Twenty-Three
I MANAGE TO dive out of the way of their truck, the hard landing on my shoulder making the pain shoot all the way through the rest of my body and making the day even more of a blessing than it already is.
The boys in the pickup don’t get too far, though, because before they can make their exit from the lot, I see a blue-and-white county police cruiser, lights flashing, roadblocking them before they can get to the street.
In the same moment, I hear the voice from the siren speaker telling them to get out of the vehicle and then step away from it as soon as they do.
But my sense of relief doesn’t last as long as the time it takes me to drag myself to my feet, because what I see next is Sheriff Nash Hader getting out of the cruiser and slowly stepping away from his own vehicle.
He takes a look at the boys just out of their truck, and I see the group leader saying something and pointing to where I’m now standing, and then Hader is staring across the lot at me.
Even from a distance, I can almost swear he’s smiling.
This is the same Sheriff Hader who’s had bad blood with our family—mostly with my father when he was still alive—from the time the Original Silas Tucker had been regularly kicking Hader’s ass when my father was the star lineman from Cross Rivers and Hader was the star running back from Old Mill High.
Hader, whom my father thought was just another bully with a badge, had never gotten over the fact that in their last league championship game, my father hadn’t just caused the fumble that would win the game for Cross Rivers—once he’d picked up the ball, he’d stepped on Nash Hader on his way to the end zone.
That image made it to the front page of all the local papers and became a permanent part of local sports lore, in there with anything I ever did on a football field in our town.
My father had never been one to brag much on himself, but in his den hung a framed print of that picture.
“I’ve always wanted to ask old Nash,” he said to EJ one time, an impish grin on his face, “if my cleat marks are still on his chest.”
Once my father was gone, Hader’s dislike of him had been passed on to me, and he’d been tough on me in high school, especially one time when some of my teammates and I had gotten into it with Old Mill players after we’d been the ones to whup their asses in a championship game.
Now here he is and here I am, forgetting for the moment that Taylor is in the parking lot, too, having come running from Pine Street to where I’m standing, the front of me covered in dirt.
“Are you all right?” she asks, trying to catch her breath.
“I’m fine,” I say. “And nice to see you, too.”
“What the heck just happened here, Silas?”
I see the three guys from the truck lined up against it. Maybe slumped against it is more like it. Hader is talking to them.
“A lot,” I say to Taylor. “Tell you about it later.”
Then Hader is heading our way, in his uniform, swaggering as if he’s the biggest man in town now, like he’s still a jock, except for the extra weight he’s put on since high school. When he takes off his sunglasses, I see a familiar mean squint to his eyes.
But he’s still smiling, as if the best part of his day is just about to start.
“Those boys over there say you just beat the snot out of them for no good reason,” he says, skipping the salutations, not that there have ever been many between Hader and me.
The three guys have come closer to hear our conversation.
“There was a reason I did what I did, Sheriff,” I say. “I saw them dealing drugs.”
“That’s a goddamn lie!” the group leader shouts.
His face is a mess, puffy and discolored, both his eyes nearly closed.
The one whose wrist I’d stomped says, “And after he beat on us, he beat on our truck.”
Hader makes a small turn, looking at the damage to the truck, then turns back to me. “Evidently,” he says.
To me he says, “Sold drugs to who?” He makes a show of looking around the parking lot. “Where’s the buyer?”
“It was a kid in a small car,” I say. “I think it might have been a Saab. He took off when he saw me arrive on the scene.”
“So you’re a cop now that you stopped being a football player?” Hader asks.
“Concerned citizen,” I say.
“Overly concerned,” he says, “from the looks of them and the looks of that truck.”
“How about this?” I say to Nash Hader. “How about you search these punks and see if they’ve got more inventory on their dumb-ass selves?”
“And how about you not think you can tell the top cop in this county how to do his damn job?”
“I’m not the bad guy here,” I say.
He nods at the three guys, all of whom look as if they lost the same fight.
“That look like good-guy behavior put their tits and asses in a wringer?”
He suddenly seems to notice that Taylor is standing a few feet behind me, leaning against my truck, and tips his sheriff hat.
“Mrs. Webb.”
“Nash,” she says.
“Here’s all you need to know, Sheriff,” the group leader says. “I called him a has-been, and as soon as I did, he proceeded to lose his shit like a crazy man.”
The one I’d helicoptered against the gate says, “Threw me across the lot like I was a damn football.”
“Is all of this true, Silas?” Hader asks.
It’s clear where this is going, something that doesn’t even surprise me a little bit. Hader is treating me like the perp here. I briefly consider asking him if he does still have my dad’s cleat marks on his chest like a permanent tattoo.
Instead, I take in some air and let it out, trying not to make things worse for myself than they already are.
“I saw what I saw,” I say. “They were pushing product whether any of them are still carrying or not.”
“Prove it,” the group leader says.
Hader turns and snaps, “Zip it, boy. I’ll handle this.”
He turns back to me, taking a step closer. He’d be putting his badge in my face if he were a few inches taller.
“I frankly don’t care what you think you saw, Silas Tucker,” he says. “Or what you think these boys were doing before they hurt your feelings with some of they chirp. You’re not the law in this town or the other twelve towns in this county under my jurisdiction, because I am.”
And now I do make things worse for myself, making no attempt to stop what comes out of my mouth next.
“I assume, Sheriff Hader, that you’re referring to the towns where all these girls are disappearing and all these kids keep overdosing,” I say. “Those are the towns you’re referring to, correct?”
I see his own eyes nearly close now, and the skin on his face get so tight it’s as if somebody is pulling on it from behind.
He takes one step closer.
“How about I just use the cuffs on my belt and slap them on you for assault, the way I should have that time when you were in high school?” he says. “How about I do that, and take you into town and let you do your smart-mouthing from inside a cell?”
There’s just enough room for me to put my hands out, wrists together.
“Go ahead,” I say. “And then when I’m out, maybe I’ll put in a call to the Gazette—I’m sure they’d be happy to hear from me—and tell them you arrested me instead of some drug dealers I just saw crawl out from under a rock.”
He turns back to them now.
“Any of you boys want to press charges?”
“You know they’re not going to do shit to Silas Tucker in this town,” the group leader says. “So, no thank you.”
“Shocker,” I say.
“Fuck you,” he says.
They walk back to their truck and get in and drive off about a minute later. Hader and Taylor and I watch them make a right on Pine Street and disappear, hear the engine being gunned as they do.
“I don’t need you telling me how to do my job,” Hader says.
“You call what just happened doing your job, Sheriff?” I ask.
“I’d tell you what you can do with all your smart talk,” he says. “But there’s not just a lady present, she happens to be a lady whose husband is an officer of the law, too.”
He pokes me in my chest with a finger, just one time, not hard, because he can.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people in this town who still worship the ground you walk on, even if you are a has-been now,” he says. “But I’m not one of them. You ever do anything like this again and I will run your ass in, whether you’re a Tucker or not. We clear?”
“You don’t have to worry about me trampling you,” I say. I’m the one smiling now. “No, sir.”
He starts to say something but stops himself, as if he does remember one final time that there’s a lady present. So he just turns and walks slowly back to his car.
“Buy a girl a cup of coffee?” Taylor says.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“You do still have a smart mouth. Sometimes at the most inopportune times.”
“I’m trying to quit.”
She watches Nash Hader pull out onto Pine Street now, lights still flashing on top of his car, one more thing he does because he can.
“Try harder,” Taylor says.