From the short mystery series Body in Cold Rock Creek
Ephram Clout, Junior led Sheriff Stephens and Naomi
Childers through a field and up a long hill behind his house. Naomi couldn’t get over how polite he
was. He apologized to her because she
had to walk so far and once when they came to a steep rocky place he stopped
and offered his hand to help her over the obstacle.
He said little going up the steep hill. Naomi knew that Matt must be thinking what
she was thinking: This young man a cold-blooded killer?
They got to the campsite and it was as if it had
been preserved in a museum. “I ain’t
been back,” Junior told them. “I mean, I
ain’t been back up here since the night it happened,” he elaborated. “And, nobody else ever comes up here. You live down there Ma’am?” He was pointing in the direction of Naomi and
Edgar’s farm.
“Yes,” Naomi said in a voice that was barely
audible. She looked up at him and he smiled. He looked as if he could be one of her
grandsons. She had to fight back tears.
“I thought I recognized you,” the young man said as
he smiled again. “They told me at the
store that some real nice people bought the old McToole farm. You fixed it up real nice. I pass it sometimes when I go that way and I
seen you a workin’ in the yard.”
It was almost as if this young man was just chatting
with her the way folks did when she stopped at Markers to pick up ice cream
sundaes. It was excruciatingly painful
to think that this young man was a murderer.
“Well, Mr. Clout why don’t you tell us what happened
up here,” the Sheriff said jarring both Junior Clout and Naomi back into
reality. “Why don’t you just start at
the beginning.”
The young man began. “I have that path over younder,” he said
pointing to the woods behind the sheriff.
It meanders down the mountain to the creek after the cliff part. Sometimes, when I don’t have gas money or
just when I want to kill a lot of time I go that way to Martin’s Store. I took it that afternoon.”
He continued, “When I got to the store I bought me a
candy bar and just sat down on the jawing bench next to this feller and we
struck up talkin’. He said that he’d
been hiking the trail and had come off for supplies. It was getting kind da late and he asked me
if I knew where he could camp for the night ‘cause he wasn’t goin’ na make it
back to a good campsite on the trail.”
Junior Clout took in a deep breath and went on, “I
told him that he could camp out at my place and he thanked me. We went hoofing and got to the creek and
waded in, ‘cause you have to walk part way in the creek to get back to the
path. He liked the camp site and he
asked me to supper."
"He pulled out two big steaks that he got at the meat
market at the store. He was a mighty
good cook. It was dark by the time we
finished so we just set in to talkin’ and he pulled out this big bottle and
asked me if I wanted a swig. Well, a
course I did, so we set in to drinkin’.”
“Some right smart of time passed and we was both
gettin’ pretty wasted. It was the best
tax-paid stuff I ever drunk and he said it come from somewheres afar off. It was powerful, too. Anyways, he commenced to telling me about a
travelin’ all over the world and things he had done. It was real interestin’. Then he started telling me about all kinds of
games people played in those far off places and asked me what our unusual games
were. I couldn’t think of nuttin’ right
off so I just says horse shoes.”
He laughed and said “No, something more ‘exotic’
than that.”
“I was stumped for a minute and I was trying to
think of somethin’ when I put my hand down in my pocket and felt the two rocks
I had picked up when we crossed the creek.
I like rocks and I found these two laying side by side in the
creek. They were shaped just like
chicken eggs. One was brown and one was
black. I said, well there is one game,
but we’d be fools to try it.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“He told me to call him Gil. So I said, well Gil, it’s called the Dumb as
a Rock Duel. I commenced to explain how
you play it makin’ it up as I went. He
asked why it was called that and I told him that rocks were the weapons and
that anybody had to be as dumb as a rock to play it.”
He just horse laughed and said, “Well, I’m game.”
“We built up the fire real big to give us some light
and walked over a ways from it. I handed
him the pretty black rock and we both stood up with our backs to each other and
stepped off twenty-five paces. We was
both real stumble-like and laughin’.
Then we turned to face each other.
I let him go first and he flung the rock towards my head. He missed by a mile. Just like we was supposed to do.”
“Then it was my turn, and I let go and being drunk
and all I forgot to think about missin’ him. I am a powerful good shot, and I throw knives
and always win. Well, I didn’t mean to
aim I guess it was just instinctive.”
Junior Clout paused and sucked in a great gulp of air. Matt Stephens and Naomi Childers did not
interrupt the young man.
He continued, “I sure didn’t mean to hit him. If I had been thinking about my aim it was
off by a full inch maybe two. I didn’t
hit him square between the eyes like David did Goliath, but he went straight
down and he was dead as four o’clock afore I got to him. I just screamed as I held him. Then I had to figure out what to do and
before I really thought I had dragged him by his heels over to the side of the
cliff and pushed. He went over, but got
caught a few feet down and I had to take a stick to dislodge him before he went
tumbling on down. It was pitch black,
but I heard him hit the water. I put the
fire out and went home.”
“I was going to call you Sheriff honest I was,” he
said as he looked over at the sheriff. “I
didn’t mean to do it.” They were all
standing on the side of the cliff looking down.
The sheriff bent over and picked up Gilbert Waycaster’s lost boot.
“I thought,” Junior said, “I’ll call him
tomorrow. Every day I kept trying to
pick up the phone, but just as I got my nerve up to call you all hell broke
loose.”
To be continued ….
©Patty F.
Cooper, Elizabethton, Tennessee August, 16th, 2014
All Rights reserved
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