Mischief In Maggody

"Why don't you ask her when you see her?"

Ruby Bee had to agree that was likely to be the best plan. She even wondered why she hadn't thought of it first.

The patches of sunlight twitched and flickered as the breeze rippled the oak leaves. Although it was October, the heat had swelled all afternoon and was hot enough to raise a sweat, had anybody been hiking on the north side of the ridge. Nobody was. It was calm and quiet, just the way it's shown in a primary-level picture book. If you listened real hard, you might be able to hear a train way down at the bottom of the hollow. Once the leaves were gone, you might even have a fair chance of seeing a flash of silver or the dull red of the caboose rumbling loyally on the tail end of the train. But except for a hoe and knife, and a rotting gu

You wouldn't have to listen too hard to hear the flies buzzing, though. The big old blue-green ones were the loudest as they danced on the clotted nostrils and crawled on the dried-out lips of the body still lying there, undisturbed by anything except that drawn by instinct to decomposing flesh.

The two eyes could have been glass for all they saw. The mouth, opened in a moment of surprise, was shaped for all eternity to offer the first syllable of a common curse word. The rest of the body had been gnawed by predators, but not so fiercely that you couldn't recognize the various parts of it. One foot lay twisted under a thin wire stretched between two almost invisible metal stakes. There were other wires around the half acre that should have been thick with ginseng but wasn't, and those wires were attached to fu

"Why, here's Arly now," Ruby Bee chirped. "Were your ears burning a while back? Estelle and I were discussing a minor puzzlement, and we decided you were the one to clear it up for us."

I came across the ten-by-ten dance floor and leaned over the bar to put my hand on my mother's shoulder. "You know, Ruby Bee, you're the most compassionate woman in Maggody. You're probably the most compassionate woman in all of Stump County, for that matter."

"I am?" she said, easing from under my hand.

"Yes, indeed. That's why I thought of you when I needed help. I knew I could count on Ruby Bee Hanks to do the decent, charitable thing." None of this was easy, but it was the best I could come up with. I licked my lips and plunged back in. "You've always taught me to care about less fortunate folks, and you've been an inspiration to me all my life."

"I have?" She retreated down the bar to get the beer tap between us.

"Cross my heart." I drew an "X" on my chest and tried to look just a shade misty at all those warm memories I didn't have.

Ruby Bee (now the Sister Teresa of the bar-and-grill industry) studied me for a full minute. "You didn't just drop in to spew out the compliments. What do you want from me, Ariel Hanks?"

(A small digression. If you don't know by now, I was not named after the etheral character in The Tempest. I was named after a photograph taken from an airplane. Ruby Bee loved the sound of it, and she never was one to win blue ribbons at the district-wide spelling bee. As a whole, the Hanks clan has always gone in for exotic-sounding names. The fact that there was a German measles epidemic about the time Ruby Bee was born is not mentioned in her presence. Work on it.)

"Do you remember that little kid I brought in earlier? He was starving, and your good cooking saved him from death," I continued.

"That awful creature with the filthiest mouth I've heard in all my born days? Is that the one you're referring to, Miss Smarty Pants?"

I hung my head. "I am sorry you had to hear some of those words. He's had a tragic upbringing, little Hammet, and he just doesn't know what to say in the presence of a fine, moral, kind, generous woman like you. He was so ashamed of himself that he cried all the way home."

"I can imagine," Ruby Bee said, her arms crossed and her voice chilly. She was all the way down to the cash register by now. "So why are you telling me all this and buttering me up like I was a hot biscuit from the oven?"

I told her how Robin had disappeared and the children had been without food for more than three days. I added very firmly that I intended to deliver them to Mrs. Jim Bob as soon as they were fed-and that I'd promised them the best home cookin' in the county in order to lure them off the mountain. I tossed in a quick aside that Mrs. Jim Bob's cookin' was hardly comparable to certain other folks' efforts. I concluded with a vividly drawn picture of malnourished children outside in the jeep, almost too weak from hunger to walk through the door of the most outstanding grill in all of Arkansas. I did not mention that said victims were probably ripping up the seats of the jeep, if not ripping off the radio for a transaction at the pool hall.

She didn't look especially pleased, but she grudgingly said they could come in for a plate lunch special-if they minded their ma

Hammet, however, had most likely related his previous encounter with the proprietor, because no one said a word as they followed me to the bar and sat down on stools. Sissie was carrying the baby, but she put the bundle on the floor before she took a seat. The bundle didn't stir.

I picked up the baby and drew back a corner of the quilt to gaze at a gray, translucent face and two closed eyes. "What's the baby's name?"

Sissie flashed some mossy teeth at me. "We jest calls him Baby. Do you reckon we can get some milk or something for him?"

Ruby Bee came out of the kitchen, armed with a dish towel just in case a savage leaped across the bar. "What do they want to eat?" she asked me.

"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.