Duty

sundown in zion

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

 Our hero runs into a local acquaintance 

            A half-hour after leaving Armistead, Nelson was almost back in Connorville. He turned before he reached the outskirts and drove toward the ProTex site. Arriving there, he found the building closed and locked. Nelson saw that the Toyota Sienna belonging to Sam Coulson was parked in the rear. He exited his truck and walked to the front door. Although the lights were off, he knocked on the door and waited. Hearing nothing, he knocked again, this time banging the door with a loud boom. Before he turned, a voice from the highway said, “Coming. Coming. Hold on.”

            Nelson turned to see a man arriving on a bicycle. It was a road bike, an expensive one by its looks and the man was dressed in the garish style of true believers. He exited the highway and wheeled to a stop in front of Nelson. “Hey sailor,” he said, laughing, “It’s me, Sam.”

            Nelson stared. The man lifted his racing helmet, revealing that it was, indeed, Sam Coulson. Nelson continued to stare.

            “Surprised?” Sam said. “You may be looking at the only biking enthusiast in Armistead County, but don’t tell anyone. They all think I’m a retired mobster.”

            “Certainly not what I expected to see,” Nelson said, “in a place where the average teenager drives a few blocks to school in a pickup truck that costs as much as some homes.”

            “A habit from my Army years,” Sam said. “Your buddy Charlie and I were the terrors of the military biking competitions.”

            “Charlie?”

            “He hasn’t told you?”

            “Told me what?”

            “Charlie …,” Sam said, “Charlie is, was, a world class cyclist before he got shot up.”

            “He’s never mentioned it,” Nelson said.

            “Must be painful to think about,” Sam said. “The Marines were going to let him train for the next Olympic Games, but you know the military, ‘fighting first and fun second,’ as the Irish couple said when they settled in for the night.”

            Nelson’s head jerked slightly. “Oh,” Sam said, “I enjoy your friend Dickens too.” When Nelson didn’t respond, he added, “This is a small county, my friend.” With that, he changed course, “But to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

            “Best we go inside,” Nelson said. “As you say, it is a small county.”

            “Tell you what,” Sam said, “I’ll keep your secrets if you won’t spread it around that you saw me riding a bicycle.” With that, he unlocked the front door and motioned Nelson it, following him with his bike. “Wait one while I store this thing,” he said, and he disappeared down a hallway and around a corner.

            Returning, he unlocked the office door and the two men entered. Nelson took a seat in a visitor’s chair and Sam sat behind his desk. “Now what prompts this secrecy? I suspect it involves the Stubblefield girl.”

            “More or less,” Nelson said. “I seemed to have sailed into a sailed into a squall, particularly by getting too inquisitive with Sheriff Love.”

            Sam looked surprised. “Sheriff Love? He’s usually friendly. I can’t say anything bad about Sheriff Love since he sends all his deputies to me for firearms certification. That surely can’t be the reason you’re here.”

            Nelson said nothing, just looked at Sam and nodded.

            “No,” Sam said.

            “Afraid so,” Nelson said. “He sent me here to get certified. Can you teach me to use a pistol?”

            “Bite me,” Sam said, laughing. “How much is the old skinflint paying you?”

            “That’s the fascinating part,” Nelson said. “Nothing.”

            “That sounds just like him,” Sam said.

            “Oh, and he said to ask you for a discount on the training.”

            “Screw the training,” Sam said. “I’ll give you whatever old ‘Tub of Love’ wants.” He paused. “I suppose then, that you are going to solve the Stubblefield case?”

            “The Sheriff seems to think so. What I plan to do is bumble around and piss people off until someone confesses.”

            “I take it then,” Sam said, “that you don’t buy into the ‘gang-related’ theory?”

            “Don’t know,” Nelson said. “It sounds a little theatrical to me for a gang, no more than I know about them. Something does strike me, though.”

            “And that is?”

            “It seems that modern gangs operate more like my old outfit than they do the old mobsters.”

            Sam jerked back and stared. “What do you mean?”

            “They seem to operate on the basis of get the mission done with as little fanfare as possible and move on down the line. I would guess that they use theatrics more to attract women than to kill them.”

            Sam considered this. After a long pause, he said, “Maybe I can start you off with a tidbit.”

            Nelson waited.

            “That girl called me a few weeks ago,” Sam said. “I had forgotten about it until after you and Charlie left the other day.” He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a three-ring binder. Placing it on his desk, he fanned the pages until he found an entry. “Here it is,” he said. “A ‘Miss Stubblefield’ called about two weeks ago and wanted to know if she could come and visit about some people who might be my regular customers, a group calling themselves ‘The Soul Warriors for Christ,’ as she put it.”

            Nelson leaned forward with interest. “And?”

            “I told her that I didn’t share information about my clients. That’s what I call them, ‘my clients.’ She seemed disappointed but understood. That was it.”

            “That’s all she said?”

            “As I remember.”

            “Have you told anyone about this?”

            “I was going to tell the Police Chief, but when I called him, his response was ‘I ain’t responsible for that little …,’ well, you don’t want to hear the rest.”

            “Probably not,” Nelson said.

            “So I was going to tell Sheriff Love but now you’ve saved me the trouble.”

            “Thanks,” Nelson said.

            “No problem,” Sam said. “Now let’s get your paperwork together. You do know how to use a pistol, don’t you?”

            “I seem to remember something about it.”

            “What kind do you use at present?”

            Nelson shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t own one.”

            It was Sam’s turn to be surprised. “A man with your background doesn’t own a firearm?”

            Nelson shrugged. “I laid down my sword and shield a couple of years ago. It may have been ‘down by the riverside,’ I can’t remember.”

            “Oh,” Sam said, “speaking of remembering, there was something that girl said before she rang off.”

            “Oh?”

            “She apologized for bothering me, that she was just trying to find a friend and she thought maybe some of the Soul Warriors knew her.”

            “That’s all?”

            “I know it isn’t much, but that’s all she said.” With that, he rose and walked to a file cabinet.

            Nelson left Sam’s place with a manila envelope in his hand. Not long after he turned onto the highway, he saw an old flat-bed truck pulled off on a long stretch of road with the truck’s hood raised. As he slowed to pull around, he saw a man bending over into the engine well. When the man stood, Nelson saw a familiar face and pulled off the road just beyond the stalled truck. He exited his truck and walked to where the man stood. “Remember me?” Nelson said. “Your name is Clifton, right?”

            The man’s face tightened. He shook it from side to side as if trying to cast out unnecessary information to uncover the one important fact.

            “We had breakfast together.”

            Clifton’s face broke into a smile. “Be damned,” he said. “You’s the one whipped Johnny Gallagher’s ass.” He stuck out a hand and shook Nelson’s. “They’s talk about makin’ you mayor. Old Johnny smacks that cast on his finger against the griddle ever time he tries to cook an egg.” He laughed to himself at the thought.

            “Don’t know anything about that,” Nelson said, “just saw you were stalled here. Stopped to see if you needed help.”

            “Goddam battry,” Clifton said. “I was going to get a new one today, but did I? Let me answer that. No, I heard there was some excitement going on over’t Armistead and I decided to drive over and see if’n I could find it.” He turned and spat toward a copse of woods that bordered the highway. “Stopped to take a leak, and guess what?”

            “The battery gave up?”

            “Dead as my whacker. You don’t have a jumper cable do you?”

            “Afraid not,” Nelson said. “Looks like you need a new battery more than a jump. I could take you for one.”

            “You’d do that?”

            “Sure,” Nelson said.

            “I’d be obliged. Wait just a second.” He went to the passenger side of the truck, opened the door and produced a small tool box. “Won’t take me but a second to get it loose,” he said, producing a small wrench.

            Minutes later, he and Nelson were on their way toward Connerville.  As they passed the ProTex building, Nelson broke the silence. “If I remember correctly, you said you were from these parts.”

            “Born and raised in Connerville,” Clifton said. “One of the few now who was. Our family had a dairy farm on the edge of town but our house was just inside the city limits. The whole place was just a speck on the highway when I was growin’ up.”

            “Did you like it?”

            “It was okay. They never allowed no coloreds in our town and that appealed to some folks.”

            “Why was that?”

            “Why was what? That it appealed to some folks that they didn’t allow coloreds?”

            “No. Why didn’t they allow them?”

            “They tell me it went back to a couple of men back in the 20s that got all worked up, raised a crowd, and started running them out of town, the coloreds, that is. They’d give a family a week or so to move and if they didn’t, a crowd would pay them a visit at night and burn their house down.”

            “Then it was an all-white town?”

            “Yep, they even printed some flyers braggin’ on the fact. Said folks ought to move here because it was ‘free of negroes and other low-lifes.’ Later on, that’s what drug the assholes here.”

            “What do you mean, drug them?”

            “When they started bussing school kids, assholes from Little Rock started moving here.” Neither man spoke for a moment. Then Clifton said, “Now we’re colored-free and Little Rock’s free of a bunch of assholes, so I reckon things are in some sort of balance. That’s why I was headed for Armistead.”

            Nelson looked at him, but said nothing.

            “I heard,” Clifton said, “that we got rid of a couple of assholes this morning.”

            “How so?”

            “They say a couple of those Baptist Tabernacle hoodlums wrapped their truck around a tree in the Baker’s Creek bottoms.”

            “Oh,” Nelson said. “Were they hurt?”

            “They say one went to the hospital and one went to see Jesus.”

            Nelson was quiet for a moment. “It doesn’t sound as if you like them much.”

            “About as much as I like rattlesnakes,” Clifton said. “They’s a bad bunch, but ain’t nobody gonna tell them so.”

            “Why not?”

            “They got God and Bully Bridges on their side.”

            “I see,” Nelson said.

            “That’s a dangerous combination, if you ask me,” Clifton said.

            “What is?”

            “Religion and power,” Clifton said. Then he pointed up a busy street, “Up there at that yellow sign.”

            Nelson parked the truck outside a business advertising auto parts. Clifton took the old battery inside. As he waited, Nelson’s cell phone announced a text. He took it from his pocket and read, “Will be enjoying wine in your favorite kimono tonight. Must I beg?”