Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller

by Malone, David Lee

  “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. Do you know any of the girls Freddy and Bruce have been hangin’ out with lately?”

  “I don’t ever know what them two are doin’. Hell, here lately the only time they come home is when they need money. They can run through a thousand dollars like a dose of salts through a widow woman. Neither one of ’em has ever done a day’s work in their lives and I ain’t got nobody to blame but myself. I tried to teach ’em while they was still young un’s how to do things, but their momma didn’t want them gittin’ their hands dirty like James did. I guess I wanted something better for ’em too, but I went about it the wrong way. Neither one of ‘em was near as smart as James was, anyway.”

  “Well, what’s done is done and we can’t change that,” the sheriff replied. “But we’ve got to try to talk some sense into them thick skull’s of theirs before it’s too late, ’cause the woman who called knew more than what she told me about the fire.”

  Jake’s head turned quickly toward the sheriff. “Like what?”

  The sheriff hesitated and let out a long sigh, knowing Jake was about to explode. “She knows about the pot, Jake.”

  “There ain’t no way in hell! Them boys ain’t got a clue about that. I make sure they’re always gone plum out of the county when there’s a drop off or a pick up. As long as I give ‘em money and tell ‘em to git lost, they could care less what me and James are doin’, anyway.”

  “Well, maybe the girl is smarter than them two boys. Maybe she got suspicious of how they was able to spend so much money and did a little pryin’ on her own. She might’ve started poking around and seen somethin’. I don’t know how else she could know.”

  “You know we have men surroundin’ this place when we’re doin’ business, Andrew. Hell fire, there ain’t no way her or anybody else could git within’ a mile of this place without bein’ seen.”

  The sheriff shook his head and leaned back against the seat, “Then how do you reckon she would know, Jake? I sure as hell can’t figure it out.”

  “I don’t know, but we better find out quick and hope she ain’t run her mouth too much. I’ll ask the boys what girls they’ve been spending time with lately. They’ll be home this evening ‘cause Carolyn’s cookin’ a big supper and some of their cousins are comin’ to eat.”

  “Maybe she wants to use the information to blackmails us.” The sheriff said, lighting another cigarette. He rarely smoked except when he was nervous or worried. Now he was chain smoking because he was both.

  “It don’t matter what her motive is,” Jake replied, “we just have to find out who she is. Once we do, I’ll handle the rest.”

  The sheriff knew what that meant and he didn’t want to think about it. But he knew it would have to be done and was glad he didn’t have to take part.

  “I wish I could tell them worthless brothers of yours how they’re puttin’ their lives in danger by actin’ the way they are and blowin’ money like a bunch of idiots. But I don’t know how, without letting ‘em in on what we’re doin’ and how dangerous the men are we’re dealin’ with. And I wouldn’t trust ’em no further than I could throw ’em to keep their mouth’s shut. They think they’re ten feet tall and bullet proof, the damn fools. Hell, George Patrick’s boy put one of ‘em on his knees the other day. He kicked him square in the nuts. Then Miss Lena run ‘em out of her store with a shotgun and told ‘em not to ever come back. I’m glad she done it, too.”

  “I heard about that,” the sheriff chuckled. “And I wish you wouldn’t call them my brothers. I don’t mind you callin’ James my brother, but I hate to think those two have the same blood as I do.”

  “Well, nobody but you and me and your momma knows it anyway,” Jake said.

  “My sister knows.”

  “Yeah, she does, but she’s in the same boat you are and don’t want anybody else to find it out either. I wish I could have been a daddy to you two, but you know that was impossible. At least your sister had who she thought was her daddy growin’ up. I reckon he was a pretty good man.”

  The sheriff started turning the car around to take Jake back to the barn. “See what you can find out from them two, Jake. I’ll poke around and see what I can find out from some of those Jones boys they hang out with in Collinwood. One of ‘em got hisself into a little trouble with dope and theft of property. Damn fool boy stole some farm equipment. I might tell him I could git the charges reduced or maybe dropped if he could give me some information I could use.”

  *****

  A deputy was sent to the small house trailer where Bo Jones lived to tell his live-in girlfriend that the sheriff might have a deal for him. Sheriff White knew he would have a lot of trouble finding Bo unless he let him know first that he was trying to help him. Bo had skipped bail at his last court date and he knew he was going to jail if he was caught. It might be for a pretty good stretch this time because Judge Edwards was getting tired of seeing him in his courtroom two or three times a year. If his daddy had been anyone other than Daniel Jones, the owner of one of the largest textile mills in Alabama, he would have already been in prison. Pam, the live-in, said she’d get word to him and make sure he contacted the sheriff immediately.

  *****

  The sheriff had just finished lunch at the Pine Ridge Café and was planning on going into his office, closing the door, and taking a short nap. All the good food at the café had that effect on him some days and this was one of them. As soon as he walked through the door, Kate handed him a slip of paper with a phone number written on it and the name Bo Jones at the top.

  “He just called about ten minutes ago,” Kate told him.

  The sheriff nodded and walked into his office, closing the door behind him. He dialed the number and it rang several times before someone who sounded very annoyed answered.

  “Yeah, whadaya want,” was the greeting on the other end of the line. The sheriff could hear a Doobie Brothers song playing loudly in the background. Andrew White was in his late thirties, but he loved all the music the kids these days were listening to. The Doobies were one of his favorites.

  “Didn’t your momma teach you any phone manners?” the sheriff responded to the caller, who had obviously been drinking heavily and probably had a few tokes off a left handed cigarette.

  “Who the hell is this?” the voice said, trying to sound like a bad-ass.

  “Never mind who it is, you little asshole. Just put Bo on the phone.”

  “Oh, I…..I’m sorry, Sh….Sheriff. Yeah, ah… Bo’s been waitin’ for your call.” The boy laid the receiver down on the table with a bang and yelled for Bo to come quick.

  Bo answered the phone, breathing heavily. “Hello!”

  “What’s the matter Bo,” the sheriff said in a sarcastic tone, “I caught you out workin’ I guess.” Bo Jones was just like Freddy and Bruce Bullard. He had been given money by his old man to stay out of his way and had never done an honest days work in his life. As a result, he had turned out just about like them, except he didn’t go around trying to pick fights all the time like the Bullard brothers did.

  “No, Sheriff, I wasn’t workin’,” Bo answered. The joke had gone over his head which wasn’t surprising. Bo was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  “Bo, I need to talk to you like right now. I believe if you tell me what I need to know, I can talk the DA into reducing the charges and get you probation. Either that, or I’ll come pick you up right now and you can be my guest here in the county jail ’til your trial comes up. Then you can go spend some time with those nice guys at the state pen. You know how nice they are to pretty young boys.”

  Bo sat there silent for a minute. The sheriff could tell he was weighing his options, which was stupid, because he really didn’t have any. “This ain’t no trap just to get me in is it, Sheriff?”

  “Hell no, boy, it ain’t a trap. I could have already had your little nappy ass if I wanted it. I’ve just been busy and you wasn’t exactly my top priority. Get in your car righ
t now and meet me at the old iron bridge at Steven’s Dam and let’s git this over with.”

  Again, Bo hesitated for a few seconds, then finally said, “Alright Sheriff. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. I believed every word of the Bible. Still do. That verse, to me anyway, defined Snake Williams. Snake held no ill will toward anyone because of Hugh, Annie or Frank’s deaths, or for any other perceived wrong he’d been done for that matter. Momma had insisted, leaving no room for argument, that Snake move in with us after the fire. Having Momma around all the time was almost like Snake starting school all over again, but without the advantage of getting to go home at three o’clock and having a summer vacation. As a result, his reading had improved dramatically and his vocabulary was not like that of an eight year old anymore. His mind was maturing but he still had the heart of a small child, which I felt was a good thing.

  Snake’s body had healed almost completely from that terrible night of the fire, but his heart hadn’t. He would be just fine one minute and then see or hear something that reminded him of one of his lost loved ones and suddenly burst into tears. No amount of talk about Heaven and brand new bodies seemed to help, either. He believed every word Momma and Daddy told him about Heaven, but couldn’t understand how his momma could be so happy right now separated from him and her two daughters. Daddy tried to explain to him how nothing sad ever entered your mind in Heaven and that he and his sisters memories had been erased from her mind until they were in Heaven with her. To be honest, I didn’t understand it either, and still don’t, but I believed it just the same. That’s what faith is all about. Snake believed it, too. His heart was still, and always would remain, that of a child’s.

  Me and Glenn were doing everything we could to help. When we weren’t doing chores, we were with Snake fishing or coon hunting or swimming or just hanging out and acting fools. But one of our favorite nightly hangout places had to be avoided at all costs. The cemetery was off limits because Snake wouldn’t go near the place and cried non-stop if he did. The three people who had been the closest to him his whole life and he spent almost every minute with were at the cemetery under the cold ground and were never coming back.

  *****

  We had decided to walk instead of drive over to the Portersville Gap and do some cave exploring. That was one thing Snake had never done and I thought he might like it, with all the strange looking stalagmites and the weird looking fish with no eyes. Snake would have a million questions but that was okay. With his new found reading skills I could tell him he would have to look it up in the encyclopedia when we got home. Snake loved the encyclopedias. He would sit for hours reading about any subject, but he especially liked reading about animals. Sometimes he would drive me and Momma crazy asking us what a word meant or telling us about what he was reading, but seeing a whole new world opening up to him was fun to watch.

  We got to the cave that afternoon, later than we had planned, and decided to explore what we called the Indian cave. We had no special reason for naming it that. The name just seemed appropriate. The Indian cave had the smallest opening of any of the others and you had to climb down a rope somebody had put there years before to get inside. But the small entrance was deceiving. Once you had climbed down and squeezed between the two huge limestone rocks, it opened up into a giant room that would make anyone stand in awe. The ceiling was at least thirty feet high and there was a waterfall off to one side that emptied into a deep, crystal clear pool. The pool was an amazing site. The water had so perfectly eroded the rock that it looked like it had been designed by an architectural genius and carved out by somebody with the skills of Donatello. There were stalagmites that looked like ornate columns you’d see in one of the ancient Greek or Roman wonders like the Parthenon or the Pantheon. The species of fish had long ago evolved into eyeless, almost transparent creatures that grew to be almost a foot long.

  Once you were past the great room, or the ballroom as me and Glenn had named it, there were three openings that went about as far back as you wanted or dared to go. Most of your journey through these tunnels had to be spent crawling on hand and knees, but when you least expected it, they would open up into another giant room. Some almost as big as the ballroom, some maybe half that size.

  I was the first to climb down the rope and I noticed right away that somebody had been here very recently. There were footprints in the damp dirt along the steep sides of the rocks and what appeared to be scuff marks. Had somebody fallen? As amazing as this cave was, there were not many people who even knew about it. Daddy said he had explored these caves some when he was a kid, but that to most people they were nothing more than a hole in the ground.

  When I got to the bottom there were more footprints in the muddy entrance between the boulders. It almost looked like somebody had drug another person, judging by the long skid marks. I yelled for Glenn and Snake to come on down. Snake came next followed by Glenn. We decided to light our lanterns instead of just using our flashlights so Snake could get a good look at the amazing ballroom. I was not disappointed in Snake’s reaction. He stood there speechless for several minutes, then started walking around rubbing his hands along the damp walls and the odd shaped stalagmites. Then we all three made our way over to the pool. I believe Snake thought I was pulling his leg when I told him about the fish with no eyes, but didn’t want to let on one way or another now that he was becoming an educated man. He watched the fish swim around as if they knew exactly where they were going, even if they couldn’t see. Snake was grinning from ear to ear and still hadn’t spoken a word. Finally he broke the silence, having to talk loud to be heard over the roar of the waterfall.

  “How in the world was there somethin’ like this so close to my house and I never heard of it? I’d a come here every chance I got if I’d a knowed about it.” Snake’s grammar still wasn’t up to par but we were working on that. When you are surrounded by people on a daily basis that talk almost the same way, it takes time. I still say ain’t and use a lot of grammatically incorrect words even though I know better.

  “Look at all those rocks hangin’ from the ceilin’, Snake,” I said, happy he was enjoying it. “All that fancy carvin’ was done by the water you see drippin’ and it took thousands, maybe millions of years.”

  “Water done that? I don’t see how, as hard as rock is and as soft as water is.”

  I explained how water under pressure and with time could do amazing things, like carve out canyons from solid rock, and create caves like this one, but that it took a long time. I told he could read about it in the encyclopedia when we got home.

  Glenn moved the lantern around, casting long and distorted shadows on the scarred cavern walls. Snake was still looking at the fish and I could tell by the look on his face a question was about to come.

  “How does them fish find anything to eat if they can’t see?” he asked.

  “You’ll have to look it up in the encyclopedia when we get home,” I answered.

  He walked over to the waterfall and started looking into the dark crevices behind it. With only the light from the lantern Glenn was holding, he was having trouble making out the fish and other objects. Then I saw him lean over the edge of the water.

  “Looks like a big clump of moss or somethin’ got hung up on one of these rocks. I can’t tell what it is,” Snake yelled above the sound of the water falling.

  “Use your flashlight, Snake,” I said, starting to walk toward him.

  “Oh, yeah.” He reached down and took the flashlight that was clipped to his belt. He clicked it on and pointed the beam in the direction of what he’d seen.

  “Boys, do animals come in this cave much?” Snake asked.

  “Prob’ly do sometimes,” Glenn answered. “I don’t remember ever seein’ one though. Why, do you see tracks or somethin’?”

>   “No, but I believe there’s some kinda dead animal in this here water. I thought it might be a clump of moss to start with. Now I ain’t shore.”

  Me and Glenn walked over and stood beside Snake, taking our flashlights out and shining them in the direction of his beam. I saw what Snake was talking about. At first glance it did look like a big clump of moss or maybe even leaves. But I was pretty sure moss didn’t grow in caves because there was no sunlight. I knew for a fact trees didn’t, so I ruled out the leaves.

  “I can’t tell what that is from here,” I said. I started looking around with my flashlight, trying to see if their might be an old limb or something laying around that I might reach it with. I realized immediately that was foolish. There wouldn’t be any limbs in here unless someone happened to bring one in to build a fire or something. I shined my light back on the object. It could be a dead animal, I thought. But I really didn’t think so. I looked at the rocks all around the waterfall to see if there might be a way to climb over and get closer. The closest rock was a good ten feet above and it would be as slick as owl shit, so I quickly abandoned that idea.

  “I gotta know what that is, boys,” I said. “And there ain’t but one way that I can see to find out.”

  “You ain’t about to jump in that water are you?” Glenn asked incredulously. One thing me and Glenn had never even considered was jumping in the deep pool of the cave. It was deep, cold and dark, and the fish looked too weird.

  “Can you see another way to get over there?” I asked.

  “No. But whatever that is ain’t worth riskin’ your damn neck for. It’s prob’ly just somethin’ somebody threw in the water like an old bag of trash or some kinda junk. If you git in there and git a cramp or somethin’, I’ll have to come in after you and we’ll prob’ly both drown.”

  I thought for a minute about what Glenn said. I knew the water shouldn’t be any colder than the temperature of the cave, but we had walked almost five miles to get here in ninety degree heat. I didn’t know what the shock of jumping into the water would do. We were constantly being warned about cramps by the older folks when we went swimming. Especially in the deep quarry pond. Then it dawned on me. We all had ropes in our backpacks. I took my backpack off and dug through all the stuff we never used and pulled it out. I told Glenn to hold the lantern close. I carefully made a harness that fit around my torso, making sure it was tied tight.