chest. I started kissing him, touching his warm skin with the tip of my tongue. I wanted to make him forget, if only for a little while, what had happened tonight. I wanted to replace it with better memories.

“You know,” I said, working down his chest to his firm stomach. His large hand rested on my back, caressing it slowly, up and down. “When I was a little girl, about four or so, I used to be sent in here to take a nap and I’d use each of those ten magnolias for”—my lips traveled lower—“a toehold and I’d climb to the top of the headboard”—his hand tightened on my back—“and then I’d jump off onto this very bed.” I kissed the hard jutting of his hipbone. “Then I’d climb back up and do it again and again until my aunt Garnet would come in and catch me, and she’d always say . . .” I nipped him gently, causing a moan to erupt from the back of his throat. “Albenia Louise Ramsey, why are you such a bad little girl?”

“And what did you say?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.

I raised my head up and looked directly into his blue eyes, smoky and dark with desire, and smiled.

“Because it feels
so good
.”

Gabe’s laughter rang out, and he pulled me up to him, kissing me deeply, and within the hour, without a bit of protest, another honorable Southern woman surrendered herself under Great-Great Grandpa Neebuck’s carved cherry wood magnolias.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I was sitting at the vanity wrestling with the tangles in my hair when Gabe came into the room, his hair wet and slicked back.

“Shower’s free,” he said.

“Guess I’d better get in there quick,” I said.

He leaned down and pushed my hair back, kissing the nape of my neck. “Last night was awe-inspiring, Señora. Think your aunt Garnet would sell us that bed?”

“I doubt she’d sell it to me, but she’d probably give it to you if you smiled at her right.”

He grinned at me in the mirror.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just lay that one on her, and the magnolias are yours.”

No breakfast was waiting for us in the kitchen, the competition obviously having moved to greener pastures, so I suggested we walk over to the 3B Cafe for one of John Luther’s breakfast specials. The cool air was tinged with the sweet, smoky scent of burning leaves as we meandered across the busy courthouse square to the cafe.

“Just a second,” I said when we passed Beulah’s Beauty
Barn. “I want to stick my head in here and see if I can get an appointment.”

While Gabe waited out in front of Beulah’s big picture window, I stepped inside the beauty parlor. It was busy this morning since it was Wednesday, and there were big doings at the church tonight. Aunt Garnet’s sister-in-law, Vernell, perched in Beulah’s chair, the pink one nearest the window, waxing downright poetic about a new red velvet cake recipe she’d cut out of
Southern Living
magazine this month. The other chair, the baby blue one, was manned by Maybellene, Beulah’s daughter, a stout, golden-haired lady who looked to be in her forties. The air was warm and steamy and punctuated every few minutes by laughter. All five hair dryers were full with women reading
National Enquirer
and
People
magazines. Every customer was attired in Beulah’s custom-made pink and blue plastic smocks. One drying lady was saying to another, “It was a twenty-mile-an-hour quilt. Looks good when you’re drivin’ by at twenty miles an hour.”

“I seen that quilt,” the lady in Maybellene’s chair chimed in. “It would take at least sixty miles an hour to make those blocks look decent.”

“Hey, y’all,” I said, taking a handful of M&M’s from the bowl in front of the copper and steel hand-punch cash register. I remember Beulah letting me push down the keys when Aunt Garnet paid for her wash and set. The five-dollar key always stuck.

“Hey, Benni Louise,” Beulah said, without missing a beat teasing Vernell’s bluish-white hair. “What’re you up to today?” She winked at me and nodded her head toward the front window. “And how come you left that handsome fella of yours outside?”

“’Cause I was afraid he’d take one look at you and purely leave me flat,” I said, climbing up on the padded stool behind the counter and hooking my heels on the middle rung. In the glass case rested the same pink and blue
glittered combs and brushes that were for sale the last time I was here. I ran my fingers over the register keys.

“You got that right, honey,” she said with a watery cackle, starting the back comb on Vernell, who nodded at me in the gilded mirror. “He’s a fine hunk of hormones, I’m here to tell you. Is he worth the trouble?”

I turned and contemplated him through the glass. He’d folded his arms across his chest and was staring out at the square. His black hair glistened in the morning sunlight. Turning back to the ladies, I said, “Most times.”

“More like bedtime,” the lady sitting next to Vernell said, her head half-covered in tiny pink curlers.

“They’re handy on trash day, too,” Vernell pointed out. She leaned over and sipped from a can of diet RC sitting on Beulah’s curler tray. She made a scrunched comical face in the mirror. Laughter rippled through the sweet-smelling, muggy room.

“And when the gutters need cleanin’,” another lady said.

“Killin’ spiders,” Maybellene said around a mouthful of bobby pins. Her hair was so blond and teased so tall and airy it got me to craving a helping of cotton candy. “And snakes.”

The whole room of ladies nodded, murmuring a group assent at those necessary tasks.

I glanced back out at Gabe, wondering if he knew he was being discussed. He looked down at his watch and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

“He’s got a real nice butt,” Beulah noted. All the women in the vicinity of her voice stretched their necks to look.

“Heavens, don’t tell him that,” I said. “He’s conceited enough for two men and a boy.” The women cackled at my remark.

“Ain’t they all?” one commented.

I slid down off the wooden stool. “I’d better get going. Just wanted to see if anyone could squeeze me in this morning for a trim.”

“I got a free twenty minutes at eleven,” Maybellene said. “Just a trim?”

“Yeah, I’m tryin’ to grow it out.”

“Be here sharp,” she warned. “It’s a packed day.”

“We’re just goin’ over to the 3B for some breakfast. I’ll be here at five till. Promise.”

“My scissors are a’tremblin’ in anticipation,” she replied.

Outside, I linked my arm in Gabe’s. “Okay, ready to tie on the feed bag. I made an appointment for a cut at eleven.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You’re getting your hair cut?”

I squeezed his arm and laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s just a trim.”

Inside the cafe, John Luther was standing behind the register cracking open a roll of quarters. A man with a wrinkled prune face wearing dirt-stained overalls and a white gimme cap that simply said, “Feed,” held out an open palm.

“Hey, John Luther,” I said. “Brought my boyfriend for some of your famous cheese grits.”

He smiled and gave change to the whiskered old man. “See you later, Doyle. I’ll be by to pick up that chicken feed this afternoon. Don’t you be sellin’ it all ’fore I get there.”

The man grunted and helped himself to a toothpick.

“Does your husband know you’re feedin’ your boyfriend breakfast?” John Luther asked, holding out a friendly hand to Gabe. “John Luther Billings. Welcome to Sugartree, Mr. Ortiz.”

“Gabe,” he said, shaking John Luther’s hand.

“Y’all sit anywhere,” he gestured to the almost empty room. Breakfast had been long over for most of his customers. “Coffee?”

“You bet,” I said. “Lots of cream.”

“So,” Gabe said, peering at me over his menu. “What are our plans after you get clipped?”

“Just hang out until the gospel sing and pie social tonight.”

He set his menu down and said, “I’d like to get some fishing in while we’re here.”

I took a packet of sugar from a plastic basket shaped like a chicken. Shaking it, I said, “The guns and ammo shop across from Hawley’s drugstore should sell temporary fishing licenses. Why don’t you check it out while I’m in Beulah’s? They probably know some good spots to fish, too. We could go back by Aunt Garnet’s, grab some of Uncle WW’s fishing gear, buy a pack lunch from Boone’s, and catch us some fish.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Here you go,” John Luther said, setting two white mugs of steaming coffee in front of us. He placed a tiny metal pitcher of cream next to me. “Y’all know what you want?”

“Blueberry pancakes with an order of hash browns,” Gabe said.

“Make it two,” I said.

“Easy enough. Grits?”

“Nope,” Gabe said.

“Yep,” I replied. “Want ’em plain, though. Instead of the hash browns, come to think of it.”

John Luther picked up our menus and, with a slight hesitation, cleared his throat and said, “Gabe, heard you grew up in a small town.”

Gabe nodded, his eyes studying John’s face curiously. “In Kansas. Just outside of Wichita.”

He cleared his throat again and said, “Then I know you understand how small-town talk is.”

Gabe nodded again, his face turning from curious to wary.

“I heard about what happened at the Dairy Queen last night and I just wanted to apologize on behalf of our town for the shabby treatment you received and assure you that the majority of our fine folks here in Sugartree do not treat
visitors with such disrespect.” His face turned angry for a moment. “Sure as I’m standing here, those little jerk-offs need to be taught a lesson.”

“Thank you,” Gabe said. “But there’s no need for you to apologize. Arkansas hasn’t cornered the market on ignorant human beings. We have our fair share in California. Wasn’t the first time that’s happened to me. Probably won’t be the last.”

John Luther’s broad face relaxed. “That’s real nice of you to be so open-minded. Breakfast is on me.”

“That’s not necessary,” Gabe said.

“Are you kidding?” I piped up. “Mr. Johnny Luther pinch-a-penny-till-it-shrieks hardly ever gives anything away. We’re taking him up on it.”

John Luther patted the top of my head, something he knew I despised. I slapped at his hand. “Ain’t she just the cutest thing when she’s bein’ obnoxious? Did she ever tell you about the time she broke my arm? I remember it every time the weather changes and it hurts like the dickens.”

“Forget my childhood shenanigans,” I said. “What about those guys who hassled us last night? What’s their story?”

His face grew cold. Spots of angry color dotted his high forehead. “They’re part of the group Toby Hunter hung out with. He was kind of the ringleader, so I reckon they’re feeling at loose ends. Heard they had some ties to some white supremacist group in Little Rock, but that just might be rumors. They’re a bunch of troublemakers, that’s a fact. Kids with too much time and money on their hands. A few years on a chain gang cutting kudzu would do ’em a world of good.”

“Heard anything about Toby’s murder?” I asked, ignoring Gabe’s toe nudging my foot under the table.

John Luther shook his head, glancing back toward the kitchen. “Lots of people wanted that boy gone,” he said. He looked me straight in the eye. “Including me. But, believe me, someone got there before I did. If it had been me,
more’n the back of his head would have been beat in.” He tucked our menus under his arm and headed back down the single aisle of the cafe. “Breakfast will be up shortly.”

“His broken arm was an accident,” I said before Gabe could comment on my questioning John Luther about Toby’s death. “It was just as much Emory’s fault as mine. We were pretending to be firemen.”

“Firemen?”

“We told John Luther to jump from the tree house into a blanket we were holding. We were pretending to rescue him from a burning building. We severely underestimated his weight and our ability to hold on to the blanket.”

“Whose cockeyed idea was it?”

I avoided his eyes and concentrated on putting the exact right combination of cream and sugar in my coffee.

He sipped his coffee. “You were lucky his arm was all that broke.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that lecture already,
papacita
. Don’t let John Luther kid you. He was the envy of every kid in Sugartree. He wore that cast like an Olympic medal all summer. Not to mention it got him out of working the harvest at his daddy’s farm, which he hated.”

“I see you’ve never been an easy girl to play with,” he said, chuckling. After breakfast I still had fifteen minutes until my hair appointment, so Gabe and I sat on a park bench under a tree in the square, watching the town of Sugartree go about its daily business.

“Okay, now that we’re out of your friend’s earshot, tell me what his story is with this Toby Hunter.” He leaned back in the wood-slatted bench and put his arm around my shoulder. Above us, mockingbirds darted from tree to tree, trilling out songs and warnings to mark their territories.

“It has something to do with Toby and his daughter.” I told him about the incident yesterday when Elvia and I were having breakfast there. “It sounded like Toby was stalking her or something.”

“That would upset any father.”

“I can’t imagine John Luther killing someone, though. He’s always been the most passive one of our whole gang.”

“Threatening a man’s daughter could cause even the mildest man to lose control.”

“I guess you’re right.” I lay my head against his shoulder and looked up at the treetops, contemplating the amount of anger I’d seen that one young man inspire in just the last two days. It was a wonder someone hadn’t killed him before.