The Drop Edge of Yonder - An Alafair Tucker Mystery

by Donis Casey

  Mary made a break for the doorway, but he sidestepped and grabbed her around the middle. They went sprawling across the floor.

  Mary started to scream, but Micah stuffed the cloth into her mouth and clamped his hand down over it so tightly that she could hardly breathe. She started to choke. Terror seized her. She knew that she had to fight back however she could.

  Micah was sitting astride her, his leg pinning one of her arms to her side. But her left arm was free and she raked his cheek with her nails. He yipped when she drew blood and smacked her in the jaw with his fist, stunning her. Then he stood and dragged her to her feet.

  He clamped his arms around her tightly while her mind was still fogged by the blow, and dragged her toward an empty stall. The barn was some distance from the house, but not so far away that he could drag a kicking and screaming woman out of it and not be noticed. He knew he had no choice but to kill her then and there, before she left for Arkansas, and figure out some way to remove the body before her folks figured out she was gone.

  But as he put his hand on the stall gate, all hell descended on him. It took him a few seconds to figure out what was happening. At first it seemed like an animal had attacked him, a dog maybe. Except for the fact that it had leaped on his back and was going after his head, screaming like a wildcat. It finally dawned on him that the bare brown feet and skirted legs clinched around his middle belonged to Mary’s mother.

  The intensity of the attack shocked him, and he dropped the disoriented Mary and reached up, trying to grab the hands tearing at him. Mary had already drawn blood, and Alafair was madly raking his face with her nails, and ripping out clumps of his black hair. After several tries, he was able to grasp the scraping, pounding hands, and frantically smashed his attacker between his body and the barn wall.

  Alafair emitted a cry of pain but hung on through two or three more blows, until she was dislodged and slid down his back. Finally free of her, Micah leaned over to grab Mary off the floor. He was taken by surprise when Alafair stood up and gave a swift kick to the back of his knee that forced him to grab the side of the stall to keep from falling.

  Before he could regain his balance, she tried to jump on his back. He was really alarmed, now. The woman was like a wounded lion, and her shrieks were sure to draw attention. He jerked his elbow back and caught her in the ribs. The blow knocked the wind out of her, but Alafair wrapped her arms around him from the back and squeezed the breath out of him with every ounce of strength she still possessed. Micah emitted a growl and pried her hands from around his chest. Alafair tried to feint as he turned around, but she was cornered by the wall. He punched her in the stomach and she fell to her knees.

  He was running out of time. He saw that Mary was coming around, struggling to sit up, trying to spit the bandanna out of her mouth. He turned back toward her in a panic, but was able to take just one step before Alafair grabbed him around the legs and he went down. He maneuvered himself onto his back. Alafair managed to hang on to one leg, even though he kicked her several times in the shoulder with his boot. With every blow she slid further down, her fingers digging into his thigh, his knee, his calf. She was making a horrifying noise now, yowling like an animal.

  “Good God, woman!” Micah panted. He kicked her in the face, and she let go, and was still.

  Mary raised herself onto on her knees, trying to stand, wailing, “Mama!”

  Micah pulled himself up, and gasping for breath, seized a broken hoe handle that was leaning against the wall. He lifted his arm to strike Mary with it, and her scream awakened a final light in Alafair’s fading consciousness. With her last spark of energy, she pulled herself across the floor and sank her teeth into Micah’s calf from behind.

  He shrieked in pain and surprise, and hysterically began to beat at Alafair with the hoe handle. She barely felt the crack across her cheek, then her ear, then all went dark. But she didn’t let go.

  Mary was on her feet by then, trying to move to her mother’s defense. She barely saw the tall figure with the pickax in his hand appear from behind her. She did see Micah’s chest explode with red, and the stunned look on his face as he slowly keeled over onto the floor. She believed that she had never seen anything so beautiful as Kurt’s blood-speckled face as he leaned over to check on her unconscious mother, whose teeth were still buried in the late Micah Stark’s calf.

  ***

  It took Scott, Trent, and Gee Dub all three to pull Shaw off of Kurt, who was huddling on the floor with his arms wrapped over his head, trying to keep from being killed. Mary had interjected herself into the scrum as well, reaching through the flailing arms and legs to pat her father’s back and cry, “No, Daddy, no, Daddy, no, Daddy!” Shaw’s hounds were complicating matters by excitedly bounding around underfoot, baying and barking.

  The conclusion that Shaw had drawn was understandable. When the men had entered the barn at a run, they were already alarmed by the sounds of mayhem they had heard from the yard. The sight of gore-begrimed Kurt, already the object of their suspicion, leaning over Alafair’s prone form and Micah’s bloodied corpse, simply added fuel to the fire of Shaw’s rage and terror.

  Scott and Gee Dub managed to wrestle Shaw away before he did permanent damage to either Kurt or himself. They restrained him with their bodies and soothing words in the corner while Trent Calder pushed Kurt face down in the dirt and handcuffed his hands behind his back. Mary danced around trying to get someone’s attention, torn between attending to her mother and trying to keep her savior from being injured. Finally she crouched down to examine Alafair’s wounds and at the same time try to explain to Trent, who seemed to be the least excited person in the vicinity, what had happened.

  She leaned her face close to Alafair’s. “Mama? Mama, wake up,” she urged, gingerly feeling the wounds on Alafair’s face.

  Trent was kneeling with one knee dug into the small of Kurt’s back and one hand holding down his head. “How is your mother?”

  “Her pulse is strong, and I can’t feel any broken bones,” Mary said, loud enough for her father and brother to hear. “She was around behind him and he couldn’t get a good angle when he went to flailing at her. She’s got some pretty good cuts and whomps, though.” She looked up at Trent. “Trent, Kurt isn’t the bad man, here. It was Micah. Micah killed Bill, he told me so. Nix Webb and Farrell Dean Hammond, too. He hurt Laura and tried to burn her up, and he was going to kill me. Mama saved me, and Kurt saved both of us. Micah would have done us in for sure if Kurt hadn’t come in when he did.”

  Trent looked over at Scott, and so did Mary. “It was Micah?” Scott echoed.

  Mary switched her gaze to Shaw, who had gone quiet even though he was still standing in Gee Dub’s restraining grip. The whites of his eyes were red. The sight alarmed her. She had never realized until this moment that her father was quite capable of killing. “It was Micah, Daddy,” Mary repeated, in the hope that he could hear her. “He said too much, and I figured out that it was him who shot Bill and kidnapped Laura. He planned to kill me while he had the chance and dump me somewhere. I reckon that he was going to try to pin it all on Kurt.”

  Kurt, face in the dirt, made a little sound of surprise.

  “Mama came on him trying to drag me off,” Mary continued, stroking her mother’s hair, “and jumped him. She gave him what for, I’ll tell you, but if Kurt hadn’t showed up when he did, it would have gone the worse for both of us. Kurt’s a hero, Cousin Scott.”

  Shaw shook off Gee Dub’s hand and knelt down beside Alafair. He couldn’t budge her at first. Her jaws were clamped around Micah’s calf like a vise. She moaned when he moved her.

  “Run for the doctor, Gee Dub.” Scott leaned over Kurt. “Boy, do you own a Mauser ’98 rifle?”

  One wide blue eye looked up at him from under Trent’s fingers. “No, sir.”

  “Did Micah?”

  The blue eye blinked. “I don’t know of it, no, sir. He owned two or three good guns that he kept wrapped in sleeves most of the time.” />
  “Do you know anybody who does own a Mauser?”

  Kurt considered this for a moment. “Since I been here in America, sir,” he said at length, “the only Mauser I ever seen belonged to Mr. Schwartzenfeld down in New Braunfels. It got stole before Micah and me left.”

  “Which of them two bunks in the shed is yours?”

  This unlikely question gave Kurt a moment’s pause, but he was in no position to ask for an explanation. “Under the window, sir. By north wall.”

  The messy one. Scott straightened up. “Why did you plant a pickax in Micah’s chest?”

  “I told you, Scott…” Mary attempted, but Scott held up his hand to silence her, and she bit her lip.

  “Were you trying to shut him up, boy? Were y’all in cahoots?”

  “Nein!” Kurt was so shocked at the allegation that he could only manage a horrified squeak.

  “Tell me what happened, then.”

  Kurt answered the best he could, considering that Trent was crushing his ribs and he had suddenly forgotten most of his English. “I am coming back to our room after I break the ground in the pasture when I hear the noise in the barn. I ran, then. But when I went inside, I cannot believe what my eyes see. I stand like a tree for a little minute. Then I wake up and see that he is hurting Miss Mary and Miz Tucker, and I have pick in my hand and I know I must stop him how I can.”

  “That’s just what happened, Scott! That’s just what happened!”

  “All right, Mary, honey. Well, I guess you can let him up, Trent. But I’ve got plenty more questions before I’m calling this over.”

  “But why?” Shaw asked. He sounded out of breath, and hoarse. “Why would Micah kill my brother like that?”

  “It’s a long story, Daddy,” Mary told him, “but it seems that a few years ago Micah’s brother killed his own father down in Waco. Bill and his friends were there on a horse buying trip and saw the whole thing. They all testified at the trial, and Micah’s brother got hanged. Seems Micah was on a mission to avenge his brother.”

  “But…” Shaw attempted, but Scott cut him off.

  “Not now, Shaw,” he admonished. “Let’s get Alafair taken care of first.”

  ***

  Alafair was swimming up from the depths. One whole side of her face felt like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to it, and her ribs hurt so bad that she could hardly draw a breath. She could hear Shaw’s voice through the ringing in her ears, and she desperately followed it toward consciousness. Something was in her mouth.

  “Let go, honey,” Shaw’s voice was urging gently. “Open your mouth. Let go. It’s all over now. Mary’s all right. You got him, honey.”

  She opened her eyes. All she could see was cotton twill material and dirt floor. A man’s hand, Shaw’s hand, was massaging her jaw, trying to wedge his fingers between her teeth. She relaxed and Micah’s calf slid out of her mouth. She could taste blood. The instant she let go, Shaw turned her over and hoisted her into his lap.

  “Mary,” she croaked.

  “Mary’s fine, darlin’. I declare, you look the worse for wear.” Shaw’s eyes flooded with tears of relief, and he started to laugh. “Alafair Gunn, you’re going to be the death of me.”

  ***

  Sally had been worried about Laura all day. She had been so restless and upset that Sally feared she might have to tie her to the bed, like Calvin had done. Laura had been doing so much better that this turn for the worse took Sally completely by surprise. She made up a sedative herbal tea and fed it to the girl by the spoonfuls, but by late in the evening, she determined that there was nothing to do but send Peter for Dr. Addison.

  Sally was about to turn the doorknob to leave the room when something stayed her hand. A whisper, a sigh, a breeze. And then utter stillness. Sally took a breath and turned around to see that Laura had stopped her flailing and moaning. The girl quietly stood up from the bed and walked over to the window and looked out. Sally stood paralyzed for a moment, watching.

  Laura half turned and looked at Sally with an expression in her pale blue eyes that was completely changed from only an instant before.

  “It’s over now,” she said. “My Bill has gone home.”

  ***

  “What about Art Turner and the Kellerman girl?” Shaw asked Scott after Doc Addison had left and Alafair was settled. They were sitting in the kitchen with a couple of glasses of tea while Martha waited on them. “Why did they both disappear? Did Micah do something to them, too? What did they have to do with the situation?”

  “Nothing. That was just bad timing. We got word this afternoon that Art did catch up with Shirley in Shawnee. He’s one persuasive youngster, because he talked her into marrying him right then and there. They found them a preacher and did the deed and they’ve been in Oklahoma City ever since.”

  Shaw guffawed. “Reckon he didn’t dislike that gal as much as he let on!”

  Both men started when Martha, who was standing behind them at the counter, burst into laughter. “So Miz Kellerman has an ‘Injun’ son-in-law,” she chortled. “The Lord does have his ways!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hexed! Those boys who testified at the murder trial of Arvid Weiss weren’t hexed, Mama. It wasn’t just that Nix and Farrell Dean and Bill saw the killing, but that they testified against Arvid and got him executed.

  Isn’t it funny? I opened my eyes in that field and instantly knew that what had just happened was connected to the story Bill told us on the Fourth of July. How could that be? It seems to me that there must be a kind of knowing that has nothing to do with thinking. Maybe that’s why the minute I came to and my brain started working again, the answer left me, and I was only just able to grab the tail end of it before it disappeared altogether.

  Little bits kept coming back to me over the weeks, whenever I was quiet, or in my dreams. Then, when Micah kicked that kitten, it came to me that it was him who had been tormenting the little animals. No dogs or big critters that might fight back, the coward. Just teasing the rooster to make it spur and picking off the kittens, just for meanness. Who knows what else over the time he’s been amongst us? Funny, when he said that, I thought of the last verse of the kitty song:

  I took my hook, and went to the brook

  to see if my kitty was there;

  but there I found that she had been drowned,

  and so I went home in despair.

  But then when he made that comment about Laura, it shocked me so that I couldn’t think, and suddenly I knew as plain as day everything else he had done, as well.

  Do you expect that there’s a part of a person that’s connected right to the truth of things? A part that’s halfway between this world and the next—that’s standing on the drop edge of yonder?

  ***

  Mary’s story was finished. She sat back in her chair next to her mother’s bed and placed her hands in her lap. Alafair turned over onto her side to face her.

  Mary had finally told her mother the entire story, from the moment she awoke in the field after Bill’s murder to the instant in the barn when everything had come together for her in a flash of insight. Alafair had no intention of telling her that she had already read most of it in Mary’s secret journal—enough that she had been graced with her own moment of clarity.

  Of course, she had had help from Laura.

  A half-smile curved Mary’s lips, and her eyebrows arched quizzically.

  Alafair smiled back. She could read Mary’s expression as plainly as letters on a page. What does it all mean, Mama? But Alafair had no answer for her.

  Alafair shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable. It had been almost two weeks since Micah Stark’s shocking demise, and Alafair was still feeling pretty beaten up. The right side of her face was swollen and covered with yellowing bruises, the eye just a slit. One knee was twice its normal size and her ribs and back were bruised and sore, making her walk crabbed over like an eighty-year-old woman.

  She was in high spirits, though. The fact that she couldn
’t dress herself or brush her hair rather amused her. Normally, anything that interfered with Alafair’s perpetual motion would have irritated her no end, but she attributed her good mood to the fact that the lurking, unknown danger to her children was over.

  In fact, until half an hour before, Alafair had been in the kitchen. For today, Saturday, September 12, 1914, G.W. Tucker turned eighteen years old, and his mother had insisted on making his favorite dessert herself, in spite of the fact that she was so stiff and sore that she could hardly move.

  With so many children in the family, birthdays were generally quiet affairs, marked only by a favorite food and a respite from a chore, but Alafair and Shaw did take special notice whenever one of the heirs turned eighteen. Today, Gee Dub’s birthday soirée was attended by his parents, his siblings, brothers-in-law, niece, some cousins, and Kurt Lukenbach.

  For his special dinner, which this year was cooked by his sisters, Gee Dub had chosen perch that he had caught himself in Cane Creek, rolled in cornmeal and delicately pan fried, roasting ears—corn on the cob roasted in an iron pot over an open fire in a pit behind the house—fried okra, brown beans and fatback, fragrant sliced tomatoes right off the vine, still warm from the sun, fried potatoes with onions, and cornbread. Also on the table were sorghum and sliced raw onion, fresh milk and buttermilk, sweet iced tea, apple cider vinegar and homemade ketchup, piccalilli, homemade pickles, store-bought white bread (since this was a special occasion), and lots of butter for slathering on corn, cornbread, and anything else that struck one’s fancy. And on the end of the big table sat a pot of chicken and dumplings, the sad but tasty end of a tough red bird who had competently done his roosterly duty all his life, yet through no fault of his own had ended up a criminal.