“I’ve been out in Asheville all week,” I said. “Didn’t get back to Dobbs till this afternoon, so I’m not clear about what all happened. Did you see it?”
“Not really. It was yesterday morning a little before eight o’clock, about thirty minutes after the school bus run. Dallas told me ’bye and said he was on his way. I was fixing Bradley his breakfast and Ashley and Tig didn’t eat yet either—”
“Tig?” I murmured.
“Ashley’s husband. They usually bring Michelle down to catch the school bus—she’s in kindergarten this year— and then they stay and eat breakfast with Bradley and me most school mornings. Anyhow, I was over there at the sink and could see the truck out the window and Dallas just had the door open good and was about to climb in when up drives this red pickup and these two niggers get out.
“I says to Tig and Bradley, ‘Y’all better go out there and see if Dallas needs any help because I believe them’s the same ones he chased out of his woods yesterday.’”
“That was odd, wasn’t it?” I asked. “Most hunters respect those posted signs.”
(The signs say “No Hunting—Possum Creek Hunt Club.” Every year, hunters out from town with their shotguns and rifles will knock on the door at Daddy’s or Mr. Jap’s or over at Leo Pleasant’s and meekly ask if they can join. The three old men solemnly take down the applicants’ names and promise to put them on the waiting list. Of course, there is no waiting list. No hunt club either, for that matter. Daddy long ago noticed that most men, the same men who won’t think twice about trespassing onto posted land, do seem to respect a hunt club’s lease.)
“Them people don’t respect nothing,” said Cherry Lou.
Her son had stopped eating and now lit up a cigarette as he half-turned in his chair to follow his mother’s words.
“I didn’t have my shoes on,” he told me, “so Tig stepped out on the porch by himself.”
“But it was like they never knew he was there,” said Cherry Lou. “Or didn’t care. ’Cause the next thing I knew, I heard both barrels of a shotgun go off and when I ran back to the window, that green Chevrolet was halfway down the driveway.”
“Ford,” said her son.
“I thought you said it was a Chevy.”
“No, I told you it was a Ford. Bright red.”
“I was never one for knowing the makes of anything,” Cherry Lou told me.
“It was a full-size red Ford pickup,” said Bradley, “and they were flying out the yard on two wheels by the time I got out there. Dallas was laying half in and half out of his truck with a big hole in his back. Blood all over the yard, all over the truck.”
“On you, too, I reckon when y’all ran to help him.”
An embarrassed look crossed his chubby round face. “Well, naw, I could see he was beyond help. It was awful. I just ran back in and told Ma to call the sheriff.”
“So you actually never saw the men that shot him?”
He shook his head as if he’d flunked a test of personal bravery.
“Then it’s a good thing your brother-in-law got a good look at what happened.”
“Yeah. They took him over to Dobbs so he could help some artist draw one of them—” He hesitated, not quite sure of the term. “Like when they don’t have a real picture?”
“A composite drawing?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“But he’s been gone ever since eleven-thirty this morning,” Ashley burst out. “What you reckon’s taking so long?”
“Ashley, honey,” said her mother, “I believe I could eat a little piece of white meat if there’s any left. And a glass of tea? How about you, Deb’rah? Tea? Something to eat?”
“Tea would be great,” I said. And in truth, I needed cool liquid to my throat because all three of them had lit up again and the air around us was turning blue.
As Ashley reached into the cupboard to get me a glass, her hand slipped and the glass crashed to the floor in a zillion shards.
Her brother started yelling because he was barefooted. She yelled back that he hadn’t got up off his fat butt all evening so he could just sit there a little longer till she got the broom. Cherry Lou yelled at both of them to hush up before they woke the baby.
Too late.
Above the din came a child’s fretful wail and a sleepy-eyed little girl in Mickey Mouse pajamas stumbled down the hallway, squinting against the light.
“Now see what you did!” said Ashley.
“Me?” protested her brother. “You’re the one broke the damn thing.”
While they bickered, Cherry Lou darted across the room and snatched up the child before she could get near the glass and cut her feet.
“I’ll get her back to sleep,” she told us and carried her granddaughter down the hall, crooning soothing noises to the child as they went
I held the dustpan while Ashley swept up the glass. She kept glancing anxiously at the clock above the kitchen sink.
“I just don’t know why they don’t let Tig come home,” she said again. “I called over to Dobbs about an hour ago and they wouldn’t even let him talk to me. Said they still had things to ask him about. That don’t mean they think he shot Daddy Dallas, does it?”
“Of course not,” I assured her. “They always question the family first. Doesn’t mean a thing. They’ve probably got him looking at mug shots.”
Uneasily, I remembered that I’d been in the sheriff’s office an hour or so ago and neither the sheriff nor Dwight Bryant had been there.
“You sure they took him to Dobbs and not just up the road to Cotton Grove?”
She was positive.
“Well, you did say your husband was the only one to see the actual shooting, right?”
Brother and sister nodded vigorously and both seemed anxious to go over the whole incident again, explaining why neither had happened to be looking out the window at the time. Curious, I asked them every question about those hunters I could think of, yet they couldn’t seem to come up with a single new detail. They were just two big black men in a red pickup. A full-size Ford.
“Ma keeps getting it mixed up, but it was a Ford alright. About three years old.”
Cherry Lou returned to report that she’d finally gotten her granddaughter back to sleep. “Poor little thing. Keeps asking me where’s her Paw-Daddy. That’s what she calls Dallas. And he was just as foolish about her. Brought her a stuffed animal every time he come home from one of his long hauls. You can’t hardly get into her room over yonder at their trailer for all the rabbits and teddy bears. Some of them’s bigger’n she is, aren’t they, Ashley?”
She suddenly noticed my empty hands. “Didn’t you get you any tea yet? Ashley, where on earth’s your manners, girl?”
Dry as my throat was, I declined politely, expressed my condolences, promised to attend the funeral, and got out of there as quickly as I could because I’d suddenly remembered where I’d seen Fred Greene before.
When I pulled up at Jasper Stancil’s back door, that black-and-silver Jeep Cherokee was parked alongside the other vehicles.
Surprise, surprise.
I slammed my car door and stomped into the kitchen without knocking and there were the “Greenes” with Sheriff Bo Poole, Dwight Bryant, and SBI Agent Terry Wilson, all with big gotcha grins on their faces. The only person not there was Jap Stancil and I later heard that Daddy’d taken him over to his niece’s house.
In the middle of Mr. Jap’s eating table was a radio receiver and a tape recorder and I could hear Ashley’s voice wailing, “They know Tig did it, they must know or why else won’t they let him come home?”
“They don’t know shit,” her brother said. “You keep your mouth shut and Tig stays cool, we’ll all be back in Florida before Christmas.”
“No thanks to you two,” came Cherry Lou’s voice. “Won’t for me getting the gun and Tig pulling the trigger, we’d all be out on our tails without a dime.”