He rose from the swing and walked to the edge of the porch. Down the street and across the highway was a field, rows of soybeans stretched as far as his eyes could see, ending at a tree line far off in the distance. As a boy he ran in that field. He would run until he got to the trees and rest before running back. There was no reason for doing it, just the desire to conquer. Run flat out in the open, nothing holding him back. He no longer had that desire. He turned to his sister with a weary face. “I don’t know what happened, Pam.” He turned to watch the sun, red and quivering, sink below the horizon.
He woke long before the sun returned the next morning, filled with dread at the thought of the day’s interview. He drove back to the Stanton farm and found himself in the living room speaking with Iva Lee.
“I’d like to help you find your boyfriend, but I need to know more about him.”
Iva Lee sat across the living room in a rocking chair and stared, her little finger in her mouth, her eyes dull and sleepy. “Like what?”
“Do you know how old he was?” Hick asked her, unable to shake that uncomfortable feeling he got when she was around. He was only at ease when he could predict how someone might act, and Iva Lee was wholly unpredictable.
“I don’t know.”
“Was he young, like about your age?”
Iva Lee shook her head, her braid swishing across her shoulders. “No, he was older than me. He could drive.”
“What color was his car? What did it look like?”
Iva Lee began to play with her hair. “I don’t know what color it was. It was always dark. It only had a front seat.”
“Okay, good. Now tell me about your boyfriend. Was he as old as me?”
She nodded.
“Was he as old as your pa?”
“I dunno.”
“Was his hair dark or light?”
“I think it was dark. Everything was dark.”
“But he wasn’t anyone you used to remember from school, right?”
She shook her head. “No. He ain’t no one I ever saw at my school.”
“Did he ever tell you anything about himself? About who his folks were or where he might live?”
“He said the only time he smiled is when I was around.”
”Did he smile a lot?”
“He did at first. Then he got sad because we done that thing, and he said he was weak and weren’t worth nothing. He said he ‘defiled’ me.” She frowned. “What does that mean, Sheriff?”
“It means he knew he shouldn’t be with you. You don’t never let another man touch you the way this one did. You hear?”
Iva Lee’s eyes grew round. “Is it against the law?”
“It is where you’re concerned. I’ll lock you up.”
“Yes, Sheriff,” she mumbled looking at the ground.
The conversation made Hick uneasy, so changing the subject, he asked, “What do you know about the woman?”
Iva Lee’s dark anger shone out of her eyes. They narrowed and she said, “She was a bad person. She took my baby.”
“Have you ever seen her before?”
“No.”
“Was she tall, like your boyfriend?”
“Not really.”
“Could she have been your boyfriend … dressed like a woman?”
Iva Lee began to laugh. “Why would he want to dress like a woman?”
“Maybe he was playing a game,” Hick offered. “Could it have been him?”
Iva Lee thought it over and answered. “No. My boyfriend was real tall and she wasn’t. Her voice was different.”
“Maybe he was bent over, trying to fool you or surprise you?”
Iva Lee shook her head. “It weren’t him. I might be stupid, but I’m sure I can tell a man from a woman.” She looked pouty, like she might be ready to throw a tantrum.
“Alright, I believe you. And you can’t think of anyone else who might have wanted the baby? Did he have a wife or another girlfriend?”
Iva Lee’s face grew crimson. “Sheriff, he is my boyfriend! He ain’t got no wife or girlfriend. He would have told me. Besides, iffen he did why would he want to take up with me?”
Hick raised his hand to calm her. “Okay, Iva Lee. I’m just trying to understand why a woman you’ve never seen would come and take your baby.”
“I know why,” Iva Lee said, with certainty. “It was because she was so beautiful.”
“How long did you have the baby before she came?”
“Not very long. I had just cut the little string thing like Pa does when the pigs is borned.”
“Had you seen anyone here before? In the daylight hours watching you?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Was she as old as your Ma?”
“I dunno how old she was.”
“Was she about as old as your boyfriend?”
Iva Lee blankly stared at the wall as if trying to remember. Finally, she offered, “Her hands were all bulby like an old person’s.”
“Bulby?”
“You know around here,” Iva Lee said indicating her knuckles.
“And what did she say to you?”
Iva Lee’s eyes grew dull again. “She told me she was gonna buy my baby some pretty clothes, so I let her take her. She seemed right nice.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t dream this?” Hick asked her.
Iva Lee appeared confused. “I weren’t asleep.”
“Are you sure there was a woman, Iva Lee. This is important. Are you sure you didn’t take the baby to the slough to wash her off and drop her or forget her?”
“No, Sheriff. I didn’t take her to the slough.”
“Then why were you looking for her there?” Hick persisted.
“Because I want her back.”
Iva Lee stared into his eyes. The expression was dull and flat, like the button eyes on a doll. Hick’s indignation and pity swelled within him. She was like the Rachel of the Bible, weeping for her children. But Rachel’s children weren’t destroyed by her own hand.
Hick sighed. “Iva Lee, do you remember exactly what day that was? When you had your baby?”
“No. It was a long time ago.”
“How is it you never told your mama and daddy about it?”
Iva Lee began to suck her finger again. “They never asked.”
“But your boyfriend … he knew, didn’t he?”
“I told him, but just ‘cause he called me ‘fatso’ one night. I never got fat, Sheriff, honest. I don’t know why he called me that, but he was laughing and I don’t think he meant nothing by it.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me I was getting rounder and I was getting to be a real fatso. That made me mad and I told him I wouldn’t be a fatso if it weren’t for him.”
“Did he know what you meant by that?”
Iva Lee twisted her hair. “Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“’Cause then he asked me how long I had thought that, and I said a good long time.”
Even the man who had gotten her pregnant hadn’t really noticed, Hick thought to himself in amazement. She remained so small; it just never drew any attention. “When you told him you were gonna have a baby, was he happy?”
“No.”
“Was he angry?”
”Oh no.” Her lip went out in the pout that seemed customary for her. Her whole face was scrunched. “He said he was gonna marry me and make it right.”
“And what happened?”
“He never came back.”
“When you first saw your boyfriend, it was last summer, right?”
Iva Lee nodded.
“So, he was your boyfriend for more than a year, right?”
“I dunno. It was a good, long time.”
Hick rose, anxious to be done with the interview but trying to think if there was anything left unasked. “If he comes around again, or if you remember anything, will you have your daddy drive you to town?”
He looked down at her sitting
in the rocking chair, fingers in her mouth, eyes glazed, and felt disgusted that any man could sleep with such a child.
She turned her eyes up to him and said, “I’ll tell him.”
“It was definitely someone from town,” Wash said, as Hick relayed the conversation he had with Iva Lee to Wash and Adam.
“Had to be,” Adam agreed. “Or someone very nearby. An itinerant or traveling salesman would not have been around that long.” He paused and then added, “I wonder if Johnny could identify Iva Lee as his “eephus” if he saw her.”
“I’m not convinced Iva Lee is the ‘eephus,’” Hick said.
“She had to be,” countered Adam.
“Besides, no one but Iva Lee and the father knew of the baby,” Wash added. “Iva Lee Stanton is the only person who could have put that baby in the slough. You finding her at the scene all but corroborates it. Whether she realizes what she did is another question.”
“The way I see it,” Adam agreed, “our job is to find the man who slept with her. The question of how the baby got in the slough seems to be answered. The real question is who fathered the child?”
Hick hesitated. “I reckon we need to start checking on every man who ever had any contact with Iva Lee Stanton.” He paused and added, “Start with Murphy.”
15
Hick lay on top of the sweat soaked sheets and tried to sleep. June’s heat had been building in the house all day and there weren’t windows enough to let it out once night’s coolness cloaked the land. His t-shirt and underwear stuck to him, and he lay perfectly still wishing for the smallest of breezes to pass over him.
He felt a storm brewing; the sweat stood on him damp and unyielding, the humidity pressing it to his skin, not allowing it to escape him. Hick closed his eyes, but not for long. As soon as they were shut, nightmares loomed before them, and when they opened the nightmare that was his reality crushed him.
He went to the office earlier each day. The death of Birdie Lee Stanton pricked at him, like a thorn embedded in the fleshy part of his foot, too deep to remove and always painful—something too close to his consciousness to be ignored.
The town was shocked when the mother was identified. Wayne Murphy declared it to be a rape, and therefore, another unsolved crime. Iva Lee had been a willing participant, of that Hick was sure, but there was a question of statutory rape, and because of this, the man would not come forward.
Adam was certain Iva Lee had killed the baby, not on purpose, but maybe accidentally trying to clean the afterbirth off at the slough. It was plausible, Hick admitted, but Iva Lee’s declaration that someone took the child put doubt into his mind. He didn’t think she had the wherewithal to make up such a tale, or comprehend the need to lie about drowning the baby. Though Adam and Wash were ready to close the case, Hick was not.
As he sat at his desk, dully staring out the window, the door of the station opened and Fay stepped in, looking relieved to find Hick there at such an early hour.
“Hick, Tobe’s real bad this time. He’s been drinking all night.”
Hick glanced at his watch. It was seven in the morning. “He got the gun out again?”
Fay nodded. “This is the worst I ever seen him. When I told him I thought he should put the gun up he looked at me real sad like and said, ‘Fay, I want you to take Bobby and get to your mother’s.’” She began to cry. “I’m afraid he’s gonna do himself a harm.”
Hick grabbed his hat and headed for the door. “Wait here for Wash or Adam and tell them where I’ve gone. Tell them to stay here. I want to talk to Tobe myself.”
She nodded, but grabbed his arm as he walked passed her. “Please, Hick. Be careful.”
He nodded and left the station, pausing to make sure Wayne Murphy was not watching. It was early and his office was still closed. At least there was that.
He raced to Tobe’s house out on Ellen Isle, a small rural community with no post office, school, bank, or church. It had a few tenant farm houses, but no one knew where it had gotten its name or why it even had one.
The Hill household was down a deserted dirt road, beside which ran Lem Coleman’s cotton fields. In the sunshine, the plants were blossoming, the recent rain helping them to grow tall and green. The ruts and grooves in the road were deep and Hick’s car jolted painfully through them. He zigzagged, trying to escape the worst of them and finally spied the house in the distance.
It was an old tenant house, used by the pickers who would migrate down to the county from the hills that lay to the southwest. They came to these parts every October for the cotton and made enough money from picking to live on most of the next year. The tenant houses were not designed for comfort and were not ideal for year-round living, but it was all they could afford on Fay’s meager salary.
The porch was rotten and caving in on one side and the steps were gone, replaced with a cinder block. Tobe sat sprawled on the edge of the porch with his feet on the block and his rifle across his lap.
Hick climbed from his car and approached slowly. He knew Tobe was unpredictable when drunk, and Fay had not understated his level of intoxication.
“Tobe, you know you’re not supposed to be firing that weapon. You’re scaring the neighbors again.”
Tobe wrapped his fingers around the barrel of the rifle, gently fondling the metal with his thumb. Hick remembered that motion, the long sweeping caress done with amazing fluidity for a thumb so rough from work. In high school, Tobe would hold a baseball behind his back before a pitch. It was as if he could see the ball through the pores and wrinkles and follicles of his skin. Hick admired this as he played shortstop behind his friend, but today, impeded by too much whiskey, it was doubtful Tobe understood the lethality of what he held in his hands.
Tobe looked up. He seemed confused as to how Hick got there. “I ain’t fired it, yet,” he protested with a slur.
“Fay came to the office and said you was about to. You scared her bad this time.”
Tobe seemed to consider. “Where’s she now?”
“Her mother’s.”
“Is she comin’ back?”
Hick hated to see his friend reduced to this. Tobias Hill, the boy who was going to the majors, who everyone believed was the best of the best. During basic training he was warned to shoot poorly at the rifle range. Everyone told him what would happen, but Tobe was nothing if not competitive. His score earned him a place with the snipers and he lost count of the men he’d killed.
“She’ll come back if you give me the gun.”
The hand on the barrel clenched tighter, the thumb firmly pressed. “My gun?”
Hick raised his foot and rested it on the porch, leaning forward and looking into his friend’s face. “Tobe, the war’s over.”
Tobe turned to Hick. His dark eyes were moist and he blinked quickly. “We both know it ain’t ever over.”
Their eyes met in mutual understanding. Hick held out his hand. “For Fay?”
Again, Tobe’s thumb caressed the steel barrel. Hick thought Tobe could never touch a woman with as much tenderness and love as he was touching that gun.
“Is it the only way?” Tobe asked, with a little sob.
“They’re after me to lock you up because of it. You need to give it to me.”
For a split second, Tobe’s eyes grew wide and fearful. They darted left and right, as if afraid some trick was being played. Then, he shuddered a little, as if trying to force his splintered mind back to reality. He rose unsteadily, and Hick took a quick step backward, thinking Tobe had been angered.
The drunken man stood there, helplessly, and then hesitantly raised his arm toward Hick, the butt of the rifle scraping the porch. Hick’s hand wrapped around the barrel and in a swift motion, he pulled it to his chest, afraid Tobe might have a change of heart.
Tobe stood there, stunned, looking at his gun in Hick’s hand. “I got a pistol, too,” he finally managed. “I’d like to keep it if you don’t mind. It ain’t what I fire that gets everyone riled up. The army issued it
to me.”
“No one complained about a pistol,” Hick said as he walked away from the porch carrying the rifle. He paused as he put it in the back seat of the car. Tobe was staring at him as if he were taking his wife away, not with anger, but with hurt and betrayal.
Hick came back to the porch. “Why do you do this, Tobe? Why are you hurting yourself and everyone around you like this?”
Tobe sat down hard on the porch, the weight of the man causing it to groan and mutter. He picked up the bottle of Jim Beam and took a swig, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Do you ever see them, Hick? Do you ever see the faces of the men you killed?”
“Yes.”
“God, they were young.”
“So were you. You were just obeying orders, Tobe. We all were.”
Tobe took another long pull at the bottle and smiled drunkenly. “But that’s where you’re wrong, my friend. I wasn’t just obeying orders … I enjoyed it.” Thunder rolled far in the distance, the sound sweeping across the flat delta.
Hick folded himself onto the porch beside his friend. “What do you mean?”
“To me it was a kind of game. I’d tell myself I killed ten yesterday, let’s go for twelve today. I enjoyed hearing, ‘Good work, soldier’. I enjoyed the challenge.”
“Tobe, you’re a hero. Those men you killed could have killed one of our boys. You saved lives.”
“By taking them?” He laughed. “You know when it finally hit me, what I’d done? I came home and there stood Fay with my little Bobby. Shit, I’d never seen him before, and there he was. He looked just like me, and then it hit me. I didn’t just kill soldiers. I killed men like me—like you—men who were fathers or who would someday be fathers. I killed all the little Bobbys that would come after them. I killed them and their children in one fell swoop because it was a fun little game. Goddamitt, Hick! It was no game.” He began to sob and Hick sat beside him stricken.
Tobe took a long drink and held the bottle up in front of his face. “This is the only thing that helps me forget. It helps me forget what I’ve done.” His face dropped. “It helps me forget what I am, and one thing’s for goddamn sure, I ain’t no hero.”
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