Gravel Roads & Shallow Graves

By Dixie Lee Evatt

Sheriff Ray Crawford Osborn narrates the story of a time he decided to take a vacation to East Texas to escape the irritating politics in Lantz, his tiny hometown that isn't far from the state capitol, Austin. It doesn't turn out well. Osborn and his wife have barely unpacked when the sheriff is bamboozled b

• Language: English
• Publisher: September Pages
• Release date: Aug 13, 2025
• ISBN: 9780999223369

Dixie Lee Evatt

A former political writer for the Austin American-Statesman, Dixie later taught writing at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. While there she published a book, along with colleagues, on the communication practices of small organizations, Thinking Big. Staying Small. When she teamed up with Sue Cleveland to write fiction, they sold a screenplay treatment to a Hollywood producer. Although the movie was never made, they used the seed money to found ThirtyNineStars, their publishing company. They also produced a second screenplay based on the life of a Waco schoolteacher who was imprisoned in World War I because of his German heritage and his work with early radio broadcasting. That screenplay, Wireless, was a finalist for the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project in 2003.

Book preview

Who’s Who

Lantz

Ray Crawford Osborne – Narrator, armchair philosopher, and Sheriff of Arrowhead County, in the pocket-sized City of Lantz, Central Texas.

Sweet Wife (S.W.) – Ray’s pet name for his spouse. Her maiden name is Lydia Marie Martin but no one calls her that.

Katie Sue Brooks – Ray’s right hand at the Arrowhead Sheriff’s Office in Lantz. Master of the non sequitur.

Deputy Johnnie Lake – Ray’s unreliable part-time deputy.

Miss Susie McCombs – Ten-year-old precocious towhead who likes to spend time listening to Sheriff Ray’s stories.

Lilly Tackett McCombs – Blake’s daughter and mother to Susie.

Ed McCombs – Lilly’s husband and father to Susie.

Sara Evans Tackett – Blake’s second wife and Lilly’s mother-in-law. She runs the Lantz General Store.

Bobby Seville and Blake Tackett – Ray’s lifelong friends who he can always count on.

Uncle Doug Hawley – Retired bank examiner and Katie Sue’s uncle.

New Ford/Texarkana

Claire Forrester – S.W.’s cousin and hostess when Ray and S.W. go to New Ford to pay a visit. Maiden name is Claire Marie Martin (both she and S.W. were named after their maternal grandmother, Marie.)

Jackson (Jack) Forrester – Claire’s husband and President of New Ford State Bank. He has a sticky finger in everything.

Louis (Big Lou) Forrester – Jack’s ne’er-do-well father who is found dead in a flop house in Texarkana. Known on the streets as Tight.

Emma Louise Forrester – One of Jack’s elderly twin sisters. An old maid and malaprop who tends to use and misuse big words. Known to members of her family as Little Lou.

Eleanor Lee Forrester – Emma’s down-to-earth twin sister who looks after everyone. It is said that she was born with both feet flat on the floor.

Master Harker Garrison Montigue – The twins’ spoiled mutt.

Matt Quinn – Ray’s buddy from his Army days. Chief of Police in New Ford, a tiny Texas town near the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana border.

Olivia Quinn – Matt’s wife from upstate New York.

Millie Hamilton Fisher – Right hand to Jack at the New Ford State Bank. She knows everything about everyone in town.

Candy Starr – Homeless woman who knew Big Lou on the street. Real name is Teresa Ann Porter.

Tat – Homeless man covered in tattoos. He also knew Big Lou.

Virgil Teller – Security guard at the decrepit and unoccupied Hotel Grim in Texarkana.

Sgt. Paul Carter – Young cop who was first on the scene.

Chief Allen Spencer – Frazzled Chief of Texarkana City Police.

Nancy Frost– Bank examiner from Texas Department of Banking.

Jeffery Gibson – Reporter with KSLA News, Channel 12.

Brian Cooper – Loan officer at New Ford State Bank who attended AA meetings with Big Lou.

Leonard Lucky Martin – Claire’s super rich father who now lives in Midland. S.W.’s uncle.

Papa Josh Martin – Lucky Martin’s father and grandfather to Claire and S.W.

Chapter 1

I happened to be at a commencement address down at the University of Texas, not far from where I call home, when the speaker said something that’s been rattling around between my ears. He said, No good story is about things going right. If that’s true, then my story, about the time I got in the way of a bullet, is a story to be told.

You need to know that before I called it quits and retired from sheriffing, I was the only law they had in Lantz, Texas, a misbegotten wide place in the road not far from the so-called Music Capital of the World. That being Austin.

Now that I’m making do on a peace officer’s pension, my life is about as exciting as a stale piece of toast. I tend to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, drink more beer than is good for me, worry about what ails my nether regions, and, when I can find someone who will listen, drift into storytelling about how I once earned my salt.

Most days the only person with the patience to sit still long enough for one of my tales is towheaded little Miss Susie McCombs, the youngest child of Lantz’s certifiable golden couple, Lilly and Ed McCombs. Miss Susie is blessed with her Mama’s haunting eyes and her Daddy’s quiet disposition. For a ten-year-old she’s a real pistol if ever I did know one.

For instance, the other day I’d just come back from one more in a long succession of funerals and made an off-handed comment about how too many of my lifelong friends were up and dying on me. Won’t be long before everyone from back-in-the-day will be gone.

Miss Susie took a minute to think. Then her face lit up and she clapped her hands.

I know what you need to do, Sheriff Ray, she said with a mischievous grin as wide as the Colorado River. You need to get younger friends. Susie was the one who asked me to write down this story. It’s impossible to say no to Miss Susie.

My story begins innocently enough when I decided to take a bit of time off from one of the most underpaid and over-supervised jobs in the whole Lone Star State. That being Sheriff of Arrowhead County. The last time I checked, Arrowhead County was still considered rural even though it bumps up against parts of Texas that are coming apart at the seams to make room for California transplants. That’s why those of us who live in Lantz, the county seat and the only incorporated area of any size in all of Arrowhead County, get our fair share of urban nonsense, especially from self-important politicians who settle here for the quiet and then spend a good piece of their time making noise.

That’s why, if you ask me, too little of my job as Sheriff was spent actually enforcing the law and too much was spent wrangling with part-time county commissioners and full-time pains in my backside who had the final say-so over my budget. Following one such bellyaching meeting, I was at my own kitchen table enjoying a chicken fry with a side of homemade pickled watermelon, when my Sweet Wife tells me that she wants to go up to East Texas to spend some time with her cousin, Claire Forrester. The Forrester’s home was in a small town called New Ford not far from the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana border.

My S.W., may she rest in peace, could make it seem like she was asking you when she was, in fact, telling you. Years of marriage taught me that she could make the right things happen when they needed to if I just had the good sense to get out of her way. S.W. had spent the better part of our married life trying to improve on the sorry hand that she’d been dealt when she agreed to marry me.

We met while I was still doing weekends in the Army Reserve military police at Fort Hood. Back then Fort Hood was famous for three things: as the site for some of our country’s stockpile of nukes; as a stopping off place for the conscript Elvis Presley during his tour of duty; and as an anti-war hotbed around the time of the Vietnam War.

I’d gone with a buddy to kill some time at the Oleo Strut coffeehouse in nearby Killeen. Oleo Strut seemed a peculiar name for a coffee spot but I’m told that’s what they call the shock absorbers on small planes so I suppose it makes sense. The Strut was a gathering place for off-duty GIs and anti-war types alike.

I first laid eyes on Sweet Wife as she slowly made her way down the stairs while laughing with a girlfriend walking behind her. Her charcoal black hair formed a halo held in place with a plentiful dose of Aqua Net. Her tight jeans rode up in places that left you wondering and her earrings were dangling almost to her collarbone. When she paused a minute to gaze around the room, I was dead certain that she’d locked in on me. Later she told everyone it was my uniform that did it for her. She raised her left eyebrow before she looked back over her shoulder.

My buddy nodded toward her and whispered in my ear, Now, there’s trouble.

Don’t I just know it, I heard myself stammer as I stood up and moved to the foot of the stairs so that she could bump into me.

A cup of coffee later I’d learned that she was working at the local Winn’s five-and-dime store and taking business classes at the junior college in Temple with an eye to one day opening her own place. Now me, I’ve always been just a working stiff looking for a steady paycheck. S.W. was that rare breed of human determined to be her own boss. By our second cup of coffee I knew she was the one for me.

I can see now that I’ve taken to rambling and talking about things not directly part of my story about our ill-conceived trip to East Texas. S.W., if she were still alive, would be giving me the what-for. She tried but never did break my habit of meandering rather than sticking to the point.

I’ll admit that when she suggested that I put a few hundred miles between myself and the pesky local politicians, it was an easy sell. To my mind it’s possible to draw a direct line from me at that kitchen table eating lunch to me, curled up at the end of a gravel road, my nose buried in East Texas dirt. Shot. Left for dead. But not dead. All because I let myself get roped into helping an old Army buddy find a killer.

Suppose that’s why that UT commencement speaker’s comment about what makes a story stuck with me. My story is a story because it’s about things that didn’t go right.

Chapter 2

The trip from Lantz to New Ford in Bowie County takes about five hours if you’re willing to risk your sanity by traveling a good part of the way on Interstate 35, the god-awful highway that runs all the way from the Mexican border to the edge waters of Lake Superior. Passing through Texas it traces what you might call the spine of the Lone Star State, that being the Balcones Fault Line. Balcones Fault is responsible for some of the state’s more interesting ancient caves and serves as the geographic demarcation that largely separates the hills to the west from the red dirt and piney woods to the east.

The morning of our trip to East Texas we got a late start. My fault. I probably should mention here that S.W. was a practiced planner. She’d make a list and stick to it. Me, I’m more of a seat-of-the-pants guy. What would get her riled up at me most often was when we’d arrive on time after she’d worked her list all day and I’d make some comment like, See, you worry too much. Just look how great things turned out. Her response to my stupidity was educational to say the least. Fortunately, after a few such missteps I learned to keep such ramblings to myself.

What with our late start and S.W.’s plan to take the scenic route for stop-offs in Corsicana and Tyler, we were on the road for the better part of the day. I didn’t mind since I wasn’t looking forward to spending more time in the company of Cousin Claire than was absolutely required by good manners. Claire was a year-and-a-half younger than S.W. and had a lovely, long neck, two points that she liked to make whether it suited the conversation or not.

I likely got on the wrong side of appreciating Cousin Claire’s charms a few years back when S.W. accompanied me to Austin. She said it reminded her of a trip that she made to visit the Capitol City when she and Claire were still in junior high. This was long before Claire’s father and S.W.’s uncle, Leonard Lucky Martin, struck it mega-rich in the West Texas oil patch. He planned to meet up with some political acquaintances and had invited his daughter, niece and father, Papa Josh Martin, to tag along. His motive for including Papa Josh was in part to have someone to keep an eye on the young women so he could excuse himself to talk business.

Papa Josh ushered his granddaughters across the Capitol’s expansive green lawn scattered with monuments, through the tall entrance doors with carved hinges, to the high ceiling halls of the historic old building. He pointed out paintings of significant battles in Texas history and the Elisabet Ney statues of Texas’ founding fathers—Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. Typical of young women their age, Claire and S.W. were losing interest so Papa Josh stopped in the rotunda where pictures of past governors hang. He made sure to point out the portrait of Miriam Ma Ferguson, at that time the only woman to hold the office. It wouldn’t be until much later that the portrait of Ann Richards would join her.

Claire and S.W. didn’t seem impressed by the sour-faced and rosy cheeked old-fashioned woman in the picture, preferring to tilt their heads back while staring up at the rotunda and twirling around, arms outstretched, until they felt dizzy. When their head cleared, they realized that they’d lost sight of Papa Josh. After a minute or two of panic they saw him at the end of the hall, deep in conversation with a woman running a large electrical buffer over the terrazzo mosaic floors. When they caught up with him, Papa Josh explained that he was asking her what kind of wax she used on the floors. You see, Papa Josh was the janitor in the New Ford public schools, which meant he had a professional interest in such matters.

How could you embarrass me that way, engaging in polite conversation with a cleaning woman, Claire scolded her grandfather before flouncing off. S.W. said she could see the way the words stung the old man so she gave him a hug and whispered in his ear. I’m so proud that you are my gramps. In a nutshell that story told me all I needed to know about Claire’s better-than-you view of the world, even at that young age.

Recalling the story, I realized that I was already steeling myself for what was to come since we would be staying over at Claire’s fancy new house about fourteen miles from town. It sat in the middle of about ninety-five unspoiled acres of forest and pasture. S.W. reminded me that the Forrester place also had one of the few private swimming pools in Bowie County. I appreciated the invite but frankly I was less interested in taking a dip than in waking up to the smell of pine trees.

I was glad we made it to their door before sundown since unfamiliar back roads are not my long suit. After the usual hugs all around and chatter about our trip, Claire said she’d prepared a simple supper and invited us to find a seat on the outdoor patio while she laid out the meal. Of course, S.W. went with Claire to the kitchen, leaving me alone with Jack. Unlike Claire, her husband, Jack Forrester, wasn’t much of talker. Professionally, Jack was President of the New Ford State Bank but I always suspected that he had his fingers in most of the money-making enterprises in town.

After a few misstarts about weather, football, and such I decided to appreciate the scenery rather than risk spoiling the mood, whatever it was. I figured that Jack used up all of his small talk on customers at the bank so there was none left at the end of the day. Enjoying the quiet, in the distance I could hear the satisfying sound of a farmer calling his cattle. Sook. Sook, he sang in a near falsetto. Sooo-oook, brought a small herd loping from the pasture to feed.

Nothing better than life in the country, I said, recalling my childhood on my parents’ place.

You can have it, Jack snapped.

I would have answered but at that point Claire emerged from the house with a large wooden bowl full of green salad, which she plopped in front of Jack with a look that carried a message. After she and S.W. returned to the kitchen to fetch more food, Jack gave the salad a look of disgust. She can make me eat rabbit food, but she can’t make me like it, he grumbled, as much to himself as to me.

That’s why I load mine up with peppers and onions. Camouflages the taste of lettuce, I offered.

Never thought lettuce had any taste.

Got a point there.

I douse it good with Ranch dressing.

Doesn’t that kinda kill the reason for eating salad in the first place?

Like I said, I’ll eat it but I don’t have to like it.

They say it’s good for you.

So they say.

Adds years to your life.

I figure those are years added on to the end anyway. Who needs more ‘Depends years’?

I see your point. Who needs ‘em?

The women were back with a pitcher of sweet tea, creamed potatoes, grilled chicken, and the pecan cake S.W. had made a point of picking up at the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana.

Looks like a feast, Claire, I said, but Jack kept his mouth shut, reaching for the salad bowl with a distinct sigh.

We were well into the meal when Claire asked if we had anything in particular we wanted to do while in town.

Before I could reply, Jack offered his two cents.

That reminds me, Ray, do you remember Matt Quinn?

Sure do. Matt and I suffered through Army basic training together and a couple of years in the Army Reserve after that.

He was in the bank the other day. I told him you were coming.

That takes me back. What’s he up to these days?

Runs the city police in New Ford. Wants to see you.

You don’t say.

Who knew that between the sweet tea and pecan cake, a small thing would end in big trouble.

Chapter 3

I woke up the next morning to a tentative tap on the door. The bedside clock told me that it wasn’t quite seven. I’d been in the middle of a dream about birds attacking and eating other birds. Or did some wild dogs attack a kitten? I can’t rightly recall the details but I remember blood and squawking and fear. My dreams – the ones I remembered anyway – used to be pedestrian and dull. As I got older my dreams seemed to be more active or even violent and full of agitation. S.W. said it was because I’d seen bad things and they haunted me. I’m not sure but I don’t like it.

What the hell, I mumbled to myself when there was another, slightly louder, tap on the door. I made sure both S.W. and I were covered for modesty’s sake and cleared my throat. Come in.

It was Claire, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and letting me know there was a phone call for me in the kitchen.

After she stepped back into the hall, I got up, pulled on my trousers and tee and made my way to the kitchen. Claire had started making coffee. She motioned to my cell phone where I’d left it charging on the counter.

Katie Sue Brooks from my office back in Lantz was on the other end.

Good morning, Sheriff Ray, she said with a bit too much cheer in her voice for my