“I can get where I want to go, that’s about it,” Judd says. He unfolds himself like an old man. Got a paper sack in his hand, and I hope it’s not whiskey.
I knew that as soon as Judd could start driving again, he would, because he loves his truck almost more than anything else in this world. Washes it every weekend, and finds any excuse he can to drive to Friendly and back, just ridin’ around, listenin’ to his radio. Last summer, on the Saturdays he wasn’t working, wouldn’t be anything at all to see Judd passing three or four times out on the road, goin’ nowhere in particular.
He’s comin’ slow up his board walk, cast and crutches tapping a rhythm like old Peg Leg the Pirate. “What you doin’ over this way?” he wants to know.
“Just came to say hello, see how you’re doin’.”
“Well, I’m alive,” he tells me.
Judd goes in first, leaves the door open behind him, and I figure that’s all the invitation I’m gonna get, so I go in, too. Close the door. I guess what I plan to do is show him the boot and ask does he know who it belongs to. I figure I can tell by the look on his face if it belongs to that man from Bens Run, and if Judd’s the reason he disappeared. With Judd hobbling about on that leg of his, I can be out the door and in the bushes if he gets mad.
Judd puts the sack on his table, then reaches inside and pulls out a half gallon of milk, some bread, and a tin of sardines.
“What you got there?” Judd asks, nodding toward the boot.
I swallow. “Oh, just somethin’ I wonder if you’d recognize,” I say, and hold it up. Wonder if I’m sounding smart-mouth.
Judd’s jaw drops and he stares at it for a moment. “Where’d you find it?”
“Over by the creek.” I study his face, my heart thumpin’ hard. “Know who it belongs to?”
“Of course,” says Judd. “It’s mine.”
Talk about feelin’ stupid! I don’t tell him what David Howard figured.
“Never thought I’d see that again! Couldn’t wear it anyway, it’s soaked up so much rain and snow. Most of my clothes, they just cut them off, you know. In the emergency room, they don’t fool around.” He takes the boot and throws it back into his bedroom.
“Didn’t you miss it when you dressed to come home from the hospital?”
“Missed it before then, so a guy from work brought me a pair of his old sneakers to get home in. You want a pop or somethin’?” Judd asks me.
“Okay.” I sit down on Judd’s couch, remembering how only a few months past, he had me workin’ out there in the summer sun in order to earn his dog, and then, when I’m about done, tells me I can’t have Shiloh after all—that nobody witnessed our agreement, and I’m a fool to do all that work. Guess I’d have to say it was the worst day of my life. No—the worst hadn’t happened yet; I’m gettin’ to that—but it was a time I’ll never forget.
Judd gets me a 7Up from his refrigerator and pours himself a mug of leftover coffee. Then he sits down, his jacket still on, ’cause he keeps his trailer cold. Holds the cup under his chin, lettin’ the steam warm his face.
“So how’s things?” he asks.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I been working for that vet down in St. Marys on Saturday mornings. Learnin’ a lot about dogs.”
“Yeah?” says Judd.
“We see a lot of dogs that have been chained up, and most of ’em are mean as nails. John Collins—he’s the vet—says it’s because they feel trapped that way. If something came along to attack ’em, they’d be in a tough spot ’cause they can’t fight free, so they act real fierce to scare you off.”
“That a fact?” says Judd, and I’m tryin’ to read his face as he takes another drink of coffee. “Well,” he says at last, “I sure know how it is to feel cornered. Know what it’s like to feel trapped.”
I don’t say nothing. I’m remembering what Doc Murphy told me about how he knew the Traverses when Judd was a little kid, and how the father used to whip those kids with the buckle end of a belt.
Judd stares out the window beyond my head like he don’t hardly see me at all. And suddenly he stands up and says, “Well, I’m goin’ to take a nap, Marty.” That’s a good-bye if I ever heard one, so I set my empty pop can on the floor.
“Okay,” I say. “See you around.”
I’m halfway across his yard when I realize what I’ve done. My hands feel all clammy. Why do I think I can believe Judd Travers? If David Howard was right, and Judd done something to that man from Bens Run, and if that boot belonged to him, you can bet Judd’ll burn it faster than a dog can pee. Why didn’t I ask to see that other boot—see if it matched? I can’t believe how stupid I am—just handed the evidence right over!
Figure I got to steal a look in the back of his pickup as I walk by, see if there’re any clues in there. Judd keeps all sorts of stuff in there, but he’s got a tarp over it now, and the tarp’s covered with snow. I manage to lift a corner and peer underneath. Piece of plywood, a coil of rope, truck battery, tires, roofing shingles, iron pipe, canvas. . . .
And then I see Judd Travers watchin’ me from his window. I drop that tarp right quick, give him a wave, and head on home. Feel like the worst kind of fool.
But I feel even worse later. Walk in the house and Ma says, “David called, Marty. Wants you to call him back right away.”
I go out in the kitchen and dial David’s number.
“Marty!” he says. “Guess what?”
I kid around. “They found the guy from Bens Run with a bullet in his head?”
There’s silence from the other end. Then, “There wasn’t any bullet, but they found him. And he’s dead.”
Nine
I don’t see David again till we go back to school after New Year’s. By then I’m ready for vacation to be over. Becky’s come down with chicken pox, and Dara Lynn’s stepped on my Steelers watch and broke the glass. Now we got to send it all the way to the factory for a new face cover, which means I can’t wear it on the first day back to school.
Big news is that the man from Bens Run died of a blow to the head, says the Tyler Star-News, and David and I been on the phone to each other most every day about it. Body was found down along the Ohio River by a highway maintenance crew, but the man’s shoes were missing. Murder weapon’s missing, too, and David’s sure Judd’s the one who done it. I’m not so sure about the shoes—they could have come off and floated most anywhere. I’m thinking about the murder weapon. What I’m remembering, and wish I wasn’t, is that piece of iron pipe in the back of Judd’s pickup.
School bus comes up our road as far as the bridge, then turns around. Anybody living on the other side has to walk over here or catch another bus somewhere else. I think it’s because that old bridge might not hold a bus full of kids. Fire truck come up once makin’ a safety run, and had to empty its tank before it crossed, then fill up again from the other side of the creek.
Driver picks up anybody who’s ready on the way up, and everybody else on the way back, so that kids who live along this route got two chances to catch the bus.
“Happy New Year, Marty,” says Mrs. Sims, the driver. “How you doin’, Dara Lynn?”
Dara Lynn never smiles at nobody before nine o’clock in the morning, and she don’t say nothing, but I wish Mrs. Sims a Happy New Year, too, and go sit across from Michael Sholt. Out the window I can see Shiloh trotting back up the lane to the house. Ma says that sometimes after we’re gone in the mornings, she picks that dog up and rocks him like a baby. Don’t many dogs have a grown woman who’ll do that, I’ll bet.
“Heard the news?” Michael crows as soon as I step on the bus. “The man from Bens Run was found murdered, and they think Judd did it.”
“Who thinks?” I say.
“Everybody!” says Fred Niles. “Everyone’s talking that it’s Judd!”
Sarah Peters is up on her knees on the seat so she can see around the whole bus. “The sheriff’s questioning a whole lot of people, and one of ’em’s Judd. It was on the news this morning.?
?? I see pretty quick that whether Judd done it or not, the feelin’s going against him.
“Just because they questioned him don’t mean he did it,” I say.
“How come you’re stickin’ up for Judd, Marty?” asks Sarah. “Thought you used to hate him worse’n poison.”
“Maybe he’s tryin’ to change. You ever think of that?” I ask her. But I don’t even know that myself.
One by one, other kids climb on, and everyone’s wearin’ a little something they got for Christmas—a jacket or sneakers or cap. By the time David gets on, the other kids are looking at Michael Sholt’s baseball cards and telling what all they got for Christmas. David sits down beside me.
“Anything new?” I ask.
“Judd was called in for questioning, but the sheriff released him,” David says. “Doesn’t mean he’s innocent. It just means they haven’t charged him with anything yet.”
“Do they know where he was when the guy was murdered?” I ask.
“They don’t even know the exact day. It was about the time of Judd’s accident, but it could have been a week before or a week after.” He looks at me. “I think we better turn that boot over to the sheriff.”
I swallow. “I don’t have it,” I say.
“Where is it?”
I’m so miserable, my stomach hurts. “Judd said it was his, so I gave it to him.”
David slides down in the seat, can hardly believe it. “We could’ve been on the witness stand, Marty!” he says. “Maybe we could have solved the case!”
“Just be quiet about it,” I say. I’m feeling low enough as it is.
David don’t tell the other kids what I did, but he is sure disgusted.
At school, Miss Talbot’s wearin’ something new she got for Christmas, too. It’s a diamond ring, and all the girls got to gather round her desk and make her turn her hand this way and that, see the diamond sparkle. She’s engaged to a high school teacher over in Middlebourne.
Soon as the kids start talking about Judd Travers being guilty, though, she puts a stop to it. “This class is not a courtroom,” she says, and we know that—ring or no ring—she means business.
At home, Dad won’t let us talk about Judd being the murderer, either.
“That Ed Sholt!” he says. “Shootin’ off his mouth . . . !” Dad kicks off his shoes and sinks down on the sofa. “Saw him at lunch today in Sistersville, and he’s worked out the whole thing in his head—all the different ways the man could have been killed, and he’s got Judd doing the killing in every one of ’em. ‘Pipe down, Ed,’ I tell him. ‘A man’s innocent till proven guilty, you know. He’s a right to his day in court, it ever gets to that.’ But he says, ‘You’re the one who should worry, Ray. You live closer to Judd than the rest of us. If it were me, I’d get a good strong lock for my door and keep a gun handy.’ ”
I swallow. “You talk to the sheriff yet?”
“Yes, and he’s guessing Judd’s not the one. They can’t tell when the man was killed exactly, not when a body’s been dead this long, but they figure he probably died sometime after Judd’s accident; somebody thinks he may have seen him later than that, anyway.”
I’m wondering what it’s like to have everybody suspecting you of a crime you didn’t do—just when you’re tryin’ to be better. Maybe you think, what’s the use? If everybody figures you’re bad, might as well go ahead and be bad. But if Judd gives up now, those dogs of his, when he gets ’em back, are going to have a worse time of it than before. Judd’ll hate everything and everybody, includin’ his dogs. On the other hand, what if he did do it? What if he really is a killer?
I try not to let myself think on that. The only thing I can see to do—for Judd’s dogs, anyway—is to get Judd Travers a fence. Once I do something for all Judd’s dogs, I can stop feelin’ so guilty about saving only the one. So I say to Dad, “You know anybody got some old chicken wire stuck away that we could use to fence in Judd’s yard for his dogs?”
Dad turns the TV down and looks at me. “Chicken wire? You got to have somethin’ stronger than that, Marty! You need regular fencing wire and metal posts, and nobody I know has a whole fence just sittin’ around, I can tell you.”
Seem like everything I think of to do has got a hitch to it.
All week the weather stays mild, and the snow’s disappearin’ fast. “January thaw,” Ma says. Tells us that for a few days most Januarys, it seems, there’s a mild spell to give us a promise of spring before the next big snowfall.
The sun shines on into the weekend, and Saturday afternoon, after I get back from the vet, I decide that I’m going about this fence idea all wrong. If nobody’s going to keep an old fence around after they take it down, then I got to find somebody with the fence still up that he’d just as soon wasn’t there.
I walk over to Doc Murphy’s, Shiloh frisking alongside me, tryin’ to get me to run. I’m thinking how last September, when I was helpin’ Doc in his yard, he’d said now that his wife wasn’t there to garden anymore, he wished he didn’t have a fence around that vegetable plot, just a nuisance when he mowed.
Doc’s got a couple of men patching his roof and cleaning his gutters, and he’s out there scattering grass seed on all the bare patches of lawn. Shiloh goes right over and waits for Doc to pet him. I wonder if in his little dog brain he remembers that Doc saved his life after the fight with the German shepherd.
“Hello there, Marty,” he says, scratchin’ Shiloh behind the ears. “I’m getting a jump on old man winter. Figure if I can get this seed in the ground before the next snow, it’ll be the first grass up come spring.”
“Too bad that fence is still there, or you could plant right over the postholes,” I tell him.
“I was thinking the same thing,” says Doc. He lets Shiloh go, and scoops up another handful of seed from his bag.
“I could maybe take it down for you,” I offer.
He gives this little laugh. “That’s not a job for a kid. Lot of wire there, and those posts are heavy.”
“I bet I could. Would haul it away for you, too.”
Doc studies me over the rim of his glasses. “Your dad wants this fence?”
“It’s for Judd Travers. To keep his dogs happy when he gets ’em back. He won’t let ’em run loose, ’cause they’re his hunting dogs, but John Collins says they wouldn’t be half as mean if they weren’t chained—if they had a yard to play in.”
Doc Murphy don’t say anything for a minute. Just turns his back on me and goes on scattering that seed. Finally he says, “Tell you what: I’ll have Joe and Earl there”—and he nods toward the men on the roof—“take that fence down if you can have it off my property by tomorrow. I don’t want a pile of fencing sitting around here. Then I can get the whole place seeded in this warm spell. Deal?”
“Deal,” I say. “Dad and me’ll come pick it up in the morning.”
I don’t even have time to be happy, because I realize Judd Travers don’t know a single solitary thing about any of this. You don’t just show up at a man’s house and start fencing his yard.
Only thing I can think of to do is walk on over to Judd’s and ask. I’m not real eager to go over there by myself, though. I mean, what if that boot we found did belong to the dead man, and Judd knows that I know what it looked like? Where it was found? ’Course, why would Judd kill a man, leave his body by the river, but bury his boots someplace else? That don’t make a whole lot of sense, either.
I walk back up the road and my mind’s goin’ around and around, first how Judd must have done it for sure and then how he didn’t, like to drive me crazy. I cross the bridge, but when I head for the brown-and-white trailer, Shiloh turns back. I get to Judd’s about the time he’s sittin’ down to lunch.
Any other man would ask me to come back later or invite me to share his food. Judd Travers invites me in to watch him eat, I guess, ’cause I sit at his table and he only offers me a pop. And right off he says:
“What you want? Everybody else seems to think I kill
ed a man. That what you come to say?”
“No,” I tell him. “ ’Course not.” Already my heart’s knockin’ around beneath my jacket.
“Then what were you doin’ snoopin’ in the back of my truck last time you were here?”
My breath seems to freeze right up inside my chest. One thing about Judd Travers, he don’t forget. I decide to tell it straight. “Trying to figure where that other boot of yours was,” I tell him. “To match the one I found.”
“Why should you care?” asks Judd, his narrow eyes on me.
I shrug. “No particular reason. Just wondering, that’s all.”
“Well, I threw it out,” Judd says. “When you think you’ve seen the last of one, not much use for the other.”
Wonder just how far Judd trusts me; about as far as I trust him, I guess. I talk about somethin’ else: “When do you suppose you’ll get your dogs back?”
“Soon’s I can get around without this cast,” he says. “Doc’s taking it off next Wednesday. I’ll still be hobblin’ around on crutches, but I figure I can at least tend to my dogs.”
“You know,” I say, “the way I hear it, the happiest dogs make the best hunters.”
“Don’t know about that,” says Judd. “My pa always said to keep ’em lean and mean.”
Can’t help myself. “Maybe your pa wasn’t always right,” I say.
Judd pauses, a piece of macaroni on his fork. He looks at me for a minute, then puts the fork to his mouth, don’t say nothing. I figure that don’t get me no points.
“All I know is what I learn from Doc Collins, that chainin’ up dogs is one of the worst things you can do,” I say.
“Well, that’s just a pity, because I don’t have no money for a fence,” Judd tells me, and takes a big swallow of water, wipes his hand across his mouth, and hunches over his plate again, like his macaroni and beef is a chore he’s got to wade through.
“What I come to tell you is that Doc Murphy’s having his garden fence took down this afternoon, wants if off his property by tomorrow. First come, first get. I asked him not to give it to nobody till I’d talked to you.” I pray Jesus this isn’t a true lie, just a social conversation.