Crimes in Southern Indiana

by Frank Bill

  Carol’s father, Jonathan, was a spiteful drunkard who had talked down to her since she’d gotten in trouble for drinking and driving long ago. Called her a spoiled whore for hanging at the tavern, lounging with the locals, and wrecking a few cars. Even after Carol cleaned her act up, met and married Bellmont, he never gave her any respect.

  Before the accident, Aggie confided in Bellmont and Carol about the will and trust, how the farm had belonged to her family, not Jonathan’s, and it would be passed on to Bellmont and Carol after Jonathan and she were dead.

  And that’s what fed Carol’s imagination after her passing, after Bellmont told her about the Donnybrook. About how to get it started. The money to back it, a place to have it, the farm and its timber. Something her father would never support. Now, after months of planning, Bellmont was trying to wade the rapids a bit longer. Put off their chance at a better existence.

  She fishtailed the Iroc to a stop between two ’78 Fords in the gravel lot of the Leavenworth Tavern, shifted into park, thinking to herself how Bellmont could want to sell her wheels. He’d do the deed tonight if she had to tie the knot her damn self. But first she needed a sip of something stout to calm her down while she took in a good fight.

  Carol clumped across the gravel lot to the rear of the tavern. Local coon hunters, farmers, and dopers gathered around the fifteen-by-fifteen depression in the ground. Sloshing beers and bourbon, they haggled and exchanged money with a man who had a pencil behind his ear, a notepad in his hand. His hair plastered across his head like Ricky Ricardo. Black-rimmed glasses arched over a fiery habanero nose with broken vessels. His moniker was Hemple. He took bets on the bare-knuckle boxing matches held every other Friday night at the tavern. These were the places Bellmont and she would scout for the unbeaten, the new blood. They’d find them in the backwoods dives where creased bills would pass from one hand to the next, wagering on fists clattering bone until there was a victor.

  Bellmont and she planned to contract a small stable of fighters, offer them a place to stay and train, feed them, travel with them to other fights. Raising the fighting purses with each unbeaten fighter, driving the bets to higher marks. Build the fighters up over the first year, spread the word about her and Bellmont’s first ever Donnybrook.

  Hemple nodded to Carol, and his busted woofer tone questioned her with “Where’s Bellmont?”

  “At the farm, spent from diggin’ fence line all damn day.”

  Hemple pursed his lips, asked, “Wanna drop a dime on the next fight?”

  “Who’s favored?”

  “Ali Squires.”

  An unbeaten bare-knuckle fighter.

  “Who’s he fightin’?”

  “Some piece of marrow goes by Angus. Has had five scrapes, never been beat.”

  “Where’s this Angus?”

  “Standin’ over yonder with that colored fella.”

  A black man stood with a towel tossed over the right shoulder of his thermal shirt with sleeves cut off. He whispered into the ear of a confident-faced man. He’d pallid shoulders, with lean punctures of fiber shielding his chest, arms, and abs, and several names tossed across his frame in Gothic script. Carol observed the conqueror of man: Chainsaw Angus.

  She questioned Hemple, “Shit’s up with the John Henry about his fighter’s body?”

  “They the five men he beat into a state of stillborn. Can’t even sound out the alphabet no more.”

  Carol smirked with thoughts of a future prospect once her daddy was out of the frame. She pulled soiled clumps of ones and fives from her hip pocket, tips from work, wanting to wash the grit from her tongue. The guilt of what Bellmont and she had planned, what he had been putting off. But this was all the green she had.

  Fuck it! I’ll get some glass-eyed horn dog to procure me a drink, she thought, and handed the wad of bills to Hemple.

  “Put it all on that Angus fella.”

  Beside her a voice said, “Little girl takin’ a big gamble.”

  She turned to the ungodly shadow of Mule Furgison. He was crowd control for the disorderly. Six-six, two hundred fifty pounds. The beast was cured and carved from pure spruce hardwood. Vaseline blond hair, one eye green, the other brown, his silverback mitts hanging down to his waist, his right hand resting against the ASP baton encased at his side for backup if needed, or just a little extra hurt.

  Carol ran a flirting finger up the navy blue T-shirt that covered his feed-sack chest and said, “This little girl wouldn’t mind a swallow to wash down the blood that’s ’bout to be lost.”

  With the sun setting behind him, Bellmont knocked on his father-in-law’s marred screen door. Took a deep breath, knowing he had to eliminate one man’s belligerent abuse to hock a better life for Carol and himself. But that didn’t make the thought of it any easier to accept.

  A gruff voice from inside hollered, “Down here, dammit!”

  Bellmont walked into the kitchen, through the dining area to the basement door. Infirmity tugged from within.

  Carol’s fingernails had swelled Bellmont’s cheeks. When he got down the basement steps, his father-in-law shouted with laughter. “Shit happen to you?”

  Beneath the graying rafters, Jonathan sat in a chair honed from hickory as he did every evening. Several rusted hooks hung overhead where he strung up his deer, let them bleed out, then skinned and quartered them next to the table where he sat. He wore overalls and a white T-shirt wrung with five days’ worth of outdoor labor around the collar and beneath the pits.

  Bellmont fingered one of the swells that tracked down his face.

  “Carol and me had us a disagreement.”

  “Guess she showed you who’s wearin’ the rompers of the family.”

  Bellmont had busted his ass for Jonathan since moving to the farm. The old bastard was always pressing buttons. Carol was right, his degradation wouldn’t be missed.

  “She had her a fit was all.”

  Jonathan grabbed the glass of hoppy liquid that sweated next to eight empty brown bottles. Tilted it to his lips. Emptied the glass. Reached down to a faded old red cooler, lifted the lid. Ice clacked as he removed another bottle, laid it on the table. Smirked and said, “Think Carol’d mind if you natured yourself a swill?”

  Bellmont pulled his keys from his pocket. Thumbed the attached Falls City bottle opener, said, “Carol ain’t the boss of me. Angle me one from your pink cooler there.”

  Jonathan hesitated, grabbed a beer from the ice, tossed it hard to Bellmont, and said, “My cooler might be pink, but no man should ever have to placate that kinda ass stompin’ from a female.”

  Popping the cap from the bottle, Bellmont teetered on busting it across the old man’s dead-leaf tint. But he didn’t wanna show signs of a confrontation, understanding how he’d go about making the scene appear self-inflicted. He said, “She didn’t stomp my ass.”

  Jonathan opened his beer. Filled his empty glass, said, “Carol’s mother, Aggie, she tried that shit on me once. Stood over the stove boilin’ tea one evening after I’d bailed Carol out of jail for another DUI. Cursed me for callin’ my daughter a sheet-swappin’ tramp. I says to her, ‘Don’t think I won’t come over and slap the hem from your skirt, make your skin flame and itch.’ She tossed that pan of boilin’ tea onto me. Near sheared the hide from my bone. I winged the kettle right back at the heifer, creased her chin. She never laid a cross word again’ me after that.”

  Bellmont said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have talked about your own blood in such a tone.”

  Jonathan hollered, “Aggie needed to hear the truth. Little rip had a fake ID ’fore she was legal, just to go to the tavern, bat them fawn eyes and throw that hip to ever’ man with a beer tab.”

  “Watch your lip, Jonathan, Carol’s my wife.”

  “Carol was a coathanger whore ’fore you come along, don’t wanna think about how many lives she ended ’fore they even took shape.”

  Anger hardened in Bellmont’s joints like arthritis.

  “Ain’t warnin’ y
ou again, Jon, she’s your goddamn daughter!”

  “Warnin’s ass,” Jonathan said. “Aggie spoiled Carol. Damn girl was always blowin’ her coin on clothes and booze. Then wanna borrow money from us.”

  Bellmont walked off behind Jonathan, unable to fathom how many times he’d helped the piece of gristle kill, string, and process venison. He stared at the plywood shelving of twine, nylon rope, and an assortment of blades, pliers, and bone saws. Then up at the hook above Jon’s head. Thought killing an animal was for survival. Nourishment. Watched Jonathan finish his beer. Reach for another. He didn’t pour it into his glass. He took it from the bottle and Bellmont said, “Carol and me is gonna start up our own business.”

  Jonathan said, “With what? Two of you is broke as a two-dollar whore.”

  Trading his beer for cords of nylon, Bellmont worked the rope into a noose, said, “Gonna use the land you got here.”

  Jonathan almost spat his beer through his nose and said, “My land? The shit you talkin’ about?”

  The rope was electric in Bellmont’s grip as he told himself this was for Carol’s and his survival. Jonathan was in mid-turn as Bellmont lassoed the rope over his head, strung it up over the rusted hook in the ceiling’s rafter, jerked the nylon, hoisted Jonathan up from his chair, and said, “Ever hear of Donnybrook?”

  Ali feinted right. Angus twisted to Ali’s left. Ali’s jab reached. Angus peppered Ali’s forearms. Shined the scars that pouted above his lids. Cauliflowered his ears with left-right hooks.

  Around the pit, men and women shrieked. Beers and glasses of whiskey sloshed.

  Aft er the third advance, Ali was winded. Stepped back. Angus took to the angles. Scourged Ali’s ribs. Got them ready for the sauce. Ali dropped his elbows, trying to protect his torso. Angus painted the undersides of Ali’s jaw. Made him chew on cankered silt.

  Ali’s corner man hollered, “Move your ass, Ali.”

  Ali staggered, liquid dribbling like strings of violet grease from his lips. Angus doubled up his left and right, giving Ali the sauce just below his navel, taking his center. Ali hit the ground. Angus stoked the grill. Laid his right shin into Ali’s throat, took Ali’s left arm across his left knee, applied downward pressure until Ali’s wrist fractured. Angus smiled down at Ali’s screams of submission, knowing he was seared.

  From the crowd, boos and cheers showered down on the fighters like rain.

  “Wasn’t even a fight,” Carol said, counting the stack of worn bills. Five hundred in green. Maybe this would be enough to convince Bellmont to get off his ass and take care of business. This, and Angus. Maybe he’d be their first fighter. A big mitt enclosed her shoulder. Mule, scouring the pool-ball bulge of his crotch with one hand, pulling her tight, said, “Now you owe me a couple drinks.” Carol twisted from his grasp, said, “Don’t think so.” She walked toward the gravel lot and her Iroc. Mule hollered, “The hell you think you’re goin’?” but she ignored him.

  Jonathan’s heartbeat jarred his temples. Rope hairs dug into his neck. Bellmont kept his knees bent and his weight dropped as he pulled.

  Jonathan huffed, “Mother…fuck—” The noose dammed the passage of breath from his mouth. Fingers dug between rope and throat. His face went the color of a pickled beet, his whites twined with slithers of pink vessel. Denim-covered legs kicked stiff, sweat iced Bellmont’s body as he struggled to tie the rope around a four-by-four that framed the plywood shelves. He stood half shaken, walked in front of Jonathan’s body. Kicked the hickory chair over. His eyes had already wheeled into the rear of his head.

  Carol and he had watched the Friday-night blood feuds behind the tavern for more than a year. Watched the wagers being chalked and paid for the men who delivered the pain. Watched the booze being sold. The dope being smoked. The men and women corralling around the indented earth like feral mongrels.

  In a state of intoxicated despair, Bellmont forged an idea more lucrative than a Friday-night scrapping session. Seeing all of the money that exchanged hands on Friday nights, Bellmont told Carol of the stories from his daddy, of his idea to deliver the two of them from their days of scraping by. At Donnybrook, they could charge people sixty to a hundred bucks for three days of watchin’, but a fighter’s fee would be around five hundred bucks. That wasn’t counting the betting and the boozing or purse for the winner after three days of fighting. He thought if people wanted to sell drugs, they could but he’d get a cut of it. And they’d do it year after year, because now they’d have a place to do it.

  Outside, car lights shadowed through the basement window onto Jonathan’s outline. He hung from the rafter like a water-soaked towel weighing down a clothesline. His worn overalls already blotted dark at the crotch. Puddled onto the basement’s creek rock floor. The smell of feces was a permanent testament on the air.

  Outside, a car door slammed. And within minutes the screen door upstairs screeched open and Carol yelled, “Bellmont, you in here?”

  Bellmont shouted, “I’s downstairs.”

  Feet rushed across the floor planks. The basement door squeaked. Carol burst down the wooden steps. Bellmont turned, Jonathan’s knees bumping against his shoulder; he smirked and said, “The son of a bitch done dropped his bladder but his chest is still pushin’ wind.”

  Winded, Carol eyed her father, hanging like fresh-cut tobacco from the webbed rafter, and said, “Wondered if you was over here. Done checked the cabin. Seen the basement light through the window.” She wiped a tear from her eye, realizing Bellmont had done it, the old man was near dead, and she said, “Bastard always was tougher than a cast-iron griddle. Think he’s done?”

  “How the shit should I know, never made nobody commit suicide before.”

  “Won’t believe what I come across tonight?”

  “What?”

  “A bad piece of loin goes by Angus, handed Ali his walker for the retirement home.”

  “No sh—”

  Out the basement window, a truck engine grew in pitch, more car lights shadowed. Gravel clanked against tires. A door opened and a man’s voice hollered, “Where the shit you at, Carol McGill?”

  Bellmont looked at Carol. “The fuck is that?”

  “Aw hell, must be Mule Furgison.”

  “Shit’s he doin’ here?”

  “Bought me a drink at the tavern.”

  Bellmont felt the scrapes on his face kindle and said, “Bought you a drink? You know what I just did here to give us a better life?”

  Upstairs the kitchen’s screen door opened.

  Carol red-eyed Bellmont, said, “I’ll fix it,” and ran up the basement steps before Bellmont could stop her.

  In the kitchen, Carol yelled, “Shit you think you’re doin’ here, Mule?”

  “Th ink you gonna prick-tease me, Carol, you got another thing comin’.”

  Carol demanded, “Get your hands off a me! My husband is right downstairs.”

  Bellmont heard feet shuffle across the kitchen floor. A table scuffing linoleum. Carol screaming, “Quit it, Mule!” A palm bounced a few life lines off her skin, wilted her backwards onto the kitchen table.

  Bellmont ran up the steps. Took in the mammoth shape of Mule standing in front of his dazed wife laid out like a slab of meat on a butcher’s block, her knees bent and hanging over the table’s edge.

  “Piece of inbred hash. Get the hell away from my wife!”

  Mule whirled into two fists pounding his face. Stunned, the big man fell back. His right hand pawed for the snap of his ASP’s case, pulled the ASP free, thumbed the button. Extended the steel baton. Mule came at Bellmont, sledged the steel section across Bellmont’s nose. Cartilage butterflied. Bellmont’s legs quaked. He knelt to the floor on one knee, tongued the blood, and screamed, “Fuckin’ shit!”

  Carol shook off Mule’s palm branding her flesh, crunched up from the table, and reached her arms around his five-gallon bucket of a neck, wrapped her legs around his whiskey-barrel waist, and rooted her fingers into his tresses and ripped at the layers. Mule grunte
d. His left hand pawed for Carol’s head. She sank her teeth into the back of his neck.

  Mule dropped the ASP. Slapped both hands backwards at Carol. Bellmont grabbed the ASP. Notched Mule’s shin. Parted his knee. Mule staggered backwards. Carol released her anaconda grip, fell onto the table, spitting skin and hair.

  Bellmont worked his way up Mule’s torso, beat the grizzly’s thighs, made his knees hinge to the floor. Bruised and oozing, Bellmont told him, “Any man think he’s gonna get himself a whiff of my wife best sit a spell and reconsider.” He brought the ASP down over Mule’s head, rolled him into a ball of dough. Bellmont raised the ASP again and Carol came from the table, screamed, “Stop, ’fore you kill him!” She bear-hugged Bellmont. He looked down over her shoulder onto Mule’s parched profile, shading into blackberries and rust.

  A craving spread through Carol’s frame as she tugged his face to hers, feeling the savage jolt of lips and the violent twitch of their tendons. She fingered the buckle of his pants, pushed them down to his ankles. Kicked her shoes free, unbuttoned and squirmed from her own pants. Bellmont held the length of steel in his right, ripped her panties from her with his left, keeping his eyes on Mule, who lay on his side, his ribs raising and lowering slowly. Carol flung Bellmont against the kitchen wall, locked her legs around his waist. Met the stab of his pelvis into hers as she bucked a violent teeter-totter of cold, hard love.

  Aft erward, they stood sheened and panting over Mule, who lay like a tree that had been chopped and derooted, pulp ebbing from his lips and nose.

  Carol looked at Bellmont and asked, “Now what?”

  The silence from the basement was overwhelming. It drowned out Mule’s bubbling gasps. Bellmont looked at his wife, at his hands, around his new kitchen. “I’ll load this piece of shit up in his truck, drive him home. You follow me, bring me back here. We get some of his bloodstains cleaned from the floor.”

  “We gonna let him live?”

  “Yeah, most he’s gonna be doin’ for a while is spreadin’ the word about how others ought to not fuck with Bellmont McGill and his wife.”