Unraveled (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

The Wraith slipped between the thin sheets and with his hands behind his head, stared through darkness at the ceiling. It had been a good night's work and things were coming together right nice. Of course they should, he'd been planning for years.

***

The dirt and grass parking lot of the Forest Chapel Methodist Church was full by nine-thirty Tuesday morning, a full half hour before Frank Clay's funeral. The overflow lined up on both shoulders of the two-lane highway, a testimony to the mayor's reputation.

Ned and a dozen men visited in the thick shade cast by large burr oaks that were older than the church that was built in 1920. Ned watched groups assemble and dissolve into new clusters. Miss Becky stood nearby with a number of other farm wives.

Several members of the city council had already filed inside the little white church, joined by representatives from Austin. Highway Patrol cars were scattered up and down the highway, some to help move traffic, others there to pay their respects to a man who'd almost made it to the capital.

Ike Reader ran a finger around his loose collar, more out of habit than anything else. “Listen, I swear. I didn't expect this many folks.”

“Most everybody liked old Frank.” Neal Box watched the people file down the highway in twos and threes. His store was closed so he could attend the funeral. “When you're the mayor and you pass away young, there's bound to be a big turnout.”

“Who's that?”

They followed Floyd Cass' point to see a well-dressed man accompanied by two young men in dark suits. They'd parked beyond the adjoining cemetery and were walking along the fence, avoiding the ditch. Ned recognized him at once and was surprised to see him so far from the state capital. “That's Senator John Tower.”

“You reckon you oughta go over there and escort him in?”

Ned shook his head at Ike's question. “Naw, I ain't much of an ass-kisser. He might be a senator, but that don't mean I gotta do any more for him than anyone else.”

The senator stopped to visit with a knot of farmers in sport coats and overalls. Ned watched a young man with slicked-back hair pass close to Miss Becky. She reached out to take Terrence Clay's arm. She'd always been partial to the soft-spoken young man who also wanted to make something of himself. “You come here and hug my neck.”

“Howdy Miss Becky.”

He bent and gave her an awkward hug. She wrapped her arms around him for a moment and then pulled back. She patted the outside of his coat, near the small of his back.

“Is that what I think it is?”

He cut a startled look at Ned who figured out right quick what she was talking about.

Terrence hung his head. “Yes ma'am.”

Ned moved away from the group of men and stopped by Miss Becky. She shook her head. “Hon, this is a church. You don't need to go in there with a pistol.”

“Miss Becky, them Mayfields is trying to kill us.”

Ned joined in. “Not here they won't.”

“Mr. Ned, you know as well as I do what they're up to.”

“Son, do you see any colored folks here?”

He looked around. “Yessir, a couple. There's John Washington over there, and Missy Lee Davis, and…”

“Are any of them Mayfields?”

“Nossir. Not that I can see.”

“Then why don't you go put that pistol back in the car? You don't need to have it hanging outside your khakis.”

“Is that an order, sir?”

“It's a real strong suggestion.”

Miss Becky squeezed Terrence's arm. “You go put it back in the car and come back and walk me in.”

“Yes ma'am.”

Terrence left. Ned cleared his voice and spoke loud enough to carry across the churchyard. “All y'all! This ain't no place for guns. If you're carryin' a pistol, go put it up right now, and pass the word inside.”

Several men broke away and drifted from the churchyard to their cars and trucks. Miss Becky went inside with Terrence and soon more than a dozen others came out of the church and headed for their vehicles. Judge Rains arrived in a new silverbelly hat, fresh from the box. His clothes were the same as usual, all black.

He raised his eyebrow at those returning to their vehicles. “I know I'm getting old and my mind's not what it used to be, but they appear to be going in the wrong direction.”

The corner of Ned's mouth twitched. “Disarming themselves. Where've you been? We expected you to come by the house.”

“Stopped by Frenchie's for some pie.” O.C. jerked a thumb toward Tower. “You gonna go escort the senator inside?”

“Hell no.” Ned snorted, knowing O.C. was trying to get his goat. “He can see the door as well as I can.”

As is often the case at country funerals, the men seemed reluctant to enter the building until the skinny funeral attendant with a large Adam's apple waved them inside. Ned nodded. “Well, all right boys. Let's get old Frank laid down proper.”

They climbed the church house steps once again for still another funeral.

Chapter Seventeen

The Wraith moved through the darkness, familiar with everything he touched, every turn and every dead end. He almost giggled when someone brushed his arm and screamed, but that was all right. It was part of the game, though he'd intentionally touched the young woman's breast. It wasn't his fault. They put him there, but it was a long way from working in the hot hay and cotton fields right there in Lamar County.

***

Maggie's funeral was set for two in the afternoon at the Mt. Zion Church on the south side of Chisum. A large number of Mayfields were in attendance. Funeral services tended to be longer affairs at the colored Baptist church, but after a long struggle with himself, Ned decided to stay the entire time.

Ned rode with John Washington and took a back row seat on the aisle while John continued to the front to view Maggie in her casket. Ned quickly saw he was the only white face in the small crowd. Hat in his lap and staring straight ahead, he sat on the back row and ignored the angry looks of several congregation members who twisted in their pews to glare.

The little church was like an oven and almost every woman there cooled herself with paper fans supplied by the funeral home. Ned wanted to use his straw hat to do the same, but decided it might look disrespectful, so he sat still, simmering.

Bryce Mayfield stopped beside him. “We don't need you here.”

“I'm sorry you feel thataway.”

Bryce's father, Willie, knelt in the aisle and spoke softely. His short hair was peppered gray. “Mr. Ned, it might be better if you go.”

“Why's that?”

“You know what I'm talkin' about.”

Ned watched the man's face. “I know what you think you've heard. But what you hear ain't always the truth, now is it? I'm here because it's the right thing to do. And y'all need to let me alone because I'm looking into Maggie's death, just like I'm looking into Merle's now.”

John glanced down the aisle and saw them talking. The expression of Ned's face brought him to the rear of the church. “Y'all all right?”

Willie stood. “Just talking to Mr. Ned about being here.”

“I invited him.”

“Well, you might want to
un
invite him.”

“I won't do no such of a thing. Bryce, you better get yourself in a pew and bow your head.”

“All right, I's just sayin'.”

Ned held up a hand. “Willie, you and Bryce need to know we're doing what we can. You pass the word that the law'll handle it.”

Willie's eyebrows met in the middle as he rose. “The law don't care about colored folks.”

“That lawman standing beside you does, and he'll vouch for me that I do too.”

Bryce wouldn't leave it alone, and Ned saw the glassy look in his eyes. “Ned, don't you come back here for Merle's funeral, neither.”

“He will if I bring him.” John's deep voice rumbled with anger.

The preacher stepped into the pulpit behind the simple wooden casket. The skinny spray of roses looked pitiful to Ned. The men surrounding him faded back to their pews and he slid down a little on the polished wood so John could sit.

Ned realized the preacher was the thick man with the deep voice who was on Hollis' front porch Sunday afternoon. “The family sure is proud to see all y'all here on this glorious day when one of our own is settin' beside Jesus. Let us pray.”

Chapter Eighteen

It was uncomfortably warm and humid after school when I accidentally killed Miss Becky's mean ol' red rooster. He'd get out of the chicken yard no matter what she did to keep the gate closed or the fence tight to the ground, so she just gave up and left him to fend for himself.

I watched him make a run at her that same morning before we left and she had to kick him away from her bare legs, else he would have spurred her. “You devil you!”

He glared at her.

She scattered her pail of potato peelings and scraps over the fence and into the pasture for the hens. “You're gonna be supper for a wolf one night.”

He darted back under the smokehouse where he decided he'd live.

I doubted there was anything tough enough to eat a bird that old and mean. He'd been wild when he came up to the house a few months earlier and took up with Miss Becky's hens. Living like that gave him an attitude and he got so he'd fight anyone or anything that came across what he considered his territory.

He chased Hootie away from the smokehouse two or three times and once he made a run at Grandpa. That little stunt cost him a few feathers when Grandpa kicked him a good one. It kinda addled the rooster for a while and he limped around for a week before he finally got to feeling better.

I was always afraid he'd cut me with those spurs of his. It wasn't anything for him to run up to one of us and try to jump on our legs. I was showing out for Pepper, because I'd suddenly become the third wheel since Mark showed up, and that's what got everything started. “Miss Becky's rooster's mean.”

Pepper wasn't paying me no mind. She was dialing in a station on her new transistor radio. The three of us loafed on the porch, enjoying the sunshine. Our countdown had already started and end of school was days away. Summer fun was on our minds and it would be the first full summer for me to have someone to pal around with. I was looking forward to it, if I could pry Mark away from Pepper.

He was leaning against a porch post. “He'll spur you if he gets the chance.”

“Shit.” Pepper found a station and worked hard at dialing it in clear. “He better not make no run at me. We'll be eating fried chicken an hour later.”

“You talk big for a girl,” I laughed at her. “Miss Becky'll give you a whipping if you kill her rooster. You just have to get your bluff in on him.”

“I don't need to bluff no damn chicken.” She tuned her radio sharp enough to get the Chisum station. “We're the bosses here, not him.”

She cranked up the volume and the announcer sounded like he'd had too much coffee. “This is the greatest song I've heard in
years
! I have an early press of a yet-to-be-released album by a new band called Steppenwolf. I don't know what that means, but this song is so far out you won't come back for a month! The lines are open. Let's give 'er a spin and see what you think if you were ‘Born to be Wild'!!!”

The sound that came out of that little speaker was something like I'd never heard before. At the first notes, Pepper leaped to her feet. “My
God!
” She started dancing, throwing her hair around and acting like she had ants in her pants.

“What was that?” Miss Becky appeared at the screen door.

Pepper quit dancing for a moment. “Did you say something?”

“No missy. What did
you
say?”

The loud music filled the air as Pepper struggled to think of an answer.

“That's what I thought. There's a revival coming next week. We're all going. Maybe that'll help you understand that it's a sin to take the Lord's name in vain.”

She disappeared back into the kitchen and Pepper shrieked, “Far
out!”
Holding her head, she started dancing like crazy again. This time her hair came loose from her headband. “That sound's an
acid trip
!”

Mark ran both hands through his own hair and pulled it away from his face. “Wow!” He had a grin a mile wide, but I couldn't understand what was so cool about the song.

The DJ came back on, laughing like a lunatic. “Next, come with me while the Beatles explain about what it's like to be a walrus!”

“I Am the Walrus” came on at the same second Miss Becky's old red rooster ducked under the barbed-wire fence and headed in our direction.

Pepper was back to slinging her head and flopping around. “
Psychedelic!
”

Mark joined her and they danced in the yard like they do on
American Bandstand
. I ignored their hippie talk and flopping around, watching the rooster slip under the barbed-wire fence. He crossed the yard, bobbing his head and looking for grasshoppers. “I'll show him who's boss.”

They weren't listening, but I didn't care. I'd seen an axe handle on the back floorboard through the open window on Grandpa's Fury. I figured he'd bought it that morning to replace the one I'd broken chopping wood. I was getting the hang of swinging an axe, but for some reason I kept missing my mark and hitting the handle right short of the head. After about a hundred blows, the hickory splintered and the axe head threatened to fly off.

I took the handle out of the floorboard, noticing it wasn't new. There was dirt and dark stains up and down its length. That figured. Grandpa never bought anything new if he could find it used. Cars, furniture, feed troughs, lumber, even the swamp coolers we used to stay comfortable in the summer had all been near 'bout used up before we ever got them. None of the water pumps worked to keep the straw wet, because they'd given up the ghost and that's why the folks sold the coolers in the first place.

I swaggered into the yard, swinging the handle back and forth singing with the Beatles. “I am the eggman, koo koo cajoo, and you and nothin' but an old rooster, you!”

The music was loud and the rooster fluffed up and hissed. He cocked his head sideways and watched me with one black beady eye. I could see the meanness in it. I walked toward him like gunslingers do in the movies, pretending it was a showdown.

“Be careful.” Pepper and Mark stopped dancing, suddenly realizing the rooster was serious about his territory.

“I ain't afraid of him.” I took a one-hand practice swing like there was a golf ball on the ground. “Koo koo ca…”

Instead of scaring the rooster, it made him mad. He spread his wings, puffed up twice his size, and charged so fast it took me by surprise. My breath caught and for second I thought about running, but in the back of my mind I knew I'd never live it down.

That stupid old bird jumped and tried to spur me. I swung harder than I intended to. The flat of the handle caught him full in the chest with a soft “puff” sound. The blow lifted him off the ground like a line drive over the fence. I believe it was really the top strand of barbed-wire that killed him, and not the swing, because his neck wrapped around it as he flipped over. He rolled once a couple of feet inside the pasture and was still.

“Shitfire!” Pepper looked over her shoulder at the house. “Now you've done it. You swung that thing like Mickey Mantle. You've killed Miss Becky's rooster and that little Choctaw woman is gonna whip your ass!”

“I didn't mean to.” I held the handle out to her like she'd asked for it. “What are we gonna do?”

“
We
ain't gonna do nothin'.” She snapped the radio off and backed away like I was trying to give her a live snake. “I didn't kill him, but you'd better come up with a good story.”

Mark shook off his shock and started laughing. “Man, that was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.”

I didn't have long to think. The kitchen door opened and Miss Becky popped out with a pan of table scraps for Hootie. She knew something was wrong when she saw the three of us standing there with guilty looks on our faces and me with the axe handle in my hand.

“What did you do?” She immediately got to the meat of the situation.

“He killed your red rooster,” Pepper tattled.

“I didn't intend to.” I thought about tearing up, but I didn't want to do it in front of Mark.

“What fer?”

“He tried to spur me.” I figured honesty was going to be the best policy.

“That why that axe handle's in your hand?”

“Yessum.”

“I believe he was afraid.” Pepper put the radio it in her pocket. I wasn't sure if she intended to help me or hang me.

Mark stepped in front of her. “Miss Becky, he didn't have no choice. That rooster was gonna cut him, sure as shootin'.”

Miss Becky stared at Mark long and hard, then turned to me. “Where'd you get that handle?”

“Out of Grandpa's car.”

The shocked look on her face told me I'd made another mistake.

“Put it back, right now. You'll need to tell your Grandpa about it.” She handed Pepper the pan of scraps. “Go throw this out for the dog.”

“Yessum.”

Miss Becky opened the screen door and paused before going back into the kitchen. “Top, go get the rooster and bring him up here. Since you killed him, you're gonna have to clean him. It's about time you kids learned how to scald a chicken anyway.” She returned to the kitchen.

Mark had a disgusted look on his face. “Aw
man
. I already know how, and I hate it. I'd just as soon take a whoopin' as to scald one of them stinkin' things.”

Pepper put one palm against her lower abdomen. “Miss Becky, I think I'm getting cramps.”

Her voice came through the screen. “You didn't have them a minute ago when you was throwin' your arms around like you was havin' a fit. I believe you'll be all right, besides, young ladies need to learn how to work through the cramps anyway. And don't be talking about such things around these boys. It ain't ladylike.”

We learned all right, but I decided after that I'd let Miss Becky do the chicken killing and cleaning from then on. It was a smelly, nasty job that didn't appeal to me at all. Miss Becky showed us how to dip the bird in scalding water to loosen the feathers so they'd come off easier and we almost gagged at the smell of wet feathers. She took over once we had him plucked and seared off the last of the tiny hair-like pinfeathers. Then we watched as she cut him up for the pot.

Grandpa pulled up in the yard an hour later and slammed his truck door. “That smells good. What are we having for dinner?”

“Chicken and dumplin's.”

The happy look on his face made me feel worse, because I knew what I had to tell him.

Pepper jerked her thumb at me. “He killed her rooster deadern' a doornail.”

Grandpa studied me, then his grin widened. He tilted his hat back. “I swear. I leave you alone at the
house
for five minutes and y'all still get in trouble.”

I wanted to grin with him, but wasn't sure it was the right time. “She didn't say much.”

“Well, let's eat. Then y'all're going to town with me, Top. You boys don't need to be underfoot anymore today, and Pepper, your mama wants you home in a little bit to help clean house. I'll drop you off after the dishes are done.”

Her face fell. “Well, Top has something else to tell you.”

I wanted to strangle her. “Uh, Miss Becky told me to tell you that I used the axe handle in the backseat of your car on that rooster.”

His shoulders slumped and the expression on his face made me think he wanted to ring my neck. He glanced into the car, and turned those cold blue eyes of his on me. I shivered, thinking of the bad men who'd also been on the receiving end of that stare.

“Well, you may have screwed the pooch, son.”

Without another word, he climbed the steps and the screen door slap-pop-popped behind him. I knew he was mad, because adults never let the screen slam.