Doug Crandell is the author of the Barnes & Noble Discover pick The Flawless Skin of Ugly People, as well as three other novels, two memoirs, and a true crime book. He’s received awards and endowments from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Kellogg Writers Series, the Jentel Foundation, and the Goldfarb Fellowship. NPR’s Glynn Washington chose Crandell’s story for the 2018 COG Page-to-Screen Award. Another short story received the 2018 Glimmer Train Family Matters Fiction Award. Crandell’s essays appear in the Pushcart Prize collections for 2017 and 2022, and a short story of his appears in The Best American Mystery Stories 2020. He’s a regular contributor to SUN Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Deputy Jeff Spickle wasn’t taken seriously. Sheriff Dresser was to blame for Spickle’s reputation, because the sheriff was compromised. His love of drink left Spickle in the no-man’s-land of informally being in charge, which meant undeserved blame. Deputy Spickle had reached what he believed was his breaking point and was ready to do something about it.
In high school, Jeff needed protecting, but Samuel Dresser needed someone to sober him up before football games. It seemed like a neatly arranged exchange, at least back then, twenty years ago. Now, not so much. The sheriff had gotten worse, missing whole days sometimes, Spickle left to cover for him, but that wasn’t the worst. Dresser could be a cruel drunk, prone to blaming Deputy Spickle for the department’s problems, then showing up again with no memory other than guilt when he’d become oversolicitous, urging Deputy Spickle to go off on a fishing trip, where the man would inevitably become sloshed around the campfire and Jeff would once again have to haul him into the tent, get him covered with a sleeping bag. Deputy Jeff Spickle tried to stay positive, but he’d wrangled and toted his boss enough times from cruiser to house, from back porch to bed, that it felt like the deputy was in a continuous training video. Deputy Spickle had given the sheriff self-help books to read, even printed out some mantras the sheriff could use to stay positive himself, but all the sheriff did was chuckle as he read them out loud.
Deputy Spickle sat at his desk waiting on Sheriff Dresser to arrive at the office. Spickle looked up at the clock on the wall for the tenth time. He repeated in his head that Sheriff Dresser might be under the weather after working three cold nights in a row, the early spring unusually cold. That sounded real, yes?
In addition to all his other problems, the last eighteen months had seen forest fires arrive with erratic, devastating effects. The fires in North Georgia had come as a surprise to Jeff, to Sheriff Dresser too, because while they’d been required to be on a conference call with state officials, the mountains and verdant forest of the north had seemed untouchable, their pines and hardwoods immune to whatever the hell was going on with the ice caps melting, but that was more than a year ago, and things now were much more complicated. It wasn’t just the fires, which seemed to pop up every month or so regardless of weather. The thing was, you couldn’t only worry about global extinction when your town, its county, and the surrounding areas descended into decadence and crime. There were opioids, and an increasing number of dealers, broken-up families, scant jobs, and ugly violence. It seemed the ties that had bound the place together were frayed, some completely gone. Jeff Spickle had grown up in these umber woods, hunted the grassy fields in the crisp fall mornings, where now soot turned to the consistency of wet cat litter. He didn’t tell anyone how he got teary when he drove the isolated fire roads and passed mile after mile of charred black trees, their limbs eerily skeletal. But in the last several months, after Sheriff Dresser had belittled Spickle in front of two rookie firemen at a Lions Club event, the deputy had felt something building in him. The fires seemed to mirror his hot anger, the dry fuel on the forest floors like what was igniting in his brain. Plans began to flare up in his mind, ways to set the sheriff on a straight path once and for all.
Deputy Spickle watched as outside the big pane of glass, waxy with cold, the main street, known simply as County Boulevard, started to catch a wet dusting of snow along the curbs, the weather as mixed up as the sheriff after three pints of rotgut. Spickle was distracted not only by Sheriff Dresser’s tardiness but also by the twin sisters, Kara and Kylie, who were due to give their formal statements on a pair of little boy’s shoes. Supposedly they’d found them while doing their own search. Kara had lost custody of her son, but was close to getting him back if she found a new place to live. The little boy had gone missing in the early-morning hours from a small backyard playground the foster couple swore was visible from their kitchen window. The Connors admitted they’d gotten distracted when their power went off. When Peter Connor rushed to the playground, the little boy was gone.
Deputy Spickle had to create a spreadsheet to track all the names, the half-siblings and live-in partners, the petty sellers and skinny users who sometimes stayed with the twins in a run-down condo. He called it the K&K list. Sheriff Dresser had admired it. Kara was a belligerent woman with sleeves of tattoos and a penchant for fighting. She was wild-eyed and promiscuous but attended church faithfully at the Presbyterian Rocky Gap congregation, though some had filed statements claiming Kara was high most services, wobbly and eyes lidded by Sunday School. Her twin, Kylie, while never married and without kids, was wild too, but Kara’s reputation was the one that sent out tall tales, where once it was said that Kara stole a trucker’s speed and coke while he lay passed out in the sleeper cab at a KOA. By dawn, Kara was back home and sharing the trucker’s drugs with most of the names on Deputy Spickle’s spreadsheet. That had been more than two years ago, and now she was clean and trying to get her son back.
The clock on the cinder-block wall clunked as another minute passed. The phone rang and Deputy Sheriff Spickle answered with his usual formality. It was important to sound as he always did. On the other end, a man from the county road crew told him Sheriff Dresser’s cruiser had been found with both its doors open on the fire road. The caller asked, “Do you know if he’s out hunting?”
Deputy Spickle spoke clearly into the phone. “Who is this?” He didn’t want some jokester to set him up again, play him like a fool.
“This is Danny Hobbs, I’m serious. The sheriff ’s cruiser is here, and I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes. He’s nowhere in sight.”
Deputy Spickle was able to place the voice on the other end now, and while Danny had been booked on two DUIs, that was more than five years ago. Deputy Spickle liked the guy, even gave him a reference for the county road crew once Danny had gotten sober and settled down with his second wife. Usually no one called when the sheriff was hard to find, mostly because no one knew but Spickle.
Deputy Spickle tried to sound calm, and said, “Danny, you sure it’s the main cruiser? The hip-hop kids like to trick out unmarked to look like police vehicles.”
“It’s his all right,” said Danny, exhaling into the phone.
“Don’t touch anything,” said Deputy Spickle. He was certain now that he might be able to make the sheriff understand how his actions impacted others. “Don’t say a word to anyone else.”
“Of course,” said Danny. “That’s why I called you.” It sounded to the deputy that Danny was questioning him, already suspicious of his ability to handle a crisis without the sheriff. “Just don’t touch anything,” Deputy Spickle said again as he hung up the phone and caught the image of the twins crossing the street, their tenebrous figures in lockstep march.
Kara and Kylie breached the front door of the sheriff ’s department with a clatter, Kara chewing gum and Kylie wearing the expression of one who hates just for being born. The twins gave Deputy Spickle their best expressions of disregard. Kara spit the gum into his empty wastebasket and plopped down in a folding chair the color of rotten avocado. Spickle stood and gave them no eye contact. “Stay right here. I’ll be back as quick as I can,” he said, rushing out the door. Kara flipped him off but only the secretary, Mrs. Caldwell, saw it. She shrugged, even smiled a little as the twins hurried back out the door. The twins knew they weren’t taken seriously by the law. Mrs. Caldwell got up and went to the door and called to the twins, but they were too far away to hear. She went back to the desk and radioed Deputy Spickle. “The girls are on the move,” she told him.
*
Heading home, Kara and Kylie walked in sync and quickly. Kara brought her fingertips to the divots on her cheek without breaking stride. The pocks, and the birth of her baby, had helped Kara stop using, but her son had been taken anyway, mostly because of the company she kept. The twins passed down the block and back toward the duplex they lived in with a half-dozen others. Kara had kicked using hard stuff, while Kylie only liked weed and rum. Kara still had a drug debt, almost $12,000, racked up from a gram-a-day meth habit. Her dealer, a man she’d dated and had swindled, tried to act tough, but Kara pushed it, shrugged off his threatening texts. As they took the corner of General Lewis Street and strode toward the duplex, Kylie asked, “You think Tommy will come again today?”
Kara spit without breaking stride. “Don’t matter,” she said, mildly. “Let’s get out and look. God knows Spickle is more concerned about his drunk sheriff than my Sonny.” Kara stopped briefly in front of the duplex and Kylie braked too. Kara took her by the arm. “Tommy can’t get over me. He can act like a petty little kingpin all he wants, but if I thought he had my baby, don’t you think I’d go after him?” The twins stood still as the curtains on the two long-paned windows of the duplex were slowly pulled back, some of their roommates sheepishly staring out at them from inside the cramped bottom floor. Kara peered up at the figures. They were about to climb the leaning concrete steps to the porch when a familiar car huffed up along the curb, purple lights blinking on the caps and a beat and pulse of reverb so deep the twins both touched their sternums, nearly at the same time. “Damn,” said Kara, but she instinctively pushed Kylie behind her. Tommy hopped out of the car; for all his wannabe antics he still dressed like an office intern on casual Friday, his blond hair short and his ankles bare above boat shoes. Even his tattoos were all show, colorful but with no symbolic meaning at all. “What the hell do you want?” shouted Kara, as Kylie edged her way from behind her sister so they were standing shoulder to shoulder.
Tommy jogged from the street onto the sidewalk, then stopped, ran his hand over his stubble. “I want my money,” he said and winked, then turned his expression sour. “You’re way too late, babe,” he said. “There’s no family discount.” Pine warblers trilled from the sagging deck. There was the smell of oily exhaust.
“We’re not family,” said Kara, scoffing, rolling her eyes. “Not even close.” She raised her eyebrows.
At this, Tommy became irritable and paced in a tight circle; he was ramping himself up, trying to look crazed. He yelled, “That’s only because you won’t do the DNA test.” He sniffed and looked up at the sky. The passenger’s-side window eased down a crack and smoke wafted out. Tommy paused, took a deep breath. “Even though I’ve given you money for it three times and you ripped me off on that too. Way I figure, your bill is now close to fifteen thousand.”
Kara laughed and put her hand on her hip. Kylie glanced up at the duplex windows, but all the roommates had retreated.
“I know you can get it, Kara,” said Tommy. “I know you got a payout for that fake fall at the speedway. Just give me my money and you’ll never see me again.”
Kara sniffed, then cut her eyes to her sister. Kara said, “Tommy, now isn’t a great time.” Kylie watched to see if her sister would say what she thought she was going to. “Sonny’s missing,” said Kara, and her voice caught.
Tommy froze for just a split second, then stood up straighter. “You’re a twisted person to try and use the kid to stall paying. That’s sick, Kara.” A distant siren called, and it made Tommy nervous. “I’ll be back.” He jogged to the car and yanked the door open, the music still thudding. He chirped the tires, sped off down the street, running the four-way.
Kylie watched her sister. “You sure you want him to know about Sonny?” she asked.
Kara ignored the question and took her sister’s arm as the curtains inside the duplex parted again. “When we get Sonny home, we’ve got to find a new place,” said Kara.
*
The spillway embankment was lion colored and mushy, the snow and ice melting as the temps rose. Mother Nature was as dazed as the county’s drug users, confused about time and order, the proper way to move forward. Danny crab-crawled down the embankment, and Deputy Spickle followed, his gun slapping at his hip. Behind them, the roiling of a cold creek as the silver waters rushed over round rocks. Danny paused and looked back over his shoulder at Deputy Spickle. Danny said, “You know if he’s gone again for too long, you’ll have to take over.” Spickle waved Danny off. They found a low spot and crossed over the water. Deputy Spickle saw the sheriff ’s vehicle sideways along the worn fire road, the red-clay ruts like a spine.
The cruiser was empty. Deputy Spickle eased behind the steering wheel, pressed buttons, and turned down the static. Danny stood at a distance. The seats in the cruiser seemed damp and the windshield sported a splatter of mud. “You sure you didn’t fiddle with anything?” yelled Deputy Spickle. Danny shouted back that he’d called right away, hadn’t done anything more.
Deputy Spickle struggled to get out of the cruiser, his duty belt and its rigs catching on the seat, leather squeaking. Spickle used his cell phone to call the sheriff. It went to voicemail. He dialed it again and was met with the same gravelly message from Sheriff Dresser. Danny stepped closer. “He’s probably gone on a bender.”
“Watch your mouth, Danny,” said Deputy Spickle. “No need to put bad energy out into the universe.” Jeff Spickle was a positive-thinking enthusiast, mostly because Dresser had driven him to find something to cling to. Deputy Spickle read books about energy and karma, listened to podcasts, and sometimes allowed the language of that particular school of thought to come out in his official role as deputy. Spickle wanted to make sure he sounded calm and added, “Let’s keep things optimistic.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, just like they said to do on the It’s All Good podcast.
The horizon held slightly differing shades of blue metal and gray cinder, clouds swollen and stationary, as if the sky itself was about to fall into the earth. “You see any vehicles out here, Danny?”
“No sir,” said Danny, putting a finger to his chin, then looking down, thinking. “Might’ve been a green one.”
Deputy Spickle bent to look at the tracks in the fire road, then stood up again. “What make was this green car?”
“No, not green, green, I mean one of those eco-friendly deals. Green as in Greenpeace.”
The deputy shook his head, started to say something, then stopped.
“Don’t be like that,” said Danny. “I’m just trying to help. You’re the one who said we should be positive.” The wind picked up, died down, and small ticks of ice sputtered from the sky, pinging lightly across the hood of the cruiser. Danny watched as the deputy circled the car, pausing at each wheel, stooping down, running his hand over the tire, tracing his hands around the wheel well as if feeling for palpitations, his head cocked. “What are you doing?” said Danny, the question laced with incredulity, a chuckle added. Deputy Spickle ignored Danny and continued to the last two tires. He stood up and looked out across the tawny grass field to the timberline, where a dark green queue of longleaf pine swayed in the gusts of grainy cold wind. More than a dozen blackbirds soared upward, only to settle again into the filigreed branches with dabs of white snow too high to melt yet.
“Listen to me, Danny,” said Deputy Spickle. “I’m going to leave the cruiser here, lock it up and head back to the office as if nothing is different.” Danny crinkled his brow and tried to speak but was cut off. “You don’t say a word about this, you understand?”
Danny nodded, his right foot kicking at a thick strand of dead kudzu, its long tentacles gnarled and taupe. “Are you gonna at least call in some help?” he asked.
Deputy Spickle raised his chin and narrowed his eyes. “If I was, I wouldn’t broadcast it, but what I will say to you Danny Hobbs, is that you better hope to God you’re telling me everything you know.” Danny looked up and met Deputy Spickle’s eyes. The two men stood like that for several heartbeats, until the wind kicked up again and blew the deputy’s hat off his head, and Danny went chasing after it as it somersaulted down the embankment. Deputy Spickle watched him and felt ashamed that he’d been so harsh, but he also hoped he sounded convincing, that he had sold his reactions well enough.
*
It was already dark by the time Kara and Kylie returned to the duplex. After Spickle had left the sheriff ’s office without meeting with them, they’d decided to search the area again where the shoes had been found. They’d moved from there to larger patches of ground, ash sludge in their tennis shoes. They spent the afternoon picking through the tangles of kudzu and privet along the stretch of Highway 6 and looking at their phones whenever they rested. Kara texted an ex-cop in Chattanooga she’d dated but he didn’t respond. Once they had pushed through the tangles of green, tripping again and again, and wound their way through to the edge of a swampy muck and two sagging cinder bridges, the twins sat on the culvert to smoke cigarettes.
Now, as they entered the front door of the duplex, the living room was full of shaggy young men playing a loud video game on a flat-screen nearly as big as the wall itself. Kara stomped past them. They were hangers-on, oblivious to Kara’s desperation, and they stunk of sedentary waste, the duplex like a creature unto itself. The twins had long ago made an unspoken pact that whatever they were dealt, from men and people in charge, they’d strive to be tough, stoic, and numb.
In the kitchen, Kara cracked sodas, handed one to Kylie. Music thumped above them. “That Shelley is up there again with Ryan,” said Kara. They both smelled of the outdoors, the briny water, windblown hair, traces of minty vegetation from searching the tangled briars. A lanky kid the twins liked slunk into the kitchen. His name was Chance, and he picked at his face and wouldn’t look them in the eye. “You find anything else?” he said, head tilted toward the doorjamb, his dark eyes darting quickly to the space between where Kara and Kylie leaned, then back again as he looked at his feet. The twins thought maybe Chance had learning problems.
“No,” said Kara, with a sigh, “and Spickle took off on us too.” Kara blew her nose, eyes watery. The twins knew Chance liked them both and was one of the few people who could always tell them apart. Chance nodded and ignored the gurgling bong sounds and whoops the others were making in the living room. He was almost ten years younger than them, just out of high school.
“I’m sorry,” said Chance, flashing a quick smile. His skin was bad, but his teeth were white and complete. He’d been just fifteen when he had babysat Kara’s son, made the little guy a slingshot out of a maple branch, smoothing the forked wood with sandpaper, using two thick rubber bands for the sling. Chance had made tight wads of paper for ammo and put those and the homemade slingshot in a shoebox and gave it to Kara. She’d not wanted to hurt the kid’s feelings, but still she said, “Chance, you know he’s six months old, right?” Chance had shrugged and smiled and mumbled something about it being a gift for later.
Kara’s phone rang and she fumbled as she tried to yank it from her tight jeans. She answered loudly, a crease between her eyes. While she was on the phone, Chance snuck glances at her and Kylie, then receded back into the dark living room. Kara yelled for them to turn down the video game. She stuck a finger in her ear. “What?” she said loudly, and then even louder, “I can’t hear you.” She stomped toward the back door with Kylie in tow. Outside, it was cold and very dark. “Okay,” said Kara, and shoved her phone back into her pocket, wriggling some to make it fit. She spit, then patted her lips demurely with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“What?” asked Kylie, wiping her mouth too, sniffing air through her nose.
Kara said, “It was that damn deputy. Wants us to come back in the morning. Says he has some leads.” Kara lit a cigarette and passed it to Kylie, then lit another one for herself. It was quiet out, except for the train way off and the sound of the furnace. They stood and smoked. One of them coughed, then the other. The train blew in, and the rumbling sound grew like a thunderstorm, then slowly ebbed away, the clacks pulsing out over the distant darkness, a faint cannon of light showing the way.
Kylie said, “Why didn’t the sheriff just meet with us this morning? Deputy isn’t the boss anyway.”
“You know why,” said Kara, and she flipped her cigarette into the darkness where it somersaulted in the air and threw sparks like a lit fuse. Someone’s dryer gave off the warm scent of violet fabric softener. The sounds of tomcats vying in the brown shrubs echoed like movie sound effects. Kara believed she could smell something dead wafting from under the unused clotheslines. Kylie nodded as she toed out her cigarette in the wet, patchy grass.
“Because that old bastard is drinking again,” said Kara, and her voice held back tears. They grew somber. The twins had always been this way, shared an unspoken language, and in this case, it was a language of hurt, but also a kind of hopeful rebellion. “Sonny’ll be all right, Kar,” said Kylie, as she patted her sister’s back. Kara inhaled deeply for courage. In their shared bedroom in the duplex, they had talked about calling state authorities, but they weren’t exactly upright citizens. The duplex contained enough petty-criminal backgrounds that if they did ask for help outside of Spickle, they knew it would only serve to put the twins behind bars, and worse yet, Kara would never get Sonny out of foster care.
They held hands as they went up the steps. Kara and Kylie went to bed. The others in the house erupted in cheers during the night over some score that had been broken, and they partied until the weak sun rose, watery lemon across the teal horizon. Chance had not slept, but instead stood watch over the twins. When their phones went off simultaneously, it was Chance who gently shook Kylie’s shoulder first, then Kara’s. He got them up and told them he’d drive them to the sheriff ’s office. Kara was solemn but intense, as she gargled twice and sprayed on perfume. Kylie repeated the tasks. The morning sky had washed out of color as they walked down the duplex steps and got into Chance’s pickup.
*
Deputy Spickle surveyed the horizon, noted how the pale yellow seemed to bleed into the dungy blueness that slipped outward, slowly, as if it were some chemical osmosis in a petri dish. He drank black coffee and prepared himself. One memory had stayed with him lately. Sheriff Dresser had gotten drunk one night while they were working on reports that had to be emailed to Atlanta authorities by morning. He disappeared around nine P.M. and returned smelling of whiskey. Every so often, he left the office, returning each time more belligerent. The reports didn’t make it on time, and in the morning Deputy Spickle could hear the sheriff on the phone, lying about why, saying his deputy had come down with the flu and failed to inform him he hadn’t completed the reports. In the scope of things, compared to the egregious things the sheriff had done in the past, Spickle tried to decipher why that moment, that particular lie, had been so hurtful, but he could only come up with an incomplete theory that somehow the event had served as a kind of bleak summation of their relationship. If Sheriff Dresser was willing to blame him for something as minor as tardy reports, there was no respect left.
Deputy Spickle sighed and put the empty coffee cup on the rusty stairwell. He gave the sky one last look and walked back inside the abandoned wool mill and into a space where he kept his books, with titles that referenced the afterlife, the energies of decision and purpose, the self-help hardbacks that he read again every year. Spickle had created this little alcove in the enormous delapidated structure to spy on the drug users, the dealers and tweakers, but it turned out they were never actually here, or at least if they had been, that was years before. He used three padlocks to keep the small area hidden. If anyone saw him out here, they’d just believe he was on patrol. He’d put up gray metal shelving, and now he pulled out a book and shelved it again, a paperback about positive vibrations. He turned to address the single cot where a figure lay duct-taped at the mouth, hands and feet bound with the same restriction.
“All these years,” Spickle said as he strolled around the arc of the room, right hand slightly grazing the flaky shelving. “And it was you who was always unreliable.” The sheriff ’s head lolled backward, the smell of cheap, burning liquor pervading the area, overriding the space heater’s dusty singe. The precipitation had once again turned colder, with snow and sleet, the early-morning skies pregnant with gray doom. “This excuse and that excuse,” he said, shaking his head, “and me the one to take the ribbing.” Deputy Spickle unwrapped a stick of gum and slowly eased it into his mouth; he chewed and huffed, shaking his head so much that his neck popped. “So many of the botched arrests and mistakes, almost all yours, but Ol’ Spickle is the one who’s the joke.” The deputy walked in a circle over the cracked concrete. “You’ve mocked me, used me as a scapegoat, let people think I was the problem. When all along I covered for you, held my tongue, took the abuse, just like the enabler I am.”
Sheriff Dresser made his eyes widen with a question: What can you be thinking? The eyes were large and brown, the whites laced with bloodshot, the lids forced open by strain and anger.
“Those twins are due at the offices in a bit. They are mine to have to deal with because you are once again drunk.” The deputy removed the gum from his mouth and wrapped it neatly into the foil from which it had just emerged, the strands of sugar clinging to his fingertips. Deputy Spickle stared at his boss of nearly a dozen years. Sheriff Dresser begged with his eyes for the tape to be removed. He wore only a white T-shirt and boxers. Spickle had stripped the man while he was passed out. His skin was marbled like meat, phosphorescent at the knobby joints. “All your messes,” declared Deputy Spickle as if providing testimony, “and me the one who looks the fool. I’d be in Atlanta by now working in real law enforcement if it weren’t for you.” Deputy Spickle stretched his back and nodded into the ether, as if some phantom version of himself and the sheriff resided there, lives much more in sync in that plane than this one. “Well, it’s over. I’m going to make things right this time.” The sheriff kicked his bound feet against the dry brick wall. “Let me tell you a good one on old Jeff,” said Spickle, trying to sound like the sheriff. Spickle paused and stood with his back to the sheriff, right hand tight at his side, fingertips less than an inch from the service revolver. “Isn’t that how you started all those stories before you got fall-down, sloppy drunk?” Deputy Jeff Spickle cocked his head, the edges of his face in sharp silhouette. The space went quiet, even the coos of the mourning doves stopped, as if they’d been switched off.
“Sheriff Dresser,” said the deputy, shaking his head in disgust. Spickle walked in circles again, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, giving him the look of a man with growths on both sides of his hips. “You’re probably asking yourself, why’s he doing this?” The deputy put his cupped right hand to his ear and pretended to hear a response. “That’s right,” said the deputy. “Because you’ve not heeded any of your second chances, which are in the hundreds. It’s time for you to change. The fires, and the drugs, and all the lies, someone must stop them. And it’s clear you cannot do that on your own accord.”
Sheriff Dresser’s skin now appeared yellow in the ocher light from a corner lamp. The sheriff widened his eyes again to ask for the tape across his mouth to be removed, but Deputy Spickle did not see and continued his sermon. “Do you even know what anguish you’ve brought down on me with your ways?” Spickle paused to listen as a car whisked by with music blaring, the old wool mill echoing back the bass. “I drive down the fire roads and all I’ve thought about is how to set you right.” Small flakes from the dry bricks and crumbling mortar of the walls created a constant haze. “You’re to blame for this mess,” said Spickle, motioning toward the corroded steel beams above. “Maybe if you’d been the type of man worthy of the law, we wouldn’t have a child abducted, and meth and pills.” Deputy Spickle went to his shelves of books again, half-turned toward the sheriff. He pulled a thick hardback off the shelf, opened it in the middle, and held it in his palms as if it were a holy tome. “Did you read even one of the books I loaned you?” He slammed the heavy book shut and tossed it, the slap onto the concrete floor like a gunshot.
The sheriff burped, but with no place for the air to escape his mouth, his nasal tract skittered and emitted a foul drunkard’s fume. The deputy pulled on his peacoat and stood, as if practicing the art of a real-life statue. He went and sat down on the thin mattress where the sheriff lay, the man’s willowy chest hairs rising and falling like a sea creature. Deputy Spickle whispered into his boss’s ear. “The world’s energy thrives on the dreams and hopes of its inhabitants.” Spickle explained how this was it, this time was the last, and he aimed to sober up the sheriff for good. “I stood out there by your cruiser after I circled back and just knew you were somewhere nearby, drunk as a skunk, like hundreds of times before, with the old incompetent Spickle to take the blame for your shoddiness.” Spickle looked up at the ceiling. “ ’Course you wouldn’t remember that, now would you?” The old beams above them seemed to exude cold, as if the space had its own weather. “I dragged your drunken, sorry posterior here. But even with my years of experience hauling you from one spot to another to sober up, I dropped you a couple of times. For that I’m sorry, truly.” Spickle paused, tried to make sure the sheriff understood his sincerity for the lumps that were surely on the back of his head. “Anyway, this will serve as a kind of homemade detox.” Deputy Spickle peered up at cobwebbed rafters, the rusty iron chains, and the old wasp nests that clung like blisters in every corner. Spickle took the sheriff’s stubbled chin in his hand. “Those girls are missing a child,” he said. “And I plan on finding that boy and doing it myself, and as God is my witness I’ll leave you here forever if that’s what it takes.”
Spickle paused and looked up into the rusted beams again. He leaned down and put his face as close to the sheriff ’s as he could, their noses touching. Spickle pinched his boss’s bare thigh as hard and for as long as he could, but the sheriff scooted away, his eyes shining with anger. Spickle stood up and turned his back, lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke from his sharp nostrils into the chilly air.
Sheriff Dresser, though he could not speak behind the constriction of the duct tape, tried to make himself understood, but Deputy Spickle just sighed and told his boss he didn’t know what else to do, then Spickle turned on his heels and left the space, only to return and rip the tape from the sheriff ’s mouth. “Don’t want you asphyxiating on your own vomit, but you’ll only embarrass yourself by yelling for help. Go ahead, yell all you want, let someone find you like this.” Spickle retrieved a black bucket from the corner and set it beside the bed. He mumbled disgust.
“Jeff,” said the sheriff, his voice hoarse, lips crusty, hair wild. He breathed fast and swallowed. “I understand you’re mad, but we can talk this out. We can find a solution.” The sheriff was slack-jawed, his pale gawp like an icy opening.
“It’s a shame it takes my own deceit to counter yours, but what do they say,” said Spickle, “fight fire with fire? Forestry told us to dig the trenches, pour in the fuel, light a match, and let it burn. Fight fire with fire is what they said.” Sheriff Dresser tried to respond but Spickle was at the door, then on the outside, securing the padlocks. A lone pigeon blasted from the rafters. The sheriff could hear his deputy’s measured footfalls on the rusted iron rungs that led down to the ground level, where he could also hear, just faintly, Spickle pause, no more steps.
Deputy Spickle answered his cell phone; it was Mayor Sharon Tillis. After she made small talk, something about the ice and snow, and the summer’s inevitable fires being just around the corner, she asked straight-out about the sheriff. “Is it a bender?”
Deputy Spickle didn’t speak, the cold wind at his left ear like a bee sting. The mayor asked again. Deputy Spickle said sternly into his cell phone, no, that the sheriff was fine. “That’s not what Danny tells me,” she said. Deputy Spickle covered his phone and closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then returned to the call. “Just give me today. He’ll turn up.” He looked at his watch. If he could meet with the twins and make them believe how sincere he was, everything would work out, all of it.
“I can bring in some help,” said the mayor. But she reasoned it out and finally told the deputy, before she hung up, that if he needed anything, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask. Sheriff Dresser heard his deputy’s footsteps grow more distant, and then an engine starting. The sheriff closed his eyes and opened them again slowly, believing he was the only other human life in the vast belly of the old wool mill, before giving in to sleep, his shaking chills lulling him into surrender.
*
Deputy Spickle drove so fast he had to tell himself to slow down, and he said it aloud. The winding roads climbed by elevated steppes further upward into the small mountains. The blackened forests he rushed past in a blur appeared as if on a sped-up video, erratic and severe. Once he passed Turger’s Mount he knew cell phone service would be gone. He sped along the soft gravel road until he reached Mrs. Buker’s mailbox, a rooster with maroon tail feathers made of tin. He jumped out of the cruiser, greeted by Chippy, a fat beagle with itchy red ears. Mrs. Buker was so senile she didn’t know the dog was hers half the time. She had babysat Deputy Spickle and Sheriff Dresser decades before. Spickle jogged up to the house, took the front steps two at a time. He needed to make sure the old woman didn’t falter, that she would follow through on her part. He knocked on the door. Mrs. Buker answered in her flannel pajamas, Sonny behind her. She said, “Hello.” The deputy nodded and looked down at the little boy, who seemed ready to accept his new life. He had the twins’ eyes, blue and a little wild.
“Mrs. Buker,” said Spickle. “Is everything okay?” The old woman was smiling, her disconnect from reality glimmering in her sweet brown eyes. Sonny tugged at her pajama leg. He said he was hungry. She pulled the boy forward and told him to say good morning properly. Sonny looked up sheepishly at Spickle and smiled. Deputy Spickle smiled back as Sonny put a thumb into his red mouth. Spickle told Mrs. Buker, “Remember, don’t answer the door for anyone else, just me.” Mrs. Buker was already closing the door and waving goodbye at the same time.
*
Sheriff Dresser woke to strong winds rattling the loose window frames, the shards of glass clinking, pieces the size of jewels falling to the concrete. His head banged unmercifully, and the sting of bile at the back of his throat was hard to extinguish, even after he managed to sit up more. He had to admit that his deputy had indeed done a fine job of binding his hands and feet. His fingertips and toes tingled. The sheriff shook his head as he looked around the space. The wool mill had once employed his father, uncles, and almost all the men he’d known as a boy, but the factory maintained only a skeleton crew as he entered the eighth grade, and by the time he graduated high school the place had made its last thousand pairs of socks and shuttered. His own feet made him think of all of this, his white socks gray at the tips, bought from Walmart and made in China.
He wanted coffee badly. The sun spilt into the old crumbling wool mill, tangerine light bathing the dry, powdery walls. The scent of warm minerals wafted inside the space. The sheriff closed his eyes and sucked in the crisp air, not unlike well water, the scent of old iron as palpable as the rust around him. The sheriff spat. Deputy Spickle had been correct, yelling for help wasn’t an option, but then as the light grew stronger, and the wind died down, there was the sound of footsteps, and a voice calling his name.
*
Going back down the mountain just as quickly as he’d gone up it, Deputy Spickle fought back the panic that his lies were careening out of control, the tires on the cruiser chirping as he took curves fast. He reviewed the plan again, went over the steps he’d already taken: Once he’d used the keys from the power company to flip the transformer up the road from the foster couple, it was simple to get Sonny into the cruiser. The little fella had spent a good bit of his first years away from his mother, and police cars had been how Sonny moved from one foster home to the next. Spickle checked his watch, and he saw he’d arrive at the office a good half-hour before the twins. He’d have to pick up the pace, be discreet, keep the mayor updated but placated too. Spickle nodded his head at this thought as he drove.
*
Chance coughed and sniffed as they rolled into a parking space at the sheriff ’s department. He got out to smoke. Kara touched her sister’s wrist. “Kylie,” she said. Kara offered up her mild expression, a mixture of resignation and utter fatigue. Kylie stared into her sister’s eyes. Throughout the years, they’d found in each other a longing, as if they’d been the other’s parent. Kylie nodded but didn’t speak a word. Together they lunged out of the car and tramped toward the sheriff ’s office.
*
“So,” said the deputy, “I’ve got good news.” He stood and walked in front of the desk where the twins sat, both erect.
Kara glanced sideways at her twin. “Tell me right now,” she said. Kylie looked at her sister as she talked. “Tell me please right now,” said Kara, trying to sound appreciative, as if she were appeasing a homeroom teacher.
“I believe I have a lead,” said Deputy Spickle as he took a deep cleansing breath.
Kara said, “And?” She scooted to the edge of the chair even more, now almost off the seat. With the two identical women perched before him, Spickle could see them as pupils, their postures ramrod. He had to tell himself he was doing the right thing, by the sheriff, by the twins, and for the town. He pushed away the notion that he was also doing it for Deputy Jeff Spickle.
“Here’s what I need you to do,” he said. “I need you both to remain calm, stay home, stop your searching. Let law enforcement handle it.” Deputy Spickle offered a quick nod. “We can bring Sonny home, but it’s time to have just one focus.”
“Like hell,” said Kara. Deputy Spickle held up a finger, and she forced herself to listen, to stay quiet.
“I have reason to believe Sonny is fine.” Spickle walked back behind the desk and sat down. He placed his hands on the blotter, laced his fingers. “I need your word that you’ll give me some more time. And to abide by my requests. Can you do that?” He looked from Kara to Kylie and back again.
“No,” said Kara. “I want you to tell me who you think has him, where he is, and I want to hear it right now.” Kara straightened her shoulders. She said, “The foster parents won’t return my calls, and we’ve gone by there twice and it looks like they’re gone. Have you even interviewed them?” Kara took a deep breath. “Are they suspects?”
Deputy Spickle thought about an exercise in one of his books. He pictured an ocean, blue skies, green water, white beaches, the warm sun, and the clean air. He counted to three before responding. “I’ve taken the Connors’ statements, yes.” Deputy Spickle smiled and took a deep breath. “Tommy Gates has been to see you several times over the last few weeks. I hear he wants his money, that you have a debt with him.” Kylie stood up first and glanced back at her sister who remained seated.
Kara stood up too. “For the record, Spickle,” said Kara, “if I truly believed Tommy had my son we wouldn’t be here. Tommy does not have Sonny.” Kara was seething, as if she might lunge at the deputy. She’d done it twice in the past, at a security guard in a honky-tonk called Twangers, and another time with Sheriff Dresser, who’d laughed and picked her up so her feet couldn’t touch the ground before lowering her, cuffing her, and sliding her into the back of the police cruiser. “Now,” she said, “don’t tell me that’s why you believe Sonny is fine. Don’t tell me Tommy Gates is your big lead.”
Deputy Spickle rubbed his chin and sat back. “I didn’t say that, and I really can’t say any more, but I can promise you both, you’ll have Sonny back by nightfall.” The foster couple had been easy to keep quiet, just a little petty cash for them to stay in Chattanooga for the weekend and some convincing that Spickle needed to stake out their place. They’d agreed when he gave them an extra $250 for expenses and assured them all would be fine. He’d told the Connors, acting as if he were trusting them with law-enforcement secrets, that they pretty much knew the little boy’s father had him, and being that he was a criminal, he’d likely come back for the kid’s clothes and toys. He’d said it all with conspiratorial trust and ended with telling the Connors they had better let the law take care of it.
Kara’s face showed her mental calculations, a crease between her eyes as she thought. She’d gotten clean and was close to getting Sonny back. All her life, it was people in authority that held all the cards. She stared at Spickle so intently he had to refocus. He looked at Kara’s face and her eyes were as smoky as the fire road, the eyeliner as black as the burnt oaks he passed during patrol. “We’ll do as you say, for now,” she said, “but if Sonny isn’t back by nightfall, I swear I’ll hold you and this whole department liable.” Deputy Spickle nodded, offered an empathetic smile. “By the way, when’s the sheriff gonna be back on his feet?” asked Kara, as Kylie nodded. “We need him on this.”
“I assure you, I’ll get your son back,” said the deputy, pausing then, glancing at both women, and deciding he’d lost track of who was who. “I’d be happy to call you with regular updates,” he added. Kara nodded, and Kylie pulled her cigarettes and cell phone from her back pockets.
Spickle said, “Please leave all your details with Mrs. Caldwell and I’ll call as soon as I can. We’ll have little Sonny back before you know it.”
The secretary was busy tapping away at a keyboard, the blue glow of the computer screen steadily reflected in her reading glasses. Outside in the parking lot, Chance was on his phone, his thin neck craned, as if trying to listen for faraway sounds. Kara and Kylie moved to the office door and walked through it, past Mrs. Caldwell’s reception area and out the automatic entrance.
Out the back exit, Deputy Spickle rushed to his cruiser and quickly started the car. He was feverish, a sweat at his beltline and around his starched collar. The twins had rattled him. He would need to rush the plan, he understood that now. It reminded him of the one and only time he stole as a child and ended up telling on himself to the Danner’s Candy Store clerk immediately. He felt a rush of cold run through his chest, thoughts of details that he might’ve overlooked. He tried to check them off in his head. The twins knew Sonny was missing, and maybe a couple of their drug-addled roomies, and so did the Connors, but no one else, and it hadn’t been long. Mrs. Caldwell believed the twins’ presence at the sheriff ’s office had to do with simple petty crimes. There’d been no DFCS report filed yet, and if the timing worked, it would be a moot point, something done after Sonny was safely back. Spickle focused on speeding up the steps in his plan now, or else all would be lost. He tailed the twins in the pickup driven by the kid with two arrests for petty drug possession, Chance Wilfort. But after the kid seemed to be simply driving the twins back to their duplex, the deputy did a U-turn and went back to the office.
*
By noon Spickle was pacing in his office. Mrs. Caldwell buzzed him. “Anything you need? I’m about to go home for lunch.” He was curt, telling her no, no, and to enjoy her pot roast. “It’s lasagna,” she said, but he had already tapped the speaker button and he didn’t hear her. He watched the clock but felt uneasy. He’d planned on waiting until late afternoon, but something nagged at him, a disappointment in himself hung in his mind too, as if he lacked the patience of a real law enforcer. Deputy Spickle busied himself with a stack of files, then got up and walked to the windows, the weather outside again unsure of what it wanted to do, bleak, with a leaden haze over a dull sun, then back again to more overcast, some wet flakes.
He thought he’d have a panic attack if he didn’t act. He grabbed the keys from his desk and pulled on his coat, rushed out to the parking lot, and jumped into the cruiser.
He floored it past the Rainbow Paint Store and the Zelzer’s Insurance Company at the edge of the city limits. There was a powdery snow on the blackened limbs of burnt-out trees, the ground beneath like melted dark chocolate. He gunned the motor, and the tires of the squad car squealed against the damp pavement as shiny as onyx. Up and up he went until he reached the summit. He parked close to the log-style home. The swollen beagle brayed and threw its muzzle to the dark skies. Spickle pushed the car door open and called to the dog. “Chippy,” he said, and the fat little thing waddled closer, wagging its stocky tail. Up on the porch, Mrs. Buker sat in a swing, knitting and singing along with a gospel station emanating from a black radio. Chippy turned excited circles and ran full speed up the steps to the house. Spickle jogged up them too, his stomach tight, heart racing.
Deputy Spickle paused on the front porch and took a deep breath, all the while Mrs. Buker kept at her knitting. It had been a long morning, but so far, so good. Spickle looked around the front porch, ducked to peer into the windows. “Where’s the boy?” The air was redolent of dogwood, purple woodsmoke drifting over the hills, the scent as nutty as roasted pecans.
Mrs. Buker didn’t take her eyes from her project but answered matter-of-factly, “Sheriff Dresser came and got him.” Mrs. Buker’s wrists pulsed with paper-thin skin, dark blue veins underneath. She was relaxed. The cold air whisked into the channel of the front porch. Chippy circled then sat down at the feet of Mrs. Buker, leaves somersaulting along the deck boards.
“Mrs. Buker,” said Spickle, pinching the bridge of his nose between index finger and thumb, “please go and get the boy now.” His voice was laced with derision. “I’m on a tight schedule. Things have changed. I need to get Sonny now.”
Mrs. Buker only grinned. “The sheriff came and got him, I said.”
The old woman didn’t flinch when Deputy Spickle brushed past her and hurried inside the log cabin, calling for Sonny and tossing quilts aside from the couch and love seat. He ran up the stairs to the loft only to find it tidy, bed made. He pushed open the door to the only bathroom and yanked aside the shower curtain. Deputy Spickle rushed to the small living room, pulled the sliding-glass doors apart, and peered out from the small deck toward the woods. He hurried back through the house and onto the front porch again, where Mrs. Buker had fallen asleep, the ball of yarn at her feet. He shook her by the shoulder and she startled. Deputy Spickle got to his knees so he could look her in the eyes, his hand still clutching her bony shoulder. “Mrs. Buker, focus now. Where’s Sonny?” He waited for her to answer but reworded the question. “Mrs. Buker, where’s the little boy you’ve been taking care of for me? Where is he? Think, now, think.”
The old woman’s hands trembled. She looked up and off to the side but had started to sob. She shook her head and said repeatedly that she didn’t know. Spickle helped her off the porch swing and guided her inside. He ushered her to the couch and put a quilt over her legs. As if nothing had happened, she told him, as she pointed a remote at the television, that her favorite game show was about to come on. “Mrs. Buker,” he said, on his knees again, his voice like a plea, “you must tell me where the boy is.”
She smiled, took her eyes off the television set for just a second, and touched his face. Deputy Spickle patted her hand and rose, hot and sick.
He went out the front door of the cabin and closed it quietly, as if he were afraid he might trip an alarm. All he could focus on was getting inside the cruiser, where he could think, map out some alternative plan. His hands fumbled with the keys as he turned the ignition. He forced the realization of two abductions from his mind. He rubbed his face with his palms and wiped his nose. He took a paper cup of cold coffee from the console, gulped it. “Think,” he said softly.
Deputy Spickle got out of the cruiser and went back to the log cabin, eased the front door open. Mrs. Buker was asleep on the couch, a slight smile on her face. He checked the pantry, went up into the loft again, looked under the bed, the bathroom once more.
Deputy Spickle covered Mrs. Buker with another quilt, locked the door on his way out. He walked the perimeter of the property, the sloping yard that turned to a forest of longleaf pine. He could smell ash and taste it in the cold wind as he turned and headed back to the cruiser. Maybe Tommy had tailed him and had convinced Mrs. Buker he was law enforcement? Or the twins and the Chance guy had followed him earlier and talked Mrs. Buker into handing over Sonny? Who else could’ve? Why had she said Sheriff Dresser had gotten Sonny? Probably because of her old mind.
He started the cruiser again and backed up, and that’s when he saw them. The sheriff held the little boy’s hand as they walked, casually, as if heading toward a fishing hole. Spickle slammed the brakes, watched Sheriff Dresser wave, as he and Sonny approached the car. Spickle looked around; no other vehicles, nothing but Mrs. Buker’s Ford sedan she hadn’t driven in years. Sheriff Dresser stooped and tapped on the window, smiled. Deputy Spickle pushed the button and the frosty glass slid down. His throat was tight and for the life of him he couldn’t grasp what had occurred, how it’d happened. The air seemed too thin, and Spickle thought he might hyperventilate.
“Open up, Jeff,” said the sheriff, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
A click and thud and the doors unlocked. The sheriff helped Sonny into the backseat, then got in himself. Spickle’s eyes were glued to the rearview mirror, but then, when the sheriff started to speak, he turned in the seat to get a better look. Sonny was yawning and climbed into the sheriff’s lap.
“Jeff,” said the sheriff, his eyes clear, even a little grateful, a smile as he spoke. “When you abduct your boss it’s not a bad idea to make sure there are no witnesses.” Sonny rested his head against the sheriff ’s chest, closed his eyes. A dusting of snow accumulated on the windshield. Deputy Spickle tried to speak but the words wouldn’t form, as if his tongue had lost the ability to move. The sheriff rearranged Sonny so the boy’s neck wasn’t craned, now almost cradling the child. “Danny, as you may recall with his DUIs, is a drunk too.” The sheriff looked down at the little boy’s face. “Once a drunk, always a drunk, sober or otherwise, goes to meetings. Of course, we’re not supposed to talk about that, but you’re a sworn officer of the law.” Spickle closed his eyes and kept them closed, a defense against the story the sheriff laid out. Danny hadn’t figured it out right away, but he had indeed tailed the deputy. “You see,” said Sheriff Dresser, “you were right about me not yelling, but once I knew it was Danny on the other side of that wall, well, drunks know drunks.”
Apparently, Danny’d had to run home to get clothes for the sheriff, and a sledgehammer, but he didn’t have much trouble busting through the brick walls. “I’m not saying he didn’t work up a sweat, but like I say, drunks stick together.”
Deputy Spickle opened his eyes. “But how’d you know about Mrs. Buker and Sonny?”
“I didn’t,” said the sheriff, “but once Danny got me free, I figured I’d do a little investigating of my own.” Sonny squirmed some in his sleep. “Our dear Mrs. Caldwell is a true confidante, as you know.” Deputy Spickle felt the red on his face intensify, and it was hard to keep eye contact with the sheriff, but it was also a relief to hear his words. “She first tried your cell phone but couldn’t track it, then she went to the GPS on the cruiser. Once she saw you’d been making trips up the mountain, I knew where you were visiting. I was surprised to see Sonny boy, but as soon as I did, I pieced it together.” Larger snowflakes drifted over the blackened hills, piled up on the scorched limbs of the hardwoods. The sheriff said, “But I get what you were trying to do, set me straight, find a missing child and all, earn back some respect, and that last part can still happen, but not the first. I’m going to those meetings, I’m trying, and I’ll keep at it. I mess up again, I give you official permission to book me.”
Deputy Spickle nodded and started to apologize, but the sheriff cut him off. “Jeff,” he said, “if we’re going to set this all orderly, we’ve got to get to work. There are some moving pieces here we need to fit just right.”
They packed up what they needed and Deputy Spickle got out, opened the back door, and took the sleeping child from the sheriff’s arms. A rucksack over his shoulder, Sheriff Dresser said, “Left an impounded car about three miles down the mountain, right where the worst of the fires was. We’ll need to get some food for the boy from the car. There’s a leftover charity box from Christmas, mostly canned.” They started down the fire road, the air chilling. Along the ditches, they found a small footpath, where some of the old-timers used to walk because they had no car. The path provided enough cover. Besides, the road wouldn’t be traveled much until June when the campers appeared. Deputy Spickle started to talk again and was able to get out, “You don’t have to …” before the sheriff waved him off.
“The plan will have to take us closer to the Connor place,” said the sheriff, as he shoved the canned goods from the trunk of the impounded car into the rucksack. “Story goes as such: I was tracking the boy and found him but lost my way, you know, since I was inebriated and all.”
Deputy Spickle shook his head, protested, “But all these lies, that’s what I was trying to stop, but ended up lying even more.”
The sheriff raised a hand as if he might be testifying. “Jeff, I get to tell the story, and don’t forget,” he said with a grin, “you’re the kidnapper, so we do as I say.” The deputy nodded, still holding Sonny over his shoulder as the gray skies added a deep purple along the ridge. Sheriff Dresser said, “Besides, us drunks, we bring people down to our level with deceit. These lies, this time, will protect you.” They removed their coats and wrapped the sleepy boy up snug. Sheriff Dresser carried Sonny, and Spickle strapped on the rucksack.
As they entered the edge of the woods, the sheriff picked up the story from earlier. “Anyhow, I’ll say I got turned around and our citizens will have enough sense to take that as I was drunk again.” Sonny yawned as they trekked along a straight line of charred elms, their wide trunks like black chalkboards. “It’ll take a little finesse with the Connors, but to be honest, they’ll just be glad the boy is safe and they can still get paid to foster.” They trudged through mucky ground, the acrid scent of burnt grass and scorched pine cones heavy in the air. “We can insinuate the power being cut off was a teenage prank.” Deputy Spickle felt queasy at the ease with which the sheriff could falsify. The sheriff added, as if his words were the last on the subject, “The twins, well, I hear Kara has been clean for six months. I’d like to help her and Kylie get Sonny here back. Might set us all on the right track.”
They walked for almost two hours, through more burnt forest, past two small lakes called the Dahlonegas, and along a section of briars where rabbits flitted underneath. The light started to fade. They switched on flashlights in the dusk and kept moving east for another thirty minutes. “How far you suppose we are from the city limits, the Connor place?” asked the sheriff, as Sonny woke up more and mumbled something that sounded like he was hungry.
“I think,” said Deputy Spickle, looking at his cell phone, which had service now, “we must be about four miles out.” He pointed in the general direction ahead of them. The sheriff placed Sonny down, kneeling so he could talk to the boy. “You a hungry Sonny boy?” said the sheriff, tousling the little boy’s brown hair. Sonny nodded and smiled a sleepy grin.
They made a fire, rocks around the edge. The sheriff heated green beans, chicken noodle soup, and opened several cans of tuna. Sonny was small but had a good appetite. “This is nice,” said the sheriff as he cleaned up and Spickle made a small pallet for Sonny to sleep on next to the fire. They wiped the boy’s face and tucked him under their coats. He was asleep again within minutes. They kept the fire going, the heat from it strong.
“What about the twins?” asked the sheriff. “They holding up?” Deputy Spickle nodded but his face was flat, as if he’d been shown an awful crime-scene photo.
“Listen, Jeff,” said the sheriff, “it is what it is, and yes, you could’ve come up with a better idea, but we’ve got the hand we’ve got, and besides, putting a little fear of God into Kara might just help her stay focused on getting Sonny back, you ever think of that?” Deputy Spickle swallowed hard and took a deep breath. The sheriff poked the fire, and said, “Good, now, let me tell you what we need to do at sunrise.”
*
In the early light, they stretched and quietly put out the fire, dowsing it several times from canteens. Both had only caught snippets of sleep. The sheriff knelt and gently smeared Sonny’s face with soot. The boy didn’t stir. Sheriff Dresser handed the lump of black to his deputy. He said quietly, the land around them nearly silent, “Here, rub it in, so they’ll know we’ve been lost.”
When the sun came up fully and the land around them twinkled into existence, the silvery hoarfrost reflecting a new blue sky and clear sunshine, they moved away from the campsite. After twenty minutes, the sheriff said, “Hand me your phone, I’ll call it in.” He took the phone from Spickle and handed Sonny over. The sheriff said clearly into the phone, “Mrs. Caldwell, you’re in early, as always.” He told her Deputy Spickle had found him and the boy, that she should call the twins, and after that, if she wouldn’t mind phoning Danny Hobbs at county transportation to come get them at the crossroads of Blue Ridge and Ellijay. “You’d be mighty proud of Deputy Spickle, Mrs. Caldwell. He parked his cruiser at the top of the mountain and just set off on foot to find us, didn’t stop until he did, even had a rucksack of food. Little Sonny probably thinks he’s been on a great adventure and nothing else. Deputy Spickle saw to that. We might need to get the newspaper to do a story.”
Sheriff Dresser handed the phone back. Spickle said, “You didn’t need to do that.”
“It’s truly the least I could do. From now on, it’s gonna be the straight and narrow, Scout’s honor.” They stood awhile, Sonny asleep on the deputy’s shoulder, and with the plan complete, there wasn’t much to do but wait. Above them, the cobalt sky throbbed with sunshine. The sheriff said, “Jeff, what do you say we come back up here in April and bring Sonny boy with us, camp by the Dahlonegas, show the little fella how to fish. We could fry up a mess at Mrs. Buker’s.” Deputy Spickle agreed, and they watched as one of the county transportation trucks climbed the road, Danny behind the wheel. Sheriff Dresser said, “Beautiful morning,” and then added, staring toward the truck coming for them, “One day at a time, that’s what they say in the meetings.”
Danny honked and it woke Sonny. The little boy patted Deputy Spickle’s face as if they might be old friends. The sheriff laughed, and the deputy did too, as Sonny giggled and threw his head back.
“Yep,” said Sheriff Dresser, his eyes pondering blankly, “one day at a time, that’s how we’ll do it.” Deputy Jeff Spickle watched the man, really looked at him, and wondered if this time it might be true.
*The setting for this story is the North Georgia Mountains, the same area where parts of Deliverance were filmed. I had long been a fan of the book and the film, and to be honest, both horrified and intrigued by the author, James Dickey. I knew I wanted to tell a story with the backdrop of the mountains, especially after some fires in that region flared up. It’s an area that is at once diverse and welcoming and closed off and insular. The landscape plays a large role in the story, at least metaphorically.
As for the two main characters, Sheriff Dresser and Deputy Spickle, well, they are loosely based on the iconic law enforcement duo of Andy Taylor and Barney Fife. I have always admired the writing in the show and been moved by the relationship between two lifelong friends who are often in disagreement, while being loving and patient with one another’s flaws. Male friendships aren’t often portrayed well in storytelling, and I wanted to show the reader how my two lawmen could simultaneously disappoint and show up for one another.
The plot has two major arcs, twin women in search of a child, and the abduction of Sheriff Dresser by his own deputy. When the consequences collide, the story becomes one of only partial redemption since at its core lies more fabrication for the characters to live forward and off the page. I wrote the draft in about four days. At the time, I was reading a nonfiction book called Murders and Social Change, published in 1974 by James Jenkins. It helped me understand crime in the South.