by Donis Casey
Their main interest, though, was to find Maggie Ellen Day. It never occurred to Alafair, before now, that Maggie Ellen could be involved, and Alafair had never heard Scott evince an interest in her, either. Until this moment, the girl’s flight had been just one more sorry incident in the pitiful existence of the Day family, and, as far as Alafair knew, no one had ever made a concerted effort to discover where she had gone. Her family seemed to take for granted that she was better off wherever she was, and didn’t really expect her to make good on her promise to return. Or, they knew more about the absent Maggie Ellen than they were telling. Josie and Alafair would press John Lee on the matter, they decided, and if that plan bore no fruit, they would approach some of the other children.
Josie reined the horse in front of the house, but before the women could disembark, Frances Day came running from the chicken coop and launched herself up the running board and into Alafair’s lap.
“Well, howdy, there,” Alafair greeted her, surprised. The once-shy Frances was apparently becoming more sociable since her father died.
“Howdy, Miz Tucker, Miz Cecil,” Frances responded. “Are Fronie and Blanche to home?”
“No, they’re in school,” Alafair told her. “How come you’re not in school today?”
“I’m helping out around here,” Francis told them. “I been feeding chickens.”
“You’re a big girl,” Josie acknowledged. “I’ll bet you’re a big help.”
“I am,” Frances informed her, with a grin.
“Well, we’re here to see John Lee, if he’s back from Muskogee,” Alafair said. “Is he here?”
“No, he ain’t back yet,” the girl said. “He’s gone to get Mama from the jail and bring her home, but John Lee told us he probably wouldn’t be home ’til almost dark.”
“Well, then, I expect Naomi is around here somewhere, isn’t she, sugar?” Alafair pressed on.
“She was,” Francis told them cheerfully, “but she walked back toward the creek a while ago, looking for the goat. That old goat runs away regular.”
“Has she been gone for a long time?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know. Sometimes she’s gone for hours and hours. But it’s all right. Jeb Stuart is in the barn, and he’s watching me.”
Alafair and Josie looked at one another, disappointed. “What now, Josie?” Alafair asked.
“I don’t rightly know,” Josie confessed. “If we go back into town, and tell Scott about the bullet in the tree, maybe he can start looking for another little gun.”
“Will he be willing to think about our idea that there was a second gun and not just that somebody reloaded the first one?”
Josie shrugged. “I expect he’ll decide it was a reload. That’s the most likely thing. But he might decide to humor us and look to see if there could have been a second gun.”
“Maybe it was a regular twenty-two rifle that did the deed,” Alafair posed.
“Not likely. Scott said there were powder burns….” Josie hesitated, mindful of the little girl. It wouldn’t do to say that a rifle, even a .22 caliber, fired at such close range would have made a bigger mess of Harley’s head. “I’m thinking it would have had to be another small pistol like the first one.”
“Are you looking for a little bitty gun?” Frances interjected.
A stunned silence as heavy as a boulder fell on the two women. “We are,” Alafair admitted, at length. “What do you know about a little bitty gun, Frances?”
“Maggie Ellen had a little bitty gun,” Frances said. “Aunt Zorah give it to her a long time ago. I never seen such a little gun before.”
“Whatever happened to this little gun of Maggie Ellen’s?” Alafair urged. Her heart was pounding. Josie gripped Alafair’s arm.
“I know where it is,” Frances informed her blithely. She jumped down from the buggy, and the two women followed her as she headed around the side of the house.
Frances knelt down on the ground near the back corner of the clapboard house and pulled a loose brick from the foundation. The masonry brick was almost too big for the little girl to handle, and she had to ease it out and let it drop into the moist earth that girdled the house. Frances peered into the dark hole for half a second, then reached her arm in up to her shoulder. When she withdrew, she was holding a burlap-wrapped bundle about the size of a loaf of bread. She bounced to her feet and eagerly unwrapped the package for Alafair and Josie’s inspection. The two women bent over to see that lying on the dirty burlap were a variety of small odds and ends that a girl might hide as treasures. A length of ribbon, a rose stone, a pretty pine cone, a piece of quartz, like the ones Alafair had found in the lean-to, and a nickel-plated two-shot derringer that had seen better days.
Alafair’s hand hovered over the gun. “May I see it?” she asked Frances, then carefully picked it up when the child nodded.
Alafair could see immediately that the gun was empty. She showed it to Josie.
“How do you expect this got under the house?” Alafair asked Frances. “Did Maggie Ellen give this to you before she left?”
“No,” Frances assured her. “Mattie and me found it a while back. Maggie Ellen didn’t want us playing with her nice things, but sometimes we did, and put them back real careful and she didn’t know.”
“Does your mama know about this cache?”
“I don’t know,” Frances said. “Me and Mattie never said nothing to anybody about it.”
Alafair and Josie were gazing at one another, trying to comprehend the implications of this, when Frances yelped and hastily began rewrapping the bundle. Naomi was standing at the corner of the house, half hidden in her too-big coat, gazing at them without expression. Frances shoved the bundle into Alafair’s hand and took off running, disappearing around the front.
“Naomi,” Josie called, “come here, honey.”
Naomi walked over to them, unhurried. Her hands were in the coat pockets, and only her black eyes were visible above the collar.
“Did you know about this cache?” Josie asked her gently.
“Yes, ma’am,” Naomi answered. “I should have known I couldn’t keep it hid from them kids.”
“It’s yours?” Josie wondered, surprised.
“It is now,” Naomi told her.
“Where did you get the derringer?” Alafair wondered.
Naomi gazed at the bundle thoughtfully for a second before she answered. “It was Maggie Ellen’s. She told me she had hid it under the house.”
Alafair gave Josie a meaningful glance. She looked back at Naomi. “Where is Maggie Ellen, honey? You’ve just been pretending that you don’t know where she went, haven’t you?”
Naomi looked surprised at the question, but didn’t answer.
“It’s all right,” Alafair assured her. “I don’t blame you for keeping your sister’s secret. But it’s time to tell someone, now. Do you know where Maggie Ellen is?”
“Did y’all have a plan for Maggie Ellen to come back and rescue you?” Josie asked.
The girl’s black eyes were unreadable. She looked from Alafair to Josie, and back again. Alafair squatted down in front of Naomi and took her shoulders. “Sweetheart, did your sister shoot your daddy? Don’t be afraid. Nobody’s going to hurt Maggie Ellen. Nobody blames her for running away.”
Naomi shrugged. There was quite a long pause before she replied this time. “Maggie Ellen didn’t run away,” she finally said.
Alafair blinked. “Well, where did she go, then?”
“She got killed,” Naomi replied calmly. “Daddy killed her.”
When she looked back on it later, Alafair was unable to recall how long the three of them stood there, turned to stone.
“Your daddy killed Maggie Ellen,” Josie managed at length.
“He did.”
“When? How did your daddy kill Maggie Ellen?” Josie fumbled.
Naomi looked up at her, still composed. “Summer before last,” she said. “During harvest. Me and Maggie Ellen were in the corn cri
b stacking corn, and Maggie Ellen saw that there was this hole dug in the floor in the corner with a piece of board over it. She pried it up with a stick, and there was a saddle bag all full of money hid in it. Maggie Ellen figured how it was Daddy’s money from selling his liquor. She decided we was going to take it and run off. She said she was going to go to her beau, Dan, and the three of us was going to move to some town far away from here and Dan was going to start his own mechanic business and we was going to be rich. We was still making plans when Daddy came in.” Naomi paused. Her gaze wandered out over the yard, then back to the women. She continued, matter-of-fact.
“Daddy was mostly sober, but he got mighty angry when he saw Maggie Ellen had his money. He said she was a thief and started whipping on her. He didn’t act like he knowed I was there, but when Maggie Ellen went to crying it got me scared and I hit at him. Didn’t hardly faze him none and he smacked me out of the way. That’s when Maggie Ellen got all riled and fought him. She called him a sot and an awful misery and a bunch of other words I didn’t even know. She said he owed her that money for ruining her life. He got all red in the face and grabbed her by the neck and whomped her head against the wall a couple of times. I heard her neck snap. It was an accident that he killed her, I guess. But he shouldn’t have done it.”
Alafair’s throat felt like a hand was strangling her, too. “Why didn’t you tell anybody?” she breathed.
“He told me he’d kill me, too, and some of the other kids for good measure,” Naomi informed her. “He took her and buried her out in the woods. Told Mama and the rest that she had probably run off. Everybody believed Daddy when he said that.”
Josie reached out and placed her hand on the girl’s head. “You must have hated him for what he did,” she said.
“I reckon,” Naomi agreed.
“Naomi,” Alafair asked, “did you shoot your daddy with this little gun as he lay there by the house?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did. I did it for Maggie Ellen. When Daddy went after her, I should have either fought him harder or let him be, one or the other. I just made him madder. I figured it was the only thing I could do to make up for not keeping Daddy from killing her in the first place.”
“Oh, honey!” Alafair choked out.
Josie put a hand on Alafair’s arm. “Well, when did you manage to shoot him without anybody seeing you?” she asked Naomi.
“Middle of the night. I don’t like to use the night jar, so I got up to go to the outhouse and seen him there by the house. He was laying right close to my hiding place. It wasn’t hard to pull it out and load the little pistol. I only had but one bullet in the bundle, but it was easy enough. Wasn’t even hardly loud enough to wake a bird.”
“But your mama and John Lee both said you were all together in the parlor that night and nobody stirred that they saw,” Alafair said.
Naomi shrugged and almost smiled. “I did. Nobody ever notices whether I come or go or anything.”
Naomi gazed up at the two women trustingly, relieved to have it out at last. Josie was pale as a ghost, absently stroking the girl’s hair. Tears of grief and rage were rolling down Alafair’s cheeks.
“He had it coming,” she whispered to Josie through clenched teeth. “The old buzzard had it coming.”
***
Three hours later, a solemn group of women sat in a circle of cane-bottomed chairs around the Franklin stove in the Day parlor, waiting for Naomi and the men to return from the woods with news of Maggie Ellen Day. Alafair sat nearest the front door with Phoebe, and Phoebe’s chosen support, Alice, next to her. Josie had positioned her chair close to the kitchen, holding Frances on her comfortable, well-padded lap. Mrs. Day was next, twisting her handkerchief in her lap and staring blankly at the floor. Mary was in the kitchen with the younger Day children. Martha was at home with the younger Tucker children.
There was nothing to say. This was hardly the resolution anyone expected, or wanted.
“What will happen to Naomi?” Mrs. Day wondered, out of the silence.
“I don’t know, Miz Day,” Alafair admitted. “But under the circumstances, I can’t imagine it will be very bad.”
“I expect not,” Josie agreed. “Even if she weren’t so aggrieved, she’s only thirteen.”
Mrs. Day glanced up at them from under her eyebrows. “I hope not,” she said dully. “I depend on her quite a lot.”
They all sat up straight at the sound of the men tramping into the yard and up the porch steps. Phoebe leaped to her feet and opened the door to admit them. Mary appeared in the kitchen door, holding Alfred Day on her hip.
The sheriff entered first, and Mrs. Day stood up. “Maggie Ellen?” she asked anxiously.
Scott glanced toward the Day children gathered around Mary’s skirt, then gave Mrs. Day an almost imperceptible nod.
Mrs. Day nodded back at him. Her eyes filled and she sat back down heavily. “My baby,” she said. The tears flooded down her cheeks, and she emitted a thin moan. Alafair moved over to her side and began helplessly patting the woman on the back.
Shaw had followed Scott in, shepherding Naomi by the shoulders. Close behind him were a white-faced, red-eyed John Lee, and Gee Dub. Alafair hadn’t wanted Gee Dub to go on this detail, but he was fifteen now, and in his father’s charge. He had held the horses while the men dug. He didn’t look as though he had enjoyed it any.
Alafair signaled Mary and Alice, who relieved Josie of little Frances, and the two young women herded the children back into the kitchen and out of earshot.
“We found her right where Naomi showed us,” Scott began. “Doctor Addison and Jack Cecil are still out there getting her arranged decently in a box and all. I expect we’ll have to take her into town, Miz Day, for a while, so that the doctor can examine her and see if he can determine what happened. She’s been in the ground a long time, ma’am, so he may not be able to tell.” He looked down at Naomi. “It’s just as Naomi said, I’m sure,” he acknowledged.
“Miz Day wants to know what will happen to Naomi, now?” Alafair asked for the mother.
Scott placed his hand on Naomi’s head. “Yes, she asked me that herself,” he told her. “I’m going to talk to the city judge, Mr. Sutton, tonight, and maybe Lawyer Meriwether. Miz Day, you and Naomi may have to come back to Muskogee with me in a day or two so she can tell the county judge the story herself. But I’ll be surprised if any charges are filed, under the circumstances.”
***
Shaw unobtrusively slipped out the door to go back out to the woods, and he was halfway into the yard when he realized that John Lee had followed him outside. He turned around to face the boy, but neither said anything for a minute.
“I expect you think this family is cursed,” John Lee opened.
“I think your curse has been removed,” Shaw told him.
“Sir, I imagine you’ve heard that Mama intends to sell the farm and move back to Idabel with the kids.”
Shaw nodded.
“I can’t get her to change her mind, and I can’t say as I blame her. She wants to get out of here, and she needs the money.”
“Can’t say as I do, either,” Shaw agreed.
“But I ain’t going, sir,” John Lee informed him.
Shaw raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t seem surprised. “You ain’t?”
“No, sir, I am not. I’ve already talked to Mr. Francis at the brick works about a job. Mr. Turner at the livery, too. He’s going to let me sleep up in the loft for part time work when I’m not at the brick plant. I’m saving every penny I make for as long as it takes, until I have enough to set myself up. Then I’m going to ask for Phoebe’s hand in marriage.”
Shaw nodded. “That may take several years,” he warned.
“I don’t care, Mr. Tucker. Phoebe said she’d wait for me. I’ll do whatever I have to in order to be deserving of her.”
Shaw’s mustache twitched. “We’ll see how determined you are after you’ve worked yourself to a frazzle for a couple of years.”
Shaw turned and took a few steps toward his horse, then turned back to John Lee, as though something had just struck him. “By the way,” he said, “it seems you haven’t heard that I’m buying the farm from your mother.”
John Lee blinked, not sure he had heard correctly. “Sir?”
“I’m buying the farm from your mother,” Shaw repeated. “It’s good farm land with a creek and buildings, and adjoins my farm as neat as you please. It’s a good deal for me.”
“You’re buying this farm?” John Lee managed stupidly.
“I am,” Shaw confirmed. He placed one hand on his hip and waved the other hand expansively over his new domain. “I’m planning on tearing down this poor house, if it don’t fall down before I can get to it. I think I’ll put in a few acres of beans the first year. Good for the soil. Might use some of that back acreage for horses.”
John Lee stood gazing mutely, his eyes wide and his bottom lip caught between his teeth, wondering why on earth Mr. Tucker was going on so gleefully about his purchase.
“Yes, indeed,” Shaw was saying. “I believe I’ll build a little house over there in that pretty copse of oak behind the barn.”
John Lee straightened. “Another house,” he said. “Why? You planning to lease it out?”
“Best way to go about it,” Shaw affirmed. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “A sharecropper, I think. I’m going to need a tenant…” he began.
Before he could finish, Phoebe burst out the front door and flew across the yard into her father’s arms. “Oh, Daddy,” she cried, “thank you, thank you!”
Shaw laughed as Phoebe squeezed the breath out of him and John Lee pumped his right hand maniacally. “Where’d you come from, you little busybody?” he asked his daughter wryly.
Alafair and Alice stood behind the screen at the Days’ front door, watching the action in the front yard, arm in arm.
“When did Daddy offer to buy the farm?” Alice asked her mother, surprised.