by Pete Dexter
In a minute Trout looked up the road and saw a truck.
THE DRIVER TOOK THEM back to Cotton Point, where Sheriff Fixx separated a deputy from his car, and ordered him to call the garage to pick up the one on the highway. The deputy saw the sheriff was mad, and said “Yessir” every time he paused long enough for him to get it in.
Trout and the sheriff were in sight of the wreck before either of them spoke. “That bastard’s a monster, ain’t he?” the sheriff said, looking at the dog.
Trout had no interest in the animal. An unfocused anger was settling over him, and dead in the middle of it was a headache. He took the watch out of his pants pocket and checked the time. Eleven-thirty. The older car smelled of cigars and urine. “Mr. Trout,” the sheriff said, “you the first man I ever took to jail that worried he was gone be late.”
The sheriff laughed out loud, and a moment later he reached into his pocket for a tin of Copenhagen, opened it one-handed, and then put a pinch underneath his upper lip. A little later he felt around under the seat and came out with a wide-necked bottle, which he set between his legs, lifting it to his mouth every few minutes to spit.
He was beyond the wreck now and enjoying himself. He felt suddenly charitable toward Paris Trout. “You want, I could look in on your momma until you get back.…”
Trout opened his coat and brought out the gun.
“Whoa, there, Mr. Trout,” the sheriff said. “Don’t take that thing out its holster in here.…”
Trout heard the fear inside the sheriff, and an anger blew through him like a scream. He put the muzzle underneath Edward Fixx’s chin. He heard the right-side tires leave the pavement, then come back. The bottle between the sheriff’s legs tipped, and tobacco spit spilled over his pants.
“Mr. Trout,” he said, “what the world you doing?”
Trout pushed the gun up, elevating the sheriff’s chin. The car began to slow. “Is it an ex-cape?” The gun barrel inhibited the movement of the sheriff’s jaw and affected his speech. Trout cocked the hammer, all ready to do it now. It was loose in his head.
“You want to ex-cape, it’s all right with me,” the sheriff said. “I ain’t got a thing in the world against you, Mr. Trout. Didn’t I call you up on the phone? I told you I got this order from the judge to take you down to Pete County. That’s all. I’ll pull over right here. You can do what you want.…”
And then something stopped it, he didn’t know what. It was loose in his head, and then it was gone. He put his thumb on the hammer and slowly brought it back to rest against the firing pin. He pulled the gun away, the sheriff’s chin held its altitude until he was sure it was gone. The smell of fresh urine filled the car. Edward Fixx checked his lap.
The gun, still in Trout’s hand, lay on the seat between them. For a long time neither of them spoke. “I want to stop we get to Petersboro County,” Trout said. The sheriff nodded.
“Just tell me where.”
“A phone, so I can call a man.”
“Yessir.”
The sheriff moved his eyes from the road to the seat and then back. The gun was still lying on the seat in Trout’s hand. He had the feeling Trout had forgotten it was there.
He rolled down the window, realizing he was still alive.
THERE WAS A GAS station just across the county line, bordering Hard Labor Creek. The sheriff slowed the car and stopped without being told. Trout walked inside, carrying the gun in his hand. A fat, heavy-lipped woman appeared at the screen door, her head wrapped in a bandanna, and stared out. The sheriff lifted his hand, a gesture to reassure her, but as he moved, she was gone.
The car filled with flies, and he slapped them off his lap.
Trout was inside half an hour. He came out carrying a Dr Pepper in his hand instead of the gun and got back into the car. The sheriff considered taking the shotgun out of the rack and shooting him as he opened the door, but there was a public consideration to the Trout case: A lot of people didn’t think he ought to be going to jail in the first place. He had been arrested and tried and convicted, but there was a limit to what the citizenry would tolerate.
“Let’s go if we’re going,” Trout said.
The sheriff started the engine and backed out onto the highway, catching a glimpse of the woman again behind the screen door.
The work farm was another twenty miles. As soon as they were back on the highway, the sheriff said, “I thought that fat girl might talked you out of your britches, you was in there so long.…”
Trout did not reply, and neither of them spoke again until they saw the farm.
“THERE IT IS,” THE sheriff said.
They had just cleared a stand of pines, and the work farm was sitting in the middle of a clearing a quarter mile off the highway. There was a chain-link fence, eight feet tall and topped with barbed wire, that went around the perimeter. The gate was wide and open, a man in prison pants and an undershirt standing at it with a shotgun.
He looked into the car, squinting, as the sheriff slowed and lowered the window. “Got one for the warden,” the sheriff said. The man pointed, one finger, at a large wooden building in the middle of eight smaller buildings.
The sheriff drove past him without another word and parked the car in front of the main building. “You want me to take your gun for you?” he said.
Trout said, “I left it.”
The sheriff opened his door, thinking he would stop at the gas station on the way back and find out from the lady herself what had gone on inside. They walked in. A single prisoner was mopping the hallway, which smelled of lye soap and sweat. They walked to the last door on the right. It opened as soon as the sheriff knocked. It was the warden himself, Buddy White. Behind him the sheriff saw two men he did not recognize, both of them in suits and pointy half-white shoes. A German shepherd lay with its chin on its feet, watching Trout.
“This here is Paris Trout,” the sheriff said, handing the warden the papers. He did not like this particular warden, who had never as much as offered him a cold drink. The sheriff believed lawmen ought to show each other professional courtesy.
The warden took the papers without acknowledging the introduction. As he looked them over, he said, “Mr. Trout, your lawyer is over there to the desk.”
He signed the acceptance form and returned it to the sheriff. “That’s it?” the sheriff said.
“Unless you got another one in the car.”
The sheriff turned to leave, and a low rattle sounded somewhere in the dog’s chest. “I’ll shoot that dog right here in your office,” the sheriff said, “before I let him chase me out.”
“Shut up, Butch,” the warden said, and the dog went still.
The sheriff saw they were waiting for him to leave. It felt like he’d walked into one of Richard Dickey’s fancy parties. He turned without another word, opening the door for himself, and made his way out.
When he had been gone a minute, the warden said to Trout, “I believe you have some bi’nes with these gentlemen here,” and walked outside. The dog stood up, stretching one end, then the other, and followed him.
One of the men in the suits motioned Trout to the desk. “I am Mr. Dalmar,” he said when Trout was closer. “This here is Judge Raymond Mims, who has come out in person to hear this matter.”
The judge was sitting behind the desk with his hands behind his neck. “Your attorney informs me you have been the victim of perjured testimony, Mr. Trout,” he said. He was a small man with a shined appearance. Trout saw he had never done any work in his life.
He nodded his head. “People have told things about me in court.”
“I’m sure they have,” the judge said. And for a minute the three men stayed where they were without speaking.
It was the attorney who broke the silence. “There is a matter of legal fees, Mr. Trout. Ourselves, we’d straighten this out gratis if we could, but Mr. White, the warden there, is not a man who appreciates the moral issues.…”
Trout reached into his pocket and found the
envelope. It was two inches thick, and he handed it to the lawyer without looking inside. The lawyer handed it to the judge, who did look.
“Twenty thousand dollars,” Trout said.
The judge paid no attention. When he had finished counting, he took papers from his inside pocket, signed his name half a dozen times, and then stood up, leaving the papers on the desk, and looked out the window at the empty yard.
Rodney Dalmar studied the papers the judge had signed and then offered Trout his hand. “The judge has issued an order freeing you on a writ of habeas corpus, citing perjured testimony at your trial,” he said.
Trout looked at the attorney’s hand and then at the man near the window. “I want proof he’s a judge,” he said.
Rodney Dalmar tried to smile, but there appeared to be something wrong with one side of his face. He put his hand on Trout’s shoulder and moved to lead him toward the door. “I know you’re having a joke on us, Mr. Trout,” he said, “but sir, this is not the time.”
Trout would not be led. “I don’t make jokes about twenty thousand dollars,” he said. “I never seen you before in my life, and I want proof what I paid for is legal.”
The attorney held the orders open for Trout to see. “This is the seal of the Superior Court,” he said. “That’s as legal as it gets down here.”
But Trout was looking past the document at the small man standing at the window. “I give you twenty thousand dollars,” he said. “He counted it on that desk right there and put it in his pocket. I’m entitled to proof.”
The attorney looked quickly at the man in the window, then back at Trout.
“You got to understand,” he said, “we have a … sensitive situation here.”
“I ain’t asked to put it in the Atlanta Constitution,” Trout said. “I just want proof it’s a judge signed this paper.”
“Mr. Trout,” Rodney Dalmar said, “as your attorney I would suggest you drop this right here. If it wasn’t legal, the warden wouldn’t let anybody out this room.…”
“He ain’t yet. And if he does, there’s nothing to keep them from bringing me back.”
The little man at the window turned slowly around. The shined look was drained out of his face. “Judge,” the attorney said, “could you give us a minute? Mr. Trout is got nervous being so close to jail.…”
“Exactly a minute,” he said, and moved to leave the room. Trout stepped in front of him.
“Nobody leaves the room till I’m satisfied,” he said.
“Mr. Trout,” the judge said, looking up into his face, “all I need do is to whistle, and Warden White will be back through the door with a shotgun, shoot off your legs at the knees. It has happened in this room before. The dogs come in and clean up the mess. I understand you are a man of some resources in Ether County, but it didn’t save you up there, and it can’t save you here. It’s out of your hands now, and if me and Mr. Dalmar here wanted to rob you, you are robbed.”
Then he walked around Trout and out the door. Rodney Dalmar ran his fingers through his oiled curly hair. He began to smooth feelings, but something in Trout was out of control. He saw it and left him alone. “Just have a seat there against the wall, Mr. Trout,” he said.
Trout did not move. The attorney followed Judge Mims out the door. When he was gone, Trout reached behind himself and found the handle of his pistol. He pulled it out of his belt. It was a forty-five automatic, and the weight of it in his hand made him patient. He moved a chair behind the place where the door was hinged and sat down, holding the gun in his lap, and waited for the warden to come into the room with his shotgun.
The office was quiet and hot. He pictured the bullets lying in the clip in the handle of the gun, he remembered his feelings in the car again when he was right on the edge of blowing the chin off Edward Fixx. It was different from the way he’d felt shooting the girl.
When he’d gone after her, the anger blew into him from the outside.
IT WAS ANOTHER HALF hour before Trout heard the warden’s steps in the hallway. He cocked the hammer, holding the gun between his knees. The warden opened the door and scolded the dog. Trout heard his voice and knew he wasn’t coming in with any shotgun. He replaced the hammer against the firing pin and sat still.
In a moment he heard the dog—its nails against the cement floor—and then it came into the office, shook, and the door closed. The warden did not see Trout at first and started when he did.
“What in the world you doin’ still here?” he said.
A noise began to crawl up the dog’s throat, and the warden didn’t hush him. “This is where I was put,” Trout said, watching the animal. Something was taking it over, growing on itself, and it bared teeth and black gums.
“They supposed to take you along,” the warden said. “They bust you out, they supposed to take you out. I come in here and find you playing with a gun?”
The dog was edging closer, making wet, growling noises, his eyes seemed to be fixed on Trout’s, except Trout could not meet them. He leaned forward for a better look.
“Sit down,” the warden said in a tired way, and in that instant the expression in the animal’s face changed. He sat and looked up at the warden, his tongue jiggling happily out of one side of his mouth.
“It’s my gun,” Trout said.
“You brought your gun witch you to jail?”
“I wasn’t going to jail.”
“You could of.”
“No,” Trout said, “I wasn’t.”
The warden walked to his desk, set his hat on top of it, and sat down. “I’d like to know how in Sam hill you’re fixing to get back. I don’t run no bus service to Ether County, take you half a day to walk to town.”
Trout waited.
“I guest I could get somebody to tote you over.… Might cost you some change.”
Trout did not say a word.
“I expect I could get a trustee to ride you for fifteen dollars. That ain’t much to somebody like you, is it?”
Trout stood up, and the dog rose halfway with him and froze. “I spent all the money in Petersboro County I’m going to,” he said.
The warden shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “You go right out through the gate, walk to the highway and turn south. Morganville is seventeen miles. I wouldn’t count on nobody picking you up around here if that’s what you’re thinking. The suit don’t help, people know you comin’ from the prison. They think everybody comes out this place is gone rob them and leave them dead in a ditch. They got no way to tell you ain’t like that, Mr. Trout …”
Trout knew the man was laughing at him. He put the forty-five back inside his belt and walked out of the office. The prisoner was still in the same spot; he could have been mopping in his sleep. Trout walked around him, through the wet spot on the floor, and found his way outside.
He walked to the highway and turned south. Half a mile from the work farm there was a snake. She was a copperhead, as thick as a man’s arm, mashed where a tire had hit her, and stuck to the highway in her own gum. She lay still, except for a twitching in the tail, until Trout was a few yards away. Then, without warning, her head came up off the asphalt, striking slowly in Trout’s direction, again and again. Trout stayed where he was—a few yards away—and then the snake suddenly turned on herself and struck, three times, just in front of the spot where she was mashed.
Then she dropped against the asphalt and crawled without moving forward, stuck to the road and sliding from side to side, until some sense inside her was satisfied that she had crawled far enough, and she lay quietly against the road and waited.
Called back to the business of dying.
He saw it wasn’t so bad—she just pulled further back from the world, into the safest, deepest places inside her.
THE FIRST PERSON TO see Paris Trout after he got off the bus at Cotton Point was Sheriff Edward Fixx. It was the sheriff’s habit to drive from his office to the Greyhound depot after lunch and watch the passengers leaving the twelve-fifteen express.
There was a bulletin board in his office filled with the faces of wanted men—faces and descriptions and methods of operation—and he required his six deputies and Arlene, the radio dispatcher, to read the board every day, not only for the wanted posters but for the admonitions he wrote on note cards and stuck there with thumbtacks.
It was a world full of rewards for those who knew what they were looking for.
Sheriff Fixx took his customary seat at the end of the bench closest to the doors and watched the faces, hoping for one that would set off a warning. There were too many pictures to memorize, so the sheriff studied them when they came in, relying on his instincts to tell him when he came across one of them in person. It was a certain feeling he got when there was trouble.
And today the feeling was suddenly on him like a stroke. A tall, gray-haired man in a suit. The sheriff caught a glimpse, less than a profile, and sat straight up, feeling for his holster. A moment later he realized who it was. The sheriff removed his hat and wiped at his forehead with a handkerchief. Paris Trout walked through the glass doors into the depot, right past him, and went to the telephone.
When Trout finished his call, Sheriff Fixx pressed the same receiver against his ear and dialed Judge Taylor. “Paris Trout just got off the twelve-fifteen,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do about that?” the judge said.
“I thought you might want to know, is all.”
“Shit,” he said, and hung up.
Sheriff Fixx walked carefully to the front door and looked outside. Trout was standing on the curb with a Negro woman and a couple of cadets from the officers’ academy. His suit was wrinkled, and there was some dirt on his shoes, but there was no other sign that he had been away. Sheriff Fixx remembered the men in suits and white shoes in the warden’s office.
Lawyers.
Sheriff Fixx had walked to the depot that day because his cruiser—the new one—was being repaired, and he’d had to send deputies out in the other three cars on county calls. He thought of his new car, mangled in the drive with Paris Trout to Petersboro County, and now, with the car still in the body shop at Country Ford, Trout was back in town.