Header

nothing?'

Peerce faltered further, grimacing like stomach gas. 'If you was from around these parts, you'd know what I meant. It's feuds, boy.'

'Feuds?'

'Yeah. Feuds.' Peerce spat out his lump and loaded up another chaw of Red Man. 'You wants ta know, city boy. then I'll'se tell ya. Cultures're different, see? Everwhere ya go. The Serbs hate the Bosnerians, the Jews hate the Ay-rabs, the Japs hate us.'

Cummings' frown blistered on his face. 'What's that got—'

'And 'round here.' Peerce drawled on. 'everbody hates ever-one else, fer all kinds'a reasons, from way on back. Don't matter why, just is.'

'All right.' Cummings gave him. 'Feuds. Fine. The Hatfields and the McCoys.'

'Right, Stew, only in these parts it's the Crolls and the Walters, the Lees and the Ketchums, the Kleggs and the McCroncs, like that. It's unervensal, Stew, just different in different places. Someone shits on ya. ya shit back twice as hard, see? Gets ta the point when ya cain't one-up each other. Understand?'

'No,' Cummings responded. 'Answer the question. What's a header?'

Another spit, another sigh, then Peerce came clean. 'A header's the worst thing these rubes out here could think of. It's like the law of the hills. Someone does ya wrong bad enough, then yer justified ta do the worse thing imaginable fer yer revenge. That's what a header is. Folks don't talk about it much, it's just somethin' that's understood. Yer gettin' all whipped up 'bout somethin' that's been going on fer generations.'

Cummings closed his eyes, took a deep breath himself now. 'J.L.. you're telling me that that's what this is all about? Hill people feuding? Cutting holes in women's heads and—'

'That's right, boy, so don't'cha gripe 'cos you was the one who asked. It's one-uppin', like I said. Someone slashes yer tires, you burn down his barn, then he rapes yer sister, and you kill his son. When there ain't nothin' left ta out-do the other... ya have a header, ya throw a head-humpin'. Ya snatch the other guy's wife 'er daughter, get the boys together, an' then ya hump 'er head. Like that. I growed up in these parts, so I oughta know. 'Round here, there ain't nothin' worse ya can do ta someone than pull a header on one of his kin.'

Cummings stared. His mouth attempted to form words but failed 'That, Stew,' Peerce finally verified, 'is what a header is. 'Round here, folks take care of their own, so that's why there ain't no need fer you ta be blowin' tax dollars at state CES tryin' ta run down bloodtypes an' fuckin' bootprints. Just a bit un-yoo-sheral that the perp'd leave the bodies where anyone could see 'em. Yoo-sherally they'll leave 'em on the properly of the fucker that done 'em wrong in the first place.'

But Cummings was still staring. Was this madness or what? Headers, he thought baldly. Head-humping. My... God...

........

And head-humping it would be.

Over the next seven weeks, no less than a dozen more 64s were reported, same m.o., same autopsy findings. Some of the victims were identified, some were not. It didn't matter. But what did matter was that on all occasions, the brains of the corpus delecti were found to contain liberal amounts of A Positive and ? Positive semen, and on two more such occasions. bootprints were found with an identical tread-pattern.

Ever the dutiful law-enforcement officer, Cummings pursued the crimes.

He also pursued the ill-gotten gains of driving point for Dutch the Drug Dealer.

This divide in Cummings' sense of human purpose didn't obscure him. The continuous head-humping murders amounted to something whose evil he could scarcely comprehend, and he fell it was his professional obligation to stay on the case. And as far as Dutch went. well... that was different. Once a week. Spaz beeped him on his Motorola pager, and Cummings was there. He had a sick wife to think of, after all, and the drugs—namely PCP, marijuana, and cocaine, mostly cocaine—would be sold and distributed anyway. BATF Special Agent Stewart Cummings could not possibly hope to stem the flow of illegal drugs.

But he could solve the head-humping murders, couldn't he? It was his duty.

He'd put in for countless evidence scans and records checks with the state police. He knew it would take time, but Stewart Cummings was a patient man, and, they said, patience was a virtue. So, he'd wait. And in the meantime, he'd drive his unmarked federal police car, with Spaz as his guide, to various 'points.' his trunk loaded with controlled, dangerous substances, mainly of the white powder variety. He'd unload his shit, in other words, and take his grease, to keep afloat in a rocky world and provide his wife the necessary monies for her innumerable medications. And on the side, he would vigorously investigate what he now thought of as The Russell County Head-Humping Murders.

Slow but sure, leads were made, but a bit more quickly, Kath's maladies worsened. She couldn't even attempt to get out of bed before noon, whereupon she'll drive to the doctor's, then drive to the local pharmacist's, procure her meds, and just get sicker and sicker. Acute Temporal Pneumonia, the doctor's diagnosis continued to affirm, with symptoms of related seasonal affect disorder and acute hypoglycemia. Kath's love for Cummings, though, never waned. He could see it in her eyes, he could sense it in her aura, and Cummings knew that one day soon, she would be better and their lives together would resume as they'd dreamed. They dreamed the same dreams most couples did. These, after all, were Cummings' promises to her. A crew of children, a white picket fence and a two-car garage, a collie in the yard. He would give her all of these things, once she was recovered.

And until then—

I'm doing okay, he realized. I'm covered.

Though Kath's doctor and pharmaceutical bills went up, so did Cummings' pad. Soon he was pulling $1500 a month for driving Dutch's points, not to mention the continued peanuts for covering the transport routes for Spaz's hooch supplier. Cummings was paying for all of Kath's meds, plus the everyday bills, plus putting a little away into savings. And there was one thing he avowed to himself.

When Kath gets better, I stop.

Cummings actually believed this, and maybe it was even true. But he remembered his priorities, as well as his golden rule: Cops On The Take- Always Get Caught. Which was why, as he'd previously planned, he would seize any 'special' opportunity, and maybe have the chance to put enough in CDs to cover Kath's medical expenses just in interest. Then he'd be clean and wouldn't have to worry. And there was another thing: whenever he and Spaz delivered product to a point, they carried back a bag full of cash. Ten thousand, fifteen, one time thirty-five. Cummings wasn't stupid. Eventually, he knew, he'd sufficiently gain enough of Dutch's trust to drop point on a really big score. Then—

I'm made in the fuckin' shade, brother...

But the headers carried on. A dozen became two dozen, then three. They were finding the bodies on the shoulder of Route 154. for God's sake, and in culverts and ravines, in wide open fields, all over the place. Same m.o. each time. Same perps.

Cummings' judicial curiosity smoldered. This was his sideline, all right. He was going to solve the head- humping murders if it took everything he had.

And then, one day, he got a break...

........

'Hump that head, boy. Hump it!'

Travis pumped away, this time on Betty Sue Morgan, whose pappy had once sniped sheep from Travis' own Dad. She was sweet an' young, with flowin' clean red hair and a nice set of milkers on her. Purdy cooze too, but Travis, by now, weren't interested much in cooze. Best pussy in the land weren't nearly as good as a nice hot brain.

'Aw, shee-it. Grandpap!' Travis postulated. 'My bone's so hard it feels like it's gonna bust!”

'Then let it bust, son! Bust a nut right'n'side 'er head!'

And this Travis did, almost as if on command, squirtin' a good-sized pecker-loogie right inta the soft pulp'a Betty Sue Morgan's warm gray matter. It was a fine nut, it was, an' a generous one. 'Fact, Travis' jizz felt like a coupla big worms beltin' out his peckerhole.

'Your turn, Grandpap.' he said, and, as were the case ever-time now, he picked his grandpappy up under the