South of Heaven (10 page)

L
ike most public officials in that area, the county attorney held his job as a sideline. He was a rich man, rich from cattle and oil, and most of his time was spent taking care of his wealth. His being county attorney was just a gesture at public service or civic responsibility or some such thing—whatever a man calls it when he takes the credit for something that others do for him. His next step up probably would be some kind of state office, then maybe the governor’s chair or congress. Right now, the duties of his office were being carried out by a couple of young deputies, and he was pretty irritated with me for insisting on seeing him.

“What the hell’s eating on you, Burwell? The boys made a clear-cut case against you, so naturally you were booked. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“But the case isn’t clear-cut! It could easily have been an accident.…”

“We don’t think so. Frankly, I’d have killed the son-of-a-bitch myself if he’d hung around this town much longer. Caught him kicking a horse one time. But the way you went about it…well, that’s bad. If you’d killed him in a fair fight, I’d have stood in line to shake your hand, but.…”

“I didn’t kill him! We’d made up our differences!”

“Mmm?” He glanced at a paper on his desk. “We’ve got a witness who swears you didn’t make up with him. Fella named Wingy Warfield. He claims Lassen offered to shake hands with you and you refused.”

“But Wingy’s a loudmouth! He’ll say anything to hear himself talk! What actually happened was…was.…”

“Yes?” He squinted at me thoughtfully, seemingly caught by something in my manner. “What’s the matter with you, Burwell?”

“Matter?” I said. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve got a big-plenty of reason to hold you. Even I know that much, and I don’t know a Goddamned thing about evidence. But you act like you were absolutely sure of being freed.” He waited, continuing to squint at me. “Someone promise you something, boy? You just tell me who it was, and I’ll skin the ass right off of ’em!”

Well, of course, I had been sure of getting out, but I couldn’t say so in view of Four Trey’s warning. So I mumbled around a little bit, saying that naturally I didn’t think they could hold an innocent man, and I
was
innocent, by gosh! And he stopped staring at me and began to fidget again.

“For God’s sake, boy!” He suddenly cut in on me. “That’s the way it is, so that’s the way it is! Got yourself a lawyer yet?”

“I think so,” I said. “I think there was a lawyer when I went before the judge this morning, but.…”

“Oh, that shitass! I mean a
real
lawyer.” He glanced at his watch, then rose abruptly, rocking in his boots. “Well, no hurry about it, I guess. You don’t come to trial for almost seven weeks yet.”

He rammed a ranch-style hat down on his head and started around the desk. I stood up, too, and he dropped an arm around my shoulders and walked me to the door with him.

“Now, tell me, son,” he said, pausing on the threshold and turning me around to face him. “Did you kill that son-of-a-bitch or not?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I certainly did not kill him.”

“Real sure about that, now? You’re not lyin’ to me?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “I’m not lying.”

His eyes bored into mine, seeming to look right through me and out the other side. At last he sighed and scowled, rubbing his face with a knotty-looking hand.

“Too Goddamned bad,” he grumbled. “If you were guilty, you could plead to second-degree or manslaughter; I’d certainly agree to it. Did I tell you I saw him kick a horse one time?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I believe you mentioned something about it.”

“But, of course, if you’re actually innocent.…” He shook his head, scowling, then brightened a little. “Well, you just get yourself a good lawyer. I’ll help you if need be. A good man ought to be able to beat the pants off of these boys of mine.”

I said I sure hoped he was right. Then, despite the jam I was in, I laughed out loud. I just couldn’t help myself.

He gave me a startled look, kind of offended, you know. Then he laughed, too, giving me such a hard clap on the back that I was almost knocked from my feet.

“That’s what I like to hear!” he boomed. “Show me something that a good laugh or a stiff drink won’t cure, and I’ll put in with you. What the hell, anyway? What’s the use crying when you can laugh?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “What’s the use?”

“You’ve got money in the bank, right? A nice little stake? So, all right, then. Even if you’re convicted you’ve got no problem. Just flash a little of the long green in front of the Parkers, and they’ll have you home ahead of the jury!”

I said, yes, sir, again, and he gave me another clap on the back and told me to keep my dauber up. Then, he hurried off somewhere, on his own private business, I suppose, and I went back to my cell.

Years later, I told a prospective publisher about that county attorney and some of the other people I’d bumped into in the Texas of those days. And long before I’d finished talking, he was shaking his head. People didn’t act like that, he flatly assured me. There were no such people. That’s what the man said, and I didn’t try to talk him out of his ignorance. But he couldn’t have been wronger.

There were such people; a big plenty of ’em. Quite a few of them made the history books, and at least two of them, Bud and Sis Parker, became governors of the state.

They were brother and sister, Bud and Sis. Ignorant and lowdown crooked, they had a homespun quality and a folksy gift of gab which got the vote every time. Bud was governor first. When he got impeached, Sis Parker ran for his job, and she went into office on a landslide.

The two of them ran the statehouse together. The joke was that they worked shifts, one of them selling pardons while the other was off-duty. It wasn’t quite that bad, of course, but no one did time in Texas if he had a few thousand dollars for the Parkers. Some criminals supposedly bought pardons before they pulled a job, charging it off as business expense.

Well.…

That was the way things were in those days. And the prospect of buying a pardon after being convicted didn’t cheer me up any. At the very best, I’d be in jail for weeks to come and when I thought of what would be happening to Carol during those weeks…! I couldn’t eat lunch or supper, just sipping a little coffee and almost gagging on it. I smoked three packages of cigarettes, lighting one as fast as I finished another. Fretting and worrying and wondering what the hell had gone wrong.

Four Trey had been so sure that they were going to free me. Yet how could he have been? What could he have known that they didn’t know here? Why couldn’t he have told them right then and gotten me out immediately?

The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. My head began to ache like it was going to split, and I knew I was going to be in a bad way if I didn’t put my mind on something else. But knowing it was a lot easier than doing it. It was no good trying to read; I’d go through a dozen pages without having the slightest idea of what they were about.

I began to pace the floor, back and forth; back wall to door, side wall to bunk. I stopped, finally, my legs weak from all the turning and twisting; stood leaning against the wall with my eyes closed and the wind pouring over my face like water.

It felt good, the wind. It was something I knew, a familiar friendly thing; the steady Texas wind, which had gone with me wherever I had gone. And it brought back memories of all those places: McCamey, and rigging high-line towers, my pants so stiff from alkali water that they could stand by themselves; a casing-crew out of the town of Chalk, and seeing a guy’s head pinched off when a line buckled and looped; a derrick-dismantling job in the field west of Big Springs, swinging from the top of a one-hundred-and-twenty-foot rig and knocking out the cross-bracing until it jigged like a drunken dancer. A honky-tonk in Four Sands, and a man who sat at the same table every day. A man with snowy white hair and an obscenely youthful face—a face like a dirty picture.

He spoke to no one. He hardly moved, except to raise his cheese glass of white-corn whiskey or his jelly glass of chocbeer chaser. He simply sat there staring down at the floor—and listening. To the wind, it seemed like. Listening to the wind and never quite hearing what he was listening for…

I sat back down in my bunk. I picked up paper and pencil and began to write. By the time I had finished, my headache was gone and I was able to sleep. Which was all that I really wanted. What I wrote wasn’t important, from any angle, and I balled it up and threw it on the floor. But it went something like this:

I
t was mid-morning when I awakened: I lay with my eyes half-closed for a time, letting the sunlight seep gradually under the lids, putting the day off as long as possible. At last I yawned, stretched and looked around, then suddenly sat up with a start.

The cell door stood open. A man in boots and a blue serge suit was leaning against the wall, reading the poem I’d written the night before. He went on reading, giving me a half-nod without looking up. When he had finally finished (and he took his time about it), he shook his head wryly and tossed the paper back to the floor.

He shouldn’t have done that. No one should ever treat a writer’s work disrespectfully. If he does it, all right. But never do it yourself. He’ll like you a lot better if you spit in his face.

“How are you, Burwell?” he said. “Darrow’s the name, Ben Darrow. I’m the sheriff here.”

“I’m all right,” I said, “and I know who you are. I’ve heard quite a bit about you, sheriff.”

I turned around to the sink and began to wash up. He grinned at me in the mirror, blue eyes glinting in his tanned face. A good-humored, intelligent-looking man in his thirties whom I might have liked under different circumstances. I stared back at him coldly, and he chuckled and winked at me.

“Good news, Burwell. You’ve been cleared.”

“Wha…!” I whirled around, my heart doing a big flipflop. “You…you really mean that? You’re not just kidding me?”

“Now, of course, I’m not. The boys had the evidence to let you go last night, but I was out of town and they decided to play it cute. God knows why…” he shook his head, frowning, “since they certainly didn’t have any love for Lassen. But I can promise they’ll never do it again.”

“But I have been cleared?” I insisted. “There’s no doubt about that?”

“Absolutely none. Three witnesses swear that Lassen was fooling around the dragline when the bucket dropped on him. He must have triggered something, I suppose, or.…”

“Why the hell didn’t they say something sooner?”

“Why don’t a lot of people? Because they’re afraid of getting involved or they were doing something that they shouldn’t have. These three birds, for example, had stolen some Jamaica ginger out of the cook tent and were tying on a drunk.”

That sounded reasonable, but it left some pretty big questions in my mind. Like how had Four Trey known about the three men and why had he wanted me to keep quite about them. But this was hardly the time or the place to raise those questions.

“Well, Burwell…” he gestured toward the door. “You’ve missed breakfast. Come on and I’ll buy you some.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll buy my own.”

I put on my hat and picked up my bindle. Darrow frowned, laughed uncertainly. “Oh, come on, now! Why so huffy? I’m sorry you were held longer than you should have been. But.…”

“I get my own jobs,” I said. “I spend my own money. Now, good-bye and give my regards to that zillionaire daddy-in-law of yours.”

I went on through the door and started down the steps. Abruptly, I turned around and went back to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You did something that made me sore, but I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate. Anyway, I had no right to say what I did.”

He nodded evenly, his voice little more than a cold whisper. “You had no right. And I usually answer talk like that in a different way. But no one gets swung on in this jail unless he swings first, and I’m not about to break my own rules. So let me just set you straight on something.…”

“Don’t,” I said. “You don’t need.…”

But he did need to. I’d hit him in the touchiest spot a man has, and he’d been hit there plenty of times before. And he just couldn’t let it go.

“I’m a graduate lawyer, Burwell. I’m also a police academy graduate. This is one of the richest counties in the state, and they can afford the very best sheriff in the state. And that’s how I got my job. Because I was the best, and they were willing to pay for it. I was sheriff
before
I was married, Burwell. Before, get me? And the first time my father-in-law offers me a nickel will be the last time!”

He broke off, breathing heavily. I repeated that I was sorry, and he gestured curtly toward the steps. I started down them, and after a moment I heard him following me. We went down them together, neither of us saying anything until we were on the walk outside the courthouse. Then he tapped me on the arm and pointed to a restaurant across the street.

“That look all right to you, Burwell?” he said quietly. “I eat there a lot.”

“Whatever you say,” I said. “You’re buying.” And I guess it was the right thing to say, because the grin came back to his face as we started across the street.

I had a big breakfast: bacon and eggs and hot cakes. He settled for coffee, taking a thoughtful sip of it as we faced each other across the table.

“You said I’d made you angry, Burwell. Mind telling me how?”

I told him, admitting that I’d been foolish to take offense. He agreed that I had been, particularly after my temper had landed me in jail as a murder suspect.

“On the other hand,” he went on, “I’m kind of glad, in a way, that you did blow up. Anyone that wasn’t absolutely on the level wouldn’t have done it. Criminals can’t afford to be touchy; not in front of cops, at least. They’re too much on the defensive to be offensive.”

“Well.…” I hesitated, buttering a fork-load of hot cake. “If that’s a compliment, I don’t know how to take it.”

He shrugged, dismissing the matter. “I understand that you’ve come into quite a little money. Over four thousand dollars, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then, you won’t be going back to the pipeline. You wouldn’t in any case, I understand, since they don’t want you any longer.”

“I’ve been cleared,” I said shortly. “I’m a good all-around man and I’m entitled to a job.”

“You’ve got a bad record, Burwell. Twenty-one years old and you’ve got a record as long as my arm. Yes,” he held up his hand. “I know the good side of it, too. About your schooling and all. But the best man in the world can go wrong in a bad environment, and the pipeline is a bad one. It’s been a long time since you’ve been in anything but bad ones. Now, why not give yourself a break?”

I said I appreciated his advice and I’d give it a lot of thought. He shook his head irritably.

“I don’t get you, Burwell. Is it the girl? Is she the reason you’re bound and determined to throw your life away?”

“I’m not throwing it away,” I said and I pushed back my plate. “That was a fine breakfast, sheriff. I’m obliged to you.”

Outside the restaurant, I started to say good-bye, but he didn’t give up that easily. He sort of guided me down the street, making talk as we walked along, directing my attention toward the bank where my money was and pausing before the windows of a couple of men’s stores, more or less forcing me to look at the array of clothes inside.
City
clothes. Then he moved me on until we were within view of the railroad station.

“There it is, Burwell—Tom,” he said. “There’s a train east at four o’clock. I want you to be on it.”

I asked if he was floating me out of the county. He hesitated, then shook his head like a man who found it hard to do.

“I wish it could be, but I’ve never believed in enforcing the law by breaking it. So, no, it’s not an order. But it’s the best damned advice you ever had in your life, Tom. The very damned best!”

“And I’m going to take it,” I said. “But there’s something I’ve got to do first.”

“You mean ask the girl to go with you?” He sighed, gave me an exasperated look. “Now, you know better than that. If she was looking for a decent life, she wouldn’t be where she is.”

“I know better,” I said. “Anyway, I have to ask her.”

He stared at me wearily, started to say something, then shrugged and glanced at his watch. “Well,” he said. “I did my best. But I guess there’s no way of keeping a rat out of a hole.”

He turned and started back up the street. I called after him that he’d see; I’d be just fine and he could count on it. He answered me without looking around, not with words but a laugh.

The ugliest, most dismal laugh I’d ever heard.