The Rock Hole

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  Grandpa motioned the rest of the onlookers back with his hands. “Make a way for the sheriff. I can’t do anything here and neither can y’all. There’s nothing we can do for these poor folks.” He caught my eye and then looked over my shoulder at Mark. He always felt bad news should be delivered quickly for everyone’s sake. “I’m sorry son, but your mama’s gone and everybody with her.”

  I felt a lump in my throat and fought back the urge to cry along with Mark, who wilted into deep, racking sobs. Pepper jumped over the tailgate, put her arms around him and cried just as hard. I got out too, to get away from the hog blood, and retched again.

  Cody didn’t know what else to do for him, so he stood there and patted his shoulder. I realized I’d been hearing a high, sharp sound and was surprised to find it was coming from Pepper.

  Grandpa rubbed the back of his neck and frowned at me in the dim light. Cody caught the look and squinted at my face. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Bumped it when I jumped into the truck.”

  I could tell he didn’t believe me, but there was too much else to worry about. “Well, nobody ever died from a black eye. Y’all get back in. I’m taking you to Miss Becky’s. We’ll have to finish this camping trip some other time. Uncle Ned, you need me here?”

  Grandpa shook his head and went to meet the sheriff, who was threading his way through all the cars. “Naw. Go on and take them youngun’s home. I’ll be along directly.” He looked so sad for a long moment. “I swear, Top, I’m sorry y’all had to see this. It ain’t right.”

  None of us knew what to say. Mark allowed Pepper to pull him to the lowered tailgate and the three of us climbed in and sat against the cab. Pepper quit making that noise, but kept wiping tears off her cheeks. Neither of us knew what to say to Mark.

  Brady Caldwell started his truck and pulled farther into the pasture so Cody could turn around. After a couple of other men did the same, we had room to get out. Mark still hadn’t said a word, but he finally wiped the tears away and I watched the house burn as we turned onto the highway toward home.

  It was then I realized there hadn’t been any night sounds around the burning house, nothing but the roar of the flames that almost touched the low ceiling of clouds.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ned stared into the darkness, talking quietly to himself. O.C. watched Cody take the kids home. He was sorry the young people saw the carnage in the yard. “Bad business.”

  A two-man team led by Justice of the Peace Buck Johnson worked their way across the yard, checking each body. As a twenty-year veteran of the job, Buck hated this part the most. He was always being called out in the middle of the night to pronounce someone dead so the ambulance drivers from the funeral home could take them away.

  Ned turned toward O.C. and the helpless deputies watching the fire, glad the foul odor of burning bodes had lessened. “I’m gonna find out who did this and he’ll be lucky to see the pen after I get through with him. I bet it was Lightfoot and if he’s not in Oklahoma already, he’ll be there by morning and I’ll know about it. And mark my words, I’ll shoot the son-of-a-bitch myself when I find him.”

  “Now you don’t lose your head over this, Ned. These kinds of things can get personal in a hurry, and it clouds your judgment. Just because he killed these folks close to your house don’t mean it’s all on you.”

  “Don’t give me any static about this, O.C. I’ll hear about it pretty quick if it’s Lightfoot and I’ll bet you he’s the one who done it.”

  “You know you can’t go into Oklahoma after him.” The old constable had never let the river act as a boundary when he was after a fleeing criminal or looking for information.

  “I know one thing. If I’m over there and run into him, I’ll bring back what’s left.”

  “I ain’t coming over there to get you out of trouble and I mean it.”

  “Don’t raise your voice to me, O.C.”

  “Then listen to what I say, you hardheaded old bastard.”

  The ambulance drivers placed Mrs. Lightfoot on the stretcher. Buck Johnson held the murder weapon as if he intended to chop a cord of wood. He brought it to O.C. “You want to put this in your car?”

  O.C. took the double-bit ax by the handle and studied the bloody head in the firelight. “I’ll take it to the courthouse. Y’all find anything?”

  “Naw. There’s footprints everywhere and the state boys will stay till daylight, but I doubt there’s much around here to help us.”

  Ned watched O.C. hold the ax. “There won’t be. Lightfoot probably just walked up to the porch and started chopping at them people.”

  “I’m gonna go when we get ’em all loaded up, if that’s all right.” Buck rubbed his hands, as if they were dirty.

  “Go ahead on.”

  “I’ll be back at daylight.”

  O.C. scuffed the toe of his highly polished shoe in the dirt.

  “Pure dee meanness.”

  “Mean or crazy. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who’d kill little kids and babies has to be crazy.”

  “Don’t say that. I don’t even want to consider an insanity plea if he ever comes into my courtroom.”

  The house finally collapsed in a giant spray of sparks. The heat increased, forcing everyone back even farther. Ned and O.C. turned their backs on the flames and stared across the pasture toward the lights in Ned’s windows. Becky had every light in the house on and Ned knew the party line was smoking.

  “Well, he must have been pretty sure of himself to kill these folks so close to your place.”

  “He knew we were at the dance. Nearly everybody in town was there. It wasn’t much for him to waltz in here and butcher these folks without worrying.”

  “You think he was there for a while, too, watching us?”

  “Naw. I reckon he was right ’chere, getting his nerve up.”

  “His boy was lucky, then, to be at the schoolhouse. He could be laying here too, with the rest of his kinfolk.”

  Ned jerked his head toward the fire. “I bet he killed the man inside the house. That’s how I’d do it. Open the door and walk in and whack him first, figuring he’d be the one to put up the most fight. Then it wouldn’t take much to chop up the mama and them poor little kids.”

  Killings were nothing new to Ned. On a cold October morning ten years earlier, a woman was murdered in a little frame house in Arthur City. Ned was appalled at the blood covering the linoleum floor. So much was splashed on the walls it looked as if someone threw buckets of blood around the room.

  As terrible as the scene was in that slaughterhouse, this one in the light of the burning house turned his stomach. Ned was always partial to kids.

  He and O.C. sat on the tailgate of a truck to wait for the fire to burn down. More locals arrived, hearing about the killings and wanting to see firsthand what the whole community was talking about.

  Constable Raymond Chase parked his car behind the line of vehicles on the shoulder of the highway, a hundred yards from the gate. He threaded his way through the traffic jam toward the fire while two highway patrol officers reluctantly stayed on the road to direct traffic.

  John Washington stopped behind Raymond’s car. He didn’t have any business there, but he thought Ned or O.C. might need him. There was always a chance the story he’d heard in town was wrong and maybe colored folks had done the killing. Several sets of eyes watched him with suspicion as he passed, thinking there was no reason for the black deputy to be there.

  The looks were nothing new. John had been ignoring them his whole life. He walked slowly past the line of cars until Ned waved him over. He joined the gathering at the truck. O.C. stuck out his hand and the watchful eyes shifted away from the deputy.

  “Mr. O.C., Mr. Ned. Y’all got any suspicions?”

  Ned shrugged. “Naw, we don’t know for sure, but I imagine it was Frank Lightfoot.”

  Trying not to show his relief, John nodded and looked toward the fire. “We going after him?”

  “Not
’til we know more.”

  “Y’ont me to go over to your house and set with Miss Becky and the kids?”

  Ned considered the idea for a long moment. “Naw, with all of us around here, she’s all right. I bet she has a six-shooter in her pocket right now.”

  John wasn’t sure. “I’ll go if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “No. Thanks just the same.”

  Thunder rumbled again and lightning struck somewhere down by the river. John closed his eyes and saw the afterglow on his lids. Inside that dark place, lit with ghostly lightning, he wondered at human meanness. After a lifetime of dealing with the dark side of people, he tended to study a lot on how some folks could do such things to the innocent.

  Opening his eyes, he turned slightly and looked at those gathered around the smoking house, knowing it could be any one of them. He also knew that at least half a dozen of the men near him would easily believe it was one of John’s people, because suspicion came easily.

  “I’ll be ready when you are.” His offer was there, if anyone wanted to take him up on it.

  Rain finally caught up with the thunder and the bottom fell out. They were soaked in no time. Most of the onlookers gave up, started their engines and went home to wait out the storm. Ned, O.C., Big John and Raymond retreated to Ned’s car. They talked quietly about the murders and pondered whether the world would go to hell before all the cotton was in.

  Conversation dried up after a while. Ned wondered where it would all end. He’d taken the job years ago to supplement his earnings as a farmer and to give something back to the people in Lamar County. There was no way he could ride a tractor from dawn to dusk and still find out who’d killed these people.

  The heavy rain finally drowned the conflagration. The volunteer fire department did all they could with the pump truck, but without the assistance of the storm, the house might have burned all night. As it was, there wasn’t much left except for the brick chimney and a few blackened studs jutting toward the low clouds, and the charred human remains.

  The storm finally settled into a constant drizzle and the cool front dropped the temperature. Daylight, gray and somber, lit the scene with a flat, shadowless light.

  The lawmen still waiting in the car watched through the slapping windshield wipers as Buck and his assistants returned. He picked his way through the smoldering charcoal, pointing and talking, rain dripping from the brim of his pinch-crown hat. With an iron crowbar, he poked through the ruins, peering underneath large pieces and kicking smaller chunks to the side.

  Finally, he ordered his men to make one last sweep and waved his arm toward Ned’s sedan. “Y’all, c’mere, would ya?”

  Ned, John and O.C. emerged into gloomy light, stepping lightly through the mud. Buck indicated the remains of the house. “We have enough bodies here to get a good start on a new cemetery, but I believe we’re missing one. Didn’t y’all say there was a baby?”

  Ned thought back to the day in the yard when he’d brought the groceries, clothes and candy. He remembered a toddler in the tired woman’s arms. “Yeah. It was a little girl I believe. She looked like she was barely walking. Why?”

  “She ain’t here.”

  “She’s probably in the house.”

  “Nope. We’ve looked at everything there and we’ll look again in a little while, but unless I’m completely wrong there ain’t no baby’s body burned or otherwise around here. I have men searching the pasture. I even have one looking under all the cars, thinking we may have driven on top of her, but I believe the little thing is gone.”

  They exchanged glances.

  “He took her,” O.C. suggested.

  “Yep.” Ned chewed on his lip. “And I hope she’s still alive.”

  “The man wouldn’t kill his baby.”

  Big John looked toward the smoke and burnt timbers. “I don’t know, Mister O.C. He killed most of his other young ’uns. Why wouldn’t he kill the baby, too?”

  “He probably stole her to take back to his folks somewheres.”

  Ned thought about the mutilated animals he’d been finding for the past few months. He had no reason to believe Lightfoot was the one doing it, but then again, he didn’t have any proof otherwise.

  “John, let’s you and me sashay across the tracks tomorrow and see if we can stir something up.”

  “What makes you think he’s there?”

  “What makes you think he isn’t?”

  “He’s Indian. He’ll go back to his own people across the river, not down amongst my folks.”

  “Or he might hide somewheres else. I don’t know what else to do. All my ideas have done played out. I’m going across to Juarez and on to Hugo and look around, but I want to cover all the bases.”

  Uneasy because the investigation was going to begin on his own doorstep, John wanted to argue with Ned a little more, but with the men around him listening, he showed his respect and waited for the proper time.

  The sun finally broke through to melt the clouds away. Quail called in the cool early morning dampness. Ned desperately wanted to go home and sleep, but he knew the rain could delay his cotton harvest and he needed to talk to Ivory. They wouldn’t be able to resume picking until the lint dried. It was the perfect time to poke around.

  O.C. was anxious to get back home and see to Catherine. Neither had expected him to be gone all night. He scratched at the morning stubble on his normally smooth shaven face. “It’s an awful way to end a dance. Just awful.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  My black eye was only a pale yellow smear when I woke up two weeks later with Mark’s elbow digging into the small of my back. He was living with us because no one could find any of his kinfolk.

  I raised my head, peeked at the bed on the other side of the room and saw Pepper’s hair spread out across the pillow. She spent the night staying up late watching The Blob on television and being scared to death.

  The windows ran with condensation and the smell of frying bacon filled the house. A norther blew through during the night, but I could tell it’d warm up and be fairly nice by noon.

  I lay there for a while, my familiar dream fading away. Last night’s version of drowning in the Rock Hole wasn’t much. Water, overhanging trees and the steep ledge with people walking around, but the sheer regularity of the dream made me wonder if I was going crazy.

  I threw off the covers, dressed quickly in the chilly bedroom and hurried into the kitchen. Grandpa stomped in from feeding the cows, cold radiating off his coat, and went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

  Miss Becky forked bacon out of the iron skillet. “Mornin’, hon.”

  I speared a hot biscuit from the plate and covered it with cream gravy. “I had that dream again about drowning in the Rock Hole.”

  Grandpa came in, drying his hands on a towel. They exchanged looks.

  I picked up on their worried expressions. “What do you think it means? Do I need to see a doctor or something?”

  Grandpa sat down at his place and Miss Becky put a plate in front of him. “Some things happen in this world we can’t explain. It could be the work of the ol’ Devil, or maybe something’s weighting on your mind. I don’t know. I’ll get Brother Ross to pray for you.”

  Grandpa didn’t say anything for a while. He poured coffee into his saucer, picked it up with his fingertips and blew across the wide surface. He took a careful sip. “It probably means you need to stay away from the Rock Hole. I hear the current changed down deep under there because the flood last year moved some of them big rocks around. You boys will have to wait for another flood to change ’em back. The Hole may not be as deep as it was and if a knothead boy was to jump headfirst he could break his neck.”

  “Where else are we going to swim when it gets warm?”

  “Well, I don’t know yet. Summer is a long way off. Right now I want y’all to promise you won’t mess around there anymore until I tell you.”

  I nodded.

  “I mean it.”

  He ne
edn’t have bothered, even though I had my fingers crossed under the table. Swimming was the furthest thing from my mind with the cold north wind moaning under the eaves.

  Edgar Weems drove up the driveway and with a sigh Grandpa went out to meet him. He didn’t completely close the door and as usual, Miss Becky moved to the far end of the cabinet so she could hear through the screen. I shivered in the cold draft.

  Edgar stood on the running board and spoke across the truck cab. “We got trouble down in the field this morning.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Most of your hands won’t pick today. They say they heard about someone committin’ sacrifices down in the bottoms, and they’re afraid they’ll come across one out in the field. Somebody said the Devil is there, and it scared the rest.”

  Grandpa stood on the porch for a few minutes with his hands in the pockets of his overalls. “All right. I’ll be along directly. See who’ll work today, and I’ll talk to the others when I get there.”

  “I think Ralston is doing most of the talking.”

  “I’ve expected him to show up. And the sorry son-of-a-bitch starts trouble the minute he gets here.”

  We pretended not to hear Grandpa’s explosion, though it really wasn’t loud. Miss Becky moved back over to the stove. Edgar turned his truck around and drove away. Grandpa stayed on the porch for a few minutes before coming back inside.

  “You kids stick around the house today. I’m still not sure Lightfoot really went to Dallas. I don’t want to worry with y’all while I’m trying to get the last of this cotton in.”

  “Uncle Cody’ll be here in a little bit. He’s fixin’ to carry us to Uncle Arthur’s to get Mark a haircut You told me yourself you were about tired of his long hair and you know how Cody is.”

  “All right, but y’all stay with him or right ’chere until I get back.”

  I piddled around after he left, until Pepper and Mark finally stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing their eyes. Miss Becky fed them and was washing dishes in a dishpan on the cabinet when she heard a car crunching up the gravel drive.