The Sweet Taste (Perry County)

by Roy F. Chandler

  My mind asked why he bothered. Why didn't Gorse spend his last moments out in the daylight, facing God, or smelling air, or anything except trying to kill one more time? I didn't have time to reason it out.

  I faked a swing at Gorse's head, and a clumsy arm rose sluggishly to fend it off. As hard as I could, agony slicing my body, I slammed the hard oak leg against the side of Jello's knee. I had to stretch to do it, and the pain crippled my blow.

  Gorse's leg took it, and he managed a step closer.

  Panic threatened, but I ignored it, and tried again to slip past the silent monster. There was no hole.

  My mind set. I could feel it decide. All right, Gorse, it all happens now.

  I think I roared or screamed, or maybe I cursed. I swung hard at Gorse's head. His arm came up to block. Like lightning—slow lightning that is—I reversed the swing and let it all go against the other side of Jello's size twelve skull. Fire enveloped my body, but I rode through it and drove the blow as though it were a home run.

  Gorse's other arm got up to ward off the club. He almost made it. His fingers deflected the club enough that it struck above his ear.

  I felt the smash run through my fingers, and I saw the end of my table leg fly high. It was a tremendous wallop, but not quite square enough. Jello went to a knee and hesitated there, but he didn't go down.

  Suddenly, calculator clear, my mind registered a limp hang to Gorse's left arm. My club had hit him above his right ear. Brain signals crossed. Had I deadened his left side? Gorse's head had flopped to the left when the club had hit. It was still there.

  God, it was like trying to chop down an elephant.

  This time I swung for the fence. From way back I took a real Mel Ott, rusty-gate swing.

  I aimed for Gorse's left ear.

  The table leg came around parallel to the ground. It passed over Jello's shoulder and connected like a railroad tie against Gorse's ear. The shock went clear to my bad shoulder. This was no near miss. I had hit a grand slam.

  This time I looked with confidence. I used the leg for support and jammed my rump against the wall. My breathing sawed like emphysema, and each inhale threatened to ram the broken ribs and shoulder bone into my lungs or through my skin.

  But Gorse was down. Incredibly, his huge head looked normal. God, it should have been flattened on one side and bulged on the other.

  Jello had slumped against the same sofa I had crawled against. I watched his chest rise and fall, so he wasn't dead yet. Granted a dozen or so decent breaths ... and I would change that once and for all.

  Gorse got his head up. Only his right eye aimed at me, but it was enough to harden my grip on the table leg club.

  Then a convulsion heaved Jello's chest, and a monstrous gout of blood erupted from his mouth. Jello Gorse sagged backward. His head struck with a thud, and his eyes stared unseeingly at the ceiling.

  Could I doubt that Gorse was dead? You had better believe it. A freak that could kill after absorbing three solid .357 magnum hits scared me beyond logical reasoning.

  I stayed against the wall just watching him. After his body's dam-bursting gush, Jello stopped bleeding. Once a heart stops, the blood's pressure is gone and only gravity acts on blood flow.

  I realized Gorse's gaping mouth was blood filled to the rim. Jello wasn't breathing.

  I poked at Spider's dead carcass, but Gorse had crushed him shapeless. No doubt there either.

  I inched out the door, using the table leg for support. The bright, handsome day was a greeting I had never expected to see.

  I slumped to Spider's porch, unaware that I was sitting where I had when I talked to old Grampa Seeber, leaning my back tiredly against the same worn post I had used as a boy.

  Lordy, the world was beautiful. A fly landed on my hand, and I simply admired its handsome form. How lucky I was. Deserving or not, I breathed the sweet Perry County air and looked across the sun-dappled yard.

  I saw the pit and thought of all the dead around me. Now what?

  That was the next thing to decide, and the situation wasn't quite as open and aboveboard as I would have liked it.

  +++

  Chapter 15

  It is said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Well, I didn't feel at all tough, but I dearly wanted to get going. What I wished to do was walk, creep, or crawl back over the ridge, get into bed, and sleep away all memories of the last hour or so.

  Good Lord, only an hour? Not even that. It seemed as though I had struggled with imminent death for centuries.

  Sometimes it is best to just get away from a bad scene. The trouble was, this wasn't just a disgusting situation.

  What I had here was prime time, worldwide TV. Ye Gods, poisonings (I thought), a shooting, a crushing, multiple bank robberies by a motorcycle gang— and an isolated haunted-looking house, with bodies in a huge highly photogenic burial pit—it was the stuff of nightly national news and at least a week of front page newspapering.

  Did I wish to be in the middle of that? Like hell I did. Worse yet, it might take a lot of convincing to keep authorities from believing I was part of it.

  Any way you described it, my carrying on over the summer could sound unreasonable. For instance, I just happened to be in the bikers' backyard to cajole a witness into telling about a murder? Coincidental, to say the least, and police did not appreciate coincidences any more than I did.

  Suppose Kenneth D. Bunds claimed he didn't know what I was talking about? That left me the only person admitting to knowing where the body lay. Not good at all.

  Here I sat with a Gorse spattered death club in my hands. Around me the corpses were beginning to swell and stiffen. Oh no, Gene Perry wanted out, cleanly and quietly, with no traces of him left at all. The question was, could I get away with it?

  I could. I hadn't touched a thing, really. Except this table leg of course. I doubted that amid all the mayhem there would be much dusting for fingerprints anyway. How would investigators put it together?

  If Spider and Jello had poisoned the bikers, as I figured they had, it would come out quickly. Spider's prints would be on the pistol, to match the holes in Jello. What was left of Seeber's crushed hand would disclose powder residue, showing that he had fired the gun.

  There would be no doubt that Gorse had squeezed Seeber into pulp. But, who had clubbed Jello? I had to set that up, I supposed.

  I groaned erect, but some of the worst groin pain was receding. Reluctantly, I reentered the charnel house.

  Ignoring the gut churning stench, I wiped the handle end of my club on a handy piece of clothing. Then I tackled the nastier part.

  With the club held in the cloth, I picked up one of Spider's dead hands and squeezed it around the grip. I repeated a few times, then did the other hand. Seeber's crushed right hand was bonelessly limp. I shuddered, Jello hadn't left much undamaged.

  I tossed the club aside, as Seeber might have done, or as Jello might have knocked it. I checked around. No traces of my presence appeared.

  I again looked closely at Jello Gorse. Yep, he was dead. The monster would not rise this time.

  I saw the pistol. It lay where I had been standing. All I had had to do was bend down and pick it up. So much for Gene "Coolman" Perry.

  I walked away. No footprints showed that I could see.

  I went uphill where it was easiest and topped out well away from Seeber's trip wires.

  I did not turn for a last look. The scene in Spider's yard was forever graven on my mind. I was concentrating on getting home.

  +++

  The slow, dogged struggle across the ridge and into my patch allowed thinking. God, I was sick of being hammered and battered. I had been in various states of hurt since the spring bear hunt. Red Hartson and the bunch would get a real laugh out of this story.

  Of course they would never hear it. For all the reasons I had already thought through, my involvement could never become public knowledge.

  Who cared if Gene Perry suffered or even died? I was wear
y of going it alone. My folks down in Florida worried and wondered about their restless son, but they had each other and their lives were long separated from mine. Oh, people cared, but with friendly, distant, common humanity attitudes. I truly wanted someone to whom I would be number one.

  Of course I knew who that someone was. I'd been dancing around facing up to myself for months. Jello's re-mangling hammered home to me that the loner life was used up for Gene Perry. I'd had enough of independence.

  Roots, family, and personal caring offered marvelous appeals to a battered hulk struggling homeward to an empty cabin. This time, I didn't want to hunker in my cave, licking my wounds in solitary misery.

  There were better ways. I had been sampling them all summer, practicing restraints worthy of a Jesuit, while reasoning loftily about what was a fair, long term involvement, and the probable limitations to the Gene Perry footloose freedoms.

  I had had it. I wanted Lori Shoop, permanently. I wanted her loving comforts, personal caring, and steady helming. Chris, too. A good boy, to be a son, to teach, to enjoy—that had always held appeal.

  At my clearing edge I rested gathering strength for the last yards. My ribs thumped and the injured shoulder—ignored while club swinging—repaid me with a jolting, broken-tooth kind of agony that snatched my breath away,

  I should have again savored the sweet taste of revenge. This time I had it all. Gorse was as dead as a fossil, and Seeber, who really had hated my guts, lay crushed into shapelessness.

  I searched for the thrill of victory, but there was too much ghastliness.

  Later. Maybe later, I could feel a comforting success. I leaned forward and let my feet stumble me toward shelter.

  +++

  First I called Lori. What a marvel my new telephone was.

  I said only, "Lori, I'm at the cabin. I've been hurt again, just like before, and I need you."

  She said only, "I'm coming." That was the kind of gal I needed. Lori Shoop got with it.

  I clawed my clothes away and got into my shower. I only soaked a few blessed minutes because standing hurt a lot. I dried off a little and managed pajama bottoms. My old robe felt warm and comfortable around my shoulders. I was heading for the door when Lori's truck skidded in.

  I met her on the porch and, feeling dizzy, I sat immediately in one of the old rockers.

  She knelt down and looked me over quickly. "You've got a cut up in the hair on your forehead, but it isn't bleeding. What else is wrong? You look pale and sort of glassy eyed."

  "My ribs got it again, and I think my collarbone is broken."

  She eased the robe off my shoulder to look. There wasn't much to see, just a reddish bruise where I had hit the wall, or maybe it had been the table, I couldn't even remember.

  Lori felt gently along my collarbone. I knew when she found the spot. "Yes, it's broken, Gene. I can feel where it is out of line. You'll need a doctor this time."

  Again I said, "No doctor, Lori." Her mouth firmed in aggravation and beginning insistence. "No, listen to me, honey. When I explain, you'll understand."

  Lori stood there, staring at me oddly. I had to smile through my urgency to get on with my telling. Without thought, as naturally as if it had been habit, I had called Lori Shoop "Honey." I had never done that before. Well, I would explain that part as well, but first things had to come first.

  I asked, "Will you get me my pain pills? They are in the drawer in the night stand. I'd better have one while I'm talking."

  She brought codeine and some water. While I gulped the pill, she stated more than asked, "You didn't just fall out of a tree, did you."

  I sure as hell hadn't, but where to begin?

  I started with the fact that Jello Gorse had again beaten me nearly to death. Before Lori could react to that, I added that Spider Seeber and Jello had, more or less, killed each other.

  Lori's mouth made an "0." An awfully attractive letter I thought, before hauling my mind back to work.

  I explained it in bits and pieces. Lori had heard about a bank robbery, but knew only that the state police were checking cars at the Clark's Ferry bridge. What I had to add approached the unbelievable.

  A little way along I was faced with a big decision. Did my clean-breast explanation include admitting that I had burned motorcycle row at the Bikers' Club? Why burden Lori? Or should all the laundry be hung out for airing?

  No one told his mate everything. Few survive without shameful or at least uncomplimentary incidents in their pasts. Too much confessing could sour caring. Perhaps the bike burning was one of those confessions best left undone. Certainly the incident paled before what I was now describing.

  I was not embarrassed by the bike burning. You got square the best way you could, but you got square. Torching the bikes had been part of my way. I decided to let the arson pass for now. It had no bearing on the grisly tale I was now unfolding.

  Lori Shoop was not naive, nor inexperienced in life's rigors, but Spider's and Jello's killing and burying of the Duncannon girl stunned her.

  Lori knew her. Although a decade younger, the dead girl had been an acquaintance. The town had believed her gone away with one of the motorcyclists she had become thick with.

  That acceptance had been difficult enough, but to learn that her body lay beneath a junk pile at the edge of town was numbing.

  That shocker, to understate, was only the first of the Jello Gorse, Spider Seeber mind bogglers.

  I took Lori ahead, step by step, from the first time I saw Spider and Jello together. In telling, my trailing sounded game-like. I guess it was, until Spider caught me.

  Although I glossed over more gory details, describing acts like the monstrous Jello dragging bodies to the burial pit caused shudders and horrified face hiding.

  There was nothing pleasant in the story, except the very end. I told it for other reasons. One was that I needed to organize my own memories into coherent chapters that did not rip and tear at my emotions.

  Another reason for explaining, was that I no longer wished to silently bury the things I knew and had experienced. The burdens would still be mine, but I eased the pressure by telling another, just as so many thieves and murderers, or combat veterans, or crash survivors relieved their tensions by talking out their memories. In my case it was comforting to share, and the describing left me with only one question—what to do about all that I knew?

  Lori said, "You'll have to tell the police right away."

  "Are you that sure they won't believe I am involved and just got scared off?"

  The possibility startled her. It frightened us both.

  We kicked ideas around and ground them down into two options. By then the pain-killer had me comfortable but groggy. My mind was soggy, and my emotions were shredded. Important choices should not be made in that condition.

  Sleeping on a problem often clears the cobwebs. We reluctantly agreed everything must wait until morning.

  Lori guided me to bed and hoisted my feet for me. I remember mumbling that we should tape my ribs. Then I was out.

  +++

  It rained during the night. A careless move shot pain through my chest. It popped me awake, and I fumbled for another pill. Rain drummed on the roof and splashed noisily from the eaves. Little is more restful and calming than lying dry and cozy while a powerful downpour hammers your roof.

  I especially appreciated the drencher because it would obliterate any yard or woods marks I might have left going to and from Seeber's. I lay for a while listening to the rain and thinking again of the best ways to handle my situation. The few hours of sleep had given me respite and allowed a mental distance from the confusion of the horrendous crimes and the narrowness of my own survival.

  Before I again nodded off, I had decided what I would do, and I expected Lori would approve. She came early and I wasn't up. I was still in bed because I hurt too much to get up alone. We got me upright, sitting on a stool. Lori managed the Velcroed body wrap that I had first worn leaving the Anchorage hospital. Stabili
zing my ribs helped immensely. Unfortunately, my busted collarbone was enough by itself to sicken my stomach. That was when we began to disagree.

  Lori was all business about what had to be done, most of which I refused to consider. I thought my reasons were good.

  "Lori said, "A doctor needs to look at that, Gene."

  "I can't go to a doctor, Lori. He might want to cast it, and there will be a treatment record. If I get involved in all the murdering, it won't look good to have suffered broken bones just at that time.

  "A doctor would also discover my injured ribs, remember?

  Lori's lip stuck out over it, but after a while she said, "Then we will have to strap your elbow to your side or something. If you don't immobilize it, your shoulder will never heal."

  "Lori, police will show up here. I want to look healthy."

  "Oh, you'll look really healthy, Gene. There you'll be, all bent over with one shoulder either hitched up or sagging down. They won't be blind, Gene."

  I had been thinking it through, so I had answers.

  "What I'll do is, I'll wear my old jacket. The one with side pockets. I'll just keep my left hand in a pocket. When someone comes it will look natural."

  Lori sniffed. "It better stay cool, Gene. You'll look real strange wearing a jacket if the heat goes back into the eighties."

  She had another point. "What if they do notice you've been hurt? What then, Perry?"

  I smiled as though it were a piece of cake. "Why I'll just explain about the bear mauling, and how I wonder if I'll ever get well.

  "That's on the books, and who can argue over how long it takes to heal up from a grizzly attack?"

  Lori bought that reasoning, and some of the resistance went out of her.

  "So, what do we do now, Gene? Just wait until someone finds them over there?"

  It wasn't a bad suggestion, except that the waiting could go on a long time and might cloud what had happened. Right now, the picture would be pretty clear and should not mystify the police—I hoped.