Deputy Dickle

I was seven when we moved to Sandersville. That was back in 1977. My family, Dad, Mom, my little brother Josh, and me, moved to a double wide in what they called Printer’s Alley. It was next to the newspaper, The Saundersville Gazette on Main Street. The alley was a gravel drive, nowadays, I’d call it a cul de sac, that ran back a little ways and ended in a turnaround in front of a stand of pine trees. Our double wide sat on one side of the alley. A two story brick home was on the other side of the alley. An elderly couple named the Battens lived over there.

We had only lived there a few weeks when I found the playground. I was exploring around the pine trees when I discovered that, between the pines and First Street, there a was a fenced in area with a swing set, a seesaw, a merry go round, and a slide. Later on, Gandy Batten, our neighbor told Dad that Mr. Bostic, the former publisher of the paper had the playground erected for the children of the people who worked at the paper. After Bostic had passed away, the city had taken over the upkeep of the property.

I would visit the playground several times a week, on Saturdays or after school. Josh was only two years old and I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t much of a big brother. I’d go back there just to escape from him, most of the time. I almost always had the place to myself.

I can still hear Mom saying, “Danny Boy, why don’t you take Joshie with you?” I would reply that he was too little and that he would probably get hurt on the playground equipment. Mom, bless her heart, mistook my self centeredness for brotherly concern.

Labor Day was a day off from school. I watched the Jerry Lewis Telethon for a few hours, but before long, I was back at the playground, swinging away on my favorite swing. It was probably getting close to noon, almost time for Mom to holler “LUNCHTIME!” when it happened…

A man came bursting through the pines. After he hopped the fence, he stopped and looked around, seeming surprised to see the playground. He was tall and lanky, with long sandy colored hair and a patchy beard, but no moustache. He was wearing a T Shirt with Jimi Hendrix on the front of it. I remember the shirt because I had seen an old picture of Uncle Charly wearing one just like it in a photo album once. He was wearing faded jeans and a pair of buckskin boots with fringes on them. He had a blue bandanna tied around his head, sort of like a sweatband. Once, I had seen a show about hippies on TV and most of them looked like him. He ran over to the other side of the playground. He started to hop the fence, but before he did, he turned and looked at me. He held his finger up to his lips.

“Don’t tell nobody you saw me, ok?” he said. I nodded. Something about the man scared me.

He jumped over the fence. Only then did I notice the sheath on his belt. There was a knife, it could have been a buck knife, in the sheath. I never saw him again.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute later when I saw the second man. I heard him before I saw him. He came through the pines and he was breathing heavily. Instead of jumping the fence, he unlatched the gate and walked through.

He was older. He was also tall and slender. His hair was cut short and was the color of salt and pepper. He was sweating profusely. He wore a white T-shirt, tan slacks, and dress shoes. He had a handgun in his left hand. He bent over double and took two deep breaths. He turned and stared at me for a second before he spoke.

“Boy, you see a long haired hippie lookin’ guy come through her like he had just seen a ghost?” The man’s voice was raspy and low. You wouldn’t hear that accent from anybody who wasn’t from Eastern Kentucky.

Looking back, I actually kept my word to the hippie- I didn’t tell anybody anything. I merely nodded and pointed in the direction that he had ran away.

“Goin’ towards First Street, was he?”

I nodded again.

“You done the right thing, son. I thank ya!”

With that, he ran after the man, gun in hand, as I gaped after him. It was the first time that I ever saw a handgun in real life. Of course, I had seen them on TV. I would see the man again, but not in person.

Seconds later, Mom yelled that it was lunchtime.

Dad had come home for lunch from his job on the State Highway Department. As we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, I told him about my adventure. His face was grim.

“Danny Boy, if you ever see them two again, don’t you say nothin’ to ‘em and don’t have nothin’ to with them! There is crazy people around here! It ain’t like it was in Asher County, where almost everybody was church goers! There is a bad element here in this town! A young boy has to be careful! You see somethin’ such as that again, you come straight to me or your Mom! You understand me?”

“Yessir!” I replied, with a mouthful of grilled cheese.

For the rest of the week, I didn’t think much about the incident. On Saturday morning, Dad asked if I wanted to go to the courthouse with him to get new tags for his truck. When I was a kid, I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Dad, so I went along.

Dad’s business was at the County Clerk’s office on the second floor of the courthouse, which was down the hall from the Sheriff’s office. On the wall between the two offices, there were several framed photos. While Dad went to the Clerk’s office, I looked at the pictures. That's when I saw him again.

It was the second man that I had seen, the man with the gun. There was a picture of him. In the picture, he was dressed in a uniform with a badge and holstered gun. He seemed to be standing at attention, like a soldier. On the bottom of the photograph, it was written: “Deputy Troy Dickle, 1971”. Without a doubt, it was the man I had seen at the playground on Labor Day.

I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and saw my father, new tags in his hand. I pointed my trembling finger at the picture.

“That’s him, Dad!” I said. “This is the man that I saw the other day...the one with the gun.”

Dad looked at the displayed pictures. He frowned and shook his head.

“Tell ya what, son, let’s go ask the Sheriff about this feller,” Dad said.

We walked to the Sherrif’s office. A tall, thin grey haired lady dressed in a uniform was behind the counter.

“What can I help you with?” she asked.

“Sheriff around today?” Dad asked.

The lady smiled and nodded. She walked through a door back there. I heard voices talking in muffled tones. A few minutes later, a tall, broad shouldered man with red hair and mustache, also dressed in a uniform, emerged from the room. When he saw my father, he smiled, came around the counter, and shook Dad’s hand.

“Duffy, how are you, buddy?” the sheriff asked. I honestly had no idea that Dad knew the sheriff.

“Hi, Sheriff,” Dad responded. “This is my oldest son, Danny. Danny Boy, this is Sheriff Nelson Boyd.”

The sheriff shook my hand like I was old enough to vote.

“What do you men need this morning?” he asked. I like the fact that he seemed to consider me a man.

“My boy thinks he recognized a man in one of the pictures on the wall out there. What can you tell us about Deputy Dickle?”

The lawman seemed confused.

“Duffy, how long has your family lived here?”

“We got here back in May.”

“How old is Danny here?”

“He turned seven right before we got here.”

The sheriff sighed and shook his head.

“Don’t see no way he could recognize Troy Dickle,” Sheriff Boyd told him.

“How’s that?” Dad asked.

“Well, sir, Troy was killed back in 1971, not long after I hired on as a deputy. Danny, you would have been a little baby at the time.”

I felt cold, like somebody had turned the air conditioner on in the wintertime.

“Can you tell me how he died?” I asked. I’m not sure how I got the words out.

“You sure I should tell him, Duffy?” the sheriff asked Dad. “Danny here looks like he just seen a ghost!”

“The boy is mature for his age, Nelson,” Dad told him. “I reckon he’ll be alright.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t so sure.

Sheriff Boyd leaned back against the counter.

“There was a no account sort of guy used to live around here named Jeb Higgs. Higgs was into sellin’ dope, bootleggin’, you name it-sort of a long haired hippie type. He was livin’ with his mother in her house and had moved his girlfriend in, too. Well, for reasons nobody was sure of, he had an argument with his mother and girlfriend. I heard that maybe they both got religion and wanted him to quit the drugs or somethin’. Anyhow, the mother and the girlfriend were found stabbed to death.”

“Somehow, Troy Dickle tracked Higgs down and was chasin’ him here in town. Dickle wasn’t even on duty at the time. Dickle chased him to an empty storefront over on First Street and went in after him. When Troy got inside of the building, Higgs was layin’ for him and stabbed him in the back several times. The deputy died later that night. ‘Bout a year later, Sheriff Brady, who had this here job before I did, caught up to Higgs and shot him dead. So, that’s the story. Danny, you surely wouldn’t recognize Troy Dickle.”

“Jeb Higgs?” I asked. “Was he long haired?”

Sheriff Boyd nodded.

“Tall and skinny?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Was he trying to grow a beard, but didn’t have a mustache?”

“That’s right,” Boyd said. “How can you know all of that?”

I told Sheriff Boyd the story of the incident on Labor Day. Now, it was his turn to look like he had seen a ghost!

“Men,” he said to us, “I don’t know..I just don’t know!”

That was forty seven years ago. I don’t know either!