Unraveled

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  The Wraith smiled. “Howdy.”

  ***

  Sheriff Cody Parker knocked on the door of a sprawling ranch-style house in east Chisum. He didn’t often get to that upscale section of town. It was late in the day and he dropped by to get a personal check from the acting mayor for the upcoming Sheriff Department’s fundraising ball.

  One of his deputies usually handled the job, and he’d considered sending Deputy Anna Sloan, but changed his mind when he saw her earlier that afternoon. Though Anna was well on the way to recuperation from a shotgun blast before Christmas, he saw that she still looked awfully tired by three in the afternoon.

  Since Mayor Frank Clay’s death, Joe Bill Haynes was acting in the mayor’s position until the swearing-in ceremony at the next city council meeting. Joe Bill was already overwhelmed with the duties of mayor pro tem. It would also be good to stop by and give him a few words of encouragement.

  The new mayor’s car was parked in front and there wasn’t a person on the street as Sheriff Parker knocked on the door a second time. When there was still no answer, he circled the house, noting the well-manicured lawn and shrubbery.

  The gate was propped open, and when he looked into the back, he found the mayor and his wife beside an in-ground swimming pool with his hands in his pockets.

  “Joe Bill.”

  The man even looked like a politician. Short dark hair graying at the temples, his skin was smooth since he seldom saw the sun. “C’mon in. I been expecting you.”

  Maybelle kissed her husband’s cheek. “Hello Cody. Good to see you. I’ll go in and leave y’all to your work.”

  “You don’t have to run off.”

  “I have a cake in the oven. Come in and get a piece when y’all finish.”

  “I won’t have time, but I’ll take a raincheck.” She crossed the yard, patting her perm into place.

  Cody shook Joe Bill’s hand and followed his gaze to the dark, murky water of the swimming pool. “You look like you lost your best friend.” Not too many people in Chisum had pools, and the only ones Cody had seen were sparkling clear. “Dang, that water looks like a stock tank.”

  Joe Bill sighed. “Yeah, I haven’t messed with it much because the kids are grown up and gone. Then the ground shifted. There’s a crack down there somewhere and the water leaks out. Now I for sure don’t have the time to fool with it.”

  The water line was three-quarters of the way to the coping. There was no visible crack above the waterline.

  “It doesn’t look too bad, though I don’t know much about concrete pools.” Cody glanced upward at the thick trees lining a shallow stream at the bottom of a slope behind the house. A bright jaybird flickered through the limbs, raising the ire of a squirrel that sat up and chattered in anger. “Think it’ll be expensive to get it fixed?”

  “Probably.” Joe Bill shook his head. “It’ll kill the fish, though.”

  Cody studied the document in his hand. “Funniest thing. It sounded like you said it would kill the fish.”

  “It would.”

  Cody watched a slight breeze ripple the water’s surface. “There’s fish in there? I never heard of fish in a swimming pool.”

  “It wasn’t always like that. I went fishing with Hill Lawrence back in the fall,” Joe Bill called the game warden’s name. “We caught a mess of crappie, and didn’t get in ’til late that night and I told Hill I’d clean ’em and we’d have a fish fry. Well, I was so tired that night I dumped ’em here in the pool, figuring I’d drain it in the next few days so I could get it fixed. I wouldn’t have to do anything but pick them up when it was empty. Well, that didn’t pan out. They’ve been there ever since.”

  “What do they eat?”

  “I’ve been feeding them a few dozen minnows every week, and they’re fine.”

  “So how are you gonna get them out?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to decide. I don’t want to completely drain the water until the pool company takes a look at it.”

  Cody grinned. “I could bring you Ned’s minnow seine, and Top. I figure he’d enjoy seining a swimming pool.”

  “It probably wouldn’t work.” Joe Bill toed at a dandelion coming up through a crack in the decking. “I think the catfish are too big now. They’d probably tear a hole in your net.”

  Cody shook his head in disbelief. Before he could ask the obvious question, Joe Bill held up a hand. “I had some channel cats I didn’t want to clean back in September, so…well…I dumped them in, too. I feed ’em crawdads ever so often.”

  The surface of the water suddenly boiled in the shallow end. “What the heck was that?”

  “Sunfish. I had a friend bring a bucket full to put in here, so the other fish wouldn’t get hungry.”

  Two neighborhood kids about eight years old appeared from the woods, carrying cane poles. They looked annoyed to see the adults standing there.

  The youngest gave Cody a long, slow appraisal. “Mr. Joe Bill said we could fish here, Sheriff.”

  Joe Bill raised his eyebrows. “He ain’t here for that, and it’d be the game warden you need to worry about.” He gave them a big wink. “Catch a big ’un.”

  Not wanting to stand in the way of dedicated fishermen and their favorite fishing spot, Joe Bill pulled out his checkbook. “I need to borrow your pen.”

  Cody reached toward his shirt pocket for the Cross pen Norma Faye bought for him when he took the sheriff’s job, forgetting it had disappeared within the last couple of days. They searched the house over, but couldn’t find the pen.

  “I’ve lost it somewheres.” He patted his pockets. “I forgot to pick one up at the office. That’un run dry?”

  Joe Bill plucked one from his own shirt pocket and unscrewed the cap. “Naw, but it’s a real ink pen and it smears if you’re not careful. I started carrying it for signing official documents when I have to wear my new mayor’s hat.” He wrote the check and waved it in the air for a minute. “That should be dry enough. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything about this. It’s kinda embarrassing, having a concrete swimming pool and it being in this condition. I oughta be ashamed of myself.”

  “Don’t worry.” Cody took the check and gave him a grin. “As long as I can come over here with a pole and a can of worms when things get too rough. I’ll see you at the café for breakfast sometime this week.”

  “Maybe so.” Joe Bill turned back to his pool.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “There’s a lion up on the river.”

  Ty Cobb Wilson made that statement at the same time I walked in the door of Uncle Neal Box’s store. Mark and Pepper went over to the Ordway place after classes let out, but I wanted a cold drink, and to get away from their moony eyes for a few minutes.

  I stopped just inside to eavesdrop. The men in the Spit and Whittle club loafing on the porch probably wouldn’t mind me listening, but they’d watch their language and maybe even leave out some details.

  “You see it?” That was Floyd Cass. He always reminded me of someone who should be in movies, what with his pencil-thin mustache and slicked-back hair.

  “Naw.”

  Jimmy Foxx, Ty Cobb’s brother, had a higher voice of the two. They spent most of their spare time hunting and fishing the Lamar County bottoms. I never knew how they made their money, because they didn’t farm much, or raise crops. Neither was married and they wore knee-high rubber boots year round.

  “We was settin’ some nets…uh, trotlines where Sanders Creek hits the river and saw tracks in the mud. I bet it’s a big tom panther.”

  I could see Floyd from where I stood beside the red drink cooler. I had the lid up and the cool air rising from the interior was refreshing in the heat. Coke, Dr Pepper, Orange Crush, Tab, Diet Rite, RC Cola, Yoo-Hoo, Mountain Dew, and a collection of Nehis in grape, orange, peach, and strawberry were tempting, but I pulled a Pom
mac, because it tasted like what I thought champagne would be like.

  Miss Becky didn’t want me to drink them and thought Pommac was a sin, even though it was a soft drink made from fermented fruit and berries just like wine or champagne, but it didn’t have alcohol. She really didn’t want me to play board games with dice, or to go to the movies, either, because it was against her religion.

  I popped the cap and put a dime on the counter. Uncle Neal was in back, loading blocks of salt and bags of feed in a truck. Sipping my drink, I drifted back to the door to listen.

  Floyd was sitting with both hands on the 2x6 rail. He leaned forward to take some of the pressure off his rear end. Their conversation shifted and it was a heckuva lot more interesting than mountain lions. “They say the carnival has one of them girly tent shows. They won’t let ’em have those at the regular fair in town, ’cause them gals strip down near nekked.”

  They chuckled and I figured they’d already forgot me again. Mr. Floyd shook his head. “Old Ike’s been talking about that show ever since they heard the carnival was coming. He’s gonna slip off over there to see it and I’m thinking about tagging along just to watch his face.”

  He noticed me again and smoothed his pencil mustache, returning to the earlier conversation. “I swear I heard a lion scream a while back when I was on the porch after dark. It sounded like a woman a-screaming and I almost called Ned before I figured out what it was.”

  A truck passed and pulled off on the oil road running behind the domino hall, engine growling as the driver downshifted. They watched it go by and I settled onto a wooden box beside the door.

  “Remember, we trapped those two a few years ago,” Ty Cobb said. “I figured they were a couple of young littermates working their way through the country, but now we’re thinkin’ different.”

  Mitt Harris shook his head, as if he’d heard someone died. “I hope y’all get ’em all. They’ll kill stock before a deer. Cows is easier.”

  “I like the idea of having ’em back.” Jimmy Foxx twisted around to spit off the porch. “We come across bear tracks a few months ago. I believe the lake filling up’s running them out of the creek bottoms. It was so rough back up in there that they’ve raised for years without most of us knowing it.”

  “Bears and lions were pretty thick back before I was born.” Mr. Floyd nodded his head toward me. “I remember hearing Daddy tell about Top’s great aunt who barely outran a panther one night. You ever hear that story, Top?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, you had a Great-Aunt Calpurnia who was coming home on horseback one night under a full moon. It was way too late for her to be out. She was riding bareback by the moonlight and her horse kept acting spooky. Her daddy was sittin’ on the porch smokin’ his pipe when he saw her coming down the lane. He saw a shadow move behind the horse and realized it was a lion.

  “He high-tailed it in the house to get his rifle and Calpurnia’s mama knew something was wrong. About the time he came back outside, the horse smelled the lion and Calpurnia saw it coming. She kicked that horse in high gear and the lion chased ’em, jumping at the horses’ haunches and running to catch up again. Her daddy came off the porch with the rifle to get an angle and her mama was hollerin’, ‘Ride, Calpurnia, ride!’”

  They chucked at the imitation of a woman hollering.

  I couldn’t stand it. “Did the lion get her, or did her daddy get the lion?”

  Floyd leaned forward again, his skinny arms like ropes when he took the strain. I tried to get a good look at his faded navy tattoos, but they’d spread so much I couldn’t tell what they were. “Why, he missed and the lion ate Calpurnia, then her mama and daddy.”

  The men tried to keep straight faces for a minute, then they laughed and I knew they were kidding me. I let ’em go for a second. “Was the rest of that story true?”

  Mr. Floyd nodded. “I was pullin’ your leg, but the story’s true. The old man missed and the lion disappeared. As far as I know, no one ever saw it again.”

  Grandpa’s truck rolled into the parking lot. He looked tired when he got out. I was surprised to see him out of the field that time of the day. He walked up with heavy steps. “What are you doing up here?”

  “I wanted a cold drink after school.”

  He climbed the porch and dropped into a cane-bottom chair with his back against the wall. “You know she don’t want you drinking that near-beer stuff.”

  “Yessir.” I started to take a sip right then, but decided not to. “There’s a lion on the river.”

  He knew good and well I was changing the subject, but it was enough to get the conversation started again, taking the heat off me. I finished my Pommac by the time they got back around to the end for a second time.

  “Ned, you out there?” Uncle Neal came to the door at the same time. “Well, there you are, after all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “John Washington’s on the phone. He thought you might be here.”

  I could tell that announcement bothered Grandpa. If Mr. John was calling up to the store to find him, something was wrong.

  Grandpa grunted up and went inside. He wasn’t gone but just a little bit, and the look in his blue eyes when he came back out was enough to make a feller back up a step. He walked down the steps. “Get on home, boy.”

  I knew better than to say a word right then. Grandpa hurried down the steps and jumped in his truck. Gravel and bottle caps popped under the tires until he hit the pavement, then on the pavement as he took off.

  Uncle Neal stood in the door and watched the Chevrolet disappear down the highway.

  Ty Cobb slapped both hands on his knees. “What was that all about, Neal?”

  “Somebody cut Hollis Mayfield in two with a shotgun.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Wraith took his dressing down without a word. It was the best way to deal with a boss, so he let the cussing roll off his shoulders and promised not to slip up again. It wasn’t his fault that Cody Parker’d passed by. He couldn’t help but follow him up to the new mayor’s house where dumb luck turned into one more chance for a little revenge. The Wraith returned to his job when the boss finished, painted a smile on his face to satisfy the customers, and earned his meager paycheck thinking all the while how he’d outmaneuvered everybody he came into contact with.

  ***

  Cody met Ned in his usual booth on the left side of Frenchie’s café. Since O.C. wasn’t with them, Ned took the seat facing the screen door after resting his hat crown down on the counter beside them.

  Frenchie saw the sheriff come in and poured him a mug of coffee as he worked his way through the café, slapping shoulders and shaking the hands of customers seated at the counter and in the other booths.

  He slipped a finger through the handle and Frenchie gave him a wink. He slid in across from Ned. “Where’s O.C.?”

  “Court date.”

  “The doctor know you’re eating pie?”

  “He would if he was here, but he ain’t.” Ned cut a bite and chewed. “My stomach’s fine now.”

  Cody sipped the coffee, then shook a few grains of salt into the mug to cut the bitterness. “Well, you nearly died from that infected bullet wound back before Christmas.” He sipped again. “You need to be careful.”

  Ned chewed. “Here’s how careful I am. I ain’t never going back to Mexico again. How’s that? Have you heard anything else about Hollis’ murder?”

  “Some. John went by and found out one of Hollis’ gals dropped by the house to take him something to eat and found him dead, half in and out his front door.”

  “Anyone see a Clay nearabouts?”

  Cody shrugged. “That’s all I know. I talked to some other folks, but that didn’t help one little bit.” The bell over the door rang when a customer came in. Cody glanced over his shoulder to see who it was. “I remember th
at feud from years ago, but don’t recall why they got crossways with one another.”

  Ned told him about the mules, the truck with a flat, the pears, and the killings that ranged from shootings, to cuttings, to one lynching in the dead of night. All those dirty deeds were done in the dark, or on lonely roads with no witnesses.

  “Everyone knowed who done what, but evidence was hard to come by in those days. I’d have a better chance at it today.

  “So no one ever proved anything?”

  “Naw. That’s how those things work. People get mad at one another for good reason, or no reason at all, and then their mad takes over.” Ned shook his head. “Folks died over a damn lame mule.”

  “How many?”

  “More than I’d like to remember. I think there was a dozen in all, maybe more, scattered over about ten years. And now the same’s happening over a car wreck.”

  “Did any of the killers get caught back then?”

  “Like I said, some was brought in, but remember this was back over twenty years ago. Most of them old lawmen are gone now. I remember there was a trial for one of the Clays. The jury sent him to the pen over the killing, and that’s only because he lit a Mayfield house afire and a woman burned to death. He was bragging about it, and that’s what got his goat.”

  “Any of the Mayfields get caught at it?”

  Ned studied the thick white mug between his hands. “They’s colored, son. The law didn’t catch them, officially. They usually found bodies, and that’s all.”

  The weight of what happened so long ago, and the badge pinned to Cody’s shirt, settled on the sheriff’s shoulders. “Now it’s flamed back up.”

  “Yep. Folks in both of them families have long memories.”

  Cody drained his cup. “I gotta go.”

  Ned’s eyes flicked to Cody’s empty shirt pocket. He thought about bringing up the pen, but decided it wasn’t the right time. He once suspected Cody of a series of murders in their community, and still felt embarrassed when it turned out to be someone else. He hadn’t said anything then, and he sure wasn’t going to make those kinds of allegations now.