The Year the Lights Came On (22 page)

“Shuttup,” Alvin snapped, braking to a stop. Dover’s truck had a mechanical temper that only Dover could handle.

“Gun it,” R. J. suggested. “Feed it some gas, Alvin.”

Alvin tapped the accelerator and the truck eased forward, rolling over a work road of Bermuda grass, past a stand of sassafras
trees and into a clearing near the creek. Sheriff Brownlee and his deputies had established their base of operations in the clearing and there were several cars and trucks parked in an orderly line. A small fire burned needlessly beneath the cool shade of a stunted oak, and two deputies were sitting against the trunk of the tree fanning themselves with their Eden County Sheriff’s Department hats.

Dover was waiting for Alvin to park the truck.

“What happened?” Dover asked in an irritated voice. “You get caught in a dust storm, or somethin? Look at that, Alvin.” He wiped his finger along the fender and held it up for Alvin’s inspection. Dover loved his truck.

“Uh—got caught behind the mailman,” Alvin lied apologetically. “He was boilin’ up the dust, Dover. Anyhow, I’ll help you shine her up later.”

“Well, all right,” Dover muttered, rubbing the dust off his Captain Marvel lightning bolt on the driver’s door.

“Where’s Daddy?” I asked.

“Down near the creek, talkin’ to Odell,” Dover said. “Hey, what took y’all so long, Wes?”

“Took time to drag through the swamp,” Wesley replied. “We came back by the house to get somethin’ to eat and change clothes.”

“Yeah,” acknowledged Dover. “See any sign of Freeman?”

Otis interrupted before Wesley could answer. “They didn’t see nothin’. Told you, Dover. Told you Freeman’s not about to show his face.”

Dover led us away from the truck and away from the clearing, where the deputies rested. He wanted to talk and he did not want to be overheard.

“All right,” Dover said as we squatted in the shade of a pine. “I’m not so sure this is gonna be what we thought it was. Them deputies don’t care nothin’ about runnin’ around in that swamp, and Brownlee wouldn’t care neither if he hadn’t made such a show of things yesterday.” He looked at Wesley. “Your daddy’s already offered bond, Wes, and Brownlee’s a little scared not to settle on it. He’s comin’ up for re-election and he knows your daddy could cost him a lot of votes over here. But he’s got them hounds comin’ somewhere and he’s mad as a settin’ hen since they not here yet. He left a little while ago to find Jim Ed.”

“Guess maybe they’ll call off the dogs, Dover?” R. J. asked.

Dover shook his head slowly. “No. Don’t think so. Brownlee’s in too deep to do that. But it won’t help him much if what we’ve done works like I think it will. They’ll just go crazy, that’s all. Go off somewhere, scratching their tails, and Brownlee’ll have to believe Jim Ed’s dogs are worthless.”

“Freeman’ll still have to go over to the courthouse and be charged, won’t he?” Wesley said, thinking aloud. “They couldn’t do it any other way, unless Mr. Hixon dropped the charges.”

“Guess that’s right, Wesley,” Dover agreed. “And it’d be kind of hard to get Freeman to do that, even if we could find him.”

I wanted to tell Dover that Freeman had already rejected that idea, but I couldn’t. Wesley began to braid a pine needle. He stared at his fingers and his forehead was furrowed with the strain of thinking.

A half hour later, Sheriff Dwight Brownlee roared into the clearing and jumped out of his car, kicking the door closed with his heel. We followed Dover into the clearing.

“What he said,” Brownlee was complaining to his deputies. “Said he’d been down to Blakley Creek Bridge all mornin’. That
fool ain’t got as much sense as them hounds. I told him
Rakestraw
Bridge. Blakley Creek’s down in Elbert County. Not even in the same county.”

Brownlee was furious. His huge red face was splotched with anger. Sweat coated his tan shirt under the armpits and down his spine. His pants were covered knee-high in beggar’s-lice, where he had wandered earlier in the edge of Black Pool Swamp, waiting for Jim Ed Felton.

“He comin’?” asked one of the deputies, throwing a handful of sticks on the dying fire.

“Right behind me,” Brownlee answered, spitting. “He better be. He don’t show up, and his bloodhound-rentin’ days are over and done.”

Jim Ed Felton arrived a few minutes later, driving a Ford pickup with its
hood tied down by bailing wire. He had built a complex of removable hog-wire cages on the truck body, three cages to each side, and in each cage Jim Ed had a bloodhound.

Jim Ed Felton was in his fifties. He was slightly hunchbacked and he walked with a limp that gave him the appearance of hop-scotching as he followed after his dogs. He wore bib overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. His overalls were stuffed in lace-up, calf-high boots. He had a holstered .38 pistol strapped around his waist by a narrow belt which fit above his lumpy stomach. On his head, he wore a baseball cap stained by sweat and oil. Jim Ed Felton was a sideshow.

“Where you been?” demanded Brownlee as Jim Ed began to open his cages and drag sleeping dogs to their feet.

“Had to stop over at Goldmine and gas up,” Jim Ed explained. “I done run near a tank tryin’ to
find y’all.”

“Well, you have wasted enough time and that’s the truth,” complained Brownlee. “That boy could be in Madison County by now.”

Jim Ed laughed as he yanked at one of his dogs. “C’mon, Bell, stand up, you no-good hound. Shoot, it don’t make no difference where he’s took off to, Bell’ll find him, won’t you, ol’ girl?”

Bell was Jim Ed’s favorite dog. She was so old she needed a wheelchair. Her tan and black coat was decorated with scars of other chases in other, younger years. There must have been five yards of wrinkled skin on her face. She looked asleep even when she stood. Jim Ed pulled at her leash and Bell moved one paw. “C’mon, ol’ girl. Wake up,” he urged. “You gonna fall flat on your face, you crazy hound.”

Brownlee was stunned. “Good Lord, Jim Ed. You not expectin’ to run that ol’ leftover, I hope.”

“I am,” Jim Ed said emphatically. “Not a dog in ten states got a nose like Bell. Takes her a mite to get it goin’, but she’s the best.”

“Jim Ed, she can’t move. Look at that. She’s fallin’ down.”

Bell fell on her side and Jim Ed squatted to pet her. Bell rested her head on her master’s arm and closed her eyes.

“Let me tell you somethin’, Sheriff,” Jim Ed warned. “Bell don’t run, none of ’em run. That’s my way and that’s the dogs’ way. Now whether you believe it or not, Bell could trail a grasshopper poot for fifty miles.”

Brownlee kicked at the ground and cursed. “Well, get ’em on it. I’m not spendin’ the rest of my life chasin’ after some boy.”

One of the deputies handed Jim Ed two shirts and a pair of shorts belonging to Freeman. Jim Ed went from dog to dog, rubbing their noses with the garments and giving them a pep talk. “Take a whiff… Yeah… Yeah… Good boy… Smell that stink… Smell it, boy…”

The dogs began to stir, straining restlessly against their chain leashes.

“Now, we gonna get ’im,” Jim Ed chanted. “Yo, boy. Ho, boy. Yo, girl. Ho, Bell. C’mon, Bell.”

Bell raised her ancient head and the loose skin tumbled from her forehead to her jowls. She pushed up on her front legs and a deep, short bay cracked in her throat.

“Attay, girl, Bell. Yo, Bell. Yo.”

Bell struggled to stand on her back feet. She answered Jim Ed:
“A-ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.”

“Yo, Bell. Yo.”

The other dogs pranced and whimpered and began to sniff the ground. Bell stretched her front legs and the joints in her shoulders popped.

“Yo, Bell. Yo.” The spirit of the chase was rising in Jim Ed. “C’mon, Blue. Ho, Red. Ho, Sue.”

Jim Ed started dragging his dogs across the clearing into the edge of the swamp. Brownlee chased him in short, skipping steps.

“Where you goin’?” Brownlee yelled.

“After that there convict,” Jim Ed answered, hopscotching after his dogs.

“He ain’t no convict, Jim Ed. He’s a boy.”

“After that there boy, then.”

“You want my deputies?”

“What for?”

“Chasin’ them hounds, that’s what for.”

“Don’t need ’em. Ol’ Bell’ll get the scent and the dogs’ll follow her.”

“What’d you want us to do?”

“Nothin’,” Jim Ed called as he crossed a gully. “You hear me shoot twice with my pistol, you come runnin’.”

“Don’t you go shootin’ at that boy, Jim Ed.”

“I ain’t. Yo, Bell. Yo.”

Jim Ed and his dogs vanished into the swamp, a crashing, rushing mob of justice trumpeting its mission in a concert of yo-ing and chesty baying.

We stood and listened. Dover was tense. He leaned against the cab of his truck, his head down, and chewed on a twig. If Jim Ed’s dogs did not split and chase the trails we had planted, Dover was thinking, Freeman could be in grave trouble. Dover did not know, as Wesley and I did, that Freeman was miles away and had probably spent the afternoon wading in Beaverjam Creek. Freeman may have been in some danger, but he would not panic and if Jim Ed’s dogs did find him, it would be because he had relaxed and made a mistake.

“That’s ol’ Bell,” one of the deputies said, as a long, mournful howl rose up from the swamp. “Yessir, ol’ Bell’s got the scent.”

Dover walked to the edge of the oak shade. “Maybe that’s a rabbit they hollerin’ about,” he suggested.

“Rabbit? You don’t know nothin’ about bloodhounds, I reckon,” the deputy replied. “Ol’ Bell wouldn’t give a rabbit the time of day, if she’s on the scent.”

Dover’s face screwed tight in wrinkles. “She that good?”

The howl reached a higher octave:
“A-muuuuurrnnrrrrrrh.”

“She’s that good, mister, and that’s God’s truth. I was on a chase with Jim Ed few years back, when I was workin’ down in Elbert County, and ol’ Bell tracked Asa Miller’s oldest boy right down the middle of Elberton on a Saturday afternoon. They wrote that up in some dog magazine.”

“Well, Asa’s boy must’ve been layin’ down some kind of stink,” Brownlee argued. “That hound can’t hardly walk. No way she can track.”

“This your first time with Jim Ed, Sheriff?” the deputy asked. “You must’ve been using Wilbur Sims’ pack.”

“Yeah. Too bad Wilbur died. Them was good dogs,” Brownlee answered.

“Well, you’ll see what I mean about Jim Ed,” the deputy promised.

*

Bell howled and the howl was echoed by Blue and Red and Sue and the others. Jim Ed’s voice was an excited shriek above the low baying of his dogs.

“She’s got it,” the deputy yelled. “Yessir. Go get ’em, Bell.”

Odell Boyd fumbled with his tobacco tin of Prince Albert. His small eyes were red. He turned and walked away toward the creek, the fearful sound of a dog pack hungry after his son thundering in his mind.

For a horrible moment, I thought Dover’s plan had failed. The dogs were moving together, following a single slim path, fighting for the lead. Then, suddenly, the dogs separated, and we could hear Jim Ed screaming for them to bunch and follow Bell.

“What’s happenin’?” Brownlee asked his deputy.

“They split. Goin’ different ways.”

“Split? He had ’em leashed.”

“He takes them off when they get hold of the scent.”

“What’d they split for?”

“Don’t know,” the deputy answered, fanning his face. “Maybe the boy walked in circles.”

The dogs were delirious, each coveting a different trail and baying for the rest of the pack to follow. They sounded like children quarreling over the lordship of a game. Jim Ed’s voice was now shrill and angry, a distant cursing maniac threatening to kick in the skull of every dog in north Georgia.

Dover smiled. Otis snickered and hid his face in his hands. Alvin and R. J. laughed aloud, and Wesley said, “I didn’t know bloodhounds would split like that.”

“Well, son,” the deputy began in a grave voice, “you can’t never tell about dogs of no kind, but I’ll lay you odds ol’ Bell’s still on the true scent. Yessir, that ol’ hound don’t need them others.”

Odell Boyd walked back from the creek. He was a changed man. He whispered something to my father and my father nodded. Then my father stepped close behind Dover and said, “You got more sense than I thought you had.”

Dover grinned and drummed his ringers on the hood of his truck. “Me’n Sam Spade outghta be partners,” he declared.

My father walked away with Odell Boyd and I asked Dover, “Does my daddy know what we did?”

“Sure, he knows. Odell told him this mornin’.”

“And he’s not mad?”

“Colin, you don’t give your daddy credit. No, he’s not mad. He thought it was a good plan; didn’t think it’d work, but he liked the idea.”

We settled in the shade of the oak and listened to the confusion of bloodhounds chasing the phantom of Freeman’s scent. In an hour, the dogs were miles apart and hopelessly bewildered.

My father had walked home, permitting Wesley and me the privilege of staying until Jim Ed Felton returned, and our presence annoyed the sheriff. He slouched against the oak, scowling, and he waited for the two telltale pistol shots from Jim Ed.