A Far Piece to Canaan

by Sam Halpern

  “I jumped in th’ car and we went racin’ over, me holdin’ some rags against th’ cut. When we got to th’ pike, here come Morse, roarin’ down his lane in his Ford t’ help us. I leaned out the window and yelled hit was too late ’bout th’ barn and I’d been stabbed by a crazy man and needed help. He yelled t’ go on up th’ house and Liz and Naomi would work on me and that Samuel was missing and for Babe t’ go down toward th’ Little Bend bottoms lookin’ after he dropped me off, and he’d drive down th’ Dry Branch Road.”

  “What happened then?” asked the sheriff.

  “Well, they patched me up some while Babe and Morse did what they was s’posed to. Short time later, Samuel come home. When Morse didn’t find him, he come back here t’ check. Then Babe called and Morse sent him and others to warn th’ neighbors. Morse called you ’bout then. Reckon you know th’ rest.”

  When Mr. Mac said that everybody started talking to each other, at first just muttering, then it started getting louder.

  “What happened t’ you?” the sheriff asked, looking at me, and the room got quiet again.

  My heart sank as I thought about Ben. I couldn’t answer for a moment, then I blurted out, “I was comin’ back from fishin’ and th’ crazy man tried to stab me with a knife this long,” and I held my hands about two foot apart.

  The sheriff’s eyebrows rose. “Where?” he asked.

  “In th’ heart, I think.”

  Everybody laughed, and th’ sheriff said, “Naw, I mean where’d this happen?”

  I told the story, being careful not to mention Ben but still not lie. It was hard and a couple times I got the feeling that the sheriff smelled a rat, because his face looked like he was kind of wondering as I talked. That scared me and my voice started shaking and my knees got jelly. I kept thinking he knew I wudn’t telling it all and he was gonna get Ben. Dad was beside me like a shot with his arm around my shoulders.

  The sheriff stared at me for a while, then he turned back to Mr. Mac. “Sounds like he hit you first then caught th’ boy while he was makin’ his way back t’ wherever he holes up.”

  “Shit, that’s down my way,” muttered Mr. Hickman, who had been cleaning his long, dirty fingernails with a pocketknife. His eyes were wide now, and his black sailor beard tilted sideways as he squenched his mouth and twisted his big heavy shoulders, causing the straps of his bib overalls to wriggle. Muttering started again and was getting louder.

  “A body could hide out forever in some of them Big Bend cliffs,” Mr. Langley said, and people shook their heads yes. “Them cliffs got a cave ever hunnert foot.”

  Bess Clark had been standing with his back against the wall not moving anything but his eyes while the different people spoke. When Mr. Langley finished, he stroked his mouth and chin with his hand and spoke to Mr. Mac. “Wha’d he look like, George?”

  People stopped talking.

  “Just by God awful,” Mr. Mac answered. “Must’ve been six-foot-four or -five and had a chest on him an ax han’le across. Hair everywhere. Face like a bear. Rags just hung offa him ’n’ stink, goddamn!”

  “Yeah, I smelled him too,” I broke in, suddenly remembering. I could still smell it, but nowhere near as strong as at the fence. Nobody in the room seemed to notice but me.

  Bess lit a cigarette and kept looking at Mr. Mac as he blew out smoke. “You say he staggered, and Samuel says he fell. Either of you see how he walked?”

  Mr. Mac shook his head. “I was tryin’ t’ stay alive! Wouldn’t of knowed if he flew.”

  Bess looked from Mr. Mac to me and I shook my head too.

  “What you gettin’ at, Mr. Clark?” the sheriff asked.

  “Well . . . I was wondering if he was lame. A fisherman few years back said he was chased out of th’ Little Bend bottoms by a wild man with a limp. They’s always been strange sightin’s down there . . . tracks and things . . . some of ’em crooked. Especially around that water pool they call th’ Blue Hole. We were close to it when we went huntin’ for that sheep killer. That’s the place they found the Collins woman and her two little girls.”

  Suddenly, everybody was talking. The sheriff held up his hands and Bess stopped. “I never heard any of this before. Who are th’ Collinses, Mr. Clark, and what happened t’ them?”

  “They were bottom farmers,” Bess answered. “Lived just before th’ Little Bend turn of th’ river. They built a house above th’ flood line . . . leastways that’s what everybody thought until one spring ten, twelve year ago there was a flood. The river crested short of their cabin, then some terrible rains come upstream. A wall of water musta hit th’ Collinses in th’ dead a night. Looked like they lashed themselves together and tried t’ swim for hit. They found th’ woman and kids and th’ loop that went around Ralph in that Blue Hole, but they never found Ralph. Since that time, strange things have happened on that stretch of river.”

  “Like what, Mr. Clark?” asked the sheriff, and he had to hold up his hand again because everybody started telling him about things that had happened.

  Bess thought for a moment, then said, “Well . . . like animals have left there. Couple years later two people drowned in th’ Blue Hole. Two, three years after that an old trapper claimed he was chased up th’ cliff by somebody callin’ in th’ name of th’ Lord. Said he was almost had when this guy fell back down th’ cliff.”

  “Where’s this old man now?” the sheriff asked.

  “Aw, he died three, four year ago,” said Bess.

  Mr. Shackelford laughed. “Shit, Bess, old man Hackett was crazier’n a hoot owl. He was always talkin’ about findin’ that Dutchman’s mine out West, and bushels of gold, and Indians doing sacrifices by cuttin’ people’s hearts out. He even claimed he talked to th’ Devil.”

  The sheriff raised his eyebrows, and Mr. Shackelford said, “Yeah! Crazier’n hell!”

  “I don’t think that’s crazy, Mr. Shackelford,” come a voice from the rear, and without looking I knew it was LD’s dad.

  “Aw, come on Zack. That wudn’t no Devil out there tonight,” said Bess.

  I turned around and saw Mr. Howard standing near the kitchen door. He raised his right arm and pointed at Bess. “You don’t know what it was,” he said, his voice rising. “I say that place in th’ Little Bend bottoms is evil. It’s got th’ mark of Satan. I’ve tried t’ get th’ people in this community t’ have a prayer meetin’ at that Blue Hole and float a Bible and a cross on hit, but everybody’s too scared or has too little faith. They’d rather make th’ Devil’s brew.”

  I turned and saw Bess Clark lurch forward. He spoke quick. “Now, you just wait a goddamn minute, what other folks do is none of your bus—”

  “Hold it, boys. Hold it,” said the sheriff. “We’re trying to catch a suspect who is still at large and dangerous and we can’t do it fightin’ among ourselves.”

  Bess relaxed some, but ever’ now and then he glared at Mr. Howard. The sheriff went on. “I want to know if any of you have any hard evidence that a dangerous man lives on that stretch of river. Now, I want real evidence. First, did any of y’all see those two drowned people and if you did was there any evidence of foul play?”

  There was movement in the back of the room and a skinny man who was just a little taller than Dad worked his way forward. His hair was straight and black and hung to one side like he’d taken the time to comb it. His denim pants and light blue work shirt were neat and clean. When he got to the center of the room, he stopped and spoke to the sheriff. “I seen ’em,” he said real soft. “I found ’em. I had some stock out and saw buzzards circling down that way. Thought some of my animals might of died there.”

  The sheriff looked at the skinny man for a moment. “Who are you, sir?”

  “My name’s Lafe Miller. I live down on th’ Little Bend bottoms.”

  35

  I felt numb when Lonnie’s pa said his name. It was strange. He didn’t look mean. He just looked like a skinny farmer.

  “Okay, Mr. Miller,” said the sheriff. �
��What did they look like?”

  “They was swole up like poisoned pups. Naked as jaybirds. Meat was falling off th’ bone. They stunk so bad you couldn’t breathe.”

  “So you couldn’t tell if they had been hurt in any way.”

  Mr. Miller shook his head. “I couldn’t anyways. People from Lexington come down. They just pulled out what they could and wrapped hit in sacks. Don’t know what they done with th’ stuff they sacked. Couple darkies done hit.”

  The sheriff thought, then looked around the crowd. “Who in here knew Mr. Hackett?”

  “I did,” said Rags. “He lived in my attic in winter. I kep’ him ’cause I liked his stories about th’ West. I found out a lot of them was true. He was a scout for th’ cavalry back in th’ Indian wars. He’d been a gunfighter too. You ought seen him draw his old six gun. Must’ve been nigh ninety and could still clear his holster quicker’n my boy. He could shoot too, by God.”

  “Did you think he was crazy?”

  Rags tilted his head to the side a little. “Well, Sheriff . . . most of the time he made sense, but now and then he’d say outlandish things. I . . . don’t know. I wouldn’t stake my life on him.”

  The sheriff stared at Rags in what I was learning was his way, then kind of squenched his mouth. “Did he describe him? The guy that chased him, I mean.”

  “Just a wild man like Bess said,” Rags answered.

  The sheriff thought again, then said, “Anybody got anything t’ add t’ this?”

  “Yeah,” said Dad. “What about the stock that’s been killed? He’s probably the guy that did it. Everybody says there’s no game on that stretch of river. It makes sense he’d kill what he could get easiest if he had a bum leg. He always killed a buck sheep. A buck’s slow . . .”

  “We looked once, remember?” grumbled Mr. Shackelford, and Bess snickered.

  Dad turned red in the face but kept looking at the sheriff. “You wanted evidence and those mutilated carcasses are evidence. Everything that’s been said t’night dovetails with it. This guy is some nut that’s been livin’ down there for years. Our posse must’ve scared him. He’s probably still there, though, if he hasn’t taken off for th’ Big Bend.”

  When Dad mentioned the Big Bend, I felt sick.

  The sheriff looked at Dad for a second, then at Ed and Bess. “How come you people didn’t tell me all this when you wanted to go lookin’ for that stock thief a year back?”

  Nobody spoke for a while, then Bess shrugged. “People around here don’t talk much about hit. We told you we had a hard time gettin’ a posse.”

  “Just sounded like mumbo-jumbo,” said Dad, when the sheriff’s eyes fell on him.

  “Mumbo-jumbo?” said the sheriff raising his eyebrows. “Several people found dead in a waterhole? An old man who says he’s been chased by a nut? A stretch of river without any animals? A fisherman chased away? You got any more mumbo-jumbo?”

  Everybody kind of looked sheepish at everybody else, then Mr. Miller asked, “Who’d be down there all these years we wouldn’t of found long ago?”

  “Satan,” come Mr. Howard’s voice from the rear.

  “Satan, shit,” said Bess real quick. “Clean him up and he’s Ralph Collins.”

  “Run that by me again,” said the sheriff.

  “And you can keep your godless meetin’ too,” yelled Mr. Howard, and from the shuffling sound I knew he was moving toward the door.

  “Stop right there!” said the sheriff. “I’m investigating the attempted murder of two people, and it’s gonna be done right. I come from parts just like these down in Harlan County. Lexington doesn’t give a damn about y’all, but I do. When I got out of th’ service I went to th’ police academy. I ran for sheriff of this county because you people said you wanted a Real Lawman. Well, I am a Real Lawman and this investigation is gonna be professional.”

  Nobody spoke for a few seconds and the only sounds came from one of the big deputies moving to guard the door. The next thing I heard was Dad saying to the sheriff in a soft voice, “Does what you just said mean we get no help at all from Lexington?”

  “That’s what it means,” said the sheriff. “Not even a pair of handcuffs. Now, before we go any further, I want every man in here to raise his right hand and take a deputy’s oath. Those who won’t swear for religious reasons just say ‘I promise’ at th’ swear part.” Then he reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, and everybody started to say what he said. I was just standing there when the sheriff stopped reading and looked at me. “You too, son,” he said. I looked at Dad, and he nodded, and I raised my right hand and started saying along.

  I was scared again, but they were on the right track and it sounded like they were going to figure everything out for themselves. If they were going to do that, I sure didn’t want to tell what I knew about the crazy man and the Blue Hole. Not with Alfred, Mr. Howard, and Mr. Miller in the room. I wondered what the sheriff would do to me if I didn’t tell. I knew what would happen if I did tell. Mr. Mac had almost got killed and his barn fired, I was almost killed, and maybe somebody else would get hurt or killed or their barn fired before the crazy man was caught and us knowing all the time. I began to shake and Dad’s arm went around me again and I pressed against him.

  When the oath was finished, the sheriff looked at Bess. “Okay, Mr. Clark, you were sayin’ the attacker might be this Collins fellow. What makes you think so?”

  “Ralph Collins and his family met me and my family several times. The Collinses was loners. Moved into th’ upper Little Bend maybe six months before that flood. Ralph was big. I mean, he was a good six-foot-five and had th’ awfulest pair a shoulders I ever saw on a man. He knowed more ’bout livin’ off th’ land than anybody I ever met too. If he hid out back in them cliffs, you’d play hell findin’ him.”

  When Bess finished, the sheriff turned toward Mr. Mac with a questioning look.

  Mr. Mac shook his head. “Can’t say if it was him or not, Sheriff. I knowed of Collins, but we never met. Like Bess said, he was a loner.”

  The sheriff’s steady blue eyes fell on me for an instant, then passed on as he realized I was too young to remember Collins.

  “Was Collins lame?” he asked, turning to Bess again.

  “Naw,” said Bess. “Ralph had two good legs.”

  “And was a God-fearin’ man,” come Mr. Howard’s voice. “I remember Ralph Collins too ’cause he come t’ church. He hardly ever spoke outside church, but he talked plenty in God’s house. Ain’t hit true he tried t’ convert you, Bess Clark?”

  Mr. Clark’s face turned sour and he muttered, “Yeah.”

  “Sheriff,” Mr. Howard went on in holy tones, “I say that Ralph Collins was a man of God, and that he drowned in that flood and that his body swept on downstream. What we’re dealing with here is Satan!”

  “Aw, come on, we’re dealing with a maniac, not a devil,” said Dad.

  “As a Christian I say we are!” Howard boomed back, and Dad’s head whipped around.

  Just then, Mr. Mac reached inside the flannel shirt he was wearing and ripped back the gauze, taking gray hair with the tape and popping two buttons. “Devils don’t do this! Steel does this!” he yelled, and blood started oozing from the cut on his skinny old chest that was an easy eight inches long and gaping to where you could see red meat.

  It got quiet.

  The sheriff sniffed, then spoke. “Well, so far we don’t have much,” he said. “Mr. Zilkinsky, I agree with you about it possibly bein’ th’ same guy that killed th’ stock because of th’ crazy way he butchered them. Trouble is, you looked like hell for him once, and didn’t find him. As for its bein’ Collins, I can’t see how anybody would be able to hide out that long and escape detection. This is probably some nut that moved in about th’ time Mr. Hackett was chased. As far as devils go, Mr. Howard, I’m just a plain old lawman and I got t’ deal with people. I’m lookin’ for a man. It sounds t’ me like he was headin’ toward th’ Big Bend bottoms when h
e tried t’ stab th’ boy. From what y’all have said, there’s a lot of caves in those cliffs. Who of you people live on th’ Big Bend?”

  Mr. Langley and Mr. Hickman raised their hands.

  “That’s all, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Mr. Langley. “Only other people living down there is th’ Cummingses and Ben Begley.”

  “The Cummingses? Who are they?” the sheriff asked, and everybody laughed as Alfred told how they owned almost all that land at one time and were touched in the head and maybe ninety years old.

  The sheriff kind of give Alfred a look, then said. “What about this Begley fella? How come he ain’t here?”

  A shudder went through me when the sheriff mentioned Ben’s name. Dad felt it and looked down. He was about to speak to me when Mr. Langley said, “Begley don’t have anything t’ do with people, Sheriff. He’s lived on the Big Bend bottoms ten, twelve years now. Sells pumpkins and melons. He’ll only speak if you speak first, then he’ll walk away.”

  “Was he warned tonight . . . and these Cummings people?” asked the sheriff.

  Rags Wallace kind of hung his head. “I moved th’ Cummingses to Alfred’s, but I didn’t go t’ Begley’s.”

  “How come?” asked the sheriff, kind of hot.

  “Well . . . it was dark, Sheriff, and Begley’s got these dogs. They’re real bad.”

  The sheriff frowned. “Bad enough you wouldn’t go close enough to call in a matter of life and death?”

  “He won’t generally come out for a call, Sheriff,” said Pers, and his Adam’s apple was jiggling up and down a mile a minute and eyes popping. “The road runs out a mile or so before his cabin and them dogs is killers. I mean, they’d tear a body’s throat plumb out.”

  “That’s right, Sheriff,” said Mr. Dillard. “I wouldn’t have gone there neither.”

  “Wouldn’t of neither,” said Mr. Lamb, then everybody muttered the same thing.