Roseflower Creek (23 page)

    "You killed her, didn't you?" Mama said. "Lori Jean found that money. That's what was in that sack you kept pestering her about." Ray didn't say nothing. He kept looking out that window. I think he spotted one of the men behind a tree just a stone's throw away. Ray had the small gun in his left hand and he was aiming it out the window. He had his finger on the trigger. His regular firing arm was just hanging down by his side and blood was dripping all over the cabin floor.

    "She told you it burned up in the fire and you didn't believe her, and when she wouldn't give it to you, you killed her," Mama said. She about figured most of it out. She sure did.

    "You killed my Lori Jean. Now you killed yourself a deputy," Mama said. "But you ain't gonna kill nobody else, not today, not ever." Mama picked up the gun laying next to her on the floor, that very gun Ray killed that deputy with, the one they shot right out of his hand. She was fixing to shoot Ray. I seen it in her eyes. Ray didn't notice. He was still pointing that little pistol out the window.

    "Mama," I called to her. "Don't do it, Mama! It's okay he killed me. He didn't mean it. He got a sickness in him, Mama," I said. Mama aimed the gun.

    "Mama! Don't you see? Killin' Ray won't fix nothin'," I said, hoping somehow she'd hear me.

    "I know yore plumb mad at him for what he done to me and plenty mad, too, for all the mean things he done to you, but, Mama, you gotta understand where all that meanness come from." Mama had her finger on the trigger. She cocked the gun.

    "Mama," I said, "all that meanness in Ray, he just passed on to us what got passed on to him. I figured it out. That's how it works!" I don't think Mama heard me none. I don't think she heard nothing right then but maybe some voice in her head.

    "Ray Pruitt," Mama said. He looked over at Mama and seen the gun in her hand.

    "Give me that thing, Nadine," he said, "'fore you hurt yourself." Boy, he sure couldn't judge no situation real good. Couldn't he see Mama meant business? He should of been begging her forgiveness 'stead of giving her orders.

    "This is for Lori Jean," Mama said, and she fired that gun straight at Ray. It hit him right in the middle of his chest. He sucked in his breath and fell backwards on the floor. His mouth hung open and his eyes stared right at her. I think he was having trouble believing she just shot him 'cause his face sure looked confused. The pistol fell out of his hand. He reached towards Mama like for her to help him.

    "Nadine," he said. "Nadine." It come out of his chest all raspy like and bubbles of blood come out his mouth with it.

    "This one's for that deputy," Mama said and fired again. That bullet hit Ray in the belly. He made some bad awful noises then.

    "Help me, Nadine," he said. "I'm hurt bad." And he sure was. I figured he had no chance of making it now, and I hoped it ended soon. I didn't want to see him dead, but I surely didn't want to hear him suffering no longer. I was fixing to tell Mama it was a crying shame, she best end Ray's suffering, but I didn't get a chance to.

    "And this one's for me," Mama said. She fired one more shot. It hit him right between the eyes. I didn't know Mama could shoot so good. Ray didn't move after that. She killed him dead.

    The sheriff heard all the firing inside the cabin and made a run for the door. Melvin was still right behind him. The rest of the men come running after them. A shot rang out. One of them posse men was running too fast. He tripped over a log and fired his gun without meaning to. And that bullet, it did the worst thing it could of done. It headed right towards the first body it come to. Sheriff Dooley was at the cabin door by then, but he never even turned around when that bullet got fired; he just yelled, "Hold yore fire, you idiots!" Then he took his foot the size a' Texas and kicked the cabin door clean off its hinges. But Uncle Melvin, he wasn't behind the sheriff no more. That bullet got fired by accident—well—the first body it come to was his. He was sprawled face-down in the dirt with a big hole shot clean through him. Liked to took my breath away, and it already been took.

The sheriff found my mama curled up next to Ray with her arms wrapped around him. She done killed him and now she was hugging on him. I think Mama lost the cookies in her head God give her, for sure. Any fool could see that; one a' them temporary 'sanity things or something.

    I was real sorrowful over Mama killing Ray like that, but I was even more sorrowful when I realized she used that gun Ray shot and killed that deputy man with. Her finger marks was probably all over that gun by now. They might could think she killed that deputy, what with Ray not alive to tell them no different.

    "Nadine Pruitt, you're under arrest," the sheriff said. They put handcuffs on her and took her back down the hill to the squad car where Mr. Johnson was. Mama didn't give 'em no trouble. She didn't even talk to them none. Didn't say one word. The sheriff told Burt Peters to take Mr. Johnson and fetch an ambulance quick like for Melvin and to get this coroner man to come see about Ray's body.

    Two men helped Melvin over to a big tree and leaned him against it. He was hugging his shoulder. That Melvin were a tough one, I'm telling ya'. That bullet didn't even kill him dead and it sure shoulda. This doctor where they took him said Melvin had so many muscles high up on his back where the bullet hit, it saved his life. Seems the bullet got stuck in them muscle layers and didn't do much damage. Fancy that. Moving trailers probably saved Melvin's life for sure 'cause mostly that's where he got all them muscles from. Once they tended to Melvin at the cabin as best they could, they took him to a hospital in Dahlonega on the way back. That's where that doctor was said that stuff about Uncle Melvin's muscles.

    Everyone else headed back to Decatur. When they got to the jailhouse, they give Mama a plain brown dress to put on and locked her in a cell all by herself. Come morning I stood next to Mama and watched her cry on the newspaper the sheriff man brought to her cell. They had a picture of me on the front page. Fancy that. And that paper had this article all writ up nice, telling folks what happened. It was a real good story. It told how Mz. Hawkins found out about the money and how she called the authorities and they come looking for me to where they figured I'd run off to and then how they found bits of the payroll money here and there around the outhouse. It said they found me at the edge of the creek bed. I'd floated right over to some logs and my hair got stuck in some branches, so thankfully, I didn't get very far, they said. They wrote my arm was busted, my spleen was teared, my intestines was split, and my windpipe was broken, too. That part upset my mama so bad she asked the deputy man to come and take the newspaper away. But that wasn't what upset me the most. I wasn't even mad when it said Mz. Hawkins was getting all the reward money. I was real bad upset about the last part; the part where Sheriff Dooley give this reporter man an interview or something. They couldn't fit all of it on the page and that was good, but I knowed what he said. I was right next to him when he said it.

    "Can you tell us what happened, Sheriff ?" that reporter fella asked him.

    "We got a call from Mz. Maybelle Hawkins a' Roseflower Creek yesterday mornin'. Told us she had information as to who took the payroll money," the sheriff said.

    "Go on."

    "Well, we found some a' the money in the vacinity, and we found the young'un of the guy who done it dead in the creek." Sheriff Dooley wiped the sweat from his face with his hankie.

    "And the child's name?" the reporter asked.

    "That'd be Lori Jean Dodson, age ten," the sheriff read from his notes, which was mighty peculiar. He knowed who I was. Been knowing me my whole life. That Sheriff Dooley, he was showing hisself off for sure, I'm telling ya'.

    "What about the girl's parents?" The reporter was writing everything down the sheriff said.

    "Well, that's just it. They was long gone and so was the rest a' the money. At least at the time, we thought it was."

    "And you figured they killed their own kid before they took off ?"

    "Dang right. People do right strange things for money. Far as we can figure that kid was tellin' on them. Told Mz. Hawkins all about it. Asked for help in turning the money in. We figure her ma and pa killed her to hush her up."

    "And then…"

    "And then, we tracked 'em all the way to Sugarville. They was holed up in the mountains in a fishin' cabin. That's where we found 'em, the both a' them, Nadine and Ray Pruitt, guns drawn, ready for a fight."

    "The Pruitts fired first?"

    "Darned tootin' they did. We give 'em fair warning to come out. And that's when Nadine Pruitt killed Deputy Bernie Jacobs. Then she shot and killed her husband before attemptin' to turn the gun on herself," the sheriff said. That was all lies, and here that newspaperman done put it in the paper like it were facts in the Bible.

    "Wait a minute," the reporter said. "Pruitt? I thought you said the kid's name was Dodson."

    "I did. Ray Pruitt weren't the child's natural father. But it's my understanding he's 'bout the only pa she ever knew."

    "Did they have the money with them when you caught up to them?"

    "Matter of fact, they didn't," the sheriff said. "We located it this morning; found it in the hollow of an old tree in the woods near their property."

    "Seems rather peculiar they didn't bother to take it with them, don't you think?" the reporter said.

    "We're workin' on that. Got a few theories," the sheriff said.

    "When's the trial?" the reporter asked.

    "Near as I been told, next week," Sheriff Dooley said.

    "You figure she'll get the electric chair?"

    "No, I don't figure she'll get the chair," the sheriff said, "I
guar
antee
you she'll get the chair. That be a fact and you can print it." Sheriff Dooley tipped his hat and left after posing for a picture. That newspaper, when it come out, had big black letters printed at the top of the first page: Local Sheriff Cracks Payroll Robbery. Takes Killer into Custody.

    It was real sorrowful, it was. Everybody done tried my mama and found her guilty already. What kind of fair trial is that? I knowed then Mama was gonna have to set every one a' them lawmen fellas down and tell 'em exactly what happened out there; there weren't no ifs, ands, or buts about it. She had to save herself. But that wasn't exactly the way it worked out 'cause Mama still weren't talking to nobody.

The folks at the jail was real nice to Mama. They give her this attorney man to help her. He was a public offender, I think they said. He was free and a real nice man. He come to see Mama right away. He talked in a soft voice to her and wore his Sunday go-tochurch suit even. He had suspenders and a little bow tie. He looked real special and I figured the jury would listen to him good. His words come out in nice sentences, and even though he used these big words they sounded right good when he said 'em. His name was Elmer Addicus Howard, but he weren't no relation to my meemaw, Mavis Howard. The judge called him Counselor, which didn't make no sense. How'd he get hisself a nickname Counselor from Elmer Addicus?

    He give this opening statement and said my mama was a victim herself of Ray Pruitt, and he would present his case accordingly. This other attorney fella wasn't nice to my mama at all. He sat at this other table a little ways over from Elmer Addicus and he said bad things about Mama to the jury, and he didn't even know her. He said she was a mother with no feelings at all, a woman he said who allowed her own daughter to be killed so the money her and her husband stole could remain a secret. He told them she was a woman who shot and killed Deputy Bernie Jacobs over that same money, a woman who in the end shot and killed her husband, too, when she realized they were surrounded; a woman who intended to then kill herself, but coward that she was, couldn't.

    "That woman, Nadine Pruitt, sits before you now!" that attorney fella yelled out and pointed his finger at Mama.

    "And that woman deserves your guilty verdict and a verdict of death in the electric chair. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," he said, and then he sat down. His name was Lester Bartholomew the Third. So there was two more mens just like him somewhere, but they never showed up and I was real glad about that. Funny thing, though. This Bartholomew the Third guy, he had hisself the same nickname as Elmer Addicus Howard, Mama's attorney fella. Fancy that!

    Mr. Bartholomew's daddy was a congressman, and some said he wanted to be governor and that's why he took the job he had of sending people to jail, so he could get a lot of people to vote for him some day. Which didn't make no sense, neither. All them people he sent to jail probably wouldn't vote for him. Other people said if he got my mama sent to the electric chair for what they said she done to Bernie Jacobs, he'd be elected for sure. Bernie Jacobs had hisself a wife and two little children. Mrs. Jacobs come to court every day and sat in the first row and cried a bunch whenever that lawyer man Mr. Bartholomew mentioned him during the trial. Folks in the jury seats always looked at her real sad like. I think they felt real sorry for her and I don't blame 'em. I did, too. She had two little children to take care of now, all by herself.

    Some of them people that got to watch the trial felt bad for my mama, too. Said she was a good woman; got herself involved with the wrong man. Weren't that the truth. I wished them folks was on the jury, 'stead of on them benches watching. Maybelle come, too. She got to sit in the second row and never had to wait in line like the others. Sheriff Dooley had one his deputies take her to her seat 'fore they even let the others in. Probably on account Sheriff Dooley said it was her more than anyone cracked their case. Maybelle was looking real fine at the trial. Had her hair all done up nice and she wore a different dress every day, ones I never seen, so they was probably new for sure. And Maybelle must of put herself on a special diet or something 'cause she was losing weight like crazy. I could even see her waist, and I ain't never seen that before. Then one day she didn't come no more. People was buzzing all about. Said she was real sick; seeing a special doctor in Atlanta.