Coffin Man

by James D. Doss

  “Miss Poynter, I expect.”

  “Oh you already know all about it.” Disappointment fairly dripped from Junie-Bug’s pouty lips.

  “Patsy Poynter is not a librarian twenty-four/seven,” Sarah reminded Junie. “When she takes a notion to, she sings in the Columbine Grass—which is Charlie’s bluegrass band.”

  “Well everybody knows that, silly—it’s not like I was born yesterday!”

  “Then everybody must know that from time to time, Charlie and Patsy talk about which new song she’ll sing next time the band gets together.”

  “Well music wasn’t what they was talking about when Charlie Moon dropped by the library.” Junie paused to smirk. “Unless it was wedding bells.”

  The line seemed to go stone dead.

  Junie listened to the barely audible hiss of static, then: “Hey, Sarah, are you still there or am I talking to air?”

  Sarah was there, but feeling oddly detached from her body. “How would Lillian know about a thing like that?”

  “Well she was surfing the Internet on a computer not ten feet away and she heard practically every word Charlie Moon said.”

  Sarah’s hands were numb, her voice wooden: “Did he really ask Patsy to marry him?”

  “Well not in so many words I guess but you know how men talk around things like that.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “Well you ought to for heaven’s sake! Anyway, after Charlie left, Miss Poynter was very nervous so she ran into the ladies’ room and stayed in there a long time and when she came out Lillian said she looked like she’d been crying all night and right after that she left the library and Lillian found out later that she didn’t come in again all day!” She surfaced for another gasp of air. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think it’s none of my business.” Or yours. Or Lillian’s.

  “Well I’m sorry I bothered to call.” Junie disconnected.

  Sarah glared at the innocent telephone through tear-filled eyes. Nasty little rumormonger!

  MORE GOSSIP

  While Sarah was getting the bad news in her bedroom, Daisy Perika was sitting in the Columbine kitchen and watching the oven, where a dozen tasty apple turnovers were baking. She figured they should be just about done to a flaky, golden brown. They’ll make a breakfast that Charlie Moon and Sarah won’t forget for a month of Mondays. She lifted her nose to sniff the delectable aroma of made-from-scratch pastries. I don’t care what they say on those TV commercials, there ain’t no turnovers made in a factory that smell like that. Chef Daisy nodded to agree with herself. Why, when I was a little girl my momma would’ve never let any of that junk into the house, much less fed it to her family.

  This happy journey down Nostalgia Lane was interrupted by the telephone’s warble.

  Comfortable where she sat, Daisy scowled at Mr. Bell’s infernal invention. I don’t have the least intention of getting up and answering it.

  Another warble.

  She grimaced. Eeew … that sounds like a tom turkey choking on a baby bullfrog.

  You can look it up: in a free country, every citizen has a right to her (or his) favorite made-up metaphors.

  The urgent summons continued.

  Charlie Moon’s annoyed aunt groaned as she used her oak walking stick to push herself up from the cushioned chair. Her right leg half asleep, the old lady toddled unsteadily to the wall-mounted telephone, yanked the handset off the cradle, and barked, “Emogene Hogleg’s Cowboy Bar—Emogene speaking. What can I do for you?”

  She heard a silly giggle, then:

  “Daisy, you are such a card!”

  “Hello, Louise-Marie.” The old Joker rolled her eyes. “What a big surprise.”

  “Well it shouldn’t be—this is same time I call you every week.”

  The tribal elder recalled what day it was, took a quick glance at the clock on the wall. “Well, so it is.” She pulled the still-warm straight-back cushioned chair close to the wall and seated herself with a grunt. “So what’s happening down in Ignacio?”

  Her elderly French-Canadian friend proceeded to tell Daisy about a cheated-on wife who’d set fire to her husband’s pickup and then ( just for spite) run off with a gas-field worker, a tribal member who’d been arrested for stealing a neighbor’s nanny goat, and how a mangy old stray dog had dug up “a half dozen of my best tulip bulbs!”

  Daisy Perika didn’t even try to hold back a yawn.

  When Louise-Marie was just about to ask her Southern Ute friend what was happening up yonder on Charlie Moon’s big cattle ranch, the purveyor of significant news was reminded of something she’d heard a few hours ago. “Oh, and while I was sitting on my front porch this morning shelling colored butterbeans a sweet young lady—I can’t recall her name but she lives about a half-dozen houses down the street—well, it turns out she was visiting her husband’s mother who lives at that nice nursing home in Granite Creek—and guess who she saw there.”

  “I don’t know.” The yawn escaped. And I don’t give a hoot.

  “Oh, try.”

  “Okay.” Daisy smirked. “Grandma Moses’ great-granddaddy.”

  “No, silly—my neighbor saw Charlie Moon at the nursing home.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised.”

  “You’re not?” Louise-Marie’s disappointment was of that character often described as palpable. “You knew he was there?”

  “No. My nephew’s all worn out from working this big ranch and he’s thinking about moving someplace where he can kick back. Charlie don’t intend to lift a hand unless there’s a fork in it and prime beef and pinto beans on his plate.”

  “Oh, don’t tease me so. I bet you don’t know who Charlie visited while he was there.”

  “No, I don’t.” And I don’t care a nickel’s worth. Another yawn.

  “Your nephew spent some time talking to Miss Emily Boyle.”

  That had a familiar ring to it. “Who?”

  Louise-Marie repeated the name. “Miss Emily never married, but she’s descended from the Virginia Boyles, who came west after the Civil War and settled in Granite Creek County. The Boyles lost most of their money during the conflict—but they were a very respectable family.”

  Daisy made the connection. That young man Sarah met in the park was a Boyle. She stared blankly at the paneled wall. And now Charlie’s paid a call on an old woman with the same last name. There was no telling what her nephew might learn and what the consequences might be. I’d better find out what’s going on before—

  “Daisy—are you there?”

  “I have to hang up, Louise-Marie—before my turnovers go up in smoke. Talk to you next week.”

  She hurried to remove the tasty apple pastries from the oven, and just as the crust had begun the transformation from flaky golden brown to cinder black. As soon as she put the tray of turnovers on top of the propane range to cool, Daisy went off to find Sarah Frank. I’ll ask that Ute-Papago girl to take me to the Pine Ridge Nursing Home. But realizing that the girl was still miffed at her, Daisy would be nice. She put on a sweet smile and tapped gently on Sarah’s bedroom door. “Open up, Orphan Annie!”

  Sarah opened the door. “What is it?”

  “I need to talk to you about something.” Her eyes look like she’s been crying. “You look like week-old roadkill—d’you feel all right?”

  Sarah shrugged. I feel like dying. “I’m okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” The unfamiliar smile was making Daisy’s face ache. “Then you can take me to Granite Creek.”

  Having ample reason to be suspicious of the old woman’s sudden urgings, Sarah inquired politely about the purpose of the proposed visit.

  Dismissing the sham smile, the sly old soul lowered her gaze. “It wouldn’t be right to talk about it.”

  She’s up to something. The girl set her chin in a manner that made it clear that she was not driving Miss Daisy anywhere until she had a full and honest explanation.

  After a feigned hesitation, the tribal e
lder assumed a pious expression worthy of a stained-glass saint who would never even think of boasting about a good deed. “Well, if you must know—I made some apple turnovers to take to some poor old white folks that hardly ever have a visitor.” Seeing the girl’s puzzled frown, she added, “At the nursing home.”

  The old woman’s ploy worked like a charm: Sarah was completely disarmed. Aunt Daisy must have some friends there. “Okay then. I’ll take you to town tomorrow.”

  The pushy old woman was about to insist on going right now, when she sensed that this was not the time to press the Ute-Papago orphan.

  Breathing a wistful sigh, Sarah Frank made a halfhearted swipe at a moist eye. “While you’re at the nursing home, I’ll go over to the university for my computer-science class.” The girl wished that she had the nerve to make a stop at the public library and ask Patsy Poynter point-blank—What’s this I hear about you and Charlie Moon getting married? But that would be a horribly brazen thing to do. Whatever they’re planning is none of my business and Patsy might tell me so to my face.

  But somewhere deep inside Miss Frank, a small voice was inclined to disagree … anything that’s going on between Charlie and that woman is your business.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  THE KILL

  ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING

  Like any respectable western cattle rancher, Teddy Truman was up and rarin’ to go. And rightly so. An hour before daylight, the hairy-faced carnivore had wolfed down a breakfast of two fried eggs, a smoked pork chop soaked in red-eye gravy, three or four so-so sourdough biscuits he’d made himself, and enough black coffee to make his veined old hands tremble with what his late wife had referred to as “the caffeine palsy.” Dawn hadn’t quite broken but it was seriously bent and about to snap when Teddy turned his old pickup off the blacktop highway, rumbled over the ramshackle wooden structure that bridged the north fork of Sulpher Creek, and bounced along the bumpy dirt road like a man on urgent business.

  It was all a sham.

  The seventy-seven-year-old semiretired rancher had nowhere to go and nothing in particular to do when he got there. Mr. T.’s destination was an ellipse of about four sections of sandy ridges, which was encircled and defined by the north and south forks of Sulpher Creek. This remote piece of subprime real estate was in either one county or another, depending on which of several surveys was considered legal and binding. It had happened this way: in the late 1870s, the border between Todd and Granite Creek counties had been specified as running along Sulpher Creek for some thirty-eight miles, but about a decade after the original survey was made, that contrary creek had split into two pitiful little streams and then joined up again about three miles away. This process had isolated a smallish chunk of taxable real estate, which was inevitably claimed by both counties. The legal controversy persists to this very day.

  The only dwelling on the “island” is a tiny trailer that Mr. and Mrs. Truman had used for a fishing camp until the old lady passed away. A widower for almost nine years now, Teddy visits his isolated holding once or twice a month to check on a few spindly Herefords he’d put there so he could come visit them. Like the lonely rancher, his gaunt white-face cattle roamed these arid hills on Truman’s Island year in and year out to eke out the best living that can be had on dirt where prickly pears and sage are more abundant than tough old buffalo grass.

  The rancher would never have admitted to himself that his activities amounted to a hobby. Teddy Truman took his “business” seriously and didn’t miss a trick when it came to watching over his on-the-hoof investment. And so it was on this morning. With the clarity that only those of the hawk-eyed clan can, the alert old man spotted something about a half mile ahead. He squinted through the pitted windshield at the despicable creatures circling lazily over yonder pines, evidently waiting their turn to dine. I make it to be six. Or maybe seven.

  (It would help if he would be more specific. Six or maybe seven what?)

  “Damned buzzards!” Teddy shook his gray head and the straw hat. “I’d bet a five-dollar bill to two bits, that big momma cougar has pulled down another one of my beeves.” He was mad enough to spit and did. No, not on the floor. Out of the pickup window. Or would have, had it been open. Which made an awful mess and made the cranky ol’ rancher even madder. “Why can’t she feed on deer, like any normal mountain lion?” Having had no one to converse with since the old woman had passed, he was accustomed to answering his own questions. “Because a steer don’t run fast as a deer, and once Ms. Cougar has got a taste of rare beef, venison ain’t at the top of her grocery list.”

  (The stockman’s conclusions, though rational and entirely consistent with his long experience, were based upon a false premise.)

  “If I can get there before she sneaks off into the brush, I’ll take a pop at that damn cat with my 30-30.” Teddy’s trusty rusty carbine was handy on the rack on the back window and his trigger finger fairly itched. He stepped on the gas. Watch him go! Forty-five miles per hour on a rutted dirt road that would dislocate the spine of a coal-mine mule attempting a trot. Bumpity-bump!

  The combination of excessive speed and the distraction of circling buzzards very nearly proved fatal to the highly caffeinated motorist.

  Running his 1992 Dodge pickup into a shallow ditch and barely missing a two-ton lichen-encrusted granite boulder, Mr. Truman shifted to Low and made a skidding recovery, all without batting a bushy eyelid over eyeballs that remained focused on those hateful birds of prey. He shifted up to Second, stomped his scuffed Roper boot on the gas pedal again, and within three minutes flat was on the spot, out of the truck, and popping shots from his carbine to chase a pair of coyotes away from the carcass and … give those damn buzzards something to think about. No, the expert marksman didn’t injure either the canines or the vultures. Never intended to.

  After he had emptied the carbine, Teddy Truman stared at the kill in astonished disbelief. That ain’t beef. Neither was it a deceased mule deer. Or an elderly elk who had recently passed on. The crusty old sinner removed his straw hat and muttered a singular oath—to which he appended a three-word prayer: God help us.

  THE CALL

  As he generally did, Charlie Moon eventually got to feeling guilty about toying with Pete Bushman. To make amends, the rancher was in the Columbine headquarters kitchen, talking serious business with his ranch foreman when—wouldn’t you just know it—the same telephone that had annoyed Aunt Daisy yesterday, warbled again today. The Ute was a man divided. The rancher considered letting his machine answer the call, but the part-time deputy and the sometimes tribal investigator combined to vote down the stockman’s choice by two to one. “Excuse me, Pete.” Moon got up from the table and lifted the cordless handset from its cradle on the wall. “Columbine Ranch.”

  Scott Parris’s voice boomed in the Ute’s right ear. “I just got a call from the Todd County Sheriff’s office. Seems a rancher has found a corpse on his land.”

  Enough said.

  Moon nodded at his distant friend. “Tell me where and when, Scott—and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Soon as you can, here at the station. I’ll drive you to the site.”

  “I’m on my way, pardner.”

  Pete Bushman shook his head. If Charlie’d pay half as much attention to his cattle bidness as he does to helpin’ that town cop, the Columbine might turn a decent profit more than one year out of four.

  Charlie Moon’s foreman had a point, of course, but the report of a dead body tends to distract a lawman from any number of more mundane issues. Such as—what mischief might Aunt Daisy be up to while her nephew was off somewhere with Scott Parris, mulling over the corpus delicti?

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  DAISY’S CHARITABLE PROJECT

  Sarah Frank had skipped breakfast so that she wouldn’t have to look Charlie Moon in the eye—and perhaps hear the worst news of her life since the death of her parents. She waited until the man who might be engaged to Patsy Poynter had driven away in his Expediti
on on some unexplained errand. The moment he was out of sight, Sarah ushered Daisy out to her red pickup, buckled the old lady in, and headed off toward town at a pretty good clip. But not so fast as to catch up with Mr. Moon, who was fairly carrying the mail.

  When Sarah braked her spiffy F-150 to a stop at the Pine Ridge Nursing Home main entrance, Scott Parris and Charlie Moon were already rolling along a long way south of town—the Ute a passenger in his friend’s low-slung Chevrolet black-and-white. The young woman glanced at her Timex wristwatch. My computer-science class begins in sixteen minutes, so maybe I can make it on time. She aimed the glance at Daisy Perika, who had already opened the passenger-side door. With her walking stick in her right hand and a canvas bag in her left, she was tottering precariously like a drunk about to go headfirst into the gutter. Oh no, she’s going to fall! “Don’t get out; wait until I come around to—”

  “I don’t need any help.” Even as she spoke, Daisy Perika dropped out of sight with a startled “Whoops!”

  Cringing inwardly, a wide-eyed Sarah whispered, “Please, God—don’t let her be hurt bad.”

  The tribal elder’s dried-apple face popped up to smirk at the startled girl. “That last step was a long one, but I don’t think I broke anything I can’t do without.”

  Thank God. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I haven’t been all right since I was eighty-two.” Daisy waved her stick in a dismissive gesture. “Now drive your truck over to that fancy school.” Where old fools teach young fools all the nonsense that’s between the covers of big books written by bigger fools.

  “Okay.” Sarah smiled at Charlie Moon’s aunt. “I’ll be back in about an hour and a half.”

  “I’ll be waiting right here.” Daisy slammed the door. As she watched the pickup depart, the tribal elder hitched a black canvas shopping bag over her shoulder and set her face resolutely toward the glass doors. Before I leave this place, I’m going to know who this Erasmus Boyle yahoo is—and why he was talking to Sarah in the park.