by Phil Truman
After one such incident, when Gale came by to have some coffee, as had become his habit, she told him about it. They sat at the kitchen table sipping her freshly brewed coffee made from the Columbian Supremo Organic beans Sunny had ground that morning. (Gale told her, much to her gratification; that he preferred it to Jo Lynn’s brew down at Arlene’s.) He listened raptly for several minutes, but eventually couldn’t contain himself from bursting out laughing.
“Was that YOU?!” She stood up with her hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. Gale couldn’t answer he was laughing so hard, but he did manage to nod and throw up his arms to fend off the blows Sunny had started directing at his head.
“You big jerk!” she yelled at him as she flailed her fists at him. “I thought it was a prowler. If I’d had a gun I would’ve shot you!”
After that, she bought a gun, even though she didn’t much like guns. But living in a somewhat isolated location, residing more or less as a single woman, she thought it would be prudent to own one. In the back of her mind, Goat’s past and some of his old associations gave her a tinge of worry... well, more than worry, more like the willies. She didn’t think they could trace her out there, but you never knew.
She sought out White Oxley, because she knew he had an extensive knowledge of firearms. When she went to his house and told him she wanted his advice on buying a gun for protection, he looked at her, and asked, “You know anything about guns?”
Sunny shook her head “no.”
White nodded. Finally, he said, “Believe I got just what you need. C’mon.” From the front door, he led her through the house to a room at its center.
White paused to unlock the door and led Sunny across the room to a five-foot tall metal cabinet on the opposite wall, unlocking it. He looked over the shelves for a minute then pulled out a wooden box. He opened it and lifted out a silver-ish revolver with a walnut handle, holding it up so Sunny could look at it.
“This here’s a replica of an Army 357 six-shooter. It’s made by Beretta. Has a seven and a half inch barrel.” He handed it over to Sunny.
“It’s kind of heavy,” she said as it sagged in her grip.
“Yeah, that bad boy’s heavy, awright. I’m gonna have to teachya how to shoot it. Lessons is included in the price, of course.
“You say you want protection,” he went on. “This ’un will give you that. Not like some of them peashooters most gun stores like to sell to your women. And he’s loud. He’ll sure ’nuf stop anybody comin’ after ya. But I figger, even if you don’t hit nothin’ the noise’ll scare the piss out of ’em and run ’em off.”
Sunny bought the gun and took the lessons. She kept the gun in the top of her closet, when she wasn’t taking target practice, until about a year later. At about two one morning in early March, another commotion out around the barn awakened her. The chickens had started squawking and the goats bleated frantically.
Sunny got out of bed in a fury. “That damn Gale,” she muttered and went to the closet for her pistol. Gun in hand, she stomped to the back door and went out onto the wide porch.
“Hey!” she shouted standing there barefooted in her flannel nightgown. She held the revolver with both hands pointed at the ground in front of her.
The banging noises and fracas of the person or persons near the barn ceased, but the animals kept it up. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to shoot!” Sunny yelled. She waited. After about two minutes, the rummaging noises started up again. Sunny raised the revolver over her head and fired.
The boom from the pistol in the dead stillness seemed to crack the dark sky. Its echo rolled off into the night. Despite the ringing in her own ears, Sunny thought she heard the heavy footsteps of someone’s hasty retreat. Satisfied she’d gotten rid of the intruder, she returned to bed, but kept the gun on the nightstand next to her.
At their morning coffee she said to Gale, calmly, as she poured his cup, “I just want you to know, I’ve bought a gun, and the next time you pull that stunt, I’m going to shoot you. The first time you did this it scared me. Last night it just pissed me off. Can’t you just grow up?”
Gale had looked across the table at her with real alarm. “What happened last night?” he asked.
“Don’t give me that,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“You bought a gun?”
“Yes, I bought a gun. White Oxley sold it to me and he’s been teaching me how to use it. What do you think that was last night? I could’ve shot your sorry butt, but instead I just fired into the air. When are you going to stop with these juvenile pranks?”
“Sunny, I swear to God I wasn’t out here last night. I was at the casino ’til midnight. Then I went home and went to bed.”
Sunny looked at him with doubt, which started to fade a little when she saw the genuine concern in his eyes.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Same thing as last time. Lots of noise from the chickens and goats, then some rattling around out by the barn.”
“You been out there yet this morning?”
“No.”
“Let’s go take a look.” He got up from his chair and started for the door. She still wasn’t convinced of his innocence, but she got up and followed him out the back door.
They found a few things strewn about the barnyard—an old washtub, some hand tools, overturned planter boxes. A sack of chicken feed had been thrown onto the ground spilling its contents. The chickens, all eight of them, had gathered around the spilled feed feasting and chatting contentedly. Both the goats, on the other hand, cowered in the far corner of the stock pen attached to the barn. They remained skittish and nervous, their eyes wide, “blaaat”-ing with fear.
“Oh, Gale, look at this,” Sunny said as she knelt by the frightened goats and stroked their heads. “Why would you want to do this to these poor creatures.”
Gale/Punch, thirty feet away from her, looked around near a corner of the barn. “Sunny, I swear I didn’t...” he stopped and bent down to look at something on the ground.
“Dang,” he said in wonder. Then he said to Sunny, “Hey, come here and look at this.”
Sunny gave the terrified goats a few more motherly pats, then went to see what Gale had found. He squatted next to his find staring down at it.
“What is it?” Sunny asked.
Gale pointed to a very large bare footprint in the damp ground. Gale wore a size thirteen, triple E boot, and when he stood hovering one of them over the print, it outsized his booted foot two inches in width and some six inches or more in length. By the depth of the depression it appeared the owner of that foot weighed quite a bit.
Sunny crossed her arms across her chest and looked at Gale. “Did you do this?” she asked once again.
Gale looked downright frightened when she looked at him. “Sunny, I swear. I ain’t had no part in doin’ any of this.” He looked in the direction the footprint pointed and saw more evidence with the smashed foliage in the middle of Sunny’s herb garden. He looked off into the misty woods sixty or so yards from the back of the barn. “By God,” he said. “I think you really did have a visit from the Hill Man last night. Did you shoot at it?”
Sunny shook her head. “Well, if it wasn’t you, I bet it was that White Oxley. I bet you put him up to it.” She looked up at him with skepticism. “Or was he with you at the casino?”
* * *
White pulled his cell phone from a pocket of his flannel shirt and flipped it open with his right hand, keeping his left on the steering wheel. “Yea-low,” he said into the phone.
“White, this is Punch,” came the voice from the other end.
“Dang, boy. Why you calling me so early on a Saturday. I thought you’d still be in bed.”
“Where was you last night?”
White switched hands and ears with his cell phone. “Well, now, I don’t recall signing anything that said I’uz supposed to tell you my every move, but in the interest of neighborliness I’ll tell you I spent a quiet nig
ht with the missus watching TV.”
“What’re you doing right now?” Punch asked.
“I’m headed in to Arlene’s to have some breakfast. Why?”
“You think you could swing out here to the Buchanan place? I got something to show you.”
“Show me what?”
“Just come on out. I’ll show you when you get here. Don’t think you’ll want to miss this.”
White looked at his watch. “Well, awright,” he said with a sigh. “If it’s that important to you. Sunny got any coffee made?”
“Oh, she’s got coffee awright. You just get over here.”
“Awright, son. Be there in about ten minutes.
When White pulled into the drive, Sunny waited for him with a big white coffee mug in her hand. He slid his window down as he stopped his pickup next to where she stood. “Mornin’ Sunny,” he said.
“Mornin’ White.” She handed him the mug, handle first. “Gale said you wanted some coffee.”
Well, now. Thankee,” White said. “This some of that fancy Co-lumbial stuff Punch is always goin’ on about?”
Sunny smiled and nodded. White took a slurp and sighed loudly with gratification. “My, my,” he said, then squinted out through his dirty windshield. “Where is that boy? He said he had something he wanted to show me.”
“He’s out by the barn,” Sunny said heading around the front of the truck to the passenger side. “I’ll ride with you.”
White squatted by the footprint and studied it in silence. He stood and looked off towards the woods, squinting again. “Hill Man,” he finally said. Punch jerked a quick nod and looked back at Sunny with a smug smile, glad to have an expert corroborate his findings.
Sunny stood to the side while White made his examination. She shook her head and looked at the sky. When she saw Gale looking at her she rolled her eyes. “White, now tell me the truth. Did you make this footprint?”
White gave Sunny and Punch an astonished look. “What? Whadda you mean did I make it?” He held up his booted right foot. “How could I of did that?” he asked. White was a wiry, smallish man. His shoe size couldn’t have been more than a nine C.
“Well, maybe you have some kind of big plaster foot or something you can make these prints with? You know, to fool people.”
“Fool people?!” White went from puzzled to mad. “Why would I want to fool people about the Hill Man?”
“I don’t know.” Sunny answered. “It’s just... you and Gale like to tease and scare people... especially me, and I just thought—”
“Listen, missy,” White said. “If there’s one thing I don’t tease about it’s the Hill Man. I don’t need to go around making fake footprints to scare people. That sumbuck is real, and I got me a movin’ picture to prove it.”
“Oh, White,” Sunny said. “Now don’t get all worked up. It’s just... well. This Hill Man stuff has always seemed so silly to me. I’ve always considered it some kind of hoax.”
“Well, now, let me tell you something,” White said. He looked her square in the eye and shook his finger at her. “That Hill Man ain’t no hoax. I’ve come in contact with him too many times for him to be a hoax.
“No, sir. Now you need to know how to use that pistol you got from me, and keep practice shootin’ it. You need to be able to protect yourself; a woman like you out here all by herself.” White looked at Punch. Punch looked at the sky.
“I did fire it last night,” she said. She sounded a little defensive.
“You think you hit it?” asked White.
“No, I fired into the air. It’s like you said. I think the noise scared it... him... or whomever, off.”
White continued. “If the Hill Man was here once, more’n likely he’ll come back. Must be something here he’s interested in.” He looked over at the little stock pen.
Sunny considered the two men as they continued to look about the barnyard, with those serious and concerned looks on their faces. But she didn’t buy any of it.
* * *
A little over three weeks past Sunny’s barnyard meeting with Gale and White, she started into her kimchi making. White was right about her needing to protect herself, but she didn’t think it was the Hill Man she needed to worry about. No, whatever had been out at her barn that night were more likely real men, not the Hill Man.
Something had been gnawing at Sunny ever since Buck’s death. The day he died, and about three hours before Jo Lynn called her with the news, Goat had called her sounding somewhat distraught. He’d told her he was leaving town.
“Leaving town?” she repeated. “Where’re you going?”
“I don’t know, babe. I just got to get out of here.”
“Well, are you coming back?” The old cold loneliness enveloped her heart. She was an eleven-year-old girl again, hearing her father say goodbye.
“I don’t think I am, darlin’. I may head out to California to see if I can locate your mom.”
“What happened, Goat,” she asked plaintively. “What’s wrong?”
There was a hesitation at the other end. Then he said, “It’s just the company I’m keeping, Sunny. I’ve got to get away or I’m going to end up back in prison. And the next time, I’m thinking it’ll be for good.
Sunny didn’t know her dad’s associates very well. She’d met them one time, a couple of years back. One was a giant, dark, scary-looking guy with a shaved head and multiple tattoos. The other was a creepy little guy who openly leered at her. Both of them exuded badness, and she immediately disliked them.
Sunny closed her eyes, and thought the worst. “Goat, are you doing drugs again?” She had visions of convenience store heists and backroom meth lab operations.
“Naw, Sunny. I ain’t into that again, I promise,” Goat said. “I just think it’d be best if I moved on.”
Sunny and Goat each kept their phones to their ears for a while in silence, neither knowing what to say next.
“Sunny,” Goat said at last. “You got to promise me you won’t ever make any contact with the two guys I been working with.”
Sunny waited a few seconds before she answered. “No problem there, Goat. Why would I even want to?”
“I don’t know. None, I guess. I just wanted to tell you... well, they’re bad news; the worst kind. Just stay the hell away from them, that’s all.”
Sunny felt a shiver and sudden fear. “Okay,” she said.
After she hung up with Goat, she spent the next twenty minutes making sure all the windows and doors in her apartment were securely locked. Goat’s call had really spooked her. During her brief stays with Goat and Squeaky, she’d been around all kinds of unsavory characters, but none had ever seemed a threat to her.
She curled up on one corner of her sofa with Cornflakes and Igor to watch TV, keeping the volume low, listening for even the slightest sounds of intrusion. A couple of hours later, when the phone rang again, she jumped, causing the cats to leap away from her.
The caller ID on her cell phone displayed Buck and Lorene’s number. “Hello,” she answered with relief.
“Hello, Sunny,” a woman’s voice said. “This is Jo Lynn Roundstep.”
A sudden chill went through Sunny’s heart. The thought, “Mom’s had a stroke,” crossed her mind.
“Hi, Jo Lynn. Is everything all right?”
“Well, no, it ain’t, hon. I’m afraid Buck’s had an accident.”
“What happened?” Sunny’s heart sank. “Is he alright?”
“No,” Jo Lynn answered. The weep in her voice was unmistakable to Sunny. “He’s... He’s passed on, Sugar.”
As she spent the time mixing up all the kimchi ingredients and its sauce, Sunny recalled that night with crystal clarity, its memory having that property that makes them so when life-altering events take place. It was the only time in her life she could remember Jo Lynn being nice to her. Funny how she thought of that. At the time, she made no association with Goat’s leaving and Buck’s death, but as time went by, she started to wonder. S
he had heard some talk that Buck’s accident wasn’t really an accident. At one point, about a year after Buck’s death, she went to the sheriff’s office and asked for a copy of the coroner’s report. It stated very clearly that the cause of Buck’s death had been blunt trauma to the head.
When Sunny talked to Sheriff Bluehorse about it, he admitted that, yes, there was a possibility that there had been foul play, but there wasn’t much evidence to support it. He hadn’t been robbed, there was no sign of a struggle, and they found nothing at or near the scene that could be identified as a murder weapon. He very likely, the sheriff pointed out, could’ve fallen from the tractor and hit his head on something before the implement ran over him.
If that was the case, Sunny had pointed out, how come the tractor was stopped and the motor switched off not more than ten feet past his body? The sheriff nodded for a few seconds and finally acknowledged he didn’t have a good answer for that. Sunny nodded back, then thanked the man and left.
She had mixed emotions about the whole thing. On the one hand, she wanted to seek justice and a resolution to Buck’s murder, that is, if he had been murdered. On the other hand, she kind of feared pursuing it any further with the authorities, because the trail to Buck’s killer very possibly could lead straight to Goat.
Thinking back on their last phone conversation, there was no mistaking Goat’s agitation, nor his eagerness to get the hell out of Dodge. She really didn’t want to think that he had been involved in Buck’s death, but she couldn’t help remembering how he wanted to go find the lost treasure of Belle Starr, and the key was getting the Ed Reed letter. Getting that letter from Buck would certainly seem like a good motive for a murder to take place, but Buck had made a photocopy of the letter and sent it to Goat encouraging him to have a happy hunt. Why would Goat want to kill Buck if he already had the letter? It just didn’t make any sense.
Sunny decided it didn’t take a great leap to figure out Goat probably didn’t act alone in any murder. In fact, she convinced herself, he probably didn’t have anything to do with it. Remembering Goat’s entreaty to stay away from his two co-workers, and remembering the gut fear she had when she first meet them, it wasn’t hard to imagine they were the real perpetrators. She pictured a scene where the big scary guy and the little creep confronted Buck trying to get more information out of him, then killed the sweet old man. She hoped Goat tried to stop them.
