True Fires Read Online Free

’Tweren’t natural atall.
    And the folks ’tweren’t natural neither.
This Sheriff,
Daniel thinks,
is more bear than man.
Got the big, square head, the shiny black hair, the li’l leery eyes, long nose, barrel-shaped body, even the limpy, flat-footed gait of a big black bear up home.
    I seed it right o f,
Daniel thinks. When the Sheriff dropped a heavy paw on the back of the boy’s neck just outside the classroom, and did the same with ’Becca—not even botherin’ with the ruse of “names in his hat” and “a free ride home.” When he grunted at them to “git in the back,” lumbered up to poor Miz Whitworth at the boardinghouse, who looked like she’d spotted a ghost, and shook his head with that great, slow sway and sniffed the air in just the way that bears do, Daniel, a boy raised in bear country, knew what to do—and slipped into a still and watchful silence.
    A bear,
Daniel knew,
usually has one thing on his mind—he
cain’t handle two—and the trick is to figure out what it is, let him
have at it, and he’ll soon be on his way to the next one thing. A bear
ain’t all that dangerous, unless, of course, you or your dog or the deer
you just killed is the bear’s one thing. If that’s it, you best be careful
that your single shot hits home.
    The Sheriff whips his car into Miss Lila’s wide, dirt grove yard and gets out in a hurry without his hat. Daniel and ’Becca watch him swivel his big head back and forth, left to right. Under the bead of his gaze, the Negroes in the yard, who are returning their empty picking sacks to the supply shed, shut their mouths, drop their chins, and study their shoelaces, backing into the shade like songbirds silenced by the shadow of a hawk.
    The Sheriff approaches an older one, the color of molasses, and demands, “You, boy! Where’s Leroy?”
    “Ain’t here no more, suh.” The molasses man shakes his head at his shoe.
    “What’s that?” The Sheriff leans over him. “I
said,
where’s Leroy?”
    Daniel watches the molasses man dig his chin a little deeper into his chest. “Leroy ain’t here no more,
suh
. Miss Lila’s got herself a new tree man. He inside the barn.”
    “Kin I help ye, Sheriff?” Beside Daniel, ’Becca gasps as the big man turns slowly on the hind of his heels to glare at their pap, who’s walked out of the barn into the sunlight.
    “Well, maybe you
kin
and maybe you
kin’t,
” the Sheriff tells Pap, mocking his accent. “Where’s Leroy Russell?”
    “Like Nate there said, Leroy don’t work here no more. Name’s Franklin Dare.” Pap steps toward the Sheriff, offers up his hand. “Yores?”
    The Sheriff’s eyes, sliding from Pap’s hand up to his face, glitter suspicion. The Sheriff’s a full head taller but, Daniel thinks,
Pap’s five and a half feet of pure Carolina gamecock. He
kin outwrestle any man on our mountain, including the oversize
McKennas. Outshoot ’em, too. I seed him drop a possum out of a pine a
hundred yards yonder. “Left eye or right?” Pap asked ol’ John
Trotter, who bet him he couldn’t do it. “Either one,” ol’ John said.
“How ’bout both?” Pap said as he pulled the trigger. That possum
had turned sideways and Pap’s bullet went clean in one eye and out
t’other.
On account of his skills and his temper—Pap could be as prickly as a polecat—folks up home had a sayin’. “Don’t go ranklin’ Franklin Dare,” they’d warn the local hotheads.
This
Sheriff,
Daniel decides,
don’t know who he’s talking to.
    A woman’s voice behind both men calls, “His name’s DeLuth.” Miss Lila Hightower strides out of the barn to stand beside Pap, a pretty, auburn-haired woman dressed, as usual, like a man in khaki shirt, pants, and grove boots. “K.A.,” she tells Pap, “as in Kyle Ambrose. As in Kick Ass. Or Kiss Ass. Depending on who’s got the bread and who’s holdin’ the butter knife. And he has”—her green eyes flash at the Sheriff— “the manners of a