The Wettest County in the World (25 page)

What’re you doing? Forrest asked.

Eatin’ ice cream, Maggie said.

She took a bite of toast and smiled.

Forrest had the sudden urge to take her in his arms and bury his face in her hair. It was unlike anything he had felt before. He drank his coffee and watched her some more and wondered to himself just how foolish he really was. He wondered if this was the end of it, or if there was more, and just what it would take for him to learn.

A
S THE SUMMER
wore into June, Sherwood Anderson could see the wear on the faces of the farmers kicking at the red clay that gathered along the sides of buildings like snowdrifts. Walking uptown on Main Street in Rocky Mount, the stools at the drugstore, the lunch counters, the dry-goods store, all empty.

Be chewin’ on shoe leather before it’s out,
an old-timer said standing by the statue of a Confederate soldier in front of the city hall, chewing on his pipe,
just like we did back in ’30, the worst in a decade or I’m a dead man standin’ here.
Before him in the sunlight, a couple of middle-aged men with hands in pockets, dusty shoes.
Won’t be the last time, neither.
The sky clear blue and the sun relentless. Driving along the road Anderson saw men standing in withered fields, hands on their hips.

The salesmen around the table at the boardinghouse occasionally talked of the drought but they didn’t seem to mind too much. The optimism of the salesmen was annoying and seemed to Anderson an egregious display of false hope. The fat-necked men still smoked their cigars and laughed hard, faces going purple,
Slide that pie back down here please, don’t mind if I do!
They had business plenty up the road. They discussed the drought with a speculative optimism that made Anderson’s face burn.
Be a boon for one trade,
a round man in a porkpie declaimed one night after dinner,
them shiners doin’ a serious trade, I’ll tell you what!
Made sense enough, Anderson thought. For a couple of dollars you could stay blind for a week; a few dollars more, maybe even just sit the whole thing out altogether.

The newspaper clippings indicated that the drought of 1930 was similarly punishing, and it was clear that those who lived by tobacco would turn to other means.
The Roanoke Times
printed several reports on the incident at Maggodee Creek Bridge and the shooting of the Bondurant brothers, though no mention was made of the motives of the brothers or how they ended so obviously at odds with the local law enforcement. If the conspiracy rumors were true, the brothers must have been trying to skirt the racket. So what would lead them to take such a heavily laden caravan, four cars full of booze, through the snow in December? Why did the local sheriffs seem so willing to gun them all down?

At night in his bed Anderson listened to the caravans of cars blasting down Main Street to East Church and the hard road 33 heading north up Grassy Hill. The roaring of engines, first the pilot car, then the line of sedans going sixty, seventy miles an hour right past the courthouse. Occasionally a sheriff’s car was in pursuit, but not often. Anderson got used to the sound and nobody seemed to pay much mind. When he closed his eyes he could see the distinct shift in the darkness. Some great thing, swaying, descending. It would not be stopped. The nameless terror rolled up and Anderson groped for the water glass of whiskey beside his bed.

A
T THE
R
OCKY
M
OUNT
jail Tom C. Cundiff glowered in his cell, hunkered over his bunk, fingering his ears. Anderson brought him some tobacco and put a few questions to him. In the next cell a thin black man sat on the floor with his back to the bars, his woolly head flecked with dust and leaves and he seemed not to notice Anderson or care. Cundiff met his queries with grunts and the grind of his jaws working the tobacco quid. The only reaction Anderson could get was when Carter Lee’s name was introduced; Cundiff spat hard and glared at him, his small, close-set eyes burning.

Man’s a goddamn crook and a liar, he said. You put that in your papers.

Are you saying that he is guilty?

Hell yeah, he’s guilty.

Of what?

More things than I can count. Puttin’ me in here for one. Takin’ granny fees.

Bribes?

Yep. He ran the whole scheme from day one. The whole county payin’ out to ’im.

And you wouldn’t pay?

Nope, never did, Cundiff said. Around here it’s Carter Lee’s way and if you don’t like it, you end up here, or worse.

Or worse? What do you mean?

Cundiff chuckled and shook his head.

What do you think?

Are you sayin’ Carter Lee is guilty of murder?

He never done it himself, got others for that. But he pulls the strings.

What about the Bondurant brothers, Anderson said, you work with those men?

Cundiff’s face went wooden, the old gypsy stare.

They also refuse to pay? Anderson asked.

Cundiff hocked the whole quid of tobacco against the wall and stretched out on his back on the bunk.

That why they were shot down at Maggodee Creek? Anderson asked.

Cundiff appeared to settle in for a nap. Anderson lit a cigarette and loosened his collar.

What’s the problem? Anderson asked.

Cundiff closed his eyes again, relaxing on the cot.

Is it the Bondurants? Are you afraid of them?

Cundiff came off the cot like some kind of jungle cat, springing at the bars. Anderson was standing with his hands in his pockets, relaxing on his heels, and the move caught him completely unawares and his mind skipped a beat, his body a few moments behind the thoughts in his brain. Cundiff shot an arm through the bars; his stubby fingers jerked and clawed just a few inches from Anderson’s face, knocking the cigarette out of his mouth.

You afraid, mister? Whadya think?

Cundiff was grinning his gap-toothed smile. Anderson took an awkward step back, looking down the hall to the anteroom where the deputy sat, his feet up on a desk just visible through the half-open door. The black prisoner in the next cell was giving him a sympathetic look. Anderson shook another cigarette from his pack with deliberate slowness, trying to look Cundiff in the eye. He lit it and inhaled deeply.

Something you want to tell me? Anderson said.

Can’t think of anything directly, Cundiff said.

Why is everyone afraid of talking about the Bondurants? Just tell me that.

Tell you what, Cundiff said. Man got his head cut off with a razor. Left for dead, not a spoonful of blood left in ’im, you unnerstan’? And what if I told you this man got up, walked ten miles through a blizzard? What would you say to that?

I’d say that was quite a story?

Would you believe it?

No. I’d say that was a fable. A lie.

Well, then, Cundiff said, you got nothin’ to be scared of, do you?

I
N THE ANTEROOM
the deputy said they were shipping Cundiff off to the county asylum the next afternoon. He was to be committed, against his will, on the orders of the commonwealth’s attorney. Anderson took a seat on a bench; his knees felt loose and his mouth parched and he dimly wished for a glass of something strong.

Whadya think, the deputy said, of old Tom C. Cundiff?

He was grinning and Anderson knew that they thought Cundiff was insane and some kind of big joke.

He mentioned, Anderson said, something about one of the Bondurant boys getting his throat cut?

The deputy frowned and took his feet off the desk and examined his nails. There wasn’t much that was clear about that case, he told Anderson. The only witness the surviving victim, who was attacked from behind, and what little information he had, he refused to give. No statements to the police at all.

Did they ever catch who did it? Anderson asked.

Nope, the deputy said. You don’t catch men who do those sorts of things. At least
the law
don’t catch ’em.

Anderson left the jail block to the echoing sound of Cundiff’s braying laughter.

Crazy as a bat, I’ll tell you what! the deputy called after him.

A
NDERSON SPENT
the next day in the file room of
The Roanoke Times
filing through reams of articles, searching for anything about names he had: Willie Carter Sharpe, Tom C. Cundiff, the Bondurant boys. The articles about Sharpe flourished through 1930–1931, then faded, then increased in the last few months. She had been caught before on May 12, 1931, in Rocky Mount, and spent three years in the federal prison in Alderson, Virginia. It was said she was seen piloting a convoy a week after she was out of jail. Now that the search was on, the public appetite was whetted for more exploits, and the papers rehashed the stories and speculated on her role in the conspiracy in Franklin County.

Then Anderson came across an article from December of 1928 concerning the assault at the County Line.
Attacked by unknown individuals at closing…a serious neck wound…Forrest Bondurant, who is expected to survive his injuries, made it to the Rocky Mount Hospital under his own power…no leads at this time.
Maybe he could come at this from another side.

Anderson got directions to the County Line Restaurant and headed out after supper. As he piloted his car through the rolling hills of Franklin County he felt the old indignation rising up like sap in his chest. The crumbling barns, muddy yards of children, decaying fences, and battered houses. At the filling stations glassy-eyed men sat on warped porches. He knew that inside, a few older farmers held their cracked palms toward the cold, empty stove, the woman behind the counter, her jaw set in a hard line.

The lot was nearly empty, the building dark, and Anderson was afraid it was already closed. A convenient location, Anderson thought, sitting astride the county line, easy access out of the jurisdiction of pursuing deputies. Just like the Blackwater station. He sat in his car for a few minutes. I can put that Sharpe story away in my sleep, Anderson thought, so I might as well pursue what seems to have the most potential.

His hands on the steering wheel tingled and he felt the draft down his spine. What are you doing, man? Work fast.

A black man stepped out the door carrying two bags of trash in his hands, a white apron around his midsection, a cigarette hanging on his lip. He tossed the trash into a burn barrel at the edge of the lot and splashed some kerosene on top. Jefferson Deshazo stood with his hands on his hips, staring into the barrel, then flipped his cigarette in. When the flames rose he turned and fixed Anderson with a deliberate stare. Anderson got out of the car and Jefferson turned to watch the golden flames licking the rim of the barrel.

Anderson introduced himself to the man who worked the counter. Hal Childress still kept his thin hair combed over his round pate, but in the intervening years he had aged, tottered over some kind of zenith of his life. When Anderson brought up that night Hal rolled out the tale he had repeated many nights to various men. It was a story he never seemed to tire of telling, and he went into it for Anderson with great relish. Throughout Anderson nodded in what he figured was a polite manner and pieced together the images in his mind. It was quite a story, he thought, but he wasn’t sure if he believed it.

So, Anderson said, most folks think he walked all the way to Rocky Mount?

Yep.

When did Maggie leave?

Don’t know. Sometime before.

After some prodding Hal told Anderson that he had known Maggie since she was a kid in Henry County. She was a teenager when she was shipped off to Carolina to work in the textile mills. A few years later her father got drunk and hitched up his plow team on a rainy night and when the team slipped into a deep hollow the back-band strap hooked around his legs and he was dragged down into the gully with the kicking mules. They found him in the morning, tangled in the harness, crushed under his broken and dying animals. Maggie needed work to pay the note on her father’s house, and Hal fixed her up at the County Line. Forrest came along later and bought the restaurant and just kept them all on.

That’s a tough-luck story, Anderson said.

None too tough around here, Hal said.

Hal frowned and scrubbed an errant spot on the counter with a towel.

She’s a special girl, Maggie.

Hal worked the spot with the towel, working in circular patterns. Anderson waited for him to continue but the man just kept scrubbing.

How’s that?

Hal sighed and turned away, slinging the towel over his shoulder.

Well, let’s just say she was a good woman and nice to work with.

You see her around?

Ain’t seen her in years, Hal said.

Hal kept his back to Anderson and wiped his face with his shirtsleeve. This man is affected, Anderson thought. Well, I’ll be.

If you ain’t buying, mister, Hal said, then I got work to do.

A
T THE
B
LACKWATER STATION
the next day Anderson ordered a cheese sandwich from Maggie and sat at the counter as she fried up some bread. She wore a shimmering violet dress, tailored at the waist, pearl buttons down the back. The place was empty save for Everett Dillon out front working the pumps, disappearing around the side of the building and reappearing whenever someone drove up. Anderson pulled on his orange soda and watched the window. The white light of midday was barely cut by the thin curtains and the room was warm. Footsteps creaked across the ceiling. Someone else is here, Anderson thought. He rolled up his sleeves and smoked a cigarette as his sandwich bubbled, Maggie absentmindedly patting it with a spatula.