by Dan Arnold
I was pleased the years hadn’t changed the friendship between Buddy and me. It was as if I’d just been off on a deployment for the last dozen years.
“Hey, Josie, look what the cat dragged in!”
Josie was not the same volatile and semi-wild child she’d been when she and Buddy first married. She’d grown into a more substantial, mature and Godly woman. Maybe thickened a little around the waist with the years, but she was instantly recognizable.
“Well, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t ‘Old Mother’ Tucker!” Josie said, wrapping me in a hug.
There is nothing the least bit reserved, genteel, or refined about the behavior among the special operators of a SEAL team. Buddy was called “Live Screw” as his call sign, because of the way his last name is spelled. His name is Livesque, pronounced “Liv-eck,” but the spelling was just too easy to make fun of.
I’d earned my call sign because I was the guy who always took care of my buddies when they forgot some important detail, suffered an injury, or were just too drunk to take care of themselves. It happened a lot in those days. My call sign became part of a rhyme; “Old Mother Tucker, is a bad mother******.”
I hadn’t heard anyone call me that in about a dozen years. Well, the last part had been used some, but not my nom du guerre.
In this war, I’ve been known by many names.
We spent lunch catching up and remembering some wild times we’d shared and the friends who’d fallen.
“Hey, is that a picture of Buddy, Jr.? The last time I saw him he was what, maybe five or six?”
Buddy’s face clouded a little.”
“Yeah, John, that’s Wilson Livesque, Jr. We all call him “Bud.” He graduates from High School tomorrow night. I’ll bet he remembers you. If you’re still in town, would you like to come to the graduation?”
“Yes, I would, I’d like it a lot.”
After lunch, while Buddy made some phone calls, I helped Josie clean up.
“Josie, I thought something was bothering Buddy when we were talking about Wilson, Jr. Is everything all right with him?”
“Well, yes and no, John, Buddy is so proud of him he could bust. Did he tell you Bud has been accepted to Annapolis?”
“Wilson, Jr. is going to the U.S. Naval Academy?”
“Um hum. He’ll be the first commissioned officer in the Livesque family. You know Buddy’s family is a Navy family going back three generations.”
“Yeah, I know. Wow, that’s terrific! You said yes and no, what’s the problem?”
“Some of Bud’s friends are a bit wild. They’re drinking and running around. Bud has fallen in with them. About a week ago, Bud was with them in a car when it got pulled over. The driver was arrested for DUI.”
“I guess it’s kind of typical for some high school seniors. I can see how y’all would be disappointed Bud would choose that course.”
“It’s even worse, John. There’s been some bad blood between them over this. Buddy is the County Sheriff, and he’s up for re-election. He feels like Bud’s behavior is a slap in the face and disrespectful of his position in the community. He’s also worried that before the summer is over, Bud will screw up his admission to Annapolis, somehow.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Why do you think Bud is behaving this way?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know, John. I guess it isn’t much different from the way we behaved at that age, back before we became Christians.”
Three
When Buddy came back into the kitchen, he had news.
“John, I think we’ve identified the family you’re looking for. Some are Taylors and some are Carlisle’s. They’re longtime residents of the county, going back to the end of the civil war. They have about three hundred acres of timberland they lease to hunters. They get their income from timber sales and the hunting leases. There are half a dozen homes, mostly trailers they live in, at the end of County Road 3802, right on the edge of LaSalle Bayou. That’s about fifteen miles south of town.
“Thanks, Buddy. If you’ll give me an address, I’ll set my GPS navigation and head on over there.”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s the way we want to approach this.”
“… Why not?”
“I have a deputy who’s married to one of the Carlisle girls. She’d be a cousin to Diondro Taylor. I think we might want to go at this kind of sideways. My deputy or his wife should probably be the ones to make the inquiries.”
“Why is that?”
“These folks kind of keep to themselves, and they are extremely distrustful of outsiders. If you go driving in there asking about Diondro, they’ll most likely tell you they’ve never heard of him and be otherwise generally uncooperative.”
“Can we give them a phone call and set up an appointment?”
Buddy chuckled.
“John, you’re thinking like a business man. These folks don’t do things that way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most of them won’t even answer a phone call unless they recognize the number. They don’t like getting phone calls from sales people or bill collectors. If you call them, they probably won’t answer the phone. If they do answer it, as soon as they hear your voice, they’ll turn ignorant and you’ll get nowhere.”
I nodded. I’ve had some experience with that.
“You let me handle it. If Diondro is over there with them, I’ll find out about it. Then we can figure out how we want to approach the family.”
I didn’t like it, but I realized Buddy was right. I figured if the Taylors and Carlisles were that distrustful of outsiders, Diondro would be safe right where he was — for a little while.
“I’ll tell you what, John; you come back over to the Sheriff’s office. I’ll introduce you to my deputy who’s married to the Carlisle girl, and we’ll do some strategizing.”
I nodded.
“OK, let’s do it your way.”
The deputy was a black man, about twenty-five years of age. He stood just over six feet tall, with an athletic build and a shaved head that shone like polished bronze. His uniform was crisp and tailored. It figured. Buddy would expect and accept no less from his men.
“John, meet Jermaine Jackson, no relation to the singer. Jermaine, this is John Wesley Tucker. John and I were in the Navy together.”
We shook hands.
“The Sheriff told me some of this, Mr. Tucker. As I understand it, you want to locate a black male, nineteen years of age, by the name of Diondro Taylor. He would be one of my wife’s cousins. That about right?”
“Yes, it is, Deputy Jackson. Diondro isn’t in trouble, or at least not in trouble with the law. He’s something of a hero, actually. He saved a lady in Tyler from being abducted by a gangbanger down there. The street gang wants him dead. So, I believe Diondro came here to hide out for a while.”
He nodded.
“Uh huh, call me Jermaine, Mr. Tucker. Why you here?”
“Please, call me John, Jermaine. I’m here because the family of the woman Diondro saved, as a reward for his heroism, wants to pay for Diondro’s college education. I also want to make sure he stays safe. I‘ve learned the gang hired someone to find Diondro. They mean to kill him.”
“Why they want to kill him? He the only witness?”
“They want to kill him because the guy Diondro jumped was the leader of the pack. They intend to send the message, ‘don’t mess with us’. There are other witnesses, but only Diondro messed with them. He’s the one they have to kill.”
“You locate Diondro, you planning to take him back to Texas?”
“I don’t know. That’ll be up to Diondro. It would be helpful if he would testify in the case, but it isn’t essential.”
“Why you think Diondro came to Columbia County?”
“I’ve been in communication with his mother, who lives in the town of Chapel Hill, just outside Tyler. She wouldn’t tell me where Diondro is, but she indicated he was with family somewhere out of state. I did
some investigating and figured this was the place.”
Jermaine considered all this for a moment.
“Alright, I’ll talk to my wife. I don’t know him myself. I can’t promise anything, know what I’m sayin’?”
“Sure, Jermaine, thank you.”
“Uh huh. It may take some time. Where you staying at?”
“I figure I’ll get a motel room, probably at the Holiday Inn.”
“No, you won’t,” Buddy interjected. “He’ll be staying with us, Jermaine. You can reach him at my house.”
I could see there would be no point in arguing about it. I gave Jermaine my cell phone number so he wouldn’t have to disturb Buddy when he called me.
Buddy had some official business to attend to. So, since I had a little time on my hands, I set out to do some research. At the book store on the Southern Arkansas University campus I bought a plat map showing all of the PLSS Sections in each Township and Range in the county. It showed each section with names attached to individual tracts of land. It also had all of the county roads on it.
It was a little complicated to figure out where CR 3802 was because of not knowing exactly which Township and Range it was in, but once I found it, I was able to get a general idea of the layout of the Taylor/Carlisle land. On a hunch I went to the local Wal-Mart, and sure enough, they had a county atlas for sale. Not only did the atlas show all the roads, it also showed other points of interest like the bayous, lakes and rivers, which were not clearly indicated in the plat map. With my air card functioning as a Wi-Fi hotspot, I used my laptop to access Google Earth. Once I typed in the appropriate data, I had an excellent satellite image of the property in question. I was able to zoom in and out on the various buildings, logging roads and fence lines, etc. that made up the Taylor/Carlisle property. I printed off the most useful images on my portable printer. This gave me very useful and comprehensive mapping and visual images of the entire area where Diondro might be holed up. All of that had only taken a couple of hours. The next step was to do some actual reconnaissance of the area.
Southwest Arkansas is heavily forested, much like East Texas. North America’s southern forests know no state boundaries. They stretch from Virginia in the East, to Texas in the west, and
spread across most of the southeastern U.S. In that part of Arkansas timber is the primary industry, in conjunction with oil and gas drilling.
Within two miles of the city limits, I was deep in the back woods. I drove south out of Magnolia on a State highway for about five miles, turning onto a smaller black top road. I drove past where CR 3802 branched off, noticing, that just as I had found in my research, 3802 was a dirt road. A little farther on, I turned left on the next blacktop road. I drove for about two miles before the road crossed over LaSalle Bayou. On the other side of a bridge, I stopped and got out of the car to have a look at the bayou.
I was here because I’d learned the Taylor/Carlisle land had this paved county road as a southern boundary. From here, the family homes were less than a mile away, as the crow flies. From the other side of the bridge, a person could hike over there through the woods and not have to cross the bayou. It wouldn’t be an easy hike because here the forest wasn’t plantation pines, but mixed native timber, thick with brush and vines. There were greenbrier vines, poison oak, Devil’s Club, honey locust and other plants that could put a hurt on you. It was more like a jungle than a woodland park. In several places, all the thick brush and vines made it virtually impenetrable.
From where I was standing, both the bayou and a stretch of woods were between me and the place where Diondro was most likely located.
At this point, LaSalle Bayou was only about thirty feet wide. The water was dark and muddy, like tea with just a touch of milk, or weak hot chocolate. As is common in most bayous in this part of the world, the water was probably only a few feet deep, even in the deepest parts. There were cypress trees lining both banks. Spanish moss hung down like living tinsel, and the cypress knees jutted up out of the water, here and there. This was the time of year when the water level in the bayou would be at its highest point. Later in the summer, there would be much less water, leaving the cypress knees looking like miniature mountains, towering above muddy plains.
Watching the water, I saw an occasional swirl on the surface, evidence of the gar, catfish, bass, bream and other aquatic life inhabiting these southern waters. Although I couldn’t see them, I knew alligators and water moccasins were also keeping a wary eye on me from their nearby hiding places
I was sweating profusely now in the afternoon heat and humidity which naturally follows the thunderstorms. The air was as stagnant as the water of the bayou. I was somewhere beyond uncomfortable. When I got back in the rental car, I turned up the AC to high, and drove on more slowly. I was looking for a feature I’d seen on the satellite image. I found it about a quarter of a mile farther on.
Four
Because hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities are such a big part of the culture and the economy in that area, there was a really nice sporting goods store in Magnolia, Arkansas. On the way back into town, I stopped and bought a few items I thought might come in handy.
I drove back to the Sheriff’s office and met up with Buddy, just as he was getting ready to head home. I followed him as he drove his official Chevy Tahoe through Magnolia and out into a pretty new subdivision on the eastern edge of town.
I noticed a dark grey Toyota sedan seemed to be following us. It stayed behind us on every turn. It could’ve been a coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidence. As we turned into the subdivision, the Toyota kept on going down the road. It had Texas license plates, not unusual this close to Texas, but not typical either.
We had just gotten to the house when Wilson Livesque, Jr. came driving up in his pickup.
Buddy looked at his watch as Bud approached us on the porch.
“Getting home from school a little late aren’t you? It’s nearly six O’clock.”
Bud shrugged, as he attempted to go past us into the house.
“Hang on a minute, Bud. I want you to say hello to John Wesley Tucker. You remember him don’t you?”
Bud stopped and looked me over.
“Say, are you “Old Mother” Tucker?”
I grinned.
“As ever was.”
Bud shook my hand with a firm grip.
“I was just a kid back in Virginia the last time I saw you. Over the years, my dad has talked about you a lot.”
“Yeah, what have you heard?”
“Oh, you know… my dad’s war stories mostly. The things he can talk about. I thought you got killed or something.”
“Naw, just shot up a little. I would’ve died, if your dad hadn’t gotten me to the chopper. Say, I’ve heard about you, too.”
“Really, what have you heard?”
“Oh, you know just the usual stuff. You’re an honor student, Captain of the football team (sorry about the state championship), your father’s pride and joy, and one other thing. Let me see… what was it? Oh yeah, now I remember, you’re going to Annapolis!”
Bud glanced at his dad.
“Uh, yeah, I guess. Where did you hear all that?”
“Your dad can’t stop talking about how proud of you he is.”
Bud glanced at Buddy again.
“Huh, you could have fooled me.”
Buddy stiffened up.
“I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. You’ve grown into a fine young man. I can see why your dad is so proud of you.”
“Well… thank you, sir.”
“You can call me John.”
“Yes, sir… uh, I mean, John.”
Bud went on into the house.
Buddy stopped me on the porch.
“I never said any of those things about Bud. How did you know?”
“Josie told me. If you don’t mind my saying so, Buddy, you should have told me yourself, but even more importantly… you should have told Bud.”
He nodded.
“Yeah, you’re right. I just have a hard time with stuff like that.”
“You don’t have a hard time showing your disappointment.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I noticed it. I expect Bud notices it every day.”
I left Buddy on the porch to think about it.
That night, I took everyone out to dinner at a pretty good Mexican restaurant. Since there were only four of us, we took my rental car.
When we walked out of the restaurant, I scanned the parking lot and the street. I was sort of looking for a dark grey Toyota.
“Are you expecting trouble?” Buddy asked me quietly.
I shrugged.
“Yeah, I’m the same way,” he said.
“I thought maybe I was being followed, earlier today.”
“Good grief! You men sure make a girl feel safe. Being married to a cop, I’ve gotten to where I take notice of everything around me, too,” Josie said.
“Situational awareness is a good habit to develop.”
Buddy nodded.
“No harm in that,” he agreed.
“Better safe than sorry,” Bud chimed in.
Buddy scowled at him.
“A stitch in time saves nine.” I added, with a wink.
“He who laughs last, laughs best,” Bud said.
“You can’t teach an old dog, new tricks,” Buddy chuckled.
“You can with the right incentive,” Josie said, batting her eyes at Buddy.”
“Oh, yuck!” Bud observed.
We all laughed.
Later that evening Buddy and I sat and talked, alone in his home office.
“I expect Jermaine has had a chance to talk to his wife by now. Chances are some phone calls have been made and we’ll learn something useful in the morning.”