A Stranger Here Below

by Charles Fergus

  But he was alone. He was using the judge’s dog and gun. He felt that in a small measure he was carrying something forward, something that went beyond simply enjoying sport or procuring game. It was a way of letting the land seep inside him, work its magic on his soul. A way of honoring his friend.

  And he was taking a rest. The investigation into Yost Kepler’s murder had stalled; a week had rushed past since the young man was found unconscious in that stinking alley. Yesterday, Monday, Gideon and Alonzo had again walked all over town, going door to door, questioning everyone they met—and learning nothing. This morning Gideon told Alonzo to stay at the jail in case anyone came in with information on the whereabouts of George England, or reported having seen or remembered something from the night when Kepler was attacked. But Gideon held little hope that this would happen. So he toted the judge’s gun and game pouch to the livery, with Old Nick whining and tail-wagging along beside him. He hitched the gelding Jack to the judge’s shooting brake and drove out of Adamant into the cutover lands.

  He hunted the creek bottom through brushy second-growth woods where only a few remaining leaves twinkled gold and red on the tree branches. Old Nick pointed two more grouse. Gideon missed one and killed the other. He didn’t see any woodcock; maybe the flights were ended, though it was only the second day of November. Finally he called Old Nick in. He sat down against a tree, and Old Nick lay next to him. Gideon put his hand on the dog’s back, and the red setter thumped his tail against Gideon’s leg.

  His sleep had been troubled the night before. In a dream, Old Nick had turned on him. A huge wolfish creature, he came snarling and slashing with his teeth. Gideon fended off the attack, the bites searing his hands, blood spurting from the wounds. He kept pushing Old Nick away only to have the beast surge forward and slash him again. He felt himself weakening as the dog pressed home its attack, tried to break through his defenses and tear out his throat. With the last of his strength Gideon seized each of the dog’s jaws in his hands and, with a loud cry, wrenched them apart and tore the head asunder. The judge appeared then and placed his hand on Gideon’s shoulder. Beneath a yellow moon they took up spades and buried the dead dog. Tipping dirt into the hole, Gideon saw that it was not Old Nick in the grave but his memmi.

  He had jerked awake, gasping and soaked with sweat. True had been shaking him by the arm. “Gideon, Gideon, it’s all right.”

  He breathed in the cold clean autumn air and leaned back against the tree. Its rough bark poked him through his shirt in a reassuring way. He closed his eyes and napped for a while. When he woke and stood up, Old Nick roused himself as well, stretching out his lanky front legs, his back legs one and then the other, and giving a little whine.

  True had continued to press him to give the dog a new name, since Old Nick was what some people called Satan so as not to have to speak the Evil One’s name. Gideon had no idea why Judge Biddle should have bestowed such a baleful moniker on this good-natured setter.

  “Maybe she’s right and we should change your name, hund,” Gideon said to the dog. He slipped the judge’s shooting bag over his shoulder and picked up his friend’s gun. It was already past noon; time to return to town and act like a sheriff again.

  “Come on, Dick.” Gideon clucked his tongue, and the setter heeled beside him.

  As they neared the wagon, Jack neighed a greeting. Gideon took off the gelding’s nosebag and put it into the wagon’s bed along with the shotgun and the shooting bag. He motioned with his hand, and the dog—Old Nick, Old Dick, what did it matter?—jumped up there. The setter sat and regarded Gideon, his tail whisking back and forth. Gideon took one floppy feathered ear in each hand. No slavering jaws gaped, no fangs came slashing. The setter appeared to grin. He licked his new master on the chin.

  ***

  The sour-faced woman inched through the doorway as if the prospect of entering a jail filled her with dread. Gideon rose from his chair. “Hello, Mrs. Leathers,” he said. He had been on the verge of going home. The day was almost ended: another day with no progress made toward finding the man who called himself George England, the man who wore the fancy red vest. Gideon offered to take Mrs. Leathers’s coat, but she shook her head. He arranged a chair, held her elbow as she lowered herself into it. He drew up his own chair and sat.

  The judge’s housekeeper tilted her head forward and peered down the passageway to the cells. People were always interested in the cells, Gideon had noted. No doubt they wondered what it would be like to be confined there, looking out at the world from behind bars.

  Mrs. Leathers returned her gaze to him. “I got to thinking about something that happened a day or so before the judge did himself in. It probably don’t mean nothing.”

  “Go on,” Gideon said.

  “Remember I told you a tramp came to the house? Knocked on the side door like they will, and asked for food?” She tucked her skirts about her legs. “The judge was in the dining room, and he heard the knock. He came in to the kitchen, opened the door, and invited the tramp inside. Told me to feed him and put some provisions together for him to take along.

  “After the old tramp finished eating, and while I was fixing him a bundle for the road, the tramp asked the judge if they could talk. They went in to the judge’s study.”

  “Did Judge Biddle know the man?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What did this old tramp look like?”

  “His face was brown and weathered, dark as a walnut hull. His beard was white. His eyes were pale blue. I remember how pale they looked against his face.”

  “How big was he?”

  “Not very tall. Thin, and bent over. Walked with a limp. He had a stick that he leaned on, which I told him to leave it in the kitchen before he went in to the study. Made him take his boots off, too, I wasn’t about to have him tracking dirt all over my clean floors.”

  “What were his clothes like?”

  “Old duds, with rips and tears. His boots were cracked and had holes in ’em. His hat was dark brown. Low crown with a broad brim, wavy, like it had been rained on a good many times. And with a buck tail.”

  “A buck tail?”

  “You know, pinned to it, like hunters will sometimes wear. Tail off of a deer. White, ’bout a foot long, dangling down off the brim in back.”

  Gideon had never seen a hat decorated like that.

  “When I had the bundle of food ready, I went down the hall. I stood outside the door for a bit, so as not to interrupt in the middle of a conversation.” Mrs. Leathers’s hand went to her collar; her fingers smoothed the fabric. “I weren’t eavesdropping,” she said. “That ain’t my way.”

  “Of course not. What did you hear?”

  “It weren’t what I heard, so much as what I didn’t hear. There was no one talking in that room. Scared me, so it did. I wondered if the old tramp had attacked the judge, knocked him out. I rapped at the door. After a bit, the judge opened it. I said the food was ready, and the old beggar followed me down the hallway. In the kitchen he put his boots back on, and that silly hat, and took the sack of food. He picked up his staff, winked at me, and left.” She sniffed. “Didn’t even thank me for my pains.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I stayed in the kitchen cleaning up. When I went to say goodnight to the judge, he was just sitting in his chair.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “No, he didn’t. And he didn’t get up. Which that was a bit odd, because the judge always saw me to the door and wished me a good evening. He was a polite man, a gentleman. Many today are not polite. They are rude and profane. They never bother to thank you even when you do something for them.”

  “Let me get this correct,” Gideon said. “This was one day, or maybe two days, before the judge shot himself?”

  “Yes. Because the judge didn’t have his hunting clothes on, which he did on the night that he …” She frowned. “It was the evening before the day when you and him went hunting. I remember now, I had just b
rushed out his green waistcoat and trousers and hung them on the wardrobe in his bed chamber, so they’d be ready for him to put on come morning.”

  “Did the tramp say anything to you, Mrs. Leathers? His name, where he was from or where he was going?”

  “Nary a word. Didn’t thank me. Just winked at me.” She scowled. “Winked at me, saucy-like, and then he left.”

  I’m a long time travelin’ here below,

  I’m a long time travelin’ away from home …

  Twenty-One

  Gideon searched the wall for the handbill Alonzo said he had posted. It wasn’t there. Gideon had brought several extra bills with him, and he found a place to tack one up amid the hand-lettered signs for rooms to let, horses for sale, social events, tinkers’ and carpenters’ services.

  In the Panther Emporium were shelves with jars of hard candy and patent medicines in bottles of various colors and sizes and shapes. Bolts of cloth sat on other shelves. On the floor slumped an opened bag of coffee beans, along with sewn-shut sacks of cornmeal and flour. Smells of leather and sharp cheese tickled Gideon’s nose as he approached the store’s counter.

  The man who stood behind the counter had a fleshy face whose features seemed to have been tugged in different directions. A bulbous nose angled to one side; a thick-lipped mouth dipped toward the man’s chin. The eyes slanted down at each corner, and one seemed slightly larger than the other and situated lower in the face. The storekeeper’s ears were huge, with fleshy dangling lobes. Gideon realized he was staring, with no small amount of fascination, at a face that would certainly be remembered—would never be described as “plain as buttered bread.”

  The storekeeper frowned. “Who in the Sam Hill do you think you are,” he said, “marching in here and putting up your bill like you own the place?”

  “I am Gideon Stoltz, the county sheriff.”

  “The Dutch Sheriff, eh?” The storekeeper inspected Gideon for a long moment. “You don’t look like no sheriff to me. Do you even shave yet? And where’s your badge?”

  Gideon pointed at the badge worn very obviously on his coat.

  The storekeeper scoffed. “Anybody can pin a hunk of pot metal on his chest and claim to be the law.”

  Gideon placed one of the handbills on the counter in front of the man.

  The storekeeper used his forearm to shove it off onto the floor.

  Gideon bent and picked it up. He set it on the counter again, reached out, and took hold of the storekeeper by one pendulous ear. He pulled the man’s head down until his face was six inches from the bill.

  “God damn …!” the storekeeper said in a whining tone.

  “Read the handbill,” Gideon said. “If you please.”

  “All right, let go my ear!”

  “Read it.”

  The storekeeper’s eyes bulged as he read. “All right, I read it. Now let go, will you?”

  Gideon released the man’s ear.

  The storekeeper straightened and rubbed his ear. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

  “The bill does not the best description provide,” Gideon said, “but I wonder if you have seen anyone who might answer to it.”

  The storekeeper kept rubbing his ear. He stared at Gideon, the look on his face a mix of resentment and apprehension. His eyes shifted down to the paper again. “Your man,” he said, “what’s his eye color?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Long or short hair?”

  Gideon shrugged. The stranger had been wearing a hat when he’d encountered him in Panther Valley, and Gideon hadn’t noticed anything about his hair. He realized that he had not asked this very obvious question of the woman who had served the suspect while he sat and plied Yost Kepler with whiskey at the House of Lords.

  “What color hair?” the storekeeper asked.

  Gideon had no answer to that question, either.

  The storekeeper sniffed. “Well, Mister Sheriff, your handbill could describe, oh, about ten hundred gents.”

  Gideon felt properly deflated.

  “The vest your man had on? Red with a green decoration? I sell one like that. Red cotton with a green paisley pattern.” The storekeeper opened a drawer, reached down, and set a neatly folded vest on the counter. “Got five of ’em left.”

  “Did you sell one to a young fellow with a dun horse?”

  “Don’t recall that.”

  “How many have you sold?” Gideon asked.

  “I ordered a dozen before last Christmas. From J. B. Harper Clothiers of Philadelphia. That paisley is the latest thing. A stylish and well-made vest. These are what’s left. You want one, I’ll give you a good price.”

  So. Apparently at least seven men on the ironworks or in the nearby countryside might own such a vest. Gideon decided to open up another line of inquiry. “Have any strangers come in here lately?”

  The storekeeper breathed out audibly. “Well, of course they have. Strangers come in here all the time. I bet you a baker’s dozen of men I have never seen before set foot in here every month.”

  “The ones who get hired at the ironworks—where do they live?”

  “In the boardinghouse, or with families, or in the logging and coaling camps. You’re not talking about real permanent residents. A lot of ’em stick with a job of work for a couple months, get a stake together, and move on.”

  The shop’s door opened and a woman came in; Gideon glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye. The woman hung back, apparently waiting for him to finish his business.

  “I am also looking for a different man, an old man,” Gideon said to the storekeeper. “His clothes are ragged and torn. He has a white beard and pale blue eyes, and a face lined and darkened by the sun. He walks with a limp and carries a staff. And he wears a hat with a white buck tail pinned to it.”

  The storekeeper shook his head. “Sorry, but I can’t help you. Nobody like that has been here. I’d surely remember if they had.”

  “All right. That bill I posted, I want it to stay on your wall and not get taken down or covered up. I am investigating the murder that happened in Adamant last week, and I want people here in Panther to be on the lookout for this man, who is a suspect in the killing. Also, if you or anybody else sees an old tramp with a buck tail hat, I want to know about it as soon as possible.”

  When Gideon turned to leave, he saw that it was True’s mother who had entered the store behind him. Before he could greet her, she gave him a slight nod and flicked her head toward the door. He took it to mean that he should wait for her outside.

  A few minutes later, she came through the door carrying a package. She placed her hand on Gideon’s arm and steered him off to the side. They stood beneath a tree. She set the package down, looked around, then said, “I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but an old man like that showed up at the big house a couple of weeks ago. He had a beat-up hat with a buck tail dangling down off the brim, like I heard you tell the storekeeper. Why are you looking for him?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Gideon replied. “An old man like that came and talked to Judge Biddle just before the judge killed himself. I wonder if there could be some connection.”

  “That old man was an odd duck,” Mrs. Burns said. “He didn’t knock or ring the bell, just opened the front door and waltzed right in. I was in the kitchen and heard him. He had a hunk of rat cheese in his hand, and he was nibbling on it; they sell cheese like that here at the store. The old man asked, ‘Is Ad here?’ Now why should an old jasper like that call the ironmaster by his nickname? Mrs. Glenny came in to the hallway then, she’s the head housekeeper, so I told the old man he should talk to her.” Mrs. Burns paused. “I was fixing the evening meal, it was a big roast beef, so I went back to work. I recall hearing something the old man said. He told Mrs. Glenny, ‘Well, go fetch him.’”

  “Meaning the ironmaster?” Gideon said.

  “I suppose so, but I don’t know for certain. Mrs. Glenny must have put the old man somewhere, maybe in Mr. Thomps
on’s study, because I didn’t see him again. Later she came in to the kitchen and told me I could go home for the evening. She said she’d finish making the meal and serve it herself.”

  “Does that happen often—you getting sent home and the housekeeper serving the meal?”

  “No. It never happened before. Come to think of it, she sent the other girl home, too. When I came back the next morning, the old man was gone. I asked Mrs. Glenny about him, and she said it was nothing, I should just put it out of my mind.” Gideon’s mother-in-law shrugged. “So I did. Until I heard you in there, asking about an old man with a buck tail hat.”

  Gideon thanked her for the information.

  She nodded, worry creasing her face. “Another thing. I can’t swear to this, but a couple days later I might’ve seen that old man again. It was late, after dusk. I was leaving the big house, headed for home. And I saw, well, I saw this pale thing among the trees not far from the house. It might have been that old man, might’ve been that buck tail hanging from his hat. Or it might have been the tail of a real deer. Or something else. It kind of frightened me. I hurried on home, didn’t see anything else. Gideon …” She looked him in the eye. “Might be best if you didn’t let on to anyone that I told you this.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I just wonder whether I could get in trouble, maybe lose my job for telling you something I wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t say who told me.”

  ***

  He left Maude tied in front of the store. The rail, which horses had stood before for decades, was almost chewed through in places.

  He went to the boardinghouse, where the proprietor, a middle-aged woman, said she had seen neither a young man with a red vest nor an old man with a buck tail on his hat.

  He continued along on the blue slag road. He smelled hay and manure from the stock barn, the fruity smoke from the iron furnace and the finery forge. The trip-hammer in the forge pounded deep and dull, like a giant’s pulse. He stepped off the road for a team pulling a wagonload of charcoal. The teamster, striding along beside the six-mule hitch, cracked a long black whip above the mules’ backs.