Hell at the Breech

by Tom Franklin

  “Where’s your daddy?” Waite demanded.

  “I ain’t got to talk to you.”

  “You don’t, boy, and I’ll take you to the jailhouse.”

  “Over the river,” the slow one said. Waite couldn’t remember their names.

  When the oldest turned and pushed his brother, Waite saw the enormous bowie knife, nearly a sword, hanging from his overalls.

  “Son,” Waite said, “you better start talking to me, or you’re all under arrest. Where over the river?”

  It was the slow one again. “Said he was fixing to go get hisself a present.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  For a time none of them spoke. Then the oldest relented. “Means he’s going over to the cathouse.”

  Annie.

  The youngest boy began to whimper, the oldest turned and socked him in the shoulder.

  “You boys go on out in the yard,” said Waite. “Over by that well yonder. And you,” he said to the oldest. “Lay that pigsticker down and call these damn dogs out.”

  The boy knelt and raised the knife and jabbed it into the porch boards. He whistled and the dogs slunk out and waited as he and his brothers filed down the steps, going around the giant knife. The dogs followed them out to the well. There, the boys peered at him from behind the trough, their faces glowing in the starlight.

  Waite crept to the edge of the house farthest from the well, and with his breath held, he moved along the wall, only the rasp of his overcoat against the wood of the shack. Dead cotton under his feet. He came to a shuttered window and ducked beneath it, turning and looking up. He smelled urine, as if they used the window to piss from. He removed his hat, dropping it crown-down onto the rags of cotton. With the rifle barrel he opened one half of the shutter, then the other half. He looked in. He saw a fireplace glowing with a bed of embers. No Floyd Norris. Just squat hunks of firewood, arranged in the floor in a square, a fort the boys had built.

  He retrieved his hat, eased to the rear of the house.

  When he touched the back door, it fell inward, onto the floor. Waite’s stubborn bladder nearly let go. He poked the barrel of his rifle into the room, followed it in, stepping on the door, just a few boards nailed together. He lit a match and looked around. A table. A sagging, filthy bed. The log fort.

  Their fire had nearly gone out. He picked up a log and tossed it on the coals, shifted it with his rifle barrel.

  He went back out without fixing the door and stood in the dead cotton looking at the stars. His boots were heavy with water. His back throbbed. Something was moving through the field, low and fast, and he pointed the rifle at it. Just the dogs, circling the house.

  Waite called for Floyd Norris’s boys to come back but heard nothing. The well stood alone.

  On the porch, the knife was gone.

  Before he left he got on his hands and knees and looked under the house and searched both outbuildings, rooting out nothing but a sleepy hog and a flying cat that almost gave him a heart seizure. Finally he mounted up, shaking his head, thinking himself crazy to come out here, alone, at night. It’s a doggone wonder you’re still breathing, Billy Waite.

  Something hit him back of his shoulder, and a cold, slimy thing smacked his cheek. He aimed, then stopped himself and regained his head. Mud balls. From behind the porch the boys were firing them silently, throwing, ducking out of sight, throwing again.

  “Dammit!” he yelled as one clobbered him on the back of the neck. He hunched in the saddle, making himself a smaller target, and spurred the horse on, still holding the Model 1893, heading for the river, mud flying past his ears like bullets.

  The boys laughing.

  He couldn’t get the ferry until dawn, and when he finally led the skittish horse off the boat, over the bowing plank, pulling at the animal and trying to calm him, he was in a fouler mood still. On the boat King had tried to bite him and he’d balled his fist and cocked back his arm before he caught himself. What damn fool punches his own horse? His clothes were wet, heavy, caked in mud, and he was dying for a drink.

  Aland, he somehow got turned around looking for the whore’s cabin, took confusing directions from a stuttering old colored man chewing a huge wad of sugarcane and driving a decrepit mule with a switch, and the sun had traveled well up over the treetops by the time he stepped down in the mud yard and looped King’s rein to the porch rail and mounted the two warped board steps onto her porch. He looked at the yard—mule tracks. Recent ones.

  From inside, her dog started to bark.

  “Who is it?” she called before his knock.

  “Sheriff.”

  Behind him, over the dirt road, were thick woods. The ground steaming as the dew burned. Like a spring morning, not the heart of winter. Waite removed his waterlogged hat and rubbed his scalp. Felt his cheeks with his fingers, the stub of whisker there. His back aching.

  “Ain’t nobody here,” she called.

  Waite pulled the leather strap used as a handle and stepped into the room well lit with morning, windows open, curtains drawn. She sat in a caneback chair by a table, wearing a housedress, breaking snap beans into small pieces and dropping them into a pail between her feet. A pipe on the table. Behind her, against the wall, stood her short shotgun. He raised an eyebrow at her, but she kept breaking the beans. Her dress was spread at her knees over the pail, showing her white skin, blue veins. How old must she be now? Fifty? Her hair as blond as ever, though.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Was they something you wanted?” Annie asked, not looking at him, just snapping the beans. “We closed.”

  The dog lay in the corner by the popping woodstove, head up.

  Waite circled the table and pulled out the other chair and sat in it, put his hat on the table. Crossed his legs.

  “Set yourself down,” she said.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What would you charge to whip me up some fried eggs and sausage?”

  “This ain’t no boardinghouse.”

  “You’ll take a dollar to bed a man you don’t know but not a quarter for some breakfast for a public servant?”

  The beans hit the bottom of the pail harder. “Go to hell,” she said. “Do me a good deed there and just go straight to hell, Billy High Sheriff Waite.”

  “You got anything to drink, then?”

  She looked at him. “No. I ain’t got a thing.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I ain’t here to mess with you, and I won’t arrest you for anything you tell me. But I need to find out something from you. It’s real important.” He watched her. “Well?”

  “Well, what.”

  He looked past her out the open back window, then back at her. Her eyes. “You have any visitors last night?”

  “Visitors.”

  “Customers.”

  She stopped snapping the beans. She wiped her hands on her apron and hooked a stray shuck of hair back behind her ear. “Why you want to know?”

  “Just answer me first.”

  “You come seen me once,” she said. “As a customer.”

  “I don’t recollect that.”

  “Lord, just as green a rich town boy ever got lost in the woods. Come in here with your ding-dong about to bust out of your britches, you and your cousin Oscar York both.”

  Waite supposed a man’s past was like an apple peel with him at the knife: you never did get cut loose from it, it just curled round and round. “I reckon ever boy within ten miles has been here,” he said. “Only thing I care about today is if somebody come by last night.”

  “They was somebody.”

  “What was his name, Annie?”

  She looked at him.

  “You can trust me. You know that. I ain’t ever done wrong by you.”

  “You ain’t never done right by me, either.”

  He sat back. “Well, I expect I’m fixing to start doing real wrong by you, if you don’t tell me what I’m asking you. And I ain’t paying for no answer, either.”

  “Threats,”
she said to the dog.

  He took the blackjack off his belt and put it on the table.

  “Jubal,” she said.

  The dog’s ear twitched. One eye opened.

  “Kill.”

  The dog closed its eye.

  “Annie,” he said quietly. “I’m usually as good-humored a fellow as you’ll find in this county, but today, I’m just flat ornery. I’ve had me a hell of a night.” He touched the blackjack. The heavy sand inside.

  “It was Floyd Norris,” she said at last.

  “What time did he get here?”

  “Just ’fore dark.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “All night.”

  “That something he does regular?”

  “Naw. It was his first time. His wife got lucky and died on him.”

  “I need to know, Annie. Did he leave at any time? Go out and come back? Or talk to anybody?”

  “Just went to the porch to take a piss or fart. I don’t allow no farting in here.”

  “I’ll try to control myself. Did anybody else come by? Did he talk to anybody?”

  “Naw. He stayed pretty much on top of me the whole night. Damn near chapped me raw.”

  Waite raised his eyebrows. “Did he say anything unusual? Anything might lead you to believe there was some crooked business going on?”

  She shook her head. “Some fellows chatter on while they do their business. Not him. He forget I was even here. One of you fellows just in it for yourselves. Your cousin Oscar’s another one.”

  Waite let this go. “What time’d he leave?”

  “Oscar?”

  “Norris.”

  “Just ’fore you got here. Not more’n half a hour ’fore you knocked on the door.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “You can probably still smell him.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “Usual. For the whole night.”

  “A dollar?”

  “For a whole night? How cheap you think I am, Billy Waite?”

  “That ain’t for me to say. How much, then?”

  “Four and two bits.”

  He lifted his eyebrows again. “Would you be prepared to state what you just told me to a judge?”

  “Which one?”

  “Whichever one,” he said. “To any one.”

  “I guess I would. If you twisted my arm. But not that Oscar York. He’s been out here other times,” she said. “Not just that first time he come with you.”

  “I just have one more question, and I’ll go,” he said. He watched her carefully. “You know anything about Tooch Bedsole? That gang of his? Their night doings? What he’s up to now?”

  “Tooch?”

  “That’s right.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know nothing about him.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. “Did Norris mention him?”

  “Yeah. Lying on top of me going ‘Tooch, Tooch, oooh Tooch.’” She giggled like a young girl, slapped her knee.

  He stood, put on his hat, and crossed the room. At the door he stopped, fitting the blackjack into his belt.

  She stared boldly back at him, her knees apart a good three inches.

  Too old to be tempted, he thought, but couldn’t stop himself from remembering their night together, so long ago. Right before he got married. Oscar had brought him here, drunk, on a gelding called Spot. The truth was, it had never again been so sweet.

  Maybe she sensed his memory, or maybe she was just a woman. “Tell me something, Billy,” she said, giving him a tiny smile. “What you think? Have I aged well, or poorly?”

  He put on his hat. “We all age poorly, Annie.” He went out and closed the door behind him.

  “Lotta good you was,” he heard her tell the dog.

  Oscar’s phaeton was in front of Waite’s house.

  “Hell’s bells,” Waite said, sitting astride the horse for a moment, rubbing his tired eyes, then he climbed off and took his time tying the reins to the post. Something irregular on the saddle caught his eye—someone had nicked the leather, knifed out a fingernail-size piece.

  Inside, Oscar sat stiffly on the sofa, both feet planted on the floor, a cup of coffee on the doily on the small polished side table, Waite and Sue Alma’s daguerreotype hanging above him. He wore his overcoat, even though the room was warm, and his legs were crossed. His Winchester was propped against the sofa and there was a sidearm on his belt.

  Sue Alma sat not rocking in the rocking chair. She seemed relieved to see him but finished her sentence, something about new hymnals for the church. She held a coffee cup, too, one of the china ones. Always bring out the best for Oscar.

  Waite closed the door and wiped his feet and removed his coat and hat, hung them on the deer antler rack Sue’s father had given them as an anniversary gift. Unbuckled his gunbelt and tossed it heavily onto the sofa, next to the cat, which sprang away with a yawl.

  “How dare you go without leaving me a note,” Sue said.

  One-handed, he unfastened the top button on his shirt. “Nothing to be worried about. Routine foray.”

  Oscar was watching him. He looked at Sue impatiently and back at Waite, who said, “Sue, would you go in and fix me ’bout six eggs and get some ham to frying?”

  She looked like she might tell him to go to hell, but in the end she just turned to Oscar. “You want some, too, Judge?”

  “No, thank you, Sue, darling.” He tapped his chest. “I got a touch of the indigestion this morning. This coffee do me fine.”

  She passed between them. The kitchen door rocked on its hinges, angry clank of pans.

  Oscar stood up holding the rifle. A hunting knife sheathed on his belt.

  Waite raised his hand. “Oscar, I didn’t find him.”

  “Dang it,” he hissed.

  “Hell, I rode over ever damn inch of the place looking for him.”

  “Then let’s saddle up now, go find his ass ’fore the sun goes down. You and me and whoever else we can round up.”

  “I don’t think we ought to do that.”

  “How come?”

  Waite picked at the dried mud on his pants leg. “He has himself an alibi.”

  “An alibi.” Oscar raised his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Well, there’s a surprise.”

  “This one’s a little different.” Waite lowered his voice and told him about Annie.

  Oscar lowered his voice, too. “You’re taking some goddern dollar whore’s word for it? Hell, Billy. She’s probably in it with ’em.”

  “You been out there to see her quite a bit, sounds like,” Waite said quietly. “I wouldn’t take her for a liar, and I’d rather not start questioning her integrity, if you catch my meaning. You with your spotless reputation to think of. She don’t care for Norris no more than she does you nor me. And it’d take quite a plan to cook up all this, get her in on something she wouldn’t be likely to agree to in the first place. I think we missed our chance.”

  Oscar sat back down. “You mean you missed. If you wasn’t half drunk you’d of probably got him easy. You reek like a still, Billy. You think folks ain’t talking? You think the whole town’s blind?”

  Waite drew a deep breath and held it as Sue came through the door with a cup of black coffee for him. He took it.

  “How’s Mrs. McCorquodale?” he asked Oscar.

  “How you think? Just about out of her mind. We got her sedated. Doc Moore’s with her. Says her wounds won’t be no trouble, unless they get infected.”

  “That poor thing,” Sue said. “I’ll make some soup for her right this second.” She disappeared back past the swinging door.

  “Why don’t we run over there to her house,” Waite said, “see what we can find.”

  They took Oscar’s phaeton to Coffeeville. The day was warm for November, and just past the old Sikes bridge Waite leaned forward and shrugged out of his coat and hung it over his knees. On the way Oscar told how he’d spent an hour that morning at the telegrapher’s office, trying
to notify McCorquodale’s relatives from up near Birmingham. Pell City. Said he paid for it out of his own pocket.

  At McCorquodale’s they found Carlos on the porch, staring at his feet. Looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

  “Hey, boy,” Waite said.

  Oscar patted him on the back. “You okay, Carlos?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t you worry, son,” Oscar said. “We’ll get the fellows that did this. I promise you that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I’m gone go in, see about your momma.” Oscar took a look toward the trees across the road, then disappeared inside, carrying his rifle.

  Waite remained on the porch. He looked at the floor, the bloodstain like thick paint. It had run down between the boards and would be hard to get out. A lot of blood. Hell of a lot. Oscar’d said Ernest was dead when he got to him and beat out the fire on his arm. Said you could still smell him burning.

  As Carlos watched from the steps, Waite examined the wall, a few lead pellets embedded in the wood. He let himself inside the house, grateful not to see anybody—he heard low voices from upstairs—and got an old-looking paring knife from a drawer in the kitchen. He saw a closed door and figured that was where the body lay. He knocked softly and when nobody answered he went in.

  McCorquodale was on the floor, underneath a sheet red with blood. Waite knelt by the body. Pulled the sheet back. Where the hell is the undertaker? He rolled up his sleeves and began to unbutton McCorquodale’s shirt. Marked where the shot went in, the angle, then carefully took the body by its shoulder and lifted it, saw an old tablecloth beneath, also stained red. No exit wounds. Which said a lot about the distance of the shooters—they’d have been across the road, just inside the trees, probably. Where he would have felt rage ten, even five years ago, now he felt tired. He put his hands on his knees and stood.

  Outside, Carlos watched him as he dug out the pieces of lead shot from the wall and held each misshapen piece between his finger and thumb before dropping it in his shirt pocket. Already he could see some were buckshot and others lesser: eights or, more likely, sixes. Two shotguns. So they were dealing with a pair of killers here. At least two.

  Waite took off his glasses and put them in his pocket. He exhaled deeply and sat beside Carlos.