The Blackstone Commentaries (33 page)

He had felt moments of actual panic on the trip back from Alabama, but they'd always been overcome by the startling insistence, the logic, of what he knew he must do. Now there was no more time. “Elmore,” he corrected himself. Yes, Elmore. He and Elmore's father had been on a first-name basis, after all, good friends, and he was still who he was, no matter what had happened or was about to. The formal greeting was forced, not what he would ordinarily have done. He was so damn self-conscious now. Yes, he was the elder, too—a formality, if nothing else. This was not about being hangdog, God knew.
It took damn near a week to get here!

Elmore remained frozen at the point he'd caught sight of Dugan, revenant-like in the shadows. Though not in uniform, Dugan was impeccably dressed in pressed khaki pants and shirt. The Stetson hung at his side. No weapon.

It was Elmore's face, a large, dark and still-ugly bruise showing on the right cheekbone just below the eye, that held Dugan's attention. Despite Elmore's stillness, there was plenty of subtle motion in his mouth, an evolving, uncontrollable distaste. But no fear.
Good,
Dugan thought, more relieved than he'd expected. A lot of anger, though—he could feel it almost twenty feet away.

“I'm sorry to come on you like this,” Dugan said, his soft cadence swimming through the light in defiance of his size. “I've been away. I was on my way home and thought I'd stop by.” But that sounded empty and foolish.
This man hates me
. An occupational hazard if the man were a criminal, but this one wasn't.

Elmore shook his head violently, as though trying to shake free of something. Dugan half expected him to raise his hands to hold him back. But he didn't, and the eyes never left him. Dugan saw that the fury only grew.

Again they were silent, Dugan thinking some men would be cringing deep beneath that anger. He would see it, understand it, quite possibly regret it, regret the change, the permanent memory and disillusion he would have brought about.

“I have no time for you, Dugan. Not now. Not ever.”

“I only need a minute.”

“No. But I will say this: I've made a vow. Not you or anyone else will ever catch me drunk like that again. For my own protection.” He started toward his office.

He and I have got to talk if I'm going to get out of here, if I'm ever going to live with myself again!
But even as Dugan thought that, he found himself again battling hopelessness and defeat, the very reason he'd fled Blackstone County days before—fleeing to Alabama to see where he came from, to touch his fire again, only to find scattered embers, the people he'd known gone, the place simply a familiar landscape haunted by memories. And the very reason he'd come to the Trotter Building now. He tried to imagine himself beating a retreat around the far side of those stairs.
No
.
So he just said it: “If you wish, I'll resign.”

Elmore cocked his head in disbelief. “I don't think I heard that.”

“You did.” And Dugan waited for the expected answer, the answer he knew had to be forthcoming, for how could it be otherwise? He'd prepared himself for it over a couple of hundred miles or so, prepared himself to accept it with grace, not hangdog submission, for it was only right. But to his amazement, the other man's fury began to subside right before him. In a gesture of profound fatigue, Elmore lowered his head while Dugan watched, bewildered.

After a moment, Elmore looked up. Meeting Dugan's gaze as steadily as before—though the look in his eyes was different, older somehow, and tired, and more quiet, too—he asked, “Do you
want
to resign?”

Dugan hadn't anticipated being asked that question, though he'd asked it of himself. Now he felt a flush of self-betrayal as his heart leaped at what might be a reprieve.
That's not what I came here for!
he chided himself, and for a moment was speechless and thoroughly confused. “What I did, Elmore,” he said finally, “was inexcusable, as an officer of the law and as a person trying to live honestly. I will resign if you wish, and you'd be right to ask. I've thought hard about all this.”

“But you haven't resigned. Do you
want
to?”

Damn him!
“I will!”

“If I want you to, is that correct?”

They let that squat between them for a moment, then Dugan spoke again. “I believe I still have a job I can do, if that's what you mean.” But he could get no farther. Unable now to hide his agitation, he was reminded of Elmore's father's unflinching scrutiny.
It is rightfully his decision
.

“Yes, you still have Pemberton dangling. It would look bad if you resigned, but I don't believe you can win that case, whatever its merits. This whole place stinks of violence, Dugan—frustration, rage and violence. And you're an integral part.”

Don't even think about despising me on those grounds, boy. You haven't earned that, not yet. You haven't begun to grab onto the nature of what it is you purport to do for a living. You haven't even really tried!
But Dugan held his tongue, waiting, still stunned to find himself at the mercy of this younger man in a way he hadn't anticipated. Now, it seemed whichever way it went, he was losing. Or was he? Did it matter now? Why had he come here? He
didn't know anymore. Hadn't he already lost? Like Natty Moon. The day Natty told him about Mary Stacy, Natty's voice over the telephone was not upset so much as offended, hurt by the implied lack of respect with which he'd been treated, his hand forced, the implication being that he was better than that, that given time, a little space, he might have done the right thing and even wished to. But circumstances would not have let it be otherwise, and they both knew it. Then the silence on that phone, the waiting, the wanting back the respect.
Nothing racial, or personal
, Dugan remembered thinking.
If I have to force it out, you lose something, that's all. Everyone does
. But he'd just been doing his job. Was this what he, Dugan, had really been seeking by coming here, to be, like Natty, forgiven, absolved, freed? Made whole again? He'd never really thought about forgiveness before, the legal meaning having become such a travesty, a buyout. What right did he have to even ask? And what was he doing to himself by asking?
It is his decision, it's got to be! But what if he insists?

Elmore turned away. Wordlessly, he took the three remaining steps to his office door, pushed the key into the lock and twisted the knob. A sharp, clear light sliced into the surreal gilt of the hallway. He hesitated, slapped a hand against the doorjamb, stared at it a moment, then looked over his shoulder at Dugan. “We all have our bad days, sheriff. Don't resign on my account.”

XXXIV

Dugan

The ride from Elmore's office to the farm, a matter of about twenty minutes, took almost an hour. He hadn't felt afraid going to see Elmore; whatever happened there, he knew he'd just have to live with it. The same was true of Dru. Just he couldn't imagine living without her.

How do you not act like a child when you know you've done something wrong? It's all pride
. No, he supposed as he swung the pickup through the gate and headed slowly toward the house, the broad white porch empty under the sprawling branches of a huge oak tree, he wasn't afraid: he was dead-ass scared.

She wasn't on the porch waiting. Why on earth had he expected her to be?

She stepped out of the barn, though, as he drove by, a rubber grain bucket in one hand. She watched him pass, wiping sweat and strands of hair from her brow with the back of her free hand, leaving a streak of dirt.

He climbed down from the truck and stood by the door as she walked heavily by. Leaving the empty bucket on the bottom step, she started the climb to the porch. “Coffee?” she asked without looking around.

“Sure.”

The kitchen was in deep shadow, the field and woods beyond the windows
tinged in the deepening gold of early September. She placed two steaming mugs on the round table, dragged a plastic half-gallon of milk out of the refrigerator and put that in the middle, then sat down across from him. He poured some milk in his coffee, stirred it reflectively. Then their eyes met.

“No one ever pissed me off like you have,” she said. “Do you know why?”

“I'd be afraid to ask.”

“Don't be. A lot of men aren't so lucky.”

Neither smiled, but he could feel a neutrality now, a waiting. After a long moment, he said, “You still want to know what happened?”

“I sure do.”

He would have to look up Eddie at some point, and go back to the office, but without this …

Once you see yourself clearly, even for a moment
, he supposed,
you've already shifted ground; you can never return to what you were, even if you want to
. Which he didn't, Lord knew. But when he'd walked back into his office the next day, they'd acted like he'd never been gone. No one had asked anything, not a word. He'd seen then that, like children, they didn't want to know, even if he wanted to tell them, which he didn't. They'd seemed the same, except for a pronounced caution around him, like they wanted to whisper, like they were afraid of him. Which he hated. It had been going on for two days.

Like now. Trainor had looked in his office door at least five times in as many minutes but hurried past every time. Maybe he would feel better raising his hand, like this was school. “What's on your mind, Junior?” Dugan finally called out.

Junior shot right in. “Sheriff, seeing you've been away and all, did you know Skinner's working down at the chicken factory?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Yessir, he's living out there in Little Zion at that Willow Run trailer park of Winn Reedy's, fancy trailer and all, and driving trucks to New York twice a week.”

A couple of weeks ago, he would have gone into a rage, hearing that.
Now Dugan looked up at the deputy, his hair slicked back and strange looking—unaccustomed as it was to being out from under a campaign hat—and folded his hands, waiting.
I don't feel a damn thing
.

“Yessir, sheriff, he's driving that old four-cycle, twin-screw Mack, the one Buzzard Hardy used to drive before he had his heart attack.”

“That right?” Dugan felt downright affable.

“Well, I heard they gave him that Detroit two-cycle right off, the one so underpowered they say the only way to approach it is to slam your hand in the door as you get in, to get in the mood.” Junior grinned.

Dugan smiled. That particular truck
was
legendary, like a bad horse.

“Then they promoted him to that Mack diesel, but it ain't got no air, just a little fan, you see, so I heard he got pulled over on I-81 near Roanoke last week wearing nothing but his skivvies, trying to keep cool. Trooper made him climb right down on the highway there while he looked over the log and did the safety check. Made him stand out there in his skivvies and brogans a good twenty minutes, too, cars whizzing by full of families and all.” Junior couldn't hold it in anymore, a sound exploding from his mouth that Dugan recognized as a cross between a snort and outright laughter.

“Now, where did you hear that, Junior?”

“Well, sheriff, Martin Dobrie, my wife's brother-in-law, got a cousin's a trooper up there in Virginia, and of course Skinner's driving a Damascus Chicken truck.”

Which left Dugan thinking about the silver reefers that passed through town daily, forty-footers, some old enough the insulation was breaking down, not to mention the leaks, “Damascus Chicken” in big blue letters down the sides—“Our chickens ride in air-conditioned comfort!” Processed chickens, thirty thousand pounds a load, “How's my driving?” on the left rear door.

“He's also been down at Puma Wardell's place a lot with a fellow called Grady Snipes, rides a big Harley, works up at that Sentry power project. Me and J. B. been keeping our eye on Puma,” Junior said.

Poor Puma. Not a bad sort for an outlaw, really. Dugan recalled the last day of the fair. He'd been there to see the resurrection, and even now blushed fiercely at the memory of how badly he'd handled that. But before they disinterred that boy, he'd wandered over to the ring to watch the last bout between Puma and old Red. A thousand people must have been
there, and a whole contingent of preachers in shirts and ties, already looking sweaty, whether from their attempt to expunge sin from the girlie tent or the approaching final battle between God and science, he didn't know.

“Puma, you finally gonna whup that monkey?” people shouted. Puma, the old football helmet mashed on his head, its flaps sticking out, a trucker's kidney belt cinched around the better part of his belly like a corset, gave the crowd a big smile and a thumbs-up.

Then Dugan watched Puma's hind end rear way up as he bent over the line of scrimmage on God's fourth down. The next thing anyone knew, that man from Georgia pulled the handle to open Red's cage, and Puma was boiling across the ring. Before that monkey was barely out, Puma had it by the knees and was dragging himself around behind to bite it on the ass. Never had Dugan heard such a scream of surprise and outrage as that monkey made, before it climbed on Puma's head and loosed its bowels.