by Donis Casey
An unexpected feeling of alarm rose up in Shaw’s chest at the look of determination on his wife’s face. “Now, Alafair Gunn, you be careful about getting yourself involved in a murder investigation.”
She forged ahead as though he hadn’t spoken. “Did Scott mention to you whether or not he talked to Russell Lang, or to his son Dan? Nadine Fluke told me that Harley whipped Dan pretty bad last year.”
“No, Scott never said anything to me about the Langs. Why would Harley want to whip Dan Lang?”
Alafair shrugged. “I understand Dan and Maggie Ellen Day were sweethearts, and Harley didn’t care for the idea.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sure Scott knows all about it,” he reassured her.
“Did Scott say anything else to you about the murder just now? Anything new come to light?”
“I don’t know if I ought to tell you,” Shaw said perversely. “You’re looking to me like you plan to rush to the rescue again.”
Her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. “You ought to know by now that I’m not going to do anything foolish. But somebody’s got to watch out for the youngsters.”
“And that somebody’s got to be you, I suppose.”
Alafair laughed. “I don’t expect it has to be, Shaw, but it probably will be. Now, don’t torture me any more. Did Scott tell you anything new?”
Shaw sighed. “Let’s see, now. Seems his deputy Trent Calder found John Lee’s mule on the back forty behind that stand of oaks on their property, saddle off and let loose, he thought. So they’re thinking the boy is still around here somewhere.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if his mama’s hiding him there on the farm,” Alafair said, without looking at him.
Shaw didn’t notice her evasion. “Wouldn’t be surprised,” he agreed. Distracted, he whistled at one of the hounds, who had taken off across a rime-covered field, nose to the ground.
Chapter Eight
Alafair awoke slowly. She was lying on her side, curled up into a tight knot under the quilts. Her body was warm enough in her wool flannel nightgown, but her nose was freezing, and she snuggled down under the covers. It was still dark, but she sensed that it would be time to get up before long. She turned her head enough to see that she was still alone in the bed.
When she and most of the children had gone to bed the night before, Shaw and Gee Dub were still out in the barn with a mare who was in the process of giving birth. Alafair flopped onto her back and sighed. A difficult foaling, then. She hoped drowsily that Shaw had sent Gee Dub to bed at some reasonable hour. She opened her eyes, suddenly wide awake. She hoped it was a hard foaling keeping Shaw out until all hours, and not the discovery of a fugitive on the property. She chided herself for borrowing trouble. Shaw wouldn’t have left her to sleep if he had discovered John Lee hiding in the soddie.
She screwed up her resolve before throwing off the covers and standing up. The cold hit her like a slap in the face. She drew in a breath between her teeth and skittered into the parlor in her stocking feet, casting a glance toward the boys’ beds in the corner as she made for the pot bellied stove in the center of the room. A lump under a heap of quilts testified to Charlie’s presence. The yellow shepherd curled on the bed at the boy’s feet lifted his head and gazed at Alafair benignly through the gloom. Gee Dub’s bed, however, didn’t appear to have been slept in.
Alafair peered at the pendulum clock on the shelf by the door, and could barely make out the time—four o’clock. She built up a coal fire in the stove, using as a starter a corn cob which had been soaking in a jar of kerosene, which she kept next to the clock on the high wall shelf. She lit a lamp, then took it and the quart jar of cobs with her into the kitchen to start the fire in her big wood burning oven. She was still scraping last night’s ashes from the fire box into the ash bucket when she heard the sound of boots on the back porch. Shaw and Gee Dub.
She got up and walked across the kitchen to lean out the back door. By the weak yellow light of the lantern they had hung on a hook, she could see that Shaw was pouring a bucket of water into one of her washtubs on the bench in the corner.
“I just got the stove going in the parlor,” she called to them. “Y’all get on in there and warm up. You must be ready to drop.”
Shaw paused in his pouring and looked over at her. Even in the dim light she could see the dark circles under his eyes. “We washed off in a bucket before we came up to the house, but we’re mighty filthy, darlin’,” he informed her. His breath fogged in the air. “A little more soap wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’m laying the fire in the kitchen right now. I’ll have some hot water for you in a minute. Now, come on inside. I’m afraid you’ll both die of the ague.”
Shaw nodded at Gee Dub, and the two of them dragged their weary bodies into the house. They hovered over the stove in the parlor while Alafair kindled a roaring fire in the kitchen and heated a kettle of water that had been standing on the stove all night.
While her husband and son cleaned up on the back porch, Alafair went back into the still-frigid bedroom. She dressed as quickly as she could, taking her arms out of her nightgown and pulling on her clothes underneath. The two stoves had begun to warm the front part of the house enough that while she was measuring coffee into the pot, Alafair noticed that her teeth had stopped chattering. Shaw and Gee Dub, however, were still shuddering with cold when they finally came into the kitchen, their faces shiny from scrubbing with the water she had warmed, and their wet hair slicked back.
“Sit down,” she ordered. “I’ve heated some milk with a little honey. Drink it up and get to bed. It’s still early enough that y’all can get some sleep before the workday has to start.”
Alafair drew more water from the pump outside the back door and poured it in a large pot to heat at the back of the stove. Then she added more water to the oats which had been soaking all night and put them on a front burner to slowly cook for breakfast.
“It must have been a hard foaling,” she commented, as she worked at the stove. No one answered at first, and she looked back over her shoulder at the two sitting at the table. Shaw looked up at her dully from over the rim of his cup. He set the mug down on the table and absently wiped the milk foam from his mustache with the back of his index finger.
“It was,” he affirmed. “Blackberry has produced a lot of fine mules in her time, and with no trouble at all, but this little fellow wanted to come out sideways. It took us a long time to get him turned around proper. He made it, though. He’s a fine, strapping mule.”
“How’s Blackberry?”
Shaw shrugged. “She’s wrung out, but I think she’ll be all right. She took to the new foal just fine, and we left them looking pretty comfortable and interested in their grub.” Shaw took another sip of his hot milk, and nodded across the table at his son. “Gee Dub was a big help. I don’t know if I could have done it without him.”
Gee Dub, who was slumped over the table with his half-empty mug in his hand, didn’t acknowledge his father’s praise.
Shaw chuckled. “Gee,” he said sharply, and the boy jerked upright and blinked at Shaw blearily. “Go to bed, son,” Shaw instructed. “You did a good job.”
Gee Dub smiled and hoisted himself out of his chair. He detoured to give Alafair a brief squeeze around the shoulders, then disappeared into the parlor. He had not uttered one word.
“I’ll send a note to school with Mary,” Alafair said, after he had gone. “I reckon he won’t be much for going to school today.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down in Gee Dub’s vacated chair at the table.
“I’m sorry I kept him all night,” Shaw said, “but I wasn’t fooling when I said I’d have been hard pressed to do it without him. And there’s two more mares ready to drop in the next few days. I’ve got eight mares in foal, and buyers for every one. There’s so many people moving in here that I can hardly keep up with the call for mules. I need to buy more mares, and another good jackass or two.”
“You need to hire some help,
Shaw,” Alafair chided. “You can’t keep the kids out of school, and your brothers are all too busy with their own places to help you much any more. Why don’t you hire Georgie’s husband Edgar? You always said he was a good worker.”
Shaw made a little gesture of agreement. “He is that. I reckon I will ask him if he’ll hire on to help me with the foaling, but I doubt if he’ll want to come on permanent. He’s got enough of a job with that shareholding of his.” He smiled as Alafair prepared to protest. “Don’t worry,” he preempted her. “I’ll start looking around for somebody.” He sat up in his chair and rolled his shoulders. “I’m mighty sore,” he admitted. “I about got my arms jerked out of their sockets. I’m afraid I’m going to be stiff as a post later.”
Alafair leaped to her feet. “Move over here by the fire and take your shirt off,” she told him. “I’ve got some liniment in the cabinet. You’ll put on your flannel nightshirt after I rub you down, and I’ll warm a brick for the bed before you get in it. You’ll be frisky as a pup when you get up later.”
“Aw, honey, that stuff smells like a veterinarian’s leather pouch,” Shaw protested weakly, unbuttoning his shirt all the while.
“I can stand it if you can,” Alafair said, as she rummaged around on one of the high shelves. “Or you can go around all stove up for the next few days.”
Shaw pulled his chair over next to the stove and Alafair took up a position behind him. She poured some liniment into her hands and began to knead the strong-smelling stuff into Shaw’s shoulders. He felt hard and knotted as old rope, but she could feel him melt under her hands, and his head dropped forward to afford her better access to the back of his neck. He sighed. “On top of everything,” he droned, as though he was talking to himself, “I’ll be having to break the clods in the cotton field in just a few weeks. I’ve been looking at the sod-busting machines, and I think I’m going to have to replace several of the discs on that old harrow of mine.”
“Now, listen to yourself, Shaw,” Alafair admonished. “There you go talking like we’re still as poor as we were when we first moved out here. You could afford to buy a new harrow.”
Shaw laughed wearily. “You’re mighty free with our money,” he chided. “There’s nothing wrong with that harrow that some new cogs and a bucket of grease won’t fix.”
“Well, then, it wouldn’t cost very much to pay somebody to fix it for you,” she said. As the words left her mouth, a thought occurred that caused her hand to pause on Shaw’s shoulder. “In fact,” she said, suddenly animated, “I understand that Dan Lang is a very good mechanic. He works over at John Dasher’s blacksmith shop, I think. You could probably get Dan to come out here and have a look at that harrow right quick. I’m guessing he could fix it right there in the barn, once he knows what he needs.”
Alafair couldn’t see Shaw’s face, but he was quiet for a moment while he considered this. “I expect it would be easier on me to hire somebody to fix the harrow,” he acknowledged. “I’ll talk to Dasher about it. Maybe he’ll do it himself, though. Don’t know why I should settle for the student when I could have the master.”
“But I hear that Lang boy is right handy,” Alafair protested, dismayed. “He might be cheaper, too….” She paused when Shaw’s shoulders began to shake with mirth under her hands.
“Alafair, I can see right through you, you schemer,” he said.
She slapped his back, annoyed. “Oh, you plague me,” she huffed. “Tell me, then, what’s wrong with killing two birds with one stone? I can’t just go in to town and start questioning the boy, you know that. If Dan Lang was to come out here for some honest work, I could have a little talk with him about that Day girl.”
“And maybe that fight he got into with her murdered daddy?”
“If it comes up,” she confessed.
“You just ain’t going to let this go, are you?” he observed.
“How can I, Shaw, when Phoebe’s happiness is involved?”
“Young people’s affections blow with the wind, sugar. Besides, it ain’t your job to be catching murderers. That’s Scott’s job, and he’s pretty good at it.”
“I know that Scott will find out who killed that awful man eventually,” Alafair admitted. “But by that time it may be too late for Phoebe. And don’t dismiss those young folks’ feelings so lightly. A broken heart hurts like sin, no matter how old you are. Besides, I think this murder is hanging over everybody like a storm cloud. Nobody knows who to trust, who might be a killer. I’d sure like to have it done with.”
“And what if the Lang boy is the killer, and you go to prodding him? Poking around in things like this can be dangerous, Alafair.”
“Well, I hope I’m more careful than you seem to think,” she said, slightly offended. “I don’t intend to go accusing anybody to their face.”
Instead of replying, Shaw nodded toward the kitchen door. “Look who’s up.”
Alafair turned to see a frowzy, nightgown-clad Sophronia padding toward her through the pre-dawn gloom. Alafair wiped her hands on a towel before she picked the child up and sat down at the table. Sophronia settled into Alafair’s lap and laid her head on her mother’s breast.
“What’s that smell, Mama?” she mumbled.
“It’s liniment to make Daddy feel better.”
“It stinks, Daddy,” Sophronia informed him.
“Why, I thought it smells like violets,” Shaw teased, and Sophronia mustered a drowsy smile to acknowledge his witticism.
“Is it morning?” she mumbled.
Alafair enfolded the girl in her arms and pushed the curly auburn hair, fine as cobwebs, back from her forehead. “It’s not time for you to get up for quite a spell, honey,” Alafair told her. “Did we wake you up?”
“I’m cold,” Sophronia complained. “I was dreaming about that man that got buried in the snow.”
Alafair and Shaw looked at one another for a minute before Shaw said, “I’ll see if I can’t get Dan Lang out here later today. You can talk to him if you want, but I intend to be there when you do.”
Alafair nodded, relieved. “He won’t feel a thing.”
***
Alafair pushed the door to the tool shed open with her foot and carried the old tin coffee pot and the bucket of cornbread and sliced fatback into the dim interior. The large shed, which was appended to the back of the barn, was lined at the back with stacks of good lumber and extra bricks, cabinets and shelves filled with nails, spikes, bales of wire, bolts and nuts. Tools of every description were hung neatly from pegs or leaning in their places along one wall. On top of and under workbenches which stretched along another wall lay items in need of repair, from pots with holes, to harness that needed mending, broken furniture, and a doll with one leg. In the center of the room, Shaw and Dan Lang sat on stools at a rough wooden table. Strewn across the tabletop were bolts, a long axle, and several platter-sized discs from a harrow.
The room was fairly warm, since Shaw had a small coal fire going in a makeshift oil drum brazier. A lantern on the table supplemented the pale winter light that filtered in between the boards of the uninsulated walls. Shaw looked up at Alafair when she entered, and his expression sharpened. She gave him a reassuring smile. Dan Lang twisted in his seat, then stood to greet her as she bumped the door shut with her hip.
Alafair knew Dan Lang to see him, but she couldn’t remember ever having spoken to him. He looked very much like his father, Russell, the owner of the Boynton Mill and Elevator Company, tallish, with sharp eyes and a high color. Alafair noted with interest that a puckered white scar ran for a couple of inches across his cheekbone and temple before it disappeared into his hair.
“Oh, sit down, now, son,” she told him. “I just brought you fellows some food to keep your strength up and some coffee to warm your innards.”
Dan relieved her of the pails. “This is mighty welcome, Miz Tucker.”
Alafair removed the two tin cups she had stuffed in her apron pockets and placed them on the table. “How’s it going
out here? Do you think you can fix the harrow, or is Mr. Tucker going to have to bust loose for a new one?”
Dan sat back down and accepted a piece of warm cornbread that Shaw had just unloaded from the bucket. “Oh, I don’t think there’s too much wrong with this one, ma’am,” Dan assured her, as he pulled the cornbread apart and placed a piece of fatback between the layers. “I expect I’ll have to take this axle back to the shop, but I can have it forged by tomorrow. These here discs don’t need anything more than sharpening. I can do that right now.”
Alafair crossed her arms over her chest. “How’s business these days?”
Dan swallowed and nodded. “Not bad,” he admitted. “There’s not much a farmer can do during weather like this besides fix up his machinery and tools.”
“How’s your dad and mother?”
“They’re doing well, ma’am, thanks for asking.” He smiled at her, perfectly willing to eat cornbread and exchange pleasantries. It was the usual way of doing business with company-starved farm people.
“I visited with your dad at his office when I was in town a couple of days ago,” Alafair said. “Talked to him about this ugly business with Harley Day.”
A shadow passed over the young man’s face. He hadn’t expected this, Alafair thought. She felt a pang of guilt at ambushing him. He didn’t appear to want to bolt, however. “Yes, ma’am, he told me about that,” he responded.
Alafair glanced at Shaw. She couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh, or choke, or leap up from his chair and hustle her out of the room. She plunged ahead, just in case. “He told me that you were friends with Maggie Ellen Day, a while back.”
Dan lowered his cornbread to the table and studied it absently for a moment before he answered. “A mite more than friends, Miz Tucker,” he confessed. “At least as far as I was concerned. I was mighty partial to Maggie Ellen.”