A Land More Kind Than Home Read online

  “I don’t need nobody watching me,” I said. “It ain’t like I’m a baby.” I looked over at Daddy. “I bet Stump don’t even want to go back to church tonight anyway. Me and him could just stay here.” Daddy crumbled more corn bread over his pintos and then reached across the table for the bowl of coleslaw. He spooned a helping onto his plate and sat it back down.

  “Listen to your mother,” he said.

  “Christopher,” Mama said. “Do you want some coleslaw?” Mama picked up the bowl and held it over Stump’s plate. She waited, and I knew she was hoping he might say something. Daddy sat his fork down and chewed his food and looked across the table at her. “Christopher,” she said again. She waited another second, and then she sat the bowl down on the table and picked up her fork.

  DADDY WAS STANDING ON THE PORCH AND SIPPING A GLASS OF WATER when we left for the evening service. The sun was on its way down, and even though it was September and I knew the leaves would start dying soon, it was still awfully hot outside. I rolled the window down in the truck and leaned out and waved at Daddy. He waved back and stood there and watched us until we went around the corner of the driveway.

  “I need to tell you boys something,” Mama said. She looked over at me and Stump. “Your grandpa’s coming to see Daddy this evening, and he might still be here when we get home.” She looked back at the road, and I stared at the side of her face. I hadn’t seen him since I was real little, back when he used to live out in Shelton where my daddy grew up. Mama’d told me I should call him Grandpa if I ever saw him again because it would make Daddy feel good.

  “Where’s he been?” I asked.

  “Lots of places,” she said.

  “Why’d he come back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is Daddy mad at him?”

  “Not anymore,” she said.

  “But he used to be mad at him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he didn’t used to be a good person.”

  “But he’s good now?”

  “He wants to be,” she said.

  MAMA PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT AND PARKED THE TRUCK IN one of the spaces along the side of the church. Around to the right of the truck I could see people lining up and talking. I couldn’t see Pastor Chambliss, but I knew he was standing there in the door and greeting folks and shaking their hands as they went inside. Mama had brought some pens and pencils and some drawing paper with her in a little folder, and she picked it up off the dash and handed it to me.

  “Here you go,” she said. “I want you to stay in the truck, and make sure to keep the windows down so you don’t get too hot. You can open the door if you need to, but I want you to stay inside here.”

  “Is Stump staying out here too?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “He’s coming inside for the service.” She opened her door and stepped down from the truck. She waved her hand at Stump, and he climbed down too.

  “I want to go with y’all,” I said. “I don’t want to wait out here.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to tonight. Maybe you can go with us next Sunday morning.”

  “But I want to go tonight,” I said. I tried to stop my voice from sounding scared. I can stop this, I thought. I can stop it from happening again. What happened this morning. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I knew my voice probably sounded like I might start crying, no matter how hard I was trying not to. I couldn’t keep my mind from picturing what I’d seen them doing to Stump that morning. Mama just stood there with the truck door open, and she looked over the hood toward the front of the church like she was thinking about whether or not she should let me go with them.

  “I don’t think so,” she finally said. “Not tonight, but maybe next Sunday.” She slammed the door shut and took Stump’s hand. They walked around the back of the truck to the other side. Mama looked into my window. It was open about halfway. “Stay inside the truck,” she said. “Service shouldn’t last too long.”

  “Please let me go too,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “Come on, Christopher.” They turned and walked toward the front of the building. I watched them go, and then I rolled my window all the way down and got up on my knees and hollered after them.

  “Wait!” I yelled. Mama stopped and turned around and looked at me. She held on to Stump’s hand and he stood right behind her, and behind him I could see across the road where the path began that led down to the river. I looked at Mama and thought about what all I could tell her that would keep Stump from having to go in there again: that me and Joe Bill had seen what they’d already done to him that morning, that it was me and not Stump who’d hollered out her name when those men started piling on top of him, that Stump hadn’t ever said a single word in his life and probably never would. I knew that earlier that morning in church Stump would’ve screamed for them to stop if he’d been able to, and I knew that if I would just open my mouth and say what all I’d seen I could make sure nobody would try to hurt him again.

  But I was too scared to say any of those things, and I just stayed there in the truck with the window down and stared out at Mama. My fingers closed tight around the door of the truck, and I felt that little bit of splinter where it was still stuck down in my palm.

  “What is it?” she said like she’d lost all her patience with me.

  “Can I go too?” I asked again. “Please.”

  “No,” she said. “Stay in the truck. We’ll see you when we let out. It shouldn’t be long.” I sat back down on my butt and watched them as they walked away and got in line in front of the church. The people in line in front of them turned around, and a woman hugged Mama and a man looked down and said something to Stump. Some other folks got in line behind them, and after a while I couldn’t see them and I knew they’d gone inside.

  The sun sunk down behind the trees in back of the church, and there was just enough light for me to do a little drawing. I picked up the folder off the dash and opened it and looked at the sheets of blank typing paper, but then I closed it and sat it back up on the dash because I knew I didn’t feel one bit like drawing. I got as comfortable as I could, and I laid my head back against the seat and closed my eyes and listened for the river across the street, but all I could hear was the music striking up inside the church: the guitar first and then the drums, then the sound of people singing. It reminded me of what all had happened and what all I’d seen. I felt myself starting to drift off to sleep, and I imagined getting out of the truck and sneaking back behind the building and getting up on my tiptoes and propping my elbows on the ledge and looking through the air conditioner into the church.

  That was the last clear thought I had because I knew there wasn’t no way I was going to do it. Even in my dreaming I knew I’d already seen more than I ever wanted to.

  I HEARD VOICES SOMEWHERE OUT THERE IN THE DARK, AND THEN the driver’s-side door opened and I felt somebody climb up into the truck. I opened my eyes all the way and looked around, but it’d gotten to be nighttime and I couldn’t hardly see a thing. I sat up in the seat and expected to feel Stump in there beside me, but I didn’t. I knew for sure there was somebody sitting behind the steering wheel because they’d slammed the door shut and I heard them with their hand in their pocket like they were trying to get something out. They struck a lighter, and I saw it was Mr. Stuckey, and he held Mama’s keys over the flame like he was trying to get a good look at them. He was about as old as Daddy, and he wore a button-down shirt and he had his hair slicked back with Brylcreem. He found the right key and let the flame die. I heard him put the lighter back in his pocket, and then he cranked the truck.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him. “Where’s my mom?”

  “She’s going to meet us over at Miss Lyle’s house,” he said. He put his arm across the seat and turned his head and looked out the back window and backed out of the parking space and pulled around in front of the church. The door to the church was open, and the light
from inside shone out into the parking lot. There were all kinds of people standing out there, and some of them had their hands over their faces like they were crying.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “We’re going to be there in just a second,” Mr. Stuckey said. “Your mama’s going to be there waiting on you.”

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  He kept going and pulled right through the parking lot and drove out onto the road away from the highway and put his foot hard on the gas pedal. I turned around in my seat and got on my knees and looked out the back. I could still see the light from inside the church shining out into the darkness, and the people looked like shadows moving around in the parking lot. Two men were carrying somebody out the front door of the church to where a car was waiting. They put whoever it was inside the car and shut the door, and then they went up to the front seat and got in. The last thing I could see was their headlights turning on.

  “Who’s that?” I asked. “Where’s Stump?”

  “Turn around here,” Mr. Stuckey said. I felt his hand on my back.

  “Where’s my mom?” I asked again.

  “Turn around here and sit down,” he said. “We’ll be there in just a second. She’ll be waiting on you.”

  Clem Barefield

  FOUR

  I’VE BEEN SHERIFF OF MADISON COUNTY SINCE 1961; IT’LL BE twenty-five years next month. My granddaddy was a sheriff too. He worked out of Hendersonville, North Carolina, about an hour and a half south of here on the other side of Asheville. But places like those might as well be a world away. My daddy was an apple farmer in Flat Rock over in Henderson County. I reckon I grew up thinking I had to be like one of them, and I suppose I chose right. Serve and protect, I thought. That kind of thinking is what brought me up into these mountains. When I was sworn in as sheriff I replaced Jack Moseley, who was just fifty-seven years old, not an old man by any means, but maybe that’s just my own thinking after turning sixty myself. Before I took this job I asked Jack why he was leaving it, and he told me that he’d just gotten bored. He said didn’t much ever happen up here in Madison County, nothing much exciting anyway. He said he found the brook trout and his grandkids to be more interesting. He said I’d see. Said I’d get bored too, like he almost looked forward to hearing me tell him about it. But he died of a heart attack not long after I took the job, and I never had the chance to tell him just what I thought about this part of the country, these people.

  But one thing I can say about people up here is that they’re different from folks in Buncombe or Henderson County or any other place in these mountains. Most people up here claim they’ve got Irish or Scottish or some kind of blood in them, and I think that’s probably true, especially if you listen to the folks who’ll drive up here from the universities to tell you all about the culture they say’s disappearing. Then they’ll go and knock on cabin doors looking to get Jack tales on their tape recorders, snoop through barns, flag elderly men down from tractors to ask them to sing a couple of the old-time reels.

  I’d always heard that it’s a different world up here, and sometimes I wonder if it might just be. When I first came over from Henderson, I’d drive through this county and see signs and markers for towns like Mars Hill and places like Jupiter and all kinds of things like that, and I’d think, Jesus, Clem, how’d you end up here? But I’ll be damned if it’s not beautiful: these green fields where farms line the ridges and the spaces in between hide dark hollers and deep coves where the sunlight might not ever reach. Like I said, I’ve spent almost twenty-five years working this county, but I can guarantee you there’s places I’ve never seen, places that would seem just as strange to me now as they would’ve when I first stepped foot in Madison County. I’ve gotten right used to feeling that way, and sometimes, after you’ve lived in a place long enough, it becomes harder and harder to pick out the things about it that once seemed strange, even if most folks still consider you an outsider after two and a half decades just because you weren’t born here and raised up knowing everybody’s business.

  But if I could talk to old Jack Moseley, I’d tell him that I haven’t been bored, even after all these years. Of course there’ve been particulars about calls and cases I can’t quite remember even when I try, but that’s due more to my years on the job than any kind of boredom. On the other hand, I’ve had those calls, those couple of cases that I won’t ever be able to forget no matter how hard I try or how old I get to be. This here is one of those.

  I’D JUST CLOSED THE SLIDING GLASS DOOR AND STEPPED ONTO THE deck when I heard the kitchen telephone ring. It was a hot Sunday evening in early September, and, just like I do every day after dinner, I’d gone out to the deck to smoke my one cigarette of the day and listen to the crickets get started up for the night.

  I shook a cigarette from the pack and fished the lighter out of my pocket, and once I had it lit, I turned and looked through the glass in time to see Sheila answer the telephone. She looked back at me where I stood in the floodlight by the door, and she listened to the voice on the other end of the line, and then she rolled her eyes. She raised her hand and motioned for me to come inside, and then she pointed to the telephone and mouthed the words “It’s for you.” I decided to make a show of her not letting me smoke in the house anymore, and I raised my cigarette up to where she could see it, and I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. She sat the phone on the counter and walked across the living room and slid the door open.

  “I hate to interrupt your exercise,” she said, “but you’ve got a telephone call.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Robby,” she said. “Again.”

  “Good Lord,” I said. “What does he want now? Can’t you take a message?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” she said. “Sounds like an emergency.” I flicked the end off my cigarette and dropped the butt into my breast pocket.

  “It’s always an emergency,” I said. “Especially with him.”

  “I told you he was nervous. And too young. You should’ve thought twice about deputizing him.” I walked into the house, and when I passed Sheila I squeezed her hand.

  “I wanted to deputize you,” I said. “I just couldn’t get you to carry a damn gun.”

  “We spend too much time together anyway,” she said, smiling. “Answer the phone.” I picked up the receiver and leaned against the kitchen counter. I made a show of clearing my throat like people do when they’re about to give a speech.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Sheriff, it’s Robby down at the office. I just had a 911 call come over from Ben Hall up on Long Branch Road. He says his son’s been killed.”

  That was about the last thing I expected Robby to call and tell me on a Sunday evening, and I stood up straight and put my hand in my pocket and raised my eyes to Sheila’s. It looked like she was waiting for me to tell her something funny that Robby might’ve said, but the longer I looked at her the more her face changed to resemble the same concern she probably saw on mine. “What happened?” she whispered. I lowered my eyes and looked at the tiles on the kitchen floor. My fingers fumbled with the lighter in my pocket.

  “How’d it happen?” I asked.

  “He don’t know,” Robby said. “His wife left the house about six thirty this evening to take their boys to church. And then, about eight o’clock, he got a call from Adelaide Lyle telling him his son was over at her house and that he’d died. He asked her what happened, and either she didn’t know or she wouldn’t say.”

  “Did it happen at her house?” I asked.

  “No, sir. It happened at the church.”

  “Which one of his boys is it?”

  “It’s the older one,” he said. “The slow one. The one they call ‘Stump.’”

  “I’m going to head over there now,” I said. “Won’t take me but a second to get things together here.”

  “All right,” Robby said. “Ben Hall’s on his way there right now. Sounds like his daddy’s back in town, li
ke he might be going to drive him.” When I heard that my stomach dropped to the floor, and for a second I thought I might lose the dinner I’d just finished eating a few minutes before. “Sheriff?” Robby said. I looked at my watch. It was almost fifteen after eight. I knew I wouldn’t beat Ben and his daddy there, even if I left right then.

  “I’m here,” I said, “but I’d better get going. There ain’t no telling what Ben will do to those church folks if any of them are at that house when he gets there, especially if his daddy’s with him.” I didn’t notice that Sheila had left the room until she walked back into the kitchen carrying my hat in one hand and my holster in the other. She laid them on the counter beside me.

  “Miss Lyle’s address is 1404 River Road,” Robby said. “About two miles past that church on the right. You know where I’m talking about?”

  “I do,” I said. I undid my belt and slid my holster onto it.

  “You reckon I should meet you there, Sheriff?” he asked.

  “You might want to think about it,” I said. “I might could use the help.” I hung up the phone and finished fastening my belt.

  “What’s happened?” Sheila asked.

  “Ben Hall’s oldest son’s been killed out at that damn church,” I said. “And it sounds like they’ve moved him to Adelaide Lyle’s house out there on River Road.”

  “Why would they take him there?”

  “Would you want a dead boy lying around inside your church when the law gets there?”

  “You think he died at the church?”

  “I think so,” I said. “There wasn’t no reason to move him otherwise.” I put on my hat and turned and walked down the hallway to the front door where the keys to the cruiser hung on a hook by the light switch. The front door was open, and I looked out through the glass in the storm door and for a moment I watched the yellow lights of what were probably the last few fireflies of the summer move through the darkness of the front yard. I took the keys off the hook and flipped the floodlights on, and all the fireflies disappeared. In the storm door’s reflection I could see Sheila standing behind me at the end of the hall.