Dupree’s Delta Double Down

By Pharoah Cain

It was supposed to be a simple favor, a chance for some quick and easy money, a chance to repay a debt to an old friend. But for Django Jake Shepherd, self-described Nashville expatriate and itinerant troubadour, few things in his world are ever simple, quick, or easy. This time his loyalty and grit will take him from the casinos of north Mississippi deep into the heart of the Delta, to the unforgiving fields that gave birth to the Blues, the smoke-filled juke joints and Hoodoo hideaways, a mystic place where every man comes to his own Crossroads with a chip and a chair to ante up his soul against a stacked deck...and the Devil is Dealing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pharoah Cain
• Release date: Oct 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215605110

Pharoah Cain

About the AuthorIn addition to Clyde's Ride, Pharoah Cain is also the author of the Nashville noir mystery, Django's Tunetown Shuffle: A Hard-Boiled Hillbilly Tale. His songs have been recorded and performed by members of the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Grand Ole Opry and many others. In another life, he was a writer/producer of hundreds of television shows. Nowadays, he lives and writes in Tennessee and plays some bad Blues guitar.For more on Pharoah Cain go to www.DuckRiverPress.com

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Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Copyright © 2023 Pharoah Cain

First Edition

Cover Illustration by Maya Maria Andres

Published by:

Duck River Press

P.O. Box 24552

Nashville, TN 37202

www.duckriverpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Print ISBN 13: 9798218279431

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023917424

Duck River Press, Nashville TN

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke

Find what you love and let it kill you.

Charles Bukowski

I don’t think about time. You’re here when you’re here.

I think about today, staying in tune.

John Lee Hooker

ONE

I couldn’t see but I could hear the tiny bits of gravel being tossed into the stainless-steel pan, pinging and echoing like coins dropped one-by-one into the tin cup of a blind Bluesman who could tell the denominations by the weight of their sound.

The young nurse picking with tweezers at my shoulder couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and I craned my neck for a closer look at the perfectly defined derriere wrapped in tight brown scrubs and festively adorned with several stick-on pictures of smiling orange pumpkins, all within inches of my face. I lay belly down on the metal gurney, mildly sedated and somewhat free of pain and dignity as she worked away at the ingrained slivers, absorbed in her task and unaware of my intense inspection. Or so I thought.

Be still, you, she snapped. You’ll make me miss some and then you’ll get all kinds of infection in there.

Yes, Ma’am, I obliged.

Sherriff Holcomb says he wants to talk to you when I get finished. You got any idea what he might want to chat about?

Maybe he wants an autograph?

You famous?

Just with all the wrong people, I said, then flinched when I felt the tweezers scrape bone.

Jesus-

I’m sorry, she soothed, some of that gravel got worked in deep. I’m trying to be gentle but it’s hard to do with you twisting and turning and trying to get a fix on my butt. Now be still and behave.

What’s your name? I asked, busted now, and turning my head away in shame.

Eufaula.

You mean Eufaula, like the city in Alabama?

No, she said. Like the lake.

My brain was still muddy from the beating, or I would have left it alone.

Aren’t they spelled the same?

Yeah, she snapped, digging away, the sound of the falling gravel getting thinner now, tiny bells at the bottom of a canyon.

Doc says Potted might lose that arm. How you feel about that?

Potted?

Potted Meat. That’s all I ever knowed anybody to call him.

I thought for a moment about what ole Potted had done to get himself in that shape in the first place.

Well, Potted didn’t look like a guitar player anyway, I said. He’ll abide.

Eufaula put the tweezers down and began blotting at my shoulder with a warm, wet sponge.

I’m guessing you’re not from around here?

How so?

Your hands, she said, Too soft for a working man. Most folks around here work for a living. I figure you’re too old to be a student and too rough-looking to be a teacher.

You’re just a silver-tongued devil, aren’t you, Eufaula?

I winced. She’d switched from warm water to alcohol and the effect was like a blue flame.

So, where you from, Jake Shepherd?

I was mildly annoyed she couldn’t take a moment’s break from torturing me to pick up the clipboard and look at page one of the eleven pages of forms I had to fill out in the waiting room prior to being treated. That’s our state of healthcare now- unless you are comatose or bleeding out, many forms must and will be completed and signed before you can be saved.

It took a moment to reply. Fifteen-plus years bouncing up and down the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts with occasional detours to Montana and New Mexico and yet, the only time I’d ever felt rootless was whenever someone asked me that question.

Got a mailbox in Nashville, I finally said. But mostly all points south and anywhere near the water.

Sounds like a good way to live.

It can be, I said.

What do you do for work?

I’m a troubadour.

She cocked her head and squinched one eye. You mean like, with bulls?

I couldn’t tell if she was serious or sarcastic, so I went with the latter.

Yes, that, plus I spread joy and happiness wherever I go.

Don’t we all, she said, then peeled off her rubber gloves and washed her hands.

Listen, Miss Eufaula, my shoulder feels like you just scrubbed it with a wire brush and kerosene and struck a match to it. Do you think you could give me a little something more for the pain, maybe knock me out for a while, or at least long enough for the Sheriff to get bored and go on about his business?

She took a half-step back from the table and crossed her arms, smiling just enough for me to realize she was incredibly beautiful. Then again, at my age they all are.

You some kind of outlaw, Jake Shepherd?

Outcast is more like it.

Whatever, she shrugged, but bless her heart, she was already heading for the medicine cabinet.

~

It was mid-afternoon when I crossed the Lumpkin County line, heading for Dahlonega, Georgia on the first day of October, a man on a mission, a player in what had become something of an ongoing ritual for more autumns than I wanted to think about. I was looking for a woman, looking for some answers when I started this quest, and was dead sure when I found her I would either marry her or murder her. But after too many years and several thousand miles, my lust and my rage, like the rest of me, had softened. Still, I pressed on, knowing most guys would have given up long ago. But then, I was never most guys.

I had the windows down and the stereo cranked just loud enough for Big Bill Broonzy’s tight acoustic guitar work to ring out and shine on Key to the Highway, singing to the world he’s gonna leave here runnin, walkin’s most too slow.

Heading east toward town on Highway 52, the yellows, browns, reds and oranges of autumn were flaming in abundant display, calling to mind a quote by the French philosopher Albert Camus, who said, Autumn is a second Spring, when every leaf is a flower. In the distance, the soft clouds hovered just above the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains like broken smoke rings, and I was caught up in the beauty of it all when the right rear tire blew on my precious ’77 Eldorado, the force of which sent me careening off the road momentarily, until I finally managed to get the big Cadillac partially back on the highway with most of the right side resting on the gravel shoulder.

Traffic was light and I’d already unloaded the spare, jacked up the car and removed the flat when an older model Dodge 4X4 Ramcharger, the body raised about three feet above the tires and sporting a larger-than-necessary Confederate flag proudly waving from the rear, pulled in behind me and cut its running lights. Two sturdy-looking young men climbed out and began walking towards me, presumably, or so I thought, to offer assistance.

It’s all right, I said, waving them off. I’m almost ready to go. Thanks anyway, though.

They kept walking and as they drew nearer, I noticed one of them had a pint bottle of whiskey dangling from his hand.

That there’s a fine automobile. A real Classic, he noted.

You’re right, I said. I’ve had it a long time.

Is that a fact, said the other one, although the tone of his voice didn’t sound like your typical good Samaritan. He was the taller of the two, but no bigger than your average tobacco barn.

Like I said, I’m almost finished, but I appreciate you stopping. Maybe you could recommend a good place in town to get a tire fixed?

Both turned and looked at each other, grinning like jackals. Even in the dusky half-light, I could see the whiskey gleam in their eyes.

Damn, Potted, looks to me like this un’s all jacked up with no place to go, laughed the smaller one, who stood about five-ten and couldn’t have weighed more than two-forty. He handed the pint off to his buddy who took a quick snort but kept the bottle.

In the momentary silence I could hear myself breathe a familiar sigh of dread, the soft exhaling of hope and patience that comes when you know that a shitstorm is about to break and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. I still had the tire tool in my hand and I stepped away from the car, hoping they might see it and have a sudden revelation of good sense.

They did not.

Well, would you look at that, the shorter one said, pointing to my guitar case sitting on the ground by the trunk of the car. Damned if we ain’t done run up on a real gee-tar picker.

The hair on the back of my neck began to tingle slightly, and I instinctively shifted my left foot for balance while taking a slow, relaxed breath. I had three choices: bluff, surrender, or get my ass kicked. I chose bluff.

Tell you what, Hoss, the big boy went on, easing closer, You pick us out a little Doc Watson, and me and T.J. just might not play football with your ass. Whaddaya think?

I have to admit I thought about it for a second or two. I thought about grabbing that guitar and ripping through fourteen verses of Blackberry Blossom, and then finish big with the only two Tony Rice licks I knew. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like two assholes were shooting at my feet just to watch me dance in the street.

I’d been driving all day and it had been over three weeks since I’d had a drink or a cigarette, so I was tired and irritable to begin with. Either that or I just didn’t give a shit. But both of them quit laughing when I smiled and made a move in their direction.

I’ll go you one better, Goober, I said, raising the tire tool out to my side. You take one more step and I’ll play the long version of Free Bird upside your watermelon head.

He seemed to study the import of what I’d said for a moment, but then his eyes went flat as he slipped the whiskey pint into the back pocket of his overalls.

You pissant, he snarled, lunging at me with arms out, but I side-stepped and popped him across the back of his head with the tire tool as he stumbled past. He spun, then glanced off the rear fender of the Caddy and fell, knocking the jack out from under the car as the wheel drum came down hard, crushing his right forearm to the ground with a squishy thud.

Unghhh…God…Ohhh! he screamed, Get it Off…please…T.J.- Help me…Eeeeah…, along with string of blood-curdling screeches made up entirely of vowels.

I turned for T.J. but he was already on me, his thick arms wrapped around me in a bear hug, squeezing me until I dropped the tire tool, then spinning me around and slamming me to the ground with him atop me, legs churning, pushing me like a football sled up the shoulder of the road until he stopped and sat down on my chest, one hand around my throat and the other cocked into a fist. I closed my eyes and got ready to kiss those big, nasty knuckles.

That’s enough, I heard someone yell. Don’t make me shoot you, T.J. Now back off and let him up.

It was a voice I hadn’t heard before, but it sounded like God, or at least someone who worked for him. I saw the flashlight illuminate T.J.’s face, then saw the pistol as it moved into the beam just inches above us.

I mean it, Boy. Let him up right now or your Mama’s gonna have one less plate to set at the table. Now do it.

But for some strange reason it was me, and not T.J. who wound up in the back of the patrol car while the Sheriff and T.J., after calling for an ambulance, re-jacked my car and freed Potted and his mangled arm. By then he was unconscious, passed out from shock. When the ambulance left, I saw the Sheriff walk T.J. back to the Ramcharger and bitch-slap him three or four times across the face before sending him on his way. By the time he came back to the cruiser my shoulder felt like it was on fire.

I’ll call a wrecker to come get your car while I take you to the clinic. Then you and me will have a talk.

Just one thing, please, Sheriff, I asked.

What’s that?

Will you put my guitar in the trunk and lock it?

Surprisingly, he did.

~

He was waiting in a chair beside the gurney when I came to, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup and flipping through the pages of an outdoor magazine. I quickly closed my eyes, feigning sleep, but he’d already seen me blink, so the dance was over.

You feelin’ a bit better there, Mr. Shepherd?

I was still lying on my stomach and my mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with dirty socks. I tried to answer but my lips were cracked and stuck together like old masking tape. I finally pulled them apart enough to speak.

Water?

As if on command, Eufaula appeared at my side with a cup of water and helped me sit up. I sipped the water through a straw and waited for the room to quit spinning.

He’s a toobador, she said to the Sherriff, and left the room.

Near as I can tell, you just about got the record, the sheriff chuckled. Most folks at least make it into the town proper before they start trouble. You weren’t three hundred yards past the City Limits sign when you showed your ass.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheriff. I had a flat tire. I was minding my own business when the Deliverance brothers showed up. I think you need to be talking to them.

Don’t you worry, I intend to, he nodded. I’ll speak to Potted when he wakes up from surgery. Doc says he’ll keep the arm, but he won’t be throwing any more fastballs for a while. Them folks on the Braves farm team ain’t gon’ be none too happy about that.

He’s too friggin’ ugly to be a baseball player, I said, then wished I hadn’t, but not before adding, I hear Atlanta has a Soccer team now- maybe he can re-invent himself.

The Sheriff nodded.

You feel like walking? Might help you wake up and shake off some of that pain killer medicine. We got a little satellite office just down the street from here. I’ll put on a pot of coffee and we can talk a little more. Here, let me help you up.

He slipped his arm under my least-injured shoulder and almost lifted me off the gurney in doing so.

What about the other guy? I asked. Aren’t you going to talk to him?

You mean T.J.? Hell yes, I’m gon’ talk to him. I’ll see him at the house later tonight.

So, you know this guy and you know where he lives? I was still groggy and weaved a little as I tried to get my balance.

I reckon I ought to, he laughed. He’s my stepson.

How very wonderful, I thought, as he took me by the arm and led me out of the room.

The Sheriff’s office was a beige-painted cement block building located a couple of blocks from the clinic. We eased down the sidewalk as the chilly mountain air filled my lungs like pure oxygen, clearing my head and bringing the stinging pain in my shoulder back to life. Brightly colored banners were strung across the street, and decorative signs posted on the streetlamps announced the Dahlonega Autumn Fest which, according to the dates, I’d missed by a couple of days.

It was a quaint, small tourist town, it’s claim to fame being the launching pad of the all-too-brief Georgia Gold Rush in the late 1820’s, which spread into the mountains and lasted about ten years before drying up. Tourist traps offered kids the chance to pan for gold, and several boutique wineries appeared to be doing a healthy business alongside the chic restaurants, distilleries and souvenir shoppes- the sort of places I try to avoid at all costs.

Once inside, we sat down on opposite sides of a large, carved wooden desk and waited for the coffee to brew. He offered me a cigarette but I refused, figuring, whatever the trouble, three weeks clean wasn’t a bad start and certainly not worth throwing away over a couple of inbreds. He fumbled in a desk file drawer and came up with several sheets of paper which he placed across the desk in front of me before getting up to pour our coffee.

What’s this? I asked him, trying to hide my excitement at the chance to fill out more forms.

I’m assuming you want to file charges, he said over his shoulder. You take cream? We don’t have sugar, sorry.

Black’s fine, I said, pushing the papers back toward his side of the desk. There’s no need for this, I added, rotating my head on my neck until an icy pain cut through my shoulder blade. Tell Potted to take care of my clinic bill and we’ll call it even.

Sounds reasonable, he nodded, and put the papers back in the drawer.

But reason had nothing to do with it. The fact was, I’d gotten used to coming and going as I pleased these past few years, and pressing charges meant I’d have a future court date, probably a couple or three months down the road in the dead of winter, and I’d have to come back and testify, only to have the judge (most likely one of Potted’s relatives) level a token fine or dismiss the case entirely, or in a fit of perverse justice, put me in jail, the latter being somewhat unlikely but still quite possible in this part of the world.

So, what brings you to our fine mountain town, Jake Shepherd?

Just taking a little Fall color tour, Sheriff. Someone told me once there’s no place like the North Georgia Mountains in the Fall.

Well, you’re right about that, he nodded. You just missed our annual celebration, everything from sidewalk sales to Bar-B-Que cook-offs and all sorts of good Appalachian music. You might’ve put that guitar to good use.

I wondered if his wide, Andy Griffith smile was genuine or practiced.

Maybe next year, I said.

Maybe so. You got any relatives around these parts?

Not that I know of.

Any friends?

One, I admitted, but I haven’t seen her in years.

And who might that be?

I knew he was just trying to establish a connection between me and his fair domain, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up her name just yet.

You from around here, Sheriff?

Born and raised, he nodded. Now, about that friend…

He wasn’t going to let it go.

She used to be a teacher somewhere around here. Charlotte Eskew, perhaps you know her?

I couldn’t tell if it was my hazy vision or the fluorescent light hanging low over his desk, but his face seemed to go instantly pale and solemn, as if the color and false smile had been wiped away with the wave of a hand. He stared at me for a long minute, his cigarette burning untouched in the ashtray, until I finally gave in to the silence.

You know her, Sheriff?

How well do you know Ms. Eskew, he asked, without answering.

"Like I said, she’s an old friend. I knew her family in Ellijay many years ago, and I knew her late sister.

Immediately, I regretted bringing Cassidy into the conversation.

He shifted wearily in his seat and reached over and put out the cigarette before it burned down to the filter.

Charlotte Eskew disappeared several years ago. Left her classes, left her apartment, left her clothes, just vanished in the middle of the night without a trace and without telling a soul and, to my knowledge, hasn’t been seen since. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Mr. Shepherd?

No, Sir, I lied. "Why would you think that?

He leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and his fingers laced together beneath his chin.

Because you don’t look or seem the least bit surprised.

Again, his eyes locked in on me, so I returned the stare, one fool looking at another to see who blinks first.

But it never got that far. The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up before the second ring.

Sheriff’s office. He listened for a moment before saying Thanks and hanging up.

That was the garage. Your car is ready. C’mon, I’ll give you a ride.

How far away is the garage? I asked, not overly interested in another cruiser ride.

About six blocks down on the left, he said, settling back into his chair.

"If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll walk. After driving all day, I need to