I took a deep breath. “Is he dead?”
Norma Faye shook her head and her eyes were full of hurt. It made me want to cry. “No, but he’s in bad shape. Dogs or coyotes backed him into an armadillo hole and he fought ’em off, but it cost him.”
“Where is he?”
“Cody pulled him out and took him up to your house. I came back to get some monkey blood.” We used the red liquid, really called mercurochrome, to treat cuts and scrapes. It stung like the devil, and stained everything it touched. “Your Uncle Wilbert is on the way. Hootie needs sewing up.”
Pepper gasped behind me. The full effect of what had happened finally fell on her and she started crying. “I hate this place! It’s all killing and dying and hurt!”
I didn’t have time to listen to her. I jumped on the pedals and took off for the house, pumping hard to see about my dog that saved my life two years ago.
Chapter Sixteen
Martha Wells’ calm voice on Ned’s Motorola belied the urgency she felt. “All units. All units! Robbery in progress at the First National Bank. Two individuals. One man, one woman, driving a late model green Ford sedan. They are armed and dangerous.”
Ned was parked on the dirt road next to his cotton field in the river bottoms, studying his straight rows and the green plants growing strong in the rich soil. Looking at his crops always eased his troubled mind and helped him think.
He’d stopped by one of the unpainted shacks not far away to visit with the farmer and his wife who lived there. Tommy Lee’s murder still weighed heavily, because Ned could find no reason, and though their community was tiny, no one had a clue as to what happened. It seemed impossible, because folks in small towns always knew everyone’s business.
He flicked to a different channel and keyed the microphone. “Cody.”
His voice came back quickly. “I heard. Where do we need to go?”
“Head for Arthur City. We’ll set up there in case they make a run for Oklahoma.” Like spokes on a wheel, nine hardtop roads led out of Chisum. “Griffin’ll try and sew the town up, but they’ll already be gone.”
“Okay. Got some bad news. Hootie’s been chewed up by dogs.”
Ned held the microphone away from his mouth for a moment. “Sonofabitch.”
“Did you get that?”
Ned keyed the mike. “Yep. How bad?”
“Pretty rough. I took him to the house.” Cody looked down at the dog’s blood on his shirt cuffs, and under his fingernails. “Miss Becky called Wilbert Johns to come over and doctor him. I’ve been looking for the kids.”
Thick and built like a stump, Wilbert had a way with sick animals. Top once called him to remove a fishhook from Hootie’s leg when he tangled with a cane pole stored in the smokehouse. Though in considerable pain, Hootie settled down to the sound of Wilbert’s calm voice and allowed him to push the sharp point completely through the meat, then skin, of his right foreleg, clip off the barb, and then pull the shank back out.
Cody made a U-turn on the highway, stomped on the foot-feed, and the El Camino’s engine roared. He cleared his throat. “He’s gonna have to do a lot of sewing on that poor pup. Even then I don’t know if he’s gonna live.”
Despite the tiny speaker and wind noise in the background, Ned heard the young man’s voice tremble.
“You Parkers need to clear this channel for official business!”
Cody bit his lip instead of answering Sheriff Griffin’s curt interruption. Hanging the mike in its bracket, he passed Ned’s farmhouse on the hill. From the brief glimpse as he zipped by, he saw Wilbert working on the dog, using the tailgate of his old truck as a makeshift table. Miss Becky held Hootie’s head, and the kids sat on the bed rails.
Cody wanted to stop, but the robbery took precedence. Highway 271 was an obvious escape route from Chisum and the only one within miles leading to Oklahoma. He skipped over the Sanders Creek Bridge and nearly bottomed out when the road rose sharply. He barely hit the high spots in the winding, tree-lined road leading from the creek bottoms. Cody tapped the brakes when he reached the Arthur City railroad crossing, and shot across the empty lane coming out of Oklahoma.
Ned’s car engine ticked as it cooled under an oak tree south of the Oklahoma bridge. Cody was surprised to find him waiting so close to the river. If the robbers saw him in time, they could turn and shoot toward Center Springs. Cody pulled up and stopped with enough room to maneuver if the green Ford appeared.
He met Ned between the cars. “Why did you park here? Shouldn’t we be a little further south, so they can’t dodge around us and head toward the creek?”
“I’d rather have them go that way. If they see a chance to get away instead of crossing the river, they’ll head west, and them windin’ roads’ll slow ’em down enough so we can stay on ’em. John’s visiting his lady friend out by Forest Chapel. If they come by, I can call him up on the radio and catch ’em between us.”
“Radio said there was two of them.”
“You think one of them might have been that stranger you saw at the courthouse taking pictures the other day?”
“Could be.” Cody positioned himself to see down the highway. In the distance, a cream-colored 1955 Chevy came over the hill and down the tiered incline leading to the river. It passed at a sedate speed, driven by a man they both knew. He raised a hand in greeting, and the Parkers did the same.
Cody nodded his head toward the oncoming traffic. “We’ll see them before they realize we’re waiting here.”
“That’s the idea…look, here comes a sheriff’s car now. I guess that means they went another way, or he’d be lit up like a Christmas tree.”
The constables watched the black and white Chevrolet hiss down the hill and roll to a stop at Cody’s bumper. Deputy White killed the engine and stepped out from behind the wheel at the same time Sheriff Griffin emerged from the other side.
Cody quickly cut his eyes toward Ned, watching the muscles swell in his jaw.
Griffin strolled up and stuck his thumbs in his hand-tooled gun belt. “Looks like they got away. Probably while y’all were talking about dogs.”
“What are you doing here?” Ned squinted at the man he despised. “Don’t you need to be back in town?”
Before Griffin could answer, Deputy White stepped in. “Our first reports said they originally headed this way out of town, but then they disappeared. The sheriff thought we’d make a run this direction and see if y’all saw anything.”
“That’s what the Motorola’s for.” Ned wasn’t buying it. “I’d-a thought you’d be back in your office, running things from there.”
Griffin pushed upward on his toes and bounced lightly, thumbs still in his belt. “I have men working every highway out of Chisum. I’ll head back that way, directly. The FBI is on the way from Dallas, along with the Rangers. Pretty soon, it’ll mostly be out of my hands.”
For once, Ned had to agree with the paper sheriff. The feds and Rangers had the reputation of quickly taking over investigations. “Anybody get hurt?”
“Naw.” White preferred to answer as many questions as possible, to keep Ned and Griffin from tangling. He’d once been in the fledgling K-9 Corps, but lost his enthusiasm for nearly everything after his dog, Shep, was killed in the Cotton Exchange. “They were in and out pretty quick. Nobody got shot, so that’s a blessing. I hear that someone you know was in the bank when they hit it.”
“Who was that?”
“Isaac Reader. He was the only customer when it was robbed.”
Cody grinned at the thought, and Ned rubbed the back of his neck. “I reckon I’ll hear about that for the rest of my life. Do you have a good description of these two?”
Griffin rocked back on his heels and cut White off. “The man wore a dark suit, white shirt, and a city hat. The woman was a little taller and in a dress so tight the window clerk said it looked like it was p
ainted on her. Both had pistols, and the woman carried a pump gun.
“Neither one said much more than get your hands up. The rest of it went like they’d planned it for months. We haven’t had a bank robbery here since the forties. It makes me look bad to have one now.”
“You being sheriff don’t have nothin’ to do with a robbery.” Ned’s eyes flicked to a farm truck coming over the hill. “I don’t reckon outlaws vote on who they want in the sheriff’s office before they rob a bank.”
In an effort to keep Ned and Griffin from tangling, White re-directed the conversation. “Hey, I heard your grandboy’s dog’s in bad shape. I’m sorry.” The thought of an injured dog dug at the deputy. “He gonna make it?”
“We’ll see.”
“I know you set a lot of store behind that pup.”
“Yeah, he saved Top’s butt…” Ned trailed off when he realized he was talking out of school. No one knew of Hootie’s involvement when The Skinner disappeared a couple of years earlier. Ned’s frustration grew a little each time he let something slip about that night at the Rock Hole. “…a couple of times out running the woods. He’s a good…snake dog.”
“Well, I hope he makes it. Dogs are special.”
“White, we need to go.” Griffin had lost interest in the conversation. “I figured it’d be a good idea to check on the oldest constable in the county. Wanted to make sure the bad guys didn’t get through here into the territories.”
Ned bristled. “I don’t believe that’s why you’re here at all. You know we can handle whatever comes down the highway.”
Griffin bristled right back. “Maybe they’re headed to Cody’s joint over there to divvy up the money.”
The young constable raised an eyebrow. “You saying I had something to do with it?!”
Deputy White held out a calming hand. “Now, Cody, take it easy. The sheriff said he wanted to make sure things were all right is all. One of the robbers looked Indian, so he figured they’d head this way.”
“You better be careful, Griffin.” Ned recalled Top’s photographs in his safe deposit box in the bank. His breath caught when he realized what the bank robbers might have taken. “They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, and I reckon we got about nine hundred and ninety nine of them words put up safe. The last word we’re looking for is ‘guilty.’”
Griffin stopped and frowned. The old constable seldom said anything without meaning.
Ned ignored the sheriff. Instead, he addressed White. “Did the robbers open the safe deposit boxes, too?”
“They only got into a couple of the boxes before they got scared and took off.”
“Find out who owned ’em.” Ned breathed slow and lowered his voice. “I’d like to know. They may have stole from folks up here on the river.”
“It looks like they were after certain boxes, that’s a fact.” White caught a glare from Griffin, but didn’t understand why he couldn’t tell the facts to the two lawmen. “They went straight to work on them. They’re comparing the numbers right now to the records.”
Ned felt his stomach sink. To make it seem like he didn’t care about the boxes, he crossed his arms and leaned back on the hood. “How much cash was took?”
White shook his head. “They’re counting now, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty or seventy thousand or so.”
Griffin was ready to go. “White, we’ll head on back, if these two have things in hand.”
“We do.”
A deputy sheriff’s car coming from Center Springs stopped at the railroad track as the driver studied the three cars beside the road. A hundred yards away, three well-dressed men photographed each other beside the Texas state marker. Griffin had been watching them since he arrived. He redirected his anger toward the vehicle. “Is that Washington?”
Ned barely gave the car a glance. “I believe it is.”
“Why’s he coming from that direction?” Washington and the Parker clan had a bond that went as deep as family. It annoyed Griffin to no end that all of them were beyond his reach, protected by Judge O.C. Rains. The cranky old judge was a fixture in Chisum, and would be until the day he died. Until then, he was Griffin’s second-worst enemy.
Ned was the first.
They watched the deputy’s car crossed the highway and joined the cluster of cars. Big John Washington stepped out and opened the rear passenger door. A well-dressed young man emerged, hands cuffed behind his back.
John pointed at the group of lawmen, and his prisoner walked in their direction.
Cody tilted his Stetson back and raised his eyebrows. “Hello, Tony.”
Chapter Seventeen
Still conscious, Hootie whimpered from the pain as Uncle Wilbert washed his deep wounds with warm, soapy water from the dishpan Miss Becky brought out of the kitchen. “Becky, bring me a needle and some thread, and Ned’s shaving razor.”
I sat on the tailgate with Hootie’s bloody head in my lap. He was cut up bad by the wild dogs, and I couldn’t see how he was still alive. Warm tears kept running down my cheeks, but I wasn’t bawling like Pepper. It sounded like she was chewed up herself.
“Do you think he’s gonna make it?”
Uncle Wilbert’s heavy face was a blank mask. His thick hands worked through the open wounds, probing and scrubbing with the now bloody dish rag. “Can’t tell you, son. I see bone here, and guts through there.” He washed a long tear in Hootie’s front leg. “These bluish things are tendons.” He shook his shaggy head. “I don’t see how he’s still alive.”
I glanced up to see Pepper with both hands over her mouth and a horrified look in her eyes. He could have gone all day without telling me the truth, but Uncle Wilbert never was much on hiding his thoughts. In fact, none of the men in town held back on what they were thinking. They lived in a real world of hurt and fact. There wasn’t a lot of gray.
Miss Becky came down the steps with her sewing box and a half full quart fruit jar of Doak Looney’s white lighting from Grandpa’s evidence collection in the smokehouse. She set it on the tailgate and opened the box’s lid. “Did you look at them guts? Are they cut?”
Uncle Wilbert grunted at the little Choctaw woman who’d spent hours on her knees, praying for him to quit drinking. “I don’t believe so. They didn’t get inside to start chewing on him. This is one smart little dog to use that hole to keep his backside safe. Other than this long tear in his stomach, the rest of the bites are on his head, shoulders, and front legs.”
“Praise the Lord.” Miss Becky sorted through the wooden spools of color. “I got this waxed thread here.” She threaded a needle and held it out.
“No, ma’am.” Uncle Wilbert raised a thick hand, like warding off something that scared him. “This is gonna hurt awful bad, and he might bite me. I doubt he’ll do the same to you, since he knows you.” He wiggled his wet, bloody fingers. “Besides, these are too fat to do that kind of work. Horses and cows are one thing, but sewing this dog up is sump’n else. Top, you keep a-holt of his head while I finish cleanin’ up around these cuts, and then you get to work, Becky.”
My grandmother sewed all the time, but it was on quilts stretched and rolled on the rack dangling from the living room ceiling, or material pinned to the thin Simplicity or Butterick patterns on the kitchen table. She made the blue dress she wore. “This’ll make me a nervous wreck.”
Uncle Wilbert carefully shaved around the deepest cuts and tears with Grandpa’s Gillette safety razor, and then washed more blood and hair away. He unscrewed the lid off the jar and took a long sip. Miss Becky didn’t say a word about his drinking. One day she’d testify against liquor, and the next, she’d hand someone a bottle or jar of white lightning if she figured they needed it. After a second swallow, he held the jar over the Hootie’s wounds and let the clear alcohol dribble over the cuts and tears.
It must have stung like the Dickens, but Hootie o
nly whimpered. He buried his head in the crook of my arm, as if to hide from the fear and pain. I thought Uncle Wilbert would never get through washing those dog bites, but I didn’t expect what came next. He finally moved aside and Miss Becky took his place at the tailgate.
I watched her wrinkled face. Her chin quivered. She wasn’t scared, just tenderhearted. She carefully smoothed a large flap of skin back into place on Hootie’s shoulder and held it for a moment. “All right, baby. This is gonna hurt.”
She thought for a moment, and instead of sewing his shoulder first, Miss Becky started with the rip in his stomach. I was glad. I was afraid his intestines would pooch out if he started thrashing around.
Hootie’s shriek cut the air the first time she pushed the needle through the raw skin of the deepest slash. Her eyes filled.
Somehow he got my thumb in his mouth and bit down hard enough to dent the skin. He could have chewed it off, but he didn’t shower down on it at all. I knew better than to try and yank it away, so instead, I held him and whispered in his split ear until he quit thrashing. Hootie settled down, but he whined like a hurt baby each time she pushed the needle into the flesh. His muscles quivered in a terrible way while my tears dripped down onto the old scar on his head.
Miss Becky blinked quickly to dry her own eyes and moved a little to the side so the bright sun could shine directly where she was working. When she finished that first tear, the tight little stitches pulling the wound together would have made Dr. Heinz, our family doctor, proud. Her chin had quit quivering by that time, and she started the shoulder slash. Watery blood and clear fluid leaked from more than a dozen other holes in his skin.
She kept up a stream of soft baby talk while she worked. Miss Becky didn’t usually talk that way, but I figured she did it to keep Hootie calm. It made me feel better, all the same.
Pepper sat on the truck’s bed rail in silence, staring off in the distance toward Oklahoma through puffy eyes. She looked like a mainspring that was wound so tight it would swarm if the pressure was released. Every minute or so, she wiped tears away with the palm of her hand and dried it on her jeans.
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