Old Lady of Red River

by Ed Lynskey

Josh dragging out of his sleeping bag gritted on sand grains between his teeth. Notching his nuts, he spat. He then knelt one knee by the fire pit to bank the coals still aglow. He layered on cedar bark. Leaning in, he blew. The live coals licked up into orange-red flames.

A slurred voice asked behind Josh, “You got fire yet?”

Breaking a pine branch across his knee, Josh responded.

"It's hot but it's out here, Payne.”

"Fine and dandy. Call me when breakfast is served."

"You wanna beat off in the fart sack, that's your fun,” said Josh. “I'm up to seize the day, to gather my rosebuds."

Payne had an answer to growl back. "You can bite my rosebud."

"We came to fish, not to swap insults."

"You indulge your past-time," Payne said, "and I'll indulge mine."

Josh tried a new tack. “Is your metal detector back at the house?” he asked.

“It is,” said Payne. “Given my lousy run of luck, what's the sense in lugging it along?”

"I do hope you get laid soon," Josh said. "Your negative attitude even grates on me."

No flashy comeback told Josh he'd needled a sore nerve in Payne. Instead of offering an apology, he squinted through the semi-darkness, smiling. They'd billeted under a lean-to shelter, a flat tar roof supported on six cedar posts. Mr. Durango, an affluent criminal attorney, a while back had bought this big sandbar. Ignoring the NO TRESPASSING signs Mr. Durango nailed up, Josh and Payne had returned to their boyhood haunt for a little R&R.

“Looking good,” said Josh. “Things are looking mighty good.”

Rolling over, Payne asked, “How's that?”

“Nothing. Just mumbling to myself.”

“You do that a lot,” said Payne. “Do you get a reply from a ghost?”

“No, from the angel on my shoulder.”

“Shit.”

White sand spread underneath both men clear down to the Red River. Area bricklayers prized the sand for its jagged granularity. The beneficial nature of the sand changed, however. In the riverbottom, sticky sand churned in lethal suck holes. They were best avoided. Unless you were planning a murder. And Josh was.

"Are you browning scrapple in the frying pan?" Payne asked. Whistling between his gapped teeth, Josh pretended not to hear the question. A silent moment lagged into an awkward pause. "Yeah, okay," said Payne. "I get the message. Rise and shine, right?"

Josh gave a nonchalant shrug. "Suit yourself. I'll soon be gone."

"Yeah? Headed off where?"

"To the old canal," replied Josh. "To sucker fish under those sycamore pools."

"You're the sucker. No fish are there."

“I can't know that without trying, can I?”

Groaning himself up on both elbows, Payne next started to wiggle his rake-thin body out of the cocoon of blankets. He'd left on all his outdoor apparel to sleep in but not for its warmth or comfort. Rather doing so spared him the chore to get dressed now.

"Is the coffee perking?" Payne asked.

"As soon as you get it going," said Josh. "Meantime I'll cook the eggs and scrapple."

Payne pulled out the blue enamel pot. "Lemme ask you this, and I hope you'll not take it the wrong way. Your old lady, Maggie. You know where she is these days?"

"Last I heard Maggie had shacked up with a tire salesman. One letter came to the trailer. Said to crate up her stuff to send to his address."

Looking up, Payne stopped measuring in the coffee grounds. "You did, right?"

"No sir, I couldn't," said Josh, his thin grin turning smug. "By then, you see, I'd burned up all her stuff."

"Cold, man, cold," said Payne. "I'd never treat Eva like that. Not in a thousand years."

"You'd be shocked by what you'd do,” said Josh, “if the chance of a lifetime presented itself to you."

"Listen at you," Payne said. "The all-knowing philosopher."

“Maggie was the one who screwed around on me."

Hearing that gave Payne a little snicker. “Hitched to your wagon, I can understand why. It was traveling nowhere fast.”

"Aw shut up and fix the coffee," Josh said. “Maybe you'd better face the same facts. Your old lady ain't coming back. Eva has split. For keeps.”

“So says you,” Payne said. “But I'll never sign Eva's divorce papers. Never. The marriage vows binding us stay sacred. Forever sacred.”

An eyebrow arched, Josh said, “Now who's the cold one? Eva wants out. You won't play ball.”

With a set-face glare, Payne squared his lean jaws. “Don't ever say that again.” He shook a knobby fist at Josh. “Eva never wants out. She'll come back to her senses.”

Containing a smile, Josh retrieved his Zebco rod and reel. “Well, I'm off to steal some fish out of Mr. Durango's river. Rich as God, he won't miss them.”

“Keep a sharp eye out,” said Payne. “Mr. Durango will sic the law on you.”

Josh said, “The sheriff is in Mr. Durango's pocket.”

* * *

Payne had been excavating the sandbar for ribbed mussels. He used a bent bayonet, his granddad's Korean War souvenir. Since Josh and he were boys, he'd had a yen to discover buried treasure. Of late, he'd taken up metal detecting and plundered all manner of Yankee junk: bullets, buttons, canteens, and sardine cans. Right now like a big kid, he dug in the sand.

When Payne whooped out a scream, Josh twisted from the waist. He saw Payne waving a green sheaf of papers in both fists. Smiling, he wondered what had taken Payne so long to find the money.

“What's up?” Josh hollered over the hubbub made by the churning rapids.

"Money!" Payne rasped out fiercer. "Money! Look, I dug up banknotes. Twenties and hundreds. Come have a look."

Josh threw down his pole and jumped from stone to stone. At the sandbar's edge, he met Payne. Josh retrieved a drab green banknote from the sand. Its lengthwise edges were ragged as if beetles had gnawed off bits. (Or as if a blowtorch had helped to doctor a bundle of money.) As Payne watched, Josh snapped the currency at his ear -- it didn't sound phony.

Pacing in the sand, hands swinging by his hips, Payne brandished his ticket to Easy Street. "Now I understand what luck truly is," he said. "I stab my bayonet extra deep in the sand and -- banzai! -- I bring up a sawbuck speared on its point. So, I scoop away sand with my bare hands. More gorgeous green appears. Everywhere I dig I find money."

Josh said, "But the money isn't yours; it isn't mine; it isn't ours."

A dragonfly buzzed by them.

"Screw that noise, Josh. Finders keepers. Possession is nine points of the law. Whatever. I'm laying claim to it. You can just stand around and bitch. Either way, I'm leaving Red River with a sack of money."

"All right, show me where," said Josh.

"Right this way, my man."

They went a short span over to the mound of wet sand by a hole maybe twelve inches deep. The distinctive large, red rock cast them in shadows. "Payne, let's reason this through. First, the bills are grungy and all bug-eaten."

"A little dirt doesn't hurt anything," said Payne.

"What I'm getting at is this money was stashed here on purpose," Josh said. "Maybe a bank robber fled this way. The dragnet closing in, he decided to ditch his loot. The sand made for easy digging. The red rock marked the place."

Lips a thin gash, Payne flopped down on all fours, his clawed hands flinging sand between his legs like a hound unearthing a bone. "Make yourself useful," he said. "Count it. I'm rich. Richer than Mr. Durango ."

Pleased how Payne verged on maniac, Josh let him have his fun. Meantime, he sorted the crinkled bills into piles by denominations: fives, tens, twenties, and hundreds. "Payne, you know there have been unsolved bank robberies over the years."

Folding some bills to cram into his wallet, Payne nodded. "Damn straight. Now it's ours.”

"Your saying so doesn't make it true," Josh said.

Payne made a derisive throat noise. "Unbelievable. All of our lives we grub to rub two dimes together. Slaving at overtime. Squaring away debts. Putting sour marriages behind us. At last a windfall falls into our laps and all you want to do is analyze it to death.”

On cue, Josh noticed a scrap of paper lodged under a clump of sand. "What's that?" He pointed. Payne retrieved the scrap to inspect. "What does it say?" asked Josh.

Payne continued reading. He had a belly laugh. "Right. Is this a joke, Josh?"

“If it's any joke, I sure as hell didn't play it,” Josh replied. He then read the note handwritten in a crabbed scrawl.

To Whom It May Concern --

Beware, you the finder of this fortune! I, Hattie McGraw, Old Lady of Red River, have put a whammy on it. If you should return it to the sands and leave here, no grief shall befall you. I guarantee you this.

But if you should succumb to avarice and keep it for your debauchery, Grim Death will hunt you down.

Signed,

Hattie McGraw

Old Lady of Red River

"Who is this Hattie McGraw?" Payne scratched at his elbow. "I've never heard of such a name."

Wagging his head, Josh tossed the scrap of paper into the rapids. "I have. My daddy said the McGraws were mountain folk. Superstitious. Aloof. Eccentric."

Payne raked a shock of hair out of his eyes. "You're not buying into this mumbo-jumbo shit about curses, are you? The note is obviously a plant by the bank robbers."

"Look, I just don't know but I say better safe than sorry," said Josh. "Why chance bringing on a curse? If I were in your shoes, I'd put all that money back into the pit."

Payne's jowls slacked. "What did you say?"

"I say we relocate downriver and off Mr. Durango's land," said Josh. "Put the cash back and cover it up. You didn't need it before we showed up here. You don't need it now."

Snatching the banknotes from Josh's grasp, Payne doubled them over the hefty wad he'd removed from his pocket. "Tell you what," he said. "Why don't you bag up your Kmart philosophy and move downriver? Me? I'm staying put. At least until I comb all the big bills from this big sandbar."

"Payne, you're out of your mind," said Josh, faking his irritation. "Forget the money and let's just call the sheriff."

“You're a wussy. I never realized it until this very minute.”

“I know what's mine and what isn't,” said Josh.

“Move on if you like. Just leaves more lucre for me."

"I can walk away from this,” said Josh. “But you sure can't."

"Adios, Josh. Just don't let the door hit you," said Payne, "where the Good Lord split you."

Josh went away all smiles.

* * *

As the departing Josh sang out his "so long, sucker," Payne didn't bother to react. His attention stayed riveted on the sand. His bare feet pawed through it feeling for the rustle of more long green. He'd counted up four thousand bucks and he wasn't yet half-finished his search grid on the big sandbar. A thought distracted him. What if he'd missed a sawbuck or two? Why, he'd comb through the sand again later.

Payne's obsession made Eva its next object. He pictured her enticing him into the valentine-shaped bed, its sheets warm and clean. Lounging there, Eva wore a red daisy mesh teddy. Wild with new passion, Payne scrounged on his hands and knees searching in the sand. Now a rich man, he'd win Eva back to him.

Contemptuous, he muttered the whole while. "Old Lady of Red River . Bah. Well, we'll laugh about it after I've gathered up all this scratch. The bank robbers added that screwy note to scare off would-be finders like me. Except I'm wise to it."

Then a silvery speck in the river caught Payne's eye. A coin glistened there. He sat down and rolled up both of his pants cuffs. Brrr. The icy water to step into numbed him. Squishy sand underfoot shifted. Payne paid it little mind. He bent over to snatch up the coin. It gleamed in his wet palm. He frowned. A quarter, the coin was dated three years ago. Surely, the currency had been stashed by the red rock for longer than three years.

Snug sand now wrapped up to his knees, Payne hoisted up a foot. Only it didn't lift. It was stuck like he stood in quick-drying concrete for a minute too long.

“What the hell?” he said.

Payne wiggled and squirmed. To his dismay, he discovered even the slightest movement plunged him deeper into the oozy sand. Panic ran hot wires through him.

“Quicksand?” he said. “It can't be. There's no such thing.”

Heroic efforts to extract himself from the hole swallowed up Payne's body to the waist. Out of options, Payne decided to cease further struggles and wait for Josh's imminent return. He'd come around and see things Payne's way.

* * *

Josh had circled back to their campsite, only he didn't make himself known to Payne. Crouched behind the nearby canal at the base of a catalpa tree, he peered down at the trapped man. Enmeshed in Red River's suck hole, Payne slithered in inch by inch until up to his eyeballs.

Grinning, he slipped a cell phone out of his jacket pocket. A sultry female voice interrupted the second buzz. “Did Payne go for it?” she asked, no greeting.

Josh nodded. “Oh yeah. He went for our bait. You're a free lady.”

“Excellent,” she said. “I'm a genius for having orchestrated the perfect murder.”

Josh nodded harder as Payne bawling his last inhuman shriek vanished from view. “I gotta hand it to you. Thanks to your genius, we can be together.”

“Not so fast,” Eva said. “I tipped off the sheriff. Said I saw two men trespassing on Mr. Durango's land. Deputies are en route to arrest you. They'll figure you did in Payne to keep all that bank heist money for yourself.”

“What?”

“Mr. Durango and I, you see Josh, are madly in love. You, like Payne, were made into our pawn.”

“You and Durango ?” Josh choked on a violent swallow. “You sorry bitch!”

“No-no, babycakes,” said Eva fading over their connection. “Not bitch. Genius.”