“You think anyone’s around?” Carol asked, peering up and down the road.
They listened for the sounds of felling trees, but the only sound was the occasional call of a Cooper’s hawk as it circled over the holler. Hick shrugged. “I can’t hear anything. We’ll just go on back—”
“Well, what’ve we got here?” The voice belonged to a man who seemed to materialize out of the trees. He spit a wad of tobacco juice, took a step toward them, and scrutinized Hick and Carol through narrowed eyes. The man’s overalls were black with mud, and wood chips covered the sticky places around his knees. He didn’t appear to be young or old, just hard and sinewy.
Hick thought fast and said, “My name’s Hick, and this is Carol. We kind of got ourselves lost up this way and were hoping to find some help. We noticed the sign and came looking for someone.”
“You walk up here?” From the tree line a group of men materialized, rag tag and filthy as their spokesman.
“The road was closed so we came on foot hoping to find someone,” Carol explained. “We were just getting ready to go back when luckily we found you.”
The man squinted one eye and cocked his head. “Where you from, lady? You talk queer.”
“New York,” Carol said. “My husband and I are on our honeymoon trip.”
His suspicious attitude seemed to soften a little and the hint of a smile crinkled around his eyes. “Honeymoon, eh?” He winked at Hick. “Just up here for a little drive, I suppose?” A chuckle from his men greeted this statement.
Hick put on a stupid, sheepish grin and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, it’s awful pretty country and all.”
The man clapped Hick hard on the back and guffawed. “Pretty country? Hell, it’s the prettiest country there is.” He shook Hick’s hand. “My name’s Chet Miller. Where ya’ll headed to?”
“We’re stayin’ in Birch Tree a few days,” Hick said. “Then back to Dallas.”
The man shook his head. “Well, I reckon it ain’t hard to believe a couple of city folks like ya’ll could get lost out here. Problem with the cities is they’s overrun with foreigners and coloreds. Instead of us making them better, we’s lettin’ them drag us down to their level.” He spit tobacco juice and rubbed his mouth on the back of his filthy sleeve. “It used to be no self-respectin’ man would get hisself lost, but folks can’t take care of themselves no more. It’s a damned mess is what it is.” A murmur of agreement came from the men. He hitched up his overalls and asked, “You headed back to Birch Tree?”
“That was the plan,” Hick said, “but I’ll be damned if I can figure out where it is with all these switchbacks. I reckon it’s that way, but the missus thought I was wrong and said to ask. We’ve been driving around for a bit.”
Chet’s sharp eye fell upon Carol, and he nodded. “Your woman was right. You’d a been headed off in the wrong direction towards the river.”
Hick smiled at Carol and said, “Good job, honey. I always said your sense of direction was better.” Shrugging, he added, “I reckon we best get back to town.”
“Yes, dear,” Carol agreed. “I am getting a little hungry.”
Chet laughed his loud guffawing laugh again and said, “Just like a woman. Always wantin’ victuals.” He put his arm around Hick’s neck and leaned in so close Hick could smell the chewing tobacco on his breath. The man pointed toward the road. “Just remember, at the end of the drive, go left and stay on the dirt road. Don’t make no turns, just stay on that there road. It’ll take you back towards town.”
Relieved, Hick answered, “Thank you. We’ll do just that.”
Putting his hand beneath Carol’s elbow, Hick began to guide her through the group of men when a voice from the crowd said, “Wait.”
Dismayed, Hick saw Matt Noble walk through the crowd and stand before him. Matt studied him closely and Hick saw recognition flash in the young man’s eyes. Hick held his breath, waiting to see what would happen. “Why don’t I walk out with ’em. To make sure they go the right way.”
The man shrugged. “If you’re of a mind to do it, have at it.”
“I won’t be long,” Matt said and began walking toward the road.
Hick glanced at Carol. She shrugged, and they quickly followed Matt away from the group of men. Matt walked fast down the lane toward the road, and Hick and Carol were breathless by the time they reached the car. He suddenly turned and faced Hick, his face stoic but his eyes seemed to smolder with angry energy. “You were at the funeral. Why? Did you know my pa?” he demanded in a low, raspy voice.
“My name’s Hick Blackburn and this is Carol Quinn. We came here because your father shot a friend of mine.”
“The priest or the other one?” Matt asked.
“The priest was his friend,” Carol answered with an edge to her voice. “The ‘other one’ was mine. And he was a good man.”
“Well, why are you out here in the hills?”
“We’re looking for you,” Hick said.
“For me? What for?”
“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Hick said.
Matt looked slowly from Hick to Carol and frowned. “Why should I answer any of your questions?”
“Is there any reason you wouldn’t want to answer them?” Carol asked.
Matt’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You have something to hide?”
“I ain’t never done nothing to be ashamed of, and I got nothing to hide. But I don’t know what kind of questions you’re asking and why I should answer any of ’em.”
“I’m sheriff of Cherokee Crossing, and Carol is an attorney from the Justice Department in Washington, DC.”
“I don’t get it,” Matt said, with a frown. “What are you doing out here?”
“We’re trying to get some answers about your pa and why he did what he did,” Hick said.
“Well, what do you want to know?” Matt asked.
Hick lit a cigarette and offered one to Matt, but the boy shook his head. “Tell us,” Hick said, “how often did you talk with your father?”
Matt’s face reddened a little, but he remained calm and shook his head. “I didn’t.”
Carol leaned back against the car, her eyes on Matt’s face. “What if we told you that your father was privy to some knowledge that he mistakenly thought would exonerate him from the crime of murdering a priest. Knowledge that seems to have been given to him in order to goad him into doing it. Knowledge that only two people in this town were aware of—those two being you and your Uncle Ulredge.”
“What kind of knowledge?”
“We know your Uncle Ulredge told you about the jury he sat on in Alabama that freed a man who killed a Catholic priest. Somehow your father also knew about this, but your uncle claims he didn’t tell him,” Carol said. “If your uncle didn’t tell him, that leaves only—”
Matt’s forehead wrinkled and he shuffled his feet. “What do you mean Pa knew? What makes you say that?”
Hick took a long draw from his cigarette. “Your father told us he was sure he’d go free, just like the man in Alabama who killed the Catholic priest. Someone had filled him in on quite a few details, the most important being that the man in Alabama was acquitted because the jury believed the priest was proselytizing his daughter.” He dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his foot. “That’s a lot of important details. You sure you didn’t tell him?”
Matt looked off into the distance, then said, “Me and my pa … we didn’t speak. I don’t know how my pa would have found out anything about that story. I can only tell you he didn’t find out from me. And what difference does it make anyway? Pa’s dead now.”
“Yes, but if he was somehow manipulated into killing, that could be considered a crime. If someone convinced your father to kill a priest by lying to him about his daughter.” Carol shrugged. “We’d want to talk to that person and find out why.”
“You mean someone could go to jail just for telling my pa about that man in Alabam
a?”
“If they told him Father Grant had converted Lavenia to the Catholic Church and then mentioned the case in Alabama with the intent to manipulate your pa into killing, there’s a chance they could be considered an accomplice, depending upon the circumstances,” Carol explained. “If they made sure Skaggs got the information so that he would commit murder, we might have enough to file some kind of charges.”
Hick glanced at Carol. Unless the person willingly aided and abetted, or money changed hands, it would be almost impossible to press charges. Everything Carol was saying was a huge long shot, and Hick knew she was bluffing. But, it seemed believable.
“I don’t get it,” Matt said. Why would anyone want that priest dead anyway?”
“Maybe they didn’t want the priest dead at all,” Hick said. “Maybe they just wanted your pa out of the way.”
“Well, I can believe that. Ain’t many that have a good word to say about him,” Matt said with a frown.
“Do you hate him?” Hick asked.
“Hate is a waste of time. My pa was a waste of time. What he done and how he lived make no difference to me.”
“You sure about that, Slim?” Carol asked. “What about your brothers and sisters?”
Matt shot a quick glance at Carol. “What about them?”
“You care about them and your father treated them poorly. Did that anger you?”
“Lady, it made me mad as hell. My pa didn’t do right by his young’uns and that’s a fact. But I know that Catholic priest was good to Lavenia, and I know he give her food when them kids was hungry and upped her wages to help them out. He was the only thing keepin’ them from going to bed hungry some nights. I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt him, and I wouldn’t have said something that might have got him hurt.”
“Tell me, Matt. Why is your uncle so worried about you? Why is he so concerned that he would bare his soul and tell you something he is ashamed of?” Hick asked.
Matt rolled his eyes. “My Uncle Ulredge sees what he wants to see. He worries about me because it gives him something to worry about. He’s just like Chet back there. They always gonna be folks who can’t make nothin’ of themselves so they has to blame somebody else believin’ if the world wasn’t against ’em they’d be something. My uncle blames them men who intimidated him into letting that man off for murder. Chet up there blames his daddy for selling off his land, he blames bankers for the depression, he blames foreigners for keepin’ wages low. Can’t neither of ’em see that the real problem is they’re just weak and no good.”
Carol crossed her arms over her chest. “And your father?”
“He blamed me. He told Miss Aleta God couldn’t never bless him on account of his fornicatin’ with my ma and ever time he seen me it just reminded him of it.”
“And what do you think?” Hick asked.
“I think my pa would’ve never made nothing of himself even if he never set eyes on my ma. He was lazy and no good. All his energy was wasted lookin’ down on everybody else.”
“So tell me this,” Carol said, “if you didn’t tell your pa about that man in Alabama getting away with murdering a priest, and your Uncle Ulredge says he didn’t tell him, who did? Mallon says you’re the only one he ever told. You tell anyone?”
“No,” Matt said, with a quick shake of the head. “It was a useless story not worth sharing.”
Hick cocked his head. “You ever think your pa was capable of killin’ a man?”
“I never thought my pa had the gumption to do anything that took an ounce of effort.”
“Do you know of anyone who might have a reason to want your pa out of the way? Is there anyone who would benefit from him being gone?” Carol asked.
Matt’s glance involuntarily went up the road toward lumber mill, but he shook his head. “My pa wasn’t no good to nobody, dead or alive. What kind a man can’t even find the get-up-and-go to take care of his own kin?”
Hick took a deep, jagged breath as Matt’s words slammed into him like a fist. What would he have done without his sister, Pam? Would he let his boys flounder alone, like Matt, full of resentment and disdain because of his weakness? Again, a sharp tug toward home gripped him, and a feeling of frustration at the lack of progress made him irritable.
“Just out of curiosity,” Hick said to Matt. “The night your pa hung himself, where were you?”
“I was at home asleep,” Matt said. “If you think I would have bothered visiting him in that jail, think again. Even if I’d known he was gonna kill himself, I wouldn’t have said a word to stop him. It wouldn’t have been worth the breath.”
Hick nodded and then turned to Carol. “You got anything else?”
“No, not really,” she replied with a resigned shrug.
“I’ll go then.” Matt said. “Chet’ll be wondering where I got to.” He started back up the hill but paused and turned to them. “I ain’t gonna lie. I’m glad my pa’s dead and no one can arrest me for sayin’ it. If you arrested every man that was glad to be shed of Nicodemus Skaggs there wouldn’t be enough room in that jail.”
16
Thursday, September 8, 1955
Carol rubbed her temples. “I’ve got a headache. Are we making any progress here, Hillbilly?”
Hick flipped on the windshield wipers to combat the droplets of rain beginning to fall. “I don’t think so.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, then handed the pack to Carol. “Maybe we’re imagining all of this. Maybe it’s just exactly what it seems. Deem Skaggs shot Father Grant because he thought he was trying to convert Lavenia. When you told Deem he wasn’t getting a trial by jury in this county he got spooked and committed suicide.” He rubbed his eyes. “It does make sense. Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree here.”
Carol took a long drag and shrugged. “Of course there are those pesky little facts.”
“Such as?”
“Such as Grant didn’t convert Lavenia and wasn’t proselytizing her at all. Such as the fact that Lavenia never talked about the church with Skaggs so someone else had to say something to him. Such as the fact that Skaggs knew about a decades old case of murder that made him believe he’d get off scot free. Such as the fact that Skaggs appears to have been murdered at the jail and the sheriff might not be on the up and up. These kinds of things are hard to overlook.”
“Maybe,” Hick said, turning on the signal and pulling off the dirt road onto the county highway.
Carol stared. “Maybe? What the hell does that mean?”
All of the thoughts about Hick’s boys that flooded his mind throughout the day boiled up to the surface. His chest constricted and he felt a flash of anger. “I’m saying this is a waste of time. I’m saying maybe we’re imagining all of this. I’m saying it’s time to call it a day. We’re not getting anywhere.”
“You’re kidding.”
“We got nothing here, Miss Quinn. We’ve got no motive for anyone to try and kill Grant other than exactly what Skaggs told us—he believed Grant was trying to convert his daughter to Catholicism. We’ve got a confession from him. He told us his motive outright. Everything else is just speculation.”
Carol’s face flushed. “What exactly are you saying?”
“I’m done. I need to go home. My kids need me.”
“What?”
“I’m done trying to do right in a world where no one else seems to care. There’s no way in hell Lowell doesn’t know about that bootlegging operation up there. And, I just got through messing with Sheriff Earl Brewster in Broken Creek and nothing came of that. Nothing! All those people he locked up, all those lies he told, all the intimidation and injustice and nothing happened.” His jaw tightened. “I am done fighting a war I can’t win.”
The color in Carol’s face rose. She stabbed her cigarette out in the ashtray and set her lips in a thin line, and then looked out the side window without a word. The air in the car grew thick and stifling and the silence hung heavy, but Hick said nothing. He was tired. His eyes burned with exhaustion,
his head ached with weariness. There was nothing he could do and he just didn’t have the energy to care.
Hick stared out the windshield watching the bugs get smeared by the wipers. He couldn’t verbalize this sudden, overwhelming need to be home. He couldn’t explain to Carol the suffocating sense of failure that came over him when he thought of Nicodemus Skaggs – the fear that he was no better. Instead of explaining, he turned onto Main Street and asked, “You want to get a cup of coffee?”
“No. Just take me back to the motel.”
Hick sighed, but drove down the road to the motel entrance and pulled in. He parked the car and stared at his hands on the wheel. “Miss Quinn, if I thought there was anything …”
“Don’t worry about it,” she interrupted, her voice sharp but controlled. “It was my mistake. I thought I saw something in you last year that was extraordinary.” Shrugging, she added, “It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong about someone.” Without another word, she opened the door and left him sitting alone.
He watched her enter her room and slam the door, but he didnt move. There was no way to explain it. No way to put into words the crushing wall of empty darkness that smothered him and screamed that he couldn’t do anything and shouldn’t try. The pain of having your chest squeezed as if in a vice, the dull ache of the blood in your head and veins, the thing stuck in your throat that seemed to want to explode into some kind of primal scream. He lit yet another cigarette and watched the light come on in Carol’s room. He exhaled roughly and thought of Father Grant.
“No one is irredeemable. You are still capable of doing noble things, regardless of what you’ve seen or done.” Hick remembered the earnestness in Father Grant’s eyes when they spoke after Hick had gone to him in hopes of helping the Delaney brothers in Cherokee Crossing. Abner Delaney, their father, had been unjustly executed in the state of Arkansas, and Grant had done everything humanly possible to save the man. Grant meant every word he said and, at that time, Hick believed him. But what about now? It seemed as if that small spark of hope kindled by Grant’s belief had been buried with Maggie, and God had taken great pains to prove otherwise. Hick doubted he’d ever feel or do anything noble again.
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