The Drop Edge of Yonder - An Alafair Tucker Mystery

by Donis Casey

  “Oh, no. Bill never was one to spoil for a fight. But you know how hot-headed Art Turner is, what a wild and untamed mouth he’s got, not like his brother Johnny at all. Bill and Trent were always pulling him off somebody and soothing any feathers that got ruffled. Funny how Bill and Trent are so calm, them both being redheads.”

  Alafair leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest, abandoning any pretense of sorting clothes. “Hmm,” was all she said.

  “Not much help,” Martha admitted.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I wonder if Scott knows to talk to the Turner boys?”

  “I imagine Trent would put him on to them. Besides, maybe it wasn’t Bill at all that was the target. Maybe it was Laura, or even Mary. Maybe the killer didn’t have any target at all. Maybe he was just in the mood to shoot somebody, and the four of them wandered by at the wrong time.”

  “I’d almost rather that,” Alafair told her, “than think he targeted them.”

  Blanche appeared at the screen. “Ma, I got the rice all washed and in the pot. How much water do I put in?”

  Alafair stood up. “I’ll be right in.” She followed Blanche, but paused before she went into the kitchen and looked back at Martha. “Keep thinking, sugar. Somehow we have to figure out how to get Mary to laughing again, and a little justice might go a long way to do just that.”

  Chapter Five

  Trent Calder had a bunch of tales about lawbreakers, due to his being the Sheriff’s deputy and all. He told the funniest story about his own uncle Roy Calder—remember him, Mama? He wasn’t exactly a genius in the criminal department. Trent related as how Roy and his son Doug broke into the lumber yard after a snow storm and stole a bunch of boards. The next morning Trent just followed their footprints from the lumber yard right to their house. Can you imagine? Trent near to fell off his chair laughing. Said that while he was arresting them, he couldn’t help but point out that they’d have done better to wait until after the melt, either that or do their burgling during the snow storm.

  While Trent was telling his story, I noticed Shirley Kellerman standing over by the bandstand. She was trying to make like she was listening to the band, but I could tell she was trying to hear what we were laughing about. I felt sorry for her. She could have joined us, if she’d a mind to. It was her own idea to keep apart from us. Art Turner saw her, too. He nudged Johnny and nodded over that way. They whispered together a bit, and Johnny looked annoyed, I thought. I’d bet money Art wanted to engage in some mischief at Shirley’s expense, but Johnny must have talked him out of it, because they joined back in the storytelling directly.

  ***

  The long, sweltering day had just about come to an end by the time Shaw and Gee Dub and Micah, the hired man, finally made their way home. The last fading light was lingering on the horizon when Alafair heard them ride past the house toward the stable, and it was entirely dark by the time they trudged up to the house and filed into the kitchen through the back porch. The younger children were in bed. Only Martha and Mary were with Alafair in the kitchen when the men came in, trailing Kurt Lukenbach and Charlie, who had come up from the stables to meet them when they arrived.

  Gee Dub had two shotguns under his arm, both unloaded with the breeches broken, and he slipped past his mother and sisters into the parlor to lock the guns in the cabinet. Kurt and Micah both stood by the door with their hats in their hands and greeted Alafair and the girls solemnly, asking after Mary’s health. Shaw hung his hat on the hook by the back door and lowered himself tiredly into a chair at the table beside Charlie.

  Two weeks earlier, Alafair would have objected to Charlie’s being out so late, but under the circumstances, his thirteen years made him old enough to pull a man’s duty when he was needed.

  He had stepped up without complaint. His blue eyes gazed at Alafair steadily, his sandy blond hair suffering serious hat distortion—sweaty, spiky at the crown and plastered down in a ring around his head. Alafair opened her mouth to admonish him to wash before bed, but decided to wait until later when the men were out of earshot and the boy’s dignity wouldn’t be compromised.

  “Ma, I’m mighty hungry,” he said.

  Alafair smiled. “Then you fellows better get some grub into you before you get to bed. Busy day tomorrow.”

  “Alafair, John Lee has gone home to his wife, but I told these boys you’d feed them.” Shaw nodded at the two young men still standing deferentially beside the back door.

  Alafair waved them toward the table. “Come on, then, boys. Have a seat. There’s a pot of rice on the stove, and I can have you some ham and gravy in a jiffy. Martha, fix these fellows up with some sweet tea.”

  Kurt and Micah mumbled their thanks and seated themselves at the table as Alafair began melting lard in her big iron skillet.

  “I’ll just have a bowl of rice, darlin’,” Shaw told her.

  “Me, too, Ma,” Gee Dub said as he sat down. “Too tired to do much in the way of digesting.”

  “How’s it going over at Grandma’s?” Alafair asked, as she arranged slabs of ham in the hot grease.

  “Most everybody’s gone home, now, except for Charles and Lavinia. They’ll be staying the night.”

  “What time is the funeral tomorrow?” Mary wondered.

  “Ten o’clock. The preacher was there most of the day.” Shaw nodded at Micah and Gee Dub. “These two young’uns and Charles’ boys got the grave dug in the family cemetery this evening. They’re putting him next to Aunt Olive.”

  “He always liked Aunt Olive,” Martha observed.

  Alafair removed the slabs of ham and scraped the bottom of the skillet to loosen the luscious brown bits into the grease before she made the gravy. She measured the flour into the grease and stirred the roux until it browned, then added enough milk to fill the skillet. After she had thoroughly mixed the ingredients and moved the iron skillet a little way off the fire, she placed the platter of ham on the table before the two hired men.

  Kurt thanked her solemnly, but Micah started a little when she placed the platter before him and looked up at her, bemused. He had been staring at Mary.

  Alafair blinked at him thoughtfully before she turned back to her gravy. Micah Stark. What did she know about him? He was something of a jokester, is what she knew. He was a good-looking youngster, in his mid-twenties, with dark hair and merry gray eyes. Average height, funny as could be, he’d take any opportunity to play with the kids. But maybe a little vain, a little enamored of the sound of his own voice. Shaw liked him. He was a good worker, a good carpenter and an efficient horseman.

  He had a fun-loving personality, much like Mary’s. Did Mary like him? She was friendly with both Micah and Kurt, Alafair knew. She had seen Mary and Micah team up to tease the stolid Kurt, but otherwise, it didn’t seem to her that Mary had ever shown a particular preference for one boy over the other.

  However…

  Alafair absently stirred the gravy until it thickened, then poured it into a bowl, all the while thinking of ways to get Mary’s smile back.

  Shaw had managed to delay the five ravenous males long enough to say grace, and they were already eating by the time Alafair put the gravy bowl on the table. Shaw and Gee Dub had turned their bowls of rice into a comforting hot cereal with the addition of several teaspoons of sugar, a dollop of butter, and cream. Charlie, Micah, and Kurt had made some headway with the ham and buttered rice. Micah took the bowl from his hostess and began to ladle gravy over everything in his plate while Kurt waited his turn.

  Alafair sat down with Martha and Mary on the opposite side of the table from the men. “You boys did a day’s work. Grave digging ain’t an easy occupation.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Micah answered, after a hasty swallow, “my arms is about wore off. Can’t hardly lift my fork.”

  “You seem to be doing all right,” Mary observed drily, as he shoveled another spoonful of rice and gravy into his mouth.

  He chuckled. “It would be a sin to waste cooking like thi
s, ma’am.”

  Alafair propped her chin on her hand and leaned her elbow on the table. “Where you from, Micah?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shaw look up at her from over his bowl.

  Micah grinned and sat back in his chair, clearly relishing the prospect of being the center of attention. Kurt remained engrossed in his food. “Well, ma’am, I’m from Texas, down around Abilene.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “My daddy moved to Texas from Ohio when I was a tyke and started a business there, Miz Tucker. A cattle company. I expect I’ll go into it with him one of these days. But I reckoned I’d better see the country a bit before I settled down to it. Didn’t want to live my life never having been anywhere but Abilene. I worked in the oil fields around Houston for a while, then a cattle ranch outside of New Braunfels. That’s where I met Kurt, here, too, amongst all them Germans. I told him he wasn’t never going to learn the English language proper if he didn’t get out with the English speaking people, so me and him come up here together and did some roustabout work in the big oil fields up in Tulsa County, then on down here to the field north of Boynton. We started looking to work with horses after a few months, though. That’s what we both like. We was lucky to hear that Mr. Tucker was looking for some help.”

  “I thought you were from Germany, Kurt,” Mary interjected.

  Kurt’s mild blue eyes widened as he looked up from his ham, vaguely surprised to be included in the conversation. He smiled, and unconsciously fingered the scar on his cheek. The move was not lost on Alafair. “I am.”

  “What do you think about all this war business?” Gee Dub asked him.

  Alafair shifted in her chair, impatient. Talk of the war that had just broken out in Europe annoyed her. People wasted too much time gabbing about something that had nothing to do with them, in her opinion. She had been infinitely more moved by the death of President Wilson’s wife just the week before. Those poor daughters…She opened her mouth to steer the conversation back on track, but Kurt saved her the effort.

  “Don’t mean anything to me. I have been away a long time from Germany.” He returned his attention to his supper, content to let Micah continue the story for both of them.

  “Yes, indeed,” Micah said, “old Kurt here come over from Germany almost seven years ago, but he proceeded to head right to New Braunfels, which if you don’t know is nothing but a town full of as square-headed a bunch of Germans as can be found on this side of the Atlantic.”

  Kurt shot Micah a glance at the remark, but seemed otherwise unoffended.

  “It was in about nineteen and eleven, as I remember it. I was running cattle for a Mr. Schwartzenfeld down there when I met this fellow here…” He nodded at Kurt. “…and I told him, ‘Kurt,’ I says, ‘come on with me up to Oklahoma, boy, and we’ll get rich working in the oil fields, and you can learn to be a regular American.’ As you can see, ma’am, we didn’t hardly get rich, nor did poor old Kurt get to be a regular American. But working with the horses and mules is sure less of a backbreaking proposition than being a roustabout, and not half as dangerous, I guarantee.”

  “Now, that’s quite a story,” Gee Dub commented, as he spooned more sugar onto his rice.

  “It sure is, Gee Dub,” Micah agreed. “And you can bet it ain’t over yet.”

  “Got big plans, do you?” Shaw asked, amused.

  ”Well, yes sir. I expect I do.”

  Mary, who had been leaning with her elbows on the table, listening intently to Micah’s tale, straightened. “Y’all want some pie?”

  Alafair was sure the young men would have accepted the offer, but Shaw pushed his bowl away and shook his head. “Thank you, hon, but it’s been a long day, and it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. I reckon these boys need to get to bed. Take one of the lanterns on the back porch, Micah. It’s plumb dark.”

  Obediently, Kurt and Micah stuffed the last few bites into their mouths and stood to leave. Mumbling their thanks to Alafair and the girls, they headed out the kitchen door to their shared room at the back of the work shed, between the barn and the stable.

  Mary and Gee Dub, one injured and one bone tired, also took their leave to clean up and seek their beds. Charlie, saved from exhaustion by his youth, was sent under protest to wash before retiring, leaving Shaw, Alafair, and Martha sitting silently at the table. Shaw drank the last of the sweetened cream from the bottom of his bowl, then looked up to see two pairs of dark brown eyes gazing at him speculatively.

  “Did you talk to Scott today?” Alafair asked him. “Have they made any progress in finding out who shot Bill?”

  “I didn’t get much chance to talk to Scott, but I did get a few words with Trent Calder. He told me that they had trackers out in the woods all day who have come up with a few things. The dogs found a hollow in the woods where they figure the kidnapper had stashed Laura for a bit after he grabbed her. It was all covered with branches and leaves as neat as you please. They found an empty feed sack in it. He expects that the bushwhacker throwed it over her head when he snatched her. Didn’t find any ropes or anything to restrain her, though, so she must have been unconscious when he put her in the hole. Scott has been over to the Rosses’ trying to get some information out of Laura. Her eyes are open, but she’s in some kind of stupor and don’t hardly seem to know he’s there. Doc Addison says the kidnapper nearly stove her head in, maybe with the butt of a pistol. He thinks whoever done it probably expected Laura was dead or dying when he stashed her in the woods. She was alive enough to crawl up to the road, though, before she passed out again. Calvin thought she was dead when he found her, but when he picked her up he saw she was breathing.”

  “Did the doc think she’ll get better, Daddy?” Martha asked.

  Shaw shrugged. “He said she might come around and be just fine. Or maybe she won’t.”

  “That poor girl,” Alafair muttered.

  “Did the doc get the bullet that killed Uncle Bill?”

  “He did, Martha. Said it’s a 7 by 57 millimeter rifle bullet. Hattie at the general store would sure know if anybody had ordered 7x57 clips recently, since she don’t sell that many seven millimeters before hunting season.”

  “Poor Laura,” Alafair reiterated. “Poor unfortunate girl, and her mother dead and all. I think I’ll go on over there tomorrow morning early and see if I can do anything for them.”

  “I hear Calvin wants to keep the girl secluded for a while,” Shaw told her.

  “Still, it can’t hurt to offer.”

  Shaw said nothing, but his eyes crinkled and his black mustache twitched. Alafair would never stay out of it if she thought she could be of some help to a young person. Besides, if anyone could help, she would be the one.

  Alafair patted the table with her hand. “Now, I’m wondering if one of those hired boys of yours might be able to help cheer up Mary.”

  Shaw hadn’t expected this comment at all. His eyebrows shot up. “Micah and Kurt? What makes you say that?”

  “Well, it’s plain she likes them.”

  “All the kids like them,” Shaw pointed out. “Don’t mean anything.”

  Alafair eyed him for a moment, deciding to use some care with this subject. Shaw was easily spooked when it came to talk of his daughters and men. “It’s just that Micah is a lively youngster, and it looked to me like Mary was enjoying his palaver.”

  Shaw looked at Martha, who was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, observing her parents and keeping her own counsel. “Have you heard your sister say anything about liking Micah Stark?”

  “Mary likes everybody,” Martha told him. “She’s as friendly as an old dog. She thinks Micah is funny but too cocky for his own good. I thought for a while that she had eyes for Kurt, but she mentioned the other day that Kurt hasn’t got two words to say for himself. She hasn’t said anything about either of them lately, at least not to me.”

  “Where did Kurt get that scar?” Alafair wondered.

  “I never asked,” Shaw said, “
but he once mentioned a run-in with some barb-wire.”

  “Doesn’t seem to bother him,” Martha told her. “Though when we were in Boynton a couple of Sundays ago, Laura and Mary were saying they were going to paint a scar on Micah so the two boys would match up. Micah was laughing like the rest of us, but Kurt acted like he’d rather be somewhere else.”

  “Kurt seems like a gentle soul, though,” Alafair opined.

  “Seems like,” Martha agreed. “Mary said he was a comfort to her when he came across her in the field the other night. She always speaks warmly of him, when she speaks of him at all.”

  “Just what is it you intend to do, Alafair?” Shaw challenged, half joking. “How do you intend to get these young folks together? The cotton is going to be coming in for the first picking within the next few days and the head feed will need to come in not long after. I’ve been making arrangements for extra hands with my brothers for most of the last month. Those are going to be two busy fellows directly. I don’t see how I can spare either of them for spooning at least until winter sets in.”

  “I’d have never pegged you for a matchmaker, Ma,” Martha teased. “You could have picked somebody for Mary with more wherewithal than those two hired men.”

  “Matchmaking!” Alafair exclaimed, affronted. “I never said any such thing. I was just trying to come up with some way to distract Mary from her troubles for a while.”

  “Some things only time will heal, darlin’,” Shaw told her, serious again.

  ***

  After everyone in the family was finally abed, Alafair made the rounds of the house to check on the children before she lay down herself. The night was sticky. Gee Dub and Charlie, Blanche and Sophronia had dragged cots and pallets out onto the big front porch to sleep, and Grace had thought that such a capital idea that she had insisted on sleeping between the girls. All the doors and windows of the house were wide open, and an occasional sultry breeze billowed the curtains in the girls’ bedroom, where Martha and Ruth lay asprawl on one of the double beds and Mary lay in a little ball on the other.