A body in the ditch.
The phone rings
a little after seven.
I let it ring again
before reaching for it.
“Cal,” Della says.
I push up on one elbow,
the room still dark
around me.
“Wade’s dead.”
That wakes me all the way.
“What?”
“They found him—
by the culvert.”
I swing my feet
over the side of the bed—
bare soles flat
against the cold boards.
“Cal? You heard me?”
The room comes in slow,
piece by piece—
boots by the chair,
pines holding still
beyond the glass.
“Yes. I heard you.”
I thank her
and hang up.
By the time my jeans are on,
the scanner’s rattling.
Unit numbers.
Ten-codes.
Men speaking low
and careful.
Men get that sound
when the worst is already
standing there with them,
but nobody wants to name it
till the radio does.
Hear it enough,
you know.
Fire comes over the radio loud.
A wreck comes fast.
But a body—
that brings church
into a man’s voice.
Words slow down.
Names get left out.
Every man listening
already knows what they found
before anybody says it.
Even the static
stands up straight.
Shirt half-buttoned,
all I hear
is what they ain’t saying.
That sound
darkens the morning
before the facts arrive.
That’s enough.
The day’s already in the ditch.
I shut it off.
Better get my own eyes on it
before they tell me
what’s there.
I know where I’m headed.
Hawthorn Road.
The hunting club.
I was there last night.
The road pulls me back
whether I want it
or not.
The club sits back
under the pines,
far enough off the road
to keep its business
to itself.
Fresh gravel
whitens the drive,
too clean over the red dirt—
but last night’s ruts
still break through,
deep enough
the ground ain’t forgot ’em.
Near the lodge,
my foot comes off the gas.
And there they are again—
Wade and Jude
stepped out onto the porch,
their words kept low.
Not loud.
Not yet.
Wade crowded in.
Jude held his ground.
Neither one backed off.
The porch light burned
sick yellow
over both of ’em,
dragging the dark beneath ’em
together across the boards,
till nobody could tell
where Wade ended
and Jude began.
A shadow moved with them,
like the devil they made together—
some old sin neither confessed,
trailing them out
into the night.
Inside, the club
didn’t miss a beat—
glasses knocked wood,
men laughed past the funny,
and nobody was sober enough
to catch the moment
trouble quit being talk
and stepped outside.
Come daylight,
the club ought to sit quiet—
every man gone home
to sleep off
bourbon and lies.
But daylight’s here.
So am I.
And the club ain’t quiet.
Instead,
vehicles crowd the shoulder.
One pickup leans nose-down
in the weeds,
dew cold across its hood.
Past that point,
yellow tape threads the trees,
lighting up with the morning
like some bright accusation
from God.
The grounds crawl
with county vehicles,
but the lodge stays dark.
Windows black.
Doors shut.
All that law outside,
and nobody going in.
Crooked trucks sit everywhere,
engines ticking in the cold,
blue exhaust dragging
along the ground.
My truck idles,
heater knocking under the dash.
With my hand on the door,
I leave it there.
Courage runs shallow
it seems.
Then I step out.
The smell hits first—
ditch water, rotten leaves,
mud gone sour
in the cold. The culvert mouth
lies open under the road,
breathing black water—
rank with the night
still in it.
Morning breaks clean
over the ground,
making the whole place look
like darkness never
laid a hand on it.
Up in the pines,
a crow hollers once—
its call carries
across the ditch.
I listen past it
to the low gulp of water
working through the pipe
under the road.
I walk toward the tape.
I don’t make it far.
A young deputy steps up—
boots too clean,
jaw he ain’t grown into yet.
“Can’t go through here.”
“I know,” I say.
“Just wanna look.”
He studies me a second.
Maybe he knows my face.
Maybe he knows
I know this place
better than the cameras do,
standing pretty
by the road.
He tips his chin toward the ditch.
“You can stand there.
Behind the tape.”
He shouldn’t,
but he steps aside—
just enough room
for me to pass.
That’s all the permission I need.
I take it—
and the ditch opens
below me,
the culvert mouth
under the asphalt.
Runoff flattens the weeds
here every spring—
water knows the low ground.
My eyes follow its path
below the tape,
down through the crushed stems
to where the ditch narrows—
and there’s Wade,
on his side
against the bank.
One arm tucked under,
pinned beneath him,
hand lost in the mud.
His face turned into the dirt,
like the ground’s trying
to keep him.
Oak leaves tangle
in his coat.
Pine straw holds
to his sleeve.
The rest of it comes slow.
Bit by bit.
Clay mud streaks both knees.
That catches me first.
From the waist up,
he’s near clean.
Like whatever happened
touched the ground hard
and missed the rest of him.
Blood sits dark by his head,
but not much.
Less than you’d figure
for a death like this.
And his hat—that’s gone.
Wade wore that damn hat everywhere.
Club, church, fundraisers—
any place a man
wanted folks to know
he’d stepped in.
Last night, he had it on.
I remember—
drink in one hand,
hat sitting just right.
He moved through the club
like he owned it.
Truth is, he mostly did.
Now he’s down
where the water runs.
No hat.
Somebody’s thrown a blanket
over his back and hips.
Wind catches one corner—
lifts it, drops it,
lifts it again.
No coroner yet.
Nothing on the scanner
about scene photographs.
Still, somebody’s already
covered what ought
to be left alone.
Behind me,
a camera snaps.
I turn.
A local press photographer stands
off by the shoulder,
long lens up.
He checks his screen
like the dead might blink,
then lifts the camera again.
I’ve seen enough—
the arm pinned wrong,
mud on both knees,
blood too thin by his head.
The wind works low
through the weeds.
Fresh gravel shifts behind me.
That’s when the talking starts—
“Drunk.”
“Domestic.”
“They was fightin’.”
I look back—
two men in work coats,
one woman hugging herself tight.
Not one of them
trying to lower a voice.
Sheriff Vance stands up by the tape
with a county man
in a blazer.
They stand shoulder to shoulder,
hands riding their hips,
watching the road
like whatever happened down there
might try to leave.
Then Vance spots me.
Breaks off, comes over.
“Cal,” he says.
“Didn’t expect you.”
“I was here last night.”
That sits between us.
His eyes go to the ground.
“Hell of a thing,” he says.
“Yes.”
He stands there—
like he wants me to hand him
something
small enough to label.
Something he can carry
back up the hill
before the county
starts needing answers.
I give him nothing.
“We’re still sorting through it,”
he says. “Folks are stirred up.”
“They usually are
when there’s a body in a ditch.”
He feels that.
Looks away.
“Jude all right?” I ask.
He takes his time.
“He’s talkin’ to us.”
A county truck pulls in behind him.
Men climb out
with cases and stands,
moving fast enough to look certain.
Folks like that.
A seal on the door.
A badge on a shirt.
Men carrying equipment like answers.
Like the mess is already
being handled.
Another camera snaps.
Vance glances that way,
then back at me.
“We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Maybe.
Maybe a bottom they can use.
Behind him,
a woman in gloves lifts the tape
and ducks under.
She kneels beside Wade,
sets her case down soft,
like noise might bruise him.
She reaches for the blanket
like there’s a right way
to meet the dead.
Medical examiner, I figure.
Her hand stops
at the edge of the cloth.
Before she lifts it,
I’m back at the lodge.
Last night comes back
through the smoke—
Wade at the bar,
his hat tipped
just how he liked it,
Jude close at his side.
Wives with their cardigans
buttoned to the throat,
men warming both hands
around bourbon glasses—
the liquor climbing
their necks
into their faces.
Everybody pretending
not to see the rainbow flag
nobody had hung—
no cloth,
no pole,
just Wade and Jude
standing close
while the whole room
looked around them.
They all knew.
That was the trick—
knowing, then finding
somewhere else
to rest their eyes,
as if the sin
was in looking
too long.
Next beer,
Wade headed for the porch.
Jude followed.
I watched them go,
then drifted after them,
close enough
to keep them in sight,
too far back
to hear what they said.
Now I’m back at the ditch,
only this time
Wade’s in it.
“Who put that blanket on him?”
Nobody answers
the medical examiner.
She looks from one deputy
to the next.
“Photograph it where it lies.
Then get it off him—
gloves on,
bag it separate,
and don’t touch
another damn thing.”
Jude stands with the sheriff
while I’m on the bank
looking down at Wade again.
Around me, heads turn
toward Jude.
Wade hasn’t moved,
but the county’s
already looking past him.
By noon,
they’ll have a version.
By dark, it’ll be crossing
supper tables,
coming back over the phone
in somebody else’s voice.
Enough mouths
can drag a lie
clean through the dirt.
But whatever story
they give Wade—
the culvert’s
yet to tell it.
