THE TREASURE OF BIG ROCK MOUNTAIN

Rumors were flying that a retired bank robber had loot hidden up on Big Rock Mountain.  Leon and I attempted to limit the scope of that rumor to our young neighbors, Eddy and Darla, for obvious reasons. We didn’t want the Feds getting wind of it.

After loading a pick and shovel in the back of Leon’s old 1995 Ford truck, he, I, and Eddy climbed in. Eddy situated himself in the middle of the back seat looking over our shoulders. “Why did you wait so long, before digging up your loot?” Eddy asked when Leon placed the truck in gear.

Leon pressed down on the accelerator causing the rear tire to spit gravel out behind the truck as we pulled away from Eddy’s cabin. “You can’t recover stolen money until the statute-of-limitations runs its course.”

“What’s the statute of limitations?”

Praying that Leon would concentrate on his driving, while I fielded the question, I looked over my shoulder at Eddy.

            “After a certain amount of time, if you haven’t been caught, the district attorney can’t prosecute you for the crime.”

“Oh.”

It didn’t take long to get to Big Rock Mountain, because it borders the lake where the three of us live. Leon pulled the truck over, threw the shifter in park, and switched off the ignition.

“We have to walk the rest of the way,” he said opening his door, before the dust settled.

While Eddy grabbed the pick and shovel from the truck bed, I put on my backpack, which I had filled with bottled water before leaving the cabin. When Leon took off up the mountain, I grabbed the shovel from Eddy and motioned for us to follow him.

For a seventy-two year old man, Leon kept up quite a pace for awhile, but halfway to the top, he and I had sweat pouring off of us like Niagara Falls after a major flood. I didn’t want him nor me to become overheated in the ninety-seven degree heat, so I hollered at Eddy to hold up.

“Let’s take a break.”

“Good idea,” Leon said, wiping his forehead.

We found a rock ledge to sit on and I pulled three bottles of water from my backpack and passed them out.

After finishing off his bottle of water, Leon pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it.  “I better look at my map. Everything looks different since I was up here forty-four years ago.”

Eddy and I peeked over his shoulders. The map was nothing more than a pencil line drawn in the arc of a mountain, more like a giant inverted letter V with an X drawn near the top of the point.

“Spent a lot of time on that map did you, Leon?” Eddy asked. He grinned at me.

“It’s a lot more complicated than it looks. Didn’t want anyone finding the loot while I was in prison.” Leon folded the map back up and said, “Okay, I got it. We need to go up higher.”

Big Rock Mountain is made up of several hundred big rocks jutting out of the ground, twelve thousand or so trees, a bee hive in an old rotted out oak tree we passed on the way up, and at least three deer that scampered off, after we walked up on them. 

Two more bottles of water later, we reached the top of the mountain and were 1200 feet above sea level. Leon swatted at a bug circling his head. “Okay, according to the map, we’re in the right area. Start looking for a big rock with the letter X drawn on it.

Surrounded by approximately two hundred big rocks in the immediate area, Eddy and I stared at Leon. Apparently, we were thinking the same thing. That in forty plus years that letter X might have faded a bit.

“What did you use to write that X?” Eddy asked, shaking his head in disappointment. “After all this time, the chances of it still being visible are nil to none.”

“Permanent chalk,” Leon replied, walking off to our right. “They didn’t have magic markers in my day.”

I glanced at Eddy and gave him a thumbs up, like there was such a thing as permanent chalk back then.

After twenty-two seconds of exhaustive searching, Leon and I gave up and sat down to drink more water. Eddy, being only twenty-two years old and excited at the prospect of finding stolen loot, continued checking every rock in sight like a mountain lion in search of a rabbit.

Thirty-three minutes later, he yelled, “Over here, I found something.”

Leon and I picked up the shovel and pick and hurried over to where Eddy stood waving his arms in the air.

Leon knelt down and studied the rock like a man who had been in prison for twenty odd years, studies the center-fold of Playboy magazine. His face couldn’t have been more than two inches from the rock.

The big rock we were looking for, with an X drawn on it, turned out to be the size of a large shoebox. That permanent chalk must have been good stuff, because the chalk looked like it hadn’t been there more than a day or two. 

“Yep, I think that’s it,” Leon said getting back up on his feet.

Eddy put his hand on Leon’s shoulder. “You sure? You said it was a big rock.”

Leon was not about to back down. “At one time this was a big rock. Being exposed to the elements for over forty years must have taken its toll.”

That statement made it pretty clear to me that Leon had never studied geology. That rock was probably 4 million years old and forty years of wear and tear on a rock is equivalent to the wear and tear you put on a new tire pulling it off the shelf.

Eddy gazed at me and shook his head, before bending down to pick up the rock. Beneath it appeared to be freshly dug dirt. “I think somebody might’ve beat us to it.”

            “Only one way to find out.” I handed the shovel to Eddy.

He hit something right under the surface. Eddy bent down on both knees and finished digging up a jar with his bare hands. He held it up to show us it was full of coins and bills. “How much is in it, Leon?”

“Well, as I remember, the total take was six hundred thirty-four dollars and eighty-seven cents.”

“That’s all,” Eddy asked, his enthusiasm waning.

Leon shrugged. “It was a small bank.”

When we arrived back at Eddy’s cabin to drop him off, Leon handed the jar of money to him and told him to give it to Darla. It was to help pay for her schooling.

Leon and I had gotten word that Darla was trying to become a classroom teacher, but didn’t have enough money to pay for her tuition at the local community college. The amount of cash in the jar happened to be the exact amount she needed for a summer course. Eddy was beside himself and I could have sworn I saw a tear form in one of his eyes. He thanked Leon several times before letting us go on our way, which was two hundred feet farther down the road to Leon’s cabin where he had several cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in his refrigerator.

We were almost finished with our first PBR when Darla came bounding over like a gazelle on speed. She gave Leon a big hug and kissed him on the cheek. She didn’t thank me nor kiss me on the cheek. I guess Leon had no intentions of telling her that half of that money came out of my pocket.

I did ask her if she would finish reading my latest manuscript and give me some feedback on it. She’d had it over a month. It always amazes me how long it takes my beta readers to finish reading one of my stories. Darla is the better of the two beta reader I have. Eddy has never read more than two pages of anything I’ve written. At least Darla finishes reading a whole story, occasionally. She agreed and said goodbye.

On her way to the door, she stopped and turned around. “Eddy wanted me to tell you that he may not be the brightest star in the sky, but that plastic mayonnaise jar with a use-by date on the bottom was a dead giveaway you were pulling his leg about that being stolen bank loot.”

Leon smiled. “Tell him next time I’ll use old glass jars with leaded caps on ‘em.”

“I’ll tell him.” She went through the door almost skipping.

Leon went to the kitchen and brought back two more PBRs. He handed one to me. It was so cold my hand felt like I had wrapped it around an ice cube tray.

“You sure went to a lot of trouble to give those two a helping hand. I can’t believe you went up that mountain and buried that jar just to play a prank on Eddy. Why didn’t you just give them the money and save us all that sweating and climbing in the heat today?”

Leon pulled out a drawer from the hand-me-down coffee table that was in front of his sofa and flipped it over. On the center of the drawer appeared to be a large envelope taped to the bottom.

“Want to see the real map?”

“Real map?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “You told me the money you stole from those three banks you robbed was recovered by the authorities.”

“It was for the three bank robberies I was charged with. Once you’re caught and charged, the statute of limitations stops running for those crimes, but it sure don’t for the banks you ain’t charged with robbing.”

“Exactly how many banks did you rob, Leon?”

“Seven and I’m gonna need Eddy’s help for sure to move that big rock. I was strong as an African bull elephant when I was twenty-eight, but the other day when I was up there, I couldn’t budge the darn thing.”

I smiled at him. “When are you thinking about going back after it?”

“November, when it’s a lot cooler, and everybody around here is convinced I’m just an old fool playing games with Eddy.”

THE CASE OF THE WORST-CASE SCENARIO

After watching the ten o’clock news from a barstool, Jack knew he wouldn’t be going back to his office anytime soon. All that was left of Jack Farber’s Private Investigation Agency were pipes sticking up from the foundation and half of a toilet.

          He auto dialed his ex-partner’s number. She owed him big time; he still carried the bullet with her name on it and the scar to prove it.

“Detective Darnell,” Maggie said, sounding on edge.

“Hello, Maggie. It’s Jack.”

"Where in the hell are you? There’s an APB out on you.”

He traced his finger along the sticky bar. "Some stinking dive called The Bloody Bucket."

"Good God, what are you doing in that death trap? If you don't have a gun when you walk in, management issues you one."

"I brought my own."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"What’d they find in the rubble?"

"Fire investigators found two suspicious items: a pipe wrench lying next to a natural gas line and the charred remains of a mannequin."

"That's it?"

"What's up with the mannequin? Are you pulling our chain?"

He suspected the telephone call he’d received earlier in the day was a set up. Pulling the shades down, leaving a lamp on, and staging the dummy in his chair with its head down on the desk had worked. The threat was serious all right, and he had made a mistake that nearly cost him his life. He knew he was lucky to be alive. He pressed harder on his chest trying to keep the blood flow to a trickle.

"No. Just trying to stay alive," he replied, pressing harder on the chest wound.

A man sitting a couple of bar stools over from him looked down at the floor. "Hey, man. You're leaking blood."
      "Mind your own business,” Jack said, getting the Bartender’s attention. He pointed toward the man. “Give him a drink and put it on my tab."

The bartender poured the patron another shot. “Must be your lucky day.”

The man nodded, before downing the free drink.

“Maggie, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. Where were you when the fireworks started?"

"In the alley behind the place. A little too close. I expected a shooter, not a bomber."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know. I got a call earlier today. A man offered me five grand in cash to drop the Hamilton case. He said he'd meet me alone in my office at nine tonight."

"That's a dead end case and you know it."

"The widow Hamilton begged me to keep working it. Besides, she's got plenty of money, and who am I to turn down a case that pays the bills.

“I wasn’t being critical. I was stating a fact.” There was a long pause. “I heard you’re doing all right.”

“If things get any better, I don’t think I could stand it.”

“You know what I meant. It ripped my heart out when they took your badge.”

“Thanks for your help. Fourteen years on the force gone to hell.”

“I thought I was saving your life. You’d still be on the force if you hadn’t told the psychiatrist where he could put his therapy sessions.”

“I’ve got a better one for you. I’d still be on the force if your machine hadn’t cut off the rest of my message,” Jack said, looking at the glass of bourbon he had ordered.

“Damn you, Jack. Tell me you’re kidding!”

“If you'd gotten the whole message, you would have known I was waiting for you at The All Nite Coffee Shop. Waiting for the one person I thought I could trust with my life. The next thing I know I’m told I’m suicidal and not fit for duty.”

“Are you coming in, or are you going to make us come after you?"

After hearing the troubled tone of her voice, Jack decided not to tell her the reason he had kept that information to himself until now.

"Right after I make a phone call," he replied. "You can call off that APB.”

"You're not coming in are you?"

He had no intentions of turning himself into the police, He closed his phone and looked at his watch.  He auto dialed his secretary's number.

"Hello," she said,in a barely audible voice.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, I was just resting my eyes. Of course you woke me. Why are you calling me at this hour of the night?”

"What does my lease agreement say about building repairs?"

"Have you been drinking?"

"Not tonight, kid." He pushed the untouched glass of bourbon away from him.

"The landlord has a maximum of thirty days to fix any problem with the building."

“In that case, you better work out of your apartment for the next thirty days.”

“Why?”

“There's a natural gas leak at the office and with your sniffer, you'd complain about it before you even walked in the doorway.”

“What am I suppose to do from my apartment?”

“The same things you do at the office: paint your nails, make personal phone calls, and watch game shows.”

“Get real. I have my nails done at Phoebe’s Nail Salon, like you would ever notice. Where are you going to be?”

“I’m going to be incognito.”

“What state is that in?”

“That's a good one, Denise. I’ll get in touch, if I need you."

"Wait. Does this have anything to do with why you sent me home early today?"

"Yeah."

"Be careful."

"You can bet on it."

Seconds later, the first loud boom rattled the walls and shattered every piece of glass in the joint. Four people, at a table behind him, hit the floor. In the process of scrambling behind the bar, he opened his chest wound. Hunkered down, he placed his left hand over the wound and his right hand on his Sig Sauer automatic. The second boom was louder than the first one and resulted in hunk of metal flying through the window. Cheap Vodka and rot-gut Bourbon rained down on him when the projectile smashed six bottles of booze stacked up behind the bar. He recognized the side view mirror of his old Ford sedan when it came to rest beside him. It was time to go with Plan B.

#

Maggie looked across the street at her partner.

“Let’s go, Dan, code five."

He dumped two cups of coffee on the sidewalk and ran back to the cruiser. He slid behind the wheel and stared at her. “Where?”

“The Bloody Bucket.”

“Another shooting?”

“No, we’re picking up Jack Farber.”

Eight seconds later and a half block down the street, Dan asked, “Who gave you the tip he’s at the bar?”

“He called me.”

Dan glanced at the radio. Are you going to call it in?”

“No.”

“I heard you two were a good team.” He took a hard left and put the pedal down again when the car straightened out. “Too bad about his wife and daughter, that would bring any man to his knees.”

“Shut up and drive,” she said, staring out the window.

The cruiser’s radio came alive. EMS and fire units were in route to The Bloody Bucket. All police units in the area were ordered to respond. Maggie shook her head and mumbled, “Damn it.”

       When they arrived at the bar, Jack was gone. He’d left behind a trail of blood that led out the back door of the bar and a note he told the bartender to give to Detective Darnell.

Whatever happens, we’re even.
                   Jack

She looked at the stained napkin in her hand. Why had he left her the same message she had interpreted as a suicide message twenty-two months earlier, unless, it was to tell her, and her only, where she could find him, The All Nite Coffee Shop.

“Dan, you stay here. I’m taking the cruiser,” she said on her way to the door.

He shook his head. “That’s against procedure.”

“Stick procedure.”

#

I felt someone shaking me.

“What are you doing on the floor? Is it your chest?”

I opened my eyes and found Eddy hovering over me, dialing 911 on speaker phone.

“You’ve reached a 911 operator. What is your emergency?”

I grabbed the phone from his hand and put it to my face. “Sorry, wrong number.”

I handed the phone back to him. “I’m okay. Must have fallen asleep and rolled off the lounger.”

“Man, I thought you were having a heart attack, Eddy said, taking the phone back.”

Using my right knee and his hand for balance, I rose and sat in one the four Adirondack chairs on our back deck overlooking the lake.

 “Thanks,” I said looking at the cooler he had brought over and set between two of the chairs.

One Friday night of each month, My neighbor, Eddy and I get together and drink beer while we stare out at the water. He and his wife, Darla are my beta readers, although Eddy has yet to read more than the first couple of pages of one of my romance novels. He considers himself a man's man, rough and tough and doesn't read romance novels.

He eased into the chair next to mine and pulled two beers from the cooler. “How come you to fall off the lounger?”

“I was dreaming about a man and a woman.”

He rolled his eyes. “That must have been one wild dream. So why did you have your hand on your chest?”

Something about the grin on his face told me he thought the dream might have been the kind young men have. “Bomb blast.” I said, taking one of the beers from him.
Two birds flew overhead and landed in a tree to off to our right.
I leaned back in the chair and stretched my legs out. "Hey, Eddy, if I write an old fashioned private eye story, would you read all of it?

"Only if it doesn't have any mushy romance talk in it."

I unscrewed the top from the bottle of Samuel Adams beer and took a drink of the cold tantalizing liquid, and then lowered it, gazed at him, and smiled.

"Deal."

WATER AND WILD FLOWERS

I called her hotel room to confirm my meeting with Miss Prettywell, the Editor-in-Chief of Rose Petal Romance Publishing. Although she had rejected my pitch last fall, she offered to give me another chance at the upcoming Romance Writers Conference, but only if I would write a story that fit their romance criteria. The main characters had to be attractive, sexy, and at least somewhat likeable. All of which I thought to be reasonable on her part.

Although my first romance novel, Sir Truckalot And The Obese Maiden had gone over like a circus fat lady in a pole vaulting contest, I felt pretty good about my latest attempt at writing romance.

At 7:30 AM on the first full day of the conference, Miss Prettywell was already seated in a booth in the hotel restaurant, when I approached her holding a printout of my synopsis.

“Good morning, Miss Prettywell.”

She nodded and pointed to the empty seat across the table from her.

 I slid into the booth with the ease of butter on hot toast. The unwashed new pair of slacks I was wearing still had that slick feel to them.“Thank you for agreeing to meet me for breakfast.”

“I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.” She smiled.

She must have noticed I knitted my brow, because she quickly added, “Having breakfast while listening to your pitch.”

“Oh.” A huge wave of relief rippled over me. For a brief moment, I thought one of her intentions might have been to kill my dream of becoming a best-selling romance author.

A waiter came to the table to take our orders. Being the gentleman I am, I took the initiative and ordered for both of us. “A bowl of fruit for the lady, and a stack of pancakes for me.” I had done my research. In a blog post she had written while in Paris, she had written she preferred to have fruit for breakfast, after reading the menu.

Miss Prettywell looked up at the waiter. “I’ll also have two eggs scrambled with toast.”

In all of my excitement about getting a second chance, I had forgotten we were in Oklahoma, not exactly the same as Paris. “So sorry.”

She waved off my comment as if no harm had been done.

Timing is everything in a pitch session so I decided to make my move.

“While we’re waiting for our food, could I interest you in reading my synopsis?” 

“Why not?” she replied with a smile that would corrupt most clergymen’s thoughts.

I pushed my twelve page synopsis across the table.

After glancing at the first page, she jerked her head up. “Water and Wild Flowers, now that is an interesting title?”

When readers are considering buying a romance novel, the title is the second most important selling factor. The most important thing, of course, is to have is a couple of half naked people on the cover.

“I thought you might like it.” I leaned back, confident I’d gotten off to a good start.

I held my breath waiting for her to get to the subtitle.”

“Love flourishes like weeds on the roadside of an interstate highway.” She stared at the sheet of paper. “Now that makes me want to dive right in.” 

Trying to contain my excitement, I said, “That’s exactly the same thing Darla said.”

“Who is Darla?”

“My neighbor, she’s one of my beta readers. Her husband, Eddy is the other one.”

One of her eyebrows ticked up a notch, before she rubbed her temples with both hands. “I take it your neighbors read your manuscript?”

When pitching to an agent or an editor, honesty is always the best policy.

“Eddy only read most of the first page, but he told me if I added a shoot out, a train derailment, and a couple of explosions, he’d finish reading the whole manuscript.”

“Your neighbor reminds me of one of my editors, Colt Johnson. He worked for a western publishing house, before he joined us at Rose Petal Romance. We nicknamed him Tombstone, because he’s buried so many writers’ dreams.”

        The waiter poured two glasses of water. “Your food will be out shortly.”
        I needed to hurry up and finish my pitch before the food arrived. It would be extremely rude to expect Miss Prettywell to continue reading while her eggs got cold. Had she struck with only the fruit bowl I wouldn’t have felt the need to rush her.

“My story is not a western romance, but I did take your advice and made both the hero and heroine attractive people. They live on a lake surrounded by a few wild flowers, but mostly weeds.” 

In any romance novel, a romantic setting is a must have. According to Eddy, you can’t get more romantic than water and wild flowers.

She appeared to read a few more lines.

“Your heroine’s name is Candy Cleavage?”

The frown on her face spelled trouble. So much for Eddy’s input on the names for the main characters. I needed to think fast. “Of course not, I use temporary names in my drafts. The actual name of the heroine is Farla Kay Smith.” It was the first thing that came to me.

She dropped the page. “Well that makes all the difference in the world. I love it.” She pulled a business card from her purse and pushed it across the table.
“Please send the complete manuscript to this address?”

After years of being a struggling writer, I had finally received a request for a full manuscript. My heart felt like a balloon tied a Helium tank with the valve turned wide open.

The waiter approached our table carrying our breakfast orders. I grabbed the card from the table and stuck it in my shirt pocket, before he placed my plate down on top of it.

The smell of hot pancakes permeated the air. I was starving and couldn’t wait to get my hands on the maple syrup and a fork.

Miss Prettywell glanced at her watch. “Breakfast has been lovely. Unfortunately, I have to run.” She stood.

I jumped to my feet. “But you haven’t eaten.”

“That’s the downside of the publishing business. One minute you have an appetite and the next minute you don’t. But please go ahead. I need to run up to my room and get ready for my first session. I was told the turnout for the conference is expected to be an all-time record.”

Admiring both her work ethic and red high-heel shoes, I watched her walk away in what could only be described as the most ladylike fast pace I’d ever seen.

In celebration of my triumph, I poured half a bottle of syrup on my stack of pancakes. I took two bites, and then remembered my wife was waiting on pins and needles. I pulled my cell phone out dialed her number.

“Hi, Honey, great news, I just got my first request for a full…yeah, I’m pretty excited about it. Would you place a copy of my manuscript in the mail today? Thanks.”

When you get a request for a full, it’s best not to delay.

“Wait. Let me give you the mailing address.”

I pulled the card from my shirt pocket and read it.

Colt Johnson, P.O. Box 3D, Deadwood, South Dakota

“Better hold up on that mailing. Looks Like I’m going to need to add a shoot out, a train derailment, and a couple of explosions.

 

BETA READERS ARE PRICELESS

On my way back from the mailbox, I noticed my neighbor, Eddy sitting on his front porch drinking beer. That’s what he does when he’s not working at the local Co-Op store loading seed, fertilizer, fence wire, lawn tractors, and such.

“Another rejection letter,” yelled Eddy.

I guess he could tell by the imaginary flow of tears soaking my T-shirt. With the temperature approaching a 100, real tears had a half life of one second. I nodded at him.

He opened his cooler and pulled out a beer. Pieces of ice slid off the bottle when he held it up. “Hey, this one’s got your name on it.”

I closed the letter and stepped up on Eddy’s porch. After pushing his lawn mower out the way, I was able to clear a path to a metal chair next to a stack of varmint traps.

Eddy handed me the beer. “Better not sit in that." I noticed the seat is about rusted through. "Next time, I’m going to buy the plastic chairs.”

I looked at the ice chest next to him. Moving it, would have freed up plenty of room in the swing.

He put his arm on top of the cooler. “I’d offer to let you sit here next to me, but you know how the people in this neighborhood talk. Better use my wooden tool box. It makes a good seat with that vinyl covering I put on it last week.”

I stared at the box resting on top of the tool box. “What about the litter box? What do you want me to do with it?”

“Just dump in it in the yard. I’ll tell Darla to put some fresh litter in it when she gets home.”

I was willing to do a lot of things to keep from offending one of my neighbors, but touching that litter box wasn't one of them. Stepping away, I said, “I’ve been sitting all day writing a new romance and prefer to stand.” I turned the beer up and drank about half of it.

Eddy leaned back in the swing. “I hope it’s better than your last one.”

“You finally got around to reading it?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve read most of it.”

After two months of waiting, I was finally going to get some feedback from one of my beta readers. Eddy's wife, Darla is the other one. “What is it you don’t like about the story?”

“Well for one thing, your opening.” He made a face like babies do after they've taken their first bite of green beans.

The opening paragraph in a romance novel is critical, and I had worked on it for weeks getting it just right.

Candy Cleavage waved at her new neighbor, a tall young man with blond hair and a quick step. He waved back and smiled, before thumbing through his mail. When he went back inside his lush cabin, she re-entered her house and changed into her favorite bikini. Spring had brought more than a new batch of flowers into her life.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked

Both of Eddy’s eyelids crawled up his forehead until they reached their limits. “Dull as a broken brick.”

“Dull?”

“You didn’t think the part about the woman having an affair with the pool man was exciting.”

“What pool man?”

“I thought you said you read most of it.”

“Most of the first page,” he replied.

The Romance Writers Conference was in two weeks. I needed feedback before my pitch session with the Editor-in-Chief of Rosebud Romance, where love blossoms like wild flowers in spring. If Darla didn't come through soon, I would be going into that pitch session blind.

A car pulled into the driveway. It was Darla.

Eddy threw his empty bottle out in the yard. “I’m ready for another one. How about you?”

“Not yet.”

Darla exited the car and opened the rear door. She grabbed one of the sacks from the back seat. I turned back to Eddy. “She might need help with the groceries?”

He glanced toward the car. “She appears to be doing okay.”

“I better go help her anyway.” I put the empty bottle down and walked over to Darla. “Let me help you.”

She handed me the sack she was holding and grabbed a second one for me as well. “You’re so sweet. I can get the last one.”

I looked back at Eddy and yelled, “I’ll be back in a minute . . . as soon as I help Darla put this stuff put away.”

Eddy waved before he turned his fresh beer up.

Darla led me down the side of their cabin toward the back entrance. We had barely put the sacks on the kitchen counter when she grabbed me and gave me a big kiss on the cheek.

Startled, I said, “Glad I could help. Just like you can help me by reading my manuscript and telling me what you think.”

“Oh, I’ve been reading it all right.” She smiled. “I know who Randy is.”

At least she had read farther than Eddy. “Who?”

“Except for the hair color, height, and muscular build, he’s the spitting image of you.”

That didn’t make a bit of sense. “What?”

          She stepped closer and ran her hand up my arm. “But that wasn’t what really convinced me.”

I pushed her hand away, but my curiosity got the best of me.

“What did?”

Her finger pointed through the back window at their above ground 10 foot diameter pool. “The part about Randy watching her sun bathe by the pool.”

“You think your pool is the pool in my story?”

She nodded. “The sun reflected off the water like sparkling diamonds until Candy stepped into his view of the pool. She reached behind her back and pulled a string releasing the top of her bikini, allowing it to fall to her bare feet.”

“You’ve memorized parts of my story?”

She blinked twice. “Every word of the good parts.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I tried the truth. “I’m not Randy the pool man?” Maybe the handsome neighbor, but I was certainly too old to be Randy the pool man.

“I know writers can’t use real names.” Darla often sounded as if she were being logical.

Since the truth didn’t work, I tried lying to her. “I’d never watch you swim without your top on.”

“I know better. Why do you think I do it?”

She did? That was news to me. I wasn’t going to answer that one, but I assumed she didn’t want any tan lines. “What about that six foot wood fence around your back yard? I'd have to have x-ray vision to see through it.”

“You’re going to deny standing on your ladder to clean the same gutter four separate times this past week?”

She had me there. Writers have to do research. I had to be clever and come up a valid reason for scoping out their pool. “I was trying to find my contact lens.”

“You lost it in the gutter?”

“The leaf blower. Should have had my safely glasses on.”

“Oh, I didn't think about that.”

          She bought it. “I better get back outside and see how Eddy’s doing.” I turned to leave.

She grabbed my arm. “Wait. Did you find the lens?”

“No, not yet.”

“Maybe you’ll find it tomorrow.” She grinned.

As soon as Eddy saw me come around the corner of the house, he yelled, “What am I having for dinner tonight?"

          “I saw some ribs in one of the sacks.”

“She’s grilling ribs again? That’s great. At first she had a few missteps with the charcoal lighter, but she’s getting better at the grilling part.”

First, another rejection letter, and now my beta readers were letting me down. My day had started off bad and tapered off.

Glancing at the cooler, I said, “I’ll take another beer now.”

Eddy opened the lid, grabbed one, and passed it to me. “Darla’s something else all right.” He crossed his feet. “Don’t know what I’d do without her.”

I thought of several things he’d have to do, changing the litter box, lighting the grill, cooking, washing, ironing, and buying groceries for starters. I twisted the top off the bottle and took a drink. Then it hit me.  Uh oh, how much does he know about her fantasies?”

“Eddy, has Darla said anything to you about my romance story?”

“Not yet. She’s been reading it for weeks. I’m beginning to think she’s a slow reader. Don’t tell her I said that. It might hurt her feelings.”

“I won’t. Writers are like lawyers. Anything to say to me about Darla is in strict confidence.”

I sat on the edge of the porch and leaned my back up against one of the post holding up a two-color porch roof. Eddy patched a leak last spring, but he couldn’t match the original shingles. Once settled in, I turned the beer up again, for a long while.

He leaned down toward me. “I’m glad you can keep a secret, because I got something important to talk to you about.”

I gazed up at him.

He whispered. “I think Darla’s got the hots for somebody besides me.”

“You’re kidding?” I tried to act shocked and appalled she would even think of such a thing. “Eddy, I find that extremely hard to believe.”

“When a woman talks in her sleep she’s not lying.”

I signaled for another beer. “She talks in her sleep?”

He handed a fresh beer to me and looked at the front door to make sure it was closed.

“Three times this past week, she started breathing hard in her sleep. So hard it woke me up. Then last night was the worst. She called out the name, Randy.” He raised his eyebrows. “What do you think about that?”

Holy cat poop. I think I’ll be getting me some new beta readers. “It sounds to me like a clear case of overactive hormones.”

“What do you think I should do about it?”

“Better take over the grilling. Those charcoal fumes have been known to mess with a woman’s hormones in ways a man doesn’t want to know about.”

"I had no idea." Eddy patted me on the shoulder. “Thanks, man. I knew I could count on you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Eddy grabbed one end of the cooler. “Grab the other handle and let’s move this party to the back yard. I need to get the grill going. No telling how much damage Darla has already suffered.”

We headed around back and put the cooler down next to the grill. Eddy raised the top of it and examined the grates like he might consider cleaning off the quarter inch thick layer of burned-on fat. “Looks good to me. That's what adds the flavor. Be right back, I've got to get the charcoal and starter fluid.”

“Hey, Eddy.”

He stopped halfway to the back door.

I walked up to him and whispered. “I wouldn’t say anything to Darla. You know how women are when a man starts talking about their hormones.”

“Darn right. They don’t think we understand stuff like that.”

I gave him a thumbs up. They were right, we didn’t.”

“The End.”

A HEARTBEAT AWAY FROM DEATH

Darla and I were on our way to the hospital to check on our ninety-eight-year-old neighbor’s condition. When Leon went to check on Zelda, he couldn’t wake her up. Having learned a hard lesson when a similar incident occurred last year, he called 911 this time, instead of the mortuary. The mortician almost went into cardiac arrest when Zelda rose up from the cold stainless steel table and said, “Where the hell are my clothes?”

Leon is a seventy-year-old retired bank robber, who checks on Zelda every day to make sure she is still breathing. She is a psychic who occasionally goes into deep sleep. Actually, she sleeps a great deal of the time. After his fiasco last year, Zelda decided Leon would be the best person to continue checking in on her, thinking he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

The paramedics told him she was one heartbeat away from death. When the ambulance pulled away from Zelda’s trailer with the lights flashing and the siren at full wail, he called me and told me to get my butt to the hospital. I called my other neighbor, Darla and asked her if she wanted to ride with me. She did. Darla is twenty-two and married to Eddy, who was working at the Co-Op Store loading trucks, or I would have asked him to go too. By the time we arrived at the hospital, Darla was pretty upset thinking we might be too late. I had mentioned to her that Leon had said it was urgent we get to the hospital as soon as possible. Allowing time for her to change clothes, brush her hair, and decide on the right color shoes to wear, I calculated we might arrive in time to see the nurses rolling Zelda down to the morgue.

I parked the car in the visitor’s parking lot. Darla and I were routed to a third floor room. I took that to be a good indication we weren't too late, since the morgue was located on the first floor.

As Darla and I approached the room, I noticed the curtain pulled back allowing us a view inside. Zelda's frail body lay beneath a sheet, with her hands holding the sheet up over her head. Darla grabbed my hand. I gently knocked on the hospital door with my other one and pushed it open.

Darla and I walked into the room.

"Why does she have the sheet over her head?" Darla whispered in my ear.

Zelda pulled the sheet down so she could see. "Oh, I thought you were Leon. I wanted him to think I had starved to death. I sent him to get me something to eat."

“Hi, Zelda,” Darla said, releasing my hand. “You look great.”

I took that to mean as in alive and not dead. Zelda is as thin as a bargain toothpick. I guessed her weigh to be around eighty-five pounds. The hospital bed was raised so Zelda could sit up.

She turned her head toward Darla. “You need to have your eyes checked, dear.”

 I touched Zelda’s hand and held on to it. “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“Have the doctor’s determined what’s wrong?” Darla asked.

“Yes, and it didn’t take them long. They're absolutely certain I'm going to die.”

“Oh, Zelda, I’m so sorry.” Darla started to tear up.

“Is it your heart?” I asked.

“No, it's not that. The cardiologist told me my heart is fine. According to what their tests showed, I’m dying of old age. In my case, they said the process might take another four or five years to complete.”

Darla jerked her head up. “I thought you were dying right now.”

“You’re awfully sweet to think that, but I’ll be around for a while, if those doctors are right.”

“What's taking Leon so long to get back?” I asked.

“Flirting with one of the nurses would be my guest,” Zelda replied, winking at us.

After visiting with Zelda for about an hour, we were run out by a nurse, who told us her patient needed lots of rest. Apparently, Leon didn’t tell them mostly what she does is sleep. Before we went downstairs, I talked to the doctor. He assured us Zelda would be returning home in a day or two, if they could get her weight up a bit.

A few minutes later, Darla and I ran into Leon. He was indeed flirting with a nurse, or just holding the elevator door open for her. However one wishes to look at it. The nurse was pushing a roll cart with food trays on it.

"We're stopping at Zelda's room first," Leon said, following the nurse down the hallway.

On the way back home, Darla didn’t have must to say. Although another major crisis had been averted, and Zelda told us she would be around for awhile longer, Darla knew it was just a matter of time when the day would come that Zelda wouldn’t be returning from the hospital.

That’s why we need to tell our friends and loved ones how we feel while they are still living and not wait until it’s too late. We all love Zelda. I pulled the car over.

Darla gazed at me. “Why are we stopping?”

“I want to go back to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“There’s something I need to tell Zelda.”