Free Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 by Much Ado in Maggody Page B

about to flip on the siren just for the hell of it (it hardly ever works, but you never know) when another car pulled up behind the television van and a man with a camera around his neck got out, accompanied by a dowdy woman with a notebook. They joined the circle on the lawn.
    Sweat was dribbling down my back and dripping off the end of my nose, but I couldn't seem to snap into action, mostly because I wasn't sure which action to snap into. I had about to decided to ignore the whole thing in favor of a cherry limeade when I heard shrill voices in the distance. I inched the car forward until I could see around the corner of the old drugstore.
    Parade time in Maggody. Estelle's station wagon was coming right up the yellow line in the middle of the highway, creeping along at a turtlish pace. Crepe paper streamers flapped from the roof and the door handles; a poster was taped on the door, but I couldn't read it from my vantage point. Following behind it was a wall of women, their arms linked and their mouths moving in unison, twice as fast as Estelle's station wagon. Some of them were decorated with sandwich boards and crepe paper, while others carried signs. They were all familiar.
    I cut off the engine and scrambled out of the car. The television people had whipped to attention and were aiming cameras at the protesters. The newspaper photographer was in the middle of the road, snapping away. The two deputies had moved into the shade under a wilting crab apple tree beside the bank, but they were watching intently.
    "Down with the Maggody branch!" came the battle cry.
    The door of the pool hall opened and the neckless wonders wandered out to stare as the procession moved regally past them. Roy Stivers came to the door of the antique store, his thumbs hooked in the straps of his overalls. His cheek puffed out with a wad of tobacco, Perkins could be seen staring through the window of the barbershop, as could Earl Buchanon and Jeremiah McIlhaney. Lottie Estes scowled from the porch of the Assembly Hall.
    "Sherman Oliver discriminates against women!"
    The accused and Brandon Bernswallow came out of the bank. Bernswallow tapped one of the deputies on the shoulder and began to talk insistently into his ear. Sherman Oliver folded his arms and waited impassively, although I could see his eyelid twitching and his face getting redder by the second. His foot was tapping hard enough to eradicate an entire colony of ants.
    "We shall stand together!"
    Mrs. Jim Bob scurried across the lawn, her jaw leading the way, and took her position next to Brother Verber, who was mopping his face and working on a full-scale expression of righteous outrage.
    "Down with the Maggody branch!"
    The protesters passed the Emporium and stopped long enough for the television cameras to catch them in their finest hour. Estelle flashed a smile for all those unseen viewers, wiggled her fingers at me, and began to drive slowly toward the bank parking lot. There were at least three dozen women in three rows, and I didn't even have to squint to find Rubella Belinda Hanks smack dab in the middle of the first row, with Johnna Mae on her left and the WAACO woman on her right. Where else would the chief of police's mother be -- home baking cookies?
    "We shall overcome!"
    I wasn't sure what they intended to overcome, although it was probable we would all be overcome with heat before too long. Or tension, which was as smothering as the humidity and twice as thick. In that the women were squarely in the middle of the road, we were developing a small problem with traffic flow. We don't normally have a steady stream through town, but we have a smattering of pickup trucks and your occasional tourists out in search of bucolic bliss and cheap antiques. By this time, we had collected several of each species both coming and going, although obviously nobody was doing much of either at the moment. Some of them were, however, beeping their horns or shouting out the windows of their