Murder On The Texas Eagle Read online

Murder On The Texas Eagle:

  A Doreen Sizemore Adventure

  By

  Serena B. Miller

  Copyright © 2013 Serena B. Miller

  SerenaBMiller.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  LJEmoryPublishing.com

  MOBI (Kindle) Edition

  ISBN-10: 1940283000

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940283-00-5

  EPUB Edition

  ISBN-10: 1940283019

  ISBN-13: 978-1-940283-01-2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Murder On The Texas Eagle

  Frankly, if it hadn’t been my baby brother, Ralph, doing the asking, I never would have gone on this trip. Even now, sitting here in my Amtrak “roomette” watching the state of Texas fly by, I’m coming real close to regretting the family loyalty that ever made me step onto this train. I’m already as tired as sin, and there is still a lot of miles to go before my brother picks me up in San Antonio.

  “Why don’t you hop on a plane and come down for a nice, long visit,” Ralph had said, off-handed-like, during our once-a-month phone visit. He acted as though traveling so far wouldn’t be no trouble to me at all. “I’ll pay for your ticket.”

  I held the phone away from my ear and gave it a good, hard look. Was this man serious?

  “I’m seventy-one years old, Ralphie. I don’t just ‘hop’ anywhere anymore.”

  It made me feel good that he thought enough of me to want me to come, but it wasn’t no hop-skip-and-a-jump from South Shore, Kentucky to the state of Texas. It ain’t that easy for someone like me to claw my way up out of the hills of Kentucky. I ain’t been more than fifty miles away from home in sixty years, and he wanted me to just grab a plane and fly to San Antonio? My brother didn’t realize how much prayer and planning and hard thought I’d have to put into such a thing.

  Texas has always felt like it was on the other side of the world to me, especially since Ralph and his wife, Carla, went there on a vacation and decided they wasn’t never moving back home. It like to broke mama’s heart and mine, too—truth be told.

  “If it’s all that easy, how come you ain’t done it yourself since Aunt Edith’s funeral six years ago?” I asked. “The plane flies both ways, you know.”

  “I’ve been busy, Doreen.” His voice took on that pouty sound he used to have whenever he was a little boy and I smacked his hand for doing something he shouldn’t be doing. I could almost see his lower lip poking out, even if he is in his sixties. Mama spoiled my baby brother rotten when he was little and him getting older don’t seem to have taken one bit of the spoiled out.

  I was working up a huff over that “busy” comment when he said the words that shut my smart mouth and rocked me back on my heels.

  “Carla’s sick, Doreen. Real sick. She has to have chemo. I need someone to help me take care of her so I can keep working.”

  “Oh, Ralphie,” I felt sick at heart. “I am so sorry.”

  Carla, is a sweet girl. I’ve always liked her and I was real sorry I’d snapped at him like that.

  “I need you, Doreen,” he pleaded. “You gotta come help me. I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”

  “Let me think on it,” I said. “I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

  I hung up the phone wondering what in the world I was going to do. I didn’t want to let my brother and sister-in-law down, but I couldn’t hardly face going all the way to San Antonio, neither.

  Our home town of South Shore, Kentucky is good enough for me. Always has been. Always will be. I don’t understand why people feel the need to move far, far away. We’ve got that pretty Ohio river and all them beautiful hills to look at all the time. I figure that if you can’t find what you’re looking for in South Shore, or across the bridge in Portsmouth, or just down the river in Ashland or Ironton—you don’t need it.

  It’s my brother who left and went far, far away. Ralph and me never did see eye to eye about him staying here where he belongs. Carla, was never any help at keeping him home, either. She’s a local girl, but she’s one of those women who do whatever her husband tells her to. If Ralphie told her he wanted to go live on the moon, she’d go to Goodwill and start looking for a moon suit. San Antonio seems like such a strange place for a Kentucky boy, born and raised, to end up but there’s something about it that caught Ralph’s attention twenty years ago and just never let go.

  I’m not afraid of flying. Not that I’ve ever flown, but I’m not afraid of the principle of it. The way I figure it is that if a person has lived right with the Lord, and is on the other side of seventy, there are worse ways to go than a plane crash. Like Vera Adkins. After that stroke, she’s lingered for years now not able to speak one word unless it is a cuss word. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth—and her a good church-going woman who never said a bad word in her life.

  Sometimes I suspect that she might have said a few in her head through the years, though, for ‘em to be in there. Vera still comes to church, of course, but we try not to let her get too excited or try to testify for fear that she’ll attempt to say something like “Praise the Lord” and something else entirely will shoot out of her mouth. Her daughter took her to a church pot luck last month and when Vera forgot herself and tried to say “Please pass the salt” a string of bad words came out of her mouth and the pastor was sitting right across from her. It would have been funny if she hadn’t started to cry, poor thing.

  I forgot my train of thought. What was it I getting ready to say?

  Oh yes, big airports and how we ain’t got any around here.

  One of the few bad things about living in South Shore, Kentucky is that all the nearest airports are at least two hours away. Columbus, Cincinnati, Lexington. There’s just no easy way to get to a plane from here. To fly, I’d have to ask my neighbor, Bobby Joe to drive me there. I don’t like having to ask someone who isn’t close kin for favors and everyone who was ever close kin has moved away. Bobby Joe is a second cousin, though, and helps me out from time to time. His new little wife, Esther is a sweet girl and I’m grateful to have them living next door to me.

  Problem is, even though I’m not afraid of crashing, I am afraid of trying to find my way around an airport even if Bobby Joe didn’t mind driving me all the way there and dumping me off at one. I’ve seen them airports on the television set, and I can just picture myself wandering around, lost and old, carrying that suitcase my mama bought for me to go to New York City that time we took our senior class trip way back in high school. I’d probably end up missing my plane and then where would I be?

  As far as I was concerned, Doreen Sizemore had no business wandering around an airport unless someone smarter than her took her by the hand and led her around like a little child. I hate to say it, but it’s true. This is one old woman who knows her limitations.

  Not that I can’t get around. I do all right. I’m not on a cane or anything. I still got me a big ole garden and I take care of it all by my lonesome. My people never did run to fat like some folks do, so that helps, too.

  I even killed me a big rattler that got in my garden last summer. I was still nimble enough to jump back out of the way when it tried to bite me. Of course, I’m scared enough of snakes that I’d a probably jumped out of the way even if I was as old as Methuselah. I killed that old meanie with a garden hoe. Chopped
him up into a million little pieces I was so scared. Frank Fuller, over at church told me I’d wasted good meat. He said rattlesnake was tasty. I can’t imagine eating snake. I hate those things. Just hate ‘em.

  Shoot. I lost my train of thought again. What was I saying?

  If I remember right, it didn’t have nothing to do at all with snakes. Oh yes. I was talking about Ralph wanting me to come out to San Antonio and help him take care of his wife who has cancer. No doubt she’s as scared of that disease as I was finding that rattler in my beans—except there’s no hoe big enough to help her with that.

  I seen a lot in my life. Carla might make it through. She might not. But I figure she might feel a mite better with Doreen’s homemade chicken noodle soup in her belly while she’s fighting it.

  There’s no getting over the fact that I’m worried sick about her. I know I’d worry less if I could take charge of her kitchen while she goes through chemo. Mama got all picky about her food, like most people do who go through that. I’m no nurse, but I’ve learned a few things about caring for sick people during bad times.

  Ralph’s not going to be any help to her, that’s for sure. I know my brother. The last I checked, he barely knows how to use a can opener to feed himself—let alone deal with the kind of bird appetite Carla is going to have.

  I was going somewhere with this. I know I was, but this news about Carla has me so shook up I hardly know which end is up.

  Oh yes, I was talking about trying to get there.

  Bobby Joe’s truck has been acting up, plus he’s been a tad grouchy ever since he got into that fuss with his foreman over at the OSCO stove company and lost a perfectly good-paying job which don’t come easy around these parts let me tell you!

  Then Esther had little Maggie—only four weeks old and a more colicky child I never did see. Ever since that baby was born, if I started getting blue and lonely, I would just trot over there and spell Esther by walking that fussy baby up and down her living room floor and then I’d feel a little bit better. Besides being a fussy baby, Maggie looks just like her mama… poor little thing. Esther’s a sweet girl, but she’s no looker.

  Anyway, Esther and Bobby Joe don’t seem to mind taking me to the grocery store or doctor from time to time, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask either of them to drive me all the way to Columbus. Wasn’t sure Bobby Joe’s truck would make it.

  It ain’t that I can’t drive—I can. It’s just that I’ve been having a few dizzy spells here lately, and it’s one thing to accidentally kill myself in a car wreck. I’d be willing to take that risk to keep my independence. But it’s a whole other thing to accidentally take someone else’s life. What if I was to plow into a young family? I’d never forgive myself, and I don’t think the Almighty would be none too happy with me, either. So I sold my old car a couple years back and put that money in a little account that I’m intending to give to Bobby Joe—except he don’t know about it and I thought I’d make him work for it a bit while I’m still around. Won’t hurt him none. Bobby Joe is a little on the lazy side.

  I can talk about him. I got the right. He’s kin. Not saying anything that ain’t true.

  It would be nice if I had someone to drive me to Texas, but I don’t. Even if Bobby Joe’s truck was working good, I wouldn’t ask him to drive me that far. The way he’s been acting since that colicky baby showed up, I’m not sure he’d come back. He’s not been known for sticking to things. Bobby Joe is a good boy, but he likes things easy. He hasn’t lived long enough to figure out that easy ain’t always best.

  I worried at the problem all day like an old dog with a bone and no teeth. That night I lay in bed, puzzling over what I was going to do. I prayed a good bit too. Figured it would be good idea to talk to Someone a whole lot smarter than me about the problem.

  The toughest thing about getting old isn’t so much the aches and pains. The toughest thing is that you lose so many people. All the one’s you were friends with back when you were young are either sick and all crippled-up or dying off. The only thing good about growing old is that you tend to grow closer to the Lord if you’re a mind to. You have to. You run out of people to sop up all your time and after while it’s just pretty much you and God and the telephone that don’t ring all that much.

  Tonight, though, God was being awful silent and I just couldn’t get any peace at all.

  It was in the middle of the night. I was tossing and turning and flipping my pillow every which way trying to get comfortable when I heard the clackety—clack of the train behind my house. I’m so used to it I seldom pay any attention to the sound anymore. It’s kind of like my Mama’s old regulator clock that I stopped hearing go tick-tock about seventy years ago.

  My nerves was in such a state, thought the sound of that train seemed to shake the house like it was going to run right through it. It was then that the thought hit me like a ton of bricks.

  I could take a train to San Antonio. It might take a whole lot longer than a plane, but I didn’t have nothing else I had to do.

  You might think it strange that it didn’t occur to me earlier to take the train, but people in South Shore just don’t do things like that very often. For one thing, it ain’t all that handy. Number 51 Cardinal passenger train only chugged through town three times a week in the middle of the night. Sometimes I might be awake at eleven o’clock or so when it was due—it never was too reliable—and it would stop to pick up or drop off a passenger, but it didn’t happen a lot.

  I knew that it went through Cincinnati and on to Chicago where a person could climb on trains going all over the nation. I didn’t know what the name of the train was that went to Texas, but I was pretty sure it was possible to get one that went close enough to Ralph in Texas that my brother could come pick me up.

  There wasn’t no real train depot in South Shore. Don’t think for a minute there was. All we had was a small boxy building on the corner of Main Street and Route 23 with plastic windows that was kept lit up at night. The only thing in it was a long, blue bench with plenty of graffiti carved in it and a heater if you was lucky. There was never any to-do made about our train station. The train just kind of sneaked up when no one was looking and whisked a person off from time to time. Most of the time we just ignored it.

  Amazing thing was—that little plastic train-stop building was only a half-mile from my house and I could walk to it—even carrying my old suitcase. If I could figure out how to take that train, I wouldn’t have to ask no one for a ride or nothing!

  I lay there all excited at the thought of the freedom of it. For a couple seconds I felt almost giddy with the idea of the adventure of it. Just walking to the train stop, getting on, and going where I wanted. Then reality started to creep in. I was seventy-one years old and sometimes I do get these dizzy spells.

  So I went from being giddy at the thought, to being scared. Who was I kidding? I was too old to do this. Wasn’t I? I didn’t even know how to buy a ticket. There weren’t no ticket agents in that little-bitty train passenger box. I’d be lucky if it had all its light bulbs in it. There’s been an awful lot of thieving going on around here since some of our local boys started taking meth. I’ve heard some of ‘em are foolish enough to try cooking it, too. There was an explosion not too far from here that made the papers. Sometimes I’m glad I won’t have to live to see how bad things get around here. Other times I wish I could live forever just to see what in the world is going to happen next. One thing for sure, there’s no predicting.

  Now I’m off the subject again. I’ll try real hard not to do that.

  So I laid there, thinking how scared I was. Then I got to thinking about Carla again, and how scared she must be with all she’s facing. I got upset all over again because I knew for sure that I was gonna try to ride that dang train whether I wanted to or not—‘cause that’s the kind of person I am where family is concerned. If they need me, I’m going to try to find a way to help them. Then I got mad all over again at
Ralph for choosing to live so far away that he went and put me in the middle of this mess.

  It was a rough night.

  When the light of dawn finally cracked through my window blinds, I gave up and got out of bed. First thing I did was feed the old tomcat that’s usually hanging around my house in the morning. He’s a tough one, that cat is, and suspicious. My lands that cat is surely careful not to get too close to folks. It’s been three months I’ve been feeding him and he just yesterday let me pet his head real careful. He kind of closed one eye and squinted up at me like he couldn’t believe I’d be foolish enough to try, but he didn’t bite my hand off so I think we’re making progress. Then I boiled some water, made me some Sanka, put enough sugar and evaporated milk in it to cut the bitterness, and worked up the nerve to call Ralph and tell him about my idea of riding the rails to Texas.

  I rolled that phrase around in my mouth a minute, liking the sound of it. “Riding the rails.”

  “Doreen,” I say to myself. “If you can cut a three foot rattlesnake to smithereens with a garden hoe, you can manage to go ride on a train for a couple of days to help your little baby brother in his hour of need.”

  My brother, Ralph, is not exactly a little boy anymore. We run to big-boned in my family and he’s a six footer with a solid three hundred pounds on his frame, but whenever I think about him, I always see that little fellow what used to crawl into bed and cuddle with me whenever the thunder and lightning started up and he got scared.

  I dial the number. He picks up on the first ring like he’s been sitting there worrying about what I was going to decide. The minute I tell him what I’m thinking, he gets all excited and says he’ll pay for it. I tell him my money is as good as his if I can just figure out how to get a ticket. He says not to worry about a thing, that he’ll take care of everything. He calls back later and tells me he got a good deal so that’s all right. He explains the details to me and then we hang up.

  I figure there’s no turning back now. I’m grateful when I look at the clock and see it’s just about time for my appointment at Betsey’s Beauty Boutique. With me getting ready to go to Texas, if I ever needed me a good perm, it’s now. I walk on over, thinking it might be a long time before I see Betsey’s Beauty Boutique again.

  The girl who usually does my hair is Holly, a sweet girl with a pretty face. She always gives me an extra-curly perm because I like to get as much value for my money as possible. I do not know why the girl thinks a nose ring is attractive—but I hope it’s a phase she’ll grow out of someday, poor