The Front Porch Prophet

CHAPTER 2

A.J. STOOD UNDER THE HANGING-TREE AT THE FOOT of Eugene’s Mountain on the early autumn Saturday morning. It was cool, almost brisk, and the sky that could be seen through the canopy of trees was clear. He leaned the Louisville Slugger up against the hanging-tree and lit a cigarette. For whatever reason, he had decided to go see Eugene.

The hanging-tree was a huge old oak with a large limb jutting perpendicular to the trunk about twenty feet from the ground. Legend had it that two Yankees had gotten themselves hung there back during the unfortunate period of time when William Tecumseh Sherman, the Anti-Christ, was burning Georgia to the ground. A local farmer and his wife had been murdered, and two young men unlucky enough to be wearing blue and unwary enough to be sleeping away from their weapons had been apprehended by several of the local worthies and charged with the murder. The fact that both men and their regiment had been fighting sixty miles to the north at Chickamauga when the crime was committed did not alter the outcome of their trial, although a pause of several seconds occurred when the information was revealed.

The dilemma was resolved by Spartan Cook, unofficial prosecutor at the affair. He had acquired a great deal of legal expertise during his many court appearances, and even though he had always been on the receiving end of justice, he was deferred to on matters of law at the current proceedings. It was decided the two villains had no doubt murdered several farmers and their wives up in Chickamauga, and they surely would have committed the local crimes, as well, if someone had not beaten them to it. The fair and speedy trial had concluded shortly thereafter.

A.J. began his slow journey up to Eugene’s cabin. The battered but proud Louisville Slugger was his walking stick as he made his way. He moved silently through the north Georgia mountains, as quiet as a stolen kiss. It was a talent he had always had, to pass unseen and unheard through the wild places. His father attributed the knack to the trace of Cherokee blood flowing in A.J.’s veins, and a rustle and a shadow were all that marked his passage. As he reached the midpoint of his journey, he tightened his grip on the bat and swung it up on his shoulder. He was sure Rufus was already stalking him and had no doubt his perennial foe would join him presently. He listened carefully, and as he rounded the bend in the old road he heard a twig snap. He whirled and assumed the batter’s-up position. Running straight at him from behind was Rufus. Their eyes met, and they froze.

“Come on over here, boy, and get some of this,” A.J. said quietly, not taking his eyes off the hound for an instant. Rufus lowered to a crouch, teeth bared. His eyes emanated malice. Then he blinked and lowered his head to his front paws, conceding the round to A.J.

Rufus’s specific lineage was unclear, but he appeared to be a cross between a Great Dane and a bear. He was as big as a small Shetland and covered with scars. His hair grew in patches around the scar tissue, and his eyes were yellow and bloodshot. A.J. likened the dog to a creation by Dante on LSD. He was a hound from hell, and A.J. had no doubt that if Rufus ever got hold of him, there wouldn’t be much left to bury, except maybe a half-eaten shoe or a few small pieces of the Louisville Slugger.

A.J. backed up slowly, then turned and headed on his way. Rufus stayed where he was and watched. It was always that way, as if the dog was just letting A.J. know he was still around, waiting for the day when his foe forgot to be cautious. For the life of him, A.J. couldn’t remember any incident that might explain the dog’s ire. It didn’t really matter much, anyway. The ritual of defending his life had evolved into a routine nuisance, akin to paying taxes, going to the dentist, or listening to his neighbor, Estelle Chastain, talk about the hard old days when her long-suffering and now-deceased Parm had gone off to fight the Hun, leaving her, a mere girl of seventeen, pregnant but still petite, mind, to fend for herself for two long, cold, lonely years.

A.J. entered the homestretch, the last quarter mile of his trek to Eugene’s home. Just ahead was a wide place in the trail, and parked there, rusting peacefully, was The Overweight Lover. It was a 1965 Chrysler Imperial with fine Corinthian leather interior and a 440 cubic-inch motor. It sat where it had finally died and, in A.J.’s opinion, this was hallowed ground. The car was green and wide, and it had The Overweight Lover hand-painted in Gothic script across the tops of both the front and back windshields. Eugene had purchased the Lover complete with lettering back in the days when pre-owned vehicles were simply used cars. He made the acquisition because he needed another motor for his little hot rod, but his plans changed dramatically when the old Chrysler hit 128 mph during the trip home. Eugene held great admiration for speed in those days, and since the Lover handled better than his Dodge Charger ever had, he parked the smaller car in favor of the touring sedan.

“How long would you say this car is?” A.J. had asked Eugene upon his first glimpse those many years past. “Thirty, maybe thirty-five feet? Nice wide whitewalls, too.” He was standing by the car, hands in pockets, lightly kicking at one of the tires as if he were a potential buyer.

“Don’t talk about my car,” Eugene had replied from under the dash. He was in the preferred position for eight-track tape-player installation, upside down with his legs hanging over the back of the front seat.

“What name would you put on this shade of green?” A.J. had continued, running his hand down the front fender. “I’ve seen this before, somewhere.” He was enjoying himself. He had been listening for some time to Eugene’s derisive comments about his own humble vehicle, a 1963 Chevrolet Impala that Eugene called the Hog Farm. So A.J. had been praying for a vehicle of the Lover’s pedigree to appear.

“I told you to quit talking bad about my car,” Eugene said, sitting up while he plugged in a Led Zeppelin tape to try the stereo. Jimmie Page and Robert Plant sounded like they were gravely ill.

“Led Zeppelin is a little raw for an automobile of this stature,” A.J. had observed, reaching into the ice chest for a beer. Eugene gave him a hard stare. Then he secured a beer of his own and began to wash the car. When he got around to the windows, A.J. noted that they could probably scrape the name off with a razor blade.

“You have got to be kidding,” Eugene had said, looking at A.J. with disbelief. “The name is the best part.”

A.J. emerged from his reverie of times dead and gone and smiled a little wistfully as he passed. He felt strangely happy to see the old Lover again. It was a monument to simpler days. Even now, long past her glory and rusting away on the side of Eugene’s Mountain, The Overweight Lover was one of a kind.

A.J. entered the clearing that held Eugene’s cabin, a euphemistic term for an assortment of structures and objects that had been tacked together over the years. The core of the abode was a Ford school bus he and Eugene had accidentally acquired late one night many years upstream of the present. They were seniors in high school, and they were busy on that fateful evening borrowing a little gasoline from each of the school buses parked behind the school gym.

This activity was considered to be entrepreneurship rather than theft by all the local boys, and Eugene and A.J. were up in the rotation on the night in question. As they were siphoning the last bus, Eugene discovered the keys hanging in the ignition. They both pondered the development briefly before deciding to borrow and hide the bus for a couple of days prior to easing it back into the bus line when no one was looking. They agreed that this course would be a good joke on Slim Neal, the local policeman, who would be quite upset by a missing school bus. In retrospect, it turned out to be one of those deals that looked really good on paper but in actual fact should have been reconsidered.

But A.J. and Eugene were young and foolish, so they took the bus. A.J.’s partner in crime suggested the perfect place to hide it would be in the big clearing up on top of the mountain. The road had been recently scraped, and they figured they should be able to get the bus up there. Eugene drove, and A.J. followed along in the Hog Farm, and they were both nearly overcome with the hilarity of it all.

When they arrived at school the next morning, they were faced with the realization that some people did not have their appreciation for fine humor. Slim Neal was livid, and there were times during the day when it seemed he might combust. He had called in the county sheriff, Red Arnold, to help with the investigation.

Red was a law enforcement official from the old school and had acquired the reputation over time of shooting first and not bothering much with the questions later. The state police arrived before noon, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation rolled in shortly thereafter. Slim had waited all of his life for the opportunity to use his CRIME SCENE-DO NOT CROSS tape, so the area was roped off and diligently patrolled by an armed and dangerous Leon Neal, Slim’s brother and erstwhile deputy for the day.

Around one o’clock Slim started talking about bringing in a brace of bloodhounds, and Eugene and A.J. knew they had a deteriorating situation on their hands. Their joke had developed significant technical difficulties, and when they heard that a citizen’s patrol had been organized to keep an eye on the gas tanks, they realized it was going to be no easy task to return the bus. Both of their fathers had joined the patrol, and they figured that Johnny Mack, at least, would have them sent down to the state prison at Reidsville as a character-building exercise if he caught them. So, since there appeared to be no other viable options open to them, they kept the bus.

“What the hell are we going to do with it?” Eugene asked a few days later. They stood in the clearing on the mountain and viewed their handiwork.

“We could turn it into a snow-cone stand, but I don’t know how much business we’d get up here,” A.J. replied, staring at that yellow embodiment of ten-to-twenty if they got caught. “Maybe we should run it on into the woods and cover it up with brush,” he continued, thinking this action might prove useful should Slim decide to use aerial reconnaissance.

“I can’t believe we stole a school bus,” Eugene said, shaking his head. But there it sat, quiet testimony to questionable judgment and bad luck.

As time passed, it became fairly common knowledge around town that the master bedroom of Eugene’s cabin was the infamous missing bus. It was a tribute to Slim Neal’s investigative expertise that he was perhaps the only person in north Georgia who had no idea where it was, although Eugene considered it sporting to give him the occasional hint.

As the bus became absorbed into the cabin, architectural necessity dictated the removal of some of its parts. These extra pieces would invariably work their way down the mountain and onto Slim’s front porch. A.J. had urged Eugene to discontinue the practice, but the temptation was too strong. Thus, every so often, Slim would step out with his morning coffee and stumble over a tire, or perhaps a fender. One time the engine was sitting there, cold black oil oozing all over Slim’s Protected by Smith and Wesson doormat. He invariably had a bad day after one of these discoveries, and it was best to avoid him until he had regained his composure.

As A.J. neared the cabin, he saw Eugene sitting on the ramshackle front porch, rocking gently in an old rocker. He was methodically loading the Navy Colt his grandfather had left him, the same one that had dispatched Charles Fox in the previous century. Loading the Colt was a complicated business, and he did not seem to notice A.J.’s arrival.

Eugene’s appearance was startling. His shoulder-length white hair was in desperate need of a combing. His long white beard hung to his chest and was reminiscent of Rip Van Winkle’s whiskers. There was translucence to his skin, as if the full light of afternoon was shining through. As he sat there on his front porch, he reminded A.J. of an Old Testament prophet, a modern-day Elijah perched atop Mount Eugene, preparing to read the Law to the unworthy and to enforce it, if necessary, with the Navy Colt.

A.J. cleared his throat to warn of his approach, then stepped up on the porch. Eugene continued loading, and A.J. viewed his surroundings.

An old wooden cable spool sat between the two chairs on the porch and served as an end table. Its contents included a quart of bourbon, several pill bottles, a scattering of loading supplies, one of the Lover’s hubcaps that was spending its golden years as an ashtray, and an open can of gunpowder. A cigarette was burning in the hubcap like a slow fuse. A.J. reached down and removed the cigarette from the vicinity of the gunpowder. Eugene looked up from his work and gestured at the other chair, an oversized rocker. He had taken a liking to it one night on Slim’s porch and had swapped a bus hood for it. A.J. sat.

Eugene finished loading the cylinder and slid it into the pistol. He raised the big pistol, cocked it, and took careful aim at the hackberry tree across the clearing. A.J. was gently tapping the porch rail with the bat while keeping a casual eye on the revolver. Eugene squeezed off a round at the hackberry tree. Bark flew.

“Ten dollars says I can hit that tree six out of six times,” Eugene said. He rocked gently in his chair. A.J. looked at the tree. It was riddled.

“Why are you shooting the tree?” A.J. asked. Eugene shot again. It was a hit.

“That’s two,” he said. He took a short sip from the bourbon bottle before lighting a replacement cigarette. “So how about it? Ten dollars on six out of six? I’ll even shoot left-handed.” He had won a tidy sum over the years with this inducement. Since he was left-handed, it was not the sporting proposition it appeared to be.

“A ten-dollar bet would put you under too much pressure,” A.J. observed. “If you missed, you might decide to shoot me to get out of paying. But if you need the money, I’ll give you ten dollars to shoot Rufus.”

“It would take a cold son of a bitch to shoot his own dog for ten dollars,” Eugene said, again putting his cigarette down in the hubcap and drawing a bead on the tree. He fired four more shots. The doomed hackberry shuddered, as if it could see its own short, sad future. “Make it twenty and I’ll call him up here.” He removed the spent cylinder and slipped a loaded replacement into the pistol. His movements were sure.

“How about if I pay you the twenty and just shoot him myself?” A.J. asked, reaching over to again remove a lit cigarette from the vicinity of the gunpowder. Eugene was a grown man and could blow himself up if he wanted to, but it would have to wait until A.J. left.

“You know,” Eugene said, lighting yet another one, “if you’re out of smokes, I’d be glad to spot you a pack.” He took a deep drag before placing the cigarette in the hubcap. A.J. realized he was dealing with an immovable object so he picked up the can of gunpowder and moved it to the opposite end of the porch.

“No, I’ve got cigarettes. I just don’t want to get fried. Also, I’d like to find out why you called me up here. Have you decided to forgive me for whipping your tail?”

“Whipping my tail? Shit, what are you talking about? I was all over you like a cheap suit. I was on you like white on rice. I whipped you so bad your kids had black eyes.” He leaned back in his chair, obviously enjoying his own use of metaphor.

“You forgot like a dog on a pork chop,” A.J. replied. “I must have given you a concussion.”

In truth, it had not been much of a fight at all. A.J. and Eugene had been at the annual volunteer fireman’s barbecue and beer bust, and the leader of the organization, Honey Gowens, had done his usual excellent job of arrangement. Many fine young hogs had unwillingly given up their ribs to fuel the day’s events, and there was enough cold beer in the keg to extinguish a three-alarm blaze. Honey had arranged for a bluegrass band to play and had gone to the trouble to bring in his brother-in-law as a guest speaker. He was a real fireman down in Birmingham and had come up to give the men a talk on current firefighting techniques. The information was critically important to the members of the squad, since their usual method of dealing with a fire was to arrive late and stand around, slowly shaking their heads while the affected structure burned to the ground. Occasionally they would drag out the hoses and keep an adjacent building from going up, but by and large they were pitiful when it came to putting out fires. Captain Honey-who had made his fortune by marrying it and who had paid for the fire truck-was getting fairly disgusted and had put the squad on probation. If they didn’t get some flames extinguished soon, he was going to trade the truck in on a Winnebago, and he and Jerry Ann were going to head out for Yellowstone and all points west.

It may have been the pressure of being on fire probation that caused Eugene to lose his perspective that day, or it may have been the large quantity of cold beer he had consumed. Or it could have been the fact that he was often foolish, a theory many felt held water, A.J. chief among them. In any event, A.J. was talking to T.C. Clark and Skipper Black, accomplished fire-watchers both, when up stormed Eugene with murder in his eye.

“Right here in front of the whole damn town,” he said, voice full of menace. “Did you think I wouldn’t see? Did you think I didn’t know what was going on?” He had moved in close to A.J.

“What do you think is going on?” A.J. asked. He figured Eugene was drunk, which he was, and that he was having his little joke, which he wasn’t.

“Don’t try that shit with me!” Eugene spoke loudly. A small crowd had gathered. “I saw you and Diane together. I saw you touch her arm!” Now A.J. knew what the fuss was about. Eugene had seen him talking to Diane a few minutes earlier. During the conversation, A.J. had apparently inadvertently touched her arm. It was Eugene’s opinion that payment for the transgression was due.

“You’re not serious, right?” A.J. asked. “I touched Skipper’s arm a minute ago, too. Do you think I’m screwing him?” Skipper was uncomfortable with this analogy and brushed at his arm as he edged away.

“What I think is that I’m going to break your damn head!” Eugene yelled, sounding like he meant business.

“Eugene, nothing happened,” A.J. said emphatically. “Diane was asking about a job for her brother. Period.” Diane’s brother had a history of being discriminated against by various employers, most of whom seemed to unfairly want some work out of him between paydays.

“Period this,” Eugene said as he swung a roundhouse right that loosened one of A.J.’s molars but did not knock him down as Eugene had intended. Then Eugene had troubles of his own as A.J. smacked him open-palmed over both ears before dealing him a sharp blow to the sternum. Eugene hit the ground hard but was back up in a moment, barreling into A.J.’s midsection. A.J. went over backward with Eugene on top, and they rolled around and swore at each other for another minute or two until several of the boys hauled them apart. Slim Neal arrived and sent them both home; he wanted to run them in, but the big storage room in back of the library that was used as the lockup was occupied at the moment by all three members of the Ladies’ Literary Society, who were having their weekly book chat.

Now, three years later, A.J. was sitting on Eugene’s porch, and they were slowly becoming accustomed to being in each other’s company again. “I may have been… hasty… at the barbecue,” Eugene said, coming as close to an apology as he was genetically able. He looked away as he spoke, up at the sky over the clearing. The moment passed by silent agreement, the tension dissipating like leaf smoke in the fall, an acrid memory on the wind.

“Forget it,” A.J. said, realizing the magnitude of Eugene’s gesture. “But next time I’m trying to tell you something, listen.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Eugene said vacantly as he continued to study the sky. Then he turned and looked at A.J. “How about a drink of bourbon?” he asked.

“No, it’s a little early in the day.” Eight to ten hours early, in fact.

“How about a beer, then?”

“A beer would be all right,” A.J. said. He really didn’t want anything, but his grandmother had raised him to observe the social niceties. He went inside to get the beer. He came back out with two and handed one to Eugene, who opened it and downed about half.

“Nice housekeeping,” A.J. said as he sat back down and opened his beer. “There’s something alive in the sink. I would have killed it, but I thought it might be a pet.”

“It’s hard to get good help these days,” Eugene explained. “I tried to get Diane to straighten up while she was here the other day, but she didn’t seem interested in the idea.”

A.J. choked on his beer.

“I bet she loved that,” he said, coughing. He watched while Eugene topped off his half-empty beer bottle with most of the remaining bourbon. He then opened up two of the pill bottles, removed several tablets, and washed them down with the alcohol. A.J.’s curiosity got the best of him. “Got the flu?” he asked. Eugene’s answer was evasive.

“I have to take them every four hours. Doc Miller said it was very important to be punctual.” Eugene was gazing again, seemingly preoccupied. A.J. could not fathom what was on his mind, but he supposed Eugene would spill the beans in his own good time.

“What did Doc say about washing the pills down with boiler-makers?” he asked Eugene.

“We didn’t actually cover that,” came the reply.

“Probably just as well,” A.J. conceded. Doc was known to have a touchy streak. “So what’s the deal?” A.J. waited for his answer. The silence grew long and oppressive.

Finally, Eugene sighed. When he spoke, his voice was lifeless, as if a rock were talking.

“I have cancer. I’m rotten with it. It’s terminal.” Eugene stared at his lead-poisoned hackberry tree. His words hung over the clearing like a gas attack over the Argonne. A gentle breeze blew through the branches, but the words would not dissipate. Overhead, a contrail made slow progress against the backdrop of soft sky. A.J. heard Rufus down the mountain, barking. The scene etched itself into his consciousness, the sights and sounds permanently fixed in blacks and whites and shades of grey, as if Currier & Ives had come to high Georgia to find a little work and had walked up to the clearing in their tight Victorian pants and top hats to capture the moment forever. A.J. did not know what to say, so he said nothing, and stillness reigned.

Finally, Eugene took a ragged breath and turned to A.J. “But

I’m not dead yet,” he said. He began fumbling with his reloading supplies. A.J. was subdued as he retrieved the can of gunpowder for his friend. Eugene quickly and efficiently reloaded the spent cylinder. Then he offered the Colt to A.J. “Ten dollars says you can’t hit the tree six out of six.”

“I don’t feel like shooting your tree,” A.J. said. He knew he should respond to Eugene’s revelation, but his mind was blank. Impending death was not his strong suit, and the episode had taken on aspects of the surreal. He looked over at Eugene, who was staring down at the Colt in his lap.

“How long?” he asked. It was the inevitable question.

“Six months,” Eugene replied. “Maybe less. Doc Miller says he can’t be sure. It started in my pancreas, but now it’s all over.” He spoke matter-of-factly, like he was talking about an outbreak of crab-grass. He looked at A.J. “Of all the things in the world that could have killed me, I never thought it would be my fucking pancreas.”

“You’re not taking Doc’s word for all of this, are you?” A.J. asked. He felt the need to find a solution for Eugene’s problem. “You need to let someone else take a look.”

Doc Miller was the local physician. He was pushing eighty and still a pretty fair hand at setting a broken arm or sewing up a cut leg. He had relocated from somewhere in New York about thirty years ago, and the people of the town had been so overjoyed to have a doctor they chose to overlook the fact that Doc was a Yankee. Over the ensuing years, vile rumors worked their way south, tales of bitter lawsuits and large malpractice settlements. The townspeople’s view was that nobody was perfect, and Doc had always taken pretty good care of all of them. Still, medical science had made great strides in fifty years, and it was A.J.’s hope that Eugene might receive a different diagnosis and a less-final prognosis from someone who had attended medical school since the Roosevelt years.

“No, Doc sent me down to Emory for tests.” Eugene swallowed before continuing. “It’s official. I’m dead. I just haven’t fallen over yet.”

There was no panacea for his malignancy, and he had come back to his mountain to die on his own terms. A.J. watched as Eugene drew a right-handed bead on the hackberry tree and fired. Ambidexterity with firearms was not one of his strengths, and a hole appeared in the windshield of his Jeep.

“Shit,” he said. He switched hands and put the other five rounds into the tree.

“You never told me why you’re shooting the tree,” A.J. said, changing subjects to allow himself time to assimilate.

“It was Doc’s idea. He told me that I should have a hobby to take my mind off my troubles.”

“I bet he had something like stamp collecting in mind,” A.J. said, eyeing yet another cigarette that had slipped in close to the gunpowder. He picked up the can and placed it once again out of harm’s way. He thought it was a mercy that Eugene had not decided upon doctor shooting as an alternative pastime. He envisioned the scene. Eugene would walk into the lobby down at Emory with the big Colt stuck in his belt, right up in front like Billy the Kid used to wear his. He would saunter up to the Pink Lady at the information counter. “Oncology, please,” he would say, and then all hell would break loose.

“Stamp collecting?” Eugene said, sounding slightly appalled. He shook his head. “No, I’ve got a good hobby.” He dumped his spent cartridges and began looking around for the gunpowder.

“Your hobby is going to get you blown up,” A.J. said.

“I can think of worse ways to go,” Eugene replied with certainty, as if he had given the matter considerable thought. A.J. wondered if Eugene was entertaining the notion of getting it over with, just a boom and a flash, quick and clean.

Eugene arose and left the porch. He moved unsteadily across the clearing toward his violated Jeep. A.J. followed. Eugene stood by the Jeep and looked at the hole in the windshield.

“I can’t believe I shot my own damn Jeep,” he said softly. He looked at A.J. with a slight smile. “If anyone asks, we’ll tell them that Slim did it.”

“Well, they’d believe that,” A.J. said as his own smile appeared.

They were referring to the time Slim Neal had shot the front and back windshields out of John Robert’s pickup truck. Eugene and A.J. had been boys of sixteen, and they were riding around one summer night drinking hot beer because they didn’t have any ice and hoping the six cans they had would be enough to get the job done. They had just finished a short pit stop up a dirt side road when the misunderstanding occurred. As they were pulling back onto the highway, the back glass exploded in a hail of gunfire and several holes appeared in the front windshield. A.J. slumped down and floored it, heading for town and the protection of Slim. Eugene was hunkered in the right floorboard, cursing and bleeding from a small wound in his left earlobe. It seemed that the pale rider was upon them. Then they heard a siren, and a blue light began to flash. The car chasing them was Slim’s cruiser. A.J. pulled over, and Slim was all over them.

“Freeze!” he hollered, approaching the truck slowly behind the barrels of the largest shotgun A.J. had ever seen. Slim eased up to the truck and jerked open the door. Confusion replaced his fierce expression when he realized who occupied the truck.

“What the hell were you boys doing up that road back there?” he demanded, keeping the shotgun aimed in their direction.

“We were taking a leak,” Eugene growled from the floorboard. “I can’t believe you just shot me for pissing on a dirt road.”

“You weren’t stealing pigs?” Slim asked, lowering the ten-gauge a little.

“Do you see any pigs?” A.J. asked. He had a lot of fairly un-explainable truck damage to explain when he got home and was becoming cranky now that another sunrise seemed to be in his future. “Eugene, you got any pigs down there with you?”

“Nope.”

“Goddamn,” Slim said quietly. He lowered the shotgun all the way. “A.J., take Eugene down to Doc Miller’s and get his ear fixed. I’ll go talk to your folks.”

It turned out there had been a rash of hog thefts in the area, and Slim had received an anonymous pork tip earlier in the day. He was a man who would not tolerate pig theft, and even suspected pig theft would be dealt with harshly. When A.J. and Eugene pulled up the side road that led to Rabbit Brown’s barn, they had no idea they were under Slim’s zealous scrutiny. When they stopped to relieve themselves, he had vaulted into action. The real swine thief was busy at the time stealing fifteen hogs from Slim.

When Slim attempted to explain the mishap to Eugene’s father, Johnny Mack spoke no word. He simply stepped into the house for a moment and returned with his twelve-gauge and a box of shells. Slim executed a quick retreat as Johnny Mack stood on the porch, slowly loading the pump shotgun. The luckless constable fared no better when he talked to A.J.’s father. John Robert Longstreet was a man of few syllables and spent only one on Slim Neal.

“Git,” he said, pointing to the road. Slim got.

Slim was fired over the incident, but he was reinstated two months later when no one else could be found to take the job for what it paid. The town council extracted his solemn promise to only shoot at confirmed perpetrators in the future. Then they returned his badge after knocking from his wage the price of the new glass in John Robert’s truck. Johnny Mack attempted to whip Eugene over the incident, because the boy should have been home reading the Bible and not out peeing on Rabbit Brown’s pigs. The whipping didn’t go well, however, due to Eugene’s objections over being punished for getting shot while urinating on a dirt road. John Robert didn’t try to whip A.J., but the incident indicated to him that the boy had way too much spare time on his hands. Thus A.J. spent all his free time during the following several weeks replacing rotten fence posts around the back field at the farm.

“If you get to needing to pee while you’re out there, just drag her out and let her rip,” John Robert said, chuckling at his merry joke. “Just make sure your granmama’s not around.”

But those were the old times, long gone and mostly forgotten. Eugene and A.J. stood by the Jeep in the clearing and admired Eugene’s handiwork. Rufus trotted up and flopped down, panting. He seemed tired, and A.J. supposed he had been killing something large. The dog eyed A.J. for a moment, dismissed him, and laid his head on his paws. In the distance they could hear the thrum of a freight train. The haunting sound of shave-and-a-haircut echoed as the engines approached a crossing.

“I guess you need to be going,” Eugene said.

“Yeah,” A.J. affirmed, “I don’t want to get caught in the woods after dark by your dog.” A.J. was feeling an overwhelming urge to place distance between himself and the general vicinity of doom. The clearing held too many problems for him to handle at present. He required time to absorb and consider.

“I need for you to do me a couple of favors,” Eugene said, his halting cadence indicating the difficulty he had asking A.J. for help.

“Sure,” A.J. said. “Anything you need.” It was uncharacteristic of Eugene to request an indulgence. A small dread settled on A.J., a premonition of crisis.

“I would like for you would come back next week,” Eugene said. “I don’t get much company up here, and it gets a little quiet. You can take the Jeep so it won’t be so much trouble getting back up the road.”

A.J. felt bad for Eugene.

“Now, that’s odd,” he said. “I was just about to tell you that I might come up next week and check on you.” He was shaking his head as if he could not believe the coincidence. Eugene couldn’t believe it, either.

“When it comes to lying,” Eugene said, “you really suck.”

“You mentioned two favors.”

“The other one is kind of large.”

“The first one was kind of large,” A.J. pointed out. “What is it?”

“When it’s time, I want you to kill me.” A.J.’s head snapped around as if he had been slapped.

“Run that one by me again.” Maybe it was Eugene’s idea of a joke.

“You heard me,” Eugene said. His tone was so flat A.J. knew it was no jest. They stared at one another momentarily. Then they both looked away. A.J. felt slightly nauseous, as if he had been hit hard in the solar plexus.

“How the hell can you ask me to do that?” he asked.

“I’m asking.”

“You must be crazy. If you want to shoot yourself or blow yourself up, go ahead. But leave me out of it.” A.J. felt like he was breathing mud. “I know ten or fifteen people who would be happy to accommodate you. Hell, Diane’s daddy would pay you to let him do it.”

“I’d do it for you,” Eugene said quietly.

“I’d never ask you to,” A.J. said with certainty.

“Never say never,” Eugene said with a small sigh. “You don’t know what might come up.”

“I’ve got to go,” A.J. said abruptly. He had heard enough. He walked across the clearing to retrieve his bat from the porch. Eugene meandered toward the cabin and met A.J. when he returned. They stood like Lee and Grant at Appomattox. Eugene swayed. His pupils were dilated.

“Are you coming back?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll come back, but I won’t kill you.”

“Well, I’m batting.500 at least.” Eugene said. “Take the Jeep. I’m high all the time, now, and I can’t drive it. If I wasn’t dying, I’d be having one hell of a good time.”

“No, you keep the Jeep. You might run out of something to shoot. I’m going to borrow a bulldozer and clean up that road. Winter is coming, and it’s already a mess.” A.J. had decided on the spur of the moment that fixing the road was his best alternative to a series of long walks in the Georgia mountains.

“I assume you’ll be borrowing the dozer from Jesus Junior,” Eugene said, referring to Johnny Mack.

“He’s the only one I know who has one,” A.J. replied. Eugene seemed to consider this for a moment. Then a smile crossed his face.

“Good luck with that,” he said as he walked back onto the porch. A.J. headed on across the clearing and down the trail. As he neared the Lover, he heard six shots ring out, and he knew that Eugene’s faithful Jeep, like its owner, had entered its final days.