Harley Kincaid

Leaning back in the old rocking chair, I rested my feet on the porch railing. My big boots resting on the porch railing, provided a frame for me to look through as I gazed out over the front yard toward the road in the distance. Dust hung in the still air marking the passage of a car long minutes ago. The open window behind me brought the sound of my wife and boys cleaning up our dinner dishes as they talked and laughed through the operation. I sipped the last of my iced tea and felt the contented fatigue that comes after a long physical day.

The evening sunlight slanted in under the ancient oak trees of our front yard making long shadows that stretched all the way into the barnyard. It was too early for the dew to start to fall, but the heat of the day had ebbed toward coolness. It had been so dry for the last two weeks that I doubted there would be much dew when the time came. It had been a hot and dusty day.

The hay we brought in today had been short as the heat of July had given way to dry weather in August. We had only managed just over six-hundred bales today and the hayloft was going to need another crop in late September if it was going to be enough to get us through the winter. With the cooler evenings of late August, the milk production had picked up a little and the bigger milk check would be welcome when it came next week.

Sipping my ice tea I heard before I saw the sound of a truck laboring up over the hill as it approached. I watched as it hove into view and slowed in front of the house. I knew the truck, and knew that it was going to turn into the lane. It’s appearance and eventual arrival marked an emotional downturn to the pleasantness of the evening. Barely slowing, the truck turned into our lane throwing loose gravel into the ditch and grass at the entrance as the rear end slewed around on bald tires. Billowing dust followed as it clattered its way toward the house.

The truck, and the driver were a familiar sight in the neighborhood. The truck had been on its last legs for as long as I’d known the driver. The driver was Harland Kincaid. Harland was easily the laziest man I’d ever known. What Harley lacked in work ethic he emphasized with poor hygiene, and an almost complete disregard for polite social habits. Harley put food on his table by finding clever ways to take advantage of other people. He was expert at extorting, cheating and lying to get his way and his arrival in my driveway meant that he’d chosen his next target. By his appearance you might think that he was an ignorant yokel of low-intelligence. You made that judgement at your own peril, Harland Kincaid was not a nice man, he was sly and clever.

The dogs, who had been sprawled on the porch next to me taking their ease after the heat of the day, recognized the truck by its sound and almost before it had come into sight they were up and standing at the front steps. When the truck slewed into the driveway they leaped to the grass, surrounding the vehicle before it was halfway to the house, barking with their hackles raised and teeth bared. The dogs you see, were excellent judges of character.

Once the truck stopped near the front gate, Harley turned it off while the dust of the driveway caught up with the truck and the engine rattled to a final coughing stop. The dogs stationed themselves on the driver’s side, but far enough away to avoid tobacco spit, while Harley hurled insults. He was definitely smart enough not to venture out without permission.

To say that I didn’t like Harley would have been an understatement. My father, had told me that Harley Kincaid was the biggest waste of breath in Monroe County, and had never had time for him. He had once taken me to Harley’s house on an errand when I was younger and it had been a singularly memorable moment in my young life.

The house was ramshackle, tarps nailed over holes in the roof and waist high grass and weeds in the yard hid all manner of broken and rusted farm equipment, tree stumps and featured a dead dog lying next to the front steps. When my father asked him about the dog, Harley had said that he smelled so bad he’d stopped using the front door. Harley had shot the dog because he got sick of feeding him. Burying the dog or disposing of it in any other way had never occurred to him, he had simply started using the back door instead.

I levered myself up out of my rocking chair and walked out to the gate. Close enough to talk, far enough to avoid the odor.

“Evening Harley.”

Harley finished yelling obscenities at my dogs and turned his head one-hundred eighty degrees. He couldn’t turn anything else because his big belly was trapped behind the steering wheel of the old truck.

“Yeah, it is. Still hot too. And dry.” He scratched a spot somewhere under his armpit, and looked over at the barn. “Got all of your hay in?”

“Workin’ on it.”

“I’m gonna be needin’ to get some before the snow flies.”

“It doesn’t put itself in the barn you know.”

“Mine does. Say you ain’t heard nothin’ about me lately have ya’?”

“Like what?”

“Oh nothin’, just wonderin’ if anybody’s been asking about me lately.” He decided to try the door handle of the truck, and both dogs were immediately on their feet. He just slammed the door and tried to twist toward me again.

“Like what Harley?”

“Oh nothin’, probably shoulda’ stopped over at your dad’s and asked him, but you know, he’s not home much these days; and it’s away out at the other end of the ridge.”

“He’s not home much any day, house calls and working at the clinic. He does have a job you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, should be thinkin’ about retiring”, he took as deep a breath as the steering wheel would allow and let go with a long greasy spittle of tobacco which cleared most of the passenger window, but not all, “he’s been kinda cranky lately.”

“Cranky? With you? Hard to believe, what’d he say?”

“You know, same old shit, I charge them Amish too much to drive them to town.” He said Amish, with a long ‘A’. “I told him it was none of his business, cuz’ it ain’t.”

“He does it for free all the time.”

“His loss, twenty bucks is twenty bucks. Besides some of them is kinda cute.”

“Pretty sure they’re not lookin’ for a date Harley.”

“Harley’s always lookin’ for a date,” He smiled and actually mustered a wink at me, “especially them one-night kinda dates.”

“Well then you’re probably shoppin’ in the wrong grocery store there Harley.”

“Just the same, them young’uns don’t have much fun, I bet they’re just dyin’ to play a little ‘slap and tickle’.” This time his gap-toothed smile leaked tobacco juice down the front of his shirt and he actually giggled.

I took a deep breath and looked out past the barn while I counted to twenty. My father had taught me that the reason some people were put on this earth was only so they could serve as a bad example for the rest of us. If that was the case then Harley Kincaid was at the top of his game. Harley had a way of making people want to punch him in the mouth. He couldn’t afford to lose any more front teeth though and I was more inclined to just turn the dogs on him anyway.

Out on the road, another and much quieter truck crested over the hill and slowed at the lane, before turning in. My father’s truck looked just as tired and dusty as I was beginning to feel talking to Harley. Harley looked in his rear-view mirror and started.

“Oh shit, that’s your dad. Well I guess I took enough of your time Sean, good ta’ see ya, say ‘Hi’ to the missus.”

He started the truck, on the second try, and was already rolling before Dad made it all the way down the lane. Making a wide circle in the barnyard, Harley road the ditch beside the lane past Dad’s truck and out into the road, before motoring away in a cloud of gray oily smoke. Dad rolled to a stop and shut off the truck. This time the dogs wagged and whined anxious for the driver to step out for a proper greeting.

Instead the passenger side window rolled down and he spoke from the seat.

“What did that worthless piece-of-shit need today?”

Opening the yard gate, I walked over and leaned on the passenger-side window sill.

“No idea Dad. Dinner’s just finished wanna come in for a beer?”

“Can’t, there’s trouble down toward Hustler.”

Hustler was a little wide spot in the road at the far eastern end of the ridge. There was a gas station, two taverns and the Amish cheese factory—and a stop sign.

“What kind of trouble.”

“Amish girl, Rachel Hochstetler’s missing, apparently since early this morning. She left for school this morning but didn’t get there. Some one else taught the classes and so she wasn’t missed until chore time tonight when she didn’t come home. That’s when they found out she’d been gone all day. The sheriff’s called out the Civil Defense guys, so I guess I’ll go down and see if I can help out.”

“Rachel one of Jonas’ girls?”

“Yeah, I guess. I talked to the sheriff, she’s thirteen. She’s just started teaching lessons at that schoolhouse down at the bottom of the ridge off of County ‘A’.”

“Well shit. I’ll go too.”

Sometimes you get a feeling that you just can’t shake. And sometimes that feeling comes with a certainty that you know is absolutely true. I took a moment and looked up the lane where the dust still hung in the air from Harley’s truck.

“I might need to stop off on the way though so I’ll drive my truck too. Give me a minute.”

“You done with your chores already?”

“I think I might just have one more right now.”

“You need some help with it?”

“No, but thanks Dad, I gotta get something from the house. You go on ahead, I’ll catch up. I gotta run an errand.”

My father looked at me, then his eyes widened. Twisting in his seat, he looked back over his shoulder.

“You don’t think? Well shit. That son-of-a-bitch.!”

§§§§§

In the house I got my hat and knife off the top shelf and ran my belt through the loop and put it in my back pocket. Nice and secure, like Dad taught me. Turning for the door, my wife blocked the exit.

“What’s going on Seth?”

Thirty seconds was all she needed for the light to come on in her eyes. But she still had enough common sense to see where I was taking it.

“You are not your Daddy Seth.”

“No, I’m not Nora. Not by half. But I got a bad feeling about this and just right now, I’m might be mad enough to be more Dad than Seth.”

“Why don’t you just call the sheriff?”

I thought about the dead dog laying in the front yard at Harley’s.

“Because if I’m right, and the sheriff pays him a visit I can’t imagine what might happen to that little girl, before they stop him. I think we’ll just go have a little talk.’

“Is that your Dad’s kind of ‘little talk’ or yours.”

“I guess we’ll see, sorta depends on Harley.”

§§§

Thirty minutes later I was sitting on the road at Harley Kincaid’s mailbox. The long dusky evening had given way to full dark. The western horizon still bright as the cloudless sky slowly surrendered to a quiet summer night. The tree frogs and crickets were in full throat. The mailbox next to my truck was the only sign that there was a habitation nearby. Harley’s driveway was nothing more than two dirt tracks straddling high grass disappearing into the trees. Unless you knew where it was, you would drive past it without a second thought.

Leaving the truck behind, I decided to walk the hundred yards to the homestead hidden back in the woods of the little valley. The noise of the night creatures was so loud that I didn’t really need to be careful about making noise, but I minded my steps just the same.

Coming around the bend in the lane, the silhouette of the house and outbuildings was outlined against the remaining light from the sunset. Near the fallen down shed that used to be a garage, Harley’s old truck ‘ticked’ itself cool as I passed it. From the front, no lights appeared in any of the windows, and the appearance of abandonment was complete. The cool night air was fresh with the smell of grass and the surrounding woods, but the slight breeze carried the smell of hot grease, and fried meat.

Leaving the worn path between the truck and the front door, I skirted at an angle between the old barn and the house, wading through waste high grass as small creatures hidden there rustled and scurried away. In spite of the dry weather, within seconds my pants were soaked with the evenings dew, and my socks dampened inside my boots. As I moved along the side of the house there were no lights visible inside of the house, but a small one appeared to my right in barn.

I detoured toward the barn and approached the old milk house at the near end. A broken pane in the little four pane window in the side of the room showed where the light escaped in an otherwise filthy opaque glass, and a single incandescent bulb lit the room dimly. I eased up to the window and chanced a peak in through the broken pane.

Old milking equipment, milkers, hoses and buckets hung on various nails along the wall and the monstrous stainless-steel bulk tank took up most of the floor space in the room. In a wooden chair directly opposite the window sat a small absolutely still girl with her hands folded in her lap. She still wore her black travel bonnet and shawl and she stared straight ahead seemingly lost in thought. There was no sign of Harland Kincaid.

I waited another few minutes to see if Harley was nearby, or not around. Almost immediately music blared across from the house as someone turned on a radio tuned to a country music station.

Good enough for me. I skirted along the side of the building to the door. A metal hasp secured the door from the outside with an unlocked padlock hanging in the loop. Pulling it out I tossed it in the grass and pushed open the door. Rachel Hochstetler looked up, her eyes wide with fear and surprise. I raised one finger over my lips, signaling her to remain quiet. Crossing to her I kept a safe distance but squatted down in front of her so that we were at eye level.

“Hi Rachel, I’m Seth Casey. I think we should get you home now. Is that all right?”

“You are the doctor’s son.” Not a question. Her voice was a little shaky but she was showing remarkable control and her gaze was steady.

“Yes, Dr. Casey is my father.”

“I would like to go home.”

“Are you alright, did he do anything to you?”

“He locked me here. I have been here this whole day.”

“Alright that’s good.” I looked back over my shoulder and thought for a moment. “Okay, I’m going to go talk to Mr. Kincaid, I want you to walk back down the lane. My truck is at the end, by the mailbox. Go ahead and get in the truck, and wait for me. I’ll be right along.”

She didn’t speak, but nodded. After checking the door again, I sent her on her way, a black silhouette disappearing into the darkness, and turned toward the house. I didn’t know where the path to the house was so I tried to strike a straight line through the tangle of tall weeds and thistle. Almost immediately I tripped over some hidden piece of broken machinery and fell face down.

“Who’s there?! Who’s out there!?”

Untangling my feet and getting back up on my feet in the darkness proved to be tougher than it should have been, and it took me more than a few struggling moments.

“What are you up to Harley?”

“Goddammit, I’ve got a shotgun here, who’s out there?”

“What kind a’ game are you playin’ Harley, what’s going on here?”

“Is that Seth Casey? What the hell are you doin’ runnin’ around in my back yard?”

“I come to get the girl Harley.”

“Ain’t no girl here.”

“Not anymore there isn’t”

“What! What the goddamn hell! Listen you smart-assed son-of-a-bitch you get off this property right this goddamn minute or I swear to god I’ll open fire!”

“My dad should be bringin’ the sheriff around pretty quick Harley. Think it might be a good idea to have a little talk, maybe before things get out of hand.”

“We ain’t doing no such a thing, you get outta’ here. I’m sick of you Casey’s. Always too good for everybody else, always got two cents for every sich-iation. I’m giving you to the count of ten Casey, then you get a load of Double-B’s in the ass.”

I had been moving toward the back porch as we talked. Not hurrying, but making progress. The light from the kitchen gave a little light and made my progress a little easier. When I stood at the bottom of the steps I looked up at Harley.

“I think this time you might just have put your foot in it Harley. You gonna rape that girl, or just have her over for dinner?”

“Mind your own goddamn business Seth, this ain’t no affair of yours. Sides them ‘A’-mish don’t tell no tales. You can do what-ever, and they just forgive ya’. I’ll just get me a little forgiveness when I’m done.”

“Well, I hope you’ve got plenty of Vaseline Harley, cuz the girl is gone.”

“What! You let her go? Where at, where’d you put her. You son-of-a-bitch! I’m gonna blow a foot-wide hole in you!”

It took two quick steps to hit him with my shoulder and propel the two of us through the kitchen door and across the floor. The pump shotgun clattered away across the floor as we both scrambled for traction among the debris of the littered kitchen. Harley outweighed me by a good hundred pounds, but it was all un-educated flesh and he huffed and puffed his way to his feet slowly.

“Gonna kill you Casey.”

“So you say Harley. Shall we give it a try?”

§§§

Mornings are always my favorite. The smell of the barn filled with cows and the ‘chug’ of the milking machines. The calves, bleating for milk and the cats roaming the center aisle in search of any milk spills. Cold mornings the barn is warm and hot mornings the barn is cool. It is the most contented I ever am when I’m doing the morning milking, choring with my wife and feeling the magnificent independence of putting my own food on my own table.

Today was no exception. That is until I turned toward the milk house with a full pail of milk and was confronted by two scowling faces, standing in the center of the aisle. One scowl was one I was completely familiar with, having elicited it since I could walk. The other was no less significant, but I’d had less experience with it. Behind them, my wife stood with a bucket in one hand and an ‘O’ where her mouth used to be.

My father came right to the point.

“Sheriff needs a word…and for that matter so do I.”

“You got me at a bad time Dad, but we’re almost done. Can it wait a bit?”

“This isn’t going to wait Seth,” Tom Hawkins had succeeded the last sheriff, Jim Peters, and been re-elected for almost twenty years. He was slow to judgement and quick to action, and exceptionally popular. His was the other scowling face.”

“Well let’s get away from the compressor then. Honey, I’ll be just a minute, would you change machines when they’re ready?”

We stepped out into the cow yard at the end of the aisle into the bright sunshine of the new day.

“What’s up Tom.”

It was my father that spoke.

“Last night you said you had an errand to run, right after you had a conversation with Harley Kincaid. Then Rachel Hochstetler turns up back at home, with nothing to say about where she was, or who she was with. This morning Harley is laid out on the slab in the coroner’s office with a fractured skull as the preliminary cause of death. What’s your explanation Seth?”

“Rachel’s home? That is great news!”

“Seth, you seem to maybe have information about Mr Kincaid, or at least you had a discussion with him. You may be the last person he spoke with”

“How did it happen? What happened to Harley.”

“His place is one of the most disgusting places I ever seen. He was lying in his parlor face down, and appears to have fallen against the andiron of the fireplace. There was so much crap scattered everywhere it would be impossible to determine if there was a struggle but there was a cocked and loaded twelve-guage shotgun on the floor in the kitchen. His right arm was broken as well.”

“He fell and hit his head?”

“Wow! Can’t say that I’m shocked, but that’s a tough way to go. Just sayin’”

“Just sayin’? Honest to god Seth, that’s all you can add?”

“I don’t know anything about what happened to Rachel or Harley. I went over to Norwalk and looked at a bull that I want to borrow for next season. When I got to Hustler the search party had dispersed, so I came on home. You can ask Nora.”

My father, put his hands in his pockets and looked out into the pasture ground.

“Well, I guess that’s that Tom.”

“I guess. But I’ll need to get a statement from you later Seth.”

“Okay by me, let me know.”

Tom turned and re-entered the barn heading back to his squad car while writing in a small notebook. Dad turned back to me and sighed.

“I’m too old for this shit. That’s not a road I’d ever want you to go down Seth, but I’m glad you handled it boy.”