The Hunt Club Read online

  I said, “Yep. The sign said he was a son of a bitch, too.”

  The dogs were coming closer, and I wondered if they hadn’t picked up it was human blood they were coming up on.

  I said, “There was a P.S.,” and looked at him. “It said, ‘PS: Leland, can you blame me?’ ”

  He shook his head, this time let out a small laugh, short and sharp.

  He said, “Constance,” and still shook his head.

  “You better talk to me, Unc,” I said.

  But he only took that stick, dragged it back and forth through the row of shapes, wrecked them.

  He stood then, faced the hunters. “Boys,” he hollered out, and all those orange caps turned this way. “The dogs are coming up,” he hollered. “Make sure and keep the damn things off that poor boy.”

  “Yessir,” came a few voices.

  “And Cleve Ravenel—” he called out.

  “Yeah-man,” I heard, and here came one of the orange hats.

  “Get your truck and go down to the clubhouse, wait for the sheriff to show up,” Unc hollered. “Then usher the brethren on back here.”

  “Yessir,” the man said.

  He was the one who drove the third truck out here, the cherry-red Ram 2500 with the black bed liner, the black cargo net. Unc’d picked him out to carry the last load of men, bring up the rear. He was a big man, red-faced and white hair, a beer gut that made his belt buckle disappear. He was a cancer doctor, as best I knew.

  He took off his hat, rubbed the back of his head, put the other hand at his hip. He squinted at Unc, looked back to the men, then to Unc again.

  “Mighty nasty work,” this Cleve Ravenel said, and I recognized his voice: the one who’d agreed with the sign.

  Unc was right again.

  “Sounds like,” Unc said, and nodded.

  Cleve Ravenel stood there with us a few seconds, looking at Unc and the men and at Unc one more time. Then he looked at me, smiled. He winked.

  “I’ll be back with the troops,” he finally said. He put the cap back on, headed past the pearl gray GMC that belonged to the short, crew-cut orthopedic surgeon.

  “Cleve,” Unc called to him.

  “Yeah-man?” he said, and turned, maybe too quick. He was a big man, and he looked scared. But I figured even though he was a doctor and’d seen more dead bodies than I ever would, seeing one without a head might could do that to you. Make you scared.

  “On your way out stop at each stand, tell every man what’s going on over here.” He paused. “Won’t do no good to tell them to stay put. But tell them to walk on over here in the weeds on the east side of the road. Stay off the road so’s they don’t muck up any oddball tire tracks or such.”

  Cleve Ravenel had a hand up at the bill of his cap to block the sun. He said, “Why’s that, Leland?”

  “Just tell them,” Unc said, and turned his back to the man.

  Cleve Ravenel stood there a moment longer, looking, then headed for his truck.

  And now the dogs were upon us, busting out from the woods and crossing the road, the dozen of them howling and carrying on, tails wagging, most of them soaked and muddy for the low-lying land between here and the levee. It’d only be a couple minutes more before Patrick and Reynold would come through on horseback, following the pack, their purpose to scare up one last time any deer hadn’t yet moved.

  Unc looked down at me, and I could see me in his glasses, two of me reflected there, me small and far away on the tail end of the Luv. Which is exactly how I felt: small, and far away.

  He knew things.

  Cleve Ravenel did a three-pointer, then headed away.

  Unc said, “Before your Aunt Sarah ever came around, it was Constance. Then came Charlie Simons.” He paused. “Then I was out on my ass. Him a resident over to the medical college, me a snot-nosed private with the police department.” He stopped, looked to the men again. The dogs’ howling had slowed down some, as though finding what they were ape-shit over all this time was some sort of letdown.

  “Then Wednesday night she gives me a call,” Unc said. He was still looking at me. “I haven’t heard from her in twenty-one years, not since the last night I ever saw her. The night I told her she was the one I was going to marry, like it or not.” He smiled, slowly shook his head. “Wednesday night she’s crying, and she tells me she’s going to kill the son of a bitch Charles Middleton Simons, M.D.”

  He let out a slow whistle. He looked to the ground before him, and I was gone, my reflection. “Twenty-one years,” he whispered.

  I watched him. His job with the police was something we didn’t talk about. He never said word one of it to me, not since before the fire, when he and Aunt Sarah used to come out for Christmas and Easter and he’d talk about things.

  But since the fire he hadn’t said a word.

  He moved his hand again, working the stick, and looked at the ground. He’d already gotten one whole spiral done, this one even clearer than the rest, steadier.

  He finished the thing, said, “Better get hold of one of them bag phones. Give your momma a call.”

  Then he put his boot to the shape, moved his toe back and forth in the dirt, and it was gone.

  If I called my mom, she’d make me come home. And if I told her I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t—she’d haul ass down here and drag me back.

  Which is why I didn’t call her, like Unc told me to. I didn’t want her to come screaming in here in that old Stanza she drives, didn’t want her making a scene in front of everyone here.

  So I left Unc there at the Luv, made like I was going over to use the bag phone off the man who’d called the sheriff. But I only went to the edge of the weeds across the road, and I turned, watched him.

  He’d held back a piece of truth from me, this woman Constance calling him this week. I’d hold a piece from him: the fact Mom wasn’t on her way here to get me.

  A minute later I went back to the Luv, leaned on it.

  He said, “What’d she say?”

  “She shit bricks.”

  “Such talk,” he said. “Clean up your mouth.”

  “Yessir,” I said. I was quiet, then said, “She told me to come home soon as I can.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I am,” I said. Mom wouldn’t have said that. “She said come home now. But I told her I couldn’t, because I might have to talk to the sheriff, seeing as how I’m a witness.”

  He didn’t move. His head was down, the bill of the Braves cap covering his face, the stick still against the ground. The light was coming up around us now. We had the whole day left, a day I was certain wasn’t going to be like any other I’d known.

  Then he looked up, called out, “Boys, party’s over. Come on back to the road now. Single file. Bring them dogs with you, too.” He paused, took a breath, as though he were tired already. “Then just take a seat in the weeds or back in the trucks.”

  “Yessir,” came a few voices again.

  Here came the orange hats.

  He turned to me. “And where in hell do you think Patrick and Reynold are?”

  Patrick and Reynold: the horsemen, their job to let out war whoops while they rode through the woods, the dogs in front of them, scaring up deer from where they hid. Both of them carried rifles in their saddles and were given the right to shoot anything they startled up, this their form of payment. Unc could count on the two of them to run the dogs exactly where he wanted, though past that he couldn’t count on them for much.

  Last I’d seen of them was just after Unc’d parceled out the men at the campfire, then we both walked like every Saturday deer hunt to where they waited at the front of the line of trucks. Patrick and Reynold sat in their black and rusted Dodge pickup, in the bed the dog cages, all of the dogs moving, yelping, behind it all their horse trailer.

  “Drunk again,” Unc’d whispered as we came up to the driver’s-side window, Patrick behind the wheel. Already I could smell the beer off them, that smell mixed with the smell off the dogs.


  I’d known these two men my whole life and still didn’t know them enough to say word one to them. Or care to. They’d been the ones to run the dogs since their daddy was killed in a bar fight in Beaufort before I was born, and lived in a shanty back toward Jacksonboro. Neither of them had ever married, though there was word every now and again about there being a girl or two living with them in that shack, but never for long. And I’d never seen one of them without the other. They were just the men who ran the dogs, stinking of beer every Saturday-morning deer hunt the whole season long.

  We stopped at the window, and Unc said, “Head up Cemetery. Let the dogs out above Baldwin before where it crosses Levee.”

  Patrick rolled his head over to Unc, smiled. He had a heavy ponytail I don’t think he’d ever washed, his forehead working back on him, and from the light off the dash I could see in his smile where teeth ought to have been.

  He grunted, then Reynold leaned forward, his bald head soaking up the green of that dash light. “Sir yes sir,” he said, and saluted.

  Patrick gave it the gas, pulled away. And just like every time, once they were past the clubhouse Reynold gave off the same old high-pitched, hard laugh, a laugh out of control and ugly: his own rebel yell, Patrick and Reynold’s way of getting in the last word on the blind man they worked for.

  Forty-five minutes after Unc’d sent him, here came Cleve Ravenel’s Ram 2500, behind him two cruisers, the first with its blue lights on, siren going, the other only following along. Ravenel blinked his lights on and off a couple times. Leading the parade.

  And still Patrick and Reynold hadn’t shown up.

  Unc was already moving toward them, and I wondered if maybe he didn’t need me here after all. If maybe I shouldn’t have just called Mom and headed home. I hadn’t done squat yet in all this, only followed him, watching.

  “It’s two of them,” I said. “Two cruisers.” I caught up with him.

  The first cruiser cut the siren and lights. “I’ll wager it’s Doug Yandle in the lead,” he said, and shook his head. “A siren.”

  Cleve Ravenel pulled to a stop, his truck sliding a couple feet, the wheels locked for how hard he’d hit the brakes.

  But Unc kept walking quick, a step ahead of me. When he came even with the truck, he let the stick drag behind him, his hand down, and I watched him pull his index finger along the front quarter panel, leave a stripe of clean red metal in the fresh mud splashed up there.

  Ravenel let us pass before he popped open his door, climbed out. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. He hitched up his camo pants over that beer gut. “Got lost,” he said.

  The door of the first cruiser was already open, an officer climbing out, Smokey the Bear hat in hand. He was tan, had a perfect mustache, creases starched into the light brown uniform.

  I didn’t like him already.

  “Mr. Dillard,” the officer said, and started to put on the hat.

  “Deputy Yandle,” Unc said. He was at the front quarter panel of the cruiser, dragged his muddy finger along the white metal casual as you please, leaving behind a thin brown stripe the officer couldn’t see for Unc headed toward him.

  He was wiping the mud off on the cruiser, and I felt myself smile. Him giving shit to this droid already.

  Yandle stopped, hat halfway to his head, surprised Unc knew who it was already.

  Unc stopped, pulled the stick up, held it. “Who’s your backup?” he said.

  “Mr. Dillard,” this Yandle said, his voice loud, like Unc’s being blind meant he couldn’t hear well either. He slammed his door, put his hands on his hips. “We had a call regarding a possible 763—”

  “Leland!” I heard, and looked past this Yandle to the second cruiser, saw a man climbing out.

  “Tommy Thigpen,” Unc said, and started around Yandle, the stick tapping out the ground. “Haven’t seen you since back when I could see,” he said. “How’s your granddaddy doing?”

  “Passed on a while back,” this Thigpen said, and shrugged.

  Unc paused a moment. He held the stick a few inches above the ground, said, “I’m truly sorry to hear that. He was a good man.”

  Thigpen shrugged again, rubbed at his nose. “You got that right,” he said.

  Slowly Unc let the stick touch the ground, then turned toward where the body was across the road. “Tommy,” he said, “looks like we got a messy one here.”

  Yandle looked at Unc, then at me. His eyebrows were all knotted, his jaw working.

  I only shrugged. I said, “Guess he wants to talk to your backup.”

  Unc turned back to Thigpen, leaned the stick against the hood of the cruiser, and shook hands with him.

  “Leland,” Thigpen said, “I just followed this call. I’m backup for Doug, so don’t you start with me. You know that.”

  He was smiling now, a gold cap on one of his two front teeth. He was skinny, pale except for his left arm, the farmer’s tan. He had the same creases in the uniform, even had the same mustache, though his was grizzly, gray and brown and a little long on the edges.

  “Mr. Dillard,” Yandle said. He was still too loud. “We have procedures as set down by the County Sheriff’s Department as regards responding units, and those procedures, when violated, place any investigation in serious jeopardy—”

  “Back this way,” Unc said to Tommy, and turned.

  But I was right there, in front of him now he’d turned to usher this Thigpen to the body.

  Police work, I thought. Nothing to do with me.

  His stick hit my boot, and he stopped, looked up. Here I was again, two of me there in his sunglasses.

  “Huger?” he said.

  I said, “You’re not losing me this easy.”

  Past him I could see Tommy Thigpen, now with his arms crossed, his head tilted, looking at me, at Unc. And I knew behind me was Yandle, behind him Ravenel, then everybody else, all those orange-capped South-of-Broaders standing now, dusting off their butts from sitting in the weeds all this while, waiting to see, just like me, what was going to happen.

  It wasn’t going to happen without me.

  Unc put his free hand to my shoulder yet again. “You probably think I’m hoping your momma’s going to show up here any second, don’t you?” He squeezed hard, and I felt again how skinny I was, how nothing I was out here with everyone looking on at the two of us. “But since you haven’t called her yet, I don’t suppose she’ll be coming anytime soon. Now, ain’t that right?”

  I looked down. “Yessir,” I said.

  This was how long we’d been with each other: long enough for him to know I wouldn’t be calling this in to my mom, who’d throw a fit one way or the other. And long enough for me to know I couldn’t lie to him.

  “One thing,” Unc said, and I looked at him. “One thing. This is a murder. Not a party. Not a field trip.”

  His mouth was just a thin line, his jaw clenched.

  “Yessir,” I said.

  He nodded.

  The smell had gone worse.

  It’d been almost an hour since we were first back here to the body, and some flies had started in. Before, that smell’d been dark red and metal. Now it was something like a whiff of pluff mud up off the marsh.

  But what hit me most was how still this all was, and I felt myself in some way ugly for being alive, for moving up to it with Unc and these two deputies. Behind us and looking over all our shoulders was a string of lawyers and doctors and such, eager for a look again at a body, all this movement, all of us alive.

  Nothing had changed at all from when we’d first been back here. It was a body. It had hardly any head, its hands skinned. It had on fatigues, held a gun, and just lay there, but for the flies picking at the head and hands.

  Thigpen stepped up beside the top of the body, squatted, moved his head back and forth, looking at the weeds there.

  “Quite a wound,” Thigpen said. “Not enough blood behind him and in the weeds here for a wound that big.” He paused, leaned in close. “And them hands. Shit.
” He reached toward the shoulder, and I could see a tattoo coming out from under Thigpen’s short sleeve: the word JUNIOR, homemade.

  “We’ll leave all deductions to the crime-scene task force, Deputy Thigpen,” Yandle said. He had a notepad out, a silver pen he’d taken from his front shirt pocket, started writing in it. “We’re already in violation of at least two codes discussing details of the case with Mr. Dillard here. Not to mention the boy.”

  “We would’ve heard the shot, too, if it’d been back here,” Unc said, ignoring Yandle. He tapped the boot of the man with his stick. “He’s been dead a good five hours or so. Me and Huger been here all night, and we would’ve heard it at the trailer if they’d shot him back here.”

  “How you know how long he’s been dead?” Yandle put in.

  “The smell, first off,” Unc said, his voice quiet. “It’s old. Next how stiff this boy is going. Tap his boot. You can feel rigor mortis already settling in. Quite a while ago.”

  “Maybe you ought simply to be quiet about anything, Mr. Dillard,” Yandle said. He slipped the pad and pen into his shirt pocket. “You might ought to remain silent, seeing as how you are implicated here, on a cardboard sign no less.” He paused. “Sir.”

  I wanted to answer him, wanted to turn to this turd and tell him off, sick of Yandle already and what he was saying here: my uncle was involved. Even though I wasn’t sure of anything myself.

  But there was nothing I knew to say. It was a body here, going ripe, the hands skinned like dead squirrels.

  “Let’s go,” Yandle said, and started for me. “I’m moving you two out of here and putting up a banner on the perimeter.” He put a hand to my arm, started to pull me back toward the road.

  But I shook him off. “The hell you are,” I said finally, and I could hear my voice gone loud, heard it quivering, too. “This is our property,” I said. “You’re not kicking us out of here.”

  This time he took hold of my arm tighter, pinched the muscle there. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Now the two of you,” Unc said, his voice low and solid and sharp enough to make Yandle stop a second. “Just cut this out altogether.”

  Yandle, teeth clenched, said, “Unless proper order can be maintained at the crime scene, then all offenders will be—”