Crimes in Southern Indiana

by Frank Bill

  They took her to coon-hunting contests. Never shy, Margaret mingled with other hunters who knew J.W. and his daddy. A lot of hunters came by the house with good intentions, wanting to breed a hound with their Blondie or wanting J.W. to train one of theirs. They’d pay top dollar. But his daddy taught him not to go training just any man’s hound.

  Now J.W. is out the door, Margaret following behind, asking, “Where the hell you going?”

  He tells her, “To the barn to investigate the situation.”

  And distraught, she’s asking, “What about going to town, getting Mac?”

  J.W. cuts her off. “He’ll be around sometime this morning, supposed to go fishin’ on up over the damn hill with him and Duncan.”

  “You never mentioned anything ’bout it to me.”

  “Woman, they’s plenty I don’t mention to you, and for damn good reason.”

  Up by the barn, J.W. examines Blondie’s run. A circle of gravel J.W. laid that looked like a small horse track so she could trot. Keep the cushions of her paws tough. Cut down on the mud. In the center of the run the soil is damp from a late-night rain shower. Her collage of paw prints leads all around her doghouse, full of fresh cedar chips, to help to keep fleas and ticks at bay. Her chains are unbroken. No dog collar, meaning she’s been unleashed by someone.

  And J.W. shouts, “Shit!” Telling himself it was only a matter of time before they got her, because he knows some shady son of a bitch has been stealing folk’s top-of-the-bloodline hounds for months. And from southern Indiana all through Kentucky and Tennessee this thief will reap top dollar from the right proprietor. All a man’s got to do is glance through the ads in the back of a Full Cry or American Cooner. Find a buyer. That’s why J.W. hated to train or breed hounds for just any man. Greed.

  As he kneels down, his lip starts twitching, eyes an acidic overcast. J.W. put a lot of time and money into that hound. A ten-pound bag of Ol’ Roy or Alpo dog food doesn’t come cheap week after week. Let alone catching a coon, trying not to get one of his limbs ripped off. They get kind of pissed when you catch them, take them out of their habitat, put them in a steel-mesh roll cage, similar to a hamster’s wheel only it’s a cage, so the dog can sniff the coon. Get familiar with its scent. While the coon runs, it rolls the cage. The dog chases it around. That shit takes time. Coming home from the war to a dead daddy, all J.W. had was what his daddy taught him, how to train a hound.

  Scaling the terrain of Blondie’s run. Surveying the situation. Any overlooked details of sunken paw prints. Prints leading away in another direction. Nothing. Just a lot of loose gravel.

  Then, an imprint on the outer edge of the run. Still kneeling down. Lip twitch doubling on the nerves. J.W. knows imprints. Tracked many animals as a young man with a hound at his side. Carried the skill overseas to the war. Foreign soil. Jungle trails of Vietnam. A recon tunnel rat. J.W. and a shepherd hound tagged as Merck One-Eight, distinguishing boots from sandals. Learned mud was mud regardless of continent. It became his specialty. Two of them tracking the Vietcong to their underground supply tunnels in Cu Chi. Smoking their Commie asses out.

  Standing off to the side, Margaret asks, “What is it, J.W.?”

  On the inner edge of the run there’s another imprint. Imprints don’t lie. It’s not his or hers and it ain’t canine. Ignoring Margaret, J.W. inhales slowly and deeply. He takes in the details. Boot, size twelve. Not ours. Overpriced Red Wing. No comfort. No support. He knows it and knows it well. Those details make the bad boil over. And all that bad in there from the war doesn’t simmer down. It’s like a strong case of chicken pox or poison ivy, has to run its course.

  Something clicks in his brain.

  And the worry in Margaret’s voice insisting, “J.W., I ain’t asking you again, the hell is it?”

  Taking a Lucky Strike from his black-and-brown-checkered flannel’s breast pocket to his anger-twitched lip. His thumbnail to an Ohio Blue Tip. A match that strikes a flame on any surface. J.W. firing up the unfiltered smoke into his lungs and saying, “Woman, we got ourselves one greedy stain of a shit heel.”

  Going into the white-brick milk house that’s attached to the ocean-blue barn, about the size of a spare bedroom, glancing at the shovels, axes, mulls, sledgehammers, corn knives, and machetes. J.W. doesn’t want to chop the man’s ass up like cornmeal. Just facilitate consequences for actions, payback for thieving his hound. Grabbing a can of leaded fuel, the fox traps, the type of trap that if a man were to step in, he’d never walk a straight line again. Let alone limp one. He’d attain to be a stutter-stepping son of a bitch for stealing a man’s dog.

  Putting everything in the rusted rear of his orange International Harvester Scout. Going into the house. Straight to his bedroom closet. Pulling his chipped military green metal box down off the top shelf. Opening it, taking out his Springfield Armory .45-caliber Colt. The same model he used overseas to decide a man’s permanence. Has a recoil that can dislocate a common man’s shoulder.

  Pulling the slide, shelling a piece of brass filled with gunpowder and lead into the chamber, Margaret coming into the room and telling him, “Quit acting the fool. Just go find Mac, let him handle this.”

  Pushing the .45 down the back of his worn-for-hard-work dungarees, looking into her face. She’s calm as a clear blue sky. But not J.W.; when he’s hopped up this high on hate, any pleas from the opposition are like the Vietnam jungles. Foreign. Telling Margaret, “Done told you he’d be here this morning to fish. ’Sides, the only fool will be the man I’m paying an unexpected visit to.”

  Margaret looking on, fed up. “Guess all that orange you ate over there done fried that brain of yours to plumb crazy.”

  Outside, J.W. is placing his .45 in the Scout’s glove box when Marty MacCullum pulls up. Locks up the brakes of his cruiser, throwing gravel from the driveway.

  His laugh insane and high-pitched, he sounds like an untamed rodent shrieking from a large leather sack. Mac greets him, “Where the hell you going so damn early? Thought you, me, and Duncan’s goin’ fishin’?”

  J.W.’s lip twitches with a distaste for wasted words and he tells him, “Something personal’s come up.”

  Marty, everyone calls him Mac for short, is Mauckport’s town marshal. Not a town clown or county mountie. An odd man who keeps odd hours, with a twisted sense of humor and a taste for the brew. He’s older but like J.W. he’s got a dark section of mind that others have no business trespassing on.

  He and J.W. use the three hundred acres of private property that J.W.’s daddy left him in his will after making a mess of his mental state. They hunt and toss back brews, shoot the shit while treeing coons into the midnight hour at least once a week, and they fish on down along the Ohio River every so often because a good portion of J.W.’s property borders it.

  With wild eyes hidden behind mirrored specs, pushed tight over his scarred pits of a cracked-clay face, spitting some Red Man chew, Mac throws back a tin-can swallow of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Savors it with the filthy sound effects of a lip-pounding pucker and asks, “Anything I can help with, J.W.?”

  J.W. tells him, “Like I said, it’s personal.”

  Mac says, “Well then, want one for the road? It’s last one and ice-sickle cold.”

  J.W.’s mind is boiling and he starts to mention Blondie, but it’s got to be his way and he says, “Better not.”

  While J.W. fires up the Scout, Mac throws back another swallow and laughs, passes on that shady sense of humor and says, “You ain’t gone cold turkey on the brew during morning hours, have you, J.W.? Having them withdrawals? Corner your lips about to jab your eyeball out of its socket.”

  Closing his eyes, J.W. shakes his head. His brain rattles in his eardrum like loose buckshot. This conversation’s holding him up. Blondie could be headed to another state by now.

  Mac throws back another swallow. Savoring that tin-can taste, Mac says, “You’re going mute on me, J.W. If this ‘something’ got you all worked up, maybe I should come along. Help out a fr
iend.”

  J.W. comes clean, tells Mac, “I might’ve found the person been stealing the hounds, but if I’m wrong there’s no sense in you coming along, making a scene.”

  Mac mashes the tin. Tosses it onto the floorboard of his cruiser. Pops his last Pabst open, glances toward the barn, looks back at J.W., and says, “Well, I be damn, no wonder you’s all worked up. You trained many of them dogs that got stole. A man might look the other way so a friend could have a debriefing with the thief. Guess I best radio Duncan, see when he’s comin’ down to fish. Says he’s gonna meet us in his boat.”

  J.W. tells Mac, “Appreciate it.” And he offers, “There’s two cases of Pabst in the house’s fridge. Help yourself.”

  Laughing, Mac continues, “Here I thought you’d gone retard on me, son, that eye flaring up. See you in a bit.”

  J.W. puts the Scout into drive. His lip twitching into his eye, he glances at Mac, nods. Stamps the gas. Pelts Mac’s cruiser with loose gravel.

  Everything a man survives in life is a lesson. Some lessons are taken, others are given. What J.W. learned from the war carries over to everyday life. Men lie. Men die. And one thing J. W. Duke can’t tolerate is lies. Trying to swallow why this leech of a man would go cross on him, reasoning says he’s been living off that family money too long. An inheritance from his deceased doctor daddy. He’s a few years older than J.W. but never had to work a day in his life. Inherited everything he’s got. And what he’s gotten is greedy from never having to work for anything. Thinks he’s entitled. Decided to steal J.W.’s hound and prosper from it.

  Parking the Scout. Getting out. Tucking the .45 down the back of his dungarees, grabbing the can of fuel. Slinging the traps over his shoulder.

  He should have paid more attention to all the times he went coon hunting with Combs. Always using J.W.’s hound. Driving his truck. Drinking his Pabst Blue Ribbon. Son of a bitch never packed his own lunch, always shared his bologna sandwich with the freeloading prick. Combs would laugh, call it a poor man’s steak sandwich, while they listened to the bawl of the hound striking the trail. Then the echo through the valley of trees when the dog treed the coon. Then came the long walk through the woods, up and down the gullies and hills, deciphering the direction of the barking. Lugging a .22 rifle, battery clipped on his side to power the hunting light attached to his head like a caver’s. Most hunters hoped their dog had struck the right trail, hadn’t run a squirrel or possum up a tree. Those types of hunters didn’t know the old ways to break a hound like J.W.’s daddy had taught him.

  Sometimes J.W. climbed the tree once he spotted the coon’s eyes reflecting the light while it hunkered up in the limbs. He’d knock the coon to the ground, let his hound battle the hiss and claw of it, get a good taste of battle before he killed it. Other times he’d shoot it from the tree. J.W. preferred both ways to keep his hound in check.

  The more J.W. went over it in his head, he realized every time Combs and he went hunting, Combs would be breaking him down, wanting to get him into a partnership. A deal that involved breeding Blondie with one of his hounds. Talking about how big a wad of dough the two of them could make off her bloodline with the pups, six to eight hundred dollars a dog. Even pressuring Margaret to sway him. Filling her head full of false beliefs about getting rich from J.W.’s knowledge.

  Telling her about his connection with a doctor, a specialist who had a second opinion about her insides. How extra cash could pay for surgery to fix her damage. The whole time J.W.’s telling both of them no.

  Now J.W. surveys the surrounding hickory trees with leaves veined and green shading the rectangular sandstones of Combs’s home, the ferns that decorate the perimeters of attack like plants in a jungle. J.W. walking up next to Combs’s black Chevy Bronco. Inside, a bag is packed, flashlights and power packs attached to spotlights, the rubber floor covered with mud. Bastard never offered to drive when the two of them hunted. But he can drive to J.W.’s home. Filch J.W.’s hound while he’s passed out drunk. Pack up his Blondie. J.W. knows what Combs is planning to do. Thinks he’ll breed Blondie with different hounds for quick cash from state to state, charge a lot of money and a cut on the pups.

  Up the creek-rock pathway, smears of mud draw J.W.’s eyes up the steps of the planed cedar porch, where dried gourds hang orange and yellow. Up by the front door an old cola machine sits red, white, and rusted with a cracked glass side door. Down beside it lie muddy boots. Red Wing. Size twelve.

  Up next to the side of the house, kneeling below the dining room window. Lip twitching into his eye.

  Back pushed against Combs’s home, J.W. turns and peeks in, seeing Combs’s location, but no sign of Blondie. His heart’s pounding with the influx of enmity. The bastard’s seated at a table littered with newspapers and magazines. Calm as a crustacean. That harelip smirk he postures as a stupid smile. Having his last breakfast. Shoveling chunks of egg into his mouth. Yolk cobwebbing down his thorny beard of a chin.

  Kneeling back down, J.W. shakes his head, thinking Blondie was the only thing he had left from his dead daddy and Combs went and stole all that time and knowledge.

  J.W. removes the cap from the can of gas, staying low to the ground and walking backwards, saturating the perimeter of the home. Leaving space between fuel and sandstone. Enough to get his attention. Giving a gap. To get this Vietcong out of his hole, he’s gotta give him some heat.

  He takes a front-row seat to confrontation, standing in front of Combs’s home, on his creek-rock path. Empty can of leaded fuel on the ground. Fox traps in front of him. Open. Ready to bite.

  Flint to flame. J.W. inhales his Lucky Strike. Lets it dangle from his lip, .45 Colt in hand. Safety in the unsafe setting. Taking a last deep lung-gagging draw, he tells himself, This is for my daddy, then he gives the Lucky Strike a middle-finger-to-thumb flick through the air to the fuel-soaked ground. The trail leading around Combs’s stone shelter. Lighting up in arcs all the way around the home.

  Combs busts out of his front door, denim pants half buttoned and cream-colored belly hanging. Holding a singlebarrel shotgun. His energy’s a big blast of napalm. Buckles down the steps of his porch barefooted. Mouth packed with food. Hollering, “Crazy son of a bitch, you done lost your mind?” Food particles rain like confetti with his words. He raises his shotgun and his eyes meet J.W.’s.

  Those huts. The way a Commie would come out screaming some foreign-tongued mojo. Never did a damn bit of good. Combs has no sense as he shuffles toward J.W. dumbfounded, left foot first into the center of a fox trap. Like a heavy book smacking a hardwood floor just right. Loud. Would send a shiver of numbness up a person’s back. J.W. watches the metal break denim, puncture flesh, dig into bone. Blood bleeds through. Combs is screaming like a boar hog being castrated. Drops the shotgun.

  J.W. aims the .45 at Combs. The arc of fuel-induced flames is dying down. Smoldering. J.W. spits, “Planning a trip with my damn hound? Maybe breed her for profit?”

  Combs’s eyes water down his thorn-stubbled cheeks and he cries, “You dumb son of a bitch.”

  Ready to give a cold steel alignment to his speech, refresh Combs’s tone, put a bit of truth back onto his tongue, J.W. says, “Last chance, Combs, where’s Blondie?”

  Whining like a pup being weaned from its mama’s tit, he says, “I ain’t got your damn dog!”

  When J.W. asked why Combs did what he did, Combs said, “Money.” Combs had blown all of his daddy’s inheritance. He started filching topbred coonhounds for a guaranteed fifty-fifty split.

  Seeing Blondie missing, J.W. was supposed to have gone into town to find Mac. Of course, Mac hides out and binges a lot of booze on Saturdays, and J.W. would never have found him; everyone would have been long gone by the time they got back. The only problem was Mac and he had fishing plans.

  Combs thought he had time for one last meal before skipping town. He more or less did.

  Now, J.W. is back home. Out of the truck, .45 in hand, going into the house. Bloody footprints have redecorated the k
itchen. A slaughtered steer.

  He follows the trail of blood up behind the barn to Mac’s cruiser. All around the trunk. The surrounding perimeter. Traces of red. Last option: go to the woods, up the hill, down to the Ohio River.

  He reaches the bottom of the hill. Winded. Mental state moving a mile a minute. One part focused, one part pain. Anger pelts his insides. Trying to hold it together, hoping he’s not too late, glancing at the cabin his daddy built for fishing, camping out. To get away.

  His heart’s trying to find a way out of his chest. Foot to the cabin door. Bursting it open, .45 raised. Stepping inside. Glancing down, a wave of relief.

  There she is laid out, those soft brown eyes weak, weeping to a muffled whine. She’s still doped up, barely raising her head to acknowledge J.W., her salvation. Then he recognizes the hammer pull in the rear of his skull. Six rounds of a .357 Smith and Wesson. Mac’s handgun. Followed by the words of a two-timing female. “Don’t make me open your thought process just yet, J.W. Drop the gun.”

  J.W. drops the .45.

  Her words are piercing and to the point. “Didn’t see it coming, did you?”

  All these years and she breaks their vows and he says, “How the shit could you do this?”

  “Easy money. Combs tried to persuade you. You wouldn’t give an inch. So we devised a partnership with a guy goes by the name Puerto Rican Pete. Deals in dogs for dogfighting. Does it by boat on the Ohio for the Evans family, they been doin’ it for generations.”

  Not sold for hunting, sold for fighting.