“Is this because of what happened at Clancy’s trial?” I said.
James had been the federal government’s star witness against Ben Clancy. But he had been destroyed on cross-examination, and Clancy had walked away free and clear.
“It’s a lot of things, but I think that was the last straw.”
We rounded a curve, and there they were. Granny and Eugene’s brother, Ronnie, were standing about fifteen feet from James. James was sitting sidesaddle on a four-wheeler. He had a joint in his left hand and a chrome revolver in his right. A mason jar of clear liquid—three-quarters empty—sat on a fender.
When he recognized me, James said, “Counselor! Welcome to the party.”
“Doesn’t look like my idea of a party with that gun in your hand,” I said.
“Oh, it’s a party all right, but it’s about to end.”
“What’s going on, man?” I said. “Surely this isn’t about Ben Clancy. You’re not going to let that miserable bastard be the cause of you killing yourself, are you?”
“You don’t know nothing about me, Darren,” James said as he took a deep drag off the joint. “I’ll give you an example. My real name ain’t Tipton. It’s James Crawford. I was dumped on the Tiptons by my mother when I was five years old. She shot and killed my daddy because he raped her two or three times a day, every day. He was a piece of work, my daddy. Me and my brothers and sisters all used to close our eyes or get out of the house when he’d start on her. He’d just rip her clothes off and go at it. Didn’t care who was watching or how she was feeling. She’d cry, and he’d beat her. We were too young to do anything about it.
“He hated me,” James said. “Don’t really know why other than he was just a miserable, hateful son of a bitch. Used to punch me in the head, kick me. He even shot me one time. I was walking in the woods one morning when I was four. It was a Sunday. When I came out of the tree line, I heard a loud crack and a buzz or a shock wave, and then I realized something had peeled the skin off the side of my head just above my right ear. I walked up to the house to get Momma to take care of the wound, and Daddy was sitting on the porch with a rifle. He looked at me and said, ‘Damn, boy, I thought you was a deer.’”
“I had a lot of problems with my father, too, James,” I said. “You just get past it and move on.”
“I don’t think I really belong here, you know what I mean?” James said. His eyes were glassy, and his voice was becoming monotone. I felt like I needed to do something before he went past the point of no return, so I took a step toward him. The pistol, which was a massive 0.357 Magnum, immediately came up and was aimed directly at my chest. I noticed it was steady.
“My momma shot him,” James said. “She finally shot him one night. We lived about a mile down the mountain from here. She packed all us kids up in the truck and she dropped me off in Granny’s driveway. I remember crying and telling her I wanted to stay with her, but she pushed me out of the truck and told me Joe and Luanne would take good care of me. They caught her in Nashville and brought her back here for a trial. She died in prison, and my brothers and sister wound up in foster homes. I ain’t seen them since that night.”
“Don’t do this,” Eugene said. “Granny and Granddaddy took good care of you, didn’t they? And me and Ronnie, we lost our momma and daddy in the car wreck, but we ain’t killing ourselves. We lost Granddaddy Joe, but we ain’t killing ourselves. We’ve always treated you like a brother, haven’t we? Please don’t make us watch this.”
“I didn’t ask you to come up here,” James said. “If you don’t want to watch, then go back down the mountain.” He looked at Granny and a tear slipped from his eye. “You’ve been good to me, and I thank you. And I’m sorry I’ve never been nothing but a pain in the ass.”
“This is a coward’s way out, James,” Granny said.
“I know. All I’ve ever been is a drunk and a drug addict. I’ve always been a coward, and now you won’t have to deal with me anymore. And now I won’t have to think about what a fool I let Ben Clancy make me out to be. I let the man help him put Darren in jail, and then I couldn’t hold up on the witness stand well enough to hold him accountable for what he did. I think about it every day, you know. All the time. I’m tired of it.”
I watched as the pistol changed position from being pointed at my chest to being shoved into James’s mouth.
“No!” I yelled as the pistol discharged with a deafening crack, and James Tipton’s brains and skull sprayed onto a mountain laurel bush behind him.
CHAPTER 24
Granny Tipton didn’t even bother with a church funeral for James. They just buried him in a small family cemetery about a quarter of a mile from her house on the mountain. A lanky, bespectacled man whom I suspected was probably a preacher said a few words, but he kept it secular and he kept it short.
Grace came along with me to pay our respects. When it was over, we stopped by Granny’s house. Eugene and Ronnie and their families were there, along with a small group of people I didn’t know. There were fewer than twenty in all. Granny’s kitchen table was covered in food that had been dropped off by friends and neighbors and, I suspected, former business associates. There were flowers all over the house. It smelled like a rose garden.
Grace and I were standing in the kitchen talking with Eugene when I spotted Granny in the den alone. I excused myself and walked in and stood next to her. She was looking at some framed photos on the wall, old family photos that were hanging above an upright piano.
“That’s my husband, there,” she said, pointing to a lean, handsome man with an angular face. He was sitting in the seat of a Ford tractor. “That’s also the tractor that killed him,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Granny,” I said.
“Oh, no, I wasn’t looking for sympathy,” she said. “Just stating a fact.”
Granny was a brown-eyed, silver-haired woman who was solidly built, even at her age, which I guessed to be around seventy-five. There was no roundness to her shoulders; she stood straight, as though a piece of steel rebar ran through her spine. From everything I’d learned about her, all she’d ever known was hard work. She was a no-nonsense woman most of the time, but I’d also found her to be charming and mischievous when the mood struck her. She also had a dangerous air about her at times, and this was one of those times.
“Are you all right?” I said. “I mean about James?”
“The boy was so miserable he almost blew his own head off, and I had to stand there and watch it. So, no, I’m not all right about James.”
“Forgive me. That was insensitive.”
“Stop apologizing, Darren. It makes you sound weak. That’s what James’s real problem was. He was weak. Too much liquor. Too many drugs. Weakens the mind and the spirit.”