Now the hired man smiled and put his coffee down on the checked oilcloth. “He come back?” he asked. When he smiled you could see his stained teeth, and his reddish mustache bristled beneath his hawk’s nose. He wore his dark hair long and combed it so it covered a bald spot on the crown of his head.
Myrtle heaved up then and got our eggs and grits from the stove warmer. They were cold, but the biscuit toast was good and the coffee was strong and hot.
Pouring my coffee, she said, “I bet a silver dollar you two went to sleep before ten o’clock out yonder. A thief could—”
Grandpa saucered his black coffee and said, “Well, at least there’s no corn gone.”
The new lock hadn’t been touched.
“Sure we went to sleep. We didn’t have any notion he’d come back again so soon.” I set to eating then, hungry from staying awake to guard the corncrib.
But Grandpa just picked at his breakfast like there was a spider in his plate. I could see he was pondering something.
“Well,” Myrtle fussed, “I’d like to know what you figger to do.”
“Maybe he’s got all he needs now,” Grandpa said.
“Maybe he heard us in the barn loft,” I chimed in, “and will stay away for good.” I started to tell them about the big barn owl, but I thought better of it.
Myrtle just snorted.
Ranse commenced, “Look here now, Cap’n Jim, me and you just better set us that trap this evening when we knock off.” He seemed to grin, and his lips were pulled back from his gums.
“No, not yet. I wouldn’t want to harm—”
“Hunh, I think it’s a time you listened to Ranse, Jim Eller, and quit being stubborn as a iron-headed mule.”
“It’s just a few bushels of corn, Myrtle,” I said.
“Who pulled your chain, Mr. Big Britches?”
“That’s it,” Ranse persisted. “That’s all it is now, but mind you when a thief gets to stealing like that, there’s no telling what he’ll wind up taking. To my way of thinking he’s got to be stopped.”
“And I’m not going to set still,” Myrtle said, her voice rising, “while some low-lived scoundrel steals us out of house and home. I’m not about to.”
She sounded like she already owned the place, which someday she would. Grandpa had willed the house to her after he got sick, so he would have someone to take care of him and wouldn’t be a burden to his daughters. I had heard Mama fussing with Papa against it, though Myrtle was her own blood kin.
“I’m glad she’s no kin of mine,” Papa had said.
Myrtle commenced to pout, but Grandpa didn’t appear to pay her any mind.
But we had to listen all over again to Ranse telling about how him and his uncle once cured a corn thief. How they rigged up a shotgun in the crib, and when the man opened the door that night, it blew one of his legs nearly off.
“Simple as shooting a dove on a fence post,” Ranse said, winking at me.
I gave him a sharp look. Grandpa had taught me never to shoot a bird unless it was on the wing, never to take unfair advantage of any creature, wild or tame.
Grandpa pushed back from the table. “I’ll give it some thought.” He stood for a minute in the doorway studying the two of them, his face older than I’d ever remembered it being.
“You do that thing, Cap’n Jim,” Ranse said, slapping the table. “I tell you there’s more than one way to catch a thief.”
That night we slept in the hayloft again, and this time I sneaked a bullet in the chamber of my rifle.
When we woke up, it was long past daylight. My mouth dropped open when I saw the door to the corncrib was open. The thief had pried open the new lock, maybe with a crowbar, just like before. But that wasn’t all: along with the corn, a power saw was gone from the tool shed. And we hadn’t heard a whimper out of Wolf.
Ranse Martin was standing on the back porch grinning at us when we came down. “What’d I tell you all yesterday? You wouldn’t listen to me before. I reckon you will now.” He actually seemed happy the thief had come back again.
All that morning I worked hard in the packhouse. I had a notion I wanted to try out. I took the tobacco off the sticks as fast as I could, throwing the empty sticks out the window and piling the bright leaves beside Grandpa. He was grading the tobacco near the open door, holding the spread leaves up close to his eyes before dropping them into one of the three piles on the grading bench in front of him.
When I had taken off enough tobacco to last until past noon and swept up the broken stems and twine, I told Grandpa I was going to take the .22 and look for a rabbit over by the old millpond.
“You better be careful in them woods, boy,” Ranse said. “I’d stay out of them woods if I was you. I seen a great big rattler near that dam, not more than three days ago.” He was sitting near Myrtle, tying the tobacco in big awkward hanks.
“Your mama told me she didn’t want you traipsing around—” the housekeeper began. She was tying the best grade, wearing a white sack apron to keep the sand off her flowery dress.
But I caught Grandpa’s eye, and I didn’t pay them any attention.
“Here, Wolf,” I called, standing in the packhouse door.
Then the dog and I struck out across the pasture toward the woods. Grandpa knew I wasn’t just out for any rabbit. Wolf must have sensed it, too, from the way he wagged his tail and kept his gray muzzle to the ground, sniffing and whining. Anybody would have thought he was a spry pup and not an old half-blind, nearly toothless dog.
We tracked the corn thief for nearly a mile. I could have done it without Wolf, the signs were so clear. I could see where he’d gone down the side of the cow lane, mashing down a fennel here and there or rabbit tobacco or ragweed. When he got to the woods behind the barn, he climbed the fence and turned north, headed, I guessed, for the old sawmill road that led to the Wilmington highway.
Presently Wolf sniffed all around in a clump of sumac and blackberries, then, looking back at me, headed up the dry creek bed, into the woods toward the old sawmill. I gripped my rifle and trotted after him, scaring up a hermit thrush.
In ten minutes we left the scrub oak and poplar and ran into the cutover pine. I was glad I’d put on my straw hat then because the sun was hot. Sweat trickled down my ribs, and the pine needles felt warm and soft under my bare feet. They were good to smell, too. A squirrel fussed at me, but I just waved and smiled at him.
When we came out into the clearing, Wolf barked and dashed ahead. I ran after him, crossing the old lumberyard. A blue-tailed lizard sat gulping the sunshine on the pile of rotting slabs, and a catbird flew up from eating blueberries.
When I walked around the slab pile, you could have bowled me over with a feather.
There was the stolen corn!
I took off my hat and squatted down, putting my arm around the dog’s neck. His nose was wet and he was panting, with his tongue hanging out. “You may be old,” I told him, “but you can still track a thief.”
All the corn was there. The thief had dumped it in a sunken place at the foot of the sawdust pile and raked down sawdust over it. But he hadn’t nearly covered it up. I guess he figured nobody would look for corn in an old sawdust pile. Either that or he was in a big hurry. The dog and I searched all around, under strips and old slabs covered with vines, but we didn’t find Grandpa’s power saw.
That evening, after we’d packed the graded and tied tobacco down and covered it with old quilts, Grandpa and me took our guns and headed for the sawmill site. The guns were just for show because we decided to keep my discovery a secret.
Grandpa stood watching Wolf scratch at the pile of stolen corn. He took off his sweaty felt hat, scratched his head, and spit a glob of tobacco juice onto the sawdust pile.
“Don’t that beat bobtail?” I said. “What do you make of it, Gramp?”
He just grunted and studied the situation a while, his eyes disturbed.
“Ain’t that some kind of funny stealing?” I asked.
Gra
ndpa said maybe whoever it was intended to hide the corn there until he had a wagonload. Then some night they would cut the wire fence and drive a wagon in and take it out by the old logcart road.
On the way back he said, “Then again, maybe they didn’t really intend to steal that corn, Joel.”
Which was a puzzle to me. But I didn’t have time to ask any more questions because just then Myrtle was calling us to supper, her voice as screechy as ever.
At the supper table Ranse said, “I reckon you’ll listen to me now that thief has stole something worth as much as a power saw. I already got the stuff ready to set our little trap.”
As usual Myrtle set in to backing him up, fussing and whining. I figured one reason Grandpa gave in finally was to get a moment’s peace from the two of them.
“It might be the best thing after all,” Grandpa said, looking away from me. “I just hope he won’t come back.”
I was sure surprised to hear him agree to the trap. It wasn’t like him to do such a thing.
“Now you’re talking sense for once,” Ranse said, squinting at Myrtle, whose lips were quirked in a smile.
I guess Ranse Martin expected to get his way, sooner or later, because he had all the stuff ready. He’d nailed a board to a stanchion in the middle of the corn pile, with a V sawed in it to cradle the shotgun barrel. The stock rested on the corn. He had another board with a spool contraption fixed to it.
When Grandpa climbed up on the dwindling pile of unshucked corn and settled the gun, Ranse tightened the strong twine he had braided that ran to a staple in the door and slipped the loop over both triggers. Then he shifted the old twelve-gauge shotgun until it aimed where he wanted it.
“Now, boy, you slip out that window and open the door.”
I did. And when I eased the crib door open I heard the two clicks, one right after the other.
Grandpa took the claw hammer then and knocked the board with the V in it loose and nailed it back six inches lower. That way, if the shotgun went off, it would hit the thief in the legs, not in the chest. All this time he never looked me in the eye.
At least, I thought, he’s showing that much mercy.
Ranse squatted close by, his bald spot under a string of red peppers dangling from a rafter. He watched Grandpa with narrowed eyes. “Suit yourself, Cap’n Jim. You’re the boss, but I sure wouldn’t show him no mercy, a thief like that.”
Grandpa said, “The Bible tells us to temper justice with mercy.”
“Well, get me them shells now,” Ranse said gruffly.
“I’ll get them, Grandpa,” I volunteered.
“Yeah, let Big Britches there fetch ’em.”
“No,” Grandpa said. “I’ll get them myself, Joel. I know where they are.”
“Hurry now,” Ranse said. “We’ll get ourselves a thief if he dares come back. I tell you, the time me and my uncle…”
But Grandpa had already gone, walking toward the house on his short legs, the back of his shirt stained with sweat.
It was almost dark now, and the last domineckers had already gone to roost. The hired man and I waited in the corncrib about fifteen minutes, not saying anything. Somewhere in the pile of corn a mouse was gnawing steadily.
Finally Ranse took to popping his knuckles. “What in the name of the devil’s keeping him?”
“I hear him coming now.”
“The Cap’n’s just gettin’ old,” he said. “He’s old like that mangy dog, livin’ on borrowed time.”
“Grandpa’s not old,” I said. “He’s not as old as you think, leastwise.”
When Grandpa came back with the two shells, Ranse was fidgeting nervously with the gun.
“What kept you so long?” he said, reaching for the shells.
Grandpa didn’t answer him. Instead, he clambered up the pile of corn. “I’ll load it myself,” he said.
I watched closely as Grandpa squatted and slipped the two shells into the chamber and flicked the safety catch off.
Ranse stooped and adjusted the gun until the twine was stretched as tight as a guitar string. “I double guarantee you that won’t miss.”
Then we slid down the corn pile and climbed out of the window. Grandpa swung the heavy board window to and twisted the wooden latch.
“What if he comes in the window?” I asked.
“Heck,” Ranse said. “Ain’t he always come to the door?”
“Maybe he’s got all the corn he needs,” Grandpa said quietly.
That night, of course, we slept in our beds for a change. There was no reason to guard the corncrib. Grandpa turned out the light after reading a chapter in his old Bible, and pretty soon I heard him snoring away.
In a little while the housekeeper and Ranse turned off the radio in the parlor and went out on the front porch. I heard them talking and laughing, kind of low, rocking on the end of the porch shaded by the chinaberry tree.
I sneaked to the window, and when I peeked out I saw Ranse and Myrtle sitting close together in their rocking chairs. He had his arm on her shoulder.
As soon as Myrtle turned the lights out after Ranse, I slipped out of the cot and put on my shirt and blue jeans. Grandpa was breathing quietly, and I didn’t disturb him.
On the back porch I picked up my .22 and tiptoed out into the moonlit yard. I put my shoes on sitting on the back steps. Then I climbed the ladder up to the barn loft and stretched out on the oats, with my rifle resting on the bale of hay. If any thief came, I made up my mind I’d capture him first, before he got blown to smithereens by Ranse’s devilish trap.
I reckon my intentions were good, but, like before, I dozed off sometime before daybreak. And that made a lot of difference.
Anyhow, when I woke up it was good daylight. I guess what woke me then was Grandpa’s brogans, because when I looked down he was walking toward the corncrib, his face half hid by his old felt hat. He stopped at the crib door and tested the lock. I saw that it hadn’t been broken. Then he walked slowly around to the board window.
I was just about to surprise him and call out when I stopped. What made me keep still was this: I happened to glance toward the smokehouse, and there was Ranse Martin squatting down and looking over the stacks of stove wood. It looked curious. I couldn’t puzzle out what he was hiding for, so I scrooched back under the oats beside my rifle.
But I could still see Grandpa standing by the crib window. He didn’t open it right away. The shoats in the pigpen commenced squealing, and I heard him speak to them gently. Then he looked all around, finally toward the packhouse where Ranse slept. He spit out some tobacco juice and reached for the latch on the board window.
The minute he put pressure on that latch I sensed something was wrong. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Ranse Martin stand up by the smokehouse, and I felt the hackles on my neck rise. But it was too late to warn Grandpa.
Because as soon as he pulled on the window the shotgun exploded near his head and the shot echoed in the woods behind me. For a second Grandpa seemed to clutch at the windowsill. His fingernails scrabbled against the rough boards as his body slumped down, and then he sprawled out beside the crib. One arm was flung over his head, and his old felt hat was still on. He didn’t budge.
My heart was thumping against a button, and I was weak as skimmed milk. I just lay still for a minute, listening to the pigs squealing and the mules stamping below in their stalls. Then I told myself I had to go down. If Grandpa wasn’t dead, I would have to help him.
That’s when I saw Ranse, and I ducked my head back and kept still as a mouse. He was walking past the woodpile, his shotgun held down by his side. His eyes looked puffy, and there was a smile on his thin lips.
For a minute he stood in front of the corncrib. I heard a door slam, and then Myrtle was running across the backyard. “Is it all right, Ranse?” she cried.
He waited for her. “Hush now,” he said. He put his arm around her waist, and together they walked around the edge of the crib, with Ranse keeping the shotgun down by his side, awa
y from the pudgy housekeeper. I watched them studying Grandpa’s body. I could hear every word they said, and it was enough to turn my blood cold.
“Well, Myrt, what’d I tell you now?”
“I don’t want to think of anything going wrong, hon.”
Ranse patted her on the rump. “All you got to say is the old man set the trap and then forgot about it and killed himself. Everybody knows he’s not been himself since that stroke. Leastwise, nobody’s going to guess I turned the gun to cover the window instead of the door. And that house there is all yours—ours.”
“I reckon you know best. But I feel so sorry for—Oh, I do hope nothing goes wrong.”
“There’s nothing to go wrong, I’ve been tellin’ you.”
“But what about the boy? He saw you-all—”
“I’ve thought about that, too,” Ranse said, tapping his head with a finger. “I’ll just say the old man changed his mind, and we reset the trap to cover the window.”
Then I heard her scream. Ranse put his hand up to her mouth, but it didn’t help. She cut loose as loud as the shotgun had, louder.
But what made her holler was enough to stop the tears in my eyes.
It was Grandpa. He was getting up. I saw him rise to his knees, and then he stood up, with the two of them gaping at him and Myrtle’s shoulders shaking.
He turned to face them, but he wasn’t in any hurry to speak. I watched him brush the dirt off his work shirt and khaki trousers. There was a little smile on his lean face as he took off his felt hat and wiped the white hair away from his forehead. He was standing up straight, and in the morning light he didn’t look so weak or old any more.
Ranse blurted out, “We—Cap’n, we thought you was shot. I’m mighty glad—”
“I reckon I know what you thought, Ranse Martin. You, too, Myrtle.” Grandpa looked at the window where the gun had gone off near his head. “Mighty lucky thing for me I took all the shot out of them shells,” he said.
Ranse rapped out, “What do you mean? What the hell’s going—”
“You’re going,” Grandpa said calmly. “That’s what’s going, Ranse. The both of you are going to Queen City this morning.” His jaw was set in that stubborn Eller way that Ma always remarks on when I act up. “I may be old, but I’m not blind. Not yet I’m not.”
Tar Heel Dead Page 18