The Drifter's Wheel

by Phillip DePoy

  He let go a sigh to wake the dead, and nodded once.

  “Can I go home right now?” he asked Melissa. “Is that what you said?”

  “I’ve got my truck outside,” I confirmed.

  “Well, then.” He stood, with Melissa’s help, then held on to the cell door to get his legs under him.

  “You take care, Hovis,” Melissa said softly. “I’m sorry I had to shoot up your arm.”

  “Miss,” he said, turning to face her, “I’m sorry I give you cause to do it. Won’t never happen again.”

  “That’s a deal,” she told him, and smiled warmly.

  “Let’s get in that truck, then,” he said, and without further ado began motoring with surprising agility toward the front room.

  Melissa and I followed. He was in the front room in no time.

  “Did he have some sort of coat?” I asked Melissa.

  “No.” She looked around trying to see what she might find to keep the old man warm on the drive home.

  Before she had arrived at a solution, Andrews stood, shed the raincoat I’d lent him, which he had kept on even in my house, and held it out.

  “This isn’t very warm,” he said, not looking at anyone. Hovis just shook his head.

  “It’s mine,” I explained to Hovis. “I keep it in the truck. Would you mind carrying it back to the truck for me while I finish up here? You know the one it is.”

  Hovis looked out the glass front of the office, but it was hard to see, the night was so black and the room was so artificially bright.

  “Big old beat-up green Ford truck?” he asked, more to himself than to me.

  “That’s the one,” Andrews sighed.

  Without another word Hovis took the raincoat in one hand and shoved the door open with the other. He was gone. I turned to Andrews. “Behave,” I whispered. “Bite me,” he whispered back.

  “I’m just going to run Hovis home,” I said much louder, turning to Melissa. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  “Okay.” She glanced once at Andrews, then sank to her seat behind the big desk.

  I took another second trying to decide if there was anything more I could do or say that would prevent an uncomfortable moment in that room, but gave up in favor of getting Hovis home quickly and rushing back to save the day, if, in fact, the day needed saving.

  “I’m off, then,” I announced to the room, and pushed the glass and metal door into the night.

  Twenty-five

  Hovis was already in the truck, and he was using the raincoat as a sort of blanket.

  I climbed in beside him, started the engine, turned on the lights, and backed out slowly even though the streets were deserted. I wanted to give Hovis time to settle in.

  I had barely gotten to the end of the street when he spoke.

  “So you caught that boy, the one that was in my house the other night?” he said evenly.

  I almost slammed on the brakes and turned the truck around. How could Skid and I have been so oblivious as to not let Hovis have a look at the man to confirm that he was our visitor?

  “Yes,” I answered him distractedly, trying to decide what to do.

  “That’s good,” Hovis continued. “He wanted catching. Where’d you get him?”

  I took a breath. If Skidmore was convinced that the man he had in custody was the murderer, he didn’t really need to hear from Hovis on the subject. I relaxed.

  “Top of the mountain,” I told Hovis, “up there where Red works. You know Barrel Cave?”

  “That I do,” Hovis grinned.

  “He was sleeping in there,” I concluded, “the killer.”

  “Makes sense,” Hovis nodded, looking out the side window. We drove in silence for a moment before I actually registered what he’d said.

  “Why does it make sense?”

  “Him being a Jackson,” Hovis explained calmly, “and one of them wild boys up there that don’t know what time it is—he’d go up there to hide when he come back to the mountain.”

  “What are you talking about?” I hadn’t meant to slow the truck; it just happened when I focused more on Hovis than on driving.

  “I didn’t tell you he was a Jackson?” Hovis turned my way.

  “Maybe you’d better pretend that you haven’t told me anything about your conversation with that person,” I said slowly, “and start from the beginning. You know him?”

  “No.” Hovis shrugged. “But I know who he is.”

  “Who is he, then?”

  “I believe he’s Boy Jackson, Son Jackson’s older brother.”

  Son Jackson—it took me a moment to recall, but that was the dead man’s name. Brother against brother.

  “Why didn’t you tell this to anybody before now?” I almost raised up out of the driver’s seat.

  “Don’t like to get nobody in trouble.” He sniffed. “And nobody to ask me, so far.”

  “Even when you were arrested?”

  “Sheriff didn’t want to hear much of what I had to say. Plus, I was drunk and shot up—if you will recall.”

  If you will recall. There it was: continuing evidence of the man’s schizophrenic nature, or at the very least a phrase that was said with a different voice and alternate diction. Hovis Daniels had spent more time in the county mental health facility than any other ten people, and still came out as troubled as he’d gone in—or worse.

  “So, Hovis.” I quickly tried to think of the perfect question, but all that came out was “What did you two talk about?”

  “This and that.”

  His response was evidence that I had not asked the perfect question.

  “What did he want from you?” I said quickly. “Hard to say,” Hovis answered, genuinely thinking about the question. “We talked a good bit about old Mr. Jackson.”

  “Edna’s husband?”

  “Edna,” he growled, as if it were a curse word. “Why was he—”

  “Old man Jackson and I surely could drink,” Hovis said, grinning, pulling the raincoat to his chin. “Sometimes he’d come down to my shed, once I moved in down there, and spend all evening until sunrise drinking and talking.”

  “I see.”

  “The boy found that interesting.”

  “He did?”

  “He thought I was the last real person to see Mr. Jackson alive, on account of he had his seizure down in my place, Mr. Jackson did.”

  “The last real person?” I asked.

  “He didn’t count Edna any more than I did. But I told him that Mr. Jackson died in the hospital. I remember that. When I told the boy that, then he was interested in the hospital.”

  “Interested in what way?”

  “This and that.”

  “Hovis—”

  “I told him,” Hovis snapped, “that Miss Foxe was the nurse on duty, so Mr. Jackson was treated best there is. Did I ever tell you that Lucinda Foxe was the one to look after me the last time the police shot me up? That was Sheriff Maddox. He shot my knee. Did it on purpose. Put the revolver pointed right at my kneecap and asked me a question. Didn’t like the answer, so he pulled the trigger. That hurt bad. They fixed it up over to the hospital, but that’s why I limp here today. I don’t believe there’s a kinder person in this world than Lucinda Foxe, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” I answered, “but you told this person, our visitor, that Lucinda—”

  “Was most likely the last one to see Mr. Jackson alive,” he concluded.

  “What was his response to that?”

  “Let me think.” Hovis slid down in his seat an inch or two. “I believe he changed the subject after that. Got me to talking about … you know, telling stories. That’s all I recall. Nor sure when he quit my place. I might have fallen out before he left—he gave me a whole lot to drink.”

  “I see.” I was barely concentrating on the road, trying to pull together something in my mind that was just about to snap into place.

  “Wait,” Hovis said suddenly. “He did ask about the tunnel. ’Course I didn’t
tell him about that. Old man Jackson would raise himself up out of the ground and kick my ass if I told anybody about the tunnel.”

  “Tunnel?”

  “What did I just say?” he asked me, irritated. “I can’t tell nobody about the tunnel and that’s that! I made a promise.”

  “To Mr. Jackson,” I ventured carefully.

  “Right.” He shivered. “Damn. I got a chill. I do believe I will start a hot fire in my stove when I get home.”

  I thought I might try changing my tack. “You told the visitor some of your stories. Like the ones you told me—that I tape-recorded. That’s why you had it in your mind that I ought to have my tape recorder when I visited you on Tuesday.”

  “Could be.” He considered it. “I did tell him a power of stories. He was really interested. Told him war stories mostly, some gold rush stories—you know: the old days. That’s what I know best. There’s not a single today in life that can beat a really great yesterday. And do you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because yesterday is polished by the rags of memory,” he continued, “and it shines brighter, glows warmer. Hell. A man my age, especially, is more like to recall a penny’s worth of ten-years-ago than a dollar’s worth of earlier-today.”

  “And that’s what Boy Jackson wanted to know? About ten years ago.”

  “He was curious about family history.” Hovis sniffed. “I was happy to talk about it. I got to put in a mention of Barbrie. Always like to talk about her when I can.”

  “He asked questions about Edna and her husband?”

  “Lots.” Hovis nodded his head. “And now I think a mite about it, I believe I did mention that old man Jackson had some stories on your tape machine he might could hear. He really wanted to hear those. Reckon that’s why he come to your place?”

  I hit the brakes; the truck skidded to a stop. Hovis slammed into my side and grunted, pushing himself off me, greatly irritated.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” he demanded.

  I’d gotten Hovis out of jail, but I hadn’t nearly solved the murder. What it was really about remained a bafflement.

  “I completely forgot about that!” Again I considered turning the truck around. “Melissa’s been listening to the wrong tape. The visitor wanted Mr. Jackson’s tapes. And he got them. They’re missing.”

  What could have been on those tapes that was important enough to kill for?

  “Fever Devilin!” Hovis was concerned. “Do you know you stopped your truck?”

  “What?” I looked around. I realized that the truck was sideways in the road, and that I’d been talking out loud when I thought I’d only been musing silently. It happened occasionally that I would say things that I had only meant to think. Andrews referred to it as a bizarre by-product of self-absorption. I preferred to think of it more as a simple synaptic mishap.

  “Sorry,” I told Hovis.

  “I’m damn cold,” he complained, “and I need my little shack.”

  “Let me get you home.”

  I punched the accelerator and the truck jerked forward. We gained speed quickly. The engine complained and the tires objected. I was pushing sixty miles per hour on a dark, bending road that was unsafe at twenty-five.

  “Look, Hovis,” I insisted, “you’ve got to tell me everything you can think of that the man said to you. Really concentrate. It’s important.”

  “Okay.” He could see how serious I was. “Let me … okay. I got it.”

  That was all. He was silent.

  “You’ve got what, Hovis?” I finally prompted impatiently.

  “I got a way to pay you back,” he answered firmly.

  “You’re going to tell me something that you just remembered about your conversation with the visitor,” I said, excitement edging my words.

  “No,” he told me firmly. “I done told you most of what I can recall about that. This is much better. You come on in my house when you get me there. I got something for you.”

  No matter what I said or did after that, Hovis would not make a sound. His face was awash in holy satisfaction, as if he’d salved a painful burden.

  We skidded up to his shack five minutes later. He was opening the door before the engine was off.

  “Come on,” he beckoned, practically running for his front door.

  If I’d had my wits a bit clearer, I might have been wary of running into the dwelling place of a man who had pointed a loaded gun at me at least twice in one week. But he was so enraptured that it was hard not to be swept up in his Christmas-morning mood.

  He hit the door hard, pounding it inward. I was only a few steps behind.

  “Wait,” he said, stumbling. “Let me get a light.”

  He knocked several things over in the nearly black room before he found a match, struck it, and lit an oil lamp. A hazy butter color filled the cold room.

  “Okay.” He looked up at me grinning like a jack-o’-lantern. “Now, this is something I give to you in payment for what you done to get me out of jail. You got to swear that you’ll not tell a living soul about it. Swear now.”

  “Look, Hovis—” I began, burning to get back to the police station.

  “Damn it, Fever Devilin, swear this minute!” It was a command.

  “I promise,” I sighed quickly, “not to tell anyone whatever it is you’re about to show me.”

  “Done, then,” he nodded, satisfied with my halfhearted oath. His grin threatened to break his face. “Here it is.”

  Hovis set his lamp down on the floor close to the kitchen stove. He bent quickly and shoved his table aside. He dropped to his knees as if in prayer, and grabbed what looked like a nail that had not been completely pounded into his floor. With a deft tug and a sudden flip he pulled up several boards, and I realized that he was opening a trapdoor. A second later he had loosened a square of flooring and revealed a hole large enough for most people to slip down comfortably.

  “Come on.” He winked. “Follow me.”

  With that he dropped his legs into the hole and wiggled down it until only his head was visible. He grabbed the oil lamp and took it in, pulling most of the light with him down the hole. I moved to the edge of it, peering down. It appeared that the hole was short, and opened up into a much larger cavern.

  I knew that if I thought about it too long I’d never follow Hovis, and it seemed important to him, at least in terms of paying me back, somehow.

  So I sat on the floor, dangled my legs in the hole, and waited until Hovis disappeared below me and the light was almost gone.

  “Slide on down,” he encouraged. “It ain’t a bad drop.”

  I took a deep breath and eased myself into the hole. I had the deliriously uncomfortable sensation of sinking into a bottomless pit just as my feet hit some solid flooring. With a bit of shimmying on my back, I was able to complete the journey down the hole and into what appeared to be a solid granite cave underneath Hovis’s home.

  The cave was well lit by the lamp, but Hovis busied himself lighting two more. The place was oddly homey. There were several wooden chairs, a strong table, a sleeping cot—and several dozen barrels that looked exactly like the ones in Red Jackson’s favorite cave farther up the mountain.

  At the side opposite from where I was standing, the cave opened up into a huge underground tunnel, also mostly granite.

  I took another moment settling in before I realized the magnitude of Hovis’s gift to me.

  “This is your escape route,” I concluded. “This is how you vanished from your house, how you got to my house so quickly, and without the sheriff seeing you.”

  “Right and right.” The smile wouldn’t leave his face. “This tunnel is the reason old man Jackson built the shack up there. It’s the reason he hired me on to keep watch over it.”

  “To guard these barrels; to keep Mrs. Jackson from ever finding out about your hidden spirits.” I nodded wisely.

  His smile vanished at last, and he peered at me as if I were an idiot.

&nbs
p; “Fever Devilin,” he said slowly, his voice rich and deep, “this, what you’re standing in, is the Jackson gold mine.”

  A sudden draft washed the air in the tunnel and the oil lamps flickered, making shadows and golden light dance on the walls of the cave.

  “The what?” I thought I’d heard him incorrectly.

  “The Jacksons,” Hovis answered, a bizarre, stumbling parody of a tour guide, “first excavated their land in the last days of 1828. Everyone up here was talking about finding gold. The Jackson family home is, in a plain manner of speaking, sitting on a gold mine.”

  I looked around at the room. Bottles and kegs were in abundance. Gold, as far as I could see, was conspicuously absent.

  “Are you sure this isn’t just some story that the Jacksons—” I began.

  “Old Mr. Jackson talked about it all the time.” Hovis was turning angry—I had apparently challenged something important in his world. “Edna, too, but she was just … you want you some applejack?”

  Without answer from me, he headed toward a row of bottles on the floor in front of some of the barrels. He scooped one up, unscrewed the top, and took a healthy slug.

  “There,” he whispered. “That’s better.”

  “Hovis,” I said carefully, “did Mr. Jackson ever say how much gold the family had gotten out of this mine?”

  There was the grin again, returned at last. Hovis took another gulp from the bottle in his hand and sat down at the table between us.

  “That’s a good one.” He shoved the bottle across the table, indicating that I should sit and join him in a cup of kindness.

  “How’s that?” I stood my ground.

  He shrugged, took the bottle back. “That’s one of the two or three best secrets of the Jackson family—about the gold. What you would call a well-kept secret.”