Burn What Will Burn (20 page)

“Apparently it took some persuasion to get him to admit that he beat her at all beyond the one blow that knocked her unconscious. He never admitted to raping her. Insisted she promised him to ‘go all the way' and so that was all he was doing—getting what he had been promised.”

I nodded because I understood.

“And it was Warnell's mother, Miss Ollie, who convinced him to confess to more than that?” I asked.

“Yes, Mr. Reynolds. Warnell confessed to Tammy Fay's murder by drowning, but he never would confess to the rape. He did confess to the rape and murder of a lady tourist from several years ago. And he might not be done confessing yet. He has been crazy all his life, so there is no telling what else he might be responsible for.” The nurse paused. “I'm sure he'll get the death penalty, won't he? Even though he's pretty retarded?”

“I believe there's a moratorium on capital punishment just now,” I informed. This was something I knew because it was something I had thought about in the last several years. “Without smart lawyers, Warnell will probably be lethally injected, eventually, even if he's mentally retarded. But that will probably take a few years.”

“Unless that liberal governor we got pardons him,” said the nurse with some heat.

I did not ever want to get into political discussions, but I said, “I don't see that happening, Nurse. Not if there are any bigger elections on the offer for the current governor.”

“Warnell will probably like prison,” the nurse said after a thoughtful pause. “I'm sure the food in prison is no worse than Miss Ollie's is at EAT. And all he ever does is sit around anyway.”

“That's not quite all he did,” I said.

*   *   *

In fact, Warnell had taken care of local business that summer. He had settled some complex affairs with his simple presence.

And if that did not seem exactly right—that it should all fall on Warnell Ames—it did not seem exactly wrong either. Particularly if he had really raped and murdered a tourist at some point in the not-so-distant past.

Sometimes there are extant in the world simple solutions to complex problems, not more or less improbable than the rest. The Greek tragedians had their God Machine. In Doker, Arkansas, that summer, we had Warnell Ames.

I went to the door.

“We'll see you next week then, Mr. Reynolds, for your blood test,” Nurse said to my back. “Regular time. And I'll get you set up at Regional Medical Center for your medications.”

“Thank you, Nurse.”

“You're welcome, Mr. Reynolds. You have a nice day.”

*   *   *

The Cadillac had been parked in tree shade near the Exxon station. The watermelon seller touched the corner of his eye as I approached then pointed at my car. In the shotgun seat there was a melon, light skinned, veined dark green, oblong, probably ten pounds worth of red meat.

I got in the fin tail, rolled all the windows down. The pump jockey came out of the Exxon station. I handed him a twenty.

“She was low three quarts.”

I handed him another twenty. He went off to get change.

The watermelon seller stepped up beside me.

“Me and T. Bo, we was just saying this is quite a ride you got yourself here, Mister,” the watermelon man said.

“Thanks.”

“Wouldn't want to sell or trade, I don't suppose?”

I shook my head.

“It was my wife's car,” I said.

“Good divorce settlement, huh? Me, I didn't get but heartache and assache from either first two times and on number three probably won't get much better.”

“My wife died.”

“Oh. Well, sorry to hear about that.”

“She drowned in the bathtub.”

The pump jockey returned from the office and handed me my change, which was short by a couple of dollars by my calculations.

“You hear about that, T. Bo?” the watermelon seller asked the station attendant.

“What's that, Kendrick?” asked T. Bo.

“Poor man says his dear wife drownt in the bathtub.”

T. Bo took off his gimme cap and wiped the sheen off his bald head with the cap and put it back on, all the while eyeballing me.

“Ain't that a strange shame,” T. Bo said.

I blinked and drove out of the shade and into the sunshine.

*   *   *

As I passed over South Slough I felt a tug at my belly like you will get when you're coming home from a trip, a nervous apprehension that is really the hope that everything is at home exactly as you left it battling the certainty that it is not.

Our bellies often remember what our brains forget.

I stopped at Pick's UPUMPIT! for bread and milk and my mail.

UPUMPIT! was closed, locked up tight as a drum. The handwritten sign on the front screen door said, “Went to Memphis. Be Back on Next Sunday for Regular Church Service.”

I walked around to the sidelot.

Malcolm had cleaned out his snake pits, let the reptiles loose to fend for themselves while he was on holiday probably, released them so he could catch them again or else sold them all off to the snake-handling Christians who practiced their faith on the other side of the Grays or killed and skinned them for his wallet-making business, though I did not see any fresh snakeskins nailed to the back wall of the store.

The gun I had thrown into the snake pit was gone from the snake pit.

*   *   *

I parked the Cadillac on the edge of the cemetery, strolled over to see the freshly whittled crucifix cross that was planted in the freshly turned grave dirt on the Pickens plot. The orangewood above Joe Pickens Junior was still splintered from its very recent carving. Since the Right Reverend had been carving that cross while his son Joe Junior was still alive, I wondered if Mean Joe had predicted Joe Pickens Junior's fate or caused it.

In the well-tended Baxter plot Frances Mary Baxter was interred under a spray of new tea roses, still waiting patiently for her husband Samuel Baxter Senior.

*   *   *

The Wells Twins had rearranged the nativity scene in their front yard and decapitated a couple of the Magi and now were strategically located amongst the dusty men throwing clods of brick-hard red clay at one another.

Stank was asleep in the shade under the manger.

The twins threw dirt clods at my car until they couldn't throw far enough to make that fun.

*   *   *

My chickens had been let loose, were free ranging around the yard, appeared little worse for wear after my days away, but seemed glad to see me. They clustered around my feet and pecked at the laces on my walking shoes as soon as I alighted from the Caddy.

I counted twelve birds left from my baker's dozen, but could not figure which one was missing since they all looked the same to me.

The dead one I found later in the backyard trash barrel, dismembered by hand not knife it appeared, ripped apart and somewhat defeathered, beheaded and half charred.

The handiwork of the Wells kids probably, practicing their torture methods.

*   *   *

The screen door of the front porch was propped open with a rocking chair and there was still a scatter of feed in the troughs. The water in the birds' water feeders was fouled thick and gray with their own shit.

I changed the straw in the chickens' roosts and restocked their feed troughs and freshened their water dishes and hosed down the porch floorboards.

My house too was a bit overturned inside, the couches cut open strategically in several spots, chairs upset, my neatly typed pages of poetry disarranged, my clothes off the hangers, shoes mismatched, drawers pulled out.

This mess could have been attributed to either the sheriff searching for something or credited to my neighbor Wellses making themselves at home or as payback if Jacob thought I had called the cops on him.

I didn't miss anything if it was gone. I think I'm getting to be more like that about things in general, which I take as a good sign.

*   *   *

There was a longish missive, crudely handprinted in pencil on the torn-off cover of a paperback, thumbtacked to the back door.

“Deer Bob Rinald,” the note from Malcolm read.

Me an Pa Pa went off to Memfs bekas we did git sum mone frum my dadde aftr all. PaPaw had him in surd aginst deth, so we got sum mone aftr all. An plus you mone. Praze Jesus Risin Star we wont even loos the church. Praze Jesus. Everthing wrok out gud. An dadde had a nice foonrl. I put food for the chikens in the dishs but Papa sayed leaf the door open so I did. Hop thas ok. I lef 3leg with jakowbwells kid sins you was gone off. Sumbode sayed you mit not cum bak but I hop you do or els I wil mis you if you dont. You no I wil. Hop you had a gud tim.

I am.
Malcolm Pickens

ps I foun sumthin with my snaks. Dint want to loos it but Pa Pa syed I cudnt kep it aroun so I put it in a saf plac I think. You wil find it wen you git hungre. a hint.

*   *   *

The bounty hunter's big sidearm was in the refrigerator, wrapped in a red mechanic's rags.

I got a beer and started straightening up my house.

 

CHAPTER 13

I waited until almost dusk to walk to The Little Piney.

I packed Leonard “Buck” King's revolver, still swaddled in rags, into a plastic grocery bag with a couple of beers and a flashlight. I put on my favorite short pants and my favorite pair of walking shoes and a fresh-from-the-package white cotton T-shirt, gathered the chickens onto the front porch and locked them in, started toward the creek.

I didn't expect to see anybody on County Road 615 and I didn't.

I felt something gathering on me as I walked, like a second skin that needed to be sloughed off. Sweat probably. The air had thickened while I was gone, was heavy now with humidity. There was no rain in the forecast, no clouds in the sky, but I could feel the rain ready to come soon and the clouds gathering. The fields whispered as a hot breeze shifted the Johnson grass.

I wiped my face on my shirt and walked on. The Grays shouldered against the bruised sky. The sharp granite ridge was just tinged red by the westering sun when I reached the bridge.

*   *   *

It seemed the right place to lose that killing piece of Buck King's, in the water where he had died. If the water had claimed the man's life.

I didn't know and probably never would know and did not care how Buck King had died.

Dead is as dead does. And the fit survive for whatever reasons they have, whatever reasons they need, serve whatever purpose they serve by staying alive.

And the best proof that things are as they should be is that they are that way.

I unwrapped the revolver, wiped it with the rags and meant then to throw the gun immediately into the water under the bridge over The Little Piney. The water was not particularly deep around there, but it was probably deep enough.

But the weight of the revolver in my hand seemed perfect. But the gun invited holding. But deadly things are meant to be caressed.

Threatened.

Tempted.

My momma had her alluring but vindictive god.

My daddy had his Jim Beam, his business.

My wife, her heroin, me.

I spun the cylinder of the revolver. When it stopped I spun it again and when it stopped again I held the gun with two hands and eased the long barrel of the revolver into my mouth then fingered the trigger.

The old man was a surprise.

“I knew you'd come back,” he said.

He stood on the south side end of the bridge, the side his compound, his home was on. He was dressed in crusty, piss-stained pants, with a blaze orange watch cap on his pile of wild gray hair. He wore the red cowboy shirt of the corpse in the creek, Buck King's shirt. His beard was gray and twisted.

The giant yellow tomcat squatted near the man's bare feet.

I stopped breathing.

The barrel of the gun rattled against my teeth.

I pulled the revolver slowly out of my mouth.

The old man stared at me, did not blink. His eyes were vacant and hazy blue as a mad summer sky.

He moved very slowly forward.

In his hand was a very big knife, Buck's knife probably. The cat hissed at me then retreated as if it knew something about surviving fights, about self-preservation.

“Mr. Baxter?” I asked the old man.

He stopped and turned his head as if someone behind him had spoken that name, then he slapped his free hand against his head as if someone in the back of his own brain had called to him out of his own schizophrenic cacophony. Then he looked back at me.

“You are Samuel Baxter,” I reminded. “Your wife was Frances Mary Baxter, and her maiden name was Roberts. Your son is Sheriff Sam Baxter.”

“He's the one that brings the food,” the old man said.

He pointed the knife at the plastic grocery bag on the bridge. I had dropped the mechanic's rags on top of it and this was a distracting swatch of red in the bottom of my eye.

“Yessir,” I said. “I'm sure it's your son, the sheriff, who brings you food. But there's no food in that bag.” I pointed at the grocery bag at my feet.

“He said he would bring food tonight. I'm hungry.”

“If your son said he would bring you some food tonight I'm sure he will, Sir,” I said in as calm a voice as I could manage.

He shifted his eyes toward the twin track behind him, the rutted road that led into the woods in the direction opposite of my place. I had thought I had heard a car on that red clay road in the past and somehow that must have been the way Sheriff Baxter gained backwoods access to his place, to his father, and not attracted attention.

“Do you remember that the man who brings the food is your son, your son who is the sheriff?” I asked.

The old man shrugged and narrowed his eyes at me.

“I know he's the one who wears a badge and handcuffs he puts on me sometimes and that he's the one that took that gun away from him that I got this shirt from but I don't know why he gave
you
that gun.”