Read Online Dark and Bloody Ground by Darcy O'Brien - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Darcy O'Brien
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somewhere in the Tennessee hills, apparently. Carol was a mess, yapping and intolerable. Early in the day, clean and with black hair shining, she did present allurements—sinuous, exotic as opium, she was plausible as an attraction in some joss house, an amber-skinned geisha mindlessly open to possibilities. Nor, in a sense, was she ignorant, her druggie but grammatical prattle sprinkled with references to oddball books, pop psychology. Lester classed her as a fading flower child turned crook.
Among them, men and women, only Sherry might be an actual human being. Her eyes showed weariness and worry. She seemed the most intelligent. She was kind of a loner.
6
S HE WAS BORN SHERRY LORAINE SHEETS on January 15, 1951, in Rockwood, Roane County, East Tennessee, a region similar historically, culturally, and geographically to Eastern Kentucky, which lies immediately to the north. The accents are alike. When hill people from either place say, “The far truck blowed a tar afore Ah pulled mah paints awn and Ah shouldah took thet kaemper of urine,” they mean, “The fire truck blew a tire before I pulled my pants on and I should have taken that camper of yours.” The economy of East Tennessee is more diversified and healthier, but it is also a high-crime area, most of it drug-related; and as in Eastern Kentucky the linchpin in the drug trade is often the county sheriff.
Roane County, where Sherry Sheets was still living when she met Benny Hodge, was known among local criminals as Little Chicago, and not because of the wind or stockyards or even a city. It happens to be a convenient tankful of gas from Central America, and on a given night you might spot a plane loaded with cocaine touching its pontoons down on one of several wide rivers and lakes created by the TVA. Interstates 40 and 75 provide links west to Nashville, east to Knoxville, and north through Kentucky to Cincinnati and other mid-western markets. It is pretty country, romantic when the black CSX trains come barreling out of the mountains and rumble over bridges that cross the Clinch River and the Tennessee; but the drugs are everywhere.
Sherry did not take drugs, or hardly ever. Although she had donea little selling here and there, and one or two other things that could have landed her in jail or, at least, lost her a job, she had managed to stay out of trouble through her twenty-nine years. “I put forth my best effort, whether it’s legal or illegal,” she liked to say, “and ain’t nothing’s illegal till you’re caught.” For Sherry, however, nothing was ever the same after the day she first laid eyes on Benny Hodge, September 3, 1980. Her daughter, Sherri Renee, happened to be celebrating her fifth birthday on that date; but a child was one thing, Benny Hodge another.
On that Wednesday, Sherry drove up to Brushy Mountain State Prison, in Morgan County, to apply for a job as a guard. The pay was good—eight hundred and forty-seven a month take-home, plus full benefits—and Sherry thought it sounded like a better way to earn a living. Where else could you get paid, as she expressed it, to sit on your butt all day watching men? It beat being a cashier or a beautician, jobs she had held since her 1972 marriage to Billy Pelfrey, a welder at one of the big government plants in Oak Ridge. Billy’s sister, Charlene, had told her about the opening at Brushy. Charlene was already a guard there and described it as a piece of cake—a little scary sometimes, but what was wrong with excitement? Sherry had an itch. She was as bored with her marriage as with her work.
Years ago Brushy Mountain had been notorious for its harsh treatment of prisoners. You could still see the corner of the exercise yard where men were hung up by their thumbs and whipped. It remained one of the few prisons in the country from which no one had ever escaped, owing mainly to the physical situation of this castellated fortress, surrounded on three sides by sheer rock cliffs and rugged
Among them, men and women, only Sherry might be an actual human being. Her eyes showed weariness and worry. She seemed the most intelligent. She was kind of a loner.
6
S HE WAS BORN SHERRY LORAINE SHEETS on January 15, 1951, in Rockwood, Roane County, East Tennessee, a region similar historically, culturally, and geographically to Eastern Kentucky, which lies immediately to the north. The accents are alike. When hill people from either place say, “The far truck blowed a tar afore Ah pulled mah paints awn and Ah shouldah took thet kaemper of urine,” they mean, “The fire truck blew a tire before I pulled my pants on and I should have taken that camper of yours.” The economy of East Tennessee is more diversified and healthier, but it is also a high-crime area, most of it drug-related; and as in Eastern Kentucky the linchpin in the drug trade is often the county sheriff.
Roane County, where Sherry Sheets was still living when she met Benny Hodge, was known among local criminals as Little Chicago, and not because of the wind or stockyards or even a city. It happens to be a convenient tankful of gas from Central America, and on a given night you might spot a plane loaded with cocaine touching its pontoons down on one of several wide rivers and lakes created by the TVA. Interstates 40 and 75 provide links west to Nashville, east to Knoxville, and north through Kentucky to Cincinnati and other mid-western markets. It is pretty country, romantic when the black CSX trains come barreling out of the mountains and rumble over bridges that cross the Clinch River and the Tennessee; but the drugs are everywhere.
Sherry did not take drugs, or hardly ever. Although she had donea little selling here and there, and one or two other things that could have landed her in jail or, at least, lost her a job, she had managed to stay out of trouble through her twenty-nine years. “I put forth my best effort, whether it’s legal or illegal,” she liked to say, “and ain’t nothing’s illegal till you’re caught.” For Sherry, however, nothing was ever the same after the day she first laid eyes on Benny Hodge, September 3, 1980. Her daughter, Sherri Renee, happened to be celebrating her fifth birthday on that date; but a child was one thing, Benny Hodge another.
On that Wednesday, Sherry drove up to Brushy Mountain State Prison, in Morgan County, to apply for a job as a guard. The pay was good—eight hundred and forty-seven a month take-home, plus full benefits—and Sherry thought it sounded like a better way to earn a living. Where else could you get paid, as she expressed it, to sit on your butt all day watching men? It beat being a cashier or a beautician, jobs she had held since her 1972 marriage to Billy Pelfrey, a welder at one of the big government plants in Oak Ridge. Billy’s sister, Charlene, had told her about the opening at Brushy. Charlene was already a guard there and described it as a piece of cake—a little scary sometimes, but what was wrong with excitement? Sherry had an itch. She was as bored with her marriage as with her work.
Years ago Brushy Mountain had been notorious for its harsh treatment of prisoners. You could still see the corner of the exercise yard where men were hung up by their thumbs and whipped. It remained one of the few prisons in the country from which no one had ever escaped, owing mainly to the physical situation of this castellated fortress, surrounded on three sides by sheer rock cliffs and rugged
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