Man can even hold a pistol, much less use one if he had to! Well, I suppose
everybody else decided to stay home and be safe, don’t you?”
Mom pulled her hand away, and she looked somewhere else. Dad stared
across the table at me, his eyes so intense I had to shift in my chair because
I felt their heat and power. “Some father you’ve got, huh, partner? You go to
school today and tell your friends how I helped uphold the law?”
“No sir,” I answered.
“You should have. Should’ve told Ben, Johnny, and Davy Ray.”
“I don’t see their fathers linin’ up to get themselves killed by the
Blaylocks!” Mom said, her voice strained and unsteady. “Where are the people
who know how to use guns? Where are the hunters? Where’re the big-talkin’ men
who say they’ve been in so many fights and they know how to use their fists
and guns to solve every problem in this whole wide world?”
“I don’t know where they are.” Dad scraped his chair back and stood up.
“I just know where I am.” He started walking toward the front door, and Mom
said with a frightened gasp of breath, “Where’re you goin’?”
Dad stopped. He stood there, between us and the door, and he lifted a
hand to his forehead. “Out to the porch. Just out to the porch, Rebecca. I
need to sit out there and think.”
“It’s cold and rainin’ outside!”
“I’ll live,” he told her, and he left the house.
But he came back, in about thirty minutes. He sat before the fireplace
and warmed himself. I got to stay up a little later, since it was a Friday
night. When it was time for me to go to bed, between ten-thirty and eleven,
Dad was still sitting in his chair before the hearth, his hands folded
together and supporting his chin. A wind had kicked up outside, and it blew
rain like handfuls of grit against the windows.
“Good night, Mom!” I said. She said good night, from her Herculean labors
in the kitchen. “Good night, Dad.”
“Cory?” he said softly.
“Yes sir?”
“If I had to kill a man, would that make me any different from whoever
did that murder at Saxon’s Lake?”
I thought about this for a moment. “Yes sir,” I decided. “Because you’d
only kill to protect yourself.”
“How do we know whoever did that murder wasn’t protectin’ himself in some
way, too?”
“We don’t, I guess. But you wouldn’t get any pleasure from it, like he
did.”
“No,” he said. “I sure wouldn’t.”
I had something else to say. I didn’t know if he wanted to hear it or
not, but I had to say it. “Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
“I don’t think anybody gives you peace, Dad. I think you have to fight
for it, whether you want to or not. Like what happened with Johnny and Gotha
Branlin. Johnny wasn’t lookin’ for a fight. It was forced on him. But he won
peace for all of us, Dad.” My father’s expression didn’t alter, and I wasn’t
sure he understood what I was driving at. “Does that make any sense?”
“Perfect sense,” he replied. He lifted his chin, and I saw the edge of a
smile caught in the corner of his mouth. “Alabama game’s on the radio
tomorrow. Ought to be a humdinger. You’d better get on to bed.”
“Yes sir.” I started toward my room.
“Thank you, son,” my father said.
I awakened at seven o’clock to the clatter of the pickup truck’s cold
engine starting. “Tom!” I heard my mother calling from the front porch. “Tom,
don’t!” I peered out the window into the early sunlight to see Mom in her
robe, running to the street. But the pickup truck was already moving away, and
Mom cried out, “Don’t go!” Dad’s hand emerged from the driver’s window, and he
waved. Dogs barked up and down Hilltop Street, roused from their doghouses by
the commotion. I knew where Dad was going. I knew why.
I was scared for him, but during the night he had made a momentous
decision. He was going to find peace, rather than waiting for it to find him.
That morning was an exercise in torture. Mom could hardly speak. She
stumbled around in her robe, her eyes glazed with terror. Every fifteen
minutes or so she called the sheriff’s office to talk to Dad, until finally
around nine o’clock he must’ve told her he couldn’t talk anymore because she
didn’t dial the number again.
At nine-thirty, I got dressed. Pulled on my jeans, a shirt, and a
sweater, because though the sun was bright and the sky blue the air was
stinging cold. I brushed my teeth and combed my hair. I watched the clock tick
toward ten. I thought of the Trailways bus, number thirty-three, on its way
over the winding roads. Would it be early, late, or right on time? Today such
a thing as seconds might mean life or death for my father, the sheriff, Chief
Marchette, and the Moon Man. But I pushed thoughts like that aside, as much as
I could. They came back, though, evil as poison ivy. I knew near ten-thirty
that I would have to go. I would have to be there, to see my father. I could
not wait for the telephone call that would say Donny was on the bus with the
two marshals, or my father was lying shot by a Blaylock bullet. I would have
to go. I strapped on my Timex, and I was ready.
As eleven o’clock approached, Mom was so nervous she had both the
television and the radio on and she was baking three pies at once. The Alabama
game was just about to start. I didn’t care a damn for it.
I walked into the pumpkin-and-nutmeg-fumed kitchen, and I said, “Can I go
to Johnny’s, Mom?”
“What?” She looked at me, wild-eyed. “Go where?”
“Johnny’s. The guys are gonna meet there to…” I glanced at the radio.
Rollllll Tide! the crowd was cheering. “To listen to the game.” It was a
necessary lie.
“No. I want you right here with me.”
“I told ’em I’d be there.”
“I said…” Her face flamed with anger. She slammed a mixing bowl down onto
the counter. Utensils filmed with pumpkin slid to the floor. Tears sprang to
her eyes, and she put a hand over her mouth to hold back a cry of anguish.
Cool on the outside, hell-roasted in the guts. That was me. “I’d like to
go,” I said.
The hand could no longer hold. “Go on, then!” Mom shouted, her nerves at
last unraveling to reveal the tormented center. “Go on, I don’t care!”
I turned and ran out before the sob that welled up rooted my shoes. As I
climbed onto Rocket, I heard a crash from the kitchen. The mixing bowl had met
the floor. I started pedaling for Ridgeton Street, the chill biting my ears.
Rocket was fast that day, as if it sensed impending tragedy. Still, the
town lay quiet in its Saturday drowse, the cold having chased all but a few
hardy kids indoors and most folks tuned to Bear’s latest triumph. I leaned
forward, my chin slicing the wind. Rocket’s tires thrummed over the pavement,
and when my shoes lost the pedals the wheels kept turning on their own.
I reached the gas station just past eleven-fifteen. It had two pumps and
an air hose. Inside the office part that connected to a two-stall garage, the
gas station’s owner—Mr. Hiram White, an elderly man with a humped back who
shambled around his wrenches and engine belts like Quasimodo amid the
bells—sat at his desk, his head cocked toward a radio. At one corner of the
cinderblock building a yellow tin sign with TRAILWAYS BUS SYSTEM on it hung
from rusted screws. I parked Rocket around back, near the oily trash cans, and
I sat on the ground in the sun to wait the coming of high noon.
At ten minutes before twelve, my fingernails gnawed to the bone, I heard
the sound of cars approaching. I edged around the corner and took a peek. The
sheriff’s car pulled in, followed by Dad’s pickup truck. The Moon Man, wearing
his top hat, was sitting beside Dad. Chief Marchette was in the passenger seat
of the sheriff’s car, and seated behind Sheriff Amory was the criminal
himself. Donny Blaylock wore a gray uniform and a smirk. Nobody got out. They
sat there, both engines rumbling.
Mr. White emerged from his office, scuttling sideways like a crab.
Sheriff Amory rolled his window down, and they exchanged some words but I
couldn’t hear what was being said. Then Mr. White returned to his office. A
few minutes later, he was leaving wearing a grease-stained jacket and a
baseball cap. He got into his DeSoto and drove off, blue smoke in his wake
like dots and dashes of Morse code.
The sheriff’s window went back up again. I checked my Timex. It was two
minutes before twelve.
Two minutes later, the bus had not arrived.
Suddenly a voice behind me said, “Don’t move, boy.”
A hand seized the nape of my neck before I could turn my head. Wiry
fingers squeezed so hard my nerves were frozen. The hand pulled me, and I
retreated from the building’s corner. Was it Wade or Bodean who had me? Lord,
wasn’t there some way to warn my dad? The hand kept pulling me until we were
back at the trash cans. Then it let me go, and I turned to see my adversary.
Mr. Owen Cathcoate said, “What the damn hell are you doin’ here, boy?”
I couldn’t speak. Mr. Cathcoate’s wrinkled, liver-spotted face was topped
by a sweat-stained brown cowboy hat, its shape more of a Gabby Hayes than a
Roy Rogers. His scraggly yellow-white hair hung untidily over his shoulders.
He wore, over his creased black trousers and a mud-colored cardigan sweater, a
beige duster that looked more musty than dusty. Its ragged hem hung almost to
the ankles of his plain black boots. But this was not what had stolen my
voice. The voice stealer was the tooled-leather gunbelt cinched around his
slim waist and the skeleton-grip pistol tucked down into its holster on his
left side, turned around so the butt faced out. Mr. Cathcoate’s narrow eyes
appraised me. “Asked you a question,” he said.
“My dad,” I managed to say. “He’s here. To help the sheriff.”
“So he is. That don’t explain why you’re here, though.”
“I just wanted to—”
“Get your head blown off? There’s gonna be some fireworks, if I know what
the Blaylocks are made of. Get on that bike and make a trail.”
“The bus is late,” I said, trying to stall him.
“Don’t stall,” he countered. “Get!” He shoved me toward Rocket.
I didn’t get on. “No sir. I’m stayin’ with my dad.”
“You want me to whip your tail right this minute?” The veins stood out in
his neck. I expect he could deliver a whipping that would make my father’s
seem like a brush with a powder puff. Mr. Cathcoate advanced on me. I took a
single step back, and then I decided I wasn’t going any farther.
Mr. Cathcoate stopped, too, less than three feet from me. A hard-edged
smile crossed his mouth. “Well,” he said. “Got some sand in you, don’t you?”
“I’m stayin’ here,” I told him.
And then we both heard the sound of a vehicle approaching, and we knew
the time for debate was ended. Mr. Cathcoate whirled around and stalked to the
building’s corner, the folds of his duster rustling. He stopped and peered
furtively around the edge, and I realized I was no longer seeing Mr. Owen
Cathcoate.
I was seeing the Candystick Kid.
I looked around the corner, too, before Mr. Cathcoate waved me back.
My heart jumped at what I saw. Not the Trailways bus, but a black
Cadillac. It pulled into the gas station and parked at an angle in front of
the sheriffs car. I dodged away from Mr. Cathcoate’s restraining hand, and I
ran for a pile of used tires near the garage and flopped down on my belly
behind them. Now I had a clear view of what was about to happen, and I stayed
there despite Mr. Cathcoate motioning me back behind the building’s edge.
Bodean Blaylock, wearing an open-collared white shirt and a gray suit
that shone with slick iridescence, got out from behind the wheel. His hair was
cropped in a severe crew cut, his mean mouth twisted into a thin smile. He
reached into the car and his hand came out with a pearl-handled revolver. Then
Wade Blaylock, his dark hair slicked back and his chin jutting, got out of the
passenger side. He was wearing black pants so tight they looked painted on,
the sleeves of his blue-checked cowboy-style shirt rolled up to show his slim,
tattooed forearms in spite of the chill. He had a shoulder holster with a gun
in it, and he pulled a rifle out of the Cadillac with him and quickly cocked
it: ka-chunk!
Then the rear door opened, the Cadillac wobbled, and that big brute
heaved himself out. Biggun Blaylock was wearing camouflage-print overalls and
a dark brown shirt. He looked like one of the November hills come to life,
ripped loose from its bedrock to roll across the earth. He wore a toothy grin,
his bald head with its tuft of gray hair gleaming with scalp oil. He breathed
hard, winded from the exertion of leaving the car. “Do it, boys,” he said
between wheezes.
Wade leveled the rifle. Bodean cocked his pistol. They aimed at the
sheriff’s car and started shooting.
I almost left my skin. The bullets hit the two front tires of Sheriff
Amory’s car and knocked them flat. Then Wade and Bodean took aim at Dad’s
truck even as Dad threw the gearshift into reverse and tried to skid the truck
out of danger. It was fruitless; the two front tires blew, and the truck was
left lame and rocking on its shocks.
“Let’s talk some business, Sheriff Junior!” Biggun thundered.
Sheriff Amory didn’t get out. Donny’s grinning face was pressed up
against the window glass like a kid looking at fresh cakes in a bakery. I
glanced over to see what Mr. Cathcoate was doing. But the Candystick Kid
wasn’t there anymore.
“Bus ain’t comin’ for a while!” Biggun said. He leaned into the
Cadillac’s rear seat and came out holding a double-barreled shotgun in one
ham-sized hand and in the other a camouflage shoulder bag. He put the bag on
top of the Caddy’s roof, unzipped it, and reached in. “Funniest damn thing,
Sheriff Junior!” He broke the shotgun open, brought out two shells from the
ammo bag, and pushed them in. Then he snapped the weapon shut again. “Damn bus
had two flats ’bout six miles down Route Ten! Gonna be hell fixin’ them big
mothers!” He rested his weight against the Caddy, making it groan and sag.
“Always hated changin’ tires, myself.”
A gun spoke: crack crack!
