The Rock Hole

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  After that day, Grandpa spent more and more time away from the house, looking for Skinner. It seemed like he didn’t think about anything else.

  ***

  Christmas was usually a big event with a tree, presents and a lot of fireworks, but I’d gotten my present early when Hootie came home with me. The puppy was my constant companion, and even Santa’s gift of a new Daisy BB gun on Christmas morning didn’t overshadow my little buddy.

  We didn’t see Uncle Cody for quite a while. He worked nights at his joint across the river and slept through the day. I heard Calvin Williams’ wife Norma filed for divorce and from time to time someone ran across her and Cody out somewhere. The busybodies stuck their noses in the air about it, but Miss Becky never let on she cared at all.

  The only time I heard the men talk about it was outside of the church house one Wednesday night. Grandpa always carried Miss Becky when it was dark and waited in the parking lot with several other heathens until the service was over. Sometimes I went in with her and other times I stayed outside with the men, if it wasn’t too cold or Miss Becky didn’t fuss too much.

  Cody and Norma popped up in conversation while I was there with them, but the men changed their tone and talked in some a code only they understood. I heard the words “red firecracker” and “wish I was young and stupid enough,” but I didn’t get anything else and finally gave up trying to figure out what was going on.

  ***

  Enough snow fell on New Year’s Day to turn everything white and Grandpa found fresh footprints leading from the burned-out shack in the pasture to my window and back again. It was obvious the tracks were made by an adult.

  I was in the barn with him and Uncle James while they loaded feed sacks and hay into the truck, and worried over what the new tracks meant.

  Uncle James held out his hand. “Top, hand me them dikes from over there.” He turned to Grandpa while I climbed down off the hay to get the wire cutters where they lay on the lid of a barrel. “I’m scared to death about whoever made these tracks. I don’t believe I want Pepper staying over until this thing is over. You ought to think about letting Top come stay with us, too.”

  Grandpa took off his felt hat and rubbed his bald head, a sure sign he was thinking or worrying. “I don’t believe a mile will make much difference, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep Pepper home.”

  “Ain’t you afraid of what might happen?”

  “Sure am. That’s why I try to stay ready.” Grandpa gave the pocket of his overalls a pat. I was surprised to think he was carrying a pistol now, even while we fed the cows.

  “That’ll only help if you’re close by the house.” Uncle James took the wire cutters from me and broke open a bale.

  “Miss Becky knows what to do.”

  “It might not be enough.”

  I could see Grandpa’s neck and face redden. He studied on it a good long while. “I know it, James. But I’m doing all I know to do.”

  I believe Uncle James realized he was goading his dad and backed off. “Well, I’m scared to death about this feller.”

  “I am, too.”

  They nailed the wooden casement windows shut after we got back from feeding.

  ***

  January was cold and icy. We fed the cows, gathered the eggs and stayed inside to keep warm. One ice storm took down the power lines, and we had to use coal oil lanterns for a couple of days, but it wasn’t any big deal. We stayed warm because the Dearborne space heater operated on propane.

  We got out of class for three days because the buses couldn’t run, but it wasn’t much fun since we couldn’t go outside. The bottom dropped out a couple of times and the thermometer on the porch read zero at least twice. We fed the cows each day and broke the ice off the stock pond for them to drink. Mostly I stayed inside and read or smoked up the house with the Wood-Burning set Pepper gave me for Christmas.

  The weather kept meanness down, too. Grandpa went out on a few calls, but they were mostly troubles between men and their wives, trapped inside by the weather. The Skinner must have stayed in during the cold spell and everyone breathed a little easier for a while.

  ***

  In February, Miss Becky had us hang her quilt rack so she could go to sewing on the wedding ring quilt she pieced together in December. When she wasn’t sewing, she kept the rack raised up against the living room ceiling with pulleys Great Grandpa installed years before. It lowered easily to lap level whenever she wanted to sew. The rack was wide enough to stretch the quilt completely out while they worked on it. I liked to crawl underneath the tight material while the ladies sat around and stitched.

  Women from all over came to the house with their sewing kits to help out and visit. Sometimes after they left, Miss Becky had to pick out some other lady’s stitches.

  “Bless her heart, Doneen is sweet as she can be, but she can’t stitch worth a flip.”

  I lay on the couch with a book one day while nearly a dozen ladies chattered and stitched up a storm. The conversation followed the usual lines of kids, farming life, and husbands, until Miss Becky brought up some interesting news.

  “Y’all, I need to tell you something. Ned found where somebody left tracks under the back bedroom window a while back. He thinks that feller who is doing so much meanness around here made them.”

  Miss Ethelda Fay made a sound like she’d stuck her finger with a needle. “Did he try to get in?’

  “No, Ned and James nailed the windows shut just the same. Have y’all seen anything around your houses?”

  I looked up at the silence and saw they were shaking their heads no.

  “Well, I swanny.” I recognized Miss Sara Hemphill’s voice.

  I glanced over and noticed something I’d never seen before. About half of the farm wives wore knee hose, some wore stretched out wool socks and a couple had nothing but pasty white calves held together by varicose veins. I stifled a giggle and turned back to my book.

  “Are you scared?” Miss Sara wanted to know.

  “I’m not afraid.” Miss Becky stopped and took a pin from between her lips. “But I think we all need to be more careful than keeping the latch on the screen. A little metal on a wood frame won’t make much difference if a man tries to get in.”

  “We keep a shotgun by the door.” I didn’t recognize the woman. “But I hear he’s after kids, and we’re fresh out at my house. They’re all growed and gone.”

  Miss Becky took a couple of stitches. “Well, we all better keep an eye out. I don’t know if anything has happened in the daylight, but when the men are out of the house, we all need to be ready for anything.”

  Miss Estelle glanced toward the hall at the .22 standing in the corner. “A little target gun ain’t gonna be much.”

  “Ned’s pistol there on the TV is enough. Besides, I have anothern’ nearby. Y’all need to be ready.” She nodded at the women around the quilt. “Ned, Gilbert, Arthur and the rest of them aren’t much use to us when they’re down in the field. It’s up to us to take care of ourselves, if need be.”

  A chill went down my spine at the thought of those ladies dealing with a killer, if one wanted to get in the house. But at the same time, I knew being with them was safe.

  ***

  At breakfast the second weekend in February, a car pulled up the drive and I looked through the window to see Uncle Cody opening the dog box in back of his El Camino. His big pointers hit the frosty ground and ran around the yard, poking their noses into everything. Hootie heard them outside and barked like there was a bear trying to get in.

  Grandpa opened the door to let Hootie out. “That’s why I wanted him in the bedroom with you. He can hear me open the icebox from up at the barn. If this dog’s nose is anything like his hearing, he’ll be a hunting son of a gun.”

  Hootie hit the porch at a floppy run and slid to a stop when Cody’s three bird dogs gathered around to sniff him from end to end. He stood there and took it until he decided he’d had enough, then gave them a growl. The grown dogs were s
o surprised they backed off.

  Uncle Cody whooped and tilted his hat back. “That little feller’s gonna be tough. C’mon Top, you and Ned get your guns and lets see if we can kick up a covey or two this mornin’.”

  “Can Hootie go?” I was excited about a hunting trip.

  “Sure, but he won’t be able to keep up. He’s still too young. You’ll have to carry him before long.”

  We stepped off the porch and into Grandpa’s pasture beside the house. While we loaded our shotguns, the pointers locked up on the day’s first covey in the dried up remnants of Miss Becky’s vegetable garden. The birds flushed forty yards away.

  Cody moaned and cussed the dogs while Grandpa laughed. The pointers looked embarrassed and slipped under the barbed wire fence between our pasture and Mr. Barker’s, and hunted even harder.

  Hootie couldn’t keep up with the bigger, long-legged dogs, but it only made him work harder. He buried his nose in the tangle of briars along the fence and I had to drag him away from the recent bird smell before he’d give up the scent. He didn’t have the experience to know they were gone, but it must have smelled pretty good to him. As soon as we crossed the fence, he struck off behind the big dogs with his nose on the ground.

  Uncle Cody watched him closely. “He has something else in him but danged if I can tell what it is. But I allow the spaniel took over, because his nose is so good.”

  The dogs pointed the second covey not fifty yards from the first. The bobwhites held and Hootie had time to catch up. Instead of charging past the older dogs, he slowed down when he winded the birds and sort of crept up slow and easy. He didn’t know what was going on up there, but he sure liked the smell.

  May was the oldest, and she held a point with the other two honoring from behind. The closer Hootie got to May, the slower he moved until he’d crept up beside her. She knew he was coming and kept rolling one eye in his direction, knowing the youngster was showing some promise, but not caring much for his lack of manners.

  “Whoa,” Uncle Cody held his free hand out to stop us also. “Whoooa.”

  Hootie cut his eyes back at Cody, but he didn’t really understand the command. One more step forward and May gave him a deep, low growl. Quivering with excitement, Hootie stopped, but his tail was up in the prettiest little point I’d ever seen. He shook even harder and waited to see what would happen next.

  Uncle Cody held his hand out to me. “Stay back, Top. All three of us don’t need to shoot over your pup. This little .410 won’t be too loud and it’d be best for someone to hit a bird so he can see what this is all about.”

  I wanted so badly to shoot over Hootie’s first point, but I knew Cody was right. Grandpa Ned waited a few feet back, with his shotgun lying in the crook of his arm.

  Cody stepped up closer. The dogs kept their eyes fixed on the grass in front of them. Hootie turned his head to see what was going on. Cody took another step and the covey exploded from almost under the dog’s noses.

  Cody waited until the birds leveled off and dusted one. The bob fell in open ground and bounced once. The dogs ran for the retrieve. May already had the bird in her mouth and was bringing it back to Cody. She slowed only long enough to growl again at Hootie, who jumped up to lick at her face and smell the bird. When Cody knelt down, May placed the quail in his hand.

  “C’mere Hootie.” Cody roughed him up some, letting him get a good nose-full of bird. “Good pup. Good dog.” He stood and put the quail in his vest. “Top, Hootie there is gonna make a fine bird dog. He didn’t even flinch, and I know for a fact he’s never heard a shotgun go off.”

  We hunted a wide circle around the house. Uncle Cody was right, Hootie finally gave out from trying to keep up with the big dogs and Cody slipped him into the game bag at the back of his hunting vest. He wiggled around some for a while, sniffing at the birds in there, and finally fell asleep with his head hanging out, not even waking up when we shot.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  As another cold month rolled by, there wasn’t much to do around the house. One chilly Saturday Grandpa took me to visit Judge Rains at the courthouse. While I drank my strawberry soda in a corner of Mr. O.C.’s cluttered office, Grandpa complained about Lightfoot and Doak Looney. Doak was back in jail again, and they were in adjoining cells.

  “’I god, O.C., couldn’t you separate them sonsabitches a little bit more? We don’t need them getting together and thinking up meanness to do when they get out.”

  “Well, I guess I could take one of them home with me at night, if that’d satisfy you.”

  I’d never heard them act like that before. They jawed at each other like Pepper and I did when no one else was around. It made me feel proud to know Grandpa was talking like I was a grown man and not a little kid listening in.

  “They’ll get their stories together.”

  “They don’t have one to patch up, and neither one of them has the sense God give a goose. Besides, I told Griffin to put them there. I considered sticking both of them in the same cell in the hopes one of them will kill the other’n, but I changed my mind because I can’t sit in here all day waiting for it to happen.”

  “Well, I don’t like ’em together.”

  “I don’t like ’em apart, neither. Lightfoot spent most of his time hollering out of his window at people on the street down below. It got so bad I had him moved into an interior cell.”

  “Sonofabitch can scream till he turns blue in the face and I don’t care. I hope he gets to liking fried baloney, ’cause that’s all he’s gonna get until June.” Grandpa gave me a startled look when he remembered I was there.

  “You gonna go up there and see him?” Mr. O.C. swiveled back and forth with his hands folded across his middle.

  “Naw, I ain’t got no business up there with him. I just hope the jury finds him guilty of murder and they send him to the chair.”

  “We won’t be so lucky.”

  “Give him some extra sheets. Maybe he’ll hang himself and save the county some time and money. C’mon, boy, finish your strawberry and let’s get.”

  Mr. O.C. winked at me. “Y’all don’t run off. Stay and visit a while longer.”

  “Naw, we gotta go. Come go with us. We’re going to Frenchie’s for a burger.”

  “Better not.” Mr. O.C. perched his glasses back on his nose and turned to his work. “I have a Dallas lawyer coming to see me here in a minute.”

  As we went out the door I realized they enjoyed arguing with each other as much as Pepper and I did. It wasn’t long before Doak was sent down to Huntsville again. I heard his boy that Grandpa arrested at the still back in August had long since been released to live with his mother not far from Blossom.

  ***

  Grandpa and I leaned on the gate after supper one evening, watching the early season flies pester the cows.

  “Grandpa?”

  “Hum?”

  “Why do people hang dead animals or fish heads on bobwire fences? Like the coyote we found across the creek bridge.”

  “Well, I reckon they’re proud of what they shot, or caught. It also scares off other predators.”

  “Oh.”

  We stood there for a while longer, watching his old plowhorse, Jake, crop the new green grass shooting up through the dead stubble. “Grandpa?”

  “Hum?”

  “Can me and Pepper start getting away from the house some now that it’s warmed up?”

  Grandpa didn’t say anything for a minute. “Well, not for a while longer. I think finding Joseph dead like they did means it ain’t over yet. I doubt he’s done with his meanness toward our family.” He leaned heavier on the gate. “You still having those dreams of drowning?”

  “Yessir, every now and then.”

  “Well, those dreams worry me. You know how our family is. One or two of our kinfolk have a second sight, but none of us have ever been able to understand how to use it. You dreaming of drowning in the Rock Hole could mean anything.”

  “Nothing has happened, and I’ve
been having that dream for months.” I felt like I was making some headway.

  “I understand. Maybe the good Lord is telling us something through you. Someone is after our family. Maybe it’s somebody I’ve arrested before, or it could be some crazy feller from Dallas, but it don’t make no difference. Y’all can stay around the house in the daylight and that’s all. You’re lucky James even started letting Pepper come back over. I’ll beat the whey out of you if either of you goes anywheres near the bottoms.”

  “We’ve been wanting to hunt arrowheads on the Center Spring branch.”

  Grandpa sighed. “Naw, not yet. Y’all can stay around the pasture and barn here, but let one of us know when you leave the house and don’t you ever let me catch you out after dark.”

  Jake suddenly had a spell. Maybe it was because winter was over, or the annoying insects overcame him, but he lifted his tail, farted and loped across the pasture like a colt, ducking his head and kicking up his heels.

  Grandpa chuckled. “Blamed old fool. If he runs much more, he’ll be so stove up tomorrow he won’t be able to move.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ned thought he had a break in the murder case late one Sunday evening when he dropped Miss Becky, Top, and an angry Pepper off for evening services. He joined a dozen husbands and sons, mostly dressed in bib overalls and blue dress jackets, leaning on the sides of their trucks while they waited for the visiting lay preacher from Oklahoma to finish. The men outside weren’t usually known for attending services, but not knowing the preacher, they didn’t feel bad about waiting outside.

  Brother Ross was usually pretty good at watching the clock, but he was ill and the visiting preacher was wound up in the Spirit and showed no indication of slowing down. His squeaky voice ripped through the open doors.