The Redneck Detective Agency (The Redneck Detective Agency Mystery Series Book 1) (7 page)

Chapter 13

Rusty didn’t wake until seven-thirty in the land that time had forgotten. He had slept for ten straight hours. He stirred, feeling a bit cold and stiff but well rested.

              He gathered his things and went down to the little beach. It was broad daylight but the beach was still in the shadows. The top of the waterfall was in the direct sunlight. Rays of light beamed and hit the rock ledge on the other side of the pool. Rays cut through the mist that filled the canyon.

              He took off his shoes and socks, rolled his jeans up above his knees and waded across the rock edge of the pool. The water felt ice cold. The rocks were a bit slippery, but he got to the other side without losing his footing.

              Just as he remembered, back on the other side of a rock wall, there was a very small pool no bigger than a large wash basin where spring water flowed from its sandy bottom. The wash basin overflowed onto the rocky ground and off into the pool.

              Rusty found a bay leaf tree. He pulled off one of the huge oblong foot-long leaves and pulled the ends around to meet, forming a natural dipper.

              He dipped it into the spring water. He supported the bottom of the water-filled dipper end of the leaf with his left hand and he drank. He guzzled about four half cups of the ice cold water. He forced himself to stop, so as not to bloat himself.

              When he got back to his blanket, the sun’s rays were hitting the sand beach. The sun warmed him all the way to his bones, undoing the chilling effect of sleeping on the rock. He took his shirt and pants off and sunned himself.

              He kept staring at the waterfall and the pool. And the pool kept calling him until he couldn’t resist it any more.

              He peeled off his underwear, ran, and dived head first into the cool water. Ice water was more like it. At first, Rusty thought his body was going to go into coronary arrest, but then the first shock passed and it just felt invigorating.

              He swam in long, easy breaststrokes about the pool. He went under the waterfall. It was powerful and pounded his head like Crystal used to do, when she was about three or four and would stand up behind him on the couch and pretend the top of his head was a bongo drum.

              Rusty hadn’t felt this good in years. He loved to swim. And he loved the Elk River. But he didn’t like swimming in its muddy, warm waters. He loved to swim in cool, crystal clear, natural pools. He’d never get closer to paradise than this. He’d have to bring Gloria here.

              He swam until the rock ledge started calling him. No, no. I’m too old.
Oh, this is the land that time forgot. Come on.

              Rusty swam to the far end of the pool. And climbed out and went to the back side of the rocky formation, where someone, probably the Choctaws, had carved out steps. He climbed the steps, and then had to make a couple of improvisations with some crevices in the rocks to negotiate up to the top of the ledge. By actual height it was probably only fifteen feet above the water’s surface, but Rusty felt like he could look out over everything, down the stream and over some of the treetops of the lower canyon.

              Rusty took two steps back and then ran and jumped off the ledge, holding his naked crotch with one hand and flaying his other about, giving a long, loud yell.

              He hit the water in the deepest part of the pool. His feet touched the sandy bottom. He let his knees bend and then pushed himself back up and soon bobbed to the surface of the water.

              And then for some reason he opened his eyes. Rusty never opened his eyes under the water, but the water was so cool. He caught sight of a glint, this little golden glint in the sand.

              Rusty gave a couple of frog kicks, that took him right over to the area. He grabbed at the glint of gold, got hold of something. He closed his eyes and floated to the surface. He opened his eyes. His vision was blurred, but he could make out something like a piece of jewelry with a dark cord.

              He swam to the sand bank, waded out of the pool. He stood at the water’s edge, letting himself dry off, standing up there, shivering a bit but in a calm state of mind.

              He blinked his eyes until his vision was clear. He inspected. It was a necklace, made of some sort of dark, leathery cord. Attached to it was a large gold charm, in the shape of a crescent moon.

              He toweled off and then lay out on his blanket. The sun hit him at an angle that was perfect to warm him but not direct enough to burn any part of his body.

              He sat up and ran his fingers over the charm and then pressed it next to his face, trying to feel it. A gold crescent moon. Its outer arc was about the size of a quarter. Looked antique.

              What a thing to find. His grandmother had told him they used to find gold in the streams of the canyon. Rusty entertained the notion that the gold he now held had come from this very stream, made into a piece of jewelry, and had somehow and mystically returned back to the place it was from.

              Rusty knew there was a philosophy that espoused such things. He had just thought it up on his own though. It seemed a natural philosophy. All you had to do was come to a place like this and you were naturally endowed with natural philosophy.

              With that thought, he put the magical necklace--he would probably give it to Crystal--in his shoe, and lay down in the warming sun.

              About the time he was drifting off in a sunbather’s dreamy state, he heard yelling and giggling. At first he thought some group of kids was invading the place. He slipped his underwear and pants on very quickly. He took the necklace out of his shoe and put it in his pants pocket.

              Then he saw them. A grown boy and a girl, maybe sixteen to eighteen years old, hustled down the trail. The girl carried a backpack. The boy carried a small cooler.

              They came over toward the beach. As they approached, the boy called out, “Mind if we join you?”

              “Not at all,” Rusty replied. “I’m leaving in just a little while.”

              They were young and beautiful. They set their stuff down about twenty feet away from Rusty.

              “You mind if we take our clothes off?” the girl asked.

              “Please do,” Rusty said. It was a long time since he’d seen a teenager naked. When he was young, he had been quick to criticize. Her breasts are shaped funny. His chest is sunk. But there was a physical beauty, almost perfection, in youth, a truth Rusty had been too stupid to know in his own youth.

              They starting shucking their clothes off and the more clothes they took off the better and more fertile they looked. Not a body pierce or tattoo on either one of them. They were both tan with dark blonde hair. The epitome of youth, fertility, and vitality.

              They hit the water at the same time. They swam to the other side and then climbed out. The water glistened off their naked young bodies. They climbed the ledge and jumped off, holding hands.

              Rusty watched it all in admiration. They were so young and healthy and vibrant. He watched them swim for a while, and then he put his shoes on and gathered his things up. It was time to leave and let them have the place to themselves.

              They came out of the water, giggling and shivering. They dried themselves off with no shyness about being nude. Maybe, just maybe, the next generation would prevent the further decline of the culture. Or maybe there’d be a small healthy subculture of kids, like these two, who would carry that responsibility on their healthy shoulders.

              Somewhere else, just ten miles away from this beautiful place with these two beautiful people, all three of them would probably be arrested--for them being naked, and for Rusty, an old middle aged man being in their presence and looking at their nakedness.

              The kids dried off and just kept giggling.

              “We feel and act free when we come here,” the girl announced. She had a bit of a country accent that Rusty hadn’t detected before.

              “She’s part Choctaw,” the boy said.

              “My grandmother,” the girl said.

              “My maternal great great grandmother was a Choctaw,” Rusty said.

              “It was a maternal society,” the girl said. “Hey, you want a piece of cornbread?”

              Rusty accepted the generous piece of cornbread she offered and said, “Well, I’ll leave this fine place with you two young folks now.”

              He walked back up the trail. No introductions were ever done. None needed. He’d only heard them call each other as Crazy Boy and Crazy Girl.

              Rusty looked back. Now the two had their arms around each other. Talking and rubbing their noses like what he had known as Eskimo kissing.

              The girl leaned her head back away from the boy. She giggled, then leaned into the boy. He fell back and she lay on top of him.

              Rusty walked on. He could only imagine what their play would culminate in. But he knew one thing. Crazy Boy and Crazy Girl would take their sweet time getting to that culmination. They had all the time in the world. For they were in the world that time forgot.

              Then Rusty could easily imagine the girl standing on top of the ledge, naked, with the necklace on, about to dive into the water. He turned and walked back to them.

              When they saw him approach, they untwined a bit and looked at him.

              Rusty walked right up and said to Crazy Girl, “Did you lose anything here?”

              Her eyes went wide and she said, “Yes. The necklace my grandmother gave me. A gold crescent moon.”

              The boy got off her. The girl sat straight up. Her nice, tanned firm breasts stood out with the dark nipples erect.

              Rusty took the necklace out of his pocket and handed it to her.

              “Oh, my God. My necklace.”

              Rusty pointed it out to the pool. “I found it just before you two came. Right out there.”

              “We dived down for that thing, it must of been for an hour. Two months ago. Hot early spring day. We almost froze to death,” Crazy Boy said.

              “I don’t know why I opened my eyes underwater. Something I never do, but I saw it.”

              “Oh, thank you!” Crazy Girl said. Then she looked up from the necklace in her hand and stared right into Rusty’s eyes. “This necklace is over a hundred years old. My Choctaw grandmaw gave it to me before she died. She said the gold came right from this river. We thought the river had taken it back. You. You came here just to find this necklace for me. You being here just didn’t happen.”

              Crazy Girl stared at Rusty, like he was someone special.

              Once, when Crystal was about twelve, he, Crystal, and Jenny were having a late breakfast at some pancake joint. Rusty had made about two corny cracks in a row without so much as getting a rise from Jenny or Crystal.

              He had said, “There is some place where my humor would be appreciated. Where I would be received, heralded, and respected as a genius.”

              “Yes, in a land far, far away,” Jenny said. She and Crystal had laughed the longest.

              Now, Rusty stood in that land far, far away. It was the Land that Time had forgot.

Chapter 14

When Rusty got back to his El Camino, there was another El Camino, but a blue 1969, parked right beside his. Then Rusty spotted the front license plate. It had the emblem of a Choctaw flag on it. Sure, it belonged to Crazy Girl.

              Two vehicles. Both El Camino’s. Wasn’t that a coincidence?

              Rusty looked out over the canyon, down at the top of the tree canopy.

              Crazy Boy and Crazy Girl. Rusty thought—I have lost my youth. He couldn’t get that back. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t disillusioned. But he could get his life back.

              When he crossed over the Sipsey River Bridge, without thinking at all, he came full blown with his decision. He was going straight uptown to his office, open the safe, get the money, and tromp right over to Sammy’s office and tell him everything. What if he was the last person to see Elmore Katfish King? Rusty had no motive and an airtight alibi. He was in Gloria’s loving arms the whole night. The night on which King took a .45 right between the eyes.

              About noon, Rusty passed over the Decatur Bridge into Travertine County. On the other side of the bridge a white SUV pulled in behind him and got right on his tail. He glanced back at the SUV. Rusty could stomp down on the five hundred horse-power turbo-charged Chevy or pull over and have a polite discussion about this tailgating business. It didn’t matter one way or the other to Rusty. He didn’t know what the shitass’s problem was.

              Then another car pulled in behind the SUV, hitting the pavement and swerving around trying to catch up. Three cop cars came heading south, with lights flashing. One, then the rest of them, slowed and drove off into the median to U-turn so as to head east.

              That’s when the SUV on Rusty’s tail, lit up like a redneck Christmas tree. Huge blue and red lights flashing everywhere, on top and inside the grill. Sirens started screaming.

              “Elmore Katfish King.” That’s all Rusty could think. They knew. Somehow they knew he came to see Rusty. He could just see Elmore’s widow. ‘Well, I don’t know. Someone was after Elmore. He was so disturbed he went to see that river Clay. That’s the last I saw of him alive.’

              Now the bastards were after information in a radical way and probably had a threat of obstruction of justice. How could Rusty convince them he was headed up to Sammy’s office to tell him everything?

              Rusty pulled completely off the asphalt and onto the grassy shoulder. He put the car in park. Made a quick mental assessment. No moonshine, no dynamite, no firearms in the car. Good.

              He turned off the engine and rolled down the window. He got out his license.

              But they didn’t want his license. In front of him was a line of deputies--not Travertine County but some others--with drawn guns. One had an assault rifle. One a shotgun. The others had those Glocks.

              Rusty looked at them, acted like he was bored with their display. He looked over to the side. There was an officer getting all this on a video camera.

              A plainclothesman with a Glock on his belt approached the car.

              “Mr. Clay, please get out of the car. Hold your hands in sight.”

              Sounded like something right off the TV. When Rusty got out, his attention went straight to a man--maybe thirty years old--in a suit. He stood back ten feet on the other side of the plainclothesman, but he seemed to be the asshole in charge.

              “Turn around, Mr. Clay, and lean against your vehicle.”

              He did. His hands were put behind his back and he was handcuffed.

              Then Rusty was turned around to face the plainclothesman. Rusty could see the uniformed deputies now. Madison County. Rusty didn’t know anything about police work, but they seemed one county out of their jurisdiction.

              “Mr. Clay,” the plainclothesman said. “You are under arrest for first degree murder. You will now be read your rights.”

              “What?” Rusty said. He didn’t have anything to do with that bullet hole in Elmore Catfish King’s head. “Murder for what?”

              “For the bombing death of Dr. Robert Compton.”

              All Rusty could think was--Life sure was different two hours ago.