by Shelly Frome
Aware of the time he’d wasted playing hide-and-go-seek and the sense that more shoppers would burst in at any second, Josh had a set of excuses at the ready to disarm Otis. These included his liaison with Hunter Cobb and Cobb’s prime interest in the Mississippi Private School Association along with Lamar Dean’s dodgy plans. When that got him nowhere, he got more personal and threw in the empty rocking chair on the porch, the one Dewey said would start rocking once the restless haints started working on you.
But Otis still wasn’t buying any of it and brushed it all aside with a gentle shake of his head.
Josh pressed the issue and said he’d come all this way because it looked like Dewey’s past was catching up with him and he was sinking fast. Then, and only then, did Otis lean against the counter and become quite pensive.
“I just need some kind of handle on where Dewey’s coming from,” Josh said, trying not to go into it all or allude to the fact that he felt somewhat responsible. “Look, the long and short of it is, maybe I can help. Maybe I can at least try.”
Otis nodded and looked past Josh, as though casting his mind back in time to try and remember where it had all gone wrong. Under the circumstances and taking into account his advancing years, his recollections sputtered and sometimes went off track as he took care of a few more elderly ladies and their modest needs. They, in turn, smiled at Josh as sweetly and gently as the first lady with the little red wagon. For his part, Josh took it as it came and pieced it together while standing by the old-fashioned cash register with its intermittent rings and clunks. Most of the details were lost. But Otis’ scattered memories coupled with what Josh already knew and his own attempts to fill in the blanks formed a pattern of disillusionment and loss.
It seemed that what the newspaper accounts failed to mention was the fact that because Dewey was considered so sassy and spunky, he was encouraged by his friends to sit behind the wheel of the bus, stick his feet out the window and strike any pose that came to mind. These “upstart young bucks” told Dewey that the night riders, the ones who drove around on flatbed trucks raising hell, were cowards and afraid to come out into the open. Besides, it was a crisp fall day, the cotton had already burst through the bolls and the fields had turned blindingly white against the flaming red mechanical cotton pickers. It was a new dawn, the upstarts insisted. There was great promise in the air. No one at the time had any idea some gangly slack-jawed kid lay in wait, hunkered down in the fields across the way, all set to shoot off a flare at the most opportune time. It just so happened that a police cruiser came roaring in at the exact moment Dewey had his eyes closed, blowing on a blues harp, perched behind the wheel appearing, as far as the deputies were concerned, like some cocky agitator. Dewey’s wild protests only made matters worse.
Later on, as Dewey’s troubles mounted, he became resentful and was out to get even. According to what Dewey confided to Otis, an opportunity finally came when one of the visiting leaders of the Civil Rights Movement approached him right around Valentine’s Day and said he and a “spirited local gal” wanted to go to Ripley and attend a new Freedom House rally. None of the night riders knew about it yet, no one would suspect that Dewey had the nerve to leave the Delta, sneak off under the cover of night in a borrowed car with two others wearing yellow raincoats with hoods. There was the possibility of Dewey getting lost. But the girl in question swore she knew the way and could tell Dewey exactly how to negotiate the back roads. But at some point, she got anxious and made Dewey stop. She and the visiting leader got out and started walking.
It seemed Dewey then got all confused, thought maybe he shouldn’t have used the brights all that time, switching them on and off. But with the fogged-up windshield, what choice did he have? Not knowing what to do—turn off the lights, stay in the car and wait; go on to Ripley and hope they showed up at the hideaway—he just sat there for a while.
The next thing he knew, Deputy Clay Tucker came by accompanied by the same jeering slack-jawed gangly kid, busted one of the car’s taillights, put a trace on the car, hauled Dewey out and added resisting arrest to the charges. Dewey was summarily informed the car had been reported missing by a freshman at Ole Miss by the name of Lamar Dean. Dewey made a run for it the second he made out a flatbed truck coming straight at him out of the mist. There were three of them, a lot of pushing and shoving on the part of the muscular and the stocky one until the stocky one ended it by smashing Dewey’s kneecap with a baseball bat.
In due course, Dewey was taken through the white stone gates of Parchman Farm Plantation, past the guardhouse, through the barricade, one unit after another enclosed by chain link fences topped with razor wire.
It seemed to Otis that not long afterwards, the guards in the towers watched gleefully as Dewey stood barefoot on long-neck beer bottles out in the yard, shooting pain through his gimpy leg as he tried to maintain his balance, taking his punishment for some trumped-up infraction. Once, while inside his cinderblock quarters, its windows covered with thick black bars, Dewey was so forlorn, he told Otis what he could do with his tales of hope and redemption. By this point, a smoothed-out piece of one of the long-neck bottles sliding on the bass strings of a cheap guitar alternated with the dark moaning sounds on his blues harp. His blues came out of all this, about hard times, hard traveling and “getting through this livin’ is a hard way to go.” It wasn’t long before Otis stopped visiting and he and Dewey parted ways.
There may have been more to Otis’s recollections, more Josh could’ve learned. The gangly kid was obviously Darryl, the muscular one Rowdy Childers and the stocky one might well have been Bubba. But Josh couldn’t spare another minute and Otis suddenly cheered up when a bunch of ladies barged in with the news that a nearby church might have need of his services for the holidays. Josh wanted to thank Otis for his time and ask if there was any message he could pass on to Dewey. But there was no way to get through. Otis was in his element, no longer interested in tracing back to a time when he himself might’ve gone wrong. In some odd way, Otis seemed vindicated as though the whole exercise proved it was all out of his hands.
Josh hurried off, slid behind the wheel and started driving back. He passed the cotton gin again and couldn’t help thinking its days of separating fibers from seeds had long since run its course and come to an end. But there was no hope of his own sorting process to end. He didn’t even have a clue who the third culprit was on the flatbed truck years ago. Josh was that far behind and today was the day it was all coming to a head.
29.
Roy hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile up rutted Piney Woods when he caught sight of Darryl’s truck coming his way over the next rise. What was it, a string of bad luck? Past midnight the night before it was the coonhound up a tree and last night it was a razorback. Uprooting the remains of the vegetable garden—snout, tusks, high bristly-hair backbone, skinny legs, heading through the brush for the creek bottom to wallow in the mud. Just missed him with the Reb revolver but for damn certain he was still around. Losing out on the hog and more sleep and, along with everything else, now this. Roy had half a mind to step off into the loblolly pines and let Darryl pass him by.
He reached into his overalls, pulled out his old pocket watch and saw it wasn’t yet time for Darryl to be on any lunch break. He also saw that Darryl wasn’t traveling that fast, maybe only needed some reminding which would send him straight back to his liquor store so’s Roy could keep heading up to the water tower. Fact was, Roy had never done this before, kept checking on the latest. As a rule, he just about never surfaced. He tried to tell himself he was just walking it off, but that wasn’t it at all. He was damn near reliant on the gizmo to get a grip on things. Grady’s messages were really crowding him now, the girl’s answer and what he should do about it was eating away at him. If he didn’t put a stopper in it, there was no telling what would happen.
Darryl kept on coming. Roy crossed over the road and got set to lean into the cab of his truck, give Darryl what-for, hang tight till Darry
l made a U-turn and got back where he belonged. Only thing was, Roy didn’t rightly know if he could hang tight. The ragged cloud cover echoed the ruts in the road, the way Darryl was grinding the gears and the edginess inside Roy could not shake.
The second Darryl hit the breaks and slid his window down, Roy was on him. “What did I tell you, Darryl? Lay low, deal with the charges and that’s it.”
“Wrong,” said Darryl, his eyes shifting around, his slack jaw working away. “You got it all wrong. Sonny can’t cut it, didn’t file no charges, can’t do nothin’. And you done your last crackin’ me in the ribs and that goes for that agitator and anybody else tries to mess with me.”
Before Roy could answer, Darryl went on. “You see, I got to thinkin’ things over. So to ease my mind, I come callin’ on Rowdy at the federal pen. And now I come by to give you fair warnin’.”
Roy let go of the roof of the cab, stepped back and said, “You done what?”
“Got to thinkin’ and went to see Rowdy. ‘Cause I says to myself, Why did Bubba tell me if he didn’t find work real soon, he was gonna get together with Rowdy who was in the same fix. That’s right, out of his head drunk, Bubba was complainin’ how they both come to this sorry pass.”
Roy hoped this was the gist of it, more jabber about being sick and tired of the way things turned out. But no such luck.
Dying to spew it all out, Darryl kept it up, the words flying out of his mouth. “Not like the high old times, Bubba says, when he was supposed to bury what was incriminatin’ while Rowdy was moppin’ up. But bein’ in such a hurry to skedaddle whilst I was helpin’ Clay Tucker drag ol’ Dewey off, Bubba swept stuff into a cigar box, grabbed some rifle and such and hid it, whoopin’ and hollerin’ the whole time. Now what is all this? What was Bubba jawin’ about? You answer me that.”
Roy felt his face go blank but didn’t let on Darryl was getting to him.
“So,” Darryl said, “I pressed Rowdy on this, which you know ain’t easy at the best of times. But the muscles kept tightenin’ in his thick neck and whilst he was cussin’ me and the guards and you name it, he kept sayin’ if Bubba had gotten on with it, he might not have gone off the rails. If Bubba had gotten on with what, Roy?”
“Darryl, can you ever say without runnin’ off at the mouth?”
“I can, Roy, I sure can. The short of it is, Bubba would never take off and do Rowdy that-a-way. ‘Cause Rowdy is kin.”
Before Roy had a chance to think of some comeback, Darryl jumped in with, “There, you follow me now? Rowdy is kin and I am kin to Bubba, gettin’ the hang of all the holes in this story and got me a memory like a steel trap.”
Roy gave Darryl more slack, letting him run off at the mouth some more and lose track. Which seemed to work for a short while till Darryl’s mind got right back to it.
“Now where was I? Oh yeah. Then Rowdy commenced to squeezin’ his hands cussin’ at you. How you never come to visit or arrange bail. Like he was part of nothin’ no more and you’d shed him and Bubba both which was why they’d come to this sorry pass. Like they was only good for night work when bothersome folks didn’t get the message. And the way things stood, you couldn’t afford to know them no more. Which got him to yellin’ so loud, they had to restrain him and drag him back to his cell.”
With his frustration mounting the more Roy gave him no satisfaction, Darryl finally laid it on the line. “So, how do you explain it—any of it? Bubba would never back down and light out once he was dead set on somethin’. Meanin’ what we got here is Rowdy up the creek, Bubba and the girl in cahoots, and you tryin’ every which way to keep me in the dark.”
Deciding he had to cut this off quick before it got way out of hand, Roy broke in with, “Well now you’ve gone and done it, Darryl. Gone clear round the bend.”
“Clear round to broad daylight, you mean. Seein’ it like it is. Nobody holed up with a Reb revolver, cap and ball ammo and no-brain coonhound is gonna get the jump on me. Nobody with a fresh scar ‘cross his face and over the hill’s gonna push me around no more. I am closin’ up early, though closin’ early on a Friday is cuttin’ your own throat for a liquor man. But so be it. Loyalty to Johnny Reb only goes so far. I got no more respect for you, and I’m keepin’ my eye out for Bubba and what in hell’s goin’ on around here.”
For emphasis, Darryl whipped out his switchblade and said, “Keepin’ this sharp and ready, Roy. You read me now?”
Nodding as though he’d done himself proud, Darryl retracted the blade, slid up his cab window right in Roy’s face, took off and made a sharp U-turn, passed Roy by and headed back up the rise, deepening the ruts in his wake.
Roy knew he was in for it. He was for damn sure on shaky ground and had to counter. But he couldn’t get his mind running that fast. Until something clicked, all he could do was continue up to the water tower, get out the gizmo and check on things. Even though he could no longer figure it was in Grady’s lap over in Oxford. Not with Grady pressing him, Darryl on the loose and damn near clued-in and Sonny Drew good for nothing, couldn’t even do a disorderly on Darryl. It was coming undone solely on Roy’s head.
Roy picked up the pace, realizing there was nothing for it but to lean on the girl harder. What was it she wrote? its comin bak that part anywaz I cn work it bakwrdz frm th bnoclerz
Good thing Roy learned this texting thing Grady showed him just in case. That fast way that was more of a scrawl for dummies so’s nobody could tell who wrote it or if you’d ever even been to school. Good thing he’d practiced now and then. Good she answered too after his first try. He’d given her no deadline but now he damn well would.
Hurrying, he reminded himself Grady said the text stuff was private. And Roy had erased it anyways. But what if she didn’t erase what he sent, if she kept it? Couldn’t they trace it back? But to what? Figuring it was another kid or something? And who would they be anyways?
He picked up the pace and kept the use of the gizmo positive. Like yesterday when he’d gotten out the old fired 12-bore cartridge case with the dowel stuck in it. Called that Dewey up in Memphis. Did a little suck and blow that sounded like a small dying critter and said, “Night riders gonna get you, boy. If you know what I mean.” No answer to that one, just a whimper and the sound of the dropped receiver rattling around. Spooked him real good. Chalked one up, wrote Dewey off his list.
But that was yesterday. That was easy. That was score only one for Roy.
But still and all, there was the overcast sky. Reaching the water tower, he saw he didn’t have to mess about till he found a perch with no shadows. Bracing himself at the lowest level, all he had to do was text and head on back. Figuring she was as spooked as Dewey, dead broke and sick of hiding out, she’d buy into it and then run like a thief.
Unwilling to leave himself out in open any more than he had to, he got out the piece of paper, studied it and sent the message just as he’d narrowed it down:
put th bx in th sac by th watr twr
do it b4 5 or els cum alone or els
do it rite yl gt th $ jest reed th note
But Roy hadn’t decided what to do when she showed up. She’d most likely hitch a few rides and tramp the rest of the way down. Snoop around, make sure no one was watching, dig the box up and sneak back to the drop. Maybe he’d leave a note for her to ditch her own gizmo in the sack and follow clues to where the money was hid. Maybe there would be no note and no clues and no money. But that was the least of his worries. The main thing was where she hid the oilskin bundle.
Heading on back, all he could think of was getting back his edge. Bar none, he was the best: the lookout, the tracker, the watcher in the shadows. Shades of Corporal Roy Holloway and days of the Ole Colonel. Shades of Civil War and Civil Rights battles both.
Truth be told, this was really what he’d been waiting for. No more being empty handed since he’d stowed the rifle he dropped Bubba with deep in the root cellar. He’d put the binoculars back in the brush under the rotted hunters blind where he found them.
Stick the long-handled shovel close by and let her dig where he hadn’t yet dug. Then get out the Reb revolver and holster, drop in the conversion cylinder and test the knockdown power of the 45 longs. Grab a whole goddamn box while he was at it.
But first some target practice till he had the recoil down cold. That done, he’d keep the coonhound fettered. No sense letting on he was stalking and where he was coming from. He’d close in on that razorback, fire a few rounds, smell the cordite, hear the squeals, watch it flail around, sink to its knees and kiss the ground.
Then hang back and take on the girl and whatever as needs be.
Walking faster, Roy pulled out his pocket watch and just couldn’t wait for it to begin. “No doubt about it,” Roy said to himself. “My time is at hand.”
30.
Josh kept rummaging around, trying to distill it down to a couple of Alice’s drawings and her discarded arm sling. All the while, LuAnn stood motionless gazing out the window at nothing in particular. For LuAnn, there was no recourse. Alice was another in a long line of wounded creatures. In her haste, Alice had discarded the sling LuAnn had provided for her but that was to be expected. As she’d said, when you’re dealing with wild things you do your best and then let them go. She’d learned the same about men when they were bound and determined. She wanted to remind Josh, All you can do in this life is try to get by. But she knew by now it was no use.
“Okay,” Josh said, talking to her across the room. “We know she skipped out. We know she’s always talked about making a swap that’ll solve everything. Which has to be back over in Benton County.”
Aware LuAnn barely understood what he was talking about, he went on anyway. “I called Cody’s and found out Sonny Drew never pressed charges and Darryl is back on the loose. The way Alice kept that cell phone close by, so much so even your busboy couldn’t help but notice, tells me she must’ve gotten a message and that’s what set her off.”