Chapters 3-4 SUNSET OVER VERDIGRIS BEND

                                                      CHAPTER THREE
    He reached into the pack of tobacco, bit off a piece, and worked it in his mouth until it was comfortably lodged between cheek and gum.  It gave him the appearance of one of those advertisement cowboys who would rope a calf at the slightest provocation. 

    As a kid, she had driven him and her brother crazy with her demands, following them every place, pigtails flapping in the breeze, determined to keep up.  He and Larry had been merciless.  On those occasions, when they had, grudgingly, allowed her to accompany them on fishing expeditions down at Bird Creek, they had given her all the dirty jobs—catching worms, baiting the hooks.  Determined to prove herself, Libba   had done every job they gave her without a complaint. Of course, she had talked too danged much which did limit the catch.  He had never minded, but it had driven Larry nuts.

    It was her cheerleader phase, though,  that came to mind when Bobby thought of Libba Jeffreys.  He had fallen in love with her then.  On the Verdigris Bend High School varsity football team, he could still remember being sacked by the opposing center a couple of times for no other reason than he had been watching Libba do cartwheels in front of the bleachers.   She sure had been something, that jet-black hair hanging straight down her back, those incredible blue eyes.  Inseparable, he had been her football hero, and she had been his fairytale princess.

     They had grown up together, going to the same school, the same church.   He had worked  after school at the local animal feed  store.  Finally, he had saved enough to buy  a used  sixty four Ford Galaxy convertible. Although, they had not been allowed to car date until Libba  was sixteen,  Virginia Jeffreys had , for some reason,  logical only to her, allowed him to pick Libba up and drive her to MYF, Methodist Youth Fellowship, on Sunday evenings.  On occasion, Virginia could, even,  be talked into letting them go into Turley and get a cheeseburger at the drive in.  Going to church and getting a cheeseburger was not a car date to Virginia.  To them, or maybe just to him, now that he thought about it,  Sunday nights became the most glorious night of the week.  And not for the MYF meetings .  It had been  just heaven to sit there with the top down, listen to the radio and talk about the life they were going to make together. 

     A year  older than she, he had gone to OSU and come home on weekends. They had stayed together until the night of her senior prom.  The numbness he had felt that night was still somewhere inside him and could be counted on to surface upon the mere mention of her name.

    “Bobby, I know we had agreed that I would go to Stillwater with you, but I have changed my mind.”  She paused, then continued.  “I’ve been accepted at University of Pittsburgh, and I want to go there.”

    He hadn’t said anything, couldn’t say anything.  Had been too stunned to utter a word.  She had to be kidding.  They had discussed it so many times.  O.S.U. together. Why, he had already put them on the list for married students’ housing in the same building where Meri and Joe were going to live.

    Finally, he could speak. “Libba, how can you go that far away to school?  You know your folks can’t afford to pay out of state tuition, dorm fees and all of that.”

    She stopped him.  “I’m going to live with my Aunt Rose.  You know, the one we visit every summer?  That should make up for the difference in tuition.  Besides, I’ll get a job.  Bobby, we don’t have to break up.  I love you and don’t want to break up.  I just want to postpone things for a while.  We’ll still see each other over Christmas and in the summers.  Nothing has to change between us“

    “Again, why?’

    “Bobby, there are all these things going on all over the world.  Here, everybody knows everybody, knows what each and every person thinks about practically any subject you could name. People in Verdigris Bend even know what each other have for dinner most nights.  Isn’t it just possible that there’s more out there that we are missing? 

    “I have never been on my own.  Aunt Rose is a really neat lady.  She has her own business, and she will give me some freedom.  If I wanted to go to New York City for the weekend, Aunt would let me.”

    “New York City? What does New York City have that you would need?  No.  You are not doing it... I won’t let you!”

    Wrong.  Wrong. Wrong.   She had turned away.  When she turned back to face him, it seemed that his girl had gone.  In her place was a woman he had never met before.

    “I am leaving Oklahoma. For a while at least. I have decided.  You can either wish me luck, and say you’ll wait for me,   or you can rant and rave your head off.  Whatever.  You can’t stop me.  I’m going.” 
         
    And she had. As far as their relationship, everything after that was downhill.   Forget Christmas.  She couldn’t get off from her job.  He had begged her to meet him for the Orange Bowl, had offered to pay for everything, but no.  She was busy, she said.   She had not come home until May when she stepped off the bus sporting dirty jeans, dirty hair and an attitude. 

        Well, maybe the attitude part hadn’t been a phase. Libba had always been a real spitfire, independent, hard headed.  He’d loved that about here.  Plus, she had had some good points about the direction the world was taking back then.  But, she had just gotten carried away.  It had been more a matter of what did not get her angry that what did. There had been the Willie Horton ads that Bush had used to get the election from Dukakis, everything that had been going on in Central America, and of course, Tiananmen Square.  Oh Lord, his head hurt just thinking   of the things that had seemed to set her off that summer. Whenever he’d go by her house or see her up at the Rocket, she was ranting like one of those street preachers. 

    He was also honest enough to acknowledge that he had probably been a bit hard headed himself.    But, he’d been Chief Executive Officer of his ROTC unit, and first string varsity football player.  And there she had been, a real pain in his behind, looking at him as if he were a hairball the cat had spit up.

    They had lost touch after that. Two weeks after his college graduation, he was in the army where he spent the next twenty years.  Working for the military police, he had been stationed in Kuwait, and again in Iraq. Along the way, he had   met and married Elaine. Almost immediately, they had both known that it had been a mistake.  By then, though, Elaine had been pregnant with Molly, and they decided to make every effort to hold it together for the sake of the child they both adored.  It had worked until he retired, and they’d come back to Oklahoma.  There, they had found that, without the distraction of worldwide travel, not even their devotion to Molly was enough to make their marriage work, so they had split up, amicably enough. Now, Elaine lived in Tulsa with Molly, who spent weekends with him at his place up by Sperry.

    Retired and at loose ends, Bobby had found himself the Chief of Police when Chief William Haywood had died of a heart attack.  Most of the time, he liked the job. It was quiet, and except for the occasional speeder or bar fight, not that much to do.  He knew that Josh was thrilled to death to get a real life homicide to investigate, but Bobby, himself, could have just as soon done without it.  

    And now, in the middle of everything else, she was back.  The hair was still long, but tied back, and she had a little bun thing going on.  He didn’t know if those whisps falling down from the knot were supposed to be like that or just the way she had tied it up to get it out of her face this morning.  Didn’t matter.  With those bright blue eyes, not a stitch of make up on her face and smelling like Ivory soap, he thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  When she smiled, he had felt his heart softening. 

    Standing there, he remembered that Molly was expecting him to pick her up so they could go riding this evening, and he still had to research missing women from twenty to thirty years ago before he could leave.  He turned and started through the door.  As he pulled out the first book of old records, Bobby couldn’t help wondering, for just the smallest second, if the man and woman could get right what the boy and the girl hadn’t been able to manage.



      


                                                               CHAPTER FOUR
Libba was tired from the hair which was pulled straight back into a ponytail right down to her feet which were bare.  Her back ached, her arms were sore, and her neck was stiff.  She felt great.  From the side porch swing, she could see two results of her afternoon’s work.  She had meant to ask Daddy whether fruit trees were pruned in the spring or the fall.  Since she had forgotten to ask him, she simply took the pruning shears to every tree in the orchard.  Relieved of their burden, each one stood a little straighter. They looked terrific.
 
    Through the screen doors, on the pedestal dining table sat three dozen jars of canned pears and two dozen jars of applesauce.  The little booklet on how to can fruits and vegetables had been stuck in the back of Gran’s cookbook, as if she had just shut the book one afternoon and would be back any minute.  She had not needed an applesauce recipe.  Cinnamon, nutmeg, cook the apples.  Not exactly brain surgery.
    The late fall breeze drifted over her.  She swung out over the side of the porch, dragging her bare feet in the dirt of the flowerbeds.  The peacefulness of the setting was too much.

            “Well, what do you know?  Dozing on the porch.”

              “Good grief, Bobby.  Scare a person half to death, why don’t you?  What are you doing here?’

              Without being asked, he sat down beside her on the swing. Without being asked, she moved over to make room for him.

            “I repeat.  What brings you all the way out here?”

             “Well, I got stood up by a girl, and I decided to go for a drive.”

            “Did you have a date?”

             “After a fashion.  I was supposed to take Molly horseback riding this evening, but one of her girlfriends managed to get her daddy’s car, and a bunch of them were going into Tulsa to see a movie.  So, old dad got left at the starting gate.”

            “How old is Molly now?”

             Sixteen.  I guess it’s normal, but still, it hurts a little.  I tell myself that she would turn me down even if we lived  in the same house.”

    “You know she would.  When kids get to that age, they would nearly always rather be with their friends. So, do you have horses?
”
    “I’ve got two.  I have a stallion, Gobi, and an old gelding named Mike that I keep for Molly to ride.  The horses, a few head of cattle and the obligatory chickens make up the entire of my ranch. To be strictly honest, ‘ranch’ is really far too grandiose a term for my place.  I’d call it a ranchette, but that just sounds so citified.”

    “Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to sound citified, now would we Chief?”

    “Lib, you were born with a smart mouth, and I guess you’ll die with a smart mouth. And, if I were being really honest, I’d have to admit I may have missed it some.”

    He looked at her sideways to see how she took that, couldn’t tell, and went on, “When I was in the army, I saw some of the most beautiful cities in the world.  Cities have a lot to offer.  They just don’t have anything to offer me. I’m just tickled to death to be back in Verdigris Bend.”

    “You know, that’s really funny in a way, Bob.  We broke up, because I wanted to see the world, and I only got as far as Pittsburgh.  You, the old homebody, ended up being the one who saw the world.”

    “See, if you had stuck with me, kid, you’d have seen it all, too.  You sorry?”

    “I’m sorry for a lot of things, babe, but I’m trying not to look back and re-visit things I can’t do anything about.  Besides, you and I both know that travel, or the lack of it, wasn’t our only problem. If we had hooked up, we would have, quite likely, killed each other.”

    “Yeah, I know.  You were headstrong and hard headed,” and at her look, “and, yes, ma’am, I guess I was a little hard to handle as well.”


    “Well, I’ll be darned; the world must be shifting on its axis!  Bobby Carmichael just admitted that he might be a teensy bit stubborn.  Well, I guess if you can admit to a couple of personal imperfections, then I can, too.”



    “Anyway, as I said, I was driving by on my way to do a little research and spotted you about to fall out of the swing.  Looking good, though, I have to say, Libba,” an appreciative look at her attire, “Good to see you’ve gone back to shaving your legs.”

    “You and Meredith need to get hobbies.  Of all the things I have accomplished and done in my life, the only thing either of you can remember is that I went through a period when I refused to shave my legs.  Good grief!”

    “I have to admit it was a shock to me when we were in college, but since then, and not that I’m trying to rub my world travels into your face, but I’ve been to lots of places where women don’t shave their legs. Or their underarms, for that matter.  Still, I like the clean shaven look myself.”

        “OK, so you drove out here to check out my legs?”

        “I drove out here to talk to Miss Ardis Brown. Getting to check out your legs was just a nice little by-product of the trip.”

        Miss Ardis Brown had been living in the only other  house on Township Road  since before Libba had been born.  Caleb Brown had come to Verdigris Bend from Chicago right after  the second World War.  At that time, the town had consisted of a church, a school, a general store, and an animal feed store that also sold gasoline.  Caleb had bought the feed store from a man who wanted to go back to New York City.  A widower, Caleb had arrived in town with his two daughters, Ardis and her sister, Anthea.

    Both girls had been sent to college in Missouri.  Anthea had landed a job at a girls’ school in Chicago, which, if Libba  remembered  Grandmother’s stories correctly, had led to an elopement with the school’s French teacher.  Subsequently, Caleb who was, by all accounts, a major tyrant  had disowned her.

           For Ardis, who had returned to Verdigris Bend, life had consisted of educating the local sixth graders and caring for her  unappreciative father.   Now, freed by retirement from her teaching responsibilities and by death from her duties to Caleb, Ardis lived alone.

         “Why do you want to talk to Miss Ardis?  I know you were giving me a hard time about living out here.  We haven’t had any burglaries  out this way, have we?”

    “No, I want to talk to her about her niece.  You remember the one who taught art years ago?”

    “Emily Fournier!  You think that skeleton is the remains of Emily Fournier?   Libba jumped off the swing and stared at him in horror.

    “Settle down, Libba.  I didn’t think about it upsetting you so,”

    “It doesn’t upset me.  Well, maybe it does, a little.  But, Bobby, that idea is just so far-fetched.”

    “Well, here’s the deal.  I spent the afternoon going through all of the written records of Verdigris Bend.  I found several women who took off from their husbands and families, but nearly all of them have come back home or turned up someplace else.  Only two never showed up again.  On April 13, 1978  Pearl Watkins walked out of her farmhouse up by Skiatook and was never heard from again.  She took her daughter, Nancy with her.   On May 12, 1983 Emily Fournier was teaching art at Verdigris Bend Elementary School.  She asked Nadine Graham to watch her class while she went to the bathroom,  and she never came back.

    “Pearl's husband, Edgar, said he has never heard from her again, but he could be lying.  If Edgar’s lying, though, where’s Nancy?  On the other hand, Emily disappeared from the school itself.  That’s why I’m starting with her.”

    Sitting back down on the swing, Libba looked through the trees at the Brown house.  She didn’t say anything for such a long time he thought she wasn’t going to reply at all.
 
    Finally, she spoke.  “I haven’t thought about Emily in a million years.  I was a sophomore that year and she picked me to be her teacher’s aide.  I thought she was so exotic.  So cosmopolitan.”

    “Yeah.  She was exotic all right.  A real free spirit.  Anyway, I have to go.  I told Miss Ardis I’d be there at five o’clock, and I’m five minutes late.”

    “Oh my God.  Go now.  Run like the wind. Chief of police or not, you’re in big trouble,  Bubba.”

    “I know.  I know.  To Miss Ardis, I will always be little Bobby Carmichael.  If I’m much later, she may make me write ‘I won’t be tardy’ one hundred times.”

    “I wish I knew how to inspire that kind of fear in my students.” Without really thinking about it, she found herself asking, “Are you going to the church supper Tuesday night?”

    “No.  I hadn’t planned on it.  Josh and I belong to a softball league, and the playoffs begin  Tuesday evening.  I’ll, probably, be too worn out to want to eat.  Maybe, if we get finished early enough, though.  If I do go, will you be there?”

    She looked up from the swing and felt  herself smiling, “I’ll be there. Now, go.   Take it easy, officer.”

    With the gait of a man twenty years younger, Bobby took the side porch in a jump that  carried him half way down the drive to his truck.  Libba watched as he pulled out of the drive fast enough to kick up gravel. Still a show off.   She stood up and headed into the house for a shower.

    “And now may the grace of the Almighty God and the peace that passes all understanding go with you, now and forever.  Amen.”

    As the choir sang the amens, the Reverend O’Connor swept down the center aisle of the First Methodist Church of Verdigris Bend and took his place at the back door where he could shake hands with every parishioner as they exited the church.

        Libba, sitting as far towards the back as was socially acceptable stood and prepared to take her exit.  Although she had been back since June, this was the first Sunday service that she had attended.  She wouldn’t be here now if her mother had not insisted. Virginia Jeffreys was not an easy woman to ignore.

    “Elizabeth, I have tried to be patient.  Truly, I have.  At first I knew you didn’t feel up to greeting everyone, and then when school started, I thought , well, she is  tired.  But it’s not fair to all of your old friends.  People want to welcome you back.”

    “I know, ma.  It’s just hard, you know.”

    “Of course, it is dear, but you have to face people.  Good grief, Libba.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  You got a divorce.  You didn’t shoot the man.  I get the feeling that, for the entire time you’ve been home, you have been telling yourself that you’ve done something for which you should be ashamed.”

    Which was, of course, exactly what she had been doing.  Her mother had a gift for getting right to the heart of a problem.  It was annoying.

    Even though she hadn’t been the one to seek the divorce, even though she knew she had done nothing wrong, she couldn’t help feeling that, somehow, if she had done things differently, he marriage would not have failed.  She could not shake the feeling that everyone she had ever known in Verdigris Bend was waiting to judge her or, worse, much worse, to feel sorry for her.

    Libba  made her way down the aisle, She was a Jeffreys, and the  family motto was ‘suck it up’. Bring them on.

    “Elizabeth, my dear, you look absolutely lovely.  Your hair is so attractive pulled back that way.  It reminds me of the styles we wore when I was a girl,” Millie Hayes was in line just ahead of Libba.

    Schoolteachers appeared  to be a particularly long-lived bunch.  Millie had taught fifth grade for years, leaving only when she reached the mandatory retirement age.  Perhaps, that was what life held for her, an old age filled with tea parties and church.

    Millie, held up on one side by the pew and on the other by her cane, was waiting for Libba to reply.

    “Oh, thank you, Miss Hayes.  You’re looking well.”  Liar.  The old woman  looked as if a good stiff prairie wind would blow her clear to Little Rock, and as for her own hairstyle, Libba made a mental note to make an appointment at the hairdresser as soon as possible.

    “Thank you, dear.  How are you liking your job at our little school?  Some excitement over there on Friday, I heard.”

    Libba hated to disappoint the old lady, who was so plainly expecting to be filled in with juicy tidbits.  “I’m afraid I missed the show, Miss Millie.  I didn’t even realize what had been discovered until Merideth told me after school.  I probably know less than you do about the whole thing.”

    “You always were a levelheaded girl, Libba.  I thought it even when others were saying that you had gone off the deep end during college.  Of course, you were busy, doing your job.  Something far too few people bother about today.”

    Miss Ardis Brown had walked up, quietly enough, but as soon as she opened her mouth, she took over the entire conversation.

    Millie Hayes, frail on her best day, seemed to become even smaller and more transparent.  Libba, in a matter of seconds, went from feeling like a fairly competent adult to a recalcitrant schoolgirl.

    “Miss Ardis, I’m afraid I owe you an apology. After all this time,  I haven’t been over to see you.  I truly am sorry.”

    “Don’t be silly, young woman, you’ve been getting your bearings.  I understood.”

    Although Miss Ardis had gotten even more brusque than Libba remembered  her to be, there was something in her tone that made Libba believe that she really did understand.

    The three women had been moving in line to greet the minister, and she found herself next in line to tell the Reverend O’Connor how moved she had been by his talk.

    Having paid her respects, Libba went to wait on the front steps of the church for Daddy to bring the car around from the parking lot. Standing there alone was Miss Ardis.

    The old woman didn’t seem quite so self-assured now.  “Libba, I hope you won’t think this an imposition, but ....well, I don’t suppose you noticed that Bobby Carmichael came by my house last evening.    I just can’t make myself believe that  the poor soul they found is Emily.  Not for a moment, but the thing is, Bobby thinks it’s a possibility.  I suppose I have to, at least, consider it. Robert is no fool, and his opinion counts with me.

    “As I remember, you were fond of her, and not a lot of people in this town were.   I was wondering if you could come by this afternoon for a few minutes.”

    “Well, Miss Ardis, I am spending the day with my parents,” The last thing she needed was to listen to an old lady discuss a niece who disappeared so many years ago, but   something in the old woman’s face stopped her.  “I’ll eat lunch with them and be home by six o’clock or so.  Is that too late?”

    “Oh, no.  No. That will be fine.   I’ll leave the front porch light on for you.  It’s starting to get dark earlier now, you know.”
                          Virginia Jeffreys arrived, straightening her clothes and wiping perspiration from around her neck.  Choir robes were stifling.  At the same time her father pulled impatiently around the corner from the church parking lot.  When Libba turned to say good-bye to Miss Ardis, she had already gone.  She could
move fast for an old lady.