Chiefs

by Stuart Woods

  1. Question everybody who lived anywhere near where the body was found.

  2. Check with Atlanta for any persons recently reported missing.

  3. Check the top of Hodo’s Bluff for evidence.

  4. Check on Klan activities.

  5. Telephone Skeeter Willis.

  6. Go see Harmon Everson.

  He could think of nothing else to do, at least until the medical examination was done. He telephoned the state police in Atlanta. There were no missing-persons reports that matched his victim. He telephoned Skeeter Willis. “Skeeter, you might want to drop by here today or tomorrow if you get a chance.”

  “What’s up, Will Henry?”

  “Interesting development. Not much more I can tell you right now.”

  “I get you.” Skeeter had telephone operators to deal with, too.

  “If I’m not here when you come, get Jimmy Riley to give a blast on the fire siren. We’ve got a signal worked out. I’ll come back to the station.”

  “Probably be tomorrow morning before I can get down there. Can it wait until then?”

  “That’ll be fine. I’m here from eight o’clock.”

  He knew how to check on the Klan, but that would have to wait until he had questioned the householders near Hodo’s Bluff. He would save Harmon Everson until last. He wanted to know as much as possible before he talked to the press, even to the editor of the Messenger.

  Two hours later, he had talked with people at nine houses on the mountainside. Nobody had seen, heard, or noticed anything unusual the night before, except for one woman who had heard something crashing through the bushes sometime after midnight. She thought nothing of it; deer and other animals were about; she often heard them. There was nobody home at one house, and a neighbor said they were away for a week, visiting relatives in Waycross. Only the visit to Foxy Funderburke was left, that and the inspection of Hodo’s Bluff. Foxy lived down the other side of the mountain and seemed the least likely of Will Henry’s prospects to have seen or heard anything, but Will Henry was not looking forward to interviewing Foxy.

  He drove slowly up the gravel road to the Funderburke cabin. The road wound back and forth up the mountain and was very steep in places, but it was well cared for, not rough at all. Foxy probably didn’t get too many visitors, not with his personality, so the road didn’t get worn down much from traffic. Still, Will Henry figured Foxy must be spending a good bit of money keeping it so well, since it was not a county road, but private. The road turned and fell away slightly downhill before the tall pines gave way to a large cleared space. The cabin stood squarely across the road, and on each side of the house were matching flower beds. There was nothing blooming this time of year, but Will Henry thought the place must look very pretty in spring. A profusion of azaleas formed a background for the beds, and two quite large dogwood trees faced each other in front of the house. He had expected something much rougher and was surprised that Foxy had spent so much effort to make the place beautiful. It was obvious how Foxy, who had no regular job and needed none, occupied much of his time. Still, in midwinter it failed to be beautiful. The place had an oddly regimented orderliness about it, as if it were part of some eccentric military reservation. It was a lot like Foxy. Will Henry immediately felt like an intruder.

  He got out of the car and approached the house. The place seemed deserted. There was no answer to his knock at the front door. He walked around to the back of the house, peering into windows. The rooms seemed almost unnaturally neat. There was a large shed at the back. Will Henry peeked through the crack between the padlocked doors. Foxy’s pickup truck stood inside. He walked back to the house and looked through a kitchen window. It was much the same as the other rooms—neat, cold, well equipped, orderly. Only in the kitchen was there a touch of disarray. The chairs surrounding the little kitchen table were in the process of being recaned. Two of them had complete new backs and seats, one was half done, and the fourth was stripped down to the bare wood, waiting its turn. Foxy seemed to have a number of manual skills.

  Will Henry froze. There had been a tiny, almost surreptitious, sound, then silence. Then there was an explosive sound of something striking wood and the creak of metal. Will Henry spun to his right, clawing for his pistol. He found himself facing a large, placid golden Laborador retriever. The dog approached him, everything wagging. Will Henry sagged against the house with relief. He felt a complete fool. He scratched the dog behind the ears. Why had he drawn his pistol? Why did he feel threatened on Foxy’s property? He realized he was, irrationally, still very afraid. His heart was pounding, and he was sweating in spite of the cold. There was more to it than being startled by the dog.

  “How are you, old fellow? You scared me real good, there.” There was another scraping. The dog turned to the back door leading into the kitchen and pushed the lower panel with her nose. It swung back, and five puppies tumbled through the opening. “Sorry, it’s old girl, isn’t it?” The puppies, which seemed to be five or six weeks old, surged around his ankles, yapping and stumbling over his feet. He squatted and played with them for a moment, and his anxiety ebbed away. The bitch and her puppies made the place seem less threatening. He walked to the door, tucked the puppies through the flap, gave their mother a pat, and walked back to the car. She came with him and sat in front of the cabin, watching, as he drove away.

  Will Henry drove down the track from Foxy’s cabin to the main road, continued for a mile, then turned left up the Scenic Highway, as the road was called which ran along the crest of Pine Mountain, overlooking Delano. He drove another mile until he came to the bottom of a steep dip in the road known as Hodo’s Gap, named for a reclusive old Cherokee Indian who had lived in a shack near the spot until his death years ago. Hodo, said to have been in his nineties, had fallen to his death from the bluff which bore his name.

  Will Henry parked the car and began picking his way through the woods toward the bluff. Even in winter the going was slow, and he moved clumsily through the thick growth. He looked for signs that someone had been through these woods before him, but he saw nothing. Shortly before reaching the edge of the bluff, he thought he heard the sound of someone else moving. He stopped for a moment and listened, but heard nothing; so he continued.

  Abruptly, he reached the edge of the bluff. He had been expecting the undergrowth to clear at the edge, but it did not. He knew he had arrived there only because he could see a few feet ahead to clear air, and because he knew the bluff was ahead. It was easy to see how someone who did not know about the bluff, traveling at night, could simply walk over the edge, especially if he were in a hurry, if he were running from something. Looking over the edge he could see nothing that would tell him anything about what had happened. He was disappointed, for he had half expected to find some obvious clue to what had happened—a piece of clothing caught on a thorn which could be traced to its owner; a footprint with a distinctive mark on the heel; some small, personal item which would identify the pursuers or the pursued. But there was nothing.

  He began to work his way to the right, where the thicket appeared to be less thick, and he nearly ran head-on into Foxy Funderburke, standing with his feet planted apart, holding a 30-30 lever-action rifle stiffly at port arms. Even in the sudden shock of finding Foxy there, Will Henry noticed that the hammer of the rifle was cocked.

  “Good Lord, Foxy, you scared me half to death! What are you doing up here?”

  Foxy’s face was impassive, lacking even his usual tightlipped grimace. “Hunting. What are you doing?”

  “Having a look around. I stopped by your house to see you, but there was nobody there but your dog and her puppies. Nice animal.” Will Henry thought he noticed some tiny reaction at the mention of the visit to the house. “The puppies for sale? I’ve been thinking about getting a dog for my children. None of the farm dogs could have lived in a house in town.”

  “Haven’t given it much thought. Why did you want to see me?”

  “I just wanted to know if you heard
anything, anything or anybody, around your place last night.”

  “No.”

  “Nobody in the woods or anything?”

  “No. What was I supposed to have heard?”

  “I had a report the Klan might of been having a gathering up here somewhere last night.”

  “They get together in a pasture the other side of the road”— he pointed—“over yonder about half a mile. I generally hear the cars when they do. Didn’t hear anything last night.”

  “Well, that’s all I wanted to know. Is there a better way back to the road from here?”

  “There’s a path.” Foxy motioned to his left. “After you.”

  Will Henry stepped past him and found the path. The going was much easier. It seemed to lead from the road directly to the bluff, then along the side of the mountain. It probably came out onto the Boy Scout trail further along. They walked single file, Foxy bringing up the rear. Will Henry thought about the cocked rifle at his back. He had not seen Foxy uncock it, and he began to feel uneasy with the man behind him. Neither of them said a word until they reached the road.

  “Can I give you a lift back to your place?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “Say, Foxy, what are you hunting up here with a thirtythirty?”

  “Bobcats.”

  “In the daytime, and without a dog?”

  “I get one now and then.”

  Will Henry got into the car. “You let me know if you want to sell a puppy. I’d like a male. Billy and Eloise would be real glad to get one.”

  Foxy nodded noncommittally. Will Henry drove away. He watched Foxy in the rear view mirror until he crested the next hill. Foxy stood staring after the car, the cocked rifle in his hands, never moving.

  14

  WILL HENRY had one more stop to make, one more person to question, before he gave the newspaper his story. He felt that it would be the most important part of his investigation and that he must handle it well or perhaps lose all hope of solving the mystery of the boy’s death and apprehending those responsible.

  He entered the shop from the alley at the back. Even before he opened the door, the smell of leather reached him, and by the time he was inside it seemed to fill his lungs. It was not at all unpleasant. Tommy Allen was buffing a shoe on a large machine and did not hear him enter. Will Henry waited for him to finish before speaking.

  “Tommy?”

  Tommy Allen jumped. “Hey, there, Chief, you snuck up on me, there.”

  “Didn’t mean to scare you. Think you might half-sole these shoes for me while I wait? They’re my only black pair, and the city fathers might frown on brown shoes with the uniform.”

  “Be glad to. I’m not all that busy, anyway.” He took the shoes from Will Henry and climbed onto his high stool and fitted the shoe over his last. “Might as well go ahead and let me put some heels and a whole sole on these shoes. They’ll wear better and last longer.”

  “You’re the doctor.”

  Tommy took a longhandled plierlike tool and began to expertly strip the soles off the shoes. “First I’ve seen of you since you got the Chief’s job. Haven’t had a chance to congratulate you.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’ve been sort of expecting you to drop by, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh? The Good Lord tell you when my soles are getting thin?”

  “Come on, Will Henry, you look just like you used to look when we’d go down to the blacksmith shop and try to borrow Jesse Brown’s new horseshoes to play with. Why, in a minute you’d of told me how it fascinates you to watch me fix these shoes.” Will Henry was embarrassed in spite of himself. Tommy looked up from the shoe at him. “I reckon you want to know about the Klan, Will Henry.”

  “You always could see through me, Tommy. Yeah, I want to know about it. I know you never wanted to talk about it, but now I need to know, and you’re the only fellow I can talk to.”

  “Well, I reckon it’s not too big of a secret that I’m in the Klan, but like you say, I never talk about it to nobody.”

  “Why are you in it, Tommy? I never knew why. Always wanted to ask you.”

  “Well, a long time ago, old—well, a fellow took me to a meeting, and I was real impressed with the Bible reading and the praying. You know how daddy brought us up. And later on, when they got up to some high jinks I thought I’d get out, but I was able to hold ‘em back a little bit, help keep ‘em from getting out of hand. There’s a few boys in there would be a lot of trouble to folks if there wasn’t somebody to keep an eye on ‘em.”

  “I expect there are.”

  “Yeah, and I figure with some older fellows to keep things in line, the Klan might get to be a little more responsible organization. There’s a job to be done, you know. Somebody’s got to keep the niggers in their place, and I don’t know who else is going to do it, do you?”

  Will Henry was silent.

  “Well, don’t get me started on that subject.” Tommy was quiet for a moment as he brushed glue onto a strip of leather.

  “Tommy, you wouldn’t get mixed up in something really bad, would you? You—” Will Henry stopped when he saw the expression on Tommy’s face. “I’m sorry, I know you wouldn’t. I was thinking about that story about the fellow up at Greenville last year getting horsewhipped for fooling around with a colored girl. Things like that.”

  “That was a bunch of Greenville boys, and I wouldn’t of let it happen around here. I’d of seen that he got a good talking to, maybe scared him a little. Theatening to tell his wife would have been the best way.”

  Will Henry nodded, and they were both quiet again. The only sound in the little shop was that of Tommy’s curved knife as he carved the leather to the size of the shoe.

  “Tommy, something bad has happened, not in Greenville or Woodbury or Manchester, but right here in Delano. Last night.”

  Tommy stopped working. “Last night?” He looked worried. “There was a meeting last night, but it was a regular sort of meeting. Nothing unusual about it.”

  “This one got unusual, Tommy. Somebody got killed.”

  Tommy stared at him, frozen. “That’s not possible,” he said.

  Will Henry slammed his palm down on the counter, and his voice became tight. “Dammit, Tommy, the boy’s dead! He ran right off the bluff. The Maynard boy found him at eight o’clock this morning. He’s up at Lamar Maddox’s right now, and there’s a doctor coming from Columbus this afternoon to examine him. Now, this thing has got Klan written all over it, and I want you to tell me anything you know about it.”

  Tommy was staring at him incredulously. “What bluff?”

  “Hodo’s Bluff, Tommy. It’s no more than three hundred yards from the field. He ran, and he ran right off it. I figure he found an old path that leads down to the bluff and then turns toward the Boy Scout trail. He didn’t turn. He went straight ahead.” Will Henry paused for a moment. “How could this have happened, Tommy? How?”

  “You mean the field on Pine Mountain? Will Henry, that field hasn’t been used since we burned a cross last summer.” Tommy reached under the counter, pulled out a Bible, and put his hand on it. “Listen to me, Will Henry, this is the truth, I swear to God. That meeting was held at somebody’s house nowhere near Pine Mountain. All but one of our bunch was there, and he was home sick in bed. We were at that house ‘til after midnight, and we left in ones and twos and went home. Nobody was excited about anything. Nobody was going after anybody. Everybody went home, and if it came to it, every one of us would be able to prove it.”

  Will Henry leaned forward and looked into the shoemaker’s face. “You’re sure about this, Tommy?” He said that because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Will Henry, that meeting was at my house.”

  By the time Will Henry reached the Messenger office it was late afternoon, and his excitement had soured. He had been almost certain that the Klan was connected with the boy’s death, and now he was almost certain that it was not. His only hope of a qu
ick solution now lay with the medical examination, and he could not imagine a doctor, however good, telling him much of great use in finding the murderers. He still thought there was more than one person involved. Perhaps it was the bizarre nature of the boy’s death. It held overtones of a prank gone wrong, of a club initiation which had got out of hand. The killers, in his mind, were young, irresponsible. They had intended to frighten, not kill. But with the Klan out of the picture, he could not come up with a plausible substitute. If Delano had had a college he would have suspected some student group. The boy was not from Delano. Brother Maynard or one of the three men who had seen the body would have known him. He began thinking what colleges were within driving distance. There was La Grange College, but that was a religious institution, not the sort that would have a student group that went in for violent hazing. There was nothing else at all near.

  He walked into the storefront office of the Delano Messenger and closed the door behind him. Harmon Everson was sitting at his roll-top desk, his back to the door. He turned to see who had entered. The editor and owner of the weekly newspaper was wearing a green eyeshade, and black cuff guards protected his shirt. There was a smell of ink and paper in the air.

  Everson looked up from his desk. “Evening, Will Henry, what can I do for you? If you want to place a classified ad, I’m afraid you’re a little late.”

  “No, Harmon. I’ve got some news for you. Not very good news, I’m afraid.”

  “Pull up a pew. Something I should hold the paper for? We’re just going to press.”

  “I expect you might want to.” Everson walked across the room and opened a door. The clatter of machinery came into the room.

  “Henry, hold the paper for a few minutes. We might have something to go in.” He returned to his desk, sat down, and waited.