by George Wier
So many things came into me at once and in an instant I sorted them all and placed them all in their proper repositories, tagging each by relative importance: the extra truck and car parked on the side of the highway closer to Sandy Jones’ house than to his next door neighbor; the wetness of the porch and the muddied tracks there, both mine and Sandy’s and the dying man’s; the swish of someone running through high grass from the rear of the house; the neighbor’s front porch light coming on; a car passing by on the highway, it’s high-beams flicking off as another car hove into view around the corner; the moisture in the air; names winnowing up to the surface of a pond inside my head; and finally my own feet and hands, moving as if of their own accord.
I raised the shotgun as a figure emerged from the blackness beside the house at a dead run.
“Hold it!” the words leapt from my throat, unbidden.
The shotgun in my hands tracked him even as he came to a slip-sliding stop and a hand waved in the air, a gun subtended from it for balance at the last moment.
“Drop it!” I yelled.
“Dad?!” The young man said. His attention wasn’t on me, but instead on the large man at my feet.
“Drop it!” I said softly.
His arms came down, lax. He still held the gun. I wasn’t sure whether or not he knew he had one there. I wanted it gone before he realized it.
I took five quick steps toward him and jerked it out of his hand and threw it into the shadow.
“Daddy?” he said to the man on the ground.
“I’m sorry, son,” I said.
“Daddy?”
“Go to him,” I said.
The kid went. He was no more than a high school kid, perhaps seventeen.
He knelt down into the wet grass and mud and lifted the man’s head.
I came close to them, hovering, hovering. I could have been a hummingbird, I felt so small and out of place. How suddenly everything can change.
There was blood on the man’s lips. The kid tried to wipe it away, but more came.
“Call an ambulance,” I turned and yelled at the neighbor on his front porch.
“There’s... no need,” the man said, and coughed.
“Why, Daddy?” the kid cried.
“I’m killed, son,” he said, and those were his last words.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I’d forgotten. The Jones’ house was across the county line into Grimes County. I remembered the instant the first of several sheriff’s cruisers pulled up to the house.
An ambulance came and then turned around and went back when it was discovered their patient was deceased. We waited for the coroner, and while we waited, the house had more men and women in it in uniform than I had ever seen inside a police station at once.
A blue plastic tarpaulin covered the body outside. The kid was standing there, dazed. Sheriff’s deputies tried talking to him. He had handcuffs on, but if he came fully awake and aware, I was ready. He’d been coming for me, which was a little odd, seeing as how I had on handcuffs as well.
Dotty and the kids were at the neighbor’s house, and occasionally one came outside onto the front porch, but a slender black hand quickly came out and hauled him or her back inside. Eventually the neighbor’s front porch light clicked off. I was thankful. I didn’t want anyone of the present crew going over there.
“Why’d you shoot him, Mr. Travis?” a man asked me for the dozenth time, hoping I would change my story. When I didn’t answer him he said: “Are you sure somebody else didn’t shoot him?”
I didn’t answer. I was watching the kid, who didn’t seem to know I was even there. It was likely he’d be figuring it out before long. He’d remember me, and it would come in a roaring flood back to him, and then there would be hell to pay.
“It would be easier if you cooperated with us, Mr. Travis,” another deputy said.
“Call me Bill,” I said. It was my grandest admission that night.
Sandy Jones was being questioned separately by five deputies at once. They were poking him and prodding him with words. I was hoping he wouldn’t spring the wrong leak.
We watched as the body was carefully photographed, the flashes like localized lightning, before it was loaded into the coroner’s wagon, which took over an hour to arrive from Anderson, the county seat. The boy was packed into the rear of a sheriff’s vehicle, a sheriff’s deputy’s hand on his head pushing downward so he wouldn’t bump it going in.
Five minutes later someone found the other pistol. I was hoping my prints weren’t on it. That would take even further explaining. As I recalled it hadn’t been in my hand but a second before it went flying into the wet grass and the darkness.
An hour later the cuffs were removed from my wrists.
I stood and waited.
The sheriff had finally arrived and I was about to get a lecture.
“You’re William B. Travis?” he asked me.
He was a tall and soft-spoken fellow in his mid-fifties. He had grizzled gray hair and a chew of tobacco in his jaw. I liked him right off and thought I could possibly talk to him like a human being.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“What one word did you hear tonight that shut you up like a clam?” he asked me. It was a funny question, but I liked it. I thought about it.
“‘Nigger’,” I said. “I was visiting a friend when this man and his son came knocking on the door with the butt of a forty-five. He was going to burn the house down around us if we didn’t throw out a bag of gold.”
“‘Nigger’,” he repeated. “‘Bag of gold.’ Be damned,” he said.
“Truth, sir.”
“I believe you. I don’t think you boys had time to get any stories straight between you. Sandy bears all that out. So does his wife and kids and your lady friend. Even the neighbor saw you with the shotgun. Why’d you shoot him through the door?”
I looked into the man’s eyes in the glaring bare porch light. He was waiting, weighing. I knew that I would have to make it real and good.
“I used to have a dog,” I told him. “Good dog, gentle as he could be. But if I left the house and he somehow got out, he would terrorize the neighborhood and bite people.”
“Yeah?”
“So the answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know why that good dog would do that. Maybe he was mad I was gone. Maybe not. The thing is, he would just do it. You asked me why I shot that man through the door. I won’t say it was self-defense because that would be a lie. But what I will say is true to an extent, and that is: I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“All right, Mr. Travis. All right.” He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder as if to comfort me. “One last question. What kind of shotgun do you have?”
“Winchester 12 gauge. Eight in the barrel, one in the chamber.”
The Sheriff nodded. “You do know your gun. I have something to tell you, and I want you to listen to me, Mr. Travis.”
“Bill,” I said.
“Fine. Sometimes when a fellow kills another fellow, bad things begin to happen to him. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in the best and bravest of men. Their wits go south on them. They wind up tormenting them-selves the way a bad tooth will torment a fellow if it isn’t looked after until the fellow wishes he were dead just to relieve the pain. You seem like a nice fellow. What happened here was a terrible thing. Pretty terrible. And you got scared. You were protecting your friends and your lady friend. You shot through that door because of a miscommuni-cation, you hear me? A man died because he was a plumb fool, you tracking with me? Yeah, you are. So when your conscience comes calling on you, remember to tell it those things. If you have any guns in your house, I’d get rid of them before it comes calling.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He stood back, looking at me, and I got the sense that he was slightly near-sighted.
“Seems like you want to ask me something,” he said, his eyes probing even more deeply.
“I sure do,” I said.
�
��Out with it.”
“What was his name? The man I killed.”
The Sheriff signed.
“Throckmorton,” he said. “Terrance Throckmorton. A respected man around here. He ran the power plant.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I have something to tell you, Mr. Travis,” the Sheriff said, and at that moment I realized I still didn’t know his name.
“Yeah?”
“When my boys patted you down, they took everything you had out of your pockets, including your cell phone. About an hour ago it rang. Your wife. You’re the proud father of a baby girl, seven pounds, three ounces.”
And that’s when I fainted.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When I awoke on Sandy Jones’ living room couch, the last person I expected to see was sitting in the easy chair next to me. I sat up. My head spun for a moment. Someone had told me something and then I remembered nothing after that.
“Oh,” I said. “Hi, Mike.”
“Hi yourself,” he said.
“What’s eating you?” I asked.
“I knew that if you got all mixed up in this, that people were going to die. My boss is dead.”
“What does that make you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You mean in the company? We’ll see.”
Sandy Jones came into the living room and handed Mike Fields a cup of hot coffee.
“Thanks, Sandy,” Mike said. “What are we going to do with Travis here?”
“What do you mean?” Sandy asked. “He’s not under arrest.”
“Tell me the truth, Sandy,” Mike said. “Who really shot him? I buy that bullshit about coon hunting about as easy as I buy the conspiracy theory that the moon landing was faked.”
“But it was,” Sandy said.
“What?”
“Faked. The moon landing.”
“Aw, shut up, Sandy,” Mike said. He turned to me.
“I heard all about the bag of gold and the threat to burn the house down. I don’t know what to believe. So maybe you’d better tell me everything, Bill.”
I looked over at Sandy and he gave his head the very faintest of nods.
“All right,” I said. “All I can tell you, Mike, is that this is about the hole, and what’s not down there.”
“What do you mean ‘what’s not down there?’ The last time we talked about this it was about illegal dumping of nuclear waste.”
“It’s that, to be sure. And it’s a whole lot more.”
At that moment the screen door with its blast hole in the center banged open and the children rushed in, followed closely by Dotty Jones and Mary Jo.
“Daddy! Daddy!” The kids yelled.
“I’m all right, I’m fine. Hey!” His kids swarmed over him and he lifted the youngest into the air and she curled her fingers into his hair.
Dotty Jones came over to me, knelt down and kissed me hard on the cheek.
Mary Jo stood there, her hands on her hips. She wore a bright smile and a knowing smirk.
“What?” I asked her.
“You fooler,” she said, and I felt warm inside. I was willing to bet it was the first time she had smiled since she’d gotten word of Brad’s death.
I shrugged.
She came over to me and gave me a kiss on the other cheek.
“Congratulations,” she whispered in my ear, and for a second my mind fogged up and I was in mystery as to what she was alluding to, then something from the back of my mind came to the front out of a veil of cobwebs. It was a face and a voice, speaking with the slightest East Texas drawl: About an hour ago it rang. Your wife. You’re the proud father of a baby girl, seven pounds, three ounces.
“Oh,” I said.
“You gonna pass out again, Bill?” Sandy asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Got any more coffee?”
“I’ll get it,” Dotty said.
I noticed my wallet and cell phone sitting on the coffee table close by. I gathered them and flipped the phone open.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to call my wife.”
*****
The family retired to the kitchen and I was able to sit and talk with Julie in privacy for a few minutes.
She was doing fine. The baby was fine and perfect. She had a healthy set of lungs and there were no complications of any kind. Nat was there, but there was little reason for us to talk. He was doing his job with his niece, and my job as well. I’d have to personally thank him later.
The silences in our conversation said more about how Julie and I were than our words. They were intimate silences. Moments of sharing that would have to do in lieu of the fact that I wasn’t actually there.
“You did good, Baby,” I told her.
“We did good,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Come home, Bill, as soon as you get things wrapped up there.”
“I will.”
“I heard there was a shooting,” she said, finally. I’d known it was coming.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. I’m perfect, in fact.”
“Yeah. I know. I can hear it in your voice. You sound like a happy father.”
“I am a happy father.”
“Okay. Good. I gotta go, Bill.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up.
And it was then I realized I didn’t even know my daughter’s name.
*****
It had been bothering me since I’d first heard the name.
Throckmorton. Terry Throckmorton.
As I sat there alone on Sandy Jones’ living room couch, a chatter of voices wafting through the house from the kitchen, I began to piece it all together.
I have often wondered about my mind, how it really works, or in many cases, doesn’t. I observe everything, take it all in by osmosis, keep my eyes wide open when there is too little data, then shut them and pore over what has already come in when there is too much. It’s only when I can separate it all out from my present environment that the pieces begin to fit themselves together to form some sort of coherent pattern. And when I do this, in those few instances when I have a quiet moment with which to examine, it usually comes together in a twink-ling.
There had been an article in CFO Magazine about a lucky power plant manager that had a nose for finding gold mines. He had graduated from strip-mining to gold mining, and during his vacations had personally located three new gold mines in Central and South America, all within three months.
I don’t have what is known as a photographic memory, but I believed the man’s name was Throckmorton.
And there was something else besides, nagging at me, worrying me the way a bad itch will, until it’s scratched. It was a feeling, and little more than that. Twice now I had heard the same line, something about being watched and about ghosts.
I shivered.
There it was. I looked around me at the Jones’ living room, listened to the lyric voices from the kitchen and tried to place the feeling. It was a pit-of-the-stomach thing. Somewhere, somehow, I had turned the wrong corner. I had made the wrong decision. And someone else knew. And it wasn’t Throckmorton, because he was dead.
I glanced at my watch. Straight up eleven o’clock p.m. Where had the time gone?
I got up and went into the kitchen. When there was a lull in the conversation, I interjected.
“Mary Jo. Time to get you home.”
*****
I shook Sandy Jones’ hand on the front porch, got a promise from him that he’d call me first thing in the morning before going to work and gave him my phone number.
Mike Fields followed me and Mary Jo out to my car.
“I can take her home, Bill,” he said.
I glanced at Mary Jo, read her thoughts there on her face.
“No. That’s okay, Mike. I brought her, so I’ll take her back.”
“Fine,” he said. “I think you ought to head back to Austin now.”
“I might just do that,”
I said, and as I said it, also knew there could be nothing further from the truth.
The traffic on Highway 30 had thinned down near non-existence and it was a long, quiet ride back to Mary Jo’s, with little said between us.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was all wrong.
We both knew it the moment we rounded the curve and saw Mary Jo’s place on the hill against the black trees in the brief wash of our headlights.
Freddie’s pickup was there, but there wasn’t a single light on in the place.
I stopped before her driveway on the edge of the bar ditch. Water stood there. There must have been one hell of a rain on this side of town.
“Sit tight, Darlin’,” I told Mary Jo. “I’m going to make sure everything’s all right up there.”
“I want to go with you, Bill.”
“No,” I said. “If Brad were here, he wouldn’t let you, and he’d be right about that. Lock your door.”
She didn’t bother replying to that. She knew I was right.
I stepped out, quickly closed the door behind me and started up the long, muddy driveway.
The darkness was very near complete.
*****
I moved slow, going from the mud and gravel of the drive into the wet grass where I could make less racket. I felt along the edge of Freddie’s pickup, pausing to place a hand on the hood. Stone cold.
There is a feeling that creeps over one while trying to navigate in the dark. It’s a distrust of anything and everything that may or may not be in the environment. It’s an aloneness, and a cautiousness, as if at any moment and without warning, the dark will turn betrayer. And still there is another sense at work and at war with the first, and this is that the dark is also a protective barrier if there is the likelihood that another, unwelcome presence, is somewhere out there in the dark as well.