Son of Fletch

M
ister Fletcher?”

In the hard rain, Fletch had stopped the Jeep at the roadblock on the narrow county road. It was raining so hard he and Carrie had almost failed to see the sputtering warning flares as they came down the twisting, rock-walled road through the gap.

When the Jeep was stopped in front of the two county police cars parked as a wedge facing them, their headlights lit, a great bulk of a man wearing a yellow slicker, dark, wide-brimmed hat lumbered toward them. He was lit by the Jeep’s headlights but more backlit by the high beams of the police cars.

“Ha!” Carrie had said. “Fletch, I told you not to leave your popcorn bucket on the floor of the movie theater! They’re out lookin’ for you, now they’ve cotched you, and they’ll put you under the jailhouse for sure.”

“Who is that?” Fletch asked.

The rain pounding on the canvas roof of the Jeep made them speak loudly.

“Rondy,” Carrie answered. “You know him. His uncle is Biggie Wilson. You been huntin’ with him, that time you all treed the Carter boy ‘cause he has the natural smell of possum.”

Fletch opened the Jeep’s door, as that was easier than unzippering the window.

“Hiya, Rondy. How’s your Uncle Big Stuff?”

“He’s just fine, Mister Fletcher.” Rondy flashed his light around the interior of the Jeep. He leaned to look directly behind their seats. “Evenin’, Carrie. You folks doin’ all right?”

Carrie said, “Happier than worms wrigglin’ in warm mud.”

Rain was pouring off the brim of the deputy’s hat. “Plenty of warm mud around.”

“What’s happening, Rondy?” Carrie leaned forward in the passenger seat and spoke across Fletch. “The sheriff misplace his spectacles again?”

“Some villains decided to take themselves a little vacation from the federal penitentiary up in Kentucky, Carrie.”

“Can’t blame ‘em,” Fletch said. “We’ve been advertising Tennessee as a vacation spot.
Take yourselves off to Tennessee
. Isn’t that the slogan?”

“We’ve been told to welcome tourists all right, Mister Fletcher. It’s just that we’re concerned these particular fellows, being wards of the government, a federal responsibility, might stay out so late they just might miss their breakfasts.”

“Can’t let that happen.”

“No, sir. They left home without any pocket money, is what has us worried.”

Fletch smiled. “Armed and dangerous?”

“We don’t know if they’re armed yet. If not, they sure will be soon enough. Dangerous for sure.”

Also dressed in yellow slickers, wide-brimmed hat, black rubber boots, carrying a flashlight, Sheriff Rogers came up and joined Deputy Wilson at the Jeep’s door.

The jeans on Fletch’s left leg were getting soaked.

“Mister Fletcher. Miss Carrie.”

“Howdy, Sheriff,” Carrie said. “Don’t Francie let you take a shower-bath at home anymore?”

“Says I keep leavin’ wet towels on the bathroom floor. So she sends me out every time there’s a hard rain. She’s been complainin’ about wet towels on the floor thirty-two years now.” The sheriff grinned. “Funny how some women never change.”

“Nor should we,” sniffed Carrie.

“How long since you all been gone from the farm?”

“Few hours,” Fletch answered. “Went to St. Ives, had supper, saw a movie. Left home about what, five-fifteen?”

“You got guns at home, Mister Fletcher?”

“Sure.”

“Anywhere an intruder could find them?”

“Sure.”

“Loaded?”

“No. The shells and cartridges are kept separate.”

“That’s good. Maybe we should send Rondy here home with you.”

Rondy frowned at the little space in the back of the Jeep.

“We’ll be all right. How many villains are you lookin’ for tonight?”

“Four.” The sheriff fished a wet piece of paper out of his pocket and held his flashlight on it under the Jeep’s roof.

“One murderer, one attempted murderer, one kidnapper, and one serving heavy time on drug charges.”

“Shoot,” Fletch said. “I thought Rondy said these were bad dudes. You have their names there?”

Rainwater ran down the sheriffs face despite his wide-brimmed hat. “Kriegel, Faoni, Leary, and Moreno.” The sheriff accented the first syllable of the last name. Putting the paper back into his pocket, he said, “Can’t figure why they’re coming through here.”

“Headed south, I suppose,” Fletch said. “Alabama border. Lose themselves in Florida.”

“Except they’ve drifted sideways,” the sheriff said. “This isn’t a direct route to anywhere for them, far as I can figure.”

“How do you know they’re here?”

“Told they were comin’ this way, for sure. Then Ms. Mobley spotted them running along the ridge just before sunset.” The sheriff waved toward the west. “Guess we can believe her, all right.” In her sixties, Mary Ann Mobley was considered the sharpest-eyed hunter in the county. “Couldn’t get to ‘em, of course, in all this dampness.” The sheriff craned to look at the Jeep’s shifts. “This a four-wheel drive, Fletch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind if we borrow your Jeep, Fletch? We’ll start by patrolling your farm.”

“Not at all. You’re welcome to it.”

“Trouble is, I really need Rondall here. There are just the two of us, two cars. Maybe I’ll radio in and have a couple of deputies stop by your farm on their way out from town. They can pick up your Jeep, patrol your farm, then come find us.”

“That will be fine.”

“Got gas?”

“Filled up in St. Ives.”

“We’ll appreciate it.”

“So will I.” Fletch put the Jeep in first gear.

“Be real careful going into your place. Unless they’re traveling faster than they have been, there’s a large chance they’re down there somewhere near or on your farm. Sorry I can’t spare Rondy to go with you.”

“We’ll be fine. Not to worry.” Fletch closed the Jeep’s door.

Slowly he drove between the blinding headlights of the police cars.

Already Carrie was picking her fingers. “Well, I’m worried. A little bit.”

“About what?” Fletch asked.

Carrie looked toward her rain-streaked plastic window. “Four villains peekin’ out of the bushes at us.”

Fletch said, “Around here we’ve got coyotes, wolves, bobcats, panthers, and snakes.”

“And a bear.” Carrie insisted she ran into a bear between the barns one dark night. She hadn’t lingered to collect evidence it really was a bear.

“You’re not all that afraid of snakes, bobcats, and bears, are you?”

“Animals make sense, Fletch,” Carrie said. “It’s the humans you can’t trust worth a patootie.”

“S
HOULD
I
STAY
here?”

“Absolutely not.” Using the four-wheel drive, Fletch had driven up the old dirt timber road at the back of the farm. Lights out, he drove along the top of the hill behind the
farmhouse. He stopped just inside the edge of the woods. “These dudes want the Jeep. And they want you. I’d rather you stay with me.”

“You don’t care as much about the Jeep?”

“Not as much. I’m going to let the counties use it, aren’t I?” A few months before, two of the county’s cars had smashed into each other, in a parking lot.

In the hard rain they walked together down the hill just inside the line of trees. Even though they were slipping and sliding on the wet hillside, Carrie took his hand. “Maybe the bobcats will get ‘em,” she said. “Maybe that panther you saw the other night will tear ‘em apart like lettuce leaves.”

“If you don’t hush,” Fletch said, “we might as well be driving up the driveway honking the horn and going in the side door singing ‘Three Coynes in a Barroom.’”

“First time I’ve thought kindly of rattlesnakes,” Carrie said.

When they got just above the house, Fletch said, “You might stay here now. Give me time to case the joint.”

“Here? This is about the place we saw the black wolf go into the woods last fall.”

“You think he’s still here?”

“Might could be.”

“There’s plenty for a wolf to eat out here without taking a snack out of you. It’s the hungry, two-legged variety who think food only grows in refrigerators we need to worry about right now.”

“I don’t have a gun,” Carrie said. “What do I do if the wolf comes by?”

“What you charmin’ Tennesseans always do.”

“What’s that?”

“Say, ‘Hydy, Mister Wolf. How’s your pa?’”

“Which paw will I be askin’ about in this case? Right, left, front, back?”

“If you hush your mouth, at least the humans won’t know you’re here.”

He climbed over the white board fence. Crouching, he circumnavigated the house. He peered through the windows into every room on the first floor. Throughout the house there were baseboard safety lights.

Behind the house, he opened the door to the smokehouse. In the dark, rain pounding on the aluminum roof, he found the pipe end, about six inches long, an inch wide, he had left there that afternoon after making a repair in the pump house.

He placed the white PVC pipe on the walk leading from the side of the house to the barns, just outside the study. It would be visible on the path once the lights in the study were lit.

Then he entered the house through the back door, went from room to room and upstairs turning on lights. He took the handgun from his bathroom closet and loaded it. There was no sensible place to carry it in his sopping shirt and jeans, so he kept it in his right hand.

Openly he went back across the backyard in the rain.

“Okay,” he quietly said over the fence. “You can come out now. All yee, all yee, home be.”

“I’m not here.”

“Oh?” He could not see her in the dark woods.

“A panther carried me off by the foot, all you care.”

Wet blond hair streaming down her face, she climbed over the fence.

“No sign they’ve even been here. Even the porridge hasn’t been touched.”