The Killing Hills

by Chris Offutt

  He moved slowly until seeing a section of the house through the foliage. He went downslope to a dry rain gully and crawled up the hill on his belly. The house sat in what had once been a glade shaded by massive old-growth oaks. High weeds filled the yard among clumps of fescue wide as an axe handle. The porch floor appeared solid but the roof had caved in years back. Mick backtracked into the woods and began a long slow reconnaissance of the house, circling it, moving in close to see the rear, then repeating the process with the two exterior side walls.

  He sensed someone behind him and spun suddenly, pistol in front of him. Nobody was there and he heard no sound. He shrugged it off as the result of hyper-vigilance. When it happened a second time he studied the woods for three minutes, unable to shake the sensation that another human was nearby. The woods were still. A cardinal emitted its call—two quick whistles followed by chirruping that dwindled to silence. Mick knew he was alone. Cardinals only made that sound when they felt safe.

  On the far side of the house was another vehicle, an old Bronco that had been refurbished. He moved closer to the building and heard the voices of two men. He couldn’t make out the words so he listened carefully to the tones. One was talking faster than the other. Both were under pressure, distraught, the muted voices tinged with despair. He assumed one or both were armed.

  Mick ducked behind a walnut tree and considered options. If he crept close enough to hear them, he risked alerting them to his presence. A diversion would draw them out but if they left the house together the odds were fifty-fifty that Delmer could get away. It was better to trap them inside.

  Hunched low and moving slow, Mick made his way to the Bronco. He used it to shield his progress as he circled to the rear of the vehicle, which was parked beside the porch. One board was missing from the porch floor. The front door was open. He went back through his recon, configuring the house in his mind—rectangular with a second story that spanned the back half of the house. The door would lead to the front room on one side and a kitchen on the other. He needed to take two quiet steps across the earth, leap to the porch, dodge the hole in the floor, and charge through the door. He’d be inside within four seconds. He ran the procedure through his mind, imagining the precise movements he’d make. Twice more he pre-visualized the sequence of movement, then he sprang from the edge of the Bronco and burst into the room.

  Two men turned abruptly toward him, both young, one armed with a revolver. Mick knocked the gun aside and punched the man in the chest hard enough to take his breath. The other man stared at him. He sat on a ladder-back chair with a plank for a seat, his legs trembling from fear. Mick scooped up the gun and aimed one at each man.

  “What’s your name?” he said to the seated man.

  “Delmer Collins.”

  “Who’s your buddy?”

  “Frankie Johnson.”

  “Nonnie’s boy?”

  Delmer nodded.

  “He here to kill you?” Mick said.

  Delmer nodded again, glancing at Frankie who lay on the floor gasping.

  “Well, he ain’t going to now,” Mick said.

  He prodded Frankie with his boot.

  “Get up,” he said. “You ain’t hurt that bad. Just scared because you can’t get your breath. If I’d known it was you, Frankie, I’d have gone easy.”

  Frankie scooted across the floor to the wall and leaned against it, holding his chest. He squinted at Mick as if trying to place him.

  “I been to your house,” Mick said. “Talked to your aunt and cousins. You were laying in the bed at the time. Figured it would be Wade or one of the twins up here, not you.”

  Frankie shook his head and spoke in a voice both raspy and high-pitched.

  “Wade said it had to be me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He killed my mom.” Emboldened by an ally, he pointed his finger at Delmer. “You killed Mommy.”

  Delmer twisted his head to the side as if trying to dodge the truth of the words. Metal handcuffs fastened one wrist to the chair.

  “You bring those cuffs?” Mick said to Frankie.

  “Yeah, Wade had them.”

  “Get the key.”

  Frankie dug in his pants pocket awkwardly and pulled out a shiny silver key. The single bit at the end of the shank indicated a low-quality restraint, the kind you buy online.

  “Throw it on the floor,” Mick said.

  Frankie complied. The key bounced twice and lay gleaming in the dust.

  “You don’t have to kill him,” Mick said.

  “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Right there in the Good Book.”

  “There’s things not in the Bible, you know. Things that weren’t around back then.”

  “Like computers and cars?”

  “Like state prisons,” Mick said. “You think about Delmer’s life inside. Every man in there has a mother. They’ll know what Delmer did and they won’t like it. They’ll bash his teeth out. They’ll take his clothes and his food. All you can do is take his life. That what you want?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you’ll go to prison and the same thing will happen to you.”

  Frankie was silent, trying to sort through the information and the sudden shift in circumstance. It was too much, too fast. He wanted to go home and play video games in bed. He was afraid of Wade but this stranger scared him more.

  Mick looked at Delmer and spoke.

  “How long’s this boy been here?”

  “About an hour,” Delmer said.

  “An hour,” Mick said. “Frankie, I don’t believe you want to shoot him or you’d have already done it. That right?”

  Frankie nodded miserably.

  “You’re a good man, not a killer. So tell me why you came for real.”

  “Wade said I could have the truck if I did it.”

  Mick grimaced. In Kabul he’d interrogated a young Afghan after a failed attempt at a suicide bomb in a market. The kid had been the pawn of older men, an unwilling dupe manipulated into sacrifice. Mick was disgusted then and disgusted now.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Sweat ran off the ridge of Frankie’s eyebrows and he wiped it away, leaving smears of dirt across his forehead. His clothing hung loose on his underweight frame. He needed a haircut and he smelled bad.

  “Go home,” Mick said.

  “What do I tell Wade and them?”

  “Ever what you want. But don’t talk to nobody else, hear? Just your family.”

  Frankie nodded and turned away, eyes averted like a dog that had been caught messing with garbage. From the doorway, Mick watched him walk across the dregs of yard, his gait slow at first then quickening the farther he went. He crested the slight hill and descended, his body vanishing in increments until only his head was visible, then gone.

  Delmer was in worse shape than Frankie—bug bit, circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, clothes filthy. A makeshift table held empty tins of tuna fish, cans of pop, and potato chips. Mick offered his canteen. At Delmer’s quick nod, Mick unscrewed the cap and held it to his lips. He drank greedily until the water ran down his chin leaving streaks in the dirt.

  “You got one arm cuffed to the chair,” Mick said. “You could have stood up and swung that chair at him.”

  “I was waiting on the chance.”

  “You kill Nonnie?” Mick said.

  Delmer nodded.

  “Talk, damn it.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Bullshit,” Mick said.

  “I didn’t mean to. It was her idea. Something she got off the internet.”

  “Tell me.”

  “If you can’t breathe it’s supposed to be like cocaine during sex. That’s what she said. I didn’t want to do it.”

  “Did you?” Mick said.

  “Yeah. She was older than me. Said she’d tried most everything and wanted something new. So I choked her from behind. Like those UFC guys on TV.”

  “While you were having sex?”

&n
bsp; Delmer nodded.

  “Then what happened?”

  “She passed out and I set her down. She wouldn’t wake up. She wasn’t breathing. I got scared, really scared, you know?” He glanced at Mick as if seeking sympathy. “Then I ran.”

  “What about her?”

  “I rolled her over the hill.”

  “You run on foot?”

  “No, I drove off Choctaw.”

  “See anybody?”

  Delmer nodded.

  “Who?” Mick said. “Who’d you see?”

  “Fuckin’ Barney.”

  Mick could guess the rest but he wanted it confirmed.

  “Did you go home?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Uncle Murvil’s house. He told me to hide up here. Said he’d fix things.”

  Delmer’s face brightened with a sudden thought. Briefly he felt relieved. He was safe.

  “Hey,” he said. “Did my uncle send you up here?”

  A board creaked outside and Mick sidestepped, pivoted on one leg, and dropped to a squat, gun aimed at the doorway.

  “Hidy,” said a man from outside. “Hello the house.”

  The boards creaked again and Mr. Tucker stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. A burlap bag was slung over his shoulder. He held a ginseng root in one hand, the long tendril still dark with soil.

  Mick lowered his gun and stood. Tucker entered the house, instinctively scraping the soles of his boots on the mat that wasn’t there.

  “Mr. Tucker,” Mick said. “You’ve not showed up at the best time.”

  Tucker tucked the ginseng in his bag. He pulled out a snub-nose .38 and shot Delmer three times in the chest. Delmer pitched backward, pulling the chair with him. He flailed on the floor with red foam frothing from his mouth. Blood spread across the floorboards. Mick knew he was bleeding internally. He squatted beside Delmer and applied pressure to the entry wounds, a futile act but worth a try. He watched the boy die, then stood and faced the old man.

  “You’ve put me in a bad spot,” Mick said.

  “Naw, I believe that boy laying there did. I saved you some work.”

  “Why’d you shoot him?”

  “Nonnie was my wife’s second cousin.”

  The flat finality of Mr. Tucker’s tone was hard as iron. Mick recognized it from his own grandfather, the same hill-bred conviction of vengeful purpose. If Mick had stayed here, he’d be the same way. He’d gotten out and missed it terribly but every time he returned he wanted to leave again. He could drive away and be done with the whole thing or he could take Tucker into custody.

  “How’s your wife?” Mick said.

  “Doctor give her a week.”

  “You want to be with her when she goes?”

  “Reckon I do.”

  “Then get on home,” Mick said. “Keep your mouth shut about me being here.”

  Tucker nodded and turned away.

  “Wait a minute,” Mick said. “Was that you out in the woods when I come up on the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “You weren’t supposed to.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Tucker said. “Just always could.”

  He dropped his chin in farewell then left the cabin and entered the woods. Mick watched him go, wondering what kind of man Tucker was before he started janitoring at the grade school. One thing for certain, he was no stranger to killing. He’d shot Delmer as easily as swatting a fly.

  Mick pulled his shirt from his pants and used his knife to cut off a section of its tail. The key still lay on the floor. Holding the handcuffs with the fabric of his shirt, he unlocked Delmer from the chair. He wrapped the cuffs in cloth and slipped them in his knapsack along with Frankie’s gun and the key. Four sets of boot prints marked the dusty dirt of the floor. The house lacked a broom. Mick removed his shirt and swept his tracks, walking backward to the door. A discerning eye would realize someone had cleaned the crime scene but he figured whoever found the body would make their own mess. At the door he noticed the diminutive print of Mr. Tucker’s foot. He wiped it away.

  Mick stood in the yard looking at the house, the weathered siding, broken windows, and patched roof. He thought about the Caudill family—one brother dead, the other long gone, and now a corpse inside. If any house ought to be haunted, it was this one.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Mick drove out of the woods and parked on the blacktop, then spent several minutes obliterating his tire tracks. An hour later he arrived at the Johnson property, honked the horn, and waited. The sun had slipped behind the western hill, cloaking the house in shadow. The big F-150 was parked in the yard. A mockingbird began calling. The ultimate misfit, it could only copy others and hope for understanding. Mick had felt that way all his life.

  A curtain inside the house moved as someone peered out. A few seconds later Wade stepped onto the porch. Mick left the truck.

  “Hidy, Wade,” he said.

  “You ain’t welcome here.”

  “No, I don’t reckon. Thing is, you need to talk to me.”

  “I got nothing to say.”

  “I do,” Mick said.

  “Say your piece and get off our property.”

  “What I got to say is to everybody. You, the twins, and your mom. Frankie, too. Don’t worry, it ain’t bad.”

  Wade stared at the maple where the mockingbird continued its effort to find a friend. He spat in the yard, then shrugged to himself.

  “I hate that damn bird,” he said. “Comes here of the evening every day. Aggravating as hell but Mommy won’t let me kill it.”

  They entered the house and Mick nodded to Lee Ann, who sat in a rocking chair with a floral cushion. Wade gathered his brothers. The twins gently helped Frankie to the couch, solicitous as nurses. Mick looked at each of them. Their faces had a serious intensity. Mick spoke.

  “You gave Frankie a gun and put him on Delmer. I sent Frankie back home. We’re all in this and I aim to get us out. But we got to work together.”

  “What about Delmer?” Wade said.

  “Delmer’s dead.”

  The family’s collective tension eased a little, producing a slight calm like the aftermath of hard weather. Mick watched them conclude that he’d killed Delmer. He was counting on that. They’d be afraid of him.

  “Frankie was never there,” Mick said, looking at Wade. “He can’t ever tell anyone he went up there.”

  The family looked at each other, nodding.

  “Frankie,” Mick said. “You understand what I’m saying. You weren’t there. That means you didn’t see me up there. You never saw Delmer. If you tell anybody different, they’ll lock you up for a long time.”

  Frankie nodded and Mick turned to Lee Ann.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “you might have to remind him. All of you will. If he says anything, it’ll be bad for everybody.”

  “All right,” Wade said.

  Noel and Joel muttered their assent.

  “You hear the man, Frankie?” Lee Ann said.

  Frankie nodded without lifting his eyes.

  “Thank you,” Lee Ann said to Mick.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Mick said. “I ain’t done. They’ll find the body one day and come around here. I’ll keep Frankie out of it but you got to keep me out, too.”

  “Anything else?” Wade said.

  “No, that’s it.”

  Mick nodded to each man in turn, then faced Lee Ann.

  “Frankie ain’t able to kill anybody,” Mick said. “I believe he’s a good man. With time, he’ll pull out of this. Take care of him.”

  Mick left the house with Wade following. The night was silent, the mockingbird having carried its loneliness elsewhere. Mick opened the truck door and picked up his knapsack. From it he withdrew the scrap of cloth that held the handcuffs.

  “These cuffs have got Frankie’s fingerprints on them. Yours,
too. I’ve got the pistol you gave Frankie. You bring my name in and my sister gets the cuffs and gun.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I’d do a whole lot worse. Especially to a man who tried to trade a truck for a killing. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Wade nodded and Mick got in his truck. He drove out of the holler with the windows open, listening to crickets and cicadas. At the blacktop he removed his cell phone from the glove box to call Linda. He’d tell her a partial story, one that didn’t include Mr. Tucker.

  His phone had a voice mail from his wife and three texts from his sister. Peggy was at the hospital.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mick sat with his sister in the waiting room of the St. Claire Medical Center. Linda explained that Peggy’s water had broken early and there was concern about the baby’s health. Due to the complication Mick was not allowed in the room with his wife.

  “They might have to take the baby,” Linda said.

  “Take it where?” Mick said. “Lexington?”

  “No, it’s what people say. It means a Caesarean birth. They do it to protect the baby. Supposed to be safer.”

  Mick’s sole experience with professional medicine was the dismal conditions of VA hospitals and base clinics. This one was cleaner. The waiting area had comfortable chairs, vending machines, and a TV with no sound. Other people sat anxiously nearby. A palpable tension hung in the room despite the cheerful decor. Each time a nurse passed, everyone stared in the hopes of receiving information.

  “You know this hospital is named for Dr. Louise,” Linda said. “They say she delivered ten thousand babies before they built this place. Claire’s her middle name.”

  Mick nodded.

  “She wasn’t a saint,” Linda said. “There’s a real Saint Clare with a different spelling. That Clare’s the patron saint of television.”

  “TV has a saint?”

  “Yeah, she watched mass on it when she was sick.”

  “How do you know something like that?”

  “I used to date a doctor here. He was from Philadelphia. Talked real fast. Thick accent and hard to understand sometimes.”

  “I guess it didn’t work out with you and him,” he said.