The Right Side of Wrong (14 page)

Taken aback by the look in Ned's eyes, Griffin found himself once again wanting to retreat from the tough old constable, but he held his ground to save face. “I planned to do just that, without you telling me I can. I imagine y'all tromped on all the evidence in there, so it won't do my men any good to look around.”

“We left everything just as it was, except for the body. Go ahead on and have your look.” Ned paused. Despite their mutual dislike of one another, he still wanted to find out what happened. “The dirt in there was already tracked up before we got here, and there's enough cars parked in the yard to start a used car lot, so we didn't tromp through anything that wasn't already messed up.”

“I'll have my men question the witnesses, and I want a written statement from both of you two…constables. Cody, don't forget you was the one elected, not Ned. He's just appointed, and I intend to find a way around that, too.”

O.C.'s famous temper began to rise, but he choked it down. They'd pick their crow, but at the right time, in the right place.

They watched Griffin stalk across the yard and flip the sheet off the body. After staring and grimacing for a few seconds, Griffin stormed into the barn. The attendants made up for his disrespect by pulling the sheet back over the disfigured face and securely tucking the corners once again.

Two more sheriff's deputies were waiting in the yard, their heads lowered to prevent the wind from snatching their hats. Ned barely glanced at them. “One of you boys keep everybody out of the barn for a while.”

They looked at John.

Ned understood the silent question. “I want him inside with me, not out here.”

They didn't like it. Negros should have been guarding doors, instead of white deputies, but neither wanted to argue with the man who had become a legend among the Chisum law community.

“The other one come go with me to move everybody off the front porch, and don't let anybody else in the house while we talk to the boy's daddy.”

Before obeying, they glanced around to be sure Sheriff Griffin was out of earshot. He was territorial, and he'd skin them alive if he thought they were favoring the constable.

In the house, John stopped in the kitchen. “I'll wait right here.”

“All right.” Cody held the door and Ned led the way into the living room. Ben still sat on the divan, eyes red and leaking. Sylvia still hadn't appeared.

Sympathetic friends and family stood uncertainly in the living room. Ned stopped. “Y'all go on outside and let us talk for a minute.”

It was apparent they wanted to stay inside and listen, but they stood. A bottle-blonde sister kissed Ben on the cheek. “All right. Y'all come on.”

When everyone reluctantly filed out, Ned took a seat on a sprung chair catty-cornered from the dingy gray divan. “Ben, I'm sorry.”

The toothless, grieving man worked his lips. “It shouldn't-a happened.” The words came out mushy.

Still standing, Cody tilted his head to better understand. “Put your teeth in, Ben, so we can understand you.”

He felt around in the bib pocket of his overalls, located his dentures, and slipped them in with a clack.

Ned gave his knee a pat. “Was it you that found him?”

“Yep.” Sniffle. “I went to the barn and found him hanging there.”

“I know. I'm sorry it was you. A man ought not see any of his family like that, especially his own kids. Now, I have to ask you some questions so we can find out what happened. When did you see him last?”

“Last night. He went out like he always does.”

“Do you know who he went with?”

“Naw, he didn't say. I figured it was them new friends of his from Oklahoma.”

“How come?”

“'Cause he's been running with people I don't know.”

“Not boys from around here?”

“No, they was town boys, but he met them at some honky tonk over there. He got crossways with the boys on this side a while back and took to running with some others. They spend a lot of time across the river…” He stopped.

Cody felt uncomfortable, hoping he wasn't talking about The Sportsman, his honky tonk. The loose piece of sheet iron rattling in the wind was setting his teeth on edge. If he had a hammer, he'd have gone out and nailed it back down.

Ned knew he had to keep pressing. “What were they doing over there?”

Ben gave him a sad look, and then dropped his eyes. “I don't know.”

“I believe you do. Y'ain't helping him none now. He's gone, and I need to know who to look for.”

“Why do you want to look for anybody? Little Ben hung hisself.”

“No, he didn't.”

“You don't think?”

“No, and you don't either.”

The room was silent.

“You
know
he didn't. He wouldn't-a done that, not even with his mama gone. Tell me what you know. He cain't get in any trouble, now.”

“He got in with a bad bunch that's moving that marywana, and some other stuff. I told him to get out of it before he got hurt, that it wasn't right, but he didn't listen.”

“You already knew he was messin' with that stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why didn't you come tell me about it?”

“I didn't want him to get arrested, and I thought I could talk him out of that foolishness, but he was making money.” Ben absently waved a hand. “We ain't got much, you can tell. And then when Sylvia left, things…died around here.”

A noise interrupted their conversation. Ned's eyes flashed at the annoyance. John quickly stepped into the kitchen. Cody joined him, and when he returned, Ned raised his eyebrows in question.

“It's Miss Becky and some of the women from her church. They're bringing food in.”

Ned knew better than to wade into that one, even after he'd told everyone to stay out. He wondered if the deputy was still where'd he'd posted him at the back door. Most likely that little Indian woman rolled right over him.

Cody squatted on his heels and rested a hand on the battered coffee table between them to maintain his balance. A tattered copy of
Life
magazine covered a worn Bible. The headline
How You Can Survive Fallout
, barely registered in Cody's mind. “We need for you to tell us the rest you know.”

“Son, I don't know much more. Little Ben had a wad of money in his pocket and he was helping haul that stuff.”

“Did he put them bags in your barn?”

“No, he was as surprised as I was about that. I'm thinking them people decided to hide it in there, since they knew him.” He glanced from one constable to the other. “I'm afraid they got mad when that one bag disappeared. He probably suspected it was theirs, but he should have known you cain't steal from people like that.”

“Do you have any names?”

“Naw. They was all a lot older than Little Ben, and I told him they'd get him in trouble, but he said he was gonna make a killin' and then go to Dallas and buy a big painted house and live high on the hog.”

“Did you ever see them?”

“Onec't, but not around here. I was getting gas in Arthur City when they rolled up from across the river with a flatbed full of hay.”

The one gas station in Arthur City was on the southbound side of the highway, not a hundred yards from the river bridge.

Ben wiped his nose with a wet handkerchief. “Only I knew it wasn't all hay from the smell. The wind wasn't blowing that day, and when they stopped and got out, I could smell that stuff. Benjamin stayed in the truck because he didn't want to explain to me why he was with them, or to answer my questions, but them other two got out.”

“Describe them,” Cody said.

He did, and the description perfectly matched the two men who'd been watching them fish from across the creek that morning.

Only Cody didn't know the description also matched the two men trying to flank Ned in his joint not long before.

Ned recognized them, though.

Chapter Twenty

I went out on the porch to watch the sky get dark and dangerous looking. Grandpa was helping Miss Becky in the garden when it first started coming up a cloud.

They hurried back to the house to beat the rain. The strong south wind always told of springtime storms on the way. One minute it was blowing strong, and then stopped. A few minutes later, the wind again sprang up from the west, and lightning flickered in the dark clouds.

Pepper had stayed for supper. “Shit. It's gonna storm and Grandpa will make us go to that damned cellar again.”

Thunderstorms didn't really make me nervous, but I remembered last year when we spent half the night in Uncle Henry's cellar while a tornado blew away everything from barns to pig-pens. “Maybe this one won't be so bad.”

A strong gust threatened to snatch Grandpa's hat as he wired the pasture gate shut. He always used the extra twist as cheap insurance. It drove Pepper crazy, because she hated to use both the bailing wire and the loop over the gate post.

Thunder rumbled across the pasture and the trees thrashed in the wind. I watched the big oak give before the storm, and hoped our tree house was strong enough to stand the strain of the limbs moving first one way, then the other.

Miss Becky hurried on the porch with a bucket full of fresh greens. She untied her bonnet. “My lands, I thought it was gonna catch us.”

Grandpa stomped up right behind her. A sudden gust grabbed the mop hanging on the side of the house and flipped it off. “Might near did, but I don't believe there's any rain in it.”

Storms came through like that sometimes, bringing heavy wind, thunder and lightning, but no rain. Other times the bottom fell out and it came what Grandpa called a frog strangler.

When no one was around, Pepper called them turd floaters.

Miss Becky was still on the porch when the lights flickered and the electricity went out. It wasn't unusual to lose power so far out in the country. While Grandpa fumed over the weather, Miss Becky lit the coal oil lamps. Compared to the electric lights, the lamps made a dim glow in the house.

The whole thing made both Grandpa and Pepper about half mad. With no light, she had to sit there and listen to the adults talk, and that kind of thing always drove her crazy.

The storm quickly blew past, and the sky cleared like nobody's business. It was full dark and there was still no power. It was cooler outside so we sat on the porch. Grandpa went to his car, rolled down the windows, and clicked on his Motorola. He'd finally gotten it fixed after several months of it working only part of the time.

Voices crackled from the speakers, but all the law business was in Chisum. About half an hour later, a set of headlights came from Center Springs, and Uncle James' Chevy turned into the drive. They parked behind Grandpa's car and joined us.

“Y'all out of juice, too?” Uncle James sat on the porch steps.

Aunt Ida Belle had her knitting with her, and she shooed Pepper out of her straight-backed chair. Mumbling to herself, Pepper sat on the edge of the porch beside me.

Grandpa grunted. “Yep. I don't know why the co-op cain't figure out how to keep the lines strung during a storm. This happens two-three times a year.”

Miss Becky brought a little stool out on the porch and sat one of the lamps on it to give Aunt Ida Belle enough light to stitch by. Aunt Ida Belle was always pretty quiet and didn't say much. “Now, you kids don't knock that stool over.”

“One of 'em probably will, and then the whole house will burn down,” Grandpa said.

Miss Becky came back out with a pan of peas to shell and settled down on the other side of the lamp.

Another set of headlights came down the road. It was Uncle Cody and Norma Faye. He hollered when he got out of the El Camino. “This a reunion?”

Miss Becky jumped up. “I'll get some more chairs.”

They threaded their way past Uncle James and the porch got crowded. “No you won't.” Uncle Cody held her in her seat and went through the screen door. “I'll get them.” He came back out with two more.

“Here comes Mr. Tom,” I said, watching lights flicker through the trees. He parked behind Uncle James' Chevy a minute later.

“Tom, you ain't got no power yet, so how'd you know we'd all be here right now.”

Mr. Tom tilted his hat back and grinned in the dim light. “Shoot, when the whole county goes dark, even us that live by kerosene knows when the lights go out.”

“All except for Hugo over there.”

Grandpa was pointing at a dim glow to the north. Oklahoma had power.

Uncle Cody stood and stretched. “This calls for ice cream.”

“Good idy,” Miss Becky said. “You run up to the store and get some ice. We'll mix everything up and have it ready when you get back.”

He stepped off the porch. “Well come on, urchins. Y'all come go with me. It looks like Pepper's about to bust.”

He didn't have to tell us twice. Miss Becky called through the open screen. “Y'all get another can of Eagle Brand and some salt, too. We're 'bout out.”

The radio hadn't even warmed up before we pulled in front of Neal Box's general store. A crowd of locals sat on the porch in the darkness there, too. I recognized Mr. Ike, the Wilson boys, and Cale Westlake, sitting like a toad with his back against the store's wall.

He and I glared at one another while Uncle Cody went inside the interior lit by a coal oil lamp and a couple of candles. Seconds later, Neal came out with a flashlight and opened the door to the wooden ice box. He had an ice pick in his hand, and he chipped away at a big block of ice until he got ten pounds, like Uncle Cody always bought. He heaved it out of the cooler with a pair of tongs and carried it over to the El Camino.

“Howdy, kids.” He had a piece of ‘toe sack in his hand. He slipped the burlap into the back, and then thumped the ice on it. “Top, climb in back here.”

I crawled over the tailgate as Uncle Neal flipped the rest of the ‘toe sack over the ice. “You set on this here so it don't slide around on the way back to your Grandpa's house.”

He left me sitting there and went back inside. Pepper stuck her head out. “Why do you get to set on the ice and not me?”

“I don't care. You do it.”

We switched places by the time Uncle Cody came back out. “Shit, this is cold on my ass,” Pepper said, thinking no one heard.

“Good.” Uncle Cody shifted into gear. “Maybe it'll cool that temper of yours off before we get back to the house.”

Ten minutes later, the women had everything mixed up and poured into the bucket, and Uncle James started chipping away at the block of ice. While Uncle Cody cranked, they covered the ice with salt.

“They're kinda nervous up there at the store,” Uncle Cody said.

“What fer?”

“I heard said the Russians might have planned some sort of attack on the United States this week, and it was a coincidence that storm rolled through when it did.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don't know. They brought all them rockets and atom bombs in down there in Cuba a few years ago. It wouldn't surprise me none if they figured out a way to shut down all the electricity before they landed troops.”

“The lights are on there in Hugo.”

“Yeah, but who would want to invade Oklahoma?”

The men laughed.

“Pepper, if your butt has thawed out, maybe you want to sit here on the bucket while I crank.”

“My as…rear's still chilly. Top can sit on it.”

I didn't mind, I liked to hold the bucket down while Uncle Cody cranked. But the conversation had me a little spooked. I kept looking back toward the lights of Hugo, wondering if we were under attack.

A couple of weeks earlier, me and Pepper brought a card from school to get filled out at home. One of the five questions on the card asked that if there was an atomic attack, did they want us to run home, or stay at school.

Miss Becky checked the “stay at school” box, because she didn't want me running the mile from our school to the house through no bombing or fallout.

Grandpa went to his car and cranked up the volume on the Motorola a little more, to hear if there was talking about Russian troops marching through Chisum.

The ice cream was starting to harden when Miss Lizzie in her house across the pasture completely lost her mind.

She and Uncle Harold lived in a ragged house about six hundred yards away. Mr. Bell was talking about what job he was doing on his house, when a strange wail floated to us on the still air.

Let me tell you, it raised the hair on my neck. At first I thought it was that River Monster folks liked to talk about late at night. There were stories about an eight-foot hairy monster with big feet down in the bottoms, and that it hollered at night with a loud, long wail.

“Goddlemighty, what's that?” Uncle Cody asked.

Miss Becky came to the door. “I know that voice. It's Lizzie, poor ol' soul. Something's happened, Ned, you better run me over there.”

“But the ice cream is almost ready.”

“It'll have to set a spell to harden up. We'll be back here by then.”

“I'll go with you.” Norma Faye dried her hands on a cup towel.

“All right, hon.”

“Can we go?” I asked.

“Sure,” Grandpa said. I imagine he was thankful for the company.

“Are you crazy?” Pepper was appalled at the question. “What do you want to go over there for?”

“You want to sit here in the dark and worry about Russians and wait for the ice cream to get hard?”

Miss Becky came out, so it was all of us, except for Mr. Tom.

“I believe I'll stay right here and guard the freezer.” He rubbed his flat stomach and frowned for a second. “No telling what them Russkies might do if they come rolling through here and find an unguarded bucket of fresh banana ice cream.”

Harold's house was close enough to hit with a .22, but the road meandered around pastures, pools, and Miss Becky's little frame church, so it took a minute or two to get there.

It was pitch black in the yard, except for the light from one little ol' oil lamp on a little table beside Harold's rocker on the front porch. Our headlights lit things up and threw harsh shadows behind a ragged lilac bush, an upside-down wash pot, and a pile of rusting tin cans.

Pepper and I slid out of the back seat and followed the adults to the edge of the porch where we pulled up pretty quick, because Harold's body odor was the worst I'd ever smelled. It was rancid lard and armpit sweat.

Grandpa stopped at the steps. “You doin' all right tonight, Harold?”

Harold was sharpening his pocketknife. He spat over the rail and went back to rubbing the blade on a whetstone in his hand. Most men in Center Springs kept a sharpening stone close at hand, if they didn't already have one in their pocket. Grandpa carried a small, flat Arkansas stone in his overalls to touch up the blade on his own knife, whenever he needed it.

“I'm all right, but if you're here about Lizzie, well, there ain't nothin' we can do for her.”

A scared voice came from the dark insides of the house. “Help! Who's out there? My legs is gone and I can't find my eyes! I cain't hardly see nothing'.”

Uncle Cody went on up the porch with a silver flashlight in his hand. “I'll go check on her if it's all right.”

Miss Becky was up the steps like a shot. “My lands, poor thing.” Norma Faye trailed right behind.

Grandpa stepped back all of a sudden. I figured he'd gotten good whiff of Harold. “She's hollerin' pretty good.”

Harold spat again. “Don't matter to me none. She don't know any of us anymore. Her mind is as gone as gone gets.”

Pepper leaned over to me. “That man is crazier than a shithouse rat, and he smells like one, too.”

Grandpa stood there in the yard, visiting like all the electricity in the county wasn't off and there wasn't a crazy lady with Old Timer's disease in the house. “Why'n't you go in and calm her down?”

“Won't do no good. She'll squall 'til she gets tired of hollerin' and then she'll settle down. I had to tie her in the bed.”

“That why she's hollerin?”

“I reckon, but I tied her up day before yesterday, so I'd imagine she'd be over it by now.”

“You kids get in the car,” Grandpa snapped, quick as a snakebite. I'd heard that tone before, and knew he was mad. Pepper and I took off like a shot to stay out of his way.

Pepper held her nose. “He smells like something died in his britches.”

Grandpa moved a little upwind. “You had her tied up since day before yesterday?”

By the light of the oil lamp, Harold tested the sharpness of the blade by shaving the hair on his left arm. “Once.”

Uncle Cody slammed the screen door open and came out on the porch like thunder. “Damn you Harold, stand up!”

The sharp crack of his voice jolted Harold from his chair. “I didn't have no choice.”

The flashlight spun across the porch as Uncle Cody pitched it to Grandpa, who caught it and shined the beam onto Harold. “Put that knife down.” Harold carefully folded it and laid the knife on his rocker.

Uncle Cody spun him around and snapped a pair of cuffs on his dirty wrists. “I wouldn't treat a hog the way you've done Miss Lizzie. You're headed for jail, and she's going to the hospital.”

“I did what I knew to do.”

“You could have fed her, and changed her, and cleaned her up.”

“I been doing that for years, but when her mind went, I figured she wouldn't know. I's just gonna let her drift on and off and hoped that medicine Little Ben had would do some good.”

“Little Ben Winters?”

“Don't know no other Little Ben.”

Uncle Cody studied him. “What medicine?”

“We tried that new stuff to get her to calm down, and it works pretty good, but she can't hardly hold the smoke in her lungs for it to do any good.”