The Rock Hole

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “Yessum, listen, y’all help me.” Isaac and two others assisted Ned, who slumped exhausted with his head leaning against the steering wheel.

  Following Miss Sweet’s orders, John stomped up the porch steps and turned sideways through the door, tracking mud and water onto the linoleum floor.

  Miss Sweet was still in charge inside the house. “Y’all get them in the bed and I’ll tend to Ned directly, after I see to these babies. I know these people mean well, but y’all need to get out the way. I got work to do.”

  A few people sucked in their breath, seeing a black woman issuing orders in Miss Becky’s living room.

  “Listen, she ain’t a-lyin’.” Isaac glared around the room, daring anyone to speak. “Y’all heard her. Go on, now, and let her work.”

  Miss Becky made shooing motions with her hands. “Y’all get out of the way. Follow me, Sweet.”

  Top roused up when John carried the kids past the table full of food brought by those who waited. He went limp and drifted away again as they passed through an ocean of concerned people.

  James pushed through the crowd and held out his arms. John gave Pepper over to her daddy. Ida Belle kept crying. “My baby girl, my baby girl.”

  James pulled John’s uniform shirt closed around Pepper’s scratched stomach and chest, and carried her into the front bedroom. He laid her on the bed and left her with Ida Belle and Miss Becky. They closed the door behind them. It opened again several times as the tiny hall bustled with ladies going for soap, hot water, spirits of camphor and rags.

  John’s arms trembled when he gently laid the boy down in the back bedroom with his head toward the foot of the bed. Miss Sweet sat her flour-sack bag on the dresser and extracted half a dozen jars containing leaves and herbs.

  “John, set yourself down at the table ’til I can look in on you too.” She glanced around the crowded room. “Somebody fetch me some boilin’ water and a coffee mug and then y’all thin out in here. We don’t need everybody in the way.”

  John left without argument.

  Hot water appeared and after crumbling the dried herbs into a cup, Miss Sweet poured the steaming water on top.

  “I need a couple of men in here.”

  The number of volunteers who stepped forward and lodged in the door would have been comical at any other time. They stepped back to let Neal and Walt Simms through. The worried men sat with Top on the bed and held him upright.

  Miss Sweet made a tent out of a pillowcase and put it over the boy’s head, then held the steaming cup under his nose. “Breathe this in, hon’.”

  Miss Sweet’s steaming mug woke Top enough to inhale the vapors for a couple of minutes. She made him drink the mixture and then repeated the process two more times.

  The weakened boy kept slipping back into unconsciousness at first, but she wouldn’t let him go. She and Miss Becky kept talking to him and wiping his forehead with cool washrags to keep him awake. Before long, his lungs relaxed and he slipped into a normal deep sleep.

  When she was satisfied that Top was out of danger, Sweet hurried across to the other bedroom on painful knees to check on Pepper. At the same time, two strong men helped Ned to his rocking chair beside the heater where he rested in exhausted silence, shaking with a deep chill.

  Ty Cobb knew about Ned’s smokehouse and returned with the most recent jar of liquid Evidence. Though mortally opposed to drinking, Mrs. Ida Wade poured a little of the white lightning into a cup of coffee and brought it to Ned. He swallowed it down in long draughts. She poured a second, stronger dose. The third cup was mostly Evidence with a little light coffee color. Ned finally leaned back, settled down and spoke quietly to those around him.

  Near collapse from fatigue, uncomfortable and shirtless, Big John trembled at the table. “Here, John.” One of Miss Becky’s quilting buddies Alma Fant cut an apple pie in half and put it on a plate. “You eat this and drink some of this hot coffee. Let me put something in it for you, if that’s alright.”

  “No, thankee, ma’am.” John felt awkward at being inside with all the white folks. “I don’t need nothing but coffee in my coffee.”

  “Have some pie, then.”

  “I don’t think I ought to.”

  “I didn’t ast you, John, I told you.” She touched his arm. “We owe you a lot more than this.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Ned could do nothing more than slump wearily in his rocker and talk quietly to himself while the country grapevine worked its magic. The storm intensified as Ivory’s family arrived in a truck that struggled up the hill to the house.

  Despite the presence of John and Miss Sweet in the house, Ivory and his folks stayed outside on the porch. They anxiously watched John through the window. Ivory found a patched and tattered shirt in his truck and sent it in with a youngster. It was too tight but John wore it without buttoning it up.

  A group of women and men went outside and knelt with Ivory’s family to pray for the children. After a while, Ralston joined them and, gingerly taking a knee, bowed his head. Still standing, with one hand on Ralston’s head, Ivory raised his face, closed his eyes, and they all talked to the Lord. Across the pasture, the Assembly of God church was open and several cars were parked in front. Despite the rain, the south windows were open and someone played Just as I Am.

  Alma Fant stuck her head into the hall. “The ambulance is here.”

  “Well, they ain’t taking anyone anywhere.” Miss Sweet placed her stocky body in the door and refused to move.

  The ambulance driver worked his way through the crowded house and stepped into the hall, looking worried. “We been told to get them.”

  “You can’t have neither one of ’em.” Miss Becky joined Miss Sweet in the hallway.

  “We’re still going to have to charge you for coming out here.” The driver tried to look past the ladies, but Walt Simms put his hand gently on the man’s shoulder and held him still.

  “Get you hands off me.”

  Walt gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Why don’t you wait outside?”

  “Why don’t you make me?”

  Doc Heinz arrived before the ambulance driver and Walt came to blows. Everyone in Lamar County respected Doc, so they listened when he spoke. In the course of his fifty-odd years as a country doctor, he liked to say he’d delivered right at three-quarters of the population of Center Springs.

  “You men hold it. Sam, go wait in the ambulance and I’ll call you if I need you. Now, everybody else get out of here so I can check on these kids. Howdy, Sweet. Who’s in which room?”

  “The boy is in thissun, and the girl is there.” She pointed a crooked, arthritic finger toward Pepper’s room. “The boy weren’t hardly breathin’, so I figgered he needed help the most. His lungs have eased up some, now.”

  “All right. Miss Becky, was the girl bleeding or having trouble breathing herself?”

  “Not that we saw. She’s in there talking just fine. She was burnt…branded, but I couldn’t see anything else.”

  “All right.” Doc went into the back bedroom first and listened to Top’s chest with his stethoscope. “You sound pretty good. What happened to them ribs?”

  Top drew a long, shuddering breath. “Raymond Chase kicked me.”

  Doc’s face hardened. He gently examined the boy’s side, but didn’t find anything of concern. “Your eyebrow is gonna need a stitch or two.” By the time he deadened the area, Top was so out he hardly felt it.

  Doc was most interested in Top’s breathing. “Did you do this, Sweet?” He poked his forefinger at the soggy leaves in the mug.

  She nodded, but wouldn’t look away. “That little feller was tryin’ to die when he got here, and I did what needed to be done.” She stiffened her back in anticipation of a dressing-down.

  Doc Heinz latched his bag and stood up. “I couldn’t have done better. Hell’s bells. I’ve had eight years of medical school with more than forty years of practice, and all you did was fix this boy up with a little dab of soggy leave
s. You need to tell me what you used.”

  She relaxed. “It weren’t just me.” She raised her right hand. “I’m always helped by the sweet warm presence of Jesus.”

  “I must have missed that course in college.” Doc glanced around the room. “All right. Well, I reckon he’ll live. Come with me and let’s look at Pepper.”

  They left and went into the other bedroom, ran all the women out despite their complaints, and closed the door. Half an hour later he emerged and sent Aunt Ida Belle back in to be with her daughter. “She’s scraped up and has a bad burn on the back of her shoulder, but she’s fine.”

  “Was she…did he?”

  “You women always ask me that and naw, she’s just fine like I done told you.”

  Miss Becky and Ida Belle broke down and sobbed like their hearts were broke. Seconds later, O.C. Rains blew into the house like black vengeance, dripping rainwater everywhere.

  His white hair stuck up when he took his hat off. Two of his deputies followed close behind and stopped in shock at the sight of John Washington sitting in Ned’s house. O.C. raised his eyes at their expressions, and the look on his face backed them off to wait beside the door.

  When O.C. saw Ned in his rocker, the tension went out of his shoulders. James brought him up to date. They were talking quietly when Doc shoved through the crowd to check on Ned. He knelt beside the rocker and leaned close to listen to his chest.

  Ned exhaled, and Doc started in surprise. “Why, he’s damned near drunk!”

  “You would, be too, if you’d swallered half a quart of Doak Looney’s best whiskey,” Jimmy Foxx told him.

  Everyone within hearing distance laughed, the tension finally broken.

  “You’ll be fine, Ned. You ’bout run yourself to death is all. You rest, now.” Doc gave him a pat on the shoulder and went into the kitchen. He rested his hand on Big John’s wide shoulder. “You need anything, John?”

  He shook his great head and leaned his elbows on the table. “I’m ’bout full up of pie and coffee. I just need to rest a bit.”

  Doc leaned over to speak softly. “I don’t aim to charge no one any money tonight. You feelin’ all right?”

  “I’m wore plumb out.” John gave the side of Doc’s leg a pat. “That’s all.”

  O.C. joined Ned and knelt beside the rocker. He put a hand on his knee and leaned forward to whisper in the old constable’s ear. “Ned, was it Raymond Chase for sure?” He turned his good ear to listen to the soft reply.

  “Yes.” Ned felt his stomach start to quiver and shoved down the tears that started to rise.

  “Did you do for him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “With Cody.”

  O.C. looked at his old friend for a long a while. Ned closed his eyes and rested.

  “Is Cody all right?”

  “Yes. I’m supposed to tell you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Raymond got away.”

  O.C. thought for a moment about the conflicting story. Then he slowly nodded. “It’s over.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Chase is gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “This can’t come back.”

  Ned opened his eyes. “Cody said. I believe him.”

  “All right, then.”

  “Something else.”

  “What?”

  “Cody weren’t there…because of what was done on the creek.”

  O.C. thought for a long time and then creaked to his feet. “All right, then.”

  John and Doc were still sitting at the table, so O.C. took a chair beside him and leaned in. Doc dug in on his own piece of pie and pretended he didn’t hear their whispered conversation, their heads close together.

  “Them little kids was near dead, and it was raining hard, Mr. O.C. The las’ thing I heard when we was running out of the bottoms was how Raymond Chase got away. I reckon it was Mr. Ned hollering he’d got away from us. Ain’t nothing else to it.”

  O.C. stared hard at his deputy. Satisfied, he stood and waved the two deputies outside. He followed them to the porch to give them instructions. They finally got in their car and drove off.

  Once more in the house, O.C. called to the crowd. “Y’all, come here and gather ’round, cause I don’t intend to tell this but once.” He threw his hat onto the table between a plate of cold chicken and a half a coconut cake and ran his fingers through silver hair.

  “Constable Raymond Chase did this to these young ’uns in there. He’s the one they call The Skinner. It’s a damn sorry shame to have to tell you since he’s one of mine, but those are the facts.”

  A gasp went up from the crowd both in the house and on the porch.

  “Now he got away, but I’ve instructed my deputies to put out an all-points bulletin and to call those FBI boys back in town. We’ll find Raymond and deal with him when we do. Now, I don’t want none of y’all to go running around out there waving shotguns around and bollixing things up. Let my boys and the feds handle it. Let’s all be grateful we got these kids back, and there won’t be any more hurtin’ done around here anymore.”

  “Listen,” Isaac Reader stepped out of the crowd. “You sure it was him and weren’t any of them circus people from across the river that’s been doing it?”

  “No, Ike, it was Chase.”

  “All right. You know I hate them clowns.”

  “We know, Ike.” O.C. went back to sit with Ned.

  Engines started outside as neighbors left to spread the word.

  “Ned, you and John did all right, and don’t think you didn’t ’cause Raymond didn’t come out of them woods. I’ll have my men down there in the morning and they’ll start looking for him, but I warn you all,” he raised his voice to be heard. “With all this rain, I doubt there’ll be many tracks. We’ll do our best, though.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  After John and Ned left with the kids, Cody sat by the fire to rest. The steady rain threatened to drown out the blaze, but Cody threw the entire pile of wood on the surviving coals. Despite being wet, the flames flickered to life and finally generated some warmth.

  His ribs ached and a jaw tooth was missing. Cody spat blood onto the ground and stuck his tongue into the hole. He looked sadly at the little dog’s body lying in the mud. If it hadn’t been for Hootie, he might never have gotten to the kids in time.

  By coincidence, Cody joined the search after dropping by for a visit with Miss Becky. When she met him on the porch and told him the kids were gone, his heart dropped. He had a long moment of indecision until, in the background, Hootie’s howling and whining from the corn crib caught his attention.

  “Did you put the dog up?”

  Miss Becky looked toward the pasture. “I never, but somebody put him in there. Turn him out and he’ll run to the kids.”

  Cody rushed to the corn crib and turned the Brittany out. The young dog ran around the yard for a few moments with his nose to the ground and then took off like a shot, leading Cody along the kid’s path and straight to the Rock Hole.

  Despite the fire, Cody shivered from reaction and the chilly rain. He reached out to rub Hootie’s wet hair. His first touch smoothed the soaked coat, but the second elicited a shocking response. A muscle twitched under his hand. He slid closer through the wet leaves and picked up the limp dog, thinking the twitch must have been his imagination.

  Blood covered the left side of the dog’s muzzle, but instead of finding a large hole in Hootie’s head, Cody realized the bullet glanced off at a very shallow angle, knocking out a large chunk of scalp without penetrating. In the firelight, he saw a thumbnail chip of the dog’s skull was missing, but the wound had already stopped bleeding.

  He gently shook the young dog. “Hootie? Hey, boy, you with me?”

  Hootie’s tail feebly wagged, and he sighed deeply. Cody took off his shirt and wrapped the young dog. He laid him close to the fire and sat back, thinking. In the flickers of lightning Cody could
see Raymond’s cooling body, his feet now in the rising waters of the creek.

  “You missed out on it all around tonight, you son-of-a-bitch.”

  Cody remembered the sunken remains of a Depression-era dugout house not far from the Rock Hole and with a sigh, forced himself to his feet. He walked the short distance and found a few rotting boards protruding from the caved-in shelter, illuminated by Raymond’s flashlight. Assisted by the near continuous lightning, Cody pulled them out of the wet ground and used one of the short planks as a shovel to enlarge and deepen the dugout.

  When he was satisfied, he used Pepper’s bindings to tie a loop around Raymond’s ankles. He roughly dragged the corpse from the creek bank through the rain and rolled it into the hole. Throwing Raymond’s shirt in afterward, Cody collected several large rocks and dropped them in on top of the body along with a number of broken boards. He kicked in a couple of feet of sand, then added more large rocks to ensure nothing could dig up Raymond’s remains.

  Rain settled the wet sand around the rocks and the body. To ensure the grave would never be found, Cody returned to the roiling, rising waters of the creek and searched the bank. As the batteries in Raymond’s flashlight grew weak, he finally found a young tree washing out into the current. It came free of the wet ground with a couple of good tugs.

  Cody returned to the grave and planted the tree in the mud, backfilling around the roots and trunk with sand until the ground was once again level. He stood there for a moment in the diminishing rain, facing west where he could faintly see the lights of Ned’s house. The water quickly washed away all evidence of the activity.

  “You killed my dog, too, and I never liked you anyway.” Cody unzipped his fly and finished watering the grave.

  Incredibly weary, he returned to the sputtering fire. Hootie thumped his tail weakly at the sight of Cody who loved on him for a few minutes. Then he gathered up Raymond’s revolver, knives, and screwdrivers and threw them all in the deepest part of the Rock Hole. He knew the strong water would eventually bury them in silt forever. Finally, he twisted the arrowhead free from the bailing wire branding iron and threw it into the creek, also.