A Far Piece to Canaan

by Sam Halpern

  Before we got the triggers cut I was about to go out of my head as Fred tested limb after limb, but by milking time, we had enough for several deadfalls. The next day we barked them and carved the notches. I lay on a feed room sack and watched.

  “How’s this kind fit together?” I asked.

  “Just like any old deadfall,” he said with a laugh.

  It kind of hurt my feelings being made to look dumb, and Fred could tell it.

  “Soon’s I finish, we’ll find a flat rock and I’ll show you,” he said quick.

  The rock Fred picked must of weighed twenty pound. “Hold hit there, hun’ney,” he said after we had it up on its edge.

  I held it up and Fred went around to the front of the rock and knelt down. “When I tell you, let her down reeeal slow,” and he started fitting the little pieces of wood together. When the trap was set, the rock was leaning against one stick, which was triggered against another that had the apple on its end and was stuck in the ground.

  “Hot dog,” he said, squatting down on his haunches. “Hit’s just right. Old rabbit comes along and says, ‘Now, that’s a purty apple a-layin’ there. Wonder how come hit’s way out here?’”

  While Fred was talking, he was bouncing around the deadfall like a rabbit, and you never saw anything funnier. His nose was nigh to the ground and his butt was up in the air and he was wiggling it like a bunny.

  “‘Hit’s shore odd hit a-layin’ here with no apple tree. Maybe I can just sneak up and nibble a little,’” and he began sneaking up to the deadfall and acting like he was nibbling the apple.

  “‘Man, that’s a sweet apple, and hit’s a good one!’” he said, and acted like he was nibbling harder, and wiggling his nose. Then Fred reached in with his finger and pulled the trigger. Kawam! The rock come crashing down so fast he barely got his hand out.

  “Got him!” I yelled.

  Fred’s eyes lit up. “We gonna catch more rabbits than a hog’s got fleas.”

  “Where we gonna set ’em?”

  “Why not near th’ fence by th’ Dry Branch Road turnoff?”

  “That’s a far piece,” I said. “How come we don’t just go down by that blackberry patch near Ervin’s house?”

  “Hun’ney, you want th’ Crosses t’ rob our deadfalls?”

  “I don’t think th’ Crosses’d do that,” I answered.

  Fred kind of cocked his head. “Ain’t what I heard. Heard the Crosses’d steal th’ hat right off’n your head.”

  “Radar’d do that? Aw.”

  “Don’t know about Radar or Billy Bacon Jacob, but old Ervin might. Bill Lamb told my daddy couple days after Ervin moved in that Ervin done time for stealin’.”

  Somehow, I couldn’t figure Ervin for a thief. “You really think he done time?”

  “Hun’ney, a Lamb never lies!”

  It was true. A Lamb’d die before he’d tell anything but the truth, and he’d kill you if you called him a liar. Nobody in our parts ever doubted their word. “What’d he steal?”

  “Chickens. They put him in th’ pokey for just a few days th’ first time, but he kept doing hit ’til they sent him up for two years. Let’s not put our deadfalls there.”

  We set the traps near where the Dry Branch Road turned off from the pike and rubbed them with wild onions to kill the people smell. The next morning, we had a rabbit. We caught four more that week. Since we didn’t eat rabbit, I gave my half to Mr. Mac and Babe. We were really having fun. Everybody was, because most of the fall work was laid by.

  One Sunday, the Shackelfords and Clarks came over, which usually bored me silly. This visit turned out different, though. I was in the yard with the men, sitting on the grass and leaning against a big maple half asleep, when Dad brought up the sheep killings and said he thought they were the work of a crazy man. That woke me up quick.

  “I dunno, Morse,” said Bess, straightening up in one of our rickety old lawn chairs. “This old boy’s too smart at coverin’ his tracks t’ be crazy. I think hit’s one of them smart-assed niggers come down here from Lexington.”

  Dad kind of cringed when Bess said “nigger” but he didn’t mention it. “I’ve been thinkin’,” said Dad. “He might not be anything but a thief, but he always heads for th’ river. Now that’s a slow, hard way of gettin’ out of here. A thief would want t’ get out quick.”

  “Could be he’s tryin’ t’ scare us into thinkin’ he’s crazy,” said Mr. Shackelford.

  “If that’s th’ case, why don’t he leave just th’ head of an animal with its eyes gouged out?” said Dad. “He only takes th’ hindquarters and nuts off th’ carcass.”

  Bess laughed. “Th’ hindquarters are th’ best parts, Morse. That old boy just knows what’s good. He can’t carry a whole sheep. Each a them bucks would weigh a hunnert and a half. Hindquarters ain’t even seventy.”

  Dad sighed. “Y’all are probably right, but supposin’ it really is a crazy man?”

  “What are you drivin’ at?” Mr. Shackelford asked.

  “Well . . . we’re alone in these fields. He could come up t’ us like any number of strangers who stop by asking questions and get you with that knife he uses before you could defend yourself. He could get at your house while you were workin’ too. Kill everybody there. You’d never hear screams above the sounds of a mowin’ machine.”

  It was true what Dad said, and it really scared me. Fred and LD and Lonnie and me knew everything and we wudn’t saying and somebody might get killed!

  Nobody spoke for a few seconds, then Bess got up from his chair and went over to his Ford. When he come back, he had a mason jar full of moonshine. “We gonna talk about things like this we can’t do hit on a empty stomach,” he said.

  Mr. Shackelford and Dad laughed, then they all had a drink from the jar.

  “What if he is a crazy man, Morse?” Mr. Shackelford said. “What can we do?”

  “Go after him now! Stop things before somebody gets hurt,” said Dad.

  They quit talking then and everybody just kind of set. “You know, there is somebody,” said Mr. Shackelford. “He might not be crazy, but he’s mighty peculiar.”

  “Who?” Dad asked.

  Before Mr. Shackelford could answer, Bess said, “You talkin’ about Begley, ain’t you?”

  I got an awful feeling. I had heard at school that one of the people who didn’t like Ben was Mr. Shackelford.

  “What’s peculiar about him?” Dad asked.

  “You ever meet him?” asked Mr. Shackelford.

  “No,” Dad answered.

  “Lots of folks ain’t met him,” said Mr. Shackelford. “Come here about ten, twelve year ago and bought that place down on the Big Bend from th’ Cummings. Hardly speaks except t’ sell his pumpkins and melons. Nobody knows anything about him.”

  “And he’s got th’ meanest goddamn dogs since Creation,” said Bess. “Ain’t anybody ever seen inside his cabin. Ed’s right. We ought have th’ sheriff do some checkin’ on him.”

  I was shaking inside now like a bowl of jelly. I had to do something. There was only one thing I could think of. “Mr. Begley lent Bob his boat for fishin’.”

  Everybody turned and looked at me, and the shaking inside me got worse. I knew they were going to ask questions and I had to be careful what I said.

  “You ever meet him?” asked Mr. Shackelford, looking at me suspicious.

  “No, sir,” I lied.

  “Bob ever tell you about meetin’ him?” Mr. Shackelford asked Dad.

  “Yeah, he did, now that you mention it,” Dad answered. “I remember Bob saying Begley lent them his boat. Bob thought he was just a man who wanted t’ be left alone.”

  “Samuel, you ever see him?” Mr. Shackelford asked, turning back toward me.

  “No, sir,” I lied again. “But he never bothered us when we run th’ trot line.”

  “I don’t think he’s our man,” Dad said, kind of musing. “All this stuff has happened over our way. Hard to imagine he’d come all the way over
here t’ kill stock.”

  “Not if he’s crazy like you say,” said Mr. Shackelford. “I don’t like Begley. Went down there one time t’ see him about truckin’ some of his melons into Lexington and he just left me standing outside callin’ with them damn dogs raisin’ hell.”

  Dad thought about that too. “Did Begley ever hurt anybody or steal anything?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Bess. “Sure is peculiar, though.”

  “I’ll ask Bob more about him th’ next time he’s home,” said Dad. “Meantime, I think we need t’ get a posse together and comb th’ Little Bend. Thirty or forty men with dogs. Maybe th’ sheriff can get Lexington to provide us with a search plane.”

  “You really that worried, huh?” said Bess, screwing the top back on the jar after everybody had taken a second drink.

  “The more I’ve thought about it, the more worried I’ve become,” Dad answered.

  Bess puckered his mouth. “Whatcha think, Ed?”

  Mr. Shackelford raised his eyebrows. “Well, hit’s an idea, but it won’t work.”

  “Why?” Dad asked, sounding kind of upset.

  Mr. Shackelford tilted his head to the side as he answered. “’Cause folks around here won’t have nothin’ t’ do with hit, Morse,” and he stuck his hands in the pockets of his Levi’s.

  The look on Dad’s face said he thought that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “I can’t understand that. They got family and property at stake too.”

  Bess chuckled. “What Ed’s drivin’ at, Morse . . . they’s been strange goings-on around th’ Little Bend bottoms for years. You heard of th’ Blue Hole, ain’t you?”

  “You mean that story about Collins,” said Dad. “My God, you guys don’t believe that, do you? That a ghost haunts a pool of water and kills people who come around?”

  Bess didn’t answer for a while, then he said, “Well . . . no, but lots of folks do. You ain’t gonna get no posse from around here t’ go down on that stretch of river.”

  I was busting. We had a chance again. If they did get a posse together, Fred and me could lead them to the cave. I wanted to yell, Yeah, do it! But I knew better.

  The next day, Dad called the sheriff, who said it sounded serious and if we could get as many as ten men together, he’d come with his dogs and try to get Lexington to send a plane. Dad and Bess talked to everybody around. Bess even talked to Mr. Miller. It turned out the only people who would join the group were Alfred, Rags Wallace, Mr. Mac, and Babe, and Rags backed out the next day. The police in Lexington told the sheriff that the whole idea was crazy, going out for something that probably wudn’t there to begin with, and even if it was, a handful of men couldn’t cover an area that big, and without men on the ground, the search plane wouldn’t help. The sheriff said he had to agree with them and under the circumstances he wudn’t coming.

  That wudn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was that after Dad and the other people got together and said they were going regardless, they wouldn’t let Fred or me come. When they got back from the search, Dad was in a bad mood. They hadn’t found anything and from what I could tell, hardly spent any time around the Blue Hole or the cave. Mr. Shackelford said that it was the last wild-goose chase he was going on, and Bess laughed and said maybe they’d get hired by Mr. Hoover and his F.B.I.

  Generally, I’d have been down about how things worked out but I was getting used to stuff going wrong about the crazy man. Thanksgiving vacation was coming up, and it was too good a time to waste feeling bad.

  25

  We had our first light snow the day before school was out for Thanksgiving. The next morning, Fred come by so we could run the deadfalls together. During the week he did the trapping alone, but on weekends I was always with him. Our rabbit catching had slowed a lot. If we caught two a week, we were doing well. We were sitting at breakfast when there was a little peck at the kitchen door.

  “There’s your sidekick,” said Dad. “Come on in, Fred.”

  I could hear a strange muffled sound like feet stomping on a pillow. When Fred come in I saw why—he was wearing gunnysacks around his shoes.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hidey, hidey,” he answered, and walked past me to warm up by the stove.

  I started eating in a hurry when I heard Fred take a deep breath and say, “Shuee.”

  Dad looked at Fred out of the corner of his eye.

  “Shuee,” Fred said, again, and squirmed a little like his clothes itched.

  “Aren’t you going to invite Fred to have a bite with us, Samuel?” Dad asked.

  In my hurry I had forgotten to ask. “Yeah, Fred, how about some biscuits and jam?”

  “No, hun’ney.” he said, shaking his head. “I just et. Thanks anyway.”

  Dad kind of eyed Fred. “Think your daddy’d like it if he knew you turned down somebody’s vittles after they were offered?”

  Fred’s eyes got wide. “I didn’t mean nothin’! Sure, yeah, I’ll have some,” and he come to the table and sat down.

  “M’dom, fix Fred a couple of eggs. You got any more biscuits?”

  “Sure I do,” said Mom. “There’s a whole pan full. Do you like coffee, Fred?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Fred said, and started eating biscuits and jam.

  I never saw anybody eat faster. He didn’t say anything, he just ate, maybe six or eight biscuits, and when the eggs got there he put them inside biscuits, covered them with jam, and ate that. When there wudn’t anything left, he looked around and said, “Shuee.”

  “How would you like some hard candy?” said Dad, who had been eating slow.

  “I’m pretty full,” said Fred, then he laughed and said a man hadn’t ought eat two breakfasts, on account of it would spoil his dinner. Dad said that every now and then it was good to do that and let the belly rest and if he didn’t want any candy would he take some back to the rest of the family. When we left the house, Fred was carrying our whole big bag of hard candies.

  Outside, it was warming up fast. Snow was falling off bushes and trees and I knew it was going to be muddy. The morning was nice, though. Crisp and clear. We got two rabbits and set the deadfalls again for the next day. The next morning, we run them before the ground thawed, but we didn’t get anything. That was odd, because there was fresh blood all over one rock.

  “Wonder what happened?” I said. “Don’t make any sense there bein’ blood on that rock and th’ trap not sprung. Wudn’t any blood on it when we set it, was there?”

  “Umm, don’t know. Prob’ly was though.”

  “Naw, I remember now, they were clean. Besides, that’s fresh blood.”

  “Yeah, hit does look fresh,” said Fred. “We better watch from now on. Apple looks good, though. If th’ trap sprung, how come it ain’t squarshed?”

  He had me there. We talked about it for a while, then spent the rest of the day sliding down the volcano hill on a sled we made out of some old roof tin.

  That night after supper I got to thinking about the deadfalls. It wudn’t right those apples not squarshed with blood being on the rock. Somebody was stealing our rabbits. That was why we wudn’t catching many. First, I thought maybe it was the crazy man, then I decided he didn’t do things that way. He’d kill a sheep, but he never took something already dead. Besides, he wouldn’t set the deadfalls again after he robbed them. It had to be one of the Crosses. I had told Radar about the deadfalls and how many rabbits we were catching and he must’ve watched where we went and stole them. They had apples from the sweet apple tree too because I saw him and Billy Bacon picking them. The more I thought, the more I was sure it had to be Radar. Since Radar wudn’t too smart he might’ve left tracks around the line fences where there was still snow and maybe I could track him back to their house. But if the wind come up strong or it snowed again, it would cover any footprints. If I was going to look, it had to be tonight.

  Later that evening, I told Mom and Dad I was tired, then went to my room, took off my shoes, and crawled und
er the covers still wearing my clothes. I lay there for what felt like forever waiting for everybody to go to sleep. Finally, I heard the door to Naomi’s room close, and a few minutes later, the squeak of Mom and Dad’s bed. They talked for a while, then it got quiet. As the minutes went by I could feel my heart pick up and by the time it was safe to start out it was pounding like a sledgehammer. I put on my shoes and mackinaw and got my Eveready. I kept thinking about the crazy man and getting more and more scared. I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to calm down. Outside I could hear the wind and knew that soon all the tracks would be gone. That’s when I thought about the gun. If I took it along, I’d be plenty safe.

  The rifle felt icy cold and slick from a little layer of dust. I wiped it clean, then set down on the bed again until I got up enough nerve to reach behind the dresser for shells. My hands was shaking so bad I was afraid of dropping the shells so I put the whole box in my pocket, then left the house through the door to the screened-in porch.

  It was cold and the little snow that was left crunched under my feet. There was a full moon which made it light enough that I didn’t have to use the Eveready. I climbed the hog lot gate, then loaded and cocked the .22. I was scared to death.

  There wudn’t anything in the first trap or the second, but in the third we had a rabbit. The rest of the traps wudn’t sprung and looked okay and the only tracks were mine and Fred’s. Old Radar was smarter than I thought. He didn’t leave any clues.

  I hadn’t gone but a little ways toward home when I stopped. If Radar was smart enough not to leave any tracks near the traps, he was smart enough to circle around by the Dry Branch Road to get there so nobody could see any signs leading up from our direction. That’s what he must’ve done and the wind covered his tracks near the traps because they were made earlier than ours. I went back past the deadfalls to the main fence that separated our pasture from the road, then turned on the Eveready. On the road side of the fence there was a steep bank that faced north and was covered heavy with blackberry briars and two, three inches of snow. I hadn’t gone more than a hundred foot when I noticed where briars had been pushed aside. I pressed up against the fence and shined the light on the ground. My heart stopped. There wudn’t just footprints, there were gunnysack footprints!