Moonlight and Mistletoe Page 6

  “Would you like to see the rest of the house? There’s a tower room that’s really neat. When my brothers and I used to visit Mrs. Grissom she let us play in it and make believe we were beautiful princesses waiting for a knight to come rescue us. Well, actually, the boys wanted it to be World War Two and we were being attacked by Nazis.”

  “A tower?” Farrie said eagerly.

  Scarlett frowned. “We better not.”

  Farrie was already on her feet. The two girls started for the hall, Judy explaining to Farrie about the original Blankenship house that had stood there, and the Union cavalry raid that had swept down out of Chattanooga in 1863 and into the Nancyville valley.

  “The Yankees burned the front part of the house,” she was saying enthusiastically. “So when the war was over Mr. Blankenship opened the cotton mill and made a lot of money and had the house rebuilt the way you see it now. That’s when the front porch was put on, and the tower.”

  Upstairs, Judy threw open the door to their room.

  “This was Sheila’s.” She gestured as though they hadn’t already slept there. “Don’t you just love that bed? I always wanted one like it. Sheila’s daddy the old sheriff gave it to her on her twelfth birthday.” She turned and started down the hall again. “Mrs. Blankenship used to sew a lot when Sheila went away to college. She used the tower for a sewing room. It has the neatest window where you can look down the side of the mountain and see all of Nancyville.”

  They came to the end of the hall up the stairs and the door to the tower room. Judy tried the doorknob. “Oh drat, it’s locked.” Her face fell, disappointed. “I guess we’ll have to wait and get the key from Buck.”

  “No we won’t.” Farrie bent to press her eye against the keyhole. “It’s just a ole-fashioned spring lock, no tumblers or nothing like that. I need a pin.” She straightened up and took off the big hat.

  “We don’t need to do that,” Scarlett said quickly.

  “Good golly, can she really do it?” Judy’s eyes had grown rounder. “Open a locked door?”

  “Well,” Farrie said, “for a lock with tumblers I need a little knife.” She had taken the rhinestone pin off the front of the wedding hat. “But a pin will do for this old spring lock. I can hot-wire cars, too.” She bent to the door, the opened pin in her hand. “I can open the door on a ninety-three Coupe de Ville and get inside in no time. I got a uncle, Lyndon Baines Scraggs, who showed me how to do car locks. But I’m way faster now than he is.”

  At that moment the door clicked and swung open. Farrie stepped back, grinning. “See? I told you it wasn’t no big thing.”

  The Victorian turret room was cold. Storage boxes were stacked against the walls and a dressmaker’s dummy stood by the window. Scarlett shied at it. “What’s that?”

  “I guess that’s Sheila’s dress form,” Judy told her. “Sheila’s mother sewed for her all the time she was in college. Sheila always had the prettiest clothes! She was Homecoming Queen, and Rush Week Queen, and Harvest Ball Queen—Mrs. Grissom was always making her some kind of evening dress, Sheila never wore the same one twice.”

  Scarlett stood in front of the dummy, fascinated. Here, in this house, people not only learned to cook out of books but they sewed, too. And according to Judy never wore the same clothes twice.

  “C’mon,” Judy said, brushing past her, “let’s open the window.”

  They threw up the sash and a blast of frigid air rushed in. Scarlett crowded into the bay. They hung out over the sill, the shingles of the roof just below.

  “Look!” Farrie cried.

  The Grissoms’ house stood on the western side of Makim’s Mountain overlooking the Nancyville valley. The mountainside fell away sharply. Faint snow drifted in the bitter air, frosting the oaks and pine trees and the roofs of houses farther down. In spite of the snowfall they could still see the town, the spires of churches, the trees on the courthouse lawn.

  “That’s where they’re going to have the living Christmas tree,” Judy said, pointing. “My mom and dad have been working on it for two weeks, getting people to volunteer.”

  “Living Christmas tree?” Farrie’s breath was like smoke in the cold air. She hung into space and Scarlett took a firm grip on the back of the peach satin dress.

  “Used to be the Living Christmas Pageant,” Judy explained. “One year I was a shepherd, and you freeze to death not moving at all while people drive by in their cars. We used to have a contest every year for the Best Baby Jesus, but babies could only stay out fifteen minutes at a time unless it was pretty warm at Christmas like it was last year. When Jason Ellison won his mother wanted to use an electric blanket but Susan Huddleston, the county welfare worker, said that fifteen minutes was still the limit.”

  Scarlett knew who Susan Huddleston was. “What happened to the Baby Jesus this year?”

  “He got eliminated.” Judy shrugged. “The government said we were breaking the law holding a religious spectacle on county property. So this year we have to have something non—nonspectaclarian.”

  Judy thought it over, frowning. “Anyway, Mr. Ravenwood, who teaches the high school chorus, said we could have a Living Christmas Tree.” She leaned out to point. “Down there next to the courthouse in all those trees. If you look real hard you can just see where they’re building it.”

  “I can’t see anything.” Farrie followed the pointing finger. “What is it?”

  “I just told you, the Living Christmas Tree. It’s a big wooden thing shaped like a Christmas tree. And when you look at the back of it there’s steps and places for people to stand on. We haven’t had a rehearsal yet but Mr. Ravenwood says that you stand on your part of the steps and you’re holding candles in both hands. That’s the living Christmas tree part. People are supposed to be living Christmas tree decorations.”

  Farrie made a sound of sheer awe.

  “And you sing,” Judy added, “Christmas carols. The whole tree is singing and people drive by and see that.”

  Scarlett looked at her. “Singing?”

  “It’s a sort of Christmas concert. There are a lot of people that are still mad about the Best Baby Jesus contest, though.” Her face brightened as she pulled back inside. “You’re going to stay here with the sheriff until after Christmas, aren’t you?”

  Scarlett hesitated, aware that Farrie was looking at her pleadingly. “Well,” she said slowly, “unless something changes.”

  “Oh, I don’t think anything’s going to change, according to what my mother said. That means you can volunteer for the Living Christmas Tree. All you need to do is stand there and sing.” Judy Heamstead saw the look on Scarlett’s face. “You can sing, can’t you?”

  Scarlett was trying to think of something to say.

  “Yeah,” she said finally. She was feeling like she was throwing away the last chance they had, and helpless to do anything about it. “Farrie can sure sing.”

  Eight

  “TRIPPED OVER THE DOG, DID YOU?” DR. Halliwell asked. “I bet that’s the first time old Devil Anse got away because a lawman fell over a pet. How’re you with cats?”

  “Doc, look,” Buck began.

  “That’s a pretty interesting animal.” The doctor looked over his glasses at Demon’s vast length stretched out on his office carpet, her paws crossed over her muzzle. “I’ve never seen one quite like it. ‘Course, as you know, Yorkshire terriers are my passion, the wife’s, too. However, I saw a Neopolitan mastiff one year at the Atlanta Dog Show,” he said, looking reminiscent. “Biggest damned thing I ever did—”

  “Doc,” Buck interrupted forcefully, “if you like dogs you can have this thing.” He struggled to his feet, favoring his swollen right arm and hand. “In fact, the way things stand right now, I’ll do pretty nearly anything to get rid of it. It’s developed some sort of obsession about sticking close to me—you won’t believe this but it even follows me into the men’s room and stands there, watching. It’s driving me nuts!”

  “Sit back and calm down,” th
e doctor told him. He reached over and took Buck’s nose between thumb and forefinger and moved it slightly. “I feel a little play in the cartilage there. Want me to stabilize that nose with an adhesive strip?”

  Buck pulled back quickly. “Hell no, I don’t need my nose taped up! I’m not exactly looking like a role model for the department as it is.”

  Dr. Halliwell raised his eyebrows. “Have it your way. But we’re not fooling around here, Buck. Just because I popped that shoulder back in the socket doesn’t mean you don’t have to take care of it. I want you to keep the arm in a sling for the next ten days.” At Sheriff Grissom’s audible groan he went on: “Except, of course, you can take it off when you go to bed.”

  “I can’t keep my arm in a sling,” Buck protested, “not for ten days! Look at me. A banged-up nose, my right arm useless, and I’m busier’n hell this time of the year what with hijackers and the crazy business about no Christmas pageant on the courthouse lawn—”

  “If you’d wanted a pet,” the doctor interrupted, “I could have fixed you up with a nice Yorkie male pup. Six weeks old, papers, and all shots. My wife’s little bitch just had a fine litter.”

  “Pet?” Buck turned to glare at the dog on the office carpet. “That thing’s no damned pet. It acts like it’s going to tear your throat out if you try to make it do something it doesn’t want to do.”

  At the sound of Buck’s voice, Demon lifted her head, wagged her tail, and gave a soft, loving moan.

  “Looks pretty friendly to me.” The doctor leaned over and slipped a blue and white canvas sling over Buck’s head. “Don’t turn down a trusting animal’s love,” he advised as he guided Buck’s hand through the opening. “Believe me, the wholehearted devotion of a dog is one of the few genuine gifts a man gets in this corrupt and unhappy world. Nelly and I wouldn’t give a million dollars for our family of Yorkies.”

  Buck lurched to his feet. As he did so, Demon got up from the floor and with its huge tail wagging swept a stack of medical magazines from the doctor’s desk.

  “You see what I mean?” Buck reached for his wide-brimmed sheriff’s hat with his left hand. “It eats my lunch, I can’t get a sandwich halfway to my mouth before it gulps it down, Saran Wrap and all. Then it leans all over me when I’m trying to drive, and if I try to shove it out of the Blazer it acts like it’s going to take my hand off.” He twisted his elbow unhappily, looking down at the sling. “I don’t know if I can take this for ten days,” he said, turning to go. “I’ve got to take it off sometime. This is my gun arm.”

  “Suit yourself, boy,” Dr. Halliwell called after him. “But that shoulder’s not going to get better unless you give it a rest.”

  Giving it a rest, Buck found as he made his way out to the clinic parking lot, was easier said than done. And getting into the Blazer with only one hand was a challenge. Once inside the dog hunkered up next to him and rested her big head on his right shoulder, making Buck yelp in sudden pain. The fact that he was backing out as this happened, the steering wheel held only by his usable hand, made the Blazer veer in the same direction. With the result that the vehicle narrowly missed scraping the length of Dr. Halliwell’s Fleetwood Cadillac parked next to it.

  Buck sat muttering under his breath, not only from the sharp twinge in his shoulder, but from the disaster that had almost overtaken him. Dr. Jerry Halliwell loved his brand-new 1994 Fleetwood Caddie almost as much as he loved his Yorkies.

  Buck slipped his arm out of the blue and white canvas, gritting his teeth against the pain. He had thought to experiment with driving without the sling, but he’d promptly put it back on when he saw his hand, his fingers the color of smoked sausages.

  It was going to be some holiday.

  “Sit down over there,” Buck snarled at the dog. For once it obeyed, moving to its side of the front seat, looking at him reproachfully.

  It was beginning to rain as they took the highway back to town, another sleety assault from the mountains to the north that made the road treacherous, especially driving with one hand. Buck had to hook his right elbow against the steering wheel to help turn it.

  Both sides of the road were lined with the brightly colored local product: handmade chenille bedspreads now flapping in the wind. Making chenille bedcoverings had been a cottage industry for decades in the Georgia mountains. Most of the families along State Road 12 made money in the summer and fall when the tourists were around. Now it looked as though they were trying for some Christmas money.

  In spite of bad weather, the clotheslines were hung with spreads with designs of peacocks, Florida flamingos and palm trees, and in honor of the season, outsized chenille Santa Clauses.

  The Last Supper bedspread, Buck was relieved to see, was not as popular as it once had been. The local God-fearing mountain people had never seen anything objectionable in rendering Jesus and his disciples for sale in cotton tufts in primary colors. But the thought of actually sleeping under one of the Last Supper bedspreads, Buck had always felt, was more than a little daunting.

  The radio suddenly came on. “Sheriff,” the county police dispatcher said, “can you pick up?”

  Buck propped his elbow on the steering wheel to hold it and lifted the receiver. “Yeah, George.”

  “Do you,” the dispatcher wanted to know, “care to answer a call from the Committee for the Real Meaning of Christmas? The chairman, Junior Whitford, has been calling you again about the music. He says the committee ain’t approving ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town’ for the Living Christmas Tree to sing as it celebrates a pagan ritual.”

  At that moment the Blazer entered Nancyville’s downtown. There were only a few shoppers on Main Street and they hurried along under umbrellas. Overhead, the whirling aluminum garlands said Joyous Noel, and Happy New Year.

  Buck was suddenly reminded that he didn’t have a date for New Year’s Eve. Didn’t, actually, have any place to go. In years past he had always dated Susan Huddleston, and Susan had made the arrangements. Now he found the prospect of an unplanned New Year’s Eve surprisingly depressing.

  He clicked on the Blazer’s radio. “I must have been celebrating pagan rituals all my life,” he told the dispatcher, “because I’ve been singing ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town’ since I was in kindergarten. The head Druid, Mrs. Brown, taught it to all of us.”

  Buck, too busy maneuvering the Blazer to get more than a glimpse of the wooden structure in front of the courthouse, was reminded that Cyrus Ravenwood, the high school band teacher, had guaranteed the Living Christmas Tree was the answer to their problems: a totally secular entertainment that had been successful in other places faced with similar court orders.

  Buck hoped Ravenwood knew what he was doing. But he had his doubts. Right now even “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” was under fire.

  “George, have we heard from any truckers?” He didn’t want to forget about their major problem. The department was averaging one call a day from local truckers asking what they were doing about the hijackings.

  “All quiet so far,” the radio told him. “You got a call from Inspector Byron Turnipseed at the Georgia CID, that’s all.”

  Buck signed off. The state’s criminal investigation department could wait until tomorrow; any help Byron Turnipseed offered with their hijackings was limited by a skimpy state budget. Small north Georgia counties’ law-enforcement departments usually had to shift for themselves.

  Following that line of thought, he remembered the Scraggs sisters. For the first time he felt what could only be a rush of reluctant sympathy for Devil Anse’s offspring. The old outlaw came rightly by his name. Who else but a devil would think of selling off—there was no other word for it—his own flesh and blood? “Free trial offer” be damned!

  Then there was the strange little elvish child. There was no telling what was wrong with her, a variety of birth defects, probably, from the look of it. The kid needed medical attention. Probably for the first time in her life.

  And the other one. Scarlett. />
  Instead of coherent thoughts a series of fleeting images raced through Buck’s head. The screaming hoyden in the dirty pink underwear panties Moses Holt had dragged across the floor of the jail, yelling her defiance. Scarlett standing with her arms wrapped tightly around her in his mother’s driveway, black hair streaming in the wind. A few minutes later holding her sister in her arms and stroking the child’s hair, her face transformed with tenderness.

  Buck stopped in the middle of his thoughts, astonished that he was even thinking about Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs. As an antidote he quickly tried to picture Susan Huddleston.

  He couldn’t.

  Buck pulled into the driveway and cut the Blazer’s engine, having to cross over the steering wheel with the wrong hand to reach the key. He sat there regarding his home for a long moment, a faint frown between his eyes.

  He had no idea why he had been fantasizing about Devil Anse’s long-legged brat; the old man had put the idea into his head with his free trial offer, damn him. And for all her rough upbringing, Miss Scarlett O. Scraggs was fantastically tempting.

  Buck got out of the Blazer. The cold wind almost blew him onto the front porch. Once inside, the warmth of the house enveloped him, along with strong tantalizing odors. He remembered he hadn’t made any arrangements about what they were going to have for dinner. His stomach rebelled at the thought of another pizza.

  He started down the long hallway, stopping abruptly at the light coming from the parlor.

  He stepped inside. There stood the big blue spruce Christmas tree, fully decorated. The strings of Christmas tree lights that embraced it sparkled and blinked.

  It was the first time in years that Buck had seen a Christmas tree with seemingly every last one of his mother’s collection of ornaments on it, including the paper garlands he and his sister had made in the first and second grade.

  With all the stuff on it the tree should have been a mess. Instead, every branch, almost every needle, was so covered with decoration that the great blue spruce tree radiated a remarkably homey, jumbled sort of—well, beauty.