Kings Of The Earth Part 15

Donna welled up some, you could tell. She had a lace handkerchief in her sleeve and she pulled it out early on. That husband of hers was no help to her whatsoever. DeAlton, his name is. He and his son-I ought to say their son their son, I guess, but he seems to take after the father-he and his son didn't seem overly distressed. They both had what I would describe as a little bit of an att.i.tude. Even at a funeral. It was as if they would rather have been somewhere else and they didn't mind your knowing it.

Audie was the one who got overcome, and he got overcome enough for the whole family. I don't know exactly what his problem is. He doesn't have epilepsy, and I don't think he has what they call a seizure disorder, but there's definitely some kind of a fit that comes over him. That's about the only word for it, although the older generation might call it a spell. An episode. The cliche is to say that a person shakes like a leaf but in his case it's the truth. It's a terrifying thing to watch. You think you should do something for him. I've wondered if it might have anything to do with the trouble he has communicating. Maybe if he could just say what's on his mind everything wouldn't get all bottled up and have to shake itself loose the way it does. That's how it seems to me, although I guess it's not a very scientific way of looking at it.

Lester.

THE FIRST INDIVIDUAL to work this earth was the first to lie beneath it and it came to pa.s.s in the same way for his sons after him, the first to work it the first to end his work. Vernon Proctor was brought home and lowered down already half decomposed, preserved and dipped and shot through with chemicals sufficient to last forever, but already cut to pieces and thus well on his way. The casket was closed and the truth went unspoken. The mere facts of life and death. If everyone knows a thing, then why say it. to work this earth was the first to lie beneath it and it came to pa.s.s in the same way for his sons after him, the first to work it the first to end his work. Vernon Proctor was brought home and lowered down already half decomposed, preserved and dipped and shot through with chemicals sufficient to last forever, but already cut to pieces and thus well on his way. The casket was closed and the truth went unspoken. The mere facts of life and death. If everyone knows a thing, then why say it.

1989.

Tom.

NOT LONG PAST SUPPERTIME on a sunny day in the middle of September, Tom was in the hayloft and the hayloft was heaven. A light and steady breeze drifted in through one open door and out through the other, keeping the hanging stems in constant motion. Like palm fronds being waved over a pharaoh's bald head by half-naked slave girls. That was how it seemed to him. The temperature was perfect for both man and marijuana, and the air smelled good up here too, like lush green plants and fresh cool breezes from somewhere else and money. Mixed with the smells of cows and cow manure from downstairs, but you couldn't have everything. on a sunny day in the middle of September, Tom was in the hayloft and the hayloft was heaven. A light and steady breeze drifted in through one open door and out through the other, keeping the hanging stems in constant motion. Like palm fronds being waved over a pharaoh's bald head by half-naked slave girls. That was how it seemed to him. The temperature was perfect for both man and marijuana, and the air smelled good up here too, like lush green plants and fresh cool breezes from somewhere else and money. Mixed with the smells of cows and cow manure from downstairs, but you couldn't have everything.

He'd put in a long couple of days getting the buds trimmed and the stems hung out on clothesline and the rest of it, the tender little stuff, set out to dry on screens that he and his father had dragged back from the munic.i.p.al dump in Ca.s.sius. DeAlton had worried that it was going to be too hot up in the loft but they didn't have much in the way of alternatives and the results for the last few years had been plenty fine hadn't they so that was that. Even DeAlton Poole couldn't very well argue with success. Besides, if today was any indication of how the next few weeks would go, the weather was going to be perfect. Absolutely primo primo.

He squatted in the doorway and looked down, watching his uncles going about their work like ants. Mindless and automatic and driven by something even they couldn't fully understand. Audie and Vernon had been out in the high field since sunup, harvesting corn for silage. Creed had been mending the fence up by the graveyard. Somewhere in the pit of his heart Tom allowed himself a little throb of grat.i.tude for everything they did, by which he meant how they went about the hard work of practically starving to death around this desolate place. Without them, where would he be? Nowhere, that's where. Or at the very least out in the open, which was as good as being in the state penitentiary.

He held on to the doorframe and leaned out into the open air and craned his neck either way. The sun was getting low over the Marshall property down the hill to the west, and Nick was still nowhere in sight. Late as usual. That was all right. The work he'd done in the hayloft might look even better once the shadows came up with the dusk. It'd be like a jungle in there, all spooky and mysterious. It would seem to go up and up forever, and all those hanging stems whispering. That would be good. He stood up to stretch his legs and thought about climbing down the ladder to put a nice tidy little joint on Uncle Vernon's chair for later. The poor old b.a.s.t.a.r.d was getting so he shook so much that if you gave him a Baggie he just spilled it all over his lap, so Tom had started rolling them for him. There was less waste that way. Plus it was kind of the least he could do, if you thought about it.

Nick got there just after sundown and once he'd climbed the ladder he went weaving around the hayloft like a kid on his first trip to Disney World, maybe taking in that Haunted Mansion they have. Looking straight up into the shadows with his mouth sprung wide open, positively thrilled to death. Tom said buddy what you're looking at up there is fifty-dollar bills and Nick said I know it and I'm smelling them too and Tom said that's right. That's right you are. You're smelling a barnful of fifty-dollar bills. Hundred-dollar bills too. Just give it time.

Nick said wait till Henri hears about all this and Tom said since when does Henri need to know anything about it. I don't work for Henri. Nick said we got an arrangement with Henri and Tom said we got an arrangement between the two of us last time I checked. Henri doesn't need to know every G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing I do. Nick dropped it and went on mooning around the hayloft, his head thrown all the way back, sniffing the air like a cat after its supper. The floor was covered with a layer of dirt and woodchips and sawdust and the leavings of a million bales of hay, and his engineer boots made tracks in it. From the loopy way he was following his nose around, Tom thought his trail looked like the one that that little cartoon kid in the newspaper makes, on Sundays when the guy who draws him can't seem to come up with an actual joke.

Tom pulled a Baggie out of his pocket. There was some loose dope in there along with a couple of joints. He offered it to Nick, telling him that this was about the last of his own personal stash left over from last year's crop. He was welcome to it in case he needed a reminder. Nick said no he didn't need a reminder but yes he would take that Baggie off his hands if he didn't mind. It'd be his pleasure.

They sat in the high doorway with their legs dangling and they smoked the first joint and they watched the night come on.

"Of course we're going to have to adjust our arrangement a little," Tom said after a while. His father had given him that word, adjust. Adjust adjust. Adjust was easier for a person to swallow than was easier for a person to swallow than change change or or fix fix or or renegotiate renegotiate or whatever else he might have come up with. Adjusting was what a person did to the vertical hold on a television set when the picture started flipping for no reason. Adjusting was no big deal. or whatever else he might have come up with. Adjusting was what a person did to the vertical hold on a television set when the picture started flipping for no reason. Adjusting was no big deal.

Nick asked anyhow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean with me supplying all this product, our old split just doesn't cut it anymore."

"Hey," said Nick. "It wasn't my idea. I didn't ask you to go to all this trouble."

"So you don't want any part of it? I can find somebody else to help me sell it if that's what you want."

Nick drew hard on the joint and his words squeaked out high on the slightest drift of pale smoke. "I didn't say that." He handed it back to Tom. "We still got Henri. We still got Henri's stuff is all."

"I know. We'll split that the same as always." Tom took a long pull and held it in his lungs and sniffed a little air in on top of it. He studied the joint to see if what was left was worth the trouble and then he handed it back to Nick. "You just got to start treating me the same way you treat that Canuck is all. As far as this goes. This stuff right here." Raising his shoulders and c.o.c.king his head to indicate the roomful of dope behind them in the dark.

"I guess you got a point."

"It's an adjustment. Like I said."

"Right," said Nick.

"I don't hear you arguing with Henri. I don't hear you telling him you want to go fifty-fifty."

"All right," said Nick. He rubbed out the joint in the hard palm of his hand and crumpled the paper and threw it into the yard and licked the rest off with his tongue. "Hey," he said. "Look over there. Is that the Big Dipper or what?"

Preston.

THE FIRST THING IS, you don't smoke in a barn. Least of all in a hayloft. You don't have to be very smart to figure that out even if n.o.body ever told you. Margaret gave me a telescope for my birthday that year, with a tripod and everything, and I had it set up on the screen porch. It's so dark out back you could just about run an observatory. Margaret was in the front room at the other end of the house with the television on but you couldn't see that from the screen porch. So there I was in the dark looking at Venus I think it was and just kind of finding my way around the heavens on account of I was pretty new at it when what do I see but this little orange dot going back and forth, way up in the hayloft door.

I knew who it'd be. I'd heard Tom's friend come up the dirt lane on his motorcycle while Margaret and I were having supper, and Tom'd been here himself all day and all day the day before that too. I'd about come to the conclusion that he wasn't working anymore unless you called what he was doing up by that old still working. Which I guess it is if you look at it that way, but that's not how you think of it as a rule. You don't think of it as a job, I mean. A regular job you'd go to.

So I knew the two of them were up there, and I just hated like h.e.l.l to see it. To see a perfectly good dirt farm being turned into some kind of opium den. A seraglio seraglio, like Margaret says. I thought about how that land had produced so much over the years. The way it smelled in the spring and summer, good smells and bad smells both. How it had supported Lester and Ruth all those years and then their children one by one. And now to see it come to this. I wondered where was the justice in it. If this was the way everything would go sooner or later.

I turned the telescope on the hayloft and Tom and his friend looked like a couple of big old giants sitting up there. They looked like something you'd find at the top of a beanstalk. That marijuana cigarette they were smoking could have pa.s.sed for a comet the way it moved back and forth, getting brighter when they pulled on it and dimmer when it just sat. Which wasn't for very long, let me tell you. It didn't look like they wanted to waste any of it.

I kept an eye on those two until the cigarette went out and then I quit holding my breath and looked at the stars for a while. It's amazing what you'll see. Then they went and lit up another one and I had to keep an eye on them until that one was gone too.

1954.

Audie.

IF I I WAS DONE WAS DONE with the tractor he would take that or if I weren't done he would just walk. When he was done with his own ch.o.r.es he was done and he didn't care if I was done or not. Vernon either. He'd just wash up and go. Even if we hadn't done the milking yet. I think it was the army taught him that. Just get your own ch.o.r.es done and don't worry about the other man. Plus he was kind of giving orders to Vernon and me all the time even though I guess in the army he probably just took them. I'd come back through the pasture and I'd see him going down the dirt lane or maybe already down there turning toward Ca.s.sius and I didn't know where he was going but I knew he was through working for one day. with the tractor he would take that or if I weren't done he would just walk. When he was done with his own ch.o.r.es he was done and he didn't care if I was done or not. Vernon either. He'd just wash up and go. Even if we hadn't done the milking yet. I think it was the army taught him that. Just get your own ch.o.r.es done and don't worry about the other man. Plus he was kind of giving orders to Vernon and me all the time even though I guess in the army he probably just took them. I'd come back through the pasture and I'd see him going down the dirt lane or maybe already down there turning toward Ca.s.sius and I didn't know where he was going but I knew he was through working for one day.

Preston.

LIKE THAT OLD SONG used to say: used to say: "How 'ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" "How 'ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?"

Ruth.

HER NAME IS V VELMA, a name that in these days is just coming into fashion and will not stay in fashion for long. Her eyes are deep-set and her nose is sharp and she favors lipstick the color of fresh blood. She keeps her thick dark hair pompadoured in the front and brushed close on the sides and pinned back into a ponytail that hangs down inside a sling of black netting. The first time Creed Proctor sets eyes on her he decides that this is the woman he would like to have serving him his supper every night of the week, and for a while he will nearly manage it.

He still has some army pay. When he came home he used a little of it to buy his mother a brooch at the Woolworth's in Ca.s.sius and he used some more of it to buy hardware for the whiskey still, but the rest he has kept in a carton under the bed with his clothes and it has been burning a hole there for weeks now. He and his brothers have taken the tractor to the feedstore in Ca.s.sius and they are coming back with the stake-bed wagon loaded down behind it when they pa.s.s the Dineraunt on Madison Street and Creed happens to look in through the window. There she stands behind the counter, working the register and looking up at some customer in the most earnest manner. The light is just perfect and the plate-gla.s.s window between Creed and the woman inside seems to fall away. Even the lettering on it. There is no reflection to separate the two of them and no glare of sunlight from anywhere and no arch of hand-painted letters spelling out MADISON STREET DINERAUNT-GOOD FOOD MADISON STREET DINERAUNT-GOOD FOOD. Just Creed and the dark-haired woman and nothing in between. He realizes all of a sudden that he is hungry but he does not say anything. He isn't going to stop now. Not with Vernon and Audie to drag along. They'd probably think they could beat his time with any girl but they'd be wrong about that. They're just a couple of hayseeds who've never seen anything worth looking at in this big old world. He'll come back sometime soon. He'll make a point of it.

His immediate problem is those army khakis. He's been wearing them every day since returning from Korea, and as much as he has tried to go easy on them they just won't stay clean. His mother washes them every Sat.u.r.day morning with the rest of the laundry and she presses the creases back into them with an iron heated up on the stove, but her disease is already beginning to weaken her and the filth never comes out entirely and the heat of that big rusty iron just seems to set it in. She apologizes every time she hands them over. He sizes them up and tells her that it doesn't make any difference, but it does and she can see that but there is no help for it.

He takes them now from the carton under the bed and unfolds them and lays them out, picturing the girl behind the cash register and despairing in his heart. He simply cannot go down there dressed this way. And he certainly can't go in his coveralls. He considers washing these poor things himself and he considers asking his mother to try again but neither course seems promising. So he folds them and puts them back in the carton and slides it back under the bed where it belongs, and when the day is done he takes them out again and brings them across the yard to Margaret Hatch. She has a brand new Bendix Duomatic in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and it washes and dries both. Margaret tells him that she will do her best to get the stains out, but that if he really wants to preserve his uniform the way Preston preserved his from the second war then he might want to stick to wearing his coveralls around the farm from here on out. He says he knows that. He says he isn't interested in keeping them but in wearing them. She sighs and says they won't last then and he says he'll be careful. He promises to bring them out only for special occasions.

Margaret.

PRESTON GAVE ME that Bendix because he always had to have the very latest of everything. I never got a word in on the subject. He just brought it home one day. He meant well, but the truth is it was a step backward from what I'd had before. Not that I'd ever tell him that. Not in a million years. Not even now. that Bendix because he always had to have the very latest of everything. I never got a word in on the subject. He just brought it home one day. He meant well, but the truth is it was a step backward from what I'd had before. Not that I'd ever tell him that. Not in a million years. Not even now.

Creed's uniform was hopeless, with that awful Bendix or without it. I took it straight to the dry cleaner's, and even they had a terrible time with it. I don't believe they so much as charged me, they felt so bad about how little they'd been able to do. They'd even replaced a couple of b.u.t.tons that were missing, no charge.

Creed, though, he was thrilled to death. It just goes to show.

Ruth.

WITH THE EXCEPTION of his mother and his little sister, Creed has always found women completely inscrutable, captivating in a nearly mystical way, and troublous as snakes. They've borne watching, but beyond that he has never known what to do with them. Even at Camp Drum, among soldiers possessed with the romantic impulses of French legionnaires and the self-restraint of Siberian tigers, he was at a loss for role models. He would go with men from his barracks to seedy little taverns around the base and get a gla.s.s of whiskey and sit at the bar with his mouth shut and his eyes open, wondering how it was that these fellows could talk so easily to any girl about anything at all. Wondering how they'd gotten so smooth with the offer of a drink or a cigarette and where they found the courage to invite these strange creatures to dance with them, cheek to cheek. of his mother and his little sister, Creed has always found women completely inscrutable, captivating in a nearly mystical way, and troublous as snakes. They've borne watching, but beyond that he has never known what to do with them. Even at Camp Drum, among soldiers possessed with the romantic impulses of French legionnaires and the self-restraint of Siberian tigers, he was at a loss for role models. He would go with men from his barracks to seedy little taverns around the base and get a gla.s.s of whiskey and sit at the bar with his mouth shut and his eyes open, wondering how it was that these fellows could talk so easily to any girl about anything at all. Wondering how they'd gotten so smooth with the offer of a drink or a cigarette and where they found the courage to invite these strange creatures to dance with them, cheek to cheek.

By the time he'd worked up the courage to try his own luck, he'd been mustered out and sent home to Ca.s.sius on the railroad. And now here he is on his way into that same town all over again but on foot this time, wearing his pressed khakis and keeping up a brisk military pace in spite of the heat. His shadow stretches across the fields and his boots raise dust. He covers the six miles to the city limits in a little more than an hour and a half and it is another fifteen or twenty minutes to the far end of Madison Street, and when he pushes open the door he realizes that he is ravenous. The place is air-conditioned and the difference in temperature hits him hard. He shivers and he feels the long wet stripe down his back go icy. The spots under his arms too. There are booths and stools and all of the booths are taken but that's all right. That's fine. He doesn't want a booth. He sits on a stool by the cash register where he saw the girl before, as if she were some vision that might appear only in that one particular spot. He keeps his arms pressed tight to his sides and he waits for her to come around from the back and take his order.

When she comes out her face is flushed pink and she is adjusting the shoulders of the sweater she has to wear because of how cold they keep the restaurant. She apologizes for making him wait, saying that she likes it better back in the kitchen where at least there is a little bit of warmth but that's no excuse. She knows it. She reaches into her ap.r.o.n pocket for a pad and a pencil and asks him what he'll have. He looks from her to the menu and he chews his lip. She says she is sorry but there aren't any specials tonight. They sold out an hour ago. He'll have to come in earlier next time. But the meat loaf is good and so are the pork chops and can she get him some coffee while he makes up his mind.

Creed says coffee will be all right. What he really wants is some ice water but he doesn't know if it's all right to ask for two different drinks. Even one hot and one cold. She disappears to fetch the coffee and take care of some other customers and when she comes back she has both the coffee cup and a gla.s.s of ice water and he tells himself that he has made a very fine decision in coming here. He takes a sip of the water and studies her name tag with a kind of alarming intensity and then he tells her he thinks he'll have the meat loaf if it's anywhere near as good as she says it is. He says it in tones so serious as to border on accusatory, as if she has tried to work some fraud upon him and he means to call her bluff.

She says it is every bit that good and it comes with green beans or carrots on the side and does he want his potato baked or mashed. He asks do the potatoes come with the meat loaf or are they extra. She says they come with it and he says in that case mashed. He squints down at the menu and up at her again. As for the carrots or green beans why doesn't she pick. She touches the name tag on her sweater as if to dust from it whatever is drawing his attention. The green beans, she says, on account of she hates cooked carrots like anything, and he says all right.

She says it'll be out in two shakes, hon, and he very nearly faints.

Hon.

Later he will blame it on the heat.

He eats with a mechanical intensity, sawing the meat loaf into regular cubes and spearing each cube with his fork and loading up mashed potatoes on the back of the fork and shoveling it all in upside down. He cuts the green beans into pieces and he spears great quant.i.ties of them with the fork as if he is loading hay and he shovels them in too. When he is finished he takes rolls from the basket and tears them in half one by one and mops up the last of the gravy, and then he sits back on his stool and smacks his lips and inhales as with the satisfaction of a job well done. As an afterthought he reaches for the water gla.s.s and drains that too. The waitress comes by and he points to his gleaming plate and says he guesses they might not even have to wash that for the next customer.

She says she doesn't know about that but she marvels at it anyhow. He checks her name tag again and says I guess that'll be all for me tonight, Wilma, and she does not correct him. When the check comes he pays it exactly, down to the cent, counting it out twice over in dimes and nickels and pennies. Then he goes out into the dying heat and walks on home, light as air.

1990.

Audie.

EVERY TIME that fellow Del Graham came before, he came for Creed. that fellow Del Graham came before, he came for Creed.

Donna.

SHE BEGAN GOING OUT to the farm more often, as if wanting to subst.i.tute herself for her dead brother, as if hoping somehow to fill the gap he'd left behind. As if such a thing were necessary or even close to possible. Driving out there one noontime she saw Tom's car parked half in and half out of the barn and she turned right around in the middle of the dirt lane and went straight back to the hospital, thinking there was no need for the two of them to be there at once. She didn't know what use Tom might be around the farm or how he'd gotten off work to help his uncles with whatever they were up to, but that didn't matter. He was thirty years old and maybe he was finally growing up a little. She'd have to remember to mention it to him. Or maybe not. to the farm more often, as if wanting to subst.i.tute herself for her dead brother, as if hoping somehow to fill the gap he'd left behind. As if such a thing were necessary or even close to possible. Driving out there one noontime she saw Tom's car parked half in and half out of the barn and she turned right around in the middle of the dirt lane and went straight back to the hospital, thinking there was no need for the two of them to be there at once. She didn't know what use Tom might be around the farm or how he'd gotten off work to help his uncles with whatever they were up to, but that didn't matter. He was thirty years old and maybe he was finally growing up a little. She'd have to remember to mention it to him. Or maybe not.

Creed and Audie were out there all by themselves when Del Graham came the next time. He drove out on his way to work, plenty early but still late enough to be certain that milking time was over. The co-op truck was barreling around the corner onto the main road without even slowing down and the driver hit the brakes hard when he caught sight of the police car. Del just smiled and waved him on. If there's one thing that won't wait it's milk. Milk and the cows it comes from.

When he got to the barn it was empty and the house was empty too. He rapped on the screen door and called out their names, Creed and then Audie and then Creed again, but no answer came. The door bounced open of its own accord but he didn't go in, he just stuck his head through and called again and sniffed a couple of times and squinted into the dim room and that was that. Without the veil of the rusty screen, the place looked exactly as it had when he'd been out here before. Everything had run so far downhill so long ago that there wasn't much left to be altered by either use or time. Even the flypaper, stiffgluey twists of it hanging down from the ceiling over the table, over the bed, over the sink, had caught its limit.

He closed the door and pushed on it and pushed harder, waiting for it to click shut, but the spring latch was rusted out. He went on down from the porch and around into the barnyard. Dust collected on his shoes and he stamped them and thought this is how it begins. A little bit at a time. He c.o.c.ked his head, hearing the sound of a tractor from somewhere up in the high fields, and hearing it he followed along the way he'd gone on the day of Vernon's burial, letting himself through the gate and taking the path up into the pasture. It was pleasant up there, green and breezy. Trees stood in places, making little pools of shade that drew some of the cows but not others. Another small mystery.

He found them near the graveyard, Audie driving the Farmall tractor and Creed watching him from beneath a tree at the edge of the field. Creed had a can of Dr Pepper and he lifted it to Del on sight, grinning like mad. Del thought if you scrubbed away the grime and gave him a shave and maybe fixed his teeth a little, you couldn't have told him apart from some well-heeled playboy type greeting you at the country club. He had that same manner.

Del came over to the shade of the tree but he had to shout above the noise of the tractor going past. "I came to see your brother."

Creed pointed to Audie with the hand holding the Dr Pepper can, one crooked finger straight out. It was short by one knuckle but it pointed well enough.

"I see him. I need to ask him a couple of questions."

"He'll be done in a while," Creed said. "I come up to keep an eye on him. He don't see too good no more."

"I know," Del said. Then: "How about you take over, so I can borrow him for just a bit?"

"All right," said Creed. He put the can down in the gra.s.s and stood up, clapping dust out of his pant legs, and then he went out into the field hollering at Audie to stop right where he was.

Preston.

I SAW HIM GO SAW HIM GO and I thought I knew what he was up to. I didn't know how he'd found out about that marijuana field but I didn't care. He'd need a search warrant and I guessed he had one, either that or he was just going to talk to the boys for a while and have a little look around and pretend to just kind of stumble onto it. That was all right with me either way. I figured it was about time. So when he and Audie came back down together you could have knocked me over with a feather just about. I could still hear the tractor going. I figured Creed was driving it since Graham and Audie were coming down through the pasture together. Graham had a hold of Audie's elbow the way you'd do it if you were showing a blind man where to go. Like he thought Audie couldn't find his own way. and I thought I knew what he was up to. I didn't know how he'd found out about that marijuana field but I didn't care. He'd need a search warrant and I guessed he had one, either that or he was just going to talk to the boys for a while and have a little look around and pretend to just kind of stumble onto it. That was all right with me either way. I figured it was about time. So when he and Audie came back down together you could have knocked me over with a feather just about. I could still hear the tractor going. I figured Creed was driving it since Graham and Audie were coming down through the pasture together. Graham had a hold of Audie's elbow the way you'd do it if you were showing a blind man where to go. Like he thought Audie couldn't find his own way.

They were coming down the hill but they were coming slowly. They were talking back and forth. Graham would say something and then he'd turn his head toward Audie and Audie would say something back but you could see that Graham didn't understand it. He'd get kind of squinty-eyed and curl up one corner of his mouth and c.o.c.k his head at an angle. Then he'd say something more and you could tell he was probably asking the same question all over again. I didn't feel sorry for him. I felt sorry for Audie. Audie'd shake his head and kind of draw it back like a lizard or a bird or something the way he does. A turtle. Kind of making his neck short and wagging his head back and forth quick. He looked worried. Graham would nod and pat him on the arm or take his own hand off his elbow and rest it on his shoulder like they were the best old friends in the world, but Audie didn't ease up any you could tell. I could see him winding up. I could see him just winding himself up real tight.

I went into the back hall and got my hat and then I went into the kitchen and asked Margaret if she'd call that lawyer on the telephone. Chapman. His business card was on the corkboard. When I'd sat down with him the first time I didn't think we'd need him for Audie, but things change. I wasn't going to let the same d.a.m.ned thing happen to Audie that happened to Creed. Next thing you know he'd be signing some piece of paper and they'd have the both of them in the pokey together. I was thinking maybe the troopers couldn't make up their minds between them so they'd let a jury choose or else just go for the Daily Double. Convict them both. I wasn't going to stand for that. I meant to nip that in the bud. Margaret got up to call that lawyer and I went out.

The door slammed behind me and I let it. Graham heard it go and believe me he pulled up short. For a lawman he looked an awful lot like a kid who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I don't mind telling you that.

Del.

PRESTON H HATCH WANTED TO DRIVE Audie to the barracks in his own car, which seemed like a good idea. I went on ahead and they came along when they got themselves situated. It didn't take long. To tell the truth they almost got there before I did. Preston has something of a lead foot. But you could say he was on official business, so I didn't make any remark on the subject. I just let him go. Audie to the barracks in his own car, which seemed like a good idea. I went on ahead and they came along when they got themselves situated. It didn't take long. To tell the truth they almost got there before I did. Preston has something of a lead foot. But you could say he was on official business, so I didn't make any remark on the subject. I just let him go.

The five of us would have been a tight fit in my office, so we talked in the small conference room. Al Chapman and Preston Hatch and Audie Proctor took one side of the table and Burnes and I took the other. Burnes was recording. I'd never met Chapman before that day and I wasn't impressed with him. His first misstep, as far as I was concerned, was making Preston and Audie cool their heels in the lobby waiting for him to show up. That was disrespectful. Mrs. Hatch had phoned his office while I was out at the farm and she'd gotten him on the line and I'd gone into the kitchen to speak with him, and he'd said that he'd meet us down at the barracks right away. It took him well over an hour and a half to get there and that was only from downtown. He must have had something more important to do. I didn't ask. It wasn't any of my business. I had paperwork to keep me occupied in the meantime, but Preston and Audie just had to sit and wait. Burnes took them out some coffee but neither one of them drank any of it. From where I sat in my office I could see them on the couch with the coffee cups on the table in front of them. They had their heads together but they weren't drinking the coffee, so I sent Burnes out to see if perhaps they wanted a c.o.ke or something instead. Something cold. Hatch said no but Audie said yes although I don't believe he drank that either, once he got it.

Once Chapman got here he took Audie and Preston into the conference room to go over what they had to go over. When he closed the door he didn't look as if he was happy to see Preston and he didn't look any happier about it when he opened the door again and came out. He looked like he'd figured out that he was stuck with him for better or worse. He fully expected me to object, no question. Before we'd even sat down he jumped on me with both feet. He insisted on his client's behalf that Mr. Hatch be permitted to stay and partic.i.p.ate in the questioning, since otherwise Mr. Proctor's statements might be misunderstood both by law enforcement officers and by his own representation. He said having Mr. Hatch in the room was equivalent to bringing in a translator for a foreign speaker and I said fine. He said if I didn't see it his way he could do a little research into the subject and quote me chapter and verse and file some papers but it would cause a delay and I said fine, really, I had no problem with Mr. Hatch. I had no problem with Mr. Hatch at all. I was the one who'd let Mr. Hatch come in the first place, for exactly that purpose. Chapman hadn't expected that. I think he might have preferred the delay, but he didn't get it.

Audie had a powerful smell about him in that small conference room. There's only the one window and Burnes opened it up all the way, but it didn't help much because there wasn't any cross-ventilation. You couldn't open the door and get some, either. Not with the questioning under way.

I began by asking Audie what had happened the night before his brother died. Asking if he remembered anything in particular. He said something to Preston and Preston cleared it with Chapman before he said it to me. Audie and his brothers had watched some comedy program on the television. He couldn't remember what. Then they'd watched the news a little and switched off the television and gone to bed as usual. I got the impression from how he said it, from the cadences and the details, that Preston was giving me his words accurately. And it matched well enough with what I already knew.

I asked him how Vernon had seemed that night while they were watching the television and later on when they were going to sleep, and he said he'd seemed the same as usual. No different. He'd made no complaints.

I asked had they all slept side by side in the one bed the way they usually did, and he said yes. I asked in what order and he shook his head as if he didn't understand the question. He kept shaking his head and he wouldn't look at me. So I asked in a different way. I asked who slept on the side of the bed against the wall and who slept in the middle. He started picking at the edge of the table with his fingers as if he wanted to strip the veneer away from it. Preston took his one hand by the wrist and looked at me, wondering if that was all right to do, and I told him it was all right without saying it out loud. Just by the way I looked back at him. He got Audie's hands down in his lap and Audie calmed down, at least to some measure. Preston asked him the question again for me, which I thought was good judgment on his part. It was better than my asking it myself, and this time Audie answered. Creed against the wall, Vernon in the middle. That fit with the way his brother had described it. As for Vernon's being in the middle, it also fit with the presence of the urine stains. Although they'd been all over the place, really.