Soil

  Leavenger snorted. “I hope you don’t expect the government to pay for it, cause they aint.” He leaned in, conspiratorially, and stated loud enough, “You’re the wrong color. Now if you were black, I bet they’d just write it off. That’s how they do, you know.”

  “Hold up, hold up,” the young black man said. He leaned over to Leavenger. “Hey, you got something to say about something?”

  “Hell no, I’m not talking to you!” Leavenger cried, indignant. “Don’t you see me talking to this man here?”

  “Naw, man, just some old white dude talking shit about some shit. It aint nothing.” The young man walked away, back into his own chatter.

  “Shit I’m talking?” Leavenger cried. He leaned in to Ollie. “Hell, I don’t even know what language he’s speaking.”

  The young man kept cutting his eyes over to Leavenger, which made him nervous, so he pulled himself up and lunged away on his sticks. He’d gotten as far as the hospital entrance when he crossed paths with Shoals, the deputy sheriff, carrying a big bouquet of flowers and a balloon.

  “What’s happened to you now?” the deputy asked with a grin, as if the woodsman’s misfortune were a frequent and hilarious occurrence.

  Leavenger was not amused. He motioned down to his bandaged leg. “Broke my goddamn ankle.”

  “Were you drinking?”

  “No,” Leavenger lied. “I fell trying to climb out of the river down in Tockawah Bottom.”

  The deputy became interested. “What were you doing down there?”

  “I’ll tell ya,” Leavenger said. He shuffled away from the automatic doors, which opened and closed like a defensive bird flapping its wings. He leaned against a garbage can and pulled a cigarette, lit it and puffed, catching his breath.

  “I was down there walking my dog, checking things out. You know it flooded that whole bottom.”

  “I’m aware,” the deputy replied.

  “Okay, I was tramping around down there, scoping it out before bird season starts up, and I got overheated. So I walked down into the river to cool off when this fella comes riding up on a four-wheeler. Crazy damn look in his eyes. He’s got his rack loaded up with all kinda stuff, he’s shuffling around at the river’s edge all wild and suspicious. Then outta nowhere, the son of a bitch up and shoots my dog.”

  “Shoots your dog?” the deputy asked, more in disbelief than dumbfoundment.

  “Shoots her a few times and kicks and spits on her, then pitches her off into the river like a sack of trash.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Nothing, hell, I was hiding in the water under some limbs. I thought he might shoot me next.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  Leavenger shrugged and winced, trying to climb out of his own embellishment to recall the man’s features. “I didn’t see him all that clear, but I know he had a big hat. A thin rascal. I probably could’ve taken him if I’d had pants on.”

  The deputy raised an eyebrow. “Whereabouts was this exactly?”

  Leavenger’s eyes got wide and stymied. “I don’t know exactly. Off behind Mel Fellows’s place. Way off prob’ly. Just down on the river there back of his.”

  “Mel aint nowhere near the river.”

  “Shit, I don’t have the goddamn GPS code,” Leavenger replied, frustrated. “It was off on the river, somewhere between Kitter Road and Tockawah.”

  “Hmm,” the deputy replied. He turned to study a young lovely prancing by in pink scrubs.

  “I’m just pissed the asshole shot my dog,” Leavenger said. “For no reason at all. Just to kill something, I suppose.”

  “He didn’t see you?”

  “Nope. He dumped some junk in the river and rode off. Had a dog with him.”

  “His dog?”

  “Hell, I reckon. He didn’t shoot it, so it must’ve been his.”

  “What kind of junk was it?”

  “Fish.”

  “Fish?”

  “Yeah. Looked like it was some frozen fish. Whole fish, head and all.”

  The deputy shook his head for a while, either thinking or daydreaming. “Well, man, I’m sorry to hear about your dog,” Shoals replied finally. “And your ankle. You might file a report with the sheriff. We could look into it.”

  “I just did file my report . . . with you,” Leavenger said. “So you ought to look into it. There’s something not right about that dude.”

  “Sounds like he’s got an issue with trespassers.”

  “Good thing he didn’t see me down in that water.”

  “A good thing indeed,” said the deputy. “All right, I better get moving.”

  “You got somebody sick?” asked Leavenger, nodding to the deputy’s bouquet.

  “Not really. Kinda.”

  “Hope you aint paying for it.”

  Shoals smiled, clapped him on the shoulder, and hurried away. Leavenger pegged off toward his truck. He doubted the deputy would give his predicament another thought. Justice, he knew, if sought in a mild instance such as this, would have to be got by the victim all on his own.

  14

  Shoals had never once pulled over a female for personal gain, or flagrantly abused his position in any way. But that’s not to say his assistance had never been requested, or that he’d never engaged in a little mock interrogation with willing young ladies, a few of which resulted in backseat tussles, containment by handcuffs, and ultimately his brandishing “the full arm of the law.”

  The deputy’s prowess in the sack had earned him quiet esteem among the county’s single moms and the recently divorced, disaffected housewives and feisty widows, coeds, even the occasional homely teenager. His standards ran the gamut. Playing the long game and sampling the widest array of local beauties required practiced discretion. His playboy reputation was known, but few could name names, for he was never one to hunch and tell. His lust was insatiable, his capacity to give pleasure unlimited. Secrecy was part of the allure for him, and he took great pains to cover his tracks. He’d learned how to make love comfortably in the Boss’s cramped backseat. He also loved to rut outdoors and conceived elaborate rendezvous on back roads, in wooded picnic areas and open fields, where the tall grass obscured his animalistic thrashings. He knew every secret cove on the lake, had blankets stashed near every scenic hill. He’d perfected the art of three-minute ecstasy, and none left him disappointed.

  Then came Sandy Mize, and all bets were off.

  They met at a high school football game in late August. She was pulling teacher duty, standing position at the bottom of the bleachers, watching and waiting for unchaperoned kids to make trouble. He saw her from the press box, where he sat as guest color commentator for the local radio coverage. At commercial, he pointed her out to the assistant principal who called the games and learned she was the most recent junior high English teacher. He scampered down after the halftime review to talk her up.

  At first he thought she was dismissive, but she was simply focused on the crowd, scanning for troublemakers, not letting her guard down. This got him hot. Giving it her all, even for a sad gig like teacher duty. She was a cool duck and pretty as all get-out. She kept her effortless sex appeal hidden by casual attire, but her full mouth and well-conditioned hair gave her away. He commented on her eyes and she blushed a little. They had at least one serious connection, but she wasn’t jumping right into his arms. This fish would need more than a nibble to land. He watched her from the booth the rest of the game and then got distracted by the thrilling finish, a last-minute, game-­winning two-point conversion. He lost her in the stands, in all the hoopla and excitement for the first win of the season.

  The next week he made a point to casually run into her. He spent a couple of afternoons at the public library, the downtown coffee shop, the grocery store produce section—wherever he’d fantasized about meeting a knockout English teacher. B
ut she never turned up in these places, so he sat in the school parking lot, waited for her to come out, and tailed her home. He staked out the house, a rental by the ballpark, and monitored her comings and goings. He found out where she shopped for groceries, when she took her son to school and picked him up, where she filled her car and got her oil changed. Even from a distance he detected her sadness, a longing for something more than her simple, frugal routine. The more he watched and followed, the more he wanted her. It killed him that such a pretty girl should be left wanting. She needed a man to make a fuss over her, to do her heavy lifting and calm her worry. And he was a man of simple pleasures himself. If he could just get her out of that blouse and enjoy a gander at those cantaloupes, he believed they could find lasting happiness together.

  Finally he orchestrated a chance encounter at the gas station, small talk in front of the refrigerated soft drinks. He bought extra potato logs and a pack of gum for her and the boy. She flashed him a smile of pleasant surprise. She was a keeper, worth the hunt, so he went in for the kill. “This may sound crazy,” he said, “but have dinner with me. I’d love to talk with someone my age about serious life stuff.”

  “How old are you?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

  “Twenty-seven,” he said. “You don’t mind hanging out with an elder, do you?”

  She smiled, flattered, since she was thirty-two. She told him she was busy. Life was too complicated at the moment.

  “The best way to deal with life’s difficulties is to share and talk about these things. Don’t you get sick of just watching TV, keeping it bottled up?”

  “I like TV,” she said.

  “How about this Saturday?”

  She nervously considered it. He bit his lip, tried to keep himself from begging. He could tell she wasn’t one to jump into a stranger’s car, not even one as bitching as his. He would have to employ great skill and patience to whisper this skittish filly into submission if he ever hoped to ride her.

  “Look, I realize you don’t know me, but I’m an easygoing guy,” he said. “We can meet somewhere if you like. Neutral ground.”

  He worked out at the gym for three days straight. He shaved, trimmed hairs and nails, even contrived his own scent with a mix of aftershaves. He made sure he had a few skins and a wad of dough in his wallet, put on his crispest, tightest T-shirt and firmest jeans.

  Except for the country club, where he was not a member but enjoyed honorary dining privileges, he supposed one of the classiest restaurants in town was Hungry Dragon. At night they rolled the buffet off to the side, put out white tablecloths, and piped flaccid jazz through the sound system. The dining room was low-lit by table candles and aquariums built into the wall. They offered chopsticks or forks. Indeed there was an aphrodisiacal quality to the scene, and when she arrived in her fitted jeans and taut cashmere, he knew he’d have to sit on his hands to keep from touching her.

  Things got off to a rocky start. When they sat down to study the menu, he playfully referred to the restaurant as Hung Dragon, which she struggled to ignore. Then the nervous waiter spilled water that nearly soaked her leg, but Shoals reacted fast and caught it all in the tablecloth. They moved to another table, one next to a wall aquarium, and Shoals explained how their waiter, who seemed nervous and sleep-deprived, had probably just gotten off the boat. “You know, they ship them over in cargo containers. He probably stowed away in a shipment of fortune cookies or cell phones.”

  She reacted strangely to everything he said, and he couldn’t tell if she was sensitive or nervous or what. He finally shut up and let her talk. He listened patiently to her troubles. Their new rental was not suitable. The baseball games would go late some nights, and often they’d hear home-run balls landing on their roof or whapping against the back door. Kids roamed around at all hours, filching small things from the back porch—a cooler, a garden hose, a water pistol. She’d witnessed conspicuous dealings in the parking lot, whether drugs or sex or both. All hours of the day people found it a suitable spot to come and carry on loud phone conversations or just sit while their cars thrummed with bad music. Then there was the landlord, who didn’t care for the dog. Naturally, Shoals offered to keep it at his house, but she was too polite, didn’t want to put him out.

  In fact it had been Shoals, posing as a neighbor, who’d called the landlord to complain about the barking. He needed to be rid of it after he’d slipped up the back alley a few nights earlier, hoping to peep in and catch her lounging in a sexy way, maybe spy her walking into the bedroom, her uncupped breasts cavorting beneath a thin nightshirt, a sliver of soft butt cheek peeking out from below the hem, but the dog went berserk. He’d never get close enough. Wouldn’t it be grand, though, to have a private perch and a sliver of raised window shade to see her from behind, freshly showered, dropping her wet towel and bending down to pull on some plain white undies. His heart swelled at the prospect, and these were the torrents he lived for. He could snap his fingers and have some dizzy tease bobbing his apple out in the parking lot, but he wanted something more precious, something forbidden. He was a man of few subtleties except where this was concerned.

  She seemed to grow more at ease talking, helped by the fact that he was actually listening and perhaps that she’d already ordered a second glass of wine. She was taking it down pretty good, he thought, and if things proceeded in this vein, he might have to claim his room on hold at the Skyline Motel.

  Her tongue loosened, Sandy tried to coax him out of his silent attentiveness. “I noticed your license plate,” she said, sampling the crab Rangoon appetizer. “What does ‘sugar’ mean?”

  “It means I’m sweet.”

  He could tell she wasn’t buying it. “Naw, it’s just an old nickname.”

  “How’d you come by it?”

  He paused, reaching for a fib. “Just something my mama used to call me. I guess you could say it stuck.” He shot her his prized grin. Maybe later, he said with a gaze, the true origin of the nickname would be revealed.

  “What’s your favorite sweet?” she asked.

  His mind went south, but luckily he caught himself, stopped, and tried to summon a reasonable answer. It was too early yet for dirty talk. Instead he confessed his addiction for homemade cobbler with ice cream.

  “I love half-frozen strawberries in syrup,” she said. “Preferably with whipped cream.” Was she trying to stir him up? He smiled, stowed that away for later. He was game for food play whenever she felt comfortable and ready.

  They batted desserts back and forth good-naturedly as she became more at ease. Comfortable small talk, he imagined, was the cornerstone of a healthy relationship. He’d always made a show of clamming up and pouting whenever he wanted to be rid of a woman, so it was nice to see his silence work in reverse.

  When the waiter appeared, she opted for the Thai noodle special and he went for the spicy General Tsao. She giggled when he pronounced the “T,” and he took it for flirting. He winked, dipping two fingers in the red sweet and sour gel, and made a show of licking it off. She excused herself and hurried off to the restroom.

  She returned with a sense of decorum that, to his disappointment, took them back to square one. They each inquired politely about the other’s work, then wondered why they’d never crossed paths. Shoals had gone to Bayard County, while Sandy attended Madrid Central, separated by city limits and school districts like star-crossed lovers. He noticed she had switched to drinking water. By the time the entrée arrived, he was less confident in his chances and chided the waiter for being stingy with the beers.

  At some point during the meal, she dropped the bomb—she was married. Separated but married. It didn’t deter Shoals, of course, who already knew this. His investigation had revealed a name and address in the county, where he’d sent his lawyer buddy Fussell to gather intel, posing as a divorce attorney. But Danny could tell that it bothered her. Perhaps she had only recognized in the midst of
their evening, bathed in sparkling aquatic reflections, that she was on a date, a romantic excursion, and she’d started to feel guilty. He decided the only way to make her feel comfortable about it was to bring it out in the open, so he inquired about her husband. She told him who it was, asked if he knew him.

  “Mize,” he said. “I wonder, is he one of the Mizes, as in Mitchell Mize?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” she said. “That’s Jay’s grandfather.”

  He set his fork down in wide-eyed disbelief. “No! Mitchell Mize is your grandfather-in-law?”

  She said she’d never heard it put quite that way and looked around nervously, hoping the connection had not been made for any other diners. “It’s really . . . I don’t know much about it. It’s not a fond topic in the family. My husband didn’t even know his grandfather. I certainly didn’t either. He was dead many years before we married. Before we even met.”

  “Have they told you the stories?”

  “No,” she said, defensive. “I told you, his name is never brought up. My husband only ever mentioned him a couple of times.”

  Shoals took a breath and gave her a little room, not much. He proceeded cautiously in this line of difficult questioning, hoping to fan the ember of shame between husband and wife so that he could sweep in and hose her down.

  “That’s so interesting,” he said. “What do you know in general about old Mitchell?”

  She told him she knew only that the elder Mize and some others had been convicted of a heinous race crime in south Mississippi during the 1960s. He’d been sentenced to life in prison, which he served out in Parchman until his death some twenty years later.