“Yeah. He’s rumored to be in the Klan, or was.”
“You don’t know that for a fact,” Mama said.
“If he ain’t got an official hood in his drawer,” Daddy said, “you can bet he’s got one in spirit.”
“He ain’t always been that way.”
“No. But things change… things can happen.”
Mama quickly changed the subject. “But if it’s not Mose, who is it?”
“After I was told about Janice Willman, I went over and took a look at the body. Same sort of thing. She’s been cut on, and tied with one leg pulled up to her neck, rope around her head and ankle. That seems to be a thing he does to every one of ’em, some kind of tie-up.”
“Does that mean anything, tying them up like that?”
“I don’t know. Doc Tinn thinks so. When I showed him this body and talked to him about it, he said he believes these fellas have a pattern. He’d done some reading on it, and he thinks they do pretty much the same thing over and over. Little difference here and there, but the same thing. Jack the Ripper did his killings the same, ’cept each one got more vicious than the last. Doc Tinn told me about some others he’s read about, and now these. All cut up. All tied or bound up in some kind of way, and all of them in or near the river. Or they had been in the river. He calls them pattern killers. He said he hoped to write some kind of paper on it, but figures being colored he hasn’t got a chance in hell of doing anything important with it.”
“That doesn’t explain why,” Mama said.
“No. It doesn’t.”
I began to drift off again. I thought of Mose. He had white blood in him. Red in his hair. Eyes green as spring leaves. Skin dark as molasses. I had waved at him not so long ago. Sometimes, when Daddy had a good day hunting or fishing, he’d go by there and give Mose a squirrel or some fish. Mose was always glad to see us.
I thought of the Goat Man again. I recalled him standing below the Swinging Bridge, looking up through the shadows at me. I thought of him near our house, watching. The Goat Man had killed those women. Not Mose. I was certain of it.
It was there in the car, battered by the cool October wind, that I began to formulate a plan to find the Goat Man and free Mose. I thought on it for several days after, and I begun to come up with something that seemed like a good idea.
Looking back on it now, I realize just how foolish and wild it was. Inspired by one of Mrs. Canerton’s books, The Count of Monte Cristo.
But my plan, foolish as it was, never came to pass.
Next day Daddy went to the barbershop and Mama had me stay home with Tom to help her do the canning. We did that all morning and well after lunch. Late in the afternoon, Mama sent Tom and me out to play and she set about putting up the vegetables we had canned in the cabinets.
Although it’s called canning, we did it in jars. It was a lot of work, sterilizing jars, packing them with cooked vegetables, sealing them with paraffin and lids, setting them aside. I was glad to get away from it all. Tom and I played a game of chase at the edge of the woods, and finally took to resting under the oak. Tom fell asleep in the chair there right away, and I walked to the well to get a drink of water. I was still cooking on my plan to rescue Mose, although I was beginning to wonder what I was rescuing him from. Where would I take him?
I cranked up the bucket and used the dipper to drink, and as I was putting it aside, I heard a car roll up around front. I thought it was most likely Daddy, maybe coming home early if the shop wasn’t well attended, so I went around the edge of the house to see.
When I got there I saw the car was a black dented Ford. The man that got out was wearing a large gray cowboy hat and a holstered gun on his hip. He stood in front of the Ford with his right knee cocked forward and he was working the ground with the toe of his boot, way he had the day I first seen him. He wore a long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves buttoned down tight. There was a sweat ring around his neck. He was the same man Daddy had talked to outside of Pearl Creek. The one he had saved from a suck hole when they were both young. Red.
He saw me and smiled. “How’re you doin’, partner?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Your Daddy here?”
“My Mama,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, “well, that’ll do. Tell her I’m here, will you?”
I went inside and told Mama. When she went to the front door and saw Red standing in the yard, I noticed a change in her expression. I can’t describe it to you. It was surprise, but something else too. She reached up and gently touched her hair, then her hands dropped to her sides and she smoothed her dress.
“Red,” she said.
“May Lynn. You’re as lovely as ever.”
She colored slightly. “Jacob isn’t here.”
Red stood in the yard and looked around, as if Daddy might appear out of the afternoon air. “Say he ain’t.”
Of course he wasn’t. I had already told him Daddy wasn’t in.
“Well now, maybe we could chat a few minutes,” Red said. “He be in soon?”
“Yes,” Mama said. Then added: “Very soon.”
“May I come in?”
Mama hesitated. She looked at me. She said, “Harry, run on with you. We’re gonna do a little grown-up talk.”
I hesitated, but went out on the screened back porch and sat in the swing. When Red came in and Mama shut the door, the air draft made the door to the screen porch push open a bit. I got up to shut it, pushed it almost to, then hesitated. I knew it wasn’t polite to listen in on other people’s conversations, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Well, sit down,” Mama said. She sounded uncomfortable and unsure of herself in her own house. I had never known her to sound like that before.
“Thank you,” Red said. I heard chairs scrape, then there was a long moment of silence.
Mama said, “I could make some coffee.”
“No. That’s all right. He’ll be back soon?”
“I can’t say exactly. He cuts hair until there isn’t any to cut.”
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, it has.”
“Nice house.”
“Thank you. It isn’t much really. Jacob and I built it. I nailed down the floors myself. My Mom and Dad helped us.”
“Floor looks sturdy,” Red said.
“Thanks.”
“How are your mother and father? I haven’t seen them in years.”
“They moved to North Texas few years back. Mama went there to be near my sister Ida. Ida was ill and had children to take care of. Ida got better, but Daddy died.”
“I’m sorry. How’s your Mama?”
“Spunky as ever. We’ve been writing each other a lot. She may move back to be near us.”
“I see. I guess that’s good.”
There was a long silence. A bumblebee buzzed behind me, and I turned to see him at the screen, bouncing up against it.
Mama broke the silence. “Could you tell me what it is you want, and I can tell Jacob?”
“I really should talk to him myself.”
“Is it about this murder business? The colored women?”
“Yeah.”
“Jacob says you don’t want him bothering with it.”
“First of all, the body wasn’t in his county.”
“It was found in the bottoms here.”
“Yes, but he had the body brought to Pearl Creek. To have a bunch of niggers tell him what had happened to
