Read Online Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 01 - Hurricane Season by Michaela Thompson - Free Book Online
Authors: Michaela Thompson
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his clothes several times a day in hot weather, was smeared with mud and his pants legs were wet to the knee.
After a short but intense conversation with Woody, Cecil threaded his way through the tables to the bandstand and plucked at Snapper’s sleeve. Heads turned and weight shifted among the audience as Cecil and Snapper entered into a whispered conversation that was, no question about it, rude to Gospel Roy, who was trying to make his speech.
Gospel Roy became distracted and annoyed. “If my opponent would do me the courtesy to listen, in case he has an answer to these charges ” he said, glancing over at Snapper, who was shaking his head at Cecil.
Now, the crowd was paying more attention to Cecil and Snapper than to Gospel Roy. Heads turned to one another in inquiry, and people craned their necks toward Woody, who was standing in the back, fingering his holster.
Gospel Roy carried on gamely in the face of this mass distraction, but nobody at all was listening to him by the time Snapper cried, “Great God Almighty!” and jumped to his feet, his folding chair clanging over behind him.
He jumped from the bandstand and followed Cecil through the crowd, half-running. When they reached Woody, the three turned and headed through the trees, and in a moment a County Sheriff’s Department car flashed by.
Back on the bandstand, Gospel Roy was fumbling. “I don’t know why my honored opponent has felt it necessary—” he began, when he was interrupted by Fish Arnold, the challenger for the post of supervisor of elections. Fish, a colorless individual whom nobody could imagine running for office, had been sitting next to Snapper. He got up and, with a polite nod to Gospel Roy, commandeered the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I regret to tell you Congressman Landis has had to leave. From what I overheard Deputy Barnes saying, his daughter Diana has been murdered.”
The hullabaloo that followed consisted of shouted questions and general milling about and conjecture. Fish Arnold was the central figure until it became evident that he had told exactly as much as he knew and no amount of pumping would produce further information. He then faded into the background.
Afterward, however, when St. Elmo’s soothsayers totaled up profits and losses, they decided that two people were sure election winners as a result of Candidates’ Night. One was Fish Arnold; the other was Snapper Landis.
Family Meeting
Four late-model Oldsmobiles were pulled up under a live oak tree in the front yard of the rambling house. Any St. Elmo resident who drove by the place, five miles or so out of town, could have made an educated guess about what was going on. “Old Man Calhoun’s got the boys out to his place,” the person might say. “Reckon they’re about ready to get the new still set up.”
In fact, the Calhouns were working steadily on their new moonshine operation. They had a location in the river swamp, with a ditch excavated and a log frame built around it. Construction was proceeding on schedule, but the new still was not the reason Old Man Calhoun had summoned Bo, Sonny, Lester, and Purvis to their childhood home. Old Man Calhoun had other things on his mind.
The living room at the Calhouns’, where the old man was reading the riot act to his sons, showed evidence of a fundamental difference of outlook between the old man, who had spent most of his life in the swamp making moonshine, and his wife, Miss Myrna, who was a member of the Daughters of the American Confederacy and had pretensions to culture. Gold-framed reproductions of Pinky and The Blue Boy hung on one wall; a businesslike rack of shotguns on the other. Most of the furniture was a version of French provincial designed by someone who had never been north of Macon, but the chair in which the old man sat was worn, nondescript, and obviously just right for his scrawny behind. Porcelain quail billed on the coffee table, while beneath it Deacon, the
After a short but intense conversation with Woody, Cecil threaded his way through the tables to the bandstand and plucked at Snapper’s sleeve. Heads turned and weight shifted among the audience as Cecil and Snapper entered into a whispered conversation that was, no question about it, rude to Gospel Roy, who was trying to make his speech.
Gospel Roy became distracted and annoyed. “If my opponent would do me the courtesy to listen, in case he has an answer to these charges ” he said, glancing over at Snapper, who was shaking his head at Cecil.
Now, the crowd was paying more attention to Cecil and Snapper than to Gospel Roy. Heads turned to one another in inquiry, and people craned their necks toward Woody, who was standing in the back, fingering his holster.
Gospel Roy carried on gamely in the face of this mass distraction, but nobody at all was listening to him by the time Snapper cried, “Great God Almighty!” and jumped to his feet, his folding chair clanging over behind him.
He jumped from the bandstand and followed Cecil through the crowd, half-running. When they reached Woody, the three turned and headed through the trees, and in a moment a County Sheriff’s Department car flashed by.
Back on the bandstand, Gospel Roy was fumbling. “I don’t know why my honored opponent has felt it necessary—” he began, when he was interrupted by Fish Arnold, the challenger for the post of supervisor of elections. Fish, a colorless individual whom nobody could imagine running for office, had been sitting next to Snapper. He got up and, with a polite nod to Gospel Roy, commandeered the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I regret to tell you Congressman Landis has had to leave. From what I overheard Deputy Barnes saying, his daughter Diana has been murdered.”
The hullabaloo that followed consisted of shouted questions and general milling about and conjecture. Fish Arnold was the central figure until it became evident that he had told exactly as much as he knew and no amount of pumping would produce further information. He then faded into the background.
Afterward, however, when St. Elmo’s soothsayers totaled up profits and losses, they decided that two people were sure election winners as a result of Candidates’ Night. One was Fish Arnold; the other was Snapper Landis.
Family Meeting
Four late-model Oldsmobiles were pulled up under a live oak tree in the front yard of the rambling house. Any St. Elmo resident who drove by the place, five miles or so out of town, could have made an educated guess about what was going on. “Old Man Calhoun’s got the boys out to his place,” the person might say. “Reckon they’re about ready to get the new still set up.”
In fact, the Calhouns were working steadily on their new moonshine operation. They had a location in the river swamp, with a ditch excavated and a log frame built around it. Construction was proceeding on schedule, but the new still was not the reason Old Man Calhoun had summoned Bo, Sonny, Lester, and Purvis to their childhood home. Old Man Calhoun had other things on his mind.
The living room at the Calhouns’, where the old man was reading the riot act to his sons, showed evidence of a fundamental difference of outlook between the old man, who had spent most of his life in the swamp making moonshine, and his wife, Miss Myrna, who was a member of the Daughters of the American Confederacy and had pretensions to culture. Gold-framed reproductions of Pinky and The Blue Boy hung on one wall; a businesslike rack of shotguns on the other. Most of the furniture was a version of French provincial designed by someone who had never been north of Macon, but the chair in which the old man sat was worn, nondescript, and obviously just right for his scrawny behind. Porcelain quail billed on the coffee table, while beneath it Deacon, the
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