Crimes in Southern Indiana (2 page)

It was as if God himself had shot the son of a bitch from the sky. But the good Lord had done no such thing to Able Kirby.

His body lay facedown, ears still ringing from the small-caliber gunfire that dotted his upper back, chest, and gut. Blood etched a path behind his work boots, leading all the way to the flaked wooden screen door of the house from which Able had stumbled.

He pressed his palms into uneven earth. Steadied himself. Tried to push his chest up as if doing a push-up only to fall flat, smelling cinder and soil with a sideways glance, remembering all the bad he'd done in this life.

He'd burned his father's home for insurance money. Shot Esther MacCullum's dog dead in front of him for a debt he owed. Forced himself upon Needle Galloway's fourteen-year-old
daughter. Opened Nelson Anderson's skull in the Leavenworth Tavern with a hammer for saying he'd ratted out Willie Dodson on a cross-county dope deal, even though he did it for the local law.

And today he'd sold his granddaughter, Knee High Audry, to the Hill Clan to whore out. Needing the extra cash to help pay for his wife Josephine's cancer medications. Yeah, he thought, I's a son of a bitch.

Josephine stood in the kitchen smelling the spoiling skin that hung loose and gray like dry rotted curtains on a rusted rod, wishing she'd stopped Able before it got this far. Thinking of how she lay in bed, night after night, listening to him worm from beneath the cloth, cross the floor, the squeak of hinges to the bedroom where their granddaughter slept. Jo would work her way out
of bed, inhaling hard and grunting, and Able would be in the kitchen getting a sip of beer by the time she passed Knee High's bedroom and made it to the kitchen. Seeing her, Able would say, “Couldn't sleep, needed me a swallow.” That's why she began sleeping with the Ruger beneath her pillow. A .22-caliber pistol she'd wielded to remove varmint and snake from the chicken house and garden. She knew
she'd grown too weak to physically do damage.

Over the years Jo pretended not to notice the glints Able made at county fairs or the grocery, eyeing the young and their parts that had taken shape. He started with Knee High while she prepared supper, did dishes, fed the chickens and gathered eggs. Jo would question him about staring and he'd told her, “She's just become womanized awful quick like.
Remember a time when you's that pretty.”

His tone had bored a lump of disgust in Jo's gut, making these comparisons of the flesh. Then came the rumors about Galloway's daughter.

Fearing the answer, Jo questioned Able about the girl. He didn't deny his actions. Reaffirmed his motivations. “Shit you think, woman, girl like that, man such as myself. She was lookin' to me first. I's just offering
is all. You bein' the shape you're in, man's got needs you can't possibly meet.”

Thirty-five years of matrimony and his words carved into the bone, panging worse than her cancer. With age, the man had been molded into a sickness she'd ignored far too long, didn't know how to deal with. And moments before, Able had come into the bedroom with a devil's grin igniting his chicken-neck face. He laid
a small brown sack loaded with crumpled bills on the bed. In his crusted eyes was a wilted cellophane glow. Their granddaughter had supposedly ridden to town with him to run an errand, and she asked, “Where's Knee High?”

Standing, Able rubbed his palms together, a trickle of sweat spitting from his brow. He tongued his lips. Looked Josephine in the eye, said, “Hear me out, Jo. You and me been
strugglin' here with your cancer meds and the boys disappearin'. Knee High needed to put more of her fair share in the coin jar. So I hocked her for cash to Pitchfork and Darnel to help pay for your meds. Let her work off the cash. Come home when all is square. Didn't see no other way 'round it.”

Josephine's jaundiced eyes cleared. She pulled out the Ruger, fingered the trigger, and buried a
round in his belly.

Should have done this long ago, she thought, could have protected her own. Her mind wondered about consequence for a split second, too late, and realized this was his and her consequence. Short of breath, propping up her old bones from the bed with the ping of joints and the lactic ache of muscle, Jo quipped, “No other way around it? Oh, they's ways around it, only I waited
too long for direction.”

Able tried to stand but hit the bedroom's hardwood in shock. Stumbled to his feet. Josephine fired a round into his shoulder. Then his chest. Able fell into the dresser, screaming. “Crazy ol' bitch!” He turned away with his hand pressed into the wet heat of his belly, the other steadying him into the next room.

Josephine's feet found her unlaced boots, disregarded the
folding wheelchair leaned against the wall. She wheeled her oxygen tank into the next room, where Able's body fell into the living room wall. She lined the pistol up with his chest, her grip unsteady as her vision. She pulled the trigger. “Shit!” he squealed. Another circle of red pressed through his white T-shirt, with the wall guiding him into another room.

Now she balanced herself on the silver
oxygen tank's wheeled frame. Inhaled air from the clear tube that forked into her nostrils from the fire-extinguisher-size tank and asked herself how Able could sell their fourteen-year-old granddaughter to the Hill Clan like livestock. Sell Knee High to the likes of those two cutthroats, Pitchfork and Darnel Crase.

Able and she had just lost their two sons, Dodo and Uhl, Knee High's daddy. They'd
run off, always up to no good. Left the house late one evening months ago. Never returned. Neglecting responsibility. Leaving Able and her to raise Audry, who would now be forced to offer her teenage self with womanlike curves to wasted feed sacks of broken-down men for dirty wads of paper.

Josephine steadied her sunken yellow eyes, squeezing the handgrip of the Ruger in her right hand, knowing
in the back of her mind she needed to get out that damn door and end Able's sickness before it ended her.

 

One of the shots bounced around inside Able till it severed a nerve, caused his legs to lose their flow.

Behind him he heard the creak of the screen door. Lungs clawing for air. Wheels and boots scraping the ground. Josephine's voice. “Hope you find the good Lord's soil comfortin', 'cause
that's the only comfort you gonna get.”

Trying to contract his leg muscles, Able's body throbbed cold. He gritted his teeth. Blinked tears from his eyes, “Dammit, Jo, hold on. We need that money. Once she's worked it off we'd get her back.”

Josephine's movements grew in pitch till her syllables towered over Able. “Get her back? She's our grandchild. A human bein'. Unlike yourself.” Able dug
at the soil, twisted his neck, made out Josephine's outline, and he begged, “Help me, Jo, can't even feel—”

Tiny flashes of fire erupted around what Able believed to be Josephine. His mouth moved but his words were unheard within his head. Cramps bounced up his back, into his neck just like the black that replaced feeling inside his body. Josephine stood with the gun empty, tiny brass scattered
around her. Seeing no movement from Able, knowing he was dead, that she'd ended the sickness she'd ignored far too long, she'd no idea how to get Knee High back home.

One of the man's hands gripped Audry's wrists above her head. Forced them to the ground. She bucked her pelvis up. Wanted him off of her. The other hand groped the rounded shapes beneath her soiled wifebeater. Her eyes clasped. Held tears. The man's tobacco-stained lips and bourbon breath dragged against her neck.

“Like that…don't you?”

The man's name was Melvin. He'd
the scent of coagulated chicken swelled in three days of hundred-degree heat. He'd paid four hundred crumpled bills to the Hill Clan for three hours with Knee High Audry.

Knee High lay between the rows of corn that shadowed her goat-milk complexion. Unwashed shoulder-length hair the hue of burned tires fanned out in matted clumps. Melvin grunted. Knee High's thoughts darted to how her ride with
Able to run an errand had been detoured to seeing men about money in another county. Where a man named Darnel laughed, told Able, “Ain't you a taste of treason. Sell out your two boys, this girl's daddy and uncle, to Sheriff Sig. Now you's swindlin' your granddaughter to us. Shit, you've pretty much snitched out half the county for Sig.”

Able nodded, said, “Need money, cancer meds ain't cheap
for the wife.”

Darnel passed a sack to Able and told him, “Nor is your taste for the booze.”

Knee High watched Able thumb through the brown sack of bills. Trying to decipher Darnel's words, not realizing what was transpiring, her brain ignited with confusion and anger. Her daddy and Uncle Dodo had run off. The only speech she could muster wasn't to Able, it was to Darnel, and she shouted, “Where's
my daddy and my uncle?”

Darnel chuckled, his sight boring into her like two hollow points, and he said, “Dead and buried.”

She looked to Able to correct this. He stood silently holding the sack of money, digging his hand into it, and she demanded, “What'd you do, Granddad, what'd you do?”

It was Darnel who responded. “He did the same to them that he's done to you.” Knee High reached for Able,
wanting to shake answers from his hide. He stepped back, still counting the money as she questioned him. “What's he saying, Granddad?” And before she could wrap her mind around what was transpiring, Darnel's talcum grip restrained her. She twisted away from him and he backhanded her and said, “He sold you to me and my brother to satisfy the men of our county.”

She tongued blood from her lip as
he drew her to a room where wallpaper was smeared by tea stains and soured skin. The last thing she saw before the door slammed and bolted shut was Able turning his back, walking out the same way they'd entered.

She beat on the pine door, trying to fathom these things Able had done, trying to understand what Darnel meant, saying Able had sold out her daddy and uncle to Sheriff Sig. And why Able
had traded her for a sack of money to pay for her grandmother's cancer medications. The man named Darnel told her it was “to satisfy men.” She understood she'd been sold for sex. But her grandmother Jo would never have agreed to such a thing.

Her arms and fists swelled and hardened as she sat barefoot on the floor, crying, a broken-down mattress quilted by a sheet once white lying gray and sticky
behind her. She held her knees and rocked back and forth for what seemed like hours, realizing her daddy and uncle were dead because of Able. Then came the roar of a vehicle's engine outside. The slamming of a door. Men speaking, saying, “Four hundred. She's in yonder. Take your time. We got people to tend.” Feet trampled out of the house, an engine fired up and became distant. The sound of metal
unlatched on the bedroom door's opposite side. A towering stranger entered. Kneeled down in his cutoff red flannel, smiled with teeth caked by tobacco, and ran a finger tainted by motor oil down her cheek, told her, “Call me Melvin.”

He grasped her firm arms, lifted her to her feet, guided her backwards toward the bedding. In his eyes she made out the same sick lust she'd tried to ignore in her
grandfather over the months as she did chores around the house, and she pleaded, “No.” He slapped her. She turned with the strike, dodged his reach, and ran out of the room to the entrance and then out of the house.

Melvin followed, tackled her down in the field between the rows of feed corn. Punched her, tore her shorts and panties from her. Unbuckled his pants, made the grainy earth their bedding.

Now all she wanted was to survive, but he was bigger than she was, stronger. She had to pretend, to be a chameleon. Thought of men and women. Affection and a neighbor boy who'd kissed her, brushed his tongue into her ear. Remembered the spark and chill that ran down her spine and dimpled her body from this gesture. She wiggled her ton gue into Melvin's ear, tasted the disgusting flavor of a toad
floured in fresh manure. His lips forced into hers, busted and bloody. “That a girl.” He released her hands. She crimped her eyes closed, groped Melvin's bare bushy ass. Wanted to vomit as his heated breath in her ear moaned, “Oh pretty.” She tickled a path with her left hand down over the hump of his bareness. Felt the waistline of his pants, followed the leather belt to the hard handle he wore
on his side. Thumbed the snap loose. Unsheathed a wicked curve of steel.

Knee High's mouth engulfed Melvin's ear on one side. She dug the blade into his neck on the other. Pulled it out as her teeth ripped tissue and cartilage from skull. He jerked into his shoulder, shouted, “Little fuckin'—” She didn't allow him to finish, drove the knife into his throat. He gargled. Collapsed atop her like
warm molasses. His breathing slowed to a stop. Her fingers pulled at the earth. Dragging herself from beneath the degenerate beast, she stood, spat out Melvin's ear. Her chest and legs blood-covered and vibrating. Bottomless, she ran down the row of corn toward the house she'd escaped from. Hoping Darnel and Pitchfork were still gone, hoping their business wasn't finished.

She wanted to go home.
Tell her grandmother Jo all the awful Granddad Able had done. How he'd sold out her daddy and uncle to Sheriff Sig, gotten them killed. Do the same awful to Able that she'd done to Melvin.

Corn leaves like miniature razors cut her face and arms. Her bare feet pounded the row's soil. Met the green grass. Yellowed heat from the sun led her to the house's fly-decorated screen door. Karl, one of
the Hill Clan's boys, stood on the other side, surprised Knee High—she'd not seen him when she'd arrived earlier—and he screamed, “The shit?”

Karl pushed the door open. Got his left leg out. Knee High dropped the weight of her body against it. Trapped him in between jamb and door. He hollered, “You bitch!” Fell backwards into the house.

Knee High turned in a panic. Ran toward a weathered corncrib
where wood was split and piled. Heard the screen door slam behind her. Felt boots on her bare heels. Nearing the split wood, Knee High was grabbing for a piece when she saw the handle. Both hands met it just as Karl's words struck the rear of her head. “Gonna beat and fuck your ass all in the same—” Knee High heft ed, whirled around with the double-sided axe that was almost as long as she was
tall. Finding the left side of Karl's rib cage. Cutting off his words. The sound the axe made going in was godawful, but when she pulled it out to finish him, the sound he made was damning. Like a dog chasing and biting at a passing car's tires only to have its bark replaced by the crunch of its skull between rubber and pavement. He dropped to his knees in shock. Knee High stepped back. Swung. Karl
fell wordless to the warm earth.

In the house she trembled. Irvine, the other son of the Hill Clan, was gone. Knee High was blood and stink from head to toe. The bones of her crusted hands jumped as she fought the moisture that bubbled in her eyes and shock that rifled through her mind. In a panic she searched for clothing to cover herself with. Discovered an old dress scented with mothballs
in a closet, worked it over her battered body.

Outside she found Melvin's keys in the ignition of his red Dodge truck. Magazines lined the floor with photos of young girls. Wadded rags and paper. Crunched cans of Miller and empty pints of Wild Turkey. Knee High turned the key. The engine coughed to life. She shifted into drive. Stomped the gas.

 

What the Hill Clan found at the house was Melvin
between rows of corn. A mess about his neck, knife protruding from it. Karl out by the pile of wood next to the corncrib. A bloody axe. His head an unrecognized shade of dead. To them it looked as though they'd paid for the Wisconsin serial murderer Ed Gein's daughter.

Now, pulling down Able Kirby's long gravel drive, Pitchfork chewed on rage. His brother Darnel wanted to watch Knee High bleed
and beg. They rounded the curve, saw Melvin's red truck.

“Told you the cunt got nowheres to go.”

“We kill her we out of thirty grand.”

“Able still got it.”

On the creek-rock steps, flies shared the bloated corpse of Able Kirby. Several buzzards circled overhead.

“So much for Able.”

“Must've pissed off Jo.”

“He's plenty dead.”

The inside of the house sat silent as a child in sleep. Pitchfork's
and Darnel's tones echoed from vinyl-papered walls and ceiling. Nothing in the kitchen, or the dining room. The upstairs was devoid of sound or body. Knee High's room, untouched. Just framed black-and-white family photos of times past. Men, women, and children. Able, Jo. The two Pitchfork had murdered. They walked through the living room. Pitchfork carried a .45, Darnel a blackjack. Darnel
stepped toward two wooden doors that connected in the center. Reached to divide them, slide both doors open. Called out, “You in there, Knee High, you gonna pay us back double in front of Jo. One after the next.”

The doors parted. Josephine sat in a tarnished chrome wheelchair. A clear hose wishboned into her nares, offering air from a nickel-colored cylinder on the floor beside her. The barrel
of a Remington 11 semiautomatic was leveled not even ten feet from Darnel's chest. Her one eye closed, the other open, the two men in shooting view.

Knee High stood beside Josephine, trying to steady the 4-10 she'd locked, cocked, and readied to fire while the horror of what had happened rattled her nerves.

Darnel raised the scarred flesh of both hands, palms facing the females, the blackjack
held by his thumb. “Hold on, you two—”

Josephine skipped not a syllable. “You hold on, Darnel. What you done is devilry.”

Darnel said, “Wasn't just us—”

The next sound deafened even God himself. Jo's bones splintered from the .12-gauge's kick. Darnel's right knee segmented into red-white jelly chunks slung about the hardwood. Pitchfork dropped his .45 and caught Darnel, who dropped the blackjack.

Josephine rasped, “You's right, it was the whole Hill Clan.”

Darnel slobbered and gritted his teeth. “Your Knee High killed my boy.”

Knee High leveled the 4-10 down to Darnel's face with a slight jerk. “That'd make us almost even.” She paused. Shifted her eyes toward Jo. Swallowed. Continued, “Seeing as you all killed my daddy and my uncle Dodo.”

Hearing Knee High's words, Jo's finger pulsed
against the .12-gauge's trigger. Her vision blacked everything around the men who'd killed her two boys that she'd believed to have run off. Bringing all their awful to fruition.

Not knowing if she would, Knee High said, “Let it be, Grandma Jo, let it be.”