Sycamore Row

the offices of the Chancery Court clerk and smiled at Sara. “Where you been?” she snapped, waiting.
    “It’s not even five o’clock,” he shot back as he zipped open his briefcase.
    “Yes, but we stop working at four, on Tuesdays anyway. Five on Monday. Three on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday you’re lucky if we show up.” The woman talked nonstop and had a quick tongue. After twenty years of daily give-and-take with a bunch of lawyers, she had honed her retorts and one-liners.
    Jake laid the papers on the counter in front of her and said, “I need to open the estate of Mr. Seth Hubbard.”
    “Testate or intestate?”
    “Oh, he has a will, more than one. That’s where the fun’s coming from.”
    “Didn’t he just kill himself?”
    “You know damned well he just killed himself because you work in this courthouse where rumors fly and gossip is created and nothing is secret.”
    “I’m offended,” she said, stamping the petition. She flipped a few pages, smiled and said, “Ooh, nice, a handwritten will. A boon to the legal profession.”
    “You got it.”
    “Who gets everything?”
    “My lips are sealed.” As Jake bantered he pulled more papers from his briefcase.
    “Well, Mr. Brigance, your lips may be sealed but this court file certainly is not.” She stamped something dramatically and said, “It is now officially a public record, under the laws of this great state, unless of course you have a written motion requesting the file to be sealed.”
    “I do not.”
    “Oh good, so we can talk about all the dirt. There is some dirt, right?”
    “Don’t know. I’m still digging. Look, Sara, I need a favor.”
    “Anything you want, baby.”
    “This is a race to the courthouse and I’ve just won. Sometime soon, perhaps tomorrow, I expect two or three pompous-ass lawyers in dark suits to show up and hand over their version of a petition to open Mr. Hubbard’s estate. More than likely they’ll be from Tupelo. There’s another will, you see.”
    “I love it.”
    “So do I. Anyway, you’re not required to inform them they’ve just finished second, but it might be fun to watch their faces. Whatta you think?”
    “I can’t wait.”
    “Great, show them the court file, have a laugh, then call me with a full report. But please, bury this until tomorrow.”
    “You got it, Jake. This could be fun.”
    “Well, if things unfold the way I expect, this case could keep us amused for the next year.”
    As soon as he left, Sara read the handwritten will that was attached to Jake’s petition. She summoned the other clerks to her desk where they read it too. A black lady from Clanton said she’d never heard of Lettie Lang. No one seemed to know Seth Hubbard. They chatted awhile, but it was now after 5:00 p.m. and everyone had places to go. The file was put in its place, the lights were turned off, and the clerks quickly forgot things related to work. They would resume their speculation the following day and get to the bottom of the matter.
    Had the petition and will been filed during the morning, the entire courthouse would have been buzzing by noon; the entire town by late afternoon. Now, though, the gossip would have to wait, but not for long.

    Simeon Lang was drinking but he was not drunk, a distinction that was often blurred but generally understood by his family. Drinkingmeant behavior that was somewhat controlled and not threatening. It meant he was slowly sipping beer with glassy eyes and a thick tongue. Being drunk meant harrowing times with people running from the house and hiding in the trees. And, to his credit, he was often cold sober, the preferred state, even for Simeon.
    After three weeks on the road, hauling loads of scrap iron throughout the Deep South, he had returned with a paycheck intact, tired and clear-eyed. He offered no explanation of where he had been; he never did. He tried to appear content, even domesticated, but after a few hours of bumping into other people, and of listening to Cypress, and of deflecting the rejections of his wife, he ate a sandwich and moved outdoors with his beer, to a spot under a tree beside the house where he could sit in peace and watch the occasional car go by.
    Returning was always a struggle. Out there, on the open road, he would dream for hours of a new life somewhere, always a better life alone and unbothered. He’d been tempted a thousand times to keep driving, to drop his freight at its destination and never slow down. His father