Biggie and the Devil Diet (13 page)

"I don't have to, Biggie. I've got my pocketknife with me." I dug the knife out of my pocket, half expecting to get into trouble for carrying it, but Biggie didn't say a word, just took it and went to work on the slug.

17

B
y the time we got home, the wind had turned to the north and the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. Willie Mae had made beef stew with plenty of tender meat, potatoes, peas, and baby carrots swimming in rich, brown gravy. She set a plate of hot cornbread on the table to go with it. For dessert, we had crispy fried peach pies. When we finished eating, Willie Mae poured coffee and set cups in front of Biggie and Rosebud. She sat back down at the table.

"You find out anything today?" she asked Biggie.

Biggie sipped her coffee and frowned. "I'm not sure. I certainly found out something about the goings on in that family."

"They don't like each other much," I said.

"That's right," Biggie said. "The only thing they all seemed to agree on was that they loved Rex."

"And he be the one got hisself kilt," Willie Mae commented.

"That's right," Biggie said. "And I'm too tired and full of your good supper to think about it anymore." She got up and stretched her arms above her head. "Rosebud, I think we could have a fire in the fireplace tonight. What do you think?"

"Suits me," he said. "I just cleaned the flue last week. She's all ready to go soon's me and my boy here bring some wood in."

"Rosebud," I said, as we loaded the wood onto the wood cart, "I'm in big trouble."

"You sho is."

"How do you know what I'm talking about?"

"It's plain as mouse turds in a sugar bowl." He grinned at me, showing the little gold hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades he had built into his front teeth.

"Rosebud!"

He leaned against the woodpile and crossed his arms. "Anybody who gots two women on the string's got trouble. Um-hmm."

"Well, what am I going to do about it?"

"Help me get this wood in the house, and I'll be thinkin' on it."

Once we got the wood loaded in the big copper pot Biggie uses for a wood box and Rosebud had a fire going in the fireplace, I prodded him. "Did you think of anything?"

"What?" Biggie had been dozing in her chair.

"Rosebud's supposed to be helping me with a problem I've got."

"I ain't what you'd say necessarily
supposed
to do nothing. Still and all, it does put me in mind of the time a black feller I knew got hisself in a similar jam."

"What am I going to do, Rosebud?"

"What do you want to do?"

"That's just what I don't know. Monica's been my best friend ever since… forever. But Misty, she's different from any girl I've ever known. I feel like I've
got
to take her to the dance. It's not like I've got a choice, Rosebud, I gotta do it!"

"I see what you mean. But, make no mistake about it, boy, you
got
a choice!"

I sighed. "Well, what happened to the feller?"

"It happened when he was working on a cattle ranch down in south Texas."

"I never heard of a black cowboy."

"They's lots of things you ain't heard of. Now, shut up and let me tell this story. You see this feller needed to make some money so he could marry up with his sweetie back home in Natchitoches where he come from. Naturally, it didn't take him long to figure out there wasn't never any money in wrangling, but that's another story. Anyhow, they put him up in a bunkhouse with a bunch of Mexican vaqueros who didn't speak one word of English."

"They spoke Spanish."

"Ain't you smart? Of course they spoke Spanish, and fast, too. Wellsir, this feller got awfully lonesome, listening to the others rattling away in a language he couldn't understand. Finally, after a while, he began to pick up a word or two here and there, enough to get by on the job, but not much more. Even the foreman spoke Spanish. He used to lay in his bunk at night while they played some card game he couldn't make head nor tail of thinking of his sweetie back home. She wasn't much to look at, a little-bitty thing with a face like a raisin. And sometimes she'd talk to that feller like he had a tail, but boy could she cook." Rosebud laughed without making a sound and slapped his knees. "She could put together a fine gumbo that would make you stand up and slap your grandpa. And sweet tater pies? Umm-umm. Still and all, there was something else about her, something more important than her cooking, something he couldn't rightly put his finger on. He thought it might be the way she didn't seem to care what anybody thought about her, the way she'd say and do whatever she took a notion to, exactly like as if she had a sprig of mistletoe hanging from her coattails, if you take my meaning. It was like that she knew a secret that nobody else in the whole world knew. It made this gal awfully attractive in a way that this feller never really understood.

"Anyway, one weekend he went into town and wandered into a honky-tonk on the back street. You can't imagine how pleased he was when he discovered a musician playing blues music on an old piano. Well, he thought he was back home again. He ordered himself a beer and pulled his mouth organ out of his pocket, and when that piano player launched into 'Saint James Infirmary,' he commenced playing along. When the song was over, everybody in the place whooped and yelled and bought him beers. The pretty little gal behind the bar gave him a big kiss on the mouth."

"What's a mouth organ?"

"A harmonica. After that, every chance he got, he'd go in that bar where they liked him and spoke his language. He'd play his mouth organ until closing time, and everybody, especially the gal behind the bar, treated him like he was somebody special. Pretty soon he began to believe it. He forgot why he'd come to the ranch in the first place."

"Why was that?"

"Pay attention, son. He was supposed to be saving up his money so he could marry his little sweetie back home."

"Oh. So what happened?"

"He took to waiting until the gal, Rosa, got off from the bar at night so he could walk her home. Some nights he wouldn't get back to the bunkhouse until the sky was turning gray in the east. Needless to say, he didn't get much sleep on account of they had to get up at the crack of dawn to do their work. Well, one day they was ropin' calves—"

"Do they really do that? Outside of rodeos, I mean."

"Shoot yeah, they do. They had to get 'um in the pen to vaccinate them. Well, this feller, he was so groggy from not getting any sleep that he somehow got both arms tangled up in his lasso and, before he could stop it, he'd done broke both his wrists. Well, naturally, they fired him."

"That's cold."

"It ain't cold. A wrangler with two broke wrists ain't no more good than tits on a boar hog. Besides, it was his own fault he done it. But the feller didn't see it that way. He just felt sorry for himself. So soon's the doctor put splints on his wrists, he headed into town to get a little sympathy from Rosa."

"I feel kinda sorry for him."

"So did he. Well, he walked into the bar and first thing, everybody started clapping and calling for him to get out his mouth organ. He didn't do nothin' but put on a pitiful face and hold up his bandaged wrists. He sat down at the bar and ordered a beer with a straw and waited for somebody to ask what happened to him."

"And did they?"

"Nope. Not even Rosa. She spent the whole night talking to a feed salesman from Corpus. Well, he went back to the bunkhouse and got his gear and headed down to the bus station to take the next bus back to Natchitoches."

"So he married his sweetie back home?"

"Yeah, he married her— but it taken him ten long years to do it."

"How come?"

"On account of he'd done messed with her; and a gal like that, she don't take kindly to bein' messed with. But he always said, she was worth the wait."

"And I guess the sweetie is Monica and Rosa's Misty and I'm your friend."

"I never said he was my friend, did I?"

"I guess not."

"He wasn't my friend because he was me. And that little sweetie down in Natchitoches was Willie Mae. I was lucky; you might not be."

"Rosebud, I'm only thirteen."

Rosebud stood up and brushed the wood chips off his pants. "I know that. But you got a chance to learn something important here. Think about it. Looks ain't important; character is."

I stood up. "I know what you're getting at, Rosebud. Monica's Willie Mae and Misty's Rosa. Well, it just isn't so. Monica's just an old country girl, and Misty would never be mean. She thinks we're soul mates. She told me so! I'm going to bed!"

As I climbed the stairs, I heard Biggie laugh and say something to Rosebud. I went into my room and slammed the door.

The next day was Saturday, and I woke up feeling pretty good considering the dilemma I'd gotten myself into. Booger was curled up in a ball at my feet, and my dog, Bingo, lay beside him. That was unusual because as a rule Booger does not care for Bingo at all. I pushed them down and got dressed in a hurry. I was thinking I might call up DeWayne Boggs, and the two of us could ride down to the bypass to inspect the tornado damage. We might find some good stuff among all that rubble.

When I got down to the kitchen, Biggie and Rosebud were sitting at the table eating eggs with grits, ham, and red-eye gravy. I went to the fridge and poured myself a glass of orange juice and joined them just as Willie Mae set a full plate in front of my chair.

"Yum," I said.

"You look right pert this morning." Rosebud pushed his plate away and took a sip of coffee. "For a man with gal trouble, that is." He winked at Biggie.

"I'm gonna call up DeWayne and see if he wants to go bike riding." I changed the subject.

"Better wear your jacket," Biggie said. "It's nippy out there."

"Yes'm. Is there any muscadine jelly?"

"I gotta open some." Willie Mae took a fresh jar out of the pantry and twisted off the lid. She used a knife to remove the layer of white paraffin from the top and set the jar with a spoon in front of me. I dug into the jelly and spooned some onto my toast.

Willie Mae poured herself a mug of coffee and joined us at the table. "What you goin' to do today?" she asked Biggie.

"I need to work on the Daughters' account books. Essie Moody was treasurer this past year, and you wouldn't believe the—"

Just then the phone rang. Biggie went to her little desk and answered. "Hello… yes. Well, if you think we need to be there, of course…. Ten o'clock? That's awfully soon. Oh, well, we'll get there as fast as we can."

"What?" I asked, pretty sure my plans were about to change.

"That was Jeremy Polk calling from the ranch. He went to Dallas to get Rex's will from his safe. Now he's back, and he wants us out there for the reading. We have to hurry."

I scooted upstairs to comb my hair and splash on some of the men's cologne I'd gotten for Christmas last year. When I got back downstairs, Rosebud wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything.

I relaxed in the backseat of the limo feeling mighty pleased that I was about to see Misty again. If I'd known what was in store for us that day, I would have felt a whole lot different.

18

W
e arrived at the ranch house a few minutes before ten. Jeremy, still wearing a bandage over his left ear, met us at the door.

"Come into the dining room," he said. "The others are already gathered there."

We followed him into the room where he took a seat at the head of the table. Laura sat at his right, dressed in riding clothes. Grace Higgins was hunched next to her, leaning close and whispering in her ear. Babe sat on Jeremy's left. Her eyes were red from crying, but that didn't keep her from scowling at everyone who came into her sight. I didn't see her husband, Rob, anywhere. The others at the table were Abner, looking uncomfortable, and Josefina, looking even more out of place. As we were being seated, Hamp came in with Misty at his side.

Jeremy, who had been shuffling the papers in front of him, looked up at the group and began to speak. "Rex wanted to do everything he could to divide his estate in a fair manner," he said. "I'm not sure you all will agree that he succeeded." He picked up a sheaf of papers stapled together with a blue cover. "Now, let me see, 'I James Carroll Barnwell, being of sound mind,' blah… blah… blah." His eyes rode down the page. He looked up. "Just getting to the meat of the thing. Umm, okay, here's where the bequests start."

"My God, Jeremy. Didn't you write the thing? You ought to know it by heart." Babe squirmed in her seat.

"Umm, yes, well…"He began reading. "'To my only daughter, Frances Faye Barnwell, I leave her grandmother's diamond ring.'"

Jeremy took a small, velvet box out of his pocket and slid it across the table toward Babe. "He asked me to give you this. You do understand that your father intended the large sum of money he transferred to you recently to constitute your portion of the estate?"

Babe nodded and opened the ring box. She took out a diamond ring big enough to choke an elephant.

"Why, that's worth a fortune!" Laura said, softly.

"You are so right," Babe said. "And he left it to me." She got up and left the room.

"Ahem," Jeremy said. "Moving on…"He ran his finger down the page. "'To my beloved wife, Laura, I leave my ranch, including all buildings and improvements to same, comprising two hundred ten acres out of the James Royce Wooten Survey, Kemp County, Texas.'"

"What?" Grace almost screamed. "He didn't leave her any
money?
"

Jeremy looked at her. "If I may continue?" He resumed reading. "'In addition, I leave my wife all my stock in the Ford Motor Company.'" He turned to Laura. "That is a small fortune, Laura. If you're careful, you should be just fine."

Laura nodded, but Grace glowered.

"Now," Jeremy went on, "'to Jason Caldwell, otherwise known as Hamp Caldwell, who has been like a son to me, I leave the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. And to my best friend, Abner Putnam, I leave the mineral and royalty interests in and to the above-mentioned two hundred ten acres in Kemp County, Texas. And there is one last bequest. To Josefina Garza, I leave the sum of ten thousand dollars.'" He folded the will and stuck it in his briefcase.

Grace sighed. "Well, I guess that means we can continue with our work here."

Jeremy held up his hand. "There's more. The day before he died, Rex made a codicil to his will." He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a handwritten piece of paper. He read it aloud to us. "'To my grandson, James Royce Weatherford Jr., I leave the sum of five hundred thousand dollars to be held in trust for him until he reaches the age of twenty-five years. I name as trustee of said monies, his grandmother, Fiona Wooten Weatherford.'"

"Wow!" I breathed.

"There's more," Jeremy said. "'Further, I leave to my said grandson, certain of my personal belongings, to wit, all trophies, souvenirs, photographs, and other memorabilia related to my career in automobile racing and design.'"

I looked at Biggie. She smiled and squeezed my hand.

Nobody said much after that as they pushed back their chairs and moved toward the door. Only Josefina raised her voice. "Lunch will be served
uno momento.
I will bring it into the great room."

I was disappointed to see Hamp and Misty leave by the French doors. Laura slipped out the door and headed down the hall toward her room, and Grace left, saying she had to see to her girls. I followed Biggie and the others to the great room.

After a lunch of
chalupas,
which, in case you don't know, are crispy fried corn tortillas piled high with refried beans, spicy meat, chopped lettuce and tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, and grated cheese, I wandered outside, leaving the adults sitting around sipping iced tea and discussing the will.

I found Misty perched on the rail fence watching the fat girls riding in the horse ring. They were all dressed in riding britches with white blouses. They had black helmets on their heads. Grace was standing in the middle, barking orders.

"Stacie, keep that back straight…. Melanie, you're forgetting to post!" I saw Stacie shoot Grace the bird when she wasn't looking. I looked at Misty, who had seen it too, and was grinning.

She cocked her head at me. "I hear you're going to be rich."

"What? Oh, you mean the will. I guess so— someday. Biggie says I can't spend any of the money until I'm grown unless she decides to let me." I made a face. "That'll be the day. Biggie's tighter than the bark on a hickory nut tree. She says if we invest the money, I'll have a small fortune by the time I go off to college. I reckon your daddy's gonna be rich, too."

"Oh, I don't know. A hundred thousand is not so much. Daddy says he may be able to buy a nice piece of land with it though. Maybe start up a vet business. He doesn't think Laura and Grace will be able to keep us on here."

My heart sank. "Does that mean you'll be moving away?"

She put her hand on my arm and looked straight into my eyes. "I hope not, J.R. Not after we've just met."

I felt the heat running up my neck and turning my face red. "Would you really be sorry?"

"Of course I would. Uh-oh, Grace is letting the girls ride outside the ring." She pointed to where Grace had lowered the rail and was guiding the girls on their horses toward the road we had taken to the clearing.

Suddenly I heard the pounding of hooves and Laura came streaking by on a black horse, her hair loose and flowing behind her. Her face was as white as a sheet, and she was clinging to the horse's neck while the reins, which had slipped from her hand, hung free.

"Oh, look, she's on Midnight. He's wild! Daddy!" Misty scrambled down from the fence and raced toward the barn. I sat frozen. The scene seemed to be taking place in slow motion, as the black horse galloped straight toward a dry creek that cut through the pasture.

Biggie and the others came running down the hill toward us. I watched as Abner grabbed a lasso from the fence and pounded off in the direction the horse had taken with Rosebud panting behind. The horse slowed at the dry creek, giving Abner a chance to raise the lasso and send it spiraling toward the horse's head. It hesitated over his head then fell short, barely grazing the horse's ears before it dropped to the ground. We all watched helplessly as the horse jumped the creek and raced toward the woods. Rosebud and Abner headed back to the barn.

Grace had fainted dead away and lay on the ground, surrounded by the girls who had scrambled off their horses where she fell and were all crying and talking a mile a minute. All but one, who sat on her horse like a stone, watching.

Babe watched the men going toward the barn. "What are those fools doing? She's getting away!"

"Going to saddle horses," Biggie said. "They'll never catch her on foot."

Suddenly I heard an earsplitting scream, and someone yelled, "Mother!" Then Stacie turned her horse's head, gave him a kick, and galloped off in the direction Laura had taken. Just as it came to the edge of the woods, Laura's horse reared, and she tumbled to the ground. Stacie slid off her horse and fell on top of Laura, howling like an animal.

Biggie turned to Babe. "Go up to the house and call 911. Hurry!" Then she started across the rutty field toward Laura and Stacie. Rosebud and Abner, now mounted on horses, reached them first and pulled Stacie to her feet. Laura lay, still as death, with a gash across her forehead that bled a red river down her bone white face. Her legs stuck out at an angle that could only mean both were broken. Stacie sank to the ground and sat cross-legged, like a tear-stained Buddha, still making that ungodly sound.