by Donis Casey
“What do you suspect he’s doing that for?”
“Don’t rightly know. Looks like he’s pondering whether or not to come in.”
Alafair grabbed Grace’s arm and pulled her back. “You stay inside, baby.” Grace responded with an irritated yip, but obeyed and contented herself with staring through the screen as her mother descended the steps and walked with Gee Dub down the long front driveway that led to the road into town.
The man on the dumpy buckskin mare caught sight of the two people walking toward him long before they reached the road. He guided his horse toward the gate, and was waiting for them calmly when they reached the end of the drive. He snatched his hat off when Alafair stopped walking. “Hey, Miz Tucker.”
Alafair crossed her arms and stood behind the closed barbed wire gate, in the middle of the drive, and eyed Johnny speculatively before she replied. Johnny Turner was mostly Creek Indian, and it showed in his compact figure and broad brown face, which made his gray-green eyes all the more startling. Her incongruous first thought was that he was mounted on the sorriest nag she had seen in a long time, and anyone with as good a reputation for knowing horseflesh as Johnny had ought to be riding something smarter. Alafair glanced over her shoulder at Gee Dub, and he nodded at her and leaned against a fence post with the wickedly sharp cutting tool propped casually over his shoulder. She felt herself relax a bit and dropped her arms to her sides.
“Howdy, Gee Dub,” Johnny called. “Been cutting grass? Hot work.”
“It is, Johnny,” he acknowledged laconically. “I’m thinking of getting a goat. What’re you riding, there? Looks like she’s just about ready for the glue factory.”
“Naw, old Tulip here was a fine horse in her time. I just thought she could use some exercise.”
“What brings you around, Johnny? You coming in or staying out?” Alafair asked.
“I come to pay my respects to Mary, but I’m a-figuring she might not want to see me. Might not be welcome, right now.”
Alafair straightened, half curious and half alarmed. “Mary ain’t feeling so well, Johnny. She’s not receiving visitors at the moment. But if you have a message for her, I’d be glad to pass it on.”
Johnny pondered for a moment, then nodded. “Well, ma’am, tell her I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk to her, but seeing all that’s been going on lately, I understand. I just wanted to say, Miz Tucker, I know that the sheriff is starting to have suspicious thoughts about my brother Art concerning Bill’s murder, and all the other loathsome things that’s happened, too.” He paused and licked his lips. “But it ain’t true, Miz Tucker. Bill was Art’s friend. Art would have never done anything to hurt Bill. Why, he admired Bill greatly, and Laura and Mary, too. I know that if he knew what had happened to Bill, he’d be here right now.”
Alafair nodded. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Johnny. But you’ve just put your finger on the problem, son. Where is Art? He ain’t where he’s supposed to be, I hear. And he sure picked a bad time to be disappearing.”
Johnny twisted his hat in his hands. The buckskin plug put her head down and placidly began to graze in the tall dry weeds by the gate. “I don’t know what’s going on, Miz Tucker! But I know for a fact that Art didn’t kill nobody. If he said he was going to Grandma’s, then he was. Me and Mama and Daddy and the rest of us are mighty worried about him. Everybody knew me and Bill and Art and Trent Calder was tight. Maybe whoever had it in for Bill has done something to Art, too.”
Johnny’s distress was so genuine that had Alafair been standing closer, she would have put her hand on his arm to comfort him. It hadn’t occurred to her that Art’s disappearance might bode ill for Art himself. “I expect that it would be mighty hard for you to think ill of your own brother. And I admit that I never much thought of Art as a danger to anybody before all this happened. Just too apt to fly off the handle for his own good. I know it’s hard not to fret, but you can trust Sheriff Tucker to get to the bottom of this, Johnny. He won’t let it go until he finds out the truth of the matter. Do you believe me, son?”
Johnny eyed her doubtfully, but he said, “I reckon. I sure will be glad when the sheriff catches the murderer. Everybody is looking suspicious at everybody else. I can’t hardly stand it. Why, I stopped over to Mr. Ross’ place before I come here, and he wouldn’t even let me get off my horse. Run me off with a shotgun.”
“Don’t be taking it hard, Johnny. He’s been going through a mighty rough patch.”
“Yes, ma’am, I expect. I wish, though, I could see her. I feel mighty bad about what happened to her. Mighty bad. If I could only tell her, why, she might feel better. I know I would, for sure.”
“Why, Johnny, I didn’t know you held Laura in such high regard.”
“Why, of course I do, Miz Tucker. Who wouldn’t? She’s such a fine, gentle girl. It just hurts me to hear she’s suffering.” He blinked rapidly and looked off into the distance for an instant before turning back to Alafair. “But I wanted to tell Mary that I’m sorry about what happened to her, as well, and that it just couldn’t have been Art who done it. Will you tell her, Miz Tucker?”
“I will. But before you go, will you tell me what Bill and Art fought about the morning Bill got shot?”
A pained look crossed the young man’s face. “I’d rather not, ma’am. There’s talk enough as it is.”
“You don’t have to tell me, Johnny, but have you told the sheriff?”
“I reckon I had to.” He eyed Alafair, considering. “Well, if you promise not to spread it about, I’ll tell you, but just so you’ll know it wasn’t much of a fight. They had sharp words about Shirley Kellerman. Art don’t like her. She really gets his dander up. He said some disrespectful things about her and Bill took exception. That’s all there was to it.”
Alafair compared his story to Trent Calder’s and thought to herself that there was a lot more to it than that, but to Johnny she said that she appreciated his confidence in her before he plopped his hat back on his head, took his leave, and rode away on his spavined mare. Grace and Mary’s song echoed in her mind: There is no knowing what people are doing…
Gee Dub was still standing silently beside Alafair with his scythe over his shoulder. She turned around and eyed him. “What do you think about that?”
He shook his head, and his mouth quirked. “Beats all.”
“I didn’t know Johnny was such a tenderhearted youngster.”
He removed his hat and wiped his brow with his forearm while he considered Johnny’s behavior. “Or a pretty slick liar,” he offered.
***
“Phoebe’s just reeling with happiness, Ma,” Alice told Alafair, who flopped herself onto the settee in Alice’s parlor and pulled off her hat. She and Grace had stopped by the very pretty white frame house in town on Thursday morning to visit Alice while Shaw and Charlie drove the buckboard on to the ice house to buy another block of ice. Alafair had not been able to pass up the opportunity to come into town and update herself on the latest unofficial news, which some unenlightened persons might have regarded as gossip. In Alafair’s experience, though, the underground information network was often much more informative than the official sources. The extremely disgruntled Mary was at home with her guardians Gee Dub, Kurt, and Micah, apprised of the locations of all the family’s firearms, and sworn to stay indoors with Ruth, and out of sight.
Alice lived with her husband, Walter Kelley, in a gingerbread-trimmed and leaded glass-enhanced white frame house which sat on the shady corner of Elm and Second Streets. Walter was quite a well-to-do businessman, and Alice had taken full advantage of that fact by completely redecorating his house after their wedding. Not one piece of furniture remained that had belonged to Walter’s first wife, the late and sadly unlamented Louise.
Alice had pretty much redecorated herself as well since her marriage, Alafair thought. Her blond hair was winged and swooped stylishly, and her clothes looked like they were custom made just for her, using the latest New York designs. Which
they may very well have been, since Alice was a talented seamstress and an avid reader of The Ladies’ Home Journal. Today, she had a sky blue silk scarf draped fetchingly around her neck and fastened at the shoulder with a pearl pin. Two rotating electric fans in the room created a refreshing breeze, which ruffled her hair and lifted the scarf tantalizingly with each pass. The color of the scarf perfectly matched her eyes. Alafair wondered how Alice could stand anything around her neck in this heat—especially anything as expensive and hard to care for as silk.
Alice seemed as happy as a whole sky full of larks, though Alafair worried that she was putting herself out for her husband to an extreme degree. Well, she expected to be treated like a queen in return, Alafair mused, so maybe that was all right. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, after all. And even if Alafair hadn’t noticed that Walter had mended his flirtatious ways, he did seem besotted with his young wife. She did look beautiful. Alafair smiled, proud of her daughter in spite of herself.
Alice smoothed the waves of blond hair over her ears and sat back comfortably in a wing-backed armchair after serving her mother a glass of cool lemonade. Grace was amusing herself hugely at Alice’s feet with her doll, some old crocheted doilies, and a tin pot that Alice had given her. “Both of them are crazy for that baby,” Alice continued. “John Lee can’t get anything done for wanting to rush back into the house and look at her.”
“That’s the way it ought to be, especially with the first, when nothing but the promise of a bright future stretches out in front of you, and you don’t have enough experience to know how much trouble that innocent little creature is going to cause you.”
“Are you making sport of your darlin’ children? I always thought we made your life an endless joy,” Alice teased. She ignored Alafair’s snort of derision. “I wish I didn’t have to leave Phoebe just yet, but I’d been away from Walter for two days and a night, now, and I shudder to tell you what condition the house was in, or what Walter had been feeding himself. Besides, Aunt Josie is at Phoebe’s now, and she said that Cousin Reginia wants to come out and help Phoebe for a while.”
“As soon as Daddy gets the ice and we pick up Martha from work and get home, I’m planning on going over there for a while myself,” Alafair said. “How does the baby look today? Have they named her yet?”
“Well, they’re about to decide to call her Zeltha, after John Lee’s grandma.”
“Zeltha!” There was a moment of silence as Alafair decided whether or not she approved.
“Ain’t it an interesting name though? She’s a real sweet-natured little baby. Doesn’t cry much. Just sleeps and looks around a bit. She seems small to me. Grace was a lot bigger, and the other kids, too, if I remember right.”
“They were. But neither Phoebe nor John Lee is very big.” Alafair smiled. “I expect my darlin’ granddaughter Zeltha comes by her size honestly.”
“I’m glad you’re going over, though. I think Phoebe is having a little trouble nursing, and she’s too shy to ask anybody else about it.”
“Why, she’s got the expert over there right now in Josie,” Alafair said, all the while listing in her mind the creams, lotions and herbs she would need to take when she made her visit. Nettle tea, she thought, to make the milk come, and a good goose grease salve.
Alice shrugged. “You know Phoebe.” She stood up and carefully placed one of the old doilies on Grace’s head. Grace immediately ran to the mirror on the back of the bedroom door to admire her new chapeau. “By the way, Josie brought some interesting news.” Alice looked over at Alafair. “Seems Shirley Kellerman has disappeared.” She paused to enjoy the effect this piece of information had on her mother, who sat bolt upright in her seat. “Yes, Miz Kellerman ran over to the sheriff’s office this morning all in a panic because she had just heard that Shirley never did make it to her aunt’s in Oklahoma City. She got on the train in Okmulgee all right, but she never arrived. Scott’s been telephoning every train station between here and the City to see if anybody can remember seeing her get off.”
***
With Grace in her arms, Alafair walked the two blocks from Alice’s house to the First National Bank of Boynton in silence, ruminating on the new information that Alice had given them. Mr. Bushyhead, the bank manager, was just locking up when they arrived, and Martha stepped out the front door onto the boardwalk to meet them. She looked very neat and businesslike, tall and trim in her navy blue drop waist dress with the white knife-pleat placket inset into the bodice. Her cheeks were rosy with the heat, and as they walked up, she smiled at them as she smoothed up off of her neck the tendrils that had fallen from the twist of dark brown hair at the back of her head.
“Did you hear about Shirley Kellerman?” Alafair said to her, in lieu of a greeting.
“Marfa, Marfa!” Grace was squealing joyfully, as though she had feared she might never see her sister again. Martha relieved Alafair of the squirming toddler and they began walking down the street in the general direction of the ice house.
“I did hear,” Martha assured her. “Alice dropped by the bank to tell me when she got back into town this afternoon. I’ve seen Miz Kellerman through the bank window two or three times already today, marching from hither to yon up and down the street. I reckon she’s torturing whoever’s on duty at the sheriff’s office, begging for news.”
“So has Scott come up with anything?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” Martha said, “but speak of the devil and up she pops!” She nodded toward the sheriff’s office just as the door opened and Mrs. Kellerman herself stepped out onto the boardwalk ten feet in front of them.
Martha may have been taken aback by the coincidence, but Alafair, who rather expected that the universe was organized for her convenience, was unsurprised. “Miz Kellerman,” she called. “We just heard about Shirley. Is there any news?”
Mrs. Kellerman looked over at them when her name was called. Her expression was distracted and distressed. She blinked at Alafair without recognition for an instant, trying to force her mind back into the everyday world. “Oh, Miz Tucker,” she said, as her thought processes re-engaged. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, gracious me. I’m just about beside myself, Miz Tucker. Howdy, there, girls.”
Alafair reached out and touched Mrs. Kellerman’s arm. The poor woman seemed beside herself, indeed.
“Yes, Miz Tucker,” Mrs. Kellerman was saying, “Deputy Calder has just told me that the station master at Shawnee spotted somebody who looked like Shirley get off the Oklahoma City-bound train last Saturday. Said he noticed her because a young fellow come up to her on the platform and they got into a fracas. He tried to latch on to her, but she jerked away and strode off into the crowd, him right on her tail, the station master said, and he didn’t see them no more. Oh, Miz Tucker, what am I going to do? Sheriff Tucker says that the sheriff over to Shawnee will find her right quick, now that he knows to look, but it’s been days since she was seen! What am I going to do?”
Alafair was patting the woman’s arm smartly, partly to comfort her and partly to get her attention. “Now, Miz Kellerman, Scott usually knows what he’s talking about, believe me. Did the station master describe what the man who talked to Shirley looked like?”
“Said he looked like a Injun,” Mrs. Kellerman said venomously. “I hate ’em! I hate them Injuns! I told her to keep away from them kind. She’d have never spoke to no Injun of her own accord.”
The Tucker women, enrolled members of the Cherokee Nation, drew up and moved back a step, but made no comment. After a moment of uncomfortable silence that the muttering Mrs. Kellerman appeared not to notice, Alafair said, “Well, we’ve got to be moving on. I’m sure Shirley will turn up just fine. We’ll be praying for her.”
Mrs. Kellerman gave them an offhanded thanks and scuttled off down the sidewalk.
Martha huffed a dry laugh. “Ever since the Indian Territory joined up with Oklahoma and became a state, they’re just letting any idiot in.”
But Alafair had oth
er things on her mind. “Honey, let’s stop in at the jail for a minute before we have to meet Daddy. There’s a thing or two I ought to tell Scott that he might want to look into.”
***
Alafair and her daughters met Shaw and Gee Dub just as they were pulling the wagon out of the ice house. A hundred-pound block of ice lay in the wagon bed, wrapped in gunny sacks, layered with sawdust, and laid all about with straw bales. The women hoisted themselves into the back and arranged themselves across the ice, providing further insulation and cooling their posteriors in the bargain. Grace started out riding up front on her brother’s lap, but ended up in the back with her mother and sister, burrowed down between the hay bales with her back right up against the cool burlap.
Alafair and Martha sat and looked at one another speculatively for some moments after Shaw pulled the wagon back onto the road.
“Why do you think Scott ought to look into those trips Bill made down to Texas? He did that for years.”
“I was just thinking that there was some trouble a few years ago on one of those trips, and Art was there.”
“So it’s Art,” Martha ventured at length. “Do you think?”
Alafair shook her head. “Maybe Art has been murdered his own self.”
“Now Shirley has disappeared after being accosted by ‘some Indian.’ And according to his own brother, Art didn’t cotton to Shirley.”
“Could be that somebody don’t cotton to Art or Shirley either one.”
“Do you expect that Shirley will show up lying in the road directly, with a bag over her head?”
Alafair made a horrified face. “Honey, I don’t know what’s happening.” She was making a heroic effort to keep her voice calm and reasonable. “I’m afraid, though, that some crazy man may be running around murdering and terrorizing young people. Maybe all you kids should make a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Gunn in Arkansas for a few weeks.”