Luna City: Number 9, Number 9, Number 9: Chronicles of Luna City, #9

By Celia Hayes and Jeanne Hayden

Welcome to Luna City, Karnes County, Texas … Population 2,457, give or take! Fugitive former celebrity chef Richard Astor-Hall faces a new challenge in this new Luna City chapter; celebrating Christmas with Kate Heisel's extended family, while Jess and Joe Vaughn cope with a pending addition to their family,  Xavier Gunnison-Penn the world's most unsuccessful professional treasure-hunter finally finds a treasure and true love … and Miss Letty McAllister, the oldest inhabitant of Luna City reveals what happened half a century before, when bootlegger and former bandit, Charley Mills was nearly lynched by outraged citizens from the biggest oak tree in Town Square. More folklore, home folks and gentle comedy abound in this ninth outing to the most perfect small town in Texas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Watercress Press
• Release date: Aug 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393900412

Celia Hayes

Celia Hayes works as a restorer and lives in Naples. Between one restoration and another, she loves to write. Don't Marry Thomas Clark reached #1 in the Amazon Italian Ebook chart.

Book preview

Luna City

Number 9,

Number 9,

Number 9,

Number 9...

The Continuing Comic Diversion

By

Celia Hayes

GA Logo - Long version

& Jeanne Hayden

San Antonio, 2020

Copyright © 2020 Celia D. Hayes & Jeanne Hayden

ISBN-13 978-0-9897821-4-2

ISBN-10 0-9897821-4-X

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Cover design by Alex of 3iii Graphics

Printed in the United States of America by Lightening Source, Int’l. and distributed by Ingram.

Geron & Associates

A Division of Watercress Press.

2020

Dedications and Acknowledgments

Thank you to the readers who love the series, and demanded a further chronicle of events, lives, and loves in Luna City. To my family, friends and the memory of those who have gone before. Semper Fidelis!

Jeanne Hayden

The Luna City series is dedicated with affection to those residents of Texas small towns who have not only welcomed us over the past half-dozen years of doing book events and markets, but who have also served as an inspiration by telling stories which are woven into this continuing chronicle: Fredericksburg, Boerne, Bulverde, Beeville, Goliad, Gonzalez, Comfort, Richmond, Junction, San Saba and Harper, Giddings, Llano and Lockhart, Richmond, New Braunfels, and Kerrville. Special thanks again to Larry H. for expert advice on classic French kitchen-management in previous volumes, and the prize-winning recipe for chili included in this one, and gratitude to J. Pouncer Melcher, of Maypearl, Texas for attentive beta reading and extensive suggestions, and to the late Professor John Igo, of San Antonio, who read an early version of the first Luna City Chronicle and encouraged us to continue with the tale.

Celia Hayes,

San Antonio, 2020

Contents

Dedications and Acknowledgments

Luna City & Environs

Luna City Town Square

Cast of Characters

Bits, Pieces and Reliquary

Programme for A Christmas Carol

The Odd Couples

The Return of Clovis

Christmas at Home With the Heisels

Winter 2018 Newsletter

The Chapel

The Legend of the Hanging Tree

From the Archives

The Mills Lynching

Spring Newsletter

Cherchez la Femme

A Mystery Indeed

The Mystery Deepens

The Arrest of Charley Mills

Miss Letty Deposes

Resolution

Going to the Chapel, Gonna Get Married

Luna City & Environs

Luna City Town Square

Cast of Characters

(An asterisk marks those who are deceased)

Bits, Pieces and Reliquary

X avie, sweet-heart ! Speak to me! Mindy Ramirez-Gonzalez begged, kneeling by the collapsed form of Xavier Gunnison-Penn, on the sidewalk in front of the Cattleman Hotel. She was frantic; Xavier Gunnison-Penn, international treasure-hunter extraordinaire, lay unconscious on the sidewalk on the stretch of sidewalk by the narrow façade of the Koenig Opera House. Former mayor Martin Abernathy had just formally unveiled the official Luna City Christmas tree, a good-sized native cypress tree replanted at the edge of Town Square. The branches of this tree, shaped by nature so artfully that the tree looked almost artificial, dripped with flickering golden lights and elaborate ornaments; globes of every size, angels, nut-crackers, outsized candies, and stars – a variety which boggled the imagination of the most Christmas-crazed.

The moment was frozen; gasps of horror from the nearest bystanders, Mayor Abernathy, with the microphone in one hand and the rope which he had pulled to unveil the tree, sized up the situation, and addressed the crowd in calm and resolute tones.

Is there a doctor or medical professional present? We have what seems to be a medical emergency; a gentleman has collapsed in front of the door to the Koenig Opera House... With that, he set down the microphone and the rope and was taking out his cellphone, even as Sgt. Milo Grigoryev elbowed his way through the crowd, a thick woolen blanket over his arm. Those nearest Penn and the stricken Mindy Ramirez-Gonzalez had already reacted much as Richard had come to expect: a woman had wadded up her oversized sweater to make a pillow for his head, another woman offered her water bottle, and three more bystanders already had their cellphones out – either calling for additional assistance, or take pictures, Richard wasn’t quite certain.

I’ve already called EMS, Sgt. Grigoryev informed them, as he unfolded it with a snap and spread it over the recumbent Gunnison-Penn. They’ll be here in a minute or two. Mindy: You gotta calm down, you aren’t gonna help your friend here any by getting hysterical.

I am not getting hysterical! Mindy declaimed, and began to cry. Sgt. Grigoryev exchanged a look of exasperation with Richard.

OK, then, you’re not hysterical, Sgt. Grigoryev agreed, sounding faintly annoyed. Does Penn here have a history of heart trouble? Epilepsy? Blackouts?

No, Dr. Mindy Ramirez-Gonzalez shook her head. Xavie is as healthy as a horse ... or really, in very good health for a man of his age. I don’t know what brought this on! He was saying something about the Gonzaga Reliquary, when he suddenly clutched his chest and collapsed.

The Reliquary, That was Araceli, staring fixedly at the Christmas tree, with the light of comprehension dawning on her face. He said it was here, all the time. And it is. It’s in the tree.

Say what? Now it was Richard and Milo’s turn to be baffled.

The reliquary is there, in bits and pieces made into the Gonzalez family Christmas ornaments, Araceli explained with the patience usually reserved for difficult customers.

At her side, a diffident male voice offered, Is this the medical emergency? I am a doctor – but my specialty is dermatology. Unless he has a rash or something, I’m not sure I can be of any real help. A bland and slightly balding man of middle age clad in a puffer jacket and jeans had joined the circle around Gunnison-Penn almost unnoticed.

We have EMS on the way, but thank you for coming forward, Doc, Sgt. Grigoryev replied. You can get a head start on checking his vitals, or something.

Oh. Sure. The dermatology doctor knelt and felt along Gunnison-Penn’s jaw for the neck pulse. Seems steady enough. But he ought to have that little patch of eczema on his nose seen to, sometime soon.

The distant wail of the VFD ambulance added a soprano note to the tenor and alto rumbling of the crowd, as Araceli continued.

Mindy, didn’t you write in that monograph of yours, about the great-aunts and Tia Leonora doing metalwork and jewelry ... and that she liked using found bits and pieces, like that little gold finial-thingy that you dug up in the old garden. That was what Tia Leonora was on about, when she wrote about using some bits that Tia Aïda found in digging out a Victory Garden during World War II. She made Christmas ornaments out of the broken-up pieces of the Reliquary!

It is my understanding that things like that were made in sections? Richard ventured, and Mindy nodded, her plain features alight with the glow of dawning realization, which made her look almost ... well, not pretty, but rather handsome.

Xavie talked about it; his theory that the Reliquary could be taken apart for transport...

And when it was hidden during the Civil War, Araceli nodded. It was taken apart – and each piece hidden separately...

In an adobe wall, in the old house, Mindy was on fire with intellectual insight, seeing the solution to the more than hundred-year old mystery plain writ plain as the directional sign on Town Square commanding a speed limit for motor vehicles of no more than 25 miles per hour. They hollowed out niches in the wall, then plastered them over ... swore the few people who knew to absolute secrecy. Then when the walls were demolished fifty years later, the bits of the reliquary were lost in the rubble, and only found thirty years after that ... by Tia Aïda digging to plant more tomatoes and beans. Yes, that’s how it all happened, I’m sure!

"I knew something about that reliquary in the painting was familiar, back when I first laid eyes on it, Araceli agreed. The enamel bit of the Virgin on horseback with the Baby Jesus in her arms. I just knew that I had seen that, somewhere before!"

Under the blanket, Xavier Gunnison-Penn moaned softly, and his eyelids fluttered.

It’s here... his voice was still faint, as if he struggled to speak. Mindy clasped one of his nerveless hands between hers, just as the VFW ambulance pulled around the corner. The crowd scattered, obediently making way for it, as Sgt. Grigoryev waved his arms over his head, directing the ambulance to the precise scene of the emergency.

We know, darling Xavie, we know, Mindy replied. All the pieces of the reliquary are up in the Christmas tree. Don’t you worry; I’ll see them to a safe place.

The picture ... Gunnison-Penn fumbled with his other hand in his coat pocket. The picture ... I have made ... diagrams all the elements ... see them secured, Miranda!

Meanwhile, Chris Mayall and his current volunteer medic trainee emerged from the ambulance; the trainee agog with excitement at having a for-real call-out, and Chris as imperturbable as ever.

Yo, Ricardo, he drawled, setting down the immense first aid bag, and hunkering down on his heels. I take my eye off y’all for a single minute, and then all kinds of hell breaks loose. What’s with ol’ Gunny-Penn here? Hey, man; we’re here for you now. Tell me what happened.

Chris Mayall, unflappable former Navy medic and manager of the Tip-Top Icehouse, Gas and Grocery had the most casually reassuring presence of anyone whom Richard had ever known; he assessed Gunnison Penn’s vital signs with far more confidence than the doctor dermatologist had shown, and simultaneously had Mindy Ramirez-Gonzalez regarding him with eyes in which a look of worshipful hope mingled with abiding trust.

He saw the Christmas tree unveiled, Mindy replied. And then he just collapsed. I think he had a heart attack!

I’ll leave it to the doctor at the Karnesville Med-Center to decide on that, Chris tucked away his stethoscope. Hey, look, Gunny-Penn; I think you’ll be OK, but you should go for a wild ride in the magic VFD bus, and get a second opinion.

The reliquary! Gunnison-Penn gasped, and his hand clamped on Chris’s wrist. It’s here – and it must be saved! For posterity! Promise me, it will be preserved, Miranda! Take this ... and he fumbled with his coat-front, just as Chris’ assistant man-handled the wheeled stretcher out of the back of the ambulance and brought it around to park, right where Gunnison-Penn lay.

Sorted, Gunny-Penn, Chris replied, just as Mindy took the folded paper from his hand, clasping both to her heart. OK – let your friends see to this ... thing, and the Med-Center make certain you ain’t gonna drop dead, stone cold. ‘Kay? Oh, Hi, Steph, Katie – sorry, can’t talk now. On the job.

There stood Kate Heisel, Richard’s ... something or other; also reporter for the Karnesville Daily Beacon, beloved of Richard’s cat, Ozzie, and – not to put too plain a point on it, beloved of Richard himself, although he would probably prefer to have his fingernails pulled out rather than say so, baldly and in public. With her was the elegant Stephanie Royce, the on-scene publicist for the renewed Mills Farm. Thirtyish and mixed-race, Stephanie looked like the portrait bust of Queen Nefertiti come to life; Richard had good reason to think that Chris and Stephanie were, as the elderly Miss Letty McAllister would have expressed it – an item, due to their devotion to running marathons and their standing as relative racial outsiders to Luna City, where two-thirds of the residents were Hispanic, surnamed Gonzalez/Gonzales and had been there for nearly 300 years, and the other third were lately-arrived (as with the establishment of the city itself) Anglo and only for about half that. As in local parlance – Anglo-Saxon Protestants of no color other than slightly sunburned. Now, Stephanie nodded, her public-affairs oriented mind obviously already running ahead of the unfortunate event at what should have been a public-affairs coup for the newly expanded Mills Farm.

Mindy seemed torn equally between devotion to man and retrieving the shards of the Gonzaga Reliquary. Araceli solved the conundrum for her, by taking Gunnison Penn’s paper from her hand.

Look, Mindy. Go with Xavie, or follow the ambulance in your car. Katie and I will round up all the bits and pieces that we can find on the tree. I’m sure Mr. Abernathy will let us use the bucket-truck, and the Chamber of Commerce will let us put them in the old bank vault.

Good idea. You realize how valuable this will be, once all the bits and bobs are cleaned up and reassembled? Richard murmured. A genuine Cellini artifact and once painted by da Vinci ... The Tower of London might be a better bet for security, once word gets out.

All parties to this quiet observation now bore identical expressions of horror; horror almost immediately replaced with quiet calculation as those hearers processed and mentally gamed out a solution.

I think we had better embargo word of this, until security can be organized, Stephanie Royce was the first to speak, as she shot a significant look at Kate, who waxed mildly indignant.

People have a right to know, Kate pointed out. "But the Beacon goes to press on Monday, so y’all have until then."

Meanwhile, Xavier Gunnison Penn had been hoisted onto the rolling stretcher by Chris and his assistant, with the aid of Sgt. Grigoryev and the passing dermatologist.

I’ll be with you, Xavie! Mindy promised, as their hands reluctantly parted. "I’ll be with you