Harvestman Lodge (59 page)

He’d heard of things like this, but never had brushed upon them personally. The closest he’d come was his participation in the ravaging of that Minnesota girl with some of his male relatives some years back. That girl, though, had been nearly twenty years old, and at the start seemingly willing, though along the way he did hear her say the word ‘no’ a few times.

The incident was something he tried to forget. He realized how lucky he and the others were to have dodged a rape charge … only the young woman’s unwillingness to take the matter to the law had saved them, he figured.

Rawls read the news digest with mounting dismay. Lukey was involved in
this
? And had talked Rawls into agreeing to involve himself, too?

Rawls shook his head as he stared at the page. During that initial drunken conversation with Lukey in Uncle Jeff’s place, he’d developed a dawning suspicion as to what the “Flower Garden” might involve. Now the suspicion was confirmed.

He’d assured Lukey that he was hard and cold enough to take part in the “work” of the Flower Garden. Staring at the page and seeing the reality of what it was laid out before his eyes, he didn’t feel nearly so sure of himself.

He couldn’t tell that to Lukey, though. No backing out now! In the Parvin family, men were raised from early childhood to face challenges without flinching, to shun hesitation and to keep “softness” out of their lives and decisions. “I don’t care what you’ve heard,” Rawls’s father Cale had told him in the days before life put him in a wheelchair. “It ain’t the meek who inherit the earth. No sirree. Quite the opposite.”

Rawls scanned through what he’d found one more time. When he’d taken in enough, he shoved the news digest volumes aside, ignored the sign telling patrons to place used reference books on the shelving table, and left the Handrick Memorial Library at a fast clip, unsettled, crossing the same pavement upon which a triumphant Curtis Stokes had demonstrated to himself that, yes, he could pass through an elongated shadow as easily as any other man.

The aging librarian who had helped Rawls saw him go and detected his edgy state in the tense way he moved. Curious as to what he’d been looking up, she went to the carrel where he’d been and looked at the last page he’d studied, adjusting her glasses and squinting as she read.

“Oh my,” she said. “Oh my goodness! Why would he want to read about
that
?”

“INTERNATIONAL WEEK AT THE PROUD Cherokee Inn,” motel operator Hank O’Toole muttered to himself as he watched an Asian man climbing out of his rental car in the front lot. “First an Irishman, now a squint. Where are these foreigners coming from?”

“Beg pardon?” asked a woman, Canadian from the sound of her, reading a magazine and sipping coffee from the fast-food joint next door. She’d parked herself ten minutes earlier in one of the cheap overstuffed chairs in the so-called “lounge area” of the lobby, and O’Toole had forgotten she was there.

“Huh? Oh, nothing, ma’am. Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

“I do that too, sometimes,” she said. “It’s the only way to guarantee an intelligent conversation down here in these lower wastelands.”

He gave her a fake chuckle and smile, ignoring her put-down because he hadn’t quite caught it. She went back to her Redbook as the Asian man came inside, hustling a suitcase nearly as big as he was. O’Toole noticed something he hadn’t before: the newcomer had a very unpleasant-looking scar down the left side of his face, temple to lower jaw. At some point in his life, this fellow had had his face laid wide open by a knife or some other sharp edge. Maybe a car accident.

It was another cash-paid, open-ended rental. The scar-faced man told O’Toole his name was Charles Lee. O’Toole wondered if it was spelled “Lee” or “Li,” but didn’t bother to ask. He thought about writing in “Charlie Chan” as his own private joke, except the man might catch a glimpse and raise a fuss. Hank O’Toole had no use for fussy, oversensitive customers who didn’t share his ideas about what was funny.

So touchy, everybody is today,
he thought.
What happened to the days a man could call other people whatever he liked, and those “other people” knew their places and stayed there?

O’Toole made only the weakest attempt at friendly conversation with the man (whose name in reality was named neither Lee nor Li, or for that matter, Charles) and put him in the room next to the Irish salesman Bennie Neven. If a German or Swede would just check in, O’Toole thought, they’d have a regular second-floor United Nations right there at the Proud Cherokee!

“Just asking, mister … you Chinese, a Jay-panner, Korean, or what? You weren’t one of them Viet Cong boys, were you? I hope not. They killed my brother and two of my cousins in their damn rice paddies.”

He was surprised when the new guest said, with no obvious offense at the racial boorishness just thrown into his face, and without a trace of Korean inflection in his words, that he was a born American, the product of Korean-born parents who had moved to Sacramento with their families as children. They had become U.S. Citizens, met and married, and to the end of their lives identified themselves simply as Americans of Korean ancestry, or simply Americans. Among Korean relatives he was called Jang Bo-kyung; growing up in American public schools his classmates Americanized him into John-Bo Young, usually shortened to Bo.

“Why’d you sign in under a false name, then?” the motel keeper asked.

“I suppose there was no good reason to do that,” the other said, his accent very West Coast. “It’s a habit I got into years ago when my wife was trying to get dirt on me so she could divorce me – which she finally did. When I traveled in those days I would always pay cash and use a false name to throw off any private eyes she might have sent trailing after me.”

“Been there, done that, paid the lawyers. You want me to call you Charles or Bo?”

“Either will suffice for the brief time I will be here.” The man was hoping there would be no need for any further conversation with this lout at all.

“I’m going with Bo, then. ’Cause I like the sound of it. I was in the service with two Georgia boys name of Bo.”

“It truly is a small world, huh?” Bo Young said with skillfully hidden sarcasm.

“Too small to suit me, most of the time,” O’Toole replied. “Way too small. First time to Tennessee for you, Bo?”

“No. No. My work has brought me here before, but it has been years now.”

“Whatcha do?”

“I work for an … international network, procuring various, well, highly specialized goods for a clientele with specific tastes and the ability to afford whatever they want.”

“Yeah.” There was no way for O’Toole to make much sense of that, and he didn’t really care, anyway. He handed over the room key and gave a few specifics about motel amenities. It was a short list. O’Toole wondered why a man working for a business network dealing with rich clientele would pick a dump motel like his instead of at least checking into one of the nicer chains.

“Interesting scar you got there, friend.”

“I’ve lived an interesting life.”

The Proud Cherokee’s latest guest took his leave of his host at that point and lugged his monster suitcase up the outdoor staircase to the balcony walkway and his room. The woman in the sitting area rose, tossed down the
Redbook
with a loud sigh, and as she left informed O’Toole he needed some newer magazines in his lobby.

The landlord smiled her out the door, and when she was out of sight, waved goodbye to her with a lifted middle finger.

IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN AT last. For the first time, Eli would officially be introduced to Melinda’s parents. He was going to the Buckingham house for some of Mrs. Buckingham’s famous homemade pizza.

He faced the visit with a measure of trepidation but only a little. For one thing, he’d already met Ben Buckingham, and according to Melinda had made a positive impression on him. And Melinda had told him often that her mother was cordial and warm, especially compared to Ben. She’d said less about her little sister, Megan, but meeting her was a sideline matter. Little sisters just didn’t count as much in the realm of meeting your likely future in-laws. The father-in-law was the most crucial hurdle, and that one had already been jumped. Or so Eli hoped.

As for young Megan, with any luck, she’d think he was cute, or fine, or a hotty, or whatever terminology twelve-year-old girls were using in 1985 America. For the first time in his life, Eli felt a little old as he realized he was already out-of-touch with the speech patterns and casual vocabulary of the middle school generation.

“I’m an old man already,” he muttered over his word processor.

The evening’s visit with Melinda’s family was in the back of his mind as he typed the final words of his magazine story about the Unionist leanings of much of Kincheloe County during the Civil War. Much of the factual background came from old history volumes, magazine and historical journal articles, as well as Hadley King’s local history. He’d also interviewed a history professor at Bowington College and another, by phone, whom he had known and done research for at the University of Tennessee. The writing had gone well, flowing naturally, and taking the story through three drafts hadn’t been a matter of renovation, but polishing.

It was the first of his own assignments for the magazine to be put into what he hoped would be final form.

Eli was halfway through a quick read-through when his office phone rang. The voice on the other end was one he would not have anticipated, and it took him a couple of moments to recognize it.

“Eli? Is that you?” the caller said.

“It is. And is this … ”

“Yeah, it’s Curtis. Curtis Stokes.”

“Well, hello, Curtis! Good to hear from you! Is everything okay?”

“It’s all good, sir. Yes it is. I’m doing better than I ever have before, I think. Didja know I got myself out of my problem with pole shadows? And the lady I like … I mean love … she loves me back. We’re getting married. I asked her, and she said yes. She told another fellow no, when he asked her, but she told me yes. Picked me over him! Soon as I can afford to, I’m going to buy her a ring.”

“I look forward to meeting her. Curtis, this is wonderful! I’m glad to hear you’ve got so much good news. Congratulations on the pole shadow thing, and on the job, and on having a fiance … it couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.”

“Thank you, Eli, sir. Thank you. But how did you know about my job?”

“Oh … Jake Lundy told me about it. He was happy for you about it and knew I’d want to know, too. Spears-Hinkle, right?”

“That’s right. Working on the line.”

“Did you call me just to tell me all this news?”

“Mostly I’m calling because my friend, Mr. Coleman Caldwell, the man whose house I live in, he wants real bad to meet you. He asked me to call you because you and me already know each other. He wants you to come Thursday evening, if you can, and have supper here with us. He’s going to have some French food made by a chef, if you like that kind of food.”

“I love French food. I’m pleased to get the invitation, and I’ll be there. I’ve been wanting to meet Mr. Caldwell too. We both write, and I think there are several things we can enjoy talking about.”

“I told him about Miss Melinda and he says to bring her with you.”

“Wonderful! I’m sure she’ll want to be there. This Friday night, you said?”

“Yeah. You know where the house is?”

“I know the corner it’s on. Hudgens and Cherry, right? And I know the place has a lot of, well, greenery growing all around. How do we get to the door?”

“Come to the Hudgens side a few minutes before seven, and I’ll be standing at the end of the driveway. There’s a gravel parking spot there by the road.”

“It all sounds good, Curtis. I can’t wait to talk to you about all the things going on in your life. It makes me happy for you to hear about it all.”

“Me too.”

“Friday, then.”

“See you, Eli.”

MELINDA HAD NOT EXAGGERATED regarding the deliciousness of her mother’s homemade pizza. Dot Buckingham had the preparation well under way when Eli arrived and was ushered in for maternal introduction by Melinda.

To his surprise, Dot Buckingham gave him a nearly crushing hug and even a quick peck on the cheek.

“So pleased to meet the young man who makes my Melinda so happy!”

“Well, ma’am, I’m pleased to meet the woman who raised her to be the kind of person she is. Because you folks did a good job, for sure.”

She hugged him again. “Call me Dot.”

“If you’ll call me Eli.”

“Eli, I do hope you like pizza.”

“I could eat my weight in good pizza. And unless my nose is greatly fooling me, this is going to be good pizza for sure.”

“Thank you! I do get rave reviews on it.”

“I’ve heard.”

“And I’ve heard you get rave reviews of your own, for your fiction. That is impressive that you’ve achieved a published book!”

“Thank you. And I’m signed for two sequels to make it into a trilogy. I feel lucky. I’ve found it to be a wonderful opportunity to do something I enjoy that also pays at least some dividends.”