Nail's Crossing

by Kris Lackey

  Even drought throttled, the Blue managed a decent rumble at the Desperado Spring falls. The sound made them both wildly thirsty. Their water flasks came out, and they drank as they jogged through the last thousand yards of oaks and native elms before the river. On the bank below the falls, they knelt and splashed their faces. Maytubby and Bond saw at once that Love’s tracks did not appear on the opposite bank. Each checked the bank on one side of the falls, saw nothing. Nothing looked disturbed along the lip of the falls. Maytubby pointed downstream, and Bond nodded. Each took a side and waded or walked the bank, looking for the tracks to emerge. The spring-fed river water felt good on Maytubby’s feet. He doubted that Hannah, slogging in her boots, felt the same way. In winter, the river stayed cold enough for long enough that the state stocked it with trout.

  Emerging from a chute with steep banks, they saw that the stream broke into three channels around two islands. Just before they tackled that problem, Hannah tossed a pebble at Maytubby, who turned and saw her pointing to Love’s tracks emerging on the west. Pointing this way and that, he indicated that she should follow the tracks and he would continue down the river on his side. He held up five fingers for how many minutes they should go their separate ways. She nodded.

  A great blue heron, fishing off one of the islands, dipped at the knees and sprang into the draft of its vast wings. A path followed the river here, and Maytubby made good time in his two and a half minutes. Like any kid and most adults, he broke the time rule because he hadn’t finished his game. At four minutes, he found Love’s footprints coming out of the river, headed back east. The time problem then solved itself. Hannah would not turn back after two and a half if she saw Love’s prints turn toward the river. Maytubby sat on a shady rock and waited two minutes. Bond strode out of a blackberry patch, holding her arms above her head. For a half second, Maytubby was alarmed; then he realized she was protecting her arms and hands against the fishhook thorns. She shook her head before nodding at her friend to lead the way. His hunches irked her.

  Love’s detour almost a mile south in the river meant they could not have seen him returning east. They easily followed his trail—he was in a hurry now—and they went fast, Bond’s boots squishing. Maytubby whispered back to Bond to tell the OHP officer to go to the intersection of Sardis Road and 48A, and the unmarked pickup deputy to go to the intersection of 48A and State 7. She called OHP first, speaking softly into her shoulder radio between breaths.

  An engine started not far ahead of them. They both looked up from the trail. The sound of gravel ricocheting off metal, then some yelling. Maytubby ran faster. A pistol shot, then a second. The sound of the pickup dopplered and faded.

  “The county’s Silverado,” Bond said aloud, for there was no longer any need to whisper. “You go on.” She waved for emphasis. As he moved farther from her, she shouted, “I’ll phone OHP dispatch to get their man to Belton Bridge where this track hits Seven, tell him about the Silverado. Love can’t go fast on that trail, and he can hear our radio.” Maytubby raised his arm in acknowledgment and ticked up his pace. Shortly, he could see the road cut and a Johnston County deputy—a young one he didn’t know—standing in the road, holding his pistol against his thigh. The air smelled faintly of sycamore and burnt powder.

  Maytubby stopped well back from the road, in the trees, snapped off his bandanna, and shouted, “Lighthorse Police!” Before the second word the deputy had spun and raised his weapon. It twitched. “Come on out,” the deputy said. As Maytubby walked slowly toward the verge of the clearing, watching the pistol, the deputy’s radio came alive with Hannah’s voice. “Eph, don’t shoot Sergeant Maytubby. He’s ahead of me.”

  With some difficulty, Eph holstered his gun. His face was red, and his shirt was wet as a dishrag. He fidgeted. Maytubby walked slowly toward him.

  “Sorry, Sergeant. That skeleton freak stole the department’s unmarked vehicle.” His eyes grew wide as he took in Maytubby’s bare feet. “D’he steal your boots, too?”

  “He sure did, the sly bastard. And I aim to get ’em back.”

  Bond jogged into the clearing. She had her cell phone out, aiming the camera at Eph. “Your spent brass?” she said.

  He stood next to them. She said, “Point north.” He did, and she took a photo for his report. All three of them were off at a good jog up the track. When they reached the spot where Maytubby and Bond had crossed the track, Bond told Eph to continue up the track to the highway to make sure Love had not detoured or abandoned the pickup. Then Maytubby and Bond jogged east back down to Peter Sandy Creek.

  “F?” Maytubby said.

  “Ephraim,” she said.

  “As in ‘Asher,’ ‘Dan,’ ‘Gad.’”

  “Yep. Tribe … of … Israel,” she panted.

  “Like ‘Maytubby.’”

  “Mm-hm.”

  They slowed into the small clearing and walked to the vehicles.

  “I need to disable the pickup,” Maytubby said.

  “Yo,” Bond called to him, pulling its coil wire from her pants pocket.

  He nodded, gave her a thumbs-up, pulled his emergency water jug from his cruiser trunk. “You got a tea bag?” he said as he filled Bond’s flask.

  They stood panting in the shade of the persimmon tree Love’s truck had bitten. She drank slowly. “Ach. It is hot. But I wouldn’t care if it was boiling.” She cell-phoned Eph to remind him that Love could hear the radio. He was walking to meet a ride on State 7.

  Maytubby filled his flask and drank deep. “Hannah, I don’t think Love’s going on the road. The state’ll have an APB by now. He knows he wouldn’t get three miles, even if he doesn’t know that truck has a GPS locator. I think he’ll go back in, but not as far down as the Wildlife Area campsites—on this side of the river. We can go in from the South on Bold Springs Road.

  “You figure?” They drank and listed to a mockingbird running through its repertoire. Bond was not convinced. She had found him and didn’t want to lose him.

  “I’m going down there. Wanna come?”

  “How is Love going to get down there?”

  “Turn around.”

  “Eph’ll shoot him.”

  Maytubby walked quickly toward his cruiser. “Yeah.”

  Bond’s cell buzzed, and Maytubby stopped. After she said “Bond,” a hornet din spilled from the phone. She held it back from her ear and mouthed, “Let’s go,” to Maytubby as she jumped in her cruiser. “Easy, Eph,” he heard her say before she closed her door.

  As they sped south down 48A, Maytubby called Ardmore OHP dispatch on his cell and told them to move their trooper to the west of the river, the intersection of Bullard Chapel Road and Harbert Road. He explained what was going on, and reminded the dispatcher about the white Cobalt. He again supplied the plate.

  Turning west on Bold Springs, Maytubby watched Bond’s cruiser through the plume of dust he was kicking up. The road wound a bit, then headed due north toward a hairpin in the Blue, where it forded the river on a low-water crossing. Just shy of the river, Maytubby and Bond parked their cruisers on either side of the road for whatever scarecrow effect they might have.

  Tying on his damp bandanna as he walked fast, Maytubby slid down into the dry bed of Peter Sandy Creek, with Bond right behind him. They climbed up the other bank on exposed blackjack roots and began to jog over a flat clearing. “Why didn’t Eph shoot Love?” Maytubby whispered.

  “He thought somebody else was coming down the track. He was going to wave ’em down. Love came around the bend so fast, Eph had to dive out of the way. Landed on a prickly pear. He was mad as a cut snake.”

  “Did he turn around and follow the pickup?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good … I think.”

  They slowed a bit, stopped now and then to listen. The river, on their left, masked any sound short of a gunshot. Maytubby sniffed hard for tobacco smoke. Nothing but sy
camore, which was pleasant but not very helpful. A quarter hour, and they had found no sign. They walked nearer the river, where the bank had been walked by fishermen. A few prints led into the water, but they were from rubber waders.

  “Let’s find the truck and work from there,” he said.

  It wasn’t far above them, in a clearing. The driver’s door was open, the alarm dinging. They both fought the impulse to shut it. Love’s bootprints backtracked alongside the unimproved road he had driven. He had bought himself some time. The farther Love followed the road back north, the more likely he would at least have to avoid Eph. Bond cell-phoned the deputy to warn him. Maytubby disliked the idea of Eph confronting Love alone almost as much as he disliked the idea of Hannah doing the same, though for different reasons.

  So he was a little relieved when the tracks disappeared on a stone outcrop and did not continue in a straight line on the other side. Love was taking more care now that he was in a foot game. Maytubby and Bond quickly walked the rock’s perimeter until Bond found the trail exiting on the river side. As they made their way down, following Love’s wafflestompers, they decided Eph should about-face again and meet his ride as planned. Bond could radio Eph because Love had abandoned the pickup.

  The last few yards to the river were steep and rocky. Once again they butt-slid down to the water. And once again they each took a bank. Hannah suggested walking south because uncleared land spread farther west of the river that way. They waded south through shallow whitewater toward the hairpin. Maytubby dipped his bandanna in the cold spring water, wiped his face with it, and slid it back on his head. A harrier sailed low over the river, a snake twisting in its talons.

  Halfway around the crescent, Bond found the dusty west bank, smudged by Love’s wet boots. She tossed a pebble at Maytubby’s back. Hunching instinctively, he then turned to follow her. Finding Love’s trail, they jogged. Bond’s boots sucked and squished. She altered her steps, curled her toes, but nothing worked. At this point, stealth was not likely the main issue. They threaded a mile of rolling woods, sometimes stopping to listen or pick up a lost trail.

  They neared the edge of wooded land, which jutted like a peninsula from the river. Love would not expose himself on the prairie. He could only double back.

  Just before the crest of a rise, Maytubby stopped and knelt in the underbrush. “I go straight left; you go straight right.”

  Bond nodded and waded into some brambles. Maytubby went south, moving pretty fast. He danced around a bull snake. It hissed and shook its tail. No sign that Love had passed anywhere.

  He was rope-walking a fallen log over a creek bed when a pistol report threw him off balance. He tried a pirouette to get himself going the right way but fell off the log. When he landed, he regretted for an instant not having worn shoes.

  He recognized the sound of Hannah’s stumpy old Model 10 from the CLEET range. Once out of the creek, Maytubby sprinted until he could hear brush snapping and locate it. Then he veered right and ran even faster, trying to get ahead of the chase. Soon he was, and he wheeled left to get between the commotion and the river.

  He found a sturdy buttonbush at the water’s edge, stepped up its laddered trunk, and peered through the toxic leaves. He laid his palm on his pistol. Love was coming straight toward him, with Hannah not far behind. At fifty yards, Love’s face was pallid and sweat slick. His winded-man grimace showed black teeth.

  Maytubby swung down. He hit Love high, and Bond hit him low.

  “You … elephant … cunt!” Love screamed at Bond, gasping for air.

  Hannah’s face was smeared with dirt, and blood ran from her nose onto Love’s throat. She twisted a sheaf of his greasy hair and held the edge of a stag-handled bowie against his throat. She glared at him and ground her teeth.

  She feinted with her elbow, and Love flinched.

  “Tongue,” she said to Maytubby, though she was staring at Love. “Tongue and gravy and hash browns.” Then she tossed the knife at Maytubby’s feet. He covered Bond with his pistol, tossed her a set of PlastiCuffs, and recited the warrant and Love’s rights while she cuffed his hands and feet and frisked him. She was panting and sweat drenched. Maytubby uncapped his flask, pulled Love to a sitting position, and poured water in his mouth. He swallowed greedily.

  While they were catching their wind, Bond and Maytubby sat on boulders, drinking water and keeping an eye on Love, who looked like a corpse left out in the rain. Tossing her head in the direction she and Love had come, she said, “Signal shot, warning shot, whatever. Watch him.”

  After she disappeared through the possumhaw, he heard her splashing in the river. When she reappeared, her face was clean but for a drop of blood on her upper lip. “He kicked me.”

  “Resisting arrest, assault on an officer, using the C-word.” Maytubby faced Bond and held out the stag bowie on his palm. “Spitting image of the murder weapon, huh? Except this one isn’t custom. Company stamp. Silver Stag Pacific Bowie. Could you tell them apart?”

  She studied it as she stanched the blood from her nose. “Not on a bet.”

  To Bond, Maytubby said, “I’m going to cut your hobble.” She drew her revolver and trained it on Love while her partner first unbuckled Love’s deerskin scabbard and then freed his legs with the Bowie. Maytubby buckled on the scabbard. “You got your camera, Hannah?”

  “Left pants pocket.”

  Maytubby photographed the knife and then sheathed it. After both officers radioed their dispatchers, and the OHP had been notified, Maytubby took Love by the arm and steadied him as they forded the river. Bond followed.

  Chapter 13

  Maytubby had Love booked into Johnston County until Pontotoc County, the closest jail to LHP headquarters, had a free cell the next morning. The nation didn’t have its own jail. Since Love had no attorney, Maytubby arranged for a Chickasaw public defender to be at Pontotoc. He called Jill and related the sequel.

  In A-OK Pizza on Tishomingo’s Main Street, Maytubby finished his third glass of ice water after ordering a side salad and a small sweet pepper and olive pizza. Bond ordered a medium meat lover’s and drained a second tumbler of sweet tea. The Landmark Bank sign across the street read 106 at 1:49.

  Maytubby dipped a paper napkin in his water glass and beckoned to Bond to lean forward. He wiped dried blood off her upper lip. Until she leaned back in the booth, he had not registered the strange intimacy of the gesture.

  He said, “How’d you come to locate and pursue Austin Love before dawn? That’s not your shift.”

  “Couldn’t sleep. Can’t imagine why. Sheriff lets me take a cruiser if I buy the gas.”

  “So you’ve been driving around the county all night on the off chance you’d cross paths, like Ahab trolling the seas for Moby Dick?”

  “That bastard preyed on my mind.”

  Maytubby nodded, watching her spread hands slide slowly back and forth on the tabletop. A plum blotch was spreading over her face.

  “I had just made a Uie on 377 at the Pontotoc County line, real close to where I changed Tate’s tire. Was almost to Connerville when these headlights approach real fast from behind. That ’66 has a big V-8. I would have pursued anyway, but I wouldn’t have known it was Love except he passed me in Connerville right where there’s that one streetlight in front of the volunteer fire department. Looked like grim Death in a Ford. My radar put him at a hundred and two. Wouldn’t pass a cop if he wasn’t hopped up. I was afraid I’d lose him before I could goose the Five-Hundred to catch him.”

  The pizzas arrived, and she started in on hers, giving Maytubby’s order a disapproving glance. “He led me a merry chase,” she said with her mouth full. “Up and down the paved section roads.”

  “You see him throw anything out the window?”

  “Cigarette butts.”

  “No cell in the truck or on him. I wonder where he expected to go when he went into the woods.”

/>   “Woods better than open prairie. That truck was out of gas.”

  “True,” Maytubby said. “Where could he have been going so fast at that hour? He probably dumped any meth bags he might have had.”

  “And only two rocks in his pocket. Nothing urgent there.”

  “Except it’s supposed to be really fun to drive fast when you’re cranked.”

  “Least I can sleep tonight.” She tore a piece of her pizza in half and held it up as if to propose a toast. “Sleep even better if I’d killed him.”

  Maytubby ate his salad. A red-faced old man in overalls and no shirt was riding a mule bareback down Main Street. When the mule pulled even with the back of Bond’s cruiser, the rider pulled back on the hackamore reins and stopped the mule. Presently, the mule raised its tail and shat on the pavement. Its rider gently urged it on down the street.

  Maytubby looked at Bond and raised his brows.

  “Alvie Wright. Four DUIs. We have to pay.”

  “He ever ride under the influence?”

  “He ever not?”

  They finished their meal in silence. Maytubby paid, and they stood for a moment in the hot shadow of the old brick facade. Bond worked a toothpick with her lips.

  “I owe you two, Hannah.”

  “You could buy me some dry socks.”

  Chapter 14

  At headquarters, Sheila gave Maytubby a thumbs-up after buzzing him in the front door. Chief Fox appeared from a suite of windowless offices and congratulated him on Love’s capture.