Snoop to Nuts (20 page)

Me, Miss Amelia, and Hunter were on our way out to the Chauncey ranch by noon, soon after Pastor Albertson called Miss Amelia to say he’d landed safely in Houston, was standing in line at the car rental counter, and would see us in an hour and a half or so. He knew of the Chaunceys and where they lived and congratulated us on our choice of safe havens.

The ranch was almost ten miles out of town, along a flat, two-lane highway with bare land stretching out on either side. The road was usually deserted, but I noticed a white car following along behind us. Strange. Lots of white cars in Texas, but I remembered the one in town, following me and Meemaw the other morning. Also, unusual for Texas drivers, the guy made no move to pass me at a hundred-ten miles an hour. He hung back so I couldn’t get a look at his front license plate. I figured it was my well-deserved paranoia kicking in and concentrated, instead, on finding the opening in the fence that announced the twins’ ranch.

I turned in where the sign read,
KEEP OUT THIS MEANS YOU ATTACK COY
OTES ON GUARD
, all written in big red letters. I saw in my rearview mirror that the white car kept right on going.

After the turn, it was a matter of following a dusty two-track, winding through dry hills and bone-dry arroyos, back to the old house built by the girls’ father, weathered now to a fine patina, much like the twins themselves.

I pulled up and parked in front of the lonely place with a grove of graceful pecan trees beyond, and a small lake that had formed years before, a backwater of the Colorado.

The house, built low to the ground with a wide front porch and an old shingled roof that jutted down to just above head height, was set at the top of a small rise looking out over other rises—empty, low hills stretching as far as the eye could see. The front porch was a museum of old stuff I remembered from the time my daddy, Jake, had brought me out here with him. There was a collection of pecan packing boxes standing off to one side, a cushionless glider as old as a glider can get without being a pile of junk, and then there were clay pots with small trees sticking out of them, and then another row of pots filled with flowers. Because of the way my mind was bent, I recognized a bright yellow flower as the four-nerve daisy or, as I knew it, the
Tetraneuris scaposa
. Then the pink evening primrose or
Oenothera speciosa
, and even a few large pots of greenthread (
Thelesperma filifolium
). The porch might be a jumble of old things, but the flowers made for bright spots of well-tended space.

The girls came out the door together, pushing each other to be first to greet us.

“Man’s not here yet.” Melody, the winner, stopped to adjust the jeweled belt at her waist and straighten the collar on her turquoise-colored shirt. Melody was dressed for company.

“You sure he’s coming?” Miranda, right behind her, wore the same clothes she wore every day from the down-at-the-heels old boots to the khakis to a shirt with a lot of missing fringe down the sleeves. “Cleaned out a whole room for ’im. Put sheets on the bed. He’d better show up after all of that.”

Miss Amelia hugged both girls and thanked them for their efforts, while assuring them she’d heard from him and he was on his way.

Hunter and I got handshakes by way of a greeting, then followed as the girls led us into a low-ceilinged room as cluttered as the porch, but somehow all the homier for it.

“Gave him my daddy’s old room.” Miranda chuckled and pulled at her ancient pants. “Like shuffling through our whole life, going in there. Chauncey history lesson.”

Melody clucked at her. “Nothing in there but Christmas ornaments and stuff.”

Miranda scoffed. “And Daddy’s guns and his stacks of agriculture magazines and his pipes and, fer heaven’s sakes, I even found an old license to shoot bobcat.”

“That’s why you were in there half the night. All I asked you to do was cart the stuff out, not catalog it.”

“Where was I supposed to go with all of it?” Miranda demanded as Miss Amelia stepped in and thanked them both again for taking the trouble.

I took a look around the living room and wondered what they considered throwaway stuff and what they thought might actually be necessary in a living room. Stacks of papers and magazines graced every old table. On one table a stack of shotgun shells teetered. A collection of old radios took up half of one wall—floor to waist high, while bags of dog food leaned against another. But no dog in sight.

The girls herded us to a table that had to be cleared of books and cans of green beans before we could sit down. Melody brought a flowered teapot in from the kitchen and proudly set it in the middle of a giant lace doily she’d spread out. Miranda went to a huge sideboard with piles of dishes stored behind glass doors. She brought over cups and spoons. When she couldn’t find four saucers to match the cups, Melody got upset and found them herself while Miranda grumbled and ambled back to the kitchen for a bottle of milk she set at the middle of the table, sending a mad look at Melody, daring her to object.

We sat like guests at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, pouring and stirring and clinking. I couldn’t look over at Hunter, making room for his gun at his side, long body hunched over his delicate teacup.

“How’s your mama, Lindy? Doing fine?” Melody asked.

I nodded. “Miss Emma’s fine, thank you for asking.”

“And Justin? The ranch going okay?” She addressed Miss Amelia.

She nodded.

“Bethany doing well with that event tent you folks put up?” This was for me.

“It’s coming along. Sometimes things are slow and she gets worried, but I’d say—all in all—she’s building the business.”

“That’s very good to hear.” Melody turned back to Miss Amelia. “The Nut House doing well?”

Miss Amelia, looking around to see how far we were going to go with this refined stuff, said, “Considering some folks think I’m a mad poisoner, I’d say business is doing just fine.”

“Humph.” Miranda fidgeted in her chair. “That’s a pile of bull, you ask me. You never in your life hurt a single soul, Miss Amelia. One of the most loved women in town. Anybody who thinks you did a thing like that is more than half out of their head. We heard Freda Cromwell was even blaming you when her dog died. Just goes to show how crazy people can make themselves.”

“Why, thank you, Miranda. That’s awful nice of you to say. I appreciate it.”

“Okay, now let’s cut the crap and get to the reason the Reverend Albertson’s staying with us.” Miranda set her cup down and slapped her hands on her knees. “Why’s he coming here and not your place? Mind going over that for me?”

“He’s worried, Miranda. With Pastor Jenkins’s death, well, he’s thinking he might know something that would help us here. He didn’t say what that was.”

“Just let anybody try anything out here and they’re coming up against a thirty-eight and maybe a shotgun. He’ll be safe enough. I got ears on me like an owl. Hear a car turning in down at the highway. If I miss that, there’s that cloud of dust I can see from a mile away. Try sneaking in around those hills and the rattlers will take care of ’im.”

Miss Amelia was about to launch into the fact that the reverend was worried about something going on here in Riverville when Miranda, head in the air, put a finger up, stopping her. “See? Already heard the pastor’s motor. He’s getting close.”

“Might as well act like we’re civilized,” Melody huffed and stood. “First time we ever had a pastor staying with us. Let’s get out there and greet the man.”

Melody had her hand on the door latch when we heard the first gunshot ring out.

The man lay on the ground in front of a blue car. The back of his summer suit jacket was soaked with blood. He had one hand on the bumper, trying to stand, then looking up at us, fear in his eyes, as we ran to him.

Hunter, yelling at us to keep down, crouched behind the car with his gun out as he grabbed his radio to call for help. “Shooter at the Chauncey ranch. One man down. Need an ambulance and any cars in the area.”

He waved all of us back, though Miranda, her own gun miraculously in her hand, crouched down beside him.

Miss Amelia whipped off the cotton sweater she’d tied around her neck in case of a temperature dip to below ninety-five, and got to the downed and groaning reverend, stuffing the sweater up under the man’s shirt to stanch the blood staining his suit coat and now running down the front of his shirt. I ran to his other side, helping to get him on the porch, lay him down behind the packing crates, and run back in the house for towels. Melody was ahead of me, sticking a stack in my hands.

Miss Amelia quickly added more pressure to the wound in Reverend Albertson’s back, and then to one up at his shoulder.

The white-haired man, face drained of any color, eyes blinking to stay open, looked into Miss Amelia’s face and tried to smile. “Not the welcome I expected,” he said, his voice weak.

“See what you meant about not wanting people to know you were here.”

He took a deep breath that caused him a lot of pain. He tried to nod but that hurt, too.

“Just rest,” Miss Amelia told him. “We’ll talk after we get you patched up.”

“A lot of blood?” he managed to gasp out.

“I’ve seen worse,” Miss Amelia answered.

The ambulance and patrol cars arrived with sirens blazing. The pastor was treated there on the porch then loaded on to a gurney, the suitcase from his car stuck underneath, and he was off to the Riverville Hospital.

Hunter was tied up with the officers that arrived. With guns drawn, they fanned out in the direction of the line of fire, where Hunter pointed.

Minutes later, Melody came running from the house behind us, demanding to know if anybody had seen Miranda.

In the confusion, I couldn’t honestly admit to seeing her. I thought she was on the porch with us.

“Darned fool’s gone. I told her one day she was going to get herself killed. Now she’s out there with a killer.”

“Oh my God. And a bunch of armed and nervous cops.” I couldn’t believe our problems had just multiplied.

Hunter got back on his phone. The sheriff, on his way out to the ranch, called Deputy Sam Cranston, who was monitoring all phone and radio messages at the station, to contact anybody he could raise in the search party and warn them that an elderly lady with a dead-eye and a quick trigger finger was out there, too, and not to shoot her.

Miss Amelia, torn between wanting to get to the hospital and wanting to make sure Miranda was all right, sat nervously in a hard-backed chair Melody had dragged from the house. Melody brought out a bucket of water to throw on the blood left on the porch, but Hunter stopped her. Everything was part of a crime scene, and until the techs had been there and gone, nothing was to be touched.

I sat on the steps next to Hunter as he scanned the horizon, watching for anybody coming back from the hills.

“I’m gonna need statements.” He turned to me. “Got to get this all down. Guess the pastor was right to worry.”

“Who could have known there was this kind of danger? Why—”

I was stopped by the faraway sound of gunfire.

“Lord.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Just don’t let it be Miranda.”

Melody moaned and shoved both fists in her mouth. All I could think of was the armed eighty-eight-year-old Miranda Chauncey, who was out there on her own ranch facing down the gun barrels of eight on-edge cops, and one murdering coward.

Hunter ran down to one of the patrol cars pulled up every which way in front of the house. He was on the radio, getting information from Sam Cranston and relaying it to us.

“Nobody’s hit,” he turned back to say. “That was Miranda getting herself another rattler while she was out there. They’re all on the way back now. Seems Miranda did find something, though. Shell casings. Should have left them where she found them but they’re in her pocket. Won’t matter. Lab will be able to tell us what kind of gun was used then narrow it down to the specific gun.”

When the sheriff got there, we all answered questions and finally were allowed to leave. Soon enough the whole town would know Parson Albertson was shot. The part I didn’t like to think about was that Miss Amelia had been in the middle of things again. Soon somebody was going to begin asking how unlucky one old lady could get.