“Mrs. Stancil—”
“Call me Cherry Lou, honey. If you knew Dallas, you don’t need to be a stranger.”
“
“
I swallowed my distaste and said, “Were the Greenes friends of Dallas’s?”
She shrugged. “Never saw them before. He says he’s a deacon in the Tabernacle down the road, but Dallas knew lots of people I didn’t, what with him gone so much. Left me stuck out here with nobody but the kids to talk to half the time. Now that he’s gone, I guess I’ll sell this place and move back to Florida.”
“Sell? But I thought this was Mr. Jap’s farm.”
“Nope. He messes with a little corn and vegetables, but no, he signed everything over to Dallas years ago, before we was even married. The government was about to take it for taxes or something. I reckon it’ll be mine, now that Dallas is gone.”
When she said that, I remembered hearing my daddy talk about the hole Jap Stancil got himself in with the 1RS over some used cars he’d sold without paying taxes on his profits.
Mr. Jap was a self-taught mechanic who liked to tinker with anything that had a carburetor. Some of my brothers got their first cars from him and he showed them how to keep those old engines running with cuss words and socket wrenches. He could do anything with a motor, but he probably never finished sixth grade and he wasn’t much for keeping books, much less for reporting all his income. It was a cash-and-carry business and according to my daddy, “He couldn’t come up with the cash he owed ’em, so the government carried him off to jail for six months.”
Before they’d actually arrested him though, he gave the farm to Dallas and declared personal bankruptcy. After he got out of prison, he only worked on cars in somebody else’s backyard so far as the tax people knew.
“What’ll happen to Mr. Jap?” I asked.
“He can always have a home with me, if he wants it. Don’t you know he’d just love Disney World?”
That was something I’d almost pay to see. Jasper Stancil’s nearly as old as my daddy. I hadn’t seen him in two or three years, but even though I knew he and Daddy still fished together, I couldn’t picture either one of those octogenarians at Disney World.
“I’ve been out in Asheville all week,” I said. “Didn’t get back to Dobbs till this afternoon, so I’m not clear about what all happened. Did you see it?”
“Not really. It was yesterday morning a little before eight o’clock, about thirty minutes after the school bus run. Dallas told me ’bye and said he was on his way. I was fixing Bradley his breakfast and Ashley and Tig didn’t eat yet either—”
“Tig?” I murmured.
“Ashley’s husband. They usually bring Michelle down to catch the school bus—she’s in kindergarten this year— and then they stay and eat breakfast with Bradley and me most school mornings. Anyhow, I was over there at the sink and could see the truck out the window and Dallas just had the door open good and was about to climb in when up drives this red pickup and these two niggers get out.
“I says to Tig and Bradley, ‘Y’all better go out there and see if Dallas needs any help because I believe them’s the same ones he chased out of his woods yesterday.’”
“That was odd, wasn’t it?” I asked. “Most hunters respect those posted signs.”
(The signs say “No Hunting—Possum Creek Hunt Club.” Every year, hunters out from town with their shotguns and rifles will knock on the door at Daddy’s or Mr. Jap’s or over at Leo Pleasant’s and meekly ask if they can join. The three old men solemnly take down the applicants’ names and promise to put them on the waiting list. Of course, there is no waiting list. No hunt club either, for that matter. Daddy long ago noticed that most men, the same men who won’t think twice about trespassing onto posted land, do seem to respect a hunt club’s lease.)
“Them people don’t respect nothing,” said Cherry Lou.
Her son had stopped eating and now lit up a cigarette as he half-turned in his chair to follow his mother’s words.
“I didn’t have my shoes on,” he told me, “so Tig stepped out on the porch by himself.”
“But it was like they never knew he was there,” said Cherry Lou. “Or didn’t care. ’Cause the next thing I knew, I heard both barrels of a shotgun go off and when I ran back to the window, that green Chevrolet was halfway down the driveway.”
“Ford,” said her son.
“I thought you said it was a Chevy.”
“No, I told you it was a Ford. Bright red.”
“I was never one for knowing the makes of anything,” Cherry Lou told me.
“It was a full-size red Ford pickup,” said Bradley, “and they were flying out the yard on two wheels by the time I got out there. Dallas was laying half in and half out of his truck with a big hole in his back. Blood all over the yard, all over the truck.”
“On you, too, I reckon when y’all ran to help him.”
An embarrassed look crossed his chubby round face. “Well, naw, I could see he was beyond help. It was awful. I just ran back in and told Ma to call the sheriff.”
“So you actually never saw the men that shot him?”
He shook his head as if he’d flunked a test of personal bravery.
