TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) (8 page)

Arlene kept her café open seven days a week, but she only required Jo Lynn to work five, especially when she came back after giving birth to Galynn. Although Sunday was a pretty heavy day, especially after the churches let out, Jo Lynn had hat day off, too. Arlene had a high school girl who could come in to help.

Jo Lynn started attending the Free Will Baptist Church with her Aunt Rose. At first, she started going just to give her elderly aunt a ride to the services, but the more she went the more she found she liked it, especially the women she met.

Arlene’s had never been a gathering place for women. They came on Saturdays and Sundays and a few weeknights, but usually only to accompany their men folk. All of the regulars at Arlene’s were men, mostly a breakfast and lunch crowd.

Jo Lynn found it good to get away from all those demanding men who crowded her at work, and to mingle, converse, and laugh with those of her own gender; even to cry when those times became necessary.

One such sister-comrade was Lorene Buchanan. It was Lorene who’d brought her into the women’s church group that met on Mondays, Jo Lynn’s other day off. Although some twenty-plus years older than the young mother-wife-waitress, Lorene and Jo Lynn clicked as people do on occasion. They both had confounding men. They both had daughters.

Jo Lynn knew Sunny, but not well. Most of what she knew came from Lorene and her battle with raising her foster child during the adolescent years. Jo Lynn considered Sunny a wild girl, contrary and irresponsible. Once Sunny reached adulthood and moved away, Jo Lynn never asked Lorene about her, nor did her friend offer to tell her.

Jo Lynn found she could confide to Lorene her angriest, saddest, and darkest secrets, and trust her never to tell a soul, which wasn’t always the case in the church circle of women. Although they’d never come right out and say anything, most in the women’s circle didn’t approve of Jo Lynn’s and Punch’s off and on marriages and subsequent live-in arrangements. Jo Lynn could feel the disapproval, but Lorene, who knew the whole story, said to her repeatedly, “Never you mind, honey.” So Jo Lynn didn’t.

Chapter 7

The Chair Recognizes Punch

March 2007

“Nosir, now we ain’t flyin’ no Mexikin flag,” Punch Roundstep said. “Not now; not never!”

Nan Dorn, the Tsalagee Founders Day Committee’s eighty-one year old and nearly deaf secretary, noted Punch’s statement for the record.
Punch Roundstep objected to buying hexagon bags
, she wrote in shorthand. Later she would transcribe the curls and chicken scratchings into the official minutes.

Nan had always considered herself somewhat of a writer, having for years been a regular contributor to the
Tsalagee Mirror’s
Hometown Happenin’s column. So she’d volunteered for the committee’s secretary duty. During the two hour meetings she would nod off occasionally, which also created some holes in her minutes. At the first meeting, the other committee members generally agreed that it wouldn’t be a good idea to let Nan keep the minutes, and gently tried to coax her away from the task. That was especially true with Euliss Purinton, the committee’s chairperson, who had served on other committees with Nan. She knew that Nan tended to editorialize her minutes to fill in the gaps. Her minutes tended to read more like the gossipy Hometown Happenin’s column than committee minutes.

“No, no,” Nan had said. “I insist. I’m really the only one here qualified for the job.”

“I think she’s right,” Hayward Yost said with a sly smile. Hayward had an ornery streak and a sense for the sardonic. “I nominate Nan to be secretary,” he added.

Since none present wanted to hurt Nan’s feelings, and out of respect for Hayward’s seniority, the committee let her keep the job. Besides, no one else particularly wanted it.

Punch had arisen from his seat, put his balled fists onto the top of the oval conference table, and leaned forward, his face red with anger and indignation. Most of the others around the table drew back reflexively in their seats. They knew about Punch’s temper, but few expected an outburst at this monthly gathering of the committee. It surprised them because the only words Punch had uttered in the previous six meetings were when he’d had a sneezing fit and said, “Got dangit!” between the forth and fifth sneeze. However, Nan Dorn hadn’t included them in the minutes.

Throughout the proceedings up to this point, Punch sat in his seat next to the window looking either bored or asleep. So most felt a little surprised at this sudden contribution. Only the two emeritus members did not—eighty-four year old Hayward Yost and eighty-six year old Socrates Ninekiller. They’d known Punch all his life and pretty much knew his hot buttons, as well as his political leanings.

Hayward looked over at Soc and chuckled once Punch had said what he said. Soc looked back at Hayward and grinned silently. Chairwoman Purinton, a stout and stern woman, grabbed her gavel and whacked it twice on its wooden base.

“You’re out of order, Mr. Roundstep,” Euliss said firmly. Euliss knew her parliamentary procedure. “The Chair recognizes Miss Sunflower Griggs as having the floor. Miss Griggs, do you wish to yield to Mr. Roundstep?”

“Well, I... uh, okay,” Sunny Griggs said.

Sunny Griggs sealed the door for Punch, so he could present his argument against the hexagon bags
,
although I’m not sure why
, Nan wrote.

Normally, Sunny would not yield an inch when it came to social issues. She considered herself a champion for the poor and downtrodden. Her hippie parents had ingrained that in her from the day she was born in 1968, until the State of Oklahoma put her into foster care at the age of eleven. As a childhood veteran of many protest rallies, Sunny would fight to the bloody death, for causes in which she believed.

But Punch was different. Despite the gap in their age, she found him somehow attractive. Sunny hated everything Punch did and said and stood for. No two people could be more opposite in their beliefs and outlooks on life and social conduct. And, yet, she found herself drawn to him by some animal instinct. The whole thing confused her greatly, and sometimes caused her to hesitate.

“The Chair recognizes Mr. Roundstep,” Euliss said. All eyes once again looked up to Punch. Punch looked at the group sitting around the table as if suddenly becoming aware that he’d jumped to his feet and addressed them.

“Well, I say we ain’t flyin’ no Mexikin flag in this town. That’s all,” he said and sat back down. He rubbed the three-day red stubble on his cheeks, then scratched an armpit. With fire still in his eyes, he looked over at Sunny, then to Hayward. The elder looked back at Punch giving him an approving nod and wink.

Sunny closed her eyes and raised her hand. “Madam Chairwoman,” she said in a calm and quiet voice.

“The Chair recognizes Miss Griggs.”

“I just want to say... to the committee... that Tsalagee now has a sizable Hispanic community in proportion to the rest of the population— ”

Sunny pointed out that the town has an excitable panicked community, which isn’t at all the case,
Nan wrote.

“They ain’t Americans! Most of ’em ain’t even legal!” Punch interjected, starting to rise again.

Punch Roundstep countered that most aren’t even American eagles, whatever that means.

“Order!” Euliss whacked her gavel once, and Punch settled back.

Sunny cleared her throat and continued. “And in the interest of diversity we need to acknowledge their community. They have a right to display the pride they have in their culture, heritage, and country.”

Sunny said in the interest of perversity we should abolish their immunity. They’ve had a fight to disgrace their capture, hairpiece, and gentry. But why she’d say something like that, I’ll never know.

“That is bull crap, Sunny!” Punch came to his feet again.

“Could you repeat that, please?” Nan asked.

“Punch, sit down and shut up!” Euliss commanded leaning forward and whacking her gavel three times as hard as she could. “You can’t use language like that at this proceeding,” she added.

Euliss got mad at Punch and told him he couldn’t manage white cats at a crow feeding. Now I’d have to agree with her on that one.

Punch turned to face Euliss. “YOU shuddup, Euliss, before I take that hammer you keep whackin’ and... and... well, I ain’t sayin’ what, but you jist shuddup!”

“What?” Nan asked.

Euliss fell back in her chair and said “Auph!” placing the gavel in her right hand over her heart, her mouth open, her face flush. Hayward swiveled his chair sideways, guffawed, and slapped his knee.

Facing back to Sunny Griggs, Punch pointed his finger at her and continued. “You try to put up a Mexikin flag anywhere in this town, and I’ll, by God, yank ’er down and burn it! End of discussin’.”

His speech finished, Punch turned and walked to the double doors of the conference room. He exited with a considerable slam of one of the oak doors. The remaining group let that sound diminish before anyone spoke.

“Madam, Euliss,” Hayward Yost said holding back his merriment as best he could.

“The Madam... I mean the Chair, recognizes, um... Hayward,” the stunned Chairwoman said weakly.

“Well, Euliss, I move we adjourn this meetin’.”

“So moved. Is there a sec... oh, the hell with it. Meeting adjourned,” Euliss said and gave her gavel one last whack.

Nan Dorn, her chin on her chest, jumped awake at the sound, and wrote her final entry into that meeting’s minutes.

Punch Roundstep had a hissy fit and walked out of the meeting. Hayward Yost suggested, among other things, we approve a churned seating, which makes no sense at all.

Meeting adjourned 3:14 p.m., May 16, 2007
.

Chapter 8

Artie Makes a Stop

May 2007

The grinding impact of the culvert with the right front undercarriage of his newly acquired Ford Escort threw Artie Lancaster, noggin first, up and into the top of the doorframe on the driver’s side. The collision spun the car clockwise, sending it rolling onto its left side where it slid some twenty feet before coming to rest perpendicular to the roadway.

The vehicle stayed that way, crumpled and on its side and steaming from the nose, for twenty minutes before White Oxley, on his way into town, came upon the scene. He stopped his truck in the middle of the road and studied the sight.

White didn’t recognize the car, because Artie had just picked it up from a used car lot in Muskogee not three hours earlier, and was driving it home. Artie made this purchase to replace his other car, which he had deposited into Cowbird Creek two weeks prior. That night driving home, after a couple of stops for a couple of brews in a couple of honky-tonks, he needed to relieve himself, and thought he would do so along the creek’s bank. Anxious to exit the vehicle, as well as mentally unfocused, he failed to place the car in park. After about a five second hesitation, the little sedan slowly proceeded down the embankment and into the water. All Artie could do was pee and watch as the car sloshed and gurgled into the creek water, sinking slowly up to its trunk lid.

This time he had made only one other stop on his way home at a place called The Tally-Ho Tavern, which sat invitingly on the side of the highway on the outskirts of Muskogee.

White punched on his emergency flashers, and exited his truck to investigate. He looked in through the windshield, and saw a lone occupant slumped against the groundside door. White couldn’t tell if the person was out cold or dead. The small pool of blood on the doorframe underneath the driver’s split open scalp aided in his opinion to the latter, and he also recognized him as Artie Lancaster.

White pulled his small cell phone from a breast pocket in his overalls, flipped it open, and punched in some numbers.

“Zuhgey Pleece thiz Pete,” came a response after two rings.

“Pete, this here’s White Oxley.”

“Hey, White. What’s goin’ on?” Pete said, happy to have someone break into his boredom at the Tsalagee Police Station.

“Well, there’s been a wreck out here on County 118 ’bout a mile west from my place. And—”

“Really? Anyone hurt?” Pete said, a little more enthusiastically than he should have.

“Well, yah. It’s Artie Lancaster, I think. You need to call the sheriff and tell them to get on out here, and tell them they might better send a ambalance, too.”

“Ten-four, White. I’ll ten-five your ten-fifty and ten-fifty-two, and get ’em  at your ten-twenty, pronto, er, ten-eighteen, I mean.”

“Aw right, then,” White said and closed his phone.

He leaned forward and looked in through the groundside windshield again. “Artie,” he said in a loud voice. “Can you hear me, boy?” No response came, so he put his hands up against the glass with his mouth an inch away. “Artie?” he implored.

Artie moved his head slightly and groaned. His eyes fluttered open. He groaned again, and closed his eyes.

“You hang on, son,” White yelled back at him through the glass. “I got help comin’ for ya.”

* * *

Galynn, standing next to the hospital bed, looked down at the patched and plastered up body of Artie who lay in a comatose sleep. The young woman shook her head and sighed. She could not believe he would do this to himself.

Galynn and Artie had known each other since childhood. Artie was a little less than a year younger than her, and they’d gone most of the way through school together. At the end of his first grade year, Artie’s teacher told the school administration that the boy was so cotton pickin’ smart it would be a waste of time to place him in the second grade, so they bumped him up to the third, making him and Galynn classmates.

Some of the kids in Mrs. Walkingstick’s third grade class didn’t cotton much to a snot-nosed first grader being put in amongst their more learned class. They decided he’d have to pay some dues for not having to suffer through the riggers of second grade, as they had. Jimmy Mack Botts, the leader of that group, considered himself somewhat an expert in the third grade experience, as he had already had one previous year of it.