Carolina Skeletons

by David Stout

  Oh, some things were easy to figure. A mean man beats his wife, she stabs him one day; sad, but easy to figure. Young guy gets drunk on peach wine and goes to a whorehouse, he’s apt to have a busted car, sore head, and clap all at once.

  But Linus, shit. He wasn’t but a kid who liked to fish. Family not only know their place, they live damn good lives. Hell, they were on their way to church when they arrested him. All but the mister, but that was normal enough. The saddest, worst things were beyond figuring.

  11

  The sheriff had slept well and had awakened in fine spirits. His first look out the window, at the gray light and the dew-soaked grass, had added to his good feelings. A new day, and a day off from work. God, he needed one.

  Effie had spoiled him again with a big breakfast. God, he loved her. He could still taste the bacon and sausage and grits and the strong coffee.

  Best of all, he was going fishing with his son Junior.

  Junior Stoker’s feelings, as he sat next to his father on the ride over to Lake Marion, were hard to sort out. Junior liked to fish (sort of), though his brother, Bob, had always been better at it and liked it more, and Junior was pretty sure his father would rather be going out with Bob than with him.

  “You been writin’ to your brother in a while?” his father asked.

  “Just last week,” Junior said.

  “Good, good …”

  Junior was happy enough for his father’s company, glad enough to be going fishing, and all in all it was a pretty morning.

  “Should be bitin’ today,” the sheriff said. “Ain’t too cold, ain’t too hot, and we got a good, early start.”

  “Hmmm.”

  The sheriff parked on hard sand by the lake shore, and he and Junior unloaded the gear.

  Hiram Stoker paid fifty cents for a bucket of minnows and a rowboat, and in no time he and Junior were in the water. The sheriff rowed strongly, evenly, the oars making delicious noise.

  Then he had a thought—really, a wonderful, spontaneous collection of feelings—and was about to tell Junior. But he stopped himself; he wasn’t sure he could put it right, or at least so it wouldn’t sound stupid to his son. What Hiram Stoker felt was that there must be nothing more beautiful in the world than a cool lake on an early morning, mist rising from in toward shore, and the birds in the woods a few hundred yards across the water just waking up. He prayed, for a moment, to whatever power had made the lake and woods and birds. For a moment (and only that, for he would let nothing spoil the morning) he asked that power to bring his son Bob home safe.

  “This is about right,” Stoker said, bringing the oars into the boat almost noiselessly. He let the boat’s momentum carry it as far as it would go. Then he silently dropped the anchor—two cement-filled soup cans attached to a half-inch rope—over the side. “’Bout what I figured. Twenty-five feet or so.”

  The sheriff rigged a number-six hook onto his leader, bit a split-shot sinker onto the line just above the leader, and took a medium-sized minnow from the bucket. In no time, he had baited his hook, closed his tackle box, and played out his line. Then he noticed that Junior was still fumbling with his leader.

  “Need help, say so,” the sheriff said quietly.

  “I’m okay,” Junior said. It was several minutes before he had satisfactorily tied the hook to the leader and the leader to the line. He took two split-shot sinkers from his tackle box and tried to bite them onto his line, as he had seen his father do. He bit one of the sinkers shut, hurting a tooth in the bargain, without even getting it on the line. As inconspicuously as he could, he put the ruined sinker into a pocket and took another from his tackle box.

  “Don’t forget to close that box—Oh, I didn’t know you were still getting ready,” his father said.

  Junior’s face burned with shame and anger. Not for a single goddamn second could his father stop being the boss, the sheriff. Junior knew, he knew, that his father had been no better at rigging a line when he was seventeen. It took practice. Like anything else.

  Finally, minnow on hook more or less securely and two split shots to carry the line down, Junior was fishing.

  “Nice morning,” Hiram Stoker said.

  “Yep,” Junior said.

  Hiram Stoker was relieved that Junior had finally got his line into the water. He had felt for the boy, he really had, when Junior was fumbling around. Hiram Stoker remembered his own father (impatient he was, all his life), and tried to curb his own impatience. Watching his son’s discomfort, Hiram Stoker had felt both amusement and compassion.

  Well, sometimes there was nothing to say. Just nothing. Shit, Junior thinks I been the sheriff all my life. Like I don’t recall what it’s like, being young. He ain’t that easy himself sometimes, truth to tell. No seventeen-year-old is.

  Junior had been fishing only a few minutes when he had a nibble.

  “Got somethin’,” he said.

  “Let him walk with it.”

  Seconds ticked off, the nibble persisted, and Junior fought the urge to jerk the rod. The line began to slant; the fish was going away, hook full in its mouth, ready to be set. Junior flicked the rod up slightly and immediately felt the heavy, furious resistance.

  “Way to go. He’s hooked. Rod end up. Up, up, up. Right …”

  Junior found himself praying that the fish would not get away. His father kept up a steady, calm volley of instructions (“Up, up, right … Taut, taut, wind, right … Attaboy”), and Junior found himself glad for his presence, his words. If his father told him what to do with this fish, and if he just did it, the fish would be in the boat.…

  “He’s comin’ up … I see him now, a biggie … all black and silver. Fine fish, Junior. Up, up with that rod end, and I’ll get the net under him.”

  Up, out of the water, the bass in the net, black and green and silver-white.

  “Attaboy, Junior. He’ll go a few pounds. Wait till your ma …”

  The fish fell onto the bottom of the boat now, its body writhing with great force. There was a metallic clatter and crash as Junior’s tackle box fell over on its side. Rattles and rolling noises as the fish in its death struggle scattered artificial plugs, bobbers, sinkers, a can of light oil, hooks, everything.

  “Goddammit, Junior. That’s why a fisherman always has his tackle box closed when he’s fixing to land a fish— Aw, shit. No harm. Damn fine fish. Damn fine.”

  His father put the bass on the stringer and let it into the water with a few feet of slack. The fish flopped quietly. It was several minutes before Junior got his tackle box straightened out, but he didn’t care. He felt the delight of a child. Damn good fish, damn good fish, he said to himself, over and over; he glanced at the bass repeatedly as he patiently sorted his gear. When he snapped his tackle box shut, his father looked at him and smiled.

  “Good, huh?” the sheriff said. He didn’t know whether to mention the tackle box again, didn’t know whether there was anything to make up for, and if so, whether he would be doing more harm than good to try. Finally, he decided.

  “Didn’t mean to jump on you back there, about that tackle box being open. Hell, I been fishin’ a lot longer than you.…”

  “It’s okay,” Junior said. “Won’t happen to me again.”

  “Hmmm.”

  The morning got older, minute by minute, and the sheriff and his son said little. The sheriff did not feel like saying much. It was good to just sit in the boat, smelling the water.

  “My turn,” the sheriff said after a while. Within moments, he had boated a respectable bass, about two-thirds the size of his son’s. A few minutes later, the sheriff pulled in another bass, almost identical to his first.

  “Damn, Junior. I got more pounds of fish than you, but you still got the biggest.…”

  Junior had another nibble, but he made his move a little too soon, and the fish slipped away.

  “Get him next time,” the sheriff said. “Call it a morning now? Got some fine fish for Mom to cook.”

  Quickly and
expertly, Hiram Stoker pulled up the anchor, slipped the oars into their locks, and began rowing toward shore.

  “You know, son,” the sheriff began, pretending that it was the effort of rowing rather than self-consciousness that contorted his face, “when I was your age, I remember, uh, you know … wondering about various things …”

  Junior’s face was burning. He felt waves of embarrassment, yet—how could it be—he wanted to burst out laughing at the same time.

  “… juices get to flowing a certain way … only natural that a man, ’specially a young man …”

  On and on the sheriff’s anguished voice went groping for the words but not finding them, while Junior tried to bat them all out of the air, mentally, to pretend they had never been uttered.

  “… questions you have about anything … don’t always have as much time … with your problems, of course feel free …”

  Junior knew that his father was far too good an oarsman to be twisting his face, his red face, with the physical effort. Maybe the boat could capsize; that would stop the lecture in a hurry. Was it wrong for Junior to pray for that? It seemed an odd thing to pray for, since he so seldom prayed for anything. They were close to shore now. Perhaps if the boat overturned, they would be in no danger at all. Maybe the water was not even over their heads; they could save the rods and tackle and the fish—

  Suddenly, Junior was aware of the silence. His father had stopped talking, stopped rowing. Though his father’s back was to the shore, in the rowing position, the sheriff had turned his head all the way around to see something.

  There were four men—no, five—waiting on the shore. They looked at their feet, scuffed their toes in the sand, put their hands on their hips. They were waiting, impatiently. Their postures were, somehow, challenging.

  Junior had heard no sound. He did not know how his father could have heard a sound, since there were no voices coming from shore, and the men were still several hundred feet away. Junior had seen it happen before, had seen his father size up a situation with a sense that seemed to have nothing to do with sight and hearing.

  Abruptly, the sheriff turned around again and resumed the normal rowing position, back straight toward shore, his eyes staring at Junior in the stern. The sheriff’s face was unsmiling, all business.

  “What you suppose—?” Junior began.

  “Suppose, shit. Don’t have to suppose. Been the sheriff long as I have, don’t have to suppose. Men don’t come out to meet the sheriff’s fishing boat unless there’s trouble. You can bet our catch of fish it’s got to do with that sorry ass little colored boy.”

  The men looked appreciatively at the bass on the stringer.

  “Had some luck there, Sheriff,” one of them said.

  “Some. Boy here, he caught that big one.”

  “What you use?”

  “Minnows. What brings you fellas out here?”

  Out in the lake a bit, a fish leaped and splashed. Waves lapped gently onto the shore.

  “Must be gettin’ too old for this job,” the sheriff said. “I ask a question, don’t get no answer.”

  The sheriff knew the men; they worked at the mill and, no doubt, knew the fathers of the dead girls. None of the men were troublemakers, none would lead a lynch mob. But all might join one.

  “We hear that nigger got hisself a lawyer,” one of the men said at last.

  “So?” Hiram Stoker said. “You know any way to run a trial, official-like, without him having a lawyer? Maybe you know somethin’ I don’t.”

  “We hear they gonna move the trial someplace else,” another man said. “Like maybe all the way over to Columbia.”

  “Could be,” Stoker acknowledged. “I got no control over that. Lawyer’s right to ask for a venue change, if he wants one. Too much emotion here, maybe.” More silence, and the sheriff knew he had made a mistake, talking about emotion. That was just what they felt, all right. Them and a lot of others.

  “What’ll he get? What kinda sentence?”

  “Life. Chain gang, maybe. He ain’t but fourteen. We’ll all be long dead and he’ll still be making big rocks into little pebbles.…”

  “Too good for him, what he did.”

  “Now, hold on there,” the sheriff said, trying to mix reason with authority in his voice, knowing it was probably too late already. “I don’t know what you fellas been hearin’.…”

  “We hear he diddled with them. Before and after they was dead.”

  “No, goddamn it,” the sheriff said. “ain’t no truth to it. You men can do me a big favor and stop swallowing every horseshit rumor you hear.”

  The men stared back, uneasy but unconvinced. Too late to stop rumors. Way too late. Time for straight talk. Fear, if it had to be that.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have time to chat with you men, but me and my boy, we gotta get home and clean our fish. Ain’t much to talk about anyhow. Any you men got ideas about doing my job for me, wearing a sheet instead of a badge, you best forget about it. Some of you got wives, kids to worry about. Best you be home taking care of them. That clear?”

  The men didn’t move.

  “C’mon, Junior. Got three good bass to clean.”

  12

  Linus was bored—bored with the four walls, with his blanket, with the tin plate and dull spoon he ate with; bored with the food, bored with the smell of the jail, bored with the smell of his own clothes and his own body.

  He did not understand anything. His mama and daddy and Will and Jewel had not come to see him. It was getting harder and harder to tell what was real and what wasn’t. Sometimes, in his head, he saw the shack burning up.

  The sheriff told Linus there would be a trial pretty soon. Linus didn’t know what that meant and was afraid to ask. But he hoped that was where the sheriff would tell him he knew that Linus had not meant anything, had not meant to look, and so he could go home.

  Linus thought he heard the door between the cell block and office open. His eyes popped open wide, and he sat up. He was wide awake now, afraid. It was still light out, still light and hot in the cell. The deputy must still be outside.

  The fear went away, leaving him hot and bored and angry again.

  It had been so much easier with just the heat. You could make yourself not feel it, almost. Make yourself get sleepy, and dream. Now, he had to work that much harder to not feel things. He had to lie on his back and swallow hard, again and again, whenever he felt a sob coming. Had to work hard to let himself float on his bunk, float away where there was no feeling …

  * * *

  Sheriff Hiram Stoker studied Linus’s face for several seconds before quietly closing the door between the cell block and office.

  “Think he’s got all his marbles?” Stoker asked Dexter Cody.

  “Relatively speakin’,” the deputy answered. “Ain’t seen him jerkin’ off, though I ain’t looked. He hasn’t bashed his head against the bars yet.”

  “Hmmm. I seen his face twitchin’ away, like he was having a bad dream.”

  “His whole life’s gonna be a bad dream from here on. Serves him right. He probably be dreaming about nigger heaven.”

  “Wish he’d go there and get outta my life, truth to tell.”

  “Change of scenery might do him good.”

  The sheriff had decided that morning, after the face-off with the men at Lake Marion, to move Linus Bragg. He had not lost a prisoner to a lynch mob yet, nor had he ever had to shoot one of his neighbors.

  Hiram Stoker had cleaned the fish with Junior (the kid wasn’t half bad with a knife), eaten an early dinner, and told Effie he’d be driving to Columbia that very night.

  “These guys come out to the shore to greet me, means there’s gotta be a lot more thinkin’ just like them. ’Specially with those young bigmouths from the National Guard,” he’d told his wife.

  There were a lot of things a sheriff simply could not anticipate: farm accidents, kids drowning, one colored slashing another across the puss with a razor. So the trick to the jo
b was knowing what you could anticipate.

  The sheriff might be premature, driving Linus to Columbia. Could be there wouldn’t be enough mob fever to bring a lynch mob together for a week, two, three. So if he was acting earlier than he had to, he would never know it. But he would sure as hell find out if he waited too long.

  “You, Dex. Call the highway patrol. Ask for that sergeant. Baldwin, whatever his name is, or whoever’s filling in. Make ’em feel important. Tell ’em we request they be on the lookout for two, three cars traveling close together. Any guys with sheets, take their names and send ’em home.”

  “Tell ’em what it’s for?”

  “Yeah,” the sheriff said, shaking his head ruefully. “Tell ’em we got a dangerous, desperate prisoner that we gotta transport, and we don’t want any distractions.”

  13

  It had been weeks since Judah Brickstone had felt so good. Part of it was simply the weather; he had lost count of the days and nights when the heat and humidity had hung on him like a slimy skin. The night before, he had awakened to the sound of a mighty thunderclap. For an hour, he had lain awake, smiling, watching the lightning, listening to the thunder roll like barrels from heaven to hell and back. God almighty! You must have sent that storm yourself.

  It had broken the heat. So now, as he walked into the Calhoun House (envying, as always, the immortal portrait soldiers in Confederate gray), he felt dapper and comfortable in his freshly pressed suit. He had chosen the suit because this luncheon was potentially very beneficial as well as enjoyable. He was to be the guest of Clement Burger and Cyril Hornsmith, attorneys from Columbia. No, more than that: two of the most influential and wealthy lawyers in the state, men whose company he would not be in were it not for the entr e provided by Judge Horace Tallman.

  Even as he smiled at the hostess, Judah cautioned himself. Overconfidence, smugness could be fatal professionally. Still, as a not-so-bad lawyer (if he did say so himself), he had very good reason to be optimistic.