Neely Tucker - Only the Hunted Run

He banged on the steering wheel the entire way. Didn’t Stroud at least have the pride to be the county seat? This drive necessitated a stop at a way-too-brightly-lit gas station for two bottles of water, and he was walking along the narrow aisle, gum, chocolate, cough drops, little frosted white doughnuts, motor oil, cold medicine… where was the Goody’s? Didn’t they have a Goody’s for a man’s headache? He asked and the clerk said “What?” and he said never mind, grabbing a tiny plastic bottle of ibuprofen. Fucking apostates.

He popped three in his mouth while he was paying and then chugged them back with one of the water bottles, nearly draining it, standing bolt upright at the counter, nobody behind him. Had to beat back the dry mouth, the dehydration that was shrinking his skull.

The Lincoln County Courthouse turned out to be a one-story thing, set in the middle of a way-too-wide-open square, far back from the street. Half hidden by a gaggle of trees, it looked like the low bid on a contract nobody wanted.

The main drag of town, Manvel, was part of old Route 66. The charm, if there was any left, was lost on Sully, him scuffing across both lanes, looking left and then right, still blinking in the early light, looking along the storefronts for an honest-to-God coffee shop… Bail bondsman, flooring center, bank, hardware store, an old movie theater… no diner. Maybe on the far side of the blockwide square, but he couldn’t see over there for the courthouse, and it was too far to walk just to see. Every town square had to have a café, a diner, some half-assed place to eat, didn’t it?

He decided Oklahoma wasn’t shit.

The sidewalk took him up to the courthouse. Inside, down a lusterless hallway, set against a wall, there was a framed rectangular guide to offices, the kind where you could move the individual lettering and kids were immediately drawn or dared to rearrange the letters to form “dick” or “ass” or whatever.

County assessor’s office, county tax office, commissioners… following the directions, Sully walked on and made a left and found himself at the county records office.

It was bathed in a dim, windowless, fluorescent glow, rows of files extending into the back, where the light was dimmer. The tiniest wave of claustrophobia swept over his spine. This wasn’t going to help the hangover. Besides, what if these deeds went all the way back to the land rush days? His enthusiasm, so bright and so bold and confident last night, had burned down to a dim little bulb in a dark room.

A clerk set him up at a desk, bringing out several of the plats books. Each was the size of a Chevrolet. Air-conditioning thrummed through the vents. It was as quiet as church. By a quarter of eleven, he had nothing to show. He flipped the last fat book shut and lugged it back to the counter dividing the public space from the clerks’ work area. He set it down with a plop and a sigh.

“Didn’t find what you were looking for?” beamed the clerk, coming forward to the counter, way too goddamn cheerful. She looked up at him eagerly. Hangovers and cheerful people. This was an ugly mix, worse than ginger ale in bourbon.

“No, ma’am, I didn’t,” he said, working up one edge of his mouth in an effort he hoped would come across as wry good humor. “But you were lovely to let me look around so long. Is the tax assessor’s room down the hall there? You think they might have land records?”

She looked back at him through her goggle-eyed glasses and considered the matter at hand, like her day turned on it.

“You lookin’ for the same thing, what you told me earlier? People in the south end of the county, twenty, thirty years back?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They relatives of yours? This a court case?”

“Neither, ma’am. Actually.”

She looked at Sully. He looked at her. The clock ticked.

“I’m a reporter at a newspaper back east,” he finally whispered, so no one else could hear. He hoped this might inspire a sense of confidentiality, adding a conspiratorial glance around the room. “I’m looking for a family that might have known the Waters family. You know, that Waters? Socially, sort of. Last name, I think it started with an H.”

She sighed, taking her weight from one foot to the other. “Those are country people out there, you don’t mind me saying.”

“I’m from Tula, Louisiana, ma’am. You don’t got to tell me.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“How many people live in Tula?”

“No more than have to.”

A peal of laughter, bouncing through the recycled air. Two of her coworkers turned to look, then went back to their computers.

“Sounds like here,” she whispered. “Being a reporter, is that a good job?”

“Beats shoveling cow shit,” he whispered back, “which I have also done for cash money.”

“Hunh. This right here? Sitting in the same office all day, same people, same music on the radio. Did you notice we don’t even got windows?”

“It’s not so bad,” Sully said, looking around the dropped-down ceilings, the cubicles somewhere between lifeless and soul killing. “But I bet Tulsa, Oklahoma City? Those would be okay, too. You know, maybe move up there.”

She shrugged. Her pale shoulders were bare. Sully was surprised they weren’t blue. The AC had to be turning her into an ice cube. “You know the FBI was in here, the courthouse, for days, looking at the Waters’ family everything,” she said. “But it just weren’t nothing.”

“I guess not.”

She started to pick the book up and stopped and said, “But you, you ain’t interested in the Waters.”

“Not really,” Sully said. “I’m trying to find out a family who owned land to the south of them. White folks, maybe.”

“Hunh.”

“Like I said, maybe with an H.”

“You know Quapaw Creek Reservoir? Site 6?”

“No, ma’am.”

“You know where sixty-two is, coming out of Prague?” She pronounced in the local manner, “Pray-gue.”

“Sure,” he lied, but knowing enough about little towns to fake it. “You just take that right.”

She nodded, her bangs bouncing. “They call it Main Street, but it’s just sixty-two coming through town. Now, from here? You get yourself back over to Stroud. Get on ninety-nine, go down-this is south-past the res. Go way on. Now you get in Prague, such as it is-and I mean, don’t blink-you go past that Jim Thorpe mural over on your left. You’ll see a gas station, an old gas station, it’s painted sort of pink, it doesn’t work anymore, it’s on your left. But you, you wanna turn right on sixty-two. You with me?”

“Riding shotgun.” With a nod, to keep her going.

She flushed, smiled. “Now. You take that right, you go past the bank, the Sonic, you just keep on going. You get out of town-that don’t take but a minute-and you’re gonna pass a church. Now you want to slow on down. On your right, you’re gonna come up on a gravel road. You’ll know it because it makes a quick little S turn right off. You take that one, you hear? You go a mile, maybe two, the reservoir’ll be on your right. It’s real fat for a bit, you know, you can see it, and then it turns into a finger.”

“Now. North of that, just a little bit, you’ll see a gravel drive to your right. You take that, you go back maybe a quarter mile. You can’t see it from a road. There’s an old house. Nobody’s lived there since God was a baby. But they did back then.”

She stopped, looking at him, nodding. It took a second before he realized she was finished.

“And who’s that?” he asked.

“Who’s what?”

“The people who lived in the old house.”

“The Harpers, of course. Isn’t that what we were talking about?”

Sully felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.