It's Okay in Texas, Part 1

It was noontime when I rolled into Panhandle for my monthly sales visit. Sales in Borger and Pampa made my quota so I was feeling pretty good, spending my commissions in my head. At first I didn’t notice there weren’t any people out and about in the streets. Most of the shops had closed signs in the windows. The one at Les’s General Store said, “Closed, be back after 1:00 PM.” Jackie’s Cold Day Inn’s neon sign in the window flashed “Open” so I headed for the bar.

It was empty too, except for Wendy who was sitting on a barstool reading a book. She looked up and said everybody was at a funeral for the Reverend Wilkes.

“Killed in a hunting accident. Hunting quail, him and Reg Hartsell, last Tuesday.” Wendy glanced at the clock and said, “I expect this place’ll be filling up soon, funeral’s over by now. You want Jack and Coke or beer?”

I sat at the usual table in the corner by the door sipping my drink. Mourners began coming in by one’s and two’s. Sheriff Tom, Les, Doc Harris, and a man I didn’t know came in and joined me. Tom introduced me to the stranger, Conner Johnson, a guy who’d grown up in Panhandle with Tom and Les, went to the coast years ago and stayed there. Wendy brought our drinks.

The Sheriff filled me in. “We were at the funeral for Reverend Randolph (call me Randy) Wilkes, pastor at Holy Light Church for more than two decades. People from all over the county showed up to pay their respects to the widow.

“You know the county pays me to watch over its citizens, see what they do, maybe guess what they’re thinking. It so happens that’s my job and my nature. So I’m looking around and I see the women from the Ladies Auxiliary huddled together, consoling one another. When the service was over everybody went about their business except the Ladies Auxiliary. They stayed behind while Tim and Rollie filled the grave. Don’t know what to make of that. Probly nothing but I keep thinking about it anyway.”

No one said anything for a while so just to make conversation I said, “So what was the Reverend Randy like?”

Tom said, "Oh, he was what you’d expect from a man of the cloth. He looked out for everybody even if they didn’t belong to his congregation. The women gushed over him, which ain’t unusual. Most marriages after a few years, husbands don’t look to their wives, give 'em attention, listen to what they have to say. But this minister like most of ‘em do, paid attention, noticed new dresses or hairdos. Stuff like that.

"Some ways he was a dynamo, bake sales, canned good drives, bazaars once a year. Coupla years he volunteered, going to places where there was flooding or some natural disaster. Ran the Sunday School himself. My buddy Conner here was one of his prize students.”

Doc and Les laughed at that. Conner looked a little embarrassed but he squared his shoulders and said, “Well, that mighta been true until I was 14 or 15 years old, then I kinda fell away going to Sunday school. Momma was sure I was on the way to hell; daddy didn’t care one way or the other. Anyway, anytime Reverend saw me he’d preach at me to come back.

“He kept at me and finally I had enough. Reverend Wilkes didn’t like it if you asked a lot of questions, one question leading to another. He had answers for two questions on the same argument but the third and fourth questions made him snippy.

“So the last time he tried I said, ‘Reverend, I figure you’d know the answer about Heaven. Being I’m expecting to go there, is there sex in heaven?’ I thought I had ‘im cause I read the bible over and over since I was a kid and the bible doesn’t say anything about sex in heaven. I was 17 years old at the time and, if I remember right, sex was all I thought about.

Keep reading, Conner. It could be in there

“He looked me in the eyes like he was looking for a bit of light inside an empty head and said, ‘Son, Heaven isn’t about the Pleasures of the Flesh. It’s about seeing the glory of the Lord and spending all of Eternity in His Glory.

“Well, sir, that didn’t make sense. Me and Cindy Mason been taking each other to heaven out by the river all summer long. And I was itching to go back as much as I could. How could anything be better than that for all eternity?

“He put his hands on my shoulders, got his face real close to mine and said ‘Fornication is a sin. A Lake of Fire awaits fornicators and adulterers on Judgment Day. Don’t you EVER forget that, boy!’ That kinda scared me. Sunday school had a lot to say about hell. But it didn’t seem right that there’s only two ways to go when you die: Heaven or Hell, no in between.

“And I told him that. Some sins are worse ‘n others but everybody’s sinned, big or little, goes to the same place? And if you sinned you can’t be in heaven. Looks to me like hell’s a whole lot bigger than heaven.

“’God forgives sinners who repent’, he said. And I said, ‘How do you know if you’ve been forgiven. Do you get a postcard, like – ‘All clear, Conner. But it was a close call!’

A little extreme for one stinkin' apple, Rev

“Now he’s thinking I’m just funnin’ with him and says I’m disrespecting him, get out of here, points to the door. I’m almost out the door and he says he’s gonna have a talk with Cindy’s daddy, maybe I aughta think about staying out of sight for a while.

“Her two brothers cornered me a few days later. They convinced me to look somewhere else for my little piece of heaven. Eight, nine months later she married Terry Jackson, moved to Midland. I hear they did all right, buncha kids and grandkids now. Time to time I wonder if I’ll meet her in heaven or hell. Maybe she got a postcard. I didn’t.”

Les laughed and slapped Conner on the back who stood up and said, "Hey, I gotta run. I told my momma I'd visit with her before heading back to Galveston."

I waved at Wendy and ordered another round of drinks. Doc just sat rubbing his chin, like he was making up his mind about something.

I saw the men glance at each other and go quiet. Finally Doc Harris nodded at Tom then at me. The Sheriff lit one of his Cheroots and said, “Everybody at this table’s known you for a lotta years. You’re honest, never try to take advantage. So far as we know you never tell tales outa school. Jackie vouches for you, too.

“I’ve got a few suspicions about the Reverend Wilkes, so does everybody else at this table but people take it wrong if you bring up stuff they don’t wanna hear so we gotta be careful what we say, keep the peace. You been coming here for 15, 16 years now, talk to all the farmers and ranchers. Maybe you saw or heard something that’ll help me figure something out.

“You heard Reverend Wilkes was accidentally killed while hunting with Reg Hartsell. The word ‘accidentally’ sticks in my craw. The Reverend was shot in the chest, up close with Reg’s shotgun, both barrels. Reg was hysterical when we got to the scene and Doc, here, had to put him under.

“Hunting accidents happen enough so people hear about one, they shake their heads and move on. It’s rare to be shot accidentally in the chest like Reverend Wilkes. Most accidental wounds are to the victim’s back or a hunter stumbles, shoots himself, and so on.

“Mind you, I can’t say I’ve seen everything in this world but the only time I seen chest wounds is when somebody’s shooting to kill. Maybe this is a first for me, who knows? Anyway, I’m looking at the Reverend’s body on the ground, eyes closed like he’s asleep and I remember a conversation I had with Milo at his craft shop last summer.

“Milo’s a nature lover, takes pictures of animals, birds, anything that lives and grows. He’s got a nice camera set up, does all his film developing and so on. I’m telling you this to show he pays attention to details.

“He’s been taking class pictures at the our grammar school for years now. Lines the kids up, teacher on the side or in back. Standard poses. One day I was in his shop and he says to me, look at this. It’s a picture of the Reverend Wilkes and his Sunday school students. He says six of the kids have cleft chins just like Wilkes. He pulls out other pictures and it’s more of the same. A lotta kids with cleft chins. I didn’t think anything of it back then and let it go.

“A coupla weeks later, making conversation, I mention it to Doc Harris. He looks over his shoulder, around the bar and says real low, this gets out, the town’s gonna blow up. I say, why? He says, only way a kid has a cleft chin is if one or both of the parents have it. If both parents have smooth chins it’s long odds against the child having a cleft chin. It’s a medical fact. You, me, Milo, and anybody else you told have to keep this quiet.

“So there I am looking at the Reverend, dead on the ground and I start thinking about everybody with kids 1 to 18 years old. Do they have smooth chins or dimpled? All those kids with dimpled chins. Who’s their daddy? I borrow some class pictures from Milo, looking for Reg Hartsell’s kids. He’s got four kids, no cleft chins. So maybe it was an accident like he says after all? Or did Reg suspect something? Maybe he saw something he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe his wife said something about her and Wilkes.”

Doc sat up, rested his arms on the table and said, “Tom, I’m everybody’s doctor. I see every man, woman, and child that gets sick, needs vaccinations or stitches for this, that or the other. I’ve birthed most every kid born here for more than 20 years. Sometimes I look at a boy or girl and they don’t fit exactly with their parents’ eye or hair color. The medical books say almost any combination of eye or hair color can produce a third color but they’re long shots, genetically speaking. Now I can't say who’s cheating on who just by the color of their eyes or hair but you know, I know, hell, everybody knows that there’s cheating going on. But this business with the cleft chin being specific to one parent having it, points right at Reverend Wilkes.

Nothing serious. It's just a dimpled chin

“As the pastor of his church he’s supposed to visit the sick and the lonely. Who's lonelier than a ranch wife who doesn’t see another human being besides her husband, sometimes for weeks at a time? What if the good Reverend did some ministering that wasn’t in his job description? But, I’ll tell you again, this gets out, this town is gonna blow up.

Doc’s genetics lesson made us pause. I thought I saw Tom, Doc, and Les checking each other’s eyes, hair, and chin.

Tom stubbed his Cheroot on the ashtray and said, “All I know is I have till next week to call the shooting an accident or homicide. As it is, the whole community’s thinking accident. If I say different, I gotta have a bullet proof reason.”

He looked at me probably hoping I knew something or seen something that might help him out of his dilemma. I thought back on all my customers and I couldn’t think of anything at all. Then I said, “Tom, didn’t you tell me once about Jim and Angel handing out Texas Justice?”

The Sheriff sat up in his chair, leaning towards me. “Maybe you got something if you’re thinking about the thing between Jim and Bob Rawlins, three, four years ago. As I remember the prosecutor had Jim dead to rights. Eleven witnesses saw Jim beat Rawlins half to death at Billy’s Last Stand. Way they testified, Jim walked up to Rawlins, opened up a can of whoop-ass and made him eat all of it. Never said a word. The prosecutor called it ‘a brutal, unprovoked attack’.

“But the fact is what happened before was important. Jim and Angel were looking for Lucy, a waitress at Billy’s to wish her a happy birthday, bring her a gift. Billy told ‘em Lucy was in the hospital, broken jaw wired shut, big purple knot on her head. Lucy was Rawlins’ girlfriend at the time. I’d arrested Rawlins for beating other women but they refused to press charges.

“Picking a jury here is a hard job. Everybody knows everybody else, what they’re like, sometimes they’re related to both sides. Everybody knew Jim. Everybody knew Rawlins. But a jury was finally set.

“The prosecutor laid out a slam dunk case. Every time he said Rawlins’ name, the jury looked his way. Rawlins had a cast on his right arm, another on his left leg, a neck brace, and bruises all over his face. Every time Jim’s lawyer said his name they looked at Jim, just a Band-Aid on his knuckles. Jim was going to prison. Angel looked like she was gonna die.

Justice is served daily

“Everything said and done the Judge sent the jury off to decide the case. I went outside for a smoke and was just about go to my office when the bailiff called everybody back into the courtroom. It took the jury 10 minutes to come back with a verdict. I thought that was about right since Jim didn’t have a single witness saying the beating was justified. I knew Judge Stevens would send Jim to prison right away because he liked things tidy and efficient. Angel was sitting so still, like she was gonna bust out any minute, take things into her own hands if she had to. Everybody was looking at the jury but I was watching her.

“The jury foreman said ‘Not Guilty’. Judge Stevens banged his gavel, picked up his papers and left the courtroom. I saw Rawlins flinch as Jim and Angel passed by hustling out of the courthouse. The prosecutor tried to look disappointed but I could tell he wasn't.

Hamilton Burger loses again. Perry didn't lift a finger

"We had drinks here afterwards. He sat where you’re sitting now, loosened his tie and said he’d done his best to win, making sure no appeals court would overturn, shutting down every opening. He said he was glad he lost. No doubt Jim was guilty as hell but Rawlins got what he deserved."

Tom looked at each of us in turn and said, “I don’t know what I’m gonna say about the Reverend’s death at the coroner's inquest next week but I’ll sure be thinking about Jim and Rawlins.”