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91 15 When Lance Smith left the cemetery after Pearl’s service, he drove north out of Liberty past Wilson’s sawmill toward Billy Goat Hill Road. The undeveloped countryside on both sides of the gravel road displayed an abundance of oak, sycamore, and pine trees, billowing over dense underbrush . He maneuvered the police car down the steep winding hill for which the road was named. When the road flattened out, it continued hugging the base of the ridge and ran through a strip of bottomland. He stopped at the mailbox marked “Mobley.” A worn path led from the road through tall grass to a dilapidated trailer house sitting among a grove of red oaks. This was his third trip to this point in the road this week. “Hot dog,” he said. “Third time’s a charm, Smith.” He could see John Mobley’s Harley sitting at the end of the mobile home, covered with a worn tarp. Lance nosed his car off the road onto the path and made his way to the trailer. He parked behind the motorcycle, lowered the driver-side window , and sat in his car for a few moments. A recent deer kill hung from the lowest branch of a mulberry tree at the corner of the house. It was covered in flies, and stank. Lance honked the car horn and waited for John Mobley to come to the door. Sure enough, after several minutes John opened the door and stood in the entryway. His shaved head looked as if he’d been standing bare-headed in the Oklahoma sun too long. With beer can in hand, John raised his chin and spat into the yard. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and teetered for a moment before he took a step and tumbled to the ground. “And you white boys thought you could conquer us Indians with firewater ,” Lance mumbled as he rolled out of the car and walked over to the 92 fallen drunk. “Take a lesson, my friend,” he said to himself. “Who is standing , and who is eating dirt?” John pushed himself up with his arms, looked at Lance, and belched. “You’re going to have to get a hold of yourself. Getting drunk like this isn’t going to do anybody any good, John. Get up.” Lance took hold of John’s arm, pulled him to his feet, and helped him back into the mobile home. John sank onto the couch and reached for a beer bottle sitting on the windowsill. An assortment of bottles and cans lay strewn across the table, countertop, and floor. The sink overflowed with dirty dishes and Lance could smell spoiled food. The place look as if it hadn’t been cleaned since the old contraption had been dragged across the pasture and had its wheels removed. From the look of things, that had been a while. “You got any coffee around here?” asked Lance. John didn’t respond, so Lance ventured a peek into the cabinets and found a jar of instant coffee. He used the cleanest dirty pan he could find to heat some water. By then John had come out of his stupor enough to realize something wasn’t quite right. “Hey man, what are you doing in my house, anyway?” His slurred speech indicated he had a long way to go before he would be able to carry on any kind of a conversation. Lance poured the boiling water into a mug and stirred in the freezedried granules to make a quick cup of brew. Then he set it on the kitchen table. “Come on, John. Let’s see if we can sober you up so I can talk to you.” Four hours later, Lance had gone through all of the instant coffee available and then resorted to plain water. John stood at the front door and relieved himself into the front yard so many times that Lance thought surely most of the alcohol had been flushed out. After convincing John it was a good idea, Lance helped him into the small shower, turned on the cold water, and listened to him whine. After a while, John emerged from the back bedroom in a pair of dry jeans and a muscle shirt. A U.S. Marines emblem tattooed on the top of his right shoulder caught Lance’s eye. “Say,” said Lance. “You a Jarhead, too?” John rubbed his hand over the indelible image—Semper Fidelis, the...
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