by Donis Casey
Alafair nodded while squeezing her already blackened rag into the bucket. “None of mine are married. Their daddy says they’re way too particular, but really, we’re both glad.”
“I married up with Harley when I was thirteen,” Mrs. Day commented dispassionately. “He weren’t so bad when I first met him. Always was full of vinegar back then, and big ideas, looking for ways to make himself rich. Seems like all he could ever find was ways to get himself in trouble. John Lee come along directly.”
Alafair looked up sharply. Eleven kids in nineteen years, and the woman couldn’t be much over thirty. Alafair was filled with compassion and a nameless anger, quite unaware of any irony that might be inherent in the fact that she had borne eleven children herself, and was two years shy of forty. She, at least, could afford to feed and clothe her happy brood, and had been fully compliant in the conception of every one of them.
“I got nine living,” Alafair told her. “I lost a couple of little fellows when they were babies. It’s hard.”
Mrs. Day shrugged without looking at her. “Sometimes it’s God’s mercy.”
For an instant, Alafair was shocked at the comment. She hadn’t felt the hand of mercy when her boy had choked to death in her arms, blue and staring, as she ran for the doctor. But the shock abated when she admitted to herself that she did not think life so horrible that she would have been grateful to see her children spared the experience.
“What do you plan on doing now?” Alafair wondered.
Mrs. Day didn’t answer right away, just dipped her cloth and washed, dipped and washed, until Alafair wondered if the woman had heard her. But she had heard. She straightened suddenly. “I ain’t thought,” she managed. “I expect I have to plan, don’t I?”
A sob escaped her, and tears spilled down her cheeks in a flood. “He’s really gone, ain’t he?” she choked out, her voice full of wonder.
Not for an instant did Alafair imagine that Mrs. Day was overcome with grief at the realization of her loss. It was not grief that had overcome the woman, but profound, unspeakable relief.
Alafair dropped her cloth and went to Mrs. Day’s side. “You just cry, now,” she soothed, gripping Mrs. Day by the shoulders. “He’s truly gone. He can’t bother you no more.”
Mrs. Day’s eyes widened at Alafair’s perception, and she succumbed to more sobbing that took a few minutes to subside. Finally she wiped her face with the corner of her apron. “I expect you think I’m evil,” she said shyly.
“I do not,” Alafair assured her. “Folks have to earn the love of others. I expect you done your duty by him and more than your duty. It wasn’t your fault that God decided to take him and free you and your kids.”
“I could have gone looking for him.”
“Phoo!” Alafair puffed her disdain. “He could have stood away from the corn liquor. Don’t you go berating yourself for anything, any more.”
Mrs. Day gazed at her warily for a long minute before a small, unaccustomed smile formed on her lips. For a moment, she looked as young as she was. She began bathing her husband’s cold limbs again. “Maybe my Maggie Ellen, my gal that run off and got married, will come visit me now that Harley has gone. Me and the other kids miss her awful. Maybe I’ll pack up and head back to Idabel. My folks can’t take us in for long, but my ma’s a Chickasaw, so I’m half. I expect the Nation will watch over us ’til I can get on my feet.”
“You won’t be trying to stay on here?”
She shrugged. “I miss my folks.”
“So you’ll be selling.”
Mrs. Day looked surprised. It hadn’t occurred to her that she now owned something. “Why, I reckon I could,” she managed. “I’ll have some money then, won’t I?”
If you can find a buyer before the bank forecloses, Alafair thought. “My husband can help you,” she offered, struck by sudden inspiration. Why not? The Day place adjoined theirs. It had buildings and woodland, one good plowed field, and Bird Creek ran right through it. If she knew Shaw, he had probably already considered buying, and would pay the widow a good price for it, too.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Day was saying. “I don’t know nothing about them things.”
Mrs. Day had finished washing the entire front of the body while Alafair was still working on the filthy hair and grimy face. “How’d Harley get this black eye and bruised jaw, here?” Alafair wondered. It hadn’t been apparent under all the dirt.
“Oh, he was always getting in some scrape,” Mrs. Day told her dismissively. “Him and Jim Leonard from up the road a piece just had a set-to the other day.”
Alafair pushed the head to the side so she could get to the back of the neck. She scrubbed a bit of black crud under the left ear, perplexed at its hardness. Her hand barely hesitated when she saw the dirt take on a rusty hue as it came off on the cloth. She stopped washing and straightened.
“Are your husband’s good clothes ready, Miz Day?” she asked.
“Oh, yes. I’ll get his clean shirt.”
Alafair stood still until the woman had bustled out of the kitchen, then bent down close to examine the mysterious clot under Harley’s ear. She soaked her cloth and scrubbed vigorously. She stood up quickly when Mrs. Day came back into the kitchen.
“He ain’t got no regular pants,” Mrs. Day said. “Overalls will have to do, though I don’t expect Harley would care.”
Alafair dropped the cloth back into the bucket and rolled down her sleeves. “I’ll leave you to dress him. Do you need some help drawing them clothes on?”
“No, I’m plenty strong.”
Alafair nodded. “I’ll be right out on the porch with my husband when you’re done.”
Alafair left her and walked quickly through the house to the porch. Shaw was sitting in a cane-bottomed chair with one foot propped on the rail, playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string, to the vast amusement of the two little Day girls. He looked over at his wife when he heard the screen door, and assessed her expression at a glance. He leaned forward and eased the cat’s cradle over the pudgy fingers of the eldest girl. “You girls go on out in the yard and practice for a spell,” he instructed, and they scampered away. Shaw stood up. “What is it?” he asked Alafair.
“Where’s Scott?” she asked.
“He’s around to the side of the house looking the place over. For some reason he’s got his suspicions up. He can’t tell me why. I figure he’s been doing this depressing business too long.”
“I’d say he’s got the second sight.”
Shaw’s eyebrows went up. “Did the wife tell you something?”
“No. She’s so glad to be shet of the old sot that she doesn’t know if it’s day or night. But I think I found something that shows that he was helped out of this world.”
Shaw regarded her skeptically. “What?”
“There’s a bullet hole behind his ear.”
“A bullet hole!” Shaw echoed, loudly enough that Alafair shushed him. “I didn’t see no bullet hole in his head when he was laying out in the yard,” he added, more discreetly.
“It’s behind his ear, I told you, and it was all caked with blood and dirt. I didn’t see it either, at first.”
“Why wasn’t his head blowed off?” he insisted, unable to accept that a bullet hole in somebody’s head could get past him.
Alafair’s amusement at his attitude momentarily overcame her horror at her discovery. “Well, it would have to be a pretty small caliber bullet, wouldn’t it? I didn’t have time to check for powder burns around the wound. Go look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you know a gunshot wound when you see one,” Shaw conceded. “What I can’t believe is that me and Scott missed it.”
“You weren’t looking. The point is that Harley Day didn’t just freeze to death.”
“Which ear was this wound behind?”
“Left.”
Shaw’s gaze wandered into space as he visualized how the body had lain. “Well, he was on his right side. Could i
t be that somebody shot him while he was lying there drunk? He couldn’t have bled much.”
“It would have killed him instantly. And it was cold.”
Shaw nodded. “What does she have to say about it?”
“I didn’t say anything to her, though she may have seen the wound by now.”
“You expect she done him in?”
“No,” Alafair assured him firmly. “I don’t think she’s sorry he’s dead, that’s for sure. But she doesn’t act like somebody who just did an act of murder.”
“Well, now. If she was scared of him, and driven to desperation, I can see her doing it like this,” Shaw speculated thoughtfully. “Little gun, a woman’s gun. She gets him right in the head while he’s passed out in the mud like the pig he was.”
“Makes sense. I’d be tempted myself if I was in her situation. But it don’t feel right. She just don’t act like a woman with something to hide.”
Mrs. Day came out onto the porch, and they fell silent. The woman was white. “Mr. Tucker,” she began, “would you kindly come in here and have a look at something for me?”
Alafair and Shaw glanced at one another, then followed Mrs. Day into the house. She led them into the kitchen where Harley’s remains lay neatly washed, combed, and dressed in his cleanest overalls and least mended shirt. Mrs. Day put her hand on her late husband’s cheek, and with some effort, pushed his head over to the side. “What do you make of this?” she asked.
Shaw bent down for a close look. He examined the little wound carefully for a moment before he stood and looked down at Mrs. Day. “My wife was just telling me that she found a bullet wound, and that’s what it is, all right. The sheriff will have to know of this, ma’am.”
Mrs. Day, who for a few moments had looked as though she was going to bloom, now wilted before Alafair’s eyes. “You mean he was murdered,” she managed dully. Suddenly her unexpected gift of freedom had a price that would have to be paid.
“I’m sure Sheriff Tucker will get to the bottom of this right quick,” Alafair soothed, “and you can get on with your life. Shaw, maybe you’d better get Scott in here.”
***
Shaw left and Alafair and Mrs. Day went into the front room. The stove was out, and it was cold as a cave. One of the two narrow windows had been replaced by a raw-looking board. The glass in the other window was glazed with ice. The furniture in the room consisted of two homemade cane chairs, one bed and two pallets on the floor. Mrs. Day slumped down on the bed, and Alafair clutched her sweater around herself and sat down gingerly in one of the chairs. There was a moment of silence in which Alafair watched her breath mist in the air.
Scott came striding in purposefully from the kitchen with Shaw on his heels. He had obviously been enlightened, and he was all business as he approached Mrs. Day with his hat in his hand, polite and sympathetic, but firm. Shaw took up a post behind Alafair’s chair.
“Now, Miz Day,” Scott began, “I want you to tell me everything you can remember about the night your husband disappeared. It don’t matter if it was important or not. You just tell me everything in your own words, and I’ll decide what’s important.”
It took a few minutes for the poor woman to get up the energy to begin, but no one was inclined to rush her. “It wasn’t no different than a hundred other times,” she said. “He opened a jug late in the morning, and by noon he was blind drunk. I done something that riled him. I don’t remember what. Looked at him funny, I don’t know. He started clouting me. My oldest boy, John Lee, was home and took exception. He’s started doing that in the last couple of years. He pulls his daddy off me and Harley flies into a rage. John Lee leads him a chase out in the yard. It was drizzling a cold rain, and beginning to freeze and they both were slipping and sliding around. There was no way Harley could catch John Lee, drunk as he was. After a spell, Harley staggered off to the barn and John Lee come inside. Harley never came in that night, and the next morning we found the mule and saddle gone, too. He has rode off for days at a time before, so we didn’t think nothing of it.”
“What day was it this happened?” Scott asked.
“Wednesday. Had to have been. That’s when it rained and froze. Mr. Lang who owns the grain mill was supposed to come out and talk to John Lee about money Harley owed him, but he never made it. I remember me and John Lee talked about it. John Lee and Mr. Lang had worked out this plan to pay Mr. Lang back over time. John Lee figured something had come up in town and Mr. Lang got hung up. That was after John Lee and Harley got in to it. When I got up Thursday morning, there was a deep snow on the ground.”
“What time was it that Harley went out to the barn?”
“I don’t know. Before dinner. Must have been one or so.”
“And when did you notice the mule was gone?”
“Next morning early. Milking time.”
“So you saw the mule was gone when you went out to milk the cow?”
“My girl Naomi did. Naomi milks the cow. I was making breakfast when she come in and told me.”
“Did you go out to see?”
“I did go, after breakfast, about sunup. It wasn’t anything unusual, like I said.”
“Were there mule tracks in the snow?”
Mrs. Day shook her head. “I didn’t see any. But I wasn’t really looking.”
“So he must have rode off before the snow started. Did the mule ever come back?”
“No. Lord, I didn’t think of that. We’ll need that mule.”
Scott leaned back against the wall, relaxed but sharp-eyed. “How do you reckon Harley got back here and got himself shot in the head up next to the house in time to get covered up in a snow drift?”
Mrs. Day began to cry. “I don’t know. Lord Almighty.”
“Did you hear any shots in the night?”
“Not a one.”
“Such a small caliber pistol would be pretty hard to hear in the house, Scott,” Alafair offered.
Scott’s gaze shifted briefly to Alafair and back to Mrs. Day, but he didn’t acknowledge her comment. “Where’s your kids, now, Miz Day?”
“They’re with my sister-in-law, all but the two outside there.”
“John Lee, too?”
A look of terror passed over Mrs. Day’s face and she burst into sobs.
Scott leaned forward again. “Miz Day, where is John Lee?”
“I don’t know. I sent him into town to notify you, then he was supposed to go ask my sister-in-law to come get the kids. I know he did, ’cause she come, and said she talked to John Lee, too. I thought he was still at her place.”
“How did he get into town without the mule?”
“He borrowed a horse from the Tuckers.”
Scott glanced over his shoulder at Shaw, who was still leaning imperviously on the door sill. Neither Shaw nor Alafair changed expressions.
Mrs. Day stretched out both her hands toward the sheriff, imploring. “John Lee couldn’t have done it, Sheriff Tucker,” she wailed. “Not John Lee. I stood on the porch my own self and watched Harley chase him around ’til he forgot what he was doing and went to the barn. John Lee came back to the house, then. We all ate dinner, then did our chores, just like always. I never saw Harley again after that ’til we found him this morning. After we settled in, none of us went out again all night. I know it because we all slept in here that night to be close to the stove. It was cold. And that mule was sure gone the next morning. I saw with my own eyes.”
Scott didn’t argue with her, but the look in his eye was skeptical. He nodded. “Miz Day, if I was you, I’d be worried about John Lee. Somebody shot your husband and stole your mule and now John Lee is gone. If he shows up, or you hear word of him, you let me know right quick, you hear? Now, I got to go back into town, but I’ll be back as soon as I can to hear what Dr. Addison has to say. I want you to stay at home until I tell you otherwise, ma’am. You understand?”
She nodded, snuffling.
Scott turned around. “Shaw, can you or Alafair stay out here wit
h Miz Day and the girls ’til I get back in a couple of hours?”
Alafair stood up. “One or the other of us will stay here, don’t you worry,” she said firmly, addressing herself to Mrs. Day. “We won’t abandon you.”
Scott walked out onto the porch with Shaw, and Alafair patted Mrs. Day on the back. “I’ll be right back,” she soothed. “Just going to have a word with the sheriff before he gets away.”
When she found the men at the end of the porch, she confronted Scott with her hands on her hips. “Scott Tucker!” she exclaimed in an angry whisper. “Did you have to be so rough with the poor woman? Ain’t she been through enough?”
“Murder’s been done, Alafair,” Scott answered.
Alafair puffed and looked out into the yard at the two little girls playing in front of the house, both red-cheeked and runny-nosed, apparently unaware of how cold it had gotten. Leave it to the men to be so legalistic, to completely remove the heart from a situation that was practically unbearable as it was. But it was no use to argue. One couldn’t explain light to the blind or sound to the deaf. Best to let them stomp around blind and deaf and take care of the seeing and hearing yourself.
“Did y’all loan John Lee a mount this morning?” Scott was asking.
“No,” Shaw assured him. “And none of my stock is missing, so none of the kids did, either.”
“He never even came by that I saw,” Alafair added.
“You really think he might have done it?”
“Oh, I suspect he done it,” Scott answered grimly.
For an instant, both Shaw and Alafair were stunned into silence by his pronouncement.
“Now, what makes you say that?” Shaw asked.
“Because he lied to me twice. His mama says he went to her sister-in-law’s place before he come to tell me about his father’s death, which he must have done, since she has already picked up the children. But when John Lee came to fetch me, he told me he hadn’t been to his aunt’s house yet. Said he’d be home directly after he talked to her, and he ain’t here yet. And, as I mentioned this morning, when John Lee came by the sheriff’s office this morning to tell me his daddy was dead, he was riding their mule.”
