“Well, you gotta know the history. That girl’s daddy was one of Medgar’s leading black citizens, respected by blacks and whites alike. He was also the former Kentucky heavyweight boxing champion seven years running. A big, powerful man. About a year before the slapping incident a few of those men had attacked that girl. She was walking home alone through the woods and they must have seen her. They tore off most of her clothes, probably were gonna rape her, but she fought back like a panther as they beat on her. Somehow she managed to escape and ran home to her daddy. Now, Lucas was a proud, decent man, but he had a crazy temper. When he saw what those men did to his daughter, he went wild. He had had run-ins with a couple of them before and he knew the law wasn’t going to do much about it. Three white men beating up a black girl with no witnesses—forget it. A few nights later he lay for two of them and beat them to a bloody pulp. They arrested Lucas but couldn’t prove anything since it was at night and neither man could remember much anyway. Besides, most folks in town thought those two had it coming, so the whole thing just blew over. Six months after that, Lucas Steptoe was killed in the mines. Whether he was murdered or died accidentally, we’ll never know. But after he passed, those men—boys really, barely out of their teens—started getting bolder, following the girl around and saying rude things, strutting round town like fighting cocks. I don’t doubt they would have raped her, but I don’t think they’ve got killing in them. Anyway, they were trying to force her into their truck right out in front of Hivey’s when Sarah saved her with that slap.”
“Whatever happened to him? The one she slapped.”
“Oh, he’s still around causing trouble. You met him the other night. Gov Budget’s his name.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “He’s the one?”
“Indeed he is,” Pops said and took a sip of his sour mash.
“He’s the one that beat up Mr. Paul.”
“We think he is… or put someone up to it.”
“But you told the sheriff that. I heard you.”
“Me saying it and Zeb proving it are two different things.”
I was silent for a while thinking about my grandmother and how Gov Budget’s face must have shot sideways at impact. “Audy Rae said she saw the whole thing,” I said, as much to fill in the silence as anything else.
Pops paused and leaned toward me with his sour mash cradled in both hands, fingers interlocked under the glass. “Kevin, that black girl Sarah saved was Audy Rae.”
I sat back in my chair, stunned. Why hadn’t she told me?
Pops continued, “After the ‘slap heard round the county,’ Sarah gave Audy Rae a job working for us. Did all the cleaning and sewing, just about anything else she could.”
“Weren’t you afraid that Gov and the others would try to hurt her again or do something to Grandma?”
“No… those men are classic cowards and bullies. Besides, that slap set the whole town talking for months; if they had tried anything, they would’ve probably been jailed out of respect for Sarah.”
We were silent for most of the next hour as I let the revelation about Audy Rae and Gov Budget sink in. At eight thirty, Sheriff Binner’s car pulled to the curb. He worked his way up to the steps, took them one at a time, then eased into one of the wicker chairs. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the new sweat around his neck.
“What do we know?” Pops asked after he settled himself.
“We know that Gov Budget’s outta town. Down in Johnson City—Rachel’s brother is racing on the dirt down there. Whole family went down for it. Sen too.”
“Sen went with him?”
“He did. No one’s up the holler cept Lucille an that whole raggle a kids.”
“When did they leave?”
“Two days ago. It’ll be easy to check out.”
Pops was chewing furiously on his pipe end. After a while he said, “Had to have put someone up to it.”
Zeb Binner took a cigar out of his breast pocket and lit it. “Thinkin is easy; it’s the provin what’s hard. An on that score we got a lick a nuthin.”
Chapter 16
TWO HEARTS BEATING EACH TO EACH
The next morning was driving rain and a chill that spoke of late fall rather than midsummer. Audy Rae had taken the morning off to clean Mr. Paul’s house, so Pops and I decided to stop into Biddle’s for breakfast before a morning of calls around the county.
We rattled onto Main Street, the old wipers on Pops’ truck leaving a frowning streak of water on every cycle. There were two cars in Biddle’s parking lot as we pulled in.
Hank Biddle bought the place in 1965, two months after Miss Janey’s opened. Pops said he was semiretired now, which wasn’t difficult, since business was off by two-thirds. Charlie Swanson, the cook, leaned on the counter. “What’s the latest with Paul? It’s all everybody’s been talking about this morning. How bad is it?”
“Bad. They are taking him to Louisville today to a brain specialist.”
“Who the hell would want to hurt Paul? Nicest man in the county, I think.”
“Been thinking about that all night. Don’t have any answers, but I’ve got some ideas.”
I excused myself to find the toilet and caught snippets of similar conversations in the few filled booths as I walked to the bathroom.
“… his brain so swelled up they hadda drill a hole in the top a his head,” from booth three. “Heard he’s gonna be fine, though.”
“… brungt me the eggs in a nice basket ever mornin. He an Paitsel got eight in the roost back there…,” from booth five.
“… I seen the Budget boy settin on the porch with him ever Saturday. Paul helpin him learn to draw is what,” from booth seven.
And in the bathroom, “… lent me the money with no interest so I could get that backhoe…,” said a man at the urinal to another. It was Andy Teel with Jesper Jensen on their breakfast break from loafing at the back of Hivey’s.
“Uncommon generous. No better man in town, I say,” Jesper said solemnly.
Breakfast came steaming on plates, and we gulped it down with two milks. We paid the bill and went out the door just as Petunia Wickle was coming in. She had on a short yellow skirt and a tight-fitting top. She smiled at me and I almost lost breakfast.
We drove out to the morning calls: first to Mrs. Tainey’s near Knuckle, where we clipped horse hooves, vaccinated sheep for blue tongue, and stitched up her dog’s barbed-wire-cut ear. Word of Mr. Paul’s beating had spread before us like a new tide. “Who would hurt such a gentle man?” Eloise Tainey asked to the morning.
John Gumm, her foreman, was off under cover of the barn eaves talking to the Garvin brothers. “Pait’s a top hand. I don’t see him messing with that queer bidness, regardless a what Paul says.”
Ned Garvin agreed. “Fixed the rings on my tractor engine—man that handy round engines can’t be that way. Paul I can see, but not Pait—play poker with him ever Monday, for Christsake.”
“Paul come out with needfuls last winter. Wouldn’t even take no tip money,” someone else said.