by Stuart Woods
“I think it sounds fascinating.”
“That’s because you’re young and stupid.”
“I think you ought to take it.”
“They’d be stunned if I did, I can promise you that. This is just their way of saying I had my chance; I’m not going to Nairobi, and they know it.” Howell was tiring of this conversation. “Listen, why don’t you get some sleep; nothing’s going to happen for a while, yet.”
“Mmmmmmm,” she said, and snuggled closer. She was breathing slowly in a moment.
Howell leaned his head against hers and closed his eyes. He was bone tired. Nairobi. Christ! Over the next hours, he stirred himself every few minutes to have a look about him, but nothing happened. Around midnight, he laid the sleeping Scotty on her side and had some coffee from the thermos and a slice of pie from the paper bag. Then, feeling full and contented, he drifted off into a deeper sleep than he had bargained for.
The noise was familiar, almost too much so to be disturbing. Then Howell was wide awake, trying to remember the sound, to place its direction. A car door, that was it; he had heard a car door slam. Now there was another noise, a sound of metal scraping on metal. He turned to follow its direction.
There was only starlight to see by, but near the shed a car had parked, and its occupant, a large shape, was unlocking a padlock on the shed door. Cursing himself for sleeping so deeply, Howell put a hand over Scotty’s mouth and shook her awake. Holding a finger to his lips, he pointed toward the shed, some thirty yards away. They sat up on their knees, and Scotty began taking pictures.
“Is it Bo?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. He’s big enough. Easy on the film. Don’t use it up too soon.”
Scotty had squeezed off a dozen or more frames with the camera’s machine drive. She stopped. The man, who seemed to be wearing coveralls and a baseball cap, leaned against the fender of his car and waited. Howell and Scotty waited with him. The luminous hands of Howell’s watch read just past three AM.
For ten minutes they sat there, then there was a flash of headlights in the distance, and a very large truck began driving toward them along the road that paralleled the runway. It made a wide circle then pulled up next to the shack, a few feet off the edge of the grass landing strip. It was a moving van, and Howell thought he could read the name of a nationwide moving service painted on the side. Just before the headlights went out, they briefly illuminated Bo Scully, who shook hands with the driver and another man as they got down from the truck.
The two men, assisted by Bo, immediately went to the rear of the van, unlocked the doors, and unloaded half a dozen pieces of furniture. Scotty, looked at Howell with raised eyebrows, then shot another dozen frames. At twenty-five minutes past three, Bo went into the shack, and a moment later the runway lights came on, little spots of blue, reaching away down both sides of the grass strip. Then, a minute or two past the half hour, there was a distant hum, and Howell looked up to see a pair of white landing lights drifting toward the strip. Scotty finished a roll of film, handed it to Howell, and quickly reloaded.
The plane landed at what seemed so great a speed that Howell thought it would never stop, that it would crash through the shack and end up in the trees, on top of them. As it came noisily to a stop and began turning around at the very end of the strip, he was surprised to see that it had four engines and that, illuminated by Bo’s headlights, which had suddenly come on, it bore the insignia of the Georgia Air National Guard. Howell pointed at the plane; Scotty nodded and photographed the insignia, zooming in on it. It would have done little good to speak, because the roar of the four engines overpowered everything, and the propellers kicked up a hurricane of wind and pine straw. As the lighter ground debris blew away, they were able to see better.
The rear door of the airplane flew open, and somebody began kicking out what looked like small bales of cotton, wrapped in burlap. The two men from the truck and Bo quickly loaded them into the furniture van. Scotty handed Howell another roll of film, reloaded, and started to shoot again. Now the man on the plane was handing out what looked like four ordinary suitcases, then, finally, a canvas briefcase. Bo unzipped the briefcase and inspected the contents, apparently counting.
Bo gave the man on the plane a thumbs-up sign, and at that moment, somebody kicked Howell hard in the ass.
Howell turned angrily around to face a flashlight in his face, and, ahead of that, the barrel of a rifle, pointing at his head. His anger immediately turned to fear. The man behind the rifle was shouting, but Howell couldn’t make out what he was saying. He cupped a hand behind his ear to indicate this. The man leaned forward until the rifle barrel was nearly touching Howell’s forehead and shouted again.
“Get you hands up and throw that camera over here!”
Scotty seemed to have no trouble hearing him. She pushed the camera toward him, hard, like a basketball. It struck the flashlight, and Howell took the opportunity to grab for the rifle barrel and push it aside. As he did, a single shot went past his ear. The skin on the side of his head seemingly on fire, Howell kicked toward the other end of the rifle as hard as he could and thought he connected with a lower belly.
The man fell backwards, leaving the rifle with Howell, and, in the reflected glow of the car’s headlights, he could see the man struggling to one knee, clutching his middle. Howell got a better grip on the barrel with both hands and swung it as hard as he could, like a baseball bat, catching the man flush on the ear with the stock. He spun about, landed face down, and didn’t move.
Howell checked the weapon; it was an M-16 assault rifle with a long banana clip; he had qualified on it in the army. He felt for the automatic fire switch and looked back toward the group at the end of the runway. Even over the continuing roar of the airplane, the shot had been heard. The two men from the truck were running toward him. He pointed at the air over their heads, and fired a short burst. The two men immediately reversed course and began running for the truck.
Howell picked up the camera and shoved it at Scotty. He grabbed her and brought her ear close to his mouth. “Get back down to the Kellys’ and call the highway patrol station at Gainesville,” he yelled over the roar of the plane’s engines. “Tell them what’s happening!”
“I can’t leave you here!” she shouted back.
He held up the assault rifle. “Don’t worry, I’ve got them outgunned with this thing.” He handed her the flashlight. “Don’t use this unless you have to. Now, run!”
Scotty ran, and Howell turned back toward the airplane. Dirt flew in his face, and he realized that it wasn’t the wash from the propellers; somebody was shooting at him. He ran a few feet to his left, raised the automatic weapon, and got off a short burst, aimed at nothing in particular. To his surprise, one side of the furniture van suddenly dropped a few inches. He had hit the double tires at the right rear of the truck.
He ducked and ran back to his right, then took a moment to catch his breath. What the hell, if he could hit the truck, he ought be able to hit the plane. He popped his head up for a look.
The rear door of the plane slammed shut, and it started to move. Howell fired a burst and saw sparks fly off the runway under the plane. Too low. He raised his aim and held the trigger down. The weapon fired for two or three seconds, then stopped. Howell cocked it and tried to fire again. Nothing. He had emptied the clip. He ran back to the unconscious man and felt around him for another clip, but there was none.
Howell glanced back toward the runway and saw the airplane moving down the grass strip. His eyes widened; there was a lick of flame on the right wing. Dirt and leaves kicked up around him. They were firing again, and this time, he couldn’t fire back. He dropped the rifle and started to run.
He headed straight downhill, ninety degrees from the direction in which Scotty had run. Her chances would be better if he led them that way. He managed to cover thirty or forty yards before he tripped on something and fell headlong down the hill, which was steepening with every yard. He fetched
up, hard, against a tree. He couldn’t breathe for a moment, then a breath came, and he tried to struggle to his feet. The woods around him were suddenly illuminated, and, a moment later, a huge noise and a rush of hot air told him the plane had exploded.
He glanced behind him just long enough to see a large, orange fireball rising above the trees, then he started to move down the hill again, taking care this time not to run blindly. His ribs ached from the collision with the tree, and the skin on the side of his head was still afire with the powder burn, but he was up and moving, and he reckoned that Bo and his friends were far too busy getting the drugs and the furniture van out of there to come after him.
He half ran, half walked down the steep hill, until he came to a stream. He stopped behind a tree and looked back up the hill. The glow from the burning airplane would backlight anybody coming after him. He saw no one. Suddenly, he was exhausted. He sat down beside the little stream and splashed water on his powder burns. It didn’t seem to help much. He drank some of the water, then some more. That helped.
After what he thought was ten or fifteen minutes, he got to his feet and looked at his watch. It was a quarter past four. The plane had landed just after three-thirty. Surely Scotty was at the Kellys’ by now, and the Georgia State Patrol was on its way. As if to confirm this, the distant scream of a siren reached him. It sounded as if it were closing on Sutherland County Airport.
He thought about returning to the airfield, but he was hurting, and it was uphill. He decided to follow the stream; he thought he knew where it met the main lakeside road. A few minutes later, he found he was right. The stream gurgled under a stone bridge and ran on down to the lake. Howell struggled up the embankment and made the road, clutching his arm to his side to keep his ribs from moving around. He’d give a lot for an elastic bandage, he thought.
He set himself as good a pace as he could manage and hiked down the road toward Sutherland. No cars passed, and the glow from the direction of the airfield had subsided. He made the crossroads in less than fifteen minutes and turned down the road toward the lake and the cabin. As he walked the last few yards and came around the bend, he was relieved to see Scotty’s car parked outside and a light on in the cabin.
He started up the stairs and stopped. Suddenly cautious, he climbed softly, staying near the edge of the steps to avoid creaking.
At the top, he leaned over the rail and looked through the window at the side of the landing, which gave him a view of the cabin’s living room. Scotty was sitting at his desk at the other end of the room, her head resting on her folded arms, asleep.
Howell was nearly overwhelmed with relief. She had made it. He opened the cabin door and crossed toward her. When he was halfway to the desk, a board creaked under his feet and Scotty sat up and turned. Her face was puffy and red on one side, and her left wrist was handcuffed to the chair.
“What took you so long?” a someone behind him asked.
Howell sagged at the sound of the familiar voice. He turned slowly around to find Bo Scully leaning against the wall behind the door. In one hand he was holding an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s; with the other, he was pointing a police riot shotgun, the same sort Howell had used to save Bo’s life at Minnie Wilson’s grocery store.
36
Howell took as deep a breath as he could and let it out. “Well, Bo, I’m glad to see you. I was hoping you and I could have a talk before they take you away.”
Bo chuckled. “Now, who’s going to take me away, John?” He seemed a little drunk. The Jack Daniel’s bottle had a big dent in it.
Howell looked at Scotty. She shook her head. “He caught me just as I got to the Kellys‘. I woke up here.” She held up the handcuffed wrist.
“But I heard the siren…”
Bo chimed in. “That was the Sutherland fire department. Police cars don’t have sirens anymore. We use whoopers, these days.”
Howell suddenly knew that Bo was drunk because, sober, he couldn’t do what he planned to do. Howell tried not to show how afraid he was. “Come on, Bo, there’s no way you can get out of this.”
“Oh, sure there is,” Bo said, amiably. “Try and look at it objectively, John. The boys got one of the tires on the van changed, and they’re gone; just a load of somebody’s furniture on the way to God-knows-where. My car’s parked in the woods down the road; the fellow you hit with the rifle recovered enough to do that for me, and then be on his way. He even picked up the shell casings before he went.” Bo chuckled. “Matter of fact, I had a hard time getting him to go. He wanted to hang around and remove your liver.”
“You could never explain the plane, Bo. That’s just too big a mess.”
“Oh, it’s a mess, all right. An Air National Guard plane crashes and burns on a training exercise, probably trying to make an emergency landing on our little strip. The woods will be swarming with state patrolmen and FAA inspectors by noon. ”Course, there’s nobody left alive to identify me.“
“That plane’s got a few bullet holes in it. Somebody’ll notice.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Imagine, some crazy person taking a shot at an airplane. I predict they’ll never find him. And Scotty’s pictures are over there.”
Howell followed Bo’s glance to the fireplace, where something was smoking. There were still two rolls in Howell’s pocket, though. Bo didn’t know about those.
“And where are you right now, Bo? Why isn’t the sheriff up there at that plane crash?”
“Oh, I’m asleep in a motel over at Gainesville. I went over there with Eric Sutherland’s body this afternoon and waited for the autopsy results. The medical examiner and the coroner agree with your judgment, by the way; clear-cut suicide. Then I was just so tuckered out, I checked into the Holiday Inn and went right to bed with instructions not to be disturbed.” Bo grinned ruefully. “Have I left out anything, John? Anything I forgot?”
Howell felt numb. He knew, now, that Bo was going to get away with it, with everything.
“I’m real sorry, John,” Bo said, “but I’m afraid we’re going to have a murder and a suicide up here. The way you’re holding your ribs there, and the way Scotty’s face is, it’s going to look like a real knock-down, drag-out, too.”
“You’re getting real good at suicides, aren’t you, Bo?” This was just a stab, but Howell didn’t know what to do except keep talking.
Bo’s eyebrows went up. “Now that really interests me,” he said. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell me how you figured that. I thought it looked real good.”
“It did look good, Bo. The pencil was a particularly nice touch. And then I read Eric Sutherland’s will and an affidavit he’d attached. That got me thinking that you had a first-rate motive to blow Sutherland away.” Howell tried to talk as slowly as he could. He needed the time to think. “Then I began to think that if Sutherland had put the shotgun into his mouth, only the back of his head would have been gone, not most of the front, as well. It occurred to me that if I were going to kill myself with a shotgun, I wouldn’t look right down the barrel, as Sutherland apparently did. On the other hand, if I were going to kill somebody in the heat of the moment, I probably wouldn’t take the time to stick it in his mouth. I’d just point it at his head and pull the trigger. Which is what I reckon you did.”
Bo nodded thoughtfully. “And just how did you happen to read Eric’s will?”
“He kept the combination taped to the edge of a stenographer’s shelf in his desk. Who the hell could ever remember the combination to a safe? And when I read that will, a lot of things began to make sense.”
“Excuse me,” Scotty said, sounding irritated. “I’m awfully sorry to interrupt, but this doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Would you please tell me what you’re talking about?”
“It’s a long story,” Howell said. He looked at Bo. “Have we got time?”
“Oh, sure,” Bo said. “I’d like to hear this myself. Go right ahead.” He held up the bottle. “You want a drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Howell replied. He watched closely as Bo poured a slug of bourbon into a dirty glass on the table at the end of the sofa and handed it to Howell. Bo was very careful about it.
“Well,” Howell said, knocking back some of the bourbon, “where to begin? A long time ago, I think. The middle of the last century. When the original settlers of the valley started putting down roots here, they had an idea that they were establishing something permanent, something that would live on. They expected to proliferate. They were Irish, after all. But every time their numbers would begin to build, something would happen to set them back again – war, disease, that sort of thing. Father Harry brought me up to date on that. Well, nearly up to date, anyway. Do you mind if I sit down, Bo? These ribs are giving me hell.”
Howell moved around to the sofa and sat down. Bo didn’t stop him, but moved around with him, leaving his back to the fireplace. Howell was hoping Scotty would remember that her pistol was in his desk drawer, but, maddeningly, she rolled the office chair toward the sofa, away from the desk, clearly fascinated by his story. When she moved, though, he saw on the desk behind her the red glow of the ‘on’ light of his tape recorder. Good girl, he thought.
Howell continued. “The Irish in the valley were staunch Catholics, of course, and they wouldn’t intermarry with the locals hereabouts who were all Baptists and Methodists and other such heathens. And, unlike the Mormons, they didn’t have instructions from an angel of God to practice polygamy, so – God knows how it began – somehow, they came around to incest. Father with daughter, brother with sister, that sort of thing.”
“Jesus Christ,” Scotty said.
“Well you might say,” Howell said, “and you might wonder why they didn’t, themselves, and why the Church didn’t keep them from it. They were Christians, after all, and the Faith clearly prohibits incest. On the other hand, it prohibits a number of other things that good Christians often quite proudly do and advocate. Well, who knows exactly how they rationalized it, but they managed. And since they were choosing their priests from among their own number every generation or so, they were able to send young men to the seminary in Ireland who had grown up with the local idea, who understood, who felt an obligation to their families and friends to help perpetuate their community, no matter how they had to do it. Which is how poor Father Harry came to grief.”