Swing Low, Sweet Chariot Read online

  “But the Elks do?” Rose asked, going over to the refrigerator to pour herself a glass of juice and then sitting back down at the table.

  “In grand style,” Ms. Lou Ellen replied. “And taking you to the RV and Camping Show at the Coliseum isn’t really what I’d call a formal affair,” she added.

  Rose rolled her eyes. She drank the juice. “We’ve been dressed up together.”

  Ms. Lou Ellen glanced over at her friend. “Yes?” she asked and then put down her cup and interlaced her fingers together, placing her hands in front of her on the table. “Name me a time.”

  Rose cleared her throat and put down the glass. “We’ve been to a jazz club on Beale Street once. Tom wore a jacket. And we go out to dinner at least once a month.” She folded her arms across her chest. “We do stuff,” she protested, wiping her mouth.

  “Yes,” Ms. Lou Ellen noted. “I know all about your stuff.” She winked.

  Rose blushed. “Okay, look, just to get you off of my back, I will purchase two tickets for the Grand Elks annual Spring Fling.”

  “Great, we can go to Anne Marie’s shop in Memphis to find you an appropriate dress to wear.” Ms. Lou Ellen had put on her reading glasses and began looking at a calendar that was close to her, by the phone. “How does next Thursday look for you?”

  “I said that I would buy the tickets. I didn’t say I would use them.” Rose got up from the table and took a long stretch. “Besides, I have a dress.”

  Ms. Lou Ellen turned to face Rose, her reading glasses halfway down her nose. She peered at her friend in disbelief. “You have a dress?”

  Rose nodded, ready to make her exit. “Yes,” she replied, then glanced over again to see Lou Ellen’s look of surprise. “What? You don’t believe that I have a dress?” Rose asked.

  “Oh, I believe you might have had a dress in your past, but I have visited your little camper, remember? And the only thing I’ve seen hanging on a hanger is a pale green jacket.” She closed the calendar and took another sip of her tea.

  Rose knew that Ms. Lou Ellen couldn’t imagine a person living in a small travel trailer like the one Rose was in. She had often questioned Rose about how she stood such a small space. Rose had always answered her truthfully. She had never minded. She had discovered that she really didn’t need much to live and she was happy not to have to clean or manage a house. The fiberglass camper was more than enough room for one person. Besides, when she felt cramped she always went to visit her friends.

  “No, it’s not in the closet.” She cleared her throat and started toward the door. “I have a couple of boxes that I haven’t unpacked. They’re still in the truck.”

  Ms. Lou Ellen raised her eyebrows and smiled. She waited until Rose had turned back around to face her. “You have a Spring Fling dress that has been folded up in a box for almost two years? Darling, don’t you think it’s time to unpack your bags and stay?”

  Rose considered her friend’s question. “Two years?” She sounded surprised. “Has it really been that long that I’ve been here?” Rose asked.

  It seemed to her like it had only been a few weeks since she had packed up the travel trailer and her vehicle and left Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Her husband had left her for another woman. She and her brother had placed her father in a nursing home and he had since died. She had known that she could get a job as a nurse anywhere in the country so she had just packed up and left.

  At the time she had only known that she was heading west, leaving the only life she had ever known and going on an adventure. And although, she traveled west for a number of hours, she hadn’t gotten nearly as far as she had expected. She had never expected to stay in West Memphis. She was going to Arizona or New Mexico, maybe even California. Stopping in Arkansas and staying at a campground for more than twenty months had been a surprise to everyone who knew her, but it was a bigger surprise to Rose herself. And more, she had not expected to find what she did at the Shady Grove Campground. She had found home.

  “I believe the day of your arrival was the day they found the body of Lawrence Franklin. And I’m quite certain the first anniversary of his funeral has come and gone. In fact, it is almost the second year of his passing.” Ms. Lou Ellen took off her glasses.

  Rose nodded. She remembered the day she got to Shady Grove. Her SUV had broken down. The mechanic had told her that it was going to take a few days to get the parts. She was planning to stay at the river campground for only the time it took to get her vehicle repaired before resuming her western adventure. Once the vehicle was fixed, however, she had stayed for several reasons.

  She stayed because she had become involved in the investigation of the drowning victim. She stayed because she fell in love with Thomas Sawyer. And she stayed because of the friendships she made—with Mary, the Vietnamese woman who ran Shady Grove and taught her the importance of honesty and loyalty; with Lucas and Rhonda, the evangelical bikers who welcomed her like she was family; and especially with Ms. Lou Ellen, a woman who doled out wisdom in short, pithy sayings and generated more goodwill and kindness than Rose had ever experienced.

  “It doesn’t seem that long,” Rose noted. “And yet, it also seems like I’ve been here my whole life.”

  Ms. Lou Ellen smiled. “I have found that the best events in life always feel that way.” She took in a breath. “Unbelievably quick and unquestionably full.”

  The two women pondered the thought and the time that Rose had been at Shady Grove.

  “Now, it is quite time for you to unpack those boxes of Spring Fling dresses that you’ve been hiding. And I will take a good look at the one you think is appropriate. Frankly, my dear, I would love to see you in something other than—” She nodded toward Rose, looking at her from head to toes.

  Rose followed her eyes. “What’s wrong with what I wear?” she asked. She thought her look was perfectly fine. After all, she was always clean and she never wore a T-shirt that didn’t match her jeans or khakis. And since she started yoga, she had branched off into a new fashion genre that included a lot of stretch pants. She particularly liked that look.

  “Let’s just say I haven’t seen a knee or a waistline since I’ve known you,” Ms. Lou Ellen replied. “And yet, I have learned with my daughter’s wardrobe, predictability can be surprisingly, well, predictable.”

  Rose thought about what her friend was saying. She considered Rhonda’s standard outfits of leather and black and orange Harley-Davidson attire.

  Rose knew that when Rhonda was a child her mother had wanted to dress her in pink bows and ruffles. She recalled hearing that by the time Rhonda was a teenager, Ms. Lou Ellen had ultimately given up on trying to turn her tomboy daughter into a little girl.

  “You think I dress kind of boring?” she asked.

  “Dear, you dress just fine for managing a campground, picking up the trash and raking gravel. Why, I’m sure your uniform is comfortable and easy to wash. I just think it might be nice to see you dressed up. I suspect our Thomas might enjoy that.” She finished her tea. “But, I have learned my lesson from Rhonda. I needn’t try to dress other women.”

  Rose glanced down again at her outfit. She hadn’t worn anything other than jeans, khakis, and stretch pants since she had been in West Memphis. Even at Lawrence Franklin’s funeral and the times she went with Rhonda and Lucas to church, she had kept her appearance very casual. She certainly knew that Thomas never cared about how she dressed, but she did wonder if he might like to see her all dolled up.

  “You know, I think I will see what is in those boxes. It’s been so long I don’t even remember what else I brought with me.” Then she reconsidered. “Or you know, maybe I might like to buy a new dress,” she said as she opened the front door to leave. “Did you know that the only thing new I’ve bought since I got here was a couple of sets of workout clothes?”

  “I would never have guessed,” the older woman replied with a grin. She could hardly restrain her enthusiasm at the thought of being able to help a young woman shop.
“Next Thursday we shall drive across the bridge to Tennessee and pick you out a dress for the Elks’ Spring Fling.”

  Rose nodded. “It’s a date,” she agreed. “Do you think Rhonda might like to join us?” she asked.

  Ms. Lou Ellen rolled her eyes. “Anne Marie does not carry chaps.”

  “Right,” Rose noted. “So, it’s just us then?”

  The older woman nodded. “I suspect that will be aplenty.”

  “Great. Okay, now, I must take my fashion-challenged self and get this campground in working order. Otherwise, those pesky owners will have my job!” She winked at Ms. Lou Ellen and headed out the door.

  “Ta-ta,” the older woman said. “And ask Lester Earl to come in. His breakfast is getting cold.”

  Rose stepped off of the cabin porch and saw Lester Earl lying at the bottom step. The three-legged black dog had been living at Shady Grove ever since he arrived with the camper from New Mexico, Jacob Sunspeaker. Rose bent down to pet the dog and recalled how they had become acquainted. Mr. Sunspeaker had been murdered at the campground and Ms. Lou Ellen had taken the orphaned dog under her wing. Lester Earl, the name of Ms. Lou Ellen’s second husband, was now as much a part of the Shady Grove family as was Rose.

  “Hey, buddy,” Rose said as she scratched the dog on the head and under his chin. “You want to go with me to the office or would you rather have a ham biscuit?”

  The dog whined a bit and jumped up on the steps and ran to the door. He pushed it open and walked in the house. Rose could hear Ms. Lou Ellen greeting her pet.

  “I guess breakfast sounds more enticing than sitting in the office with me,” Rose said to herself. She headed over to the campground office.

  “A new dress and a dance,” she said to herself, shaking her head. “How does that woman talk me into things?”

  She unlocked the door and walked inside, turning the OPEN-CLOSED sign over to reveal the word open and closed the door. She pulled up the blinds and walked over to the counter where the coffeepot was placed. After emptying out the filter and grounds from the previous day, she rinsed out the pot and started a fresh one. And then she headed over to the desk where Mary usually sat and began looking over the mail from the previous day that she had not gotten around to opening.

  Most of it was junk, she decided, and she tossed the flyers and form letters into the trash can beside the desk. She noticed a catalogue for a local department store and began flipping through the pages. After her conversation with Ms. Lou Ellen, she was suddenly curious about the clothing styles.

  When she noticed that the coffeepot was full, she got up from the desk and went over and poured herself a cup. She was returning to the desk when the phone began to ring. She sat down and picked up the receiver. “It’s a beautiful day at Shady Grove,” she answered cheerfully.

  There was no response.

  “Hello,” Rose said. “Anybody there?”

  Still nothing.

  “Hello,” Rose repeated. She was just about to hang up the phone when she heard the timid voice.

  “Is this Rhonda?”

  “No,” Rose replied. “Rhonda doesn’t usually work in the office. This is Rose. Can I help?” There was a pause. “I need to talk to Rhonda.”

  “Well, I can try to find her, but I’ll have to get you to call back or have her call you. I haven’t seen her this morning and I don’t always know where she and Lucas are.” Rose wondered if they were on the premises or had taken off on one of their many mission trips that they liked to make. She often had a difficult time keeping up with where they were.

  “It’s real important,” the woman noted. “Tell her it’s Chariot, Chariot Stevens,” she added. “Tell her I’m in Memphis. And tell her I’m in trouble.”

  And then, all of a sudden, the line went dead.

  THREE

  Hello, hello!” Rose kept shouting into the phone, thinking that maybe the caller was on a cell phone and just went out of range for a few seconds. She called out again and finally decided that the phone call had been disconnected.

  She was trying to figure out how to get hold of Rhonda when the front door opened. It was the man from Texas who parked his fifth wheel at site sixty-three, on the other end from where Rose was hooked up.

  “Good morning,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

  “Just in time for coffee.” Rose moved toward the counter. She put on her best hospitality face.

  “No, no.” The man shook his head and waved his hands in front of him. “I’ve already had four cups this morning. I couldn’t drink another sip if it was forced on me.”

  Rose smiled and leaned in his direction. “Well, I don’t intend to force a beverage on you first thing in the morning. So, what can I do for you?” she asked. “Everything okay at your site?”

  He nodded. “Ah, it’s real pretty out here, ain’t it?” He scratched his chin and looked out the window toward his fifth-wheel trailer. He was wearing jeans and a lightweight jacket. Rose thought he looked to be in his late seventies, probably a full-timer, the term used for those who stay in their motor homes all the time.

  “Yep, everything is just fine. We’ve enjoyed ourselves quite a bit on the Mississippi. But the wife and I would like to take a little side trip and we were wondering if we could leave the rig for a week or so.”

  He turned back to Rose. “We’d move it from the river site and put it out of the way. We were just going to see if maybe we could get a reduced rate since we wouldn’t exactly be here to use any of the utilities.”

  Rose nodded. This was not an unusual or unreasonable request. Several campers liked to park their units on the river and then head over to other places to stay with family or in hotels. Rose glanced down at the workplace on the counter and pulled out the small notebook where Mary had a written record for the discounting of prices for the kind of arrangement this man was requesting. She flipped to the right page.

  “If you park over here in the woods and don’t turn on the utilities, we can let you stay for twelve dollars a night,” she noted. “If you stay where you are, even without the utilities, it’s still going to cost you twenty-one dollars, just like you’re already paying.”

  He considered the prices. He shifted his weight from side to side as he chewed on his lip.

  Rose waited for his decision.

  “You know, since we’re already unhooked and we’d like to linger on a couple more days when we get back, we’ll just pay the twenty-one dollars and stay where we are.” He nodded his head. “I think I can afford that,” he added.

  “Okay,” Rose responded. “You want to go ahead and pay for the week?” she asked. “And if you do that, you actually get one day free,” she noted.

  “Well, now, little lady, you can’t beat that with a stick, can you?” He pulled out his wallet and took out a credit card. “Go ahead and charge me for six days at that rate, add on the free day, and then we’ll pay for what we owe you when we get back next week.”

  “That’ll work.” Rose took the man’s card and ran it through the machine. Then she wrote down in the reservation book that the site was reserved. “So, how long should I keep your spot reserved?” she asked.

  The man thought about the question. “I’d say ten days,” he replied. “That gives us a week to take care of our trip and then get back and stay a couple more nights before heading back home.” He slid his hands in his pants pockets. “Is that okay?” he asked.

  “That’s fine,” Rose replied, making a note in the book for the ten-day reservation. She finished writing it down and closed the book. “Are you going into Tennessee for your trip?” she asked.

  “What?” the man asked, appearing a bit confused by Rose’s question.

  The credit card machine spat out the receipt and Rose pulled it out and placed it on the counter for the man to sign. She handed him back his credit card and then put the amount in the cash register, a separate procedure.

  “Your side trip?” Rose explained. “You said that you were lea
ving the camper because you and your wife were taking a side trip.”

  The man took his card and put it back in his wallet.

  “But never mind,” Rose said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  He took the pen on the counter and signed the receipt. “No, that’s all right,” he said, taking his copy. “I don’t consider it prying. The side trip isn’t to Tennessee.”

  “Oh,” Rose responded, not sure that she should ask anything else. She rang up the transaction, took the receipt, and placed it in the open cash register. Then she closed the cash drawer.

  “We’re going up around Jonesboro, up near the Missouri border,” the Texan said. “My wife’s people, they’re from Paragould.” He thought for a moment. “Well, not Paragould really, more west of that, Walnut Ridge is where we think.”

  “Where you think?” Rose couldn’t help herself. “You don’t know for sure?” She had gotten nosier since she had moved to Shady Grove.

  The man shook his head. “Kathryn is seventy years old and she never knew where she came from.”

  Rose waited.

  The man continued. “She was given to a family from Dallas when she was only a baby and she just grew up never asking anything.” He glanced out the window toward his camper and truck. “Suddenly, she’s interested in finding her folks,” he noted.

  He turned back to Rose. “Our granddaughter started asking questions for some college course she was taking and it just stirred up the past for Kathryn. So, I promised her last fall that I would bring her down here and we’d poke around. She found out some things, like Jonesboro, from some computer program our granddaughter put her on.” He fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket. “I told her it was silly, but I reckon she’s made up her mind about this.”

  Rose listened. She smiled at the man. “I think you’re doing a very good thing,” she said.

  The man studied her. “What makes you think that?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

  Rose felt him watching her as she prepared to answer. She wondered if she had offended the campground guest. She shrugged her shoulders. “Your wife wants to find out stuff about her past, her family, answer some questions she’s probably had in her mind a long time. You’re helping her do that. You’re helping her answer some very important questions,” Rose noted.