Books : White Crosses : Excerpts

Chapter 2

When Jack looked down from the top of the hill to where the accident had occurred, he let his hopes rise just a little.

Below him were the lights of three cars -- his deputy's, the tow truck, and a third car that looked like a highway patrol vehicle but which could as easily have belonged to a civilian, a witness who had waited around to report on what he had seen. The cars were parked near the bottom of the hill, at the exact spot in the county where an accident was most likely to occur. There, less than five miles from the Bentrock city limits, the road made a steep descent, coming down from the bluffs west of town. As the road dropped, it curved gradually toward the northwest until, almost at the base of the hill, it veered hard to the southwest. If you missed the curve, you were off the road in an instant and sailing toward a slough. Beyond was the meadow where Jonas Sprull pastured his prize Appaloosas. If you were going slowly when you went off, you were going to slide and probably roll down that steep, crumbling embankment.

If you were going fast? Well, you just might soar out and land in the branches of one of those huge, old cottonwoods. That was on the right side of the road, the open side. The other side was a sheer rock face, ready to bounce you right back over the edge. Because of the rock wall and the slough, the road was narrow, with a tight shoulder and no guardrail. Jack believed he was as skilled at driving on snow and ice as the next man, but if the roads were slippery he might go out of his way so he wouldn't have to negotiate that hill and that curve. No two ways about it -- it was just a treacherous piece of highway. If Mercer County weren't up there in the corner of the state that nobody gave a damn about, Jack was sure the highway department would have long ago straightened or widened the road. Or condemned it altogether and rerouted the highway. Everyone in the county knew how dangerous the hill was, knew you had to respect it, regardless of the season, and slow way down, coming up or going down. If you drove it any other way, you were probably drunk or suicidal. Or from outside the county. And that was what Jack hoped for -- that the bodies down there did not belong to his county. Or -- and he damned himself immediately for this thought -- were Indians from the nearby reservation. Either way -- Indians or residents from another county, another state, another country (the Canadian border was less than twenty miles away) -- the dead would be someone else's problem. He could call the tribal police or the sheriff of another county or the Mounties and let them take over.

There was no part of his job that Jack dreaded more than notifying the next of kin. He even hated the word. Kin. It sounded like a word out of another time, a word that survived up in their remote part of Montana. Kin -- it reminded him of the backwoods, of cousins marrying cousins. And maybe what bothered him most was the fact that he never had to ask: he always knew who the next of kin was.

During Jack's first term in office, for example, when old Harold Many Bulls was found frozen to death behind the Fremont Creamery and no one knew if Harold had any kin, on the reservation or off, Jack knew. Harold and Rhoda Cleer had once been husband and wife, and Jack had a hunch they were never divorced. He drove out to Rhoda's little farm to tell her about Harold, and damned if she didn't break down in tears. Seventy-five-year-old Rhoda Cleer, as tough as prairie fescue, and there she was weeping over that drunken town Indian. Yes, she admitted it; she and Harold were married years ago, back when she was trying to work the place alone. She had first hired Harold to help out, one thing led to another, and before you knew it, the two of them were heading for Havre to find a justice of the peace to marry them. And no, they were never divorced, even though Harold didn't actually live in the house more than a year. Once they were married, Rhoda said, Harold wasn't as good a worker. His drinking worsened, and soon she had to tell him to get out. But how did Jack know about the marriage? Jack's father used to own a hardware store, and Jack and his brother had worked in the family business from the time they were old enough to sweep a broom. Jack was working the day Harold Many Bulls came into the store and tried to buy an assortment of goods -- hammers, saws, wrenches, coils of wire, lengths of rope. Harold had no money but tried to have the items put on Rhoda Cleer's account. Jack's father refused Harold's request, telling him it looked as though Harold meant to trade the merchandise for whiskey. Harold was already drunk, and he became belligerent, insisting that Jack's father had to let him take the items. Bring me a note from Miss Cleer, Jack's father said, and you can charge anything in the damn store. Harold pounded the counter with his fist. He didn't need no note, he said -- I'm her husband. Jack's father laughed, and did not stop laughing until Harold shuffled from the store. Jack witnessed the incident and, like other moments from his childhood, stored it away in one of those regions of his mind that he was unlikely to visit again -- until the day Harold's frozen body was found and no one was quite sure who should be notified. Rhoda not only immediately confessed to the marriage, in her rambling way she tried to explain it to Jack. Living out on the prairie...No one who lived in town could know how lonely it could get. The brevity of those winter days, the length of the nights...You felt you were so alone in the world you had to make your pleasure any way you could. But when Jack asked about the disposition of Harold's body, Rhoda's tears stopped. That wasn't her problem, she said. Call his tribal leaders. Harold was a Cheyenne; let them decide. And once her tears dried up, Rhoda Cleer, in a voice as stern and full of menace as she could manage, told Jack that he needn't bother blabbing this marriage all over the goddamn county.

Although Jack drove away with Rhoda Cleer's curses and threats echoing in his ears, he felt that day that he was doing the job he was meant to do. No other man in Mercer County was elected to serve as sheriff, and no other man knew to draw that line from Harold Many Bulls' corpse to Rhoda Cleer's farmhouse.

That feeling was rare. On most days Jack felt as though he was doing a job that others could do and do as well. The position was Jack's only because his best friend from childhood, Steve Lovoll, had a perforated eardrum and could not serve in the military. While most of the other males of Bentrock were going off to fight in Europe and the Pacific, Steve went to college and law school. After receiving his degree, Steve decided to return to his hometown and run for public office. Jack had been in the military police, and it was Steve's idea that the friends run on the same ticket -- Steve for state's attorney and Jack for sheriff. Jack didn't think he made a bad sheriff. Not at all. He understood the concept of duty, that it meant facing up to and doing unpleasant tasks, but mostly it just meant doing the job, all of it, and doing it as well as it deserved to be done. He had, apparently, an authoritative air about him, though Jack believed what others saw as authority was actually the way shyness was perceived in a physically large man. People respected him, but that too seemed to Jack merely the consequence of his policy of never speaking ill of anyone in the county. He held plenty of them in low regard, but he kept his opinions to himself. Other men in the county might also possess these qualities, but for better or worse, the name on the courthouse register was Jack's.

And part of his job was notifying the next of kin.

He usually took someone with him -- a priest, a relative, a close friend, a doctor. In the presence of grief -- of any strong emotion, for that matter -- Jack was often without resource. He could think of little to say beyond, "I'm sorry," and even that phrase, repeated often enough, began to sound less and less like consolation and more like a child whining for forgiveness. Some people, when they received bad news, needed the comfort that only a physical embrace could provide, and this was something Jack couldn't do. He could hand over his handkerchief or pat a shoulder, but hold someone, let her sobs gradually subside in the circle of his arms -- no. But if the widow's sister or the father's minister was there, they could furnish the hugs or the promises of God's mercy, and Jack could simply relate the facts of the accident and back quietly away.

It didn't always work.

Last fall when Walt Flightner accidentally shot himself in the leg on a hunting trip high in the Bitterroot Mountains and bled to death before a damn thing could be done to save him, Jack took Father Howser along to break the news to Walt's wife, Marge. But Marge must have had an uneasy feeling about the trip her husband was on, because when she saw the car with the sheriff's insignia on the door pull up in front of the house and the sheriff and the priest get out of the car and walk slowly up her front walk, Marge locked her front door and ran out the back door.

Father Howser spotted her as she cut across the neighbor's yard, and the two of them called out and ran after her. In that part of Bentrock, a newer subdivision, almost none of the residents fenced off or hedged their yards, and each lawn ran right into the next. Finally, however, Marge came to a fence that she couldn't get over before the two men caught up to her. She cowered before them as if they were assassins. And they were. They were about to take from her the life she had known. Sobbing, shaking her head, Marge held her hands clamped tight over her ears. Father Howser reached down, took hold of her wrists, and pulled her hands away so she had to hear what he was about to tell.

"Walt's dead, Marge. He's dead."

Jack, first of all, could never have grabbed her the way the priest did. And he couldn't believe the way Father Howser gave her the news. Where were those words and phrases -- in the Lord's hands, watching down from heaven, at peace -- that were supposed to make the truth easier to bear? But Marge calmed somewhat and let herself be led back to her home.

Jack followed along behind them. With Father Howser's arm around her, Marge looked like a little girl who had fallen at play and was being taken home to have her wounds washed and bandaged. Jack could have lifted her up and carried her the way he held his own Angela. But she was not Angela. She was Marge Flightner, a short, pretty, energetic woman with full breasts and sturdy legs and a deep tan from all the hours she spent on the golf course. She had grown up in southern California, and when Walt brought her to Bentrock, she came with talents and interests that few Montana women shared. She loved to swim and play tennis, and she was a better golfer than almost any man in the region. Rather than scorn the women who couldn't do what she could, Marge tried to convert and teach them, and because of her enthusiasm and patience, many women followed her lead, and soon there were enough female patrons at the Knife River Municipal Golf Course to justify having Ladies' Day. But Jack couldn't allow himself to lift her up or embrace her or touch her in any way because he couldn't be sure why he might be doing it: because he wanted to comfort her, or because he wanted to know what it felt like to touch a woman like Marge?

Walt made enough money in his construction business to allow the family (Walt, Marge, their two sons and daughter) to spend two weeks in Florida every winter. They made that trip at just about the time Marge's summer tan was fading away, and she returned as bronzed as she was in midsummer.

Jack wondered, as Father Howser helped Marge back into her home, when winter came would Marge turn as pale as every other Montana woman?

And he wondered now, as he tapped his brakes, shifted into second, and eased down the hill toward the accident site, if before the night was over, someone would try to lock the door on him and the bad news he brought.