The Rock Hole

by Reavis Z. Wortham

“I thought you were gonna take him down to the river.”

  “I thought about it, but it’s too hot to go off down there. Burying him here in the shade won’t hurt nothing at all.” Ned lowered the dog gently into the bottom of the hole.

  “Well, I declare. I could have done the same thing myself.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Ned was thankful that Isaac had called when he found the dog. The scrap of paper would have probably been overlooked by anyone else, putting Ned’s quiet investigation one more step behind. Finished, he refilled the hole and kicked at the sand around until it looked relatively normal.

  Sweating profusely despite the shade, Ned stepped over to a hand water pump jutting three feet above the ground and primed it with leaf-stained water from a nearby rusty barrel. The water pump had been there most of his life, a place to get a drink during a hot day or to put fresh water into an overheating engine.

  He worked the handle until pure cold water gurgled up from below. He immediately felt cooler after rinsing his sweaty face in the icy water, then handed Top a dipper. “You want a cold drink of water?”

  “Yessir.” Top held the dipper under the stream.

  Isaac couldn’t take his eyes off the drying sand of the fresh grave.

  Finished, Top handed the dipper to Isaac. “Can I pump it for you Mr. Ike?”

  “Sure.”

  Top used both hands to work the handle.

  “Now I mean it, Ike.” Ned dried his hat band with a bandana and put the Stetson back on his bald head. “Don’t you say anything about this here killing or what we found today. No one needs to know but us. I’ll tell Donald and Judge Rains later, but it don’t go no farther.”

  For the past three years Sheriff Donald Griffin served the office, but Ned had little use for the man. Griffin was more politician than lawman and Ned considered him a criminal to boot.

  In his opinion, there was nothing worse than a crooked lawman.

  Ned intended to watch Sheriff Griffin as closely as possible, especially since he was a first cousin to the most notorious former sheriff in Lamar County history, Delbert Poole.

  Judge O.C. Rains was the cantankerous county judge and a good friend to Ned Parker. The white-haired old man scared Isaac more than clowns. Using his name was a calculated move to quiet the farmer’s loose tongue, though it probably wouldn’t last. Isaac might keep his mouth closed for a day or two, but sooner or later he’d mention it up at the general store, or at the domino hall next door, and then it would be all over the county.

  “Listen, I won’t sleep a wink now for worrying. I reckon I’ll need to keep the shotgun beside the bed for the next few nights.” The introduction of a new idea on a subject often led Isaac into fits of worry that lasted for months.

  “Well, it never hurts to be ready.” Ned absently toed the dirt, watching a red harvester ant search for a way around his brogan.

  “Listen. I heard Top here had come to live with you and Miss Becky.”

  “He sure did.” Ned flashed his grandson a quick smile, though he didn’t intend to get into his personal business. He was glad Top hadn’t offered an explanation. Youngsters needed to stay out of adult conversations, in his opinion.

  Isaac waited, hoping Ned might offer more information. When that failed, he tried tact. “Well, y’all will get a kick out of such a good-looking grand-boy.”

  “You’re right.” Ned opened the driver’s door of his truck and put one foot on the chipped running board. “Get in son. Ike, let me know if you find anything else.” Top trotted around the truck and climbed onto the dusty seat.

  Four rows away, restless fingers dug into the sand, incredibly anxious to begin work but holding back until the time was right. Top slammed the door, and the man relaxed, melting back between the corn rows.

  Isaac kicked a little more sand around on the grave. “All right, then. Listen. I’d like to know who would do something like this.”

  “Well, like I said. I’m afraid it’s liable to be someone we know, or somebody from close around here. All I know for sure is that he’s bad, Isaac, mean as a snake and you probably can’t tell by looking at him.”

  Isaac started to say something else, but then his eyes traveled from Constable Ned Parker’s pale blue eyes down to the tiny gold star pinned to his shirt beside the gallus of his overalls.

  Tiny letters stamped around the small gold badge read:

  Constable, Precinct 3

  Center Springs, Lamar County

  Texas

  “Listen. You find him before he does this again, or hurts someone.”

  Knowing Isaac would stay and talk all afternoon if he had the chance, Ned slammed his door so it would catch and started the engine. “I intend to.”

  As they drove down the dirt road, Top looked through the open window at the crops drooping in the heat. “Grandpa, why would someone do that to a dog?”

  Ned wished he hadn’t brought the boy. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision sparked by his joy at having Top safe with him at home. And now he was obliged to hold a secret from his Uncle Cody. It was a bad start, and Ned felt a great weariness settle onto his shoulders.

  “Like I told Isaac. It’s nothing but meanness, I guess.”

  “That ain’t right. You think that kind of feller would hurt a person if he took a notion?”

  Ned thought about the clipping in his pocket and worried that the next victim might be a child. “He might. That’s why some people just need killin’.”

  Chapter Three

  Constable Ned Parker roused up from behind the wheel of his sedan parked in the scrub brush shaded by an oak in the Red River bottoms. He put on his straw Stetson and poked Deputy John Washington awake. “Here comes Doak. He’s driving that big block Dodge of his.”

  Six-foot-six and nearly three hundred pounds of solid muscle, John Washington was the first official black deputy in Chisum’s history. Charged with keeping the peace among his people across the railroad tracks, his deep voice rumbled when provoked, warning of thunderheads on the horizon.

  Big John shook off the late evening drowsiness and looked through the dusty windshield. He was startled at the whiskey runner’s speed. “By dog, he’s moving.”

  “Doak likes to drive fast.”

  Doak barely slowed as the two-rut track bent at a ninety-degree turn to the left between two cotton fields. The Dodge fishtailed in the dust and then accelerated on the straightaway. Twenty seconds later, he slid through a right to bring him directly toward Ned’s ambush at the narrow plank bridge across a deep ditch.

  “Here we go.” Ned started the engine.

  Doak was well past Constable Raymond Chase’s patrol car hidden in the brush before he realized the Law had found him. Expecting Raymond to pull his Pontiac in behind for a chase, Doak downshifted, relying on the faster engine to outrun the lawman.

  On the other side of the ditch, Ned’s car shot out of the thicket at the last possible moment and slid to a stop to block the road. He killed the engine, opened the door in one fluid motion and used the sedan for cover.

  Big John stepped out of the passenger door with a pump shotgun in his hands and moved quickly behind the car.

  Doak stood on the brakes and steered right toward the cotton field, to make a run for the woods. He’d lose the car and the whiskey, but he was confident he could elude Ned and his deputies on foot, once he reached the safety of the thickly timbered bottoms.

  For one brief moment Ned wasn’t sure Doak was going to stop in time, thinking he’d lose control in the soft sand and dive nose-first into the ditch. But Doak was an experienced driver and he fought the wheel until the heavy Dodge slid to a dusty halt only feet from the bridge. He and Ned stared at each other through the bug-splattered windshield. Then the cloud of dust enveloped them all.

  Ned waited patiently.

  Doak shifted into first and popped the clutch in a last attempt to escape. His rear wheels dug into the loose soil, shooting dirt high into the air. Doak thought he’
d make it, but he’d forgotten about Raymond behind him, who quickly punched the accelerator and clipped the Dodge’s bumper, knocking the car completely around. It dropped tail-first into the dry ditch.

  Ned stepped out from behind his sedan. “Go on and get out. You’re buried to the hubs.”

  Doak opened his door and jumped out to run.

  “Stop it! You know it’s too hot for me to be chasing you and I’m too damned fat. Besides, you ain’t gonna outrun this pistol anyway. Holler calf-rope and let’s get this over with so we can get back in the shade.”

  The whiskey runner still wasn’t convinced the chase was finished until he saw the twelve-gauge in Big John’s hands and the look in his eyes. He knew the deputy wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. He turned his head back toward Raymond, and then sighed. “Dammit, Ned. How’d you find me?”

  “Don’t matter none. Walk over there to Raymond and let him put the cuffs on you.”

  As a last act of defiance, Doak simply turned and laced his fingers behind his back. The young constable slid down in the draw and quickly snapped the cuffs on Doak’s grimy wrists.

  “Dammit, boy, them cuffs are too tight.”

  “We’ll loosen them up some in a minute, if one of us thought to bring a key,” Ned said from his side of the ditch.

  Doak looked at the ground, dejected. When Big John saw the prisoner wasn’t going to resist, he returned to Ned’s car, opened the trunk, and traded the shotgun for a crowbar. He picked his way down the sandy embankment and put his hand against Doak’s trunk lid, leaving a clear palm print in the dust.

  “You got the keys to this trunk?”

  “I wouldn’t give them to you if I did, Washington. I don’t deal with nigger lawmen.”

  Raymond casually reached out and thumped Doak behind the ear with the lead weighted sap from his back pocket. Raymond didn’t hit him hard, but it was enough to glaze his eyes. A little harder and he would have been out like a light. The prisoner sagged against the car.

  “Mind your manners.” Raymond waited, hoping he could use the sap again. He pulled Doak out of the ditch to Ned’s car.

  Like a man about to open a Christmas present, Big John smiled as he wedged the flat end of the iron bar under the trunk’s lock. He gave it a heave. The lock resisted for a moment, but when John’s thick shoulders flexed, it popped open and the lid rose with a metallic groan. The sharp, raw smell of white lightning filled the air. John flashed a wide grin when he reached in and held up a jug of clear liquid.

  “You ain’t haulin’ spring water, are you Doak?”

  Ned joined him in the ditch, getting the cuffs of his dress pants full of dirt. He peered into the trunk. “Lordy mercy. Looks to me like you had two dozen gallons of white lightning in here. Too bad we broke most of your stock. O.C.’s gonna love this.”

  “That ain’t mine, and it ain’t enough for you to arrest me.”

  “What’s there is against the law.”

  “I just have it.”

  “Naw, you’re carrying it to sell.”

  Doak didn’t say another word as John rummaged through the trunk. “All them other jugs are broke.”

  “Well, the one in your hand ain’t.” When they found nothing else, Ned struggled back up the shallow bank and rejoined Raymond and his prisoner. “All right. You’re going to jail, so why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell me about your still.”

  “Ain’t no still.”

  “I tol’ you he wouldn’t say nothin’.” John looked into the open window to check the back seat. “Doak’s bottling this stuff from a spring in the ground. Tell us where it is and we can get rich selling natural spring whiskey.”

  “Screw you, you black bast…”

  Raymond applied his sap a second time. The impact sent the whiskey runner to his knees. “I already told you to watch your mouth.”

  “Don’t kill him.” Ned put a hand under Doak’s arm and lifted him upright. “You clear?”

  Doak squinted to focus on the constable. He flipped his greasy hair out of his eyes. “Goddamn!” He shook his head to move the fuzz and swayed for a moment. “Yeah, I’m clear. But this half-pint son-of-bitch is going to give me brain damage if he don’t quit beatin’ on me.”

  Raymond snickered. “You ain’t been beat, yet, but I’d enjoy the opportunity.”

  John swallowed an almost overwhelming urge to climb the bank and use his own sap on the side of Raymond’s head so he could see how it felt. Raised on the south side of the tracks, John was no stranger to brutality from white lawmen and he had no interest seeing anyone mistreated; red, black or white.

  “You gonna tell us where your still is?” Ned waited, but only the cicadas answered from the surrounding trees while Doak stared sullenly at the ground. “Don’t matter none. After last night’s shower, there’s only one set of tracks I can see right now and they lead right back to where we want to go, so I reckon we’ll follow them.

  “Raymond, radio Judge Rains and tell him we have Doak in custody and we’re going on up to the still. Tell him where we are so he can have Sheriff Griffin send somebody out to pick up this prisoner. I think we’re gonna need people to help carry and inventory the evidence, too.”

  “Shouldn’t it be the other way around, so Griffin can tell the judge?”

  “Probably, but I want you to radio O.C. first, like I said.”

  Raymond shrugged and led the prisoner to his car, shoving him none too gently into the back seat. Doak wasn’t any trouble, because his head was hurting too bad and he knew tomorrow would bring one mother of a headache.

  Masking his emotions, John turned and pitched the crowbar into Ned’s open trunk. He unscrewed the ring from his own Mason jar and took a long drink of tepid water, trying to contain his anger. When he was finished, John slammed the trunk lid down and rejoined Ned.

  Oblivious to the feelings he’d awakened in the deputy, Constable Chase keyed the Motorola and reported their arrest to Judge Rains. The procedure was completely backward, but Ned had no use for the sheriff and usually communicated with him only through his old friend O.C. Rains.

  Ned had a plan mapped out by the time he rejoined them. “Raymond, you stay here with the prisoner until another car arrives. But keep your eyes open. I don’t know how many men Doak has working for him. There might be a dozen or so bad outlaws out here for all I know. Don’t let anyone pass in any direction unless they have a star pinned on their chest. Now, go on while me and John go find the still.”

  “Yessir.” He left and backed his car into the trees. John watched to see if he was going to hit his prisoner again, intending to put a stop to it, but Raymond only killed the engine and leaned back to wait.

  The late evening light was going fast and Ned wanted to get finished before darkness arrived. “We need to git.”

  They drove slowly toward the thick line of trees in the river bottom, following Doak’s fresh tire tracks in the dirt. The light summer shower the night before left the road clear of any other tracks.

  In his rearview mirror, Ned saw Raymond get out of the car and close the door. He hoped the deputy would crack the windows later to vent the car, even though it wouldn’t hurt Doak to sweat a little so late in the day. It might steam some information out of him.

  John looked back over his shoulder. “Hope he don’t cook Doak.”

  “I don’t care if he does.”

  “He’s a little too free with that sap.”

  Ned cut his eyes toward John. “He hits pretty fast. I’ll speak to him about it later.”

  Big John only nodded. “I’s just saying.”

  Raymond’s free use of the sap tapped memories a long time buried. Though John had no problem with using force when necessary, he felt Raymond was a little to relaxed when it came to whacking at a rowdy drunk or an uncooperative citizen.

  The tracks turned eastward across an alfalfa meadow. Ned drove slowly to avoid raising too much dust and giving themselves away, if anyone was looking.

  After another m
ile, the brush thickened and they lost the trail. John got out and walked a zig-zag pattern until he found the faint marks through the dusty grass. He got back in and they bumped slowly through a line of trees and across a small glade. Past a downed barbed-wire fence, the almost invisible tracks pointed like an arrow toward the rapidly darkening woods.

  Ned killed the engine at the edge of the thick woods near the river. The grass was crushed in a wide area and it was clear that other vehicles had parked there recently. Though the lane continued through the trees, he knew better than to drive any further.

  “I smell smoke, so we’re close.”

  John’s sweaty face was blank as he quietly closed his door. Ned did the same and opened the trunk. John picked up a shotgun and handed Ned a double-bit ax.

  Ned adjusted the pistol hanging on his belt, set his hat and wiped sweat from his own eyes. “Stay close until we see the still.”

  “Then I’ll slip around the other side.” John gently pulled the slide on the pump shotgun and checked for a gleam of brass. Satisfied, he slid it back into position with a quiet snick.

  After working together for years, the lawmen operated without needless conversation. They crept into the gloom of the woods, following a well-worn game trail. The wood smoke lay close to the ground, mixing with the smells of rotting leaves, damp earth, and living greenery. They slipped through the understory plants until Ned saw a flicker of firelight from a small clearing thirty yards away.

  He turned, but John had already vanished off the trail. Ned waited, giving the big deputy time to make his way around the camp. He watched the activity around the boiler in the clearing’s center. To his right in front of a tattered canvas tent, a heavyset middle-aged man in faded overalls and a flop brimmed hat sat on a wooden box, carefully filling the reservoir of a Coleman lantern. A similarly dressed slender young man tended the fire.

  Nearby, steam rose from the end of a shiny spiral of new copper tubing emerging from the boiler. Clear liquid dripped into a half-full gallon jug. Ned nodded when he saw the equipment. Large piles of split wood and crates of glass jars filled the clearing.