Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller (19 page)

  “Well if we don’t git this girl outta here, we’re gonna hear plenty before long and we ain‘t gonna like what we hear.,” Jake said, opening up the large duffel bag he’d brought.

  The men put Gloria’s body in the bag and cinched the top up securely with the thick drawstrings. Then they drug it to the opening and tied a rope to the drawstrings. Both men climbed out of the cave and pulled the bag up out of the cave and were gone.

  We were afraid to move or say a word for several minutes. When we were reasonably sure they were long gone, we quietly worked our way out of the crevice and crept over to the opening. I climbed up first and when I got to the top of the hole, I slowly stuck my head up past the rocks, like a ground squirrel peeping out of his den to make sure there were no predators lurking about. When I saw it was safe, I motioned for the other two to climb up, which they did in a big hurry. We still hadn’t spoken a word and were not about to until we were a safe distance away. I motioned toward the top of the ridge, indicating that we needed to take the long way out and not even consider going back the way we came in. I met no resistance whatsoever from the other two.

  We hiked up and over the ridge and came out in Henry Wade’s pasture. We followed his fence all the way up to Long Hollow Road where we were about a mile and a half south of our dairy farm. We were going to have a two mile longer trip going home but none of us cared. I wouldn’t have cared if we’d had to crawl home. We were alive and that was a miracle. I had no doubt the Bullards would have killed us had they seen us. They would have had no choice.

  Glenn finally spoke, “Well, you kicked old Bruce in the nuts and now Jake said he suspected it might be us that was foolin’ with that girl’s body. What are we gonna do now?”

  “I really don’t know what to do,” I said. “Did you hear what old Jake said about not tellin’ the sheriff what James had done to that girl? Daddy always said the sheriff knows about their still and lets them operate it, anyway. But what else does he know about? Does he let them get by with killin’ people? If we can’t tell the sheriff, who are we gonna tell?”

  “I guess we can tell your daddy. He’ll know what to do. Mine would if it wasn’t Saturday and he wasn’t full of beer. Your daddy always believes you, and if you tell him we can’t call the sheriff, he won’t. He’ll know who he can call, though. I hope he does, anyway, or our lives ain’t gonna be worth a plug nickel.” 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Gloria Reeves had the misfortune of catching Freddy Bullard’s eye one night at the National Guard Armory dance that was held twice a month in Collinwood. Freddy was a pretty good looking guy, in a rugged sort of way, and a lot of girls were attracted to him. With most of the wiser and experienced girls, that attraction usually lost most of its luster once he opened his mouth. But to younger girls like Gloria who hadn’t been around the block many times, his boasting about all the cars and other toys that he had was exciting. Gloria’s family wasn’t poor, but they were by no means well off, either. Freddy turned on the charm and told Gloria about all the things he could buy her and the places he could take her. He did keep a few of his promises and bought her some nice jewelry and other gifts that would turn a young girls head. He also took her, along with some other friends, to Panama City Beach once. Gloria was not used to being showered with such extravagant gifts and being pampered and made to feel so special.

  But like all of Freddy’s conquests, he soon grew tired of Gloria when another young girl caught his wandering eye. She caught him one night with the girl at the Dairy Dip, the favorite nightly hangout spot in Collinwood. She saw him make the circle around the café with the girl sitting right up under him, her head laying on his shoulder. Gloria immediately burst into tears and was already a half mile up the road before one of her friends caught up with her in her car. The next day when she confronted him, big tears in her eyes, he just laughed at her and told her she needed to move on.

  “You were fun for a while, baby,” he said with a cocky look on his face, “but I ain’t never gonna be tied down to one girl. We had some fun together, now it’s time to move on. The pastures always greener on the other side. Haven’t you heard that?”

  Her heart and self esteem were shattered. To make matters worse, much worse, about two weeks later she discovered her monthly visitor was about three weeks late. She saw Freddy a couple of nights later at the Dairy Dip and told him about it.

  “We need to go to the doctor,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks, “I think I’m pregnant.”

  Freddy just looked at her, lit a cigarette, and turned up his long neck bottle of Budweiser. “What do you mean we?” he said. “Hell, I’m not pregnant, you are. And how would I know if it was mine, anyway?”

  Gloria started sobbing, “I can’t believe you would say something like that to me. You’re the only person I’ve ever been with.”

  Freddy let out a loud and condescending chuckle. “A little fox as hot as you are? You expect me to believe that shit?”

  “You know I was a virgin, Freddy. Remember how it hurt the first time?”

  “Yeah, maybe
then
you were. But once you saw how good it was I know you had to have let somebody else in them tight-ass jeans of yours. Do you think I’m an idiot? Now git outta here and leave me alone. You’re just tryin’ to git more money outta me you little slut.”

  Gloria was devastated. She’d never hurt like this before in her life. She spent several days in her room refusing to talk to anyone. She didn’t eat. She only slept a few hours a night. Her mother tried to get her to go to the doctor, thinking she might have some serious illness. Mr. Barnes at the drug store said he would not be able to hold her job much longer, even though she was an excellent employee and he thought the world of her.
                                         

  But after about ten days of thinking her life was over and agonizing depression that caused her to lose ten pounds, her feelings turned from pain to hatred, and then to revenge. She’d heard Freddy bragging one night when he was so drunk he could barely walk, that his daddy was a drug king-pin who was worth millions. Nobody ever messed with him either, because he had ties to the mafia and if anybody ever crossed him they would wind up in the bottom of the river or a lake somewhere with their feet cemented inside a big wash tub. She also heard him say that he had the sheriff and all the judges in his pocket and he couldn’t be touched. Bruce kept telling him to shut up, but he just kept on telling how much marijuana his daddy handled and how dangerous he was.

  Freddy and Bruce had never seen Jake or James during one of their business transactions, but they knew something had to be going on or else Jake wouldn’t insist they take a trip somewhere every few weeks. Jake really thought that they weren’t smart enough to figure it out and as long as he gave them enough money and told them to get lost they’d never ask any questions or even give it a second thought. But they weren’t completely ignorant. They were smart enough to know that you couldn’t rake in the kind of money their daddy and James did just running off a few hundred gallons of moonshine a year and doing a little farming. It was just a guess, of course, but the only thing they could think of that could bring in that kind of money was drugs.  They couldn’t picture their daddy getting caught up in the hard stuff. He had enough of a conscience that he wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone getting addicted or overdosing on heroine or some other narcotic. But pot he could live with. Pot didn’t kill people and there was a lot of money in distribution.

  So, by reason of simple deduction they surmised that their daddy and older brother were selling marijuana. And now Freddy had let the cat out of the bag. And the person who had heard it was a girl who he’d treated like dirt and now was about to seek revenge. She was with Freddy and Bruce the night they set fire to the William’s house, though she had no idea anybody was home. She begged and pleaded with them not to do it, and would have run away and called the police or the sheriff if she had even suspected that Frank was inside. Freddy and Bruce told her that the Williams boys were responsible for the terrible murders and that nobody would ever be safe if they weren’t run off.

  So after Freddy had dumped her like she was one of his toys that could be sold or traded, or just simply thrown away, that’s when she decided to get her revenge by calling the sheriff. When the sheriff had met with Bo Jones that day and offered him the deal of probation as opposed to hard time in prison, Bo couldn’t pass the deal up. He told the sheriff about Gloria being pregnant with Freddy’s baby and the way he had treated her. He’d heard her tell some of her friends that he was going to pay dearly for it and that he was pretty sure she knew about the fire. The sheriff passed this information along to Jake Bullard and like they had always had to do, they cleaned up Freddy and Bruce’s mess. Jake hated to have to do it, especially to an innocent girl who through no fault of her own had gotten mixed up with his worthless son. But he had no choice. It was either that or the very good chance of his whole business falling apart and him and his boys either winding up in prison or dead. To him, one was about as bad as the other.

*****

  Jake Bullard dialed the number to the sheriff’s office as soon as he could get to his office in the horse barn. Kate answered and Jake asked if Andrew was in.

  “No, he’s not in right now. Is this an emergency or a personal call?” Kate always sounded professional.

  “No, Kate, honey. It’s Jake Bullard. It ain’t no emergency, but could you radio him and have him to call me at my office? He’s got the number.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Bullard. I’ll do it right now.”

  “Thank you so much, darlin’. How’s Charlie doin’? He still catchin’ lots of crappie?” Charlie was Kate’s husband and Jake sometimes crappie fished with him on the Tennessee River.

  “He hasn’t had much time lately. He’s havin’ to work a lot of overtime.”

  “Well, tell him a little work never killed anybody and that me and him will have to git together and go when he gits time.”

  “I’ll tell him Mr. Bullard. And I’ll radio the sheriff now.”

  “Thank you, hon. Bye, now”

  Jake hung up the phone and turned to James. “Go git them two worthless brothers of yours.” James opened the door and walked outside. In a minute he returned with Freddy and Bruce, who looked like they were going in front of a judge to receive the death penalty. They were scared to death of their daddy when he was mad and he was as mad as they had ever seen him. He looked at them with a gaze that looked as if it would burn right through them. He rubbed his chin whiskers, which was always a bad sign.

  “I don’t know where in the hell to start. Most of what is wrong with you two is my own fault for lettin’ you git by with thangs when you were younger that most daddy’s would have tore your asses up for. I stopped whippin’ you when you was just young’uns. Then I bought you anything you wanted and never made you work for any of it. I’ll take the blame for you bein’ spoiled rotten. But I didn’t raise you to mistreat women,” he said turning to Freddy. “I may have a lot of faults, but I’ve always loved your momma and treated her like a lady. Have you ever heard us raise our voices to one another?”

  “No, Daddy, I don’t reckon I have,” Freddy answered, looking down at his shoes.

  “Look at me boy!” Jake shouted. Freddy jerked his head up quickly. “No, you ain’t never heard me raise my voice to her or no other woman. Women are ‘spost to be respected. So you didn’t learn that from me. So why in the hell did you treat that Reeves girl that way?”

  “I just didn’t care nothin’ about her no more, Daddy. That was better than leadin’ her on, wasn’t it?”

  “Not after you took advantage of her and got her pregnant, you irresponsible fool. If you didn’t love her you could still have let me know she was pregnant and I’d a made sure that baby was took care of. Hell, I’d a raised it if that was what it took.”

  Jake got up out of his chair and started pacing. “Then you go and set fire to them poor Williams boy’s house that are simple minded and ain’t got a pot to piss in. Besides that, them boys ain’t never hurt a fly. Hell, Snake’s so tender hearted he’d prob’ly cry if he ran over a rabbit in the road. Now, for once I want you to tell me the truth. I want you to swear it on your momma’s life, since I believe that’s the only person on earth you care anything about. Did you know Frank was in that house asleep when you set that fire?”

  “No, Daddy. I swear we didn’t. We didn’t aim to kill nobody,” Bruce said, taking some of the heat off Freddy.

  “Well, you might not have aimed to, but you did. You killed a nineteen year old boy that never hurt a soul and had just lost his momma and daddy both. And then, to top all that off, you tell that girl that me and your brother are dope dealers and then treat her like she was a whore. Did you think she was just gonna forget everything you told her? And didn’t you think that maybe she’d try to git back at you for treatin’ her that way?”

  “I guess I just didn’t think it through,” Freddy said, almost in a whisper.

  “Well, no shit, genius. You two don’t ever think anything through. That’s your damned problem. Bein’ spoiled rotten to the core is one thing, but bein’ as dumb as a sack of rocks is another. I ain’t the cause of you bein’ ignorant. I’ll take the blame for everything else. Another thing I gotta know, and I need you to swear again, because if you did it, it could cause us a lot of trouble. We can still fix it, but I gotta know the truth. Did you tell anybody besides that girl that we were dope dealers?”