by Bill Crider
He didn’t have time to think about it much. He hit the water with a tremendous impact and a very satisfying explosion of noise. He was sure that anyone on the bank of the pool would have been drenched. There would have been more enjoyment in the performance if he hadn’t struck the water so hard.
And if the water hadn’t been so cold. Rhodes hadn’t thought it would be so cold. He felt like a block of ice, but not as buoyant.
The water slowed his fall, though not as much as he would have imagined, and the pool was not as deep as he’d hoped. He plummeted all the way to the bottom, and his tailbone hit the hard concrete with a numbing force that sent a shock wave all the way up his spine.
He writhed around like a stunned octopus, accomplishing about as much as the octopus would have. Several seconds elapsed before he was able to make his legs work, and by that time his lungs were burning and threatening to burst. Just as he thought he might be found lying on the bottom of the pool or floating on top like Pep Yeldell, he managed to plant his feet and shove himself upward.
The way to the top seemed a lot longer than the way down, but he eventually made it, breaking through the surface and sucking in air with great, heaving gasps as frosty drops of water flew from his head.
He didn’t have time to enjoy the luxury of being able to breathe, however, because he had to swim for the bank. He didn’t want to be caught in the middle of the pool if the rifleman came after him.
There was a small chance that the shooter would think he’d hit Rhodes, shot him right out of the tree like a squirrel, or that he’d think Rhodes couldn’t survive the fall even if he wasn’t shot.
But Rhodes couldn’t count on that. He had to consider the strong possibility that the shooter would come to have a look to make sure the job had been done right. And if it hadn’t, to finish it.
Rhodes’s fingers scraped the bank and he pulled himself out in a rush of water. He tried to stand, fell to his knees, got up into a sort of crouch, and stumbled over to where his jacket lay. He fell down beside it, pulled it to him, and unwrapped the pistol.
There was no one coming that he could see, but he couldn’t see very well. Water was running out of his hair and into his eyes. His hearing was of no use to him. He couldn’t hear a thing except a high roaring in his ears.
He pulled himself behind the trunk of the tree he had climbed and waited, breathing in huge gulps of air and shivering in his cold, clinging clothes.
Feeling began to return to him slowly. First he realized how cold he was in the shade of the trunk with his clammy wet clothes clutching him and his hair plastered across his forehead. Then he felt the burning in his cheek and put his fingers to the spot where the splinters were. There was no blood, but the spot was very tender.
He waited for a few minutes, until his hand was steady, or nearly steady, and pinched the end of one of the splinters between his thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. It hurt when it slipped from his skin, but not as much as it would have later, when he was feeling things more intensely. He probed until he found another splinter. His fingers slipped off on his first attempt to remove it, and he winced. He got it on the second try.
He sat where he was for about a quarter of an hour. He was still very cold, but the shivering had stopped, and no one came to see if he was dead. Rhodes thought he heard a car start on the road, and he remembered the pickup he’d seen. It was so far away that there was no use in trying to get there before it was gone. He wasn’t sure he could walk yet, anyway, much less run.
He waited a few more minutes and then stood up. His knees were a little shaky, but he could walk just fine. He went over to his jacket, picked it up, and put it on. It wasn’t much help against the cold that was by now seeping right down into his bones. He hefted the pistol in his hand. It wouldn’t do him any good now, but it was nice to know it was there. He shuddered. He needed to warm up and get dry, but he had to climb the tree again first.
He sighed and took off his jacket. He thought about taking the pistol up the tree with him, but he knew that wouldn’t be a good idea. He wrapped it in the jacket again and looked up at the tree. Then he jumped.
It took him three tries to grab the lowest limb, and he thought he wouldn’t be able to pull himself up this time, but somehow he did. He climbed up to where he had been before and dug out a bullet with his pocket knife. He started down, glad he didn’t have to dive into the pool this time.
As soon as he got in the county car, Rhodes started it, moved the heater lever to “Warm,” and flipped the fan control to “High.” The engine was still warm from the trip out of town, and hot air surged out of the vents on the dash and floor. He sat there and let it flow over him.
After a while, when he was feeling almost warm, he got out of the car and walked over to the persimmon trees. He looked around for fifteen minutes, until he was chilled to the bone again, but he found no shell casings. Either the shooter had been calm and careful, or Rhodes had misjudged his position and the shell casings were lying in plain sight somewhere else. Rhodes didn’t think that was the case, so he went back to his car and turned on the heater again.
When he was feeling warm again, he drove back to town.
Rhodes went home and soaked in a tub of hot water. The whole time he was in the tub, Yancey scratched at the bottom of the bathroom door.
Ivy had told Rhodes that she would take him for a walk before she left for church, so Yancey didn’t want to go outside. He just wanted company. Rhodes didn’t. He let Yancey keep on scratching while he thought about who might have been shooting at him.
Mack Riley drove a pickup, but then so did most people in Blacklin County. He wished he’d been more observant, but the pickup had been too far away for him to tell the make. He tried to remember the color, but he couldn’t.
He kept turning things over in his mind, trying to remember everything he’d heard and seen in the last few days, sure that there was something he was missing, some connection that was there to be made if only he could make it.
There was no way he was going to make it now. His mind was still in a jumble from his recent experiences.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in the tub, letting the water work on his soreness and trying to relax. The water part worked just fine, but the relaxing was a little harder. He wasn’t used to being shot at, and he didn’t like it very much. He didn’t think he’d like it even if it became a regular thing. In fact, he was sure he wouldn’t.
After a while he got out of the tub and dried off. He hadn’t made the connection he was searching for, but he figured it would happen sooner or later if it was really there to be made.
Yancey was still scratching on the door, but Rhodes didn’t want to have to deal with the dog just yet. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. The place on his cheek where the splinters had been didn’t look too bad. He could cover it with a square bandage. Maybe Ivy wouldn’t notice it.
He found a bandage in the medicine cabinet and tried it. Ivy would notice, all right, but that couldn’t be helped.
He’d brought clean clothes into the bathroom, and when he had dressed, he opened the bathroom door. Yancey came bouncing in, barking. He sounded much bigger than he was.
“Maybe I should take you with me for protection,” Rhodes said.
Yancey wasn’t interested. He shot around the room, sniffing at the baseboard and the bathtub.
“Then again, maybe not,” Rhodes said. “Come on.”
Yancey ignored him, dashing back into the hallway. Rhodes caught up with him in the kitchen.
“Want to meet your new brother?” Rhodes asked.
Yancey barked, but Rhodes wasn’t sure whether it was a yes or a no. He also wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to introduce the two dogs to one another. Speedo might mistake Yancey for a new toy and try to toss him around. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
“I’ll introduce you two later,” he said. “Right now I have to see a man about a gun.”
Chapter Thirty
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br /> It was a quiet Sunday in Clearview, and the streets were practically deserted. That was because it wasn’t quite time for church to be over. The Methodists were always the first ones out. They started early and finished around 11:30, a good half hour before the Baptists. The Methodists joked that they liked to get to the restaurants before the Baptists got there and took all the tables. Sometimes Rhodes wasn’t so sure it was a joke.
Mack Riley didn’t go to church. In fact, Rhodes wasn’t even sure he’d been to bed. When he came to the door, he was still wearing the same old bathrobe he’d had on the night before, and he had his copy of Our Mutual Friend in his hand.
“Good morning, Sheriff,” he said. He peered through the screen at Rhodes’s face. “What happened to you? Run into a door?”
“More like a tree,” Rhodes said, thinking that if Riley had noticed the bandage, Ivy certainly would. “Can I come in for a minute?”
“I was reading this book,” Riley said holding it up. “Dickens, remember. I was hoping to have a little time to myself, seeing as how I got interrupted last night and didn’t get much reading done.”
“It’s last night I want to talk about,” Rhodes told him. “There were a few things we didn’t cover.”
“What things?”
“I’d feel better about it if we could sit down,” Rhodes said. “I’ve had a rough morning.”
Riley wasn’t cordial about it, but he pushed open the screen and told Rhodes to come in. He led the way down the hall to the sitting room.
“You can have that rocker again,” he told Rhodes. “I hope this won’t take too long.”
“It shouldn’t,” Rhodes said. He glanced over toward the gun cabinet. It didn’t look any different. “That’s a nice-looking .30-.30 you’ve got there. Marlin?”
“That’s right. Belonged to my daddy. He was a big deer hunter in his later years. I never took to it much, myself.”
“Why not?” Rhodes asked.
“I don’t have any reason to kill a deer. I don’t eat the meat, and I don’t want the horns. Why should I go out to a deer stand in the dead of winter and sit there for hours with the freezing wind blowing up my pants leg to shoot an animal that never did anything to me?”
“Good question,” Rhodes said. “Mind if I have a look at the gun?”
Riley didn’t make any move to get up and open the cabinet. He did put his book down on the floor and rock back and forth in the chair.
“Any special reason you want to see it?” he asked.
“There was something you didn’t tell me about last night,” Rhodes said. “Something about John West.”
Riley slammed his palm on the chair arm. “I knew you’d come back at me on that. I used to have a temper on me, Sheriff, and it got me in trouble a time or two. But I’ve mellowed down now that I’ve gotten a few more years on me. That little business with John, that didn’t amount to a thing.”
“You filed assault charges on him.”
“Yeah, I did that, all right. I should’ve just flattened him.”
“What happened?” Rhodes asked.
“It was about a debt he owed me. I went to collect it, and he shoved me around. If I’d been younger, he wouldn’t ever have dared it.”
“His wife says he bumped you by accident.”
“Yeah, she would. She’s his wife, isn’t she?” Riley caught himself. “Well, she was his wife, until he got himself killed like that. Naturally she’d take his side. That’s what wives do.”
“He’s dead now,” Rhodes said. “There’s no special need for her to take his side.”
Riley didn’t agree. “More need than ever, some might say.”
Rhodes didn’t feel like arguing the point. “What about that rifle? Are you going to give me a look?”
“I don’t see why you’re so all-fired interested in that gun,” Riley said. “It’s just an old .30-.30. Hasn’t been fired in years.”
“That’s what I’m interested in,” Rhodes said. “Somebody took a few shots at me early this morning, and I’d like to rule you out.”
Riley practically jumped out of the chair. He walked over to the gun cabinet, opened the doors, and took out the .30-.30.
Then he turned to face Rhodes and said, “What’s to keep me from shooting you right here and now?”
Rhodes forced himself to sit still. “Well, for one thing, Hack knows where I am. You wouldn’t want to have Hack on your trail, would you?”
“Hack’s older than I am. And he couldn’t trail a skunk through a perfume plant.”
“You might be underestimating him,” Rhodes said.
“Yeah, I might. But I don’t think so. I’m not going to shoot you though. It just makes me mad that you think I might, just because I didn’t tell you about that little fracas with John West.”
“I have to be sure,” Rhodes told him.
Riley worked the rifle’s lever action a few times to show Rhodes that the gun was empty, then walked over and handed him the rifle.
“Here,” he said. “Look it over. You’ll see I didn’t do any shooting at anybody.”
It didn’t take much looking. The gun hadn’t been cleaned in quite some time. There was dust on the stock and on the barrel, where a couple of tiny dots of rust showed on the bluing.
“This is a nice gun,” Rhodes said. “You ought to take better care of it.”
“I know it. But I don’t ever think about it. It just sits there in the cabinet, probably hasn’t been fired since my daddy died back in 1983.”
Rhodes handed him the rifle. “I’m sorry about having to look, but you did leave out that business with West. And since I’d seen the gun here last night, I thought I’d better check it out.”
“I can’t say that I blame you. I’d probably do the same thing if it was me. But it sure makes a fella think you don’t trust him.”
“When it comes to these accidental deaths,” Rhodes said, “I don’t trust much of anybody.”
“I don’t blame you for that, either.” Riley put the rifle back in the cabinet and closed the doors. “But you ought to think about it from another angle. Maybe those old boys did die by accident. Things like that happen, you know.”
Rhodes’s hand went to the bandage on his face. “People don’t try to kill me because of accidents. There’s more to it than that.”
“You think somebody’s trying to kill you because of the accidents?” Riley asked.
“I can’t think of any other reason,” Rhodes said.
“You haven’t exactly been going around town and making yourself loveable lately. There were quite a few people out there at the Old Settlers’ Grounds who didn’t like the way you stopped them from moving the Burleson cabin.”
“I don’t think anybody would shoot me over a thing like that,” Rhodes said.
Riley smiled. “I wouldn’t be too sure,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Rhodes called Hack on the radio and discovered that nothing much was going on at the jail. Sunday wasn’t a big day for crime in Clearview. Rhodes drove by anyway and put the bullet in the evidence locker.
“You want to tell me about that?” Hack asked.
“Not today,” Rhodes said. “I’m going on home, and I may not come in this afternoon. You can call me if there’s any trouble.”
“Don’t I always?” Hack asked.
“I guess you do. It’s nice to know there’s one thing I can count on.”
“Well, I’ll try not to bother you. You can take a little nap if you want to. You look like you could use it. Prob’ly do you good.”
“I’ll think about it,” Rhodes said.
What he was really thinking about was lunch. It was after one o’clock, and Ivy would be home. Maybe she’d like to go out to eat, if the Baptists hadn’t taken all the tables in the restaurants by now. Even if they had, some of the Methodists would be finishing up.
But Ivy had different plans, plans that included fried chicken. Rhodes could smell it when he walked throug
h the back door, and thoughts of mashed potatoes and cream gravy speckled with black pepper filled his head. It had been a long time since he’d had fried chicken for lunch.
He went into the kitchen where Ivy was standing by the stove. She had changed out of her dress into jeans and a shirt, and she was wearing a red apron. The chicken, covered with golden batter, was sizzling in the frying pan. Rhodes’s mouth watered.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked.
Ivy turned toward him and smiled. “I thought we needed an old-fashioned Sunday dinner for a change. I’m glad you got here in time to enjoy it. I was afraid Yancey and I would have to eat alone.”
Yancey was standing not far away, his feet planted firmly on the kitchen floor. He was watching Rhodes as if not quite sure who he was.
“A dog shouldn’t eat chicken,” Rhodes said. “He might get a bone caught in his throat.”
“Grrrrrrrr,” Yancey said.
“I think he understood you,” Ivy said. “And what happened to your face?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Rhodes said. “Right now you better watch that chicken. I think it’s about time to turn it over.”
“I’ll do the cooking. You just do the eating.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rhodes said. “I’m good at that.”
After lunch, which did indeed include mashed potatoes and cream gravy, Rhodes helped Ivy clear the table and told her about his morning.
“I’m glad you waited until after we had lunch,” she said, putting a plate into the dishwasher. “I’m not sure I could have eaten if you’d told me earlier.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Rhodes said.
Ivy sat at the half-cleared table and looked at him. “Yes, it was. It was worse, because you never do tell me how bad things really were. You’re a typical man. You minimize things because you’re afraid I won’t like knowing just how much danger you were in or because you think it’s not macho to admit you were scared.”