The Third Hill North of Town

by Noah Bly

  Sheriff Buckley wasn’t really paying much attention to what he was saying. He was too busy fantasizing about watching himself on the television the following night during dinner.

  This is going to make the national news for sure! he thought. It’s exactly the break I’ve been waiting for!

  Ronnie Buckley’s dearest dream, finally coming to fruition, had nothing to do with being interviewed on television, nor with making a huge bust. These were paltry accomplishments, in his humble view, and even though he was pleased to have caught Elijah Hunter and Jon Tate—and was hoping he might even get to chat in-person with the courteous new CBS anchorman, Walter Cronkite—his dream was far more spectacular than any fleeting moment of recognition he could ever gain from his work as sheriff. He was a practical man, however, and had long understood that the only way to attain this transcendent goal was to somehow be thrust into the national spotlight, and for the first time in his life he was being given that opportunity. He had been waiting for thirty-three years for such a chance, and he intended to take it now, with no questions asked.

  Thirty-three years ago, four years after he’d begun his tenure as sheriff, was 1929.

  And 1929 was the year of the first Academy Awards.

  Before Sheriff Buckley had spotted the Beetle that afternoon, he’d been daydreaming, as always, about winning an Academy Award—preferably Best Actor, but Best Supporting Actor was also acceptable. Ever since he’d heard the radio broadcast of the first Academy Awards, he’d envied each and every person who got to give a speech on that rarefied stage in Hollywood, but when the annual ceremony began to be televised in 1953, his desire to be up on that same stage himself became almost insupportable. He’d never acted in anything, let alone a movie, but he just knew he’d be a natural if he ever got the chance, and all he really needed, as he’d often told Dottie, was to be discovered by some casting director who could “think outside the box.” With his dark, wide eyes and craggy, wrinkled forehead, he bore a striking resemblance to Ernest Borgnine—everybody said so—yet even though he’d secretly sent dozens of photos of himself to every talent agent in the business, for some reason no one had ever offered him a role, or even responded to his inquiries.

  But that was all going to change now. The whole country was going to see him on television tomorrow night, and somebody important would finally give him his chance. Ronnie didn’t know why he was so certain of this being the case, but he was. Once the right people saw him, he had no doubt whatsoever that it was only a question of time before he’d be up on that glittering platform in front of God and everybody, holding one of those golden, immortalizing statuettes above his head, just like Ernie Borgnine had done in 1955!

  “But Ben hasn’t done anything wrong!” Julianna insisted, interrupting the sheriff’s splendid vision. “It was Jon who broke Günter’s lock!” She glanced over at Jon Tate and blinked away tears. “I’m really sorry for tattling, Jon. But you have to tell them Ben’s not to blame.”

  Jon was standing by his locked cell door with his wrists handcuffed behind him. His left eye was swollen shut and his nose was bleeding, and he was still naked from the waist up. The cut above his left knee from the previous day’s run-in with the New Hampshire state trooper was bleeding again, too, as were several smaller scrapes on his shoulders and ribs. He was attempting to be stoical, but there were tears in his eyes, too, and he looked much younger than usual.

  “We’re not in here because of the lock, Julianna,” he said quietly through the bars, his voice trembling.

  “You got that right, son,” Deputy Tucker taunted him gleefully through the bars. “You sure as hell got that right.”

  Some dreams, like Sheriff Buckley’s, are larger than life; some are more modest, but no less heartfelt. Deputy Bonnor Tucker, who was only twenty-seven, had a longstanding dream of his own, and he was fairly sure he had just achieved it.

  Bonnor Tucker was no glory chaser—unlike certain other public officials he could mention—and he couldn’t have cared less about attention from the media, or winning an award. He also didn’t give two shits about whether or not he resembled this or that celebrity (although his mother often told him he looked just like a young Babe Ruth—if the young Babe had sported a goatee and a lazy eye). All Bonnor had really wanted, for years, was to be treated with proper deference by everyone in Creighton County, Iowa, where he had grown up, and he knew an arrest of this magnitude was just the sort of thing that would do the trick.

  No one will even dare to THINK that goddamn name again, he thought. Not after they hear about what I did to these badass sons of bitches!

  Bonnor had become a deputy right after he graduated high school. Yet the gun and the authority this position had bestowed upon him notwithstanding, Bonnor Tucker had thus far been unable to eradicate a hated, life-destroying nickname he’d been stuck with ever since he was a small child. To this day, he was sure each person he passed on the street was still whispering it behind his back; when he fell asleep at night the spiteful syllables seemed to hiss in the air over his bed; when he was introduced at public functions, he imagined snickers and guffaws running through the audience like wind through a cornfield.

  But it’s all over now, he thought, nearly choking with joy. After tonight, nobody’s ever gonna call me “Boner Toucher” again!

  Deputy Tucker’s only disappointment was that the FBI had laid claim to the interrogation of the two scumbags, and Sheriff Buckley—who had become a real candy-ass in his old age, in Bonnor’s opinion—had agreed to this. Still, though, the feds wouldn’t arrive until the next morning, and there were plenty of other ways he could amuse himself that evening with the suspects. Buckley and his wife always went to bed by eleven o’clock at the latest, and since there was no way the sheriff would send him home tonight and leave Hunter and Tate unguarded in their cells, Bonnor would have the murdering pricks all to himself for a good eight hours.

  We’ll see who’s a badass, then! he thought.

  “Of course we’re in here because of the lock, Jon,” Julianna protested. “Why else would we be here? Just tell them you’re sorry, and that Ben didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m sure they’ll let us all go home.”

  “There’s no one here named Ben, darlin’,” Sheriff Buckley said to Julianna, attempting to unlock the steel door to his home without losing his hold on her. “You’ve had a rough couple of days, and you’re just a little confused.”

  Bonnor Tucker decided it was time to begin the festivities.

  “I don’t blame you a bit for bawling your eyes out,” he barked at Elijah. “The feds are gonna fry you like an egg for what you’ve done, sure as shit.”

  Elijah was handcuffed, too, and sitting on a cot in his jail cell. Tears were running off his chin, one after another, mingling with blood from a painful cut in his lower lip. As the deputy yelled at him he dropped his head and cried even harder.

  “Leave him alone,” Jon said from the other side of the hallway, trying not to sound scared.

  “Shut up,” Tucker ordered over his shoulder, not even bothering to look away from Elijah. He rapped his fist on the bars of Elijah’s cell. “Hey, nigger, I’m talking to you!”

  “There’s no call to be using that word, Bonnor,” Sheriff Buckley muttered. “You know I don’t like it.”

  When Ronnie Buckley was younger, he’d often used the word “nigger” himself, but he had quit saying it decades ago, right after Hattie McDaniel won a 1939 Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the Negro maid in Gone With the Wind. Buckley had decided on the spot that if Oscar was colorblind, then he should be, too.

  “Whatever, Ronnie,” Deputy Tucker muttered back.

  Julianna was glaring down the hall at the gorilla-sized, homely deputy as he stood there grinning in at the boy in the jail cell. The rage she’d experienced when Tucker had brutally thrown Ben and Jon on the ground to handcuff them half an hour earlier had cooled somewhat on the trip from Mullwein to Maddox, but hearing him s
peak to her friends in such a vile manner was quickly bringing her temper back to a boil. She didn’t really understand what was happening, but she could see that Ben and Jon were in trouble, and the heavy, obscene man with the sparse goatee and slightly crossed eyes standing ten feet in front of her was clearly an enemy.

  And Julianna Larson knew how to deal with enemies.

  With no warning, she seized Sheriff Buckley’s nightstick from his belt and flung it straight at Bonnor Tucker. It sailed down the hall and clipped Tucker in the left kidney with considerable force, causing him to yelp in pain and dance away from Elijah’s cell. The nightstick clanged against the bars of Jon’s cell and then fell to the concrete floor and rolled four or five feet before coming to a stop.

  “Son of a bitch!” Tucker bellowed in disbelief at Julianna. “What the hell are you doing, lady?”

  “Stay away from my friends!” she yelled back. She was disappointed with her aim; she’d meant to hit Bonnor in the side of the head, but the sheriff was gripping her right arm, forcing her to use her left arm instead, and she was right-handed. “You just stay away from them!”

  That’s my girl, Jon Tate thought, almost grinning in spite of himself. I wish to hell she’d been driving when we got caught. She would have run right over that asshole.

  Jon felt guilty for not having done more to try to avoid the road trap, even though he knew anything else he’d attempted probably would have gotten them all killed. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if Julianna had been behind the wheel of the Beetle instead of him; she seemed to have a gift for survival, and may have somehow found a way to disable the sheriff and the deputy long enough to make another escape. There was no question she belonged in a mental institution, yet the woman had more balls than anybody he’d ever met.

  I wish I was as brave as she is, he reflected. She’s nuts, but she’s brave as hell.

  With a sudden pang of sadness, he realized it was likely he would never see Julianna again. His impulse to grin vanished, and he stared at the floor.

  “For God’s sake, Bonnor,” Sheriff Buckley panted, struggling to hold on to Julianna. “Let me get her out of here before you say anything else stupid to these boys, okay?” He banged on the steel door. “Dottie? Let me in, would you? I can’t use my key at the moment.”

  “What are you going to do with Julianna?” Elijah asked through his tears, his voice quivering. He’d raised his head as he heard the door into the sheriff’s residence begin to open, creaking on its hinges. “You’re not going to send her back to the hospital, are you?”

  Elijah, too, had guessed that this was probably the last time he’d see the bizarre, damaged woman who’d kidnapped him from his hometown a day and a half ago and brought him halfway across the country. She’d effectively ruined his life since then, and Jon’s, as well, but the grief and pity he felt for her was nearly as strong as the fear he felt for himself. She had begun to matter to him, despite everything; whatever was wrong with her mind had nothing at all to do with her kindness, or her loyalty, or her courage.

  “What the fuck do you care, dickwad?” Deputy Tucker snapped, rubbing his lower back as he retrieved the sheriff’s nightstick. “You sick fucking animals raped her, and now you’re pretending to be worried about what happens to her? How dumb do you think we are?”

  Elijah gaped at him, uncomprehending. “We did what?”

  “Oh Jesus,” murmured Jon Tate. “Oh sweet Jesus Christ.”

  Chapter 11

  Dottie Buckley thought that Julianna Dapper was extraordinarily attractive. In fact, with her big, bright smile and watchful, intelligent eyes, Julianna reminded Dottie a little of Jayne Meadows.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Jayne Meadows?” Dottie asked Julianna in a whisper, trying not to wake her husband, Ronnie, who had just dozed off in the armchair beside the sofa while watching The Dupont Show of the Week on NBC. Dottie couldn’t understand how Ronnie could fall asleep during the season finale of The Dupont Show. Tonight’s episode was “Seven Keys to Baldpate,” starring Fred Gwynne and Jayne Meadows, and Dottie thought it was simply too clever for words.

  Julianna—who did not look the slightest bit like Jayne Meadows—was sitting on the worn, overstuffed sofa with Dottie. For the past three hours she and the Buckleys had been watching television together: Lassie, Dennis the Menace, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Bonanza had all passed in a confusing blur in front of Julianna’s eyes as Dottie chattered nonstop and Ronnie ate bowl after bowl of heavily buttered popcorn, licking his fingers and occasionally nodding his head at something Dottie said. Earlier in the evening, Julianna had taken a quick, cold shower (after being fed a dinner of macaroni and cheese, green beans, and Jell-O with marshmallows), but she no longer remembered cleaning up, and was thinking how good a bath would feel once she got back to Pawnee.

  It was unpleasantly hot in the Buckleys’ home. The windows were all open, and two small fans were pushing humid air around the second-floor living room, but Julianna was still perspiring freely, and the blue cotton bathrobe she had borrowed from Dottie was sticking to the skin of her legs and arms. Under the robe she was wearing a night slip, also Dottie’s; the sheriff’s wife had washed and dried Julianna’s green dress and underthings, but had not given them back yet, insisting Julianna would “be much more comfortable” in the borrowed robe and slip. Dottie was as thin as Julianna, but six inches shorter, so the hemline of the robe, knee-length on Dottie, only came to mid-thigh on Julianna.

  Sundays were Dottie Buckley’s favorite night of the week to watch television, but to tell the truth she had been having trouble concentrating on her shows that evening. She wasn’t used to having such exotic company. She and Ronnie seldom had company at all, let alone a woman as sophisticated and alluring as Julianna Dapper. Dottie’s eyes, nervous and birdlike, kept darting back and forth from Julianna’s high, elegant cheekbones to her long, smooth white legs.

  Poor thing, Dottie thought once again. She felt an odd compulsion to pet the other woman’s clean brown hair. She’s really been put through the wringer!

  Still, for a mentally impaired person who had been assaulted, kidnapped, and raped by the two vermin currently in the downstairs jail cells—safely separated from the main house by a bolted steel door—she looked remarkably fresh and cheerful, if a trifle preoccupied. Dottie didn’t blame her for being distracted, of course, not after what she’d been through; it was a wonder she had survived at all.

  Dottie shuddered just thinking about the cold-blooded prisoners in custody below. As she’d prepared supper for Elijah Hunter and Jon Tate that night—cooking for any lawbreakers Ronnie arrested was part of her duty as sheriff’s wife in Creighton County—she’d told Ronnie she felt like spitting in their beanie-weanies. She’d cooked something for Deputy Tucker, too, without complaint; she didn’t much care for Bonnor Tucker and ordinarily would have balked at feeding him, but on this occasion she was grateful he was downstairs in the jail, keeping an eye on the killer rapists until the federal agents arrived in the morning. She hadn’t seen the prisoners herself, of course; Ronnie had delivered their food for her, wanting to make sure she came to no harm. The Creighton County jailhouse had never hosted any felons from the FBI’s Most Wanted List, and Ronnie wasn’t about to take any chances with his wife’s safety.

  Above the television was a crude wooden plaque Dottie had made herself, featuring a shellacked painting of an Iowa sunset. Printed across the sun in dark gold letters was: WARM FRIENDSHIP, LIKE THE SETTING SUN, SHEDS KINDLY LIGHT ON EVERYONE. The walls of the living room were bright yellow, and similar plaques featuring rhymes Dottie adored hung on each wall: SHARE YOUR JOY, SHARE YOUR PRIDE, SHARE YOUR FEELINGS DEEP INSIDE, read one, and THE LORD WALKS BETWEEN YOU AND ME, HOLDING OUR HANDS INVISIBLY, read another, and directly behind Julianna’s head was SNOW AND RAIN AND DARKEST WEATHER, LOVING HEARTS WILL FACE TOGETHER! Several vases overflowing with artificial flowers were set on end tables by the couch and chairs, and the
wall-to-wall carpet was a thick brown shag.

  Dottie Buckley was a lonely woman. She had few friends, and little opportunity for making others. Her three sons had all left home years ago, and though two of them still lived in Creighton County, she rarely saw them, except on the holidays. She spent her days watching television and reading magazines, waiting for her husband to come home from work. She wasn’t a shut-in, exactly; she left the house now and then to run errands or meet various acquaintances for coffee or lunch, and she was a member of Maddox’s “As You Like It” club, which met once a month at the Methodist Church. But these infrequent outings did little to alleviate her sense of isolation. Her evenings with Ronnie were comfortable and undemanding, but whatever romance had once existed between them was long gone, and lately she had begun to feel as if her life was empty of meaning. She would never have admitted this to anybody, of course, yet she found herself crying a great deal while watching shows about tight-knit families, like the Cartwrights on Bonanza. Dottie adored the Cartwrights; they were all so handsome, especially Little Joe. More importantly, though, the Cartwrights lived and worked together, and almost nobody was ever alone. She hadn’t cried during that night’s episode, however; playing hostess to such a stimulating guest had made her far more cheerful than she’d been for ages.

  Dottie had short black hair and a tight, anxious face. Her body was slight and tense, and whenever she moved, she moved fast, preferring to trot rather than walk, even when going from room to room in her own house. Her tongue was equally active: Silence appalled her, so she gave it no quarter, talking relentlessly from the moment she woke in the morning until her eyes finally closed at night in bed. Ronnie blamed his wife’s “jitters” and “verbal diarrhea” on the ten or more cups of black coffee she drank each day, but even without caffeine in her system she couldn’t sit still or refrain from commenting on anything and everything that passed through her mind.