It wasn’t a grass fire, or somebody’s trash fire that got out of hand. It was a fire in a pile of old boards and discarded shingles stacked right up next to a storage shed that leaned up against the back wall of the Coca-Cola bottling plant south of town.
The fire might have been a whole lot worse if Henry Biddle, the plant manager, hadn’t arrived when he did and parked his 1929 Chevy where he did—that is, behind the plant instead of in front of the plant, so he could use the back door. It was Saturday and they were closed for the weekend, but he had some paperwork to do and he’d planned to get at it while nobody was around to distract him.
Henry had almost changed his mind about working on Saturday, though. He and Al Duffy and Tate Haggard had played poker the night before, late, in the back room of Pete’s Pool Parlor. Because Henry was winning (he went home with an extra buck-fifty in his pocket), he stayed for an additional hand or two. He had overslept, and when he got up, he wasn’t very eager to spend the morning at the plant. But he felt better after Earlynne stirred up a batch of buttermilk pancakes. He decided to make the effort.
He was glad he did, for when he pulled the car around behind the plant, he saw the flames licking up the back wall of the shed. He sprinted into his office, telephoned the Darling Exchange, and reported the fire to Violet Sims, who was on the switchboard that morning. After that, things happened the way they were supposed to.
Violet called the fire chief—Archie Mann—catching him just as he was finishing one of Twyla Sue’s big Saturday breakfasts: bacon, eggs, buttermilk grits, and biscuits.
Chief Mann told Violet to push the red button that sounded the siren at the top of the courthouse bell tower. He stuffed a couple of slices of bacon into a hot biscuit before he dashed out the door and ran the two blocks to Blackjack Frazier’s barn, where the VFD’s fire truck lived when it wasn’t out on a job. By the time he got Big Red started, a couple of Hot Dogs had climbed on the back and were ready to go. Just fifteen minutes later, they were pulling up at the fire, flasher flashing and siren wailing.
The chief managed the pump on the truck while the Hot Dogs began pulling hose and unloading equipment. Three more Hot Dogs arrived in somebody’s jalopy and began extinguishing the pile of flaming lumber.
Meanwhile, back in Darling, Violet had called the sheriff’s office after she got off the phone with Chief Mann and pushed the red button to sound the siren, which was still blaring when Sheriff Buddy Norris picked up the phone. Violet told him where the fire was. He grabbed his cap and ran for his car.
When Buddy was a deputy working for Sheriff Roy Burns, he rode an Indian Ace motorcycle that took him pretty much anywhere he wanted to go, fast. After his predecessor had met his maker (in the person of a rattlesnake with a short temper and a long and lightning-fast strike), Buddy inherited the sheriff’s old four-door Ford, which kept him out of the rain and looked official but wasn’t nearly as fast as his Indian Ace. He converted the Ford into something resembling a squad car by fastening hog wire to the back of the front seat so he could haul a prisoner without worrying whether the fellow was going to grab him around the neck and snatch his gun—if he was wearing it. Buddy didn’t wear his gun very often. He didn’t feel it added a lot to the conversation.
This morning, Buddy was delayed when he saw that the Ford’s right rear tire was nearly flat. No big surprise, since the tires were worn slick and he’d patched all four inner tubes so often that they looked like crazy quilts. Luckily, he kept a tire pump in the battered tin box mounted on the rear bumper. But the old pump had leaks of its own, so it took him ten minutes to wheeze enough air into the tire so he could drive off. He got to the fire just as the Hot Dogs were packing up the hose.
He walked over to Archie Mann, who was leaning against the fire engine, watching the boys finish the job. The fire was out, the shed looked to be safe, and several of the younger Hot Dogs were shoveling dirt on the smoldering woodpile, making sure there wouldn’t be any flare-ups.
“Mornin’, Chief,” Buddy said. “Hotter’n the devil this morning.”
“You said it, Sheriff,” returned the chief, whose sweaty face wore a smear of dark ash across one cheek.
Buddy surveyed the scene. “Any idea how it started?”
The chief took off his helmet and wiped his face with his sleeve. “Henry said he got a good whiff of kerosene when he first came up on it. Said to tell you he’s in the plant office if you want to talk to him.” He paused. “And one of the boys found this.” He produced a book of matches and a three-inch white cardboard tube, stuffed with cotton fiber and heavily charred on one end. “Same as those other two we found.”
Buddy studied the device. No question, then. He tipped back the bill of his sheriff’s cap. “This makes how many? Five, is it? I’m losing track.”
“Yeah. Five fires, counting this’un. But not counting the good reverend’s trash fire yesterday. We know how that got started.” The chief chuckled. “The devil got into the old boy and told him to go in the house and forget what he was doin’. Wind took care of the rest.”
The chief was right about the fire at the parsonage, Buddy knew. And yes, there had been five all together: the fire across from the Academy, another at the foot of the railroad trestle, plus two in town: number one in the trash bin behind the Peerless Laundry, number two just outside the town dump, way out on Dauphin Street. And now this.
Buddy frowned down at the cardboard tube. “Five fires of undetermined origin in the space of . . . what? Three weeks, is it? Reckon we got us a firebug.”
Actually, they had determined the origins of all five fires. Somebody had set them using kerosene and a thing like what Buddy held in his hand. They just didn’t know who. Or why. Or what might be next. Which qualified the origins of the fires as “undetermined,” according to the National Board of Fire Underwriters, which had the last word when it came to describing fires.
“An arsonist,” Buddy added gloomily, not liking the taste of that word. Arson wasn’t an easy crime to solve unless the firestarter hung around to share in the excitement. That didn’t seem to be happening with these fires. Most of them had been in out-of-the-way places that didn’t attract an audience. They were more like hit-and-runs. Set the fire and scram.
“Yeah.” The chief pulled off a leather glove. “Kids, maybe, I’m thinkin’. Could be they just like the smell of smoke. Or the sound of the fire siren.” He took off the other glove. “Or the idea of making everybody jump and run.” He tossed the pair onto Big Red’s seat. “At least there ain’t been nobody hurt. And no insurance claims.”
“So far,” Buddy said. “I’m thinking, though, that it’s time to notify the state fire marshal’s office.” He gestured toward the shed. “Henry tell you what’s in there?”
“If this had gone up, there would’ve been a claim,” the chief said. “Henry says they’ve got three, maybe four thousand dollars’ worth of new bottling equipment stacked in there. Coca-Cola shipped it from Atlanta a week ago. It’ll be a couple of weeks before the installation crew finishes another job and gets over here to set it up. Just luck that Henry decided on comin’ out here this morning. And luck that he got here before the fire took off. Otherwise, we’d’ve lost the bottling plant.” He grabbed Big Red’s steering wheel and swung up into the truck. “You coming to the hot dog supper at the church tonight?”
“Oh, you bet.” Buddy grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
Cypress County had no fire marshal, so either he or his deputy sheriff, Wayne Springer, made it a point to show up at all the fires. They had even been known to grab the hose or a fire shovel or pickaxe when an extra hand was called for. He and Wayne considered themselves part of the crew, so they had both signed up to go to the supper.
Plus, it was a free meal, and since Buddy was saving his money, he ate free whenever he could. He had decided to ask Bettina Higgens to marry him—not right away (Buddy was a cautious man) but when he could afford his share of the groceries and half of Bettina’s rent. He didn’t mind so much that his wife would likely want to keep her job at Beulah’s Beauty Bower, where she was a beauty associate and loved what she did. What he minded was not being able to carry at least half of the bills. Being the Cypress County sheriff might be long on status, but it was pretty damned short on salary. And the county was usually so strapped for money that it paid late. It was nearly the end of August and he hadn’t yet been paid for the first two weeks. It was no time to get married.
“Hey, you two.” Archie Mann turned on the fire truck’s seat and waved at a pair of sweaty-looking Hot Dogs. “I’m taking Big Red back to the barn. If you’re coming with me, load that hose and hop on. The rest of the crew can mop up.” The chief turned back to Buddy, his soot-smudged face serious. “Listen, Sheriff, I would mightily appreciate it if you’d cast your vote for me tonight. For fire chief, I mean. Wayne, too. You tell him I said so, will you? I hate to be pushy about this, but I want your votes.”
Buddy raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think we’re Hot Dogs, not officially, anyway. We just act like it when it comes to free meals. We probably won’t vote.”
“I am hereby declaring that the two of you are honorary Hot Dogs,” Archie growled, “and honorary Hot Dogs can vote just like everybody else. I need all the help I can get. I gotta beat him.”
“Beat who?” Buddy hadn’t heard that anybody else was fool enough to want the fire chief’s job. It took a lot of time, sometimes dragged you out of bed in the middle of the night in bad weather, and it didn’t pay a plugged nickel. All Archie got out of it was the badge he was wearing and the fun of driving that shiny new truck.
“Beat that no-good Rufus Radley.” Disgusted, Archie spit in the dirt. “He’s decided he wants the job, so he’s buying himself a big bunch of votes. He’s promising everybody a five-dollar bonus if they vote for him. Five dollars!” He turned and looked back at the Hot Dogs, raising his voice. “Benny and Junior, you get that hose loaded and hop on, pronto. Them other boys is gonna stay and clean up. I’m getting’ ready to roll.”
“A five-dollar bonus? That don’t seem right,” Buddy said. It also didn’t seem legal, which wasn’t always the same. “I’ll have to ask Mr. Moseley what he thinks about it.” Mr. Moseley was the county attorney and Buddy’s source of reliable information about the law, which was full of nooks and crannies and crevasses deep enough to trap an unwary sheriff who didn’t watch where he put his feet.
“Don’t seem right to me, neither.” The chief turned the key in the ignition, raising his voice over the noise of the engine. “So tonight, both you and Wayne gotta vote. For me.” He gave Buddy a hard, straight-on look. “And on Monday, you stop by the Mercantile and pick out one of them Gene Autry hats you’ve been droolin’ over. Not Wayne, though. Just you. No charge—just tell Twyla Sue that I said you should have it.”
“That’s a joke, isn’t it?” Buddy asked. He hoped so, anyway. He was a longtime fan of the Singing Cowboy and his horse, Champion. He knew that those big white hats, which he had long admired, went for a whole ten bucks apiece. He frowned. A ten-dollar Gene Autry hat wasn’t any different than a five-dollar bonus—except it was maybe twice as bad.
“Ain’t no joke,” Archie said grimly. “That hat’ll look swell on you, Sheriff. Make Bettina’s sweet little heart go pitty-pat.” He pushed down on the clutch and shifted the fire truck into first gear. “If you’re fixin’ on driving back to town, though, you better pump up your right rear. It’s flat.”
“Oh, hell,” Buddy muttered. As the fire engine roared off in a cloud of dust, he went for the tire pump.
He was still pumping when Wilber Casey, the eager-beaver young reporter from the Dispatch, showed up with his camera to cover the story. Buddy finished with the tire and put the pump away as Wilber took some photos and asked some questions about the fires. He answered as briefly as possible, since he didn’t care to reveal how little he actually knew about what was going on.
There wasn’t much to say, anyway. In fact, Buddy could condense the entire past three weeks into a single sentence. Somebody in Cypress County was setting fires, and catching him was not going to be easy. Maybe that would be a good lead for his story, Buddy suggested to the reporter.
“On the record?” Wilber asked. “I mean, can I quote you?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Buddy replied. “It’s the truth. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to write? The truth?”
“Yes, but . . .” Wilber scribbled for a moment. “Thanks,” he said.
As Wilber drove off, Buddy went into the plant to talk to Henry Biddle, who didn’t have much to say, either, beyond what he’d already told the fire chief. He hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual, and everything at the plant seemed to be operating pretty much as per normal, although, when prodded, Henry had to admit that it was a tad bit unusual to have that much valuable machinery stored in a shed.
“I’m filing a report,” Henry said, with a gesture to a sheet of paper on his desk. “I’m just glad I don’t have to tell the company that their new equipment got burned up in a fire.”
“Yeah,” Buddy said. “Good that you got out here this morning when you did. You come out every Saturday, do you?”
“When I have to,” Henry said. “They don’t pay me enough for Saturdays, too.” He gave Buddy a lopsided grin. “Maybe I should ask for a raise. I mean, like a reward. Like, for discovering the fire because I was working overtime.”
“Maybe,” Buddy said. “I guess you could make a good case.”
He thought about this on his way back to Darling, and before going to the office, he stopped at the bakery—The Flour Shop—where Mrs. Biddle worked. He asked her a couple of questions, took the half-dozen doughnuts she offered, and drove the short block to the sheriff’s office. His deputy’s old Chevy wasn’t in its usual parking spot, which meant that Wayne must be out on a call somewhere. Buddy hoped he wasn’t off to another fire.
The sheriff’s office occupied a four-room frame house behind Snow’s Farm Supply, catawampus from the courthouse and across the street from the bank. The jail was next door, on the second floor above Snow’s Farm Supply, so it was easy to keep an eye on the occupants, if there were any—usually just a couple of fellows who had overindulged in the local moonshine. There was nobody in the lockup this morning, but there would be tomorrow, likely. Saturday nights were drinking nights and now that alcohol was legal again, there was a fair amount of celebrating, both in Darling and on the other side of the railroad tracks, in Maysville, where the coloreds lived.
In both places, the local moonshine was preferred to the more expensive stuff with the tax stamps on it. Almost nobody saw the wisdom of paying the government a tax just because the booze was distilled by a big company up in Kentucky or over in Missouri, when you could get it cheaper from a local shiner. Bodeen Pyle’s was good. Mickey LeDoux’s was better, and what was more, Mickey was out of prison and—according to local reports—back to shining at his old still over in Briar Swamp. Buddy hoped Mickey would do it privately enough that he didn’t have to put him in jail again.
A scrawny black tomcat was sitting on the porch railing when Buddy came up the steps. He had belonged to the former occupant of the house, Miss Josephine Crumpler, who had gone to live with her niece in Nashville. At first, Buddy and Wayne had tried to evict the Beast, as they called the uncongenial creature. But they stopped trying when they realized that a gang of mice was poised to move in if the Beast should move out, which made him the lesser evil.
As Buddy unlocked the front door, the Beast leaped off the railing and followed him into what had once been the kitchen—and still was, since Miss Crumpler had left not just her cat but her stove and icebox. Wayne earned even less than Buddy, so to save money, he slept on a cot in the pantry (a handy arrangement, especially when there was a nighttime emergency) and cooked his meals in the kitchen.
Buddy put coffee and water into the percolator and got it started, then poured milk into a cracked china saucer, set it down for the cat, and went into Miss Crumpler’s bedroom, now his office. He had finally got tired of looking at the flowered wallpaper and painted over it, which hadn’t been such a bright idea. The weight of the paint had buckled some of the paper and it hung down in loose drapes, giving the room a rakish look. When he got a little time, he’d strip it to the plaster and try again.
But not today. Today, he had to write up the report on the fire at the Coca-Cola plant, find out how to get in touch with the state fire marshal’s office (probably closed on Saturday, like civilized people), and finish his budget proposal for the county commissioners. He was asking for raises both for himself and Wayne. The last time he’d done that, they’d said sorry, no, so this time, it had to be good. Not that he blamed the commissioners. These days, the county had a tough time collecting taxes, and it was taxes that paid his salary. But he sure wished for a bigger paycheck so he and Bettina could go ahead and get married.
He pulled out a yellow tablet and the green-covered office account ledger, sharpened a couple of pencils, and turned on the Zenith radio on the shelf behind his desk. He turned it off again, though. Somebody was reading the latest commodity markets and Buddy had no interest in the price of pork bellies. Be nice if they’d play some Gene Autry songs, though.
When the coffee had perked long enough (but not too long), he poured a mugful and got started on the Coca-Cola report. He had just finished when he heard tires crunching on gravel and looked out the front window to see Wayne’s battered Chevy pulling up. A few minutes later, his deputy was standing in the doorway, fingers hooked in his belt loops.
“Mornin’, boss,” he said. It was about as far as Wayne ever got with the social niceties.
In his midthirties, Wayne Springer was tall, lithe as a swamp willow but muscular and dark-haired, with high cheekbones and the bronzed skin and easy grace that hinted at a Cherokee or a Creek somewhere back in the family. Buddy had been happy to hire him because he came with five years of law-enforcement experience and a reputation for deadeye accuracy with both his .38 Special and his long gun. There was a mystery that Buddy had not yet solved, however: why Wayne seemed satisfied to hire on for the pittance that Cypress County paid its one and only deputy. He could have earned more in a big city.
Wayne’s other good point (as far as Buddy was concerned) was that he claimed no local friends or kinfolk. Most Darling folks couldn’t spit without hitting an uncle or a cousin. Buddy hadn’t been sheriff very long before he decided that if he and his deputy were on the hunt for a bank robber, he didn’t want the deputy wondering whether the guy they were after might be his mother’s great-uncle’s second boy. He might hold his fire—or conversely (and just as likely), might shoot to kill when that wasn’t strictly necessary. Buddy had the feeling that an outsider like Wayne was more likely to take the objective view, which could in the end save a couple of bushels of trouble.
He put down his pencil. “Coffee’s on the stove,” he said, and held out his mug. “Mine’s empty.” Wayne took it and reappeared a moment later.
“You been out on a call?” Buddy asked, leaning back in his chair with his coffee.
Wayne sipped his. “Mrs. Custer left a pair of Mr. Custer’s overalls on the clothesline overnight. When she got up, they were missing.” He propped himself against the door frame. “Her husband works out at the prison farm and is gone all week. I thought she’d feel better if somebody showed up to take a look.”
Buddy liked that about Wayne. He wasn’t just doing a job. He cared about people—although sometimes that seemed a little at odds with the other part of him. The Deadeye Dick part. Another one of Wayne’s mysteries.
“The Custers are what?” Buddy asked. “A half-block from the depot? Likely somebody rode in on the last freight yesterday and helped himself to what was handy.”
“That’s what I figured.” Wayne grinned slightly. “I went over to the church to see if I could spot a clean pair with a patch on the right knee. And there was this young fella with his chin in a bowl of grits one of the ladies had just served up. Mr. Custer’s britches went back home and the kid was told to take a pair from the giveaway shelf at the church. He also got a lecture from me and a morning’s worth of chores for Mrs. Custer. Reckon he’ll be glad to get back on the road.”
Hobos didn’t always understand that Darling was on a dead-end spur, not a through track, which meant that those who came in late were stuck in town until the first train out the next morning. In fact, there had been so many overnighters recently that the First Baptist ladies, with help from their Methodist and Presbyterian sidekicks, had set up a refuge of sorts in the church basement. The hobos—mostly young men and boys, some with fevers and wracking coughs, others with scrapes and sprains and bruises—were invited to supper, a blanket, and breakfast. Riding the rails was a hard-luck life, and hot biscuits with butter, a bowl of grits or soup, and a safe place to bed down were welcome. There were often a dozen or more transients sleeping at the church. Reverend Couch stopped in before lights out, counted noses, said a prayer for safety on the road, and counseled the wanderers to be on their way after breakfast. Mostly, there was no trouble. But every bushel had at least one bad apple. Hence Mr. Custer’s missing overalls.
Everybody knew that Darling wasn’t alone in this situation, of course. The New Deal was providing work for many but by no means all, and thousands of the jobless and homeless were constantly on the move, hoping to pick up enough money for a meal and cigarettes—maybe even find a place where they could put down roots and start a new life. Towns on the railroad or a main east–west highway saw the most traffic, of course. Buddy had read that Deming, New Mexico, which was home to only about 3,000 souls, was counting 125 transient arrivals every day. Double that in Tucson. Double again in Kansas City. Many towns set limits on how long transients could stay or arrested them for vagrancy and sentenced them to a week in jail, where they at least had meals and a bunk. Darling didn’t do that—yet.
“I was at the church when I heard the siren,” Wayne said. Taking another sip of coffee, he made a face. He preferred it strong enough to get out of the cup and do bench presses. Buddy’s coffee was always too weak. “Where was the fire? Did you go?”
“Yep. Just finished the report,” Buddy said. “It was in some lumber piled up against a lean-to shed at the rear of the Coca-Cola plant. They work a five-day week out there, but Henry Biddle said he needed to do some paperwork so he drove out this morning and spotted it when he got out of the car. Said he smelled kerosene, and Archie Mann turned up another delay device.” He tossed it onto his desk. “And in this case, there could have been a substantial claim. Henry says they’re storing nearly four thousand dollars’ worth of new equipment in that shed. Insured.”
Wayne arched an eyebrow. “Biddle phoned in the alarm himself?”
“That’s right. But if you’re wondering whether he set the fire and called it in so Coca-Cola would think he was a hero, the answer is no.” He paused, considering. “Or not likely, anyway. On my way back to the office, I stopped at the bakery and had a little talk with Mrs. Biddle. She says her husband left the house at five past nine, and it’s just ten minutes to the plant. Violet got his call at nine-nineteen. So it was already going when he called it in.”
Unless, he thought, Biddle had called it in and then lit it. Which, he supposed, was a possibility he should keep in mind. But if that’s what happened, where was the evidence? As Mr. Moseley always said, you couldn’t arrest a man on a possibility. You needed proof—or at least something that looked enough like proof to get an indictment out of the grand jury.
“You checked the shed, I reckon.” Wayne was following along with his thinking. “You got a look-see at what was inside?”
Buddy nodded. “I had Biddle open the crates and both of us had a look. He says the equipment is all there, and he had the manifest to prove it. The fire wasn’t set to cover a theft.”
“And that’s it? Nothing else?”
“That’s it,” Buddy said with a sigh. “I had a good look around, thinking there might be a gasoline can, a cigarette package, something, anything. Of course, the boys working the fire weren’t especially watching their feet. They might have destroyed any evidence on the ground. Footprints, tire prints, and the like.”
“That’s what makes arson so tough,” Wayne said. “Fire eats up whatever evidence there is, and the firefighters trample the rest underfoot. We had a string of cases over in Jefferson County that stretched out for the better part of two years before we finally caught up with the arsonist.”
“How’d you do that?” Buddy asked.
“We had a little help.” Wayne grinned. “The firebug was a teenager in it for the excitement. His mama found out what he was doing and told him to lay off. When he lit the next one, she turned him in. All we had to do was arrest him. That lady made the case for us.”
Buddy laughed. “I don’t reckon we can look for that kind of luck. I was thinking, though. I might could ask Mr. Duffy if the bank would put up some reward money—twenty, twenty-five dollars, maybe.”
Wayne pursed his lips. “That could work. Charlie Dickens could print a story in the newspaper. And maybe the boys would broadcast something on WDAR. You know, something like ‘Keep an eye peeled for our firestarter. Your house could be next.’”
“Now, that’s an idea,” Buddy said approvingly. “I’ll stop in and see Charlie today about a story in the Dispatch. I’ve already got an appointment with Mr. Moseley.” The newspaper and the lawyer’s office were in the same building. “You want to talk to Tommy Lee or Benny about getting it on the radio?”
A few months earlier, Tommy Lee Musgrove and Benny Biddle had launched radio station WDAR out of Mr. Barton’s garage. They stuck their antenna on top of the Darling water tower and were getting pretty good reception in a radius of seven to ten miles, depending on the weather. They broadcast news and markets, weather forecasts, local programs (like the Flour Hour, from the bakery on the square), and music that Tommy Lee played on his Victrola in the garage studio.
“I’ll do it.” Wayne straightened up. “I was also wondering about deputizing a few of the guys and telling them to keep an eye out around town for unusual vehicles, somebody hanging out where he’s not supposed to be, especially at night. What do you think?”
“Also a good idea,” Buddy said. “I’d start with Jed Snow and Hank Trivette, maybe Artis Hart, at the laundry. Roger Kilgore, too.” He frowned. “No guns, though. Tell ’em no guns. People are spooked enough by these fires. They don’t need to see a bunch of vigilantes walking around with guns on their hips.” He cast a look at Wayne, whose .38 was prominently slung on his left hip. Wayne was faster with his left hand than his right.
Wayne nodded. “You and me still aimin’ to go to the hot dog supper this evening?”
“Yeah, but there’s a new wrinkle,” Buddy said, and told him about Archie Mann’s request for a couple of votes to counter Rufus Radley’s offer of a five-dollar bonus. He didn’t mention the Gene Autry cowboy hat, though. He wanted to think that Archie was joking about that. And anyway, Archie had offered only one hat, for Buddy. Wayne wouldn’t get one. He wouldn’t want one, either, Buddy thought. Wayne wasn’t a fan of cowboy movies. When it came to outlaws, he was more interested in folks like John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, who’d been mowed down last year in Louisiana by a Texas posse.
“What do you think?,” he asked. “Is it legal for Rufus to offer that money—in return for votes?”
Wayne shrugged. “You got me. We’re talking a private organization here, not state or municipal, right?”
“I guess so,” Buddy said. “Although I think the town—or maybe the county—gives the chief a little something to keep the trucks running.”
“Well, I suppose the VFD can make its own rules, but you’d better ask Mr. Moseley. I could be wrong. Either way, though, I don’t think I’ll vote.”
Buddy had pretty much made up his mind that he wouldn’t, either. “Oh, and there’s something else, too,” he said. “When I was talking to Mrs. Biddle at the bakery a little while ago, she told me that Huey P. Long will be in Darling next week. Wednesday, she said. He’s giving a talk at the Masonic Lodge over in Birmingham the night before. The local Share Our Wealth Club invited him to stop here on his way back to Baton Rouge and he said yes.”
“You bet he said yes,” Wayne replied dryly. “That man would stop and talk politics to a gaggle of geese, if they’d give him a soapbox to stand on. Where is the club planning to put him?”
“On the courthouse steps. Mrs. Biddle said they’ll probably start around two or three, or whenever his motorcade gets over here from Birmingham. They’ll have a microphone and a loudspeaker. And maybe get the Academy band to play some marching music.”
“If they ask him what he wants the band to play, he’ll tell them ‘Hail to the Chief,’” Wayne said.
“You think?” Buddy asked, surprised. “But Long is a Democrat, isn’t he? FDR beat Hoover in a landslide. Won’t the Democrats run him again?”
Wayne looked grim. “One way or another, Huey will run. And we’d better expect a crowd. I heard the man talk in Shreveport a couple of years ago, when he was still the Louisiana governor, running for senator. He draws crowds. Big crowds.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Buddy said, “we’d better block off traffic on the courthouse square on Wednesday. Probably need to round up some guys to help.”
“We can do that.” Wayne looked thoughtful. “I hear that the senator is paranoid about getting shot, so he never goes anywhere without three or four bodyguards. Over in Louisiana, they call them the Cossacks. You don’t want to get crosswise of them.”
Buddy thought about that for a moment. At last he said, “Well, I guess I’m not surprised he needs bodyguards. He likes to call people names and say things that are bound to piss folks off. Anyway, if he brings his own protection, we won’t have to look after him. All we’ll have to do is manage the traffic.”
Wayne raised an eyebrow. “So if somebody does take a shot at him, it’s the bodyguards’ lookout? It’s not on us?”
“You got it,” Buddy said promptly, and opened the ledger. “But let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Not here in Darling anyway.”
It was a remark he would remember for years afterward.