Land of the Hoosier Dawn (Events From The Hoosier Dawn Book 1)

by Nick Younker

  Since he kept his office and holding cell above the Co-op, Russ just went ahead and gave him a key so he could come and go from the Main Street entrance whenever he wanted. Normally, he entered from Locust Street through his own stairwell in the alley, which reached up to Kelly’s patio. Since Russ was in the ’Bend eating with his dad, Linton went ahead and opened up the Co-op and pulled the popcorn machine outside. Russ liked to make up a batch of popcorn for anyone who wanted a bag. He fired up the rotator and the kettle, then poured a cup of oil and a cup of popcorn into it.

  He sat beside the popcorn machine in front of the Co-op on their welcome bench and ate from his bag of peanuts. The smell of fresh popcorn, an autumn breeze and warm peanuts outside on Main Street was his idea of a peaceful Indiana morning, at least until things around town got going. That morning was a little more fast-paced than others though. Bob came out front of the ’Bend and handed him a to-go box of eggs, biscuits and gravy.

  “Take this and feed your animal,” Bob said.

  Linton smiled because somehow Bob knew he had Bret Holder upstairs in the holding cell. It was also funny to hear Bob refer to anyone in a derogatory manner because, well, he wasn’t very good at it.

  “I guess word travels fast in a small county,” Linton said, scraping the bottom of his bag for every last peanut.

  “I guess so. I’m taking off now and Kelly just got a barge order in for 9 a.m. She wants to know if you can run it down to the docks for her?”

  “No problem. Have fun with those kids this weekend, bub.”

  Bob opened the door to his 1986 Jeep Wagoneer, hopped in and put on his light blue fly-fishing hat with all his lures attached to it. He held up a tackle box and winked.

  “There’s never a bad time to do a little fishing. Especially with those two little roosters of mine.”

  Bob fired up the Wagoneer and backed out, giving Linton a couple of goodbye honks and a backwards wave. Linton waved, and as soon as Bob was out of sight, Sheriff Marvin Kramer pulled up. Linton knew this officially put a favor on the board for him down in Barrelton, so he was happy to see him. Kramer got out, removed his hat and wiped sweat off his forehead. Deputy Jeff Stark got out on the other side. Stark was a new recruit, fresh out of training. He was only five and half feet tall but he was a handsome young man and built like a brick shithouse. Linton knew him well because he had spent a lot of time in Fogstow in his youth, staying summers with his aunt and uncle in the Beach. Most of the young ladies around the area flocked to him with something as little as a finger snap, but he held them off pretty well, maybe even a little too well.

  “Jesus Derr! Turn the damn oven off! It’s October for Christ’s sake!” Kramer said.

  Linton smiled, turned his peanut bag inside out and tossed it in the trashcan. He got up, wiped his hands off on his pants and reached to shake the Sheriff’s hand then they both sat down. Stark approached them and removed his jacket, which outlined his muscular physique, which also made Linton and Kramer a little uncomfortable.

  “Stark! Can’t you cut me and Derr a little slack here? No one wants to see you show off your extremities,” Kramer said.

  Stark smiled, inhaled deeply, stuck his chest out, rubbed it and buffed up a little before he sat down beside Linton and shook his hand.

  “Whatdya know Boss?” Stark said.

  “Too damn much, not sharing,” Linton said.

  They all three had a laugh and Linton handed Stark the breakfast bag for Bret.

  “You sure are collecting the trash early this morning, Marv,” Linton said.

  Kramer stretched back on the bench and scowled a little at the notion.

  “Well, about that. We need to leave him here another night, Linton.”

  Linton leaned over his knees and rubbed his head, a little irritated.

  “Marv, if you absolutely have to, then I’ll stick around. But you know Mom wants me down in Derbie for supper on Friday nights. She also has me bringing Kelly and Lucy every week.”

  Kramer gently held up his hands for calm measure. “No worries, no worries. That’s why I brought Stark here with me. He’s gonna babysit and give you the night off. You round up your girls and go on down. Tell Carolyn that Margie and I said hello and stay the night in the cabin while you’re there. Just be here tomorrow by 10 a.m. so you can sign him out of your holding cell for me. Stark will be here the whole time.”

  Linton smiled, gave Stark a hefty pat on the back and said, “Well, I guess I can’t argue with that.” Even Kramer couldn’t help but laugh at that because Derri Emmons was just walking by when he said it and she looked better than a pin-up photo on a mechanic’s toolbox. She wore jean cut-offs with the front pockets popping out below the thigh line, complemented by a white tank top covered by an unbuttoned blue and gray checkered flannel shirt tied at the navel. Derri was a 16 year-old knockout beauty with a very protective father, namely Jack Emmons. Jack had raised her himself since she was two years old, after the disappearance of her mother, Lorie Emmons, in ’79.

  Derri approached the three men sitting on the bench.

  “Hey Boss, can I get some popcorn out of the machine?” she asked Linton, but quickly looked over at Stark. She played with her flannel navel knot and slowly rocked back and forth while smiling at him. Kramer rolled his eyes, and then slowly leaned down in his seat and covered his face with his hat. Linton couldn’t help but get a kick out of the whole situation.

  “Sure Derri. How’s your dad doing?” Linton asked.

  Stark got up and filled a bag of popcorn for her.

  “Well, I guess he’s doing fine. He was wrapping his bowstrings when I left and we’re gonna come up to the Elks club tonight for supper.” Derri glanced back over at Stark and smiled her most innocent and seductive smile.

  Linton also smiled, almost in a foolish way, and said, “Well I’m sure he’s looking forward to seeing his little girl tonight.” He punctuated his speech more in the direction of Stark than to Derri, but she couldn’t help but giggle at that.

  Linton and Kramer got up and walked to Kramer’s cruiser. Both were uncomfortable around Derri’s budding sexuality. Kramer opened the door and turned back to Linton.

  “Do me a favor. Make sure that I don’t have a complaint come across my desk from Jack Emmons tonight, would ya?”

  Linton looked back at Derri and Stark. She was making obvious advances, but Stark was also trying his best to repel her with his hand motions, and he kept shaking his head no. Linton looked back at Kramer.

  “I think he’ll be just fine.”

  Kramer let out an exasperated laugh and got down into his car. He started it and put the car in reverse, but before he backed out he looked up at Stark, then at Linton and said, “That poor, tortured bastard. All those powers and nothing to use them on.”

  Jeff Stark had always had girls crawling all over him but he never seemed to bite. They were always too young, too tall, too old or too skinny. By now, Linton thought that poor bastard probably had testicles the size of tangelos, and any second he could just let loose and explode. But of course who was he to judge? He might have let them off the porch a time or two and Linton probably just didn’t know about it. The truth was, Derri was only five years younger than Stark, and just a few more nudges might be all it would take to land him in the sack . . . and in the slammer without a job if Jack found out about it.

  ***

  4

  Chief Derr’s office was very uncomfortable that morning with the heat wave rolling through and the smell of the ’Bend frying up mass quantities of ridiculously delicious breakfast food was just making it worse. Bret Holder had slept most of the night but could not quite make it past 8:30 a.m. He was not an early morning type of guy and most days his father’s housekeeper woke him around one or two in the afternoon after a night of debauchery with his friends.

  He rolled over on his cot and wiped the sleep from his eyes. The only thing he wanted right then was a cig, but Kramer took that away before he shipped him up to Fogs
tow. He also had to sleep in his bare feet without any socks because, well, fuck if he knows. The last thing he wanted to do was be stuck in this shit brick town on a Friday. It just occurred to him that his father still hadn’t bailed him out. He wondered if his father even knew he was locked up in Fogstow.

  Bret sat up and looked around, finding that he was the only one in the office and he was stuck behind the bars of this makeshift holding cell. I guess if there’s a fire, I will need to just suck it up. Pop will hear about this.

  One thing came to the surface as he sat on his cot rubbing his head – he was hungry! He could smell pancakes on the griddle sizzling in hot butter. That combined with frying sausage and the sound of the eggs popping had his stomach squealing in hunger.

  And what is with this fucking heat? Isn’t it October yet?

  Sweat poured down Bret’s face and the breeze from the open windows had done little to comfort him. His head was splitting and there was no one around to bring him a Percocet, or even an aspirin.

  “Hello! Dumbfucks! Any dumbfucks around to give me a hand here?” he yelled toward the open windows. “Did you fuckwads even call my father and let him know you brought me here?”

  He waited a moment then yelled again. “Hello!”

  He could hear Chief Derr outside talking to someone and he could also hear a young girl innocently giggling. It made him smile as he closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. He had heard a lot of those innocent little schoolgirl giggles in his time and to him, they all looked the same. Small, slender, flowing hair and tight shirts that slid up and revealed their midriffs. They liked to twirl their hair around in their fingers while they talked to him because, well, he was just a highly desirable 22-year-old guy who can get them beer and make them feel good, or so he thought.

  Bret slid his hand down his pants and caressed his groin. Just a few little harmless rubs to get the blood flowing. He listened to the sound of the teenage beauty and his vision of her pulling off those sweet little panties just before she climbed on top of him. The casual unclasping of her bra as she lowered it down and slid it off, throwing it behind her and straddling him at the same time, as if she couldn’t wait to get right down to business. Oh yes, he remembered those things well.

  Bret had rubbed himself until he was rock hard and the timing could not have been worse. The door flew open and that little pissant Jeff Stark walked in carrying his jacket over one shoulder and a to-go bag from the ’Bend in his other hand. He would have jumped out of his skin and covered himself with a blanket but he still had his pants on and was dry rubbing himself. Bret was embarrassed but he had to pass it off as no big deal, or else this wet-behind-the-ears fool would try to take his dignity away. This was, after-all, the same little puke stain that he and his friends used to pick on back in high school. He should be bowing down before him, not babysitting him and invading his privacy.

  Stark looked directly at Bret when he walked in and saw the dry-rub going on inside the cell. He stopped, obviously perplexed by the situation, and then smiled and set down the take-out box on Linton’s desk.

  “Well, well, well! What do we have going on in here? A little early morning sunshine spray?” Jeff said.

  “Go fuck yourself, puke stain! I have to piss and I was just trying to hold it in.”

  “Is that so?” Jeff took immediate notice of his little soldier saluting and quickly pointed to it. “I totally get what you’re saying. I also get hard-ons when I have to piss,” Jeff said and laughed in a condescending manner.

  Bret stood up from the cot and walked to the edge of the cell. “Is that my breakfast?”

  Stark pointed at the bag and smiled. “Yeah.” Then sat down at Linton’s desk and put his feet up. “I’ll walk it over to you after I take my nap.”

  Chapter 2

  A Harmless Adventure

  ***

  1

  Playing basketball at the ’Bend was a tricky task, but there were no other goals around the Highland district to play at, and if no one would give you permission to play in their driveways, the ’Bend had to do. Noah Buchanon had been coming up there to play ball for as long as his 12-year-old mind could remember. Pete Brown had hammered the goal to the telephone pole years ago for kids like him, Joe Terrance and the Chapman brothers, Dean and Mark. That was where they had met about six years before when Noah, Joe and Dean were just starting kindergarten. They had been playing ball together ever since, along with Dean’s little brother Mark. That gave them an evenly matched two-on-two game, and they could play for about two hours at a time on most days. During the summers they would have to stop and go swimming just to cool down, but they always came right back to the hoop.

  Joe Terrance was a small, dark-skinned young boy with thick, flowing black hair. Both of his parents were Caucasians with German ancestry. A lot of the townspeople knew Joe’s parents had a hard time conceiving and theorized that they had hired a Native American to help them. Even though there were plenty of Native Americans down the river in Illinois, the only one who visited Fogstow frequently was Shane Duncan Siders, and most people shuddered to think that he could be the father.

  Noah and Dean both knew this. Siders was a tall and strong man with long black hair that he never combed. Most thought he was from Gallatin County in Illinois, but no one ever dared to ask. He spent a lot of time on the river in his makeshift houseboat and he frequented a lot of areas along the river in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. When he came to Jamison County, he usually docked his houseboat near the sinkholes, closer to Derbie. He was a very private man, and when the boys came across him, he acted in an intimidating manner. He was always grumpy and intolerant, and sometimes, he was just downright mean. But for the most part, he kept to himself and wandered around the town. The boys had even seen him traveling up Pine Hill toward the Jeffries plateau and on other occasions, they saw him in the woods on the east side of the TC. They always dismissed him. Joe never made any connections to him and the other boys just thought that was for the best.

  Playing ball at the ’Bend was always a challenge. The parking lot was gravel and playing basketball in gravel was no fun. But it was much better than playing on the Hastetter’s goal in the side drive that led up to their barn. It had those large, meaty rocks that stuck out of the mud below it. Dribbling there was never ideal. Dribbling on the ’Bends gravel was much easier. It was small, white crushed stone, a lot like pea gravel, except white and more dusty than grimy.

  They couldn’t play at the Hastetter goal anymore, anyway, since that horrible Cindy Hastetter had run them off. They were playing on her goal one day when she was gone and they had thought she would be gone all day. She came home and caught them. You’d think they were breaking her windows or something by the way she came out of her car yelling at them. They all four ran and Joe turned around and flipped her off as they were leaving. That wasn’t good for Joe, because she called his parents and poor Joe had to go out and pick his own twig. But Joe had learned early on that those small twigs hurt the worst when it came to getting a whipping, so he always came back with the large oak twigs that had a little moss and decay to them. When his dad swatted Joe with those, they usually broke off on his ass and his dad usually thought he had hit Joe too hard, so he’d pat him on the leg and tell him to run off and play.

  It never really bothered the boys anyway. They played ball anywhere they could find a goal. Sometimes they got in trouble and had to run for it, but they never went without. If they were in the Highland district, they played at the ’Bend. If they were in Squaw Creek, they played on any number of barn sides with the hard mud surfaces – same way with the Beach. But if they were in the TC, they had to watch out for those spoiled housewives who had nothing better to do than run them off and leave those damn basketball goals to just sit there and rot. Noah thought it was just a damn crying shame and the biggest waste. At least, that’s how his pops would have put it.

  Since that Friday was a special day and the county recognized it, it wa
s built it in as a snow makeup day at school and they got it off if there were no snow days before it, which there never were in Indiana, at least not during September and October. The earliest they ever saw snow was late November and even that was rare.

  Joe woke up at the crack of dawn that Friday and snuck in Noah’s window to wake him up. Noah was always a hard case to wake up, especially if he had only gotten nine hours of sleep. But that Friday was the easiest Joe had ever woken Noah. Noah already had his clothes and shoes ready to go beside his bed. He slowly sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes about the same time Kelly Doss was filling coffee pots and Lucy Doss was cracking eggs that morning at the ’Bend.

  Noah and Joe crash-landed out the window, hopped on their BMXs and made a mad dash for the Highland. Dean and Mark were already at the ’Bend shooting a game of H-O-R-S-E when they showed up. They had actually been there for half an hour, just before the sunrise. Dean loved to torment Mark by challenging him to a game of slaps. He knew Mark was hell-bent on beating him, but every time, Dean would pound the hell out of Mark’s hand and Mark would walk around half the day with his hands reddened and semi-bruised. Mark was tough as hell and Dean knew it, so he usually called it quits early on. He didn’t want to bang his hands up too much, considering they both had taken their fair share of ass-whippins’ from their stepfather.

  Dean and Mark had lost their mother earlier in the year to breast cancer. Their mother was Mary Chapman, but she married Brad Oxley, so she was Mary Oxley at the time of her death. They had only been married for a year when they found out she had cancer, and she went downhill quickly after that. Their father had never been in the picture, and their grandparents were already in a nursing home. So that just left them with their stepfather.

  Brad Oxley wasn’t too bad of a guy. But after Mary died, the burden of losing his wife and raising her two boys became too much for him. He started drinking heavily and by March, he had lost his job because of it. He was raising the boys off their mother’s social security benefits and he had stayed fairly close to only spending the money on the boys’ needs, but he still had a habit to support, so he drew unemployment for awhile. When it ran out, he filed for state assistance. They were living in Mary’s house, which she had inherited from her parents, so most of the bills were manageable. He did, however, force Dean and Mark to walk the roadsides and pick up cans so they could go down to the recycle lot in Derbie and sell them. It wasn’t much money, but it was enough to keep a bottle in his hands most nights.