Murder On The Texas Eagle Read online

thing.

  I tell her all about my new adventure, and I tell her I’m thinking about getting Bobby Joe to take me across the bridge to the Big Lots store so I can buy one of those suitcases on rollers I seen there.

  “I tell you what, sweetie,” she says. “Don’t go and do that I got a suitcase you can borrow.”

  She’s like that, Holly is. She calls people sweetie and honey and baby doll and don’t even realize she’s doing it half the time. Just trying to make them feel good, I guess, and truth be told, most of us can certainly use a little of that. The girl’s got a big heart. She’s Elmer Stoker’s granddaughter, and I think she must get that sweetness from him. I always liked Elmer when we were kids. He was always such a kind child. I surely did hate it when he got that Leona Beardsley in the family way and had to marry her. Poor man has been hen-pecked half to death ever since.

  I suppose some people might say that it served him right, but Leona has the sourest temperament I never did see. Humiliates Elmer even in Sunday morning Bible class, harrumphing and rolling her eyes if the poor man makes the slightest remark. So help me, I think if Elmer said for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosever perish might have eternal life…..I think Leona would find fault.

  Thank goodness Elmer’s granddaughter took after him in the personality department. If she took after Leona, I’d have to find someone else to give me my perms.

  “I’ll tell you what, baby doll,” Elmer’s granddaughter says. “I got me the prettiest roller suitcase the other day. It was on sale and I couldn’t pass it up. I’m not going anywhere for awhile, so you’re welcome to take it on your trip.”

  I hate taking her pretty suitcase away from the girl. I ask her where the good deal was.

  “Oh,” she says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I got it on Amazon.”

  For a minute, I wonder if the ammonia in my perm is addling my brain. That doesn’t make no sense to me.

  “Amazon is a river in South America,” I say. “When did you go there?”

  Well, Holly just about peed her pants laughing over that. Then she had to tell the other two girls what I said. I sat there feeling stupid with half my hair up in perm rollers, until she let me in on the joke and explained what Amazon she meant.

  Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a different world than everyone else I know. My cold feet over getting on the train got worse. I felt a panic setting in.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t go after all,” I said. “Maybe I’m too old.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She tapped me on the shoulder with a comb. “My boyfriend rode that train to Chicago and then onto Oregon and back again when he was out there looking for work. He said it was a cinch.”

  The girl could not have said any words that would of made me feel better. I happen to know her boyfriend and that child really did get the short end of the stick when it came to smarts. He didn’t even know enough to blow his own nose when he was a kid. He’d just stand there looking at you like he didn’t see anything wrong with having all that stuff hanging down over his upper lip. I always kept a box of tissues in my Sunday school class, knowing that he would need a good wipe and blow before the class was over.

  He turned into a right handsome boy after he got done growing up and I think he finally figured out how use a handkerchief, but it kinda gags me to remember what he looked like when he was seven. Poor thing.

  Now, I figure that if that boy has enough smarts now to figure out how to travel by train, it’s something I should be able to manage.

  Holly brought me her little wheeled suitcase later that night after she got off of work. Brought it right to my door. That’s the way things are in a small town.

  It was red and had a lot of zippers. I wondered what I was supposed to put in all them zippered pockets.

  “Now, you take care, Miss Doreen.” Holly gave a little wave after she’d sashayed back to her truck. Hers has a gun rack in it. I think it’s her daddy’s.

  The next day, I gave Esther next door all my cat food so she could take care of my stray tomcat. She had seen the scars on that old tomcat and the bit-off ear and she looked doubtful. I told her he wouldn’t hurt her if she didn’t hurt him. I could hear the baby crying in the living room and Bobby Joe trying to sing it to sleep. That surprised me and I gave Bobby Joe points. He might grow up to be a decent father after all.

  I walked down to the bank and paid all my utilities for the next two months. No telling how long I’ll be there, but paying that far ahead took about everything I had. Then I ironed and folded five housedresses and a couple slips into the suitcase plus one good dress for church. I put enough unmentionables in there to get me through a week and some ankle socks. It was funny how shabby everything looked inside of that new, pretty suitcase but I couldn’t help that.

  I used the zippered pockets to store my plastic pink rollers, some Pepto-Bismol tablets, some Vicks Vapor Rub, a toothbrush and my extra eye glasses. I’ve never been a person who wore a lot of makeup, but just in case, I stuck in a tube of Red Sin I’d bought one day when I lost my mind in the Dollar Store and thought I might try to fancy myself up a little. Thoughts like that come over me from time to time and usually I ward them off—but that unused tube had been sitting there on my bureau for a couple years, so I figured maybe it would be a good item to put in one of them little zippered pockets. I’ve heard Texas women are kind of fancy.

  Then I made me some peanut butter sandwiches, put some carrots and celery in a bag, and a whole new package of Juicy Fruit, found my Bible and handkerchief, stuck everything in my biggest purse and figured I was as ready as I was ever gonna get.

  I watched the television set until long past my normal bed time of nine o’clock. I watched until ten o’clock. The time had come to turn off the lights, lock the doors and start walking. I took a big breath and steeled myself. The train would arrive in one hour.

  It is only a fifteen minute walk to the blue bench in the little plastic train-waiting shed beside the tracks, but I like to get places plenty early.

  I don’t usually go walking around after dark. South Shore is a nice, quiet town—but like most places these days, not nearly as safe as it used to be. I didn’t have to worry none after all, though. Bobby Joe had been watching for me, and the minute I left my house, he came out of his and said, “How about I carry that suitcase for you, Doreen?”

  Someday Bobby Joe is gonna have a big old pot belly like his daddy, but right now, he still has all the muscle he had when he was playing football for the Greenup County Musketeers. Plus he can be as mean as a timber rattler when someone riles him or threatens someone he cares about. Bobby Joe ain’t as work-brickle as I’d like, but I surely did feel a lot safer with him by my side.

  “That would be right nice, Bobby Joe.”

  He didn’t just walk me to the train, he actually waited there beside me all protective-like until the engine came chuffing into town. Bobby Joe has his moments.

  I jumped up and waved, but the train just kept going. I thought the engineer had gone and forgot me, but it started slowing down, then the brakes squealed, it came to a stop, and a porter popped out of a silver door. He sat a little yellow step-stool down on the ground and motioned for me to come on.

  The train stood still, but it kept huffing and huffing, like it was getting impatient, and I nearly tripped trying to hurry. Bobby Joe grabbed me by my arm and kept me upright. He also handed my suitcase to the porter. The boy hadn’t used the wheels even once all this time. He just carried it by the handle like it weighed nothing at all. We grow some strong boys here in northern Kentucky.

  “You take good care of Miss Doreen here,” Bobby Joe told the porter real stern-like. “She’s a special lady.”

  Then those two young men, one white, one black, helped me up those step stairs. I have to admit, my legs were wobbly, and I needed the help. I had barely gotten to the top of them when the door whooshed closed and the train took off a
gain. I grabbed hold of a handrail sticking out of the wall, and held on while I took a good look down that darkened, narrow aisle with seats on both sides. There was nothing I wanted to do right at that moment except to turn around and get right back down off that train! I didn’t know where to sit. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed like all I could manage was hang on to that hand hold like my life depended on it while the train swayed and shook beneath me.

  Just then, the nice porter started talking to me in a calm, voice.

  “Seat number 37, ma’am,” he said. “I think that would be a good place for you.”

  I looked back over my shoulder wondering where Holly’s suitcase got to.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am.” He said. “I’ve got your luggage. Just take it nice and slow and you’ll be fine. Your seat is about half-way down the car.”

  The seats were filled with all kinds of people, most of ‘em asleep in miserable-looking positions. Some were light-skinned, some were dark-skinned, some even had those things I’ve heard called dreadlocks sticking out of their heads. The lights were dimmed so that everyone could sleep since it was nearly midnight.

  It took me awhile, with the train rolling and pitching, before I got my sea legs and could walk half-way steady, but me and the porter made it to seat 37 and he lifted my suitcase into the overhead bin. There were even two