by John Cargile

Created on: October 26, 2008

An excerpt from my new novel, The Cry of the Cuckoos, to be published by Eloquent Books of New York before Christmas.

The phone rang six times before the maid answered. Al Falvey was impatient.
"Mattie, let me talk to Betty Jo," the voice on the other end spoke.
"Jist a minit, sir, yes sir."
"Ms. Duke, it's your mister on the phone," Mattie shouted over the intercom system.

Betty Jo was sipping on a glass of orange juice and eating bacon, eggs and grits still steaming hot on the tray in her lap when she heard Mattie's voice. She placed the food tray on an ornate end table and leaned over to pick up the telephone by her bed.
"Betty Jo, I have some wonderful news for you this morning," Falvey's voice cracked with excitement. He was a life-long friend to east Texas's richest heroine.
"What?"
"Henry Drummond is dead!"
"He's dead?"
"How did you find out?" she asked, knowing Al's fastidiousness about the news of the day and an eye like a hawk for details. She felt blessed to have him as her friend the last forty-four years, through thick and thin, as they liked to intimately tell one another.
"I found out on the Internet," Al said.
Henry Drummond was Betty Jo's first husband all of six months during World War Two. She kept abreast of Henry's shenanigans because she still had a stake in him.
"It's high-time to make your presence known in Alabama, Ms. Duke. "The hay is in the barn!"
"You're right, you gorgeous man," she said. "The hay is finally in the barn. You have been my friend through all of this and I want you to share these blessings with me. I want you to go with me to his funeral."
"Well, this just happened today," Falvey said. "They'll bury him before Christmas."
"Call and find out when the arrangements are made. Get back to me quickly. I'll start packing as soon as I hang up."
"You want to fly or drive?" Falvey asked, knowing Betty Jo's twin propeller Cessna at the ranch was the most comfortable.
"I'd rather Amos drive us," she replied. "Let's leave early tomorrow morning. It's been a long time since I was in Birmingham, Alabama, and I have a lot to think about. It'll give me time to sort out the mess that happened sixty-one years ago."
She tried to fight off thinking about the past, but she knew this day would come. She pushed back the quilted bed cover and eased out of bed. Her breakfast was in her throat and her stomach felt queasy.
The idea that Henry was dead didn't bother her as much as the sobering fact she had to retrace her life as a teenager again, look back in the

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