Those we thought we knew, p.19
Those We Thought We Knew, page 19
“Well, I don’t remember the details really. I just remember him mentioning that you were approached by the Klan to be their arms keeper.”
Silas snorted and laughed and slouched down in his chair, resting his beer on his chest so that he could easily tip it back to his lips. “Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “Fellow named Dumpy Rice asked me. Old Dumpy’s dead now. Died, I don’t know, five or six years back. But your daddy and them used to give me hell about that. Used to act like I was secretly in the Ku Klux Klan.”
“So what happened?”
“I told Dumpy to eat shit. That’s what happened. That’s all that ever come of it, really.” Silas finished his beer and poked the coals red and hot. He tossed his empty can into the fire and opened another. “See, I used to do a lot of gun trading back then, kind of like a second job, a lot of buying and selling and traveling around to gun shows. I had a Class Three license and that’s what it all boiled down to. They wanted to get a dozen or so fully automatic weapons to set back in case shit ever hit the fan. But you don’t just walk into a gun store and say, ‘Hey, I’d like a machine gun.’ There’s a lot of paperwork, hoops to jump through. They were just wanting to use my license to cut through all that red tape.”
Leah jumped forward to try to make the connection. “I’m sure you’ve probably heard everything that’s going on. What happened to one of our deputies, Ernie Allison, and then about the murder of Toya Gardner.”
“I have.”
“So one thing we know is that Ernie was targeted by the Klan because he’d uncovered some names, and I can’t help but think that if those are the people responsible for what happened to him, then they’re likely the same ones responsible for what happened to her. And the thing is, until all of this happened it never even crossed my mind that anything like this even existed in this county. Up until a couple weeks ago, the only time I’d ever heard mention of the Klan was that story.”
“I mean, they’ve always been around in some capacity or another.” Silas pulled his beard through his fist. “Never was much of anything. Wasn’t like some places you hear about where they’re marching around town, showing up at parades. To hear them tell it back then it was like they were a social club. That’s what they wanted me to believe, like it was all about history and Jesus, and all I kept wondering was if that was all it was, then why the fuck did they need an arms keeper?”
“Why do you think they approached you?”
“On account of that license,” Silas said. “On account of the guns they were looking for wasn’t the type of shit you just walk into a store and pluck off the shelf.”
“Yeah, but why would they have thought you’d have been on board with everything else?”
“That’s a damn good question, and that’s why your daddy and the rest of them peckerheads give me so much shit about it through the years. They knew how far out of place it was to think I’d have ever been a part of something like that.” He held his hands down by the flames. The coals were hot and the beer can he’d tossed into the fire crumbled away like burned-up paper. “You know, we’d all grown up together, Dumpy and me and a couple others. And back in high school I had rebel flags on my truck and drawn on my notebook. Guess they just remembered that and assumed we was like-minded. I don’t know really.
“Here’s the thing, though. I mean, I grew up knowing the family history and all, but for me it wasn’t ever about that. For me it was just a rebel flag. That’s all it ever was, a middle-finger sort of thing. I remember a few years back this kid got arrested for spray-painting an anarchy symbol on one of the buildings downtown. Had his picture in the paper. Had a big tall Mohawk and looked just dumb as cheese, but now, what do you think that kid knew about philosophy? Hell, I was driving through Sylva not a month ago and seen a teenage girl with her head shaved bald and a picture of Che Guevara on her T-shirt. What I’m trying to say is kids attach themselves to all sorts of shit they don’t fully understand just because they think it looks cool or tough or whatever.”
Leah’s mind flashed back to the kid in the truck at the candlelight vigil.
“So maybe the difference is I grew up and started reading books and realizing half that shit I’d been told wasn’t right to start with. Maybe that was the biggest difference between me and them.” Silas watched the flames lick about the air in front of him. A breeze had picked up and was carrying the smoke off toward the wood line. “You can be proud of where you come from and not proud of everything that history entails. That’s what so many of these people don’t seem to be able to wrap their heads around.”
She couldn’t help but think about the conversation she’d had with Rupert Bates just a few days before. She wished that he was sitting across the fire right then to hear what Silas was saying, and she wondered if having it come from a man like him would’ve made a difference or if he’d have written it off just the same.
“Dumpy Rice flunked ninth-grade algebra twice. He was in summer school every summer of our lives and never did get a diploma. Hung it up in the tenth grade. Now, you think he ever sat down and cracked open a book after that?” Silas tilted his head back and drained half of his beer. “Them boys don’t read books. Only history they know’s whatever bullshit their daddy told them, and all he knows is whatever bullshit his daddy told him. They just use what they want and toss what they don’t, same as these people on TV do with the Bible. It ain’t never been about history, just like it ain’t ever had a thing in the world to do with a man on a cross.
“This is what nobody will tell you, what nobody wants to admit. There was a right many folks in these mountains fought for the Union. So where’s them folks’ statue? Why ain’t their kin dancing around in uniforms playing dress-up and slapping stickers on the backs of their pickup trucks? Why ain’t they hung up on some little four-year window a hundred and fifty fucking years ago? Tell me that.”
Leah wasn’t sure what to say.
“Because it’s all bullshit, that’s why. Every goddamn bit of it. Lies and bullshit.”
He seemed to be growing agitated and she felt as if she might’ve pushed him into thinking about things he’d rather not have discussed. No one wanted to talk about any of it. There was comfortability in the silence. They sat there for a while and neither said anything at all, and then she tried to wrap things up so that she could leave him be.
“I do appreciate you talking with me, Silas. Like I said, all of this started when Ernie Allison uncovered those names, which is to say we’ve got some people we’re fairly certain are actively involved, but I guess I was hoping you might could fill in the gaps.”
“I’m sorry,” Silas said. “I just don’t see how I’d be much help.” He was still slumped in his chair and he poked at the fire with his stick. “That story you were asking about was almost thirty years ago. Nowadays I stay up here and drink up my Social Security and that’s about it. Most them boys from back then are dead and gone and I ain’t far behind them.”
Leah was a bit disappointed but not at all surprised. She’d come up here on a whim and more just to try to wrap her head around some of the things running through her mind. She thanked him again and got ready to leave.
“I will say this. Like everything else up here, it’s always been a matter of family. Grandfathers to fathers, fathers to sons. Everything gets passed down, just like houses and stories and all that other bullshit.” Silas threw his empty can into the fire but did not reach for another. He moved the cooler out in front of him for a footrest and propped his boots up on it. “What I’m trying to say is if you was to give me a name I could probably make a pretty good guess as to whether they’d be affiliated with an outfit like that or not.”
All of a sudden the rain came heavy and Leah turned to run for her car.
“People are what they’ve always been,” he yelled through the downpour, and it wasn’t until later, when she was alone, that the gravity of that statement would find her. “Tell that old buzzard you work for to come by and see me sometime.”
39
The rain had not let up since morning. A few times through the day it fell heavy, but for the most part it came steady and continuous, the kind of rain that soaked a garden and set into the ground. Coggins walked out of the service station and paused where a sheet of water cascaded off the edge of the roof. He had a case of beer tucked under one arm and he covered the top of his head with his free hand as he hustled off for the pumps.
The pickup he drove matched the color of the clouds, and he opened the rear driver-side door to slide his beer behind the seat. There was a black step bar along the side of the truck that he placed one foot on to climb into the cab, and as he briefly rose he spotted a station wagon shoot past with tires hissing loud as a snake against the wetted pavement. The back glass was cracked and the wood paneling down the side was long faded and peeling. There was no doubt in his mind to whom it belonged.
He didn’t catch up with the car until the last light out of town, and as the Caprice passed the high school, Coggins mashed the gas to tail him. There was no real reason to force a stop. There was nothing yet placing Cawthorn at the cross, nothing to indicate he’d had any involvement with what had happened to Ernie at all. He was the catalyst, but there was no evidence to suggest he was the cause. For now, the sheriff just had a few questions he wanted to ask.
The day was almost gone and the clouds and rain left the world in dark gray light. Up ahead on the right, a roadside merchant crouched beneath a giant umbrella peddling watermelons he’d brought to the mountains from Florida. Just before the stand, South River Road cut off to follow the Tuckaseigee back toward Webster, and that’s where Cawthorn slowed and turned. The road was narrow, just a two-lane ribbon that hugged each bend of stream. Suddenly the station wagon took off, doubling its speed in a matter of seconds, and the sheriff knew instantly he’d been made. His truck was unmarked and he hadn’t hit the blue lights that were hidden in the grille, but from the looks of things, Cawthorn must’ve spotted him just the same.
The road was too winding for a high-speed chase. He hit the lights and went in pursuit but he did not race to catch him. Rounding a bend, he caught sight of the vehicle for a split second as it nearly lost control in a curve, but through the next few hairpins there was no sign of the Caprice at all. When he finally spotted the station wagon it was just the taillights glowing red in the fog over the water at first, the car having dipped over the bank and crashed into the river.
Coggins whipped the truck to the shoulder and left the lights flashing as he exited the vehicle. Cawthorn had wrecked where a small island split the stream in two to form a narrow passage of runs against the bank closest to the road. Out in the river, the engine roared. The exhaust was boiling the water with smoke. The rear tires were spinning like waterwheels and every few seconds the tread would catch just enough traction on the cobble to heave the vehicle a few feet farther downstream.
Coggins slid down the bank and was knee-deep in cold water before he found footing. He waded out and slipped every few steps, his boots unable to grip the slicked stones. The water was soon up to his hips and he could tell the river was high from the day’s rain. As he got closer he could hear Cawthorn yelling inside for help.
The car was facing downriver, so that when Coggins approached he was on the passenger side, and he knew the pressure against the door would keep it sealed like a coffin. Along the right side of his belt he kept a small collapsible baton in a leather sheath just in front of his service weapon. Coggins pulled out the baton and whipped it to full length with a flick of his wrist. He swung and the side glass shattered like a thin sheet of ice. Inside, Cawthorn wrestled frantically with his seat belt.
“It’s stuck!” He was yelling as loud as he could to get his words out over the revving of the engine. The water was up to the seat and rising. “I can’t get out!”
“Take your foot off the gas!” Coggins screamed.
“My foot ain’t on the gas! The goddamn pedal’s stuck! That’s what happened! The goddamn pedal’s stuck!”
The sheriff knew he would have to cut the seat belt free, but there was no way in hell he was handing Cawthorn the knife. He took the baton and ran it back and forth across the windowsill to clear the shards so as not to slice his stomach when he leaned inside. The knife was fastened to his pocket, and when it was free he flipped the blade open with his thumb and dove into the car. Right then the wagon lurched forward and threw Coggins against the back angle of the opened window, his feet kicking wildly outside as if he were already swimming.
When the vehicle stopped, he grabbed ahold of the seat belt and sliced it clean above the buckle, quickly sliced again below. Both sections fell limp against Cawthorn’s lap and shoulder. The sheriff wriggled back out of the car like a tunnel rat and soon he was in the water. The front bumper of the vehicle was wedged now against a heavy deadfall and he knew the car could not go any farther, though they were in a deep hole and the river was nearly up to his chest.
William Dean Cawthorn was all knees and elbows trying to unfold himself from his ride. Coggins was already wading downstream to where he knew the water shallowed. Cawthorn followed, and when they stopped he stared straight above so that the rain beat against his face. He stood nearly a foot taller than the sheriff.
Cawthorn lowered his head with a wicked smile cutting his face. “I thought sure as shit I was dead!” He howled then with a wildness known only to beasts and vermin. Behind them, the car’s engine still roared. “I thought sure as shit I was off to meet my maker, but you saved me! You saved me, Sheriff!”
Whether it was the adrenaline of the moment or the slow building up of everything, a sudden rage swept over Coggins right then. Out of nowhere his hands fired forward, his fingers clenching the neck of Cawthorn’s shirt. They stood where the water hit him midthigh, and he had always been a bulldog, so it took very little for him in that river to sweep Cawthorn onto his side.
The sheriff climbed over him like he was stepping over a log and he held Cawthorn’s head just above the surface. He scowled down at him when he spoke. “Were you at the cross that night with the rest of them?”
“What cross?” Willy Dean’s face was smeared with confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You lie to me and I’ll drown you, boy. I swear I will.” The rain came hard now and it pelted against his back, but he did not feel this, for his body was numb and his mind was empty. “Were you at that fucking cross?”
“I don’t know what in the fuck you’re talking about, Sheriff!”
“You’re going to tell me the name of every cocksucker in this county wears a robe and hood or I’m going to hold you under this water till you’re forced to breathe it.”
“Fuck you!” Cawthorn screamed, and Coggins dunked him under the surface like a baptism, only he did not let him up. When he finally lifted him for air, Willy Dean was coughing and choking, his arms and legs driving like pistons but finding no place to land. “Get the fuck off me!” he squalled.
“Tell me their fucking names!” Coggins wailed.
Willy Dean said nothing, and this time Coggins held him under with no intention of ever letting him up again. As Cawthorn scrambled to get free, the sheriff caught movement on the bank, and when he looked there was a man hustling down the road. The fog flashed blue in the strobe from Coggins’s truck and the man appeared in each course of light, closer and closer.
“I’ve got help coming, Sheriff!” the stranger yelled. He appeared as little more than a shadow.
In the distance Coggins could already hear the sirens echoing through the valley. At that moment it was like the world suddenly came back to him. He could feel the rain beating down on his shoulders, the river up to his thighs, that cold water soaking him to the bone. He took a step back and let Cawthorn clamber to his feet. Cawthorn’s face was blank and terrified, white as the sheets he wore.
Soon the road was crowded with emergency personnel—patrol cars, ambulances, fire and rescue. They crawled up the bank one after the other and medics crowded around them to check for injuries. No one knew what had just gone on and they sat them together in the back of an ambulance to check their heart rates and breathing. There were no immediate reasons to transport them to the hospital, and so for the next hour they waited in that ambulance while medics circled back every few minutes to monitor their vitals and ensure that nothing had changed.
They were alone when Cawthorn finally broke the silence. The rain had stopped and the two of them were standing by the back bumper of the ambulance, all of those lights still flashing a dizzying madness around them.
“Whatever it was you asked out there, Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know nothing about a cross.” He was wrapped in a towel they’d given him to keep warm, but his hair was still wet and it hung about his shoulders as if slicked with bear grease. “But as far as giving up names, my answer won’t change. I’m a whole lot of things, Sheriff, but I’ve never been a snitch.”
The sheriff wished Willy Dean would’ve just kept his mouth shut, because that voice of his made all of that rage well up again. Despite knowing better, the sheriff could not bite his tongue, and right then he didn’t care who heard him.
“If it wasn’t for that man on that bank I’d have held you in that river until your body went limp.” Coggins turned so that they were facing each other square. His fists drew tight and bloodless at his sides, his entire body coiled and loaded. “I wish you’d just say something, boy. Say one more foul word and I swear I’ll knock your fucking teeth down the back of your greasy throat.”
Willy Dean smirked, then ran his tongue against the roof of his mouth. His front four teeth dropped away and he flicked his tongue so that the partial rattled with a sound like beads clacking together. “Wouldn’t be the first time, Sheriff.”
