Father and Son by Larry Brown

started buttoning it up.
    â€œLet me get some coffee and we’ll head out. Is Harold here?”
    â€œNot yet. You gonna try to go to church?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    Jake moved aside as Bobby went past him out the door and down the hall and he followed him, his gun belt creaking. The sheriff sat down at the desk in the dayroom and started rummaging through some drawers.
    â€œI ain’t had time to go in a month. Hell, she had the preacher over for dinner last Sunday and I couldn’t even make that. Have you seen that … here it is. Is that coffee ready yet?”
    He pulled out a card with some new brass and began clipping it to his shirt. Jake was pouring him a cup at the table. He put a spoonful of sugar into it and stirred it and shook off the spoon and laid it down and brought the cup to him all steaming.
    â€œThanks.”
    He leaned back in his swivel chair and put his feet up on the desk and took a drink of his coffee. There was a pack of Lucky Strikes on the desk and he shook one out. Jake took his own chair across the room and slid down in it until he was resting on his backbone. “You think he really did it?”
    â€œI guess if we dig him up he did.”
    â€œWho’s gonna do the diggin?” Jake wanted to know.
    Bobby just smiled at him.
    â€œWhy don’t we take a trusty down there with us?”
    â€œWhich one you trust?”
    Jake thought about it. He pushed the brim of his hat up off the front of his head.
    â€œWe could take Willowby. He’s got that bad leg and couldn’t run off from us.”
    Bobby sipped his coffee and slid an ashtray closer. He waggled the toe of his boot.
    â€œHe probably couldn’t dig too good either. We got to take Byers down there anyway, we can just let him do it.”
    Jake took his hat off and laid it on the chair beside him as a troubled look crossed his face.
    â€œGoddang, Bobby, you gonna make a feller dig up his own daddy?”
    Bobby got up and refilled his cup and smiled over his shoulder. “I am unless you’d rather do it. Go stick him in the car and see if you can find a shovel. I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
    Jake took his coffee with him and pulled out a big ring of keys and went down a hall to a closed door. He entered through it and the door swung shut behind him.
    Bobby sat back down at the desk and stubbed out his smoke and lit another one almost immediately. He wished folks would do all their meanness on Thursday nights instead of Saturday so he wouldn’t have to work Sunday every weekend. The phone was there beside him and he picked up the handset and dialed the first three digits of his mother’s number and then put it back in the cradle. She was probably still in bed this early.
    He leaned back in the chair again and looked at his watch. He smoked and just waited for the noise that would be Jake bringing out the prisoner. The things that people did to each other didn’t surprise him anymore, ever since he’d learned they were capable of doing any thing youcould imagine and some things you couldn’t.
    The coffee was growing cold in the cup. He finished it and set the cup on the desk and got up. Harold was coming through the front door with his lunch box and a couple of paperbacks.
    â€œMornin, Sheriff.”
    â€œMornin. Me and Jake’s going down below Taylor to see about this mess. Stick around the radio in case we need you, okay?”
    â€œSure thing, Sheriff.”
    Bobby went back to his office and picked up his revolver by the belt that held the holster and carried it back through the dayroom, but he didn’t strap it on. The steel door down the hall slammed and a bandaged black prisoner came shuffling out with his wrists manacled, looking neither left nor right, Jake following. Harold was pouring coffee at the table. After he got his cup he turned on the television and started watching it.
    They went out and Bobby held the back door