She thought of saying something then, but didn’t want to get John involved in family business. She figured to make them pay by taking the kids to next week’s revival. Seven nights of preaching would get her point across and wouldn’t hurt them none.
Ned watched a hawk land on a limb holding up Top’s tree house. “Those kids running around with John could cause some troubles down the road.”
“I studied on that, but I don’t see much difference in them over at Rachel’s, or across the creek like they wanted to do last week to eat with that Comanche family that moved into the Simmons’ place.”
Ned rubbed his bald head and slapped at a mosquito. “Indians is different than colored.”
“We’re all the same past the skin. I believe my flesh looks like John’s, when it’s cut, and yours too. It didn’t bother us when we got married.”
He studied Miss Becky and realized the little Choctaw woman was right. A lot of people raised their eyebrows when they traded vows back in 1920. The Indian wars were only forty years past. In fact, the last Indian attack came four years after they married, and a lot Texans had long memories.
Ned enjoyed the lightning bugs flickering over the yard in the gathering dusk. “What are you doing with all them pears in there on the table?”
“The Wilson boys brought ’em by this morning. They picked ’em somewhere down in the bottoms, and gave me five bushels for a couple of quarts of preserves when they’re made.”
“They probably stole from somebody’s yard tree is what happened.”
“It ain’t my place to say. The Lord will take his vengeance if they’re stole, but it looks to me like we’re getting a reward for His goodness. I called Norma Faye and Samantha, they’re fixin’ to come over in a little bit and I’m gonna show ’em how to can.”
“Then I’ll probably need to be somewhere else.” In the distance, a car hissed on the highway. It was moving fast, and the still air transmitted the sound as if it were only yards away.
Miss Becky stopped shelling and waited. Ned quit rocking on the springy metal chair and leaned forward. Despite their elevation, the sycamore in the corner of the yard and thick underbrush lining the barbed wire fence prevented him from seeing the oncoming car.
Ned’s sixth sense kicked in. Something was up, because the car didn’t slow as it neared the bend around their hill. The old lawman planted his feet, almost as if he expected to launch himself upright.
A battered two-door Ford Crestline hove into view, bouncing on worn out springs. Running wide open, the car passed the corral near Cody’s house, and the driver almost immediately hit the brakes. For once, Ned stood without a grunt. It was obvious the driver was going to turn into their drive, and he hoped he’d slow enough to make it.
Almost out of control, the faded, once-blue car slid across the oncoming lane toward Ned’s gravel drive.
Miss Becky stood upright, the pan full of shelled peas in her lap spilling unnoticed into the grass. “Dear God, they’re not going to make it!”
Tires squalled until they left the concrete, and then scattered red gravel in a wide spray before skating across the slick grass. It almost struck the sycamore, but bounced to a stop only thirty feet from the startled constable. The smell of burned rubber filled the air as dust rolled across the lawn.
Recognizing the driver, Ned started for the car, his face flushed. “Tommy, what the hell are you doing!?”
Tommy Davis launched himself from behind the wheel and raced around the front, frantic after the hell on wheels drive from their farm in Razor, ten miles west. His shirt was wet and bloody. “We need to get to a doctor now!”
Ned trotted toward him when he realized the man was neither drunk nor crazy. “What fer? How bad you hurt?”
“It ain’t neither of us!” Tommy’s round wife, Dot, struggled out of the car with their youngest child in her arms. The little one was limp and white as a sheet. The colorful patchwork cotton blanket wrapped around the little girl was saturated with blood.
“She drank lye!”
“How long ago!?” Miss Becky shouted.
“A while. She’d thowed up and was laying in the barn when I found her and then and I couldn’t find Tommy and I made her thow up some…” Dot flipped the little girl face down in her arms and started to stick her finger down the child’s throat.
“Don’t!” Miss Becky hurried toward them, holding out her hands “It’ll burn the little thing even more.”
The look on Dot’s face would stay with Miss Becky until the day she went to Glory. “Becky, she’s bleedin’ through her stomach!”
Ned ran on painful knees toward his sedan parked by the house. “I’m comin’ around! We ain’t got time to wait for no ambulance!”
Miss Becky stopped beside Dot, struggling hard not to take the little girl. She put her hand on the child’s cold forehead. “Hurry Ned! Her eyes is rolled back!”
Seeing Ned’s running speed, Tommy couldn’t stand it. He snatched the limp six-year-old from Dot and raced up the drive.
Ned was already behind the wheel. The car roared to life and he slammed it into reverse, then shoved it into first gear and met Tommy and Dot on the drive. He pulled up hard on the gravel. Tommy yanked the back door open. Dot fell inside, and he piled in after her.
Ned pointed his finger at Miss Becky. “We’re gone to Chisum!” He twisted the wheel and grabbed up the handset from the dash. “Martha! This Ned! Holler at St. Joseph’s hospital and have them ready for me to bring in a baby that’s drank lye.”
Harriet Stover answered the call. Martha was already home for the night. “I’ll do it, Ned.” He didn’t pay any attention to the different voice. The engine roared when he stomped the pedal to the floor and shot away toward Chisum.
Chapter Forty-three
Cody and John Washington had their own hands full in the twilight not far from the Texas/Oklahoma border. A 1960 Dodge pickup lay on its side across the northbound lane. More than a dozen field hands thrown from the open bed lay scattered across the two lane highway and grassy ditch. Some moved weakly, but most lay still, claimed by death.
Over a dozen cars idled in the lane behind Cody’s El Camino, their headlights illuminating the scene in a harsh glare. The first to arrive rendered what little assistance they could in the failing light and moved among the moaning victims, draping quilts, tarps, and even ’toe sacks over the dead. More vehicles clotted behind the accident.
A highway patrol car stopped the remaining traffic with its flashing lights, joining the wreck to completely jam the highway. Slowed by the backup out of Oklahoma, John’s Ford took to the shallow ditch when he couldn’t find a way around the jam, lights and siren wailing his advance.
When he reached the scene, John pulled back onto the pavement. He joined Cody as he knelt beside a still body. “What happened?”
Cody patted a young man on the shoulder. “They’ll be here in a minute, Wade. Hang on.” Blood reached to the rolled-up cuffs at his elbows. He stood and wiped his hands with a piece of torn shirt. “Wade was driving. He told me they were coming home from the field when a blue four-door sedan came shooting off that dirt road there.” He pointed back at a strip of dirt angling between pastures to intersect with the southbound lane. “They had it wide open and didn’t even slow down. Wade swerved to miss him, but they clipped him anyway. With all the weight in the back, he lost control and flipped over. It threw Wade out and rolled on top of some of ’em.”
John wanted to help, but there were plenty of people tending the injured. “What kind of sedan?”
“Said it was a blue Chev-a-lay. They were heading toward Chisum when they saw this patrol car here coming at ’em, so they took that dirt road over yonder. That officer there only found out what happened when someone told him.”
“What model was it?”
“Fifty two or three.”
“He ra
dio it in?”
“Yep, but he couldn’t chase ’em by then, and neither could anybody else with all this in the way.” Cody looked past John at two Chisum ambulances bypassing the back-up and rushing toward them in the empty southbound lanes. “I’m afraid they got clean away, for the time being.”
The ambulances squalled to a halt as close to the victims as possible. Four men bolted from the vehicles and paused at the carnage. Two of the attendants rushed to the rear of the vehicle to get stretchers and supplies. One of the drivers threw up his hands. “They’re niggers.”
John’s intention was clear when he squared his thick shoulders.
Cody stepped between them. “John.” He held out his hand to stop the furious deputy and turned to the driver. “I don’t know who you are, buddy, but these folks are hurt and dying. We don’t have time to wait for help from Travers and Williams funeral home. If you don’t start getting the worst of these people on stretchers, I’m gonna commandeer those ambulances and take them ourselves, and by God, John here’ll start the ball rolling.”
Cody recognized the driver of the second ambulance. The man took one look at the steaming deputy’s hooded eyes and made the right decision. “Partridge, he means it, and we need to help these folks. Cody, who’s hurt the worst?”
“Thanks, Gerald.” He pointed. “That man right there.” The former World War II medic immediately knelt to find a gaping wound in the victim’s head beneath a crude bandage. “You ain’t a-kiddin’.”
The others reluctantly moved past the big deputy who stood like a tree amidst the chaos. None met his flashing eyes.
A young highway patrol officer also bypassed the stack-up and coasted to a stop beside cars parked every which way. He joined them and averted his eyes from the sight of bulging brains. “What’n hell happened here?”
John’s quiet voice brought the skinny deputy up to speed. Their soft conversation was almost surreal amidst the carnage. Cody saw worse in Vietnam, but not by much. The humid air reminded him of that green country and felt wet enough to wring out gallons of water. He wiped sweat from his eyebrows as John gave him a description of the car.
The deputy’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “I’ll put out an APB and add that the driver’s side of the Chevrolet’ll have some damage.”
“It’s worth a try.” Cody’s gaze wandered over the scene as cars and pickup trucks continued to mass around the accident scene.
The traffic situation deteriorated as the backup stretched in both directions. The northbound shoulder jammed as cars attempted to weave around the wreckage and into the grassy ditch bordered by a barbed wire fence. They soon found themselves blocked by the deep incline and were unable to back up in the soft sand.
In frustration, Cody waved his arms for them to stop. The skinny young officer waded into the grass and chiggers to straighten the traffic snarl.
A speeding sedan bouncing along the shoulder beside the blocked southbound lane caught Cody’s attention. He squinted and recognized Ned’s new Plymouth. “Goddlemighty. He ought not be driving so fast this late in the game. We already have this in hand.”
John stepped on the painted yellow line, peering over the cars and trucks. “What’s he doing?”
“Looks like trouble.” Cody moved around Wade and his patient. “He needs to slow down.”
At that moment, the red spotlight mounted on the Ned’s doorpost came to life. The red light quickly nodded up and down as Ned worked the handle on the inside of the door. His headlights switched from low to high, as he stomped the dimmer switch in the floor.
“Goddlemighty! He ain’t coming here to help.” Cody raced to the shoulder. “John, help me!”
The big deputy chased Cody, frantically waving his flashlight. The only way around the stalled traffic on that side was through the shallow ditch. “Oh, Lordy, I hope there ain’t nothing hid in that grass!”
Weeds slapped the undercarriage as Ned’s tires threw up a rooster-tail of debris. He swung wide around the cars, coming dangerously close to the thick line of trees bordering the highway.
“Goddlemighty!” Cody stopped in shock as Ned’s car roared past. In the blink of an eye, Cody registered Ned’s grim expression and the white-faced couple in the backseat with a bundle lying across their laps. “Somebody’s laying across them folks in the backseat!” He turned toward his car and the radio.
Ned cut back onto the highway, fishtailed on the concrete as he regained control, and once again punched the accelerator.
“Cody, was it any of us?” John was out of position to see into the car.
The young constable paused, instantly understanding the meaning. “I couldn’t tell.” He jogged to the El Camino and reached through the open window as a stretcher passed on the way to the ambulance. “Hang on, Wade. You’ll be at the hospital before you know it.” He keyed the mike. “Harriet.”
“Go ahead, Cody.”
“Ned just flew past us on the way to town and I didn’t want to radio him as fast as he’s driving. You have any idea who’s in the car with him?”
“Yep. Some kid there in Center Springs drank lye and he’s taking her to the hospital.”
Cody relaxed a little. He knew Top and Pepper were too old to mistake lye for something good to drink.
“Cody, I was fixin to call you anyway. Judge O.C. wants to talk with you right now. Hold on.” They waited for the Judge.
“Cody.”
“Yessir.”
“Y’all need to get home as quick as you can.”
Fear gripped both men at the same time. “Can you say why?”
“I can, but I won’t. Just that I got a phone call and Becky wants you there pretty quick. Everyone’s all right, but go as soon as you can.”
Cody surveyed the carnage behind them. “It might be a while.”
“Don’t take too long.”
“We need to git.” Cody wiped sweat from his forehead and keyed the microphone. “All right, Judge. Harriet, we need a lot more cars and ambulances out here in front of the army camp. This is a mess.”
Ominous thunderheads towered over Oklahoma, reaching fifty thousand feet in the air.
Chapter Forty-four
In the gathering dusk, three frustrated hit men sweltered while cicadas sang from the nearby trees.
Michael stuck his elbow out the car window and angled his head to find the source of the backup. He slapped the steering wheel and inched through the congestion. “I hate this hick state. This is October. It’s supposed to be cool and I’m sweating like a pig.”
In the backseat, Nicky met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Whatsamatta? We got traffic like this in Kansas City.”
“But it ain’t out in the sticks. We get stuck in city traffic, sometimes we can go around it on the side streets. Here, you gotta follow this one stinkin’ road through the boonies, and look where it led us.” Michael glanced out the window at a pasture. “Cows. Cows and trees.”
“So turn around.”
A steady stream of cars finally rolled in their direction. The southbound backup disappeared into the distance toward Oklahoma. There were no gaps as far as Michael could see. “And go where? The map shows we’re only ten miles away.”
Johnny Machine checked over his shoulder. “Back up and let’s try anyway.”
Headlights fill the interior. Michael tilted the rearview mirror to get the light out of his eyes. “There’s a car right on our bumper.”
“I’ll get out and tell them to move.” The Machine yanked the handle on the front passenger door. “Guy oughta have more sense than to bright ya like that.”
“Careful, in this hick state. All these people are armed.” Nicky chuckled. “For all you know, it could be Agrioli back there and he’ll shoot you in the face when you open the door.”
“Don’t matter.” Michael twirled a finger in the air. “
By the time we go halfway around the world to find that house, we’ll be lost. This is the best way, and it’ll clear up soon. Relax.”
“So howdoya’ know where we’re goin’?”
Michael shrugged. “Simple. I used the phone book and called every number in the county that belonged to a constable. There’s a list of ’em in the Government Section. They all know who’s coming in and out of their towns. When I called the one for Center Springs, some kid answered, and when I asked if he knew Tony Agrioli, the kid said sure, that he’d moved into a house behind the country store.”
“Where were we?”
“You were all asleep. Your snoring was so loud, I had to use the pay phone hanging outside the motel office. I went through an ass-load of dimes before I got the right place.”
Nicky chuckled. “Wouldn’t-a been able to do that in Kansas City. Nobody woulda talked to ya.”
Michael shook a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. “That’s for sure. Looks like everybody trusts everybody out here.”
“It makes our job easier.” Seeing Michael’s cigarettes, Nicky unconsciously shook out one of this own.
The Machine pushed in the dashboard lighter until it clicked. “So, these other guys outta Dallas. What’s the deal with them?”
“I talked to them a long time on the phone, and they’re all right. We do the job, they’re insurance. We go in, badda boom, badda bing, and we’re outta here and on the way for a week in Vegas.”
The lighter popped out and the Machine lit his, passed it to Michael, and offered it over the backseat. Nicky shook his head. “Uh uh. Three on a match. That’s bad luck.”
The Machine looked disgusted. “This is a lighter, dummy. Don’t be superstitious. Light the damn thing.”
Nicky flicked his Zippo open. “It don’t hurt to be careful. There ain’t no need to take chances.”
The Machine snickered. “So these other guys. You think they’re stuck in this traffic jam with us?”
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