Hands cupped around a mug, Hick sat at the kitchen table staring into his coffee, feeling the warmth gradually dissipate. Thunder rumbled outside and the spoon rattled on the saucer, but he didn’t move. He was gone, lost somewhere inside himself. He couldn’t say exactly where he was or what he was thinking, as his mind didn’t seem capable of forming a thought. He just stared down into the same cup he’d been holding for forty-five minutes, trying to remember what it felt like to be alive.
Lying in bed the night before, he’d hoped the rain’s hypnotic tapping against the tin roof would help him get some sorely needed rest. But even that familiar, relaxing sound couldn’t bring sleep. As soon as he climbed into bed, his heart began the familiar racing, adrenaline shooting through his body whenever he closed his eyes, his breath coming in short gasps, his legs fidgety and restless. It had become routine, this tossing and turning for several hours, before despair would set in and he would finally just get up. He knew he had to sleep for some of the night, not sleeping at all was impossible. But it was in short spurts, and never enough.
Standing before the mirror every morning, his routine was the same. He shaved and then combed his hair. In high school, he could never grow a mustache like Errol Flynn. The girls had always loved his blue eyes and fair hair, but he wanted to be dark and swarthy like the matinee idols he saw. His father said his hair would darken as he grew older, but it never did. It remained blond and unmanageable, requiring a generous helping of Brylcreem to keep it from jutting out at odd angles. Lastly, he slipped on his uniform, starched as always, his perfect appearance belying the insecurities inside.
Rain blew in horizontal sheets as Hick made his way into the station. Unable to face Maggie, he skipped the diner. Opening the door, he stumbled inside and took his hat off, shaking water everywhere. Wash and Adam looked up.
“You find your webbed-finger criminal?” Wash asked as Hick hung his hat.
“No, but I found a place where a bunch of kids broke bottles on the street and made a mess. You reckon you got time to clean that up?” It was spoken impatiently and made Wash’s eyebrows go up.
“In the rain?”
Hick sat down heavily in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “No, not in the rain.”
Wash and Adam exchanged glances. “Where’d you eat breakfast?” Adam asked, sitting on the edge of Hick’s desk.
“Didn’t.”
“Come on,” Wash said. “I’m buying.”
Adam and Wash each took an arm and lifted him from his chair. “Alright, alright,” he said in surrender, “I’m coming.”
They opened the door. Thunder rolled and the rain fell heavily, making the gravel road that served as the town’s main street a sloppy, muddy mess. Quickly, they ran across the street to the diner, their feet sloshing through the puddles. The bell on the door rang and they closed it behind them, making their way to a booth. Hick glanced up and saw Maggie talking to Matt Pringle. She was smiling, her eyes sparkling and she patted his arm as she walked past him to their table. When she saw Hick, the smile faded. “Hey boys, what can I get you?”
Adam and Wash ordered, but Hick muttered, “Just coffee,” handing her the menu. She barely looked at him as she added it to the stack, and then, glancing toward the door informed them, “Doc’s here,” and made her way to the kitchen.
The doctor walked in, dripping from the storm and, spying the men, joined them. “Morning all.”
“Hey, Doc,” they answered.
“Making any progress?”
“None,” answered Wash. “What are we supposed to do, ask everyone in town if we can see their fingers?”
The doctor shook his head. “You’re law enforcement, use your imagination for God’s sake. You ain’t got to make a big to-do, just start looking at the people you meet.”
Hick had been staring at the darkness outside the window. “Well, it ain’t a Stanton. I was up there yesterday and seen Iva Lee and her daddy. They got nice, normal-looking fingers.”
“What were you up there for?” Adam asked him.
“Oh, I went back to the slough to … hell, I don’t know what I thought I was doing. Anyway, Iva Lee was wandering around up there, so I took her home.”
“Why would she be up at the slough?” asked Wash.
“Damned if I know.”
“She see anything?” Adam asked.
Hick shook his head.
Maggie came back with four cups in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. “Morning, Doc. I suppose you’d like some coffee?”
“That’d be nice, hon,” he said, patting her hand. She took his order and he asked, “How you been feeling?”
“Better, thanks.”
Hick abruptly turned from the window. “You been sick?”
“Just anemic. Doc gave me some iron pills.”
“Anemic?”
“It comes from not eating right,” Doc said. “Ain’t nobody around here got enough money to put meat on their plate every night.”
Hick looked at her questioningly and she bristled. “Everything’s fine.”
She retreated, scurrying toward the counter, and Hick turned back to the window. He could see her reflection as she worked, wiping off the counter and setting dishes in the tub behind her. She turned back to take the order of a farmer who had just come in from the rain. The reflection of her face in the window melted into the memory of her face from years before. Then, it was wan and haggard from the knowledge that he would soon be going to war.
“Jesus Christ, Mag! Do you have to be stubborn about everything?”
She pulled a bunch of lilacs from the bush and ran them beneath her nose. “Not everything.” She said it in a false, light voice that irritated him.
In frustration, he ran his hand over his newly shorn hair. “Will you ever listen to reason? If you marry me now, you’ll get fifty bucks a month. Fifty bucks!” His eyes glanced over to the Benson house. “Think how much you and your mama could do with that.”
Maggie stiffened a little. “Mama and I are just fine. Bud says I can stay on at the diner as long as I need to. You don’t have to pay me to wait for you, Hickory. Your people could use the money, too.”
He shrugged. “Dad’s working. You need it more.”
She looked deeply into his eyes and caught his hands in hers as if trying to will some inner knowledge she possessed. “Hickory, your daddy might not be able to work much longer.”
Hick chose to ignore the statement. “Mag, I know how much you need—”
She squeezed his hands. “What I need is for you to trust me. Do you think you’re going to get a ‘Dear John’ letter?”
He laughed. “Well, maybe a ‘Dear Hick’ letter….”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t think I can wait? You think my love is that small?”
He sighed, recognizing the defiant glint in her eyes. “No, Mag. I just wish every once in a while you’d let someone help you.”
“You having faith in me will help me get through this more than any money ever could. What are you afraid of anyway?”
He pulled her to him. “I’m afraid of you wantin’ for something and me not being here to give it to you.”
Lightning popped directly outside of the window and the instantaneous thunder behind it caused Hick to jump, jerking his mind back to the present. “It’s as dark as night out there,” Wash commented, wiping his hand across the window to remove the moist condensation and drawing Hick’s mind away from the reflection.
The farmers were at their leisure today; there would be no working in this weather. Sounds of clinking silverware and laughter erupted from different spots of the room, and Maggie quickly moved throughout, filling coffee cups and chatting with the customers.
Adam watched the crowd at the diner. Lowering his voice, he suggested, “Maybe Wash could hang around in here for a day or two. Most of the town comes to this diner at least once or twice a week.” Hick’s eyes met Adam’s. He understood Adam worried about Wash. The deputy was growing older and Adam had been hinting he should retire, although Wash wouldn’t have it. He’d worked for Sheriff Michaels for his forty-year tenure and he intended to stick around as long as he could.
Hick quickly agreed. “Just to talk to folks … or to listen. Something out of the ordinary had to happen. You don’t just up and find a baby nobody wants to claim without something happening.”
“It’s so strange,” Adam said. “It’s like it came from nowhere. Everyone who was expecting is either still expecting or they have a baby. It’s like she just showed up. And I didn’t find anything out by the slough when you and Doc were at the inquest,” Adam went on. “Nothing unusual at least. No recent tire marks save ours. Of course that part of the slough has always been quiet unless you’re aimin’ to fish. I wonder if anyone heard anything. Maybe they thought it was an animal.”
“I reckon after the rain stops, we could check with the people living near by,” Hick ventured. “Ask them if they seen any strangers wandering around.”
The wind blew a gust of rain against the window and thunder crashed loudly. The farmers glanced up uneasily. There was a momentary silence, but seeing no signs of hail, the conversations began again.
Hick put his cup back on the saucer and voiced what they were all thinking. “I have a bad feeling we’re all just wasting our time on this.” This was met by silence.
Maggie’s laughter drew their attention. She was standing beside Matt Pringle, and he was turned on the stool facing her. He was smiling, his hand possessively on her elbow. Hick squirmed involuntarily, and at once, felt Adam’s eyes upon him.
The bell on the door rang again and Fay Hill entered. All of her motions seemed designed to attract the least amount of attention. She crept across the room and spoke with Maggie, and soon had a cup of coffee. Though Fay and Maggie were the same age, Hick couldn’t help but notice a difference. Maggie had changed little since high school, but Fay was faded and worn, like a comfortable work shirt. Her husband, Tobias Hill, had been Hick’s best friend in high school, but the war had changed him.
Beside her, as was often the case, was her son Bobby. Maggie handed the little boy a donut and patted his head as he smiled up at her in return. “He looks more like his daddy every day,” Adam commented. The boy had been born while Tobe was in Europe. There had been no more children, because these days Tobe’s passions tended to lean more toward a bottle of Jim Beam.
Fay worked every day at the post office because her husband was rarely sober enough to earn a salary. She smiled at the men as she passed their table on the way out. She had been the prettiest girl in school, twice voted “Cotton Queen,” and no one was surprised when she fell for Tobe, a star athlete, good looking with an easygoing, charming manner. They had been the perfect couple, graced with beauty and luck. Now, Tobe kept company with ghosts and entertained them with whiskey.
Hick watched her run across the street, her coat held over her head to keep the rain off. The door had barely closed behind her when Lem Coleman, a snub-nosed farmer with red skin and eyes that squinted permanently from hours in the sun, approached the table. He owned a large amount of property five miles from town in the farming community of Ellen Isle.
“Morning all,” he said in his friendly farmer’s drawl.
“Hey, Lem,” Adam replied, shaking his hand.
Lem removed his hat. “Boys, I sure wish you could do somethin’ about Tobe. He commenced to shooting again last night at about one in the morning. The missus is convinced he’s gonna kill us all in our sleep.”
“I reckon we’re gonna have to finally lock him up,” Wash commented.
“No,” Hick said quickly. “Do you know how embarrassing that would be to Tobe … and Fay for that matter?”
“Listen, Sheriff,” Lem told him, “we know what a big shot Tobe was in high school, but the truth of the matter is he ain’t nothing now but the town drunk.”
Hick’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to say something when Adam interrupted.
“Lem, we’ll try to confiscate Tobe’s gun. Would that satisfy you?”
Lem nodded and turned to Hick. “I ain’t got nothin’ against the boy. I just don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
“I know, Lem,” Hick answered, his anger extinguished by the reality of the dangerous game Tobe was playing.
Lem shifted his feet and asked, “Y’all got any ideas about that baby, yet?”
“We got a few leads,” Adam told him.
“Well, I wish you luck,” Lem told them, putting on his hat and rushing out into the rain.
After he left, Adam turned to Hick. “If Tobe don’t stop firing that gun, you know we’re gonna have to lock him up.”
“I realize that,” Hick answered with a sigh.
Soon Maggie arrived carrying three plates heaped with eggs and grits. Turning to Hick, the doctor asked, “You already eat?”
He shook his head. “I’m not really hungry. If you’ll excuse me, I got some work to do.”
The doctor rose and let him out and Hick walked out into the rain without looking back. As the drops smacked him in the face, waking him, his thinking cleared. He recalled the grisly image of the baby lying on the table. In his mind, he heard the wail of a newborn infant so audible that his steps halted. There was no comfort in the cry; it was the desperate cry of the powerless. He crossed the street and went to the newspaper printer.
“Wayne?” he called as he opened the door.
Wayne Murphy came from the back room wearing a leather apron covered with ink. Hick hated Wayne’s open criticism of his job as sheriff, but now was not a time for pride.
“What can I do for you?” Wayne asked, wiping his blue hands on a towel.
“Can you get me the back issues of the paper for about the past month?”
“No problem.” Wayne walked to a large metal filing cabinet that sat beneath two wide windows covered with Venetian blinds. He opened a drawer and started counting out the weekly editions.
“Better make that the past six weeks,” Hick decided.
Wayne kept thumbing through files, got the papers, and stacked them neatly by pounding them on the top of the cabinet. He handed them to Hick.
Hick pulled his hat down over his eyes and turned to leave. “I need help sleeping at night,” he answered bitterly and put the papers under his jacket before he ran back out into the rain.