I was making my way back last night. Couldn’t figure out what was going on in those woods. Sounded like a bunch of crickets were singing to high heaven. I joined in before I realized it was our final salute to old Shep. It sounded pretty. Real pretty.
Ned
P.S. Hey, buddy, can you do me a favor? I’d do it myself, but I’m not there and I want it done in words, out loud. Tell Pop I love him.
A Dying Breath
AUGUST 7, 1936
“School’s going to be starting before long and we’ll have nothing to show for our summer of spy hunting,” Lettie said after we’d clambered up the rickety rope ladder to the tree house, carrying a tin of buttermilk biscuits for our afternoon snack. “In fact, I’d be ready to think the Rattler has been long gone or buried if it wasn’t for the note we found on the tree trunk.” Lettie’s eyes grew wide. “Now, there’s an idea. Maybe the Rattler is dead and buried and left us that note. Remember Uncle Louver’s story about the ghostly figure moving about the woods.”
“For gosh sakes, Lettie. We all saw it. We all read it.”
“I’ve still got it right here in the cigar box,” I said.
“Are the words still on it? Or have they disappeared?” Lettie asked.
Ruthanne rolled her eyes.
I took the crumpled note from the box and widened my eyes in amazement. “There’s nothing here. It’s blank!”
“What?” Ruthanne snatched the note away from me. She stared in disbelief at the blank paper. Then she flipped it over. “Oh, very funny. It’s on the other side.”
Lettie and I laughed. Ruthanne didn’t find it funny.
“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Ruthanne. It’s too hot for that.”
The note lay on the floor in the middle of us and we stared at the four words, each one capitalized. Leave Well Enough Alone. The words taunted us. Dared us.
“We’ve got to come up with a plan,” said Ruthanne. “Something clever and resourceful that’ll shine a light on the person who wrote this note.”
“Yeah, but what if he’s somebody really nasty, like James Cagney in Public Enemy?” said Lettie. “Remember when he smashed a grapefruit in Mae Clarke’s face? Of course, in “G” Men he was on the other side of the law as Brick Davis. What do you think he’d do?”
“He’d use his tommy gun, and by the end, the whole town would be dead or in jail,” said Ruthanne. “No, it has to be something sneakier, and not so bloody.” Ruthanne turned her attention to me. “What would Jinx do, Abilene?”
It was strange. I’d been wondering the same thing. The answer was simple. “He’d come up with some fancy scheme to trick the Rattler into giving himself away. You know, a con.”
“Like …?” Lettie and Ruthanne asked in unison.
“Well, let me think.” I felt I knew Jinx well enough to put myself in his shoes. What would he do? Then I smiled. “This is kind of like being a diviner. Do you have a bauble?” I asked in Miss Sadie’s Hungarian accent, making my voice thick and husky.
Lettie and Ruthanne just stared at me in confusion.
“A totem or trinket. Something belonging to the person in question.” I said the word question like it had a v in it. Question.
Lettie jumped with excitement. “The note. Here, use the note.”
I took the paper and made a big show of smoothing out the wrinkles on the tree house floorboards. Then I took a deep breath and pondered the note.
“What is it? What do you see?” asked Lettie.
“She sees a girl who’ll believe anything,” Ruthanne said, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ruthanne. I know she’s just putting on, but I can play along, can’t I?”
“Silence.” I held up my hand. “The spirits are thinking.”
I looked intently at the note, holding it up to the light as if it would shout an answer at me. And then it darn near did.
“Hey,” I said in my regular voice. “The handwriting.”
“What about it?” Ruthanne said.
“I knew a lady once, Miss Leeds in Springfield, Illinois. She could tell all manner of things about people just by the way they tapped out their messages on a telegraph machine.”
“So you can tell who the Rattler is just by looking at the handwriting?” Lettie asked.
“No, but just like telegraphing is different from one person to another, handwriting is too. See here?” I pointed to the note. “See how these letters are straight up and down, plodding across the page? And at the end of each word, the last letter trails off like it’s giving out its dying breath.”
“Why, you’re right,” Lettie said in admiration. “So we should go door to door and ask everyone to write the same words as on this note and we’ll see whose matches up.” Lettie paused. “But how are we going to get everyone to write it down?”
I answered before Ruthanne could jump on her. “We won’t have them write these words. They’ll write something else.” My mind was racing. “Anybody seen Billy Clayton today?”
“He’s over at the school yard. Sister Redempta’s got him fixing the fence he ran into on his bike.” Ruthanne perked up an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because Hattie Mae’s having a contest. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
HATTIE MAE’S
NEWS AUXILIARY AUGUST 9, 1936
To the faithful readers of “Hattie Mae’s News Auxiliary.” First an explanation, then an announcement. Many apologies for the mix-up last week. Uncle Henry set out a stack of old newspapers (from 1918 to be exact) to be stored in the shed out back. We all know that man can’t part with a penny or a paper.
Anyway, Fred got the papers as far as the back door when his lumbago set in. Of course I had to get him home to bed, even though my knees have been no great shakes lately. Fred’s never been a silent sufferer, but “for better or worse,” right, ladies?
Well, I guess it’s asking too much for Billy Clayton to actually read the papers he delivers. I’m assuming he’s got bad eyes, as he hits the bushes and the roof as often as the porch at our house.
For those of you who thought that we were back at war with the Huns, that Woodrow Wilson was still president, and that you could buy a washing machine for fourteen dollars, wake up and smell the Depression.
Still, it was a hoot seeing the hats that were in fashion at the millinery. Remember the styles for men? Those stiff celluloid collars around their necks and the spats around their ankles. And the lace-up boots we women used to wear. Lord, have mercy.
Remember when Manifest boasted citizens of twenty different nationalities? When you could walk down Main Street and smell Mama Santoni’s warm bread instead of dust and wind? Listening to Caruso sing “Eyes of Blue” on the Victrola? When we all bought Liberty Bonds to support our brave soldiers “over there”?
This brings me to the announcement. Due to Fred’s “injury” and the fact that his mother is coming in from Springfield to “help,” I will be taking a sabbatical from “Hattie Mae’s News Auxiliary.”
However, some of our younger patrons wanted to know more about our fair town back in the day. So at their suggestion, we are inaugurating the Manifest Herald’s Remember When contest. Write up a favorite memory from 1918 in your best handwriting and submit it to the Manifest Herald by Friday, August 23. We’ll run as many as we can, but the winner will receive a five-dollar cash prize. I asked Uncle Henry for ten but … read the above.