Anxiety cries for answers . . . (Wilmer)
AnnabelleLee, SamanthaJocelyn, and JanelleElise IS GONE an’ NObody knows WHERE!! . . . (BessieJune)
Well, this is sure a fine kettle of fish . . . an’ as much as I love these women, I gotta say helpin’ them out is more than I bargained for. Some time has passed since I last wrote, and me and Fred, we’re back out on the road. Turns out when BessieJune filled me in on all the happenins’ the mornin’ after I got to the YellaRose Schoolhouse, first thing off, I learned three of the girls is missin’ and unaccounted for, and it’s been months since they been heard from. They apparently didn’t just leave to go help out their families in the illness and all, they disappeared, just like that. One day they was there in their room, the next day . . . poof! . . . they was gone. An’ Miz Suze, after she didn’t get no satisfaction from the law, who just laughed at her and said you couldn’t never trust girls like that, she sent for me, rememberin’, I reckon, that I was pretty good at solvin’ mysteries. Miz Suze, she says her worst fear is that they got caught up somehow in that white slave trade that’s so bad down here.
So, like I said, Fred an’ me, we’re back out on the road, tryin’ to pick up a trail of those women that’s colder than a witch’s tit, excuse the expression. It’s just a symptom, I reckon, of my frustration . . . Because instead of that nice long rest me an’ Fred was anticipatin’ after our hard time on the Trail, we was back out on the road the next mornin’. Fred, she don’t care, didn’t take too much to all those people at the YellaRose Schoolhouse, especially when BessieJune tried dressin’ her up in a bonnet and some feathers. She was akinda interested in the feathers, but after she found out they wasn’t attached to nothin’ edible, she spit ’em out, ate the bonnet, and laid under the bed ’til we left.
Anyways, we been on the road a good week now, and our vittles are givin’ out, so I reckon we’ll have to hit the next town and take our chances on gettin’ exposed to that there plague. And no clues a’tall. Unless you count that riddle one ole feller gave us, a half-blind ole man we met just kinda meaderin’ down the road. When we told him what we was a’doin’, he just kinda cackled and mumbled what can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps . . . heh, heh, heh”, all kinda creepy-like before he stumbled off.
I was right disgusted, as it woulda taken me a while to puzzle it out, but ole Fred, she knowed right away it was a river. So, since it’s the only clue we got, we are headed to the nearest river, which is Devil’s River, not such a righteous name, I’m thinkin’. . . Should be there tomorrow, and God willin’, we’ll get another clue . . .
Fer now? We gotta get some vittles and some sleep.