It was early in the morning and Broken Arrow was a bustle of worry and speculation. Jose and Scout were gone all night, and still not back. Lila had already contacted Woody, a long-time friend and sheriff to Pista. Penny retrieved Pepper for a short walk and proceeded to the office to confer with Lila.
“Good morning, Penny.” Lila knew the reason for Penny’s early morning appearance and wasted no time. “Scout didn’t come back last night, Penny. We are looking into it.”
“Jose didn’t come home last night either,” trumpeted Marianne for all to hear--a declaration not stemming from concern.
“I’ll fill her in, Marianne.” Lila had developed great patience with Marianne’s ways.
“Did they both leave in Scout’s car?” Martha inquired.
“No, Scout left in her truck and Jose rode off on his bike.” Lila already explained this to Martha; she figured Martha was asking for Penny’s benefit.
“Jose’s bicycle can fit in Scout’s car.” Martha suspected they spent the night together but could not bring herself to come right out and say it.
“I don’t think she would leave Pepper overnight and not say anything.” Penny directed her comment to Lila. “She’s too into that dog to do that, don’t you think?”
“Who knows what might have happened. Pepper is fine. She knows we are all here and will look after him. If we don’t hear from her in a while, Penny, we’ll drive out around the lake and see what we can find.” Lila gave Penny’s arm a light pat. “Don’t worry; I’m sure Scout’s fine.”
“Maybe they met up yesterday and went to the lake together. Maybe they had a secret date,” Edith contributed as she moved her wheelchair closer to Lila.
Mary voiced her theory, “Jose may have gone with her because you know how her car is with that loud sound coming from the engine and it’s old, apt to break down. He could have put his bicycle in the back. Jose is always so helpful.”
Burt dismissed the theory of a clandestine date and Bella agreed. John also balked at the theory in his usual tactless manner.
“Jose and Scout always at each other’s throats; they’re not on a goddamn date for Christ’s sake,” John said and shook his head. “Jose and his bike are probably in a ditch somewhere, sobering up. Scout, who knows. Maybe she stopped at some fancy hotel or one of those B n’ B’s.”
“B n’ B’s?” George sounded perplexed.
Jarred saw Pepper leashed to the front of the office and jogged over. After he introduced his new puppy to a disinterested Pepper, he entered the office to show Scout and the others his new four-legged friend. Martha spoke up immediately.
“Jarred, Scout hasn’t come home yet, from last night, and if she doesn’t show up soon we’re all going to go look for her out at the lake.” She wanted to speak before Marianne tainted the situation with innuendoes.
“She went to a lake last night?” Jarred asked, confused since he was not aware a lake existed and baffled why Scout would travel to a lake at night. Martha filled him in with every detail she possessed then mentioned that Jose had not come back last night either.
“I doubt she’s with Jose. I didn’t know there was a lake around here. Maybe she got lost,” Jarred commented though attention was directed more on his puppy than his words.
“What ya got there, Jarred. Oh my. Isn’t he wonderful…” Edith pined.
“Burt drew her a map to the lake,” John said with distinct insinuation that the map was a possible culprit to a mishap.
“Why are you waiting to go look for her?” Jarred asked, a bit of irritation was evident in his voice. “If she didn’t come back all night then something’s wrong. Did you check her camper? She might be in there asleep.”
“Her car isn’t here, Jarred.”
“That doesn’t mean she isn’t. Maybe her car had problems and she got a ride or walked and got in late and is just sleeping in.”
“Good point.” Penny left the office to check and she would check Jose’s RV while she was at it. Lila already knew Jose wasn’t in his RV but she hadn’t checked for Scout in her camper. They all chatted about Jarred’s new puppy while they waited for news from Penny; even John seemed to enjoy petting the new edition.
“She has mocha breath.” Edith rubbed noses with the puppy. “Can I hold her?”
Jarred placed the puppy on her lap.
“What kind do you---“
Penny interrupted her. “She’s not there. The door was unlocked; I checked, and Jose isn’t in his either.”
Burt and the others went about rounding up a posse for the search. Lester put aside his quest via the personal ads and offered himself and his truck plus space for anyone who wanted to ride along. Jarred bit the bullet and offered to take Burt in his car, an offer he feared he would regret. His patience wore thin with Burt’s endless verbal ramblings, something he knew he would have to endure the entire trip. And he was right. Eric agreed to take John, Bobby and Tom with him in his truck. Martha offered her car to Rod.
Jarred hurried out of the office and left his puppy in Edith’s loving care; Edith was in heaven. She was pressing her nose against the puppy and the puppy was wagging his tail wildly.
The muscles in Jarred’s face tensed, visibly tight, as he unlocked the Mercedes door for Burt. John sat in the cab of Eric’s truck with his oxygen tank propped up next to him while Tom and Bobby rode in the truck bed. Rod had Bella, Mary and Martha riding along with him. Lester would drive alone; no one was interested in hearing him relate some morbid story to the present circumstance of the two missing friends. Manny pulled into Broken Arrow with a coworker as the group was pulling out. Burt insisted Jarred pull over so he could inform Manny of the situation. Manny and his coworker joined the posse. In a line, with Jarred’s Mercedes in the lead, the posse left Broken Arrow and headed out in search of the missing duo.
Jarred was determined to keep his focus and his patience as Burt rambled on. He not only repeatedly gave Jarred directions to the lake--with all the alternative routes--but he told of various trips taken to the lake in great detail. He included the types of fish that were in the lake, the types of fish he caught in the lake (measurements and all), the types of fish his friends caught in the lake and so on. Jarred tried his best but Burt flashed his hand drawn map in his face one too many times.
“Burt, come on, I’ve seen it already.” He took a deep breath. “I’m on the verge of a headache, okay,” Jarred said without pinpointing Burt as the source.
“Do you take aspirin for your headaches?” Burt asked without a pause. Jarred’s headache was another topic Burt could report on.
“Quiet, just quiet will probably prevent this from getting any worse.”
“Bella says you can take one of those herbs for headaches. I think it’s called feversblue, says it works real good, real good. She takes it. She says you have to take it when you feel the headache coming on….”
Jarred imagined Bella was probably in pursuit of the perfect headache remedy for the past thirty years.
“You could take it every day, you know, as a preventative. It’s an herb so I don’t think it will hurt you to take it every day. I don’t think there have been any studies on it….” Burt continued and Jarred gave a half smile, again envisioning Bella popping the herbal headache remedy daily. Burt gave his dissertation on headache remedies while the pain in Jarred’s head increased. He looked out the window for signs of Scout or Jose and did his meditative best to isolate himself from Burt’s presence in the vehicle.
Lester drove too slow for Manny’s taste as did Rod so he raced past them both and pulled up behind Eric where he had full view of Tom and Bobby sitting silently in the bed of Eric’s truck.
“Look at those two.” Manny pointed to the bed of Eric’s truck.
“Is that a man or a woman?” Richard asked referring to Bobby, a question frequently asked when referring to Bobby.
“Hell, I don’t know.” Manny laughed. “Tom’s a man; I guess Bobby’s a man; ever see a w
oman look like that?”
The fact that Bobby was a gender dubious name and that Bobby had been living with grumpy old John for so long had them speculating and soon laughing from their creative comments. They turned their commentary to the rigid inanimate posture Tom and Bobby both maintained, that Tom looked like a seated cigar store Indian and Bobby looked like an apple doll, the kind Richard’s grandmother used to make and that spooked him as a child. They were thoroughly entertained, and a bit intoxicated.
“You mean you live next to it and you don’t know if it’s a he or she?” Richard chided. Manny explained that he had never spoken to Bobby and had never run into Bobby at the showers.
“So, it might be a woman, right?” Richard questioned.
“I don’t know, no, it’s a man. Who cares unless you’re interested in dating it!” Manny looked over at Richard and asked as if serious, “Do you want me to set you up?”
“I’m going to talk to it,” Richard had decided to get the gender answer and conversation went on to the subject of the women at Chili Bar.
There was lots of conversation in Martha’s vehicle. Eric and John didn’t speak. Lester sang along with country western tunes on the radio, perfecting his cowboy accent. Jarred tried to remember his given mantra, while Burt was never void of chatter. The caravan passed the deserted Taurus with only Martha taking notice of the abandoned vehicle. “There’s a car,” she pointed out, not certain if the sighting carried any significance. Everyone turned to look at the car, not saying a word, as they continued on their way.
“Turn here! Onto that road,” Burt ordered in his most demanding voice, a voice that had Jarred obeying without question. Jarred made a sharp left turn off the main road onto the rocky entrance to a narrow dirt road that disappeared into the trees. He hoped that others had seen him turn but in case they hadn’t, he honked his horn a few times to get their attention.
“And why exactly did I turn down this road?” Jarred had minor faith in Burt’s judgment and his Mercedes was not meant for roads like this.
“There’s a back road to the lake,” Burt answered and waved Jarred to go forward between the row of trees looming too close for Jarred’s comfort.
“That’s a road?”
“Not sure. I thought this was the road,” Burt answered as he surveyed the surrounding area.
“Shit Burt! You don’t know, you don’t know if this is a road, or that is the road!” Jarred slowed the car to a crawl as they maneuvered between the trees.
“I think it is. Calm down there, buddy. There is more than one road to the lake.” Burt was craning his neck forward.
“But why would Scout choose this one? Is this what you drew on your map or something?”
“We just need to get to that lake to look around,” Burt answered sternly.
The brigade was indeed thrown off by Jarred’s abrupt turn. Eric swerved his truck onto the rugged roadside overrun with rocks and boulders bouncing the truck and its occupants like a raft in white water. Manny and Richard drove right past Eric, busy laughing and talking and not paying attention. Lester had passed Rod so as not to be last in line and maintained a higher speed to catch up. When Lester noticed that Eric’s truck had turned off the main road, he slammed on his brakes to negotiate the turn and skidded right into a roadside ditch. His body thrust forward then sideways where he banged his head against the door window. Lester’s obscenities were now louder than the country tunes. He flopped out of the truck holding his head and fell into the ditch himself. Rod arrived only minutes later.
“Oh my, look at Lester.” Martha held her hand to her mouth.
Rod honked the horn repeatedly to alert the others of Lester’s accident then jumped from the car to his aid. Eric heard the honking and responded, putting his truck in reverse then backing through the trees into the open where he spotted Rod waving for help. Tom quickly hopped out of the truck bed leaving Bobby bouncing like a fishing bobber as Eric negotiated the rocky terrain in reverse to Lester’s tilted truck. He positioned his truck, retrieved a rope and tossed it to Tom. They went right into action but Lester couldn’t stand back, he had to jump in and give unneeded and unwanted instructions on how to successfully tow his truck. Tom went about his task as if Lester were a ghost, unseen and unheard. He signaled to Eric when the rope was secure. Eric, also ignoring Lester’s instructions, nodded and proceeded forward. But the tow wasn’t going well. The weight was too much for Eric’s truck and with the lack of traction he only succeeded in rocking Lester’s truck farther sideways.
Lester panicked and Eric became frustrated.
“We need a four wheel, someone needs to go find Manny,” Eric hollered from the open window.
“We’ll go look for him,” Rod volunteered. However, Manny came barreling back down the road before Rod got into the car. Manny heard the honking behind him and suspected that he had overshot the others.
Manny had little problem pulling Lester’s truck out of the ditch. He immediately got back into his truck, passed Eric and sped off to catch up to Jarred and Burt.
“I think Manny and his friend have been drinking beer.” No one seemed interested in Martha’s observation other than Bella who assured her he wasn’t drunk, just drinking.
Burt’s directions were ambiguous and the road was getting progressively narrower, looking more like a path for hikers. At the first scrape of a branch, Jarred stopped the Mercedes. “This is far enough Burt.” He put the car in reverse and carefully began backing down the dirt road. Burt used good sense and kept quiet.
Manny, busy talking, sipping beer and trying to catch up, with no concern about the branches scraping the side of his truck, plowed right into the back of Jarred’s shiny Mercedes Benz.
Life stood still for three very long minutes.
Richard mumbled, “Aaaah shit and it’s a foreign jobber too.”
Burt grabbed his neck, however, Jarred shot Burt a look that had him scurrying out of the car where Jarred remained, calming himself. His nerves already frayed from having spent too much time in a confined space with Burt, Jarred feared his temper would get the best of him.
The three stood at the back of the Mercedes staring at the impression from Manny’s truck. The old truck appeared unscathed. When Jarred could safely bring himself to join them, all were silent.
Manny shuffled in his boots. Richard shrugged his shoulders. Jarred grabbed his throbbing head and growled, “Whatever Scout and Jose are doing, it’s got to be better than fucking this!”
Manny apologized. “Man, I didn’t even see you, Jarred, I mean until it was too late.”
“He was backing down the road, not your fault,” Richard said, consoling his friend.
Eric was next to show up on the scene, his eyes wide and mouth agape. John being John wasted no time, he stuck his head out the window and shouted to Manny the estimated costs for repairs on a Mercedes “like that” and “without insurance….”
“Cool it, John!” Eric’s request had no effect. John was cantankerous. He was old with an oxygen tank and he took full advantage of what leeway that gave him.
Eventually the whole posse was behind the smashed Mercedes, gasping and commenting, while Jarred squeezed his head even harder with both hands; he was ready to explode. They all agreed that it was best to call it a day. For all they knew, Jose and Scout were back at the campground. Burt climbed into the back of Eric’s truck with Tom and Bobby. He figured it was best to leave Jarred to seethe in quiet solitude—and Burt knew that it was far too difficult for him to ride the entire way back to Pista without talking--in the silence Jarred now required. Burt participated in one-way conversations with both Tom and Bobby, he didn’t mind; he told stories freely without interruptions, and it seemed that at least one of them might have been listening.
“You ought to get one, Edith,” Jarred suggested as he retrieved his puppy, thanking Edith and feeling a bit guilty.
“Oh, I can’t Jarred. I can’t,”
she replied sadly.
Manny and Richard stopped at Caballeros for some more beer relief while the others went straight back to Broken Arrow. They all headed to the office where they were met by Lila and the news that there was no word from or about either Jose or Scout.
“Maybe they’re off bumpin’ somthin’ other than their heads!” George jibed hoping for a laugh. Only Marianne reacted to his comment with a demonstrative lifting of her black painted-on eyebrows. She wanted to show serious confirmation to what was intended as a humorous accusation. When no one responded, she lowered her eyebrows and continued to flip through her mail-order catalog.
“Let me know if you need my help,” Lester said as he gently squeezed Lila’s shoulders. “I’ll be at Caballeros, maybe someone at the bar knows something or maybe I can round up a more effective posse.”
Burt took offense to his comment, no one else paid attention.