(no subject)

33.
“Never Alone”

Three weeks after the shooting of Wiley Earl, Pappy Agamemnon had the dream.

It was one of the hottest nights of the year and Pappy had moved out to doze on the porch swing. It was an old habit, one that held over from his childhood. Bel didn’t take it well, she always took it as a sort of rejection. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to share her bed, it was that the bed sheets were unforgiving to his skin.

And when she added the air conditioner it became like an icebox in the room, and that was torturous to him too.

Out on the porch, at least the night air moved around him. That was all the comfort the blistering darkness was able to surrender to him, but he would take what he could get.

When he came to himself in the dream, it was still in the porch swing, but this time it was hanging over the local cemetery.

That graveyard he had visited so many times in the past, on so many tragic occasions. Now it was the middle of the night and the only reason he could see was that there was an over sized full moon over head.

Well, at least his dreams got good lighting.

So far it was no worse than the ones he used to have after watching Boris Karloff in the Universal movies he had always loved.

But then, he heard something that made it significantly worse.

There were voices, coming from beneath the ground. Muffled by the muddy soil he heard the voices of children.

“We do not rest, mister,” They said.

“We are not at peace,” Someone said.

He looked up and found Casey Murdock standing by his side. The boy had wanted to be a doctor, but now stood in the clothes he was buried in.

“You know it is true,” Spoke Aaron Manchester, “You know this is not
done.”

“Didn’t Wiley do it?” He pleaded with the boys.

Not a voice answered his plea.

Then the Elkins boy stood next to him.

“You also know that I’m part of this,” He demanded.

Pappy looked down to avoid the boy's eyes and answered, “Yeah, I do.”

“This isn’t over,” All the boys chorused.

“We do not rest in peace,” Came the echo from below ground.

Then the thunderbolt rocked the house.

Pappy was in his sweat soaked bed, with Bel asleep next to him.

The old man got up and looked out at the gathering thunderstorm that threatened to rock the night with its roar.

He doubted he would rest this night.

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

34.
“That They Can Rest”

He had spent the rest of the night planning on how he was going to carry on the investigation without bringing down the righteous wrath of the world who thought this was all over.

Then the phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?”

It was Archie on the other end. He had been out of town since he got out of the hospital after the shooting.

“Pappy, I need to meet with you.”

“We could meet at the diner, if that works for you,” The old man proposed.

“I have something to ask you and some things that I can tell you,” The FBI man told him.

“When do you want to meet?” Pappy asked.

“I can get to the diner in 20 to 30 minutes, how about you?”

Han was a bit stunned at the urgency. He had expected to make a date for sometime in the next couple of days, not within an hour.

“I’ll be there,” He said, knowing that the man was not in the mood to give any more information on the phone.

“We need to take a corner booth,” Archie told him.

Either he had some breaking news on the case, or his cancer had advanced more quickly than they thought, or he was going to ask him to leave Bel and let the FBI man marry her.

For more reasons than he could count Pappy hoped it was the first.

“See you Pappy,” Archie said and hung up the phone.

Pappy didn’t say anything, and hung up the phone.

Bel entered the room with tomatoes she was about to slice and eat with a coating of salt, just the way her doctor had told her NOT to do.

“Who was that?” She asked.

“It was Archie,” Pappy said absently, “I gotta go meet him.”

“Is it something important?” She asked.

“Seems to be,” He told her.

“Is it something bad?” She continued.

He shrugged his shoulders as he turned to her, “He didn’t say. Just said he needed to meet and he needed it to happen right now.”

“Is the Nash working?” She said as she sat.

“Shiny as a new nickel,” He said, “And with about as much horse power.”

He leaned over and kissed his wife.

“I’ll be back as soon as possible,” He told her.

He walked to the car and hesitated just a bit. The last time he was in this heap he was shot at. He got inside, looked through the new windshield and turned the key. As the motor rattled he put his head on the steering wheel.

“Maybe,” he thought, “I can use Archie as an excuse to re-examine the evidence. I could tell people we were looking into it for the FBI.”

That was a good idea. He could use that. Unless he had to shoot Archie for trying to run off with his wife.

 

© 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

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