ONE
PEOPLE WHO DREAM about quiet country nights have never been in the country after dark.
Even after their dogs had shut up, Mooney White and Grant Woodburn were surrounded by nothing but noise. The crickets and the frogs were screaming at each other, and there was a decent summer breeze moving through the trees that had been bothersome to the men before they’d finally bagged their fill.
It was just past three in the morning, and dark-dark. The men were in the ass end of Gulf County, FL, in the woods just north of Wewahitchka and near the Dead Lakes Recreation Area. The low, thick cloud cover made the moon pointless.
Mooney was a black man in his late forties. He was dressed in an old pair of his blue work pants and a navy windbreaker. The many spots of white in his close-cropped hair looked like a little patch of fireflies in the night. He used his flashlight to guide their steps over rocks and fallen limbs. His .22 rifle was slung over his shoulder, and he held his dog’s leash in the other hand.
Grant Woodburn, a redheaded man just a bit younger than his best friend, held his dog’s leash in one hand, and a .410 single shot in the other. Their bag of coons was slung around his neck.
The men’s boots crunched softly atop the thick carpet of pine needles. Ahead of them, the two dogs were almost soundless in their passage.
It was Mooney who first spotted the dim lights. They rounded a thick copse of shrubs and old cypress, and the two circles of light were just visible through the trees, about a hundred yards ahead.
“Hey, Woodburn,” he said. “You left the lights on in my truck, I’m gonna kill you.”
Woodburn stopped and looked at the lights. “Man, I didn’t leave your lights on,” he said. There was a high-pitched buzzing near his right ear, and he brushed at it with the sleeve of his Carharrt jacket. “We ain’t even over there.” He lifted his arm again and pointed off to the right. “We’re over there.”
Mooney’s dog, a fawn-colored Ladner Black Mouth cur, went to tugging on his leash. Mooney tensed up on the leash and made a sound almost like he was getting something out of his teeth. The dog stopped, and the leash got some slack to it again. Mooney stopped, too.
“Those lights is about out,” he said. “Somebody’s gonna be pissed when they get back to their vehicle.”
Woodburn looked over at him as he jerked slightly on his own leash. His brown and white Beagle stood stiffly where he was, looking toward the truck.
“Reckon we should go shut his lights off for him?” Woodburn asked.
“If the fool left his doors unlocked,” Mooney answered.
“Man, this is right around where we heard that shot a while back,” Woodburn said, his voice slightly hushed.
Mooney stopped walking. His dog and then his friend followed suit.
“That don’t necessarily mean nothin’,” Mooney said quietly.
“Maybe we should just go to your truck and call the police or somethin’,” Woodburn whispered.
“Man, we got two guns,” Mooney said. “Besides, what are we gonna tell ’em? Haul y’all asses out here to shut this fool’s lights off? You watch too much TV.”
He made a clicking noise with his tongue, and men and dogs veered off their intended path and headed for the lights. When they were about fifty feet out, Mooney squinted at the pickup that sat silently in the clearing. From where they were standing, they were looking at the truck head on. The driver’s side door was standing open. The interior light either didn’t work or had already burned out.
“I know that truck,” Mooney said quietly.
It was a black Ford F-150, which in Gulf County was like saying its name was John. But the Gators antenna topper was ringing a bell for Mooney.
“Whose is it?” Woodburn asked.
“Hold on, I’m thinking,” Mooney answered. He was quiet for a moment. “That’s Sheriff Hutchins’ truck.”
“Are you sure?” his friend asked him.
“Yeah, man, I put a new tranny in it last year,” Mooney answered.
“Aw, man, I don’t like it,” Woodburn said. His beagle, Trot, had set to whining.
“I’m not real excited, either,” Mooney said. “But maybe he needs help or somethin’.”
“Not from us, man,” Grant said. “Maybe from the cops.”
“Man, pull your pants up,” Mooney said. “Norman, let’s go,” he said to his dog, and started following him slowly into the clearing.
Mooney and Norman were in the lead, Woodburn and Trot lagging a bit behind, which was definitely Woodburn’s choice and not the dog’s. The beagle strained at his leash.
As Mooney got closer, he realized that the weird shininess on the driver’s side window wasn’t some trick of the light. It was something on the window, all over it. He stopped walking. A sheen of moisture had suddenly appeared on his onyx skin, and he swiped at it with one huge, calloused hand.
“Sheriff?” he called out, flicking his flashlight on and off against the windshield. The flashlight wasn’t a particularly powerful one. Its light bounced off the glass, revealing nothing. “Hey, Sheriff? It’s Mooney White!”
The crickets and frogs went silent. For a few moments, there was just the wind in the trees and the quiet keening of the dogs.
“Shut up, Norman!” Mooney snapped, and both dogs quieted. A new sound, a faint one, reached Mooney’s ears. “You hear that?”
Both men listened for a moment. “Radio,” Woodburn whispered finally.
“Hell’s up in here?” Mooney asked himself mostly.
He flicked the flashlight on again, trained it at the open door. In the edge of the light, he saw something, and dropped the beam lower. Beneath the door, he saw pants. Knees of pants. And one hand just hanging there.
“Aw hell, man,” Woodburn whispered. “This ain’t right at all.” Mooney slid his rifle down his arm, released the safety with his flashlight hand. The light bobbed off to the side of the truck.
“Sheriff?” Mooney called again. “Scarin’ Mooney just a little bit here.”
There was no answer. Norman gave out a couple of barks, higher-pitched than some people would expect from such a sturdy dog. Mooney gave him his lead, and followed Norman as he pulled toward the truck. Mooney tugged him off to the side, made him circle wide, about eight or ten feet from the old Ford. He could hear Woodburn several yards behind him, whispering to himself.
When Mooney had gotten round to the back side of the open door, he pointed the flashlight at it.
“Oh, hellfire,” Mooney said to himself.
Sheriff Hutchins was slumped forward on his knees, his upper body hung up on the open door. Closer up, the black on the window wasn’t black at all, but a deep red, and there was a lot more of it on the inside of the door.
Mooney stood there staring, barely hearing his best friend gagging behind him, or Lynyrd Skynrd on the Sheriff’s truck radio, singing about going home.
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