Dangerous Undertaking (5 page)

“‘That’s Roddey,’ he said. ‘The finest friend I ever had.’ He held the rifle in one hand and removed his hat with the other. Tears ran along the creases in his weathered cheeks. ‘Am I goin’ to have to dig this hole bigger?’

“My heart stopped. I must have gone white as a sheet. I don’t know what kept me from passing out and falling into the hole. I felt my knees start to give on me and my hands were shaking so much I could hardly get the Bible open.” Pace smiled at the memory.

Looking at the white-haired preacher with a staff in his hand and pistol in his belt, I found it hard to imagine him as once being terrified.

“But I found passages of Scripture I didn’t know I could find. We went through the birds of the air, beasts of the field, lions laying down with lambs, anything that had an animal, I read.

“Then I prayed for Ol’ Roddey—the finest dog that ever lived. It was somewhere in the prayer—two prayers actually, the vocal one for Roddey, the silent one for me—that I heard him uncock the gun. I said a few more ‘Thank you, Lords’ from the bottom of my heart and we committed Roddey’s carcass back to the mountain.”

Reverend Pace shook his head, then started walking again, carefully placing his rhododendron stick on the crossties. “Yeah, we covered Roddey up and the old man asked me into the cabin. He and I shared some corn—liquor that is,” he added with a chuckle. “As a Methodist, I considered it medicine to calm my nerves. Only then did he tell me his name. Jake McGraw.

“You see, Barry, I’d performed a spiritual function for Jake no one in my seminary class could have imagined. I was an outsider, but Jake McGraw needed me. Praying over Roddey was doing the Lord’s work. I understand that now. After that, Ol’ Jake came down every Sunday and sat on the back corner of the back bench. He was still a strange old hermit, but in his own way, he gave me a stamp of approval. Believe me, it didn’t go unnoticed by the other mountain folk. In a year, Hickory Nut Falls was my largest congregation. Today, there is a church there instead of a chicken coop. And a parking lot too.

“Ten years later, your dad and I buried Jake beside Ol’ Roddey. And I swear at the final ‘Amen,’ a coon dog howled from the mountain top.”

“Yeah, right,” I laughed. “You’re doing a number on me.”

“It’s true,” said Pace. “You can ask Charlie. He was a friend of Jake’s.”

The preacher pointed to a break in the bordering pines. I saw a field sloping away from us. Halfway down the hillside, a massive workhorse plodded along. Behind him, with both hands guiding the wooden plow, a skinny man in blue bib-overalls stepped over the clods of freshly turned earth. The old guy was eighty if a day.

“That’s Charlie Hartley,” said Pace.

“Don’t believe I know him.”

“Well, you’re about to.” He swung the walking stick in the air and caught the farmer’s attention. The man pulled back on the reins and hollered “whoa-up.” The gentle beast lumbered to a halt and snorted his displeasure. He shook his head, twisting his neck around the sweat-stained collar to roll an eye toward the barn at the far end of the field.

“Charlie’s never had a tractor touch his soil. Got no use for them. His horses are his children.” The preacher left the railroad tracks and started across the field. “Come on,” he said. “Rude not to talk a spell.”

“Hello, Reverend,” said Charlie. He wiped the sweat from his hands with a red bandanna and grasped Pace’s right one with both of his own. “Good to see you.” He looked me over. “They finally get you some help?” he asked Pace.

The Reverend laughed. “Yeah, but he ain’t it. This is Barry Clayton. He’s Jack Clayton’s boy. Barry got shot up at the Willard funeral last week.”

“Heard something about that,” he said with a nod. “You work with your pa?”

“They don’t call me Buryin’ Barry for nothing.”

The old man didn’t crack a smile at the joke I’d been saddled with since junior high. He turned to his horse like Pace had turned to me.

“This is Ned. He’s paying for his pleasure. Told him last February he shouldn’t have jumped Nell. With her foaling just a couple months off, it’s just him and me to ready the winter field.” He turned and lectured the animal. “Remember that next spring ’fore you go mountin’ your plowmate.”

The horse flipped his tail as if to say “lay off.” Charlie chuckled at the big stallion’s rebuttal. “Course you are giving me a grandchild of sorts. Guess I should be grateful.” He reached into his shirt pocket for a sugar cube, and, as the horse took the treat, Charlie scratched the coarse hair between his dapple ears.

“What are you fellows doing walking in on the Hope Quarry spur?”

“Guess you didn’t know Dallas Willard’s still missing,” said Pace.

“Nope. Ain’t been to town since Monday.”

“He hasn’t been seen since the shooting. Then his truck shows up yesterday by the railroad about two miles south of where the quarry spur splits off. Search parties spent today combing half the county.”

“Anything I can do?”

“We could use your phone to check in. After we walk down to the quarry.”

“How much farther is it?” I asked.

“Couple hundred yards,” said the preacher.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “You call the sheriff’s office.”

“I’ll take Ned to the stall,” said Charlie. “Come get me when you’re ready.”

On my return, I walked into the shadows of the old barn. The sound of my footsteps died in the carpet of brown hay strewn over the dry, packed earth. The rich pungent odor of manure, sweat, and feed rose up like a barricade. I stopped for a moment while my eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Against the golden backdrop of the barn’s open rear door, I saw the motionless silhouettes of Reverend Pace and Charlie. They sat on barrels and watched the mare drink from her water trough. The barn odor mellowed into an aroma of age. With reluctance, I intruded upon their silent pleasure.

“I didn’t find anything,” I said. “You talk to Tommy Lee?”

“Yeah, patched through the two-way radio. Nothing.”

“Great day in the morning,” muttered Charlie. “What’s the sheriff planning?”

“To keep looking at least through the weekend,” said Pace. “It’s about all he can do. National Park Rangers have agreed to scout park land at Montgomery Rock and Black Bear Bluff. Sheriff’s got a couple of the mountain families to do the same on their own land. He hopes somebody will find some sign. Maybe a campfire. Dallas could be lost if he wandered too far into the gorges.”

Charlie Hartley kicked the dirt with his work boot. “Tarnation. He’s a local boy who knows these hills as well as anybody. He’s been up and down them since he could crawl. He ain’t lost. If he ain’t dead, he’s bad hurt. Dogs. Ought to bring in dogs.”

“Tried that,” I said. “Tommy Lee got the SBI to bring them to the truck. No use. Nothing for the dogs to follow. Scent ended at the tracks. Said Dallas may as well have caught a train.”

“Maybe he hopped a freight,” said Charlie.

“Railroad told Tommy Lee that would be impossible,” I said. “It’s not a crossing, and they’re usually going thirty-five to forty miles an hour. SBI ran aerial surveillance over the tracks, but it’s not as effective as walking the ground, which is what I guess we’d better get back to doing.”

Pace stood and clasped a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Take care of Nell, you hear.”

“You come up and see her colt.”

“Sure. I kiss all the new babies.”

Pace picked up his walking stick and followed me out of the barn, leaving Charlie to lean against the stall and admire his mare.

I knew something was wrong as soon as Pace and I got to the funeral home. From the high corner eaves, the spotlights blazed even though the sky still held the last purple rays of twilight. They were the sign of official business, the illumination for visitors and mourners going to and from the circle of grief.

“Uncle Wayne told me nothing was scheduled for this Saturday night,” I said. “That’s why we invited you to stay over.”

Pace glanced at me as he slowed my Jeep to a crawl.

“Maybe you’ve got company,” he said.

We saw the old blue pickup with dented aluminum camper-top parked at the edge of the pavement. Next to it was a rusted Chevy Nova. “No, not the social kind,” I answered. “And I don’t see Uncle Wayne’s car. I’d better not leave until we know what’s going on.”

We walked through the side yard to the back porch off the kitchen. My mother bustled out of the door, waving her arms in frantic ellipses, her plump body bobbing up and down as she exhorted us into the house.

“Oh, Barry,” she whispered. “It’s awful. Just awful. And Wayne’s not back from looking for Dallas Willard.”

Pace gently held her by the shoulders to calm her. “It’s all right, Connie. Tell us what happened.”

Her voice quivered and she blinked back tears. “They brought him in the back of a truck. Wouldn’t even call for the ambulance.”

“Who, Connie?”

“The mother and father. And a neighbor too. He was just a boy. An eight-year-old boy.”

“You’d better go on in, Barry,” said Pace. “We’ll be there in a moment.”

As I entered the foyer, I heard whispered voices coming from the viewing room on the left, the one more comfortably called the Slumber Room. I was surprised that Mom had not left the family across the hall in the living room where the homey, informal atmosphere could put the relatives more at ease as they discussed funeral arrangements. The Slumber Room was reserved for visitation when the family greeted friends and neighbors coming to extend sympathy.

A young woman sat hunched in a straight-backed chair, her face buried in her hands. She wore a threadbare cotton dress and should have added at least a sweater or a jacket for the autumn chill. At her side stood a slender man whose face still bore the marks of adolescent acne. His jeans hung on his hipless body like rags on an understuffed scarecrow. His brown eyes were puffed with red circles, and though the tears no longer flowed, he had to clear his throat before he could speak.

“You Mr. Clayton?” he asked, skeptical of my youthful appearance. “We were told to ask for Jack Clayton.” What little weight he had he shifted from foot to foot in nervous agitation. The woman looked up and stared through me, revealing a thin face with translucent skin. Her features could be taken as childlike from a distance, but the sunken eyes and flat cheekbones told of age beyond her years.

“No, I’m his son, Barry.”

“Then would you find him,” ordered a voice from the back of the room.

Out of the shadows where the dark green drapes hung behind the casket viewing area stepped a man. Light first caught his brown hair, scraggly and dirty, dropping over his shoulders like twisted strands of Spanish moss. The face had a gray pallor, created by unshaven stubble. His pale blue eyes looked out of place beneath heavy dark-brown eyebrows that merged together over his sharp, hooked nose. He raised an oversized black Bible in one hand, letting the scuffed leather cover fall open as if he expected the words themselves to leap from the page.

“The Lord has need of him,” he proclaimed. He swept the Bible in a wide arc toward the couple. “There is nothing more we can do but praise His Holy Name.”

The woman shook with silent sobs.

“My father is ill,” I said. “I’ll take care of things.”

Beyond the path of the Bible, I saw the child lying on the low oak pedestal where a casket would rest. The small body was stretched out, hands across the chest, face slightly canted toward the wall as if a mischievous boy mocked the solemnity of the grown-ups. I pushed past the Bible-toting neighbor and stood over the child. Dull quarters rested on his eyes, opaque monocles closing out a world filled with new wonder. With my good arm, I lifted them from his face one at a time. There was no need for such nonsense. The child’s eyes were shut forever.

“Those are mine,” said the belligerent man.

The coins slipped from my fingers and scattered across the hardwood floor. The Bible slammed shut as the man chased after his money. Other footsteps sounded from the hall, and I heard Reverend Pace’s gentle voice introducing himself. The father responded “Luke and Harriet Coleman” and the other man said “Leroy Jackson.” Then the murmur of conversation blended into a background hum as I focused all my attention on the boy. The sneakers a size too big, yet worn enough to have belonged to someone before him. Jeans rolled up in double cuffs, patches at the knees. A brown belt with scratched silver buckle shaped like a cowboy’s six-shooter. A sweatshirt decorated with a montage of Saturday morning super-heroes, animals or aliens, I didn’t know which, but a new cast of characters that had become the coveted property of eight-year-olds.