The Charleston Knife is Back in Town

by Ralph Dennis

  “That reminds me.” Art reached into his coat pocket and brought out a short barrel .38. “A spare. You need it?”

  “Yeah.” I put it in my right coat pocket and went up to the porch of the farmhouse. I guess that was the choice. Art could go up and say he was a cop and the water pressure all over the county would start dropping where they were flushing their dope. Or I could go up and do some con about insurance. Crossing the porch I fumbled out my wallet and palmed one of the cards.

  It was a long wait before they answered the door. It just cracked a foot or so and the light was dim inside. Pouring out of the door toward me was the strong, sweetish scent of incense. The man who looked out at me was the oldest hippie I’d ever seen; He must have been over eighty, scrawny and wasting away. His gray hair was shoulder-length and he wore a tie-dyed shirt that reached to his knees. He was toothless and either he didn’t have a set of false or he’d taken them out for the night. “What you want?”

  I pushed the card at him. “I want to see Edwin Robinson.”

  “I don’t know anybody that name.” He pushed at the door but I’d stuck a shoe there, almost as if by accident.

  “Sure you know him.” I pushed the card at him again. The way he squinted at it I’d swear he was stoned. “Look, it’s no big thing. I’ve got a check for him. It pays off a claim. Only I couldn’t find him and his grandmother say he’s out here.”

  “I don’t know any Edwin.”

  “He’s just been here a couple of days. He and four others in a van.”

  “I don’t know their names,” he said.

  “Are they still here?”

  “As far as I know.” He pushed at the door and I felt some toes crunch.

  “Where?”

  “Cabin six.”

  “Where’s that?” I asked.

  “After cabin five.”

  It didn’t seem worthwhile to carry that on much longer. I drew my shoe back and let him slam the door. All things considered I guessed I’d gotten as much information out of him as anyone who’d talked to him in the last hour or so.

  “You want to arrest an eighty-year-old hippie for dope, that’s the place,” I said, indicating the house as we passed. Art had moved the car and parked it out of the main compound. Now we were walking past the barn with its heavy scent of manure and cow sweat smell. In the distance we could hear the tinny sound of music from a transistor radio but we could not tell which cabin the music came from. All the cabin windows seemed blacked out for the next air raid, but I guess it was their business if they didn’t want people to watch them smoke their dope and do their bedtime trick. Still, a little light might have made it easier for us to read the numbers on the cabin doors.

  “Cabin three,” Hump said, stepping back.

  They weren’t numbered consecutively either and we counted our way around the cluster before it hit Hump and he said, “There were two threes.” We went back and Hump found a 3 that could have been a 6, as if they hadn’t been sure what number they wanted to paint and had compromised with a number that was a cross between them both.

  I stepped up onto the porch and worked my way over to the window as quietly as I could. The window had been covered with what had once been a blue plastic shower curtain. The lower right corner hadn’t fitted well and I got an eye to that. I couldn’t tell if these were the kids we were looking for. There were three of them. Two were standing over an old bed sheet, stripping the leaves from stalks of marijuana and letting them fall onto the sheet. There was a stack of stalks about roof high in the rear right corner they were working from. The third young boy was seated at an old camp table in the center of the room. There was an old wire strainer in front of him and he was cleaning some of the dope. Probably not for sale. Probably for their own use.

  I backed off the porch and went over to Hump and Art. I peeled a couple of twenties from the expense money roll and handed them to Hump. It was his move. Everybody knew that blacks liked dope better than whites did. “Make a buy. Find out where Edwin is. Do your stoned black for Art. He’s never seen it.”

  Art and I moved to the side, away from the light when the door opened. Hump clomped across the porch, weaving some as if he’d already had a few lung-fulls.

  “Method,” I whispered to Art, “he’s acting before he hits the stage.”

  Hump hit the door frame with his hamhand and the windows shook.

  There was a long silence and when one of the boys spoke he was close to the door. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me,” Hump said.

  “Who?”

  “Me. Horace.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to see Edwin.” When there was no answer right away Hump hit the door frame again. “Come on, open up. I’m not the pigs.”

  “What?” There was a shake in the voice.

  “I said I’m not the pigs. I just want to buy some smoke.” Hump hit the door again. “Open the door. If I was the pigs I’d have broke your door down by now.”

  The door opened slowly. It was the kid who’d been using the wire strainer. He looked Hump over while Hump fumbled around in his pocket and brought out two twisted twenties. “All I want’s smoke. And I want to see Edwin.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “I’m not supposed to buy from anybody else.”

  “Don’t buy then.” The kid pushed at the door and Hump hit the door a whack with the palm of his hand that threw it open again. “I’ll buy a lid from you and talk to Edwin later.”

  “You got twenty?” The kid stared out at Hump. Slowly, as if stoned but believing that he was moving at ordinary speed, Hump separated the two twenties. He put one back in his pocket and smoothed the other out by giving it a shoeshine buff across his thigh. “Here’s one.”

  The kid took the twenty and moved away from the doorway. After the experience of Hump whacking the door open I guess he decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble. From my angle I could see the part of the cabin that had been blocked from me before. I counted four double bunks on that side. When I saw Hump reach out his hand, I edged back into the shadows. The kid appeared in the doorway and handed Hump a plastic bag. “I didn’t weigh it, but it’s more than good weight.”

  “Got a paper?” Hump asked.

  “You want to test it?” The kid reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a short joint. He handed it to Hump and struck a kitchen match to give him a light. Hump sucked on it. When he could speak he was choked.

  “Dynamite stuff,” he said.

  The kid grinned at him. “It’s the best in the state.”

  Hump did the courtesy thing then. He took another short hit and passed it to the kid. The kid did his hit like he was sucking an empty glass with a straw, lips popping.

  Hump let his breath out slowly. “I got to see Edwin. I know a guy on Ashby wants to make a big buy.”

  “Edwin’s not the big horse here. He just got here.”

  “The guy on Ashby knows Edwin. Said to be sure and see Edwin.” Hump held up the plastic bag. “And to buy a lid to see how the quality was.”

  “What you think?” The kid turned in the doorway and put his back to Hump, questioning the other two.

  “He knows dynamite when he tastes it,” one of them said.

  The kid in the doorway giggled and the other two laughed with him. That settled it. “You got wheels?”

  “Yeah,” Hump said.

  “Follow that road that goes by the right of the bam. It’s about two miles. It’s an old tobacco barn. Can’t miss it.”

  Hump backed away. “Thanks for the smoke.”

  The kid giggled and closed the door.

  “All I need,” Art said when we reached the car and started down the road past the barn. “Two men with me and one has a bad hand and the other is stoned.”

  “Not yet,” Hump said. “But that lid I just bought is not part of any evidence for a bust. That is dynamite shit.”

  It was an old wagon road. There hadn’t been many cars on t
he road in a long time. Art drove slowly, trying to keep one set of wheels on the hump in the middle and the other set on the shoulder of the road. It was slow going and we did the last part on low beam. As soon as we could make out the shape of the tobacco barn in the distance, Art cut the engine and the lights. “We walk from here.”

  We got out of the car and stood looking at the barn. Hump sniffed and moved ahead of us about twenty yards. “Smell that?”

  “What?”

  “Dust kicked up. Somebody’s here before us.”

  “Another car?” Art asked.

  “Probably and not long ago.”

  “We split,” Art said. “Hump, you cover the woods along here. Find the car. If it’s the van, stay with it. If it’s something Beck or Charleston might be driving, fix it so it won’t move. Stay with it in case they sprint off from us.”

  “All right, but if you see Beck, run him in my direction.”

  We left him following the shoulder of the road nearest the woods. Art and I cut across into the field. It was a plowed and turned under field. The barn was diagonally ahead of us and there was a weak light inside. Probably a kerosene lamp or two. There hadn’t been any electric lines that we saw strung from the direction of the farm compound. And the road had followed the most direct route.

  About fifty yards from the barn I tripped over something and fell to my knees. I was lucky and fell on my right shoulder with the left hand up in the air and free. At first I thought I’d tripped on one of the high uneven furrows. Then I thought better of it. It had given a bit too much. Art came over and gave me a hand up. “Your flashlight, Art.” I got it and moved back a pace or two. I shielded the light as well as I could. A brief flick on, flick off told me all I wanted to know. A young kid sprawled on his stomach.

  Art moved around me and got one of his wrists. “No pulse.” He stood up. “Is it Edwin?”

  “I don’t know.” I hadn’t bothered to look. If it was, it didn’t matter. If it wasn’t, then that might be good news for Annie but bad news for the family of some other kid. Somehow there wasn’t any consolation in that.

  I found I was breathing too hard. I was getting tired of blood. My own and other people’s. Maybe it was a sign I was getting too old to cut it anymore but I had an urge to get out the .38 and make a run for the barn.

  “Easy, Jim.” Art read me and put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll do this the smart way or not at all. If anybody bleeds I want it to be them.”

  “Name it,” I said.

  “I think most of these barns were built to the same plan . . . if there was anything like a plan in those days. A main door . . . that’ll be facing the wagon road. Might be another door or a window at the back. Give me a count of fifty after you reach the back of the barn. I’ll be flat against the wall beside the door. If there’s a window, break it, a door, give it a kick. Nothing at all, kick the wall. Make some noise and flush them toward me. If they come toward you I’ll come in the front door and try to protect you.”

  “I hope the kids aren’t in there.”

  “That’s why I’d rather flush them,” Art said. “And watch yourself. There might be one inside and one outside. That’s the way I’d play it.”

  We said our “lucks” to each other and separated.

  I got to the rear of the tobacco barn without any trouble. The little trouble there was lay in trying to hit the high sides of the furrows and at the same time keep my eyes moving around the woods nearest to me. The one inside-one outside idea of Art’s scared the hell out of me. I knew, if that was the way they’d set it up, exactly which one would be outside. And he had no reason to like me and a few not to like me.

  It was a small rear window, probably just for ventilation on those hot days when they racked the stringed tobacco before they fired it. I moved close to the window and listened but there were no sounds from inside. I went on with my silent counting. I reached fifty and reversed the short barrel .38 and, leaning forward, smacked one of the glass panes with the butt. Even as the glass was clattering on the barn floor inside, I was falling away, getting out of the possible line of fire. I’d planned to do it gracefully, to fall on my back and let my rump take most of the shock. But my feet got tangled up in something and I was afraid to run the risk of falling on my right hand and possibly losing the .38. So, at the last minute, I took the shock on the forearm of my left hand. The forearm couldn’t take it and the gloved and lightly bandaged hand hit the almost frozen ground. The pain moved like a torch up my arm to my shoulder. Even with the pain I got the .38 reversed and the business end toward the window. About that time two shots reverberated within the barn, in the clay and mortar packing that sealed the joints between the logs. Glass broke in the window and sprinkled at my feet. I used my gun hand to push my way up. Behind me, as the boom of the shots died away, I thought I heard noises in the leaves but they were moving away. Perhaps an animal. At the same time I heard a cry and a grunt around the front of the barn. In the distance something was still running in the leaves and I thought, that’s Charleston, but I couldn’t go after him. I was probably needed more around at the front of the barn. I made the run around the barn in a wheezing gallop, trying to hit the high points and miss the deep places. I reached the front of the barn with the .38 at the ready and found Art sprawled here in the dim light from the partly opened door. Before I could check him I looked in the barn. Nothing there but huge mounds of marijuana stalks.

  I went back to Art and turned him. The only blood I could see was coming out of his nose. It covered his chin and ran down his mouth. Art wasn’t out, just stunned.

  “Art, you all right?”

  His eyes struggled to focus on me. “A fist . . . and a kick. Think it’s Beck. Headed for the car, down the road.”

  Before I could leave I had to be sure he was able to defend himself. I looked around and found his .38. I put it in his hand. “Watch yourself. Charleston might still be around.”

  “Get moving.” He coughed and splattered blood down his shirt.

  “Stay awake.” I gave him one more look and took off at a sprint down the road. I was breathing so hard from the run that all I could hear was the thumping of my heart and I might have missed it altogether if the thud and the grunt hadn’t been so loud. I turned my head and saw the opening then, where some saplings had been bent and broken. I made a move to follow the opening but caution told me not to and I went past it and made a circle.

  About 180 degrees into the circle I broke and edged inward and that was how I reached the clearing. There was just enough light to see the tan Mercury there and as I moved closer I could see Hump and Beck. I brought the .38 but I didn’t need it. Hump had George Beck backed up against the side of the Mercury and it was over or it could last another half an hour. Either way the outcome was the same. Hump was driving his fists deep into Beck’s belly and ribs and then as Beck would begin to slide Hump would drag him upright. As I watched Hump hit him again in the belly with the right and Beck coughed and spewed vomit all over the front of Hump’s jacket. The vomit was in a thin stream and it was hitting Hump all across the chest and arms but he didn’t pay any attention to it. He just kept pumping his fist into Beck and I watched it as long as I could and finally I stepped closer and said, “That’s enough, Hump.”

  Hump whirled and for a second I thought he was going to hit me. It was there, on a trigger, ready to spring, but he held it back. It was hard and white hot. I didn’t know how it was going to go and then Hump shook his head and mumbled, “He hasn’t said it’s enough yet.” But I think he knew it was because he stepped away and as Beck fell forward, Hump dipped a shoulder and hit him one more time. The fist hit him in the side of the neck and Beck fell on his side and twitched.

  The vomit smell up close was overpowering. “He hurt you?”

  Hump laughed. “That shit didn’t even hear the first one coming.”

  While we were leaning against the car getting our breath and looking down at Beck, Art came down the road with a handke
rchief to his nose. He took in the scene and rolled Beck over onto his stomach and put the cuffs on him.

  I shook my head at him. I didn’t think that busted bag of bones was going anywhere.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Within twenty minutes or so the Dairy was swarming with county and state police. A full search of the area around the tobacco barn turned up no more bodies. For a time I’d been afraid that one or two more of the kids might be sprawled in the field or the woods. From a driver’s license we found out that the one I’d stumbled over was Henry Harper, the boy whose father I’d visited the day after Jake’s death. The one who was in love with his house. Now there wasn’t anything to divide that love. After the funeral he could spend his free time thinking of next year’s painting chores, the leaves and pine needles collecting in the gutters and downspouts, a new kind of grass for next year’s re-seeding of the lawn.

  No trace of Charleston. He’d been too smart to head straight for the Mercury. It’d taken a hothead like Beck to do that. No, Charleston hadn’t headed for the car and he hadn’t headed for the highway. If he had to, he’d burrow in the woods like a fox and wait us out. The other four kids, Edwin and the remaining three, weren’t that smart. Within minutes after Art called the county police, they were picked up on the main highway. They tried to thumb a ride with the patrol car. Art asked that they be brought back to the Dairy for questioning.

  We stayed with a tall tale about being in hot pursuit of Beck and Charleston, that we’d followed them across county lines and lost them and then had found them again. The county cop, a man I’d met before and knew to be sensitive about violations of his territory, didn’t buy that completely. It had so many holes in it you had to buy it on faith. Still, we’d put a big drug bust in his lap, one he’d been frustrated on for some time, and though we hadn’t been able to prevent a murder, we had dropped the murderer or his accessory into the pot as well. It was give-and-take time and the county cop gave a bit. The “give” was that, after Art explained the four kids were wanted in Atlanta as robbery suspects, the county cop agreed to leave a wagon and two men with us while we questioned Edwin and his friends. Afterwards, his men would drive the four kids to the county line and turn them over to our wagon. It might not be to the letter of the law but it was functional.