RED CLAY COUNTRY by J. Broussard
Highway 127 cuts right through the middle of red-clay country. There must have been at least five companies scattered around there at one time, with a dozen kilns turning out water-struck bricks by the millions. Then the fad burnt out sometime in the early forties and the countryside never recovered. Red clay’s fine for brick making, but not much good for anything else. It’s poor for pasture and poorer yet for any kind of crops.
The county’s much too far from any big city for the average commuter. And it doesn’t have much to offer to second-home buyers, except for a handful of multimillionaires who like the solitude and can afford to helicopter in whenever they want to get away from whatever it is they want to stop doing. Other than those few isolated mansions, the whole area is just one mass of abandoned clay pits and red muck, especially like now when the spring rains keep pelting down.
The first few drops of the next storm were splattering across the windshield, when I spotted a car on my side of the road with its hood up and a guy staring forlornly at the machine’s innards. I pulled over next to him, turned down the radio, punched the button to roll the passenger-side window down and hollered. “Need a ride?” 127 doesn’t have much traffic on it. I figured he’d probably be a long time waiting for someone else to offer him a lift. 
He was a little guy, with glasses and an apologetic expression, probably an accountant or some such thing. My guess was that he knew about as much about cars as I do about double-entry bookkeeping. Well, I wasn’t about to get out to try any repair work, but I did offer to take him the five miles into Juniper Springs, in the direction I was heading toward, anyway. He looked kinda reluctantly at the motor, shook his head and dropped the lid before climbing aboard. 
As I expected, he didn’t have a clue about why his car wouldn’t run, except to say that he turned the key and nothing happened. Well, with luck, he might get a mechanic to come out and give him a jumpstart.
I hadn’t gone more than a half-mile down the road, with the raindrops getting bigger and bigger and promising a regular drencher, when I spotted a hitchhiker with his thumb out. I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but it would have been hard to pass up a dog in that kind of weather, and daylight was fading fast. Maybe the main reason I stopped was because of my passenger. It’s easy enough to pass up a hitchhiker when you’re alone. You can just kind of avoid eye contact, and drive right by. But with a stranger along, and with plenty of room, I’d have felt kind of guilty to let that guy stand out there in the pouring rain. But about then I was beginning to wonder if we wouldn’t arrive in Juniper Springs looking like those circus cars that drive out into the middle of the ring and empty out twelve clowns and a donkey.
My new passenger didn’t much look like a circus clown, though. He was a big guy. Maybe six-four or more, and I could feel the car settle when he climbed aboard. He mumbled some sort of thanks as he got his damp self into the back seat, and he didn’t say much else. “Just as well,” I thought, since I wasn’t in much of a talking mood, myself. And while I wondered what he was doing alone and hitchhiking on this lonely stretch of highway, I wasn’t about to ask. So I turned up the bluegrass station. That was when the local news announcer cut in.
“The police are looking for a suspect in the murder of Charles Colefield and his wife. The crime occurred less than a half-hour ago and, according to Sheriff Matthison, it looks like a burglary that went badly wrong. The Colefields had flown in last night, and apparently the burglar was unaware of their presence. Mr. Colefield died instantly from a gunshot wound to the head. Mrs. Colefield was unconscious when the police arrived at the scene and died on the way to the hospital. Some children who were playing nearby heard the shots and reported seeing someone running across the neighboring pasture soon afterwards. Police are now combing the area and are asking everyone to report any strangers they might see in the vicinity. We’ll have more news alerts on this terrible crime as the reports come in.”
My front seat passenger looked horrified. “Did those people live anywhere near here?” He asked. I shrugged and looked up at the rear view mirror. My back seat passengers’ dark and unflinching eyes stared back at me. Mr. Milquetoast kept on chattering nervously. “From what I’ve seen of these castles along here, it’s a wonder the police even investigated. It’s not exactly a crowded neighborhood. If it hadn’t been for those kids, the bodies mightn’t been found for a day?” 
I had to agree with him. It would have been unlikely for anyone to discover the crime for days. He kept on chattering, and I generally just nodded, keeping my eyes on the big guy in the back seat.
After having heard that newscast, I wasn’t a bit surprised at the roadblock just this side of Juniper Springs. What did surprise me is what happened after they told us to get out of the car. Later, the deputy who arrested me said he spotted me right away, and he told me why. 
“You were the only one with red clay all over your shoes.”