The cold snap ended after Yom Kippur and Indian summer returned with its warm weather and trees all colors and sky October blue. Through the long open ventilator panels, you could see tobacco curing in the barns golden brown, and smell its warm spiciness on any road you cared to walk. It was good curing weather, and people would start stripping early. It was great fishing weather too, and the first nice Saturday I grabbed my pole and a pocketful of worms and took off for the Mulligans.
It had been over three weeks since the flowered pants thing and I hoped Fred was cooled off enough to see me. It looked like he was going to get his way about school. One of the sheriff’s deputies told Dad that when Fred didn’t show at Selby the truant officer went to the sheriff and asked him to put Alfred in jail. The sheriff told him that if he locked Alfred up the kids would starve so he wudn’t gonna do it. The truant officer got hot then and said it was his duty to lock Alfred up and the sheriff told him he didn’t give a shit what anybody thought, he knowed his duty and it wudn’t to starve kids.
There was nobody in the yard when I got to the Mulligans so I climbed up on the gate by the hog lot and yelled, “Fred!” Nobody answered.
“Whoa, anybody home?” Still no answer, so I started across the yard to the pond.
“Hidey, Samuel. Whatcha want?” come from the upstairs window.
I turned and there was Annie Lee. Her hair was mussed and she was wearing a man’s white shirt. It didn’t have nothing under it neither because her tittie nipples showed. “I’m lookin’ for Fred,” I said. “Figured him and me’d go fishin’.”
“Don’t know if he’s ready t’ see you yet,” she said, leaning her elbows on the windowsill, which caused the shirt to pull tight and her nipples to stick out more. “He’s still real down. You know how he gits . . . won’t eat, up half th’ night.”
Annie Lee started to say something else when this hairy arm reached up and got her shirt. The hand had a big square ring on its middle finger and I knew it was WK’s.
“Gitchegoddamnhandsoff’nme. I’m a-talkin’ t’ Samuel,” she said, and a low voice said something and she slapped at him. There was a “pop” then an “oow” from below.
“He’s down’t th’ pond, Samuel,” she said, getting back into the window. “He’s still spooky, but he might talk t’ you. He’s been actin’ a little better last couple days.”
I said, “Thanks” and took off, just as WK’s hand reached up and got Annie Lee by the shirt again. She fell over this time and I heard her giggle.
All the way to the pond, I thought about what to say to Fred. I had to say it right or he might not see me for weeks. Fred couldn’t stand it if he thought you were doing something because you felt sorry for him. I thought about turning around and going back because maybe it was too soon, but then old WK might tell Fred he saw me and he’d know I was hunting for him and figure I was worried about hurting his feelings and he sure wouldn’t have anything to do with me after that so I better go on. Suddenly I was at the pond. It was too late now because I knew Fred would’ve already spotted me.
I searched the brush-hidden banks with my eyes but couldn’t see him, so I walked through the brush and there he was at our favorite spot beside a big sycamore log. He glanced up, then turned back toward his bobber. I waited, then crawled over the log, unwound my pole, and baited up. For some reason wouldn’t any fish bite. Finally, I thought of something to say.
“Got any makin’s?”
Fred didn’t move nothing but his hand and it reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out the Durham sack.
I opened it and stirred the fluffy gray stuff with my finger. “Got any wrapper?”
He reached inside his shirt again and out come several pieces of brown paper sack. I took one and he put the rest back. “You not smokin’?”
Fred barely shook his head.
“You gonna make a man smoke alone?” I said, trying to sound half mad.
Out come the slips again and I handed him the sack. He took some and put the sack back in his shirt. I just sat because I hadn’t ever rolled a cigarette.
A little grin come on Fred’s face. “You gonna roll hit or dip hit like snuff?”
“I ain’t too good at cigarette rollin’,” I said, and spent the next ten minutes pasting together a bulging mess and held on while we smoked. Boy, it was bad. I was trying to get a best friend back though, so I talked about how good it was and how it opened my bronical tubes.
“Hit’ll do hit ever time,” said Fred. “Uncle Charlie says they give it t’ people with numone and hit brings ’em back t’ life.”
“It’s good all right,” I said, nigh puking.
“More rabbit tobacco this year’n I can remember. Hit’s gonna be a bad winter.”
“Figure it will, huh?”
“Hun’ney, hit never fails if they’s a big crop of Life Everlastin’.”
Then we just set. The sun glinted off the water next to my bobber, making it hard to see, and I squinted. “We ain’t had a bite in an hour,” I said.
“Been that way all week. Fished hard yesterday and only caught two little brim.”
“Why don’t we do somethin’ else?”
“Whatchawantado?”
I thought for a minute. “Don’t know. What about gettin’ some hickory nuts.”
“Ain’t ready yet, hun’ney,” he said, scratching his toe. “Ain’t been enough killin’ frosts. Besides, they’s a poor crop. Let’s ride up t’ the sweet apple tree on your bike, get some apples and eat ’em with that coarse salt in y’all’s feed room.”
“Let’s go,” I yelled, and we took off. I felt good. I had my best friend back.
Skinnying up the sweet apple tree was hard, but when we got up it was loaded. We filled the basket on the front of my bike, then headed for the feed room.
Sweet apples taste awful unless you know how to eat them. We spread these out on a bale of straw, put a little mound of coarse cattle salt in the middle, then lay back on some sacks of bran, licked the apples, and dipped them in the salt. They wudn’t bad like that.
“You want any more, Fred?” I said, eyeing the pile that never seemed to go down.
Fred was lying almost flat with both hands over his bulging belly. “Hun’ney, if I et ’nother apple I’d puke.”
“Me too. Let’s throw these t’ th’ hogs?”
We were almost at the hog lot with our arms full of apples when Fred pulled up short. “Hun’ney, I got a great idea! You ever make a deadfall?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s just what we’re gonna do, and we can use these here apples for bait.”
“You know how t’ make a deadfall?”
“Deadfall? I make dandy deadfalls,” he said. “Let’s go cut some triggers.”
Before we got the triggers cut I was about to go out of my head as Fred tested limb after limb, but by milking time, we had enough for several deadfalls. The next day we barked them and carved the notches. I lay on a feed room sack and watched.
“How’s this kind fit together?” I asked.
“Just like any old deadfall,” he said with a laugh.
It kind of hurt my feelings being made to look dumb, and Fred could tell it.
“Soon’s I finish, we’ll find a flat rock and I’ll show you,” he said quick.
The rock Fred picked must of weighed twenty pound. “Hold hit there, hun’ney,” he said after we had it up on its edge.
I held it up and Fred went around to the front of the rock and knelt down. “When I tell you, let her down reeeal slow,” and he started fitting the little pieces of wood together. When the trap was set, the rock was leaning against one stick, which was triggered against another that had the apple on its end and was stuck in the ground.
“Hot dog,” he said, squatting down on his haunches. “Hit’s just right. Old rabbit comes along and says, ‘Now, that’s a purty apple a-layin’ there. Wonder how come hit’s way out here?’”
While Fred was talking, he was bouncing around the deadfall like a rabbit, and you never saw anything funnier. His nose was nigh to the ground and his butt was up in the air and he was wiggling it like a bunny.
“‘Hit’s shore odd hit a-layin’ here with no apple tree. Maybe I can just sneak up and nibble a little,’” and he began sneaking up to the deadfall and acting like he was nibbling the apple.
“‘Man, that’s a sweet apple, and hit’s a good one!’” he said, and acted like he was nibbling harder, and wiggling his nose. Then Fred reached in with his finger and pulled the trigger. Kawam! The rock come crashing down so fast he barely got his hand out.
“Got him!” I yelled.
Fred’s eyes lit up. “We gonna catch more rabbits than a hog’s got fleas.”
“Where we gonna set ’em?”
“Why not near th’ fence by th’ Dry Branch Road turnoff?”
“That’s a far piece,” I said. “How come we don’t just go down by that blackberry patch near Ervin’s house?”
“Hun’ney, you want th’ Crosses t’ rob our deadfalls?”
“I don’t think th’ Crosses’d do that,” I answered.
Fred kind of cocked his head. “Ain’t what I heard. Heard the Crosses’d steal th’ hat right off’n your head.”
“Radar’d do that? Aw.”
“Don’t know about Radar or Billy Bacon Jacob, but old Ervin might. Bill Lamb told my daddy couple days after Ervin moved in that Ervin done time for stealin’.”
Somehow, I couldn’t figure Ervin for a thief. “You really think he done time?”
“Hun’ney, a Lamb never lies!”
It was true. A Lamb’d die before he’d tell anything but the truth, and he’d kill you if you called him a liar. Nobody in our parts ever doubted their word. “What’d he steal?”
“Chickens. They put him in th’ pokey for just a few days th’ first time, but he kept doing hit ’til they sent him up for two years. Let’s not put our deadfalls there.”
We set the traps near where the Dry Branch Road turned off from the pike and rubbed them with wild onions to kill the people smell. The next morning, we had a rabbit. We caught four more that week. Since we didn’t eat rabbit, I gave my half to Mr. Mac and Babe. We were really having fun. Everybody was, because most of the fall work was laid by.
One Sunday, the Shackelfords and Clarks came over, which usually bored me silly. This visit turned out different, though. I was in the yard with the men, sitting on the grass and leaning against a big maple half asleep, when Dad brought up the sheep killings and said he thought they were the work of a crazy man. That woke me up quick.
“I dunno, Morse,” said Bess, straightening up in one of our rickety old lawn chairs. “This old boy’s too smart at coverin’ his tracks t’ be crazy. I think hit’s one of them smart-assed niggers come down here from Lexington.”
Dad kind of cringed when Bess said “nigger” but he didn’t mention it. “I’ve been thinkin’,” said Dad. “He might not be anything but a thief, but he always heads for th’ river. Now that’s a slow, hard way of gettin’ out of here. A thief would want t’ get out quick.”
“Could be he’s tryin’ t’ scare us into thinkin’ he’s crazy,” said Mr. Shackelford.
“If that’s th’ case, why don’t he leave just th’ head of an animal with its eyes gouged out?” said Dad. “He only takes th’ hindquarters and nuts off th’ carcass.”
Bess laughed. “Th’ hindquarters are th’ best parts, Morse. That old boy just knows what’s good. He can’t carry a whole sheep. Each a them bucks would weigh a hunnert and a half. Hindquarters ain’t even seventy.”
Dad sighed. “Y’all are probably right, but supposin’ it really is a crazy man?”
“What are you drivin’ at?” Mr. Shackelford asked.
“Well . . . we’re alone in these fields. He could come up t’ us like any number of strangers who stop by asking questions and get you with that knife he uses before you could defend yourself. He could get at your house while you were workin’ too. Kill everybody there. You’d never hear screams above the sounds of a mowin’ machine.”
It was true what Dad said, and it really scared me. Fred and LD and Lonnie and me knew everything and we wudn’t saying and somebody might get killed!
Nobody spoke for a few seconds, then Bess got up from his chair and went over to his Ford. When he come back, he had a mason jar full of moonshine. “We gonna talk about things like this we can’t do hit on a empty stomach,” he said.
Mr. Shackelford and Dad laughed, then they all had a drink from the jar.
“What if he is a crazy man, Morse?” Mr. Shackelford said. “What can we do?”
“Go after him now! Stop things before somebody gets hurt,” said Dad.
They quit talking then and everybody just kind of set. “You know, there is somebody,” said Mr. Shackelford. “He might not be crazy, but he’s mighty peculiar.”
“Who?” Dad asked.
Before Mr. Shackelford could answer, Bess said, “You talkin’ about Begley, ain’t you?”
I got an awful feeling. I had heard at school that one of the people who didn’t like Ben was Mr. Shackelford.
“What’s peculiar about him?” Dad asked.
“You ever meet him?” asked Mr. Shackelford.
“No,” Dad answered.
“Lots of folks ain’t met him,” said Mr. Shackelford. “Come here about ten, twelve year ago and bought that place down on the Big Bend from th’ Cummings. Hardly speaks except t’ sell his pumpkins and melons. Nobody knows anything about him.”
“And he’s got th’ meanest goddamn dogs since Creation,” said Bess. “Ain’t anybody ever seen inside his cabin. Ed’s right. We ought have th’ sheriff do some checkin’ on him.”
I was shaking inside now like a bowl of jelly. I had to do something. There was only one thing I could think of. “Mr. Begley lent Bob his boat for fishin’.”
Everybody turned and looked at me, and the shaking inside me got worse. I knew they were going to ask questions and I had to be careful what I said.
“You ever meet him?” asked Mr. Shackelford, looking at me suspicious.
“No, sir,” I lied.
“Bob ever tell you about meetin’ him?” Mr. Shackelford asked Dad.
“Yeah, he did, now that you mention it,” Dad answered. “I remember Bob saying Begley lent them his boat. Bob thought he was just a man who wanted t’ be left alone.”
“Samuel, you ever see him?” Mr. Shackelford asked, turning back toward me.
“No, sir,” I lied again. “But he never bothered us when we run th’ trot line.”
“I don’t think he’s our man,” Dad said, kind of musing. “All this stuff has happened over our way. Hard to imagine he’d come all the way over here t’ kill stock.”
“Not if he’s crazy like you say,” said Mr. Shackelford. “I don’t like Begley. Went down there one time t’ see him about truckin’ some of his melons into Lexington and he just left me standing outside callin’ with them damn dogs raisin’ hell.”
Dad thought about that too. “Did Begley ever hurt anybody or steal anything?”
“Not that I know of,” said Bess. “Sure is peculiar, though.”
“I’ll ask Bob more about him th’ next time he’s home,” said Dad. “Meantime, I think we need t’ get a posse together and comb th’ Little Bend. Thirty or forty men with dogs. Maybe th’ sheriff can get Lexington to provide us with a search plane.”
“You really that worried, huh?” said Bess, screwing the top back on the jar after everybody had taken a second drink.
“The more I’ve thought about it, the more worried I’ve become,” Dad answered.
Bess puckered his mouth. “Whatcha think, Ed?”
Mr. Shackelford raised his eyebrows. “Well, hit’s an idea, but it won’t work.”
“Why?” Dad asked, sounding kind of upset.
Mr. Shackelford tilted his head to the side as he answered. “’Cause folks around here won’t have nothin’ t’ do with hit, Morse,” and he stuck his hands in the pockets of his Levi’s.
The look on Dad’s face said he thought that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “I can’t understand that. They got family and property at stake too.”
Bess chuckled. “What Ed’s drivin’ at, Morse . . . they’s been strange goings-on around th’ Little Bend bottoms for years. You heard of th’ Blue Hole, ain’t you?”
“You mean that story about Collins,” said Dad. “My God, you guys don’t believe that, do you? That a ghost haunts a pool of water and kills people who come around?”
Bess didn’t answer for a while, then he said, “Well . . . no, but lots of folks do. You ain’t gonna get no posse from around here t’ go down on that stretch of river.”
I was busting. We had a chance again. If they did get a posse together, Fred and me could lead them to the cave. I wanted to yell, Yeah, do it! But I knew better.
The next day, Dad called the sheriff, who said it sounded serious and if we could get as many as ten men together, he’d come with his dogs and try to get Lexington to send a plane. Dad and Bess talked to everybody around. Bess even talked to Mr. Miller. It turned out the only people who would join the group were Alfred, Rags Wallace, Mr. Mac, and Babe, and Rags backed out the next day. The police in Lexington told the sheriff that the whole idea was crazy, going out for something that probably wudn’t there to begin with, and even if it was, a handful of men couldn’t cover an area that big, and without men on the ground, the search plane wouldn’t help. The sheriff said he had to agree with them and under the circumstances he wudn’t coming.
That wudn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was that after Dad and the other people got together and said they were going regardless, they wouldn’t let Fred or me come. When they got back from the search, Dad was in a bad mood. They hadn’t found anything and from what I could tell, hardly spent any time around the Blue Hole or the cave. Mr. Shackelford said that it was the last wild-goose chase he was going on, and Bess laughed and said maybe they’d get hired by Mr. Hoover and his F.B.I.
Generally, I’d have been down about how things worked out but I was getting used to stuff going wrong about the crazy man. Thanksgiving vacation was coming up, and it was too good a time to waste feeling bad.