Serpent's Tooth

by Michael R Collings

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wroten was the first to get out of his vehicle. We waited in my car until he had approached the men, shaken hands around, and spoken to them for a few moments. Then he gave us a come-on-over gesture and we piled out of our car.

  It was hard walking, making our way through the inches-high stubble and across the remains of old irrigation tracks. Once or twice I nearly stumbled and more than once felt my ankle twist on a loose clod.

  I silently thanked heaven for hiking boots.

  And once—I’m sure of it—I saw a mouse streak past my foot and disappear into the maze of stubble and tumbled straw that halfway hid the ground.

  But we all made it over to where Wroten was standing, whole and in one piece.

  “Now what’s all this, Wroten,” Tom Neilson asked, not aggressively but not quite as politely as he might have had the officer just happened to stop by to shoot the breeze.

  “Well, I’m going to let Miz Sears here do most of the talking because it was all her idea and she knows best what she’s looking for. But she says that the answer to how the Johansson boy died is right here in your field. And that we can find it if we look for it right now. Once the harvest gets under way again, it might be lost, or at least it will be a mite more difficult to find. Okay?”

  Neilson nodded, more perplexed than anything.

  “Okay, Miz Sears. It’s all yours,” he said, gesturing to the field. “What do you need?”

  “Thank you, Tom. The first thing we will have to do is extract that flatbed of yours from the ditch.”

  “But you said this morning to leave everything as it was,” Wroten broke in.

  “Yes, I did. And thank you, Tom, for doing that. But now it’s time to resolve a mystery, and we can do that best with the flatbed on level ground.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” Neilson said, removing his hat and scratching the back of his neck—a stereotype and a cliché, I know, but that is where stereotypes and clichés come from...from the things people do when they aren’t thinking about what they are doing.

  “I don’t know. We pull that truck out wrong and the axle might completely collapse. That might mean spending....”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Victoria said lightly. “This is part of an official investigation into the death of a citizen of Fox Creek. I’m sure Deputy Wroten can figure out a way to help you cover any additional expenses.”

  Wroten looked as startled as if someone had surreptitiously hooked him up to a couple of electrodes and suddenly hit the ‘on’ switch. His head jerked toward Victoria so hard that I thought I heard something snap.

  “Now look here, Victoria, you can’t just go around....” He paused, sighed, and turned back to face Neilson. “Just do as she says. In the long run, that’s the easiest way.”

  “Whatever you want, ma’am. But even so it’s going to be tricky. All I’ve got here is that old pickup, my combine, and my baler. And I’m not sure any of them has enough oomph to do much good.”

  “Hmmm, yes. But perhaps if Deputy Wroten would use his patrol car, along with the pickup....”

  Wroten was shaking his head but he was already on his way to his patrol car, where he extracted a long chain and a length of thick rope from the trunk.

  Neilson had pulled a similar hank of rope from behind the driver’s seat of the pickup.

  It took them three tries, what with the angle of the flatbed truck, the depth of the irrigation ditch, and the damp, at times slimy ground in the field as water from the ditch splashed over the banks and spread along the nearly flat soil.

  Wheel spun in the mud, making more mud. Twice the flatbed twisted around and seemed more likely to pull the patrol car and the pickup into the ditch with it than they were to pull it out. And once the rear ends of both the patrol car and the pickup began shimmying on the slippery soil, then sliding, and finally came within a foot or so of slamming into each other.

  Victoria and I had retreated into the uncut portion of the field, where the footing was a bit firmer. Standing in the thigh-high wheat made me feel a good bit uncomfortable, since I could not see what might be scampering across my feet to the accompaniment of the roar of the engines, the occasional shriek of metal against metal—I didn’t know and didn’t want to know what was causing that—the flapping of tires throwing up great gobbets of mud from the runoff of the irrigation ditch, and the, unfortunately, more than frequent and often extraordinarily colorful sounds of frustrated men pulling and straining.

  At last, however, the flatbed was freed. Even out of the ditch it canted noticeably toward the front, but apparently that did not bother Victoria.

  “Fine,” she said. “Good job. Well done.”

  I half expected to see her brush her palms together as if to get rid of any dust, but instead she simply walked over to where Wroten, Neilson, and the rest of the men were standing.

  I followed.

  Everyone except Victoria and I was spattered with mud and red-faced from exertion. Even Carver had a long streak of dirt on his cheek, and Deputy Wroten’s service trousers were damp around the cuffs. From where I had been standing, it had seemed that moving the flatbed had been a difficult and arduous job.

  Apparently it had been worse than that.

  Victoria stood back a few paces and examined the flatbed, nodding a couple of times. Then she turned to Neilson.

  “May I borrow several of your men? Three or four should do.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  “Thank you.”

  She examined the men carefully, running her eyes up and down the legs of their jeans. I didn’t know what she was looking for but apparently it was something quite specific, because all at once she touched one man lightly on the shoulder.

  “Do you have your work gloves?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “May I see them?”

  He pulled a pair of leather gloves from his back pocket and extended them, rather tentatively, it seemed, to Victoria. She took them and studied them closely, even running one of her fingers up and down a couple of the seams.

  “They look fine. Would you mind standing over by the flatbed, please?”

  The man looked at Wroten, who shrugged minimally, then at Neilson who gave a nod of acquiescence, then at the other men, who just looked puzzled and confused. Finally he walked over and leaned against the passenger door of the cab.

  Victoria followed the procedure with three others. Carver had offered to help do whatever it was she wanted done, but when she asked about work gloves, he shook his head.

  “Left them at home,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I know you want to help, you want to find out what happened to Eric, but you really can’t do it barehanded.”

  Carver knew her even better than I did. He didn’t even try to argue. He simply stepped back out of the way and let her continue choosing men.

  When there were four men lined up by the flatbed, she asked Mr. Neilson to back the pick-up close to the tailgate of the flatbed.

  That done, she picked two of the men, seemingly at random, to mount the flatbed.

  “Now,” she said when they were in position. “Please listen to me carefully. Very carefully. I want you to lift the bales on the truck, one at a time, one of you lifting from each end using the baling twine only. Is that clear?”

  Thoroughly nonplussed the two men agreed, yes that was clear, although why they were doing it remained a mystery.

  “I want you to hand each bale off to two men in the back of the pick-up.” She gestured, and the remaining men clambered into the empty pick-up bed. “Again, very carefully. By the baling twine.”

  The four men stood for a moment as if anticipating further instructions. At a nod from Victoria, however, they began the task.

  The first two men strode to the first bale.

  When the truck had slid into the irrigation ditch the afternoon before, it had been about one-third loaded. None of the bales had slid out of position when it went in, which meant
that there were three rows of bales across the front end of the bed, three bales per row, four bales high.

  Thirty-six bales.

  With exquisite care, as if they were handling a case of ten-year-old sweating dynamite, the two men slid their gloved fingers beneath the baling twine on each end of the top bale in the first row. Together they lifted just enough that the bale cleared the one beneath, then they swung it sideways and let it drop to the worn planks on the bed.

  At another nod from Victoria, they lifted it again and, backs bent so that the bale was only inches from the wooden planks, carried it to the end of the bed and passed it over to the two in the pickup.

  They slid their fingers under the lifted twine, barely even touching the straw beneath, and then lowered it, short end facing the pickup cab, until it rested on the pickup’s metal bed.

  “Perfect,” Victoria said.

  I could tell that, even though the men might not be taking her totally seriously, she was tense about...well, about something.

  “Now, still being very careful, I want you to rotate the bale on the long axis so that I can examine all four of the long sides. But please, only using the twine.”

  By this time, Wroten had helped her onto the pickup’s extended tailgate where she had an unobstructed view of the bale. The rest of us were gathered along the sides so we could see also.

  And see we did.

  Four sides of a bale of hay.

  Just long, narrow threads of straw that had been captured by the baler and tied together into a compact block.

  When the fourth side lay upward and Victoria had had a chance to study it, she straightened, placed one hand against her spine as if stooping had caused her some bit of pain, and said, “Not this one.”

  “Do you want us to stack the bales here on the pickup?,” one of the men asked.

  “No, I think not. Mr. Neilson, is it all right if I ask the rest of you to remove each bale as I examine it and place them...oh, wherever you think best.”

  “Will do.” He and another of his men jerked the bale out of the pickup and carried it to a fairly clear dry spot a dozen or so yards from where we were working.

  While they were doing that, Victoria turned back to the two men still on the flatbed, and said, rather chirpily, I thought, “One down, thirty-five to go.”

  Of course, we didn’t have to go through all thirty-five.

  Fifteen were enough.

  Victoria never let down her diligence.

  When one of the men on the flatbed lost his grip on the twine and made to reach under the bale to secure his hold, she hollered, “No. Let it fall back down.”

  He and the other men dropped the bale—which had happened to be on the bottom layer right on top of the flatbed—like it was flaming hot.

  Both jerked straight up and looked into each other’s eyes.

  I rather suspect they saw an unfamiliar flicker of panic before they settled down and each took a deep, calming breath.

  “All right, now. Try again. Very carefully.”

  This time neither let the bale slip.

  One by one, fourteen bales were transported from the flatbed over to the pickup and turned—carefully—so that Victoria could examine every side. She never touched any of the bales. But I could tell that her sharp eyes had not missed an inch.

  I didn’t know what she was looking for, but it wasn’t there.

  The fifteenth bale was different.

  The two men from the flatbed carried it over to the pickup and handed it off. Business as usual. Perhaps they were even a bit lax about taking precautions, although Victoria’s repeated warnings kept them from becoming downright casual.

  Fortunately for them.

  The two on the pickup gave Victoria a chance to look over the top of the bale.

  Then at her nod, they turned it so that the first side was up.

  I think Victoria was becoming slightly unnerved as if she had expected to see...whatever there was to see...long before this. At any rate, I saw a flicker of disappointment in her eyes as the side was turned upward.

  When the next side—what had been the bottom of the bale as it was originally stacked—I think every one of us instinctively jumped back a step or two.

  One of the men on the flatbed angled slightly to the side when he jerked back and almost went over the edge before grabbing hold of the other man’s work shirt and pulling himself upright.

  I gasped.

  That sounds theatrical, even melodramatic, but it was the truth.

  I gasped as if someone had punched me in the chest.

  Emerging from the bale, right where someone trying to get a good grip to lift it up—or where someone boosting the bale with a knee to get it high enough to stack on two others, as this one had been—looking as if it were erupting from the bale’s black core, jaws open and fangs protruding, was the severed head of a rattlesnake.

  As they watched, horrified, the jaws twitched.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Good Lord,” one of the men whispered.

  “That’s the one,” Victoria said softly. Then, to Deputy Wroten: “There’s your killer, officer.”

  That’s all it took for the men—and myself, since I am telling only truth today—to cluster back around the bed of the pickup.

  The two men who had been manhandling the bale had backed to the cab window and were leaning against the pickup’s roof, inspecting their gloves as if they were afraid they had somehow been infected by mere proximity to the hideous head.

  Victoria remained where she had been, standing firmly on the tailgate, looking down at the instrument of Eric Johansson’s death.

  “Here, ma’am,” Tom Neilson said gently, “Let me help you off of there.”

  “Thank you,” Victoria said. She was shaking now. As rock-solid as she had proven all day, now that the moment of revelation had come, she suddenly seemed her age. Or almost her age.

  I’m not sure anything will ever make Victoria Sears seem like an old woman to me.

  Neilson held her arm while the two of them walked over to where I was standing. He handed her off to me, then continued around until he was standing on my other side along the bed of the pickup.

  “If that don’t beat all,” someone said. And from another: “Well, I never....”

  “I have,” Victoria said. All eyes turned to watch her. “I grew up on a farm not far from here. My granddad and my father ran a few head of cattle, Grandmother and Mother had a few chickens and a fairly large truck garden that supplied a goodly number of the neighbors with vegetables and berries—especially strawberries and raspberries—during the summer months.

  “I was an only child, so I became a sort of tom-boy, always following either my granddad or my father around. Mom and Grandma took care of the house and garden.

  “I remember one day—hot, like today, toward the end of summer and the beginning of haying season—I was alone with Granddad, walking the edge of the field not too far from a little creek”—she pronounced it crick, as I knew she would. “Granddad was irrigating that day, so we had his old shovel with us. I was balancing it on my shoulder, trying to look grown-up.

  “All of a sudden, he whipped the shovel off my shoulder and without any hesitation at all, flung it right out into the middle of the field. I followed him out to retrieve it. With that single throw, he had nearly decapitated a field mouse.

  “‘Got to get them before they eat up all the grain,’ he said, knowing I had a soft spot for ‘little critters,’ as he called them. I swallowed, accepting the truth of what he was saying but at the same time grieving that this little fellow’s death had been seen as necessary.

  “‘Can we bury him?’ I asked.

  “‘Sure we can, darlin’, sure we can.’

  “So we gathered the body up on the scoop of the shovel and carried it out a little way beyond the edge of the field, right by the creek. Granddad scooped out a little hole and nudged the body in, then covered it with a bit of earth and tamped it down wit
h his boot.”

  I noticed that several of the older men were nodding, as if the experience were familiar to them, either as children of farmers or as fathers of farm children.

  Some lessons had to be learned, but they didn’t have to be learned brutally.

  After a short pause, Victoria continued: “We stood for a minute near the little mound of dirt, listening to the water gurgling over the rocks in the creek, then granddad said it was getting on time to be heading home.

  “I wasn’t ready to leave yet. ‘Can I put some flowers on the grave?’ I asked.

  “‘You sure you want to do that? It’ll make everything seem sadder if you do.’

  “But I was sure, so he gave me the okay.

  “There was a big rock a short way down the creek, white granite, I remember, no doubt warm from the long day’s sunshine. At the base of the rock there was a small patch of red tube-like flowers—I’ve since learned that they were penstemons—that I thought would be perfect.

  “I was picking my miniature funeral display when my Granddad suddenly called, ‘Freeze, Vicky. Don’t move an inch.’

  “It was a tribute to how much I loved and trusted him that I did exactly as he said. Still bent over, I froze, one hand stretched half way to the tallest penstemon stem, the one I wanted as the centerpiece of my tiny bouquet.

  The next thing I heard was the ‘whoosh’ of the shovel as it passed by me, blade first. Then I gasped as my grandfather grabbed me under the arms and with a single smooth motion swung me up to the top of the rock.

  “‘Stay there until I tell you otherwise. Do not move!’ he whispered as he hesitated for an instant to make sure I wouldn’t fall, then ran off into the low brush at the edge of the field.

  “The rock was three feet high or so, with a broad, almost flat top—probably one of the frequent remains of long-past glaciers that dotted the area—so I had no trouble keeping my balance. And I had an unimpeded view of my granddad, who was now moving slowly, cautiously through the wheat field, shovel in his hand, blade down, handle up over his shoulder, as if he were holding a pike or some other weapon.

  “It seemed like days that I stood on the top of the boulder. Probably it was less than an hour. And all of the time, Granddad was prowling through the wheat field, as tense as I had ever seen him...or ever would see him.