Burrows

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  ***

  The mesmerizing hole beckoned. Andrews found himself drawn by the yawning maw. Like a child with a tantalizing mystery just out of reach, the temptation was too much to resist.

  “I’m only going in far enough to peek around the corner.”

  Andrews’ tone and the clatter of his belt as he dropped his holster sent a fresh feeling of dread through Parker.

  He turned. “Uh, uh. Why don’t you wait until Donald gets here?”

  Donald Griffin had been sheriff for nearly twenty years. He also came to Chisum from Dallas, eager to get away from the big city’s crime and politics. He found a home in the small town, but Cody’s Uncle Ned Parker had little use for the man who was as territorial as a junk yard dog.

  Ned felt Griffin had something crooked going on.

  Andrews removed his hat and placed it on the gun belt to keep from soiling the light colored felt. He leaned inside, his voice muffled by the trash. “It ain’t gonna hurt nothin’ and I won’t go all the way inside. This is like Alice in Wonderland. Down the rabbit hole.”

  Cody wasn’t happy with the muscular, hard-headed deputy. Was I ever this foolish? Yeah, I guess I was when they gave me a forty-five and sent me into the Vietnamese dirt. If you like this so much, Andrews, you should have been a tunnel rat with me because you’d have been broken pretty damn fast from crawling into small places.

  He jogged to the El Camino, opened the door, and sat inside with one foot on the ground. Twilight cloaked the neighborhood. Thick billows of dark clouds gathered to the north. The air stilled.

  Keeping an eye on Andrews was getting harder in the fading light. Cody watched the lower half of his partner’s body as he squirmed into the hole. He started the engine and angled into the street to position the car’s recently installed spotlight directly onto Andrew’s back. He clicked the button on the floor and the headlights illuminated the scene even more. He blocked the street, but Cody didn’t care.

  He keyed the Motorola’s microphone. “Martha.”

  “Go ahead, Cody.” Her voice crackled on the other end.

  “Tell Donald that we have a possible dead body in the Exchange with the damnedest situation I’ve ever seen. He needs to get over here.”

  “Okey dokey.”

  He focused on a clot of greenery three feet deep. Ivy and grapevines grew from huge cracks in the foundation and sidewalk, draping the exterior in a coat of vegetation starting to wither in the late season weather. The base of one grapevine was thick as a bat. Tired weeds grew past rusty bumpers piled lengthwise between the arches. A gritty maze of broken concrete surrounded the building. Paint peeled on the sagging shutters at ground level, and another service door further down hung on warped frames.

  Hundreds of yellow National Geographic magazines formed a multicolored floor leading into the burrow.

  The burrow wasn’t high enough for Andrews to crawl on his hands and knees. He was forced to squirm in on his stomach. Feeling around with his left foot, he found a solid purchase and pushed farther inside. He instantly felt relieved when he saw the tunnel widened not far ahead. At the bend Andrews knew he’d be able to get room to move.

  The flashlight illuminated bound stacks of yellowed and crumbling newspapers and magazines reaching up the right side. It reminded him of the hay bales he’d stacked by the thousands in barns all along the river bottoms. Only the smell wasn’t as pleasant as sweet alfalfa.

  The left side was old television picture tubes of various sizes, forming a solid wall of glass. Twenty-four inches overhead, doors and rolls of mildewed, carpet created a ceiling.

  The gagging odor of rotting meat filled the burrow again, stronger than before, as if pushed from behind by a fan. Andrews’ stomach contracted. Breathing through his mouth and supporting himself on one elbow, he fought down a wave of nausea, knowing that he’d be the butt of jokes for months to come if he puked in the shaft. In an effort to see around the corner, he shifted and twisted to gain more leverage.

  He rolled to the side against the newspapers, raised his chest as high as possible, and called back over his shoulder. “Hey, partner!”

  At the muffled shout, Cody quickly replaced the microphone and trotted back up the walk. He knelt beside the entrance. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve gone about as far as my nose will let me.” His voice was muffled. “You’d better send for the meat wagon. Someone in here is pretty ripe.”

  “Already have. Can you see the body?”

  Feeling a little more secure with Cody so close, Andrews grunted and scooted another inch or so. “No, but this tunnel bends up ahead. I can move around a little better once I get in there. I think the smell is coming from around the corner.”

  “Come on out.” Cody’s bad feeling intensified and over the years he’d come to respect his intuition. He was more spooked than he cared to admit.

  I dream of tunnels that burrow deep into the earth.

  He shivered and fought the need to run. “Get out of there.”

  Andrews shifted, already feeling the strain in his neck from the awkward position. “I’m about ready. One more push and I can see around this bend. Then I’ll be out.”

  A low sound drifted through the fetid air, causing hair to prickle on the nape of Andrew’s neck. “Cody, did you hear that? It sounds like somebody is hurt in here!”

  Andrews moved his left elbow to rest on a large piece of crumbling cardboard. It gave slightly with a loud snap, like a bone breaking.

  A nasty, grinding sound filled the tunnel. Andrews barely registered a pale face that appeared around the corner and widened into a leering grin. He knew that face. He’d seen it on a wanted poster just that morning under the white block letters that spelled the name of Kendal Bowden.

  His own fears had been realized.

  Driven by four bags of hardened cement mix, the front fork of a kid’s bicycle plunged downward with savage force, ramming through his upper back and punching completely through the man’s chest to bury nearly six inches deep into the garbage below.

  Andrews was pinned as effectively as a butterfly on display. A scream forced itself through his blood-filled throat before shutting off as if someone threw a switch.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hundreds of coffee cans full of nuts, bolts and nails.

  ***

  Cody’s heart pounded. He slammed backward into the exterior wall at Andrew’s brief scream and quickly drew the big .45 from its holster, expecting an attack from any direction. Peripherally, he saw his partner’s feet kicking spastically in the air. The liquid sounds coming from Andrews flushed ice into his blood.

  “Jeff!” Cody swept the pistol toward the street, then knelt and grabbed his ankle. “Can you hear me?”

  Andrews’ convulsing elbow brushed a second hidden trigger, setting off a chain reaction in the mass of garbage above. A thin wire snapped, releasing a simple lever mechanism. Short but incredibly heavy pieces of railroad track slammed down with the force of a sledgehammer onto the television picture tubes.

  Glass shattered from the force of the blow. The resulting detonation blew out the screens in a spray of razor sharp glass, slicing Andrew’s face and neck to ribbons. Not one square inch of exposed skin on the left side of his upper face and neck remained intact. Blood pumped from his severed carotid artery and soaked the dust-dry newspapers and magazines below.

  Parker jerked at the sound of the tremendous implosion. Andrews’ legs ceased their spastic jerking as sparkling dust poured from the hole around his body, shimmering in the spotlight.

  Cody launched himself back to the street, chased by illogical fear. Terror took the reins. He raced across the sidewalk and around the El Camino’s hood to get a barrier between him and the building. Grabbing the open door with his left hand, centrifugal force slung him around and into the front seat. He snatched the microphone and pressed the key with numb fingers.

  “Man down!” Cody’s voice was full of panic. He kept his pistol pointed toward the Exchange,
looking for nonexistent targets. “Martha, Jeff’s hurt and there’s been an explosion!”

  With a gasp, he gripped the transmitter even harder. “I need help!”

  “We heard you, Cody,” said the calm voice Martha Wells. She’d been the dispatch operator for the past thirty years and was always cool in any crisis. They counted on her to handle an emergency without emotion. But afterwards, once the situation was resolved, she’d break down and weep great crocodile tears for at least an hour.

  For the moment, she was all business. “All units. All units. Officer down at the Cotton Exchange Building on Howard. Repeat, officer down. Help is on the way, Cody. Hang on, hon.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ned was so used to being constable that he couldn’t shake the habit of hanging around town on a Friday night. He was standing outside of the brightly lit Grand Theater when Top and Pepper led the way out of the picture show. James didn’t seem too surprised to see Ned and he winked at Aunt Ida Belle, like they knew a secret.

  The retired constable stood a little taller when he saw them. “How was the picture?”

  “Not bad for a Disney show,” James said. “But I like Brian Keith in anything.”

  “Where y’all headed now?”

  Ida Belle shrugged her round shoulders. “It’s not too late, so I kinda wanted to go by and see Aunt Neva Lou.”

  The kids deflated at the thought. Miss Becky’s only sister Neva Lou lived by herself in a house that smelled like cats. She didn’t have any kids, there was no television, and it was too dark for them to do anything except sit still and listen to the adults visit.

  James didn’t seem that excited about it either, but he was going along with the idea to keep the peace.

  Ned felt bad for his grandkids, because he didn’t have much use for Neva Lou himself. High overhead, he absently registered the sound of geese complaining about the coming weather. “You kids want to go and get some ice cream with me instead?” Smiles brightened their faces. “Well, y’all c’mon. Pepper can spend the night with us.”

  “All right, but neither one of the kids have their coats and there’s a norther on the way.” Ida Belle always had a worry.

  “That’s all right. They’ll be just as cold with you as me, besides, my car has a heater.”

  James hid a grin.

  “Well, all right then.” Ida Belle wasn’t going to argue with Ned, but she wasn’t going visiting alone. “Let’s go, James. Pepper, you behave yourself.” Without any further conversation, she turned and led the way to their car. James trailed sadly behind.

  The kids followed Ned the short distance to Lane’s corner drugstore just off the square. The soda fountain’s white marble counter extended from the large front window and ran the length of the store’s left side. Backed by gilded mirrors and thirty-year-old soda pulls, brightly colored pasteboard signs announced everything from Double Colas, Hires Root Beer and Grapettes, to Oak Brand ice cream sundaes.

  Top and Pepper climbed onto the red vinyl stools and beamed. “Hidy Carlina,” they said almost in unison.

  Carlina had been the soda jerk there for years and knew everyone in town. Most of her customers thought she hung the moon. She crinkled her nose and popped her gum. “What you doing with these two outlaws, Ned?”

  He always enjoyed visiting with her, because she popped her gum better than anyone he ever knew. “They’re keeping me company. Y’all order what you want.”

  Top knew exactly what he wanted, because he’d had his mouth set for a chocolate soda all evening in the hopes that his Uncle James would stop by the drugstore on the way home. “Chocolate soda.”

  “Chocolate malt,” Pepper ordered. “They’re thicker.”

  “I could care less…” Top began, but Ned cut him off.

  “Coffee.”

  Carlina watched them spin on the stools. “They’re pretty busy company.”

  “Keeps me young.”

  “You’re too damned old to be young,” a voice said from behind.

  Ned turned to see Judge Raines in his usual black suit. He didn’t let on that he was glad to see the old judge. “You came in here for me to buy you a cup of coffee, didn’t you? Why’n’t you go on down to Frenchie’s while me and these two have our ice cream in peace.”

  Judge Rains gave Top’s hair a quick rub. He squeezed Pepper’s shoulder, slapped his Stetson on the counter, and settled heavily onto the empty red vinyl-covered stool beside Ned. “I’m here because I wanted ice cream, too. It’s Saturday night.

  Carlina knew the pair well enough to ignore their bickering. The judge came in the drugstore every Saturday evening at the same time, so she had a fresh pot of coffee ready to go, in case he needed a quick pick-me-up.

  With Ned’s attention elsewhere, Top finally had the opportunity to show Pepper that he wasn’t the titty baby she thought he was. He stuck a hand deep into his jean pocket and nudged his young cousin to get her attention. As she watched, he turned his back on the old men and held out a closed fist.

  She sucked in a shocked breath at the sight of Ned’s tiny gold constable badge in his open hand. Snitching cigarettes, taking a drink, and cussing were about the extent of her boundaries, despite the rough exterior she tried to show Top. But the thought of actually snitching, stealing, her Grandpa’s most cherished possession was almost too much.

  “What are you going to do with that?” she whispered.

  Top leaned toward her. “Keep it. Grandpa don’t need it no more. I’ll always have it when he finally gives up trying to find it.”

  “You’re a damned idiot. He won’t never quit looking for that badge.”

  Ned turned slightly. “Did y’all say something?”

  “Nossir.” Top closed his fist.

  “Well, it ain’t polite to whisper in public.”

  “Yessir.” He slipped the badge back in his pocket.

  Carlina returned with the coffee. She thumped two thick white mugs on the counter. When Ned motioned with his finger, she set a tiny container of cream beside his mug.

  Top loved the ounce of cream that came in the tiny clear containers and feeling brave, grabbed it just ahead of Pepper’s quick reach. He downed it like a shot of whiskey in an old west saloon and slapped it back on the counter.

  Judge Rains laughed. “Land O’Goshen, I’m glad I like my coffee black. It’d be hard work for a man to cream his coffee around this crew.”

  Ned shot his grandchildren a wry grin. “Who you got in jail tonight?”

  “Kinfolk, mostly. Mine and yours. You’ll be glad to know Cody caught Donny Wayne Foster’s boy, Harold, racing outside of town again. He wouldn’t have brought him in, but the little idiot gave him some lip, and Cody had warned him twice before already. I’m-a gonna let him spend the night in the hoosegow before I turn him a-loose.”

  “Don’t surprise me. None of that Foster bunch has a lick of sense.” Ned sipped his coffee as Carlina set the kids’ ice cream on the counter with a flourish. Quick as a wink, he reached over and grabbed the cherry off of Top’s soda. When the youngster opened his mouth to complain, Ned beat him. “Turnabout’s fair play.” He popped it in his mouth and chewed. “Others have been racing at night down by the creek bridge, knowing that I ain’t constable no more. I told Cody about it, but they only race deep into the night, or when they know Cody’s gone, and they’re hard to catch.”

  Pepper about fell off her stool, laughing at the way Top bristled up over losing the cherry off his soda. She poked him with an elbow and turned to her own malt, pulling hard with her cheeks to get the thick goo through the straw.

  O.C. nodded and watched Carlina construct a banana split for two of Chisum’s oldest residents, Miss Dollar and her husband Arthur, who came by every Saturday night for the same treat. Miss Dollar wasn’t eighty pounds fully dressed and soaking wet, and besides a cup of strong coffee and a piece of toast in the morning, the ice cream was her entire meal for the day.

  “Cody’ll get the rest of them, eventually.”


  “I hope so. It galls me to think I have to lay there in bed and listen to them engines.”

  “That’s the best place to race in Center Springs,” O.C. goaded him. The straight stretch from the creek bridge to where the highway curved around Ned’s hill was almost exactly a mile, long enough to get a running start and shut down before the highway turned.

  “Well, I don’t give a …” Ned’s comment ended abruptly when a young courthouse secretary named Liz Jennings burst through the drugstore’s glass doors, her Shelly Fabares hairstyle awry.

  “Judge!” They turned at the stress in the woman’s voice. “Martha over in dispatch is trying to find you. She’s about frantic. She called me at home to come and find you. She even tried this phone, but nobody answered.”

  “That’s because it’s been on the fritz all week.” Carlina dabbed whip cream on top of the banana split.

  O.C. spun around on his stool. “That don’t matter none. What is it, Liz?”

  “She says one of your people has been killed tonight.”

  “Who was it?” O.C. reached for his hat.

  “Jeff Andrews went to check on a bad smell coming from the old Cotton Exchange building. Somehow he got killed and they have them bad guys penned up.” She cut her eyes at Ned.

  “Who’s with Jeff?” He stood up, stomach clenched, instinctively knowing the answer.

  She had to tell him. “Cody Parker.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wooden cases full of empty soda pop bottles, hand tools, handmade cedar chests and crude quilt boxes, fruit crates, chicken crates, clothes, clothes, clothes…

  ***

  Sirens increased in volume with wails of urgency and fear. The brotherhood of lawmen takes immediate precedence when one of their own is in trouble. Every available officer in town rushed to aid their fellow brother in arms.

  Cody stuffed his .45 back into the holster, jerked the shotgun from its awkward position between the seats…

  …Oh God, please don’t let him be dead…