Twice more, Parker managed to get the sniper to shoot at him while we moved down the wall. We approached the top of the hill, and Les crawled to a stop at the corner of the wall. He peeked around the corner and quickly drew his head back. Waiting for a few seconds, he then peeked around again. He looked for a few seconds more and then motioned us to come up behind him.
“He can’t see us from this angle, “Les whispered. “There’s a bush at the corner of the church blocking his view from that window. Now, there are two windows and I don’t know which one he is shooting from. Also, I don’t know if they open into the same basement room, so when I give the signal we will creep up to the corner of the building. Then I’ll give the second signal. Pat, you put your grenade in the closer window. Cotton, you put yours in the other. Got it?”
We both nodded. This would have to be done fast, before the sniper knew we were there and reacted. We slunk from the corner of the wall over to the rose bush. I felt horribly exposed, despite Les’ assurances.
Les quietly drew his .45, and then held up his other hand with all five fingers spread. Cotton and I pulled the pins to our grenades. He started a silent five second countdown and we tensed, hearts in our throats. We needed to do this fast, but be accurate. If either of our grenades missed the windows and bounced back at us, we were most likely dead. Les reached zero, and we moved.
Les charged straight across the face of the two windows, firing a shot at each one in an attempt to make the sniper duck or flinch. Cotton and I were right behind him, running up and putting the grenades through those windows with underhanded pitches from just 3 feet away. We then dove for the ground while Les flattened himself against the wall. A second later there was a deafening double “KRUMP,” with dust and glass blasting out of the windows. Debris rained down on me and Cotton both.
From the rear of the building, we heard a muffled curse in German and footsteps running away. Without hesitation, Les stepped out around the corner with his gun aimed, and yelled “HALT”. A second later he fired two shots, while Cotton and I crawled to our feet. We brushed the dirt and glass out of our hair and clothes while Les stood there for a bit more, pistol aimed at something out of our sight. He then motioned us forward with his other hand.
We came around the corner to see a German soldier lying prone on the ground, about 30 feet away.
“Cotton,” Les ordered, “get his rifle while I cover him, then take it and check on his partner in that basement.” He indicated the low angled basement doors.
We moved forward, approaching the German with caution. He laid face down on the muddy ground, blood spreading from a spot on his back. He still lived, pale and gasping in a way I had heard many times before…a collapsed lung. Cotton moved up on the other side of him and snatched the rifle from where the sniper threw it when he fell. Even with the fight over, adrenaline still hurried our moves. I knelt by the soldier, and pulled his Mauser P-38 from its holster while Cotton headed for the basement door. He raised it, peered in, and then slowly walked down into the darkness. Les edged over closer to the basement door, so he could keep a better eye on Cotton.
“Hey Les,” I called, “you got a kerchief I can stuff in this guys wound? I used mine on Parker back at the jeep.”
With another glance at the door, Les started fumbling for his kerchief while easing over to me. I didn’t know what we were going to do with this Kraut yet, but I saw no reason in letting him die. While I couldn’t see us parading back into Paris in a stolen jeep with him on the hood, we might be able to drop him off somewhere on the way. Les handed me the cloth and I lifted the German’s shirt and stuffed it up to where the wound bled on his back. Applying pressure, I slid his belt off and then put it around his torso where the impromptu bandage covered the bullethole. That would at least hold it in place.
I heard the jeep pulling up in front of the church, and looked up to see Cotton standing at the top of the basement steps. He was so white, his freckles stood out like sores.
“Cotton?” Les glanced back at him with concern, “Did you find his partner?”
For a second, Cotton didn’t answer. He just swallowed two or three times as if he were going to be sick. Les stood up and started towards him, as Parker came hobbling around the building.
“Cotton?”
Cotton looked up at Les as he approached. He still seemed to be struggling, but then found his voice.
“He didn’t have no partner.” He mumbled.
“What?” Les demanded, “He must have a partner.”
“He didn’t have no partner,” Cotton repeated, tears filling his eyes. “He had hostages.”
We all stopped, thunderstruck by Cotton’s revelation.
“He had hostages,” Cotton repeated in a ragged whisper. “This must have also been a school.”
None of us spoke. We did nothing but stare at Cotton, trapped by the words he kept forcing out. Tears now streamed down his face, his complexion pale as a corpse. He labored to breathe, like he was being suffocated.
“There was a lady…..and there were kids….and they’re all dead…and…and…” he gasped, lost in his own private nightmare, “…and they’re all over the place! The walls! The floor! Everywhere! We killed a whole school, Les!”
We couldn’t move, unable to do anything but watch Cotton come apart.
“We…killed…a…whole…school,” Cotton sobbed, falling to his knees. He broke down and started crying, right in front of us. He started rocking forwards and back, bawling like his entire world was ending. What he saw down there started breaking him in ways that no medic could help, and I didn’t know what to do for him. Thankfully, Les spoke up.
“Parker, I need you to take Cotton to the jeep,” Les intoned in a strange, flat voice. “Pat, give him a hand.” Les’s eyes held a strange glassy quality to them.
We moved over to Cotton, and I got him to his feet while Parker steadied him from the side. He didn’t say a word, just kept sobbing quietly to himself. Parker patted him on the back while I guided him around the church and toward the jeep. He let us lead him without resistance. After we secured him into the jeep, Parker hobbled over to the driver’s seat while I turned back to help Les with the sniper.
I only took two steps before a shot rang out.
I stopped and stared in horror as Les came around from back of the church, holstering his pistol while he walked. His face now appeared as tranquil as if he were just taking a stroll through a field of flowers. He looked up at me as he approached and nodded back towards the jeep.
“Let’s go,” he ordered, “there ain’t nothing back there.”
I didn’t know what to say, and I guess it was too late to say anything, so I turned around and got back in the jeep. Parker gaped at Les for a second, then snapped his jaw shut and started the jeep. I think he came to the same conclusion I did, that nothing could be done and we needed to focus forward.
Cotton regained some composure, but he now stared from Parker, to me, to Les.
“That’s it?” he gasped. “Ya’ll are just going to drive away? Like it didn’t happen?”
“Cotton,” Les deadpanned with cold intensity, while turning to face him, “that is exactly what we’re going to do. One day this war is going to end, and we’re going home. And then we are going to pick up our lives, get jobs, get married, have kids, and grow old. I’m sorry as hell about what happened here today, but I can’t undo it and I ain’t going to let it destroy the rest of our lives. And neither are you. You are going to get yourself together, go back to your unit, and try to get through the rest of this war alive. You are going to deal with it, do you understand? If you are our friend, you won’t do a damn thing that will jeopardize Parker’s, or Pat’s, or my future. We got your back, we always will…do you have ours?”
Cotton listened to this in stunned silence. He then turned and looked at Parker and me. As much as I hated myself for it, I knew that Les spoke for me as well. A glance at Parker showed he felt the same. I knew we were both sick about
it too, but I guess that comes as part of the deal.
“So that’s it then,” Cotton said in a dead voice. He looked at each of us in turn, his eyes full of silent appeal. For a moment, he didn’t say anything at all. Then his shoulders slumped as if in defeat.
“Okay guys, I got your backs.”
We all exhaled.
“It’s okay, Cotton.” Parker soothed, “It’s all gonna be okay. We’re gonna get back to Paris, and find our unit. And it’s all going to be okay.”
In the end, we did manage to find our way back to Paris and our units. But it would never be okay. And neither would Cotton.
###
Half a world away, and the better part of a decade later, we stood outside a rickety old river shack on a hot Texas night. Moths flitted like tiny ghosts in the half circle of lantern light, casting shadows that made the surrounding woods come alive. The three of us watched each other with hair-trigger tension, watching for that first false move. I didn’t doubt for one second that any of us were capable of killing if pushed too far. Even dead, Cotton’s presence goaded us with a looming threat to everything we held dear.
Cotton made it through the war, even got a medal for bravery under fire, but he wasn’t the same. When he got back home, he drifted away from us and retreated to this shack. He stayed away for a long while; until I guess whatever demons were eating on him out here drove him back to us. But he didn’t come to us for comfort, or help. He came to us trying to talk us into turning ourselves in. To confessing and letting the chips fall where they may. He even tried to argue that since it happened during wartime and a combat situation, that we might get nothing but a slap on the wrist.
We weren’t having it. Les and Parker already had lives, families, and reputations to protect. I didn’t see the point in dragging it all up now. Cotton cajoled and pleaded, but it all fell on deaf ears. And then one day, a few months back, his tone changed. He came up to me and told me that if I wouldn’t let him pay for his crime, then I could at least pay for the booze it took to keep the dreams away.
I told him “no.”
He said he would talk, that he would turn himself in to the army and tell the whole story.
I told him that choice belonged to him, but that I would deny it and so would the others. I said that he could talk to the others about buying his booze, but that I would not be blackmailed.
Now as I stood there, watching Les and Parker for any sign of movement towards their guns, I wondered if either one of them ended up buying Cotton’s booze. I hoped not, but they both had a lot to lose…even if only to their reputations. I’m not sure if either one of them could have refused. And once one of them started down that road, it would all inevitably end up here.
“You killed him, didn’t you Les.” Parker shook his head, “You killed him exactly like you did that Kraut.”
“I killed that Kraut for all of us.” Les spoke with no emotion…just like back behind that church, “I killed him so you could marry Ella, and so you could get that coaching job. I killed him so Pat could marry Molly, and become a reporter. And I killed him so Cotton could have the chance to do all of that too, if he decided to. And I don’t lose a single night’s sleep over it.”
What I didn’t do,” he continued in that same deathly serious voice, “was kill Cotton. Now what I’m trying to picture, is which one of you two he met at the drive-in. I can’t let whoever did that walk away. For one thing, because as messed up as he may have been, Cotton was still my friend. And two, because whichever one of you did it, you did it because you felt threatened. And the problem is that killing Cotton just solves your problem for now. There are still the other two of us, and we might figure out what you did. And whichever of you did it can’t take that chance. So sooner or later, you would come after the other two of us. And I’m not going to sit around and wait for a gunshot in the dark. It’s better to deal with this now.”
He was right. And even though I couldn’t be sure that he didn’t kill Cotton himself, I couldn’t escape his logic. Les always found a way to break things down to the bare realities.
“Then let’s figure this out.” I challenged, “What time did Archie hear that honk?”
“Right around two o’clock,” Les replied, looking at me with interest.
“Then it couldn’t have been me.” I stated, “At two o’clock I was sitting at my desk in plain view of both my editor and Miss Sally, our receptionist. I didn’t leave the office until half an hour later when the call came in about a murder at the drive-in.”
Les accepted that with an equable nod and turned to Parker.
“It appears we have problem Parker,” Les growled. “Pat over there seems to have eliminated himself as a suspect. That leaves you.”
“No, it appears you have a problem,” Parker gritted back, “because I have fifty kids who can tell you exactly where I was at two o’clock. I was yelling at them, to push them through their drills before the season starts.”
For the first time that night, Les looked unsure of himself.
“Where were you, Les?” Parker pressed. “Where were you at two o’clock.”
“I was on patrol,” Les Patterson’s voice now low and dangerous, “out on old Weyrwich road when the call came in.”
“How about that, Pat?” Parker sneered. “It seems the deputy here is the one without the alibi. He must have figured he couldn’t run for Sheriff, like he was planning to one of these days. At least not as long as Cotton was out there always talking about turning himself in. But killing Cotton ain’t enough, because he knows there are two people out there who would figure out he did it. So he waited here tonight, knowing that we would come for Cotton’s journal, and planned to finish us off too. How were you going to do it, Les?”
“I didn’t kill Cotton,” Les snarled, “and if I had come here to kill you I would have shot you as soon as you stepped out that door.”
Les looked a trifle cornered, and his hand sat much too near the butt of his gun for comfort. Whatever he did in France, I just couldn’t see him killing Cotton like that. Besides, I began to follow a different line of thought.
“Waitaminute, Les.” I interrupted just as Parker started to retort. “Did Cotton come to you asking for booze money, and making vague threats about turning himself in and talking if you didn’t fork it over?”
“Yeah,” Les responded while still eyeing Parker balefully, “and I turned him down. I knew he was bluffing. He gave his word back there in France, and you know how Cotton was about going back on his word.”
Yeah, I knew.
“How about you, Parker?”
“He did, and I turned him down too. I was so mad at him, I almost threw him off of the school grounds with my bare hands. He and I served in the same unit, dammit!”
Yeah, I knew that too.
“Les, where is Cotton’s car right now?” I asked.
“It’s at the impound yard.”
“Okay, that’s good,” I breathed. “If you can get the three of us into that yard tonight on the sly, I think I can prove who the killer is.”
“You sure about that?” Les probed.
“Nope. But I think I can. It depends on what I find when I get there. And it sure beats the three of us shooting each other out here the in the boonies, where there’ll just be the coons to bury us.
###
Two hours later we stood beside Cotton’s single treasured possession in the world…his old Cadillac. He got it before the war, and drove the four of us all over Cole County in it. It had been his pride and joy, even if he and his father bought it used. Of all the things of his former life, he kept only that car when he retreated down to the banks of the Brazos.
All those years parked down near the river hadn’t been kind to it. Rust covered it from the headlights to the rear bumper, and its fenders were dented and scratched from being driven down narrow dirt roads in the underbrush. It now presented a truly sorry sight, a sad reminder of how far Cotton had fallen.
“So,
there it is” Les muttered. “What is it you want to see?”
Parker didn’t say anything at all. He stood back there in the dark, watching the two of us in silence. I could tell that most of his attention stayed on Les.
I opened the driver side door and leaned in, loathe to sit in the same seat that held Cotton’s body just a few hours earlier. I imagined that I could detect the scent of blood, but that seemed doubtful given the overwhelming smell of alcohol emanating from the pile of bottles on the floorboards. Those, and the large tears in the seat cover, showed that Cotton’s neglect for the car included its inside as well as its exterior. Holding up the lantern that we brought from the old shack, I looked at the steering wheel and it just took a few seconds before I spotted what I both hoped and dreaded finding.
“It’s okay, Parker,” I sighed. “Les didn’t kill Cotton.”
“How do you know?” Parker answered, moving in closer.
“Right there, see that?” I pointed at a dent in the middle of the small metal hub of the wheel. “That’s where Cotton put the butt of that bayonet before slamming himself down on it.”
Parker stared at the dent for a minute and then looked up at me in wonder.
“How did you figure it out?” Parker murmured.
“The honk,” I replied. “Archie Johnson heard a car honk, and if none of us were there to kill Cotton then he must have died by different means. And when I heard that all three of us refused his threat for booze, I realized that left a guy like Cotton with just a single recourse. He couldn’t break his word, and he couldn’t live with the guilt any longer. The one way he could find peace would be to turn himself in, and we wouldn’t let him do that. So in the end, he sought justice at a higher court. What Archie heard was Cotton killing himself, when he rammed the butt of that bayonet into the horn with his chest.”
Ghosts, Monsters and Madmen Page 19
