Land of the Hoosier Dawn (Events From The Hoosier Dawn Book 1)

by Nick Younker

  The American Legion occupied the far north end of the block between the Main Street fork and spread all the way to the northern boundary of Squaw Creek at Spring Street. Members there routinely parked in the outfield and drank canned PBRs while watching the youth baseball games. Needless to say, more than one windshield had been shattered over the years from home runs, but they didn't mind. Deacon’s Glass Service over in Derbie made a good living off the Fogstow Legionnaires.

  Once October arrived in 1993, on a Friday nonetheless, the townspeople were gearing up for a great opening weekend with their bows. Opening day for deer season in Indiana was on October 1st, but in Fogstow, it was the first Saturday in October and most of the town was only working a half-day on Friday (if at all) so they could get ready.

  Friday, October 1st, 1993 was a happy day and everyone embraced it with festive spirits. Early morning Friday at around 6 a.m., the windows and doors were open at the ’Bend because an unusual heat wave had caught them by surprise. At 6am the temperature was already at 68 degrees. The sounds of eggs cracking and frying, bacon sizzling and popping, mixers readying pancakes and toast popping out of the toaster filled the streets. Scores of townsfolk were up early and eating at the ’Bend. The room was filled by 6:30am and the mood was great. Everyone was truly happy with their lives in Fogstow.

  What a difference a single day can make.

  ***

  2

  There certainly was no sleeping past 6 a.m. when you lived part-time on the second floor of the Co-op in a small town, especially next door to the ’Bend Deli. Breakfast was fired up early on that Friday. Everyone was on an October high, getting ready for the fall kickoff to deer season tomorrow. It was the first day of bow season, but the town didn’t celebrate it until the first Saturday of the season, which was October 2nd in 1993. It was tradition.

  By the time Police Chief Linton Derr got down to the ’Bend for breakfast, the place was already packed from wall to wall. You couldn’t even find a seat at the serving counter on a day like that. The whole town treated it like a holiday and most people would only work a half-day and then come home early to get themselves and their kids ready for Saturday morning.

  The Elks Club always cooked up a special dinner the Friday night before, which included brain sandwiches, burgoo with egg salad, Coney Island spread and Grippos Barbecue Chips for the kids. They also opened up their strawberry and cream soda fountain and gave the kids sparklers for after dinner. But most would be gone early so they could wake up at 4 a.m. and meet the scores of trucks down at Gil’s at 4:30 a.m. to register for the half-pot contest. The morning check-in at 10:30 a.m. for processing and the half-pot winner did not get drawn from a bucket, but rather from whoever had the buck with the most points. The other half of the pot got donated to the Riley Hospital for Children Foundation up in Indy.

  Linton did not like spending his nights on top of the Co-op, but if he had a prisoner in the cells, he had to stay. Last night, he got a call from Sheriff Marvin Kramer asking him to hold a prisoner due to a court scheduling conflict. But Linton knew the real reason was because he simply could not allow Bret Holder to be held at the county jail down in Barrelton. Bret had filed a complaint against one of his deputies. He accused Deputy Shane Aaron of stealing money out of his full-size Bronco after he arrested him for driving while intoxicated. Bret told them he would drop the complaint if they dropped the DWI charge.

  “Hell, the way I see it, Shane earned the cash by getting me off the road. Now he can keep it if you guys drop the charge and let me go. No questions asked,” Bret had told Sheriff Kramer.

  To be fair, he could have probably kept Holder at the jail in Barrelton overnight, but Deputy Aaron had a shift last night and he wanted to keep everything squeaky clean until after the internal investigation. Everyone knew that Holder was lying through his teeth, trying to get out of his DWI because that made three for him. He was just another rich kid who thought he could do whatever he wanted, but the law eventually caught up to him and now he was going to serve some time in the county lock up, or maybe in Terre Haute. But Linton didn’t mind. He served as a deputy under Sheriff Kramer for seven years until he took the job up river in Fogstow. Kramer always treated him well and he was a good man. He didn’t mind doing a few favors for him now and then.

  The Fogstow town council voted unanimously almost two years before to hire Linton as the full-time chief of police, but he was chief only to himself. He didn’t have anyone else to back him up from the town, the money simply wasn’t there. Of course he always got the backup he needed from the county deputies and the sheriff. His job made him only a modest living, paying him just over $20,000 a year. Linton certainly wasn’t in it for the pay. His family, especially on his mother’s side (Weyerbacher), had enough money to tide them over for a few generations. But just like his mother had always told him, if you have money then you can spend your life one of two ways: existing in the world, or making the world a better place. Linton already saw what it was like to live a life wasted from watching his Uncle Kerry Weyerbacher and he was for damn sure not going to make the same mistake. He also saw the way it hurt his mother to watch Uncle Kerry day in and day out, drinking at the Mulberry Club in Barrelton and coming home to Linton’s grandmother’s house because he had no other place to go. He would sleep in the pool house and send the gardener or caretakers out for aspirin and food when he was hungover.

  Linton’s mother, Carolyn Weyerbacher-Derr, made sure he saw everything that his Uncle Kerry did, which included the constant boozing, doping and the misogynistic way he treated women around town. Although Kerry had spent a lot of nights behind the wheel with empty liquor bottles and a white mustache, it wasn’t until he decided to feel up a young lady in the Mulberry that he finally got pinched for something.

  Tisha Keethers was a 15-year-old Barrelton High School student who had sneaked into the Mulberry Club one day with her mischievous aunt. She may have looked a little older, but it was her aunt who had vouched for her with the club owners, so she was served drinks all afternoon and into the evening. Kerry came in early that evening and quickly sniffed her out. After several quick drinks and a few lines of cocaine, he took her into the VIP lounge for a more religious study of her body. She was passed out when they found him with her, but he claimed she was a very willing participant.

  When he found out she was only fifteen, the shame of his actions caused him to attempt suicide with a broken glass bottle while he was out on bail. To Linton, it seemed that just about anyone under the influence of alcohol could reason his way into thinking his desires are acceptable and that they will not be held accountable for acting out on them. And it’s those days where we finally see that we are at the bottom of the barrel, the lowest we can go on the humanity scale . . . it’s then and only then does our soul come awake to do its job.

  Of course, that was only Linton’s take on the matter and after seeing his uncle locked up down in Evansville at the state hospital for two years, he was convinced everyone had a soul, and that some let their souls get lazy. They let it shut down and take long naps and what happens in between, that’s what forces them to witness the evil mankind is truly capable of.

  If you were to have asked the people of Fogstow what kind of evil they had around there, they wouldn’t say any person in particular, with the exception of the Jeffries who lived high up in the plateau on the northeast side of Pine 2. Some people thought they were cannibals, but that was just riverlore and never proven.

  The real source of evil in these parts, or so their superstitions would tell them, was the Ohio River. For starters, there was no one in the entire state, let alone in the town of Fogstow, who didn’t know not to eat anything they caught out of the river. It was the most polluted river in the nation, and some people even sent their kids out with binoculars after a few campfire stories to see if they could find the glowing fish swimming around at night.

  But people like Alice Konicke will swear to you that all of the bodies they pulle
d out of the Ohio River in these parts were dead before they went in. In her mind the river will never kill your victim for you, but it will hide your bodies. It was her belief that a truly evil man was not possessed by the devil. As a matter of fact, she did not believe the devil could force himself upon any human being. But if he were to appear in the form of himself, clear as day, or in the form of an innocent human being, he would give you just enough information to make you believe he was your savior, because he cannot force you to do anything. He can only reason with you in a way that fits his agenda. He can only make suggestions. In the end, it was entirely up to you whether to heed his suggestion or to walk away from him and be a good person. In the end, it is only you who can make the world a better place. But at some point, you are going to face the devil and you’re gonna have to choose. At some point, you’re gonna come face to face with the true evil of the River, and when you do, be ready.

  Alice was not the only person who felt that way about the Ohio River. No one in town would let their kids swim in the calm Fogstow channel. But those feelings were a little different about ten years before. Back then, people knew the Ohio River was being polluted by the coal and stone quarries up and down it, but they also thought that nature would filter itself out and the water would be okay again. Unfortunately, they tended to dismiss the fact that the Ohio River stretched all way up to Pittsburgh and it flowed from there directly down to them. They were a little too tolerant of the fact that all the factories between here and there, which included the steel town itself, Cincinnati and Louisville, were also dumping their waste into the river. It was as if they thought the chemical and metallic pollution could not reach them, or that it would somehow be diluted before it got to them. At best, their naïve thinking cost one person his life.

  After the coal docks closed down, they built a small beach on the eastern side of the channel and even cleared a path to walk to it. It was well away from the dock and there were also buoys that were marked with “CHILDREN’S SWIM AREA. NO BOATS OR WAKE PERMITTED.” But sometimes, the bigger boats would pull through and dock and when the children were in their area swimming, they would wait for those big boats to leave and as they were pulling out, the children would yank their arms in the air and tug up and down on their imaginary air horns. The boaters would see them and set off their loud air horns, then kick it into high gear and send waves over to the kids. The deputies didn’t say anything because the children loved it and their parents didn’t raise a fuss. Nevertheless, they kept the signs on the buoys as an official rule in case they needed to detain someone who was out of control.

  Back in ’85, when the new beach was less than a year old, three teenage boys were swimming when the weather was just coming out of spring and the water was still moderately cold, 78 degrees maybe. It was on a dare, of course. They were the only ones brave enough to tough out the cool water, so off they went.

  Later that day, those same teens landed in the hospital down in Barrelton. At first, it was just a severe ear infection. The next morning, emergency room doctors had them on an intravenous antibiotics and a morphine drip. The boys were in so much pain, they trembled when they slept. The antibiotic seemed to work for a while, but two days later, sepsis started to kick in. They were all three life-flighted to Louisville in helicopters and specialists were brought in from around the country. Although they were able to defeat the infection over the course of two weeks, the truly baffling nature of it was that they had never seen anything like it before, and never after. Those same boys went to college that fall and seemed to do fine. But one committed suicide after graduation. Student debt was a heavy load to carry and the boy graduated with a pre-law degree from UK. It was speculated that the debt was why, but he did not leave a note and no one could say for sure.

  People like Alice Konicke and others around town said that the debt might be enough to drive someone to suicide, but they also pointed out that the river was directly responsible for his ailment in the beginning. But just like with everyone, the river does not kill people. That kind of evil does not force itself upon human beings, so they survived. But once that boy gave in to the powerful suggestion he was exposed to, that’s when the river had him.

  The town closed the beach after the boys were sent to Louisville. After the second week of their hospitalization, they came through and filled the beach in with rip-rap stones from the Cape Sandy quarry.

  * * *

  Linton walked into the ’Bend, flipped up the false-end on the counter and motioned for Kelly Doss. Kelly was an attractive lady in her late twenties. At about five and a half feet tall with brown hair, she could catch a man’s eye fairly easily. She had one of those half smiles that Linton really loved. The kind where when she would smile, she only raised the right side of her cheek and you couldn’t see it if you were standing on the left side of her. Kelly’s grandmother said those kinds of smiles looked like she was smarter than everyone around her. The half-smile was her way of condescending people without them ever knowing it.

  That always made Kelly self-conscious about her smile because she did not want to offend anyone, no matter how intelligent they were. But her grandmother just laughed and said, Young lady, you are one of the smartest girls I’ve ever met. Don’t you ever hold back! Don’t you ever dumb yourself down for folks around you! When you have something to say and it’s smart, then people in your life can only stand to benefit from it. But if you hold it back, then you cheat those around you. Her grandmother died of natural causes when Kelly was 16 and less than a year later, her mother died of breast cancer. Her father had never been in Kelly’s life, so she was on her own after that. Fogstow became her family and the people there loved her.

  Kelly was filling coffee mugs at the breakfast counter. She smiled at Linton and held up a finger: a signal for him to wait a minute. Linton had thought it would be a cool day so he wore his Chief jacket. But there it was, 6:30 in the morning and his chest was hot as an oven. The Bend was keeping its doors and windows open to let the breeze in, but that didn’t help much with the stoves so close to the counter. He wanted to take it off but it was so packed inside that it would just be a hassle. He picked up a small, brown paper bag and filled it with hot peanuts from the warmer, then poured a glass of orange juice from the cool, sweaty pitcher on the back counter. Bob Stamps, one of Linton’s closest friends and an old classmate, appeared from behind the dishing window, set an omelet plate on the window warmer then clanked the “order-ready” bell with a greasy spatula.

  “Three-egg cheese omelet, burnt in ketchup and toast. Ready to go,” Bob said.

  Linton ducked down and looked through the window. “Bob? What are you doing back there?” Linton said.

  Bob was turning away but he quickly looked back at Linton.

  “Oh, hey Boss. I told Kelly last night that I would help them out on the back stoves. Pete has the front stoves today and I’m taking care of the specialties back here.” Of course Bob was referring to Pete Brown, part owner of the ’Bend, alongside Kelly Doss.

  Linton was a little embarrassed when Bob called him Boss. About a week ago, Bret Holder came into town with his dog Boner, an ashy black husky-hound mix, and stopped in at the A&W stand. Bob ran the forklift in the yard out back of the Co-op, and when people pulled up to buy a float, Bob would hop off and make it for them. Bret came in his father’s new extended cab truck and ordered up 20 hay bales for a party. He also wanted a float while he was waiting, so Bob got off the forklift and made it for him.

  Bret was passing the time by tossing lit matches at Boner in the truck bed and laughing while the poor dog jumped and yelped. His cruelty to all living things was equal in humans and canines. Boner was a shy and gentle dog. He had experienced a lot of cruelty at Bret’s hands over the years, which included a branding of the NRA logo on his rear hind thigh. Boner had become skittish, but not aggressive toward humans.

  Bob was the only one on the backlot taking care of the yard work, so it was taking awhile to get Bret loaded. O
nce Bret grew tired of teasing Boner, he started complaining about how long it was taking Bob to load his truck. He was really mouthing off to him, but Bob just kept on working as quickly as he could.

  Linton was sitting on the bench out front of the Co-op, eating his peanuts, and he could hear Bret’s mouthy insults. He came around back in just enough time to see Bret not just teasing Bob while he was on the forklift, but also forcing him to swerve. Fortunately, Bob missed Bret with the forklift, but knocked over a stack of hay bales and a shelf full of paint cans. Linton got so pissed off that he immediately shoved Bret against his truck and put the cuffs on him. He told Bret in his most disgusted tone that he had a choice: either clean up the mess and pay for the damages, or he was going to arrest him for destruction of private property, endangering the safety of a citizen (he then peeked into the window of his truck and saw an open bottle of whiskey) . . . annnnnd, whoo-wee! He reached in, grabbed the bottle and held it up high. An OPEN CONTAINER county violation!

  Well, that was enough to get Bret to shed his privileged attitude. Yes sir Boss. I’m sorry Bob. I’ll take care of it right now, sir. Linton couldn’t help but snicker at that. Even though Bret was from Barrelton, he had caused enough trouble all over the county that every law officer knew the next alcohol-related offense would give him jail time and a license suspension.

  Bob could hardly believe what he saw and ever since then, he didn’t call Linton chief, he called him Boss. The name stuck, and in less than a week, the whole town had heard about what happened and they, too, were calling him Boss. The truth is, Linton hated it. It not only embarrassed him, but it put him on a pedestal and now he would have to live up to the name in every situation that got thrown at him, then and in the future.