by Ron Rash
“Tether them damn dogs,” Jubel shouted.
Linville dismounted and worked through the confusion of boots and hooves, lunging with the leash collar to snare the hounds and drag them away.
“Did he swim across the river?” Chauncey shouted, aiming the gun at Laurel, letting her and everyone else know he wasn’t going to be trifled with, not today or ever again.
Laurel met his eyes and nodded just as a hound bumped Traveler’s shanks and the horse jerked sideways.
Chauncey squeezed the rein to hold on and the pistol fired.
Traveler reared but Chauncey stayed in the saddle. Other horses whinnied and swerved and Jubel’s mount almost tumbled into the river. The horses finally quieted and Linville pulled the dogs off the bank and into the woods. The world no longer spun around Chauncey. It had shuddered to a stop and locked itself into place. Laurel Shelton’s back still pressed against the tree, but now a tear appeared in the green cloth covering her left breast. She didn’t appear to be in pain, her face expressionless. It’s a briar scratch, not a bullet hole, Chauncey told himself. Then her knees buckled and she fell to the ground.
For a few moments no one spoke. The men and boys watched as a stain spread down the dress. It was Boyce Clayton who moved first, kneeling beside her. He spoke her name. When there was no response, he took her wrist in his and searched for something not found.
“You killed a damn woman,” Boyce said, turning to Chauncey.
Between sobs, Wilber said he wanted to go home.
“It was an accident,” Chauncey said. “It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been helping a spy.”
“What the hell do you think he was spying on,” Boyce asked, “down here in the middle of nowhere?”
“It was you all’s fault,” Chauncey said, “bumping and shoving. You should have kept your horses farther back. Those dogs too. They caused it to happen.”
Boyce lifted Laurel Shelton into his arms. Ansel came over and stood beside him.
“You tell that to Hank,” Boyce said. “He’ll kill you for this.”
“But it’s Linville’s fault more than mine,” Chauncey said. “Those dogs should have been leashed the whole time.”
“It ain’t none of my fault,” Linville said. “You shouldn’t have had that damn pistol out, much less aiming it at her.”
“I didn’t aim it at her,” Chauncey answered. “I aimed at the tree in case that Hun was hiding behind it. The dogs were what made it go off, and all of you bunching up on me.”
“That Hun’s getting away,” Jubel said. “Let’s go. The bridge ain’t but a mile if we follow the river.”
“I’m taking Laurel back to town,” Boyce said. “I ain’t leaving her out here.”
“I ain’t going either,” Ansel said.
“I want to go back with you,” Wilber whispered between sobs.
“Me too,” Jack said.
Ansel helped Boyce drape the body on the horse.
“Quicker to follow the water,” Boyce said and led them downriver, the only sound Wilber’s sniffling.
The others didn’t speak until the procession was out of sight.
“I got to get my wagon and the rest of my dogs,” Linville said, “though if I hear another word about what’s happened being my fault, I’ll let you two sniff the ground and find that Hun.”
Linville whistled and barks responded from above. He studied the steep terrain.
“Slidell’s house can’t be more than a quarter-mile up this ridge,” Linville told them.
“It’s too steep for the horses,” Jubel said.
“But not me and these dogs,” Linville replied. “You take the low road and we’ll meet at the bridge.”
As Linville and the dogs began their ascent, Jubel turned to Chauncey.
“You didn’t do nothing that witch didn’t deserve.”
Chauncey nodded.
“We need to get on across that bridge,” Jubel said. “It’s already getting darksome and he ain’t twiddling his thumbs waiting for us.”
“You go on,” Chauncey said. “I’m going back to find out from Shelton where that Hun’s headed.”
Jubel met his eyes for a long moment, then nodded.
“We’ll meet across the river.”
As Chauncey followed the creek upstream, he suddenly remembered Paul’s homecoming. It would be over now, Senator Zeller and everybody else long gone, if it had even happened without Chauncey to supervise. He hadn’t wanted to be here, but if he hadn’t everyone in Mars Hill would have said Chauncey Feith was a coward, even though it wasn’t his duty to lead a posse. Now there’d be people blaming him because he had left, just like they’d blame him for what was clearly an accident. If Jubel and the others hadn’t come crowding in and the dogs hadn’t been scaring the horses, it wouldn’t have happened. Of course Jubel was right. The real blame was with the Shelton bitch. If she hadn’t been helping a damn Hun escape, Chauncey wouldn’t have had his pistol out in the first place. As soon as she saw him, she should have lain down on the ground because, for all Chauncey knew, that Hun was behind the tree with his own gun. If she’d been on the ground with her hands out, the bullet would have just hit the tree.
Chauncey came to where the creek and the trail to the cabin met. Because he was riding slower and alone, he noticed how quiet the woods were. Too quiet. No birds sang or squirrels chattered, the only sound the leaves under Traveler’s feet, soft and breathy like someone, or something, whispering. He passed more dead chestnuts than he’d ever seen in one place and even the oaks and the poplars had few leaves, their gray bony branches piercing the sky. After a while, he passed graves he hadn’t noticed earlier, two graves. Chauncey had the chilling thought that this cove already knew what he was going to do.
He was still in the woods when he dismounted and leashed Traveler to a dogwood sapling. When he came out of the trees, he was directly in front of the porch. Hank was still tied up. Since he’d helped harbor a Hun, Hank would get put in jail, but even so one day he’d surely be let out. Chauncey had no choice, because that was what war was—killing a man so he wouldn’t kill you. You can’t give him a chance because he can’t give you one and every soldier understood that.
I’ll not shoot him in the back though, Chauncey told himself, and it isn’t only to show he was attacking me. I’ll kill him like a man. He moved across the yard and stood in front of the steps. Hank had his chin tucked against his chest and knees. His eyes were closed as if he was asleep, but then Chauncey saw the shoulders shrugging to free the arm. Chauncey looked to his right, on past the scaffold to check the path they’d followed into the cove, then left beyond the railing where Hank was tied, and saw no one there either. He took the pistol from his holster and settled his index finger inside the curve of the metal, not touching the trigger. The gun felt five times as heavy as before and Chauncey was suddenly engulfed in weariness.
It was so unfair. If he’d just been allowed to stay at the homecoming ceremony, none of this would have happened. The damn Claytons had to pick this day, after who knew how long, to figure out they’d been playing music and having a high old time with a spy, then expect Chauncey to come into this godforsaken place and track the Hun down when they should have done it by themselves. Now he was going to have to do this. No one would give him a medal or say he was a hero the way they would if Chauncey did the exact same thing in France or Belgium. There would be people in Mars Hill who wouldn’t believe Hank Shelton had attacked him or even tried to run away. They’d think Chauncey shot Hank when he was still tied to the porch railing. Because that was what they wanted to believe, that Chauncey Feith couldn’t have done it any other way, and it’d be the very same folks who just hours ago slapped him on the back and tipped their hats and told him what a bully fellow he was. The very same ones.
The hell with them, Chauncey thought, and with the Claytons and
the Sheltons and that German professor and that hag librarian and Meachum and Estep and that damn escaped Hun too. They could every one of them go straight to hell for all Chauncey cared. There was nothing he could do to please any of them so they could think what they wanted. Chauncey let the crook of his index finger touch the trigger. All he had to do was squeeze it. Just walk up there and do it and do it now and you won’t be down here when it’s full dark. He thought of the bottles hung on the tree limb. A witch, that was what people, a lot of people, believed Laurel Shelton was. The same folks would also believe that a witch could seed a place with all sorts of charms and hexes that could still live on even if the witch didn’t.
Chauncey stepped onto the porch and pointed the pistol at Hank’s chest. It wasn’t until the third shot that he heard the solid thunk of the bullet finding its mark. He fired the magazine’s last three bullets and twice more heard metal hit flesh. Chauncey opened his eyes. The acrid odor of cordite filled the porch. Chauncey let himself look at one board in front of him and then another and then one more until he saw the soles of Hank’s boots. He let his eyes rise a little more and saw the pants and then the darkening shirttail. All the while, like Laurel, there hadn’t been a cry or moan, just silence. You’ve got to be sure, Chauncey told himself, and raised his eyes higher and saw the first bullet hole in the upper stomach and the second in the middle of the chest. You don’t have to look for the third one. Just go untie him and drag him off the porch and leave. But he couldn’t stop himself. His eyes lifted and he saw where the third bullet had entered Hank’s cheek. Hank stared straight at Chauncey, the manner of his gaze not accusing or angry or even sad. It was something worse. What light Hank’s eyes held faded, not dying away like an ember but receding like a train headed elsewhere. Chauncey couldn’t shake the feeling that wherever the light was going it was taking part of him with it.
Chauncey stepped off the porch and went to the side railing to untie Hank. The knot was tight and his fingers shook so bad he couldn’t free the rope. He tried using his forefinger and thumb but a nail snagged in the hemp and broke off. The finger started bleeding and it was just one more thing gone wrong. Chauncey went inside the cabin and found a butcher knife. He was about to cut the rope when a horse snorted.
Through the railing he saw Slidell Hampton coming out of the woods. Just hide in the shadows and see what he does, Chauncey decided. To take the body back to town, he’ll have to unknot the rope. Then it’s Hampton’s word against yours that Shelton was shot while tied up. Who should any fair-minded person believe, Chauncey told himself, an old codger who’s known for months the Sheltons were hiding a Hun, or a man who wears the uniform. Yet there’d be folks who’d expect Chauncey to prove what he claimed, as if a soldier needed to justify killing an American in league with a Hun spy. It was treason and the army shot men for that and shot them with their hands tied behind their backs, but some people in town would still get all righteous about it. They’d expect Chauncey to prove he’d been nearly killed before he shot Hank Shelton, proof like a bullet in his leg or arm. Or a knife cut.
By god he’d give it to them then, Chauncey vowed as he stepped back from the porch. He’d show them the butcher knife and a wound, then dare them to their faces to say they’d have done different. He’d make the cut on his forearm, like he’d been fending Shelton off. That would shut them up. There might even be a medal after all. He could do it right now, just take the knife and rake it across his forearm. It looked sharp enough to go right through the shirt cloth and into the skin. But it would hurt.
No, he’d do it later, Chauncey decided as Slidell dismounted. I’ll do it when I can see and cut careful so the knife won’t go deep, only enough to draw blood. Chauncey took another step back and shadows almost fully enveloped him. If he hasn’t seen me yet, he’s not going to see me now, Chauncey told himself. Just stay out of sight until he leaves. Chauncey lifted his foot to take a final step back and the ground was not there and he was falling into the darkest place he had ever known.
Chapter Twenty-five
Walter stayed at the outcrop until dusk. Laurel’s quilt was where she had laid it, and he left it there, made his way up to the campsite. Come full dark, he tucked himself knees to chest in a burrow of leaves. Dawn finally came and he waited. Twice the woods stirred, soft footfalls coming nearer, but each time it was a deer, once a fawn, then a buck whose branching antlers were such a wonder that he first thought it an hallucination. That evening he went down the opposite slope and found a few shriveled apples.
On the third morning, Walter woke to a gunshot, then a second and a third. He walked up to the ridge crest and saw the farmer in his yard, shotgun in hand. The boom of shotguns and crackle of rifles came from farther away, then even farther, the blasts like firecrackers set rattling down the valley. The farmer raised his gun skyward and pulled the trigger a last time, unbuckled the stock from the barrel, and removed the spent shell.
What the gunshots meant, Walter did not know, but he turned and started down the ridge. He looked through the trees for chimney smoke. What he saw made him break into a run. It’s just livestock they killed, he told himself, but as the woods thinned he saw the buzzards gliding above the cabin. He tripped and twisted his ankle, got up and went on. As he came into the yard a buzzard, wings spread, hopped off the porch, balancing itself briefly on two scabby yellow legs before taking flight.
There were no bodies on the porch, just what looked like a spill of tar. No one was inside the cabin either. He went out in the yard and shouted Laurel’s name and it echoed off the cliff and ridge, then silence. He called again and again until his voice was no more than a rasp. An hour passed before he left the porch and took the path up to the notch. Slidell was not in the house. As Walter stepped off the porch, he saw the two mounds of fresh dirt.
After a few minutes, he walked on toward Mars Hill. Walter was almost to the main road when he heard dogs barking. He thought the men were on their way back so stopped and waited, glad he wouldn’t have to walk any farther to have it over with. But the dogs’ barks grew distant. He was lightheaded from the lack of food and his body too felt lighter, unfleshed, only the weight of bone left to carry it forward. Walter went on. He passed cabins and then houses in which no one appeared to be home. Before long he heard music and then shouts amid spurts of fireworks, gunshots. The road rose a last time and he saw the town was filled with revelers. Small flags waved from children’s fists and adults cheered and shouted. Red, white, and blue streamers hung from storefronts and musicians played. A man raised a pistol and fired at the sky while two couples danced a reel. Four men walked past with linked arms as they drunkenly sang. Walter looked for familiar faces but saw none, and no one took notice of him though he walked down the middle of the street. Slidell’s wagon was tethered beside the saloon. A barkeep exited the swinging doors with a brass spittoon and poured out tobacco juice. Walter followed the barkeep inside.
After the expansive midday light, the room was at first only darkness. Men had been talking but, as Walter’s sight adjusted, the sound, as if in some necessary balancing, lessened. Glasses and bottles emerged above the muted shine of the bar, then the barkeep’s face and the backs of the two drinkers, last the wide mirror’s reflections. One of the men was the red-bearded man who had been at the cabin, beside him another much older man. Both stared into their shot glasses. The bartender held his rag steady on the counter as though staunching a leak.
“You wanted me, so I am here,” Walter said.
Silver coins spilled onto the bar, their ringing against the varnished wood slapped mute by the red-haired man’s broad hand. He muttered something and turned from the bar, as did the man beside him. Walter waited for them to come at him but they instead stepped around and out the saloon doors.
“So you can talk. I’ve been wondering about that for months now.”
Walter turned and saw Slidell in the corner. On his table was a half-empty bottle of whi
skey. Slidell’s eyes were bloodshot, his clothes rumpled and dirty as Walter’s. He motioned toward the swinging doors.
“The war may be over, but it’s not smart baiting fellows like you just did.”
“The graves,” Walter asked. “They are Laurel’s and Hank’s, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Slidell answered. “I wasn’t sure where to bury Hank, but I’d made a promise to Laurel. It seemed they ought to be together.”
“They were killed because they helped me?”
“I don’t know,” Slidell answered. “Some who were there claim Chauncey Feith didn’t mean to shoot Laurel, but him shooting Hank was no accident.”
Slidell nodded toward the saloon doors.
“I think you better leave here, and I mean out of the whole town. That son of a bitch Wray may be coming back.”
“The man who killed Hank and Laurel, where is he?”
“I don’t know and nobody else seems to know either,” Slidell said, glancing at the entrance. “Feith’s horse wandered into town two days ago, but that could just have been a ploy. Most folks figure his daddy sneaked him onto the train, or he sneaked on himself. That way he can stay clear of here until things settle a while, then come back. Or maybe not come back. He’d not be the first to do that. But no one saw him get on the train, or at least admits it. Feith could still be in the cove. Folks have been known to disappear down there.”
Slidell lifted his glass and drank what was left, stood and looked at Meachum.
“How long till the next passenger train?”
Meachum checked the clock above the mirror.
“Twenty minutes if it’s on time.”
Slidell came around the table and stood beside Walter.
“You need to be on that train.”
“I have no money with me,” Walter said.
“Your fife and other belongings there too?” Slidell asked.
Walter nodded.
