Chapter 21

After a bit we were both calm enough to realize that it was hot and humid, and we were standing in direct sunlight. We got back into the Blazer, where I fired up the engine and set the air conditioner going. Just the moving air felt good, evaporating sweat and helping to cool us off, and once the compressor started pushing cold air it felt very good.

Once the sweat had stopped running down my face, I said, "You got them names, right?"

"I do," Cecelia said, and produced her notebook. "They were Sam Howell, Jackson Ruggles, George Smith, and Carroll Jenson."

"Only in the south do they give men names like Carroll and Junie and such."

"Ours is a unique culture – though some aspects of it are fading, or have already faded, as television has inculcated the idea that the 'right' way to talk, to dress, to believe, to behave, is that which obtains among the 'right' circles in the northeast, specifically in New York City, and especially in corporate offices and broadcast studios in Manhattan."

"Yeah, I ain't entirely pleased with that either. But those names – you got any thoughts on 'em?"

"I recognize all of them, but do not know any of them at all well. Indeed, Smith is the only one I've met on anything like a regular basis, and that only because he works at the gas station." It's actually a convenience store these days, with pumps out front, but Cecelia calls it the gas station because that's what it was when she was growing up.

"Based on what you know, who do you think we oughta see first?"

She looked over at me. "Are you so eager to repeat our recent experience?"

"Cecelia," I said, "about the only thing I'm eager to do is wrap all these racists up in one big blanket and drop it in the ocean about 927 miles from land. But I aim to finish this thing. I got into it, and I'm gonna finish it."

"I note that you do not say that you got into it because of my request."

I waved that off. "If I'd said absolutely not, you'd have gone along with it. I agreed on my own – you didn't twist my arm none. Persuaded me, yeah, but not forced."

"Very well – as devoutly as I hope never to experience again what I did an hour ago, or to feel as spiritually ill as I felt afterward, I shall continue to aid you. This concerns me as much, after all, as it concerns you." She glanced at the page of her notebook from which she'd read the names. "My meager knowledge of these people leads me to believe that Ruggles may be the most intelligent, Jenson the most truculent, Howell the most virulent, and Smith possessed of the slenderest intellect. These are all matters of degree, of course – I do not say that Smith is a dullard, for instance, nor that Jenson is likely to wield firearms the minute he sees us. It is merely that of the four, each seems to be, based on the few facts I have, to be as I've described him."

"Hmmm." I thought for a bit. "The most truculent might be the most likely to push a cross burnin'. On the other hand, the dumbest might be the most eager to pull such a moronic stunt. On the other hand, the most intelligent would be the most likely planner. On the other hand, the most virulent would be the one who'd get the most upset about a bunch of blacks havin' a picnic."

Cecelia smiled slightly. "I do not observe that you possess four hands; your manual extremities appear to fit within the standard number."

I chuckled. "Yeah, that was four, wasn't it? An' it didn't help me out none."

"Perhaps a geographical sorting would help." She wrote in her notebook again for a few moments. "Here is the list in order by distance – the first being closest to Mama and Daddy, and the last being furthest."

I looked at the page. The names now were Smith, Howell, Jenson, and Ruggles. "Well," I said, "that's one way to go at it. Let's start at the furtherest, an' finish off with the nearest."

Cecelia's smile was bigger this time. "The 'furtherest, ' beloved? That is a worse desecration of the language than even you commonly perpetrate. I believe you're doing it solely to elicit a humorous reaction."

"An' it's workin', ain't it?" I smiled at her, glad that we were capable again of smiling, and deliberately not mentioning that I was using Nathan Bedford Forrest as my starting point. She wouldn't appreciate my making a joke out of a Confederate general who helped found the Klan. "Which way do I go to get to Ruggles' place?"

"He is several miles west of Leanna, and somewhat south; continue on this road, and we'll arrive in his neighborhood."

"Coolness." I checked my mirrors and blind spot, put the Blazer in first, checked again, and pulled out. There was no traffic – there hadn't been any the whole time we'd been parked there – but the one time I don't check will be the one time a convoy of tanks runs right over the top of me. I drove on to the west, wondering exactly what Ruggles would be like.

When we pulled up in front of Jackson Ruggles' house, I wondered how on earth a rich and powerful man like Hamp Carter ever heard of him, much less knew him. The house was unpainted boards, with a sagging porch that had an old washing machine on it. There were a couple of decrepit automobiles moldering in the side yard, and a couple of hound dogs – no doubt a hunter could tell me the exact breed – lying in the shade of a tree. I felt like I'd stepped into some sort of movie about the Appalachians.