To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis (19 page)

FORTY-TWO

Monday evening in downtown Tupelo saw the storefronts locked up
tight, warm lights g
lowing from the few houses that greeted us on the outskirts of town. Even Main Street felt abandoned. Bereft.

Emmaline’s curls bounced around her wan face. Her stomach growled into my side. “I’m hungry, Merry.”

“There’s the restaurant up ahead.”

I pointed toward the checkered awning on Main Street that read “The SkyView,” twinkle lights chasing around its perimeter. I reminded Pudge that we couldn’t park on the street. I’d spent much of the ride watching the blur of forest with one eye and studying the twins with the other. They were easy together.

Hector trusted them, but could I? Now that we were beyond the swagger of Hector’s personality, I had my doubts.

Emmaline amused herself with requests for the radio, giggling every time Crit—the quiet one—pushed a different plastic button, ushering in another flood of 1970’s musical sound. Snatches of
Love Will Keep Us Together. When Will I Be Loved.
A sad female voice
Making Believe.

I was still partial to the fiddle. The sweet, vibrating strain of a horse hair bow on string took me back to the happiest times of my life. To the shimmer of moonlight on muddy water at the base of a chalk-white cliff, and the rush of cataloguing my daily specimens in my journal while our lone fiddler played under falling stars.

Pudge’s flinty eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror. Locked away, those eyes. He wheeled the car down a side street and into a parking space next to a dumpster and pointed to a rusty door with faded letters that read “SkyView.”

“Our diner’s breakfast and lunch only. We never open for supper time, so we should be able to get you all filled up in peace.” He winked at Em. “Crit here makes a mean peanut butter and banana sandwich. Toasted. White bread. That sound good to you?”

Emmaline scooted across the seat with a little more life. “I’ve never had it before, but I’ll try it.”

Pudge opened the door, and he and Crit slid along the front seat in an awkward choreography. Before my eyes could adjust to the evening light, they were guiding us down a fluorescent lit hallway and into the cracked vinyl and stained formica of an old-style diner.

Crit turned on the cook surface, its metal caked with the grease from decades of fried food, while Pudge chopped bananas next to him, his big hands and knife a blur.

Em crossed her arms and put her head on the counter. “I wonder if I’ll like peanut butter with banana.” Her eyes drooped.

“It’ll perk you up.”

She sighed when I patted her head and swiveled my stool to the windows, only to notice a car passing outside. Slow. Familiar. Afraid to be recognized, I turned my face away from the street and watched the car’s reflection in the chrome cladding over the counter. Window down. A silhouette inside, gaze directed toward the building where we sat. It stopped for a few seconds, idling. I held my breath and willed myself not to grab Emmaline and run.

When I looked up again, the car was gone. I hurried to the window and watched it disappear down the ribbon of Main Street, before flicking the blinds closed.

Was it the car that had been following us earlier that day? I rubbed my face and blinked, trying to recall its shape. It was more foreboding in my mind’s eye.

This job is making me paranoid
. I muttered it under my breath and rejoined Em, just as the phone jangled along the back wall. “Don’t answer it.” Did I say it out loud?

Pudge dragged Crit along with him to pick up the dingy white receiver. “SkyView…Uh-huh, we got ’em…Naw, don’t you worry about that. We’ll figure something out and see you tomorrow…Right. You take care of yourself.”

He replaced the receiver, and they see-sawed back down the counter to us. I held my breath and waited for the lights of the black car to pull up outside, for the bad guys to storm the building and take us away. Instead, Pudge scratched his arm, and Crit mirrored him. “Change of plan.”

“What do you mean?”

“The lady that’s supposed to be picking you up in a little while got delayed on a delivery. She can’t get here
’
til morning.”

“Can we go back to your hunting place for the night?”

“You could, but it’s in the wrong direction for her. She’s a truck driver. Keeps to a schedule.” Pudge looked around. “I reckon it’d be best for you to stay here. We got a couple of cots pushed together in back, for days when we’re too beat to go home.”

“Will that be okay with you, Em? Staying here?”

She drummed her fingers on the counter. “If it means I can get to Daddy faster.”

I mussed her hair and fought the urge to promise the outcome she wanted.

My mouth watered as the twins worked in tandem, frying up good smells. The aroma of expert cooking always got me going, especially when I could watch someone do it special, just for me. Crit flipped things around while Pudge set out plates and looked at me. “You’re having a Coke, right?”

“If it’s not too sweet.”

“Two Coca-Colas, coming right up.” Crit bent down with him, keeping time, while Pudge grabbed two frosty bottles from the under-the-counter chiller. He popped the red caps and handed them across the counter.

Emmaline brightened when she saw the misted bottle. “Coke adds life, Merry! It’s my favorite drink ever. Do you have a straw, Mister Pudge?”

He reached under the counter and gave her one. When she unwrapped it, she stuck its swivel-neck into the bottle and blew bubbles and laughed.

I looked at Pudge and groaned. “Sugar is like rocket fuel for children.”

She talked into the straw, foam spilling onto the counter with her underwater words. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” I put the cold bottle to my lips and took a sip and winced. It tasted like I’d licked a cold cube of sugar. I pushed it a little to one side.

Emmaline tipped her head and guzzled her drink until it was gone. When she set the bottle on the counter, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and burped. The most personality she’d shown all day. She blushed, but that didn’t stop her laughing, and I had to smile a little. It vanished when the reflection of lights made another slow pass beyond the closed blinds. I watched its distorted shape move along the chrome and kept my voice light. “Em, doesn’t that hurt your throat? Or give you a cold headache?”

“Nope. I love Coke. I’ll drink yours, if you don’t want it. I spilled most of mine.” She ran her hand along the counter, but I batted it away.

“None of us need to be privy to that, Em. You’re hyper enough without sugar and caffeine.”

Pudge laughed. “She is a spit-fire.”

“Yeah. She keeps me on edge most of the time.”

“What does that mean, Merry? A spit-fire?”

Pudge turned his head to the side and smiled at her. “It’s a compliment, trust me. Our mama is a spit-fire, and we adore our mama.”

Something about the whole scene felt off to me, but I couldn’t finger what it was. I needed to move. Action always cleared my head. “Why don’t we go over and inspect that thing in the back corner, Em.”

She followed my eyes to the behemoth jukebox. All red and blue lights and chrome. She hopped from her seat and skipped barefoot along the tile floor to press her nose against the glass. Coca-Cola worked miracles, apparently. “Merry, do you have any change?”

Pudge piled steaming fries on the counter. He swiveled his head around Crit’s back and winked. “Just bump the thing real hard when you see a song you like, and it’ll play it for free.”

Emmaline studied the scrolling dial, while I moved two slats in the blind and watched the same car creep along the street outside. Black, with a dent in the passenger door.

“Pudge, you seen that car before?”

He walked over to the window to peer through the crack, bringing Crit with him. “Don’t look familiar. Why?”

“I think that’s the third time it’s gone by in the past fifteen minutes.”

Pudge scratched his head, and Crit just looked at me blankly.

“Do you think we should get out of here? Go back to the place in the woods? I don’t like the sight of that car.”

The blind smacked together when I let it go, but I was still unsettled.

He worked them to the telephone and dialed some numbers. “You’ll be fine. Tell you what. I’ll get the sheriff out here to scare them off.”

“Don’t mention us to the sheriff.”

“You don’t have to worry. I gotcha.”

I shifted the blind and studied the backend of the car, bouncing once again over the railroad track.

Emmaline cackled behind me as the strains of a song started up from the jukebox. With more spring than I’d seen in two days, she shook a leg across the floor to me.

“
The Streak
, Merry. It’s my favorite song ever. About a man who—”

“I know what a streaker is, Em.” I had to shout above Emmaline’s high-pitched singing.
Oh yes they call him The Streak...boogity boogity
.

Pudge and Crit slapped oozing peanut butter sandwiches on the counter. They watched, grinning, while Emmaline pogoed over the square floor tiles, her shrill little-girl voice belting out the chorus. I plugged my ears with my fingers and went to the window again.

Nothing. The street was empty.

The twins slipped to the end of the counter, and one of them pulled the jukebox plug out of the wall. The music slowed to a stop.

Emmaline whirled on them. “What? I love that song. Why did you unplug it?”

Pudge wielded a battered guitar of midnight blue. His skinny fingers strummed a chord, and he winked at her. “Let those fries cool a spell, little girl.” He turned back to the guitar, his digits coaxing out a lazy tune. Countrified.

Crit closed his eyes and swayed back and forth, trance-like. Rich and layered tones filled the room. A song I knew I’d heard before, perhaps on another assignment.
Are You Lonesome Tonight?

I lifted Emmaline into my arms and swayed slightly, hoping she couldn’t feel the jolt of my nerves. She sighed and put one arm around my neck. Rested her head on my shoulder. I tried to forget about circling cars and evil men, about how lonesome I’d always been.

“Do you think Daddy misses me, Merry?” She whispered.

“I’m sure he does, Em. I’m sure he does.”

When I brushed my lips against her hair, the remnant of a chord was shattered by a knock on the back door.

FORTY-THREE

Pudge dragged Crit along with him as he pushed us around the end
of the counter. Thro
ugh a doorway. I had scant recognition of mops and a bucket before Em and I were plunged into dark.

I held my breath and listened to the clatter of steps headed to the back door. Emmaline wrapped her legs around my waist, burying her head on my chest. I strained to hear over her frantic breathing.

Pudge’s voice was muffled. “Who’s there?” The back door scratched across the floor tiles and hit the wall with a thud.

An effeminate male voice echoed through footsteps down the back hall. Something about the Sheriff. A man and a little girl. Kidnapping and murder.

That voice. It had a New Orleans cadence, like the one who chased us through the alley the night we fled.

Pudge’s aw-shucks tone filtered through the space. “Them’s serious charges. Deputy, what’s all this mean?” Behind his casual reply, I heard the rumblings of fear.

A different voice. I assumed it was the Deputy. “Pudge, I don’t know how to say this, given we’re sorta friends and all, but these fellas got me to bring them over here. Said it looked like you had a couple of customers in here. A man. And a little girl.”

“Nobody here but us.”

New Orleans again. “You sure? He looked like this man. Right here.”

Pudge paused. I held my breath and waited for his answer.

“Hadn’t seen him.”

The Deputy’s saccharine voice morphed into steel. “I sure am sorry, Pudge, but I got a responsibility to these fellow officers. Got to let them look around. You know, help them out.”

“Have you run this by the Sheriff? You and I both know how he feels about other law-folk cluttering up his patch.”

A shoe squeaked along tile. “Sometimes, I am beholden to people bigger than our Sheriff.” Paper snapped the air. “I got a warrant for these boys to search this place.”

Pudge’s outrage permeated through the flimsy door and into the closet. “Hey—”

Emmaline’s heart pounded against my ribcage, and I squeezed her closer, a silent warning. Curses mixed with the thud of the door against the wall. Leather slapped on leather, and New Orleans took over the interview. “We saw this man, this one right here, through your window not fifteen minutes ago.”

“I’m telling you, I hadn’t seen any man looked like him.”

“Then it won’t trouble you if we poke around your place, right?”

Pudge cleared his throat. “Suit yourself. Hope you don’t mind if we set to cleaning up our mess.”

“Go ahead.”

Chairs rattled. One cabinet opened, followed by another. A knife pinged against the cutting board, and a door slammed somewhere in back. Shoes drummed the floor.

“Bathroom’s clear.”

Pudge snorted. “Glad to hear we left it decent for once.”

A shadow hovered in the wedge of light under the door. Our door. The handle rattled against wood. New Orleans leaned on the door, his bulk hitting the jamb like a muffled punch in the gut. It took the wind out of me. I put my finger to Em’s lips.

“Open this door.”

Outside, pots clanged, and dishes clattered as the twins made a show of looking for the key that I knew was in Pudge’s pocket. The sizzle of meat burned through the cracks in the door, but the shadow stayed put.

“Can’t seem to find the key. Maybe—”

Metal ground on metal. “Look harder.” I wasn’t well versed in modern firearms, but I guessed New Orleans held some sort of handgun.

Pudge’s voice wavered between outrage and terror. “Hey! No need for threats. If I can’t find the key, I can’t find it.”

Shadows clogged up the crack at the bottom of the door. New Orleans leaned back again. “Go over there and check their pockets.” Steps advanced, slow, followed by a familiar jangle. New Orleans shifted his weight against the door. “Bring them over here and hold the gun.”

When the first key slid into the lock, the handle rattled and held. Rattled again. Wrong one. New Orleans pulled it out and replaced it with a second key. It tripped the mechanism, and the knob squeaked in a turn.

I scrambled through my recollection of the space, trying to recall any place to hide Emmaline before light flooded in.

Before she was trapped, and I vanished into the bowels of some bar forever.

“Stop.” A deep male voice split the air. Someone new. The knob quit moving. “You. Put that weapon on the floor and slide it toward me.”

Steel skittered across floor tile while I fought to keep still. To stay as we were long enough to let the scene play out. Emmaline’s hands dug into my upper arm, and her breath puffed on my cheek.

“Walk toward me. Single file. Hands out wide.”

“You can’t arrest us. We’re the law, too. From—”

“I don’t give a good goddamn if you’re from New York-fucking-City, and my deputy here knows it. Deputy, I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but I certainly aim to find out.”

“But, Sheriff. I—”

“You heard me. March.”

Footsteps herded across the floor. A door slammed. After a long moment, Pudge’s voice filled the void. “Damn, Sheriff. Didn’t think you’d ever get here.”

“Got held up by the train. Other end of Main Street.”

“What’s the Deputy up to?”

“Don’t know. He intercepted your call on the scanner. Been suspicious of him for a while now.”

“Me and Crit was almost dead.”

“Almost but not quite. Remember that. I’ll call you later.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. Me and Crit are much obliged.”

Their voices dissolved behind another smack of the door. Emmaline squirmed in my arms.

“Wait for the twins. They’ll know when it’s all clear.”

Her head nodded against my chest as the twin’s syncopated drum approached the door and sprung it open. Blinded, I stumbled into the fluorescent glow of the room. Pudge’s voice issued from the joined bodies silhouetted against the light.

“Sheriff says he’ll come up with a way to hold them ’til tomorrow morning.”

I shifted Emmaline to the floor and took her hand. “That means we’ve got to get out of here tonight. Can you take us further up the Trace? Somewhere we can spend the night that’s out of the way? I don’t care if we have to camp.”

Emmaline shook my hand. “Merry, I—”

“Not now, Em. Well? Can you?”

Pudge adjusted his paper hat on his soot-colored hair while Crit stared over my head. “Sure you don’t want to stay here?”

“No. After that scare, we need to move on. Now.”

Em wagged my hand. “But Merry, I really—”

“Em, shush.” I studied Pudge and Crit. They proved they weren’t the enemy, but Em and I needed full-blown friends. People who knew when to do the right thing, even if the right thing didn’t make sense. Pudge shifted the pair of them. When he nodded, Crit mirrored him.

“All right. We’ll get everything cleaned up here and take you on. I’ll try to let our friend know where to pick you up in the morning. If she calls. She may just show up here.”

Before I could answer, Emmaline exhaled beside me. “Merry! I really, really have to pee.”

Crit’s eyes almost creased with a smile to join the nervous laughter from Pudge and me. I tried to embrace the momentary release while Emmaline waddled to the toilet, holding her legs together.

How many more times would Em make me laugh before I was through? Time with her was already bittersweet.

Just like I told her time could be.