Spirit Trap (The Dutch Curridge Series Book 3)

by Tim Bryant

  "You should've asked me for some quotes," I said. "That would've made it even better."

  She rolled her eyes and looked to her co-worker for support, but she was uninterested.

  "You're right," she said. “I should have. But I wanted to keep Werner the focus of that article. Maybe I should write another one about how you went in an entirely different direction than Sheriff King and got to the truth."

  She was pushing my buttons.

  "I never follow anybody," I said, "but if I was going to follow anyone, it damn sure wouldn't be Sheriff King."

  That wasn't what she was looking for.

  "You know I can't print that."

  I tried again.

  "Sheriff King looks for answers you can print. Answers that make him look good. He looks for the truth, but I look for the damn truth. You can't always print the damn without getting into trouble."

  I was playing to the room. In particular, I was trying to win the heart of the lady in the corner. Even if she was still hiding behind her book, I counted it as a small victory.

  "Better," Ruthie Nell said, "but we still can't print it."

  If they couldn't print that, I was pretty sure they wouldn't go for, "I murdered and ate the wild boar hog that ate Werner Athey, and then I was able to see what really happened." Which was just as truthful as anything else said.

  Later on, I was discussing this same answer with James Alto, the Tonkawa Indian, and he wasn't as quick to laugh as Ruthie might have been.

  "There is something to be said for that, Dutch," he said. "When you think about it, in ingesting the wild boar, you also, in a sense, ingested your friend Werner Athey. If not physically, at least you absorbed some of his spirit. Spirit has a way of leading us to the truth."

  I never knew what to make of him when he talked like that. He knew I liked it, but I never could tell if he was putting me on or he really believed it. As for me, I believed it as much as anything and more than most.

  Sitting in the Star-Telegram office that day, Ruthie Nell and I finally settled on this:

  Alvis 'Dutch' Curridge was able to break the case by ignoring what people were saying and listening instead to the evidence.

  I didn't love it, but it was good enough to get under the craws of Sheriff King and Lieutenant Mitchell, and that was good enough for me.

  Ruthie clocked back in halfway through her sandwich, on account of it becoming a working lunch, and, after that, she was heading over to the courthouse. Retrieving records for some upcoming article. The courthouse was on the corner of Brown's Mule Square, just a stone's throw from Peechie Keen's Bar & Kanteen. I was going that direction, so I couldn't resist.

  "I'm headed to Peechie's for the afternoon special," I said. "Care to stop off for a drink or two?"

  If she was any kind of reporter at all—and she was—she had to have seen it coming.

  "Peechie's has no afternoon special," she said.

  I had set my own trap.

  "If you were there, they would."

  If Ruthie Nell had declined me, I'm fairly certain I could have taken the lady with the book at that point. Miraculously, Ruthie agreed to it, but only for half an hour. We traveled in separate automobiles, but we were going to the same place. I switched on the radio and tuned in WBAP. Lefty Frizzell was spinning, but it was "I'm An Old Old Man Trying To Live While I Can." One thing I didn't feel was old. I spun the dial down to KNOK. "Earth Angel" by The Penguins. It was a brand new song, but I already loved it. It sounded great coming over my radio, and everything looked good through my windshield. I was driving into the future, and it was the only right direction.

  40

  They had a funeral for Werner Athey a week later at the same church where they'd eulogized the other members of his family. The other one still recent enough in my memory that his casket looked small and lonely up there by itself. The casket itself was closed, of course, due to it holding only a set of bones, and I couldn't help thinking that it was a waste of space, as he likely could have been buried in a tackle box and still had room for hooks and sinkers.

  Albertine Athey's drunk brother didn't make it to Werner's send-off, but Reverend Featherstone did, and he recycled parts of the earlier talk, although I guess that could be overlooked considering the circumstances. More people in general came out for Werner, which didn't seem right to me. Then again, a lot of musicians felt like the needed to put in an appearance, just so the other musicians would show up when it was their turn. And I'm fairly certain that a number of people showed up just to see if they could get a good look at what was left of Werner, seeing as all manner of rumors had been circulating. He was in pieces, he was nothing but bones, he had teeth marks of some kind of beast all over him. Everything was true and none of it, and they all hoped they might be able to see it with their own two eyes, so they could tell their children and grandchildren all about it one day.

  All of the surviving Cowtown Jazzbillies were there, as were The Richland Scramblers. The two bands joined together in the little Methodist church to play and sing "It Is Better Farther On" by The Carter Family and "Shining City Over The River," and then they led everybody in "I'll Fly Away" and "Everybody Ought To Love Jesus" and "Tell Me The Old, Old Story."

  Got me to thinking. From everything I had gathered, that old, old story is a story of blood, and it ain't just Jesus' blood either. It's a story of murder and lies and all kinds of deception. A story of violence and evil where it should have been love. Darkness and depravity where it could have been angels and harps and clouds.

  For all the preaching and praying, maybe things haven't really changed all that much. We still like a good story, and most of the time, we don't really care if it's true or not, long as it holds our attention and makes us feel like we're better off than the people down the street.

  Listening to the music there, I couldn't help notice the fiddle by its absence. Seemed like, even with all the musicians huddled around in a semi-circle, there was a hole where the fiddle was supposed to be. The fiddle continued to stand out in its absence for several days after that. Then, one day, a colored boy that lived on the back side of White Settlement Road told his uncle he'd found a fiddle way up in an oak tree. His uncle, a man named Archie Peck, called Wiley King. Later that afternoon, Wiley sent two of his deputies up that tree to fetch the fiddle. Wiley told me it was at least sixty, seventy foot up that tree, wedged in between two branches in such a way, it would have taken a hurricane wind to dislodge it.

  There wasn't a question in the world who it belonged to, because, on the back of the fingerboard, just below the tuning pegs, was the engraved initials WPA.

  "It's either Werner's or else it was given out by Roosevelt during the Depression," Wiley King said. I was willing to bet which it was. What I never could figure out was whether Werner had climbed up to the top of that damn tree with it and left it behind or tossed it up there in a fit of despair. If he did, it was a hell of a pitch.

  I went out there and looked around and judged it to be more like forty foot, which was still plenty impressive. Still, I had a sneaking suspicion Werner gave it to somebody, maybe one of the hobos down in the train yard, maybe one of those little colored boys that lived nearby, and they climbed up the tree. Maybe they were chased up in it by a hog or a bear. Maybe they sat up there and played a tune on it. I just don't know that old Werner could have made it that far into the sky, even if something was on his trail.

  Noble Whitaker wasn't the only one who told this story about the fiddle.

  "That man put the fiddle up in that tree so the wind would play it. Way I heard it, he done that before he went and tied hisself to that tree and got hisself killed. That way, when his ghost come back down the track the way it does, it can hear that fiddle playing in the wind, up in that tree. That's what he's looking for. He's listening for that fiddle."

  "You really believe that, Noble?" I said.

  He wasn't the only one who did. Verbal did too. Lots of people down around that area. They swore
it was still up there too. Wouldn't believe anybody had climbed up and brought it down if you read it to them straight out of the sheriff's report.

  People believe what they want to believe. I'm no different. I wish I could believe in a world where people didn't turn on themselves, where they didn't give themselves over to their own worst inclinations. I might say I don't want to believe that, but my experience tells me different. At Werner Athey's funeral, Reverend Featherstone said something interesting. He said, "I choose to believe in a world where good conquers evil. I choose to believe in a world where a man like Werner Athey rises up against the beast that means to do him in and slays him."

  My experience tells me that Reverend Featherstone is a fool for choosing to believe that. It may work some of the time, but that doesn't mean it works all the time. If I could give Ruthie Nell parker one last quote for her newspaper article, it would be the same thing I would give the reverend for his sermon. It would go something along these lines.

  We don't fight onward until victory. We fight until certain death. Victories are only good for prolonging the battle a little longer, prolonging our days. Not so we have more days to wake up and fight again, but so we have more time to do the things that make the fighting worth it.

  So says El Mocho the Maimed. So says Alvis 'Dutch' Curridge.

  About the Author

  Tim Bryant published his first novel DUTCH CURRIDGE in 2010, and followed it with two more in the series: SOUTHERN SELECT in 2013 and SPIRIT TRAP in 2014. He was named one of the Top Five Texas Authors of 2014 by BookPeople in Austin, TX. His fifth novel CONSTELLATIONS was released by Behooven Press in April of 2015. His short story "Doll's Eyes" was included in Subterranean Press' IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS anthology.

  Tim also writes and records music, having released albums under his own name, 2Take Tim, Othy and with the international band Ramshackle Day Parade.

  He says his heart lives in New Orleans, his head in East Texas. He currently resides with his head and visits his heart whenever possible. He shares his living space with his wife Leela and their two kids.

  Read more at Tim Bryant’s site.