The Prairie Thief

by Melissa Wiley

  He picked up his gavel and paused, savoring the last moments of calm before the ruckus he was about to cause. All eyes were upon him. Mrs. Smirch leaned forward hungrily, eager to see justice served upon the man who had by all accounts been as fine a neighbor as any homesteader could wish. Judge Callahan shook his head. Forty-two years on the bench, peering into the truth, and people were still a mystery to him. What curious satisfaction would it give this Smirch woman to see her neighbor packed off to prison in Topeka, or worse? Was her soul so shriveled that she didn’t blink an eye at the thought of orphaning a child?

  Thinks she wants justice, she does, thought Judge Callahan. Lord help her if she ever gets it.

  He banged the gavel down. The faces of the jury registered impatience, eagerness, boredom. Many of the onlookers had drifted away during the long recess, perhaps having their own rumbling bellies to attend to.

  “Upon reflection, it is this court’s opinion that there is not sufficient evidence for a case against Jack Brody. I’m dismissing the charges.”

  The room exploded with noise. Mrs. Smirch’s outraged screech rose above the din. The judge pounded and pounded for order, but it was several minutes before anyone took heed.

  During this commotion, Jack Brody and the sheriff sat quietly side by side, both evidently stunned by this abrupt conclusion to the matter. The judge noticed the courtroom door opening and Louisa creeping in, struggling to lug the judge’s old carpetbag that he used on his circuit rides. Judge Callahan’s eyebrows rose. He had a strong suspicion that his housekeeper was hiding in that carpetbag. She couldn’t stand to stay home and miss the excitement, thought the judge. Ah, well, who can blame her?

  Quietly Louisa shoved the bag under a back bench. Then she sought out her father, squeezing her way through the crowd toward him. At the sight of her, Jack Brody rose to his feet with a glad cry and wrapped her in a bear hug.

  Mr. Smirch stood watching, his nervous hands crushing his hat into a shapeless ball of felt; but Judge Callahan could swear that the man’s expression was actually one of relief.

  Regrets starting this ball rolling in the first place, he does, thought the judge.

  indent">But his wife was still shrieking for justice. “He’s guilty, I say!” Mrs. Smirch screeched, eyes bulging, spittle flying. “It’s a crime to let him go free!”

  “Hush, Matilda,” said Mr. Smirch.

  “But he took our things!”

  “No, madam,” said the judge. “You discovered your things in an abandoned building on his property—”

  “I discovered them,” boasted Winthrop. The judge silenced him with a fierce glare.

  “As I was saying, there is no evidence that Jack Brody took them.”

  “It’s the same thing! Who put ’em there, if he didn’t?”

  Judge Callahan sighed. This could go on all day. This Smirch woman was clearly not the sort to let a grievance go easily. Most likely she would pester both himself and Jack Brody about this matter until the end of their days. The judge envisioned a well-deserved retirement marred by venomous missives, by passionate upbraidings whenever Mrs. Smirch happened to pass him in the street. He supposed it would be even worse for Brody, living a scant two miles from the Smirches. And the poor lasses, Louisa and the Smirch niece—what was her name? Jessamine—living away out in the lonely country, needing each other for company. With Mrs. Smirch harboring such a grudge against the Brody family, the girls would never be allowed a friendship. ’Tis a crying shame, thought the judge. If only there were some way to persuade her to let the matter drop.

  But her angry gesticulations made it clear she would never let the matter drop. Now the sheriff, her husband, and three members of the jury were having to forcibly restrain her from clawing Jack Brody’s eyes out.

  That was when the judge noticed something peculiar. Swinging from Mrs. Smirch’s bonnet string was a large round ring of keys. As the judge watched, the woman jerked away from her husband’s grasp, causing the key ring to fly up and whack her in the cheek.

  “Oof!” she grunted. “Who hit me? Someone hit me!” She whipped her head around to survey her restrainers, and the keys swung out again. This time they smacked the sheriff in the nose.

  “OUCH!” he roared. “Have you gone mad, woman?”

  “I didn’t lay a hand on you!”

  “I think you did, Mattie,” said her husband warily. “Look, his nose is bleedin’.”

  Mrs. Smirch whirled to look, and the keys swung out again, striking her husband on the ear.

  “Owww!” he yelped. “Mattie! What in tarnation have you got tied to your bonnet string?”

  Mrs. Smirch started to whirl toward him, causing the entire jury to drop to the ground, avoiding whatever strange weapon the woman had tied to her bonnet strings. Judge Callahan sat watching in bewildered amusement.

  Of the crowd around Mrs. Smirch, only Jack Brody hadn’t ducked. He put out a hand and caught the swinging key ring, stilling it as calmly as one stopping the pendulum of a clock.

  “Sheriff, these are your keys, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Mrs. Smirch cried out in surprise. “What? But . . . how . . . I’ve never seen these keys before in my life!”

  A glimmer of understanding came to the judge. Could it be? He scanned the courtroom, searching . . . Surely Mrs. Mack would not be so foolhardy as that. It would be madness to risk exposing herself to the citizens of Fletcher. But someone had tied those keys to Mrs. Smirch’s bonnet, and it was clear the woman herself had known nothing about it until they smacked her in the face.

  Ah. Judge Callahan began to see.

  “Madam,” he said, his strong voice cutting above the din, “this is a grave matter indeed. Stealing from the sheriff—”

  “But I haven’t stolen anything!” cried Mrs. Smirch. “I have no idea how they got here!”

  “And yet,” said the judge, “there they are. Stolen property, on your person.”

  He paused a moment to let the statement sink in. The piano player began to chuckle.

  “Oh, Mattie,” said Mr. Smirch. He seemed deadly serious, and Judge Callahan had to look very hard to see the hint of a twinkle deep down in his eyes.

  “Ain’t that a puzzler,” said Jack Brody.

  “You done it—” Mrs. Smirch began, but she was shouted down by the crowd.

  “Brody didn’t do nothin’,” growled the sheriff. “I’ve been watchin’ him the whole time. Or are you aimin’ to accuse me next?”

  “Well, well, well,” said Judge Callahan, enjoying himself mightily. “It seems we have another mystery on our hands. You say you didn’t take those keys, Mrs. Smirch. And yet there they are, in your possession. I must say it doesn’t look good for you, madam.”

  “But your honor,” faltered Mrs. Smirch. She groped for Winthrop’s head and clutched him by the hair. “Please. I’m innocent. My babies—”

  “Ow!” hollered Winthrop, ducking away from the swinging key ring.

  “As I said, it doesn’t look good for you. And yet . . .” The judge paused, waiting for Mrs. Smirch to look him in the eye. “Perhaps you’ll agree that despite the way things look, we have no real evidence against you.”

  Mrs. Smirch bit her lip.

  “Perhaps you’ll agree that sometimes, there are not enough facts present upon which to form a sound conclusion.”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “I thought as much. In that case, Sheriff, if you are content to retrieve your misplaced property, we can let the matter rest.”

  The sheriff wiped blood from his nose and gave Mrs. Smirch a long, appraising stare. She began hurriedly untangling the knotted bonnet strings to free the key ring.

  “I’m sorry . . . they’re so tight . . .”

  “Elflocks, my grandmother used to call them,” said Jack Brody thoughtfully.

  “What’s that?” asked Mr. Smirch.

  “Knots in things. String, or horses’ tails, or what have you. Elflocks. When I was a boy, my granny told me about the wee fo
lk—how you had to be kind to them, or they’d tangle your ropes and curdle your milk.”

  From the corner of the courtroom came a low, satisfied chuckle. It wasn’t the piano player this time; of that, Judge Callahan was certain. He saw that Mr. Smirch, too, had turned and was peering hard in the direction of the gruff and throaty laugh.

  The crowd began to squeeze itself out of the stuffy courthouse, spilling into the street. The Smirch boys tagged after the sheriff, evidently enthralled by the gory sight of his red and dripping nose. Mrs. Smirch hustled after them, shaken, holding a hand to her bruised cheek.

  Louisa launched herself at her father. Brody put his arms around the girl and held her tight. The two of them looked as if they could go on hugging all day; Judge Callahan was surprised when the girl pulled away and said, “I’ll be back in a minute, Pa,” and dashed out the door into the mobbed street.

  Now Jack Brody, Malcolm Smirch, and Judge Callahan were the only three men left in the courthouse. The judge hung back, hoping for a moment alone with Brody, but Smirch stood frozen, rubbing his eyes.

  “Something ailin’ you, Malcolm?” asked Jack Brody kindly.

  “No, er . . . ,” replied Smirch, shaking his head as if rousing from a dream. “It’s just . . . it’s the darnedest thing. For a minute there I could have sworn I saw a—ah, never mind.”

  He shrugged, embarrassed. The judge saw how a fresh wave of color rushed over the man’s face as he realized to whom he was making his strange confession.

  “Jack,” said Mr. Smirch weakly, “I . . . I don’t know how to . . .”

  “Don’t mention it,” replied Jack Brody. He put out a hand, offering to shake.

  The two neighbors left the courthouse together in search of their children. Judge Callahan stood in the doorway, watching them go, feeling a vast contentment. Then he slowly closed the door and held out a hand to the figure hiding in the shadows behind it.

  “You’ll be Mr. O’Gorsebush,” said the judge. “A very great pleasure it is to meet you.”

  There came a squeak from under the back bench, and Mrs. Mack burst out of the carpetbag with her hands on her hips.

  “Angus O’Gorsebush! Whatever are ye doing here?”

  The little bearded man stepped forward and straightened his tall, pointed cap, which had been knocked askew when he ducked behind the door, dodging Mr. Smirch’s gaze.

  “Had to make sure things came out all right for the lass’s pa, didn’t I? I was aimin’ to march right in here and tell Hizzoner the whole story, until I saw he’d already got matters well in hand.” He turned to the judge and bowed with immense dignity. “I hope ye don’t mind me interference with Mrs. Sour-Smirk there at the end, sir.”

  “I’ve seldom enjoyed myself more,” said the judge.

  “Angus.” Mrs. Mack’s eyes were full of tears. “D’ye mean to say ye’d have let Big Folk see you—on purpose—to save that man?”

  “Aye,” said the brownie. “What d’ye take me for, woman? A boggart?”

  “Oh, Angus,” said Mrs. Mack tenderly, and now her eyes were shining.

  The judge saw that the brownie fellow’s eyes, too, were suspiciously wet. He turned away to give them their privacy, but they were too busy hugging to notice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A Hair Bow Ain’t a Hatchet

  LOUISA HURRIED OUTSIDE IN SEARCH OF MRS. Smirch and the boys, hoping her plan had worked. There were any number of things that could go wrong. Suppose the crow didn’t make it there and back in time, or suppose he went to the wrong house? Although he seemed like a most intelligent creature. Mrs. Mack had explained the situation to him while Louisa wrote a hasty note to Jessamine. She just wished Jessamine could be here for the fun.

  We’ll have all sorts of fun together if this works, she thought. Mrs. Smirch just has to let her visit me, after all she’s put us through.

  Mrs. Smirch was standing in the middle of a crowd in the dusty street, venting her wrath to anyone who would listen, while the sheriff’s wife picked at the knotted bonnet string, trying to free the ring of keys. The sheriff stood nearby, tipping his head back and pinching his nose to stop the bleeding and fussing at Winthrop and Charlie to stand back and let him breathe.

  “I don’t care what anyone says,” declared Mrs. Smirch. “I know what I know.”

  “But, Matilda,” said the minister’s wife, “that’s just it. You don’t know anything.”

  “Maybe it’s ghosts!” suggested the saloon’s piano player. “I can’t think of no other way them keys got tied to your bonnet. Maybe it’s ghosts playin’ tricks on the lot of you.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts!” scolded the minister’s wife.

  A heated debate commenced. It seemed the entire population of Fletcher had an opinion about the existence, or lack thereof, of ghosts, and whether or not a ghost might—if one existed—be responsible for hiding assorted objects in Jack Brody’s dugout and knotting the sheriff’s key ring into Matilda Smirch’s bonnet string.

  Louisa stood in the thick of it, scanning the sky for . . . There. A dark dot, a smudge, moving fast across the blue. Mrs. Mack said a crow could fly twenty-five miles in an hour, and this one had flown twenty-six. No, wait, Louisa thought, it’s thirteen miles to the Smirch place by foot, but it must be a good bit less than that as the crow flies. In any case, the crow had done it. Its strong wings beat steadily as it soared into town, dragging a little under the weight of the thing it carried in its talons.

  Louisa wanted to cheer. How Jessamine must have laughed when she read the note!

  “What in tarnation?” said the sheriff, squinting into the sky. “What’s that fool bird carryin’?”

  The townsfolk followed his gaze.

  “It’s just a stick,” ventured the piano player.

  “Naw, look at it,” insisted the sheriff. “It’s . . . it’s . . .”

  The crow swooped low and let the object fall from its grasp. It hit Mrs. Smirch right on the top of her head.

  “It’s Ma’s ladle!” hollered Winthrop.

  “What?” screeched Mrs. Smirch, clutching her head.

  “Matilda!” called Mr. Smirch, pushing through the crowd. “What on earth?”

  Winthrop picked it up. “It is! It’s Ma’s ladle from home!” He turned it this way and that, eyeing the dents. “I’d know it anywhere,” he muttered. Charlie backed away from the ladle like he suspected it might jump up and crack him on the head too.

  The crow swooped low and let the object fall from its grasp.

  Louisa shot a glance at the crow, who had perched atop the courthouse and was watching the proceedings with a wide, laughing beak. She made a stern face, trying to telegraph a message with her eyes: I said to drop it at her feet. I wouldn’t wish a head smack from that thing on anybody.

  The crow cocked its head at her and spread its wings wide. It gave a lazy flap and lifted itself off the roof, swooping once more over the crowded street before lighting out for the open prairie.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Malcolm Smirch, watching it go.

  “I never saw the like,” said the minister’s wife. “Maybe that’s what stole those things from you folks.” She fixed the piano player with a stern glare. “It most certainly wasn’t a ghost.”

  “How could a crow carry a hatchet?” scoffed the piano player.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” chimed in old Amos, the bailiff. “My mother says that back in the Old Country, they had magpies that would steal a hair bow right off your head.”

  “A hair bow ain’t a hatchet,” said the piano player disgustedly.

  “My grandmother used to say that in the Old Country, they had eagles so strong, they could cart away a full-grown sheep!” said the minister’s wife.

  “A sheep ain’t a hatchet neither!” shouted the piano player, but it wasn’t clear anymore what point he was arguing. Now half the town was chiming in with stories they’d heard from their mothers and grandmothers and hoary old great-uncles, tales of all the t
hings the birds and beasts of the Old Country had spirited away from right under people’s noses. Louisa couldn’t help but grin. Her heart felt as free and soaring as the crow.

  They won’t blame Pa now. His name is clear.

  Pa came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. The judge was beside him, carrying his carpetbag. Louisa couldn’t help but notice it was unfastened at the top. She glanced down, peeking inside, and two pairs of glittering eyes looked back at her. They were most certainly not badgers’ eyes.

  Very slowly, one of the eyes winked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Top o’ the Mornin’

  AN EARLY OCTOBER SNOW DUSTED THE STUBBLY fields, and the nights had grown cold enough to warrant three quilts on Louisa’s bed, but the afternoon sun shone brightly, pouring itself through the open doorway of the old dugout. Mrs. O’Gorsebush liked to watch the clouds move over the fields while she drank her tea. Proper tea, it was, not her husband’s nasty horseradish brew. Mr. and Mrs. O’Gorsebush had brought a little sack of tea with them when they returned to the country after spending the past few weeks in town at Judge Callahan’s house.

  “Ah,” said Mrs. O’Gorsebush, taking a deep, contented sniff of the steam coming off her eggcup teacup. “Does a body good, that does.”

  Louisa smiled, watching Jessamine gleefully spoon sugar into her cup—another treat Mrs. O’Gorsebush had packed into her bundle for the crowback trip from town. The judge (who, try as he might, could not get out of the habit of calling his housekeeper “Mrs. Mack”) had just departed for one last circuit ride before winter descended, and the brownies had returned to their cozy home under the hazel grove.

  “Och, ’tis grand to be back,” said Mrs. O’Gorsebush. “I missed my nice teacups, and my knitting-wool. But it was right lovely in town as well, these past weeks. Angus and I are thinking of wintering with the judge. Waste away to skin and bone, he will, if I’m not there to cook for him.” She took a sip of tea. “And Angus would sooner cut off his beard than admit it, but he was happy as a pig in muck puttering around that drafty old house, patching this and mending that. It’s a wonder he didn’t drive us all deaf with the hammering.”