by Stuart Woods
At home that night he told Carrie about Willie’s arrest.
“Poor Nellie,” she said. “I’ll see her name gets on the list for a turkey. I’ll have a word with Frank Mudter, too, and get him to look in on Jesse. I’d go out and see her, but knowing Nellie, she’d be embarrassed. It took a lot for her to come to me when Hoss Spence threw them off his place. She doesn’t like asking for help, not even from Flossie and Robert. You know, I’m going to have to give some thought to finding some regular work that she can do. Or maybe something for Willie, though it won’t help when word gets around about this business at Routon’s. She’s tried so hard to keep him in school, and he’ll graduate next year, if she can just hang on. Flossie says he’s real smart. Head of his class.”
“I’ll mention that to the judge tomorrow; maybe it’ll help.”
They ate their supper and talked a little, but it was plain to Carrie and the children that Will Henry was again in the grip of his private demon.
Willie got ten days in the city jail. His mother testified that he had never been in trouble before and that he was a good student. Will Henry testified that he had known the boy all of his life, that he was a good worker, and that his parents had brought him up properly. Willie himself apologized for his theft to Ed Routon, and Routon said he had no wish to punish the boy unduly. Justice of the Peace Jim Buce, who also ran the feed store, was sympathetic, but said that the boy had to be taught some sort of lesson. So it was ten days working on the streets under the supervision of the city manager. Will Henry turned him over to Willis Greer for work as soon as the court had adjourned. Robert drove Nellie home in the Lee’s car, and Flossie was designated by the Chief to bring the prisoner his meals, for which the city would pay. He would be the only prisoner in the jail.
Will Henry made his usual rounds without thinking, in a torpor of depression. He returned to the station to receive his prisoner at six o’clock. “How did it go today, Willie? What work did Mr. Greer have you doing?”
“I clean leaves out of some drains under the street. It wudn’t hard. He say we do the same thing tomorrow.”
“Well, it’s only ten days. You’ll be all done the end of next week.”
“Yassuh.”
Flossie brought Willie his supper and stayed to talk with him while Will Henry went home for his own meal. He left the cell door open, and reflected that Willie was probably eating a lot better than he would be at home. Driving back to the station after supper, Will Henry had the sudden notion that Willie would not be there when he arrived. But Willie was there, staring out the window, the cell door still wide open. Flossie had left. Will Henry wondered why he had doubted the boy.
“Everything all right, Willie?”
“Yassuh. You gon’ lock me up now?”
“Yes, you can settle in now. There’s plenty of blankets, and I’ll put some coal in the stove before I leave. You should be real comfortable.” Will Henry closed the door and began locking it.
Willie rushed from the window and grabbed the bars, his eyes wide with fright. “You ain’t gon’ leave me here by myself, is you Mist’ Will Henry? You ain’t gon’ do that?”
Will Henry reached through the bars and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Now, son, I can’t stay here with you all night. You’re perfectly safe here. It’s all right.”
Willie grabbed Will Henry’s wrists, and he began crying. “Oh, no suh, I cain’t stay here by myself! I’se skeered of it here! Please, suh, Mist’ Will Henry, don’t make me do it! Don’t leave me here all by myself! Please!”
Will Henry hesitated. “Now, Willie—”
“Please, suh!”
Will Henry thought for a minute. He had a lot of leeway here. Nobody had ever questioned his disposition of a prisoner. He made up his mind. “All right, Willie, now listen. I’ll let you go home at night while you’re serving your sentence. You’ll come back here after work every day and let Flossie feed you, and then you can spend the night at home. But you have to promise me that you’ll be at city hall every morning at eight o’clock sharp to report to Mr. Greer for work. Now, will you promise me that?”
Willie nearly wept again, this time for joy. “Oh, yassuh! I sho’ will! Thank you, suh!”
Will Henry drove the boy home and watched him run up the steps and into his mother’s arms. He drove away feeling better than he had in days.
29
WILL HENRY was late to work the next morning, for the first time since he had taken the job. It was nearly twenty minutes past eight when he arrived, and there was someone waiting for him. A tiny old man with a pack on his back and a bundle under his arm stood on the steps and said, “Good morning to you, sir. Name’s Dooley. I do basketwork, itinerant-like. Whenever I come to a new town I always visit police headquarters first and offer my services. That way, when I start knocking on doors the police know I’m not out to steal the silver. Is there any caning I can do for you, sir?”
Will Henry smiled at the man. “Matter of fact, there is. Kind of nice to have somebody turn up just when you need them. Come on in.” He showed the man into his office and pointed at two sagging cane-bottomed chairs. “How much for the two?”
“I’d be pleased to do them for nothing but the good will, sir.”
“Suppose we call it a dollar for the both?”
The old man smiled and doffed his hat. “As you wish, sir.” He slipped out of his pack, tossed the bundle, which turned out to be strips of cane, onto the floor, and set to work on the chairs with a sharp knife, sitting on the floor as he worked, humming tunelessly to himself. The telephone rang. It was Skeeter Willis.
“Morning, Will Henry.”
“Morning, Skeeter.”
“Had a call from the sheriff of Fulton County last night, an old friend. Asked a favor. Friend of his wife’s had a boy run away Sunday after he got into a little trouble and took a whipping. Sheriff figures he might be headed for an aunt’s place in Florida and thought he might be hitchhiking down Forty-One. He’d appreciate it if we’d keep an eye out for him. You still there, Will Henry?”
“Yes.” He had been thinking about another boy, on the road alone for the first time, gone home, finally, with his parents in a box on the back of a truck. “Got a description?”
“Sure. Name, Raymond Curtis; age, fifteen, but looks older; height, five feet nine inches; weight, one forty-five; hair, brown; eyes, brown; has a one inch white scar on his chin; stutters a little. Got that?”
Will Henry jotted down the information. “I’ve got it. When did you say he was last seen?”
“Sunday afternoon, late. If he’s headed for Florida he’d be past you already, this being Wednesday, but keep an eye out for him, all right?”
“Sure, be glad to.”
“And Will Henry, if you come on him call me instead of Fulton County, if you would.”
Skeeter wanted any credit coming. “Sure Skeeter.” He hung up.
He sat, elbow on desk, hand over mouth, like a man about to throw up, frozen, staring across the room. It couldn’t happen again. Why did he feel this way? Just a runaway boy. Then he realized he was looking at something familiar, something from a long time ago. His eyes focused on what the little man, Dooley, was doing across the room. Dooley’s hands were flying about a chair, quickly weaving a seat of cane over the frame. The other chair, stripped of its seat, stood next to him bare, horribly naked, beckoning some memory. He went to his desk and heaved open the heavy bottom drawer, dug into a pile of papers, extracted the file he wanted. Setting the photographs aside, he turned to the neatly typed report. It was there, in bare detail: “…horizontal and vertical bruises, approx. eight-nine inches in length, one inch wide, on buttocks…” But there was something not in the report; something in Frank Mudter’s dining room after an uneaten supper; something said. Dr. Carter Sauls’s deep voice came to him: “He was tied to some sort of seat, something like an old-fashioned toilet chair with nothing in the middle.…” And now he remembered. His first visit to Foxy’s
house… nobody there… in the kitchen, chairs being recaned… one still bare. The dog had frightened him at that moment, when she and her puppies had made their appearance through the slot in the kitchen door, scaring him half to death, obliterating the memory of the chairs. He hadn’t remembered when Sauls had brought it up. Something else Sauls had said: the boy’s hands were tied or, perhaps, handcuffed. He picked up the phone and spoke a number into it.
“Post office, Pittman speaking.”
“George, this is Will Henry Lee.”
“How you doing, Chief?”
“Fine. Tell me something George, who has box number eighty-two?” He already knew the answer.
“Foxy Funderburke. Got it last year. We’ve got a waiting list, you know.”
Will Henry thought for a moment. “Does Foxy pick up his mail every day, George?”
“Never misses. In here every morning as soon as I’ve got it put up. Except—”
“What, George?”
“Well, it’s funny, but Foxy… hang on a minute, will you?
Will Henry waited, tapping his foot, knowing what was coming, frightened.
“Yeah, just like I thought. Foxy hasn’t picked up his mail since last Saturday. Hope he isn’t sick or something, up there all by himself on that mountain.”
“Thanks for the information, George.”
“Sure, Will Henry, but what’s this all about?” But the Chief had hung up.
Will Henry took a dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Dooley. “Would you mind finishing up over in the fire station? I’ve got to lock up for a while.”
“Not at all.” Dooley gathered up his things and moved out the door. Will Henry locked the door and started to get into his car. The telephone rang. He hesitated, then got into the car and drove away.
With some effort he kept himself from driving fast through the town. No need to disturb people. Once past the last houses, he accelerated up the mountain, climbing fast until he reached the crest of the pass. There he stopped, forced himself to be calm, to slow his breathing. He had faced Foxy twice on the occasion of murders and got nowhere. This time he would do it differently. Instead of taking the road across the mountain toward Foxy’s, he turned right, onto the Scenic Highway, and drove along the mountain’s ridge until he saw smoke rising. He pulled over to the side and got out. A few hundred yards down the mountainside he could see a part of the roof of Foxy’s house. A puff of wind blew the chimney smoke in his direction. Good. He would be downwind of the dogs. He started away from the car, then went back. He unlocked the trunk, took out a 30-30 rifle and loaded it. If it was still going on down there he might need it. He pumped a round into the chamber, eased the hammer down to half-cock and started down the mountain.
30
HE MOVED DOWNWARD through a riot of color, trees at the peak of their autumn, shimmering gold and flaming red, a carpet of the same hues under his feet. He did not notice the beauty which surrounded him, thinking only of what horror he might find at the end of his walk down the mountain.
As he approached the house, he slowed and walked carefully, wishing to make no sound that might disturb the dogs. Now he could see snatches of the house through the trees, log stacked on log, the garage to one side, doors open, truck inside. The trees ended in a clearing twenty yards from the house. The last yards before the clearing he moved stealthily, from tree to tree to bush, always keeping something between himself and the house. Near the edge he stopped and looked at everything again. Quiet morning picture, nothing unusual, smoke from the chimney, truck, garage. He sought to move around the perimeter of the clearing and looked down for a quiet footing. He stopped. Something wrong. Dirt on the leaves, on top of the leaves. He knelt. Red dirt, clay. Leaves undisturbed. He raked aside the leaves and dug at the earth with his hand. Black topsoil. Black topsoil under the leaves, red clay on top. All wrong. He looked around him. More clay, sometimes mixed with black dirt, scattered over several yards. He turned his attention to the clearing. There. Ten feet, maybe, into the clearing, the leaves. A large patch had been disturbed. He had to see.
The patch was well into the clearing. No shelter. He looked carefully from one window to the next. Nothing. He stood up, crooked the rifle in his arm, and walked, as casually as possible, toward the patch of disturbed leaves. From firm ground he stepped into a soft spot, in the patch. He looked at the house again. Still nothing. He raked at the leaves with his foot. Underneath, black soil mixed with red, tamped with something, a shovel. He forgot the house and raked more leaves away. An outline. Six feet long, maybe two feet wide. A hole dug, something buried, filled again, tamped with a shovel, extra dirt scattered into the woods to avoid a telltale mound, leaves raked back over the raw earth. New. This morning. He was too late.
In the house, Foxy, exhausted, was shaving. There was three days’ mail in town, and he had to be presentable when he went to collect it. He turned and reached for a towel next to the window and froze. Will Henry Lee was standing in the back yard, exactly on the spot, moving leaves with his toe, looking. Seconds passed before he could move. Then he dropped the towel and ran, barefooted, naked, into the living room, clawed at the .45 pistol on the wall over the fireplace, ran into the kitchen, working the pistol’s action, just to be sure, ran past the wet spot on the floor, scrubbed clean and drying, ran past the kitchen table, handcuffs, rubber garden hose, rope, ran to the kitchen door, threw it open, dropped to one knee, aiming. Gone.
The clearing was empty. He could hear Will Henry running through the woods, up the mountainside. He followed, running hard, past the disturbed leaves to the edge of the clearing, into the woods, stopped. He could no longer hear the steps. Lee had too much of a start, and he suddenly remembered, with the chill, that he was naked. He turned and ran for the house.
Will Henry moved quickly up the mountainside, running a few steps, walking fast, climbing, thinking. He had been too late. Too late. But now there was evidence to find, hard evidence in the cold earth. Out of his jurisdiction. He reached the car and tossed the rifle onto the back seat. He’d have to go to Sheriff Goolsby in Talbot County, tell him, convince him. Foxy’s friend. No matter. When he heard what Will Henry had to tell him he’d have no choice. A search warrant. He got the car started, turned around, and roared down the mountain toward Delano, unaware that Foxy had seen him.
Foxy reached the house, sweating in spite of the cold, grabbed clothes, shoes. He had to reach Lee before he could tell anybody. Had to. He snatched a rifle from over the fireplace and ran for his truck.
Will Henry unlocked the door of the station and hurried for the phone, impatient while the operator connected him.
“Sheriff’s office.”
“This is Chief Lee, in Delano. Let me speak to the sheriff, please.”
“Sorry, Chief. He’s in the judge’s chambers in a county meeting. Be in there the better part of an hour, I’d say.”
“Good. Who is this?”
“Deputy Simpson.”
“All right, Deputy. I’m on my way to Talbotton right now. I have to see both the sheriff and the judge, and I want you to be sure that neither one of them leaves until I get there, you got that?”
“Yessir.”
“You camp outside the judge’s chambers and tell them this is an urgent matter, all right?”
“Yessir. I’ll tell them as soon as they get out of the meeting.”
Will Henry hung up. Willis Greer was standing in the door. The city manager had a disgusted look about him. “Where’s my prisoner?” he asked.
“What?”
“Where’s my prisoner? I came to pick him up this morning, and he wasn’t here. You take him someplace? I tried to call you a while ago, but there was no answer.”
Damn Willie. “I let him sleep at home last night. He was supposed to be at city hall at eight this morning.”
“Well, he wasn’t. I hope he isn’t long gone, I sure need the extra help this week. All the storm drains have got to be cleared of leaves.”
&nb
sp; “Well, look, Willis, I can’t fool with this right now. I’ve got to get down to Talbotton on some important business. I don’t think Willie would run off. He’s probably out at the house on D Street now.”
“Listen, Will Henry, I need him this morning bad. Can’t you go and get him before you go to Talbotton?”
Will Henry thought quickly. “Tell you what. It’s on the way, anyhow. You follow me out to Braytown, I’ll get Willie, and you can bring him back with you while I go on to Talbotton.”
Foxy got the truck started, roared down the road to the gate, turned left, and headed up the mountain. As he crested the pass he suddenly slammed on his brakes and pulled the truck to the side of the road. He tried to think clearly for a minute. Sweat was pouring off him, and he was breathing hard, his heart hammering against his chest. Not Delano. Talbotton. Lee would have to go to Goolsby in Talbotton. He started to turn the truck around, but something down the road stopped him. The Delano police car was turning off the road into Braytown, followed by a city truck. Foxy wrenched the pickup back toward Delano and Braytown. He made the turn into A Street in time to see the two vehicles turn right onto Bray Avenue. He followed at a distance and saw them turn left, again, into D Street. He approached the intersection cautiously. No one seemed to be about in the chilly weather. He turned into D Street and stopped. There were only two houses there, one on the corner, empty, and one at the end of the street. The two were separated by a long empty lot overgrown with brush. He drove a few feet into the street and pulled over. Up ahead he could see Will Henry Lee and Willis Greer getting out of their cars and starting for the house. He got out of the truck, taking the rifle.
In the house Nellie was sponging down Jesse’s forehead and face. He had had a bad night, but seemed quieter and more lucid now. She and Willie had had a struggle keeping him in bed, he in the grip of some delirium in which Hoss Spence apparently played a part, for Jesse would mutter or shout his name from time to time.
