Dog on the Cross

by Aaron Gwyn

  The deacon’s eyes narrowed. “Well,” he said, “we talked about shutting our ‘little camp meeting’ down this weekend. I mentioned something to Brother Leslie about it last night.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But with this—” Withers broke off and gestured toward the roadside—“I think we’d be waving the white flag if we broke off now.”

  “How’s that?” Martin asked.

  “You know how these things get around. Soon as you get someone out here to take that dog down, everybody in Perser will be talking about it. With Pastor Hassler getting sick on us and having to leave, the revival’s all that’s holding this church together.” Withers shook his head and glanced out the window.

  “Well,” said Martin, “you know I can’t make you all shut down. But if this Hollis character is the nut you say he is, I’m not sure if it’s the best idea to be up here raising a ruckus every night. You don’t know what someone like that—”

  “Arrest him,” Withers told the deputy. “Have one of your boys waiting to throw him in jail soon as he gets home. Get that big fella—what’s his name—Lemming. Get Dave Lemming out here.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re not sure Hollis did anything. We’re going to have to dust for prints, find out who the dog belongs to, question the neigh—You know how these things go, Doyle, you’ve seen Cops.”

  The longer he spoke, the more Withers’s expression began to tighten. By the time Martin finished, his mouth was a thin, straight line.

  Withers put rubber bands around the money and paper-clipped the checks, zipped everything into a First National bag. “Yeah,” he said, standing and gathering his things, “I know exactly how these things go.”

  EVENING FOUND MARTIN stretched in front of his television. He and his wife had divorced a few years prior, and he’d given her most of the furniture. Martin kept only his recliner, but an important-looking bolt had recently appeared beneath the foot-rest and he felt unsafe tilting it back. Lying on the floor in the flickering blue light, his lower back just beginning to knot, he decided when he got up the next morning he’d disassemble the chair until he found what the bolt was meant to be attached to. He was looking forward to having the weekend off.

  The day had taken its toll. Though Martin often complained about the dull nature of the calls he received, he’d realized for some time that he could not have endured it any other way. Some years back, he’d moved up north to a suburb of Minneapolis and taken a job with the U.S. Marshal Service. After several months, he was overwhelmed. It wasn’t as if he’d been unaware of the type of crime that went on—it was the sheer enormity of what he saw that made him resentful. Not disheartened or insecure concerning his abilities, but angry, righteously indignant. He did not blame the perpetrators so much as the residents and the city itself—that vast network of lights, concrete, and noise—an entity that seemed to constantly produce the things that destroyed it. It spoke something of a town that there could be three homicides, a rape, and countless robberies any given night. Martin could not help feeling that anyone foolish and lazy enough to allow such things to happen had very nearly deserved them.

  So, over the years, Perser had come to mean something quite particular to the deputy. He didn’t much care if the rest of the country, or even the rest of the state, fell into disarray, as long as Perser, the boring, stale, weary little town he grew up in, stayed exactly as he’d known it. This was what had upset him about Jacob Hollis, the fact that by all accounts he was an outsider causing unnecessary trouble. He’d not let on in front of the deacon—the man was excitable enough without further agitating him—but Martin was much less calm than he presented himself. Unlike Withers, he hadn’t already tried, convicted, and sentenced Hollis, but he couldn’t help recognizing there was a part of him that would have enjoyed nothing better than to jail this Easterner, hassle him until he moved back to where he came from.

  He flipped channels for several hours and had just started on his fifth beer when the phone rang. Martin glanced at his watch, saw it was nine thirty-seven, and thought about letting the machine answer. Rolling onto his knees, he made it to his feet and retrieved the phone on what sounded like its final ring. The voice on the other end was that of Sheriff Casteel. He said there had been another disturbance.

  Martin lived in a housing addition eight miles from the First Pentecostal, but it took him less time to cover the distance than it did to dress himself. When he pulled into the parking lot, he saw there were already two patrol cars in front of the building, a mass of men and women standing around the porch. An ambulance sat at the far end of the church; paramedics were loading an old woman onto a gurney.

  The deputy parked beside the ambulance, took up his flashlight, and walked over to where Sheriff Casteel was addressing a group of churchgoers. Passing Deputy Lemming’s car, he noticed they had placed a large, sandy-haired gentleman in the backseat. The man had a full beard, and Martin saw he had to rest his chin on his chest to keep his head from brushing the car’s roof. In the constricted posture, his hands cuffed behind him and his eyes forced to his lap, he looked to be praying.

  Casteel turned to face Martin just as he walked up. His khaki shirt was drenched and he seemed to be catching his breath. Martin looked over toward the ambulance and saw that Lemming was squatting against it with his head back, a bloodied rag held to his nostrils. Several paramedics were kneeling beside him tending to cuts on the man’s face.

  “Well,” the sheriff told him, “you missed more excitement than I’ve seen in a while. I get you out of bed?”

  “No,” said Martin, “I was awake.” He pointed over toward the ambulance. “What happened?”

  Casteel fumbled in his shirt pocket for cigarettes, lit one, and took a long drag. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

  The paramedics shut the ambulance doors, and the rig pulled onto the highway, it sirens springing suddenly to life. The vehicle receded behind the hill toward town.

  “Sounds like these people were right about Hollis,” said the sheriff. “Apparently, he came up here about a half hour ago and got into a scuffle with some of the men. That woman they just carted off is the evangelist’s grandmother. She got knocked down the steps.”

  “Hollis knocked her down?”

  “We’re not really sure, but it took four of us to pry him off Lemming. They say he might have a minor concussion.” Casteel shook his head and exhaled a long jet of smoke. “I thought Hollis was going to kill him.”

  Martin glanced over at the man sitting in the back of the patrol car. “He looks pretty sedate to me.”

  “Yeah,” Casteel told him, “they get that way when you hit them with four or five tasers.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Probably what he’s thinking.”

  Martin turned and saw that Doyle Withers was talking to a young, blond man on the porch. The deacon looked up, noticed the deputy, and began walking across the parking lot. Withers’s shirt was ripped and his tie dangled out of his rear pocket. His hair, normally slicked with careful strokes, was hanging about his face.

  “Hey,” he called in a voice rife with vindication, “reckon you’d come out and give us a hand?”

  “Thought about it,” Martin told him, realizing he’d taken a dislike to the man. “The hell happened?”

  “Well,” said Withers, crossing his arms and gesturing toward Lemming’s car with his chin, “like I already told the sheriff here, about forty-five minutes ago we were up at the altars having prayer, winding up the service and the rest of it, and all of a sudden I hear this commotion. Raised my head just in time to see Hollis come storming down the aisle, yelling ‘Beagle this’ and ‘Beagle that,’ and ‘What’d you sorry blankety-blanks do to my dog?’ Brother Paul walked up and tried to talk to him and he pushed Paulie over one of the pews and started in screaming.”

  Withers paused for a moment, cleared his throat. Martin found himself wishing he’d waited a
t Hollis’s home until the man had returned.

  “Next thing I knew, Duke and Brother Johnny had took hold of him. They drug him back up the aisle, got him outside, and that’s when Hollis went in swinging. The church was emptied by then and Sister Snodgrass was standing right up front like she does. Hollis pushed Johnny over into her and down she goes, ends up at the bottom of the steps. It’s only the Lord’s good grace she didn’t break her neck.”

  “So Hollis didn’t attack the woman directly.”

  Withers looked at the deputy in disbelief. “No,” he said. “He didn’t attack her directly. What’s that matter?”

  Martin sighed, looked briefly at his feet. “I don’t suppose it does.”

  “I don’t suppose it does either,” Withers told him. “Now you listen to me, Gerald. You’d arrested that man like I told you to, we wouldn’t have had to go through all this. Sister Delores wouldn’t be on her way to the hospital, bless her heart.”

  “I know,” the deputy muttered.

  “Well,” said Withers. He ran a hand across his forehead and gave Martin a slap on the shoulder. “The important thing is we got him. With this and the dog, he might even get himself a trip to McAlester.”

  Martin shook his head. “I’ll swing by tomorrow to check in on you all.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I’ll swing by tomorrow,” Martin told him.

  He talked a bit longer with Casteel, asked him if he needed anything, and then began walking to his car. Considering the deacon’s words, he blamed himself for not taking Hollis into custody earlier that day. As he passed the man, he couldn’t even look in his direction. Instead, he focused his attention on the moon that had just lately risen, squatting at the horizon like a pustule waiting to burst.

  MARTIN GOT VERY little sleep that night. When he climbed out of bed early the next morning, he called down to the hospital to check on Mrs. Snodgrass. The woman, he was told, had been treated for a broken ankle and would be released later in the day. Lemming, on the other hand, would have to be held at least seventy-two hours for observation. His concussion had turned out to be less minor than they’d thought.

  The deputy switched off his phone and sat holding the receiver. From where he was, he could see the recliner, the bolt he’d laid on one of its arms. Standing, he went into the living room and began to disassemble it.

  That evening he drove out to the First Pentecostal. There were a number of cars in the parking lot, several men sitting around the front steps balancing paper plates on their laps. He got out of his car and walked across the churchyard, the noise of cicadas swelling up from a field to the east.

  Inside, he found the congregation seated in the fellowship hall, most of them occupied with eating. From across the room he saw Doyle Withers raise a hand and wave. Martin went over and took the spot beside him.

  The two talked for a few minutes, and when Martin inquired about Mrs. Snodgrass, Withers offered to introduce him to the woman and her grandson. They got up and walked to the head of one of the tables where a teenage boy sat loading portions of baked beans onto a plastic spoon. The boy was sickly looking, pale. His hands were small and his arms thin. He did not seem to Martin like he was capable of holding a conversation, much less a revival.

  “Where’s your grandmamma?” Withers asked.

  The boy told them she was in the kitchen.

  Martin followed the deacon around a corner and into a small kitchen where several women were preparing food. Over by one wall, crutches beneath both her arms, stood Delores Snodgrass, talking with the cooks, overseeing the making of dessert. The woman had silver hair and a strong, angular face, only a few wrinkles around her gray eyes and mouth. She was wearing a full-length dress, and her sleeves were pushed onto her forearms. Other than the crutches and a walking cast, there was no sign of anything having happened to her.

  “Sister Snodgrass?”

  The woman turned toward the men and smiled.

  “I wanted to introduce you to someone,” Withers said. “This is Deputy Martin. I’ve known him for twenty years. He’s working on putting that Hollis in the penitentiary.”

  Mrs. Snodgrass swung her way over to the men, propped herself on the crutches, and extended a hand. Martin was surprised by the woman’s grip.

  “It’s nice to know you, deputy.”

  “Good to meet you.”

  “Can we fix you a plate?”

  “No ma’am, I can’t talk but a minute.”

  “You’re not staying for service?” she asked.

  “Actually,” he said, realizing the woman had somehow moved even closer to him, “they have to have me back at the station.”

  “I think you’d really enjoy hearing my Leslie preach.”

  Martin turned to Withers for help. The deacon’s face had broken out in a grin.

  “Well,” he told her, “I really need to get back.”

  “Would you at least like some coffee?”

  Martin said that he would.

  Mrs. Snodgrass turned to the counter, poured coffee into a Styrofoam cup, and handed it to Martin. He, Withers, and the old woman went back to the fellowship hall and took seats next to the evangelist. They talked for a while about the revival, how long Leslie had been preaching. Soon, the boy excused himself from the table, saying he had to spend some time in prayer before service. Martin watched him unfold his dress coat from the chair beside him, put it on and walk carefully from the room. There was something about Snodgrass’s voice that sharply countered the deputy’s first opinion of him. He shook his head and laughed.

  “That’s about the politest young man I’ve seen in years.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Snodgrass.

  “How old is he?”

  “He’ll be sixteen next March.”

  Martin sipped his coffee. “Are Mom and Dad here tonight?”

  “No,” said the woman, her face nearly expressionless. “It’s just him and me. Has been since he was five years old.”

  The deputy nodded, said she’d done a fine job. Mrs. Snodgrass replied that the Lord had done a lot more to raise the boy than she had.

  They talked longer and then Martin looked down to his coffee cup. He began telling the woman how sorry he was she’d been hurt. Smiling, she reached over and placed a hand atop the deputy’s.

  “I feel terrible about all of it,” he continued, “about you falling and the dog—” He stopped, cleared his throat.

  “Well,” said the woman, withdrawing her hand, “I believe everything happens for a reason.”

  The deacon nodded in agreement.

  “If I hadn’t hurt my ankle, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to meet you. And if that poor animal hadn’t—well, it’s awful, but, like Brother Withers says, the revival would just have shut down that much sooner and there’d be a lot of people Leslie wouldn’t have gotten to preach to. There might even have been someone lost over it.” The woman looked at him intently. “Just think about that.”

  Martin found he wasn’t able to think about it. All he could think of was Hollis, how he might ensure that serious charges were brought against the man.

  The deputy shifted in his chair. “You and your grandson actually went down one day and talked with him?”

  “Talked with who?”

  “Jacob Hollis.”

  “Yes,” said the woman, shaking her head. “I don’t know how much good it did, but maybe we planted a seed. I always tell Leslie that—”

  “Would you be willing to testify?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Testify,” Martin told her, “in court. There’ll be a hearing and it would help us a lot if you could just talk about what he said to you that day.”

  Mrs. Snodgrass seemed frightened by this. She laid a hand to her breast. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never even been inside a courthouse.”

  “It would be a huge help to us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive,” Martin said.


  The woman paused to consider Martin’s advice. Deacon Withers coughed into his fist.

  “Anyway,” said Martin, taking a final sip of his coffee, flattening the cup and stowing it in his pocket, “just give it some thought.”

  He rose from the table and picked his hat off the seat next to him, stood there holding it by the brim. “I suppose I ought to get,” he said. “It’s been real nice meeting you. Tell your grandson he’s an impressive young man.”

  Mrs. Snodgrass lifted her head and gave the deputy a confused look. Judging by her expression, she hadn’t believed he was going anywhere.

  MARTIN ENDED UP sitting through song service—song service, offering, sermon, and altar call. When he finally had the opportunity to make an exit, his neck was stiff and his shoulder blades ached from being pressed into the pew. On his way out of the building, he met Mrs. Snodgrass in the foyer. She shook his hand and said she hoped to see him the following night. He told her he’d do his best to make it.

  The next afternoon, he drove down to the station and found Sheriff Casteel pacing about his office. It was Martin’s day off, but the fingerprint results were due sometime that evening and the deputy wanted to be there when they arrived. The lab report had not yet come in, but Hollis’s lawyer had flown from Connecticut the night before. The sheriff said that this was what he’d feared all along: an Eastern attorney coming into town to create problems at pretrial. For days he had tried to get Hollis to consent to an interview, but the man knew the Miranda warning all too well. His lawyer had told him to say nothing until he arrived. It was only a few hours prior, after having spoken with his attorney, that Jacob Hollis informed the sheriff he was willing to be interviewed. Standing there in his office with the case file laid open on the desk before him, Casteel asked if Martin would conduct the interrogation. He thought the deputy’s experience in the marshall service might give him an advantage.

  “We’ll definitely get him on assault and battery,” said the sheriff, “felony assault of an officer. But even then he might be able to get off with probation and a fine.”