I toed the ground with my boot. "You know Rusty a lot better than I do. You think he's the kind to come looking for Johnny?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, Jubal. He's a crazy Frenchman, fer sure, an' strong as a bull, an' I sure wouldn't want ta meet him alone in the woods iffen he was mad at me. But I can't see him doin' more then maybe give somebody a good thumpin'." He paused, thinking that over. "Unless he was awful, awful mad."
* * *
I went back to the store, and as I came through the rear door I heard sharp words being exchanged. Rebecca and Mary Johnson were face-to-face and both sets of eyes were flashing anger at each other, but at the sound of the rear door, they stopped and Mary turned away from her stepdaughter.
"Good morning, Jubal," Rebecca said. "I heard you were out back talking to my father. Was he able to help?"
"A bit," I said. "At least he gave me someone else to talk to. That's about the most I can expect right now."
She nodded. A bit curtly, I thought, and her eyes flashed defiance at her stepmother's back. "Are you going to Johnny's funeral tomorrow?" she asked, as she turned back to me.
"Yes, I am."
"I wonder if you'd be kind enough to escort me there."
The brazenness of her request startled me. Rebecca had always been a willful girl, and I now saw that it had carried well into her adulthood. And asking me in front of her stepmother had left me little choice but to agree to her request. Yet, I have to admit, though slightly unnerving, it gave me more than a little pleasure.
"Of course," I said.
Her stepmother had turned back to her, a look of surprise spread across her face. Rebecca gave her a sharp, defiant stare in return.
She looked back to me with softer eyes. "Thank you," she said. "The service starts at ten. I'll wait for you here at the store."
* * *
I guided Jezebel off the main road and onto the track that led to Sherman Hollow. It was past noon, and I hoped to catch Rusty LeRoche at home having his afternoon meal. The road into the hollow rose steeply and was only wide enough for one wagon, making it necessary to pull off the track if you met another coming the other way. But these were sparsely populated lands and that was something that rarely happened.
There were only a handful of cabins in Sherman Hollow, all of whose occupants forged a living by logging the thick pine forest that covered the area, or hunting and trapping the abundance of game that lived there. There were vegetable gardens, of course, but the land with its high, rocky hills was not suited to serious farming or raising a dairy herd.
The LeRoche cabin was a good two miles into the hollow. It was a simple four-room structure, barely big enough for LeRoche, his wife, his two sons, and one daughter. I wondered about LeRoche's supposed concern that Johnny had designs on his daughter, thinking that Johnny would have had to get her off into the woods somewhere if that was his intent. But the concern certainly fit what I knew of Johnny, at least the Johnny who had come home from that "great civil war" our dead Mr. Lincoln had spoken of.
After about a twenty-minute ride I turned Jezebel into the dooryard of the LeRoche cabin. Rusty's young daughter Chantal was outside, drawing water from the well. She had brown hair that fell below her shoulders and doelike brown eyes that looked up at me with what I could only describe as hunger. She had been a child when I left for the war. Now she was seventeen and had the body of a grown woman, and she was dressed to show it at its best advantage. Standing before me, she wore a skirt and a loose-fitting blouse that was open to expose an ample cleavage. I hadn't seen her since I returned home, and I could see why Johnny had wanted to hunt LeRoche's land.
"You're Jubal Foster, ain't ya?" she asked, smiling.
"Yes, and you must be Chantal. I remember you from before the war."
Her smile widened. "I've changed a bit, don't ya think?"
Before I could answer the cabin door opened and Rusty LeRoche stepped out into the dooryard. He was a big bull of a man—not as tall as my father, but even wider—and he had the largest hands I had ever seen. LeRoche had a full black beard and long, scraggly hair streaked with gray, and his eyes, brown like his daughter's, bore no sense of warmth or friendship.
"Who are ya?" he snapped. "An' whaddaya want? Yer interruptin' my meal."
"I'm Jubal Foster," I said. "I'm the deputy town constable and I need to take a moment of your time."
Rusty looked me up and down and offered me a derisive snort. "Then ya better git yerself down offen that horse." He turned to his daughter. "Git back in the house. Yer mother's waitin' fer that water."
LeRoche watched his daughter return to the cabin, his eyes hardening at the sway she put in her hips; then he led me to a nearby woodpile and seated himself on the chopping block. "All right, git to it," he said.
"Have you heard about Johnny Harris's murder?"
"I heard. What about it?" LeRoche's eyes bore into my face and then he looked at my missing arm as if measuring me by it. "Ya lose that arm in the war?"
"Yes."
"Goddamn stupid war; all 'bout a bunch a niggers. Wouldn't let my boys go." His words carried the sneer that filled his face.
I had heard that sentiment before and wanted to challenge it, but knew any attempt would be useless.
"I'm investigating Johnny's death," I said instead, "and I heard you had some words with him a few weeks back. I need to ask you about that."
LeRoche stared at me with cold eyes. "Just throwed him off my land is all," he said at length.
"Why was that?"
LeRoche snorted. "Didn't those gossipy bastids who tol' ya the rest tell ya that too?"
"I need to hear it from you, Mr. LeRoche."
"You kin call me Rusty, boy. I ain't fancy like them folks live down in the village."
"All right, Rusty. What I heard was that you felt Johnny was up here chasing after your daughter."
"That what they said?" He let out a grunt. "Didn't think none of 'em was smart enough ta figure that out."
I remained silent and he gave me a long stare. He looked at the pistol on my hip and his lips curled into a renewed sneer. "Course that's what he was up cheer fer. You don't have ta travel five miles ta hunt in rough country like we got cheer. Not when ya got deer an' rabbit and squirrel right on t'other side a the river, huntin' grounds a village boy kin walk ta."
"So you think he came up here to see your daughter?"
"I know he was up here lookin' ta see my daughter."
"Why is that?"
"My daughter an' me was in ta the store 'bout a month back an' that there Johnny Harris, he waltzes over from the church an' starts eyein' her. Then, next thing I know, he's up cheer in my dooryard askin' my daughter if it's okay ta hunt my land, an' iffen she'll show him the best trail ta take. Well, he din' know I was in the barn an' I heard him as I was comin' out. He jus' 'bout shit his pants when he saw me. An' I tol' him straight out ta git his ass outta there an' if I caught him in my dooryard agin, he was gonna be the one what got hunted."
"I heard he came back." I watched Rusty's face redden.
"Yeah, I know he did—the sumbitch."
"What did you do about it?"
"I made my daughter tell me when he was plannin' ta come on up cheer agin. I was gonna lay fer him and give that Bible-thumpin' little shit what he deserved. But I never got the chance, cause somebody took care of it fer me."
Rusty was smirking, as if he knew I lacked any information to challenge his story.
"When's the last time you were down in the village?" I asked.
"Go there 'bout ever week," he said. "Always somethin' ta do. Bring some lumber down ta the mill, or some hides fer Walter Johnson ta sell. I don't much keep track of what day I'm there an' what day I'm not."
"Were you there two days ago?"
"Don't rightly remember. Either then, or the day afore it, or the day afore that. Like I said, don't much keep track. Only thing certain is I drive my wife down on Sundays, so as she kin git herself ta church.
"
"Do you go to church with her?"
"I'm French Catholic and there ain't no church a mine close by. My wife, she'll go ta any damned church."
"When you went to town two or three days ago, did you think to look in on Johnny? Sort of tell him you weren't too happy with him?"
LeRoche offered up a cold smile. "Can't say I din' think on it. You have ta pass by his house ta get ta the mill."
"But you didn't stop?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Better ta see him when he come up cheer agin." The chilling grin returned. "That way there wouldn't be no witnesses ta the ass-kickin' I was gonna give him."
* * *
When I got back to the village I checked with Walter Johnson, who said he hadn't seen Rusty in more than a week, and then with the yard manager at the sawmill, who said Rusty had delivered a load of cut timber the day Johnny was killed. While there I looked out into the yard and watched several men moving logs with cant hooks, long hickory poles with slender, pointed metal tips and a hook hanging about six inches down on one side. I asked the yard manager if Rusty LeRoche owned such a tool and was told he certainly did. The man said he'd never known a logger who didn't own at least one. I decided I'd bring Doc Pierce to the yard to tell me if that logging tool could have been the weapon that ended Johnny's life.
* * *
Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1856
Johnny led the way up the hill. We had built a hunting blind in the woods up behind the church, using rocks and fallen tree limbs and filling the holes with hard mud. Thirty yards to the east there was a cold stream that came off the hillside, and the fresh sign left by the deer told us they were watering there most every morning. We had scouted the surrounding area farther out and had found numerous rubs on trees—places were bucks had rubbed their antlers to remove the summer felt and sharpen the tips. In a few weeks, when the rut started, we would again scout the area and search out scrapes the bucks had left on the ground, patches of earth that had been freed of any snow or leaves or twigs that the bucks would then mark with their urine in an effort to attract passing doe.
Up ahead, Johnny stopped and raised a hand, then pointed up the slope to his left. It was late autumn and the leaves were off the trees, but there had not been any snow yet. I scanned the area he had pointed to and it took me almost a minute to spot a well-hidden deer standing behind a pile of brush.
Abel and Josiah came up beside me and I whispered: "About seventy, seventy-five yards up on the left, standing behind that pile of brush. Johnny's an eagle eye."
"I see it," Abel said, "but I can't tell if it's a buck or a doe."
"Too far," Josiah said. "Need us a long glass."
"I'd shoot it anyway," Abel said. "We don't eat the horns at my house."
"Shoot some little deer's momma would ya," I teased. "I'd tell Rebecca and she'd fix your fat ass, fer sure."
"She sure would," Abel said. "She raises hell with Pa and me even when we bring a buck home. But it ain't never stopped her from eatin' the venison."
"Ain't never gonna unnerstan' how ya white folks think," Josiah said, shaking his head. "My peoples believe if it runs on four legs ya better eat it afore it eats ya instead, 'cept if it's a dog or cat, or maybe a skunk."
Abel and I laughed and the sound spooked the deer we'd been watching. As it bolted away we could see it was a doe.
Johnny came down the hill and joined us. He was grinning. "You boys ain't exactly Davy Crockett when it comes ta huntin'," he said. "I hope ya ain't gonna be whoopin' it up when we got our rifles with us."
"Don't you worry, Johnny boy," I said. "You just be ready to help me drag my buck home."
Johnny's grin widened. "Okay, Mr. Crockett. Ya make sure ya git yerself a coonskin hat an' I'll bring the rope."
"You better bring another one fer me too," Abel said. "I ain't missin' out this year."
We continued on up the hill until we reached our blind. It was laid out to Johnny's plan and could hold two of us comfortably. The blind was set up facing a wide draw between two outcroppings of rock, and the tracks we'd found made clear it was a regular path the deer followed.
Johnny pointed to each of the outcroppings. "I figure the deer also run along those small ridges, so I think we need ta have somebody on each one. We can split up the time in the blind. Two here in the mornings starting at sun-up, two on the ridges, then switch in the afternoon until sundown."
"Sounds good to me," I said. "We better find us places to sit on both of them."
"Tha's what I was thinkin'," Johnny agreed. He pointed to the westerly ridge. "Abel, why don't ya take Josiah an' check that ridge, an' me an' Jubal will check the other."
"Tha's where I wanna be," Abel said. "It'll be an easy drag pullin' a big buck off that steep slope."
Johnny and I climbed the easterly outcropping. It was a difficult climb and we had to traverse in several places to work our way up. Near the top we split up to check for signs, finally joining together again and choosing a spot behind a deadfall that overlooked a heavily traveled deer trail.
"It's a good place," I said. "Hell to get to, but worth the climb."
Johnny pointed to the deer trail some twenty yards below us. "Should be a nice easy shot. Oughta be able ta see 'em comin' a good fifty yards off. I'll be surprised we don't get us a nice fat buck right here. Let's get back on down. It's gettin' close ta suppertime."
We started down the outcropping and had gone about halfway when my foot caught a tree root hidden by some leaves, and it pitched me forward, twisting my leg. I called out in pain, then scrabbled with my hands to keep from sliding down the ridge.
Johnny was there in a second to grab hold of me. When I looked behind me I saw that he had stopped me from sliding over a ridge and into a sixty-foot drop to the rocks below. I struggled to my feet and winced in pain as I tried to put pressure on my leg.
"You're gonna make me carry your sad ol' ass, ain't ya?" Johnny said. With that he dipped his shoulder and hoisted me onto his back. "Jus' hang on. This is gonna be a little tricky."
Abel and Josiah had seen Johnny hauling me down and they were waiting at the base of the outcropping when we got there.
"What happened?" Abel asked.
"Jubal jammed up his leg so's he could get an easy ride down," Johnny said. He eased me off his shoulder. "Abel, you and me gotta put him between us and walk him down. He's too damn heavy ta carry all the way." He glanced at me, grinning. "What's yer daddy feedin' ya, Jubal? Whatever it is, it's turnin' ya inta a regular ol' horse."
Chapter Six
Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865
Across the road people had begun filing into the church. Rebecca was waiting for me outside the store. She was wearing a pale gray dress with a matching bonnet, a gray shawl draped over her shoulders. I had put on the one suit I owned, a dark gray tweed my father bought me when I went off to the University of Vermont. It was six years old now and a little tight through the shoulders. The last time I'd worn it the left sleeve had not been pinned up.
Rebecca smiled at me. "You look very handsome in your suit, Jubal," she said. "You look like a young businessman."
We were standing outside the store. Walter Johnson and his wife Mary had already left for the church and had hung a Closed sign on the front door. I wanted to ask Rebecca about the argument she and her stepmother had the previous day, but decided it would be better to wait until after the services. As we stood there the church bell tolled, indicating that Johnny's funeral was about to start.
"We better go," Rebecca said.
* * *
Johnny's open coffin had been placed on a bier just below the pulpit. The church was close to overflowing and Rebecca and I were forced to sit in the rear, which suited me fine, but even from there you could tell that Johnny had begun to go a bit gray and needed to be put under the ground.
During the war I had seen enough bodies that had been left out on the battlefield, or laid out at field hospitals, and
the stench that came off them was something that grew upon them quickly and one I would never forget.
The choir finished a hymn I did not recognize and Reverend Harris stepped up to the pulpit and began the service with the Lord's Prayer. When he had finished he looked out over the congregation, smiling weakly or nodding recognition at various members of his flock.
"Thank you for coming on this sad occasion. But it is only sad for my wife and me, and for Johnny's many friends." He extended an arm toward the coffin. "For my son it is a day of peace and happiness, a day that finds him sitting before the throne of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, basking in all His glory . . ."
* * *
Spotsylvania County, Virginia, 1864
Abel and Josiah and I moved out into the open meadow, heading away from the small farm we'd just been driven from, seeking cover from the Rebs we knew were still in the area.
Abel's face was boiling with anger, and he stopped and peered back at the farm, at the blue uniforms clustered in the front yard.
"That sumbitch, that goddamn sumbitch." He turned again. "You'll pay fer this, Johnny Harris!" he shouted. "Sure as there's a God in heaven, you'll pay fer it."
The first shell hit the meadow some fifty feet away from us and we all dove for the ground, fearful of any grapeshot that might be coming our way.
"Forget about Johnny," I hissed. "Just get yourselves to cover." I pointed across the meadow toward the thick woods of the Wilderness. "We gotta get into those trees or these shells are gonna cut us to pieces."
"We should still be at that goddamned farmhouse," Abel said. "We had all the cover we needed there. Johnny and his bastard friends had no right ta drive us off jus' so they could—"
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