Junior was pumping gas for a customer when Verlin Ice’s pickup rolled into Doolin’s with the windshield shattered and the headlights broken. Verlin got out slowly. His nose was bloody.
“What happened?” Junior demanded, and looked inside the vehicle at Mrs. Ice. She had her head buried in her hands.
“The Barrow boys,” Verlin said. “Spun their tires and threw rocks all over the windshield and broke it all to hell. I leaned out and shook my fist at ’em, so they stopped, came back and punched me.”
Junior led Verlin to the bench near the door and made him sit. Then he went into the store looking for his father. “Dad, you’d better get out here. The Barrow boys smashed Verlin Ice’s windshield and punched him.”
When Junior and Moses Grimes got back outside, Lula was already helping Minnie from the truck. She issued orders to the men. “Take Verlin to the restroom and clean him up. We’ll be in the restaurant.”
Ten minutes later over coffee, Verlin told them what had happened. “Just meanness,” he said after he had covered the facts. “Bullying people. Those Barrows like to strut and act tough. They’re the most worthless two humans on the face of this earth. Got no respect for age or women. Cussed right in Minnie’s face, so they did.”
“Which one hit you?” Junior asked.
“I thought it was Coonrod, but I can’t be sure. Hadn’t seen ’em up close in years, not since that arson trial when Lester Storm sent ’em up.”
“You were on the jury, weren’t you?”
“That’s right. But, you know, I don’t think they remembered that today. I figure I’d be lying out there in the road bleeding to death if they had remembered.”
“It’s too bad they can’t remember what prison was like,” Lula Grimes said with steel in her voice. “It looks like they’re bound and determined to get back there one way or the other.”
“Lester Storm will send them back,” Moses told Verlin, “if you’ll sign a complaint. They’re just out on probation now.”
Verlin dabbed at his nose with a wet rag and said nothing.
“Let me call Arleigh Tate or Sam Neely,” Moses pleaded. “Let’s get the law down here to look at your truck. They can fill out the complaint and you can sign it.”
“No.”
“Verlin, somebody has got to—”
“The Barrows burn houses, burn barns, shoot cattle. Now, if they shoot a few of my cows, that wouldn’t be a disaster because Minnie and I have our Social Security. But what if they burn the barn? Burn my house? Attack my daughters? Go up to my boy Jirl’s and shoot up his house when he’s got children living there? Or shoot some of his steers? No.”
“I understand,” Moses Grimes said.
“I hope you do. Honest, I hope you do. Don’t think less of me because I’m not willing to put my family at risk.”
“I don’t, Verlin. I’ve known you too long.”
Moses Grimes patted his friend on the shoulder, then walked through the kitchen into the store. He sat behind the cash register staring through the plate glass window at Verlin’s truck. Junior was out there now, changing the headlights.
He called the state police office, got Neely and told him about the Barrows and Verlin Ice.
“This is the fourth incident like this that has been reported,” Neely said sadly. “But no one will sign a complaint. Everyone is afraid of them. Without a complaint, there is nothing I can do.”
“I’ll sign a complaint.”
“You know you can’t do that.”
Arleigh Tate told Moses the same thing. It was maddening.
Junior came into the store and caught the last of his father’s conversation with Sheriff Tate.
“Don’t worry, Dad. Arch and I will take care of those Barrows.”
“No, you won’t. You two have been in enough trouble lately. There is a limit on how much Arleigh Tate will ignore, and you’re there or thereabouts.” He ran Junior out.
But if the law won’t do anything, self-help is the only remedy remaining. It’s time to settle the Barrows’ hash, Moses told himself. Past time. He picked up the telephone and dialed the number for Information in Capitol City.
When Sam Neely came into the restaurant the next morning for breakfast, Moses and Junior Grimes were seated at the table in the back of the room talking to two men in army camouflage outfits. Careful to avoid looking at the wall mural, Sam went back to join them.
The conversation died as Neely approached the table. He got the impression that the discussion had been serious—no one was smiling. Junior looked up as he approached and averted his eyes. Moses gave him a grin and a welcome, however. “Sam, pull up a chair. A couple of fellows I want you to meet, friends of mine from Capitol City. This is Otis Hammond and Sherman Fisher. Fellows, meet Sam Neely, our local trooper.”
“Glad to meet you.” Neely shook hands, then pulled a chair around. Hammond and Fisher, he noted, were perhaps the fittest men he had seen in years. Both had wide shoulders, flat stomachs and muscular arms. Neely could just see a portion of Fisher’s upper right leg, the thigh so big the trouser leg was stretched drumhead tight.
“What kind of work do you fellows do?” the state policeman asked curiously.
“I own the Capitol City Karate Academy,” Hammond said. “Fisher is my head instructor. He used to be an unarmed combat instructor for the FBI.”
“So what brings you to our corner of paradise?”
“Otis and Sherman are going crow hunting,” Moses said, and gestured toward the camouflage clothes.
“I thought camos were just high fashion these days.”
“Moses has been bragging on the Eden-country crows all summer,” Hammond said with a smile. “We had nothing to do today, so we decided to come see if he’s been blowing smoke. He’s bet us that we get shots at a dozen birds or we get a free dinner tonight.”
“Steak dinners,” Moses said, nodding in affirmation.
“There’s a lot of crows this year,” Junior said. “I’ve sure been seeing them. Up to J. S. Kline’s and around by Jared Kane’s, down by the old Varner place, up to Lyle Samples’…”
“We’ll find them,” Hammond said. “If Fisher doesn’t swallow the crow call, we should get those shots.” The conversation drifted into the intricacies of crow hunting.
Neely was still eating his breakfast when Hammond and Fisher departed. He watched them walk toward the register at the front, coordinated and light on their feet despite the weight of the muscles they carried.
Moses finished his coffee and left, but Junior remained behind. “Are you and I going to be friends or what?” Junior asked Neely.
“Which would you prefer?”
“We could go out back and have a little tussle and see if that clears the air.”
“I’m on duty.”
“When you’re off.”
“If that’s what you want, it’s fine with me.”
Junior frowned into his coffee cup. “I don’t want that, I reckon.” He had learned his lesson years ago. After every schoolboy fight, win or lose, the remorse had been almost more than he could handle. Long ago he resolved never to fight again. There were times, though, when that resolution slipped his mind.
“June, you know I wouldn’t have…with Diamond…if I had known it was Diamond. I thought she was Crystal. She said she was.”
“It was her fault, huh?”
“Well, I don’t like to blame women, but the honest fact is I thought she was Crystal, and she knew I thought that. Maybe she wanted to make you jealous.”
“I am jealous,” Junior growled. “Don’t do it again, okay?”
“Why don’t you marry the woman?”
“Who are you to ask that? You came trotting into my garage to break the news that you’ve had a roll with my girl—she tricked you into it, you say—and now you advise me to take her to the altar?”
Sam Neely threw up his hands. “Forget I said it.”
“You’d better forget more than that!”
Neely stood and dug into his pocket for a tip. He grabbed his hat and check. “If you change your mind about that tussle, give me a call. I’d enjoy rearranging your face.”
With that he walked out.
Hammond and Fisher cruised the gravel road toward Vegan. Fisher was behind the wheel of the Jeep Cherokee paying attention to the road, but Hammond was looking around at the farms and checking the hills for crows.
“What did Moses say they were driving?”
“Old blue Chevy sedan, two-door, with peeling paint.”
“Just because they live at Goshen doesn’t mean they’ll be there.”
“I’m aware of that. We’ll play it by ear.”
“What if they aren’t home?”
“Then we’ll drive around until we find them. That’ll be more fun than hunting crows anyway.”
“I have a dollar that says they’re home.”
“I’ll take that bet.”
Going through Vegan, Fisher said, “I’ve never killed a crow in my life. And I feel like an idiot in this camo outfit.”
“The trooper bought it. Crow hunters wear this stuff.”
“Go over it again, how we’re supposed to blow that crow call.”
Otis Hammond got the call from his pocket and gave some experimental toots. Fisher rolled down the windows in the Jeep to lessen the pain.
Hammond was calling lustily between glances at the sky for big, black birds when Fisher said, “There they are.” He pointed. The blue sedan was coming toward them from Goshen; it had just topped the ridge a half mile away.
“You sure?”
“Another dollar. Old blue clunker sedan.”
“Well, stop this thing. Turn around. Hurry.”
Fisher found a place and turned the Cherokee. Then he started creeping back the way he had come, toward Vegan and Eden.
“Not here on the crest of this hill. Go over the rise, down about a hundred yards on the other side.”
“Okay.” Fisher fed gas. “Looks like they graveled the road this summer.”
“That undoubtedly inspired the Barrows.”
Sherman Fisher had the Cherokee creeping along, barely in motion, when the Barrow boys came flying over the crest behind him in their old blue Chevy and slammed on their brakes. The Chevy careened toward them in a cloud of dirt and small gravel.
The sedan was just behind the bumper, barely moving, when Fisher jammed the gas pedal to the floor. The rear tires spun madly and he sawed at the wheel to keep the Cherokee going straight. Flying dirt obscured the rearview mirror.
Hammond was looking back over his shoulder. “That’s enough, I think.”
Fisher took his foot from the gas pedal and applied the brakes.
They sat there, both men looking over their shoulders, waiting for the dust cloud to dissipate. The Chevy was fifty yards behind them. Even from this distance, they could see the cracks in the windshield.
The Chevy began moving. Someone was leaning out the passenger window, shaking his fist, jabbing his middle finger up and down.
Fisher waited. The battered old sedan came to a stop twenty feet behind the Cherokee, and both doors opened.
“Back up and give it to them again,” Hammond said.
“This is fun,” Fisher said with a grin as he pulled the transmission into reverse.
This time they heard screams as the dirt and rocks flew.
“Think we got them?”
“We got something. Why don’t you park here and let’s walk back and see?”
“Okay.”
As they walked toward the Chevy, the Barrows ran to meet them. “You bastards! What in hell do you think you’re doing?” the driver yelled.
Hammond pointed toward the rear tires on the Jeep. “New tires,” he said conversationally. “We were testing them. Didn’t know you were back there. Sorry.”
“Jesus!” one Barrow said to the other. “Look at the clothes on these dudes.” He sneered at Fisher and Hammond. “Where did you faggots come from?”
“Now is that a nice thing to say?”
“Look at our windshield. You bastards did that! You owe us! It looks like it’s been sledgehammered.”
“Doesn’t look fresh to me,” Hammond said, peering at the windshield. “I think you fellows broke that windshield weeks ago, and now you are trying to take advantage of a minor road incident to line your pockets.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Yes. Most certainly. And I would bet money that your parents never saw the inside of a church.”
“Why, you—” Coonrod Barrow drew back his right fist and fired it at Otis Hammond’s nose. It never arrived, of course. Hammond grabbed the wrist and threw a hip, and Coonrod flew like an eagle for about twelve feet. He landed on his face in the hard-packed gravel, groaned once and lay still.
Meanwhile Bushrod had similar notions. Sherman Fisher deflected the blow with his left and smashed a short right into Bushrod’s nose. Blood flew.
Wild fury registered on Bushrod Barrow’s face. He opened his mouth to roar something, but he never got it out. His opponent kicked him in the balls. He collapsed in the dirt. Fisher bent down and grabbed a handful of hair. He lifted Bushrod’s head free of the ground. “Have you ever flown?”
“Uh…uh…”
“Today you’re going to solo.”
Fisher grabbed a wrist and ankle and began to spin. On the second revolution he released his hold. Bushrod went up and over the rail fence beside the road. He landed with a sickening splat fifteen feet beyond the fence, in a cow pasture. He didn’t get up.
“Help me get this other one off the road,” Hammond said.
“You need help?”
“Not really, but I think teamwork has a certain artistic charm.”
They each grabbed an ankle and wrist and tossed Coonrod over the fence. He landed in a heap near his brother.
Fisher walked back to the Chevy. The doors were open, the engine still running. He merely looked inside. “They do have a rifle,” he announced. He pulled it from behind the driver’s seat. “Old army rifle,” he told Hammond. He opened the bolt and a shell flew out. He toggled the bolt release and pulled the bolt free of the action. Then he threw it as far as he could.
Just off the road close to the fence was a large stone. Fisher held the rifle by the barrel and swung it like a baseball bat. The stock shattered. He tossed the barreled action, now free of the stock, into the backseat of the car.
“You going to leave that car running?”
“Yep.”
“How do you suppose that guy knew that we were gay?”
“He didn’t. He was just trying to insult us.”
“Maybe he could tell. You’ve been looking a bit effeminate lately. Maybe that tipped him off.”
“I have not.”
“I think it’s the way you move your hips when you walk. Gives me the hots.”
“Oh, shut up and get in the Jeep. I’m in a mood to kill something. Let’s go find a crow.”
“You think we ought to leave those clowns just lying there?”
“They’re over in the pasture with the rest of the manure. That’s a good place for them.”
The Barrow boys staggered into the state police office in Indian River about lunchtime. Sam Neely couldn’t believe his eyes. One of them had his nose smeared across his left cheek and blood dripping off his chin. He hugged himself as he took small, mincing steps into the office and collapsed into a chair.
The other one had almost no skin left on his face. He wasn’t bleeding much, but lots of dirt and gravel were visible in the deep cuts and vicious scrapes.
Neely had seen their mug shots so many times that he felt sure these were the Barrow boys. Of course, in the condition they were in it was impossible to be certain.
“Car wreck?” Neely asked solicitously.
“No. We—”
“I’ve never seen anyone that looked as bad as you two do. Oh, I’ve seen automobile accident victims that looked worse, but they were dead. You’re the first living humans I’ve ever seen this torn up. Hold still and let me look.”
They remained silent while he closely inspected their wounds, shaking his head sadly and tuttutting. Finally he straightened and crossed his arms. He sighed. “What is it you want?”
“We want to make a complaint.”
“You’ve come to the right place.” Sam Neely seated himself at the desk and arranged his legal pad just so. He got out his ballpoint pen and made sure the point worked. He moved around to settle his fanny. “Shoot.”
“Two dudes beat us up. After they rocked our windshield with their tires and smashed it real bad. Big dudes. City types. Wearing funny army clothes.”
“Only two?”
“There might have been more, but we didn’t see them.”
“Get their license number?”
“Things happened so fast we couldn’t get it written down.”
“That’s a disappointment. Names, please.”
“We don’t know their—”
“Not their names. Your names.”
“Barrow. I’m Bushrod. This is Coonrod.”
“Your mother was long on imagination, wasn’t she? Better spell those for me.”
Bushrod did so. Slowly, because Neely made him go slow.
“Okay, where did all this beating up happen?”
Coonrod answered that one. “One of them threw me on my face in the road, and they kicked Bushrod in the balls and smashed his nose and—”
“In this county?”
“Yes.”
“Where in this county?”
“Up above Vegan. About halfway to Goshen.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, I kinda think it was—”
“I must have the exact location.”
It took the Barrow boys almost thirty minutes to get all the details out to Neely’s satisfaction, and only then did he type up the complaint and let them scrawl their signatures.
“You fellows should go to the hospital and get those injuries looked at. Bushrod—it is Bushrod, isn’t it?—has bled all over my floor. The next time someone beats you up, I suggest that you go to the hospital first, then come here to do the paperwork after the bleeding has stopped.”
“We want you to get out there, find those guys. Arrest them.”
“You bet. They’re wearing army camouflage clothes and driving a Jeep Cherokee?”
“A red Cherokee. Late model. Nearly new.”
“Well, without a license number, I doubt if the prosecutor will be interested, but I’ll do my best. Meanwhile you fellows go to the hospital and show them how you can bleed. Oh, by the way, you’d better get your windshield repaired. I’d hate to have to write you a ticket for having a defective windshield. It’s a safety item, you know, and we’re real sticklers on traffic safety.”
“We want to be safe,” Coonrod mumbled.
Neely shooed them out, put on his hat, turned off the lights and locked the door.
The last thing in the world the policeman wanted was to stumble across Otis Hammond and Sherman Fisher in their shiny red Cherokee with an unknown license number. They were hunting crows in the southern part of the county; that was where they collided with the Barrows. It seemed likely they would stay in that vicinity. Consequently Sam Neely drove north out of Indian River. He drove all the way to the northern end of the county—chuckling all the way—and parked the cruiser beside the road sign. If those suspects came by here, he would stop them and get their story. If not…