Chapter 18, trouble in the valley - rewrite

Jim Hilcock made his way down Happy Valley Rd/State15 when he spied people milling about in the backlot of the chemical plant. Several large trucks and people in hazardous materials suits where cleaning something that he couldn't quite see as he drove. As he passed the plant he spied his father's tractor in the middle of the adjacent field. Turning down the track that lead to his parents house he detoured through the fence opening that lead into the field where the tractor sat. It was here that he noticed that someone was slumped over the wheel of the tractor.


Jim ran down one of the forrows as fast as his legs would carry him. He hadn't run like this since that cold morning in Italy as his squad crossed the open space from thier lines to the Rapido River and towards the Germans on the opposite bank. His shins hurt with each downward fall and his chest pounded painfully. The distance from where he parked his truck to where the tractor sat wasn't very far, but it was far enough to make the anticipation of a liesurely walk to much to endure. No one was shooting at him, he didn't have anyone to lead in a headlong charge, had no one to answer to for not performing his duty, he had no other reason to push himself save for his sudden fear of not getting to the tractor in time to save whomever it was. He knew who it was, for who else would be riding his father's tractor in the middle of his father's field save for Howard Hilcock himself?

Jim reached the tractor and doubled over in exhaustion. His stomach trembled and he felt nausious, both from the run and from the revelation that the form on the tractor was Howard. Climbing up to the seat and gripping the steering wheel for balence he tried to take in everything through eyes that revealed what his brain refused to take in. A trail of blood formed down Howard's back in a wide soaking pattern and a pool had formed at the base of the gear shift and gas pedal. With a trembling hand Jim reached for his father's neck and felt only cold skin instead of a life proving pulse. Cold and clammy told the story as well as the blood pool gathering about the still form. Jim suddenly felt cold, frozen to the bone. The gooseflesh on his arms turned to a biting frosty sensation and chill that comes from getting wet outside on a cold winters day. Jim's fingers felt numb and he trembled with the shakes.

****
Monte Cassino, Italy 1944

"Row! Stroke, stroke, stroke!" Jim yelled as he and the squad struggled to get the flimsey wood and canvass assault boat across the Rapido River. Tracers arched overhead and guysers sprouted in the water as motar rounds sought out the hundreds of similar craft frantically fighting the current to get across. With fingers so numb that he wondered at how he continued to hold on to the oar Jim tried to get the other men to match his rhythm. They hadn't ever trained for a river crossing and in thier excitement each man had started paddling furiously, often in direct opposition to everyone else, making the trip across the small river chaotic. Despite the layers of clothing he was soaked in near freezing water and his torso quaked from the trembles that arched up and down his back in waves. It seemed that the night had suddenly become like daylight as the river bank and the hills surrounding thier assault path came alive with tracer rounds and explosions that lit the surroundings in brief splashes of grotesqueness. A cruel wind blew the smoke screen laid down by thier artilery prior to the crossing and the Very lights sent up by the enemy kept the scene well lit so that even the darkness was not an ally.

The assault craft where being torn apart by direct mortar hits and machine gun fire that sliced up thier occupants and sent the derilct craft floating down stream into the others struggling to cross. They pushed on despite the problems knowing that turning back only meant more exposure to the enemy fire that opened up on them as soon as they ran across the mine field to get to the river bank.

"Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke. Keep the rhythm!"

The motion of the men working frantically and waves caused by the other craft made keeping ones balance in the boats unsteady. Chas Williams was behind Jim and working with the butt of his M1 Garand as an oar. Chas and Jim found themselves in the same company soon after being sent from basic training to thier assignment in the 36th Infantry Division, 313th Regiment. Now Jim was squad leader and Chas was a Corporal and they were struggling to survive yet another cold weather assualt upon a well entrenched enemy. They weren't close as buddies go, but having someone around that was familiar was also a touch of home for Jim. It was also nice to recall the antics of childhood with thier father's farm vehicles to keep his spirits up when the nights grew cold.

Now, as they neared the end of the ordeal the craft started to rock to and fro in the wake of a mortar round landing nearby and Jim had to pause for a moment to keep from being pitched overboard. Chas, behind him, suddenly grabbed on to Jim's web gear and he felt a tug that jerked him from his spot in the boat and he dropped his oar into the water. Straining to keep his balance he suddenly felt himself being dragged overboard and heard a shout from behind him.

"Chas!"

"Man overboard!"

Jim ragained his position and looked to where Chas had been and he was no where to be seen; the men strained to spy thier comrad but in the dark inky water nothing could be seen but wave crests. The war intruded upon thier hopefull searching and one by one each began rowing once again consumed with the goal of survival. In the attack there was no time for concern or mourning for a fallen comrade but to push forward and get on with it. The eternity on the water with men falling and splashing about or being flung into the air after being hit with mortar rounds gave way to two nightmarish days and nights huddling below the rocky cleft of the river bank under constant fire and without supply.

No one slept. Each man watched his comrades closely lest any overtaken with fatigue became careless bringing a fusilade of fire upon them all. Moving forward was suicide but so was moving back. They found whatever cover avialable and fired at the enemy above them crawling forward to any advantage. Jim's squad slowly whittled down to just he and five others by the time the army decided to extract the whole of the 36th Infantry Division's battalions back across the river. As if giving up hard fought ground wasn't enough they were to back track over thier own dead who could not be removed in the haste of both attack and now retreat; it was the final insult and completion of a horrible ordeal.

Hardly able to walk, Jim's squad stumbled down the rocky slopes of the Rapido river bank towards the foot bridge the engineers labored to throw over the river while the men of the 36th fought to hang on. The river bank was littered with equipment and wrecked assault boats and bodies marking a trail all the way up the slope. Numbed, cold, and indifferent to thier surroundings Jim's squad finally made it down to the river line following the silently moving line of weary soldiers who stumbled and tripped along as if marching to thier graves. A skeleton line of riflemen was left on the river bank and they were firing continuously to complete the ruse. Those who volunteered to remain behind and fiegn a fully occupied American battleline above where allowing thier comrades to escape.

Jim wouldn't remember much about that night save for chancing to look down at the river lapping against the rocks and heaving a strangely familiar form back and forth on the river line. He stepped out of the line and stumbled down into the water to grab onto the water logged form being pounded upon the jagged rocks. It was dark as clouds covered mercifully the moonlight that would have made the extraction impossible to execute under the watchfull eyes of the Germans. Jim pulled and tugged the heavy burden onto the rocks and felt the neck for a pulse. He didn't know later why he had felt for a pulse, for the face of the man was barely recognizeable even in the darkness as anything that could be alive. Puffed up from decomposition and water logged the skin was strangely elastic and cold. But Jim recognized enough of Chas to know who it was even from where he first saw him. The face was battered by many cuts from the rocks and bloated but the hair was still its wavy blond and the look of youthfilled innocence was still discernable in the horrid pallor of death.

There was no question of carrying the body with them as they retreated. The body was heavy, they were exhausted and barely able to carry thier own selves down the embankment to the bridge. Jim trembled and shivered as he settled Chas' body as best he could out of the water and stumbled back into the line of ghosts.

****

Waking as if from a dream, Jim felt his hands, feet, and body warming again in the summer sun but the chill of beholding his father's body slumped over the tractor caused another shiver to wrack his spine. Gingerly he picked Howard off of the seat and lowered him to the ground. He looked peacefull, unlike poor Chas Williams that early morning in Italy. In the distance, within the boundry and fence of the chemical plant, men in protective suits moved about spraying the outside equipment with something. It occured to Jim that perhaps he should not have moved Howard from the tractor, that somehow it might have been important to leave him where Jim found him. Yet it also seemed inappropriate to leave the body in such an uncomfortable position. The absurdity of the worry struck Jim next.

Jim stood by his father's side and was lost in indecision. The thing to do was to run to the house and inform his mother and call Sheriff Middlebrook. Yet he could not bear to leave the body alone in the field even for a few moments. Save for the blood that stained Howard's shirt, he could have died of a heart attack or just fallen asleep and never awoken, the countenance on his face was serene and quiet, not at all the look of a man shot. Jim had seen death in all of the grotesque forms of warfare and seldom was a man's face in an attitude of quiet. They where always caught in some moment of pain or surprise if they still had a face. He had to resolve his decision or it would be a long and lonely vigil by the corpse.

Resolving to go to the house, Jim walked away with the pang of self conciousness numbing his stomach. There was something wrong with leaving the body in the field, alone, abandoned. He hadn't been able to bring Chas Williams body back and indeed the body would never be brought back, lost upon the months that would pass as the Germans held first the Americans, then the British at bay. Jim faced Chas' mother and father when he returned to the states at war's end to thier queries as to his place of death. He lied of course, not able to make sense of the truth to two people who had never experienced the exhaustion of combat and the numbing cold of an Italian winter. He would tell them Chas had fallen out of thier assault boat and was drowned, never to be seen again. Would he now lie to his own mother?

Jim stopped at the drivers side door and hesitated. What if she wondered where the body was and why hadn't he brought him back? Why had he left it out in the sun? Jim slammed his fist into the car door. He had to do something, but each option seened to be just as bad as the other. The sorrow he felt that cold and dreary morning in Italy as he turned his back on Chas' body decided the quandry.

Thirty minutes later, both Jim and his mother stood by the body as Doctor Robinson pronounced death. Gathered around Howard where the neighbors and family. Everyone spoke softly as if it where irreverent to speak above a whisper in the presence of the dead. Sally stood next to Jim's mother and holding on to her shoulder as thier children clung tightly to Sally's legs in fright. To them, Grandpa had always been strength and vitality. to see him peacefull and immobile from death was a queer sight. Nearby, Sheriff Middlebrook and Deputy Tate Jr. stood by Doctor Robinson as they querried him about Howard's death. Willie Shank stood off to the side as if a nuetral bystander.

"I'll bet it was one o them hill toppers what did it, bastards!" Willie said and spat.

"I'd say so, Cap," Ed Tate Jr. added and looked up at Pete Middlebrook.

"Ok, Doc, so would you say the gunshot wound kilt him instantly?" Middlebrook asked.

"He bled quite a bit, so that tells me his heart beat for a while before he died."

"Did you go look at the tractor, Tate?" Pete asked.

"Yep, lots o blood all over it, lots of foot prints around it. I'd guess he was arguin' with someone from the chem plant seein' as it wasn't to far away. Maybe even arguin' about that spill they just had." Tate responded.

"What? Now wait a moment," Jim interrupted. "You can't make them speculations. I found him alone and he was still purty far from the plant."

"Yep, one o them bastard hill toppers," Willie spat.

"Willie, do you mind? Not in front of the womenfolk an' my kids!" Jim snapped.

Willie scowled in return and bit his lower lip.

"Now, hush with the wild stories. I aint puttin' none of that in my report, Tate." Pete Middlebrook scribbled a few more lines on his note pad.

"Why would a valley person do this?" Tate asked and held out his arms. "Only a hill topper would do such a thing to a valley man."

"Do you people mind? Take your conversation elsewhere!" Jim said.

"Well, I suppose we got what we needed," Pete said as he tucked the notepad underneath his arm. "Jim, Sally, Mrs. Hilcock my condonlences. Howard was a fine valley man and he'll be missed." Pete touched the rim of his hat and nodded then turned to leave.

Doctor Robinson had already bundled Howard's body into the makeshift ambulance/hearse and pulled out of the farmstead. Middlebrook left right after with Ed Tate Jr. and Willie Shank in tow. They were finally alone now, just the family.

"Sal, why don't ya take Ma and the kids back t' our place. I'm going ta go over to the chemical plant an' find out what was going on there."

"You think they're right?" Sally asked.

"No, but I'm curious about what spilled into Dad's field all the same."

"I'll be fine," Jim's mother protested.

"Ma, go with Sally and the kids, you can rest a bit. If you go in there you'll just tear off and try to play host," Jim said.

"Be carefull all the same," Sally said.

"Nobody from the plant would've done this, they'd have no reason. I don't know what in the world Tate and Willie where talking about," Jim said as he walked towards his truck.

Jim pulled out of the U shaped drive that swung near the house and down the gravel road intersecting his fathers' fields that emptied out onto State15 and quickly passing Howard's tractor still sitting out in the forrowed field. Someone would have to start it up and move it back to the house, Jim thought. Pulling into the drive for the plant Jim followed it around to the parking lot and the back area where a crowd was still watching the clean up crews working. Like a fire drill no one had given much thought to continuing any work, even the vat workers whose stations where perfectly fine where engrossed in the clean up process.

Jim spied a few of the people that he knew in the crowd of fifty or so and walked up to them. They were easily spotted in thier office attire that juxtaposed with the protective clothing the cleanup crew and the workman's clothing of the shopfloor. As if mesmerized, the crowd watched as the storage tank was hosed down and foam was sprayed all over several cars. A trail of goo lead from the leak in the feed pipe to the storage tank.

"Mr. Pembrook, Mr. Shields, what's going on?" Jim asked as he looked over the shoulders of George and Benton.

"Uh, accident with some chemical process," George answered.

"Oh, hey Mr. Hilcock," Benton said and extended his hand to Jim. "Some freak accident, a pipe burst and ruined a new process we were testing."

Jim watched the activity with interest. Each man seemed to have his own job to do, The men in the suits remained animated and active on thier assigned tasks while everyone else watched passively. There was the intense odor of acrid chemical that burned the nostirls slightly and he understood why the cleanup crew at least wore hoods, for from the distance from the spill was one hundred feet away and yet the smell was still strong. A few of the men in the crowd who wore protective overalls and hard hats coughed in fits and Jim felt his own head getting light.

"When did it happen?" Jim asked.

"About an hour and a half ago," George replied. "Are we scubbing vat four yet?" George turned to Benton.

"Yeah, should be," Benton replied.

"Saw quite a bit of it sprayed into Dad's field again," Jim said.

"We'll compensate Howard for that," George replied with a sigh.

"Uhm, you might want to settle with Mom then, Dad was found shot this morning in the field just over there," Jim pointed to the tractor that was visible to the side of the storage tank."

"What?" George asked startled.

"I found him 'bout an hour ago," Jim replied. "He'd been shot while tilling."

"Shot?" Benton asked. "What time do you think?"

"Dun' know," Jim replied. "Sometime this morning."

"I'm sorry to hear that," George said and for the first time since Jim had arrived turned to look at him. "Any ideas as to who?"

"Dun know that either, though Tate and Willie Shank are blaming a hill topper or someone here for it," Jim replied.

"What?" Benton jumped.

"You're serious?" George asked.

"Thas' what they were sayin' just a bit ago. Dun' know why an' Sheriff Middlebrook don' believe them niether, or at least he sounded like he didn'a," Jim responded.

"I can say it wasn't anyone here, we were all busy with this test," Benton stated.

"I dun' know what Tate's got up his sleeve, but he's the one Middlebrook sent to look at the scene," Jim said.

"Tate, huh? Then something is fishy about all of it if he is involved," George said and screwed his face into a grimace.

"Well, I jus' came by to see what was goin' on here since I'd noticed there was a commotion. I dun' personally think anyone here had nothin' to do with Dad's shooting," Jim assured. "What did happen?"

"A high pressure test for a new product sprung a leak as it where," Benton replied. "One of our feed pipes burst, but we haven't been able to get near enough yet to really see what went wrong until all this gets cleaned up. From the looks of it the pipe burst from a weak spot maybe."

"Who'd want to shoot your dad?" George asked.

"No one that I know'd of," Jim replied.

Violence wasn't uncomon in the valley or up on the hill since the first people started to build thier shops by the cross roads. Pete Middlebrook emptied his shotgun into the back of a thief who'd been trying to lift the contents of the cash register one night and someone had been killing livestock from farm to farm each night for a week straight, but no one from either place had ever been gunned down before. That Willie would immediately suspect a hill topper was no surprise to Jim. That Ed Tate Jr. would make it his report struck a chord with Jim. His interaction with the younger Ed Tate had been minimal, like knowing of someone but not knowing them. Jim and Howard had always been fairly open and had gotten to know the people up on the hill without prejudice same as the valley folks.

The shock of seeing his father and the realization that Howard was no longer to be a part of Jim's active life started to settle in on him. It was more than the finality of death but the stealthy taking of that life in what was starting to look nefarious to Jim making his stomach sour. Still a little dizzy from the fumes, Jim felt himself sway slightly as he stood with George and Benton.

"I s'ppose I'll see to Howard's affiars, the fumes are startin' to work on me as well," Jim said.

"Let us know what the arrangements are, Ok?" George said and held out his hand.

"Sure, I suppose it will be the first funeral we've had since you all moved here," Jim said and shook George's hand.

"You feelin' dizzy?" George asked Benton.

Jim turned and walked back to his truck. His head felt heavy and thick and his stomach nausious. The plans for the day had been forgotten and he sat for a few moments in the cab of his truck pondering where he was in a hurry to get to. There was nothing for him to do at home and the work on his own fields was unimportant; he felt the nervous energy coursing through his limbs and needed to be out and busy nonetheless. Jim pulled out of the parking lot and out onto Happy Valley Road. The land the plant was built upon now belonged to his mother and she, though a farmers wife and raised a farmers child, had not the means nor capacity to run it herself.

Before he knew it, Jim found himself driving up the hill and stopped at the brand new traffic light at the corner of State50 and State15. He sat for the short cycle and proceeded through and instinctively pulled into Hubener's Hardware. He didn't need anything but the thought of some comeraderie must have directed his progress into the store. The smell of coffee from the pot was inviting and Steven was looking bored behind the counter. To his surprise, Robert was also there sunning himself on the couch and nursing a mug of java.

"Jim, I'm sorry to hear about yor Paw," Robert said and stood.

"Word travels fast still," Jim tried to smile in return as he took Robert's hand. "Was also just down at the chem plant, they had some accident or other." His head was still swimming but his stomach had settled down.

"Don't take much," Robert replied.

"What happened?" Steven asked as he moved from behind the counter.

"Howard died this mornin', looks like someone shot him while he was plowin'," Jim replied.

"This place is too small for something like this to happen and not find out who," Steven said.

"Deputy Tate thinks someone from the Hill did it," Jim stated.

"Deputy Tate is a moron," Steven snapped.

"What do you think, Jim?" Robert asked.

"Dun know, too shocked and queasy t' think at the moment," Jim replied. "Whatever spilled down by the plant is noxious."

"Really? Robert asked and tensed. "How bad?"

"Really bad, they got people in protective suits cleaning up, but the smell is pretty awful."

"I'd better get back down to Pa's, his land is across the way from your Pa's," Robert said as he stood and drained the last of his coffee.

"You think it is that bad?" Steven asked.

"Don't really know, none of the folks I talked to at the plant seemed overly concerned about the air," Jim replied.

"Still, I'm going to go check on them," Robert said as he walked out the door.

"Did the Sheriff think someone from up here killed your father?" Steven asked.

"If he did he didn't say as such. Tate seemed to be convinced though."

"Tate's an idiot and an ingrate." Steven's face soured and turned dark.

"Idiot or not, I suppose he's got the power to do whatever he wants," Jim replied and sighed.