Bitch Creek

by Tapply, William

  He glanced over at the sheriff and saw that Ralph was sitting beside him. The sheriff was scratching Ralph’s ears and talking with him, gazing off into the distance where a hawk was cruising on the thermals. Ralph was staring up at the gray sky with his ears perked up, which meant that he saw the hawk, too, and was wishing he could fly so he could chase it.

  Calhoun rolled the fieldstone away from the patch of bare earth and began scooping it out. Under the top layer of dirt were three softball-sized rocks. Calhoun guessed that whoever had dug it up and filled it in again had removed something and had used those rocks to occupy the space. He pulled out the rocks and dug some more.

  Then he saw something glittering in the bottom of the hole. He reached in, picked it up, and blew the dirt off it.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn it was a gold nugget. It was squarish but irregular in shape and rounded off on the corners, about the size of a half-worn pencil eraser. Without his fly-tying glasses, he couldn’t examine it too closely. But it certainly looked like gold.

  “What’ve you got there, Stoney?”

  He turned. The sheriff was standing behind him, frowning.

  Calhoun held out his palm, showing him the little nub of gold. “I struck gold, I think.”

  Dickman squatted down and looked at it. “Looks like gold, all right.” He picked it up, squinted at it, shrugged, and dropped it back into Calhoun’s hand. “Well, I guess all kinds of things—maybe even gold jewelry—would fall to the ground when an old farmhouse burns down.”

  Calhoun squinted at the little hunk of gold. “I bet it’s been here since forty-seven. Looks like it melted in the fire.”

  The sheriff shrugged.

  Calhoun dropped the nugget into his pocket. “It looks like somebody was digging here,” he said. “The earth was freshly dug.”

  “Where you just dug, you mean?” said the sheriff.

  Calhoun nodded. “Sorry. I should’ve showed it to you first.”

  “Yes, you should’ve.” The sheriff was staring down at the place where Calhoun had been digging. “Wonder if Fred Green came up here after he plugged Lyle.”

  “I was wondering that myself,” said Calhoun.

  “Well, we’re not going to figure that out by standing here and talking about it.” The sheriff glanced at his watch. “We better head back, before you dig the whole place up.”

  Calhoun pushed himself to his feet. “Damn sorry about this,” he said. “I swear I saw that foot. Don’t know what to make of it, and that’s the truth.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Stoney. I’d rather stroll through the woods on a rainy afternoon than push papers around my desk any day.”

  When they got back to the Explorer, Dickman said, “Let’s see if Anna and David saw anything last night.”

  He drove up the Rosses’ driveway. When they got out and slammed the doors, Anna came out the back door, wiping her hands on a towel.

  She nodded at them. “Afternoon, boys.”

  “Afternoon, Anna,” said the sheriff.

  “You fellas’ve been busy across the street.”

  “It’s a crime scene, Anna,” said the sheriff. “You know how that works.”

  “Just from TV.” She shrugged. “Do you usually visit crime scenes at midnight?”

  “Sometimes we do. Did we disturb you?”

  “Car doors slammin’ and bangin’ in the middle of the night when normal folks’re trying to sleep? ’Course you disturbed us.”

  “I stopped by earlier in the evening last night,” said Calhoun. “Needed your phone. The house was dark.”

  She frowned. “What time might that’ve been?”

  “Oh, nine, nine-thirty.”

  “David and I went to a movie.”

  “What time did you get home?” said the sheriff.

  She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you asking?”

  “I was just wondering if any vehicles might’ve stopped across the street before our cavalcade arrived last night.”

  “Well, we got back around eleven, and we didn’t see nothin’ then. What’s goin’ on, Sheriff?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. David’s not around?”

  “Nope. Said he’d be back for supper. You boys want some coffee?”

  The sheriff smiled. “Thanks, but no, Anna. Got to get back to the office.” He turned to Calhoun. “You ready to hit the road?”

  Calhoun nodded.

  “Sorry to bother you, Anna,” said the sheriff. “Anything you see going on down here, I sure do want to know about it.”

  “You can count on it,” she said.

  Calhoun and Dickman got back into the Explorer. They went down the Rosses’ driveway and headed back toward Dublin.

  “I’d like to know what you’re thinking about all this,” said Calhoun.

  Dickman shrugged. “I think you think you saw something. I think you were wrong. You been through a lot, my friend. Hell, anybody’s mind can play tricks on ’em once in a while. Look—don’t you worry about what I think. What I think doesn’t matter. We’ll figure this out, and when we do, everything’ll make sense.” He reached over and gripped Calhoun’s shoulder. “You’ve already done a helluva lot, and I appreciate it.”

  Calhoun nodded. “I hope you’ll keep me informed.”

  “’Course I will.” He was silent for a minute, then said, “What happened to Lyle isn’t your fault, Stoney.”

  “The hell it’s not,” said Calhoun.

  He thought of driving up to Craigville to talk with the lady at The Lobster Pot motel. But it was already close to suppertime, and he found he’d lost his spirit for sleuthing around. He was confused and a little frightened by what seemed to be happening to his mind. The sheriff, despite what he said, didn’t quite trust him, and all he wanted was to be alone for a while.

  So he took Ralph for a long walk through the wet woods, following Bitch Creek to its origin at the spring seeps on the hillside, and he took a different way back, bushwhacking where there were no paths except those made by deer, and not once did he spot any feet sticking out of the earth.

  He spent the evening fiddling around with his fishing gear, deciding what to bring the next morning with Kate, cleaning his fly lines, lubricating his reels, reorganizing his fly boxes. After a month of guiding, everything was pretty scattered.

  He kept glancing at his watch. Kate would have to call him so they could decide when and where to meet. He had a few thoughts. Kate probably did, too. She usually knew what she wanted. They’d have to discuss it.

  When eleven o’clock came and went and she hadn’t called, he considered calling her. But he didn’t.

  He went out onto the deck, leaving the sliding glass door open to the kitchen so he could hear the phone. He tilted back his head and gazed up at the sky. It was clearing. The rain had stopped falling around sunset and the wind had shifted, and now the clouds were breaking up and skidding across clear patches of sky where stars glittered, and the air tasted moist and fresh. He tried not to think about Kate or Lyle or seeing a phantom foot sticking out of the ground. But except for Kate and Lyle, there wasn’t much of anything he cared about.

  When he first heard the distant rumble of the Blazer’s busted tailpipe, he figured it was his imagination. Wishful thinking. And even when she pulled in beside his Ford pickup and turned off the ignition, he didn’t quite trust his eyes. He’d been seeing too many ghosts lately.

  But he pushed himself to his feet, sauntered down off the deck, went to her truck, and opened the door for her.

  She slid out and stood there beside her Blazer, not smiling, just looking at him, her dark eyes large and solemn. She was wearing a long, loose-hanging, pale-orange dress that seemed to flow over her body like a waterfall, just touching her here and there—at her breasts and hips, hinting at the mysterious womanly curves underneath without revealing them. It had buttons all the way up the front. Kate had left several undone at the throat and at the hem, and Calhoun had to swallow
hard against the sudden tightness in his throat.

  He held out his hand, not to touch her, just to meet her half way. “Jesus, Kate—”

  She shook her head. “Don’t say anything, Stoney.” Her voice was so soft Calhoun could barely make out her words. “I don’t want to talk,” she said. “Please.”

  She stepped forward, moved against him, circled his chest with her arms, tilted up her head, kissed his jaw, buried her face in the hollow of his throat. He felt her shudder. He moved a hand up to her neck, cradled her head, stroked her hair. His other hand slid down over her hip and held her there tight against him.

  They stood that way for a minute, pressing hard against each other, not moving. Then she stepped back from him, and he watched as she unbuttoned her dress, one button at a time, moving slowly, her eyes fixed on his, not smiling, teasing him, he knew, teasing herself, too. She let her dress slip off her shoulders and drop to the ground. She was completely naked underneath.

  “Kate, honey . . .”

  She touched his mouth with her fingertips. “Shh,” she said.

  They made love on the soft damp blanket of pine needles beside her truck, and afterward they lay there gazing up through the trees at the sky, not talking, just holding each other.

  After a while they went inside. They showered together, scrubbing the dirt and pine pitch off each other’s bodies, toweled each other dry, then crawled naked under the covers.

  She snuggled backward against him, fitting her back into the curve of his front. He hugged her from behind with one arm around her hips to hold her tight against him and the other under her neck, and for the first time since he’d dragged Lyle out of the pond, he fell quickly and completely asleep.

  Then she was shaking his shoulder. “Stoney,” she whispered. “Something’s out there.”

  He sat up. “What is it?”

  “Ralph started whining. Then I heard it. There’s something outside.”

  “Porcupine or coon, probably.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Calhoun slid out of bed and pulled on his pants. While they’d been sleeping, the sky had cleared, and now there was enough moonlight filtering into the house for him to see without turning on the lights. He went to the front. Ralph was standing there with his nose pressed against the door, making little whining noises in his throat.

  “I’m not letting you out just so you can get your nose stuck by a fat old porcupine,” he whispered. He tapped the top of Ralph’s head. “You stay.”

  Ralph sat down but continued whining.

  He took the Remington autoloader off its pegs, then eased the door open and peeked out. He saw nothing. He pushed open the screen door, stepped out onto the deck, and stood there, peering into the shadows, listening hard.

  Whatever it was that made him drop onto his belly didn’t register consciously. Maybe it was the sandpapery sound of a boot shifting on the leaves or the soft snick of a safety being pushed off or the click of a hammer being cocked, or maybe his subconscious had registered a glint of moonlight on metal or a shadowy movement in the bushes beyond the opening where the trucks were parked.

  In that one instant as he threw himself to the porch floor, he heard the quick pop of a small-caliber rifle, then the mechanical click of a bolt being thrown, and then another pop, and simultaneous with each shot, he heard a bullet thunk into the side of the house above him, right where his chest had been.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  HE SAW THE TWO QUICK MUZZLE FLASHES, and from his position sprawled on the porch floor, he touched off a shot in their direction. Then, while the boom of the Remington 12-gauge was still echoing in the woods, he scrambled off the porch and darted behind Kate’s Blazer, keeping low, holding his shotgun in both hands, his finger curled around the trigger guard, ready to fire again.

  He crouched there, listening. The woods were silent. He eased his head up and rested the Remington on the hood of the Blazer. He listened and looked hard. Even with one deaf ear, he knew he’d catch any out-of-place sound. His ears and eyes were those of a woodsman, conditioned to register anything unnatural. But there was nothing.

  He waited. Several minutes passed.

  Then in the distance, in the direction of the road at the end of his driveway, he heard an engine starting up and a vehicle pulling away.

  He gave it a few more minutes, then eased around the side of the house and went in through the sliding door.

  Kate appeared in the bedroom doorway. She had pulled on one of his T-shirts and a pair of his boxers. “You okay?” she said.

  He nodded.

  She came to him and hugged him hard. “I heard shots,” she said. “I figured you were all right. You shot after he did. What happened?”

  “Someone tried to plug me,” he said. “Fred Green with his twenty-two, if I’m not mistaken. The one he shot Lyle with. Guess I scared him off.”

  “We’ve got to call the sheriff.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  “Think you winged him?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “I keep that gun loaded with number-eight birdshot. It’s for scaring people away, not hurting them. Might’ve peppered him, but it wouldn’t even draw blood at that distance.”

  She sat at the kitchen table. “Now what?”

  “Unless you think you can go back to sleep, I guess we might as well put on some coffee.”

  Calhoun and Kate sipped coffee on the deck. When the sky lightened and the birds started singing, he pointed across the opening. “He was in those bushes. I saw the muzzle flashes by that big pine.”

  She turned to him and put her hand on his arm. “What’s going on, Stoney? Why’s he trying to kill you, too?”

  Calhoun shrugged. He realized he hadn’t told Kate about the foot in the woods, how it looked like Fred Green was killing more people than just Lyle. Right now he didn’t want to get into it. It would take too much explaining. So all he said was, “Let’s go take a look around. There should be two empty cartridges on the ground.”

  They moved across the opening into the woods where he’d seen the muzzle flashes. “Around here,” said Calhoun. He got down on his hands and knees, and Kate did, too. They crept around, scanning the blanket of pine needles, and fifteen or twenty minutes later, Kate said, “Here’s one.”

  Calhoun went over and picked it up with a twig the way Sheriff Dickman had by the pond. It was a .22-caliber long-rifle rimfire, just like those they’d found at the millpond. A few minutes later he spotted the other one.

  He took the two cartridges, impaled on twigs, to the house and dropped them into a plastic bag. Then he went back outside and showed Kate where the two bullets had thudded into the door frame. The holes were chest-high on him.

  By now the morning sun was angling through the trees. They got some more coffee and returned to the deck.

  “You gonna call the sheriff?” said Kate.

  “I will,” said Calhoun. “Give him a chance to wake up first. Nothing’s going to change here.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she said.

  Calhoun put his heels up on the railing, tilted back in the rocker, and rested his coffee mug on his belly. “I don’t have much wisdom on it, honey. Mr. Green is aiming to kill me, too, I guess. Don’t ask me why.”

  “But why was he hiding out there in the bushes? Why didn’t he just come in and do it?”

  “He probably didn’t expect to see your truck here, had to take a minute to think about that. Maybe he heard Ralph growl, figured we’d wake up.” Calhoun shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Kate reached over and took his hand. They sat there for several minutes, not talking, just listening to the birds and the creek, and watching the woods fill up with sunlight.

  “A man was in the shop the other day,” she said.

  Calhoun said nothing.

  “He was—I think he was interested in you,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Said he wanted to go fi
shing, needed a guide. I told him I guided some, and I could tell that didn’t interest him. So I mentioned you, said I had a good man. His ears perked right up. Asked your name, and I told him. Claimed he’d heard good things about you.” She shook her head. “He asked clever questions, Stoney. Trying to get me to talk about you, your—your stability, I think was his word, except the way he used it, it didn’t seem personal. Afterward, when I thought about it, it seemed as if he was checking you out. And it wasn’t for fishing. That man didn’t know much about fishing.”

  “This man,” said Calhoun. “He was wearing a suit?”

  “Well, yes.” She frowned. “Lots of men come into the shop wearing suits.”

  “Tall, mournful, gray guy? No accent you could pin down? Washed-out look to him, a face you can’t quite remember?”

  She nodded. “You know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “A friend?”

  He shrugged. “He’s from before. I don’t know if he’s a friend or not.”

  “So why’s he coming around asking questions about you?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  They sat for a while longer, still holding hands and rocking. Then Kate said, “We were supposed to go fishing today.”

  “We should’ve been on the water an hour ago.”

  “I was really looking forward to it,” she said.

  “Me, too. Too late now.”

  “I got an idea,” she said.

  He turned to look at her.

  She yawned. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” she said. “You figure Mr. Green is likely to come back with his twenty-two in the daylight?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “Doubt it.”