Tallgrass

by Sandra Dallas

  “It means somebody came in the house after her,” Bud said before Dad could answer.

  “That’s about right,” the sheriff said. It was a horrible thought, a person coming right into the Reddicks’ house to get Susan. What if someone had come into our house after me?

  “I bet somebody’d been watching her, and he knew where she slept,” Bud said.

  “And knew Reddicks don’t lock their doors,” Dad added.

  “Well, that’s not much of a deduction. There’s only some that lock their doors, even now, with the camp open. Besides, it wouldn’t matter if they did. You can get into most any house around Ellis with a skeleton key.” The sheriff took out his pack of ready-mades and asked Mom if she minded if he smoked. Dad got out the makings and offered them to Bud, who shook his head. Then Dad rolled his own cigarette, struck a kitchen match, and lighted the sheriff’s cigarette and his own.

  “Who’d be watching her?” Bud asked.

  “That’s the question, ain’t it?” the sheriff said. “That’s why I stopped to talk to you folks.” He turned to me. “You ever see anybody watching little Susan, somebody who oughtn’t to be?”

  I thought that over, wishing I had an answer, hoping I could come up with something more important than an observation about a chamber pot. I hadn’t seen any tramps around, and none of the boys at school paid much attention to Susan. I shook my head.

  “Didn’t think so,” the sheriff said. “Mr. Stroud, anybody coming from town last night would have gone right past your place on the Tallgrass Road.”

  “Unless they took to the section roads,” Dad told him.

  “Not last night. Those roads was too drifted over.”

  “We didn’t see anybody,” Dad said, looking around the table. We all shook our heads. “Hearing’s something else. There are folks driving up and down that road all hours of the night, even last night. I wouldn’t have known who it was.”

  Then Bud asked about Beaner, and I could tell by the way Dad nodded that he was wondering about Beaner, too.

  “First name I thought of.” The sheriff said he’d gone over to the Jack place right after talking to the girl at Jay Dee’s and had had to wade from the road through three-foot drifts. “They were pure driven snow. Nobody came in or out of that farm since the storm started, and Beaner was inside the house. Besides, mean as Beaner is, I don’t know as he’d do something like this. He’s a bully, but he’s not a killer.”

  Bud asked about Pete and Danny, but the sheriff said they were snowed in, too. “Besides, the only time they get into trouble is when Beaner puts them up to it,” he added.

  “I can’t see any local boy doing this,” Mom said. “Maybe there’s a workman left in town, somebody who came in to build the camp.”

  “The camp,” the sheriff said slowly.

  Dad said, “Hen, I don’t reckon—”

  “I don’t like to think it, either, Mr. Stroud, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense, ain’t it? Somebody’s been looking out at that little girl, waiting for a chance at her, and the Reddicks live as close to the camp as you do.”

  Mom said, “Oh!” and looked at me, and I knew she was thinking that if it were somebody at the camp and he’d looked east instead of west, he would have come to our farm. I hadn’t considered the Japanese when Sheriff Watrous asked me if anyone had been watching Susan, and I tried to recall if I’d seen any Japanese near her farm. But the Reddick place was in the opposite direction from town, and the Japanese didn’t go that way. And because Susan was on crutches, she wouldn’t have walked down the road past Tallgrass. Besides, the Japanese looked away when we passed them on the road. But what if it was a Japanese boy, and he’s hiding in a gully, watching our house right now? I thought. Perhaps he knew Buddy was here, and that was why he went to Susan’s place instead of ours. He might be marking time until Buddy leaves. Or is the person who killed Susan a white man, someone I know? He couldn’t be. Nobody in Ellis would do such a thing. I wondered what I would do if the bad man come after me. I wasn’t crippled, so I could run, but maybe I’d be so afraid that I’d just curl up and die, too.

  “I was hoping you could tell me something so’s I wouldn’t have to go out to the Tallgrass and question those folks. That’d sure stir up trouble.” Sheriff Watrous sighed and got up, touching his hat to Mom. He said he had to return to town to take care of things at the jail, since his deputy had taken off for Denver for the holidays. The sheriff was planning on going back to the Reddicks’ in a couple of hours, and he wanted Mom and Dad to ride out with him. After that, he’d stop at the camp and ask around. “Mr. Stroud, you have a level head about those folks. I’d like it if you was to come along.”

  “I reckoned you’d say that,” Dad told him.

  Dad turned to Bud, who raised his hands before Dad could speak and said, “I was planning on staying right close to home today.”

  “I’d be glad for it,” Dad said.

  BY THE TIME THE sheriff came back from town, Mom had baked a layer cake—which I iced with caramel frosting—fried up a chicken, and gone to the cellar for a jar of green beans that we’d bottled last summer. With the side roads so bad, Mom said, women might not be able to get to the Reddick farm for another day, and she didn’t want Mrs. Reddick to have to worry about cooking. “Maybe if there’s food, they’ll eat a little. It’ll keep up their strength.”

  “I expect Mrs. Reddick’d appreciate the aid and comfort a woman’d bring her,” the sheriff said.

  “You sure you feel up to it, Mother?” Dad asked, and the two of them exchanged a glance.

  “Of course, I do.” She explained to Sheriff Watrous, “I’ve been a little tired lately is all.”

  Dad studied her a moment then turned to the sheriff. “Reddicks are awful fond of Rennie,” he said, and I jerked up my head, because I hadn’t asked to go with them. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. It would be creepy. But I figured maybe I owed it to Susan. Ever since the sheriff had told us about her, I’d felt guilty that I hadn’t gone back to her house to finish the puzzle. I turned to Mom and waited for her answer.

  Dad and Mom exchanged glances, then Mom nodded, and the sheriff said, “Bring her along.”

  “We’ll be back after a bit,” Dad told Bud.

  Dad drove Mom and me in Red Boy, behind the sheriff’s car, and when we turned into the Reddick farm, Mom sighed and said, “There’s no cars and not many tracks here. I was right, Loyal. Nobody’s come yet to grieve with them.”

  “The Reddicks don’t have a phone. Maybe nobody knows what happened,” I said.

  “And that fool sheriff never thought to call the neighbors. What’s come over the man? These folks could starve to death, with nobody to bring them a meal. If you ask me, Sheriff Watrous ought to find another line of work. He’s got no more common sense than a rooster.”

  “Now, Mother,” Dad said, but he and I both knew she really wasn’t blaming Sheriff Watrous. She was just blowing off steam. She’d been so busy fixing food that she’d hadn’t thought to call, either, but I didn’t mention that.

  “Oh, I know, Loyal. I can’t recall but a single murder he’s had to deal with, and that was a Jack, the one who was killed in a fight at Jay Dee’s. I don’t suppose this is easy for him, either. He’s more at ease with cattle rustlers than child killers. Still and all, it wouldn’t hurt for him to have a little compassion.”

  As Dad drove to the back door of the house, I glanced around for the haystack where Susan had died, turning to look out the back window of the truck. Mom frowned and shook her head, and Dad told me, “I believe they found her out beyond the barn. There wouldn’t be anything you’d want to see.”

  “No, sir,” I said, embarrassed that they’d caught me, but I was still disappointed that I couldn’t see the murder scene.

  “Don’t ask any questions. Just act as natural as you can, whatever that is,” Mom said. “It might do them good to know one of Susan’s friends is grieving for her.”

  Dad parked beside th
e house, and by the time we got the food hamper out of the bed of Red Boy, Sheriff Watrous had opened the back door. The snow on the stoop was muddy, and spikes of dried grass stuck up next to the cement. “Folks, you home? I brung company. Strouds is here,” the sheriff called.

  “Well, of course they’re home. Did he think they’d gone to the picture show?” Mom muttered. She walked past him, with me behind her, and set the food on the table. In a minute, Mrs. Reddick, a small woman with a lined face and hands covered with liver spots, stood in the kitchen doorway, her hand clutching the frame, and said, “Mary.”

  “Opal,” Mom replied, with as much emotion as I’d ever heard anyone put into a single word. But she didn’t need to say more. Mom put her arms around Mrs. Reddick and led her into the parlor, where the two of them sat down on a horsehair sofa. Mrs. Reddick began crying softly, her hands over her eyes, tears seeping

  out from between her fingers. Her long hair, which she usually pinned on top of her head in a bun, hung loose down her back.

  I sat down on the other side of her, sliding a little on the slick horsehair, which poked my legs. “I’ll miss Susan. I liked her a lot.” I thought that was a pretty stupid thing to say, and I wished I’d come up with something better, but Mom nodded her approval, and Mrs. Reddick reached down with a wet hand and clutched my arm.

  “She liked it when you came to play. Not many girls visited,” Mrs. Reddick said, making me feel even worse that I hadn’t returned to help Susan with the puzzle.

  Mr. Reddick came in then and said, “It’s the first time the woman’s cried. She’s in need of it.” He broke into great sobs. Mr. Reddick always reminded me of a rooster, strutting around with his neck stretched out and his chin raised. Now he was just a small, fat, bedraggled man who hadn’t shaved. “Oh Lord! Oh Lord! You took both my daughters. What have I done to deserve this?” he cried. Dad put his arm around Mr. Reddick and took him outside, and through the doorway, I could see Susan’s father on his knees in the snow, wailing, the weak sun glinting off his bald head. In a minute, he began cursing God.

  “He ought not to do that,” Mrs. Reddick said, sniffing back tears.

  “I think the Lord will forgive him. He’s placed a heavy burden on you,” Mom said.

  I’d begun to shiver. There was no heat in the parlor, but more than that, Susan’s death and her parents’ grief made me cold all over. The only people I’d known who’d died had been old, and they’d just gone to sleep. Mom told me to go into the kitchen and build up the fire in the cookstove, then boil water for tea. “Tea will keep your strength up, Opal. The worst isn’t over,” Mom said.

  I got kindling out of the wood box and blew on the coals until the wood caught, then went to the pump in the kitchen sink and moved the handle up and down until the kettle was full of water. The sink had black spots where the porcelain had been chipped, and the varnish on the tongue-and-groove wall in back of the sink was stained and warped where water had splashed on it. The kitchen was ugly, cold and brown. Susan must have been lonely living in that house after her sister moved out. I should have been a better friend. I looked over at the little table under the kitchen window where we’d worked the puzzle. The table was there, but the puzzle pieces were spread all over the floor, as if Susan had gotten mad and brushed the puzzle off the table. But Susan never got mad, and she’d loved that puzzle. She wouldn’t have destroyed it. I raised my eyes to the ceiling and whispered, I’m sorry, Susan. If I’d known, I’d have come over.” That was a dumb thing to say. If I’d known, I’d have told the sheriff, and Susan wouldn’t have gotten killed.

  I found a teapot in the cupboard and poured tea leaves into it. Then, as I waited for the water to boil, I stood in the doorway of Susan’s bedroom, staring at the rumpled quilt covered with Sun-bonnet Sues that Mrs. Reddick had pieced. The Jolly Stitchers had quilted it. They’d worked on it at our house, because the quilt was a birthday present for Susan, and Mrs. Reddick wanted it to be a surprise. She’d given it to Susan at a birthday party, then taken a Kodak of all Susan’s friends standing around it. Susan had asked me to pose in front of the quilt with her. Now the quilt was lying on the bare board floor, as if it had been torn from the bed, and peeking from beneath it was Susan’s nightgown with blood on it. I’d cleaned enough chickens to know what blood looked like. How could the sheriff have missed it? I wondered. Maybe, since he’d thought Susan had been murdered on her way to the outhouse, he’d never gone into her bedroom.

  I stared at the quilt, imaging the bad man coming through the back door and grabbing Susan out of bed. She would have been terrified, waking up to find a stranger in her bedroom— that is, if he was a stranger. She might have awakened when he tore off her nightgown. Or maybe he knocked her out while she was asleep, and she never knew what happened. I stepped around the quilt on the floor and sat down on the edge of Susan’s bed, put my head in my hands, and cried. Life had been so unfair for Susan: She was crippled, her sister had left, and now she’d been raped and murdered.

  The Reddicks didn’t need somebody else crying, and I got up and wiped the tears from my face with the backs of my hands. I went to the cookstove, poured the boiling water into the teapot, and let the tea steep. As I was getting out the cups, the sheriff came into the kitchen, and I whispered that Susan’s nightgown was under the quilt. I pointed out the puzzle pieces lying on the floor, too. “Well, I’m damned,” he said.

  Dad came in with Mr. Reddick, who smelled like whiskey, and the sheriff told Dad, “You’ve got an awful smart young lady here, Mr. Stroud.”

  “Oh, not so smart,” Dad said, smiling at me for the first time since the sheriff had arrived at our house. I tried not to feel important. After all, my friend had been murdered. Rut I couldn’t help being glad I had noticed things the sheriff had overlooked. It made me feel as if I’d made it up a little to Susan for being such a crummy friend.

  Mom led Mrs. Reddick into the kitchen then, and while the sheriff searched Susan’s room, the rest of us sat at the table, drinking tea and eating Mom’s cake. Mr. Reddick mashed his down, while his wife took small bites and chewed and chewed, but she couldn’t seem to swallow. Mom told them she’d brought a chicken and not to worry about meals because she’d take care of them. She’d left enough for the next couple of days, she said, and as soon as we got home, she would call the Jolly Stitchers and arrange for them to bring more food.

  The sheriff came out of the bedroom, eyeing the cake, and Mom cut him a piece. “You hear anything in the night?” he asked the Reddicks.

  The couple looked at each other. Then Mrs. Reddick shook her head, while Mr. Reddick replied, “Only the wind. It was fierce. We didn’t hear Susan go out, but you already asked us that.”

  “I’ve been thinking somebody must have came in after her. Is this her nightdress?” He laid the nightgown on the table, then put his hands into his pants pockets, jingling coins. With its dark red stains, the nightgown was spooky.

  Mrs. Reddick’s hands trembled and she sagged in her chair. Mom, who was sitting beside her, reached over and took her hands, stilling them.

  “You sure about that, her being killed right inside the house?” Mr. Reddick asked the sheriff.

  “I don’t know anything for sure, only what looks likely. The Stroud girl here saw Susan’s nightdress. And I was wondering about that puzzle that got knocked all over the floor.”

  Mr. Reddick turned his head aside and slammed his fist on the table. “I should have heard him. I hear good, you know. I can hear a calf bawling all the way from the barn. I should have heard my own girl call out.”

  “That is if she did call, Elmo,” Dad said. “This could have happened while she was asleep.”

  “Besides, if somebody came in, he’d have been real quiet. You couldn’t have heard him, especially with the storm and all,” the sheriff added.

  “But I should have. Oh Lord, did my girl cry out for me and I didn’t hear?” Mr. Reddick scrunched up his face, but he didn’t cry. “I’ve been a sinner, broke
one of His commandments, and the Lord, for a fact, is punishing me.”

  I leaned forward to hear which commandment Mr. Reddick had broken. My bet was on coveting his neighbor’s property, because the Reddicks didn’t have much. But before Mr. Reddick could confess, Dad said sharply, “Now we’ll have no more talk like that. I don’t know any Lord who plays tit for tat.” I wasn’t aware that Dad knew any Lord at all, because he never went to church.

  Mom did, however, and I wanted to ask her if God punished people for being bad. But it didn’t make sense to me. If God punished bad people, he’d have to reward the good ones. Mrs. Reddick was as good a woman as Mom, and Susan’s death wasn’t any reward to her. It seemed to me like God wasn’t paying much attention.

  “I have committed adultery,” Mr. Reddick said, clicking his false teeth. That’s the last commandment I would have chosen for him to break, because he was about as good-looking as a gopher, and he smelled like rotten hay. I glanced at his wife, but Mom was talking to her, so Mrs. Reddick hadn’t heard her husband. Maybe she already knew. Mom gave me a hard look, as if to tell me I wasn’t to repeat anything I heard in that kitchen. I already knew that. But Lord, I wanted to tell Betty Joyce!

  “Hush,” Dad told Mr. Reddick harshly.

  I hoped he wouldn’t, because it wasn’t every day that somebody confessed in my presence that he had lain down in sin, but just then, there was a knock at the back door, and before anyone could open it, Mrs. Gardner pushed her head inside and said, “Yoo-hoo.” She stood in the open doorway a moment, and we heard the creak of chains as the wind blew the porch swing against the house. Mrs. Gardner shut the door and went over to Mrs. Reddick and put her arms around her. “I came as soon as I heard about Susan.” I wondered how she’d found out, but I wasn’t really surprised. The Stitchers always seemed to know about problems. “I just put together a few things from the cupboard that’ll do you if you’re hungry.” She waved her hand dismissively at the basket she’d set on the floor, but I could see a bread pudding sitting on top of a stewpot and knew she must have brought her own family’s dinner. “Hello, Mary, I should have known you’d be the first out in time of need.”