Peculiar Country

by Stuart R. West

“Coulda fooled me!” Dad’s voice grew loud, soft, loud again as he paced the room. “You know goddamn well if I determine Hettie’s death a murder, then I have to report it to County! And they’ll want to see the body fast as I can turn it around! What kinda rinky-dink shit in a shoe politics are you trying to pull here, Mayor?”

  “Hardly rinky-dink, my friend—”

  “I’m not your goddamn friend!”

  “Sure you are!” I heard a smack, no doubt the Mayor slapping Dad’s back, a dangerous choice. “Of course we’re all pals here. Ain’t that right, Sheriff?”

  “Friendly as Eskimos in an igloo.”

  “If we’re so goddamn friendly, surely you won’t mind me reporting Hettie’s murder to County,” Dad snorted.

  “And you will, Oscar, you will. I vow to you, you’ll have every opportunity to—”

  “I know how much your bullshit vows mean, Mayor!”

  “I say we all take a nice breather, have a sit down, and let cooler heads prevail.” The recliner crunched beneath the Mayor’s weight as he sat his cooler mind down. “Maybe we can all partake of some of that nice lemonade.”

  “I’m not offering! This isn’t a social visit and I’m feeling less than sociable. Goddamn irritated at the both of you!”

  Sheriff Grigsby sighed. “Oscar, listen to reason. After all’s said and done, you can report Hettie’s death—”

  “Murder,” corrected Dad.

  “…Hettie’s death to high Heaven and back for all I care. Mail her body to the North Pole and let Santy have a gander. I don’t give a damn. But right now—and I’m just saying for conjecture and all—right now I ain’t so sure Hettie was murdered.”

  “Oh, holy hell! I’ve just started my exploratory investigation and have more than enough goddamn evidence that clearly points to murder!”

  “Never minding that…” The Sheriff didn’t even attempt to hide an elaborate sigh. “Give me time to look into it. You know how word gets ‘round. If there’s a murderer here in Hangwell, give me time to find him. If news of a murder gets out, everyone will have their say, point fingers at one another, want a look-see at the scene of the crime… hell, Oscar, our slice of paradise will turn into hell before you know it. It’ll derail my investigation, maybe put a stop to it completely.”

  “Sure. And we all know how intensive your investigations are, Sheriff.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Boots clunked across the floor. For a big man, the Sheriff moved fast when he wanted to, which wasn’t very often at all.

  “I’m just saying a thorough murder investigation might be a helluva lotta’ work for you,” said Dad. “Certainly don’t want you going out of your way.”

  “I don’t much care for the cut of your jib,” the Sheriff growled. Dad could cut deep with words, but I imagined he wouldn’t last more than half a round in a physical fight with the solidly-shaped Sheriff.

  “Then let me cut into Hettie’s body.” Dad resumed pacing, walking off his mad streak. Calmer now, he said, “I’m not trying to run you aground, Bill. And I’m sorry if I came off as a bit…testy. I’m just trying to do my job. Do the proper thing by Hettie. The right thing.”

  “I appreciate that, Oscar,” said Sheriff Grigsby, “but I’m trying to do my job here, too.”

  “There now,” said the Mayor, “that’s what community’s all about. Coming together, everyone doing their respective jobs, working hand in hand like—”

  “So help me, Mayor, if you start singing, I promise you I’ll run for mayor myself next term.” Silently, I cheered Dad on. “Why the hell are you two stonewalling me? If that was your mother or aunt or friend lying down there, you know goddamn well you’d want me looking inside her and getting to the bottom of things.”

  “No stonewalling here, Oscar.” For all Dad’s verbal attacks, the Mayor kept a cool, even keel. The sign of a knowledgable—if not necessarily good—politician, I suppose. “Seems to me the three of us just want to do our jobs and serve the community as a whole. Not just one or two…ah, vocal citizens.”

  I could feel Dad steaming, ready to blow. Something he never unleashed on me. “Mayor, if you’re referring to me as one of those vocal citizens, then you’re goddamn right I am! Hey everyone!” A window thrust open. Dad’s voice sounded far away, his head stuck out the window. “Hey! Wake up, Hangwell! Someone’s murdered Hettie Williquette! And no one gives a good goddamn about it either! Your Mayor—”

  “That’s enough, Oscar!” Shoes scuffled, boots chocked. The window crunched down with the finality of a guillotine blade. “Get hold of yourself,” demanded the Sheriff. “Simmer down!”

  Silence. Then footsteps, a softer tread. Dad’s shoes. A blast of breath whooshed out of the sofa’s upholstery as Dad collapsed into it. The sofa’s wooden legs jumped.

  Tired-sounding, resigned, Dad said, “I’ll hold off calling Durham. Just a bit. I’ll give you two days. I don’t like it. It’s not right. I want Hettie’s killer brought to justice. Even if Hettie was the most reviled person in Peculiar County, I don’t give a good goddamn…she deserves her proper due as anyone. But I don’t want the investigation jeopardized either.”

  “That’s the spirit, Oscar,” said the Mayor.

  But I didn’t think so. Thought the opposite, matter of fact. They’d beaten the spirit outta Dad and I didn’t care for it, not one iota.

  I didn’t give a good damn—I’m my dad’s daughter, after all—if it is an adult’s world, they were just gonna have to get used to my being in it.

  I whisked around the corner and into the living room. The three men sat at opposite sides of the room, each holding down their territory like solidly embedded tent-spikes. My place belonged in the middle.

  “Well, hey there, young ‘un!” The Mayor scrunched up his baby-kissing face, all flabby cheeks and thin sentiment. “I didn’t know you were about.”

  “I’m about,” I said. “And I can tell you Dad’s right about Hettie. About her being done up by someone.”

  The Sheriff chortled, then took his hat off to sway his red face. “Oscar, I think you’d agree such things ain’t for children’s ears.”

  Dad blinked, did it again. Carefully weighed his words before he spoke. Something he’d drummed into my head since I could talk. “Dibby may be young in age, but she’s wise beyond her years. She’s the one who brought Hettie’s murder to my attention.”

  Even though the topic at hand was morbid, I beamed. Happy to be acknowledged. Now sitting at the big folks’ supper table.

  Of course Sheriff Grigsby viewed it a might bit differently. “And we’re gonna’ take a child’s word—”

  “Almost sixteen,” I muttered.

  “…a little girl’s word on grown-up business? That ain’t the way I police this town.”

  “Then maybe you better rethink how you’re policing, Bill,” said Dad.

  “I’ve about had enough of this.” The Sheriff stood. “You do what you want, Oscar. But I’m asking you, man-to-man, to keep hushed.”

  “Already said I’d give you two days.”

  “Well, if that ain’t enough time, I’ll be asking for more,” said Sheriff Grigsby. “Hangwell elected me for a reason.”

  Smoking mad again, Dad hopped to his feet. “Bill, you were elected because nobody opposed you. For the umpteenth year running.”

  Sheriff Grigsby grinned, a bully’s front. “Speaks for the fine job I’m doing. Needless to say, you’d be wise to heed your publically elected law enforcement official.”

  “I don’t much care for threats.”

  “No threats, Oscar. Just upholding the law as I was sworn to do. Without rabble rousers getting in my path.”

  “Goddamn it to hell and back, Bill! Now I’m a rabble rouser?”

  Took him a while, but Mayor Hopkins managed to dislodge his girth from the grip of the recliner. The chair actually rode up with him, before plummeting back down. “Fellas, fellas, easy does it. Little ears and everything.” He prodded a thick thumb b
ack at my little ears. “We’re all friends here, part of Hangwell’s wonderful community.”

  “No problem here, Mayor,” said the Sheriff.

  “Just healthy discussion.” But no matter what he said, Dad looked less than healthy, steaming like a bull ready to gore a matador.

  “Now that we have that settled, fellas,” said the Mayor, “I reckon we’ll be moseying on. And Oscar? Them two days you asked for should be ‘bout right.”

  “About right for what?” asked Dad.

  “The Sooter sisters have been banging down my doors, wanting to claim ownership of Hettie’s body. My assistant looked up the legalities and they have ‘ever right to do so. I’ll let the gals know they can take ol’ Hettie in two days.”

  “Even if the body’s a part of an on-going murder investigation?” Dad raised his eyebrows, ready to raise the roof.

  “That hasn’t been proven yet, Oscar.” The Mayor formed sad, cow-like eyes. “So, unless, there’s official proof and documentation, the sisters get custody of their dear, departed sister.”

  “This…this is crazy!” A word Dad insisted we never use, it banged the nail on the head. “You won’t listen to the evidence I found! And unless Bill corroborates my findings within two days, the body goes to the Sooter sisters for God only knows what!”

  “That’s about the size of it, Oscar.” Sheriff Grigsby patted Dad on the back, similar to the condescending pats everyone favored me with. I wondered how Dad liked it. Not very well, I could surely tell.

  “So long, Oscar.” Walking tall, the Sheriff hitched up his low-riding britches, grimaced as he stepped around me.

  “We’ll be in touch,” offered the Mayor. “Keep up the fine work.”

  They were nearly to the front door, when Dad ran to the hallway. “This isn’t over. I’m going to do my job. I’m gonna do it for Hettie.”

  A slammed door answered him. Dad dragged back inside, resumed his spot on the sofa. I sat next to him.

  “Goddamn red-tape, bureaucratic, lazy-assed, stupid as cowshit, no-good dolts.” He looked at me, took off his glasses, tried to tame his mad hair. “Sorry, Dibs. I suppose it makes me feel better.”

  I smiled, let him know it was okay. “Ain’t anything I’ve not heard before.”

  “Don’t say ‘ain’t’.”

  “Don’t cuss like a drunken, stub-toed sailor.”

  The first laugh we shared in a while, and a darn full-on one to boot. Dad scooted closer to me.

  “Look, Dibs… I know you don’t want to talk about Mom, but—”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Okay. But will you listen to me for a minute?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve made a real mess of things lately. In handling you, the situation with your mother…everything.”

  “A real goddamn mess.”

  “Dibby Caldwell! Do you kiss the boys at school with that mouth?”

  “Dad!”

  The laughter won out again. Cathartic, I believe, for both of us.

  “Fine. I won’t talk about your kissing boys—and I really hope you’re not—if you don’t start cussing like me.” I said nothing, just sorta’ blushed, a full heat wave. I’d rather talk to Dad about any other topic—even Mom—than kissing James.

  “It’s a deal,” I said. We shook on it, up, down, contact broken.

  “Okay, here we go… I’m your father. I’m always gonna’ be your father. Pretty much everything I do, I relate it back to you one way or another. You’re always on my mind and I suppose the most important thing in the world to me is to see that you have a happy, healthy life and—”

  “I’m healthy, Dad. You don’t need to worry. So just…stop.”

  He shook his head. “That’s just not going to happen. That’s what dads do. What parents do. I know you don’t understand now, but—”

  “I kinda think I do.”

  “I know you think you do. And…intellectually, I have no doubt that you do. But I really think it takes being a parent to understand parenting. And I still don’t always understand what I’m doing half the time. I’m still learning. Always will be, I suppose. Does that make sense? All of my babbling?”

  “I reckon it does.”

  “So…I’m always going to worry about you. You’re a very capable, mature young woman. I know that, even if it’s sometimes hard for me to admit. In some ways, you’ll always be my little Dibby, bouncing on my knee, and…” His voice went gargly, his eyes gleamed. He reached out a hand, ready to tousle my hair. But he reclaimed it. “I’m working on changing. Learning alongside you. It’s what it’ll take. But you’re going to have to be patient with me. Okay? Can you do that?”

  “As best I can, Dad.”

  “And when I ask you how you are…if there’s anything wrong…this is hard, damn hard…” His voice rode high, nearing waterfall heights. “…I’m not asking because I fear for your mental health, Dibs. It’s not because of your mother… Frankly, I can’t think of another person who has a more solid head on her shoulders than you. But the reason I ask those questions is because I’m your father. My most important designation now.”

  “I know.” I tossed my arms around him, anchored in for the long haul.

  “I love you, Dibs.”

  “Love you back.”

  Baptismal tears flowed, washed away the problems between us. At least temporarily so. But in my father’s warm embrace, I felt it would last forever.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As far as the pantheon of Hangwell bogeymen ranked, Boot Gundersen came in third just behind Hettie and town drunk, Hy Thurgood. I’d never heard a particular reason why Boot rounded up the top three, but I knew enough about the man that the idea of being alone with him gave me a severe case of the willies.

  It’d taken time to build up courage, of course. All day long I’d puttered around. Finally, I just rushed toward the front door, hollered to Dad I was studying with James, and left, my courage still in hiding.

  I pedaled up Oak Grove Road, the opposite direction I usually traveled. Dusk crawled in on dirty knees. Under other circumstances, the sleepy shades of blue shot through with magenta highlights on the horizon might’ve been pretty, but now just reminded me how stupid I was not to have set out earlier.

  Everyone knew Sunday was Boot’s one day off from manning the telephone lines. What he got up to in his off hours provided ample grist for the gossip mill, and I tried to put such tales out of mind.

  A mile-and-a-half down the road, I forked right onto Harrow Lane, otherwise known as the “Bad Side of Town.” Out here, in the wooded boonies, houses were scarce, the land by and large considered unfit for living. Lotta folks used the area as a dumping ground. Deep in the woods, I spotted a worn-out sofa. Boxes and pipes and sinks and all the unwanted debris of home lay scattered around it, very much like tornado fall-out.

  The Santa Fe Railroad ran smack-dab down the middle of this wooded wasteland. Four times daily, the train chugged through the area, horn a’whistling, the only life willing to visit this no-man’s land. At night I always listened for the late night train, its forlorn horn crying, a soothing lullaby of sorts. A song for those still awake, telling us we’re not so alone in the night.

  Although I knew a train wasn’t scheduled now, Dad taught me well and I looked both ways anyway. Then I crossed the tracks. Just down the hill a jig, not too far now, sat Boot Gundersen’s house.

  Though calling it a “house” seemed mighty generous. Boot’s shack made Hettie’s abode look like the Taj Mahal. Like our house, Boot had added on over the years, his construction material clearly scavenged from the surrounding dumping grounds. His newest addition, an abandoned Dad’s Root Beer billboard, supplied a dandy, makeshift outer wall. Plywood, tin, abandoned building parts, car fenders, trash, you name it, Boot’s shack looked like a work of modern art, a bird’s nest of cast-off junk.

  Contrary to his meager living means, however, Boot was well off, just swimming in money as rumor had it. He earned a mighty fine w
age at the phone company, just didn’t believe in banks. What he did with his money remained one of Hangwell’s long-running mysteries, but everyone knew he could’ve afforded a fancy house up by Mr. Thomason, the banker.

  But for whatever reason, Boot preferred his life as a hermit.

  At the top of the hill, I hesitated. As Boot didn’t drive, I couldn’t tell if he was home. Maybe he was out in the woods tearing the throats out of opossums with his teeth, the way he gathered food, one of those tall tales I tried not to think about. After all, he rarely visited town to gather provisions.

  Dusk decided not to stick around too long. Nighttime blew in like an ill wind. An owl hooted, impatient. Startled, my feet found the pedals and I coasted down the hill toward the shack.

  I hopped off the bike, walked it the rest of the way in a nice and slow manner, hoping to forego a bellyful of buckshot. A lawn of weeds sprung up past my knees. Mites and other winged bugs swarmed. Not ‘till I neared did I see ol’ Queeg lounging on the warped porch. The three-legged German Shepherd’s head rose. His tongue unrolled like a red carpet. His tail dusted dirt away, cleared a path for me.

  “Hey there, Queeg.” I leaned my bike against the porch. Hand out, I approached the dog. “Good boy. Good dog.” Queeg gave me a sniff, licked my hand. I scratched his head, gave him a couple good, hearty pats. While ol’ Boot seemed as cantankerous as a hung-over mule, the whole town loved his dog. A welcome sight on his rambling, hopping journeys through town, lotsa folks tossed Queeg food scraps.

  Hinges squealed. The screen door ratcheted open. “Who the hell’s there? Whaddaya’ want?” Boot stomped out, eyes narrowed. “That you, Dibby Caldwell?”

  I straightened, felt like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. “Um, yes sir, Mr. Gundersen. Howdy.”

  “Howdy yourself.” He strolled closer, bare-chested beneath his overalls. Tufts of gray chest hair bloomed out from behind his overall straps. The splintered floor boards didn’t bother his naked feet one bit. He hooked his one thumb behind a strap, squinted up in the sky, then spat a wad of tobacco to the dirt. “I didn’t ‘spect you’d take me up on my offer, girly.” He chortled, a weathervane squeaking in the wind.