Cody's Army (11 page)

SEVEN

T
he little town where Rufe Murphy was being held, pending his trial, was a sleepy burg of two streets and one stoplight, snoozing
under sultry, humid summer sunshine in the hills of northern Mississippi, a short distance east of the rich, dark, cotton-growing
soil of the alluvial plain, known as the Delta, of the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers.

The one-horse, ramshackle town practically reeked of backwoods poverty, though it reeked far more of the sawmill plant located
just outside of town, near the town’s only inhabitable-looking motel, where Cody, Hawkins and Caine checked in—as “traveling
salesmen,” as Cody told the clerk—before heading out, off to pound shoe leather and learn what they could under the guise
of “market research” at the businesses lining the town’s main street.

Cody had no intention of breaking Rufe out of this redneck jail with weapons blazing. They would find another way.

Caine and Hawkins found an elderly citizen named Old Joe sitting on a bench in a little park dead center of the town square.
They had been at their assigned task for two hours and were both dripping sweat in the seemingly airless heat, when they moved
through a line of parked cars, over to where the old man sat, looking up at them as if they were Russian invaders, his left
jaw lumped up.

After staring at the two strangers for a moment, the oldster picked up a small milk carton on the bench beside him, spat into
it and part of the lump in his cheek disappeared.

“You fellas want something or you just trying to give me some shade?”

“We’d like to talk to you,” Caine smiled cordially, “if you don’t mind?”

“Suppose not. We going to talk about women? That’s one of my favorites. Or is this going to be how’s the weather and such?”

“Neither,” said Hawkeye, and he sat on the old man’s left while Caine sat on his right.

“I know you boys?”

“No, but we talked to a fella over at the drug store,” Hawkins told him, “and he told us some things but he said you were
the one to talk to; said if we wanted to know something and hear it straight, you were the one.”

Caine took his wallet out, unlimbered it and produced a fifty-dollar bill which he held in the palm of his hand and pushed
toward Old Joe.

“I seen one of them before,” the oldtimer noted dryly. “Once. About nineteen-fifty, I think.”

“It’s yours if you’ll answer a few questions,” Caine said.

Old Joe’s ears perked at the British accent. He looked quizzically at Hawkeye.

“What’s wrong with your talker? He a Yankee?”

“English,” Caine growled, “and bleeding proud of it.”

“Bleeding,” Old Joe snorted. “What kind of a gawldang word is
bleeding?”

“Foreign,” Hawkins chuckled. “Look, we came over here because the guy over at the drugstore said you could tell us some things
about the sheriff.”

Old Joe nodded.

“He’s an asshole. Now do I get my fifty?”

“Not quite,” Hawkins grinned. “We’ve roundabouted our questions to everyone else, but we won’t to you. We know from what we’ve
heard that you don’t like the sheriff any. We get the feeling no one in this town does, but they aren’t saying so. We don’t
care for him either, oldtimer, and we intend to do a little something about it.”

“Like what?”

“Depends on what you tell us,” Caine put in. “What’s he like?”

“Crooked as a dog’s hind leg, for one,” Old Joe snapped. “Gamble on anything. I mean anything. He once bet on how long a racehorse
would piss. The sheriff won. Reckon the only thing you can say for him, he gambles good.

“Y’all heard right. I don’t like that fat fuck worth a damn. He’s one of them there southern sheriffs gives southerners a
bad name. They ain’t all like that, course, but Braddock is. Only reason he’s in office a’tall is he got the right asses greased.
Knows who’s poking who, that sorta thing. Wiley in some ways, I reckon, but a damn ignoramus in others.”

“Would you like to see him get his?” Hawkeye asked.

The old man considered that.

“Well, now, 1 ain’t out to hurt no one, not even a shithole like that bastard.”

“Not physically,” Caine explained. “Just…embarrassed.”

“Maybe put in a position to be kicked out of office,” Hawkeye added.

“Now you’re talking,” Old Joe nodded. “Him and his deputy beat up a nephew of mine a few years back for nothing more than
a taillight out. My nephew, he ain’t been right in the head since. Yeah, I’d like to see high-and-mighty Braddock get his.
But you knew that, didn’t you?”

“We talked around some, like I said,” Hawkins conceded.

“I think it’s the gambling part that has potential,” Caine prodded “Maybe we should talk some more about that…”

Cody listened to what Hawkins and Caine had to say.

It was just after lunch. The odor from the sawmill plant came through the shut motel windows and filled the room, the processing
of those trees not too unlike the aroma of decaying bodies.

“Gambler, huh?” Cody considered that after Caine and Hawkeye finished their report. “That’s what most of the folks I talked
to about the sheriff got around to mentioning sooner or later, too.”

“Old Joe in the park told us that one time Braddock poured gasoline over a possum, flipped a match at it, and he and a deputy
bet on how long the little critter would burn. It’d be a real pleasure sticking it to a creep who’d do something like that,”
said Hawkeye.

“Then Braddock’s compulsive gambling is the angle we use?” Caine asked.

“That’s the angle,” Cody nodded.

“Ideas?” asked Hawkeye.

Cody did not respond immediately.

The only sounds for the next minute or so were the air conditioner humming and the whining and whizzing of cars outside.

After a short while, Cody said, “Y’know, the same thing, shall we say, that got our man Rufe into his jail cell just might
get him out.”

Hawkeye studied Cody quizzically.

“I don’t get you, Sarge.”

Caine was studying him too.

“Nor I,” he added, “but I will say, mate, that that grin you’re wearing calls to mind the proverbial cat that has just swallowed
the canary.”

Cody, not losing the grin, turned to Hawkins.

“Hawkeye, that southern accent of yours is going to come in handy for a change, but you’re going to have to play this one
easy. Don’t get anyone suspicious. Say you’re some sort of termite specialist or something. Just find some way to call around
to the sheriffs’ offices in the neighboring counties; find out the sheriffs’ names. We’ll need a name or two.”

“Gotcha,” Hawkins nodded. “Sort of.”

“What have you got in mind, John?” Caine asked.

“Something that could work,” Cody explained. “And I’ll guarantee you Rufe will like it so much he’ll want to marry the idea.
So Braddock’ll gamble on anything, eh? Okay then, here’s what we’re going to do…”

Rufe Murphy, six-foot-two and two hundred and sixty pounds of restless black muscle, sat on the lumpy jail-cell mattress and
contemplated his small universe; the one into which he had been hurled due to his never-ending quest for pussy.

Pussy.

It was that simple.

Here he sat in a cell eight feet wide and eight feet deep, sharing it with a drunk, because he could not make the big head
override the urgings of the little head. Now, a good, cool distance from the passion that had sent him here, he decided it
had not been at all wise to bang the mayor’s wife. He should’ve stayed busy with his chopper and his charter services.

True, she had wanted it and things had led up to it nicely, and once he’d finally got a chance to put the mule in the barn
it had been real all right, but had it been this good? Was anything worth a hole like this: roaches the size of cigar butts
on the floor; one little, barred, and net-wired window; and a companion who needed a bath?

Rufe looked at the little drunk, not able to remember when they had brought him in. He’d gotten into the bad habit lately
of sleeping sound as a rock.

The drunk saw him looking his way and leered back.

“Reckon you’re in some deep shit here, boy. Mayor’s wife ain’t the ticket for a colored. Not here. Everyone else in town was
fucking her, but not with a black dick, no sir. That’s gonna get you sent up.”

“Secrets are real well kept around here, aren’t they?” Rufe groused.

“Nope, they ain’t, and that’s a fact,” the drunk grinned.

At the end of the hallway, Rufe heard the door open and the drunk whispered, “Shit, here comes Braddock. Don’t look like I
been talking to you, will ya?”

Braddock came over to the bars and grinned.

Rufe thought the sheriff looked like an oversized Butter-ball turkey that had learned to wear clothes.

“Momin’, boy,” Braddock snickered.

“I guess that pleasant greeting must be for me,” Rufe growled, wishing he could reach through the bars and strangle the bastard
to death.

“The mayor don’t like his wife being soiled by no burrhead,” Braddock rasped. “He’s having her put out to pasture, just ’cause
of you. And you…well, you’re going to be breaking big rocks into little ones real soon, and the mayor aims to make sure there’s
some guards up at the state pen paid off to bust your balls real regular-like.”

“I’m not there yet, Sheriff.”

“No, and that’s a fact, and I’m right proud to have you here as my guest, boy. You and me, we’re going to have ourselves a
little fun back here before your case comes to trial, ain’t we?” Then he turned to the drunk, not waiting for a response from
the big, angry, glaring black man.

“All right, Leroy, get your ass out of there.”

Braddock took out his revolver and held it against his leg. He unlocked the cage with the other hand, let Leroy out and closed
the cell door, putting the gun away again and smiling at Rufe.

“Leroy must be real dangerous when he’s sober,” Rufe noted.

Braddock patted his holstered sidcarm.

“That was just in case you tried a little end run. And you know, I think I’d like that. Yessiree. I’d give you a warning shot
right upside your head, boy. See you later.”

“I’ll count the minutes,” Rufe growled, watching Braddock and the drunk disappear down the hallway outside the cell. He sat
back on his uncomfortable bunk and grumbled sourly to himself and the cell floor, “Way to go, Rufe. A nigger’s nightmare and
you jumped into it feet first…”

About two-thirty in the afternoon a car pulled up in front of Braddock’s office.

A tall man in a tall hat wearing shiny lizard-skin boots got out of the driver’s side, while the other door yielded a muscular
man outfitted in a workshit, jeans, and chuka boots, and a Pentax camera slung around his neck, riding on his chest. They
went inside the office.

Braddock sat behind his desk, a deputy across from him, playing checkers.

“What can I do for you?” Braddock demanded tersely, moving inhospitable eyes over the new arrivals.

“Sheriff Braddock?” the man with the tall hat asked.

“You’re talkin’ to him.”

“Name’s Harold Richards,” Hawkeye Hawkins said. “This here is Jim Mosby.” He motioned to Cody. “We’re over from Carrington
County. I’m a deputy over there. Jim here’s a friend. He’s the one going to make sure this is all official-like.”

“Make sure what’s official-like?” Braddock glowered.

“Well now, Sheriff, I reckon that’s going to depend on whether or not you’re interested,” Hawkins winked. “It’s not, shall
we say, law business, but it is, uh, official in a way, if you want to call money official.”

Braddock stood up and came around his desk, sort of smiling.

“Well shoot, I’ve always thought of money as official; right official.”

“Well,” Hawkins went on, “it is kind of private.”

“Oh, don’t mind Willie Bob,” Braddock assured them with a nod at the deputy. “Willie Bob ain’t gonna say shit if’ n he ain’t
supposed to, right, Willie Bob?”

Willie Bob nodded, and Hawkins and Cody nodded as if that suited them.

“Well then, Sheriff,” Hawkins continued, “first off, I got to tell you I’m right proud to meet up with you. Heard a lot about
you, yessir.”

“You have?”

“You bet I have. Your gambling feats, Sheriff. Word is you’re one of the best. Bet on anything, all kinds of odds. You’re
practically a legend.”

Braddock puffed up.

“Well, now, I figure a man ain’t a man unless he’s willing to take a chance now and then.”

Hawkins nodded. “Fact is, you’re kind of the inspiration for this whole deal, you and your betting. Like I say, word is you’ll
bet on anything. So, some of the boys, and the sheriff…You know Sheriff Tywater, don’t you?”

“Know who he is.”

“Sheriff Tywater got this all started. Uh, you do have a prisoner in your jail at the moment, don’t you, Sheriff?”

“Hell, yes. Got me a nigger in back.”

“Well,” Hawkins chuckled pleasantly, “they’re usually prisoners, aren’t they?”

“I always say ain’t nobody fills out and looks right in a striped suit and ball and chain better than a coon,” Braddock snickered.
“Don’t I always say that, Willie Bob?”