The Rock Hole

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “I know it!”

  Grandpa sipped the last of his coffee from the saucer. “I’m going to town for a little while to talk to O.C. Then I’m coming back to the field. I need to get the last of the cotton out pretty quick. The drizzle last night didn’t help anything, but it ought to be dry by afternoon if the sun stays out.”

  I felt bad for hunting when Grandpa was trying to get his cotton in, but he winked at me and I knew everything was fine. We headed for the door while Miss Becky cleared the table. She didn’t even tell Pepper to help, because she knew we wanted to get started.

  Grandpa Ned joined us on the porch and handed me his double-barrel shotgun. The stock had been cracked and repaired back in the olden days and the blue was almost completely worn off the barrel.

  “Here, Top. You can shoot this today. Remember to snug it up to your shoulder and she won’t kick so bad.” I pushed the thumb lever and broke the shotgun open to see if it was loaded. Grandpa was pleased. He nodded and grinned. “There you go.”

  I carried the gun into the yard. Pepper was sitting on the camping gear in the bed of Cody’s El Camino and he was staring across the hood toward the river. He broke out of his silence when he saw me standing there holding a twelve-gauge.

  “Lordy mercy boy. That thing is taller than you are. Think you can get it up to your shoulder?”

  I aimed at a nearby sycamore, holding it too long. Even with my left elbow planted firmly against my side, the muzzle drifted toward the ground. Pepper snickered, but she didn’t say anything. I knew she’d make her comments well away from Miss Becky’s house.

  Cody laughed. “Well, don’t take too long to aim at them flying birds and you’ll be all right. You might want to point it in the general direction of the sky when you pull the trigger, though.”

  Pepper’s gear was already loaded. I threw my own quilts and clothes into the El Camino’s shallow bed. We hardly knew what sleeping bags were, so bedding and feather pillows were the way to go against the evening chill.

  I glanced into the back at enough gear for a two-week African safari. Grandpa stepped off the porch and put his hand on the cab. “Now, Cody, you look after these young ’uns out prowling around them woods.”

  It made me mad because I knew we’d be fine, as far as I was concerned. I’d even stayed by myself for a night in the woods out back of the house before, so I considered myself an experienced camper.

  “Don’t worry, Ned. I won’t let nothin’ happen to ’em.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do.”

  “You mind me, then. And y’all mind your Uncle Cody.”

  We could hear shotguns popping somewhere down in the bottoms. Cody heard them too. “Load up and let’s go. Somebody’s already down there stirring the birds up. We’ll shoot us a few and then go find somewhere to set up camp.”

  Miss Becky dried her hands on a feed-sack dish towel and waved from the porch as we backed up to turn around. Uncle Cody shifted into drive and we crunched down the gravel drive. He had his hat tilted back on his forehead again and long curly black hair hung over his collar. I decided right then for sure and for certain I would grow up to look like him.

  Pepper jabbed me in the ribs as soon as we hit the highway. “That shotgun is gonna knock you on your ass.”

  “Will not.”

  “Sure it will. They ain’t enough of you to even hold it up, you little titty-baby.”

  “He’ll do fine.” Uncle Cody turned on the radio. “The only way to learn something is to do it. That old two-shoot gun might rock him some, but he’ll get used to it pretty quick, and you watch your language.”

  That settled Pepper down and she tuned the dial to a rock and roll station and we listened to “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles while he drove to the bottoms. Cody surprised us when he sang all the words. I didn’t know he liked anything besides Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell.

  When we got to the field and Cody saw his hard-looking running buddies from across the river, he turned the radio up and grinned out the window. “Howdy, boys!”

  Lane Miller’s shirt sleeves were rolled up over his skinny forearms when he met us in the shade of a large oak. “Cody! ’Bout time y’all got here. Turn that shit down and help us shoot these birds. Don’t these new cars get country music?” He waved at a dove darting overhead while those within earshot laughed. “Steve there can’t hit nothing but his foot this morning, so somebody else is gonna have to do his shooting for him.” He crossed his eyes at us. “Howdy, Top. Pepper.”

  Pepper grinned back at him without saying anything for once. I think she was feeling overwhelmed by all the big guys hanging around.

  I saw a young man with a flat top haircut sitting under a nearby tree. We got out of the cab and joined a few guys milling around in the shade. I’d never seen anyone who had shot his own foot. Steve had his pointy toe cowboy boot and sock off and was examining his naked big toe. It was a little bloody, but the wound had already stopped bleeding.

  I was disappointed. I expected his foot to be as full of holes as dead dove.

  Steve looked up at the small gathering. “Damned plug is out of the shotgun. I borrowed this thing from a friend of mine, but he didn’t say nothing about the plug being out. I’d already shot three times, so I was shoving a shell in it when it went off against the edge of my boot.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t blow your damned foot off.” Pepper forgot her earlier silence and realized she was away from her folks and in her element.

  She knew Cody wasn’t going to say anything, but her language around men she didn’t know shocked the fool out of me. “Pepper!”

  “Well, hell, he ought to be careful.”

  The guys laughed again, and Steve put his sock back on after realizing the toe was barely scratched.

  Cody shook his head at Steve. “I swear. Boy, you’re an accident waiting to happen.” He thumped Pepper on the head. “C’mon kids. Let’s show these yahoos how to shoot.”

  The field beside us began to shimmer in the rising heat.

  We broke out the shotguns. Pepper knew how to load her Daddy’s twenty-gauge pump, but Cody wouldn’t let her put more than one shell in it at a time. It made her mad and she sulled up for a while, but he didn’t care, and secretly, I was glad. It made me feel better about the ribbing I’d already taken from her.

  We found a shady spot away from the cars and Cody’s friends. He spaced us where he knew no one was in danger of being shot by a couple of kids. Then he loaded his own Browning humpback and joined the fun. When the first birds flew into range Pepper cheered up and started banging away.

  Cody called it sky blasting. “Hey, girl! You gotta lead those birds some and I think you ought to at least shoot toward them. Don’t shoot the whole bunch at once, either. Pick out one bird and shower down on him.”

  The dove acted spooky, like they’d been shot at before, which was likely so late into the season. They dodged and darted long before they got close to us, as if they knew ambush was waiting at the tree line. Shotguns thundered across the field. I kept missing the crossing birds and Cody told me I was shooting way behind them. The long, heavy shotgun slowed me down and made my reactions slow.

  More shotguns sent the birds back our way. I sometimes found myself watching other men across the field and forgot to shoot, hypnotized that I could see them shoot and watch birds fall long before the sound reached us.

  In no time at all Pepper went through two boxes of shells. Cody finally put his own shotgun down and counted the birds in his vest. “I’m limited out, so you guys are gonna have to do the rest of the shooting.”

  “What are you gonna do now?” I’d heard from the men up at the store about limiting out, but until then I hadn’t realized you had to quit shooting when you reached a magic number.

  “I’m gonna drink a beer and watch you guys hunt.”

  Pepper and I exchanged glances. I had my orders about Uncle Cody, but I had no intention of going home so fast. Bes
ides, I wasn’t sure beer constituted “drinking.”

  Cody fished a can out of his shooting vest. He picked off the feathers and dug around inside his shirt for the church key around his neck. Until then I thought he wore an Indian necklace, because I could see the woven grass cord sometimes when his top buttons were undone. He punched two holes in the can and took a long drink and sighed.

  “Damn. That’s good, even if it is rodeo cool.” He looked at me and then at Pepper. “I got some Cokes and a few strawberries in the cooler back of the truck. I wouldn’t forget you two.”

  A strawberry drink sounded good. Cody wagged the bottle opener at me with a twinkle in his eye.

  It was good to be a man.

  Pepper caught a flash of feathers and took a potshot at a dove crossing not far from where we stood. It folded and landed in a puff of dust. She looked around to see if anyone else had fired at the same time.

  “You got him!” Cody whooped.

  Some of the guys farther down saw the bird fall and cheered with us. Pepper ran out to retrieve it like when we were little kids picking up Uncle Mac’s birds when he shot them from the shade beside his house. We passed the dove around for a moment and I was determined I wouldn’t let Pepper outshoot me.

  The double barrel can wear on a kid pretty quick. If the stock isn’t snug against your shoulder, it’ll leave a bruise that will last for days, too. Half dozen shots later, my first bird drifted into the pattern and everyone hollered when it fell. Uncle Cody put the bird with Pepper’s and we went back to hunting.

  Half an hour later he finally stood and stretched. “Let’s get these birds cleaned. Then we’ll go down by Visor Creek and set up camp. I don’t want to be on the Red tonight, because I believe it’s been raining out to the west and this ol’ river can come up before you can say calf rope.”

  The rest of the hunters gathered around us as we cleaned the birds and aggravated Pepper for fun. She pretended to get mad, but she flushed red and it was obvious she liked all the attention. I’d forgotten all about Cody’s drinking once the guys joined us, because everyone had a beer in his hand.

  Feathers fluttered in the weeds by the time everyone was finished. Cody rinsed the birds off with some water from the cooler and put them into a galvanized bucket in the back of the El Camino. He pitched in a couple of handfuls ice and covered it with a wet rag. “That’ll hold them until we fry them up tonight. We’re gone boys. Climb in kids.”

  We waved bye at the hunters. They saluted us with beer and Cody punched the gas and steered toward the creek, leaving a rooster tail of dust and lot of cussing. Pepper and I couldn’t stop grinning, because the trip had only gotten started.

  Chapter Eleven

  O.C. Rains’ office wasn’t nearly as hot as the last time Ned visited, but the windows were still wide open and a flyswatter lay close by. Because his hands were full, Ned kicked the door open and walked right in.

  The judge looked up from his paperwork and frowned. “Don’t you ever knock?”

  “Don’t need to. You wouldn’t get up to open it anyway. You’d just holler to come on in, so there ain’t no use in knocking.” He handed O.C. two cold R.C. colas from the machine downstairs. “Here, pull these and rest a minute.”

  O.C. pitched down his pen and took the sweating bottles. He poked around in his desk drawer until he found an opener. “Thankee. What are you here for today?”

  For the next few minutes, Ned told him about the dead goat the Wilson boys found in the drain, the dog they brought to the store and the coyote on the fence down by the creek bridge.

  “This makes seven dead animals I know of right now.” He held up seven fingers for emphasis. “Seven, and five of them have showed up in the last month or so.”

  O.C. leaned back and frowned. He took a long swallow. “I believe you’re gonna have to show me some more evidence before I can charge Doak’s boy with animal mistreatment.”

  “Don’t bother. He ain’t it. I believe you had him penned up here before the goat was cut up.”

  “Hell. I hoped we had the right one. You sure he didn’t poke it up in there before you caught him at the still?”

  “Positive. The goat was ripe, but he hadn’t been in there that long. I’m still on the prowl.”

  “There wasn’t any advertisements, were there?”

  “Naw. But I found this one with the coyote on the fence.”

  He handed it to O.C. who studied the children’s picture in the carefully cut newspaper advertisement. “This is like what you found under Cody’s dog. Was the coyote treated the same way?”

  “’Course it was, but this time it had been caught in a trap first. I could tell by its front leg Then it was skint like a squirrel, but the hide was laid back over it like a blanket. Damndest thing I’ve seen in a while, and that’s saying something.”

  “Well, what are you gonna do now?”

  “The same thing I always do. I’ll kick around and see what turns up. Might even run over to Ragtown or Slate Shoals and talk to a feller or two. It’s the only thing I know to do.”

  “Well, you need to do it then.”

  They sat in comfortable silence for a long moment. Then Ned cleared his throat. “You know, I’m thinking those poor animals I’ve found ain’t the only ones out there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean there are probably others I ain’t found. I bet there are more animals he’s killed just for the pure-d fun of it.”

  O.C. swiveled around toward the open window. It was his best thinking posture. “What others have you found?”

  “This time around the first was a squirrel hanging from a rope under the creek bridge. He’d built a fire under it while it was still alive and I guess he set there and watched it twist and burn. He’d circled a coon in one of them Disney picture show advertisements and left it there with what was left.

  “Then not long afterward Bud Sikes found a coon nailed to the side of his hay barn like you would tack up a skin, but it was still in one piece, its belly cut open and its guts hanging strung out. I imagine the poor thing hung there until it died. There was a newspaper advertisement of the bird dog trials over in Hugo stuck in its mouth. It wasn’t long until I found Cody’s dog, then the coyote on the fence, then another dog and the goat. The son-of-a-bitch is baiting me.”

  O.C. shook his head without turning around. He’d seen a lot over the years, but nothing like this. He shivered. “You don’t think there are people or kids out there somewhere, yet, do you? Somebody left out in them woods you ain’t found?”

  “Maybe not right now, but the size of what he’s killing gets bigger and bigger, and he keeps pointing at kids. And I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s doing more…damage to the things he’s killing. Do you have any missing person reports I need to see?”

  “I have a couple,” O.C. said. He rummaged around on his desk and brought out a couple of sheets, but none of them were children. He handed them to Ned anyway. “You let me know if you find anything else. Let me know right then.”

  “All right.”

  “You been doing any other work?”

  Ned brought O.C. up to date on the calls he’d cleared. They talked for a while about who was fighting, who was messing around and who got caught at it.

  O.C. finally tired of law talk. “You gettin’ your cotton in?”

  “Ivory and his people won’t be long now. The dampness last night cost me some time, but I doubt it’ll be too much. Got some of John’s kinfolk pickin’ for me, too.”

  “You didn’t hire Ralston, did you?”

  “Naw. I know better.”

  “Well, if you see him hanging around the store out there, bring him in. I heard he cut up a Mexican across the tracks last night and then he run off.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out, but I hear he’s in the Dallas jail.” Ned glanced up at the wanted posters papering the side of O.C.’s filing cabinet, half expecting to see Ralston’s picture. “Speaking of outlaws, Frank Lightfoot’s f
amily moved into the shack down from the house. They’re poor. We gave them some cornmeal for their supper with some other stuff. I hired them to pick, too. They’re supposed to start work today.”

  “Indians picking cotton? You don’t see many of them with cotton sacks on this side of the river.” O.C. leaned forward and set his empty drink bottle on the desk. He rummaged through several stacks of files until he found the one he was looking for, then perched a pair of smudged reading glasses on his nose. “Frank Lightfoot. It says here he just got out of jail again.”

  “What? What fer? I figured they’d keep him for the next ten years.”

  “He did some talking and gave up a few boys who were doing worse things than him up there in Oklahoma. They’re giving him time off for it, so he’ll probably be back around pretty quick.”

  Ned shook his head. Sometimes the criminals were on the street before he had time to get back home from the jailhouse. “I swear. They must have one of them department store revolving doors up there in McAlester. Nobody stays anymore.”

  “Yeah, and it’s getting worse. Maybe if we catch him we can keep him in Huntsville. Anyway, keep an eye out.”

  “I imagine he’ll stop by and try to work that feller over who’s took up with his wife. I’ll be bringing him back in pretty quick. You know, O.C., you and I were raised in shacks. I didn’t know what a wooden floor was until I was fifteen. But it ain’t right this day and time. I live in a house with indoor plumbing and electric lights. Hell, I even have a television set that we can see when the weather is right. But those folks are barely getting by.”

  O.C. swiveled in his chair and looked up at the portrait of President Kennedy on his wall. “These are the 1960s and it ought not be that way. Kennedy said we’d be on the moon before 1970 and here people are still using outhouses, chasing down people making whiskey and dealing with whites who don’t like niggers and both of them not liking Indians. When you live off the land you’d think it’d be hard to hate another man for the color of his skin. What’s next? You think those Mexicans will come up from down south? Who’ll hate them?”