Bill Crider - Dan Rhodes 07 - Murder Most Fowl (13 page)

“I thought I might drive out and have a talk with Wally Henry,” he said, straightening from the candy counter.

“I heard about Lige Ward gettin’ himself killed,” Barrett said. “He was fightin’ roosters, wasn’t he?”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Rhodes said, wondering who else knew about the cockfights. Maybe it had already been discussed on Red Rogers’ radio show and Rhodes had missed it.

“Don’t know why else anybody’d want to talk to Wally Henry ’less it was about roosters,” Hod said. “Ever’body knows he raises ’em.”

“Does he still live out close to Gaines Lake?”

“Yep. Been there long as I can remember.”

“Does he ever come into town?”

“If he does, he don’t stop here,” Barrett said. “Buys his groceries in Clearview like ever’body else.”

Barrett followed Rhodes outside and stood under the store’s heavy wooden awning.

“Nobody cares about the place where they was born and grew up in anymore,” the storekeeper said. “It don’t mean any more to ’em than a hole in the ground. They wouldn’t care if this place was to dry up and blow away.”

Rhodes stood by his car with the door open and looked at Barrett over the top. “You’re probably right,” he said.

“Ain’t no prob’ly to it,” Barrett said.

Rhodes nodded. He got in the car and drove away.

W
ally Henry lived at the top of a hill on a sandy road about a mile and a half from the highway spur that cut through the middle of Thurston. His frame house looked as if it had been designed and built by the same person who had done Brother Alton’s church. The only hint of modernity about it was the satellite dish in the back yard. There was a green GMC pickup with rusting fenders parked under a mesquite tree near the front porch. The yard was mostly hard-packed dirt. There was an old corrugated tin barn in back of the house.

The roosters were on a patch of ground about the size of half a city block next to the house. Each one had his own open-sided triangular sheet metal shelter about three feet high and his own food and water dish. There was grass growing between the triangular frames, but the areas patrolled by the individual roosters were like the yard—hard dirt, but neatly raked.

Each of the roosters was tethered to a metal stake driven into the ground. Obviously it wouldn’t do to have them get together, though none of them showed any interest in Rhodes when he drove up.

Rhodes parked beside the GMC and got out of his car. He was about to go up on the porch and knock when Wally Henry came outside.

Henry was a big man, wide through the shoulders, with heavy arms and thick wrists. He was wearing faded jeans tucked into heavy motorcycle boots, a knit shirt that looked as if it were buttoned over a barrel, and an LA Raiders cap streaked with reddish dirt. He had a thick gray beard and long gray hair that he had fashioned into a pigtail as long and thick as Willie Nelson’s. There was a huge wad of tobacco in his left cheek. The only small thing about him was a pair of close-set black eyes.

Henry was known around the county as a sort of outlaw, though he’d never been arrested. He had a reputation for brutishness, but no one who’d suffered at his hands had ever made a complaint. Rumor had it that they were afraid to. His major brush with the sheriff’s department had been the incident mentioned by Lawton, and that complaint had been lodged by the parents of the boys, not the boys themselves. He had also been in a number of fights at the Palm Club, and once he had flattened a deputy sheriff who had been called to quell a disturbance. That had been a few years ago, and the deputy had since left the county’s employ.

The game warden was even better acquainted with Henry than the sheriff’s department. Since Henry had the only house for at least a mile in either direction, and since most of the land that adjoined his was owned by absentee landlords from Houston and Dallas, Henry felt free to roam other people’s property when they weren’t around, fishing in their stock tanks and poaching their game, primarily out-of-season deer. Or so Rhodes had heard. As far as he knew, none of the complaints against Henry had ever resulted in so much as a fine. Maybe the landlords dropped their complaints when they got a look at the man they were accusing.

If Henry occasionally fished in Gaines Lake, Rhodes didn’t really blame him. The sheriff had once caught an eight-pound largemouth bass there using live bait and a Calcutta cane pole so limber that it took Rhodes what seemed like an eternity to drag the fish out of the water. That had been when you could go fishing in the lake by paying a small fee, a dollar a day. Gaines had since closed the lake to fishing, but Rhodes had never stopped thinking about it.

“What can I do you fer, Sheriff?” Henry asked. He had a clear tenor voice that was surprising from such a big man.

Rhodes walked until he was in the shade of the porch. “I wanted to talk to you about cockfighting.”

“Wouldn’t know anything about that,” Henry said, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning against one of the 4-by-4s that supported the porch roof. Rhodes thought he heard the nails groan in the wood. “I just raise ’em, myself. I don’t fight ’em.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with that?” Rhodes asked.

Henry pretended to think about it. “About raisin’ ’em? Nothing wrong a’tall. And it’s legal, too. But I guess you know that, you bein’ the sheriff.”

Henry shifted his weight and got comfortable, then sent a stream of tobacco juice into the yard. It splattered the ground near Rhodes’ left shoe.

“Legal, but maybe not too nice for the roosters,” Rhodes suggested, ignoring the tobacco.

Henry spit again, though the stream was much smaller and fell far short of Rhodes. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Let me tell you somethin’, Sheriff,” he said. He gestured toward the roosters. “Those boys out there got it a lot better than any other chickens you can think of. Plenty of food, plenty of water, nice shade, and a long life to look forward to. Compared to most chickens, they got it made.”

“What about the fights?” Rhodes asked.

“What about ’em?”

“That can’t be too easy on the cocks,” Rhodes pointed out.

“Maybe you got the wrong idea about the fights,” Henry said. “First of all, those roosters there are stags. That’s what we call ’em before they’re old enough to fight. When they get to fightin’ age, we call ’em cocks. Maybe you didn’t know that, and maybe you ain’t never seen a cockfight. You prob’ly think there’s always cocks gettin’ killed, but they ain’t. Most fights end in a decision by the referee. The cocks hardly ever get killed.”

“Some of them do,” Rhodes said.

Henry spit again. “Sure they do. But if you’re so worried about chickens gettin’ killed, you oughta be worried about the ones that’re raised up for food. The ones they sell you in grocery stores and in those fried-chicken places. Those die pretty damn young.

“And then the layin’ hens, they might live longer, but they’re shut up in a cage all their lives, about one foot square. I’ve seen ’em. They don’t hardly have room to turn around. Toenails grow so long they hang out the bottom of the cage till they nearly scrape the ground. Terr’ble way to live, you ask me.”

“But your birds are taken care of,” Rhodes said.

“Damn right. You pick up any one of ’em and give ’im a feel. Not an ounce of fat on ’im. Nothin’ but the best diet for those boys. They get exercise, too. Prob’ly in better shape than you are.”

Rhodes thought about how winded he’d gotten in his chase through the woods earlier. He didn’t doubt that the cocks were in better shape than he was.

“You ever dope them?” he asked.

Henry straightened slowly and then came down off the porch. The wooden step creaked under his weight. He stopped right in front of Rhodes.

“What’chu mean by that?”

Henry wasn’t any taller than Rhodes. Just a whole lot wider. Rhodes looked into his small black eyes.

“What I said.”

Henry rocked back on his heels about a quarter of an inch, turned his head, spit. “Ever’body dopes the birds if they’re fightin’. And like I said, I don’t do any fightin’.”

“And you don’t know anyone who does.”

Henry smiled. There were tobacco stains on the beard around his mouth, and his teeth were brown.

“That’s right, Sheriff. I don’t know anybody who does.”

“If you did, what would they think about a thing like this?” Rhodes asked, bringing the plastic bag containing the gaff out of his pocket.

Henry’s eyes narrowed. He knew exactly what he was looking at without a second glance, even with the plastic bobber covering most of it. “Where’d you get that?”

“I found it,” Rhodes said. He held the bag up a little higher. “You want a better look at it?”

“I can see what it is.”

“I wouldn’t think that an honest businessman such as yourself could recognize it so easily,” Rhodes said.

Henry moved his gaze from the gaff to Rhodes’ face. “Are you gettin’ smart with me, Sheriff?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. But I thought you didn’t do any cockfighting. I guess I was a just little surprised when you recognized this gaff for what it is.”

Rhodes returned the bag to his pocket. “What would you think if someone used one of those in a fight?”

“I think I’m tired of talkin’ to you, that’s what I think.”  Henry turned and started back to the porch.

“I just have a few more questions,” Rhodes said.

Henry turned slowly, twisted his mouth, and spit very close to Rhodes’ shoe. “I ain’t got anymore answers.”

Rhodes looked down at his shoe. It was a pretty good shoe, a Rockport in fact, and about as comfortable as any shoe he’d ever owned. He was glad Henry hadn’t spit on it.

Rhodes didn’t like fights. He didn’t even like arguments. But there was a limit to his patience.

“Don’t do that again,” he said.

“Do what?” Henry asked, his tiny eyes wide with innocence.

“Spit,” Rhodes told him. “It bothers me.”

“I guess that makes us just about even. Your questions’re botherin’ me. Why don’t you just go on back to town and forget about cockfights. You don’t know what you’re lookin’ for, anyway.”

Rhodes shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I know what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a man who’d kill anyone who used a gaff like that to win a fight.”

Henry reached out and with three short, thick fingers poked Rhodes in the chest. “I don’t like to be accused of killin’ anybody, Sheriff. So why don’t you just get in your little car and go on back to town where you belong?”

Rhodes brought his left forearm up and over, knocking Henry’s hand aside.

“Touching’s worse than spitting,” he said.

Henry snarled an unintelligible reply and swung a roundhouse right that Rhodes easily avoided by taking a step backward. He set himself for another swing, but Henry surprised him by kicking him.

In the right ankle.

Rhodes had never realized before that the human ankle was directly attached to all the major pain nerves in the body, but he discovered that unsettling fact the instant that Henry’s boot connected.

Rhodes started to crumple, but Henry grabbed him by the front of the shirt and hauled him upright.

“Pretty sneaky for an old fart, ain’t I?” Henry said, shoving Rhodes back a pace and aiming another kick, this one headed for an even more delicate spot than the injured ankle.

He missed because Rhodes was falling by the time the boot arrived. It struck him on the shoulder, and he flipped backward, landing on his shoulders and back.

Henry aimed a kick at Rhodes’ head. Rhodes had seen enough Randolph Scott movies to know what to do. He had to grab Henry’s foot and give it a hard wrench, thereby throwing Henry to the ground.

It didn’t work for Rhodes the way it always worked in the movies. Henry’s foot was moving so fast that it twisted through Rhodes’ hands before the sheriff could get a grip.

By trying to grab the boot, however, Rhodes threw off Henry’s aim. The boot missed Rhodes’ head, but it nearly took off his ear, which immediately began throbbing and felt as if it had suddenly grown to the size of a catcher’s mitt.

Rhodes scooted backward and tried to sit up. He didn’t think he would mind shooting Henry if only he could get to his pistol.

He didn’t have time. Henry kicked him in the chest.

Rhodes remembered the bruise on Lige Ward as he fell over and slid backward. His head hit the rear tire of the GMC.

He pushed himself up on the side of the truck and saw Henry laughing at him.

“How about it, Sheriff?” Henry taunted him. “You ready to go back to town where you belong and leave me alone out here in the country?”

Enough was enough. “You’re under arrest,” Rhodes said, feeling around behind him in the pickup bed. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right—”

“To beat the dog crap out of you,” Henry said, advancing with his fists doubled.

Rhodes’ hand closed around something that felt like a wooden pole. “You have the right to an attorney. You have the right—”

“To hell with that,” Henry said.

Rhodes swung the pole up out of the pickup bed so fast that it seemed to whistle. Henry was taken completely by surprise, and the pole, which turned out to be a brand-new rake handle, made a very satisfactory crack when it hit him in the ribs.

“Son of a
bitch
!” Henry yelled.

“Abusive language,” Rhodes said.

He rammed the end of the rake handle into Henry’s breastbone as hard as he could.

“I’ll … kill … you,” Henry gasped, staggering backward.

“First assault, then abusive language, and now terroristic threats,” Rhodes said. “You’re going to be in jail for quite a while.”

He jabbed Henry again, and this time the big man sat down, hard. When he tried to get up, Rhodes drew back the rake handle and said, “I’ve always wondered what it felt like to hit a home run.”

“No,” Henry said. “Had … enough.”

“Good,” Rhodes said, wondering if he was going to be able to walk to the county car and get Henry in it.

It wasn’t easy, but he managed.

Chapter Ten