Precious Bones (31 page)

I waved. “Okay, Little Man, see ya on the school bus.”

As we drove home, I asked Nolay, “Are you gonna tell Mama?”

“Well, of course I’ll tell your mother,” he said. “I think it might help to ease her mind.”

“Yes, sir, I reckon it will. It sure did ease my mind. I’m so relieved that you and Mr. Charlie weren’t involved.”

Nolay gave me a sideways glance. “Now, why would you think me or Charlie would have been involved in killin’ Peckerhead?”

“I’m not real sure, I just got confused. I mean, with all the stuff the sheriff was saying about evidence and you not telling the truth about being out fishing that night with Ironhead.”

“Well, sometimes things ain’t the way they seem to be. Just ’cause I wasn’t out fishing don’t mean I was out killing someone.”

Nolay took a deep breath and said, “To set things straight, that night I was supposed to be fishing with Ironhead, I was up in Jacksonville, delivering a load of moonshine. Not something I really care to share with you. I know it’s against the law, but far as I’m concerned, it’s a white man’s law. The way
I look at it, I ain’t hurtin’ nobody and I’m puttin’ food on my family’s table.”

Nolay looked at me. “Bones, now that you’re growing up I can see how I got to change some of my ways. The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you … or your mama. I’m closing down the still. I ain’t gonna do that anymore. I aim to change my ways.”

We rode along in silence as Nolay’s words tumbled around inside the truck cab.

Finally I said, “I just got confused is all. I’m glad it’s over with.”

“It ain’t over with yet. We still got a dead Yankee to deal with.”

“Nolay, do you think Whackerstacker killed that Yankee man, too?”

“Naw, he’s too dumb. It took a much smarter person to pull off something like that.”

Nolay took another deep breath. “Bones, I hope I can win your trust back one day.”

I turned and looked at him, but the rest of the ride home was spent in silence. As I looked out the window, all I could think of was Mr. Charlie’s poor little old Lulu, flopping around in his yard without a head.

I wanted to trust Nolay with all my heart, but there was still a small worm of doubt wiggling around in my thoughts.

Tuesday afternoon when I got off the school bus and started walking home, my thoughts closed in around me like a hot, sweaty hand. It had been ten days since Mr. Speed’s funeral. I could still hear his words echoing in my mind. I felt like my heart had a hole in it. As I walked along our winding road, I absently kicked a small stone stuck in the sand. It dislodged and rolled to the side, and the sun glared down, sending sparkles racing across its top. I stopped and stared at it. Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. “We live on the knuckle. It sparkles on the knuckle.”

Mr. Speed had been trying to tell me something. I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to get out there. I ran the rest of the way home, changed my clothes, and went looking for Mama. I didn’t want to lie to her, but this one time, I would have to. The truck was gone and so was Nolay, so I wouldn’t have to lie to him, too. Mama would never let me go out in the swamps by myself, but I knew I had to do it.

I found Mama out by her garden. I put my right hand behind my back and crossed my fingers. “Mama, Little Man asked if I could come over to his house and help him fix his chicken coop. I’ll take the dogs with me and we’ll be back way before dark, if it’s all right.”

“That’s fine, Bones, just stay on the road, and no shortcuts through the swamps.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I turned around and walked away real fast before she could see the lie sitting on my face. The swamps was just where I was headed.

Me and the dogs walked down the road, turned off into the woods, then backtracked to the swamp. When I came to the water, I followed along its edge. I felt naked without my gun, but if I had taken it, Mama would have known I wasn’t just going to Little Man’s. At least I had the dogs with me. They ran ahead and I followed behind, hoping they were leading me along a safe way. Before long, we came to the mound where Silver had found that leg. She laid her ears back and walked very slowly beside it. I walked past it as fast as I could.

We walked for about another ten minutes. The water’s edge began to curve; then it took a sharp turn into a shape just like a bent knuckle. Locals that used this river called this area Knuckle Bend. Growing up here, Mr. Speed would have known exactly where it was located. I stopped and looked out over the pockmarked swamp. Now that autumn was fully settled in, the swamp was drying up fast. There were large areas
streaked with black cracked mud. Last summer most of this would have been underwater, especially after that big storm blew in.

I saw an area that had been dug out, almost directly across from where I was standing. That would be where Jakey Tom’s hounds found that man’s body and where the sheriff had it dug up.

I picked up a stick and began to brush over the dried mud. I told the dogs, “Y’all come over here and help me. I need your noses.” They zigzagged around me, sniffing and smelling the dried earth. Mr. Speed’s words echoed in my mind: “On the knuckle. Watch the knuckle.” Finally, after I poked my stick round and brushed back and forth a heap of times, it hit something hard. I bent down and scratched some dirt off. And there it was, staring back at me: Sheriff LeRoy’s solid evidence. It was crusted with mud, but when I cleaned off the top, it sparkled in the sun’s rays.

I stood up and called to the dogs, “Come on, y’all, we gotta get back home fast as we can!” I raced the dogs back to our house.

When I got back to the house, I saw one of the happiest sights I had seen in a long time: Nolay’s truck parked in the yard. I ran in the house and called out, “Nolay, Nolay, where are you?”

“Good Lord, Bones, I’m right here in the kitchen. What happened to you? Are you all right?”

I stood in the kitchen and stopped to get my breath. “Nolay, quick, we have to go find the sheriff! We need to get him out here!”

“And why on earth do we need to do that?”

“ ’Cause I found something. I found the sheriff’s solid evidence that he’s been looking for. We gotta get down to the Last Chance and call him!”

“Hold your horses, I just walked in.”

“Nolay, we need him out here before it gets dark!”

“All right, all right, we’ll drive down to the store. Go let your mama know.”

I ran out and said, “Mama, me and Nolay are going down to the Last Chance. We’ll be back soon.”

Before she could answer or ask me a question, I ran back to the truck.

On the ride down, I told Nolay what I had found, but from the look on his face, I could tell he didn’t believe it was all that important. “I hope this ain’t a waste of time, Bones.”

While Nolay went inside the store to use the phone, I sat down on Mr. Speed’s bench. I looked over at the empty space where he should have been and said to myself, “Mr. Speed, I should have listened better to you. Thank you for making my wish come true.”

Nolay came out and sat down beside me. “The sheriff is on his way, should be here in about a half hour. We’ll meet him out by the top of our road.”

“Thank you, Nolay. I surely hope he gets here before dark.”

“Bones, I hope this is as important as you think it is, ’cause ol’ LeRoy is making a special trip out here.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

I looked over at Nolay filling up Mr. Speed’s empty space, and that old bench almost felt comfortable again.

We drove out and waited for the sheriff to arrive. By the time he got there, the sun was just starting to paint shadows over the day. We got out of our truck and walked over to the sheriff’s car. Nolay said, “Sorry to bother you like this, LeRoy, but Bones thinks she’s found something of interest for you to look at.”

“Well, then let’s just go have a look. Y’all get inside and I’ll drive you where you need to go.”

I slid in the front seat and sat between the sheriff and Nolay. The sheriff looked down at me and said, “Where to, Miss Bones?”

“Out to the swamps, where you found that man’s body.”

“Fair enough, if that’s where you want us to go.”

I took a quick look around the inside of Sheriff LeRoy’s car, and Little Man was right. There was enough stuff in here for someone to set up housekeeping.

The ride out to the edge of the swamp was a quiet one. The sheriff parked his car, and we got out. He reached back inside and pulled out a long black flashlight. “Better take this just in case.”

As we walked along the water’s edge, shades of night danced beside us. When we got to the place where the water bent into a knuckle, I walked over and pointed to the ground. The three of us squatted down. I picked up the same stick I had used the first time and dug up the dirt-encrusted object. It hung on the end of the stick like a dried-up dead snake. The sheriff cocked his large head to one side and said, “Well, I can see what it is, but why would it be so important?”

“Because, Sheriff, the last time I saw this, it was dangling
from that Yankee man’s arm. Not the dead one, but the live one.”

“Well, I’ll be dogged. Now, that sure could be something of interest.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I was hoping.”

The sheriff straightened his head and said, “Now, Miss Bones, how did you know to come out here looking for something like this?”

“It was Mr. Speed that told me. He kept trying to tell me to look by the knuckle, but it didn’t come clear to me until today when I was walking home. He was talking about Knuckle Bend.”

“Speed? How would he know something like this?”

“Because he sat on that bench every day. He heard everything people said. Some people thought he was dumb, so they didn’t care what they said around him. But he wasn’t dumb. Besides my daddy, he was just about the smartest person I ever did know.”

“Well now, that could be a possibility.”

Nolay stood up and said, “But how do we know it’s the one that man was wearing?”

The sheriff and I stood up at the same time. I looked at Nolay, then back to the sheriff. “I know it is. I just know it.”

The sheriff and Nolay glanced at each other over the top of my head.

Sheriff LeRoy answered, “Now, Miss Bones, I have to make positive sure of who it belonged to. I will have to do some further investigatin’. But I want you to know I appreciate you bringing me out here.”

The sheriff knocked some of the crusty dirt off the object and stuck it in one of his oversized pants pockets. We turned around and started walking back to his car. By the time we reached it, he had his big flashlight switched on so we could follow its thin yellow eye of light as it cut through the darkness.

LeRoy drove us back to our truck. When we got out, Nolay said, “Thanks, LeRoy, for taking the time to come out here.”

“No trouble at all. I’m just doin’ my job. Y’all have a good evening.”

By the time we reached home, Mama had nearly every lantern in the house lit. Before we could open the front door, she was standing there. “Where have you two been? I thought you were just going down to the Last Chance. I was nearly ready to come out looking for you.”

Nolay looked back at me. “Sorry if we worried you. I thought Bones told you we might be gone for a while.”

“She just said you were going down to the store, that’s all. Y’all go wash up, supper is sitting on the stove.”

When we were settled around the table, Mama asked, “So what took you so long?”

Nolay said, “We ended up meeting LeRoy and taking a walk out to the swamps.”

“What on earth for?”

“Well, looks like Bones found something out there today that she thought the sheriff might be interested in.”

And from the tone of his voice it was clear he did not think it was of any interest.

Mama put her fork down and looked straight at me. “You were out in the swamps today? By yourself? Didn’t you tell me you were going over to Little Man’s.”

“Yes, ma’am, I know I told you a lie, but I just had to. I had to go out there and look.”

“And it was worth lying about?”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I know it was wrong. But I kept hearing what Mr. Speed was trying to tell me and I had to go out there.”

“Mr. Speed? Bones, I know how much you loved him and enjoyed being with him. And how much you miss him. But he’s not with us any longer. And you are going to have to accept that. He’s in heaven, he’s at peace.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I knew better than to open my mouth, but Mr. Speed was at peace when he was right here on earth. He didn’t have to go to heaven for that.

“I hope nothing will be so important again that you have to lie to me about it. You were told not to go out in those swamps, especially by yourself. Young lady, that was a silly and dangerous thing for you to have done.”

“Yes, ma’am, sorry. I won’t do anything like that again.”

Mama was so upset with me that she didn’t even ask what I had found in the swamps, and Nolay didn’t tell her.

I sat at the kitchen table with my mama and daddy and felt dumber than dust.