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

by Nick Younker

  “Yes ma’am.” Cam signed the slip and tore the back copy off.

  “They’ll actually be here in a few minutes, so you may want to head on down. I’ll radio Linton and let him know you’re taking them.”

  Cam popped his hat on and off to straighten it and pulled his coat vest together. He hopped off the seat and grabbed the sack. “Well, then, it’s off I go.”

  Kelly smiled and saluted him. She was confused about his coat vest, though. “Say, Cam. Why you got all those warm clothes on? Isn’t it still hot out there?”

  Just before he opened the door, he answered her. “Yeah, it’s still warm. But that damn air pressure is dropping like a sum-bitch. That means it’s about to get stormy, rainy, nasty and cold. I don’t want to get stuck out on that god-awful river in my gym shorts, is all.”

  Cam shut the door and left. Kelly couldn’t help but think that the schizophrenic weather here in southern Indiana would be talked about for quite some time.

  Oh well. The thought left her mind just as quickly as it came. She got on the CB and radioed Linton on the trail.

  “’Bend Deli to Chief Derr.”

  She waited a moment but got no response, so she tried again.

  “’Bend Deli to Chief Derr. Linton? You out there?”

  She waited a moment again before she got his response, which was slightly distorted with white noise.

  “Go ahead Kelly,” Linton said.

  “Just wanted to let you know Cam Wright came in and took the Bucky order down to the dock. You can stay on task.”

  “Roger that. I’ll be back late this afternoon sometime. You two get your bags packed for Carolyn’s tonight after the Elk’s dinner.”

  That made Kelly happy to hear. She had been to his mother’s in Derbie a few times already, but she had never been invited to come and stay at the cabin. It made her and Lucy really feel like part of the family. And Carolyn was such a nice person and she was really good to Lucy. They really enjoyed going there.

  Carolyn lived on a large “reservation,” or so they called it. Actually, it was called the “Turtle Reservation,” for no uncertain reason. It was basically a campground with 12 cabins around a beautiful lake behind the large house that Linton’s mother had owned ever since he was little. It was all the legacy they had left of his father, Sammy, who went missing out on the Ohio River back in June of 1973. She knew his mother would keep that place until the day she died, hoping that somehow her Sammy would find his way home again.

  “Roger that big daddy,” Kelly said, quietly snickering before hanging up her mic and turning back to Lucy.

  A couple of seconds passed before Linton responded, causing Kelly to spin around. “Over and out little momma.”

  That was enough to give Lucy a giggle, and even Pete in the back room had a laugh. Kelly was both tickled and embarrassed.

  ***

  4

  Allen and Russ Morgan pulled up to the Locust street entrance in their Co-op truck pulling a trailer full of hay and backed it in. The trailer was overstuffed with hay bales, just to make sure they didn’t run out anytime soon. Burnley stood behind them and directed Russ backward until he reached the loading zone for the bales.

  Allen got out as soon as Russ stopped the truck and saw that Burnley had stopped them about five feet away from the edge of the hay bale stack.

  “Garsh-dangit Burnley. You got us walking five feet away from the stack for unloading.”

  Allen and Burnley always gave each other a hard time in their endeavors. It just made for good kinship in their eyes.

  “Well hell Allen, you would have filled up the whole damn five feet with that first row of bales and then had to hop right back in your truck and pull it out further.” Burnley pointed at his head a couple of times as he leaned toward Allen. “Some of us know how to think ahead, you mean old man.”

  Allen gave him a grinning smile while he pulled his work gloves on. Russ had already crawled on top of the hay bales and picked one up to start tossing over the edge to Allen and Burnley.

  “Would you two stop pissing at each other and give me a hand?” Russ said.

  Burnley and Allen both groped their balls, smiled and wiped their hands across their noses, an act they had done for years when someone called them out over their spats. Russ just smiled and shook his head while tossing down the first haybale. The old men started picking them up and stacking them along the storage wall.

  Linton came rolling around the corner on his three-wheeler with a bag full of clanking aluminum cans and parked it behind the A&W stand, which is where he normally stored it, since he didn’t have a utility shed to put it in. He needed it close everyday for his bluff trips.

  He rolled off the 3-wheeler and was just about to go help them unload the hay bales when a grain truck came speeding around the corner and onto Locust Street. The grain trucks brought the grain in from most of the southeastern Indiana farms and hauled it out as well, when needed. Linton had seen them on several occasions taking those turns off the Main Street curve onto Locust Street at high speeds and had been meaning to hunt them down and talk with them about it. Every time they took the turn, he could see the load shift, and their driver’s side front tire always lifted. If one of those trucks were to lose control and go over, they were liable to take out the ’Bend and a few pedestrians. It also didn’t help that Cliff Holder owned the trucking company and paid his workers straight haul pay with no overtime, whether the job was done or not. It forced them to work faster and harder for no extra pay.

  Arn Simmons was driving the truck and he quickly pulled around and backed it in front of the grain silos. Arn used to work with Bob Stamps over at the Oarshire Mine, around the time they brought the union in. Linton knew him well and they were halfway decent friends, along with Bob and Russ. He was laid off like Bob after the mine shut down and he had been struggling to make ends meet, running the short-hauls for Cliff Holder and tending bar down at the Stow.

  Arn jumped down from the truck to swing the loading arm over for unloading when Linton approached him, a little agitated.

  “Arn?” Linton said.

  Arn turned around while he was still working with the loading arm. He had on an old work flannel and jeans that looked like they had been worn in a rodeo during a hurricane. He might switch up what he wore on a daily basis, but one thing that always stayed on him was his UMWA hat. He was proud to had been part of the United Mine Workers Association, even if the union was a short-lived experience there in the region.

  “Oh, hey Boss. How they treating ya?” Arn said as he kept working the arm. He seemed anxious, as if stopping would cause his heart to slow down and quit beating. He would carry the whole conversation while working if Linton let him. He didn’t mean any disrespect by it; he just wanted to make sure his job got done quickly. That was his way.

  “Arn, I’m gonna need you to leave that loading arm alone for a minute and talk to me about something. This is important.”

  Arn looked confused, but at the same time worried, as if Linton was about to tell him his mother just died. He quickly tensed up with worry and shoved the loading arm away, giving Linton his complete attention.

  “What is it, Boss? What’s wrong? Is everything okay? Carolyn? Bob?” Arn was genuinely worried. He thought the world of Linton and his Fogstow family. That was something Linton knew well, and after hearing that, he let all his agitation melt away and gave Arn a low-filtered smile before he responded.

  “Yeah Arn, everyone’s okay.”

  The tension dissolved on Arn’s face and he took a deep, relieved breath as he looked one way and another and shook his head.

  “Doggone it, Linton! Don’t do that! You know things like that get me all worked up!”

  “Okay. But there is still something important I need to talk to you about.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s about the way you’re taking that corner over there off Main onto Locust. You’re going way too fast for the turn, and every time
I’ve seen you take that turn, I have also seen your load shift and pull your driver’s side tire up about an inch and half off the ground.”

  Arn pulled his UMWA cap off and started to cower down a little, almost in shame.

  “Gosh Boss, I had no idea. I’m just trying to meet Cliff’s quota, you know. But I guess I didn’t realize I was that bad with it.”

  Linton knew Cliff Holder would rather eat his own children than let his company take a net loss. Which would be just as well, because Bret Holder was still sitting on top of the Co-op in a cell, probably acting like a jackass to Deputy Stark right now.

  One thing was for sure, Linton knew that Arn had a good heart and had always meant well to his family, his town and most other people in general. The last thing he would ever want to do was put someone’s life in jeopardy. It occurred to Linton that his words may have depressed the hell out of Arn and made him feel a lot of undue guilt. So Linton put his hand on Arn’s shoulder and tried to sympathize with him.

  “Listen Arn, I know you mean well and I know you would never hurt anyone. Trust me. I know that. It’s just, this Cliff Holder, well, he’s got your nuts in a vice and he’s forcing you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. He’s putting a blinder on you and taking advantage of you and that other guy’s good nature.”

  “Brandon.”

  “What?”

  “The other guy? You’re talking about the other feller who makes these grain hauls with me, right?

  “Yeah.”

  “His name’s Brandon. Brandon Mackey.”

  Brandon ran the route along with Arn, but Brandon lived in Loudon, across the river from Barrelton in Kentucky.

  “Brandon. Right! I knew that. I just couldn’t think of it at the moment.” Linton and Arn both shared a friendly chuckle then Linton continued. “But the point I’m trying to make is, Holder’s got both of your nuts in a vice and he keeps twisting the crank. Squeezing just a little more out of you everyday and – I’m sure Russ, Burnley and Allen will agree with me – not paying you a lick extra for your time.”

  Russ, Burnley and Allen all stopped their hay bale work for a moment to confirm they agreed, then went right back to it.

  “Well, I suppose that . . .”

  Linton interrupted him. “Is he still paying you by the load with no overtime pay?”

  Arn cleared his throat, sidled up to Linton and spoke low. “Well . . . yeah. But he still keeps us working.”

  “But does that mean the work you do every day is worth less and less? Why the hell should he get to keep all the profits for the extra work you dish out and give you nothing? Nothing extra, that is.”

  Arn thought about it for a moment and then cheered up, put his UMWA hat back on and re-secured the loading arm back to the silo.

  “You know what – you’re right! I’m gonna take this load back down to Barrelton and Holder can just haul it up here himself.”

  Arn started to take his work gloves off when Russ hollered over at him from the top of the hay bale trailer.

  “Wait, Arn. Unload that grain into the silo first, then go shove that truck up his ass. I’m on your side, buddy, but we still need the grain,” Russ said.

  Arn quickly put his gloves back on and said, “Okey-dokey.”

  ***

  5

  The noon hour was quite a bit slower than the early morning breakfast rush at the ’Bend. Kelly was able to get caught up over the hour and as 1 p.m. rolled around, Lucy was starting to get restless, so she let her play in the alley between the ’Bend and the Co-op. Lucy sat out there for awhile, drawing chalk lines on the asphalt that likened her mom and Linton as an old married couple with herself as a little rock star.

  Elizabeth (Izzy) Brown opened the door to the ’Bend while Kelly was on a stool putting clean coffee cups back on the shelf. Kelly turned around just in time to see Izzy smile at her and she was quickly off her stool and around the counter, happy as hell to see her and gave her a hug.

  “My God, you are just as beautiful as ever, young lady,” Kelly told her.

  Izzy was the young girl who went missing for three days over the summer of ’92. Linton found her on July fourth, under the heavy light of the fireworks over the river, floating along in a johnny on the Ohio River, unconscious. She had traveled out on the boat with a boy she had met from Louisville three days before, but when she returned, he was gone and she could not remember where she’d been.

  Linton immediately took her to the East Jamison Medical Center in central Squaw Creek and after finding her father, Pete Brown, they transferred her down to Jamison County Hospital for a complete evaluation. But the only thing they could find wrong with her was dehydration and a loss of memory.

  Actually, Izzy remembered a lot of things, but she also knew that telling Linton or anyone else about them might have landed her in the state hospital down in Evansville, and she would be damned if she would spend any of her life there. So she just stuck with the amnesia angle. They had made her see a therapist, but all she wanted to do was put it behind her. Besides, it wasn’t like she had been hurt or mentally scarred, or nothing bad had happened to that boy. It was just something had happened that she couldn’t quite put into words, so she didn’t.

  Izzy pulled back from Kelly and said, “You’re not looking so bad yourself, hot stuff! I hear you and the Boss have gotten together.”

  She stuck her pinky out for a mutual shake and Kelly obliged. Although Kelly was ten years older than Izzy, she had always identified with her. Izzy was a young musician who had chosen a darker element of rock music, namely goth rock, and she was always dressed in revealing skirts, her face painted white with black lipstick. But as anyone who ever interviewed her knew, she disliked being called a goth rock musician.

  Izzy was interested in Wiccan culture and she liked to reflect that with her music in her band, “Izzy Lives.” She tried to coin the term Wiccan Rock for her sound, but every magazine or newspaper that interviewed her always changed it over to goth rocker, so she just let it go. In southern Indiana, she had become quite an attraction. Her music had gotten some regional and midwestern notoriety, which translated to opening up for a few big names that came to the area around Louisville, Indianapolis, Evansville, Nashville and even St. Louis.

  But Izzy preferred to play at smaller, more intimate venues around the area, which included a show in New Albany the next day. It was an outside show at the river park amphitheater and Type O Negative was supposed to be there. But in the past, many big names had made verbal commitments to show up and do an impromptu, only to later cancel. That happened more often than she cared for, but who was she to complain? She was an 18-year-old girl living the rock and roll dream, opening up for big acts, traveling and playing gigs with her own original music and a few covers, about to sign a recording contract. To put it simply, she was just going to keep going until they took the guitar out of her hands.

  “Oh Jesus, Izzy. Whatever you do, don’t call him Boss. He hates that.”

  Izzy smiled in confusion. “Why? I heard he set Bret Holder in his place last week. He deserves the title.”

  “You don’t have to convince me of that, or anyone else, for that matter. But he told me he hated being called that.”

  They both laughed and gave each other another hug.

  The kitchen door slammed open and Pete came charging out.

  “Is that my baby rock star I hear gabbing in here?” Pete said as he reached in and lifted her off the ground in a bear hug.

  Izzy was tickled pink to see him. Pete had told her several times he could go on the road with her and help her, which translated to protect her. But she always told him no, because she wanted to make things work out on her own.

  “It sure is, Da-Da! I’m home for the night and I have a show in New Albany tomorrow night.”

  Pete let her down and gave her the look that said he had never been more proud of her.

  “New Albany, ’eh? Hmm.”

  New Albany was only about a 45-minu
te drive from Fogstow. Izzy moved her face around with Pete’s traveling stare so she could meet his eyes.

  “Yeah, Dad —and of course you’re coming with me!”

  Pete’s traveling gaze homed right on Izzy and he said, “Alrrriiiiiight,” then picked her back up and swung her around.

  Izzy just smiled and laughed with joy. As he swung her around, she tried her best to say what else she had to say, but it wasn’t nearly as important. “I’m also playing tonight on the docks.”

  Kelly stood there and adored the two. It filled her heart to see such closeness between them after the near tragedy last summer. All they really had were each other, with the exception of herself and Lucy, of course. It was just such an important thing for her to see. Or maybe was more of an inspiring thing.

  ***

  6

  The day was starting to cool off and clouds were forming in the west. Linton guessed it to be around 67 degrees. If it got any colder, he was going to have to go get his jacket out of the Bronco.

  After he finished off an A&W float, he picked up his bag of cans and made his way up Locust and across Main to the Chapman-Oxley house. As he walked up the front walk, Joe and Noah came racing through on their BMXs and said hi to Linton before they passed him and pedaled around to the garage.

  Linton walked up the steps with his cans and knocked on the door. He had been putting this off for as long as he could. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say to Brad, but he knew he was going to try to get invited in.

  He knocked on the door and couldn’t help but remember when he was a kid living on the reservation with his folks. They always seemed to have someone using the cabins all year round, and most of the time it was a woman and her kids. His dad used to tell him that when someone needed help, it was their responsibility as human beings to always lend a hand. It was their responsibility to make sure everyone was looked after, no matter who they were or where they came from.

  Those words had driven Linton to join law enforcement, to maybe help in some way and let what was right, rather than what the law said, be a guiding factor. He always knew it was human nature for people to care for those around them, but it was also human nature to want more than they had, and sometimes, that could lead people to very dark places.