Free Markers (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 3) by Lila Beckham Page A

plain folk-simple kind of men. We wouldn’t raised to be anything different. Now, I’m not a sayin’ that these mixed up bastards was raised that way, but they got loose screws somewhere in their brains to do the stuff they do. They ain’t simple; they’re complicated as hell. Nobody knows what makes them suckers tick or why they molest young’uns and shit like that.”
    “Yeah, you’re right… they’re nothing more than a blight that feeds on the good people of this world… If I believed what the preacher preached, I’d believe they were of the Devil, put here to keep good people from achieving a peaceful existence.”
    Three Dog Night’s song, ‘Mama Told Me not to come’, flowed out the screened door and James grinned. “I like that tune there,” he chuckled, “Remember that time me and you got a-hold of that stuff in high school?”
    “Yeah, I do,” Joshua grimaced. “The one and only time I ever did that stuff. Never wanted to do it again that’s for sure.”
    “Well, we didn’t have a clue what we were doing.”
    “No, and I didn’t know where the hell I was for two days - don’t remember much about it either, except for laying on a bed somewhere and watching the walls a breathing-moving in and out on their own. You were probably right there with me but I don’t know for sure. I was damned glad when I come down off that stuff… after that, nothing but pot and whiskey for me. I like being in control of my own mind.”
    “I sorta liked that mind tripping stuff at first, and then I got scared. I knew I couldn’t go home until I got straightened out,” James chuckled. “To this day, the old man don’t believe the lie I told him, that me and you camped out in your granddaddy’s back forty.”
    “Why would he believe you, Hook; it was a lie. You never was good at telling lies. That was why we got that paddling in the seventh grade. When Mr. Wallace asked why we missed his class, I was prepared to tell him what we planned to tell him, but he asked you first. You turned twenty different shades of red before you spit out something that was not even close to what we planned.”
    “You still hold that against me?”
    “Nah, you brought it up, I didn’t. I was just pointing out that you were not good at telling lies. After I got older, I liked that about you. It means you was raised right.”
    “Daddy’d be happy to hear you say that-maybe, but maybe not. I never have lived up to his expectations.”
    “You’re one of the best men I know, Hook, and you’re the only one I’d trust with my life. Which reminds me, when you talked to Ilene, did you ask how the baby was doing?”
    “She was doing fine when I left. Her and Ilene have done become good friends. The only thing Ilene was concerned about was her getting too attached to the little thing.”
    “I can see where that’d be easy to do. Young’uns that size, they ain’t set in their ways or molded into whatever someone else wants them to be-they’re pure. When that little girl smiles at you, you can see she has no sins, no anything that has spoiled the integral whole being she is meant to be…”
    “Yeah, that is what I see when I look at Jim’s little girl. We get onto her once in a while, but she hasn’t had many whuppin’s at all. We have tried to let her develop into what God intended her to be and so far, she is a loving little thing, not spoilt too much except for the animals. She’d stay out with them 24-7 if we’d let her.”
    “Hook, do you remember back in ‘62, when I found that colored baby in the trash pile up near Big Chippewa Lake?”
    “How could I not remember, Hoss; those were some dark days that followed. That entire decade was dark; so much hatred and violence, the war in Vietnam, the hurricanes that followed. You were in bad shape for a while and then you seemed to over it. You never talked about it and I never asked.”
    “I thought I had overed it too, but it reared its ugly head today and slapped