The Right Side of Wrong (16 page)

Uncle Cody studied him for a long moment, and I knew he didn't like what he saw. Mark was hungry, and we didn't talk too much until the three of us had eaten two ears apiece, gritty with salt and dripping with butter. Norma Faye couldn't keep her hands off of him, and I knew she felt bad that he was so skinny.

By that time, the drum went quiet and a couple of the singers stood up and left. Not all were longhaired Indians. Some were white folks like us. Others quickly took their places and the beat started up again. A singer threw his head back and the air was filled with a sound from a time long past. Several people, both white and Indian, moved up to dance with small steps in a slow circle around the drummers and the fire.

Mark shuffled his feet to the beat. “I heard 'bout what happened to y'all.”

Pepper stiffened for a moment, and then tilted her head. “We're all right.”

I knew she felt uncomfortable, so I changed the direction of the conversation. “I got a puppy after you left. We named him Hootie, and he helped save us.”

“A pup did?”

“He was half growed then, and he ain't much puppy anymore.” While Uncle Cody talked, he kept an eye on the crowd, and I knew he was looking for something. “I do believe he saved them a second time down on the river in the fall.”

“Sounds like y'all been busy.”

“You wouldn't believe it.” Uncle Cody took Norma Faye's hand and led her toward the dancers. “Come on kids, let's go stand over there so we can watch everything and talk without bothering anybody or getting in the way.”

We threaded our way through the crowd. Pepper held Mark's hand behind Uncle Cody and Norma Faye, like a miniature version of grown-ups. We stopped beside a group of Indian men building another small fire.

I'd never seen Indians make fire, so I was interested. I expected them to get a stout limb and a bow saw to start a blaze with friction, but I was disappointed when a big bellied man unscrewed the lid from a jar of Vaseline and dipped a glop out with a big piece of raw cotton. He laid it on the ground and stuck a match to the cotton. When the Vaseline caught, he piled on small sticks until it burned bright.

The man gave me a big wink. “Old Indian trick. We don't use flint and steel anymore. We learned what was easiest.”

Embarrassed that he knew what I was thinking, I went back to Mark and Pepper. For the next hour, we talked and caught up while Uncle Cody and Norma Faye stood nearby, visiting with different people.

One of them was the Hugo sheriff, Clayton Matthews, who'd been on the job less than a year. They say he wore a badge up around Tulsa somewhere, before he beat out Sheriff Post for the Hugo job. I believed he won the election because he looked more like an Indian cowboy than a sheriff. I moved closer to hear them talk.

Mark and Pepper didn't care. They wanted to whisper to each other. It was like he'd never left, but I knew she'd fall apart when we went home and realized he'd be gone from us again for a long time.

“I haven't come across anybody who looks like that, Cody.” Sheriff Matthews stood beside him and they talked without hardly looking at one another. “You say he's a big man, all muscled up?”

“That's what Ned said. Built like John Washington, only white. There was three others with him in the Sportsman, and we think they might be involved in at least one killin' on our side of the river.”

The obvious question hung out there until the sheriff couldn't stand it anymore. “You think it was them shot at you?”

Uncle Cody shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal. “Maybe. I didn't get a look at anyone because it was too dark, and then I was busy trying to rein in Norma Faye's car.”

“What makes you think they're here?”

“Didn't say they was. I said I figured they might be somewhere's close by, since they hang out at my place a lot, or did while I was in the hospital. I don't want to try and arrest anybody. I only want to visit with them for a little bit, and try to jolt 'em a little.”

Matthews grinned. “You're a-lyin'. The minute you get the chance at 'em you'll haul 'em to jail.”

“Maybe, but not from this side of the river. I want to get my hands on them on our side.”

Norma Faye spoke up for the first time. “Say again what he looked like?”

“Ned says muscled up, flattop, rolls his sleeves of tight cowboy shirts as high as he can, wears shades inside and out.”

“Like him?” She jerked her chin toward a big man sitting on the tailgate of a dark green company truck.

It was hard to make him out in the light, but the guy was as big as Mr. John. He also made me uncomfortable, even from that distance. I was always scared of men who were greasy and tough, with their slicked-back hair or flat tops, and cigarettes hanging from their lips.

The man on the tailgate was even scarier, because he also wore a stained bandage on his cheek that glowed in the lights.

It didn't faze Uncle Cody. He suddenly set his jaw and left us standing there. Sheriff Matthews quickly tagged along. Norma Faye held us back. “Y'all, we need to stay right here.”

“I want to see,” Pepper complained.

“Oh, you'll see all right.” Norma Faye took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head. “I ‘magine you're fixin' to see more than you want to.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Based on the description, Cody instantly recognized the man in the harsh floods as the one who threatened Ned in the Sportsman. Deep inside, he also instinctively knew it was the man behind the wheel of the car that had ambushed him. His mind shifted into overdrive. The bandage covering his cheek surely hid a wound resulting from a struggle with Ben junior. There was no logic to the knowledge, nothing but a dead-solid gut feeling that felt right.

He'd finally learned to trust his instincts.

Locking in on the huge figure, he plowed through the crowd in a straight line toward the truck. Milling residents and visitors quickly moved out of his way when they saw the look in the Texas constable's eyes. Cody unsnapped the strap over his pistol. Sheriff Matthews mimicked his actions, praying they wouldn't get into a gunfight in the middle of so many people.

The giant caught sight of Cody pushing through the crowd and stiffened. The men he'd been talking to noticed his reaction and backed away like vanishing smoke.

“What's your name?” Cody demanded, stopping short and suddenly hypersensitive to the noise, crowd, and music.

“Whitlatch. What's yours…oh, wait, I know you. You're Cody Parker, that constable from Center Springs.”

“Stand up!”

Matthews reached out and touched Cody's arm to calm his rising rage. “Cody, let me.”

Whitlach placed the palms of his hands on the tailgate, lifted his body, and arrogantly swung his considerable bulk onto the ground with a thud. He squared his feet in an aggressive stance. “
Now
what do you want me to do,
constable
?”

Sheriff Matthews moved in front of Cody. “Whitlatch, I need you to…” He was interrupted when a scuffle broke out not ten feet away. A woman screamed as two work-hardened men grappled over an unknown slight, then the fight became real when one of the slender men punched the other with a meaty crack.

Blood flew.

As if attracted by a magnet, a crowd moved in, a living entity that immediately congealed six people deep around the combatants. Instantly the smell of crushed grass rose around them.

A knife flashed in the floodlights.

Another scream.

The crowd roared their approval amidst the country carnival smells of frying foods, cooking sweets, and wood smoke.

Sheriff Matthews and Cody turned toward the disturbance, Whitlatch momentarily forgotten.

“Shit!” Realizing what happened, Cody's head snapped back around, but Whitlatch was already gone. The gathering throng prevented Cody from responding, and when he spun in the sheriff's direction, he couldn't believe his eyes.

Two entirely different men stepped between Matthews and the onlookers, asking questions as if nothing was going on behind them.

“What county is this, Sheriff? We're looking to move to Okla…

“He's just kidding. What we really want to know is if they sell beer around here tonight, we're mighty thirsty.”

Confused at the bizarre turn of events, Sheriff Matthews momentarily divided his attention between the unnaturally-casual conversation and the crowd around the fight.

Another roar went up and the crowd pulsed with movement.

“Move!” Cody charged past the two who resisted for a moment and then stepped meekly aside.

“You two stay right here!” Matthew shoved the tightly packed gawkers out of the way and pushed his way through to the fight. Bodies rippled like rings in a pond, but when the lawmen broke into the makeshift arena, both fighters were gone.

“Dammit!” Cody scanned the crowd in frustration. When he tried to locate the two who'd stalled them, he found they had also disappeared.

The maneuver orchestrated by Whitlatch's men worked so smoothly it might have been planned.

Cody was close enough to touch the men who tried to murder him, and they'd slipped away like ghosts.

Chapter Twenty-four

Half an hour later, Uncle Cody met us over near the popcorn stand. We'd missed most of the action because of the crowd ginning around in front of us.

Norma Faye stepped forward and took Uncle Cody's arm. “Was that him?”

“I think so, but they're slick. They got away. Matthews wanted to call for help so we could check the cars coming and going, but it'd take twenty minutes before they even got here. Whitlatch is already long gone.”

Mark shook his head, eyes twinkling. “You Parkers are something else. You come to a powwow and find people who're trying to kill you.”

Uncle Cody put his arm around Norma Faye, still keeping his eye on those around them. “You're older than your years, Mark Lightfoot. An eighty-year-old man told me the same thing not too long ago.”

“What do you want to do, Uncle Cody?” I knew Pepper didn't want to leave Mark, and I wanted to stay for the rest of the powwow. She was afraid he'd take us home and then come back to look for that feller. I didn't see how that little incident would ruin a perfectly good night.

“We're gonna stay right here and have a good time.”

“Good.” Mark acted like he wanted to be with all of us, but it was easy to tell he was more interested in Pepper. “Cody?”

“Umm hum?”

“I know about that feller you went over to talk to.”

Uncle Cody's eyes lit up. “How do you know that?”

“I've seen him around. Some of my outlaw kinfolk talk about him at night around the fire. His name is Whitlatch, and he's got a group moving marijuana up here in Oklahoma from Mexico.”

The whole night suddenly focused on the five of us. I'm sure there were people around, but we'd moved into a world of our own.

Uncle Cody knelt on one knee to be eye level with us. “Do tell.”

“Whitlatch drives different cars they only keep for a week or two, and then sell 'em to buy new ones. That way no one recognizes the cars, most of the time, but he keeps a green fifty-nine Galaxie five hundred that he drives sometimes.”

Cody rocked back like he'd been hit between the eyes. “I remember! That's the car I glimpsed that night. Those four headlights had me half blinded, but I know those low rear fins were right there beside me just before I left the highway. How do
you
know all this?”

Mark ducked his head. “Two of my uncles was making whiskey up in the Kiamichi, when Whitlatch's men showed up and told them to shut it down and leave, or they'd kill them. We haven't seen them since, but my kinfolk have been keeping an eye on Whitlatch, because he knows something.”

The simple statement identified the two men in the grave for Cody. “Out of the mouths of babes. Why haven't you told anyone?”

“Who'd listen to me? I'm an Indian kid. That's just as bad as being a nigger kid.”

“Why didn't you call me or Ned?”

“Dimes are hard to come by, and I try to stay out of the way.”

“It ain't anymore.” Uncle Cody dug in his pocket and counted out half a dozen Liberty Head dimes. “Here, stick 'em in your sock or something. They're for you to call us whenever you need help, or if you need to tell us something. Now, tell me what you know.”

Mark raised his patched jeans to reveal bare ankles. “I ain't got no socks, but I'll put 'em in my shoe, at least until I get a hole in the sole.”

I heard Norma Faye make a soft, choking sound. I knew better than to look at her, because I was sure she had tears in her eyes. “Hon, put these in your pocket and don't tell anyone you have them. Cody, give him some more money.”

While Uncle Cody pulled bills from his billfold, Mark tried not to look embarrassed. “They're bringing marijuana in here from some town in the Valley called Him Billo, or something. I heard they didn't want anyone to know they was up here, so they run all the moonshiners off. Them that didn't run, disappeared.”

Cody recalled the corpses they dug up at the unused still. “You ain't a-woofin' they disappeared.”

“They're hiding the dope everywhere they can, and then some others break it up and sell it in places like Dallas and Oklahoma City. It's up in Muskogee, and even down in Chisum. It's everywhere.”

“You know for a fact Whitlatch's driving that Galaxie?”

“Yessir. Turquoise. It looks green to me, but I'm about half colorblind. I remember, 'cause that's the color of a stone the Navajo like to work for jewelry.”

Uncle Cody shook his head. “Boy, you're something else.”

Mark's cheeks dimpled. “Don't I know it?”

“That's enough.” Norma Faye ran her fingers through Mark's long hair. “You still hungry?”

“Sure am.”

“Let's all get us a hot dog.”

Uncle Cody wanted to ask Mark some more questions, but Norma Faye had done made up her mind that we were eating, and that was all right by me.

The singers changed every so often, and the dancers shuffled their feet until the air smelled
green
. The grass was long gone and dust rose around us. We joined in a couple of times, but mostly watched.

The adults got to talking with some people beside us, and I had an idea, so I nudged Mark with my elbow. “Stick out your thumb.”

He stuck his thumb up in the air, and I opened the pocket knife Uncle Cody gave me months before. Mark knew exactly what I was gonna do, and grinned. “Don't cut too deep.”

“I don't intend to.” I drew the razor sharp blade across my left thumb until blood welled. It stung for a second, but I'd cut my fingers worse a dozen times before. I held out the knife, but Mark shook his head. “You have to do it.”

Pepper's eyes widened when I drew the blade across Mark's thumb, and we stuck our wounds together. “Blood brothers forever.”

“What about me?”

I tried to give Pepper the look Uncle Cody gave us when we asked dumb question. “Girl cousins can't be blood brothers. Whoever heard of a blood sister?”

The question sounded better before I said it, but she snatched the knife out of my hand. “
Shit!!!
” she hissed, and I saw she'd accidentally cut herself. Her's was deeper.

Mark pulled his thumb away from mine and it stung for a second time. The thin layer of blood had already stuck us together. He squeezed his thumb with the other hand for a second, then took Pepper's cut finger and pressed them together. “You're already blood with Top, but now we are too, only it ain't brother and sister. It's something else until the day we die.”

In the flickering shadows, I saw tears in Pepper's eyes and couldn't figure out why she'd cry from just a little cut.

Long after they should have turned loose, Pepper and Mark kept holding hands and whispering. The drummers changed again and I saw Mark rub the back of her shoulder where the Skinner had branded her. She must have told him about it, or it might have been an accident.

The wind laid and the skeeters got bad for a while, until an Indian in overalls threw a handful of powder into the fire, and then they all vanished like the smoke that rose into the darkness.

We left around midnight, without Mark, and I was right, Pepper cried all the way home like her heart was broke. Norma Fay's eyes were wet, too, and Uncle Cody didn't say much as we rolled through the darkness.

We didn't see Mark for a long time after that.