The Devil's Right Hand - J. D. Rhoades [18]
As the truck pulled into the driveway, an old man came to the door. He was of medium height, with white hair that stuck out in unruly tufts from beneath an ancient gimme cap from a long-defunct seed company. The cap was as lined and creased as the hand that rested on the jamb of the screen door, holding it half-open as the man waited. In contrast, the old man’s bib overalls seemed brand new, with a knife-edged crease in the pants.
“Stay here,” Raymond muttered. John Lee nodded once. Sanchez looked worried.
Raymond got of the truck and walked towards the old man, smiling like a door-to-door salesman. “Hep you?” the old man said as he approached. His voice was neutral, but his eyes flickered warily between Raymond and the two men in the truck. A Latino traveling with a pair of Indians was an unusual sight outside of the realm of manual labor. People tended to stick with their own kind. Raymond was too well-dressed for picking cotton or priming tobacco.
“Nice farm,” Raymond said, still smiling.
“Ain’t mine no more,” the old man said. “Got too old to work it. Had to sell ever’thing but the home place.”
Raymond nodded. “That’s too bad.” The old man said nothing. “DeWayne around?” Raymond asked.
The old man’s face seemed to close up, as if steel shutters had suddenly dropped down across it. “He ain’t here. He an’ Leonard done took off somewheres. Ain’t seen him in a couple weeks.”
Raymond had arrived at the door. He slowed down rather than stopping, crowding the old man until he stepped back out of the doorway. Raymond replaced the old man’s hand on the door with his own. The old man looked at the rings on Raymond’s fingers and back to his eyes, which were obscured behind his tinted glasses. The old man swallowed nervously. “He ain’t here,” he repeated in a smaller voice. Raymond continued to shuffle forward, forcing the old man to retreat farther into the cool darkness of the screened porch. “We kinda need to talk to him,” Raymond said. “It’s about a job he applied for.” He put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and turned him slightly, guiding him into the house. John Lee and Sanchez saw the door close behind them.
“What is he doing?” Sanchez asked.
John Lee shrugged. “Gonna ask him where this Puryear guy might’ve gone, I reckon.”
Sanchez shook his head. “I don’t like this,” he said. “What will he--”
“Don’t worry,” John Lee said. “Nobody’s gonna do anything. Just relax.”
Sanchez looked at the house. His brow furrowed. “Your brother is a dangerous man,” he said. “He is a narcotraficante, a smuggler, no?”
John Lee’s eyes went cold. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Your father, he worried about this,” Sanchez replied. “Sometimes I heard him talking on the phone about how worried he was.”
“And what the hell business was that of yours?” John Lee said.
“I have sons,” Sanchez said. “In Colombia. I know what it is to worry. I felt bad for him.”
“Well, he don’t worry no more,” John Lee said. “And you don’t worry neither. You just mind your business.”
“If I was minding my business,” Sanchez pointed out, “I would not be here.” John Lee had no answer for that.
They sat in silence for a long while. Sanchez watched the front door. It was late afternoon and the shadows were beginning to deepen beneath the trees.
There was a sound from inside the house, a wordless cry of pain. Then a sharp bang.
Sanchez jumped, sitting up straight in the seat. He looked around frantically. “Que? Que pasa?” he said. “What is happening?”
“Nothing,” John Lee said, but his own agitation robbed the words of all calming effect. He drew his pistol from beneath the seat. He slid over to the driver’s side door and started to open it. There was another cry, then a sound like someone weeping. John Lee stopped, half in and half out of the open door of the truck. A louder wail came from the house, an