by George Wier
I supposed that I owed him my life.
When we passed his ranch along the Old San Antonio Road, he spoke up.
“That spread over there,” he pointed. “That’s mine. It was my grandfather’s and my father’s, and now it’s mine. I run horses and cattle on it.”
“And dogs,” I said.
He laughed. “And dogs.”
“Rottweilers?”
“Naw. Can’t stand Rottweilers. I like Australian Blue Heelers. They make good cow and sheep dogs. And they’re damned smart, too. Ranchers from out in West Texas make the trip in just to look at my dogs.”
“Pure bred?” I asked.
“Nothing but. Every one has papers. I’m the American Kennel Association’s expert on Blues for this part of the world.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It sounds like it.”
We both lapsed into silence.
Darla and Lief slowed ahead. We had entered the outskirts of the small town of Normangee.
Darla turned off to the left and we followed. Within minutes we were on another blacktop highway.
A road sign read Hilltop Lakes ― 5.
*****
Sheriff Noonday picked up the mic for his police radio.
“I’d better let the local Sheriff know I’m here,” he said. “I wouldn’t want them in my county unless I knew about it.”
I listened as he made contact with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Dispatcher. Surprisingly, he was able to talk to the Sheriff himself. I’d forgotten how early people who live in the country generally awaken.
“Go on in there, Scott,” the radio voice said. “If you have any trouble, you call me.”
“Will do,” Noonday said.
Ahead, Darla had slowed for the turnoff into Hilltop Lakes.
We had arrived.
*****
From memory, Hilltop Lakes is a retirement resort. It is it’s own township and consists of an intricate network of narrow paved roads, a series of small lakes, a landing strip for single-engine propeller aircraft, a meeting hall, and a dense forest with widely spaced home sites, most of which had remained uncleared over the years.
I had been to a house back in the woods there for a family reunion when I was a young fellow, thirty-five years before. The place didn’t look very different than it had then.
The guard at the shack near the entrance quickly recognized that he had two law enforcement vehicles to handle and so raised the gate and waved as we passed on through.
The sky was light but the sun was still below the horizon.
We followed through sharply twisting and winding roads. Darla knew the way. She’d probably been there many times throughout her life.
We had to stop once to let a dozen or so deer mosey across the road. They seemed curious yet diffident about us. The woods and roads of Hilltop Lakes were theirs, and they knew it.
By the time we pulled up in front of Judge Sinclair’s cabin, I could see the sun through the trees; another day dawning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Before we go in there,” Sheriff Noonday began, “I just want to know what happened to Sam’s jeep.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought it was your jeep. It’s on the bottom of a lake along the new highway.”
“You are a real son of a bitch,” he said, and laughed.
We got out and met briefly with Lief and Darla.
“Sheriff,” Darla said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like for you to wait here.”
Noonday looked toward the cottage. White smoke emerged from the chimney. There was a Lincoln Town Car parked by the side of the house.
“I reckon I can wait here. If there’s any trouble, I’ll come running. Also, if you’re not back in five minutes, I’ll come anyway.”
“Fine,” she said.
We started up the low hill toward the house.
*****
Judge Sinclair’s cabin had a broad porch constructed of solid planks. It didn’t make so much as a squeak as we stepped up on it.
Darla rapped on the door. Frilly little curtains covered narrow, beveled-glass panes. We couldn’t see inside except for ghostly, vague shapes.
Where was no immediate answer, so she tried the doorknob. Locked.
“Grandpa!” She raised her voice and called out.
Still no answer, and not the slightest vibration through the boards beneath our feet.
Lief got Darla’s attention and pointed toward the front windows facing the lane.
I looked back toward Sheriff Noonday. He looked sort of forlorn, leaning back against his cruiser all alone and with one arm in a sling. He didn’t have Sam with him, that’s what was wrong.
We peered through the front windows as best we could. There was nothing to see but a room with old furniture, folksy wall-hangings, and doorways to other portions of the house.
“No one’s here,” I said.
Darla had an odd look on her face as she stood regarding the door. She stood stock-still, her pretty and youthful face perfectly frozen, almost as if it had been chiseled out of alabaster. I didn’t like the look.
“What is it?” Lief asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Something...” she said, and let it trail off.
Lief was about to ask again, but I shook my head.
I could have counted down from five to one.
“Oh my God,” she said. “There’s only one other place to go around there. I haven’t been there since I was twelve years old.” Her voice had a far-away sound to it. A note of disbelief.
She turned her wide eyes toward me.
“Where, Darla?” I asked.
“The canyon.”
“What canyon?”
“Out back. It’s half a mile through the woods. It was fenced off when some kids drowned in it about ten years ago.”
“Show us, Darla,” Lief said.
*****
I motioned to Sheriff Noonday and he met us at the side of the house.
“Where ya’ll going?” he asked.
“There’s a canyon,” I began, “about a half mile through the woods behind this place. Darla knows the way. Do you feel up to a hike?”
“Let’s go,” he said.
*****
We went between a patch of cedar trees out back and plunged into a forest of yaupon, post oak, and multitudinous shrubs. The ground was covered with a thick blanket of damp leaves.
We rushed along, ducking and dodging the growth. The further we went into the woods, the more certain Darla’s path became. There was a path of sorts; a narrow, twisting lane along which the sky overhead was unobstructed for long stretches. In places it had become overgrown, but just past the offending tree or bush it opened up again.
We came to an abrupt halt in a small clearing. Beyond it the land sloped downward more steeply.
“Almost there,” Darla said through labored breath.
At the bottom of the slope I could see a broad clearing and loose earth. To our left the hill fell away steeply into a creek. I could hear swiftly running water close by.
The land evened out, the clearing opened, and the canyon was before us.
And there were Rogan Sinclair and Ty Hennessey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“What are you doing, Grandpa?” Darla asked.
Judge Sinclair held a double-barreled shotgun, it’s butt against his shoulder and the business end pointed at Ty Hennessey’s chest.
Hennessey stood within a few feet of a sheer drop-off. Behind him, some thirty or forty feet down, the earthen walls of a narrow gorge held a tranquil, blue lake.
“Darla?” Judge Sinclair said. He didn’t turn around.
“It’s me, Grandpa.”
“Go on away from here! Go back to the house!”
“No way. Don’t you pull that tri
gger,” Darla said. There was, however, not nearly enough conviction in her voice. It wasn’t the same voice that had the drop on Sheriff Noonday inside the diner.
“You’d better listen to her,” Sheriff Noonday said.
The two men were about thirty feet away from us. Darla had her sidearm in her hand, but it was pointed at the ground. Lief had his shotgun held the same way. The Sheriff, oddly, didn’t even have his gun drawn.
I walked over to the edge of the canyon close by us and looked down. Anyone falling down there would need a rope and somebody helping up topside to get back out again.
“Stay where you are, Travis,” Judge Sinclair said.
“Killing him won’t solve anything,” I said. “No matter what kind of threat is hanging over your head.”
“You know less than nothing,” he said. He spat the words. I didn’t care for the tone of his voice.
“That’s usually the case,” I replied. “Why should this time be any different? But I do know something you don’t.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
I had no idea what I was going to say, but I didn’t hesitate. That’s me all over again: plunging in head first.
I looked at Ty Hennessey. His head was tilted up towards the bright morning sky, the sun full in his face. His eyes were squinted against it. There was a calm resignation on his face.
“That you’re a good man,” I said. “That your life means something. That you won’t throw it all away like this, no matter what Roth Hayward has said you have to do.”
“Hayward doesn’t know that this is Hennessey. That much I did keep to myself.” Judge Sinclair hadn’t lowered the gun so much as an inch. His finger was on the trigger.
“He doesn’t know it, but if he was here he’d be telling you to do this, wouldn’t he?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Judge Rogan said. “Just shut up.”
“Bill,” Lief said.
I suddenly knew. He was going to kill Ty Hennessey right in front of four witnesses, including his granddaughter and the Sheriff.
“Hennessey,” Judge Rogan said. “I’m sorry.” The Judge’s voice broke. “I’m truly sorry.”
Seconds passed.
Hennessey smiled.
The roar of gunfire was deafening. It echoed off the canyon walls and the woods and reverberated back to us again and again.
*****
Ty Hennessey bucked and spun completely around and fell into the canyon.
It wasn’t Judge Sinclair’s gun that had gone off. The Judge’s face held a puzzled, shocked look. He dropped the shotgun.
We all turned.
Sheriff Scott Noonday’s pistol was still smoking.
Darla took three steps toward him and took the gun from his hand.
“Why?” Lief asked.
“Get that shotgun, Bill,” the Sheriff said.
I walked over to the Judge calmly and picked up the shotgun. I broke it down, removed the two shells and handed it back to him.
“I think this is yours,” I said. He took it with a wondering looking on his face, as though I had done something completely unexpected.
I lobbed the shells into the canyon where they disappeared from view.
Darla walked over to her grandfather and stopped beside me.
The Judge turned to look at her. Anguish was written on his face. He folded and fell to his knees, the shotgun tumbling once again to the grass.
“Lief,” I heard the Sheriff say. “Go get that squatter. I only wounded him. I don’t know if he can swim or not. I sure can’t with this bunged-up shoulder.”
The Judge was crying silent tears. Darla threw her arms around him.
Lief was in the process of shedding his clothes. He was taking too long.
I walked to the edge of the canyon and looked down.
“Well,” I said. “Here goes nothing.”
*****
The fall wasn’t long as falls go, and not nearly the length of a good falling dream. The water was much colder than I expected. Maybe it was because of the cool summer night or maybe the canyon was fed by springs. My body couldn’t discern any of that. All I knew was that I plunged down into darkness and the cold began pricking at me all over with a million tiny needles.
My feet hit a layer of soft sand and silt that had the consistency of the softest feather pillow. I kicked against it and began to rise again toward the far-away brightness above.
A shadow loomed above me.
Ty Hennessey.
On the way back up I reached out and put my arms around his chest and began to work my legs.
Hennessey was so much dead weight. He didn’t struggle. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.
Twenty feet to go.
I didn’t have much air left in my lungs and I was beginning to feel it. For just an instant the thought crossed my mind that I should let him go; that possibly his epitaph had already been written. I dismissed the thought with an even harder kick downward against the depths.
As we came up I saw ripples ebbing and flowing across the surface.
Ten feet.
Ribbons of dark scarlet poured from Hennessey’s left arm.
I held him tightly with one arm and used the other to pull downward against the cold water.
Four feet.
My lungs pulled against my tightly clenched lips and teeth. It hurt.
We broke the surface and my lungs drug in air. I started to go down again and flailed with my legs. For an instant my head dropped below the surface, but then I came back up again and dragged in more air.
Water poured from Hennessey’s mouth.
His body shuddered in my grasp; a wracking spasm. Another torrent erupted from his mouth. I realized I was squeezing him hard; my fingertips were about where his diaphragm would be.
I intentionally squeezed again.
More water came, but less this time.
He drew in air and his chest expanded.
“Bill!” I heard from above.
I looked up.
Lief and Noonday were looking down.
“You okay?” Lief shouted.
I couldn’t shout yet and had to concentrate to keep us above water.
I raised my right hand and gave a thumbs-up.
“How about Hennessey?”
I kept my thumb in the air.
*****
It took an hour before Ty Hennessey and I left the canyon. I had his arm partially bandaged with yet another Lief Prescott sock.
Darla had to take her grandfather’s key, return to the house and bring back a long rope. I tied it under Ty’s arms and around his chest and he was hauled up. When it was my turn, I tied it around my waist and went up repeller fashion. My Doc Martins would never be the same again.
The fireplace fire had died down to a bed of coals by the time we got back. That was okay. The cool front had passed and the day began to warm considerably.
Darla made coffee in the kitchen. The smell was wonderful in my nose.
Sheriff Noonday lay back in a recliner and Ty Hennessey lay on Judge Rogan’s couch. Darla re-dressed his arm and covered him with blankets.
I had on one of the Judge’s extra shirts and pants. The pants were a little short, but the shirt fit perfectly.
There came one of those silent moments that have a tendency to drop down upon any group of people collected together. Each of us were immersed in our own thoughts.
We let Ty Hennessey nap for about twenty minutes and he awoke with a start.
“Don’t shoot,” he said.
I looked over at the Judge and noticed he was smiling. I took it as a good sign.
Ty sat up slowly and looked around.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you all here,” he said.
“What?” Lief asked.
“Nothing,” Ty said. “It’s just that I always wanted to say that, but this is the first time the opportunity has presented itself.”
Some of us laughed. I could feel the tension ebbing out of the room.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get down to cases.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Who is going to go first?” I asked.
Ty Hennessey cleared his throat.
“Maybe me,” he said. He looked over at Judge Sinclair. “Or do you want to go first, Red?”
“Who’s Red?” Darla asked.
“Me,” the Judge said. “Although no one has called me that since 1964. I’ll go first.”
We listened. The Judge looked very old and fragile as he sat sipping his coffee in his rocking chair. No one interrupted until he was done.
*****
“The Korean War ended, as you know, in 1953, and the boys came home. I didn’t, however. I didn’t have a home. The office of Naval Intelligence was my only home. And I hated it.
“I was twenty-one years old, had no relatives to speak of, and was looking at my prospects. They were slim to none.
“I was summoned into the office of one of the Vice-Admirals for the Pacific Fleet. He was an ex-flyweight boxer with a crooked nose who smoked horribly smelly cigars and had a bad case of peptic ulcers. I heard he was dead within a year of our meeting.