Finally, three weeks later, a hand-scrawled note was slid under the front door of the office. It read:
It was unsigned, but Spot ran it anyway. He was relieved that someone out there was paying attention. Baggy told me later that the note was written by one of his drinking buddies in the courthouse.
My editorial began, "A free and uninhibited press is crucial to sound democratic government." Without being windy or preachy, I went on for four paragraphs extolling the importance of an energetic and inquisitive newspaper, not only for the country but for every small community as well. I vowed that the Times would not be frightened away from reporting local crimes, whether they were rapes and murders or corrupt acts by public officials.
It was bold, gutsy, and downright brilliant. The townsfolk were on my side. It was, after all, the Times versus the Padgitts and their Sheriff. We were taking a mighty stand against bad people, and though they were dangerous they were evidently not intimidating me. I kept telling myself to act brave, and I really had no choice. What was my paper supposed to do ignore the Kassellaw murder? Take it easy on Danny Padgitt?
My staff was elated with the editorial. Margaret said it made her proud to work for the Times. Wiley, still nursing his wounds, was now carrying a gun and looking for a fight. "Give 'em hell, rookie," he said.
Only Baggy was skeptical. "You're gonna get yourself hurt," he said.
And Miss Callie once again described me as courageous. Lunch the following Thursday lasted for only two hours and included Esau. I actually began taking notes about her family. More important, she'd found only three errors in that week's edition.
* * *
I was alone in my office early Friday afternoon when someone made a noisy entrance downstairs, then came clamoring up. He shoved my door open without so much as a "Hello" and stuck both hands in his pants pockets. He looked vaguely familiar; we'd met somewhere around the square.
"You got one of these, boy?" he growled, yanking his right hand out and momentarily freezing my heart and lungs. He slid a shiny pistol across my desk as if it were a set of keys. It spun wildly for a few seconds before resting directly before me, the barrel mercifully pointing toward the windows.
He lunged across the desk, thrust out a massive hand, and said, "Harry Rex Vonner, a pleasure." I was too stunned to speak or move, but eventually honored him with an embarrassingly weak handshake. I was still watching the gun.
"It's a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight, six-shooter, damned fine firearm. You carry one?"
I shook my head no. The name alone sent chills to my feet.
Harry Rex kept a nasty black cigar tucked into the left side of his mouth. It gave the impression of having spent most of the day there, slowly disintegrating like a plug of chewing tobacco. No smoke because it wasn't lit. He dropped his massive body into a leather chair as if he might stay for a couple of hours.
"You a crazy sumbitch, you know that?" He didn't speak as much as he growled. Then I caught the name. He was a local lawyer, once described by Baggy as the meanest divorce attorney in the county. He had a large fleshy face with short hair that shot in all directions like windblown straw. His ancient khaki suit was wrinkled and stained and said to the world that Harry Rex didn't give a damn about anything.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" I asked, pointing at the gun.
"First you load it, I'll give you some bullets, then you stick it in your pocket and carry it with you everywhere you go, and when one of them Padgitt thugs jumps out from behind the bushes you blast him right between the eyes." To help convey his message, he moved his index finger through the air like a bullet and poked himself between the eyes.
"It's not loaded?"
"Hell no. Don't you know anything about guns?"
"Afraid not."
"Well, you'd better learn, boy, at the rate you're goin'."
"That bad, huh?"
"I did a divorce one time, ten years ago I guess, for a man whose young wife liked to sneak over to the brothel and make a few bucks. The guy worked offshore, stayed gone all the time, had no idea what she was up to. He finally found out. The Padgitts owned the whorehouse and one of them had taken a shine to the young lady." Somehow the cigar stayed in place, bobbing up and down with the narrative. "My client was heartbroken and he wanted blood. He got it. They caught him out one night and beat him senseless."
"They?"
"The Padgitts I'm sure, or some of their operatives."
"Operatives?"
"Yeah, they got all sorts of thugs who work for them. Leg breakers, bomb throwers, car stealers, hit men."
He allowed the "hit men" to hang in the air while he watched me flinch. He gave the impression of one who could tell stories forever without being unduly burdened by veracity. Harry Rex had a nasty grin and a twinkle in his eyes, and I strongly suspected some embellishment was under way.
"And of course they were never caught," I said.
"Padgitts never get caught."
"What happened to your client?"
"He spent a few months in the hospital. The brain damage was pretty severe. In and out of institutions, really sad. Broke his family. He drifted to the Gulf Coast where they elected him to the state senate."
I smiled and nodded at what I hoped was a lie, but I didn't pursue it. Without touching the cigar with his hands, he flicked his tongue somehow and cocked his head, and it slid to the right side of his mouth.
"You ever eat goat?" he asked.
"Say what?"
"Goat?"
"No. I didn't know it was edible."
"We're roastin' one this afternoon. The first Friday of each month I throw a goat party at my cabin in the woods. Some music, cold beer, fun and games, about fifty folks, all carefully selected by me, the cream of society. No doctors, no bankers, no country club assholes. A classy bunch. Why don't you stop by? I got a firin' range out behind the pond. I'll take the pistol and we'll figure out how to use the damned thing."
* * *
Harry Rex's ten-minute drive into the country took almost half an hour, and that was on the paved county road. When I crossed the "third creek past Heck's old Union 76 station," I left the asphalt and turned onto gravel. For a while it was a nice gravel road with mailboxes indicating some hope of civilization, but after three miles the mail route stopped and so did the gravel. When I saw a "rusted-out Massey Ferguson tractor with no tires," I turned left onto a dirt road. His crude map referred to it as a pig trail, though I had never seen one of those. After the pig trail disappeared into a dense forest, I gave serious thought to turning back@.
My Spitfire wasn't designed for the terrain. By the time I saw the roof of his cabin, I'd been driving for forty-five minutes.
There was a barbed-wire fence with an open metal gate, and I stopped there because the young man with the shotgun wanted me to. He kept it on his shoulder as he looked scornfully at my car. "What kind is it?" he grunted.
"Triumph Spitfire. It's British." I was smiling, trying not to offend him. Why did a goat party need armed security? He had the rustic look of someone who'd never seen a car made in another country.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Willie Traynor."
I think the "Willie" made him feel better, so he nodded at the gate. "Nice car," he said as I drove through.
The pickup trucks outnumbered the cars. Parking was haphazard in a field in front of the cabin. Merle Haggard was wailing from two speakers placed in the windows. One group of guests huddled over a pit where smoke was rising and the goat was roasting. Another group was tossing horseshoes beside the cabin. Three well-dressed ladies were on the porch, sipping something that was certainly not beer. Harry Rex appeared and greeted me warmly.