The Year the Lights Came On

  “She’s worried, Freeman. You got to expect that,” answered Wesley. “You her only child and you’re runnin’ around in here like some fool, hiding from the law. You know you can’t do that.” Wesley was irritated.

  “Well, Wesley, I guess that’s something you can’t know about. I guess that’s something that me and only me has to answer to,” Freeman said slowly.

  “Freeman, you’re breaking the law by runnin’. It’s plain and simple.”

  For a moment, Freeman did not speak, then he said, “Wes, I just don’t need your preachin’ right now. Law? What law? I get arrested and throwed in jail for somethin’ I didn’t do, and you call that law? I didn’t steal no twenty dollars. I didn’t steal nothin’. You hear me? Nothin’.”

  Wesley knew he had pushed Freeman. “All right, Freeman, let’s look at this thing, piece by piece. You say you didn’t steal Hixon’s money? Well, why was it in your shirt pocket?”

  “How’m I supposed to know? I don’t have the slightest notion. I’d say Dupree done it when I took my shirt off and hung it up on the back door of the store. Don’t know any other time it could’ve happened.”

  “O.K.,” Wesley continued. “Why didn’t you tell that to the sheriff?”

  “Tell him?” Freeman said. “I told him a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. He just kept sayin’ to shut up or he’d smack me shut. Said he was gonna throw me in jail and bury the key. I’m telling you, Wes, I’m not goin’ to jail.”

  “How you think you can make it in here?” I asked.

  “I’ll make it, Colin. Don’t need to fret about that. I got ways. Lots of ways.”

  “Freeman, you may hide out here and not get caught. I don’t know,” Wesley said. “But they’ll be after you until this thing’s over. You ought to let the sheriff take you, and my daddy’ll make sure you don’t spend one night behind bars. He’ll make bond, and I know it. Besides, Daddy’s got lots of people he knows over in Edenville. He don’t like Brownlee one bit, and he’s not about to let anything happen to you.”

  Freeman was obviously affected by Wesley’s assurances. “I reckon you’re right, Wes. Your daddy’s a good man, and I know he’s got some pull over at the courthouse. But—but, Wesley, I can’t do it. I just can’t, and that’s that.”

  I knew Wesley would argue. I knew he would think of some reason for Freeman to surrender, some reason that Freeman could not deny.

  I was wrong.

  “What do you want us to do, Freeman?” Wesley asked after a moment.

  Freeman looked at Wesley, then at me. We were both surprised. Wesley had not protested. He had accepted Freeman’s position.

  “I been thinkin’ about that,” Freeman replied eagerly. “Three things, Wes. Three things.”

  Wesley nodded. “What are they?”

  Freeman moved closer to Wesley. “First thing is to get to Dupree. Find out why he stuck that twenty dollars in my pocket.”

  “You sure it was Dupree?” I asked.

  “Had to be. I been thinkin’ about it. You know Dupree swore he’d square up with me for what I said to him that day at school. Well, I just made all that up, right there on the spot, but there must’ve been somethin’ that went on down there on that farm. Anyhow, he never forgot it. Every chance he’s had this summer, he’s denied it.”

  “What made you say anything about him on his granddaddy’s farm, Freeman?”

  “Well, Wes, it just popped in my head, that’s all,” Freeman explained. “I’d heard one of his granddaddy’s hands tellin’ about a bull chasing Dupree out of the pasture, and that was the only thing I could think of when Dupree was lippin’ off to Colin.”

  “It’s not gonna be easy,” Wesley said. “We’ll try. What else?”

  “I’m gonna be needin’ some food from time to time. Whenever you and the others can get somethin’ together, put it in a sack and leave it somewhere.”

  “Where?” I asked. “No way we can tell where you gonna be.”

  “I tell you what. The REA’s gonna be cuttin’ through near here,” Freeman answered. “Leave it where they quit cuttin’ every day. I’ll find it.”

  “That’s two things. What else, Freeman?” Wesley pressed.

  “Don’t know if you can do it, Wes. Maybe I’d better take care of it myself.”

  “What?”

  “My mama. She—she ought to know I’m all right. I’d go over there, except I know there’s been a sheriff’s car around, and it might get Mama and Daddy in trouble.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Freeman was quiet. He stared at the ground. “I’d appreciate that, Wesley. I sure would.”

  Wesley unwrapped Freeman’s pants from my walking stick. “You really think you can hide from the law, Freeman?”

  “In here, I can.”

  “What about them bloodhounds?” I asked.

  “Shoot, y’all got ’em messed up. Anyway, they don’t got a chance followin’ me in the water, and there’s where I aim to be the rest of the day.”

  “What if somethin’ happens? What if you get a snake bite, or somethin’? Here, you want these?” Wesley offered Freeman his dirty pants.

  “Naw, y’all keep ’em. Don’t be worryin’ about me, Wes. If I get snakebit, I’ll yell.”

  Wesley looked at Freeman as though he would never again see him. “Take care, buddy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Take care, Freeman,” I said.

  “You, too. Good thinkin’ on them pants, ol’ buddy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “See you, Freeman,” Wesley muttered.

  “I’ll whistle some night,” Freeman replied, grinning. He turned quickly and slipped away into the woods. He did not make a sound leaving.

  “He’s spooky,” I said.

  “Yeah, he is,” Wesley whispered.

  11

  IT WAS NOON BY THE SUN. The sun had burned away the fog pockets of morning and dried the upper crust of plowed fields, leaving a powdery film of dust. It was hot. Wesley and I hooked our jackets over our shoulders as we crossed through a pasture where we had found dozens of Indian arrowheads around a rock bed of hard, white flint. After a rain, hot in the sun, you could smell white flint.

  “You think the sun will burn away the scent we put down?” I asked Wesley.

  “Doubt it,” he said. “May make it ripe.”

  We were damp from the undergrowth of Black Pool Swamp and tired from miles of wandering. Wesley walked slowly, his head down, struggling with the quarrel of how he would reply to the inevitable question: “Did you find Freeman?”

  *

  “No,” I answered for Wesley, who turned his back to Mother and cringed at my lie. “No, Wesley didn’t, Mama.”

  I had only half lied; Freeman had found us, or me.

  “What happened to the food I gave you?” asked Mother.

  “Uh—we left it, hopin’ Freeman would find it,” I quickly answered. “Could’ve been he was watchin’ us all the time.”

  Mother sighed. She could see Freeman, alone and trembling, eating soggy sandwiches and a cold sweet potato. “C’mon, I’ve fixed some lunch,” she said.

  Lynn wanted to know where we had been, what we had done.

  “Dover came back about an hour ago,” she told us. “Daddy went with him over to where the sheriff is.”

  “Did Mama say anything about us not bein’ with him?” Wesley asked.

  “Nothin’ I heard,” Lynn replied. “Garry took off to the branch, sayin’ he was lookin’ for Freeman, and Mama had to go find him.”

  Wesley and I ate lunch and changed clothes. Otis and Alvin and R. J. drove up in Dover’s truck as we were leaving the house.

  “Where y’all been?” Alvin asked. “Dover’s been worried.”

  “It’s not easy goin’ through that swamp,” Wesley complained. “Y’all had a picnic trampin’ through the woods. They turn the dogs loose?”

  “Turn ’em loose? Shoot, they not even there,” R. J. said, giggling. “Dover was right. Jim Ed Felt
on must be talkin’ to everybody between here’n Edenville. You oughta see the sheriff. He’s havin’ a fit.”

  “He got his deputies out lookin’ for Freeman?” I asked.

  “Naw,” Alvin answered, laughing. “They just sittin’ around a fire, just like Dover said. Y’all see any signs of Freeman?”

  “Uh—naw,” I said. “Nothin’.” Wesley and I had agreed not to tell anyone of our encounter with Freeman, and I knew he had not changed his decision. His greatest test was Mother, and he had not told her.

  “Well, c’mon,” Alvin said, “let’s get on over there.”

  Wesley and I jumped into the back of Dover’s truck and Alvin geared it forward, jerking and spinning. “Hold on, boys. Here we go,” he yelled.

  Alvin drove Dover’s truck like a madman until he topped the hill above Rakestraw Bridge and then he slowed to a crawl. The two tornadoes of dust curling off the back tires rushed up and swallowed the truck in a red cloud, and Otis said Alvin was crazy if he thought Dover wouldn’t know he had been speeding. “Dover’ll have Alvin shinin’ this thing from bumper to bumper,” he predicted, stuttering with the drumming of washboard ruts in the road.

  A few hundred yards from Rakestraw Bridge, Alvin eased the truck over a caved-in culvert wedged in a shallow ditch beside the road. Some forgotten chain gang paying the wages of premeditated evil had long ago planted the culvert and packed it tight with top soil from Carey Carter’s pasture, and Carey Carter used the culvert as a bridge to work the richest bottomland in Eden County.

  “Hit the footfeed, Alvin,” R. J. urged. “Spin a wheel.”

  Dover’s truck cried as Alvin slipped the gear from second to low, scraping steel nerves.

  “Dover heard that,” Otis shouted.

  “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.”