Nobody Can Say It's You

40

"Who gets Button's land?" Hadley asked Maury.

Maury dropped by for some morning coffee and a homemade doughnut – an unbeatable combination in her book.

"I don't know," Maury said. "Bill confirmed what we thought that night at the cemetery. Button's family is all dead. He outlived his last living relative by about 20 years. The will's been read."

"There was a will?" Hadley asked. "I'm surprised. I wouldn't have thought old Button would have any dealings with a lawyer."

"It's a handwritten one, Bill said. In Button's feathery scrawl. Signed and dated. Bill said it was like looking at the Declaration of Independence. Old-timey writing. But it's legal. They found it at Button's cabin. They call it a holographic will."

"Do say."

"Yep."

"And who won the lottery?

"Button left everything to Estill Orner."

"Estill!" said Hadley. "Button must have been under some kind of spell. Maybe Button held a torch for Estill all these years. She's still a mighty attractive woman and, in her day, she was a total knockout. I remember we used to joke that she should try to get discovered. You know, for the movies, like Ava Gardener. Estill Orner was that pretty! I'm sure she would have made it big on looks alone, even if she couldn't act her way out of a paper poke."

"Yeah," Maury said, "Estill was very pretty. How do you get these things to come out so good every time, Sis. You never seem to make a bad batch."

Maury chewed on a big bite of doughnut.

"Practice makes perfect, I guess," said Hadley. "I've certainly had a lot of practice in my lifetime. But I would have never picked Estill to be in the will. I don't know a lot about Button Dudley, but I have heard he didn't like her son. There was no love lost there."

"He hated Dougal Orner," Maury said, "and he made no bones about it. Thought that boy was the devil's spawn."

"I'd heard something like that a long time ago," said Hadley. "Dougal Orner was always such a rambunctious little cuss."

"I know," said Maury. "I remember visiting Granny Dilcie, back years ago. Dougal was just a little thing then. Granny Dilcie was mad as an old wet hen. Dougal had let loose all her chickens. Granny had about 40 at the time. She knew it was Dougal. Mean little devil left his name scrawled in the dirt in the chicken coop. I done it – D.O."

"Proud of his handiwork, I guess," said Hadley. "Didn't mind signing that note because he knew Estill would not suffer anybody to punish him."

"Huh," said Maury. "That little booger needed his tater patch plowed, but Estill wouldn't hear of it. Nobody ever laid a hand on Dougal to even try to discipline that little monster. I recollect Dilcie sayin' he'd done the same to Button's half-dozen calves a few weeks before. Dilcie fumed that Dougal would grow up to be the next Billy the Kidd or Jessie James"

"He is meaner than a two-headed rattler," said Hadley. "Wasn't he sweet on one of the Elanor twins? Dara Elanor or Chandra Elanor ?"

"I think so," said Maury, "but don't ask me which one."

"I know," said Hadley. "I wonder how Dougal knew he was dating the right twin?"

"Beats me," said Maury. "I have never seen two people who looked so much like each other."

"I guess you could tell them apart if you spent time with them," said Hadley.

"Granny's had her hands full," said Maury. "Alswyth's death was terrible. And you know Granny had her late in life. She was no spring chicken then, and now, she's taken on the responsibility of raisin' the twins."

"Umm," said Hadley. "I really don't know much about them. They were such an oddity. I mean both of them looking exactly alike. Dara's always been the shyer one, and Chandra is a hand full from what I heard on the grapevine."

"I know," said Maury. "She does like the boys. But maybe she's just angry at losing her mother the way they did. I mean, that was an impressionable age, and the accident was just horrible."

"Yeah," said Hadley. "What are you cooking for supper?"

"I really hadn't given it much thought," said Maury. "I found a couple of recipes in a new magazine I ordered. But some of the ingredients are really out there. I think you'd need to live in a big city with specialty stores to find them."

"Forget the magazine recipes, Maury," Hadley said. "For Bill's sake, why don't you two just drop by later for supper. I'll make soup beans and hoecake and fried apples and pork chops and mash potatoes. There's half a marble pound cake on the counter. Y'all come by and help me eat all this up."

"Honey," Maury said, "my mouth's waterin' just thinkin' about all that."