ELEVEN

Every Thursday evening the Eden Lions Club met at Doolin’s Restaurant for dinner. Many of the leading citizens of the area belonged to Lions; those who didn’t belonged to Rotary. Sam Neely attended this meeting at the request of Sheriff Arleigh Tate, whose membership in the Eden Lions Club predated his political career by many years.

The principal of Indian River High was there this evening, as were two doctors, a dentist, several farmers and a variety of merchants. They were seated when Hayden Elkins arrived, looking as if he were in the early stages of recovery from a serious illness. This was his first appearance at a social function since the Friday night football debacle, and to tell the truth, he was praying no one would mention his female troubles.

All eyes followed him as he went to a vacant chair and collapsed into it. Then the eyes were politely turned elsewhere. The sight of a man in his condition was too painful.

Everyone here was male, Sam Neely noted with some surprise. He mentioned it to his host, Sheriff Tate, who informed him that the members of this club had long ago decided to welcome women, yet none had applied.

“Perhaps one of the reasons is that Junior Grimes is president of the club,” Tate opined. “He gives our club a certain…tone…that’s sort of unique.”

Sam Neely nodded in amazement.

Had Neely but known, Junior had been elected president by acclamation. A Lion for over ten years, Junior was the most diligent member when it came to working on club affairs. No one in the county was more willing to devote time, effort and money—when he had it—to people in need than Junior Grimes. Still, everyone agreed, Junior had his faults. He had no education, cussed too much, and had little of the polish usually found on civic leaders. Indeed, some folks said he had no polish at all.

Polish or not, he looked like a fellow in command when he marched into the room tonight soon after Hayden Elkins, calling everyone by name. “Whatcha doin’, Arleigh? Good to see ya, Harry. Hey there, Hayden. Glad you could come, Neely.” Junior made his way to the head table and took a seat behind a Raging Lion statue. Nearby and handy was a wooden gavel.

After the invocation by the Reverend Davis, Alva began serving dinner, tonight meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas and a roll. Junior was talking back and forth with all the men in the room regardless of where they sat—this was Doolin’s—when he said to Neely, seated ten feet away, “Did I ever tell you about the first time I got the clap?”

Sam Neely’s eyes went to Alva, who didn’t seem to hear; she kept serving the heaping plates and pouring iced tea and coffee.

“It was down in Capitol City,” Junior continued, loud enough to be clearly heard above the buzz by everyone in the room, if anyone had bothered to pay attention. Nobody did. The conversations continued at every table unabated. Maybe everyone else had heard this story before, Neely thought.

“We were down there for the races, and me and Arch went to the Sugar Shack. That’s a titty club. You know it?”

Alas, Neely did. He, too, had once blown the better part of a twenty-dollar bill on overpriced drinks at that establishment while watching strippers bump and grind. But that was all of the entertainment he had purchased. Apparently Junior had bought a little more.

“Anyway,” Junior continued, oblivious of the other people in the room, “as it happened I was wearing Dad’s jacket that night, and when I got home Mom found a pack of Sugar Shack matches in the pocket. She ripped into Dad.”

Moses Grimes was sitting across from Neely, and he was listening to the story. He nodded in amused affirmation of Junior’s comment and Neely’s searching glance.

“He told her he hadn’t been there, and it was me,” Junior said, chuckling. “Mom called me in, and I denied everything. Things were pretty tense around here for about three more days, then I started drippin’. Really made Mom mad, so it did.”

In spite of himself, Sam Neely laughed. When he did, Arleigh Tate caught his eye and winked.

 

The last of the twilight was fading when Arch Stehlik climbed the ridge toward Junior’s junkyard. He had parked his pickup in Skunk Hollow and walked about a mile cross-country through the woods.

He had been in the junkyard earlier that day, about four in the afternoon. That time he had driven up the driveway that led from the Eden road. There was no one in the junkyard then. Had there been, Arch would merely have made conversation, then left. Since he was alone, he poured fifty-five gallons of diesel fuel on Junior’s pile of tires. He drained it from a tank of diesel fuel that rode on the pickup behind the cab, fuel that he normally used to service his bulldozer. He had only one five-gallon can, so the chore took a while. Then Arch went home for dinner.

Now he labored up the ridge toward the junkyard while trying not to trip over rocks and fallen trees. Here in the forest the darkness was almost total, and he couldn’t risk a flashlight. He made almost no noise moving through the woods, only an occasional squish as a foot sank into wet leaves.

The yard was unfenced, so Arch didn’t have to do gymnastics in the darkness. He paused on the edge of the clearing, listening and looking. Uh-oh! Voices!

Someone was across the yard, on the other side. Two men, it sounded like. Who in the world?

Using the carcasses of cars as cover, he crept closer. The two men were working on a car, no doubt removing a part. They talked in low tones, then paused to drink beer.

When one of them drained a beer bottle and threw it as far as he could, Arch recognized him. Of course! These were the Barrow boys, out of prison and broke.

Staying hunched over, hiding behind the cars, he made his way slowly back to the tire pile. After one last glance to ensure the Barrows weren’t watching, he struck a kitchen match on a boot and lit a rolled-up newspaper he removed from a hip pocket. Then he stuck the flaming newspaper into a well-saturated area of the pile and made haste back the way he had come.

Diesel fuel was great for starting fires. Its low volatility made it quite safe to handle and slow to evaporate, but when it caught, it would really burn.

Arch was a hundred yards down the ridge going hard when he heard the low, rumbling whoof behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of flames through the trees.

This was going to be a doozy of a fire. The volunteers of the fire department would be heading this way as soon as someone telephoned in the alarm. Arch wanted to arrive at the junkyard via the front entrance to assist the volunteers and, more important, ensure no one got silly and hurt himself fighting this thing. Consequently he hustled for his pickup in Skunk Hollow just as fast as he dared.

 

Alva came rushing into the back of the restaurant with a panicked look on her face. “Junior,” she called loudly, getting the attention of everyone in the room, “somebody’s on the phone. Your junkyard’s on fire.”

“What?”

“Come talk to them.”

Junior charged for the telephone by the cash register. After two or three hurried comments, he hung up and dashed out the front door. His father and Sam Neely were right behind. Standing in the parking area, they could see a glow in the northern sky.

“That’s the junkyard,” Junior announced. “It’s about three miles that way.” Arch must have lit the tires, he told himself, a bit surprised that Arch had gotten around to this chore so quickly. It usually took Arch weeks to work up to anything requiring exertion.

“What the hell is there to burn up there?” Moses asked aloud.

“I don’t know,” Junior lied. “Something’s on fire, though.” He wondered if he was handling this right.

Alva stuck her head out the door. “Another call, Junior. About the fire.” She looked at the glow on the northern horizon.

“You’d better call the fire department, Alva,” Sheriff Tate said, after a glance at Junior.

“Okay.” Alva disappeared into the restaurant.

By now half the Lions Club was standing in the parking lot. Junior tried to decide how he should act. Alas, he wasn’t an actor and he knew it. In fact, Diamond always said she could read his face like a book.

Why did Arch light that dang pile with Sheriff Tate right here at the restaurant where he could watch me?

He felt guilty as a kid with a fist stuck in the cookie jar. He and Arch were probably committing a dozen crimes, not the least of which was arson.

He had better get up there. Fast. Make sure no one gets hurt.

“Lions Club is adjourned,” Junior shouted, and trotted toward his pickup. He got it started and under way before anyone could get in the cab with him, but Sam Neely and several of the others leaped into the back. They couldn’t see his face from back there, which was the only thing going right this evening.

Damn Arch. He should have told me so I could do this right.

Delmar Clay was tooling along the Eden road on his way to the Lions meeting at Doolin’s, late as usual, when he saw the glow on the ridge. “What the…?”

Fire! Wasn’t Junior Grimes’ junkyard up on that ridge?

He got an occasional glimpse of flame through the trees. Something was really burning! Delmar flipped on the cruiser’s overhead flashing lights. He reached for the radio microphone, then decided to wait for a moment to call in the fire. Better make sure where it was.

He turned his attention to the road. The entrance to the junkyard was just around the next bend. He slowed and turned up the gravel road.

Delmar was a hundred yards up the junkyard access road when a car with its lights off careened around the bend ahead and came blasting toward him, threatening to hit him head-on. He aimed the cruiser for the edge of the road, then glanced at the other driver as the sedan roared by in a spray of gravel.

There were two men in the car, he saw that. The driver’s face was illuminated for a split second by one of the cruiser’s overhead emergency lights.

Coonrod Barrow.

Then the car was past him and accelerating down the hill toward the Eden road.

 

The fire was spectacular when Junior Grimes and the Lions Club crowd arrived. Flames shot from the monstrous pile of tires a hundred feet into the air and cast a brilliant, garish light, which reflected ominously off the column of thick, greasy smoke.

The fire truck arrived seconds after Junior did. “Where’s the nearest water?” one of the firemen demanded of Junior.

“There’s a farm pond a hundred yards down over the ridge.” Junior pointed. The fireman left to help his colleagues flake out hoses.

The fire was so intense that Junior had to retreat. He was trying to decide if it was hot enough and going well enough that the firemen’s efforts would be futile when he realized Arleigh Tate was standing beside him.

“You’re going to lose a lot of tires, Junior,” the sheriff said, speaking loudly so that he could be heard over the roar of the flames.

“Sure looks like it.”

“Thousands of dollars’ worth,” Tate added.

“Hell of a note, ain’t it?”

“Got any insurance?”

“Are you kidding? On a junkyard?”

Several more minutes passed, then Delmar Clay drove up in his cruiser. Come to think of it, Junior had passed Delmar as they were coming up the road. He was out of his cruiser picking up something from the brush along the edge of the road.

Now the deputy approached the sheriff, who was still standing beside Junior. “I know who did this,” Delmar brayed.

Junior’s heart threatened to quit on him, right there and then. He broke into a cold sweat and felt his knees get weak.

“Oh,” said the sheriff, only mildly interested. Yet his eyes flicked to Junior’s face, which in spite of the heat had gone dead white.

Caught already! Arch, I’m going to wring your scrawny neck, thinking we could get away with—

“It was the Barrow boys,” Delmar announced triumphantly. “I passed them coming out as I was coming in. They were up here stripping cars and must have decided to torch that pile.”

Delmar had something in his hands, and now he lifted it for them to see. “Here’s a starter they threw down over the hill a ways. They threw out parts and tools all the way down the road. The stuff is all over. The fire must have got going faster than they thought it would, so they had to hightail it. Then they threw away the evidence.”

Stunned, and vastly relieved at this extraordinary twist of fate, Junior still managed to mutter, “Well, I’ll be.”

“Those boys just don’t have any luck at all,” Arleigh Tate remarked to no one in particular as another portion of the tire pile exploded into flame. The remark hit Junior with the impact of a sledgehammer.

The sheriff hadn’t bought Delmar’s solution to this crime!

Crime! Prison! A cell! His mother would be devastated, his father ashamed…his life would be ruined. Ruined!

And Diamond…he would never spend another afternoon with her in the hayloft, never again taste those wild, wanton lips, never…

Arch Stehlik rolled up just as the firemen began to play the first hose on the raging inferno. “Did anyone bring marshmallows?” Arch asked loudly.

The emotional roller coaster was too much for Junior. Arch had done this to him. Betrayed him. His best friend. He launched himself at Arch with murder in his eye.

Fortunately he tripped over a fire hose and went sprawling.

Arch was there instantly to help him. “Hell of a fire, huh?” Arch whispered.

“You bastard! I’m gonna kill you.” Still on the ground, partially stunned, Junior got one hand on Arch’s arm and began squeezing.

“Let go my arm!” Arch hissed. “Let go! You’re going to break my arm, you crazy idiot!”

“You did this to me. I—”

Arch, dear Arch, he understood. He had grown up with Junior, knew every quirk in his psyche, and he instantly understood. Fortunately he was positioned so that he could help poor Junior through this crisis, as he had so many others. With his free hand he grabbed a handful of Junior’s hair, lifted his head as far as it would go, then slammed it into the ground. Junior went limp.

Arch looked around to see who had witnessed the knockout. Apparently no one. Everyone seemed intent on the fire.

The firemen had water streaming from a hose by this time. Squatting beside a sleeping Junior, Arch studied the process with interest. The fire hose was about as effective as an eyedropper on a volcano, he concluded.

Arch was feeling pretty good until someone spoke into his ear. “You ought to take him home to sleep it off. I’ll help you load him in your truck.”

Arch turned his head and looked squarely into the fleshy face of Arleigh Tate.

“Uh…yeah, Sheriff.”

“I guess the excitement was too much.”

Arch Stehlik gave the benediction. “So it was.”

 

Junior woke up in the bed of Arch’s pickup, which was parked behind Doolin’s. He was dazed when he awoke, but when he sat up and saw the glow in the sky, the horror of the evening came flooding back—arson, jail, that idiot Arch…

His head felt as if it were splitting. He moaned.

“Hey, you’re okay.” Arch’s voice.

Junior managed to turn his head. It was Arch, leaning against the bed of the pickup with a can of beer in his hand, watching the glow on the horizon.

“Tate knows.” Junior had to say it three times before the words were recognizable.

Arch Stehlik looked as serene as a blue May sky.

“I’m telling you that Arleigh Tate knows. That you set that fire. That I knew about it before you did it.” Junior spoke slowly, working to form the words around a numb, thick tongue.

“Has he got any proof?”

“Not that I’ve heard about,” Junior admitted. “But he knows.”

“What Tate has is a suspicion,” Arch said, his voice very definite. “If he gets it in his head to do some checking, he’s going to eventually find someone who will tell him that those tires were a twelve-thousand-dollar liability to you. That’s bad. But the nearest thing he’s got to an eyewitness is Delmar Clay, his very own deputy, who will run all over the county telling everyone he meets that the Barrow boys did the dirty deed. With his own eyes Tate saw you pounding a gavel at the Lions Club dinner when the fire started.”

Junior nodded. The motion of his head made his jaw ache, so he rubbed it. Gently. It was very sore.

“The Barrow boys being up there in the junkyard stealing when that fire started was a lucky break for us,” Arch continued meditatively. “Life’s like that. Sometimes you get the breaks, sometimes you don’t. This time we did.”

“Tate knows,” Junior insisted.

Arch didn’t lose his patience. Junior’s innocence always charmed him. He liked Junior just the way he was. Still… “June, my wife tells me that God is a woman. She is absolutely certain.”

Junior was confused. “A woman?”

“Yep. God is a woman who don’t take kindly to men who wear grease-stained clothes, drink beer, don’t shave, and get their hair cut once a year. At first I thought she was just kidding, but now I think she really believes that. Believes it for an absolute fact, so she does.”

“So?”

“That’s what I said. So? And Arleigh Tate can believe anything he finds appealing. So what? All we need to worry about is what he can prove, which is nothing at all.”

After pondering a bit, Junior said, “I think I see your point.”

“Get on with life and stop worrying.”

“You don’t think God is a woman, do you, Arch?”

“He could be a big raccoon for all I know, but I’m sure He drinks beer every Saturday and likes a good football game. That’s what I told my wife.”

Junior lay down in the bed of the truck and thought about raccoons and fires and women. After a bit he asked, “What happened up there tonight, anyway?”

“There was a fire.”

“I remember seeing you, and I got mad as hell and I started for you and…”

“And?”

“That’s all I remember.”

“You don’t remember going berserk and shouting, ‘We did it, we did it,’ and me punching you out to keep you quiet?”

“Nooo,” Junior said tentatively, almost inaudibly. “I don’t remember that.”

“That’s good. ’Cause it didn’t happen.”

“What did happen?”

“You tripped over a fire hose and hit your chin on a rock.”

“Oh.”

“Funniest thing I ever saw. You went out like a light. Sheriff Tate helped me load you in the truck.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

“They’ll kid you about it for years at Lions Club. Maybe you ought to think about joining Rotary.”

 

The volunteer fire department left the junkyard about four in the morning. They pumped water from the nearest farm pond onto the fire, pumped the pond completely dry, with no discernible effect. When the tires were consumed, the fire died. The firemen loaded the hoses onto their trucks and drove away, leaving the remnants of the fire smoldering. At ten o’clock the next morning the ash pile was merely giving off wisps of greasy, noxious smoke.

Junior stood at the edge of the acre-sized disaster zone surveying the damage. The sheriff’s car was parked nearby, although the officer wasn’t in sight. Still, he was around somewhere, so Junior bit his lip to suppress his glee. The fire had consumed every single tire, all eight thousand of them. Twisted, blackened steel belts were visible amid the foot-thick ash, yet even so, it was just about the cleanest job Junior had ever seen.

He was standing in the morning sun enjoying the grace that comes with relief from a heavy burden when the fire chief rolled up.

“Hey, whatcha doin’?” Junior called.

“Come to see how bad it was,” the fire chief said. When he reached Junior’s side he remarked, “Wow, you lost ’em all. Tough break.”

Junior managed not to grin.

“Well, you’d better load these steel belts onto a truck and take them to the county landfill. They aren’t worth anything to anybody.”

“Think the landfill folks will take ’em?” Junior asked tentatively.

“I talked to the manager there this morning. He said to bring them over.”

“I sure do appreciate that,” Junior said with feeling. “It’s terrific how everybody is willing to help out when disaster strikes. Renews my faith.”

“Eden’s a good place,” the fire chief agreed. He held out his hand to Junior. “Sorry we couldn’t do more to help last night.”

“You did the best you could,” Junior assured him. “The fire was just too far along.”

“Nothing worse than a tire fire,” the fireman agreed. “Sure hope they send those firebug Barrow boys back up the river.” With that, he got into his car and drove away.

 

Finding footprints on a forest floor littered with newly fallen leaves is a tricky business. Even when wet, leaves don’t take footprints well, and new leaves coming down soon cover what marks there are. Still, an experienced fellow with an eye for tracks and a practical knowledge of his fellow man can see things. Sheriff Arleigh Tate had more years of experience than he cared to admit, experience that had given him a rather clear insight into the ways of his Eden-country neighbors.

He idly noted the churned-up mess of the hillside where the firemen had strung their hoses to the farm pond, then moved slowly through the woods, looking.

He thought that if a cautious fellow were going to commit a crime in Junior’s junkyard, he wouldn’t drive up the main road bold as brass, do the deed, then drive out the same way. A fool might—and the Barrow boys were indeed fools—but not a fellow with a lick of sense. No, sir. A reasonable man with arson or larceny on his mind who didn’t want to spend the winter in the county jail would probably park in Skunk Hollow, where there was almost no chance that someone would see his vehicle, then hike up the ridge to the junkyard.

Before he came to the junkyard this morning, Sheriff Tate had driven to Skunk Hollow. He found fresh tire tracks, all right, tracks left since yesterday’s rain. And there were footprints in the mud. He lost the footprints in a briar thicket, so he couldn’t say for sure they came up this ridge. Now he was looking at the other end of the trail.

Despite the shadows and subdued light amid the trees, he finally found what he was looking for: depressions in the leaves at regular intervals. Footprints. He moved to a place where he could get a better view. Yes, someone had descended the hill here, someone moving hurriedly—in several places he had slipped and left muddy slashes in the leaves. The trail went diagonally down the ridge in the direction of Skunk Hollow.

Arleigh Tate lit a cigar as he stood contemplating the tracks and puffed it meditatively. Finally he turned and followed the trail back toward the junkyard. The gentle breeze spread the cigar smoke into gossamer clouds that dissipated slowly.

When the sheriff came out of the woods he saw Junior greasing his front-end loader.

He merely nodded a reply to Junior’s cheery greeting.

A moment later he muttered, “Amazing about those Barrow boys.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Junior said, wiping the grease from his hands with a red mechanic’s rag.

“How many years have they been stealing parts off you?”

“Ever since I opened this junkyard. ’Bout ten years, I guess. Except when they’ve been in jail or prison.”

Arleigh puffed furiously at his cigar, which had been in danger of going out. With the tip glowing nicely, he removed it from his mouth and said, “It doesn’t figure. This junkyard is their pantry. They swipe a starter or alternator, sell it for beer money, then come back next week for another one. They’re like mice.”

“Yeah.”

“Then they burned down the pantry.”

“The Barrows are crazy,” Junior told Sheriff Tate. “Always have been. Like to do meanness when the mood gets on ’em. They enjoy it. And the cars are still here. They’ll be back soon as God gives them a thirst.”

Arleigh Tate leaned forward for a closer look at Junior’s chin. “That’s quite a bruise. Still sore, I bet.”

Junior’s conscience knifed him again. He was guilty, guilty, guilty. And the bruise—he remembered falling, and wasn’t he grabbing at Arch when he passed out? Or was that later? It seemed foggy, as if…

The sheriff got into his car. He flipped a hand at Junior in farewell, fastened his seat belt and got the engine ticking over.

Junior went back to greasing the front-end loader. It would be prudent to load those steel belts on the truck and get them to the landfill before the manager there changed his mind. Yet when the sheriff’s car was out of sight, he forgot about the grease gun. He sat hugging his knees, staring listlessly at the ashy devastation.